Saturday, December 29, 2007
Expanding The So-Called War On Terror:
William Arkin: U.S. Troops to Head to Pakistan - Early Warning
"Beginning early next year, U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units, according to defense officials involved with the planning.
These Pakistan-centric operations will mark a shift for the U.S. military and for U.S. Pakistan relations. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the U.S. used Pakistani bases to stage movements into Afghanistan. Yet once the U.S. deposed the Taliban government and established its main operating base at Bagram, north of Kabul, U.S. forces left Pakistan almost entirely. Since then, Pakistan has restricted U.S. involvement in cross-border military operations as well as paramilitary operations on its soil.
But the Pentagon has been frustrated by the inability of Pakistani national forces to control the borders or the frontier area. And Pakistan's political instability has heightened U.S. concern about Islamic extremists there.
According to Pentagon sources, reaching a different agreement with Pakistan became a priority for the new head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, Adm. Eric T. Olson. Olson visited Pakistan in August, November and again this month, meeting with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman Gen. Tariq Majid and Lt. Gen. Muhammad Masood Aslam, commander of the military and paramilitary troops in northwest Pakistan. Olson also visited the headquarters of the Frontier Corps, a separate paramilitary force recruited from Pakistan's border tribes.
Now, a new agreement, reported when it was still being negotiated last month, has been finalized. And the first U.S. personnel could be on the ground in Pakistan by early in the new year, according to Pentagon sources..."
Media Consolidation:
Amy Goodman: The FCC’s Christmas Gift to Big Media
"On Dec. 18, the five commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission met in Washington, D.C., and, by a 3 to 2 vote, passed new regulations that would allow more media consolidation. This, despite the U.S. public’s increasing concern over the nation’s media being controlled by a few giant corporations.
Dissident FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said of the decision: "We generously ask big media to sit on Santa’s knee, tell us what it wants for Christmas, and then push through whatever of these wishes are politically and practically feasible. No test to see if anyone’s been naughty or nice. Just another big, shiny present for the favored few who already hold an FCC license—and a lump of coal for the rest of us. Happy holidays!"
It was Bush-appointed FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, now just 41 years old, who rammed through the rule changes. He has served President Bush well. As deputy general counsel for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000, he was active during the Florida recount. Before that he worked for Kenneth Starr at the Office of Independent Counsel during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Rumor has it that he may run for governor of his native North Carolina. His wife, Cathie Martin, was a spokeswoman for Vice President Dick Cheney in the midst of the scandal around the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. She now works on Bush’s communications staff.
The federal regulation in question is the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership ban. It has for decades prevented the same company from owning both a television or radio station in a town as well as a newspaper. Underlying this ban is the core concept of the public interest. Copps couldn’t have been clearer: 'Today’s decision would make George Orwell proud. We claim to be giving the news industry a shot in the arm—but the real effect is to reduce total newsgathering.' Mergers will result in newsroom layoffs and less, not more, coverage of local issues..."
Energy Politics:
Democracy Now! - Greg Palast Reports on the Battle Between Indigenous Ecuadorians and the U.S. Oil Giant Chevron
"Investigative Journalist Greg Palast files this report from the rainforests of Ecuador, where an indigenous tribe is suing Chevron for $12 billion for contaminating the Amazon. We also play part of Palast’s interview with Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa..."
William Arkin: U.S. Troops to Head to Pakistan - Early Warning
"Beginning early next year, U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units, according to defense officials involved with the planning.
These Pakistan-centric operations will mark a shift for the U.S. military and for U.S. Pakistan relations. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the U.S. used Pakistani bases to stage movements into Afghanistan. Yet once the U.S. deposed the Taliban government and established its main operating base at Bagram, north of Kabul, U.S. forces left Pakistan almost entirely. Since then, Pakistan has restricted U.S. involvement in cross-border military operations as well as paramilitary operations on its soil.
But the Pentagon has been frustrated by the inability of Pakistani national forces to control the borders or the frontier area. And Pakistan's political instability has heightened U.S. concern about Islamic extremists there.
According to Pentagon sources, reaching a different agreement with Pakistan became a priority for the new head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, Adm. Eric T. Olson. Olson visited Pakistan in August, November and again this month, meeting with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman Gen. Tariq Majid and Lt. Gen. Muhammad Masood Aslam, commander of the military and paramilitary troops in northwest Pakistan. Olson also visited the headquarters of the Frontier Corps, a separate paramilitary force recruited from Pakistan's border tribes.
Now, a new agreement, reported when it was still being negotiated last month, has been finalized. And the first U.S. personnel could be on the ground in Pakistan by early in the new year, according to Pentagon sources..."
Media Consolidation:
Amy Goodman: The FCC’s Christmas Gift to Big Media
"On Dec. 18, the five commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission met in Washington, D.C., and, by a 3 to 2 vote, passed new regulations that would allow more media consolidation. This, despite the U.S. public’s increasing concern over the nation’s media being controlled by a few giant corporations.
Dissident FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said of the decision: "We generously ask big media to sit on Santa’s knee, tell us what it wants for Christmas, and then push through whatever of these wishes are politically and practically feasible. No test to see if anyone’s been naughty or nice. Just another big, shiny present for the favored few who already hold an FCC license—and a lump of coal for the rest of us. Happy holidays!"
It was Bush-appointed FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, now just 41 years old, who rammed through the rule changes. He has served President Bush well. As deputy general counsel for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000, he was active during the Florida recount. Before that he worked for Kenneth Starr at the Office of Independent Counsel during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Rumor has it that he may run for governor of his native North Carolina. His wife, Cathie Martin, was a spokeswoman for Vice President Dick Cheney in the midst of the scandal around the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. She now works on Bush’s communications staff.
The federal regulation in question is the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership ban. It has for decades prevented the same company from owning both a television or radio station in a town as well as a newspaper. Underlying this ban is the core concept of the public interest. Copps couldn’t have been clearer: 'Today’s decision would make George Orwell proud. We claim to be giving the news industry a shot in the arm—but the real effect is to reduce total newsgathering.' Mergers will result in newsroom layoffs and less, not more, coverage of local issues..."
Energy Politics:
Democracy Now! - Greg Palast Reports on the Battle Between Indigenous Ecuadorians and the U.S. Oil Giant Chevron
"Investigative Journalist Greg Palast files this report from the rainforests of Ecuador, where an indigenous tribe is suing Chevron for $12 billion for contaminating the Amazon. We also play part of Palast’s interview with Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa..."
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Iraq:
Juan Cole: Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2007
Economics:
Bob Herbert: Nightmare Before Christmas
"...Forget the turbulence in the financial markets and the subprime debacle. Forget the dark clouds of a possible recession. Bloomberg News tells us that the top securities firms are handing out nearly $38 billion in seasonal bonuses, the highest total ever.
But there’s a reason to temper the celebration, if only out of respect for an old friend who’s not doing too well. Even as the Wall Streeters are high-fiving and ordering up record shipments of Champagne and caviar, the American dream is on life-support.
I had a conversation the other day with Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union. He mentioned a poll of working families that had shown that their belief in that mythical dream that has sustained so many generations for so long is fading faster than sunlight on a December afternoon.
The poll, conducted by Lake Research Partners for the Change to Win labor federation, found that only 16 percent of respondents believed that their children’s generation would be better off financially than their own...
...Record bonuses on Wall Street at a time when ordinary working Americans are filled with anxiety about their economic future are signs that the trickle-down phenomenon that was supposed to have benefited everyone never happened.
The rich, boosted by the not-so-invisible hand of the corporate ideologues in government, have done astonishingly well in recent decades, while the rest of the population has tended to tread water economically, or drown.
A study released last month by the Pew Charitable Trusts noted that 'for most Americans, seeing that one’s children are better off than oneself is the essence of living the American dream.' But for the past 40 years, men in their 30s, prime family-raising age, have found it difficult to outdistance their dads economically.
As the Pew study put it: 'Earnings of men in their 30s have remained surprisingly flat over the past four decades.' Family incomes have improved during that time largely because of the wholesale entrance of women into the work force.
For the very wealthy, of course, it’s been a different story. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the after-tax income of the top 1 percent rose 228 percent from 1979 through 2005.
What seems to be happening now is that working Americans, and that includes the middle class, have exhausted much of their capacity to tread water. Wives and mothers are already working. Mortgages have been refinanced and tremendous amounts of home equity drained. And families have taken on debt loads — for cars, for college tuition, for medical treatment — that would buckle the knees of the strongest pack animals...
...We’re running out of smoke and mirrors. The fundamental problem, the problem that is destroying the dream, is the extreme inequality pounded into the system by the corporate crowd and its handmaidens in government...
...When such an overwhelming portion of the economic benefits are skewed toward a tiny portion of the population — as has happened in the U.S. over the past few decades — it’s impossible for the society as a whole not to suffer.
Americans work extremely hard and are amazingly productive. But without the clout of a strong union movement, and arrayed against the mighty power of the corporations and the federal government, they don’t receive even a reasonably fair share of the economic benefits from their hard work or productivity..."
Juan Cole: Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2007
Economics:
Bob Herbert: Nightmare Before Christmas
"...Forget the turbulence in the financial markets and the subprime debacle. Forget the dark clouds of a possible recession. Bloomberg News tells us that the top securities firms are handing out nearly $38 billion in seasonal bonuses, the highest total ever.
But there’s a reason to temper the celebration, if only out of respect for an old friend who’s not doing too well. Even as the Wall Streeters are high-fiving and ordering up record shipments of Champagne and caviar, the American dream is on life-support.
I had a conversation the other day with Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union. He mentioned a poll of working families that had shown that their belief in that mythical dream that has sustained so many generations for so long is fading faster than sunlight on a December afternoon.
The poll, conducted by Lake Research Partners for the Change to Win labor federation, found that only 16 percent of respondents believed that their children’s generation would be better off financially than their own...
...Record bonuses on Wall Street at a time when ordinary working Americans are filled with anxiety about their economic future are signs that the trickle-down phenomenon that was supposed to have benefited everyone never happened.
The rich, boosted by the not-so-invisible hand of the corporate ideologues in government, have done astonishingly well in recent decades, while the rest of the population has tended to tread water economically, or drown.
A study released last month by the Pew Charitable Trusts noted that 'for most Americans, seeing that one’s children are better off than oneself is the essence of living the American dream.' But for the past 40 years, men in their 30s, prime family-raising age, have found it difficult to outdistance their dads economically.
As the Pew study put it: 'Earnings of men in their 30s have remained surprisingly flat over the past four decades.' Family incomes have improved during that time largely because of the wholesale entrance of women into the work force.
For the very wealthy, of course, it’s been a different story. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the after-tax income of the top 1 percent rose 228 percent from 1979 through 2005.
What seems to be happening now is that working Americans, and that includes the middle class, have exhausted much of their capacity to tread water. Wives and mothers are already working. Mortgages have been refinanced and tremendous amounts of home equity drained. And families have taken on debt loads — for cars, for college tuition, for medical treatment — that would buckle the knees of the strongest pack animals...
