“Wow! Brazil is big”
Classic!

Posted by: DM | Nov 7 2005 8:57 utc | 3

apocalypse now?
Bush Borrowed More Than All Previous Presidents Combined, Group Says
By Melanie Hunter
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
November 04, 2005
(CNSNews.com) – President Bush and the current administration have borrowed more money from foreign governments and banks than the previous 42 presidents combined, a group of conservative to moderate Democrats said Friday.
Blue Dog Coalition, which describes itself as a group “focused on fiscal responsibility,” called the administration’s borrowing practices “astounding.”
According to the Treasury Department, from 1776-2000, the first 224 years of U.S. history, 42 U.S. presidents borrowed a combined $1.01 trillion from foreign governments and financial institutions, but in the past four years alone, the Bush administration borrowed $1.05 trillion.
“The seriousness of this rapid and increasing financial vulnerability of our country can hardly be overstated,” said Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.), a leader of the Blue Dog Coalition and member of the House Ways and Means Committee.
“The financial mismanagement of our country by the Bush Administration should be of concern to all Americans, regardless of political persuasion,” said Tanner in a press release.
Earlier this year, the Blue Dog Coalition unveiled a 12-step plan to “cure” the nation’s “addiction to deficit spending.” It included requiring all federal agencies to pass clean audits, a balanced budget, and the establishment of a rainy day fund for use in emergencies specifically a natural disaster.
“No American political leadership has ever willfully and deliberately mortgaged our country to foreign interests in the manner we have witnessed over the past four years,” said Tanner. “If this recklessness is not stopped, I truly believe our economic freedom as American citizens is in great jeopardy.”

Posted by: anna missed | Nov 7 2005 10:08 utc | 5

Meanwhile, in that other success story:
Baghdad’s mortuary reels under the weight of killings

Posted by: GM | Nov 7 2005 11:14 utc | 7

Montana Gov: Are we going to allow the military to do an end-run coup on civilian government?
Snip:
Several governors are fuming over a Bush administration suggestion that the active military take a greater role in disaster response, calling it an attempt to usurp state authority over National Guard units.
Snip:
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, among the harshest critics, said the issue promises to be a major topic at the Western Governors Association meeting in Phoenix next week.
I have to say, I’m watching this guy w/a skeptical eye, particularly because he is our states gob-ner, but more, his outsider rhetoric has drawn interesting attention of late. Both at daliykgb, er I mean kos, and in other circles.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 7 2005 11:54 utc | 9

Re February 2006: Gulf of Tonkin II
So, in our Orwellian ‘Bush League’ world, deploying sea-mines within your own national sovereign territory is now somehow an aggressive act ?
Yep, Poland did attack us !
We have 13 Attack Carriers, operating in five Carrier FLEETS patrolling the worlds oceans. And since the Soviet Union and its Navy no longer exists … simply the modern US form of blatant Gunboat Diplomacy, coercion politics in support of empire … the whole premise of such drivel is infuriatingly inhuman, and phenomenally expensive for our economy. $900M in ’93 dollars to simply ‘retire’ a carrier alone … whilst 37 million Americans live in abject poverty (more detailed info and background re carriers at the FAS).
Why do we effectively maintain at least one attack carrier fleet permanently on station in the Persian Gulf ( Gulf of Oman and the Straits of Hormuz) ?
Oh, it’s to ensure the free flow of that lifeblood of our corporate capital system … oil.
Attack carrier fleets and the accompanying integral Marine Expeditionary Forces make for such excellent means of force projection, mobile sovereign territory, without the inconvenience of treaties, status of forces agreements, inconvenient foreign bases, fewer protests/demonstrators, …

Posted by: Outraged | Nov 7 2005 13:13 utc | 11

U.S. DISCUSSES INVASION OF SAUDI ARABIA ?
The response could include the deployment of three U.S. Army divisions backed by fighter-jets and airborne early-warning and alert aircraft. In all, the U.S.-led mission could include up to 300,000 troops.
300,000 troops? From where???

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 7 2005 13:51 utc | 13

The bedside reading material our ‘leaders’ have recently requested (Policy, Military, Intelligence agencies)… the first topic subject is, in and of itself, enlightening …
From the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S Army War College (PDFs):

