Observations on current events

Iraq:

Washington Post: The Orders from the Top
"Early last September, attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq were spiking and an Army general dispatched from a military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, concluded in a classified study that the detention of Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad 'does not yet set conditions for successful interrogations.'
Under pressure to extract more information from the prisoners - to 'go beyond' what Army interrogation rules allowed, as an Army general later put it - the senior U.S. military commander in Iraq sent a secret cable to his boss at U.S. Central Command on Sept. 14, outlining more aggressive interrogation methods he planned to authorize immediately.
The cable signed by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez listed several dozen strategies for extracting information, drawn partly from what officials now say was an outdated and improperly permissive Army field manual. But it added one not previously approved for use in Iraq, under the heading of Presence of Military Working Dogs: 'Exploit Arab fear of dogs while maintaining security during interrogations.'
Sanchez's order calling on police dog handlers to help intimidate detainees into talking - a practice later seen in searing photographs - was one of a handful of documents written by senior officials that Army officials now say helped sow the seeds of prison abuse in Iraq. They did so, according to an Army report released Wednesday, by lending credence to the idea that aggressive interrogation methods were sanctioned by officers going up the chain of command.
But the issue of using dogs is also an example of how the U.S. military's ad hoc and informal decision-making in Iraq created confusion and allowed these harsh methods to infiltrate from Afghanistan to Guantánamo and finally to Iraq, despite Bush administration contentions that detainees in each theater of conflict were subject to different rules and that Iraqis would receive the most protections.
The text of the Sanchez cable was not included in public copies of the Army's report, but was obtained by The Washington Post from a government official upset by what Sanchez approved..."

Paul Krugman: A No-Win Situation
"...For a long time, anyone suggesting analogies with Vietnam was ridiculed. But Iraq optimists have, by my count, already declared victory three times. First there was 'Mission Accomplished' - followed by an escalating insurgency. Then there was the capture of Saddam - followed by April's bloody uprising. Finally there was the furtive transfer of formal sovereignty to Ayad Allawi, with implausible claims that this showed progress - a fantasy exploded by the guns of August.
Now, serious security analysts have begun to admit that the goal of a democratic, pro-American Iraq has receded out of reach. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies - no peacenik - writes that 'there is little prospect for peace and stability in Iraq before late 2005, if then.'
Mr. Cordesman still thinks (or thought a few weeks ago) that the odds of success in Iraq are 'at least even,' but by success he means the creation of a government that 'is almost certain to be more inclusive of Ba'ath, hard-line religious, and divisive ethnic/sectarian movements than the West would like.' And just in case, he urges the U.S. to prepare 'a contingency plan for failure.'..."


Energy Policy:

Kelpie Wilson: Get Ready for the Peak Experience
"When history looks back, 2004 will turn out to be a remarkable year, and not just for the unraveling of the lies and deceits of the Bush presidency. Equally as significant is the emergence into public prominence of certain scientific facts that have long been suppressed.
Two new realities are fast converging on the public consciousness with what may be serendipitous timing: climate change and peak oil. After years of controversy and denial, there finally seems to be a solid consensus that climate change is here, it threatens everything from agriculture to human health, and it will probably turn out to be even worse than predicted.
Peak oil is a still obscure term you will soon be hearing a lot more about. It simply refers to the peak of oil production. Oil was made over millions of years as ancient life was crushed and buried under the earth, and they ain't making any more of it - at least not on any timescale that is meaningful to us - so like any limited commodity (think Picasso paintings or antique porcelain), the supply will rise to meet demand and then begin to fall. As supply falls, prices will go up, perhaps drastically.
Like a hiker climbing through clouds, we can't know where the peak is until we reach it and feel the ground falling away beneath our feet. But wait -- why are there clouds? Why can't we see the peak before we get there? Don't we have monitoring agencies that exist to make predictions about things like when the oil supply will peak?
As far as the average consumer and SUV buyer is concerned, the climb has been a stairway to heaven. The coming decline in oil production is something rarely mentioned in public, and when it is, it is portrayed as something so impossibly far off in the future that there is no sense in talking about it. The obscuring clouds have been deliberately generated by a collusion of oil industry, financial and government interests. They don't want us to know that we are about to fall off the world as we know it..."


Politics, White House Style:

The Daily Telegraph (UK) - Howard tells Bush: I don't care if you won't see me
"Michael Howard issued a blistering rebuff to George W Bush yesterday after the President barred the Tory leader from the White House as punishment for his attacks on Tony Blair over the Iraq War. In a furious phone call earlier this year, Karl Rove, Mr Bush's closest adviser, told Mr Howard's aides: 'You can forget about meeting the President. Don't bother coming. You are not meeting him.'
Yesterday, after the White House ban was disclosed in the strongly pro-Blair Sun, Mr Howard issued a strongly-worded statement: 'A Conservative government would work very closely with President Bush or President Kerry but my job as leader of the Opposition is to say things as I see them in the interests of our country and to hold our Government to account'..."

The November Election:

Isa Atkins: Why I Look Forward to Bush's Reelection
"Ever since the Madrid train bombing last March, statements circulating on behalf of various al-Qaeda front groups around the world contain brief remarks about their desire to see Bush command the 'infidels' for four more years. The reason, of course, is simple: al-Qaeda's minions are convinced that the only possible context for the Arab world's relationship with the West is one of aggression and war. Bush's strategy of global domination echoes and encourages these convictions.
In this respect, Islamist fundamentalists won't necessarily be sorry to see Bush defeated in the 2004 elections, especially with the war in Iraq being a major US election issue. Yet al-Qaeda leaders know that, in the long run, they have much more to gain from the continued presence of Republican neo-conservatives in the Oval Office. Not only has Bush's arrogant and self-destructive 'war on terrorism' divided America, it has also created deep strategic cracks among Western powers. Furthermore, continuing US aggression is rapidly radicalizing Muslim populations, driving thousands of angry youth into the open arms of fundamentalist groups eager to exploit their rage. Thus the radical Islamists have strategic advantages to gain from a possible reelection of the Bush camp.
Ironically, the same could be said for America's future.
Most liberal observers consider the upcoming US elections as a matter of life and death -the last hope for deliverance from neo-conservative yoke before all of us are cast into utter darkness. The electoral war cry of anti-Bush organizers is the resounding 'regime change begins at home'.
This slogan, however, is as phony as George Bush's reasons for attacking Iraq. Te term 'regime' does not specify the politics of an elected administration. Regime is the mode of government, the form of rule. It follows that regime change does not mean a change in administration; it means a change in the way we are governed. In the particular case of the United States, a regime change, in the context of progressive representative politics, would imply radical, groundbreaking reform that would alter the very structure of the American governing system.
Regime change would be ending corporate lobbying once and for all, as well as curbing the influence of big money on our government. Regime change would be to prevent Congress from being taken over by an elected aristocracy of multimillionaire members, as most of them now are. Regime change would be to nationalize the health system, thus insuring once and for all the tens of millions its uninsured victims. Regime change would be to force corporations -not only the federal government- to institute and abide by a minimum wage of at least $20 an hour. Regime change would be to sign out of international trade treaties, force US-based corporations to pay taxes and forbid US-owned firms from fleeing abroad. Cutting military spending to the absolute minimum, eliminating all racist and sexist laws, disbanding the CIA and the other shadowy intelligence agencies, ending our government's support for totalitarian regimes abroad, increasing education expenditures to over 20 per cent of the national budget -all that would be regime change..."


The War on Drugs as a War on American's Civil Rights:

Rocky Mountain News: Feds back down in medical pot case
"An Aurora man suffering from chronic pain won a major victory Thursday when the federal government agreed to return all of his marijuana-growing equipment.
The assistant U.S. attorney also told the lawyer for medical-marijuana user Dana May that they will not prosecute May for any crime. But the pot that the Drug Enforcement Administration and Aurora police seized from May's Aurora home will stay in the possession of federal authorities. Supporters of medical marijuana said they believe it marks the first time that the U.S. attorney has agreed to return growing equipment to someone who has been cleared of wrongdoing.
'This case is precedent-setting and a very sympathetic case and just a terrible example of the federal government not recognizing that this is where the state of the law is going and where patients are going,' Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said..."

Something is Rotten in the State of Florida:

Greag Palast: Madame Butterfly Flies Off with Ballots - Florida Fixed Again? - Absentee Ballots Go Absent
"On Friday, Theresa LePore, Supervisor of Elections in Palm Beach, candidate for re-election as Supervisor of Elections, chose to supervise her own election, no one allowed. This Tuesday, Florida votes for these nominally non-partisan posts.

You remember Theresa, 'Madame Butterfly,' the one whose ballots brought in the big vote for Pat Buchanan in the Jewish precincts in November 2000. Then she failed to do the hand count that would have changed the White House from Blue to Red.

This time, Theresa's in a hurry to get to the counting. She began tallying absentee ballots on Friday in her own re-election race. Not to worry: the law requires the Supervisor of Elections in each county to certify poll-watchers to observe the count.

