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The mortar round hit before he could pick up his order.

“I turned around and all of Burger King and me went flying,” DeNardi said.

He’d lived through daily explosions in 11 months with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, at nearby Combat Outpost Apache, a no-frills fortress smack in the middle of Adhamiya’s hostile streets. He had rushed through flames to try to save friends and carried others to the aide station only to watch them die.

“I’m not getting killed at Burger King,” he thought, and he dived for a concrete bunker. People were screaming. DeNardi saw a worker from Cinnabon hobbling around, so he climbed out of the bunker, pulled shrapnel out of the man’s leg and bandaged him. The Pizza Hut manager was crying and said two more foreign workers were injured behind her stand — near the Burger King.

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It is as though the explosions represent reality intruding on the suburban US nightmare.

[ 12 December 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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The king of U.S.-allied Saudi Arabia has invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend this year's haj in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Iranian media reported on Wednesday.

It would be the first time an Iranian president was officially invited to take part in the annual pilgrimage, starting later this month, the official IRNA news agency said.

Like other Gulf Arab states, Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia has long been wary of its large Shi'ite Muslim neighbor and shares Western concerns about Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

"Saudi King Abdullah has formally invited President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to take part in this year's haj ceremony," Iran's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Hosseini, was quoted as saying by state television.

The five-day rites are expected to begin on December 18.

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Sovereign funds scoop up crisis victims

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 1:23am GMT 11/12/2007

For better or worse, big chunks of the Western financial system are falling like ripe fruit into the laps of petrodollar sheikdoms and well-heeled Asian governments.
# The latest news and analysis on the credit crisis

Last month, Abu Dhabi's giant fund Adia ($875bn) rescued Citibank with a $7.5bn equity infusion, taking advantage of the US mortgage crisis to scoop up 4.9pc of the world's top bank for a pittance.

The timely gesture helped allay fears of a global banking crisis at a delicate moment, just as spreads on three-month Libor were edging back to August crisis levels and expected sub-prime losses were mounting to $500bn (£245bn).

Now Singapore's GIC fund ($100bn) has provided a $9bn comfort blanket for Switzerland's UBS, money manager for the uber-rich. Whatever the blunders made by European, British and American bankers at the height of the credit bubble, sovereign wealth funds seem more than able to plug the gap - and repair capital ratios. Indeed, they are lining up to buy banks. Kenneth Shen, head of the Qatar Investment Authority ($60bn), said yesterday that the pickings from the US property crash had become irresistible.

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In her opening remarks to the third Sino-US Strategic Economic Dialogue, the head of China's delegation, Vice Premier Wu Yi, also told the United States bluntly to fix its own problems rather than complain about China.

"Obviously, to resort to trade protectionism and blame another country for the structural problems in the US economy is the wrong approach which would only harm the interest of the United States itself," Wu said.

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Bank of America Corp. said Monday that it's shutting a $12 billion a money-market fund of sorts and halting cash withdrawals after losses from complex investments tied to the mortgage crisis.
The so-called enhanced-cash fund, which was only offered privately to institutional investors, saw its net asset value dip below $1 recently. It closed at 99.42 on Friday.
Big investors that want to redeem are being paid "in kind," which means they get their share of the fund's assets put into a separately managed account, according to Jon Goldstein, a spokesman for Bank of America.

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U.S. President George W. Bush wasn't buying it. Bush called on Iran to explain why it had a secretive nuclear weapons program, and warned that any such efforts must not be allowed to flourish "for the sake of world peace."

"Iran is dangerous," Bush said after an Oval Office meeting with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano. "We believe Iran had a secret military weapons program, and Iran must explain to the world why they had a program."

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The US and her allies tried to legitimize their military occupation of Afghanistan under the banner of “bringing freedom and democracy for Afghan people”. But as we have experienced in the past three decades, in regard to the fate of our people, the US government first of all considers her own political and economic interests and has empowered and equipped the most traitorous, anti-democratic, misogynist and corrupt fundamentalist gangs in Afghanistan.
Human rights violations widespread across Afghanistan
Human rights violations are widespread across Afghanistan

In the past few years, for a thousand times the lies of US claims in the so-called “War on terror” were uncovered. By relying on the criminal bands of the Northern Alliance, the US made a game of values like democracy, human rights, women’s rights etc. thus disgracing our mournful nation. The US created a government from those people responsible for massacres in Pul-e-Charkhi, Dasht-e-Chamtala, Kapisa, Karala, Dasht-e-Lieli, 65,000 Kabulis and tens of mass graves across the country. Now the US tries to include infamous killers like Mullah Omer and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar into the government, which will be another big hypocrisy in the “war against terror”.

