William Pfaff, a longtime foreign affairs columnist, has a long thoughtful piece in the current New York Review of Books: Manifest Destiny: A New Direction for America. I recommend to read it in full.

As it touches on some discussions we had about a policy of nonintervention being effete and naive, I excerpt some parts and add emphasis to some thoughts that caught my attention.

It is something like a national heresy to suggest that the United States does not have a unique moral status and role to play in the history of nations, and therefore in the affairs of the contemporary world. In fact it does not.

[…]

Cont. reading: Manifest Tragedy

For no particular reason some search results on various elites:

"elite" – about 32,200,000 English pages

"world elite" – about 303,000 English pages

"american elite" – about 144,000 English pages

"washington elite" – about 48,500 English pages

"british elite" – about 45,900 English pages

"political elite" – about 930,000 English pages

"business elite" – about 300,000 English pages

"media elite" – about 272,000 English pages

"military elite" – about 145,000 English pages

"religious elite" – about 49,200 English pages

"human elite" – about 612 English pages

"communist elite" – about 34,800 English pages

"capitalist elite" – about 28,100 English pages

"socialist elite" – about 920 English pages

"right elite" – about 727 English pages

"left elite" – about 9,100 English pages

"conservative elite" – about 55,200 English pages

"progressive elite" – about 612 English pages

"university elite" – about 12,400 English pages

"union elite" – about 923 English pages

"workers elite" – about 202 English pages

"elite bloggers" – about 10,300 English pages

Now where do I belong?

via Froomkin

Tapped speculates: Dick Cheney will be sacrificed

Cheney is the final sacrifice — the last layer between Bush and the disapproving public, the skeptical media, and the angry Democrats. In one sense, having him there has always provided Bush a human (and humanizing-by-contrast) buffer against the hordes who oppose him and his policies. To sacrifice Cheney is therefore to have sunk to but one level above the very bottom, the core of the presidency itself.
[…]
[H]is neck is moving slowly but inevitably toward the noose. Somebody, after all, has to pay for the complete collapse of the Republican majority and the conservative agenda. And since Bush himself has never paid the price of his own failures in life, it is Cheney who will pay for them next.

Where have I heard such speculation before ? Oh – here:

Negroponte going back to State as deputy may look like a downgrade, but it is a preparation to kick out Rice and to elevate him to Sec. State. She is ineffective for the Cheney/Bush projects and will have to leave. I expect her to resign for personal reasons and to again move into some academic position.

An alternative, but less likely, thought would be a resignation of Cheney for health impediments and Rice taking up his position but without the influence.

The Scooter Libby trial (firedoglake is the place to go to follow the details) already has some not-so-pretty suprises – for Libby and Cheney that is. To suddenly have a serious condidtion would certainly help him to avoid taking the witness stand or worse.

But then – his Iran project is not done yet. These European and Arab allies just don’t want to go along.

Then there are those 81+ staffers of his who need to be taken care of (Staff in National Security: 18(!); Mrs. Cheney: 6; Homeland Security: 5; Domestic Affairs: 3; … .)

So maybe yes, maybe no. The question is probably more when than if. What is your take?

Bea’s diligent post is about missing the news on what is really happening in the Middle East.

Today the major media serving, but again missing any real perspective, is this:

Bombing in Israeli resort kills 3

Cont. reading: Perspective

by Bea

We’ve spent a fair amount of time this week on Iraq and Iran, but overlooked two other neighboring hot spots, Lebanon and Palestine. In both, this week saw these cauldrons of malcontent nearly boil over. And in both, the US administration’s basic approach was the same. So here is an update.

In Lebanon, clashes erupted between pro- and anti-government students in a university cafeteria and then spread out to neighboring areas. The army was called in to contain them. By the time they were over, four people had died and 150 were wounded, and the clashes were called the worst since the 15-year Lebanese civil war ended in 1990. One student wryly observed, as she gazed in sadness at her smashed 6-month old car:

Cont. reading: Cauldrons of Malcontent

News & views …

by Uncle $cam
lifted from a comment

Where a community has embarked upon organized lying on principle, and not only with respect to particulars, can truthfulness as such, unsupported by the distorting forces of power and opinion, become a political factor of the first order. Where everybody lies about everything of importance the truthteller, whether he knows it or not, has begun to act.

