Free Internet Press Newsletter - Sunday June 17 2007 - (813)

Sunday June 17 2007 edition
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For U.S. And Allies, Mideast Morass Just Gets Deeper 2007-06-17 03:10:21 The Middle East is in flames. Over the past week, war erupted among the Palestinians and their government collapsed. A Shiite shrine in Iraq was bombed - again - as the new U.S. military strategy showed no sign of diminishing violence. Lebanon battled a new al-Qaeda faction in the north as a leading politician was assassinated in Beirut. And Egyptian elections were marred by irregularities, including police obstructing voters, in a serious setback to democracy efforts. U.S. policy in the region isn't faring much better, say Middle East and U.S. analysts. "It's close to a nightmare for the administration," Ellen Laipson, president of the Henry L. Stimson Center and former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council, said in an interview from Dubai. "They can't catch their breath. ... It makes Condi Rice's last year as secretary of state very daunting. What are the odds she can get virtually anything back on track?" Read The Full Story At Least 18 Killed As Bomb Rips Through Police Bus In Kabul 2007-06-17 03:09:35 A bomb ripped through a police bus in a crowded civilian area in Kabul on Sunday, killing at least 18 people and wounding more than 35 others, said an official and witnesses. The police academy bus was carrying several police recruits when the bomb went off inside it, leaving several dead, said Zalmai Khan, the deputy police chief of Kabul province. The thunderous explosion was heard throughout central Kabul at about 8:10 a.m. local time. Ali Shah Paktiawal, Kabul police director of criminal investigation, said initial reports indicated that dozens of policemen were feared dead. Read The Full Story Thank You! 2007-06-16 21:22:48   I'd like to take this opportunity to thank those who have recently donated to us! V.P.  $5 C.S.  $3 C.P. $50 G.M. $3 G.G. $52 Free Internet Press is operated solely on your donations.  Every dollar keeps us running!  If you use the donation button from the "User Options" screen (use the link to the left), your donation removes "unwanted" features such as the donation reminder, and advertisements.  Thanks for your donations and kind emails.  We sincerely appreciate them. JW Smythe Editor Free Internet Press Read The Full Story The Ganges - A Sacred River Endangered By Global Warming 2007-06-16 21:17:52 With her eyes sealed, Ramedi cupped the murky water of the Ganges River in her hands, lifted them toward the sun, and prayed for her husband, her 15 grandchildren and her bad hip. She, like the rest of India's 800 million Hindus, has absolute faith that the river she calls Ganga Ma can heal. Around Ramedi who, like some Indians has only one name, people converged on the riverbank in the early morning, before the day's heat set in. Women floated necklaces of marigolds on a boat of leaves, a dozen skinny boys soaped their hair as they bathed in their underwear, and a somber group of men carried a body to the banks of the river, a common ritual before the dead are cremated on wooden funeral pyres. To be cremated beside the Ganges, most here believe, brings salvation from the cycle of rebirth. "Ganga Ma is everything to Hindus. It's our chance to attain nirvana," said Ramedi, emerging from the river, her peach-colored sari dripping along the shoreline. Yet the prayer rituals carried out on the water's edge may not last forever - or even another generation, according to scientists and meteorologists. The Himalayan source of Hinduism's holiest river, they say, is drying up. Read The Full Story Bush Held Unannounced Meeting Thursday With Jewish Leaders, Plans To End Palestinian Embargo 2007-06-16 21:17:21 As he prepared for a visit this week from Israel's prime minister, President Bush held an unannounced meeting  Thursday with the top leadership of the United States' Jewish community to discuss the dramatic events in the Middle Eastand other foreign policy issues. Bush meets with smaller groups of Jewish leaders from time to time, but the gathering Thursday was the first time he had met with the entire leadership community, about 50 heads of Jewish advocacy, service and religious organizations of different political orientations. The White House did not disclose the private session on the president's schedule, and officials asked participants to treat Bush's remarks as off the record. Present for the session were the president's most senior aides, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten and political adviser Karl Rove. Read The Full Story Pentagon Report Critical Of Troops' Mental Health Care 2007-06-16 13:18:44 U.S. troops returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer "daunting and growing" psychological problems - with nearly 40 percent of soldiers, a third of Marines and half of the National Guard members reporting symptoms - but the military's cadre of mental-health workers is "woefully inadequate" to meet their needs, a Pentagon task force reported Friday. The congressionally mandated task force called for urgent and sweeping changes to a peacetime military mental health system strained by today's wars, finding that hundreds of thousands of the more than 1 million U.S. troops who have served at least one war-zone tour in Iraq or