Observations on current events

The Intelligence Whitewash:

William Rivers Pitt: "Darned Good Intelligence"
"Bush's hand-picked crew of whitewashers has put out a report blaming the entire Iraq debacle on the intelligence community. The report is a farce, a fraud, evidence that the White House has managed to win its little war with CIA by sticking Goss in there and silencing whistleblowers by way of Plame-like intimidation. The corporate news media, of course, has helped.
My immediate thought: If the intelligence was so bad, so wrong, why are we still there?
Beyond that, let's remember a few things here...
...[The report] failed to mention The Office of Special Plans, the Chalabi-affiliated group that circumvented and intimidated the intelligence community to deliver skewed Iraq threat data to the public.
It also failed to mention Colin Powell's catastrophically embarrassing UN appearance in February 2003, when he stood before that world body and used a report plagiarized from a grad student essay to prove the existence of WMD in Iraq.
Likewise, no mention is made of the page on the White House website which still claims that Hussein had 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons (which equals 1,000,000 lbs.) of sarin, mustard and VX, along with nearly 30,000 munitions to deliver the stuf, mobile biological weapons labs and uranium from Niger for use in their robust nuclear weapons program. All this data comes from Bush's remarks in the 2003 State of the Union address. If the intelligence was so bad, why is this page still on the White House servers?..."

Another Poor Choice By Bush for an Important Job:

Democracy Now! - John Bolton In His Own Words: Bush's UN Ambassador Nominee Condemns United Nations
"Democracy Now! airs rare footage of John Bolton speaking on Feb. 3, 1994 in New York criticizing the United Nations. 'The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories,' Bolton said. 'If it lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference.' Meanwhile, 59 former diplomats have written an open letter criticizing his nomination..."


Selling Neoliberal 'Reform' To Audiences of Yes-Men:

William River Pitt: George W. Bush, the Frightened Man
"When I went to New York City this past summer to cover the GOP convention, I remember being awed by the degree of security surrounding Madison Square Garden. There were fences to control the fences, fifty cops on every corner, none of whom knew what the others were telling people to do, a half-dozen passes of needed to get twenty feet in any direction, and that was before you even got inside the door.
I saw the same thing when I went to DC to cover the Inauguration. The capitol was an armed camp, a sea of Bush supporters surrounded by tens of thousands of protesters. At one point, I stopped for 30 seconds next to a squad car to check my cell phone, and was immediately confronted by three cops asking me what I was doing. Amusingly, the security fences and cops decided not to give those protesters One Big Spot to congregate, and instead spread them out like butter across the entire route. The effect was to make the protests seem much larger than they were - and they were big - while forcing the Bush folk to elbow past them every six feet for the entire length of Pennsylvania Avenue.
All those fences. All those guns. All those cops. At first, it seemed like an arguably necessary precaution; these were, after all, the two cities to take the hit on 9/11. But the longer I stayed, the longer I looked around, and the closer I observed the behavior of Bush and his people, I came to a sad conclusion: This security was not about keeping us all safe from terrorists, but was about keeping Bush safe from his own people. The President of the United States is flatly terrified of the citizens he would supposedly lead to some supply-side promised land. He is scared to death of us.
Some positive proof of this came down the wires on Tuesday, when a report surfaced about three people who were removed from a supposedly 'public' town hall meeting with Bush..."

Foreign Policy:

Washington Post: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz: 'Ooops, Did We Say That about Iran?'
"Lacking direct evidence, Bush administration officials argue that Iran's nuclear program must be a cover for bomb-making. Vice President Cheney recently said, 'They're already sitting on an awful lot of oil and gas. Nobody can figure why they need nuclear as well to generate energy.'
Yet Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and outgoing Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz held key national security posts when the Ford administration made the opposite argument 30 years ago..."

Washington Post: US Fuels Indo-Pakistani Arms Race despite Nuke Fears
"President Bush rewarded a key ally in the war on terrorism Friday by authorizing the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, a move that reversed 15 years of policy begun under his father and that India warned would destabilize the volatile region.
The United States barred the sale of F-16s to Pakistan in 1990 out of concern over its then-undeclared nuclear weapons program, but Bush has forged a close relationship with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf since Sept. 11, 2001, and considers his help crucial in the battle against Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist organization.
Pakistan initially wants to buy about two dozen aircraft, but Bush administration officials said there would be no limits on how many it could eventually purchase. The administration tried to balance the sale by announcing simultaneously that it would allow U.S. firms the right to provide India the next generation of sophisticated, multirole combat aircraft, including upgraded F-16 and F-18 warplanes, as well as develop broader cooperation in military command and control, early-warning detection, and missile defense systems..."

IPS: Washington Focuses on Southern 'Axis of Evil'
"While U.S. President George W. Bush played nice to a deeply frustrated Mexican President Vicente Fox at the North American Summit in Texas Wednesday, U.S. media attention was focused more on Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld's efforts to sound the alarm against Latin American troublemakers in his swing through the region this week.
Topping his list was populist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, followed by a nemesis from bygone days, former Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who was accused by an unnamed 'senior official' in Rumsfeld's delegation of hoarding several hundred Russian-made surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) that Washington wants to see destroyed.
Indeed, at the start of Rumsfeld's trip, Washington announced the suspension of all U.S. military assistance to Nicaragua - about 2.3 million dollars' worth - pending the destruction of the missiles that Washington contend might be obtained by terrorists.
At the same time, the right-wing National Review published a cover story by Bush's top Latin America aide during his first term, Otto Reich, on 'Latin America's Terrible Two', referring to Chavez and Cuban President Fidel Castro..."


Iraq:

Democracy Now! - Naomi Klein Reveals New Details About U.S. Military Shooting of Italian War Correspondent in Iraq
"...NAOMI KLEIN: [Giuliana Sgrena] is simply saying that she has many, many unanswered questions, and there are many parts of her direct experience that simply don't coincide with the official U.S. version of the story. One of the things that we keep hearing is that she was fired on on the road to the airport, which is a notoriously dangerous road. In fact, it's often described as the most dangerous road in the world. So this is treated as a fairly common and understandable incident that there would be a shooting like this on that road. And I was on that road myself, and it is a really treacherous place with explosions going off all the time and a lot of checkpoints. What Giuliana told me that I had not realized before is that she wasn't on that road at all. She was on a completely different road that I actually didn't know existed. It's a secured road that you can only enter through the Green Zone and is reserved exclusively for ambassadors and top military officials. So, when Calipari, the Italian security intelligence officer, released her from captivity, they drove directly to the Green Zone, went through the elaborate checkpoint process which everyone must go through to enter the Green Zone, which involves checking in obviously with U.S. forces, and then they drove onto this secured road. And the other thing that Giuliana told me that she's quite frustrated about is the description of the vehicle that fired on her as being part of a checkpoint. She says it wasn't a checkpoint at all. It was simply a tank that was parked on the side of the road that opened fire on them. There was no process of trying to stop the car, she said, or any signals. From her perspective, they were just -- it was just opening fire by a tank. The other thing she told me that was surprising to me was that they were fired on from behind. Because I think part of what we're hearing is that the U.S. soldiers opened fire on their car, because they didn't know who they were, and they were afraid. It was self-defense, they were afraid. The fear, of course, is that their car might blow up or that they might come under attack themselves. And what Giuliana Sgrena really stressed with me was that she -- the bullet that injured her so badly and that killed Calipari, came from behind, entered the back seat of the car. And the only person who was not severely injured in the car was the driver, and she said that this is because the shots weren't coming from the front or even from the side. They were coming from behind, i.e. they were driving away. So, the idea that this was an act of self-defense, I think becomes much more questionable. And that detail may explain why there's some reticence to give up the vehicle for inspection. Because if indeed the majority of the gunfire is coming from behind, then clearly, they were firing from -- they were firing at a car that was driving away from them..."


