Traveling today …
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February 5, 2006
Open Thread
Comments
I miss the posts from Billmon.
Where has Billmon gone?
Miguel.
Posted by: Miguel de Icaza | Feb 5 2006 19:43 utc | 1
The corporate trial of the century kicked off this past week with Enron and I haven’t heard or read much on it as I suspect the press corpse has a vested interest in keeping it on the QT. Here are a few links of note:
The Enron defense
The corporate trial of the century kicked off this week with Enron prosecutors painting a grim picture of a company governed by greed and self-interest, with little respect for its employees or for the investment community that sunk billions of dollars into its shares…
Enron CEO ‘failed to mention $US725 million losses’
The Washington Post: Enron Trial Seen As Marathon, Not Sprint
Further, I have followed the writings and work of John Loftus for quite a while.His work such as What Congress Does Not Know about Enron and 9/11 and The Enron pipeline connection to 9/11 also found on the above link.
Finally, one other thing that one might need to know. I posted a link, a while back on the yearly Intelligence Summit and have kept up on the doings of this spy fest. Which brings me to the following potentially detrimental matter. The next one is comming up Feb 17th-20th during which he has an anonymous keynote guest speaker which could turn the tide back into Bush’s favor with regards to WMD. “A former military intelligence analyst, who currently works as a civilian contractor, believes he has found a cache of extremely confidential–and very shocking–audio recordings of Saddam Hussein’s office meetings. The audiotapes, which had apparently been overlooked, were found in a warehouse along with many other untranslated Iraqi intelligence files. These tapes are extremely significant, since they may be the best evidence yet of Saddam’s secret intentions concerning weapons of mass destruction.” write’s Loftus on his blog forum. I suspect we in the blogsphere should get ready for a barrage of controversy when this happens. The media whores will be all over this. Hence, I felt we should get ahead of this before it comes out. Hence, I have again send the above to epluribus media. We have two weeks. I beleive a shit storm will come from this. Any lurkers feel free to post or do a write up on the above, but please link back or mention your uncle and b’s wonderful moon of alabama.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 5 2006 19:54 utc | 2
Where has Billmon gone?
you just have to be patient miguel. he will be back someday, he can’t change his stripes.
Posted by: annie | Feb 6 2006 1:37 utc | 3
U$,
I found mention of a similar article on newsmax.com, a rather conservative site, and expected a rather big deal to be made of Bush’s final justification.
Posted by: ralphieboy | Feb 6 2006 7:49 utc | 4
I heard this on some newschannel in the last couple of days and sort of expected a reaction but it has been lost in cartoonarama
Lawyers Hint at Possible Libby Defense
A preoccupation with affairs of state may have led to ‘imperfect recall’ in the CIA leak, the defense says. But it could be a risky strategy.
“WASHINGTON — As chief of staff to the vice president, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was immersed in some of the most sensitive and weighty matters affecting the nation.
Now, Libby is seeking to use the importance of his former responsibilities as a mitigating factor as he prepares for a criminal trial in the unmasking of former CIA operative Valerie Plame. Libby contends that any alleged lack of truth-telling was inadvertent, the product of his preoccupation with life-and-death matters of state.”
Are bored yet? If some are they have possibly fallen for NYT ploy 57.
If you have to publish something that may cause an undesired outrage, bury it in the middle of some meaningless and trite shit.
Ol Scooters defense is pretty much irrelevant because:
On Friday, a conflict in a defense attorney’s schedule prompted a federal judge to set a trial date of Jan. 8, 2007.
That’s 12 months from now, after the mid-term elections, beginning year 3 of BushCo term 2 and it would take just one more delay like that to get ol Scooter running into peepee otherwise known as Presidential Pardon.
Now that sort of stuff is pretty unusual in any court cases in this part of the world. Perhaps a few days usually, a few weeks, perhaps, but 12 months? I think judge would be recommending alternative counsel.
So the average Jamahl Jackson up on charges of keeping the wolf from the door by purloining goods by night, is it customary for him to delay the grinding of the machine to a possibly more advantageous year by hiring a busy lawyer?
Is thhat why this has passed uncommented? Am I just being overly paranoid and revealing my ignorance of US judicial procedure?
Tom Englehart
is running a piece When Two Worlds Collide by former fed prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega.
The piece confidently asserts that Rove’s days are numbered. She seems certain the Fitz has Karl neatly lined in his sights:
“For Karl Rove, no news from the Plame case — Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury investigation into the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity as a CIA agent — is definitely not good news. Seismic activity is notoriously silent, so we may not be hearing any rumblings at the moment. But speaking as a former prosecutor, I believe it highly likely that, just below the surface, the worlds of Karl Rove and Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, shifting like tectonic plates, are about to collide. As was true with Vice President Cheney’s top aide, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, charged with obstruction of justice and lying to a federal agent as well as to the grand jury, Rove might not be charged with the leak itself. I am confident, however, that Rove will not leave this party empty-handed. He will, at the very least, almost certainly be charged with making false statements to an FBI agent.”
Fitzy may get his scalp yet it appears that when dealing with sheeple who possess the attantion span of a gnat, if there isn’t a Karl Rove in the shadows ensuring they are ‘kept on message’, boredom sets in before you can say “Fitzmas? Man that is just so 2005”
Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 6 2006 8:46 utc | 5
A pretty good link on VENEZUELA called Oil Wars, updates on whats going on there – and Iraq to a degree, has more links.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 6 2006 9:42 utc | 6
Vonnegut: A Requiem for the USA and Vonnegut’s Blues for America
Posted by: beq | Feb 6 2006 15:51 utc | 7
Some of this I put on the Iran thread, but I haven’t seen it mentioned elsewhere here (sorry if I’ve missed it).