Afghanistan are showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety or other potentially disabling mental disorders. "Not since Vietnam have we seen this level of combat," said Vice Adm. Donald Arthur, co-chairman of the Department of Defense Mental Health Task Force. "With this increase in ... psychological need, we now find that we have not enough providers in our system," he said at a Pentagon news conference Friday unveiling the report. "Clearly, we have a deficit in our availability of mental-health providers." Read The Full Story Editorial: The Scarlet Letter 2007-06-16 13:18:16 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times' edition for Saturday, June 16, 2007. The editorial deals with some of the more significant amendments that may be added to the immigration bill now being taken up again by the U.S. Senate and says some of those changes are "manifestly awful". The editorial follows: By this time next week, the left-for-dead Senate immigration bill should be up off the slab, lurching toward a final vote. It almost died when Republicans tried to weigh it down with too many harsh amendments. But now it’s coming back, thanks to some late attention from President Bush, a rush to repackage it as a super-heavy-duty enforcement measure - with $4.4 billion to be thrown at the border right away, as a good-faith gesture to the anti-amnesty crowd - and a deal to limit the amendments from both parties to only a couple dozen. Congress’ struggle with immigration reform has been a horror movie, with one false ending after another, and there is still no telling what the monster will look like when the lights finally come up. People who have been watching through their fingers are right to be worried; the bill was harsh and has gotten harsher, a reflection of the rigidity of those who have vowed to kill any reform they consider amnesty. Keep a close eye this week on the amendments that make the short list for the coming debate. This will be the main opportunity for senators who were not involved in the “grand bargain” to shape - or eviscerate - the bill to their liking. Details were fluid into last night, but at least five of the possible amendments seem manifestly awful. Read The Full Story U.S. Finds I.D.s Of 2 Missing Soldiers 2007-06-16 13:17:46 The identification cards of two American soldiers missing since an attack on their unit in May were found in an al-Qaeda safe house north of Baghdad, along with video production equipment, computers and weapons, the U.S. military said Saturday. The house, discovered June 9 near Samarra - more than 100 miles from the area where they disappeared - was otherwise empty, according to the statement. American soldiers approaching the building came under fire from a nearby stand of trees, and two were wounded before air support could arrive. Spc. Alex R. Jimenez and Pvt. Byron Fouty were snatched in a raid on their 10th Mountain Division unit on May 12 near Youssifiyah. The body of a third soldier taken in the raid, Pfc. Joseph Anzack, Jr., was found floating in the Euphrates River. Four U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi translator were killed in the May 12 ambush. The Islamic State of Iraq, a front group for al-Qaeda, claimed in a video posted on the Internet this month that all three missing soldiers were killed and buried. The militants showed images of the military I.D.s of Jimenez, 25, of Lawrence, Massachusetts, and Fouty, 19, of Waterford, Michigan, but offered no proof that they were dead. Read The Full Story Behind In the GOP Candidate Polls, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul Is Huge On The Web 2007-06-16 03:01:08 On Technorati, which offers a real-time glimpse of the blogosphere, the most frequently searched term this week was "YouTube". Then comes "Ron Paul". The presence of the obscure Republican congressman from Texas on a list that includes terms such as "Sopranos", "Paris Hilton" and "iPhone" is a sign of the online buzz building around the long-shot Republican presidential hopeful - even as mainstream political pundits have written him off. Rep. Ron Paul is more popular on Facebook than Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona). He's got more friends on MySpace than former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. His MeetUp groups, with 11,924 members in 279 cities, are the biggest in the Republican field. And his official YouTube videos, including clips of his three debate appearances, have been viewed nearly 1.1 million times - more than those of any other candidate, Republican or Democrat, except Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois). Read The Full Story Gaza, West Bank Split Deepens 2007-06-16 03:00:37 Leaders of the Hamas and Fatah parties began operating parallel Palestinian governments Friday after days of intense factional fighting that have sharply defined the political and geographic divisions undermining the Palestinian drive for statehood. As street battles in the Gaza Strip gave way to calm, Palestinian analysts and Israeli officials said Hamas's swift military conquest of the strip has badly fractured the Palestinian territories and the government established 13 years ago to run them. The hardening differences could be seen in both Gaza and the West Bank, the two increasingly separate pieces of a future Palestinian state now administered by rival