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March 5, 2006
OT 06-19
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Sunday Times:
Nato may help US airstrikes on Iran
Nato would be likely to operate air defences in Turkey, according to Dan Goure, a Pentagon adviser and vice-president of the Lexington Institute, a military think tank.
A former senior Israeli defence official said he believed all Nato members had contingency plans.
John Pike, director of the US military studies group Globalsecurity.org, said America had little to gain from Nato military help. “I think we are attempting to bring the alliance along politically so that when all diplomatic initiatives have been exhausted and we blow up their sites, we can say, ‘Look, we gave it our best shot’.”
…
Israel’s special forces are said to be operating inside Iran in an urgent attempt to locate the country’s secret uranium enrichment sites. “We found several suspected sites last year but there must be more,” an Israeli intelligence source said. They are operating from a base in northern Iraq, guarded by Israeli soldiers with the approval of the Americans, according to Israeli sources.
One can only assume that the Christian fundamentalists have hijacked this administration and are bent on precipitating Armageddon.
Posted by: ralphieboy | Mar 5 2006 13:30 utc | 2
White House dedicates itself to rooting out true danger to the country. No, I am not talking about Al Qaeda. Actually the true danger appears to be any news that puts this administration and their tactics in a bad light. It’s okay to use leaks when needed, but the safety of this country relies on the need to quit thinking about what is being reported and uncovered, and to start focusing on the fact that anyone would dare report it in the first place.
(via)
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 5 2006 16:20 utc | 3
b
would be interesting to hear from you on why the Europeans seem to be lining up behind Bush at a time when there is no longer any question that he is at the helm of the most dangerous rogue regime on the planet.
Is there support on the street for this kind of stuff? Surely, the millions that opposed the US aggression in Iraq haven’t “come around” to see the justness of it all?
From what I have read, Europe could be a big loser in further aggression against Iran.
Or is it like this guy says
The world is now in the first stages of a multistep “end game” for global domination by the last remaining superpowers.
Are the Europeans just backing the expected winner? Is it a good bet?
Was ist los?
Posted by: tgs | Mar 5 2006 16:41 utc | 4
Another topic here in Europe is the sudden upsurge in economic nationalism within members of the EU – an insitution that is supposed to guarantee the free flow of goods and capital.
Spain, France and Luxembourg have all reacted very strongly to but the kebosh on takeover bids against large national industries.
What happened to the euphoria over expanding the EU and ratifying its draft constitution?
Posted by: ralphieboy | Mar 5 2006 16:55 utc | 5
The Dubai World Ports deal is not what’s wrong. It was bound to happen under freewheeling globaliziation. What’s wrong is the utter hypocricy of Bush backing it after scaring the shit out of everybody about Arabs for four years, with his endless ‘war on terror'( the ‘war on terror will never be ‘won’ because it is essentially a rebellion against tyranny either by a despot or in the ‘New World Order’, by business interests.). This should expose the administration for the hypocricy it shows with it’s pretexts for war measures which in effect paralyze and make fools of the American people.
Posted by: pb | Mar 5 2006 17:07 utc | 6
“One can only assume that the Christian fundamentalists have hijacked this administration and are bent on precipitating Armageddon.
Posted by: ralphieboy | Mar 5, 2006 8:30:45 AM | #
Yes, but the real goal is to see Israel destroyed (by muslims?) so the ‘Rapture’ can take place. The fundies want it to happen soon because they want to be ‘Raptured’ up into the sky without having to die first.
Posted by: pb | Mar 5 2006 17:18 utc | 7
“One can only assume that the Christian fundamentalists have hijacked this administration and are bent on precipitating Armageddon.”
Posted by: ralphieboy | Mar 5, 2006 8:30:45 AM | #
Who Knows, ralphieboy. It may be the other way around. The real Dominionists may be the gopers and they don’t want competition from other narrow minded fatheads, so they brought them into the fold with a few well chosen memes like wellfare ‘reform’, gay marriage, patriarchy and declaring war on ‘any’ competing religion. Easy game for deceitful bastards like the Bush mob to play.
Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 5 2006 17:46 utc | 8
One of the things that sent Bin Laden down the warpath was that US troops were stationed on Muslim holy ground. Now the thought of the US allowing Israeli troops to use one Islamic country in order to invade another is certain to raise some serious hackles.
Is this what we call “Homeland Security?”
Posted by: ralphieboy | Mar 5 2006 17:52 utc | 9
Is there support on the street for this kind of stuff? Surely, the millions that opposed the US aggression in Iraq haven’t “come around” to see the justness of it all?
Definitly no support from the street, but the propaganda machines are in full swing. In Germany it is a kotau of Merkel to U.S. elites. In the U.K. it’s Blair – that is enough of an explanation. In France its the elite fear to loose international influence.
At least that is my take
BBC News poll: What the World Thinks of America
Also, don’t miss: B3TA challenge: The World According To America just for perspective…lol
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 5 2006 19:10 utc | 11
check out this bizarre paragraph stuck at the very end of a cheerie la ti da article about bush playing cricket in pakistan.
Pakistan’s most famous-ever cricketer, former captain-turned-politician Imran Khan, spent Saturday confined to his home where authorities detained him to thwart his plan to lead a march to protest against Bush’s visit.
can’t make this stuff up
Posted by: annie | Mar 5 2006 20:09 utc | 12
Chris Floyd Read It And Weep.
