No wonder we’re having such trouble finding bin-Laden (assuming anyone is really looking for the guy anymore) we can’t even really figure out if we’ve killed or captured a guy, when his is or isn’t in our presence.  We’re not really sure to tell the truth.  Confused?  I know I am.

Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq, has not been captured, a senior U.S. military official told CNN on Friday.

Iraqi authorities said Thursday that al-Masri had been captured in Mosul.

U.S. military officials were surprised about the report of Abu Ayyub al-Masri’s capture — first reported by Iraqi media and picked up by The Associated Press. And intelligence officials said they were skeptical, even though Iraqi officials said al-Masri was already in U.S. military custody.

Al-Masri (”the Egyptian”), also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, took the reins of the Iraqi al Qaeda offshoot in June 2006 after a U.S. missile strike killed his predecessor, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Since then, Iraqi officials have reported his death three times, his capture twice and a mortal wounding once.

So either the guy is a zombie, a magician, a figment of our imaginations, or- all these intellegence officials are completely lacking in intellegence.  Which do you think it is?

Iraqi officials have also misreported the deaths or capture of other high-ranking insurgents, Baathists or others, including al-Zarqawi before he was killed and Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, the highest ranking former member of Saddam Hussein’s regime still at large.

Al-Duri, who was the King of Clubs (No. 6) on the U.S. military’s deck of most wanted regime officials, was most recently reported captured two weeks ago by multiple Iraqi officials. He had previously been reported killed in 2005 and captured the year before.

Wow… kinda helps you sleep at night knowing the Keystone Cops are working in conjuntion with Mr. Magoo to keep Iraq, and the rest of the world, safe and secure- doesn’t it?

Popularity: 2% [?]

Could this finally be the beginning sign that the shrinking middle class and the working man have had enough, and are now ready to do something about it?

West Coast ports were shut down on Thursday as thousands of longshoremen failed to report for work, part of what their union leaders said was a one-day, one-shift protest against the war in Iraq.

Cranes and forklifts stood still from Seattle to San Diego, and ships were stalled at sea as workers held rallies up and down the coast to blame the war for distracting public attention and money from domestic needs like health care and education.

“We’re loyal to America, and we won’t stand by while our country, our troops and our economy are being destroyed by a war that’s bankrupting us to the tune of $3 trillion,” the president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Bob McEllrath, said in a written statement. “It’s time to stand up, and we’re doing our part today.”

About 25,000 union members are employed at 29 West Coast ports, but the protest took place only during the day shift. A spokesman for the main West Coast employers’ group, the Pacific Maritime Association, said it appeared that about 6,000 workers did not show up for work, which meant that about 10,000 containers would not be loaded or unloaded from about 30 cargo ships.

In Oakland, Calif., some truckers who said they were angry about high gas prices decided not to cross picket lines at the port.

“I got here ready to haul,” said César Lara, 41, a resident of Richmond, Calif., born in Zacatecas, Mexico. “They told me it was a picket but if I wanted to go in I could. But I’m supporting them and to end the war.”

Several drivers said truckers were planning their own nationwide work stoppage in the next several days to protest record-high gas prices and surcharges.

Port shutting down, even if only for a matter of hours, cargo delivery trucks threatening to stop hauling, if all of this were to happen all at once, a vast portion of America’s basic day to day would suddenly stop. And if the people are going to make a change- it is this kind of bold action, action that has visible consequences, that will make the people in charge of big decisions sit up and take notice.

So is this a one time thing, or the beginning of a movement of the folks stuck under the thumb of the government and big business? That remains to be seen.

Popularity: 2% [?]

The Republican National Committee has been sending out the following article written by Zachary Roth from the Columbia Journalism Review.  Now, I know I for one have taken issue with statements attributed to Prez hopeful John McCain in regards to the length of time troops could wind up staying in Iraq, but at the same time, many of us have been a bit misdirected in how exactly he said it, read on-

Ever since John McCain said at a town hall meeting in January that he could see U.S. troops staying in Iraq for a hundred years, the Democrats have been trying to use the quote to paint the Arizona senator as a dangerous warmonger. …

But in doing so, Obama is seriously misleading voters — if not outright lying to them — about exactly what McCain said. …

Here’s McCain’s full quote, in context, from back in January:

Questioner: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for fifty years…

McCain: Maybe a hundred. Make it one hundred. We’ve been in South Korea, we’ve been in Japan for sixty years. We’ve been in South Korea for fifty years or so. That’d be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. Then it’s fine with me. I would hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day.

It’s clear from this that McCain isn’t saying he’d support continuing the war for one hundred years, only that it might be necessary to keep troops there that long. That’s a very different thing. …

Nevertheless, back in February, Obama said: “We are bogged down in a war that John McCain now suggests might go on for another hundred years.” …

Today, for instance, he said: “We can’t afford to stay in Iraq, like John McCain said, for another hundred years.” … In other words, he’s gone from lying about what McCain said to being deeply misleading about it. Progress, of a kind. …

To be clear, if Obama wants to take issue with McCain’s willingness to keep U.S. troops in Iraq for a hundred years in any capacity, that’s obviously his right. But that’s not the same as misleading voters about what McCain is proposing …

True.  McCain isn’t saying he wants to stay in Iraq for the next hundred years.  Just that he’s willing to do so.

Glad we’ve got that cleared up.  Semantics are wonderful fun aren’t they?  I for one am not swayed to McCain’s side by this.  Because not only do I not want to see our troops (self included) in Iraq for the next hundred years.  I’m not willing to vote for a man who’s willing to have that happen, regardless of the capacity.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Answer- Someone needs to step down and they all need to learn how to fucking get along!

