by slothrop

We’ve had some tit for tats here whether there exists a global capitalist class. I want to argue there is such a class, even 
though doing so requires occasional leaps into abstraction. There is a class of hyper-globalized elites. The caricatures 
have changed, though. The Man was once the traditional monocled, bejowled fatcat in spats and beaver high hat, crushing the 
head of a worker under monstrous black wingtips. Today it is the time-space displacement of capitalist power shared by waning
and waxing fortunes of virtually itinerant wealth: think Brian O’Blivion with a Carlyle Group investment account. Stateless, 
temporal-less capitalist accumulation built on leveraged finance, speculation conducted less by strategy, least by 
entrepreneurialism, and more by exparte bureaucratic contact and insiders with no historical memory. Long live the new flesh.

Cont. reading: Nice on Top

by Monolycus
lifted from a comment

It’s certainly not done as well as Billmon’s "compare-n-contrast"
literary style, but even US conservatives are starting to have trouble
swallowing the cognitive dissonance that resonates like a death knell
from the Republican Party. No amount of selective amnesia
is going to wipe away the vile hubris formerly displayed by the likes
of such tools as Michael Ledeen or Charles Krauthammer. That these
people who have been so incredibly, consistently and demonstrably wrong
are still paid to write their "informed opinions", while people like
Bernhard, Billmon, Jérôme, Badger, Justin Raimondo (aw, Christ… I
could go on and on… and that’s not even mentioning the sensible
contributors here) are still plugging away in relative obscurity…
well today, I’m feeling a little bitter about it.

Cont. reading: Selective Amnesia

As I didn´t get much news or reading-time the last two days (I was herding cats …) just two thoughts on the shuffeling within today’s administration and military leadership.

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.

An Admiral taking over as commander of Central Command is quite weird. The U.S. is involved in two (three if you count in Somalia) land/guerilla wars in Central Command’s region and that Admiral has no idea or experience in this.

The only reason for this can thereby be an air/sea, bombing and blockade, campaign against a Central Command adversary with the only reasonable candidate being Iran.

Unfortunately, none of this is good news.

News & views …

Good morning folks – (said by a still-a-bit-drunk b)
We’ll leave to Berlin in a short while and there may not be a post here in the next two days. Jana’s music will get you over the deprivation period …

Thanks for coming here. Please leave links to news and/or your views in the comments.

by b real
lifted from a comment

ladies, have i got a makeover for you
… or so went the pitch

reuters: Infamous Guatemalan army unit confronts new foes

A picture of a fierce-looking gorilla emblazoned with
the words "Welcome to Hell" once hung over the entrance of Central
America’s toughest military training center, the notorious "Kaibil"
school in Guatemala.

Now, visitors to the base in the Peten jungle are greeted by a
cheery painting of a soldier holding hands with a blonde-haired girl.
It says, "The Guatemalan Kaibils, respected by their adversaries, loved
by the people. Have a nice trip!"

The red-bereted fighters, who once ate dog guts as training, want to
leave behind a sordid past of human rights crimes and project a new
image as international peacekeepers and a front against rampant drug
gangs.

Created in the 1970s to fight a counter-insurgency campaign against
Guatemala’s leftist guerrillas during a 36-year civil war that left
over 200,000 dead, the Kaibils were infamous as one of the most brutal
special forces units in Latin America.

of course, the two reporters that crafted this pitch omit the
historical fact that the founder of the kaibiles, pablo nuila hub, was
a graduate
of the united states’SOA, or of the long record of u.s. support that went beyond financial & weapon assistance to counterinsurgency
forces in guatemala throughout the cold war period, or that human
rights watch reported "parachute and jungle-survival training by U.S. Special Forces for
Guatemala’s elite Kaibil counterinsurgency troops in the Petén in
November 1988", and into the 90’s "Green Berets openly trained the Kaibil massacre force", etc etc. just pointing out the influence to help fill in some details, ya know.