If the Democratic Party, as a whole, is not bothered by this, much less completely up in arms, one MUST conclude that they are merely playing the role of opposition in an elaborately constructed Kafka tale with the public as victim, and Democracy a hollow sham.
Two weeks ago, an obscure, unelected, Republican-appointed official in California decided the future of the world. That future — at least for the next several years — will be an accelerating nightmare of war, corruption, repression, atrocity and terror. That’s because the loyal apparatchik has, with the stroke of a pen, guaranteed the perpetuation of the Bush faction in power in 2008 and beyond.
One of the few certainties in modern U.S. politics is that no Democrat can win the presidency without carrying California. Thanks to the Electoral College system set up by the Founding Oligarchs to keep the low-born rabble from voting directly for president, the big haul of California’s electoral votes is crucial for Democrats to offset the multitude of small, sparsely populated states that reliably vote Republican. Bagging California doesn’t guarantee Democratic victory, but without it, the cliffhanger electoral counts in the goosed elections of 2000 and 2004 wouldn’t even have been close.
Thus, the sudden, hugger-mugger decision by California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson to override the objections of his own experts and certify the eminently hackable voting machines of the politically partisan firm, Diebold, for use throughout the state means, quite simply, that the fix is in for 2008. It doesn’t matter who the Democrats run — Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, George Clooney or Jesus H. Christ in an Uncle Sam suit. It won’t make a bit of difference. California is lost, the presidency is lost and the Bushists are in — already. It’s over.
After Diebold’s machines failed miserably in a battery of tests last year, McPherson vowed to put their certification on hold until his own hand-picked panel of experts had fine-combed the system to a fare-thee-well, blogger Brad Friedman reports. The panel delivered their conclusions last month — and the results were staggering, far beyond the worst fears of the most hard-core “conspiracy theorist.” The panel found that Diebold’s machines were riddled with curious built-in glitches that effectively “ceded complete control of the system” to hackers who could “change vote totals, modify reports, change the names of candidates and change the races being voted on.”
What’s more, “hackers wouldn’t need to know passwords or cryptographic keys, or have access to any other part of the system to do their dirty work,” the Los Angeles Times notes. “Voters, candidates and election monitors wouldn’t necessarily know they’d been rooked.” A more perfect vehicle for fixing an election can hardly be imagined. And it would require nothing more than a handful of high-tech zealots, not a vast conspiracy.
Naturally, after such a blistering condemnation, McPherson did what any official charged with guaranteeing the integrity and credibility of his state’s elections would do: He approved the slipshod system by the dark of the moon, on a Friday before a holiday weekend, without any public hearings — indeed, without waiting for the results of a pending federal review of Diebold’s mole-infested code. Now, the Diebold contraptions, whose chronic “breakdowns” have featured in numerous contested elections and last-second “miracle” victories by Republican candidates across the country in recent years, will control California’s pot of electoral gold.
A good example of how this control works can be found in Alaska. There, the state Democratic Party has long been seeking an audit of some of the 2004 Diebold-counted returns, which produced a series of strange anomalies — including awarding President George W. Bush an extra 100,000 votes that turned out to be phantoms. First, state officials blocked the request because that information, the vote count of a public election, was a “company secret” that belonged exclusively to Diebold, Friedman reports. Then they decided that the returns could be examined — but only on the condition that Diebold and the Republican officials be allowed to “manipulate the data” before it was released. In the end, even this tainted transparency was too much for the Bushist ballot crunchers; late last month, Alaska officials suddenly declared that examining the returns would pose a dire but unspecified “security risk” to the state.
America’s votes are increasingly controlled by a small number of interrelated corporations: Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia, all of which have close political and financial ties to the Bush faction — and to other dark forces as well. Diebold and ES&S were both bankrolled by tycoon Howard Ahmanson, who was also a major funder of the Christian “Reconstructionist” movement, which openly advocates a totalitarian theocracy in America, including the death penalty for homosexuals, slavery for debtors, stoning for sinners and stripping nonbelievers of citizenship. As journalist Max Blumenthal reports, these extremists have been welcomed as a key part of the Bushist base of politicized evangelicals, whose cadres have been quietly filling government posts for the past five years. Meanwhile, Sequoia — whose machines racked up 100,000 “mistakes” in just one Florida county in 2004, according to a recent audit — is owned by a business partner of the Carlyle Group, the investment firm whose insider deals and war profiteering have earned millions for the Bush family.
Thus, the 2008 election will be conducted largely on wide-open machines programmed by avowed partisans and paymasters of a ruthless gang that has already committed demonstrable vote fraud on a massive scale in engineering narrow “victories” in 2000 and 2004. So it doesn’t matter who runs, who votes or how unpopular the Bush faction becomes through the murderous ruin of its radical agenda. The “consent of the governed” will be drowned in the blood money that has bought the nation’s electoral process.
@ Malooga & b
Sorry about not replying to Malooga’s detailed response to me on the last OT thread. Been offline. But I’ve posted a response and wonder if b would be interested in a thread about the concept of a “corporate center” in modern imperialism.
Could pull a few posts from “Fresh OT”, starting here, and see who bites to help develop the idea of a corporate center that drives forward modern imperialism. It might really help us know what we mean when we say “The Great Game”
Referees = IMF? GATS? other.
Players = specific large corporations. Or do we need a kind of cyborg concept that refers to individual corporate players and their corporate ‘exoskeletons’?
