WARNING TO PALESTINIANS AND ISRAELIS: NO KILLING INNOCENT CIVILIANS

Instead of Def. Sec. Gates and Pres. Obama telling Netanyahu that the Israeli government can take any steps "necessary" to defend itself against Palestinian rockets fired from Gaza, Gates and Obama should have warned Israel against attacking Palestinian civilians in a form of "collective punishment."

I condemn those Palestinians who fired rockets into Israel endangering innocent Israelis. I also strongly condemn acts of collective punishment inflicted by Israel against Palestinian society and civilians in Gaza.

WHY DOES OBAMA CONTINUE INHUMANE TREATMENT OF PRISONERS AT BAGRAM?

The BBC has talked to 27 former inmates at the notorious U.S. military prison at Bagram, Afghanistan, and reports that most say that American soldiers inflicted periods of sleeplessness, forced standing, loud music and other wise inhumane and cruel treatment.

Ian Pannell reports for the BBC on this story:

"Many allegations of ill-treatment appear repeatedly in the interviews: physical abuse, the use of stress positions, excessive heat or cold, unbearably loud noise, being forced to remove clothes in front of female soldiers.

"In four cases detainees were threatened with death at gunpoint.

""They did things that you would not do against animals let alone to humans," said one inmate known as Dr Khandan.

""They poured cold water on you in winter and hot water in summer. They used dogs against us. They put a pistol or a gun to your head and threatened you with death," he said.

""They put some kind of medicine in the juice or water to make you sleepless and then they would interrogate you.""

So who is responsible for the operation of this prison and who made up these harsh interrogation methods and installed them as standard operating procedure? We know the answer to the two latter questions: it was George Bush and Dick Cheney who devised and then implemented these methods of torture, not some sergeant or specialist in the U.S. Army. But as to who is responsible - now it is Barack Obama and his Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. It is anyone's guess as to whether this awful treatment of Afghanis still continues. But if it does continue, it is up to Obama and Gates to shut it down without delay.

Furthermore, Obama has adopted the Bush line that prisoners in Afghanistan are not deserving of the protections of the U.S. constitution. This means that Obama is trying to deny to these prisoners basic human rights, such as receiving a fair trial, and asking for habeas relief from an independent court, such as that found in the Fourth Amendment that allows a court to consider whether a person is being held unjustly.

Obama's position against granting basic protections to these prisoners at Bagram is beyond comprehension. Americans voted for Obama as president because they believed that he would end the injustice and violations of human rights. Has he now dismissed the views of all those who voted for him?

U.S. UNDER OBAMA ALLOWS DRONE MISSILE STRIKES AGAINST RURAL VILLAGERS IN PAKISTAN

I call upon Pres. Barack Obama to halt all drone missile attacks against Pakistani villagers. Today, BBC reports that the U.S. fired another missile killing nine people.

Reports the BBC:

"At least nine people have been killed in an airstrike on suspected militant targets in Pakistan's tribal region of South Waziristan, local officials say.

"Pilotless US drone aircraft are thought to have carried out the attack in which missiles were fired at a house near the town of Wana on the Afghan border."

Obama is wrong if he thinks that firing missiles at Pakistani insurgents or at Taliban members is going to "win hearts and minds" of ordinary Paksitanis.

If I was a Pakistani, I would be outraged at the intrusion of foreign drones from the United States attacking villages in my sovereign Pakistan. I don't care how pure the American motives against "terrorists," I would totally resist the violation of my country's national territory.

Obama and Gates say that they will attack Al Qaeda whereever it exists. This too is foolhardy and unworthy of Barack Obama. Al Qaeda is not some living monster. It consists of farmers, teenagers, villagers, who are consumed with religious fundamentalism that thinks it is doing God's will to attack the West. There is no way that Obama's missiles are going to defeat unsophisticated and poorly educated religious fundamentalists.

I say, stop this killing of ordinary rural Pakistanis from the sky by the Americans.

ROBERT GATES SHOULD STOP PREJUDICING U.S. POLICY TOWARDS IRAN

Was it necessary for Defense Secretary Robert Gates to inject his own opinions on the state of the incipient talks with Iran? Today in Egypt Gates promised the Egyptians that the U.S. would keep its "friends" informed as to negotiations with Iran.

