CNN have it as breaking news.

Posted by: Colman | Feb 16 2005 14:02 utc | 4

Link. Apparently a fuel tank fell from an Iranian plane.

Posted by: beq | Feb 16 2005 14:41 utc | 6

Killer robots.
One of the military robots is called “hunter-seeker” like the assassin robots in Dune, I assume. Scientists who create such things are insidious scumbags. Just as horrifying is the way these technologies will further remove on already stultified American public from murder in pursuit of empire.
I’m going to see Donna Haraway speak. I’ll ask her about these nifty war toys.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 16 2005 16:01 utc | 8

That’s not the work of insidious scumbags, that’s the work of liars and lunatics. 30 years for a robot that “thinks like a soldier”?
Bollox. Straight-forward corporate welfare, nothing else. Won’t work, can’t work. We can’t make them move, we can’t make them think, we can’t afford them, and when the “bad guys” start catching them and turning them against us what do we say?

Posted by: Colman | Feb 16 2005 16:31 utc | 10

Have you read a very strange article in Asia Times on line, some days ago, about Americans arming iraqi militias with pakistani weapons?
You can combine it with this post:

Across the country, U.S. military officers are noticing the rise of “pop-ups”–that is, off-the-books military units with a nebulous relationship to the new Iraqi army or defense ministry. It’s a delicate situation for U.S. forces. “We don’t call them militias,” Major Chris Wales, who tracks the pop-ups for Lieutenant General David Petraeus, diplomatically explained to Jaffe. “Militias are … illegal.”

Posted by: Greco | Feb 16 2005 16:43 utc | 12

Two for the history books. Secret laws, secret justice, and devout nationalistic vindictiveness — what a [Molotov] cocktail!
‘Rendition’ Case Takes a New Twist
The U.S. Department of Justice may make legal history in seeking to dismiss a lawsuit on behalf of a U.S. citizen being held in Saudi Arabia without publicly disclosing its reasons, citing an “extraordinarily high” government interest in protecting national security issues in the case. …
First They Came for Lynne Stewart …
By Marjorie Cohn

Posted by: JMF | Feb 16 2005 17:53 utc | 14

Wow, a robot that thinks like a soldier: “When do I get to sleep, and are there any more cigarettes around here?”
no, I think what they really wanted were soldiers who think like robots (i.e. don’t think at all, merely follow programming) — and failing that (the pesky humans keep running amuck or committing suicide or telling their stories to the press), they now want to build war robots instead of trying to turn humans into robots.
they’ll probably use WinDoze based software due to corporate pressure, so it should be safe enough. the damn things will crash every day or two in the field, and while they’re sitting there in BSoD mode, the guerrillas will chop them up for parts.

Posted by: DeAnander | Feb 16 2005 18:44 utc | 16

War robots are an illusion built on the idea of winning in man-to-man combat, being efficient and invincible, like in computer games. Bio warfare and nukes are supposed to the job. Direct engagement is finished since Dresden (say.)

Posted by: Blackie | Feb 16 2005 19:17 utc | 18

More on the latest US-manipulated twists in the Middle East:
Iran and Syria form ‘common front’
Iran and Syria, both locked in rows with the United States, said today that they would form a common front to face challenges and threats.
A high level meeting between the two countries concluded with Iranian vice-president, Mohammad Reza Aref, telling a press conference that the Islamic republic was “ready to help Syria on all grounds to confront threats”.
The Syrian prime minister, Naji al-Otari, said it was a necessary alliance because both countries faced “several challenges”.
Jitteriness in the region was exacerbated today when Iranian state television initially blamed reports of an explosion near the Bushehr nuclear power plant on an unidentified aircraft firing a missile.
The Iranian media has been full of stories of unidentified flying objects in recent weeks, and Tehran accused the US today of flying unmanned spy planes over the country in a search for evidence of what Washington calls Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Iran insists it is only developing a civilian nuclear programme to meet its energy needs.
Claims from the Iranian intelligence minister, Ali Yunesi, that “most of the shining objects that our people see in Iran’s airspace are American spying equipment” chimed with a report in the Washington Post that the drones have been flying over Iran for nearly a year. …