Billmon’s got several entries in the Koufax Awards for “best post” of 2005. He’s in some illustrious company, and I’ve enjoyed reading through the other entries, but I’ll be voting for “Scenes We’d Like To See” – because I really, really would.
Posted by: Dismal Science | Feb 6 2006 17:24 utc | 8
Papers: Ford White House Weighed Wiretaps
Notes from a 1975 meeting between then-White House chief of staff
Dick Cheney, Attorney General Edward Levi and others cite the “problem” of a New York Times article by Seymour Hersh about U.S. submarines spying inside Soviet waters. Participants considered a formal
FBI investigation of Hersh and the Times and searching Hersh’s apartment “to go after (his) papers,” the document said.
“I was surprised,” Hersh said in a telephone interview Friday. “I was surprised that they didn’t know I had a house and a mortgage.”
There is direct line between this article and the protests in several countries against the Muhammad caricatures.
Peace Now: No new West Bank outposts, but more settlers in 2005
In 33 out of the 102 illegal outposts in the West Bank, construction of permanent structures was undertaken during the past year.
According to Peace now, 52 of the 102 outposts were established since March 2001.
Advertisement
“The Government of Israel continues to avoid fulfilling its obligations from two main aspects: The first is that of enforcing the law regarding the settlers, who continue to reside in, and even continue construction in a considerable number of outposts, in clear violation of the law,” the report read.
The government had also promised the United States it would remove all the illegal outposts established after March 2001.
The report, which was based on data collected by the government’s Central Bureau of Statistics, also revealed that 12,000 new residents moved into West Bank settlements in 2005. This occurred despite the fact that some 9,000 settlers were evacuated from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank last year.
The annual report concluded that the number of settlers increased in 2005 despite the evacuation of 21 settlements. There are now 250,000 settlers, compared to 243,000 by the end of 2004.
…
The government also continues to pave new bypass roads throughout the West Bank.
…
In the first six months of 2005, construction began on 1,097 housing units compared to just 860 during the first half of 2004.
Most of the construction in West Bank settlements is done at the initiative of the Housing Ministry and focuses on settlements located west of the separation fence.
However, construction on a smaller scale also continues in the settlements and outposts located east of the planned line of the separation fence.
We know the government lied about Iraqi WMD, but we believe the government told the truth about 9/11.
– Counterpunch
We need all the outstanding questions answered — wherever the chips may fall.
– Common Dreams
Posted by: DM | Feb 7 2006 9:50 utc | 13
Rahol Mahajan at Empire Notes has a 2 part piece on the endgame in Iraq currently in progress. Its an interesting take:
(in part)…….
If the Sunni insurgency cooperates, the U.S. endgame seems clear. They want less violence and a recuperated oil industry, but they want to keep perpetual low-level sectarian tension. They will then make themselves the perpetual “honest broker” between warring parties. With tight macroeconomic controls, heavy influence over the military, and a favorable status-of-forces agreement that includes several large permanent bases, they hope to be able to draw down the bulk of the troops and simultaneously increase overall U.S. political power in Iraq. It’s not a nice future for Iraqis and it’s not likely to begin to address the problems created by the occupation, but, if violence is reduced, it might still look like paradise compared to the nightmare inflicted on Iraq since the regime change.
The way to a genuinely bright future would require Iraqis putting aside their sectarian differences and uniting against U.S. plans, a hope that seems dimmer by the day.
…………………..
This view does answer a couple of questions: The recent negotiations by the US with (what even they are now calling) the resistance, the recent oil disruptions, and the tripling of gasoline prices, all of which he alludes too. Which looks like a plan(stan) in that reducing, or re-directing the US military efforts into an intensive, up close and personal training regimen aimed at generating tacit loyality to the US — and at the same time allows the US troops to draw down on to the “permenant”bases and lower the profile of occupation. And while this plan entails also the new found appreciation for the Sunni political faction(s), this comes with the expense of alienating to a degree the Kurdish and Shiite factions. Which as Rahol points out, is to be fascilitated through the strident economic measures. Apparently, through measures of privitization and IMF dictates, the US is setting the stage for the long term economic controls, effectivly playing sectarian interests off each other to the degree necessary to maintain enough stability to secure long term agreements on oil infrastructue development and production — BINGO. MISSION ACOMPLISHED.
At least in their dreams — if I can get a handle on these machinations, the Iraqi people no doubt are way ahead of the curve. Which could explain the recent, in some cases, 50% drop in oil production, and the disruptions in refining capacity, as the growing awarness to these developments. Coupled with the rebellion to the increase in gasoline prices in the south, indications are that the Shia are ready to defy the loss of credibility by their own political representatives acting as agents of US interests. The essential difference is that if the plan is seen for what it is (which is’nt rocket science) what little success(control) that has been acomplished — could be unraveled in a glance — if the Shiite is sold down the river — again.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 7 2006 11:23 utc | 14
@anna – chances for that strategy to work are slim in my view. The economic/social situation is catastrophic and will become worse. People will revolt on that eventually.
The resistance has enough money (scimming the oil production) to go on forever. It may turn to be more criminal than national, but that doesn´t change its effectiveness.
b,
Just thought it interesting that he brought together these significant, albeit underreported developments and major changes in the US position. The plan, like all the US plans, covers the bases of US interests including the look of troop drawdown (for the 06 elections) and a reversal of fortunes for Iranian sympathies, but placing such a trip wire at the finish line will not be appreciated by the Shiite frontrunners.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 7 2006 18:53 utc | 16
The NY Review of Books has on piece on Risens NSA syping book.
