After Richard Armitage was named as the source in the Valerie Plame leak, there was a paroxysm of unseemly crowing from the right-wing pundits, who predicted that Plame would not now sue Armitage because he is such a handsome, straight-shooting unimpeachable kinda guy. Well, now it turns out that Plame is suing Armitage. And, better yet, this comes to light. From BBC, Sept. 22:

The US threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age" unless it joined the fight against al-Qaeda, President Pervez Musharraf has said.

The irony is certainly not lost on Iran. From Business in Africa, Sept. 22:

Cairo - The United States ambassador to Egypt, Francis Ricciardone, said his country has no problem with an Egyptian nuclear programme and was ready to supply nuclear technology to help.

From the LA Times, Sept. 25:

BAGHDAD - Iraq's sectarian leaders stepped back from a simmering constitutional crisis yesterday, agreeing to wait at least 18 months before setting up autonomous regions that would shift power away from the central government.

Don't you just love it when the government contradicts itself? The White House responds to the National Intelligence Estimate report finding the Iraq war is fueling global terrorism. From the LA Times, Sept. 25:

White House: Terrorism not linked to invasion
WASHINGTON - The White House yesterday sharply disagreed with a new U.S. intelligence assessment that the war in Iraq is encouraging global terrorism, as Bush administration officials stressed that anti-American fervor in the Muslim world began long before the Sept. 11 attacks.

In "Return to Sender" raids from Sept. 8 to 13, ICE agents arrested 55 people, 11 of them with prior criminal records, in the area around Lansing, Grand Rapids and Battle Creek in western Michigan. Those arrested were from Burma, Cambodia, China, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Nicaragua, Turkey and Yugoslavia. One man with a prior criminal record faces charges for having reentered after being previously deported. Most were detained in the Calhoun County Correctional Facility for processing and deportation. While ICE claimed all those without criminal records had ignored deportation orders, Grand Rapids Attorney Richard Kessler, who specializes in immigration law, said some were merely "in the wrong place at the wrong time," detained because they were at the home of the individuals being sought. The sheriff's offices of Calhoun and Kent counties provided "significant assistance" to the operation, ICE said. (Grand Rapids Press, Sept. 16; AP, Sept. 14)

On Sept. 21, the House of Representatives voted 328-95 to approve HR 6094--the "Community Protection Act of 2006"--an anti-immigrant bill which would allow indefinite detention, overturning the Supreme Court's June 2001 Zadvydas v. Davis ruling. The bill would also allow noncitizens to be quickly deported if the government believes they are gang members, and would bar suspected gang members from obtaining political asylum. The same day, the House voted 277-140 to pass HR 6095—the Immigration Law Enforcement Act of 2006—which would authorize state and local police to enforce federal immigration law, expand expedited removal, limit appeals and lawsuits in immigration cases and revoke the Orantes injunction, which protects Salvadorans from expedited removal. A third bill, passed unanimously, would impose a 20-year prison sentence for creating or financing a tunnel under the US border.

From Shared Responsibilites, a Colombia-led international initiative to find solutions to the global problem of narcotics trafficking, Sept. 25:

A recently dismantled cocaine and heroine trafficking ring tricked indigenous people into transporting drugs within Colombia.

Fox is a savvy one. We recently noted that the UN's Special Rapporteur for indigenous peoples has singled out his government for criticism. Yet he casts a vote for the Universal Declaration of Indigeous Peoples to win support from Mexico's ten million indigenous people. Talli Nauman writes for El Universal, Sept. 25:

As one worthwhile parting shot, lame duck President Vicente Fox went to New York this past week to vote Mexico’s support for the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Rights at the General Assembly meeting of more than 100 nations.