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Another Great Moment: New York Stock Exchange chairman Grasso visits Colombia - 1999

Republican drug trafficking week continues, in spite of massive scandals rocking Washington. I am trying to put a picture together based on the recent history of drug trafficking, terrorism and the big-rolling activities of top players in Washington.

Consider 'The Real Deal: The Ultimate New Business Cold Call.' 18 February 2002
Catherine Austin Fitts, Narco-Dollars For Dummies (Part 3):
How The Money Works In The Illicit Drug Trade

A Real World Example:
NYSE's Richard Grasso and the Ultimate New Business "Cold Call"

Lest you think that my comment about the New York Stock Exchange is too strong, let's look at one event that occurred before our "war on drugs" went into high gear through Plan Colombia, banging heads over narco dollar market share in Latin America.

In late June 1999, numerous news services, including Associated Press, reported that Richard Grasso, Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange flew to Colombia to meet with a spokesperson for Raul Reyes of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), the supposed "narco terrorists" with whom we are now at war.

The purpose of the trip was "to bring a message of cooperation from U.S. financial services" and to discuss foreign investment and the future role of U.S. businesses in Colombia.

Some reading in between the lines said to me that Grasso's mission related to the continued circulation of cocaine capital through the US financial system. FARC, the Colombian rebels, were circulating their profits back into local development without the assistance of the American banking and investment system. Worse yet for the outlook for the US stock market's strength from $500 billion - $1 trillion in annual money laundering - FARC was calling for the decriminalization of cocaine.

To understand the threat of decriminalization of the drug trade, just go back to your Sam and Dave estimate and recalculate the numbers given what decriminalization does to drive BIG PERCENT back to SLIM PERCENT and what that means to Wall Street and Washington's cash flows. No narco dollars, no reinvestment into the stock markets, no campaign contributions.

It was only a few days after Grasso's trip that BBC News reported a General Accounting Office (GAO) report to Congress as saying: "Colombia's cocaine and heroin production is set to rise by as much as 50 percent as the U.S. backed drug war flounders, due largely to the growing strength of Marxist rebels"

I deduced from this incident that the liquidity of the NY Stock Exchange was sufficiently dependent on high margin cocaine profits (BIG PERCENT) that the Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange was willing for Associated Press to acknowledge he is making "cold calls" in rebel controlled peace zones in Colombian villages. "Cold calls" is what we used to call new business visits we would pay to people we had not yet done business with when I was on Wall Street.

I presume Grasso's trip was not successful in turning the cash flow tide. Hence, Plan Colombia is proceeding apace to try to move narco deposits out of FARC's control and back to the control of our traditional allies and, even if that does not work, to move Citibank's market share and that of the other large US banks and financial institutions steadily up in Latin America.

Buy Banamex anyone?

I strongly believe that the war on drugs should be suspended because the "law enforcement" isn't really separated from the "drug traffickers" at most levels. But the cynical embrace, addiction, if you will, of the financial sector to money laundering, makes up a serious problem apparently at the core of our democracy, and our foreign policy. Citigroup bought Banamex, a huge Mexican bank flush with cocaine profits, starting in the 1980s. The Feds didn't see a problem. NarcoNews won a legal battle with Citigroup / Banamex over their reporting in 2001. Those are some nice documents.

The American conservative-libertarian philosophy applied to Plan Colombia is best represented by Justin Raimondo way back before 9/11. Justin Raimondo: COLOMBIA – A VIETNAM FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM. February 7, 2000

.........THE PHONY WAR ON DRUGS

Before I go any further, let us put aside the hypocritical and completely unconvincing rhetoric about the "War on Drugs" – nobody but nobody believes a word of it. If we have to pour billions into every Third World hellhole that cultivates illegal drugs and markets them to US consumers, then we will have to invade all of South America, as well as large parts of Asia. Is the bipartisan coalition backing the Colombian adventure prepared to launch such a global war? What utter nonsense. No, our deepening intervention in Colombia has nothing to do with waging a war on drugs and everything to do with ensuring that important US corporations, such as America Online Time-Warner, involved in commercial ventures dependent on regional stability, have their investments protected – with a little help from American taxpayers. When the President of the New York Stock Exchange, Richard Grasso, travels to the isolated jungle hamlet of La Machaca to meet with Paul Reyes, Colombia's chief guerrilla commandante, what else are we to make of it?

A JUNGLE DIALOGUE

It was a remarkable occasion: Grasso and Reyes met for two and a half hours. What did they talk about? The Associated Press reported that Grasso, in 'his first visit with a rebel chief," underscored the commitment of "the world financial community " to the stalled negotiations between the rebels and the Colombian government. Here was the living symbol of the world capitalist system holding out a promise of peace and collaboration with the last of the Marxist revolutionaries holed up in his jungle hideout, and announcing that he hoped his visit would "mark the beginning of a new relationship between the FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia] and the United States." Inviting Reyes to join the global economy, he sought to reassure that this would not be a betrayal of socialism but only a refinement: "We talked about economic opportunity and how developed and developing markets around the world were broadening the participation of ownership, the democratization of capitalism." While Grasso stated that he wanted to keep his deliberations with Reyes private, the AP article went on to report that the FARC "although ostensibly Marxist," doesn't "oppose foreign investment or free market mechanisms as long as social justice is guaranteed." On the other hand, we are told that "critics of the FARC's peasant-based leadership say it is out of touch with the modern world and needs to better grasp how the international economy works." This should give us a good enough inkling of how the Grasso-Reyes dialogue went:

REYES: "The situation here is intolerable. The peasants have no land, and the elites run the show for their own profit. That is why we are fighting for socialism."

GRASSO: "Never mind all that old-fashioned Marxist stuff, we can give you socialism with cell phones – if you'll just turn your country over to us. After all, what can you do to build socialism here in this god-forbidden jungle? Listen, Paul, we're all socialists now – haven't you ever heard of the Third Way? Instead of being doctrinaire and stubborn and living in this little shanty, you and your comrades could be living it up in Bogota, investing in the stock market and talking on your cell phone. Hey, listen, why not come and visit the Stock Exchange? I'll show you around and we'll do lunch. And who knows If we're lucky, another move by the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates may send stock prices soaring – and then you can get to see real socialism in action!"

GETTING SERIOUS

Unconvinced, Reyes and his guerrillas fight on, increasingly confident that they don't have to compromise or temporize in their battle for total power. In Washington, meanwhile, the Clinton administration is getting serious, putting Colombia at the top of its foreign policy agenda – in what may perhaps ultimately prove to be the most shameful aspect of a perfectly depraved Administration..

McCAFFREY'S WAR

White House drug czar General Barry McCaffrey has become the War Party's chief publicist and spokesman in the Latin American theater of operations. As the Administration's point man, he dismissed rising complaints by top defense officials as organizational jealousy, averring that "everybody tried to get aboard this mule in Sunday's New York Times. But the same piece describes these unnamed critics as opposed to the operation per se, as not only "decidedly unenthusiastic about the military's growing role in the antidrug effort" but also gravely "worried that it may be dragged deeper into the civil war that has ravaged Colombia for almost 40 years." McCaffrey admitted that "there wasn't a huge fight among agencies over this package": what the huge fight is about is whether the mule should go forward at all, or whether it is likely to throw whomever is foolish enough to mount it.

OH NO, NOT THEIR CELL PHONES!

While the Republicans are screaming "who lost Colombia?" and General McCaffrey is pushing for the militarization of the antidrug effort, with strong Administration backing, law enforcement officials are more cynical. The Times cites anonymous officials as suggesting that the Colombian government could take measures that would cost nothing, such as "taking cellular telephones away from jailed traffickers so they cannot operate from prison." Oh, now I get it: while we send 30 sophisticated UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters to Colombia at a cost of more than $400 million, drug traffickers are making deals on their cell phones from the comfort of their Colombian jail cells........

Justice Dept "Influence of Drug Trafficking Organizations" in the United States; Various theories connecting 9/11 to Sibel Edmonds, drug money, heroin, PROMIS and those Israelis watched by the DEA

"When I ran into the drugs I was told that if I mentioned the money to the drugs around 9/11 that would be the end of me."

--Indira Singh

The 9/11 terror plot itself, intersected with the activities of a drug trafficking network of international scope, in ways that form a "crystal clear" picture of what was going on -- to quote Sibel Edmonds.

Fintan Dunne, Editor BreakForNews.com (at this link, Daniel Ellsberg's support of Edmonds is noted - Ellsberg was cool on Colbert Report this week)

SIBEL: Essentially, there is only one investigation – a very big one, an all-inclusive one. Completely by chance, I, a lowly translator, stumbled over one piece of it. But I can tell you there are a lot of people involved, a lot of ranking officials, and a lot of illegal activities that include multi-billion-dollar drug-smuggling operations, black-market nuclear sales to terrorists and unsavory regimes, you name it. And of course a lot of people from abroad are involved. It's massive. So to do this investigation, to really do it, they will have to look into everything.

CD: But you can start from anywhere –

SIBEL: That's the beauty of it. You can start from the AIPAC angle. You can start from the Plame case. You can start from my case. They all end up going to the same place, and they revolve around the same nucleus of people. There may be a lot of them, but it is one group. And they are very dangerous for all of us.

'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now', An interview with FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds by Christopher Deliso

Now THIS is what I call a map. This comes directly from the National Drug Intelligence Center in the Department of Justice, National Drug Threat Assessment 2006, January 2006. Today I'm going to post a lot of stuff that I certainly don't consider the Gospel Truth. It's purely for your careful consideration with barrels of salt. So let's kick things off with the DOJ:

And this is just funny. I suspect the purple patches are notorious 'rebel zones' in the War on Drugs, where the federal and state government policies have split apart entirely. But they forgot eastern Tennessee... and of course everywhere else.

We will be returning to the one about the Russian-Israeli crime organizations. Florida drug money is connected to some of the loose ends around 9/11. The 9/11 drug money connection has many potential angles, but first note here that the DEA marks Miami as a key heroin and cocaine distribution area.

Now we're going into stuff that seems hard to believe, and beyond here, I don't claim that any of these people are telling the truth.

This is just a small slice of the material on the internet about how the rich & powerful skim huge amounts of cash out of the addicted masses of America through the profitable geopolitics of illicit drugs. Some people claim there is a strong connection between drug trafficking and 9/11 financing. Certainly all the players in Afghanistan since 1979 have been up to their ears in it, including the CIA and its favored contractors (who make up around half the CIA personnel these days).

This is certainly part of a trend towards the criminalization of war, which corresponds to the increasing privatization of war. We will have more on this angle in the coming days. Even if there are no operational links to the real September 11 conspiracy itself, the drug-militarization angle really needs to be investigated seriously, perhaps by a Democratic Congress with subpoena and immunity powers. Even snooping at possible loose 9/11 connections immediately reveals a world awash in drug money, with Bush and the Establishment generating vast cash flows from conflict zones - and enforcing loyalties among players from Afghanistan to South America by aligning these cash flows with military force. Sometimes privatized paramilitary forces. Why not?

"Kill the Messenger:" Sibel Edmonds is on the radar a bit more than usual, as they have apparently whipped up a documentary to expose more of her surreal role in the weird world of intelligence after 9/11, named appropriately enough, Kill the Messenger. (perhaps she shouldn't be trusted, one guy suggests) A blog supporting Edmonds' film, sibeledmonds.blogspot.com is operated by Lukery at wotisitgood4.blogspot.com, who has covered her case in detail. To recap what I have posted before, Edmonds worked as a translator at the FBI, where she discovered a conspiracy within her unit to cover up a Turkish espionage ring in the United States. One of her co-translators was spoofing the wiretaps for FBI agents, and when Edmonds tried to bring this to her superiors, they suppressed the whole thing. Also Dennis Hastert was taking big bribes from the Turks, and there is some kind of global nuclear parts trafficking conspiracy connected to the AQ Khan network and some Israeli mobster types - probably Marc Rich type guys. The guys running the secret nuclear trafficking network were enemies of the CIA's Brewster-Jennings counter-proliferation operations and Valerie Plame, adding yet another twisted concourse to that scandal. And the AIPAC stuff and Chalabi are laterally related, since so much of it revolves around the same neo-con cats in DC and their foreign allies.

Lukery summarized:

Sibel makes 2 specific related claims: a) Sibel claims that she has information which proves that senior officials knew that there were plans to attack America months before 9/11.

Specifically: "There was general information about the time-frame, about methods to be used but not specifically about how they would be used and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks. There were other cities that were mentioned. Major cities with skyscrapers." and "President Bush said they had no specific information about 11 September and that is accurate but only because he said 11 September," she said. There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an attack was just months away."
b) Sibel claims that she has evidence of a global multi-billion dollar smuggling/dealing network of weapons and drug which is hidden in plain view. Of course, there is also the requisite money-laundering infrastructure. She claims that the network comprises senior american government officials, terrorists, and 'unsavoury regimes.'

and they merge, giving us: "drug trafficking, money laundering, foreign names and American names directly involved in the financing of the 9-11 attacks on WTC (World Trade Center) and the Pentagon."

After a mere 3 months in the FBI, Edmonds publicly claims that all this stuff was going on, covered up at numerous levels in the federal government – though Ashcroft-era gag orders prevent her from sharing many aspects of the story. A virtual hailstorm of individual criminal conspiracies, involving top neo-cons, drug trafficking, all kinds of crazy shit. She has mentioned Coleen Rowley as an ally in the whistleblower field.

There is another potential side to this: Edmonds is herself possibly a red herring, a player or a dupe in the conspiracy, posing as an opponent. Conspiracy gurus suggest she might be a "limited hangout," or a channel to expose parts of the story, and fill other parts with disinformation. Edmonds comes from a prominent family in Turkey, so perhaps she has a bit of Turkish partisanship against some groups back home. One blogger named xymphora suggested she speaks the conspiracy-ese a bit too well:

"Edmonds sometimes makes me a bit nervous as she seems overly adept with the terms and arguments of conspiracy theory for someone who is supposed to have been a lowly FBI translator (it's like she's been reading Peter Dale Scott!). Is she part of the battle in Washington between the Bush Administration enablers involved in the drugs/arms business who don't mind directly or indirectly supporting al Qaeda if it is good for business, and those old-fashioned types who still consider that dealing with American enemies is treason?"

And she gives interviews with patently crazy people like Tom Flocco. Here is a fragment tying some of the neo-cons to some nasty shit:

Although Grossman "has not been as high profile in the press" FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds cryptically told me the other day, "don't overlook him – he is very important." She was not speaking about the Plame affair, though Grossman did indeed have a key role there, as we will see.

According to her, Grossman was one of three officials – the other two, she says, are Richard Perle and Douglas Feith – who had been watched by both Valerie Plame's Brewster Jennings & Associates CIA team, and by the major FBI investigation of organized crime and governmental corruption on which she herself was working until being terminated in April 2002.

Marc Grossman has served in a number of interesting countries and positions over the past 29 years. From 1976-1983, at a pivotal point in the Cold War, he was employed at the U.S. embassy in Pakistan – America's key regional ally, through which millions of dollars in weapons and other "aid" were delivered by Pakistan's ISI intelligence service to the mujahedin following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Grossman is definitely part of the Valerie Plame scandal, no doubt.
Well, it all still makes her story worth adding to the mixture. Here is the documentary trailer. Please let's take some bets if this will be aired in the United States.

Florida drug money angles (and there are many!) There was this funny story about one of the flight school proprietors in Florida who trained the 9/11 hijackers. The flight school owner was caught with 43 pounds of heroin just after the 9/11 hijackers got to his school, and somehow this story never got fully explored. See MadCowProd.com for a lot of amusing tales of south Floridian drug trafficking. It's worth considering what the site's proprietor Daniel Hopsicker says, "THE 9.11 HEROIN CONNECTION" is "The Biggest Censored Story of the 21st Century." He cites Thomas Pynchon: "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers."

More recently, and quite funny, is the "SkyWay Aircraft" case, where Tom DeLay's buddy + Homeland Security defense contractor accidentally getting busted with 5.5 tons of cocaine on a DC9 connected with the Titan defense contractor. Naturally, the DEA ducking and covering from obvious political pressure ensued. Good times. And perhaps this link is connected to Zacharias Moussaoui and 9/11 financing. (Bonus: MadCowProd says Adnan Kashoggi finances the 9/11 Truth Movement? Now that's what I call a conspiracy!)

Ruppert on Hawalas, PTECH, PROMIS, 9/11 and some heroin networks, BCCI-style. From Mike Ruppert's FromTheWilderness.com last year, "PTECH, 9/11, and USA-SAUDI TERROR: PART II" which offers some evidence that PROMIS software connected to 9/11, and possible narcotics / heroin money connections to 9/11. Ruppert himself offers a theory that advanced software like PROMIS was capable of manipulating computers throughout the financial sphere and the federal government. Ruppert's book Crossing the Rubicon suggests that Dick Cheney could have executed 9/11 himself by using PROMIS and other whizbang technologies to, for example, insert extra radar blips in air traffic control towers across America. It seems kind of like a Deus Ex Machina conspiracy argument to me, but it is still an interesting, if far-fetched hypothetical argument that raises serious questions about how PROMIS and the rest of the fed's information technology really is run. At a dense 675 pages, crossing the Rubicon is one hell of a book, summarized thusly:

"In my book I make several key points:
1. I name Vice President Richard Cheney as the prime suspect in the mass murders of 9/11 and will establish that, not only was he a planner in the attacks, but also that on the day of the attacks he was running a completely separate Command, Control and Communications system which was superceding any orders being issued by the FAA, the Pentagon, or the White House Situation Room;
2. I establish conclusively that in May of 2001, by presidential order, Richard Cheney was put in direct command and control of all wargame and field exercise training and scheduling through several agencies, especially FEMA. This also extended to all of the conflicting and overlapping NORAD drills -- some involving hijack simulations -- taking place on that day.
3. I demonstrate that the TRIPOD II exercise being set up on Sept. 10th in Manhattan was directly connected to Cheney's role in the above.
4. I also prove conclusively that a number of public officials, at the national and New York City levels, including then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, were aware that flight 175 was en route to lower Manhattan for 20 minutes and did nothing to order the evacuation of, or warn the occupants of the South Tower. One military officer was forced to leave his post in the middle of the attacks and place a private call to his brother - who worked at the WTC - warning him to get out. That was because no other part of the system was taking action.
5. I also show that the Israeli and British governments acted as partners with the highest levels of the American government to help in the preparation and, very possibly, the actual execution of the attacks."
"There is more reason to be afraid of not facing the evidence in this book than of facing what is in it."

Approach #2: Peter Dale Scott's "The Global Drug Meta-Group: Drugs, Managed Violence, and the Russian 9/11". haven't looked through all of it, but it seems an interesting source to begin looking at how the gears really turn in Central Asia and thereabouts.

it also seems possible that the U.S. government might contemplate using Hizb ut-Tahrir and the meta-group for political changes in Russia itself, even while combating the Islamism of al-Qaeda elsewhere. This would be far from the first time that the U.S. Government had used drug-trafficking proxies as assets, and would do a lot to explain the role of the U.S. in 2001 in restoring major drug traffickers to power in Afghanistan. Dubious figures like Nukhaev, Khodorkovskii, and Khashoggi have already shown their interest in such initiatives; and western business interests have shown their eagerness to work with these allies of the meta-group.

It is fitting to think of most U.S. intelligence assets as chess pieces, moved at the whim of their controllers. That is however not an apt metaphor for the meta-group, which clearly has the resources to negotiate and to exert its own influence interactively upon the governments it works with.

Since first hearing about the meta-group's role in the Russian 9/11, I have pondered the question whether it could have played a similar role in the American 9/11 as well. At this point I have to say that I have found no persuasive evidence that would prove its involvement. The fact remains that two informed and credible witnesses, Sibell Edmonds and Indira Singh, have spoken independently of the importance of international drug trafficking in the background of 9/11.

The Bush Administration has paid Sibell Edmonds the tribute of silencing her on the grounds of national interest. She has nonetheless made it clear that what she would talk about concerns that part of the world where the meta-group has influence:

SE [Sibel Edmonds]: It's interesting, in one of my interviews, they say "Turkish countries," but I believe they meant Turkic countries – that is, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and all the 'Stans, including Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and [non-Turkic countries like] Afghanistan and Pakistan. All of these countries play a big part in the sort of things I have been talking about.

CD [Chris Deliso]: What, you mean drug-smuggling?

SE: Among other things. Yes, that is a major part of it. It's amazing that in this whole "war on terror" thing, no one ever talks about these issues.[120]

Indira Singh, who lost her high-tech job at J.P. Morgan after telling the FBI about Ptech and 9/11, was even more dramatic in her public testimony at a Canadian event:

I did a number of things in my research and when I ran into the drugs I was told that if I mentioned the money to the drugs around 9/11 that would be the end of me.[121]

The False Dilemmas of 9/11 Theories

I said earlier that by suppressing awareness of the role of drug-trafficking in our society, we give drug traffickers a de facto franchise to exert political influence without criticism or opposition. An example of this is the discussion of 9/11 in America, which usually fails to consider the meta-group among the list of possible suspects.

I have tried to suggest in this paper that in fact the meta-group had both motive – to restore the Afghan opium harvest and increase instability and chaos along the trade routes through Central Asia – and opportunity – to utilize its contacts with both al-Zawahiri in al Qaeda and the CIA in Washington. It is furthermore the best candidate to explain one of the more difficult anomalies (or indeed paradoxes) of the clues surrounding 9/11: that many of the clues lead in the direction of Saudi Arabia, but some lead also in a very different direction, towards Israel.[122]

Here it is worth quoting again the well-informed remark of a Washington insider about the meta-group's predecessor, BCCI: "Who else could wire something together to Saudi Arabia, China, Israel, and the U.S.?"[123] The current meta-group fills the same bill, for it unites supporters of Muslim Salafism (Saidov) with at least one Israeli citizen (Kosman).

The meta-group's involvement in the Russian 9/11 of course does nothing to prove its involvement in the American one. However awareness of its presence – as an unrecognized Force X operating in the world – makes previous discussions of 9/11 seem curiously limited. Again and again questions of responsibility have been unthinkingly limited to false dilemmas in which the possible involvement of this or any other Force X is excluded.

An early example is Michael Moore's naïve question to President Bush in Dude, Where's My Country: "Who attacked the United States on September 11 – a guy on dialysis from a cave in Afghanistan, or your friends, Saudi Arabia?"[124] A far more widespread dilemma is that articulated by David Ray Griffin in his searching critique of the 9/11 Commission Report:

There are two basic theories about 9/11. Each of these theories is a "conspiracy theory." One of these is the official conspiracy theory, according to which the attacks of 9/11 were planned and executed solely by al-Qaeda terrorists under the guidance of Osama bin Laden....Opposing this official theory is the [sic] alternative conspiracy theory, which holds that the attacks of 9/11 were able to succeed only because they were facilitated by the Bush administration and its agencies.[125]

Griffin of course is not consciously excluding a third possible theory – that a Force X was responsible. But his failure to acknowledge this possibility is an example of the almost universal cultural denial I referred to earlier. In America few are likely to conceive of the possibility that a force in contact with the U.S. government could be not just an asset, but a force exerting influence on that government.

My personal suggestion to 9/11 researchers is that they focus on the connections of the meta-group's firm Far West, Ltd. – in particular those which lead to Khashoggi, Berezovskii, Halliburton and Dick Cheney, and Diligence, Joe Allbaugh, and Neil Bush.

As a grain of salt, we should remember that Florida is so thoroughly laden with drug money that it is quite likely people would catch false leads to September 11 among the huge forest of shady people getting rich from the Business. The loose end about how the DEA was tracking Israelis who lived virtually around the corner from the 9/11 hijackers is an interesting one, but perhaps the density of shady business in Hollywood, Florida is just that high, one block of criminal enterprises after another. This IS Florida we're talking about.

The Israeli 9/11 angles are still worth checking out – the supposed Mossad front company Urban Moving Systems and the rest. From one of America's most respected Jewish periodicals, Forward:

Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth: Americans Probing Reports of Israeli Espionage
MARCH 15, 2002
By MARC PERELMAN, FORWARD STAFF

"Despite angry denials by Israel and its American supporters, reports that Israel was conducting spying activities in the United States may have a grain of truth, the Forward has learned.

However, far from pointing to Israeli spying against U.S. government and military facilities, as reported in Europe last week, the incidents in question appear to represent a case of Israelis in the United States spying on a common enemy, radical Islamic networks suspected of links to Middle East terrorism.

In particular, a group of five Israelis arrested in New Jersey shortly after the September 11 attacks and held for more than two months was subjected to an unusual number of polygraph tests and interrogated by a series of government agencies including the FBI's counterintelligence division, which by some reports remains convinced that Israel was conducting an intelligence operation. The five Israelis worked for a moving company with few discernable assets that closed up shop immediately afterward and whose owner fled to Israel.

Other allegations involved Israelis claiming to be art students who had backgrounds in signal interception and ordnance. (See related story, Page 8.)

Sources emphasized that the release of all the Israelis under investigation indicates that they were cleared of any suspicion that they had prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks, as some anti-Israel media outlets have suggested.

The resulting tensions between Washington and Jerusalem, sources told the Forward, arose not because of the operations' targets but because Israel reportedly violated a secret gentlemen's agreement between the two countries under which espionage on each other's soil is to be coordinated in advance.

Most experts and former officials interviewed for this article said that such so-called unilateral or uncoordinated Israeli monitoring of radical Muslims in America would not be surprising. In fact, they said, Israeli intelligence played a key role in helping the Bush administration to crack down on Islamic charities suspected of funneling money to terrorist groups, most notably the Richardson, Texas-based Holy Land Foundation last December.

"I have no doubt Israel has an interest in spying on those groups," said Peter Unsinger, an intelligence expert who teaches justice administration at San Jose University. "The Israelis give us good stuff, like on the Hamas charities." According to one former high-ranking American intelligence official, who asked not to be named, the FBI came to the conclusion at the end of its investigation that the five Israelis arrested in New Jersey last September were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, N.J., served as a front.

After their arrest, the men were held in detention for two-and-a-half months and were deported at the end of November, officially for visa violations. However, a counterintelligence investigation by the FBI concluded that at least two of them were in fact Mossad operatives, according to the former American official, who said he was regularly briefed on the investigation by two separate law enforcement officials.

"The assessment was that Urban Moving Systems was a front for the Mossad and operatives employed by it," he said. "The conclusion of the FBI was that they were spying on local Arabs but that they could leave because they did not know anything about 9/11."

However, he added, the bureau was "very irritated because it was a case of so-called unilateral espionage, meaning they didn't know about it."

Spokesmen for the FBI, the Justice Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service refused to discuss the case. Israeli officials flatly dismissed the allegations as untrue. However, the former American official said that after American authorities confronted Jerusalem on the issue at the end of last year, the Israeli government acknowledged the operation and apologized for not coordinating it with Washington.

The five men — Sivan and Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Omer Marmari and Yaron Shmuel — were arrested eight hours after the attacks by the Bergen County, N.J., police while driving in an Urban Moving Systems van. The police acted on an FBI alert after the men allegedly were seen acting strangely while watching the events from the roof of their warehouse and the roof of their van............

A retired corporate lawyer, Gerald Shea, put together all the government reports on Israeli DEA groups he could find, and corroborated the locations of Israeli groups the DEA monitored and where in Florida the 9/11 hijackers lived when they were training. The results had interesting geographic distribution (which correlates with the Russian-Israeli organizations in Florida admittedly monitored by the Department of Justice as I noted above). These maps are from the Shea's PDF file:

All righty then. That's a lot of heady stuff to consider. I'll note again that I am not a true believer in anything in today's post. I just want to offer some of the interesting things out there on the internet today. I strongly believe that the Republican establishment in America today is very complicit in international drug trafficking – especially since we've got a lot of the same guys who ran cocaine angles in Central America during the Iran-Contra affair. Past behavior is a guide towards future actions, if not ironclad proof.

Arbitrage is power: the buying and selling of goods across geographic space supports the global "shadow economy" that makes up a huge proportion of economic activity. Whoever controls the space, controls the money. Half of Afghanistan's economy is heroin production, for example. Follow the cash: it's one heck of a loose end of September 11, and the war on terror.

Thailand, PACOM and dominating the world through military coups

My perspective on Thailand is filtered by my dad's experience in Chile, when he was hitchiking after college in the summer of 1973. There were CIA guys hanging around Santiago bars, and he recalled US Navy ships stationed offshore. The evidence is pretty clear that Nixon and Kissinger were supportive of the plot. My dad, sensing trouble, cleared out of there around Sept. 3 or so, a week before the Pinochet's coup.

My point here is to wonder about the links between the Thai coup leaders today and the U.S. unified combat command of the region, AKA USPACOM. What messages went between PACOM and Thailand this week as the Prime Minister was in New York? It wouldn't be the first time that a PM was at some American-related function as gears suddenly spun to get rid of him.

As the relative influence of the State Department and ambassadors has waned, the relationship between PACOM, CENTCOM, the other COMs and various local militaries has deepened. The link between our generals and the elite generals of other nations might be seen in the neocon worldview to be the ultimate safe power link, not subject to those pesky "election" thingies. The "New World Order" could be a tier of global generals tacitly allowed to overthrow democracies, with PACOM et al. handling the details and perhaps planting pretexts and back-stories, the information operations required to slot it into American discourse.

I recall an disturbing episode of "E-Ring" that featured a South American republic overthrown by a glorified general with Swift Return to Elections Promised Right Away, leaving Dennis Hopper as a proud American who preserved our all-important bauxite concession.

I don't know much (anything) about Thai politics, so I don't know if this coup was carried out by factions with tacit American support, like Rummy's recent attempt in Venezuela. However, I suspect a major element of global securitization trend, i.e. the political-military structures set up for "the war on terror", is to create security arrangements that supercede democratic structures. A tonic of temporary military fascisms and martial laws, normalized by "war on terror" ideology. (not that they would dare try it here.... ...)

Robert Kaplan is one of the President's favorite geopolitical writers, and his piece called "Supremacy by Stealth" (Atl. Monthly, July/Aug. 2003) suggests a secretive network of self-sustaining military leadership cells in nations around the world that can intervene when local democracy makes problems for the United States. Sort of a decentralized shadow military dictatorship kinda thing. I don't know if that's Thailand now, but when they claim a "good coup," this I suspect is the implementation of the theory. Of course, the private military corporations - mercenary corporations like DynCorp and MPRI, full of retired American officers - are an ideal organizational glue for this whole approach.

Kaplan: (prolly should read all of it!)

Precisely because they foment dynamic change, liberal empires-like those of Venice, Great Britain, and the United States-create the conditions for their own demise. Thus they must be especially devious. The very spread of the democracy for which we struggle weakens our grip on many heretofore docile governments: behold the stubborn refusal by Turkey and Mexico to go along with U.S. policy on Iraq. Consequently, if we are to get our way, and at the same time to promote our democratic principles, we will have to operate nimbly, in the shadows and behind closed doors, using means far less obvious than the august array of power displayed in the air and ground war against Iraq. "Don't bluster, don't threaten, but quietly and severely punish bad behavior," says Eliot Cohen, a military historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, in Washington. "It's the way the Romans acted." Not just the Romans, of course: "Speak softly and carry a big stick" was Theodore Roosevelt's way of putting it.
..........
The United States has set up military missions throughout the formerly communist world, creating situations in which U.S. majors, lieutenant colonels, and full colonels are often advising foreign generals and chiefs of staff. Make no mistake: these officers are policymakers by another name. A Romanian-speaking expert on the Balkans, Army Lieutenant Colonel Charles van Bebber, has become well known in top military circles in Bucharest for helping to start the reform process that led to Romania's integration with NATO. Such small-scale but vital relationships give America an edge there over its Western European allies. One of the reasons that countries like Romania and Bulgaria supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq is that they now see their primary military relationship as being with America rather than with NATO as such.
..........
Rule No. 4
Use the Military to Promote Democracy

In an age of expanding democracy, military and intelligence contacts are more important than ever. Civilian politicians in weak and fledgling parliamentary systems come and go. But leading military and security men remain as behind-the-scenes props, sometimes even getting themselves elected to high office-as has happened in Nigeria, Venezuela, and Russia. "Whoever the President of Kenya is, the same group of guys run their special forces and the President's bodyguards," one Army Special Operations officer told me. "We've trained them. That translates into diplomatic leverage."

The U.S. military's bilateral relationships with foreign armies and their officer corps play a substantial role in safeguarding democratic transitions. Militaries have been the pillars of so many Third World societies for so long that the advent of elections can scarcely make them politically irrelevant, especially in Africa and Latin America. In some places, such as Turkey and Pakistan, the military and security services have at times actually enjoyed a reputation for greater liberalism than the civilian authorities. In Colombia in the mid-1990s the civilian government was tainted by drug money; the military police, who were seen to be less corrupt, helped to save our bilateral relationship.
......
Our strategy in Colombia and Yemen is unspoken but simple: establish not a totally reformed military but a self-sustaining structure of a few specialized units.That's the best we will be able to do, and it will not require a heavy American military presence.
.......
Rule No. 6
Bring Back the Old Rules

Refer to the pre-Vietnam War rules by which small groups of quiet professionals would be used to help stabilize or destabilize a regime, depending on the circumstances and our needs. Covert means are more discreet and cheaper than declared war and large-scale mobilization, and in an age when an industrial economy is no longer necessary for the production of weapons of mass destruction, the American public, burdened with large government deficits, will demand an extraordinary degree of protection for as few tax dollars as possible. Impending technologies, such as bullets that can be directed at specific targets the way larger warheads are today, and satellites that can track the neurobiological signatures of individuals, will make assassinations far more feasible, enabling the United States to kill rulers like Saddam Hussein without having to harm their subject populations through conventional combat.
.......

As shocking as some of the above may sound, much of what I advocate is already taking place. The old rules, with their accent on discretion, were on the way back even before 9/11. Witness the increasing use of security-consulting firms and defense contractors that employ-in places as diverse as South America, the Caucasus, and West Africa-retired members of the U.S. military to conduct aerial surveillance, to train local armies, and to help struggling friendly regimes. Consider Military Professional Resources, Inc. (MPRI), of northern Virginia, which during the mid-1990s restructured and modernized the Croatian military. Shortly afterward Croatian battlefield success against the Serbs forced Belgrade to the peace table.

Encouraging an overall moral outcome to the Yugoslav conflict involved methods that were not always defensible in narrowly moral terms; the Croats, too, were murderers. And moral ambiguity is even greater in protracted wars, such as the Cold War and the war on terrorism, in which deals will always have to be struck with bad people and bad regimes for the sake of a larger good. The war on terrorism will not be successful if every aspect of its execution must be disclosed and justified-in terms of universal principles-to the satisfaction of the world media and world public opinion. The old rules are good rules because, as the ancient Chinese philosophers well knew, deception and occasional dirty work are morally preferable to launching a war.

*****
Wikipedia quotes:
* "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. It would be much preferable to have this transpire prior to 24 October but efforts in this regard will continue vigorously beyond this date. We are to continue to generate maximum pressure toward this end, utilizing every appropriate resource. It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG and American hand be well hidden..." — A communique to the CIA base in Chile, issued on October 16, 1970

* "[Military rule aims] to make Chile not a nation of proletarians, but a nation of entrepreneurs." — Augusto Pinochet

* "We didn't do it. I mean we helped them. [Garbled] created the conditions as great as possible. — Henry Kissinger conversing with President Nixon about the coup.

Military coup underway in Thailand

Rumors that the King overthrew the civilian government on CNN. Military seizes control of the capital while the Prime Minister is in New York to speak at the United Nations. Too much shit going on at UN headquarters today!

I liked this story because it's focused right on the money, which, as in most things, is the real interesting dimension to follow....

Bloomberg: Thai Baht Falls Most Since 2002 as Premier Declares Emergency By Aaron Pan

Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) -- The Thai baht fell the most in four years after the military seized control of Bangkok and Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra declared a state of emergency.

The currency dropped as tanks rolled into the capital and Thaksin fired the head of the army in a broadcast on state television that he made from New York where he is attending meetings at the United Nations. Thai bonds and a New York-traded fund of the nation's stocks declined.

``The baht will come under more pressure,'' said Marios Maratheftis, a currency strategist at Standard Chartered Plc in London.

The baht fell 1.3 percent to 37.79 per dollar at 2 p.m. in New York, from 37.29 late yesterday, the biggest decline since July 2002. Before the announcement the baht had been trading at its highest since 2000.

Shares of mutual funds that invest in Thailand dropped in U.S. trading. Thai Fund Inc. fell 3.8 percent to $8.35 as of 1:45 p.m. in New York after tumbling as much as 7.1 percent earlier. Thai Capital Fund Inc. lost 4.3 percent to $9.71.

The risk of owning Thai government bonds jumped to a two- year high, according to traders betting on the creditworthiness of countries in the credit-default swaps market.

The price of the contracts rose to more than $47,000 from $33,000 today, according to HSBC Holdings Plc. The contracts, which pay investors $10 million in exchange for the bonds should the government default in the next five years.

Yield premiums on Thailand's 7.75 percent bond due in April 2007 compared with benchmark Treasuries rose 2 basis points to 60 basis points, the highest in a month, HSBC prices show.

Tanks in the Streets

Thailand's military announced the coup after deploying tanks and troop carriers in downtown Bangkok. Two tanks blocked the main entrance to Government House, where Thaksin's offices are located and three more parked outside the United Nations building.

Coup leaders said they revoked the constitution, imposed martial law and appointed a new prime minister.

Army Chief Sondhi Boonyarataklin had earlier dismissed speculation of a possible coup and a defense spokesman said Thai military leaders had pledged not to interfere in politics, the Bangkok Post reported on Sept. 14.

Investors said the coup was unlikely to trigger declines in emerging market securities as Thailand's devaluation did in 1997. That event prompted bonds, stocks and currencies from South Korea to Indonesia to tumble.

``For now I don't see the risk of contagion or anything like that,'' said Luis Costa, an emerging markets strategist at ING Bank NV in London. ``This doesn't affect the fundamentals in emerging market debt.''

Currency Gains

The baht is still up 8.6 percent against the dollar so far this year, beating the Indonesian rupiah for the biggest advance among Asian currencies as record exports spurred a trade surplus.

``We don't have financial contagion of the irrational type anymore,'' said Jerome Booth, who helps manage $23 billion in emerging-market debt at Ashmore Investment Management in London. ``Emerging markets are dominated now by long institutional investors like pension funds and there is no massive short squeezing where problems occur.''

Thailand reported a $309 million current account surplus in July, following an excess of $65 million in the previous month, the central bank reported Aug. 31. Exports climbed to a record. For the full year, the country may post a current-account excess of $3.6 billion, or 1.8 percent of gross domestic product, according to Credit Suisse forecasts.

``It's going to be quite localized,'' said James Barrineau, an asset manager at Alliance Bernstein in New York who helps manage $9 billion in emerging-market bonds.

The Thursday batch 0 goodies: Ellison, Israel/Palestine and the Lobby controversy; Islamo-fascists are the new JudeoBolshevik!

Above all, they are making a $1200 Swiss Army knife with every single tool. Yes. 85 tools including screwdrivers, a laser and a flashlight. And a "fine fork for watch spring bars."

Dig the Bush BeatBox video. Diabolical orange cat Jeff has a blog of what things he's killed.

Check out AllPeers: A new plugin for Firefox on Linux, Windows and OS X that combines buddy lists and BitTorrent, allowing people to share files at high speed with their friends. It's in beta now, and there could be security holes, but I really want to try it. I am registered at feidt@macalester.edu so shoot me a message if you want to try it. It has just been released to Public Beta. A review notes it has 'performance issues:'

As I write this, the beta is just a day old, and the company is still ironing out some server issues. Initially, I had a problem actually downloading the tool, and once I did get it installed, performance was spotty. I had trouble signing up to the service, and the service itself went down several times while I was testing it. When it did work, the speed was acceptable.

In theory, performance should eventually be quite good. AllPeers uses a customized version of BitTorrent to swap files. So if you're sending the same file with multiple people, once others receive the file—or just parts of the file—they can help you send it to everyone else. Let's say I decide to share a file to my colleagues Sean Carroll and Lance Ulanoff. Once Sean downloads the file from my machine, AllPeers can use both his copy and mine to send it quickly to Lance. Some of the bits will come from my machine even as other bits are coming from Sean.

Despite current performance I like the basic design. It's simple—and that's what you want from a tool like this. It integrates completely with Firefox, adding a toolbar and various browser "panes" that open and close as need be. Simply by keying in e-mail addresses or AllPeers user names, you add friends and family to a contacts list, and once you've chosen a name from the list, you can start sending files via drag-and-drop (or good old-fashioned dialog boxes).

Russia and Central Asian countries nervous about US military action, conducting training exercises. Michel Chossudovsky writes that Russia and Central Asian Allies Conduct War Games in Response to US Threats, including Taijikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Things are also moving with China and India. Quoted:

"The growing militarisation is connected with mutual mistrust among countries in the region, say analysts. Iranian media have speculated that the United States is using Azerbaijan to create a military counterweight to Iran on the Caspian. It is possible that the exercise conducted by the CSTO – in which Russia is dominant – represents a response to concerns about United States involvement in developing Kazakstan’s navy. Observers say Russia is leaning more and more towards the Iranian view that countries from outside should be banned from having armed forces in the Caspian Sea."

Experts say the US is trying to step up the pressure on Iran, as well as to defend its own investments in Azerbaijan and Kazakstan. It is also trying to guarantee the security of the strategically vital Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.

A military presence on the Caspian would give the United States an opportunity to at least partially offset its weakening influence in Central Asia, as seen in the closure of its airbase in Uzbekistan, the increased rent it is having to pay for the Manas base in Kyrgyzstan, and the diplomatic scandal that resulted in the expulsion of two Americans from Kyrgyzstan.

According to analysts, genuine security in the region can be achieved only if the military interests of all five Caspian countries are coordinated. At an international conference in Astrakhan in July 2005, Russia proposed the formation of a Caspian naval coordination group, but to date the initiative has not had much of a response.

And this is alarming:

The entire region seems to be on a war footing. These CSTO war games should be seen in relation to those launched barely a week earlier by Iran, in response to continued US military threats. These war games coincide with the showdown at the UN Security Council and the negotiations between permanent members regarding a Security Council resolution pertaining to Iran's nuclear program. "They are taking place within the window of time that has been predicted by analysts for the initiation of an American or an American-led attack against Iran" (see Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global Research, 21 August 2006):

"War games and military exercises are now well underway within Iran and its territory. The Iranian Armed Forces—the Regular Armed Forces and the Revolutionary Guards Corps—began the first stage of massive nationwide war games along border areas of the province of Sistan and Baluchistan1 in the southeast of Iran bordering the Gulf of Oman, Pakistan, and NATO garrisoned Afghanistan to the east on Saturday, August 19, 2006. These war games that are underway are to unfold and intensify over a five week period and possibly even last longer, meaning they will continue till the end of September and possibly overlap into October, 2006".

Neo-cons are trying to hype up an Iran war, of course. Neo-cons looked foolish when the apocalypse didn't happen August 22nd like they predicted. Old Israeli spymaster Rafi Eitan said Israel should be prepared for an attack by Iran.

Raw Story: Less than half of Americans satisfied with 9/11 investigations. The NIST is going to probe if WTC 7 was brought down by bombs.

Is Cartoon Network making light of the Illuminati? A little bit...

Moral quagmire and moral clarity, based on this good bit by James Dobbins on Moral clarity in the mideast. More on this.

Activist hassled by the FBI.

From the Daily Show, Bush's desperate soundbites:

According to WWTDD.com, Saddam Hussein got a personal screening of the South Park movie.

A Lockheed Martin engineer used YouTube to put his whistleblower message out, covered by the Washington Post. Check the video:

The Israel Lobby matter churns on: with the AIPAC espionage trial around the corner and a disastrous war between Israel and Lebanon, the underpinnings of the 'special relationship' between Israel and the United States seem to be front and center.

On Antiwar.com, Justin Raimondo looks at "Two Elephants in the room: Israel and its amen corner", looking at how the Washington Post's high-handed reporter Dana Milbank attacked top international politics professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt for speaking at the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Mearsheimer and Walt have sparked big controversy by writing on the influence of what they termed "the Israel Lobby" on America's foreign policy. I would call it "the right-wing Israel Lobby" since there are Jewish groups like Peace Now and Tikkun who are silenced, gagged and marginalized in Washington by AIPAC and its neoconservative allies. One purpose of what they call the "Israel lobby" is to silence the more liberal Jewish lobby. (Antiwar is messed up so try this printable version)

Reporters like Milbank generally speak in favor of the corrupt neo-con foreign policy establishment, denigrating anyone looking critically at the fake Iraq war intelligence, and the role of AIPAC in influencing America's middle east policy. Milbank's mockery of Democratic hearings on the Downing Street Memo is a truly disgusting piece of reporting. For a background on AIPAC, look at AIPAC's Overt and Covert Ops by Juan Cole from 2004.

Other randomness: Israeli-style air security may head west.

Godwin's Law strikes again: Islamo-fascism: It is suddenly trendy to call America's opponents "Islamic fascists" that we can't "appease". Right now on MSNBC one of Bush's toadies is telling the Hardball host that they are basically the same as Nazis. It reminds me that political identities are shaped by words, and merging ethnic or religious words with menacing political formations is an effective way to demonize enemies. Terms like "Islamofascist" cut off critical thinking and processing actual reality, hoping to replace thought with emotional cues. This is why the real Nazis called the Jews "Judeo-Bolsheviks" – "one of the central themes of fascist ideology" as a paper on the official site of Israel's Holocaust museum puts it. "Islamofascist" is just the Judeobolshevik of the 21st century, and it serves pretty much the same purpose: to rationalize annihilation.

Local trickle-down: This is becoming a more-than-latent issue in local political campaigns, especially Keith Ellison's primary contest in Minnesota's Fifth Congressional District. Ellison is a Black Muslim, and the strongly Jewish St. Louis Park composes a large chunk of the Fifth District. While Jewish folks, like any other identified voting 'bloc', have a variety of views on the race, there were a lot of awkward stories about Ellison and the Nation of Islam, tying Ellison to the rather anti-semitic organization. I don't really know if these stories have stuck, but it certainly was a story that the anti-Ellison parts of the establishment latched onto.

Today, Ellison has been markedly more sympathetic to Lebanon than his primary opponents, which seems reasonable to me, but this promises to bring out the wrath of the hard core of the Israeli government's supporters. Stand by for what that's going to add up to by the September 12 primary...

Well that's all for now. Catch ya on the flip side. I'm going to the fair tomorrow.

A classic verse of the drug wars: "The Central Intelligence Agency takes weight faithfully"... it still adds up

It occurred to me the other day that a couple song lyrics on this album deserved their own post... This album was among my favorites for a while. In fact, listening to it while writing a paper had a seriously disruptive effect on my thinking. Immortal Technique played Macalester with Jean Grae once and it was pretty good. I said hi. The artwork in 'Revolutionary Volume II', featured above, was indeed pretty goddamn sweet, Secret Service-freakout worthy. The second song here implies that 9/11 was a controlled demolition, and that Bush just takes orders on his cell phone from the same guys that sabotaged Senator Wellstone.

In some ways I used to be more skeptical, but as time has passed, it just seems more and more relevant... Check out this interview, his site is over here. Looks like he'll get another album out sometime this year.

In the cocaine song I always thought the lyric was "these walls have ends," not "ears." That seemed clever, as the war on drugs is basically an ugly joke that arcs right back to the top of power. After all, any real geopolitical player would be involved with the one good that gets them the best arbitrage over geographic space. When I finally get this site over to Drupal, there's going to be a whole section on this...

In the war on drugs, which side is the CIA on?

In the meantime, check out 'Crack the CIA', a 9-minute video posted on the Guerrilla News Network site a while ago, is a pretty good introduction to the Barry Seal and the Iran-Contra-Cocaine nexus, Mena AK, Michael Ruppert's confrontation in a packed, angry Los Angeles community meeting with CIA director John Deutsch with stories of covert operations channeling powder into California during the 1970s and 80s. Good stuff. 9 minutes...

Immortal Technique: Revolutionary, Volume II (2003). Peruvian Cocaine: (f/ C-Rayz Walz, Diabolic, Loucipher)

[Intro: from the film "Scarface"]
Host: I've heard whispers about the financial support your government receives from the drug industry.

Guest: Well, the irony of this, of course, is that this money, which is in the billions, is coming from your country. You see, you are the major purchaser of our national product, which is of course cocaine.

Host: On one hand, you're saying the United States government is spending millions of dollars to eliminate the flow of drugs onto our streets. At the same time, we are doing business with the very same goverment that is flooding our streets with cocaine.

Guest: Mmm-hmm, si, si. Let me show you a few other characters that are involved in this tragic comedy.
[Beat starts]

*Two Men Speak in Spanish*

[Immortal Technique - Worker]
I'm on the border of Bolivia, working for pennies
Treated like a slave, the coke fields have to be ready
The spirit of my people is starving, broken and sweaty
Dreaming about revolution (REVOLUTION!) looking at my machete
But the workload is too heavy to rise up in arms
And if I ran away, I know they'd probably murder my moms
So I pray to "Heso Preisto" when I go to the mission
Process the cocaine, paced and play my position

[Pumpkinhead - Cocaine Field Boss]
Ok, listen while I'm out there, just give me my product
Before we chop off ya hands for worker's misconduct
I got the power to shoot a copper, and not get charged
And it would be sad to see your family in front of a firing squad
So to feed your kids, I need these bricks
40 tons in total, let me test it, indeed I (*sniff*)
Shit, this is good, pass me a tissue
And don't worry about them, I paid off the officials

[Diabolic - Peruvian Leader]
Yo, it don't come as a challenge, I'm the son of some of the foulest
Elected by my people...the only one on the ballot
Born and bred to consult with feds, I laugh at fate
And assassinate my predecessor to have his place
In a third-world fashion state, lock the nation
With 90% of the wealth in 10% of the population
The Central Intelligence Agency takes weight faithfully
The finest type of China white and cocaine you'll see

[Tonedeff - American Drug Distributor]
Honey I'm home, nevermind why our bank account's suddenly grown
It's funny, we're so out of this debt from this money we owe
Woulda ya...mind if I told you I had two governments overthrown
To keep our son enrolled in a private school, and to keep ya tummy swollen
C'mon, our fuckin' home was built on the foundation of bloody throats
The hungry stolen of they souls, of course this country's runnin' coke
I took a stunted oath to hush the one's who know
But CIA conducts the flow of these young hustlers who lust for dough

[Poison Pen - Drug Dealer]
I don't work in the hood (Hit my connect)
Plus what's really good, they supply for the hood
These dudes fucking crack me up, scrutinize like we inferior
Petrified when we meet in my area (calm down)
My dude's'll shoot until I say so, got the loot?
Give me the YAY YAY like Ice Cube, so don't play with my llello
We won't stop for you bastards
Must choose (?), chop it and bag it

[Loucipher - Undercover Police Officer]
Taking pictures and tapping phones
Debating snitches and cracking codes
Past a couple, blast the fo',
Want any hustler stacking dough with probably crack the blow
And my overtime is where your taxes go
I gain your trust
Get you to hand weight to us because we paid up front
On the low with cameras taping ya
Getting pop away? The prison sentence is going to
Make the officer leave with two ki's out the evidence room

[C-Rayz Walz - Prison Inmate]
Out the evidence room (*Said with Loucipher*)
Went my fame, truck, boat or plane, they watching you
You think you got work? They copping too
We control blocks, they lock countries
Ya own companies, we had nice cars and sneaker money
Now there's players out there, talking 'bout the holding
With bugs in they house like they down South with windows open
Your dough ain't long, you wrong, you take shorts and (?)
Feds will be up in your mouth...like forks and spoons
So enjoy the rush, live plush off Coke bread
Soon you'll be in a cell with me, like Jenny Lopez
In school, I was a bully, now life is fully a joke
I keep a flow on a boat for Peruvian Coke
Players do favors for governors and tax makers
Fat Quakers smoke crack and sex acts with bad mayors
The walls got ears, you big mouths probably scared
Not prepared to do years like Javier

[Immortal Technique Speaking]
The story just told is an example of the path that
drugs take on their way to every neighborhood, in
every state of this country. It's a lot deeper than
the niggas on your block. So when they point the
finger at you, brother men, this is what you've got to tell them:

[Wesley Snipes - from "New Jack City"]
I'm not guilty. YOU'RE the one that's guilty. The
lawmakers, the politicians, the Columbian drug lords,
all you who lobby against making drugs legal. Just
like you did with alcohol during the prohibition.
You're the one who's guilty. I mean, c'mon, let's kick
the ballistics here: Ain't no Uzi's made in Harlem.
Not one of us in here owns a poppy field. This thing
is bigger than (Immortal Technique). This is big
business. This is the American way.

"Cause of Death" - same album... with an intro from... Mumia Abu Jamal!

To think about the origins of hip hop in this culture and also about homeland security is to see that there are at the very least two worlds in America. One of the well-to-do and the struggling. For if ever there was the absence of homeland security it is seen in the gritty roots of hip hop.

For the music arises from a generation that feels with some justice that they have been betrayed by those who came before them. That they are at best tolerated in
schools, feared on the streets, and almost inevitably destined for the hell holes of prison. They grew up hungry, hated and unloved. And this is the psychic fuel that seems to generate the anger that seems endemic in much of the music and poetry. One senses very little hope above the personal goals of wealth and the climb above the pit of poverty.

In the broader society the opposite is true, for here more than any place on earth wealth is more wide spread and so bountiful. What passes for the middle class in America could pass for the upper class in most of the rest of the world. They're very opulent and relative wealth makes the insecure. And homeland security is a governmental phrase that is as oxymoronic, as crazy as saying military intelligence, or the U.S Department of Justice.

They're just words that have very little relationship to reality. And do you feel safer now? Do you think you will anytime soon? Do you think duck tape and Kleenex and color codes will make you safer?
From Death Row, this is Mumia Abu Jamal...

[Talking]
Immortal Technique
Revolutionary Volume 2
Yeah, broadcasting live from Harlem, New York
Let the truth be known..

[Verse 1]
You better watch what the fuck flies outta ya mouth
Or I'ma hijack a plane and fly it into your house
Burn your apartment with your family tied to the couch
And slit your throat, so when you scream, only blood comes out
I doubt that there could ever be...a more wicked MC
'Cuz AIDs infested child molesters aren't sicker than me
I see the world for what it is, beyond the white and the black
The way the government downplays historical facts
'Cuz the United States sponsored the rise of the 3rd Reich
Just like the CIA trained terrorists to the fight
Build bombs and sneak box cutters onto a flight
When I was a child, the Devil himself bought me a mic
But I refused the offer, 'cuz God sent me to strike
With skills unused like fallopian tubes on a dyke
My words'll expose George Bush and Bin Laden
As two separate parts of the same seven headed dragon
And you can't fathom the truth, so you don't hear me
You think illuminati's just a fuckin conspiracy theory?
That's why Conservative racists are all runnin' shit
And your phone is tapped by the Federal Government
So I'm jammin' frequencies in ya brain when you speak to me
Technique will rip a rapper to pieces indecently
Pack weapons illegally, because I'm never hesitant
Sniper scoping a commission controllin the president

[Hook]
Father, forgive them, for they don't know right from wrong
The truth will set you free, written down in this song
And the song has the Cause of Death written in code
The Word of God brought to life, that'll save ya soul...

Save ya soul motherfucker...save ya soul..

Yeah, yeah, yeah

[Verse 2]
I hacked the Pentagon for self-incriminating evidence
Of Republican manufactured white powder pestilence
Marines Corps. flat (?) vest, with the guns and ammo
Spittin' bars like a demon stuck inside a piano
Turn a Sambo into a soldier with just one line
Now here's the truth about the system that'll fuck up your mind
They gave Al Qaeda 6 billion dollars in 1989 to 1992
And now the last chapters of Revelations are coming true

And I know a lot of people find it hard to swallow this
Because subliminal bigotry makes you hate my politics
But you act like America wouldn't destroy two buildings
In a country that was sponsoring bombs dropped on our children
I was watching the Towers, and though I wasn't the closest
I saw them crumble to the Earth like they was full of explosives
And they thought nobody noticed the news report that they did
About the bombs planted on the George Washington bridge
Four Non-Arabs arrested during the emergency
And then it disappeared from the news permanently
They dubbed a tape of Osama, and they said it was proof
"Jealous of our freedom," I can't believe you bought that excuse
Rockin a motherfucking flag don't make you a hero
Word to Ground Zero
The Devil crept into Heaven, God overslept on the 7th
The New World Order was born on September 11

[Hook]

[Verse 3]
And just so Conservatives don't take it to heart
I don't think Bush did it, 'cuz he isn't that smart
He's just a stupid puppet taking orders on his cell phone
From the same people that sabotaged Senator Wellstone
The military industry got it poppin' and lockin'
Looking for a way to justify the Wolfowitz Doctrine
And as a matter of fact, Rumsfeld, now that I think back
Without 9/11, you couldn't have a war in Iraq
Or a Defense budget of world conquest proportions
Kill freedom of speech and revoke the right to abortions
Tax cut extortion, a blessing to the wealthy and wicked
But you still have to answer to the Armageddon you scripted
And Dick Cheney, you fuckin leech, tell them your plans
About building your pipelines through Afghanistan
And how Israeli troops trained the Taliban in Pakistan
You might have some house niggaz fooled, but I understand
Colonialism is sponsored by corporations
That's why Halliburton gets paid to rebuild nations
Tell me the truth, I don't scare into paralysis
I know the CIA saw Bin Laden on dialysis
In '98 when he was Top Ten for the FBI
Government ties is really why the Government lies
Read it yourself instead of asking the Government why
'Cuz then the Cause of Death will cause the propaganda to die..

[Man talking]
He is scheduled for 60 Minutes next. He is going on
French, Italian, Japanese television. People
everywhere are starting to listen to him. It's embarrassing...

You better watch what the fuck flies outta your mouth...

Nine centuries of Lebanon fighting with style: From Hashshashin to Hezbollah

The test of the Zionist left. By Yossi Beilin (Haaretz)
There are those who expect the Zionist left to join in the revelry of war, in the pathetic slogans such as "We will win" and in the fiery comments such as "Nasrallah will remember who Amir Peretz is."

There are those who expect us to join the non-Zionist left, which is calling for a unilateral cease-fire, accuses Israel of war crimes, demands that Hamas and Hezbollah be given what they want, and opposes all use of force. Both sides say this is the test of the Zionist left - and they are right.

We have a deep belief in the right of the Jewish people to a democratic and secure state, which has a stable Jewish majority: the state of the Jewish people and all of its citizens. We are convinced our national interest is in completing the moves toward peace with the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon, and that there is no alternative to an agreement.

I am not gonna feel like writing tomorrow, so it's either now or the weekend. Here are a lot of bits from the past couple weeks in the Lebanon-Israel conflict. The window after the first two weeks was Israel's chance to capture the initiative against Hezbollah and attempt to achieve their hazily articulated goals in this vicious little war. It's a big war, but the space is very small.

Escalations for the weekend: Haaretz: Security cabinet okays decision to expand ground operation in Lebanon:

.......PM wavered on expansion decision
Olmert was hesitant prior to the meeting on whether to approve the proposed expansion of the IDF ground operation in south Lebanon.

Olmert was concerned that the plan presented by the defense establishment would result in hundreds of casualties, and therefore, wanted to subject it to a careful cost-benefit analysis. In Tuesday's fighting in Lebanon five soldiers were killed and 23 others wounded, two of them seriously. According to a government source, Olmert had also asked the army to present him with several different options for a ground operation.

A decision to send troops deeper into Lebanon is fraught with considerable risk. In doing so, Israel could set itself up for new criticism that it is sabotaging diplomatic efforts. Also, a wider ground offensive might do little to stop Hezbollah rocket fire on Israel, while sharply increasing the number of casualties among Israeli troops.

While most of the cabinet was expected earlier to back whatever Olmert decides, sources in the Prime Minister's Office said that three to four ministers were likely to oppose a large-scale ground operation regardless of Olmert's position. The IDF's proposal was for a two-week ground operation that would involve conquering the entire area south of the Litani River, and even a few areas north of it, in order to reduce Hezbollah's short-range rocket launching capabilities.

IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said Tuesday that such an operation was necessary "in order to end this war differently." People who participated in discussions of the plan with him said they had never heard him speak as forcefully in favor of anything as he did in favor of the proposed ground operation. Peretz fully supports the army's plan, which he considers essential for Israel to achieve its diplomatic goals.

Nine paratroopers killed in attack on home in Dibel; 15 soldiers killed Wednesday in south Lebanon

By Amos Harel and Eli Ashkenazi, Haaretz Correspondents, and Agencies Last update - 01:59 10/08/2006
Fifteen Israel Defense Forces troops were killed on Wednesday, the IDF announced late Wednesday night, as fierce fighting with Hezbollah guerillas raged in the southern Lebanon villages of Ayta al-Shaab and Debel.

The 15 IDF soldiers were killed in a series of firefights across the front. In the most serious incident, nine reserve paratroopers were killed and 11 wounded by antitank missiles fired on a house in the village of Debel, in the central sector. Four reservists from an armored brigade were killed in a tank explosion, apparently caused by antitank missiles, in the town of Ayta al-Shaab. An infantryman was killed late Wednesday when he was hit by a mortar in Marjayoun.

DEBKAFile: Israeli official spokesman say deep ground push into Lebanon approved Wednesday to reduce rocket attacks is put on hold for 48 hours to give more time for diplomacy August 10, 2006, 9:26 AM (GMT+02:00)
DEBKAfile adds: On the ground, the first troop and tank elements of the advance began moving Wednesday overnight and are continuing Thursday, Aug. 10.

The decision Wednesday, Aug. 9, by 9 votes, none against and 3 abstentions, includes areas up to the Nabatea plateau and Arnoun beyond the Litani River. The objectof the extension is to reach and eliminate Hizballah's rocket-launch centers. It deepens Israel's thrust to some 45 km from the border and calls for a further large influx of army reserves.

DEBKAfile’s military sources add the extended operation does not promise the total stoppage of all rocket fire against Israel, but could potentially bring about a sizeable reduction from up to 200 a day to some 30 or 50.
Also: The stakes of the Lebanon War have shot up with the expansion of the Israeli offensive up to the Litani and Nasrallah’s rejection of diplomacy in favor of battle

Israel's military of old was specialized in quick, mechanized warfare. As they settled into the occupied territories, despite all the heavy weapons, the IDF reoriented itself to battling Palestinians, typically armed with rifles, handguns or machine guns. The Palestinians have some rocket-propelled grenades, as well, but they lack advanced infantry weapons. So the IDF has phased away from preparing for war with real infantries, and instead play supercop on the hapless residents of the West Bank.

They really thought that Hezbollah was only as "thick" as HAMAS, I guess. The Israelis went storming in without realizing that Hezbollah had lots of anti-tank missiles - on rocky terrain that doesn't give a lot of space for tanks. The IDF doctrine failed in the face of a new kind of conflict.

Right now we are watching a turning point in the nature of warfare. Everything from pack mules to to hacking to encrypted satellite feeds fits into fourth-generation warfare (pdf). Sub-state actors will basically be able to fight a top-notch modern army.

ANALYSIS: IDF still not in control of strip along Lebanon's border By Ze'ev Schiff, Haaretz Correspondent 08:57 10/08/2006
The large number and the location of the casualties that the Israel Defense Forces sustained Wednesday indicate that the army does not yet control the narrow strip along the border, although this stage of the ground operation was supposed to have been completed already.

The two battles also reveal a great deal about Hezbollah's method of fighting. They took place in two relatively small communities, Ayta al-Shab and Debel, close to the international border, on territory that until May 2000 was in Israel's Security Zone.

The ground operation, dubbed "Change of Direction 8," was intended to conquer this border strip. First it was to be a two- to three-kilometer strip. Then it was expanded to five to six kilometers, including numerous Lebanese villages and towns. The mission was to blow up all Hezbollah's outposts in this strip and drive its forces out.

What happened in Bint Jbail recurred in Ayta al-Shab. Although it seemed that the town had been conquered, it transpired again and again that there were still Hezbollah men in it. Once again, clashes and battles took place, and again, the IDF suffered dead and wounded. Although the army had conquered the town, Hezbollah men were hiding in underground bunkers well camouflaged from the outside. The bunkers had been stocked with large quantities of food, enough to last for weeks, and ammunition, including antitank missiles and, in several cases, short-range rockets.

The bunkers are connected to electricity and, according to one report, are air conditioned. When the fighting dies down, Hezbollah fighters emerge from the bunkers and set up ambushes for IDF soldiers and armored vehicles. That is why soldiers are hit repeatedly in the same places.

On several occasions, there have been difficulties evacuating wounded soldiers under fire. At times, Hezbollah fighters have fired rockets at Israel from areas close to the border that the IDF had supposedly conquered already. The means available to flush the guerrillas out of their underground shelters are not always employed.

Senior officers have suggested, inter alia, that the army bombard these towns heavily and even destroy them. But in any case, a decision has been made not to reenter them at this stage. The IDF could forge ahead, as it has done in the last two days in the Marjayoun area. But even after such an incursion, Hezbollah fighters who remain in the bunkers could continue launching rockets. In other words, they could fire toward Israel from behind the lines of IDF forces that have progressed deep into Lebanon. It is clear that the Hezbollah men who stayed behind are equipped with two-way radios and receive information from scouts hiding near the border. This explains the difficulties in managing the fighting in south Lebanon, which the IDF has not encountered before.

Even if Hezbollah "loses", the writing is on the wall. In the 21st century "the State" itself is weakening. Sub-national organizations like Hezbollah, with economic, military, political, social, educational, medical (and often spiritual) branches are displacing the State.

One should remember that the Middle East's artificial European-drawn boundaries have left many overlapping ethnic groups. The Pashtuns now at the core of the Taliban straddle Afghanistan/Pakistan. The Kurds are organized a bit like Hezbollah, and the ruthless pursuit of the Kurds' interests has rewarded them well since the US toppled Saddam. But they too are divided between parties that ruthlessly fight each other.

In Syria, only a few dozen miles east of Israel's bombing campaign lie many major Arab Sunni tribes like the Dulaimis, who especially live in cities along the river into Iraq, where their cousins' tribes live, sparring with Kurds and Shiites.

In this kind of region, everyday people are going to direct their primary loyalties towards sub-national groups that they believe represent their interests. By the early 1990s, Hezbollah, which the Iranians helped create by binding together different Lebanese Shiites, was seen as something of a successful model – social, political, military: robustly structured to resist political pressure, infiltration and military assaults from the Israelis and others.