‘The Biggest Secret’ The author comes up with this interesting idea:
[F]ar from saving “thousands of lives,” as claimed by Vice President Dick Cheney in December 2005, the NSA program never led investigators to a genuine terrorist not already under suspicion, nor did it help them to expose any dangerous plots. So why did the administration continue this lumbering effort for three years? Outsiders sometimes find it tempting to dismiss such wheel-spinning as bureaucratic silliness, but I believe that the Judiciary Committee will find, if it is willing to persist, that within the large pointless program there exists a small, sharply focused program that delivers something the White House really wants. This it will never confess willingly.
It feals like is on to something. The reports Bolton and others did get on intercepted calls and for which they requested the names of the U.S. call partner to be revieled are pointing in this direction.
A travelling circus that is a smuggling gang, a big “terrarist” spying program that hides syping on very distinct domestic people.
Other images of Mahomet through the ages (some are lovely), including cartoons, also the Danish ones, and the ‘extra’ ones (scroll way down to see these):
Link
(not for dial-up)
Now, there is an issue that is being ignored by the main stream. As looking at the images posted shows, mocking Mahomet has not been uncommon. The ‘extra’ cartoons (added to the Danish ones by Muslims themselves? – very offensive indeed) debase Mahomet through the use of animal and sexual imagery (e.g. M as a pig; the explicit description of M as a pedophile) – very traditional, very classically anti-Muslim as concepts, as imagined, and actually existing, in the West. Not new, not original. It is possible that it was these images that sparked the protests. They may even have been lifted off the net, but I have no appetite for hunting up similar images.
The Danish cartoons, however, boldly present new and different elements. (Or, presented them publically in the mainstream media for the first time.)
a) Muslim-as-terrorist. The reference to suicide bombers is explicit. (e.g. M with a hat as a bomb, muslims in heaven wanting virgins.)
b) Muslim-as-culturally-backwards (they object to M being depicted.)
c) The expected back-lash is itself present in the cartoons. (e.g. caption: “J-P’s journalists are a bunch of reactionary provocateurs” or “Relax, folks its just a sketch made by a Dane..”).
This is real provocation. And, as I tried clumsily to say before (I hadn’t had time to look at the toons in detail) the toons have nothing much to do with Mahomet. The fact that he is represented -depicted- is tangential. They are a slap in the face to Muslims worldwide. I’m not surprised some group of imams wouldn’t let the matter drop.
In fact, they violate the toon genre – they aren’t very comprehensible, and they aren’t funny, with the exception of the virgins one, which is humorous if one doesn’t object to the message. That is a classic, as it rests on a fantasy, and has overtones of violence, symbolically hinted at and not shown, death, and sexual desire.
(We can note that direct reference to 9/11 is avoided. That might have provoked other reactions. 9/11 is a dirty secret. The emperor must keep his clothes on.)
The add-ons were put in to rile up those who would not have understood, or cared about, the points being made, as the actual graphic depictions of Mahomet are, while a bit sketch- and toon- like, not offensive at all. In fact the first one is rather nice – a handsome figure.
Very nasty, clever, and deliberate. Very bad news.
Fatwas against cartoonists! People lap it up – Muslims are mad and filled with hate (they conclude.)
Expect more Muslim hate coming soon near you.
Posted by: Noisette | Feb 7 2006 23:19 utc | 18
@ Noisette: see –
Cartoons are a purposeful provocation
Cartoon editor Fleming Rose and the tentacles of PNAC
It turns out the editor who originally publshed the “offensive” Muslim cartoons is a disciple of Daniel Pipes and the “clash of civilizations” theory put out by Project for a New American Century. PNAC is the outfit that called for a “Pearl Harbor event’ in order to initiate a global war against the Muslim world.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 7, 2006 3:56:49 PM | #
on the open thread and connect dots…
Posted by: beq | Feb 8 2006 0:04 utc | 19
In their hatred of “the rich,” the left-wing overlooks that in the 20th century the rich were the class most persecuted by government. The class genocide of the 20th century is the greatest genocide in history.
– Paul Craig Roberts
from the link provided by DM @ 4:50:57AM
okay, how exactly is this conclusion reached other than by fisting oneself?
Posted by: gmac | Feb 8 2006 1:28 utc | 20
tho some of the things i post may seem overwrought – i feel them as somethng other -furious but calm meditations on a world that is overwrought
a world that parades its panic & fears & nightmares as yet another commodity to sell
creating catastophes because they do not consider our inner lives – in fact they think we do not possess them
it is the same as ancient rome – the rich & powerful cannot conceive – that we have a world of emotion & feeling every bit as ‘rich’ as theirs
it s a wonderful world but it is as benjamin made more than clear – a barbarous one & i would argue that we are becoming more barborous or that we like good germans care less & less for the other we try to vanquish
in the west we have long gone past the kristalnacht, those in the those united states especially can be under no illussion about exactly what those who rule from the roll of dollars are prepared to do to extend & consolidate their interest – in this slothrop is perfectly correct – political economy will tell you all you need to know of their nightmarish plans
it is not only arab & islamic culture that is being insulted
we are being insulted each & every day by the gnomes who groan their greed on foxnewscnnbbc
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 8 2006 2:19 utc | 21
Seems the Ministry of Truth has been very busy lately. Most of it seems fairly innocuous… except that it is an odd expenditure of time for a group that claimed it was too busy to actually read the USAPATRIOT Act bill before they voted for it.
Posted by: Monolycus | Feb 8 2006 2:28 utc | 22
Hm… the links worked before I posted them. Well, the first one was a link to the story about the US Congress’ efforts to censor Wikipedia…
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/
Wikinews_investigates_Wikipedia_vandalism_by_United_States_Senate_staff_
members
and the second was a list of what changes they actually made, found here…
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Congressional_staff_actions_prompt_Wikipedia_investigation
Posted by: Monolycus | Feb 8 2006 2:32 utc | 23
nice one, Monolycus. how long before this gets picked up as wikigate?