Cont. reading: Makeover

Blogger Attaturk of Rising Hegemon is currently guestblogging at Atrios’ linked to a NYT piece and cited from it:

…a prosecutor at the trial that condemned Mr. Hussein to death, said that one of two men he had seen holding a cellphone camera aloft to make a video of Mr. Hussein’s last moments — up to and past the point where he fell through the trapdoor — was Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Mr. Maliki’s national security adviser.

But reading the NYT report now, that part has been changed to:

A prosecutor who attended the execution, Munkith al-Faroun, said he thought one of the invited witnesses had recorded the session on a cellphone, but he could not recall his name.

Spiiderweb and Josh Marshall have followed that story.

Al-Rubaie, Mr. Cellophan, is said to be a CIA asset. If he filmed Saddam’s hanging and leaked the video, one must see this as an act of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

The reason to do this can be found in the "Moqtada" chanting during the hanging. Moqtada al-Sadr is still the only force working on a allignment beween Sunni and Shia in Iraq. To have his name chanted during Saddam’s excecution and to publish such might have been seen as a reasonable strategy to break that forming alliance.

Meanwhile, suddenly Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki wants to urgently leave his job.

Will al-Rubaie now get his deserved promotion?

According to this NYT spin piece:

– Gen. George W. Casey and Rumsfeld are responsible for the U.S. defeat in Iraq:

The original plan, championed by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Baghdad, and backed by Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, called for turning over responsibility for security to the Iraqis, shrinking the number of American bases and beginning the gradual withdrawal of American troops. But the plan collided with Iraq’s ferocious unraveling, which took most of Mr. Bush’s war council by surprise.

– Bush/Cheney were "uneasy" with that strategy for the last year:

Over the past 12 months, as optimism collided with reality, Mr. Bush increasingly found himself uneasy with General Casey’s strategy.

–  Casey now gets fired:

Mr. Bush seems all but certain not only to reverse the strategy that General Casey championed, but also to accelerate the general’s departure from Iraq …

– Bush/Cheney, smart as they are, did start a new initiative back in September:

By mid-September, Mr. Bush was disappointed with the results in Iraq and signed off on a complete review of Iraq strategy

– Unfortunatly, politics impeded an earlier implementation:

Many of Mr. Bush’s advisers say their timetable for completing an Iraq review had been based in part on a judgment that for Mr. Bush to have voiced doubts about his strategy before the midterm elections in November would have been politically catastrophic.

We can certainly expect that this will become the official written history of the coming U.S. "sustained surge" or "sacrifices", i.e. escalation of the war on Iraq and Iran.

Those pointing out that these new facts also show that The Decider hides behind storied "decisions" of his underlings, took a year to change a failed strategy and got his soldiers killed by being a political coward are simply traitors who don’t support the troops.

If you don’t comment, I’ll end up with painted toenails …

And now we’ll switch back to serious News and Views …

by Uncle $cam
(lifted from a comment)

It has always been my habit to ignore traditions such as New Years resolutions due to the intrinsic value of drunken promises.

This year I have decided to compose a set of fifteen resolutions prior
to beginning my yearly ritualistic alcohol fest. They go like this:

I resolve to remember:

1. In America: We elect Representatives not leaders or kings
2. Corporations are not living breathing natural persons and thus should never enjoy Constitutional rights as persons.
3. The first ten amendments of the Constitution of the United States (also known as the Bill rights) are not amendable.
4. Taxes collected and then spent against the will of the people constitutes taxation without representation.
5. The Constitution of the United States of America contains no language declaring America "Policeman to the world".
6. True American Patriots support and defend the United States Constitution NOT a political party or even FOX news.
7. Defending the United States Constitution is not a criminal terrorist act regardless
   of any legalese contained in the Patriot Act.
8. A fascist government by definition; cannot enact the will of the people.
9. If George Bush could become President ANYONE of us could also be President.
10. Electing lawyers to serve in congress is akin to appointing Mark Foley Boy Scout Troop leader.
11. The original intent of the FCC was to prevent monopolization of the
    air waves, not to squelch free speech or hide Janet Jackson’s nipples.
12. Jesus is not a republican.
13. Jesus is GW Bush’s favorite philosopher not his God.
14. Statutory law often runs ruff-shod over the United States Constitution.
15. There is no measurable difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Happy New Year.