C.I. made a generic statement Monday morning at The Common Ills regarding the fact that a friend had some bad news. C.I. then hit the roof when e-mails came in wondering about Rebecca and citing a sentence penned here last week when highlighting Rebecca's post. It was late and we weren't thinking. (For the record, C.I. and Ty wrote the intro to Mike's post we highlighted. C.I. doesn't want to know "who wrote it" but points out that someone should have gotten Rebecca's permission before noting it in any way here. That is quite true and our apologies for that.) On Monday, Rebecca addressed the miscarriage and a number of other issues at her site. It's a strong post. She's a strong woman.
nancy keenan, rick hertzberg (the useless 1s)
hey, everybody, i'm nancy keenan. i'm president of naral and i'm, uh, just pretty, um upset, and i'm, uh, so mad, right now, i just might let some expression come into my voice. no, i don't think i will. i think i'll just play poor pathetic for another year. i like that. i like to picture the supreme court as tonya harding and myself as nancy kerrigan. i bet if i just sit here and do nothing but hold my knee and scream 'it hurts' then america will love me.
nancy keenan was on kpfa's evening news tonight and she played bland when not saying 'uh' and 'um' a lot. she had another repeater, maybe it was 'i ... i' but i don't remember. 9you can go the archives and listen yourself.)
naral has made them useless and there was la-la nancy making herself more useless. it's not just that it was a snooze-fest while she used words about how 'alarmed' we should all be without ever sounding alarmed (or prepared for an interview, or, as she would put it, prepared for an, uh, uh, interview). you're useless, nancy. if there's any 1 in power at naral that is useful, let them speak. you're a lousy speaker. or, if you prefer, you're a, uh, lousy, um, speaker.
get kim gandy (president of now) on the air or any other woman who is a passionate fighter. don't let little nancy whine about the boo-boo on her knee while we see roe v. wade under attack again.
she's bound and determined to destroy abortion rights.
at 1 point she spoke of how the late-term abortion (the issue's been picked up, via a case the supreme court will be hearing) should be a medical decision. then she went on to say it should be a decision between a doctor, a woman and, um, her family.
her family?
know your shit. seriously. it's an issue for a woman and her doctor only.
nancy, did you have an abortion for medical reason?
i did. it was my decision. the doctor presented me with the facts after the test and i made the decision. it's my body. my body wouldn't belong to a 'family.'
what an idiot. every time she opens her mouth, she chips away at abortion rights. she needed to step down as president a long time ago. it's too late for that now. but it's not too late for her to designate some 1 else as the public speaker for naral.
so, here's the deal every 1's worrying about. during the third estate sunday review edition, i explained, as i did here saturday, that i was cramping. c.i., elaine and betty started saying, 'rebecca, you need to go to a doctor.' with c.i. asking which doctor's office i was writing about saturday - my dentist or my dermatologist? i avoid medical doctors. (it was my dentist. a dentist is a doctor.) i can deal with the externals like skin and teeth. i can't handle the internals. (and c.i. and elaine would go to town on that admission.)
this was probably a 30 minute discussion during the edition putting us all behind. then we were working on some piece, i don't remember which 1. and some 1, jim?, asked c.i.'s opinion after i had weighed in. c.i.'s response was a shocker: 'oh my god. you're not getting your period. you miscarried.'
yes, that's what the cramps were. i love c.i. but it always freaks me out when that happens. and it's always the same way. you think something's over and you've moved on and then out of the blue, it will hit c.i. what's going on (it was the same with my divorce from fly boy which i wasn't rushing to tell c.i. or elaine about, with an annullment - 'i don't care what we eat ... oh my god, rebecca he's gay' - and over and over throughout the years). i used to kid, 'what are you, psychic?' c.i. just has always been able to zero in on something if you're trying to put a happy face on it. and when the realization hits, it's usually as c.i.'s speaking - taking even c.i. by surprise.
i wasn't that far along. i hadn't even told fly boy. i wasn't surprised because i had miscarried twice with fly boy and once with my first husband.
i was surprised because we were using birth control, surprised to be pregnant.
that's just the way it goes.