Democratization Vs. Liberalization in the Arab World: Dilemmas and Challenges for U.S. Foreign Policy
Liberalized autocracy is a system of rule allowing for a measure of political openness and competition in the electoral, party, and press arenas, while ensuring that power rests in the hands of ruling regimes. While the United States supports such hybrid systems, whether the gap between words and deeds should or can be closed or narrowed is a complex question, since a sudden move from state-managed liberalization to democracy could open the door to Islamist power.
Published Jul 2005, Authored by Dr. Daniel Brumberg
Tribal Alliances: Ways, Means, and ends to Successful Strategy
National Security and National Military Strategy to be successful must utilize all elements and tools of power at its disposal. Recognition of the potential value of tribal organizations, particularly in the “arc of instability stretching from the Western Hemisphere, through Africa and the Middle East and extending to Asia” is a must to enhance successful peace and stability operations.
Published Aug 2005, Authored by Richard L Taylor.
After Two Wars: Reflections on the American Strategic Revolution in Central Asia
U.S. military access to Central Asia and the Caucasus is a long-standing fact, but it is desirable as well for the future. The author explains why it is necessary, and how we might ensure that we retain this access to confront future contingencies.
Published Jul 2005, Authored by Dr. Stephen J. Blank
Appeasement Reconsidered: Investigating the Mythology of the 1930s
Anglo-French appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s has generated a mythology that ignores much of the actual political-military situation at the time and that continues to mislead U.S. foreign policy today.
Published Aug 2005, Authored by Dr. Jeffrey Record
Reshaping the Expeditionary Army to Win Decisively: The
Case for Greater Stabilization capacity in the Modular Force
The author makes the case that U.S. strategy demands the U.S. Armed Forces build a force with greater capacity for conducting stabilization operations concurrent with combat operation. He traces the strategic roots of the stabilization requirement, develops a war-fighting concept for “progressive stabilization,” and makes judgments on whether the Army’s current Modular Force effort will generate the right type of force. He concludes by making some recommendations on where the Army should adjust its current modernization effort to make the force more relevant.
Published Aug 2005, Authored by Colonel Bryan G Watson

Posted by: Outraged | Nov 7 2005 14:38 utc | 15

Armando at DailyKos agrees with Bush that:

President Bush, in tough remarks aimed at Venezuela’s leftist president, Hugo Chavez, called on Latin America today to choose between two competing futures – an American-supported “vision of hope” and another that “seeks to roll back the democratic progress of the past two decades.” Such a democratic retrenchment, the president said, would be “playing to fear, pitting neighbor against neighbor, and blaming others for their own failures to provide for their people.”

How is this website any different than any reactionary conservative, lie spewing website now? Who is this Armando guy? Who are these idiots who clamor to post their reactionary, uninformed, knee-jerk comments? I can’t believe that three years ago I considered the DK to be an important read.
I have always been suspicious of Central Americans who are complicit with, or have no problem with, or seem to be completely unaware of the US governments history of subjugation of their people to corporate interests, from the Sedley Butler days, to the Reagan “freedom fighter” massacres, to the present day. How can such thinking even begin to be considered an alternative? Today Central America is being torn up with gold mines–with many being dislocated–and other environmental atrocities, in order to pay back World Bank mafia loans.

Posted by: Malooga | Nov 7 2005 16:20 utc | 17

@Malooga
The unclassified history of COINTELPRO and OPs such as Mockingbird et al are not paperback fictions … sadly we do not live in a ‘comfortable’ world, filled with light … there are many dark corners …
Think of the planted ‘journalist’ Jeff Gannon, Judith miller, the ‘manufactured’ yet unattributed story segments offered to the corporate media.
Certain topics are banned at DKOS, arbitrary moderation (censorship ?) of others, and then those that question the independence/agenda of certain high profile posters.
Consider how the MSM was manipulated/compliant leading up to the war in Iraq ?
It’s truly amazing the number of Kool-Aid wingnuts that saturate Latin American threads out of all proportion re the situ … then again we have generations of indoctrinated proxies, agents provocateur, operatives, agents of influence left over let alone any new recruits to empires cause.
Just look at the extensive anti-castro lads who we still wholeheartedly support after four decades of economic blockade of Cuba …

Posted by: Outraged | Nov 7 2005 17:01 utc | 19

Raw Source, declassified material from the National Security Archive, some may find sections of it is very difficult reading indeed … lest we forget:

October 16, 2005
Paramilitaries as Proxies
Declassified evidence on the Colombian army’s anti-guerrilla “allies”
Other relevant Archive Projects
Chile | Colombia | Cuba | Guatemala | Honduras |

Posted by: Outraged | Nov 7 2005 17:13 utc | 21

DKos: unbelievable. Panic at the mere whiff of property destruction. The GOP should send out black-ops SUV-torchers. That should secure the regime for the next – ooh – thousand years?

Posted by: Tantalus | Nov 7 2005 17:38 utc | 23

tho there is some good news, no – french radio – sd that the peruvian puppet fujimori has been arrested in chile

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 7 2005 17:44 utc | 25

Anything to this: fuel’s paradise or just another cold fusion fairy tale?

It seems too good to be true: a new source of near-limitless power that costs virtually nothing, uses tiny amounts of water as its fuel and produces next to no waste. If that does not sound radical enough, how about this: the principle behind the source turns modern physics on its head.
—
According to Prof Maas, the first product built with Blacklight’s technology, which will be available in as little as four years, will be a household heater. As the technology is scaled up, he says, bigger furnaces will be able to boil water and turn turbines to produce electricity.
In a recent economic forecast, Prof Maas calculated that hydrino energy would cost around 1.2 cents (0.7p) per kilowatt hour. This compares to an average of 5 cents per kWh for coal and 6 cents for nuclear energy.