Narrative = what counts as an action? How does karma unfold in this game?
Events explainable = Iraq invasion seen not as neo-con idiocy for lunatic governmental figures, but entirely rational behavior under the identities played viz-a viz the Corporate Center(s?).
Posted by: citizen | Mar 6 2006 1:24 utc | 14
Malooga, your post comes almost as a response to mine that follows yours.
Chris Floyd looked at the structure of events in an election, and concluded that once the human being who stands in for California citizens conceded the game to the corporation, the elections in California will now have to run through the black box of the corporate center.
But note that in 2006 it still required a person, a politician sworn to defend the law in this case, to give the game over to the corporate center. Is there a world coming where the politicians don’t even get to play Judas?
Does one fight the advent of such a world, or embrace it and lessent he era of casualties? Would we all be happier as citizens of a corporation?
I think the answer is no. I think that a world of corporate citizens is a fantasy of corporate feudalism, and such a world would destroy itself rapidly. Such are our world wars. We may be bound, by honesty to ourselves, to fight.
Posted by: citizen | Mar 6 2006 1:43 utc | 15
Uncle,
Those guys at B3a are living in the past! Park Place is not Iraq, but Iran, and Afghanistan is not its partner.
Also, Russia is a player, not just a property.
Posted by: citizen | Mar 6 2006 1:48 utc | 16
Citizen, I for one don’t care to be a peasant on a corporate fiefdom. Safe to say that the Harvard faculty aren’t much interested either.
re Malooga’s Chris Floyd post: One of the two reasons that xDem. Gov. of Ca. was overthrown was so they could remove the xDem. Sec. of State, who was standing in Diebold’s way, & replace him w/a Repug. functionary. That decision was a long foregone conclusion. Supremes didn’t want to have to fix more elections. First they stole Fla., then Ohio & several smaller states. Now they have Ca. as well. (For those who think absentee ballots are the answer, they’re read on DieBold software driven machinery as well.)
What I find interesting is tracking the moderate right party blogs – kos, etc – to see who is covering that. I don’t think anyone cares less, or did I miss something?
Posted by: jj | Mar 6 2006 2:16 utc | 17
If I could get everyone to read one article this month, it is one in this mos. Harper’s. (For barflies in elsewhere land, it’s our one truly excellent magazine, edited by Lewis Lapham who sees it as his mission to document the twilight of the Republic.)
Happily, Lapham wrote an essay in favor of impeachment. That is garnering all the attention & deservedly so. He would be a disappointment, if he didn’t. But there’s another art. there that requires you to trot down to yr. nearest magazine shop at top speed, as they wisely didn’t mention it online. It likewise is about the twilight of the Republic, medical science, under the combined pressure of the Corporados & in this case, gay AIDS activists. (As I said, thankfully it’s not online.)
title: Out of Control: AIDS and the Corruption of Medical Science
‘ ” The scientific-medical complex is a $2 Trillion industry,” says former drug developer Dr. David Rasnick, who now works on nutrition-based AIDS programs in Pretoria, South Africa. “you can buy a tremendous amount of consensus for that kind of money.” ‘
What kind of consensus?
That there’s an AIDS epidemic in Africa. You’ve all heard of that. Welll
“The clinical definition of AIDS in Africa, however, is so stunningly broad & generic, and was seemingly designed to be little other than a signal for funding. It is in no way comparable to Western definitions. The ‘Bangui definition’ of AIDS was established in the city of Bangui in the Central Af. Republic, at a conference in 1985. The definition requires neither a positive HIV test nor a low T-cell count, as in the West, but only the presence of chronic diarrhea, fever, significant weight loss…& minor symptoms. These happen to be the symptoms of chronic malnutrition, malaria, parasitic infections & other common African illnesses. (In 1994 the definition was updated to suggest the use of HIV tests, but in practice they are prohibitively expensive.) Even when HIV tests are performed, many diseases that are endemic to Africa, such as malaria & TB, are known to cause false positives. The statistical picture of AIDS in Africa, consequently, is a communal projection based on very rough estimates of HIV positives, culled from select and small samples, which are extrapolated across the continent using computer models & highly questionable assumptions.” ‘
The main focus of the article is a study of a new drug from a German pharmaceutical co., Boehringer Ingelheim, administered by largely Am. med. tech. staff in Africa. The study was a farce. No scientific protocols were observed in practice, so there’s zero way of knowing what, if anything the drug does. But by this time there was so much money behind it, that the drug sailed through the clearance process.
And so it goes in the world of AIDS, not just in Africa, but here at home as well. The AZT study, done in America, was no better. Turns out, they don’t have a clue what actually causes AIDS, or what to do about it, but plenty of people are making a handsome living amid the complete collapse of the scientific method.
Anyone who uses pharmaceuticals, or might in the future, is well-advised to read the article. I’m flabbergasted. Turns out the Theocrats were late to the let’s corrupt science & destroy the language party! I did not realize the corruption of science was this far along.
I think this essay will be in author’s bk coming out soon: “Serious Adverse Events”, by Celia Farber from Melville House.
Posted by: jj | Mar 6 2006 3:10 utc | 18
jj, this is nothing new. You should read the Senat report: The Politics of Cancer. Seekening! Its a few years old, but my guess it got worse since it was written.
Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 6 2006 6:08 utc | 19
pb- UAE Port Deal – Three Strikes, You’re Out
1) All US commercial ventures in UAE require a 51% vestment with a UAE partner. Not buy-in. UAE gets 51% cut of our investment and our labor,
but the US deal does not. Ipso facto absurdum?
2) UAE is directly linked to 9/11 in many ways.
3) UAE said Israel should be pushed into the sea.
Bush is distancing himself from this because the deal makes anyone associated with it a terrorist under international definition, and a traitor.
ONE (FEMA) WORLD OR NONE!
Posted by: Telli Savalas | Mar 6 2006 6:57 utc | 22
US envoy hints at strike to stop Iran
The US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, has told British MPs that military action could bring Iran’s nuclear programme to a halt if all diplomatic efforts fail. The warning came ahead of a meeting today of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which will forward a report on Iran’s nuclear activities to the UN security council.
…
However the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, visiting Washington last week, encountered sharply different views within the Bush administration. The most hawkish came from Mr Bolton. According to Eric Illsley, a Labour committee member, the envoy told the MPs: “They must know everything is on the table and they must understand what that means. We can hit different points along the line. You only have to take out one part of their nuclear operation to take the whole thing down.”
It is unusual for an administration official to go into detail about possible military action against Iran. To produce significant amounts of enriched uranium, Iran would have to set up a self-sustaining cycle of processes. Mr Bolton appeared to be suggesting that cycle could be hit at its most vulnerable point.
…
The Pentagon position was described, by the committee chairman, Mike Gapes, as throwing a demand for a militarily enforced embargo into the security council “like a hand grenade – and see what happens”.
DarkSyde misreads Rove on DKos. This isn’t about another McCarthy Era black-listing effort at all, it’s much, much more sinister. It’s about laying the lockdown groundwork for an invasion of Iran, but first making sure all the leaks are plugged, dead, or disappeared, before the fireworks start.
There won’t be a second Abu Ghraib debacle, and Truth is not (ever been) Meme of the Neo Moment.
Bush is in India and Pakistan now shoring up the dikes for a blitzkreig pincher-move encirclement.
By leaking their plan now, after passage of the Neo Patriot Act II, anyone could be disappeared,
black-listed, drummed-out, or credit destroyed.
It’s pretty f–king cold living under a freeway.
Voices Carry
by DarkSyde
Sun Mar 05, 2006 at 06:31:42 PM PDT
As Glenn Greenwald and others have recognized, the newest note in the chorus of whining GOP harpies frantically evading accountability, is that the critics of the Bush strategemary somehow lost, or are losing, the war in Iraq.
[Link] Those who insisted on this war, who started it, who prosecuted it, who controlled every single facet of its operation – they have no blame at all for the failure of this war. Nope. They were right all along about everything. It all would have worked had war critics just kept their mouths shut. The ones who are to blame are the ones who never believed in this war, who control no aspect of the government, who were unable to influence even a single aspect of the war, who were shunned, mocked and ridiculed, and who have been out of power since the war began. They are the ones to blame. They caused this war to fail.
Expect this, plan on it. Anyone who thinks that it’s not coming, that the sinking GOP wouldn’t have the nerve to try, is possibly as delusional as the 34 percent who still think George Bush is doing a heckuva job. In fact, Kevin Drum notes that at least one right-wing cheerleader with a megaphone is already laying the groundwork with a trial balloon to blame the media; a stone’s throw away from going after critics of the White House’s Iraq War.
There’s a lot of ways someone can respond to this tactic, after they stop laughing hysterically of course, as it really is quite desperate. But voices do carry, so a response is in order. The best response for anything is usually the simplest, the most direct, the most truthful. In this case the simple truth is that The Republicans are Losing the War.
Update by kos: Steve Gilliard has more. So does Atrios.
Posted by: Carrie Underwood | Mar 6 2006 7:28 utc | 24
‘ Definitly no support from the street, but the propaganda machines are in full swing. In Germany it is a kotau of Merkel to U.S. elites. In the U.K. it’s Blair – that is enough of an explanation. In France its the elite fear to loose international influence. ‘
B, they’re going to bomb Iran. The Europeans are on board and NATO is going to take part. An Anglo-American-German-French-Israeli attack on Iran. Things can always get worse. And now it looks like the Europeans are just as nuts, or cynical, as the Americans.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Mar 6 2006 8:54 utc | 25
So far, not the same level of hysteria as prior to Iraq, but maybe that’s just the way it will be this time.
Justin Raimondo also sounds convinced that they will actually do this with the whole NATO bit (see his latest post gang-banging is back in style )
If they do this, expect a future different from whatever you imagined it to be.
Posted by: DM | Mar 6 2006 10:08 utc | 26
If you don’t speak out, things just die and shut down. We’re going to have no national memory of anything, and if you are not informed about your past, you have no present. And god help you in the future.
– Gore Vidal
Posted by: DM | Mar 6 2006 10:37 utc | 27
Staged attack to precede war against Iran
Psychological manipulation and military plans are now being fine-tuned and put into place in order to carry out a war against Iran. This manipulation of the public at large strongly resembles preparations taken prior to the current war in Iraq, giving rise to suspicions of a potential diversionary tactic by the U.S. military. At the same time that pressure to pull the troops out of Iraq is intensifying, the U.S. is dispatching an entire division there, possibly to employ against Iran at a later date. According to author Webster Tarpley, the coming war in Iran will be preceded by a false flag operation (a strike carried out by Party A, who is both victim and perpetrator, but who in turn assigns guilt to Party B).