The Environment:

Washington Post: Mercury Study Stripped from Public Documents
"When the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a rule last week to limit mercury emissions from U.S. power plants, officials emphasized that the controls could not be more aggressive because the cost to industry already far exceeded the public health payoff.
What they did not reveal is that a Harvard University study paid for by the EPA, co-authored by an EPA scientist and peer-reviewed by two other EPA scientists had reached the opposite conclusion.
That analysis estimated health benefits 100 times as great as the EPA did, but top agency officials ordered the finding stripped from public documents, said a staff member who helped develop the rule. Acknowledging the Harvard study would have forced the agency to consider more stringent controls, said environmentalists and the study's author..."


On the NY Times item below...
I recently saw a Volvo (Ford) ad for an SUV with a V8 that gets 14/20 city/hwy mpg that claims to be 'The Best SUV For The Planet,' because of its the only ULEV2-compliant SUV with a Yamaha V8. It ignores CO2 as a pollutant, and ignores the impact of its atrocious fuel consumption, considering we have people in high office willing to let the children of the poor fight resource wars for the American consumer's appetite for petroleum. But apparently all that matters is selling more heavy SUVs than BMW or Lexus, and in that realm a V8 is a 'must.'

For comparison, the 163 hp, 250 lb/ft of twist D5 (common-rail turbo diesel) engine, is not even sold here, because we have such dirty fuel. Yet while not a ULEV2, it is far better on fuel and the amount of CO2 it emits (specs from www.volvocars.de). A particulate filter on the D5 would go a long way toward cleaning its emissions up. The D5 can burn biodiesel. The V8 cannot.

4.4 litre V8 CO2-emissions, 317 g/km Avg mpg 17.7
2.4 litre D5 CO2-emissions, 216 g/km Avg mpg 28.6

NY Times: An Auto Industry Ad Leaves Critics Choking
"Toyota, Ford, BMW and several other automakers are financing an advertising campaign aimed at politicians that asserts that automobiles are 'virtually emission-free.'
The campaign is part of an effort by a broad coalition of automakers to present their vehicles as environmentally benign at a time when the coalition is suing California to block a new regulation to curb global warming emissions and continuing to lobby in Washington against tougher fuel-economy regulations..."

The Right To Life/Death Debate:

LA Times: DeLay's Own Tragic Crossroads
"A family tragedy that unfolded in a Texas hospital during the fall of 1988 was a private ordeal - without judges, emergency sessions of Congress or the debate raging outside Terri Schiavo's Florida hospice.
The patient then was a 65-year-old drilling contractor, badly injured in a freak accident at his home. Among the family members keeping vigil at Brooke Army Medical Center was a grieving junior congressman - Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas).
More than 16 years ago, far from the political passions that have defined the Schiavo controversy, the DeLay family endured its own wrenching end-of-life crisis. The man in a coma, kept alive by intravenous lines and oxygen equipment, was DeLay's father, Charles Ray DeLay.
Then, freshly reelected to a third term in the House, the 41-year-old DeLay waited, all but helpless, for the verdict of doctors.
Today, as House Majority Leader, DeLay has teamed with his Senate counterpart, Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), to champion political intervention in the Schiavo case. They pushed emergency legislation through Congress to shift the legal case from Florida state courts to the federal judiciary.
And DeLay is among the strongest advocates of keeping the woman, who doctors say has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, connected to her feeding tube. DeLay has denounced Schiavo's husband, as well as judges, for committing what he calls 'an act of barbarism' in removing the tube.
In 1988, however, there was no such fiery rhetoric as the congressman quietly joined the sad family consensus to let his father die..."

The So-Called War on Terror:

NY Times: Army Admits 24 Homicides, Refuses to Try 17 Accused
"Despite recommendations by Army investigators, commanders have decided not to prosecute 17 American soldiers implicated in the deaths of three prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004, according to a new accounting released Friday by the Army.
Investigators had recommended that all 17 soldiers be charged in the cases, according to the accounting by the Army Criminal Investigation Command. The charges included murder, conspiracy and negligent homicide. While none of the 17 will face any prosecution, one received a letter of reprimand and another was discharged after the investigations.
To date, the military has taken steps toward prosecuting some three dozen soldiers in connection with a total of 28 confirmed or suspected homicides of detainees. The total number of such deaths is believed to be between 28 and 31..."


Iraq:

AP: Army Admits Violating Geneva Convention
"Newly released government documents say the abuse of prisoners in Iraq by US forces was more widespread than previously reported.
An officer found that detainees 'were being systematically and intentionally mistreated' at a holding facility near Mosul in December 2003. The 311th Military Intelligence Battalion of the Army's 101st Airborne Division ran the lockup.
Records previously released by the Army have detailed abuses at Abu Ghraib and other sites in Iraq as well as at sites in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The documents released Friday were the first to reveal abuses at the jail in Mosul and are among the few to allege torture directly.
'There is evidence that suggests the 311th MI personnel and/or translators engaged in physical torture of the detainees,' a memo from the investigator said. The January 2004 report said the prisoners' rights under the Geneva Conventions were violated.
Top military officials first became aware of the Abu Ghraib abuses in January 2004, when pictures such as those showing soldiers piling naked prisoners in a pyramid were turned over to investigators. The resulting scandal after the pictures became public tarnished the military's image in Arab countries and worldwide and sparked investigations of detainee abuses..."


FBI 'Free Pass' For Saudis After 9/11:

NY Times: FBI Aided Saudi Flight after 9/11
"The episode has been retold so many times in the last three and a half years that it has become the stuff of political legend: in the frenzied days after Sept. 11, 2001, when some flights were still grounded, dozens of well-connected Saudis, including relatives of Osama bin Laden, managed to leave the United States on specially chartered flights.
Now, newly released government records show previously undisclosed flights from Las Vegas and elsewhere and point to a more active role by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in aiding some of the Saudis in their departure.
The F.B.I. gave personal airport escorts to two prominent Saudi families who fled the United States, and several other Saudis were allowed to leave the country without first being interviewed, the documents show.
The Saudi families, in Los Angeles and Orlando, requested the F.B.I. escorts because they said they were concerned for their safety in the wake of the attacks, and the F.B.I. - which was then beginning the biggest criminal investigation in its history - arranged to have agents escort them to their local airports, the documents show.
But F.B.I. officials reacted angrily, both internally and publicly, to the suggestion that any Saudis had received preferential treatment in leaving the country..."

(Nuclear) Energy Policy:

News we'd never hear without the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) -

"'Documents Say 60 Nuclear Chain Reactions Possible,' Las Vegas Review-Journal (Nevada), Nov. 26, 2003, at 5B, by Keith Rogers.
Nevada state officials have raised concerns regarding the possibility of an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction inside the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. The state obtained documents through FOIA that report on such possibilities and appear to contradict Department of Energy statistics in its final impact statement."

AP: Lawmakers Seek Plan B for Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste
"As problems mount with the government's plan to open a national nuclear waste dump in Nevada, lawmakers and industry officials are increasingly pushing for a Plan B.
After the most recent setback for Yucca Mountain - a revelation last week that government workers on the planned dump may have falsified documents - a key House Republican urged the Energy Department to look at temporary waste storage solutions.
And Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., is promoting talk of alternatives to Yucca Mountain, while nuclear utilities are already looking into other options. Many have begun building onsite storage for spent fuel and moving forward with plans for a private waste dump in Utah. They also are pursuing lawsuits against the government, seeking reimbursement for the cost of temporary waste storage.
While the Energy Department remains committed to Yucca Mountain, there's a growing consensus that the dump - scheduled until recently to open in 2010 but now delayed indefinitely - can no longer be considered the only answer for disposing of the nation's nuclear waste.
'What matters is getting rid of the fuel,' said attorney Jerry Stouck, who represents nuclear utilities in lawsuits against the government. 'I don't think Yucca Mountain is so important as a solution.'
Yucca Mountain, approved by Congress in 2002, is planned as a repository for 77,000 tons of defense waste and used reactor fuel from commercial power plants. The material is supposed to be buried for at least 10,000 years beneath the desert 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas..."

