Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Shades Of Iran-Contra?
The latest Bush moves are even too much for John Negroponte? Now that's saying something!
Think Progress: Hersh: Bush Funneling Money to al Qaeda-Related Groups
"New Yorker columnist Sy Hersh says the 'single most explosive' element of his latest article involves an effort by the Bush administration to stem the growth of Shiite influence in the Middle East (specifically the Iranian government and Hezbollah in Lebanon) by funding violent Sunni groups.
Hersh says the U.S. has been 'pumping money, a great deal of money, without congressional authority, without any congressional oversight' for covert operations in the Middle East where it wants to 'stop the Shiite spread or the Shiite influence.' Hersh says these funds have ended up in the hands of 'three Sunni jihadist groups' who are 'connected to al Qaeda' but 'want to take on Hezbollah.'
Hersh summed up his scoop in stark terms: 'We are simply in a situation where this president is really taking his notion of executive privilege to the absolute limit here, running covert operations, using money that was not authorized by Congress, supporting groups indirectly that are involved with the same people that did 9/11.' ...
Hersh added, 'All of this should be investigated by Congress, by the way, and I trust it will be. In my talking to membership - members there, they are very upset that they know nothing about this. And they have great many suspicions,'..."
The latest Bush moves are even too much for John Negroponte? Now that's saying something!
Think Progress: Hersh: Bush Funneling Money to al Qaeda-Related Groups
"New Yorker columnist Sy Hersh says the 'single most explosive' element of his latest article involves an effort by the Bush administration to stem the growth of Shiite influence in the Middle East (specifically the Iranian government and Hezbollah in Lebanon) by funding violent Sunni groups.
Hersh says the U.S. has been 'pumping money, a great deal of money, without congressional authority, without any congressional oversight' for covert operations in the Middle East where it wants to 'stop the Shiite spread or the Shiite influence.' Hersh says these funds have ended up in the hands of 'three Sunni jihadist groups' who are 'connected to al Qaeda' but 'want to take on Hezbollah.'
Hersh summed up his scoop in stark terms: 'We are simply in a situation where this president is really taking his notion of executive privilege to the absolute limit here, running covert operations, using money that was not authorized by Congress, supporting groups indirectly that are involved with the same people that did 9/11.' ...
Hersh added, 'All of this should be investigated by Congress, by the way, and I trust it will be. In my talking to membership - members there, they are very upset that they know nothing about this. And they have great many suspicions,'..."
Monday, February 26, 2007
Iran:
Democracy Now! - Ex-Congressional Aide: Karl Rove Personally Received (And Ignored) Iranian Peace Offer in 2003
"While the Bush administration continues to insist it has no plans to go to war with Iran, the New Yorker magazine is reporting the Pentagon has created a special panel to plan a bombing attack on Iran that could be implemented within 24 hours of getting the go-ahead from President Bush. According to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, the planning group was established within the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in recent months.
In response to the report, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman denied the US was planning to go to war with Iran and said 'To suggest anything to the contrary is simply wrong, misleading and mischievous.' Whitman went on to say the White House is continuing to address concerns in the region through diplomatic efforts.
This comes against the backdrop of last week's allegation that Bush's chief advisor Karl Rove personally received a copy of a secret offer from the Iranian government to hold negotiations four years ago. The Bush administration decided to ignore the grand bargain offer. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice recently claimed she had never even seen the document. At the time Iran said it would consider far-reaching compromises on its nuclear program, relations with Hezbollah and Hamas and support for a Palestinian peace agreement with Israel..."
Democracy Now! - Ex-Congressional Aide: Karl Rove Personally Received (And Ignored) Iranian Peace Offer in 2003
"While the Bush administration continues to insist it has no plans to go to war with Iran, the New Yorker magazine is reporting the Pentagon has created a special panel to plan a bombing attack on Iran that could be implemented within 24 hours of getting the go-ahead from President Bush. According to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, the planning group was established within the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in recent months.
In response to the report, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman denied the US was planning to go to war with Iran and said 'To suggest anything to the contrary is simply wrong, misleading and mischievous.' Whitman went on to say the White House is continuing to address concerns in the region through diplomatic efforts.
This comes against the backdrop of last week's allegation that Bush's chief advisor Karl Rove personally received a copy of a secret offer from the Iranian government to hold negotiations four years ago. The Bush administration decided to ignore the grand bargain offer. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice recently claimed she had never even seen the document. At the time Iran said it would consider far-reaching compromises on its nuclear program, relations with Hezbollah and Hamas and support for a Palestinian peace agreement with Israel..."
Iran:
Seymour Hersh: The Redirection
"...Before the invasion of Iraq, in 2003, Administration officials, influenced by neoconservative ideologues, assumed that a Shiite government there could provide a pro-American balance to Sunni extremists, since Iraq’s Shiite majority had been oppressed under Saddam Hussein. They ignored warnings from the intelligence community about the ties between Iraqi Shiite leaders and Iran, where some had lived in exile for years. Now, to the distress of the White House, Iran has forged a close relationship with the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
The new American policy, in its broad outlines, has been discussed publicly. In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that there is 'a new strategic alignment in the Middle East,' separating 'reformers' and 'extremists'; she pointed to the Sunni states as centers of moderation, and said that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah were 'on the other side of that divide.' (Syria’s Sunni majority is dominated by the Alawi sect.) Iran and Syria, she said, 'have made their choice and their choice is to destabilize.'
Some of the core tactics of the redirection are not public, however. The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process, current and former officials close to the Administration said.
A senior member of the House Appropriations Committee told me that he had heard about the new strategy, but felt that he and his colleagues had not been adequately briefed. 'We haven’t got any of this,' he said. 'We ask for anything going on, and they say there’s nothing. And when we ask specific questions they say, ‘We’re going to get back to you.’ It’s so frustrating.'
The key players behind the redirection are Vice-President Dick Cheney, the deputy national-security adviser Elliott Abrams, the departing Ambassador to Iraq (and nominee for United Nations Ambassador), Zalmay Khalilzad, and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national-security adviser. While Rice has been deeply involved in shaping the public policy, former and current officials said that the clandestine side has been guided by Cheney. (Cheney’s office and the White House declined to comment for this story; the Pentagon did not respond to specific queries but said, 'The United States is not planning to go to war with Iran.')
The policy shift has brought Saudi Arabia and Israel into a new strategic embrace, largely because both countries see Iran as an existential threat. They have been involved in direct talks, and the Saudis, who believe that greater stability in Israel and Palestine will give Iran less leverage in the region, have become more involved in Arab-Israeli negotiations.
The new strategy 'is a major shift in American policy—it’s a sea change,' a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said. The Sunni states 'were petrified of a Shiite resurgence, and there was growing resentment with our gambling on the moderate Shiites in Iraq,' he said. 'We cannot reverse the Shiite gain in Iraq, but we can contain it,'...
...the Pentagon is continuing intensive planning for a possible bombing attack on Iran, a process that began last year, at the direction of the President. In recent months, the former intelligence official told me, a special planning group has been established in the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, charged with creating a contingency bombing plan for Iran that can be implemented, upon orders from the President, within twenty-four hours.
In the past month, I was told by an Air Force adviser on targeting and the Pentagon consultant on terrorism, the Iran planning group has been handed a new assignment: to identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq. Previously, the focus had been on the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities and possible regime change.
Two carrier strike groups—the Eisenhower and the Stennis—are now in the Arabian Sea. One plan is for them to be relieved early in the spring, but there is worry within the military that they may be ordered to stay in the area after the new carriers arrive, according to several sources. (Among other concerns, war games have shown that the carriers could be vulnerable to swarming tactics involving large numbers of small boats, a technique that the Iranians have practiced in the past; carriers have limited maneuverability in the narrow
Strait of Hormuz, off Iran’s southern coast.) The former senior intelligence official said that the current contingency plans allow for an attack order this spring. He added, however, that senior officers on the Joint Chiefs were counting on the White House’s not being 'foolish enough to do this in the face of Iraq, and the problems it would give the Republicans in 2008.'
The Administration’s effort to diminish Iranian authority in the Middle East has relied heavily on Saudi Arabia and on Prince Bandar, the Saudi national-security adviser. Bandar served as the Ambassador to the United States for twenty-two years, until 2005, and has maintained a friendship with President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. In his new post, he continues to meet privately with them. Senior White House officials have made several visits to Saudi Arabia recently, some of them not disclosed.
Last November, Cheney flew to Saudi Arabia for a surprise meeting with King Abdullah and Bandar. The Times reported that the King warned Cheney that Saudi Arabia would back its fellow-Sunnis in Iraq if the United States were to withdraw. A European intelligence official told me that the meeting also focussed on more general Saudi fears about 'the rise of the Shiites.' In response, 'The Saudis are starting to use their leverage—money,'..."
Times Online (UK) - US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack-News-World-Iraq-TimesOnline
"Some of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.
Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.
'There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,' a source with close ties to British intelligence said. 'There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.'
A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike..."
Seymour Hersh: The Redirection
"...Before the invasion of Iraq, in 2003, Administration officials, influenced by neoconservative ideologues, assumed that a Shiite government there could provide a pro-American balance to Sunni extremists, since Iraq’s Shiite majority had been oppressed under Saddam Hussein. They ignored warnings from the intelligence community about the ties between Iraqi Shiite leaders and Iran, where some had lived in exile for years. Now, to the distress of the White House, Iran has forged a close relationship with the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
The new American policy, in its broad outlines, has been discussed publicly. In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that there is 'a new strategic alignment in the Middle East,' separating 'reformers' and 'extremists'; she pointed to the Sunni states as centers of moderation, and said that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah were 'on the other side of that divide.' (Syria’s Sunni majority is dominated by the Alawi sect.) Iran and Syria, she said, 'have made their choice and their choice is to destabilize.'
