Oh Jesus, not the beginning, I hope….

From Debka

Exclusive: First frank talk of potential war on Iran from top US soldier

April 26, 2008, 10:10 AM (GMT+02:00)

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff

Addressing a news conference in Washington, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday, April 25, the Pentagon is planning for “potential military courses of action” against Iran. He spoke of the Tehran government’s “increasingly lethal and malign influence” in Iraq. A conflict with Iran would be “extremely stressing” he said, but not impossible and “it would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability.” The admiral stressed the reserve capabilities of the Navy and Air Force.

Adm. Mullen’s statement came four days after US defense secretary Robert Gates said he favored keeping the military option against Iran on the table “given the destabilizing policies of the regime and the risks inherent in a future Iranian nuclear threat – either directly or through proliferation.”

DEBKAfile’s military sources report those remarks were underscored by news of large US naval, air and marine forces on their way to beef up the Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf and Middle East.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources reported Friday that the USS Harry S. Truman Strike Group has just taken up position in Persian Gulf waters. It consists of 12 warships led by the giant LSD-41 class USS Whidby Island landing craft, submarines and eight assault squadrons. The legend on their banner is: Give ‘em Hell.

Another nuclear aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, will soon set out for the region from the South China Sea, along with two more US naval strike forces: the USS Kitty Hawk and the USS Nimitz attended by strike groups.

Adm. Mullen went on to say: “I have no expectations that we’re going to get into a conflict with Iran in the immediate future.” Our sources ask what time scale is indicated by the indefinite “immediate future” – the 8 months remaining to the Bush presidency or thereafter.

Mullen tied his remarks to Iran’s “increasingly lethal and malign influence” in Iraq. Of late, the US Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus pointed out that Iran is interfering increasingly in Iran and continues to arm insurgent militias.

The Tehran government is clearly not deterred by Washington’s warnings or its military movements.

Remeber Rondney King? Does ANYTHING ever change?

I hope NYC doesn’t burn down, but I could hardly blame anyone if it did.

ANYONE WHO GIVES A SHIT IN NY SHOULD BE HEADING DOWN TO NYPD HEADQUARTERS TO DEMONSTRATE.

NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BREAKING NEWS: Officers Found Not Guilty In Sean Bell Case

NEW YORK — Three police detectives have been found not guilty of all charges in the shooting death of Sean Bell, the groom-to-be who was killed on his wedding day outside a Queens strip club.

Officers Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora and Marc Cooper were acquitted of all counts after Bell died in a hail of 50 police bullets. Bell, a 23-year-old black man, was shot just hours before he was to be married on Nov. 25, 2006. He was unarmed.

# Verdict Sheet

Oliver, 36, and Isnora, 29, faced charges of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment. Cooper, 40, faced charges of reckless endangerment.

Justice Arthur Cooperman delivered the verdict in a Queens courtroom packed with spectators, including victim Sean Bell’s fiancee and parents, as at least 200 people gathered outside the building.

The verdict provoked an outpouring of emotions: Bell’s fiancee immediately walked out of the room. His mother cried. Gasps were heard throughout the room.

Shouts of “No!” and “Not guilty!” erupted in the crowd outside the courthouse as word of the verdict began to spread. Dozens of people in the crowd began crying after hearing the verdict.

A number of people who had gathered at the scene also scuffled with police.

In a statement, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said there were “no winners” in a trial in which “an innocent man lost his life.” He urged New Yorkers to accept the judge’s authority, even though they might disagree with his decision.

“There will be opportunities for peaceful dissent and potentially for further legal recourse — those are the rights we enjoy in a democratic nation,” Bloomberg said. “We don’t expect violence or law-breaking, nor is there any place for it. We have come too far as society — and as a City — to be dragged back to those days.”

Before announcing the verdict, the judge made a statement indicating that the police officers’ version of events was more credible than the victims’ version. “The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that each defendant was not justified” in shooting the victims, Cooperman said.

Officers Michael Oliver, 36, and Gescard Isnora, 29, stood trial for manslaughter while Officer Marc Cooper, 40, was charged only with reckless endangerment. Two other shooters weren’t charged. Oliver squeezed off 31 shots; Isnora fired 11 rounds; and Cooper shot four times.

A conviction on manslaughter could have brought up to 25 years in prison.

The case brought back painful memories of other NYPD shootings, such as the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo — an African immigrant who was gunned down in a hail of 41 bullets by police officers who mistook his wallet for a gun. The acquittal of the officers in that case created a storm of protest, with hundreds arrested after taking to the streets in demonstration.

The mood surrounding this case has been muted by comparison, although Bell’s fiancee, parents and their supporters, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, have held rallies demanding that the officers — two of whom are black — be held accountable.

The officers, complaining that pretrial publicity had unfairly painted them as cold-blooded killers, opted to have the judge decide the case rather than a jury.

The nearly two-month trial was marked by deeply divergent accounts on the part of defense lawyers and prosecutors.