did i cry. yes, i cried saturday afternoon for several hours. then saturday night, i put on my thinking cap and got to work with the gang on the latest edition. i hadn't planned on telling any 1 but my saturday entry came up and then elaine, betty and c.i. were saying 'you need to go to the doctor.' then c.i. realized what was going on. every 1 was supportive and caring, i thank them for that, but it put the whole edition behind and brought every 1 down. don't feel down. it's life.
i am going to the doctor tomorrow. elaine arranged the appointment. everything's fine.
i know everyone's sad for me and i appreciate that.
things happen.
you live with them.
i purposely started off the post with nancy keelen to show i'm fine. i'm not sobbing. i'm not whimpering. i'm fine.
now let's talk about something else. rick hertzberg. t is pissed and i don't blame her 1 bit.
in the new yorker, hertzberg has another 1 of his nonsense pieces (he's new republican and then some) 'distraction.' what's it about? among other things same-sex marriage.
talk about your bullshit. talk about your nonsense.
who but an unfeeling straight boy (white) would label the right to marry for all a 'distraction.'
i'm really sorry that little ricky thinks the issue is eating up his valuable time.
but it's an issue to a lot of people.
t was insulted and i didn't blame her 1 bit.
she wondered if, since she was both african-american and a lesbian, she was a 'double distraction'?
that's my best friend, little ricky, who are you to label issues that matter to her a distraction?
little ricky is an idiot. in 2004, during 1 of the conventions, i think the democratic 1, he was a guest on the majority report on air america. if you remember back then, you know that the networks decided the conventions weren't worthy of a great deal coverage. it was all a dog and pony show, blah, blah, blah.
so janeane made the point that there were stories there (and they found some) and that reporters shouldn't allow themselves to be managed, or something like that, by the party. about how the delegates were left outside. and she asks rick about that because he's written about it. his basic response is: what are you talking about?
little ricky has written about it over and over. i called my ex-mother-in-law (they love the new republican - though i was glad to hear that they'd finally stopped reading it - apparently it's gotten even worse - who thought that was possible?). her husband has each few months leatherbound (or had) and i wanted her to go summer 1988 because i remember that 1 where little ricky was whining about how all the delegates weren't even allowed in the democratic convention hall (it was too small for them all). she found it. it's ran in the august 8, 1988 issue.
that's not the only 1. that's just the 1 i could remember off hand (i wasn't going to make my ex-mother-in-law go through every election year convention).
now hertzberg would probably argue he didn't say anything bad about gays and lesbians. he didn't. he did the 'tolerance' speech. oh how brave.
he's running scared like all the other 'career pundits.'
stop being scared. let's have the discussion.
quit playing like now-is-not-the-time.
if you wait for 'career pundits,' it's never the time.
he's tolerant.
tolerant enough to allow that they are serious issues to gays and lesbians (despite the column's title 'distraction'). i'm sorry, i'm not 'tolerant.' i embrace the right of gays and lesbians to live in an equal world with equal benefits, equal access, go down the list.
little ricky's too old to not grasp that running scared is not going to play. not for equality and not for an election.
bully boy wants to paint some 1 as a gay and lesbian friend? go for it.
the natural response is: 'yes, i support equality. i'm not sure why he doesn't. but i believe in america that we are equal.'
b-b-but some nutcase like james dobson says if you allow same-sex marriages, the next thing you know some 1 will want to marry a goat!
'i have to wonder what sort of fantasy life a person like that has? let's just say i wouldn't visit a farm with them.'
ha-ha. big laugh for the nation. point made.
instead, the nation's leaders want to run from. why should we support a run for office by anyone we only see running AWAY FROM issues?
leave it to a career pundit.
paul krugman isn't a career pundit. but his column pissed me off. today, he's waxing on about the 50s. oh yeah, he tells you, it wasn't great for every 1 and not every 1 got to be middle class, but we were closer together then and there wasn't bipartisanship (he credits that to wwii).
does he not get how offensive that is?
on today of all days?
if you're blanking, while he's praising the 50s and noting how the policitians could work together in the column that ran today, today is also the day on which, in 1953, ethel and julius rosenberg were executed. that's the 50s he's waxing on about and about the story in time magazine that he read blah-blah-blah.
