Current anti-war songs more subtle than '60s anthems

By CHRIS MACIAS
Sacramento Bee
Tuesday, July 31, 2007

The Dixie Chicks nearly lost their careers after bad-mouthing President Bush on the eve of the war in Iraq, but today there is a surge in protest songs by popular artists. And they're not just penned by the people you'd expect to be topical, such as Neil Young, Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam or Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine.
Songs with anti-war sentiments are popping up from some unlikely places in the pop music marketplace:
-- With a casual listen, you might think Mat Kearney's "Girl America" is just another acoustic hip-hop song about a girl gone bad. But the "girl" is a metaphor for the United States, and she's "dying while she's trying just to stop this fight."
-- Pink once primed listeners to "Get the Party Started," but she blasts Bush on her latest album with "Dear Mr. President," singing, "How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?"
-- John Mayer's "Waiting on the World To Change" laments his generation's political powerlessness and inaction -- a topical change of pace from the voice behind "Your Body Is a Wonderland."
-- "Coming Home" by John Legend is an R&B slow jam about a homesick soldier. This from a singer who specializes in songs about breaking up and making out.
The difference between the protest songs of the 1960s -- think "Eve of Destruction" by Barry McGuire or Edwin Starr's "War" -- and today's is that these newer messages tend to come in more subtle musical packages. And they can be so hummable that people may mouth the words and never know they're dissing the president.
"Particularly in the '60s, artists tended to just come out with much stronger messages with less fear of upsetting anybody," says Lee Abrams, the chief creative officer for XM satellite radio. "Jim Morrison and Bob Dylan didn't give a damn. When the Dixie Chicks came out with their Bush statement, a lot of country radio stations stopped playing them. A lot of record companies don't want anything over the top. It's symbolic of the era we're in."
Norah Jones' piano and breathy vocals are so soothing that the music could be a theme for Bed Bath &Beyond. But at the piano stool, the singer's taking a stand against the current political state in "My Dear Country":
"'Cause we believed in our candidate
But even more it's the one we hate
I needed someone I could shake
On Election Day."
Artists like Linkin Park say they do a balancing act, especially on Linkin Park's latest album, which features a detour into politics with "Hands Held High."
"We're not a band that wants to be political or preach to fans," says Linkin Park drummer Rob Bourdon, by phone from Los Angeles. "All of us are very involved in all of the lyrics, especially critiquing them, and were very aware that it didn't come off that we had a political agenda or were preaching. We don't like that ourselves when we're listening to music."
The rock band has sold millions of records with songs about self-loathing and inner angst, but "Hands Held High" wouldn't play so well in the red states:
"Like this war's really just a different brand of war
Like it doesn't cater the rich and abandon poor ...
For a leader so nervous in an obvious way
Stuttering and mumbling for nightly news to replay."
All Top 40 music with a message depends on a common denominator: a tune that sticks in your head. Minus the scathing lyrics, Pink's "Dear Mr. President" sounds like a campfire song. The song is built on strummy acoustic guitars and harmony vocals from the Indigo Girls. Think of it as "Kumbaya" for the anti-Bush set.
"The best protest songs have melodies that are simple enough to be sung by almost anyone," says Christopher Reynolds, a music professor at the University of California, Davis. " 'We Shall Overcome' is probably best in this regard. But in some cases the tune is why the song survives. The popularity of the Christmas carol 'It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,' which almost no one realizes originated as an anti-war song, is the reason why that song is still sung."
Politically minded songs such as "Hands Held High" and "Dear Mr. President" tend not to be released as singles. These tracks are usually buried in the middle of an album -- or in the case of John Legend's "Coming Home," at the very end.
More overt protest anthems may be coming soon. After the umpteenth song about partying and summer love -- and with approval ratings for the Iraq war continuing to tank -- the pop music landscape is primed for an even bigger swell of anti-war tunes.
"I tend to look at things as cyclical," says Abrams of XM satellite radio. "The late '60s were pretty powerful as far as lyrics, then the '70s got back to this boyfriend-girlfriend, Linda Ronstadt sound. In the '80s, (political awareness) kind of came back, then in the late '80s, you had the 'hair bands.' Then it got more political with grunge. The current crop of artists, generally speaking, are hit machines.
"I do think we're about to get into a period of time where we'll see the messages getting stronger," Abrams adds. "The political conditions are certainly right."
(Chris Macias can be reached at cmacias(at)sacbee.com)
All materials copyright 2006-7 Scripps Media Center and Scripps Howard News  