AP: Mood Shifting in Favor of Nuclear Power
"Only by building more nuclear power stations can the world meet its soaring energy needs while averting environmental disaster, experts at an international conference said Monday.
Energy ministers and officials from 74 countries were in Paris for the two-day meeting on the future of nuclear energy, as concerns about global warming and fossil fuel supplies renew governments' interest in atomic power.
'It's clear that nuclear energy is regaining stature as a serious option,' said Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency - the U.N. nuclear watchdog - which organized the conference.
ElBaradei said the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol, which commits governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, was focusing minds.
Power plants fired by oil, coal and gas are major sources of carbon dioxide and other gases that cause global warming. The Kyoto accord will force plant operators to pay for their pollution, making nuclear power facilities more competitive by comparison.
'In the past, the virtual absence of restrictions or taxes on greenhouse gas emissions has meant that nuclear power's advantage, low emissions, has had no tangible economic value,' ElBaradei said. But the Kyoto Protocol 'will likely change that over the longer term,'..."

On Social Security:

NY Times Editorial: About That Number
"The Social Security trustees issued their annual report yesterday and said that by one measure, the shortfall in Social Security's finances jumped from $10.4 trillion last year to about $11 trillion this year. Eleven trillion dollars! The trustees, in service to President Bush's alarmist warnings about the need to do something drastic about Social Security, are dishing up some misleading numbers.
It's bad enough that the trustees began some of their calculations with that $10.4 trillion figure. It's arrived at by projecting the system's shortfall over infinity, rather than the usual 75-year time frame - as if the system's finances 10,000 years from now are a legitimate policy concern. Moreover, no less an authority than the American Academy of Actuaries is already on record debunking infinite projections as conveying 'little if any useful information about the program's long-range finances' and 'likely to mislead anyone lacking technical expertise ... into believing that the program is in far worse financial condition than is actually indicated,'..."


On Torture:

Thomas L. Friedman: George W. to George W.
"If all the stories about the abuse of prisoners of war by American soldiers and C.I.A. agents, surely none was more troubling and important than the March 16 report by my Times colleagues Douglas Jehl and Eric Schmitt that at least 26 prisoners have died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002 - in what Army and Navy investigators have concluded or suspect were acts of criminal homicide.
You have to stop and think about this: We killed 26 of our prisoners of war. In 18 cases, people have been recommended for prosecution or action by their supervising agencies, and eight other cases are still under investigation. That is simply appalling. Only one of the deaths occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, reported Jehl and Schmitt - 'showing how broadly the most violent abuses extended beyond those prison walls and contradicting early impressions that the wrongdoing was confined to a handful of members of the military police on the prison's night shift.'
Yes, I know war is hell and ugliness abounds in every corner. I also understand that in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, we are up against a vicious enemy, which, if it had the power, would do great harm to our country. You do not deal with such people with kid gloves. But killing prisoners of war, presumably in the act of torture, is an inexcusable outrage. The fact that Congress has just shrugged this off, and no senior official or officer has been fired, is a travesty. This administration is for 'ownership' of everything except responsibility..."


The Run Up To War:

Guardian (UK) - Straw denies war advice claims
"The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, today denied that the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, was leant on to change his view on the legality of war with Iraq.
Mr Straw said it was 'tendentious' to infer from a Foreign Office lawyer's resignation letter, published yesterday, that the attorney general changed his mind and decided military action was legal just 10 days before the invasion.
Mr Straw was questioned by MPs after the letter from Elizabeth Wilmshurst, former deputy chief legal adviser to the Foreign Office, said the attorney general thought the war to be illegal until March 7.
In a tense Commons chamber, Mr Straw said it was a 'wholly tendentious claim' to read Ms Wilmshurst's resignation letter as proving the attorney general changed his mind to support the legal case for war. He said the letter 'showed nothing of the kind'.
Mr Straw insisted the only thing that changed in March 2003 was that it became clear there was no coalition consensus for a second UN resolution.
He stopped short, however, of saying categoricallly that the attorney general had not changed his mind before issuing his final statement on March 17 that the war would be legal.
Robin Cook, Mr Straw's predecessor at the Foreign Office, pressed him on whether the attorney general's opinion changed between September 2002 - the adoption of UN resolution 1441 - and March 2003, the start of the war..."

The Iraq War and Oil:

Michael T. Klare: Mapping the Oil Motive
"What role did oil play in the U.S. decision to invade Iraq? If oil did play a significant role, what, exactly, did President Bush and his associates hope to accomplish in this regard? To what degree did they succeed? These are questions that will no doubt occupy analysts for many years to come, but that can and should be answered now-as the American people debate the validity of the invasion and Bush administration gears up for a possible war against Iran under circumstances very similar to those prevailing in Iraq in early 2003.
In addressing these questions, it should be noted that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a matter of choice, not of necessity. The United States did not act in response to an aggressive move by a hostile power directed against this country or one of its allies, but rather employed force on its own volition to advance (what the administration viewed as) U.S. national interests. This means that we cannot identify a precipitating action for war, but instead must examine the calculus of costs and benefits that persuaded President Bush to invade Iraq at that particular moment. On one side of this ledger were the disincentives to war: the loss of American lives, the expenditure of vast sums of money and the alienation of America's allies. To outweigh these negatives, and opt for war, would require powerful incentives. But what were they? This is the question that has so bedeviled pundits and analysts since the onset of combat..."


On Torture:

Washington Post: Judge Blocks Gitmo Torture Traffic
"A federal judge expressed skepticism yesterday about the legality of possible Bush administration plans to transfer dozens of men from the U.S. military prison in Cuba to the custody of foreign countries, saying that would remove detainees from the reach of U.S. courts and eliminate their legal claims for freedom.
U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. extended for 10 days a temporary restraining order that bars the government from transferring detainees from the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He said he needs that time to decide whether the court has power over such transfer decisions and can order the government to provide detainees' lawyers with advance notice of a proposed transfer to a foreign government.
Kennedy's decision would mark the first time that a judge has ruled on whether U.S. courts can oversee the Bush administration's decisions about where to move Guantanamo Bay detainees. About 540 detainees remain at the prison, accused by the government of having ties to terrorist groups or the Taliban..."

Washington Post: DOJ Blocked Criticism of Guantanamo Torture
"U.S. law enforcement agents working at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, concluded that controversial interrogation practices used there by the Defense Department produced intelligence information that was 'suspect at best,' an FBI agent told a superior in a memo in May last year.
But the Justice Department, which reviewed the memo for national security secrets before releasing it to a civil liberties group in December, redacted the FBI agent's conclusion.
The department, acting after the Defense Department expressed its own views on which portions of the letter should be redacted, also blacked out a separate assertion in the memo that military interrogation practices could undermine future military trials for terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay.
It also withheld a statement by the memo's author that Justice Department criminal division officials were so concerned about the military interrogation practices that they took their complaints to the office of the Pentagon's chief attorney, William J. Haynes II, whom President Bush has nominated to become a federal appellate judge..."

Iraq:

CS Monitor: Report Uncovers Massive Corruption in Iraq
"Five Polish peacekeepers are arrested for allegedly taking $90,000 worth of bribes in Iraq. Several Sri Lankan officials are suspended for mishandling tsunami aid. US audits show large financial discrepancies in Iraq. Reports of aid abuse taunt Indonesia.
Two of the world's biggest-ever reconstruction projects - Iraq and post-tsunami Asia - are facing major tests of credibility, as billions of dollars of aid and reconstruction money pour in.
And according to a major report released Wednesday by Transparency International (TI), an international organization that focuses on issues of corruption, the omens are not good.
From Iraq and Afghanistan to Cambodia and Bosnia, from the wrecked coasts of Asia to the kleptocratic carve-up in some African countries, crisis zones are proving to be fertile soil for corruption, the report argues.
'Many postconflict countries figure among the most corrupt in the world,' says Philippe le Billon of the University of British Columbia, Canada, in the TI report. 'Corruption often predates hostilities and in many cases it features among the factors that triggered political unrest or facilitated conflict escalation,'..."