Before Saddam fell, The Iranians used the Lebanese sub-state model inside Iraq, to lay the framework for the Shiite rise to power. Very quickly, SCIRI, Muqtada Sadr's people, and the Dawa Party all had organized cadres of armed guys, but more importantly, social services and methods for trying to restore any sense of law and order shattered with the US invasion. If the guys on the block with guns keep the thieves away, then they are pretty much your state, even if they don't report to Baghdad.

The news in Israel right now is that 15 reservists got killed in Lebanon, with heavy fighting around Bint Jbail, a site the IDF captured and subsequently evacuated. As the maps made clear, Bint Jbail is not more than a few kilometers from the border, yet the Israeli forces, despite all the bombing and everything, have not been able to hold that area, once they reached it and tried to occupy.

Reports in the Israeli media indicate that Hezbollah is able to keep attacking in areas the Israelis have already 'captured.' I think it's pretty likely that Hezbollah has drilled tunnels hundreds, if not thousands of meters long, attached to deeply hidden bunkers with all the necessary weapons and supplies. It is an amazing intelligence failure that the Israelis didn't anticipate this, and still, within a very small space the IDF has not been able to block out Hezbollah. The tempo of rocket attacks has not been curtailed in any serious way, and Israeli military analysts don't really think it can be shut down without a wide invasion. Hezbollah is winning the tactical situation by playing very hard-core defense with lots of anti-tank missiles. So far, it's mostly been a successful military strategy.

This is in keeping with the local style: in the good old days of the Seljuk Empire (c. 1100), the Hashshashin, or Assassins, would hang out somewhere between Damascus and Antioch - the home of the Holy Hand Grenade. The map's white spot shows a patch of mountainous land where the Assassins held sway. Mountainous redoubts are easier to defend, and such clever methods have migrated about 200 miles south, where nearly a millennia later, some pretty insane shit is going down.

Well then, thats enough rambling background. Here's some damn links.

The rockets keep coming: Hizbollah rockets kill 15 in northern Israel. Hapless reservists. An ugly scene. IDF Raids near Tyre.

Emotional reaction in Israel propels poor policy:

`Peace' is a term not used in the public space in Israel anymore...No one expects any dialogue on a real practical level. The military always offers a shortsighted immediate way out. The wish to identify with the power of the gun and the uniform is still alive in Israeli tribal DNA. Revenge is a word not used in the open; it is there in the undercurrent of the emotions expressed by the public, our bombardment of Gaza had the same motive behind it.

UK Guardian: Israeli pilots 'deliberately miss' targets: Fliers admit aborting raids on civilian targets as concern grows over the reliability of intelligence

You need to give money to AntiWar.com. Their work is important and kinda spooky. Rumors that apocalyptic Christian writers are visiting the White House. Stratfor has free podcasts. Updates on the Tikkun Olam blog (תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place).

Iranian dimensions:

Haaretz: Nasrallah's dilemma By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff

As the war progresses, the depth of Iranian involvement in Hezbollah activity is increasingly being revealed. Hezbollah has established a Tehran-sponsored forward outpost here, under the noses of the Israelis. When the war ends, Iranian soul-searching will include the question as to whether the activity here was not premature: whether the strategic card of the rocket battery was not revealed too early, for the sake of a negligible goal like the release of the four prisoners, instead of saving it for the day of judgment, for the eruption surrounding its nuclear program.

The Iranians are involved up to their necks in Hezbollah activity: Their advisers participated in the firing of the missiles at Israeli ships and in the firing of Strela (SA-7) antiaircraft missiles at Israeli planes and helicopters. During Israel Defense Forces operations in the south, sophisticated listening rooms were discovered, via which the Iranians eavesdropped on Israeli communications and telephone networks, both civilian and military.

Guardian: Bloody night in Beirut as Israel intensifies aerial bombardment: IDF warns UN troops will be attacked if they repair bridges (aug 8)

Information warfare sector: Olmert meets with spokespeople to sharpen PR message. PrisonPlanet says: Another Israeli Myth Exposed: There Were No Hezbollah Rockets In Qana but Israeli media alleges Qana killing was staged, dubbing this pattern Hezbollywood. With a certain sense of weird horror, Haaretz features "Where there's smoke, there's liars": "1. The Muslim Lie Mode, or The Dead as Visual Aid (When Arabs report what Israel has done) 2. The Israeli Lie Mode, or The Dead as Enemy Weapon (When Israelis report what Israel has done). 3. The American Lie Mode, or The Dead as Nonexistent." Anyway, Half of U.S. Still Believes Iraq Had WMD.

The US-Israeli link: this looks at Condi and an IDF spokesperson as two flipsides: Between two friends by Tom Segev:

During the past 39 years since the Six-Day War, the United States did not force Israel to pull out of the West Bank, but more than once acted to block Israeli military actions. Over time, we have grown accustomed to the Americans saving us, not only from the Arabs, but from ourselves too. Not in this war. It is still unclear whether this war was coordinated with the United States; only the release of government records of the past three weeks will shed light on this. Whatever the case may be, the impression is that the Americans are linking the events in Lebanon to their failing adventure in Iraq.

Israel's elites, in all fields, are made up of people who spent a number of years in the United States and returned with not only professional skills but also an appreciation for the value of the individual and basic freedoms. For the most part, this was a useful process, even though it did contribute to a fading of social compassion. This process of Americanization has led Israel in recent years to covet a role in what Bush has described as a war on the "axis of evil."

As such, Israel has adopted the moral values of Hezbollah: Whatever they are doing to the residents of northern Israel, we can also do to the citizens of Lebanon, and even more. Many Israelis tended to look at the Qana incident primarily as a media disaster and not as something that imposed on them any ethical responsibility. After all, the restrictions of humanitarian warfare are not applicable to the "axis of evil." Just like in Iraq, the lessons of Vietnam have been forgotten. It is hard to avoid the impression that the routine brutality of oppression in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is also reflected in the unbearable ease with which Israel has forced out of their homes hundreds of thousands of Lebanese and bombed civilians.

Tense situation with Israel's own Arab population (20%): Border Police search Israeli Arab homes without warrants.

Loss of Momentum by Amir Oren (Haaretz):

The IDF's greatest loss was momentum. The first week of the campaign went reasonably well, borne on the wave of the stunning success of the attack of Hezbollah's long-range rockets. Between the middle of the second week and the middle of the third week the IDF lost a week, not least because of its reaction to the eight Golani Brigade soldiers who were killed in Bint Jbail. That lost week, as the rain of Katyusha rockets continued to fall from on high, undermined the army's self-confidence and thrust it into a posture of public self-defense. It shifted into recovery mode only because of the time it was granted by Washington. Fear of a large number of casualties was the major factor in the government's hesitations, for almost a week, about whether to send more divisions into the fray, entailing a call-up of reserve units.

The General Staff admitted the IDF did not work fast enough. They did not grasp the fact that the context had changed and that this was not just one day of battle or a routine-security incident, but a war, which has its own laws. Commanders who were used to operations in the territories did not internalize the need for speed, persistence and continuity.....

The sweeping criticism did an injustice to Division 91 and to the "hunt" concept in the air force. A colonel in the division said this week that for months the division's senior command "drove officers crazy with alerts to prevent abductions, turned over every stone and laid down new stones in order to turn them over, too." The abduction, the colonel noted, was comparable to a special operation by an IDF commando unit, which, in the absence of precise intelligence, is difficult to thwart even after all the preparations across the sector.

Various people yelling at each other: ADL: Hugo Chavez comparison of IDF and Hitler is Outrageous. Yesha (settler) Rabbinical Council objects to ridicule of Chief IDF Rabbi.

Hawks crow: Win that war! (Haaretz). Peace Index: July 2006 / Support for the war and the IDF holds up.

A final batch: I got nothing left after these Haaretz bits: ANALYSIS: There appears to be a command problem in the north. From war, an opportunity. Snatch a possible victory. Down but not out. Little Satan has big teeth. ANALYSIS: Deployment of Lebanese army may be good for both sides.

Well, that's all for a while. Enjoy.

Time to lay it out: Part I

There's a whole clutch of stuff to put up here. I will restrict it to a few major items right now: how the Israelis coordinated starting this war with the United States since a year ago (when the Syrians got chased out – funny); the work covering damage to Arab civilization at Electronic Intifada, the stuff at AntiWar.com and a little bit from those totems of neoconservative doom at the Weekly Standard. Also a bit about how Israel is taking American diplomatic options off the table by sparking this – perhaps it was more important to stop America from dealing with the Arabs than the actual Hezbollah and Hamas threats themselves!

This limited batch should help illustrate various dimensions of the conflict. More are on the way, I just want something bite-sized out there....

A war pre-planned: One of those questions to reflect on, is simply how the casus belli, the root cause of the war, actually came about. The Iraq war was engineered with stuff like fake WMD stories pretty seriously, and now we are supposed to believe that the Lebanon invasion materialized in history 15 minutes after Hezbollah made off with a couple soldiers from a war front. Not bloody likely.

In this case we have ready evidence that the whole plan has been pulled off the shelf, and American officials got the full persuasive case over the last year. In other words, this is more about an entrenched policy than the actual kidnappings of the soldiers. Fortunately, the soldiers are a useful pretext for hawkish Democrats and others to bandwagon around on.

In a certain, kind of obvious sense, you could call this a conspiracy. Also interesting that the Lebanese recently caught an assassination cell working for the Mossad. (I wonder who really wanted Rafik Hariri out of the way )and who's benefiting now that the Syrian army is gone?)

San Francisco Chronicle: Israel set war plan more than a year ago: Strategy was put in motion as Hezbollah began gaining military strength in Lebanon
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service : Friday, July 21, 2006

(07-21) 04:00 PDT Jerusalem -- Israel's military response by air, land and sea to what it considered a provocation last week by Hezbollah militants is unfolding according to a plan finalized more than a year ago.

In the six years since Israel ended its military occupation of southern Lebanon, it watched warily as Hezbollah built up its military presence in the region. When Hezbollah militants kidnapped two Israeli soldiers last week, the Israeli military was ready to react almost instantly.

"Of all of Israel's wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared," said Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University. "In a sense, the preparation began in May 2000, immediately after the Israeli withdrawal, when it became clear the international community was not going to prevent Hezbollah from stockpiling missiles and attacking Israel. By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we're seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it's been simulated and rehearsed across the board."

More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail. Under the ground rules of the briefings, the officer could not be identified.

In his talks, the officer described a three-week campaign: The first week concentrated on destroying Hezbollah's heavier long-range missiles, bombing its command-and-control centers, and disrupting transportation and communication arteries. In the second week, the focus shifted to attacks on individual sites of rocket launchers or weapons stores. In the third week, ground forces in large numbers would be introduced, but only in order to knock out targets discovered during reconnaissance missions as the campaign unfolded. There was no plan, according to this scenario, to reoccupy southern Lebanon on a long-term basis.

The Electronic Intifada franchises for ugly reasons: The site Electronic Intifada has expanded laterally to Electronic Lebanon, a site originally intended to provide Palestinian perspectives is now focused on Lebanon. Worth considering: Precarious conditions in mountain shelters for fleeing Lebanese, and diaries such as "What will happen to us when this is all over?"

Time to get real with AntiWar.com: There has never been a more clear moment for Antiwar.com, and certainly, Justin Raimondo has done more than his share of advising us that "the Middle East escalator" still controlled by the neo-conservatives means more escalations, more spreading warfare. All the columns on this latest war are worth reading, particularly America Held Hostage, Will We Go to War for Israel?, and Playing the Sunni Card:

The U.S.-Israeli strategy aims at atomizing the Arab-Muslim world: the invasion of Iraq smashed the Ba'athist state and split it into three distinct and warring pieces – the Shi'ite south, the infamous Sunni Triangle, and Kurdistan. The same method is being employed in Lebanon, where the fragile state apparatus is about to come undone under the impact of the Israeli assault – and, soon enough, in Syria and Iran, where Kurds and other restive ethnic groups are being encouraged by the regime-changers of the West.

Divide and rule: it's the oldest strategy in the book, and particularly effective when it comes to the Arab-Muslim world, which is rife with internecine strife that only needs a bit of provocation to come to the surface in violent form.

As to whether this strategy will work, the question is: do we want it to? What "work" means, in this context, is the metastasis of Iraq's civil war. They told us Iraq would be a "model" for the region – what they didn't say is that it would be a "model" of how to destroy an entire civilization.

The goal of the War Party is to keep up the momentum for intervention created by the Iraq war and allow the conflict there to naturally spill over Iraq's borders into Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and beyond. There are many, including within this administration, who do not share this goal, and there were signs that, until recently, this "realist" faction might prevail.

.........The crushing of Lebanon beneath the Israeli boot achieves two goals for the War Party: it outflanks their enemies in Washington, and it divides their enemies in the Middle East. It is a one-two punch that could plunge much of the world into a conflict that we will never see the end of in our lifetimes: the opening shots of what the neocons refer to as "World War IV." (Note: World War III was the Cold War, according to this thinking.)

Israel is removing America's options from the Middle East Table: Strongly worth considering, perhaps more than most arguments. Steve Clemons, a DC Dem on the security scene: Some Questions Regarding Israel's Objectives: Is Israel Trying to Curb America's Deal-Making in Middle East?

Why is Israel pounding most of Lebanon rather than just the South and rather than pinpointing its attack against Hezbollah assets? Why the dramatic bombing of explosive fuel centers? The attacks both in Gaza and in Beirut seem made for Fox News, CNN and the next Schwarzenegger movie.

I think that there is little doubt that a significant part of the explanation can be attributed to the fact that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his more liberal partner in this effort, Amir Peretz -- now Defense Minister -- are not former field command generals and want to demonstrate that they can be responsible stewards of Israel's national security -- and that they won't be timid in using Israel's military capabilities.

But that doesn't explain it all. The Israeli response to the Hezbollah incursion is exactly what Hezbollah wanted. Adversaries rarely give each other the behaviors the other actually desires unless there are other objectives involved.

My view is that three broad threats were evolving for Israel from the American side of the equation. One one front, the U.S. will be attempting to settle some kind of new equilibrium in Iraq with fewer U.S. forces and some face-saving partial withdrawal. To accomplish this and maintain any legitimacy in the eyes of important nations in the region -- particularly among close U.S. partners among the Gulf Cooperation Council states -- America "might have" tried to do some things that constituted a broad new bargain with the Arab Middle East. The U.S. had even previously flirted, along with the Brits, in trying to get Syria on a Libya like track and out of the international dog house.

There was also pressure building to push Hamas -- or at least the "governing wing" of it -- towards a posture that would move dramatically closer to a recognition of Israel. Abbas was becoming increasingly entrepreneurial in creating opportunities for the constructive players in Hamas to squirm towards eventual negotiations with Israel that could possibly be packaged in terms of "final status negotiations" on the borders and terms of a new Palestinian state. George W. Bush is the first President to actually call the Palestine territories "Palestine" and may have eventually come around on trying to pump up Abbas's legitimacy as the father of a new and different state. I am doubtful of this scenario -- but some in Israel had serious concerns about this unfolding.

Lastly, despite lots of tit-for-tat tensions and enormous mistrust, Iran and the U.S. were tilting towards a deal to negotiate about Iran's nuclear pretensions and other goals. Some in Israel viewed all three of these potential policy courses for the U.S. -- a broad deal with the Arab Middle East, a new push on final status negotiations with the Palestinians, and a deal to actually negotiate directly with Iran -- as negative for Israel.

The flamboyant, over the top reactions to attacks on Israel's military check points and the abduction of soldiers -- which I agree Israel must respond to -- seems to be part establishing "bona fides" by Olmert, but far more important, REMOVING from the table important policy options that the U.S. might have pursued.

Israel is constraining American foreign policy in amazing and troubling ways by its actions. And a former senior CIA official and another senior Marine who are well-versed in both Israeli and broad Middle East affairs, agreed that serious strategists in Israel are more concerned about America tilting towards new bargains in the region than they are either about the challenge from Hamas or Hezbollah or showing that Olmert knows how to pull the trigger.

Another well respected and very serious national security public intellectual in the nation wrote this when I shared this thesis that Israeli actions were ultimately aimed at clipping American wings in the region. His response:

the thesis of your paper is right-on. whether intentional or coincidental, that is what is being done right now.

I share these other views only to establish the fact that there is not a consensus either in support of or opposed to Israeli action -- but some are beginning to scrutinize what Israel is seeking to achieve with such flamboyant displays of power that are antagonizing whole societies on their borders.

Keeping America from cutting new deals in the region -- which many in the national security establishment thinks are vital -- may actually be what is going on, and the smarter-than-average analysts are beginning to see that. To take one moment though and argue a counter-point to this, one serious analyst I spoke to this morning who stopped by to talk after attending synagogue raised a good point. He said that he thought that Olmert's insecurity about military management was driving the over-reaction.

But he also said that the QUALITY of the attacks against Israel were freaking out the Israeli military and intelligence leaders. Complex incursions that included abductions along with a successful attack on an Israeli gunship show that the enemy is no longer an unimpressive, rag-tag lot. Training and armaments have been improved, and Israel is scrambling to figure out how this happened.

For the right wind scare-your-shit view, try the Weekly Standard. They have been pining away on this for a long time, and now it looks like they are going to get their wishes fulfilled...

Combining anti-semitic generalizations and anti-Palestinian hate speech, the remarkably ugly: "When Will They Ever Learn... Why do so many American Jews hate the president who stands by Israel? by David Gelernter from the American Enterprise Institute. Concludes:

One thing is certain: Palestinians and left-wing American Jews would understand each other beautifully if they ever got together for a conference on refusing to face reality.

For more wigging out, see Hezbollah's Arsenal and worst of all, Bill Kristol's It's Our War:

For while Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak.

The right response is renewed strength--in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.

But such a military strike would take a while to organize. In the meantime, perhaps President Bush can fly from the silly G8 summit in St. Petersburg--a summit that will most likely convey a message of moral confusion and political indecision--to Jerusalem, the capital of a nation that stands with us, and is willing to fight with us, against our common enemies. This is our war, too.

Holy shit, we're fucked! Too bad this genius helped start the war in Iraq that handed Mesopotamia over to Iran. Small irony, that one. Since of course, the goal was perpetual warfare... Another step closer.

Israel is "proper fucked": Strategically, there is no way this can work

Pre-1982 war ethnic layout of Lebanon: What could go wrong?

(Via the sweet UTexas map collection)

There is a sense that this is finally the Clean Break scenario happening, but there is one more problem yet to be un-tethered from order into chaos. What happens when the chaos spills into Syria? As Stratfor notes, the Israelis are 'terrified' of any regime after Bashar Assad, since it would be made of A) rebellious Kurds - who are somewhat friendly, if not allied, to Israel. B) Sunni tribes branching down into Iraq, into Anbar province and beyond, deep into the Iraqi insurgency. C) Small religious minorities like Alawites, Christians, Druze and Armenians D) A pretty good number of Palestinians. That is not a good situation for Israel, and they probably won't try to topple Assad's government. But someone else might. (Kurdish map from here, the Vladimir-Kurdistan blog)

A couple bits from Stratfor to post. They don't want people reposting their special report alerts, so I will make do with excerpts. They have a pretty close view of what the thinking is inside the Israeli military.

Basically, Stratfor makes it clear that their view is that Hezbollah's strategy is to fight until the bitter end, trapping Israel in a very high-intensity occupation and 'counter insurgency' situation, but Hezbollah has the kind of advanced anti-ship, surface-to-surface, anti-tank and anti-personnel missiles (from Iran, who knows where else? China? Russians?) to make the Israeli mission an impossible weight, far beyond what the Palestinian militant groups could achieve on their own.

So Stratfor has a pretty intricate description of what the Israelis think they can accomplish. However, if I were playing this situation in a video game like, say "Command and Conquer: Generals", the Bekaa Valley with hundreds, if not thousands, of hidden Hezbollah rockets is the last place anyone sane would want to go.

The neo-cons often harbor fantasies about breaking up ethnically diverse states like Iran and Syria, then attempting to create dominating power relationships with the US and Israel at the top, and the various bickering ethnic groups below, set against each other in high British colonial style. The Baluchis and Azeris are two that neocons are known to court in Iran, and look what has happened in Iraq. Anyone who tries to stop them is another 'terrorist,' usually a 'fascist' to boot.

This is like what Ariel Sharon thought he could engineer in Lebanon in 1982, putting the Christian Phalangists on top in a bloody civil war, crushing the Shia and other sects supported by Syria and Iran, as well as the PLO. While occupying Lebanon, Israel managed to kick the PLO out to Tunisia, which bought more time to throw settlement colonies into the West Bank. As the occupation dragged on, the Iranians helped band the Shia in southern Lebanon together under Hezbollah, and they organized a guerrilla war of attrition to force Israel to withdraw in 2000. This was a prime example of 'fourth-generation warfare,' and it now appears that the 'warfare' part of that equation is back in full force again.

Yet absorbing more of the West Bank is clearly where Israel's real interests lie: (wikipedia)

Epoch Times: Israeli acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (Center-L), his Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz (2nd-R) and former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres (R) gather together in front of a map as they visit March 14, 2006 the Israeli west bank town of Ariel. (Pavel Wolberg-Pool/Getty Images)

Apart from the sheer bloodiness and hellish horror of such an 'ethnic re-engineering', which disgusts me deeply, setting that aside, the strategy doesn't fucking work. The basic concept in Revisionist Zionism – and now, obviously the Bush doctrine – that more bombs will inspire surrender and obedience has failed every time. Hezbollah is well-prepped for the current Israeli strategy – they know how the airstrikes work, they know from experience how Israeli intelligence has tried to catch them in this area. Most of all, they know they won straight up last time, and this time, the Israelis have better technology, but Hezbollah sure does too. They can keep falling back farther north, while still tossing long-range rockets into Haifa, and resisting all the Israelis' brutal methods by folding the organization into thousands of unstoppable, independent, rocket-bearing cells, or teams of about three, surrounded by a radicalized populace. Far better terrain for the guerrilla than the occupier, in 4GW terms.

Another point is that Israel and the United States (who obviously planned this all in tandem - hence, more U.S.-manufactured bombs on their way today to Israeli planes, Lebanese craters and Arab blood generally) have grossly underestimated the quality of Hezbollah's arsenal. This was a classic, grievous mistake on the order of Israel's foolish idea in 1973 that the Arabs were far too weak to attack – then came the Yom Kippur war.

Believing your enemies too weak and too strong, simultaneously, is a key marker of Fascist thinking.

Listen carefully to what Stratfor is saying: you can sense a waning confidence that Hezbollah could be 'eliminated' tactically, no matter how many bombs are dropped. Also, note the lack of brakes on the situation: Israel doesn't want Syria's government to fall, even while attacking the nearby Bekaa Valley. However, if, say, Al Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood happened to have a little luck with assassinations, anarchy across the Levant, all the way to Iran, Afghanistan, would be certain. That would not be in the interests of Israel, the United States, Iran, the EU, Turkey (especially!) or any other states.

It would be just another winning round for Al Qaeda, whose record so far in 'sharpening contradictions,' erasing stability to create 'the base', seems to be on a winning tack. The vast numbers of refugees generated in the last few days (hours!) will also help Al Qaeda style militants find converts among South Lebanon's "New Palestinians" of the 21st century. Another well thought out strategy from Washington.

Also note in particular the loss of Israeli initiative. From Sun Tzu to Clausewitz, a key aspect of warfare, especially 4GW, is retaining the initiative (PDF) – staying on the move, massing up & picking battles – but Hezbollah's dispersed, long-range nature has taken Israel's initiative apart. Israel will fight where and when Hezbollah wants them to, in a sense. Yesterday at noon from Stratfor I got:

Red Alert: The Battle Joined
The ground war has begun. Several Israeli brigades now appear to be operating between the Lebanese border and the Litani River. According to reports, Hezbollah forces are dispersed in multiple bunker complexes and are launching rockets from these and other locations.

Hezbollah's strategy appears to be threefold. First, force Israel into costly attacks against prepared fortifications. Second, draw Israeli troops as deeply into Lebanon as possible, forcing them to fight on extended supply lines. Third, move into an Iraqi-style insurgency from which Israel -- out of fear of a resumption of rocket attacks -- cannot withdraw, but which the Israelis also cannot endure because of extended long-term casualties. This appears to have been a carefully planned strategy, built around a threat to Israeli cities that Israel can't afford. The war has begun at Hezbollah's time and choosing.

Israel is caught between three strategic imperatives. First, it must end the threat to Israeli cities, which must involve the destruction of Hezbollah's launch capabilities south of the Litani River. Second, it must try to destroy Hezbollah's infrastructure, which means it must move into the Bekaa Valley and as far as the southern suburbs of Beirut. Third, it must do so in such a way that it is not dragged into a long-term, unsustainable occupation against a capable insurgency.

Hezbollah has implemented its strategy by turning southern Lebanon into a military stronghold, consisting of well-designed bunkers that serve both as fire bases and launch facilities for rockets. The militants appear to be armed with anti-tank weapons and probably anti-aircraft weapons, some of which appear to be of American origin, raising the question of how they were acquired. Hezbollah wants to draw Israel into protracted fighting in this area in order to inflict maximum casualties and to change the psychological equation for both military and political reasons.

Israelis historically do not like to fight positional warfare. Their tendency has been to bypass fortified areas, pushing the fight to the rear in order to disrupt logistics, isolate fortifications and wait for capitulation. This has worked in the past. It is not clear that it will work here. The great unknown is the resilience of Hezbollah's fighters. To this point, there is no reason to doubt it. Israel could be fighting the most resilient and well-motivated opposition force in its history. But the truth is that neither Israel nor Hezbollah really knows what performance will be like under pressure.

Simply occupying the border-Litani area will not achieve any of Israel's strategic goals. Hezbollah still would be able to use rockets against Israel. And even if, for Hezbollah, this area is lost, its capabilities in the Bekaa Valley and southern Beirut will remain intact. Therefore, a battle that focuses solely on the south is not an option for Israel, unless the Israelis feel a defeat here will sap Hezbollah's will to resist. We doubt this to be the case.

The key to the campaign is to understand that Hezbollah has made its strategic decisions. It will not be fighting a mobile war. Israel has lost the strategic initiative: It must fight when Hezbollah has chosen and deal with Hezbollah's challenge. However, given this, Israel does have an operational choice. It can move in a sequential fashion, dealing first with southern Lebanon and then with other issues. It can bypass southern Lebanon and move into the rear areas, returning to southern Lebanon when it is ready. It can attempt to deal with southern Lebanon in detail, while mounting mobile operations in the Bekaa Valley, in the coastal regions and toward south Beirut, or both at the same time.

There are resource and logistical issues involved. Moving simultaneously on all three fronts will put substantial strains on Israel's logistical capability. An encirclement westward on the north side of the Litani, followed by a move toward Beirut while the southern side of the Litani is not secured, poses a serious challenge in re-supply. Moving into the Bekaa means leaving a flank open to the Syrians. We doubt Syria will hit that flank, but then, we don't have to live with the consequences of an intelligence failure. Israel will be sending a lot of force on that line if it chooses that method. Again, since many roads in south Lebanon will not be secure, that limits logistics. [Get ready for this one, it's been key in Iraq -Dan]

Israel is caught on the horns of a dilemma. Hezbollah has created a situation in which Israel must fight the kind of war it likes the least -- attritional, tactical operations against prepared forces -- or go to the war it prefers, mobile operations, with logistical constraints that make these operations more difficult and dangerous. Moreover, if it does this, it increases the time during which Israeli cities remain under threat. Given clear failures in appreciating Hezbollah's capabilities, Israel must take seriously the possibility that Hezbollah has longer-ranged, anti-personnel rockets that it will use while under attack.

Israel has been trying to break the back of Hezbollah resistance in the south through air attack, special operations and probing attacks. This clearly hasn't worked thus far. That does not mean it won't work, as Israel applies more force to the problem and starts to master the architecture of Hezbollah's tactical and operational structure; however, Israel can't count on a rapid resolution of that problem.
........
An extended engagement in southern Lebanon is the least likely path, in our opinion. More likely -- and this is a guess -- is a five-part strategy:

1. Insert airmobile and airborne forces north of the Litani to seal the rear of Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon. Apply air power and engineering forces to reduce the fortifications, and infantry to attack forces not in fortified positions. Bottle them up, and systematically reduce the force with limited exposure to the attackers.

2. Secure roads along the eastern flank for an armored thrust deep into the Bekaa Valley to engage the main Hezbollah force and infrastructure there. This would involve a move from Qiryat Shimona north into the Bekaa, bypassing the Litani to the west, and would probably require sending airmobile and special forces to secure the high ground. It also would leave the right flank exposed to Syria.

3. Use air power and special forces to undermine Hezbollah capabilities in the southern Beirut area. The Israelis would consider a move into this area after roads through southern Lebanon are cleared and Bekaa relatively secured, moving into the area, only if absolutely necessary, on two axes of attack.

4. Having defeated Hezbollah in detail, withdraw under a political settlement shifting defense responsibility to the Lebanese government.

5. Do all of this while the United States is still able to provide top cover against diplomatic initiatives that will create an increasingly difficult international environment.

In my view, this is the part where Israel is "proper fucked." Maybe only one of these will actually work, at best:

There can be many variations on this theme, but these elements are inevitable:

1. Hezbollah cannot be defeated without entering the Bekaa Valley, at the very least.
2. At some point, resistance in southern Lebanon must be dealt with, regardless of the cost.
3. Rocket attacks against northern Israel and even Tel Aviv must be accepted while the campaign unfolds.
4. The real challenge will come when Israel tries to withdraw.

No. 4 is the real challenge. Destruction of Hezbollah's infrastructure does not mean annihilation of the force. If Israel withdraws, Hezbollah or a successor organization will regroup. If Israel remains, it can wind up in the position the United States is in Iraq. This is exactly what Hezbollah wants. So, Israel can buy time, or Israel can occupy and pay the cost. One or the other.
[..........]

Hezbollah has dealt Israel a difficult hand. It has thought through the battle problem as well as the political dimension carefully. Somewhere in this, there has been either an Israeli intelligence failure or a political failure to listen to intelligence. Hezbollah's capabilities have posed a problem for Israel that allowed Hezbollah to start a war at a time and in a way of its choosing. The inquest will come later in Israel. And Hezbollah will likely be shattered regardless of its planning. The correlation of forces does not favor it. But if it forces Israel not only to defeat its main force but also to occupy, Hezbollah will have achieved its goals.

Sounds like Israel has blundered into a pretty ugly situation, if not an outright trap. Apart from the moral horror of injecting Israel into a giant war, killing hundreds of civilians, there is the more cold horror that it's not even going to fulfill the outwardly proclaimed goals.

Unless the goal is simply to escalate the region into a huge war, causing panicked Americans to rally round the flag again.

The problem is that once Israel has a really bad stalemate on its hands, the neo-cons will 'flight forward' from the crisis, escalating like Nazis going into Russia. And that means a war with Iran. In all likelihood, we will soon see all the theatrical staged shit like WMDs in Iran, and perhaps some false flag terror attacks will drive things into a frenzy, apart from the brinkmanship of guys like Iran's Ahmedinejad. I can't believe I'm saying this kind of shit these days, but hey, look where we are.

Unless, of course, more sane elements in the U.S. and elsewhere can intervene.

This, by the way, is the basic shape of your "October Surprise" intended to get people to vote Republican this fall. There will be plenty of well-packaged sequels until November, but we can basically see now that Clean Break is the 2006 Congressional Campaign Roadmap, and the Democrats ought to fucking act to put the brakes on and articulate an alternative, NOW.

Crossposted: "intimate dispatch from Beirut"

From one blog, Green Beans and Drool, by a grad student named Jennifer who recently stayed in Beirut (via Juan Cole):

Monday, July 17, 2006: intimate dispatch from Beirut:

Evelyne forwarded an email from her brother, Lucien, who is a humanitarian activist and pastor at an Evangelical church in Beirut..... [photos of the pastor]

This is my translation (from French) of his email:

The sky is blue
The sky is red
The sky is black
It's raining fire
It's raining ashes
It's raining blood
A woman howls in sadness
A little girl is frozen in terror
A child is fixed in horror

Thank you for thinking about us! The country is screaming through the spew of bombs. Officials from all borders cry for vengeance. There is a god with a black beard who claims to speak for God. A commotion as the sorcerer's apprentices cook up all their magic potions. Meanwhile crowds of thousands give way and fold to the suffering of perpetual exile, of destruction without end.

Finally, among these thousands of displaced people, some familiar faces emerged. Thirty people who escaped from the furnace. A ring on the phone informed me - it was my friend Kazem. He told me about his village. Members of his family escaped the disaster and made their way toward Beirut. They were here finally after a long journey, and the visage of the group was hagard. They had hoped to find a place in a hotel somewhere, as they had the means, but they searched in vain.

A second call from the Hajjeh family shook my cell phone. The call was a swoon of sadness, a sinister scream. The 25-year-old husband of Eva, a daughter of the Hajjeh family, had been missing since the morning and was found dead. He had been with an emergency group who was trying to distribute food to displaced families. He was torn apart in the bombing of a nine-floor building in Tyre, a city already martyred a hundred times over -

Sorry. I'm weeping.*

Lucien

* "Sorry je pleure," it reads in the original French.

Somalia: D'OH! Another fine moment in foreign policy; Odds of Minneapolis West Bank Islamic militia takeover = 3%

In a subtle irony that only the Somalis could pull off, Mogadishu has been captured by Islamic militias after more than a decade of chaotic civil war. Apparently the kiss of death for the more secular warlords was when word got around that the CIA was paying them to keep fighting the Islamic guys. Summary from DailyKos: Bush searches for "Plan B" for Somalia.

While wandering around the Cedar-Riverside area last night (there was a benefit for the Arise Bookstore at Bedlam Theatre) I was reminded yet again that this little patch of Minneapolis has deep connections to a place on the most opposite pole of the international political system imaginable. I considered that the odds of an Islamic militia taking over the Minneapolis' West Bank area, given the HAMAS in the other West Bank, and Mogadishu, well, the odds must be up to like 3% by now.

WaPo reports that the guns have mostly stopped firing in the battered capital:

The thugs manning the roadblocks are gone. The warlords are on the run. And the guns in a city long regarded as among the world's most heavily armed have fallen silent. Most, in fact, have disappeared from view.

Since Islamic militias took control of this city last week, U.S. and other Western officials have worried that Mogadishu's new leaders would impose a severe, Taliban-style government and harbor terrorists. But after 15 years of deadly chaos, residents interviewed expressed jubilation that somebody has made their city safe, and that for now, the daily crackle of gunfire is finally gone.

"Our ears are resting now," said Diiriye Jimcaale, 45, who has been unemployed since the onset of inter-clan warfare forced him to close his small clothing shop in 1991. Anxiety remains, both about the militias' ability to maintain order and about the possibility that extremist elements within the movement will go too far in imposing Islamic rule. Residents speak of a wave of cinema closings after the militias took control of the city June 5. Rumors circulated that public showings of the televised World Cup soccer tournament would be banned.

But on this Friday night, sounds of the match floated through Mogadishu. The streets bustled with activity. The city's largest market, near the site where two U.S. helicopters crashed in 1993, as depicted in the movie "Black Hawk Down," hummed with business. Cab driver Yusuf Ali Muhammed, 39, felt so safe that he left his longtime bodyguard at home, saving himself $5 in security fees, he said. Wielding an AK-47 rifle, as his guard did each night as they drove through the city, is now prohibited. Yet even without it, Muhammed said that he could now go anywhere in the city at any time. Before, he stuck to the few neighborhoods he knew best.

More commentary about the new Somalia situation, and an op-ed from Omar Jamal in today's Star Tribune. Jamal is saying that it's gonna be Taliban-style:

Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaida, praised the bravery of the militia and its victory in kicking the "infidels" out of Somalia. He further infiltrated the militias by funding and sending experts to train them.

The warlords were oblivious to the Trojan horse that Bin Laden had sent them. Al-Qaida continued to try to get a foothold in Mogadishu, while the warlords continued to pillage and drag an already impoverished people into more suffering.

There's been good reporting in the Strib about the local reaction. Eric Black's story from June 10 ought to be read: Somalis ponder the possibility of peace: News that Islamic fundamentalists are behind the new calm in Mogadishu sparks a flurry of opinion among Minnesota Somalis:

Somali faces crowd around a coffeehouse table in Minneapolis, listening intently, speaking passionately, interrupting occasionally, expressing opinions about a swarm of questions that arise from the latest developments in Mogadishu. They believe, or maybe just hope, that peace may be breaking out in the war-ravaged capital of their homeland. Out pour the views:

Yes, the victory of an Islamist coalition in the battle for Mogadishu is a good thing. But not if they turn out to be Taliban-style Islamists. But they aren't. Well, some of them are. Are there Al-Qaida-linked terrorists hiding in Mogadishu? Yes, I know it for a fact. No, it's a rumor. Foreigners could never hide in Somalia, because everyone knows everyone. We hate terrorists. Make sure you tell your readers that. We are making new lives in America and grateful to be in Minnesota.
[.....]
The Starbucks Somalis don't have answers to the biggest questions. Can the Islamists hold the capital? Will they try to take over the whole country? Will they work with the transitional government? Are they harboring terrorists? Will Washington tolerate their rise? But almost every opinion is represented. Then a break in the cacophony as a new face arrives. The others defer for a trice to the respected editor of a Somali newspaper, the Warsan Times. The news is a mixture of good and bad, says editor Hassan Shabac. "The warlords who have put our people through 16 years of hell have been driven from their strongholds."

The killing has stopped, for the moment. The bus fare to cross Mogadishu has plummeted from 3,500 Somali shillings last week to 1,000 shillings, because buses don't have to pay the warlords for permission to pass. Most heads at the table nod.

The Union of Islamic Courts is a coalition of two factions, with very different characteristics, Shabac calmly continues. The moderate faction could probably work out a deal with the provisional government. Some around the table have voiced hopes that a deal between the provisional government and the moderate Islamists will complete the struggle to end Somalia's 16 years of stateless limbo.

But then Shabac drops the other shoe, which bodes ill for the young men's hopes and the old men's dreams. The other faction, Shabac says, is made up of Islamic hard-liners from the Al-Ittihad organization. Their agenda: Impose an Islamic caliphate on the whole country and eventually the whole region of Africa. Their Wahabbi-style Islam is so strict "it would make life under the Taliban look like paradise."

The locally produced Warsan Times, with a decidedly idiosyncratic website layout, opines:

US INVOLVEMENT IS SEEN NECESSARY TO END SOMALI CONFLICT
Us has been blamed for providing financial and military support to the anti terrorism coalition that are fighting to survive in Mogadishu against the powerful umbrella of Somali active religious zealots. It may be too late for US to get involved in Somali politics when the religious guys destroy Somali federal government and force Somali president Mr. You to ask Ethiopia for political asylum in six months from now.

It was well known that the Alitihad organization was training nine years in Marka, Somalia peacefully, so they can easily overtake Somalia without strong resistance. It is to my surprise that and also to many Somali scholars who are carefully studying Somali politics that anti terrorism terrorists where able to withstand the wrath of Islamic Para-military punishment this long.

Somali warlords have lost grounds so as popular support to defeat Islamic soldiers, because of them not finding a reasonable solution to Somali conflict, therefore, Somali people are willing to support religious guys because somehow they were able to bring peace and prosperity to those they rule. Somalis are tired of being jerked right to left by worlds with empty promises. These warlords are interest oriented while carefully drafting temporary agendas for the rest of the people they rule.

US have actively tried to facilitate food and rations to millions of displaced starving Somali people but they failed and lost many soldiers in the process. Now, for the world peace will it be easy for US government to stabilize Somalia by ending the Somali civil war and establishing responsible government in Mogadishu? For those who don’t remember this is how that good will ended.

US has lost many brave soldiers in the process of capturing elusive general Mr. Aided who was the most powerful general in Somali nation at the time, however, the liberal US government cut and ran after losing 18 exceptional brave US marines. Let me say this the withdrawal was important, because it gave the impression that America was vulnerable to terrorism and that if casualties were high enough they could be coerced into abandoning hazardous overseas commitments.

I don't know about that. What the hell could the US really have done to stabilize Somalia after the 'Black Hawk Down' incident anyway?

It's been a rough 15 years for Somalia, and I wish them all the best. It's too bad that the UN-organized provisional government (and its representatives who base themselves in Minnesota) couldn't bring about a better situation on their own terms, but it's quite possible that this new Islamic government is more interested in 'delivering the goods' of peace, quiet and prosperity than imposing harshly radical, Talban-style repression.

But if they do, it'll probably fall to the denizens of Cedar-Riverside to straighten things out. Time for another cup of coffee.

US-backed Mujahideen e-Khalq covert war in Iran seems to continue as "A Cambone Operation"

Iran shady business: This is an encouraging chart:

It comes via Steve Soto at TheLeftCoaster, who writes on The Economy and Iran that retired Colonel Sam Gardiner has offered an outline of the opening moves of an Iran war. Gardiner thinks its a terrible idea, and recently said on CNN that a covert war is already underway. His latest:

I. Period of Building Pressure: This could be 60 days or even six months in which the US and European leaders continue to talk to their publics on the failure of the Iranians to comply with "the wishes of the international community." There will be talk and work on sanctions but those, will be for the purpose of building US and international support; they will not be done with any hope of changing Iranian behavior. We should see the US surface a smoking gun during this phase. (Note: this has already happened with the recent “revelation” about Iran’s uranium possession in excess of what was anticipated) Some military deployments might take place. Most visible would be three aircraft carriers in the vicinity.
II. Initial Strike: This would last 36 to 48 hours. It would only be moderately visible to the global publics. Most of the attacks would take place at night. To prevent retaliation, most targets would be other than nuclear facilities.
III. Pause: The strikes would stop. Iran would be warned that if it were to retaliate the strikes would resume. The pause would probably not be long, maybe 72 hours. Either Iran would conduct an operation against US or Israeli targets, or there would be an event that is blamed on Iran. (Note: Gardiner says that it is very likely, especially in the wake of last week’s announcement from Iran that any strike by Bush against Iran would be considered as an attack from Israel also, that Iran will hit Israel in response to any attack from America)
IV. Regime Change Targeting: The attacks from this point would shift to targets that could cause the regime to fall. It would include direct attacks on the leadership of Iran.

Gardiner adds that the pressure is being increased:

In the phase of building pressure, I see two indicators. I called one of them the "smoking gun." By that I mean the Administration will reveal that Iran is farther along in its nuclear program than we originally thought. This will most likely be some evidence that AQ Kahn, the Pakistani, sold more to Iran than we knew.
Late Friday we read a leak from a diplomat with the International Atomic Energy Agency that new enriched uranium evidence has been found. This could be the emergence of the smoking gun.
The second indicator in the pressure-building phase was the position of aircraft carriers. The Reagan is in the Gulf Region. The Enterprise left Norfolk for the ME (Middle East) on May 2. The Lincoln did a port call in Singapore on April 30, apparently moving in the direction of the ME.

In October 2004, I had the bizarre experience of having lunch with that leading neoconservative Michael Ledeen, who is continually obsessed with Iran, and I wrote the following in "Lunch Beyond Good and Evil: Around a Table with Michael Ledeen":

His scheme to free Iran was to supply the opposition with the tools to destabilize the regime, “but not a single bullet.” I have a hard time believing he could resist arming the Iranian opposition. In fact, many say that the Pentagon, administered by Ledeen’s allies, has courted a weird, cultish anti-regime Iranian guerilla group based in eastern Iraq called the Mujahideen al-Khalq. If Bush wins, it’s quite unlikely that the neo-cons will be able to resist using forces like these to harass Tehran, but we have no idea what sort of reaction this would provoke from the highly mobilized, nationalist Iranians.

This appears to be exactly what is going on now, by some reports, as I noted earlier. On my birthday, Raw Story's Larisa Alexandrovna published a pretty disturbing report about how the situation is getting geared up:

US military, intelligence officials raise concern about possible preparations for Iran strike
Concern is building among the military and the intelligence community that the US may be preparing for a military strike on Iran, as military assets in key positions are approaching readiness, RAW STORY has learned.... Retired Air Force Colonel and former faculty member at the National War College Sam Gardiner has heard some military suggestions of a possible air campaign in the near future, and although he has no intimate knowledge of such plans, he says recent aircraft carrier activity and current operations on the ground in Iran have raised red flags.....
Advance teams under way; Congress ‘bypassed’
As previously reported by Raw Story, a terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) is being used on the ground in Iran by the Pentegon, bypassing US intelligence channels. The report was subsequently covered by the Asia Times (Article). Military and intelligence sources now say no Presidential finding exists on MEK ops. Without a presidential finding, the operation circumvents the oversight of the House and Senate Intelligence committees.

Congressional aides for the relevant oversight committees would not confirm or deny allegations that no Presidential finding had been done. One Democratic aide, however, wishing to remain anonymous for this article, did say that any use of the MEK would be illegal. In addition, sources say that a March attack that killed 22 Iranian officials in the province of Sistan va Baluchistan was carried out by the MEK.

According to a report by Iran Focus filed Mar. 23, the twenty-two people killed in the ambush included high ranking officials, including the governor of Zahedan. "Hours after the attack took place, Ahmadi-Moqaddam announced there was evidence the assailants had held meetings with British intelligence officers," the Iranian news service reported. "Radical Shiite cleric Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi also claimed the people behind the attack were the same as those behind a spate of bombings in Iran’s south-western province of Khuzestan earlier this year and in 2005," it added.

Military and intelligence sources say that MEK assets were responsible for this attack, but did not know if the US military was involved or if US military assets were part of the ambush. One former high ranking US intelligence official described the use of MEK as more of a "Cambone" operation than a "Department of Defense operation." Undersecretary of Defense Intelligence Stephen Cambone, a stalwart neo-conservative, is considered by many to be Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s right-hand man.

During a White House briefing in early May, outgoing press secretary Scott McClellan denied that the administration was using MEK, among several other terrorist organizations named, for ground activity in Iran....

Here is a lot of background on the shady, shady Mr Cambone. More on this at WotIsItGood4. You need to read Iran Freedom and Regime Change Politics by Tom Barry at the International Relations Center's Right Web site for more on how AIPAC and other nasty foreign policy lobbies are ginning up the Iran war:

While AIPAC is the most powerful group advocating a tougher U.S. policy toward Iran, numerous other pressure groups calling for regime change in Iran have emerged over the past several years. One of the earliest, the Coalition for Democracy in Iran (CDI), formed in late 2002, ceased functioning in mid-2005. Operating out of the office of Morris Amitay, the former director of AIPAC, CDI worked closely with AIPAC to encourage Congress to pass resolutions condemning Iran. The CDI principals continue their efforts to promote regime change in Iran through other organizations, including the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Committee on the Present Danger, and the American Enterprise Institute.

Raymond Tanter, one of the original members of the Coalition for Democracy in Iran, founded the Iran Policy Committee (IPC) in January 2005. Tanter, who was a senior staff member of the National Security Council during the Reagan administration, is also associated with several other right-wing policy organizations, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Middle East Institute, and the Committee on the Present Danger. Since its founding the Iran Policy Committee has sponsored conferences and policy briefings on the Hill, and has also published four policy papers—a common theme being that the U.S. government should declassify the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) as an international terrorist organization and recognize it as being the “indisputably largest and most organized Iranian opposition group.”

Tangent: Using soccer to kick Iran.

War on Terror & Full Spectrum Dominance encompasses rebellious South Americans, some other randomness

How to Pick a Satisfying Career: Know Yourself

Hongpong.com Drupal development: Some new advancements: I have organized the menus a bit and set up a basic forum. It is colossally easy to register an account on the new system, which allows you to put up files and such, as well as personal blogs and polls. Anonymous comments are also turned on.

Check out the new RSS headline aggregator thingy set up - viewed here as a big list of mixed things, or here broken into the component sections (or "wires")or a set of the sources we're putting together. NOTE: Right now the auto headline updater doesn't work - in other words it won't check sites on its own yet. Therefore I think anyone can hit drupal.hongpong.com/cron.php to force updating the feeds. (we're gonna do some SEO somehow, too)

Meanwhile some randomness: Bill Salisbury on polarization in MN nominating processes. He is an intrepid reporter who's been around the Capitol for a long time.

Help Palestinians but dodge giving Hamas government money? Sounds dubious.

Aspyr is releasing Civilization IV for Macintosh tentatively in June. I just saw it on PC again, and it is excellent.

Porter Goss: shitty leader goes back to Capitol Hill. Never should have brought his greasy face outta the House.

You gotta see the Truth live. The word is law, bitch! Wayne Madsen promotes Al Gore comeback in 2008 in the Salt Lake Tribune.

If you care at all about South America you need to check out Greg Grandin's "Rumsfeld's Latin American Wild West Show" on TomDispatch.com. Basically the U.S. is militarizing its relations with the whole region, as one country after another slips out of Washington's orbit. Only a small part of a CRUCIAL read about how direct American imperialism/Full Spectrum Dominance has been field-tested south of here:

Latin America, in fact, has become more dangerous of late, plagued by a rise in homicides, kidnappings, drug use, and gang violence. Yet it is not the increase in illicit activity that is causing the Pentagon to beat its alarm but rather a change in the way terrorism experts and government officials think about international security. After 9/11, much was made of Al Qaeda's virus-like ability to adapt and spread through loosely linked affinity cells even after its host government in Afghanistan had been destroyed. Defense analysts now contend that, with potential patron nations few and far between and funding sources cut off by effective policing, a new mutation has occurred. To raise money, terrorists are reportedly making common cause with gun runners, people smugglers, brand-name and intellectual-property bootleggers, drug dealers, blood-diamond merchants, and even old-fashioned high-seas pirates.

In other words, the real enemy facing the U.S. in its War on Terror is not violent extremism, but that old scourge of American peacekeepers since the days of the frontier: lawlessness. "Lawlessness that breeds terrorism is also a fertile ground for the drug trafficking that supports terrorism," said former Attorney John Ashcroft a few years ago, explaining why Congress's global counterterrorism funding bill was allocating money to support the Colombian military's fight against leftist rebels.

Counter-insurgency theorists have long argued for what they describe as "total war at the grass-roots," by which they mean a strategy not just to defeat insurgents by military force but to establish control over the social, economic, and cultural terrain in which they operate. "Drying up the sea," they call it, riffing on Mao's famous dictum, or sometimes, "draining the swamp." What this expanded definition of the terrorist threat does is take the concept of total war out of, say, the mountains of Afghanistan, and project it onto a world scale: Victory, says the Pentagon's 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, "requires the creation of a global environment inhospitable to terrorism."

Defining the War on Terror in such expansive terms offers a number of advantages for American security strategists. Since the United States has the world's largest military, the militarization of police work justifies the "persistent surveillance" of, well, everything and everybody, as well as the maintenance of "a long-term, low-visibility presence in many areas of the world where U.S. forces do not traditionally operate." It justifies taking "preventive measures" in order to "quell disorder before it leads to the collapse of political and social structures" and shaping "the choices of countries at strategic crossroads" which, the Quadrennial Defense Review believes, include Russia, China, India, the Middle East, Latin America, Southeast Asia -- just about every nation on the face of the earth save Britain and, maybe, France.

[Read the next one carefully then check your phone records: -Dan]
Since the "new threats of the 21st century recognize no borders," the Pentagon can, in the name of efficiency and flexibility, breach bureaucratic divisions separating police, military, and intelligence agencies, while at the same time demanding that they be subordinated to U.S. command. Hawks now like to sell the War on Terror as "the Long War," but a better term would be ‘the Wide War," with an enemies list infinitely expandable to include everything from DVD bootleggers to peasants protesting the Bechtel Corporation. Southcom Commander Craddock regularly preaches against "anti-globalization and anti-free trade demagogues," while Harvard security-studies scholar and leading ideologue of the "protean enemy" thesis, Jessica Stern, charges, without a shred of credible evidence, that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is brokering an alliance between "Colombian rebels and militant Islamist groups."

.....In Latin America more generally, it is increasingly the Pentagon, not the State Department, which sets the course for hemispheric diplomacy. With a staff of 1,400 and a budget of $800 million, Southcom already has more money and resources devoted to Latin America than do the Departments of State, Treasury, Commerce, and Agriculture combined. And its power is growing.

For decades following the passage of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, it was the responsibility of the civilian diplomats over at Foggy Bottom to allocate funds and training to foreign armies and police forces. But the Pentagon has steadily usurped this authority, first to fight the War on Drugs, then the War on Terror. Out of its own budget, it now pays for about two-thirds of the security training the U.S. gives to Latin America. In January 2006, Congress legalized this transfer of authority from State to Defense through a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, which for the first time officially gave the Pentagon the freedom to spend millions from its own budget on aid to foreign militaries without even the formality of civilian oversight. After 9/11, total American military aid to the region jumped from roughly $400 million to more than $700 million. It has been steadily rising ever since, coming in today just shy of $1 billion.

Much of this aid consists of training Latin American soldiers -- more than 15,000 every year. Washington hopes that, even while losing its grip over the region's civilian leadership, its influence will grow as each of these cadets, shaped by ideas and personal loyalties developed during his instruction period, moves up his nation's chain of command. [And that in turn, could be the backdoor for American-directed coups and direct political pressure --Dan]

Training consists of lethal combat techniques in the field backed by counterinsurgency and counter-terror theory and doctrine in the classroom. This doctrine, conforming as it does to the Pentagon's broad definition of the international security threat, is aimed at undermining the work civilian activists have done since the end of Cold War to dismantle national and international intelligence agencies in the region.

BagNewsNotes on Pitching the Zarqawi bloopers.
The Ny Times says today:

Two related National Security Agency surveillance programs begun after the Sept. 11 attacks have provoked legal controversy because the agency does not seek court warrants for their operation.

In the domestic eavesdropping program, the N.S.A. listens in on phone calls and reads e-mail messages to and from Americans and others in the United States who the agency believes may be linked to Al Qaeda. Only international communications — those into and out of the country — are monitored, according to administration officials. Until late 2001, the N.S.A. focused on only the foreign end of such conversations; if it decided someone in the United States was of intelligence interest, it had to get a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Now such warrants are sought only for communications between two people who are both in the United States.

In the telephone record data-mining program, the N.S.A. has obtained from at least three phone companies the records of all calls — domestic and international — showing the phone numbers on both ends of each conversation, and its date, time, duration and other details. The records do not include the contents of any call or e-mail message and do not include personal data like credit card numbers and home addresses, officials say.

Security agency employees perform computer analysis in an effort to identify possible associates of terror suspects.

Meanwhile a nice birthday present from the AP - May 11: Justice Department Abruptly Ends Domestic Spying Probe

The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter.

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, or OPR, sent a fax to Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., on Wednesday saying they were closing their inquiry because without clearance their lawyers cannot examine Justice lawyers' role in the program.

"We have been unable to make any meaningful progress in our investigation because OPR has been denied security clearances for access to information about the NSA program," OPR counsel H. Marshall Jarrett wrote to Hinchey.

Hinchey's office shared the letter with The Associated Press.

Jarrett wrote that beginning in January, his office has made a series of requests for the necessary clearances. Those requests were denied Tuesday.

"Without these clearances, we cannot investigate this matter and therefore have closed our investigation," wrote Jarrett.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the terrorist surveillance program "has been subject to extensive oversight both in the executive branch and in Congress from the time of its inception."

Meanwhile it is interesting that the Carlyle Group has some control over how those security clearances are handed out via the U.S. Investigative Services, USIS, entity. $13 million in a recent contract.

Man, to hell with it. I'm gonna go have fun now.

Let's waste some time

For real, I am digging around very seriously for a job today. It's my birthday tomorrow, but I really need to make sure that the coming year has the kind of stability and confidence that the last year just really hasn't had at all. And by that, I mean full time work that will get me away from wasting my time with such really productive hobbies as this site. But hey that ain't yet, so lets waste some time:

Without BAGNewsNotes, where would we get such photos? Since politics is all images these days, its nice such a site specifically checks out the visual side: Psychology Watch: The Obvious Boy For Next Secretary Of Defense:

Nuclear gas release in Prairie Island containment vessel: A story from that new Twin Cities Daily Planet site, which sort of left ambiguous the nature of a recent nuclear leak down in Red Wing:

Prairie Island accident raises questions: A nuclear industry watchdog group Tuesday called the May 5 accident at the Prairie Island nuclear plant in which 100 workers were contaminated with radioactive iodine the most serious release of radiation there in 20 years and raised questions about the federal reporting process.

My understanding from the article is that the gas never got outside the containment vessel... The wording is a bit hazy, but the Daily Planet just started up, so they've got a couple kinks to get out. I admire the clever structure of the new Twin Cities news aggregating / indie features site, though, and I wish 'em the best.

Macalester alumni mag faces Scrotum-gate: I had declined to speak of this on the Internet but then they covered it in the Mac Weekly. Basically one of the Bad Comedy boys got his balls into a group photo that was submitted to Mac's fawning glossy alumni magazine. This was a brilliant maneuver in every sense, and a good (wait for it) extension of Bad Comedy's nudity-tinged oeuvre. I'd heard some rumors of this conspiracy in advance and I'm glad it went off well.

Obnoxious 'faux liberal' Washington Post columnist complains about angry bloggers: complaining about the 'anger' factor is just another way to deflect from the substance. In this case, it was Cohen's whining about how Colbert shouldn't have dared ruffle those mega-eagle feathers, which set off some pissed off emails. Digby: "In case Cohen hasn't noticed nobody on the fucking planet likes squishy faux liberal courtiers." And Salon's Daou Report on that and on the DailyKos.

Random as hell: (but seemed interesting enough): Old Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar "vows allegiance to bin Laden". Actually I thought this was old news, but it's interesting he's still kicking around since the old days when Reagan helped him fight the commies and pretty much everyone else. Tariq Ali on Iran. Muqtada al-Sadr wants to model the Mahdi Army on Hezbollah, which is a logical progression from boisterous militia to political party with lotsa guns and social services. AlJazeera.com (not affiliated with the TV network): Handicapped U.S. intel. on Iran challenges new CIA man.

This interview with the frontman of Godsmack about why the hell they sold songs into military recruiting commercials is pretty funny, if sad. (via Firedoglake)

"America's Geopolitical Nightmare and Eurasian Strategic Energy Arrangements" by F. William Engdahl from the idiosyncratic Centre for Research on Globalization, which always has interesting things. "The Next World War" from Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo.

Suddenly all these guys, Joe Biden among them, are saying "let's just break Iraq in three" and feeling clever about themselves. I think that's a bit insane, but hardly surprising. George Packer, a skilled journalist, says in the New Yorker:

The choice in Iraq should not be between the Administration’s failed eschatology and the growing eagerness of most politicians to be rid of the problem.

Nobody likes Joe Lieberman, not even his supporters. Bizarre.

Jews Jeer Mehlman: JTA: Republican chairman booed at AJCommittee event:

The room burst into applause, however, when AJCommittee board member Edith Everett asked Mehlman to “take a message” to President Bush to stop linking Israel and Iran. “It does not help Israel and it does not help American Jews to appear to be stimulators of any action against Iran,” Everett said.

Something about Hitchens and Juan Cole: Noted rightwing drunkard Christopher Hitchens broke into a private email server where one of my favorite academics on the internet, Juan Cole, was explaining that the term "wipe Israel off the map" is an idiom that doesn't actually exist in Farsi, therefore every time you hear it, it's actually a distortion of meaning that serves war propaganda. Basically Hitchens published all these chunks of Cole's reasoning out of context in Slate, and this was a dick thing to do, since no one likes Hitchens, so he does this kind of B.S. hit piece. Anyway here is a bit about it. More here. As always, Cole's site is absolutely key.

Kos calls my boss a "wingnut": Teh sweet. Duly noted on the dailykos:

Last week I opened up in Minneapolis, where I got a ridiculously good reception. I started with a book signing at Arise Books, which is a small indy bookstore run by volunteers. I hadn't ever heard of anything like that before. The place was packed, and in the crowd was Fighting Dem Tim Walz in MN-01, who got a chance to update me on his race (which really is looking good). Also present was CW Wisconsin, who drove three hours for the event and left some great beer behind for me.

I did some radio, including wingnut radio on a show following Hannity. It was the first wingnut radio I'd done, since quite frankly, I'd rather not waste my time talking to people who won't buy my book anyway. But I had a blast batting around callers like a cat toying with a mouse. Seriously, what a bunch of morons.

Counter-AIPAC academics strike back: The Mearsheimer/Walt paper about the Israel Lobby and AIPAC has generated a predictable round of finger-pointing and scurrilous charges of anti-semitism, because they dared to directly dissect with blunt academic Neo-Realist style the way that A) Israel's right-wing policies are fully supported by the United States B) for totally irrational reasons that undermine our real national interests and C) no one is ever ever ever supposed to talk about this. Obviously it is a controversial topic to ramble on about, but not now. Anyway Mearsheimer and Walt wrote a big letter reacting to the reactions. These guys will have to sacrifice a lot in order to take on such a dicey topic, and we owe it to them to look at the matter carefully. But not now, damnit. Also there is an academic Freedom of Speech petition Juan Cole started against the charges of anti-semitism directed towards M&W.

Bits on CIA chief candidate Hayden: For some bizarre reason, Dennis Hastert is lashing out at John Negroponte for trying to do a "power play" by getting his deputy Hayden into running the CIA. I would recommend Steve Clemons' Washington Note stories on this matter, and the counter-intuitive "Misreading Michael Hayden's Role in the Intelligence Bureaucracy Wars: Negroponte Wants Hayden to Battle with -- Not Help -- Rumsfeld" (also noted here). The TPM muckies managed to link Hayden to Wilkes' corrupt MZM contractor. Check out Rozen following the case as well as Marshall. Tuesday, WaPo reports FBI probing Foggo's CIA contracts. The Sun reports Pentagon Is Winner Over CIA. Today, NY Times says Clash Foreseen Between C.I.A. and Pentagon.

Wayne Madsen - a peculiar journalist who used to be in the NSA, (read caveats about him in Wikipedia), well he doesn't like Michael Hayden one bit, and he has a lot of weird goods on the guy and the NSA generally. Check this this this this this and this for quite a trip down the rabbit hole. Madsen was the guy who stirred up that story that John Bolton was improperly reading NSA intercepts of Bill Richardson. Never got disproven.

Big Ol love letter from Ahmadinejad: It is a very interesting thing to read, and it seems to be targeted more at a Middle Eastern audience than the White House as such. NY Times on it here and Le Monde has the full letter here. By the way Steve Clemons also talks about this funny letter gambit. I would include more, but this is interesting by itself:

Mr President,
September Eleven was a horrendous incident. The killing of innocents is deplorable and appalling in any part of the world. Our government immediately declared its disgust with the perpetrators and offered its condolences to the bereaved and expressed its sympathies.

All governments have a duty to protect the lives, property and good standing of their citizens. Reportedly your government employs extensive security, protection and intelligence systems – and even hunts its opponents abroad. September eleven was not a simple operation. Could it be planned and executed without coordination with intelligence and security services – or their extensive infiltration? Of course this is just an educated guess. Why have the various aspects of the attacks been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities? And, why aren't those responsible and the guilty parties identified and put on trial?
All governments have a duty to provide security and peace of mind for their citizens. For some years now, the people of your country and neighbours of world trouble spots do not have peace of mind. After 9.11, instead of healing and tending to the emotional wounds of the survivors and the American people – who had been immensely traumatised by the attacks – some Western media only intensified the climates of fear and insecurity – some constantly talked about the possibility of new terror attacks and kept the people in fear. Is that service to the American people? Is it possible to calculate the damages incurred from fear and panic?
American citizen lived in constant fear of fresh attacks that could come at any moment and in any place. They felt insecure in the streets, in their place of work and at home. Who would be happy with this situation? Why was the media, instead of conveying a feeling of security and providing peace of mind, giving rise to a feeling of insecurity?
Some believe that the hype paved the way – and was the justification – for an attack on Afghanistan. Again I need to refer to the role of media. In media charters, correct dissemination of information and honest reporting of a story are established tenets. I express my deep regret about the disregard shown by certain Western media for these principles. The main pretext for an attack on Iraq was the existence of WMDs. This was repeated incessantly – for the public to, finally, believe – and the ground set for an attack on Iraq.
Will the truth not be lost in a contrive and deceptive climate? Again, if the truth is allowed to be lost, how can that be reconciled with the earlier mentioned values? Is the truth known to the Almighty lost as well?

[snip]........What has been said, are some of the grievances of the people around the world, in our region and in your country. But my main contention – which I am hoping you will agree to some of it – is : Those in power have specific time in office, and do not rule indefinitely, but their names will be recorded in history and will be constantly judged in the immediate and distant futures.

The people will scrutinize our presidencies.
Did we manage to bring peace, security and prosperity for the people or insecurity and unemployment? Did we intend to establish justice, or just supported especial interest groups, and by forcing many people to live in poverty and hardship, made a few people rich and powerful – thus trading the approval of the people and the Almighty with theirs'? Did we defend the rights of the underprivileged or ignore them? Did we defend the rights of all people around the world or imposed wars on them, interfered illegally in their affairs, established hellish prisons and incarcerated some of them? Did we bring the world peace and security or raised the specter of intimidation and threats? Did we tell the truth to our nation and others around the world or presented an inverted version of it? Were we on the side of people or the occupiers and oppressors? Did our administration set out to promote rational behaviour, logic, ethics, peace, fulfilling obligations, justice, service to the people, prosperity, progress and respect for human dignity or the force of guns. Intimidation, insecurity, disregard for the people, delaying the progress and excellence of other nations, and trample on people's rights? And finally, they will judge us on whether we remained true to our oath of office – to serve the people, which is our main task, and the traditions of the prophets – or not?

Well fine, then, Ahmadinejad better damn well figure a way out of this one now, if he is going to talk all altruistic and shit...

Very bad video games: Islamists using US video games in youth appeal (May 4)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The makers of combat video games have unwittingly become part of a global propaganda campaign by Islamic militants to exhort Muslim youths to take up arms against the United States, officials said on Thursday.

Tech-savvy militants from al Qaeda and other groups have modified video war games so that U.S. troops play the role of bad guys in running gunfights against heavily armed Islamic radical heroes, Defense Department official and contractors told Congress.

....Devlin spoke before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, at which contractors from San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp., or SAIC, gave lawmakers a presentation that focused on Iraq as an engine for Islamic militant propaganda from Indonesia to Turkey and Chechnya.

