June 9, 2006
Judge orders a game of 'rock, paper, scissors' to settle dispute
6/9/2006 TAMPA — A federal judge, miffed at the inability of opposing attorneys to agree on even the slightest details of a lawsuit, ordered them to settle their latest dispute with a game of "rock, paper, scissors."
The argument was over a location to take the sworn statement of a witness in an insurance lawsuit.
In an order signed Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell scolded both sides and ordered them to meet at a neutral location at 4 p.m. June 30 to play a round of the hand-gesture game often used to settle childhood disputes. If they can't agree on the neutral location, he said, they'll play on the steps of the federal courthouse.
The winner gets to choose the location for the witness statement. http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2006-06-09-rock_x.htm
Environmentalist's rice bowls endangered...
Manatees off Fla. endangered species list
Jun 9 Fla. - The state wildlife commission has voted to take the manatee off Florida's endangered species list, saying the animal's population is on the rebound.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to designate the manatee as a threatened species rather than endangered. It also voted to remove the bald eagle from its list of threatened species.
State officials said the decisions would not affect how the species are protected. Both the bald eagle and manatee remain protected under federal law, including the 1973 Endangered Species Act. "There will be no less protection," commission spokesman Henry Cabbage said.
But some environmentalists said the reclassifications could set in motion a downward spiral of state funding...
"As species like the manatee are reclassified to a less imperiled status ... state funding for research...will likely be directed elsewhere," said attorney Martha Collins.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060609/ap_on_sc/threatened_manatees
Local Police Attempt to Block Collection of Pro-Marriage Petitions
June 7, 2006 (AgapePress) - A pro-family group in Florida is outraged over the behavior of some police officers last weekend who tried to stop a petition drive aimed at protecting traditional marriage.
Last weekend members of the Florida Family Policy Council were at a Promise Keepers conference in Broward County where they were collecting petitions for the Florida4Marriage campaign, an effort to get onto the November 2008 ballot an amendment protecting traditional marriage. The pro-family group had paid a fee to have a booth at the PK event at which it was collecting the petitions in support of the campaign's goal of gathering 611,009 signatures by July 12, 2006.
...several members of the City of Sunrise Police Department arrived at the scene and ordered Council vice president Nathan Dunn to stop collecting the petitions, and then removed the petitions from public view. A discussion ensued, during which John Stemberger -- president and general counsel for the Council -- was summoned to the scene. The group says Stemberger's request for an explanation of what law or ordinance was being violated was ignored by Police Sergeant Stephen Allen, who it says then began lecturing nearby volunteers on what Jesus taught about homosexuality, claiming that the petition effort was a waste of time and that he was the authority and they should obey him.
"It quickly became apparent that [Allen] was a supporter of gay marriage and personally disagreed with the marriage amendment effort," says the Council's press release...
...At the height of the confrontation, notes the press release, the police sergeant "continued to interrupt with abusive and irrelevant personal remarks" and even threatened Stemberger with arrest if the petitions were not immediately removed from the table.
...The incident finally ended when an official with the Bank Atlantic Center intervened to tell the officers that no laws or rules were being broken, and that the petitions could be distributed at the table. Allen and the other officers then left the scene.
...The pro-family group says the officers' "harassment and intimidation" should be a reminder to families of the culture war that is going on. "If we do not stand up to this type of abuse of power, then our constitutional rights will continue to be violated," says Stemberger.
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/6/72006a.asp
Spinning The Reality Of Iraq War
By ALICIA COLON May 16, 2006 -It's that time of year when New Yorkers start making their summer vacation plans. Renting a place in the Hamptons? Nah, been there, done that. How about a Parisian jaunt? Noooo. Too many riots. Well, how about visiting a country that's ancient, historic, beautiful and exotic - Iraq? Sure, there's a little war going on there, but when you look at the violent death statistics in the world, it's safer than a number of other popular travel destinations. Believe it or not...
...some startling figures that demonstrate how off-base journalists are when it comes to reporting on the war in Iraq... the violent death rate in Iraq is 25.71 per 100,000. ...compare it to places like Colombia (61.7), South Africa (49.6), Jamaica (32.4), and Venezuela (31.6). How about the violent death rates in American cities? New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina was 53.1. FBI statistics for 2004-05 Washington (45.9), Baltimore (37.7), and Atlanta (34.9). http://www.nysun.com/article/32787
It appears Zarqawi got to see US forces gazing down at him before he died...
Zarqawi Found Alive After Bombing
June 09, 2006 Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was found alive by Iraqi police and U.S. forces who arrived at the scene of the bombing raid near Baqouba, a U.S. official told FOX News on Friday.
"Zarqawi was alive when U.S. forces arrived on the site," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said in a satellite interview from Iraq. "The Iraqi police arrived first, they found him in the rubble, put him on a gurney of some type."
Caldwell, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said Zarqawi tried to roll off the gurney to escape once he became aware of the fact that he was being taken into custody by coalition troops Wednesday night after two 500-pound precision guided bombs blew up his safehouse near Baqouba.
U.S. forces immediately identified him as Zarqawi but were unable to interrogate him because he died "shortly after" being pulled from the rubble, Caldwell said.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,198850,00.html
..."Zarqawi did survive the airstrike," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the spokesman for the U.S. military in Baghdad said. "We did in fact see him alive."
