the Shackle Report

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

FRIDAY

From the NY Times about another intelligence victory in the War on Terror:

RICE ADMITS U.S. UNDERESTIMATED HAMAS STRENGTH

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged Sunday that the United States had failed to understand the depth of hostility among Palestinians toward their longtime leaders.

— Did you try tapping their phones, or is that illegal in the advanced societies over there?

“I’ve asked why nobody saw it coming,” Ms. Rice said, speaking of her own staff. “It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse.”

— Maybe the lack of a heart is connected to that.

THURSDAY

This from the LA Times about one of our most ironically named weapons in the War on Terror:

CIA EXPANDS USE OF DRONES IN TERROR WAR

‘Targeted killing’ with missile-firing Predators is a way to hit Al Qaeda in remote areas, officials say…In February 2002, a Predator tracked and killed a tall man in flowing robes along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border with a Hellfire missile. The CIA believed it was firing at Bin Laden, but the victim turned out to be…

— Jesus.

WEDNESDAY

Some more crackpot revisionist history from those cranks at al Jazeera:

ANOTHER “PRE-EMPTIVE” WAR?

Iraq’s lesson

Some political analysts believe that Iran might ultimately seek nuclear weapons for self-defense. They point to nuclear-armed North Korea, which forced the U.S. to back off threats of invasion. Iran also learnt from Iraq’s lesson; if SADDAM had nuclear weapons, the U.S. wouldn’t have invaded his country.

But the truth is that Iran didn’t even threaten to attack Israel or the U.S. forces in the Gulf. In fact, the country sees itself threatened by the United States, Europe and Israel. The Iranians feel historically exploited and victimized by the great powers – and indeed, they were. In 1941, Britain and Soviets invaded Iran. This rarely mentioned part of WORLD WAR II was as criminal as Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Poland. In 1952, the United States and Britain overthrew Iran’s democratic government after it tried to take the national oil company away from British control. They installed their puppet, Shah Reza Pahlevi, who inflicted a reign of terror upon the Iranians. And In 1980, the U.S. and Britain planned SADDAM HUSSEIN’s invasion of Iran to crush its new revolutionary Islamic government. This war killed about one million Iranians.

— See, it’s the way you fundamentalist societies dwell on the past that’s your downfall.

TUESDAY

Reading Undernews we learned of this report from the Washington Times:

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — A Muslim civil liberties group demanded an apology last week from the host of a Los Angeles-area radio show for making fun of a stampede that killed hundreds of Muslims during an annual pilgrimage. . .KFI-AM 640 host Bill Handel. . .reportedly made fun of the deaths . . .during a segment he called the “Annual Stampede Report.”

“The deaths of hundreds of people engaged in religious observances is no laughing matter,” said Sabiha Khan, the group’s spokeswoman.

— It’s the deaths of thousands of infidels that crack us up.

MONDAY

Was that a note of peevishness over at The New York Times last week?

Justice Scalia’s travel is part of a broader affliction on the federal bench. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2004, for example, that Justice Clarence Thomas had accepted thousands of dollars in gifts in recent years, including an $800 leather jacket, a $1,200 set of tires from Nascar and an extravagant vacation from a conservative activist. Federal judges below the Supreme Court level accept dozens of free vacations each year from well-heeled special interests under the guise of “judicial education.”

— Hey, if you’re gonna travel, you’re gonna need the wheels and the threads, man.