Israeli separation barrier is cutting off Palestinians from their livelihood

A British government-funded report says the route of Israel’s separation barrier is trapping 250,000 Palestinians in enclaves designed to protect Jewish settlers in the occupied territory.
It says that creation of the enclaves cutting Palestinian communities off from the rest of the West Bank “almost totally ignores the daily needs of the Palestinian population” and is “focused almost exclusively on the desire to maintain the fabric of life of Israeli settlers”.
…
The second ­ and larger ­ category are “internal enclaves” which are bound in, sometimes virtually encircled, by the barrier and roads forbidden to Palestinians to protect “fingers” of occupied territory inhabited by Jewish settlers and to ensure the settlers’ access to Israel proper.
The report cites the example of the Bir Nabala enclave in which residents of five villages traditionally linked to Jerusalemwill have only two ways out, through tunnels, to Ramallah or the area of the West Bank village of Biddu.
The report also says, despite a series of Supreme Court decisions in favour of rerouting the barrier, “there has been no meaningful change in the system of considerations guiding the planners”.

Posted by: b | Jan 24 2007 12:55 utc | 4

Edwards, speaking via satellite to an Israeli audience (a high-level conference about the Iranian threat), sounds mighty different than he did in his anti-war speech in NYC on Martin Luther King Day:
Edwards Falls in Line

Hinting to possible military action, Edwards stressed that “in order to ensure Iran never gets nuclear weapons, all options must remain on table.”

Posted by: Bea | Jan 24 2007 14:46 utc | 6

Falujah or Stalingrad in Baghdad: U.S. helicopters strike high-rises in Baghdad

U.S. helicopters attacked gunmen holed up inside high-rise buildings in Baghdad on Wednesday in what the U.S. military said was an operation to regain control of a major street cutting through the heart of the city.
U.S. armored vehicles firing their heavy machine guns joined the day-long battle between U.S. and Iraqi forces and militants in Haifa Street, U.S. military spokesman Major Steven Lamb told Reuters.
He said U.S. troops also fired mortars after coming under machinegun, mortar and rocket-propelled grenade attack during the operation to restore Iraqi security control of the Sunni insurgent stronghold, which lies within 2 km of the Green Zone, the heavily fortified compound housing Iraq’s government.
…
Lamb had no details on casualties, but the Iraqi Defense Ministry said at least two terrorists had been killed and 11 suspects detained. A local resident said he had counted six bodies, all men, one of whom had a rifle lying next to him.
A local journalist said he helped transport 37 wounded people to hospital, including women and children, in three ambulances that managed to get through the security cordon.

Posted by: b | Jan 24 2007 16:06 utc | 8

wrt #2 on more u.s. airstrikes in somalia, that article stated

In addition to the three alleged al-Qaeda operatives, believed responsible for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, targets have included Somali Islamic leader Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys and Aden Ayrow, who served as de facto defense minister of the Islamic government.

here is an interview w/ aweys from sept 2005
African al-Qaida?

“The only reason Western powers say that al-Qaida is in Somalia is because they are afraid that Somalia will become an Islamic state and they will do everything they can to stop that,” Aweys says. “I believe there’s not even one person in Somalia connected to al-Qaida. We are one clan, one color, one language. We would not accept foreigners (al-Qaida) here.”
Aweys, with penetrating eyes and a red, henna-tipped beard, is deeply suspicious of Western journalists. I am just the second to interview him within his guarded compound in Mogadishu.
As I a set up my camera and tripod, he asks me if I am an American — and a Jew. He looks at me askance, as if I were a spy, but consents to the interview anyway.
I ask him about the March 2005 United Nations report that claimed Somalia has become a haven for jihadists and has no fewer than 17 mobile terrorist training camps on its soil.
“The FBI, people like you (journalists) and other groups who are often in the shadows always say al-Qaida is in Somalia,” says Aweys, dismissively.
Interim President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed “also said two years ago there were al-Qaida training camps here. Well, the FBI came here, journalists came here and there were no training camps. It’s just not true. We all know each other in Somalia. We would know if al-Qaida was here.”
Aweys says he is, however, sympathetic to “jihads” being waged against Western forces around the world.
“If you lock a cat in a room all the time,” Aweys says, “what do you think it will do? It’s going to fight back.”

as i’ve linked to before, naylor critically assesses the u.s. claims of links between al-ittihad and al-qa’idah, finding them to be opportunistic fantasy.
as for today’s report on more airstrikes in southern somalia, it uncritically relays the u.s. line

U.S. officials have said that none of the targeted individuals was hit in the initial strike Jan. 7, which killed at least 10 and perhaps as many as 20 people. Although a U.S. military team entered Somali territory to assess the strike site and recover bodies, no information has been released on their identities.

at the time, we could read in the AFP press that “Clan elders and residents in southern Somalia have said that about 100 civilians were killed this week in US and Ethiopian air strikes on suspected Al-Qaeda targets in the region.”

“We estimate about 100 innocent civilians have been killed,” said Dhobley elder Moalim Adan Osman. “Some are still missing and I think their bodies are somewhere in the forest.”
“The airplanes have bombed large areas and the whole zone is jungle and no one can classify what is inside,” he said. “They have bombed the nomads in the area indiscriminately.”

today one can read that the humanitarian sitch in southern somalia is quite bad
IRIN: Somalia: Risk of Worse Crisis in the South – Early Warning Agency

The serious humanitarian crisis in Somalia’s Lower Juba region could escalate unless immediate steps are taken to mitigate the effects of multiple shocks on the pastoralists and agro-pastoralists living there, an early warning agency warned.
Months of drought followed by heavy flooding in late 2006 created the crisis, but ongoing conflict in southern Somalia and the suspected spread of Rift Valley Fever (RVF) from Kenya could exacerbate the situation, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net) said.
“An immediate increase in emergency assistance and protection is urgently needed to prevent the already serious humanitarian crisis from worsening,” the agency said in a report on Tuesday.
The conflict, between the Ethiopian-backed Somali transitional government and the remnants of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), in addition to RVF, had driven “pastoral and agro-pastoral districts of the Lower Juba region, especially in Afmadow and Badhadhe districts, into a deeper crisis”, it added.
Conflict, drought, crop failures and the recent floods have stretched the inhabitants of Lower Juba Region to breaking point.
…
FEWS Net said civilians fleeing the fighting had been prevented from crossing the border into Kenya. In Dobley, 18km from the border, aid agencies estimate that 7,000 civilians from different parts of southern Somalia are living rough and urgently require food, medicine, water and shelter.

bet they were looking at all the planes yesterday saying WTF???

