What are those poor kids dying in Iraq trying to protect?

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Tue, Dec 14, 2004, 6:13 pm  //  Site Management

Are US government security agencies interfering with our rights to read the news? I think so. Again today, Al-Jazeera is unreachable. Instead, we get this information alert. Al-Jazeera is not off line. They have multiple servers.
When Al-Jazeera first went with an English version last year, they were boomed off line in the US by several never-revealed Internet companies using illegal electronic processes. The common assumption is our government was either doing this, encouraging it by others, or at least allowing it to continue. This lasted months - during the start of the Iraq war.

So - what are those poor kids dying in Iraq trying to protect? Our right to a free press and free speech? And what are we getting? Censorship and propaganda. So much for the Bush administration freedom talk.

The war is heating up over there and our government is again trying to prevent us from knowing what is happening. Those 8 Marines killed over the weekend were possibly killed in Fallujah, but the US military report only says Anwar province - where Fallujah is. That is like saying killed in Texas when they were killed in Dallas. Why? Because we supposedly conquered Fallujah and no Marines should be getting killed there.

As things go wrong for the Bush administration we can expect more censorship of our news. And more restrictions on how news reporters can operate from Iraq. You can bet another hot question to a visiting Rumsfeld or other official will not happen again. Not with any reporters present.

One last comment. If you have read this far on today's post then you probably are against the war and are a progressive or liberal. I keep hearing from my good conservative friends in Whatcom County that they don't read NwCit anymore as they are only interested in posts about local news. They don't like reading news that disturbs their comfort zone of rah rah war. I feel the war is an issue that every community in the USA should be debating and be concerned about. It is the issue that will wreck our country in the near future if we don't end it. We are on the road to perdition with this insane war. It serves no national purpose at all.



A week ago, I got the following request to login while accessing Al-Jazeera. But Al-Jazeera does not use logins. So, who put this up in my way to learn who is looking at Al-Jazeera? I fully suggest it is our government. I was able to blow past this using some simple computer processes and queried Al-Jazeera about it. They knew nothing. This login was setup in the US - this side of the website. It was bogus - as I proved when I went past it.
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Wed, Dec 22, 2004, 5:45 pm  //  Site Management

He embarked on a war of conquest of a foreign country for the benefit of oil companies. He thought it would be easy. Now he…

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Mon, Dec 20, 2004, 5:49 pm  //  Site Management

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Wed, Dec 15, 2004, 6:07 pm  //  Site Management

Richard Cohen of the Washington Post has it right. You need to register with the Wa Post to read his column, Presidential medals of Failure.…

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What are those poor kids dying in Iraq trying to protect?

Tue, Dec 14, 2004, 6:13 pm  //  Site Management

When Al-Jazeera first went with an English version last year, they were boomed off line in the US by several never-revealed Internet companies using illegal…

0 comments

That soldier didn’t think of that question all by himself

Fri, Dec 10, 2004, 6:27 pm  //  Site Management

An energetic reporter set it up - and made sure it would happen. Edward Lee Pitts, embedded with a unit going north to Iraq, saw…

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Thu, Dec 09, 2004, 6:36 pm  //  Site Management

Israel is restarting the terrorist violence. Since Arafat died a month ago, there have been no serious Palestinian attacks - and all the world has…

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We think a little torture will protect us

Sun, Dec 05, 2004, 6:47 pm  //  Site Management

To be concise, if we start to rationalize torture then we are lost. It is the absolute opposite direction of democracy. It is the basic…

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