Seeking the People's Support...

or *Non>-Support. Good move.

*Round up the Congressional Critters, and let's get real: gassing children is bad, but bombing them in retaliation with no chance of securing the chemical weapons or even stopping further slaughter is stupid strategy. We can't afford to be stupid anymore, particularly in service of a symbolic gesture...

*WE didn't kill these babies; we're not responsible for their deaths. WE never promised to avenge their deaths.

Get off the collective guilt trip because the president shot off his mouth without thinking: wait until we're in a position to make a real change before making threats and promises that simply cannot be delivered on, via further military violence.

*Speak softly, and make sure you're not exaggerating the size of the practical effectiveness of that stick...

*We the People have learned alot about the power of these military strikes, what they really deliver to *Them, Their People years down the road...

*Destabilization and political/religious payback isn't pretty... *People pay. *Other people pay... (*while ,We... party and play.)




Just Say *NO* to further US military involvement in the *Middle East.*

The best offense is smart defense.

*oh, and Charity begins at home.
We're starting a new year out here: let's teach our children that it's not the biggest and strongest and most reckless that is the most powerful player. It's the smartest -- which means taking calculated risks that pay off. The bigger they are, the harder they fall, afterall.

Where is the President*?*

Did someone infiltrate the White House, and mess with all the clocks?

I can't believe Michelle puts up with this...

-------------

*When you've lost Ezra Klein...

Could bombing Syria backfire?
Wonkblog| Ezra Klein

T minus 2.

*I hope this is on time...
--------

*You pick a precise time, you show up precisely... on time.

**Synchronize the watches and all...

***Maybe they're flipping for it?

****Somebody blow the whistle and get them out on the field already... The empty podium thing on CNN just looks bad.

******I know. They're finishing up their drinks, and nobody wants to chug...

******* 1:38 pm. Screen shot: Never mind. BHO.
-----------------

*Whatever...

Crazy Wise...

Ron Paul wonders aloud during an appearance on Cavuto Wednesday on Fox Business:

PAUL: ... Why don't we ask, you know, about the al-Qaeda? Why are we on the side of the al-Qaeda right now? So I think the -- they want the weapons, the weapons -- rebels want the weapons, there's a bunch of people in al-Qaeda's part of it, and this is the task for us to drop a couple of bombs, and then send in weapons ...

CAVUTO: So, we're being sucked in -- you argue we're being sucked in, and it's dangerous?

PAUL: Big time.

CAVUTO: OK.

PAUL: And it's big risk. This can escalate, and Russia could, you know, what if there's an accident and a hundred Russians get killed by our bombs? Who knows? Some type of unintended consequences, wars always expand because of unintended consequences, they always provide short term war. Just think of all the promises over in Iraq. Short term, not much money.

CAVUTO: In and out, quick and dirty.

(CROSSTALK)

PAUL: Over, we'll get the oil.

(CROSSTALK)

PAUL: And don't believe it. We should look at what's best for America and not trying to pick sides in an impossible war like this, won't be on the side of the American people, and the American people right now, by a very large majority oppose this war. The Constitution can't support this war, and morally, we can't support this war, getting involved in a civil war and a strife that's been going on in that region for thousands of years.

Get Smart.

Steven A. Cook is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
...
The Obama administration has sought to limit the American response to Syria’s civil war, cognizant of domestic opposition to U.S. involvement and the fact that this president ran for office on the promise that he would disentangle the United States from Middle East conflicts. It realizes, too, that as much as Assad and his allies are despised in the Middle East, Washington’s use of force against yet another Arab and predominantly Muslim country would probably arouse further hostility toward America. There is another concern that should figure into the president’s calculations: The missile strikes the White House is contemplating would advance Syria’s dissolution.

Assad would remain defiant in the face of an attack. It is not as if he is constrained now, but he would probably step up the violence both to exert control within his country and to demonstrate that the United States and its allies cannot intimidate him. At the same time, the regime’s Iranian patrons and Hezbollah supporters would increase their investment in the conflict, meaning more weapons and more fighters pouring into Syria — resulting in more atrocities. And on the other side, Syrian opposition groups would welcome a steady stream of foreign fighters who care more about killing Alawites and Shiites than the fate of the country. This environment would heighten Syria’s substantial sectarian, ethnic and political divisions, pulling the country apart.

