Glasses, Keys, Girl

[matthew]

Do things return to normal today?

I guess we will see.

[matthew]

ABC News Exclusive:

The Secret War Against Iran
April 03, 2007 5:25 PM
Brian Ross and Christopher Isham Report:

A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News.

The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran.

It has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials.

U.S. officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as congressional oversight.

Tribal sources tell ABC News that money for Jundullah is funneled to its youthful leader, Abd el Malik Regi, through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states.

Click Here for Full Blotter Coverage.

Jundullah has produced its own videos showing Iranian soldiers and border guards it says it has captured and brought back to Pakistan.

The leader, Regi, claims to have personally executed some of the Iranians.

"He used to fight with the Taliban. He's part drug smuggler, part Taliban, part Sunni activist," said Alexis Debat, a senior fellow on counterterrorism at the Nixon Center and an ABC News consultant who recently met with Pakistani officials and tribal members.

"Regi is essentially commanding a force of several hundred guerrilla fighters that stage attacks across the border into Iran on Iranian military officers, Iranian intelligence officers, kidnapping them, executing them on camera," Debat said.

Most recently, Jundullah took credit for an attack in February that killed at least 11 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard riding on a bus in the Iranian city of Zahedan.

Last month, Iranian state television broadcast what it said were confessions by those responsible for the bus attack.

They reportedly admitted to being members of Jundullah and said they had been trained for the mission at a secret location in Pakistan.

The Iranian TV broadcast is interspersed with the logo of the CIA, which the broadcast blamed for the plot.

A CIA spokesperson said "the account of alleged CIA action is false" and reiterated that the U.S. provides no funding of the Jundullah group.

Pakistani government sources say the secret campaign against Iran by Jundullah was on the agenda when Vice President Dick Cheney met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in February.

A senior U.S. government official said groups such as Jundullah have been helpful in tracking al Qaeda figures and that it was appropriate for the U.S. to deal with such groups in that context.

Some former CIA officers say the arrangement is reminiscent of how the U.S. government used proxy armies, funded by other countries including Saudi Arabia, to destabilize the government of Nicaragua in the 1980s.

[matthew]

Secret? I've been reading reports about U.S. and C.I.A. infiltration into Iran since before the election.

Look back through almost every U.S. war in the 19th Century-Present and there has been some form of provocation by the U.S. prior to the outbreak of official war. This isn't to say U.S. is the prime instigator in each and every case, but the U.S. has claimed each and every time there was nothing and then suddenly they were attacked without provocation, and that is bullshit.

Example, even if the Maddox and Joy were attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 (and they were not, not in the way Johnson described - no matter what information came to surface in recent years, HE LIED THEN), it wasn't exactly a case of "we were just minding our business and some Vietcong attacked our DESTROYERS off the coast of NORTH VIETNAM" (excuse me while I laugh) ...that motherfucker Truman had started fucking with the Vietnamese (ignoring the Atlantic Charter the U.S. also chose to ignore three pleas for assistance from Ho Chi Minh - who pointed out the fact that Vietnam - then Indochine/Indochina, a French Colony - should have been granted freedom from the French under the Charter, was being systematically abused, massaced and starved to death (numbers in the millions) by their colonial overlords...U.S. response was to instead pour a billion dollars (and 300,00 weapons) into the French suppression, re-subjugation of the Vietnamese. He also sent the first "military advisors" in 1950. This continued under Ike...the CIA was in there and they began blowing shit up and assassinating people in North Vietname quite early on... that the attacks in Gulf on Tonkin were unprovoked is such utter bullshit.

As is the claim that Vietnam was fought for the "freedom" and "self-determination" (see the Atlantic Charter) of the Vietnamese people is an absolute farce.

No war...not even WWII was fought for a just cause. Yet we always find an excuse, don't we? And we paint the grotesque facade with concepts of "freedom", "peace", "democracy" ...all the while war is the antithesis of all of those things.    

[Kimmy]

Good morning.

Okay guys, please keep Joey in your thoughts today. His 16 year old cat, Claude, did not come home last night. He's the sweetest kitty ever. Joey is devastated. Send some good thoughts and karma his way.

Thanks!!

