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I bet these are hot sellers on Ebay.

(the link on this died - it was a photo of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein dolls that were confiscated by the Israeli government.)

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Ah....American democracy, where you can have your media - as long as it says what we want it to.

Under the guise of Iraq Governing Council, the U.S. has raided the offices of Saudi television news network Al-Arabiya; banned its broadcasts, and threatened its journalists with imprisionment.

The U.S.-contolled Iraqi government cited the release of a statement from Saddam Hussein as "inciting murder", and effectively censored the news outlet from Iraq.

"The correspondent said the officers told employees they were banned from broadcasting any reports from Iraq, and that they would be fined $1,000 and imprisoned for a year for each violation. " - Associated Press

So....that would mean that U.S. networks who are reporting the SAME NEWS should be held to the same standard?

Correct?

In other news...

Addressing the suicide rate among troops stationed in Iraq.

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This just about scared the crap out of me. Tommy Franks talking about reverting to a more military style government -- assuming that some major terrorism washes ashore.

Oh yeah....and we're at 69 U.S. dead thus far in November.

Hello? Vietnam?

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And it keeps rolling in...

Many towns are calling off Veteren's Day celebrations due to number of soldiers and resources being used in Iraq.

U.S. soldiers kill one of the officials
WE elected to the new Iraqi regime.

Rumsfeld is suffering memory lapses
- regarding his pre-Iraq war rhetoric.

And finally....

Bush effectively blocks Gulf War veterans who were tortured from receiving reparations from Iraq. Apparently, we need all those frozen assets to line the pockets of overpaid contractors who are rebuilding Iraq...

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First, the sad "movie-of-the-week" fictionalization...now this.

After all the hype, propaganda and obfuscation - it turns out Jessica Lynch is fed up with Pentagon using her "rescue" to help plug the Iraqi occupation. On top of all this, are allegations (stated in her pending ghost-written book "I'm a Soldier, Too.") that Lynch was raped by Iraqi soldiers before her delivery to the hospital. Iraqi doctors have dismissed this - saying that there was no sign of sexual assault.

So who do you believe? A doctor who was present at the time, or a ghost writer who doesn't even cite specific medical reports?

Also, the Iraqi lawyer who helped in the "rescue" of Private Lynch was granted asylum in the U.S., a fat book deal, consulting fees for the TV movie (which Lynch was not involved with) and given a position at a GOP lobbying group.

Guess it pays to play along with the lie.

On a personal note....

In the six-degrees-of Private Lynch game - I apparently rate a "2". Oddly enough, I spent some time (while in college) helping the screenwriter of "Saving Private Lynch" (John Fasano) troll my campus for screenwriting source material. At the time, he was working on a sequel to "Animal House".

Hope they paid him enough...

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Democracy or Plutocracy?

Like it or not, the world is going to share in American democracy - according to GW. In a chilling speech to the National Endowment for Democracy, Bush preached that Iraq was the latest phase of a "global democratic revolution" that is being led by the United States. The revolution that freed Russia, Latin America and Vietnam of communism - is now intent on liberating the Middle East and other countries from "despotism".

Didn't he really mean a plutocratic revolution?

If our past efforts at spreading neoconservative "democracy" is any indication, the people will be left behind again - in favor of the powerful.

In almost every instance during the Cold War, our goals have primarily served to benefit the powerful and wealthy.
Under the guise of fighting communism, we have saught to undermine popular revolution by placing despots and pro-American puppets into power - so we could easily dictate economic and social policy for U.S. interests.

So this qualifies as democracy?

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In light of the recent sacrifices of our troops (28 dead in the last week), here is a little reminder of Bush's commitment to the men and women of our Armed Forces.