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Al Jazeera English - News - Turkish Military Issues Warning "The chief of Turkey's military has said that secularism is under attack by "centres of evil". The warning came one day before the expected election to the presidency of Abdullah Gul, the candidate of the ruling AK Party who has a background in political Islam."

The Ongoing Hunt for Osama bin Laden - Newsweek: World News - MSNBC.com : "Sept. 3, 2007 issue - The Americans were getting close. It was early in the winter of 2004-05, and Osama bin Laden and his entourage were holed up in a mountain hideaway along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Suddenly, a sentry, posted several kilometers away, spotted a patrol of U.S. soldiers who seemed to be heading straight for bin Laden's redoubt. The sentry radioed an alert, and word quickly passed among the Qaeda leader's 40-odd bodyguards to prepare to remove 'the Sheik,' as bin Laden is known to his followers, to a fallback position. As Sheik Said, a senior Egyptian Qaeda operative, later told the story, the anxiety level was so high that the bodyguards were close to using the code word to kill bin Laden and commit suicide. According to Said, bin Laden had decreed that he would never be captured."

Antiwar.com Blog · Torture Gonzales Out

Vietnam’s Real Lessons - CommonDreams.org : "Here are a few of the lessons that he overlooks. In unconventional wars, body counts don’t really count. In the Vietnam War, superior American firepower enabled U.S. forces to prevail in most tactical engagements. We killed plenty of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. But killing didn’t produce victory — the exertions of U.S. troops all too frequently proved to be counterproductive. So too in Iraq — although Bush insists on pretending otherwise. His speech had him sounding like President Lyndon Johnson, bragging that, in each month since January, U.S. troops in Iraq have “killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 Al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists.” If Bush thinks that by racking up big body counts the so-called surge will reverse the course of the war, he is deceiving himself. The real question is not how many bad guys we are killing, but how many our continued presence in Iraq is creating."

Europeans, Canadians See Afghan Mission as Failure: Angus Reid Global Monitor : "(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Few adults in five nations that have provided military assistance in Afghanistan believe the mission is proceeding adequately, according to a poll by Angus Reid Strategies. Only 22 per cent of respondents in Canada think the war against militant groups in Afghanistan has been mostly a success."

Casualties begin to unravel Afghan force | The Australian

Many Take Army's 'Quick Ship' Bonus - washingtonpost.com "More than 90 percent of the Army's new recruits since late July have accepted a $20,000 "quick ship" bonus to leave for basic combat training by the end of September, putting thousands of Americans into uniform almost immediately."

Santa Barbara News-Press : "SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - A call by Puerto Rico's governor for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq earned a standing ovation Saturday from a conference of more than 4,000 National Guardsmen. Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila said the U.S. administration has ''no new strategy and no signs of success'' and that prolonging the war would needlessly put guardsmen in harm's way."

Iraq: British retreat descends into chaos as Shia militia occupy police centre - Independent Online Edition > Middle East : "Shia militia loyal to the firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have scuppered an attempt by British forces to hand over the Basra joint police command centre to Iraqi police. Iraqi police reportedly left when the Shia fighters arrived and began emptying the facility. According to witnesses, they made off with generators, computers, furniture and even cars, saying it was war booty - and were still in the centre yesterday evening. The embarrassing episode, which comes as the British in Basra are preparing to move their remaining soldiers to the city airport as part of a planned withdrawal, once again highlights the strength of the militia in the city."

Rootless Cosmopolitan » Blog Archive » Maliki’s Fate and America’s : "It is in this context that we must see both the Maliki visit to Damascus and the Syria-Saudi spat. Syria has placed itself in between Saudi Arabia and Iran. It has not only supported the Sunni resistance leaders but also improved relations with the Shiite dominated government through visits, increased security measures at the border, and by establishing diplomatic relations and an embassy in Baghdad. Syria cancelled a meeting of Sunni opposition members that was scheduled to be held in Damascus a little over two weeks ago. In its place it held a security conference at which Iraqi and U.S. members participated. Saudi Arabia refused to send a delegation or even an observer to the conference, sparking the latest round of Syrian-Saudi accusations."

Gonzales has resigned, officials say - Politics - MSNBC.com Alberto was one of the men who approved torturing POW's and innocent people who are picked-up from the streets around the world. America tortures

Myths and Truths About Iran - by David R. Henderson I want to make is that the way governments get more power over us is to scare us, to make us afraid of various things. Governments run by Democrats have things they want us to be afraid of so that we will support their policies. Governments run by Republicans try to make us afraid of other things so that we will support them and their policies. The Iranian government tries to make people afraid so that people will support its policies. Governments around the world do that. Now, of course there are some things we should be afraid of. I'm afraid of jumping off cliffs, for example. And there are some things that government warns us about that we should fear. But how afraid should we be? And, since the topic today is Iran, how afraid should Americans be that the Iranian government will harm them? My answer is "not very."