Post-Holiday Situation: world's still jumbled, the cat is watching. "Nothing is true, everything is permitted."

This was an excellent holiday weekend for me, caught up with lots of people, found out who is far-flung and to where. I will not gossip about the details, but I feel like I'm properly in touch with most of my circles of friends nowadays, which makes me feel much more comfortable in my skin.

Drunk fun with the office copy machine -- who has to fix it afterwards?

NATIONAL JOURNAL: Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel
Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

The hit parade continues. More via Booman Tribune and DKos. The details are ugly and incriminating.

Tony Blair is going to pieces.

Smokin in the coal mine: Peter Gartrell wrote a story carried in quite a few papers about a program to get coal miners to quit smoking. Their lungs must be in terrible shape anyway...

Air Power in Iraq: Sudden talk that the US will withdraw ground forces and perhaps grant Iraqis the power to call in airstrikes, as Sy Hersh put in the New Yorker put it (as covered by the Guardian, Stygius, DailyKos - with terrifying bits from a CNN Hersh interview, and as always Juan Cole). Bush is having some messianic visions again, but hey, at least Ahmadi-Nejad is too.

More headline chunks: US says Iraq insurgents can be 'part of solution': US 're-evaluates' its position after initially expressed dissatisfaction with Cairo meeting statement 'right of people to resistance'. Juan Cole talks about what the insurgents told the CIA in Cairo.

In the broader context, Bush really did want al-Jazeera gone when he purportedly suggested bombing it. Crazed old neo-con Frank Gaffney approves of bombing al Jazeera. And Michael Jackson blames the Jews for his money woes.

Interesting site: DefenseTech. With regards to the Syria thing, UN chief: Arab leaders worried Syria could become the next Iraq. 19 different UAVs operate in Iraq, but how many can solve the situation? On the plus side, a UAV to deliver medical supplies has been invented.

Zarqawi-Goldstein, part 239: the great terrorist is a cartoon character. It was doubted last year. And Marshall puts a bit in on that. Less skeptical, the Zarqawi dilemma.

The Pentagon said that White Phosphorus was a chemical weapon, when Saddam was using it. How ironic. (this is the declassified doc) JawaReport on Iraq Gun Porn: Which Guns Suck, Which Guns Rock. The Rummy-Blitzer exchange is amazing.

This is sort of funny. The Weekly Standard is going to save the day and prove that Saddam had WMDs and was in fact, Osama's boyfriend. Good work. Daou gives us the ten major pro-war fallacies in case we forgot.

For the obsessively detail oriented, Lesser Neocons of L'Affaire Plame (featuring our man 'Clean Break' Wurmser). Fortunately I merely skimmed it. Raimondo cackles about the Feast of Scandal for Thanksgiving.

Raimondo also pokes around the waters of anti-Semitism that apparently are now getting somehow spun towards Chris Matthews -- as an excuse for Scooter leaking him Valerie Plame's name. I am not sure this makes sense. However, Raimondo adds that Wilson once said the following:

"The real agenda in all of this of course, was to redraw the political map of the Middle East. Now that is code, whether you like it or not, but it is code for putting into place the strategy memorandum that was done by Richard Perle and his study group in the mid-90's which was called, 'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for the Realm.' And what it is – cut to the quick – is if you take out some of these countries, some of these governments that are antagonistic to Israel then you provide the Israeli government with greater wherewithal to impose its terms and conditions upon the Palestinian people – whatever those terms and conditions might be. In other words, the road to peace in the Middle East goes through Baghdad and Damascus. Maybe Tehran. And maybe Cairo and maybe Tripoli if these guys actually have their way. Rather than going through Jerusalem."

So the anti-Clean Break Conspiracy was also anti-Semitic, which legitimatized leaking Plame's name?

Crazed Mercenaries and their video cameras: There is apparently some creepy video of Iraqi civilian cars getting blown up by the good folks at Aegis Defence Services, a privatized military firm set up Lt Col Tim Spicer -- the former director of Sandline International, a defunct company that used to sell arms to the guys in Sierra Leone, along the shadier side of geopolitics. AegisIraq.co.uk was the site the video was on. (CSM on the story)

There is of course pretty much no congressional oversight of the vast mercenary army in Iraq. (more on Aegis, Sandline and Executive Outcomes - here's even more!) The more one thinks about private armies, the more it seems like an amazingly self-reinforcing arrangement. Capitalism-squared, you might say.

Kurt Vonnegut said that terrorist die for their own self-respect. That is fairly insightful, but of course draws flack from much wiser keyboard commandos.

"What George Bush and his gang did not realise was that people fight back. Peace wasn't restored in Vietnam until we got kicked out. Everything's quiet there now."
There's a long pause before Vonnegut speaks again: "It is sweet and noble - sweet and honourable I guess it is - to die for what you believe in."
....I ask one more question: "But terrorists believe in twisted religious things, don't they? So surely that can't be right?"
"Well, they're dying for their own self-respect," Vonnegut fires back. "It's a terrible thing to deprive someone of their self-respect. It's [like] your culture is nothing, your race is nothing, you're nothing."
There's another long pause and Vonnegut's eyes suggest his mind has wandered off somewhere. Then, suddenly, he turns back to me and says: "It must be an amazing high."

The CIA wants Dr. Phil's tactics for Guantanamo. Well, maybe it's an improvement.

The UK Ministry of Defense complains that farmers are shining lights at their Apache helicopters around Dorset -- and they think this could could cause a crash. Huh.