Posted by: lonesomeG | Nov 7 2005 17:54 utc | 27

Copy of post to Laura Rozen and Josh Marshall, re: Niger Uranium timeline:
subject: Don’t all roads lead to Michael Ledeen?
From publically-editable Wikipedia entry Yellowcake forgeries, “origin” section:
[gave up on coding all links in this entry for MOA. see original for links.]
In an interview published April 7, 2005, Cannistraro was asked by Ian Masters what he would say if it was asserted that the source of the forgery was former National Security Council and State Department consultant Michael Ledeen. (Ledeen had also allegedly been a liaison between the American Intelligence Community and SISMI two decades earlier.) Cannistraro answered by saying: “you’d be very close.” [11]
In an interview on July 26, 2005, Cannistraro’s business partner and columnist for the “American Conservative” magazine, former CIA counter terrorism officer Philip Giraldi, confirmed to Scott Horton that the forgeries were produced by “a couple of former CIA officers who are familiar with that part of the world who are associated with a certain well-known neoconservative who has close connections with Italy.” When Horton said that must be Ledeen, he confirmed it, and added that the ex-CIA officers, “also had some equity interests, shall we say, with the operation. A lot of these people are in consulting positions, and they get various, shall we say, emoluments in overseas accounts, and that kind of thing.” [12]
In a second interview with Horton, Giraldi elaborated to say that Ledeen and his former CIA friends worked with Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. “These people did it probably for a couple of reasons, but one of the reasons was that these people were involved, through the neoconservatives, with the Iraqi National Congress and Chalabi and had a financial interest in cranking up the pressure against Saddam Hussein and potentially going to war with him.” [13]
In an explosive series of articles in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, investigative reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d’Avanzo report that Nicolo Pollari, chief of Italy’s military intelligence service, known as Sismi, brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House after his insistent overtures had been rejected by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001 and 2002. Sismi had reported to the CIA on October 15, 2001, that Iraq had sought yellowcake in Niger, a report it also plied on British intelligence, creating an echo that the Niger forgeries themselves purported to amplify before they were exposed as a hoax.
Pollari met secretly in Washington on September 9, 2002, with then–Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Their secret meeting came at a critical moment in the White House campaign to convince Congress and the American public that war in Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons. What may be most significant to American observers, however, is La Repubblica’s allegation that the Italians sent the bogus intelligence about Niger and Iraq not only through traditional allied channels such as the CIA, but seemingly directly into the White House. That direct White House channel amplifies questions about the 16-word reference to the uranium from Africa in President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address — which remained in the speech despite warnings from the CIA and the State Department that the allegation was not substantiated. [14]
[end of clip]
Any credence to Cannistraro and Giraldi’s finger pointing? Who are these guys (http://intelligencebrief.net/)? Can you get a sit-down with the two of them?
And what about Robert Seldon Lady?

Posted by: manonfyre | Nov 7 2005 18:12 utc | 29

Feedback to posts:
On ambitions underlying tax cuts and massive deficit spending:
Starving the Beast
Good general advice to all, but especially @Undle $cam:
Check out Holotropic Breathwork. Powerful, personal, breakthrough tool. Very good stuff. Bet it can help you ride that awesome wave you’re riding all the way to shore!
@lonesomeG: Blacklight Power Irresistibly seductive!

Posted by: manonfyre | Nov 7 2005 19:15 utc | 31

.. start your day with a smile ..
(from the Independent)
Iraq plans hotel and theme parks for a tourism boom

By Kim Sengupta in Baghdad
Published: 07 November 2005
A £48m, five-star, 23-storey hotel rising in the city centre; an opulent palace complex being turned into a theme park; cheap flights to the picturesque “Venice of the east” – all the trappings of a country gearing up for a tourist boom.
Except the country in question is Iraq. With a new constitution and elections in the offing, officials insist there is a new beginning. The tourist board has 2,400 staff and 14 offices.
..
The planned hotel is very much at an embryonic stage. The land – in the heavily guarded Green Zone – has been donated by the Iraqi government, and the finance is being provided by an Iraqi businessman.
Thair Feeley, of the Iraqi Commission for Investment, insists everything is in place. “It is not true that it will be a five-star hotel,” he says with a flourish, “but a seven and half stars one”.
The hotel is intended to have the usual accoutrements: plush suites, business centres, conference halls and a golf range. However, this is Iraq and Mr Feeley is not keen to make more details of the structure public for “security reasons”. Nor is he willing to reveal the name of the businessman, again for “security reasons”.
The building will have to be built to withstand mortar and rocket attack, just as the one major existing hotel in the Green Zone, Al Rashid, was built to do. Despite the carnage outside and its shabby appearance, the Rashid can still charge $150 (£86) a night.
Another plan is to turn Saddam Hussein’s former palaces at his home town of Tikrit into a themed tourist destination. The complex, which contains 18 palaces and 118 other buildings, is surrounded by rolling gardens overlooking the Tigris.
Mohammed Abbas, a regional official, said: “Ordinary Iraqis were never allowed into these palaces. It will be an opportunity for them to see how their money was spent. International visitors will also be able to see the kind of lifestyle Saddam enjoyed.”
Basra in the south has already officially declared itself open for tourism. But, says an official: “Tourists should dress like locals and maybe dye their hair. And they should have armed guards and they should be always vigilant.”