Some of the core tactics of the redirection are not public, however. The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process, current and former officials close to the Administration said.
A senior member of the House Appropriations Committee told me that he had heard about the new strategy, but felt that he and his colleagues had not been adequately briefed. 'We haven’t got any of this,' he said. 'We ask for anything going on, and they say there’s nothing. And when we ask specific questions they say, ‘We’re going to get back to you.’ It’s so frustrating.'
The key players behind the redirection are Vice-President Dick Cheney, the deputy national-security adviser Elliott Abrams, the departing Ambassador to Iraq (and nominee for United Nations Ambassador), Zalmay Khalilzad, and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national-security adviser. While Rice has been deeply involved in shaping the public policy, former and current officials said that the clandestine side has been guided by Cheney. (Cheney’s office and the White House declined to comment for this story; the Pentagon did not respond to specific queries but said, 'The United States is not planning to go to war with Iran.')
The policy shift has brought Saudi Arabia and Israel into a new strategic embrace, largely because both countries see Iran as an existential threat. They have been involved in direct talks, and the Saudis, who believe that greater stability in Israel and Palestine will give Iran less leverage in the region, have become more involved in Arab-Israeli negotiations.
The new strategy 'is a major shift in American policy—it’s a sea change,' a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said. The Sunni states 'were petrified of a Shiite resurgence, and there was growing resentment with our gambling on the moderate Shiites in Iraq,' he said. 'We cannot reverse the Shiite gain in Iraq, but we can contain it,'...
...the Pentagon is continuing intensive planning for a possible bombing attack on Iran, a process that began last year, at the direction of the President. In recent months, the former intelligence official told me, a special planning group has been established in the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, charged with creating a contingency bombing plan for Iran that can be implemented, upon orders from the President, within twenty-four hours.
In the past month, I was told by an Air Force adviser on targeting and the Pentagon consultant on terrorism, the Iran planning group has been handed a new assignment: to identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq. Previously, the focus had been on the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities and possible regime change.
Two carrier strike groups—the Eisenhower and the Stennis—are now in the Arabian Sea. One plan is for them to be relieved early in the spring, but there is worry within the military that they may be ordered to stay in the area after the new carriers arrive, according to several sources. (Among other concerns, war games have shown that the carriers could be vulnerable to swarming tactics involving large numbers of small boats, a technique that the Iranians have practiced in the past; carriers have limited maneuverability in the narrow
Strait of Hormuz, off Iran’s southern coast.) The former senior intelligence official said that the current contingency plans allow for an attack order this spring. He added, however, that senior officers on the Joint Chiefs were counting on the White House’s not being 'foolish enough to do this in the face of Iraq, and the problems it would give the Republicans in 2008.'
The Administration’s effort to diminish Iranian authority in the Middle East has relied heavily on Saudi Arabia and on Prince Bandar, the Saudi national-security adviser. Bandar served as the Ambassador to the United States for twenty-two years, until 2005, and has maintained a friendship with President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. In his new post, he continues to meet privately with them. Senior White House officials have made several visits to Saudi Arabia recently, some of them not disclosed.
Last November, Cheney flew to Saudi Arabia for a surprise meeting with King Abdullah and Bandar. The Times reported that the King warned Cheney that Saudi Arabia would back its fellow-Sunnis in Iraq if the United States were to withdraw. A European intelligence official told me that the meeting also focussed on more general Saudi fears about 'the rise of the Shiites.' In response, 'The Saudis are starting to use their leverage—money,'..."
Times Online (UK) - US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack-News-World-Iraq-TimesOnline
"Some of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.
Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.
'There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,' a source with close ties to British intelligence said. 'There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.'
A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike..."
Friday, February 23, 2007
Iran:
The Guardian (UK) - US intelligence on Iran does not stand up, say Vienna sources
"Much of the intelligence on Iran's nuclear facilities provided to UN inspectors by American spy agencies has turned out to be unfounded, according to diplomatic sources in Vienna.
The claims, reminiscent of the intelligence fiasco surrounding the Iraq war, coincided with a sharp increase in international tension as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran was defying a UN security council ultimatum to freeze its nuclear programme...
...At the heart of the debate are accusations, spearheaded by the US, that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons. However, most of the tip-offs about supposed secret weapons sites provided by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies have led to dead ends when investigated by IAEA inspectors, according to informed sources in Vienna.
'Most of it has turned out to be incorrect,' said a diplomat at the IAEA with detailed knowledge of the agency's investigations. 'They gave us a paper with a list of sites. [The inspectors] did some follow-up, they went to some military sites, but there was no sign of [banned nuclear] activities.'
'Now [the inspectors] don't go in blindly. Only if it passes a credibility test.'
One particularly contentious issue concerned records of plans to build a nuclear warhead, which the CIA said it found on a stolen laptop computer supplied by an informant inside Iran. In July 2005, US intelligence officials showed printed versions of the material to IAEA officials, who judged it to be sufficiently specific to confront Iran.
Tehran rejected the material as forgeries and there are still reservations about its authenticity in the IAEA, according to officials with knowledge of the internal debate inside the agency.
'First of all, if you have a clandestine programme, you don't put it on laptops which can walk away,' one official said. 'The data is all in English which may be reasonable for some of the technical matters, but at some point you'd have thought there would be at least some notes in Farsi. So there is some doubt over the provenance of the computer,'..."
The Guardian (UK) - US intelligence on Iran does not stand up, say Vienna sources
"Much of the intelligence on Iran's nuclear facilities provided to UN inspectors by American spy agencies has turned out to be unfounded, according to diplomatic sources in Vienna.
The claims, reminiscent of the intelligence fiasco surrounding the Iraq war, coincided with a sharp increase in international tension as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran was defying a UN security council ultimatum to freeze its nuclear programme...
...At the heart of the debate are accusations, spearheaded by the US, that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons. However, most of the tip-offs about supposed secret weapons sites provided by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies have led to dead ends when investigated by IAEA inspectors, according to informed sources in Vienna.
'Most of it has turned out to be incorrect,' said a diplomat at the IAEA with detailed knowledge of the agency's investigations. 'They gave us a paper with a list of sites. [The inspectors] did some follow-up, they went to some military sites, but there was no sign of [banned nuclear] activities.'
'Now [the inspectors] don't go in blindly. Only if it passes a credibility test.'
One particularly contentious issue concerned records of plans to build a nuclear warhead, which the CIA said it found on a stolen laptop computer supplied by an informant inside Iran. In July 2005, US intelligence officials showed printed versions of the material to IAEA officials, who judged it to be sufficiently specific to confront Iran.
Tehran rejected the material as forgeries and there are still reservations about its authenticity in the IAEA, according to officials with knowledge of the internal debate inside the agency.
'First of all, if you have a clandestine programme, you don't put it on laptops which can walk away,' one official said. 'The data is all in English which may be reasonable for some of the technical matters, but at some point you'd have thought there would be at least some notes in Farsi. So there is some doubt over the provenance of the computer,'..."
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Our (Fleeting) Civil Rights:
What needs to be remembered is that ANY U.S. citizen can be deemed an 'enemy combatant' by the stroke of the Chief Executive's pen. That one man holds all that power in a nation of laws is stunning.
NY Times Editorial: American Liberty at the Precipice
"In another low moment for American justice, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that detainees held at the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, do not have the right to be heard in court. The ruling relied on a shameful law that President Bush stampeded through Congress last fall that gives dangerously short shrift to the Constitution.
The right of prisoners to challenge their confinement — habeas corpus — is enshrined in the Constitution and is central to American liberty. Congress and the Supreme Court should act quickly and forcefully to undo the grievous damage that last fall’s law — and this week’s ruling — have done to this basic freedom.
The Supreme Court ruled last year on the jerry-built system of military tribunals that the Bush Administration established to try the Guantánamo detainees, finding it illegal. Mr. Bush responded by driving through Congress the Military Commissions Act, which presumed to deny the right of habeas corpus to any noncitizen designated as an 'enemy combatant.' This frightening law raises insurmountable obstacles for prisoners to challenge their detentions. And it gives the government the power to take away habeas rights from any noncitizen living in the United States who is unfortunate enough to be labeled an enemy combatant..."
What needs to be remembered is that ANY U.S. citizen can be deemed an 'enemy combatant' by the stroke of the Chief Executive's pen. That one man holds all that power in a nation of laws is stunning.
NY Times Editorial: American Liberty at the Precipice
"In another low moment for American justice, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that detainees held at the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, do not have the right to be heard in court. The ruling relied on a shameful law that President Bush stampeded through Congress last fall that gives dangerously short shrift to the Constitution.
The right of prisoners to challenge their confinement — habeas corpus — is enshrined in the Constitution and is central to American liberty. Congress and the Supreme Court should act quickly and forcefully to undo the grievous damage that last fall’s law — and this week’s ruling — have done to this basic freedom.
The Supreme Court ruled last year on the jerry-built system of military tribunals that the Bush Administration established to try the Guantánamo detainees, finding it illegal. Mr. Bush responded by driving through Congress the Military Commissions Act, which presumed to deny the right of habeas corpus to any noncitizen designated as an 'enemy combatant.' This frightening law raises insurmountable obstacles for prisoners to challenge their detentions. And it gives the government the power to take away habeas rights from any noncitizen living in the United States who is unfortunate enough to be labeled an enemy combatant..."
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Our (Fleeting) Constitutional Rights:
NY Times Editorial: Making Martial Law Easier
"A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration’s behest that makes it easier for a president to override local control of law enforcement and declare martial law.