...We’re running out of smoke and mirrors. The fundamental problem, the problem that is destroying the dream, is the extreme inequality pounded into the system by the corporate crowd and its handmaidens in government...
...When such an overwhelming portion of the economic benefits are skewed toward a tiny portion of the population — as has happened in the U.S. over the past few decades — it’s impossible for the society as a whole not to suffer.
Americans work extremely hard and are amazingly productive. But without the clout of a strong union movement, and arrayed against the mighty power of the corporations and the federal government, they don’t receive even a reasonably fair share of the economic benefits from their hard work or productivity..."
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
The Environment:
The Guardian (UK) - Cheney accused of blocking Californian bid to cut car fumes
"The US vice-president, Dick Cheney, was behind a controversial decision to block California's attempt to impose tough emission limits on car manufacturers, according to insiders at the government Environmental Protection Agency.
Staff at the agency, which announced last week that California's proposed limits were redundant, said the agency's chief went against their expert advice after car executives met Cheney, and a Chrysler executive delivered a letter to the EPA saying why the state should not be allowed to regulate greenhouse gases.
EPA staff members told the Los Angeles Times that the agency's head, the Bush appointee Stephen Johnson, ignored their conclusions and shut himself off from consultation in the month before the announcement. He then informed them of his decision and instructed them to provide the legal rationale for it, they said.
'California met every criteria ... on the merits,' an anonymous member of the EPA staff told the Times. 'The same criteria we have used for the last 40 years ... We told him that. All the briefings we have given him laid out the facts.'
In an editorial, the New York Times described the decision as, 'an indefensible act of executive arrogance that can only be explained as the product of ideological blindness and as a political payoff to the automobile industry,'..."
The Guardian (UK) - Cheney accused of blocking Californian bid to cut car fumes
"The US vice-president, Dick Cheney, was behind a controversial decision to block California's attempt to impose tough emission limits on car manufacturers, according to insiders at the government Environmental Protection Agency.
Staff at the agency, which announced last week that California's proposed limits were redundant, said the agency's chief went against their expert advice after car executives met Cheney, and a Chrysler executive delivered a letter to the EPA saying why the state should not be allowed to regulate greenhouse gases.
EPA staff members told the Los Angeles Times that the agency's head, the Bush appointee Stephen Johnson, ignored their conclusions and shut himself off from consultation in the month before the announcement. He then informed them of his decision and instructed them to provide the legal rationale for it, they said.
'California met every criteria ... on the merits,' an anonymous member of the EPA staff told the Times. 'The same criteria we have used for the last 40 years ... We told him that. All the briefings we have given him laid out the facts.'
In an editorial, the New York Times described the decision as, 'an indefensible act of executive arrogance that can only be explained as the product of ideological blindness and as a political payoff to the automobile industry,'..."
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
The Race For President:
Mitt Romney is such a problem that a NH newspaper goes out of its way to publish an anti-endorsement, rather than endorsing one of Romney's opponents.
Concord Monitor Editorial (NH) - Romney should not be the next president
"If you were building a Republican presidential candidate from a kit, imagine what pieces you might use: an athletic build, ramrod posture, Reaganesque hair, a charismatic speaking style and a crisp dark suit. You'd add a beautiful wife and family, a wildly successful business career and just enough executive government experience. You'd pour in some old GOP bromides - spending cuts and lower taxes - plus some new positions for 2008: anti-immigrant rhetoric and a focus on faith.
Add it all up and you get Mitt Romney, a disquieting figure who sure looks like the next president and most surely must be stopped...
...People can change, and intransigence is not necessarily a virtue. But Romney has yet to explain this particular set of turnarounds in a way that convinces voters they are based on anything other than his own ambition.
In the 2008 campaign for president, there are numerous issues on which Romney has no record, and so voters must take him at his word. On these issues, those words are often chilling. While other candidates of both parties speak of restoring America's moral leadership in the world, Romney has said he'd like to 'double' the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, where inmates have been held for years without formal charge or access to the courts. He dodges the issue of torture - unable to say, simply, that waterboarding is torture and America won't do it.
When New Hampshire partisans are asked to defend the state's first-in-the-nation primary, we talk about our ability to see the candidates up close, ask tough questions and see through the baloney. If a candidate is a phony, we assure ourselves and the rest of the world, we'll know it.
Mitt Romney is such a candidate. New Hampshire Republicans and independents must vote no..."
Mitt Romney is such a problem that a NH newspaper goes out of its way to publish an anti-endorsement, rather than endorsing one of Romney's opponents.
Concord Monitor Editorial (NH) - Romney should not be the next president
"If you were building a Republican presidential candidate from a kit, imagine what pieces you might use: an athletic build, ramrod posture, Reaganesque hair, a charismatic speaking style and a crisp dark suit. You'd add a beautiful wife and family, a wildly successful business career and just enough executive government experience. You'd pour in some old GOP bromides - spending cuts and lower taxes - plus some new positions for 2008: anti-immigrant rhetoric and a focus on faith.
Add it all up and you get Mitt Romney, a disquieting figure who sure looks like the next president and most surely must be stopped...
...People can change, and intransigence is not necessarily a virtue. But Romney has yet to explain this particular set of turnarounds in a way that convinces voters they are based on anything other than his own ambition.
In the 2008 campaign for president, there are numerous issues on which Romney has no record, and so voters must take him at his word. On these issues, those words are often chilling. While other candidates of both parties speak of restoring America's moral leadership in the world, Romney has said he'd like to 'double' the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, where inmates have been held for years without formal charge or access to the courts. He dodges the issue of torture - unable to say, simply, that waterboarding is torture and America won't do it.
When New Hampshire partisans are asked to defend the state's first-in-the-nation primary, we talk about our ability to see the candidates up close, ask tough questions and see through the baloney. If a candidate is a phony, we assure ourselves and the rest of the world, we'll know it.
Mitt Romney is such a candidate. New Hampshire Republicans and independents must vote no..."
Sunday, December 23, 2007
The Rule of Law:
The Nation: Lawyers Stepping Up
"We are lawyers in the United States of America. As such, we have all taken an oath obligating us to defend the Constitution and the rule of law…. We believe the Bush administration has committed numerous offenses against the Constitution and may have violated federal laws…. Moreover, the administration has blatantly defied congressional subpoenas, obstructing constitutional oversight …. Thus, we call on House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy to launch hearings into the possibility that crimes have been committed by this administration in violation of the Constitution…. We call for the investigations to go where they must, including into the offices of the President and the Vice President. -- American Lawyers Defending the Constitution
Over one thousand lawyers – including former Governor Mario Cuomo and former Reagan administration official Bruce Fein – have signed onto the above statement demanding wide-ranging investigative hearings into unconstitutional and potentially criminal activity by the Bush administration.
In a conference call with reporters yesterday, Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and winner of the 2007 Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship, said: 'The majority of lawyers in this country understand that the Bush administration has really gone off the page of constitutional rights and off the page of fundamental rights, and is willing to push the Congress to restore those rights.' Ratner said he was 'dismayed' that a Democratic majority has failed 'to push on key illegalities… the torture program, and now the destruction of the tapes involving the torture program; the warrantless wiretapping, the denial of habeas corpus, the secret sites/rendition program, special trials, and of course what we now know is the firing of US Attorneys scandal…. The minimal that absolutely is needed to get us back on the page of law is to have serious investigative hearings that go up the chain of command and figure out who is responsible for what,'..."
The Nation: Lawyers Stepping Up
"We are lawyers in the United States of America. As such, we have all taken an oath obligating us to defend the Constitution and the rule of law…. We believe the Bush administration has committed numerous offenses against the Constitution and may have violated federal laws…. Moreover, the administration has blatantly defied congressional subpoenas, obstructing constitutional oversight …. Thus, we call on House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy to launch hearings into the possibility that crimes have been committed by this administration in violation of the Constitution…. We call for the investigations to go where they must, including into the offices of the President and the Vice President. -- American Lawyers Defending the Constitution
Over one thousand lawyers – including former Governor Mario Cuomo and former Reagan administration official Bruce Fein – have signed onto the above statement demanding wide-ranging investigative hearings into unconstitutional and potentially criminal activity by the Bush administration.
In a conference call with reporters yesterday, Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and winner of the 2007 Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship, said: 'The majority of lawyers in this country understand that the Bush administration has really gone off the page of constitutional rights and off the page of fundamental rights, and is willing to push the Congress to restore those rights.' Ratner said he was 'dismayed' that a Democratic majority has failed 'to push on key illegalities… the torture program, and now the destruction of the tapes involving the torture program; the warrantless wiretapping, the denial of habeas corpus, the secret sites/rendition program, special trials, and of course what we now know is the firing of US Attorneys scandal…. The minimal that absolutely is needed to get us back on the page of law is to have serious investigative hearings that go up the chain of command and figure out who is responsible for what,'..."
Thursday, December 20, 2007
On Torture:
The Raw Story: Constitutional scholar: 'At least six identifiable crimes' possible in CIA tape affair
"White House involvement in the CIA's decision to destroy videotapes documenting severe interrogation techniques of suspected terrorists could constitute as many as six crimes, according to constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley.
Turley appeared on CNN to discuss a new report from the New York Times, which indicates that four White House attorneys, including then-White House counsels Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers, participated in discussions with the CIA about whether or not the tapes should be destroyed. The talks also reportedly included David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's former counsel and current chief of staff; and former senior National Security Council lawyer John Bellinger.
'Just when you think this scandal can't get worse, it does,' the George Washington University Law School professor told CNN's John Roberts. 'I mean, this is a very significant development because it shows that this was not just some rogue operator at the CIA that destroyed evidence being sought by Congress and the courts. It shows that this was a planned destruction, that there were meetings, and those meetings extended all the way to the White House,'..."
The 2008 Race:
Do Americans who seem to increasingly like Huckabee really know who he is?
Matt Taibbi: Mike Huckabee, Our Favorite Right-Wing Nut Job
"...all the attention on his salesmanship skills obscures the real significance of his rise within the Republican Party. Mike Huckabee represents something that is either tremendously encouraging or deeply disturbing, depending on your point of view: a marriage of Christian fundamentalism with economic populism. Rather than employing the patented Bush-Rove tactic of using abortion and gay rights to hoodwink low-income Christians into supporting patrician, pro-corporate policies, Huckabee is a bigger-government Republican who emphasizes prison reform and poverty relief. In the world of GOP politics, he represents something entirely new — a cross between John Edwards and Jerry Falwell, an ordained Southern Baptist preacher who actually seems to give a shit about the working poor.
But Huckabee is also something else: full-blown nuts, a Christian goofball of the highest order. He believes the Earth may be only 6,000 years old, angrily rejects the evidence that human beings evolved from 'primates' and thinks America wouldn't need so much Mexican labor if we allowed every aborted fetus to grow up and enter the workforce. To top it off, Huckabee also left behind a record of ethical missteps in the swamp of Arkansas politics that make Whitewater seem like a jaywalking ticket..."