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/09/iraq.al.zarqawi/index.html
A Tale of Two Media Outlets
FOX: Imagine if we saved him and kept him alive. What then there would be trial? What a waste of tax payer's monies.
CNN: Are we certain he died from the bombs and not from a bullet from one of the coalition forces? (does it matter? DB)
Two good points I heard on Bill Bennett's "Morning In America" show
- Yesterday BB played the audio from Iraq of the announcement of the death of al-Zarqawi. The room full of Iraqi journalists burst out in cheering and clapping and one lady even made that funny noise happy, excited, Muslim women make. Far different than the dour “objective” and aplogetic response from the modern US press when we succeed at anything. "Gee, we can't be patriotic 'cause we'll loose our credibility of being objective." They lost that credibility a long time ago.
- A caller noted that in the last 3 years California has had over 6,000 murders and other violent deaths while Iraq is approaching 2,500. As BB pointed out these deaths are very different as the soldiers deaths are for a good and noble cause while most of the deaths cited in California involve varying degrees of drugs and criminal activities.
--------------------
Media looks for abuse or foul play...
Asked whether Zarqawi was shot after U.S. ground troops arrived at the scene of the airstrike, Caldwell said he could not give a definitive answer based on what he had read in the latest official U.S. military report on the event.[In other words did we try to save his life or did we murder him...]
"He was conscious initially, according to the U.S. forces that physically saw him," Caldwell told Fox. "He obviously had some kind of visual recognition of who they were because he attempted to roll off the stretcher, as I am told, and get away, realizing it was U.S. military."
"Zarqawi attempted to sort of turn away off the stretcher, everybody resecured him back onto the stretcher but he died almost immediately thereafter from the wounds he'd received from this airstrike," Caldwell said. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060609/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/air_strike_al_zarqawi
...U.S. troops conducted 39 raids late Thursday and early Friday based on information gleaned from searches in the hours after the al-Qaeda leader's death....
At the news conference, the spokesman also provided a revised death toll from the attack...Caldwell said it now appears there was no child among those killed... (that should at least make the anti-war crowd a little happier…not!)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-06-09-zarqawi_x.htm
Arab News Editorial: Turning Point
9 June 2006 -The outpouring of joy with which Iraqis from all communities have greeted the news of the death of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, says everything. They, Sunnis and Shiites alike, are sick of the endless slaughter of innocents for which Zarqawi was often responsible and for which he, with his infinite capacity for cruelty, became the incarnate symbol. They are sick of the kidnappings, the beheadings, the suicide bombings which he organized or inspired. The removal of this monster, who will go down in history as the most evil person in the Middle East for well over a century give Iraqis a chance to believe in the future once again, to hope that it will be better. They can believe it because they know that while the death of this publicity-seeking thug who clawed his way over the corpses of thousands by an absolute ferocity to the very peaks of depravity and notoriety will not end the violence, it will drain it. This may be the beginning of the end of the so-called Sunni insurgency which Zarqawi spearheaded (a misnomer if ever there was one — the overwhelming majority of Iraqi Sunnis are as revolted by the mass slaughter of Shiites as everyone else).
...Zarqawi’s elimination could therefore prove a psychological turning point for Iraq — the chance to rebuild and reunite, to reconcile Iraqi with Iraqi, to put fear behind them. It is the most significant event in Iraq since the capture of Saddam Hussein. It provides a tremendous boost to the government of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki who has made reconciliation his priority — rightly so, for without it, there is no hope of ending the insurrection, no hope of ending the fear and suspicion on which the violence thrives...
The Iraqis have reason then to hope. They know that the violence will continue but the giant shadow of death stalking the streets of their cities daily has been removed. The worst may be past. And not only for Iraqis. Jordanians, Moroccans, Turks too will rejoice.
We can all rejoice. The death of Zarqawi makes the world a safer place. A notable victory in the global war against terrorism has been achieved.http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=83511&d=9&m=6&y=2006
Overpressure bombing effects (or why Zarqawi still had a face after the bombing)
...One of the least understood phenomena of a bomb blast is overpressure. Everything in the blast perimeter is subject to a sudden and profound increase in air pressure. This wave of blast overpressure declines rapidly the further it travels. A person 10 feet from a bomb blast will experience nine times the overpressure of a person 20 feet away. But it gets messy and unpredictable. A person who happens to be standing between the bomb and a strong wall is subjected to more blast effect because solid surfaces reflect the blast wave.
You, as you read this, are subjected to normal air pressure of 15 pounds per square inch, depending on how close you are to sea level. The rapidly expanding gases of the bomb push the air out of the way generating air pressures of as much as 700 tons per square inch in the immediate area. But even on the outer perimeters of the blast area overpressures can be deadly.
The human body contains two principal air-filled spaces -- the lungs and the nasal cavity and attached sinuses. A human subjected to a bomb blast wave instantly has hundreds and perhaps thousands psi of pressure pushing on these cavities. A mere 15 psi above normal is considered the threshold for possible lung injury, so imagine what happens to those near the epicenter of a bomb blast.
The chest caves in. The lungs inside it are compressed violently in on themselves -- so violently that the entire network of pulmonary vessels connecting them to the heart and the rest of the body are sheared off.