Posted by: DM | Nov 7 2005 19:50 utc | 33

Three Strikes and We’re Out: Destroying America

Every single element is almost in place to end individual liberty for all time in the United States. Very few people know it. Very few people discuss these issues regularly.
We’re almost in hell — and almost no one understands or talks about what is happening.
I take no consolation at all from the fact that every single American will know it soon enough. Then it will be far too late. I’m sure many people will be very, very sorry.
And it won’t matter a damn.

Posted by: beq | Nov 7 2005 20:37 utc | 35

@Lonesome G,
I was discussing that last night w/a friend. If that is true, it could cause some serious problems for Quantum Mechanics. Here’s the state of current scientific thinking on that – if it makes any sense to you.
But there are some problems with quantum mechanics, in particular the infinities. In solving the sets of equations, some of the results are infinity. Rules have been developed to avoid these infinities. Some think this a bad state of affairs, that it shows that the equations are wrong, or at least incomplete. So maybe some new quantum mechanics is available. But lots of experiments with hydrogen have been done, and the lower energy levels and energy release have not been observed. Very interesting if true, but not very likely.

Posted by: jj | Nov 7 2005 21:20 utc | 37

we wish ..

Posted by: DM | Nov 7 2005 23:54 utc | 39

“I seem to be stuck in my own feedback loop of chapel perilous but can not seem to shake this uncanny feeling of pending doom or the feeling of anxious ‘awaiting’ , better discribed as Pending resolution .”
“This Journey beyond the gates of Chapel Perilous, through madness, Heaven and Hell to discover the Holy Grail of my own narcosis is stunning.”
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 7, 2005 12:03:02 PM | #
We are constantly trying to rationalize insanity. It can’t be done. It can be soul destroying if we let it. Let’s not.

Posted by: pb | Nov 8 2005 4:56 utc | 41

this footage is so damning. i have no other words.

Posted by: annie | Nov 8 2005 5:07 utc | 43

Something tells me this Italian Chemical Warfare story is going to be real big. Who owns the Italian station that produced and/or aired this? Is it a Berlusconi horse head in the bed of Bush, or is it from independent media?

Posted by: Malooga | Nov 8 2005 7:42 utc | 45

Here is an open letter from the poet Sharon Olds to Laura Bush declining the invitation to read and speak at the National Book Critics Circle Award in Washington, DC.
.
Sharon Olds is one of most widely read and critically acclaimed poets living in America today.
Laura Bush
First Lady, The White House
Dear Mrs. Bush,
I am writing to let you know why I am not able to accept your kind invitation to give a presentation at the National Book Festival on September 24, or to attend your dinner at the Library of Congress or the breakfast at the White House.
In one way, it’s a very appealing invitation. The idea of speaking at�a festival attended by 85,000 people is inspiring! The possibility of�finding new readers is exciting for a poet in personal terms, and in terms of the desire that poetry serve its constituents–all of us who need the pleasure, and the inner and outer news, it delivers.
And the concept of a community of readers and writers has long been dear to my heart. As a professor of creative writing in the graduate school of a major university, I have had the chance to be a part of some magnificent outreach writing workshops in which our students have become teachers. Over the years, they have taught in a variety of settings: a women’s prison,several New York City public high schools, an oncology ward for children.
Our initial program, at a 900-bed state hospital for the severely physically challenged, has been running now for twenty years, creating along the way lasting friendships between young MFA candidates and�their students–long-term residents at the hospital who, in their humor, courage and wisdom, become our teachers.
When you have witnessed someone nonspeaking and almost nonmoving spell out, with a toe, on a big plastic alphabet chart, letter by letter, his new poem, you have experienced, close up, the passion and essentialness�of writing.
When you have held up a small cardboard alphabet card for a writer who�is completely nonspeaking and nonmoving (except for the eyes), and�pointed first to the A, then the B, then C, then D, until you get to the first letter of the first word of the first line of the poem she has been composing in her head all week, and she lifts her eyes when that letter is touched to say yes, you feel with a fresh immediacy the human drive for creation,self-expression, accuracy, honesty and� wit–and the
importance of writing, which celebrates the value of each person’s unique story and song.
So the prospect of a festival of books seemed wonderful to me. I thought of the opportunity to talk about how to start up an outreach program. I thought of the chance to sell some books, sign some books and meet some of the citizens of Washington, DC. I thought that I could try�to find a way, even as your guest, with respect, to speak about my deep
feeling that we should not have invaded Iraq, and to declare my belief�that the wish to invade another culture and another country–with the�resultant loss of life and limb for our brave soldiers, and for the�noncombatants in their home terrain–did not come out of our democracy but was instead a decision made “at the top” and forced on the people by distorted language, and by untruths. I hoped to express the fear that we have begun to live in the shadows of tyranny and religious chauvinism–the opposites of the liberty, tolerance and diversity our nation aspires to.
I tried to see my way clear to attend the festival in order to bear witness–as an American who loves her country and its principles and its writing–against this undeclared and devastating war.
But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. I knew that�if I sat down to eat with you, it would feel to me as if I were condoning what I see to be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush Administration.
What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I would be taking food from the hand of the First Lady who represents the Administration that unleashed this war and that wills its continuation, even to the extent of permitting “extraordinary rendition”: flying people to other countries where they will be tortured for us.
So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire. I thought� of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of�the candles, and I could not stomach it.
Sincerely,
SHARON OLDS