The provision, signed into law in October, weakens two obscure but important bulwarks of liberty. One is the doctrine that bars military forces, including a federalized National Guard, from engaging in law enforcement. Called posse comitatus, it was enshrined in law after the Civil War to preserve the line between civil government and the military. The other is the Insurrection Act of 1807, which provides the major exemptions to posse comitatus. It essentially limits a president’s use of the military in law enforcement to putting down lawlessness, insurrection and rebellion, where a state is violating federal law or depriving people of constitutional rights.
The newly enacted provisions upset this careful balance. They shift the focus from making sure that federal laws are enforced to restoring public order. Beyond cases of actual insurrection, the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or to any 'other condition.'
Changes of this magnitude should be made only after a thorough public airing. But these new presidential powers were slipped into the law without hearings or public debate. The president made no mention of the changes when he signed the measure, and neither the White House nor Congress consulted in advance with the nation’s governors.
There is a bipartisan bill, introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and Christopher Bond, Republican of Missouri, and backed unanimously by the nation’s governors, that would repeal the stealthy revisions. Congress should pass it. If changes of this kind are proposed in the future, they must get a full and open debate."
Iraq:
The Guardian (UK) - Mission imperial | Iraq
"While Iraqis struggled in the chaos of Baghdad after the invasion, the Americans sent to rebuild the nation led a cocooned existence in the centre of the capital - complete with booze, hot dogs and luxury villas. In the first of three extracts from his new book, Rajiv Chandrasekaran exposes life in the Green Zone..."
NY Times Editorial: Making Martial Law Easier
"A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration’s behest that makes it easier for a president to override local control of law enforcement and declare martial law.
The provision, signed into law in October, weakens two obscure but important bulwarks of liberty. One is the doctrine that bars military forces, including a federalized National Guard, from engaging in law enforcement. Called posse comitatus, it was enshrined in law after the Civil War to preserve the line between civil government and the military. The other is the Insurrection Act of 1807, which provides the major exemptions to posse comitatus. It essentially limits a president’s use of the military in law enforcement to putting down lawlessness, insurrection and rebellion, where a state is violating federal law or depriving people of constitutional rights.
The newly enacted provisions upset this careful balance. They shift the focus from making sure that federal laws are enforced to restoring public order. Beyond cases of actual insurrection, the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or to any 'other condition.'
Changes of this magnitude should be made only after a thorough public airing. But these new presidential powers were slipped into the law without hearings or public debate. The president made no mention of the changes when he signed the measure, and neither the White House nor Congress consulted in advance with the nation’s governors.
There is a bipartisan bill, introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and Christopher Bond, Republican of Missouri, and backed unanimously by the nation’s governors, that would repeal the stealthy revisions. Congress should pass it. If changes of this kind are proposed in the future, they must get a full and open debate."
Iraq:
The Guardian (UK) - Mission imperial | Iraq
"While Iraqis struggled in the chaos of Baghdad after the invasion, the Americans sent to rebuild the nation led a cocooned existence in the centre of the capital - complete with booze, hot dogs and luxury villas. In the first of three extracts from his new book, Rajiv Chandrasekaran exposes life in the Green Zone..."
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Iraq:
Regardless of whether U.S. troops leave Iraq, the new petroleum law will provide for effective foreign control over a significant portion of Iraq's oil wealth. This had been Bush's goal since day 1, and the ISG's Recommendations No. 62 and 63 spell out what the U.S. wants. How coincidental that the document discussed here implements just what Baker wants...
Democracy Now! - New Iraq Oil Law To Open Iraq's Oil Reserves to Western Companies
"...RAED JARRAR: The document was leaked by Professor Fouad Al-Ameer and published on a website called al-ghad.org. And then it was leaked to other important websites like niqash.org and other places. There are different ways of -- different copies of it. Some of it are scanned, and others of the original document, but it just hit the internet last week.
AMY GOODMAN: And explain what it says, now that you’ve finished translating it.
RAED JARRAR: It said so many things. I don’t think we can summarize it this short, because it’s a very long document, around thirty pages. But majorly, there are three major points that I think we should talk about. Financially, it legalizes very unfair types of contracts that will put Iraq in very long-term contracts that can go up to thirty-five years and cause the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars from Iraqis for no cause.
And the second point is concerning Iraq's sovereignty. Iraq will not be capable of controlling the levels -- the limits of production, which means that Iraq cannot be a part of OPEC anymore. And Iraq will have this very complicated institution called the Federal Oil and Gas Council, that will have representatives from the foreign oil companies on the board of it, so representatives from, let’s say, ExxonMobil and Shell and British Petroleum will be on the federal board of Iraq approving their own contracts.
And the third point is the point about keeping Iraq’s unity. The law is seen by many Iraqi analysts as a separation for Iraq fund. The law will authorize all of the regional and small provinces’ authorities. It will give them the final say to deal with the oil, instead of giving this final say to central federal government, so it will open the doors for splitting Iraq into three regions or even maybe three states in the very near future..."
Robert Dreyfuss: Apocalypse Not
"...Now, many of the same people who pushed for the invasion are arguing for escalating our military involvement based on a worst-case assumption: that if America leaves quickly, the Apocalypse will follow. 'How would [advocates of withdrawal] respond to the eruption of full-blown civil war in Iraq and the massive ethnic cleansing it would produce?' write Robert Kagan and William Kristol in the Weekly Standard. 'How would they respond to the intervention of Iraq’s neighbors, including Iran, Syria, and Turkey? And most important, what would they propose to do if, as a result of our withdrawal and the collapse of Iraq, al Qaeda and other terrorist groups managed to establish a safe haven from which to launch attacks against the United States and its allies?'
Similar rhetoric has been a staple of President Bush’s recent speeches. If the United States 'fails' in Iraq—his euphemism for withdrawal—the president said in January, '[r]adical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region, and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions … Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people.'
This kind of thinking is also accepted by a wide range of liberal hawks and conservative realists who, whether or not they originally supported the invasion, now argue that the United States must stay. It was evident in the Iraq Study Group, led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, which, participants say, was alarmed by expert advice that withdrawal would produce potentially catastrophic consequences. Even many antiwar liberals believe that a quick pullout would cause a bloodbath. Some favor withdrawal anyway, to cut our own losses. Others demur out of geostrategic concerns, a feeling of moral obligation to the Iraqis, or the simple fear that Democrats will be blamed for the ensuing chaos.
But if it was foolish to accept the best-case assumptions that led us to invade Iraq, it’s also foolish not to question the worst-case assumptions that undergird arguments for staying. Is it possible that a quick withdrawal of U.S. forces will lead to a dramatic worsening of the situation? Of course it is, just as it’s possible that maintaining or escalating troops there could fuel the unrest. But it’s also worth considering the possibility that the worst may not happen: What if the doomsayers are wrong?..."
Corporate waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq. Anyone surprised...?
AP: Auditors: Billions Squandered in Iraq
"About $10 billion has been squandered by the U.S. government on Iraq reconstruction aid because of contractor overcharges and unsupported expenses, and federal investigators warned Thursday that significantly more taxpayer money is at risk.
The three top auditors overseeing work in Iraq told a House committee their review of $57 billion in Iraq contracts found that Defense and State department officials condoned or allowed repeated work delays, bloated expenses and payments for shoddy work or work never done.
More than one in six dollars charged by U.S. contractors were questionable or unsupported, nearly triple the amount of waste the Government Accountability Office estimated last fall..."
Regardless of whether U.S. troops leave Iraq, the new petroleum law will provide for effective foreign control over a significant portion of Iraq's oil wealth. This had been Bush's goal since day 1, and the ISG's Recommendations No. 62 and 63 spell out what the U.S. wants. How coincidental that the document discussed here implements just what Baker wants...
Democracy Now! - New Iraq Oil Law To Open Iraq's Oil Reserves to Western Companies
"...RAED JARRAR: The document was leaked by Professor Fouad Al-Ameer and published on a website called al-ghad.org. And then it was leaked to other important websites like niqash.org and other places. There are different ways of -- different copies of it. Some of it are scanned, and others of the original document, but it just hit the internet last week.
AMY GOODMAN: And explain what it says, now that you’ve finished translating it.
RAED JARRAR: It said so many things. I don’t think we can summarize it this short, because it’s a very long document, around thirty pages. But majorly, there are three major points that I think we should talk about. Financially, it legalizes very unfair types of contracts that will put Iraq in very long-term contracts that can go up to thirty-five years and cause the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars from Iraqis for no cause.
And the second point is concerning Iraq's sovereignty. Iraq will not be capable of controlling the levels -- the limits of production, which means that Iraq cannot be a part of OPEC anymore. And Iraq will have this very complicated institution called the Federal Oil and Gas Council, that will have representatives from the foreign oil companies on the board of it, so representatives from, let’s say, ExxonMobil and Shell and British Petroleum will be on the federal board of Iraq approving their own contracts.
And the third point is the point about keeping Iraq’s unity. The law is seen by many Iraqi analysts as a separation for Iraq fund. The law will authorize all of the regional and small provinces’ authorities. It will give them the final say to deal with the oil, instead of giving this final say to central federal government, so it will open the doors for splitting Iraq into three regions or even maybe three states in the very near future..."
Robert Dreyfuss: Apocalypse Not
"...Now, many of the same people who pushed for the invasion are arguing for escalating our military involvement based on a worst-case assumption: that if America leaves quickly, the Apocalypse will follow. 'How would [advocates of withdrawal] respond to the eruption of full-blown civil war in Iraq and the massive ethnic cleansing it would produce?' write Robert Kagan and William Kristol in the Weekly Standard. 'How would they respond to the intervention of Iraq’s neighbors, including Iran, Syria, and Turkey? And most important, what would they propose to do if, as a result of our withdrawal and the collapse of Iraq, al Qaeda and other terrorist groups managed to establish a safe haven from which to launch attacks against the United States and its allies?'