When the instant of blast overpressure passes, the lungs suddenly re-expand, like a crushed rubber ball rebounding in the hand of a strong man. But now they are filled with a huge volume of blood, blood that should be flowing to the heart and other parts of the body.
Blood that would normally return to the heart through the left ventrical has now overwhelmed the lungs. No blood in the left ventrical equals no blood in the heart equals no pulmonary output to the body. Blood pressure -- zero. The body is instantly starved.
Up above, in the skull, at the same instant, the overpressure works in another way. The nasal and sinus cavities implode. That part of the skull called the cribiform plate ruptures, snaps and may be thrust upward into the base of the brain.
http://www.alternatevoice.com/blog_archives/000148.html
Bin Laden Keeps Lower Profile Than Zarqawi
06-08-2006 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -Tracking down Osama bin Laden has proven tougher than getting to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi because the top al-Qaida leader does almost nothing to call attention to himself and is protected by a ring of far more faithful followers, intelligence experts said Thursday.
...According to a senior Pakistani security official, bin Laden avoids using the Internet or satellite phones.
Bin Laden "has seen the fate of those who used satellite phones. He has seen that many such people were arrested by us, and they included some close associates of the al-Qaida chief," the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of his job.
...The Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman, Gen. Zahir Azimi, said he hopes al-Zarqawi's death will kick start the hunt for bin Laden. "The hunt for Osama continues," he said.
..."They've been able to escape detection as they aren't communicating and aren't effectively involved in al-Qaida operations. It makes it very hard to run them down, but moves them significantly from an operational role to a symbolic one," he said.
"It doesn't make any sense to talk of getting closer to them. One day they will be killed or captured, and it will happen like that," the diplomat said, snapping his fingers.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/06/08/international/i140437D26.DTL
Special ops A-Team helped nail Zarqawi
U.S., British defense chiefs formed task force to kill him 2 months ago
June 8, 2006 WASHINGTON – When Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida leader in Iraq, was killed today by 500-pound bombs dropped by two F-16 fighter jets on a house north of Baghdad, it was the result of intelligence information gathered, in part, by an elite task force of international special operations forces formed just a month ago with the express purpose of taking him out.
The "A-Team" created for the mission drew on the skills and expertise of U.S. Army Green Berets, "Tier 1" of Britain's Special Air Service and the Israeli Mossad... The unit was part of the already-secret Task Force Black run by Britain's MI6 out of coalition forces headquarters in Baghdad. Nicknamed "The Untouchables," it was given a no-holds barred brief in pursuit of Zarqawi in May.
To avoid detection, the team dressed in clothes bought from second-hand stalls in Baghdad's back-street markets. They regularly sprayed themselves with a pungent, sweat-smelling odor known as "souk scent." Each man wore contact lenses that turned their eye color brown or black. The goal was to permit them to look like any other Iraqi peasant as they hunted the most bloodthirsty killer in Iraq.
"The Untouchables" were assured in advance they need fear no investigation into their methods to bring Zarqawi to summary justice. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Though Zarqawi was done in ultimately by massive bombs delivered from high-tech fighters, the unit members were each equipped with L115A-338 sniper rifles that allowed them to kill at 1,000 yards. But the key to the mission was the fact that each made high-risk surveillance operations into normally no-go areas in Iraq.
While officially Israel denies any presence in Iraq, four Mossad assassins were assigned to serve with the unit.
"The Untouchables" also used thermal-imaging equipment to probe the "rat holes" the terror chief used as he flitted around Baghdad and other cities. They also had at their disposal a CIA-operated Predator unmanned aircraft able to provide a real-time video feedback of any area where Zarqawi was spotted.
Zarqawi boasted on his website of beheading innocent victims, including the murders of more than 1,000 British and American soldiers in Iraq over the past two years. Zarqawi also led terrorists that killed thousands of Iraqis through relentless suicide bombings and organized attacks. Many of the bombings were directed at large crowds of Shi'ites under a strategy U.S. and Iraqi officials said was designed to trigger a civil war.
Gen. Sir Timothy Granville-Chapman, Britain's vice chief of the defense staff, had told senior officers in Baghdad that "removing this terrorist will be a massive blow against al-Qaida."
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell told a news conference today the big breakthrough that led to Zarqawi's location came while U.S. forces were trailing Zarqawi's spiritual adviser, Sheikh Abdul-Rahman.
"Through painstaking intelligence efforts we were able to start tracking him, monitoring his movements. ... Last night, he went to meet [Zarqawi] again at 6:15 p.m. when the decision was made to go ahead and strike that target," he added.
Zarqawi came from humble beginnings – a former street thug from Jordan. But he remained elusive despite several U.S. military offensives, a $25 million bounty on his head and the capture of what officials said were several of his aides.
...An Israeli security official told WND final information on Zarqawi's whereabouts came from Jordanian intelligence, saying Egyptian intelligence had the same information.
...Caldwell said important information was found at the location that led to 17 simultaneous raids later that night in Baghdad and its outskirts that uncovered a "treasure trove" of information...