Posted by: annie | Nov 8 2005 8:41 utc | 47

Riverbend:

Congratulations Americans- not only are the hardliner Iranian clerics running the show in Iran- they are also running the show in Iraq. This shift of power should have been obvious to the world when My-Loyalty-to-the-Highest-Bidder-Chalabi sold his allegiance to Iran last year. American and British sons and daughters and husbands and wives are dying so that this coming December, Iraqis can go out and vote for Iran influenced clerics to knock us back a good four hundred years.
What happened to the dream of a democratic Iraq?
Iraq has been the land of dreams for everyone except Iraqis- the Persian dream of a Shia controlled Islamic state modeled upon Iran and inclusive of the holy shrines in Najaf, the pan-Arab nationalist dream of a united Arab region with Iraq acting as its protective eastern border, the American dream of controlling the region by installing permanent bases and a Puppet government in one of its wealthiest countries, the Kurdish dream of an independent Kurdish state financed by the oil wealth in Kirkuk…
The Puppets the Americans empowered are advocates of every dream except the Iraqi one: The dream of Iraqi Muslims, Christians, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen… the dream of a united, stable, prosperous Iraq which has, over the last two years, gone up in the smoke of car bombs, military raids and a foreign occupation.

Posted by: b | Nov 8 2005 9:54 utc | 49

What’s the chances of getting that broadcast in the USA ?

Posted by: DM | Nov 8 2005 10:14 utc | 51

I’ll go out on a limb here and predict that Chalabi, will be the first permanently elected president of Iraq…….provided he does’nt get offed first.

Posted by: anna missed | Nov 8 2005 10:43 utc | 53

EXACTLY, now i’ll zzzzzzzz for a minute.

Posted by: anna missed | Nov 8 2005 11:02 utc | 55

Just when you thought Tony Blair couldn’t get any worse, now he is blaming France for the Iraq war.

At his monthly press conference yesterday, the Prime Minister responded with claims that the French President, Jacques Chirac, was to blame for the slide to war without a second UN resolution. He said the French had threatened to veto a second UN resolution on Iraq.
Mr Blair told journalists: “If you go back and look at what happened in March 2003, I think you will see that I made the most strenuous efforts to get a second UN resolution and to end up with a second resolution that would have given us more time. The fact is, we couldn’t get one for a very simple reason: the French made it clear they would veto any such resolution.”
Senior French sources accused Mr Blair of a faulty memory. “Only four out of the 15 members of the Security Council supported a new resolution and Britain needed nine to win approval. It is completely wrong to blame it on France,” said one official.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 8 2005 11:29 utc | 57

The original reports and articles re White Phosphorus, Napalm (CW), that were widely ignored in the media or dismissed as propaganda when reported in March 2005
(not for the faint of heart, also clearly pro-resistance (Iraqi)…)

Posted by: Outraged | Nov 8 2005 13:01 utc | 59

Well, this is the Big One … this will be a crucial indicator of whether we still have the remnants of a Republic or whether we have fully transited to the status of New Rome and an unlimited powers Imperial Presidency …

Supreme Court to hear terror case
Constitutional challenge questions legality of military trials for detainees
November 8, 2005
BY GINA HOLLAND
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to review a constitutional challenge to the Bush administration’s military trials for foreign terrorism suspects, stepping into a high-stakes test of the president’s wartime powers.
The White House has been battered by criticism of its treatment of detainees and was rebuked by the high court last year for holding foreigners in legal limbo.
The justices will decide whether President George W. Bush overstepped his authority with plans for a military trial for Osama bin Laden’s former driver, who is being held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It would be the first such trial since World War II.
The court’s announcement Monday was a disappointment to Bush administration lawyers, who had argued forcefully that it was premature for the justices to get involved because Bin Laden’s former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, has yet to have a full trial…

And oh yeah, they are NOT trials, they are Military Tribunals.
Myth: President Bush’s Military Tribunals are the same as an International Tribunal or a Domestic Judicial trial.
Reality: The military tribunal, established under the November 13, 2001 executive order, include several provisions that differentiate it from all the international war crimes tribunals established since the Nuremberg trials.
Among these differences are the allowance for secret proceedings, rules of evidence that are aimed to protect law enforcement informants, and the sole authority of the President to determine a suspect’s status as a “terrorist”.
In addition, the rules of procedure and legal basis for prosecutions are in the hands of the President and the Secretary of Defense, not the Judiciary, Congress, or the Attorney General. The military tribunal order has the effect of US domestic law, whereas an international tribunal would be established by international treaty.
Furthermore, international war crimes tribunals, including the Yugoslavia and Rwanda tribunals, as well as the ICC, require open proceedings and have strict rules of procedure and evidence agreed upon by a consensus of UN member states. Thus the President’s military tribunal order is completely different from the norms of an international tribunal or even a domestic judicial trial.