~Hannah Arendt, ‘Truth and Politics’

A Question of Two Truths?* (pdf)

Michel Foucault’s last works tell us that parrhesia is the act of fearlessly speaking the truth. To engage in parrhesia is never, however, a ‘neutral’ act. Parrhesia simultaneously incorporates aesthetic and ethical dimensions. The parrhesiast is someone whose fidelity to the truth becomes the pivot of a process of self-transformation. [For themselves and others, I might add].

Cont. reading: We are all Oskar now

Readers here may get tired of me talking about and linking to all the stuff about a War on Iran.

Sorry folks, but it is going to happen. Cheney/Bush will attack Iran and they will do so pretty soon. Most likely before April/May, before their British poodle leaves his office.

Robberts asks Why Can’t Americans See What’s Coming?. Well, some see it. But look at the pictures and reports of today’s rinky-dink demonstration in Washington D.C. Any slogans against a war on Iran? Anything in the relevant OpEd’s or in Congress?

Most people’s thoughts and the media attention are about the ongoing war on Iraq. A war on Iran is considered to be an urban legend. Few have even considered what such a totally unjustified war may mean.

Not thinking has consequences.

I am still waiting of some news of another carrier leaving towards the Persian Gulf. Three carriers would allow for a sustained conventional air campaign against Iran. First against air-defense, then against military assets and then on to the real goal – bombing Iranian infrastructure and lives back into the middle-ages.

But if the U.S. goes nuclear, as some assess as likely, two carriers are all that is needed. The other assets, Marines to capture and secure Iranian oil-platforms, mine hunters to clear the street of Hormuz for oil tankers and some "surge" troops in Iraq to protect the bases and to secure logistics are in place.

The "hit" might come anytime now.

Crude oil gained some 10% through the last 10 days, gold some 8%. Lockheed shares did increase by 50% over the last year – ominous signs.

Pat Lang says there are "hundreds of thousands of people from the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guard corps already in Iraq." He knows that realm and he definitly does not argue for a war: "We don’t need any more wars. Wars are really bad."

When the U.S. bombs Iran, its troops in Iraq are toast. That calculated slaughter again will give justification, and a majority, for again introducing a draft and a total war by the U.S. and Israel on about every country in the Middle East.

Consider the original plans, documented four years ago:

Late last month, The Weekly Standard’s Jeffrey Bell reported that the administration has in mind a "world war between the United States and a political wing of Islamic fundamentalism … a war of such reach and magnitude [that] the invasion of Iraq, or the capture of top al Qaeda commanders, should be seen as tactical events in a series of moves and countermoves stretching well into the future.

These plans are still operative. Some tactical problems in Iraq have slowed them down a bit, but the general strategy is firmly in place.

Americans and their Representatives and Senators have either not noticed or are compliant with this strategy.

There may be still a few ways to fight this, please try to do so now.

News & views – an open thread …

by Rick
lifted from a comment

Uncle, I checked out your link Is There Something Wrong with the System? and found an excellent discussion there at Huffington Post. I would say the system is broken, but that would imply it was working correctly before. That is not to say some things haven’t gotten better for “We, The People”.

In the two to three hundred years that our country has struggled to become an exemplary nation, there certainly have been successes. There have been definite improvements in human dignity regarding race and creed, definite improvements in social programs for the poor, and generally (except during specific instances of war and economic depressions), definite improvements in our standard of living. In fact, overall, one would have to admit that some positive implementations of socialism have improved many lives here in America.

In that respect, as noted months ago, I don’t necessarily subscribe to the “Ratchet Effect” theory, at least as experienced in the long term. The effects of advanced technology and larger populations work together to require additional socialistic solutions no matter what political persuasion one subscribes to.

I have problems with politicians of the left and of the right, with those who call themselves conservative and those who call themselves liberals. In short, I have problems with political labels, and more recently, I have deep misgivings with those who directly support one party over another without true examination of our broken and corrupt “Two Party System”. Political misuse of labels certainly contributes to our broken political system.

Let me explain by an example:

Cont. reading: Stalemate?

The
presentation, Khalilzad said, would include details about who the
detained Iranians are and what they were doing in Iraq, as well as
information about alleged contraband coming across the Iran-Iraq
border.