But Theresa has a better idea. She refused to certify a single poll-watcher from opponents' organizations despite the legal requirement she do so by last week. She'll count her own votes herself, thank you very much!

And so far, she's doing quite well. Although 37,000 citizens have requested absentee ballots, she says she'd only received 22,000 when she began the count. Where are the others? Don't ask: though she posts the names of requesters, she won't release the list of those who have voted, an eyebrow-raising deviation from standard procedure.

And she has no intention of counting all the ballots received. She has reserved for herself the right to determine which ballots have acceptable signatures. Her opponent, Democrat Art Anderson, had asked Theresa to use certified hand-writing experts, instead of her hand-picked hacks, to check the signatures.

Unfortunately, while Federal law requires Theresa to allow a voter to correct a signature rejection when registering, the Feds don't require her to permit challenges to absentee ballot rejections.

I know what you're thinking. How could Madame Butterfly know how people are voting? Well, she's printed PARTY AFFILIATION on the OUTSIDE of each return envelope. That certainly makes it easier to figure out which ballot is valid, don't it?

And dear Reader, please take note of the implications of this story for the big vote in November. Millions have sought refuge in absentee ballots as a method to avoid the dangers of the digitizing of democracy. Florida and other states are reporting 400%-plus increases in absentee ballot requests due to fear of the new computer voting machinery. Some refuge. LePore is giving us an early taste of how the Bush Leaguers intend to care for your absentee ballot..."


How Long Before Bush Puts the Fear of Iranian Nukes into the Election Campaign?

Haaretz: Iran says may preempt any attack on nuke program
"Iran might launch preemptive strikes to protect its nuclear facilities if they are threatened, Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said in remarks broadcast Friday. 'We won't sit with our hands tied and wait until someone does something to us,' Shamkhani told Arabic channel Al Jazeera when asked what Iran would do if the United States or Israel attacked its atomic facilities.
'Some military leaders in Iran are convinced that the pre-emptive measures that America is talking about are not their right alone,'..."

Ocnus.Net - Stop Israeli Strike on Iran's Nuke Sites
"A report by the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations urged the Bush administration to stop any Israeli attempt to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. The council warned that such an Israeli attack would be blamed on the United States and hurt its interests in the region.
'Since Washington would be blamed for any unilateral Israeli military strike, the United States should, in any case, make it quite clear to Israel that U.S. interests would be adversely affected by such a move,' the report, entitled 'Iran: Time for a New Approach,' said..."

The Pay-Off:

Greg Palast: Still Unreported: The Pay-off in Bush Air Guard Fix
"In 1968, former Congressman George Herbert Walker Bush of Texas, fresh from voting to send other men's sons to Vietnam, enlisted his own son in a very special affirmative action program, the 'champagne' unit of the Texas Air National Guard. There, Top Gun fighter pilot George Dubya was assigned the dangerous job of protecting Houston from Vietcong air attack.
This week, former Lt. Governor Ben Barnes of Texas 'fessed up to pulling the strings to keep Little George out of the jungle. 'I got a young man named George W. Bush into the Texas Air Guard - and I'm ashamed.'
That's far from the end of the story. In 1994, George W. Bush was elected governor of Texas by a whisker. By that time, Barnes had left office to become a big time corporate lobbyist. To an influence peddler like Barnes, having damning information on a sitting governor is worth its weight in gold - or, more precisely, there's a value in keeping the info secret.
Barnes appears to have made lucrative use of his knowledge of our President’s slithering out of the draft as a lever to protect a multi-billion dollar contract for a client. That's the information in a confidential letter buried deep in the files of the US Justice Department that fell into my hands at BBC television..."


Implementing Intelligence 'Reform':

Ray McGovern: Blowing Smoke on Intelligence
"What do the president's nomination of Rep. Porter Goss (R, FL) to head the CIA and the seemingly contradictory proposal of Senator Pat Roberts (R, KS) to dismember the CIA have in common with tales of swift boats once in Vietnam? Answer: The proven potential of all three to grab the headlines and draw attention away from President George W. Bush's most serious vulnerabilities in this key pre-election period.
One can be forgiven for being confused at the administration's recent moves on the intelligence front. Early last month, when the Senate Intelligence Committee published its multi-count indictment of CIA's performance on Iraq and former CIA Director George Tenet left the scene of the crime, the pundits expressed confidence that the president would ask Tenet's deputy to fill in over the ensuing months rather than risk calling further attention to the intelligence fiasco.
Leading Democrats were rubbing their hands in glee at the president's dilemma. Failing to appoint a new take-charge CIA director would look inept amid all the warnings of a pre-election terrorist attack, but appointing one would bring still more embarrassment for the administration. And some voters, the Democrats were hoping, might even remember where the buck is supposed to stop.
Not a problem, decided Karl Rove, who continues to outsmart many Democrats of higher IQ. The situation is made to order. The president is particularly vulnerable on two counts: what he did in Iraq, and what he didn't do before 9/11. The 9/11 commission performed yeoman's service in diffusing responsibility such that no one - and especially not the one sitting where the buck used to stop - could be held accountable. And it is turning out to be almost as easy on Iraq - despite the continuing mayhem there and the inexorable culpability - creep up the chain of command regarding the torture of Iraqi and other prisoners..."


Did Anyone think Iran Wasn't Next on Bush's Agenda?

The Guardian (UK) - Sexed-up reports, pressure on the UN ... here we go again
"History is beginning to repeat itself, this time over Iran. Just two years after the notorious Downing Street dossier on Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction and the first efforts to get United Nations approval for war, Washington is trying to create similar pressures for action against Iran.
The ingredients are well-known: sexed-up intelligence material which puts the target country in the worst possible light; moves to get the UN to declare it in 'non- compliance', thereby claiming justification for going in unilaterally even if the UN gives no support for invasion; and at the back of the whole brouhaha, a clique of American neoconservatives whose real agenda is regime change..."


Impeachment for 'High Crimes and Misdemeanours,' but the target, oddly, isn't Bush:

The Guardian (UK) - MPs plan to impeach Blair over Iraq war record
"MPs are planning to impeach Tony Blair for 'high crimes and misdemeanours' in taking Britain to war against Iraq, reviving an ancient practice last used against Lord Palmerston more than 150 years ago.
Eleven MPs led by Adam Price, Plaid Cymru MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, are to table a motion when parliament returns that will force the prime minister to appear before the Commons to defend his record in the run-up to the war.
Nine of the MPs are Welsh and Scottish Nationalists, including the party leaders, Elfyn Llwyd, and Alex Salmond, and two are Conservative frontbenchers, Boris Johnson, MP for Henley and editor of the Spectator, and Nigel Evans, MP for Ribble Valley.
A number of Labour backbenchers are considering whether to back the motion, though it could mean expulsion from the party.
The MPs' decision follows the commissioning of a 100-page report which lays out the case for impeaching Mr Blair and the precedents for action, including arguments laid down in Erskine May, the parliamentary bible, on impeachments dating back to medieval times..."


The Understatement of the Year by a President Terrified of the Press:

The Independent (UK) - Bush admits he may have misjudged post-war state of Iraq
"President George Bush offered an unprecedented admission that he might have 'miscalculated' events in post-war Iraq. Mr Bush insisted that his decision invade in March 2003 had been correct.
The subsequent problems had stemmed from the very speed of the initial military victory, which had allowed Iraqi soldiers to vanish, and mount the current insurgency. The President acknowledged he had made 'a miscalculation of what the conditions would be'.
In the interview with the New York Times - Mr Bush's first in three and a half years in office with the country's most influential newspaper - he refused any further speculation on what had gone wrong with the occupation - in which more than 800 US troops have died since Mr Bush's now infamous 'Mission Accomplished' appearance on an aircraft carrier on 1 May 2003..."


Bush's Environmental Priorities: Private Interest Trumps Public Interest

AP: Bush Orders Agencies to Put Use Before Protection
"President Bush on Thursday ordered Cabinet agencies to pay more attention to private landowners, states and local governments on how to manage the environment.
That could influence federal decisions about the use of public lands, the level of protection for waterways and fighting pollution.
The executive order, bypassing congressional action, was issued by the White House without fanfare while the president campaigned in New Mexico. It is in keeping with Bush's goal of having the government defer as much as possible to local interests. One result could be that national environmental policy is shaped more by economic pressures from local projects.
Environmentalists said the order would encourage less protection for natural resources.
The order calls for more 'cooperative conservation' by the departments of Interior, Agriculture, Commerce and Defense, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The term was defined as any collaboration related 'to use, enhancement and enjoyment of natural resources, protection of the environment, or both.'
The agencies were told that 'to the extent permitted by law' and by available dollars, they must collaborate more with states, local and tribal governments, private for-profit and nonprofit groups, nongovernment associations and individuals.
It also requires that government 'takes appropriate account of and respects the interests of persons with ownership or other legally recognized interests in land and other natural resources.'
Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, said the order was 'part of the 'shrink-the-federal-safety-net' efforts by the Bush administration.
'It's another signal to federal agencies that they're supposed to ignore enforcing the law and defer to local governments and landowners,' Pope said..."