Similar rhetoric has been a staple of President Bush’s recent speeches. If the United States 'fails' in Iraq—his euphemism for withdrawal—the president said in January, '[r]adical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region, and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions … Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people.'
This kind of thinking is also accepted by a wide range of liberal hawks and conservative realists who, whether or not they originally supported the invasion, now argue that the United States must stay. It was evident in the Iraq Study Group, led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, which, participants say, was alarmed by expert advice that withdrawal would produce potentially catastrophic consequences. Even many antiwar liberals believe that a quick pullout would cause a bloodbath. Some favor withdrawal anyway, to cut our own losses. Others demur out of geostrategic concerns, a feeling of moral obligation to the Iraqis, or the simple fear that Democrats will be blamed for the ensuing chaos.
But if it was foolish to accept the best-case assumptions that led us to invade Iraq, it’s also foolish not to question the worst-case assumptions that undergird arguments for staying. Is it possible that a quick withdrawal of U.S. forces will lead to a dramatic worsening of the situation? Of course it is, just as it’s possible that maintaining or escalating troops there could fuel the unrest. But it’s also worth considering the possibility that the worst may not happen: What if the doomsayers are wrong?..."
Corporate waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq. Anyone surprised...?
AP: Auditors: Billions Squandered in Iraq
"About $10 billion has been squandered by the U.S. government on Iraq reconstruction aid because of contractor overcharges and unsupported expenses, and federal investigators warned Thursday that significantly more taxpayer money is at risk.
The three top auditors overseeing work in Iraq told a House committee their review of $57 billion in Iraq contracts found that Defense and State department officials condoned or allowed repeated work delays, bloated expenses and payments for shoddy work or work never done.
More than one in six dollars charged by U.S. contractors were questionable or unsupported, nearly triple the amount of waste the Government Accountability Office estimated last fall..."
Next Neocon Target: Iran
It is amazing that Team Bush is able to ratchet up pressure on Iran's nuclear ambitions without being willing to address the twin 800 lb. gorillas in the room that contribute to Iran's perception of insecurity (U.S. invasion of two of Iran's neighbors and Israel's possession of nuclear weapons).
BBC News: US 'Iran attack plans' revealed
"US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure, the BBC has learned.
It is understood that any such attack - if ordered - would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centres..."
The Libby Trial:
Murray Waas: The Libby-Cheney Connection
"Libby Testimony Raises More Questions About Cheney's Role In The CIA Leak Case..."
The Business Of Health Care:
Paul Krugman: The Health Care Racket
"Is the health insurance business a racket? Yes, literally - or so say two New York hospitals, which have filed a racketeering lawsuit against UnitedHealth Group and several of its affiliates.
I don't know how the case will turn out. But whatever happens in court, the lawsuit illustrates perfectly the dysfunctional nature of our health insurance system, a system in which resources that could have been used to pay for medical care are instead wasted in a zero-sum struggle over who ends up with the bill.
The two hospitals accuse UnitedHealth of operating a 'rogue business plan' designed to avoid paying clients' medical bills. For example, the suit alleges that patients were falsely told that Flushing Hospital was 'not a network provider' so UnitedHealth did not pay the full network rate. UnitedHealth has already settled charges of misleading clients about providers' status brought by New York's attorney general: the company paid restitution to plan members, while attributing the problem to computer errors.
The legal outcome will presumably turn on whether there was deception as well as denial - on whether it can be proved that UnitedHealth deliberately misled plan members. But it's a fact that insurers spend a lot of money looking for ways to reject insurance claims. And health care providers, in turn, spend billions on 'denial management,' employing specialist firms - including Ingenix, a subsidiary of, yes, UnitedHealth - to fight the insurers..."
It is amazing that Team Bush is able to ratchet up pressure on Iran's nuclear ambitions without being willing to address the twin 800 lb. gorillas in the room that contribute to Iran's perception of insecurity (U.S. invasion of two of Iran's neighbors and Israel's possession of nuclear weapons).
BBC News: US 'Iran attack plans' revealed
"US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure, the BBC has learned.
It is understood that any such attack - if ordered - would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centres..."
The Libby Trial:
Murray Waas: The Libby-Cheney Connection
"Libby Testimony Raises More Questions About Cheney's Role In The CIA Leak Case..."
The Business Of Health Care:
Paul Krugman: The Health Care Racket
"Is the health insurance business a racket? Yes, literally - or so say two New York hospitals, which have filed a racketeering lawsuit against UnitedHealth Group and several of its affiliates.
I don't know how the case will turn out. But whatever happens in court, the lawsuit illustrates perfectly the dysfunctional nature of our health insurance system, a system in which resources that could have been used to pay for medical care are instead wasted in a zero-sum struggle over who ends up with the bill.
The two hospitals accuse UnitedHealth of operating a 'rogue business plan' designed to avoid paying clients' medical bills. For example, the suit alleges that patients were falsely told that Flushing Hospital was 'not a network provider' so UnitedHealth did not pay the full network rate. UnitedHealth has already settled charges of misleading clients about providers' status brought by New York's attorney general: the company paid restitution to plan members, while attributing the problem to computer errors.
The legal outcome will presumably turn on whether there was deception as well as denial - on whether it can be proved that UnitedHealth deliberately misled plan members. But it's a fact that insurers spend a lot of money looking for ways to reject insurance claims. And health care providers, in turn, spend billions on 'denial management,' employing specialist firms - including Ingenix, a subsidiary of, yes, UnitedHealth - to fight the insurers..."
Monday, February 19, 2007
Democrats Not Showing Their Progressive Stripes:
Sam Pizzigati: House Protects Tax Loophole for Corporate Execs
"...On Monday, in a unanimous vote, the House Ways and Means Committee killed a tax reform-already passed by the Senate-that would have ended the single most popular perk in executive-suite land-the loophole that, year after year, lets CEOs avoid paying taxes on multi-millions of their paycheck dollars.
The committee's handiwork, the Small Business Tax Relief Act, now goes before the full House, where observers are predicting easy passage. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce couldn't be more pleased. The Chamber's top lobbyist, Bruce Josten, even penned a 'thank you' to Rep. Charles Rangel, the New York Democrat who chairs Ways and Means, and Rep. Jim McCrery of Louisiana, the committee's ranking Republican.
'The business community,' Josten noted in his valentine, 'appreciates the restraint you exercised.'
How did this happen? How could House Democrats, handed the best legislative opportunity in years to rein in CEO pay excess, end up letting corporate pooh-bahs off the hook? The answer tells us a good bit, almost all of it discouraging, about just how much clout corporate America continues to hold in the new Democratic-majority Congress..."
The Outgoing SecDef:
I'd wager few Americans knew much about one of the most powerful appointed men in the world...
Roger Morris: The Undertaker's Tally (Part I) and (Part II)
Sam Pizzigati: House Protects Tax Loophole for Corporate Execs
"...On Monday, in a unanimous vote, the House Ways and Means Committee killed a tax reform-already passed by the Senate-that would have ended the single most popular perk in executive-suite land-the loophole that, year after year, lets CEOs avoid paying taxes on multi-millions of their paycheck dollars.
The committee's handiwork, the Small Business Tax Relief Act, now goes before the full House, where observers are predicting easy passage. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce couldn't be more pleased. The Chamber's top lobbyist, Bruce Josten, even penned a 'thank you' to Rep. Charles Rangel, the New York Democrat who chairs Ways and Means, and Rep. Jim McCrery of Louisiana, the committee's ranking Republican.
'The business community,' Josten noted in his valentine, 'appreciates the restraint you exercised.'
How did this happen? How could House Democrats, handed the best legislative opportunity in years to rein in CEO pay excess, end up letting corporate pooh-bahs off the hook? The answer tells us a good bit, almost all of it discouraging, about just how much clout corporate America continues to hold in the new Democratic-majority Congress..."
The Outgoing SecDef:
I'd wager few Americans knew much about one of the most powerful appointed men in the world...
Roger Morris: The Undertaker's Tally (Part I) and (Part II)
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Iran:
Democracy Now! - Headlines for February 15th, 2007
"...Swiss Ambassador: Iran Peace Offer Came From Highest Level
The latest developments come amid new revelations about the secret Iranian peace offer the Bush administration dismissed nearly four years ago. A leaked memo shows the Swiss ambassador who transmitted the overture explicitly told US officials that both supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and then-President Mohammad Khatami had approved it. Iran reportedly offered full cooperation on its nuclear program, recognition of Israel and termination of support for Palestinian militant groups. The proposal was sent just weeks after the U.S. invaded Iraq. Former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage recently claimed it was dismissed in part because officials couldn’t determine which proposals came from the Iranian government and which came from the Swiss ambassador..."
The Lies That Took A Nation To War:
Robert Dreyfuss: Feith-Libby Lies Exposed
"If fool-me-once was the Bush Administration's reams of faked intelligence about Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and nonexistent ties to Al Qaeda, then fool-me-twice is the Administration's shameless effort to shift the blame for American casualties in Iraq from the Sunni-led resistance, where it belongs, to a make-believe threat from Iran and allied Shiite militias.
It's Iran in the headlines today, but happily on February 9 we got a timely reminder of how brazenly the Bush Administration--along with its neoconservative allies at The Weekly Standard and the American Enterprise Institute--trumped up the case for war against Iraq five years ago...