The Raw Story: Constitutional scholar: 'At least six identifiable crimes' possible in CIA tape affair
"White House involvement in the CIA's decision to destroy videotapes documenting severe interrogation techniques of suspected terrorists could constitute as many as six crimes, according to constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley.
Turley appeared on CNN to discuss a new report from the New York Times, which indicates that four White House attorneys, including then-White House counsels Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers, participated in discussions with the CIA about whether or not the tapes should be destroyed. The talks also reportedly included David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's former counsel and current chief of staff; and former senior National Security Council lawyer John Bellinger.
'Just when you think this scandal can't get worse, it does,' the George Washington University Law School professor told CNN's John Roberts. 'I mean, this is a very significant development because it shows that this was not just some rogue operator at the CIA that destroyed evidence being sought by Congress and the courts. It shows that this was a planned destruction, that there were meetings, and those meetings extended all the way to the White House,'..."
The 2008 Race:
Do Americans who seem to increasingly like Huckabee really know who he is?
Matt Taibbi: Mike Huckabee, Our Favorite Right-Wing Nut Job
"...all the attention on his salesmanship skills obscures the real significance of his rise within the Republican Party. Mike Huckabee represents something that is either tremendously encouraging or deeply disturbing, depending on your point of view: a marriage of Christian fundamentalism with economic populism. Rather than employing the patented Bush-Rove tactic of using abortion and gay rights to hoodwink low-income Christians into supporting patrician, pro-corporate policies, Huckabee is a bigger-government Republican who emphasizes prison reform and poverty relief. In the world of GOP politics, he represents something entirely new — a cross between John Edwards and Jerry Falwell, an ordained Southern Baptist preacher who actually seems to give a shit about the working poor.
But Huckabee is also something else: full-blown nuts, a Christian goofball of the highest order. He believes the Earth may be only 6,000 years old, angrily rejects the evidence that human beings evolved from 'primates' and thinks America wouldn't need so much Mexican labor if we allowed every aborted fetus to grow up and enter the workforce. To top it off, Huckabee also left behind a record of ethical missteps in the swamp of Arkansas politics that make Whitewater seem like a jaywalking ticket..."
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Food:
On Staph, antibiotic over-use in pig farming, and the plight of the bees.
Michael Pollan: Our Decrepit Food Factories
On Torture:
Naomi Wolf: What Is Probably in the Missing Tapes
"To judge from firsthand documents obtained by the ACLU through a FOIA lawsuit, we can guess what is probably on the missing CIA interrogation tapes — as well as understand why those implicated are spinning so hard to pretend the tapes do not document a series of evident crimes. According to the little-noticed but extraordinarily important book Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond (Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh, Columbia University Press, New York 2007), which presents dozens of original formerly secret documents - FBI emails and memos, letters and interrogator 'wish lists,' raw proof of the systemic illegal torture of detainees in various US-held prisons — the typical 'harsh interrogation' of a suspect in US custody reads like an account of abuses in archives at Yad Vashem..."
Iraq, The Neocon Legacy:
What is amazing is that Mr. Feith is not in jail for manipulating Iraq WMD 'intelligence' and stovepiping it to the Vice President's office, deliberately avoiding the normal vetting channels that lead to the DCI.
Maureen Dowd: The Dream Is Dead - New York Times
"The man crowned by Tommy Franks as 'the dumbest [expletive] guy on the planet.' just made the dumbest [expletive] speech on the planet.
Doug Feith, the former Rummy gofer who drove the neocon plan to get us into Iraq, and then dawdled without a plan as Iraq crashed into chaos, was the headliner at a reunion meeting of the wooly-headed hawks Monday night at the American Enterprise Institute...
...In 'Fiasco,' Tom Ricks wrote that Feith’s Pentagon office was dubbed the 'black hole' of policy by generals watching him drop the ball.
'People working for Feith complained that he would spend hours tweaking their memos, carefully mulling minor points of grammar,' Ricks wrote. 'A Joint Staff officer recalled angrily that at one point troops sat on a runway for hours, waiting to leave the United States on a mission, while he quibbled about commas in the deployment order.'
Jay Garner, America’s first viceroy in Iraq, deemed him 'incredibly dangerous' and said his 'electrons aren’t connected,'...
...It defies reason, but there are still some who think the chuckleheads who orchestrated the Iraq misadventure have wisdom to impart.
The Pentagon neocons dumped Condi Rice out of the loop. Yet, according to Newsweek’s Mike Isikoff, Condi has now offered Wolfie a job. It wasn’t enough that he trashed Iraq and the World Bank. (He’s still larking around town with Shaha, the sweetheart he gave the sweetheart deal to.)
Condi wants Wolfie to advise her on nuclear proliferation and W.M.D. as part of a State Department panel that has access to highly classified intelligence.
Once you’ve helped distort W.M.D. intelligence to trick the country into war, shouldn’t you be banned for life from ever having another top-level government post concerning W.M.D.?"
On Staph, antibiotic over-use in pig farming, and the plight of the bees.
Michael Pollan: Our Decrepit Food Factories
On Torture:
Naomi Wolf: What Is Probably in the Missing Tapes
"To judge from firsthand documents obtained by the ACLU through a FOIA lawsuit, we can guess what is probably on the missing CIA interrogation tapes — as well as understand why those implicated are spinning so hard to pretend the tapes do not document a series of evident crimes. According to the little-noticed but extraordinarily important book Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond (Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh, Columbia University Press, New York 2007), which presents dozens of original formerly secret documents - FBI emails and memos, letters and interrogator 'wish lists,' raw proof of the systemic illegal torture of detainees in various US-held prisons — the typical 'harsh interrogation' of a suspect in US custody reads like an account of abuses in archives at Yad Vashem..."
Iraq, The Neocon Legacy:
What is amazing is that Mr. Feith is not in jail for manipulating Iraq WMD 'intelligence' and stovepiping it to the Vice President's office, deliberately avoiding the normal vetting channels that lead to the DCI.
Maureen Dowd: The Dream Is Dead - New York Times
"The man crowned by Tommy Franks as 'the dumbest [expletive] guy on the planet.' just made the dumbest [expletive] speech on the planet.
Doug Feith, the former Rummy gofer who drove the neocon plan to get us into Iraq, and then dawdled without a plan as Iraq crashed into chaos, was the headliner at a reunion meeting of the wooly-headed hawks Monday night at the American Enterprise Institute...
...In 'Fiasco,' Tom Ricks wrote that Feith’s Pentagon office was dubbed the 'black hole' of policy by generals watching him drop the ball.
'People working for Feith complained that he would spend hours tweaking their memos, carefully mulling minor points of grammar,' Ricks wrote. 'A Joint Staff officer recalled angrily that at one point troops sat on a runway for hours, waiting to leave the United States on a mission, while he quibbled about commas in the deployment order.'
Jay Garner, America’s first viceroy in Iraq, deemed him 'incredibly dangerous' and said his 'electrons aren’t connected,'...
...It defies reason, but there are still some who think the chuckleheads who orchestrated the Iraq misadventure have wisdom to impart.
The Pentagon neocons dumped Condi Rice out of the loop. Yet, according to Newsweek’s Mike Isikoff, Condi has now offered Wolfie a job. It wasn’t enough that he trashed Iraq and the World Bank. (He’s still larking around town with Shaha, the sweetheart he gave the sweetheart deal to.)
Condi wants Wolfie to advise her on nuclear proliferation and W.M.D. as part of a State Department panel that has access to highly classified intelligence.
Once you’ve helped distort W.M.D. intelligence to trick the country into war, shouldn’t you be banned for life from ever having another top-level government post concerning W.M.D.?"
Monday, December 17, 2007
Trusting The Vote To Questionable Technology:
These findings make the mainstream press's (non-)coverage of the voting scandal in Ohio, as well as the Democratic Party's unwillingness to legally contest the results seem all the more tragic.
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman's efforts to bring this issue to the attention of the American people seem not to have been in vain. Will the People pay attention?
NY Times: Ohio Elections Official Calls Machines Flawed
"All five voting systems used in Ohio, a state whose electoral votes narrowly swung two elections toward President Bush, have critical flaws that could undermine the integrity of the 2008 general election, a report commissioned by the state’s top elections official has found.'It was worse than I anticipated,' the official, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, said of the report. 'I had hoped that perhaps one system would test superior to the others.'
At polling stations, teams working on the study were able to pick locks to access memory cards and use hand-held devices to plug false vote counts into machines. At boards of election, they were able to introduce malignant software into servers.
Ms. Brunner proposed replacing all of the state’s voting machines, including the touch-screen ones used in more than 50 of Ohio’s 88 counties. She wants all counties to use optical scan machines that read and electronically record paper ballots that are filled in manually by voters..."
The Rule of Law:
This move by Team Bush is thinly-veiled means to gain leverage over the U.S military's JAG corps. It was the JAGs who stood in opposition to various (illegal) Administration policies: torture and indefinite detention without access to a judge, legal counsel, or evidence. So, tie a JAGs promotion path to his/her actions being 'in line' with the course set by The Decider, and they'll be less likely to do foolish things like considering the law to inform themselves...
The Boston Globe: Bush administration pushes for control of promotions of military lawyers
"The Bush administration is pushing to take control of the promotions of military lawyers, escalating a conflict over the independence of uniformed attorneys who have repeatedly raised objections to the White House's policies toward prisoners in the war on terrorism.
The administration has proposed a regulation requiring 'coordination' with politically appointed Pentagon lawyers before any member of the Judge Advocate General corps - the military's 4,000-member uniformed legal force - can be promoted.
A Pentagon spokeswoman did not respond to questions about the reasoning behind the proposed regulations. But the requirement of coordination - which many former JAGs say would give the administration veto power over any JAG promotion or appointment - is consistent with past administration efforts to impose greater control over the military lawyers..."
These findings make the mainstream press's (non-)coverage of the voting scandal in Ohio, as well as the Democratic Party's unwillingness to legally contest the results seem all the more tragic.
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman's efforts to bring this issue to the attention of the American people seem not to have been in vain. Will the People pay attention?
NY Times: Ohio Elections Official Calls Machines Flawed
"All five voting systems used in Ohio, a state whose electoral votes narrowly swung two elections toward President Bush, have critical flaws that could undermine the integrity of the 2008 general election, a report commissioned by the state’s top elections official has found.'It was worse than I anticipated,' the official, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, said of the report. 'I had hoped that perhaps one system would test superior to the others.'
At polling stations, teams working on the study were able to pick locks to access memory cards and use hand-held devices to plug false vote counts into machines. At boards of election, they were able to introduce malignant software into servers.
Ms. Brunner proposed replacing all of the state’s voting machines, including the touch-screen ones used in more than 50 of Ohio’s 88 counties. She wants all counties to use optical scan machines that read and electronically record paper ballots that are filled in manually by voters..."
The Rule of Law:
This move by Team Bush is thinly-veiled means to gain leverage over the U.S military's JAG corps. It was the JAGs who stood in opposition to various (illegal) Administration policies: torture and indefinite detention without access to a judge, legal counsel, or evidence. So, tie a JAGs promotion path to his/her actions being 'in line' with the course set by The Decider, and they'll be less likely to do foolish things like considering the law to inform themselves...