....One of the latest video games modified by militants is the popular "Battlefield 2" from leading video game publisher, Electronic Arts Inc of Redwood City, California. Jeff Brown, a spokesman for Electronic Arts, said enthusiasts often write software modifications, known as "mods," to video games.

"Battlefield 2" ordinarily shows U.S. troops engaging forces from China or a united Middle East coalition. But in a modified video trailer posted on Islamic Web sites and shown to lawmakers, the game depicts a man in Arab headdress carrying an automatic weapon into combat with U.S. invaders.

"I was just a boy when the infidels came to my village in Blackhawk helicopters," a narrator's voice said as the screen flashed between images of street-level gunfights, explosions and helicopter assaults.

Then came a recording of President George W. Bush's September 16, 2001, statement: "This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while." It was edited to repeat the word "crusade," which Muslims often define as an attack on Islam by Christianity.

I think we all want to know which mods they are running. Are Islamic militants closing the American game-modding gap? Here in America, video games serve Freedom: "America's Army", literally a first-person shooter designed to indoctrinate the youth into joining the military. Better to spend that defense cash on manipulating teen pop culture and upping polygon counts, rather than body armor, I suppose. SAIC is shady, too, but I will let that go for now.

Winning the Macalester Lottery and seeking Global One World Government approval: I shake Kofi's hand; plus antiwar protest notes

This is a belated note from the Springfest/Kofi/CheebaDANZA weekend. Springfest kicked ass, the weather held out, the organizers put on an excellent event. I couldn't say any more without risking a federal indictment. And the next day, my roommate offered me a ticket to go see Kofi Annan. I was pretty scrubby, which was exactly how it ought to be.

I still have some backdoor access around Macalester, so when I got rejected (ticket in hand) from the Kofi speech, after marveling at the bitching donors who believed their millions could get them into the Fieldhouse, I managed to sneak into the lunch, and get a seat way up near the front. This, in turn, has caused me to appear in Macalester Propaganda:

As the least well-dressed lunch guest, with the filthy jeans I grabbed running out the door at 8:20 that morning, all was right. The venerable and well-dressed Alex Flores (looking up at far right in the photo above) took three good photos.

As he went down these stairs, surrounded by shrewd members of the State Department security detail, I went to Kagin's side elevator, down to the ground floor. A Mac guard ushered me out of the building with some other folks, but I lingered near the entrance. In no time, Kofi popped around the corner, I asked if I could shake his hand, and I wished him luck.

Along with Springfest and a variety of shadow activities, I pretty much hit the Macalester triple bank shot that weekend... Finally mastered the damn place, about two years too late.

As for the University antiwar protest, well damn, it was really rainy. But still entertaining. I would say that I liked it when the protesters hit the military recruiters' office with metaphorical red paint. (photo from MN Daily story)

However, as recent news stories about police investigations of protests at the 2004 New York Republican convention reveal, the cops look at any potential illegal protest conduct as a probable cause to search you and wiretap you and whatever else. Therefore if a dangerous internet anarchist terrorist like me were to say "that was pretty sweet when they painted the recruiters' office," this would apparently justify total surveillance for the rest of my life.

In any case, I thought it was ironic that they arrested several protesters while the adjacent police horses pooped all over the sidewalk. Red paint and manure was everywhere. But we ought to call it "terrorist latex" and "freedom cakes".

Ducking probable cause and pneumonia - photo by Jenny @ the U

Reports of Kurdish rebellion between Marash and Shahrzur; Turkish mortars fall on Iraqi city of Zakho

There are reports of trouble among the restive natives of eastern Anatolia. It seems the Yanks have tried to set up a banana republic down in Mesopotamia. in turn, the quiescent tribal locals of the north, who begrudge their Asian neighbors after many centuries of strife and imposed political submission to the Turk and the Arab, finally see a moment to cut their own path through the highlands.

The Kurds have broken loose of Baghdad's control, and more recently, have taken up arms in great numbers against their Ottoman masters in Constantinople. There's a sense they may yet capture the Kirkuk oil fields from Baghdad, and from there, face their destiny against the Turkish army to liberate their brethren.

Or something like that. (source: check out these maps of the Ottoman empire - thx Texas U!) In reality, any damn fool before the war would have said that Saddam's fall would lead to the Kurds seeking total independence and rebelling against Turkey, as they did in 1920, 1925, 1930, 1937, the 1980s, 1990s.... Apparently, this has escalated into ethnic conflict in Iraq, as the small Turkmen minority – about a quarter of Kirkuk – suffer the ethnic and religious tensions under Kurdish dominion in contemporary Iraq (not to mention getting the shit bombed out of them in Tal Afar). The Turks, meanwhile, will probably "step in" at some point to save their Turkic brethren from Kurdish "consolidation".

Of course, the Kurds have one of the most peculiar distributions of any ethnic group in the world:

This presents the possibility of Turkish military intervention into Iraq – and certainly, they have a presence there. Der Speigel reports:

April 25: Kurdish Intifada? Clashes in Southeastern Turkey on the Rise

Violence is on the rise in southeastern Turkey as the Kurdistan Worker's Party increases its guerilla activity. The government in Ankara is worried about a Kurdish intifada.

It's slowly becoming a regular feature of the news coming out of Turkey these days: clashes between Turkish troops and Kurdish militants in the eastern part of the country. On Tuesday, three Kurdish militants and one Turkish soldier were killed in a skirmish in the Sirnak province near the Iraqi border. Fifteen soldiers, four police officers and more than 40 Kurdish militants have been killed in south-eastern Turkey in recent months. And eight bombings in the past three months have left two dead and 47 injured -- bombings claimed by a group calling itself the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons.
In short, violence is on the rise in Turkey -- and the country's military is concerned that the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), together with the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, is trying to begin a Palestinian-style intifada.

Indeed, the Aksam newspaper reported last Friday that a further 10,000 Turkish soldiers have been sent to the border region, bringing the total number of troops in the area up to about 50,000. "As long as the PKK exists, our operations will continue in ever-increasing intensity," General Yasar Buyukanit, the head of Turkey's land forces, told CNN-Turk television in an interview aired on Sunday.

The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK, which has been fighting for Kurdish autonomy since 1984, frequently launches its anti-government operations from its bases on the Iraqi side of the border. Since the group took up arms in 1984, some 37,000 people have lost their lives in the fighting -- with clashes generally accelerating in the spring time when the mountain passes on the Turkey-Iraq border become more accessible.

Indeed, to help prevent attacks from being launched across the border, some 2,000 Turkish soldiers are routinely stationed in northern Iraq. Turkey has repeatedly called on the United States to crack down on the PKK bases in northern Iraq, but US commanders have been reticent to divert troops from the struggle against Iraqi insurgents.

Now Turkey seems tempted to take matters into its own hands. The chief commander of Turkey's armed forces, General Hilmi Ozkok, has stressed that Turkey has the right to carry out cross-border operations under international law: "If the conditions arise, like every sovereign country, we will use those rights," Ozkok said on Sunday, according to the AP. Still, such a move would be politically sensitive and diplomats argue that it is unlikely Turkey will put its relations to Washington and to the European Union at risk by staging a large offensive in Iraq. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has likewise recently said that neighboring countries should not meddle in Iraq's affairs -- a statement thought to refer to Turkey.

With the armed clashes between the PKK and the Turkish military heating up, the government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is also stepping up internal repression of groups suspected of supporting the PKK. Last Tuesday, Turkish security forces raided the offices of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party. Some 50 party members, including five provincial leaders and nine local leaders, were detained, according to the AP. Prime Minister Erdogan had previously urged members of the Democratic Society Party to denounce PKK violence. The leaders of the party have refused to accept the definition of the PKK as a terrorist group, a definition endorsed by Turkey, Washington and the EU.

Other Reporting: The ever-upbeat NY Times says: U.S. Will Help Turks Stop Kurdish Inroads From Iraq. AP: Turkey Deploys More Troops to Contain Kurdish Guerrillas. Juan Cole says:

Turkish military action against the Kurdish Workers' Party along the border with Iraq has heated up, with Turkish mortars falling on the Iraqi city of Zakho, according to this report. That's what we needed, more mortars falling on an Iraqi city from yet another quarter.

This problem is pretty damn obvious, I guess. It's yet another reason why the war in Iraq promised to go regional from day one. Oh wait. Three whole fucking years ago, tomorrow, we had this:

And two years ago, the list of the fallen was "only" this big. Charted today:

The regional war expands, we haven't even gotten to Iran yet, much less the eventually doomed oil terminals of Saudi Arabia...

TomMahm; Copperfield Loses Not a Cent; Lots More Stadiums Seats to Put Butts In; I Have a Cat!

TomMahm, Copperfield Loses Not a Cent, Lots More Stadiums Seats to Put Butts In, I Have a Cat!

The above is an untouched photograph of the view West towards the Tucson mountains from my front yard on a weekday evening. The bar on the left was frequented by Jack Kerouac, I am told.

Introducing: Strega Nona

Abby and I have adopted Strega here, which is to say, Strega's owner forfeited his right to own her through gross negligence and she chose to reside with us instead. She is currently in heat, which has been a treat, as she begins yowling at five in the morning and gets louder until ten or so. Come Friday morning, entering into estrus will forever be a thing of the past for Strega, which is win-win for everyone. Mating screams and the demented rubbing exercises that accompany them notwithstanding, this is a very cool cat- gentle and loving without being needy, small, athletic and quite beautiful, she's ["Smitten Kitten" joke redacted- ed.]

I'm an illusionist!
David Copperfield was robbed at gunpoint in West Palm Beach Sunday night, and managed to convince the three teenage thieves holding a gun six inches from his face that he did not have any on him by performing his "reverse pickpocket" trick and pulling out his pant pockets in from of them without relinquishing possession of his scrilla and celly. He called the cops and the kids were busted "within minutes," and then magically transformed into a scale model of the Gateway Arch in a cloud of smoke. I kid, Mr. Kotkin (his real name), smoke machines are for hacks, of course! In related news, David Blaine is going to perform his next stunt, where he will be dangled from his toes while wearing the Shroud of Turin over a vat of warm marmalade, in New York City. The reason for the change of venue (he spent 44 days in a box starving himself in London two years ago) was the inhospitality of the British, who went so far as to dangle cheeseburgers from RC helicopters to torture him. So, in summary, David Blaine is a baby and David Copperfield belongs in her Majesty's Secret Service. Remember, not only did he fool the thieves and keep the cash, but we still don't know the trick, preserving his Alliance certification.

I don't even know what my point is here, other than that these guys is crazy...

Stadiums for Everyone!
Well, the VIkings' stadium deal is still in its infancy, but the Gophers and Twins are crowning as we speak. Though the Senate shifted around the Gopher stadium plans a bit, (removing the student fee and nixing TCF Bank's $35 naming rights contribution) it is still on track at the very same moment that a Twins stadium bill's passing is looking all but inevitable. I think we can probably call all three of these projects likely, which is exciting news. The Cities had to spruce up their sports infrastructure a bit both for the purposes of major events like the NCAA tournament and the Super Bowl and to, y'know, retain their teams in an era of bazillion dollar excesses on major sports venues. The price tag? $790 million for the Vikes, $522 million for the Twinkies (half a bill and no retractable roof?) and $248 million for Goldie to go toe-to-toe with the newer stadii of the Big 10; silly money, to be sure, but the resulting facilities, and the possibility of Hennepin County pursuing its imagined urban village in the footprint of the Huhuhu Metrodome, make the deal(s) too good to pass up. FYI- The Representative sleeping through the meeting on the allocation of a half a billion dollars is Representive David Dill (DFL-Crane Lake).

International Relations Blitz: The Maoist Naxalite threat to India, US planning spring offensive & post-Musharraf Pakistan; New SOCOM Special Ops war plan; Iran Defence Forum

Foreign Policy magazine has a blog, with an interesting bit about the Maoist threat...to India, part of their Top 10 Stories You Missed in 2005:

Consistently outwitting and overwhelming Indian police forces, Indian Maoists, also known as Naxalites, have taken control of large chunks of territory in several eastern and southern Indian states, such as Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.

They add:

Many Indian analysts have long been distressed by the central government's indifference to the problem, leaving it to the ill-armed and corrupt state police forces. But New Delhi, now led by Manmohan Singh's government can no longer ignore the insurgency that is growing in strength. Combined with Kashmir and sporadic sectarian violence between Hindus and Muslims, the internal security problem is really serious.

This is interesting because it shows how less-than-unitary such a huge place as India can be – and it shows that a more complex model than traditional International Relations unitary state "Realism" is necessary to look at these things. It also reminds me of a certain stubborn Tamil nationalist who would remind us all where things really stood between Indian ethnicities... Photo from the Wikipedia entry on Naxalites.

The IMF is supposed to fix major trade imbalances now.

AIPAC case: Condi Rice denies that she leaked the same variety of classified information to AIPAC lobbyists as Larry Franklin. They are trying to get people to believe that "everyone does it", trading secret government deliberations among the right-wing foreign lobbies in DC. I wish I was a powerful rightwing foreign lobby, then everyone would kiss my ass!!

Not international but fun! Joementum evaporating: more and more people are pissed at Joe Lieberman for fucking over the Democrats constantly. His indicators are falling among independents, as well. It is entirely possible that Lamont will steal the Democratic primary nomination from him, which is basically unheard of. Hit up the Lamont Blog for more on the insurgency against this p0nk.

William Arkin at the Washington Post blog Early Warning is coming up with a lot of goods on upcoming Iran madness, but he thinks its kinda funny how he has personally been pegged as a conspirator for Global Zionism, the left, right, neocons, who knows what. He's got some cool stuff about how some damn defense contractor is going to be paid to cough up terror warnings because the government is pathologically retarded:

The database is produced by IntelCenter, one of a cottage industry that has sprung up since the early 1990's to feed at the counter-terrorism trough. According to the group's website, the IntelCenter's "primary client base is comprised of military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the US and other allied countries around the world."

Space Command wants to obtain 20 licenses to the IntelCenter's U.S. Government Terrorism Threat Intelligence Package ($1650.00 per license according to the IntelCenter website).

This database, according to Space Command, includes "weekly and or real time email notifications of all significant terrorist, rebel group and other related activity, including bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, significant dates, threats and organizational changes within groups." IntelCenter will also provide warnings relating to "developments concerning intelligence agencies around the world including operational issues, organizational developments, new initiatives, espionage trials, new technologies and other related issues." And finally, IntelCenter will receive "real-time dissemination of raw statements, fatwas, announcements, and other messages directly from terrorist, rebel, extremist, and other organizations themselves."

The immediate question is: isn't this what all of these new "long war" commands and reorganized and beefed-up intelligence agencies with all of their new databases and data mining and authorities supposed to do? Okay, by government standards, $32,000 annually is petty cash. But there must be dozens of additional agencies and commands buying the IntelCenter product and hundreds if not thousands of licenses paid for with your and my tax dollars.

Everyone senses that we have a contractor crisis in our national security community, too many contractors acting like wild west prospectors in Iraq and the Middle East, contractors doing what we used to think of as "mission essential" jobs in headquarters and agencies.

Right on dude, right on.

Special Operations command, SOCOM, is apparently the new heart of the "war on terror" and there are all kinds of plans getting put together to shift intelligence and shadowy combat type stuff into SOCOM - and also, a decisive shift to allow military operations without an ambassador's approval. Are they also coordinating Psychological Operations such as Zarqawi "letters?" (More on that in a bit, we do have a couple goodies...)

WaPo: New Plans Foresee Fighting Terrorism Beyond War Zones
Pentagon to Rely on Special Operations By Ann Scott Tyson Sunday, April 23, 2006; Page A01

Details of the plans are secret, but in general they envision a significantly expanded role for the military -- and, in particular, a growing force of elite Special Operations troops -- in continuous operations to combat terrorism outside of war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Developed over about three years by the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in Tampa, the plans reflect a beefing up of the Pentagon's involvement in domains traditionally handled by the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department.

For example, SOCOM has dispatched small teams of Army Green Berets and other Special Operations troops to U.S. embassies in about 20 countries in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America, where they do operational planning and intelligence gathering to enhance the ability to conduct military operations where the United States is not at war. [orwellian phrase of the day]

And in a subtle but important shift contained in a classified order last year, the Pentagon gained the leeway to inform -- rather than gain the approval of -- the U.S. ambassador before conducting military operations in a foreign country, according to several administration officials. "We do not need ambassador-level approval," said one defense official familiar with the order.

This plan details "what terrorists or bad guys we would hit if the gloves came off. The gloves are not off," said one official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject..... Special Operations Command, led by Gen. Doug Brown, has been building up its headquarters and writing the plans since 2003, when Rumsfeld first designated it as the lead command for the war on terrorism. Its budget has grown 60 percent since 2003 to $8 billion in fiscal 2007. President Bush empowered the 53,000-strong command with coordinating the entire military's efforts in counterterrorism in 2004.

"SOCOM is, in fact, in charge of the global war on terror," Brown said in testimony before the House last month. In this role, SOCOM directs and coordinates actions by the military's regional combatant commands. SOCOM, if directed, can also command its own counterterrorist operations -- such as when a threat spans regional boundaries or the mission is highly sensitive -- but it has not done so yet...

Stratfor: US is planning post-Musharraf Pakistan: Arkin has some goods on a planned spring offensive against Taliban-style guys in Pakistan, but alarmingly, The Pakistan Daily Times reports:

April 21, 2006: US now viewing Pakistan without Musharraf: Stratfor | By Khalid Hasan
There are indications that the Bush administration is now imagining a Pakistan without Gen Pervez Musharraf, according to Stratfor, an American news and analysis service.

In two commentaries in the wake of Richard Boucher’s April 5 statement in Islamabad about America wishing to see the ascendancy of civilian rule in Pakistan, Stratfor says this shift in Washington’s thinking will create further domestic problems for the Pakistani leader, since his political opponents view the US statements as a signal to intensify their efforts to oust him. The analysis also noted US National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley’s comment that the Bush administration will work with Musharraf to ensure that Pakistan’s 2007 elections are “ free and fair,” as well as Condoleezza Rice’s congressional testimony earlier this month.

“These statements from the highest echelons of the Bush administration illustrate that the United States is no longer fixated on supporting Musharraf,” says Stratfor. “This is probably because Musharraf’s usefulness to the United States is fast becoming negligible. The principal reason the Bush administration supported the Musharraf regime was due to Pakistan’s critical role in the US-jihadist war. It would appear Washington believes it does not need Musharraf at the helm for the United States to continue to prosecute its struggle against militant Islamism, and no longer believes the Pakistani state would collapse without Musharraf. Moreover, the Bush administration likely feels Musharraf is no longer able to keep domestic affairs in order, and sees pinning Washington’s entire Pakistan policy on one individual as a liability. Thus, Washington has decided to put some distance between itself and the Pakistani president.”

The analysis cautioned that this does not mean that Washington would like to see Musharraf ousted. Instead, it reflects a decision to initiate a contingency plan to avoid being caught off guard in light of political instability in Pakistan in the months ahead. Not supporting Musharraf the way it has before will allow Washington to ascertain potential alternative political players capable of stepping in and filling the void in the event Musharraf is no longer able to maintain his position.

On the other hand, if they bomb Iran, well Pakistan will probably get all fucked up, and we better rationalize that chaos now, hadn't we?

Want to see what Iranians are saying about the whole situation? Check out the Iran Defence Forum. With such speculation as will the usa use ground forces in war against iran? Check out, if you will, the thread about "the true iran and its people," a collection of snapshots of what looks like a frickin sweet civilization with lots of beautiful women.

Note that they wear funny hats in their legislature. The "hat problem" has been the secret root of a great many conflicts.

Alright, I think we can all pretty much agree that Tehran is the Central Asian version of Manhattan + Paris. That's all for now.......

Intel agencies using blogs more, Blackwater lawsuit, etc...

WASHINGTON TIMES: CIA mines 'rich' content from blogs
By Bill Gertz April 19, 2006

President Bush and U.S. policy-makers are receiving more intelligence from open sources such as Internet blogs and foreign newspapers than they previously did, senior intelligence officials said.

The new Open Source Center (OSC) at CIA headquarters recently stepped up data collection and analysis based on bloggers worldwide and is developing new methods to gauge the reliability of the content, said OSC Director Douglas J. Naquin.

"A lot of blogs now have become very big on the Internet, and we're getting a lot of rich information on blogs that are telling us a lot about social perspectives and everything from what the general feeling is to ... people putting information on there that doesn't exist anywhere else," Mr. Naquin told The Washington Times.

I'm gonna throw some random stuff at you. It's not a waste of time to look at, but it won't tell you one coherent story, so much as some shades of what went down over the last week while I was wrapped up in all the Macalester festivities... which I will elaborate on later.

Tony Snow for WH press sec.?: Lying water carrier for Republicans + doesn't stammer or sweat so much == why not? Tony Snow's many lies make him an unacceptable press sec'y

New protest album: NEIL YOUNG - Living With War, reviewed positively. Won't be in stores until the beginning of May, but online purchases later this week.

A.Norman sends along the following cartoon:

Spam keywords auto-pass NSA filter?: The odd internet journalist Wayne Madsen offered that

April 20, 2006 -- Beating Bush's NSA e-mail surveillance simple. According to NSA sources, there is a simple method to avoid having one's e-mail captured by NSA Internet filters that have been installed within major Internet exchanges, such as the AT&T facility in San Francisco, which is the subject of a class action suit against AT&T. By typing "Viagra" or "Cialis" in the message text, the filters will automatically identify the e-mail as spam and ignore it. The e-mail could contain the words "Al Qaeda" or "Bin Laden," but as long as Viagra or Cialis are also contained in the text, the e-mail will pass through the filters without being intercepted.

(Madsen's site design now looks much better, BTW)

Execrable writing: Powerline has an odd poop fetish. They use 'execrable' to describe everyone from Rybak to Kofi. I will have to remember to give Scott Johnson a wedgie when I see him.

Earth Day: This House site is fucking crazy: On Earth Day website, House Republican Committee seeks to 'dispel environmental myths'. Really crazy.

Time to kiss some Caucasian ass as the rather autocratic president of Azerbaijan visits the White House. Bush still claims that final Iraq war decisions happened after an ultimatum. Rolling Stone features: is Bush the worst President in History?

A really long article in the American Prospect (a liberal mag) about how the Democrats need to find some values and stuff. It may have been a good article but it was too long even for me.

If you have an online group, try Frappr to map them globally.

Rice is getting roped into AIPAC case: A lot seems to be transpiring in the AIPAC case for this summer, and we'll have to dig into the AIPAC angle a lot later. But for now, AP reports:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leaked national defense information to a pro-Israel lobbyist in the same manner that landed a lower-level Pentagon official a 12-year prison sentence, the lobbyist's lawyer said Friday.

Goss CIA analyst crackdown: RawStory: The CIA announced today that it has fired an employee for leaking classified information to Washington Post reporter Dana Priest. Also a big story in the NY Times on it. Pretty fucked up. Juan Cole compares how in DC these days, it is good to leak Valerie Plame's name, but bad to inform the American public about a network of secret prisons in eastern Europe.

Secret torture flights: There is a global shadow detention gulag of sorts, and all kinds of rumors about it around the Internet. Perhaps we'll stir up a little trouble later with some of those exotic stories, but in the meantime consider: Amnesty International claims CIA used private airlines to hide CIA torture flights (from a couple weeks ago).

Apple lawyers say blogs not journalism: Apple is trying to sue some blogger-type guy at PowerPage.org and say he's not a journalist with journalist-style credentials because of a story about Apple developing a consumer-oriented Firewire-based GarageBand music interface - codenamed 'Asteroid' according to AppleInsider.

Corporate dudes are suing against NSA wiretaps along with the ACLU. NSA wiretaps were a prominent part of Sunday's West Wing episode, wherein President-elect Santos calls up the Chinese premier to do some saber rattling over Kazakhstan – I don't know why the hell Bartlett, or anyone, would place thousands of US troops between the Russian and Chinese armies, but to the West Wing's credit, Santos doesn't like it either.

I loathe that Clifford May and his neocon ways. But "What to make of the anti-antis?" is a pretty sublime exercise in Orwellian labeling and slanders. Also the Zarqawi psyops story makes an angular appearance I don't really understand – but it appears that he supports the psyops because it manipulates perceptions against "anti-antis"... WTF?

The media, too, have more than their share of anti-antis, and I'm not talking here only about the left-wing blogs that compare President Bush unfavorably to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Recently, the top story on the Washington Post's front page was headlined: "Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi: Jordanian Painted as Foreign Threat to Iraq's Stability."

Is there anyone -- even Ward Churchill -- who would argue that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the commander of Al-Qaida in Iraq, is not a "foreign threat to Iraq's stability"?

A seemingly more cogent reason for the Post to object to what it blasts as a U.S. military propaganda campaign: An American colonel is quoted as saying that Zarqawi and other "foreign insurgents" are only "a very small part of the actual numbers" of those fighting Iraqi government forces and the American-led coalition.

The Moussaoui case distracts from profound problems in the legal system that need to get unraveled.

Is Bush ripping Beatles onto his iPod? The RIAA is arguing in court that turning your own CDs into MP3s is not fair use, which is insane. But since you can't buy Beatles digitally at all, this means that Bush must have been ripping them. Should the RIAA bust his yarblockoes? Well as this guy says, "They nailed Al Capone for tax evasion, didn't they?"

Boston Globe says Bloggers fanning the controversy over Rumsfeld. Describing a few milblogs, the blogs in turn hasten to redefine themselves. I am in favor of military blogs, as they open new and interesting channels of information. Among those mentioned: COUNTERCOLUMN: All your bias are belong to us, and Guidons. OPFOR is apparently the standard bearer these days. Is it part of military.com? Features such bits as "Somalia Remains Free of US Imperialism, Food, Laws, Prosperity, Peace…" under the category "The Long War." Real progressive. The mil blog wire is an aggregator which looks interesting.

The Blackwater lawsuit: Those Defense contractor guys hung on the bridge probably shouldn't have been in Fallujah -- but can their widows sue over it? After the Fallujah hangings, did Blackwater cover up their own negligence and fake documents to protect their Pentagon contract? More on it here in the DailyKos. In the broader context, it's evidence that these private companies treat their employees like shit while causing the military industrial complex to spiral out of control:

The Nation: Blood Is Thicker Than Blackwater by JEREMY SCAHILL [from the May 8, 2006 issue]
It is one of the most infamous incidents of the war in Iraq: On March 31, 2004, four private American security contractors get lost and end up driving through the center of Falluja, a hotbed of Sunni resistance to the US occupation. Shortly after entering the city, they get stuck in traffic, and their small convoy is ambushed. Several armed men approach the two vehicles and open fire from behind, repeatedly shooting the men at point-blank range. Within moments, their bodies are dragged from the vehicles and a crowd descends on them, tearing them to pieces. Eventually, their corpses are chopped and burned. The remains of two of the men are strung up on a bridge over the Euphrates River and left to dangle. The gruesome image is soon beamed across the globe.

In the Oval Office the killings were taken as "a challenge to America's resolve," according to the Los Angeles Times. President Bush issued a statement through his spokesperson. "We will not be intimidated," he said. "We will finish the job." Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt vowed, "We will be back in Falluja.... We will hunt down the criminals.... It's going to be deliberate. It will be precise, and it will be overwhelming." Within days of the ambush, US forces laid siege to Falluja, beginning what would be one of the most brutal and sustained US operations of the occupation.
.....
Shortly after Helvenston left that message, the men left the base and set out for their destination. Without a detailed map, they took the most direct route, through the center of Falluja. According to Callahan, there was a safer alternative route that went around the city, which the men were unaware of because of Blackwater's failure to conduct a "risk assessment" before the trip, as mandated by the contract. The suit alleges that the four men should have had a chance to gather intelligence and familiarize themselves with the dangerous routes they would be traveling. This was not done, according to Miles, "so as to pad Blackwater's bottom line" and to impress ESS with Blackwater's efficiency in order to win more contracts. The suit also alleges that McQuown "intentionally refused to allow the Blackwater security contractors to conduct" ride-alongs with the teams they were replacing from Control Risk Group. (In fact, the suit contends that Blackwater "fabricated critical documents" and "created" a pre-trip risk assessment "after this deadly ambush occurred.")

AP: Israel Preparing to Retake Gaza Strip. Probably saber rattling, but the situation is getting really bad. Some other newsbits:

Senate Bill Shorts Gear for Troops By ANDREW TAYLOR, AP Thu Apr 20, 3:46 PM ET
WASHINGTON - A Senate measure to fund the war in Iraq would chop money for troops' night vision equipment and new battle vehicles but add $230 million for a tilt-rotor aircraft that has already cost $18 billion and is still facing safety questions.

Kyrgyz Leader Threatens to Expel US Troops By KADYR TOKTOGULOV , 04.19.2006, 10:36 PM
Kyrgyzstan's president threatened Wednesday to expel U.S. troops if the United States does not agree by June 1 to pay more for stationing forces in the Central Asian nation.

Some random DailyKos goodies: What is the 'center' in American politics? What of the innocent people in Guantanamo? (and what of that Abbasi guy?) Are we becoming the Republic of Gilead?

Some random Israel goodies: "We could lose the next war" - an interview with idiosyncratic Likud hawk Yuval Steinitz, wherein he suggests that the Israeli military leads its government, not vice versa. Really interesting stuff. He is also paranoid about Egypt. Editorial: The UN versus Hezbollah. Hebron settlers assault two female international aid workers. I had some more links but they disappeared because of that damn Haaretz auto-reload thing.

I promise that the Big Lebowski-themed Iran exegesis is on its way. It's a new week now... Gotta get real before oil goes $80+/barrel.....

Fear the Bear! Russians provide Saddam war intelligence, or is it more DC neo-con perception management? (fear, PSY OPS & energy politics?)

I am going to be in Arizona until April 2. Until then I don't know if anyone is going to post or what, although I'll try to put up some photos and stuff. In the meantime, enjoy a retro-cold war disinformation conspiracy theory... Why not?

March 24: Pentagon report says Russia gave Iraq intelligence (Reuters)

Russia provided intelligence to Iraq's government on U.S. military movements in the opening days of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, a Pentagon report released on Friday said.

The report said an April 2, 2003, document from the Iraqi minister of foreign affairs to President Saddam Hussein stated that Russian intelligence had reported information on American troops plans to the Iraqis through the Russian ambassador.

....Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Cucolo of U.S. Joint Forces Command told a briefing he viewed Russia's decision to give intelligence to Saddam's government as "driven by economic interests." The report noted Russian business interests in Iraqi oil.

Let us take a gander at those oil contracts, via the famous Cheney Energy Task Force Iraq document collection from Judicial Watch (PDF of this page):

And I am putting up this classic Cheney Energy Task Force map (PDF) because it says way more than a thousand words (remember, this is older than 9/11 - March 2001, to be exact). I have fast hosting now and I just love this damn map and its "exploration blocks" that need to get taken away from the damn Russians. With guns. Classic imperialism. Ok, that's old news.
Ok ok, we know about the map, but what does this have to do with these new claims about Russian intelligence in the war? The Russians played some role giving Iraq military goods, including, it has been said, tactical training for soldiers and night vision gear, right up until the low-grade bombing war (10+ years) upgraded to a full invasion in March 2003.

So now the line out of the Pentagon is that the Russians were actively supplying tactical combat intelligence of sorts to Saddam Hussein, and there's some rumor of Russian moles in Qatar or something. It would be interesting if it were true, but I wouldn't really be angry with the Russians because there is no law from God that they couldn't tell Saddam jack shit (and what they did tell, wasn't really helpful, if its true).

However, what we should consider is
A) is this a propaganda front designed to reactivate the classic American hatred of Russians?
B) is this designed to prepare the American public for the dozens of Russian scientists that would be killed if the U.S. or Israel attacks Iran?
C) is this yet another example of some bastards in Washington using petty forgeries (see the Niger Uranium classics) to control perceptions, creating an atmosphere of fear and instability, and in turn offering the ruling party as the solution to the public's constructed fears? (thanks Anti-Flag - the new album fucking rules by the way)

Well, of course Wayne Madsen has a comprehensive claim that this is all a propaganda front from the usual DC bastards that brought us all the original fake Iraq intelligence in the first place. Basically, since the days of Team B scaring everyone about the Russians, they have made a 30-year career of scaring the shit out of people.

Even if this information about the Russians is true, this is exactly the kind of electoral engineering of perception that we have to expect before the election. They call it the October Surprise for a reason!!

Wayne Madsen Report, March 25 2006. Take it for what you will:

The Pentagon's role as a source of media disinformation. First it was the Office of Northern Gulf Affairs, which morphed into the Office of Special Plans. Both served as conduits for neo-con propaganda spewed forth by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Heritage Foundation, Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the Hudson Institute, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), among others prior to the invasion of Iraq.

Now the Pentagon has issued an "unclassified report" stating that in the lead up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Russia obtained war plans and planned U.S. troop movements from “inside the American Central Command.” The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) denied the charge, stating that "similar, baseless accusations concerning Russia’s intelligence have been made more than once."

The Pentagon cited as its source two captured Iraqi documents that describe Russian penetration of the US Central Command in Qatar. However, the Pentagon's story later changed. The revised story stated the Russian obtained the war plans from signals intelligence intercepts of pre-war U.S. military communications. In either case, the citing of "captured" Iraqi documents has been used in the past to falsely implicate various anti-war international politicians with being in league with Saddam's "Oil for Food" program. Many of these "captured" documents were forgeries emanating from notorious Iraqi con man Ahmad Chalabi. Bogus Niger government documents were forged by a neo-con cabal based in Rome, Washington, and Jerusalem to justify an attack on Iraq based on non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

The information contained in the two "secret" Iraqi documents could have been obtained from any number of open sources, including Jane's Defence Weekly. The "sic" appearing next to "special forces unit 'Papa'" in the purported Iraqi documents is a clue to a forgery. The standard NATO/DoD phonetic code for the letter "P" is "Papa." Why the authors would indicate a possible misspelling of Papa in the document is curious unless its because the real authors include some of our most noted neo-con draft dodgers who are unfamiliar with U.S. and NATO military nomenclatures. The two secret Iraqi documents are handwritten and contain no official government seal or stamps, another clear indication of a forgery. Update: The memo dated March 25, 2003 is also a likely forgery because of the use of the Western calendar and not the lunar Muslim Hijri calendar used in many Arab and other predominantly Muslim countries. The Muslim date would have been 16 Muharram 1424.

The neo-con stranglehold on the Pentagon continues to permit this cabal of provocateurs and dual loyalists to pump out false charges in an attempt to damage relations with Russia and President Vladimir Putin as Russia continues to push for negotiations with Iran and lay the possible groundwork for Russian casualties at Iranian nuclear facilities in the event of war with Iran. Neo-cons would argue that such casualties were legitimate considering previous Russian support for Saddam against the United States.

In fact, the Pentagon neo-cons now have more power than ever considering the current presence of anti-Russian neo-con-influenced governments in Poland, Ukraine, and Georgia. Polish Defense Minister Radek Sikorski, an AEI alum and colleague of Richard Perle and Michael Ledeen, is married to the Washington Post's Anne Applebaum. All four are virulently anti-Putin, especially since Putin began cracking down on the Russian oligarchs who looted the USSR's treasury and resources and made themselves instant billionaires, at the expense of the peoples of the former Soviet Union.

Over 70 percent of Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs carry Israeli passports. Ukraine President Viktor Yuschenko's wife, Kateryna Chumachenko Yushchenko, is an American citizen and held positions in the Reagan White House that were directed against "the evil empire." She was, and remains, close to the leading neo-con war hawks of the Reagan years, including Perle, Ledeen, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and Ken Adelman. Georgia's President, Mikhail Saakashvili, in an anti-Putin U.S.-trained lawyer who ousted his predecessor in a U.S.-financed and supported coup backed by oil companies like Halliburton and Exxon Mobil. In addition to the offices of AEI, AIPAC, Hudson, WINEP, and Heritage, in addition to the Pentagon, the embassies of Poland, Ukraine, and Georgia in Washington have become virtual neo-con nesting places, working overtime to formulate all sorts of anti-Russian propaganda aimed at destabilizing Russia and toppling Putin. They are assisted in these efforts by the US Mission to the United Nations, which under arch neo-con John Bolton, has become a favorite off-site meeting place for Washington-based neo-cons right in the middle of Manhattan.

If it's all true, it's one hell of a problem. How do we, as sane Americans and non-Americans, deal with a Pentagon that is attempting to manipulate all these public perceptions? What is the appropriate response to this problem? Maybe this is all too wild. But I just loved how the whole thing was framed by the usual dickheads in DC thinktanks, in this article in the LA Times:

Russians Told Iraqi Regime of U.S. Troop Movements By Peter Spiegel and Greg Miller: March 25, 2006

....But the documents, made public in a study of the Iraqi military's decision-making, are the first to assert that Russia actively passed sensitive military intelligence to Baghdad during the war.

"This is one step short of firing upon us themselves with Russian equipment," said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst with the Brookings Institution. "It's actively aiding and abetting the enemy tactically. It's hard to get more unfriendly than that."

Kevin Wood, a retired Army officer who served as the senior researcher and chief author of the study, said he was surprised when he learned of the Russian actions...... But Frederick Kagan, a Russia and defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said the actions would not be out of keeping with other efforts by Moscow to advance Iraq's cause internationally.

"We knew the Russians were opposed to the sanctions; we knew they opposed the war," Kagan said. "I'm not terribly surprised." Analysts also said it would be important to learn whether upper levels of the Russian government were involved, adding that the signals were more likely to have come from diplomatic and intelligence agents in the region rather than from Moscow.

It also was unclear how much of the information was genuine intelligence and how much was educated guesswork.

Regardless, the revelations could undermine efforts to forge a united front against Iran's nuclear program.

"I think we have to assume that we can't trust the Russians to be impartial or even honest with us," Kagan said. "The Russians have ties with the Iranians that are also very worrying."

So Kagan is demanding that you personally should start to hate the Russians on his behalf at the end there. Shocking. Time will tell, if this just fades away, if it is proven to be true. We'll keep an eye on this one. By the way, here is a clip of O'Hanlon saying a crock of shit on CNN in 2003 about Saddam's weapons.

On random yet interesting notes: Global Guerrillas: STARTING AN OPEN SOURCE WAR. This was buzzwordy but interesting. Papers Show Split in Nixon-Iraq Policy

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Nixon administration was split over whether to try to improve relations with Saddam Hussein's Soviet-allied Baathists in Iraq, State Department documents released Thursday show.

Who is Satan? No one trusts the atheists these days. It must be a carryover from the Cold war. I feel like a Russkie!

Back in the Motherland

Welcome Back to America, Buddy...

Eat Up.

I apologize for the delay in this posting. I've been in Mexico, on the worst vacation of my life (more on that later). As we've seen little action from our merry band of HongPosters, I am going to offer up some Saturday Grab Bag™ action for anyone out there who's just looking for something to pick at...

Dean Johnson: I'm a Flippin' Idiot, Give Me Another Chance: Why oh why, Deanster? Had to laugh at this news item, actually. It seems that MN-DFL Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson (or MNDFLSMLDJ for short) met with a group of Pastors in his constituency some time back to discuss the proposed ban on Gay Marriage (I assume this is the one being forwarded by the great Satan herself, Michelle Bachman) and told them that he had spoken to members of the state Supreme Court, who had assured him that the 1997 law that defined marriage as [blah, blah, blah] would be sufficient to hold off any advances on the homo-hitching front. Well, turns out that not only was Mr. Johnson apparently lying (no MNSC members recall ever discussing the issue with him) but he was being taped by one of the pastors in attendance. As you might have guessed, the Forces of Medievalism have already pounced on the issue as proof of the need for stricter anti-non-white-middle-class-suburban-protestants legislation and Johnson's essential unfitness in his role as Majority Leader. Well, they're right about one thing; Johnson is a hack politician extraordinaire, and hopefully this ugly episode will make room for someone too bright to lie to a bunch of spies for Jesus. [Story Here]

Navy Exchanges Fire With Sexy Pirates: Two American ships, the USS Cape St. George and the USS Gonzalez (A guided missile cruiser and guided missile destroyer, respectively) came upon a 30 foot fishing boat towing several smaller skiffs this morning while in a Dutch-led patrol off the coast of Somalia. When the American craft moved in to board the Somali boats, they were fired upon by small arms and possibly an RPG launcher. The Navy fired back, wounding five and killing one with no American casualties. I had to read the article a couple of times first in order to giggle, and then I had to find this picture (this is what I imagine the lead pirate to have looked like) before I could really consider where the pirates went wrong. I think I've got it now, though; Their first mistake was probably firing AK-47s from a 30-foot boat at 300+ feet of American military hardware, packed to the gills with a terrifying array of missiles, artillery and, apparently, more conventional heavy machine guns. Interestingly enough, Piracy is actually on the rise around the world, especially on the coasts of East Africa (where there were 35 attacks last year) and in the South China Sea, where large-scale piracy against major shipping craft and, in one case, a racing yacht have become commonplace in recent years. Personally, I think it is time to declare a Global War on Sexy Piracy, if only to hear all of Rummy's iterations on the theme as he fails to do anything about it- "Worldwide Struggle With Extremely Provocative Maritime Thievery", anyone? [Story]

Cheeseburger in Paradise

Mexico was a bust this Spring Break '06, for a variety of reasons. A trip to the Baja with Tha Fam went horribly wrong. Dreams of sandy beaches and great seaside food gave way to days of huddling indoors as the 50 degree winds whipped the windows of the darkened, unheated house we were staying in, forcing water under the doors and leaving all of our clothes smelling dank. The first problem was planning- the planner of the trip, who shall remain unnamed, didn't bother to find out that Baja California Del Norte is, as a rule, cold in March. Quite cold, really, rarely climbing out of the mid-60s during the day. Also, Baja California Del Norte sucks, a collection of corrugated shacks clinging to the side of a cliff along a steep, rocky, unprotected coastline, with no culture of any sort, a complete lack of any kind of shopping (other than, of course, I Fuck on the First Date t-shirts) and shitty restaurants whose defining feature is the zeal of their employees in their attempts to coerce you to eat at their establishment, including (no joke) jumping in front of the car in order to entice you to park (for free!) outside of the joint. Should you get in, you will be met by the likes of this gentleman above, fat southwestern types who come down in droves to sand race on the dunes in heavily-modified trucks and ludicrously overpowered sandrails. Apparently, driving around in circles on sand is a sport, not just something that ataxia-addled meatheads do in the absence of a real life. The less said about it the better, really. We left early, and it is 80-some degrees here in Tucson.

Hopefully Dan will be down here soon and we will keep you guys posted.

Abramoff racket spreads ever wider; Ledeen says bin Laden is dead;

Plains dealing: Andy recommends Left in the West as a top spot for spotting the actions of Senator Conrad Burns in covering up his Abramoff connections, among other things. References to "US-Asia Network" are getting scrubbed off Burns' official website.

Newt Gingrich is posing as a champion of reform, as his 2008 campaign for President opens. However, as David Sirota notes at The Nation, Newt is quite responsible for helping start Abramoff's career, and the whole K Street Project complex that has worked out so well.

Some really wicked lasers: WickedLasers.com is pimp (via HipTechBlog). You can purchase a $559 laser from them that will burn holes in things. Even their most minor laser can mess with someone's eye. Nothing says "now it's really the 21st century" like your own directed energy weapon! Photo/video gallery of laser effects.

Michael Ledeen says Osama is dead: mainly to make his point that the old Middle Eastern patriarchy is wheezing its last right now. Ends "Faster. Please?" as always. Fortunately I'm sure he will make a lot more money dealing arms very soon. Raimondo: "War, Lies, and Videotape: They fabricated the case against Iraq – now they're moving on Iran." Ledeen will play a role in these maneuvers, to be sure. Robert Dreyfuss: "The Bush who cried wolf," pointing out that we can't really pressure Iran much, because of the Iraq disaster.

Chaostan: The theory: Dude named Richard Maybury says that a third of the world (North Africa, middle east, Asia, Europe up to Poland) should basically be characterized as Chaostan, a place of increasing violence and disintegrative political forces – Moscow-based fascists versus Islamic radicals in the north, and the West versus the rest further south. A summary of Chaostan and some principles involved. He thinks that you can make quality investments based on his geopolitical conceits. And sell you a newsletter about it.

Alito scares me. But there is nothing to be done about it, which is depressing. Dionne: A Hearing About Nothing. The Senate is basically a black hole from which no logic can emerge. On the other hand, the media has studiously avoided quoting Russ Feingold, who, like the pretty much the rest of the judiciary committee, is probably running for President.

Google Earth comes to OS X: (and finally isn't beta) Huzzah, we can play with Google Earth now. You can do many cool things to extend its functions, like near-real-time 3D flight tracking as well as the CIA factbook, and even geo-tagging of Flickr photos. Check out the Google Earth Blog for lots more. (Is Apple trying to pad the performance stats in the newly released Intel Macs?)

Family Killed by Ninjas: A photo from City Pages that Nick Petersen sent to me.

Apple == Super Hotness. The only stock I own is some Apple stock. Which is definitely the hot stock these days. In fact, it has been going up about as fast as Google. Somehow, Forbes magazine tells us that even though iPod sales went up 240% last year, and computer sales more than 60%, Apple stock is too hot right now. I rarely never have faith in the market, but seriously, their fourth quarter earnings were 50 cents a share. The video iPod will probably move 4 million units in the first quarter, as they say... so what's the problem?

Russians for Condi: Her whole middle aged single thing is too much for Vladimir Zhirinovsky:

"Condoleezza Rice is a very cruel, offended woman who lacks men's attention," he added. "Such women are very rough. … They can be happy only when they are talked and written about everywhere: 'Oh, Condoleezza, what a remarkable woman, what a charming Afro-American lady! How well she can play the piano and speak Russian!'

"Complex-prone women are especially dangerous. They are like malicious mothers-in-law, women that evoke hatred and irritation with everyone. Everybody tries to part with such women as soon as possible."

Superconductors are frickin sweet: There is apparently this theory now that suggests that superconductors could neutralize gravity fields and propel spaceships while bending the fabric of space. Or something like that. There was this German scientist (who blew off his hands and most of his eyesight experimenting with explosives as a teenager), anyway he developed a theory which was capable of predicting the mass of particles from first principles. He thought that the interaction between gravity and electromagnetism could be explained by adding some extra dimensions to the model of the universe, and now they think that this could be applied to a superconducting method of launching spaceships. Damn, that would be the coolest thing ever.

You can purchase a little superconducting disc, and a couple quality magnets, for $145. Ms. Anderson back at MPA did this in Chemistry class, and it was amazing to see the magnets hovering. I definitely felt like there was some weird shit going on there. Why not try the same stuff, only a couple million times higher intensity? Sweet.

Well that is all for now. I need to go drink and watch the Timberwolves.

The Shadows around Sibel Edmonds: Plame spied on neocons? Turkish agents, Special Plans teams, Afghan heroin, 9/11 intel & funding: is it for real?

Antiwar.com's blog returns to the story of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, (her official site) a strange post-9/11 shadow case that Ashcroft helped gag. Her case involves, at the least, illegal cash getting moved around and Turkish spies. Edmonds, trying to act as a whistleblower, still can't speak freely about what she wants to say; however, what she has said is bombshell, decidedly off-the-charts paranoid intrigue.

Maybe she's a disinformation agent, but more likely she's another random person dragged into a shadowy geopolitical nightmare. I've previously posted about her here and here, wherein she alleged that Dennis Hastert was getting secret cash from Turks.

So consider the post 'sibel edmonds, brewster jennings, edelman and grossman' on the blog 'wot is it good 4' that pulls together the rich-sounding threads of this tale. Take it as you will, with as many grains of salt as needed (posted about on DailyKos):

Sibel makes 2 specific related claims
a) Sibel claims that she has information which proves that senior officials knew that there were plans to attack America months before 9/11.

Specifically:
"There was general information about the time-frame, about methods to be used but not specifically about how they would be used and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks. There were other cities that were mentioned. Major cities with skyscrapers."
and
"President Bush said they had no specific information about 11 September and that is accurate but only because he said 11 September," she said. There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an attack was just months away."
b) Sibel claims that she has evidence of a global multi-billion dollar smuggling/dealing network of weapons and drug which is hidden in plain view. Of course, there is also the requisite money-laundering infrastructure. She claims that the network comprises senior american government officials, terrorists, and 'unsavoury regimes.'

and they merge, giving us:
“drug trafficking, money laundering, foreign names and American names directly involved in the financing of the 9-11 attacks on WTC (World Trade Center) and the Pentagon.”

But also consider this good caveat from xymphora:

"Edmonds sometimes makes me a bit nervous as she seems overly adept with the terms and arguments of conspiracy theory for someone who is supposed to have been a lowly FBI translator (it's like she's been reading Peter Dale Scott!). Is she part of the battle in Washington between the Bush Administration enablers involved in the drugs/arms business who don't mind directly or indirectly supporting al Qaeda if it is good for business, and those old-fashioned types who still consider that dealing with American enemies is treason?"

And here is her Grand Conspiracy of Everything, salacious!!

SIBEL: Essentially, there is only one investigation – a very big one, an all-inclusive one. Completely by chance, I, a lowly translator, stumbled over one piece of it.

But I can tell you there are a lot of people involved, a lot of ranking officials, and a lot of illegal activities that include multi-billion-dollar drug-smuggling operations, black-market nuclear sales to terrorists and unsavory regimes, you name it. And of course a lot of people from abroad are involved. It's massive. So to do this investigation, to really do it, they will have to look into everything.

CD: But you can start from anywhere –

SIBEL: That's the beauty of it. You can start from the AIPAC angle. You can start from the Plame case. You can start from my case. They all end up going to the same place, and they revolve around the same nucleus of people. There may be a lot of them, but it is one group. And they are very dangerous for all of us.

There is a lot more exciting stuff. I am assuming every American arms contractor and high-ranking person at State Department will have to be arrested. Marc Grossman and Eric Edelman are two guys the blog suggests have played a role in illegal activities in "the 'Stans" of Central Asia, WMD trafficking with Islamic militants, and anything else we could think of.

My intuition tells me that the scope of this tale perfectly fits a 'negative narrative,' i.e. the exact inverse of what we are 'supposed to believe', so it is designed to be an attractive view for anti-Bush folks. In other words, it has the markers of a 'decoy conspiracy theory,' or one of those 'information operations' we've heard so much about.

On the other hand, it seems an obvious geopolitical necessity that all that heroin getting created by the Tajik and Uzbek 'Northern Alliance' warlords now running Afghanistan must be getting moved somewhere through the 'Stans of Central Asia & Pakistan, and probably some very clever guys from the State Department have been dealing with it. And in all probability, it was old hands that knew the major regional hustlers during Clinton's term -- such as Marc Grossman and Eric Edelman.

Edelman, for his part, has now replaced Douglas Feith as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, a high honorary post for fucking maniacs. In a fine look at many of the background neo-cons, Chris Deliso noted in 'Lesser Neocons of L'Affaire Plame',

Although Grossman "has not been as high profile in the press" FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds cryptically told me the other day, "don't overlook him – he is very important." She was not speaking about the Plame affair, though Grossman did indeed have a key role there, as we will see.

According to her, Grossman was one of three officials – the other two, she says, are Richard Perle and Douglas Feith – who had been watched by both Valerie Plame's Brewster Jennings & Associates CIA team, and by the major FBI investigation of organized crime and governmental corruption on which she herself was working until being terminated in April 2002.

Marc Grossman has served in a number of interesting countries and positions over the past 29 years. From 1976-1983, at a pivotal point in the Cold War, he was employed at the U.S. embassy in Pakistan – America's key regional ally, through which millions of dollars in weapons and other "aid" were delivered by Pakistan's ISI intelligence service to the mujahedin following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Yow!!! Talk about your heroin-connected State Department guys!! In a final twist for Grossman, he happened to meet up with Pakistani ISI director General Mahmoud Ahmed just before September 11 — and Ahmed has been linked to sending cash to lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta. Wot is it good 4 adds a few more bits in a handy bio:

Edelman left Libby's [employ] on June 6, 2003 "'to begin language training in preparation for a posting as ambassador to Turkey." This is a week after 'Libby asks Bolton, and Grossman for information about news report about CIA's secret envoy to Africa in 2002"

According to Fitzgerald, 2 weeks later (June 19, 2003, before Wilson's NYT op-ed), Edelman "asked LIBBY whether information about Wilson's trip could be shared with the press to rebut the allegations that the VP had sent Wilson. LIBBY responded that there would be complications at the CIA in disclosing that information publicly, and that he could not discuss the matter on a non-secure phone line."

In Central Asia, Everything is Permissible: The plain truth is that, especially out in Central Asia, the concept of 'corruption' does not exist, and there is no real barrier between the legitimate economy and the 'shadow economy' of weapons, drugs and other contraband. Controlling your turf means controlling the passage of all goods, especially the really good goods. And that's how it's been for centuries.

So perhaps Edmonds represents a kind of domestic blowback against this staggering corruption of American institutions and secretive misuse of executive power. Although, maybe it is all purely symbolic. With a little luck, this weird case will finally get the top-level media attention it deserves, perhaps as Libby's court date approaches...

Douglas Feith: His Business is the Turks: wot is it good 4 also informs that Richard Perle used to consult for some shadowy Turkish concerns, and Douglas Feith, of all people, was a registered foreign agent of Turkey from 1989-1994!! This certainly adds a shade to the whole Turkey/neo-con model - and Grossman was recently ambassador to Turkey.

This seems to tie into the Valerie Plame matter, somehow: As long as we are fishing in these murky waters, Sibel Edmonds has implied that her case is closely tied to the Plame affair and the American Turkish Council. there has been some speculation that Valerie Plame was actually burned by Libby and the neo-cons not because of Wilson's Op-Ed, but because her CIA front company, Brewster Jennings, may have been getting 'too close' to exposing illegal WMD activities that someone like Libby might have been tied up in.

Perhaps even Libby's longtime former client, billionaire fugitive Marc Rich, is involved. Rich's partner in intrigue, Russian mogul Boris Berezovsky, has been tied up in some exotic deals, including nuclear trafficking with the Chechens.

Secret Office of Special Plans units going around in Iraq to fabricate WMD?! On a parallel track, here is a story from Larisa Alexandrovna in RawStory which details apparent secret military units dispatched under the authority of Feith and the Office of Special Plans, with the apparent intent of coming up with some WMDs in Iraq, faking their origin if necessary. However it failed, if the story is to be believed. "Secretive military unit sought to solve political WMD concerns prior to securing Iraq, intelligence sources say":

Sources say the Office of Special Plans deployed several extra-legal and unapproved task force missions prior to and after combat operations began. Under the supervision of Doug Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, the OSP ran largely unsupervised and operated in secrecy. According to those familiar with the plans, the off-book missions were approved by Feith -- himself currently under investigation by the FBI for allegations of passing US secrets to Israel and Iran -- Cambone and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.
[......]
One intelligence source says the Office of Special Plans’ off-book team was using [missing US pilot] Speicher and WMD as a pretext for whatever their real objective may have been.
[.....]
This smaller unnamed team was tasked with interviewing former Iraqi intelligence officers in hopes of securing help with a “political WMD” problem, a source close to the UN Security Council says.

During the summer of 2003 through the fall of 2003, the team, whose members who were not named by sources, is said to have interviewed many Iraqi intelligence and former intelligence officers. The UN source says that the political problem discussed had more to do with solving the lack of WMD than anything else.

Ok, then. Grains of salt etc.

Brewster Jennings and the Planted WMD: I will add one more bit to this mix of really quite paranoid stuff: Maverick/'highly untrustworthy' internet journalist Wayne Madsen raised the possibility that Brewster Jennings and Valerie Plame got burned because they intercepted a WMD that some in Turkey were trying to sneak into Iraq — but the twist is that neoconservatives were trying to get the weaponry into Iraq, because they wanted to stage its exciting discovery there, thus providing the casus belli to drive the American public into a belligerent, fearful frenzy. A fun theory...

Since we are really out on a kick here, why not add what Madsen put out on Nov. 11 (again, many grains of lysergic acid salt recommended):

"According to U.S. intelligence sources, the White House exposure of Valerie Plame and her Brewster Jennings & Associates was intended to retaliate against the CIA's work in limiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. WMR has reported in the past on this aspect of the scandal. In addition to identifying the involvement of individuals in the White House who were close to key players in nuclear proliferation, the CIA Counter-Proliferation Division prevented the shipment of binary VX nerve gas from Turkey into Iraq in November 2002. The Brewster Jennings network in Turkey was able to intercept this shipment which was intended to be hidden in Iraq and later used as evidence that Saddam Hussein was in possession of weapons of mass destruction. U.S. intelligence sources revealed that this was a major reason the Bush White House targeted Plame and her network."

So, under possible motives to out Plame, we can tentatively consider that her CIA team wouldn't help stage WMD in Iraq to justify a war. Again, this sounds much too delicious to be true, but if it were true, it would help make some sense of Libby's motive. (Madsen also posted some other stuff about Brewster Jennings going after Libby, nuke traffickers and the Russian mob on Oct. 25 - again, many salt grains)

There's plenty of speculation here, and I don't want to make conclusions yet. Except for one: It's nobody's business but the Turks!!

DeLay bit for Texas Gerrymandering; CBS producer defends National Guard memo story; no time for Tookie

1UP for Russ: Russ Feingold is chilling around the Internet while fighting the renewed Patriot Act. Now that's class. Also he speaks in favor of withdrawing from Iraq. So Quadruple Infinity Bonus Points -- he's trying to kill Bowser and save the Princess. The Odds are Slim but entirely worth it.

While Iraq prepares for another round of 'something', (and election irregularities around Mosul are apparently expected) a memo (PDF) from the Department of Justice indicated that career Justice lawyers believed that redistricting Texas would illegally marginalize minorities. Meanwhile a Crips co-founder is going to get injected. And who says minorities are oppressed in this free country?

(fortunately the DOJ's new policy has "barred staff attorneys from offering recommendations in major Voting Rights Act cases, marking a significant change in the procedures meant to insulate such decisions from politics." - thx Marshall.)

Charting sleaze: This big ass Abramoff chart is almost big enough to encompass the mega-scandal. Marshall on this as well. There are quite a few Democrats on there. Where are the House ethics complaints anyway? Polls show that corruption is a leading concern in America nowadays.

Secret laws? The Bush Administration apparently claims that secret regulations require people to present IDs at the airport. Why secret? Secret courts, secret evidence, secret prisons. Laws too? And they call us on the Internet obsessed with conspiracies! :-D (via Kevin Drum)

It's a really big information war: I don't feel like putting a lot more words in. But this NY Times article, "Military's Information War is Vast and Often Secretive," reaches into great detail about psychological operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Although really, I have to think that most of the locals see right through this stuff and scoff at it. Even if it's supposedly hidden through private contractors, I suspect they aren't really taken in that easily.

It also makes me wonder about psy ops dimensions to such things as "Shootout! Battlecry Iraq: Ramadi" coming Dec. 14 to the History Channel.

Meanwhile dead US soldiers apparently back come as commercial freight. So much for honoring the heroes. If it were my kin, I would be crushed.

Juan Cole reflects on Iraq in our Strib. Background on activities of the Badr Corps, now the de facto Inner Militia of the Interior Ministry. Tactics seem to escalate in Afghanistan, no matter how many radio stations we control. Damn. Juan Cole's site will be a good spot to follow the election results, and i think this bit pretty much sums up the evolving problem:

Al-Zaman/ AFP: Muntadhar al-Samarra'i, the former commander of the Iraqi special forces, said Sunday that the Minister of Interior, Bayan Jabr Sulagh, appointed 17,000 fighters from the Badr Militia as police officers in his ministry at a time when they still receive their salaries from Iran. Al-Samarra'i accused the Badr Corps [the paramilitary of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq] of employing torture on detainees in prison. He showed AFP a film he himself had shot of torture in Iraqi prisons. He said all of the high officials in the Ministry of the Interior are from the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Dawa (Shiite parties), whereas the detainees are Sunni Arabs. Al-Samarra'i also said that the special police speak Persian with one another (the Badr Corps fighters had been expatriates in Iran). He spoke of several secret prisons, some with as many as 600 inmates, and said there were also jails for women.

An interview with Sy Hersh, if you want more gory details. He puts in this fun bit about rigging the last Iraqi election:

...the three provinces that – according to the actual rules, the three provinces voted against the constitution – you had to have a two-thirds majority against it – it was defeated, and there is no question that in two of them this happened, and the third, Mosul province, the amount of fraud and jiggering of election ballots and manipulation was just outlandish. I do know, at least I have been told that, before the… if you remember the election day, I think it was initially supposed to be August 15th. The election day…
Horton: October 15th, I think, right?
Hersh: Right, right, October 15th. It was extremely quiet, and it's my understanding that the resistance actually had been talking to the UN – the UN had an advisory role in the election process, which it still has – and they had made it quiet not because intimidation of coalition forces and the American government but because they decided, they said, "The UN will do it straight. Because if it's a straight, honorable election, you won't get your constitution through. We'll defeat you in three provinces." There was a great, a great deal of agitation among the Sunni resistance about the fraud that was involved. I don't know what's going to happen. Nobody knows. I think the Sunnis… I think the election will take place. That won't be spoiled by rioting and distress and disturbances, but I think afterwards – I think the Ba'athists are sort of curious, the Sunnis, to see what happens – but afterwards, I think we could even see a significant escalation, already, of the kind of damage we're having.

So Talabani will probably play the Katherine Harris role in the coming production. All right. Hersh also has lots of info about the insanity of the air war ramping up -- as airstrikes replace American soldiers, and no one's around to film all the civilian casualties.

You are looking, if you break it down, to, oh, roughly 100 bombs being dropped an hour. Twenty four hours a day for the last 15, 16 months. That's a hell of a lot of bombs.

Indeed. And that's only estimated from one section of the airborne military forces. And also this: after the election,

we could end up with Iranian operatives helping to guide and direct American bombs against targets that are against our interests. This is all in the realm of possibility. Yes.

Oh yah, also this:

The Israelis are investing in their good partners the Kurds, they support an independent Kurdistan, or at least a strong Kurdistan. And for sure, there are operations going on, Israeli-led operations are going on inside Kurdistan into Iran, Syria, absolutely. The Israelis have a platform there.

Not terribly shocking. But I'm sure it will work itself out. A final bit, on dear Michael Ledeen and the Niger forgeries:

The one thing that makes me a little skeptical is Michael Ledeen is certainly, really smart, I disagree with everything, you know, he and I are on the other ends of the world, but it is such a bad forgery, I mean, it is such a bad forgery.

Well that's true. We ought to expect more finesse from him. Anyhow, lots of quotes, but Hersh is still the Dude on these matters.

Syria talks tough: I missed this one. About a month ago Assad said that Syrians had to stick together and fight, as the US has a plan to crush the Arab nations. It was basically a pretty hard statement from a country that the US has been openly belligerent towards for years now. But it suggests that Assad is not going to fold... With a little luck the neo-cons will fall in Washington before they can generate a Tonkin Gulf incident in the Syrian desert, as Raimondo put it. Syria accuses US of launching lethal raids over its borders.

The National Security Agency reflects on Tonkin Gulf: they put together a nice website with lots of original documents on the incident that got spun up to spark the Vietnam war, in an attempt to provide clarity. Good for them.

Venezuela and USAID operations against Chavez: This bit by Tom Barry from the International Relations Center talks about USAID and its various means of influencing politics in Venezuela. Part of the shadow boxing between Chavez and Washington. Also the ever-altruistic National Endowment for Democracy pops up as supporting 'democratic organizations.' Mysterious.

Former CBS producer stands by Texas National Guard documents: Right wing bloggers rode Dan Rather's battered remains to glory last year, but it might turn out that (surprise!) they're full of it. Mary Mapes, the producer supposedly responsible for acting as a Kerry henchwoman, has returned to tell the tale of the National Guard documents. Lo and behold she found that many Guard docs have the same features that everyone said made Bush's docs forgeries. She wrote a book "Truth and Duty" about it. There was a good interview with her on DailyKos exploring all this stuff. Here's the documents she dug up.

Florida logic: Robert Novak says that Florida Republicans are trying to get Katherine Harris to duck out of the Senate race. Also interesting stuff about how in Florida the Dems are starting over from scratch, all over.

To Live and Die in CA: They say that the man from the Crips, Stanley 'Tookie' Williams, is getting executed about now. I oppose the death penalty for anyone (including hapless Iraqi soldiers), and in this particular case, it strikes me as especially harmful to kill a figure who has managed to find a peaceful political strategy to defuse violent gang conflicts. (Possibilities of rioting. Only a massive LA riot could round out this ridiculous year.)

When steroid-sodden leaders, with quite soft support of their own, need to shore up that sense of solidarity among the Base, well why not get rid of a 'lead gangster'? Perhaps that's not fair because clemency ought to rest on the case itself. But I heard the same tone when a radio talk show host on CNN suggested that even if more than a hundred innocent people have been let off death row, it's still better to kill because they are plotting to kill more people in prison. Why not just shoot everyone? Horrible.

Drunk Trashy White Power, Mate: Elsewhere, in Australia there's been riots after some Lebanese immigrants were accused of assaulting a lifeguard. Naturally the Australian far-right has apparently latched onto the situation as an opportunity to demonize immigrants. Mean right wing lady Lucianne Goldberg said "Finally, a WASP riot as beer soaked beefy Aussies bash Muslims at beach" (via nomoremisterniceblog). Something to be proud of when neo-Nazis are circulating videos about 'the Battle for Cronulla'. Even more horrible. 12thharmonic is following this. Radio host Alan Jones is whipping things along:

The riot was still three days away and Sydney’s highest-rating breakfast radio host had a heap of anonymous emails to whip his 2GB listeners along.
"Alan, it’s not just a few Middle Eastern bastards at the weekend, it’s thousands. Cronulla is a very long beach and it’s been taken over by this scum. It’s not a few causing trouble. It’s all of them."

Froomkin's getting Posted: I think everyone knows how lame the Washington Post usually is these days. Somehow they seem to be getting upset about how all over the Internet people spit at them. Now one of their better writers, Dan Froomkin, is getting a bunch of crap from the WaPo editors because his column, the "White House Briefing", is perceived as too liberal, and by too liberal, they mean it is not always buried in the torrent of spin and propaganda masquerading as 'balance'.

Political Editor John Harris is a jackass here. Marshall and Firedoglake with more on it. Since Froomkin might go down over this, lets give him a couple paragraphs to explain himself:

Regular readers know that my column is first and foremost a daily anthology of works by other journalists and bloggers. When my voice emerges, it is often to provide context for those writings and spot emerging themes. Sometimes I do some original reporting, and sometimes I share my insights. The omnipresent links make it easy for readers to assess my credibility.