...After Feith's OSP concocted its cock-and-bull story about Iraq, they had the temerity to take it over to the CIA and present it to a team of professional analysts there. George Tenet, after listening politely to Feith's team on August 15, 2002, quietly asked his staff to stick around after the OSP briefers departed. The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency reviewed Feith's conclusions (apparently there were some two dozen or more pieces of 'evidence') and promptly disagreed with more than 50 percent of it, Gimble said. Five days later, they all met once again, and the CIA pointedly offered to footnote Feith's report with strident objections of its own. Feith's team said thanks--and then promptly set up an appointment to brief the White House, without so much as adding a single CIA footnote. Needless to say, that briefing was widely cited by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and others--and it was helpfully leaked to The Weekly Standard, which printed it nearly verbatim. Later, when asked why he kept insisting that Iraq and Al Qaeda were allies, Cheney pointed to the Weekly Standard article to support his charges!..."
Technology:
How is it possible that the presiding judge (and jury) could be so technologically ignorant as to allow this case to result in this substitute teacher's conviction?
PC World: Teacher Faces Prison for Pop-Up Infested PC
"...Julie Amero, a substitute teacher in Norwich, Connecticut, has been convicted of impairing the morals of a child and risking injury to a minor by exposing as many as ten seventh-grade students to porn sites.
It's a short story: On October, 19, 2004, Amero was a substitute teacher for a seventh-grade language class at Kelly Middle School. A few students were crowded around a PC; some were giggling. She investigated and saw the kids looking at a barrage of graphic, hard-core pornographic pop-ups.
The prosecution contended that she had used the computer to visit porn sites.
The defense said that wasn't true and argued that the machine was infested with spyware and malware, and that opening the browser caused the computer to go into an endless loop of pop-ups leading to porn sites.
Amero maintains her innocence. She refused offers of a plea bargain and now faces an astounding 40 years in prison (her sentencing is on March 2)..."
Technovelgy.com - RFID 'Powder' - World's Smallest RFID Tag: Science Fiction in the News
"The world's smallest and thinnest RFID tags were introduced yesterday by Hitachi. Tiny miracles of miniaturization, these RFID chips (Radio Frequency IDentification chips) measure just 0.05 x 0.05 millimeters.
The previous record-holder, the Hitachi mu-chip, is just 0.4 x 0.4 millimeters. Take a look at the size of the mu-chip RFID tag on a human fingertip...
...The new RFID chips have a 128-bit ROM for storing a unique 38 digit number, like their predecessor. Hitachi used semiconductor miniaturization technology and electron beams to write data on the chip substrates to achieve the new, smaller size.
Hitachi's mu-chips are already in production; they were used to prevent ticket forgery at last year's Aichi international technology exposition. RFID 'powder,' on the other hand, is so much smaller that it can easily be incorporated into thin paper, like that used in paper currency and gift certificates..."
Debt Relief?
Democracy Now! - “Vulture Fund” Company Seeks $40 Million Payment from Zambia on $4 Million Debt
"...'Vulture fund' companies buy up the debt of poor countries at cheap prices, and then demand payments much higher than the original amount of the debt, often taking poor countries to court when they cannot afford to repay. Investigative journalist Greg Palast reports on one company trying to collect $40 million from the government of Zambia after buying its debt for $4 million..."
Democracy Now! - Headlines for February 15th, 2007
"...Swiss Ambassador: Iran Peace Offer Came From Highest Level
The latest developments come amid new revelations about the secret Iranian peace offer the Bush administration dismissed nearly four years ago. A leaked memo shows the Swiss ambassador who transmitted the overture explicitly told US officials that both supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and then-President Mohammad Khatami had approved it. Iran reportedly offered full cooperation on its nuclear program, recognition of Israel and termination of support for Palestinian militant groups. The proposal was sent just weeks after the U.S. invaded Iraq. Former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage recently claimed it was dismissed in part because officials couldn’t determine which proposals came from the Iranian government and which came from the Swiss ambassador..."
The Lies That Took A Nation To War:
Robert Dreyfuss: Feith-Libby Lies Exposed
"If fool-me-once was the Bush Administration's reams of faked intelligence about Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and nonexistent ties to Al Qaeda, then fool-me-twice is the Administration's shameless effort to shift the blame for American casualties in Iraq from the Sunni-led resistance, where it belongs, to a make-believe threat from Iran and allied Shiite militias.
It's Iran in the headlines today, but happily on February 9 we got a timely reminder of how brazenly the Bush Administration--along with its neoconservative allies at The Weekly Standard and the American Enterprise Institute--trumped up the case for war against Iraq five years ago...
...After Feith's OSP concocted its cock-and-bull story about Iraq, they had the temerity to take it over to the CIA and present it to a team of professional analysts there. George Tenet, after listening politely to Feith's team on August 15, 2002, quietly asked his staff to stick around after the OSP briefers departed. The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency reviewed Feith's conclusions (apparently there were some two dozen or more pieces of 'evidence') and promptly disagreed with more than 50 percent of it, Gimble said. Five days later, they all met once again, and the CIA pointedly offered to footnote Feith's report with strident objections of its own. Feith's team said thanks--and then promptly set up an appointment to brief the White House, without so much as adding a single CIA footnote. Needless to say, that briefing was widely cited by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and others--and it was helpfully leaked to The Weekly Standard, which printed it nearly verbatim. Later, when asked why he kept insisting that Iraq and Al Qaeda were allies, Cheney pointed to the Weekly Standard article to support his charges!..."
Technology:
How is it possible that the presiding judge (and jury) could be so technologically ignorant as to allow this case to result in this substitute teacher's conviction?
PC World: Teacher Faces Prison for Pop-Up Infested PC
"...Julie Amero, a substitute teacher in Norwich, Connecticut, has been convicted of impairing the morals of a child and risking injury to a minor by exposing as many as ten seventh-grade students to porn sites.
It's a short story: On October, 19, 2004, Amero was a substitute teacher for a seventh-grade language class at Kelly Middle School. A few students were crowded around a PC; some were giggling. She investigated and saw the kids looking at a barrage of graphic, hard-core pornographic pop-ups.
The prosecution contended that she had used the computer to visit porn sites.
The defense said that wasn't true and argued that the machine was infested with spyware and malware, and that opening the browser caused the computer to go into an endless loop of pop-ups leading to porn sites.
Amero maintains her innocence. She refused offers of a plea bargain and now faces an astounding 40 years in prison (her sentencing is on March 2)..."
Technovelgy.com - RFID 'Powder' - World's Smallest RFID Tag: Science Fiction in the News
"The world's smallest and thinnest RFID tags were introduced yesterday by Hitachi. Tiny miracles of miniaturization, these RFID chips (Radio Frequency IDentification chips) measure just 0.05 x 0.05 millimeters.
The previous record-holder, the Hitachi mu-chip, is just 0.4 x 0.4 millimeters. Take a look at the size of the mu-chip RFID tag on a human fingertip...
...The new RFID chips have a 128-bit ROM for storing a unique 38 digit number, like their predecessor. Hitachi used semiconductor miniaturization technology and electron beams to write data on the chip substrates to achieve the new, smaller size.
Hitachi's mu-chips are already in production; they were used to prevent ticket forgery at last year's Aichi international technology exposition. RFID 'powder,' on the other hand, is so much smaller that it can easily be incorporated into thin paper, like that used in paper currency and gift certificates..."
Debt Relief?
Democracy Now! - “Vulture Fund” Company Seeks $40 Million Payment from Zambia on $4 Million Debt
"...'Vulture fund' companies buy up the debt of poor countries at cheap prices, and then demand payments much higher than the original amount of the debt, often taking poor countries to court when they cannot afford to repay. Investigative journalist Greg Palast reports on one company trying to collect $40 million from the government of Zambia after buying its debt for $4 million..."
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
The Lies That Took A Nation To War:
Jason Leopold: Wolfowitz Emerges as Key Figure in Intel Manipulation
"...The transcripts were released in conjunction with other documents in the perjury and obstruction of justice trial of former vice presidential staffer I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby. They state that Wolfowitz was chosen by Vice President Dick Cheney in mid-July 2003 to leak a highly classified portion of the National Intelligence Estimate to the Wall Street Journal as a way to rebut Wilson's claims that the White House 'twisted' intelligence related to Iraq's attempts to build an atomic bomb. The section of the NIE that Wolfowitz leaked to the Journal claimed Wilson's assertions were flat-out wrong. However, it was later revealed that the section of the NIE that Wilson called into question was based on crude forgeries..."
Medical Research:
Regardless of positive research findings on nerve-pain relief based on using a low-potency cannabis variant, the DEA will likely continue to resist efforts to allow the most promising research to be done on a substance known for its very low toxicity. This should be seen as little more than a cynical and thinly veiled attempt by the DEA to protect the pharma industry's interests in selling their patented pills over potentially more effective and less toxic alternatives.
Washington Post: Research Supports Medicinal Marijuana
"...ending a six-year effort, a Massachusetts group learned yesterday that it had won a legal victory against the DEA in its battle for federal permission to grow its own cannabis for federally approved studies, instead of relying on government pot.
In an 87-page opinion, administrative law judge Mary Ellen Bittner ruled that it 'would be in the public interest' to allow a University of Massachusetts researcher to cultivate marijuana under contract to the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), which sponsors medical research on marijuana and other drugs.
The DEA is not obligated to follow the advice of its law judges, but the detailed decision should make it difficult for the agency to balk, said MAPS President Rick Doblin."
Jason Leopold: Wolfowitz Emerges as Key Figure in Intel Manipulation
"...The transcripts were released in conjunction with other documents in the perjury and obstruction of justice trial of former vice presidential staffer I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby. They state that Wolfowitz was chosen by Vice President Dick Cheney in mid-July 2003 to leak a highly classified portion of the National Intelligence Estimate to the Wall Street Journal as a way to rebut Wilson's claims that the White House 'twisted' intelligence related to Iraq's attempts to build an atomic bomb. The section of the NIE that Wolfowitz leaked to the Journal claimed Wilson's assertions were flat-out wrong. However, it was later revealed that the section of the NIE that Wilson called into question was based on crude forgeries..."