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 6 2006 13:20 utc | 28
ah… i was just going to post thompson’s rant. (spent too much time reading through the comments.)
and here’s some more levity. World in peril, Chomsky tells overflow crowd. i was reading thru the comments there too, when the image of cheney building that bunker under his crib suddenly overwhelmed me.
Posted by: b real | Mar 6 2006 18:53 utc | 31
A really good Haaretz article on the non-demolition of illegal outposts in the West Bank.
Even though the High Court in Israel has declared some outposts illegal and demanded their distruction and officials claim to work in that direction, other forces are enlarging these outposts and nothing happens.
I this like a state in a state? An oligarchy working against a nation?
Show and tell? No, hide and seek
looking for signs of intelligence in the u.s. govt…
U.S. Intelligence Director Negroponte Slams Venezuela
At a presentation to the US senate on Tuesday, Negroponte said Chavez, “is spending hundreds of millions, if not more, for his very extravagant foreign policy.” The Venezuelan government was also failing to help the poor, said Negroponte.
The CIA Director said if Chavez wins the December Presidential elections he will “suffocate” democracy in the country. Negroponte made these comments in a speech that was otherwise focused on Iraq.
john – where were you in the runup to nov 2004 in the states? we could have used your insight. (apologies for the dry humor … it’s one of those type of days)
Posted by: b real | Mar 6 2006 19:38 utc | 33
Its reassuring to know that Mr. Negroponte is so focussed on helping the poor, as we cut every social program to the bone, and slip quietly into the fascist night of our worst fears.
Perhaps someday we will have adjoining prison cells. A warm thought…..
Chavez is on the hit list. Don’t worry. He has everyting going against him, an anti-US, anti globalization attitude and enormous oil reserves.
We will soon declare him a “terrorist threat” and enact a “regime change”. Don’t worry, the Venezuelan people will welcome us with open arms, and any insurrection against us will soon find itself in its last throes.
Posted by: ralphieboy | Mar 6 2006 20:58 utc | 35
chavez has been on the hit list for years, but then so has castro, and we know how well that went. plus, now there’s the reserve & territorial guard programs to defend the country, as well as a populist military.
walden bello looks to the venezuelan military for inspiration in his homeland, Military radicalism in Venezuela: lessons for Philippines
Venezuela is undergoing, if not a revolution, a process of radical change, and the military is right in the center of it. How could this been happening, many skeptics ask, when the military, especially in Latin America, is usually an agent of the status quo? Others, less skeptical, ask: Is Venezuela the exception, or is it the wave of the future?
Posted by: b real | Mar 6 2006 21:36 utc | 36
A very ugly and stupid NYT headline:
Wall St. Cheers Phone Deal; AT&T to Cut 10,000 More Jobs
So Wall Street chears because another 10,000 consumers will not be able to buy any goods and pay their bills. But even this idiocity turns out to be wrong.
Reading the article, AT&T is down 4% today while Bell South, being aquired by AT&T, is up 8%.
Bell South yesterday had a market capitalization of some 55 Billion, while AT&T had a cap of some 108 Billion. With the change today, there was some money made but the AT&T loss was nearly as big as the Bell South gain. Not much of a chearing Wall Street.
BILL NAPOLI: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.
I am thinking of Mr. Napoli, not on what he describes.
ah, mr negroponte, i was just reviewing the post at whiskey bar this morning reminding me of those death squads. somehow i forgot we had a 6 month warning before the report last summer the reporter got assasinated for. sometimes i wish i believed in an inferno afterlife (for people like negroponte).
Posted by: annie | Mar 6 2006 22:51 utc | 39
Mr. Napoli was pushing his pabulum on “Now” this past week. “When I grew up (He appears to be in his early 60’s), if a guy got a girl pregnant, the whole community came together, and he did the right thing and married her.” So, he is also intentionally perpetrating the completely unreal meta-narrative of community, or at the very least, playing with the sheeple’s longing for an idealized past, at the very same time that Wall Street does its best to break up every last remaining one left.
i watched that napoli video. the last thing he says is back when he was growing up if a girl got pregnant the guy married her and the whole neighborhood was involved. and we can go back to that. back is right. w/the emphasis on teen sex education being abstinence there is some expectation teens are going to quit having sex. which of course is absurd.
millions of women don’t have issues w/getting an abortion. not everyone goes thru big emotional problems with it. no one likes it but it beats a root canal. well, having never had a root canal i guess i should use another example. are they going to keep women from driving across state lines also? this petri dish debate going on is such a non issue imho.
Posted by: annie | Mar 6 2006 23:17 utc | 41
“Bush is distancing himself from this because the deal makes anyone associated with it a terrorist under international definition, and a traitor.”
ONE (FEMA) WORLD OR NONE!
Posted by: Telli Savalas | Mar 6, 2006 1:57:34 AM | #
You have about thirty days to get your head out of the sand, Telli, that’s when you will discover that your prez fits the “international definition”. The chickenhawks have come home to roost.
Posted by: pb | Mar 6 2006 23:17 utc | 42
So, alas, do mediocre ones, or even sheepling mindlets.
Anyway, beat you by one second!
I worry that this is part of a general tend toward loss of all social liberty, in addition to being a distracting move. More on this later.