Posted by: JMF | Feb 16 2005 20:26 utc | 20

Kudlow & Company, CNBC, 14 Feb (no link found, though transcripts are for sale at http://cnbc.burrelles.com/)

RALPH PETERS: And what we’ve got is the best result we could have realistically hoped for. The coalition party backed by the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani got just under 50 percent, perfect number. Any more than that, they would have had too much power; any less and the Shia in the streets would have said, `Oh, fraud.’
[…]
KUDLOW: Well, Rowan Scarborough, let’s take Ralph Peters’ spot. I mean, I happen to lean in his direction. I agree. Lookit, again, if you read The Times, there’s these razor-thin majorities, and parliament’s going to sit around dickering and won’t get anything done. Having said that, it may well be checks and balances and coalition politics in a liberal secular state is exactly the outcome we got, which is exactly the outcome we wanted.
ROWAN SCARBOROUGH (Washington Times Pentagon Reporter): Exactly, Larry. The beauty here is the two-thirds requirement that was worked into the rules for how this new Assembly will operate. A simple majority doesn’t do it. The Shiites have a simple majority; they have about 140 seats. But to get anything done, they need two-thirds of a vote to name a prime minister and to approve a constitution to send to the voters. That means they have to pull the Kurds in, and they have to pull some Sunnis in, and that’s what democracy is all about: coalition-building. So to me–I agree with Ralph–this was probably the best outcome we could have gotten at this time.

Sooo… for other countries, the neocons desire a liberal, secular democracy, with checks and balances, and coalition-building. For America, one-party brook-no-compromise ultra-secretive christo-fascism.
Plus, amazing how all the elections these guys administer keep coming out just perfectly.
Meanwhile: Bush screws veterans, Part 37

New York Times, February 16, 2005
Senators Question Adequacy Of Bush Budget For Veterans
By Robert Pear
WASHINGTON, Feb. 15 – Senators of both parties said on Tuesday that President Bush’s budget for veterans’ health care would not provide enough money to maintain services at current levels, much less care for thousands of veterans streaming back to the United States from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Five veterans groups, including the American Legion, denounced a proposal in Mr. Bush’s budget that would double the co-payment charged to many veterans for prescription drugs and require some to pay a new fee of $250 a year for the privilege of using government health care.
Senator Larry E. Craig, Republican of Idaho, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, said the Department of Veterans Affairs would need more than the $30.7 billion for medical care in Mr. Bush’s budget just “to maintain current levels of service” in 2006.
Mr. Craig said at a committee hearing that the White House was seeking an increase of less than one-half of 1 percent in the appropriation for veterans’ medical care. He also noted that the administration wanted to save $606 million by restricting eligibility for nursing home care.
Senator Daniel K. Akaka of Hawaii, the senior Democrat on the committee, said a goal of the proposed fees and co-payments was to make it “prohibitively expensive” for some people to use V.A. clinics and hospitals, which are widely respected for quality of care. The new charges, Mr. Akaka said, would lead more than 192,000 people to drop out of the veterans health care system.
Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, said, “Serving veterans is part of the cost of war, but there’s not one dime for veterans” in the $81.9 billion request that Mr. Bush sent Congress on Monday to cover the costs of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
…Dennis M. Cullinan, legislative director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, told Congress…”These cuts, at a time when demand for V.A. long-term care services is on the rise with a rapidly aging veteran population, are unconscionable and reprehensible.”
…Mr. Bush would increase the co-payment for a month’s supply of a prescription drug to $15, from $7… Peter S. Gaytan, director of health care and benefits at the American Legion, told Congress that the Bush administration was trying to “balance the V.A. budget on the backs of America’s veterans.”
…Dr. Jonathan B. Perlin, acting under secretary of veterans affairs, said the medical staff of the department would be reduced by 3,700 employees under the president’s budget. About 194,000 employees now provide medical care.
Senator James M. Jeffords, independent of Vermont, said the priorities in the president’s budget did not match the needs. The budget, Mr. Jeffords said, would require cuts in some veterans’ programs, but “does not reduce expensive tax cuts given to the richest segment of society.”