The Global Rescue Station tree-sit in the Styx Valley, Tasmania. The activists spent five months on two platforms 65m high in one of the world's tallest hardwood trees, a Eucalyptus affectionately known as Gandalf's staff.  You can get a bird's eye view here:  http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/resources/photo-stories/deforestation/tim-georgeson-photos-of-styx-v 

Recent study: a possible connection to Autism and Organochlorine Pesticides commonly used on cotton fields.  Must see video:   http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/nitn.intl/2007/07/30/wnewsnow.edition.00tu.cnn

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Taliban kidnappers shot dead a male South Korean hostage on Monday, a spokesman said.

"We shot dead a male captive because the government did not listen to our demands," spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf told Reuters by telephone.  The militants have demanded that the Afghan government release some of its captured fighters.

An Afghan governor pleaded with the Taliban to extend a deadline for the lives of the South Koreans. 

Mutant mice live longer, age slower and eat more. 

 Learn more about McCook Field, where my grandfather designed propellers for the Wright brothers and my father became a fighter pilot instructor.   The last I ever saw of them was in Waco, Texas when we were stationed there. http://www.ascho.wpafb.af.mil/REMARKABLE/CHAP2.HTM  

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=6234

  Peter 2:11 "For if God spared not the angels that sinned but cast them down to hell. and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judment:" " What waits for you Taliban?"

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Several Afghan elders and a former member of the Taliban joined the negotiations Saturday with the hardline militia over the fate of 22 South Korean hostages. No immediate progress was reported by either side, but Afghan officials appeared hopeful that the inclusion of more elders would increase the pressure on the Taliban to release the hostages. ``My message to the South Koreans, in particular to the families of these men and women being held by the Taliban, is this: We are optimistic. Don't worry. We are doing our best ... Please be patient. A lot of people are involved today,'' said Ghazni lawmaker Habib Rahman, who attended the gathering. After the meeting Saturday, the elders and clerics returned to their respective villages to ask other community leaders to join them in talks with local Taliban. ``When the elders and clerics go to talk with the Taliban, they will explain once again that taking hostages is not acceptable in Islam and Afghan culture,'' Rahman said. Those joining the talks included a former Taliban commander - Abdul Salaam Rocketi, now a member of parliament - and several leaders from around Qarabagh, where the hostages were kidnapped July 19 on Afghanistan's main highway from Kabul to Kandahar. ``Today we are hopeful to get a good result because more and more elders have gathered,'' said Qarabagh police chief Khwaja Mohammad. However, purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi complained that the delegation of Afghan leaders ``doesn't have the power to release prisoners.'' That has been the key Taliban demand from the outset of the hostage crisis. He said the Taliban wanted the hostages ``to go home safe,'' but that they first wanted 23 Taliban militants released from Afghan prisons. Twenty-three Koreans were originally kidnapped; one was shot dead though the reasons why are not clear.  

Congress Sends 9/11 Bill to Bush
By JIM ABRAMS
WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress sent President Bush legislation Friday to intensify anti-terror efforts in the U.S., shifting money to high-risk states and cities and expanding screening of air and sea cargo to stave off future Sept. 11-style attacks.
The measure carries out major recommendations of the independent 9/11 Commission. The bill, passed by the House on a 371-40 vote, ranks among the top accomplishments of the six-month-old Democratic Congress. The Senate approved the measure late Thursday by 85-8, and the White House said the president would sign the bill.
Six years after the Sept. 11 attacks and three years after the 9/11 Commission made its recommendations, ``Congress is finally embracing what the 9/11 families have been saying all along,'' said Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. ``It takes a willingness to do things a different way.''  