Witnesses reported many civilians were wounded, while number of livestock was killed in the latest US air strike.
Shabelle reporter Qorane Ibrahim in Dhobley district near the Kenyan border, said the US air strike on the settlements in Jubba provinces, about 500 km south of the capital Mogadishu, has inflicted casualties which are still are unknown.
American warplanes were seen flying overhead Somali settlements near the Kenyan border yesterday, Qorane said.
Witnesses have also indicated that they saw nearly 20 planes flying over the areas where the strike took place, but said they heard no sounds of gunship shots or explosions.

Posted by: b real | Jan 24 2007 16:24 utc | 10

I think it was fauxreal whom had a post recently on E. Howard Hunt’s death, however, I can’t seem to find it to link to it. Perhaps she can repost it.
In the meantime…
For your amusment, edification, or both…
The Strange Death of Dorothy Hunt

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 24 2007 20:42 utc | 12

bea, it’s on valentine’s day. how lovey dovey.
yer right, makes me want to barf

Posted by: annie | Jan 24 2007 21:06 utc | 14

secrecynews: Army Seeks to Catalyze Open Source Intelligence

A new U.S. Army Field Manual is intended to advance the development and use of open source intelligence (OSINT), which is intelligence that is derived from publicly available data legally obtained.
“The value of publicly available information as a source of intelligence has… often been overlooked in Army intelligence operations. This manual provides a catalyst for renewing the Army’s awareness of the value of open sources; establishing a common understanding of OSINT; and developing systematic approaches to collection, processing, and analysis of publicly available information.”
The growing military appreciation of open source intelligence arises from the ever-increasing quality of public sources and the evident limitations of traditional classified approaches.
…
Characteristically, perhaps, the new Army manual on OSINT is marked “for official use only” and it has not been approved for public release. As such, it would not have qualified as an “open source.” Until now.
A copy of the manual was obtained by Secrecy News and posted on the Federation of American Scientists web site.
See “Open Source Intelligence,” U.S. Army Field Manual Interim FMI 2-22.9, December 2006 (161 pages, 2 MB PDF).

Posted by: b real | Jan 24 2007 22:21 utc | 16

b real,
what?!
Has somebody told them they can read stuff on the internets? And actually learn something?

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Jan 24 2007 22:53 utc | 18

Som brits see through the smoke and mirrors, like the director of public prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald.

Sir Ken pointed to the rhetoric around the “war on terror” – which has been adopted by Tony Blair and ministers after being coined by George Bush – to illustrate the risks.
He said: “London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, ‘soldiers’. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a ‘war on terror’, just as there can be no such thing as a ‘war on drugs’.

‘There is no war on terror’

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Jan 25 2007 0:41 utc | 20

here ya go, uncle.
this is a strange bit on google video about the secret service hanging back, seemingly on orders. you probably know that one already.
I find it’s more implausible to believe that Oswald could have done that whole thing alone than that the killer(s) were some combination of right wing creeps and crooks, whose reign of terror has culminated in President Pinhead.

Posted by: fauxreal | Jan 25 2007 4:27 utc | 22

From Jim Webbs rebuttle speech:
Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country. On the political issues those matters of war and peace, and in some cases of life and death we trusted the judgment of our national leaders. We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure with accuracy the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm’s way.
We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it.
The President took us into this war recklessly…..
And a response from john Warner:
And Virginia Republican John Warner, a powerful member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who opposes the surge but is against Hagel’s nonbinding resolution, was more complimentary of Democratic Sen. Jim Webb’s response than he was of Bush’s speech.
After praising Bush for his “gracious” introduction of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Warner added that Webb’s “heartfelt” message “earned the respect of military families across America.
…………………..
One of the several little epiphanies from the 5 minute speech. The Iraq war is now officially open to criticism/outrage by those in the military itself. How long before bush appears before a military audience and they remain stoney silent?

Posted by: anna missed | Jan 25 2007 6:43 utc | 24

addendum…
The following was part II i.e. a supplement to and of my above post somehow typepad didn’t see it that way, perhaps you will…
One nation, under Choice Point
Greg Palast has an important response to the State of the Union speech:

First, there was the announcement the regime will, “give employers the tools to verify the legal status of their workers.” In case you missed that one, the President is talking about creating a federal citizen profile database.
There’s a problem with that idea. It’s against the law…

and:

Will Big Brother abuse these snoop lists? The biggest purveyor of such hit lists is Choice Point, Inc. – those characters who, before the 2000 election, helped Jeb Bush purge innocent voters as “felons” from Florida voter rolls. Will they abuse the new super-lists? Does Dick Cheney shoot in the woods?

I never thought that the argument over immigration was intended to protect American jobs; indeed, Bush made clear his view that we should legalize underpaid Mexican labor. Bush is making a list, checking it twice — a list of who are you and where you are, without which you can neither buy nor sell.
Why haven’t the Apocalypse-spotters glommed onto Choice Point? ‘Bout time those wackos did something useful …

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 25 2007 7:32 utc | 26

Uncle there’s a wee bit of a problemo. If any of the devotees of that site, or it’s originators, read yr. link (#25) they’d have to either shut down the site, or radically redirect it as they could clearly no longer support the JackAss/Police State Party…

Posted by: jj | Jan 25 2007 7:48 utc | 28

Haifa Street: In a New Joint U.S.-Iraqi Patrol, the Americans Go First

Eventually the Americans realized that the Iraqis were searching no more than half of the apartments; at one point the Iraqis completely disappeared, leaving the American unit working with them flabbergasted.
“Where did they go?” yelled Sgt. Jeri A. Gillett. Another soldier suggested, “I say we just let them go and we do this ourselves.”
Then the gunfire began. It would come from high rises across the street, from behind trash piles and sandbags in alleys and from so many other directions that the soldiers began to worry that the Iraqi soldiers were firing at them. Mortars started dropping from across the Tigris River, to the east, in the direction of a Shiite slum.
The only thing that was clear was that no one knew who the enemy was. “The thing is, we wear uniforms — they don’t,” said Specialist Terry Wilson.
At one point the Americans were forced to jog alongside the Strykers on Haifa Street, sheltering themselves as best they could from the gunfire. The Americans finally found the Iraqis and ended up accompanying them into an extremely dangerous and exposed warren of low-slung hovels behind the high rises as gunfire rained down.
American officers tried to persuade the Iraqi soldiers to leave the slum area for better cover, but the Iraqis refused to risk crossing a lane that was being raked by machine-gun fire. “It’s their show,” said Lt. David Stroud, adding that the Americans have orders to defer to the Iraqis in cases like this.
In this surreal setting, about 20 American soldiers were forced at one point to pull themselves one by one up a canted tin roof by a dangling rubber hose and then shimmy along a ledge to another hut. The soldiers were stunned when a small child suddenly walked out of a darkened doorway and an old man started wheezing and crying somewhere inside.
Ultimately the group made it back to the high rises and escaped the sniper in the alley by throwing out the smoke bombs and sprinting to safety. Even though two Iraqis were struck by gunfire, many of the rest could not stop shouting and guffawing with amusement as they ran through the smoke.