"We are working to put something together and we will have something for you in the coming days," he said.
Details on Iran’s activity pledged, LAT, Jan 25, 2007

AFTER SECRETARY OF STATE Colin L. Powell’s presentation to the United Nations Security Council yesterday, it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.
[…]
Mr. Powell’s evidence, including satellite photographs, audio recordings and reports from detainees and other informants, was overwhelming. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, called it "powerful and irrefutable."
Irrefutable, WaPo Editorial, Feb 6, 2003

The Powell evidence will be persuasive to anyone who is still persuadable.
Powell’s Smoking Gun , WSJ Editorial, Feb 6, 2003

more

Is Libby, with Cheney’s backing, fighting to kick Karl Rove out of the White House? Is this a proxy-fight for the big one? Cheney versus Bush? VP vs. P? Who will win?

To follow the story Murray Waas, firedoglake, Isikoff at Newsweek seem to be good sources.

Isikoff writes:

.. defense lawyer Ted Wells shocked the courtroom and all but tossed the “pardon strategy” out the window. Seeking to rebut Fitzgerald’s contention that Libby had lied about his knowledge of Plame’s CIA employment in order to save his job with Cheney, Wells shot back: “Mr. Libby was not concerned about losing his job in the Bush administration. He was concerned about being set up, he was concerned about being made the scapegoat.”

Cont. reading: VP vs. P

In his State of the Union address Bush mentioned Iran five times. He definitely would like to bomb that country and is looking for reasons to do so.

But in the U.S. the press has started to investigate government claims instead of just repeating them. Without media and public support, a decision to bomb Iran based on unproven facts would lead to impeachment.

But there are still some folks in the U.K. press that are available to spin up reasons to bomb Iran.

Con Coughlin, a so called journalist and the UK’s Judith Miller equivalent, has several times peddled neo-con lies and MI6 disinformation.

Today he is at it again with a conspiracy piece based on one anonymous source and full of impossible facts. In the Daily Telegraph he writes: N Korea helping Iran with nuclear testing

Cont. reading: Twelve Month?!

News & views …

Strolling through a flea market in Berlin one stand with pompous objects caught beq’s eyes.

bigger

‘Arsch mit Ohren’ is a German expression usually picturing a person in some authority.

Germans are serious about their culture. So the recent quarterly research publication of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum discusses Symbolism and Change of Meaning (PDF, German, pg. 4-8) of ‘asses with ears.’ Kids eat them.

The biggest ass with ears of all will release some stinky hot air tonight.

President Bush tonight will try to change the subject — and will fail.

says Froomkin.

The expectations are set for some SOTU announcements on new domestic policy initiatives, like a new health care trap.

But Rove is still working in the White House – so
I expect something different.

Some international initiatives where Bush can bet on genuine bipartisan support.

Words that come near to a declaration of war on Iran, support for Israel’s colonialism and apartheit and a fierce condemnation of today’s labor supported General Strike in Lebanon.

Democrats and Republicans will applause those lines.

Yes, there are lots of O(_!_)O around.

What to do about them? Here is an idea:

Cont. reading: O(_!_)O Speaks

The good news:

1. Bush’s approval rating is down to 28 %.
2. People in Kenya, Nigeria and Phillipine still have a somewhat positive attitude towards U.S foreign policy.

But elsewhere? Well …

Cont. reading: Polls

As long as there are hungry people in this world, is there any moral justification to use eatable crops as fuel?

Corn prices have hit their highest levels in more than a decade, fueled by US government pressure for higher production of ethanol as an alternative power source for cars.
[…]

Cont. reading: Eat or Drive

In an analysis, filled with truthiness from "senior administration officials", the Washington Post explains how The Surge happened:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had a surprise for President Bush when they sat down with their aides in the Four Seasons Hotel in Amman, Jordan. Firing up a PowerPoint presentation, Maliki and his national security adviser proposed that U.S. troops withdraw to the outskirts of Baghdad and let Iraqis take over security in the strife-torn capital. Maliki said he did not want any more U.S. troops at all, just more authority.

But Bush did not listen to Maliki, his own Generals or the Baker-Hamilton commission:

Cont. reading: Plan B

Open Thread …