Watchdog: What Ever Happened to the Civil Liberties Board?
March 13, 2006 issue – For more than a year, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has been the most invisible office in the White House. Created by Congress in December 2004 as a result of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, the board has never hired a staff or even held a meeting.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 7 2006 0:09 utc | 45
Good Guardian OpEd on the build up of Iran propaganda:
Drumbeat sounds familiar
Official Washington’s quickening drumbeat of hostility is beginning to recall political offensives against Libya’s Muammar Gadafy, Panama’s Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein, which all ended in violence. Rightwing American media are urging action, deeming Iran “an intolerable threat” that is the “central crisis of the Bush presidency”.
As was the case with Iraq, administration tub-thumping is influencing public opinion – notwithstanding subsequent debunking of many of its Iraq claims. Polls suggest many Americans are now convinced Iran is the new public enemy No 1. Forty-seven percent told Zogby International they favoured military action to halt its nuclear activities.
While hopes of avoiding confrontation are not yet dead, warnings by John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, that Iran could face “painful consequences” over its nuclear activities were a reminder of Mr Bush’s repeated refusals to eschew armed force. Iranian officials believe the US is determined to undermine and if possible overthrow Iran’s theocracy and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government – regardless of whether a nuclear compromise is reached. That helps explain Tehran’s hardline negotiating stance.
So, Saudi Dakota has passed a law outlawing abortions. Has anyone heard of any JackAss Party elected officials speaking out in opposition? Have I missed something.
What do you get when you cross Saudi Arabian values w/Western Can-Do technical prowess? From A Vast Feminist Conspiracy
“Lost yr. Virginity? Find it Again”
…
You too can have a Hymenoplasty – get yr. hymen reconstructed so you can be in vogue Saudi Arabian Style!! How long before Pravda-on-the-Hudson, w/its concern for appealing to the fundies of the “heartland” will feature this in its Sunday Style Section. And just as females were ordered to bind their daughter’s feet in China, we can be sure that the article will be done by a resident female!!
Posted by: jj | Mar 7 2006 9:25 utc | 47
Dhar Jamail: Embedding Torture as Policy from Guantanamo to Iraq
shhhhh, be berry berry quiet. Keep it on the qt, but Ex-Enron CFO Fastow set to face former bosses
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 7 2006 15:12 utc | 49
Riverbend is challenging Billmon And the Oscar Goes to…
Many honorable mentions:
First and foremost, an honorable mention to Bush’s speech writers. It must be the most difficult job in the world writing scripts to make George W. Bush sound/look not great, not even good- but passable. It must also be challenging having to write speeches using words with a maximum of two syllables.
An honorable mention to the Saudis for their support of Sunni extremists and Wahabis, the Iranians for their support of Shia extremist, and Americans for their support of chaos.
And so, as our Green Zone glitterati retire to their camps to celebrate their great victories, Iraqis wonder what wonderful, new cinematic opportunities await. There is much talk that a block buster is in the works – in the pre-production stage of this years most anticipated psychological thriller “Iraqi Civil War”.
over at capitol hill blue, doug thompson clarifies yesterday’s revelation.
Posted by: b real | Mar 7 2006 19:30 utc | 51
I wonder if South Dakota put the rape and incespt passages in their legislation so that the Supreme Court could strike them down while leaving the rest intact. (Gotta give ’em something to do)
In any case, we have moved one step closer to becoming a Christian Iran – and/or – “Your belly belongs to the Führer!”
Posted by: ralphieboy | Mar 7 2006 20:44 utc | 52
Anyone objecting to the invasion and occupation of Iraq always had to prepend any statement with something like, “I understand that Saddam Hussein is a butcher, a beast .. but ..”
Defending Saddam Hussein was never the point, and he has been roundly condemed by everyone including the likes of Robert Fisk.
Not that I have any interest in defending Saddam Hussein either, but I am given some cause for pause when I consider that demonization is a prerequisite for war, that almost everything the Americans say is a lie (you can see their lips moving), when you consider the current charges against Saddam Hussein, and when you read stuff like this from Chris Floyd.
Posted by: DM | Mar 7 2006 22:01 utc | 53
From the Chris Floyd link (above).
John Pace, the outgoing head of the UN human rights office in Baghdad, said the vast majority of the bodies arriving at the mortuary showed signs of summary execution and many had their hands tied behind their backs. “Some showed evidence of torture, with arms and leg joints broken by electric drills,” said Pace, a Maltese official.
…
According to Pace, the cases of torture and extrajudicial executions now exceed those under Saddam’s rule. “Under Saddam, if you agreed to forgo your basic right to freedom of expression and thought, you were physically more or less okay,” he said. “Now you have a primitive, chaotic situation where anybody can do anything they want to anyone.” .
Hmm! “if you agreed to forgo your basic right to freedom of expression ..”. Sounds a bit like everywhere else these days.
Posted by: DM | Mar 7 2006 22:08 utc | 54
Humanity is a cosmic experiment, the purpose of which is to ascertain to what moral and spiritual heights an intelligent form of animal life can rise or to what depths of depravity and evil it can sink. For quite some time it has been clear that the spiritual heights have rarely been achieved. Rather the question now is: How decadent, depraved and corrupted can humanity become? To what extent, given the moral indifference and absence of widespread resistance by the populations of the militarily most-advanced countries, can evil gain control over the entire world?