Democracy Now! - Secret U.S. Plans For Iraq's Oil Spark Political Fight Between Neocons and Big Oil

"GREG PALAST: ...Wolfowitz is being tossed out head first out of the Pentagon because he decided to take on one enemy too big for his own teeth, which is big oil. And, see, the main spoils of the war in Iraq is a seat on OPEC. It's not just the fields; it is a seat on OPEC. What do we do with that seat? The neo-cons wanted to use our control of Iraq's oil to smash OPEC, to smash the power of what they see as an Arab-controlled monopoly and Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, that also meant smashing $56-a-barrel oil prices, and the oil industry was deeply unhappy. So, there was a neo-con plan put out. In fact, you broke the report here two years ago when we were on the air saying that there was a plan to privatize and sell off all of Iraq's oil fields. There was. Then Phil Carroll of Shell Oil was assigned by George Bush to baby-sit the situation in Iraq. The oil man went in and said there ain't going to be no privatization on my watch. We don't work that way. You have to understand, oil companies, when they privatize, the big oil companies never get it, it’s always the cronies of Chalabi and who’s ever in power in any country. So, the oil companies did not want to be locked out, so they weren't going to go along with it. Plus, they didn't like the neo-con idea that if there was privatization, and production would be ramped up, OPEC would be destroyed, oil prices would fall apart, and that would be the end of record profits for the oil companies. So, a new report was secretly ordered up by a guy named Rob McKee, who took the Shell man's place. McKee is from ConocoPhillips, paid $25 million by Conoco in his last year there, assigned by Bush to Iraq to the oil ministry there. And he ordered up a new study which was done by the Jim Baker Institute. Now Jim Baker represents Exxon and the Saudi government. And the Baker Institute people, and the people they worked with, came up with a report that said that there would be a state-controlled company, which would be very OPEC-friendly, very oil company-friendly and would establish profit sharing agreements with international oil companies. And that was their recommendation. Privatization was dead out, and they were just livid about Wolfowitz. The woman who is the chief guider on that project said, you know, here's Wolfowitz talking about democracy, yet he wants to do what 99% of Iraqis don't want. The oil companies don't want to own oil fields in flames. So, basically Wolfowitz came up against big oil and his cronies, Doug Fife and the others. So, their privatization plans, because they kept pushing them, just absolutely killed them off. And we also got, of course, a story that you saw at the beginning, that at the very beginning of the war, in fact, even before Bush was inaugurated, but within a couple of weeks, there was a meeting of oil industry people, associated with Iraq, planning the overthrow of Saddam. An invasion which would look like a coup d'etat. We would actually send in the 82nd Airborne and replace Saddam, just give a new dictator his mustache, the Baathists would stay in power, nothing would change. It was in and out. I think people got the wrong impression with Bob Woodward's book: Colin Powell did not oppose the invasion of Iraq. They were planning this from, like I say, the second week in office. Powell and the State Department people were opposing a long occupation and a remaking of Iraq. They just wanted to get rid of the top guy. They were quite happy with the Baathists, and they wanted to keep the oil flowing, and they didn't want this type of situation we have now with a bloody, brutal occupation, which is also, you know, jamming up the oil fields and creating a major problem. So that, again, it is the State department simply had a different plan for invasion than the neo-cons. But after September 11, the neo-cons kind of seized control of policy. Now we've had a new kind of policy coup d'etat by big oil and the -- and OPEC allies in the government. They're in charge now.

AMY GOODMAN: It's also hard to believe that John Bolton becoming U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations is any kind of step down.

GREG PALAST: For them, you know, it is pushing the Bush policy. But you have to understand that the real levers of power are not in these public jawboning jobs. The real levers of power are behind those closed walls. So Wolfowitz had his power. He now has to take his hands off the levers, and Bolton is now in a position where he is told what to say, and he is not a person setting policy. The neo-cons understand what's happening here, and they are screaming bloody murder. But they’re all being purged. This is a very big change in U.S. policy toward people like Negroponte, who are State Department establishment, oil-friendly, OPEC-friendly, Saudi-friendly..."

NY Times: American Jails in Iraq Overflowing with Prisoners
"The American military's major detention centers in Iraq have swelled to capacity and are holding more people than ever, senior military officials say.
The growing detainee population reflects recent changes in how the military has been waging the war and in its policies toward detainees, the officials say.
The military swept up many Iraqis before the Jan. 30 elections in an attempt to curb violence and halted all releases before the vote. Other detainees have been captured in ambitious recent offensives across the Sunni Triangle, from Samarra to Falluja to the Euphrates River valley south of Baghdad.
The Abu Ghraib abuse scandal also forced changes in the system, with the military working quickly last summer to try and weed out detainees who obviously did not belong in prison. Many of the ones remaining are more likely to be denied release by review boards, military officials say.
As of this week, the military is holding at least 8,900 detainees in the three major prisons, 1,000 more than in late January. Here in Abu Ghraib, where eight American soldiers were charged last year with abusing detainees, 3,160 people are being kept, well above the 2,500 level considered ideal, said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for the detainee system. The largest center, Camp Bucca in the south, has at least 5,640 detainees..."


The Wolfowitz Nomination:

Paul Krugman: The Ugly American Bank
"You can say this about Paul Wolfowitz's qualifications to lead the World Bank: He has been closely associated with America's largest foreign aid and economic development project since the Marshall Plan.
I'm talking, of course, about reconstruction in Iraq. Unfortunately, what happened there is likely to make countries distrust any economic advice Mr. Wolfowitz might give.
Let's not focus on mismanagement. Instead, let's talk about ideology.
Before the Iraq war, Pentagon hawks shut the State Department out of planning. This excluded anyone with development experience. As a result, the administration went into Iraq determined to demonstrate the virtues of radical free-market economics, with nobody warning about the likely problems.
Journalists who spoke to Paul Bremer when he was running Iraq remarked on his passion when he spoke about privatizing state enterprises. They didn't note a comparable passion for a rapid democratization.
In fact, economic ideology may explain why U.S. officials didn't move quickly after the fall of Baghdad to hold elections - even though assuring Iraqis that we didn't intend to install a puppet regime might have headed off the insurgency. Jay Garner, the first Iraq administrator, wanted elections as quickly as possible, but the White House wanted to put a 'template' in place by privatizing oil and other industries before handing over control.
The oil fields never did get privatized. Nonetheless, the attempt to turn Iraq into a laissez-faire showpiece was, in its own way, as much an in-your-face rejection of world opinion as the decision to go to war. Dogmatic views about the universal superiority of free markets have been losing ground around the world..."


Faux-News, Enron, and the Bush Charade:

Frank Rich: Enron: Patron Saint of Bush's Fake News
"Just when Americans are being told it's safe to hand over their savings to Wall Street again, he's baaaack! Looking not unlike Chucky, the demented doll of perennial B-horror-movie renown, Ken Lay has crawled out of Houston's shadows for a media curtain call.
His trial is still months away, but there he was last Sunday on '60 Minutes,' saying he knew nothin' 'bout nothin' that went down at Enron. This week he is heading toward the best-seller list, as an involuntary star of 'Conspiracy of Fools,' the New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald's epic account of the multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme anointed America's 'most innovative company' (six years in a row by Fortune magazine). Coming soon, the feature film: Alex Gibney's 'Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room,' a documentary seen at Sundance, goes into national release next month. As long as you're not among those whose 401(k)'s and pensions were wiped out, it's morbidly entertaining. In one surreal high point, Mr. Lay likens investigations of Enron to terrorist attacks on America. For farce, there's the sight of a beaming Alan Greenspan as he accepts the 'Enron Award for Distinguished Public Service' only days after Enron has confessed to filing five years of bogus financial reports. Then again, given the implicit quid pro quo in this smarmy tableau, maybe that's the Enron drama's answer to a sex scene.
The Bush administration, eager to sell the country on 'personal' Social Security accounts, cannot be all that pleased to see Kenny Boy again. He's the poster boy for how big guys can rip off suckers in the stock market. He also dredges up some inconvenient pre-9/11 memories of Bush family business. Enron was the biggest Bush-Cheney campaign contributor in the 2000 election. Kenny Boy and his lovely wife Linda flew the first President Bush and Barbara Bush to the ensuing Inauguration on the Enron jet. Even as Enron was presiding over rolling blackouts in California, Dick Cheney or his aides had at least six meetings with the company's executives to carve up government energy policy in 2001. Even now what exactly transpired at those meetings remains a secret.
But never mind. The president himself gave his word when the Enron scandal broke that Kenny Boy was really more of a supporter of Ann Richards anyway. Feeling our pain, Mr. Bush told us of his own personal tragedy: his mother-in-law lost $8,000 she had invested in Enron. Soon stuff was happening in Iraq, and the case was closed, or at least forgotten..."