Posted by: b | Jan 25 2007 9:59 utc | 30

Our mercenaries in Iraq

he president called on Congress to authorize an increase of about 92,000 active-duty troops over the next five years. He then slipped in a mention of a major initiative that would represent a significant development in the U.S. disaster response/reconstruction/war machine: a Civilian Reserve Corps.
“Such a corps would function much like our military Reserve. It would ease the burden on the armed forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them,” Bush declared. This is precisely what the administration has already done, largely behind the backs of the American people and with little congressional input, with its revolution in military affairs. Bush and his political allies are using taxpayer dollars to run an outsourcing laboratory. Iraq is its Frankenstein monster.
…
The president’s proposed Civilian Reserve Corps was not his idea alone. A privatized version of it was floated two years ago by Erik Prince, the secretive, mega-millionaire, conservative owner of Blackwater USA and a man who for years has served as the Pied Piper of a campaign to repackage mercenaries as legitimate forces. In early 2005, Prince — a major bankroller of the president and his allies — pitched the idea at a military conference of a “contractor brigade” to supplement the official military. “There’s consternation in the [Pentagon] about increasing the permanent size of the Army,” Prince declared. Officials “want to add 30,000 people, and they talked about costs of anywhere from $3.6 billion to $4 billion to do that. Well, by my math, that comes out to about $135,000 per soldier.” He added: “We could do it certainly cheaper.”
And Prince is not just a man with an idea; he is a man with his own army. Blackwater began in 1996 with a private military training camp “to fulfill the anticipated demand for government outsourcing.” Today, its contacts run from deep inside the military and intelligence agencies to the upper echelons of the White House. It has secured a status as the elite Praetorian Guard for the global war on terror, with the largest private military base in the world, a fleet of 20 aircraft and 20,000 soldiers at the ready.
From Iraq and Afghanistan to the hurricane-ravaged streets of New Orleans to meetings with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger about responding to disasters in California, Blackwater now envisions itself as the FedEx of defense and homeland security operations. Such power in the hands of one company, run by a neo-crusader bankroller of the president, embodies the “military-industrial complex” President Eisenhower warned against in 1961.
Further privatizing the country’s war machine — or inventing new back doors for military expansion with fancy names like the Civilian Reserve Corps — will represent a devastating blow to the future of American democracy.

Posted by: b | Jan 25 2007 12:02 utc | 32

Woops b, you beat me to it in #32… that will teach me to post a response before reading through the entire thread…

Posted by: Bea | Jan 25 2007 13:25 utc | 34

Anna missed: ”One of the several little epiphanies from the 5 minute speech. The Iraq war is now officially open to criticism/outrage by those in the military itself.”
I find your statement very political. Jack Murtha served with a distinguished military record and has been spoken out against “the way the Iraq war is being fought” before the 2006 election and was not rewarded for it by leaders of the Democratic Party. It is unfortunate that Americans in the military need the Democratic Party or any group to “officially” state that it is now OK to disagree with the war. OOPS – I mean “the way the war is being fought”.
I heard and saw the official “Democratic” rebuttal live on television. Jim Webb was oh so careful to toe the (Party) line. As I noted before, he started to say that Americans wanted an end to this war, then caught himself in mid-sentence, and corrected himself, and said they wanted an end to the way the war is being fought. When lives are at stake, I could never vote for a party that puts politics above lives and national interests. I use the words lives and interests to mean both American and Iraqi lives and interests.
Without a doubt, what bothered me most that sad evening, was that neither Bush nor Webb made any mention of the tremendous number of Iraqi deaths and the tremendous destruction America has caused and continues to cause while ‘they’, the political parties, posture. Bush was asked last week if he owed the people of Iraq an apology. Not to anyone surprise, Bush answered flatly no, instead saying that “Iraqi’s should be thanking the U.S.” for what America has done in Iraq.. Yes, yes, I know that these speeches were about the State of the American Union but isn’t the Iraq War the major issue of Americans and isn’t the major reason claimed by both parties that Americans are fighting now in Iraq is to help the Iraqi people and not just fight it ’the right way’ to save American lives?
In short, the world does not need “Moon of Alabama” to become an echo chamber of “Misty Dog Lake”, “Fkos” or even “Little Green Pukeballs”.

Posted by: Rick | Jan 25 2007 14:22 utc | 36

grrr… sorry, scroll up in my above post or click this one…to read the op.
Goddamn, I hate typepad…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 25 2007 15:00 utc | 38

Crimes & Misdemeanors: Reflections on The Death of Howard Hunt [h/t to zmag]

Most telling about the AP story this morning regarding the death of E. Howard Hunt is what is glossed over in this story. Thus, while the AP Story notes in passing that Hunt “helped orchestrate a coup in Guatemala,” the story goes on to talk in detail about what, as the article notes, Hunt is most famous for: the Watergate burglary. However, the Watergate burglary, which Hunt ended up serving time for, was merely the act of a small-time prankster compared to coup in Guatemala which the article tells us nothing about and for which Hunt was never punished.
Of course, the coup in Guatemala which Hunt was intimately involved in as a CIA officer at the time, was the overthrow of President Arbenz in 1954. Arbenz was a democratically-elected president who the U.S. unseated, with Hunt’s leadership, at the behest of the United Fruit Company which opposed Arbenz’s land reform program. While the Arbenz overthrow may be a mere footnote in the minds of U.S. newspaper publishers, the event was much more significant for the people of Guatemala.
…
Despite the terror and genocide which Hunt helped to unleash upon Guatemala, Hunt was never punished for this high crime. Rather, after a short sentence for his role in the Watergate burglary, he lived a tranquil life, dying peacefully at the ripe age of 88 in Miami. The fact that Hunt, and his co-conspirators, escaped punishment for this crime, and the fact that the U.S. press to this day views this crime as a mere footnote in the life of Mr. Hunt, and indeed in the history of the U.S., speaks volumes about how our nation has become inured to such violence and imperial aggression.

Posted by: b real | Jan 25 2007 15:34 utc | 40

Without a doubt, what bothered me most that sad evening, was that neither Bush nor Webb made any mention of the tremendous number of Iraqi deaths and the tremendous destruction America has caused and continues to cause while ‘they’, the political parties, posture.
Ditto.

Posted by: Bea | Jan 25 2007 17:26 utc | 42

bea#41, i would buy the book

Posted by: annie | Jan 25 2007 18:50 utc | 44

When I start to go insane due to the presidential campaign silly season, things can turn out a little better when I remember that Matt Taibi is on the case.

