From our ABC

'No links' between Al Qaeda and Saddam
Saddam Hussein had no ties with Al Qaeda or key operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi before the Iraq war, a US Senate report has found.

The report was [http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200609/s1736906.htm|released yesterday] (local time), and has undercut pre-invasion claims by the administration of President George W Bush and ignites a new political row.
"Saddam Hussein was distrustful of Al Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from Al Qaeda to provide material or operational support," the report said.
The assessment, by the Senate Intelligence Committee, also dismissed claims that Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Zarqawi who was killed in a US raid on June 7, was harboured by Saddam Hussein before the war.
Though supporting information that Zarqawi was in Baghdad in 2002, the report said Saddam Hussein actually tried to seize the Al Qaeda kingpin.
"Postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully to locate and capture Zarqawi, and that the regime did not have a relationship with, harbour, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi," the report said.

Meetings rebuffed
The report also said Saddam had repeatedly rebuffed requests for meetings from Al Qaeda operatives.
In the run-up to the 2003 invasion and for long afterward, senior members of the Bush administration claimed links existed between Iraq and terrorist groups including Al Qaeda, using such alleged ties as a major justification for the war.
On June 14, 2004, for example, Vice President Dick Cheney alluded to the alleged links, which were also debunked by the official independent commission on the September 11 attacks.
"In Iraq, Saddam Hussein was in power, overseeing one of the bloodiest regimes of the 20th century, he had long established ties with Al Qaeda," Mr Cheney said.
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Gus: Why does it take a hundred years to find this? We all knew that Saddam hated Al Qaeda people because they were fundamentalists. He was fighting fundamentalists... He was killing fundamentalists to "manage" his minority government. What did the US do? remove Saddam! The only bastion fighting the fundamentalists in that country... So the US were left with having to stop the fundamentalists from getting power... A struggle that carries on till this day... and will carry on for years to come... Hopefully not. But the US muffed that one, lying through their butt.

Errr, Gus, the White House is about to issue a correction.

It seems that a minor error of spelling led to the Bush mob blaming eye-RACK for everything, when it should have been eye-RAN, all along. Every thinking Yank, Skip and Pom will understand our leaders are only human, after all, and will forgive this insignificant typo. We can easily shift focus with the press of a button, and continue right on, as long as the targets of our hatred are not like us.

History is back on track! 

ps I had the fortune to hear Harry Secombe sing Fred's Lament (Il Lamento De Federico) on ABC FM this morning. Are there any like him left? If there is the slightest risk of a President Steve, the hereditary monarchy is looking better with every day.

T.G., the Goon Show is my favorite reflection in the mirror of my life... Crazy but not dangerous. Are we old enough to have listened to these shows LIVE?? Crickey!

According to these select committee reports (before the correction from the White Out house) on the "intelligence" "failures", the CIA honchos listened a bit too much to Challabi and his disaffected Iraqi troops... Hey, these CIA guys were giving him more than US$350,000 a month, for him to tell them what the White Out house wanted to hear!!!.

And evolution still has to fight the morons of creationism!! Blimey...

From the [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4815912.stm|BBC]

(Greenslade: This is the BBC Home Service. And candidly, I'm fed up with it.
....
Secombe: Come, curb those biting cynicisms and permit me to present the highly esteemed Goon Show.)

US evangelicals warn Republicans
By Jamie Coomarasamy
BBC News, Washington

Prominent leaders from the Christian right have warned Republicans they must do more to advance conservative values ahead of the US mid-term elections.

Their message to Congress, controlled by Republicans, is "must do better".
Support from about a quarter of Americans who describe themselves as evangelicals was a factor in President George W Bush's two election victories.
The Republicans will need to keep them onboard if they are to retain control of Congress in November.
At a news conference in Washington, some of America's most influential conservative leaders said the current perception among evangelical Christians was that the Republican majority was not doing enough for them.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said that apart from confirming two conservative judges to the Supreme Court, "core values voters" did not feel that Congress was advancing their interests.