Surprise! More Supply-Side Energy Policies from Bush:

Perhaps George Bush needs to look up the meaning of conservation?

LA Times: White House Puts the West on Fast Track for Oil, Gas Drilling
"Placing a heavy emphasis on energy production in the American West, the Bush administration has moved aggressively to open up broad areas of largely unspoiled federal land to oil and gas exploration.
The administration has pressed for approval of new drilling permits across the Rocky Mountains and lifted protections on hundreds of thousands of acres with gas and oil reserves in Utah and Colorado. In the process, it has targeted a number of places prized for their scenery, abundant wildlife and clean water, natural assets increasingly valuable to the region's changing economy..."


A Woman's Right to Choose:

ABC News: Judge Stops Partial-Birth Abortion Ban
"In a highly anticipated ruling, a federal judge found the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional Thursday because it does not include a health exception.
U.S. District Judge Richard C. Casey in Manhattan said the Supreme Court has made it clear that a law that prohibits the performance of a particular abortion procedure must include an exception to preserve a woman's life and health..."

The So-Called War on Terror As A War on Civil Rights:

Bob Barr: The FBI's Pre-Emptive Interrogations Of "Possible" Demonstrators
"The FBI, no longer content with working to maintain order at political events, is now preemptively identifying and interrogating ('interviewing') possible demonstrators. It has summarized this strategy in a memo.
To make matters worse, the Department of Justice blessed the FBI strategy in its own memo - suggesting that no First Amendment concerns are raised by the interrogations.
As I will explain in this column, however, the truth is quite to the contrary: The strategy, as outlined in the memo, is a serious threat to free speech..."

Steve Weissman: Bush and Rummy's Crime in Torture's Chain of Command

NY Times: Army's Report Faults General in Prison Abuse
"Classified parts of the report by three Army generals on the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison say Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former top commander in Iraq, approved the use in Iraq of some severe interrogation practices intended to be limited to captives held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and Afghanistan.
Moreover, the report contends, by issuing and revising the rules for interrogations in Iraq three times in 30 days, General Sanchez and his legal staff sowed such confusion that interrogators acted in ways that violated the Geneva Conventions, which they understood poorly anyway.
Military officials and others in the Bush administration have repeatedly said the Geneva Conventions applied to all prisoners in Iraq, even though members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban held in Afghanistan and Guantánamo did not, in their estimation, fall under the conventions.
But classified passages of the Army report say the procedures approved by General Sanchez on Sept. 14, 2003, and the revisions made when the Central Command found fault with the initial policy, exceeded the Geneva guidelines as well as standard Army doctrines..."


With 'Friends' Like This In the Middle East, Who Needs Enemies?

CBS News: FBI Probes Pentagon Spy Case
"CBS News has learned that the FBI has a full-fledged espionage investigation under way and is about to -- in FBI terminology -- 'roll up' someone agents believe has been spying not for an enemy, but for Israel from within the office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon.
60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl reports the FBI believes it has 'solid' evidence that the suspected mole supplied Israel with classified materials that include secret White House policy deliberations on Iran.
At the heart of the investigation are two people who work at The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington.
The FBI investigation, headed up by Dave Szady, has involved wiretaps, undercover surveillance and photography that CBS News was told document the passing of classified information from the mole, to the men at AIPAC, and on to the Israelis.
CBS sources say that last year the suspected spy, described as a trusted analyst at the Pentagon, turned over a presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran while it was, 'in the draft phase when U.S. policy-makers were still debating the policy.'..."

The November Election:

The Nation: A Failed Presidency
"As Republicans gather in New York City, the Bush campaign will undergo a drastic makeover, camouflaging gutter tactics with a veneer of moderation calculated to help the President win another four-year term. But the hard truth of this campaign is that George W. Bush, while attempting to impose an extremist right-wing agenda on this country and the world, has compiled a record of staggering failure..."

Paul Krugman: America's Failing Health
"Working Americans have two great concerns: the growing difficulty of getting health insurance, and the continuing difficulty they have in finding jobs. These concerns may have a common cause: soaring insurance premiums.
In most advanced countries, the government provides everyone with health insurance. In America, however, the government offers insurance only if you're elderly (Medicare) or poor (Medicaid). Otherwise, you're expected to get private health insurance, usually through your job. But insurance premiums are exploding, and the system of employment-linked insurance is falling apart.
Some employers have dropped their health plans. Others have maintained benefits for current workers, but are finding ways to avoid paying benefits to new hires - for example, by using temporary workers. And some businesses, while continuing to provide health benefits, are refusing to hire more workers.
In other words, rising health care costs aren't just causing a rapid rise in the ranks of the uninsured (confirmed by yesterday's Census Bureau report); they're also, because of their link to employment, a major reason why this economic recovery has generated fewer jobs than any previous economic expansion..."

Iraq:

Steve Weissman: Neo-Cons Rethink Iraqi Fiasco

AFP: Iraqi Police Round Up Journalists at Gunpoint
"Iraqi policemen rounded up dozens of journalists at gunpoint in a Najaf hotel and took them to police headquarters before later releasing them, an AFP correspondent said.
Firing their guns in the air, the dozen odd policemen, some masked, stormed into the rooms of journalists in the Najaf Sea hotel and forced them into vans and a truck.
An AFP correspondent, who was also forced into a van, said the police pushed and pulled many reporters at gunpoint.
After a two-minute drive from the hotel, where journalists from across the world are based while covering the battle between Shiite militiamen and US-led Iraqi forces in the holy city, the reporters were taken to the office of the police chief.
'You people are not under arrest,' Najaf police chief Ghaleb al-Jezari told them.
'You are brought here because I want to tell you that you never publish the truth. I speak the truth, but you never broadcast what we are.'..."

Tampa Bay Online: Bush's Dad Foresaw 'incalculable' Costs of Iraq War to Oust Saddam
"Not many people foresaw the postwar difficulties the administration has endured in Iraq. Of the few who did, two stand out, both lions of the Republican Party.
One was President George H.W. Bush. The other was his secretary of state, James A. Baker.
'Incalculable human and political costs' would have been the result, the senior Bush has said, if his administration had pushed all the way to Baghdad and sought to overthrow Saddam Hussein after the U.S.-led coalition ousted the Iraqi army from Kuwait during the Persian Gulf war in 1991.
'We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect rule Iraq,' Bush wrote. 'The coalition would have instantly collapsed. ... Going in and thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations mandate would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish.
'Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different - and perhaps barren - outcome.'..."


The November Election:

CBS News: CBS News | Kerry Coverage: Conservative Bias?
"At first blush, the treatment given to Michael Dobbs' page-one swift-boat article in Sunday's Washington Post seems at least vaguely reassuring. There's the neutral headline 'Swift Boat Accounts Incomplete,' but below that, a deck-headline informing readers that 'Critics Fail to Disprove Kerry's Version of Vietnam War Episode.' The banner treatment, running across three-fourths of the front page above the fold, places the onus of proof where it belongs -- on the accusers, not on Kerry, a point that Bob Novak and others have chosen to ignore, obscure, or even refute; and in announcing that the proof isn't there, it seems to be a plus for Kerry.
So what's wrong with this picture? This: The Washington Post should not even be running such a story -- a takeout of something in the neighborhood of 2,700 words, I'm guessing, delving into the remotest arcana about what really happened on the Bay Hap River on March 13, 1969 -- in the first place. Len Downie and the paper's other editors would undoubtedly argue that the story represents the Post's tenacity for getting to the truth, without fear or favor. But what the story actually proves is that a bunch of liars who have in the past contradicted their own current statements can, if their lies are outrageous enough and if they have enough money, control the media agenda and get even the most respected media outlets in the country to focus on picayune 'truths' while missing the larger story..."

The So-Called War on Terror:

Reuters: U.S. Judge Blasts FBI Case Against Albany Muslims
"Two Islamic men accused of supporting terrorism after an FBI sting operation were ordered released from jail on Tuesday by a judge who blasted the government's case by saying there is no evidence they have any links to terrorists.
U.S. Magistrate David Homer ruled Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain should be released on $250,000 bonds and held in home detention under electronic surveillance while they await trial. He said that could take up to two years so the men will be allowed to work and attend mosque until the trial.
The pair had been ordered held without bail earlier this month -- a ruling largely based on an address book that prosecutors said was found in an Iraqi terrorist training camp. The book referred to Aref as 'the commander' in Arabic.
The government now says that translation was an error and the word is 'brother' in Kurdish.
The order to release the two comes amid criticism that the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies have caused authorities to leap to unfounded conclusions in cases that have fizzled or been dropped altogether after initial high-profile announcements..."

The So-Called War on Terror:

Denver Post: Iraq GIs allowed to avoid trials
"...By more than a 2-to-1 ratio, military officials have handed down administrative discipline rather than pursue criminal punishments for service members accused of prisoner abuse or sexual-assault crimes in war zones, according to records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and a Pentagon source.
From the start of the Iraq war in February 2003 through the middle of this year, 66 service members accused of prisoner abuse or sex assault were given administrative punishments, including fines and reprimands, compared with 29 sent to courts-martial.
The common link in these case rulings stretches back to the Revolutionary War: Commanders rather than prosecutors pull the levers of the military's justice system. They decide how and whether cases are investigated. They decide whether soldiers are, ultimately, prosecuted..."