If, as it seems, there is no limit, once this has become clear then the experiment may be ended, and the human species, having disgraced itself in the eyes of God, may rightly be exterminated (before it causes extinction of all life on the planet), in case it does not manage to exterminate itself. A few million years in the future, or on another planet orbiting another star, with a new experiment, better designed, there might be a more felicitous outcome.
The end may be neigh, but you’ll love these photos of Georgetown law students
turning their backs to Gonzales (didn’t see this on the MSM).
Posted by: DM | Mar 7 2006 23:36 utc | 55
On the what topics-thread someone asked for some positive posts on what is being done. I wrote a diary on the Eurotrib on the Pirate Party of Sweden, so that you know.
Short version: the Pirate Party will stop surveilliance, abolish (or almost) intellectual property by winning the swedish parliamentary elections this fall. How you may ask? Easy, I have joined, and now victory is near. 🙂
Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Mar 7 2006 23:57 utc | 57
here’s the investigative article on the use of chalabi & the INC as a disinfo source that DM’s 6:44 post highlights, Heroes in Error: How a fake general, a pliant media, and a master manipulator helped lead the United States into war.
The aim was for the stories to then be picked up by the American media, thereby bypassing U.S. laws that prevented government funding of domestic propaganda.
Posted by: b real | Mar 8 2006 3:09 utc | 58
This from Bill Fleckstein, who manages a Hedge Fund, on msn:
if the “same CPI were used today as was used when Jimmy Carter was president, Social Security checks would be 70% higher.” That’s seven-zero.
The numbers behind the lies. Does anyone have access to the article he references, by any chance?
Posted by: jj | Mar 8 2006 3:46 utc | 59
@DM, your chris floyd link takes me back once again.. The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq
One military source involved in the Pentagon debate agrees that this is the crux of the problem, and he suggests that new offensive operations are needed that would create a fear of aiding the insurgency. “The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it is giving to the terrorists,” he said. “From their point of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that equation.”
Posted by: annie | Mar 8 2006 3:49 utc | 60
Ralphieboy noted:
I wonder if South Dakota put the rape and incespt passages in their legislation so that the Supreme Court could strike them down while leaving the rest intact. (Gotta give ’em something to do)
That was my assumption. Outlawing abortion can then be seen as the “middle ground”. See…..we’re not anti-abortion extremists…it just shouldn’t be used for “convenience” – that’s the new term!!
does it occur to anyone else, that among the young it’ll simply make traditional intercourse obsolete?
Posted by: jj | Mar 8 2006 3:53 utc | 61
Back to the Future (History News Network)
[extracts – (a “force for good” in the world, eh?) ]
But although echoes of Viet Nam can be heard in the Iraq experience of 2006, both episodes beg for comparisons to a much earlier U.S. occupation. More than a century ago, in the 1890s the U.S. wrested from Spain, and occupied, the Philippines — an archipelago of 7,100 islands that is rich in natural resources and strategically located a mere 600 miles from the rest of Asia.
…
The San Francisco Argonaut, an influential Republican paper, wrote candidly: “We want the Philippines. The islands are enormously rich, but unfortunately, they are infested with Filipinos.” The paper went on to advocate, as part of a pacification program, forms of torture that would “impress the Maylay mind” — “the rack, the thumbscrew, the trial by fire, the trial by molten lead, boiling insurgents alive.”
…
The Philippines, General Arthur MacArthur prophesied, would need “bayonet treatment for at least a decade.”
…
U.S. officers told their troops the Filipinos were “niggers,” no better than the Native Americans at home. A private wrote home: “The weather is intensely hot, and we are all tired, dirty and hungry, so we have to kill niggers whenever we have a chance, to get even for all our trouble.” Atrocities quickly accumulated, including massacres of prisoners, soldiers, civilians and entire villages. Marine General Littleton Waller, later known as “the butcher of Samar,” issued orders to “punish Filipino treachery with immediate death.” General William Shafter told a journalist it might be necessary to kill half the native population to bring “perfect justice” to the other half.
…
On the island of Samar, Marine Brigadier General Jacob Smith announced that the enemy was any male or female “ten years and up” and told his soldiers: “I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn; the more you kill and burn the better it will please me.” A popular method of torture was “the water cure,” which involved forcing water into the stomachs of victims. One soldier admitted applying this technique to 160 Filipino prisoners,134 of whom had died. A U.S. Red Cross worker said, “American soldiers are determined to kill every Filipino in sight.” Numerous reports from the field repeatedly confirmed a war without rules.
…
Military engagements finally ended in 1911. In a dozen years of war, the United States had fought 2,800 engagements, more than 200,000 Filipinos and 4,234 U.S. soldiers had died, and the Congress had spent $170 million dollars.
…
Historical hindsight reveals that the Philippine occupation not only marked the debut of U.S. imperial ambitions on the world stage, but by providing a template for European conquests in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe it was a fitting introduction to humanity’s most violent century. For a different view, we can turn to President George W. Bush. On a state visit to Manila in October 2003, he told a joint session of the Philippine parliament: “Together our soldiers liberated the Philippines from colonial rule.”
Posted by: DM | Mar 8 2006 6:17 utc | 62
We know that Americans love war movies. Instead of starting new wars, there is still plenty of untapped script material that has accumulated over the last hundred years.
If anyone wants some help with a script on the “Liberation of the Philippines”, just ask.