The formidable U.S. armed forces could certainly damage Assad’s considerably less potent military. But in an astonishing irony that only the conflict in Syria could produce, American and allied cruise missiles would be degrading the capability of the regime’s military units to the benefit of the al-Qaeda-linked militants fighting Assad — the same militants whom U.S. drones are attacking regularly in places such as Yemen. Military strikes would also complicate Washington’s longer-term desire to bring stability to a country that borders Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Israel.

Sarah Sez...

“So we’re bombing Syria because Syria is bombing Syria? And I’m the idiot?” - Sarah Palin

* President Obama wants America involved in Syria’s civil war pitting the antagonistic Assad regime against equally antagonistic Al Qaeda affiliated rebels. But he’s not quite sure which side is doing what, what the ultimate end game is, or even whose side we should be on. Haven’t we ...learned? WAGs don’t work in war.

* We didn’t intervene when over 100,000 Syrians were tragically slaughtered by various means, but we’ll now intervene to avenge the tragic deaths of over 1,000 Syrians killed by chemical weapons, though according to the White House we’re not actually planning to take out the chemical weapons because doing so would require “too much of a commitment.”

* President Obama wants to do what, exactly? Punish evil acts in the form of a telegraphed air strike on Syria to serve as a deterrent? If our invasion of Iraq wasn’t enough of a deterrent to stop evil men from using chemical weapons on their own people, why do we think this will be?

* The world sympathizes with the plight of civilians tragically caught in the crossfire of this internal conflict. But President Obama’s advertised war plan (which has given Assad enough of a heads-up that he’s reportedly already placing human shields at targeted sites) isn’t about protecting civilians, and it’s not been explained how lobbing U.S. missiles at Syria will help Syrian civilians. Do we really think our actions help either side or stop them from hurting more civilians?
* We have no clear mission in Syria. There’s no explanation of what vital American interests are at stake there today amidst yet another centuries-old internal struggle between violent radical Islamists and a murderous dictatorial regime, and we have no business getting involved anywhere without one. And where’s the legal consent of the people’s representatives? Our allies in Britain have already spoken. They just said no. The American people overwhelmingly agree, and the wisdom of the people must be heeded.

* Our Nobel Peace Prize winning President needs to seek Congressional approval before taking us to war. It’s nonsense to argue that, “Well, Bush did it.” Bull. President Bush received support from both Congress and a coalition of our allies for “his wars,” ironically the same wars Obama says he vehemently opposed because of lack of proof of America’s vital interests being at stake.

* Bottom line is that this is about President Obama saving political face because of his “red line” promise regarding chemical weapons.

* As I said before, if we are dangerously uncertain of the outcome and are led into war by a Commander-in-chief who can’t recognize that this conflict is pitting Islamic extremists against an authoritarian regime with both sides shouting “Allah Akbar” at each other, then let Allah sort it out.

- Sarah Palin

Stupid is as stupid does...

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid:

BEIRUT -- As the U.S. continues to ramp up its plans to target the Syrian military with cruise missile strikes, Syrian citizens and opposition figures have voiced a mix of optimism and deep concern about what may happen in the aftermath of a bombing raid.
...
Abdulkader al Dhon, a Syrian human rights activist who now lives in Turkey but travels regularly to his home country, said on Friday that many people he speaks with are worried that the U.S. war plan could spiral into a larger conflict.
...
"The regime might use the attacks and say: 'we are victims,'" Col. Ahmed Hamada, a rebel military leader, said in the report. "They could grow more powerful."

In Beirut, a Syrian activist and analyst who stays in close contact with friends and allies in Damascus and elsewhere told HuffPost Friday that he was "surprised by the attitudes" of some of his friends in light of the U.S. plans.