yeah, there was a bond between a lot of dems and a lot of repubes - it was the desire to launch a witch hunt. ethel and julius were only 2 of the casualities.
krugman should be embarrassed that his paen to the 50s ran today, on the 53rd anniversary of their executions.
hertzberg would rather talk about the economy too. at least krugman is an economist.
but the point here is, and it's what ava and c.i. were getting at in their wonderful review this week, it's easy for those white, straight males, to scream 'single-issue' on anything that doesn't effect them directly. but white, straight, male does not cover every 1. it doesn't even cover the majority of americans.
'single-issue' allows abortion to be pushed aside, gay rights, civil rights, just go down the list.
if bully boy could pull a wonderful economy out of his ass tomorrow, it wouldn't address racism. it wouldn't address any of these issue.
it's really funny because he writes (and he was on a progam, krugman, that i'm not providing a link for because i'm pissed at him for publishing that column on the anniversary of julius and ethel's executions, talking about it as well) how the 'other' was used as a dividing issue before.
guess what, it will be again. until the 'career pundits' stop dismissing issues that impact people's lives as 'side issues,' there will always be an 'other' and it will always be used to demonize.
'demonize' that's the title a thinking person would have used - not, as hertzberg did, 'distraction.'
what's the biggest distraction (and election turnout drag)? straight, white males who think only the issues in their lives matter.
so that's my entry for tonight. any 1 reading it should be able to tell, i'm my usual self. things happen. i appreciate the concern. i really do. i'm glad that so many take my life so seriously and care so much for me. but there's no reason to worry.
what happened happened. it's happened to me before. it happens to many women. it's life.
want to worry? worry about c.i. who has nightmares, i'm told wake up screaming 1s, since friday about what's being done at guantanamo.
here's c.i.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Chaos and violence continue.
ADDED: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS IS REPORTING "THE U.S. ARMY HAS CHARGED THREE SOLDIERS IN CONNECTION WITH THE DEATHS OF THREE IRAQIS WHO WERE IN MILITARY CUSTODY IN NORTHERN IRAQ LAST MONTH".
In Baghdad, Reuters notes two bombings, a "car bomb" at "a police checkpoint" resulted in three deaths and three wounded and a "sucicide car bomber" who killed at least four others and wounded at least ten. CBS and the AP note "[a] parked car bomb" that killed five and wounded nine.
The BBC notes: "Violence is continuing in Baghdad despite the introduction of stringent new security measures last week that have seen more than 40,000 Iraqi and US forces deployed in the city." Dahr Jamail reports on the days since Bully Boy's photo-op in the Green Zone and concludes: "Each passing day only brings the people of Iraq and soldiers serving in the US military deeper into the quagmire that the brutal, despicable, tortured occupation has become."
Bombings also took place outside of Baghdad. The AP notes that three people were killed in Fallujah when a roadside bomb exploded while another roadside bomb, in Hillah, killed at least person and wounded at least four others. Reuters notes that, in Najaf, one person died from a bombing while at least five were wounded.
Reuters also reports an attack in Karbala where "a senior police officer" was shot to death and two of his bodyguards were wounded. AP identifies the man as Abdel-Shahid Saleh and notes that Saadoun Abdul-Hussein Radi, electrician, was shot to death in Amarah.Kidnappings? Reuters reports that the Mujahideen Shura Council, which most recently claimed credit for four of the seven Saturday bombings in Baghdad, is now claiming to be holding four Russian diplomats which, Reuters notes, appears to be a reference to the June 3rd attack. The attack resulted in the death of Russian diplomat Vitaly Vitalyevich Titov and the four who were kidnapped were identified by the Russian embassy as: Feodor Zaycev, Rinat Agliulin, Anatolii Smirnov and Oleg Feodosiev. AFP reports that the Mujahideen Shura Council is also claiming that it has the two US soldiers reported to have been taken by "masked gunmen" on Friday. AFP describes it as a body that "groups eight armed factions led by Al-Qaeda."The US military has not confirmed the abduction of the two soldiers. AFP reports that their names have been released: "Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Thomas L. Tucker, 25."