Posted by: b real | Feb 8 2006 2:40 utc | 24
@Noisette:
“Violate the toon genre”? Cartoons are a medium, not a genre. They can be used to say whatever you like. And no, they don’t have to be funny. This is like people at an art museum, seeing something non-representational, and saying “this isn’t art.”
Posted by: Anonymous | Feb 8 2006 2:49 utc | 25
panegyrics at today’s coretta king funeral were a downright smackdown of bush. damn. felt good.
Posted by: slothrop | Feb 8 2006 3:02 utc | 26
gmac,
Seems Paul was having a Pat Buchanan moment.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 8 2006 4:02 utc | 27
Danish cartoons and free speech.
Great Britain is telling the Muslim world just how free speech works:
Cleric Convicted of Stirring Hate
A jury on Tuesday convicted Britain’s most prominent radical Muslim cleric of 11 charges of soliciting murder and racial hatred for using his sermons to encourage his followers to kill non-Muslims.
Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri was found guilty today of 11 counts including inciting murder.
The cleric, Abu Hamza al-Masri, 47, is the best-known Islamic leader to face charges in a courtroom since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He was the imam of the Finsbury Park mosque in North London, which became a magnet for militants, including Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber, and Zacarias Moussaoui, now on trial in the United States in connection with the attacks.
…
The judge, Anthony Hughes, sentenced Mr. Masri to seven years in jail, saying that he had “created an atmosphere” in which murder was perceived by some as “not only a legitimate course but a moral and religious duty in pursuit of perceived justice.”
…
A British police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday that there was no evidence to directly link Mr. Masri to specific terrorist acts like those committed by Mr. Reid, Mr. Moussaoui or others who attended sermons at the mosque, including two Britons who later became suicide bombers in Israel and Kamel Bourgass, who was convicted here last year of conspiracy to launch chemical attacks with the poison ricin.
Now apply the bold paragraph to Pat Robertson and other “religious leaders” and to the general military.
oh but slaughtering others while wearing your nations uniform isn’t murder, dontcha know. it is honourable, heroic and glorious…
Posted by: gmac | Feb 8 2006 11:24 utc | 29
Paul Craig Roberts was referring to the high tax rates on the very wealthy since FDR’s time – over 60% for a while. Many traditional conservatives like him thought this not only restricted investment capital but was also unfair. I don’t know where he stands on the inheritance tax. Agree or disagree, but I don’t think he ranks with Buchanan who shares many of Roberts’ views (and our own) on the Iraq war, Israel, US corporate power and globalization. I don’t think Roberts is the so-called social conservative that Buchanan is; he’s more of a libertarian.
Posted by: lonesomeG | Feb 8 2006 17:08 utc | 30
@beq, a Pipes flunky? (thanks). I didn’t imagine the Danes set up this cartoonadrama strategy all alone – look where it has gotten them, too far for blanket public approval. (?) The important point is, here we see factions of the ‘secret’ coalition at work. Smoke and mirrors – I can see it in the cartoons themselves. I also lived in Denmark for two years as a young teen, that helps.
@ anonymous: yes, violate the toon genre, as it is generally used, understood, and published by the mainstream. Of course one can use it as one wishes, and innovations can make a splash, even change the genre. Just as for fairy tales: some are traditional, others are tongue in the cheek pastiches. All grist for the mill. Porno fairy tales exist, I have heard.
The line between toon and gross, offensive insult, is drawn by the viewer. Most people know right where that line lies, and not just in function of their religion, personal sensitivity and so on. They understand the conventions. Lastly, toons are supposed to be funny, just as fairy tales are supposed to be engaging, should draw in the listener or reader.
Posted by: Noisette | Feb 8 2006 17:32 utc | 31
pc roberts from DM’s link
We have reached a point where the Bush administration is determined to totally eclipse the people. Bewitched by neoconservatives and lustful for power, the Bush administration and the Republican Party are aligning themselves firmly against the American people. Their first victims, of course, were the true conservatives. Having eliminated internal opposition, the Bush administration is now using blackmail obtained through illegal spying on American citizens to silence the media and the opposition party.
Before flinching at my assertion of blackmail, ask yourself why President Bush refuses to obey the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The purpose of the FISA court is to ensure that administrations do not spy for partisan political reasons. The warrant requirement is to ensure that a panel of independent federal judges hears a legitimate reason for the spying, thus protecting a president from the temptation to abuse the powers of government. The only reason for the Bush administration to evade the court is that the Bush administration had no legitimate reasons for its spying. This should be obvious even to a naif.
.
Posted by: annie | Feb 8 2006 17:33 utc | 32
Great Britain is telling the Muslim world just how free speech works
Well said.
Posted by: correlator | Feb 8 2006 17:56 utc | 33
Even more…
Flemming Rose and the Straussian Art of Provocation
As suspected, and claimed on this blog over the weekend, the inflammatory anti-Muslim cartoons published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten were a deliberate provocation designed to outrage and incite Muslims and thus engender support in Europe and America for the manufactured “clash of civilizations” engineered by the Straussian neocons.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 8 2006 18:17 utc | 34
Visiting some right wing boards and blogs I see that the cartoonadrama is almost universally judged to be a step towards war. Europe is thrashed, castigated (at its mildest: this will wake the weenies up!) or it is said that now the time has come and the US will have to fight Europe, too, as it is completely infested. Bush’s cultural sensitivity is not mentioned.
I felt like chipping in and telling them that the just-out Quadrennial Defense Review Report not only endlessly mentions coalitions, allies and so on but makes it clear between the lines that other countries will be encouraged or forced to join The Long War by direct or indirect means. Apparently, though, The Total Force will be limited to Americans and US proxies – a melding of military, contractors, paid for foreign troops, and civilians. On one point, however, Rummy and internet rabids agree. The US will be fighting wars in countries with which it is not at war. (In those words in the text.)
