Clipmarks | BobbyRutan's 'cheney' clips

Democrat tied to Obama wins special election in Mississippi

Wed, 14 May 2008 04:26:37 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: More: The special election was held to fill the seat of former Rep. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who was appointed to serve out the remainder of Sen. Trent Lott’s term last December. Wicker had never faced a competitive race since first elected in 1994, and the district gave President Bush 62 percent of the vote in 2004.

The results amount to a rebuke of the Republican strategy of trying nationalize the race by tying Childers to Sen. Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Obama held low approval ratings in the district, but the nearly $2 million that GOP groups poured into northern Mississippi failed to make the race a referendum on the national political landscape.

A GOP House leadership aide told Politico last week that “if we don’t win in Mississippi, I think you are going to see a lot of people running around here looking for windows to jump out of.”

Clip Source: www.politico.com

Democrats picked up a northern Mississippi House seat in one of the most conservative-minded districts in the country Tuesday night -- an upset that will reverberate darkly through a House Republican caucus already reeling from losses in special elections in Illinois and Louisiana.

With all precincts reporting, the Democratic nominee, Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Travis Childers, defeated Republican Greg Davis, 54 to 46 percent. Childers was able to expand his three-point margin of victory from the race's first round of balloting last month -- even as he faced an onslaught of Republican attacks.

Republicans dispatched a lineup of heavy hitters in the campaign’s final week, including a pre-election stop Monday by Vice President Dick Cheney. President Bush, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and First Lady Laura Bush recorded automated calls urging voters to support Davis.

"His victory has sent a political thunderbolt across America tonight," DCCC chairman Chris Van Hollen said

Clip Source: www.sourcewatch.org

Clip Source: files.meetup.com

Tags: look out above, republicans jumping out of windows

Oklahoma Republican admits, "Iraq Probably a Mistake"

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 04:24:30 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: More: Coburn at one point in the campaign reportedly said the war in Iraq was "absolutely not" a mistake.

Vice President Dick Cheney, a vocal defender of the war, came to Tulsa to cam paign and raise money for Coburn.

During that visit, Cheney criticized Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry for flip-flopping on the war by voting in the Senate to go to war but voting against adequate funding for the troops.

Still, his comments at the town hall meeting may be the first time he has ever suggested the war was a mistake.

Coburn's comment came less than a week after he returned from his second trip to Iraq since entering the Senate.

Clip Source: www.tulsaworld.com

Coburn declines to elaborate on Iraq War statement

U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn's comment that going to war in Iraq was "probably a mistake" represents a significant departure from where the Oklahoma Republican started out on the 5-year-old conflict.

Coburn's comment came at the beginning of remarks at a weekend town hall meeting in Muskogee

"I will tell you personally that I think it was probably a mistake going to Iraq,"

MUM

Tom Coburn: No comment on earlier “probably a mistake” remark.

What was unclear was when exactly Coburn changed his position on the controversial war, what led to that change and why he chose to reveal it at a town hall meeting back in the state as opposed to in front of a wider audience.

Coburn, who previously served six years in the U.S. House, ran for the Senate in 2004.

During both the primary and the general election campaigns that year, he repeatedly expressed support for President Bush's decision to take the country to war

in Iraq.

Tags: repbulican flip-floppers, the most heinous type of flip flopper

Former CIA: Evidence Abounds for Impeachment of Bush & Cheney

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 07:59:56 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: The recent report detailing Iran's stopping its nuclear weapons program four years ago, is an example of how the administration knows it can no longer hide such "incontrovertible evidence" from the American people in the fallout from the misinformation they received on the Iraq War, McGovern said. He added that he had almost given up believing their were people still working at the top with a conscious and enough people at the top willing to let analysts do their job and accept independent analysis.

McGovern also addressed the reasoning he believes is behind the threat of war with Iran. He believes Israel thinks they have a pledge from the White House to deal with Iran before Bush leaves office and relayed the story of the U.S.S. Liberty, which was attacked by the Israelis in 1967 and covered up by the U.S. Thirty-four U.S soldiers were killed and about 170 were seriously injured.