Posted by: OkieByAccident | Feb 16 2005 21:05 utc | 22

Apparently, Tom Frank forgot that Bush himself once said that if he were an Iraqi, he may well end up in the resistance. The kind of declaration you don’t see the right-wing mention too often.

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Feb 17 2005 1:52 utc | 24

@Groucho, it’s interesting that someone living on the Olin money (Olin and Scaife are two of the biggest donors to the wingnut think tanks) is expressing this dissident point of view. Wonder if Roberts’ Fellowship will be renewed next year 🙂

Posted by: DeAnander | Feb 17 2005 4:57 utc | 26

Clearly Roberts is trying to differentiate himself from the neo-fascists. Wonder if he’s now out of their earshot. Impressive that he even defended Churchill.
@De-, did you miss this astonishing art. he wrote & posted @Counterpunch the other day? Mindblowing that former WSJ ed. page editor now is posted @Counterpunch, while the Goldwater-right folks on domestic policy -Atrios, kos, et. al – would run from this. Since we seem to be posting him on this thread, this deserves a full post as well.
“Americans are being sold out on the jobs front. Americans’ employment opportunities are declining as a result of corporate outsourcing of US jobs, H-1B visas that import foreigners to displace Americans in their own country, and federal guest worker programs
President Bush and his Republican majority intend to legalize the aliens who hold down wages for construction companies and cleaning services. In order to stretch budgets, state and local governments bring in lower paid foreign nurses and school teachers. To reduce costs, US corporations outsource jobs abroad and use work visa programs to import foreign engineers and programmers. The American job give away is explained by a “shortage” of Americans to take the jobs.
There are not too many Americans willing to accept the pay and working conditions of migrant farm workers. However, the US is bursting at the seams with unemployed computer engineers and well-educated professionals who are displaced by outsourcing and H-1B visas. During Bush’s entire first term, there was a net loss of American private sector jobs. Today there are 760,000 fewer private sector jobs in the US economy than when Bush was first inaugurated in January 2001.
For years the hallmark of the European economy was its inability to create any jobs other than government jobs. America has caught up with Europe. During Bush’s first term, state and local government created 879,000 new government jobs. Offsetting these government jobs against the net loss in private sector jobs gives Bush a four-year jobs growth of 119,000 government jobs. Comparing this pathetic result to normal performance produces a shortage of 8 million US jobs. What happened to these jobs?
Over these same four years the composition of US jobs has changed from higher-paid manufacturing and information technology jobs to lower-paid domestic services. Why?
During this extraordinary breakdown in the American employment machine, politicians, government officials, corporate spokespersons, and “free trade” economists gave assurances that America was benefitting greatly from the work visa programs and outsourcing.
The mindless chatter continues. Just the other day Ambassador David Gross, US Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy in the State Department, declared outsourcing to be an economic efficiency that works to America’s benefit. There is no sign of this alleged benefit in US jobs statistics or the US balance of trade.
Repeatedly and incorrectly, US corporations state that outsourcing creates more US jobs. They even convinced a New York Times columnist that this was the case.
The problem is, no one can identify where the US jobs are that outsourcing allegedly creates. They are certainly not to be found in the BLS jobs statistics. However, the Indian and Chinese jobs created by US outsourcing are highly visible.
On February 13, the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News reported that jobs outsourcing is transforming Indian “cities like Bangalore from sleepy little backwaters into the New York Cities of Asia.” In a very short period outsourcing has helped to raise India from one of the world’s poorest countries to its seventh largest economy.
Outsourcing proponents claim that US job loss is being exaggerated, that outsourcing is really just a small thing involving a few call centers. If that is the case, how is it transforming sleepy Indian cities into “the New York Cities of Asia”? If outsourcing is no big deal, why are Bangalore hotel rooms “packed with foreigners paying rates higher than in Tokyo or London,” as the Dayton Daily News reports?
