Breaking: Verdicts in Saddam Hussein/Baathists Trial

***Saddam Hussein sentenced to death by hanging.***

CNN is covering the verdicts in this trial live (it's now 3:45 am ET).

Baghdad and area is in a complete security lockdown. Even pedestrians are banned from being on the streets due to fears of violence in reaction to the verdicts. The Baghdad airport has been closed.

Defence attorney Ramsey Clark was ejected from the courtroom by 5 guards.

Charges against Mohammed Azawi Ali, a local Baath party official, were dropped and he was cleared.

3 co-defendants have received 15 years in jail - guilty of murder and torture.

more to come...

One defendant, Awad Hamad al-Bandar who is a former judge has been sentenced to death by hanging.

The former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan either sentenced to life or death - CNN isn't clear on that. sentenced to life.

Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti was sentenced to death.

An automatic appeal process starts for Saddam and the others sentenced to death and life begins within 10 days and basically consists of a review of the trial documents. As soon as the appeals are exhausted, the sentences are meted out within 30 days.

Reuters has initial coverage of the verdicts.

Sunday Food for Thought: John Lennon's 'Imagine'

Back in May, 2005, I wrote a diary over at Daily Kos as a tribute to the Iraqi people:

Imagine living under one of the cruelest dictators in the world.

Imagine being promised freedom from his tyranny.

Imagine sacrificing your country to the forces of a coalition that promises peace.

Imagine a moment of hope.

Imagine a willingness to endure the hell of war in the name of a brighter future.

Imagine trusting outside powers for your deliverance.

Imagine seeing homes and buildings destroyed.

Imagine seeing your national treasures looted.

Imagine your innocent neighbours, your friends and your family being killed and maimed on a daily basis.

Imagine not being able to go outside without the fear of being terrorized.

Imagine not having any electricity for years on end.

Imagine your children finding body parts on the streets while they play.

Imagine knowing that your fellow countrymen have been tortured by your liberators.

Imagine that no one knows how many of your countrymen have died.

Imagine hospitals overflowing with wounded and diseased people.

Imagine humanitarians being killed and driven from your country.

Imagine reporters who've met similar ends.

Imagine the stifling of the truth getting out to the world.

Imagine not knowing who the enemy is anymore.

Imagine actually looking back and remembering more safety under that tyrannical dictator.

Imagine an election that's supposed to bring hope.

Imagine discovering that the elected leaders are corrupt and powerless.

Imagine an increase in bombings, shootings, and massacres.

Imagine the innocent faces of the children who only know hell.

Imagine the intense pain and sorrow.

Imagine feeling forgotten about by the world.

Imagine the prospect of war without end.

Imagine living that.

You must or the Iraqi people will endure it all alone.

Imagine Peace. Make it reality.

How Ted Haggard's Depravity is His Wife's Fault

You just cannot miss reading this Huffington Post bit by David Goldstein.

Colorado Springs' New Life Church just announced that it has fired Pastor Ted Haggard for his "sexually immoral conduct." The much publicized meth and gay hooker scandal has elicited a little bit of soul searching and a lot hemming and hawing from Haggard's fellow Evangelical leaders, but perhaps the most ridiculous response came yesterday from Pastor Mark Driscoll of Seattle's Mars Hills mega-church-wannabe.

Writing in his personal blog, Driscoll offers his fellow pastors "some practical suggestions" on how to avoid the type of temptation that consumed Pastor Haggard. And near the top of his list?

"Most pastors I know do not have satisfying, free, sexual conversations and liberties with their wives. At the risk of being even more widely despised than I currently am, I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this. It is not uncommon to meet pastors' wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness. A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband's sin, but she may not be helping him either."

Ted Haggard hangs around and possibly has sex with a gay male hooker from who he admits also buying meth and it's his wife's fault? Wow. Where the hell do these so-called 'religious' dinosaurs come from? God knows they haven't been all that intelligently designed now have they? And as for being evolved, apparently this wanker is still stuck in the 1950s.

Watch for the next post on Pastor Driscoll's blog: 'How Catholic Priest Sexual Abuse Victims Were Asking For It'

The Army Times: Rumsfeld Must Go

US troops to Rumsfeld: Can you hear me now?

A new Army Times editorial, hardly your terrorist-appeasing, librul publication, is joining the call for Rumsfeld's resignation. The last straw, apparently, came when Bush announced earlier this week that he'll keep Rummy on as Secretary of Defence for as long as he's president.

