Gordon Brown is clueless.

Gordon Brown: War is Over
GORDON Brown yesterday delivered a stirring festive message to Our Boys in Iraq: “Happy Christmas – war is over.”

Is Gordon Brown clueless or what? Last I checked the war in Iraq ain't over yet and the road to victory remains dangerous and uncertain. In the article linked above, Gordon Brown claims that the situation in Basra City has greatly improved since the British pull-out... I seriously doubt that, but if that's the case, and if the war is truly over, then where is the declaration of victory? Or will there be none since Iranian-backed Shiite militias are now running the place?

Father Enlists to Honor Fallen Son
This is such a sweet story!

When First Lt. Nathan Krissoff of Reno, Nev., was killed in Iraq a year ago, his father, Bill, an orthopedic surgeon, searched for a way to honor his son's sacrifice. The 61-year-old decided to enlist in the Navy Medical Corps in the hope of being assigned to Iraq.

Krissoff is a taut, fit man who swims a mile every day. But a Navy medical recruiter told him that he was well past the enlistment age limit, and that getting an age waiver could take a year.

In August, the surgeon seized an opportunity when he and his wife, Christine, were invited to meet President Bush in Reno along with the families of other fallen soldiers from the area.

"He asked if there was anything he could do," Krissoff said. "I said, 'Well, there is one thing. I'd like to join the Navy Medical Corps. Is there any way you could help me with this process?' And Karl Rove was in the room and he asked me to fax my papers to him in the White House."

Within days, Krissoff received a call from Navy Medical recruiter Lt. Cmdr. Ken Hopkins, who said Krissoff had been granted an age waiver and had a stack of papers to sign to become a military doctor.

British, Israeli Intel are Skeptical of NIE Report
The CIA sucks, seriously. They just want to make my favoriteeee president look bad!! Pfft!

British spy chiefs have grave doubts that Iran has mothballed its nuclear weapons programme, as a US intelligence report claimed last week, and believe the CIA has been hoodwinked by Teheran…

British intelligence is concerned that US spy chiefs were so determined to avoid giving President Bush a reason to go to war - as their reports on Saddam Hussein’s weapons programmes did in Iraq - that they got it wrong this time.

A senior British official delivered a withering assessment of US intelligence-gathering abilities in the Middle East and revealed that British spies shared the concerns of Israeli defence chiefs that Iran was still pursuing nuclear weapons.

The source said British analysts believed that Iranian nuclear staff, knowing their phones were tapped, deliberately gave misinformation. “We are sceptical. We want to know what the basis of it is, where did it come from? Was it on the basis of the defector? Was it on the basis of the intercept material? They say things on the phone because they know we are up on the phones. They say black is white. They will say anything to throw us off.

Nancy Pelosi Approved of Waterboarding
Democrats are the worst flip-floppers in history. First the WMDs, now this.

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.

Congressional leaders from both parties would later seize on waterboarding as a symbol of the worst excesses of the Bush administration's counterterrorism effort. The CIA last week admitted that videotape of an interrogation of one of the waterboarded detainees was destroyed in 2005 against the advice of Justice Department and White House officials, provoking allegations that its actions were illegal and the destruction was a coverup.

Yet long before "waterboarding" entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.

Am I the only one who thinks the CIA did the right thing by destroying those tapes? The CIA is whacky and they've been whacky for decades!! Besides, they were interrogating al-Qaeda terrorists- not cute fluffy bunnies or Disney princesses! And if thats the only way to keep ugly terrorists locked-up behind bars, then so be it. Gosh, am I being too b*tchy today??