"On June 8, 1967 Israel realized it could literally get away with murder," McGovern said.

Clip Source: www.fosters.com

The evidence for impeachment of the president and vice president is overwhelming, former CIA analyst and daily presidential briefer Ray McGovern told a room full of people at the Portsmouth Public Library

McGovern, who provided daily briefings for former presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush as well as other high ranking officials during his 27 year CIA career, said he has witnessed a "prostitution of his profession" as the Bush administration lied to the American people about the evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq

"Don't let anyone tell you the President was deceived by false intelligence ... they knew," McGovern said

For the next 40 minutes, he relayed a series of events leading up to 9/11 which illustrate the President's desire to go to war with Iraq well before 9-11, that reliable CIA evidence showed that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and was presented to the administration and the "facts were fixed" in order to legitimize the invasion

Veteran CIA

Tags: to a republican a bj is the only impeachable offen

When will Bush invade Saudi Arabia and Libya? NOT!

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 06:47:27 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: If you've got oil and you've been in bed with the Bush's for decades you can send all the fighters you want to Iraq to kill U.S. soldiers. Is this treason?

There have been 700 Al Qaeda soldiers enter Iraq since August 2006 and Al Qaeda is to blame for all the violence in Iraq? It should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that Al Qaeda and foreign fighters were always a minor player in the violence and chaos released by Bush and the neocons in Iraq.

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

'Al Qaeda rolodex' found in Iraq

As many as 60 percent of the foreign fighters who entered Iraq in the past year have come from Saudi Arabia and Libya, according to documents discovered in a raid in September near the Syrian border, a senior U.S. military official in Baghdad confirmed to CNN Thursday

The documents confiscated in that raid listed the identities of more than 700 foreign fighters in Iraq, whom the United States believes entered that country since August 2006. The official describes the documents as "an al Qaeda rolodex

Scrutinized along with other intelligence in the hands of the U.S. military, the documents show that 60 percent of the foreign fighters who entered Iraq during that time frame came either from Saudi Arabia or Libya, the official said

The United States believes 305 foreign fighters came from Saudi Arabia, and 137 came from Libya

this is the first time the intelligence findings have been discussed in such detail

Tags: lies, and more lies, if bush and cheney's mouths are open their most li

What can the budget for the Iraq War buy?

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 06:07:04 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: Doesn't clip as well as I hoped so visit the website:

Remarkable, that it is admitted these days (by generals, former administration appointees, and neocon architects of the war) that the war in Iraq is about controlling oil resources, and look what you could do with the money that we've spent on that fiasco.

With $611 billion, you could convert all cars in America to run on ethanol nine times over. TheBudgetGraph.com estimates that converting the 136,568,083 registered cars in the United States to ethanol (conversion kits at $500) would cost $68.2 billion.

Many, many environment-friendly cars on the road
With $611 billion, you could convert all cars in America to run on ethanol nine times over.

TheBudgetGraph.com estimates that converting the 136,568,083 registered cars in the United States to ethanol (conversion kits at $500) would cost $68.2 billion.

Clip Source: www.boston.com

What can $611 billion buy?

Many, many environment-friendly cars on the road

With $611 billion, you could convert all cars in America to run on ethanol nine times over.

TheBudgetGraph.com estimates that converting the 136,568,083 registered cars in the United States to ethanol (conversion kits at $500) would cost $68.2 billion.

Clip Source: www.boston.com

Nearly 14 million years' worth of tuition, room, and board at Harvard

Clip Source: www.boston.com

A real war on poverty

According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth.

At the upper range of those estimates, the $611 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world's poor for seven years.

