Edgeing

Announcing OOIBC 2.0! We Have A New Home And A New Blogroll Widget!

2009-03-19T13:14:00.000-07:00

To all OOIBC Members:

Good morning everyone, and thank you all for your continued OOIBC membership and participation with the OOIBC Blogroll since we began in early 2007!

OOIBC has since inception been dedicated to opposing funding the Iraq Occupation fiasco, committed to getting the troops home as soon as possible, determined to end the Iraq and Mid-East Debacle as quickly as possible, and determined to restore some sanity to the world, and the quality of posts here in that time has been tremendous.

But it's time to grow, and today OOIBC is moving to a new home!

OOIBC has finally outgrown the limitations of the Blogger platform, particularly the limited non threaded commenting system that has been a great hindrance to true community building and discourse.

Also as you all are probably aware, Blogrolling.com, who has been serving our blogroll since the beginning, has been down for updates for the past 4 months. They finally came back online 100% the other day... and have said that they will shortly begin inserting advertisements in our blogroll, on top of rearranging our blogroll out of alphabetical sequence.

OOIBC has also been somewhat limited in scope to the Iraq Occupation.

For the past few weeks I've been working behind the scenes here to build a new site with a much wider scope that OOIBC can move to and become part of, and I've also built us a brand new blogroll widget that is hosted and served directly from the new site, freeing us from the constraints and problems of Blogrolling.com, and the new blogroll will never have any ads in it.

From today onwards posting will be disabled on the Blogger site, although the site will remain as an archive, and OOIBC will become a part of the new site we've been developing - Antemedius: Liberally Critical Thinking

We'll be shutting off the Blogrolling.com blogroll widget in the next few days, that you all have installed now - so you'll need to reinstall the widget today.

Copy the embed code for the new blogroll widget from http://www.antemedius.com/joinOOIBC to install in place of the old one, and as always you'll be able and welcome to post or crosspost, but on a virtually unlimited scope of topics at Antemedius as you've been able to all along at the old site.

The new site is built on the Drupal platform giving us much greater publishing horsepower than Blogger, and provides us with much improved community building capacity with a true threaded commenting system in which commenters are ably to reply directly to each other. OOIBC 2.0!

Come on over, get the new blogroll widget, create a new user account for yourself, and enjoy the new place.

Over the next few days I'll be slowly cleaning up the new blogroll to remove any sites that have shut down or have withdrawn from the OOIBC blogroll, so please be sure let me know with an email to admin@antemedius.com when you've installed the new blogroll, and if there are BlogName or URL changes that need to be made.

See you at the new digs! Antemedius: Liberally Critical Thinking

-- Edger

How the Press, the Pentagon, and Even Human Rights Groups Sold Us Army Field Manual that Tortures

2009-01-25T05:00:00.000-08:00

How the Press, the Pentagon, and Even Human Rights Groups Sold Us Army Field Manual that Tortures
by Valtin at Docudharma, Sat Jan 24, 2009 at 23:12:04 PST
If you wish to repost this essay you can download a .txt file of the html here (right click and save). Permission granted.
Docudharma Tag: petition for a special prosecutor

Originally published at AlterNet

A January 17 New York Times editorial noted that Attorney General designate Eric Holder testified at his nomination hearings that when it came to overhauling the nation's interrogation rules for both the military and the CIA, the Army Field Manual represented "a good start." The editorial noted the vagueness of Holder's statement. Left unsaid was the question, if the AFM is only a "good start," what comes next?

The Times editorial writer never bothered to mention the fact that three years earlier, a different New York Times article (12/14/2005) introduced a new controversy regarding the rewrite of the Army Field Manual. The rewrite was inspired by a proposal by Senator John McCain to limit U.S. military and CIA interrogation methods to those in the Army Field Manual. (McCain would later allow an exception for the CIA.)

According to the Times article, a new set of classified procedures proposed for the manual was "was pushing the limits on legal interrogation." Anonymous military sources called the procedures "a back-door effort" to undermine McCain's efforts at the time to change U.S. abusive interrogation techniques, and stop the torture.

A Forgotten Controversy

Over the next six months or so, a number of articles in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the L.A. Times described the course of the controversy. By mid-June 2006, the NYT was reporting that, under pressure from unnamed senior generals and members of Congress (including McCain, and Senators Warner and Graham), the Pentagon was rethinking its plan to have a classified annex to the AFM, which would include a different set of interrogation rules for "unlawful combatants," like the detainees at Guantanamo. Included in the discussion about these classified procedures were, reportedly, members of the State Department and various human rights organizations.

According to an article in the L.A. Times, this latest fight over the classified procedures went back at least to mid-May 2006. The manual itself had been written at the U.S. Army Intelligence Center at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona, roughly a year earlier, and then sent to the Pentagon for further evalution. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's right-hand man, Stephen Cambone, was put in charge of its final draft. According the L.A. Times article, members of Congress were "keen to avoid a public fight with the Pentagon." The announcement that the controversial and still unknown procedures might not be included in the manual was seen as a success by human rights groups.

Yet the proverbial chickens never hatched, and by early September 2006 the new Army Field Manual was finally released. The section on special interrogation procedures for "unlawful combatants" was included as a special appendix (Appendix M), and published in unclassified format. According to a L.A. Times story on September 8, Cambone was crowing that the new Army Field Manual instructions would give interrogators "what they need to do the job." The article noted:

The new manual includes one restricted technique that will only be used on so-called unlawful combatants - such as Al Qaeda suspects - not traditional prisoners of war.
That technique, called "separation," involves segregating a detainee from other prisoners. Military officials said separation was not the equivalent of solitary confinement and was consistent with Geneva Convention protections.

As for the proposed secrecy surrounding the new techniques, the Pentagon had decided it couldn't keep them secret forever. Senator Warner was also on record as against any classified annex to the manual.

Not long ago, I wrote about what was included in Appendix M, which purports to introduce the single technique of "separation." In fact, the Appendix M includes instructions regarding solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, and, in combination with other procedures included in the Army Field Manual, amounted to a re-introduction of the psychological torture techniques practiced at Guantanamo, and taught by Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape, or SERE psychologists and other personnel at the Cuban base and elsewhere.

The rewrite of the Army Field Manual included other seemingly minor changes. It introduced dubious procedures, such as the "False Flag" technique, wherein interrogators could pretend they were from another country. It also redefined the meaning of "Fear Up," a procedure meant to exploit a prisoner's existing fears under imprisonment. Now, interrogators could create "new" fears. The AFM rewrite was a masterpiece of subterfuge and double talk, which could only have been issued from the offices of Rumsfeld and Cambone.

One would think this turnaround of the Pentagon's position regarding a removal of these controversial procedures would have been a matter of some note. But there was no protest from Congress, no mention of the past controversy in the press, and only vague comments at first and then acceptance by human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Only Physicians for Human Rights protested the inclusion of the techniques listed in Appendix M. For the rest... silence.

DoD Rolls Out the New Model

On September 6, 2006, a news briefing was held by the Department of Defense, as part of the unveiling of the new Army Field Manual, in conjunction with the then-new Defense Department Directive for Detainee Programs (DoD Directive 2310.01E). Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs Cully Stimson and Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (G-2) Lt. Gen. John Kimmons were the DoD presenters.

Much of the belief that the AFM provides an improvement over previous policies of the Department of Defense is likely due to a confusion between the two documents introduced that summer of 2006, the new Detainee Program Directive and the new Army Field Manual.

DoD Directive 2310.10E made a number of changes in regards to detainee operations and management. It made clear that "All persons subject to this Directive shall observe the requirements of the law of war, and shall apply, without regard to a detainee's legal status, at a minimum the standards articulated in Common Article 3 to the Geneva Conventions of 1949..." The same type of language appears in the text of the Army Field Manual itself.

During the press briefing on September 6, and a different one the next day for the foreign press, reporters were not so easily fooled.

One unnamed reporter at the DoD briefing challenged Lt. Gen. Kimmons on the "single standard" issue:

Q General, why was the decision made to keep these categories -- the separate categories of detainees? You have traditional prisoners of war and then the unlawful enemy combatants. Why not treat all detainees under U.S. military custody the exact same way?

Kimmons's answer quickly veered into unacceptable territory, and Stimson had to jump in to clarify, as this excerpt demonstrates (emphasis added):

GEN. KIMMONS: Well, actually, the distinction is in Geneva through the Geneva Convention, which describes the criteria that prisoner -- that lawful combatants, such as enemy prisoners of war -- which attributes they possess -- wearing a uniform, fighting for a government, bearing your arms openly and so on and so forth. And it's all spelled out fairly precisely inside Geneva.
Geneva also makes clear that traditional, unlawful combatants such as in the -- 50 years ago, we would have talked about spies and saboteurs, but also now applies to this new category of unlawful -- or new type of unlawful combatant, terrorists, al Qaeda, Taliban.
They clearly don't meet the criteria for prisoner of war status, lawful combatant status, and so they're not entitled to the -- therefore to the extra protections and privileges which Geneva affords.

But Stimson's clarification was not very helpful. In fact, if a prisoner is judged not a "lawful combatant", then he or she immediately becomes covered by Geneva IV, the "Civilian Convention," which protects anyone "who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever find themselves" held prisoner. According to the International Red Cross Commentary on the Geneva Conventions:

Every person in enemy hands must have some status under international law: he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third [POW] Convention, [or] a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention.... There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can fall outside the law.

Separation and Sensory Deprivation

One questioner took on the topic of the "Separation" technique. Wasn't it the same as solitary confinement, and wasn't solitary confinement "banned by Common Article 3 in the affront to human dignity, other provisions? "Are you confident," a reporter asked, "that separation is permitted under Common Article 3?"

The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs responded by denying that separation amounted to solitary confinement, even though the AFM describes the technique as, among other things "physical separation" "limited to 30 days of initial duration." Extensions for such physical separation must be reviewed and approved the General Officer or Flag Officer who initially approved the original "separation."

Kimmons' reply was even more disingenuous:

We have always segregated enemy combatants on the battlefield at the point of capture and beyond, to keep them silent, segregate the officers from the enlisted, the men from the women, and so forth. That's traditional; it goes back to World War II and beyond.

So, is "separation" a matter of segregating prisoners, or what? In the Army Field Manual itself, one gets that same kind of double talk. At first it is presented thus:

The purpose of separation is to deny the detainee the opportunity to communicate with other detainees in order to keep him from learning counter-resistance techniques or gathering new information to support a cover story; decreasing the detainee's resistance to interrogation.

This description sounds a lot like segregation for security purposes, although there is that phrase "decreasing the detainee's resistance." A page or so later, however, we find the following (emphasis added):

The use of separation should not be confused with the detainee-handling techniques approved in Appendix D [Guide for Handling Detainees]. Specifically, the use of segregation during prisoner handling (Search, Silence, Segregate, Speed, Safeguard, and Tag [5 S's and a T]) should not be confused with the use of separation as a restricted interrogation technique.

Furthermore, we learn that "separation" requires an interrogation plan, and medical and legal review, as well, of course, as "physical separation." If this is not solitary confinement for the purposes of breaking a prisoner down for interrogation, then the English language has lost all purpose in explaining things.

Another line of questioning took on the AFM's contention that it banned sensory deprivation. The entire exchange at the September 6 hearing is worth reproducing here. It represents, among other things, the most thorough line of inquiry I have seen by any reporter in quite some time. The following quote contains added emphases.

Q General, as an expert in interrogations, do you believe that sensory deprivation was abusive, or did it ever prove to be helpful in interrogation?
GEN. KIMMONS: Sensory deprivation is abusive and it's prohibited in this Field Manual, and it's absolutely counterproductive, in my understanding of what we have used productively. Sensory deprivation, just to be clear -- and we define it in the Field Manual, but basically, it comes down to the almost complete deprivation of all sensory stimuli, light, noise, and so forth, and to the point where it can have an adverse mental, psychological effect on a -- disorienting effect on a detainee.
Q So could there be deprivation of light alone for extended periods of time, as opposed to complete sensory deprivation?
GEN. KIMMONS: I think the total loss of an external stimulus, such as deprivation of light, would not fit what we have described here as -- for example, if you're hinting about separation, separation does not involve the darkness or lack of that type of sensory stimulation.
Q That wasn't the question, though. Would sensory -- would the deprivation of light alone be permitted under the current manual, as opposed -- because you described sensory deprivation as total deprivation --
GEN. KIMMONS: That's correction.
Q -- of all senses. So deprivation of light alone for extended periods would be permitted?
GEN. KIMMONS: I don't think the Field Manual explicitly addresses it.
It does not make it prohibited. And it would have to be weighed in the context of the overall environment. If it was at nighttime during sleep hours, then it would make personal sense to turn the lights off.
Q You know what I'm talking about. I'm trying to get at -- because you said specifically total sensory deprivation -- so deprivation of any one sense might be permitted. Like light, for example. They could be kept in the dark for extended periods of time beyond the usual nighttime hours.

This is really too specific and challenging for the DoD briefers, and they turn on their double-talk machine:

MR. STIMSON: Jim, questions like this are good questions to ask. And what's important to remember is that interrogation plans are put together for a reason so that not just one person can decide what he or she wants to do and then run off and do it. They're vetted. It's laid out how they're vetted. General Kimmons could go into that in exhaustive detail. Typically, there would be a JAG, as I understand it, General Kimmons --
GEN. KIMMONS: That's correct.
MR. STIMSON: -- that would have to review that. It goes up through various chains of command. And so, you know, types of questions like this would have to be asked and then vetted through that process./p>

Burying the Story

With all the hard questioning by the press, you'd think the issues would have been aired in the media in the days and weeks following the introduction of the Army Field Manual. As should be evident by now, that's not what happened.

Here's how the L.A. Times covered it (9/6/06), getting the story exactly backwards (emphasis added):

Bowing to critics of its tough interrogation policies, the Pentagon is issuing a new Army field manual that provides Geneva Convention protections for all detainees and eliminates a secret list of interrogation tactics.
The manual, set for release today, also reverses an earlier decision to maintain two interrogation standards - one for traditional prisoners of war and another for "unlawful combatants" captured during a conflict but not affiliated with a nation's military force.

There is no mention of Appendix M or any controversy over techniques. Jumana Musa, an "advocacy director for Amnesty International, is quoted as noting, ""If the new field manual embraces the Geneva Convention, it is an important return to the rule of law.'"

The 9/7/06 article in the Washington Post was, if anything, even more laudatory of the new AFM:

Pentagon officials yesterday repudiated the harsh interrogation tactics adopted since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, specifically forbidding U.S. troops from using forced nudity, hooding, military dogs and waterboarding to elicit information from detainees captured in ongoing wars.
The Defense Department simultaneously embraced international humane treatment standards for all detainees in U.S. military custody, the first time there has been a uniform standard for both enemy prisoners of war and the so-called unlawful combatants linked to al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other terrorist organizations.

The article falsely claims the AFM bans manipulation of sleep patterns. Regarding any controversy, the article explains:

Three expanded techniques -- good cop, bad cop; pretending to be an official from another country; and detention in a separate cell from others -- are allowed but require approval from senior officers. Officials originally considered keeping those three techniques classified but decided to make them public for the sake of full transparency.

The Post article also briefly mentions the generally positive response of human rights groups:

"This is the Pentagon coming full circle," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "This is very strong guidance."

As for the human rights organizations, Amnesty International later essentially signed off on the AFM. In an article from the Winter 2007 issue of Amnesty International Magazine, Jumana Musa, quoted in the L.A. Times article above, had this to say about the new AFM:

AIUSA also worked with U.S. representatives and senators to introduce legislation to create a single, transparent standard for interrogations and to limit the CIA to approved interrogation techniques outlined in the Army Field Manual.

In a telephone interview for this article, Mr. Malinowski said he supported using the Army Field Manual as a replacement for the CIA "enhanced interrogation techniques," and described the question of abuse in Appendix M as not entirely clear. The language in Appendix M was "ambiguous," and open to criticism due to a "lack of clarity." He maintained, however, that using the current Army Field Manual as a model was merely a beginning, and that a new overhaul of interrogation techniques was on the agenda.

A call made to Amnesty International's press contact regarding this issue, and an e-mail sent to Jumana Musa, were both unreturned.

Conclusion

Two conclusions can be drawn from the above examination of the "selling" of the Army Field Manual to the American public in the late summer of 2006 and beyond. One is that reporters on the beat were very aware of the origins and implications of the issues surrounding Geneva and the AFM, and the controversies surrounding the use of isolation and other techniques under the rubric of "Separation." The extremely muted or non-existent discussion in the mainstream press of these issues after the AFM was introduced means that a decision to suppress these issues was made at an editorial level, and were not the result of laziness or dilatory reporting on behalf of reporters.

Secondly, the role of some human rights organizations in promoting the new Army Field Manual -- in particular, the actions of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch -- are curious, to say the least. Press reports and the interview with Malinowski show that inclusion of certain human rights organizations in the vetting of the AFM started at the very beginning. We may not be able to find out what went on in the editorial offices of the nation's top newspapers, but we should know more about the discussions within the human rights organizations on how they advised, or were fooled, by talks with Bush administration and Pentagon personnel.

Meanwhile, other human rights organizations, such as the Nobel Prize-winning Physicians for Human Rights, have criticized the language and techniques described in Appendix M of the Army Field Manual, and called for rescission of the offending text. In a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in May 2007, Leonard S. Rubenstein, Executive Director of PHR, and retired Brigadier General Stephen N. Xenakis, MD, former Commanding General of the Southeast Regional U.S. Army Medical Command, wrote:

The new Army Field Manual on human intelligence gathering... explicitly prohibits several SERE-based techniques, yet Appendix M of the manual explicitly permits what amounts to isolation, along with sleep and sensory deprivation. The manual is silent on a number of other SERE-based methods, creating ambiguity and doubt over their place in interrogation doctrine....
PHR, therefore, respectfully urges you to take the following actions:
1. Fully implement the OIG's recommendation to "preclude the use of Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape physical and psychological coercion techniques" in all interrogations. (Id, pp. 29-30.) This includes rescission of Appendix M of the new Army Field Manual and specific prohibition, by name, of each of the known SERE-based methods and their equivalents.

It seems likely that the Army Field Manual, whether by executive order (most likely) or by legislation, will become the new "single standard" for U.S. interrogation. Press reports hint that the Obama administration may yet allow a loophole for CIA interrogators. I don't know how that will sit with the many military lawyers and officers who have been instrumental in opposing Bush/Rumsfeld's torture policies from the beginning. I'm thinking of people like Alberto Mora and Antonio Taguba, or the new nominee for DoD General Counsel, Jeh Charles Johnson, who apparently intends to seriously change the policies set by his predecessor, Jim Haynes.

In any case, the full history and controversy behind torture and U.S. interrogation policy deserves a full airing. What happened, for instance, between June and September 2006, allowing for Pentagon acceptance of the Appendix M abusive procedures? When it comes to the implementation of a host of torture and cruel, inhumane interrogation techniques by the U.S. government, both an investigation and prosecutions are needed.

It will be a challenge for our society to bring out the full story, while also bringing to justice those individuals who broke both domestic law and international treaty. We will need both investigations and prosecutions in order settle scores with the past, to understand where we stand now, and what we need to change to move forward.

Also posted at Invictus

President Obama andAttorney General Eric Holder must appoint a Special Prosecutor to conduct a formal investigation without political considerations and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in War Crimes.

National Weather Report for the Inauguration

2009-01-19T17:26:00.000-08:00

With the nightmare that was George Bush finally over, here is the national weather report for tomorrows inauguration of the next President of the United States, Barack Obama.

The sun will shine.
The flowers will bloom.
And the birds will sing sweeter still.

Ding Dong Bush Is Gone

2009-01-19T17:09:00.001-08:00

According to the NY Times, George Bush is leaving office with the worst Presidential approval ratings ever (link to Talkleft post here).

Bush was not merely one
of the worst Presidents ever,
but we have verified it legally
and now poll-itically
that Bush
was morally, ethically,
spiritually, intellectually,
positively, absolutely,
undeniably and most reliably
the VERY WORST PRESIDENT EVER

Soon this will be a day of independence
for all Americans
and their descendants.

Ding-dong Bush is gone.

Get Out, George...

2009-01-19T06:07:00.000-08:00

From The Rude Pundit:

There's one final myth about this President that the Rude Pundit would like to put to rest: George W. Bush is not a man you would want to have a beer with. No, not because if you saw him in a bar, you'd react like you had gone on the sex offender registry in Dallas and discovering that a guy who fucked babies in his basement was now living in the downstairs apartment. It's that, despite any feints at finding him charming, he is not, in his soul, a kind or decent person.

[snip]

The Rude Pundit doesn't drink with irredeemable dickheads, with self-righteous balls of fuck who think their very existence demands your respect and attention, with privileged cockmongers who can't manage even a moment of self-awareness.

[snip]

Yet we can't just bury this presidency alive in the cold, cold ground and have a picnic on the earth above it, joyously toasting as it screams and claws and tries to get free before it inhales dirt, gags, vomits, and dies horribly, not knowing why it deserved such an awful fate. No, alas, no.

Because the reason I will unreasonably hate this man, these men, these women, as human beings, and not just for ideologies and actions, is because neither I nor most of you will live to see the day that all their hurt is healed.

The snips are worth reading too, at the link above, but they were a little too civil for here, even by my standards... but by all means go read the whole thing.

Torturing His Supporters

2009-01-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

Hat tip to Armando this morning, for: AP: Obama Team Debating Violating UN Convention On Torture

The other day, the AP reported:
President-elect Barack Obama is preparing to prohibit the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques by ordering the CIA to follow military rules for questioning prisoners, according to two U.S. officials familiar with drafts of the plans. Still under debate is whether to allow exceptions in extraordinary cases.

. . . Obama's changes may not be absolute. His advisers are considering adding a classified loophole to the rules that could allow the CIA to use some interrogation methods not specifically authorized by the Pentagon, the officials said. They said the intent is not to use that as an opening for possible use of waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning.
As Glenn Greenwald points out, such a "loophole" would constitute a violation of the UN Convention on Torture, codified as a crime under US law:

We all know by now, or we should know by now, that Obama has no problem endlessly torturing people who put him where he is with talk of torture loopholes.

The question is are the loopholes he's talking about big enough to allow even more bush era torture fanatics like Brennan in, to enable Obama to co-opt far right GOP senators and reps?

This is all about gaining "bipartisan" support, and power. Nothing else.

There is virtually no sunlight between the two when it comes to amassing and retaining power, and when it comes right down to it any suggestion that presidential power be limited appears to justify "exceptions in extraordinary cases", in Obama's world.

Barack Obama appears to have the same problem (or fantasy, depending on your POV) that George Bush had, a problem described by Phillip Carter and Dahlia Lithwick at Slate back in October 2007 in
All Wet: Why can't we renounce waterboarding once and for all?...

What is it about waterboarding that makes the White House so reluctant to renounce it? It's an old torture technique from the Spanish Inquisition that consists of immobilizing your target on an inclined board, head down, with cloth covering their face. Pouring water over the face simulates drowning. The practice leaves no physical marks. It's illegal under the Geneva Conventions and has long been treated as a war crime by the United States. We even use this technique to train our own troops to withstand illegal torture by our enemies. As retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, a former top Navy lawyer and now dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, N.H., testified at Mukasey's hearing last week, "Other than perhaps the rack and thumbscrews, waterboarding is the most iconic example of torture in history. It has been repudiated for centuries. It's a little bit disconcerting to hear now that we're not quite sure where waterboarding fits in the scheme of things."

For starters, Bush won't renounce waterboarding because it violates the two choice cocktails of anyone drunk on executive authority: Absolut secrecy and Absolut power.

First, secrecy. It has long been the view of the Bush administration that nothing can be deemed illegal so long as it remains a secret. Never mind that it's a secret only to people living in igloos without wireless service. That's why, even while there's a major movie out about rendition, we call it a secret. Since they have yet to make a movie called Waterboard, Mukasey could take the absurd position that he isn't sure precisely what it involves. Cute trick. Call it a secret, and there can be no legal debate. As the White House insisted Friday, "Judge Mukasey is not in a position to discuss interrogation techniques which are necessarily classified." If the soon-to-be-AG cannot hazard an opinion on the legality of waterboarding, even when he can read step-by-step accounts of it on the Internet, who are the rest of us to condemn it?

The problem with this argument is that the administration's use of waterboarding on detainees has been known publicly since at least May 2004. Everybody knows what it involves, and even if you live in an igloo without wireless, you can tell it's illegal. The argument that you can't call it torture until you've been "read into" the torture program is just a lawyer's trick that justifies keeping bad conduct secret to end-run the laws.

Next, there is the absolute authority argument. The real reason the Bush administration clings to its power to order waterboarding has little to do with any strategic argument and everything to do with the old standby assertion that to renounce his authority to waterboard would be to give away the president's power.

The real reason Obama is reluctant to appoint a Special Prosecutor himself has little to do with any strategic argument and everything to do with the old standby assertion that to renounce his authority to waterboard would be to give away the president's power.

We shall see if his rhetoric about an "independent", "rule of Law" based DOJ under Holder has any meaning beyond co-opting opposition from his base.

Want change you can believe in? We're going to have to make it, folks. From the bottom up. It's not going to come from the top down. The "top", no matter who sits in the big chair in the Oval Office, is not going to relinquish any power voluntarily.

The other day the NYT published results of their latest poll, in Poll Finds Faith in Obama, Mixed With Patience, and states that people are:

"prepared to give him years to deal with the crush of problems" and "79 percent were optimistic about the next four years".

But if the boldness displayed by Democrats, and by voters, since the 2006 Midterms is any indication, it looks like he can stick his thumb in the country's eye and relax with his feet up for the next four years and still count on re-election.

Now if 79 percent said "this what you will do and have completed by then, or you will be fired in 2012", he might get busy with some bold action. Maybe.

The problem is not with Obama or with the Democrats. The problem is that the people who need to hold them accountable and force bold action from them lack the boldness to do it. Once people vote they give away the only leverage they had.

"Wait and see", and "hope", is deadly in this game. People either tell Obama what he must do, and threaten him with banishment to the same political wilderness that Ford found himself in, or roll over and give up. It's pretty black and white.

But if people roll up their sleeves and get involved, and get bold, then and only then they can force change.

The Petition for a Special prosecutor is one example. Will people give Obama a pass if a special prosecutor is not appointed? If he gives war criminals a pass, and effectively "pardons" Bush and Cheney, will you give Obama a pass?

Moving Forward? Here Are The Rules.

Ford should have been stood against the wall and shot for that pardon. Nixon cooling his heels in the clink for a few years would have prevented this mess, no doubt.

Sign the petition. Send a link to everyone you can.

The Power Of One

2008-12-27T08:21:00.000-08:00

by Nightprowlkitty, Docudharma, December 26, 2008
Crossposted at Docudharma, Daily Kos, My Left Wing, Open Left, The Sanctuary, They gave us a republic... and OOIBC
If you wish to repost this essay you can download a .txt file of the html here (right click and save). Permission granted.