If outsourcing is of no real consequence, why are American lawyers or their clients paying $2,900 in fees plus hotel and travel expenses and two days’ billings to attend the Fourth National Conference on Outsourcing in Financial Services in Washington DC (April 20-21)?
On the jobs front, as on the war front, the social security front and every other front, Americans are not being given the truth. Americans’ news comes from people allied with the Bush administration or dependent on revenues from corporate advertisers. Displease the government or advertisers and your media empire is in trouble. The news most Americans get is filtered. It is the permitted news. Many “free trade” advocates also are dependent on the corporate money that funds their salaries, research and think tanks.
Another clear indication that outsourcing of US jobs is no small thing comes from the reported earnings of the leading Indian corporations that provide American firms with outsourced IT employees and engineers. During the recent quarter, Ifosys’ revenues increased by 53%, TCS grew by 38%, and Wipro was up 34%.
On January 1, 2001, Cincinnati-based Convergys Corp had one Indian employee. Today it has 10,000. Why? Because it can hire Indian university graduates for $240 a month, a sum that is a small fraction of the US poverty level income.
Many Americans think that an outsourced job is an existing job that is moved offshore. But many outsourced jobs are created offshore in the first place. On February 11, USA Today told the story of OfficeTiger, “the sort of young technology company that once created thousands of high-paying jobs in the USA, fueling sizzling economic growth.” The five-year old startup business employs 200 Americans and ten times that number of Indians. The company has plans for hiring many more Indians to perform “tech-heavy financial services.”
Under pressure from venture capitalists who fund new companies, American startup firms are starting up abroad. Thus, the new ventures, which “free trade” economists assured us would create new jobs to take the place of the ones moved offshore by mature firms, are in fact creating jobs for foreigners.
As a consequence, tech jobs in the US are falling as a percentage of the total. Clearly, tax breaks for venture capitalists are self-defeating when the result is to create jobs for foreigners, not for Americans. Why should the American taxpayer subsidize employment in India and China?
These developments have obvious adverse implications for engineering and professional education in America. The BLS jobs forecast for the next ten years says the vast majority of US jobs will not require a college education. University enrollments will decline and so will the production of PhDs as fewer professors are needed.
As India and China rise to first world status, the US falls to third world status where the only jobs are in domestic services.
This has enormous implications for the US balance of payments. Americans’ consumption of manufactured goods is heavily dependent on foreign manufacture, whether that of foreign firms or that of US multinational firms that supply their American customers from offshore. How does an economy in which employment growth is concentrated in nontradable domestic services pay for its imports with exports?
Since 1990 the US has been paying for its imports by giving foreigners ownership of its assets. In the last 15 years foreigners have accumulated $3.6 trillion of America’s wealth.
America has been able to pay for its consumption by giving up its wealth because the dollar is the world’s reserve currency. As America’s high-tech and manufacturing capabilities decline and its red ink rises, the dollar’s role as reserve currency must end.
When the dollar loses its reserve currency role, America will not be able to pay for the imports on which it has become dependent. Shopping in Wal-Mart will be like shopping at Neiman Marcus.
Until recent years, US companies employed Americans to produce the goods that Americans consumed. Employment supported sales, and sales supported employment. No more. By their shortsighted policy of moving US jobs abroad, our corporations are destroying their American markets.
Economists give assurances that the dollar’s decline and fall will bring jobs and industry back to the US. Once Americans are as poor as Indians and Chinese are today, the process will reverse. Multinational corporations will locate in America to take advantage of cheap labor and unserved markets. By becoming poor, the US can become rich again.
You might want to ask the economists and our “leaders” in Washington why we should put ourselves and our descendants through such a wrenching process.”