 Mesoscopic Phase Coherence in a Quantum Spin Fluid

Guangyong Xu 1, C. Broholm 2, Yeong-Ah Soh 3, G. Aeppli 4, J. F. DiTusa 5, Yin Cheng 2, M. Kenzelmann 2, C. D. Frost 6, T. Ito 7, K. Oka 7, H. Takagi 8 1 Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA; Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Sciences Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973, USA.
2 Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA; NIST Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA.
3 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA.
4 London Centre for Nanotechnology and Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, 17-19 Gordon Street, London, WC1H OAH UK.
5 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.
6 ISIS Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot OX11 0QX, UK.
7 National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8562, Japan.
8 National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8562, Japan; Department of Advanced Materials Science, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8561, Japan.

 

Mesoscopic quantum phase coherence is important because it improves the prospects for handling quantum degrees of freedom in technology. Here we show that the development of such coherence can be monitored using magnetic neutron scattering from a one-dimensional spin chain Y2BaNiO5, a quantum spin fluid where no classical, static magnetic order is present. In the cleanest samples, the quantum coherence length is 20 nm, almost an order of magnitude larger than the classical antiferromagnetic correlation length of 3 nm. We also demonstrate that the coherence length can be modified by static and thermally activated defects in a quantitatively predictable manner.

 

 

Géraldine Mathonnet 1, Marc R. Fabian 1, Yuri V. Svitkin 1, Armen Parsyan 1, Laurent Huck 1, Takayuki Murata 1, Stefano Biffo 2, William C. Merrick 3, Edward Darzynkiewicz 4, Ramesh S. Pillai 5, Thomas F. Duchaine 1*, Nahum Sonenberg 1* 1 Department of Biochemistry and McGill Cancer Center, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3G 1Y6.
2 Department of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Eastern Piedmont, 15100 Alessandria, Italy; Laboratory of Molecular Histology, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, 20132 Milan, Italy.
3 Department of Biochemistry, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106-4935, USA.
4 Department of Biophysics, Institute of Experimental Physics, Warsaw University, 02-089 Warsaw, Poland.
5 Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Post Office Box 2543, 4002 Basel, Switzerland.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Thomas F. Duchaine , E-mail: thomas.duchaine@mcgill.ca
Nahum Sonenberg , E-mail: nahum.sonenberg@mcgill.ca
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play an important role in gene regulatory networks in animals. Yet, the mechanistic details of their function in translation inhibition or mRNA destabilization remain controversial. To directly examine the earliest events in this process, we have developed an in vitro translation system using mouse Krebs-2 ascites cell-free extract that exhibits an authentic miRNA response. We show here that translation initiation, specifically the 5' cap recognition process, is repressed by endogenous let-7 miRNAs within the first 15 minutes of mRNA exposure to the extract, when no destabilization of the transcript is observed. Our results indicate that inhibition of translation initiation is the earliest molecular event effected by miRNAs. Other mechanisms, such as mRNA degradation, subsequently consolidate mRNA silencing. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Just What the Founders Feared: An Imperial President Goes to War

By Adam Cohen

07/23/07  -- -- The nation is heading toward a constitutional showdown over the Iraq war. Congress is moving closer to passing a bill to limit or end the war, but President Bush insists Congress doesn’t have the power to do it. “I don’t think Congress ought to be running the war,” he said at a recent press conference. “I think they ought to be funding the troops.” He added magnanimously: “I’m certainly interested in their opinion.”

The war is hardly the only area where the Bush administration is trying to expand its powers beyond all legal justification. But the danger of an imperial presidency is particularly great when a president takes the nation to war, something the founders understood well. In the looming showdown, the founders and the Constitution are firmly on Congress’s side.

Given how intent the president is on expanding his authority, it is startling to recall how the Constitution’s framers viewed presidential power. They were revolutionaries who detested kings, and their great concern when they established the United States was that they not accidentally create a kingdom. To guard against it, they sharply limited presidential authority, which Edmund Randolph, a Constitutional Convention delegate and the first attorney general, called “the foetus of monarchy.”