"Even some of the ones who are extremely anti-regime, they were still anti-intervention," said the analyst, who asked to remain anonymous. "A lot of them see the whole thing as hypocritical: they feel like the West doesn't start thinking about a serious solution to their problem until it starts to see it as a threat to their own national security."
...
Military experts say it is unlikely that the U.S. will attempt to dismantle or destroy Syria's copious chemical weapons stores, something that might risk releasing deadly toxins into the air and killing more civilians in the process.

But many rebel fighters and western policymakers also worry that the jihadi groups who have risen in prominence in the opposition might take advantage of the period of disarray after an American strike to take more ground, or even gain control of some of the chemical weapons stocks.
...

Meanwhile, military analysts say, it remains unclear if the strikes would actually work, even by the stripped down standards of the White House. And by the time that question is resolved, the situation in Syria could already be much worse.

"It’s still not clear if that will necessarily have the desired impact of restraining the Syrian military’s willingness to employ brutal military tactics," said Charles Lister, a military analyst with IHS Janes in London who has been closely watching the Syria conflict. "This is where punitive strikes carry some element of political risk –- it’s not always clear that their objectives can always be achieved until sometime after the fact."

Even some top U.S. military officials have said they worry about the aftermath of a limited military engagement in Syria.

"Once we take action, we should be prepared for what comes next," warned Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, in a letter to lawmakers last month. "Deeper involvement is hard to avoid."

No Military Consensus.

U.S. military officers have deep doubts about impact, wisdom of a U.S. strike on Syria
...
Some questioned the use of military force as a punitive measure and suggested that the White House lacks a coherent strategy. If the administration is ambivalent about the wisdom of defeating or crippling the Syrian leader, possibly setting the stage for Damascus to fall to fundamentalist rebels, they said, the military objective of strikes on Assad’s military targets is at best ambiguous.

“There’s a broad naivete in the political class about America’s obligations in foreign policy issues, and scary simplicity about the effects that employing American military power can achieve,” said retired Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold, who served as director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the run-up to the Iraq war, noting that many of his contemporaries are alarmed by the plan.

Marine Lt. Col. Gordon Miller, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, warned this week of “potentially devastating consequences, including a fresh round of chemical weapons attacks and a military response by Israel.”

“If President [Bashar al-Assad] were to absorb the strikes and use chemical weapons again, this would be a significant blow to the United States’ credibility and it would be compelled to escalate the assault on Syria to achieve the original objectives,” Miller wrote in a commentary for the think tank.

Learning from Mistakes...

Amy Davidson at the New Yorker online:

...
Humiliation is tied to pride. Parliament’s anger had a great deal to do with process; as John Cassidy has written, it took a small rebellion on the part of the public to remind the Prime Minister that he couldn’t just rush off to war, shouting vague explanations over his shoulder as he went. Cameron’s government had first approached Parliament with the sense that the decision had been made, that they were there just to approve, that there was no need to wait for the inspectors, just for the Prime Minister to get off the phone with Obama; in his speech to the House of Commons before the vote, Cameron said that he’d had to explain to Obama why he had even called them back at all. (He said he’d told the President that it was because of “the damage done to public confidence by Iraq.”)

Worse, Cameron and his government suggested that asking hard questions about evidence, international law, and what exactly a military attack could accomplish—the sort of inquiry missing before Iraq—was a cowardly, morally inferior response to the horrible pictures from Syria, even a complicit one: “A lot of the arguments over this could give succor to the régime,” a spokesman for Cameron said. That didn’t go over well.

After the vote, American Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said that the White House didn’t need Britain: it could act on its own, or maybe with France. But does alone also mean without Congress and the American public? That would be a mistake built on a mistake. (I’ve written so before.) Around the time that British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond—who probably didn’t help matters by accidentally calling Assad “Saddam Hussein” on the BBC —was confirming that his country wouldn’t be part of any military action, the Administration was holding a conference call with key members of Congress. That’s not enough.

Cameron’s failure in Parliament makes getting a vote from Congress more necessary—precisely because it might fail. The British vote removes any plausible claim that the Administration can assume consent—that the proper reaction to the horror in Syria is so obvious, so rooted in “norms” that one needn’t even ask.