Medical Research:
Regardless of positive research findings on nerve-pain relief based on using a low-potency cannabis variant, the DEA will likely continue to resist efforts to allow the most promising research to be done on a substance known for its very low toxicity. This should be seen as little more than a cynical and thinly veiled attempt by the DEA to protect the pharma industry's interests in selling their patented pills over potentially more effective and less toxic alternatives.
Washington Post: Research Supports Medicinal Marijuana
"...ending a six-year effort, a Massachusetts group learned yesterday that it had won a legal victory against the DEA in its battle for federal permission to grow its own cannabis for federally approved studies, instead of relying on government pot.
In an 87-page opinion, administrative law judge Mary Ellen Bittner ruled that it 'would be in the public interest' to allow a University of Massachusetts researcher to cultivate marijuana under contract to the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), which sponsors medical research on marijuana and other drugs.
The DEA is not obligated to follow the advice of its law judges, but the detailed decision should make it difficult for the agency to balk, said MAPS President Rick Doblin."
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
W's Next Target: Iran
Craig Unger: From the Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Iraq
"The same neocon ideologues behind the Iraq war have been using the same tactics—alliances with shady exiles, dubious intelligence on W.M.D.—to push for the bombing of Iran...
...Meanwhile, a series of recent moves by the military have lent credence to widespread reports that the U.S. is secretly preparing for a massive air attack against Iran. (No one is suggesting a ground invasion.) First came the deployment order of U.S. Navy ships to the Persian Gulf. Then came high-level personnel shifts signaling a new focus on naval and air operations rather than the ground combat that predominates in Iraq. In his January 10 speech, Bush announced that he was sending Patriot missiles to the Middle East to defend U.S. allies—presumably from Iran. And he pointedly asserted that Iran was 'providing material support for attacks on American troops,' a charge that could easily evolve into a casus belli.
'It is absolutely parallel,' says Philip Giraldi, a former C.I.A. counterterrorism specialist. 'They're using the same dance steps—demonize the bad guys, the pretext of diplomacy, keep out of negotiations, use proxies. It is Iraq redux.'
The neoconservatives have had Iran in their sights for more than a decade. On July 8, 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's newly elected prime minister and the leader of its right-wing Likud Party, paid a visit to the neoconservative luminary Richard Perle in Washington, D.C. The subject of their meeting was a policy paper that Perle and other analysts had written for an Israeli-American think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic Political Studies. Titled 'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,' the paper contained the kernel of a breathtakingly radical vision for a new Middle East. By waging wars against Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, the paper asserted, Israel and the U.S. could stabilize the region. Later, the neoconservatives argued that this policy could democratize the Middle East.
'It was the beginning of thought,' says Meyrav Wurmser, an Israeli-American policy expert, who co-signed the paper with her husband, David Wurmser, now a top Middle East adviser to Dick Cheney. Other signers included Perle and Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy during George W. Bush's first term. 'It was the seeds of a new vision.'
Netanyahu certainly seemed to think so. Two days after meeting with Perle, the prime minister addressed a joint session of Congress with a speech that borrowed from 'A Clean Break.' He called for the 'democratization' of terrorist states in the Middle East and warned that peaceful means might not be sufficient. War might be unavoidable.
Netanyahu also made one significant addition to 'A Clean Break.' The paper's authors were concerned primarily with Syria and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, but Netanyahu saw a greater threat elsewhere. 'The most dangerous of these regimes is Iran,' he said.
Ten years later, 'A Clean Break' looks like nothing less than a playbook for U.S.-Israeli foreign policy during the Bush-Cheney era. Many of the initiatives outlined in the paper have been implemented—removing Saddam from power, setting aside the 'land for peace' formula to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon—all with disastrous results.
Nevertheless, neoconservatives still advocate continuing on the path Netanyahu staked out in his speech and taking the fight to Iran. As they see it, the Iraqi debacle is not the product of their failed policies. Rather, it is the result of America's failure to think big. 'It's a mess, isn't it?' says Meyrav Wurmser, who now serves as director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute. 'My argument has always been that this war is senseless if you don't give it a regional context.'
She isn't alone. One neocon after another has made the same plea: Iraq was the beginning, not the end..."
Ray McGovern: Wake Up! The Next War Is Coming
"...On January 19, Senator Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va., chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told The New York Times he believes the White House is developing a case for taking action against Iran, even though U.S. intelligence is not well informed about politics in Iran. 'To be quite honest, I’m concerned that it’s Iraq again,' said Rockefeller. 'This whole concept of moving against Iran is bizarre.'
Ten days later he told Wolf Blitzer, 'I have a great deal of worry that this [escalation of the war in Iraq] could expand...into some kind of action with respect to Iran, which I think would be an enormous mistake.'
Then why not stop it, Senator Rockefeller? Stop the war against Iran before it starts. You are chair of the intelligence committee. You don’t have to be stonewalled, as previous chair Senator Bob Graham was in September 2002. Yes, he voted against the war in Iraq because he knew of the games being played with the intelligence. But he failed to play a leadership role; he didn’t tell his 99 colleagues they were being diddled. It’s time for some leadership..."
Craig Unger: From the Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Iraq
"The same neocon ideologues behind the Iraq war have been using the same tactics—alliances with shady exiles, dubious intelligence on W.M.D.—to push for the bombing of Iran...
...Meanwhile, a series of recent moves by the military have lent credence to widespread reports that the U.S. is secretly preparing for a massive air attack against Iran. (No one is suggesting a ground invasion.) First came the deployment order of U.S. Navy ships to the Persian Gulf. Then came high-level personnel shifts signaling a new focus on naval and air operations rather than the ground combat that predominates in Iraq. In his January 10 speech, Bush announced that he was sending Patriot missiles to the Middle East to defend U.S. allies—presumably from Iran. And he pointedly asserted that Iran was 'providing material support for attacks on American troops,' a charge that could easily evolve into a casus belli.
'It is absolutely parallel,' says Philip Giraldi, a former C.I.A. counterterrorism specialist. 'They're using the same dance steps—demonize the bad guys, the pretext of diplomacy, keep out of negotiations, use proxies. It is Iraq redux.'
The neoconservatives have had Iran in their sights for more than a decade. On July 8, 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's newly elected prime minister and the leader of its right-wing Likud Party, paid a visit to the neoconservative luminary Richard Perle in Washington, D.C. The subject of their meeting was a policy paper that Perle and other analysts had written for an Israeli-American think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic Political Studies. Titled 'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,' the paper contained the kernel of a breathtakingly radical vision for a new Middle East. By waging wars against Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, the paper asserted, Israel and the U.S. could stabilize the region. Later, the neoconservatives argued that this policy could democratize the Middle East.
'It was the beginning of thought,' says Meyrav Wurmser, an Israeli-American policy expert, who co-signed the paper with her husband, David Wurmser, now a top Middle East adviser to Dick Cheney. Other signers included Perle and Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy during George W. Bush's first term. 'It was the seeds of a new vision.'
Netanyahu certainly seemed to think so. Two days after meeting with Perle, the prime minister addressed a joint session of Congress with a speech that borrowed from 'A Clean Break.' He called for the 'democratization' of terrorist states in the Middle East and warned that peaceful means might not be sufficient. War might be unavoidable.
Netanyahu also made one significant addition to 'A Clean Break.' The paper's authors were concerned primarily with Syria and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, but Netanyahu saw a greater threat elsewhere. 'The most dangerous of these regimes is Iran,' he said.
Ten years later, 'A Clean Break' looks like nothing less than a playbook for U.S.-Israeli foreign policy during the Bush-Cheney era. Many of the initiatives outlined in the paper have been implemented—removing Saddam from power, setting aside the 'land for peace' formula to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon—all with disastrous results.
Nevertheless, neoconservatives still advocate continuing on the path Netanyahu staked out in his speech and taking the fight to Iran. As they see it, the Iraqi debacle is not the product of their failed policies. Rather, it is the result of America's failure to think big. 'It's a mess, isn't it?' says Meyrav Wurmser, who now serves as director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute. 'My argument has always been that this war is senseless if you don't give it a regional context.'
She isn't alone. One neocon after another has made the same plea: Iraq was the beginning, not the end..."
Ray McGovern: Wake Up! The Next War Is Coming
"...On January 19, Senator Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va., chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told The New York Times he believes the White House is developing a case for taking action against Iran, even though U.S. intelligence is not well informed about politics in Iran. 'To be quite honest, I’m concerned that it’s Iraq again,' said Rockefeller. 'This whole concept of moving against Iran is bizarre.'
Ten days later he told Wolf Blitzer, 'I have a great deal of worry that this [escalation of the war in Iraq] could expand...into some kind of action with respect to Iran, which I think would be an enormous mistake.'
Then why not stop it, Senator Rockefeller? Stop the war against Iran before it starts. You are chair of the intelligence committee. You don’t have to be stonewalled, as previous chair Senator Bob Graham was in September 2002. Yes, he voted against the war in Iraq because he knew of the games being played with the intelligence. But he failed to play a leadership role; he didn’t tell his 99 colleagues they were being diddled. It’s time for some leadership..."
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Energy:
Roland Piquepaille: Storing wind power in cold stores
"According to Nature, a European-funded project has be launched to store gigawatts of electricity created from wind into the refrigerated warehouses normally used to store food. As the production of wind energy is variable every day, it cannot be easily accommodated on the electricity grid. So the "Night Wind" project wants to store wind energy produced at night in refrigerated warehouses and to release this energy during daytime peak hours. The first tests will be done in the Netherlands this year. And as the cold stores exist already, practically no extra cost should be needed to store as much as 50,000 megawatt-hours of energy..."