Give Bush and Cheney a fair trial -- something they have not bothered with since they stole office.

It's funny how the powers that be in the media and government are running around with their big fat excuses as to why we can't hold these criminals accountable for their crimes. It all boils down to "It's too hard!!!"

It's too hard. It would affect too many people. It would interfere with the crucial work of restoring our economy. Blah blah blah. Not one of these folks say, however, that no crime has been committed, no law has been broken. No one says that.

I find that stunning. We all know, at least those of us who have been paying attention, that Bush and his crew of crooks have broken the law over and over again.

And Cheney says "What you gonna do about it?" And Cheney says "oh, the Dems knew about this and approved it, hell they wanted us to be even tougher than we were!"

And we should believe Cheney ... why?

I don't want speculation any more. I want the truth, the facts, what really happened. Only a special prosecutor can get that information, someone who is inured to the politics of Washington D.C. by being given the independent power to investigate.

What I like about this petition is that it shows the power of the individual citizen. This is not a grassroots effort decided by committee. A couple of folks got together and came up with the text and others jumped in to work further on it and spread it around.

The power of the individual citizen.

I am extremely annoyed at the argument that we citizens are somehow childlike creatures who don't know all the real problems of our country and so we shouldn't cry and whine about our "pet issues" when the government knows so much more about what is important and should be made a priority.

Bleh.

We ARE the government. The only people who will take back power as citizens, are citizens! That's us.

To me, Obama's election is a signal that we can now start taking back that individual power, our individual rights. It's not for Obama or any elected representative to tell me what I should make a priority. I get to decide that for myself. They'll do their jobs, and I'll do mine.

The measure of our success with this petititon will be the resistance from the powers that be, the Dems, the Repubs, Obama, the media. The more we read about how this is not a good idea, getting a special prosecutor, the more we'll know we have them on the run.

Many of us have sent this petition to friends and family, whether they be politically agreeable to us or not. One by one people will sign. This isn't "organized" grassroots and it's netroots only insofar as the structure.

To me, this is about the power of each indviidual citizen, not resting happy with the decisions of our elected representatives but standing up for what we feel is right and making our voices heard.

We need to know the truth about the crimes committed in our names. We need to have every American citizen aware of what has been done so there can be no denials or excuses.

At this time, the only line between tyranny and freedom is an informed citizenry. By signing this petition and working to make it known we will not accept anything less than full accountability for torture being done in our name, we are exercising our power, not the power one step removed of the three branches of government.

We have power collectively and we also have power individually. I think the citizenry of this country are going to be tested enormously as we have to let our representatives know we are not asking for favors on our "pet causes" but taking our government back, of, by and for the people.

Eric Holder Knows: Bush And Cheney Deserve Fair Trials

2008-12-22T09:00:00.000-08:00

Crossposted at Docudharma, OOIBC, Daily Kos, Show Me Progress, and They gave us a republic...
If you wish to repost this essay you can download a .txt file of the html here (right click and save). Permission granted.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey since his appointment by George Bush, as have previous members of the Bush administration such as Alberto Gonzales, and other enablers such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has waffled, spun, twisted in the wind, squirmed, sweated, excused, equivocated, denied reality and otherwise insulted Americans and the entire world as evidence of torture ordered at the highest levels of the Bush administration has piled ever higher and higher.

No better than the public enemies he is protecting, Mr. Mukasey, like Ms. Pelosi, has become no better than a getaway car driver, no better than a fugitive from justice.

Torture is well defined, immoral, and illegal, in violation of international law, US law, and international treaties. There is no more heinous and downright evil and dehumanizing crime in the history of humanity than torture.

Any person guilty of torture under current US law can be incarcerated for up to 20 years or receive the death penalty if the torture results in the victim's death.

Mr. Mukasey, while holding office as the highest ranking officer of justice in the United States, is nothing more than an accessory to the crimes that George Bush, Dick Cheney and others have flagrantly engaged in.

Last week outgoing US Vice-President Dick Cheney made a series of remarkable comments in his exclusive interview with ABC attempting to save himself from prison with a blatant plea for pardon from his co-conspirator George Bush.

Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), explains Cheney's motives in a video interview with Real News CEO Paul Jay...

Cheney admitted to playing a role in the authorization of the use of waterboarding and other 'aggressive interrogation techniques', defended the decision to listen-in on domestic phone calls, and essentially provided broad approval for all the actions taken by his government over his tenure.

In the first part of our interview with Michael Ratner, Michael gives his analysis of both the significance of the interview, and what he believes are Cheney's motivations for such an uncharacteristic offering of information from the notoriously secretive VP.

Real News: December 22, 2008 - 8 min 23 sec
Why did Cheney confess on national television?
Michael Ratner: Cheney's admission of guilt is a plea for a presidential pardon Pt1/2
Michael Ratner is President of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York. He has taught at Yale Law School, lectured at Columbia Law School, and was President of the National Lawyers Guild.

After January 20, 2009 there will be a new Attorney General of the United States, and Eric Holder Jr. will most likely be confirmed as that new Attorney general.

Mr. Holder has said that:

"Our needlessly abusive and unlawful practices in the 'War on Terror' have diminished our standing in the world community and made us less, rather than more, safe," Holder told a packed room at the ACS 2008 Convention on Friday evening. "For the sake of our safety and security, and because it is the right thing to do, the next president must move immediately to reclaim America's standing in the world as a nation that cherishes and protects individual freedom and basic human rights."

Eric Holder, Jr.
Photo: Leslie E. Kossoff/AP

If Mr. Holder, when he becomes Attorney General, is to live up to his own statements and retain the personal and professional integrity he has displayed in his law career thus far, and not by acts of omission become an accessory along with Mr. Mukasey and Ms. Pelosi to the crimes of Bush, Cheney and others in the Bush administration, he will have no choice but to accept the demands of the thousands of US citizens who have signed the Docudharma/Democrats.com Citizens Petition for a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute Bush administration war crimes.

If he will not, Mr. Holder runs the risk of throwing away a lifetime of work in a so far illustrious career and all of his personal and professional integrity and becoming a fugitive with Mr. Mukasey and an accessory to these crimes along with and no better than the perpetrators and other conspirators.

Given his professional record, I have every confidence that Mr. Holder, as soon to be Attorney General of the United States, realizes that he can make no other choice than to do the right thing.

Mr. Holder knows. As Attorney General he will wear the badge as the highest ranking officer of justice in the United States.

He will have his own integrity on the line.

Mr. Holder knows that like any other accused criminals, Bush and Cheney deserve fair trials.

And Mr. Holder knows that failing to give them those fair trials would be convicting himself.

Please go to Democrats.com and sign the petition!

Holder Responds to the Citizens Petition

From Attorney General Designate Holder, in response to the The Citizens Petition: Special Prosecutor for Bush War Crimes.
"Enough folks. I hear you."
The petition was initially set up to relay every signer to Mr. Holders public e-mail address. Since it's formal launch yesterday, we are now at 1085 signers and growing. In response to AG Designates Holder's response, we have stopped sending him each signature and comment that appears on the petition and are now collecting all names and comments for eventual submission to AG Designate Holder, the media and members of Congress.

We have since asked Mr. Holder for a formal statement on the petition. We await it eagerly! But we now know that he is aware of the petition, aware of our concerns, and aware that there is a citizens movement aimed at bring Bushco to justice. In other words...it is working!

The Man: Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder Jr.

2008-12-21T06:30:00.000-08:00

President-Elect Barack Obama announced on December 1 that he has nominated Eric H. Holder, Jr. to serve as Attorney General, to take over the running of The Department of Justice in Obama's incoming administration from current AG Michael Mukasey.

Mr. Holder has been a partner with the law firm Covington & Burling LLP since 2001.

Mr. Mukasey since his appointment as Attorney General, like all representatives of Mr. Bush have done, has waffled, spun, twisted in the wind, squirmed, sweated, excused, equivocated, and otherwise bullshitted America and the world as George Bush's acolyte under hot lights and pointed interrogations from Congress over evidence of torture ordered at the highest levels of the Bush administration, the president and vice president, that the least informed people in the world all know is well defined, immoral, and illegal under international law, US law, and international treaties. (see addendum)

A war crime, in simpler terms. A war crime that Vice President Cheney has in recent days confessed publicly that the Bush administration intentionally engaged in.

Mr. Holder is the target of the new Docudharma/Democrats.com sponsored Citizens Petition for a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Bush War Crimes. Don't forget to sign the petition if you haven't already.

Who is Eric Holder? What are his views and and philosophy on the questions of torture, war crimes, secret prisons hidden away from the rule of law, and Bush's "war on terror"?

What can we expect his reactions to be to the petition? We have only his own words and background to look to for clues.

The Covington & Burling LLP Bio of Mr. Holder states that:

Mr. Holder is a litigation partner who handles, among other matters, complex civil and criminal cases, domestic and international advisory matters and internal corporate investigations.

During his professional career, Mr. Holder has held a number of significant positions in government. Upon graduating from Columbia Law School, he moved to Washington, DC and joined the Department of Justice as part of the Attorney General's Honors Program. He was assigned to the newly formed Public Integrity Section in 1976 and was tasked to investigate and prosecute official corruption on the local, state and federal levels.
...
In 1997, President Clinton appointed Mr. Holder to serve as Deputy Attorney General, the number two position in the United States Department of Justice. He became the first African-American to serve as Deputy Attorney General. Mr. Holder briefly served under President Bush as Acting Attorney General pending the confirmation of Attorney General John Ashcroft.

As Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Holder supervised all of the Department's litigating, enforcement, and administrative components in both civil and criminal matters

Sharon, aka Conchita, has two or three times in the past day or so posted a link in comments at DD to video of Mr. Holder speaking on Friday June 13th this year to the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, but that link is to an unembeddable windows media player video stream that takes forever in online time to load.

The speech, and Mr. Holder's tone, comportment, and obvious high intelligence displayed in it, are very confidence inspiring, unlike Mr. Mukasey's dissembling. I did a little digging around for an embeddable version so everyone could see and hear what Holder had to say on the same questions that make Mr. Mukasey's eyes dart around in a frantic search for safe ground while he sweats and squirms and squeals like a stuck pig writhing on the end of a sharp stick.

Mr. Holder serves on the American Constitution Society's Board of Directors.

A release from The ACS (via Mark Halperin's The Page at Time.com) says that:

Washington, D.C. -- Eric H. Holder Jr., Deputy Attorney General during the Clinton administration, asserted in a speech to the American Constitution Society (ACS) that the United States must reverse “the disastrous course” set by the Bush administration in the struggle against terrorism by closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, declaring without qualification that the U.S. does not torture people, ending the practice of transferring individuals involuntarily to countries that engage in torture and ceasing warrantless domestic surveillance.

“Our needlessly abusive and unlawful practices in the ‘War on Terror' have diminished our standing in the world community and made us less, rather than more, safe,” Holder told a packed room at the ACS 2008 Convention on Friday evening. “For the sake of our safety and security, and because it is the right thing to do, the next president must move immediately to reclaim America's standing in the world as a nation that cherishes and protects individual freedom and basic human rights.”

Here is Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder Jr. speaking on the Rule of Law at the 2008 ACS National Convention and on the responsibility of Americans to preserve and protect our Constitution and reaffirm the principle of rule of law to its rightful, central place in society.

Eric Holder, American Constitution Society June 13, 2008 Speech, Pt. 1 of 3

Pt. 2 of 3

Pt. 3 of 3

.........................................................................................
Addendum:
back to top

U.S. Code: CHAPTER 113C--TORTURE
§ 2340. Definitions

§ 2340A. Torture

§ 2340B. Exclusive remedies
Summary of International and U.S. Law Prohibiting Torture and Other Ill-treatment of Persons in Custody
International and U.S. law prohibits torture and other ill-treatment of any person in custody in all circumstances. The prohibition applies to the United States during times of peace, armed conflict, or a state of emergency. Any person, whether a U.S. national or a non-citizen, is protected. It is irrelevant whether the detainee is determined to be a prisoner-of-war, a protected person, or a so-called "security detainee" or "unlawful combatant." And the prohibition is in effect within the territory of the United States or any place anywhere U.S. authorities have control over a person. In short, the prohibition against torture and ill-treatment is absolute.
...
A federal anti-torture statute (18 U.S.C. § 2340A), enacted in 1994, provides for the prosecution of a U.S. national or anyone present in the United States who, while outside the U.S., commits or attempts to commit torture.

Torture is defined as an "act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control." A person found guilty under the act can be incarcerated for up to 20 years or receive the death penalty if the torture results in the victim's death.

The Citizens Petition: Special Prosecutor for Bush War Crimes..... Premiere

2008-12-20T20:09:00.000-08:00

You'll notice in the sidebar here that there is a new Petition Badge for a A Citizen's Petition to Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder asking him to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in War Crimes, sponsored by Docudharma and Democrats.com.

Please go to Democrats.com and sign the petition!

With the recent admissions by Vice President Cheney and the release of the Senate Armed Services Committee Report on detainee treatment, what we have known in the blogosphere for years has now....finally....made it into the mainstream. The Bush Administration planned, developed and carried out an organized torture program stretching from Gitmo to Iraq, Afghanistan and secret prisons around the world.

Despite their protestations and attempts to cover themselves with highly questionable legal opinions, this was and is a War Crime. Their politicization and corruption of the Department of Justice has stymied any investigation and left all efforts at accountability and justice to the new Obama Administrations DOJ, and specifically to AG Designate Holder.

Now, even the New York Times is....again, finally...calling for a Special Prosecutor to investigate these crimes.

However, as we also know well in the Blogosphere, this is far more than an issue of crime, punishment and justice as it should be. It is a political issue. A 'hot potato' political issue considering that any and all attempts at investigation and prosecution will undoubtedly (and erroneously) be described by the Republicans, the Right Wing press and pundits, and even some (complicit?) Democrats as a 'partisan witch hunt' and as 'criminalizing politics.' in other words, there are huge political costs at stake here. It would be much, much easier to 'move on' or 'not play the blame game' or point fingers to the past.'

The Obama Administration will face incredible pressure to sweep these War Crimes under the rug of history. We in the Blogosphere need to provide the counter-pressure. We do that by making our voices heard, and one way to do that is by each and everyone of us, the thousands if not millions of blog readers, adding our names to a petition. The petition will ultimately be submitted to AG Holder, as well as to Change.gov. However it can make a great impact on the 'public conversation' just by being everywhere in the Blogosphere as well.

To that end, Docudharma and Democrats.com have teamed up to create, host, and distribute the following petition. The petition calls for Attorney General Designate Holder to, immediately upon being confirmed, appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all officials of the Bush Administration for Torture and War Crimes.

The petition:

Dear Attorney General Designate Holder,

We the undersigned citizens of the United States hereby formally petition you to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in War Crimes.

These crimes are being euphemistically referred to as "abusive interrogation techniques" by such respected figures as Senator John McCain. These are euphemisms for torture. Torture is a War Crime. Waterboarding is a War Crime. The CIA has admitted waterboarding detainees. Recently, Vice President Cheney has brazenly admitted authorizing the program that lead to waterboarding, other forms of torture too numerous to list, and ultimately, the deaths by homicide of detainees.

As Major General Antonio Taguba, the Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison has stated:
"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."
The Washington Post recently summarized the Senate Armed Services Committee Report on detainee treatment thusly:
A bipartisan panel of senators has concluded that former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other top Bush administration officials bear direct responsibility for the harsh treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and that their decisions led to more serious abuses in Iraq and elsewhere.
We the undersigned citizens demand a full and thorough investigation immediately upon your taking office. This investigation should be pursued no matter where it may lead and no matter what the political implications may be. To this end, we remind you that you work not on behalf of or for the President or the Congress, but for the People of the United States of America and for Justice itself.

The United States is a representative democracy. The actions of our government officials are done in the name of its citizens. War Crimes have been committed in our name. Torture has been done in our name. The only way to clear our name of War Crimes is to repudiate them through the aggressive prosecution of each and every person involved to the full extent of the law through the appointment of a Special Prosecutor.

We are urging everyone in the Blogosphere and beyond to get involved in this project...not just to sign the petition, but also to write diaries and blog posts in support of the effort. And also to display the linked badge (created by Edger) in your posts or on your sites. The easy to embed code for posting the badge can be found here.

Please feel free to contact us at admin@docudharma.com for more information or any technical assistance you may need.

And of course......Please go to Democrats.com and sign the petition!

..........................

If you wish to post this essay, or just the petition, on any site or your own blog, please mail us at admin@docudharma.com and we will send you the entire essay, complete with HTML code, to post wherever you wish. Please feel free to edit, within the parameters of keeping the original spirit and intent. We enthusiastically give full permission for such use!

Or you can download a .txt file of the html code for this essay here.

The Defining Moment?

2008-12-19T09:27:00.001-08:00

"The more you begin to investigate what we think we understand, where we came from, what we think we're doing, the more you begin to see we've been lied to, we've been lied to by every institution..."
-- Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Zeitgeist

"The Edge... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.
-- Hunter S. Thompson

The entire global economy depends not just on politicians and economists and crooked financial industry executives who make decisions for the world, but on transportation; planes, trains, trucks, and automobiles.

Nothing gets delivered. Nothing gets anywhere. Not food, Not goods. Nothing. Anywhere. Without transportation.

And all of our transportation systems depend on oil and cannot function without oil.

Transportation is the heart that pumps the blood to drive the economy. Energy, oil, is the nourishment that enables the heart to keep on pumping.

What happens when the heart stops pumping? The body, the economy, dies.

Fatih Birol is the chief economist of the International Energy Agency (IEA), and each year publishes the World Energy Outlook, the forecasting report that governments all over the world use to know what energy supplies will be available when planning development of transportation strategies and systems to keep the economy humming along.

Systems that will use the energy Birol's report tells them will be available to power that development.

George Monbiot is the author of the best selling books Heat: how to stop the planet burning; The Age of Consent: a manifesto for a new world order and Captive State: the corporate takeover of Britain; as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed and No Man’s Land. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian newspaper. He lives in mid-Wales with his daughter Hanna.

Britain's leading green commentator, George Monbiot, talks to Fatih Birol at the IEA in the Real News video below, who reveals for the first time a startling and worrying prediction for the date of peak oil.

And finds that the rate of decline of oil production that Birol and The International Energy Agency have been giving to governments around the world for the past few years has been simply an assumption - a guess - based on no research at all.

A guess. Based on no research at all. Until this year. This years World Energy Outlook 2008 is finally based on real research, and on real numbers.

And the numbers are not at all good. Not nearly as good as the projections that Birol and the IEA have been supplying to world governments for their transportation systems planning and strategy development for the past few years.

Which means, of course, that all of that planning and strategizing has been fantasyland planning and strategizing, based on assumptions, guesses, that energy supplies will be much higher that they will be.

Real News: December 18, 2008
George Monbiot questions Fatih Birol on peak oil
Guardian: International Energy Authority chief economist reveals startling prediction for peak oil date

"Are We Chumps?", "You Betcha"

2008-12-14T10:44:00.000-08:00

"What I'm learning is that the highest officials in our land have proven to be less than capable in making decisions that affect the lives of so many Americans, that we've seen about faces, changes of strategy, no clear coherent strategy for fixing a world-shattering crisis."
Emma Coleman Jordan
On Bill Moyers Journal
Friday, December 12, 2008

Emma Coleman Jordan is a Georgetown University legal and finance scholar. She taught for twelve years at the University of California, Davis.

She began her teaching career at Stanford Law School as a teaching fellow. She has been active in the financial services field, serving as chair of the Financial Institutions Committee of the California State Bar, drafter of the statute to regulate bank check holding practices, and co-counsel in class actions challenging bank stop-payment fee charges.

Her article, "Ending the Floating Check Game" (1985), grew out of this involvement. She organized the Financial Institutions and Consumer Financial Services section of the Association of American Law Schools.

She was a White House Fellow in 1980-81, serving as special assistant to the Attorney General. She was counsel to Professor Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings.

She has been tracking the bailout hearings in Congress trying to find out what happened to the original $700 Billion dollar Wall Street bailout, where the money went, and where all the bailout money has been going since.

On Friday (last night December 12) Jordan spoke with journalist Bill Moyers on the PBS program Bill Moyers Journal, and took Moyers through recent news on the bailouts as big business begs for more, and about the web of connection behind the pending automakers bailout.

The program is about 30 minutes long, and the full transcript is available on the Bill Moyers Journal site, here.

Driving My Life Away, Looking For A Better Way

2008-12-13T11:26:00.000-08:00

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.

Trickle down economics will never get us out of the mess that trickle down economics got us into.

The immediate crunch that the automakers are facing is a loss of revenue due to dropping sales greatly exacerbated by less availability of credit due to banking mismanagement encouraged by deregulation over the past couple of decades.

If that is true then the immediate crunch that the automakers are facing is a symptom of a larger "disease", and not the cause of the disease.

Throwing billions of dollars of taxpayer money at the automakers while their customers remain in large part unable to buy the cars they produce will not increase their sales and thus not solve any problem other than keeping the management from going bust.

Treating the symptoms of any life threatening systemic disease without addressing the causes will result in temporary comfort but the patient will die.

A simple answer just will not do.

The automakers can only be bailed out in a useful manner by retooling and regulating the economy, not by throwing cash at the automakers.

A large part of the reasons that the automakers sales are dropping is a simple one. Many people in this economy are simply no longer able to afford the cars the big 3 or any other manufacturers produce. The question is not what they might want to buy, but rather what they are able to buy.

Giving money to the automakers now, as we are seeing with the banking bailout, without first repairing and regulating to a "sane" economy is in my view simply stealing money from taxpayers who are now unable to buy cars, which will result in the short and longer term even further depressing the economy and auto sales along with it, and will start a habit of "returning to the well" by automakers to draw ever increasing amounts of money from the automakers own customers.

It would be artificially propping them up at everyone elses expense.

What are we? Crash test dummies?

Again, their problem is a symptom. Treating a symptom will not solve the problem.

I think that suggestions that the economy is dependent on GM and the other automakers are suggestions from fantasyland.

The complete and utter reverse is true. GM and the automakers are dependent on the economy. And propping up the economy as a whole is the surest way to save the automakers.

Hoping that shoveling billions of dollars into the hands of the same people who create the problems in the first place will solve the problems is hoping against all hope that somehow, magically, trickle down economics will start to suddenly work.

Trickle down economics... does not work.

Last month Nicholas von Hoffman writing at The Nation came up with what I think is one of the most cogent suggestions I've seen so far for dealing with the automakers and the autoworkers union problems.

Why We Shouldn't Save GM

Now it is the auto parts suppliers who want government money. They employ 600,000 people, more than work for the automobile companies themselves.

If the standard for giving out money to companies is the threat of lost jobs, the auto parts suppliers' claim is as good as that of General Motors. The argument against subsidizing money-losing companies to preserve employment is that it would be impossible to think up a more expensive way of helping people.

There ought to be another way--and there is. Unemployment compensation should be expanded to ensure those losing their jobs will not lose their houses or their health insurance. Helping people on that scale will not be cheap, but helping them by propping up corporate losers is infinitely more costly: sooner or later people will find other employment, but the automobile companies will never turn a profit.

They have been steadily losing money for a generation. Their predicament has nothing to do with today's credit crunch or the stock market crash. It has to do with their being incorrigible foul-ups.

Their record for money-losing is beyond comprehension. David Yermack, professor of finance at New York University's Stern School of Business, has calculated how much capital the car companies have destroyed over the last few decades.

He writes, "General Motors and Ford...between them...destroyed $110 billion in capital between 1980 and 1990.... GM has invested $310 billion in its business between 1998 and 2007. The total depreciation of GM's physical plant during this period was $128 billion, meaning that a net $182 billion of society's capital has been pumped into GM over the past decade--a waste of about $1.5 billion per month of national savings. The story at Ford has not been as adverse but is still disheartening, as Ford has invested $155 billion and consumed $8 billion net of depreciation since 1998. As a society, we have very little to show for this $465 billion."

the rest is here...

von Hoffman's suggestion would ensure that taxpayer money used for any "bailout" directly benefits those same taxpayers and would help them to continue being the engine of the consumer economy, as opposed to throwing it at big 3 management hoping against all reason that it will somehow "trickle" back down to the people paying for any bailout.

Surveying The Landscape: Obama A Center-Right Pragmatic? Or Progressive?

2008-12-04T06:53:00.000-08:00

Who is this guy? What is this guy?

I have long argued and have written much the past few days in particular that Obama's past statements and actions, especially as indicated by his latest picks for a foreign policy team, show him to be a center-right imperialist/empire-ist who will simply do the bidding of, or at least be heavily constrained by, a combination of oil companies, corporate oligarchy and foreign policy establishment.

That he will be exactly that, at least when it comes to foreign policy, "war on terror" memes, and the likelihood of him continuing the imperialist policies of the past six or more decades that are creating the very terrorism that the "war on terror" started by George Bush so misguidedly and murderously has done.

Have progressives been suckered into supporting a President who will really govern from the 'center-right', and who is an imperialist hawk in sheeps clothing? A very good salesman, in other words, who has been very successful at coopting and defanging progressives and the antiwar movement?

I'm far from alone in my thinking about this. But hang in here for a bit. There's an opposing viewpoint coming, further down.

As far back as July 2007 Ira Chernus, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and author of Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin wrote, in an article published at Tom Engelhardt's TomDispatch: Democratic Doublespeak on Iraq:

...what does it mean to "leave Iraq"? Here's where most of the Democratic candidates come smack up against that hard place. There is a longstanding bipartisan consensus in the foreign-policy establishment that the US must control every strategically valuable region of the world -- and none more so than the oil heartlands of the planet. That's been a hard-and-fast rule of the elite for some six decades now. No matter how hard the task may be, they demand that presidents be rock-hard enough to get the job done.

So whatever "leave Iraq" might mean, no candidate of either party likely to enter the White House on January 20, 2009 can think it means letting Iraqis determine their own national policies or fate.
...
So the Democratic front-runners must promise voters that they will end the war -- with not too many ideologically laden ifs, ands, or buts -- while they assure the foreign-policy establishment that they will never abandon the drive for hegemony in the Middle East (or anywhere else). In other words, the candidates have to be able to talk out of both sides of their mouths at the same time.

...
"The single most important job of any president is to protect the American people," [Obama] affirmed in a major foreign-policy statement last April. But "the threats we face.... can no longer be contained by borders and boundaries.... The security of the American people is inextricably linked to the security of all people." That's why the U.S. must be the "leader of the free world." It's hard to find much difference on foreign policy between Clinton and Obama, except that Barack is more likely to dress up the imperial march of U.S. interests in such old-fashioned Cold War flourishes.

That delights neoconservative guru Robert Kagan, who summed up Obama's message succinctly: "His critique is not that we've meddled too much but that we haven't meddled enough.... To Obama, everything and everyone everywhere is of strategic concern to the United States." To control everything and everyone, he wants "the strongest, best-equipped military in the world.... A 21st century military to stay on the offense." That, he says, will take at least 92,000 more soldiers and Marines -- precisely the number Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has recommended to President Bush.