Clip Source: www.boston.com

Nearly 4,000 Newton North High Schools

Tagged as the most expensive high school in Massachusetts, at $154.6 million, the construction design for the new Newton North High School could be replicated almost 4,000 times using the money spent

Tags: bush, cheney, conservatives, liars, terror, oil, politics of fear

For Republicans, New Pessimism Spells Trouble

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 18:27:34 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: More: Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani has wide appeal for his leadership as New York City mayor after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but his social liberalism and two divorces are a show-stopper for many. So is the Mormon faith of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney

Their short descriptions of Giuliani were a mixed bag: along with "confident" and "leader," there was "cocky," "cold," and "arrogant." Asked which family member he most reminds them of, one woman answered, "the evil stepfather." The group was vaguely aware of his two divorces and estrangement from his two children

One man guessed that Mr. Thompson has children in their 40s; none seemed to know that his second wife isn't even that old, and he has two small children.

As for Vice President Dick Cheney, two voters said he should retire. Others called him "cold," "sick," "weak," "secretive," "calculating" and, at best, "very influential."

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

It's almost un-American to believe that your children's generation won't be better off than your own. Yet that is just what a dozen Virginia Republicans unanimously agreed to when they gathered here Thursday night for a political focus group

It captured how demoralized the party is these days, what with an unpopular Republican president waging an increasingly unpopular war amid rising gas prices

The voters ranged in age from 23 to 67. All were white and Christian. All supported Mr. Bush in 2000 and 2004

others snap descriptions weren't so kind to Mr. Bush: "continuing down the wrong path," "he's not listening to the rest of us," "hard-headed." Three Republicans questioned Mr. Bush's intelligence. Six wanted to end the war, one immediately

The group's feelings about the Republican presidential field -- "second string," "no stand-outs" -- reflected the lack of enthusiasm that national and state polls have captured all year among Republican voters

Tags: you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you find you get what you need, fear

Why does Bush want to attack Iran? It's not as dangerous as Pakistan.

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 08:01:59 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: More: The safe haven provided by Pakistan has already had dire effects on U.S. and NATO efforts to fight the resurgent Taliban next door in Afghanistan

Dozens of Taliban commanders have moved their wives and children to Pakistan, where they live in the suburbs of cities like Peshawar and Islamabad

The militants dominate in areas beyond the tribal areas as well. Armed groups have effectively seized control in places like the picturesque Swat Valley, where a jihadi leader named Mullah Fazlullah rides a black horse and commands hundreds of men under the noses of a nearby Pakistani Army division that seldom leaves its barracks. Peshawar is perhaps the most important production and distribution center for Taliban and other Islamist material. Jihadi CD and DVD shops abound. One shop features large posters of the notorious Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah Akhund, who was killed in Helmand earlier this year, and pictures of Guantnamo inmates in their orange jumpsuits behind barbed wire

Clip Source: www.newsweek.com

Today no other country on earth is arguably more dangerous than Pakistan. It has everything Osama bin Laden could ask for: political instability, a trusted network of radical Islamists, an abundance of angry young anti-Western recruits, secluded training areas, access to state-of-the-art electronic technology, regular air service to the West and security services that don't always do what they're supposed to do

Then there's the country's large and growing nuclear program. "If you were to look around the world for where Al Qaeda is going to find its bomb, it's right in their backyard," says Bruce Riedel, the former senior director for South Asia on the National Security Council.

Clip Source: www.newsweek.com

Militancy is woven into the fabric of Pakistani society

Pakistanis were taught that the guerrillas were Muslim heroes, fighting for national honor and security. Such loyalties cannot be turned off like a tap

Taliban fighters now pretty much come and go as they please inside Pakistan

Tags: bush, cheney, liars, chickenhawks, conservatives, war, terror, iran, iraq

IRAQ: Reduction in Violence = Ethnically Cleansed Neighborhoods

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 07:36:37 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: More: Christoff’s conclusions echo that of ret. Gen. James Jones last month, who observed “progress” in a Shi’a-led ethnic cleansing campaign.

Also in attendance at the hearing was Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) Stuart Bowen. In his quarterly report to Congress released today, Bowen acknowledged the reduction in violence but stated that it has not been accompanied by tangible political reconciliation, a finding that was neglected by the traditional media in its reporting today. In Baghdad, for example, Provincial Reconstruction Team officials note:

Despite reduced violence, officials are pessimistic that lasting reconciliation is occurring. … In Diyala, there is a desire to work toward reconciliation, but it will take years to overcome ill-will between tribes.