Roland Piquepaille: Storing wind power in cold stores
"According to Nature, a European-funded project has be launched to store gigawatts of electricity created from wind into the refrigerated warehouses normally used to store food. As the production of wind energy is variable every day, it cannot be easily accommodated on the electricity grid. So the "Night Wind" project wants to store wind energy produced at night in refrigerated warehouses and to release this energy during daytime peak hours. The first tests will be done in the Netherlands this year. And as the cold stores exist already, practically no extra cost should be needed to store as much as 50,000 megawatt-hours of energy..."
Friday, February 09, 2007
Health Insurance:
Paul Krugman: Edwards Gets It Right
"What a difference two years makes! At this point in 2005, the only question seemed to be how much of America's social insurance system - the triumvirate of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - the Bush administration would manage to dismantle. Now almost all prominent Democrats and quite a few Republicans pay at least lip service to calls for a major expansion of social insurance, in the form of universal health care.
But fine words, by themselves, mean nothing. Remember 'compassionate conservatism?' I won't trust presidential candidates on health care unless they provide enough specifics to show both that they understand the issues, and that they're willing to face up to hard choices when necessary.
And former Senator John Edwards has just set a fine example...."
Paul Krugman: Edwards Gets It Right
"What a difference two years makes! At this point in 2005, the only question seemed to be how much of America's social insurance system - the triumvirate of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - the Bush administration would manage to dismantle. Now almost all prominent Democrats and quite a few Republicans pay at least lip service to calls for a major expansion of social insurance, in the form of universal health care.
But fine words, by themselves, mean nothing. Remember 'compassionate conservatism?' I won't trust presidential candidates on health care unless they provide enough specifics to show both that they understand the issues, and that they're willing to face up to hard choices when necessary.
And former Senator John Edwards has just set a fine example...."
Patronage Over Competence Rules The Day At The DoJ:
Salon.com - Alberto Gonzalez's coup d'etat
"Under any circumstances, the Bush administration's sudden, explicitly political dismissal and replacement of United States attorneys in judicial districts across the country would be very troubling -- both as a violation of American law enforcement traditions and as a triumph of patronage over competence.
But as the story behind these strange decisions unfolds, a familiar theme is emerging. Again, the White House and the Justice Department have been exposed in a secretive attempt to expand executive power for partisan purposes. And again, their scheming is tainted with a nasty whiff of authoritarianism..."
Salon.com - Alberto Gonzalez's coup d'etat
"Under any circumstances, the Bush administration's sudden, explicitly political dismissal and replacement of United States attorneys in judicial districts across the country would be very troubling -- both as a violation of American law enforcement traditions and as a triumph of patronage over competence.
But as the story behind these strange decisions unfolds, a familiar theme is emerging. Again, the White House and the Justice Department have been exposed in a secretive attempt to expand executive power for partisan purposes. And again, their scheming is tainted with a nasty whiff of authoritarianism..."
Thursday, February 08, 2007
The Lies That Took A Nation To War:
Frank Rich: Why Dick Cheney Cracked Up
"In the days since Dick Cheney lost it on CNN, our nation’s armchair shrinks have had a blast. The vice president who boasted of 'enormous successes' in Iraq and barked 'hogwash' at the congenitally mild Wolf Blitzer has been roundly judged delusional, pathologically dishonest or just plain nuts. But what else is new? We identified those diagnoses long ago. The more intriguing question is what ignited this particularly violent public flare-up.
The answer can be found in the timing of the CNN interview, which was conducted the day after the start of the perjury trial of Mr. Cheney’s former top aide, Scooter Libby. The vice president’s on-camera crackup reflected his understandable fear that a White House cover-up was crumbling. He knew that sworn testimony in a Washington courtroom would reveal still more sordid details about how the administration lied to take the country into war in Iraq..."
Frank Rich: Why Dick Cheney Cracked Up
"In the days since Dick Cheney lost it on CNN, our nation’s armchair shrinks have had a blast. The vice president who boasted of 'enormous successes' in Iraq and barked 'hogwash' at the congenitally mild Wolf Blitzer has been roundly judged delusional, pathologically dishonest or just plain nuts. But what else is new? We identified those diagnoses long ago. The more intriguing question is what ignited this particularly violent public flare-up.
The answer can be found in the timing of the CNN interview, which was conducted the day after the start of the perjury trial of Mr. Cheney’s former top aide, Scooter Libby. The vice president’s on-camera crackup reflected his understandable fear that a White House cover-up was crumbling. He knew that sworn testimony in a Washington courtroom would reveal still more sordid details about how the administration lied to take the country into war in Iraq..."
Spending The People's Money:
NY Times Editorial: Mr. Bush’s Improbable Budget
"President Bush claims that his new $2.9 trillion budget request is a tough-minded plan for balancing the books by 2012. In reality, it’s a smokescreen for making Mr. Bush’s tax cuts permanent — and either hollowing out the government in the process or digging the country deeper into debt.
The budget is based on a series of improbable, if not dishonest, assumptions. To make it appear as if the tax cuts are affordable in the near term, it assumes that the Pentagon will not spend a single penny on Iraq or Afghanistan after 2009. It also assumes there will be no costs for fixing the alternative minimum tax after this year, even though Mr. Bush and virtually every politician in America is committed to such relief.
The new budget would also slash key entitlement programs and punish many of the country’s most vulnerable citizens..."
NY Times Editorial: Mr. Bush’s Improbable Budget
"President Bush claims that his new $2.9 trillion budget request is a tough-minded plan for balancing the books by 2012. In reality, it’s a smokescreen for making Mr. Bush’s tax cuts permanent — and either hollowing out the government in the process or digging the country deeper into debt.
The budget is based on a series of improbable, if not dishonest, assumptions. To make it appear as if the tax cuts are affordable in the near term, it assumes that the Pentagon will not spend a single penny on Iraq or Afghanistan after 2009. It also assumes there will be no costs for fixing the alternative minimum tax after this year, even though Mr. Bush and virtually every politician in America is committed to such relief.
The new budget would also slash key entitlement programs and punish many of the country’s most vulnerable citizens..."
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Energy Politics:
I knew someone had to have been studying this...
NDCF: The hidden cost of imported oil
"The National Defense Council Foundation (NDCF), an Alexandria, Virginia-based research and educational institution has completed its year-long analysis of the 'hidden cost' of imported oil. The NDCF project represents the most comprehensive investigation of the military and economic penalty our undue dependence on imported oil exacts from the U.S. economy. Included in this economic toll are:
* Almost $49.1 billion in annual defense outlays to maintain the capability to defend the flow of Persian Gulf Oil – the equivalent of adding $1.17 to the price of a gallon of gasoline;
* The loss of 828,400 jobs in the U.S. economy;
* The loss of $159.9 billion in GNP annually;
* The loss of $13.4 billion in federal and state revenues annually;
* Total economic penalties of from $297.2 to $304.9 billion annually.
If reflected at the gasoline pump, these 'hidden costs' would raise the price of a gallon of gasoline to over $5.28, a fill-up would be over $105..."
Lies My Government Told Me:
The Raw Story: Army made video warning about dangers of depleted uranium but never showed it to troops
"A special investigation on the effects of depleted uranium reveals the Army made a tape warning of the effects of depleted uranium which was never shown to troops despite the fact the Pentagon knew the agent to be potentially deadly, CNN reports Tuesday.
Depleted uranium -- or DU -- was used in the Gulf War as a projectile that could penetrate tank armor. A group of soldiers are suing the US government because they are sick from exposure; despite the unshown video, the Army denies that depleted uranium represents a serious health risk..."
At State they're desperately trying to stave off criticism on DU. If the government says it, it must be true?
U.S. Department of State: Depleted Uranium
"There is a great deal of misinformation and unwarranted fears about depleted uranium (DU), which U.S. armed forces use in several types of ammunition to take advantage of its unsurpassed ability to penetrate armored vehicles..."
Iraq:
The Raw Story: Rep. grills ex-US leader in Iraq: Where did 363 tons of cash go?
"Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), leading a Congressional review of possible U.S. waste and fraud in Iraq, sought answers from former Iraq Provisional Authority leader L. Paul Bremer today.
'House Democrats, taking charge of investigations now that they control Congress, grilled the former U.S. occupation chief in Iraq on Tuesday about the way he doled out billions of Iraqi dollars without accounting for the money,' the Associated Press reports.
Over $4 billion in cash, which came from Iraqi oil exports and other sources, was sent by the Federal Reserve to Baghdad on pallets aboard U.S. military planes just before government control was given back to the Iraqis, Reuters says. The bills reportedly weighed hundreds of tons.
'Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone? But that's exactly what our government did,' Waxman said, according to Reuters..."
I knew someone had to have been studying this...
NDCF: The hidden cost of imported oil
"The National Defense Council Foundation (NDCF), an Alexandria, Virginia-based research and educational institution has completed its year-long analysis of the 'hidden cost' of imported oil. The NDCF project represents the most comprehensive investigation of the military and economic penalty our undue dependence on imported oil exacts from the U.S. economy. Included in this economic toll are:
* Almost $49.1 billion in annual defense outlays to maintain the capability to defend the flow of Persian Gulf Oil – the equivalent of adding $1.17 to the price of a gallon of gasoline;
* The loss of 828,400 jobs in the U.S. economy;
* The loss of $159.9 billion in GNP annually;
* The loss of $13.4 billion in federal and state revenues annually;
* Total economic penalties of from $297.2 to $304.9 billion annually.
If reflected at the gasoline pump, these 'hidden costs' would raise the price of a gallon of gasoline to over $5.28, a fill-up would be over $105..."
Lies My Government Told Me:
The Raw Story: Army made video warning about dangers of depleted uranium but never showed it to troops
"A special investigation on the effects of depleted uranium reveals the Army made a tape warning of the effects of depleted uranium which was never shown to troops despite the fact the Pentagon knew the agent to be potentially deadly, CNN reports Tuesday.