The Boston Globe: Bush administration pushes for control of promotions of military lawyers
"The Bush administration is pushing to take control of the promotions of military lawyers, escalating a conflict over the independence of uniformed attorneys who have repeatedly raised objections to the White House's policies toward prisoners in the war on terrorism.
The administration has proposed a regulation requiring 'coordination' with politically appointed Pentagon lawyers before any member of the Judge Advocate General corps - the military's 4,000-member uniformed legal force - can be promoted.
A Pentagon spokeswoman did not respond to questions about the reasoning behind the proposed regulations. But the requirement of coordination - which many former JAGs say would give the administration veto power over any JAG promotion or appointment - is consistent with past administration efforts to impose greater control over the military lawyers..."
A View From Russia:
While Russia is no model of democracy, the comments here are interesting for their hegemonic view of U.S. policy toward control over regions & resources.
Leonid IVASHOV: What We Should Expect From Hillary Clinton
"Hillary Clinton, the wife of the former US President Bill Clinton and a 2008 presidential race favorite recently unveiled her international politics agenda in a paper in Foreign Affairs. (Hillary Rodham Clinton. Security and Opportunity for the Twenty-first Century. Foreign Affairs, November/December, 2007). The publication provides a fairly critical account of a number of aspects of G. Bush's presidency.
A wind of change in the US foreign politics? Hardly so. The analysis of the criticism directed at the Republican Administration by H. Clinton and of the plans drawn in her paper shows that no radical changes in Washington's global strategy can be expected in the foreseeable future.
What H. Clinton criticizes G. Bush and his administration for is by no means their tendency towards global dominance or the underlying strategy formulated by the US Congress in 2005 as 'gaining an unobstructed access to the world's key regions, strategic communications, and global resources' (in other words, gaining control over all of the above).
The US quest for global hegemony has persisted for over a century. Only methods do evolve...
...H. Clinton stresses that leadership is 'based on respect more than fear', while also explaining that 'there is a time for force and a time for diplomacy'. In other words, initially the US interests must be promoted with the help of civilian means (as it was in the case of S. Milosevic), and later comes the time to resort to force (as in the cases of Serbs, Iraqis, etc).
H. Clinton's loud phrases concerning the peace plan for Iraq and the withdrawal of the US troops from the country are immediately offset by the statement that '...we will have to replenish American power by getting out of Iraq, rebuilding our military, and developing a much broader arsenal of tools in the fight against terrorism'. The reasoning is the same as that of G. Bush. Consequently, we should expect to see point strikes against Al-Qaeda (a truly universal pretext) and some other terrorist groups, whose names are not hard to invent no matter what country is being dealt with. Consequently, US military bases will remain in the Iraqi Kurdistan even after their withdrawal from the southern and central parts of Iraq. By the way, G. Bush is already creating the infrastructure for deploying the US troops in Kurdistan, perhaps as a gift to give his successor.
One can discern only minor divergences in H. Clinton's and G. Bush's approaches to building up the US military might...
...Finally, what's new in H. Clinton's approach to the Russian-US relations? Her opinion is that Russia is among the countries which '... are not adversaries but that are challenging the United States on many fronts'. The contentious issues include Kosovo, the alleged use of fuel supplies as the political leverage against Russia's CIS neighbors, and Russia's trying the patience of the US and Europe in what concerns nonproliferation and arms control (the latter is a clear reference to Russia's freezing its participation in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), which was defunct anyhow).
And, of course, Mrs. Clinton criticizes V. Putin who has 'suppressed many of the freedoms won after the fall of communism'. She finds it inconceivable that Russia and the US might adhere to different interpretations of democracy and that Russia will never opt for the 'US-style' democracy. Nevertheless, she is convinced that Russia should be engaged in resolving the international problems important to the US. Thus, the role reserved for Russia is that of an assistant (Moscow's having a strategy of its own must be something impossible to imagine).
Speaking of H. Clinton's foreign relations agenda, one concludes that the US goals in international politics have not changed over decades. Therefore, it does not make a great difference who exactly moves into the White House..."
While Russia is no model of democracy, the comments here are interesting for their hegemonic view of U.S. policy toward control over regions & resources.
Leonid IVASHOV: What We Should Expect From Hillary Clinton
"Hillary Clinton, the wife of the former US President Bill Clinton and a 2008 presidential race favorite recently unveiled her international politics agenda in a paper in Foreign Affairs. (Hillary Rodham Clinton. Security and Opportunity for the Twenty-first Century. Foreign Affairs, November/December, 2007). The publication provides a fairly critical account of a number of aspects of G. Bush's presidency.
A wind of change in the US foreign politics? Hardly so. The analysis of the criticism directed at the Republican Administration by H. Clinton and of the plans drawn in her paper shows that no radical changes in Washington's global strategy can be expected in the foreseeable future.
What H. Clinton criticizes G. Bush and his administration for is by no means their tendency towards global dominance or the underlying strategy formulated by the US Congress in 2005 as 'gaining an unobstructed access to the world's key regions, strategic communications, and global resources' (in other words, gaining control over all of the above).
The US quest for global hegemony has persisted for over a century. Only methods do evolve...
...H. Clinton stresses that leadership is 'based on respect more than fear', while also explaining that 'there is a time for force and a time for diplomacy'. In other words, initially the US interests must be promoted with the help of civilian means (as it was in the case of S. Milosevic), and later comes the time to resort to force (as in the cases of Serbs, Iraqis, etc).
H. Clinton's loud phrases concerning the peace plan for Iraq and the withdrawal of the US troops from the country are immediately offset by the statement that '...we will have to replenish American power by getting out of Iraq, rebuilding our military, and developing a much broader arsenal of tools in the fight against terrorism'. The reasoning is the same as that of G. Bush. Consequently, we should expect to see point strikes against Al-Qaeda (a truly universal pretext) and some other terrorist groups, whose names are not hard to invent no matter what country is being dealt with. Consequently, US military bases will remain in the Iraqi Kurdistan even after their withdrawal from the southern and central parts of Iraq. By the way, G. Bush is already creating the infrastructure for deploying the US troops in Kurdistan, perhaps as a gift to give his successor.
One can discern only minor divergences in H. Clinton's and G. Bush's approaches to building up the US military might...
...Finally, what's new in H. Clinton's approach to the Russian-US relations? Her opinion is that Russia is among the countries which '... are not adversaries but that are challenging the United States on many fronts'. The contentious issues include Kosovo, the alleged use of fuel supplies as the political leverage against Russia's CIS neighbors, and Russia's trying the patience of the US and Europe in what concerns nonproliferation and arms control (the latter is a clear reference to Russia's freezing its participation in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), which was defunct anyhow).
And, of course, Mrs. Clinton criticizes V. Putin who has 'suppressed many of the freedoms won after the fall of communism'. She finds it inconceivable that Russia and the US might adhere to different interpretations of democracy and that Russia will never opt for the 'US-style' democracy. Nevertheless, she is convinced that Russia should be engaged in resolving the international problems important to the US. Thus, the role reserved for Russia is that of an assistant (Moscow's having a strategy of its own must be something impossible to imagine).
Speaking of H. Clinton's foreign relations agenda, one concludes that the US goals in international politics have not changed over decades. Therefore, it does not make a great difference who exactly moves into the White House..."
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Economics:
Paul Krugman: After the Money’s Gone
"On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve announced plans to lend $40 billion to banks. By my count, it’s the fourth high-profile attempt to rescue the financial system since things started falling apart about five months ago. Maybe this one will do the trick, but I wouldn’t count on it.
In past financial crises — the stock market crash of 1987, the aftermath of Russia’s default in 1998 — the Fed has been able to wave its magic wand and make market turmoil disappear. But this time the magic isn’t working.
Why not? Because the problem with the markets isn’t just a lack of liquidity — there’s also a fundamental problem of solvency...
...How will it all end? Markets won’t start functioning normally until investors are reasonably sure that they know where the bodies — I mean, the bad debts — are buried. And that probably won’t happen until house prices have finished falling and financial institutions have come clean about all their losses. All of this will probably take years.
Meanwhile, anyone who expects the Fed or anyone else to come up with a plan that makes this financial crisis just go away will be sorely disappointed."
Iran NIE:
From what I have been reading, the recent NIE is the U.S. intelligence community finding its spine, rather than once more being used by Cheney & Co. to start another war of choice.
The hawks in Israel and their alles in the White House/Pentagon are not happy with the change of course.
AP: Israel: US report on Iran may spark war
"Israel's public security minister warned Saturday that a U.S. intelligence report that said Iran is no longer developing nuclear arms could lead to a regional war that would threaten the Jewish state..."
Paul Krugman: After the Money’s Gone
"On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve announced plans to lend $40 billion to banks. By my count, it’s the fourth high-profile attempt to rescue the financial system since things started falling apart about five months ago. Maybe this one will do the trick, but I wouldn’t count on it.
In past financial crises — the stock market crash of 1987, the aftermath of Russia’s default in 1998 — the Fed has been able to wave its magic wand and make market turmoil disappear. But this time the magic isn’t working.
Why not? Because the problem with the markets isn’t just a lack of liquidity — there’s also a fundamental problem of solvency...
...How will it all end? Markets won’t start functioning normally until investors are reasonably sure that they know where the bodies — I mean, the bad debts — are buried. And that probably won’t happen until house prices have finished falling and financial institutions have come clean about all their losses. All of this will probably take years.
Meanwhile, anyone who expects the Fed or anyone else to come up with a plan that makes this financial crisis just go away will be sorely disappointed."
Iran NIE:
From what I have been reading, the recent NIE is the U.S. intelligence community finding its spine, rather than once more being used by Cheney & Co. to start another war of choice.
The hawks in Israel and their alles in the White House/Pentagon are not happy with the change of course.
AP: Israel: US report on Iran may spark war
"Israel's public security minister warned Saturday that a U.S. intelligence report that said Iran is no longer developing nuclear arms could lead to a regional war that would threaten the Jewish state..."
Saturday, December 15, 2007
The Rule Of Law:
The Raw Story: Spurned by major newspapers, Dem Congressman takes 'Impeach Cheney' appeal to Web
"As the House Judiciary Committee continues to refuse any action on proposals to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney, three of that panel's members tried to take their case to influential op-ed pages of the nation's largest newspapers.
They were turned down by every one -- including the New York Times, Washington Post and Miami Herald -- so now one of the lawmakers has taken his campaign to the Internet.
Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) on Friday launched a new Web site, WexlerWantsHearings.com to advance his call to impeach Cheney. The site hosts an op-ed article censored by the nation's major newspapers and outlines the case for impeaching Cheney.
'The truth is the mainstream media have no interest in this issue,' Wexler said Friday.
'They have bought into the notion that impeachment hearings are outside the bounds of what the congress ought to be doing,' the six-term Congressman elaborated during a conference call Friday..."