There is undeniably a certain irreverence to the column. But I do not advocate policy, liberal or otherwise. My agenda, such as it is, is accountability and transparency. I believe that the president of the United States, no matter what his party, should be subject to the most intense journalistic scrutiny imaginable. And he should be able to easily withstand that scrutiny. I was prepared to take the same approach with John Kerry, had he become president.

This column’s advocacy is in defense of the public’s right to know what its leader is doing and why. To that end, it calls attention to times when reasonable, important questions are ducked; when disingenuous talking points are substituted for honest explanations; and when the president won’t confront his critics -- or their criticisms -- head on.

The journalists who cover Washington and the White House should be holding the president accountable. When they do, I bear witness to their work. And the answer is for more of them to do so -- not for me to be dismissed as highly opinionated and liberal because I do.

Cheers dude, cheers. How the hell did you ever get that column anyway? Perhaps I'm not being totally fair with the Post. They did hook us up with the Abramoff chart and DeLay memo above. But why are they still such punks?

Viveca Novak twist in the Plame scandal: Weird. Digby if you want the ugly details. NextHurrah, E&P, Atrios, needlenose, Talkleft, & the firedoglake again for more. Apparently VandeHei suddenly said that Hadley was Rove's source on Hardball (a slight bombshell) and no one even noticed, probably because they have all gotten aneurisms by now. She tries to explain herself but its shady. Eccch whatever.

Hong Kong activists ask for quiet at WTO: According to the Guardian, the stalwart crew of rebels against the Communist order in those parts distributed notices:

In what passes for Hong Kong's alternative press, a cut-out-and-keep rioters' guide to Hong Kong was hardly a call to arms. Under R for Rioters, it said: "This is a peaceful place and your shenanigans will only make it harder for us once you leave, so leave the rocks at home." G for Globalisation noted: "While we are on the topic, what is your beef anyway?"

Could be some of that neo-Communist Propaganda though.

Wikipedia hoaxer apologises. The guy says it was a workplace prank. Old story about a Mac SE 30 made into a bong. The worst video game art ever. Hilarious.

Clinton messed with Bush at the global warming thing in Montreal. It is actually really good Clinton is wielding his residual 'soft power' to pressure the US on global warming, while saving a tiny bit of dignity for Sane America with the rest of the world.

Wake Up Neo, the screensaver. When you are listening to Massive Attack's Dissolved Girl and your mescaline-toting hipster friends show up for warez, you know you need to follow the white rabbit.

Star and stripe resign: A spoof. Rove's on the case. The little dog is a nice touch.

Al Qaeda Santa Connection - via elf torture: Sam Seder and Bob Knight from Air America's Majority Report point out the value of a war on Christmas (video here):

SEDER: Listen, as far as the war on Christmas goes, I feel like we should be waging a war on Christmas. I mean, I believe that Christmas, it's almost proven that Christmas has nuclear weapons, can be an imminent threat to this country, that they have operative ties with terrorists and I believe that we should sacrifice thousands of American lives in pursuit of this war on Christmas. And hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money.

PHILLIPS: Is it a war on Christmas, a war Christians, a war on over-political correctness or just a lot of people with way too much time on their hands?

SEDER: I would say probably, if I was to be serious about it, too much time on their hands, but I'd like to get back to the operational ties between Santa Claus and al Qaeda.

PHILLIPS: I don't think that exists. Bob? Help me out here.

SEDER: We have intelligence, we have intelligence.

PHILLIPS: You have intel. Where exactly does your intel come from?

SEDER: Well, we have tortured an elf and it's actually how we got the same information from Al Libbi. It's exactly the same way the Bush administration got this info about the operational ties between al Qaeda and Saddam.

... Yes, well, Kyra, I mean, listen, I would like Bob to tell me who is the person who has been offended by someone saying Merry Christmas to them? I've never met that person. I don't celebrate Christmas. But if someone says "Merry Christmas" to me, I either think, well, it's a little bit odd, it's like me saying happy birthday to you on my birthday, but no one cares.

But I will tell you this, as we wage the war on the war on the war on the war on Christmas on our radio show. News Corp., Fox News, those people who have started this entire war on Christmas mean, fake war, they're having a holiday party.

President Bush saying "Happy Holidays." Tokyo Rose, Laura Bush, saying "Happy Holidays" to her dogs in the video, I'm sure you've seen it. I mean, these are the things that we should be talking about when we are waging this war in Iraq, we should be equating it to the war on Christmas.

Ants eat eyeball; Jon Lyons still the Pimp of Anime; Sony Rootkits mess up thousands of PCs

One hundred greatest internet moments, including Pokey the Penguin, James Guckert, the Bert-Osama photo, Hamster Dance, DeCSS.... the hits go on. (and how better to start than an illegal link to DeCSS?)

Ant eats away woman's eye in hospital:

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - A woman receiving treatment for diabetes at a state-run hospital in eastern India lost one of her eyes after ants nibbled away at it, officials said on Tuesday.

The patient recovering from a post-surgery infection shrieked for help as the ants attacked her on Sunday night, but nurses told her it was normal to feel pain from the infection.

On Monday, the patient's family saw a gaping hole with swarming ants in it when they lifted the bandage on her left eye.

Authorities of the Sambhunath Hospital in Kolkata said they were probing the incident.

"It's not uncommon for ants to attack diabetic patients. We have set up a committee to investigate the unfortunate incident," hospital superintendent A. Adhikary said.

Scampering rats and stray cats and dogs sharing bed space with patients are not uncommon sights at India's overcrowded state-run hospitals that are used by millions of poor and middle-class people.

Jon Lyons with a certain camp Anime style: Jon is still chugging away at the whole "amazingly proficient practitioner of the Japanese cartoon style the kids call anime" thing. He entered a comic in a Japanese contest, and thoughtfully put an English version on the Internet for us (open the links in a separate window). Sort of an afternoon daydreaming imagination, Calvin & Hobbes meets Voltron Retro style sort of thing.

He's been refining it, since well, pretty much any of us knew him. So it's really good now. Good luck, Jon, and you've got a good shot at winning yet another contest. Nice. He is wrapping up a final leg at U-W Madison in the Art and Japanese programs. (duhhhh!)

Post college: Points in Case has some entertaining stuff. The Cost of Living in Athens, Georgia, inside the minds of college guys and girls. Well it's over for me, what a bummer...

Sony CD Root Kit causes 500,000 infected computer networks: BoingBoing tells us that vast numbers of computers have been infested with the rootkit program that automatically installs from audio CDs on PCs, which creates lots of dangerous security vulnerabilities. First the details (via earlier post):

The consequences of the flaw are severe. It allows any web page you visit to download, install, and run any code it likes on your computer. Any web page can seize control of your computer; then it can do anything it likes. That's about as serious as a security flaw can get.

The root of the problem is a serious design flaw in Sony's web-based uninstaller. When you first fill out Sony's form to request a copy of the uninstaller, the request form downloads and installs a program - an ActiveX control created by the DRM vendor, First4Internet - called CodeSupport. CodeSupport remains on your system after you leave Sony's site, and it is marked as safe for scripting, so any web page can ask CodeSupport to do things. One thing CodeSupport can be told to do is download and install code from an Internet site. Unfortunately, CodeSupport doesn't verify that the downloaded code actually came from Sony or First4Internet. This means any web page can make CodeSupport download and install code from any URL without asking the user's permission.

And its effects:

More than half a million networks, including military and government sites, were likely infected by copy restriction software distributed by Sony on a handful of its CDs, according to a statistical analysis of domain servers conducted by a well-respected security researcher and confirmed by independent experts on Tuesday...

Kaminsky asked over 3 million DNS servers across the net whether or not they knew the addresses associated with the Sony rootkit -- connected.sonymusic.com, updates.xcp-aurora.com, and license.suncom2.com. He uses a "non-recursive DNS query" which allows him to just peek into the cache of that server, and find out if anyone else has asked that particular machine for those addresses recently.

If the DNS server said yes, it had a cached copy of the address, which means that at least one of its client computers had used it to look up Sony's DRM site. If the DNS server said no, then Kaminsky knew for sure that no Sony-compromised machines existed behind it.

The results have surprised Kaminsky himself: 568,200 DNS servers knew about the Sony addresses. With no other reason for people to visit them, that points to one or more computers behind those DNS servers that are Sony-compromised. That's one in six DNS servers, across a statistical sampling of one third of the 9 million DNS servers Kaminsky estimates are on the net.

More details here. COPY PROTECTION CAUSES VIRUSES. Fucking A.

Further Geek News: The story of a rebellion in the Linux community and Linus Torvalds demonstrating he is still King of the Geeks (via digg).

China: All this stuff about China, well I ran into an interesting history of Tiananmen Square. Not that interesting. But Chinese history has that sense of theater... The declassified history of Tiananmen Square. Thanks, National Security Archives

Apparently a Chinese scheme to sell tracts of land on the moon was shut down by those heartless anti-Capitalists, who pulled their license on grounds of "profiteering and lunacy."

There is this book (and a forthcoming video game) about nonviolent conflict called "A force more powerful." One part is about how many protests have happened at Tiananmen over many years. Interesting argument about what the student protesters failed to accomplish. However it also has a somewhat patronizing tone ("we are privileged to decide how these things ought to go, why did you kids put up the Goddess statue?"):

But the defeat of the student movement cannot fully be explained by the violence used to send it underground or into exile, for many other nonviolent movements in the twentieth century deflected repression and endured to fight another day. Erratic and divided leadership, that believed more in the power of the moment than seeing the right moment to apply power, was at least as great a problem. This overconfidence diverted student leaders from the necessary work of organization and strategy. Had they seen the value of recruiting support from other parts of society - workers in transport and communication, civil servants, and, most important, the police and the military - they might have consolidated their gains and opted to develop a broader challenge not confined to Tiananmen, a convenient venue for repression.

Failing to appreciate or plan for the possibility of repression was an error in itself, but it also freed the students to indulge in whatever provocative action seemed enticing. Inflammatory gestures such as erecting, opposite Mao's Mausoleum, a "Goddess of Democracy," a replica of America's Statue of Liberty, doubtless antagonized the regime while not changing any facts on the ground. In short, while the students were familiar with the most obvious forms of nonviolent action - occupying public spaces, hunger strikes and playing to the international media - their decisions in using these sanctions did not reflect "any significant degree of strategic thinking..."10

The failure of strategy at the moment of crisis kept echoing throughout its aftermath. The government's use of repression taught the wrong lesson to many about how rights and democracy should be pursued. In 1999 one former protestor called himself "a victim of June 4," since he was fired and prevented from getting another job; he had decided that "the only path for China was. . .cautious, progressive liberalization." Even the flammable Wu'er Kaixi, who fled China and later had to pump gas and wait on tables in California, succumbed to lower expectations. Explaining why he hoped that Beijing would not be forced to acknowledge its Tiananmen savagery, he said that doing so might only set back gradual reforms. And he wanted to return home. "I think if everything goes okay, I'll be able to go home in five years. If something happens, if there are demonstrations and another crackdown, it will take longer."11

Dan awake at 4 AM, dealing with China

Sorry for the lack of updates. I have decided that the Internet was better off without my collected musings the last few days.

Meanwhile in the middle of the night, I am working on managing the photos from the Minnesota trade mission to China as Sarah Janecek sends them over. I was surprised to find that AOL Instant Messenger works through the Great Red Firewall....

Anyway I am very tired so I am going to bed now. But it's an interesting thing to be checking out. See PoliticsInMinnesota.com for the blog of the trip. Night!

Alison whacks a Nazi in the head; France smolders on

I recently found this interview posted on Anarkismo.net - from "Beating Fascism: Anarchist Anti-Fascism in theory and practice." Interesting stuff about a sort of hidden battle between organized fascists in the UK and US against the punk/anarchist groups. (more on racist vs. anti-racist music: tolerance.org, National Socialist black metal on Wikipedia, and of course, the white power bands of northern New Jersey). The subject of the interview, 'Three Way Fight' their alias, also has a group "insurgent blog on the struggle against the state and fascism." Sounds about right.

So at the Anti-Flag/Pennywise/Bad Religion show last night, Alison was in one of her favorite places in the world, bouncing around in the mosh pit whirling around that esoteric star in the middle of the Quest. She spied some guy with a shaved head - then saw his shirt featured the SS - the Nazi Schutzstaffel symbol - with some German words. A true racist skinhead punk. So Alison punched him in the back of the head a couple times. Call it anti-fascist direct action.

While France Smolders: Here's a statement from the "Federal Secretariat of Alternative Libertaire" via Anarkismo.net:

People in working class neighbourhoods live in constant fear, both for themselves and for their children. They are afraid of humiliating identity checks, arbitrary arrests, unpunished police violence, and spurious convictions for “outrage and rebellion,” all in order to meet some police quota. Even recent official reports have called attention to this increasing lawlessness on the part of the police.

And what can one say about provocations of the Minister of the Interior, and even worst about the policy which sees the suburbs as territory that needs to be reconquered, all of which increasingly resembles colonial and military “peacekeeping.”

And so yes, we are sorry that this violence – this answer to the illegitimate violence of those in power – is so often paradoxically directed against the very people who are forced to live in these neighbourhoods, who already have to deal with State and ruling class violence. The logic of this spontaneous rebellion is somewhat understood by the population, but its legitimacy is hurt by the destruction of cars, schools and buses.
[.......]

We support the rebellion against injustice, the sense of mass solidarity, the elements of political awareness amongst most young people. As such, we understand and are in solidarity with both the necessity and the reasons behind the direct action now taking place throughout the working class areas.

This week or riots expresses the hopelessness of the most marginalized section of a generation with no future. Yet it should also be seen as being connected to the government’s strategy of tension and current repression of the social movements (transportation, postal workers, students, anti-GMO activists…). All of these struggles bear witness to the same social insecurity.

We are not going to demand a return to “community policing” or building new sports centers so that young people can work out their frustrations in silence. Does anyone seriously believe that this will solve the social tension caused by the political and social violence of those in power?

We are not even going to demand that the Minister of the Interior resign, as has a section of the left. This is a side-issue, a politician’s issue, and it is scandalous when we remember that the Plural Left [1] also passed security legislation and even today has not broken with the dominant liberal-security model.**

There are certain to be more explosions of anger unless there is a redistribution of work and wealth, all the more certainly so if social regression, inequality, racism and marginalization continue unchecked.

“Prevention,” religious recuperation and repression will all be useless. Only justice and social and economic equality can solve things.

There's a certain logic there. Like Hunter said about another time, you could strike sparks anywhere. But with that 21st century twist.

A post that's about a week late!

This was a set of stuff which I should have posted like a week ago. Well, enjoy. :-/

Some Minnesota blogs: I do not usually pay enough attention to blogs around the Twin Cities although it's a rich territory these days. City Pages big index. I think Kennedy vs. the Machine is amusing because, well, it just is. Anything idolizing Mark Kennedy is sort of like praising ketchup for daring to be different than mustard. Freedom Dogs is another right wing local one.

Then there are a couple college guys running MN Publius, which is pretty good. They are watching the upcoming election from afar. MN Lefty Liberal holding it down.

Secret Phone Numbers: escape the Labyrinth. Dial up real humans in corporate voice mail hell! This has the secret customer service numbers for many corps, including Amazon, which I used today.

Example of media manipulation & gullibility. FOX blimp tricks WCCO into covering it.

Scott McClellan Says Helen Thomas Opposes 'War on Terrorism' (featured on CrooksAndLiars). Har har har!!

[Helen Thomas]: What does the President mean by "total victory" -- that we will never leave Iraq until we have "total victory"? What does that mean?
[......]
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, Helen, the President recognizes that we are engaged in a global war on terrorism. And when you're engaged in a war, it's not always pleasant, and it's certainly a last resort. But when you engage in a war, you take the fight to the enemy, you go on the offense. And that's exactly what we are doing. We are fighting them there so that we don't have to fight them here. September 11th taught us --
Q It has nothing to do with -- Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, you have a very different view of the war on terrorism, and I'm sure you're opposed to the broader war on terrorism. The President recognizes this requires a comprehensive strategy, and that this is a broad war, that it is not a law enforcement matter.
Terry.
Q On what basis do you say Helen is opposed to the broader war on terrorism?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, she certainly expressed her concerns about Afghanistan and Iraq and going into those two countries. I think I can go back and pull up her comments over the course of the past couple of years.
Q And speak for her, which is odd.
MR. McCLELLAN: No, I said she may be, because certainly if you look at her comments over the course of the past couple of years, she's expressed her concerns --
Q I'm opposed to preemptive war, unprovoked preemptive war.
MR. McCLELLAN: -- she's expressed her concerns.

Who knew the CIA had a journal? Studies in Intelligence: VOL. 49, NO. 2, 2005 featuring Understanding Terror Networks and The Intelligence Officer's Bookshelf. Nice. Interestingly, the CIA defends itself from charges that they gave bad intelligence by an article published in this declassified journal. Here is an article about Goss crushing CIA analysts under political pressure.

Israel, Iran and nuclear war. Unpleasant thoughts that make me want to play computer games instead. WOPR knows you can't win Global Thermonuclear War anyway. But this article about how the US is prepping for the attack is spooky. US selling Bunker Bombs to Israel. They got some sweet jets too. Bush: "America would back Israel attack on Iran." Good old Cheney:

"Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards," Cheney said. In 1981, Israel sent warplanes to destroy Iraq's nuclear reactor.

More on this later. Gotta love Threat Construction in the mideast.

Global: What is China Up to in the Western Hemisphere? Big things!

"Former U.S. ambassador in Bolivia Manuel Rocha recently remarked, 'Your children may have to start learning Mandarin ... if you wish to see them involved in business in the Americas.'"

UNPO: I like the idea of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, which is set up for the various smaller ethnic groups (From the Lakota Nation to Georgian Abkhazia, the Assyrians of Iraq and the Levant - who do not support the new constitution. Sweet flag too! - and the formerly independent Arabic Ahwaz people of southwestern Iran)

Talk about some pandemic. Personal Pandemic Preparedness Plan. "ASSUME FOOD AND SUPPLIES WILL BE UNAVAILABLE". Here is yr bird flu map over time. Uh oh! Rich people should be saved in disasters first, says yr typical rightwing idiot.

Syria under pressure, ringed by an Iron Wall. More details on this later.

New Service to Coordinate US Overseas Espionage. Oh good, more for Goss, less for Negroponte. Or not. Dammit!

Rebels in Russia! They are getting serious out in those quiet Caucasus areas. Also covered here but these sites may be some rightwing gibberish. Well DEBKA should bring an air of Sanity to the affair. (they say it was mostly locals, shocking). The choice quote:

Most of the province’s inhabitants are ethnic Circassian Muslims. The unrecorded chapter of the Chechen intelligence war of the 1990s relates how the Circassian community of Jordan, which was the security buttress of the Hashemite throne, was used by US, British and French intelligence as a pipeline into the Chechen breakaway movement for close surveillance of its conflict with Russia. Al Qaeda, which tracks and meets every American intelligence move connected with the global war on terror, countered by going into the remote and relatively affluent Kabardino-Balkaria to quietly acquire its own Circassian asset.

Iraq Boom. Bush is really alone. It would be funny if it wasn't such a horrible and devastating problem. 'The worst possible policy for Iraq'. The good news: perhaps Iraq's violence not yet civil war. Journalist Chris Albritton has the latest on the election results and suspicious indicators of electoral fraud in Nineveh province. Here comes sectarian warfare. Ah, Bush's staged Potemkin army.

Great moments in strategy, revisited: Vanquished Iraqi military disbanded; U.S. occupying force to set up new army. What a classic. How did that turn out?

Terror Letters O Love: We got this exciting Zawahiri letter. Jazeera: Al Qaeda claims US faked Zawahiri letter.

Condi still has some fucked up spin:

The fact of the matter is that when we were attacked on September 11, we had a choice to make. We could decide that the proximate cause was al Qaeda and the people who flew those planes into buildings and, therefore, we would go after al Qaeda…or we could take a bolder approach.

Vikings. Ouch. Talk about bumblefucking your way out of a new stadium, and then getting crushed by the Bears. Bitter Reusse:

As to what action Wilf should take in the wake of this aquatic Sodom and Gomorrah, the most popular suggestion has been to fire Tice now, rather than at season's end.
That's an idea worth serious consideration, but until nightfall today, Zygi has a higher priority:
Repenting for using the family fortune to buy this no-class operation.

Plame Flood [week-oldd news - sorry]! Plenty of news on this in the last couple days. I am glad it's become a major scandal again. Judith Miller certainly played things the nasty, dishonest and venal way she's handled them so far. No real admission from her great tell-all in the Times about how Libby mercilessly spun the war against intelligence community - with the Plame scandal as only a branch of the fallout. (AIPAC/WINEP and Chalabi being two other major branches yet to break off the tree)

But the tone of media coverage still doesn't fully link the fake intelligence with the attack that Libby et al. tried against Wilson. Miller's particular role in that fake intelligence, I would say, means that she was probably protecting Chalabi's people, "defending her other sources" ± as she seemed to put it in her article. But lets get to the Main Story, as the "other" Roger Ailes puts:

In today's column, Howie Kurtz illustrates what's wrong with most of the newspaper and television coverage of the New York Times' role in Traitorgate, including Kurtz's:

"Leave aside the criticisms of her WMD reporting."

The newspaper's purported coverage of WMD and Miller's relationship with the White House are inextricably intertwined. Miller's dealings with the White House and her agenda cannot be separated.

Howie can't seem to understand why the Times' reporting on its own reporter is so weak. He mentions the obvious conflict of interest, but doesn't address the equally obvious fact -- that the paper knew how corrupt Miller was and ran her articles anyway.

The paper either knew Miller's unnamed sources in the Administration and the INC, and published her articles anyway, or it published Miller's propaganda without knowing. In either case, the paper knowingly permitted Miller to lie to its readers. And that's why the paper's coverage of Traitorgate is not only weak -- it's non-existent. The paper can't publish the truth about Traitorgate without exposing its own role in the scandal and the parallel scandal of its own reporting on Iraq. It can't report the truth of Traitorgate and simulataneously maintain the fiction -- illustrated in the article quoted below -- that it was misled by the Administration and self-interested Iraqis and therefore can't really be faulted for its faulty reporting.

And that's why you can't "leave aside" Miller's WMD reporting when you consider the Times current coverage of Traitorgate. Howie is smart enough to understand this -- why he doesn't credit his readers with the same intelligence is an interesting question.

Ailes also has a good timeline of the various NY Times stories that Miller spewed forth for the trusting American public.

Ok there are a ton of links. Arianna (again and again). Judy made some obvious mistakes in her notes about Plame's role. The AntiWar blog is jolly these days. E&P are pissed. "The Law is on the Side of Valerie Plame," by pissed off ex-CIA dude Larry Johnson. Johnson also has some pieces about SISMI, the apparent original entry point of the forgeries into western intelligence communities. He alleges a prominent neo-con (Michael Ledeen in all but name) concocted the damn things. Nice! (also, why Fitz gets it) Pat Lang pissed off at that horrible Cohen column (as is Atrios and everyone else).

"My money is on the company, Pt. II". Victoria Plame? A fine reference to the whole case via the Left Coaster. Time for the Frog March? The Times newsroom has been tense. Fire Miller, dammit!

AIPAC still simmers: Raimondo considers the possibility that Israeli ambassador Danny Ayalon is one of the parties of espionage in the AIPAC indictments.

Texas two step: These guys have been making a Ronnie Earle documentary. Interesting.

GOP dissolves? Sure why not?

White House breakdown: psychological warfare gets ya in trouble; plus things always weird in Damascus

Crony Jobs - Choice government careers for the taking. No experience necessary.

ABC News: Gore: I Don't Plan to Run for President

Reuters: Judy Miller testifies.

AntiWar.com picked up a couple new columnists. Charles Peña starts up with "A New York State of Mind" pointing out the various fallacies in the GWOT these days.

Rove looking doomed: Is there some kind of rebellion or conflict between Bush's Chief of Staff Andy Card and Karl Rove, as Howard Fineman was speculating on Hardball? Billmon reflects, after meeting Card quite a few times over the years, and finding him dense and basically a patsy, asks if that's not what he's going to be now.

How did we get to this point? Fitzgerald got appointed when some Justice lawyers on the Plame case raised concerns that Rove wasn't being entirely truthful, and they pointed out that Ashcroft and Rove had an old history of helping each other out in politics. They managed to force Ashcroft to appoint Fitz, the special prosecutor. The investigation seems to be going wider into WHIG - the White House Iraq Group, an organization I suppose I've ignored relative to the more attractive Office of Special Plans. Either way... Libby withheld key info from investigators. Some rumors that Fitzgerald is trying to get the Grand Jury extended. Wilson directly accused the WHIG group of being the center of the effort (via Corrente):

Wilson: [The White House Iraq Group] would be the natural group because they were constituted to spin the war, so they would be naturally the ones to try to deflect criticism. Now, some of those people would have very high security clearances.

Naturally word is caroming around the blog world that finally the circle on the war lies might be closed. Digby puts out a timeline of exposures (the late David Kelly in the UK, Wilson here) against the lies of the war's architects, prompting their retaliation. Josh Marshall has done a lot on exposing how the White House propped up the original Niger yellowcake forgeries themselves.

He's added links to ex-military analyst Sam Gardiner's "Truth from These Podia: Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management,
Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations
in Gulf II," [PDF parts 1 2 3 4 5 6] essentially making the case that weapons of psychological warfare - information warfare, disinformation etc. - were turned on the American public for the first time in the leadup to this war. And the anthrax stories distorted to amplify fear. Well I think that it's a little bit far to say it was the first time - it seems to happen a lot. Gardiner says that the US and UK fabricated or distorted at least 50 identifiable stories about the war. Yeah. As Digby quotes:

According to Gardiner, "It was not bad intelligence" that lead to the quagmire in Iraq, "It was an orchestrated effort [that] began before the war" that was designed to mislead the public and the world. Gardiner's research lead him to conclude that the US and Britain had conspired at the highest levels to plant "stories of strategic influence" that were known to be false.

The Times of London described the $200-million-plus US operation as a "meticulously planned strategy to persuade the public, the Congress, and the allies of the need to confront the threat from Saddam Hussein."

The multimillion-dollar propaganda campaign run out of the White House and Defense Department was, in Gardiner's final assessment "irresponsible in parts" and "might have been illegal."

"Washington and London did not trust the peoples of their democracies to come to the right decisions," Gardiner explains. Consequently, "Truth became a casualty. When truth is a casualty, democracy receives collateral damage." For the first time in US history, "we allowed strategic psychological operations to become part of public affairs... [W]hat has happened is that information warfare, strategic influence, [and] strategic psychological operations pushed their way into the important process of informing the peoples of our two democracies."

Meanwhile on CNN today, they were running the hell out of an Amanpour interview with Bashar Assad, and I found that the excerpts selected from the whole thing were interesting... I had the TV on in the background much of the day, and they changed bits of the excerpts around, but it isn't surprising the stuff they focused on - the direct accusations about loose borders, the Hariri assassination, avoiding any talk about the Palestinians.

Bush keeps threatening Syria over and over. Right after the interview the Syrian interior minister turned up dead in his office with a gunshot to the head. SyriaComment.com by academic Joshua Landis is very much worth looking at. Was it suicide or murder?

Was Ghazi Kanaan setting himself up to be Bashar's alternative? Could he have been the Alawite "Musharrif" that some American's and Volker Perthes suggested would take power from the House of Asad and bring Syria back into America's and the West's good graces. I have heard from several people that "high ranking Syrians" have been complaining to people at the National Security Council and elsewhere that they are very distressed by the mistakes Bashar al-Asad has made and the terrible state of US-Syrian relations.

Could Ghazi have been setting himself up as the alternative to Bashar? Could the Syrian government believe he might have been? We don't know, but here goes the possible speculation. He is known to have had good relations with Washington, when he held the Lebanon portfolio. He visited DC. Two of his four sons went to George Washington University in DC.

Kanaan was reported to have been one of the "Old Guard" who spoke out against the extension of Emile Lahoud's presidency in Lebanon, which set the stage for Lebanon's Cedar revolution and the assassination of P.M. Rafiq Hariri. He had been one of the Syrians responsible for cultivating Hariri and building up his position in Lebanon. He was also accused of having significant business relations in Lebanon which tied him to Hariri. It is unlikely that he was involved in Hariri's murder, having been a Hariri and not Lahoud supporter.

His relations with Lahoud were strained, and Lahoud reportedly was one of the people who insisted that he be removed from the Lebanon file and replaced by Rustum Ghazali. (Told me by Nick Blanford of the Christian Science Monitor, who is writing a book on Hariri.)

Since the June Baath Party Conference, it has been rumored that Ghazi would lose his Cabinet position as Minister of Interior, where he had been causing quite a ruckus.

Kanaan was the most senior Alawi official left in government of the Hafiz's generation. He had served as an intelligence chief and minister of interior giving him influence over and knowledge of all branches of the security forces - intelligence and police. If Washington were to turn to anyone to carry out a coup against Bashar, it would have to place Ghazi Kanaan on the top of its list.

Also there is a very interesting "note from a Syrian dissident" about why a coup in Syria is unlikely. And three interesting views on what the Bush Administration might be plotting, including reports that the Pentagon is secretly planning to bomb Syrian villages along the Euphrates River.

Oil production in Iraq has collapsed to 1.9 million barrels/day, down from 2.6 million before the war. Guess who profits?

Condi gets a GF? There was a weird thing on Fox News where an anchor interviewing Condoleeza Rice encouraged her to check out another anchor (another story here), Lauren Green, who used to be on Channel 5 here in Minnesota, as well as Miss Minnesota. There was a funny story in Radar about "Bush's closet heterosexuals." I didn't realize that Ken Mehlman refused to go on record saying that he liked women. It comes up in the context of California Rep. David Dreier, who was apparently pushed aside from the Republican leadership because people had the perception he was gay, which the major local media in California refuses to address. As the story concludes:

It would be the height of hypocrisy for a conservative to embrace her party’s most extreme views while simultaneously embracing a member of the same sex. The GOP rank and file takes its values seriously. Just imagine the outrage were Rush Limbaugh revealed to be a drug addict, William Bennett a compulsive gambler, Gary Bauer a philanderer, Strom Thurmond the father of a illegitimate black child, or George Bush a coke fiend. They’d never work in this town again.

Former Marine spokesman Josh Rushing, who is getting a reporter gig at the new English Al Jazeera, was labeled "TRAITOR?" by Fox on-screen. Hilarious. Thanks, MediaMatters.

Miss Universe contestants are full of national/ethnic contradictions reflecting our modern globalized world. Huzzah. What did world leaders look like as children (via IranDefence.net, oddly enough)? In your random Internet style humor JeffK's Brand New Hoempage!!! Thanks, SomethingAwful. Also The Onion tells us that 92 Percent of Souls in Hell There on Drug Charges.

Frank Rich: The Faith-Based President Defrocked. At least we can still get NY Times columnists through devious bastards like TruthOut.

TShirtHell announces that if you get kicked off a plane wearing one of their T-Shirts, they'll take care of transporting you! This in response to a woman that was kicked off a plane for wearing an anti-Bush shirt on Southwest Airlines in Reno.

ON TO SYRIA; Talking Points; Dems kick ass in polls; post-mortem on blogs & Kerry

HuffyPost:
US AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ PREDICTS US WILL GO INTO SYRIA…
Worth the huge type:

Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador to Iraq, made the off the record prediction that the US will go into Syria to combat insurgents that have been using the country as a staging ground for terrorist activity in Iraq.
Ambassador Khalilzad’s comments were made at businessman Teddy Forstmann's annual off the record gathering in Aspen, Colorado this weekend.
In attendance at the conference, among others were: Harvey Weinstein, Brad Grey, Michael Eisner, Les Moonves, Tom Freston, Tom Friedman, Bob Novak, Barry Diller, Martha Stewart, Margaret Carlson, Alan Greenspan, Andrea Mitchell, Norman Pearlstein and Walter Isaacson.

Zakaria is real pissed off:

Today's Republicans believe in pork, but they don't believe in government. So we have the largest government in history but one that is weak and dysfunctional. Public spending is a cynical game of buying votes or campaign contributions, an utterly corrupt process run by lobbyists and special interests with no concern for the national interest.

Arch-conspiracy theorist Wayne Madsen has a really entertaining one up at his website: "The Demise of Global Communications Security: The Neo-Cons' Unfettered Access to America's Secrets." There is some interesting stuff about the National Security Agency, backdoors in Swiss Crypto AG machines, Jonathan Pollard, billionaire fugitive Marc Rich and his lawyer Scooter Libby, Canadian peacekeepers in the Golan Heights, Larry Franklin, Martin Indyk, John Bolton, the suspicious Israeli moving company (Urban Moving Systems) that some have alleged was linked to 9/11, and late FBI agent John O'Neill. And also the True reason Daniel Pearl was killed in Pakistan.

Not that I believe such a story. However, I would love to write a movie script that sounded like this. And I did agree with the statement at the end: "U.S. intelligence sources report that the one Israeli who is considered an extreme threat to U.S. national security is former Prime Minister and current Prime Minister hopeful Binyamin Netanyahu." A fine work, Madsen, can we get you into screenwriting?

Raimondo kicks around a little with the old Anthrax Attacks of 2001. They sure were helpful in driving the country into a frenzy of fear... A frame up? etc etc... WaPo says little progress in FBI work.

Reuters: "Psychopaths could be best financial traders." Who makes the most cash? Sure they're all sane.

Apparently White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card may end up secretary of the Treasury. Weird. As Kevin Drum says:

Has it really gotten to the point where it's impossible for Bush to find solid, conservative appointees for these positions who have actual experience in the relevant fields? Aren't there any left who are still willing to work for him? Or does he feel so besieged by life that he literally feels he can't trust anyone with a big job unless they've spent a couple of years working within a few feet of him?

Check out the AliveInTruth New Orleans oral history project. Best blog title I've heard lately: "Clusterfuck Nation" by Jim Kunstler. There's trouble a brewing... and he thinks life is on the edge in this Long Emergency of ours:

The new assumption will be that when shit happens you are on your own. In this remarkable three weeks since New Orleans was shredded, no Democrat has stepped into the vacuum of leadership, either, with a different vision of what we might do now, and who we might become. This is the kind of medium that political maniacs spawn in. Something is out there right now, feeding on the astonishment and grievance of a whipsawed middle class, and it will have a lot more nourishment in the months ahead.

As always, bagNewsNotes is excellent.
BAD TIMES: They are charging for me to read my Krugman and Dowd. No good. So we will have to turn to places like this for Krugman. Dammit!!

Polls Baby: Bush's speech didn't do anything good for his poll numbers. Speaking of poll numbers, Hot Damn, the Democrats are polling really damn well these days! w0000!!! Independents favor Donkeys right now 55 to 27!!! MyDD also says that "the progressive blogosphere is a larger source of news for younger Americans than all of the cable news networks combined". So Good news. Peter Daou reflects on "limits of blog power" in Salon. He was basically the Kerry Campaign-blog connection, which must have been dicey. Interesting. Much wisdom, but this nails it:

"Rightwing bloggers will do everything in their power to prevent another Katrina triangle, where the confluence of blogs, media, and Democratic leadership exposes the real Bush and shatters the conventional wisdom about his ability to lead. .... For the progressive netroots, the past half-decade has been a Sisyphean loop of scandal after scandal melting away as the media and party establishment remain disengaged."

There's some kind of video blog interview thing going on at something called EvolveTV. Apparently Kos will interview Juan Cole. Sounds good to me. (more on it)

How are Talking Points drilled into the heads of the pundits?

When John G. Roberts is approved as chief justice of the United States, as expected, he can thank President Bush 's "Friends & Allies" program, which went to work on him immediately after he was nominated. The project, started by the Republican National Committee in the 2004 re-election campaign, is simple and effective: Give opinion makers, media friends, and even cocktail party hosts insider info on the topic of the day. How? Through E-mailed talking points, called D.C. Talkers, and conference calls. For Roberts, it worked this way: A daily conference call to about 80 pundits, GOP-leaning radio and TV hosts, and newsmakers was made around 9 a.m. On the other end were the main Roberts gunslingers like Steve Schmidt at the White House and Ken Mehlman and Brian Jones at the RNC. D.C. Talkers would then be distributed to an even larger list filled with positive info about Roberts and lines of attack on his critics. "The idea," said one of those involved, "is to feed them information and have them invested in us." It has even created addicts, he added. "Now they come to us before going on TV."

Not really that clever. But interesting.
IRAQification: The Score. What happened to that $1 billion? Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad is on it. The part about 28-year old Soviet helicopters and phony Egyptian-made MP5 knockoffs is kind of funny. TIME has "The Secret History of How the US Misjudged the Enemy in Iraq (condensed)." (also this full article) And the WMD hunt fucked up early efforts that might have reduced the strength of the insurgency. The article indicates that once Tommy Franks moved his HQ to Florida from Qatar, the force in Iraq was basically run by colonels, with less than 30 intelligence officers left in Iraq. Amazing. And then they dissolved the Iraqi army and civil service. A great moment. Needs to be read. It ends:

"We have never taken this operation seriously enough," says a retired senior military official with experience in Iraq. "We have never provided enough troops. We have never provided enough equipment, or the right kind of equipment. We have never worked the intelligence part of the war in a serious, sustained fashion. We have failed the Iraqi people, and we have failed our troops."

On the other hand, Condi says it's about coffee. So what would an actual Civil War look like? Meanwhile in Central Asia, the Great Game Reloaded.

Juan Cole had a fine look at the Egyptian elections: "A people who figured out how to get rid of Napoleon Bonaparte within a year is hardly flummoxed by a mere Texas poseur." "Church of England offers to meet Muslim leaders to apologize for Iraq war." I was talking earlier about the Zarqawi-Goldstein symbolic connection. Well also, someone named Ritt Goldstein had a good story about anomalies in the Berg video last year from Asia Times Online.

Right Wing Echo Chamber invents missiles: Apparently for some reason the right wing blogosphere is inventing stories about missiles getting shot at a flight last Thursday. I have no special insight here, except that it shows a fertile fantasy life... Speaking of fantasies, Pandagon mocks PowerLine's PowerLies. But the more I think about people like that, the less free time I have. A funny interview about Creationism and Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, the Faith of Our Times. Haven't you heard that the leftists are trying to destroy America? That's new!

Someone is still keeping score on the Valerie Plame affair. Hopefully that will come roaring back again. Arianna had a bit on it.

Macalester teaches Billy Joe Armstrong to differ from the hollow lies; Zarqawi == Emmanuel Goldstein

I missed the Green Day concert in St. Paul on Friday. It sounded like a hell of a good time, made particularly special by Billy Joe Armstrong's connections to the area: his wife is from New Brighton, and I have heard on reasonably good authority that he purchased a house on Summit Avenue. Star Tribune reported Saturday:

St. Paul was where he wrote some of the songs for the politically charged "American Idiot," the Grammy-winning album that is the best-selling nonrap CD of the past year, with more than 4 million copies sold. In the summer of 2003, he had walked around the track at Macalester College in St. Paul, writing the songs in his head.

This also tracks with what I've heard, that Armstrong was spotted a few times around the track - a more interesting celebrity sighting than that time Josh Hartnett came into the SuperAmerica and Grand and Cleveland when Alison was working. It would also explain why much of the album has a perfect rhythm for running. This song always made a lot of sense to me - it must have been because I was living down the street when he wrote it! :-)

So what's my real point today? The image of Senior Demon Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is an essential element of the Bush Administration's strategy to manage perceptions of their disastrous war - diverting blame and creating an attractive 'negative image'. Zarqawi is one of the principle Hollow Lies of the war.

Say, Hey!

Hear the sound of the falling rain / Coming down like an Armageddon flame / The shame / The ones who died without a name

Hear the dogs howling out of key / To a hymn called "Faith and Misery" / And bleed / The company lost the war today

I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies / This is the dawning of the rest of our lives / On Holiday

Hear the drum pounding out of time / Another protester has crossed the line / To find / The money's on the other side

Can I get another Amen? / There's a flag wrapped around the score of men / A gag / A plastic bag on a monument

I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies / This is the dawning of the rest of our lives / On holiday

Meanwhile, in the Information Age of Hysteria, we have perhaps the underlying principle of our government in a nutshell, as Ron Suskind put it before the election:

The [White House] aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Enter the Demon of our Times.

Let me offer a theory: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may actually exist, but his "existence" in the media is an essential element of the Bush Administration's Public Relations strategy to manage perception of the war. He is a personification of malevolent intent: if he wasn't around, we are told to believe, things would sort themselves out, so our motive has to be to crush him instead of confronting the Pentagon's essentially racist, disastrous policies. The Star Tribune carried a Washington Post/AP story on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's latest pledge to kill all the Shiites. Consider the following:

More bombings push Baghdad deaths near 200: Ellen Knickmeyer, Washington Post

BAGHDAD -- Insurgents believed to be allied with Al-Qaida in Iraq kept up bombings in the capital on Thursday, launching strikes that brought the two-day death toll close to 200.

The chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, said the surge in bombings represented the kind of occasional spikes in attacks that the military has been expecting "around certain critical events that highlight the progress of democracy."

In this case, an Oct. 15 referendum on Iraq's new constitution is only a month away.

"Remember, democracy equals failure for the insurgency," Lynch said. "So there has to be heightened awareness now as we work our way toward the referendum."

Police targeted

In the violence Thursday, suicide bombers killed at least 31 people in two attacks about a minute apart that targeted Iraqi police and Interior Ministry commandos, officials said. Insurgents also managed to land a single mortar round inside the Green Zone, the base for U.S. officials and Iraq's government. There were no casualties and only minimal damage, U.S. officials said.

A day earlier, at least 14 car bombs across Baghdad killed 167 people, the majority of them Shiite Muslim civilians -- the highest one-day toll of the war inflicted by insurgent attacks in the capital. Seven of the victims died overnight of their wounds.

An audiotape released on a website linked to Al-Qaida in Iraq after Wednesday's attacks said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group had opened "all-out war" on Iraq's Shiite majority.

Attacks linked to Al-Qaida also hit the city of Ramadi, capital of the western province of Anbar, a stronghold of foreign-led fighters. Witnesses said Al-Qaida-allied fighters rocketed and shelled two U.S. military installations at Ramadi and traded fire with U.S. patrols in the city. The U.S. military reported one Marine killed and said a would-be car bomber also died. Iraqi emergency medical workers said Marine snipers killed six Al-Qaida fighters.

The two-day barrage of attacks attributed to Al-Qaida in Iraq, and the increasing control of towns in the west along the Euphrates River being asserted by foreign-led insurgents, intensified the U.S. military's focus on Al-Zarqawi.

U.S. commanders often have publicly denigrated his role in the insurgency to little more than that of a media-fostered figurehead. On Thursday, however, Lynch discussed Al-Zarqawi in some of the sharpest terms yet, calling him the Americans' main target and saying the United States was winning the fight against him.

"We believe we are experiencing great success against the most crucial element of the insurgency, which is the terrorists and the foreign fighters. The face of that is Zarqawi and Al-Qaida in Iraq," Lynch said.

"We've got great intelligence which tells us where he's moving to and where he's trying to establish safe havens. As soon as we see him trying to establish a safe haven, we will conduct operations," such as the one underway against northwestern insurgent strongholds in Tal Afar, Lynch said. "We're using all assets under our control in conjunction with the Iraqi security forces to find him and kill him."

Now let us refer to a little bit from Orwell's 1984... As WikiPedia summarizes the teachings of Emmanuel Goldstein:

...the state of war creates a mentality that suits the Party well. A Party member should be "a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war." Though "the entire war is spurious...and waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones", even Inner Party members who potentially could know better passionately believe that the war is real and will "end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire world". .... There can never be any large-scale invasion of enemy territory, so that citizens of one superstate would come face to face with citizens of another and discover that conditions there are very much the same as in their own superstate: Even the prevailing ideologies are almost identical. To maintain the image of the enemy as a monster whose ideology is a barbarous outrage on common sense, all sides realize that "the main frontiers must never be crossed by anything except bombs"!

Since the war is a sham and each superstate is unconquerable, the ongoing "conflict" has no sobering effect on the oligarchies ruling the three superstates: .... "The rulers of such a state are absolute, as the Pharaohs or the Caesars could not be. They are obliged to prevent their followers from starving to death in numbers large enough to be inconvenient, and they are obliged to remain at the same low level of military technique as their rivals; but once that minimum is achieved, they can twist reality into whatever shape they chose." [Paging Mr Suskind...]

Thus, the war is actually "waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact". As far as the lack of any genuine outside threat is concerned, the superstates might just as well agree to live in permanent peace; then they would still be "freed for ever from the sobering influence of external danger" (the kind of danger that might force the rulers to behave somewhat responsibly). This, according to the author, "is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: War is Peace."

While I quietly alluded to this earlier, other people have been making this point for a while, but damn it, even the newspaper admits this "media figurehead" phenomenon is partly true. There's probably a real Zarqawi figure out there, but basically, these days I generally believe he is a media construction designed to provide a narrative that Joe Six Pack can understand. The exciting Zarqawi Chase (with, say, captured laptops and narrow escapes) is the kind of story that the NASCAR dad needs to stave off cognitive dissonance. The insurgency is not a failure of policy, it's not Rummy's and Myers' fuck-ups, it's this damn Zarqawi always trying to throw monkey wrenches in the system AKA "building democracy". Some might say it's a Leo Straussian Noble Lie to provide succor for the Bronze Masses. Let me throw in a Billmon post on this matter from a year ago:

The problem here is not with the Fallujans, the problem here is not with the coalition. The problem here is with foreign fighters, international terrorists, people like Zarqawi, who we believe to be in Fallujah or nearby.

Coalition spokesman Dan Senor: Press Briefing April 13, 2004

The security situation in Fallujah, Iraq, remains stable, and coalition forces there are engaged in a "robust hunt" for al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, believed to be in or near the city, coalition officials said today.

American Forces Information Service: 'Robust' Manhunt for Zarqawi Under Way April 13, 2004

Former regime elements can be former Ba'athists, they can be Iraqi extremists, they can be outside jihadists, they can be Zarqawi network folks as well.

Gen. Dick Myers: Press Briefing April 7, 2004

The terrorists, assassins are threatened by the Iraqi's people's progress toward self-government, because they know that they will have no future in a free Iraq. They know, as al Qaeda associate Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi put it in his letter recently, that we intercepted: "Democracy is coming"...

Donald Rumsfeld: Press Briefing April 7, 2004

A statement circulating in Iraq and signed by anti-U.S. groups last month claimed al-Zarqawi was killed earlier by American bombs in northern Iraq. A senior U.S. official denied the report of al-Zarqawi's death.

Associated Press: Al Qaeda tape takes credit for Iraq attacks April 6, 2004



The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party's purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. Somewhere or other he was still alive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters, perhaps even -- so it was occasionally rumoured -- in some hiding-place in Oceania itself.

George Orwell: 1984

And let us not forget Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's entry into the universe of the News Cycle came with the notorious Nick Berg decapitation video. This video had a number of strange anomalies in it, and I have suspected for quite a while that it was fake. My favorite alternate explanation was that the video was actually shot by US personnel inside Abu Ghraib prison (aside from the "Lawn Chair from Hell" connection) to distract attention from the exploding torture scandal.

Too conspiratorial? Such a video could never be fake? Then why does the great Zarqawi appear to have Two Legs, not One? Try the WikiPedia Nick Berg conspiracy theories page for even more! This WikiPedia paragraph essentially sums up my point:

There are rumors that Zarqawi is dead because no sightings of him have been confirmed since 2001. In one report, the conservative British newspaper Daily Telegraph described as myth the claim that Zarqawi was the head of the "terrorist network" in Iraq. According to a U.S. military intelligence source, the Zarqawi myth resulted from faulty intelligence obtained by the payment of substantial sums of money to unreliable and dishonest sources. The faulty intelligence was accepted, however, because it suited US government political goals, according to an unnamed intelligence officer.[14] The Zarqawi myth has also been purported to be the product of U.S. war propaganda designed to promote the image of a demonic enemy figure to help justify continued U.S. military operations in Iraq[15], perhaps with the tacit support of terrorist elements wishing to use him as a propaganda tool (a sort of Al-Qaeda Ronald McDonald).

I'm just going to wrap this up with a chunk from iconoclastic researcher Michel Chossudovsky, who wrote "Who is Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi?" at the Centre for Research on Globalisation:

The US intelligence apparatus has created its own terrorist organizations. And at the same time, it creates its own terrorist warnings concerning the terrorist organizations which it has itself created. In turn, it has developed a cohesive multibillion dollar counterterrorism program "to go after" these terrorist organizations. Counterterrorism and war propaganda are intertwined. The propaganda apparatus feeds disinformation into the news chain. The terror warnings must appear to be "genuine". The objective is to present the terror groups as "enemies of America."
The underlying objective is to galvanize public opinion in support of America's war agenda. The "war on terrorism" requires a humanitarian mandate. The war on terrorism is presented as a "Just War", which is to be fought on moral grounds "to redress a wrong suffered." The Just War theory defines "good" and "evil." It concretely portrays and personifies the terrorist leaders as "evil individuals". .....

To reach its foreign policy objectives, the images of terrorism must remain vivid in the minds of the citizens, who are constantly reminded of the terrorist threat. The propaganda campaign presents the portraits of the leaders behind the terror network. In other words, at the level of what constitutes an "advertising" campaign, "it gives a face to terror." The "war on terrorism" rests on the creation of one or more evil bogeymen, the terror leaders, Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, et al, whose names and photos are presented ad nauseam in daily news reports.

.....Al Zarqawi is often described as an "Osama associate", the bogyman, allegedly responsible for numerous terrorist attacks in several countries. In other reports, often emanating from the same sources, it is stated that he has no links to Al Qaeda and operates quite independently. He is often presented as an individual who is challenging the leadership of bin Laden. His name crops up on numerous occasions in press reports and official statements. Since early 2004, he is in the news almost on a daily basis.

Osama belongs to the powerful bin Laden family, which historically had business ties to the Bushes and prominent members of the Texas oil establishment. Bin Laden was recruited by the CIA during the Soviet-Afghan war and fought as a Mujahideen. In other words, there is a longstanding documented history of bin Laden-CIA and bin Laden-Bush family links, which are an obvious source of embarrassment to the US government.

In contrast to bin Laden, Al-Zarqawi has no family history. He comes from an impoverished Palestinian family in Jordan. His parents are dead. He emerges out of the blue. He is described by CNN as "a lone wolf" who is said to act quite independently of the Al Qaeda network. Yet surprisingly, this lone wolf is present in several countries, in Iraq, which is now his base, but also in Western Europe. He is also suspected of preparing a terrorist attack on American soil.
.....In Iraq, he is said to be determined to "ignite a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites". But is that not precisely what US intelligence is aiming at ( "divide and rule") as confirmed by several analysts of the US led war? Pitting one group against the other with a view to weakening the resistance movement. (See Michel Collon [1], See also [2] )
......What is the role of this new mastermind in the Pentagon's disinformation campaign, in which CNN seems to be playing a central role? In previous propaganda ploys, the CIA hired PR firms to organize core disinformation campaigns, including the Rendon Group. The latter worked closely with its British partner Hill and Knowlton, which was responsible for the 1990 Kuwaiti incubator media scam, where Kuwaiti babies were allegedly removed from incubators in a totally fabricated news story, which was then used to get Congressional approval for the 1991 Gulf War.
What is the pattern?
Almost immediately in the wake of a terrorist event or warning, CNN announces (in substance): we think this mysterious individual Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi is behind it, invariably without supporting evidence and prior to the conduct of an investigation by the relevant police and intelligence authorities.
In some cases, upon the immediate occurrence of the terrorist event, there is an initial report which mentions Al-Zarqawi as the possible mastermind. The report will often say (in substance): yes we think he did it, but it is not yet confirmed and there is some doubt on the identity of those behind the attack. One or two days later, CNN may come up with a definitive statement, quoting official police, military and/or intelligence sources.
Often the CNN report is based on information published on an Islamic website or a mysterious Video or Audio tape. The authenticity of the website and/or the tapes is not the object of discussion or detailed investigation.
Bear in mind that the news reports never mention that Al Qaeda is a creation of the CIA and that Al Zarqawi had been recruited to fight in the Soviet-Afghan war (This is in fact confirmed by Sec. Colin Powell in his presentation to the UN Security Council on 5 February 2003) (see details below). Both Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi are creations of the US intelligence apparatus. The recruitment of foreign fighters was under the auspices of the CIA.
.......
Colin Powell's Address to the UN Security Council
In the months leading up to the war on Iraq, Al Zarqawi's name reemerges, this time almost on daily basis, with reports focusing on his sinister relationship to Saddam Hussein. A major turning point in the propaganda campaign occurs on February 5, 2003. Al-Zarqawi was in the spotlight following Colin Powell's flopped WMD report to the UN Security Council. Powell's speech presented "documentation" on the ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, while focusing on the central role of Al-Zarqawi: (emphasis added):
Our concern is not just about these illicit weapons; it's the way that these illicit weapons can be connected to terrorists and terrorist organizations...
But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network, headed by Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda lieutenants.
Zarqawi, a Palestinian born in Jordan, fought in the Afghan War more than a decade ago. Returning to Afghanistan in 2000, he oversaw a terrorist training camp. One of his specialties and one of the specialties of this camp is poisons.
When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp, and this camp is located in Northeastern Iraq. You see a picture of this camp. Graphic, above. [there were no WMDS at this camp according to ABC report, see below]
The network is teaching its operative how to produce ricin and other poisons.... Those helping to run this camp are Zarqawi lieutenants operating in northern Kurdish areas outside Saddam Hussein's controlled Iraq, but Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical organization Ansar al-Islam, that controls this corner of Iraq. In 2000, this agent offered Al Qaeda safe haven in the region. After we swept Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, some of its members accepted this safe haven. They remain there today.
......
The Nicholas Berg Video
Barely a couple of weeks later (11 May 2004), Al Zarqawi is reported as being the mastermind behind the execution of Nicholas Berg on May 11, 2004. Again perfect timing! The report coincided with calls by US Senators for Defense Sec Donald Rumsfeld to resign over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. It occurs a few days after President Bush's "apology" for the Abu Ghraib prison "abuses" on May 6. The Nicholas Berg video served to create "a useful wave of indignation" which served to distract and soften up public opinion, following the release of the pictures of torture of Iraqi prisoners. (See the intelligence assumptions underlying Operation Northwoods, a secret Joint Chiefs of Staff plan to kill civilians in the Cuban community in Florida, and blame it on Fidel Castro. (More: [3]))
..........
Extending the War on Terrorism
Are "we winning or losing" the war on terrorism. These statements are used to justify enhanced military operations against this illusive individual, who is confronting US military might, all over the World. Al Zarqawi is used profusely in Bush's press conferences and speeches in an obvious public relations ploy.
You know, I hate to predict violence, but I just understand the nature of the killers. This guy, Zarqawi, an al Qaeda associate -- who was in Baghdad, by the way, prior to the removal of Saddam Hussein -- is still at large in Iraq. And as you might remember, part of his operational plan was to sow violence and discord amongst the various groups in Iraq by cold-blooded killing. And we need to help find Zarqawi so that the people of Iraq can have a more bright -- bright future. (Press Conference, 1 June 2004, emphasis added)

War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, but the Chase keeps it Interesting. Hedges:

We become the embodiment of light and goodness. We become the defenders of civilization, of all that is decent. We are more noble than others. We are braver than others. We are kinder and more compassionate than others -- that the enemy at our gate is perfidious, dark, somewhat inhuman. We turn them into two-dimensional figures. I think that's part of the process of linguistically dehumanizing them. And in wartime, we always turn the other into an object, and often, quite literally, in the form of a corpse.

"Bureaucracy has committed murder;" The Big Spinstorm; a little more on Israeli spies shadowing hijackers before 9/11

BROUSSARD [of Jefferson Parish]: We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast. But the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history. … Whoever is at the top of this totem pole, that totem pole needs to be chainsawed off and we’ve got to start with some new leadership. It’s not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans here. Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now.

As featured at ThinkProgress.

Yeah, I don't know if I can put the big picture of the storm together. Nonetheless here are some stories.

Someone told Cheney to go fuck himself on live television. Tomgram: Iraq in America: At the Front of Nowhere at All: The Perfect Storm and the Feral City By Tom Engelhardt really puts it into perspective, and all the nasty parallels and feedback effects from the Iraq war making things worse, the sudden and shocking evidence that the Public Sector in this country has been stripped to the bone, etc. A lot of blame is getting spun around, Brit Hume even claimed that Bush "pleaded" that the mayor of New Orleans would evacuate.

Also this White House photo of Bush in a video teleconference before it hit just illustrates how they shouldn't have dropped the damn ball. Check out the official note from FEMA's Brown (PDF), five damn hours after it hit, putting DHS and FEMA into action in the "near catastrophic event". Via TPM.

The Red Tape and bizarre bureaucratic moves included having firefighters hand out fliers apparently. The pathology of our government:

...as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.

Image before life. Also Barbara Bush said that "This is working out very well for them" in their tortured refugee status because they were "underprivileged anyway." There are some horrible reports about totally staged relief events - entire sites that appeared to hand out supplies, then collapsed as soon as Bush and the less observant American media moved off. The Germans of ZDF were more observant. But wait, maybe that was not accurate at all. Here are some translations of the media in question.

It would appear that Blackwater USA - the same private military firm/mercenary org that's done such a fine job in Mesopotamia - has sent at least 150 people into the New Orleans area. They are patrolling with M-16s. Yeah. A blogger on the ground appears to have broken this story.

The practice of putting political apparatchiks into FEMA makes more sense if we consider what might have happened if it had hit a swing state in an election year, such as the 2004 hit on Florida, where FEMA rolled in and basically showered people with cash well outside the damage zone, resulting in a nice bounce of several points for Bush. Was Michael Brown basically perpetrating fraud in Florida 2004 (PDF)? Salon: The Politics of Hurricane Relief. ThinkProgress Katrina Timeline attempts to counter the spin. Billmon is doing a damn good job these days, as always.

True Blue Conspiracy Theorist Wayne Madsen said that someone, probably the government, was jamming radio transmissions around New Orleans. What the hell? I don't get it. Well, now there is an update that is is coming from some kind of pirate radio station in the Caribbean. Ok, whatever. Here is how you can defeat radio jamming signals. Apparently. Also, he has a grand conspiracy already going into place about depopulating the poor black population of the city. I liked the bit about "secret hereditary societies." So take this with many grains of salt:

September 9, 2005 -- Dallas meeting plans reconstruction of New Orleans without poor African Americans. According to well-informed New Orleans sources, New Orleans' wealthiest families, including those who are direct descendants of the French who settled New Orleans (not the Acadians [Cajuns] who were poor refugees from British tyranny in Nova Scotia) are meeting in Dallas today with Bush administration officials, New Orleans city officials, wealthy Texas oilmen, and bankers to plan for the reconstruction of New Orleans. These wealthy New Orleans residents live in the gated community of Audobon Place, a section of the city near the Garden District replete with personal helipads that still has running water and sewage and was only slightly affected by hurricane Katrina. It is now reportedly being patrolled by private Israeli security forces. Yesterday's Wall Street Journal ran a piece with more details on this story.

Rep. Richard Baker (R-LA): "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

The Dallas meeting focused on rebuilding and re-zoning New Orleans without the "criminal element," a code word for the city's poor African American community.

These New Orleans residents have been scattered across the United States and are now under the control of FEMA. There is an understanding by the wealthy New Orleans elite that the poor will never be able to return. The Journal reported that the person who chaired the Dallas meeting was Jimmy Riess, one of the wealthy New Orleans elite who also served as Mayor Ray Nagin's Chairman of the Regional Transit Authority, which is in charge of the city's buses, trolleys, and trains. New Orleans sources report that public transportation was purposely not used to evacuate the poor New Orleans residents as a means to depopulate the poorer and more flood-prone sections of the city. [hongpong: wtf?!! let me get my tinfoil hat right away!] In fact, after the properties in New Orleans poorer communities are razed many of the deed records of the poor and middle class contained in government offices and title companies of Orleans Parish and neighboring Jefferson Parish may end up being casualties of the flood. As one New Orleans source put it, "people will not have proof they ever owned anything." As for renters and residents of public housing, they will be prevented from returning to their native city, according to New Orleans sources. Louisiana's Republican House member Richard Baker, a strong Bush ally, may have tipped his hand about the future plans for New Orleans when he told a group of lobbyists, "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

Guess Who Is Planning the Rebuilding of New Orleans?

The French-American elite of New Orleans are among the city's "rich and famous." They run the Mardi Gras "crews" (Krews) or clubs, secret hereditary societies that sponsor the annual pre-Lenten festival. Many also run large oil companies and are long time supporters of the Bush family and their associated oil and gas cartels.

Meanwhile, the wars: There was the conference about terrorism and security called America's Purpose, which you can see video about, and some stuff on CSPAN. Washington dude Steve Clemons was involved. In terms of the war, Juan Cole offered an excellent dissection of how Christopher Hitchens is still trying to defend it.

The "sovereign" Iraqi government wants to get those private mercenary / privatized military / security firms under control somehow, including a central registry. Also this news from the Telegraph.

For more than two years such contractors have roamed with impunity. But now the interior ministry has imposed rules requiring all their firms to be registered and weapons to be carried only by guards holding an official licence.

If any of the companies is considered to be a threat or if it angers a government official its official permit could be revoked and the business ordered to depart.

About 25,000 security contractors, many of them British, American and South African ex-servicemen, lured to Iraq by wages of up to £750 a day, are estimated to be in the country providing protection for official buildings, supply convoys or visiting businessmen.

They are highly unpopular with locals. Convoys of contractors have become a common sight on a journey through Baghdad since the March 2003 US-led invasion.

Adorned in sunglasses and bullet-proof vests, they travel in white four-wheel-drive vehicles with gun barrels protruding from the windows. Many refuse to obey road signs and consider traffic jams a security risk so barge through the lines of vehicles which are often forced to pull over rapidly on to pavements.

Their lack of official status has long been a concern and those operating on US department of defence contracts are free from risk of legal penalty under the Iraqi judicial system if they killed anyone in a firefight.

But under the new rules confirmed yesterday all such firms will be brought under the authority of the Baghdad government. All companies will have to provide details of their number of employees, jobs undertaken and office addresses.

Most significantly their employees will no longer be allowed to possess a weapon without approval. Many of the firms have considerable firepower. As well as AK-47s and assault rifles some have heavy machineguns and anti-tank rocket launchers. One company, Blackwater, even has its own fleet of helicopters which criss-cross Baghdad with machine guns poking out from the side.

The surging private military industry is a fascinating subject for me. If you want a really entertaining video shot from the Blackwater guys' helicopters, check out MilitaryVideos.net. The latest video, from August, is Blackwater in Najaf 2 (BitTorrent wmv - legal). Sounds exciting. Index of some of these companies, Global Guerrillas on PMFs, the Guardian on it. Soldiers of Good Fortune by Barry Yeoman in Mother Jones is a really excellent primer. And of course Wikipedia on it.

OS X + Windows Video Tech Tip: For some horrible reason, Windows Media Player for Mac OS X is a very stubborn piece of crap that hates to play lots of WMV files. However, if you retitle the file's type from .wmv to .asf , then lots of them will work. Incredibly stupid, but it works on most of the videos from MilitaryVideos.net.

Juan Cole offers us the following tidbit about how Rummy thinks that we can do a Top Notch job in New Orleans, Iraq AND the Global War on Terror.

The US Pentagon is sending hundreds of members of the Louisiana National Guard home from Iraq. Some of them have lost homes in New Orleans. Internet gossip had earlier suggested substantial discontent in the ranks over being stuck in Iraq while Louisiana faced its biggest crisis in modern history.

The Iraqi Interior ministry said 9 Iraqis were killed, among them a high-ranking official in the ministry of the interior. Another 20, at least, were injured.

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield maintains that the US government can both take care of New Orleans and pursue the "global war on terror."

Uh, Donald, let's look at this situation. First, much of New Orleans is under water. You stole money that should have been spent on its levees for the Iraq War, and you stole state national guards from Louisiana to fight in Iraq. (The state national guards hadn't signed up to fight foreign wars and were surprised when you kidnapped them, sometimes for a whole year at a time.) So you haven't actually done a good job with the effects of Katrina in New Orleans. In fact, the job has been so bad that some wags are saying they can't believe you personally were not in charge of the recovery effort.

Then let's consider the war against al-Qaeda. You may have noticed that Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a videotape late last week. It was bundled with the farewell suicide tape of Muhammad Siddique Khan, the mastermind of the 7/7 bombers in London. It now appears that your inability to capture al-Zawahiri has allowed him to intrigue with Pakistani jihadi groups to recruit British subjects to bomb their own country. Bin Laden and Zawahiri are at large and free men, which is your failure.

Then there is the war in Iraq. I don't need to tell you that that isn't going very well. In fact, what in hell are you doing in the godforsaken Turkmen city of Tal Afar? Is it really a big threat to the United States? Is it likely to be friendly to us if you drop 500 pound bombs on its residential districts?

You left out the fourth war Bush is fighting, on the US poor. The average wage of the average American work fell last quarter, amidst rising corporate profits. Bush cut billions in taxes on the rich, and then gave $300 checks to some poor people, who didn't seem to realize that by taking it they were giving up all sorts of government services and maybe even their social security payments.

So, Donald, maybe it is true that you can save New Orleans, occupy Iraq and fight a global war on terror all at the same time. But you, at least, cannot actually do these things successfully. Which is why you should have resigned a long time ago.

Projects in Iraq are running out of cash. This would include water and power projects. Also, the US is obsessed with gaining control of the town of Tal Afar near Syria, and has been bombing the bridges over the Euphrates River in an effort to prevent militants from circulating. Of course, some people might suggest that such an action is pretty much the Direct Method for "dividing a country", but how could I suggest such a thing? Also the city of Qaim, on the edge of Syria, has been a site of dramatic violence and such... As usual it is all being blamed on Goldstein. I mean Zarqawi. A complex report about the struggle in Iraq over its economic organization. Of course, the US has been crushing the wishes of the more socialist-oriented Iraqis, who realize their country has a good chance of getting ahead with export-led industrial development and a heavily subsidized public sector backed up with oil wealth. Oh well. That is Not Suitable to our Fantasy Vision, dammit!