Earlier this month, Gen. David Petraeus confidently declared, “There’s a local reconciliation” in Diyala province.

Clip Source: thinkprogress.org

the Bush administration has been quick to jump on reports of reduced violence in Iraq

The “violence is thankfully coming down,” said White House spokesperson Dana Perino. Violence is “down significantly from last year,” declared President Bush

before the House Appropriations Committee today

Joe Christoff of the Government Accountability Office stated that this recent reduction in violence should be taken with a grain of salt, as it coincides with increased sectarian cleansing and a massive refugee displacement

I think that’s [ethnic cleansing] an important consideration in even assessing the overall security situation in Iraq. You know, we look at the attack data going down, but it’s not taking into consideration that there might be fewer attacks because you have ethnically cleansed neighborhoods, particularly in the Baghdad area

It’s produced 2.2. million refugees that have left, it’s produced two million internally displaced persons within the countryas well

Tags: "mission accomplished", awol liar, bush, cheney, neoconservatives, war, terror, islam, iraq

Dick Cheney Costumes for Halloween

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 06:44:56 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: I like his transformation when he finally gets in touch with his softer, more feminine side.

Clip Source: uk.gizmodo.com

Listen up all you galaxy conquering heavy-breathers, now’s your chance to dress just like the Man In Black himself – no, not Johnny Cash – the mean one

Clip Source: www.funwarehouse.co.uk

Darth Vader

Clip Source: www.smellingthecoffee.com

Darth Vader

Clip Source: www.liewcf.com

Hey, he looks CUTE!

Tags: the man in black (no not johnny cash), "i find your lack of faith disturbing"

U.S. General: Iraq War is about Oil, Arab World "One Big Gas Station"

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 09:52:18 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan

Clip Source: thinkprogress.org

‘We’ve Treated The Arab World As A Collection Of Big Gas Stations’

During a round table discussion on “the Fight for Oil, Water and a Healthy Planet” at Stanford University on Saturday, Gen. John Abizaid (Ret.), the former CENTCOM Commander, said that “of course” the Iraq war is “about oil“

“We’ve treated the Arab world as a collection of big gas stations,” the retired general said. “Our message to them is: Guys, keep your pumps open, prices low, be nice to the Israelis and you can do whatever you want out back. Osama and 9/11 is the distilled essence that represents everything going on out back.”

“Of course it’s about oil, we can’t really deny that,” Abizaid said of the Iraq campaign early on in the talk.

Though Abizaid says that Bush’s Iraq policy seeks to keep oil “prices low

the per-barrel cost of oil has risen dramatically since the U.S. first invaded. In March 2003, the price of oil was roughly US$35 a barrel. Today, prices reached “above $85 a barrel for the first time

Tags: lies, bush, cheney, conservatives, republicans, iraq, oil, islam, 9/11, death

Merle Haggard has left the Republican Party - Sorry n2

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 21:02:46 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: More: The thing that gets under my skin most about George W. is his intention to install fear in people," he said, after walking me down a hallway lined with gold and platinum records

"This is America. We're proud. We're not afraid of a bunch of terrorists. W is all about terror alerts and scaring us at airports. We're changing the Constitution out of fear. We spend all our time looking up each other's dresses.

Haggard sensed reluctance among the Hillarians to embrace his endorsement—in part, I imagine, because he's not shy about saying that one of the biggest things Hillary has going for her is Bill, who ranks up with Reagan in the Haggard pantheon and not only because the former President used to have a pickup truck with Astroturf in the back. "He cared about this country, about our problems," Haggard said, with a twinkle. "And I figure that whatever she doesn't know, he does."

When Al Gore wins the Nobel and Merle Haggard leaves the party, it's a bad day for Republicans.

