From the New York Post

Bush Motorcade Crash Kills N.M. Officer

U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq at 3,731

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- A police officer in President Bush's motorcade crashed his motorcycle and died Monday, less than a year after a crash in Hawaii killed another motorcycle officer accompanying the president.

Rio Rancho Officer Germaine Casey, 40, crashed at the Albuquerque airport at a point where a road enters an underground parking garage, said Trish Hoffman, a spokeswoman for the Albuquerque Police Department. He was pronounced dead at an Albuquerque hospital.

Bush had been headed to the airport after attending a fundraiser for Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.

"Any time there is a presidential motorcade, the officers, that's part of their job, they drive at a high rate of speed," said Hoffman, whose department is investigating the crash.

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Gus: Let's hope that the motorcades for Bush in Sydney will be safe for all... and that the APEC meeting goes without a hitch, without a resolution and without a whisper... May that entire charade just vanish in the historical oblivion of Rattus Badpollus... Paul Keating was right, John Howard does not properly understand the mechanics of APEC... All Johnnee is interested is hob-knobbing in tow of his mate, Georgee-the-kid...

US blames miscommunication for Pakistan border strike

The US-led coalition in Afghanistan has admitted it did not have permission from Pakistan to strike Taliban positions across the border at the weekend, citing a "miscommunication" problem.

The coalition had insisted it was given the go-ahead for the attack inside Pakistan on Saturday that destroyed six Taliban firing posts on both sides of the frontier, killing more than a dozen rebels.

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Gus: Sounds like an advert for Telstra, those that the ACCC as asked to be canned — "This wouldn't happen in Australia" adverts... Here we have a famous actor, or singer like Bob Geldof, being mucked around by transmission problems... to which is suggested "this would not happen with the Next G Telstra network..."

But as one familiar with tactics of deliberate "miscommunications", the bombing by NATO within Pakistan was no fluke, just a desire to bypass the sovereignty of Pakistan by bluffing the Pakistani authority "that they gave the okay" and sticking to the story... Somewhere an underling in the NATO army communication will get his/hers ears pulled for his/her top brass decision to bomb without authorisation... 

"Things are improving" so the president tells us... But other reports on Iraq are not so dancing in the street stuff... Four years and six months after the bad deed, the President is still telling porkies about the purpose of his invasion of Iraq... His troops are getting tired... His troops are still getting killed... This month (August) saw another 79 US soldiers killed... Same number as last month's (July) with possibly more than 600 US soldiers injured... (608 injured in July) Sure less Iraqi have been killed in Bagdhad and "al Qaeda is on the ropes" according to some of "his" reports, but more than 500 iraqi were killed in a single day in the north of the country... And Al Qaeda is the least of that country's worries... In my understanding, there won't be any real progress in Iraq until the US are a lot more generous about the deals the US are trying to enforce with the Iraqi about their oil...

Yes things were complex, are very complex, and are made more complex by the presence of the US troops... 

A much better oil deal won't be enough, though... but that would be a good start...