Will the 2008 campaign see the world’s first ten-focus-word sentence? I used to think that was an impossibility, but I’m beginning to wonder. Would you put a sentence like the following past Hillary Clinton?
The promise of America requires bold new leadership, leadership based on the principles and values of hope and optimism — leadership with the vision to honor America’s heroes and stand up to any challenge.

Posted by: Rowan | Jan 25 2007 19:35 utc | 46

Well Rick,
I did say little epiphanies. My post was merely an observation, and not an advocacy. However I do think Webb’s statements were an important ratchet click, or dead weight attached, to the war effort in general. It is of some importance that the public be givin a succinct and unambigious argument for resisting on principal, what is trumpeted as “the national interest”. That members of the military (and the public) not only have the right, but an active responsability to demand a clear accounting of both the real costs and the true nature of what those “national interests” are.
If in fact, members of the military (and the public) are so deadened to the actual consequences of their actions upon their victims — the Iraqi people, in this case — which they are, then lets assume the first step toward empathy begins at home. With the military, with the public, and their consequences at hand. If the american people are so dumbed and cowed (by false patriotism) to willingly pour their sons and daughters into the imperial meatgrinder, how can we rationally expect either abhorance or resistance, to the plight of their victims. In this respect, what Webb did was to give people the language to see the bigger picture, and resist it.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jan 25 2007 19:36 utc | 48

me above a.m.

Posted by: anna missed | Jan 25 2007 19:51 utc | 50

@b real – Say Hello to the Goodbye Weapon is a Wired Story about the “Active Denial”.
The big problem:
The effect makes people want to run away, and that’s the idea, but what happens if they can not run away? Having been in lots of crowded protests I know there is no way to run .
The system will therby just grill people in place. Nothing “un-lethal” about that.

Posted by: b | Jan 25 2007 20:29 utc | 52

Video: Battle For Haifa Street
“For”?

Posted by: b | Jan 25 2007 20:38 utc | 54

Planning to go to DC on Saturday?
I can only go one day – dog care issues – and am trying to decide which would be more effective – Saturday for the march or Monday for lobbying. Any thoughts out there?
Also for those who are interested in attending the march and would like to join with other blogger types, this diary at dkos provides spirited information about where and when people are meeting up. Sounds like it could be a good group to hang with in the cold.

Posted by: conchita | Jan 25 2007 21:13 utc | 56

more info about the helicopter that was shot down earlier this week:

The List of Casualties from this attack contains the following:
2 Colonels
1 Lieutenant Colonel
1 Major
1 Captain
2 Command Sergeant Majors
1 First Sergeant
1 Sergeant First Class
2 Staff Sergeants
1 Corporal
That’s one hell of a lot of brass on a single helicopter flight. This could indicate infiltration into the Green Zone of untold proportions.
Let’s be clear, half of the manifest includes four field grade officers and two CSMs. That’s a huge loss for a small and agile force such as what we’ve got deployed in Iraq. On top of this fact is also the fact that CSMs are the enlisted equivalent of general officers. CSMs run the army. CSMs can bring any company grade officer down with little effort. The only officers that will generally stand up to a CSM and call them on the carpet would be full bird colonels (two of which were lost on this flight) and command officers (i.e. generals).
The loss of a single CSM can often bring a full brigade to a standstill.
When faced with an insurgency using guerilla tactics, taking out four field grade officers with a single shot is a victory of epic proportions.
The military indicates it is investigating the event. Two questions must be answered:
1. Why were so many high value targets placed on a single helicopter flight?
2. Who knew so many high value targets would be on this flight, especially who within the Iraqi government and military?

the diarist at dkos says: The loss of this single helictoper is a disaster. This needs to be corrected immediately or no surge, regardless of how many troops are sent in the surge, will do anything but exact a toll in blood and lives. bernhard and anna missed, wondering how you see this?

Posted by: conchita | Jan 25 2007 22:18 utc | 58

I was stunned by this Image (cached outside firewall) from the Economist article “Waking up and catching up” showing electricity consumption per person in the Red vs Blue (2004) states.
Quite a difference – over 50% greater in red states. California half the blue state average (and perhaps accountable for much of the difference)… Certainly would account for some of the cultural divide re global warming etc.
Theories?

Posted by: PeeDee | Jan 25 2007 23:25 utc | 60

Has anyone reported this yet here?
Mortar Attacks in Green Zone Target US Embassy, followed by Bomb at Green Zone entrance
And this:

The violence erupted as Maliki won unanimous parliamentary support for the joint US-Iraqi plan aimed at ending the bloodletting in Baghdad, even from lawmakers linked to a powerful Shiite militia targeted by the security forces.
All 160 MPs present in the 275-seat parliament raised their hands in favour of the plan, including the 32 lawmakers from the Sadr bloc which only ended a two-month boycott of the Iraqi government on Sunday.

Posted by: Bea | Jan 26 2007 0:02 utc | 62

Oops – forgot to include a link in my #63.

Posted by: Bea | Jan 26 2007 0:16 utc | 64

More details on the helicopter shot down on jan.20th.

Posted by: anna missed | Jan 26 2007 0:59 utc | 66

sorry, obviously i meant military. of course it angers me any part of our armed forces are there. futile.

Posted by: annie | Jan 26 2007 2:33 utc | 68

annie,
Command Sergeant Major is the highest enlisted rank, non-commisioned officer, as opposed to (commissioned) officer corps. Commissioned officers always out-rank non-commissioned officers, except the sergeant major, who can (in some circumstances) trump a decision by his equivelant commissioned officer. Saw it happen once.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jan 26 2007 4:19 utc | 70