And of course in the past few days we've seen Obama reiterate his statements that he intends to "end the war in Iraq 'responsibly'", and also seen him confirm that he will retain George Bush's appointee Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense, as well as bring in Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, and former NATO commander General James L. Jones, all complimenting his VP Joe Biden as war hawks.

Not very confidence inspiring of "progressive" foreign policy thinking, to say the least.

In May 2007 Larry Everest wrote at Z-Net in The Bush Veto, the Democrats' Response, and Why Millions Must Break with the Politics of Empire:

What the Bush Regime portrays as a noble effort to make the world safe from terrorism and bring democracy to the Middle East is actually a vicious war of empire to deepen the U.S. stranglehold on the Middle East and Central Asia --a war that is part of a broader effort to create an unchallenged and unchallengeable imperialist empire.

This goal is not viewed as capricious or incidental by those in charge--whether Democrats or Republicans--rather it flows from the deepest needs and drives of their system: U.S. hegemony in the Middle East and global dominance is crucial for U.S. capitalism's ongoing functioning and U.S. global power.
...
So when Bush says, "Even if you thought it was a mistake to go into Iraq, it would be a far greater mistake to pull out now," he's expressing a fear -- from an imperialist viewpoint - that a U.S. pullout would leave the empire weaker. And he is saying this in opposition to other forces in the U.S. ruling class who, also coming from an imperialist viewpoint, now think it's a big mistake for the U.S. not to withdraw.

This whole dynamic of riding the anti-war vote to power, then voting to fund an ongoing war while claiming to be ending it, reflect the conflicting necessities the Democrats face. As representatives of U.S. imperialism, they are committed to maintaining U.S. global dominance. Yet they fear the U.S. is sliding toward a strategic debacle of epic proportions and may already have lost the war in Iraq. So they're trying to find a way to extricate most U.S. forces and reposition and strengthen the U.S. in the region.
...
Meanwhile, the Democrats also have to try to maintain the loyalty of their supporters (to both the party and the system), millions of whom have turned against the war and are furious at the Democrats. So we get all the talk of carrying out the "will of the voters" and "moving to end the war"--while horrendous crimes continue to be carried out in Iraq and they do nothing to really put an end to the war.

Here's an opposing view, from Robert Creamer at AlterNet.

Clues Obama Won't Govern Center-Right
December 02, 2008

Should progressives beware? Has Barack Obama suckered them into supporting a President who will really govern from the "center-right"? The short answer is no.

Since November 4th there has been growing protestation from right wing intellectuals that America is really a "center-right" nation and that Obama's victory does not indicate that the electorate has rejected the "center-right" value frame that has defined American politics for the last thirty years.

This line of argument has now extended to the contention that while Obama may have won the nomination and election with the strong support from the left of the Democratic Party, he really intends to govern from the "center-right." Even the New York Times ran a front-page analysis last Saturday concluding that Obama's recent cabinet choices, "suggest that Mr. Obama is planning to govern from the center-right of his party, surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than ideologues."

Both of these arguments are complete baloney.

Right wing pundits can comfort themselves with the fantasy that America is a "center-right" nation but it just ain't so. In fact, all of the polls show that the November election represented a complete repudiation of right wing Bush-Cheney top-down economics and their Neo-Con foreign policy. Over 80% of voters indicated they wanted fundamental change. The polling shows massive majorities in favor of policies that would guarantee health care for all. It shows overwhelming support for policies that give tax relief to middle income Americans and increase taxes on the wealthy. Polls show complete rejection of neocon notions about "preemptive" war and unilateralism. And Americans strongly favor bold government action to stimulate the economy - not the failed laissez-faire economics that have lead to the current economic meltdown.

The fact is that normal people have supported policies like health care for all and bottom up economics for decades. They've known for years that economic policies that have lowered their incomes and siphoned off all of our growth to the top 2% were not in their interest. Now the market collapse, potential bankruptcy of the country's biggest firms, and obvious failure of Neo-Con foreign policy have finally forced even the country's punditry and

Not only have "center-right" policies proven themselves a complete failure, their intellectual and moral basis has collapsed. How many more bailouts does someone need before he stops believing that the unfettered "free market" will always lead the "private sector" (meaning those who control giant corporations and Wall Street Bankers) to act in the public interest. How many times can corporate CEO's emerge from their private jets with tin cups in Washington before people begin to question the "center-right's" claim that the private sector is inherently more efficient that the public sector. Let's face it, it's getting pretty tough to justify why Wall Street's "masters of the universe" deserve to be paid hundreds of millions of dollars while middle class incomes tank; or why a CEO should make more money before lunch on the first day of the year than his minimum wage worker makes all year long.

Obama ran a campaign that clearly and unequivocally described priorities that will turn American in a fundamentally progressive direction. His cabinet picks indicate that he will surround himself with people who have experience and can competently manage the government. They also indicate his absolute commitment to unifying the country to make change. But they do not in any way diminish the fact that America is demanding -- and Obama intends to enact -- a sweeping progressive program the likes of which we have not seen since the New Deal.

Political consultant, activist and author Mike Lux will publish a book early next year that surveys the history of progressive change in American history. He concludes that progressive changes happen in big batches. Change doesn't happen incrementally. I think of it as the "Drain-O" theory of history. At key points in history the pressure for democratizing, progressive change overwhelms the forces of the status quo. Then, as the pipes are suddenly cleaned out, massive numbers of progressive changes can finally flow. America is about to experience one of those periods. How much we can accomplish, and how long this period lasts will depend on many factors that we don't yet know -- and one that we do. It will depend heavily on our success in continuing to mobilize the millions of Americans who elected Barack Obama into a movement to enact his program.

Finally, writers and pundits who focus on Obama's cabinet picks to show he will govern from the "center right" need to have a look at history. Like Obama, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln all installed people in their cabinets who they believed to be effective managers who could deliver. They all had their share of outsiders and progressives, but many were old Washington hands. Yet all of these Presidents faced historic challenges that demanded and enabled them to make fundamental change. And all of them were guided by progressive values that were sharply different from those of Bush, Cheney, and Delay. Obama shares and articulates those values more than any political leader since Robert Kennedy died forty years ago.

Barack Obama will not govern from the "center right", but he will govern from the "center". That's not because he is "moving to the center". It's because the center of American politics has changed. It has moved where the American people are. It once again resides in the traditional progressive center that has defined America's promise since Thomas Jefferson penned its founding document over 200 years ago.

........................

IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THIS MATERIAL IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. NEITHER I NOR DOCUDHARMA HAVE ANY AFFILIATION WHATSOEVER WITH THE ORIGINATOR OF THIS ARTICLE OR ARE ENDORSED OR SPONSORED BY THE ORIGINATOR.

"VIEW SOURCE ARTICLE" LINKS ARE PROVIDED AS A CONVENIENCE TO OUR READERS AND ALLOW FOR VERIFICATION OF AUTHENTICITY. HOWEVER, AS ORIGINATING PAGES ARE OFTEN UPDATED BY THEIR ORIGINATING HOST SITES, THE VERSIONS POSTED ON TO MAY NOT MATCH THE VERSIONS OUR READERS VIEW WHEN CLICKING THE "SOURCE ARTICLE" LINK.

"Obama ran a campaign that clearly and unequivocally described priorities that will turn American in a fundamentally progressive direction."?

Was it a "pragmatic" campaign to simply gain the presidency? Is he a Center-Right Pragmatic? Or Progressive?

The More Things Change: Empire Classic Or Empire Lite?

2008-12-03T11:58:00.000-08:00

In the spring of 2007, 6 months after taking control of Congress in the November 2006 midterm elections by running on an "end the Iraq occupation" platform throughout 2006, the Democratic controlled congress under the leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned around 180 degrees, stuck their thumbs in the eye of the public who had given them their majority based on the expectations of ending the occupation, and gave George Bush the first Iraq supplemental funding bill ever passed by a Democratic congress, in their determination that the US would control the oil resources of Iraq and have a central base from which to attempt to expand that hoped for control across the Middle East.

Their dreams of empire have since developed a badly cracked and shattered facade but not died out, and that first supplemental funding bill was to become only the beginning of a two year long series of betrayals of their mandate, as the Democrats put all of their energy into enabling Bush with multiple Iraq supplemental funding bills and selling the same old deathtrap in Iraq with a shiny new Democratic paintjob, and over the past couple of months enabling and participating in the theft of nearly nine trillion dollars from taxpayers as they have fallen all over themselves to hand bags of cash to their criminal friends on Wall Street who have been busy as beavers all this time wrecking the US and global economy.

Yesterday in Obama's Foreign Policy Team: Pragmatic Chump Change? The Real News talked to Lawrence J. Korb and Phyllis Bennis to analyze the overall message about ongoing US foreign policy that is sent out to the world by Obama's choices as Hillary Clinton was confirmed as Obama's Secretary of State, and three other appointments were confirmed as well: his closest foreign affairs adviser Susan Rice becoming UN ambassador with a seat at the cabinet table, former NATO commander General James L. Jones as national security adviser, and current Secretary of Defense Bush appointee Robert M. Gates to remain in that role.

For his "pragmatic" appointments of some of the most hawkish war and imperialism proponents in and out of the Democratic party...

Barack Obama is riding a tide of public approval over his performance so far as US president-elect, as well as strong support for his top cabinet picks, a new poll showed Tuesday.

Nearly a month after his historic November 4 election, and in the midst of the devastating downturn in the US economy, more than three out of four Americans approve of how Obama has handled his transition so far, according to the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll.

Of his high-profile cabinet appointments, 69 percent to 25 percent approve Obama's pick of his former Democratic nomination rival Hillary Rodham Clinton to be his secretary of state.

By an overwhelming margin, 80 percent to 14 percent of Americans endorse Obama's decision to ask President George W. Bush's defense secretary Robert Gates to keep his post, said the poll.

We then heard about the propagandizing "Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism" wheeling out the heavy artillery once again of blatant WOT fearmongering with WAPO reporting on them saying:

The odds that terrorists will soon strike a major city with weapons of mass destruction are now better than even, a bipartisan congressionally mandated task force concludes in a draft study that warns of growing threats from rogue states, nuclear smuggling networks and the spread of atomic know-how in the developing world.

The sobering assessment of such threats, due for release as early as today, singled out Pakistan as a grave concern because of its terrorist networks, history of instability and arsenal of several dozen nuclear warheads. The report urged the incoming Obama administration to take "decisive action" to reduce the likelihood of a devastating attack

Today Pepe Escobar at The Real News describes a shiny new Democratic "war on terror" being sold to the American public....

Much has been said about the strong personalities who will feature in President-elect Barack Obama's national security "team of rivals". But Obama has already made it clear that "the buck stops" with him.

Pepe Escobar argues that instead of "change", what America has in fact bought is an Obama vision that may not be too dissimilar from the war on terror framework.

Real News: December 3, 2008
Empire classic or empire lite?
Obama foreign policy does not question basic assumptions of the past

Go shopping? Don't forget to pick up duct tape?

What's LEFT Of Blogs?

2008-12-02T15:29:00.001-08:00

Magnifico reports at Docudharma today in his Four at Four on the Washington Post story today: Nuclear or Biological Attack Called Likely.

The story tells in a very serious "objectively journalistic" matter of fact manner of a new report produced by the "Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism".

WAPO's article notes that:

The odds that terrorists will soon strike a major city with weapons of mass destruction are now better than even, a bipartisan congressionally mandated task force concludes in a draft study that warns of growing threats from rogue states, nuclear smuggling networks and the spread of atomic know-how in the developing world.

The sobering assessment of such threats, due for release as early as today, singled out Pakistan as a grave concern because of its terrorist networks, history of instability and arsenal of several dozen nuclear warheads. The report urged the incoming Obama administration to take "decisive action" to reduce the likelihood of a devastating attack.
...
...the creation of the commission, chaired by former senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), with former congressman James M. Talent (R-Mo.) serving as vice chairman, was one of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, which explored the causes of the 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States.

I don't recall the 9/11 Commission ever doing any "exploring" of the root causes of the 2001 terrorist attacks or of the root causes of the oppression and imperialism and the general foreign policies of messing internally with other countries militarily and via CIA fomented insurrections, destabilization campaigns, and false flag operations to fog the minds of Americans over the past six or more decades.

I don't recall the 9/11 Commission ever doing anything other than their job: creating justifications for the "war on terror" fearmongering and propaganda campaigns that replaced the "cold war" mentality of 'political rule on behalf of multinational corporate stripping the earth bare like a swarm of locusts the rest of the world's human beings are our property and resources to be used till exhausted with no regard for their humanity' American Exceptionalism that was behind all the lies and deceits of the ten year sanctions war and eventual invasion and occupation of Iraq that was directly responsible for the deaths, maimings and poisonings of over a million Iraqis; men, women, and children.

But "explore the causes"? Deluded misinformation at best, and pure manipulative propaganda at worst.

Boo! The boogeymen are out to get you.

This story is all over the left blogs today, and most of what I read is people lapping it up as easily and thoughtlessly as the 26 percenters lapped up all of Bush's years of Rovian manipulations, and using it as justification for "pragmatic" hide their heads in the sand denial of Barack Obama's obvious militarist tendencies and full intentions to continue the war on terror memes and determination to militarily dominate the earth while blaming the blowback on "terrists" on behalf of the corporatocracy that rules America.

Have we learned nothing in eight years?

Glenn Greenwald: How Beltway reporters mislead the country
by: ek hornbeck
Sun Nov 25, 2007

I think this is the arena that we are most effective in, media criticism.
The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits - a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.

(I)t (is) a low trade and a habit worse than heroin, a strange seedy world full of misfits and drunkards and failures. The business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.

Objective journalism is one of the main reasons American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long. - Stockton

I think this is the arena that we used to be most effective in, media criticism. But no longer, it seems.

What's LEFT Of Blogs?

The Unseen Lies: Journalism As Propaganda
By John Pilger, August 8, 2007

The truth about most modern journalism: You first become a career media worker, you start climbing the ladder, and then you prostitute yourself. It's as common as it's straightforward.

The following is a transcript of a talk given by John Pilger at Socialism 2007 Conference in Chicago this past June:
The title of this talk is Freedom Next Time, which is the title of my book, and the book is meant as an antidote to the propaganda that is so often disguised as journalism. So I thought I would talk today about journalism, about war by journalism, propaganda, and silence, and how that silence might be broken. Edward Bernays, the so-called father of public relations, wrote about an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. He was referring to journalism, the media.

That was almost 80 years ago, not long after corporate journalism was invented. It is a history few journalist talk about or know about, and it began with the arrival of corporate advertising. As the new corporations began taking over the press, something called "professional journalism" was invented. To attract big advertisers, the new corporate press had to appear respectable, pillars of the establishment-objective, impartial, balanced. The first schools of journalism were set up, and a mythology of liberal neutrality was spun around the professional journalist. The right to freedom of expression was associated with the new media and with the great corporations, and the whole thing was, as Robert McChesney put it so well, "entirely bogus".

For what the public did not know was that in order to be professional, journalists had to ensure that news and opinion were dominated by official sources, and that has not changed. Go through the New York Times on any day, and check the sources of the main political stories-domestic and foreign-you'll find they're dominated by government and other established interests. That is the essence of professional journalism.

...

One of my favorite stories about the Cold War concerns a group of Russian journalists who were touring the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by the host for their impressions. "I have to tell you," said the spokesman, "that we were astonished to find after reading all the newspapers and watching TV day after day that all the opinions on all the vital issues are the same. To get that result in our country we send journalists to the gulag. We even tear out their fingernails. Here you don't have to do any of that. What is the secret?"

What is the secret? It is a question seldom asked in newsrooms, in media colleges, in journalism journals, and yet the answer to that question is critical to the lives of millions of people. On August 24 [2006] the New York Times declared this in an editorial: "If we had known then what we know now the invasion if Iraq would have been stopped by a popular outcry." This amazing admission was saying, in effect, that journalists had betrayed the public by not doing their job and by accepting and amplifying and echoing the lies of Bush and his gang, instead of challenging them and exposing them. What the Times didn't say was that had that paper and the rest of the media exposed the lies, up to a million people might be alive today. That's the belief now of a number of senior establishment journalists. Few of them-they've spoken to me about it-few of them will say it in public.

Ironically, I began to understand how censorship worked in so-called free societies when I reported from totalitarian societies. During the 1970s I filmed secretly in Czechoslovakia, then a Stalinist dictatorship. I interviewed members of the dissident group Charter 77, including the novelist Zdener Urbanek, and this is what he told me. "In dictatorships we are more fortunate that you in the West in one respect. We believe nothing of what we read in the newspapers and nothing of what we watch on television, because we know its propaganda and lies. Unlike you in the West. We've learned to look behind the propaganda and to read between the lines, and unlike you, we know that the real truth is always subversive."

...

We need to make haste. Liberal Democracy is moving toward a form of corporate dictatorship. This is an historic shift, and the media must not be allowed to be its façade, but itself made into a popular, burning issue, and subjected to direct action. That great whistleblower Tom Paine warned that if the majority of the people were denied the truth and the ideas of truth, it was time to storm what he called the Bastille of words. That time is now.

Want change you can believe in?

Follow the leader:

Real News: Obama's Foreign Policy Team: Pragmatic Chump Change?

2008-12-02T09:04:00.000-08:00

Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice,
Gen. James L. Jones, Robert M. Gates

On Monday President-elect Barack Obama announced the makeup of the core of his incoming administrations foreign affairs team with what Jeremy Scahill, Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute, yesterday called "Barack Obama's Kettle of Hawks":

The absence of a solid anti-war voice on Obama's national security team means that US foreign policy isn't going to change.
...
[T]he real rivalry that will play out goes virtually unmentioned. The main battles will not be between Obama's staff, but rather against those who actually want a change in US foreign policy, not just a staff change in the war room.

When announcing his foreign policy team on Monday, Obama said: "I didn't go around checking their voter registration." That is a bit hard to believe, given the 63-question application to work in his White House. But Obama clearly did check their credentials, and the disturbing truth is that he liked what he saw.

The assembly of Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, Susan Rice and Joe Biden is a kettle of hawks with a proven track record of support for the Iraq war, militaristic interventionism, neoliberal economic policies and a worldview consistent with the foreign policy arch that stretches from George HW Bush's time in office to the present.

Obama has dismissed suggestions that the public records of his appointees bear much relevance to future policy. "Understand where the vision for change comes from, first and foremost," Obama said. "It comes from me. That's my job, to provide a vision in terms of where we are going and to make sure, then, that my team is implementing." It is a line the president-elect's defenders echo often. The reality, though, is that their records do matter.

Hillary Clinton was confirmed as Obama's Secretary of State, and three other appointments were confirmed as well: his closest foreign affairs adviser Susan Rice becoming UN ambassador with a seat at the cabinet table, former NATO commander General James L. Jones as national security adviser, and current Secretary of Defense Bush appointee Robert M. Gates to remain in that role.

What is the symbolism and what is the actuality of Obama's appointments?

The Real News CEO Paul Jay talks to Lawrence J. Korb and Phyllis Bennis to analyze the overall message about ongoing US foreign policy that is sent out to the world by Obama's choices...

Lawrence J. Korb is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Senior Adviser to the Center for Defense Information. He served as Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower, Reserve Affairs, Installations and Logistics) under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1985. In that position, he administered about seventy percent of the Defense budget.

Phyllis Bennis is a Senior Analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC. She is the author of Before and After: US Foreign Policy and the September 11 Crisis , Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy US Power, and her newest book Understanding the US-Iran Crisis: A Primer.

He confirmed the selection of Hilary Clinton for the Secretary of State, Eric Holder for Attorney General, Gen. James Jones for National Security Adviser, Susan Rice as the Ambassador to the UN, and Janet Napolitano as Secretary of Homeland Security.

In perhaps the most shocking of the appointments, Obama confirmed that Bush appointee Robert Gates will stay on as Obama's Secretary of Defense for a to-be-determined period of time. The appointments have drawn great praise from established Washington voices, including most members of the GOP, but have been highly criticized by others as lacking the 'change' that Obama's campaign preached.

Senior Editor Paul Jay talks to Lawrence Korb, an adviser to Obama during the campaign, and Phyllis Bennis to get their opinions on Obama's selections and what they signify.

Real News: December 2, 2008
Pragmatism trumps change
Lawrence Korb and Phyllis Bennis discuss the significance of Obama's foreign policy appointments

Leonardo da Vinci, Good Vibes, Unlimited Power, & Who Needs Big Oil?

2008-12-01T03:24:00.000-08:00

The executive summary of the final report published on June 30, 2006 by the U.S. Department of Energy of a study headed by Project Director & Principal Investigator Michael M. Bernitsas, PhD, titled Low Head, Vortex Induced Vibrations River Energy Converter(.pdf) states that:

Vortex Induced Vibrations Aquatic Clean Energy (VIVACE) is a novel, demonstrated approach to extracting energy from water currents. This invention is based on a phenomenon called Vortex Induced Vibrations (VIV), which was first observed by Leonardo da Vinci in 1504AD. He called it 'Aeolian Tones.'

For decades, engineers have attempted to prevent this type of vibration from damaging structures, such as offshore platforms, nuclear fuel rods, cables, buildings, and bridges. The underlying concept of the VIVACE Converter is the following: Strengthen rather than spoil vortex shedding; enhance rather than suppress VIV; harness rather than mitigate VIV energy. By maximizing and utilizing this unique phenomenon, VIVACE takes this "problem" and successfully transforms it into a valuable resource for mankind.

Dr. Bernitsas is also Chief Technology Officer/Interim Chief Executive Officer of Vortex Hydro Energy LLC (VHE), a Michigan based company.

What? The power of music is a valuable resource for mankind?

Who would have thought such a thing, except for musicians, artists, hippies, and other liberal dreamers?

What are Aeolian Tones? And why should Big Oil be afraid of them?

Follow me downstream, here...

One instrument that uses the Aeolian effect is the Grand Aeolian Harp pictured here, and other wind harps available from HarmonicWindHarps.com

Aeolian Tones are the audible sounds created by wake-eddy, vortex induced air pressure fluctuations as air flows around obstacles, such as wires and twigs. Their pitch is controlled by the rate at which eddies are formed and detached in the wake region on the downwind side of the obstacle.

These acoustic wake eddies are exactly analagous to the wake eddies you would see in the water on the downstream side of a rock in a river.
...
Most people have heard the whistling sounds created by power lines in a windstorm. These are pure Aeolian Tones. Some musical instruments, such as wind harps, create Aeolian Tones directly.

However, some other more common wind instruments utilize the Aeolian effect to create sound that can be controlled in pitch and volume. Most notable among these are the various types of block flutes that are common in both aboriginal and modern cultures around the world.

Aeolian Tones have an instrinsic complexity of harmonic structure that fosters a meditative state and a sense of msytery in many listeners. It is in this spirit that all of us at Aeolian Tones Music appraoch our art, regardless of genre or category.
...
Aeolian Tones are also the notes of the Aeolian Mode (what is commonly called the Relative Minor scale in Western music theory). Compositions based on modal concepts were very common prior to the 17th century, before "Classical" music theory was codified into separate Major and Minor scales. Modal techniques came back into favor with some composers in the 19th century as explorations in modulations into remote chromatic keys and altered harmonies began. Traditional jazz theory is also based on modes due to typical chord progressions used in jazz that make them very useful for improvising over a set of changes.

Now that I've got your interest piqued (I hope), on the flip you'll find what I found to be one of the most provocative articles I've ever come across in any media anywhere...

Ocean currents can power the world, say scientists**

A revolutionary device that can harness energy from slow-moving rivers and ocean currents could provide enough power for the entire world, scientists claim.
By Jasper Copping, The UK Telegraph
Last Updated: 2:39PM GMT 29 Nov 2008

The technology can generate electricity in water flowing at a rate of less than one knot - about one mile an hour - meaning it could operate on most waterways and sea beds around the globe.

Existing technologies which use water power, relying on the action of waves, tides or faster currents created by dams, are far more limited in where they can be used, and also cause greater obstructions when they are built in rivers or the sea. Turbines and water mills need an average current of five or six knots to operate efficiently, while most of the earth's currents are slower than three knots.

The new device, which has been inspired by the way fish swim, consists of a system of cylinders positioned horizontal to the water flow and attached to springs.

As water flows past, the cylinder creates vortices, which push and pull the cylinder up and down. The mechanical energy in the vibrations is then converted into electricity.

Cylinders arranged over a cubic metre of the sea or river bed in a flow of three knots can produce 51 watts. This is more efficient than similar-sized turbines or wave generators, and the amount of power produced can increase sharply if the flow is faster or if more cylinders are added.

A "field" of cylinders built on the sea bed over a 1km by 1.5km area, and the height of a two-storey house, with a flow of just three knots, could generate enough power for around 100,000 homes. Just a few of the cylinders, stacked in a short ladder, could power an anchored ship or a lighthouse.

Systems could be sited on river beds or suspended in the ocean. The scientists behind the technology, which has been developed in research funded by the US government, say that generating power in this way would potentially cost only around 3.5p per kilowatt hour, compared to about 4.5p for wind energy and between 10p and 31p for solar power. They say the technology would require up to 50 times less ocean acreage than wave power generation.

The system, conceived by scientists at the University of Michigan, is called Vivace, or "vortex-induced vibrations for aquatic clean energy".

Michael Bernitsas, a professor of naval architecture at the university, said it was based on the changes in water speed that are caused when a current flows past an obstruction. Eddies or vortices, formed in the water flow, can move objects up and down or left and right.

"This is a totally new method of extracting energy from water flow," said Mr Bernitsas. "Fish curve their bodies to glide between the vortices shed by the bodies of the fish in front of them. Their muscle power alone could not propel them through the water at the speed they go, so they ride in each other's wake."

Such vibrations, which were first observed 500 years ago by Leonardo DaVinci in the form of "Aeolian Tones", can cause damage to structures built in water, like docks and oil rigs. But Mr Bernitsas added: "We enhance the vibrations and harness this powerful and destructive force in nature.

"If we could harness 0.1 per cent of the energy in the ocean, we could support the energy needs of 15 billion people. In the English Channel, for example, there is a very strong current, so you produce a lot of power."

Because the parts only oscillate slowly, the technology is likely to be less harmful to aquatic wildlife than dams or water turbines. And as the installations can be positioned far below the surface of the sea, there would be less interference with shipping, recreational boat users, fishing and tourism.

The engineers are now deploying a prototype device in the Detroit River, which has a flow of less than two knots. Their work, funded by the US Department of Energy and the US Office of Naval Research, is published in the current issue of the quarterly Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering.

**IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THIS MATERIAL IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. DOCUDHARMA HAS NO AFFILIATION WHATSOEVER WITH THE ORIGINATOR OF THIS ARTICLE NOR IS DOCUDHARMA ENDORSED OR SPONSORED BY THE ORIGINATOR.