**PDF** – more than 2MB
(I’ve only read the first 45 pages so far.)
Posted by: Noisette | Feb 8 2006 19:04 utc | 35
Sweden plans to be world’s first oil-free economy
Sweden is to take the biggest energy step of any advanced western economy by trying to wean itself off oil completely within 15 years – without building a new generation of nuclear power stations.
…The intention, the Swedish government said yesterday, is to replace all fossil fuels with renewables before climate change destroys economies and growing oil scarcity leads to huge new price rises.
…A government official said: “We want to be both mentally and technically prepared for a world without oil. The plan is a response to global climate change, rising petroleum prices and warnings by some experts that the world may soon be running out of oil.”
Posted by: b real | Feb 8 2006 19:15 utc | 36
@gmac:
Even if your (understood to be sarcastic) comment were acceptable, Pat Buchanan isn’t wearing any country’s uniform, so he doesn’t even have that excuse. Furthermore, once the Bush regime consolidates its power firmly and really starts squashing dissent, I bet Buchanan won’t last long. He has to be left alone right now, because the base likes him, but he disagrees with the parts of their policy which they really care about and he has already violated the existing laws, so they have an unquestionable excuse to nab him. Plus, if they nab him, they can claim it proves that they aren’t being partisan. It’s one of those cases where you have to wonder whether he has other arrangements in place or whether he’s just too stupid to see what’s going on.
@b:
I can’t get through the NYT site, but it sounds like the guy did actually tell people to go out and kill, which is against the law, unlike blasphemy. Even if the cartoons were indeed put forth with malicious intent, they’re still covered as free speech. On the other hand, if there was a specific plan to provoke a violent response ahead of time, that is probably illegal. (I don’t know what the Danish call it, but there are laws against conspiracy elsewhere.) It’s harder to prove, though — you would have to show that what they did was planned out in advance, and that can be difficult if they were smart enough not to leave any evidence lying around.
I’m intrigued by the fourth paragraph in the quoted block you gave. Nobody can conclusively link him with any specific act of violence, therefore (implied) he is innocent even though he apparently told people to go out and kill? Great defence — “Your Honor, I didn’t actually try to kill my husband with my own hands, I just tried to hire a hitman. I’m innocent!”
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Feb 8 2006 19:34 utc | 37
thanks for that link, Noisette
from the 2006 DQR
In addition to normal force generation, sustainment and training activities, this wartime force planning construct calls for U.S. forces to be able to:
…wage two nearly simultaneous conventional campaigns (or one conventional campaign if already engaged in a large-scale, long-duration irregular campaign), while
selectively reinforcing deterrence against opportunistic acts of aggression. Be prepared in one of the two campaigns to remove a hostile regime, destroy its military capacity and set conditions for the transition to, or for the restoration of, civil society.
Posted by: b real | Feb 8 2006 19:49 utc | 38
@TTGV.. I just tried to hire a hitman. I’m innocent!
Except that guy didn´t hire a hitman and didn´t tell who to kill. I do not know what he really said and to whom and in what context, but even officials in the U.K. do see the case as quite fishy.
Read the NYT article offline. It quoted the cleric saying something to the effect that it would be okay to kill a non-faithful person who had broken one or the other Islamic injunction.
As quoted in NYT, it seemed like a theological interpretation – albeit a vicious one.
Posted by: citizen | Feb 8 2006 20:11 utc | 40
@U$-
This is exactly what I suspected, as I indicated in the last thread. Too much echoing in the chamber to be anything else. And the al-Masri case is just their way of rubbing our noses in it–very Bushian/Rovian. Not to sound racist, but “Rose” sounds like a Jewish surname. I will try to find out more.
I must have missed this, but if the cartoons were originally published months ago, what lead to the hoopla suddenly coming to a head now?
By the way, didn’t Kurt Nimmo shut down his blog several months ago, amidst claimed threats to his family? All mention of this seems expunged from his blog. Similar to Wayne Madsen’s claim that hhe was to be assassinated this past summer, which lead to his blog being off-line for a day and a half. What up with that?
And the “Rumor Mill News Agency”, which Nimmo links to in his article is hardly the most reputable source. Archives include hysterical articles that the killings at Columbine were designed to take all guns away from the citizens. Well, the NRA really ran away with that one!
@TTGVWYCI (I may call you Vicious Truth, mayn’t I? Your sobriquet is a little cumbersome for me)
The defense that one did not do the actual killing but merely incited a killing has been addressed by legal precedent. Strictly speaking, Charles Manson is serving a life sentence for murders that he, himself, did not commit just as Eichmann was executed for war crimes that he, himself, did not personally carry out. There is a tiny difference between the charges involved when one actively commits a crime as opposed to merely facilitating one (the difference between treason and sedition, for example), and most jurisprudential environments do not view provocateurs as innocent bystanders.
One needn’t prove malicious intent if people are killed after someone yells “Fire!” in a crowded theatre. The charge (in the United States at least) is easily prosecuted as voluntary manslaughter. The free speech frame around this argument should have been abandoned immediately after the first physical repercussion manifested. I am “free” to be criminally negligent or mischievous, but there will be consequences for it if I am.
I’ve been trying to stay out of this debate about the cartoons because I believe they were published with malicious intent (which is not illegal in itself) and are being promulgated deliberately as both a diversion and facilitation to renew aggression against Islamic nations (specifically Iran). Now that the predictable response has occured however (viz. People have been killed), the issue is no longer one of free speech, but rather the determination of the extent to which the newspaper is legally responsible after having decided to invoke their right to free speech. But to continue to debate the issue the way it is being framed (viz. “freedom of expression”) is to fall precisely into the trap that has been laid out for us.