Uncle $cam: ”… I’d still be interested in hearing thought’s on my #37/38 post above re: the American left, democrats, Jane Smiley’s post etc…”
Uncle, I would enjoy a discussion regarding such issues. One can see in my typos (post 36) that it was written in a hurry. I had much more to say, but was already late for an appointment for my usual work. Still being upset after the Bush address and then the Webb rebuttal speech, I thought posting quickly this morning would calm me down; but it hasn’t.
Uncle, I checked out your link Is it the System?-and found an excellent discussion there at Huffington Post. I would say the system is broke, 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:
Last week, Vice President Cheney, in a live television interview, was asked if Hillary Clinton, would make a good President. The response from Cheney was quick and short, and although I don’t have the transcript in front of me, if my memory serves me half-way correct, Cheney answered something like the following: “no she would not, she is a Democrat, and I don’t agree with the principles of the Democratic Party”. There were not any further details from Cheney on exactly what and why Hillary’s principles were insufficient to run the country. With Rush Limbaugh speaking to over 13 million devoted listeners weekly, and Limbaugh’s distinguished use of divisive tactics, how easy it is for millions of “ditto heads” (and a million or so others that these ditto heads influence) to accept Cheney’s poor response. Our politicians constantly use labels and division to our detriment. In a less obvious and extreme way, our American political system reminds me of Iraq; that is, labels are used by both parties and even by non-party citizens of America, sort of like Iraqis now being allowed to live or die on whether they are Shiite or Sunni. Are such labels as left or right, so commonly used, so really important here in America, or do they serve a more devious purpose?
Personally, I consider myself a “Conservative”. And I do not see free enterprise as necessarily an enemy of social cooperation. Now before every social progressive shouts me down with personal attacks in all capital letters, let me further say that for example, just off the top of my head, I would have no problem with:
1) Socializing American energy (gas, oil, etc.).
2) Socializing our communication infrastructure.
3) Having a decent socialized medical program available for all.
4) Removing and/or changing much of the overly protective copyright/patent rights.
5) Federal and State funded/regulated campaigning open to anyone regardless of party or persuasion.
6) Removing from corporations, however possible, any political power/influence on our political system and political decision-making.
The last issue is of most importance. Readers here at Moon have heard me time and time again speak out against Corporatism. It is truly, in my mind, a form of Fascism. The problems in America are readily apparent but naturally not addressed by our “elected” representatives. The academic definition of Fascism is extreme nationalism. But that definition is surely incomplete in today’s global corporate world. Since even before the East India Trading Company, multinational operating corporations have afflicted populations. But such ill consequences have never been on a scale that the poor and marginal of the world are experiencing today. By the term marginal, I am addressing most of us in the developed world.
Regarding my last post concerning Bush’s State of the Union Speech and Webb’s rebuttal, I wish to expound to further explain some points above. Again, not to beat a dead horse, and definitely Jim Webb is not a dead horse, but I do fault Webb for being part of the system yet not speaking out more clearly against the ills that this system brings – not only to Americans, but to all people of this world. Examining his speech once more from annie’s link to Crooks & Liars:
First the headline from the linked post:
Sen. Webb’s Democratic Response to the SoTU: The war’s costs to our nation have been staggering
This headline is not too off the mark in summary of the Democratic rebuttal. As noted earlier, no mention of the massive loss of Iraqi lives and treasure. Concerning Iraq and speech specifics, Jim Webb compares Iraq to the Korean War where Eisenhower called for an end to a bloody stalemate. Looking up “stalemate” synonyms from dictionary.com, one finds: impasse, standoff, standstill. To be sure, The Iraq War is not a stalemate. And as an aside note, the U.S. continues to maintain troops in Korea, and at some significant cost. Certainly, such an ending for Iraq would have repercussions in the area and would probably not respect the sovereignty of Iraq. And I am not implying that this is what Webb recommends.
Looking at Jim Webb’s impressive background, it is discouraging to see Webb, above all people, quoting Eisenhower in such a manner. For most Internet and independent (independent as to thinking, not relating to the political party) thinkers, and I take the liberty of using “we” here, we think of a different quote by Eisenhower, a quote that warns Americans of military/government corporate collusion. However, looking at the Iraq picture from a political party point of view – from either the Republican or the Democratic Party, such evisceration is exactly what one can expect. The political parties have become nothing more than a cancer upon the American people, feeding on our military tax dollars and the dollars we are all but forced to pay to large corporate entities.
I would like to expand more, but again, time is limited. In summary though, it is not just America’s political system that is broken, but America’s religious institutions, social support systems, and unfortunately, even our culture is diseased with some form of this cancer. Most surprising, is how this cancer has eaten away our religious institutions. Unimaginable that today we see many -so-called “Christians” accepting the notion of torture for the “common good”. I can only explain this by divisive actions (labeling, i.e. distorting the character and removing the human dignity of the detainee), tactics used by those with influence and power.
As a footnote, I refer again to Webb’s reference of an American and Iraqi “stalemate”. Such a characterization is not just an understatement, but such a comparison was wrong on so many levels. As for the understatement, it is surely wrong to compare evils, such as U.S. to Iraqi body counts, but let not any of us ignore the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives lost. Our collective guilt for lost lives is engraved in stone in a monument that stands before the whole world. Moreover, the question left unanswered, and not even asked, is: “What exactly is to follow this so called “stalemate”. Any attempt to describe the bleakness of Iraq’s future was avoided, a bleakness due totally by faults of our American Congress and President, and I say this with emphasis that American transgressions were performed by Administrations of both political parties, beginning with the first Gulf War, then the sanctions under both Clinton and Bush, then the second invasion with almost full support of both parties, and now the continued totality of U.S. involvement. What specifically wasn’t said, with all its implications, is that the puppet Iraqi government can not self- exist in its present form. Again, I am more than unimpressed and more than thoroughly disgusted with both of our major political parties. I cannot even imagine the rage that an Iraqi has towards America.
Stalemate? No, there is no stalemate in Iraq. The stalemate is in our broken political system and culture.
[This comment was lifted up to a full post. Please respond there – b.]

Posted by: Rick | Jan 26 2007 5:22 utc | 72

“Personally, I consider myself a “Conservative”. And I do not see free enterprise as necessarily an enemy of social cooperation. Now before every social progressive shouts me down with personal attacks in all capital letters…”
They’ll be no capitial letter’s or admonishment from this stool. Unlike what John Dean writes about in ‘Conservatives Without Conscience’ if in fact you are a conservative, your writing, ideals above and seeminly deeds have proven you are a conservative with a conscience. Within which I can admire and respect. I suspect you have a profound admiration for the spirit of humanity, regardless of the label. I wish there were thousands more like that whom consider themselves conservative, and indeed, I suspect there are , however they and we are being and have been drown out.
As Hannah Arendt, in his ‘Origins Of Totalitarianism’ wrote, “In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. … Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”
Of course that is a blanket statement and simply does not cover all labels as we talked about above, but generally seems true of the masses as a whole. Especially the educatedly dumbed down American civilization. Which perhaps, could be argued –in the emmbedded link anyway–could be taken out of context.
I saw the same subtle governing of thought (i.e., what I call prop-agenda) in the recent cheering of Senator Chuck Hagel as you speak of, and rightly so, in Web. These so called ‘public servants’, have no vision, no loyalty to country nor constitution, no compassion for their fellow men and women here in America let alone any where else.
“..it is not just America’s political system that is broken, but America’s religious institutions, social support systems, and unfortunately, even our culture is diseased..”
I can agree with the above, as a way of understanding your prior point, as well as observed events in the material world, I have come to at least provisionally accept the counter-initiation thesis of Rene Guenon. At least in part, In that he talks of the spiritually empty shell of true civilization and religion, he writes, “If you remove the esotericism of a living tradition then it atrophies and becomes a dead shell, if not a “counter traditional” movement itself.” In that I do resonate with the ideal of the rachet effect, or the pendulum paradigm.
“Democracy, in actual working, rarely permits a country to be governed by its ablest. The opinions of the mass prevail over those of the thinking few. Simply because they are dupted by the elite. We must strive for some better way of conducting human affairs than the lottery of the ballot box”.
What has been happening in our country during the past 58 years has been lucidly, and with prophetic vision, described by Rene Guenon in his book “The crisis of the world”, translated by Arthur Osborne.
I myself am a praying atheist, however the only god I believe in is a god with skin, that’s you and me, brother, sister. I don’t know where I’m going with this, I am not a good writer, but I am a deep thinker, hence the reason for asking patrons what the thought of the said post. And I resonate with the vast majority of what you have shared here. So thank-you for responding. Left/right, what about right and wrong, it ultimately gets down to morals, ethics nad human dignity and relations. None of which these ‘law makers’ believe in. It’s like negotiating with insanity. They fancy themselves benevolent, hell, their ego’s tell them they are ‘little gods’, titans among us mere mortals.
‘Law’
It’s like what 70’s punk rocker Jello Biafra said, “when the law braks the law , there is no law”. If I have learned anything in my anthropological training, and more so in my autodidatic thirst, it is that Inequality is not a natural phenomenon, it requires an active effort by the ptb. Plato speaks of levels of madness, as the highest being Divine madness, more over, levels of eros or great love of deity; he was wrong. These self proclaimed calavnist’s are drunk on love of cruelty hubris and greed, and futher and much more the worse, indifference. A dark eros. A pathos of pathology of power.