The Raw Story: MSNBC: How Bush became a government unto himself
"Dan Abrams examined the Bush administration's unprecedented use of signing statements in the second installment of his week-long MSNBC series on 'Bush League Justice.'
'President Bush doesn't like to veto laws,' Abrams began. 'He doesn't have to. Since he took office, he's been attaching conditions to laws already passed by Congress, allowing him to essentially disobey the will of Congress and dramatically expand his own power.'
Bush has issued 1100 signing statements -- almost twice as many as all previous presidents put together -- often completely reversing the intended effect of legislation. For example, when Congress voted overwhelmingly to ban torture, Bush announced that this would 'make it clear to the world that this government does not torture.' Two weeks later, he added a signing statement to the bill that allowed him to ignore it.
Similarly, when a bill required the Justice Department to report to Congress on the use of the Patriot Act, Bush added a proviso that he could override this requirement any time he thought necessary..."
Managing Public Opinion With Propaganda:
Wikileaks: Wikileaks busts Gitmo propaganda team
"The US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has been caught conducting covert propaganda attacks on the internet. The attacks, exposed this week in a report by the government transparency group Wikileaks, include deleting detainee ID numbers from Wikipedia last month, the systematic posting of unattributed 'self praise' comments on news organization web sites in response to negative press, boosting pro-Guantanamo stories on the internet news site Digg and even modifying Fidel Castro's encyclopedia article to describe the Cuban president as 'an admitted transexual' [sic].
Shayana Kadidal, Managing Attorney of the Center for Constitutional Rights Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative, said in response to the report:
'The military's efforts to alter the record by vandalizing Wikipedia are of a piece with the amateurism of their other public relations efforts: [such as] their ridiculous claims that released detainees who criticize the United States in the media have 'returned to the battlefield'.'
In response to a statement by Lt. Col. Bush of the Guantanamo Public Affairs office to the New York Daily News denying the charges, Wikileaks asked noted computer security expert Bruce Schniener to independently review the material:
'Based on the evidence, it is obvious that these changes came from people stationed at Guantanomo Bay.The only other possibility is that someone hacked into the Guantanomo Bay computers in an effort to frame the U.S. government; certainly possible but much less likely,'..."
The Raw Story: Spurned by major newspapers, Dem Congressman takes 'Impeach Cheney' appeal to Web
"As the House Judiciary Committee continues to refuse any action on proposals to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney, three of that panel's members tried to take their case to influential op-ed pages of the nation's largest newspapers.
They were turned down by every one -- including the New York Times, Washington Post and Miami Herald -- so now one of the lawmakers has taken his campaign to the Internet.
Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) on Friday launched a new Web site, WexlerWantsHearings.com to advance his call to impeach Cheney. The site hosts an op-ed article censored by the nation's major newspapers and outlines the case for impeaching Cheney.
'The truth is the mainstream media have no interest in this issue,' Wexler said Friday.
'They have bought into the notion that impeachment hearings are outside the bounds of what the congress ought to be doing,' the six-term Congressman elaborated during a conference call Friday..."
The Raw Story: MSNBC: How Bush became a government unto himself
"Dan Abrams examined the Bush administration's unprecedented use of signing statements in the second installment of his week-long MSNBC series on 'Bush League Justice.'
'President Bush doesn't like to veto laws,' Abrams began. 'He doesn't have to. Since he took office, he's been attaching conditions to laws already passed by Congress, allowing him to essentially disobey the will of Congress and dramatically expand his own power.'
Bush has issued 1100 signing statements -- almost twice as many as all previous presidents put together -- often completely reversing the intended effect of legislation. For example, when Congress voted overwhelmingly to ban torture, Bush announced that this would 'make it clear to the world that this government does not torture.' Two weeks later, he added a signing statement to the bill that allowed him to ignore it.
Similarly, when a bill required the Justice Department to report to Congress on the use of the Patriot Act, Bush added a proviso that he could override this requirement any time he thought necessary..."
Managing Public Opinion With Propaganda:
Wikileaks: Wikileaks busts Gitmo propaganda team
"The US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has been caught conducting covert propaganda attacks on the internet. The attacks, exposed this week in a report by the government transparency group Wikileaks, include deleting detainee ID numbers from Wikipedia last month, the systematic posting of unattributed 'self praise' comments on news organization web sites in response to negative press, boosting pro-Guantanamo stories on the internet news site Digg and even modifying Fidel Castro's encyclopedia article to describe the Cuban president as 'an admitted transexual' [sic].
Shayana Kadidal, Managing Attorney of the Center for Constitutional Rights Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative, said in response to the report:
'The military's efforts to alter the record by vandalizing Wikipedia are of a piece with the amateurism of their other public relations efforts: [such as] their ridiculous claims that released detainees who criticize the United States in the media have 'returned to the battlefield'.'
In response to a statement by Lt. Col. Bush of the Guantanamo Public Affairs office to the New York Daily News denying the charges, Wikileaks asked noted computer security expert Bruce Schniener to independently review the material:
'Based on the evidence, it is obvious that these changes came from people stationed at Guantanomo Bay.The only other possibility is that someone hacked into the Guantanomo Bay computers in an effort to frame the U.S. government; certainly possible but much less likely,'..."
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
The White House:
The Austin Chronicle: The Improbable Rise of Dana Perino: Bush's spokeswoman was a very little gal with a very big dream
Big Oil:
Greg Palast: War Paint and Lawyers: Rainforest Indians versus Big Oil
"BBC Television Newsnight has been able to get close-in film of a new Cofan Indian ritual deep in the heart of the Amazonian rainforest. Known as 'The Filing of the Law Suit,' natives of Ecuador’s jungle, decked in feathers and war paint and heavily armed with lawyers, are filmed presenting a new complaint in their litigation seeking $12 billion from Chevron Inc., the international oil goliath...
...The Cofan’s leader, Emergildo Criollo, tells Palast that when Texaco Oil, now part of Chevron, came to the village in 1972, it obtained permission to drill by offering the Indians candy and cheese. The indigenous folk threw the funny-selling cheese into the jungle.
Criollo says his three-year son died from oil contamination after, 'He went swimming, then began vomiting blood.'
Flying out of the rainforest, past the Andes volcanoes, Palast gets the other side of the story in Ecuador’s capitol, Quito. 'It’s the largest fraud in history!' asserts Chevron lawyer Jaime Varela reacting to the Cofan law suits against his company. Chevron-Texaco, Varela insists, cleaned up all its contaminated oil pits when it abandoned the country nearly 15 years ago - except those pits it left in the hands of Ecuador’s own state oil company.
What about the Indian kids dying of cancer? Texaco lawyer Rodrigo Perez asks, 'And it’s the only case of cancer in the world? How many cases of children with cancer do you have in the States, in Europe, in Quito? If there is somebody with cancer there, [the Cofan parents] must prove [the deaths were] caused by crude or by petroleum industry. And, second, they have to prove that it is OUR crude – which is absolutely impossible.' The Texaco man stated, 'Scientifically, nobody has proved that crude causes cancer.'
Even if the Indians can prove their case and win billions to clean up the jungle, collecting the cash is another matter. Chevron has removed all its assets from Ecuador..."
The Austin Chronicle: The Improbable Rise of Dana Perino: Bush's spokeswoman was a very little gal with a very big dream
Big Oil:
Greg Palast: War Paint and Lawyers: Rainforest Indians versus Big Oil
"BBC Television Newsnight has been able to get close-in film of a new Cofan Indian ritual deep in the heart of the Amazonian rainforest. Known as 'The Filing of the Law Suit,' natives of Ecuador’s jungle, decked in feathers and war paint and heavily armed with lawyers, are filmed presenting a new complaint in their litigation seeking $12 billion from Chevron Inc., the international oil goliath...
...The Cofan’s leader, Emergildo Criollo, tells Palast that when Texaco Oil, now part of Chevron, came to the village in 1972, it obtained permission to drill by offering the Indians candy and cheese. The indigenous folk threw the funny-selling cheese into the jungle.
Criollo says his three-year son died from oil contamination after, 'He went swimming, then began vomiting blood.'
Flying out of the rainforest, past the Andes volcanoes, Palast gets the other side of the story in Ecuador’s capitol, Quito. 'It’s the largest fraud in history!' asserts Chevron lawyer Jaime Varela reacting to the Cofan law suits against his company. Chevron-Texaco, Varela insists, cleaned up all its contaminated oil pits when it abandoned the country nearly 15 years ago - except those pits it left in the hands of Ecuador’s own state oil company.
What about the Indian kids dying of cancer? Texaco lawyer Rodrigo Perez asks, 'And it’s the only case of cancer in the world? How many cases of children with cancer do you have in the States, in Europe, in Quito? If there is somebody with cancer there, [the Cofan parents] must prove [the deaths were] caused by crude or by petroleum industry. And, second, they have to prove that it is OUR crude – which is absolutely impossible.' The Texaco man stated, 'Scientifically, nobody has proved that crude causes cancer.'
Even if the Indians can prove their case and win billions to clean up the jungle, collecting the cash is another matter. Chevron has removed all its assets from Ecuador..."
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Iraq:
UPI: Big Oil to Sign Iraq Deals Soon
"Big Oil's big dreams are close to coming true as Iraq's Oil Ministry prepares deals for the country's largest oil fields with terms that aren't necessarily what companies were hoping for but considered a foot in the door of the world's most promising oil sector.
Iraq's proven oil reserves are only smaller than those in Saudi Arabia and Iran -- and the country is only about 30 percent explored.
Iraq produces about 2.4 million barrels per day, a recent increase from the 2 million bpd post-invasion average, but far below what its reserves could handle. Its oil sector is suffering from decades of Saddam Hussein-era mismanagement, U.N. sanctions and the effects of the current war. The decision of how to develop a resource that provides for nearly the entire federal budget is political and controversial. To each side's alarm, the national government will rely on a Saddam-era law and Iraq's Kurdish region is signing deals on its own.
Details of negotiations between the ministry and international oil majors are being kept quiet, though media are picking up on pieces of deal-making.
MarketWatch reports executives from BP and Shell were to meet with Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani following Wednesday's meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in Abu Dhabi. The global energy information firm Platts reports top ministry and company officials are to meet in Amman this week..."
ABC News: Victim: Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR
"A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.
Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.
'Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston,' Jones says she was told.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave..."
Economics:
Paul Krugman: Henry Paulson's Priorities
"By Bush administration standards, Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, is a good guy. He isn't conspicuously incompetent; and he isn't trying to mislead us into war, justify torture or protect corrupt contractors.
But Mr. Paulson's actions reflect the priorities of the administration he serves. And that, ultimately, is what's wrong with the mortgage relief plan he unveiled last week.
The plan is, as a Times editorial put it yesterday, 'too little, too late and too voluntary.' But from the administration's point of view these failings aren't bugs, they're features.
In fact, there's a growing consensus among financial observers that the Paulson plan isn't mainly intended to achieve real results. The point is, instead, to create the appearance of action, thereby undercutting political support for actual attempts to help families in trouble.