Posted by: Outraged | Nov 8 2005 13:47 utc | 61

Following on Outraged cue above:
Emilia DiSanto, chief investigator for Chuck Grassley was attacked by a black clad man with a baseball bat, at her home. Was the attack connected to the Finance Committee’s investigations into Medicare Fraud , drug secrets and insider trading , or the Abramoff scandal?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 8 2005 14:17 utc | 63

Thanks, mistah charley. I was trying to find that one yesterday.

Posted by: beq | Nov 8 2005 15:17 utc | 65

Wag the Damascus?
WaPo article, avail. at
http://www.fairuse.1accesshost.com/news5/wapoblog.htm
[…]
In some ways, military officers involved in the high-level planning efforts say Syria has eclipsed Iran in CENTCOM’s play book as much because of practicality as imminent threat. Iran is four times larger than Iraq with three times the population. Syria is in a difficult geographic position, especially with U.S. bases and forces in Iraq and its proximity to U.S. military strength in the Mediterranean. U.S. forces have also been operating along the Syrian border since early 2003, and there have been numerous reports of clashes between U.S. and Syrian forces on Syrian soil, as well as reports of U.S. special operations forces operating inside Syria on select missions.
Though Syria’s possession of WMD was the early justification for contingency planning for the country — even for American nuclear weapons planning — I imagine that in light of the Iraq intelligence failure and the current scandals, the administration would now have an impossible time selling WMD charges to the international community. But now all of the pieces could easily fall into place without even any mention of WMD. Political genius Karl Rove would be proud.
[Also good to keep in mind that – save the capitol itself – the frontier between Baghdad and the Syrian border will be the LAST area from which US forces withdraw, whenever they do.]

Posted by: Pat | Nov 8 2005 18:34 utc | 67

apologise in advance for my extremely dark meditation – it is perhaps the last thing people need
“do not despair, one of the thieves was saved, do not presume, one of the thieves was damned”
st augustine cited by samuel beckett

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 8 2005 20:36 utc | 69

seymore hersh

They call themselves, self-mockingly, the Cabala small cluster of policy advisers and analysts now based in the Pentagons Office of Special Plans.
clip
The director of the Special Plans operation is Abram Shulsky, a scholarly expert in the works of the political philosopher Leo Strauss.
How Strausss views might be applied to the intelligence-gathering process is less immediately obvious. As it happens, Shulsky himself explored that question in a 1999 essay, written with Gary Schmitt, entitled Leo Strauss and the World of Intelligence (By Which We Do Not Mean Nous )in Greek philosophy the term nous denotes the highest form of rationality. In the essay, Shulsky and Schmitt write that Strausss gentleness, his ability to concentrate on detail, his consequent success in looking below the surface and reading between the lines, and his seeming unworldliness . . . may even be said to resemble, however faintly, the George Smiley of John le Carrs novels. Echoing one of Strausss major themes, Shulsky and Schmitt criticize Americas intelligence community for its failure to appreciate the duplicitous nature of the regimes it deals with, its susceptibility to social-science notions of proof, and its inability to cope with deliberate concealment.

Posted by: annie | Nov 8 2005 21:15 utc | 71

As expected by the grim grey suits who have control of Australia at the moment, the ’roundup’ of young men who question the current regime’s anti-Arab activities has been reported as an incident with a few dramatic shots but little analysis by the MSM outside Oz.
Firstly this roundup is a cockup not a triumph:
“Television crews were present outside the homes of some of the suspects even before they were in custody.
But it was not the media that tipped off the targets. It was the Prime Minister who last Wednesday publicly stated that the Government had received “specific intelligence and police information this week which gives cause for serious concern about a potential terrorist threat”.
Mr Howard made his statement after an amendment in the new anti-terrorism laws from “the terrorist act” to “a terrorist act” was rushed into Parliament.
Police working on Operation Pandanus, the investigation into a radical Islamic splinter group active in Sydney and Melbourne, immediately identified a “flurry of activity” involving the suspects.
They held meetings where they quickly concluded they were the group identified by Mr Howard, telling each other to be ready for imminent raids and to immediately increase counter-surveillance tactics. The police assigned to conduct the raids were livid that they had lost the element of surprise, substantially increasing the risks involved.”
Further this wasn’t an effort by Howard to show off his new anti-Terra laws .
“The federal government’s tough new anti-terror laws cannot be applied retrospectively to terror suspects arrested in police raids this week, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says.”
The incidents in and of themselves are interesting. These blokes didn’t go quietly or as martyrs. Their friends got into a blue with reporters outside the courthouse.
This is not the way such incidents have gone down in Europe or even the US where a generally ‘chastened’ Muslim community has been forced to denounce the ‘terrarists’.
IMHO this is what makes this situation in Australia both vastly different and hugely relevant for other western styled ‘democracies’.
The Arab and Asian communities in Australia haven’t accepted their, in the eyes of white Australia, place at the bottom of the heap as guests in a host culture. Why?
Because the Australian white culture is still too young. At least four generations younger than the Amerikan culture and IMHO importantly the indigenous population has still not been completely subjugated. Many people living in Australia don’t universally accept that the white western style culture is totally in control.
There has been a battle between the leadership of the large mainly Islam nations to the North of Australia; Indonesia and Malaysia since well before 9/11 or Gulf War1 and although religion is often the trigger for these ‘tiffs’ it has little to do with the underlying causes for them.

