Marines turn to God ahead of anticipated Fallujah battle

NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq, Nov 6 (AFP) - With US forces massing outside Fallujah, 35 marines swayed to Christian rock music and asked Jesus Christ to protect them in what could be the biggest battle since American troops invaded Iraq last year.

Men with buzzcuts and clad in their camouflage waved their hands in the air, M-16 assault rifles laying beside them, and chanted heavy metal-flavoured lyrics in praise of Christ late Friday in a yellow-brick chapel.

They counted among thousands of troops surrounding the city of Fallujah, seeking solace as they awaited Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's decision on whether or not to invade Fallujah.

"You are the sovereign. You're name is holy. You are the pure spotless lamb," a female voice cried out on the loudspeakers as the marines clapped their hands and closed their eyes, reflecting on what lay ahead for them.

The US military, with many soldiers coming from the conservative American south and midwest, has deep Christian roots.

In times that fighting looms, many soldiers draw on their evangelical or born-again heritage to help them face the battle.

"It's always comforting. Church attendance is always up before the big push," said First Sergeant Miles Thatford.

"Sometimes, all you've got is God."

Between the service's electric guitar religious tunes, marines stepped up on the chapel's small stage and recited a verse of scripture, meant to fortify them for war.

One spoke of their Old Testament hero, a shepherd who would become Israel's king, battling the Philistines some 3,000 years ago.

"Thus David prevailed over the Philistines," the marine said, reading from scripture, and the marines shouted back "Hoorah, King David," using their signature grunt of approval.

The marines drew parallels from the verse with their present situation, where they perceive themselves as warriors fighting barbaric men opposed to all that is good in the world.

"Victory belongs to the Lord," another young marine read.

Their chaplain, named Horne, told the worshippers they were stationed outside Fallujah to bring the Iraqis "freedom from oppression, rape, torture and murder ... We ask you God to bless us in that effort."

The marines then lined up and their chaplain blessed them with holy oil to protect them.

"God's people would be annointed with oil," the chaplain said, as he lightly dabbed oil on the marines' foreheads.

The crowd then followed him outside their small auditorium for a baptism of about a half-dozen marines who had just found Christ.

The young men lined up and at least three of them stripped down to their shorts.

The three laid down in a rubber dinghy filled with water and the chaplain's assistant, Navy corpsman Richard Vaughn, plunged their heads beneath the surface.

Smiling, Vaughn baptised them "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."
posted by Frodgie at 8:09 PM

 

Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said.

Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.

Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch.

State and county election officials did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for more details about the voting system and its vendor, and whether the error, if repeated elsewhere in Ohio, could have affected the outcome.

Bush won the state by more than 136,000 votes, according to unofficial results, and Kerry conceded the election on Wednesday after acknowledging that 155,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted in Ohio would not change the result.

The Secretary of State's Office said Friday it could not revise Bush's total until the county reported the error.

The Ohio glitch is among a handful of computer troubles that have emerged since Tuesday's elections.

In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost

posted by Frodgie at 4:27 PM

 

Why Americans Hate Democrats—A Dialogue Depressed liberals analyze what ails them.

BOSTON—My take on the election: Vision without details beats details without vision. President Bush put forward a powerful and compelling philosophy of what the government should do at home and abroad: Expand liberty. You can disagree with Bush's implementation of that vision, but objecting to it as a matter of principle isn't a political winner. John Kerry, on the other hand, campaigned as a technocrat, a man who would be better at "managing" the war and the economy. But for voters faced with a mediocre economy rather than a miserable one, and with a difficult war that's hopefully not a disastrous one, that message—packaged as "change"—wasn't compelling enough to persuade them to vote for Kerry.

Without reliable exit-poll data, it's hard to know exactly which voters and issues decided the election, but my guess is that the Democrats will ultimately conclude that they did what they thought was necessary on the ground to win the election. Karl Rove and the Republicans just did more. (On the exit-poll question: If the initial evening exit-poll result that 5 percent of the late deciders broke for Ralph Nader had turned out to be accurate, Nader would have received more votes from among the pool of late-breaking undecideds than he ended up receiving from the entire electorate.) The Democratic confidence during the early afternoon and evening was based on more than faulty poll data. The Kerry campaign was confident that high turnout from the party base would swing the election their way.