The Environment, Up For Exploitation By Big Oil:

Sadly, the absurdity of destroying a pristine turndra environment for a year's worth of petroleum is lost on the allies of Big Oil in Congress. Serious efforts at energy conservation would bring far greater long-term benefits than this project.

CapitalEye: Arctic Gold: How Big Oil Bought the Votes to Drill
"...Oil companies are hoping their considerable political clout, built up over years of generous campaign giving and lobbying, will put drilling in ANWR over the top. The oil and gas industry has contributed $179.7 million since 1989 to federal candidates and political parties, 74 percent to Republicans.
Two oil companies, ChevronTexaco and Exxon Mobil, rank among the top all-time campaign contributors. ChevronTexaco has contributed $8.9 million since 1989 in individual, PAC and soft money donations, 75 percent to Republicans. The company, the second largest oil producer in the country, has spent more than $38 million since 1997 to lobby Congress and the federal government. Exxon Mobil, one of the world's largest oil producers, has contributed $8.2 million since 1989 in individual, PAC and soft money donations, 87 percent to Republicans. The company has spent more than $62 million on lobbying since 1997..."

Privatizing Iraq's Oil:

Greg Palast: Secret U.S. Plans For Iraq's Oil
"The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed.
Two years ago today - when President George Bush announced US, British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad - protestors claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered.
In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of 'Big Oil' executives and US State Department 'pragmatists.'
'Big Oil' appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with the help of American oil industry consultants.
Insiders told Newsnight that planning began 'within weeks' of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack on the US.
An Iraqi-born oil industry consultant, Falah Aljibury, says he took part in the secret meetings in California, Washington and the Middle East. He described a State Department plan for a forced coup d'etat.
Mr Aljibury himself told Newsnight that he interviewed potential successors to Saddam Hussein on behalf of the Bush administration.
The industry-favoured plan was pushed aside by yet another secret plan, drafted just before the invasion in 2003, which called for the sell-off of all of Iraq's oil fields. The new plan, crafted by neo-conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to destroy the Opec cartel through massive increases in production above Opec quotas..."


Torture and Murder:

NY Times: 108 Dead Iraqi Prisoners and Counting
"At least 108 people have died in U.S. custody in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and roughly a quarter of the cases have been investigated as possible U.S. abuse, according to government data provided to The Associated Press.
The figure, far higher than any previously disclosed, includes cases investigated by the Army, Navy, Central Intelligence Agency and Justice Department. Some 65,000 prisoners have been taken during the U.S.-led wars, most later freed.
The Pentagon has never provided comprehensive information on how many prisoners taken during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have died. The 108 figure, based on information supplied by Army, Navy and other government officials, includes deaths attributed to natural causes..."


Starving 'The Beast'

The American Prospect: Ballad of the Beast-Starvers
"In early 2005, the Bush administration released its budget for fiscal year 2006 (which goes from October 2005 to September 2006). And, for the first time, the Bush administration serves up big spending cuts. So it's worth checking out for whom the axe falls. In addition, the longer-term priorities of the administration and its backers are just under the surface.
First, the short-run impacts, primarily spending cuts to human services programs, have gotten the most attention. But the long-run implications are particularly worrisome. Lurking behind these reams of tables and numbers is a mission to significantly shrink government.
The problem is this: We are collecting too few revenues to meet our spending obligations. Unless we make big changes, the magnitude of the imbalance between what government takes in and what it's slated to spend grows to unsustainable levels. Eventually, we will either have to raise more revenue to meet our commitments or very noticeably reduce those commitments. The cuts we're arguing about today will pale by comparison..."

Distorting the Social Security Debate:

Paul Krugman: The $600 Billion Man
"...In his Jan. 15 radio address, President Bush made a startling claim: 'According to the Social Security trustees, waiting just one year adds $600 billion to the cost of fixing Social Security.' The $600 billion cost of each year's delay has become a standard administration talking point, repeated by countless conservative pundits - who have apparently not looked at what the trustees actually said.
In fact, the trustees never said that waiting a year to 'fix' Social Security costs $600 billion. Mr. Bush was grossly misrepresenting the meaning of a technical discussion of accounting issues (it's on Page 58 of the 2004 trustees' report), which has nothing to do with the cost of delaying changes in the retirement program.
The same type of 'infinite horizon' calculation applied to the Bush tax cuts says that their costs rise by $1 trillion a year. That's not a useful measure of the cost of not repealing those cuts immediately.
So anyone who repeats the $600 billion line is helping to spread a lie. That's why it was disturbing to read a news report about the deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration, who must know better, doing just that at a pro-privatization rally..."


Exporting 'Democracy,' Bush-Style:

Naomi Klein: Can Democracy Survive Bush's Embrace?


The GOP's ANWAR Obsession As a Metaphor For Bad Energy Policy

NY Times Editorial: More Energy Follies
"What this country needs is an energy strategy worthy of the enormous energy-related problems it faces: global warming, soaring energy costs and dependency on Middle East oil among them. Opening up the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drill for oil and gas is not such a strategy. Yet that is the road the Bush administration is headed down once again...
...The numbers tell the story. The United States Geological Survey's best guess is that even at today's record-high prices - in excess of $50 a barrel - just under 7 billion barrels could profitably be brought to market. That's less than the 7.3 billion barrels this country now consumes in a year. At peak production - about 1 million barrels a day in 2020 or 2025 - the refuge would supply less than 4 percent of the country's projected daily needs.
Any number of modest efficiencies could achieve the same result without threatening the refuge. Simply closing the so-called S.U.V. loophole - making light trucks as efficient over all as ordinary cars - would save a million barrels a day. Increasing fuel-economy standards for cars by about 50 percent, to 40 miles per gallon, a perfectly reasonable expectation, would save 2.5 million barrels a day. And bipartisan commissions have offered even bigger ideas: tax credits to help automakers produce a whole new generation of fuel-efficient cars, for instance, or an aggressive biofuels program that would seek to replace one-quarter of the gasoline we use for cars with substitutes from agricultural products.
These programs would yield benefits - less dependency on foreign sources, a decrease in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere - long after the last drop of oil had been extracted from the refuge.
Mr. Bush mentioned some of these ideas in a speech last week, but only in passing. His main emphasis was not on reducing demand, but on increasing supply by opening the refuge. That is where this administration has been ever since Dick Cheney's energy report of 2001. It was the wrong place to be then, and it is the wrong place now."


Selective Ethics in the Congress:

NY Times Editorial: House Ethics in Deep Rough
"The House majority leader, Tom DeLay, is facing new ethical questions after the disclosure that a timely infusion of gambling-lobby money helped underwrite a golf junket to Scotland in 2000. Intrigued taxpayers should expect no investigation, however, because Speaker Dennis Hastert stripped the House ethics committee of power this year in a blatant move to shield Mr. DeLay from scrutiny.
The golf trip was arranged by Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist now under Justice Department investigation for gulling Indian casino tribes out of tens of millions and spending liberally to grease the wheels of Congress. The money trail to the links at St. Andrews, disclosed by The Washington Post, points anew to the lobbyist's freewheeling methods.
Mr. DeLay's actions deserve a thorough investigation and accounting before the public, particularly to determine whether the junket was related to the defeat of a House gambling-control bill two months later. But all that's happened so far is that Republicans are privately worrying that their leader's chronic corner-cutting may fester into a defining issue by next year's Congressional elections.
Mr. DeLay was reprimanded for excessive power plays three times last year by the torpid ethics committee - an unusual initiative for that body, which led directly to the panel's being purged and manacled by new rules to block future inquiries. Speaker Hastert should scrap those rules for a truly honest and unhindered ethical process, or risk paying the price next year before the voters. Opportunistic Democrats are already vowing to boycott the hamstrung ethics panel. The longer House members remain investigation-proof, the more their ethical dead zone will redound to Speaker Hastert's discredit, as much as to Mr. DeLay's."