"VIEW SOURCE ARTICLE" LINKS ARE PROVIDED AS A CONVENIENCE TO OUR READERS AND ALLOW FOR VERIFICATION OF AUTHENTICITY. HOWEVER, AS ORIGINATING PAGES ARE OFTEN UPDATED BY THEIR ORIGINATING HOST SITES, THE VERSIONS POSTED ON TO MAY NOT MATCH THE VERSIONS OUR READERS VIEW WHEN CLICKING THE "VIEW SOURCE ARTICLE" LINKS.

Video from Vortex Hydro Energy, LLC:

Prototype, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Office Naval Research, is currently operating in the Marine Hydrodynamics Laboratory at the University of Michigan. This device has met and often exceeded expectations; thereby, providing strong evidence to proceed to the next scale, a multi-kilowatt field demonstration.

VIVACE converter model operating in the Low-turbulence Free Surface Re-circulating Water Tunnel

Ahhhhh ha ha ha haaaaa...

2008-11-29T15:24:00.000-08:00

ABC News:

In a personal and wide-ranging interview conducted by his sister about his legacy, his faith and the influence of his father, President George W. Bush said he hopes to be remembered as a liberator of the Iraqi people.

"I'd like to be a president [known] as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace," Bush told his sister, Dorothy Bush Koch, in a conversation recorded for the oral-history organization StoryCorps for the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

An excerpt of the interview was aired on National Public Radio Thursday, and the White House released additional excerpts with both the president and first lady Laura Bush today.

"I would like to be a person remembered as a person who, first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process," Bush said, according to White House excerpts.

[snip...]

Bush said his No Child Left Behind policy, which has been widely criticized by educators as too focused on test scores, is one of his significant achievements.

"I think the No Child Left Behind Act is one of the significant achievements of my administration because we said loud and clear to educators, parents and children that we expect the best for every child, that we believe every child can learn, and that in return for Federal money we expect there to be an accountability system in place to determine whether every child is learning to read, write, and add and subtract," he said.

[snip...]

"I would advise politicians, however, to be careful about faith in the public arena," he said.

Read it all here, if you can stand to...

Well, he's right about one thing. More testing would be good...

11/26 Horror In Mumbai To Ripple Across World?

2008-11-27T15:15:00.000-08:00

The city of Mumbai is India's financial capital. India's New York City.

From Magnifico in his Four at Four at Docudharma today:

The Guardian reports Terrorist gunmen are holed up in Mumbai hotels. "About 10 to 12 gunmen remain holed up with hostages inside two Mumbai hotels and a Jewish centre, a top Indian general said today. Major General RK Huda told New Delhi Television that the rest of the gunmen appeared to have been killed or captured." 125 people have been killed and more than 325 wounded.

Mumbai (Marathi: ?????, Mumba?, IPA:[?mumb?i] (help·info)), formerly Bombay, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the financial capital of India. With an estimated population of 20 million, it is one of the most populous cities in the world. Along with the neighbouring suburbs of Navi Mumbai and Thane, it forms, at 19 million, the world's fifth most populous metropolitan area. Mumbai lies on the west coast of India and has a deep natural harbour. Mumbai's port handles over half of India's maritime cargo.

Mumbai is the commercial and entertainment centre of India, generating 5% of India's GDP and accounting for 25% of industrial output, 40% of maritime trade, and 70% of capital transactions to India's economy. Mumbai is one of the world's top ten centres of commerce by global financial flow, home to important financial institutions such as the Reserve Bank of India, the Bombay Stock Exchange, the National Stock Exchange of India and the corporate headquarters of many Indian companies and numerous multinational corporations. The city also houses India's hindi film and television industry, known as Bollywood. Mumbai's business opportunities, as well as its high standard of living, attract migrants from all over India and, in turn, make the city a potpourri of many communities and cultures. --wikipedia

^{PRAKASH SINGH/AFP/Getty Images
Indian army personnel taking position at Mumbai’s Taj Mahal hotel on Nov. 2}

The BBC says this morning:

Commandos are fighting to clear the last gunmen from two luxury hotels in Mumbai, more than 24 hours after a series of attacks across the city.

The Taj Mahal hotel was nearly free of gunmen, officials said, but operations continued at the Oberoi-Trident hotel.

At a third stand-off, at a Jewish centre, seven hostages were freed, a security official said.

Indian PM Manmohan Singh vowed to track down the attackers, who have killed at least 119 people and injured 300.

Gunmen targeted at least seven sites in Mumbai late on Wednesday, opening fire indiscriminately on crowds at a major railway station, the two hotels, the Jewish centre and a cafe frequented by foreigners.

George Friedman's STRATFOR (Strategic Forecasting, Inc.) has produced an early tentative analysis of possible geopolitical repercussions from the attacks in Mumbai.

Let's hope that STRATFOR is not as on the mark with this analysis as they usually are:

^{PAL PILLAI/AFP/Getty Images
A fire in the dome of the Taj Hotel in Mumbai on Nov. 26}

Red Alert: Possible Geopolitical Consequences of the Mumbai Attacks (Open Access)
Stratfor, November 27, 2008
^{NOTE: As Stratfor is a paid subscription site, some of the links in this article may lead to a subscriber wall, while some will be Open Access.}

Summary

If the Nov. 26 attacks in Mumbai were carried out by Islamist militants as it appears, the Indian government will have little choice, politically speaking, but to blame them on Pakistan. That will in turn spark a crisis between the two nuclear rivals that will draw the United States into the fray.

Analysis

At this point the situation on the ground in Mumbai remains unclear following the militant attacks of Nov. 26. But in order to understand the geopolitical significance of what is going on, it is necessary to begin looking beyond this event at what will follow. Though the situation is still in motion, the likely consequences of the attack are less murky.

We will begin by assuming that the attackers are Islamist militant groups operating in India, possibly with some level of outside support from Pakistan. We can also see quite clearly that this was a carefully planned, well-executed attack.

Given this, the Indian government has two choices. First, it can simply say that the perpetrators are a domestic group. In that case, it will be held accountable for a failure of enormous proportions in security and law enforcement. It will be charged with being unable to protect the public. On the other hand, it can link the attack to an outside power: Pakistan. In that case it can hold a nation-state responsible for the attack, and can use the crisis atmosphere to strengthen the government’s internal position by invoking nationalism. Politically this is a much preferable outcome for the Indian government, and so it is the most likely course of action. This is not to say that there are no outside powers involved — simply that, regardless of the ground truth, the Indian government will claim there were.

That, in turn, will plunge India and Pakistan into the worst crisis they have had since 2002. If the Pakistanis are understood to be responsible for the attack, then the Indians must hold them responsible, and that means they will have to take action in retaliation — otherwise, the Indian government’s domestic credibility will plunge. The shape of the crisis, then, will consist of demands that the Pakistanis take immediate steps to suppress Islamist radicals across the board, but particularly in Kashmir. New Delhi will demand that this action be immediate and public. This demand will come parallel to U.S. demands for the same actions, and threats by incoming U.S. President Barack Obama to force greater cooperation from Pakistan.

If that happens, Pakistan will find itself in a nutcracker. On the one side, the Indians will be threatening action — deliberately vague but menacing — along with the Americans. This will be even more intense if it turns out, as currently seems likely, that Americans and Europeans were being held hostage (or worse) in the two hotels that were attacked. If the attacks are traced to Pakistan, American demands will escalate well in advance of inauguration day.

There is a precedent for this. In 2002 there was an attack on the Indian parliament in Mumbai by Islamist militants linked to Pakistan. A near-nuclear confrontation took place between India and Pakistan, in which the United States brokered a stand-down in return for intensified Pakistani pressure on the Islamists. The crisis helped redefine the Pakistani position on Islamist radicals in Pakistan.

In the current iteration, the demands will be even more intense. The Indians and Americans will have a joint interest in forcing the Pakistani government to act decisively and immediately. The Pakistani government has warned that such pressure could destabilize Pakistan.

The Indians will not be in a position to moderate their position, and the Americans will see the situation as an opportunity to extract major concessions. Thus the crisis will directly intersect U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan.

It is not clear the degree to which the Pakistani government can control the situation. But the Indians will have no choice but to be assertive, and the United States will move along the same line. Whether it is the current government in India that reacts, or one that succeeds doesn’t matter. Either way, India is under enormous pressure to respond. Therefore the events point to a serious crisis not simply between Pakistan and India, but within Pakistan as well, with the government caught between foreign powers and domestic realities. Given the circumstances, massive destabilization is possible — never a good thing with a nuclear power.

This is thinking far ahead of the curve, and is based on an assumption of the truth of something we don’t know for certain yet, which is that the attackers were Muslims and that the Pakistanis will not be able to demonstrate categorically that they weren’t involved.

Since we suspect they were Muslims, and since we doubt the Pakistanis can be categorical and convincing enough to thwart Indian demands, we suspect that we will be deep into a crisis within the next few days, very shortly after the situation on the ground clarifies itself.

Update from Stratfor: India: The Need to React (Open Access)
November 27, 2008 | 0226 GMT

A massive and well-organized attack by militants in Mumbai, India, has left nearly 100 people dead so far, promises to cut deeply into India's foreign investment prospects and threatens to rock India's government. As India responds to the attack, its relationship with Pakistan will be front and center, and the potential for a destabilization of relations between the two geopolitical rivals is high.

Analysis

It has been seven hours since AK-47-toting gunmen started shooting up five-star hotels in a cosmopolitan district of Mumbai, India. This has now evolved into an attack where the lives of high-value targets, whether they be diplomats or Western corporate executives, are being threatened. With general elections nearing and a global economic crisis in full effect, this is a nightmare situation for India's already weak and fractured government as it attempts to hold onto the Western investment that has fueled the country's growth for more than a decade. For the more immediate future, however, this attack has the potential to spin up into a crisis of geopolitical proportions along the Indo-Pakistani border.

Iraq, America, SOFA, Popular Resistance, And Real News

2008-11-27T09:22:00.000-08:00

In Baghdad as I write this it is early Thursday evening, about 7:00 pm Thursday November 27, 2008. Add 8 hours to current US eastern standard time to calculate Baghdad time.

It is also about five and half years since George Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, claiming falsely to want to "liberate" Iraq, while beginning the occupation that has resulted in the deaths of more than a million Iraqis and more than four thousand Americans.

Since the invasion Iraqis belonging to all social factions and walks of life have been trying to throw their occupiers out of the country. They may finally, after all these years, be on the verge of doing exactly that.

But at what cost?

Yesterday the Iraqi parliament delayed a vote on the SOFA pact until today, then earlier today passed the agreement, but subject to a national referendum of Iraqis that could very well finally result in the end of the occupation because of the power and persistence of popular resistance.

Yesterday, in US-Iraq: The Big Picture, "Professor Michael Schwartz compare[d] the terms of the US-Iraq security pact - assuming the US will abide by them - with the initial, grandiose neocon plan which would have Iraq as an American colony peppered with US military bases projecting power all over the Middle East. He stresse[d] it's unlikely the Pentagon and US Big Oil will abandon their dreams of Iraq domination."

Operation Iraq Liberation (OIL) would have been an apt codename for Bush's invasion, but under any codename and whatever the lies and justification used, Iraqis have had enough, and the whole criminal adventure has also resulted in the repudiation and collapse of all the grand plans of Bush, the neocons, and PNAC, although it has yet to result in the arrest and trial of George Bush for war crimes. But grand plans or no, the oil men will not quit, and are still determined to control whatever oil resources in Iraq they can.

Neither will Iraqis quit, however, and the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama would do well to remember the power and persistence of popular resistance movements, both in Iraq, and at home, and not make a similar mistake in Afghanistan, and remember that it was not the oil companies who won him election, but popular movement.

The Real News and Michael Schwartz examine Iraq popular movement resistance to the US-Iraq security pact and how instrumental it has been for years in blocking the Bush administration agenda:

Real News: November 27, 2008
Iraq: from SOFA to resistance
Michael Schwartz examines the Sadrists' reaction to the US-Iraq security pact

In the final part of this series, professor Michael Schwartz stresses how Iraqi popular resistance was crucial from the beginning in blocking the Bush administration agenda, and how the Sadrist movement led by Muqtada al-Sadr may decide to fight the occupation beyond the signing of the security pact.

Michael Schwartz is a professor of Sociology and the founding director of the Undergraduate College of Global Studies at Stony Brook University (SUNY). He has written extensively on the war in Iraq for publications including Mother Jones, Asia Times, ZNet and TomDispatch and is the author of War Without End: The Iraq War in Context (Haymarket, 2008).

US-Iraq: The Big Picture

2008-11-27T02:57:00.000-08:00

Professor Michael Schwartz compares the terms of the US-Iraq security pact - assuming the US will abide by them - with the initial, grandiose neocon plan which would have Iraq as an American colony peppered with US military bases projecting power all over the Middle East. He stresses it's unlikely the Pentagon and US Big Oil will abandon their dreams of Iraq domination.

Michael Schwartz is a professor of Sociology and the founding director of the Undergraduate College of Global Studies at Stony Brook University (SUNY). He has written extensively on the war in Iraq for publications including Mother Jones, Asia Times, ZNet and TomDispatch and is the author of War Without End: The Iraq War in Context (Haymarket, 2008).

Real News: November 26, 2008 - 9 min 27 sec
US-Iraq: The big picture is a neo-con failure

Michael Schwartz examines what's left of the neo-con master-plan and what is Obama's vision.

I'm In Love With My Car

2008-11-21T08:23:00.000-08:00

They are unfeeling metal monsters. They've taken over the world. They have us surrounded. They're everywhere. They remorselessly kill and maim more people every year, at least in North America, than all the terrorists ever dreamed about in all the worst nightmares sold to us by politicians, and in all the wars going on around the planet.

They are bankrupting our economy and destroying our planet. They show no respect for human life. There's a good chance one or more of them will kill you or someone in your family soon, if they haven't already done so.

They are dirty bombs that have polluted and poisoned the entire earth. Besides our homes, they consume the largest part of our disposable income, and produce the largest portion of the personal debt carried by most people.

Yet over the past century they have become our life. We can't live with them. But we can't live without them, it seems.

When the Apollo astronauts were making their trips to the moon in our first foray to another astronomical body, one of the first things they took with them was.. a car. A car. To the moon, for chrissakes.

They divide us from each other, and make us hate each other. But we love them. Even though they kill us.

They're not just part of popular culture, there can probably be good arguments made that they are our culture. We all want to own one, and some of us own as many as we can, but in reality they own us, and we organize our lives around them.

But we sure love our cars. So much so that many of us even lose our virginity in them. Many of us have certainly lost our innocence in them.

And ever faster and faster, we're going nowhere except to hell in them.

Now our car manufacturers are in trouble financially. Again. But that's nothing new. They've been badly mismanaged for decades. Only this time their CEO's are making pilgrimages to Congress demanding public money to save them from themselves while trying to terrorize the country into handing it to them without question.

What to do?

In a discussion with Geraldine Cahill of The Real News, Jim Stanford, Economist for the Canadian Autoworkers Union, and Justin Fox, writer of The Curious Capitalist column for Time Magazine, talk about what they see as the causes of the current crisis in the automotive industry, the importance of that industry to the North American economy, and debate the wisdom of allowing the companies in question to go bankrupt.

Real News: November 21, 2008 - 10 min 40 sec
What to do with Detroit?

Nicholas von Hoffman writing at The Nation the other day explained in no uncertain terms why we shouldn't be too quick to give in to the demands of the automakers. They are only the beginning.

First it was the car companies, but now?

Now it is the auto parts suppliers who want government money. They employ 600,000 people, more than work for the automobile companies themselves.

If the standard for giving out money to companies is the threat of lost jobs, the auto parts suppliers' claim is as good as that of General Motors. The argument against subsidizing money-losing companies to preserve employment is that it would be impossible to think up a more expensive way of helping people.

There ought to be another way--and there is. Unemployment compensation should be expanded to ensure those losing their jobs will not lose their houses or their health insurance. Helping people on that scale will not be cheap, but helping them by propping up corporate losers is infinitely more costly: sooner or later people will find other employment, but the automobile companies will never turn a profit.

They have been steadily losing money for a generation. Their predicament has nothing to do with today's credit crunch or the stock market crash. It has to do with their being incorrigible foul-ups.

Their record for money-losing is beyond comprehension. David Yermack, professor of finance at New York University's Stern School of Business, has calculated how much capital the car companies have destroyed over the last few decades.

He writes, "General Motors and Ford...between them...destroyed $110 billion in capital between 1980 and 1990.... GM has invested $310 billion in its business between 1998 and 2007. The total depreciation of GM's physical plant during this period was $128 billion, meaning that a net $182 billion of society's capital has been pumped into GM over the past decade--a waste of about $1.5 billion per month of national savings. The story at Ford has not been as adverse but is still disheartening, as Ford has invested $155 billion and consumed $8 billion net of depreciation since 1998. As a society, we have very little to show for this $465 billion."

the rest is here...

But that's just logic. The real problem is...

I'm In Love With My Car

The Science Is Beyond Dispute

2008-11-19T06:49:00.000-08:00

Tuesday in Beverly Hills, California, hundreds of attendees gathered from more than 50 states, provinces and countries at a "Governors' Global Climate Summit" hosted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. The summit continues through today.

According to Environmental News Service:

The summit has already led to a signed agreement between U.S. governors and governors from Brazil and Indonesia to reduce forestry-related greenhouse gas emissions. It is the first state-to-state, sub-national agreement focused on reducing emissions from deforestation and land degradation.

"Tropical deforestation accounts for 20 percent of all human-caused carbon emissions in the world, and the governors signing these MOUs with us manage more than 60 percent of the world's tropical forest lands," Governor Schwarzenegger said.

"With this agreement, we are focusing our collective efforts on the problem and requiring our states to jointly develop rules, incentives and tools to ensure reduced emissions from deforestation and land degradation," Schwarzenegger said. "We are also sending a strong message that this issue should be front and center during negotiations for the next global agreement on climate change."

The agreement commits the U.S. States of California, Illinois and Wisconsin to work with the governors of six states and provinces within Indonesia and Brazil to help slow and stop tropical deforestation, the cutting and burning of trees to convert land to grow crops and raise livestock, and land degradation through joint projects and incentive programs.

It was signed by Governor Antônio Waldez Góes da Silva, Amapa, Brazil; Governor Eduardo Braga, Amazonas, Brazil; Governor Blario Maggi, Mato Grosso, Brazil; Governor Ana Júla de Vasconcelos Carepa, Para, Brazil; Governor Yusof Irwandi, Aceh, Indonesia; and Governor Barnamas Suebu, Papua, Indonesia.
...
The summit is intended to create opportunities for consensus on climate issues ahead of next month's UN climate change conference in Poland where governments will work towards a climate accord to take effect after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

Barack Obama will not be attending the conference in Poland next month since he will not take office as President until January, "but he has asked members of Congress who are attending the conference as observers to report back to him on what they learn there", the ENS report says, and Obama did record a message to the summit attendees, which was posted on Change.gov yesterday.

Jake Schmidt writing at The Environmentalist yesterday hailed Obama's statements with:

Now the hard work will begin to engage with Members of Congress to adopt a cap on US global warming emissions, invest in creating new green jobs, and delivering a global response to the challenge. This is a great positive signal to the world that he will restore America's leadership as leaders from around the world were calling for him to do. So, a little momentum is building towards the global agreement to be reached in Copenhagen in December 2009.

^{Jake Schmidt is the International Climate Policy Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council where he helps to develop the post-2012 international response to climate change (for more information see his blog).}

Maybe there is some hope now. At least the denial phase seems to be past...

Iraqi Cabinet Approves SOFA With U.S.

2008-11-18T17:17:00.000-08:00

How long it will last is anybody's guess. Is a civil war Bush's parting gift to Iraqis?

The Real News analyzes the agreement in a discussion with Sabah al-Nasseri, Professor of Political Science (Middle East Politics) at York University, Toronto, and previously Lecturer of Political Science at the J.W. Goethe University, Frankfurt.

Real News: November 18, 2008 - 12 minutes
Iraqi cabinet accepts US agreement

Sabah al-Nasseri: Strong nationalist movement has mobilized against the agreement, and they have guns.

The Iraqi cabinet agreed by a vote of 27-1 on Sunday to approve the newest US draft of the Status of Forces Agreement between the two countries.

The agreement speaks to a variety of issues concerning the occupation, including the complete withdrawal from Iraq of US forces by the end of 2011. Moreover, it includes a promise from the US to not use Iraqi territory as a launch pad to attack inside other Middle-eastern countries, as it did in late October during a raid on a village inside Syria.

Sabah al-Nasseri believes that the Iraqi parliament will eventually turn down the agreement for political reasons, in the interests of securing one with Barack Obama when he comes to power in January.

The timing is important as the Iraqi provincial elections, which are extremely significant given the power granted provinces under the Iraqi constitution, will take place on January 31.

Sabah believes that the importance of fairing well in those elections will force the parliament to reject an agreement which has received the rebuke of numerous groups, both religious and secular, who have organized massive protests over recent weeks.

One piece of the agreement that very few people are talking about, which Sabah believes has angered many nationalists of all stripes, is the labeling of any armed resistance against occupation forces as terrorists, thereby criminalizing their activities under Iraqi law.

Sabah believes that the most recent violence in Iraq was carried out by secular nationalists who are opposed to the deal, given that the targets of the attacks were all US and Iraqi government elements.

Sabah, who was born and raised in the Southern Iraqi city of Basra, reiterates his support for an immediate withdrawal of all foreign occupiers, believing that the violence in Iraq stems from the occupation.

On the flip, Tina Susman reporting from Baghdad for the LA Times, has put together A guide to the U.S. security agreement with Iraq:

As Iraq's parliament plans to vote on a deal that would set Dec. 31, 2011, as the end date for U.S. occupation, The Times answers questions about the pact.
By Tina Susman, LA Times Staff Writer
November 18, 2008

Reporting from Baghdad -- Iraq's parliament Monday began considering a security agreement that will determine the future of American forces in the country and, if approved, set Dec. 31, 2011, as the end date for the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The Cabinet approved the pact Sunday. The next step is a vote on the accord by the 275-seat legislature, expected in the next week. Here are answers to some of the questions most often asked about the pact.

What is the agreement?

The Status of Forces Agreement, commonly known as SOFA, is the legal documentation needed for American troops to remain in Iraq past Dec. 31 of this year, the date the United Nations mandate governing their presence expires. SOFA deals strictly with the security aspects of the U.S. presence. A separate agreement known as the Strategic Framework covers economic, cultural, technical and other issues. It is part of the package of legislation before the Iraqi parliament that includes SOFA.

How was the deal reached?

The process began more than a year ago when leaders of both countries declared their commitment to drafting the framework for a long-term relationship. Formal talks were launched in March. At the end of May, the talks reached what both sides have described as a dead end over contentious issues. Negotiators began fresh discussions that lasted through the summer and led to a SOFA draft in October. Iraq's Cabinet demanded about 100 changes to the draft, some small and some large. After more negotiations, a final deal was reached this month. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and his Cabinet gave their approval over the weekend and passed it on to the parliament.

What were the sticking points?

The major ones involved timing for the withdrawal of American forces, and the question of whether American troops could be prosecuted by Iraqi courts for alleged crimes committed against Iraqis. Other areas of disagreement involved the future of Iraqi detainees held by U.S. forces in Iraq, and the question of whether Iraq has the right to inspect weapons and other packages arriving in the country for American troops.

How were the main issues resolved?

U.S. officials made a major concession on the timing question. They originally rejected a firm withdrawal date and suggested a vague "time horizon" for the U.S. pullout, based on conditions on the ground. They also spoke of extending the U.S. presence until 2015. The final plan calls for U.S. combat troops to pull out of Iraqi cities, towns and villages by next July, and for all U.S. troops to be gone from the country by Dec. 31, 2011. The dates are not "conditions-based." Iraq gave way on jurisdiction, dropping its demand for the right to try American troops for alleged crimes committed against Iraqis. Instead, a joint U.S.-Iraqi committee will examine individual cases involving Americans accused of committing such crimes while off base, and decide who has jurisdiction. The Americans agreed to relinquish control to Iraqi authorities of about 16,000 Iraqis held in U.S. custody in the country; and Iraq won the right to inspect incoming packages.

Who opposes the pact and why?

The leading critics are Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr; the main Sunni Arab political bloc in parliament; and Iran and Syria. Sadr has long demanded the ouster of American forces and says they should leave when the U.N. mandate expires next month. Iran and Syria, which Washington accuses of fomenting violence inside Iraq, also want U.S. forces to leave as soon as possible. Sunni leaders have said the pact is too important a matter not to be voted on in a public referendum.

Could opponents derail the plan?

It's doubtful they could stop it in parliament, because neither the Sadr bloc nor the Sunnis have enough seats to vote it down. However, the Sadrists made it clear Monday that they would attempt to stall debate by demanding legislation that could require a two-thirds majority vote, rather than a simple majority, to approve the pact. The Sunnis could derail the pact if Vice President Tariq Hashimi, a Sunni who sits on the nation's three-member Presidency Council, opted to use his veto powers to prevent it from being signed into law once passed by parliament. That would force U.S. and Iraqi officials to scramble for an alternative plan.

Does the pact affect non-U.S. troops in the country?

No. There are only a few thousand non-American troops here now, and most plan to leave by the end of the year. The biggest non-U.S. force is Britain's, which numbers about 4,000 and is negotiating its own pact with Iraq.

What happens now?

Parliament had its first "reading" of the pact Monday, when it received the package but did not discuss it. Debate begins this week, with a vote anticipated by Nov. 25.

What if it fails?

If it fails, U.S. forces will have to halt operations in Iraq at 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, unless the U.N. mandate could be extended beforehand.

"Never Forget", by Marc Ash

2008-11-17T16:11:00.000-08:00

A few hours ago today Marc Ash posted this at Truthout. There is little if anything that I could add that would do justice to Marc's words...

Never Forget
Monday 17 November 2008
by: Marc Ash, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

^{An American soldier lies on an operating table. in Ramadi after being wounded in an IED blast.
Iraq 2006. (Photo: Lucian Read / battlespaceonline.org)}

When they say to you that "mistakes were made," never believe that. Mistakes are always made, but mistakes did not lead us on the road to Baghdad. We were taken to Iraq by those who knew exactly, precisely what they were doing. Or believed so anyway.

Do not be persuaded to believe that "bad intelligence" was the problem and war was the unfortunate result. No one who made this war believed themselves what they told the nation. They knew quite well and they went anyway. And they took us with them.

When it is said that an "insurgent" has killed or been killed always ask who that was, and why. More often than not, it was someone who lived there, but would not live under foreign rule.

Do not be seduced into thinking of torture as harsh interrogation. The hour is late and we must confront the torturers among us.

If you are the slightest bit concerned that we have crushed freedom here and in other lands in the name of freedom, be more concerned. We have.

Never forget or let your children forget that it was all a lie, told with purpose.

Many of us believed that Vietnam was a catharsis, a moving beyond a point to which we could never return. It took only 28 years to get from Saigon to Baghdad. And we took the exact same road. Don't be too ashamed the trick we fell for was the same one Mark Twain warned of when he wrote, "Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor ..." "All you have to do ...," said Hermann Goering "... is tell them that they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

It has worked in our country. Again.