By the way, why should the U.S. consider the dictatorial government of Egypt to be friendly as opposed to considering Iran an "enemy"? The Egyptian government routinely cracks down on dissenters, on people who criticize the government, on newspapers that oppose Mubarak. Furthermore, Egypt denies rights to women. And in Gates' view, Egypt is a "friend"?

We know why Egypt and other Arab countries in the Middle East oppose a detente between the U.S. and Iran. Iran is Persian in ethnic origin, but Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan are all Arabs. Furthermore, the Arab countries by and large are Sunnis, Iran however is Shiite. So for both ethnic and religious reasons, Egypt and the others consider Iran a "threat."

But the U.S. and its government has no embedded biases. It happens that Iranians are better educated than most Arabs and are generally more sophisticated in the arts. The U.S. should not allow its foreign policy towards Iran be shaped by Iran's ancient antagonists, the Sunni Arab nations. And Robert Gates should keep his own counsel regarding Iran. He is not the president or the U.S. secretary of state.

WHAT IS OBAMA THINKING BY KEEPING GATES AND NAMING HILLARY CLINTON?

Politico reports today that Robert Gates will remain as Defense Secretary under Barack Obama.

Writes Mike Allen for Politco:

"Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has agreed to stay on under President-elect Obama, according to officials in both parties. Obama plans to announce a national-security team early next week that includes Gates at the Pentagon and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as secretary of State, officials said."

Some may think Gates is acceptable but I don't. First. Gates supports increasing U.S. forces in Afghanistan. As I written here on several occasions, Afghanistan is the black hole for foreign forces. Not since Alexander the Great has a foreign army successfully invaded and occupied and conquered the Afghan people. Since then Afghanistan has chewed up and spit out foreign invaders. The same thing lies ahead for the Americans.

Second. Gates as DefSec believes military power is effective in pursuing U.S. interests. I disagree totally with the premise. Shooting and killing foreigners does nothing to advance U.S. interests anywhere in the world.

As for Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, Obama seems to have forgotten what Clinton said about the Iranians, how she would "obliterate" them in the event of a war with Israel. If you were Iranian, I am sure you would judge Clinton to be another crazed militaristic American intent on conquering the world through bombs and missiles and tanks. Someone who even considers obliterating another people or another nation is not suited to be the chief diplomat of the United States.

ANTI-WAR DEMOCRATS WANT NEW DEFENSE SECRETARY

Jen Dimascio has an article on Politico today about anti-war Democrats urging Obama to dump Robert Gates as Defense Secretary. I agree.

Gates has been too gung-ho over beefing up the size of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. This is a dead-end position for the United States. The U.S. will never win in Afghanistan on the basis of military force. It might prevail in helping that poor country build up its infrastructure, build sewer lines, string electric power lines, but it will never defeat Afghani insurgents and the Taliban militarily. Consider that the Afghanis have defeated every foreign invading force going back to Alexander the Great.

I admit Gates is a DefSec far superior to Donald Rumsfeld and the other neo-con hawks in the Bush/Cheney administration. For example, Gates reputedly has been one of the officials who have argued against striking Iran.

But Gates is still a believer in military might and the War in Iraq. Writes Dimascio:

"Arms control advocates and anti-war activists are ratcheting up pressure on President-elect Barack Obama to dump Defense Secretary Robert Gates and replace him with a more strident anti-war voice. . . ."

"Gates exacerbated the opposition to his retention with a recent speech at the Carnegie Foundation in which he staked out a position that made it hard for arms control advocates to back the notion of keeping him around.

"Congress last year pulled funding from studies to create a Reliable Replacement Warhead program, which would reduce and replace aging nuclear warheads in the nation’s arsenal. During the speech, Gates said the cut was misguided."

STOP BLOODY WAR IN AFGHANISTAN NOW!

Reports from Afghanistan say that in a four-day gun battle, the U.S. has killed more than 100 "militants." Jason Staziuso of the AP writes in today's web site of The Washington Post:

"The large death toll comes about one week after the U.S. said it killed 25 militants and five civilians during an operation in the Shindand district of Herat province. Afghan officials, however, say between 76 and 90 Afghan civilians were killed in that operation last Friday. The U.S. is investigating and plans to make its findings public."