Posted by: jj | Feb 17 2005 5:19 utc | 28

Qur’ans, at Forty Paces, at Dawn
Koranic duels ease terror
James Brandon (who was kidnapped in Iraq
last year and managed to escape ), reports on the remarkable success of an innovative approach to combatting terrorism in Yemen, once a hotbed of terrorist activity and extremism. Judge Hamoud al-Hitar and other Islamic scholars took on al-Qaeda prisoners in a theological smackdown with a premise that Western experts considered “dangerously naive.”
“If you can convince us that your ideas are justified by the Koran, then we will join you in your struggle,” Hitar told the militants. “But if we succeed in convincing you of our ideas, then you must agree to renounce violence.”
And guess what? It turns out that instead of incarcerating and beating and torturing and killing militants, treating them like human beings and engaging them spiritually and intellectually works a whole hell of a lot better. It turns out that
“Three hundred and sixty-four young men have been released after going through the dialogues and none of these have left Yemen to fight anywhere else.”
It’s not the only thing the government of Yemen is doing to fight terrorism; Brandon points out that the government is also shutting down extremist madrassahs and deporting foreign militants. But I am sure it’s by far the most effective, since simply shutting things down and moving people around changes little in terms of the hearts and minds of people. People whose hearts and minds have been thoroughly changed, though, influence others, spread awareness and act differently in the world.
Talk about a field of honour. Talk about a way to win a war of ideas.
Found here

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 17 2005 7:10 utc | 30

And the ‘Daily Show’ Stephen Colbert on attack bloggers video

“They have no credibility, all the have is facts.”

Posted by: b | Feb 17 2005 9:08 utc | 32

Bush names Negroponte intelligence chief

President Bush on Thursday nominated John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, as the nation’s first director of national intelligence.
“The director’s responsibility is straightforward and demanding,” Bush said in his announcement.
“John will make sure those whose duty it is to defend America have the information we need to make the right decisions.”
Negroponte, 65, has been the top U.S. diplomat in Iraq since June.
He was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2001 to 2004.
Bush also announced that he had chosen Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, director of the National Security Agency, as Negroponte’s deputy.

After he screwed up the Iraq election (Where is Allawi?) he now promisses to fulfill his new job just as excellent as the stint in Honduras.
Wikipedia

Posted by: b | Feb 17 2005 15:53 utc | 34

b, sorry for the double post – somehow it didn’t register in my brain that your post was about Negroponte too.

Posted by: Fran | Feb 17 2005 16:48 utc | 36

wal-mart & hate literature. i’m still waiting for the company to change it’s color scheme from blue to red…

Posted by: b real | Feb 17 2005 19:43 utc | 38

richard heinberg reviews jared diamond’s new book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Posted by: b real | Feb 17 2005 19:53 utc | 40

Oh thanks, b real, that’s the most depressing link I’ve seen even around here, and that’s saying a lot.

Posted by: Colman | Feb 17 2005 20:28 utc | 42

@Citizen – that’s not Guckert – the picture was plausible debunked in on of the Kos threads

Posted by: b | Feb 17 2005 21:18 utc | 44

b real, I’d like to second Colman’s comment. Good link – and scary. So, it’s back to some sort of escapist pleasure for me.
In one blog discussion, I met a right-winger who used to mock collapse scenarios with “The sky if falling, the sky is falling!” – implying that nothing of the sort would happen, and that it was just the usual hysteria of ‘the left’. It’s so tempting to believe that – to simply switch off all willingness to think critically. The scenario is almost too enormous to approach it without blinkers.

Posted by: teuton | Feb 17 2005 21:22 utc | 46

let me recommend richard heinberg’s book, powerdown: options and actions for a post-carbon world, again. clear, informative discussion that outlines four general options for facing the oncoming train.