The English language does not contain the necessary vocabulary to express the idea I would like to on this matter. The closest I can come would be the Japanese conceptions of tatamae (a public ideal; what is presented; a facade) versus ura (the inner truth of a thing). The tatamae is that the Danish newspaper have a right to be offensive to a minority group and that the reasponse of the minority has been more outrageous than the initial offense against them… and further, this minority, in their attempt to dictate mores to the Danish newspaper are demonstrating a far more egregious antisocial attitude. The ura, on the other hand is that the people who have given this story legs were hoping for precisely this response from the minority to further their agenda. They also knew that the “reasonable community” would then be paralysed and distracted by the ensuing debate about the tatamae.
In this case, I am less disgusted by the overt bigotry of the cartoons than I am by the hopeless stupidity we progressives demonstrate by being so easily manipulated into paralysis. I can go into a country bar and incite some dullard into “throwing the first punch” in front of witnesses. He is then entirely legally culpable for what ensues. The fact that he should know better than to allow me to provoke him, and the fact that I can cop a self-defense plea and not be held accountable for my manipulation, is extremely irritating to me… but it’ll work every time.
Posted by: Monolycus | Feb 8 2006 20:40 utc | 42
Read and weep. The McCain anti torture law turns out to be a “we no can legaly torture law”.
How Not to Ban Torture in Congress
[T]he U.S. Senate amended the Defense Appropriations Bill to prohibit the “abuse” of detainees in American custody, including the many Muslims at our Guantanamo prison, but did so on the purely pragmatic, almost amoral grounds that it “leads to bad intelligence.” Under pressure from the White House, the senators also loaded this legislation with loopholes that may soon allow coerced testimony — extracted through torture — into American courts for the first time in two centuries.
This disconcerting contrast is but one sign that, under the Bush administration, the United States is moving to publicly legitimate the use of torture, even to the point of twisting this congressional ban on inhumane interrogation in ways that could ultimately legalize such acts. And following their President’s lead, the American people seem to be developing a tolerance, even a taste, for torture.
This country may, in fact, be undergoing an historic shift with profound implications for America’s international standing. It seems to be moving from the wide-ranging but highly secretive tortures wielded by the Central Intelligence Agency during the Cold War decades to an open, even proud use of coercive interrogation as a formal weapon in the arsenal of American power, acceptable both to U.S. courts and the American people.
@Monolycus-
Bravo! Well put. And since we’re talking about Joe Bageant, have a Booker’s on the rocks on me. Step up to the bar.
Senate office building evacuated due to detection of nerve agent. I kid you not. Somebody obviously thinks that the Senate, particularly half the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, have some nerve.
While the Senators and their staff empty the building and the garage: on Cspan, LIVE coverage of Rep Roscoe Barlett [R-Maryland] explaining via charts how peak oil will occur within ten years and that alternative sustainable energy needs to be supported. Oh my god he just said “we need 3 things: First money we need not worry about that we’ll just borrow it from our children and grandchildren;…”
Posted by: gylangirl | Feb 9 2006 3:04 utc | 47
Next Dem speaker, Tim Ryan of Ohio, prefaced his remarks on the debt by complimenting Bartlett who, he said ‘hit the nail on the head, impressive and thorough’ re peak oil and sustainability.
What’s up with that? Agreement? Decorum? Collegiality? In the House?
Posted by: Anonymous | Feb 9 2006 3:11 utc | 48
@Monolycus:
You can call me what you like, up to and including obscenities, as long as you make it clear you’re talking to me and not just yelling at everyone. 😉
You raise an interesting point — was this like yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater? Or was it more like your other example, where you bait a drunkard in a bar into hitting you? The two are not the same thing. In the first case, the people who suffer (the presumption is that there would be physical, mental, or financial damage as a result of the false cry of “fire”) are innocent, but in the second, the person who gets the blame is someone who should have known better. Unlike you (a point where our outlooks clash) I am satisfied if the law punishes the person who threw the first punch. If you lose your judgement when you get drunk, you shouldn’t be drinking. It makes life harder on the more responsible people around you. Going and provoking drunks would be a nasty hobby, but it isn’t as though the punishment is a big secret — the drunks knew what they were getting into when they got drunk.
If you assume that the violence which followed the publication of these cartoons was a natural reaction from Muslims, then yes, this was the newspaper’s fault. But it also says that Islam is not a safe religion for non-Muslims to allow in their countries right now, because the natural reaction to a perceived insult will be violence. This time, the insult may have been intentional, but what about next time? If I believed that religious violence was a natural reaction for Muslims to have, I would be arguing for the expulsion of Islam. I’m not. I think this violence did not represent a normal, natural Muslim reaction. Those involved should have known better. So in my opinion, we’re into the territory of the drunk at the bar, not the crowded theater.
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Feb 9 2006 3:26 utc | 49
By the way, didn’t Kurt Nimmo shut down his blog several months ago, amidst claimed threats to his family? All mention of this seems expunged from his blog.
Not so. It was several weeks ago (January) [perhaps there was a previous incident?] . It is still referenced in his archives (go to January – then scroll back in time through the reverse date entries. I found this.
http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=193
I don’t find it particulary hard to believe that Kurt Nimmo would be threatened.
Posted by: DM | Feb 9 2006 3:59 utc | 50
just to draw attention to it, as b didn’t mention it in his 4:32:30 PM link, but that article on torture is written by alfred mccoy & coincides w/ the release of his new book, a question of torture: cia interrogation, from the vold war to the war on terror, the latest in the excellent american empire project series.
Posted by: b real | Feb 9 2006 4:33 utc | 51
@Malooga
Vielen Dank. I will always accept a free drink, and I am very flattered as I have been consistently impressed with the calibre of the debate you bring here as well.
@Vicious Truth
I think I am beginning to get a handle on the specific point of contention now, although you’ll have to bear with a fairly roundabout explanation in order that I might attempt to express it.