We are the witnesses of a barely perceptible transformation in ordinary language by which verbs that formerly designated satisfying actions are replaced by nouns that denote packages designed for passive consumption only: for example, “to learn” becomes “acquisition of credits.” A profound change in individual and social self-images is here reflected. And the layman is not the only one who has difficulty in accurately describing what he experiences. The professional economist is unable to recognize the poverty his conventional instruments fail to uncover. Nevertheless, the new mutant of impoverishment continues to spread.

– Ivan Illich, Toward a History of Needs
[this comment has been copied to another thread – please respond there – b.]

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 26 2007 8:38 utc | 74

DemocracyNow today: Blackwater, Civilian Reserve Corps. Must hear…
I’ll re-up when they update their site. You really need to hear this…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 26 2007 14:21 utc | 76

@ all
Thanks to everyone who posted sources on the US covert wars. I am going to look at all of them. I started with the Bill Moyers video that annie posted the link to and it is just amazing. I really really recommend it.
Thanks annie & faux & whoever originally posted it. This should be in our “Hall of Fame” somewhere. By the way can we have a Hall of Fame? Somewhere to keep links to sources that are just so incredibly informative that we want to pull them out and archive them in an easily retrievable place? We could organize it by subject and we could have a process whereby if a certain number of posters recommend a linked article for the hall of fame it would go in there…
Also, to Conchita, thanks for continually linking to worthwhile diaries from dKos. The one on the helicopter deaths was amazing. I keep thinking about it and wondering, how did this happen? And then freaking out about what it really might mean? And then trying hard not to think about it any more… until I think about it again.

Posted by: Bea | Jan 26 2007 15:25 utc | 78

Here is a detail that I stumbled on — putting it up here although I have no idea how it fits in the larger picture:
Soldiers were first abducted, then killed by attackers in Karbala last week

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – Contrary to U.S. military statements, four U.S. soldiers did not die repelling a sneak attack at the governor’s office in the Shiite holy city of Karbala last week. New information obtained by The Associated Press shows they were abducted and found dead or dying as far as 25 miles away.
The brazen assault 50 miles south of Baghdad was launched Jan. 20 by a group of nine to 12 militants. They traveled in black GMC Suburban vehicles – the type used by U.S. government convoys, had American weapons, wore new U.S. military combat fatigues and spoke English.
In a written statement, the U.S. command reported at the time that five soldiers were killed while ”repelling the attack.” Two senior U.S. military officials as well as Iraqi officials now say three of them were found dead and one mortally wounded in locations as far as 25 miles east of the governor’s office.
The U.S. officials said they could not be sure if the soldiers were killed as the attackers drove them to the place where they abandoned the Suburbans or afterward. Iraqi officials said the men were killed just before the vehicles were abandoned.
The daring commando team also took an unclassified U.S. computer with them as they fled with the four soldiers and left behind an American M-4 automatic rifle, senior U.S. military officials said.

Posted by: Bea | Jan 26 2007 15:50 utc | 80

@uncle et al:
Reposting the broken link from my #62
Apologies to all.

Posted by: Bea | Jan 26 2007 16:38 utc | 82

#80 can we have a Hall of Fame? Somewhere to keep links to sources that are just so incredibly informative that we want to pull them out and archive them in an easily retrievable place?
this is an excellent idea!
b, after you finish the billmon project (plus search engine of course) you don’t mind adding another incredible resource here at the bar do you? PP w/sugar on it? just because you are moving shouldn’t be any reason not to take on new projects. 🙂
#70. about those ranks…
i too tossed and turned again last night considering the implications of the downed helicopter. my mind twisted around several ideas mainly who exactly would have inside knowledge of the workings of the green zone in order to infiltrate to this degree.
i started considering tha actors on the stage and my mind wandered towards the mercenaries. does anyone know who they take their orders from on the field? does an ex officer working for blackwater follow orders from a military commander if his private officer sends a differnt message? obviously they must work somewhat in conjunction but how do the orders filter down. are they stovepiped from the VP office via ex military cronies bypassing the chain of command?
do they operate w/their own intellegence? are they basically oil militias? wtf’s going on?

Posted by: annie | Jan 26 2007 18:13 utc | 84

Walks like a duck, looks like a duck, talks like a duck …
in my #84 post i mentioned my wandering mind…

Posted by: annie | Jan 26 2007 19:25 utc | 86

DoD is denying this, but there are rpts of
American soldiers seized in southern Somalia, Arab and Western diplomats say

Mogadishu 26, Jan.07 ( Sh.M.Network) There have been mounting reports that number of American soldiers was missing in southern Somalia following the recent US air operations on the Islamist and al-Qaeda hideouts in southern jungles of the country, alsharqa, an Arabic newspaper based in Qatar reported on Friday.
The paper also reported that Kenyan police have seized armed Asians crossing from Somalia into the Kenyan border. The Kenyan police believe the foreigners were fighting alongside with Somalia’s defeated Islamists.
According to the paper, Arab diplomats, who have asked anonymity, confirmed that unspecified number of US foot soldiers was seized in southern Somalia where Islamists are believed to be hiding after their loss of the capital Mogadishu to the UN and internationally backed transitional government of Somalia and the Ethiopian troops in the country.
Western diplomats, who have not been named, also affirmed that US soldiers were missing in southern Somalia, Alsharqa reported.
It added that Michael Ranneberger, the US ambassador to Kenya, who met with Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, the defeated Islamist leader under the Kenyan custody, has asked Ahmed to explain where the missing Americans are lingering.

