First it was Osama bin Laden, then Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and now Ayman al-Zawahiri. In the span of a week, these three al-CIA-duh heavyweights (two from beyond the grave) have issued communiques. Al-Qaeda in Iraq alone has carried out 800 martyrdom operations in three years, besides the victories of the other mujahidin. And this is what has broken the back of America in Iraq, al-Zawahiri, or somebody we are expected believe is al-Zawahiri, said in a videotape released this evening. Ayman al-Zawahiri made this latest tape or somebody in the basement of the CIA building did from the wilds of Pakistan, Afghanistan, or from his prison cell in Iran (on February 18, 2002, the Guardian reported al-Zawahiri was imprisoned in the Evin prison in Iran). Of course, the Iraqi resistance is responsible for breaking the back of the occupation, not al-CIA-duh, the spook league of patsies and useful idiots.

It is interesting to note this latest production was first obtained by IntelCenter, a United States government contractor that does work for various intelligence agencies, according to the New York Times. According to former Army intelligence analyst and consultant William M. Arkin, IntelCenter is one of many cottage industries that have sprung up since the early 1990’s to feed at the counter-terrorism trough and its primary client base is comprised of military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the US and other allied countries around the world, in other words the folks who have a vested interest in making sure al-Zawahiri and the half-wit al-Zarqawi by way of magic trick and computer graphics check in every so often and make absurd claims, stealing the thunder of the Iraqi resistance.
kurtnimmo.com

NAJAF, Iraq, April 28 (Reuters) – An Iraqi vice president said on Friday 100,000 families — perhaps some half a million people — are living as refugees because of sectarian violence wracking the country.

Adel Abdul Mahdi gave no source for his estimate, which is much higher than the 11,000 families — or about 60,000 people — which the Displacement and Migration Ministry said two weeks ago had fled their homes since late February.
alertnet.org

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) – It’s midnight and the restaurant on the top floor of the Sulaimaniya Palace hotel, with its panoramic views, is buzzing.

Seven stories below, the streets of the Kurdish city are still busy and couples walk in the light of the full moon.

This is Iraq. But it’s a world away from the claustrophobic concrete blast walls and bloodshed of Baghdad far to the south.

Kurds boast that rents in Sulaimaniya now outstrip London. Whether it’s true is hardly relevant — the boast itself symbolizes the vibrancy and optimism that separate most of Kurdistan from the rest of strife-torn Iraq.
reuters.com

Not for long.

(CNN) — Iran will allow snap inspections of its nuclear facilities if the U.N. Security Council does not get involved in the country’s nuclear program, a senior Iranian official said on Saturday.

Iran wants to deal solely with the U.N. nuclear inspection group — the International Atomic Energy Agency — according to Muhammad Saeedi, deputy head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency.

“If the agency is again responsible for Iran’s dossier and the Security Council is no longer involved, we are ready to finalize and solve the remaining issues with the agency during a three-week period,” Saeedi said, referring to the IAEA.
cnn.com

IAEA Finds no Proof of Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program

It will start sooner than you think sometime between now and September. And it will be precipitated by the $700-million Russian deal this week to sell Tor air defense missile systems to Iran.

When the war begins, it will be between Iran and Israel. Before it ends, though, it may set the whole of the Middle East on fire, pulling in the United States, leaving a legacy of instability that will last for generations and permanently ending a century of American supremacy.
latimes.com

The growing international crisis over Iran’s nuclear programme could trigger a catastrophic oil price spike, sending crude prices over $100 a barrel, senior Wall Street analysts are warning.

With prices already at around $72 a barrel, such an increase could mean drivers facing prices of 110p a litre on forecourts, according the the Petrol Retailers Association. Last week Lord Browne, chief executive of BP, warned that prices could rise to £1 as he unveiled bumper $5.27bn profits for the first quarter.

Shell is also expected to announce close to record numbers next week, with analysts expecting profits around $5.57bn, driven largely by the oil price.
observor.guardian.co.uk

Does George W. Bush have the numbers 6, 6, and 6 tattooed on his head? In recent years it has become popular for every calamity, natural or man made, to be ascribed to the end times, the last days, Armageddon. If the end is near, the nation most responsible is the United States of America.

Throughout history human beings have competed with Mother Nature in the killing business, and humans win hands down. The Middle Passage, the American Indian holocaust, Stalin’s purges and Hitler’s concentration camps took out many more millions than bad weather, or shifting tectonic plates. If no one speaks up to stop Bush and does so very soon, that awful trend will continue.

The Bush administration has been openly threatening a military attack against Iran. Seymour Hersh recently wrote in the New Yorker that not only is the Bush administration preparing to attack Iran, but is planning to use nuclear weapons to do it. In this latest report, Hersh quotes sources who repeat the Bush messianic vision to save the people of Iran. If the Iranians will be liberated like the Iraqis were liberated, they are on their way to a living hell.
blackcommentator.com

NEW YORK (AP) – Tens of thousands of protesters marched Saturday through lower Manhattan to demand an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, just hours after this month’s death toll reached 70.

Cindy Sheehan, a vociferous critic of the war whose soldier son also died in Iraq, joined in the march, as did actress Susan Sarandon and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

“End this war, bring the troops home,” read one sign lifted by marchers on the sunny afternoon, three years after the war in Iraq began. The mother of a Marine killed two years ago in Iraq held a picture of her son, born in 1984 and killed 20 years later.
One group marched under the banner “Veterans for Peace.”

The demonstrators stretched for about 10 blocks as they headed down Broadway. Organizers said 300,000 people marched, though a police spokesman declined to give an estimate.
apnews.myway.com

…there is the concern that what corporations are actually doing is preparing children as future mindless consumers, whereas the purpose of schools is to prepare them as future citizens. As a result of this, the quality of education is gradually being eroded. In the end, those opposed to corporate influence in schools argue that children are not being taught to think freely and for themselves, but are being conditioned to accept that there is no alternative to the “corporate” state.
ohmynews.com

Despite vehement denials by his attorney, who said this week that Karl Rove is neither a “target” nor in danger of being indicted in the CIA leak case, the special counsel leading the investigation has already written up charges against Rove, and a grand jury is expected to vote on whether to indict the Deputy White House Chief of Staff sometime next week, sources knowledgeable about the probe said Friday afternoon.
truthout.org