The founders were particularly wary of giving the president power over war. They were haunted by Europe’s history of conflicts started by self-aggrandizing kings. John Jay, the first chief justice of the United States, noted in Federalist No. 4 that “absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal.”

Many critics of the Iraq war are reluctant to suggest that President Bush went into it in anything but good faith. But James Madison, widely known as the father of the Constitution, might have been more skeptical. “In war, the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed,” he warned. “It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle.”

When they drafted the Constitution, Madison and his colleagues wrote their skepticism into the text. In Britain, the king had the authority to declare war, and raise and support armies, among other war powers. The framers expressly rejected this model and gave these powers not to the president, but to Congress.

The Constitution does make the president “commander in chief,” a title President Bush often invokes. But it does not have the sweeping meaning he suggests. The framers took it from the British military, which used it to denote the highest-ranking official in a theater of battle. Alexander Hamilton emphasized in Federalist No. 69 that the president would be “nothing more” than “first general and admiral,” responsible for “command and direction” of military forces.

The founders would have been astonished by President Bush’s assertion that Congress should simply write him blank checks for war. They gave Congress the power of the purse so it would have leverage to force the president to execute their laws properly. Madison described Congress’s control over spending as “the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.”

The framers expected Congress to keep the president on an especially short leash on military matters. The Constitution authorizes Congress to appropriate money for an army, but prohibits appropriations for longer than two years. Hamilton explained that the limitation prevented Congress from vesting “in the executive department permanent funds for the support of an army, if they were even incautious enough to be willing to repose in it so improper a confidence.”

As opinion turns more decisively against the war, the administration is becoming ever more dismissive of Congress’s role. Last week, Under Secretary of Defense Eric Edelman brusquely turned away Senator Hillary Clinton’s questions about how the Pentagon intended to plan for withdrawal from Iraq. "Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq,” he wrote. Mr. Edelman’s response showed contempt not merely for Congress, but for the system of government the founders carefully created.

The Constitution cannot enforce itself. It is, as the constitutional scholar Edwin Corwin famously observed, an “invitation to struggle” among the branches, but the founders wisely bequeathed to Congress some powerful tools for engaging in the struggle. It is no surprise that the current debate over a deeply unpopular war is arising in the context of a Congressional spending bill. That is precisely what the founders intended.

Members of Congress should not be intimidated into thinking that they are overstepping their constitutional bounds. If the founders were looking on now, it is not Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who would strike them as out of line, but George W. Bush, who would seem less like a president than a king.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company  

  It may soon be too late for Lebanon
By Oussama K. Safa
Commentary by
Monday, July 23, 2007

In the past two months, Lebanon has witnessed unprecedented levels of violence that threaten to mortally weaken what is left of the country's institutions and governance apparatus. The war that the Lebanonese Army has been waging against Fatah al-Islam in the northern camp of Nahr al-Bared is part and parcel of a carefully orchestrated campaign to destabilize the country's security. The severe military clashes in the North, which began as the UN Security Council prepared to ratify under Chapter 4 a special international tribunal to prosecute political assassinations in Lebanon since 2005, were quickly followed by the violent killing of pro-government parliamentarian Walid Eido. More recently, attacks have been carried out against UNIFIL troops stationed in South Lebanon  to ensure the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 - another of Lebanon's recently won tools to restore and maintain sovereignty.

These violent messages are a stark reminder that attempts to secure Lebanese independence and sovereignty two years after the withdrawal of Syrian troops are being stubbornly opposed. Some observers attribute the instigation of violence to the neighboring Syrian regime. True or not, no Syrian tears are being shed over what has befallen Syria's neighbor. The meticulous weakening of Lebanese institutions and the state's impaired governance capacity serve Syria's interest of delaying the actual establishment of the special tribunal and strengthen the hand of the opposition. Additionally, the damning UN evidence of Syrian support for cross-border arms smuggling has confirmed many a suspicion about a deliberate Syrian role in Lebanon's recent wose.