But this election wasn't a swing, or a pendulum. There was no fairly evenly divided group in the middle of the electorate that ultimately broke for one side and made the difference. The 2004 campaign was not a tug of war between two sides trying to yank the center toward them. Instead, it was a battle over an electorate perched on a seesaw. Each campaign furiously tried to find new voters to add so that it could outweigh the other side. Both sides performed capably: Kerry received more votes than Al Gore did four years ago, and he even received more votes than the previous all-time leader, Ronald Reagan in 1984. President Bush just did even better.


posted by Frodgie at 4:24 PM

 

Conservatives urge Bush to go his own way

Conservative activists say President Bush should push forward with his second-term mandate ratified by 59 million voters on Election Day, including a constitutional amendment banning same-sex "marriage."
On issues ranging from tax cuts to Social Security to abortion, Republican stalwarts yesterday said the president should stick to his winning campaign agenda, rejecting calls to "reach out" to the Democratic minority in Congress.
"Democrats still don't get it," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. "What they want Bush to do — change the goals he told voters he'd get done if they gave him a second term — isn't going to happen. Why? Because even more than Reagan, Bush is an agenda president."
Pat Buchanan yesterday declared Mr. Bush's re-election — with 22 percent of voters naming moral issues as most important — a victory in the "culture war" that was the subject of Mr. Buchanan's famous 1992 Republican convention speech.
"George W. Bush was re-elected president because he turned this election into a triumphal, epic battle of the cultural war as his father refused to do in 1992," said Mr. Buchanan, who challenged the first President Bush in the 1992 Republican primaries. "The son stuck by his party's platform and themes as his father did not."
The surprising emphasis on moral issues found in exit polls heartened social conservatives, as did the results from 11 states, including the battleground of Ohio, where bans on same-sex "marriage" were approved by voters.
Robert Knight of the Culture and Family Institute called the success of the marriage amendments a reaction to the Massachusetts court ruling that legalized such unions in Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry's home state.
"What Bush should do first," Mr. Knight said, "is to send a bouquet of flowers to Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, whose clinically insane ruling against marriage ...
posted by Frodgie at 6:23 AM

 

Bush Lays Foundation of Second Term

WASHINGTON — President Bush (search) on Thursday vowed to reach out to the whole nation while pursuing his agenda during his second term, saying "the voters of America set the direction of our nation for the next four years."

"I'm honored by the support of our fellow citizens and I'm ready for the job," Bush told reporters in the Old Executive Office Building during his first post-election press conference, where he sketched out his plans for the country's future.

"I feel like it's necessary to move an agenda the American people want to move," with the help of both Republican and Democratic leaders, he added. "I earned capital in the campaign — political capital — and now I intend to spend it."

Earlier in the day, Bush held the first meeting with his Cabinet since Aug. 2.

"I'm proud of every person here — they've done a great job for the country and I've reminded them that even though an election just ended, we've still got work to do," Bush told reporters after the Cabinet meeting but prior to the press conference.

"I made it clear to them [the Cabinet] I was glad the election was over and reminded them that we're here for a reason," Bush said at the meeting. "They understand that it's such an honor to serve America, it's a privilege to sit around this table … and do the nation's business."


posted by Frodgie at 6:19 AM

 

Braindead

PARIS, France (CNN) -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat remained in a coma Friday at a French military hospital on the outskirts of Paris, amid various reports over the gravity of his prognosis.

Two U.S. administration officials told CNN that Arafat, 75, was being kept alive by machines while French, Israeli and Egyptian officials negotiate with his family and aides over where he should be buried.

Arafat's family always has wanted him to be buried in Jerusalem, but Israeli officials have said they would not allow that. There is some discussion about Arafat being buried in Egypt.

Leila Shahid, the Palestine Liberation Organization representative in Paris, confirmed that Arafat was in a coma but said it was "reversible" and he could come out of it. Speaking in an interview on French Radio Friday morning, Shahid denied reports that the Palestinian leader was brain dead.

Shahid said the coma was initially induced by doctors on Wednesday afternoon in order to perform a biopsy after his condition took a turn for the worse.

The White House and other departments are in communication with French officials about Arafat's status and are receiving constant updates, according to the officials -- one of them very senior -- who are familiar with talks with the Palestinian Authority president's wife and his inner circle.