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50559
New York Times Convicts Marines in Haditha
Edward I. Koch
June 7, 2006 Edward I. Koch, Democrat, author, lawyer and talk radio host, was a member of the U.S. Congress and, for 12 years, the 105th mayor of New York City. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/6/6/175458.shtml
Coulter: Zarqawi Dead, Bin Laden ‘Irrelevant’
June 8, 2006 ...Ann Coulter, author of the white-hot "Godless," turned her sights on events in Iraq during a Thursday visit to Fox News Channel’s "Cavuto on Business” where she commented on the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"It is a great day for America, a great day for our troops, a day to be proud,” she said. "This is an amazing victory.”
..."It was almost like the way I would parody some liberals,” Coulter told show host Neil Cavuto. "We heard things like, ‘This is just going to encourage the cycle of violence’” [A comment from Michael Berg, father of Nicholas Berg, a contractor beheaded by al-Zarqawi]. Its funny how they [liberals] describe the war on terrorism in the most limited way possible – only as the pursuit of Osama bin Laden. He’s irrelevant now. He’s hiding in a cave. Al-Zarqawi was still killing people.”
Coulter said despite any hand-wringing liberals may have in America about this incident and the war as a whole, the killing of al-Zarqawi was a great event.
"The insurgency has been dealt an enormous blow,” she said, "so much more than if we had been served Osama’s head on a silver platter.”
http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/6/8/175544.shtml?s=ic
Surprise: Old media downplay Zarqawi's death
Jun 9, 2006- Before you assume liberals are acting in good faith in casually dismissing the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as "symbolic," don't forget their endless carping about our failure to capture Osama bin Laden.
Zarqawi, Al Qaeda's lead commander in Iraq, was arguably more important to the terrorist movement these days than Osama, since the terrorists' primary focus has been on Iraq, pouring the lion's share of their energies and resources into preventing the Iraqi people from succeeding in their quest for liberty and constitutional self-rule.
These perennial critics aren't the least bit sincere. Before Saddam was captured they complained of our failure to bring him to justice. When he was captured, they downplayed the event.
Liberal bloggers are unnerved, realizing it will be difficult to spin Zarqawi's death to deny Bush and the American military credit. If they truly supported the troops, they wouldn't be investing one second strategizing over how to control damage to their miserable cause, but rejoicing in this American military triumph. But don't be too hard on these amateurs. They haven't been spinning as long as their mentors in the Old Media. Maybe they should take notes and learn some lessons.
As if to show the upstart bloggers how it's done, the Old Media were quick to issue disclaimers so that the great unwashed would not read too much into this event, as if we red-state, reality-challenged militarists might be operating under the misapprehension that Islamofascists are motivated to kill infidels solely because of their hero worship of a particular leader.
Newsbusters.org provides a number of examples of the media's lukewarm reception of the news. NPR's website hastened to caution that Zarqawi's death was symbolic and "may change little about the situation on the ground." Perhaps, but Zarqawi himself will not be orchestrating or performing any more beheadings or other murders, which will have more than symbolic significance to those Zarqawi would have murdered.
ABC's Diane Sawyer asked former White House adviser and Bush critic-at-large Richard Clarke whether Iraq was any safer and the war would end any sooner after Zarqawi's death. A glum Clarke said, "Well, unfortunately, the answer is no." He then said Zarqawi only commanded a few hundred people out of tens of thousands involved in the insurgency. Huh? Were the libs saying that before he was killed?
NBC's Tim Russert said the death would probably not "change things on the ground," noting that "foreign fighters are not the only threat that confront Iraq. There is this sectarian violence between the Sunnis and the Shiites, and that is separate above the killing of Zarqawi we're witnessing today."
Yes, Tim, but would it be too painful for you to acknowledge that one of Zarqawi's primary missions was to foment that sectarian violence? Indeed, the Washington Post just reported that, "The stated aim of Zarqawi, 39, in addition to ousting foreign forces from Iraq, was to foment bloody sectarian strife between his fellow Sunni Muslims and members of Iraq's Shiite majority … "
If Zarqawi's death doesn't impress you guys, how about the "treasure trove" of information about terror operations in Iraq that we acquired in 17 raids in and near Baghdad following the attack on Zarqawi? Is that symbolic?
How about the information that led to the attack, which U.S. Army Major Gen. William B. Caldwell IV said was acquired from within Zarqawi's network. Is that symbolic? Of course not, but the not-so-mainstream reporters found another angle from which to attack it. At today's White House press briefing, one reporter suggested that since Zarqawi was fingered by another terrorist, perhaps he wanted "to see Zarqawi dead so that [he] could move into the created vacuum." And they call us reality-challenged!
Similarly disappointing, though not surprising, was the reaction of not-very-hawkish-at-all Congressman John Murtha, D-Pa., whose destructive statements we have no right to challenge because of his military record. (See Ann Coulter's brand-new best seller, "Godless" on the infallibility and incontestability of certain liberal mouthpieces.)
Murtha admitted Zarqawi's killing was significant, but refused to concede to CNN's Carol Lin that it wouldn't have occurred if U.S. troops hadn't been on the ground in Iraq. He also used the occasion to complain about the monetary cost of our continued presence in Iraq and reiterated his claim that Iraq was engaged in a civil war of which Al Qaeda was only a small part. "I think they'll settle this themselves, just like we settled our civil war ourselves. … We've diverted ourselves from the real war on terrorism to the war in Iraq."