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Gus: With this rigmarole going on we must be all doomed?

Rooned, maybe, when the oil runs out. But so what if have to scratch for a living with the backside out of our trousers? Brocky said he didn't need much to sustain his body, since he didn't smoke or drink, and ate simply. As long as we retain dignity, and respect for others. 

My paternal grandfather left his unskilled job, to go and collect his chunk of shrapnel in the neck at Gallipoli, on the King's business. Must have darn near killed him, but he finished with very little hearing. The soldier settler farm was a scratch-cocky effort on marginal land. My dad had to leave it at age 15, to make his own way, during the Depression. WWII must have given him and his brothers an awful shock, although one of them signed up with his older brother's birth certificate.  But at least there was structure, and some hope of prospects if they got through.

So, yairs, Brocky is just ahead of me. I was watching a fleet of hot Holden FXs (Bob and Bill Jane, etc) flog around Sandown, while Brocky would have been tuning his A30 in a paddock.

The surprising thing about Brock's crash is that he (apparently) had not driven the course to familiarise himself. Now, that was cocky, but fatal. I bet the race organisers change the rules on that score.

We lived with relics (not physical ones) of two world wars all round us. Did I ever mention Dieter, the Polish lad who lived with his parents in a one-room shack on a block, while his dad built their house? He was a bit of a lad, showed me an artillery shell they brought along as souvenir. Still had the important stuff in a marmite jar. Wouldn't be surprised if he used it to give his '34 Ford rod a bit of a lift.

We spent a good part of our youth up to the elbows in the gizzards of old Holdens. Now you can't even lift the bonnet on your vehicle without triggering an alarm in warrantee headquarters.

My life fades. The vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos. Ruined dreams. This wasted land. But most of all, I remember The Road Warrior. The man we called "Max". To understand who he was, you have to go back to another time...

I'll be glad I kept that set of spanners and sockets. 

U.S. Paid 10 Journalists for Anti-Castro Reports

By ABBY GOODNOUGH
Published: September 9, 2006
MIAMI, Sept. 8 — The Bush administration’s Office of Cuba Broadcasting paid 10 journalists here to provide commentary on Radio and TV Martí, which [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/09/washington/09cuba.html?_r=1&oref=slogin|transmit to Cuba] government broadcasts critical of Fidel Castro, a spokesman for the office said Friday.

The group included three journalists at El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language sister newspaper of The Miami Herald, which fired them Thursday after learning of the relationship. Pablo Alfonso, who reports on Cuba for El Nuevo Herald, received the largest payment, almost $175,000 since 2001.

Other journalists have been found to accept money from the Bush administration, including Armstrong Williams, a commentator and talk-show host who received $240,000 to promote its education initiatives. But while the Castro regime has long alleged that some Cuban-American reporters in Miami were paid by the government, the revelation on Friday, reported in The Miami Herald, was the first evidence of that.

--------- read more at the NYT

From the New York Times

C.I.A. Said to Find No Hussein Link to Terror Chief

By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: September 9, 2006
WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 — The Central Intelligence Agency [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/09/world/middleeast/09intel.html?ei=5094&en=6b11a9b2ce4125ad&hp=&ex=1157860800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all|last fall] repudiated the claim that there were prewar ties between Saddam Hussein’s government and an operative of Al Qaeda, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to a report issued Friday by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The disclosure undercuts continuing assertions by the Bush administration that such ties existed, and that they provided evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The Republican-controlled committee, in a second report, also sharply criticized the administration for its reliance on the Iraqi National Congress during the prelude to the war in Iraq.

read more at the NYT

Yes Gus ....

As has been mentioned many times before on this site, 911 was simply a cynical excuse for the maniacs in the out house to launch their latest imperial scheme to dominate the middle east & displace the soviets in controlling the key oil & gas resources in the region.

And, of course, not a squeak from the "great besider", jihad johnnee, who repeatedly uttered the same lies as the great decider. And our lazy media & the brain dead opposition don't even raise the issue.