The whole scene in Afghanistan is horrific. The United States should not be going around the country engaged in fire fights with local Afghan "militants" and killing civilians by mistake. This is not how I want the U.S. to pursue foreign policy. I call upon the U.S. military and Defense Secretary Gates to end this bloody useless war and pull all American soldiers out of Afghanistan.

There is no need for the U.S. in the year 2008 to have any "enemies." No other country or people should be on an "American enemies list." That includes Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, Venezuela or whomever.

Nothing is ever solved by killing an "enemy." Just like the U.S. has done nothing of benefit when it kills insurgents or militants. If you were an Afghani farmer, would you like American soldiers busting into your house or patrolling your village? Or how would you feel about U.S. war planes buzzing overhead and dropping bombs on your house and home? Don't say that you would not be pissed off enough to start making home made bombs or to take up arms against the foreign invaders.

The war in Afghanistan is and was a catastrophic mistake, as bad as the war in Iraq. We must end it now.

DAN FROOMKIN HAS EXCELLENT POST ON RECKLESS CLAIMS OF BUSH & CO. TOWARDS IRAN

Dan Froomkin has an excellent run-down in washingtonpost.com on the signals coming out of the Bush administration about its bellicose policy towards Iran. Froomkin lays out many of the reckless statements of Bush, Cheney, Gates and the generals on how Iran is arming "special groups" and Shiite militias, and how these weapons kill U.S. troops.

But as Froomkin notes, there is never any proof. Everything is innuendo and conjecture. Like Defense Sec. Robert Gates claiming Ahmadinejad knows about weapon shipments from Iran to Iraq. Here Froomkin quotes Yochi J. Dreazen of the Wall Street Journal:

"Yochi J. Dreazen reported in Saturday's Wall Street Journal (subscription required): "Senior U.S. defense officials accused Iran of stepping up its shipments of weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq, underscoring a marked hardening of American rhetoric about Iran in recent days.
"Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Iranian support for the Shiite-extremist groups had grown, while Defense Secretary Robert Gates said for the first time that he believed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad knew about the shipments.
"'I find it inconceivable that he does not know,' Mr. Gates told reporters at the Pentagon, adding that Iran was playing a 'malign' role in Iraq.""

Note all that Gates can say is, "I find it inconceivable . . . " But where is the proof that Ahmadinejad knows or directs these shipments? And where is the proof that "Iranian support for the Shiite-extremist groups had grown," as Admiral Mullen claims?

As Froomkin writes:

"Where's the proof? Who knows? Also left unaddressed is the widespread assumption that the Iranians actually supported both sides in the recent Shiite-on-Shiite conflict. And then there's the fact that it was Iran that brought both sides together to end hostilities. . . "

"A rare voice of skepticism about these claims came on Sunday from Sen. Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He told CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "[I]n this hearing on Iraq, Iran kept being mentioned. The fact that the Iranians are intruding. A proxy war is being fought. In other words, it was almost as if we were justifying our continued presence in Iraq with the fact that we may be in a conflict with Iran, and furthermore, the al Qaeda, wherever they may be. It's a very confusing picture to say the least.""

GATES CLAIMS IRAN'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM A THREAT

And I thought Robert Gates was moderate and intelligent. Here he is today speaking at an Arab security Conference in Bahrain accusing Iran of still wanting to build nuclear weapons and spreading terrorism throughout the Middle East. Gimme a break! If not Gates, is there no one in this Bush/Cheney administration who is not fomenting a war against Teheran?

Ann Scott Tyson reports in today's The Washington Post:

"Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates argued forcefully at a Persian Gulf security conference Saturday that U.S. intelligence indicates Iran could restart its secret nuclear weapons program "at any time" and remains a major threat to the region.

"Tough and at times sarcastic, Gates described the Iranian government as an ongoing menace to the Gulf region not only for its nuclear aspirations but also for supplying weapons to insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, backing the armed Islamic movements Hezbollah and Hamas, and developing medium-range ballistic missiles.

""Everywhere you turn, it is the policy of Iran to foment instability and chaos, no matter the strategic value or cost in the blood of innocents," Gates said in a speech to defense leaders from 23 countries attending the Manama Dialogue, a security conference organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies."