[Poop Fresh-Herbed Pickles]

Matt, it warms my heart that Cheney & Bush II have at least learned SOME lessons from Bush I & Reagan.

[Poop Fresh-Herbed Pickles]

Best wishes, Kim & Joey...I bet that old Claude comes strolling in soon.

[Poop Fresh-Herbed Pickles]

RIP director Bob Clark:

Director Bob Clark, who helmed the modern holiday classic A Christmas Story and was the writer-director-producer of the Porky's films, died in a car crash with his son on the Pacific Coast Highway early Wednesday morning; he was 67. According to police reports, Clark's car was hit head-on around 2:30am by an SUV that swerved into Clark's southbound lane; Clark and his 22 year-old son, Ariel, were pronounced dead at the scene. The SUV driver, who was driving without a license, was arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol and is to be booked for gross vehicular manslaughter. The director of the 1974 cult horror film Black Christmas as well as the 1980 Jack Lemmon drama Tribute (which nabbed Lemmon a Best Actor Oscar nomination), Clark scored a major box office success in the early '80s with the teen sex comedy Porky's, a surprise hit that he wrote, directed and produced which became the highest-grossing film of 1982 and one of the highest-grossing films ever in Canada. Clark went on to helm the sequel, Porky's II: The Next Day, a year later, but it was another 1983 film that would become his most memorable. Based on humorist Jean Shepherd's short story collection In gawd We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, A Christmas Story was the nostalgic and humorous tale of a young bwah named Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) growing up in the 1940s who yearned for the ultimate Christmas gift, a Red Ryder BB gun. Also starring Darren McGavin and Melinda Dillon, the comedy (which Clark directed, co-wrote and produced) was a modest success in its initial box office run but gained a strong and steady following through the next two decades, becoming a TV staple during the holiday season and a consistent seller on DVD. Clark's other films included the Dolly Parton-Sylvester Stallone comedy Rhinestone, Turk 182!, From the Hip, and the two Baby Geniuses movies. Recently, there had been talk of Howard Stern producing a remake of Porky's, and Clark had begun development on a remake of one of his first films, the horror movie Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things.  --Mark Englehart, IMDb staff

[Poop Fresh-Herbed Pickles]

Rolling Stones rocker Keith Richards insists he never snorted his father's ashes - his recent comments were made in "jest." The Gimme Shelter guitarist can't believe people took him seriously after he told British music magazine Nme he once snorted his dad Bert's ashes mixed with cocaine. He said, "He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared. It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive." However, Richard's manager Jane Rose tells MTV.com that the hellraiser's comments were "said in jest. Can't believe anyone took (it) seriously."

[Kimmy]

Best wishes, Kim & Joey...I bet that old Claude comes strolling in soon.

Thanks buddy!

[Tripp]

Come home Claudie!

[matthew]

Good morning.

Okay guys, please keep Joey in your thoughts today. His 16 year old cat, Claude, did not come home last night. He's the sweetest kitty ever. Joey is devastated. Send some good thoughts and karma his way.

Thanks!!

Best wishes for Joey & Claude's coming reunion. I suppose the age thing is the concern, but I remember Buster vanishing for three days and then just appearing as if nothing had happened...and my sister's cat disappeared for around two weeks recently and then appeared. It can be tough, but it does not always turn out bad.

May luck shine upon you and yours!

[Kimmy]

You guys are the best!! Thank you!

[Kimmy]

okay i need some help making a decision for The Buh's new spring collar......

which one should I get the royal flush or the curly q??

http://www.upcountryinc.com/PRODTEMP.CFM?CFID=21642283&CFTOKEN=58971733&divid=1&dn=Dog%20Collection&do=subdiv&subdivid=52&sdn=Urban%20Portfolio

[bebopbalogna]

i also have a feeling claude will be home soon.  cats need a little independance once in a while.  he's a little man, ya know.  best of luck.

[bebopbalogna]

okay i need some help making a decision for The Buh's new spring collar......

which one should I get the royal flush or the curly q??

http://www.upcountryinc.com/PRODTEMP.CFM?CFID=21642283&CFTOKEN=58971733&divid=1&dn=Dog%20Collection&do=subdiv&subdivid=52&sdn=Urban%20Portfolio

between those two, i like the royal flush,  however, i think i'm most partial to the terrance plaid.