The defense painted the victims as drunken thugs who the officers believed were armed and dangerous. Prosecutors sought to convince the judge that the victims had been minding their own business, and that the officers were inept, trigger-happy aggressors.

In his closing arguments, prosecutor Charles Testagrossa alluded to the starkly different views of the shooting.

“If you are a police officer or sympathetic to police officers, the defendants are tragic heroes and the victims are thugs,” he said. “If you are friends of the victims, then the defendants are murderers.”

None of the officers took the witness stand in his own defense.

Instead, Cooperman heard transcripts of the officers testifying before a grand jury, saying they believed they had good reason to use deadly force. The judge also heard testimony from Bell’s two injured companions, who insisted the maelstrom erupted without warning.

Both sides were consistent on one point: The utter chaos surrounding the last moments of Bell’s life.

“It happened so quick,” Isnora in his grand jury testimony. “It was like the last thing I ever wanted to do.”

Bell’s companions — Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman — also offered dramatic testimony about the episode. Benefield and Guzman were both wounded; Guzman still has four bullets lodged in his body.

Referring to Isnora, Guzman said, “This dude is shooting like he’s crazy, like he’s out of his mind.”

The victims and shooters were set on a fateful collision course by a pair of innocuous decisions: Bell’s to have a last-minute bachelor party at Kalua Cabaret, and the undercover detectives’ to investigate reports of prostitution at the club.

The party, according to Bell’s friends, was boozy but uneventful. But the undercovers were jumpy.

“I felt uncomfortable,” testified Detective Hispolito “Hip” Sanchez, who with Isnora posed as a patron that night. “I just didn’t feel good about it.”

As the club closed around 4 a.m., Sanchez and Isnora claimed they overheard Bell and his friends first flirt with women, then taunt a stranger who responded by putting his right hand in his pocket as if he had a gun. Guzman, they testified, said, “Yo, go get my gun” — something Bell’s friends denied.

Isnora said he decided to arm himself, call for backup — “It’s getting hot,” he told his supervisor — and tail Bell, Guzman and Benefield as they went around the corner and got into Bell’s car. He claimed that after warning the men to halt, Bell pulled away, bumped him and rammed an unmarked police van that converged on the scene with Oliver at the wheel.

The detective also alleged that Guzman made a sudden move as if he were reaching for a gun.

“I yelled ‘Gun!’ and fired,” he said. “In my mind, I knew (Guzman) had a gun.”

Benefield and Guzman testified that there were no orders. Instead, Guzman said, Isnora “appeared out of nowhere” with a gun drawn and shot him in the shoulder — the first of 16 shots to enter his body.

“That’s all there was — gunfire,” he said. “There wasn’t nothing else.”

With tires screeching, glass breaking and bullets flying, the officers claimed that they believed they were the ones under fire. Oliver responded by emptying his semiautomatic pistol, reloading, and emptying it again, as the supervisor dived for cover.

The truth emerged when the smoke cleared: There was no weapon inside Bell’s blood-splattered car.

After an ambulance was summoned, the shaken detectives gathered in the middle of the street — a scene the supervisor described as “surreal.”

“We were all in shock,” he said. “We thanked God that none of us were hit and we were going home.”

In closing arguments, defense attorneys accused prosecutors of building their case on the unreliable testimony of Bell’s friends. They noted that Guzman and Benefield both have criminal records and $50 million lawsuits against the city.

The pair were part of “a parade of convicted felons, crack dealers and men who were not strangers to weapons,” said James Culleton, Oliver’s attorney.

A lawyer for Isnora, Anthony Ricco, portrayed his client as an unjustly vilified hero who had exercised “enormous restraint” before pulling the trigger. But Testagrossa depicted the detectives as cowboys who wildly overreacted to some harmless trash talk. He suggested Oliver was the worst offender.

“Thirty-one shots,” the prosecutor said. “Thirty-one separate pulls of the trigger. … Thirty-one separate decisions to use deadly force. Thirty-one opportunities to pause and reassess whether continuing firing was necessary.

“Thirty-one opportunities to save an innocent life.”

Analysis: Assad caught red-handed may now go for revenge

From Debka

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April 25, 2008, 1:23 PM (GMT+02:00)

Ready for nuclear fuel rods as per North Korean model

US and Israel intelligence experts upgrade the chances of president Bashar Assad retaliating for the Israeli attack, which irreparably damaged the secret nuclear North Korea built for him in eastern Syria – now that the episode is out in the open. DEBKAfile quotes those experts as recalling Saddam Hussein’s burning ambition to hit Israel’s nuclear site at Dimona after Israeli jets smashed Iraq’s French built nuclear reactor in 1981.

Assad will find it hard to avoid avenging his humiliation Thursday, April 24, when America’s top intelligence officials briefing congressional committees laid bare detail after detail of Syria’s nuclear program. They all agreed that it was incumbent on the United States to take further steps against Iran as well as Syria to avert any more developments which endanger the world.