“The dominant thesis, although articulated in a number of ways, is one that interprets Australian knowledge of Asia as Orientalist, as informed by interpretations of Said. It seeks to highlight the “insensitive”, “arrogant” and “ignorant views” that Australians have of Asia. These terms are used by politicians to describe people who possess different opinions to the adherents of the orthodox view (including conservation and human rights groups, journalists, filmmakers, unionists and academics). The argument that Australians have failed to understand Asian cultures and Asian peoples originates from two quite different sources. On the one hand there are the groups in Australia who subscribe to the economic ‘enmeshment’ orthodoxy. On the other are those who subscribe to broader cultural enmeshment. Typically, representatives of the former group are critical of views originating in Australia that upset ruling elites in Asian countries. Thus, Embassy – the ABC drama series at the centre of an Australian-Malaysian diplomatic row in 1991-92 – was criticised as a product of insensitive, arrogant Australian perceptions of Asia largely because the Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir chose to criticise it as such. However, such views failed to take into account a variety of reasons (political and economic) that motivated Mahathir, none of which were because the show upset him (Frost).
Thus, the kind of “respectful listening” of those adhering to the economic ‘enmeshment’ orthodoxy; an example of which occurred during the Embassy affair when the ex-Australian ambassador to GATT and presently managing director of International Trade Studies’ Alan Oxley, argued that as Australian business people ‘learn the detail of what is bugging Mahathir, there is an increasing view that he has a point’ (McKanna). Here this means that a rumour had circulated that Australian investment was possibly at risk, and that Embassy was the cause. Less “respectful” listeners suggested that ‘there must be domestic political pressures on [Mahathir] that make this [the Embassy row] politically worthwhile’ (Gawenda 31), and that indeed in ‘the kampongs the Malays are grinning like Cheshire cats…They reckon Mahathir’s brought the colonial blighters to their knees’ (Mellor 32).

The first major dispute between Australia and its neigbours post the WW2 blue with the Japanese that I’m aware of was back in the 60’s when Indonesian president Sukarno was reputed to have a map of the world hanging in his office that had the continent of Australia labelled “South West Indonesia”.
Was that story true? I don’t know. It could easily have been the west cranking up the Australian population so they remained wary of the countries around them and didn’t sell them any resources directly. That all commodities garner a broker’s fee for the usual suspects.
Equally it could have been Sukarno’s quirky sense of humor or an ambit claim by a leader under increasing pressure from those usual suspects. Sukarno decided to wrong foot them.
By the 80’s Australia was bluing with George Soros’ mate (joke alert) Malaysian president Dr Mahathir. The argument was an almost personal dispute between Mahathir and Aussie PM Bob Hawke. Given that many people myself included believe Hawke was at the very least an agent of influence for US/Israeli interests that dispute was pre-ordained. It was also incredibly petty as from time to time the protagonists sailed very close to using racial epithets on each other.
So why is this happening? Well Australia has many of the assets of Africa eg huge mineral, resource and energy deposits without one of the major disadvantages; ie big mobs of blackfellas.
In fact although there were around one million indigenous people in Australia at the time whitey ‘discovered’ Australia. By the time settlement had been got up and running that population fell to under a hundred thousand.
Australians have always felt that with Asia on the ascendency the continent is likely to be at the pointy end of ‘rassles’ over how Pacific hegemony is divided between the US/Europe and China/Japan/Indonesia.
Personally I believe the solution is with the indigenous people. If the original inhabitants are accorded the special rights of having been there for over 30,000 years as well as a greater role in decision making, an overt claim on Australia by other regional powers it would become a much more difficult proposition for those neighbours to sell to either the rest of the world or their own population.
Of course ‘selling it’ to the dominant population in Australia is a big ask too.
However many stone racists like to think they are being pragmatic when they indulge their dirty little secret.
Aboriginal land rights was pushed to acceptance by pointing out that if Australia didn’t give the indigenous people some of what they wanted there was a risk that the UN, the Hague or somesuch ‘sticky-beak’ would step in and give them everything they asked for.
Another tragedy unfolding and all the Aboriginal people are going to get out of it is more horrendously ugly, huge open-cut trenches running through their country.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Nov 8 2005 21:36 utc | 73

debs
some time ago – outraged & deanander – provided some source material on bob hake very clearly being an ‘agent of influence’ & was confirmed with his extremely close relation with rogue cia/chief of station/ambassador marshal green & the labor attache of he us embassy
history will show that in the constitutional coup of 1975 mr hawke’s relations with the cia were at their closest