The attitude that, of course Muslims would erupt into violence after a slight is every bit as racist as the cartoons themselves. That attitude is merely a variation of the “white man’s burden” philosophy; it presupposes that Muslims are inherently savage and are patronisingly allowed into civilised circles. I absolutely understand and agree with your position that, as fellow human beings, they are as responsible for their actions as any of us regardless of any theological or cultural differences we might share.
Unfortunately, in this instance, the whole argument isn’t quite as simple as that.
To extend the “provoked drunk” analogy a bit, let us assume that the particular drunk I am provoking happens to be a member of a particularly oppressed ethnic group (for the purposes of the argument, let us say that I am provoking a black man in the deep South of the United States in the 1930’s). The individual I am provoking is already living in a constant state of agitation as there is a great deal of anti-black sentiment in this particular town. Let us say that there have been more than a few lynchings and threats in the past few years and members of this ethnic group live in a state of constant antagonism and grief. Obviously, the target of my provocation is at a tremendous disadvantage and, on a particularly bad day, has reached a breaking point and displayed the bad judgement of lashing back at me in the public setting I have arranged.
The question is now no longer whether I have earned a justifiable black eye in this single incident, or even whether the individual object of my taunts is more to blame than I am. I orchestrated this incident from the beginning to publicly show that “these people” are dangerous, and the repercussions of one person’s poor judgement is now going to affect his entire community with increased persecution.
You’ve already addressed this particular side of the issue when you said that “I think this violence did not represent a normal, natural Muslim reaction.” You are right, of course. But many other people are already pre-disposed to believe otherwise and by not addressing the newspaper’s rôle in provoking this otherwise highly scrutinised instance, it only polarises less tolerant public opinion in the direction they had wanted to turn it. The only way to defuse the propaganda value of this orchestrated event is to acknowledge just as publicly that it was arranged for in the first place.
And there is yet another variable I will try to squeeze into the increasingly tortured “bar fight” analogy. Let us say that I have had a few skeletons in my closet that appear very near to becoming the objects of public gossip. By orchestrating the bar brawl, I have eclipsed whatever bit of dirty laundry I did not want aired and it quickly becomes forgotten. Or it might be more apt to say that while all the eyes were on me taunting a hapless drunk, my partner was emptying out the cash register.
That, in a nutshell, is why I had been trying to avoid prolonged discussion of this event. While we are discussing tasteless cartoons and doggedly going in circles about abstractions such as “freedom vs license” (and the Freepers and fundies are going on about how this justifies their prejudices against Muslims), we are no longer discussing the escalating situation with Iran, the FISA hearings, or a million other pending bits of nastiness. Think of this as a highbrow version of the O.J. Simpson trials; it keeps us, but not our leadership, occupied.
Posted by: Monolycus | Feb 9 2006 5:00 utc | 52
Grokking “a powerful mediocrity”
Rememberinggiap has often reminded me of what a small man Bush is, not unintelligent, but rather small minded, occupied by the trivia of fucking people over before they ever score anything on him. A walking illustration of what the social scientist meant by “a mediocrity” in The Eighteenth Brumaire. And today at All Spin Zone I finally found the story that perfectly captures the exact blend of vicious dedication to privilege and petty victory that is #43.
Who cares what you think
Posted by: citizen | Feb 9 2006 6:31 utc | 53
Thanks, DM.
I wasn’t implying that he was wrong, just that I couldn’t find the reference and I wondered why he would first sound so concerned, then blow it off. Turns out the monthly archives are more than one page long and I didn’t notice.
Bravo again, Monolycus. I can’t afford all these drinks. Apropos your bar analogy: Anyone remember the commercials for “Hawaian Punch”, from the ’60’s?
The political tide in this country is moving toward a “unitary” dictatorship and a bleak future of forever war waged against manufactured “clash of civilization” enemies.
Kurt Nimmo
FBI Special Agent Matthew J. Bertron, 26 Federal Plaza, New York, NY 10278, left his card today, 8 February,
3 PM, while we were out, with a request to call his number, 718-286-7154, or the main number 212-384-1000.
We called, he was out, he returned our call about 6 PM to ask to meet here at 10 AM tomorrow, 9 February. No
reason given. In November 2003, two SAs visited,not sure if one or more this time. We’ll report, maybe.
–CRYPTOME
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 9 2006 9:50 utc | 57
Ha ha ha ha ha ha, uh, -manical laughter- puke…
Republicans Put Tom Delay Back in Power
Indicted Rep. Tom DeLay, forced to step down as the No. 2 Republican in the House, scored a soft landing Wednesday as GOP leaders rewarded him with a coveted seat on the Appropriations Committee.
Even more astonishing, Delay has been put on the committee in charge of overseeeing the Justice Department, while he himself is being investigated by that very department in the Abramoff prosecution:
DeLay, R-Texas, also claimed a seat on the subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department, which is currently investigating an influence-peddling scandal involving disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his dealings with lawmakers. The subcommittee also has responsibility over NASA _ a top priority for DeLay, since the Johnson Space Center is located in his Houston-area district.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 9 2006 10:20 utc | 58
Glenn Greenwald lays it out for us:
The President is now claiming, and is aggressively exercising, the right to use any and all war powers against American citizens even within the United States, and he insists that neither Congress nor the courts can do anything to stop him or even restrict him.
It is true, as many have been pointing out, that this scandal, at its core, is about the rule of law — about whether the President has the right to break the law. But it will not suffice to rely upon that slogan because Gonzales has now articulated a clear response to it: namely, he has claimed that they did not break the law because there are legal authorities and legal theories that allowed them to do what they did.