Gulfnews.com adds that the audience erupted in laughter when Gates also added that he did not consider Israel's nuclear arsenal a threat to the region:

"US Defence Secretary Robert Gates defended Israel’s nuclear programme on Saturday, saying the Jewish state did not seek to destroy its neighbours or support terrorism, unlike Iran.

"Asked at the Manama Dialogue conference whether Israel's nuclear programme posed a threat to the region, Gates replied: "No, I do not."

"The statement was greeted by laughter from a room filled with government officials from Middle Eastern countries."

Now we have the dangerous spectacle of Robert Gates joining Bush, Cheney and neo-cons like John Bolton, calling Iran a grave threat. Instead of trying to make Iran and Iranians the demonized enemy, I want the government of the United States to sit down with the leaders of Iran and show some respect. Instead of threats of bombs and missiles, Americans should recognize Iran for a great and proud country that must be allowed to be part of the community of nations.

BUSH/CHENEY DELAY NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT ON IRAN BECAUSE N.I.E. FINDS NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM SINCE 2003

Here's another case about intelligence made to fit around the Bush/Cheney Iran policy. Because they disagreed with its conclusions, Bush and Cheney delayed the release of the National Intelligence Estimate for 2006. It has only just been released. The NIE's report says that Iran discontinued any program to build a nuclear weapon back in 2003, Walter Pincus reports today on The Washington Post web site.

Writes Pincus:


"Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 in response to international pressure, and while it continues to develop an enriched uranium program, it apparently has not resumed moving toward a nuclear capability, according to a consensus judgment of the U.S. intelligence community released today by Director of National Intelligence John M. McConnell.

"The assessment states "with moderate confidence" that "Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program" as of mid-2007, but suggests that Tehran continues to keep that option open.

""Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005," according to one of the key judgments of the new assessment. Two years ago, the intelligence community said publicly that it had "high confidence that Iran was currently determined to have nuclear weapons," a senior intelligence official said today.

"After that assessment was released, the community increased its clandestine and open collection of information about Iran's program, actions that led to today's reassessment, the officials said.

"The major shift in the intelligence community's judgment about Iran's nuclear weapons intentions is contained in unclassified material from a new, classified National Intelligence Estimate sent to Capitol Hill today. The document represents the consensus opinion of the U.S. intelligence community."

Yet from 2003 to the present, George Bush and Dick Cheney have been beating the drums of war itching to start a war against Iran on the basis that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. Thanks to Amanda at ThinkProgress.com for cataloging the sorry record of Bush/Cheney and neo-cons in accusing Iran and its leaders of trying to develop nuclear weapons.


Thanks again to Amanda at ThinkProgress, here's Cheney on Iran's nuclear threats just two months ago:

“Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions. . . . The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences.” [Cheney, 10/21/07]

ThinkProgress also points at at a story in the Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS). IPS ran an article back on November 8, 2007, by Gareth Porter detailing the inter-administration fight between Dick Cheney and the Rice/Gates group.


Writes Porter:


"A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran has been held up for more than a year in an effort to force the intelligence community to remove dissenting judgments on the Iranian nuclear programme, and thus make the document more supportive of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's militarily aggressive policy toward Iran, according to accounts of the process provided by participants to two former Central Intelligence Agency officers."

After learning today of the NIE's conclusions that Iran has desisted pursuing nuclear weapons since 2003, I can understand why the NIE's report has been held up. Bush and Cheney wanted the NIE to bless their suspicions to the contrary that Iran was indeed engage in building nuclear bombs. But the folks at the NIE refused to go along. If they had, it would be deja vu all over again, reproducing exactly what happened to the intelligence services back in 2002 when they rolled over for Bush/Cheney and came out with garbage about Iraq's arsenal of WMD.

Porter continues in his report:

"Cheney's desire for a "clean" NIE that could be used to support his aggressive policy toward Iran was apparently a major factor in the replacement of John Negroponte as director of national intelligence in early 2007. Negroponte had angered the neoconservatives in the administration by telling the press in April 2006 that the intelligence community believed that it would still be "a number of years off" before Iran would be "likely to have enough fissile material to assemble into or to put into a nuclear weapon, perhaps into the next decade."