Clip Source: www.time.com

Merle Haggard has always had his guitar hardwired to the gutbucket pulse of Middle America

Back in the Vietnam era, he seemed the essence of a historic political migration: white males fleeing the feminized, antiwar, politically correct Democratic Party

His brilliant anthem—Okie from Muskogee—became a rallying cry for those who were disgusted by the "hippies out in San Francisco" smoking marijuana and burning draft cards

so when I heard that Haggard had written a song endorsing Hillary Clinton for President

I was more than curious about the motivation for his apparent left turn

I supported George W. I'm not exactly a liberal

But I know how that Texas thing works, who those oil folks are and what they wanted in Iraq

I'm a born-again Christian too, but the longer I live, the more afraid I get of some of these religious groups that have so much influence on the Republicans and want to tell us how to live our lives

Fear's the only issue the Republican Party has

Enlarge Photo

Merle Haggard.

Tags: fear, religious zealotry, iraq, hillary, war, terror, bush, cheney, republican

U.S. Military and Iraqis Agree: Blackwater unprovoked, Fired on Fleeing Citizens and Cars

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:28:14 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: More: U.S. soldiers did not find any bullets that came from AK-47 assault rifles or BKC machine guns used by Iraqi policemen and soldiers. They found evidence of ammunition used in American-made weapons, including M4 rifle 5.56mm brass casings, M240B machine gun 7.62mm casings, M203 40mm grenade launcher casings, and stun-grenade dunnage, or packing.

At least two cars, a black four-door taxi and a blue Volkswagen sedan, had their back windshields shot out, but their front windshields were intact, indicating they were shot while driving away from the square, according to the photos and soldiers

An Iraqi colonel walked up to Tarsa and described the Blackwater shooters as men in "tan uniforms, black helmets, and that flag," pointing at the U.S. flag on Tarsa's sleeve.

Their actions underscore the long-standing tensions between the U.S. military and private security companies -- and the military's concerns that such shootings could undermine U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Blackwater USA guards shot at Iraqi civilians as they tried to drive away from a Baghdad square on Sept. 16, according to a report compiled by the first U.S. soldiers to arrive at the scene, where they found no evidence that Iraqis had fired weapons

It had every indication of an excessive shooting," said Lt. Col. Mike Tarsa, whose soldiers reached Nisoor Square 20 to 25 minutes after the gunfire subsided

His soldiers' report -- based upon their observations at the scene, eyewitness interviews and discussions with Iraqi police -- concluded that there was "no enemy activity involved" and described the shootings as a "criminal event.

Their conclusions mirrored those reached by the Iraqi government, which has said the Blackwater guards killed 17 people

It was absolutely tragic," said Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil

the Army's top commander for Baghdad

In the aftermath of these, everybody looks and says, 'It's the Americans.' And that's us. It's horrible timing. It's yet another challenge, another setback

Tags: blackwater, criminal mercenaries, iraq=fiasco, war, terror, military, bush, conservatives, cheney

Blackwater draws guns on U.S. Soldiers

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:18:22 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: More: Testifying before Congress last week, 38-year-old Blackwater chief Erik Prince vigorously defended his company's "dedicated security professionals"

In deflecting questions about a drunken Blackwater operative who allegedly shot and killed a bodyguard for Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi in the Green Zone on Christmas Eve last year, Prince said that the employee, later identified as Andrew Moonen, had been fined and fired. But on Friday House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. Henry Waxman released a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recounting evidence that Moonen was able to return to Iraq and worked there for another company.

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

The colonel was furious. "Can you believe it? They actually drew their weapons on U.S. soldiers

describing a 2006 car accident, in which an SUV full of Blackwater operatives had crashed into a U.S. Army Humvee

The colonel, who was involved in a follow-up investigation and spoke on the condition he not be named, said the Blackwater guards disarmed the U.S. Army soldiers and made them lie on the ground at gunpoint until they could disentangle the SUV

His account was confirmed by the head of another private security company

many American civilian and military officials in Iraq also have little sympathy for the private security company

Unlike nearly everyone else who enters the Green Zone, said an American soldier who guards a gate, Blackwater gunmen refuse to stop and clear their weapons of live ammunition once inside

Blackwater

has a well-earned reputation in Iraq for arrogance and high-handedness

Their attitude was, 'We're f---ing security; we don't have to answer to anybody

Gervasio Sanchez

Tags: lawless mercenaries, war, terror, republican, conservative, bush, cheney, politics, liberal

The People vs. The War Profiteers- "Soldier is that guts in your ice?"