A senior Israeli official would neither confirm nor deny reports that the negotiations are taking place over where to bury Arafat.

"This is a sensitive issue and we will not discuss it until an official statement is released," the official said.

While "contacts had been made" with the Israeli government regarding where Arafat would be buried, the official said no formal request had been made by Arafat's family.


posted by Frodgie at 6:16 AM

 

Bush Pledges to Make Changes to Tax Code

WASHINGTON (AP) - Contending Americans have embraced his conservative agenda, President Bush pledged Thursday to aggressively pursue major changes in Social Security, the tax code and medical malpractice awards, working with Democrats if they are receptive and leaving them behind if they're not.

"I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it," Bush said a day after a decisive victory that made him the first president in 68 years to win re-election and gain seats in both the House and Senate.

"I'll reach out to everyone who shares our goals," said Bush, who 24 hours earlier had promised to try to win over those who voted for his Democratic opponent.

Buoyant and relaxed on Thursday, Bush cracked jokes at his first postelection news conference and said he had not decided on any changes in his Cabinet for the second term. He took congratulatory calls from world leaders from Russia, Poland, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and Italy before flying to Camp David for four days of rest after the grueling campaign.

As U.S. forces in Iraq mobilize for an all-out offensive in Fallujah and other Sunni militant strongholds, the president refused to say how much the war would cost or whether he planned to increase or cut troop strengths. "I have yet to hear from our commanders on the ground that they need more troops," the president said. He is expected to ask Congress early next year for up to $75 billion for Iraq, Afghanistan and operations against terrorism.


posted by Frodgie at 6:09 AM

 

The wedge politics of Osama bin Laden

To the workers, peasants and soldiers of a war-weary Russia in 1917, Lenin promised "peace, land and bread." To Germans of the Great Depression, Hitler promised an end to war reparations and the overturning of the injustices of Versailles.

Now, Osama bin Laden, with his remarkable videotape on the eve of the U.S. election, seeks to embed his cause – overthrow of the regimes of the Arab world, expulsion of the Americans and the re-establishment of an Islamic caliphate – with the causes of Arab nationalism and independence.

He is also attempting a transformation of himself – a la Ben Bella, Kenyatta and Mandela – from terrorist and guerrilla into elder statesman.

Asserting authorship of 9-11, for which he may have been only the financier, Osama claims the idea of bringing down the towers of the World Trade Center came to him in a vision – as retribution, as he watched Israel, with the aid of the U.S. 6th Fleet, destroy the towers of Beirut during the invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

Osama is fabricating here an ex post facto justification for mass murder. But, more than that, by invoking the causes of the Lebanese and Palestinians, by altering his dress and demeanor, he is trying to redefine himself as no longer an Islamist terrorist, but a visionary, the leader of a great and historic cause.

That he is lying, that there is nothing in his personal history to suggest he came upon the idea of dropping the World Trade Center towers in 1982, is irrelevant. For, to Osama, the truth is irrelevant. After all, Lenin never intended to give the Russian people land or peace, and Hitler's agenda was somewhat broader than he let on to President Hindenburg in 1933.

But Osama's fabrications serve his purposes, one of which is to drive wedges between Arab peoples and their rulers, and Western peoples and their rulers.

Taking a page out of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9-11," bin Laden suggests that the seven minutes during which President Bush sat listening to the reading of "My Pet Goat" after he learned the second tower had been hit enabled al-Qaida to succeed.

posted by Frodgie at 6:02 AM

 

Kerry will concede White House race at 1 PM ET even though "I Won Ohio, before I lost Ohio"-Kerry

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush won a second term from a divided and anxious nation, his promise of steady, strong wartime leadership trumping John Kerry's fresh-start approach to Iraq and joblessness. After a long, tense night of vote counting, the Democrat called Bush Wednesday to concede Ohio and the presidency, The Associated Press learned.

Kerry ended his quest, concluding one of the most expensive and bitterly contested races on record, with a call to the president shortly after 11 a.m. EST, according to two officials familiar with the conversation.

The victory gave Bush four more years to pursue the war on terror and a conservative, tax-cutting agenda - and probably the opportunity to name one or more justices to an aging Supreme Court.