At the end of any battle, the last man holding a sword is the judge. But Nuremberg forgot Dresden. Will we forget Abu Ghraib? Will the world forget what we have done? In the year 2001, we believed that it did not matter who won the presidential election. What do we believe now?

We have sacked Babylon. Only a fool would believe there will be no day of atonement.

We stand at the precipice of a new age of political pragmatism. Realists, making realistic decisions. Let it be listed among those things that are real the danger of ignoring the enormous crimes of these last eight years. Lest we come to ask for whom the bell tolls.

The Iraq debacle will never end until the perpetrators sit in a prisoners dock at their war crimes trials.

This Betrayal of American Values Is Unnecessary

2008-11-12T08:32:00.000-08:00

"This Betrayal of American Values Is Unnecessary"

With those words, on September 28, 2006, Senator Barack Obama concluded a speech on the floor of the US Senate in reaction to Senate passage of S. 3930, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, one of the most heinous and hated pieces of legislation ever put forward by the Bush Administration, which approved US torture of detainees and stripped Constitutional rights away from detainees.

Senator Obama decried the placement of politics over human rights, and rightfully condemned S. 3930:

"This is NOT how a serious Administration would approach the problem of terrorism," thundered Senator Barack Obama last week on the floor of the US Senate, after it passed Bush Administration-supported S. 3930, Military Commissions Act of 2006, which approved US torture of detainees and stripped Constitutional rights away from detainees.

"And the sad part about all of this is that this betrayal of American values is unnecessary," Senator Obama continued.

"We could've drafted a bipartisan, well-structured bill that provided adequate due process through the military courts, had an effective review process that would've prevented frivolous lawsuits being filed and kept lawyers from clogging our courts, but upheld the basic ideals that have made this country great."

On November 04, 2008 Senator Obama was elected President of the United States, an election that was in large part repudiation of George Bush's unholy tactics in prosecuting his "war on terror".

Since the election Obama has begun putting together his administrative team of advisors.

His intelligence-transition team is led by former National Counterterrorism Center chief John Brennan and former CIA intelligence-analysis director Jami Miscik.

A Wall Street Journal article Tuesday, November 11, 2008 titled Intelligence Policy to Stay Largely Intact describes new developments in the evolution of Obama's thinking since the election:

^{Former National Counterterrorism Center chief John Brennan, leader of Obama's intelligence-transition team.}
Mr. Obama is being advised largely by a group of intelligence professionals, including some who have supported Republicans, and centrist former officials in the Clinton administration. They say he is likely to fill key intelligence posts with pragmatists.

"He's going to take a very centrist approach to these issues," said Roger Cressey, a former counterterrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations. "Whenever an administration swings too far on the spectrum left or right, we end up getting ourselves in big trouble."

On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama criticized many of President George W. Bush's counterterrorism policies. He condemned Mr. Bush for promoting "excessive secrecy, indefinite detention, warrantless wiretapping and 'enhanced interrogation techniques' like simulated drowning that qualify as torture through any careful measure of the law or appeal to human decency."

As a candidate, Mr. Obama said the CIA's interrogation program should adhere to the same rules that apply to the military, which would prohibit the use of techniques such as waterboarding. He has also said the program should be investigated.

Yet he more recently voted for a White House-backed law to expand eavesdropping powers for the National Security Agency. Mr. Obama said he opposed providing legal immunity to telecommunications companies that aided warrantless surveillance, but ultimately voted for the bill, which included an immunity provision.

The new president could take a similar approach to revising the rules for CIA interrogations, said one current government official familiar with the transition. Upon review, Mr. Obama may decide he wants to keep the road open in certain cases for the CIA to use techniques not approved by the military, but with much greater oversight.

The intelligence-transition team is led by former National Counterterrorism Center chief John Brennan and former CIA intelligence-analysis director Jami Miscik

Brennan needs to go. Now.

^{Hat tip to Armando/Big Tent Democrat @ TakLeft: Obama Transition Team "Clarifies" Position On Torture: He May Be For It}

Obama's Foreign Policy Challenge

2008-11-11T09:55:00.001-08:00

Eight years of George Bush has virtually destroyed America's clout as a diplomatic broker on the world stage, stretched the countries military might almost to the breaking point, thrown away her reputation as an honest member of the international community, and broken the back of the U.S. and the global economy, leaving the mess for a new president to clean up.

Can Barack Obama restore the heights of power of American imperialism? Should he even attempt to do so if he can or would that be counterproductive and merely postpone a day of reckoning, a day of a more realistic balance of powers in the world community?

Does Bush leave having set in motion an unstoppable series of events that when combined with the continuing collapse of the economy will finally lead to a multipolar world in which America is one country in an international community of power equals, at least diplomatically and economically?

After news of Barack Obama's electoral victory on Tuesday night, celebrations were seen worldwide and international leaders were falling over themselves to issue statements of approval.

Eric Margolis believes that that reaction is fueled by the view that the Bush administration has created a mess that the world hopes Obama can rectify.

In the first part of our interview, former GOP supporter Margolis explains why he is "elated" by Obama's victory and dismayed with his former party. Margolis outlines his belief that Obama's biggest challenge will not be in confronting non-state actors like Al Qaeda, but rather in deescalating the heightening tension with Russia which the Bush Administration has created with a series of recent provocations.

Secondly, he will have to put forward a consistent position on relations with China, something that Bush has yet to do despite China's meteoric rise in international influence during his tenure.

With respect to the economic crisis' impact on US foreign policy, Margolis offers that US power is projected to a greater extent through its dollar, as expressed through the strategic funding of allies within foreign countries, than through its military. As such, the US will have to acclimatize itself to a reduced level of influence in the world if the economy does not recover.

November 11, 2008 - about 10 minutes

Obama's foreign policy challenge
Eric Margolis: Bush admin has left Obama an international 'mess', with Russia at the top of the list

Eric Margolis is a journalist born in New York City and holding degrees from Georgetown the University of Geneva, and New York University. During the Vietnam War he served as a US Army infantryman.

Margolis is the author of War at the Top of the World –- The Struggle for Afghanistan and Asia is a syndicated columnist and broadcaster whose articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The International Herald Tribune, Mainichi Shimbun and US Naval Institute Proceedings.

Margolis is an expert of military affairs, a former instructor in strategy and tactics in the US Army, and a member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies and the Institute of Regional Studies in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Eric Margolis' books have been published in the US, Canada, Britain, and India. He often appears and contributes to national and international news items for outlets such as CNN, ABC,CBC and Voice of America to the Wall Street Journal and Maninichi-Tokyo. He broadcasts regularly on foreign affairs for Canadian TV (TV Ontario and CBC), radio, and has appeared on ABC, CBS, CNN, and PBS

Power, or reputation?

Which is more important? Or are they mutually exclusive?

esho funi

2008-11-09T12:18:00.000-08:00

Seat of Power

...continuous effort to engage one's highest life condition, or Buddha nature, to overcome the inevitable obstacles and struggles we all face. In so doing, one establishes an unshakable state of happiness characterized by peace, wisdom, and compassion, and this ultimately permeates every aspect of one's life. In accord with the Buddhist concept of esho funi, the oneness of person and environment, each individual has the power to then positively affect the environment around him or her. SGI practitioners call this process a "human revolution."

Obama, Emanuel, and Foreign Policy

2008-11-09T07:42:00.000-08:00

Rahm Emanual has accepted Barack Obama's invitation to join his administration as White House Chief of Staff, a position that has been described in the past by many as "The Second-Most Powerful Man in Washington", or The Gatekeeper who controls access to and the flow of information to the president.

Emanual voted for and has been extremely active in the past with Nancy Pelosi in Congressional arm twisting getting Democrats onside to support the invasion and continued occupation of Iraq, and has acquired the nicknames The Enforcer and "Rahmbo" in Congress.

In a profile of Emanual a few days ago, The Telegraph noted that:

Mr Emanuel, who received training in ballet as a boy, has shown no lightness of step in his political career: would-be enemies are advised to heed the story of a pollster who wronged him and promptly received a large, decomposing fish in the post.

Reflecting on his own foul-mouthed, attack-dog style, Mr Emanuel has said: "I wake up some mornings hating me too."

Ben Joravsky of The American Prospect asks: Does Rahm Emanuel's Pick Mean the Chicago Machine Is Coming to Washington?

So why is Obama hiring Emanuel as chief of staff? Probably for the same reason [Chicago's mayor Richard M.] Daley hired him way back in 1989. He's ruthless, cunning, and absolutely unafraid to be a jerk. In fact, I think Emanuel enjoys being a jerk. Moreover, by being a jerk, I predict Emanuel will do a great service for Obama. By the time Emanuel is finished irritating, humiliating, and infuriating folks in Washington, Obama will look like an angel. People will probably like him even more just because he's not Emanuel.

What will his appointment as Chief of Staff mean for Obama's foreign policies, particularly in the Middle East? Should Rahm Emanual be the prime target for progressive pressuring and advocacy from left wing bloggers, rather than Obama directly?

Real News Ceo Paul Jay talks with Consortium News founder Bob Parry about Obama's "partnering" with Emanual.

November 9, 2008 - 8 min 52 sec

Barack Obama's position on the Mideast conflict will be a strong indicator of his foreign policy agenda. After his speech at the AIPAC conference, Mr Obama left many doubts about the prospect for real change in US policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Real News Network Senior Editor Paul Jay talks with Robert Parry about the appointment of Rahm Emanuel, and whether this selection is symptomatic of things to come.

Andrew Sullivan this morning describes Emanual and his appointment this way:

If you were expecting Kumbaya from Obama, do try to remember where he learnt politics. It’s Chicago, where Emanuel also practised the dark arts of twisting arms, yelling in people’s faces and counting votes. As one wag put it, Emanuel as Obama’s chief of staff is “Change you can f****** believe in”.

Rahm comes from a remarkable family. One brother, Ari, is the Hollywood agent for Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Wahlberg and Larry David. If you’ve watched the television series Entourage, he’s the model for the character of Ari Gold, played by Jeremy Piven. His other brother, Zeke, is a Harvard bioethicist (and an old classmate of mine) who also manages to make the nuances of healthcare reform sound like a fax machine transmitting. None of them, it is fair to say, is known for pouring oil on troubled waters.

Rahm Emanuel himself explodes amusingly at regular intervals and uses language that might have made Richard Nixon blush. But as his friend Todd Purdum, the Vanity Fair journalist, has noted, he also lives by the Franklin D Roosevelt truism: “Keep all the balls in the air without losing your own.”

He gets things done. As the fourth highest ranking member of the Democratic leadership in the House, he has a very good idea of where the votes are, who the problem congressmen will be and how to corral, bully and pinion the wayward to get his way.
...
As Elisabeth Bumiller of The New York Times reported more than a decade ago: “Emanuel grabbed his steak knife and, as those who were there remember it, shouted out the name of another enemy, lifted the knife, then brought it down with full force into the table. ‘Dead!’ he screamed. The group immediately joined in the cathartic release: ‘Nat Landow! Dead! Cliff Jackson! Dead! Bill Schaefer! Dead!’”

Quite how his appointment will go down in the Middle East is an interesting question. The Emanuel family hails from Israel. They were originally the Auerbachs, but after their uncle Emanuel was killed in a clash with Arabs in Jerusalem in 1933, the family adopted his first name as their last. Emanuel, in other words, has serious Jewish and Israeli cred. But that doesn’t mean he’s a Likudnik.
...
In other words: he’s a sign of Obama’s seriousness about governing. He’s no suck-up like Andy Card, George Bush’s former chief of staff; and he’s no patsy. People will be scared of him – which can be helpful when you’re as congenial, if aloof, a man as Obama.

Who will be running who in the White House, especially where Foreign Policy is concerned?

The Gatekeeper

2008-11-08T11:31:00.000-08:00

In his essay at Docudharma Friday A Progressive/Liberal Agenda Buhdydharma initiated some discussion of what changes would be considered and desired to be included by progressives as an agenda to be lobbied for to Barack Obama as he takes up his new job as President, and people offered a range of ideas, many based on rolling back things that George Bush had instituted during his eight years in office.

As distasteful as it may be to many quite possibly the most important thing to be considered in developing such an agenda is not what people might want, but what is going to be politically possible to achieve with an Obama presidency. The dark spirit of political pragmatism rears its ugly head here, since there is little point, though I'd be the last to say no point, in asking for things that are not politically likely.

Which raises the questions, what or who will determine politically what is possible to achieve? What are the roadblocks? Who will be standing in the road fending off or screening all comers to Obama with requests?

Who do you have to please? Who do you have to get past? Who will decide whether Obama even hears your pleas? Who will set the tone, at least initially, for Obamas presidency?

The White House Chief of Staff is the second highest-ranking member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States and a senior aide to the President. Some individuals who have held the position, including Sherman Adams, have been dubbed "The Second-Most Powerful Man in Washington" due to the nature of the job.

The duties of the White House Chief of Staff vary greatly from one administration to another. However, the chief of staff has been responsible for overseeing the actions of the White House staff, managing the president's schedule, and deciding who is allowed to meet with the president. Because of these duties, the Chief of Staff has at various times been dubbed "The Gatekeeper" and "The Co-President". (wikipedia)

In a WSJ article this morning a story about Obama's incoming White House Chief of Staff makes it clear what to expect initially from Obama, and by omission what not to expect as he makes it clear that he will do his utmost too keep Obama reined in as a center right Democrat.

Basically a play it safe non progressive administration. And perhaps much worse that that.

In Rahm Emanuel's telling, the Democratic victories on Tuesday were a continuum of what began in the 2006 midterm elections, when his party won majorities in the House and the Senate for the first time in 12 years.
...
Recently, I spoke with Mr. Emanuel during a short layover at the Detroit airport. Officially, he hadn't yet been offered the new post, and when queried about the prospect of serving in the Obama White House he demurred. But Mr. Emanuel, who turns 49 later this month, was eager to discuss Congress's agenda going forward. He explained how Democrats can avoid the mistakes that felled the Republican majority, and he reflected on the lessons learned as a high-ranking member of President Clinton's brain trust in the 1990s.
Asked what Barack Obama was elected to do, and what legislation he's likely to find on his Oval Office desk soonest, Mr. Emanuel didn't hesitate. "Bucket one would have children's health care, Schip," he said. "It has bipartisan agreement in the House and Senate. It's something President-elect Obama expects to see. Second would be [ending current restrictions on federally funded] stem-cell research. And third would be an economic recovery package focused on the two principles of job creation and tax relief for middle-class families."

The last time a Democratic president's party also ran Congress was 1992. Just two years later, however, voters changed their mind about that arrangement and gave the GOP control of the House and Senate. Mr. Emanuel said he's not at all concerned that the party will overplay its hand this time. He insisted that his caucus is mindful of what happened to Democrats in 1994 and the Republican Congress in 2006.
...
"the lesson is to do what you got elected to do," said Mr. Emanuel. "Do what you talked about on the campaign. If you got elected, that's what people expect. Don't go off on tangents where part of your party is demanding an ideological litmus test. Neither of those things was part of the campaign."
...
So I asked Mr. Emanuel if the election of an unabashed liberal like Mr. Obama has made the New Democrat strategy obsolete. Perhaps what we witnessed on Tuesday means that liberalism is ascendant and the U.S. is no longer a center-right nation. "I think the country is incredibly pragmatic," he responded. "Pragmatic and progressive. But you still have to mix and match different approaches to reach your objectives. You have to be flexible."

He said the similarities between Barack Obama and the last Democratic president matter more than the differences. "Both Barack and Bill Clinton have an incredible connection to the public," he said. "Both ran on a message of hope. Both ran against failed policies that let the country down prior to them being elected. I don't think the country is yearning for an ideological answer. If anything it's the opposite. They want real solutions to real problems. And if we do an ideological test, we will fail. Our challenge is to work to solve the actual problems that the country is facing, not work to satisfy any constituency or ideological wing of the party."

So who is this guy? Who is Rahm Emanual? What does he want and stand for? What is his vision of an Obama presidency? What has he done in the past that will give some clues as to how he will operate as "Co-President"?

David Swanson is the creator of ImpeachCheney.org, the Washington Director of Democrats.com and co-founder of the AfterDowningStreet.org coalition; a board member of Progressive Democrats of America; of the Backbone Campaign; and of Voters for Peace. He serves on a working group of United for Peace and Justice. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including Press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign.

A couple of days ago he spoke with Real News CEO Paul Jay about the ramifications of Emanual in the Chief of Staff position.

You may not much like what he had to say.

The Real 2008 Election Picture

2008-11-06T08:41:00.000-08:00

From Mark Newman, Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan:

Election results by state

Most of us are, by now, familiar with the maps the TV channels and web sites use to show the results of the presidential election:

The states are colored red or blue to indicate whether a majority of their voters voted for the Republican candidate, John McCain, or the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, respectively. Looking at this map it gives the impression that the Republicans won the election handily, since there is rather more red on the map than there is blue. In fact, however, the reverse is true – the Democrats won by a substantial margin. The explanation for this apparent paradox, as pointed out by many people, is that the map fails to take account of the population distribution. It fails to allow for the fact that the population of the red states is on average significantly lower than that of the blue ones. The blue may be small in area, but they represent a large number of voters, which is what matters in an election.

We can correct for this by making use of a cartogram, a map in which the sizes of states are rescaled according to their population. That is, states are drawn with size proportional not to their acreage but to the number of their inhabitants, states with more people appearing larger than states with fewer, regardless of their actual area on the ground. On such a map, for example, the state of Rhode Island, with its 1.1 million inhabitants, would appear about twice the size of Wyoming, which has half a million, even though Wyoming has 60 times the acreage of Rhode Island.

Here are the 2008 presidential election results on a population cartogram of this type:

Hat Tip To BentLiberal @ Docudharma

And on the flip: Palin's "real" America: From Larisa Alexandrovna at-Largely this morning...

Sarah Palin has told us over and over that she represents real Americans. So consider this very interesting analysis from New York Times, showing the areas of America that delivered more Republican votes than in 2004:

In comparison, look at the below map showing where there was an increase in Democratic voters:

Um, Sarah, looks like your real America is a tiny strip where mountain folk still dwell.

McCain Refuses To Acknowledge Success of Obama Surge

2008-10-27T19:55:00.000-07:00

With less than one week to go and polls showing Barack Obama with an insurmountable lead, Senator John McCain still refuses to acknowledge the success of the Obama surge. McCain opposed the Obama surge from the beginning and confidently predicted that it would fail. But now that it is clear that the surge has succeeded, and brought victory within sight, Senator McCain can’t quite bring himself to admit his own failure in judgment.

Is John McCain Really A Zombie?

2008-10-16T16:36:00.000-07:00

I mean seriously, is McCain a zombie? I don't know about you but something about McCain kind of creeps me out.

Check out some of the descriptions of McCain's debate performance from the mainstream media (collected at talkleft "Describing McCain").

increasingly inconsistent and testy ... frozen smile and wide eyes — which blinked frequently and distractingly at times — seemed a little strange ... [quoting Robert Shrum] "confused, ineffective, at times stumbling"
Patrick Healy at the New York Times

at times could not contain himself, muttering and issuing small grunts ... eye-widening and explosive snorts
Mary McNamara at the Los Angeles Times

Now here are some of the characteristics of a zombie:

As the virus progresses more obvious signs such as insatiable hunger and sporadic bursts of antipathy begin to show . . . Zombies are persistent, tough, and frightening. A zombie has lost any sense of reasoning and is driven completely by instincts. . . They are unable to move quickly, and are not smart enough to do anything other than walk(well, shamble) towards the nearest human they can detect.

Now I'm not saying that he is a zombie for a fact but what I am saying is that there is something about him that scares me and its not just his policies.

Bush's Goodbye Present

2008-10-08T18:17:00.000-07:00

In case there was any doubt about it, George Bush just removed it this month. He is verifiably, undoubtedly, positively, undeniably, and really most sincerely THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER. How many days are left in his presidency? May God have mercy on us till then.

Click on cartoon for larger image.

If Dreams Were Thunder

2008-10-06T09:14:00.000-07:00

If dreams were thunder
And lightning was desire
This old house would've burned down
A long time ago
...
Just give me one thing
That I can hold on to
To believe in this livin'
Is just a hard way to go

There's flies in the kitchen
I can hear 'em there buzzin'
And I ain't done nothing
Since I woke up today

How the hell can a person
Go to work in the morning
Come home in the evening
And have nothing to say

The Peoples Republic Of Wall Street

2008-10-05T10:48:00.000-07:00

Pepe Escobar cuts through the fog and bullshit emanating from the Washington, Wall Street, and media lockstep march to relieve you and your children of all the money they can, your future and the future of the country, while doing their damndest to stockholm syndrome you into giving it up to them willingly.

Pepe Escobar: What's behind the "no banker left behind" bailout

The financial crisis may be the number one issue on US voters' minds, but there seems to be no leadership at work in Washington, comments Pepe Escobar. The Wall Street bailout rejected by Congress and then approved by the Senate may not be the solution. It's up to foreign analysts and economists to tell it like it really is.

What is in fact being saved - capitalism or a banking oligopoly?

Bailing Themselves Out Of Their Responsibilities

2008-10-05T10:46:00.000-07:00

For the past two years since the midterm elections the Democrats in Congress have refused to use the power of the purse to restrain Bush and his wars.

Now it appears that they will have no problem using the power of the purse to bailout out Bush's friends while at the same time virtually wrecking their own power of the purse to pay for and implement any progressive programs for the forseeable future.

Just whose side are these people on, anyway?

Ellen Frank is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, a member of the Dollars & Sense collective. She is the author of The Raw Deal: How Myths and Misinformation about Deficits, Inflation, and Wealth Impoverish America , was published in 2004.

On Wednesday night, the US Senate passed, by a margin of 74-25, a renovated version of the same Paulson rescue bill that the House rejected on Monday. The Paulson proposal has stayed relatively intact however, with the central new additions to the bill taking the form of tax breaks and increased federal deposit protection. Ellen Frank believes that this is a terrible bill, passed without sufficient discussion, and that it has been forced upon us through scaremongering and image conjuring of a new depression, something Ellen feels the US is not vulnerable to in the way it was in 1929. She also explains her fear that this bill will handcuff future administrations from implementing progressive government programs.

Crime Of The Century

2008-09-23T13:44:00.000-07:00

Thursday afternoon we first heard that there had been an agreement in principle struck by criminals and thieves masquerading as politicians in Washington to stick their greedy little fingers in your pocket and give Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke nearly a trillion dollars of your money to bail out their buddies on Wall Street.

We then later in the day heard that there had been a hastily arranged meeting in the White House with both presidential candidates invited by Bush in which John McCain had "destroyed" chances of an agreement in a desperate political stunt of an attempt to bolster his failing campaign. McCain's involvement, in the words of House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, was compared to "Richard Nixon blowing up the Vietnam peace talks in 1968."

Country first my ass.

McCain's stunt was not a stupid stunt. It was part of a shell game. A setup designed to con you. Designed to con you by giving top Democrats, Pelosi, Reid, et al a reason to support Bush's plans to rob you blind while looking like they are saving you from a Republican plan to kill the bailout.

Think about that for a minute. Remember who passed all the Iraq Occupation funding bills for the past two years?

Oppose Bush my ass.

They are on his side. They are part of the scam. How clear does it have to be?

Now Wall Street financial analyst and historian Dr. Michael Hudson, Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City, cuts through all the crap to say bluntly that the proposed bailout is an empire buster likely to virtually destroy an already very shaky US and global economy, and is nothing more than a pyramid scheme, a blatant Once In A Century Rip-Off intended as a last ditch effort to save, at your expense, the finally and utterly discredited neocon "philosophy" of economics and governance, and George Bush and his criminal friends. The crooks attempting to steal every last cent they can bullshit you out of before republicanism and the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush finally go down in flames and ignominy. Taking you down with them.

If there is one overriding reason to oppose this "bailout" with everything in you, it's this - it's A Once In A Century Rip-Off.

A Once In A Century Rip-Off of... you.

September 26, 2008 - Once In A Century Rip-Off
Economist Michael Hudson: the bailout is a giveaway that will cause hyperinflation and dollar collapse

Bailout talks stall as Bush meets with Congressional leaders and Presidential candidates. German Finance Minister says US will no longer be the financial Superpower. French President Sarkozy says the days when "the all powerful market is always right are over". The Real News Network spoke to economist and historian Dr. Michael Hudson who says that it's not a "bailout" but a "giveaway" and will create a new kleptocracy of billionaires.

Dr. Michael Hudson is a Wall Street financial analyst and historian. Dr. Hudson was Dennis Kucinich’s Chief Economic Advisor in the recent Democratic primary presidential campaign, and has advised the U.S., Canadian, Mexican and Latvian governments, as well as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City, he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire and of Super-Imperialism and of The Myth of Aid .

The view around the world of the banking crisis and Paulson's bailout proposal appears to be much less as panicky as closer to home, if at all, and more of recognition of the realities of the situation with a general attitude of encircling and isolating a cancer to keep it localized.

Paulson Plan Throws Oil On Fire
By Hossein Askari and Noureddine Krichene
Asia Times

With the creation of the so called Mortgage and Financial Institutions Trust (MFI), the unfolding financial crisis, considered by many to be the worst in over 60 years, has become ever-more dangerous.

While such an institution has not existed in any country, the MFI could prove to be disastrous for US public finance, economic growth, the dollar, relations with major foreign holders of dollars, the global financial system, and could ignite the worst inflation in the economic history of the United States and reverse globalization to levels not seen since the Great Depression.

The initial cost of the MFI, put at US$700 billion, could easily escalate to trillions of dollars. At the same time, the Congressional Budget Office had previously projected a record fiscal deficit of US$500 billion for 2009. The MFI will further blow up the deficit to an unprecedented level, exceeding US$1.4 trillion. US debt, jumping with the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to 86% of GDP, has moved to an unsustainable level.

The financing of previous large fiscal deficits under the George W Bush Administration has already caused external deficits (current account) to widen to 5-7% of GDP, turned national savings negative, sent the dollar plummeting, and ignited rapid inflation, particularly in food, energy, and housing prices. Further financing of extraordinary large fiscal deficits, as required by the MFI, can only disrupt economic stability both in the US and world-wide. It will only further undermine the dollar, exacerbate widening external deficits, soaring energy and food prices, and rising unemployment.

Nonetheless, the main architects of the MFI, Messrs Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve chairman respectively, are determined to protect Wall Street. They have decidedly transformed the US budget and the US central bank into vehicles that only care for the welfare of Wall Street and divert public resources to bankers, under the guise of protecting the economy and averting systemic risk.

Albeit evidence of a systemic risk has not been established, vast public resources have so far been devoted to bailouts at the expense of growth-generating spending. The Fed has been pouring billions of dollars into financial institutions, buying worthless paper, and incurring huge losses. To quote Paulson "I am convinced that this bold approach [that is creation of the MFI] will cost American families far less than the alternative - a continuing series of financial-institution failures and frozen credit markets unable to fund economic expansion."