In particular, the Paulson plan is probably an attempt to take the wind out of Barney Frank's sails. Mr. Frank, the Democratic chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has sponsored legislation that would give judges in bankruptcy cases the ability to rewrite mortgage loan terms. But 'Bankers Hope Bush Subprime Plan Will Scuttle House Bill,' as a headline in CongressDaily put it.
As Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard bankruptcy expert, puts it, 'The administration's subprime mortgage plan is the bank lobby's dream.' Given the Bush record, that should come as no surprise..."
UPI: Big Oil to Sign Iraq Deals Soon
"Big Oil's big dreams are close to coming true as Iraq's Oil Ministry prepares deals for the country's largest oil fields with terms that aren't necessarily what companies were hoping for but considered a foot in the door of the world's most promising oil sector.
Iraq's proven oil reserves are only smaller than those in Saudi Arabia and Iran -- and the country is only about 30 percent explored.
Iraq produces about 2.4 million barrels per day, a recent increase from the 2 million bpd post-invasion average, but far below what its reserves could handle. Its oil sector is suffering from decades of Saddam Hussein-era mismanagement, U.N. sanctions and the effects of the current war. The decision of how to develop a resource that provides for nearly the entire federal budget is political and controversial. To each side's alarm, the national government will rely on a Saddam-era law and Iraq's Kurdish region is signing deals on its own.
Details of negotiations between the ministry and international oil majors are being kept quiet, though media are picking up on pieces of deal-making.
MarketWatch reports executives from BP and Shell were to meet with Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani following Wednesday's meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in Abu Dhabi. The global energy information firm Platts reports top ministry and company officials are to meet in Amman this week..."
ABC News: Victim: Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR
"A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.
Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.
'Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston,' Jones says she was told.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave..."
Economics:
Paul Krugman: Henry Paulson's Priorities
"By Bush administration standards, Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, is a good guy. He isn't conspicuously incompetent; and he isn't trying to mislead us into war, justify torture or protect corrupt contractors.
But Mr. Paulson's actions reflect the priorities of the administration he serves. And that, ultimately, is what's wrong with the mortgage relief plan he unveiled last week.
The plan is, as a Times editorial put it yesterday, 'too little, too late and too voluntary.' But from the administration's point of view these failings aren't bugs, they're features.
In fact, there's a growing consensus among financial observers that the Paulson plan isn't mainly intended to achieve real results. The point is, instead, to create the appearance of action, thereby undercutting political support for actual attempts to help families in trouble.
In particular, the Paulson plan is probably an attempt to take the wind out of Barney Frank's sails. Mr. Frank, the Democratic chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has sponsored legislation that would give judges in bankruptcy cases the ability to rewrite mortgage loan terms. But 'Bankers Hope Bush Subprime Plan Will Scuttle House Bill,' as a headline in CongressDaily put it.
As Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard bankruptcy expert, puts it, 'The administration's subprime mortgage plan is the bank lobby's dream.' Given the Bush record, that should come as no surprise..."
Monday, December 10, 2007
The Iran NIE:
Keith Olbermann: "Neocon Job"
That the American mainstream press has let this episode slide is simply incredible.
'Video'
"Finally, as promised, a Special Comment about the president's cataclysmic deception about Iran.
There are few choices more terrifying than the one Mr. Bush has left us with tonight.
We have either a president who is too dishonest to restrain himself from invoking World War Three about Iran at least six weeks after he had to have known that the analogy would be fantastic, irresponsible hyperbole - or we have a president too transcendently stupid not to have asked - at what now appears to have been a series of opportunities to do so - whether the fairy tales he either created or was fed, were still even remotely plausible.
A pathological presidential liar, or an idiot-in-chief. It is the nightmare scenario of political science fiction: A critical juncture in our history and, contained in either answer, a president manifestly unfit to serve, and behind him in the vice presidency: an unapologetic war-monger who has long been seeing a world visible only to himself.
After Ms. Perino's announcement from the White House late last night, the timeline is inescapable and clear.
In August the president was told by his hand-picked Major Domo of intelligence Mike McConnell, a flinty, high-strung-looking, worrying-warrior who will always see more clouds than silver linings, that what 'everybody thought' about Iran might be, in essence, crap.
Yet on October 17th the President said of Iran and its president Ahmadinejad:
'I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War Three, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon.'
And as he said that, Mr. Bush knew that at bare minimum there was a strong chance that his rhetoric was nothing more than words with which to scare the Iranians.
Or was it, Sir, to scare the Americans?...
...Would that we could let this president off the hook by seeing him only as marionette or moron.
But a study of the mutation of his language about Iran proves that though he may not be very good at it, he is, himself, still a manipulative, Machiavellian, snake-oil salesman.
The Bushian etymology was tracked by Dan Froomkin at the Washington Post's website.
It is staggering.
March 31st: 'Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon ...'
June 5th: 'Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons ...'
June 19th: 'Consequences to the Iranian government if they continue to pursue a nuclear weapon ...'
July 12th: 'The same regime in Iran that is pursuing nuclear weapons ..."
August 6th: 'This is a government that has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon ...'
Notice a pattern?
Trying to develop, build or pursue a nuclear weapon.
Then, sometime between August 6th and August 9th, those terms are suddenly swapped out, so subtly that only in retrospect can we see that somebody has warned the president, not only that he has gone out too far on the limb of terror - but there may not even be a tree there ...
McConnell, or someone, must have briefed him then.
August 9th: "They have expressed their desire to be able to enrich uranium, which we believe is a step toward having a nuclear weapons program ..."
August 28th: 'Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons ...'
October 4th: 'You should not have the know-how on how to make a (nuclear) weapon ...'
October 17th: 'Until they suspend and/or make it clear that they, that their statements aren't real, yeah, I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in order to make a nuclear weapon.'
Before August 9th, it's: Trying to develop, build or pursue a nuclear weapon.
After August 9th, it's: Desire, pursuit, want ... knowledge, technology, know-how to enrich uranium.
And we are to believe, Mr. Bush, that the National Intelligence Estimate this week talks of the Iranians suspending their nuclear weapons program in 2003 ...
And you talked of the Iranians suspending their nuclear weapons program on October 17th ...
And that's just a coincidence?
And we are to believe, Mr. Bush, that nobody told you any of this until last week?
Your insistence that you were not briefed on the NIE until last week might be legally true - something like 'what the definition of is is' - but with the subject matter being not interns but the threat of nuclear war.
Legally, it might save you from some war crimes trial ... but ethically, it is a lie.
It is indefensible.
You have been yelling threats into a phone for nearly four months, after the guy on the other end had already hung up.
You, Mr. Bush, are a bald-faced liar.
And more over, you have just revealed that John Bolton, and Norman Podhoretz, and the Wall Street Journal Editorial board, are also bald-faced liars..."
The 'double-standard' being made mention of below has always been implicit in the view of the Neoconservatives. Only certain countries 'can be trusted' with nuclear weapons, even if theirs were developed outside of the NPT. The message is clear: do as we say, not as we let our friends do.
AP: Gulf Challenges US on Iran, Israel
"Gulf Arab countries challenged Defense Secretary Robert Gates on American policies toward Iran and Israel Saturday, after he urged them to force Tehran to stop uranium enrichment.
Several delegates at the regional security conference in Bahrain said U.S. was hypocritical for supporting Israeli nuclear weapons, and questioned Washington's refusal to meet with Iran to discuss the Islamic state's nuclear activities.
'Not considering Israel a threat to security in the region is considered a biased policy that is based on a double standard,' said Abdul-Rahman al-Attiyah, the secretary general of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council.
Experts have long maintained Israel has nuclear weapons, although the Jewish state refuses to confirm or deny it.
The dissent from Gulf Arab delegates highlights fissures between the United States and its Sunni Muslim allies, despite their wariness of Shiite Iran's growing influence..."
Keith Olbermann: "Neocon Job"
That the American mainstream press has let this episode slide is simply incredible.
'Video'
"Finally, as promised, a Special Comment about the president's cataclysmic deception about Iran.
There are few choices more terrifying than the one Mr. Bush has left us with tonight.
We have either a president who is too dishonest to restrain himself from invoking World War Three about Iran at least six weeks after he had to have known that the analogy would be fantastic, irresponsible hyperbole - or we have a president too transcendently stupid not to have asked - at what now appears to have been a series of opportunities to do so - whether the fairy tales he either created or was fed, were still even remotely plausible.
A pathological presidential liar, or an idiot-in-chief. It is the nightmare scenario of political science fiction: A critical juncture in our history and, contained in either answer, a president manifestly unfit to serve, and behind him in the vice presidency: an unapologetic war-monger who has long been seeing a world visible only to himself.
After Ms. Perino's announcement from the White House late last night, the timeline is inescapable and clear.
In August the president was told by his hand-picked Major Domo of intelligence Mike McConnell, a flinty, high-strung-looking, worrying-warrior who will always see more clouds than silver linings, that what 'everybody thought' about Iran might be, in essence, crap.
Yet on October 17th the President said of Iran and its president Ahmadinejad:
'I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War Three, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon.'
And as he said that, Mr. Bush knew that at bare minimum there was a strong chance that his rhetoric was nothing more than words with which to scare the Iranians.
Or was it, Sir, to scare the Americans?...
...Would that we could let this president off the hook by seeing him only as marionette or moron.
But a study of the mutation of his language about Iran proves that though he may not be very good at it, he is, himself, still a manipulative, Machiavellian, snake-oil salesman.
The Bushian etymology was tracked by Dan Froomkin at the Washington Post's website.
It is staggering.
March 31st: 'Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon ...'
June 5th: 'Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons ...'
June 19th: 'Consequences to the Iranian government if they continue to pursue a nuclear weapon ...'
July 12th: 'The same regime in Iran that is pursuing nuclear weapons ..."
August 6th: 'This is a government that has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon ...'
Notice a pattern?
Trying to develop, build or pursue a nuclear weapon.
Then, sometime between August 6th and August 9th, those terms are suddenly swapped out, so subtly that only in retrospect can we see that somebody has warned the president, not only that he has gone out too far on the limb of terror - but there may not even be a tree there ...
McConnell, or someone, must have briefed him then.
August 9th: "They have expressed their desire to be able to enrich uranium, which we believe is a step toward having a nuclear weapons program ..."
August 28th: 'Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons ...'
October 4th: 'You should not have the know-how on how to make a (nuclear) weapon ...'
October 17th: 'Until they suspend and/or make it clear that they, that their statements aren't real, yeah, I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in order to make a nuclear weapon.'
Before August 9th, it's: Trying to develop, build or pursue a nuclear weapon.
After August 9th, it's: Desire, pursuit, want ... knowledge, technology, know-how to enrich uranium.
And we are to believe, Mr. Bush, that the National Intelligence Estimate this week talks of the Iranians suspending their nuclear weapons program in 2003 ...
And you talked of the Iranians suspending their nuclear weapons program on October 17th ...
And that's just a coincidence?
And we are to believe, Mr. Bush, that nobody told you any of this until last week?