Washington Post Editorial: Making Law at Guantanamo


The November Election:

LA Times Editorial: The Accusations Against Kerry are False
"It's one thing for the presidential campaign to get nasty but quite another for it to engage in fabrication."

The amazing thing is that the GOP has managed to make this an issue at all. They are desperate for anything to distract people from the utter incompetence of the Administration's policies in Iraq, on the environment, on taxes, and the economy. The fact that they can make an issue of a candidates' military record, while their own candidate's is quite unclear, is a testatment to the state of media in our land.

Israel Throws a Little Gas on the Fire:

The Guardian (UK) - Britain in split with US on West Bank homes
"A significant gap opened up between the British and US governments on Middle East policy yesterday when Downing Street expressed its continued opposition to any expansion of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian West Bank.
Fuelling the controversy, the Israeli government announced plans to build another 533 homes in settlements in the West Bank, in addition to the 1,000 construction tenders approved by the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, last week.
The British government, in a rare departure from Washington, positioned itself alongside its European Union partners on the issue. The EU, unlike Washington, is critical of Israeli behaviour in the West Bank and Gaza.
The US administration signalled at the weekend that it was abandoning its long-term call for a freeze on all settlement activity and would back some limited expansion..."

Iraq:

Marc Ash: Alternatives to Mindless Slaughter
"...There are two main arguments that are most often used to support a rationale for continued US military action in Iraq. The first is that if we pull out, there will be civil war. Normally that would be a valid concern. Unfortunately the Bush administration is doing more at this point to foment civil war in Iraq than prevent it. The creation of Iraqi 'security forces' in fact pits Iraqis against Iraqis. The result is a bloody rendition of 'divide and rule.' Yes, if the Bush administration had an interest in preventing violence they might have a leg to stand on. But their interest is oil, and Iraqi unity does not serve that end.
The second argument most often used in support of the continued US military action in Iraq is, for lack of a better term, the installation of democracy. Again that won't work for Mr. Bush and the US oil industry. Democracy would lead to self rule, and that would be less profitable for us. Democracy, however does work quite well as a sales slogan, so look for it in use there..."

Paul Krugman: The Rambo Coalition
"...After 9/11, Mr. Bush had a choice: he could deal with real threats, or he could play Rambo. He chose Rambo. Not for him the difficult, frustrating task of tracking down elusive terrorists, or the unglamorous work of protecting ports and chemical plants from possible attack: he wanted a dramatic shootout with the bad guy. And if you asked why we were going after this particular bad guy, who hadn't attacked America and wasn't building nuclear weapons - or if you warned that real wars involve costs you never see in the movies - you were being unpatriotic..."

The Washington Post: Abu Ghraib Probe Points to Top Brass
"...An Army investigation into the role of military intelligence personnel in the abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison reports that the scandal was not just caused by a small circle of rogue military police soldiers but resulted from failures of leadership rising to the highest levels of the U.S. command in Iraq, senior defense officials said.
The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the report has not yet been completed, said the 9,000-page document says that a combination of leadership failings, confounding policies, lack of discipline and absolute confusion at the prison led to the abuse. It widens the scope of culpability from seven MPs who have been charged with abuse to include nearly 20 low-ranking soldiers who could face criminal prosecution in military courts. No Army officers, however, are expected to face criminal charges.
Officials also said that the report implicates five civilian contractors in the abuse, and that Army officials plan to recommend that their cases be sent to the Justice Department for possible prosecution in civilian courts..."

Politicizing the Missing WMD for Maximum Effect:

LA Times: CIA Study on Iraq Weapons Is Off Course, Officials Say
"Having failed to find banned weapons in Iraq, the CIA is preparing a final report on its search that will speculate on what the deposed regime's capabilities might have looked like years from now if left unchecked, according to congressional and intelligence officials.
The CIA plans for the report, due next month, to project as far as 2008 what Iraq might have achieved in its illegal weapons programs if the United States had not invaded the country last year, the officials said.
The new direction of the inquiry is seen by some officials as an attempt to obscure the fact that no banned weapons — or even evidence of active programs — have been found, and instead emphasize theories that Iraq may have been planning to revive its programs..."


Central Asia:

UN News: UN Expert Denounces Abuses in Illegal Prisons
"A United Nations Independent Expert on Afghanistan is denouncing abuses taking place at an illegal jail there, and seeking answers from the United States on getting the prisoners released.
Briefing reporters in Kabul on Saturday, Professor Cherif Bassiouni referred to a group of 725 out of some 3,200 persons originally detained by the Northern Alliance – 'and apparently some US forces were involved' – who then were transferred from Shibergan to Pul –e-Charkhi prison under the authority of the Government.
The expert, who visited the prison, called conditions there inhuman. 'They violate every standard of human rights whether under UN standards of minimum rules for the treatment of offenders or under international humanitarian law,' he said..."


The Olympics, Politicized

ABC News: We're No Symbol of Freedom, Iraq Coach Says
"Iraq's Olympic soccer coach said Monday his side should not be seen as a symbol of freedom, taking issue with a campaign commercial for President Bush.
The flags of Iraq and Afghanistan appear in a commercial as part of Bush's drive for re-election in November. A narrator says: 'At this Olympics there will be two more free nations -- and two fewer terrorist regimes.'
But coach Adnan Hamad said Iraq, still plagued by violence daily, remained a country under occupation.
'You cannot speak about a team that represents freedom. We do not have freedom in Iraq, we have an occupying force. This is one of our most miserable times,' he said. 'Freedom is just a word for the media. We are living in hard times, under occupation.'..."

Iraq:

The Toronto Star: U.S. doctors tied to prisoner abuse
"U.S. military doctors and medics at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were 'complicit' in the torture of Iraqi detainees and faked death certificates to try and cover up homicides, says a report in a top British medical journal.
The scathing analysis in The Lancet puts the spotlight on the role of medical professionals in a torture scandal that has so far focused on the abuse committed by U.S. soldiers.
The report, written by University of Minnesota professor Steven Miles, says U.S. military doctors, nurses and medics at Abu Ghraib grossly violated medical ethics and international treaties on human rights.
'There was a fundamental breakdown of the military medical system for these prisoners,' Miles, a doctor in the university's bioethics centre, said in an interview yesterday. 'The medical professionals failed to provide basic medical health care to the prisoners. And not only were they aware of human rights abuses, they were actually complicit in them.'
Using evidence from U.S. congressional hearings, sworn statements of detainees and soldiers, and reports from military investigators, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the media, Miles concluded that doctors were involved in the torture from the start.
'The medical system collaborated with designing and implementing psychologically and physically coercive interrogations,' Miles writes in this week's edition of The Lancet, regarded as a leading international journal on medical ethics..."

NY Times Editorial: Politics of Exclusion in Iraq


Gulf War Syndrome:

San Francisco Bay View: - Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets
"...This week the American Free Press dropped a 'dirty bomb' on the Pentagon by reporting that eight out of 20 men who served in one unit in the 2003 U.S. military offensive in Iraq now have malignancies. That means that 40 percent of the soldiers in that unit have developed malignancies in just 16 months.
Since these soldiers were exposed to vaccines and depleted uranium (DU) only, this is strong evidence for researchers and scientists working on this issue, that DU is the definitive cause of Gulf War Syndrome. Vaccines are not known to cause cancer. One of the first published researchers on Gulf War Syndrome, who also served in 1991 in Iraq, Dr. Andras Korényi-Both, is in agreement with Barbara Goodno from the Department of Defense’s Deployment Health Support Directorate, that in this war soldiers were not exposed to chemicals, pesticides, bioagents or other suspect causes this time to confuse the issue.
This powerful new evidence is blowing holes in the cover-up perpetrated by the Pentagon and three presidential administrations ever since DU was first used in 1991 in the Persian Gulf War. Fourteen years after the introduction of DU on the battlefield in 1991, the long-term effects have revealed that DU is a death sentence and very nasty stuff..."

The So-Called War on Terror:

The Guardian (UK) - We could have stopped him
"The CIA has taken much of the blame for the security lapses that led to 9/11 and the false intelligence on Iraq's WMDs. But now one spy has broken ranks to point the finger at the politicians - and warn that the war on terror could plunge the US into even greater danger..."

NY Times: War Heats Up in the Neoconservative Fold

Iraq:

Reuters: Senators Ask Where $8.8 Bln in Iraq Funds Went
"At least $8.8 billion in Iraqi funds that was given to Iraqi ministries by the former U.S.-led authority there cannot be accounted for, according to a draft U.S. audit set for release soon.
The audit by the Coalition Provisional Authority's own Inspector General blasts the CPA for 'not providing adequate stewardship' of at least $8.8 billion from the Development Fund for Iraq that was given to Iraqi ministries.
The audit was first reported on a Web site earlier this month by journalist and retired Col. David Hackworth. A U.S. official confirmed the contents of the leaked audit cited by Hackworth (www.hackworth.com) were accurate..."