Contrary to Paulson’s claim, domestic credit is still expanding at a fast rate, at 9% per year as of July 2008, and the notion of frozen markets cannot be supported by Fed’s published monetary data. Banks have excess liquidity and are still extending loans to safe customers. Certainly they are no longer in the mood of reigniting a new speculative euphoria by lending to speculator and impaired credit.

And contrary to Paulson’s belief, the MFI will in the end cost American families more than other alternatives.

[snip...]

All of this cannot but impair the global financial and economic reputation of the US. Just in a matter of days the dollar has declined from $1.39 to $1.48 to the euro, oil has climbed from $90 to over $120 (at one point rising by more than $20 in one day, September 22) and gold has jumped from $750 per ounce to over $900 .

The declining value of the dollar will adversely affect the value of foreign holdings in the US. China Investment Corporation (CIC) and a number of other sovereign wealth funds are major stakeholders in US financial and non-financial sectors, as holders of US government securities, debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and owners of manufacturing companies.

Asia and Persian Gulf oil exporters will no longer continue to trust the United States with their money. Financial trust, a needed but already a rare commodity in finance, will evaporate. Countries will withdraw from participating in the global financial system and autarchy will once again raise its ugly head. Moreover, oil exporters with large financial surpluses, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, may cut back their oil exports. Why would they want to sell their depleting oil reserves for worthless paper?

..................................

^{Hossein Askari is professor of international business and international affairs at George Washington University.
Noureddine Krichene is an economist at the International Monetary Fund and a former advisor, Islamic Development Bank, Jeddah.}

Read the entire article here... (it's worth it)

Listen to Marcy Kaptur, D-OH, speaking on the floor of the house this past Monday, Sept.22:

From Glenn Greenwald two days ago:

Wall Street and corporate America can't lose in Congress -- they never do -- for one very simple reason: they own Congress and the "leaders" of it. Just listen to Rep. Marcy Kaptur; she's been in Congress for 26 years and she knows how it works:
To Wall St. insiders . . . you have perpetrated the greatest financial crimes ever on this American Republic. You think you can get by with it because you are extraordinarily wealthy and are the largest contributors to both presidential and Congressional campaigns in both major parties.

Curtains For The U.S. Empire?

2008-09-20T03:51:00.000-07:00

This is what decades of republicanism and eight years of bushism have produced...

Wall Street teeters, the Empire and China shake

Markets nosedive, recession spreads, world financial system shaken

September 18, 2008 - 5 min 28 sec

Markets in New York were rocked again on Wednesday as anxieties about the financial system ran high after the government's bailout of insurer American International Group left investors with little confidence in many banking stocks. The Dow Jones industrial average nosedived about 450 points, down more than 800 points or 7 percent so far this week. The market was more unnerved than comforted by news that the Federal Reserve is giving a two-year, 85 billion dollar loan to AIG in exchange for a nearly 79.9 percent stake in the company, which lost billions in the risky business of insuring against bond defaults. With the markets rattled, waiting to see who the next victim could be, shares of two other major financial firms Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, sank 24 percent and 14 percent respectively

Doug Henwood is the founder and editor of the Left Business Observer. Henwood is also a contributing editor of The Nation and does a weekly program on WBAI radio, New York's Pacifica outlet. His book, The State of the USA Atlas, was published by Simon & Schuster in 1994; his Wall Street was published by Verso in 1997 (paperback, 1998) to great acclaim.

Worst Crisis Since '30s, With No End Yet in Sight
WSJ Thursday...

The financial crisis that began 13 months ago has entered a new, far more serious phase.

Lingering hopes that the damage could be contained to a handful of financial institutions that made bad bets on mortgages have evaporated.

[snip..]

"This has been the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. There is no question about it," said Mark Gertler, a New York University economist who worked with fellow academic Ben Bernanke, now the Federal Reserve chairman, to explain how financial turmoil can infect the overall economy. "But at the same time we have the policy mechanisms in place fighting it, which is something we didn't have during the Great Depression."

Spreading Disease

The U.S. financial system resembles a patient in intensive care. The body is trying to fight off a disease that is spreading, and as it does so, the body convulses, settles for a time and then convulses again. The illness seems to be overwhelming the self-healing tendencies of markets. The doctors in charge are resorting to ever-more invasive treatment, and are now experimenting with remedies that have never before been applied. Fed Chairman Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, walking into a hastily arranged meeting with congressional leaders Tuesday night to brief them on the government's unprecedented rescue of AIG, looked like exhausted surgeons delivering grim news to the family.

Fed and Treasury officials have identified the disease. It's called deleveraging, or the unwinding of debt. During the credit boom, financial institutions and American households took on too much debt. Between 2002 and 2006, household borrowing grew at an average annual rate of 11%, far outpacing overall economic growth. Borrowing by financial institutions grew by a 10% annualized rate. Now many of those borrowers can't pay back the loans, a problem that is exacerbated by the collapse in housing prices. They need to reduce their dependence on borrowed money, a painful and drawn-out process that can choke off credit and economic growth.

At least three things need to happen to bring the deleveraging process to an end, and they're hard to do at once. Financial institutions and others need to fess up to their mistakes by selling or writing down the value of distressed assets they bought with borrowed money. They need to pay off debt. Finally, they need to rebuild their capital cushions, which have been eroded by losses on those distressed assets.

But many of the distressed assets are hard to value and there are few if any buyers. Deleveraging also feeds on itself in a way that can create a downward spiral: Trying to sell assets pushes down the assets' prices, which makes them harder to sell and leads firms to try to sell more assets. That, in turn, suppresses these firms' share prices and makes it harder for them to sell new shares to raise capital. Mr. Bernanke, as an academic, dubbed this self-feeding loop a "financial accelerator."

^{When the music's over
Turn out the lights
...
Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection
Send my credentials to the House of Detention
I got some friends inside}

^{--Jim Morrison}

The Shifting Geopolitical Balance Of Power

2008-09-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

On August 14 we saw F W Engdahl explain in Nuclear War By Miscalculation, and The Russo-Georgian War and The Balance of Power how Russia went into Georgia to essentially deliver a message to America and the world that Russia was not prepared to submit to being encircled by the US and was taking steps to reassert its power on the global stage and limit neocon expansion.

In that same post we also read an in-depth intelligence background briefing from George Friedman, president of Stratfor, on the situation in Georgia and explaining the re-emergence of Russia as a major world power.

Friedman then on August 18, 2008 described for us "The Real World Order" that has been developing while Bush and the neocons were busy getting the US bogged down in quicksand in the Middle East.

Today Engdahl elaborates on the theme to expand our understanding of world events as he describes an "ironic" US foreign policy of trying to create an 'iron curtain' around Russia, and following the video George Friedman in "The Medvedev Doctrine and American Strategy" once again provides a very detailed geopolitical intelligence briefing of the current situation, it's roots, and the multipolar world that is being forced upon an unwilling US foreign policy establishment and a political leadership in denial.

September 3, 2008 - 4 min 45 sec
F W Engdahl : US in decline as Russia asserts its rising power
US tries to create an 'iron curtain' around Russia

President Dimitri Medvedev criticized the European Union for having a biased approach in regards to the Georgian conflict. Medvedev however stated that the EU acted in a rational manner by not implementing sanctions against the Russian Federation. F William Engdahl believes the EU response mirrors its dependence on Russian oil and gas. Engdahl goes on to further state that the US provoked Russia to respond militarily and the US as the dominant power is beginning to stumble and "to look desperately for ways to hold on to that power."

F William Engdahl is an economist and author and the writer of the best selling book "A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order." Mr Engdhahl has written on issues of energy, politics and economics for more than 30 years, beginning with the first oil shock in the early 1970s. Mr. Engdahl contributes regularly to a number of publications including Asia Times Online, Asia, Inc, Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine; Freitag and ZeitFragen newspapers in Germany and Switzerland respectively. He is based in Germany.

The Medvedev Doctrine and American Strategy

^{NOTE: As Stratfor is a mostly paid site, you must be a paid subscriber for the internal links in this article to work.}

By George Friedman
Stratfor
September 2, 2008

The United States has been fighting a war in the Islamic world since 2001. Its main theaters of operation are in Afghanistan and Iraq, but its politico-military focus spreads throughout the Islamic world, from Mindanao to Morocco. The situation on Aug. 7, 2008, was as follows:

The war in Iraq was moving toward an acceptable but not optimal solution. The government in Baghdad was not pro-American, but neither was it an Iranian puppet, and that was the best that could be hoped for. The United States anticipated pulling out troops, but not in a disorderly fashion.

The war in Afghanistan was deteriorating for the United States and NATO forces. The Taliban was increasingly effective, and large areas of the country were falling to its control. Force in Afghanistan was insufficient, and any troops withdrawn from Iraq would have to be deployed to Afghanistan to stabilize the situation. Political conditions in neighboring Pakistan were deteriorating, and that deterioration inevitably affected Afghanistan.

The United States had been locked in a confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program, demanding that Tehran halt enrichment of uranium or face U.S. action. The United States had assembled a group of six countries (the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany) that agreed with the U.S. goal, was engaged in negotiations with Iran, and had agreed at some point to impose sanctions on Iran if Tehran failed to comply. The United States was also leaking stories about impending air attacks on Iran by Israel or the United States if Tehran didn’t abandon its enrichment program. The United States had the implicit agreement of the group of six not to sell arms to Tehran, creating a real sense of isolation in Iran.

In short, the United States remained heavily committed to a region stretching from Iraq to Pakistan, with main force committed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the possibility of commitments to Pakistan (and above all to Iran) on the table. U.S. ground forces were stretched to the limit, and U.S. airpower, naval and land-based forces had to stand by for the possibility of an air campaign in Iran — regardless of whether the U.S. planned an attack, since the credibility of a bluff depended on the availability of force.

The situation in this region actually was improving, but the United States had to remain committed there. It was therefore no accident that the Russians invaded Georgia on Aug. 8 following a Georgian attack on South Ossetia. Forgetting the details of who did what to whom, the United States had created a massive window of opportunity for the Russians: For the foreseeable future, the United States had no significant forces to spare to deploy elsewhere in the world, nor the ability to sustain them in extended combat. Moreover, the United States was relying on Russian cooperation both against Iran and potentially in Afghanistan, where Moscow’s influence with some factions remains substantial. The United States needed the Russians and couldn’t block the Russians. Therefore, the Russians inevitably chose this moment to strike.

On Sunday, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in effect ran up the Jolly Roger. Whatever the United States thought it was dealing with in Russia, Medvedev made the Russian position very clear. He stated Russian foreign policy in five succinct points, which we can think of as the Medvedev Doctrine (and which we see fit to quote here):

First, Russia recognizes the primacy of the fundamental principles of international law, which define the relations between civilized peoples. We will build our relations with other countries within the framework of these principles and this concept of international law.

Second, the world should be multipolar. A single-pole world is unacceptable. Domination is something we cannot allow. We cannot accept a world order in which one country makes all the decisions, even as serious and influential a country as the United States of America. Such a world is unstable and threatened by conflict.

Third, Russia does not want confrontation with any other country. Russia has no intention of isolating itself. We will develop friendly relations with Europe, the United States, and other countries, as much as is possible.

Fourth, protecting the lives and dignity of our citizens, wherever they may be, is an unquestionable priority for our country. Our foreign policy decisions will be based on this need. We will also protect the interests of our business community abroad. It should be clear to all that we will respond to any aggressive acts committed against us.

Finally, fifth, as is the case of other countries, there are regions in which Russia has privileged interests. These regions are home to countries with which we share special historical relations and are bound together as friends and good neighbors. We will pay particular attention to our work in these regions and build friendly ties with these countries, our close neighbors.

Medvedev concluded, “These are the principles I will follow in carrying out our foreign policy. As for the future, it depends not only on us but also on our friends and partners in the international community. They have a choice.”

The second point in this doctrine states that Russia does not accept the primacy of the United States in the international system. According to the third point, while Russia wants good relations with the United States and Europe, this depends on their behavior toward Russia and not just on Russia’s behavior. The fourth point states that Russia will protect the interests of Russians wherever they are — even if they live in the Baltic states or in Georgia, for example. This provides a doctrinal basis for intervention in such countries if Russia finds it necessary.

The fifth point is the critical one: “As is the case of other countries, there are regions in which Russia has privileged interests.” In other words, the Russians have special interests in the former Soviet Union and in friendly relations with these states. Intrusions by others into these regions that undermine pro-Russian regimes will be regarded as a threat to Russia’s “special interests.”

Thus, the Georgian conflict was not an isolated event — rather, Medvedev is saying that Russia is engaged in a general redefinition of the regional and global system. Locally, it would not be correct to say that Russia is trying to resurrect the Soviet Union or the Russian empire. It would be correct to say that Russia is creating a new structure of relations in the geography of its predecessors, with a new institutional structure with Moscow at its center. Globally, the Russians want to use this new regional power — and substantial Russian nuclear assets — to be part of a global system in which the United States loses its primacy.

These are ambitious goals, to say the least. But the Russians believe that the United States is off balance in the Islamic world and that there is an opportunity here, if they move quickly, to create a new reality before the United States is ready to respond. Europe has neither the military weight nor the will to actively resist Russia. Moreover, the Europeans are heavily dependent on Russian natural gas supplies over the coming years, and Russia can survive without selling it to them far better than the Europeans can survive without buying it. The Europeans are not a substantial factor in the equation, nor are they likely to become substantial.

This leaves the United States in an extremely difficult strategic position. The United States opposed the Soviet Union after 1945 not only for ideological reasons but also for geopolitical ones. If the Soviet Union had broken out of its encirclement and dominated all of Europe, the total economic power at its disposal, coupled with its population, would have allowed the Soviets to construct a navy that could challenge U.S. maritime hegemony and put the continental United States in jeopardy. It was U.S. policy during World Wars I and II and the Cold War to act militarily to prevent any power from dominating the Eurasian landmass. For the United States, this was the most important task throughout the 20th century.

The U.S.-jihadist war was waged in a strategic framework that assumed that the question of hegemony over Eurasia was closed. Germany’s defeat in World War II and the Soviet Union’s defeat in the Cold War meant that there was no claimant to Eurasia, and the United States was free to focus on what appeared to be the current priority — the defeat of radical Islamism. It appeared that the main threat to this strategy was the patience of the American public, not an attempt to resurrect a major Eurasian power.

The United States now faces a massive strategic dilemma, and it has limited military options against the Russians. It could choose a naval option, in which it would block the four Russian maritime outlets, the Sea of Japan and the Black, Baltic and Barents seas. The United States has ample military force with which to do this and could potentially do so without allied cooperation, which it would lack. It is extremely unlikely that the NATO council would unanimously support a blockade of Russia, which would be an act of war.

But while a blockade like this would certainly hurt the Russians, Russia is ultimately a land power. It is also capable of shipping and importing through third parties, meaning it could potentially acquire and ship key goods through European or Turkish ports (or Iranian ports, for that matter). The blockade option is thus more attractive on first glance than on deeper analysis.

More important, any overt U.S. action against Russia would result in counteractions. During the Cold War, the Soviets attacked American global interest not by sending Soviet troops, but by supporting regimes and factions with weapons and economic aid. Vietnam was the classic example: The Russians tied down 500,000 U.S. troops without placing major Russian forces at risk. Throughout the world, the Soviets implemented programs of subversion and aid to friendly regimes, forcing the United States either to accept pro-Soviet regimes, as with Cuba, or fight them at disproportionate cost.

In the present situation, the Russian response would strike at the heart of American strategy in the Islamic world. In the long run, the Russians have little interest in strengthening the Islamic world — but for the moment, they have substantial interest in maintaining American imbalance and sapping U.S. forces. The Russians have a long history of supporting Middle Eastern regimes with weapons shipments, and it is no accident that the first world leader they met with after invading Georgia was Syrian President Bashar al Assad. This was a clear signal that if the U.S. responded aggressively to Russia’s actions in Georgia, Moscow would ship a range of weapons to Syria — and far worse, to Iran. Indeed, Russia could conceivably send weapons to factions in Iraq that do not support the current regime, as well as to groups like Hezbollah. Moscow also could encourage the Iranians to withdraw their support for the Iraqi government and plunge Iraq back into conflict. Finally, Russia could ship weapons to the Taliban and work to further destabilize Pakistan.

At the moment, the United States faces the strategic problem that the Russians have options while the United States does not. Not only does the U.S. commitment of ground forces in the Islamic world leave the United States without strategic reserve, but the political arrangements under which these troops operate make them highly vulnerable to Russian manipulation — with few satisfactory U.S. counters.

The U.S. government is trying to think through how it can maintain its commitment in the Islamic world and resist the Russian reassertion of hegemony in the former Soviet Union. If the United States could very rapidly win its wars in the region, this would be possible. But the Russians are in a position to prolong these wars, and even without such agitation, the American ability to close off the conflicts is severely limited. The United States could massively increase the size of its army and make deployments into the Baltics, Ukraine and Central Asia to thwart Russian plans, but it would take years to build up these forces and the active cooperation of Europe to deploy them. Logistically, European support would be essential — but the Europeans in general, and the Germans in particular, have no appetite for this war. Expanding the U.S. Army is necessary, but it does not affect the current strategic reality.

This logistical issue might be manageable, but the real heart of this problem is not merely the deployment of U.S. forces in the Islamic world — it is the Russians’ ability to use weapons sales and covert means to deteriorate conditions dramatically. With active Russian hostility added to the current reality, the strategic situation in the Islamic world could rapidly spin out of control.

The United States is therefore trapped by its commitment to the Islamic world. It does not have sufficient forces to block Russian hegemony in the former Soviet Union, and if it tries to block the Russians with naval or air forces, it faces a dangerous riposte from the Russians in the Islamic world. If it does nothing, it creates a strategic threat that potentially towers over the threat in the Islamic world.

The United States now has to make a fundamental strategic decision. If it remains committed to its current strategy, it cannot respond to the Russians. If it does not respond to the Russians for five or 10 years, the world will look very much like it did from 1945 to 1992. There will be another Cold War at the very least, with a peer power much poorer than the United States but prepared to devote huge amounts of money to national defense.

There are four broad U.S. options:

Attempt to make a settlement with Iran that would guarantee the neutral stability of Iraq and permit the rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces there. Iran is the key here. The Iranians might also mistrust a re-emergent Russia, and while Tehran might be tempted to work with the Russians against the Americans, Iran might consider an arrangement with the United States — particularly if the United States refocuses its attentions elsewhere. On the upside, this would free the U.S. from Iraq. On the downside, the Iranians might not want —or honor — such a deal.

Enter into negotiations with the Russians, granting them the sphere of influence they want in the former Soviet Union in return for guarantees not to project Russian power into Europe proper. The Russians will be busy consolidating their position for years, giving the U.S. time to re-energize NATO. On the upside, this would free the United States to continue its war in the Islamic world. On the downside, it would create a framework for the re-emergence of a powerful Russian empire that would be as difficult to contain as the Soviet Union.

Refuse to engage the Russians and leave the problem to the Europeans. On the upside, this would allow the United States to continue war in the Islamic world and force the Europeans to act. On the downside, the Europeans are too divided, dependent on Russia and dispirited to resist the Russians. This strategy could speed up Russia’s re-emergence.

Rapidly disengage from Iraq, leaving a residual force there and in Afghanistan. The upside is that this creates a reserve force to reinforce the Baltics and Ukraine that might restrain Russia in the former Soviet Union. The downside is that it would create chaos in the Islamic world, threatening regimes that have sided with the United States and potentially reviving effective intercontinental terrorism. The trade-off is between a hegemonic threat from Eurasia and instability and a terror threat from the Islamic world.

We are pointing to very stark strategic choices. Continuing the war in the Islamic world has a much higher cost now than it did when it began, and Russia potentially poses a far greater threat to the United States than the Islamic world does. What might have been a rational policy in 2001 or 2003 has now turned into a very dangerous enterprise, because a hostile major power now has the option of making the U.S. position in the Middle East enormously more difficult.

If a U.S. settlement with Iran is impossible, and a diplomatic solution with the Russians that would keep them from taking a hegemonic position in the former Soviet Union cannot be reached, then the United States must consider rapidly abandoning its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and redeploying its forces to block Russian expansion. The threat posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War was far graver than the threat posed now by the fragmented Islamic world. In the end, the nations there will cancel each other out, and militant organizations will be something the United States simply has to deal with. This is not an ideal solution by any means, but the clock appears to have run out on the American war in the Islamic world.

We do not expect the United States to take this option. It is difficult to abandon a conflict that has gone on this long when it is not yet crystal clear that the Russians will actually be a threat later. (It is far easier for an analyst to make such suggestions than it is for a president to act on them.) Instead, the United States will attempt to bridge the Russian situation with gestures and half measures.

Nevertheless, American national strategy is in crisis. The United States has insufficient power to cope with two threats and must choose between the two. Continuing the current strategy means choosing to deal with the Islamic threat rather than the Russian one, and that is reasonable only if the Islamic threat represents a greater danger to American interests than the Russian threat does. It is difficult to see how the chaos of the Islamic world will cohere to form a global threat. But it is not difficult to imagine a Russia guided by the Medvedev Doctrine rapidly becoming a global threat and a direct danger to American interests.

We expect no immediate change in American strategic deployments — and we expect this to be regretted later. However, given U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s trip to the Caucasus region, now would be the time to see some movement in U.S. foreign policy. If Cheney isn’t going to be talking to the Russians, he needs to be talking to the Iranians. Otherwise, he will be writing checks in the region that the U.S. is in no position to cash.

............................................................
^{This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com
............................................................
Strategic Forecasting, Inc., more commonly known as Stratfor, is a private intelligence agency founded in 1996 in Austin, Texas. Barron's once referred to it as "The Shadow CIA".
George Friedman is the founder, chief intelligence officer, and CEO of the company.

Stratfor's client list is confidential, but the company's publicity list includes Fortune 500 companies and international government agencies.}

(bold emphasis added -- Edger)

We Want Leaders But Get Gamblers Instead

2008-09-02T18:19:00.000-07:00

Raise your glass to the hard working people
Lets drink to the uncounted heads
Lets think of the wavering millions
Who need leaders but get gamblers instead
from the Rolling Stones song "Salt of the Earth"

For some time I've really been bugged by this picture taken of John McCain at the Las Vegas casino Bellagio. With his recent selection of Sarah Palin for VP it finally came to me what it is. John McCain is reckless. Why else would someone who is running for President appear at a gambling casino? I mean what is he thinking? His selection of Palin was reckless. His policy in Iraq is reckless. His statements about Iran and Georgia were reckless. His plan to privatize social security - reckless. I could go on but you get the picture.

I know there isn't a whole lot of difference between the Democrats and the Republicans but when you take that small difference and multiply it by the economic and military might of the United States, the difference between McCain and Obama may be the difference between life and death for Iraqi, Afghani civilians and American soldiers. Our country cannot afford a third term for Bush's policies.

Real News: US Missile Deal Enrages Russia (Part 2)

2008-08-17T08:36:00.000-07:00

On Saturday in Part 1 of this interview we saw Journalist Eric Margolis talk with Real News CEO Paul Jay about the question has the dangerous situation in the Caucasus fomented by the neocons now taken on a possibly unstoppable momentum of its own towards war between the US and Russia?

Today the interview with Margolis continues as a Russian general threatens Poland over the US/Poland missile deal. Russian rhetoric includes threat of a nuclear attack on Poland should the US provocations continue and build to a crisis point.

August 17, 2008 - 6 min 24 sec
Russian General threatens Poland over missile deal
US missile deal enrages Russia (Part 2)

Russian President Dimitri Medvedev stated on Friday that Poland’s agreement to accept a US missile defense system target his country. Washington claims the defense shield is aimed at blocking attacks by rogue nations. These developments follow the recent conflict between Russia, and Georgia.

Real News: No 'good guys' In Georgia Conflict

2008-08-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

With the rhetoric from both Washington and Moscow heating up as the provocation of Russia continues, the US media continues to cloud the truth and slant the issues and the stories as much as possible in favor of "acting President" McCain, to whom Bush seems to defer to and to have turned over control of US Foreign Policy to the past few days.

Yesterday in Moscow, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev assured South Ossetia and Abkhazia of Russia's support in their bid for independence as ceasefire held in Georgia and the focus shifted to a post-war settlement...

"Russia's position is unchanged. We will support any decisions taken by the peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia," said Mr. Medvedev at a Kremlin meeting with the leaders of the two self-proclaimed republics. "We will not only support but will guarantee [your decisions] both in the Caucasus and throughout the world."

Mr. Medvedev in fact declared Moscow's readiness to brush aside the West's objections to the two regions' split from Georgia in much the same way as the West ignored Russian protests against Kosovo's independence.

Mr. Medvedev's statement signals a major shift in Moscow's stand.

Meanwhile, today, with Russia, Georgia and the US engaging in a war of words, Matthew Rothschild, Editor of the Progressive believes all three are behaving hypocritically.

August 16, 2008 - 2 min 53 sec

Matthew Rothschild: US and Russia hypocrisy cubed

Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine. Rothschild has appeared on Nightline, C-SPAN, The O'Reilly Factor, and NPR, and his newspaper commentaries have run in the Chicago Tribune, the L.A. Times, the Miami Herald, and a host of other newspapers. Rothschild is also the author of a book entitled You Have No Rights: Stories of America in Our Repressive Age (New Press, 2007). Rothschild is also the co-founder and director of The Progressive Media Project, which since 1993 has been distributing opinion pieces to newspapers around the country in an effort to diversify and democratize the national debate.

The new cold war isn't nearly as "cold" as the old cold war, it seems, and the pot may yet boil over...

Real News: US Missile Deal Enrages Russia

2008-08-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we saw how following the Bush/neocon encouraged Georgian attacks on South Ossetia a rapidly developing Russia Asia cooperation has become nightmare for US Hawks, but is it a nightmare of their purposeful choosing?

Late yesterday afternoon the Associated Press reported that...

Russia warned Poland on Friday that it is exposing itself to attack - even a nuclear one - by accepting a U.S. missile interceptor base on its soil, delivering Moscow's strongest language yet against the plan.

American and Polish officials stuck firmly by their deal, signed Thursday, for Poland to host a system that Washington says is meant to block missile attacks by rogue nations like Iran.

Moscow is convinced the base is aimed at Russia's missile force, however, and the deal comes as relations already are strained over the fighting between Russia and U.S.-allied Georgia over the separatist Georgian region of South Ossetia.

"Poland, by deploying (the system) is exposing itself to a strike - 100 percent," Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff of Russia's armed forces, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.

He noted Russia's military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons "against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them." Nogovitsyn said that would include elements of any strategic deterrence system, according to Interfax.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the deal "absolutely clearly demonstrates what we had said earlier - the deployment has the Russian Federation as its target."

Has the dangerous situation in the Caucasus fomented by the neocons now taken on a possibly unstoppable momentum of its own towards war between the US and Russia?

Journalist Eric Margolis talks with Real News CEO Paul Jay...