...Last week, someone leaked to The New York Times a Central Command briefing slide showing an assessment that the civil conflict in Iraq now borders on “critical” and has been sliding toward “chaos” for most of the past year. The strategy in Iraq has been to train an Iraqi army and police force that could gradually take over for U.S. troops in providing for the security of their new government and their nation.

But despite the best efforts of American trainers, the problem of molding a viciously sectarian population into anything resembling a force for national unity has become a losing proposition.

For two years, American sergeants, captains and majors training the Iraqis have told their bosses that Iraqi troops have no sense of national identity, are only in it for the money, don’t show up for duty and cannot sustain themselves.

Meanwhile, colonels and generals have asked their bosses for more troops. Service chiefs have asked for more money.

And all along, Rumsfeld has assured us that things are well in hand.

Now, the president says he’ll stick with Rumsfeld for the balance of his term in the White House.

This is a mistake. It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation’s current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.

These officers have been loyal public promoters of a war policy many privately feared would fail. They have kept their counsel private, adhering to more than two centuries of American tradition of subordination of the military to civilian authority.

And although that tradition, and the officers’ deep sense of honor, prevent them from saying this publicly, more and more of them believe it.

Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.

This is not about the midterm elections. Regardless of which party wins Nov. 7, the time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard bruising truth:

Donald Rumsfeld must go.

The Army Times also has a discussion forum where one commenter who claims to be the parent of a soldier currently in Iraq, defends Rumsfeld with rathey shaky justifications.

I defend Mr. Rumsfield not from partisanship, but because I believe that he is honestly trying to do the best possible job, under the worst possible circumstances. The media, the far left, and the Democrats have harped on him since day one. Not only is this not "fair", it's ethically wrong.

President Bush has stood by him, as well he should, knowing that it is unlikely that there is anyone else who could do the job half as well.

I have a child serving in Iraq, and if I thought for one minute that there was anyone who would make a better SecDef that Donald Rumsfield, I too would be demanding that he step down.

The sad part of this is, we are now victims of our own success. Since the end of the Vietnam war, the US has won every conflict it has been involved in. Our victories were quick, and the cost in lives was small.

Now, the public, and many in the media, as well as our politicians, have come to expect that this will be true of all conflicts. And when it does not go according to their wishes, they howl like banshees, demanding someone's head on a platter.

What's truly sad is that anyone actually believes Rumsfeld is the best possible civilian commander the US military can have at this time - especially when his bad judgement affects the life of their son or daughter fighting in Iraq.

Update: WH mouthpiece Tony Snow called the Army Times editorial 'a shabby piece of work'. It's Rumsfeld that's the shabby piece of work Snow, not that editorial.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

From Saturday's Drudge Report:

FOX Sells Waterboarding

'This isn't that bad.'

'As far as torture goes at least in this controlled experiment to me, this seemed like a pretty efficient mechanism to me to get someone to talk and still have them alive and healthy within minutes.'

This is how waterboarding is really done:

6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.

"The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.

And now, the Bush administration wants to muzzle the prisoners who are at the receving end of this torture by fighting in court to disallow them from revealing the actual torture they've been through. Therefore, there would be no way for their lawyers to prevent evidence that what they may have confessed to under interrogation was attained through coercion.

The Republican-led congress recently gave Bush the power to define interrogation techniques while they look the other way, so we can all see where this is headed: Bush will approve interrogation methods that the public will never know about because they will be hidden under the cloak of so-called national security concerns. Even if the Democrats take over control of the house and/or the senate, they would have a battle royale with Bush to reveal what he's approved and if the Republics maintain control, they won't even bother asking.

Meanwhile, prsioners will continue to be tortured while Bush/Cheney friendly broadcasters like FOX claim torture 'isn't that bad' - ignoring the fact that their healthy reporter has not spent years detained in a CIA hellhole, treated like an animal, exhausted, hopeless and subjected to who knows what every single day. Having three masked guys pour a pot full of water over you when you know it's coming is not waterboarding. It's theater for people who agree with Dick Cheney when he says that 'dunking people in water' is a 'no brainer'.

Polls: Bush is Dangerous

Via CTV:

The polls were conducted by EKOS for the Toronto Star and Montreal's La Presse in Canada, and by other polling firms for newspapers in Britain, Mexico and Israel.

The survey suggests 62 per cent of Canadian respondents believe Bush has made the world less safe since he became president in 2001. The poll also indicates 34 per cent of Canadians felt Bush is a "great danger" to the world.

Canadians declared the American president the world's third most dangerous leader, behind North Korea's Kim Jong Il. Top spot went to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was fourth, while Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was fifth.