The grounds in international law for military action are shaky, though. Neither the Arab League nor the Security Council are giving legal cover. Now there is not even an ersatz consensus of allies. That isn’t to say that lone, noble stands are never right; but it should preclude a half-thought-out military action with little public support that dodges America’s political processes and institutions.

Cameron, speaking to Parliament, said that bombing Syria wouldn’t be about “taking sides,” or régime change,” or “even about working more closely with the opposition”—just “our response to a war crime—nothing else.” Neither he nor Obama has explained how to enforce that “nothing else” clause. What’s the next step, when Assad reacts, and the next after that? Obama, if anything, was more vague in an interview on PBS:

And if, in fact, we can take limited, tailored approaches, not getting drawn into a long conflict, not a repetition of, you know, Iraq, which I know a lot of people are worried about - but if we are saying in a clear and decisive but very limited way, we send a shot across the bow saying, stop doing this, that can have a positive impact on our national security over the long term, and may have a positive impact on our national security over the long term and may have a positive impact in the sense that chemical weapons are not used again on innocent civilians.

“Tailored approaches” seems to be the new “surgical strikes” (the worst euphemisms are those that involve bombs). As for that “shot across the bow”—where is it meant to land?

Obama may take the British vote as proof that he can’t risk putting himself in Cameron’s position. But facing Congress after things don’t go according to plan—if there even is a plan—would be all the more humiliating. Obama can’t win this the way that Cameron lost it: by talking as though he is the only one acting according to principle, and that those who disagree just haven’t seen enough pictures of the effects of chemical weapons.
...

RIP Seamus Heaney.

Requiem for the Croppies
The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley...
No kitchens on the run, no striking camp...
We moved quick and sudden in our own country.
The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp.
A people hardly marching... on the hike...
We found new tactics happening each day:
We'd cut through reins and rider with the pike
And stampede cattle into infantry,
Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown.
Until... on Vinegar Hill... the final conclave.
Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon.
The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave.
They buried us without shroud or coffin
And in August... the barley grew up out of our grave.

We`ll put a Boot in your Ass...

It`s the American Way!
Hey Uncle Sam put your name at the top of his list,
and the Statue of Liberty started shakin’ her fist...

And the eagle will fly; man, it’s gonna be Hell
when you hear Mother Freedom start ringin’ her bell...
and it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you

Brought to you Courtesy of the Red White and Blue .

Nevermind Dr. King's historic preachings on overcoming via the power of non violence. Seems this week we were all just paying lip service to a Dream.*

Myself? I'm holding out hope that the president wises up and gives the people what they want...

Legally, he knows he's got to go through Congress to get approval to involve us in another hot war, and intellectually, he's got to know that the American people -- who, mindful of the consequences, overwhelmingly oppose any further US military action in the region -- send those representatives to Congress for a reason.

I don't believe this president is dumb enough to believe might makes right, which is the message he is preaching in calling for ... revenge. We're operating under the Constitution, not the Old Testament. Our document is a blueprint for national survival, not a mutual suicide pact. We have no obligation to fulfill the Book, to bring on the End Times...

Where there's no national security interest at play, it's best not to intervene and escalate the conflagration.

No one believes the US taking the field at this late date -- alone thinking we need to get off the sidelines -- will bring life to the already dead. Nor do we have faith that raining bombs on Damascus is some brilliant move to create peace.

More people will die, the region will burn, evolution can be deadly, and growth rates vary...

But we've learned something as a people in these past 10 years of war, knowledge that has cost us dearly. There's little clamoring for military glory; we're more likely to draw a Breanna Manning than a Pat Tillman to uniform today...

There's plenty of work to be done, domestically, to rebuild within our own borders. As guest panelist Marian Wright Edelman mentioned on last Sunday's talk show, US survival in the long run depends more on how we uplift our own uneducated and ill-prepared citizens into the new century.

Do we choose violence and ethnic/religious divide here and spiral downward, or will we follow the plan laid out in our Constitution?

Sure, we can sing that ugly chorus above. Join in the 'bromance' between John POW McCain and President MeToo Obama... But why?