Richard A. Oppel Jr. (New York Times) reported that "more than 8,000" US and Iraqis are searching for Menchaca and Tucker and the AFP notes that seven US troops have been wounded since the search began Friday.
Meanwhile, CBS and AP quote Christina Menchaca, wife of Kristian, saying, "We're basically just watching the news because no one else knows anything about it, no one has heard anything about it."
On the American, Keith Maupin, who has been MIA since April 8, 2004, the AFP reports: "The Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera aired a video a week later that showed the American seated on the floor surrounded by masked gunmen. A month later it aired what it said was the execution of an American soldier, but the images were unclear and the army said it was inconclusive."
Al Jazeera is reporting that Iraq forces will be responsible for Muthanna relieving the British forces. This is the area that Japanese troops were also responsible for possibly adding creedence to the press coverage of the rumors that Japan will be announcing, prior to June 29th, that it is withdrawing all of its troops from Iraq. CBS and the AP note that Japan, England and Australia will "continue moving to "support role." The AP notes: "The decision, announced after [Nouri] al-Maliki met with Japan's ambassador, does not necessarily mean that any U.S.-led coalition forces will be withdrawn from Muthana province."
Ramadi? As noted by Sandra Lupien on KPFA's The Morning Show, "major military operations" continue as "helicopters and airplanes are flying over the town." Reuters reports that "seven tanks moved along Maarif Street and July 17 Street. Two explosions were heard but the cause was not clear." Ali Hussein Mohammed is quoted as saying: "The water is totally cut off. We have to go to the river to get water. There has been no water for 24 hours and we have no gas to boil the river water to drink it."
Meanwhile, in Italy, the AFP reports that prosecutors are saying that the US marine who shot Nicola Calipari should be put on trial. Calipari had been sent to Iraq by the Italian government to rescue kidnapped Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena. Though he and Sgrena made it safely to the car, while traveling to the airport to leave Iraq, their car (or "caravan" in some reports at the time) was shot at by US forces. In the attack, Calipari was killed. Sgrena will be in New York City Friday June 23rd for an event with Amy Goodman at Columiba University. (Event starts at 7:30 p.m.)
Finally, Bully Boy is due to visit Vienna this week (Tuesday and Wednesday) and a group is attempting to organize a loud, if not welcoming, reception for him. "Bush Go Home" organizer Michael Proebsting tells the AAP: "The name George Bush, the name of the American president, has become a symbol for war crimes, for Abu Ghraib, for Guantanamo, for Jenin."
nancy keenan was on kpfa's evening news tonight and she played bland when not saying 'uh' and 'um' a lot. she had another repeater, maybe it was 'i ... i' but i don't remember. 9you can go the archives and listen yourself.)
naral has made them useless and there was la-la nancy making herself more useless. it's not just that it was a snooze-fest while she used words about how 'alarmed' we should all be without ever sounding alarmed (or prepared for an interview, or, as she would put it, prepared for an, uh, uh, interview). you're useless, nancy. if there's any 1 in power at naral that is useful, let them speak. you're a lousy speaker. or, if you prefer, you're a, uh, lousy, um, speaker.
get kim gandy (president of now) on the air or any other woman who is a passionate fighter. don't let little nancy whine about the boo-boo on her knee while we see roe v. wade under attack again.
she's bound and determined to destroy abortion rights.
at 1 point she spoke of how the late-term abortion (the issue's been picked up, via a case the supreme court will be hearing) should be a medical decision. then she went on to say it should be a decision between a doctor, a woman and, um, her family.
her family?
know your shit. seriously. it's an issue for a woman and her doctor only.
nancy, did you have an abortion for medical reason?
i did. it was my decision. the doctor presented me with the facts after the test and i made the decision. it's my body. my body wouldn't belong to a 'family.'
what an idiot. every time she opens her mouth, she chips away at abortion rights. she needed to step down as president a long time ago. it's too late for that now. but it's not too late for her to designate some 1 else as the public speaker for naral.