The most pessimistic responses came from Britain, where 69 per cent of people said American foreign policy has made the world less safe since 2001.

In fact, British respondents said Bush poses an even greater danger than Kim Jong Il.
[...]
Canadians, meanwhile, have overwhelmingly soured on the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the poll suggests, with 73 per cent saying Washington had no justification for it. When EKOS asked Canadians the same question in April 2003 after the U.S. invasion, 53 per cent thought it was unjustified.

Israel was the only country where respondents were in favour of the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- with 59 per cent for the war and 34 per cent against. Only 23 per cent of Israelis said they felt Bush was a serious danger, with 61 percent disagreeing.

The survey was conducted in late October and involved about 1,000 people from each country. The results are considered accurate within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

You can check out the poll questions and results here (.pdf file).

Here are some more stats:

- 74% of Canadians say that the so-called US push for 'advancement of democracy' around the world has either hurt or has made no difference.

- 47% of Canadians believe that troops should be withdrawn from Iraq as soon as possible. That number is a whopping 84% in Mexico.

- 57% of Canadians believe that there is a likelihood of the US acting militarily against N Korea or Iran during the next 2 years while 53% say such action would make things worse.

My Eyes! They're Burning!!

Nudie Brison!. Make it stop. Make it stop!

Pentagon Plans for Attack on N Korea

We all know how the right-wing fear-o-sphere has a meltdown whenever a so-called librul newspaper like the New York Times reveals classified information. Let's see how they react to this little piece in Friday's Washington Times. (Don't hold your breath waiting for them to scream treason. The Times, after all, is one of their papers).

U.S. speeds attack plans for North Korea

The Pentagon has stepped up planning for attacks against North Korea's nuclear program and is bolstering nuclear forces in Asia, said defense officials familiar with the highly secret process.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the accelerated military planning includes detailed programs for striking a North Korean plutonium-reprocessing facility at Yongbyon with special operations commando raids or strikes with Tomahawk cruise missiles or other precision-guided weapons.

The effort, which had been under way for several months, was given new impetus by Pyongyang's underground nuclear test Oct. 9 and growing opposition to the nuclear program of Kim Jong-il's communist regime, especially by China and South Korea.

A Pentagon official said the Department of Defense is considering "various military options" to remove the program.

"Other than nuclear strikes, which are considered excessive, there are several options now in place. Planning has been accelerated," the official said.

A second, senior defense official privy to the effort said the Bush administration recently affirmed its commitment to both South Korea and Japan that it would use U.S. nuclear weapons to deter North Korea, now considered an unofficial nuclear weapon state.

"We will resort to whatever force levels we need to have, to defend the Republic of Korea. That nuclear deterrence is in place," said the senior official, who declined to reveal what nuclear forces are deployed in Asia.

more...

This, of course, flies in the face of what Condi and Bush have been saying for months: that the US has no plans to attack N Korea (not that I ever believed that one), but the message coming clearly from Pyongpang has been a call for assurances that the US would not use military force against it. So, one has to wonder what the Washington Times thinks it can gain by publishing these 'highly secret' details at a time when N Korea has returned to the table for talks following the passage of UN Resolution 1718. Then again, the only way the Bush administration knows how to deal with conflict is to flex its military muscle because 'talking' is just so damn difficult. So, if this really is a Pentagon-sanctioned leak, it's meant to intimidate N Korea into compliance and that could be a very dangerous tactic indeed.

NYT: US Gov't Website Showed Nuclear Bomb Plans

Holy nuclear-sized blunder, Batman!

Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The Bush administration did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who said they hoped to “leverage the Internet” to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein.

But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.

Last night, the government shut down the Web site after The New York Times asked about complaints from weapons experts and arms-control officials. A spokesman for the director of national intelligence said access to the site had been suspended “pending a review to ensure its content is appropriate for public viewing.”

Officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, fearing that the information could help states like Iran develop nuclear arms, had privately protested last week to the American ambassador to the agency, according to European diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. One diplomat said the agency’s technical experts “were shocked” at the public disclosures.

more...

The Bush administration: making the world safer for you!

And isn't it just deliciously ironic that the New York Times - that evil, liberal, terrorist-appeasing, America-hating newspaper - was responsible for getting the information taken down?

Update: Wow. Check out the right-wing blogger spin on this. Can they be any more pathetic?? Their president authorizes the release of these documents on the web and now the NYT is either lying or to blame for all of this? How absolutely out of touch with freaking reality do you have to be to not realize the danger unleashed by these documents?