From Al Jazeera

Coca-Cola moves in on Kabul

Sunday 10 September 2006, 17:21 Makka Time, 14:21 GMT
Coca-Cola [http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2AC96B63-3D34-48AA-8C1E-925AAC40A0A1.htm|has opened a $25m bottling plant] in the Afghan capital, Kabul, in one of the first major new businesses to open in the country since the fall of the Taliban government.
The drinks company has come to Kabul in what is being seen as both a sign of economic progress and a symbol of the failure of major businesses to open up in the five years since the US-led invasion to overthrow the government.
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, opened the bottling plant in the capital's industrial complex of Bagrami, which means sweet or fragrant, on Sunday.

Yairs, Gus. The possibilities are endless.

Some Afghani refugee youth, sponsored by a 'good' family, is likely to have high aspirations. The Howards are there to help, and why should an achiever be denied a paved road to attaining the correct values. So, Ahmed is smart as a whip, tops the class at the government school, and goes on to study medicine. He marries a nice Skip nurse from a rural background, and specialises in obesity surgery. First, the menial stuff, like liposuction and butt reduction, with discounts for politicians' lard arses. Then, after Tony Abbott readjusts the benefits schedule, Ahmed moves into stomach stapling for fat kids. He is overwhelmed by the line of business from ethnic families of all flavours. That's to say, he is well and truly integrated. He is careful never to offer a word of counsel or caution about unwise food choice. Why throttle the golden goose?

His kids go to St.Mary's school, and he votes Liberal at every opportunity.

Meanwhile, another generation of kids in remote communities is condemned to squalour and perpetual disadvantage, by broad indifference and incompetent and corrupt management.

People babble on about Howard being a 'hater'. This is bull. He is not driven by emotion, but by his spin-merchants. What will sell today? If necessary, Howard would spring the lever on a gallows in Martin Place erected to make an example of an extradited drug smuggler.

From [http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/bill_sics_legal_eagles_on_abc_nationalnews_philip_recchia______and_jennifer_fermino.htm|the New York Post]

September 10, 2006 -- Bill Clinton's camp yesterday demanded that ABC can its controversial film "The Path to 9/11," due to air tonight - and in a scathing new letter accused the network of exploiting the tragedy for ratings.
Clinton's wrath comes amid new revelations that the Toronto set of the fictionalized flick was plagued by actors' concerns that the script was playing fast and loose with the truth, sources told The Post.
Clinton's lawyer, Douglas Band, and the CEO of his foundation, Bruce Lindsey, penned the fuming missive to ABC bigwig Bob Iger. It was dated Friday but released to the press yesterday.
It begins with a friendly "Dear Bob" salutation - but quickly leaves the pleasantries behind. "As a nation, we need to be focused on preventing another attack, not fictionalizing the last one for television ratings," it reads.
But Clinton's aides, in a race to beat the clock before tonight's scheduled 8 p.m. telecast, used stronger language yesterday.
"Do the right thing for the country and pull this despicable work of fiction from the air," urged Jay Carson, a Clinton spokesman.

On Four Corners (ABC) tonight (11/09/06) out Prime Mincer announced that terrorism, as we know it, started on 9/11...
What a lot of cobble-poop!
Terrorism AS WE KNOW IT started way before that...

Even if we only study recent history, since the beginning of 1900, there has been many terrorist attacks "that have changed the course of history". During the Bill Clinton era, people like Bin laden were under massive surveillance and hunt... It's only because the little twerp in the White House — a little man who got elected by cheating — took his eye of the ball and go hit for six... that we are in this mess.

Going to war in Iraq on a packet of lies did not help the cause... and please whenever someone mentions the 3,000 dead of 9/11 as a reason to do whatever, make sure that someone also acknowledge the more than 100,000 dead in Iraq who died for nothing more than an ego trip, a packet of lies and a conspiracy by US neocons...

Peace Takes Courage