The reinstatement of the Northern Alliance to power crushed the hopes of our people for freedom and prosperity into desperation and proved that for the Bush administration, defeating terrorism so that our people can be happy, have no significance at all. The US administration plays a funny anti-Taliban game and pretends that a super power is unable to defeat a small, marginalized and medieval-minded gang which is actually her own product. But our people found by experience in the past few years that the US doesn’t want to defeat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, because then they will have no excuse to stay in Afghanistan and work towards the realization of its economical, political and strategic interests in the region.

--RAWA

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http://tinyurl.com/2yum8e

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Labor issues and disputes have arisen in various parts of the world, primarily over wages. In South Florida, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, (CIW) has organized protests against Burger King and other QSR chains in response to the dismissal of the group's demands for increased pay raise of 1¢ per pound for tomato pickers in the region.[56] Burger King's response was that while it is a larger purchaser, BKC is not responsible for the pay rates of the workers of its suppliers as wages disputes are the province of the said producer. BKC also offered employment for any dissatisfied CIW members and scholarships through its Have it Your Way Foundation for family members of CIW workers.[57]

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There will always be hardship in this world,your life span will not alleviate it.
We strive for hope and "optimism"and do the best we can.
One thing that has proven successful is "optimism"

It gives us hope for the future and we all can cling to it.
Give a young child anywhere in the world a sense of "hope" and they will be successful.

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Bashmilah's apparent innocence was clearly lost on officials with Jordan's General Intelligence Department. After his arrest, the Jordanians brutally beat him, peppering him with questions about al-Qaida. He was forced to jog around in a yard until he collapsed. Officers hung him upside down with a leather strap and his hands tied. They beat the soles of his feet and his sides. They threatened to electrocute him with wires. The told him they would rape his wife and mother.

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Baghdad, the first 24 hours:

[ 17 December 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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The complaint in "Saleh et al. v. CACI et al" alleges that these victims were repeatedly sodomized, threatened with rape and harm to their family members, stripped naked, kept naked in their cells, chained and handcuffed to the bars of their cells, forced to wear women's panties on their heads and bodies, subjected to electric shock, subjected to extreme heat and cold, attacked by unmuzzled dogs, subjected to serious pain inflicted on sensitive body parts, and kicked, beaten and struck.

CACI employees did not play a limited, passive, or secondary role in this torture, according to the complaint. Rather, two CACI interrogators -- Stephen Stefanowicz (known as "Big Steve") and Daniel Johnson (known as "DJ") -- were viewed as among the most aggressive. These two men were responsible for directing former U.S. military personnel Charles Graner, Ivan Frederick, and others to torture and abuse prisoners. Indeed, CACI employees Big Steve and DJ directed such harsh torture that both Graner and Frederick, who were convicted and sentenced, respectively, to 10 and 8 years in prison for abusing prisoners, refused to follow the CACI directives to torture prisoners.

The complaint sets out how Stefanowicz and Johnson and other CACI employees directed soldiers to give prisoners the "special treatment," which was code for making naked prisoners to crawl back and forth over rough concrete until they were bloodied and unable to move. The complaint also alleges CACI, working with others, wrongfully killed Ibrahiem Neisef Jassem, Hussain Ali Abid Salin, and Ahmed Satar Khamass.

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Denial of US torture is everywhere, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) had decided that the US public will not be allowed to see posters for the documentary Taxi to the Dark Side because a hooded prionser suggests torture, which isn’t suitable for children. Perhaps they should have told that to the administration before the US started torturing children in Iraq and Guantanamo.

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[ 19 December 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
The complaint in "Saleh et al. v. CACI et al"...

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More documents available HERE

[ 19 December 2007: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
Using Hollywood to rewrite history is a tried and true method. Note Vietnam where the marines were all victims of evil reds and where they actually won the war.

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