Titanic Post

Gleaned from the The Jerusalem Post
5/20/08

US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran in the upcoming months, before the end of his term, Army Radio quoted a senior official in Jerusalem as saying Tuesday.

The official claimed that a senior member of the president’s entourage, which concluded a trip to Israel last week, said during a closed meeting that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action was called for. (more…)

Immigration is real in southern New Mexico. Living only 90 miles from the Mexican border, there is nothing academic about it: they are here. Traditionally, people come and go between Old and New Mexico. There are ties between Mexican Mexicans and Mexican Americans going back for centuries and to them the border is no barrier. What’s more, Mexicans were here before we “Anglos” even thought about gettin’ here, but that’s beside the point. Mexican citizens come here to enjoy the cool of the mountains in the summer time. They visit our Space Museum and our zoo. Some come to visit relatives and others come to work on the ranches and farms. Others work construction jobs such as brick laying, roofing, and cement finishing. This is not only because they work for less, but also because there is a shortage of skilled workers here since the demise of trade schools and public schools’ insistance on academic preparation

Yet illegal immigration is a problem and we have to deal with it. (more…)

EDWARD HELMORE, GUARDIAN - An alcoholic cousin of an aide to Ahmed Chalabi has emerged as the key source in the US rationale for going to war in Iraq. According to a US presidential commission looking into pre-war intelligence failures, the basis for pivotal intelligence on Iraq’s alleged biological weapons programs and fleet of mobile labs was a spy described as ‘crazy’ by his intelligence handlers and a ‘congenital liar’ by his friends.

The defector, given the code-name Curveball by the CIA, has emerged as the central figure in the corruption of US intelligence estimates on Iraq. Despite considerable doubts over Curveball’s credibility, his claims were included in the administration’s case for war without caveat.

According to the report, the failure of US spy agencies to scrutinize his claims are the ‘primary reason’ that they ‘fundamentally misjudged the status of Iraq’s [biological weapons] programs.’. . .

The Americans never had direct access to Curveball - he was controlled by the German intelligence services who passed his reports on to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s spy agency. Between January 2000 and September 2001, Curveball offered 100 reports, among them the claims of mobile biological weapons labs that were central in the US evidence of an illicit weapons program, but subsequently turned out to be trucks equipped with machinery to make helium for weather balloons.

The commission concluded that Curveball’s information was worse than none at all. ‘Worse than having no human sources, ‘it said,’is being seduced by a human source who is telling lies.’

They keep talking about the Constitution for a new Iraq. Why don’t we just give them ours? It was written by some really smart people, it has worked for over 200 years, and we’re not using it anymore.