armed parties whose leaders each claimed Friday to be conducting official government business. The division has broad humanitarian and security implications for the Palestinians, for Israel and for foreign donor nations, which are weighing whether to end economic sanctions against the Palestinian Authority now that it no longer includes Hamas. Read The Full Story	Soldiers Return From The Battlefield With Psychological Wounds, But The VA Mental-Health System Makes Healing Difficult 2007-06-17 03:10:07 Army Spec. Jeans Cruz helped capture Saddam Hussein. When he came home to the Bronx in New York City,  important people called him a war hero and promised to help him start a new life. The mayor of New York, officials of his parents' home town in Puerto Rico, the borough president and other local dignitaries honored him with plaques and silk parade sashes. They handed him their business cards and urged him to phone. But a "black shadow" had followed Cruz home from Iraq, he confided to an Army counselor. He was hounded by recurring images of how war really was for him: not the triumphant scene of Hussein in handcuffs, but visions of dead Iraqi children. In public, the former Army scout stood tall for the cameras and marched in the parades. In private, he slashed his forearms to provoke the pain and adrenaline of combat. He heard voices and smelled stale blood. Soon the offers of help evaporated and he found himself estranged and alone, struggling with financial collapse and a darkening depression. At a low point, he went to the local Department of Veterans Affairs medical center for help. One Veterans Administration (V.A.) psychologist diagnosed Cruz with post-traumatic stress disorder. His condition was labeled "severe and chronic." In a letter supporting his request for PTSD-related disability pay, the psychologist wrote that Cruz was "in need of major help" and that he had provided "more than enough evidence" to back up his PTSD claim. His combat experiences, the letter said, "have been well documented." Read The Full Story UMP Get Oomph! Sarkozy's Party Set For Landslide Victory In French Assembly 2007-06-17 03:08:36 In the final seal of approval for President Nicolas Sarkozy from the French people, he appears to have won a crushing victory in Sunday's parliamentary elections. He now has a massive endorsement for an ambitious and controversial program of reforms. The latest round of polls gave the right-wing president's party, the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), a historic majority, with more than 65 per cent of the vote, paving the way for a summer of new laws and a potential winter of industrial discontent. The UMP, the party which Sarkozy led until being elected president in May for a five-year term, now seems likely to have up to 450 of the 577 seats in the national assembly. The total will be boosted by a variety of small centre-right groups who will be parliamentary allies. It is set to be the biggest single parliamentary majority under the 49-year-old constitution of the Fifth Republic. Read The Full Story Tony Blair Knew U.S. Had No Post-War Plan For Iraq 2007-06-16 21:18:08 Tony Blair agreed to commit British troops to battle in Iraq in the full knowledge that the Bush Administration had failed to make adequate preparations for the postwar reconstruction of the country. In a devastating account of the chaotic preparations for the war, which comes as Blair enters his final full week in Downing Street, key No. 10 aides and friends of Blair have revealed the Prime Minister repeatedly and unsuccessfully raised his concerns with the White House. He also agreed to commit troops to the conflict even though President George Bush had personally said Britain could help "some other way". Read The Full Story As Sunni Mosque Falls, Sadr Issues Call For March To Samarra 2007-06-16 21:17:38 Another Sunni mosque in the Basra area of southern Iraq was destroyed Saturday, as a leading Shiite cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, called on his followers to march to the Sunni town of Samarranext month to a revered Shiite shrine that was attacked Wednesday. The call for a pilgrimage to the Askariya shrine, also known as the Golden Mosque, could draw tens of thousands of Shiites into an area north of Baghdad that is a stronghold of the Sunni extremist group al-Qaeda in Iraq.  In an unrelated development, the U.S. military revealed Saturday that the identification cards of two American soldiers missing since May 12 were found a week ago during a raid on an al-Qaeda in Iraq safe house in Samarra, about 65 miles north of Baghdad. The soldiers, Spec. Alex R. Jimenez and Pvt. Byron W. Fouty, were abducted after their patrol was ambushed south of Baghdad. Four other soldiers and an Iraqi army interpreter were killed in the incident. Read The Full Story G.I.'s In Iraq Open Major Offensive Against Al-Qaeda 2007-06-16 21:16:35 With the influx of tens of thousands of additional combat troops into Iraq now complete, American forces have begun a wide offensive against Al-Qaeda in Iraqon the outskirts of Baghdad, the top American commander in Iraq said Saturday. The commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, in a news conference in Baghdad along with Defense Secretary Roberet M. Gates, said the operation was intended to take the fight to al-Qaeda's hide-outs in order to cut down the group’s devastating campaign of car bombings. The comments by General Petraeus were a signal that the United States military had yet again entered a new phase in Iraq, four months after the start of the so-called troop surge and a security plan focused on dampening sectarian violence within Baghdad. They reflected an acknowledgment that more has to be done beyond the city’s bounds to halt a relentless wave of insurgent attacks that have undercut attempts at political reconciliation. Read The Full Story Senior Justice Dept. Official, With Role In U.S. Attorney Firings, To Quit 2007-06-16 13:18:31 A fifth senior Justice Department official announced his resignation Friday in the wake of the controversy over the firings of nine U.S. attorneys last year. Michael J. Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, will leave the department at the end of next week to join an unidentified law firm, said officials. Elston was closely involved in deliberations over the fate of a group of U.S. attorneys last December. He assembled one of the lists of prosecutors to be considered for removal. Four of the dismissed prosecutors said they later received inappropriate telephone calls from Elston, who allegedly warned some of them that they would suffer retaliation if they spoke publicly about their firings. Elston and his attorney have denied the allegations. Read The Full Story Fatah Seizes Public Buildings, Including Parliament, In West Bank 2007-06-16 13:18:01 The Fatah faction, crushed in Gaza, moved to consolidate control over the West Bank Saturday, seizing public buildings, including the Parliament, and preparing to swear in a new government that did not include its rival, Hamas. The moves seemed to solidify the split between Palestinians, after five days of factional fighting ended on Thursday with Hamas, an Islamic group, in full control of the crowded coastal strip of Gaza. They also seemed to raise the risk of violence spreading to the occupied West Bank, where the secular and nationalist Fatah is dominant but Hamas retains pockets of strength - and some armed fighters, though the Israeli Army keeps them largely underground. With Hamas leaders keeping a low profile in the West Bank, there was no resistance Saturday as Fatah gunmen took over the Parliament in Ramallah and government buildings in Hebron and Nablus. There were reports that other buildings controlled by Hamas, including charity and political offices, were seized. Read The Full Story Prosecutors Urge Prison Time For Interior Dept.'s Griles 2007-06-16 13:16:22 Former deputy interior secretary J. Steven Griles asked lobbyist Jack Abramoff for many favors for close female friends and in exchange helped Abramoff's clients at the government agency, according to prosecutors, who urged a federal judge to give Griles substantial prison time. Griles pleaded guilty in March to a felony count of obstructing the Senate Indian Affairs Committee's investigation of Abramoff, admitting that he lied to the panel and its investigators about his relationship with the now-convicted lobbyist. A Justice Department memo filed in court Friday contends that Griles avidly pushed Abramoff's requests, sometimes browbeating officials who objected and advising the lobbyist how to get around them. In a detailed 48-page memo prepared for Griles' sentencing later this month before Judge Ellen S. Huvelle, prosecutors said Griles "was not shy" about asking for jobs and financial help for four women who were "his close personal friends." Cited in the sentencing papers are the sworn statements of Italia Federici, one of Griles' former girlfriends who ran a Republican environmental advocacy group. Federici this month pleaded guilty to tax and perjury charges and agreed to cooperate with the government's wide-ranging Abramoff probe. Read The Full Story Shadow War In Iraq Escalates In Intensity 2007-06-16 03:00:55 Private security companies, funded by billions of dollars in U.S. militrary and State Department contracts, are fighting insurgents on a widening scale in Iraq,enduring daily attacks, returning fire and taking hundreds of casualties that have been underreported and sometimes concealed, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials and company representatives. While the military has built up troops in an ongoing campaign to secure Baghdad, the security companies, out of public view, have been engaged in a parallel surge, boosting manpower, adding expensive armor and stepping up evasive action as attacks increase, said the officials and company representatives. One in seven supply convoys protected by private forces has come under attack this year, according to previously unreleased statistics; one security company reported nearly 300 "hostile actions" in the first four months. The majority of the more than 100 security companies operate outside of Iraqi law, in part because of bureaucratic delays and corruption in the Iraqi government licensing process, according to U.S. officials. Blackwater USA, a prominent North Carolina firm that protects U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker,and several other companies have not applied, said U.S. and Iraqi officials. Blackwater said that it obtained a one-year license in 2005 but that shifting Iraqi government policy has impeded its attempts to renew. Read The Full Story
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