August 16, 2008 - 5 min 14 sec

Eric Margolis: It's like August, 1914 - a movement of great powers towards war

With the signing of an agreement between Washington and Warsaw to erect a missile defence system in Poland, echoes of the cold war between Russia and the United States are hard to ignore. The agreement comes hot on the heels of the conflict between Russia and Georgia.

Real News: Russia-Asia Cooperation A Nightmare For US Hawks

2008-08-15T15:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we saw F William Engdahl and George Friedman of Stratfor introduce the background to the Russo-Georgian war, Russia's motivations and their re-emergence as a major power that has reached the limits of its tolerance for US neocon/imperialist tendencies and the drive to encircle Russia.

Engdahl continues today with the third in the three part series on the geopolitics of the situation in the Caucasus, with a discussion of growing Russian Asian cooperation and its ramifications in international relations as a counterbalance to US power, particularly in light of the continued provoking of Russia and sparking of a new cold war as the US and Poland agree to place a missile base in Poland, a plan that has infuriated Moscow and sparked fears in Europe of a new arms race.

"We have crossed the Rubicon," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, referring to U.S. consent to Poland's demands after more than 18 months of negotiations.

Washington says the planned system, which is not yet operational, is needed to protect the U.S. and Europe from possible attacks by missile-armed "rogue states'" like Iran. The Kremlin, however, feels it is aimed at Russia's missile force and warns it will worsen tensions.

U.S. officials also said the timing of the deal was not meant to antagonize Russian leaders at a time when relations already are strained over the recent fighting between Russia and Georgia over the South Ossetia region.

August 15, 2008 - 3 min 44 sec

F William Engdahl: The Geopolitics of Georgia (3 of 3)
Russia-Asia cooperation a nightmare for US hawks

Russia and Georgia swapped accusations today presenting a huge challenge to the EU-sponsored ceasefire agreement designed to end seven days of fighting. The accord had envisioned Russian and Georgian forces returning to their original positions. These conditions have yet to be met. The United Nations estimates 100-thousand people have been uprooted by the fighting, including 12-thousand South Ossetians who fled north into Russia. F William Engdahl believes that "Russia China and the nations of Eurasia are beginning to cooperate politically and economically and this is a nightmare for Washington."

F William Engdahl is an economist and author and the writer of the best selling book "A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order." Mr Engdhahl has written on issues of energy, politics and economics for more than 30 years, beginning with the first oil shock in the early 1970s. Mr. Engdahl contributes regularly to a number of publications including Asia Times Online, Asia, Inc, Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine; Freitag and ZeitFragen newspapers in Germany and Switzerland respectively. He is based in Germany.

Real News: Nuclear War By Miscalculation, and The Russo-Georgian War and The Balance of Power

2008-08-14T09:58:00.000-07:00

Continuing the coverage of the Georgia/South Ossetia crisis provided yesterday by F William Engdahl, today Engdahl explains that Russia went into Georgia to essentially deliver a message to America and the world that Russia was not prepared to submit to being encircled by the US and was taking steps to reassert its power on the global stage and limit neocon expansion.

Engdahl also offers the observation that the neocons may unwittingly cause nuclear war by their miscalculations.

Following the Engdahl video we also have an in-depth intelligence background briefing on the situation in Georgia and explaining the re-emergence of Russia as a major world power, reproduced with permission from George Friedman, president of Stratfor, a private intelligence agency founded in 1996 in Austin, Texas that provides intelligence briefings to Fortune 500 companies and international government agencies. Barron's once referred to Stratfor as "The Shadow CIA".

August 14, 2008 - 4 min 4 sec

F William Engdahl: The geopolitics of Georgia pt2 - Nuclear war by miscalculation

ENGDAHL: Russia went into Georgia to essentially deliver a message. There are more than 1,000 US military special forces in Georgia doing exercising, training Georgian troops, before Georgia launched the attack on Ossetia on 8 August. There are 1,000 Israeli troops at least, private security firms and military advisors, including advisors who are upgrading the Georgian air force in an installation near Tbilisi. That's what the Russian airplanes hit, and they essentially made the military strike on South Ossetia militarily impossible by making incursions inside Georgian territory before they announced that they were calling a halt to their military operations.

The Russo-Georgian War and the Balance of Power

^{NOTE: As Stratfor is a mostly paid site, you must be a paid subscriber for the internal links in this article to work.}

By George Friedman
Stratfor
August 12, 2008

The Russian invasion of Georgia has not changed the balance of power in Eurasia. It simply announced that the balance of power had already shifted. The United States has been absorbed in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as potential conflict with Iran and a destabilizing situation in Pakistan. It has no strategic ground forces in reserve and is in no position to intervene on the Russian periphery. This, as we have argued, has opened a window of opportunity for the Russians to reassert their influence in the former Soviet sphere. Moscow did not have to concern itself with the potential response of the United States or Europe; hence, the invasion did not shift the balance of power. The balance of power had already shifted, and it was up to the Russians when to make this public. They did that Aug. 8.

Let’s begin simply by reviewing the last few days.
On the night of Thursday, Aug. 7, forces of the Republic of Georgia drove across the border of South Ossetia, a secessionist region of Georgia that has functioned as an independent entity since the fall of the Soviet Union. The forces drove on to the capital, Tskhinvali, which is close to the border. Georgian forces got bogged down while trying to take the city. In spite of heavy fighting, they never fully secured the city, nor the rest of South Ossetia.

On the morning of Aug. 8, Russian forces entered South Ossetia, using armored and motorized infantry forces along with air power. South Ossetia was informally aligned with Russia, and Russia acted to prevent the region’s absorption by Georgia. Given the speed with which the Russians responded — within hours of the Georgian attack — the Russians were expecting the Georgian attack and were themselves at their jumping-off points. The counterattack was carefully planned and competently executed, and over the next 48 hours, the Russians succeeded in defeating the main Georgian force and forcing a retreat. By Sunday, Aug. 10, the Russians had consolidated their position in South Ossetia.

On Monday, the Russians extended their offensive into Georgia proper, attacking on two axes. One was south from South Ossetia to the Georgian city of Gori. The other drive was from Abkhazia, another secessionist region of Georgia aligned with the Russians. This drive was designed to cut the road between the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and its ports. By this point, the Russians had bombed the military airfields at Marneuli and Vaziani and appeared to have disabled radars at the international airport in Tbilisi. These moves brought Russian forces to within 40 miles of the Georgian capital, while making outside reinforcement and resupply of Georgian forces extremely difficult should anyone wish to undertake it.

The Mystery Behind the Georgian Invasion

In this simple chronicle, there is something quite mysterious: Why did the Georgians choose to invade South Ossetia on Thursday night? There had been a great deal of shelling by the South Ossetians of Georgian villages for the previous three nights, but while possibly more intense than usual, artillery exchanges were routine. The Georgians might not have fought well, but they committed fairly substantial forces that must have taken at the very least several days to deploy and supply. Georgia’s move was deliberate.

The United States is Georgia’s closest ally. It maintained about 130 military advisers in Georgia, along with civilian advisers, contractors involved in all aspects of the Georgian government and people doing business in Georgia. It is inconceivable that the Americans were unaware of Georgia’s mobilization and intentions. It is also inconceivable that the Americans were unaware that the Russians had deployed substantial forces on the South Ossetian frontier. U.S. technical intelligence, from satellite imagery and signals intelligence to unmanned aerial vehicles, could not miss the fact that thousands of Russian troops were moving to forward positions. The Russians clearly knew the Georgians were ready to move. How could the United States not be aware of the Russians? Indeed, given the posture of Russian troops, how could intelligence analysts have missed the possibility that the Russians had laid a trap, hoping for a Georgian invasion to justify its own counterattack?

It is very difficult to imagine that the Georgians launched their attack against U.S. wishes. The Georgians rely on the United States, and they were in no position to defy it. This leaves two possibilities. The first is a massive breakdown in intelligence, in which the United States either was unaware of the existence of Russian forces, or knew of the Russian forces but — along with the Georgians — miscalculated Russia’s intentions. The second is that the United States, along with other countries, has viewed Russia through the prism of the 1990s, when the Russian military was in shambles and the Russian government was paralyzed. The United States has not seen Russia make a decisive military move beyond its borders since the Afghan war of the 1970s-1980s. The Russians had systematically avoided such moves for years. The United States had assumed that the Russians would not risk the consequences of an invasion.

If this was the case, then it points to the central reality of this situation: The Russians had changed dramatically, along with the balance of power in the region. They welcomed the opportunity to drive home the new reality, which was that they could invade Georgia and the United States and Europe could not respond. As for risk, they did not view the invasion as risky. Militarily, there was no counter. Economically, Russia is an energy exporter doing quite well — indeed, the Europeans need Russian energy even more than the Russians need to sell it to them. Politically, as we shall see, the Americans needed the Russians more than the Russians needed the Americans. Moscow’s calculus was that this was the moment to strike. The Russians had been building up to it for months, as we have discussed, and they struck.

The Western Encirclement of Russia

To understand Russian thinking, we need to look at two events. The first is the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. From the U.S. and European point of view, the Orange Revolution represented a triumph of democracy and Western influence. From the Russian point of view, as Moscow made clear, the Orange Revolution was a CIA-funded intrusion into the internal affairs of Ukraine, designed to draw Ukraine into NATO and add to the encirclement of Russia. U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton had promised the Russians that NATO would not expand into the former Soviet Union empire.

That promise had already been broken in 1998 by NATO’s expansion to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic — and again in the 2004 expansion, which absorbed not only the rest of the former Soviet satellites in what is now Central Europe, but also the three Baltic states, which had been components of the Soviet Union.

The Russians had tolerated all that, but the discussion of including Ukraine in NATO represented a fundamental threat to Russia’s national security. It would have rendered Russia indefensible and threatened to destabilize the Russian Federation itself. When the United States went so far as to suggest that Georgia be included as well, bringing NATO deeper into the Caucasus, the Russian conclusion — publicly stated — was that the United States in particular intended to encircle and break Russia.

The second and lesser event was the decision by Europe and the United States to back Kosovo’s separation from Serbia. The Russians were friendly with Serbia, but the deeper issue for Russia was this: The principle of Europe since World War II was that, to prevent conflict, national borders would not be changed. If that principle were violated in Kosovo, other border shifts — including demands by various regions for independence from Russia — might follow. The Russians publicly and privately asked that Kosovo not be given formal independence, but instead continue its informal autonomy, which was the same thing in practical terms. Russia’s requests were ignored.

From the Ukrainian experience, the Russians became convinced that the United States was engaged in a plan of strategic encirclement and strangulation of Russia. From the Kosovo experience, they concluded that the United States and Europe were not prepared to consider Russian wishes even in fairly minor affairs. That was the breaking point. If Russian desires could not be accommodated even in a minor matter like this, then clearly Russia and the West were in conflict. For the Russians, as we said, the question was how to respond. Having declined to respond in Kosovo, the Russians decided to respond where they had all the cards: in South Ossetia.

Moscow had two motives, the lesser of which was as a tit-for-tat over Kosovo. If Kosovo could be declared independent under Western sponsorship, then South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two breakaway regions of Georgia, could be declared independent under Russian sponsorship. Any objections from the United States and Europe would simply confirm their hypocrisy. This was important for internal Russian political reasons, but the second motive was far more important.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin once said that the fall of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical disaster. This didn’t mean that he wanted to retain the Soviet state; rather, it meant that the disintegration of the Soviet Union had created a situation in which Russian national security was threatened by Western interests. As an example, consider that during the Cold War, St. Petersburg was about 1,200 miles away from a NATO country. Today it is about 60 miles away from Estonia, a NATO member. The disintegration of the Soviet Union had left Russia surrounded by a group of countries hostile to Russian interests in various degrees and heavily influenced by the United States, Europe and, in some cases, China.

Resurrecting the Russian Sphere

Putin did not want to re-establish the Soviet Union, but he did want to re-establish the Russian sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union region. To accomplish that, he had to do two things. First, he had to re-establish the credibility of the Russian army as a fighting force, at least in the context of its region. Second, he had to establish that Western guarantees, including NATO membership, meant nothing in the face of Russian power. He did not want to confront NATO directly, but he did want to confront and defeat a power that was closely aligned with the United States, had U.S. support, aid and advisers and was widely seen as being under American protection. Georgia was the perfect choice.

By invading Georgia as Russia did (competently if not brilliantly), Putin re-established the credibility of the Russian army. But far more importantly, by doing this Putin revealed an open secret: While the United States is tied down in the Middle East, American guarantees have no value. This lesson is not for American consumption. It is something that, from the Russian point of view, the Ukrainians, the Balts and the Central Asians need to digest. Indeed, it is a lesson Putin wants to transmit to Poland and the Czech Republic as well. The United States wants to place ballistic missile defense installations in those countries, and the Russians want them to understand that allowing this to happen increases their risk, not their security.

The Russians knew the United States would denounce their attack. This actually plays into Russian hands. The more vocal senior leaders are, the greater the contrast with their inaction, and the Russians wanted to drive home the idea that American guarantees are empty talk.

The Russians also know something else that is of vital importance: For the United States, the Middle East is far more important than the Caucasus, and Iran is particularly important. The United States wants the Russians to participate in sanctions against Iran. Even more importantly, they do not want the Russians to sell weapons to Iran, particularly the highly effective S-300 air defense system. Georgia is a marginal issue to the United States; Iran is a central issue. The Russians are in a position to pose serious problems for the United States not only in Iran, but also with weapons sales to other countries, like Syria.

Therefore, the United States has a problem — it either must reorient its strategy away from the Middle East and toward the Caucasus, or it has to seriously limit its response to Georgia to avoid a Russian counter in Iran. Even if the United States had an appetite for another war in Georgia at this time, it would have to calculate the Russian response in Iran — and possibly in Afghanistan (even though Moscow’s interests there are currently aligned with those of Washington).

In other words, the Russians have backed the Americans into a corner. The Europeans, who for the most part lack expeditionary militaries and are dependent upon Russian energy exports, have even fewer options. If nothing else happens, the Russians will have demonstrated that they have resumed their role as a regional power. Russia is not a global power by any means, but a significant regional power with lots of nuclear weapons and an economy that isn’t all too shabby at the moment. It has also compelled every state on the Russian periphery to re-evaluate its position relative to Moscow. As for Georgia, the Russians appear ready to demand the resignation of President Mikhail Saakashvili. Militarily, that is their option. That is all they wanted to demonstrate, and they have demonstrated it.

The war in Georgia, therefore, is Russia’s public return to great power status. This is not something that just happened — it has been unfolding ever since Putin took power, and with growing intensity in the past five years. Part of it has to do with the increase of Russian power, but a great deal of it has to do with the fact that the Middle Eastern wars have left the United States off-balance and short on resources. As we have written, this conflict created a window of opportunity. The Russian goal is to use that window to assert a new reality throughout the region while the Americans are tied down elsewhere and dependent on the Russians. The war was far from a surprise; it has been building for months. But the geopolitical foundations of the war have been building since 1992. Russia has been an empire for centuries. The last 15 years or so were not the new reality, but simply an aberration that would be rectified. And now it is being rectified.

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Georgia War a Neocon Election Ploy?

2008-08-13T14:20:00.000-07:00

Joe Mestas, American citizen happened to be in South Ossetia during the war and witnessed everything that happened in the region. He talked to RT and blamed U.S. and Georgian leaders for the outbreak of violence.

Have the neocons decided to provoke a war with Russia by sending US air and naval forces into the thick of things in Georgia and Ossetia, hoping for trigger happy Russian forces to provide the spark? If it happens will there be an election in November, or will it be "postponed" due to a "national security emergency"?

Bush Sends Aid to Georgia:

Bush said Wednesday ... that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would travel to France and then to Georgia to work for a settlement of the crisis...
Mr. Bush said a transport plane with medical supplies was already on its way to Georgia, and that American air and naval forces would carry out the humanitarian mission. And he said pointedly that Russia must not interfere with aid coming into Georgia by air, land or water.

Georgia War a Neocon Election Ploy?

Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?

Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government who ended his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate John McCain's senior foreign policy adviser.

Previously, Scheunemann was best known as one of the neoconservatives who engineered the war in Iraq when he was a director of the Project for a New American Century. It was Scheunemann who, after working on the McCain 2000 presidential campaign, headed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which championed the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

There are telltale signs that he played a similar role in the recent Georgia flare-up. How else to explain the folly of his close friend and former employer, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, in ordering an invasion of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, an invasion that clearly was expected to produce a Russian counterreaction? It is inconceivable that Saakashvili would have triggered this dangerous escalation without some assurance from influential Americans he trusted, like Scheunemann, that the United States would have his back. Scheunemann long guided McCain in these matters, even before he was officially running foreign policy for McCain's presidential campaign.

In 2005, while registered as a paid lobbyist for Georgia, Scheunemann worked with McCain to draft a congressional resolution pushing for Georgia's membership in NATO. A year later, while still on the Georgian payroll, Scheunemann accompanied McCain on a trip to that country, where they met with Saakashvili and supported his bellicose views toward Russia's Vladimir Putin.

Scheunemann is at the center of the neoconservative cabal that has come to dominate the Republican candidate's foreign policy stance in a replay of the run-up to the war against Iraq. These folks are always looking for a foreign enemy on which to base a new Cold War, and with the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime it was Putin's Russia that came increasingly to fit the bill.

Yes, it sounds diabolical, but that may be the most accurate way to assess the designs of the McCain campaign in matters of war and peace. There is every indication that the candidate's demonization of Russian leader Putin is an even grander plan than the previous use of Saddam to fuel American militarism with the fearsome enemy that it desperately needs.

McCain gets to look tough with a new Cold War to fight while Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, scrambling to make sense of a more measured foreign policy posture, will seem weak in comparison. Meanwhile, the dire consequences of the Bush legacy that McCain has inherited, from the disaster of Iraq to the economic meltdown, conveniently will be ignored. But the military-industrial complex, which has helped bankroll the neoconservatives, will be provided with an excuse for ramping up a military budget that is already bigger than that of the rest of the world combined.

What is at work here is a neoconservative, self-fulfilling prophecy in which Russia is turned into an enemy that expands its largely reduced military, and Putin is cast as the new Josef Stalin bogeyman, evoking images of the old Soviet Union. McCain has condemned a "revanchist Russia" that should once again be contained. Although Putin has been the enormously popular elected leader of post-Communist Russia, it is assumed that imperialism is always lurking, not only in his DNA but in that of the Russian people.

More...

Real News: The Geopolitics Of Georgia

2008-08-13T03:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we learned from Pepe Escobar, reporting for The Real News, that contrary to most reports in the US media, Georgia had been the original military aggressor in the conflict between Georgia and Russia with it's ground attacks and aerial bombardment beginning last Thursday of the separatist province of South Ossetia in it's attempt to forestall the reunion of South and North Ossetia.

Today F William Engdahl summarizes the geopolitics behind the conflict, with the unnerving statement that "This is probably the most unstable area on the planet right now".

August 13, 2008 - 3 min 8 sec

US attempts to get Georgia into NATO, coupled with its desire to erect an anti-missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech republic would give it first strike capability towards Russia. Moscow sees this as a national security threat against the sovereignty of Russia. Political economist F William Engdahl believes this is the geopolitical endgame being played out in Georgia.

F William Engdahl is an economist and author and the writer of the best selling book "A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order." Mr Engdhahl has written on issues of energy, politics and economics for more than 30 years, beginning with the first oil shock in the early 1970s. Mr. Engdahl contributes regularly to a number of publications including Asia Times Online, Asia, Inc, Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine; Freitag and ZeitFragen newspapers in Germany and Switzerland respectively. He is based in Germany.

Both John McCain and Barack Obama have attempted rather successfully in the media to stand the situation on its head with cold war rhetoric as Obama, ignoring the background to the situation, somewhat misleadingly referred to the Russian backing of South Ossetia as simply a violation of Georgia, and McCain, with his hot button pushing statements Tuesday...

...stepped up a fusillade against Russian "aggression" and declared that today, "we are all Georgians."

Addressing voters in Pennsylvania, McCain said he had spoken by telephone earlier with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who he said wanted to thank the American people for their support.

"I told him that I know I speak for every American when I say to him, today, we are all Georgians," said the Republican, a hardliner against Russia who wants the mighty nation expelled from the Group of Eight club.

Both McCain and his Democratic rival Barack Obama have condemned Russia's incursion into Georgia following the Saakashvili government's abortive attempt to rein in the breakaway, pro-Moscow region of South Ossetia.

"It is past time for the Russian government to immediately sign and implement a ceasefire," Obama, who is on vacation in Hawaii, said in his latest statement on the crisis.

"Russia must halt its violation of Georgian airspace and withdraw its ground forces from Georgia, with international monitors to verify that these obligations are met," the Illinois senator said.

Personally, I would have said "We are all Ossetians now".

But it appears that for both Obama and McCain, since the WOT rhetoric doesn't work so well at inspiring fear anymore that it's time to revive Russian bent on world domination as the newest old boogeyman.

Real News: Who's To Blame For The Russian Georgian Conflict?

2008-08-12T03:16:00.000-07:00

August 12, 2008 - 6 min 8 sec

Pepe Escobar: Georgia is a strategic client state of the US with close ties to the Bush administration

Georgian troops launched an aerial bombardment and ground attack on its separatist province of South Ossetia on Thursday. South Ossetians want to join up with their ethnic brethren in North Ossetia, an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation. Seeing this as an act of aggression Russia launched bombing raids against Georgia, vowing to defend its citizens. More than half of South Ossetia's citizens are said to have taken up Moscow's offer of a Russian passport. Pepe Escobar believes that "the hypocrisy of the international community knows no bounds for if the West forced the issue of Kosovar independence then the independence of South Ossetia should also be on the cards."

Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil is the roving correspondent for Asia Times and an analyst for The Real News Network. He's been a foreign correspondent since 1985, based in London, Milan, Los Angeles, Paris, Singapore, and Bangkok. Since the late 1990s, he has specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central Asia, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has made frequent visits to Iran and is the author of Globalistan and also Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad During the Surge both published by Nimble Books in 2007.

Understanding Pelosi: One Word: "Accessory"

2008-08-06T09:06:00.000-07:00

Nancy Pelosi was briefed on and signed off on torture. She won't impeach because she is an accessory to war crimes.

She would be impeaching and convicting herself.

Glenn Greenwald
Tuesday July 15, 2008 08:16 EDT
The motivation for blocking investigations into Bush lawbreaking

...one important political impediment to holding Bush officials accountable for their illegal torture program:
An additional complicating factor is that key members of Congress sanctioned this program, so many of those who might ordinarily be counted on to lead the charge are themselves compromised.
As we witness not just Republicans, but also Democrats in Congress, acting repeatedly to immunize executive branch lawbreaking and to obstruct investigations, it's vital to keep that fact in mind. With regard to illegal Bush programs of torture and eavesdropping, key Congressional Democrats were contemporaneously briefed on what the administration was doing (albeit, in fairness, often in unspecific ways). The fact that they did nothing to stop that illegality, and often explicitly approved of it, obviously incentivizes them to block any investigations or judicial proceedings into those illegal programs.

In December of last year, The Washington Post revealed:
Four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.
The article noted that other Democratic members who received briefings on the CIA's interrogation program included Jay Rockefeller and Jane Harman.

Also see: Nancy Pelosi, How Do You Plead?, by George Washington, July 21, 2008

Without question, Pelosi has covered up crimes committed by Bush, Cheney and the White House gang.

Moreover, Pelosi is guilty of criminal conspiracy. She conspired with the Neocons to implement torture, spying and the use of tainted and unreliable evidence regarding 9/11.

She is also guilty of violating the War Crimes Act of 1996, a federal statute set forth at 18 U.S.C. § 2441, which makes it a federal crime for any U.S. national, whether military or civilian, to violate the Geneva Convention by engaging in murder, torture, or inhuman treatment. The statute applies not only to those who carry out the acts, but also to those who order it, know about it, or fail to take steps to stop it. The statute applies to everyone, no matter how high and mighty. See this.

It is time for Pelosi to make her choice. Accept responsibility and show remorse, and she may be sentenced to community service. Otherwise, she will be tried along with Bush, Cheney and crew as a criminal.

She tried to explain it all the other day...

Nancy Pelosi Answers 10 Questions; First Question: Why Did You Take Impeachment Off the Table?

Q: Why have you taken impeachment off the table as an option for President George W. Bush? Nancy Shipes WOODSTOWN, N.J.

A: I took it off the table a long time ago. You can't talk about impeachment unless you have the facts, and you can't have the facts unless you have cooperation from the Administration.

Translation: We can't impeach Bush because it's not ok with Bush. He won't co-operate and let us impeach him.

UPDATED: Real Iraq Reality, and Real News on 'Surging' McCain

2008-08-06T06:30:00.000-07:00

I posted part 1 yesterday.

In this update today, an Iraqi journalist continues his series of video reports of the 'real' reality on the ground in Iraq, with part 2...

Baghdad, 5 years on (part 2): killing fields

One Baghdad's killings fields on the edge of Sadr City. The scene of thousands of sectarian murders over the last three years, it is a desolate and evil place: 'Only the killers and the killed ever come here' says Abdul-Ahad. Here in the thousands of unmarked graves lie the victims of militia gangs. Video by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad.

4 min 28 sec

An Iraqi journalist begins a series of video reports of the 'real' reality on the ground in Iraq, with...

Baghdad, 5 years on (part 1): City of walls

US claims that the military surge is bringing stability to Iraq. By travelling through the heart of Baghdad its easy to see by enclosing the Sunni and Shia populations behind 12ft walls, the surge has left the city more divided and desperate than ever.

4 min 37 sec

On the flip... Pepe Escobar of Asia Times deconstructs and shreds the sole foundation of McCain's presidential campaign...

9 min 25 sec - 'Surging' McCain

Part 1 of this report examines McCain's position in relation to the Iraq war, his decision to hedge his bets regarding the success of the surge and his interpretation of the surge's "success." Analyst for The Real News, Pepe Escobar compares McCain's interpretation to the many overlapping political and military facts on the ground in Iraq before and during the surge.

Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil is the roving correspondent for Asia Times and an analyst for The Real News Network. He's been a foreign correspondent since 1985, based in London, Milan, Los Angeles, Paris, Singapore, and Bangkok. Since the late 1990s, he has specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central Asia, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has made frequent visits to Iran and is the author of Globalistan and also Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad During the Surge both published by Nimble Books in 2007.

Real News: Obama sells Europeans on Afghan war

2008-08-05T11:13:00.000-07:00

August 4, 2008 - 6 min 27 sec - Obama sells Europeans on Afghan war

European public hails Obama as the anti-Bush, but politicians cool to idea of more troops in Afghanistan

The Guardian headline said “Obama gets rock star welcome” One Berliner called it “an Anti-Bush rally”, and the Financial Times Deutshland called it an “ad for the war on terror “. In a speech laden with cold war rhetoric, Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama stood before more than 200,000 people in Berlin on thursday and summoned Europeans and Americans to work together on many issues, from Iraq and Afghanistan to the “War on Terror” and climate change. Andreas Zumach of Die Tageszietung: European politicians are somewhat glad about the general statements Obama made on the need for improving the Euro-Atlantic alliance again. They have read about what he said on more cooperation on global issues like climate change, on the US in the future more obeying international law. They are very wary, especially the ones in Germany, France, and the other big European countries, about the clear message he sent on Afghanistan, where he very clearly and undiplomatically said, "We need more of your troops in Afghanistan," which means more war fighting done by the Europeans in a war that's bound to be lost.