He also will preside over expanded Republican majorities in Congress.

"Congratulations, Mr. President," Kerry said in the conversation described by sources as lasting less than five minutes. One of the sources was Republican, the other a Democrat.

The Democratic source said Bush called Kerry a worthy, tough and honorable opponent. Kerry told Bush the country was too divided, the source said, and Bush agreed. "We really have to do something about it," Kerry said according to the Democratic official.

Kerry placed his call after weighing unattractive options overnight. With Bush holding fast to a six-figure lead in make-or-break Ohio, Kerry could give up or trigger a struggle that would have stirred memories of the bitter recount in Florida that propelled Bush to the White House in 2000.




posted by Frodgie at 1:37 PM

 

BUSH BREAKS ALL-TIME POPULAR VOTE TOTAL, SURPASSING REAGAN

posted by Frodgie at 7:10 AM

 

Rivals Prep for Voting, Rallies on Election Day

After a whirlwind last-day tour of the battleground states, President Bush (search) and Democratic challenger John Kerry (search) went to their homesteads late Monday night for a good night's sleep before voting on Tuesday and more stops in the battlegrounds.

Bush returned to his expansive ranch in Crawford, Texas, after a final rally in Dallas. Kerry left Cleveland for his town home in Boston's Beacon Hill.

The two both had plans to vote early in the morning, as did Vice President Dick Cheney, who was returning home with his wife Lynne before voting in Wilson, Wyo., on Tuesday. Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards already voted in his home state of North Carolina and was waking up on Tuesday in Florida.

After voting on Tuesday, Bush planned to make a campaign stop in Columbus, Ohio, before returning to Washington, D.C., where he would await the day's voting results. Kerry planned to head to Wisconsin before returning back to Boston for election tallies to come in.

Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, the first voting of the 2004 election got underway. About five dozen North Country residents cast the first votes for president just after midnight Tuesday, giving President Bush the lead over John Kerry 34-22. Ralph Nader received one vote.


posted by Frodgie at 7:39 AM

 

Kerry Praises Eminem's Anti-Bush Song...Goofball

The biggest differences are that the trees still have leaves on them, the temperatures are above freezing, and the Red Sox fans are no longer depressed, but by and large the end of John Kerry's campaign for the presidency looks very much like it did in the beginning here in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Manchester's bars, diners and city hall are again the backdrop for the campaign of Senator Kerry, last Democrat standing from a primary season that kicked off nearly 11 months ago. Back then, Kerry defied expectation, coming from behind in the Iowa caucuses to upset Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont. On Sunday, Kerry talked about defying expectation yet again — he hopes to win New Hampshire back for the Democrats (it was a red state in 2000) by hammering at President Bush's record and portraying himself as the champion of middle-class values. "I'm a strong closer" he told the crowd of thousands, many of whom brought children still dressed for Halloween trick-or-treating. But a strong close for Kerry means pulling off a Red Sox-esque upset — an analogy the senator was not beyond making himself — as final tracking polls put him behind Bush, but well within the margin of error.

With fewer than 48 hours to go, Senator Kerry talked to MTV News for the fifth time during this campaign, taking questions about how he'd rep young voters, what he'd do to catch Osama bin Laden, and the political implications of Eminem's "Mosh," a topic we'd only begun to broach when his body men whisked him away to rally his base as the seconds ticked down.

posted by Frodgie at 7:36 AM

 

Kerry: Election Will Resonate Worldwide...

DETROIT (AP) - Democrat John Kerry said the choice in the presidential race will resonate around the world as he made an election-eve appeal to swing voters in Florida and the Midwest.

"We want independents, moderate Republicans, thinking people to help change the direction of our country," Kerry said at a rally in Joe Louis Arena, home of the Detroit Red Wings. Earlier, he told a rain-soaked crowd in Milwaukee that "the hopes of the whole world are on the line tomorrow."

"This president rushed to war without a plan to win the peace, and we need a commander in chief who knows how to get the job done," Kerry said.

Kerry's closing argument was that President Bush was responsible for lost jobs, a new deficit and a failed policy in Iraq. He said Bush had taken away the hope of the diseased and dying by limiting embryonic stem cell research and had done nothing to help uninsured people get health care.


posted by Frodgie at 7:34 AM