Iran Spring?? (Foreign Policy) Realists Tighten Grip as Talks Open with Iran by Jim Lobe. Why bother getting into the gory details? But I will say that Lobe is really an excellent source on this stuff & the neo-cons. Basically the point is that the neo-cons have been discredited, and the 'realists' are getting the upper hand finally.

Washington's growing reliance on and support for regional diplomacy marks a serious setback to neo-conservatives who, long before the Iraq war, had championed the unilateral imposition of a Pax Americana in the Middle East that would put an end to what in their view constituted the chief threats to Israel's security -- Arab nationalism and Iranian theocracy.

Now, two and a half years after invading Iraq to put that peace into place, the administration finds itself seeking the support of both forces, just as the realists had warned.

Check out this huge statement that Iran purchased in the NY Times. In particular that they haven't started a war of aggression against their neighbors in 250 years. I think that the way that various parties have managed the ethnic groups on the periphery was not exactly polite over that time... either way the demonization will continue.

BBC: Doubts grow over US Afghan strategy.

Internet hug transmission: Scientists in Singapore are developing a way to 'transmit hugs' over the Internet through vibrating jackets.

The Drunkard's Guide to Poker. What if hackers ruled the world? New Firefox. Something in the ocean goes Boing.

Big Bang in Israel: It's very big news that Sharon has decided to quit the Likud Party and go for elections. Alongside this, there is a younger leftist in charge of the Labor Party now, so suddenly the meanest part of the Israeli right-wing -- the faction that opposed even the Gaza pullout -- will likely find itself without any power in the next Israeli government.

Let me press all these Haaretz headlines together into one mush. 11 Israelis injured, at least 4 Hezbollah gunmen killed in failed kidnap attempt. Hezbollah releases video footage of [last] Monday's fighting. PM to offer PA independence for security. Eyeing Likud leadership, Mofaz, Shalom lambaste Netanyahu. Israel maintains its strategic advantage, says Jaffee Center. Poll: 25% of settlers east of fence prepared to leave homes.

Oh Sharon: graphic from excellent Haartez article. "Sharon knows the Likud was not a done deal." Palestinians hopeful after political volcano. Analysis / Where politics and security meet: A very interesting bit about when Israeli internal politics and the Hezbollah thing collide in real-time. Sharon aides: PM planning far-reaching diplomatic initiatives. Ariel Sharon's new faction is a one-term party.

Settlers throw stones at Palestinian homes in Hebron. Palestinians reported that settlers cut down 200 olive trees near Nablus. Nothing quite like olive tree-based warfare.

In Israel, it's the end of the Ashkenazi era? Peretz is a Sephardi. But this I thought most interesting:

At the same time, will the end of the era of generals arrive, as well? Will the time come when the top political rank does not originate in the security forces? If the conflict with the Palestinians were to end, the entire agenda would change, and the relative advantage of the generals would be eliminated. Generals would no longer be able to move so easily between the highest echelons of the army, Mossad and Shin Bet, to the political leadership.

This is one of the reasons why the generals are in no rush to end the conflict. They know that one of the most powerful factors influencing the voters is fear. Which is why they try to frighten, to pump up the volume on threats, to brandish the Iranian missiles, to carry out targeted assassinations and to always, but always, keep the finger close to the trigger. Conversely, a civilian leader does not view the other side through the gunsight, and his chances of resolving the conflict are therefore better.

Private prisons are coming to Israel. What could go wrong? The article notes that private prisons are second only to America's high tech sector as a growth industry. A parallel thought:

"Private prisons are not the only reason for this increase, but there is no doubt that their lobbying activity is one of the reasons for the increasing stringency of punishment and the increase in the number of prisoners," says attorney Aviv Wasserman, the head of the human rights division at the Academic College of Law in Ramat Gan, whose petition to the High Court of Justice against the decision to establish a private prison here is still pending.

The UK's Foreign Office and the EU leaked a document harshly critical of expanding Jewish settlements in the Jerusalem area. The EU heads of mission around there believe that all these settlements could radicalize local Palestinians, and indeed likely cause more terrorism to occur. Yet another logical reason that settlements are totally insane. Israel calls the Foreign Office 'unrelentingly pro-Palestinian.' The document, which reflects the views of many European diplomats, specifically bears a lot on the E1 Ma'ale Adumim settlement that I detailed here a while ago.

Russian missiles: You have to love the Russians and their missiles. They have made a new one that can change around in midflight and deploy decoys. Nice.

Wow, Cunningham really knew how to take bribes with gusto. Lots of spreading probes.

Banning foreigners that the Bush Administration doesn't like: Believe it or not, a huge proportion of America's most valuable inhabitants were not born here, nor did they march in an acceptably quiet lock-step with the Nixon, Ford or Reagan Administrations when they got here.

Indeed, a common theme of American history has been blaming foreigners for their weird and subversive politics poisoning our fair landscape, so now we must understand why it was a terrible idea to let the Jews, Italians and Irish in here in the first place.

Nowadays, the Muslims threaten to pray at weird times of day here, and lecture university students on ancient battles and esoteric organizations like the Cult of the Assassins. THIS SHALL NOT STAND. And when the Irish, Hebrews, Muslims, Italians, Chinese and the Cajun French and the Koreans and the Mexicans are all finally gone, we will look around at a desolate land and wonder where all the good restaurants went.

So I heartily approve that the US is banning academics and accusing them of supporting terrorism. If we do not maintain the purity of our precious bodily fluids, then the terrorists win.

(here's a link purporting an Assassin-Al Qaeda conspiracy link, at Rotten.com of all places! Ha! Oh wait, the Assassins were Shi'a, so it's nonsense - but the structure of the secret society is interesting. Nothing's True, everything is permitted :-) )