unable to find a web prescence for alsharqa

Posted by: b real | Jan 26 2007 20:08 utc | 88

@ PeeDee #60
I will hazard a guess as to why states with more democratic voters use less electricity per capita than do those with a republican majority. It probably is a combination of density and availability of other energy sources.
fer instance, in the countryside nearly all appliances as well as heating and cooling are powered by electricity. Liquid propane can be a hassle because you have remember to keep it filled and you get a big bill all at once. Electricity is always there and you pay it each month. City gas or methane or natural gas are cost prohibitive in sparsely populated areas.
then you have perhaps a slightly better educated population in the democratic voting states, people with a few life skills who have figured out that you can save money by spending more on an energy efficient light bulb, or a high efficiency refrigerator/freezer, insulation and double or triple glazed windows. Poorer less savvy folks don’t think that far ahead and want to spend the minimum immediately and simply do not calculate the total cost and end up paying a lot more.
finally, given that a lot of red states are in the south, they probably pay a lot for air conditioning. for some dumb reason most US citizens insist on having the temps so low in the summer that you have to wear a sweater. Quite unbelievable but thermostats are set lower in the summer than they are in winter.
My hat is off to all of you. there has been some mighty fine commenting going on here. I have spent some time over at Glen Greenwald’s site and there are some pretty smart people over there too.
and it is finally snowing here. first snowfall this season, just enough to cover the ground. I guess I am relieved even though I don’t like snow all that much. somehow it seems that the world is right again.

Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 26 2007 22:47 utc | 90

hmmm, i may be eating my words, this from a comment on a dkos diary –

This is one of the weirder incidents I’ve read about over there.
The guys at the security checkpoint say the convoy had Americans in it who spoke English, the driver of one of the vehicles was a blond guy according to them. What’s up with that?
Were the people at the checkpoint lying? If so, why? Were kidnapped US soldiers forced to provide cover for the insurgents in the convoy? If so, what happened to them?
Then, after the attack the US military denied that any US soldiers were missing and they had five Americans at the compound who died valiantly repelling the sneak attack. Initially they said the bodies found in the abandoned convoy vehicles belonged to the insurgents who carried out the raid. Except then it was confirmed that the dead people they found were white. Now it turns out they are American soldiers who were apparently kidnapped during the raid. Another weird little details, the insurgent took at least one computer from the compound.
So what the hell is going on here?

there are lots of links and i am reading further.

Posted by: conchita | Jan 27 2007 1:16 utc | 92

as an offline companion to the subject of #89 above, eva golinger’s book the chavez code: cracking us intervention in venezuela provides a very informative case study of u.s. strategies to topple chavez. this book originally came out in march 2005 though it has only been available in an english edition in the u.s. since may 2006. golinger, through heavy use of foia documents, covers the period from 1998, when chavez was first voted into office, thru mid 2004. it’s an illuminating book, well-argued, and detailed, esp wrt the operations of NED & USAID. (golinger released a new book last year that covers the period beyond where the first book left off & makes use of the documents she continues to uncover. haven’t read the new one yet – don’t believe it’s available in this country at this time.)
a central factor in the elite’s interest in venezuela, as we know, is oil. but what you may not know — i didn’t — is just how central it is. consider the following: golinger has a DOS cable from april 11, 2002, the day of the coup in caracas. here’s golinger (PDVSA is the state-owned oil company)

One of [U.S.] Ambassador Shapiro’s first cables up to Washington after the intense events of the day began thus:

Televised scenes of joy have marked the return of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) employees to their La Campina headquarters building. Fired employees have been reinstated. Former Vice Presidents Karl Mazeika, Eduardo Praselj, and Vicenzo Paglione will act as coordinators in the selection of a new board. PDVSA executives underline that the company should return to normal operations by early next week. PDVSA spokesperson stated publicly that no oil will be sent to Cuba

Evidently, the least of the US government’s concerns was the harsh disruption of constitutional order instigated by a coup d’etat led by its benefactors. The primary preoccupation of the US government appeared to be Venezuela’s oil flow.

the next section of the cable is under the subheading “PDVSA Governability” and shapiro informed washington that

IN VIRTUALLY HIS FIRST ACT AS INTERIM PRESIDENT, PEDRO CARMONA ESTANGA REINSTATED THE FIRED/RETIRED/REMOVED EXECUTIVES TO THEIR POSITIONS.

the elite do have their priorities down, obviously.
another of those priorities is that the elites must prevent the model of a good alternative to what they offer, hence we’ve got hillary clinton telling lies & lining up chavez in the dem’s sights

Look at what‘s happening in Latin America, where we are seeing anti-American regimes gain ground. We don‘t engage with bad guys, so we don‘t engage with, you know, Chavez and try to, you know, see if there is any way to pull him back, or at least prevent others from following his lead.

meanwhile, as the blog oilwars shows us,
Now Venezuela’s oil helps millions

It is certainly true that prior to Chavez coming to power Venezuelan oil was being managed to help the wealthy elite and PDVSA executives more than anyone else. A big part of the Chavez’s first 5 years in office were spent fighting to gain control over the State oil company and redirect its resources to Venezuela’s poor. This effort by Chavez brought fierce resistance, a coup, and an a oil strike aimed at driving him from office.
Fortunately Chavez prevailed. And by prevailing not only was democracy preserved in Venezuela but Venezuela’s oil revenue started bringing big dividends for ordinary Venezuelans.

that, mi amigos, is the lead which hillary & her elite pals do not want others to emulate.

