United Kingdom

TELL THE SENATE TO RALLY BEHIND THE WEBB AMENDMENT TO PRECLUDE ATTACKING IRAN

Call your members of Congress now toll free at 800-828-0498, 800-459-1887 or 800-614-2803.

Don't let anyone ever tell us again our voices are not heard. Today the Senate REJECTED an attempt to strip the Iraq withdrawal time line from the current supplemental, just as you called for them to do. And in the remaining days of the week, before Congress takes a spring recess, there is one more urgent call we must make, to tell the Senate to pass an amendment being offered by new Senator James Webb to head off a NEW war with Iran without express congressional approval.

Ah yes, the Poodle Punts whilst the Chimpsters escalate. And yet the Smirkites say it's a good thang... yeah right! Bullshit ALERT. Denmark's also pulling out... that makes it the Coalition of the Leaving! Guess the bribe money's runnin' out...

Blair announces Iraq troops cut

Some 1,600 British troops will return from Iraq within the next few months, Prime Minister Tony Blair has told MPs. He said the 7,100 serving troops would be cut to 5,500 soon, with hopes that 500 more will leave by late summer. Remaining troops will stay into 2008, to give back-up if necessary and secure borders, but the Iraqis would "write the next chapter" in Basra's history... (more w/videoes)

US / Iranian rhetoric is at fever pitch. Both sides are claiming to have “evidence” of military foul play. Both sides are holding military exercises in each others faces and the Gulf is so full of warships it must be highly dangerous to navigate. Both sides are threatening a massive military response to any use of force. Both presidents have backed themselves into political corners and neither shows the slightest sign of backing down.

A second US carrier strike group has just arrived in the Gulf bringing the total number of US (and allied) warships there to about 50 and a third group, headed by USS Reagan has just been ordered to rendezvous in the Western Pacific with destroyers from Pearl Harbour before sailing to the Gulf.

A War On Terrorism or a War Of Terrorism?

Reports as usual vary wildly and small wonder that some news sources are trying to pin this on yet another subsidiary of "Al Qaeda". But this wasn't a suicide attack.

The terrorists drove a car, packed with explosives, up to a bus carrying soldiers of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Some reports say that they forced the bus to stop by firing on it with automatic weapons, others that they blocked the road with the car while pretending to have broken down. Either way, they quickly escaped on motorbikes before detonating the car bomb by remote control.

First I invite you to watch this excellent 10 minute speech by George Galloway to the British Parliament on January 27, 2007 in which he delivers a stark warning that Britain is sleepwalking into a catastrophic war with Iran along with the US and Israel. George Galloway was the man who you may remember lambasting the US Senate over false accusations of oil bribes with Saddam.

George Galloway's speech to the British Parliament, January 2007

In scenes reminiscent of the 6th Armies assault on Stalingrad, president Bush’s “surge” appears to be a last ditch, all or nothing attempt to bring a military victory in Baghdad that it cannot realistically achieve.

Battle for Baghdad: City braces itself for US surge
Urban fighting amid the ruins
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
Published: 28 January 2007

Lina Massufi, a 32-year-old Iraqi laboratory assistant with two children, is a widow - her husband was killed by US troops when he accidentally drove down a closed road in 2003. In the past three months she has seen her house raided and her furniture smashed 12 times.

Doctors are becoming increasingly worried about a number of mysterious deaths in US hospitals, and now a link has been found with wounded soldiers returning from Iraq.

A new drug resistant form of a known pathogen has been discovered that is killing wounded soldiers at an alarming rate.

The bacterium known as Acinetobacter Baumannii has been traced from the US medical facilities in Baghdad, the hospital ship Comfort, the US military hospital in Germany and so on to hospitals in the US. Cases have also been identified in British and Canadian hospitals where wounded soldiers have been treated.

China’s unannounced test of an anti-satellite ballistic missile on the 11 January 2007 has evidently caused significant concern in the West and in particular the US. Not only does it put existing military and civilian satellite networks at risk, the act was clearly intended as a warning in the true cold war sense.

As I write this report, the story has finally hit the mainstream media but in most cases only a fairly sanitized version of the events is being made public. This very newsworthy event was not made public for 6 days after the launch, but despite the delay in publication, some interesting details are emerging that indicate increasing tensions between China and the US.

It's the equivalent of another Downing Street Memo... Huge news!, but I've found only ONE MSM news report of it in this country, "Ex-British expert on Iraq says intel overstated". And Google News returns ZERO matches for that one news report! Imagine that.....

Diplomat's suppressed document lays bare the lies behind Iraq war
The Government's case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. A devastating attack on Mr Blair's justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain's key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act... (more)

A British doctor, who has done two tours of duty in Iraq, has been tried in a London military court and convicted for refusing to make another trip to the battlefield.

Flight Lt. Malcolm Kendall-Smith, an officer in the British Air Force, was sentenced to eight months in prison for calling the U.S.-led war an "act of aggression" and refusing to participate any further – an action that the British military considered an illegal act of defying a lawful order.

"To take the decision that I did caused me great sadness, but I felt that I had no other choice," said Kendall-Smith in a statement after the three-day court martial, stating also that he had "two great loves in life — medicine and the Royal Air Force."