Posted by: b real | Feb 17 2005 23:08 utc | 48

W will tell you what you can and cannot teach…

PROGRESS REPORT – Conservatives in the Ohio State Senate are considering a bill that would prohibit public and private college professors from introducing “controversial matter” into the classroom and shift oversight of college course content to state governments and courts. The language of the bill comes from right-wing activist David Horowitz’s “Academic Bill of Rights,” which recommends states adopt rules to “restrict what university professors could say in their classrooms” and halt liberal “pollution” on campus. The bill is both redundant and misleading — most colleges already have rules ensuring free expression (political and otherwise) and Horowitz and his supporters have been able to offer scant evidence of widespread political bullying. Nevertheless, a variation of the bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives and has made inroads in six states.[more]

that Horowitz guy, he sure gets around. “liberal pollution” eh? here comes that meme of Purity and Taint again…

Posted by: DeAnander | Feb 18 2005 1:56 utc | 50

@DM I dunno whether this was the point you were making but read recently over in tin foil hat land something that gave me a chuckle: Why are they wasting time dismantling the Madrid skyscraper? They should get a plane and crash into it. I am 100% sure that the building will fall exactly on its footprint. After 911 demolition services were rendered obsolete. The crashing plane technique is fast and cheap. Heck! Spain can tack on a terrorist attack story if they wanted to.
I’m not content with the official story on the WTC, though not sure which of the competing alt theories (if any) I find believable. iirc at least two tall skyscrapers have burnt to their frames since then w/o collapse of the steel armature.
BTW the MSM has finally caught up with the story of the very thoughtful and deliberate destruction of the ATC interview tapes. gee, how many months ago did I know about this? seems like pretty old, moldy “news”.
dum-dee-dumber-and-dumber…
I’m beginning to understand the motives of the 60’s dissidents who wanted to “tune in and drop out.” perhaps they were Confucians: when the Emperor is wicked, it is time to become a hermit. I read recently that the practise of hermitage by Chinese intellectuals who disagree with their Gummint has never ended, and that the peasants still hide and protect them…

Posted by: DeAnander | Feb 18 2005 2:13 utc | 52

Iran Calls Blast Scare U.S. ‘Psychological Warfare’
Iran said on Thursday a brief worldwide scare over a blast near its only nuclear reactor was engineered by Washington as part of “psychological warfare” against Tehran and its nuclear program.

Psywar keeps Tehran on tenterhooks
The psywar is being waged at two levels – the political and the paramilitary. The political psywar, which is democracy-centric, is directed at the Iranian people and is being waged through Iranian dissidents in the US and elsewhere. It aims to keep alive and aggravate the divide between the reformists and the fundamentalist clerics and the liberals and the conservatives in Iranian civil society. It also seeks to exploit the already existing pockets of alienation inside Iran – and create more. The flow of US funds and sophisticated means of propaganda mounted from California and Iraq play an important role in this.
The paramilitary (covert) psywar, which is nuclear-centric, seeks to convey a message not only to Tehran, but also to Moscow, about the consequences of Iran pressing ahead on the nuclear path in disregard of the concerns of the US, other Western countries and Israel. This psywar is being waged from bases in Iraq and Pakistan. Its purpose is to create fear in the minds of Tehran and Moscow about the inevitability of US paramilitary action against Iran’s nuclear establishments if they do not see reason and give up their present obduracy. The actions mounted by the US also seek to demonstrate its capability for paramilitary action, if it decides to act.
It is in this context that one has to view the reported mysterious blast at Dailam, which is in Bushehr province. The location of the blast is about 150 kilometers from the site where the Russians are constructing the nuclear-power stations.
…
Officials at the Russian Embassy in Tehran and at the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy in Moscow – which is overseeing construction at the Bushehr nuclear plant – reportedly told CNN in a phone interview that there had been no explosion at the plant area itself.
Given the normal lack of transparency in Tehran, one may never know what really happened, but it is quite possible that the explosion was the result of a US air-mounted paramilitary (covert) operation meant to demonstrate the United States’ ability to carry out such an operation without being detected and prevented by the Iranians, and at the same time convey a message to Tehran and Moscow of the seriousness of US concerns over the nuclear issue and its determination to put an end to Iran’s clandestine nuclear plans.
By carrying out the strike in the same province in which the Russians are constructing the nuclear power stations, but away from the construction site, the Americans could have sought to convey their message without creating any international controversy due to human casualties and other damage.