Israel is wrapping up the Gaza occupation, and the little slice of land between Gaza and Egypt will finally return to Arab hands. This is called the Philadelphi Corridor or Philadelphi Route, which this Fikret Ertan dude reflects on. The matter of border customs stations, overseen by an international team, has not been fully resolved yet. It seems that Bush is intervening with the Europeans, asking them not to pressure Sharon so that he's more likely to win against Netanyahu. However, as writer Gideon Samet points out, they are being lazy and unhelpful, making the wrong moves with the "Israeli hurricane" as well. Israel is sealing the Rafah crossing in Gaza to prep it. The notoriously goofy Rabbi Ovaida Yosef said that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for Bush's support for leaving Gaza.

"It was God's retribution. God does not shortchange anyone," Yosef said during his weekly sermon on Tuesday. His comments were broadcast on Channel 10 TV on Wednesday.

Yosef also said recent natural disasters were the result of a lack of Torah study and that Katrina's victims suffered "because they have no God," singling out black people......Yosef singled out black victims, saying "they don't study Torah." He used the word "Kushim," which in the Bible refers to an ancient African people but in vernacular Hebrew is considered derogatory.

Our last Israel tidbit comes from Amira Hass, on "Gun Envy." Life for a tiny child in the Gaza slums:

In another year or two, he will learn to distinguish between an armed Jew and an armed Palestinian. Instead of fear, maybe he will be filled with pride and excitement. In another three years, he will know how to distinguish between armed men from Hamas and armed men from the Palestinian Authority/Fatah, and will already decide which is his favorite team. Thus, without his parent's wanting it, without realizing it, without his similarly excited friends realizing it - he will be infected with the common malady whose scientific name is "gun envy."

The minor variety of this illness is sympathy (for one organization or another) and emulation (with toy guns). The serious variety is to join an organization. The most common symptom of this illness is reflected in the billboards and posters that constantly crowd one's field of vision: men armed with rifles and mortars, in every pose imaginable, and with each organization competing over whose is bigger. Another symptom is expressed in the public military ceremonies that elicit ecstatic reactions from the crowd.

She astutely points out that the Palestinians are in fact developing mirror images of the main force all around them, the IDF.

Was Israel Keeping Tabs on some of the 9/11 hijackers?

What an interesting question!! What do you say,

senior FOX News reporter Carl Cameron, in December 2001?

CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Since September 11, more than 60 Israelis have been arrested or detained, either under the new patriot anti-terrorism law, or for immigration violations. A handful of active Israeli military were among those detained, according to investigators, who say some of the detainees also failed polygraph questions when asked about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States. 

There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9-11 attacks, but investigators suspect that they Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it. A highly placed investigator said there are "tie-ins." But when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying, "evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information." 

Fox News has learned that one group of Israelis, spotted in North Carolina recently, is suspected of keeping an apartment in California to spy on a group of Arabs who the United States is also investigating for links to terrorism. Numerous classified documents obtained by Fox News indicate that even prior to September 11, as many as 140 other Israelis had been detained or arrested in a secretive and sprawling investigation into suspected espionage by Israelis in the United States. 

Investigators from numerous government agencies are part of a working group that's been compiling evidence since the mid '90s. These documents detail hundreds of incidents in cities and towns across the country that investigators say, "may well be an organized intelligence gathering activity." 

The first part of the investigation focuses on Israelis who say they are art students from the University of Jerusalem and Bazala Academy.....

And so on and so forth. An incredibly weird thing to hear from Fox News. But within weeks this story vanished down the memory hole, and only because someone managed to tape the four Fox reports and put them up on the Internet can we watch all 1 2 3 4 of them right now!

The new twist, as Justin Raimondo brought to attention, is that some corporate lawyer did a massive study (PDF) picking apart all the various weird detentions of Israelis, and he discovered a very serious overlap between where the 9/11 hijackers lived, and where the Israelis were apparently spying from. The maps are hilarious! So it would be quite a dramatic story if it all turned out to be true. Personally, I am not betting my lunch money on it, but I thought it certainly interesting enough to post on the site.

As always, Josh Marshall is holding it down on TalkingPointsMemo.com. There has been plenty of good stuff about the Katrina spinstorms there lately.

I am no fan of Allan Bloom style neoconservative browbeating of the "Liberal Academia", but this review in NYTimes about the effect of his classic "Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Stolen My Maple Syrup" was sort of interesting. I think the interesting point was that Bloom would be appalled how the rightwing is attempting to ideologically straitjacket academia in the same sorts of ways that Bloom thought the Big Scary Left did back in the day.

Misc bits: freewayblogger.com chronicles signs posted on overpasses and stuff against Bush and the War. This is very old news, but the British graffiti artist Banksy bombed the wall constructed by the Israeli government inside the Palestinian Territories. I can't believe he did something so detailed in the high-security area. Badass.

That's all for today, folks.

Egyptian elections - totally rigged but at least existent

Well the good news with Egypt is that they are openly allowing opposition rallies around the latest presidential election, the first to allow candidates to campaign openly against Hosni Mubarak. Anyhow, well Mubarak can't live forever, and for a farcical sort of democratic election, it set a lot of markers that will eventually be succeeded by some kind of actual democratic government down the road.

In Egypt, no going back
Mona Eltahawy, International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2005

Some dictators festoon their capitals with their statues. In Egypt, successive regimes have relied on architecture to remind their subjects that it's impossible to beat the system.

In Cairo no building better embodies that message than a huge Soviet-style building called the Mogamma. Universally acknowledged as the home of Egyptian government bureaucracy, this behemoth sits next to one of the busiest squares in Cairo.

And so it took real chutzpah for Ayman Nour to hold his last campaign rally in front of the Mogamma. He was one of 10 candidates contesting Wednesday's presidential election - the first in which Egyptians could choose from more than one candidate.

It doesn't diminish Nour's program, his ambition nor his courage in any way to say straight out that he did not stand a chance of winning the election. Candidates had only 19 days to campaign. Although they had unprecedented access to state-run television, it paled beyond that given to President Hosni Mubarak.

The Egyptian government refused to allow international observers to monitor the polls and its electoral commission succeeded in barring independent Egyptian groups from checking on them. Most of the older opposition parties boycotted the election and preliminary results indicated a low turnout.

During past Egyptian parliamentary elections it was common to see government employees stuffing ballot boxes and names of people long dead appearing on voter ballots.

And so we all knew that Mubarak would win a fifth term that will add another six years to the 24 years he has already spent in power.

But to modify a phrase we learn in the news business, it was never the "what" that mattered - in this case, the election - but the "who, when and where."

And that's why the rally that Nour held on Saturday in front of the Mogamma was so pivotal. By putting himself squarely in front of a government fortress so redolent with the bureaucratic humiliation that government represents for the average Egyptian, Nour was promising a new idea of government.

By focusing most of his speech on domestic policy, Nour was serving notice that Egyptians deserved to be their government's No. 1 priority. By talking about unemployment, poverty, the inability of so many young Egyptian men and women to afford marriage, political prisoners, human rights violations, the rights of women and Christians, and government corruption, he was signaling that instead of courting government officials to get their daily needs met, government officials should be courting ordinary Egyptians to keep their jobs.

Egyptians will not forget this. Regardless of a Mubarak victory, nothing can wipe our memories clean of the criticisms heaped on Mubarak and his cronies by Nour and other opposition candidates.

The concern now is what will happen to the opposition movement after Mubarak wins. Along with Nour and the other candidates contesting Wednesday's poll, there is also a small but active opposition movement that has held almost weekly anti-Mubarak demonstrations since December.

The world must not forget them.

Mubarak will no doubt claim to have been democratically elected, despite the expected vote rigging, despite the fact that it was almost impossible for independents to challenge him, despite the laughably short campaign period. But he must be held to the promises he made to Egyptians, who are wondering why after 24 years in power he seems to have suddenly remembered that they need more jobs and better wages.

Let's see him make good on his campaign promise to lift emergency laws. The fear is that he will use those laws now against the opposition and throw them all in jail.

Egypt is not the country it was just 10 months ago, when the opposition movement defied those laws and took to the streets to say "Kifaya!" - "Enough!" - to Mubarak. A member of Nour's Tomorrow Party told me he wasn't worried about a crackdown because "it is too late to stop the train of democracy or even reduce its speed."

To keep that train on its track, the Bush administration must continue calling on Mubarak to reform. The administration was right to protest the arrest and jailing of Nour earlier this year in a politically motivated trial. It has been postponed until after the election. If he is found guilty, it will be another sign of more of the same from the Egyptian government.

But for many Egyptians, business as usual just won't cut it anymore. At Nour's rally in front of the Mogamma, I met men and women, young and old, and even Egyptians who had flown in from abroad especially to see the election campaigns, so unprecedented they are in Egypt. As I greeted friends I hadn't seen in months, we would point to the Mogamma and then to Nour and exclaim "Can you believe it?"

The Mogamma sits next to a 19th-century square that was renamed Tahrir (Liberation) Square after the coup and revolution of 1952 that was supposed to liberate Egyptians from monarchy and British colonialism.

As buses and cars honked and jostled their way around the frenetic square, Nour reminded us what the name of the square meant. It is time to truly liberate Egyptians, he said.

Is the world listening?

Mona Eltahawy is a columnist for the pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.

The Robertson Jihad

I have decided that this post shall look delirious. Sorry.

ACLU: Government documents on torture

http://www.angelfire.com/indie/hairtransplant/

"Up is down"ism as a graphic.

I thought this was fantastic. A nice profile of Douglas Feith and what a horrible role he has played in the health of Zionism and the United States alike, from the Village Voice's Bush Beat. More background on Doug Feith, his role in Iraq and the Office of Special Plans. A really fabulous article by Feith in 1993 in which he highlights his extreme racism and fanatical views of the West Bank settlements (this was written when they were a fraction of current size)

The weaving around the bigshot Democratic centrists regarding Iraq. Why the hell should I care what another internet pundit like Yglesias says? i don't know, this navel gazing is tiresome but at least these guys are trying to get a grip on it. (also via dailykos)

No power, no constitution in Iraq (AP)

Blackouts disrupt oil exports as Iraqi parliament cannot overcome ethnic rivalries. Bush defends war amid Texas protests.

Joe Klein always seems to piss me off, with his holier-than-thou wisdom that has turned out to be worthless time and again. And here it drips with contempt for those who dare to challenge his orthodoxy, while he spins around and admits that it's evaporated, but the 'naive' types somehow don't get it, as always:

Perhaps he feels the pain more intensely than other Presidents, knowing that the real war in Iraq, the one that began after he proclaimed that "major combat operations are over," was not anticipated by his Administration, a colossal failure of planning and execution. It is also possible that there is more than crude political calculation to the President's failure to attend funerals; his refusal to intrude upon the private grief of the families has presidential precedent. But the inability to acknowledge these terrible losses leaves an aching void in the rest of us. It isolates the general public from the suffering that is a dominant reality of life in military communities.



And that is why the awkward anguish of Cindy Sheehan has struck a chord, despite her naive politics and the ideology of some of her supporters. She represents all the tears not shed when the coffins came home without public notice. She is pain made manifest. It is only with a public acknowledgment of the unutterable agony this war has caused that we can begin a serious and long overdue conversation about Iraq, about why this war—which, unlike Vietnam, cannot be abandoned without serious consequences—is still worth fighting and why we should recommit the entire nation to the struggle. This is a failure of leadership, perhaps the signal failure of the Bush presidency.

Sheehan defends herself. Meanwhile, back at the Crazy Ranch: US Christian Broadcaster Calls for Chavez Assassination



Pat Robertson said the United States has the ability to "take out" Mr. Chavez, and said he thinks the time has come to use that ability. Mr. Robertson accused Mr. Chavez of supporting communism and Muslim extremism, and said that killing him would be a "whole lot cheaper" than starting a war.

Chavez Ally: Robertson a 'fascist.' Why Pat Robertson's Statements Help Hugo Chavez. Oh Time. You and your talk of angry neoleftists.

Chavez is no doubt a source of concern for Washington, if only because Venezuela is America's fourth-largest foreign oil supplier. Chavez's erratic and often bellicose anti-U.S. rhetoric—he publicly called Bush an "ass____" in Spanish last year—as well as his desire to sell less oil to the U.S. and more to ideological allies like China, are hardly comforting as gas nears $3 per gallon. But neither is Chavez's embrace of nations like Iran, and nor is the fact that he's leading a politically potent (and, to the Bush Administration, potentially destabilizing) wave of angry neo-leftism in Latin America, from Argentina to Mexico.



But Chavez holds cards that make remarks like Robertson's all the more incendiary on the Latin American street, where language like "U.S. imperialism" suddenly has currency again. One is the past: Latin Americans have too many vivid and bitter memories of U.S. intervention in their countries—operations that sometimes included brazen assassinations —which is why the Bush Administration got burned by accusations it backed a failed coup against Chavez in 2002. Another is democratic legitimacy: Chavez, for all his authoritarian tendencies, is a democratically elected head of state who last year won a national recall referendum approved by international observers.

Venezuela Slams Robertson Over Remarks

Libertarian griping about the War on Terror eroding freedoms. True enough. Bush vs. Benedict: Catholic neoconservatives grapple with their church’s Just War tradition. Another libertarian griping about how our constitution has been hollowed out. Was the Credit too loose?



One war theory: Iraq Was Surviving the Sanctions Why They Wouldn't Wait. A tipping point on Iraq: HAS it been reached? (Jim Lobe)

Stories from the Gaza withdrawal:

Troops, police complete forced evacuations in less than a week.

NY Daily News: Hand-to-hand fight in Gaza. Bush: Next step after pullout is working gov't. in Gaza Strip.

Fascinating tale of the former West Bank civil administrator, who basically made himself an enemy of the settlers.

Bush might just be crazy then:

Is Bush Out of Control?

By DOUG THOMPSON

Aug 15, 2005, 05:46

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Buy beleaguered, overworked White House aides enough drinks and they tell a sordid tale of an administration under siege, beset by bitter staff infighting and led by a man whose mood swings suggest paranoia bordering on schizophrenia.



They describe a President whose public persona masks an angry, obscenity-spouting man who berates staff, unleashes tirades against those who disagree with him and ends meetings in the Oval Office with “get out of here!”



In fact, George W. Bush’s mood swings have become so drastic that White House emails often contain “weather reports” to warn of the President’s demeanor. “Calm seas” means Bush is calm while “tornado alert” is a warning that he is pissed at the world.



Decreasing job approval ratings and increased criticism within his own party drives the President’s paranoia even higher. Bush, in a meeting with senior advisors, called Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist a “god-damned traitor” for opposing him on stem-cell research.



“There’s real concern in the West Wing that the President is losing it,” a high-level aide told me recently.



A year ago, this web site discovered the White House physician prescribed anti-depressants for Bush. The news came after revelations that the President’s wide mood swings led some administration staffers to doubt his sanity.



Although GOP loyalists dismissed the reports an anti-Bush propaganda, the reports were later confirmed by prominent George Washington University psychiatrist Dr. Justin Frank in his book Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President. Dr. Frank diagnosed the President as a “paranoid meglomaniac” and “untreated alcoholic” whose “lifelong streak of sadism, ranging from childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs) to insulting journalists, gloating over state executions and pumping his hand gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad” showcase Bush’s instabilities.



“I was really very unsettled by him and I started watching everything he did and reading what he wrote and watching him on videotape. I felt he was disturbed,” Dr. Frank said. “He fits the profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but not treated.”

Gaza's test of stability: Settlers plan three-ring resistance to IDF, led by Yesha Council; Abbas faces HAMAS; settlements packed with protesters

The government officially ordered Jewish settlers to leave Gaza today, and thousands refused to budge. Within 48 hours the forcible removal of everyone who hasn't yet left will begin, and it's anybody's guess as to what will happen. The following looks at some of the intersecting tactical, religious and sociological problems for Israel, including the very real threat of rebellion within the Israeli Defense Forces. It's a long post, but damn, this situation is complicated.

Right now, a confrontation with eight distinct militant sides or command groupings is about to materialize, and I can only guess at how the complex operation will play out among these forces: the Gazan Palestinian Authority and its paramilitaries [in particular Dahlan's people]; HAMAS; smaller militant organizations; hardline settlers and the YESHA Council of Settlements [YESHA an acronym for Judea Samaria Gaza]; radical Jewish militants [Kach/Kahanists] and possibly rebel IDF units from hesder yeshivas; the national Israel Defense Forces; the Israeli police; the more passive [generally more secular] Gaza settlers. Prime spots for English updates across the spectrum include ynet (Yedioth Ahronoth), Haaretz, Arutz Sheva, Jerusalem Post, israelinsider, DEBKA, IMRA, WAFA, Palestine Post, Palestine Report (PMC), JMCC, Palestine Chronicle, Indymedia Israel (open wire).

Northern West Bank is a closed military zone. Haaretz: Gaza sealed as disengagement begins:

Israel Defense Forces troops sealed off the Gaza Strip at midnight Sunday, marking the start of the withdrawal, the first time Israel will pull out of land Palestinians want for a future state. Forty-eight hours later, soldiers will begin forcibly removing those settlers remaining in the settlements.

Israeli authorities set up roadblocks across southern Israel and cut off bus service to the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip on Sunday as they began final preparations to begin dismantling all 21 settlements inside Gaza.

As of Sunday, thousands of residents remained inside the settlements, vowing to resist their eviction. Other opponents of the pullout have threatened to hold massive demonstrations against the plan and to run the roadblock on the Gaza border to create chaos and torpedo the plan. Settler leaders were to lock the gates of some Gaza settlements Sunday to keep out the soldiers and police officers who are charged with handing out the eviction orders to residents.

In a parallel protest, dozens of police officers received telephone calls from people in the United States who identified themselves as members of the Chabad movement, asking the police to refuse to carry out evacuations, and to influence fellow officers to refuse, the radio reported. It said the police were outraged that their personal phone numbers were distributed to disengagement opponents abroad. [indicates rebellious forces are using key intelligence]

Harel is to command a force of more than 20,000 police and soldiers in the disengagement operation beginning this week. He turned aside media reports that soldiers at checkpoints had turned a blind eye to infiltrating protesters.

There are six tactical 'rings' of Israeli forces: "Yesha trying to foil pullout by keeping troops away from Gaza:"

Yesha Council settler leaders are instructing pullout opponents to drive in convoys to the Kissufim crossing, at the entrance to the Gaza Strip, and prevent security forces from reaching the settlements slated for evacuation.
[.....]The disengagement forces will be divided into six "rings." The first ring (combining both army and police) will deal with removing the settlers from their homes. The second ring, of Israel Defense Forces soldiers only, is charged with blocking the surrounding roads to prevent anti-withdrawal activists from reaching the settlement being evacuated. 

The third and fourth rings, all army, will defend both civilian and security forces from Palestinian attack. The fifth ring, mostly IDF soldiers, will patrol the Green Line to prevent activists from infiltrating the Strip from Israel. The sixth ring, consisting of police officers, will control traffic on Israeli roads in the western Negev near the Gaza border.

And there is another ring, which no one wants to discuss. It is the "zero ring," which will deal with any violent standoff situations that arise. Brigadier General Amos Ben-Avraham, who is the commander of the division unit for this force, avoids the cameras. Senior officers who were willing to talk about it hope it will not be needed, but they know that is an unreasonable expectation.

Kfar Darom is packed with protesters, ready to resist. A settler with 15 supporters announced the establishment of a 'Jewish Authority' in Gaza independent of Israel and has forthcoming 'tactical secrets.' Just another ranting guy, but the rebellious/seditious political current is firmly entrenched. An excellent interactive graphic on the New York Times site indicates along one block of Neve Dekalim, which started when I did (1983), the long-term residents of its first block are mostly planning to stay put until the soldiers come around, although some have shipping containers set up. "Gush Katif settlers to lock gates to stop IDF entering"(earlier today) but more secular northern Gaza settlements are mostly empty already. Plans of resistance:

In the more hard-line settlements, people are reportedly planning to lock their doors and windows and chain themselves to heavy objects. People are being advised to continue resisting even after they have been put aboard buses, and to damage the bus and even set it on fire in order to put it out of commission.

The YESHA Council is orchestrating an outer ring of settler resistance, with settlers operating two more inner rings of defense to impede and possibly battle the IDF:

Residents have been told by leaders to store as much dry food as possible. According to plans issued by the various struggle headquarters, there will be three rings of opposition. The outer ring, under the charge of the Yesha Council of settlers, is to block the main arteries leading to the Kissufim crossing with tens of thousands of activists, who will face thousands of police and soldiers.

The second group of activists intends to deploy between the settlements, and send as many people as possible to a settlement being evacuated. The headquarters of one organization, the National Home, has told members to bring wire-cutters to get through fences and move toward a settlement being evacuated, to avoid soldiers blocking the roads. "The goal is to create 20,000 fronts," a leaflet distributed in the Gush stated.

Inside the settlements, illegal residents and settlers will reportedly attempt to sabotage vehicles and block roads. Detailed recommendations on how to deal with mounted police were posted at synagogues, including a suggestion to inject horses with the atropine syringe that comes in the gas-mask kit issued to Israelis, which would lead to its death.

It seems to me that the leadership of Tanzim, HAMAS, Islamic Jihad & the other militant organizations has every incentive to keep things tamped down during the process, but HAMAS will probably try to prove its potency by firing a few rockets and mortars. The police are already blaming the army for the massive infiltrations:

A combination of two main factors led to the failure: the army's overly generous policy of issuing visitor passes that allowed thousands to enter, hundreds of whom had come to stay; and soldiers manning the roadblocks who were soft on enforcement. False documents, hiding in car trunks or pestering the soldiers until they gave in all took their toll. The large number of infiltrators raises suspicions that soldiers sympathetic to settler ideology looked the other way as people illegally crossed the roadblocks.

By the middle of last week, increasing numbers of containers stood next to homes, especially in the secular settlements. Still, there are impressive numbers still there: social pressure in the Gush, honed over four and a half years of rocket fire, will not buckle to the Disengagement Administration until the last minute. [....] Hard-core resistance is expected in Kfar Darom, parts of Neveh Dekalim, Kerem Atzmona, Shirat Hayam and possibly Morag, where the largest number of infiltrators has settled in.

The army is expected to react especially harshly to resistance from this quarter, possibly as early as tomorrow, and will apparently be spearheaded by a Border Police brigade. The troops will approach the protesters unarmed, but they will be followed by trucks with clubs. [......]A particularly worrisome scenario involves possible extremist action, with security around Prime Minister Ariel Sharon particularly tight. But one settler climbing on a roof in Neveh Dekalim and shooting at Khan Yunis is enough to start a chain reaction, which will mean a withdrawal under Palestinian fire.

As long as this does not happen, the unknown in the equation is the Palestinian side. With the prize so close, the Palestinians seem to be restraining the terror organizations. The IDF hopes this will be the chance for Mahmoud Abbas' government to prove it is serious about preventing terror.

Haaretz editorializes that the settlers are preparing for war with the IDF:

Entire yeshivas have recently moved to Gush Katif, openly, with a permit, because of the weakness of the army and police. [....] The settlers are not the enemy, and the army is not preparing for war against them, said the chief of staff without understanding that that this equation is true in only one direction. The army is not preparing for war against the settlers, but the settlers are preparing and how.

This is the approach that Gush Emunim used for years, with great success: tears and pleas for mercy on one hand, adherence to the goal and willingness to cut through fences on the other, all while cultivating the belief that they are right, whereas the evacuating forces are merely doing the dirty work.

This frighteningly empathetic approach has led to repeated failures against the settlers throughout the decades since Sebastia [in Sinai], and it is liable to do so this time as well. Too many meetings between commanders and evacuees, too much coordination and too many heart-to-heart talks have weakened the army and strengthened the settlers. Thus while hundreds of permanent residents of Gush Katif are preparing to leave quietly, they are being replaced by thousands of opponents of the evacuation for whom the IDF is the avowed enemy. [.....] President Moshe Katsav's request for the evacuees' forgiveness and his statement that he has been impressed by their struggle also demonstrates that so far, the settlers have the upper hand.

Also they editorialize, "Beware the zealots," connecting the escalating internal conflict with the baseless anger that destroyed the Second Temple:

Now, less than 60 years after the land was won by the small band of people who broke into dance after the UN vote and then went off to fight a war of survival, the young country is repeating the event that long ago sealed its fate: The destruction of the Second Temple was not only the ruin of the physical Temple in Jerusalem, it was also the ruin of the national home. The actual destruction was carried out by foreigners, but it was the blind zealots, saturated with a megalomaniacal hunger for power, who presumed to lead the tiny Jewish state on their own stubborn path, turning their back on political reality and speaking in the name of a single principle: religion, according to their interpretation.

The zealotry of those who destroyed the Temple and the national home sprouted from the fundamentalist flower beds of the religious hierarchy, which cloaked itself in eternal power in the name of a jealous God, deaf to the world and refusing all compromise. In the struggle over the image and existence of that Jewish state, the zealots bested the yearners for peace. The former chose suicide, slaughter and exile, and sealed the fate of the entire Jewish people. Much to our horror, the third Jewish commonwealth now faces a challenge which draws its inspiration from similar sources.

The location is identical, and the balance of power between the state and the international community is similar. Once again, the fragile sovereignty of a state fighting for survival can be perceived. Once again, a stubborn, irresponsible, megalomaniacal group of zealous rabbis has arisen, kicking indiscriminately at the sovereignty of the state and at the chances for a normal, just life within the family of nations, and threatening to bring down the house if it does not get its way.

At first glance, Israel seems to be dealing with a problem similar to that of the Western democracies, who are deporting the religious extremists who threaten their sovereignty. But these countries, whether Christian or secular, are fighting Islam, while Israel is attempting to make its way in the world while threatened from within by the zealous leaders of Judaism - the root of the nation from which the state itself sprouted.

Tisha B'Av this year is therefore a day of deep spiritual reckoning. In light of the historical lesson that it evokes, the Jewish State must steel itself for the struggle it now faces, for the sake of its sovereignty and to prevent a third destruction of its home.

IDF chief of staff estimates 5000 thousand rightwing protesters have infiltrated the settlements, many of them young fellow settlers raised in the West Bank and indoctrinated in radical yeshivas. It is hard to say how violent the more extreme settlers may become, possibly including attacking nearby Palestinians to provoke an escalation, as they reportedly attacked Palestinian officials in January.

Israeli security organizations consider some IDF units organized from Hesder yeshivas in the West Bank as possibly seditious and likely to obey radical rabbi leadership over military orders. "Hesder yeshivas under fire":

IDF commanders are worried about the possibility of receiving hesder yeshiva soldiers because they may refuse orders,” said the head of IDF Personnel Directorate, major general Elazar Stern. Stern was addressing ultra-Orthodox soldiers who had just been drafted into the army.

Times profile on the settlers:

The Gaza settlers are made up largely of middle-class families with children, and their resistance is expected to be mostly passive. Soldiers and police may have to drag them from their homes, but clashes are considered unlikely.
But some settlers could resist more actively. And the infiltrators, many of them deeply religious teenagers or young adults from the West Bank, are seen as wild cards and could be more aggressive in confronting the security forces. In the Rafiah Yam settlement in southern Gaza, a resident torched his house, a minibus and a warehouse, Reuters reported. "I don't want to leave anything for the Palestinians," the resident, Yaakov Mazal-Tari, said. "They do not deserve it. I'm going to burn everything, and what I can't burn I will destroy."

There have been a lot of protests near the Al Aqsa/Temple Mount site lately. Also there will only be about 8,000 police available in the entire rest of Israel, down from the normal level of 28,000. This means a lot of potential mischief from thieves and everyday criminals, fanatics who might go after the Temple Mount/Al Aqsa site or other holy sites. Another confrontation at the Temple site like this one (or this little one) between young Muslims and the Israeli police, possibly egged on by Jewish or Christian fundamentalists, could easily escalate, and hardcore settlers have a strong incentive to do so.

The social/class component should be considered, as this Times update today describes how people sought better quality of life thru incentives, trapping them in a war zone:

Many of Neve Dekalim's residents came from neighboring working-class towns in southern Israel, seeing the move here as a step up the economic and social ladder. Government financial incentives meant they could buy more affordable and larger homes than inside Israel. The move also allowed them to build a community of religious Jews.
The community grew into the main commercial and municipal center for Gaza settlers. It has a gas station, a grocery store, four synagogues, health clinics, two seminaries and several schools and day care centers. The settlement borders the Palestinian town of Khan Yunis, where scores of mortar shells have been launched at Neve Dekalim.
Further betraying the sense of suburban calm, a hulking cement wall separates Khan Yunis from Neve Dekalim. The settlement is ringed by electric fencing and guarded by soldiers. At a recent prayer rally, about 2,000 people prayed and sang, asking God to intervene to help halt the government's plan to evacuate their town along with the 20 other Jewish settlements in Gaza. The mood here swings between despair and the hope that an 11th-hour miracle might yet occur.

The leadership of hesder yeshivas, an integral element of West Bank settlement strategy, have inserted whole groups of radicalized young teenagers into the Israeli military as fully organized units. Zeev Schiff in Haaretz on the danger of yeshiva unit rebellion inside the IDF:

The problem is that over the years other rabbis-civilians-have acquired a status that enables them to intervene in purely military matters. At the same time, there is a growing influence of civilian rabbis on the actions of extremist settlers. For example, when the theft of olives from Palestinian farmers became widespread, there were rabbis who gave a "religious green light" for these criminal acts.

The infiltration of civilian rabbis into the IDF has been slow but steady. In the past, the settler leaders tried to influence the appointment of the head of Central Command, in whose territory most of the settlements are located. When they weren't happy with a head of Central Command, they tried to dictate to the defense minister when this commanding officer should not be invited to a joint meeting with them. Minister Moshe Arens was the one who rejected that demand.

The infiltration of the rabbis into the IDF has been carried out mainly by means of the hesder yeshivas (which combine Torah study and military service). There are 14 such yeshivas, and their students perform compulsory military service for a total of 16-18 months in all the rest of the time they study. For about two and a half years, their commanding officer is in effect the rabbi of the yeshiva. In addition, the rabbis of the hesder yeshivas established a "yeshiva committee" for themselves, which has been recognized by the IDF. The problem is that the committee is involved in making decisions such as which yeshiva should be recognized, who will be recognized as a yeshiva student, and where he will serve. This is not only intervention in the army on an organizational level it is also an attempt to determine its values.

This path has led to the phenomenon of refusal to serve. But even without the disengagement from the Gaza Strip, these rabbis are for the most part on a collision course with the military system. ..... The chief of staff and the rabbis are not in a situation where they have to conduct a dialogue. This dangerous phenomenon must be wiped out. Just as the generals should not interfere with what is happening in the rabbinical world, so the rabbis should not interfere with what is happening in the IDF. Had the opponents of the disengagement, which was approved by the Knesset, won their struggle, in the end we would have witnessed the rabbis' domination of the IDF agenda.

It's hard to say how the outcome of the withdrawal will be measured by the leadership of the eight forces above. The hardcore settlers and YESHA Council will find it a galvanizing event that will produce a more radicalized cadre of youngsters who will return to their West Bank settlements and redouble their efforts to prevent the Israeli people from withdrawing further. They will probably attack Palestinians in Hebron and near Tapuah, a hardcore settlement of neo-Kahanists outside Nablus in the northern West Bank. However, many less radical settlers would also like to 'cash out' of their entrapping West Bank mortgages like their Gaza brethren, and leaving Gaza will increase pressure to help West Bank moderate settlers finance their departure.

The Israeli Defense Forces and the Israeli Border Police will finally be relieved of the onerous task of defending pointless irregular settlement positions under constant Palestinian bombardment, a key reason that Israel's settlement policy is detrimental to its security, as a former Meretz MK Prof. Galia Golan once explained to me. However this means they could be more free to conduct scorched-earth Defensive Shield type operations, while bulldozing new swaths around West Bank settlements such as Ariel and Maale Adumim, that Sharon has promised to hang on to (in keeping with his long-term implementation of the 'Allon Plan,' nearby the Orwellian 'separation' fence line - please look at fence satellite images for cognitive dissonance between geography and morality)

The Likud party is probably going to splinter in some way, with Netanyahu challenging Sharon. Polls show that Netanyahu has the advantage in a primary over Sharon, but a "big bang" realignment, with Sharon leading a bloc combined with Josef Lapid of the secular centrist Shinui Party and Shimon Peres of Labor could take a commanding swath of the Knesset, strongly defeating a Likud led by Netanyahu.

The PA and HAMAS are competing to claim credit for the Israeli move, like any other politicians would. The people at DEBKA are claiming that Al-Qaeda style militants will move into Gaza (take them with a grain of salt) and also, if Lebanon is truly demilitarized the militants based there might shift into Gaza. HAMAS would dearly like to turn settlement sites into their own enclaves, but wealthy Gulf Arabs also want to put together large development projects.

I'd like to wish the Palestinians and Israelis with the best of luck in crushing the wills of their violent and recalcitrant internal rivals, in the hopes that this withdrawal can stabilize and eventually reverse the complex and violent process of the Israeli occupation and gradual annexation of the Palestinian occupied territories. It's one hell of a brave step, without a peace treaty. It's too important to fail.

Final Random Bits: Mozilla goes for profit; Kirkuk looks to go boom; Blair slashes protest freedoms, "the last of the Great British"?

"Bombs Becoming Biggest Killers in Iraq." "Insurgents in western Iraq town prove an elusive enemy for Marines". "Syria rejects US blame for Iraq's unrest." Someone kills Chalabi's cousin. More about the growing sense of Kurdish separatism, which leads us to the problem that Kirkuk is Really a Tinderbox:

Tension was rising Saturday in the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk as residents say they fear an outbreak of civil war among the Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen.
Local officials in the northern city said a crisis erupted when hundreds of Kurds, accompanied by National Guards, began distributing residential lands to ethnic Kurds who were allegedly expelled from the area under the former regime of Saddam Hussein.
Turkmen sources in Kirkuk said these lands belonged to their own ethnic people before the former regime pushed them out or executed their members, after which the lands were excavated with bulldozers.

The story of murdered reporter Steven Vincent in Iraq is quite sad, but it has been suggested in the Telegraph that he was not killed merely for criticizing hardcore Shiite police behavior. Apparently no one claimed responsibility for his killing, which possibly had something to do with sleeping with his slain Iraqi interpreter, perhaps some kind of honor killing.

It would appear that Blair has decided to cut off some undesirable chunks of free speech in Britannia and push for treason against uppity Muslim clerics. Also, apparently you can't protest within a half-mile of Parliament without a license anymore due to the Serious Organized Crime and Police Act. Protesters have gotten arrested. However, Brian Haw, a dude I personally encountered outside Parliament last spring, has been sitting there since June 2001, and apparently his post has been grandfathered in. As he tartly put it within his unyielding stream-of-consciousness yowling at the government:

As the arrests were being made he shouted to police: "Officer address your heart, officer why are you here?"
Speaking about the protest on Sunday, he said: "I'm the last of the Mohicans, I'm the last of the Great British.
"My fellow compatriots have been denied a voice. I'm outraged by this, I'm outraged that the police are busy chasing old ladies with peace signs down Whitehall when there are bombs going off in London."

How depressing, I really expected better from the folks that brought us such fine traditions of free speech.

"Europe plays nuclear poker with Iran," some pretty good stuff from an Iranian based in India.

Mozilla Foundation is metastasizing into Mozilla (for-profit) Corporation. This is not necessarily bad, so I hope they stay smart. They are still on the open source path, but perhaps now they have ideas for making more money, which can be turned back into development. People ought to keep open minds about the various evolving ways to join open source software and capitalism together.

On a totally unrelated subject, Joel Stein's comparison of the trendiness index for Scientology and Kabbalah is pretty funny. He's very much after the K-Hotties...

Geopolitics jumble: Hey, Russia's dissolving, Rove's spiraling, settlers march, the New SS and Paparazzi Intelligence

Ouch. When the Associated Press goes this way, you've lost that bit of spin you really need:

Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide was among the sources for a Time magazine reporter's story about the identity of a CIA officer, the reporter said Sunday.

Until last week, the White House had insisted for nearly two years that vice presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby and presidential adviser Karl Rove were not involved in the leaks of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity.

I found this really weird and interesting: "Vladislav Surkov's Secret Speech: How Russia Should Fight International Conspiracies," complete with allegations of CIA meddling in the recent Ukraine elections, etc. There's even a jab at James Woolsey for interfering. The site also carries a story about possible Soviet WMDs hidden in the US. The government of tiny, horribly poor Russian republic of Dagestan, adjacent to Chechnya, is on the verge of collapsing, and Islamic militants are causing persistent problems.

Eurasia Daily Monitor: LEAKED MEMO SHOWS KREMLIN FEARS COLLAPSE OF DAGESTAN
On July 8, Moskovsky komsomolets published a report leaked from the office of Dmitry Kozak, Russian President Vladimir Putin's Special Envoy to the Southern Federal District. The report, from Kozak to Putin, described Dagestan as rife with interethnic, religious, and social conflicts and on the brink of collapse. Specifically, "One should recognize that, taken together, the unsolved social, economic, and political problems are now reaching a critical level. Further ignoring the problems and attempts to drive them deep down by force could lead to an uncontrolled chain of events whose logical result will be open social, interethnic, and religious conflicts in Dagestan" (Moskovsky komsomolets, July 8). The authors of the report also warned that the rising influence of religious communities, especially at the local-government level, could result in the emergence of "Sharia enclaves" in the mountain districts of the republic. The report warned that an Islamic state could potentially materialize in the Dagestan mountains.

Iraq: Billmon curses the Flypaper theory of anti-terrorism how Bush's advisor, Townsend, still seems stuck on it. Krugman on the depressing White House detachment from reality. Sunni-Shiite violence and tensions intensify. "Insurgents active again on the streets of Falluja". Tales of an Iraq veteran. Another leaked British document indicates that the Iraq war is seen to radicalize British Muslims. "Shiites bring rigid piety to Iraq's south."

A strange story about ongoing conflict between privatized military firms/forces and the US military in Iraq. There are conflicting stories about whether the US wants to build permanent bases in Iraq -- either in the desert or urban enclaves -- as Stratfor reported last year, VS. recent reports that the British want to get the hell out.

Iraqi blogger Raed "in the Middle" Jarrar's brother has been arrested by the new Iraqi security forces or new Mukhabarat / Mokhabarat. "Fortunately, it's a nice governmental gang!"

If your child or sibling vanishes for two days then calls from the secret service jail in any other place on earth, that would be considered a disaster and a violation of human rights… In Iraq, however, it’s Happy News.

Because the other options include: To be tortured, executed, and thrown in garbage by SCIRI and their Badr brigades. To be held by the Iraqi police and left to choke to death in one of their cars. To be held by the US troops then disappear and be mistreated for months in one of their many prisons. To be kidnapped by one of the countless criminal gangs and cost your family some tens of millions of Iraqi Dinars and/or your life.

So now you can see why being held at the mukhabarat jail is such happy news!

Rovification: (defined as a vortex of scandal from which not even spin can escape)
See the Video: Cooper confirms Rove told him! Ouch! Cooper's tell all TIME story (excerpts). Howard Fineman with a surprising amount of candor in Newsweek. Via CrooksAndLiars.com, sweet site. Alex Cockburn bitterly compares coverage of the Rove story with the Franklin/AIPAC scandal, and a lot of nasty things to say about the CIA. Scooter Libby may have released Miller from confidentiality agreement?

Wilson pounces, calls for Rove resignation. Krugman points out that Rove was the guy who changed our political environment post-9/11, making it clear that "we're living in a country where there is no longer such a thing as nonpolitical truth." In other words, we're in Team B country now.

it seems plenty clear that rightwing hawks band together to provide more threatening propaganda about enemies of the United States, in order to undermine other people in Washington's professional intelligence community. This has happened quite a few times, and the general moniker of "Team B" style thinking -- named after a 1976 group that produced dramatically inflated disinformation about the Soviet Union from the CIA's data -- has become associated with manipulating intelligence, to create public impressions the hawks need to support their policies. Wolfowitz was on Team B back in the 1970s, which is where he first started mucking about with the exciting political potential of WMD threat construction. (Andy Tweeten and Adam Zelmer introduced me to this interesting idea about how security discourse is manipulated. Threat construction arguments in debate are very helpful.)

As Rovegate goes down, Team B-style tricks seem to be popping up all over. The Yellowcake uranium forgeries may yet get tied to the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, which worked quite a bit like Team B to subvert America's intelligence agencies. Scooter Libby was the OSP's liason to the CIA, which means he might be involved with the whole thing, as Wilson has alleged more than once. I earlier linked to this interview with a former top CIA officer, Vincent Cannistaro, who quite directly talks about Ledeen, the Iraqi National Congress fabricating WMD intel, the whole bit.

Keep an eye on TPM, it's damn good.

Juan Cole is yet again saying he thinks that Michael Ledeen was involved with fabricating the Niger-Yellowcake documents. Daniel Schorr on NPR talking about how the real issue is how America was misled into the war, featuring Wilson. Raimondo maps it onto the conflict between neo-cons and the CIA, before the war started:

Seen against the backdrop of the fierce intra-bureaucratic war that broke out in the administration in the run-up to the Iraq war – with the CIA and the mainline intelligence and diplomatic communities pitted against civilian neoconservatives in the upper echelons of the Pentagon and the Office of the Vice President – the outing of Plame and her colleagues amounts to an act of espionage committed out of a desire to exact revenge. The leakers meant to retaliate not just against Joe Wilson, through his wife, but against the "old guard" that was resisting the campaign to lie us into war. When the CIA wouldn't go along with the neocon program and "spice up" their analyses with Ahmed Chalabi's tall tales and the outright forgery of the Niger uranium documents, the War Party struck back at them with the sort of viciousness for which the neocons are rightly renowned.

And it goes on further into the links between Scooter Libby, John Hannah, John Bolton, AIPAC, Chalabi, the Yellowcake forgeries, etc. etc. etc. Raimondo's earlier piece about the unmitigated calls for post-London fascism from former Mossad director Ephraim Halevi is also quite interesting, as I noted earlier.

Older stories: "A Flood in Baath Country" about depressing conditions in Syria has been widely acclaimed in Lebanon. The filibuster deal has apparently harmed the Senate Republicans, causing fundraising setbacks--they are way behind the Democrats! It would seem the hard-right base is furious that Senators cut a deal, and ties have loosened between the leadership and the base. All the more pressure on Bush to appease them with some dingbat on the Supreme Court

Iran: Kissinger says don't discount military action if talks fail. (via CFR... bum bum bummm...)

Whatever: Guardian: Reporters find cocaine in EU parliament. World of Paparazzi: Photo Wars. They've got the best intel of all, it seems:

He opens a drawer, pulls out a few stacks of paper. Here, he says, are this week's scheduled movements of every famous passenger of a major limousine company in Los Angeles. He has an employee of the limo company on retainer, with bonuses "if there's results."
Here, too, are what Mr. Griffin describes as the passenger manifests of every coast-to-coast flight on American Airlines, the biggest carrier at Los Angeles International Airport. "I get the full printout," he says. "If they fly any coastal flight, I know. I can also find anybody in the world within 24 hours, I guarantee it. If they don't mask the tail number on a private plane, I'll find it." He says he has law-enforcement officers on his payroll, too, and can have a license plate checked in an hour on weekdays, 20 minutes on weekends.

I thought this set of photographs from the point of view of snipers was creepy but sort of cool.
It's going down in Israel: Fighting both Palestinian militants and hardcore Jewish protesters, the protest actions are starting up pretty much right now. It's coming: "Settlers to march on Gaza despite police ban". Keep tabs with right-wing sites Arutz Sheva (offering opinion from settlers), GAMLA, a for more on settler actions. Of course there is also the weird and disinformation-laden DEBKAfile.
Disturbing new law enforcement stuff: "Genesis of an American Gestapo," a somewhat ranting bit about the spooky new National Security Service, or as this writer dubbed it, the New SS. I don't feel like looking for new horrible news about the FBI-law enforcement shakeup, but it's damn interesting, and real important. The next COINTELPRO or whatever could spring out of this kind of stuff...

Tech: Wouldn't this keyboard be amazing? Programming on offshore boats = sweatshops at sea?

"Reporters Press McClellan on Secret CIA Report on Iraq"

This is one of those beautiful moments where spin, lies, truth, death, image, the friction of war and cause and effect come together to show us once and for all that we are totally fucked in the past, present and future. Iraq was always the central front of the war on terror. And it always will be......

Editor and Publisher reports:

Reporters Press McClellan on Secret CIA Report on Iraq
By E&P Staff

Published: June 22, 2005 5:10 PM ET

NEW YORK At the daily White House press briefing Wednesday, reporters raised with Press Secretary Scott McClellan a bombshell story from Iraq carried earlier Wednesday in The New York Times and wire services, based on a CIA report. Essentially, the questions at the White House boiled down to: Has the invasion and occupation of Iraq actually created more terrorists than it has crushed, and also given them much-needed experience in killing Americans and others?

According to the classified CIA report, the Iraq insurgency poses an international threat and may produce better trained Islamic terrorists than the 1980s Afghanistan war that gave rise to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

“The assessment, completed last month and circulated among government agencies, was described in recent days by several Congressional and intelligence officials,” Doug Jehl wrote in The New York Times. “The officials said it made clear that the war was likely to produce a dangerous legacy by dispersing to other countries Iraqi and foreign combatants more adept and better organized than they were before the conflict.”

The report says Iraqi and foreign fighters are developing a broad range of deadly skills, from car bombings and assassinations to tightly coordinated conventional attacks on police and military targets. If and when the insurgency ends, Islamic militants are likely to disperse as highly organized battle-hardened combatants capable of operating throughout the Arab-speaking world and in other regions including Europe.

Vice President Dick Cheney has recently argued that the insurgency is in its last throes, despite reports that the guerrillas have grown more sophisticated and more deadly.

Naturally, McClellan was asked about all this today at his daily press briefing. Here is the relevant part of the official transcript:
**
 Q Scott, how concerned is the administration about the potential for Iraq to become a sort of training ground for Islamic extremists who may go back to their home countries and use these techniques to destabilize their governments? There's a new report on that recently.
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, let me mention a couple things. As the President has said for some time now, Iraq is a central front in the war on terrorism. Wherever you stood before the decision to go into Iraq, I think we can all recognize that the terrorists have made it a central front in the war on terrorism. That's why, as the President said earlier today, we are fighting the terrorists in Iraq so that we don't have to fight them here at home. And that's where things are. And that's why the terrorists understand how high the stakes are ...
Q The report suggested that there's concern that Egyptians, Jordanians and others will go back to their home countries, using the techniques they've learned in Iraq to destabilize those countries.
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I don't know what your question is.
Q Are you concerned about that? Do you think there's potential for that?
MR. McCLELLAN: Iraq is a central front in the war on terrorism. In terms of what's your question on it, I think you're making the assumption that these individuals would just be sitting around sipping tea, as Secretary Rice likes to refer to in her previous comments. So I don't know what your question is regarding that.
Q Just following up on that question, you said at the outset of that, the terrorists have made it a central front in the war on terrorism. I thought it was a central front in the war on terrorism before we invaded.
MR. McCLELLAN: It is. It's part of the war on terrorism, yes.
Q It was.
MR. McCLELLAN: No, it is.
Q It is now --
MR. McCLELLAN: Both.
Q Was it prior to --
MR. McCLELLAN: Both. It's part of the war on terrorism, David.

Linkdump: Israel-America-China arms confrontation, etc.; Iran, more on Downing Street

Let's do the link dump again!
Agonist reported twice that the DC-based Nelson Report discussed how the Downing Street Memo is causing people to begin making historical comparisons to impeachments and other scandals. "British bombing raids were illegal, says Foreign Office", referring to the Iraq bombing that escalated before the "real" war started. Getting to be big news on the AP finally... Produced a faboulous Poll on MSNBC... anyway, the goods::

A SHARP increase in British and American bombing raids on Iraq in the run-up to war “to put pressure on the regime” was illegal under international law, according to leaked Foreign Office legal advice.

The advice was first provided to senior ministers in March 2002. Two months later RAF and USAF jets began “spikes of activity” designed to goad Saddam Hussein into retaliating and giving the allies a pretext for war.

The Foreign Office advice shows military action to pressurise the regime was “not consistent with” UN law, despite American claims that it was.

The decision to provoke the Iraqis emerged in leaked minutes of a meeting between Tony Blair and his most senior advisers — the so-called Downing Street memo published by The Sunday Times shortly before the general election.

Democratic congressmen claimed last week the evidence it contains is grounds for impeaching President George Bush.

Those at the meeting on July 23, 2002, included Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6. The minutes quote Hoon as saying that the US had begun spikes of activity to put pressure on the regime.

Ministry of Defence figures for bombs dropped by the RAF on southern Iraq, obtained by the Liberal Democrats through Commons written answers, show the RAF was as active in the bombing as the Americans and that the “spikes” began in May 2002.

However, the leaked Foreign Office legal advice, which was also appended to the Cabinet Office briefing paper for the July meeting, made it clear allied aircraft were legally entitled to patrol the no-fly zones over the north and south of Iraq only to deter attacks by Saddam’s forces on the Kurdish and Shia populations.

The allies had no power to use military force to put pressure of any kind on the regime.

The increased attacks on Iraqi installations, which senior US officers admitted were designed to “degrade” Iraqi air defences, began six months before the UN passed resolution 1441, which the allies claim authorised military action. The war finally started in March 2003.
[.....]
Although the legality of the war has been more of an issue in Britain than in America, the revelations indicate Bush may also have acted illegally, since Congress did not authorise military action until October 11 2002.
The air war had already begun six weeks earlier and the spikes of activity had been underway for five months.

it is fun to follow gov't proceedings on CSPAN via threads on DailyKos. In this case, yet another blocking of Mr Bolton in the Senate. Gotta love this Bolton cartoon. Sounds like things are already working better at the State Department now that he's gone.

Also via the Kos, Scott Ritter is saying the war on Iran has already begun. Well, that's true, as far as we let the dogs of war at the MEK go attack Iran... And of course the new Republican effort to shut down the independence of reporting at PBS. A consultant termed pieces on the show Now with Bill Moyers. Various new tags included "anti-corporation," "anti-DeLay" and "anti-Bush." Orwell is so helpful.

Old transcript from MSNBC Hardball featuring Pawlenty and James Bamford, author of "A Pretext for War." Not relevant to everyone else, I just needed the link.

There is news that the United States is pissed off that Israel is selling sweet tech to China, in particular Harpy Killer unmanned attack drones designed to target radar systems. The U.S. apparently developed these drones and now fears they could be used to attack Taiwan. Nice.

Kinda liked this Friedman article because it suggests that without an heir apparent, Bush's agenda is drifting towards chaos and pandering instead of actually useful policy.

Richard Clarke about the quiet squawking coming from military people in Washington who are-gasp-willing to depart fluffy cloud country and say something negative about Freedom Quest:Mesopotamia.

The "gay vague" style. WTF, this is another reason why popular culture is ridiculous to me.

Political orientation may have genetic markers. Oh shit, here comes the mental genetic engineering.

Older stories about Syria's state-sponsored clergy and it's voices for change.

i gotta go. Arthur Cheng's here, and we're going to a Twins game tonight. Hell yeah!

Shadiness about the Kurds

WEll well well... the Kurds are rumored to be up to no good. After all, they just want to live in peace, once they have gained control of Kirkuk and Mosul, after chipping off some nice swaths of Turkey, Iran and Syria. WaPo reported June 15 that "Kurdish officials Sanction Abductions from Kirkuk," apparently a direct effort to intimidate Sunni Arabs into leaving. There is a great deal of violence, including suicide bombings, now happening in the area. Under the cloak of the war on Terror, population re-engineering is going down, and who knows what the results shall be?

KIRKUK, Iraq -- Police and security units, forces led by Kurdish political parties and backed by the U.S. military, have abducted hundreds of minority Arabs and Turkmens in this intensely volatile city and spirited them to prisons in Kurdish-held northern Iraq, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials, government documents and families of the victims.

Seized off the streets of Kirkuk or in joint U.S.-Iraqi raids, the men have been transferred secretly and in violation of Iraqi law to prisons in the Kurdish cities of Irbil and Sulaymaniyah, sometimes with the knowledge of U.S. forces. The detainees, including merchants, members of tribal families and soldiers, have often remained missing for months; some have been tortured, according to released prisoners and the Kirkuk police chief.

A confidential State Department cable, obtained by The Washington Post and addressed to the White House, Pentagon and U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, said the "extra-judicial detentions" were part of a "concerted and widespread initiative" by Kurdish political parties "to exercise authority in Kirkuk in an increasingly provocative manner."

The abductions have "greatly exacerbated tensions along purely ethnic lines" and endangered U.S. credibility, the nine-page cable, dated June 5, stated. "Turkmen in Kirkuk tell us they perceive a U.S. tolerance for the practice while Arabs in Kirkuk believe Coalition Forces are directly responsible."
[....]
Kirkuk, a city of almost 1 million, is home to Iraq's most combustible mix of politics and economic power. Kurds, who are just shy of a majority in the city and are growing in number, hope to make Kirkuk and the vast oil reserves beneath it part of an autonomous Kurdistan. Arabs and Turkmens compose most of the rest of the population. They have struck an alliance to curb the ambitions of the Kurds, who have wielded increasing authority in a long-standing collaboration with their U.S. allies.

Some abductions occurred more than a year ago. But according to U.S. officials, Kirkuk police and Arab leaders, the campaign surged after the Jan. 30 elections consolidated the two main Kurdish parties' control over the Kirkuk provincial government. The two parties are the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party. The U.S. military said it had logged 180 cases; Arab and Turkmen politicians put the number at more than 600 and said many families feared retribution for coming forward.

U.S. and Iraqi officials, along with the State Department cable, said the campaign was being orchestrated and carried out by the Kurdish intelligence agency, known as Asayesh, and the Kurdish-led Emergency Services Unit, a 500-member anti-terrorism squad within the Kirkuk police force. Both are closely allied with the U.S. military. The intelligence agency is made up of Kurds, and the emergency unit is composed of a mixture of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens.

The cable indicated that the problem extended to Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city and the main city in the north, and regions near the Kurdish-controlled border with Turkey.

The transfers occurred "without authority of local courts or the knowledge of Ministries of Interior or Defense in Baghdad," the State Department cable stated. U.S. military officials said judges they consulted in Kirkuk declared the practice illegal under Iraqi law.

Early on, the campaign targeted former Baath Party officials and suspected insurgents, but it has since broadened. Among those seized and secretly transferred north were car merchants, businessmen, members of tribal families, Arab soldiers and, in one case, an 87-year-old farmer with diabetes.
[....]
[Kirkuk police chief] Abdel-Rahman said he was concerned that the Americans were being duped by the Kurds, who he said have cloaked what is effectively a power grab as a crackdown on the insurgents. Their strategy, he said, is to bolster their alliance with the Americans.

"Unfortunately, they have succeeded," he said.

Blagburn, the intelligence officer, said that even though the Emergency Services Unit is largely responsible for the secret transfers, it continues to provide valuable assistance in the counterinsurgency. Blagburn termed the unit "a very cooperative, coalition-friendly system."

"We know we can drop a guy in there and he'd be taken care of and he's safe," Blagburn said. "That's the reason why the ESU is used most of the time. That's basically the unit we can trust the most."

Iran election turnout nearly 63%, really not so bad? Or fraud?

Free Thoughts In Iran reports:

Participation: 61.7%

Rafsanjani: 6,108,029 (21.2%)
Ahmadi Nejad: 5,555,458 (19.3%)
Karrubi: 5,394,031 (18.7%)
Qalibaf: 4,009,620 (13.9%)
Moeen: 3,949,240 (13.7%)
Larijani: 1,715,190 (6.0%)
Mehr Alizade: 1,269,790 (4.4%)

Spoiled Ballots: 847,642 (2.9%)

A day before the election, Bush sharply denounced the vote, saying it was designed to keep power in the hands of the clerics. But some Iranians said they were motivated to vote to retaliate against Bush’s denunciations.

“I picked Ahmadinejad to slap America in the face,” said Mahdi Mirmalek after attending Friday prayers at Tehran University.

And I don't even want to start into what happened in Lebanon. In a move sure to annoy the many regime change enthusiasts in Washington, the Iranian public (including a significant number of expatriates) voted in surprisingly large numbers in the first round of their presidential election--although naturally Michael Ledeen now claims that various people cooked the numbers, provided fake ballots and perhaps bussed in a million Shiites from Pakistan. Now the former president, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, will face off against a rather hardcore mayor of Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the final election this Friday. Snooping around the burgeoning Iranian presence online these days shows that progressive Persians are annoyed as hell that they'll have to vote for Rafsanjani to prevent the even more conservative Ahmadinejad from taking over.

Check an interesting NY Times Q&A with professor William Beeman, who just returned from there. (Rafsanjani, by the way, was involved with Iran-Contra back in the good ol' days, but it doesn't seem to bother people too much, because, hey, they got some missiles out of it, right?) A good summary of the whole thing, including a broader look at how American hawks tried to frame the situation.

And there are claims of voting fraud now coming from Rafsanjani's people, as well as the #3 candidate Mehdi Karroubi, who represented sort of an anti-poverty religious angle that progressives took cynically. A letter about fraud that Karroubi published was printed in two daily newspapers, Eqbal and Aftab Yazd, and they got shut down by the government. Even IRNA reported this was about "some rigging in the elections."

There were polls in Los Angeles, and some people tried to picket them. Apparently the "Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran" quoted in this story is basically a one-man front that people shouldn't take seriously. But he did yell at people.

Human Rights Watch summarized Iran's exclusionary election system, termed as 'pre-cooked elections.' The distribution of votes was fairly close among six candidates, which suggests that if the various progressive movements in the country hadn't tried to boycott it, they might have actually gotten someone more preferable into the final round. Mostafa Moin (spellings vary-"Moeen" as well) was the supposed progressive candidate and he seems to be claiming that he took a nap in the morning and when he awoke a million votes had shifted. But Moin might not really be that progressive. As the Sunnis in the next war zone over learned, boycotting elections in imperfect systems doesn't really solve anything.

There are many pictures of the election process available online. That is pretty nifty to see.

As Prof. Juan Cole described the results,

The Iranian voting public put a hardliner and a conservative pragmatist into a run-off election with their ballots on Friday. With a turnout of 62 percent or more, voters rejected reformist youth calls for a boycott and some said they meant their vote to be a slap in the face of US President George W. Bush. In the lead is Mahmud Ahmadinejad, the former mayor of Tehran and a hardliner close to the Islamist vigilantes ("Basij") of the grass roots Khomeinist movement. Coming in close second is former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a conservative pragmatist who dealt with the Americans during the Reagan-era Iran-Contra scandal. They will face each other in a run-off next Friday. Wire services report,

“I picked Ahmadinejad to slap America in the face,” said Mahdi Mirmalek after attending Friday prayers at Tehran University.
At Tehran University, the leader of Friday prayers, Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani, told worshippers that voting “strengthens the pillars of the ruling Islamic establishment.” Followers then joined in with the common chant of “Death to America!”

The vote is a repudiation of the relatively timid reform movement of outgoing president Mohammad Khatami, which never delivered an improved economy or administration. Its attempts to open up the Khomeinist system to greater personal liberties and greater freedom of speech were relentlessly blocked by the hardline clerics that controlled the judiciary and other oversight bodies. The Right closed dozens of reformist newspapers and cracked down on student demonstrations. The most outspoken reformist on the ballot, Mostafa Moin, did poorly. He had initially been excluded by the hardline clerics that vet Iranian candidates, but was put back on the ballot at the insistence of Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei. A more moderate reformer, Mehdi Karrubi, came in third and charged ballot fraud by the Revolutionary Guards who supported Ahmadinejad.

It is likely that the Iranian electorate's swing to the Right reflects in part a deep unease about being surrounded by the United States, which has troops both in Afghanistan and Iraq. Post-revolutionary Iranians are nationalistic and determined to maintain their national independence, and all the talk by the Bush administration about regime change, aggressive action against Iran over its nuclear research program [which so far appears to have been conducted within the limits set by the Non-Proliferation Treaty], and the illegitimacy of the Iranian elections themselves, appears to have contributed to the greater success of the hardliners.

Ahmadinejad is a very bad character, with a long history of essentially fascist activity in suppressing points of view other than those of the hardline Khomeinists. He is said to have plotted the murder of novelist Salman Rushdie and to have been involved in planning terrorist actions by Iranian agents in the 1980s. Ironically, in Iranian terms he is a "Neoconservative," the opposite number of the Cheneys, Perles and Feiths in the United States.

I did some research on how the domestic scene is put together in Iran, and it is interesting that indeed there is a segment labeled 'neoconservative' that is closely tied to the religious establishment and the bazaaris, more traditionalist merchants of the informal economy that have a great deal of influence over affairs. An Interview with Ahmadinejad on IRNA, the Islamic Republic News Agency. What a great name for an agency. Anyway:

Nuclear energy is the scientific achievement of the Iranian nation. Our youth have crowned themselves with this achievement, via domestic technology and by reliance on their own knowledge. The energy belongs to the Iranian nation. Definitely, the progress of a nation can not be obstructed. Scientific, medical, and technical development of our nation is necessary.

I believe there are certain individuals that create a false mood. They want to portray the situation as critical, while there is no crisis here. The technology is at the disposal of the Iranian nation. Certain powers do not want to believe this. They resist a bit against accepting such a right, such an achievement of the Iranian nation. Their scientists and experts have admitted that the Iranian nation is entitled to this right.

I believe the problem can be solved with prudence and wisdom, by utilizing opportunity and relying on the endless power of the Iranian nation, through our self-confidence. The ongoing artificial mood is political sleight of hand. The mood aims to influence the Islamic Republic's domestic developments.

One can not impede scientific progress. You can see scientific progress everywhere in the world. One can not obstruct this movement. This is not something that can be prevented with an order. No one can deprive the Iranian nation of this right. They are vainly trying to stir conditions worldwide. They want to fan tension, create crisis to meet their transitory objectives.

That's a kind of psychological war; nothing else meets the objectives. That may not be the case. This is as if you want to deprive someone of industrial progress. This is something impossible. Industry is intertwined with the nature of an individual. Technical knowledge has now become an integral aspect of the Iranian psyche. You can not say that the Iranian nation should not use math, should not have physicians, should not build large dams, or should not be able to build a refinery or a plane.

So that is kind of disturbing, but interesting... Really shocking that they feel entitled to use technology, oh how could they ever be so crazy? :-P To put another point on this, Beeman said:

I think there is no question that the public, all the candidates, and the current establishment are completely unified on this point: Iran should be developing its nuclear industry.
Here's one point that utterly escapes us in the United States, and I really wish people in power could understand: The discourse on the nuclear question between the United States and Iran is almost a complete disconnect. The United States, not to put too fine a point on it, thinks Iran is going after nuclear weapons in order to do some damage to the United States and its allies. To put it really crudely, as one adviser connected to the White House told me, "Look, we know Iran wants to develop a nuclear bomb to drop on Tel Aviv." This kind of statement just utterly and completely floors me.
The Iranian side of the discourse is that they want to be known and seen as a modern, developing state with a modern, developing industrial base. The history of relations between Iran and the West for the last hundred years has included Iran's developing various kinds of industrial and technological advances to prove to themselves--and to attempt to prove to the world--that they are, in fact, that kind of country.
The nuclear-power issue is exactly that. When Iranians talk about it, and talk about the United States, they say, "The United States is trying to repress us; they're trying to keep us down and keep us backward, make us a second-class nation. And we have the ability to develop a nuclear industry, and we're being told we're not good enough, or we can't." And this makes people furious--not just the clerical establishment, but this makes the person on the street, even 16- and 17-year-olds, absolutely boil with anger. It is such an emotional issue that absolutely no politician could ever back down on this question. But again, the public, when you ask them about nuclear weapons, they just sort of look at you like you are crazy. Because that's not even close to what it means to them.

Here are some links. Editor:Myself by Hossein Derakhshan, who is based in Toronto. He says that things are getting kind of scary.

Also check out Iranian Truth, IranScan1384, Free Thoughts on Iran, IranMania news service/portal, aptly named Brooding Persian, The Iranian Feminist Tribune, Adventures of Mr. Behi, and a huge friggin' list @ blogsbyiranians.com. And of course Iranians have many sites purely in Farsi.

More articles... bitterness about Iran's double apartheid based on gender and beliefs. I liked the different notes on freethoughts.org.
Finally then, I think this post by an Iranian student in Toronto rounded it out:

History seems to follow no pattern. The lesson is that there is simply no lesson to learn(*). Politics due to <put your favorite reason here> is not a deterministic game.

There is no guarantee of what is going to happen to Iran after this presidential elections and many of the heated debates going on about boycott or supporting a specific candidate are at best superficial.
I know this was a lousy post but I thought the nihilistic nonchalant should have a voice as well.
-----------
(*) Reminds me of "We learn from history that we never learn anything from history," as Hegel said.

You can't really spin 1700 dead Americans

With four GIs killed in a day, the official death toll of American personnel reached 1,700 on Sunday.

Oil production remains sporadic, and a story reports that various northern tribes currently paid to defend Iraqi pipelines may in fact be attacking those lines, in order to provide the appearance of more demand for their services. On the other hand, maybe Kurds are being awarded these security jobs at the expense of Arabs. Haaretz ponders "Why isn't Iraq getting on its feet?"

Does Bush believe his own propaganda? And is persuasion dead?

Pirates raid the oil tankers at Basra. The persistence of the insurgency. Pointed out that suicide tactic-using groups generally direct their fire against foreign occupiers. A rare interview with Muqtada al-Sadr. Oh great, Zalmay Khalilzad is ready to provide Iraq with his special golden touch as our new ambassador. Stories about the "Bunkers reveal well-equipped, sophisticated insurgency:"

an Islamic mufti, or spiritual leader, living near Fallujah offered a different take: He said the bunkers were proof that the insurgency is unbowed.
"This shows the failure of the Marines. It was close to their base and they could not see it," said the mufti, who formerly sat on the council that directed insurgents in Fallujah. He spoke by phone Saturday evening on the condition of anonymity. "The Americans think they know everything. But when they came to Iraq they thought the people would receive them with flowers. Instead of flowers they found these bunkers."
Haitham al-Dulaimi, who works at a garage in Ramadi, had a similar reaction.
"Are you sure they found it near Fallujah?" he asked, laughing. "It shows you how much the Iraqi resistance has insulted the Americans."

Our Man Bolton is in some more trouble as news comes out that he monkeyed with WMD bureaucrats at the UN, basically in order to prevent the further erosion of Bush's WMD war rationale. And of course more from a DailyKos diarist.