In 200+ years, no one has proposed a “theory” of governing in this country so radical. There is nothing conservative about it, as some real conservatives are noticing. This administration approaches governing the same way they approach intelligence: decide what you want to do and then make up some rationale to justify it. Bush/Cheney needed a legal argument to wave around as proof of their authority and Gonzales obliged; they never really asked him for a legal opinion, just the gloss of legal cover, the same kind corporations employ legal departments to provide. Legally, it all becomes just a matter of interpretation instead of an out and out power grab – your opinion vs mine. (Where did the strict constructionists go?) The public glazes over at the legal obscurantism and the right wing propaganda apparatus then turns the issue into fighting enemies or not fighting them. Game over.
As Greenwald suggests, everything is now out in the open for those willing to look at it. Are we willing to let them have the powers they claim they have? Once they are convinced we will, they will use them more, um, liberally. This really is the point of no return, when they either get our permission to do openly what they have been doing secretly or are stopped. Can’t say I’m optimistic about our chances.
Posted by: lonesomeG | Feb 9 2006 13:20 utc | 59
william lind: The Long War
…it seems that in its blatant disconnect between programs and reality, the Rumsfeld Pentagon may this time have overplayed its hand [wrt the 2006 QDR]. The … Washington Times … reports that the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Congressman Duncan Hunter, called it like it is. “It appears that the QDR has become a budget-driven exercise, which limits its utility to Congress,” he said. The HASC has been holding hearings on genuine alternatives …, in a process that “will provide us with a more complete picture of America’s national security needs.” In other words, the Congress, or at least the House, may refuse to rubber stamp the QDR.
To anyone familiar with the Hill, this is nothing short of a revolution. The Pentagon stopped taking the authorizing committees seriously years ago, and with reason. They had become backwaters, seldom asking serious questions. The real action shifted to the appropriations committees, where the money gets doled out.
But the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have serious powers, if they once again choose to exercise them. Chairman Hunter’s response to the QDR suggests that the HASC may do just that. If it happens, not only might the relevance of many weapons programs come into question, so might Mr. Rumsfeld’s demand for maximalist objectives in a permanent war for permanent peace.
Posted by: b real | Feb 9 2006 19:09 utc | 60
Why cops will be key to social change here
This struggle is a conflict defined not by the indifference of the two sides in their distinction, but by their being bound together in one unity. I am not one of the fighters locked in battle, but both, and I am the struggle itself. I am fire and water…
Hegel
In the days that followed the shooting, the commissioner and other police officials went over a security videotape of the attack on Officer Hernandez in the moments before the shooting and said they had been revolted by the ferocity of the assault. The officer, fresh from his night shift in the Bronx and an off-duty swing through at least one local bar, was assaulted by a group of men inside a White Castle restaurant on Webster Avenue in the Bronx.
At least one witness told the police that the confrontation started when someone in the group ridiculed the officer, who was in street clothes, saying he should buy them sodas.
In the parking lot outside, he pulled his gun on a man he believed to be one of his attackers, and one of the officers responding to a 911 call, Officer Alfredo Toro, 43, shot him three times after he failed to drop his weapon. A question raised by the videotape was how the blows and kicks he suffered may have damaged Officer Hernandez physically, but the fact that he had been drinking that night raised other questions.
NYT
This is the second time this week I have read news of officers shooting officers on the street. I have also read of police protesting against being filmed by police while on strike. They, and we, are both fire and water…
Posted by: citizen | Feb 9 2006 19:17 utc | 61
cryptome update very interesting, scroll all the way through it…
p.s. who was it that mentioned how these entities work, something to the effect that (paraphrasing), the way these agencies get around their respective laws is “Brits spy on Americans and pass the info to American and vise verse” American spys on the Brits and passes what it gains to them.. (I think it was a moon comment) anybody remember something to that effect?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 9 2006 20:57 utc | 62
Hey, Uncle, that was me talking about info sharing between national agencies.
I think I read it a few years ago in reference to Echelon, the system owned by the US, Britain and Australia.
My remembrance is that Echelon was software, but newly available as a piece of hardware, that certain bigger ISPs have to install in their Network Operations Centers (NOCs).
It filters all the network traffic going through the ISP and sends results to the agency in control.
Anyway, it seemed to be common knowledge that each nation’s agencies cannot capture or store information on their own citizens, so a gentlemen’s agreement allows one government to ask another for data on the first government’s citizens.
As far as I know (I’m certainly no expert or professional), this is quite common for other types of information as well via Interpol, CSIS, FBI, etc.
I may be a little hazy about the exact details above, haven’t researched this recently, but I am pretty sure that the information-sharing is factual with respect to Echelon and as I recall it was discussed somewhat informally as common knowledge.
By the way, I followed your other link about Scott Ritter, with the inflammatory comment from him about escalation plans for (as he says) the coming war with Iran. However, Ritter is a bit of a loose cannon according to Truthout, so I didn’t reproduce his statement.
Hope this helps.
Posted by: jonku | Feb 9 2006 21:15 utc | 63
Jonku is correct in his description of the way in which western ‘civilisations’ avoid rules about espionage on their own citizens by getting another ‘trusted’ foreign intelligence service to do the spying for them.
This ‘trusted’ issue is most likely where the neo-cons ran into problems and decided that they had better do the spying themselves.
The issue would not have been over the political stuff which Canada, the UK or whatever the nation/s entrusted with spying upon the US would have willingly gathered.
The real issue would have been commercial/corporate communications which is where the ‘big money’ in intelligence has been even before the fall of the iron curtain.
BushCo and the oilers had already had issues with Shell and BP having the gall to imagine that just because the US had penetrated UK and Dutch markets, they could do the same in US markets.
This whole affair (internal intelligence gathering) wouldn’t have been organised to improve access to domestic communications, it would have been instituted to ensure that even ‘allies’ couldn’t access US communications any longer.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 9 2006 21:32 utc | 64