A GOP Congressman changes his tune on Iraq

Lincoln Journal Star: Bereuter: War in Iraq not justified

"'I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action,' Bereuter wrote in a letter to constituents in the final days of his congressional career.
That's especially true in view of the fact that the attack was initiated 'without a broad and engaged international coalition,' the 1st District congressman said.
'Knowing now what I know about the reliance on the tenuous or insufficiently corroborated intelligence used to conclude that Saddam maintained a substantial WMD (weapons of mass destruction) arsenal, I believe that launching the pre-emptive military action was not justified.'
As a result of the war, he said, 'our country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened.'
Bereuter is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
His four-page letter represented a departure from his support for a 2002 House resolution authorizing the president to go to war..."


The November Election:

Sidney Blumenthal: Isn't This a Democracy?

Pre-War Intelligence:

NY Times: The New York Times %3E Washington %3E Former Iraq Arms Inspector Faults Prewar Intelligence
"A former Bush administration official who led the fruitless postwar effort to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq told Congress on Wednesday that the National Security Council led by Condoleezza Rice had botched intelligence information before the war and was "the dog that did not bark" over Iraq's weapons program.
In uncharacteristically caustic remarks about his former colleagues, the weapons inspector, David Kay, said the National Security Council had failed to protect President Bush from faulty prewar intelligence and had left Secretary of State Colin L. Powell 'hanging out in the wind' when he tried to gather intelligence before the war about Iraq's weapons programs.
'Where was the N.S.C?' Dr. Kay asked, suggesting that the president had come to depend too heavily on information supplied by Ms. Rice, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, and that the president needed to reach out to others for national security information.
'Every president who has been successful, at least that I know of, in the history of this republic, has developed both informal and formal means of getting checks on whether people who tell him things are in fact telling him the whole truth,' Dr. Kay told the Senate intelligence committee at a hearing called to discuss the findings of the Sept. 11 commission.
'I think this is particularly crucial and difficult to do in the intelligence area,' he continued. 'The recent history has been a reliance on the N.S.C. system to do it. I quite frankly think that has not served this president very well.'
Dr. Kay added: 'The dog that did not bark in the case of Iraq's W.M.D. weapons program, quite frankly, in my view, is the National Security Council.'"

The So-Called War on Terror:

An essay by Kurt Vonnegut from May 2004: Cold Turkey -- In These Times

Education:

NY Times: Nation's Charter Schools Lagging Behind, U.S. Test Scores Reveal
"The first national comparison of test scores among children in charter schools and regular public schools shows charter school students often doing worse than comparable students in regular public schools.
The findings, buried in mountains of data the Education Department released without public announcement, dealt a blow to supporters of the charter school movement, including the Bush administration...

...Federal officials said they did not intend to hide the performance of charter schools, and denied any political motivation for failing to publicly disclose that the data were available. 'I guess that was poor publicity on our part,' said Robert Lerner, the federal commissioner for education statistics. Mr. Lerner said further analysis was needed to put the data in its proper context.
But others were skeptical, saying the results proved that such schools were not a cure-all. 'There's just a huge distance between the sunny claims of the charter school advocates and the reality,' said Bella Rosenberg, an special assistant to the president of the American Federation of Teachers. 'There's a very strong accountability issue here.'..."


The So-Called War on Terror:

LA Times: Crying Wolf in the War Against Terror
"'Never mind,' the feds now say to Yaser Esam Hamdi, the alleged enemy combatant whose case was decided in June by the U.S. Supreme Court. Never mind that we threw you into the brig and then fought like wildcats to deprive you of fundamental constitutional rights. Never mind that we told federal judges that you were a dangerous enemy of the United States.
Now, it seems, the government is negotiating with Hamdi's attorneys for his release from confinement. According to reports, Hamdi would renounce his U.S. citizenship, move to Saudi Arabia and accept some travel restrictions, as well as some monitoring by Saudi officials, in exchange for his freedom. In addition, he may have to agree not to file a civil rights lawsuit against the federal government.
If all Hamdi has to worry about is going forward into his new life of freedom, it would be a remarkable turnaround for a man who for years now the government has sworn is a terrorist. It would be a shocking admission from the government that there is not now, and probably never has been, a viable criminal case against Hamdi. And it would cause a stunning and long-lasting loss of credibility for the representations that government lawyers and military officials make in these sorts of terror law cases.
The Justice Department is spinning the talks between Hamdi's attorneys and federal lawyers as a routine exercise in the release of prisoners in wartime. But it is fairly clear that such talks did not take place before the Supreme Court rode to Hamdi's rescue a couple of months ago by requiring his captors to give him some rights..."


...and the so-called War on Terror as a War on the Civil Rights of Americans:

Newsday: Mayor suggests free assembly a 'privilege'
"Mayor Michael Bloomberg, already under fire for his tough stance against anti-GOP protest groups, Monday suggested that First Amendment rights of free speech and free assembly are 'privileges' that could be lost if abused.
Bloomberg, speaking to Republican National Convention volunteers in Manhattan, was trying to downplay concerns that protesters will disrupt this month's convention -- when he began articulating a broader constitutional vision.
'People who avail themselves of the opportunity to express themselves ... they will not abuse that privilege,' he said at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. 'Because if we start to abuse our privileges, then we lose them, and nobody wants that.'
The mayor's comments drew immediate criticism from protest groups and came amid reports that federal agents and city police have been questioning activists, monitoring Web sites and dropping in unannounced on organizational meetings.
'The right to protest is not nor has it ever been a privilege -- it is a constitutionally protected right that everybody in this country enjoys,' said Leslie Cagan, head of United for Peace and Justice, which has locked horns with the city over its attempt to stage a 250,000-person protest in Central Park. 'I have no idea what he's talking about. I'm completely flabbergasted.'..."


The November Election:

AP: Harkin: Cheney's comments 'cowardly':
"'It just outrages me that someone who got five deferments during Vietnam and said he had 'other priorities' at that time would say that,' said the Iowa Democrat, a former Navy fighter pilot.
Harkin said he had seen clips of the vice president saying in Iowa last week that Kerry lacks a basic understanding of the war on terrorism.
He accused President Bush and his vice president of 'resorting to dirty attacks on John Kerry's war record.'
'They're running scared because John Kerry has a war record and they don't,' said Harkin. 'What he (Cheney) is doing and what he is saying is cowardly. The actions are cowardly.'
Harkin, a 20-year veteran of the Senate, was a Navy flier from 1962-67, including stints at Atsugi Naval Air Station in Japan and Guantanamo Bay. He served 1968-74 in the Reserves."

Bush's Blatant Pro-Business Agenda:

NY Times: Out of Spotlight, Bush Overhauls U.S. Regulations
"April 21 was an unusually violent day in Iraq; 68 people died in a car bombing in Basra, among them 23 children. As the news went from bad to worse, President Bush took a tough line, vowing to a group of journalists, 'We're not going to cut and run while I'm in the Oval Office.
On the same day, deep within the turgid pages of the Federal Register, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published a regulation that would forbid the public release of some data relating to unsafe motor vehicles, saying that publicizing the information would cause 'substantial competitive harm' to manufacturers.
As soon as the rule was published, consumer groups yelped in complaint, while the government responded that it was trying to balance the interests of consumers with the competitive needs of business. But hardly anyone else noticed, and that was hardly an isolated case.
Allies and critics of the Bush administration agree that the Sept. 11 attacks, the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq have preoccupied the public, overshadowing an important element of the president's agenda: new regulatory initiatives. Health rules, environmental regulations, energy initiatives, worker-safety standards and product-safety disclosure policies have been modified in ways that often please business and industry leaders while dismaying interest groups representing consumers, workers, drivers, medical patients, the elderly and many others.
And most of it was done through regulation, not law - lowering the profile of the actions. The administration can write or revise regulations largely on its own, while Congress must pass laws. For that reason, most modern-day presidents have pursued much of their agendas through regulation. But administration officials acknowledge that Mr. Bush has been particularly aggressive in using this strategy.
'There's been more federal regulations, more regulatory notices, than previous administrations,' said Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, though he attributed much of that to the new rules dealing with domestic security.
Scott McClellan, the chief White House spokesman, said of the changes, 'The president's common-sense policies reflect the values of America, whether it is cracking down on corporate wrongdoing or eliminating burdensome regulations to create jobs.'..."


Iraq:

NY Times: Iraqi Conference on Election Plan Sinks Into Chaos
"A conference of more than 1,100 Iraqis chosen to take the country a crucial step further toward constitutional democracy convened in Baghdad on Sunday under siege-like conditions, only to be thrown into disorder by delegates staging angry protests against the American-led military operation in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.
After an opening speech by Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, delegates leapt out of their seats demanding the conference be suspended. One Shiite delegate stormed the stage before being forced back, shouting, 'We demand that military operations in Najaf stop immediately!'
Shortly afterward, two mortar shells fired at the area where the meeting was being held landed in a bus and truck terminal nearby, killing 2 people and wounding at least 17.
The three-day conference, called to elect a 100-member commission that is to organize elections in January and hold veto powers over decrees passed by the Allawi government, was not halted. But reporters who had been told to wear flak jackets and helmets when entering the convention center complex past American tanks were frantically waved back from the center's plate glass windows as the mortar shells exploded, shaking the complex and rattling the windows.
In many ways, the scene seemed like a metaphor for America's problems in Iraq, with the rebel attacks that have spread to virtually every Sunni and Shiite town across this country of 25 million threatening to overwhelm plans for three rounds of national elections next year, ending with a fully elected government in January 2006..."