"The Left Must learn from 2004" an interview addressing the antiwar movement etc. Blumenthal on the Gulag.

Freedom House is one of the sketchiest things in the world. Consider press releases about the evil of Kazakhstan, the major cash they have running it... more on this later.

Did I already mention Karen Kwiatkowski? Yeah.

We heard about a recent video that purportedly showed the Srebrenica massacres. but was it all sort of a spun-up justification for "Imperial intervention in the Balkans"? Why not?

Latin America doesn't fancy the Democracy Monitoring thing.

Newsweek's Baghdad Bureau Chief is leaving the place after two years, and he sounds sad and embittered.

Frontline has a bunch of sweet Middle East stories including the stuff in Lebanon, Iraq etc.

Daniel 'Pentagon Papers' Ellsberg reflects on the need to call for withdrawal from Iraq. Rep. Lynn Woolsey has offered a proposal in the House about finding withdrawal policies. Sort of a symbolic gesture but worthwhile.

"Long-exiled general battles warlord in Lebanon voting." Ah the sublime ironies of Lebanese politics.

"Iran from the Inside."

Interesting BBC documentary called the Power of Nightmares, which I linked to a while ago, now has a fairly astute review of it via PressTrust.com.

Reflecting on Deep Throat week in Washington. I watched "All the President's Men" the other day. Hell yeah. "It's not about the big break; it's about doing the job well." The best kind of anon source. Larry David is hilarious.

A German city is building 'sex huts' for prostitutes at the World Cup. Now that's servicing a crowd...

WaPo opines that the recent court ruling wasn't really about pot. Another victory for the industrial-drug-law-enforcement complex. People at smokedot are sad.

Interesting looking website: "Defense and the National Interest" @ defense-and-society.org. Haven't examined it too closely but they have a very interesting feature pages about fourth generation warfare, Col. Boyd and military strategy, as well as various essays from such folks as William Lind (Rummy's Wreck it and Run management, striking back at the empire, the Century of the Believers), and also the "Werther Report - fourth generation warfare and riddles of culture." I don't agree with all this stuff but i find it interesting.

Also a SFTT story about how the military pursues deserters. Certainly has its own viewpoint on the matter... I tend to believe that people bailing on the armed forces have the right to do so, considering the top management is quite crazy and the war is incredibly bad.

Here's the full text of the British Cabinet Office paper "Conditions for Military Action." I just like to read these paragraphs:

1. The US Government's military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace. But, as yet, it lacks a political framework. In particular, little thought has been given to creating the political conditions for military action, or the aftermath and how to shape it.
2. When the Prime Minister discussed Iraq with President Bush at Crawford in April he said that the UK would support military action to bring about regime change, provided that certain conditions were met: efforts had been made to construct a coalition/shape public opinion, the Israel-Palestine Crisis was quiescent, and the options for action to eliminate Iraq's WMD through the UN weapons inspectors had been exhausted.
3. We need now to reinforce this message and to encourage the US Government to place its military planning within a political framework, partly to forestall the risk that military action is precipitated in an unplanned way by, for example, an incident in the No Fly Zones. This is particularly important for the UK because it is necessary to create the conditions in which we could legally support military action. Otherwise we face the real danger that the US will commit themselves to a course of action which we would find very difficult to support.

Yet another Downing Street Memo as the Patriot Act sweeps aside Democracy

The British security bureaucracy has done it again, as another exciting memo from 2002 has leaked out, this one more closely detailing how the Brits feared the consequences of an illegal invasion of Iraq. Check out Walter Pincus' story in the WaPo, vs. the rather more intense one in the London Times, as well as one from a couple days ago about how America finally learned about the memo... Juan Cole has informed comment on the memos:

It makes me deeply ashamed as an American in the tradition of Madison, Jefferson, Franklin, Lincoln, and King, that in their private communications our international allies openly admit that the United States of America routinely disregards international law. The Geneva Conventions were enacted by the United Nations and adopted into national law in order to assure that Nazi-style violations of basic human rights never again occurred without the threat of punishment after the war. We have an administration that views the Geneva Conventions as "quaint." The US has vigorously opposed the International Criminal Court.

The cabinet briefing, like Lord Goldsmith, is skeptical that any of the three legal grounds for war existed with regard to Iraq. Iraq was not an imminent threat to the US or the UK. Saddam's regime was brutal, but its major killing sprees were in the past in 2002. And, the UNSC had not authorized a war against Iraq.
[.......]
The polite diplomatic language hides the implications that there would be a global black psy-ops campaign in favor of the war, conducted from London. Since the rest of the briefing already admits that there was no legal justification for action, the proposal of an information campaign that would maintain that such a justification existed must be seen as deeply dishonest.

One press report said that the British military had planted stories in the American press aimed at getting up the Iraq war. A shadowy group called the Rockingham cell was apparently behind it. Similar disinformation campaigns have been waged by Israeli military intelligence, aiming at influencing US public opinion. (Israeli intelligence has have even planted false stories about its enemies in Arabic newspapers, in hopes that Israeli newspapers would translate them into Hebrew and English, and they would be picked up as credible from there in the West)

Also check out a couple earlier posts on British memos, the WMD spoof and etc. As well as Cole's recent piece in Salon about Iraq.

Meanwhile, in a disturbing display of anti-democratic tendencies, Wisconsin Rep. Sensenbrenner got infuriated as the House committee he chairs discussed the upcoming renewal of everyone's favorite piece of righteous legislation, the Patriot Act. They halted in the middle of the hearing, and it was an awful display of the surprisingly rapid erosion of our democracy. And then they cut the Democrats' mikes off. I can't find the damn links & video clip I had of this. Will post later.

So now we have AfterDowningStreet.org as well as DowningStreetMemo.com, both sites devoted to discussing the real meaning of these memos as well as what sorts of political action people ought to take in response. They're putting a petition together, to go along with Rep. Conyers letter to the President:

Dear Mr. President:
We the undersigned write because of our concern regarding recent disclosures of a Downing Street Memo in the London Times, comprising the minutes of a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers. These minutes indicate that the United States and Great Britain agreed, by the summer of 2002, to attack Iraq, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action, and that U.S. officials were deliberately manipulating intelligence to justify the war.
Among other things, the British government document quotes a high-ranking British official as stating that by July, 2002, Bush had made up his mind to take military action. Yet, a month later, you stated you were still willing to "look at all options" and that there was "no timetable" for war. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, flatly stated that "[t]he president has made no such determination that we should go to war with Iraq."
In addition, the origins of the false contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction remain a serious and lingering question about the lead up to the war. There is an ongoing debate about whether this was the result of a "massive intelligence failure," in other words a mistake, or the result of intentional and deliberate manipulation of intelligence to justify the case for war. The memo appears to resolve that debate as well, quoting the head of British intelligence as indicating that in the United States "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
As a result of these concerns, we would ask that you respond to the following questions: 
1)Do you or anyone in your administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document? 
2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization to go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?
3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?
4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?
5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?
These are the same questions 89 Members of Congress, led by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., submitted to you on May 5, 2005. As citizens and taxpayers, we believe it is imperative that our people be able to trust our government and our commander in chief when you make representations and statements regarding our nation engaging in war. As a result, we would ask that you publicly respond to these questions as promptly as possible.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

In a not very related matter, something is going on between the Pentagon and China. Also check out the story of the trojan programs that the Israeli police found all over many different companies.

Now available: Warspying and music produced by Iraq troops on Teh Scene

A couple interesting things reflect how it's becoming easier to come up with original content and offer it up. First I found a link to a video by some young guys at Systm.org (not to be confused with the pretentious System.net 'global aesthetic conditioning'). They released a short video about 'warspying,' or modifying a wireless video camera receiver, putting it in a cash box, with a little LCD screen on it. The guys drive around town and capture other people's unencrypted video transmissions.

So these guys made a short video, complete with custom circuit diagrams, and distributed it over BitTorrent (high quality Quicktime / Windows Media torrents). Related links: Kevin Rose's blog (or this), one of the guys on the video, a very rich Technorati tag, review of the show on O'Reilly's Makezine.com, also randomculture.com, an earlier project called thebroken.org, switcherman.com is their project blog, they got the /. and CNet stories the lucky bastards.

So this would be an example of putting yourself in the right spots for a PR offensive online.

Stuff like podcasting is becoming increasingly popular and sites like podnova and ipodderx provide a constant source of these home brewed audio broadcasts. The idea is that such content might finally fulfill the promise of the internet etc etc.... Meanwhile people can hook into streams of links like those at Make Magazine put onto del.icio.us.

Looking around at this led me to some interesting sites. Digg.com is sort of like MetaFilter for geeks. Fromtheshadows.tv is another crew that put together some videos including another one about the fun of hacking into wireless data connections ("0wning 2.4GHz" is a great name for an episode)

Meanwhile military guys are starting to release rap music, such as the guys featured in Gunner Palace. There was a major feature on MetaFilter about this with many links.

Hackermedia.net gets points for the obvious name, and links to many other little internet TV shows. My favorite title is "Teh Scene" (not a typo). Good luck to all these kids.

Meanwhile such operations as Guerrilla News Network are still rolling along, and let's not forget the classic video they released some time ago, "Crack the CIA" about the links between cocaine trafficking and intelligence agencies.

Google has gotten this insane three-dimensional flyover map thing... not available to the public yet. Or is it some kind of 3D mapping truck scheme where lasers measure the dimensions of buildings to generate maps. Wow.

I just learned today that there is a peace-based organization down the street @ 1045 Selby Ave., Friends for a Non-Violent World and a buddy of mine is interning there.

You can take CEH (certified ethical hacker) exams now. and practice for them.

Hollywood paid for video cameras in LA to catch bootleg DVD vendors. No comment necessary. Located here to be precise.

Oh great, a 'Minnesota court takes dim view of encryption' as they rule that having PGP software on your computer can be seen as part of malicious intent, in this case against some kiddie porn guy.

Your misc blogs: brainwagon.org , mckinneysucks (discontinued since last January, and I don't agree, but it's funny) freedomhater, israelpundit, neocon-insanity, Sabbah's blog. It's the info age and it's all gravy.

Technorati Tags: cia, google, minnesota, encryption, rap, warspying

Lebanon, local music, peak oil, Star Wars and the Rat Race

The funniest thing to come through lately came from Dan Schwartz, the "Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries," such as the Communist Manifesto, Chairman Mao's little Red Book, the Kinsey Report, the Feminine Mystique, and why not, Nietzsche and Keynes. Those fine people at Human Events, a batty rightwing journal, have done it again with their panel of righteous judges. Darwin, Mill, Nader, Gramsci and Adorno were also noted as dangerous writers.

Lebanon: Robert Mayer on PubliusPundit.com has a good summary of the complexity of Lebanese electoral politics. I am a little sketched out by the wave of 'pro-democracy' talk purportedly coming from Lebanon, but nonetheless I like the picture at the top of their site because like mine it features riot police and people showing the victory sign. Also reported on the voting. Not sure who Mayer is or what his political orientation is. ok.

So something about the filibuster: FilibusterFrist.com hails the compromise as a victory. When discussing the vote, an anchor at FOX was caught referring to the Republican Party as "we" (see the FOX Freudian slip in a Movie!) James Dobson calls down hellfire.

Random blog: Security Awareness, angry about something in OS X.

Local Music: A friend of mine named Dave is starting up a record label called The Firm Records. He's working with his friend Jared to get an album released under the name "The Beckoning." You can hear some cuts on their site.

Media makes me cry: A Pie Fight that you can edit yourself on a site promoting "The Real Gilligan's Island." I don't understand what the hell this is.

Piss-Off-Nixon Dept. Deep Throat is out and about in his walker. It is marvelous to hear G Gordon Liddy and Patty Pat Buchanan tell us about what a bad deed it was to harm that paragon of virtue Richard Nixon. On a somewhat related topic, the intelligence analysts responsible for the aluminum tube nonsense got rewarded! Of course, people made fun of this. Who will be the deep throat for this Pentagon? Does Karen Kwiatkowski have to do everything around here?

Misc: A Republican congressman attacks Bill Maher. Shocking. "What a social security deal might look like." The left's fear of money?

Stand at the Apocalypse: Who knows what's happening with Bolton? Steve Clemons at TheWashingtonNote.com. Sen. Reid comments on it. But of course, we still got Jesse Helms: ""John Bolton is the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon, if it should be my lot to be on hand for what is forecast to be the final battle between good and evil in this world."

Peak oil: There's a lot about the Peak Oil problem from Kevin Drum at WashingtonMonthly.com. This Matthew Simmons character is some sort of expert as featured in this Agonist post (or this one).

GWOT Part III... Oh great, the lens of the War On Terror is going to be widened, because, believe-it-or-not, Al Qaeda is not really a concrete organization and there are many other people the government would like to kill. Apparently Bush's top terrorism advisor is named Frances Fragos Townsend. Sounds like an alias. Thomas Friedman says "Just Shut it Down" as Guantanamo is rapidly corroding America's values and generating legions of people who hate us even more for our crazy policies.

...but Part II isn't over! The vaunted "Operation Lightning" that coincided with Memorial Day is not getting a lot done. Raimondo has a funny column about his confrontation with Nancy Pelosi, the winged goddess of victory. Of course she is caught up in trying to appear mega-Super Tough in the War Against Evil, and this is leading to a certain moral erosion... And don't forget her exciting speech to AIPAC!

We need whistle-blowers: It is said that Coleen Rowley, the Minneapolis FBI agent who performed some painful whistleblowing upon the FBI, may run for Congress in Minnesota against the rightwinger John Kline, most well known for being trustworthy enough to carry the nuclear launch codes at some point in his military career. Sibel Edmonds has a strange case, the translator who tried to stop craziness inside the Department of Justice at least has herself a website.

Star Wars projects into the Real World: A whole freakin lot of people commented on how Star Wars fits into the national debate. Orson Scott Card of the "Ender's Game" sci-fi series commented that Jedi-ism is not a very good religion: "in the new movie, the knights are elitist, dictatorial, and unconvinced that good is an absolute." (although he is surprisingly anti-media as well) I don't really feel like writing more on this subject now, even though I went to go see the movie a second time with Cheng Diggity last night.

Rat Race Status: This NY Times article about how people chase elusive class status symbols in America today really hit home for me. Alison sent it to me, noting its connection to what we learned about Marcuse's theories of the one-dimensional man, propelled by the false needs of a society designed to appear as if it catered to his every desire, while actually trapping him. A related very interesting "info Marxist" column by the generally senile Mr. Brooks. At the least, this proves that neo-cons are still old leftists.

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle. Freeman and slave, lord and serf, capitalist and proletariat, in a word oppressor and oppressed, stand in opposition to each other and carry on a constant fight. In the information age, in which knowledge is power and money, the class struggle is fought between the educated elite and the undereducated masses.

The information age elite exercises artful dominion of the means of production, the education system.
[.....]

The information society is the only society in which false consciousness is at the top. For it is an iron rule of any university that the higher the tuition and more exclusive the admissions, the more loudly the denizens profess their solidarity with the oppressed. The more they objectively serve the right, the more they articulate the views of the left.

Periodically members of this oppressor class hold mock elections. The Yale-educated scion of the Bush family may face the Yale-educated scion of the Winthrop family. They divide into Republicans and Democrats and argue over everything except the source of their power: the intellectual stratification of society achieved through the means of education.

More than the Roman emperors, more than the industrial robber barons, the malefactors of the educated class seek not only to dominate the working class, but to decimate it. For 30 years they have presided over failing schools without fundamentally transforming them. They have imposed a public morality that affords maximum sexual opportunity for themselves and guarantees maximum domestic chaos for those lower down.

EU at an end?!

The French and Dutch resoundingly rejected the European Union Constitution, a baffling document of about 400 parts. The Union is in Crisis and the Trade Federation and its droid army are lookin for trouble. Anger spreads. Chirac looks like a caricature of himself. Looking over this document, I think I found a snag that your everyday European nationalist finds objectionable:

Article II-15: Freedom to choose an occupation and right to engage in work
1. Everyone has the right to engage in work and to pursue a freely chosen or accepted occupation.
2. Every citizen of the Union has the freedom to seek employment, to work, to exercise the right of establishment and to provide services in any Member State.
3. Nationals of third countries who are authorised to work in the territories of the Member States are entitled to working conditions equivalent to those of citizens of the Union.

And so essentially the French don't want Turkish Muslims to be able to move into their country in huge numbers, shocking as that may be. European nationalism is still a Potent Force to Contend With, even in the 21st century. I got a email from Stratfor.com about the very subject:

[The growing hostility to EU unity] is a dramatic shift in Europe. During the 1990s, the emergence of a transnational European state appeared to be a foregone conclusion. The introduction of the euro seemed to make this inevitable. The new currency made it possible to place control of Europe's money supply in the hands of a transnational central bank. It made little sense to have a European currency without a European state -- it was like wearing a tie without a shirt. Therefore, since at least part of Europe accept the euro with relative ease, it appeared to follow that the framing document -- a constitution -- would readily follow.

But there is a huge difference in the ways political systems function in relatively prosperous times and in more austere times. Things that are acceptable when the economy is healthy become less tolerable -- or intolerable -- when the economy is weak. This does not mean that the primary issue is economic. The chief obstacle to an EU constitution in France and elsewhere is political and social -- it is the unwillingness to abandon sovereignty. This sensibility is always there, but it is activated when the political ambitions of the new regime interact with hard times. This is doubly the case when people believe that their own problems and votes might have no bearing on the actions or policies of the new political system.

This dilemma is symbolized by the nature of the new constitution -- it is 300 pages long. A constitution must define the regime. It must define institutions and the limits on those institutions. It must define individual rights and, in a federal system, the rights of nonfederal governments. Above all, it must be terse. The more complex it is, the less the ordinary citizen can trust it.

A 300-page constitution, by dint of its very size, sums up the first problem facing Europe: The EU is governed by a bureaucracy whose ways cannot be understood by ordinary citizens, and which does not intend itself to be understood. It is therefore not trusted. A second problem is that the constitution is made up of a series of staggeringly complex compromises that defy clear understanding. If American constitutional law is complex, European constitutional law, as written, is beyond comprehension, let alone debate.

The voters simply don't know what they are voting for. Even if they did favor the principle of European unification, no one really knows, under this constitution, precisely what they would be committing to. This is not a solvable problem. The complexity is inevitable. It derives from an understanding of Europe that relies on specialists rather than citizen-politicians, and an uneasiness among nations that has resulted in a compromise of bewildering complexity. The Europeans either have an incomprehensible constitution, or they have no chance of agreeing on one at all.

Beneath the complexity of the task lies politics.

There were two reasons for creating the EU. The first was to build institutions that would prevent a fourth war between France and Germany. The catastrophic record of European statesmanship created the impulse to tie the hands of European politicians by creating overarching institutions. In other words, transnationalism was designed to overcome Europe's ruinous nationalism.

Second, the European Union, and the European Community before it, were designed to facilitate European prosperity. It was reasonably assumed that a Europe without protectionist barriers would do better than a Europe fragmented into multiple, exclusionary markets. On this level, the EU had a purely utilitarian goal: It was designed for economic ends, and the only justification for its existence was how readily it achieved those ends and how universally it could distribute those benefits across national lines. The European Union was designed to allow Europe to be competitive in the global marketplace.

Preventing war and generating prosperity are not trivial goals, but they lack the moral drive possessed by the great revolutionary regimes -- France, the United States, the Soviet Union. What binds the EU together is a dream of peace and prosperity. One might argue that this is a more reasonable goal than "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite." But it is also judged by a different standard: It is possible to sacrifice all to "Workers of the World Unite" or "We hold these truths to be self-evident ." But a regime founded on the principles of safety and prosperity cannot demand sacrifice that threatens either. The idea of a united Europe is not a moral project -- it is a mutually beneficial contract that has no moral hold once those benefits are no longer safeguarded.

This gives the idea of Europe a fundamental fragility. A political system that has no basis on which to justify hardship cannot endure hardship, and hardship is the one certainty that comes to all regimes. In this immediate case, Europe -- or at least France, Germany and Italy, the center of gravity of Europe -- is in serious economic trouble. Growth has slowed to only 1.5 percent per year while unemployment has climbed into the double digits. For these three countries, the EU model is simply not delivering on prosperity.
[....]
The reason [for French opposition] has to do with the first goal of the European system -- security. The old threat to security was a continuation of Europe's wars. But now a new threat -- immigration -- is perceived. Immigration appears threatening on two levels: Economically, it increases competition for jobs; socially, it increases diversity. From an economist's point of view, job competition increases efficiency, while social diversity is a non-quantifiable irrelevancy. They miss the point, to say the least.
[.....]
There is a deeper level to this. France is France. France was very happy to go to Algeria and declare it "France." Its people have been much less happy to have Algerians come to France and declare it "Algeria." Whatever the irony of it, France is changing demographically, with the inevitable result that many French -- particularly those outside the corporate elite -- don't want their country to change. Even more to the point, some feel that they are losing control of their country to immigrants, and that they no longer have the sovereign right to determine the kind of society they will have.

The EU constitution institutionalizes that powerlessness. The doctrines embedded in the EU recognize the right of immigration from one country to another: Once you have citizenship somewhere, you have the right to go anywhere within the union. This might make sense from an economist's view of labor markets, but it means that France no longer controls its fate. When Turkey enters the EU, the perception is, an avalanche of Muslim immigrants will sweep France, and the European government's bureaucrats will celebrate the shift instead of stopping it. The guarantees of security are being kept in preventing nation-states from fighting, but not -- it is perceived -- in protecting the traditional way of life in France and other countries.

...The deeper issue is sovereignty. The government of France is asking its people essentially to transfer major elements of sovereignty to a state that France cannot control. The French do not see a common identity with the rest of Europe, and the rest of Europe does not see a common identity with France. The EU is rooted in an alliance of convenience that is rapidly becoming inconvenient.

Well hopefully the Illuminati at Stratfor will not be too furious that i pulled a major quote out. Oh well. It's the information age and if you aren't pissing off a private intelligence corporation, what are you really getting done?

Consider this libertarian argument about the decline of centralized power structures:

The top-down, command-and-control machinery of state power has run head-on into the forces of spontaneity and autonomy that are life’s processes. Vertical systems of centralized power are being replaced by horizontal patterns of interconnectedness. Coercion is giving way to cooperation; the pyramid is collapsing into networks; Ozymandias’ rigid structures are eroding into formless but flexible systems, with names such as "Google," "Yahoo," "WebCrawler" and "Mozilla," that mock the solemnity we once gave to the dying forms.

Efforts to understand the dynamics underlying transformations in our world have produced the studies known as "chaos" and "complexity." Along with earlier theories of quantum mechanics, the mechanistic and reductionist model of society as a "giant clockwork" to be directed by state authorities toward desired and predictable ends, has been dealt a fatal blow. We now have ideas to help us enunciate what we earlier knew intuitively, namely, that a complex world is too unpredictable to become subject to state planning; that social conflict and disorder are the necessary consequences of interfering with spontaneous systems of order.

Decades before "chaos theory" became a popular buzzword, the late Leopold Kohr had an insight into how the increased size of political systems correlated with the expansion of warfare and repression. In his book, The Breakdown of Nations, Kohr developed what he called the "size theory of social misery." In his view, "wherever something is wrong, something is too big." It is inevitable, he goes on, for large state systems to "sweep up [a] critical quantity of power" where "the mass becomes so spontaneously vile that . . . it begins to produce a quantum of its own." A reading of both Kohr and Randolph Bourne flesh out the dynamics that led the latter to observe that "war is the health of the state."

Our biological history should have informed us of the allometric principle that the appropriate size of any body is relative to the nature of the organism. A fifty-foot tall woman may make for amusing science fiction, but an eight foot, eleven inch Robert Wadlow was unable to live beyond his twenty-second year. Likewise, the massive size of the dinosaurs did not provide them sufficient resiliency to adapt to the environmental changes brought about, presumably, by the earth’s collision with a comet. In Kohr’s words, "[o]nly relatively small bodies . . . have stability. Below a certain size, everything fuses, joins, or accumulates. But beyond a certain size, everything collapses or explodes."

A European Union is a futile effort on the part of the established, institutional order to resist the changes that are dismantling its power structures. In much the same way that the Bush administration’s empire-motivated "war on terror" is a cover for trying to shore up the collapsing foundations of a centrally-managed society, the EU may be the last hurrah of men and women who are driven by unquenched appetites for power over others.

Technorati Tags: EU

AIPAC, Uzbekistan and other ordinary people

Stayed up late watching WarGames. WOPR always manages to figure out the Nuclear Codes, and somehow that Matthew Broderick convinces it to transcend its boundaries and comprehend the futility of nuclear war. If only things went so well in Washington today... The Experts are Really Confused about what's going on.

Our Macalester news story in the Pioneer Press. Not 100% accurate. Can't say more.

The WaPo finally tackles the British Intelligence "fixed around the policy" story which hey, Hongpong (and a zillion other sites) brought you sooner than the Mass Media. George Galloway hates on our favorite Norm Coleman.

The elections in Iraq maybe made it worse. For your shot of fatalism consider this argument: let the Shiite death squads run amok. Why not? It makes about as much sense as anything else... Keep readin Juan Cole. Sunnis hint at peace terms.

The Bolton thing really bit them in the ass. No endorsement. Voinovich's passionate statement against Bolton. Crazy brave. Brownstein on how it is playing out inside the GOP. Steve Clemons is a key guy against all this, he wrote a piece and runs the TheWashingtonNote.com, worth watching:

Whereas much of the support for Bolton has had the veneer of being about United Nations reform, what Bolton proponents really want is a ferocious show-down with Iran and North Korea through the United Nations -- not because the U.N. is a good venue for such a battle but because the weaknesses of the U.N. and the problem of getting Security Council unity behind resolutions may allow Bolton to kick apart the institution.

Another news bit.

Newsweek apologizes for the Koran toilet paper thing that set off fatal riots.

Worth looking at this major Agonist post about Franklin and the AIPAC case.

Where is the corporate cash going to paper over global warming?

Something crazy is happening around the Ferghana Valley (PDF) in Central Asia. One thought on it. Good background reading.

The Bush-Bolton Plan to Bomb Bushehr [Iran] by Jude Wanniski

A service I haven't seen before, the NY Times Link Generator for your blogging needs.

I am suddenly getting German spam to news links I can't read. Why did they send me this?

Britain on the Iraq intel: "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy"

Sorry I haven't written lately. It's the last weekend of college & I just have a couple more little papers left to do. Meanwhile in the real world, it turns out that the British were Quite Annoyed about how the U.S. was trying to justify the war. They say straight up, regarding Iraq, that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Apparently Blair does not deny the truth of the document. Well, that moves the story forward a wee bit, doesn't it? There should be a Black Adder episode about this... "What Ho, Black Adder?" "The Americans are making shit up again! They want the oil!"

SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY

DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02

cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell

IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY

Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.

This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.

John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.

The two broad US options were:

(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).

(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.

The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also important, but less vital. The three main options for UK involvement were:

(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF squadrons.

(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in addition.

(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to 40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern Iraq entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.

The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.

The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.

The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.

On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.

For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.

The Foreign Secretary thought the US would not go ahead with a military plan unless convinced that it was a winning strategy. On this, US and UK interests converged. But on the political strategy, there could be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the ultimatum. Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN.

John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real.

The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.

Conclusions:

(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action. But we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take any firm decisions. CDS should tell the US military that we were considering a range of options.

(b) The Prime Minister would revert on the question of whether funds could be spent in preparation for this operation.

(c) CDS would send the Prime Minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week.

(d) The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam.

He would also send the Prime Minister advice on the positions of countries in the region especially Turkey, and of the key EU member states.

(e) John Scarlett would send the Prime Minister a full intelligence update.

(f) We must not ignore the legal issues: the Attorney-General would consider legal advice with FCO/MOD legal advisers.

(I have written separately to commission this follow-up work.)

MATTHEW RYCROFT

(Rycroft was a Downing Street foreign policy aide)

John Bolton is fux0red

Read this: "Is John Bolton Going Down? An amazing afternoon at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. By Fred Kaplan"

you can download the most unlikely video of the committee hearing that halted Bolton's march. NY Times reports. Reuters. Agonist.org Bolton Watch thread.

Wow, yesterday was an unexpected political victory for the "reality-based community" as somehow Republican Senator Voinovich from Ohio (something of a maverick) said he wouldn't vote to get John Bolton out of his nominating committee. This came out of the blue and apparently surprised everyone. Now there are three more weeks to accumulate nasty information about Bolton and his radical duplicitousness, and I'd say he's probably toast.

This is without a doubt the first major public setback the neoconservative clique has had since the election. Aside from the harm to Bolton's reputation, his little trial is causing all sorts of well-cemented lies about the war (and WMD lies, in particular the Niger case) to slide apart. This could go very far, and there is quite a bit of energy suddenly floating around. It seems possible that moderate Republicans see a need to push back against DeLay-Bolton-style embarassingly corrupt petulance and bullying, let alone their many crimes and pathological lying.

The long-awaited Return of the Establishment Conservatives may be at hand, and the Great Battle of RightWing ThinkTankery may yet unfold. Perhaps Lewis Libby will go to jail after an opportune leak about the Valerie Plame CIA case, perhaps Cheney will have to resign. As the Republicans seem to be agitated like a tank of hungry piranhas, and the Lame Duck air that Bush reeked of back in 2001 has returned with force.

Washington Post: "Bolton often blocked information, officials say", somewhat related "The Neocons' Unabashed Reversal" by Michael Kinsley. A tidbit about Bolton lying about Cuba.

I have bumped into some nice blogs about the subject, some new, some not. Democracy Arsenal, Washington Note is totally essential, Obsidian Wings, War and Piece, Arms Control Wonk, Stygius, Mattie Yglesias, Juan Cole, hey why not CounterPunch?

Slate on some specific allegations:

The allegations were made by at least seven officials who have been interviewed by the committee staff (and leaked or otherwise provided to the press) as well as, in a public hearing, by Carl Ford, a conservative Republican and career intelligence official who, until recently, was assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research. They boil down to these: On at least five occasions, Bolton intimidated and tried to get fired intelligence analysts at the State Department and the CIA who disagreed with his views. A former official with the U.S. Agency for International Development wrote a letter to the committee stating that during one run-in with Bolton, while she was working on projects in Kyrgyzstan, he harassed her in a Moscow hotel lobby, banged on her door, then went to Kyrgyzstan and spread lies about her—saying she was being investigated for absconding with government funds—that nearly derailed her work. Several officials have claimed, though anonymously for now, that Bolton blocked official documents about Iran from moving up the chain of command to Colin Powell.

During his hearings, Bolton was asked about some of these matters. He said that he'd asked for the reassignment of one intelligence analyst not because of a dispute over substance but because the analyst had gone behind his back. This claim has been thoroughly rebutted by several witnesses, who affirm that the dispute was over substantive intelligence analysis. A small but telling lie: When Biden asked Bolton whether he personally drove out to CIA headquarters to pressure one high-ranking official to fire the national intelligence officer for Latin American affairs, Bolton said that he'd gone there mainly to ask about intelligence procedures and that he drove there on his way home from work—it was no special trip. Biden said today that he'd since received Bolton's logs for that day. It turned out he made the trip in the morning, then came back to the State Department for a full day's work.

On a totally unrelated note, the George W. Bush conspiracy generator is awesome. It gave me "George W. Bush lowered taxes so that big corporations could oppress transgendered people."

Other stuff: More about oil-for-food, the real deal. That weird fake hostage thing shows sectarian tension growing. FT: Sunni Arabs face dilemma. Shiite bloc plans purge of Saddam-era officials. BBC: "Iraq militias 'could beat rebels'". A Hole in Bush's Exit Strategy (interesting stuff about Privatized Military Firms SAIC etc) Cockburn: "Iraqi Peace in Tatters". Is God taking sides in Iraq?

Fear and loathing with Republicans.

Israel's Military "Justice" system in occupied territories.

What the fuck are these Minutemen, really?

More stories of the fake intelligence and John "the Moustache" Bolton

Well Mr Bolton is winding his way through Washington and things look more dicey than many expected. He will probably get in, and go on to start Armageddon sometime this summer, but at least his nomination caused some mostly hidden contradictions about how we went to war in Iraq to burble up in Washington. It's pretty widely known that Bolton was an essential part of the war scheme.

I have returned yet again to the questions of Chalabi and fake intelligence that enabled the drive to war. The interview with a former CIA officer, Vincent Cannistaro basically describes the process of how the U.S. convinced itself to invade Iraq as an instance where the intelligence process went in "reverse," and various obviously false stories were pushed along at just the right moments and places through the system. (he also said that the Niger forgeries were manufactured in the U.S.)

I want to put huge chunks of this in, because it involves the closest details of how the members of Congress were wrongfully persuaded to support the war:

...there was an awful lot of so-called information coming from Iraqi exiles, primarily Ahmed Chalabi’s INC—the Iraqi National Congress. And that seemed to have a very receptive audience in some areas of the government, particularly at the Defense Department and at the vice president’s office. These were reports that tended to support the preconception of the administration that Saddam Hussein needed to be gotten rid of, and the primary reason for doing that was that he was in imminent possession of weapons of mass destruction, which could be turned against the United States of America or its allies.

So in that kind of environment — where there’s a tremendous policy need for information and you don’t have a great deal of source information that’s proprietary — then that’s how information that seems to be comprehensive, coming in from a foreign source, is overemphasized.
[.....]
The interesting thing to me is that the only DIA analyst who ever met with Curveball — who went to Germany and was given access to him — came back with an assessment which was very, very negative.

The problem was: what happened to his assessment? It didn’t get reported up through the senior levels of DIA — and therefore it didn’t get disseminated to CIA — until the Germans were directly queried by CIA on Curveball. That’s when they said, “Look this guy may be a fabricator, don’t trust any of his information.” His information had already gotten into the system, because it had been disseminated by the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. And it had been distributed through our government, where of course in some sectors — particularly the Defense Department policymakers civilian policy makers and at the vice president’s office — it found an extremely receptive audience.

It was believed because it fit the preconceptions of those policy makers. Now, why did the CIA — which ultimately was responsible for putting the National Intelligence Estimate together in 2002, which was the most critical assessment of any intelligence report that the U.S. government has to offer — put the information in there and play a part in its key judgment of alleged WMD programs by Saddam Hussein? And that’s the question which is still not answered. We do know that some of the analysts at CIA were very suspicious of the Curveball information, as well as information provided by other so-called Iraqi defectors in exile. But that information, that assessment, was reported up through the chain of command at CIA, but apparently nothing was done about it.
[.....]
...the point is that it’s being taken as conventional wisdom that there really wasn’t any pressure by policy makers on the analytical process itself. And that’s just simply not true. It’s simply not true because analysts, generally, are like anyone else. They are concerned about their careers, their futures. Many of them are ambitious. If they understand that a dissenting opinion against the conventional policy wisdom is heard, that it’s going to affect their careers. There was a chilled environment in which to express any kind of opposite opinion.

Not only that, there wasn’t very much of a receptiveness at the senior levels of the CIA — at George Tenet’s level, for example, because he was a very political director. And he was very concerned about getting along with the administration. He was formerly a Democrat, appointed by a Democratic President and he had to stay on in a Republican administration. And he had to compete with a secretary of defense, Rumsfeld, who really didn’t want the CIA playing a large role in the intelligence community, and wanted to supplant that role. So, George had a more political bent. He wanted to get along, and therefore he had to play along. And “playing along” really meant to sustain the conceptions of the policy makers — particularly at the Pentagon and the vice president’s office — that Saddam Hussein was a real and imminent danger.

To do that, you had to accept some of these alarming reports that kept coming in, being fed by Ahmed Chalabi and his INC group. In many cases, the information was fabricated. Information, for example, about an alleged attempt by Saddam Hussein to acquire nuclear material, uranium, from Niger. This, we know now, was all based on fabricated documents. But it’s not clear yet — either from this report, or from any other report — who fabricated the documents.

The documents were fabricated by supporters of the policy in the United States. The policy being that you had to invade Iraq in order to get rid of Saddam Hussein, and you had to do it soon to avoid the catastrophe that would be produced by Saddam Hussein’s use of alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Q: Well, Ambassador Wilson publicly refuted the claims — particularly the 16 words in the President’s State of the Union address that the Iraqis were trying to buy significant quantities of uranium from Niger. That document, I understand, was fabricated ... it originally came out of Italian intelligence, I think SISME, or SISDE—I’m not sure which one.

It was SISME, yeah. ... [D]uring the two-thousands when we’re talking about acquiring information on Iraq. It isn’t that anyone had a good source on Iraq—there weren’t any good sources. The Italian intelligence service, the military intelligence service, was acquiring information that was really being hand-fed to them by very dubious sources. The Niger documents, for example, which apparently were produced in the United States, yet were funneled through the Italians.

Q: Do we know who produced those documents? Because there’s some suspicion ...

I think I do, but I’d rather not speak about it right now, because I don’t think it’s a proven case...

Q: If I said “Michael Ledeen”?

You’d be very close . . .

The great thing about John Bolton is that he was a key element of the scheme, as he managed to Box In Colin Powell.

Here's a great post from Antiwar.com which sums up a great deal of the story. Also interesting is the claim that the famous Curveball was in fact the brother of one of Chalabi's top aides.

The stroke of genius was to put Bolton into the "Arms Control" undersecretary slot, where he could make hell for Colin Powell, going over him and behind his back, intimidating the segment of analysts who correctly believed that the WMD stuff (needed to build up the imaginary threat from Saddam Hussein) was really, truly fake.

Bolton also seems to be an enthusiast about using the weird MEK matriarch cult/terrorist organization/something-or-other, which opposes the Iranian government, as an instrument to bring them down. (via the well named armscontrolwonk.com) StopBolton.org, yet another website dedicated to an impossible cause. (informative agonist.org news thread about Bolton)

So it seems that Bolton may have caused State Dept. employees to lie to Congress about where the WMD discrepancies came from. (Steve Clemons on the Washington Note is All About This) The Great Niger Uranium forgery returns to play a role, it seems. Rep. Henry Waxman (D) wrote a letter about this (PDF):

Concealment of a State Department Official's Role in the Niger Uranium Claim
In April 2004, the State Department used the designation "sensitive but unclassified" to conceal unclassified information about the role of John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control, in the creation of a fact sheet distributed to the United Nations that falsely claimed Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.

On December 19, 2002, the State Department issued a fact sheet entitled "Illustrative Examples of Omissions from the Iraqi Declaration to the United Nations Security Council." (9) The fact sheet listed eight key areas in which the Bush Administration found fault with Iraq's weapons declaration to the United Nations on December 7, 2002. Under the heading "Nuclear Weapons," the fact sheet stated:

The Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger.
Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?

It was later discovered that this claim was based on fabricated documents. (10) In addition, both State Department intelligence officials and CIA officials reported that they had rejected the claim as unreliable. (11) As a result, it was unclear who within the State Department was involved in preparing the fact sheet.

On July 21, 2003, I wrote to Secretary of State Colin Powell, asking for an explanation of the role of John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, in creating the document. (12) On September 25, 2003, the State Department responded with a definitive denial: "Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, John R. Bolton, did not play a role in the creation of this document." (13)

Subsequently, however, I joined six other members of the Government Reform Committee in requesting from the State Department Inspector General a copy of an unclassified "chronology" on how the fact sheet was developed. (14) This chronology described a meeting on December 18, 2002, between Secretary Powell, Mr. Bolton, and Richard Boucher, the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Public Affairs. According to this chronology, Mr. Boucher specifically asked Mr. Bolton "for help developing a response to Iraq's Dec 7 Declaration to the United Nations Security Council that could be used with the press. According to the chronology, which is phrased in the present tense, Mr. Bolton "agrees and tasks the Bureau of Nonproliferation," a subordinate office that reports directly to Mr. Bolton, to conduct the work.

This unclassified chronology also stated that on the next day, December 19, 2003, the Bureau of Nonproliferation "sends email with the fact sheet, 'Fact Sheet Iraq Declaration.doc.'" to Mr. Bolton's office (emphasis in original). A second e-mail was sent a few minutes later, and a third e-mail was sent about an hour after that. According to the chronology, each version "still includes Niger reference." Although Mr. Bolton may not have personally drafted the document, the chronology appears to indicate that he ordered its creation and received updates on its development.

Waxman's a good guy on some important matters, and has done stuff about the famous Cheney energy task force, Halliburton and other stuff...

Bolton was also tied to some sketchy business and foreign fundraising, as well.

More about Google searches: I am happy to have the top Google result for "disinformation designed to direct the united states in a certain direction," a quote from Dr. Rashid Khalidi regarding the wild stories used to persuade Americans to support invading Iraq, from a Mac Weekly interview in October 2003:

DF: A Frontline interview with Richard Perle was published with the documentary “Truth, War and Consequences.” He talked about the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans, which reviewed intelligence on Iraq prior to the war. Perle said the office was staffed by David Wurmser, another author of the Clean Break document. Perle says that the office “began to find links that nobody else had previously understood or recorded in a useful way.” Were the neo-cons turning their ideology into intelligence data, and putting that into the government?

RK: I can give you a short answer to that which is yes. Insofar as at least two of the key arguments that they adduced, the one having to do the connection between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda, and the one having to do with unconventional weapons programs in Iraq, it is clear that the links or the things they had claimed to have found were non-existent. The wish was fathered to the reality. What they wanted was what they found.

It was not just the Office of Special Plans, or whatever. There are a lot of institutions in Washington that were devoted to putting this view forward. Among them, other parts of the bureaucracy, and the vice president’s national security staff. [....] Basically any fantasy that Chalabi's people brought in, “we have a defector who says,” was turned into gold by these folks.

We now know this stuff, with a few exceptions, to be completely and utterly false, just manufactured disinformation designed to direct the United States in a certain direction. Whether the neo-cons knew this or not is another question, but I believe Chalabi’s people knew it. I would be surprised if some of them didn’t know it.

So apparently Mr. Bolton was the man at State making the disinformation happen. That's not a great reason to send him to the UN, but it is a fabulous reason to send him to prison.

Kung Fu in Kyrgyzstan

Tonight's entry is dedicated to my favorite Roman god, Non Sequitur. We have many things to note.

The Montana House resoundingly confirmed a resolution disparaging the Patriot Act as Fascist Horse Manure. (via Eschaton)

Prince Charles is an ill tempered hemorrhoid of a heir.

Misc links: Did anyone notice that the famous The Blogging of the President bopnews.com needs to update all this '2004' crap they have written all over. HongPong.com started going in 2001 but I'm not still obsessed with high school... Taegan Goddard's PoliticalWire.com, interesting stuff... American Constitution Society has a fancy lookin blog with all sorts of ongoing legal news, and in particular some good thoughts about the Schiavo case and federalism:

...the Schiavo case reveals the true priorities of the right: they are happy to abandon the principles of federalism if the issue is related to questions of "life." But if they are willing to cast aside federalism in the Schiavo case, won't they be willing to do the same in the context of abortion? And if they are, won't that inevitably lead to attempts to pass federal legislation banning abortion?

There is a big deal going on regarding how political contributions via websites should fit into the FEC regulations. Info @ redstate.org. Behold pretentious blog of rightwing Robert Kaplan supporters. This is why Kaplan and his pagan ways make him a bastard.(Hey, they use WordPress, which probably works better than this system).

Gonna have to get me a gravatar. In here is the very best picture to come out of the Terri Schiavo circus (this one). A more moderate Republican dared asked for sanity, then they cut off his fingers. The Pope pleaded for world peace.

C-SPAN provides platform for Holocaust denier to badger author??

MOONIES! John Gorenfeld takes it upon himself to look out for the good Reverend Moon and his Unification Church's ongoing efforts to destroy America and bring that special blend of Korean Neo-Jonestown Messianism to us all... Scrap Democracy! The Evil Elliot Abrams will speak at your functions! I believe Gorenfeld was the one who found out about that crazy crowning ceremony when good ol Moon told us he was the Messiah. That's Washington for ya!

These links should have been in the last post: A little more about the White Supremacists getting ignored by the Department of Homeland Security, as I mentioned earlier. And a little More about Team B in the late 1970s using fake information to support hawkishness...

Kyrgyzstan revolution: it seems like another mess on Afghanistan's doorstep, rather than one of these glossy color coded revolutions intended to provide a jolly narrative for the Folks Back Home. Most of these are sugarcoated, like Ukraine's Yuschenko, for example, is portrayed as a Hero of Democracy rather than someone who embezzled vast sums from the IMF.

In Kyrgyzstan, a poor country that lacks even a spellcheck entry on my computer, is one of these rather authoritarian (post-Stalinist?) Central Asian republics, overrun with heroin smuggling operations and the Russian mob. This article from March 1 describes the local "managed democracy" (ie rigged systems) that the former president, Akayev, couldn't quite rig enough to Inspire Confidence. Oddly enough, some people say that Kung Fu was responsible for this turn of events:

KARA SUU, Kyrgyzstan (AFP) - Many say people power brought down the regime in Kyrgyzstan last week. But Bayaman Erkinbayev, a lawmaker, martial arts champ and one of the Central Asian nation's richest men, says it was his small army of Kung Fu-style fighters.

In southern Kyrgyzstan, where the protests that brought down the Askar Akayev's 15-year regime first flared, the name of 37-year-old Erkinbayev seems to be on everyone's lips. Erkinbayev is the wealthy playboy head of the Palvan Corporation, who led 2,000 fighters trained in Alysh, Kyrgyzstan's answer to Kung Fu, to protests launched after the first round of a parliamentary election on February 27.

A hero in his hometown Osh, he is generally considered to have financed the protests and sent his martial arts trainees to the front lines of the demonstrations, including in the capital Bishkek.

"When our old men were beaten and thrown out of the regional administration building, my fighters were on the front line. And during the siege in Bishkek, my fighters went in first," Erkinbayev told AFP in his gymnasium in Osh.

Iraq still rockin: The Fallujah brigades might be comin back again. Keep reading Juan Cole. Hey, who remembers how Ahmed Chalabi provided all that fake information about weapons of mass destruction in a successful effort to trick the American public into supporting an invasion? Ahh, the good old days... For that honed sense of outrage about the recent panel report on the WMD lies, consider Raimondo:

If and when the [Larry] Franklin [AIPAC-related] case finally comes to trial, the courtroom deliberations could shed new light on the question of how and why we were lied into war. It will prove in a court of law what I have long contended: that the only way to understand this shameful episode in the history of American wars is to look at the series of "mistakes" and "miscalculations" as a covert operation carried out by agents of a foreign power. Contra the WMD report, it wasn't "tunnel vision" that led to a monumental "intelligence failure" – it was treason.

Ray McGovern on the need for Honest Intelligence, regarding National Intelligence Estimates (such as those previously spoofed) etc., and of course our spotty intel on Iran. Scott Ritter says that Bush has a plan to get ready for war with Iran by June this year of our lord 2005.

Lebanon: something written in an unorthodox fashion by William Lind against the U.S. meddling about in Lebanon, and how it plays into al-Qaeda's interests if we go after Authoritarian Syria.

Israel: The Planned Chaos Of Illegal Settlements. This is very important.

Israel/Russia: Funny story about a corrupt financier named Vladimir Gusinsky and his Russian and Israeli schemes. Apparently he has some sympathy from characters like Benjamin Netanyahu... The Agonist is doing some serious reporting of its own now, kudos to them.

The Local Front for Fatal Hubris: Any criticisms of Tom DeLay and the cockroaches oozing from his mouth will be Taken Personally and Reinserted Rectally.

Something about civil war in Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran

All right, Major Things have to Happen today and I've got to set about doing them real quick-like, in preparation for the trip. Have to write midterm exam all day...

Civil war stuff further down. Turns out that the Bush Administration makes up more shit than any other presidency, ever. They use fake news broadcasts with fake reporters, distributed to TV stations, to help provide the public with a fuzzy background of "a caring get-it-done Administration". The Congressional Budget Office has considered some of this stuff potentially "covert propaganda". The NY Times had a major feature on it Sunday.

"Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.," a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security"; the reporter called it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers.

To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications.

Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production.

This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. But the administration's efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source.

Federal agencies are forthright with broadcasters about the origin of the news segments they distribute. The reports themselves, though, are designed to fit seamlessly into the typical local news broadcast. In most cases, the "reporters" are careful not to state in the segment that they work for the government. Their reports generally avoid overt ideological appeals. Instead, the government's news-making apparatus has produced a quiet drumbeat of broadcasts describing a vigilant and compassionate administration.

Some reports were produced to support the administration's most cherished policy objectives, like regime change in Iraq or Medicare reform. Others focused on less prominent matters, like the administration's efforts to offer free after-school tutoring, its campaign to curb childhood obesity, its initiatives to preserve forests and wetlands, its plans to fight computer viruses, even its attempts to fight holiday drunken driving. They often feature "interviews" with senior administration officials in which questions are scripted and answers rehearsed. Critics, though, are excluded, as are any hints of mismanagement, waste or controversy.

Some of the segments were broadcast in some of nation's largest television markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta.

All right other stuff, quickly. Stratfor says that John Bolton is not such a horror for the UN post, and of course I disagree because he is A) batshit crazy B) antagonizes people purely for symbolic value C) incredibly dishonest and dangerous.

In fact, there is some extremely deep diplomacy going on here. Bolton belongs to the "put-up-or-shut-up" branch of American neocons, believing that the United Nation's original charter prescribed a much more activist organization -- where resolutions would be strengthened by possible consequences if violated, often including the use of force. In Bolton's mind, the Korean War is precisely the type of military action the United Nations was designed to authorize and carry out.

This is, needless to say, very different from the circumstances surrounding the Iraq war of 2003 -- in which the Bush administration, we believe, hoped that the United Nations would not go along with U.S. requests. The whole point of the war was not to oust Saddam Hussein but to intimidate Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia into acting against al Qaeda on Washington's behalf. Bush wanted to scare regimes that supported or enabled al Qaeda by placing uninvited, unsanctioned American armored divisions -- not a sea of polite blue helmets -- in the sands of Iraq.
[.....]
Had the administration simply wanted to destroy the United Nations, it would have appointed someone far less controversial and independent-minded who would simply rubber-veto U.N. Security Council resolutions ad nauseam. As Bush pointed out during his first term, the United Nations is relevant only if it takes steps to enforce its own dictates.

Bolton feels the same way. He believes the U.N. system is not necessarily irredeemable, but simply discredited. Rather conveniently, he has two ready-made test cases waiting: North Korea has withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty while Iran is, at best, attempting to skirt the IAEA on technical grounds. In effect, both states have -- in the eyes of the United Nations -- placed themselves outside of the system, and are therefore squarely in what Bolton and his neocon circle feel are the United Nations' crosshairs. Bolton's task will be to get the United Nations to act against them -- not for American interests, but to prevent the United Nations from sliding into total irrelevance.

In the four years to come, the United Nations is likely to have several "legitimate" targets, from the neocons' point of view. In his second term, Bush seems committed to finishing the work not just of his first administration, but of the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations as well. The White House has made no secret of goals that include not only tying up the final loose ends of the Cold War and completing the rollback of Russian power, but also of extending that geopolitical effort to Communist East Asia and the Middle East.

I don't buy it. Ok. Also a former US soldier, Nadim Abou Rabeh, claims that the U.S. faked the news of Saddam's capture on Dec. 13, 2003, and he was actually captured by Rabeh and others somewhere totally different on Dec. 12. Justin Raimondo speculates on whether this is true, and the upcoming demonization of Bashar Assad as the next-worst-thing-to-Hitler. He also has a bit about how the Neo-cons have been chased out of one of their periodical redoubts, National Journal.

The pro-Syrian govt in Lebanon is back in the saddle. Experts warn that the War on Terror (TM) is going to make more terrorists. Apparently the U.S. is finally ready to acknowledge that Hezbollah has a key role to play in Lebanon. We just don't have the traction to play the stupid demonization card anymore.

Speaking of liars around Bush, a bit by David Corn about the bad old days of massacres in El Salvador, and Elliot Abrams lying to Congress to cover it up. These days are going to be here again, with people like him and Negroponte running around. Dowd points out that these 'security-minded' bastards are not really that competent at security.

Oh yeah, here's some batty stuff. David Horowitz made up a site, discoverthenetwork.org, that purports to connect, say, the editors of The Nation with Zacharias Moussaui. It also shines light on the evil conspiracy that is Counterpunch.org. Nuts.

Ok finally, something about that civil war stuff. Uri Averny, an old-school Israeli peacenik, has a ton of good thoughts about what kind of mess we are getting drawn into with Lebanon and elsewhere.

Many years ago, I read a book called The Quiet American by Graham Greene. Its central character is a high-minded, naive young American operative in Vietnam. He has no idea about the complexities of that country but is determined to right its wrongs and create order. The results are disastrous.

I have the feeling that this is happening now in Lebanon. The Americans are not so high-minded and not so naive. Far from it. But they are quite prepared to go into a foreign country, disregard its complexities, and use force to impose on it order, democracy, and freedom.
[....]
Exactly 50 years ago, a secret, heated debate took place among the leaders of Israel. David Ben-Gurion (then minister of defense) and Moshe Dayan (the army chief-of-staff) had a brilliant idea: to invade Lebanon, impose on it a "Christian major" as dictator, and turn it into an Israeli protectorate. Moshe Sharett, then prime minister, attacked this idea fervently. In a lengthy, closely argued letter, which has been preserved for history, he ridiculed the total ignorance of the proponents of this idea in face of the incredibly fragile complexity of the Lebanese social structure. Any adventure, he warned, would end in disaster.

At the time, Sharett won. But 27 years later, Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon did exactly what Ben-Gurion and Dayan had proposed. The result was exactly as foreseen by Sharett.
[....]
In Lebanon, all the diverse communities are in action. Each for its own interest, each plotting to outfox the others, perhaps to attack them at a given opportunity. Some of the leaders are connected with Syria, some with Israel, all are trying to use the Americans for their ends. The jolly pictures of young demonstrators, so prominent in the media, have no meaning if one does not know the community that stands behind them.
[...]
It took us 18 years to get out of that morass. Our only achievement was to turn the Shi'ites into a dominant force. When we entered Lebanon, the Shi'ites received us with showers of rice and candies, hoping that we would throw out the Palestinians, who had been lording it over them. A few months later, when they realized that we did not intend to leave, they started to shoot at us. Sharon is the midwife of Hezbollah.
[....]
If a civil war breaks out in Lebanon, it will not be the only one in the region. In Iraq, such a war – if almost secret – is already in full swing.

The only effective military forces in Iraq, apart from the occupation army, are the Kurdish peshmerga ("those who face death"). The Americans use them whenever they are fighting the Sunnis. They played an important role in the battle of Fallujah, a big town that was totally destroyed, its inhabitants killed or driven out.

Now the Kurdish forces are waging a war against the Sunnis and Turkmens in the north of the country, in order to take hold of the oil-rich areas and the town of Kirkuk, and also to drive out the Sunni settlers who were implanted there by Saddam Hussein.

How can such a war be practically ignored by the media? Simple: everything is swept under the carpet of the "war against terrorism."

But this small war is nothing compared to what may happen in Iraq, once the time comes for deciding the future of the country. The Kurds want complete autonomy, or independence by another name. The Sunnis would not dream of accepting the rule of the Shi'ite majority, which they despise, even if it came about in the name of "democracy." The outbreak of a full-fledged civil war may only be a question of time.
[....]
If the Americans succeed, with Israel's discreet help, in breaking the ruling Syrian dictatorship, there is no assurance at all that it will be replaced by "freedom" and "democracy."

Syria is almost as splintered as Lebanon. There is a strong Druze community in the south, a rebellious Kurdish community in the north, an Alawite community (to which the Assad family belongs) in the west. The Sunni majority is traditionally divided between Damascus in the south and Aleppo in the north. The people have resigned themselves to the Assad dictatorship out of fear of what may happen if the regime collapses.

It is not likely that a full-scale civil war will break out there. But a prolonged situation of total chaos is quite likely. Sharon would be happy, though I am not sure that it would be good for Israel.
[....]
Israel is now openly threatening to bomb the Iranian nuclear installations. Every few days we see on our TV screens the digitally blurred faces of pilots boasting of their readiness to do this at a moment's notice.

The religious fervor of the ayatollahs has been flagging lately, as happens with every victorious revolution after some time. But a military attack by the "Big Satan" (the U.S.) or the "Little Satan" (us) may set fire to the whole Shi'ite crescent: Iran, south Iraq, and south Lebanon.
[....]
And here, too. Israel, too, has recently witnessed a tiny civil war.

In the Galilean village Marrar, where a Druze and an Arab Christian community have been living side by side for generations, a bloody incident suddenly erupted. It was a full-fledged pogrom: the Druze fell upon the Christians, attacking, burning, and destroying. By a miracle, nobody was killed. The Christians say that the Israeli police (many of whose members are Druze) stood aside. The immediate reason for the outbreak: some doctored nude pictures on the Internet.

Here are a couple other writings by Averny. This one is interesting but in particular please read "Israel's coming civil war," it is scary as hell. It was written back in October but it is highly relevant.

Everybody in Israel is talking about the Next War. The most popular TV channel is running a whole series about it. Not another war with the Arabs. Not the nuclear threat from Iran. Not the ongoing bloody confrontation with the Palestinians.
The talk is about the coming civil war.
[....]
The seeds of the civil war were sown when the first settlement was put up in the occupied territories. At the time, I told the prime minister in the Knesset: "You are laying a land mine. Some day you will have to dismantle it. As a former soldier, let me warn you that the dismantling of land mines is a very unpleasant job."
[...]
Many settlers do not yet say so openly and pretend to be insulted when such attitudes are attributed to them, but in fact they are dragged along by the hard core that has already thrown off all the masks. They challenge not only the policy of the government, but Israeli democracy as such. They declare openly that their aim is to overthrow the State of Law and put in its place the State of the Halakha.

A State of Law is subject to the will of the majority, which enacts the laws and amends them as necessary. The State of the Halakha is subject to the Torah, revealed once and for all on Mount Sinai and unchangeable. Only a very small number of eminent rabbis have the authority to interpret the Halakha. That is, of course, the opposite of democracy. In any other country, these people would be called fascists. The religious coloration makes no difference.

The religious-rightist rebels are powerfully motivated. Many of them believe in the Kabbala – not Madonna's fashionable Kabbala, but the real one, which says that today's secular Jews are really Amalekites who succeeded in infiltrating the People of Israel at the time of the exodus from Egypt. God Himself has commanded, as everyone knows, the eradication of Amalek from the face of the earth. Can there be a more perfect ideological basis for civil war?

In preparation for the Great Rebellion, the settlers have unveiled their potential. The most eminent rabbis of the "Religious Zionist movement" have declared that the evacuation of a settlement is a sin against God and have called upon the soldiers to refuse orders. Hundreds of rabbis, including the rabbis of the settlements and the rabbis of the religious units in the army, have joined the call.

The voice of the few opponents is being drowned out. They quote the Talmudic saying "the law of the kingdom is law," meaning that every government has to be obeyed, much as Christians are required to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, etc. But who listens to these "moderate rabbis" now?

The conquest of the army from the inside began long ago. The "arrangement" with the yeshivot (religious schools) that serve in the army as separate units has allowed the entry of a huge Trojan horse. In any confrontation between their rabbis and their army commanders, the soldiers of the "arrangement yeshivot" will obey the rabbis. Worse: for years now, the settlers have systematically penetrated the ranks of the officers' corps, where they now constitute an even more dangerous Trojan horse.
[....]
Altogether, the settlers, together with their close allies in Israel including the yeshivot students, may amount to something like half a million people – a mighty phalanx for rebellion.

Well that's a pretty serious blog post. I don't think I'll have time to add anything else. I didn't really even have time for this, but it is really important stuff to note. Everyone have a great spring break, and hopefully Mordred will offer something to us over that time....

Crackin stories and I am tired of this semester

I'm feelin pretty bleary eyed. It's been a pretty weird semester, I think you'd all agree. Nonetheless I am not as angry as I might have expected to be... The feeling I get these days is "Oh, here we go for another round of the nonsense," but for some reason, at times I feel less terrified than usual. There is a large degree of uncertainty, as usual, but things could shake out in a good way, or else catastrophically fall apart.

I am still not done with Macalester this semester, and still have not had as much time as usual to follow things, but I will lay out some things about both the voting irregularity complex and the usual war madness. Then I am going to drink.

Then I will finish things tomorrow and Tuesday. Then it will be done. Don't expect more posts till late Tuesday at the earliest, more likely Wednesday.

It seems clear that the story about the Florida programmer Clint Curtis being asked by Republican Congressman Feeney actually has some legs, although it's hard to say how conspiratorial we should view this. It still sounds like a classic case of wildly unscrupulous bastards in Florida doing horrible things. Once again, Florida didn't let us down.

THE BRAD BLOG following the election mystery has returned to its former web address, now that they have gotten a better server setup. Brad Friedman just posted a whole batch of stuff about this guy Curtis, and the coverage he has gotten. Friedman says that a major news network is snooping around the story, and there was a good story in a local Florida paper (brad's comment) as well. The Raw Story is also all over some stuff in Ohio, including the Kerry campaign, who have filed a lawsuit alleging vote tampering in an Ohio county. Also some Diebold people were recently 'calibrating' a machine before the incremental recounts were to be held in Ohio, a county official testified.

From six days ago, Bob Fitrakis on what the special hearings in Ohio... heard. Brad Blog on candidate David Cobb's Judiciary Committee Testimony which was apparently pretty dramatic. WashingtonPost.com: Several Factors Contributed to 'Lost' Voters in Ohio. Thanks, guys. The Official Kerry-Edwards Position on How to Handle the Ohio Recount, Sent to the Individual Boards of Election in the State.

The NY Times reports on it, hurray: Lawmaker Seeks Inquiry Into Ohio Vote."See also the exciting "Ohio presidential vote challenged" The AP report which first cited "dissident groups" (via MSNBC). Sweet.

So where's the big picture? I don't really know, it seems like the electoral manipulation that could have very well occurred has been legitimized by the media pretty thoroughly now, yet finally we're getting some stories that are cracking the surface.

But then, back to the regularly scheduled program, i.e. the circus of idiocy known as 'the Beltway.' One thing we have working is the purge throughout the government, which might get rid of the more incompetent neo-cons, but also will likely gut the CIA and other pockets of sane people. Either way, people are getting fired, so we will get more dirt about the internal workings of the place, and some of the really bad ones might get fired.

There is a fairly good chance that things might straighten out on the international stage before February or March. If the Iraqi elections get some kind of assembly going, they aren't all killed, and the U.S. gets the hell out of the Sunni areas, then things might simmer down before the emerging civil war cracks all the way open.

Meanwhile the Israelis see an opportunity to lock in their stolen territory right now, but they also seem reluctant to attack militarily until things shake out with Arafat's successor and the Palestinian Authority. I haven't written too much about this because it is damn hard to tell where things are shifting, and everyone is in 'wait and see' mode.

I have noticed there is a major Public Relations offensive gearing up against Syria now via that instrument of doom, the U.S. cable TV network. Besides allegations on CNN about Syrians doing things in a segment about "Inside the Insurgency," we have Dore Gold. Former Israeli ambassador to the UN Mr. Gold was on the Daily Show pimping his book "Tower of Babble," critical of the United Nations. He kept arguing that the organization has a lack of moral standards etc. etc.

Jon Stewart did his best under the circumstances (Of course, Gold's statement is ironic because of the sheer number of times that his country has been singled out by the UN, and all those times that the United States has blocked Security Council resolutions against them).

Anyhow Gold insinuated that Syria was orchestrating the insurgency and Baathists were running stuff from there... He said this retroactively proved they could not be trusted to be on the UN Security Council and uphold world peace etc. His rhetorical strategy was really good here and he managed to reverse the times of cause and effect.

On the one hand, I think it is quite probable that people and arms are going from Syria to Iraq. There are plenty of Sunni tribes that span the Levant region into Syria, and these are the people that the U.S. has decided are Morally Incorrect Terrorists to Wipe Out from the Sunni Triangle.

I think it is worth noting that the Syrians used their time at the Security Council to attempt to prevent the invasion of Iraq, even while they trafficked arms up to the last minute into Iraq. That would qualify them as fairly interested in world peace, at least in this instance. As for terrorism, after 9/11 the Syrians have supplied the CIA with crucial intelligence against Al-Qaeda, which has directly saved us from terrorist attacks. We didn't lose that intel source until the Bush folks, cajoled by the neo-con crew of the Administration (probably on the basis of false intel, as usual) turned against Syria.

I've long expected a big anti-Syria thing to happen, and it seems like the time is probably at hand. The Syrian ruling clique has long opposed political groups like the Muslim Brotherhood that support elements of Al-Qaeda's ideology. If Prez. Assad gets taken out then then the fundamentalist folks will be in a very strong position. If the U.S. keeps blowing away their cousins, then the war will spread.

One tiny thing... an old BradBlog post about the weirdness of Warren County, which had the mysterious Nov. 2 lockdown and a really really high turnout for Bush. Warren County, OH anomalous count. I'll add this to the Wiki, and the other stuff, once I finish my papers.

Blarg...Sunday homework time for pipelines

Sorry to disappoint but I can't really post anything today, except maybe late at night. The radio station is closed down for the weekend, so I don't have a show this evening. That's really a good thing because I don't have the time right now.

Today I am working on a paper about pipelines and pipeline politics. As an experiment I put together a few Wiki pages about pipelines. I have no idea if you might find these interesting, but energy politics is a real big deal so it might be worth lookin at. There is some interesting stuff about the Caspian Sea, an article by Seymour Hersh about Mobil oil doing shady things in Kazakhstan, etc. I should say that this paper is a lit review about the subject, so I'm not vouching for the accuracy of any of these materials. They are intended to provide different perspectives etc.

Also I have some stuff about pipeline plots in Afghanistan and the new deals between those old bugbears Iran and China. And The Balkans.

I am sorry I haven't updated the 'Tracking election irregularities' HongWiki page lately... It's on the list!

CIA & Bushies knew Chavez coup was coming. That's what I call democratic leadership!

I just got a few things from Dan Schwartz that I deemed interesting for a Turkey Day Spy Spectacular. Ok, not that spectacular. More of a Tryptophan National Security Adventure. First, it now seems that the Bush administration did in fact have forewarning of the coup attempt against Venezuela's Hugo Chavez in April 2002. This means that they lied about it coming out of the blue. Also, as most people don't know, the Bush administration was among very few governments to recognize the coup leaders as legitimate, until they were trapped in the Miraflores palace and deposed by Chavez's people a couple days later.