Attempting to Circumvent 'The Filter,' The Bush Administration Spends Taxpayer Money to Create Government PR, Which Is Presented As 'News' By Local Broadcasters:

There is a very good reason the 'Voice of America' cannot be heard in the United States: it's state propaganda.
How, exactly, is this shameful practice any different?
Are broadcasters so blinded by the business advantage gained by not having to report the news themselves that they do not see these actions as flagrant violations of journalistic ethics?

NY Times: Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News
"It is the kind of TV news coverage every president covets.
'Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.,' a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of 'another success' in the Bush administration's 'drive to strengthen aviation security'; the reporter called it 'one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history.' A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers.
To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The 'reporter' covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications.
Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production...
...Federal agencies are forthright with broadcasters about the origin of the news segments they distribute. The reports themselves, though, are designed to fit seamlessly into the typical local news broadcast. In most cases, the 'reporters' are careful not to state in the segment that they work for the government. Their reports generally avoid overt ideological appeals. Instead, the government's news-making apparatus has produced a quiet drumbeat of broadcasts describing a vigilant and compassionate administration.
Some reports were produced to support the administration's most cherished policy objectives, like regime change in Iraq or Medicare reform...
...Local affiliates are spared the expense of digging up original material. Public relations firms secure government contracts worth millions of dollars. The major networks, which help distribute the releases, collect fees from the government agencies that produce segments and the affiliates that show them. The administration, meanwhile, gets out an unfiltered message, delivered in the guise of traditional reporting...
...United States law contains provisions intended to prevent the domestic dissemination of government propaganda. The 1948 Smith-Mundt Act, for example, allows Voice of America to broadcast pro-government news to foreign audiences, but not at home..."

AP: Schwarzenegger Forged News Reports
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration has acknowledged making several videos masquerading as news stories to promote its agenda, creating an uproar from Democrats and labor leaders in a controversy parallel to one ignited by the Bush administration..."

Iraq:

The US used to prosecute war profiteers. What happened? The CEO of biggest one effectively runs our country...

Vanity Fair: Halliburtons Spoils of War Exposed by Whistleblower
"Halliburton subsidiary KBR got $12 billion worth of exclusive contracts for work in Iraq. But even more shocking is how KBR spent some of the money. Former U.S. Army Corps of Engineers official Bunnatine Greenhouse is blowing the whistle on the Dick Cheney-linked company's profits of war."

AP: Negroponte's Guards Shot Italian Agent
"The temporary road checkpoint where American troops mistakenly killed an Italian intelligence agent last week was set up to provide extra security for U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte, a U.S. Embassy official said Thursday..."


On Torture:

Why did Church not interview SecDef Rumsfeld or any other top official?
Why did Church fail to examine the role played by the CIA?

Perhaps too much digging would make a whitewash hard to sell?

NY Times Editorial: Abu Ghraib, Whitewashed Again
"It was good to learn yesterday that the military commander in Iraq has issued definitive rules about how to treat captives in American prison camps. Unfortunately, that was about the only good news in the newest Pentagon report on prisoner abuse, actually a 21-page summary of a larger, classified study by the Navy inspector general of interrogation rules in Guantánamo Bay, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Just consider that it took more than a year after the military says it first learned of the nightmare at Abu Ghraib to issue the new rules. And don't ask what they are, because they're classified. The report spoke of the regulations approvingly. But its author, Vice Admiral Albert Church III, now director of the Navy staff, admitted yesterday that, well, he had not actually read them.
This whitewash is typical of the reports issued by the Bush administration on the abuse, humiliation and torture of prisoners at camps run by the military and the Central Intelligence Agency. Like the others, the Church report concludes that only the lowest-ranking soldiers are to be held accountable, not their commanders or their civilian overseers..."


The Judges Bush Wants:

NY Times Editorial: They're Back, and Still Unworthy
"The Senate is preparing for a major showdown over the Democrats' use of the filibuster to block a handful of President Bush's judicial nominees. When the arguments about procedures are over, the key question will remain: Has Mr. Bush put up men and women who deserve lifetime appointments to the federal bench? The three nominees who had hearings this month - a mining and ranching industry flunky, a much-reversed judge with an antipathy for individual rights, and a lawyer with a bad habit of not following the rules for practicing law - show why Democrats should stand firm.
There have been widespread calls for the White House to sit down with Senate Democrats and come up with a list of nominees who would be acceptable to both sides. The previous three administrations, of both Republican and Democratic presidents, at least tried to work toward consensus candidates. But the Bush administration has refused to negotiate. It has begun its second term on a particularly controversial note by resubmitting seven nominees who failed to win approval last year after Democratic filibusters. It has also sent back several other nominations on which the Senate had failed to act.
William Myers III, one of the seven filibustered nominees, has built a career as an anti-environmental extremist. He was a longtime lobbyist for the mining and cattle industries. Then, as the Interior Department's top lawyer, he put those industries' interests ahead of the public interest. In one controversial legal opinion, he overturned a decision that would have protected American Indian sacred sites, clearing the way for a company to do extensive mining in the area. Mr. Myers has been nominated to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco. That court plays a major role in determining the environmental law that applies to the Western states.
Terrence Boyle, who has been nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, based in Richmond, is also a troubling choice. He has an extraordinarily high reversal rate for a district court judge. Many of the decisions that have been criticized by higher courts wrongly rejected claims involving civil rights, sex discrimination and disability rights. Mr. Boyle's record is particularly troubling because the court reversing him, the Fourth Circuit, is perhaps the most hostile to civil rights in the federal appellate system, and even it has regularly found his rulings objectionable.
Thomas Griffith, who has been nominated to the powerful Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has the unfortunate distinction of having practiced law in two jurisdictions without the required licenses. While practicing law in Washington, D.C., he failed to renew his license for three years. Mr. Griffith blamed his law firm's staff for that omission, but the responsibility was his. When he later practiced law in Utah as general counsel at Brigham Young University, he never bothered to get a Utah license.
Mr. Myers, Mr. Boyle, and Mr. Griffith were chosen for their archconservative political views, not their qualifications for the bench. No impartial person interested in choosing only the best possible judges would have put them at the top of the list. The federal judiciary is one of the cornerstones of American government - one of the three branches the nation's founders created, and set against one another, to guide the nation and keep it free. Surely this vital institution deserves better."


On Social Security:

Paul Krugman: Slanting Social Security
"Many people involved in the debate over Social Security's future worry that the 2005 trustees' report will be slanted in favor of privatization.
I don't expect to see books that are literally cooked: Stephen Goss, the agency's chief actuary, has an excellent reputation. But it's not out of the question. After all, in 2003 the chief actuary of Social Security's sister agency, which oversees Medicare, was told that he would be fired if he gave Congress accurate information about the cost of the Bush Medicare bill.
Even if the numbers aren't fabricated, however, it's a good bet that they will be presented in a way intended to make Social Security's financial outlook seem much bleaker than it really is.
Why should we expect a slanted report?..."


Giving Creditors What They've Wanted For Years:

Paul Krugman: The Debt-Peonage Society


Journalists Under Fire:

Steve Weissman: Part IV: But What about al-Jazeera?


Bush's Priorities: War Over Everything Else

AP: Report: Nation's Infrastructure Crumbling
"Crowded schools, traffic-choked roads and transit cutbacks are eroding the quality of American life, according to an analysis by civil engineers that gave the nation's infrastructure an overall grade of D.
A report by the American Society of Civil Engineers released Wednesday assessed the four-year trend in the condition of 12 categories of infrastructure, including roadways, bridges, drinking water systems, public parks, railroads and the power grid.
The overall grade slipped from the D-plus given to the infrastructure in 2001 and 2003..."