Your insistence that you were not briefed on the NIE until last week might be legally true - something like 'what the definition of is is' - but with the subject matter being not interns but the threat of nuclear war.
Legally, it might save you from some war crimes trial ... but ethically, it is a lie.
It is indefensible.
You have been yelling threats into a phone for nearly four months, after the guy on the other end had already hung up.
You, Mr. Bush, are a bald-faced liar.
And more over, you have just revealed that John Bolton, and Norman Podhoretz, and the Wall Street Journal Editorial board, are also bald-faced liars..."
The 'double-standard' being made mention of below has always been implicit in the view of the Neoconservatives. Only certain countries 'can be trusted' with nuclear weapons, even if theirs were developed outside of the NPT. The message is clear: do as we say, not as we let our friends do.
AP: Gulf Challenges US on Iran, Israel
"Gulf Arab countries challenged Defense Secretary Robert Gates on American policies toward Iran and Israel Saturday, after he urged them to force Tehran to stop uranium enrichment.
Several delegates at the regional security conference in Bahrain said U.S. was hypocritical for supporting Israeli nuclear weapons, and questioned Washington's refusal to meet with Iran to discuss the Islamic state's nuclear activities.
'Not considering Israel a threat to security in the region is considered a biased policy that is based on a double standard,' said Abdul-Rahman al-Attiyah, the secretary general of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council.
Experts have long maintained Israel has nuclear weapons, although the Jewish state refuses to confirm or deny it.
The dissent from Gulf Arab delegates highlights fissures between the United States and its Sunni Muslim allies, despite their wariness of Shiite Iran's growing influence..."
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Iraq:
The chaos the U.S. has helped to create amounts to a license to rob the U.S. taxpayer blind...
CBS News: $1B In Military Equipment Missing In Iraq
"Tractor trailers, tank recovery vehicles, crates of machine guns and rocket propelled grenades are just a sampling of more than $1 billion in unaccounted for military equipment and services provided to the Iraqi security forces, according to a new report issued today by the Pentagon Inspector General and obtained exclusively by the CBS News investigative unit. Auditors for the Inspector General reviewed equipment contracts totaling $643 million but could only find an audit trail for $83 million..."
The Iran NIE:
AFP: US reversal on Iran intel reflects breaking of the ranks: analysts
"The US reversal on Iran's nuclear weapons program has exposed a breaking of ranks within a waning administration, with US intelligence and military professionals asserting themselves on issues of war and peace, analysts said. Senior US intelligence officials said this week they were responding to new information, subjected to more rigorous analysis than in the past, in declaring with 'high confidence' that Iran halted a covert nuclear weapons program in 2003. But their willingness to set aside all previous assumptions flowed from a determination not to repeat the errors made in 2002, when bogus intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction set the United States on a course to war, they said. And unlike 2002, when US intelligence officials complained of administration pressure to 'cherry-pick' intelligence that supported going to war, the intelligence community this time has asserted its independence. 'This is ours,' a senior intelligence official said this week, telling reporters that policymakers had no input in the conclusions of the National Intelligence Estimate, as the assessment is called. The US military also increasingly has taken its own tack since the ouster of Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary, quietly but firmly distancing itself from White House saber rattling on Iran..."
On Torture:
Raw Story: White House, Justice Department, Congress told CIA not to destroy interrogation tapes
"Rep. Jane Harman said in an interview with MSNBC on Friday that she told the CIA not to destroy videotapes of the interrogation of Al Qaeda terrorist suspects. 'My view then and my view now is it was a bad idea to consider destroying any tapes, and it was a very bad idea to do it,' said California Democrat Harman, who is the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee on Intelligence and Terrorism Risk Assessment. Harman said she wrote a 'classified' letter to the CIA telling them of her opinion when she learned of the existence of these videotapes in 2003..."
The chaos the U.S. has helped to create amounts to a license to rob the U.S. taxpayer blind...
CBS News: $1B In Military Equipment Missing In Iraq
"Tractor trailers, tank recovery vehicles, crates of machine guns and rocket propelled grenades are just a sampling of more than $1 billion in unaccounted for military equipment and services provided to the Iraqi security forces, according to a new report issued today by the Pentagon Inspector General and obtained exclusively by the CBS News investigative unit. Auditors for the Inspector General reviewed equipment contracts totaling $643 million but could only find an audit trail for $83 million..."
The Iran NIE:
AFP: US reversal on Iran intel reflects breaking of the ranks: analysts
"The US reversal on Iran's nuclear weapons program has exposed a breaking of ranks within a waning administration, with US intelligence and military professionals asserting themselves on issues of war and peace, analysts said. Senior US intelligence officials said this week they were responding to new information, subjected to more rigorous analysis than in the past, in declaring with 'high confidence' that Iran halted a covert nuclear weapons program in 2003. But their willingness to set aside all previous assumptions flowed from a determination not to repeat the errors made in 2002, when bogus intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction set the United States on a course to war, they said. And unlike 2002, when US intelligence officials complained of administration pressure to 'cherry-pick' intelligence that supported going to war, the intelligence community this time has asserted its independence. 'This is ours,' a senior intelligence official said this week, telling reporters that policymakers had no input in the conclusions of the National Intelligence Estimate, as the assessment is called. The US military also increasingly has taken its own tack since the ouster of Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary, quietly but firmly distancing itself from White House saber rattling on Iran..."
On Torture:
Raw Story: White House, Justice Department, Congress told CIA not to destroy interrogation tapes
"Rep. Jane Harman said in an interview with MSNBC on Friday that she told the CIA not to destroy videotapes of the interrogation of Al Qaeda terrorist suspects. 'My view then and my view now is it was a bad idea to consider destroying any tapes, and it was a very bad idea to do it,' said California Democrat Harman, who is the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee on Intelligence and Terrorism Risk Assessment. Harman said she wrote a 'classified' letter to the CIA telling them of her opinion when she learned of the existence of these videotapes in 2003..."
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Targeting Iran:
...and the Intelligence Community that doesn't want to cow to pressure from the VP this time?
The New York Times: US Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work in 2003
"A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains on hold, contradicting an assessment two years ago that Tehran was working inexorably toward building a bomb.
The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to be a major factor in the tense international negotiations aimed at getting Iran to halt its nuclear energy program. Concerns about Iran were raised sharply after President Bush had suggested in October that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to 'World War III,' and Vice President Dick Cheney promised 'serious consequences' if the government in Tehran did not abandon its nuclear program.
The finding also come in the middle of a presidential campaign during which a possible military strike against Iran's nuclear program has been discussed. The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran's ultimate intentions about gaining a nuclear weapon remain unclear, but that Iran's 'decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.'
'Some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways might - if perceived by Iran's leaders as credible - prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program,' the estimate states.
The new report comes out just over five years after a deeply flawed N.I.E. concluded that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons programs and was determined to restart its nuclear program. The report led to congressional authorization for a military invasion of Iraq, although most of the N.I.E.'s conclusions turned out to be wrong. The estimate does say that Iran's ultimate goal is still to develop the capability to produce a nuclear weapon.
The national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, quickly issued a statement describing the N.I.E. as containing positive news rather than reflecting intelligence mistakes..."
Economics:
Paul Krugman: Innovating Our Way to Financial Crisis
"The financial crisis that began late last summer, then took a brief vacation in September and October, is back with a vengeance.
How bad is it? Well, I’ve never seen financial insiders this spooked — not even during the Asian crisis of 1997-98, when economic dominoes seemed to be falling all around the world.
This time, market players seem truly horrified — because they’ve suddenly realized that they don’t understand the complex financial system they created...
...Some credit markets have effectively closed up shop. Interest rates in other markets — like the London market, in which banks lend to each other — have risen even as interest rates on U.S. government debt, which is still considered safe, have plunged.
'What we are witnessing,' says Bill Gross of the bond manager Pimco, 'is essentially the breakdown of our modern-day banking system, a complex of leveraged lending so hard to understand that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke required a face-to-face refresher course from hedge fund managers in mid-August,'..."
...and the Intelligence Community that doesn't want to cow to pressure from the VP this time?
The New York Times: US Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work in 2003
"A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains on hold, contradicting an assessment two years ago that Tehran was working inexorably toward building a bomb.
The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to be a major factor in the tense international negotiations aimed at getting Iran to halt its nuclear energy program. Concerns about Iran were raised sharply after President Bush had suggested in October that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to 'World War III,' and Vice President Dick Cheney promised 'serious consequences' if the government in Tehran did not abandon its nuclear program.
The finding also come in the middle of a presidential campaign during which a possible military strike against Iran's nuclear program has been discussed. The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran's ultimate intentions about gaining a nuclear weapon remain unclear, but that Iran's 'decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.'
'Some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways might - if perceived by Iran's leaders as credible - prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program,' the estimate states.
The new report comes out just over five years after a deeply flawed N.I.E. concluded that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons programs and was determined to restart its nuclear program. The report led to congressional authorization for a military invasion of Iraq, although most of the N.I.E.'s conclusions turned out to be wrong. The estimate does say that Iran's ultimate goal is still to develop the capability to produce a nuclear weapon.
The national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, quickly issued a statement describing the N.I.E. as containing positive news rather than reflecting intelligence mistakes..."
Economics:
Paul Krugman: Innovating Our Way to Financial Crisis
"The financial crisis that began late last summer, then took a brief vacation in September and October, is back with a vengeance.
How bad is it? Well, I’ve never seen financial insiders this spooked — not even during the Asian crisis of 1997-98, when economic dominoes seemed to be falling all around the world.
This time, market players seem truly horrified — because they’ve suddenly realized that they don’t understand the complex financial system they created...
...Some credit markets have effectively closed up shop. Interest rates in other markets — like the London market, in which banks lend to each other — have risen even as interest rates on U.S. government debt, which is still considered safe, have plunged.
'What we are witnessing,' says Bill Gross of the bond manager Pimco, 'is essentially the breakdown of our modern-day banking system, a complex of leveraged lending so hard to understand that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke required a face-to-face refresher course from hedge fund managers in mid-August,'..."
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Iraq:
Jared Polis: 'Mercenaries, Missionaries, and Misfits' - Inside a Private Mercenary Compound in Iraq
"As we pulled out of the Al Rashid hotel around 6 pm, we saw smoke a few hundred yards off, and wondered why our van was made to halt at the checkpoint. Apparently a car bomb or mortar shell had gone off, so the checkpoint was closed and we could not leave the Green Zone. We waited about ten minutes, then were told to get out of the car by the “Triple Canopy” Peruvian/Corporate troops. They took us behind some bunkers. The only Spanish-speaking member of our group, I joked around with them. It was all in a day’s work for them; this is their job..."
Car Culture:
As U.S. legislators craft legislation to bring U.S. fleet efficiency to 35 MPG by 2020, it seems they're setting their sights quite low...