"We Shall Overcome" beats "Barbara Ann" any day.

----------------

Ah, ba ba ba ba Barbara Ann
Ba ba ba ba Barbara Ann
Oh Barbara Ann, take my hand
Barbara Ann
You got me rockin and a-rollin
Rockin and a-reelin
Barbara Ann ...

* Like preaching gun control here at home, while abroad we supply rebels and peacemakers alike with the power to control their countries. Via powerful guns. hmm.

A Hot Day.

Parsley, Sage...

*Sorry, that's all I got...
Hope your weekend is wonderful.

The Slumbering August Media Awakes...

The NSA Scandal Is All That: a Rebuttal to Marc Ambinder
The backlash against the surveillance state is not overblown.
...

I'll tell you this. When I see DNI Clapper lying to Congress about the NSA without consequences; a chair of the Senate oversight committee who hadn't seen an audit documenting thousands of abuses per year until the press contacted her; a Patriot Act author who says he was shocked to discover the way the law had been interpreted; repeated NSA successes avoiding legal challenges on their merits; and an agency where no one ever seems to be fired for violating rules, the law, or the Constitution, I don't see accountability; I see lack of accountability. One needn't think "all government power is inherently corrosive" to reach that conclusion.

Conor Friedersdorf of theatlantic.com isn't in Paris this summer sampling wines and learning a new language, nor is he busy putting relatives on the payroll for a employer-paid 'plane trip across America', whereupon he discovers things like riding lawnmowers in those areas of the country with open acreage.

Instead,
in these days of doubling down on policy mistakes,
Friedersdorf pushes back on the pre-conceived idea that the majority of Americans are A-OK with rewriting the Constitution and giving up our liberties so the Big Beautiful People in Power can keep us safe and secure forever. (Unless mistakes happen... and then the BBPiP's are given immunity from the consequences of their actions. See: the financial sector bailout... win-ning.)

It's not well written -- too long, too listy, too personal (keep your salary out of the story. Too tangential), and in dire need of editing to keep his thoughts tightly focused. But at least the intent is there.

Younger people here in the United States have a longer and richer history of liberty than other geopolitically precariously-situated countries, like our ally Israel, say. If we're indeed 'all in this together' in the seemingly never-ending War on Terrorism, then -- like with NAFTA -- Americans should expect to see their own rights diminished here at home to match what other peoples put up with to grow and settle their own homeland.

Seems we're not the world's policemen anymore, merely the gunrunners...

Perhaps one day, here at home, we'll consent to razing the family homes of convicted criminals here too, as collective punishment. Perhaps, as our courts become more and more secretive, political and partisan, we too will one day sweep up people to imprison without bringing formal charges or court action. Simply detention without charges.

Perhaps too -- shudder to think it -- one day our military will be incentivized to override the voters' choices and install leaders at gunpoint.

It's not the American way.
It's not what got us this far: faith in fellowship, and sticking with our Good Book -- the Constitution -- even when we've humanly failed it, as in Plessy or Korematsu.

Time will tell whether Americans are willing to sacrifice more and more of our cherished freedoms on the altar of security, ostensibly to look out for our own.

Remembering the Reuters' deaths...

accurately.

WASHINGTON | Mon Apr 5, 2010 8:39pm EDT

(Reuters) - Classified U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff, was released on Monday by a group that promotes leaking to fight government and corporate corruption.

The group, WikiLeaks, told a news conference in Washington that it acquired encrypted video of the July 12, 2007, attack from military whistleblowers and had been able to view and investigate it after breaking the encryption code.

A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the video and audio were authentic.

Major Shawn Turner, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said an investigation of the incident shortly after it occurred found that U.S. forces were not aware of the presence of the news staffers and thought they were engaging armed insurgents.

"We regret the loss of innocent life, but this incident was promptly investigated and there was never any attempt to cover up any aspect of this engagement," Turner said.

The helicopter gunsight video, with an audio track of conversation between the fliers, made public for the first time a stark view of one bloody incident in the seven-year war in Iraq.