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 8 2005 23:46 utc | 75

debs
there is a book that may be available in new zealand or perhaps even in australia – maybe in a secondhand book store – & i would suggest it strongly as a political/biographic novel – the serpent’s tooth – roger milliss – penguin
such is the moral climate in australia that it has produced lmost singularly the confessional novel of geat power – xavier herbert/randolph stow/patrick white/charmaine clift/frank hardy/george johnston

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 9 2005 1:58 utc | 77

@giap
Those blokes were all very different from each other I mean it’s difficult to imagine Frank Hardy and Patrick White having too much in common but I bet they would have got on really well.
I spent an evening with Frank Hardy once towards the end of his life. It was at a Mayday celebration. I wrote about it but it’s jsut too long and a bit subjective so I won’t post it but maybe I’ll email it to ya if you are interested in IMHO one of the greatest men Australia has ever engendered.
That bloke was a true communist. Raised in the depression he knew that people only have a chance when they stick together. He wouldn’t have any time for the great dictators mind you. He was a people’s person and any authority figure or elite was an anathema to him but he kept fighting the good fight right up to the end.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Nov 9 2005 9:45 utc | 79

Labour backbenchers made clear their concerns about the legislation a week ago, when the government’s 66-seat majority was slashed to just one after 31 Labour MPs rebelled over another aspect of the bill. A rebel amendment to make an offence of “glorification” of terrorism carry “intent” was defeated.

Good news indeed.

Posted by: Outraged | Nov 9 2005 17:27 utc | 81

a chillin’ procurement just in time for the haiti elections next month

Posted by: b real | Nov 9 2005 19:20 utc | 83

Middle East – United States Support of Jordan Against the terrorist attacks: Statement by the Department of State, November 10, 2005(1)
The Royal Government of Jordan has issued a statement; drawing attention to the attack upon the territory of the Kingdom by Al-Qaeda in Iraq (Zarqawi) terrorists and stating the determination of the Government, the army, and the people of Jordan with the aid of United States troops to resist this aggression.(2)
The Government of the United States is following developments with the closest attention. It expresses its sympathy with the people of Jordan in their present emergency and its fervent wishes to them, to their troops, and to those of the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ in their efforts to resist and overcome the terrorists. The United States will continue to provide and will study ways and means of making more effective its assistance to the Kingdom of Jordan and to Iraq in the struggle to destroy terrorist aggression in Syria, Iran, and Iraq.
(1) Department of State Bulletin, November 10, 2005, p. 641. Back
(2) The statement of the Government of Jordan was issued, November 10, 2005. Back

Unedited Source:

American Foreign Policy 1950-1955
Basic Documents Volumes I and II
Department of State Publication 6446
General Foreign Policy Series 117
Washington, DC : U.S. Government Printing Office, 1957

Posted by: Outraged | Nov 9 2005 20:57 utc | 85

@outraged 3:57
great source!

Posted by: b | Nov 10 2005 0:37 utc | 87

”Washington’s Long War and its Strategy in the Horn of Africa”

As Washington’s geostrategy has evolved after the September 11, 2001 airliner bombings of the World Trade Center and Pentagon by Islamic revolutionaries linked to al-Qaeda, the Horn of Africa has taken on vital strategic importance.
In the thinking of U.S. defense planners, the Horn occupies the western end of an “arc of instability” that runs through the Middle East, the Southern Caucasus and into Central Asia to Afghanistan’s eastern border. The vast area encompassed by the arc contains the world’s largest supply of energy reserves, is composed mostly of states with authoritarian and quasi-authoritarian governments that are subject to instability, and has a predominantly Muslim population…
…
At the core of Washington’s new geostrategy is the explicit acknowledgment that its enemy is not “terrorism” in general, but “Islamic extremism.” In order to fight that enemy with any effectiveness, Major General Douglas Lute, director of operations for the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which has military responsibility for the entire arc, said in August that the U.S. has embarked on a “long war” that — all else being equal — will become the dominant U.S. military engagement once — as Washington hopes — Afghanistan and Iraq are stabilized.
…
As the region in the arc that has attracted Washington’s most immediate concern and one in which it does not face rivalry from other great powers, the Horn of Africa has been the site of the fullest development of the new strategy. Washington’s instrument in the region is the Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa (C.J.T.F.), which is based in Djibouti and comprises 1600 troops from all branches of the armed services, half of whom are available for civil affairs and military training missions outside the base. According to a Defense Department release, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has called the C.J.T.F. “a model for the future of D.o.D.”

Posted by: b real | Nov 10 2005 4:30 utc | 89