Robert Bryce: America's Achilles' Heel
"Last month, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld assured Americans that Iraq 'continues to calm down.' But the bitter reality is that America is losing the war in Iraq. And it's not just because the interim Iraqi government can't stop the suicide bombers or prevail over the soldiers loyal to Shiite rebel leaders like Muqtada al-Sadr. It's also because neither the U.S. nor the interim Iraqi government can control the flow of Iraq's oil.
The bad news from the oil fields continued last week when men loyal to Sadr surrounded several Iraqi government buildings and threatened to attack pipelines and other oil facilities unless the government stopped pumping oil through the pipes that feed Iraq's oil export terminals in the Persian Gulf, Mina al-Bakr and Khor al-Amaya. (Mina al-Bakr was built by Halliburton for the new Baathist government in the mid-1970s, when the United States did not have diplomatic relations with Iraq.) The Iraqi government reportedly stopped pumping oil in an effort to stem unrest in Basra, a city that for months has been viewed as more pro-Western than other areas.
Saboteurs also bombed one of the two main pipelines that feed the terminals. Repair crews had the 48-inch line fixed by Aug. 11, but it was unclear when -- or if -- the pipeline would be put back into service. Every day that the Persian Gulf terminals are shut, it costs the Iraqi government at least $50 million in lost oil revenue.
The situation in the northern oil fields is even worse. The easiest way to move oil from the oil-rich fields near Kirkuk to market is through a pipeline that runs to the Turkish port at Ceyhan. But ever since U.S. forces invaded Iraq, that pipeline has suffered more hits than Mike Tyson. The pipeline has been bombed so frequently that Iraqi officials are openly talking about shutting it down..."

Reuters: Family of Iraq Torture Whistleblower Threatened
"Relatives of the U.S. soldier who sounded the alarm about abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison said on Monday the family was living in protective custody because of death threats against them. Reservist military police officer Staff Sgt. Joseph Darby alerted U.S. Army investigators about the abuse by fellow soldiers of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, a move his wife says has angered people in their community in western Maryland..."


The November Election:

NY Times: F.B.I. Goes Knocking for Political Troublemakers
"The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been questioning political demonstrators across the country, and in rare cases even subpoenaing them, in an aggressive effort to forestall what officials say could be violent and disruptive protests at the Republican National Convention in New York.
F.B.I. officials are urging agents to canvass their communities for information about planned disruptions aimed at the convention and other coming political events, and they say they have developed a list of people who they think may have information about possible violence. They say the inquiries, which began last month before the Democratic convention in Boston, are focused solely on possible crimes, not on dissent, at major political events.
But some people contacted by the F.B.I. say they are mystified by the bureau's interest and felt harassed by questions about their political plans..."

Some very strong words for George W. Bush by William Rivers Pitt: Brain Dead, Made of Money, No Future at All


Energy Politics:

Newsday Editorial: 1.3 billion reasons to worry about oil - China to rival U.S. as oil guzzler
"American leaders have good reason to worry about the price of oil. Oil price shocks can play a decisive role in ending a presidency, as in the cases of Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush. The Nov. 2 election may well hinge on the cooling of the economic recovery caused by sustained high levels of oil prices. But that's not really what the next president should be so concerned about. The real oil shocks - much more damaging and sustained than ever before - will come a bit later, but much sooner than anyone had expected, from a part of the world not even discussed seriously in the current campaign: China.

With 1.3 billion people, a phenomenal rate of economic growth, and an insatiable consumer demand for cars, China will soon come into direct conflict with the United States over oil, the world's most valuable and increasingly scarce industrial commodity.

The pressure on supply will inevitably jack up prices to levels that would make today's motorists and electricity customers blanch.
The conflict is unavoidable. It could create geopolitical tensions and cause dramatic shifts in U.S. foreign policy that may overshadow today's preoccupation with global terrorism. And there are no easy solutions to avert it, only regrets over this nation's missed opportunities in decades past to develop viable alternative energy sources to lessen U.S. dependence on imported oil.
Any such program, initiated today, will take far too long to bear fruit in time to avoid an economic and political clash with China over oil..."

Iraq:

The Guardian (UK) - Iraq Evicts Reporters From Najaf
"Iraqi police ordered all journalists to leave the holy city of Najaf on Sunday, just as a new U.S. offensive against militants hiding out in a revered shrine there began.
Four police cars surrounded a hotel in the city where journalists were staying and presented the order signed by Najaf's police chief, Brig. Ghalib al-Jazaari.
Though the order did not spell out a punishment for those who did not comply, the police who delivered it said any reporters remaining would be arrested, according to journalists at the hotel. The police said any cameras and cellular phones they saw would be confiscated. In response to the threat, many journalists left the city.
The order would mean that the only news coverage of the ongoing violence in Najaf, one of the most revered cities to Shiite Muslims, would be provided by reporters embedded with the U.S. military..."

BBC: Iraq 'ended nuclear aims in 1991'
"Jafar Dhia Jafar told the BBC sanctions and inspections worked in stopping the reconstitution of the programme. He also said Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programmes were destroyed after the first Gulf War and never reactivated..."

Sunday Telegraph (UK) - Rumsfeld escapes blame in 'whitewash' Abu Ghraib report: "A Pentagon report on prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison is being labelled a whitewash before it has even been released.
The report is the result of the internal inquiry launched by Gen George Fay in April after the now notorious images of mistreated Iraqi prisoners were broadcast around the world. Critics are arguing that its final conclusions, some of which were leaked last week to the Baltimore Sun, amount to a deliberate cover-up to protect senior military and civilian figures in the Pentagon.
Due to be published by the end of the month, the report will call for disciplinary procedures to be launched against up to two dozen military intelligence officers, all of whom arrived at Abu Ghraib last October, when the worst abuses began. But no action against senior military figures will be called for.
Even more controversially, the role of the Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, has been judged to be outside the investigation's remit, despite allegations that extreme treatment of prisoners was authorised at the highest levels..."


The Venezuelan Referendum:

Greg Palast: Dick Cheney, Hugo Chavez and Bill Clinton's Band - Why Venezuela has Voted Again for Their 'Negro e Indio' President
"There's so much BS and baloney thrown around about Venezuela that I may be violating some rule of US journalism by providing some facts. Let's begin with this: 77% of Venezuela's farmland is owned by 3% of the population, the 'hacendados.'
I met one of these farmlords in Caracas at an anti-Chavez protest march. Oddest demonstration I've ever seen: frosted blondes in high heels clutching designer bags, screeching, "Chavez - dic-ta-dor!" The plantation owner griped about the "socialismo" of Chavez, then jumped into his Jaguar convertible.
That week, Chavez himself handed me a copy of the "socialist" manifesto that so rattled the man in the Jag. It was a new law passed by Venezuela's Congress which gave land to the landless. The Chavez law transferred only fields from the giant haciendas which had been left unused and abandoned..."


The So-Called War on Terror:

Newsweek: Goss's Wish List
"Rep. Porter Goss, President Bush's nominee to head the CIA, recently introduced legislation that would give the president new authority to direct CIA agents to conduct law-enforcement operations inside the United States-including arresting American citizens.
The legislation, introduced by Goss on June 16 and touted as an 'intelligence reform' bill, would substantially restructure the U.S. intelligence community by giving the director of Central Intelligence (DCI) broad new powers to oversee its various components scattered throughout the government.
But in language that until now has not gotten any public attention, the Goss bill would also redefine the authority of the DCI in such a way as to substantially alter-if not overturn-a 57-year-old ban on the CIA conducting operations inside the United States.
The language contained in the Goss bill has alarmed civil-liberties advocates. It also today prompted one former top CIA official to describe it as a potentially 'dramatic' change in the guidelines that have governed U.S. intelligence operations for more than a half century.
'This language on its face would have allowed President Nixon to authorize the CIA to bug the Democratic National Committee headquarters,' Jeffrey H. Smith, who served as general counsel of the CIA between 1995 and 1996, told NEWSWEEK. 'I can't imagine what Porter had in mind'..."


US Diplomacy:

BBC: US questions Japan's pacifism
"US Secretary of State Colin Powell says Japan must consider revising its pacifist constitution if it wants a permanent UN Security Council seat."


Africa:

The Guardian (UK) - UN condemns Tutsi refugee massacre
"The UN security council has condemned the massacre last week of more than 160 Tutsi Congolese refugees in Burundi.
Most of the victims were women, children and babies, shot dead and burned as they slept in shelters at the Gatumba refugee transit camp on Friday.
Up to 20,000 Congolese Tutsi refugees have taken shelter in UN camps in Burundi after fleeing Congo, terrified of being attacked by government troops, local militia and civilians in eastern Congo.
The UN security council, which met yesterday in an emergency session, urged the authorities in Burundi and neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo to work together and bring those responsible to justice quickly..."