 In 1957 at the Arizona State Fair I bought my first Pluto Plater, it was blue.  Now today I am about to go buy another Frisbee.  Heh Heh  What a gas! 

Gandalf ;-) <ZZZZZZZZZZ#~~~

The years flew by. Happy 50th Frisbee

 Published Thursday, July 19, 2007.

 Caroline Melia / For The Post / cm246005@ohiou.edu

Ohio University sophomore Bryan McGaughey stretches out to grab a Frisbee while playing catch on the soccer field near South Green on Monday, July 16. This month marks the 50th anniversary of the flying disc.
One common summer pastime and one of the world’s fastest growing sports would not be possible without the Frisbee, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this month.
In the 1920s, students at Yale began throwing around empty pie tins from the Frisbie Baking Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, according to the World Flying Disc Federation.
In 1948, Walter "Fred" Morrison of Los Angeles and collaborator Warren Franscioni invented a more accurate version of the disc, made of plastic. After the partners split, Morrison created another plastic disc, which he labeled the "Pluto Platter."
Rich Knerr and A.K. 'Spud' Melin, owners of a new toy company called Wham-O, convinced Morrison to sell them his rights to the toy and 50 years ago, in 1957, they began production of the Pluto Platters. The following year, the Frisbie Baking Company closed down and Morrison was granted a patent for his flying disc. He has earned more than $1 million in royalties for his invention.
Knerr then decided that a new name could increase sales. After a slight modification of name “Frisbie,” the registered trademark “Frisbee” was born.
Mattel Inc., one of more than 60 flying disc manufacturers, now owns the Frisbee.
The Frisbee has spawned many new sports played all over the world, including Frisbee golf, Frisbee tennis, and ultimate Frisbee, according to the Australian Flying Disc Association. Ultimate Frisbee was created in 1968 by high school students in Maplewood, New Jersey, as a cross between football, soccer and basketball, wrote Adam Zagoria, a New Jersey-based sports writer who has published two books about the sport.
"I think [ultimate Frisbee] is just something different, not necessarily better [than other sports]. It's more laid back," said 21-year-old Ohio University student Bryan McGaughey as he tossed a Frisbee with Hocking student Trevor Johnson on Tuesday. "The Frisbee is one of the best and simplest inventions of our time,” said Bryan Wildasinn, an OU club ultimate Frisbee player. “You'd probably only hear that from an Ultimate player.”
There are ultimate Frisbee programs in 42 countries, and ultimate Frisbee receives government funding in Sweden, Norway and Japan, Zagoria wrote.
“I’ve met most of my friends through playing with that piece of plastic,” Wildasinn said.

 

 Pakistani Troops Sent to Dissuade Jihad
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Thousands of troops were deployed to Pakistan's northwestern frontier to try to dissuade outlawed Islamic militants from launching a holy war against the government for its bloody attack on a radical mosque, military officials said Saturday. As the troop movements proceeded in at least five areas of the North West Frontier Province, a suicide bomber struck in another region of the border, his explosives-laden vehicle killing at least eight soldiers in a military convoy, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arhad said.

It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds. -- Samuel Adams

We live in a police state and here is some of the proof.  There is a map on this site showing military tactics used against our citizens and used on me and my family. http://www.cato.org/raidmap/
 There is a great danger to our liberties and freedoms at large in our country today.  Call your representatives and protest.  I will be more than happy to give you what proof I have on what was done to me or attempted to be done to me and the names of the witnesses, if anyone cares. Soon I will post the sworn statement I gave to Bob Matthews bureau chief FBI on this site. The joke is on us: do you care? If it did not happen to you why should you? Your not doing anything wrong!  All you are doing is supporting this and the war with your tax dollars and those of your grand children as to the time required to pay the war debt. The human misery your dollars are paying for, the murder of thousands of innocents via a war that should have never happened and that will now perpetuate in the deaths of thousands more. Nice job! You just keep on giving the government your money and the lives of your children and of their mothers and fathers.  Well done America all the world was with us after 9-11 now we are despised by most of it and our enemies are increasing ten fold. Murder is Murder ! Apathy, Apathy don't bother me with the truth.. hah hah... what a joke.
       Yours .....one pissed off American 