The briefing brought out key data hidden from the public in the eight months since the Israeli raid.

1. It confirmed DEBKAfile’s October 2007 report that North Korean personnel had built a reactor for the production of plutonium in a remote part of Syria.

2. Israel managed to plant a mole or moles inside the reactor compound capable of producing professional photos from inside the reactor. US lawmakers where shown, for instances, images of a concrete floor with rows of holes ready for the nuclear fuel rods to power the plant.

Assad must have been irked beyond endurance when his most coveted secrets and security were shown to the world as having been blown wide open, when the regime he heads depends for its survival on a battery of secret police and undercover agencies with eyes and ears everywhere.

3. The Israeli raid demonstrated too that Syria’s military establishment has been penetrated as fatally as his clandestine agencies.

4. The congressional briefing will have done more to mar the relations of trust between Tehran and Damascus than any diplomatic or military action. Cracks are inevitable in their strategic pact. It will be hard for Iran to continue to pose as the No. 1 Middle East power after Syria, its foremost ally and military mainstay, exposed its extreme vulnerability.

5. Tehran’s precise role in the Syrian nuclear program is not known, but it was obvious to the American lawmakers listening to the intelligence briefing that Syria would not have built a nuclear reactor with Iran’s knowledge and consent, and that the Syrian plant was designed to be an integral part of Iran’s own nuclear program.

Iran will no doubt have inferred from the disclosures about the Israeli attack on the Syrian reactor and its painful fallout for the Assad regime that its own projects may be subjected to the same fate.

It is a matter of record now that Israel is the only country in the world to have ever destroyed two nuclear reactors in successful go-it-alone, intelligence-backed military operations.

How to rescue our degenerated Democracy

Over the next few weeks I’m going to be working on building a legislative package that will save our democratic process.

There are a number or things that need to be done.

1. Restore the “fairness” doctrine to broadcast mediums including the cable channels. A license to broadcast is a license to print money. This creates an obligation on the part of the licensees to serve the public trust.

1. Creation of “The Political Channel” paid for entirely by taxpayers and required to be carried on all cable networks, satellite providers and simulcast to the internet. This channel will carry for FREE adds for political candidates up to half an hour for major candidates. Local candidates will all have their FREE time as well.

1. Outlaw any political advertising on commercial television. If we can stop them from selling cigarettes we can stop them from force feeding distorted political adds to the masses. The only ones who will lose from this are the broadcasters who take in billions selling lies to the American public every 4 years. Plenty of countries have rules similar to this. It works fine by forcing the commercial TV to provide free time. I prefer the idea of the “Political Channel” because I don’t believe people should be forced to watch any political adds.

1. Since something like 80% of a campaign’s cost is in TV adds, there will be much less pressure on politicians to raise money all the time instead of doing their jobs.

5.Put our anti-trust laws into effect. Undo the disastrous conglomeration of all media into a few hands by requiring the breakup of the big ones. Anti-trust laws are there not only to encourage competition but to prevent monopolies. There can be no more dangerous monopolies than on those that affect the electorate. This includes all media. Print, TV, Cable, whatever.

Barack should stress that this is the best way to guarantee a well informed public in the future. It will also save the economy billions of dollars that should be spent improving infrastructure, like internet 2, instead.

By removing the main need to raise money, maybe we can actually get the public financing system to work like it was meant to. Why should ANYONE need to spend 150 million dollars to run for office. That way, the politicians can look to their electorate rather than fat-cat corporations for guidance on their policy decisions.

Just a preview of what I hope to put together over the next few weeks. Probably the biggest stumbling block will be the 1st amendment, but my impression is that there are enough precedents out there to make these new laws stick.

Of course we’ll need Dem majorities in both houses to back Barack on this. But given the low esteem that the MSM is held in by most the public, Barack could probably make some good headway by jawboning them. I mean, look at that last debate. He’s already started in on that, but he’s doing it in a humorous fashion. Come the general election, maybe he should become a LOT more serious about it.

Make no mistake about it, if we don’t fix the media mess and the moneyed politics that expensive TV buys require, we will NEVER fix this country.

Two Nobel Prize Economists Recommend Obama

From Kos

by Overseas [Subscribe]

Fri Apr 25, 2008 at 05:50:05 AM PDT

MSNBC has two Nobel Prize economists on right now. They were asked which of the three – Obama, Clinton or McCain – would be best for the economy, and both replied Obama.

Joseph Stiglitz, who was connected to the Clinton presidency and a 2001 prize winner, said that Obama’s speech 3 weeks ago on the economy was brilliant. He also said that the deregulation of the markets during Clinton’s presidency was a mistake and the markets need to be re-regulated.

Edmund Phelps, 2006 prize winner, agreed. We need a new way of looking at the economy and Obama is the one that can do that. We do not need the thinking of the past.

What great endorsements there!