This made the Bush administration embarrassingly appear to support military coups, and it discredited them in Latin & South America. I'm sorry, Rummy and Cheney, it's not the Gerald Ford days anymore, and South American leaders you don't like can't just be hacked down. Newsday reports that a FOIA request got the info out of the CIA:

The U.S. government knew of an imminent plot to oust Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chávez, in the weeks prior to a 2002 military coup that briefly unseated him, newly released CIA documents show, despite White House claims to the contrary a week after the putsch.

Yet the United States, which depends on Venezuela for nearly one-sixth of its oil, never warned the Chávez government, Venezuelan officials said.

The Bush administration has denied it was involved in the coup or knew one was being planned. At a White House briefing on April 17, 2002, just days after the 47-hour coup, a senior administration official who did not want to be named said, "The United States did not know that there was going to be an attempt of this kind to overthrow - or to get Chávez out of power."

Yet based on the newly released CIA briefs, an analyst said yesterday that did not appear to be the case.

"This is substantive evidence that the CIA knew in advance about the coup, and it is clear that this intelligence was distributed to dozens of members of the Bush administration, giving them knowledge of coup plotting," said Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive in Washington.

However, Kornbluh said that while the documents show U.S. officials knew a coup was coming, perhaps implying tacit approval, they do not constitute proof the United States was involved in ousting Chávez, Venezuela's elected leader. That is partly because the briefs are from the intelligence side of the CIA, not the operational side.
[....]
Chávez was traveling in Spain yesterday and could not be reached for comment, although his information minister, Andres Izarra, said through a representative that his government had not yet taken a position on the documents. Tarek William Saab, a state governor and member of the president's inner circle, said the documents showed "that the United States was implicated in this coup and did nothing to stop it."

The Bush administration and Chávez, a fiery former paratrooper, have clashed repeatedly, with Chávez accusing the United States of backing the coup against him and U.S. officials denouncing his leadership as authoritarian. The United States was one of the few nations to embrace the coup initially, though it later reversed its position.

The documents were obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests submitted by Eva Golinger, a Long Island attorney and pro-Chávez activist who also is investigating U.S. funding of groups opposed to the Venezuelan leader. Golinger said she was outraged by the documents. "If they knew that a democratic government was going to be overthrown, why wouldn't they send signals to it or at least explain what was going to happen?"

The documents - called Senior Executive Security Briefs - are one level below the highest-level Presidential Daily Briefs and are circulated among about 200 top-level U.S. officials, Kornbluh said.

Chávez was arrested and overthrown on April 12, 2002, after military dissidents blamed him for violence at an opposition protest march that left 19 people dead and 300 wounded. He was returned to power two days later.

All the CIA documents were heavily censored before being released. One, dated April 6, 2002, states that "dissident military factions, including some disgruntled senior officers and a group of radical junior officers, are stepping up efforts to organize a coup against President Chávez, possibly as early as this month."
[....]
Julia Sweig, deputy director of Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank in Washington, said: "The fact that we didn't call Chávez and say, 'This is brewing,' reflects the incredible antipathy toward Chávez at that time" on the part of the Bush administration.

Attacking the 'face' of 'Satan' at Fallujah, black propaganda and "The Power of Nightmares"

Holy War: Evangelical Marines Prepare to Battle Barbarians:

With US forces massing outside Fallujah, 35 marines swayed to Christian rock music and asked Jesus Christ to protect them in what could be the biggest battle since American troops invaded Iraq last year.

Men with buzzcuts and clad in their camouflage waved their hands in the air, M-16 assault rifles beside them, and chanted heavy metal-flavoured lyrics in praise of Christ late on Friday in a yellow-brick chapel.
[....]
"You are the sovereign. You're name is holy. You are the pure spotless lamb," a female voice cried out on the loudspeakers as the marines clapped their hands and closed their eyes, reflecting on what lay ahead for them.

Between the service's electric guitar religious tunes, marines stepped up on the chapel's small stage and recited a verse of scripture, meant to fortify them for war.

One spoke of their Old Testament hero, a shepherd who would become Israel's king, battling the Philistines 3,000 years ago.

"Thus David prevailed over the Philistines," the marine said, reading from scripture, and the marines shouted back "Hoorah, King David," using their signature grunt of approval.

The marines drew parallels from the verse with their present situation, where they perceive themselves as warriors fighting barbaric men opposed to all that is good in the world.

"Victory belongs to the Lord," another young marine read.

Their chaplain, named Horne, told the worshippers they were stationed outside Fallujah to bring the Iraqis "freedom from oppression, rape, torture and murder ... We ask you God to bless us in that effort."

"American Marines attack Fallujah" via ScotlandToday:

Colonel Gary Brandl of the United States Marine Corps commented:
"The enemy has a face. It is Satan's. He is in Fallujah, and we are going to destroy him."

The Americans needed to free up hundreds of troops for this operation and the Black Watch was moved from the relatively benign Basra area to allow that to happen.

On Thursday, three soldiers died in only their second day in the area - Sergeant Stuart Gray and Privates Paul Lowe and Scott McArdle, all of whom were from Fife.

There's an interesting documentary that I found out about called "THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES: THE RISE OF THE POLITICS OF FEAR" by Adam Curtis, originally aired in late October on BBC2. You could have gotten part 1 via BitTorrent, but it seems to be gone now.

This guy made a transcript of the whole thing (Part 1 [A B], part 2 [A B] part 3 [A B]) It starts with the adventures of one Sayyed Qutb in Colorado, 1949. The writings of this guy have been highly influential in forming Sunni fundamentalist ideas. Then it flips straight over to Leo Strauss. Regardless of how you think these guys fit into the scheme, they are definitely part of the intellectual backdrop of both sides of the 'War o' Terror.'

I have two main threads to post here from the documentary. One theme is the origins of modern Islamist ideology. The other is how the neoconservatives filtered into power and manipulated how the U.S. perceived the threat from the Soviet Union. Both of these are quite important, yes?

Voiceover: This was Truman’s America, and many Americans today regard it as a golden age of their civilization. But for [Sayyid] Qutb, he saw a sinister side in this. All around him was crassness, corruption, vulgarity—talk centered on movie stars and automobile prices. He was also very concerned that the inhabitants of Greeley [Colorado] spent a lot of time in lawn care. Pruning their hedges, cutting their lawns. This, for Qutb, was indicative of the selfish and materialistic aspect of American life. Americans lived these isolated lives surrounded by their lawns. They lusted after material goods. And this, says Qutb quite succinctly, is the taste of America.

VO: What Qutb believed he was seeing was a hidden and dangerous reality underneath the surface of ordinary American life. One summer night, he went to a dance at a local church hall. He later wrote that what he saw that night crystallized his vision.

CALVERT: He talks about how the pastor played on the gramophone one of the big-band hits of the day, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” He dimmed the lights so as to create a dreamy, romantic effect. And then, Qutb says that “chests met chests, arms circled waists, and the hall was full of lust and love.”

VO: To most people watching this dance, it would have been an innocent picture of youthful happiness. But Qutb saw something else: the dancers in front of him were tragic lost souls. They believed that they were free. But in reality, they were trapped by their own selfish and greedy desires. American society was not going forwards; it was taking people backwards. They were becoming isolated beings, driven by primitive animal forces. Such creatures, Qutb believed, could corrode the very bonds that held society together. And he became determined that night to prevent this culture of selfish individualism taking over his own country.

[ TITLE: CHICAGO ]

VO: But Qutb was not alone. At the same time, in Chicago, there was another man who shared the same fears about the destructive force of individualism in America. He was an obscure political philosopher at the University of Chicago. But his ideas would also have far-reaching consequences, because they would become the shaping force behind the neoconservative movement, which now dominates the American administration. He was called Leo Strauss. Strauss is a mysterious figure. He refused to be filmed or interviewed. He devoted his time to creating a loyal band of students. And what he taught them was that the prosperous liberal society they were living in contained the seeds of its own destruction.

Professor HARVEY MANSFIELD, Straussian Philosopher, Harvard University: He didn’t give interviews, or write political essays, or appear on the radio—there wasn’t TV yet—or things like that. But he did want to get a school of students to see what he had seen: that Western liberalism led to nihilism, and had undergone a development at the end of which it could no longer define itself or defend itself. A development which took everything praiseworthy and admirable out of human beings, and made us into dwarf animals. Made us into herd animals—sick little dwarves, satisfied with a dangerous life in which nothing is true and everything is permitted.

VO: Strauss believed that the liberal idea of individual freedom led people to question everything—all values, all moral truths. Instead, people were led by their own selfish desires. And this threatened to tear apart the shared values which held society together. But there was a way to stop this, Strauss believed. It was for politicians to assert powerful and inspiring myths that everyone could believe in. They might not be true, but they were necessary illusions. One of these was religion; the other was the myth of the nation. And in America, that was the idea that the country had a unique destiny to battle the forces of evil throughout the world. This myth was epitomized, Strauss told his students, in his favorite television program: Gunsmoke.

The episode quickly goes into Qutb's philosophy of jahiliyya (roughly "the pervasively corrupting influence of the West that has poisoned our people and must be destroyed") and how that led to Ayman Zawahiri starting Islamic Jihad.

The documentary also talks about how the neoconservative clique wormed its way into Washington with Cheney and Rumsfeld in 1975-76. Then Paul Wolfowitz started the 'Team B' plan to demonize the Soviet Union and exaggerate the threat it represents. Then the Committee on the Present Danger was created to propagate their bollox findings. A fascinating tale of cold war hawk propaganda.

Suddenly I realize why they titled this "The Power of Nightmares"... But wait, Michael Ledeen makes an appearance!

VO: To persuade the President [Reagan that the Soviets were a global threat], the neoconservatives set out to prove that the Soviet threat was far greater than anyone, even Team B, had previously shown. They would demonstrate that the majority of terrorism and revolutionary movements around the world were actually part of a secret network, coordinated by Moscow, to take over the world. The main proponent of this theory was a leading neoconservative who was the special adviser to the Secretary of State. His name was Michael Ledeen, and he had been influenced by a best-selling book called The Terror Network. It alleged that terrorism was not the fragmented phenomenon that it appeared to be. In reality, all terrorist groups, from the PLO to the Baader-Meinhof group in Germany, and the Provisional IRA, all of them were a part of a coordinated strategy of terror run by the Soviet Union. But the CIA completely disagreed. They said this was just another neoconservative fantasy.

MICHAEL LEDEEN , Special Adviser to the US Secretary of State 1981-1982: The CIA denied it. They tried to convince people that we were really crazy. I mean, they never believed that the Soviet Union was a driving force in the international terror network. They always wanted to believe that terrorist organizations were just what they said they were: local groups trying to avenge terrible evils done to them, or trying to rectify terrible social conditions, and things like that. And the CIA really did buy into the rhetoric. I don’t know what their motive was. I mean, I don’t know what people’s motives are, hardly ever. And I don’t much worry about motives.

VO: But the neoconservatives had a powerful ally. He was William Casey, and he was the new head of the CIA. Casey was sympathetic to the neoconservative view. And when he read the Terror Network book, he was convinced. He called a meeting of the CIA’s Soviet analysts at their headquarters, and told them to produce a report for the President that proved this hidden network existed. But the analysts told him that this would be impossible, because much of the information in the book came from black propaganda the CIA themselves had invented to smear the Soviet Union. They knew that the terror network didn’t exist, because they themselves had made it up.

MELVIN GOODMAN , Head of Soviet Affairs CIA, 1976-87: And when we looked through the book, we found very clear episodes where CIA black propaganda—clandestine information that was designed under a covert action plan to be planted in European newspapers—were picked up and put in this book. A lot of it was made up. It was made up out of whole cloth.

So in other words, neoconservatives used the CIA's black propaganda against the policymaking process of the American people. That's clever! Ledeen again, and he really sounds like he did when he came to Macalester:

VO: [Reagan's 1983 order authorizing covert action against leftists globally was a] triumph for the neoconservatives. America was now setting out to do battle against the forces of evil in the world. But what had started out as the kind of myth that Leo Strauss had said was necessary for the American people increasingly came to be seen as the truth by the neoconservatives. They began to believe their own fiction. They had become what they called “democratic revolutionaries,” who were going to use force to change the world.

LEDEEN : We were aiming for an expansion of the zone of freedom in the world. And in part that had to do with fighting Communism, and in part that had to do with fighting other kinds of tyrannies. But that’s what we were about, and that’s what we’re still about.

INTERVIEWER (off-camera): When you say you were democratic revolutionaries, what do you mean?

LEDEEN : It meant that we wanted to support the people who wanted to carry out revolutions against tyrannical régimes in the name of democracy, in order to install a democratic system.

INTERVIEWER : As simple as that.

LEDEEN : Yeah. It’s not nuclear physics, you know. I mean, freedom is a fairly simple thing to get.

In a nutshell, then, we have gone from the faked threat from the Soviet Union to a situation where our armed forces claim to be fighting the face of Satan in Fallujah.

Ah, the sweet, sweet power of fake moral frameworks. I hope this illustrates a little of how they lied to us before, and how they found the political power of racist dehumanization...

A little patience

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt...If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."

--Thomas Jefferson. I found this quote on a picture on SorryEverybody.com, a site (nick linked to below) featuring apologies from ordinary folks to the rest of the world about the election.

Rapid link dump

Ok then kids, my dad will be here in like 20 minutes. I have all these browser windows to clean out before I go to Utah, so this will be a little funky. But interesting stuff.

josh Marshall points out a new washington blog. this guy wrote a sweet article about think tanks.

low numbers for bush. checkpoints.

Robert Fisk says Iraq imploding. Durrr.

mccain and the swift boat veterans thing.

who what is this?

israel says to hell with road map, more suburbs in west bank!! interesting letters.

Alan Keyes is the Quintessential American

The internal press squabbles about WMD lameness

particles information holes etc.

After the convention, Democrats are reclaiming the center says Dionne. Right wing son of a bitch liked Obama. Explosions of applause etc. krugman on the Script. go to hell Brooks.

So then are the Dems shifting to the right on foreign policy?!

Dissection of Iraq lies from before. So then why did they go to the desert? the uprising is a test!

American prisons are horrible too.

i saw this sweet video called Spin that was made from unedited network TV satellite transitions, and people come across as racist or just batshit crazy, in Larry King's case. About Spin [1 2 3 4 5 6]

I liked Manchurian Candidate. Read Ebert's review of the classic original and the new one.

Keep reading TPM. Duhhh.

Reap the whirlwind sucka!!!!

Iraq reconstruction funding has spawned 27 criminal inquiries. what the hell?!

Most important: does M. Night Shammaaaala (no time to type) suck as director?

OK I am the hell out of here!!!! Peace to y'all!!!!! Be back Sunday!

The Persian crunch

A pretty dramatic development at hand as the 9/11 commission pins a great deal of Al Qaeda activity on Iran's government. It is not too hard to believe, surely, that Iran's intelligence services might have helped some dudes get around between the Afghan frontier, Pakistan and so forth. It's a rather more plausible casus belli than we stomped into Iraq with, which is a great part of why the war was so perplexing. Via a DKos thread here are some news links about the Iran strategic situation:

Starting at the top, a delightful headline: "Report: Israel's 'first strike' plan against Iran ready" from the JPost. Ex-neoconservative William Lind heard the hit might come this year. Tehran here we come... America or the Israelis. A mysterious report from July 1 about "Iran Reacts to U.S. Power Loss." Last December, Lt Col Karen Kwiatkowski opined about the pipeline politics in Central Asia.

The almighty neocon mastermind Michael Ledeen wrote about Iran for the millionth time. It's kind of funny ("Are you sitting down? Iran is a terrorist state.") but obviously this man should be regarded with as much suspicion as any mullah you might find.

Back in 2001, Asia Times reported that Bin Laden had been traced to Iran. In 1999, Shell oil put together an oil deal with Iran and some companies defied U.S. sanctions.

There's some complex demand problems among growing Asian nations, who are looking to Iran to fill energy needs. A Pakistani paper said that "Japan must ensure its Iranian oil supply" today.

For rather ugly leftie resource sites, look no further than oilempire.us.

In other misc mideast news, apparently Egypt's cabinet resigned on July 9th and no one noticed. Does this have anything to do with the flare-up in Gaza??

I enjoyed this feature, "Sightseeing in Oman? You Mustn't Miss the Smugglers" in the Times but sadly, its disappeared into the pay archives.

Christian Zionists, 'dispensationalism,' an Israel thesis, plus revolutionary tips!

I strongly recommend to everyone this article in the Christian Science Monitor on "Mixing Prophecy and Politics," which lays out the concrete connections between the end-of-the-world Christian fundamentalists that support Israel's colonization of the West Bank as a gateway stage to the battle of Armageddon, and their political hooks in the United States.

This whole political-religious framework is also known as 'premillennial dispensationalism,' which means that A) we live with the End Times and 'millennium' in our future and B) God dispenses goodies to good people, that is, he blesses those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel, in part. In other words, an interventionalist God, the type who would, as Jerry Falwell described it, punish the U.S. directly via Sept. 11. The problem with this kind of thinking, as the article makes clear, is that people who are thinking 'eschatologically' sometimes act to make their prophecies self-fulfilling, by financially supporting West Bank settlements, for example. In turn, this kind of garbage could easily incite World War III if clear-thinking politicians don't intercede. But of course this is Bush we are talking about, and he implies all the time that God intended Sept. 11 as some kind of avenging task generator. As an atheist, all this stuff scares the hell out of me, for reasons I hope are obvious. I think about it a great deal.

If you ever wanted to hear what a right-wing peacenik does when he collides with flashy left-wingers reading poetry, read the very amusing latest from Justin Raimondo. He also addressed the Hersh and BBC reports about the Israelis, leading round to his usual thesis that Israel was the only country that really stood to benefit from the war on Iraq.

I will say again that I always take Raimondo with more than a grain of salt, but has he been proven wrong thus far?

In an effort at damage control, the Israel lobby is making a concerted effort to smear whomever states the obvious: a great deal of the "intelligence" used to lie us into war came directly from Tel Aviv and was "stovepiped" into the White House by neocon White House advisors, and that, in retrospect, this war has been to the strategic advantage of one and only one nation on earth: Israel.

If "Israel was never near the top of the list" when it comes to motives for this war, then how is it that Tel Aviv turns out to be the chief beneficiary in so many ways? As the Mossad infiltrates Kurdistan, demands recognition from the Iraqi "government," and even sends its skilled torturers to help the American occupiers subjugate and degrade their Arab charges more effectively, the demonstrable evidence that Israel's most loyal supporters led the way to war is not so easily brushed aside.

Revolutionary politics

I found this pretty interesting: David Ignatius speaking with the latest peaceful revolutionary, Georgia's new leader Eduard Shevardnadze. I will summarize, but should I implement?

• "Burrow from within. Like many reformers, Saakashvili began as an insider with the regime he later toppled." This is a principal argument for us to keep our cool and stay in school.
  
• "Use nongovernmental organizations to help build a political base."
  
• "Create a political movement that is modern, media-savvy and well-connected in the West. [....] The movement was funded partly by contributions from billionaire George Soros's Open Society Project. It trained its members in nonviolent protest, and cleverly used the Georgian media to get free publicity."
  
• "Never show fear." Trouble with this one. Atheism makes you feel less safe (see above).
  
• "Another key tactic was not to initiate violence, no matter what the provocation. 'The temptation to use force is huge,' Saakashvili says. 'But once you cross that threshold, you can never get back.'"
  
• "Cultivate your enemies. The smartest thing Saakashvili did was to woo the Georgian army and police." In other words, persuasion over violence. Really?!
  

Cleanup-other madness

A lot of people talking about the rhetoric of fascism along with crazy symbols of power. I can't say I'm a fan of that kind of crazy talk, but also as an atheist I am hearing an increasing amount of crazy talk that threatens to overrun my value system. Some are freaked out. Yes, many are. I'm not going to get into talking much about the unfortunate kidnapped defense contractor in Saudi Arabia... it is worth considering that Apaches do not have a great public reputation in the Arab world, as their networks are far less reluctant to show the Israeli ones in action. The documentary Control Room that I mentioned earlier is playing at either Lagoon or Uptown, I need to go see it.

We can't quite measure terrorism accurately. It's on the decline! Brilliant.

Measuring the self-appointed cultural warriors, look at the evil rhetoric of ol'David Horowitz from back in 2000.

Nasty bit mocking the NY Times for torching their credibility on Chalabi. Tragically, due to my unemployed status, I suspended the Times delivery this weekend. It was a nice dead pulp sort of read... This blog, page A01, monitors the Times all the time. (mahablog and the left coaster ain't bad either)

An excellent bit on Juan Cole's site about what a bad idea it was to ditch early elections in Iraq, and the shadowy motives involved. Al-sadr increases in popularity, the bloody way.

A lot of retired officials, some of them key Republican appointees of yore, have released a statement saying Bush must leave office because of all the alliances he's shattered.

Look, 2004 political campaigns are advertising on blogs and making some money. Yay for that... is it effective???? It's gotta be, in some situations.

Last bits of Reagan anti-nostalgia: "Schisms from administration lingered for years," to put it mildly. Yes, it was not all rosy tinted scenarios and photo ops. The end of the cold war: we needed Gorbachev to do it, bottom line.

A humorous bit about Iran-Contra: what if it was really quite a skim-off-the-top kind of bribery scheme?

Middle east chunking up, getting ominous etc.: "Worst is yet to come as US pays the price of failure" but sadly, "a tough time for neo-cons," widely discredited, they say.

Speaking of photo ops, Josh Marshall asks:

In fact, the prison abuse and torture story itself has become a perfect example of how two separate media storylines — ones that clearly contradict each other — can coexist and yet seemingly never cross paths.
[.....]
In this case, the partisan divide is conventional and predictable. Administration advocates argue that abuse was isolated — just a few malefactors who got out of control — while critics claim that it was systemic, stemming from policy choices made at the highest levels of the Pentagon and the White House.

Yet, while this debate is being carried on, we’ve also had a steady stream of evidence (not pictures, but reports, testimony, and other documentary evidence) that makes it fairly clear that the first debate really isn’t a debate at all, or rather, that it’s an open-and-shut case.
[....]
Let’s start by discussing what’s in the pictures: limited violence against detainees, the use of nudity and sexual humiliation as a means of “softening up” detainees, psychological “torture” like the threat of death (such as the case of the picture of the man standing, arms outstretched, who was told he’d be electrocuted if he fell), and the use of attack dogs to frighten if not necessarily attack prisoners.

Those are the acts contained in those lurid photos. But even from the internal reports and official statements coming from the Pentagon and other branches of the administration, it’s clear that each of these methods was approved and authorized as a way of preparing detainees for interrogations.

First, there was approval for using an enumerated list of interrogation techniques for al Qaeda terrorists housed at Guantanamo and other U.S. facilities. Eventually those techniques — honed in Afghanistan and Guantanamo — were OK’d for use against detainees in Iraq. We even know that the importation of those methods into Iraq probably happened in the late summer and early fall of last year. Most of the techniques mentioned above are specifically mentioned in the list of authorized methods issued by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez in Iraq. The rest are detailed in other memos and reports made public over the last month and would certainly be covered by the new “torture memo” out this week.
[......]
Yet the debate over who is responsible for what we see in those pictures continues, even when we have plenty of evidence that the tactics they were using were either specifically authorized by policymakers at the Pentagon or widespread at U.S.-detention facilities commanded by the same folks now prosecuting those reservists in the photos.

Isn’t it about time that we just come clean with ourselves and admit that those half-dozen reservists really probably were just following orders?

i'm going to throw in a handful of final, old, links here, which spelled out rather neatly two flip sides of the situation: the neo-con fanatic wing [one two three] and the fundamentalist Christian fanatic wing [one two three].

Well there you have it, a few of the fine trends making up this turning point month.

Systemic instabilities and emerging organizations

I am alarmed about the increasing waves of ... I don't know what to call it, angry energy ... oscillating between Fallujah, Fox News, Jerusalem and Najaf. On Fox they are all angry retired colonels all the time who've reached the firm consensus that the jihadis must be slaughtered in Fallujah wholesale, while the rest of the Arab world shimmers and buckles under the immense political pressure that Bush and Sharon generated by officially refuting the refugees and gaining the "Israeli population centers."

I'll cite a couple stories that I found interesting this evening. Firstly a piece on Tech Central Station positing the theory of a world-historical shift emerging through Islamic militancy in the middle east, conceived not as 'terrorism' or 'radicals vs moderates' but rather the new Islamist project or 'renovatio' of bringing down all the corrupt regimes and angling towards a new pan-Islamic caliphate. This kind of thing seemed a lot more far-fetched, what, a year ago?

WaPo says that a lot of soldiers are surviving injuries that would have been lethal, so of course it's a lot more living wreckage.

The Fallujah folks (of today's fallen minarets, no less) have sprouted a political arm affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. (could this be linked to Islamist disgruntlement in Syria??)

This feature from the journal Foreign Policy deflates a lot of myths about Al Qaeda, helping to illustrate that it's a sort of 'venture capital' kind of outfit rather than a coherent organization.

Suicide bombings have less to do with fundie indoctrination than sociological conditions: witness the Tamil Tigers, according to a political scientist. (not that this field doesn't attracts more than its share of preposterous poli sci fiends)

A writer in the Lebanese Daily Star is really just trying to get our attention, how could he have ever reached such silly conclusions:

Without being unduly alarmist, it is safe to predict that the coming weeks and months are likely to be exceedingly dangerous. It feels as if the whole planet is threatened by an imminent volcanic eruption. Such is the thirst for revenge and the level of frustration in the Arab and Muslim world that explosions of violence are to be expected in widely scattered locations....

Recent actions and statements by US President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, as well as by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, have been so grossly offensive to a large segment of Arab and Muslim opinion that they seem bound to trigger a violent response. By resorting to force and by ruling out a peaceful settlement of regional disputes, whether in Iraq or Palestine, these leaders have legitimized terror. Consciously or not, they have in fact provoked it....

Israel lies at the heart of the present international disorder. Its supporters in Washington conceived the war against Iraq and pressed for it to be waged, in the mistaken belief that it would help Israel defeat the Palestinians. Differences over how to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict have become the main subject of discord between Europe and the United States. Europe has been powerless to make itself heard, largely because of the large-scale, high-level penetration of the American government by "friends of Israel." This is a striking feature of contemporary politics.

Meanwhile, Israel's daily slaughter of Palestinians continues to outrage the conscience of the civilized world, yet no one knows how to stop it. Memories of the Holocaust, together with an unmatched worldwide propaganda machine, have given the Jewish state a wide measure of immunity. Yet Sharon's cynical strategy is crystal clear. To seize more land on the West Bank, he is exploiting to the full the support of a weak American president, anxious for the votes of American Jews and fundamentalist "Christian Zionists" in an election year.

And don't forget: Bush didn't really plan for the impact Iraq might have on the domestic economy, either!! (reg. req'd) Sweetness.

These links have been shamelessly pilfered from the superb WarInContext.org so please direct accolades and cash money to them; they work hard.

I guess all these articles really caught me as alarm bells that we are staring down a major sea change across the political system of the Mideast, like it or not. The question is which batshit apocalyptic militarists are going to call the shots on each side. (crossposted on DKos)

British diplomats bust Blair

A whole bunch of British government diplomats have released a letter criticizing Tony Blair's strategies on Iraq and Israel/Palestine, saying that he has been heedless of civilian casualties in Iraq while undermining and unbalancing the British approach to the Arab world by abandoning the Road Map plan. Reuters summarizes the 'unprecedented letter' while Juan Cole reprints it in full. I would characterize this as pretty much the whole British Arabist establishment flaming Blair. Reuters:

The diplomats criticised the toll of the war and apparent lack of a plan for life in the country post-Saddam. "The Iraqis killed by coalition forces probably total between 10,000 and 15,000," they said, estimating the number killed in the last month in Falluja alone at several hundred.

"There was no effective plan for the post-Saddam settlement...To describe the resistance as led by terrorists, fanatics and foreigners is neither convincing nor helpful."

On the Middle East, the diplomats said big powers had waited for U.S. leadership to advance a "road map" for peace that had raised expectations of a lasting Israeli-Palestinian settlement. "The hopes were ill-founded. Nothing effective has been done either to move the negotiations forward or to curb the violence. Britain and the other sponsors of the road map merely waited on American leadership, but waited in vain," it said.

"Worse was to come," they continued, attacking Bush's decision this month to endorse an Israeli plan to retain some settlements in the West Bank as an illegal and one-sided step. "Our dismay at this backward step is heightened by the fact that you yourself seem to have endorsed it, abandoning the principles which for nearly four decades have guided international efforts to restore peace in the Holy Land."

Or rather, as Iraqi-Palestinian Raed in the Middle put it about a week ago:

I am ANGRY!!! VERY ANGRY!!! I am a secular leftist! But I am angry!!!!
Can you imagine what do other millions of right winged religious people feel????
I can’t even concentrate and don't know if my words will make any sense!!

The hate and anger of the Arab people today is unbelievable!!!, Palestinians Iraqis Jordanians Egyptians Syrians … the hate against Bush and his administration is huge now… enormous … ENORMOUS!!!!!!
Everyone believes that Bush is giving the green light for Sharon to kill their leaders, and everyone thinks that Iraq, Falluja, Najaf and every other city would face the same Palestinian destiny if they didn’t fight Against the American army now …. They would be put under siege and assassinated one by one by the American helicopters!!!
Everyone thinks that it is better to start fighting from now!!! Everyone is full of HATE!!! EVEN ME!!!

When the Iraqi fighter kills more American soldiers now… he has the images of Ahmad Yasin and Ranteesi in his mind
Can you imagine a community that is boiling?! Like a volcano?!
....
I am losing faith that words can solve anything when Bush and Sharon are ruling the world, and I can feel that explosion that will destroy everything is coming; it will destroy us and destroy you.

The explosion is coming.
The volcano of the Middle East is not going to sleep forever.

And earlier:

So, after the huge defeat and failure, Bush decided to make a move today… he announced the neo-Balfour Declaration, and gave the house of my grandfather as a gift to Sharon. Please! UN resolutions? Road map? anyone? hello?

I mean… where is the point? How can someone donate something that he doesn’t own? It’s like me announcing that I give the house of Bush as a gift to my father!

"World oil crisis looms" and other mostly harmless developments

As far as marvelous news go you can't ask for more than the respected news service Jane's. Recently published and partly accessible for free: World Oil Crisis Looms:

Other companies and even governments have hyped up the estimates of how much oil they have, which is a vital factor in measuring their economic health. If exaggeration proves to be widespread, it would have an immense impact on the Middle East, whose economic weight is almost totally dependent on oil and natural gas.
....
Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that internal documents and other data indicated that Shell had over estimated its proven oil reserves in Oman by as much as 40 per cent. But that seems to have been done because everyone hoped that the latest drilling techniques would reach more deposits than in the past and merit upgrading the estimates of reserves.

The Oman estimates were based on assessments made in May 2000 by a senior Shell executive who was subsequently fired. He was among several executives who were said to have known about the unrealistic estimates of reserves and to have done nothing about it.

If the exaggeration is confirmed, the estimate of recoverable oil will have to be lowered. That is bad news for Oman, which claims reserves of 5.4bn barrels and is heavily dependent on oil and gas exports but it is also bad news for the world as a whole.

As the world's natural resources shrink and global warming changes the environment, competition for unimpeded access to them has intensified and will continue to do so. About four-fifths of the world's known oil reserves lie in politically unstable or contested regions.

It is worth considering that a great proportion of the world's remaining oil exists in a roughly triangular basin between Oman, Kirkuk in northern Iraq and southeastern Iran. Easy territory. Also if the Ghawar fields in eastern Saudi Arabia continue to steeply decline then that country will really feel the pinch.

Surely such minor matters as these wouldn't generate warfare for the next 20 years?

Enter power

Drawing later on a line he often slips into his campaign speeches, he reminded a global audience that "freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom."

New York Times -- April 14, 2003

Fragmentation begins?

I can't believe that Bush is yet again hanging out at the GOD DAMNED RANCH. Because God knows he did such a good job managing threats from there last time.

I have found a huge array of information today, so let me summarize:

Mesopotamia Aflame: DEBKA is not my idea of a serious source, but their Iraqi battle map is what you have to look at. Don't necessarily believe their report about Sadr, (nor Hamas) but it's interesting.

There is emerging information that a U.S. translator says that the government had all kinds of 9/11 evidence in its possession. And lo and behold the U.S. media won't pick it up.

There are Sunnis and Shiites marching from baghdad to Fallujah with humanitarian supplies, and they have been overrunning American checkpoints. Could go badly.

In the Irony Department Richard Perle says there wasn't enough planning. WHAT THE HELL MAN?!

Justin Raimondo on Sadr, "The New Saddam." Because the U.S. always needs someone to hate? Hmm...

More of Asia Times: One year on, from liberation to jihad by Pepe Escobar. Meanwhile it's time to reconstruct Islam!!! The Shiite voice that will be heard. Baathists on the bandwagon! But wait, its not a second war?!?!? Ahh hell...

The very paranoid site WHATREALLYHAPPENED.COM is having a field day! (a paranoid report on whether or not a plane actually hit the Pentagon). I don't really need any more conspiracy theories, so regard these as questionable but entertaining. Pepe Escobar at Asia Times online is going off about 9/11. A mellow theological scholar publishes a book asserting that the 9/11 story was faked.

Al Jazeera on Asian hostages.

Command Post has continuing updates. More hawkish places are asserting that Iran is propelling matters. This piece does have a lot of nice background, though.

These are extremely graphic pictures of dead Iraqis in Fallujah from Al Jazeera. Asia Times on the uprising: When fear turns to anger.

Iraq Anarchy by Robert Fisk, a man whose early pessimism about the war turned out all too correct

Anarchy has been a condition of our occupation from the very first days when we let the looters and arsonists destroy Iraq's infrastructure and history. But that lawlessness is now coming back to haunt us. Anarchy is what we are now being plunged into in Iraq, among a people with whom we share no common language, no common religion and no common culture.
...
Dan Senor, the occupying power's spokesman, wouldn't tell anyone exactly what the evidence against Sadr was - even though it has supposedly existed since an Iraqi judge issued the warrant some months ago.

The US military response to the atrocities committed against four American mercenaries in Fallujah last week has been to surround the entire city and to announce the cutting off of the neighbouring international highway link between Baghdad, Amman and Damascus - thus bringing to a halt almost all economic trade between Iraq and its two western neighbours.

What good this will do "new" Iraq is anyone's guess. Vast concrete walls have been lowered across the road and military vehicles have been used to chase away civilians trying to by-pass them. A prolonged series of Israeli-style house raids are now apparently planned for the people of Fallujah to seek out the gunmen who first attacked the four Americans - whose corpses were later stripped, mutilated and hanged.
.....
And all this, remember, began because Mr Bremer decided to ban Sadr's trashy 10,000-circulation weekly newspaper for "inciting violence."

Here is something of significance: In the former capital of the Islamic Caliphate, Samarra, the uprising has arrived, according to AFP. I have said before that Samarra is a sort of 'magic' place in the logic of Al Qaeda, in the sense that they are trying to rebuild the caliphate, which would hold a special logic within this ancient city.
From the 9/11 commission this morning, Bob Kerrey said:

"I believe, first of all, that we underestimate that this war on terrorism is really a war against radical Islam. Terrorism is a tactic. It's not a war itself. Secondly, let me say that I don't think we understand how the Muslim world views us, and I'm terribly worried that the military tactics in Iraq are going to do a number of things, and they're all bad. ... I think we're going to end up with civil war if we continue down the military operation strategies that we have in place. I say that sincerely as someone that supported the war in the first place."

"Let me say, secondly, that I don't know how it could be otherwise, given the way that we're able to see these military operations, even the restrictions that are imposed upon the press, that this doesn't provide an opportunity for Al Qaida to have increasing success at recruiting people to attack the United States. It worries me. And I wanted to make that declaration. You needn't comment on it, but as I said, I'm not going to have an opportunity to talk to you this closely. And I wanted to tell you that I think the military operations are dangerously off track. And it's largely a U.S. Army -- 125,000 out of 145,000 -- largely a Christian army in a Muslim nation. So I take that on board for what it's worth."

More on this from salon.com.
Haaretz weighs in on Iraq: It's a war waged for prestige!

The rightwing Tacitus says something insightful, but also portentious of doom, as those hawks are wont to do:

Consider that if you are American, there is no open road to Baghdad from any of Iraq's neighboring countries. For the moment, CPA resupply is a triumph of airlift. Something to chew on. It's not the result of any one tragically wrong decision or miscalculation; rather, it's the end result of a year of accumulating bad calls and wishful thinking: disbanding the army plus not confronting Sadr plus giving the Shi'a a veto plus the premature policy of withdrawal from urban centers plus the undermanning of the occupation force (and the concurrent kneecapping of Shinseki) plus the setting of a ludicrously early "sovereignty" date plus the early tolerance of lawlessness and looting plus illusory reconstruction accomplishments plus etc., etc., etc. In short, the failure of the occupation to be an occupation in any sense that history and Arab peoples would recognize. Bad calls of such consistency are the product of a fundamentally bad system.
......
As you read this in the cold, comforting, wan glow of your screen, United States Marines are adding Fallujah to the roll call of honor that stretches from our young nation's first defeat of jihad in North African sands, to the beaches of Tarawa and Saipan, to Hue, and beyond. And soon, the men and women of the United States Army will emerge from their embattled base camps to conquer the ancient valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates for the second time in a year. What they are doing is right and just; the enemy they fight is manifestly base and tyrannical. There is no question on this count, and there is no doubt of their battlefield victory. What is in doubt is whether their victory will last, and whether the price paid for it will be worthwhile. These magnificent instruments of our national will, soldier and Marine alike, are unstoppable by any insurgent, any jihadist, any fanatic, or any guerrilla.

Juan Cole on point as always. Also he illustrates the truth about the role the U.S. has played in influencing the growth of post-Saddam Iraqi militias:

Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dan Senor, who has often attempted to peddle frankly false stories, was at it again on Wednesday. He said Muqtada al-Sadr was targeted because he maintained a militia. Let's see: In April of 2003, the US Department of Defense flew Ahmad Chalabi into Iraq with over a thousand of his militiamen, actually transporting them in US troop carriers. They brought a militia to Iraq.

Just published, Robert Reich asks us to visualize what a second Bush administration might feel like.

A book review about The Rise of the Vulcans, a book I got but haven't read much of yet about the personal histories of Bush officials. It is not very polemical; the section about Wolfowitz's path from math to Wohlstetter's political science is quite good.
I already posted this before, but once again a book review from the Times about Bush's psychopathology:

the Schweizers quote one unnamed relative as saying that George W. Bush sees the war on terrorism "as a religious war": "He doesn't have a p.c. view of this war. His view of this is that they are trying to kill the Christians. And we the Christians will strike back with more force and more ferocity than they will ever know."

Someone advised me today to keep an eye on CounterPunch. Not a bad idea.

Riverbend in Iraq is still going. Another Iraqi blog, Iraq-Iraqis.

...A united militia with the same uniform should be created grouping all the guards and armed people from the parties’ members and the followers of the GC members to enforce order in streets. It’s their duty and our duty would be to defend our democracy and freedom against terrorists and trouble makers and kayos lovers.

Lawrence of Cyberia, another nice blog. Reading A1 is another blog that criticizes the New York Times.

I just mentioned it below, but again Billmon's Death of a Dream is worth reading for its insight on neo-cons, Israel and anti-Semitism in the Middle East. This is the Arabic blog which the original mujahideen conversation apparently comes from.
Compare this press release with what actually transpired in that poor nation.
The casualties are piling up rapidly. This site is authoritative.

NY Times reporter John Burns was briefly captured by a Shiite militia.

Michael Lind wrote this last year about "The Weird Men Behind George W Bush's War," and I might be more skeptical of it if Lind wasn't a former neocon, and editor of the National Interest, himself. (Good info about PNAC in here) I ran into some old paranoid pieces about the war running beyond control. Another old piece by a Palestinian professor about how the war is supposedly ultimately to Israel's benefit. Ah, for those heady and speculative days.

Via Atrios a stunning little letter from a contractor working in Iraq:

Discipline is slipping in the forces and it reminds one of the Viet-Nam pictures of old. Instead of a professional military outfit here we have a bunch of cowboys and vigilantes running wild in the streets. The ugly American has never been so evident. Someone in charge needs to drop the hammer on this lack of discipline, especially that which is being hown by the Special Forces, security contractors, and "other government agencies". We won the war but that doesn't mean we can treat the people of this couotry with contempt and disregard with no thought to the consequences. Those contractors, just like the last ones who were killed, were out running free with no military escort. Armed or not, that is a breach of protocol and a severe security risk. While I grieve for the families of those persons I would like to see the person who decided that it was alright for them to convoy out there without the military brought up on charges, unless of course that person was in the convoy, in which case at least he won't be getting anyone else killed.

I'm angry about how we're treating peope here. I know it's not the entire military, in fact it is a very small, select group that believes they are somehow above the law of not ony this land but also the law of the military and those laws we hold dear in ouor own country. If someone were to try to treat our fellow Americans the way some of these people are treating the Iraquis the courts would certainly lock them away. I would phrase that last line harsher, but in light of recent events that would be cruel. Discipline is needed here, and I'm not certain that our current administration is prepared to take the steps necessary to crack down on all of this. In order for discipline to be restored I do believe Donald Rumsfield would have to admit that perhaps Powell's rules of war were in fact valid.

Inside the personal bubbles that the long-suffering Israeli populace inhabits:

Suicide bombings create small, self-enclosed worlds consisting of family, a few friends, and a tiny geography. You go to this supermarket which is not in a busy mall, this cafe which has an armed guard, drive your kids to school along this side road which isn't a bus route - and to hell with anyone you don't know or trust. This is your own personal bu'ah, your bubble, and no one who is not in it is above suspicion. What is happening in Gaza or Nablus - the curfews, the checkpoints, the terrifying incursions of troops, the targeted assassinations, the collapse of the social infrastructure, the malnutrition, the cages in which Palestinians are fenced off like zoo animals - could be happening in Bosnia instead of a 25-minute drive away, because no one goes there except your son the soldier or your husband the reservist, and he doesn't talk about what he's seen because he can't. He doesn't have the emotional language to express it, who among us does? He comes home and gratefully re-enters his bu'ah. If I were an Israeli businessman, I'd invest in escapism, the bu'ah's wallpaper...

If you ever wanted to understand what anesthitized language about cracking down on Palestinians looks like, read this from an Israeli terror institute.

Joe Conason observed in February that the president was oblivious.

Rummy admits it's serious! "Iraq's stability crumbling at a rapid rate."
This news report from Knight-Ridder looks grim:

Marine engineers patrolling near Ramadi on Wednesday reported coming across a mass grave containing up to 350 bodies of Iraqis who appeared to have been killed in the fighting. It wasn't clear whether the bodies belonged to combatants, civilians or both.
.....
Rumors, unconfirmed and unconfirmable, heightened the tension: Those involved in the insurgency said Sunnis, Shiites and even Palestinians would gather in a war summit in Sadr City on Thursday.

"The Sunni people, the Shiite people, we share the same God, the same suffering under the Americans and the same goal, to end the occupation of Iraq," said Said Ammer al Husainie, the Mahdi Army leader in Sadr City. "We have been working together, and will continue to work together, to see that our aims are met.
.....
-The BBC reported that Shiite fighters had entered a Sunni mosque Monday, recruiting volunteers to donate blood for the resistance. Once recruited, the volunteers "together agreed on a wide-range attack in the neighborhood on the Americans," the BBC reported.

-In Ramadi, a traditional Sunni stronghold, witnesses said Marines were fighting soldiers who were dressed like members of Mahdi Army.

-In southern and central Baghdad, traditional Sunni neighborhoods, pro-Sadr posters and literature were widely circulated.

Too funny to leave out: the dictator of Turkmenistan's dogmatic guide to better living: The Rukhnama. Radio Free Europe is a new news source. EurasiaNet has a lot of good news collecting going on. Don't forget the Argus.

If this whole post doesn't make any sense to you, it doesn't make sense to me, either.

Blame the complex

There's been a lot of things on the news today. Why did the CPA suddenly choose to shut down Sadr's newspaper? Perhaps it had something to do with this AP report that Sadr was declaring allegiance with Hamas and Hezbollah last Friday. Did this provide an opportunity for the Middle Eastern altruists in the Pentagon to, say, merge the threats between Israel and the U.S.? That's wild speculation!! Can't be true!

Prof. Juan Cole continues to describe things with the most clarity. He actually sounds almost as paranoid as I do sometimes:

The civilians in the Department of Defense only know how to blow things up. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith staffed the CPA with Neoconservatives, most of whom had no administrative experience, no Arabic, and no respect for Muslim culture (or knowledge about it). They actively excluded State Department Iraq hands like Tom Warrick. (Only recently have a few experienced State Department Arabists been allowed in to try to begin mopping up the mess.) The Neocons in the CPA have all sorts of ulterior motives and social experiments they want to impose on the Iraqi people, including Polish-style economic shock therapy, some sort of sweetheart deal for Israel, and maybe even breaking the country up into three parts.

He informed me of people called "Palestinian-Salvadorans," quite a shock. Polls:

An opinion poll taken in late February showed that 10 % of Iraq's Shiites say attacks on US troops are "acceptable." But 30% of Sunni Arabs say such attacks are acceptable, and fully 70% of Anbar province approves of attacking Americans. (Anbar is where Ramadi, Fallujah, Hadithah and Habbaniyah are, with a population of 1.25 million or 5% of Iraq--those who approve of attacks are 875,000).

But simple statistics don't tell the story. If there are 25 million Iraqis and Shiites comprise 65%, that is about 16 million persons. Ten percent of them is 1.6 million, which is a lot of people who hate Americans enough to approve of attacks on them. If Sunni Arabs comprise about 16% of the population, there are 4 million of them. If 30% approve of attacks, that is 1.2 million. That is, the poll actually shows that in absolute numbers, there are more Shiites who approve of attacks on Americans than there are Sunni Arabs. The numbers bring into question the official line that there are no problems in the South, only in the Sunni Arab heartland.

Sadr's volatile movement has seized control of the Holy Shrine of Imam Ali, one of Shiism's holiest sites. (All we need now is a(nother) Temple Mount incident)

Will the US attack the Kurds? What? This latent Kurdish nationalism seems to be emerging. It is, as they say, troublesome.

As well as an interesting report about crime and disorder thriving in Baghdad, Al Jazeera has some late breaking news, in their own unique style, from Falluja. (this city has somewhere called the "Golan District?!" Hell) Also there is a lack of food.

"We also visited the Golan district where clashes took place earlier today between fighters from Falluja and US forces," Ali said. "We saw signs of fierce confrontation. US forces have bombed the district. We saw several destroyed houses.

"Golan inhabitants say US forces used cluster bombs and missiles against them," he said. "Citizens of the city are completely enraged - but not afraid - waiting for the coming events," the correspondent said.  
.....
The leaflets outlaw demonstrations and the possession of firearms and impose a 7pm to 6am daily curfew. Residents are advised that in the event of a raid by US forces, all family members should gather in a single room in the house. "This indicates that door-to-door operations will be launched by US forces," the correspondent said.

Aljazeera has also received a statement issued by a group in al-Anbar province calling itself the Jihad Brigades, urging followers of the Shia leader al-Sadr to continue resisting.
"Even Falluja's main hospital is inaccessible because it is located out of the city across the Euphrates river, and the bridge is closed. Today I saw an ambulance driver negotiating with US soldiers to let him cross the bridge. They let him through after a long and tiresome argument."

"Shops are closed and life in the town is paralysed. I am standing among dozens of angry Falluja people. They say they are not afraid of the US forces, they are ready to fight. The crowd was chanting 'There is no God but Allah'."

The President teaches us all something about how causality works in the war on terror. It's not about culture, or politics, or building a society, or even having a plan. Reality flows from deadlines. (thanks to Josh Marshall for posting transcripts: only they can reveal the disturbing logic)

THE PREZ: No, the intention is to make sure the deadline remains the same. I believe we can transfer authority by June 30th. We're working toward that day. We're, obviously, constantly in touch with Jerry Bremer on the transfer of sovereignty. The United Nations is over there now. The United Nations representative is there now to work on the -- on a -- on to whom we transfer sovereignty. I mean, in other words, it's one thing to decide to transfer. We're now in the process of deciding what the entity will look like to whom we will transfer sovereignty. But, no, the date remains firm.

Along with an old link to Rice's naïve neocon assistant Steven Hadley's proclaimed post-war plan, today Marshall also gives us some excerpts of the uber-insider Nelson Report:

Gloom...has been building over Iraq. Increasingly, the Wise Heads are forecasting disaster. Wise Heads say they see no realistic plan, hear no serious concept to get ahead of the situation. Money, training, jobs...all lagging, all reinforce downward spiral highlighted by sickening violence. There seems to be no real "if", just when, and how badly it will hurt U.S. interests. Define "disaster"? Consensus prediction: if Bush insists on June 30/July 1 turnover, a rapid descent into civil war. May happen anyway, if the young al-Sadr faction really breaks off from its parents. CSIS Anthony Cordesman's latest blast at Administration ineptitude says in public what Senior Observers say in private...the situation may still be salvaged, but then you have to factor in Sharon's increasing desperation, and the regional impact.

WaPo says it "Marks a New Front in War." Also "Spread of Bin Laden Ideology Cited." Al Qaeda == "The Base," don't we get it yet?

I liked the NY Times story about the life of the mercenary. Google News searches for mercenaries are fruitful right now.

Here's a fun article about how religious people are turning away from the Enlightenment from the Secular Humanists.

Guardian writer grumbles about America's emerging cultural war. Is it really that polarized? I don't know if I buy it.

More paranoid things about the energy markets. I'm certainly not buying all of this one.

A few bits about Israel: Increasing anti-Semitism really concerns me, as it will likely cause the social fabric in a lot of already marginal places to fray, as well as scare the hell out of many people. Haaretz investigates something well worth reflecting on. Sharon says his hands are clean of bribes, yet no matter how much he washes, the spots, damn spots, won't come out, he says. " Less than a man of his word, Sharon's Passover Legends." Not surprisingly the Palestinian peace movement is having trouble getting traction right now. Why aren't settlers protesting more?

Christian Science Monitor says that Iraqis and Palestinians see their sufferings as a form of globalization (via Prof. Cole):

The focus on Jews and Israel reflects a wider belief among Arab Iraqis, Sunni and Shiite alike, that the US and Israeli occupations are twin Golems of a globalization that they can not resist or control, one that is causing the disintegration of the very fabric of their cultures and economies even as it offers prosperity and freedom to a fortunate few.

It may be hard for Americans to understand the occupation of Iraq in the context of globalization. But Iraq today is clearly the epicenter of that trend. Here, military force was used to seize control of the world's most important commodity - oil. And corporations allied with the occupying power literally scrounge the country for profits, privatizing everything from health care to prisons, while Iraqi engineers, contractors, doctors, and educators are shunted aside.

Like economic globalization in so many other countries of the developing world, this model in Iraq is an unmitigated disaster. My visits to hospitals, schools, think tanks, political party headquarters, art galleries, and refugee camps reveal conditions clearly as bad, and often worse, than on the eve of the US invasion.
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Iraq is sliding toward chaos; a state that many Iraqis increasingly believe is exactly where the US wants them to be. A prominent Iraqi psychiatrist who has worked with the CPA and the US military explained to me that "there is no way the United States can be this incompetent. The chaos here has to be at least partly deliberate." The main question on most people's minds is not if his assertion is true, but why?

For example, many here see last week's carnage of Americans in Fallujah as suspicious. To send foreign contractors into Fallujah in late-model SUVs with armed escorts - down a traffic-clogged street on which they'd be literal sitting ducks - can be interpreted as a deliberate US instigation of violence to be used as a pretext for "punishment" by the US military.

I like last December's special Washington Monthly report on the glorious synchronicity between powerful Republican families in the U.S. and those who are somehow plucked to serve in Iraq.

When the history of the occupation of Iraq is written, there will be many factors to point to when explaining the post-conquest descent into chaos and disorder, from the melting away of Saddam's army to the Pentagon's failure to make adequate plans for the occupation. But historians will also consider the lack of experience and abundant political connections of the hundreds of American bureaucrats sent to Baghdad to run Iraq through the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Wandering around I found a piece by Manuel Valenzuela on a rather far-left site, featuring things by the "Worker's World" and others... (they are reprinting the as-yet-unconfirmed Zelikow-Israel thing, again via Cole) More than a little bloated with cliches but interesting nonetheless: "The War of Error:"

It is in the MIC’s interest to prolong this most ambiguous and marketable war for as long as possible. When the citizenry has been successfully turned to submissive sheep, ignorant as to its role as a massive pawn, primordial emotions dictating logic and common sense, the MIC is assured of ever-increasing power, control and wealth.  From cradle to the grave, we are but slaves to the military-industrial complex, nothing more than puppets whose strings are attached to the massive claws of the omnipotent masters tearing us to shreds as they amuse themselves with the games of disquieting existence and rapacious divisiveness  they thrust upon our oblivious selves. 

Greed-mongers, fear-mongers, warmongers and profiteers, the Bush administration, the Corporate Leviathan and the MIC together are annihilating our future.  When greed intermingles with the almighty dollar, profit is placed above people, we become statistics in cost-benefit analysis, we are shamelessly exploited and we all become open wounds waiting to become collateral damage.

Gold market expert alarmed by suspicious currency fluctuations, spoofed numbers

I ran into this weird info via Cosmic Iguana and had to dig into it further. A professional metals trader named Jim Sinclair now sees strange actions in the U.S. dollar, which he can't pin down on anything normal. He thinks there may be a pattern marking it as similar to the mysterious stock market manipulations just prior to 9/11.

This guy clearly seems pretty eccentric, but if my job was to track the most notoriously silly market in the world, the gold market, I would probably be batty too.

Sinclair believes this pattern immediately emerged after the assassination of HAMAS spiritual leader Sheik Yassin. Gold community heads up, March 26:

In conversation with Kenny this morning, we both noted that gold is in what I call "the technician’s nightmare" which is not that infrequent once a long trend is underway.

All internals are now full-bore positive, well overbought and therefore screaming for a correction. A failure to see a relatively short-lived, but possibly sharp correction is what concerns me as I look at new market trading relationships and fish for the cause.

Al Qaeda is both a financial and military organization. My question is simple: Are we looking at the al Qaeda footprint in the market?
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You know that there was significant, unexplained -either fundamentally or technically- buying of Puts and selling calls in the airlines' stocks just before 9/11. This has never been defined or investigated.

Here is what bothers me. I see a footprint in the US dollar that is not the Exchange Stabilization Fund. It is not the German Blitz-Market. It is not the Swiss Stair Ladder. It is not Pinky Green and his pal. It is the footprint I showed you last night and one that I have never seen before.

If I were Interpol, the CIA or the NSA, I would reacquisition the chart of the options on airline trading for 90 days before 9/11 and see if the footprint now in the dollar, which is unique, matched the footprint on the buy of the airline Puts and the sell of the airline Calls just before those exact airlines hit the WTC.

There is a scary combination taking place which is a skewing of relationships caused by a huge interest in the market muscling new market trading relationships between items by their execution. Please consider the following:

1. Asian currencies are strong on balance.
2. The US dollar has been accumulated over the past 7 days in a unique footprint.
3. The euro is weak on balance
4. Gold is strong, period.
5. The stock market, although it should be near a technical bounce, lost its bull appearance and has gone to neutral.
6. Commodities are quite strong, most certainly traditional war commodities.
7. We have a price crisis but not a supply crisis in energy.

What fundamentally would make the relationship above come into the markets? If my little friend in Kenya, the Seer, Mahendra Sharma, gets it right, what would be the reason? Well, it is an unthinkable event in the Middle East that causes concern that Euroland is the next target because its security is lax compared to the USA which has become a thinly veiled police state. Would that not do the following?:

1. Launch gold into the stratosphere?
2. Strengthen the US dollar by default because the short side is simply ENORMOUS.
3. Cause mixed events in equity markets.
4. Put the price of oil to at least $60 if not higher.
5. If it was serious enough in light of this scenario, could it possibly postpone the November US elections?

The evidence that such an event is possible is in the marketplace. This need not happen but should be thought about. If it occurs, the motivating factor that could go down in history as the modern version of the killing of Arch Duke Ferdinand is the recent elimination of the Hamas martial cleric.

Predicting higher interest rates on March 27. Hell, I'm no economist but even I understand that these percentages seem too low to last:

Interest rates will rise this year and my wager is that the rise will occur before the election, most likely in late spring or early summer. That event will injur gold slightly for a very short time after which the price will appreciate into the election.

I will refine the timing as we approach that event so broadly discussed but so meaningless. Just remember this: Once inflation bites, which it’s doing now as evidenced by the commodity price rise, inflation, the shark-like predator that it is, locks its jaws. Remember this well!

Later that day in another piece he suspects that gas prices are going to go sky-high:

Assuming that gas prices climb to the $3 per gallon level, the American public will go BALLISTIC. After that happens, any claims by the Federal Reserve that inflation does not exist will fall on deaf ears AND PERMANENTLY DISCREDIT THE FED INTERNATIONALLY. I suspect that a significant amount of the participants at our recent Florida G7conferrence stopped by Salim Gillani’s Chevron station prior to the meeting.

In a trifecta of a single day's mad posts, he quotes a big piece from Stratfor about Israel and Turkey. Stratfor is a great private intelligence service, and I only wish I could read all their stuff. "Elimination of Hamas Leader Could Realign Turkey With Arab and Muslim World."

Turkey knows the significance of this incident even if most Westerners don’t fully appreciate the danger. Turkey is maneuvering to get out of harm’s way. This is serious and when a government moves in such a significant way it has to tell you that the elimination of the leader of Hamas has widespread implications. The following is from my intelligence service Stratfor.com.

Turkish-Israeli Relations: An Axial Shift?
Summary
Turkey has condemned Israel's assassination of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as an act of "terrorism." This is the first time a Turkish government has criticized Israel for a position since the two states enhanced their military relationship in the mid-1990s. The mildly Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Ankara could not afford to remain neutral on this issue, especially because many Turkish citizens have been arrested on suspicion of ties to al Qaeda. The development could signal an initial AKP bid to realign with the Arab and Muslim world; Turkey and Israel have had diplomatic relations since 1949.

Analysis

Turkey has condemned Israel's targeted assassination of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as an act of terrorism. In an interview with Turkish daily Hurriyet on March 25, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stressed that the international community must examine this kind of act, adding that there can be no peace in the Middle East unless Israel gives up its strong-arm tactics. Erdogan said Israel's actions have seriously derailed any role Turkey could have played in mediations between Israelis and Palestinians, and he hinted that he might cancel a visit to Israel in April if the current atmosphere does not change.

This is an unprecedented criticism of Israel from Ankara. The mildly Islamist Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (Justice and Development Party), or AKP, is taking advantage of international outrage over the killing of Yassin to try to undo Turkey's image as a pro-Israeli state. Ankara hopes this will stave off criticism from certain parts of the populace and the Muslim world. We should note that Hamas and the AKP trace their roots back to the Muslim Brotherhood organization of Egypt.

On March 29 he asked for the Maalox.

It’s a dangerous world out there that is getting even worse. That’s good for gold but for unfortunate reasons. The US simply doesn’t have any more properly trained troops to engage in Afghanistan in the manner required to meet the challenge. With this happening and the war for the minds and hearts of Iraqi citizens a disaster, where is plan B?
......
Increasingly, Alan Greenspan's reign as Chairman of the Federal Reserve is being reviewed more critically in the media. With over-the-counter derivatives out of control, householders being encouraged to borrow on their homes to finance consumer purchases, gas prices at record highs, and no indications of inflation anywhere, what can I say other than pass the Malox please.

On March 30 he added some further thoughts under "Terror Attacks Escalate:"

The water of hatred is boiling all over the world but press reports are muted and seek reasons always to maintain social order.

This is the most dangerous time we have faced in our lifetime. I have lived a good part of my 63 years in areas with high Islamic populations and frankly you have no idea of the hatred that is building out there every day. Nor do you appreciate the dedication that is associated with that hatred.

You do not appreciate that many more people than you can imagine are willing to die and pass along to their families the mission that this hated engenders. We do not appreciate or respect the beliefs of other cultures and that will be what history points to as the underlining cause of World War III which started long before 9/11.

Finally on April Fool's Day he posts "Rumor Control" and a bunch of Al-Qaeda news clippings when he feels that things are still afoot.

There is a high probability that what we are experiencing this morning is a very temporary blowout in the gold price from its march to the upside.

Shorts are gunning for $423 on the close. Any close under $428 will encourage the short sellers. The long funds - or about 45,000 new long contracts purchased at an apparent average of $413.50 - have likely not participated in this morning's selling and will in all probability have mental stops at $423.

All this adds up to one hell of a bear trap being set up next week. The only thing I believe can prevent a temporary and healthy decline here is a significant geopolitical event. No sane person would wish for that.

Finally, this was posted April 1 at 11 PM.

There are still strange footprints in the dollar that have yet to be defined. However, the hunt is on and they will be identified. The supply of gold between $430 and $435 will be overcome but that might take some consolidation first. Markets get stretched out when they have one way runs.

Gold is up over $40 since we called the bottom. That is a stretch that can only continue if the driver is a geopolitical event in the making. The crisis in energy prices continues as the falsification of economic indicators reaches a point of total absurdity.
.....
Should gold persist under $428 into tomorrow’s opening, that would call for a push to $423. At $423, the bulls will make their stand so be prepared for another shoot out at the Comex corral tomorrow.

The rub is that every day the world is moving towards some sort of military/terrorist catharsis and the solutions being applied do not seems to be easing that progression.

Bottom line: I understand very little of this jargon, yet it alarms me. So if you can decode this graph he published yesterday you are some kind of genius.

Season of the Unexplained

I just placed an order for a nice little program called ecto that helps me work on the website far more efficiently than through a browser. It is only $18, and as I rarely buy software unless it's really top notch, this was a considered purchase.

Interesting things, then:
1. The Richard Clarke terrorism fiasco. I am overjoyed that everyone is watching this now, and the Administration is finally getting exposed as the Office From Hell that we sensed it always was. I want to pick up his fine book. Condi Rice has been brutally forced to testify publicly, and Bush and Cheney will appear sparkin' an L--I mean, jointly--before the committee. These are Good Things.

Finally, Sen. Tom Daschle is showing a little guts. Today he really spoke out against their political assassinations:

Mr. Clarke's personal motives have been questioned and his honesty challenged. He has even been accused, right here on the Senate floor, of perjury. Not one shred of proof was given, but that wasn't the point. The point was to have the perjury accusation on television and in the newspapers. The point was to damage Mr. Clarke in any way possible.

This is wrong-and it's not the first time it's happened.
.....
There are some things that simply ought not be done - even in politics. Too many people around the President seem not to understand that, and that line has been crossed. When Ambassador Joe Wilson told the truth about the Administration's misleading claims about Iraq, Niger, and uranium, the people around the President didn't respond with facts. Instead, they publicly disclosed that Ambassador Wilson's wife was a deep-cover CIA agent. In doing so, they undermined America's national security and put politics first. They also may well have put the lives of Ambassador Wilson's wife, and her sources, in danger.
...
This is not "politics as usual." In nearly all of these cases, it's not Democrats who are being attacked.

Senator McCain and Secretary O'Neill are prominent Republicans, and Richard Clarke, Larry Lindsay, Joe Wilson, and Eric Shinseki all worked for Republican Administrations.

The common denominator is that these government officials said things the White House didn't want said.

The response from those around the President was retribution and character assassination -- a 21st Century twist to the strategy of "shooting the messenger."

If it takes intimidation to keep inconvenient facts from the American people, the people around the President don't hesitate. Richard Foster, the chief actuary for Medicare, found that out. He was told he'd be fired if he told the truth about the cost of the Administration's prescription drug plan.

This is no way to run a government.

The White House and its supporters should not be using the power of government to try to conceal facts from the American people or to reshape history in an effort to portray themselves in the best light.
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Senator McCain, Senator Cleland, Secretary O'Neill, Ambassador Wilson, General Shinseki, Richard Foster, Richard Clarke, Larry Lindsay ... when will the character assassination, retribution, and intimidation end?

When will we say enough is enough?

The September 11 families - and our entire country - deserve better. Our democracy depends on it. And our nation's future security depends on it.

Thank you, sir!!!! I am still alarmed that the (office of the) Presidency's standing is rapidly crumbling, because it will produce weird and unpredictable results in the War on Terror. Hence....

2. The emerging situation in Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. There was a massive bombing at a central market in Tashkent where my Geography professor used to go every day. The Argus is a fine site that's been closely following the Uzbekistan story as it's unfolded. There's a little speculation the whole thing was a "wag the dog" type incident invented by their President, but who knows? By all accounts, he is a wicked, tottering Soviet holdover who has been abusing Muslims left and right. Why wouldn't he generate an excuse to repress further?
3.Wal-Mart offers Nazi propaganda films, but refuses to stock a film critical of the government's role in Iraq. Thanks, Wal-Mart, you sure know how to be morally authoritative! (via the hilarious Jesus General and Atrios) See also Republican Jesus!
4. Obviously things are still going badly for Israel and Palestine. Ariel Sharon may finally have to bow out, and we'll probably be reintroduced to that paragon of integrity, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I suggest the following opinion pieces from Haaretz. They capture the mood that many Israeli s feel:

Haste is not waste: The suspicion that Sharon's actions are linked to the indictment hanging over his head is giving the country nightmares about the free-for-all at the top and the way decisions are made around here. Were the considerations behind the assassination of Sheikh Yassin, with the bloody revenge that is bound to come, cold and disinterested? Or was Sharon trying to hint to the attorney general how absolutely essential his leadership is at this time?

A civilized country cannot be run by a leader living under the dark cloud of criminal allegations like bribery and breach of trust. But in the nightmare existence we live, it is happening. Stalling is no longer an option. If an indictment is brought against him, Sharon will be forced to resign, in keeping with the Deri precedent.

Also the excellent "conspiracy theory" piece:

Why is the country striding along on a march of folly which has seen few precedents in human history? Why is it being swept from one idiotic decision to another? Why does it repeatedly act in explicit contradiction to the interests of its inhabitants? In these past three years in particular, there is no mine that Israel has failed to step on, no opportunity it hasn't missed, no path it hasn't embarked on in the certain knowledge that it will be harmful.
.....
The attempt to explain rationally and conventionally the dynamics at work here has long since failed. So much so, in fact, that the only explanation the political and military analysts on television could come up with this week was: "They're doing XXX and hoping something good will come of it."
....
Maybe there's a mole. Yes, a mole. A kind of planted spy - a destructive worm virus, a Trojan horse.