Car And Driver: Peugeot 308 Hybrid HDi
The "...308 Hybrid HDi...diesel-hybrid powertrain. The new 308 Hybrid HDi has a 107-hp 1.6-liter diesel engine mated to a 21-hp electric motor. On the EU combined cycle, the 308 is rated at a whopping 69 mpg. At long last, Peugeot is bringing this system to market. Production of the HDi hybrid is targeted for 2010."
Car And Driver: Mercedes-Benz F700 Concept
"As car buyers bemoan rising fuel prices, manufacturers are responding with ever more fuel-efficient vehicles. At the Frankfurt auto show, everything from the Ford ECOnetic Focus to the VW Golf BlueMotion will try to woo environmentally conscious buyers with technology designed to get more miles out of every gallon.
The same is true for Mercedes-Benz, which will use the show to unveil its DiesOtto powertrain in the F700 concept sedan (“F” denotes a research vehicle). The engine defies conventional gearhead wisdom, producing 238 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque while still managing an estimated 39 mpg—all from a 1.8-liter engine that runs on conventional gasoline—no synthetic fuels.
These impressive figures are a result of a host of new engine technologies. The basic engine is a turbocharged 1.8-liter four-cylinder with direct-injection technology. Mercedes says that experimental technology gives the car the economy and torque of a diesel engine while maintaining the performance of a gasoline engine.
The DiesOtto has a variable compression ratio (to optimize performance under different engine loads and speeds) and compression ignition (where combustion occurs without spark plugs). It might eventually feature a hybrid drive to further increase fuel savings.
Although they may sound far-fetched, these technologies aren’t without precedent. Saab has experimented with variable-compression engines, and GM recently demonstrated gasoline engines employing compression ignition.
The end result is a small, fuel-efficient engine with enough grunt to power a large car, in this case the five-door F700, which is a research vehicle similar in size to the Mercedes S-class luxury sedan.
The engine technologies demonstrated in this concept could make their way into future production Mercedes powertrains, as the automaker says it sees the DiesOtto technology package as a blueprint for the future of a gasoline engine with the fuel economy of a diesel."
Washington:
AP: White House Invokes Secrecy in Abramoff Lawsuits
"The Bush administration is laying out a new secrecy defense in an effort to end a court battle about the White House visits of now-imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
The administration agreed last year to produce all responsive records about the visits 'without redactions or claims of exemption,' according to a court order. But in a court filing Friday night, administration lawyers said that the Secret Service has identified a category of highly sensitive documents that might contain information sought in a lawsuit about Abramoff's trips to the White House.
The Justice Department, citing a Cold War-era court ruling, declared that the contents of the 'Sensitive Security Records' cannot be publicly revealed even though they could show whether Abramoff made more visits to the White House than those already acknowledged..."
In Venezuela:
Democracy Now! - Tens of Thousands Protest Chavez Proposals, Is CIA Fomenting Unrest to Challenge Referendum?
"...Welcome, Professor Petras. Can you start off by talking about what exactly this memo is? Have you actually seen it? What is it reported to say?
JAMES PETRAS: Well, I picked it up off the Venezuelan government program. It describes in some detail what the strategy of the US embassy has been, and most likely the author, Michael Middleton Steere, who’s listed as US embassy, may be a CIA operative, because he sends the report to Michael Hayden, the director of the CIA.
Now, what the memo talks about essentially is, first of all, the effectiveness of their campaign against the constitutional amendments, and it concedes that the amendment will be approved, but it does mention the fact that they’ve reduced the margin of victory by six percentage points. The second part is more interesting. It actually mentions the fact that the US strategy is what they call a 'pincer operation.' That’s the name of the document itself. It’s — 'pincer' is 'tenaza,' and it’s, first of all, to try to undermine the electoral process, the vote itself, and then secondly, once the vote goes through, if they are not able to stop the vote, is to engage in a massive campaign calling fraud and rejecting the outcome that comes from the election...
...JUAN GONZALEZ: Let me ask you, in this country, the main focus has been, obviously, in the corporate media on the attempt to do away with term limits for the president. But this is a very extensive major reform of Venezuela’s laws or its constitution. Could you talk about the various other reforms that are involved in this vote on Sunday?
JAMES PETRAS: Yes. One of them, and probably one that’s going to turn out the biggest votes for Chavez, is the universal social security coverage for many of the street vendors, domestic servants, other people that are in the so-called informal sector, which covers up to 40% of the labor force. So this 40% of the labor force will be covered now by universal social security coverage.
The second thing is the thirty-six-hour work week.
The third is the devolution of community funds directly to local neighborhood organizations and what they call communal councils, which incorporate several neighborhood councils. They will be directly funded by the federal government, instead of the money going through municipal and state governors, where a lot of it is skimmed off the top. So there’s another very positive factor.
It also will facilitate the government’s ability to expropriate property, especially large areas in the countryside that are now fallow and where you have hundreds of thousands of landless agricultural and small farmers. So it’s a way of facilitating social change.
It also stipulates that the economy will continue to be a mixed economy, with private-public, public-private associations, partnerships, as well as cooperative property. The cooperative property is largely an employment absorption sector. It doesn’t contribute that much to the GNP, but is seen as a way of absorbing the large numbers of people in the unemployment or low-paid sector..."
Jared Polis: 'Mercenaries, Missionaries, and Misfits' - Inside a Private Mercenary Compound in Iraq
"As we pulled out of the Al Rashid hotel around 6 pm, we saw smoke a few hundred yards off, and wondered why our van was made to halt at the checkpoint. Apparently a car bomb or mortar shell had gone off, so the checkpoint was closed and we could not leave the Green Zone. We waited about ten minutes, then were told to get out of the car by the “Triple Canopy” Peruvian/Corporate troops. They took us behind some bunkers. The only Spanish-speaking member of our group, I joked around with them. It was all in a day’s work for them; this is their job..."
Car Culture:
As U.S. legislators craft legislation to bring U.S. fleet efficiency to 35 MPG by 2020, it seems they're setting their sights quite low...
Car And Driver: Peugeot 308 Hybrid HDi
The "...308 Hybrid HDi...diesel-hybrid powertrain. The new 308 Hybrid HDi has a 107-hp 1.6-liter diesel engine mated to a 21-hp electric motor. On the EU combined cycle, the 308 is rated at a whopping 69 mpg. At long last, Peugeot is bringing this system to market. Production of the HDi hybrid is targeted for 2010."
Car And Driver: Mercedes-Benz F700 Concept
"As car buyers bemoan rising fuel prices, manufacturers are responding with ever more fuel-efficient vehicles. At the Frankfurt auto show, everything from the Ford ECOnetic Focus to the VW Golf BlueMotion will try to woo environmentally conscious buyers with technology designed to get more miles out of every gallon.
The same is true for Mercedes-Benz, which will use the show to unveil its DiesOtto powertrain in the F700 concept sedan (“F” denotes a research vehicle). The engine defies conventional gearhead wisdom, producing 238 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque while still managing an estimated 39 mpg—all from a 1.8-liter engine that runs on conventional gasoline—no synthetic fuels.
These impressive figures are a result of a host of new engine technologies. The basic engine is a turbocharged 1.8-liter four-cylinder with direct-injection technology. Mercedes says that experimental technology gives the car the economy and torque of a diesel engine while maintaining the performance of a gasoline engine.
The DiesOtto has a variable compression ratio (to optimize performance under different engine loads and speeds) and compression ignition (where combustion occurs without spark plugs). It might eventually feature a hybrid drive to further increase fuel savings.
Although they may sound far-fetched, these technologies aren’t without precedent. Saab has experimented with variable-compression engines, and GM recently demonstrated gasoline engines employing compression ignition.
The end result is a small, fuel-efficient engine with enough grunt to power a large car, in this case the five-door F700, which is a research vehicle similar in size to the Mercedes S-class luxury sedan.
The engine technologies demonstrated in this concept could make their way into future production Mercedes powertrains, as the automaker says it sees the DiesOtto technology package as a blueprint for the future of a gasoline engine with the fuel economy of a diesel."
Washington:
AP: White House Invokes Secrecy in Abramoff Lawsuits
"The Bush administration is laying out a new secrecy defense in an effort to end a court battle about the White House visits of now-imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
The administration agreed last year to produce all responsive records about the visits 'without redactions or claims of exemption,' according to a court order. But in a court filing Friday night, administration lawyers said that the Secret Service has identified a category of highly sensitive documents that might contain information sought in a lawsuit about Abramoff's trips to the White House.
The Justice Department, citing a Cold War-era court ruling, declared that the contents of the 'Sensitive Security Records' cannot be publicly revealed even though they could show whether Abramoff made more visits to the White House than those already acknowledged..."
In Venezuela:
Democracy Now! - Tens of Thousands Protest Chavez Proposals, Is CIA Fomenting Unrest to Challenge Referendum?
"...Welcome, Professor Petras. Can you start off by talking about what exactly this memo is? Have you actually seen it? What is it reported to say?
JAMES PETRAS: Well, I picked it up off the Venezuelan government program. It describes in some detail what the strategy of the US embassy has been, and most likely the author, Michael Middleton Steere, who’s listed as US embassy, may be a CIA operative, because he sends the report to Michael Hayden, the director of the CIA.
Now, what the memo talks about essentially is, first of all, the effectiveness of their campaign against the constitutional amendments, and it concedes that the amendment will be approved, but it does mention the fact that they’ve reduced the margin of victory by six percentage points. The second part is more interesting. It actually mentions the fact that the US strategy is what they call a 'pincer operation.' That’s the name of the document itself. It’s — 'pincer' is 'tenaza,' and it’s, first of all, to try to undermine the electoral process, the vote itself, and then secondly, once the vote goes through, if they are not able to stop the vote, is to engage in a massive campaign calling fraud and rejecting the outcome that comes from the election...
...JUAN GONZALEZ: Let me ask you, in this country, the main focus has been, obviously, in the corporate media on the attempt to do away with term limits for the president. But this is a very extensive major reform of Venezuela’s laws or its constitution. Could you talk about the various other reforms that are involved in this vote on Sunday?
JAMES PETRAS: Yes. One of them, and probably one that’s going to turn out the biggest votes for Chavez, is the universal social security coverage for many of the street vendors, domestic servants, other people that are in the so-called informal sector, which covers up to 40% of the labor force. So this 40% of the labor force will be covered now by universal social security coverage.
The second thing is the thirty-six-hour work week.
The third is the devolution of community funds directly to local neighborhood organizations and what they call communal councils, which incorporate several neighborhood councils. They will be directly funded by the federal government, instead of the money going through municipal and state governors, where a lot of it is skimmed off the top. So there’s another very positive factor.
It also will facilitate the government’s ability to expropriate property, especially large areas in the countryside that are now fallow and where you have hundreds of thousands of landless agricultural and small farmers. So it’s a way of facilitating social change.
It also stipulates that the economy will continue to be a mixed economy, with private-public, public-private associations, partnerships, as well as cooperative property. The cooperative property is largely an employment absorption sector. It doesn’t contribute that much to the GNP, but is seen as a way of absorbing the large numbers of people in the unemployment or low-paid sector..."