David<><
http://freewill-predestination.com
http://www.knology.net/~lonesomedove
6/9/2006 TAMPA — A federal judge, miffed at the inability of opposing attorneys to agree on even the slightest details of a lawsuit, ordered them to settle their latest dispute with a game of "rock, paper, scissors."
The argument was over a location to take the sworn statement of a witness in an insurance lawsuit.
In an order signed Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell scolded both sides and ordered them to meet at a neutral location at 4 p.m. June 30 to play a round of the hand-gesture game often used to settle childhood disputes. If they can't agree on the neutral location, he said, they'll play on the steps of the federal courthouse.
The winner gets to choose the location for the witness statement. http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2006-06-09-rock_x.htm
Environmentalist's rice bowls endangered...
Manatees off Fla. endangered species list
Jun 9 Fla. - The state wildlife commission has voted to take the manatee off Florida's endangered species list, saying the animal's population is on the rebound.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to designate the manatee as a threatened species rather than endangered. It also voted to remove the bald eagle from its list of threatened species.
State officials said the decisions would not affect how the species are protected. Both the bald eagle and manatee remain protected under federal law, including the 1973 Endangered Species Act. "There will be no less protection," commission spokesman Henry Cabbage said.
But some environmentalists said the reclassifications could set in motion a downward spiral of state funding...
"As species like the manatee are reclassified to a less imperiled status ... state funding for research...will likely be directed elsewhere," said attorney Martha Collins.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060609/ap_on_sc/threatened_manatees
Local Police Attempt to Block Collection of Pro-Marriage Petitions
June 7, 2006 (AgapePress) - A pro-family group in Florida is outraged over the behavior of some police officers last weekend who tried to stop a petition drive aimed at protecting traditional marriage.
Last weekend members of the Florida Family Policy Council were at a Promise Keepers conference in Broward County where they were collecting petitions for the Florida4Marriage campaign, an effort to get onto the November 2008 ballot an amendment protecting traditional marriage. The pro-family group had paid a fee to have a booth at the PK event at which it was collecting the petitions in support of the campaign's goal of gathering 611,009 signatures by July 12, 2006.
...several members of the City of Sunrise Police Department arrived at the scene and ordered Council vice president Nathan Dunn to stop collecting the petitions, and then removed the petitions from public view. A discussion ensued, during which John Stemberger -- president and general counsel for the Council -- was summoned to the scene. The group says Stemberger's request for an explanation of what law or ordinance was being violated was ignored by Police Sergeant Stephen Allen, who it says then began lecturing nearby volunteers on what Jesus taught about homosexuality, claiming that the petition effort was a waste of time and that he was the authority and they should obey him.
"It quickly became apparent that [Allen] was a supporter of gay marriage and personally disagreed with the marriage amendment effort," says the Council's press release...
...At the height of the confrontation, notes the press release, the police sergeant "continued to interrupt with abusive and irrelevant personal remarks" and even threatened Stemberger with arrest if the petitions were not immediately removed from the table.
...The incident finally ended when an official with the Bank Atlantic Center intervened to tell the officers that no laws or rules were being broken, and that the petitions could be distributed at the table. Allen and the other officers then left the scene.
...The pro-family group says the officers' "harassment and intimidation" should be a reminder to families of the culture war that is going on. "If we do not stand up to this type of abuse of power, then our constitutional rights will continue to be violated," says Stemberger.
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/6/72006a.asp
Spinning The Reality Of Iraq War
By ALICIA COLON May 16, 2006 -It's that time of year when New Yorkers start making their summer vacation plans. Renting a place in the Hamptons? Nah, been there, done that. How about a Parisian jaunt? Noooo. Too many riots. Well, how about visiting a country that's ancient, historic, beautiful and exotic - Iraq? Sure, there's a little war going on there, but when you look at the violent death statistics in the world, it's safer than a number of other popular travel destinations. Believe it or not...
...some startling figures that demonstrate how off-base journalists are when it comes to reporting on the war in Iraq... the violent death rate in Iraq is 25.71 per 100,000. ...compare it to places like Colombia (61.7), South Africa (49.6), Jamaica (32.4), and Venezuela (31.6). How about the violent death rates in American cities? New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina was 53.1. FBI statistics for 2004-05 Washington (45.9), Baltimore (37.7), and Atlanta (34.9). http://www.nysun.com/article/32787
It appears Zarqawi got to see US forces gazing down at him before he died...
Zarqawi Found Alive After Bombing
June 09, 2006 Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was found alive by Iraqi police and U.S. forces who arrived at the scene of the bombing raid near Baqouba, a U.S. official told FOX News on Friday.
"Zarqawi was alive when U.S. forces arrived on the site," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said in a satellite interview from Iraq. "The Iraqi police arrived first, they found him in the rubble, put him on a gurney of some type."
Caldwell, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said Zarqawi tried to roll off the gurney to escape once he became aware of the fact that he was being taken into custody by coalition troops Wednesday night after two 500-pound precision guided bombs blew up his safehouse near Baqouba.
U.S. forces immediately identified him as Zarqawi but were unable to interrogate him because he died "shortly after" being pulled from the rubble, Caldwell said.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,198850,00.html
..."Zarqawi did survive the airstrike," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the spokesman for the U.S. military in Baghdad said. "We did in fact see him alive."
