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February 13, 2007
Fresh Thread
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So long doctor-patient privilege
Last week I was surprised to learn that when a pharmacy in my state dispenses a scheduled drug, they are required to report the patient’s social security number and driver’s license number to a state board under a new program subsidized by federal funds called PMP. The stated purpose is to fight prescription fraud. Aside from revealing the most intimate details of the doctor-patient relationship, what else is happening? That information becomes part of a federal offender database, much like the information a person divulges in this state and others when purchasing ephedrine, a legal, safe, over-the-counter medication. Is this information available to prospective employers and insurance companies? I wonder about that because I wasn’t aware an epidemic of prescription fraud was a big problem in this state or the nation, and I disagree that this information’s worth to law enforcement justifies discarding the precious right of privacy with a doctor. We’ve turned yet another corner in our GOP-gestapo surveillance nation.
via
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 13 2007 7:56 utc | 1
Monbiot: The parallel universe of BAE: covert, dangerous and beyond the rule of law
There is a state within a state in the United Kingdom, a small but untouchable domain that appears to be subject to a different set of laws. We have heard quite a bit about it over the past two months, but hardly anyone knows just how far its writ runs. The state is BAE Systems, Britain’s biggest arms company. It seems, among other advantages, to be able to run its own secret service.
…
In 2003, the Sunday Times revealed that BAE had carried out a “widespread spying operation” on its critics. “Bank accounts were accessed, computer files downloaded and private correspondence with members of parliament and ministers secretly copied and passed on.” The paper said the arms company made use of a network run by a former consultant for the Ministry of Defence called Evelyn Le Chene. “Le Chene recruited at least half a dozen agents to infiltrate CAAT’s headquarters at Finsbury Park, north London, and a number of regional offices.” They provided BAE with advanced intelligence on CAAT’s campaign against the sale of its Hawk aircraft to the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia. The arms company also obtained CAAT’s membership list, its bank account details, the identity of its donors, its letters to ministers, even the contents of private diaries belonging to its staff.
…
In 2001, Blair overruled Clare Short and Gordon Brown to grant an export licence for BAE’s sale of a military air-traffic control system to one of the world’s poorest countries, Tanzania. The World Bank had pointed out that the contract was ridiculously expensive – Tanzania could have bought a better system elsewhere for a quarter of the price. In January the Guardian revealed that BAE Systems allegedly paid a $12m (£6.2m) “commission” to an agent who brokered the deal.
In 2005, Blair made a secret visit to Riyadh to expedite BAE’s deal with the Saudi princes. He then sent both John Reid and Des Browne to clinch the order. Ministers in the UK have always acted as unpaid salesmen for the arms companies, but seldom has a prime minister muddied his hands this much. Blair pushed the order through by promising the Saudis that they could have the first 24 planes ahead of schedule. How? By selling them the jets already allotted to the RAF. BAE’s interests, in other words, trump the requirements of our own armed forces.
…
At what point does the government conclude that this company has got out of control? That it presents a danger to national interests, to the reputation of the prime minister, to the privacy and civil liberties of its opponents? Why does it appear to be above the law? For how much longer will it be permitted to run what looks like a parallel secret service? Of all the questions we might ask of our ministers, these are the least likely to be answered.
@Uncle $cam:
Just to let you know: there is an epidemic of prescription fraud. Ask any pharmacist in a reasonably big city. (I’ve talked to three myself.)
State monitoring isn’t going to help, though. The people perpetrating the fraud are already giving false names and SSNs to get the drugs, so this measure won’t stop anything.
The problem is that a pharmacist has to allow anything that comes in on a prescription pad and which isn’t an obvious forgery to be treated as a prescription. In a sane society, this problem would be solved by revising the method the doctor uses to give you a prescription, so that there was a trustworthy channel between your doctor and your pharmacy, and between pharmacies in case you needed a refill while away from home. Any prescription which didn’t use this new method would be called to verify. (As it happens, they are already doing this so often it wouldn’t make much difference.) Instead, they’re trying to put the burden of proof on the patients. What a surprise.
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Feb 13 2007 8:38 utc | 3
Fighting For Principle, Against The Unprincipled
The whole purpose of setting up Guantánamo Bay is for torture.
Why do this? Because you want to escape the rule of law. There is only one
thing that you want to escape the rule of law to do, and that is to question people coercively—what some people call torture. Guantánamo and the military commissions are implements for breaking the law. Why build a
prison here when there are plenty of prisons in Nebraska? Why is it, when
we see photos of Abu Ghraib, we think that it is “exporting Guantánamo”?
That it is the “Guantánamo method”?
—Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift to the author, January 2007.
Snip:
Vanity Fair has a powerful profile of the JAG lawyers and constitutional scholars fighting the unconstitutional treatment of the souls cast into the black hole of Guantánamo Bay. Lt. Commander Swift was ordered to work with the team providing the “defense” to so-called “enemy combatants” in the show trials that the Pentagon and Bush Administration insisted they had the power to set up, “trying” accused men beyond the standards of international law, military law and US civilian laws. They were courts beyond law, modern versions of the old trials by ordeal with which feudal lords and clergymen had exerted control over the powerless.
Posted by Madman In The Marketplace over at one of my new fav blawgs…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 13 2007 9:21 utc | 4
I don’t know if a link to this George Monbiot article has been posted before.
I don’t know much about George Monbiot, but b seems to link to his stuff quite a bit.
Anyways, that aside, the topic of today’s little rant is 9-11.
I came across this article by Peter Meyer (Serendipity). I have to let you know that I mostly agree with Peter Meyer on a number of issues – including 9-11.