                 R.A. Beall

 

 

Jun 6 01:19 PM US/Eastern By SELCAN HACAOGLU Associated Press Writer

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Several thousand Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq early Wednesday to chase Kurdish guerrillas who attack Turkey from bases there, two Turkish security officials said. Turkey's foreign minister denied its troops had entered Iraq. Two senior security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, characterized the action as a "hot pursuit" raid that was limited in scope. They told The Associated Press it did not constitute the kind of large incursion that Turkish leaders have been discussing in recent weeks as Turkish troops built up their force along the border. One official said the troops went less than two miles inside Iraq and were still there in late afternoon. "It is a hot pursuit, not an incursion," one official said. Another official said by telephone it was "not a major offensive and the number of troops is not in the tens of thousands." He also said the Turkish troops went into a remote, mountainous area. The officials are based in southeast Turkey, where the military has been battling separatist Kurdish rebels since they took up arms in 1984. The officials stood by their statement despite denials from Turkish and Iraqi officials. Turkey's private NTV television quoted Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as saying reports of a cross-border operation were false. "There is no such thing, no entry to another country. If such a thing happens, then we would announce it," Gul said. "We are in a war with terror, we will do whatever is necessary to fight terrorism." Several military officials at the Pentagon said they have seen nothing Wednesday that would confirm the reports of Turkish troops crossing the border into Iraq. One military official said that small numbers of Turkish forces periodically move in and out of Iraq doing counterinsurgency operations, but not thousands at one time. The officials requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. While the U.S. has about 16,500 troops in northern Iraq, most of them are not right along the border. Many of those are training teams working with the Iraqi border patrols. The White House said there has been "no new activity" in northern Iraq to justify the press reports. Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the White House's National Security Council, said that U.S. officials in the region have confirmed that the activity is a continuation of Turkey's years-long campaign against the Kurdish PKK guerrillas of Kurdistan Workers' Party. "The Turkish government reports no new incursions into northern Iraq," Johndroe said. "U.S. officials on the ground confirm no new activity." Johndroe said Washington remains "concerned about the PKK and the use of Iraq as a safe haven." Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said he could not confirm any Turkish troops were in Iraq but "we are looking into it and obviously we are very concerned." The last major Turkish incursion into northern Iraq was in 1997, when about 50,000 troops were sent to the region. The officials did not say where the Turkish force was operating in northern Iraq, nor did they say how long they would be there. Both officials are involved in anti-rebel operations, though they did not disclose whether they participated in the planning of the operation on Wednesday. The officials said any confrontation with Iraqi Kurdish groups, who have warned against a Turkish incursion, could trigger a larger cross- border operation. The Turkish military has asked the government in Ankara to approve such an incursion, but the government has not given formal approval. An official at military headquarters in Ankara declined to confirm or deny the report that Turkish troops had entered Iraq. Turkish authorities rarely acknowledge such military operations, which were more frequent before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Turkish military said rebels across the border in Iraq opened fire Wednesday on a Turkish military outpost in the province of Hakkari, which borders both Iraq and Iran. It said there were no casualties. Turkey has been building up its military forces on the Iraqi border recently, amid debate among political and military leaders about whether to attack separatist rebels of the PKK. The rebels stage raids in southeast Turkey after crossing over from hideouts in Iraq. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the government has not seen any major operations along the border. "There has been intermittent shelling, for instance, attacks, certain violations, minor violations on the border which we have documented and reported back to the Turkish side, but honestly we haven't seen any major operations along the border," Zebari told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "We are aware of this Turkish troops buildup on the border and the Iraqi government position has been that we will not accept or tolerate any military incursion into Iraqi territories," he said. During major incursions in the 1990s, fighting occurred on a front stretching more than 100 miles, mostly in rugged terrain where communications were difficult and the Turkish Kurds were already entrenched in the mountains.