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 09:04:59 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: More (8 pages more, read the article): U.S.-military regulations state that once a trailer has been used to store corpses it can never again be loaded with food or drink intended for human consumption

The diseases that may be communicated include aids,hepatitis, tuberculosis, septicemia, meningitis, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human variant of mad cow.

Bud Conyers next caught sight of trailer R-89, about a month later, packed not with human casualties but with bags of ice—ice that was going into drinks served to American troops.

You could still see a little bit of matter from the bodies, stuff that looked kind of pearly, and blood from the stomachs. It hadn't even been hosed down

Conyers and Logsdon say that R-89 was not the only truck that was loaded with ice after being used as a mortuary.

in 2006 alone, according to Forbes, Halliburton C.E.O. David Lesar collected nearly $30 million in compensation. Halliburton's stock price rose fourfold from $10 to $40.

Clip Source: www.vanityfair.com

Americans working in Iraq for Halliburton spin-off KBR have been outraged by the massive fraud they saw there. Dozens are suing the giant military contractor, on the taxpayers' behalf. Whose side is the Justice Department on?

The army's Tina Ballard (far left) is sworn in with five contracting executives

Over the past 16 years, Grayson has litigated dozens of cases of contractor fraud.

So help them, God: Anti-fraud crusader Alan Grayson.

in cases that involve the Iraq war, the D.O.J. has taken extraordinary steps to stand in his way. Behind its machinations, he believes, is a scandal of epic proportions—one that may come to haunt the legacy of the Bush administration long after it is gone.

Consider the case of Grayson's client Bud Conyers

Conyers was summoned to fix a broken refrigerated truck

The trailer, unit number R-89, had been lying idle for two weeks, Conyers says, in temperatures that daily reached 120 degrees. "Inside, there were 15 human bodies

The goo started seeping toward us.

Tags: criminals, war profiteers, treason, halliburton, kbr, bush, cheney, war, republicans, conservatives

Iraq: Another Dirty Secret - South African Mercenaries, former White Apartheid era Veterans

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 18:56:46 GMT

clipped by: BobbyRutan
clipper's remarks: More: The root of that distrust dates to the mid-1990s, when thousands of white officers left South Africa's security agencies during the transition from apartheid to majority black rule. Unemployed soldiers and police joined private security companies that got embroiled in African wars from Angola to Sierra Leone.

A wheelchair-bound man who owns an SUV with vanity plates that proclaim "Baghdad," Brink lost a leg and fingers in 2005 to a mine that exploded under his armored vehicle in Baqouba, a hotbed of the Iraqi insurgency. Since returning to South Africa, he has been encouraging wounded colleagues to apply for U.S. worker's compensation under the U.S. Defense Base Act, which applies to all workers, American or foreign, who are subcontracted in war zones by Washington

Brink was advising them on how to file for U.S. worker's compensation.

I'll buy a farm if I can collect on my claim, said Gouws, 45, But I don't recommend this method of getting a farm to anyone else

Clip Source: www.chicagotribune.com

in that hush lies a clue to this African nation's murky and angst-ridden participation in America's military adventure in the Middle East: Durant is one of thousands of South African police officers and soldiers, most of them white veterans of the old apartheid regime, who have left their jobs to work as private security contractors in Iraq -- a semiclandestine exodus of hired guns that has alternately embarrassed and alarmed the pacifist government here.

Sensitive to its apartheid-era reputation for exporting soldiers of fortune to wars across Africa, the young, black-led government in Pretoria recently drafted the harshest anti-mercenary bill in the world, a measure that would criminalize virtually all of its citizens working in Iraq.

a former South African military officer

conceded that most of the nation's best special forces trainers now are on the U.S. contracting payroll in Iraq

would make South Africans the third-largest contingent of armed foreigners deployed in Iraq

Tags: lies, mercenaries, bribery, war, iraq, bush, cheney, conservatives, politics, liberal