Posted by: DM | Mar 8 2006 6:28 utc | 63
So there will be no investigation into Cheney’s administration breaking the FISA law:
G.O.P. Senators Say Accord Is Set on Wiretapping
Instead, the break will be made legal. Incredible!
The Pentagon is completing its takeover of the CIA and the Foreign Office.
Elite Troops Get Expanded Role on Intelligence
The military is placing small teams of Special Operations troops in a growing number of American embassies to gather intelligence on terrorists in unstable parts of the world and to prepare for potential missions to disrupt, capture or kill them.
…
Officials said small groups of Special Operations personnel, sometimes just one or two at a time, have been sent to more than a dozen embassies in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America. These are regions where terrorists are thought to be operating, planning attacks, raising money or seeking safe haven.
Their assignment is to gather information to assist in planning counterterrorism missions, and to help local militaries conduct counterterrorism missions of their own, officials said.
…
The Special Operations command reports to Mr. Rumsfeld, and falls outside the orbit controlled by John D. Negroponte, the newly established director of national intelligence, who oversees all the nation’s intelligence agencies.
Good: Social democrats gain in Netherlands’ election
The political parties of the left scored sweeping gains at the expense of those of the centre-right coalition in local government elections in the Netherlands on Tuesday.
…
The Christian Democrat Alliance, the party of Jan Peter Balkenende, prime minister, and its cabinet allies – the liberal VVD and centrist D66 – were the big losers. Opinion polls reported that, were the result mirrored in a snap general election, PvdA would win 49 of the 150 parliamentary seats, while CDA – currently the largest single political party – would lose 13 of its 44 seats.
Cheney grandstanding before the AIPAC
AP : U.S. Says Iranian Enrichment unacceptable
‘ Edging toward the U.N. Security Council review it has long sought,
Washington rejected any potential 11th hour compromise that would allow
Iran to process nuclear fuel that could be used for weapons.
‘ Vice President Dick Cheney said the United States and other nations
are agreed that “we will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” He
said, “The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present
course, the international community is prepared to impose meaningful
consequences.”
‘ Speaking to the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, Cheney did not
specify what the U.S. would do but said it “is keeping all options on
the table.” American officials have said the government has no plans for
military force but will not rule it out. ‘
Could it be any more obvious that this is deja vu all over again? that another shocking, awful, American-led aggression is about to take place in the Middle East? Could it be more obvious that the “Bush” administration is the handmaiden of the AIPAC? that our present American regime is prosecuting aggressive wars abroad at the behest of partisans of a foreign power?
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Mar 8 2006 9:04 utc | 67
still looking for signs of intelligence…
from the mighty wurlitzer, the Inter-American Press Association has issued this concern
Press Group Warns of Renewed Attack on Free Expression in Cuba
The regime of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro is renewing its attacks on free speech in Cuba, warns a press advocacy group called the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA).
In a March 2 statement, the Miami-based group said the Castro regime “continues using perverse methods to silence critical voices and gag any slight attempt at freedom of expression” in Cuba.
and then there’s this
White House says Iran statements provocative
The White House rejected as provocative Iran’s statement’s that the United States could feel “harm and pain” if the U.N. Security Council took up the issue of Tehran’s nuclear research.
…
In a statement obtained by Reuters on the sidelines of a U.N. nuclear watchdog board meeting in Vienna, Iran said, “The United States may have the power to cause harm and pain but it is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if the United States wishes to choose that path, let the ball roll.”
The statement came a day after U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said Iran would face consequences if it persisted in defying the international community.
Asked about the Iran statement while traveling with Bush in New Orleans, McClellan said, “Provocative statements and actions only further isolate Iran from the rest of the world.”
meanwhile,
Israeli: Hamas PM Should Fear for His Life
srael’s defense minister warned Tuesday the incoming Hamas prime minister would be assassinated if the Islamic militant group resumes attacks…
Posted by: b real | Mar 8 2006 16:26 utc | 68
more looking for signs of intelligence…
Gallup: More Than Half of Americans Reject Evolution, Back Bible
A Gallup report released today reveals that more than half of all Americans, rejecting evolution theory and scientific evidence, agree with the statement, “God created man exactly how Bible describes it.”
Another 31% says that man did evolve, but “God guided.” Only 12% back evolution and say “God had no part.”
Posted by: b real | Mar 8 2006 20:06 utc | 70
I think it is part of the US culture, to think that we are special, not evolved from monkeys or sloths but created by God in his blond haired, blue eyed, english speaking image.
the truth is too painful for some to bear, to admit that things you were told by your pastor are not true would mean examining all the other things he told you as well. all those whiring gears and sprockets make some ill…..better to not think about it at all and go with the flow. it is a lot easier and no one can make fun of you for doing it.
Posted by: dan of steele | Mar 8 2006 21:06 utc | 71
Y’know, someone made an indignant post the other day about how U.S. politicians think U.S. citizens are stupid. That’s all I could think of when I saw this…
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Mar 9 2006 2:37 utc | 74
The Treasury Department has started drawing from the civil service pension fund to avoid hitting the $8.2 trillion national debt limit. The move to tap the pension fund follows last month’s decision to suspend investments in a retirement savings plan held by government employees.
phew! measley $8,200,000,000,000.00. must be plenty in the pension funds, and all they have to do is enhance the quality of life by changing the retirement age to 75 or 80.
Posted by: DM | Mar 9 2006 3:23 utc | 78