You’ll have to excuse me here for getting a little worked up, but seriously, WTF is going on?  It’s a wretched time to be an American.  We’ve got recession on tap, joblessness (can’t say unemployment because most jobless people have given up on looking for new job and filing for unemployment, so the numbers are going down) never-ending war, and the people we all hoped might be able to drag us out of this won’t get out of each other’s shit, unite, and try to actually do something good for the country and it’s people.  Like Bill Clinton said recently- “Chill out.”  (Only, he said it for the wrong cause.  Bill buddy, your wife is losing.  Get over it.)

Democrats… someone either stop Hillary, or tell Obama that he’s good, the people like him, but the machine wants him to wait his turn.  Because right now, the more the two candidates drag this out and go back and forth with each other, the longer McCain gets to be largely ignored by the media and come into the actual elections looking relatively good- as he’s spent months letting the Dems do the work of tearing themselves apart for him.

And Iraq… oh Iraq.  We need to talk.  There’s something that’s been bugging us lately, and it’s mostly got to do with the fact that you all really don’t want us around.  Well guess what?  We don’t really want to be there either, but unless you can get all your religious factions to unite around common love for your state, we’re not going to be allowed to leave because someone somewhere thinks we’re keeping the peace or something.  I don’t give a rats ass if you’re a sunni or shiite or kurd, or if the whole damn country decides to convert to scientology.  Don’t care.  But guess what, I don’t agree with what the psycho-right-wing-conservative-christian-led government we’ve got here is up to 99% of the time, but shooting up the joint isn’t really the best way to go about these things.  Especially where you’ve got psycho-right-wing-conservative-christian-cowboys like Dubbya involved in the show. 

Ok, militias, the top dog wants you all to lay down your arms.  Got it.  Welcome to every backwoods NRA member asshole’s compound up in the forests of bumfuck USA.  “You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead hand”.  If you want to keep your guns, go hole up somewhere, shut up, and if you keep yours asses out of trouble, people will ignore you.  Then you can set up target practice ranges and fire off all the weapons you want.  al-Maliki, al-Sadr, you two need to sit down and work something out, or one of you has to take your people and go somewhere else.  It’s that simple.

And hey, we’ll accept blame.  We came into Iraq, we fucked it all up, factioned you guys up worse than before, and then played you all against each other so that we could claim we were working with the people to fight extremists. 

Look, we’d love to make things better for you guys, but haven’t you realized?  We can’t even figure out the relatively simple issue of our own country, which largely sits within the same political and religious spectrum, with a few easily workable differences (”in god we trust” is on the money, guess what- money IS the god we’re putting our trust in.  It’s got nothing to do with Jesus.  So atheists, I feel for you, but currency is the god we’re all kneeling to, you included.  Get over it.)  so how in the blue hell do you think we’re gonna be able to figure you guys out?  You all need to fix your damn country so we can pretend we had something to do with it, and leave feeling proud that we “stayed the course” or “accomplished the mission” or some other bumper sticker nonsense.

Which brings me back home…  Dems.  If you really want to fix America, start with yourselves.  If you’re not going to pull troops out, then say it.  Stop all the bullshit about pulling “combat forces” from Iraq, meaning you’ll be leaving just about everyone who’s over there now, because a large brunt of the forces are either support, or “peace keeping” or training.  And stop pretending you’re anything but politicians.  You’re not preachers, you’re not working class, you’re not heroes or victims… you’re politicians.  You’re walking talking scum sucking pieces of trash that unfortunately we need to run our country without us because the public that was supposed to be keeping tabs on things- decided to watch The Simple Life with Paris Hilton instead of caring about what’s going on in the economy (wish you’d paid atttention now don’t you?).  And for the love of god (read: $) settle down and pick just one person to run for President, because as bad as a Democrat might be in office… at least it wouldn’t be another Republican promising continued war and having no ideas in regards to domestic policies.  Sorry John, I can appreciate your past and all, but Iraq is a money pit, and we’re not really set up to “win” anything without sinking our country so deep it’ll never recover.

I know I’ve gotten off on a bit of a rant here today… but let’s face it, if you’re not pissed off- you’re not paying enough attention.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I thought it would be beneficial to let everyone know about a two part television special called “Bush’s War” airing on PBS next week.

I’m happy to hear it’s being produced and broadcasted by PBS. They adhere to the highest standards of journalistic integrity, guidelines, and practices. This translates to a program that you can feel confident knowing the information presented is truthful.

Check out their guideline on journalistic standards and practices here.

The show will air Monday, March 24, 2008, from 9 to 11:30 P.M. and Tuesday, March 25, from 9 to 11 P.M. ET on PBS.

Combined with fresh reporting and new interviews, Bush’s War will be the definitive documentary analysis of one of the most challenging periods in the nation’s history.

“Parts of this history have been told before,” Kirk says. “But no one has laid out the entire narrative to reveal in one epic story the scope and detail of how this war began and how it has been fought, both on the ground and deep inside the government.”

Be prepared for many more shows and movies focusing on the last eight years of the Bush reign. By the end of the year, Olivier Stone will be producing a full length feature movie about how President Bush came to power.

I’ll be tuned in Monday and Tuesday night to see if PBS will truely stick to the facts as we know them to be today. Or, if we’ll find the episodes fueled by the national rage over the Iraq & Afghanistan wars.

Popularity: 4% [?]