so, here's the deal every 1's worrying about. during the third estate sunday review edition, i explained, as i did here saturday, that i was cramping. c.i., elaine and betty started saying, 'rebecca, you need to go to a doctor.' with c.i. asking which doctor's office i was writing about saturday - my dentist or my dermatologist? i avoid medical doctors. (it was my dentist. a dentist is a doctor.) i can deal with the externals like skin and teeth. i can't handle the internals. (and c.i. and elaine would go to town on that admission.)
this was probably a 30 minute discussion during the edition putting us all behind. then we were working on some piece, i don't remember which 1. and some 1, jim?, asked c.i.'s opinion after i had weighed in. c.i.'s response was a shocker: 'oh my god. you're not getting your period. you miscarried.'
yes, that's what the cramps were. i love c.i. but it always freaks me out when that happens. and it's always the same way. you think something's over and you've moved on and then out of the blue, it will hit c.i. what's going on (it was the same with my divorce from fly boy which i wasn't rushing to tell c.i. or elaine about, with an annullment - 'i don't care what we eat ... oh my god, rebecca he's gay' - and over and over throughout the years). i used to kid, 'what are you, psychic?' c.i. just has always been able to zero in on something if you're trying to put a happy face on it. and when the realization hits, it's usually as c.i.'s speaking - taking even c.i. by surprise.
i wasn't that far along. i hadn't even told fly boy. i wasn't surprised because i had miscarried twice with fly boy and once with my first husband.
i was surprised because we were using birth control, surprised to be pregnant.
that's just the way it goes.
did i cry. yes, i cried saturday afternoon for several hours. then saturday night, i put on my thinking cap and got to work with the gang on the latest edition. i hadn't planned on telling any 1 but my saturday entry came up and then elaine, betty and c.i. were saying 'you need to go to the doctor.' then c.i. realized what was going on. every 1 was supportive and caring, i thank them for that, but it put the whole edition behind and brought every 1 down. don't feel down. it's life.
i am going to the doctor tomorrow. elaine arranged the appointment. everything's fine.
i know everyone's sad for me and i appreciate that.
things happen.
you live with them.
i purposely started off the post with nancy keelen to show i'm fine. i'm not sobbing. i'm not whimpering. i'm fine.
now let's talk about something else. rick hertzberg. t is pissed and i don't blame her 1 bit.
in the new yorker, hertzberg has another 1 of his nonsense pieces (he's new republican and then some) 'distraction.' what's it about? among other things same-sex marriage.
talk about your bullshit. talk about your nonsense.
who but an unfeeling straight boy (white) would label the right to marry for all a 'distraction.'
i'm really sorry that little ricky thinks the issue is eating up his valuable time.
but it's an issue to a lot of people.
t was insulted and i didn't blame her 1 bit.
she wondered if, since she was both african-american and a lesbian, she was a 'double distraction'?
that's my best friend, little ricky, who are you to label issues that matter to her a distraction?
little ricky is an idiot. in 2004, during 1 of the conventions, i think the democratic 1, he was a guest on the majority report on air america. if you remember back then, you know that the networks decided the conventions weren't worthy of a great deal coverage. it was all a dog and pony show, blah, blah, blah.
so janeane made the point that there were stories there (and they found some) and that reporters shouldn't allow themselves to be managed, or something like that, by the party. about how the delegates were left outside. and she asks rick about that because he's written about it. his basic response is: what are you talking about?
little ricky has written about it over and over. i called my ex-mother-in-law (they love the new republican - though i was glad to hear that they'd finally stopped reading it - apparently it's gotten even worse - who thought that was possible?). her husband has each few months leatherbound (or had) and i wanted her to go summer 1988 because i remember that 1 where little ricky was whining about how all the delegates weren't even allowed in the democratic convention hall (it was too small for them all). she found it. it's ran in the august 8, 1988 issue.
that's not the only 1. that's just the 1 i could remember off hand (i wasn't going to make my ex-mother-in-law go through every election year convention).
now hertzberg would probably argue he didn't say anything bad about gays and lesbians. he didn't. he did the 'tolerance' speech. oh how brave.
he's running scared like all the other 'career pundits.'