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/09/iraq.al.zarqawi/index.html
A Tale of Two Media Outlets
FOX: Imagine if we saved him and kept him alive. What then there would be trial? What a waste of tax payer's monies.
CNN: Are we certain he died from the bombs and not from a bullet from one of the coalition forces? (does it matter? DB)
Two good points I heard on Bill Bennett's "Morning In America" show
- Yesterday BB played the audio from Iraq of the announcement of the death of al-Zarqawi. The room full of Iraqi journalists burst out in cheering and clapping and one lady even made that funny noise happy, excited, Muslim women make. Far different than the dour “objective” and aplogetic response from the modern US press when we succeed at anything. "Gee, we can't be patriotic 'cause we'll loose our credibility of being objective." They lost that credibility a long time ago.
- A caller noted that in the last 3 years California has had over 6,000 murders and other violent deaths while Iraq is approaching 2,500. As BB pointed out these deaths are very different as the soldiers deaths are for a good and noble cause while most of the deaths cited in California involve varying degrees of drugs and criminal activities.
--------------------
Media looks for abuse or foul play...
Asked whether Zarqawi was shot after U.S. ground troops arrived at the scene of the airstrike, Caldwell said he could not give a definitive answer based on what he had read in the latest official U.S. military report on the event.[In other words did we try to save his life or did we murder him...]
"He was conscious initially, according to the U.S. forces that physically saw him," Caldwell told Fox. "He obviously had some kind of visual recognition of who they were because he attempted to roll off the stretcher, as I am told, and get away, realizing it was U.S. military."
"Zarqawi attempted to sort of turn away off the stretcher, everybody resecured him back onto the stretcher but he died almost immediately thereafter from the wounds he'd received from this airstrike," Caldwell said. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060609/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/air_strike_al_zarqawi
...U.S. troops conducted 39 raids late Thursday and early Friday based on information gleaned from searches in the hours after the al-Qaeda leader's death....
At the news conference, the spokesman also provided a revised death toll from the attack...Caldwell said it now appears there was no child among those killed... (that should at least make the anti-war crowd a little happier…not!)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-06-09-zarqawi_x.htm
Arab News Editorial: Turning Point
9 June 2006 -The outpouring of joy with which Iraqis from all communities have greeted the news of the death of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, says everything. They, Sunnis and Shiites alike, are sick of the endless slaughter of innocents for which Zarqawi was often responsible and for which he, with his infinite capacity for cruelty, became the incarnate symbol. They are sick of the kidnappings, the beheadings, the suicide bombings which he organized or inspired. The removal of this monster, who will go down in history as the most evil person in the Middle East for well over a century give Iraqis a chance to believe in the future once again, to hope that it will be better. They can believe it because they know that while the death of this publicity-seeking thug who clawed his way over the corpses of thousands by an absolute ferocity to the very peaks of depravity and notoriety will not end the violence, it will drain it. This may be the beginning of the end of the so-called Sunni insurgency which Zarqawi spearheaded (a misnomer if ever there was one — the overwhelming majority of Iraqi Sunnis are as revolted by the mass slaughter of Shiites as everyone else).
...Zarqawi’s elimination could therefore prove a psychological turning point for Iraq — the chance to rebuild and reunite, to reconcile Iraqi with Iraqi, to put fear behind them. It is the most significant event in Iraq since the capture of Saddam Hussein. It provides a tremendous boost to the government of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki who has made reconciliation his priority — rightly so, for without it, there is no hope of ending the insurrection, no hope of ending the fear and suspicion on which the violence thrives...
The Iraqis have reason then to hope. They know that the violence will continue but the giant shadow of death stalking the streets of their cities daily has been removed. The worst may be past. And not only for Iraqis. Jordanians, Moroccans, Turks too will rejoice.
We can all rejoice. The death of Zarqawi makes the world a safer place. A notable victory in the global war against terrorism has been achieved.http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=83511&d=9&m=6&y=2006
Overpressure bombing effects (or why Zarqawi still had a face after the bombing)
...One of the least understood phenomena of a bomb blast is overpressure. Everything in the blast perimeter is subject to a sudden and profound increase in air pressure. This wave of blast overpressure declines rapidly the further it travels. A person 10 feet from a bomb blast will experience nine times the overpressure of a person 20 feet away. But it gets messy and unpredictable. A person who happens to be standing between the bomb and a strong wall is subjected to more blast effect because solid surfaces reflect the blast wave.
You, as you read this, are subjected to normal air pressure of 15 pounds per square inch, depending on how close you are to sea level. The rapidly expanding gases of the bomb push the air out of the way generating air pressures of as much as 700 tons per square inch in the immediate area. But even on the outer perimeters of the blast area overpressures can be deadly.
The human body contains two principal air-filled spaces -- the lungs and the nasal cavity and attached sinuses. A human subjected to a bomb blast wave instantly has hundreds and perhaps thousands psi of pressure pushing on these cavities. A mere 15 psi above normal is considered the threshold for possible lung injury, so imagine what happens to those near the epicenter of a bomb blast.
The chest caves in. The lungs inside it are compressed violently in on themselves -- so violently that the entire network of pulmonary vessels connecting them to the heart and the rest of the body are sheared off.