Let's put it this way: We have here a march of folly that is so systematic, so consecutive and so determined that there's no way it's happening by itself. Because if it were accidental, wouldn't there have to be the occasional random success as well? So maybe it's really not accidental. Maybe there's someone who's running the show - craftily, brilliantly.

At every stage, our friend will ask himself: How else can I be harmful? What haven't I done yet? What extra dimension can I inject into the conflict? What new layer can be added to it? We succeeded in elevating the conflict from a territorial dispute into a war of chaos involving decentralized communities and organizations. Well done, yes, but now it's time to elevate it to the religious plane, the apocalyptic level, so that the damage will extend not only into the next generation, but for untold generations down the line.

Our friend looks around and asks himself: What single action can I take in order to place Israel at the cutting edge in the war of civilizations against the whole of Islam? How can I upgrade the existential threats: from mere bombs and shooting by local ragamuffin groups to the gunsights of Al-Qaida? And how can I, by the same twist of the blade, cause the most effective publicity damage? His eye catches sight of the most adored religious leader, who is also old, sick and crippled. And the rest is the un-end of history: today the war of Gog and Magog; tomorrow the Apocalypse.
....
And again he looks around: what else, what else ... A mischievous glint in his eye: the Temple Mount?
....
Who's the mole? And furthermore: why is he doing it? In whose service is he operating? A messianic organization? Spectra? Smersh? The cult of the devil? The angels of hell? One might think he's working in the service of the Palestinians, were it not for the suspicion that an equally malicious mole is operating at their highest levels, too, and is constantly undermining their best interests.

So, who is he? And, above all, what's his motive? What's he after? It's not clear. It might all really be just an unfounded theory, a ridiculous thesis with no foundation of any kind. But tell me, in the light of what's going on, does anyone have a better explanation?

Reporting Near the Gates of Hell

There are some days when you wish that they would just put out the real damn story for a change. But now, let's go to the Laci Petersen case. You can always tell when the narrative is dissolving, because somehow Scott Petersen's symbolic crucifixion becomes the hottest thing in American cable news. *CLICK*

While the Bush administration visibly flakes into a dozen pieces on TV under fire from the Clarke Battleship, we have a whole menu of items from the post-9/11 bloodsphere. From the furthest 'Bled al-Siba' (Lands of Insolence), we learn that the wicked Governor of Herat in western Afghanistan has regained control of his city, after someone killed the Aviation Minister and everyone ran a little amuck. Roughly 50 to 100 factional warlord fighters were killed fighting each other over this historic (formerly besieged) gateway to Persia. See it fall again next Thursday on live satellite!!

The problem with Afghanistan is that it's more an aggregate of ethnically jarred city-states than a coherently governed nation. The U.S. plan pretty much hyper-Balkanized it by installing worthless factional warlords with no oversight in every major city, kind of a government glued together like toothpicks. Wildly xenophobic, tribal toothpicks.

Meanwhile the hi-value baddies got away and Pakistan's military took quite a toll (roundup) in the mountain campaign. Strong counterattacks from guerillas, and it seems Muslim leaders there are quite angry, reports the Asia Times:

Flames of war loom large The present offensive in South Waziristan is not merely a hunt for a few fugitive guerrilla fighters (including Osama bin Laden and his number two, Ayman al-Zawahri). It is a fight to control their bases in the whole eastern tribal belt that borders Afghanistan. Any ceasefire, therefore, assuming even that it holds, will be temporary at best, and a prelude to the next battle.

On Sunday, 70 of the country's most popular religious clerics, in a religious ruling issued from the federal capital Islamabad, called the Wana operation (Wana is the headquarters of South Waziristan agency) an "unjustified war" by the Pakistan army on their Muslim brothers. The clerics said that since the war had been unleashed on the mujahideen in support of the US cause in the region, anyone who died resisting the Pakistani forces would be a martyr, and any Pakistani soldiers killed would die "Motul Haram" - in other words, they would go to hell. The ruling also prohibits funeral prayers for soldiers killed in the conflict.

The ruling is a major setback for the Pakistani ruling class, and even information minister Sheikh Rasheed, who is famous for his outspoken nature, has refused to comment.

What began, therefore, as an operation to force al-Qaeda and the Afghan resistance from their base in Shawal - a no man's land .... is rapidly escalating into a major crisis for the whole country.

Meanwhile in Iraq, it is interesting that despite all the professed technocratic skill of the new administration, somehow they cannot supply the military and police equipment necessary to police and defend Iraq from hostile forces and secure the Syrian border. Among the missing items include "Life Saving Body Armor" of talking points fame, guns, radios, etc.

I find it incomprehensible that in today's titanic military-industrial complex, with its many satellites and airplanes and assorted schemers, it cannot fill in a few thousand police stations and medium-level military divisions with some kind of expediency. If this were the Roman days, you would just shoot a few pokey arms traffickers and things would move along.

14 British soldiers in Basra, Iraq were injured when 'petrol bombs,' as they call them, were launched during a protest over jobs, although some protesters supported the late Sheik Yassin or Saddam Hussein, as well. The Guardian says, "One soldier was seen with his head and shoulders covered in flames." The British forces, having a modicum of rigour about their techniques, claim to have fired only baton rounds but not live ammo or tear gas.

Among the wake of the Madrid bombings, the 9/11 commission's tidbits, the Afghans riding every which-way, and an expanding inquiry into Ariel Sharon's shady finances, Israel somehow saw the time was right to wipe out HAMAS' Sheik Yassin. Why not round out this curious March with a good heap of civil disorder moving into an April of profound anarchy in the Holy Land?

The latest spot reports from a constantly updating page at the Israeli paper Haaretz, which unlike other Israeli media tends not to become totally anesthetized when Israel launches major operations. It is 11 AM there now, but today will surely hold more news.

Five Palestinians, including a 13-year-old boy, were killed and dozens injured, Palestinian sources said, in riots that broke out in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip...

Also Monday, Palestinians fired a series of mortar shells and rockets at Gaza Strip settlements and the Negev. Four Qassam rockets fell in the Negev Monday evening. Palestinians also fired several home-made rockets at an IDF checkpoint in Gaza, two mortar shells at a settlement in the Gush Katif settlement bloc, and an anti-tank rocket at an IDF outpost near Rafah in the south of the Strip, close to the Egyptian border. Two apartments in the Gaza settlement of Neveh Dekalim were damaged due to rocket attacks earlier in the day.

IDF tanks moved into northern Gaza late Monday, Israeli security officials said. Palestinian security officials said the tanks were moving toward the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.

In the Khan Yunis refugee camp in southern Gaza, IDF soldiers shot and killed three Palestinians, including a 13-year-old boy, during clashes with hundreds of angry protesters. The demonstrators flocked to a roadblock west of the refugee camp, near [Jewish settlement] Neveh Dekalim, and threw stones at the soldiers guarding it. Witnesses said the soldiers fired live ammunition at the crowd, which consisted mostly of schoolchildren.

In the West Bank refugee camp of Balata in Nablus, hospital officials said soldiers shot dead a Palestinian journalist. They said Mohammed Abu Khalimi, a 22-year-old reporter for Al Najah University radio, had just broadcast a report about the army entering the camp when he was shot. They said he was standing near a group of stone-throwing youths.

Some 15,000 people, including more than 40 armed men, gathered in the center of Nablus. About 15 armed men, wearing masks and Hamas headbands, fired shots into the air.

"Dozens of people came to us this morning volunteering to be suicide bombers," said one masked militant. "We will send them in the right time."

A Palestinian man was shot and wounded in the West Bank city of Bethlehem after throwing firebombs at IDF troops, Army Radio reported.

In Jenin, another militant stronghold in the West Bank, more than 10,000 people demonstrated. Several dozen armed men from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades joined the crowd.

"Dozens of people came to us this morning volunteering to be suicide bombers," said one masked militant. "We will send them in the right time."

Ten Palestinians were injured in the West Bank city of Hebron in clashes with IDF troops. Soldiers fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters. Twelve demonstrators were injured in Bethlehem during clashes with IDF forces near the Tomb of Rachel near the city.

Calls for revenge emanated from mosque loudspeakers. One Hamas activist said that a new phase in the Israeli-Palestinian fighting had begun.

Shopkeepers called a one-day strike throughout the West Bank, closing virtually all stores. Palestinian schools were closed.

Jerusalem Post analyst simply says "Assassination will increase anarchy."

The settlers have an ethical code. Yay. Thanks, guys.

Hezbollah attacked Israeli positions from Lebanon.

Now Hamas could align with Al-Qaida.

Israel is barring journalists with Israeli citizenship from the Gaza Strip.

I am on a few odd Israeli e-mail lists, but one of the most interesting is surely GAMLA, a settler newswire featuring the insights of DEBKAfile. There's a certain direct style in today's analysis:

Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has fired the Israel-Palestinian war up to a new plane. The targeted assassination of Hamas founder, leader and moving spirit, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Monday, March 22, was the prime minister's thunderous reply to the critics who argue that his disengagement strategy would hand the Gaza Strip over to Hamas control. It signals his determination to purge Gaza of Islamic fundamentalist terrorists ahead its evacuation. Yassin's death is but the precursor to liquidating the violent movement he founded in 1987 to "cleanse" Middle East of Jewish sovereignty and replace it with an Islamic republic.

This cleanout of Hamas strength will take time. Until it is done, Israel cannot pull out of the Gaza Strip or even begin the process of disengagement.

Nothing else is quite as wretched today as David Brooks: "Understanding what the phrase 'one nation under God' might mean -- that's the important thing. That's not proselytizing; it's citizenship."

You wanted a Global War on Terror, Mr President.

You got one.

Last thoughts inside the box

In less than 12 hours I'll be winging it out of this country for the first time in many years. The last time I flew out was Jamaica in high school. Since then, I've driven into Canada and Mexico, which is an entirely appropriate way to learn how the country ends at a line. I've given a lot of attention to what happens elsewhere but i haven't been elsewhere in so long, which is plainly negligent or even hypocritical.

Meanwhile, rumors are flying that Al-Qaeda bombed Madrid in retaliation for Iraq, an entirely reasonable idea when we remember that Al-Qaeda means "the base." So who knows what branches of the base might be involved in bombing European public transportation? There have been bomb threats against French trains, as well. It is safe to say that the security apparatus will be out in full. I haven't flown since 9/11. I'm a little edgy that there might be another incident in London during this season of the unexplained.

Yet that is why it's so important for me to go away for a while. The negative forces on the TV tell us that order is crumbling all around, that The Terror is On Our Doorstep. We Must Cower, they say.

Before Madrid, I saw that the dark thunderclouds of baseless fear and malicious disinformation were finally starting to drift away in this country.

It feels much better to step out when things are finally turning the corner than when the forces of evil blow right on your back. America this spring already seems a safer place with the idea of another four years of Bush Imperium sounding more farcical and remote by the week. Their nasty vision is falling apart.

So with that, let me round up a few key things to look for:

Wait for the good Colonel, Lt Col Karen Kwiatkoski, to start making the rounds on cable TV. The bombshell piece "The New Pentagon Papers" in Salon.com is part of a grand liberal media offensive incorporating Salon.com and the UK's Guardian. Her writings thus far, including the regular column, are an excellent expression of profoundly alarmed everyday conservatism. "Soldier for the Truth: Exposing Bush’s Talking-Points War ." Funny how it sounds like the whole Iraq war (mainly via the Salon piece) was propelled by one Straussian (Mr Shulsky) deploying an array of threatening talking points memos.

There is the unfolding story of the stolen Congressional computer documents.

There is (another) Halliburton investigation.

Juan Cole puts it all too well when he asks: "US Intelligence Follies: Why Haven't Cheney, Feith and Chalabi been Impeached?

Whatever happens on this trip, by the time I return, I'll be changed. It will be a before-vs.-after experience, no matter what happens. And what better moment for the clean break than now?

I might see more clearly these things which puzzle me so. I have to go.

Hurrah!! Server goes down & gets put together as Neo-Con castle crumbles!!

Everything got pretty risky there for a little while, and many bits of the system were fouled up, including important Perl files. I decided to install OS X fresh on the machine, and in turn rebuild all the site's MySQL hookups, Perl modules and everything. Fortunately it somehow only took about 90 minutes to do all this. Is it flawless? I'm not sure, but it should work.

On Friday I am flying off to England. How sweet.

There has been a ton of news lately about the spoofed Iraq intelligence I love so dearly. Finally, Lt Col Karen Kwiatkowski (Ret) has written her definitive expose on what she witnessed in the Pentagon and around the Office of Special Plans. Everything here reinforced what I have been saying all along. I am really happy that the Kwiatkowski is living up to the exacting standards of personal integrity that all armed services people should strive for, and not enough have in this time of lies.

I have heard about her story for quite some time, and she has been referred to in a few stories I've linked to. A key passage from "The Lie Factory" which Senator Kennedy recently repeated on the Senate floor:

"It wasn't intelligence-it was propaganda," Kwiatkowski says. "They'd take a little bit of intelligence, cherry-pick it, make it sound much more exciting, usually by taking it out of context, often by juxtaposition of two pieces of information that don't belong together." It was by turning such bogus intelligence into talking points for U.S. officials-including ominous lines in speeches by President Bush and Vice President Cheney, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell's testimony at the U.N. Security Council last February-that the administration pushed American public opinion into supporting an unnecessary war.

She is the real deal. We're lucky.

Hersh: Special Forces going into Pakistan

There have been a lot of stories flying today about the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Seymour Hersh released a major article stating that the U.S. is going into the remote Hindu Kush areas with possibly thousands of troops to seek out Bin Laden. This article is worth reading in its entirety.

Hindu Kush means "Hindu Killer," and as Hersh pointed out today, Alexander the Great lost a division up here to the harsh conditions. These are highly tribal areas, and most people are well-armed.

The problem is that for a lot of the hard-core Islamists in the Pakistani security services--mainly the ISI--the entry of US troops into Pakistan is the real red line, the breaking point. Musharraf has already narrowly avoided death several times.

Should it be a red line for us? As Andy put it, this is massive intervention into a nuclear power we are talking about. Does this kind of thing have to be voted on somewhere? What can this lead to? (What might the North Koreans do?)

Stop.

Ok, alternatively, none of this madness is going on. It's all fiction and spy yarns. Sometimes I worry I am over-reacting, but then I think about how scary nuclear weapons seemed to me back in the day. Back then, we had huge states looking out for their crown jewels, but now its more of an virtual Persian bazaar of clandestine WMD trafficking and shady deals.

Besides that, Reuters reports NATO is planning to sweep through Afghanistan, taking security control of continuous areas in a grand sweep. Yet the Taliban has control of Zabul province now, according to one Pakistani article. The NGOs have been brutally driven off in these parts and the central government, corrupt in many places, is out of reach.

The Pakistani military killed some people a little ways inside Pakistan, in an area they are searching through.

There is an interesting story in the WaPo that the Palestinian Authority might crumble, too.

Something less terrifying about other fuzzy borders in Central Asia. Seems Uzbekistan, kind of a troll state, has been laying landmines well beyond its boundaries. Meanwhile Tajiks have been wandering into Kyrgyzstan and taking resources. It's a very nomadic place, which is part of the reason the land mines are such a problem.

Interesting campaign blog with the Columbia School of Journalism.

I TOLD you that Ahmed Chalabi was dirty dirty stuff, selling bad intel via the neo-cons. The investigations are piling up. Hurrah!

I sneak a question to Kerry at rally!

While reporting for the Mac Weekly, I located myself in the audience near the "stage entrance" of the campaign rally. Senator Kerry moved down the line, shaking hands and signing things. With a huge crush of people and cameras all around, I asked Kerry if the investigation into intelligence distortions on Iraq should be a criminal matter. We reported his answer in the Mac Weekly story. (not yet online).

Kerry responded: "I have no evidence yet that it should be, but I think that we need a much more rapid and thorough investigation than the administration is currently pursuing. I think that this idea of doing it by 2005 is a complete election gimmick. It ought to be done in a matter of months, and that will determine what ought to be done."

The campaign story was a very tough one for us to write, and the session well into the early morning left me tired for days afterward. It is damn hard to write the Weekly and look sane the next day, as the editors know all too well.

The newspaper is in sweet sweet color on the cover. I'm really happy I snagged a candidate's quote, but I wish that more of what other people said at the rally could have been put in. Unfortunately, the paper a huge crush for space this week.

Shocks and aftershocks

I am making some progress on this new website idea but it has been slow going with finals. Fortunately that ends Wednesday. Unfortunately I have a TERM PAPER about THE WAR that has been rather disrupted. And it's also due Wednesday.

Here is a screenshot chunk of what I've put together for HongPong.com so far. This information will be strung together and turned into nice chunks of HTML information. I just found out how to import the WHOLE old HongPong.com right into it, but it will be tricky. These notes haven't been filled in for the most part, but pieces are getting added as I come across them. Think of it as sort of a topical filing cabinet with links and groups. Or something... It hasn't totally come together, that's for sure. And hurray, the Neo-cons will all be bright red!

As for the big news yesterday, that about does it for Jihadist Saddam. At the very least, we've got a great super-villain going now. Finally, a bitter and uncertain chapter in this story has closed, and the Baath Party is really finished, as a concentric ring system which made every bit of Iraqi society work backwards, a network of fear and domination which made the nation a house propped up to implode.
For me, the key question is still what happened to those Iraqi buildings, the libraries and the huge government ministries which ran the largest bureaucracy in the middle east. It feels like the loss of all these records was a disaster which not only obliterated so much history, but also rendered almost impossible the process of reconciling the society. (We've focused on bureaucracy, as a system, in contemporary political theory class, which sparks my interest in the day-to-day administration of occupied Iraq).
Unilateral reporter Robert Fisk, April 15, Library books, letters and priceless documents are set ablaze in final chapter of the sacking of Baghdad:

So yesterday was the burning of books. First came the looters, then the arsonists. It was the final chapter in the sacking of Baghdad. The National Library and Archives – a priceless treasure of Ottoman historical documents, including the old royal archives of Iraq – were turned to ashes in 3,000 degrees of heat. Then the library of Korans at the Ministry of Religious Endowment were set ablaze.

Amid the ashes of Iraqi history, I found a file blowing in the wind outside: pages of handwritten letters between the court of Sharif Hussein of Mecca, who started the Arab revolt against the Turks for Lawrence of Arabia, and the Ottoman rulers of Baghdad. And the Americans did nothing.... I was holding in my hands the last Baghdad vestiges of Iraq's written history.

But for Iraq, this is Year Zero; with the destruction of the antiquities in the Museum of Archaeology on Saturday and the burning of the National Archives and then the Koranic library, the cultural identity of Iraq is being erased. Why? Who set these fires? For what insane purpose is this heritage being destroyed?
When I caught sight of the Koranic library burning – there were flames 100 feet high bursting from the windows – I raced to the offices of the occupying power, the US Marines' Civil Affairs Bureau. An officer shouted to a colleague that "this guy says some biblical [sic] library is on fire". I gave the map location, the precise name – in Arabic and English – I said the smoke could be seen from three miles away and it would take only five minutes to drive there. Half an hour later, there wasn't an American at the scene – and the flames were shooting 200 feet into the air.

It's a moment in time we sort of chalked off from our understanding of the situation, and this extends down to the daily pattern of life in the country now.

But what is the next move for Saddam? Even in a cell the man still has a power, in no small part the ability, and the will, to tell all about how the Reagan administration helped him with all those well-demonized episodes of genocide and mayhem. There is that. But there is also Osama bin Laden about, and he's no bit player right now. As they cheered everywhere from FOX News to the foxholes to the streets of Iraq, I posted this comment about everyone's favorite evildoer. Yes, Saddam's capture helps things come together, perhaps. But who else benefits?

Time for That Special Babylon Feeling

(Fri. Dec. 12)

In the last week, right in the middle of finals, I submitted an opinion about the Middle East (Who? Me?!) to this year's final Mac Weekly.

UPDATE: In an ironic act of God, Saddam Hussein was captured two days after this was published. Rarely does the limb get slashed so quickly. It still holds together, I say

The United States finds itself at an ultimate nadir. We occupy hundreds of thousands of square miles of central Asia?s most historically fractious territory. The nearly-forgotten Taliban has sprung back from Pakistani strongholds, and Saddam is finally free to join the audiotape-jihadist club.

Mesopotamia, the valley where the party started, is a smoldering, fourth-world ruin, flooded with a mixture of suspicious military-industrial corporations and mujahideen. The army?s mass arrests, its deployment of armor in urban areas, the razing of homes, and encircling towns with razor wire echo the terrible confrontation around Jerusalem that Bush has defiantly refused to confront. America grows inured to the daily violence and tragedies facing both Iraqis and American troops as young as first-years.

Nothing can shake this eerie sense that it is not just that Bush has failed us; rather, it is the whole underpinning of civilization itself, past and present, which has been shaken from its foundations.

It is not merely the museums of early history plundered, but the sites of our very genesis that lie destroyed. In those looted ruins, what was once knowable about our original nature has been smashed into darkness. We can never recover this loss.

The anarchy that transpired was not just an obscenity to today?s Iraqis; it was an attack on every ancient people there, and all their descendants. It destroyed our link with history, a knife in our collective soul more damaging than any crime humanity has yet witnessed. America still struggles to control a land it barely understands.

A stunning report by Seymour Hersh in this week?s New Yorker spells out the path America now seeks. The Pentagon will escalate their operations against Iraqi militants, using Special Forces hit squads to assassinate those whom our new reconstituted Baathist security forces point fingers at, Vietnam?s Phoenix Program for the 21st century.

Who better to train U.S. troops than their Israeli counterparts? Happy to build their occupation assassins into our expanding War on Terror, Israeli ?consultants? have already visited Baghdad. But which American general is putting the project together? None other than William Boykin, who publicly equates the Muslim world with the devil. According to reports, speaking before fundamentalist church audiences that ?Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army.?

Bush, insensitive to Boykin?s hate, is a special kind of leader. He is afraid of newspapers. He told Fox a little while ago, ?I glance at the headlines. I rarely read the stories. I understand that a lot of times there?s opinions mixed in with news. And I appreciate people?s opinions, but I?m more interested in news. And the best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what?s happening in the world.?

Yet his objective sources keep ducking the important questions. They didn?t send enough troops to Iraq. Why? Why was there no peacekeeping plan for the Iraqi cities? Why didn?t the Pentagon plan to defend the Iraqi government ministries? Why do they forbid Iraqis from unionizing? Why can?t they control the enormous caches of captured arms around the country?

Is their goal chaos in the name of order? Pain and death in the service of defending our freedoms? Democracy, or Michael Ledeen?s ?creative destruction??

Their special plans have unfolded. Now the abyss between America and the Arabs has busted wide open. It is well past time to get rid of Rumsfeld and the incompetents who have botched the occupation. We must go hat in hand to the UN and ask the world to repair the political catastrophe we?ve sown at its root. If we quietly accept this path, we will never know peace again.

Midterms strike; an exclusive interview with Middle East expert

Right now I've just sat down to write this major midterm paper for International Politics class, but I thought I ought to update the site quickly before I dive in. Fall break is coming right up, fortunately, and we are going to see Atmosphere at First Ave. this Friday, which should be excellent.

A significant event: Atmosphere makes a music video! You can see it here on Quicktime or via links on their site.

The big deal for me this week has been my Mac Weekly interview with Middle East expert, Columbia history professor and occasional Palestinian diplomat Rashid Khalidi, who presented his paper "The Past and Future of Democracy in the Middle East" at this year's Macalester Roundtable. I thought that he was an excellent and informed speaker, and it rather made my day when he spoke at length about the significance of that neo-con document, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," and how for him, it described a "template" for American-Israeli hegemony over the Middle East. This is decidedly a minority viewpoint today but I strongly believe it. When the history of the neo-con parlor game which produced the Iraq war is written, Khalidi's angle will be profoundly valuable. He also told me that Ahmed Chalabi is trying to purge Sunnis in Iraq and provoke a civil war. Also he told me that the Revisionist Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky provides much of the philosophical basis of neoconservatism. Want more?

Please look at my interview with Khalidi and the Roundtable story, which due to space had to be too short to provide details on his talk.

Also look at this collection of Iraqi children's drawings, which I found profoundly moving. (link Schwartz :)

Additionally there is Josh Marshall's review of "America Unbound," with an extensive critique of the neoconservative foreign policy experience, online now.

Soo now it's back to work. Damn midterms.

Bolivia rebellion?

New poll!! To hell with California!
There has been a lot of unrest in Bolivia directed towards their president, because he has taken pro-US policies in trade and drug control, as well as attempted to build a natural gas pipeline. So now the capital is under siege as protesters (a great part of whom are indigenous farmers and coca growers) swarm around. About 50 have been killed in violence. It's interesting how South American politics works: where it's so poor, the coca growers have a real slice of the economic activity (as they have for centuries) and they just don't accept U.S. dominance over their culture. On the other hand, maybe they are just immoral narcotraficantes. Latest Reuters:

LA PAZ, Bolivia, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Bolivia's army fought to stop columns of protesters from streaming into the food-starved capital on Wednesday as a popular uprising against the president spread.

Catholic Church officials reported that two miners were killed and six other protesters injured 50 miles (110 km) outside of La Paz. Protests also raged in the eastern city of Cochabamba, where marchers threw rocks at police and Molotov cocktails at a government palace.

Analysts predict President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, whose coalition is crumbling, will have to make concessions to protesters to prevent more violence from toppling his administration. The monthlong revolt against his U.S.-backed policies have left at least 53 people dead.

The government in South America's poorest nation, where six out of 10 people live on less than $2 a day, is under attack for a host of grievances ranging from its U.S.-led eradication of coca to a plan to export natural gas to the United States.

A more radical interpretation via ZNet says that

Once again, this time ironically, Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada has summed up the situation succinctly: a tiny minority is trying to divide the country. Sánchez de Lozada?whose approval rating stands at 8%--and his inner circle have dug in their heels, raised their voices in contempt, and adopted bellicose postures. The US Embassy, the media, and the upper layers of the military and police are the only remaining supports of the regime. The opposition sectors insist on the resignation of Sánchez de Lozada and his draconian ministers, Carlos Sánchez Berzaín and Yerko Kukoc, as well as a change in the law regulating petroleum multinationals.

It remains to be seen whether the opposition movements, led by the highland Aymara, will succeed in overthrowing Sánchez de Lozada, implementing a Constituent Assembly, and forging a new Bolivia, or whether rightwing authoritarianism a la Uribe will be imposed with the aid of the US Embassy. The situation is unfolding with such rapidity that predictions are of marginal utility, but one thing is certain: the Aymara working class and peasantry of the western highlands; the coca growers of the eastern lowlands; the Quechua-speaking Indian peasantry of the southern highlands and valleys; the working class of La Paz and Cochabamba; in other words, the people who produce Bolivia?s wealth are demanding an end to 511 years of looting, exploitation, and political domination. They insist on becoming the beneficiaries of their labor, on taking the political decisions that affect their lives and exercising sovereignty over natural resources.

Here is another ZNet article.

Everyone's national disaster

I've been quite busy this week, and if you're like me then now, finally, it might be safe for us to breathe again. Through all those Clinton years we were treated to one smear incident after another, Travelgate, Watergate, Monicagate... all these inconsequential scandals with one special prosecutor after another.

And now this Administration, with its 'crown jewels' of 'credibility and integrity' or whatever they call it, now finally has that unmistakeable tarnish of a real political disease upon it. The schism between the government agencies (the CIA never really bought this bullshit all along) has exploded all over the cable news, months after it should have...

Actually that's one interesting aspect. Novak wrote his column back in mid-July, and Bush only publically said anything about this national security crisis a few days ago. One guy points out that's 75 days of sitting on his ass. True.

What to make of this? What damage? Who's spinning?

FOX News has been hilarious the last few days. First, they didn't want to talk about it. They avoided noting the Justice investigation for quite a while. Brit Hume disparaged the whole thing, anchors noted that 'nothing ever comes of these things, why bother?' Silliest of all, one rightie after another has said Wilson was some partisan peacenik yahoo, who existed to hassle the Bush administration. This doesn't quite fit with Wilson's work around the first Gulf war, where he was the US unofficial ambassador to Iraq, and the last American to meet with him prior to the war. He received much praise from Poppa Bush for his work. He also has given money to Republican candidates recently. No one's partisan, really.

I also like the line of reasoning which claims that because 'all he did was sip tea' in Niger rather than, I don't know, break into offices and kidnap officials, he could never have done a thorough job investigating the uranium story. (this is what Brit Hume and resident AEI Neo-con bitch Reuel Marc Gerecht talked about, because they didn't want to talk about the leak itself) But these fools don't know how the uranium business works. The mine is run by a large European conglomerate licensed under the IAEA. It's on the level. Really.

Novak himself is putting out all kinds of nonsense, but it's like he's compelled to share national security secrets with the public. for one thing, he said that she was known as an agent to insiders and "well known" in Washington, so it's not a big deal that he ran her name. What the hell is he talking about? So just now he decided to tell the name of her CIA front company. Good, that will help destroy their cover overseas. On CNN he said:

"Joe Wilson, the -- everybody knows he has given campaign contributions in 2000 to both Ford -- I mean to both Gore and to Bush. He gave twice as much to Gore, $2,000, $1,000 over the limit. The government -- the campaign had to give him back $1,000. That very day, according to his records, his wife, the CIA employee gave $1,000 to Gore, and she listed herself as an employee of Bruster, Jennings and Associates (ph).

There is there no such firm, I'm convinced. CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're a deep cover. They're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told. So it adds to the little mystery."

The Washington Post now reports

After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front... The inadvertent disclosure of the name of a business affiliated with the CIA underscores the potential damage to the agency and its operatives caused by the leak of Plame's identity. Intelligence officials have said that once Plame's job as an undercover operative was revealed, other agency secrets could be unraveled and her sources might be compromised or endangered.

Thanks, Novak! You're a great journalist! These clips come via DailyKos.

There is one piece of fallout from the crime we can't deny: whoever was ever associated with agent Plame overseas is in danger. What remains in question is what, exactly, Plame did. Calpundit piles up the public facts so far. It seems to be emerging that Plame ran networks of foreign informers who passed on information about biological, chemical, and nuclear material. Let me say that again: Plame's job was to collect intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, to monitor and prevent them from being used against the United States. Now anyone who can be tied to her can be compromised.

That's something that is really a disaster for everyone. That's the central point. Politics don't enter into calculating this.

Yet it is political. The leaker went after Wilson to intimidate anyone else who might attack the Bush folks falsification of war intelligence.

Let me offer a prediction about who was probably behind the leak: the Vice President's Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby. There have been insiders saying that the bad guy works in the Executive Office Building, where Cheney's people are. If I'm right about this, I definitely win a cookie.

On a related topic, you need to see this report which says that FOX News watchers were the most likely to believe in misinformation about the war, namely that WMD have already been found, and Saddam was acively engaged with Al-Qaeda. Fair and Balanced!

In following these developments, naturally the Internet is the best source. Lately my reliable wisdom has come from the Daily Kos, Eschaton and The Agonist. If you keep an eye on these then you'll probably catch most of what's going on. Also much respect is due to Washington reporter Josh Marshall, who writes the Talking Points Memo, and kept the story alive since July. Marshall also has recently interviewed Wilson and Wesley Clark.

Actually, Clark told Marshall something important about neoconservatives:

TPM: I noticed that Doug Feith, who's obviously the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, had a statement a while back saying that the connection between terrorist organizations and state sponsors was, I think he said, the principal strategic thought behind the administration's policy.

CLARK: It's the principal strategic mistake behind the administration's policy. If you look at all the states that were named as the principal adversaries, they're on the periphery of international terrorism today. Syria -- OK, supporting Hezbollah and Hamas -- yeah, they're terrorist organizations. They're focused on Israel. They're getting support from Iran. It's wrong. Shouldn't be there. But they're there. What about Saudi Arabia? There's a source of the funding, the source of the ideology, the source of the recruits. What about Pakistan? With thousands of madrassas churning out ideologically-driven foot soldiers for the war on terror. Neither of those are at the front of the military operations. ...

The ability to conduct foreign policy draws not only on the president himself but on the leadership of the administration. If you were to start here and work backwards, you'd say this administration was doctrinaire. You'd say that it didn't have a real vision in foreign policy. It was reactive. Hobbled by its right-wing constituency from using the full tools that are available -- the full kit-bag of tools that's available to help Americans be in there and protect their interests in the world.

Clinton administration: broad minded, visionary, lots of engagement. Did a lot of work. Had difficulty with two houses in congress that [it] didn't control. And in an odd replay of the Carter administration, found itself chained to the Iraqi policy -- promoted by the Project for a New American Century -- much the same way that in the Carter administration some of the same people formed the Committee on the Present Danger which cut out from the Carter administration the ability to move forward on SALT II.

TPM: This being the same neo-conservatives that people hear about in the press today?

CLARK: Right, some of the same people. And then, you know, if you go back to the Bush administration, they were there when the Berlin Wall fell.

This whole statement that the neo-cons actually used the PNAC to undercut the administration's options is a kind of inverted view of issue advocacy (and it's fun to tie them to Carter). Marshall strongly agrees with the idea, and it got a bunch of nasty feedback from neocons. Very interesting. I am happy Clark is on the right page with neo-con deviousness, because that would be so fun to see him go off about in the democratic debates.

I suggest everyone sit back and watch the fireworks. This mess has just begun to unfold.

Bloggers, bloggers everywhere

One nice thing going on today is the profusion of internet weblogs in places like Baghdad and Tehran. During the war Salam Pax got to be pretty well-known as 'the Baghdad Blogger.' I'd suggest looking at his look at the return of the Hashemite prince or the story of depressing Baghdad madness:

Actually we have been having pretty bad days. If you would have talked to me a week ago and I would have told you that I am very optimistic; maybe not optimistic but at least had hope. Now I can only think of two things. One of them was something my mother said while watching the news. She was watching something about the latest attacks on the "coalition forces" and their retaliation. She said that she has always wondered how people in Beirut and Jerusalem could have led any sort of lives, when their cities were practically military zones, she said she now knows how it feels to live in a city were the sight of a tank and military checkpoints asking you to get out your car and look thru your bag becomes "normal". When you turn on the TV and just hope that you don?t see more pictures of people shooting at each other.

The other thing was something a foreign acquaintance has said after spending some time in the city on a really hot day. He went in threw his hat on the floor and said loudly: "I want to inform my Iraqi friends that their country is doomed". I have no idea what that was about but the sentence just stuck to my mind.

Salam has started a photo-log too. Other Iraqi bloggers include 'G in Baghdad,' who describes an encounter with a captured Syrian teenager in an American-run hospital, or the dual reality of the Iraqi mind:

Here in Iraq every citizen was provided -since the early days of the regime- with a whole set of lies that gradually became the foundation on which you would build your perceptions of the world outside. Consequently you end up with two channels, a "channel reality" that is off the air most of the times and "channel rhetoric" a mixture of self-denial, conspiracy theory [apologia] and propaganda.

Of course we shouldn?t blame Saddam and his lies based tyrannical regime only, this phenomenon has its roots deep in our cultural/religious history. Nowadays the main question every Iraqi is trying to answer, since the removal of our beloved leader is: (how should I feel towards the Americans?) and (is the American "liberation / occupation" a good or bad thing?). Don?t expect an answer from me here, until we have our first Gallup poll in Iraq all what you will get is mere speculations-observations gibberish...

I think one of the main issues we have to face, is how to stop using the rhetoric channel, how could we stop this cog mire of stupid conspiracy theories going on and on and on how to liberate our selves from the secret police mechanisms nesting in our brains, this liberation will not be achieved by American tanks, nor by a self-denial flagellation process.

G also has a photolog going now. There's an Iraqi female blogger named Zainab writing now too.

Iran has experienced an upsurge in blogging as well, as View from Iran and Blue Bird Escape look at Iran from inside. Persian Blogger Chronicles is grad student Alireza Doostar's attempt to chart this new form of information as it emerges from Iran.

While on the topic of blogs, notorious uber-blonde right-winger Ann Coulter supposedly has a weblog now, but it hasn't really started. She must be building up steam and bleaching those locks...

There are a whole lot of other blogs out there to check out. Here's a few:

• BuzzMachine carries a nice mixture of news and looks at lots of different bloggers and viewpoints.
• Talking Points Memo is written by Josh Marshall, who has written marvellous pieces on neoconservatives for the Washington Monthly
• AndrewSullivan.com, a very widely known blogger, known for sporting a very conservative homosexual lifestyle.
• Warblogs.cc combines a lot of different feeds from Agonist.org, dailykos.com and others.
• Why not? The official Howard Dean for President weblog.
• I just found Israel's Israpundit.
• The hard core of Israel's internet crew could be found at Haganah b'Internet, perched on the right wing. Also has an amazing collection of links to Arab terrorist websites.
• Instapundit is pretty well-known random punditry.
• Tacitus provides your basic rightist, support-the-war viewpoint.
• unmedia gives a lot of various agreeable stuff.
• The guy who writesThis Modern World, that amazing pop-art political comic, also keeps a weblog. He's an articulate and funny guy.
• I just found Shi'a Pundit, with a tolerant view of religious conflict.
• Also just found USS Clueless, looking at US strategy and other such things...
• CounterSpin is pretty well known.
• If you're looking for quick and nasty things to say about Bush look at MediaChannel.org's news dissector.
• Diplomatica.org rambles on about international politics.

If those don't provide hours of entertainment I don't know what would. Apparently anyone who blogs is just enjoying secondhand reality, anyhow.

It's not the end of the world

ut This War Had a Much Deeper Significance than Reported! according to a marvelous book I received on Friday. Beyond Iraq: The Next Move, is selling well on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, where it is listed under the 'non-fiction' and 'biblical prophecy' categories. I got my copy the only honest way, through Armageddon Books (order form: "Thanks again for selecting Armageddon Books as your supplier of end-time materials"). Evans' key points:

• Saddam Hussein and his demon-possessed sons are the current representation of the spirit of Babylon, which is prophesied to battle Jerusalem at the end of the Christian world.
• Islam is dangerous and probably wicked.
• Settling Jews in the West Bank is the will of God.
• The Israeli Likud party is righteous and believes in God, while Labor is made of liberal unbelievers.
• The problem is the "t" word, terror, not the "o" word, occupied territories.
• The present 'road map' is only bad for Israel because it means land for terror.

Introduction:

As I stood and shook Mayor Giuliani's hand, all I could see in my mind's eye were the two 189-ton bombs in the form of fully fueled Boeing 767s hitting the World Trade Towers just as my friend [Mossad director] had foretold. No one could have known that on that Tuesday, the 11th of September 2001, the first war of the 21st century would begin--a war against terror that may well draw the line in the sand, , forever dividing light from darkness, proclaiming like a trumpet a spiritual battle of monumental proportions. Who would have wondered at the time, that the epicenters of this battle would center on ancient Babylon (biblical Iraq) -- the spiritual center of darkness -- and Jerusalem -- the spiritual center of Light... Iraq will become the US base from which the war on terrorism is fought. From there it will only be a short reach to the throat of Syria and Iran and the terrorist networks.

Ahh, sweet sweet Christian evangelistic eschatology. It's the end of time and we have front row seats for the showdown of good and evil. What actually egged me to put down $11 on this book is how much it's getting promoted, at least on MSNBC. On Hardball the other day, the host (a sub for Mathews) introduced Evans without putting him into the context of his evangelical beliefs. He just rambled on (the host asked him if he was drunk, after blurting "Sugarcoating Sinai") about the "t" word, terror, being the issue. The issue of the end of the world never entered the discussion, and suddenly the discourse in the book becomes normal. Who is reading up on stuff this way, who sees the world through this lens? What do they believe about Palestinians?

Kofi favors armed peacekeepers for holy land

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated in an interview with Haaretz that he would prefer to see an armed international force placed as a buffer between Israelis and Palestinians.

"The monitoring mechanism that will be put in place next week is a beginning and it may be enough if the parties are able to break the cycle of violence. In the interim period, I would like to see an armed peacekeeping force act as a buffer between the Israelis and Palestinians," Annan said in an interview with Haaretz...

Essentially, Annan supports the approach that was adopted by Yitzhak Rabin, and later rejected by Ariel Sharon, namely, "to fight terror as if there are no negotiations and to conduct negotiations as if there is no terror." He deems it a "mistake" not to talk as long as violence continues. He is "encouraged" by Sharon's recent statements about his commitment to the peace process and says, "I have to give him the benefit of the doubt. And I expect that he will deliver and that he will engage in the peace process."

The UN secretary general, who can take credit for establishing the Quartet, also does not agree with Sharon's determination to isolate Yasser Arafat. He believes the Palestinian Authority chairman still has wide influence and that it would be better "to encourage him to work for the peace process and to work to support Mr. Abbas. They need to work together for the effort to succeed." Annan asks, "Do you influence him by not talking to him? Or do you have to talk to everyone in order to have a positive influence? The developments that led to the appointment of a prime minister who is compatible with Prime Minister Sharon and President [George] Bush came out of dealing with Chairman Arafat and getting him to take positive steps. So I think he has not been entirely negative."

Annan believes that calm will not come to the Middle East without a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "It is a crisis that inflames the masses in other countries. It is a crisis that inhibits some of the other leaders in the region from being more forthcoming in trying to achieve peace. It is a crisis that is exploited by the extremists and therefore it is absolutely essential that we resolve this conflict."

Chalabi: Wise on Saddam or NeoConPawn? US battles Shadowy Enemies and meddles with Tehran?

Ahmed Chalabi, the chairman of the Iraqi National Congress, is claiming that Saddam is hiding out, paying bounties for killing American soldiers, and with him are the answers about weapons.

Chalabi, 58, the leader of the Pentagon-backed Iraqi National Congress, insisted that U.S. authorities would find the former Iraqi government's hidden weapons once they locate Hussein. Chalabi maintained that Hussein is still alive and directing attacks against U.S. soldiers...

The role of Chalabi and other former Iraqi exiles in helping to build the U.S. case for war has been scrutinized recently in Washington, particularly since U.S. inspectors have not provided substantial evidence of Iraqi chemical, biological and nuclear weapons....

Chalabi is a longtime favorite of Pentagon hawks, and he traveled on a U.S. military transport plane with the U.S.-trained 700-member Iraqi Free Forces to southern Iraq during the war. But he has criticized the U.S. military for not anticipating the extent of chaos after the fall of Hussein's government. He said he had repeatedly pleaded with U.S. officials to train a force of Iraqi military police to "go in with the American force" and halt the "looting" and the "acts of disorder."

Chalabi said that the capture of Hussein and his younger son, Qusay, could still hold the key to discovering Iraq's banned weapons: "The weapons and Saddam are one and the same thing."

So who is this marvellous Chalabi? He is derided as a "hapless strutting tool of US imperialism", as Edward Said put it. An old friend of Wolfowitz and generally someone who has taken their paychecks from the CIA. Consider this article "Tinker, Banker, NeoCon, Spy" from last November:

If T.E. Lawrence ("of Arabia") had been a 21st-century neoconservative operative instead of a British imperial spy, he'd be Ahmed Chalabi's best friend. Chalabi, the London-based leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), is front man for the latest incarnation of a long-time neoconservative strategy to redraw the map of the oil-rich Middle East, put American troops -- and American oil companies -- in full control of the Persian Gulf's reserves and use the Gulf as a fulcrum for enhancing America's global strategic hegemony. Just as Lawrence's escapades in World War I-era Arabia helped Britain remake the disintegrating Ottoman Empire, the U.S. sponsors of Chalabi's INC hope to do their own nation building....

In Washington, Team Chalabi is led by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, the neoconservative strategist who heads the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. Chalabi's partisans run the gamut from far right to extremely far right, with key supporters in most of the Pentagon's Middle-East policy offices -- such as Peter Rodman, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser and Michael Rubin. Also included are key staffers in Vice President Dick Cheney's office, not to mention Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former CIA Director Jim Woolsey.

The Washington partisans who want to install Chalabi in Arab Iraq are also those associated with the staunchest backers of Israel, particularly those aligned with the hard-right faction of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Chalabi's cheerleaders include the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). "Chalabi is the one that we know the best," says Shoshana Bryen, director of special projects for JINSA, where Chalabi has been a frequent guest at board meetings, symposia and other events since 1997. "He could be Iraq's national leader," says Patrick Clawson, deputy director of WINEP, whose board of advisers includes pro-Israeli luminaries such as Perle, Wolfowitz and Martin Peretz of The New Republic.

There is absolutely no food for thought whatsoever in that article. None.

There is a frightening level of general violence in many central Iraqi cities, as skilled guerillas probe coalition defenses. In Fallujah, there have been frequent attacks.

The hostility to U.S. forces appears to be most intense in a region west and north of Baghdad dominated by Sunni Muslims who were at the core of the Baath Party and Hussein's government. Cities such as Baqubah, Samarra, Habaniyah, Khaldiya, Fallujah and Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town, have been particularly dangerous for U.S. troops.

"These are military-type attacks," said Capt. John Ives, of the 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade in Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad. "It could get worse before it gets better. It's a matter that some people want us dead. We're just going to have to take them out." The division was recently dispatched from Baghdad to reinforce the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in west central Iraq.

In Fallujah, there are also signs of increasing organization and tactical efficiency of resisters, U.S. officers said. Some groups have begun to give themselves names -- things as simple as "The Fighters," according to graffiti on the walls in the town. Gunmen are using spotters placed along the roads or in mosques to signal the arrival of U.S. troops, Capt. Ives said. Once, someone cut electricity to a neighborhood as U.S. forces were approaching....

In Fallujah early today, a convoy of seven U.S. Humvees was attacked as the vehicles moved down Old Cinema Street, a main commercial thoroughfare. The vehicles were ambushed by rifle fire from four sides. The Americans fired at buildings on both sides of the street, chipping concrete off the facades. No one on either side was injured.

There have been attacks on U.S. forces every night in Fallujah since Wednesday, when Iraqis fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a group of soldiers positioned at a ruined police station, killing one. The assailants escaped. Fallujah has been embittered since U.S. forces killed 17 Iraqis during two separate protests in April. U.S. authorities said the soldiers fired in self-defense.

"We've got to be on our toes all the time. Eyes open, scanning the buildings. It's not tanks and infantry we're fighting anymore. It's something more hidden," said Staff Sgt. Fred Frisbie, a military policeman.

So here's the question: is this going to get better or worse? Easier or more dangerous? Will a pattern emerge in these guerilla attacks, or would the Bush administration prefer for now that you believe this is random flak from an unstable nation? The Times also reports on this tale of terror, "G.I.'s in Iraqi City Are Stalked by Faceless Enemies at Night":

Since the American command quadrupled its military presence here last week, not a day has gone by without troops weathering an ambush, a rocket-propelled grenade attack, an assault with automatic weapons or a mine blast.

American forces seem to be battling a small but determined foe who has a primitive but effective command-and-control system that uses red, blue and white flares to signal the advance of American troops. The risk does not come from random potshots. The American forces are facing organized resistance that comes alive at night...

Specialist William Fernandez experienced the enemy tactics firsthand while on patrol on Sunday night. Fernandez, a computer engineer in civilian life, was operating the radio.

When he saw a red flare he sensed his patrol was about to be attacked. Suddenly, a grenade exploded directly behind the column of six Humvees, a move he believed was intended to encourage the Americans to drive forward into the kill zone.

Automatic-weapons fire erupted from several rooftops. The Americans fired at the muzzle flashes and left the scene after several minutes. Most of the Humvees had bullet holes, but the soldiers somehow escaped injury.

"It is a miniwar," Specialist Fernandez said.

Much ado about Iran

Yet another NYT story, "On the Road to Falluja" actually details the relations between the U.S. forces and the Mujahideen Kalq, a militant (terrorist?) organization mostly funded by Iranian exiles, based in Iraq. The group is committed to overthrowing the Iranian government. Note the casual attitude to looting.

I hit the road with the troops the next day. The Spartan Brigade was like a band of nomads. They took the furniture, light fixtures, anything to make their stay in Falluja more bearable. Some soldiers even took the toilets and sinks from a bombed-out palace. They figured that the palace was a total loss and that the items could be put to better use in their new quarters, which seemed to me an eminently sensible calculation.

But what were the new quarters? As the brigade arrived, it turned out that it would be setting up camp in a compound built by the Mujahadeen Khalq, an Iranian resistance group that the Clinton administration put on its terrorist list but that asserts it does not support terror attacks against the United States and wants to make common cause against the Iranian government...

The resistance movement assumed that it could stay on the sidelines during the American-led attack on Iraq and had sent a letter to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell indicating that it had no intention of opposing the American invasion. The United States bombed their bases anyway.

After the war, the United States concluded an agreement with the group, which resulted in the handing over of its tanks, artillery and other weapons. They are stored at a camp under American supervision. Thousands of the group's fighters and supporters live at a camp at Ashraf, north of Baghdad.

But at the sprawling compound here, where the Spartan Brigade was setting up Camp, the American military presence was their immediate concern. The compound was the resistance movement's rear logistics base and includes a 100-bed hospital for women, including female fighters, that had been stripped bare by looters after the war. It also has an underground bunker system that is outfitted with a filtration system, a precaution that they say is against an Iranian missile attack.

The movement says it spent $15 million building the complex, using funds donated by Iranian businesspeople within Iran and in exile. The compound was abandoned after the Americans bombed part of it during the war to topple Mr. Hussein, but now the Iranians want to move hundreds of its women here.

Can we say 'freedom fighters'? Can we call this crew those magic words: a P-R-O-X-Y F-O-R-C-E against Iran? A press release of the Iranian government news agency is quite annoyed with the Bush administration for threatening to interfere with Iranian politics. These are useful to look at because they indicate Iran's basic public claims. (link: Agonist)

"If the United States desires friendship with Iran, it would naturally be expected not to interfere in Iranian domestic affairs and show respect for the decisions of the Iranian people and their values," Kharrazi said in response to Powell's statement that the US is not an enemy of Iran.

He said that Washington should be familiarized with Iranian history which proves that the people become even more united whenever the country is exposed to foreign interference. Kharrazi noted that the US secretary of state was aware as gathered from his message that the Iranians will not accept foreign interference in the affairs of their country.

The Iranian foreign minister blasted Powell for calling on Iranians to stand up against their government officials and interact freely with the outside world. Powell's latest statement hints at a desire on the part of Washington to resume friendship with Iran, but ironically not a single day passes without a new conspiracy emerging to tarnish the image of the Islamic Republic before the international community.

Moreover, since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran the United States has spared no effort at blocking Iran's economic progress on various pretexts.

So is the United States after Iran? That's the question in the Senate right now. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is addressing this, and there seems to be great confusion and 'no debate' according to Condi, simultaneously. There hasn't been that much debate lately... (Link: Agonist)

Judging by several interviews of committee members from both parties, a consensus seems to have emerged that President Bush has yet to formulate a clear-cut policy toward Iran, which has been seen as a hostile power since the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy compound in Tehran....

"I don't think they have a policy," said Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), ranking member of the foreign-relations panel, last week. Biden was reacting to unconfirmed intelligence reports that suggested al Qaeda operatives in the Islamic republic had helped plan the May 12 suicide bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

"I think it's kind of loose talk to be talking about fomenting a revolution in Iran because I think it undercuts the very people in Iran that we should be giving support to ? that is the moderates, who are not necessarily pro-Western, pro-American, but they are democrats with a small d," Biden said...

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer described Iran?s efforts [to stop developing nuclear tech] so far as insufficient, while one administration official questioned why a country with state-owned oil would need nuclear energy. "Why would they need to develop nuclear fuel for a reactor?" he asked.

Meanwhile, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has said that the administration has no intention of debating the future of U.S. policy in Iran. "There really isn?t a debate on this issue," she told Reuters.

Thousands of students protested in Tehran yesterday, getting angry about their government. The demonstrators were dispersed by riot police. (Link: Agonist)

To round out a lot of good news, Bush is going to cause the biggest budget deficit in the history of the United States. A liberal complaint is all I have, a criticism, if you will, of the 'conservative' party and their proven fiscal agility. Do they really always have to run the tab up so much every time they get into the White House? This red ink is not just an abstraction, it's a burden of debt that my generation will have to manage. When will they start to tack it down? 2008?

Wellstone and electropulse gun conspiracies, prep schools bloat and the omniscient Friedman

Today's Star Tribune features a story on the conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Paul Wellstone. Most likely it was a random accident, but as Ted Rall said, we can't ignore the remote possibility of a harsh government killing its most powerful liberal opponent. Was Wellstone worth assassinating? I think so. i think my favorite theory is the electromagnetic pulse assassination:

Discounting weather, pilot error or mechanical problems in Wellstone's flight, Fetzer's articles have seized on the possibility of sabotage brought on by a futuristic electromagnetic pulse weapon that he said could have disabled the plane's computerized components. Evidence for this, he said in an interview, was the absence of any distress call from the pilots and the odd cell-phone experience reported by St. Louis County lobbyist John Ongaro.

Ongaro, who was near the airport when Wellstone's plane went down, has dismissed the significance of his experience, in which he said his cell phone made "strange" sounds and then disconnected. "It's not unusual for cell phones to cut out, especially in northern Minnesota," he said.

The Democrats are conflicted, believe it or not. Kerry and Dean are dickering with each other, as Dean has been the most outspoken, grassroots oriented Democrat to run. Is there a conflict between the D grassroots, (Wellstone's bread and butter), versus the Democratic national leadership? (link Nick)

The contest for the 2004 Democratic nomination cannot be understood apart from two factors. One is the intense opposition to Bush at the Democratic grass roots. The other is the widely held sense that the party's older strategies and internal arguments are inadequate to its current problems. Candidates can't win if they address only one of these concerns. But addressing both at the same time will require a political magic that Democrats haven't seen yet.

Private schools in Minnesota are undergoing a growth spurt, according to an article in today's Strib. Would Mounds Park do something similar? Well, you gotta keep up with Blake and Minnehaha, dontcha?

Nick was happy with Thomas Friedman in the times yesterday, talking a big game about the whole theory of everything and generally disreputing the usual targets. Friedman is funny, I like to think of him as this guy from St. Louis Park, travelling about on an exciting personal journey to illuminate the whole everything (particularly the Middle East) for confused American liberals. Yet he seems to sugarcoat the corruption inherent in the way America has managed so much. Does he pull it off?

Why didn't nations organize militarily against the U.S.? Michael Mandelbaum, author of "The Ideas That Conquered the World," answers: "One prominent international relations school ? the realists ? argues that when a hegemonic power, such as America, emerges in the global system other countries will naturally gang up against it. But because the world basically understands that America is a benign hegemon, the ganging up does not take the shape of warfare. Instead, it is an effort to Gulliverize America, an attempt to tie it down, using the rules of the World Trade Organization or U.N. ? and in so doing demanding a vote on how American power is used."
There is another reason for this nonmilitary response. America's emergence as the hyperpower is happening in the age of globalization, when economies have become so intertwined that China, Russia, France or any other rivals cannot hit the U.S. without wrecking their own economies.
The only people who use violence are rogues or nonstate actors with no stakes in the system, such as Osama bin Laden. Basically, he is in a civil war with the Saudi ruling family. But, he says to himself, "The Saudi rulers are insignificant. To destroy them you have to hit the hegemonic power that props them up ? America."
Hence, 9/11. This is where the story really gets interesting. Because suddenly, Puff the Magic Dragon ? a benign U.S. hegemon touching everyone economically and culturally ? turns into Godzilla, a wounded, angry, raging beast touching people militarily. Now, people become really frightened of us, a mood reinforced by the Bush team's unilateralism. With one swipe of our paw we smash the Taliban. Then we turn to Iraq. Then the rest of the world says, "Holy cow! Now we really want a vote over how your power is used." That is what the whole Iraq debate was about. People understood Iraq was a war of choice that would affect them, so they wanted to be part of the choosing. We said, sorry, you don't pay, you don't play.

Oh dear, the lack of weapons of mass destruction is blowing a mess all over the place. Paul Krugman is pounding away as usual today on the Bush crew and their addiction to 'spin.'

It's long past time for this administration to be held accountable. Over the last two years we've become accustomed to the pattern. Each time the administration comes up with another whopper, partisan supporters ? a group that includes a large segment of the news media ? obediently insist that black is white and up is down. Meanwhile the "liberal" media report only that some people say that black is black and up is up. And some Democratic politicians offer the administration invaluable cover by making excuses and playing down the extent of the lies.

If this same lack of accountability extends to matters of war and peace, we're in very deep trouble. The British seem to understand this: Max Hastings, the veteran war correspondent ? who supported Britain's participation in the war ? writes that "the prime minister committed British troops and sacrificed British lives on the basis of a deceit, and it stinks."

Sounds like nothing but liberal excuses to me. Bill O'Reilly and Al Franken got in a huge argument over liberal media bias on CSPAN. However what was shown on TV was edited to provide its own perspective. (The fair and balanced Fox News story) I can't seem to find a transcript of the argument around, but here is a story about the whole book fair they were at, which seems to have been overtly political this year. (AP)

The battle for Mesopotamia: surrender not likely

?The problem is that the good Lord didn't see fit to always put oil and gas resources where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all things considered, one would not normally choose to go. But, we go where the business is." ?Dick Cheney the Experienced Liberator, 1996. (Quote from the excellent collection of war-related documents and evidence, cooperativeresearch.org. Thx to Schwartz)

The war plows on as Americans are forced away from every major Iraqi city. Lacking the popular favor to safely attack ancient Arab cities, they have been forced into waiting and firing blind missiles and bombs... You can say they are smart and that they minimize civilian casualties. ONLY PEACE minimizes civilian casualties.

So how can we perceive what is going on? Media chickens ride along with the American troops, unable to describe the random tactics of the Anglo-Saxon "coalition." They cannot directly expose the flip side, the lives of people who are actually getting the life bombed out of them by American planes. The media plays elusive games, obsessing over rumors of Saddam's duplication while ignoring what he has to say. With all these reporters driving around the desert in humvees, there have often been vast stretches of time where human interest stories flood out everything else. Because Iraq is not turning over like the neocon 'idealists' predicted. So what do you do to get the real story? One excellent site is The Agonist, with constant news updates from all sides. Want to know how smart YOU are? Take the Iraq quiz. Thx again to Schwartz!

Un-embedded and longtime war reporter Robert Fisk covers Baghdad, outside the walls of media censorship. From the scene of at least 20 dead innocent Arabs in Baghdad:

It was an outrage, an obscenity. The severed hand on the metal door, the swamp of blood and mud across the road, the human brains inside a garage, the incinerated, skeletal remains of an Iraqi mother and her three small children in their still smoldering car. Two missiles from a single American jet killed them all ? more than 20 Iraqi civilians, torn to pieces before they could be ?liberated? by the nation which destroyed their lives.

Who dares, I ask myself, to call this ?collateral damage?? Abu Taleb Street was packed with pedestrians and motorists when the American pilot approached through the dense sandstorm that covered northern Baghdad in a cloak of red and yellow dust and rain yesterday morning. It?s a dirt poor neighborhood ? of mostly Shiite Muslims, the same people whom Messers Bush and Blair still fondly hope will rise up against Saddam ? a place of oil-sodden car repair shops, overcrowded apartments and cheap cafes.

It is all too likely that we have stumbled badly in managing the political climate of the Middle East prior to engaging Saddam. Robert Fisk reported yesterday from outside Baghdad:

A senior Iraqi business executive wanted to explain how slender was the victory the Americans were claiming. "Throughout history, Iraq has been called Mesopotamia," he said. "This means 'the land between the two rivers'. So unless you are between the two rivers, this means you are not in Iraq. General Franks should know this." Alas for the businessman, the US Marines were, as we spoke, crossing the Euphrates under fire at Nasiriyah yesterday as hundreds of women and children fled their homes between the bridges. But still, by yesterday evening, only 50 or so American tanks had made it to the eastern shore, into "Mesopotamia". It didn't spoil the man's enthusiasm.

"Can you imagine the effect on the Arabs if Iraq gets out of this war intact?" he asked. "It took just five days for all the Arabs to be defeated by Israel in the 1967 war. And already we Iraqis have been fighting the all-powerful Americans for five days and still we have held on to all of our cities and will not surrender. And imagine what would happen if Iraq surrendered. What chance would the Syrian leadership have against the demands of Israel? What chance would the Palestinians have of negotiating a fair deal with the Israelis? The Americans don't care about giving the Palestinians a fair deal. So why should they want to give the Iraqis a fair deal?"

This was no member of the Baath Party speaking. This was a man with degrees from universities in Manchester and Birmingham. A colleague had an even more cogent point to make. "Our soldiers know they will not get a fair deal from the Americans," he said. "It's important that they know this. We may not like our regime. But we fight for our country. The Russians did not like Stalin but they fought under him against the German invaders. We have a long history of fighting the colonial powers, especially you British. You claim you are coming to 'liberate' us. But you don't understand. What is happening now is we are starting a war of liberation against the Americans and the British."

Fisk also had an excellent interview with Democracy Now on March 25th. How experienced do TV reporters sound, really? How much do they bother considering a history that is longer than 12 years?

....As the Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said a few hours ago, I was listening to him in person, the Americans expected to be greeted with roses and music- and they were greeted with bullets. I think you see what has happened is that -- and as he pointed out -- the American administration and the US press lectured everybody about how the country would break apart where Shiites hated Sunnis and Sunnis hated Turkmen and Turkmen hated Kurds, and so on. And yet, most of the soldiers fighting in southern Iraq are actually Shiite. They?re not Sunnis, they?re not Tikritis, they?re not from Saddam?s home city. Saddam did not get knocked off his perch straight away, and I think that, to a considerable degree, the American administration allowed that little cabal of advisors around Bush- I?m talking about Perle, Wolfowitz, and these other people?people who have never been to war, never served their country, never put on a uniform- nor, indeed, has Mr. Bush ever served his country- they persuaded themselves of this Hollywood scenario of GIs driving through the streets of Iraqi cities being showered with roses by a relieved populace who desperately want this offer of democracy that Mr. Bush has put on offer-as reality.

And the truth of the matter is that Iraq has a very, very strong political tradition of strong anti-colonial struggle. It doesn?t matter whether that?s carried out under the guise of kings or under the guise of the Arab Socialist Ba?ath party, or under the guise of a total dictator. There are many people in this country who would love to get rid of Saddam Hussein, I?m sure, but they don?t want to live under American occupation...

...Very soon, the Americans are going to need the United Nations as desperately as they wanted to get rid of them. Because if this turns into the tragedy that it is turning into at the moment, if the Americans end up, by besieging Baghdad day after day after day, they?ll be looking for a way out, and the only way out is going to be the United Nations at which point, believe me, the French and the Russians are going to make sure that George Bush passes through some element of humiliation to do that. But that?s some way away. Remember what I said early on to you. The Americans can do it- they have the firepower. They may need more than 250,000 troops, but if they?re willing to sacrifice lives of their own men, as well as lives of the Iraqis, they can take Baghdad; they can come in.

But, you know, I look down from my balcony here next to the Tigris River- does that mean we?re going to have an American tank on every intersection in Baghdad? What are they there for- to occupy? To repress? To run an occupation force against the wishes of Iraqis? Or are they liberators? It?s very interesting how the reporting has swung from one side to another. Are these liberating forces or occupying forces? Every time I hear a journalist say ?liberation?, I know he means ?occupation?. We come back to the same point again which Mr. (Richard) Perle will not acknowledge; because this war does not have a UN sanction behind it?I mean not in the sense of sanctions but that it doesn?t have permission behind it, it is a war without international legitimacy, and the longer it goes on, the more it hurts Bush and the less it hurts Saddam. And we?re now into one week, and there isn?t even a single American soldier who has even approached the city of Baghdad yet. And the strange thing, looking at it from here in Baghdad, is the ad hoc way in which this war appears to be carried out.

In a critical development, an Iraqi Shi'ite leader declared that the United States must leave the country immediately after Hussein is toppled, or they will soon face armed resistance. The leader of the Iraqi Shiite Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq, Ayatollah Mohammad-Baqer Hakim, declared that "The world does not approve of any colonialism or occupation, and we will take peaceful measures in this respect at the beginning but we will use force later." So much for those multi-year Halliburton contracts that have already been signed.

You need to read this: Thank God for the Death of the United Nations by Richard Perle:

...For Lady Williams (and many others), the thumb on the scale of judgment about this war is the idea that only the UN security council can legitimise the use of force. It matters not if troops are used only to enforce the UN's own demands. A willing coalition of liberal democracies isn't good enough. If any institution or coalition other than the UN security council uses force, even as a last resort, "anarchy", rather than international law, would prevail, destroying any hope for world order.

This is a dangerously wrong idea that leads inexorably to handing great moral and even existential politico-military decisions, to the likes of Syria, Cameroon, Angola, Russia, China and France. When challenged with the argument that if a policy is right with the approbation of the security council, how can it be wrong just because communist China or Russia or France or a gaggle of minor dictatorships withhold their assent, she fell back on the primacy of "order" versus "anarchy"....

This new century now challenges the hopes for a new world order in new ways. We will not defeat or even contain fanatical terror unless we can carry the war to the territories from which it is launched. This will sometimes require that we use force against states that harbour terrorists, as we did in destroying the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

The most dangerous of these states are those that also possess weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is one, but there are others. Whatever hope there is that they can be persuaded to withdraw support or sanctuary from terrorists rests on the certainty and effectiveness with which they are confronted. The chronic failure of the security council to enforce its own resolutions is unmistakable: it is simply not up to the task. We are left with coalitions of the willing. Far from disparaging them as a threat to a new world order, we should recognise that they are, by default, the best hope for that order, and the true alternative to the anarchy of the abject failure of the UN.

Yes, if you believe that 3 of 5 permanent members of the Security Council will never agree to your aggression and advocacy of military hegemony, then the UN has little value. But is Perle after Israel's regional hegemony, or America's? Is there a difference these days?

House Republicans get their freedom fried

The mysterious and vocal rift between the United States and France continues to deepen as House Republicans acted to change menu wording in their 3 cafeterias. Starting immediately, House office buildings will quit serving 'French' fries and 'French' toast.

"This action today is a small, but symbolic effort to show the strong displeasure of many on Capitol Hill with the actions of our so-called ally, France," said Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, the chairman of the Committee on House Administration.

Like that one diner, they are now serving 'freedom fries' and 'freedom toast.' Yes, the most prudent thing to do is continue slapping the French with more white gloves, until they surrender the right to dissent. A Gaul countermove? Perhaps they should demand we return the statue of liberty. Thanx to Schwartz for the link.