stop being scared. let's have the discussion.
quit playing like now-is-not-the-time.
if you wait for 'career pundits,' it's never the time.
he's tolerant.
tolerant enough to allow that they are serious issues to gays and lesbians (despite the column's title 'distraction'). i'm sorry, i'm not 'tolerant.' i embrace the right of gays and lesbians to live in an equal world with equal benefits, equal access, go down the list.
little ricky's too old to not grasp that running scared is not going to play. not for equality and not for an election.
bully boy wants to paint some 1 as a gay and lesbian friend? go for it.
the natural response is: 'yes, i support equality. i'm not sure why he doesn't. but i believe in america that we are equal.'
b-b-but some nutcase like james dobson says if you allow same-sex marriages, the next thing you know some 1 will want to marry a goat!
'i have to wonder what sort of fantasy life a person like that has? let's just say i wouldn't visit a farm with them.'
ha-ha. big laugh for the nation. point made.
instead, the nation's leaders want to run from. why should we support a run for office by anyone we only see running AWAY FROM issues?
leave it to a career pundit.
paul krugman isn't a career pundit. but his column pissed me off. today, he's waxing on about the 50s. oh yeah, he tells you, it wasn't great for every 1 and not every 1 got to be middle class, but we were closer together then and there wasn't bipartisanship (he credits that to wwii).
does he not get how offensive that is?
on today of all days?
if you're blanking, while he's praising the 50s and noting how the policitians could work together in the column that ran today, today is also the day on which, in 1953, ethel and julius rosenberg were executed. that's the 50s he's waxing on about and about the story in time magazine that he read blah-blah-blah.
yeah, there was a bond between a lot of dems and a lot of repubes - it was the desire to launch a witch hunt. ethel and julius were only 2 of the casualities.
krugman should be embarrassed that his paen to the 50s ran today, on the 53rd anniversary of their executions.
hertzberg would rather talk about the economy too. at least krugman is an economist.
but the point here is, and it's what ava and c.i. were getting at in their wonderful review this week, it's easy for those white, straight males, to scream 'single-issue' on anything that doesn't effect them directly. but white, straight, male does not cover every 1. it doesn't even cover the majority of americans.
'single-issue' allows abortion to be pushed aside, gay rights, civil rights, just go down the list.
if bully boy could pull a wonderful economy out of his ass tomorrow, it wouldn't address racism. it wouldn't address any of these issue.
it's really funny because he writes (and he was on a progam, krugman, that i'm not providing a link for because i'm pissed at him for publishing that column on the anniversary of julius and ethel's executions, talking about it as well) how the 'other' was used as a dividing issue before.
guess what, it will be again. until the 'career pundits' stop dismissing issues that impact people's lives as 'side issues,' there will always be an 'other' and it will always be used to demonize.
'demonize' that's the title a thinking person would have used - not, as hertzberg did, 'distraction.'
what's the biggest distraction (and election turnout drag)? straight, white males who think only the issues in their lives matter.
so that's my entry for tonight. any 1 reading it should be able to tell, i'm my usual self. things happen. i appreciate the concern. i really do. i'm glad that so many take my life so seriously and care so much for me. but there's no reason to worry.
what happened happened. it's happened to me before. it happens to many women. it's life.
want to worry? worry about c.i. who has nightmares, i'm told wake up screaming 1s, since friday about what's being done at guantanamo.
here's c.i.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Chaos and violence continue.
ADDED: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS IS REPORTING "THE U.S. ARMY HAS CHARGED THREE SOLDIERS IN CONNECTION WITH THE DEATHS OF THREE IRAQIS WHO WERE IN MILITARY CUSTODY IN NORTHERN IRAQ LAST MONTH".
In Baghdad, Reuters notes two bombings, a "car bomb" at "a police checkpoint" resulted in three deaths and three wounded and a "sucicide car bomber" who killed at least four others and wounded at least ten. CBS and the AP note "[a] parked car bomb" that killed five and wounded nine.