When the instant of blast overpressure passes, the lungs suddenly re-expand, like a crushed rubber ball rebounding in the hand of a strong man. But now they are filled with a huge volume of blood, blood that should be flowing to the heart and other parts of the body.
Blood that would normally return to the heart through the left ventrical has now overwhelmed the lungs. No blood in the left ventrical equals no blood in the heart equals no pulmonary output to the body. Blood pressure -- zero. The body is instantly starved.
Up above, in the skull, at the same instant, the overpressure works in another way. The nasal and sinus cavities implode. That part of the skull called the cribiform plate ruptures, snaps and may be thrust upward into the base of the brain.
http://www.alternatevoice.com/blog_archives/000148.html
Bin Laden Keeps Lower Profile Than Zarqawi
06-08-2006 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -Tracking down Osama bin Laden has proven tougher than getting to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi because the top al-Qaida leader does almost nothing to call attention to himself and is protected by a ring of far more faithful followers, intelligence experts said Thursday.
...According to a senior Pakistani security official, bin Laden avoids using the Internet or satellite phones.
Bin Laden "has seen the fate of those who used satellite phones. He has seen that many such people were arrested by us, and they included some close associates of the al-Qaida chief," the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of his job.
...The Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman, Gen. Zahir Azimi, said he hopes al-Zarqawi's death will kick start the hunt for bin Laden. "The hunt for Osama continues," he said.
..."They've been able to escape detection as they aren't communicating and aren't effectively involved in al-Qaida operations. It makes it very hard to run them down, but moves them significantly from an operational role to a symbolic one," he said.
"It doesn't make any sense to talk of getting closer to them. One day they will be killed or captured, and it will happen like that," the diplomat said, snapping his fingers.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/06/08/international/i140437D26.DTL
Special ops A-Team helped nail Zarqawi
U.S., British defense chiefs formed task force to kill him 2 months ago
June 8, 2006 WASHINGTON – When Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida leader in Iraq, was killed today by 500-pound bombs dropped by two F-16 fighter jets on a house north of Baghdad, it was the result of intelligence information gathered, in part, by an elite task force of international special operations forces formed just a month ago with the express purpose of taking him out.
The "A-Team" created for the mission drew on the skills and expertise of U.S. Army Green Berets, "Tier 1" of Britain's Special Air Service and the Israeli Mossad... The unit was part of the already-secret Task Force Black run by Britain's MI6 out of coalition forces headquarters in Baghdad. Nicknamed "The Untouchables," it was given a no-holds barred brief in pursuit of Zarqawi in May.
To avoid detection, the team dressed in clothes bought from second-hand stalls in Baghdad's back-street markets. They regularly sprayed themselves with a pungent, sweat-smelling odor known as "souk scent." Each man wore contact lenses that turned their eye color brown or black. The goal was to permit them to look like any other Iraqi peasant as they hunted the most bloodthirsty killer in Iraq.
"The Untouchables" were assured in advance they need fear no investigation into their methods to bring Zarqawi to summary justice. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Though Zarqawi was done in ultimately by massive bombs delivered from high-tech fighters, the unit members were each equipped with L115A-338 sniper rifles that allowed them to kill at 1,000 yards. But the key to the mission was the fact that each made high-risk surveillance operations into normally no-go areas in Iraq.
While officially Israel denies any presence in Iraq, four Mossad assassins were assigned to serve with the unit.
"The Untouchables" also used thermal-imaging equipment to probe the "rat holes" the terror chief used as he flitted around Baghdad and other cities. They also had at their disposal a CIA-operated Predator unmanned aircraft able to provide a real-time video feedback of any area where Zarqawi was spotted.
Zarqawi boasted on his website of beheading innocent victims, including the murders of more than 1,000 British and American soldiers in Iraq over the past two years. Zarqawi also led terrorists that killed thousands of Iraqis through relentless suicide bombings and organized attacks. Many of the bombings were directed at large crowds of Shi'ites under a strategy U.S. and Iraqi officials said was designed to trigger a civil war.
Gen. Sir Timothy Granville-Chapman, Britain's vice chief of the defense staff, had told senior officers in Baghdad that "removing this terrorist will be a massive blow against al-Qaida."
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell told a news conference today the big breakthrough that led to Zarqawi's location came while U.S. forces were trailing Zarqawi's spiritual adviser, Sheikh Abdul-Rahman.
"Through painstaking intelligence efforts we were able to start tracking him, monitoring his movements. ... Last night, he went to meet [Zarqawi] again at 6:15 p.m. when the decision was made to go ahead and strike that target," he added.
Zarqawi came from humble beginnings – a former street thug from Jordan. But he remained elusive despite several U.S. military offensives, a $25 million bounty on his head and the capture of what officials said were several of his aides.
...An Israeli security official told WND final information on Zarqawi's whereabouts came from Jordanian intelligence, saying Egyptian intelligence had the same information.
...Caldwell said important information was found at the location that led to 17 simultaneous raids later that night in Baghdad and its outskirts that uncovered a "treasure trove" of information...