It showed an aerial view of a group of men moving about a square in a Baghdad neighborhood. The fliers identified some of the men as armed.

WikiLeaks said the men in the square included Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, who were killed in the incident.
...
The gunsight tracks two of the men, identified by WikiLeaks as the Reuters news staff, as the fliers identify their cameras as weapons. Military spokesman Turner said that during the engagement, the helicopter mistook a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

The helicopter opened fire on the small group, killing several people and wounding others. Minutes later, when a van approached and began trying to assist the wounded, the fliers became concerned the vehicle was occupied by militants trying to collect weapons and help wounded comrades escape.

The Apache helicopters requested permission to attack the van and waited impatiently.

"Come on, let us shoot," said one voice.

The fliers were granted permission to engage the van and opened fire, apparently killing several people in and around the vehicle.

Two children wounded in the van were evacuated by U.S. ground forces arriving at the scene as the Apache helicopters continued to circle overhead.

"Well it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle," one of the U.S. fliers said.

Tuff Love...

It worked:

On Tuesday, Michael Brandon Hill, 20, slipped past school security at the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy, a school for pre-kindergarteners to fifth graders. He was armed with an assault rifle and other weapons.

The outcome could have been tragic, but thanks to Antoinette Tuff’s quick thinking, Hill never got past the front office. Even as Hill held her and an officemate hostage, she said she spoke to him calmly and ultimately convinced him to lay down his weapons.
...
Tuff said she started telling Hill about her own life struggles to show him that no problem was insurmountable.

“I told him, ‘OK, we all have situations in our lives,’” she said. “It was going to be OK. If I could recover, he could, too.”

-----------------
Where is the moment we needed the most?
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost.
They tell me your blue skies fade to grey...
They tell me your passion's gone away
And I don't need no carryin' on

You stand in the line just to hit a new low
You're faking a smile with the coffee to go
You tell me your life's been way off line
You're falling to pieces everytime
And I don't need no carryin' on

Cause you had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don't lie
You're coming back down and you really don't mind
You had a bad day
You had a bad day

Well you need a blue sky holiday
The point is they laugh at what you say
And I don't need no carryin' on

...

Sometimes the system goes on the blink
And the whole thing turns out wrong
You might not make it back and you know
That you could be well oh that strong
And I'm not wrong...

*Another view of the church garden, looking south...

Plus:

*Things to come.

Broccoli...

It's what's for dinner.

Remembering the Reuters' reporters deaths...

accurately.

More and more,
Americans prefer not to know the truths about our ... 'mistakes'.

We don't want to see...
and so we become more and more blind...

When the truth is exposed, we get angry at the messenger.

(Reuters) - Classified U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff, was released on Monday by a group that promotes leaking to fight government and corporate corruption.

The group, WikiLeaks, told a news conference in Washington that it acquired encrypted video of the July 12, 2007, attack from military whistleblowers and had been able to view and investigate it after breaking the encryption code.

A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the video and audio were authentic.

Major Shawn Turner, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said an investigation of the incident shortly after it occurred found that U.S. forces were not aware of the presence of the news staffers and thought they were engaging armed insurgents.

"We regret the loss of innocent life, but this incident was promptly investigated and there was never any attempt to cover up any aspect of this engagement," Turner said.

The helicopter gunsight video, with an audio track of conversation between the fliers, made public for the first time a stark view of one bloody incident in the seven-year war in Iraq.

It showed an aerial view of a group of men moving about a square in a Baghdad neighborhood. The fliers identified some of the men as armed.

WikiLeaks said the men in the square included Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, who were killed in the incident.

"The gathering at the corner that is fired up on has about nine people in it," Julian Assange, a WikiLeaks spokesman, told reporters at the National Press Club.

The gunsight tracks two of the men, identified by WikiLeaks as the Reuters news staff, as the fliers identify their cameras as weapons. Military spokesman Turner said that during the engagement, the helicopter mistook a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

The helicopter opened fire on the small group, killing several people and wounding others. Minutes later, when a van approached and began trying to assist the wounded, the fliers became concerned the vehicle was occupied by militants trying to collect weapons and help wounded comrades escape.