Depleted uranium -- or DU -- was used in the Gulf War as a projectile that could penetrate tank armor. A group of soldiers are suing the US government because they are sick from exposure; despite the unshown video, the Army denies that depleted uranium represents a serious health risk..."
At State they're desperately trying to stave off criticism on DU. If the government says it, it must be true?
U.S. Department of State: Depleted Uranium
"There is a great deal of misinformation and unwarranted fears about depleted uranium (DU), which U.S. armed forces use in several types of ammunition to take advantage of its unsurpassed ability to penetrate armored vehicles..."
Iraq:
The Raw Story: Rep. grills ex-US leader in Iraq: Where did 363 tons of cash go?
"Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), leading a Congressional review of possible U.S. waste and fraud in Iraq, sought answers from former Iraq Provisional Authority leader L. Paul Bremer today.
'House Democrats, taking charge of investigations now that they control Congress, grilled the former U.S. occupation chief in Iraq on Tuesday about the way he doled out billions of Iraqi dollars without accounting for the money,' the Associated Press reports.
Over $4 billion in cash, which came from Iraqi oil exports and other sources, was sent by the Federal Reserve to Baghdad on pallets aboard U.S. military planes just before government control was given back to the Iraqis, Reuters says. The bills reportedly weighed hundreds of tons.
'Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone? But that's exactly what our government did,' Waxman said, according to Reuters..."
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Pushing Political Appointees At The DoJ:
Washington Post: US Attorney Firings Set Stage for Congressional Battle
Outsourcing Responsibility & Accountability?
NY Times: In DC, Contractors Are the 'Fourth Branch of Govt'
"In June, short of people to process cases of incompetence and fraud by federal contractors, officials at the General Services Administration responded with what has become the government's reflexive answer to almost every problem.
They hired another contractor.
It did not matter that the company they chose, CACI International, had itself recently avoided a suspension from federal contracting; or that the work, delving into investigative files on other contractors, appeared to pose a conflict of interest; or that each person supplied by the company would cost taxpayers $104 an hour. Six CACI workers soon joined hundreds of other private-sector workers at the G.S.A., the government's management agency.
Without a public debate or formal policy decision, contractors have become a virtual fourth branch of government. On the rise for decades, spending on federal contracts has soared during the Bush administration, to about $400 billion last year from $207 billion in 2000, fueled by the war in Iraq, domestic security and Hurricane Katrina, but also by a philosophy that encourages outsourcing almost everything government does.
Contractors still build ships and satellites, but they also collect income taxes and work up agency budgets, fly pilotless spy aircraft and take the minutes at policy meetings on the war. They sit next to federal employees at nearly every agency; far more people work under contracts than are directly employed by the government. Even the government's online database for tracking contracts, the Federal Procurement Data System, has been outsourced (and is famously difficult to use).
The contracting explosion raises questions about propriety, cost and accountability that have long troubled watchdog groups and are coming under scrutiny from the Democratic majority in Congress. While flagrant cases of fraud and waste make headlines, concerns go beyond outright wrongdoing..."
Washington Post: US Attorney Firings Set Stage for Congressional Battle
"H.E. 'Bud' Cummins III had served for five years as the U.S. attorney in Little Rock - a job he obtained in large part because of his credentials as a longtime GOP lawyer and avid supporter of President Bush.
So Cummins, 47, was more than a little surprised when he got a call from the Justice Department last year asking him to resign. He was told there was nothing wrong with his performance, but that officials in Washington wanted to give the job to another GOP loyalist..".
Outsourcing Responsibility & Accountability?
NY Times: In DC, Contractors Are the 'Fourth Branch of Govt'
"In June, short of people to process cases of incompetence and fraud by federal contractors, officials at the General Services Administration responded with what has become the government's reflexive answer to almost every problem.
They hired another contractor.
It did not matter that the company they chose, CACI International, had itself recently avoided a suspension from federal contracting; or that the work, delving into investigative files on other contractors, appeared to pose a conflict of interest; or that each person supplied by the company would cost taxpayers $104 an hour. Six CACI workers soon joined hundreds of other private-sector workers at the G.S.A., the government's management agency.
Without a public debate or formal policy decision, contractors have become a virtual fourth branch of government. On the rise for decades, spending on federal contracts has soared during the Bush administration, to about $400 billion last year from $207 billion in 2000, fueled by the war in Iraq, domestic security and Hurricane Katrina, but also by a philosophy that encourages outsourcing almost everything government does.
Contractors still build ships and satellites, but they also collect income taxes and work up agency budgets, fly pilotless spy aircraft and take the minutes at policy meetings on the war. They sit next to federal employees at nearly every agency; far more people work under contracts than are directly employed by the government. Even the government's online database for tracking contracts, the Federal Procurement Data System, has been outsourced (and is famously difficult to use).
The contracting explosion raises questions about propriety, cost and accountability that have long troubled watchdog groups and are coming under scrutiny from the Democratic majority in Congress. While flagrant cases of fraud and waste make headlines, concerns go beyond outright wrongdoing..."
Friday, February 02, 2007
Opinion (and Credibility?) For Sale:
The Guardian (UK) - Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study
The Guardian (UK) - Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study
"Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.
Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)..."
Iraq:
This chaos was used as an opportunity to put a 'spin' of '200 insurgents killed' on this massacre of civilians.
The American public deserves better information than propaganda.
Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily: Official Lies Over Najaf Battle Exposed
Democracy Now! - Battle in Najaf: Is US-Iraqi Claim of Gunfight with Messianic Cult Cover-up for a Massacre?
This chaos was used as an opportunity to put a 'spin' of '200 insurgents killed' on this massacre of civilians.
The American public deserves better information than propaganda.
Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily: Official Lies Over Najaf Battle Exposed
"Najaf - Iraqi government lies over the killing of hundreds of Shias in an attack on Sunday stand exposed by independent investigations carried out by IPS in Iraq.
Conflicting reports had arisen earlier on how and why a huge battle broke out around the small village Zarqa, located just a few kilometres northeast of the Shia holy city Najaf, which is 90 km south of Baghdad.
One thing certain is that when the smoke cleared, more than 200 people lay dead after more than half a day of fighting Sunday Jan. 28. A U.S. helicopter was shot down, killing two soldiers. Twenty-five members of the Iraqi security force were also killed.
'We were going to conduct the usual ceremonies that we conduct every year when we were attacked by Iraqi soldiers,' Jabbar al-Hatami, a leader of the al-Hatami Shia Arab tribe told IPS.
'We thought it was one of the usual mistakes of the Iraqi army killing civilians, so we advanced to explain to the soldiers that they killed five of us for no reason. But we were surprised by more gunfire from the soldiers.'
The confrontation took place on the Shia holiday of Ashura which commemorates Imam Hussein, grandson of the prophet Muhammad and the most revered of Shia saints. Emotions run high at this time, and self-flagellation in public is the norm..."
Democracy Now! - Battle in Najaf: Is US-Iraqi Claim of Gunfight with Messianic Cult Cover-up for a Massacre?
"...PATRICK COCKBURN: It’s a very confused situation. One of the really amazing things about it is that this is one of the greatest uses of US air power for two-and-a-half years since the battle for Fallujah, and we don't quite know who was under attack, although some 300 people were killed. It appears that there was a battle there with a sect that was disliked by the local government in Najaf, but also that a tribe, pilgrims who were marching through the area, also came under attack and suffered heavy losses. All in all, it’s a very confused situation.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And the sect was a Shia sect that was from another part of the country going on pilgrimage?
PATRICK COCKBURN: No. That’s not -- I mean, there are allegations flying backwards and forwards at the moment, but there’s no real evidence for this. I mean, the commonsense explanation, the explanation that, as some people there give, is that there was a tribe called the Al-Hawatim, who were going on pilgrimage -- this is a great Shia ritual this week, the Ashura -- and about 200 of them were walking, which is very common in Iraq. Over this last week, millions of people have been walking the roads on pilgrimage. And they got mixed up in this battle. Their tribal leader was ill. He and his wife were in a car. When they came to a checkpoint, the soldiers at checkpoint opened fire, killed them both. And then the other tribesmen attacked the checkpoint. It seems to me likely that the pilgrims got involved in a battle that was already going on between the government of Najaf and this sect, which they much disliked, which had a camp just outside Najaf..."
Thursday, February 01, 2007
WalMart, Upstanding Corporate Citizen, Supporter Of Local Communities:
Their massive PR efforts are negated the face of blatantly anti-community practices like this...
Raw Story: Wal-Mart pays itself rent, gets large tax breaks
Their massive PR efforts are negated the face of blatantly anti-community practices like this...
Raw Story: Wal-Mart pays itself rent, gets large tax breaks
"Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer and the world's biggest retailer, is regularly paying itself rent and using the transaction to decrease the taxes it pays to state governments, according to a report in this morning's Wall Street Journal.
The article by Jesse Drucker shows that Wal-Mart has saved hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes in 25 states, and may not be the only company using the practice. Drucker shows that state governments are finally getting wise and working to close a complicated tax loophole that the federal government discontinued years ago.
Wal-Mart is using a tax loophole involving 'real-estate investment trusts' to call 'rent' it pays to itself a tax-deductible business expense, Drucker explains. A Wal-Mart subsidary will pay rent to a real-estate investment trust, which is owned by another Wal-Mart subsidiary. The trust hands the rent to the second subsidiary in the form of a dividend, which cannot be taxed. Additionally, Wal-Mart counts the initial rental payment as a business expense, which is deducted from taxes in the state where the store is located. In one four-year period, Wal-Mart avoided $350 million in taxes using this strategy, which was developed by the accounting firm Ernst & Young LLP..."