Pre-War Intelligence & the Media:
Finally another mea culpa from the press...

The Washington Post: The Post on WMDs: An Inside Story
"...An examination of the paper's coverage, and interviews with more than a dozen of the editors and reporters involved, shows that The Post published a number of pieces challenging the White House, but rarely on the front page. Some reporters who were lobbying for greater prominence for stories that questioned the administration's evidence complained to senior editors who, in the view of those reporters, were unenthusiastic about such pieces. The result was coverage that, despite flashes of groundbreaking reporting, in hindsight looks strikingly one-sided at times.
'The paper was not front-paging stuff,' said Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks. 'Administration assertions were on the front page. Things that challenged the administration were on A18 on Sunday or A24 on Monday. There was an attitude among editors: Look, we're going to war, why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff?'
In retrospect, said Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., 'we were so focused on trying to figure out what the administration was doing that we were not giving the same play to people who said it wouldn't be a good idea to go to war and were questioning the administration's rationale. Not enough of those stories were put on the front page. That was a mistake on my part.'
Across the country, 'the voices raising questions about the war were lonely ones,' Downie said. 'We didn't pay enough attention to the minority.'
When national security reporter Dana Priest was addressing a group of intelligence officers recently, she said, she was peppered with questions: 'Why didn't The Post do a more aggressive job? Why didn't The Post ask more questions? Why didn't The Post dig harder?'
Several news organizations have cast a withering eye on their earlier work. The New York Times said in a May editor's note about stories that claimed progress in the hunt for WMDs that editors 'were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper.' Separately, the Times editorial page and the New Republic magazine expressed regret for some prewar arguments..."


The So-Called War on Terror:

Ray McGovern: Not Scared Yet? Try Connecting These Dots

CBS: Bush's Big Blunder: Chalabi
"In January, when President Bush delivered his State of the Union speech to Congress celebrating the success of the 'pre-emptive' war against Iraq, a controversial Iraqi exile named Ahmad Chalabi sat in a place of honor behind First Lady Laura Bush.
The symbolism was no accident: Despite being a fugitive from Jordan for a conviction in absentia on bank fraud charges, this darling of neoconservative hard-liners was the Pentagon's and White House's favored and well-paid advisor on all things Iraq -- including weapons of mass destruction, ties with al Qaeda and the odds for a post-invasion insurgency. As is now apparent, he and his cronies seemed to have lied spectacularly about it all.
Then, as part of the invasion in 2003, Chalabi and a ragtag militia were flown into Iraq at U.S. taxpayer expense. Soon he was appointed by the U.S.-led coalition authority to the Iraqi Governing Council, and his power was enhanced as relatives and members of the organization he headed, the Iraq National Congress, were appointed to key ministries.
When his nephew Salem was named the lead prosecutor of Saddam Hussein, it appeared clear that despite polls showing him to be the least trusted politician in Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi was doing quite well for himself. Salem bragged on his law firm's website that through his influence, foreign investors could profitably participate in Iraq's $75 billion reconstruction effort.
Today, however, it is hard to imagine that anybody would want to be in Ahmad Chalabi's shoes -- or those of the many top officials of Bush's White House, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who so assiduously backed him..."

Norman Solomon: From Attica to Abu Ghraib -- and a Prison Near You


The November Election:

Ready or not, here comes The Fear from anonymous White House officials...

Washington Post: White House Warns of Terror Strike
"Preelection Threat Not Based on New Data, Official Says"

Sidney Blumenthal: Bush needs to change the subject

The So-Called War on Terror

CNN: U.S.: No testimony at 9/11 retrial
"The United States has said it will not let key al Qaeda suspects in its custody testify at the retrial of the only September 11 suspect ever to be convicted..."

We should remember that one of the characteristics of fascism is government collusion with business....

Wired: Big Business Becoming Big Brother
"The government is increasingly using corporations to do its surveillance work, allowing it to get around restrictions that protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, according to a report released Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization that works to protect civil liberties.
Data aggregators -- companies that aggregate information from numerous private and public databases -- and private companies that collect information about their customers are increasingly giving or selling data to the
government to augment its surveillance capabilities and help it track the activities of people..."


Iraq:

NY Times Editorial: The Iraq Reconstruction Fiasco
"Things have gone so obviously wrong with America's approach to rebuilding Iraq that even the Bush administration is now willing to listen to some informed advice. Before the invasion, the White House and Pentagon contemptuously ignored post-invasion planning memos drafted by State Department experts knowledgeable about Iraq, the Arab world and the broader problems of nation-building. Now some of those same State Department experts are quietly being called back to try to repair the damage. Their re-emergence is welcome, but late in the game. Winning back the good will and trust of ordinary Iraqis will be, at best, an uphill fight..."


Energy Policy:

IHT: Coal firms find Bush to be ally
"In 1997, as a top executive of a Utah mining company, David Lauriski proposed a measure that could allow some operators to let coal-dust levels rise substantially in mines. The plan went nowhere in the government.
Last year, it found enthusiastic backing from one government official - Lauriski himself. Now head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, he revived the proposal despite objections by union officials and health experts that it could put miners at greater risk of black-lung disease.
The reintroduction of the coal-dust measure followed the federal agency's abandoning of Clinton-era safety proposals favored by miners and embracing others favored by mine operators.
The agency's effort to rewrite coal regulations is part of a broader push by the Bush administration to help an industry that has been out of favor in Washington. As a candidate four years ago, George W. Bush promised to expand energy supplies, in part by reviving coal's fortunes, particularly in Appalachia, where coal regions will also help decide how swing states like West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio vote this year.
The president has also made good on a 2000 campaign pledge to ease environmental restrictions that he said were threatening jobs in coal country. That promise led many West Virginia miners, who traditionally voted Democratic, to join coal operators in supporting Bush. It helped him win the state's five electoral votes, ultimately the margin of victory..."

Venezuela:

Greg Palast: Venezuela Floridated
"Hugo Chavez drives George Bush crazy. Maybe it's jealousy: Unlike Mr. Bush, Chavez, in Venezuela, won his Presidency by a majority of the vote.
Or maybe it's the oil. Venezuela sits atop a reserve rivaling Iraq's. And Hugo thinks the US and British oil companies that pump the crude ought to pay more than a 16% royalty to his nation for the stuff. Hey, sixteen percent isn't even acceptable as a tip at a New York diner.
Whatever it is, OUR President has decided that THEIR president has to go. This is none too easy given that Chavez is backed by Venezuela's poor; and the US oil industry, joined with local oligarchs, has made sure a vast majority of Venezuelans remain poor.
Therefore, Chavez is expected to win this coming Sunday's recall vote. That is, if the elections are free and fair..."


The So-Called War on Terror:

BBC: Pakistan protests over US sting
"Islamabad called the operation bizarre and mind-boggling.
A spokesman said it had endangered the life of Munir Akram, Pakistan's permanent envoy to the United Nations.
Two men are being held in the US for allegedly laundering money for an agent posing as a militant who wanted to use a missile to kill Mr Akram.
Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan asked why the US authorities had not picked an American 'target' instead.
'It is mind-boggling why they could not use the name of an American functionary,' he told a news conference.
He said that Pakistan had spoken to the US embassy in Islamabad and that it hoped America would 'realise its mistake and give instructions for rectifying this faulty methodology'..."

Iraq:

William Rivers Pitt: The Writing on the Latrine Walls
"...930 American soldiers have died to achieve goals the PNAC boys gamed out before they ever came in with this Bush administration. Well over 10,000 Iraqi civilians have likewise died. Over $200 billion has been spent to do this. Fighting today rages across several sections of Iraq, and the puppet 'leaders' installed by U.S. forces are about to drive a final stake into the heart of the liberation rhetoric by declaring nationwide martial law.
Two enemies of the United States - the nation of Iran and Osama bin Laden - are thrilled with the outcome to date. Saddam Hussein was an enemy to both Iran and bin Laden, and he has been removed. The destabilization and innocent bloodshed bolsters Iran's standing against the U.S., and sends freshly motivated martyrs into the arms of Osama..."

Richard Manning: The Oil We Eat: "The journalist's rule says: follow the money. This rule, however, is not really axiomatic but derivative, in that money, as even our vice president will tell you, is really a way of tracking energy. We'll follow the energy..."

LA Times: Ex-Reservist Details Iraqi Prison Abuse
"A former Army reservist who served with the 372nd Military Police Company in Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad provided a detailed account Friday of Iraqi prisoner abuse that he says was directed and encouraged by military intelligence officers.
Kenneth Davis, 33, who held the rank of sergeant until he left the military last month, said he went to superiors to describe the abuse he saw and gave a statement to Army investigators implicating military intelligence personnel. So far, none has been charged in connection with the scandal for which seven soldiers from the 372nd, based in Cresaptown, Md., are being held responsible. He said that he has not been asked to testify for or against the accused soldiers..."