The BBC notes: "Violence is continuing in Baghdad despite the introduction of stringent new security measures last week that have seen more than 40,000 Iraqi and US forces deployed in the city." Dahr Jamail reports on the days since Bully Boy's photo-op in the Green Zone and concludes: "Each passing day only brings the people of Iraq and soldiers serving in the US military deeper into the quagmire that the brutal, despicable, tortured occupation has become."
Bombings also took place outside of Baghdad. The AP notes that three people were killed in Fallujah when a roadside bomb exploded while another roadside bomb, in Hillah, killed at least person and wounded at least four others. Reuters notes that, in Najaf, one person died from a bombing while at least five were wounded.
Reuters also reports an attack in Karbala where "a senior police officer" was shot to death and two of his bodyguards were wounded. AP identifies the man as Abdel-Shahid Saleh and notes that Saadoun Abdul-Hussein Radi, electrician, was shot to death in Amarah.Kidnappings? Reuters reports that the Mujahideen Shura Council, which most recently claimed credit for four of the seven Saturday bombings in Baghdad, is now claiming to be holding four Russian diplomats which, Reuters notes, appears to be a reference to the June 3rd attack. The attack resulted in the death of Russian diplomat Vitaly Vitalyevich Titov and the four who were kidnapped were identified by the Russian embassy as: Feodor Zaycev, Rinat Agliulin, Anatolii Smirnov and Oleg Feodosiev. AFP reports that the Mujahideen Shura Council is also claiming that it has the two US soldiers reported to have been taken by "masked gunmen" on Friday. AFP describes it as a body that "groups eight armed factions led by Al-Qaeda."The US military has not confirmed the abduction of the two soldiers. AFP reports that their names have been released: "Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Thomas L. Tucker, 25."
Richard A. Oppel Jr. (New York Times) reported that "more than 8,000" US and Iraqis are searching for Menchaca and Tucker and the AFP notes that seven US troops have been wounded since the search began Friday.
Meanwhile, CBS and AP quote Christina Menchaca, wife of Kristian, saying, "We're basically just watching the news because no one else knows anything about it, no one has heard anything about it."
On the American, Keith Maupin, who has been MIA since April 8, 2004, the AFP reports: "The Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera aired a video a week later that showed the American seated on the floor surrounded by masked gunmen. A month later it aired what it said was the execution of an American soldier, but the images were unclear and the army said it was inconclusive."
Al Jazeera is reporting that Iraq forces will be responsible for Muthanna relieving the British forces. This is the area that Japanese troops were also responsible for possibly adding creedence to the press coverage of the rumors that Japan will be announcing, prior to June 29th, that it is withdrawing all of its troops from Iraq. CBS and the AP note that Japan, England and Australia will "continue moving to "support role." The AP notes: "The decision, announced after [Nouri] al-Maliki met with Japan's ambassador, does not necessarily mean that any U.S.-led coalition forces will be withdrawn from Muthana province."
Ramadi? As noted by Sandra Lupien on KPFA's The Morning Show, "major military operations" continue as "helicopters and airplanes are flying over the town." Reuters reports that "seven tanks moved along Maarif Street and July 17 Street. Two explosions were heard but the cause was not clear." Ali Hussein Mohammed is quoted as saying: "The water is totally cut off. We have to go to the river to get water. There has been no water for 24 hours and we have no gas to boil the river water to drink it."
Meanwhile, in Italy, the AFP reports that prosecutors are saying that the US marine who shot Nicola Calipari should be put on trial. Calipari had been sent to Iraq by the Italian government to rescue kidnapped Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena. Though he and Sgrena made it safely to the car, while traveling to the airport to leave Iraq, their car (or "caravan" in some reports at the time) was shot at by US forces. In the attack, Calipari was killed. Sgrena will be in New York City Friday June 23rd for an event with Amy Goodman at Columiba University. (Event starts at 7:30 p.m.)
Finally, Bully Boy is due to visit Vienna this week (Tuesday and Wednesday) and a group is attempting to organize a loud, if not welcoming, reception for him. "Bush Go Home" organizer Michael Proebsting tells the AAP: "The name George Bush, the name of the American president, has become a symbol for war crimes, for Abu Ghraib, for Guantanamo, for Jenin."
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