"Neoconservatives immediately attacked Negroponte for the statement, which merely reflected the existing NIE on Iran issued in spring 2005. Robert G. Joseph, the undersecretary of state for arms control and an ally of Cheney, contradicted Negroponte the following day. He suggested that Iran's nuclear programme was nearing the "point of no return" -- an Israeli concept referring to the mastery of industrial-scale uranium enrichment.

"Frank J. Gaffney, a protégé of neoconservative heavyweight Richard Perle, complained that Negroponte was "absurdly declaring the Iranian regime to be years away from having nuclear weapons". "

BUSH/CHENEY VISIT PENTAGON - I SUSPECT PRESSURE ON GENERALS

The story in today's The Washington Post describes Bush and Cheney travelling yesterday to the Pentagon to meet with the Joint Chiefs as well as Sec. of Defense Gates.

Michael Abramowitz writes:

"Administration officials declined to offer details of Bush's private meeting with Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Bush did not appear publicly after the meeting but issued a written statement indicating that the discussions included plans to expand the size of the military and improve coordination between military and civilian officials in places such as Iraq."

Why do I immediately suspect this meeting to be of the type that Cheney used in 2002 to pressure the CIA to come out with the intelligence about WMD in Iraq that he wanted for justification for the invasion and war? Yesterday we have Bush and Cheney travelling to the Pentagon with all the show and force of their offices to meet with the top generals. The line is that Bush wanted information about the condition and morale of the army, but I don't believe it.

I suspect Bush and Cheney went to the Pentagon to pressure the generals to speak with a unified voice about troop levels and the effectiveness of the surge. By "unified voice," I mean the official Bush/Cheney spin on "progress" and "stay the course." There have been reports of some generals calling for a plan for withdrawal and others warning of the danger to the army by Bush's over-extension of the existing force.

I think Bush and Cheney wanted to squelch the dissension and disagreement. Thus they went to the Pentagon in a show of presidential force to cow their subordinates. And this is what they might have said: generals, this is an order, don't talk about over-extension, don't talk about withdrawals, don't talk about the disastrous and pejorative effect on troop morale by extending tours, don't talk about the sense of despair in Iraq.

BUSH TRIES TO MINIMIZE TESTIMONY OF PETRAEUS TO CLOSED DOOR SESSION

Jonathan Weisman and Karen De Young write in The Washington Post today that the White House (i.e., George Bush and Dick Cheney) want to restrict the testimony of "my man David" (Gen. David Petraeus) and Ambassador Ryan Crocker to a closed-door Congressional briefing. In their place giving the "report on progress" before the full Congress would be the Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, and the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates.


"Senior congressional aides said yesterday that the White House has proposed limiting the much-anticipated appearance on Capitol Hill next month of Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker to a private congressional briefing, suggesting instead that the Bush administration's progress report on the Iraq war should be delivered to Congress by the secretaries of state and defense."


The question can only be why?

It is obvious that Bush/Cheney want to restrict Petraeus and Crocker to the background because they fear the truth these guys would present. Iraq is a disaster, the worst foreign policy blunder of the United States in in 221 years of existence. It is a black hole that continues to grow deeper and darker. There is no chance for military victory in Iraq, no chance to quell the Sunni-Shia violence, no chance to establish or help to organize a representative government.

Is Iraq better off since Saddam Hussein was overthrown by invading American troops? No way! It is so much worse off. Ask any Iraqi who has lost a father or son, wife or child, wither from the itchy trigger fingers of the U.S. troops or from the sectarian blood-letting. Ask any one of the relatives of the 650,000+ Iraqis who have been killed since the invasion if Iraq is better off now than under Saddam.

And how about the 3,600+ American soldiers who have lost their lives in Iraq? Why? To preserve freedom? Freedom for whom? Americans in the U.S.? Iraq was never a threat to anyone in the U.S. And it would be foolish and naive to claim as do Bush/Cheney that Iraqi insurgents are going to follow U.S. troops back to Kankakee or Salt Lake City.

The Congress should not allow this sleight of hand. Petraeus promised to report back to Congress and Bush should not be allowed to relegate him to the closet. I don't mind if Robert Gates also testifies but Condoleeza Rice is just another Bush shill who has no business testifying on what is happening on the ground in Iraq.