The Apache helicopters requested permission to attack the van and waited impatiently.

"Come on, let us shoot," said one voice.

The fliers were granted permission to engage the van and opened fire, apparently killing several people in and around the vehicle.

Two children wounded in the van were evacuated by U.S. ground forces arriving at the scene as the Apache helicopters continued to circle overhead.

"Well it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle," one of the U.S. fliers said.

David Schlesinger, Reuters' editor-in-chief, said the video released by WikiLeaks showed the deaths of Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh were "tragic and emblematic of the extreme dangers that exist in covering war zones."

"The video released today via WikiLeaks is graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result," he said.

Reuters has pressed the U.S. military to conduct a full and objective investigation into the killing of the two staff.

Video of the incident from two U.S. Apache helicopters and photographs taken of the scene were shown to Reuters editors in an off-the-record briefing in Baghdad on July 25, 2007.

U.S. military officers who presented the materials said Reuters had to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to get copies. This request was made the same day.

Turner said the military had released documents to Reuters last year in response to the FOIA request showing the presence of weapons on the scene, including AK-47 rifles and an RPG 7 grenade launcher.

Assange said he disagreed with a U.S. military assessment that the attack was justified.

"I believe that if those killings were lawful under the rules of engagement, then the rules of engagement are wrong, deeply wrong," he said. The fliers in the video act "like they are playing a computer game and their desire is they want to get high scores" by killing opponents, he said.

A little man...

Suspended Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun told stars around baseball before spring training 2012 that the man who collected his urine that tested positive for synthetic testosterone was anti-Semitic and a Chicago Cubs fan in an effort to gather support throughout the game, three sources familiar with the conversations told Yahoo! Sports.


Ryan Braun received a 65-game suspension from MLB for his ties to the Biogenesis clinic. Braun sought backing from Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Matt Kemp, whom he had beaten out for the National League MVP months earlier, along with Cincinnati Reds first baseman Joey Votto and Colorado Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, among others, sources said. He reached out to peers in hopes they would publicly stick up for him following an expected suspension.

ESPN.com first reported the subject of the conversations.

A number of players with whom Braun spoke, including Brewers teammates, believed the allegations. A source close to Dino Laurenzi Jr., the test collector, said the anti-Semitism allegation is untrue; his fan allegiance is unclear. It added to the backlash against Braun inside the Milwaukee clubhouse as well as outside following his recent 65-game suspension for his involvement with the Biogenesis clinic.

Kemp told reporters people in the game felt “betrayed” and that he was “disappointed.”

During spring 2012, Braun avoided a 50-game suspension by winning his appeal on a chain-of-custody error due to faulty protocol in Major League Baseball's drug-testing program. In a news conference upon his arrival at spring training – one he invited non-Brewers players to, though they declined to attend – Braun impugned the league's testing policy and called the collector "very suspicious."

Earlier in the day, a member of Braun's camp had leaked Laurenzi's name in an email to Yahoo! Sports. Laurenzi had kept the sample of Braun's urine stored in his house because there was no FedEx store within a reasonable distance that would ship the sample according to MLB's rules. Braun's lawyers argued successfully that this broke the chain of custody, even though the lab that tested the sample said it had not degraded and was valid.

Upon Braun's suspension less than a month ago for doing business with Biogenesis, which provided PEDs to more than a dozen major league players, a number of major leaguers publicly censured Braun and made calls for stiffer penalties for drug use.

Reports over the weekend indicated Braun has started apologizing to those he lied to and plans on coming clean publicly about his drug use.

It is unclear whether he has spoken with Laurenzi.

Braun was sued this week by a former friend named Ralph Sasson, who alleges Braun's agent, Nez Balelo, paid him $5,000 to dig up information on Laurenzi.

Sasson also said Braun used PEDs throughout his career at the University of Miami.

It's a Different World...

Olympic protests, then and now.

Beautiful!

Here's hoping to put up some garden pictures later this week, as the plants get consumed. Broccoli and onions, with the pea pods still producing...
Tomatoes are almost there.