Bush's War of Choice:

Joseph Galloway: Remembering Arguments Made 1,500 Deaths Ago


On Bush's Miserable Choice For UN Ambasador:

Sidney Blumenthal: The enemy within

Another Miserable Choice By Bush:

Democracy Now! - Bush Nominates Fierce UN Critic and Unilateralist John Bolton As Ambassador to United Nations
"Jim Lobe: '...whatever goodwill Condoleezza Rice and Bush gained in their tours of Europe has probably been undone by this one gesture. The Europeans are very well acquainted with John Bolton, as for that matter are our Asian allies, China, and China, with respect to Korea, in particular. And I think they find him extremely abrasive, very, very difficult to work with, and very, very arrogant. Sometimes not even following the directions he has been given by the State Department. As a result, I would say that just as people here in Washington were bewildered by the choice, I think people in foreign capitals are saying -- are also in a sense scratching their heads and saying, 'Why is he slapping us in the face by giving us John Bolton at the UN?' I think what will come out of this is a reassessment just about everywhere here in Washington and certainly abroad about the kinds of impressions that the Bush administration was trying to give in the second term, that it wanted to reach out more, it wanted to listen more, it wanted to coordinate more. Because with this single appointment, I would argue that the message is exactly the opposite and that now it's the hawks who are very clearly in charge, and it looks as if Rice is much less powerful than had been thought, as recently as a few days ago, or that had been hoped in foreign capitals over the last few months. I think that this really shows that the balance of power within the administration lies very, very strongly with the hawks led by Dick Cheney,'..."


Iran and the Bomb:

The absence of clear proof of WMD has not stopped Bush before. The question, of course, is if the American public will believe the tale he's bound to spin about Iran's alleged WMD's as easily as they did the lies the Administration told about Iraq...

NY Times: Data Is Lacking on Iran's Arms, U.S. Panel Says
"A commission due to report to President Bush this month will describe American intelligence on Iran as inadequate to allow firm judgments about Iran's weapons programs, according to people who have been briefed on the panel's work.
The report comes as intelligence agencies prepare a new formal assessment on Iran, and follows a 14-month review by the panel, which Mr. Bush ordered last year to assess the quality of overall intelligence about the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
The Bush administration has been issuing increasingly sharp warnings about what it says are Iran's efforts to build nuclear weapons. The warnings have been met with firm denials in Tehran, which says its nuclear program is intended purely for civilian purposes..."


Media and Politics:

Greg Palast; I'd Rather Not Say Good-Bye, Dan

The thing Mr. Palast does not mention is the Boston Globe's series on this very topic during the 2000 Presidential campaign, whose findings were never disputed.

"...In 2003, BBC Television questioned George Bush's career as Viet Nam era Top Gun fighter pilot. In the British broadcast, I held up a confidential letter from Justice Department files stating that Poppy Bush had put in the fix to get Junior Bush out of 'Nam and into the Texas Air Guard. George could spend the war protecting Houston from Viet Cong attack.
A year after the BBC broadcast, the I'm-going-to-be-a-real-journalist-now Rather decided to run the same story on 60 Minutes. And just as he predicted, the press-police at the network and in the White House seized him and lit the tire around his neck.
What was Dan's mistake? Yes, yes, he shouldn't have embellished the story with a document he couldn't fully source. But that memo (not the one in the BBC report) was about a side issue, not the key accusation, that Senior Bush got Junior out of the draft. Despite not a jot of evidence that the main story of draft-dodgin' George was wrong (BBC never withdrew it), CBS cited Rather's insistence on the veracity of that report as grounds to crush his career and his reputation.
Rather was convicted by a corporate kangaroo court. Dickie Thornburgh, who had been Poppy Bush's Attorney General and owed his big salaries and career to the Bush family, ran an 'independent' investigation which concluded - surprise! - the Bushes had done no wrong. It was Dan that committed the evil. That whacky conclusion went along just fine with the diktat of Sumner Redstone, CEO of Viacom, CBS' owner, that a 'Republican administration is better for media companies,'..."

Palestine:

How can the US consider Israel to be negotiating in good faith with this going on behind the scenes?

BBC: Israel 'funded illegal outposts'
"...The report details how officials in the ministries of defence and housing and the settlement division of the World Zionist Organisation spent millions of dollars from state budgets to support the illegal outposts...
...It describes secret co-operation between various ministries and official institutions to consolidate wildcat outposts, which settlers began setting up more than a decade ago.
It was an initiative backed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, then foreign minister, who urged settlers to seize hilltops in order to break up the contiguity of Palestinian areas and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The report found:
* The housing ministry supplied 400 mobile homes for outposts on private Palestinian land
* The defence ministry approved the positioning of trailers to begin new outposts
* The education ministry paid for nurseries and their teachers
* The energy ministry connected outposts to the electricity grid
* Roads to outposts were paid for with taxpayers' money..."

Briefing Our Anti-Intellectual President:

Ray McGovern: Who Now Will Read to the President in the Morning?


Energy Politics:

William Rivers Pitt: The Prophecy of Oil


So, This Is Freedom On The March?

AP: Afghanistan now nearly 'a narcotics state'


Promoting The Architect of Preemption:

John Cavanagh: Why Wolfowitz Would Be a Good World Bank President

Iraq:

NY Times: Many Actions Tied to Delay in Armor for Troops in Iraq

Cell Phone Safety:

Bob Harrill: Wake-Up Call
"Henry Lai has a vivid recollection of his introduction to the politics of big science. It was 1994, and he had just received a message from the National Institutes of Health, which was funding work he was doing on the effects of microwave radiation, similar to that emitted by cellular phones, on the brain. He and UW colleague Narendra 'N.P.' Singh had results indicating that the radiation could cause DNA damage in brain cells.
The news was apparently unwelcome in some quarters.
Someone had called the NIH to report that Lai was misusing his research funding by doing work not specified in the grant (the grant didn’t mention DNA). And the agency wanted to know what was going on.
'It really scared the hell out of me,' says Lai, a research professor in the UW’s Department of Bioengineering who earned his Ph.D. from the UW in 1977. 'I was awake all night, worrying about it, wondering what to do.'
In the morning, he sent a fax to the agency, explaining how the research fell within the parameters of the grant. The NIH accepted his explanation and assured him that all was well. 'They are usually fairly liberal in that regard,' Lai says. 'To do otherwise would stifle the scientific process.'
The incident, he says, was only the beginning in a David-and-Goliath conflict pitting him—and other researchers—against an emerging technology that would rapidly become one of the most lucrative and powerful businesses on the planet: the cell phone industry.
The controversy goes back to a study by Lai and Singh published in a 1995 issue of Bioelectromagnetics. They found an increase in damaged DNA in the brain cells of rats after a single two-hour exposure to microwave radiation at levels considered 'safe' by government standards..."


Media Coverage:

Doug Ireland : N.Y. Times Has Really Bad Day On Torture, The Constitution, & Pentagon Mendacity
"Sunday's New York Times lead front-page story out of Washington is headlined "Rule Change Lets CIA Freely Send Suspects Abroad." It's nice to see the Times finally catching up to the story that the Bush administration has been routinely sending people of being accused of terrorism to despotic allies of Washington, where physical torture is commonplace and will be visited on those suspected terrorists (although the word "torture" only made it into the subhead in the Times story, not the main headline.) A significant number of other major news outlets -- from the WashPost to the Guardian, not to mention the major European dailies and the BBC -- have been reporting this story for months. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote about it a year ago. So did my friend Tom Engelhardt, in a particularly tough and prescient piece. However, better late than never, I suppose, where the arteriosclerotic Times is concerned..."