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50559
New York Times Convicts Marines in Haditha
Edward I. Koch
June 7, 2006 Edward I. Koch, Democrat, author, lawyer and talk radio host, was a member of the U.S. Congress and, for 12 years, the 105th mayor of New York City. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/6/6/175458.shtml
Coulter: Zarqawi Dead, Bin Laden ‘Irrelevant’
June 8, 2006 ...Ann Coulter, author of the white-hot "Godless," turned her sights on events in Iraq during a Thursday visit to Fox News Channel’s "Cavuto on Business” where she commented on the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"It is a great day for America, a great day for our troops, a day to be proud,” she said. "This is an amazing victory.”
..."It was almost like the way I would parody some liberals,” Coulter told show host Neil Cavuto. "We heard things like, ‘This is just going to encourage the cycle of violence’” [A comment from Michael Berg, father of Nicholas Berg, a contractor beheaded by al-Zarqawi]. Its funny how they [liberals] describe the war on terrorism in the most limited way possible – only as the pursuit of Osama bin Laden. He’s irrelevant now. He’s hiding in a cave. Al-Zarqawi was still killing people.”
Coulter said despite any hand-wringing liberals may have in America about this incident and the war as a whole, the killing of al-Zarqawi was a great event.
"The insurgency has been dealt an enormous blow,” she said, "so much more than if we had been served Osama’s head on a silver platter.”
http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/6/8/175544.shtml?s=ic
Surprise: Old media downplay Zarqawi's death
Jun 9, 2006- Before you assume liberals are acting in good faith in casually dismissing the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as "symbolic," don't forget their endless carping about our failure to capture Osama bin Laden.
Zarqawi, Al Qaeda's lead commander in Iraq, was arguably more important to the terrorist movement these days than Osama, since the terrorists' primary focus has been on Iraq, pouring the lion's share of their energies and resources into preventing the Iraqi people from succeeding in their quest for liberty and constitutional self-rule.
These perennial critics aren't the least bit sincere. Before Saddam was captured they complained of our failure to bring him to justice. When he was captured, they downplayed the event.
Liberal bloggers are unnerved, realizing it will be difficult to spin Zarqawi's death to deny Bush and the American military credit. If they truly supported the troops, they wouldn't be investing one second strategizing over how to control damage to their miserable cause, but rejoicing in this American military triumph. But don't be too hard on these amateurs. They haven't been spinning as long as their mentors in the Old Media. Maybe they should take notes and learn some lessons.
As if to show the upstart bloggers how it's done, the Old Media were quick to issue disclaimers so that the great unwashed would not read too much into this event, as if we red-state, reality-challenged militarists might be operating under the misapprehension that Islamofascists are motivated to kill infidels solely because of their hero worship of a particular leader.
Newsbusters.org provides a number of examples of the media's lukewarm reception of the news. NPR's website hastened to caution that Zarqawi's death was symbolic and "may change little about the situation on the ground." Perhaps, but Zarqawi himself will not be orchestrating or performing any more beheadings or other murders, which will have more than symbolic significance to those Zarqawi would have murdered.
ABC's Diane Sawyer asked former White House adviser and Bush critic-at-large Richard Clarke whether Iraq was any safer and the war would end any sooner after Zarqawi's death. A glum Clarke said, "Well, unfortunately, the answer is no." He then said Zarqawi only commanded a few hundred people out of tens of thousands involved in the insurgency. Huh? Were the libs saying that before he was killed?
NBC's Tim Russert said the death would probably not "change things on the ground," noting that "foreign fighters are not the only threat that confront Iraq. There is this sectarian violence between the Sunnis and the Shiites, and that is separate above the killing of Zarqawi we're witnessing today."
Yes, Tim, but would it be too painful for you to acknowledge that one of Zarqawi's primary missions was to foment that sectarian violence? Indeed, the Washington Post just reported that, "The stated aim of Zarqawi, 39, in addition to ousting foreign forces from Iraq, was to foment bloody sectarian strife between his fellow Sunni Muslims and members of Iraq's Shiite majority … "
If Zarqawi's death doesn't impress you guys, how about the "treasure trove" of information about terror operations in Iraq that we acquired in 17 raids in and near Baghdad following the attack on Zarqawi? Is that symbolic?
How about the information that led to the attack, which U.S. Army Major Gen. William B. Caldwell IV said was acquired from within Zarqawi's network. Is that symbolic? Of course not, but the not-so-mainstream reporters found another angle from which to attack it. At today's White House press briefing, one reporter suggested that since Zarqawi was fingered by another terrorist, perhaps he wanted "to see Zarqawi dead so that [he] could move into the created vacuum." And they call us reality-challenged!
Similarly disappointing, though not surprising, was the reaction of not-very-hawkish-at-all Congressman John Murtha, D-Pa., whose destructive statements we have no right to challenge because of his military record. (See Ann Coulter's brand-new best seller, "Godless" on the infallibility and incontestability of certain liberal mouthpieces.)
Murtha admitted Zarqawi's killing was significant, but refused to concede to CNN's Carol Lin that it wouldn't have occurred if U.S. troops hadn't been on the ground in Iraq. He also used the occasion to complain about the monetary cost of our continued presence in Iraq and reiterated his claim that Iraq was engaged in a civil war of which Al Qaeda was only a small part. "I think they'll settle this themselves, just like we settled our civil war ourselves. … We've diverted ourselves from the real war on terrorism to the war in Iraq."
David<><
http://freewill-predestination.com
http://www.knology.net/~lonesomedove
posted by David Bennett | 7:10 PM
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