U.S. GIVES WEAPONS TO SUNNI ARAB STATES TO COUNTER NON-ARAB PERSIAN SHIA IRAN

The Bush regime in offering 20 billion of arms to Arab states is trying to counter Iran and Syria, says Condoleeza Rice in her talks with Saudi Arabia.

Ewen MacAskill writes for The Guardian:

"The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, increased pressure on Iran yesterday when she identified it as the biggest strategic challenge to America and the target of a proposed $63bn (£31bn) arms package. US officials portrayed Iran as a growing spectre that was engaged in aggressive expansion and destabilising the region.
"The Bush administration announced on Monday the huge arms sales package to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf state allies aimed at creating a bulwark against Iran. Speaking before a Gulf state conference at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Ms Rice said: "There isn't a doubt that Iran constitutes the single most important single-country strategic challenge to the United States and to the kind of Middle East that we want to see."

The question is, why is Iran perceived as the most important strategic challenge to Bush & Co.? Because it is non-Arab? Because its population is mostly Shia muslim rather than Sunni? Because it is disliked by Sunni Arab states on the basis of both race and religion? Because Bush and Cheney want to curry favor with Sunni Arabs in Saudi Arabia and other such oil producing states so as to assure the U.S. a continued long-term supply of oil?

Why not base foreign policy on making friends with Iran rather than antagonizing and baiting Iran? Is Iran that bad and "evil" that the U.S. cannot coexist in a peaceful productive relationship? What would the U.S. gain from destroying Iran's nuclear facilities that Iran claims are for peaceful purposes? There is no way that a U.S. military strike would make the world more peaceful or re-create the Middle East into an association of harmonious countries. Rather, it would have the opposite effect. From any angle, a strike by the U.S. on Iran would be even more catastrophic and disastrous than Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq.

So Iran is justified in its concern about this latest Washington caper of arming Sunni Arab states. Writes MacAskill for The Guardian:

"Iran, which expressed alarm over the sales, accused Washington of creating an arms race to help the US defence industry. Syria, an ally of Iran, echoed this, with its foreign ministry saying yesterday: "He who wants to make peace does not start out with an arms initiative." "

The U.S. continues to portray Iran as the antithesis of American values, whatever that means. MacAskill reports:

"Nick Burns, the US undersecretary of state who is to follow Ms Rice and Mr Gates to the region, shrugged aside the Iranian and Syrian criticism: "These countries stand for everything we stand against.""

US WARSHIP SHELLS REMOTE SOMALI VILLAGE

Now the United States is shelling a remote village in Somalia because it suspects jihadists are making a camp there. The BBC reports:

"A US Navy warship has carried out a missile attack on a Somali village where Islamist militants are reported to have set up a base.

"Somali officials said a remote village in the Puntland region was bombarded, days after foreign militants arrived."

I want to know who ordered this strike on a "remote village?" Was it Bush, or was it Bob Gates, Secretary of Defense, or was it Dick Cheney? I doubt it was Gates. As former president of Texas A&M University, Gates would surely know that shelling from a war ship would cause catastrophic loss of life to the whole village, women, children, babies, old people, to everyone in that village.

An attack like this shows how morally bankrupt Bush & Co. are. They solve all problems with missiles and bombs. Even if it means killing everyone in some Somali village.

This news story should be all over American newspapers and TV. Where is PBS on this story? And NPR? Has anyone, other than BBC, mentioned it? I do note that NPR wesite carries a story from AP, quoting a Pentagon spokesman:

"CNN International, quoting a Pentagon official, also reported the U.S. warship's involvement. A Pentagon spokesman told The Associated Press he had no information about the incident.

""This is a global war on terror and the U.S. remains committed to reducing terrorist capabilities when and where we find them," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. "

Whitman's statement is ridiculous and morally deficient for its lack of awareness about who is on the receiving end of the high velocity shelling in the Somali village. So the U.S. "remains committed to reducing terrorist capabilities" even if it means destroying a whole village and all its occupants?

And where is the moral outrage over killing civilians in this quixotic quest to wipe out all Jihadis? Such indiscriminate shelling creates 10 jihadis intent on destroying America for ever person the U.S. mindlessly kills with its fire bombs.