Obama, Rice Team Up on Foreign Policy?

2008-08-05T11:11:00.000-07:00

Hat tip to Jeralyn Merritt at Talkleft for this:

If you had to guess which presidential candidate was consulting Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on foreign affairs would you pick the one from her party -- a party which has frequently suggested she be added to the ticket as the VP candidate -- or the candidate from the other party? The Aspen Daily News, citing a new Time Magazine article, says it's Obama who has been consulting Condi Rice on foreign affairs.

From the Time article:

A few days before he left on his eight-country world tour, Barack Obama wanted to discuss the trip with an old contact in Washington: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Obama's phone call was in part a courtesy, but over three years of occasional phone conversations, the two have quietly discussed everything from foreign aid to the Middle East and nuclear proliferation. Obama and Rice have come to have a certain respect for each other, says an Obama aide familiar with their conversations, because both take an intellectual, sober view of foreign affairs. "They've had good exchanges," the aide says. "Does he treat her as someone whom he has respect for? Absolutely. Does he listen to her on occasion? Absolutely."

The little-known Rice-Obama link is just the latest surprise in a summer of unexpected shifts in American foreign policy.
...
It may prove bittersweet to watch as a new President gets credit for policies she and Bush have promoted, but that is the price of embracing diplomacy so late in the game. At least, says the Obama aide, she can expect the phone calls to continue.

Real News: Ex-CIA Agent Ray McGovern on Obama's 'New World'

2008-07-22T16:54:00.000-07:00

Transcript here.

McGovern: "The game is over with Iraq and so the question is how does this strategic change affect the real players in the area. The Israeli right wants a confrontation with Iran to keep US forces in the region. The US military leadership is against a "third front" but has to contend with Cheney.

Raymond McGovern is a retired CIA officer. McGovern was a Federal employee under seven US presidents for over 27 years, presenting the morning intelligence briefings at the White House for many of them. McGovern was born and raised in Bronx, graduated summa cum laude from Fordham University, received an M.A. in Russian Studies from Fordham, a certificate in Theological Studies from Georgetown University, and graduated from Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program.

Obama states near the beginning of the speech...

"...we will keep a residual force to perform specific missions in Iraq, targeting any remnants of al-Qaeda, protecting our service members and diplomats, and training and supporting Iraq's security forces, so long as the Iraqis make political progress."

protecting our service members?

What? Is his "residual force" not going to be composed of service members?

so long as the Iraqis make political progress?

What right does Obama or anyone else in Washington have to determine what is Iraqi "political progress"?

A relevant quote from Armando at Talkleft this morning:

Why Should The Iraqi Gov't Need Leverage To Have US Troops Leave?

If you understand Iraq is a sovereign country, then you should understand that they should not have to have leverage at all in telling the United States to leave. The United States has no right to have troops in Iraq. Indeed, the ostensible purpose of the troop presence in Iraq is to assist the Iraqi government. Suppose the US, in good faith, disagrees with the Iraqi government's assessment of the situation. So what? If they ask you to leave, then you leave.

But of course the most amazing part of this is that the American People as well as the Iraqi government wants the United States to leave Iraq, but for the Bush Administration and John McCain, it does not matter what the people want.

Neither, for that matter, does it seem to matter to Barack Obama what the Iraqi government or the American people want.

Obama talks of keeping 'Residual Forces' in Iraq to fight al-Qaeda.

For anyone interested in fully informing themselves, I recommend Andrew Tilghman'a October 2007 article from The Washington Monthly...

The Myth of AQI
Fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq is the last big argument for keeping U.S. troops in the country. But the military's estimation of the threat is alarmingly wrong.
By Andrew Tilghman

By now, many in Washington have learned to discount the president's rhetorical excesses when it comes to the war. But even some of his harshest critics take at face value the estimates provided by the military about AQI's presence. Politicians of both parties point to such figures when forming their positions on the war. All of the top three Democratic presidential candidates have argued for keeping some American forces in Iraq or the region, citing among other reasons the continued threat from al-Qaeda.

But what if official military estimates about the size and impact of al-Qaeda in Iraq are simply wrong? Indeed, interviews with numerous military and intelligence analysts, both inside and outside of government, suggest that the number of strikes the group has directed represent only a fraction of what official estimates claim. Further, al-Qaeda's presumed role in leading the violence through uniquely devastating attacks that catalyze further unrest may also be overstated.
Having been led astray by flawed prewar intelligence about WMDs, official Washington wants to believe it takes a more skeptical view of the administration's information now. Yet Beltway insiders seem to be making almost precisely the same mistakes in sizing up al-Qaeda in Iraq.
...
How big, then, is AQI? The most persuasive estimate I've heard comes from Malcolm Nance, the author of The Terrorists of Iraq and a twenty-year intelligence veteran and Arabic speaker who has worked with military and intelligence units tracking al-Qaeda inside Iraq. He believes AQI includes about 850 full-time fighters, comprising 2 percent to 5 percent of the Sunni insurgency. "Al-Qaeda in Iraq," according to Nance, "is a microscopic terrorist organization."

Maliki Endorses Obama's Withdrawal Plan

2008-07-21T09:58:00.000-07:00

According to the German magazine Spiegel, Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed Obama's plan for US withdrawal form Iraq. (link to TPM)

"US presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months," said al Maliki "That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

Subsequent to this article, there was an effort by the Bush administration to claim that Maliki was mistranslated. However, the audiotapes of his interview support Spiegel's claim.

Regarding Obama's commitment to withdrawal from Iraq, here is his recent speech before Netroots Nation.

The Real News: "Obama and the Cold War Mentality"

2008-07-19T09:25:00.001-07:00

Gareth Porter: Will Obama be truly post-Cold War? [Transcript here.]

Historian and author Gareth Porter discusses with Pepe Escobar the positioning of Senator Barack Obama relative to the power of the national security establishment in the US; the legacy of JFK; the feasibility of the US refusing to occupy Muslim lands; and what it takes to be elected president of the United States.

Change You Can Believe In... or Honestly, Would I Lie To You?

2008-07-15T19:10:00.001-07:00

In efforts to strengthen his somewhat faltering presidential bid after last weeks shuffle ~~to the center~~ to the right in his reversal of a long held campaign promise with his support for ~~preemptively pardoning~~ retroactively legalizing years of Bush criminal behavior and expanded domestic surveillance at the low, low price of gutting your fourth amendment rights, Barack Obama has made more major position "adjustments" with changes to his campaign website today.

The AP reports about an hour ago: Obama Web site removes 'surge' from Iraq problem

Barack Obama's aides have removed criticism of President Bush's increase of troops to Iraq from the campaign Web site, part of an effort to update the Democrat's written war plan to reflect changing conditions.
...
McCain said Obama is failing to acknowledge success. "Today, we know Sen. Obama was wrong" to oppose the surge, McCain said.

As first reported Tuesday by the New York Daily News, Obama's campaign removed a reference to the surge as part of "The Problem" section on the part of his Web site devoted to laying out his plan for Iraq.

The change was part of many broader changes that Obama spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said were made to reflect current conditions.

Designed to appeal to the ~~center~~ right likely in hopes of drawing voters away from the McCain camp, which he'll need to replace progressive support lost over FISA, Obama takes more steps towards offering another "Bush Third Term" coke or pepsi choice between himself and McCain to voters this year.

The AP article continues...

The change was part of many broader changes that Obama spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said were made to reflect current conditions. She provided the full text of the old site and the updated version, which includes a new section on the recent resurgence of al-Qaida in Afghanistan and another on this year's negotiations over a Status of Forces Agreement that would detail the legal basis for the ongoing presence of U.S. military forces operating in Iraq.

The changes stress that Obama's plan to end the war is responsible and designed to improve national security. They include:

_ An updated Obama quote at the top of the page. The previous quote stressed how Obama had the judgment to oppose the "rash war" from the start. This was a popular message among Democratic voters and was meant to draw distinctions with primary rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, who initially supported the war. The new quote focuses on how ending the war will make Americans safer — a message aimed at general election voters who are more likely to trust McCain on issues of national security, according to polling.

_ A description of Obama's plan as "a responsible, phased withdrawal" that will be directed by military commanders and done in consultation with the Iraqis. Previously, the site had a sentence that has since been removed that flatly said, "Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq." Morigi said that his plan hasn't changed, but they wanted to expand the description. "There's not an intent to shift language," she said.

_ A new sentence that says Obama "would reserve the right to intervene militarily, with our international partners, to suppress potential genocidal violence within Iraq."

Only one of his plan's subheads remains unchanged, the first one — "Judgment You Can Trust." That's a message the campaign wants Americans to embrace.

..................

So, Osama Walks into This Bar, See?

...and ~~Bush~~ Obama says, "Whad'l'ya have, pardner?" and Osama says, "Well, ~~George~~ Barack, what are you serving today?" and ~~Bush~~ Obama says, "Fear," and Osama shouts, "Fear for everybody!" and ~~George~~ Barack pours it on for the crowd. Then the presidential bartender says, "Hey, who's buying?" and Osama points a thumb at the crowd sucking down their brew. "They are," he says. And the two of them share a quiet laugh.

^{Hat Tip to Greg Palast}

CenterShot: The Myth Of The Middle

2008-07-05T02:49:00.000-07:00

Lately there has been a growing and increasingly loudly voiced call from some of the more extreme centrists and from the DLC itself pushing the idea that to win elections - the upcoming 2008 presidential election comes to mind for some strange reason - and gain power Democrats will have to move sharply to the right, and that liberals and progressives are dooming America to successive republican administrations.

Sunday morning, March 11, 2007 in "Where Is America's True Center?" David Sirota wrote that:

The purported proof of such an assertion by Democratic Leadership Council mouthpieces Elaine Kamarck and Bill Galston was this finding:
"In 2004, only 21 percent of voters called themselves liberal, while 34 percent said they were conservative. The rest, 45 percent, characterized themselves as moderate."
The Washington media joined with Kamarck and Galston in billing this as an extraordinary finding that proved once and for all that Democrats must become more "moderate" or "conservative" because so few voters labeled themselves "liberal."

Sirota also went on in the same post to note that:

[C]onservative pundit James Joyner shows exactly what I'm talking about. Responding to a new Gallup poll showing more Americans label themselves conservative rather than liberal, Joyner admits:
"This is especially interesting considering that the public seems to continue to demand liberal policies, opposing even nominal market-based reform of Social Security, continuing to push for the socialization of health care, expecting instant bail-outs for poor financial decisions, and generally wanting more federal spending on a variety of social programs."

Put another way, all that corporate front groups inside the Democratic Party really prove when they cite polls on "liberal" vs. "moderate" vs. "conservative" labeling is how well the right has vilified the term "liberal" and how nebulously appealing and Apple Pie-ish a term like "moderate" is - but they prove nothing about where the public actually is on issues. That the Washington media goes out of its way to ignore this by, for instance, continuing to label as "fringe" antiwar Democrats representing the antiwar position of most Americans is a testament to how powerful the Beltway status-quo-defending propaganda system really is.

So what do the numbers really show us about where the mainstream of America is on the political spectrum? Well, in late 2004 and early 2005 Pew Research conducted an in depth Political Typology study of American society: Beyond Red vs. Blue. It's Principal Findings, among other things, were that:

Coming out of the 2004 election, the American political landscape decidedly favored the Republican Party. The GOP had extensive appeal among a disparate group of voters in the middle of the electorate, drew extraordinary loyalty from its own varied constituencies, and made some inroads among conservative Democrats. These advantages outweighed continued nationwide parity in party affiliation. Looking forward, however, there is no assurance that Republicans will be able to consolidate and build upon these advantages.

Republicans have neither gained nor lost in party identification in 2005. Moreover, divisions within the Republican coalition over economic and domestic issues may loom larger in the future, given the increasing salience of these matters. The Democratic party faces its own formidable challenges, despite the fact that the public sides with them on many key values and policy questions. Their constituencies are more diverse and, while united in opposition to President Bush, the Democrats are fractured by differences over social and personal values.

And as Profiles of the Typology Groups break down, Liberals [Liberal Democrats/Seculars/60's Democrats] comprise the largest group at 17% of General Population and 19% of Registered Voters, followed by Conservative Democrats at 15% of Adult Population and 15% of registered Voters.

Enterprisers [Staunch Conservatives] made up only 9% of Adult Population and 10% Registered Voters, tied with Pro-Government Conservatives on both scores.

Liberals have swelled to become the largest voting bloc in the typology.

And since Pew Research did their study there have been a couple of curious occurrences. Just anomolous blips, obviously. Probably mean very little, if anything. Heh. One was the November 2006 mid-term election rout of the republicans. That was a good indication of a strong rightward shift, no? What the hell could people have been thinking? Didn't they know? Hadn't anyone told them that they were supposed to move to the right? Jesus, just how in the hell are you going to run a proper democracy unless people do what they're told? Things would be so much easier if this were a dictatorship, right George?

George? Well, since the 2006 midterm elections George W. Bush's job approval ratings have continued the same calamitous slide towards falling off the bottom edge of the page. (see Historical Bush Approval Ratings)

Liberal progressives as a group are beating the rest of 'em, hands down.

Sirota concluded with the observation that:

Democrats major problem in recent years has been their willingness to listen to the tired - and inaccurate - rhetoric of people like Kamarck and Galston who have continued to push the party away from America's true center.

And Obama is the guy who is going to get us out of Iraq?

Updated: "Kucinich’s Articles of Impeachment: A Three-Part Guide"

2008-06-27T04:00:00.000-07:00

An "FYI" post. The 35 articles are quite dry and time consuming to read.

Elizabeth de la Vega has done a wonderful job of simplifying them for easier consumption and understanding, and they enumerate all of George Bush's crimes since he took office.

Maybe more people will understand these articles and comprehend the nature of Bush's offenses now, not having to wade through the legalese.

de la vega translates them into plain english that no one has any excuse for not getting, now.

Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment: A Three-Part Guide
By Elizabeth de la Vega
The Public Record
Saturday, June 14, 2008

It is entirely possible to be a reasonably well-informed citizen of the United States and not know that on June 9, 2008, Representative Dennis Kucinich (D. Ohio) took to the floor of the House of Representatives and spent over four hours reading thirty-five Articles of Impeachment against President George W. Bush.

Even worse, it is not merely possible, but likely, that the vast majority of people who have been more than willing to ignore or ridicule those charges have not read them. Or, if they have read them, they have found the allegations and citations so overwhelming they just switch off their minds. Perhaps surprisingly, I understand this phenomenon quite well. I spent many years attempting to present complex and disturbing information to people in the context of criminal indictments and cases. And the truth is that legal documents are confusing to everyone, including lawyers. Much as I hate to admit it, for example, I have never been able to plow through our family will, so for all I know, our very meager estate has been designated by my husband to be held in trust for the care and feeding of ferrets.

But the House Judiciary Committee does not, of course, have the luxury of being so cavalier. For the past seven years, we have watched as evidence of President Bush’s deceit, contempt of Congress and abuse of power has piled up like rank seaweed on a beach. We cannot, in this summer of 2008, simply step around it and pretend it’s not there. There is a constitutional process to follow and we must follow it. If the threat of terrorism is not a reason to disregard the constitution – and it is not – then surely neither is an election.

So I have decided to offer some help, a modest contribution in the one area I know best: the presentation of charges. It’s a Three-Part Guide to the Articles of Impeachment. There is nothing fancy here -- no sarcasm, no vitriol and no cynicism. Part I is a chart that itemizes the Articles of Impeachment with a subheading and a longer description. Part II is also a chart which itemizes U.S. and international laws that are implicated by the charges in the Articles of Impeachment. (Quite properly, not every impeachable offense is based on a specific legal violation.) In Part III I present an opening statement setting forth - just as a prosecutor would do before a trial - what the evidence would show with regard to these allegations.

Forward them around, if you would. At the very least – before we decide to ignore it --we should all clearly and unflinchingly apprehend the nature and scope of this executive misconduct and its consequent human misery and damage to our country.
Part I: http://www.pubrecord.org/docs/vega/kucinich-bush-articles-of-impeachment.pdf
Part II: http://www.pubrecord.org/docs/vega/kucinich-bush-articles-of-impeachment-violations.pdf
[Updated June 27, 2008 4:00 AM PST]
Part III: Opening Statement to the House Judiciary Committee Regarding the Articles of Impeachment

I want to speak to you about the Articles of Impeachment Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced on June 9, 2008. There are, as you know, thirty-five of them and they allege violations of just about as many U.S. and international laws.

When I first sat down to write this statement, I planned to discuss the evidence and the law that relates to some of those violations, just as I would do if I were presenting a case to a jury at the beginning of a trial. But I've decided not to do that. Instead, I am going to follow the wise counsel Abigail Adams gave to her husband John and just speak plainly.

I believe that most of you know what the evidence would show.

You know that the President has admitted violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. You know that the President of the United States has admitted committing a crime, but there has been no consequence.

You know that the President has caused his subordinates and agents to refuse to comply with duly-authorized subpoenas from Congress. It has happened over and over again.

And many of you are lawyers, some former prosecutors and even judges: You know what the law says about criminal responsibility. Under the law of the United States, anyone who "willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another" or who "aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures" the commission of an act is just as culpable as the person who commits the act. That is not some strange legal theory -- it's what your professors would have called "black-letter law."
I'm thinking about this elementary rule of criminal law as I write today -- June 26, 2008. Because I'm listening to some of you question the infamous former Office of Legal Counsel Attorney John Yoo and the Vice-President's lawyer David Addington. And even as you ask tough and often heated questions about secret legal opinions memos and definitions of torture, I have no doubt most of you know that none of this horrific reign of terror on the part of the United States would have occurred if President Bush had not signed a memo on February 7, 2002 declaring that Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners would not be protected by the Geneva Conventions.

I know, in other words, that most of you are well aware that the President is responsible -- factually, legally and as a matter of common sense -- for the torture and abuse of prisoners that has occurred as a result of his authorization.

You also know that the President has himself deceived us and caused others to deceive us about this torture and so many other things: nuclear weapons in Iraq, Iraq and 9/11, the alleged threat from Saddam Hussein, a possible threat from Iran, illegal detentions, nuclear weapons, money, death and injury to our own soldiers, government contracts, the response to Hurricane Katrina, our civil liberties, our voting rights, the cost of Medicare, the firing of U.S. Attorneys, the very air that we breathe.

And throughout nearly eight years of these frauds and machinations, we have heard parsings of White House statements, and arguments about "literal truth" ad nauseum --even though, as most of you know, these legal-sounding discussions were almost entirely beside the point and, of themselves, a sham. The law of fraud is very clear and well-established. It makes no difference whatsoever whether the President did or did not make statements that were literally untrue. Literal truth is only a defense to a perjury charge. It is irrelevant to the crime of fraud which -- reflecting our everyday experience -- prohibits all kinds of deceit: false pretenses, outright lies, representations that are misleading even if they are literally true, deliberate concealment of material information, half-truths, and statements made with reckless indifference to the truth. These are principles that prosecutors advocate to jurors every day as they try to convict people who have used fraud to steal government funds, take families' homes, or deprive the elderly of their life savings.

I believe that most of you -- from both sides of the aisle -- understand and appreciate all too well what the nature and scope of this President's law-breaking, deceit and abuse of power has been. And it is precisely because you know all of these things that you would like nothing better than to just forget about it and move on.

Please do not do that.

Why do I say this? Because the continued success of government in this country, including, of course, the criminal justice system, depends upon a most fundamental and simple precept: No person is above the law. When I first started as a prosecutor, judges would sometimes phrase it more archaically: The law is no respecter of persons. But however it's phrased, this basic premise has never changed. In the United States of America, regardless of a person's station in life or political affiliation, he is entitled to be judged -- and must be judged -- according to the same laws as every one else.

What happens to this fundamental principle if after all these congressional investigations revealing widespread fraud, legal violations and gross misconduct by the President, Congress decides to do nothing?

What happens is that you will have chosen to up-end the bedrock upon which this nation has stood for over two hundred years. You will be telling the world that the 110th Congress has decreed that the President of the United States is not subject to the same laws as every one else. From now on, this radical, if unspoken, about-face will never be far from the minds of prosecutors, defense attorneys, defendants, victims and jurors when they hear a judge declare that a verdict must be rendered in accordance with the law, and without bias or sympathy towards either side. All of us who depend upon the fairness of the criminal justice system -- and upon whom the fairness of that system depends -- will know, in short, that it's rigged.

Now, am I suggesting that every time anyone introduces Articles of Impeachment against the President, Congress is obligated to proceed forward with them? Absolutely not. But it does fall to you -- if you are to fulfill your oaths as defenders of the Constitution -- to consider them carefully in light of the applicable law, just as any responsible prosecutor would do when deciding whether to proceed with an investigation.

If you fail to do this -- if you put this roiling mess on the back burner and walk away from the stove -- you will have made a staggeringly-radical and consequential decision to undermine the Constitution and the criminal justice system. And you will have made this choice without discussion or debate -- without, in fact, doing anything at all. It would be, I'm sorry to say, a shameful display for this Fourth of July, 2008.

-----
Copyright © 2008 Elizabeth de la Vega

Elizabeth de la Vega is a former federal prosecutor with more than 20 years of experience. During her tenure, she was a member of the Organized Crime Strike Force and chief of the San Jose Branch of the US attorney's office for the Northern District of California.

The author of "United States v. George W. Bush et al," she may be contacted at ElizabethdelaVega@Verizon.net or through Speakers Clearinghouse.

Be Afraid. Be very afraid.

2008-06-24T14:33:00.000-07:00

Ever since 9/11 the Bush administration has wanted you to be afraid. Be very afraid. Don't stop to think. Lets give up a little liberty for a little temporary security. Because a horrible thing is coming this way.

Click on cartoon for larger image.

Falsifying Troop Deaths - The Case of Lt. Cmdr. Speicher

2008-06-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

Recently edger has been posting on Dennis Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment against George Bush. Among the articles of impeachment were Article X
FALSIFYING ACCOUNTS OF U.S. TROOP DEATHS AND INJURIES FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES. The two examples provided were Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch. However, an even better example can be provided in the case of Lt. Cmdr Scott Speicher.

It is September 12, 2002, the day after the anniversary of September 11. There is still a lot of sympathy and goodwill towards the US among other countries. Most Americans trust the President. President Bush lays out the case for the UN taking action against Iraq.

In one of the little noticed parts of Bush's speech he made the following claim "In 1991, the U.N. Security Council . . . demanded that Iraq return all prisoners from Kuwait and other lands. Iraq's regime agreed. It broke its promise. . .. One American pilot is among them." The pilot that Bush was referring to was Lt Cmdr (Michael) Scott Speicher who was shot down in Iraq during the first Gulf War. By making this claim Bush used Speicher for propagandistic purposes to push our country into going to war with Iraq.

Like Bush's claims about Saddam's WMDs, the claim that Saddam was holding Lt Cmdr Speicher captive is now generally believed to be false. It was another example of Bush's "fixing the facts around the policy". Bush used Speicher to help sell his war against Saddam. That the Bush administration would do this to a serviceman who gave his life for our country was, in my opinion, one of the most shameful things that the Bush administration has ever done (and this is a long list indeed).

Here is a brief timeline regarding the Speicher case:

Jan 17, 1991 Speicher was shot down over Iraq during the First Gulf War.

May 22, 1991 after reviewing the evidence the Navy Review Board classified Speicher as KIA/BNR - killed in action/body not recovered.

1999 a defector provided by the now discredited Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress claims that Speicher is alive and being held prisoner in Iraq.

Jan 11, 2001 Secretary of the Navy Danzig changed Speicher's classification from KIA/BNR to MIA. Per Scott Ritter, this was "the first time the Pentagon ever made such a reversal".

March 2002 The Washington Times ran five front page articles based on leaks from the DOD that suggested that Speicher was alive and being held by Saddam.

March 2002 According to Wolfowitz there was hard evidence that Speicher was alive. In response to a question regarding Iraq's claim that they were not holding Speicher captive, Rumsfeld responded "I don't believe much the regime puts out."

September 12, 2002 Almost a year to the day from the first anniversary of 9/11 Bush addresses the UN General Assemby asking to "hold Iraq to account." Among Bush's accusations is that Saddam is holding Scott Speicher captive.

October 2002 Congress authorizes the use of force against Saddam.

October 11, 2002 The Navy changes Speicher's status from MIA to missing in action to missing in action/captured despite intelligence agencies admitting that there was "no known physical evidence that Speicher was captured." According to ABC News, Navy officials were pressured to make this change.

January 10, 2003 Reuters and the Washington Times ran stories leaked by the DOD that Speicher is alive and being held captive.

March 20, 2003 The US invades Iraq.

April, 2003 The initials "MSS" are found on a wall in a prison in Iraq. DNA of hair fibers do not match Speichers.

June 24, 2003 In a news conference Rumsfeld admits that "nothing turned up" regarding the whereabouts of Scott Speicher.

July 16, 2003 The Washington Times reports that there are now doubts about the credibility of the defector.

May 25, 2004 According to Newsweek "Though the INC and other (Iraqi) exile groups stoked prewar rumors among U.S. conservatives that Speicher was alive and being held by Saddam's regime in a secret Iraqi prison cell, most U.S. intelligence officials, including senior DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) officials, believe that Speicher probably died years ago. Current and former U.S. intelligence officials say that the DIA concluded shortly after major combat operations ended in Iraq last year that Speicher almost certainly was dead and that prewar reports from exiles and defectors that he was still alive were probably hoaxes."

Please note how this works. The Bush administration spreads the lie about Ltr Cmdr Speicher being held captive. Not coincidently, this lie occurs during a period of time when they were trying to convince the country that we should go to war with Iraq. What better way to make Saddam Hussein into an even greater villain than by claiming that he was secretly holding an American pilot captive from the first Gulf war. The mainstream media assisted the Bush administration by spreading these rumors instead of conducting an investigation to confirm their veracity. Only after the invasion do "doubts" about this story pop up.

Nor was this the first time that an administration has falsified the existence of POWS. According to author H. Bruce Franklin (M.I.A. Mythmaking In America), during the Vietnam war, the Nixon administration and conservative groups manufactured the POW/MIA issue in order to "deflect attention from American atrocities in Vietnam, to undermine the burgeoning anti-war movement, and to stymie the Paris peace talks, resulting in the prolongation of the Vietnam War for another four years." There are still Americans today who believe that Vietnam is holding Americans captive.

Ltr Cmdr Speicher deserved better. When we use servicemen who have given there life for our country for propaganda purposes we dishonor their sacrifice.

I would urge Congressman Kucinich to include the case of Lt. Cmdr Speicher in his articles of impeachment