Posted by: b real | Jan 27 2007 6:16 utc | 94

secdef gates refuses to open up
from friday’s press briefing

Q: Mr. Secretary, can you share with us any details of the results of the airstrikes in Somalia? And can you comment on the international law aspect of it? Does the United States assert the right to attack anywhere in any country where you suspect that there might be some terrorists?
SEC. GATES: We’ve made pretty clear — it’s my impression for quite some time that members of al Qaeda and others who have attacked the United States, that we will seek them out and try to capture or kill them.
Q: And in Somalia –
SEC. GATES: And we will do that wherever possible with partners.
Q: And the results in Somalia, sir?
SEC. GATES: I’ll just leave it at that.
Q: Thank you.

well, gates is wise enough to not try to offer any legalities to make the case that the rogue u.s. has the right to view the world as its stomping ground. i’ll just leave it at that…
a couple of interesting & informative analyses/links in the following two threads. the first is from early november, during the buildup to the invasion & has some good comments too
How Bush created a regional war in Africa
and the second is from december 28th, shortly after the invasion took place
The Legitimate Government of Somalia

How we got here
It was a subtle irony that almost everyone missed. Ethiopia began their invasion of Somalia by bombing the Mogadishu airport. It was ironic because the rise of the Islamic Courts began because of violence at the Mogadishu airport. Both times it was foreign nations that sponsored that violence.
Back in January it was American-sponsored warlords under the umbrella of the laughably named Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT). This time it is Ethiopia, on the receiving end of $800 million a year from the Bush Administration, trying to impose a foreign government.

from the first article is a linked article on what ethiopia gains from an invasion, which contains this passage

an anti-Islamist war in Somalia would enable Zenawi to position himself as a key ally in the war on terror. Zenawi reasons that if his country plays an essential role in supporting Somalia’s transitional government against the UIC, the United States will provide economic and diplomatic support, despite other objections to Ethiopia’s policies. All Zenawi has to do is wait for civil war in Somalia to reignite – an outcome made more likely by his deployment of troops.

from a link in the second article above re the $800 million

In December 2002, Meles Zenawi visited the White House, and one of the dicussions that Mr. Zenawi had with Bush was related to “the global war on terrorism.” Obviously, the frame time of this meeting between Bush and Zenawi came at the early stage of the “war on terror.” For instance, this meeting came after the terrorist attacks of the hotel in Mombasa. In the meantime, there was and still are finger points at some individuals from Somalia, who have been alleged to be the “masterminds” of the Mombasa attack in 2002. Therefore, the whole reason of Zenawi’s visit in Washington, in my opinion, was to sell his idea that he can be a partner to defeat ” the terrorist cells” that may be found in the Horn of Africa. Nevertheless, according to an article that is written by Yohannes Woldemariam in Sudan Tribune, Zenawi receives now $800 million yearly from the US for just his support and being an ally on the “war on terror.”

that sounds high to me, but the author referenced, an eritrean, if that means anything, even says there’s more than that

The Bush administration is trying to buy stability at the expense of liberty in the Horn of Africa and neither of these goals is attainable without liberty. Zenawi has been warmly courted by the United States since the Clinton era and continues to be pampered by the George W Bush administration which has anointed him as an ally on the open ended “War on Terror” in the Horn of Africa. He is propped up by the U.S. and the international financial institutions. From the U.S. alone, he receives $800 million a year and $500 million worth of food assistance. Ethiopia is set to have its debt cancelled that will forgive $18.3bn owed to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and others. Despite his massacre of students and workers demanding democratic rule, Meles continues to enjoy western support simply because he has had the wit to call himself an ally on the “War on Terror.” As long as you are on the right side of the “War on Terror,” it is a safe time to be a dictator and tyrant.

whatever the dollar figure, that meles is a u.s.-supported dictator is not disputed. and now that he’s pulling his troops out of somalia, meles leaves the u.s. to spend yet more money to bribe countries to fill out AU peacekeeping forces in the hopes of propping up the TFG, in which case it’s quite counterproductive to keep plying the booga-booga oh my gawd there’s al-qa’idah terrorist cells in somalia ruse. be interesting to be a fly-on-the-wall when the brass is discussing lessons learned.

Posted by: b real | Jan 27 2007 8:13 utc | 96

thanks dan. i actually had to look up the term wet work. check out the graphic from Zayed @ healing iraq

Iraqi Parliament has failed to reach quorum since October 2006. Understandably, it’s hard to attend parliamentary sessions when you live in the Green Zone, or the Rashid Hotel, or Amman, or Dubai, or London. MP Adnan Al-Pachachi, who spoke from Dubai, complained that their salaries can only afford 20 security guards, while they need at least 40 to make it from the Baghdad Airport to the Green Zone.
………
Funny, too, that he would complain about the salary. Iraqi members of parliament receive up to $120,000 in salaries and benefits, or about $10,000 a month, plus the additional salaries of 20 security guards – which most MPs choose to pocket instead. Actually, the first bill Iraqi MPs (of all sects and ethnicities) passed unanimously was the one in which they defined their salaries, privileges and benefits. That session was conveniently closed to the media.

it appears only about 20% of parliment are in town. that’s a lot of out of work security guards. what do these guys do when their charges are out of town? there are 275 members of parliment. if each of them operated 40 security guards full time that still only accounts for 11 thousand security guards. ok, probably some of these members are incountry and use their security guards locally. still, where are the other aprox 40,000 security guards? what do they do all day? unless these ‘guards’ are dispersed equally @ aprox 200 per parliamentary member (enough for a small militia) there are a boby of guards worthy of a small army operating out there. who directs these guys? what are the chances they co ordinate w/eachother? likely i would presume. if ten members of parliment pooled their resources they could have an army of 2000. anyway, i don’t buy it. what are the chances sadr’s representatives in parliment are funded w/1600 private blackwater security forces.
which still leaves me to wonder how many puppets are there. what if hakim gets a few thousand to direct? does maliki get his own private milita w/5000 mercenaries? it wouldn’t make sense that the puppeteer wouldn’t also direct the charges of the puppets.
whose stovepiping directions to these militias? do they work w/the oil companies? congress contracts them.
I doubt that it is anything our government directs
this just doesn’t make sense! that we allow 50,000 expertly trained highly equipped ( better than our soldiers) force, most of them originally trained w/our armed forces operating independently? do i think our military directs them? probably not. do i think our government has imput, of course. we hire them. they have to be accountalble to someone and they don’t just hang at the hotel in kuwait all day playing cribbage.
the only time we hear about them is when one of them dies. but i’ve visited their online forums and these guys seem fairly ruthless.
i read the army has lost many of their career soldiers to the private sector for the obvious reason of $$.
contractors like titan are directly linked to the CIA, of course. we don’t have characters like foggo/wilkes w/connections to the salvadoran option driving people from the airport to the green zone. we operate private militias and it isn’t just 1000 rouge guys.
i wonder how many are hired by the oil companies to protect their ‘interests’? does lockheed have there own militia? when the former head of the cia counterterrorism , cofer black vice-chairman of blackwater, potentially supplies contractors to multiple corporations wouldn’t it stand to reason we have people at the top (lockheed=WH) co ordinating directly in a chain of command similar to what we have in the military and at some point their paths intersect, where? gates? was goss pushed out in relation. is all this connected to bush firing federal prosecutors (say, in san diego)? while stories like hookergate and cunningham zero in on pork belly spending , illegal contracts , juicy pedophile bla bla.. maybe the real scandle is the kind of war these people are waging to keep themselves in business.

Posted by: annie | Jan 27 2007 17:36 utc | 98