Frank Rich: In need of Thompson's savage take


Journalists Under Fire:

Steve Weissman: How the U.S. Military Threatens Journalists - PART II

Steve Weissman: Targeting the Media the American Way - PART III

The White House and The Fourth Estate:

Eric Boehlert: Tearing Down the Press
"For the last four years the persistent story line about the White House's relationship with the press has focused on the administration's discipline, denial of access, and ability to stay on message. The Bush administration, according to this account, is expert at managing information, using secrecy, carrots and sticks, and carefully crafted talking points to control the news.
But in the wake of revelations about the aggressive and unprecedented tactics employed by the White House to manipulate the news, that relatively benign interpretation is being reexamined. Recent headlines about paid-off pundits, video press releases disguised as news telecasts, and the remarkable press access granted to a right-wing pseudo-journalist working under a phony name, have led some to conclude that the White House is not simply aggressively managing the news, but is out to sabotage the press corps from within, to undermine the integrity and reputation of journalism itself.
The White House and its media allies, echoing a deep-rooted conservative antagonism toward the so-called liberal media, say they are simply countering its bias. But critics charge that the White House, along with partners like Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting, organizations whose allegiance to the Republican Party outweighs their commitment to journalism, is actually trying to permanently weaken the press. Its motivation, they say, is twofold. Weakening the press weakens an institution that's structurally an adversary of the White House. And if the press loses its credibility, that eliminates agreed-upon facts -- the commonly accepted information that is central to public debate.
'Republicans have a clear, agreed-upon plan how to diminish the mainstream press,' says Ron Suskind, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who was granted unique access inside the White House in 2002 to report on the administration's communication strategy. 'For them, essentially the way to handle the press is the same as how to handle the federal government; you starve the beast. When it's in a weakened and undernourished condition, then you're able to effect a variety of subtle partisan and political attacks. Armstrong Williams and others are examples of that,'..."


Iran and The Bomb:

Ray McGovern: Attacking Iran: I Know It Sounds Crazy, But...
"...So why would Iran think it has to acquire nuclear weapons? Sen. Richard Lugar, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was asked this on a Sunday talk show a few months ago. Apparently having a senior moment, he failed to give the normal answer. Instead, he replied, 'Well, you know, Israel has...' At that point, he caught himself and abruptly stopped.
Recovering quickly and realizing that he could not just leave the word 'Israel' hanging there, Lugar began again: 'Well, Israel is alleged to have a nuclear capability.'
Is alleged to have...? Lugar is chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and yet he doesn't know that Israel has, by most estimates, a major nuclear arsenal, consisting of several hundred nuclear weapons? (Mainstream newspapers are allergic to dwelling on this topic, but it is mentioned every now and then, usually buried in obscurity on an inside page.)
Just imagine how the Iranians and Syrians would react to Lugar's disingenuousness. Small wonder our highest officials and lawmakers -- and Lugar, remember, is one of the most decent among them -- are widely seen abroad as hypocritical. Our media, of course, ignore the hypocrisy. This is standard operating procedure when the word 'Israel' is spoken in this or other unflattering contexts. And the objections of those appealing for a more balanced approach are quashed.
If the truth be told, Iran fears Israel at least as much as Israel fears the internal security threat posed by the thugs supported by Tehran. Iran's apprehension is partly fear that Israel (with at least tacit support from the Bush administration) will send its aircraft to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, just as American-built Israeli bombers destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981. As part of the current war of nerves, recent statements by the president and vice president can be read as giving a green light to Israel to do just that; while Israeli Air Force commander Major General Eliezer Shakedi told reporters on February 21 that Israel must be prepared for an air strike on Iran 'in light of its nuclear activity,'..."

Robert Scheer: The Force Bush Won't Use on Iran
"...The one thing Bush strangely has refused to do throughout the world: practice the principles of capitalism.
The model for such a policy, which emphasizes normal trade relations even with regimes that have religious and political obsessions different from our own, was most successfully employed by Richard Nixon in his famous opening to 'Red' China, as well as in the detente period that should properly be credited with the ultimate fall of the Soviet empire.
The most powerful liberalizing forces the U.S. wields are not military, but economic and cultural. Though not as macho as trying to spread democracy through the barrel of a gun, normalization offers a better prospect of accomplishing that end, while saving billions of dollars and priceless lives."

New Toys For the DoD:

New Scientist: Maximum pain is aim of new US weapon
"The US military is funding development of a weapon that delivers a bout of excruciating pain from up to 2 kilometres away. Intended for use against rioters, it is meant to leave victims unharmed. But pain researchers are furious that work aimed at controlling pain has been used to develop a weapon. And they fear that the technology will be used for torture.
'I am deeply concerned about the ethical aspects of this research,' says Andrew Rice, a consultant in pain medicine at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, UK. 'Even if the use of temporary severe pain can be justified as a restraining measure, which I do not believe it can, the long-term physical and psychological effects are unknown.'
The research came to light in documents unearthed by the Sunshine Project, an organisation based in Texas and in Hamburg, Germany, that exposes biological weapons research. The papers were released under the US's Freedom of Information Act.
One document, a research contract between the Office of Naval Research and the University of Florida in Gainesville, US, is entitled 'Sensory consequences of electromagnetic pulses emitted by laser induced plasmas'.
It concerns so-called Pulsed Energy Projectiles (PEPs), which fire a laser pulse that generates a burst of expanding plasma when it hits something solid, like a person (New Scientist print edition, 12 October 2002). The weapon, destined for use in 2007, could literally knock rioters off their feet..."

Planespotting The CIA's 'Extraordinary Rendition' Flights:

Newsweek: No Secrets: Eyes on the CIA
"Aviation obsessives with cameras and Internet connections have become a threat to cover stories established by the CIA to mask its undercover operations and personnel overseas. U.S. intel sources complain that 'plane spotters' - hobbyists who photograph airplanes landing or departing local airports and post the pix on the Internet - made it possible for CIA critics recently to assemble details of a clandestine transport system the agency set up to secretly move cargo and people - including terrorist suspects - around the world..."


On Torture:

CBS News: Rumsfeld Sued over Prisoner Torture
"Two human rights groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on behalf of eight men allegedly tortured by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
'Rumsfeld bears direct responsibility' because he 'personally signed off' on policies guiding prisoner treatment, said American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero.
A number of other lawsuits also are pending against Rumsfeld, military commanders and civilian contractors in the abuse scandal, which broke last spring with the disclosure of photographs showing American military men and women abusing prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
An independent commission agreed in August 2004 that Rumsfeld and other top Pentagon leaders contributed to an environment in which prisoners suffered sadistic abuse at Abu Ghraib. The members also concluded that the officials could be faulted for failed leadership and oversight..."


Tax-Exempt Influence:

Sarah Posner: Secret Society: Council for National Policy
"...Most Americans - even many self-professed political junkies - probably have never heard of CNP or would confuse it with countless other groups with similarly unremarkable names (including the Center for National Policy, a liberal group). But conservative activists would know what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has referred to as 'the heart of a great conservative movement that helped to make America strong and prosperous in the 20th century - and is now helping to ensure she remains free and secure in the 21st century,' or what Indiana Republican Congressman Mike Pence has called 'the most influential gathering of conservatives in America.' But because CNP has been so successful at maintaining its secrecy - flouting the law for more than two decades - it has managed to obscure the depth of its reach in conservative political organizations, political fundraising, the conservative media, and even the Bush administration itself..."


On Social Security:

Paul Krugman: Just Say No


The Rule of Law:

AP: Charge Terror Suspect or Free Him, Says US District Court
"A federal judge ordered the Bush administration to either charge terrorism suspect Jose Padilla with a crime or release him after more than 21/2 years in custody.
U.S. District Judge Henry Floyd in Spartanburg, S.C., said the government cannot hold Padilla indefinitely as an 'enemy combatant,' a designation President Bush gave him in 2002. The government contends Padilla was planning an attack with a 'dirty bomb' radiological device.
'The court finds that the president has no power, neither express nor implied, neither constitutional nor statutory, to hold petitioner as an enemy combatant,' Floyd wrote Monday in a 23-page opinion. Floyd, appointed by Bush in 2003, gave the administration 45 days to take action..."