Posted by: b real | Feb 18 2005 4:27 utc | 54

@DeAnander
Unless my brains are completely scrambled, wtc7 is just not possible. I have been bashing my head against the wall for a couple of years now trying to figure this out, so scrambled brains are not beyond the realms of possibility.
I’m looking for some explanation for wtc7. If wtc7 is not possible, then what is?
I think my brain still works:- my programs still compile and I can figure out Zeno’s paradoxes – but I can’t figure out how wtc7 fell due to fire (no plane involved).
It would be nice to have the help of a structural engineer and a public independent enquiry (in case some other NY building catches fire).
In the absence of any explanation, there is a way around all the alternate theories to arrive at something that is at least plausible. Not an easy path through all the murk and disinformation, and not something that can be rehashed and discussed on MoA even if your tin-foil hat is in good working order.

Posted by: DM | Feb 18 2005 9:23 utc | 56

An interesting op-ed form an Iraqi oil-worker union leader Leave our country now

Bush and Blair should remember that those who voted in last month’s elections in Iraq are as hostile to the occupation as those who boycotted them. Those who claim to represent the Iraqi working class while calling for the occupation to stay a bit longer, due to “fears of civil war”, are in fact speaking only for themselves and the minority of Iraqis whose interests are dependent on the occupation.
We as a union call for the withdrawal of foreign occupation forces and their military bases. We don’t want a timetable – this is a stalling tactic. We will solve our own problems. We are Iraqis, we know our country and we can take care of ourselves. We have the means, the skills and resources to rebuild and create our own democratic society.

Posted by: b | Feb 18 2005 11:32 utc | 58

B: Yaalon has been summarily fired by Mofaz a few days ago. I suppose he was too “soft on terrorism” for his (and Sharon’s) taste.

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Feb 18 2005 14:23 utc | 60

Pardon if this was posted before but isn’t privatization grand?

“The Pentagon is falling short on efforts to keep elite special forces units at full strength and now is fighting back dollar by dollar, offering up to $150,000 bonuses to commandos to keep high-paying private security firms from cherry-picking the teams.”

How many ways does war just suck?

Posted by: beq | Feb 18 2005 16:25 utc | 62

@b real – me too. (though it doesn’t say beq) 😉

Posted by: beq | Feb 18 2005 16:47 utc | 64

About the Intelligence Chief post, this AP atrticle seems typical:

Yet, intelligence veterans remain concerned about whether the director will wield enough power to lead government elements that handle everything from recruiting spies to eavesdropping to steering satellites.
Some say the authorities of the intelligence chief are too ambiguous as established in the legislation. The position was also excluded from the Cabinet to shield it from politics, requiring Negroponte to work directly with more senior personalities such as Rumsfeld.
According to one informed administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, former CIA Director Robert Gates was the White House’s first choice, but he and other candidates declined the post over concerns about the job’s authority.

An unlovely job for Negroponte, but better than the Green Zone.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 18 2005 17:15 utc | 66

Interesting, especially if it turns out these Australians have actually been involved in the Hariri explosion. I guess then the fingers will also point towards the US.
Middle East: 12 Australians wanted over Hariri’s murder

[Middle East News]: Lebanon’s Justice Minister Adnan Addoum said on Friday that authorities were hunting for twelve Australian men wanted over the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri.
Addum said that six of the suspects left Beirut for Australia hours after Monday’s deadly blast, adding that police found traces of explosives on aircraft seats.
Hariri was killed in a huge explosion in Beirut which also claimed the lives of additional 16 people.

Posted by: Fran | Feb 18 2005 19:58 utc | 68

Riverbend.

Posted by: beq | Feb 18 2005 20:20 utc | 70

@Fran, remember those stories about Mossad agents getting caught in New Zealand/Aus. stealing passports/identities? Could this be an example of why?

Posted by: jj | Feb 18 2005 20:51 utc | 72