Bush threatens attack over 'lies'
Bush threatens Iraq attack over alleged deception by Saddam

George Bush has threatened to unleash a military assault on Iraq if Saddam Hussein continues to deny possessing banned weapons of mass destruction.
[more]

How does he know they are lies without any inspections? What a charade.

A war that can't be won
The west isn't just losing the fight against terrorism - it is fuelling it across the globe

One year on, the crowing has long since faded away; reality has sunk in. After six months of multiplying Islamist attacks on US, Australian and European targets, civilian and military - in Tunisia, Pakistan, Kuwait, Russia, Jordan, Yemen, the US and Indonesia - western politicians are having to face the fact that they are losing their war on terror. In Britain, the prime minister has taken to warning of the "painful price" that the country will have to pay to defeat those who are "inimical to all we stand for", while leaks about the risk of chemical or biological attacks have become ever more lurid. After a year of US military operations in Afghanistan and around the world, the CIA director George Tenet had to concede that the threat from al-Qaida and associated jihadist groups was as serious as before September 11. "They've reconstituted, they are coming after us," he said.

In other words, the global US onslaught had been a complete failure - at least as far as dealing with non-state terrorism was concerned. Tom Daschle, the Democrats' leader in the Senate, was even more brutal. Summing up a litany of unmet objectives in the US confrontation with militant Islamism, he asked: "By what measure can we say this has been successful?" But most galling of all has been the authentication of the latest taped message from Bin Laden himself, promising bloody revenge for the deaths of the innocent in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. This was the man whose capture or killing was, after all, the first objective of Bush's war. And yet, along with the Taliban leader and one-eyed motorbiker Mullah Omar, the mastermind of America's humiliation remains free.
[more]

Shostakovich, Symphony No. 11

Jagged shrapnel searing its way into flesh, phosphorous shell particles scorching their way into chests and bellies, hobnail boots trampling prone bodies lying defenselessly on soil already bloodied are not the everyday subject matters for symphonic compositions. Yet, Dimitri Shostakovich wrote a symphony based on such horrors. It is Symphony #11 in G minor, Op 103 'The Year 1905.' (...)

Do we not hear the dreaded sound of hobnailed boots in America today? Are we not being readied for a new crusade of killing? Does not the propaganda alert us to detect enemies within and without? Draconian laws are in place to seek and destroy. Our enemies, we are told, are not only bin Laden and Saddam Hussein; our enemies are also citizens who avow values differing from the official party line!

Have we not been told that those who disagree with presidential edicts are enemies of the state? Have we not been warned that opposition to the new Christian America is not patriotic? Are not dogmas announcing a new Inquisition springing up all around us? Do we not hear the oppressive drum roles of a regime seeking to condemn all who dare to reject in the name of liberty the coming despotism? (...)

The terror of Shostakovitch’s 11th is but a reflection of things to come throughout the land.
[more]

thanks to wood s lot