The November Election:

Jim Hightower: Bush Zones Go National
"...Imagine how proud the Founders would be of this interpretation of their revolutionary work. The Democrats, always willing to learn useful tricks from the opposition, created their own 'free-speech zone' when they gathered in Los Angeles that year for their convention.
Once ensconced in the White House, the Bushites institutionalized the art of dissing dissent, routinely dispatching the Secret Service to order local police to set up FSZs to quarantine protesters wherever Bush goes. The embedded media trooping dutifully behind him almost never cover this fascinating and truly newsworthy phenomenon, instead focusing almost entirely on spoon-fed soundbites from the President's press office..."

Iraq:

LA Times & BBC: Arrest of Former Bush Allies Ahmad and Salem Chalabi Sought

They Knew...

The Guardian (UK) - Gulf allies 'all faced chemical exposure'
"US investigators researching illnesses suffered by veterans of the first Gulf war yesterday insisted that all troops and civilians in the area might have been exposed to low levels of chemical agents.
Material was blasted into the environment by bombing attacks on Iraqi chemical plants and munition centres during the war, and by demolition by allied forces afterwards, witnesses told Lord Lloyd's independent inquiry into claims by British veterans that they had been made ill by their service. None of the witnesses from US congressional investigations attempted to quantify the exact levels of exposure, but Robert Haley, from the University of Texas, who has both examined veterans and studied animal experiments, is today expected to say that low-level agents do in fact cause detectable brain injuries. 'All persons in the theatre may have been exposed,' said Keith Rhodes, chief technologist for the government accountability office (GAO), an investigating arm of the US Congress.
The GAO said recently that the US government's models for assessing the number of soldiers who might have been exposed to agents from the plume caused by the destruction of a weapons bunker at Khamisayah, in southern Iraq, after the war could not be supported. The US government estimated that just over 100,000 US troops may have been exposed, and the Ministry of Defence in Britain has admitted that 9,000 British troops may have been exposed..."


The So-Called War on Terror:

Reuters: Unmasking of Qaeda Mole a U.S. Security Blunder-Experts
"The revelation that a mole within al Qaeda was exposed after Washington launched its 'orange alert' this month has shocked security experts, who say the outing of the source may have set back the war on terror..."


The Environment:

The phenomenon described below has recently been observed in Boulder County, CO as well. On whose shoulders does the responsibility lie to clean up the water we flush down the toilet?

Reuters: Report: Prozac Found in Britain's Drinking Water
"Traces of the anti-depressant Prozac have been found in Britain's drinking water supply, setting off alarm bells with environmentalists concerned about potentially toxic effects.
The Observer newspaper said Sunday that a report by the government's environment watchdog found Prozac was building up in river systems and groundwater used for drinking supplies. The exact quantity of Prozac in the drinking water was unknown, but the Environment Agency's report concluded Prozac could be potentially toxic in the water table. Experts say that Prozac finds its way into rivers and water systems from treated sewage water, and some believe the drugs could affect reproductive ability..."


Bush Leans on Churches for Support:

We should remember that the leaders of the United Methodist Church, which counts the President & VP as members, opposed the invasion of Iraq as 'without any justification according to the teachings of Christ' in October 2002.

NY Times: Churches See an Election Role and Spread the Word on Bush
"Susanne Jacobsmeyer, a member of the West County Assembly of God in a St. Louis suburb, voted for George W. Bush four years ago, but mostly out of loyalty as a Republican and not with much passion.
This year, Ms. Jacobsmeyer is a 'team leader' in the Bush campaign's effort to turn out conservative Christian voters. 'This year I am voting for him as a man of faith,' she said over breakfast after an early morning service. 'He has proven that he will do what is right, and he will look to God first.'..."


The November Election:

Marjorie Cohn: Modern Ballot Box Stuffing: Can We Trust Team Bush?


Venezuela:

Richard Gott: Loathed by the rich
"To the dismay of opposition groups in Venezuela, and to the surprise of international observers gathering in Caracas, President Hugo Chávez is about to secure a stunning victory on August 15, in a referendum designed to lead to his overthrow...
...The unexpected restoration of Chávez not only alerted the world to an unusual leftwing, not to say revolutionary, experiment taking place in Venezuela, but it also led the country's poor majority to understand that they had a government and a president worth defending. Chávez was able to dismiss senior officers opposed to his project of involving the armed forces in programmes to help the poor, and removed the threat of a further coup.
The second attempt at his overthrow - the prolonged work stoppage in December 2002 which extended to a lockout at the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, nationalised since 1975 - also played into the hands of the president. When the walkout (with its echoes of the CIA-backed Chilean lorry owners' strike against Salvador Allende's government in the early 1970s) failed, Chávez was able to sack the most pampered sections of a privileged workforce. The company's huge surplus oil revenues were redirected into imaginative new social programmes. Innumerable projects, or 'missions', were established throughout the country, recalling the atmosphere of the early years of the Cuban revolution. They combat illiteracy, provide further education for school dropouts, promote employment, supply cheap food, and extend a free medical service in the poor areas of the cities and the countryside, with the help of 10,000 Cuban doctors. Redundant oil company buildings have been commandeered to serve as the headquarters of a new university for the poor, and oil money has been diverted to set up Vive, an innovative cultural television channel that is already breaking the traditional US mould of the Latin American media..."

The So-Called War on Terror:

MSNBC: Pakistan: U.S. blew undercover operation
"The al-Qaida suspect named by U.S. officials as the source of information that led to this week's terrorist alerts was working undercover, Pakistani intelligence sources said Friday, putting an end to the sting operation and forcing Pakistan to hide the man in a secret location..."

The New Republic: July Surprised
"Faisal Saleh Hayyat, Pakistan's interior minister, announced the arrest of a high-ranking Al Qaeda figure on local television. After a tense standoff in Gujrat, a city some 100 miles southeast of Islamabad, Pakistani security forces had captured the Tanzanian jihadist Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the FBI's twenty-second 'Most Wanted' terrorist and a suspected conspirator in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. A proud Hayyat dubbed the arrest 'another crowning success of Pakistan's security apparatus in the fight against terrorism.' But it is doubtful Hayyat was really addressing his fellow Pakistanis: He made the announcement at midnight. More likely, his intended audience was half a world away--in the United States, where, in the middle of the afternoon, John Kerry was preparing to deliver his nomination speech to the Democratic National Convention.
While media coverage of the capture didn't exactly overshadow Kerry--Ghailani isn't Osama bin Laden--the announcement's timing seemed suspicious. Ghailani wasn't apprehended on July 29 at all, but rather four days earlier. Last month, The New Republic reported that the Bush administration was pressuring the Pakistanis to deliver a 'high-value target' (HVT) in time for the November elections ('July Surprise?' July 19). According to an official with Pakistan's powerful Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), a White House aide told ISI chief Ehsan ul-Haq during a spring visit to Washington that 'it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July,' during the convention. When asked this week if the announcement of Ghailani's capture on July 29 confirmed tnr's reporting, National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack told the Los Angeles Times, 'There is no truth to that statement.'..."


The Privatization of the So-Called War on Terror for Profit:

LA Times:Army Gives Contract to Company in Jail Scandal
"The U.S. Army on Wednesday announced the award of a no-bid contract worth up to $23 million to CACI International Inc. to continue providing private interrogators to gather intelligence in Iraq.
The contract came just as the Interior Department was preparing to cancel the existing contract with Virginia-based CACI, which came under intense scrutiny earlier this year after one of its interrogators was cited for involvement in the sexual humiliation of Iraqi captives at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison..."

Reuters: Halliburton Accused of Accounting Fraud
"Halliburton Co. and several top executives intentionally engaged in 'serial accounting fraud' from 1998 to 2001, including when it was led by Vice President Dick Cheney, according to a new filing in a shareholder class-action lawsuit against the company.
The filing accuses Houston-based Halliburton, the world's No. 2 oilfield services company, of systematic accounting misdeeds far more wide-ranging than those charged in a recent civil lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Cheney was not named as a defendant in either proceeding. Halliburton agreed on Tuesday to pay $7.5 million to settle SEC charges that it misled investors by not disclosing an accounting change that boosted profit in 1998 and 1999. Among other things, the filing accuses Halliburton of inflating results, failing to disclose a big asbestos verdict in a timely manner, and being unable to account for $3.1 billion of profit and cash..."


Freedom of the Press in Iraq, or Lack Thereof:

AP: Iraqi Government Shuts Al-Jazeera Station
"The Iraqi government closed the Iraqi offices of the Arab television station Al-Jazeera for 30 days, accusing it Saturday of inciting violence.
A spokesman for Al-Jazeera called the closure 'unwise' and said it restrained freedom of the press.
'It is a regrettable decision, but Al-Jazeera will endeavor to cover the situation in Iraq as best as we can within the constraints,' spokesman Jihad Ballout said.
Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said the government convened an independent commission a month ago to monitor Al-Jazeera's daily coverage 'to see what kind of violence they are advocating, inciting hatred and problems and racial tension.'..."