George Monbiot on 9/11: A Reply
It’s OK to start with the reply. He links to the George Monbiot piece A 9/11 conspiracy virus is sweeping the world, but it has no basis in fact
The really interesting thing – is the comments section. I don’t know what’s usual on the Guardian, but I cut and pasted the article and comments to a word document – and it comes up to a whopping 168,000 words (that equates to a fair sized book).
Is 9-11 going mainstream? Will someone need something to muddy the waters?
Posted by: DM | Feb 13 2007 10:35 utc | 5
Kurt Nimmo’s “Another Day in the Empire” is usually good read. But today he is simply wrong: He writes:
As a recent email points out, Iran does not manufacture 81mm mortar shells. According to a report offered by the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, connected to the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the neocon Brookings Institute, the smallest mortar produced by Iran is the 107mm M-30. This information is included in the JCSS’s “Middle East Military Balance,” updated last February. It can be read in this PDF file on page 15.
Sorry Kurt – page 15 lists artillery ammunition. Infantry mortar up to 100mm is NOT regarded as artillery.
Page 5 of the PDF says under “Defense Production”:
81, 120, 130 and 320mm mortars and artillery ammunition
Upps – well happens do everyone …
As about any bigger country can make such mortars, this of course in no way proves that the mortars the US did show are from Iran.
North Korea signs deal to dismantle nuclear program
North Korea agreed Tuesday to take first steps toward nuclear disarmament and shut down its main reactor within 60 days before eventually dismantling its atomic weapons program.
Under the deal, the North will receive initial aid equal to 50,000 tons heavy fuel oil for shutting down and sealing its main nuclear reactor and related facilities at Yongbyon, north of the capital, to be confirmed by international inspectors. For irreversibly disabling the reactor and declaring all nuclear programs, the North will eventually receive another 950,000 tons in aid.
But making sure that Pyongyang declares all its nuclear facilities and shuts them down is likely to prove arduous, nuclear experts have said.
Question: Does that make an attack on Iran more likely?
Relentless pressure on Palestinians: New directive hampers entry of Arabs, Palestinians into Gaza
Israeli Arabs, West Bank residents and Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem face tougher border control regulations at the Erez Crossing on the Israel-Gaza border in light of a new directive requiring Israeli citizens to present a passport or a laissez-passer when seeking to enter the Gaza Strip.
The new directive, effective February 1, adds weight to Israel’s declaration that Gaza is no longer an occupied territory.
One of the implications of this directive, however, is that East Jerusalem residents living mostly in the Gaza Strip now run the risk of losing their Israeli citizenship.
A group of some 800 to 1,000 Israeli Arab citizens married to Gazans are required to renew their stay permits in the Strip every month. Jerusalem residents belonging to this group are required to undergo a prolonged bureaucratic procedure with the Civil Administration and the Interior Ministry.
According to the Center for the Defense of the Individual, the law stipulates that Palestinian East Jerusalem residents whose permanent place of resident is not Jerusalem must lose their Israeli citizenship.
No, not occupied – just completely shut off from air, sea and land travel and to be bombed whenever the IDF feels like it.
More humour – WaPo journalist Dana Milbank writes
Libby must believe himself to be in desperate legal straits to have six journalists serve as his character witnesses.
The logic of the Osama Team Hunger Force was impeccable. Good thing their nefarious plot was foiled. Thanks for the laugh.
Posted by: jcairo | Feb 13 2007 16:01 utc | 11
If this report would be correct, why would the US NOT have shown such weapons on Sunday? Then why would Pace continue to put down Iranian involvement?
Iraqi insurgents using Austrian rifles from Iran
Austrian sniper rifles that were exported to Iran have been discovered in the hands of Iraqi terrorists, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
A Steyr HS50 rifle, Austrian supplied rifles, arms trade, Iran equipping Iraq insurgents
The Steyr HS50 is a long range, high precision rifle
More than 100 of the.50 calibre weapons, capable of penetrating body armour, have been discovered by American troops during raids.
The guns were part of a shipment of 800 rifles that the Austrian company, Steyr-Mannlicher, exported legally to Iran last year.
…
Within 45 days of the first HS50 Steyr Mannlicher rifles arriving in Iran, an American officer in an armoured vehicle was shot dead by an Iraqi insurgent using the weapon.
Over the last six months American forces have found small caches of the £10,000 rifles but in the last 24 hours a raid in Baghdad brought the total to more than 100, US defence sources reported.
It’s the UKs Telegraph “reporting” of course …
Trade Deficit Surged to Record $764B in 2006 upps – $2,500 per inhabitant per year – how much longer?
dusty foggo #3 cia indicted for fraud in corruption probe
“federal prosecutors in San Diego are expected today to announce indictments in a case that involves the former No. 3 official at the CIA, Kyle ‘Dusty’ Foggo.”
If Foggo is indicted, it will represent a dark day for the CIA and is expected to lead to a full congressional investigation of how secret CIA contracts are awarded.
since this story the announcement has been made, he has been indicted
Posted by: annie | Feb 13 2007 21:41 utc | 15
On another thread, r giap wrote about the strategy of tension and Gladio (google will provide for both.)
Both are in the past, but have repercussions in the present, as was made clear. For many in the EU these topics are so painful one cannot reply, or post. It is impossible – the weight of what is known today, what was not realised, and how,… ..anyway…”nobody will believe you” is a common feeling…..etc. thanks to rgiap for his post.
But here we are, and here we go again; in the years 2000 to 2006. 9/11 remains an odd mystery, something that is to be discussed only in the light of conspiracy or nutty, theory, be one for or against it, etc. etc. Maybe some self promoted specialists will get some bucks; the people can jeer and rumble; reasonable pols will say, err err we need a new investigation.
People will, or must, skip lightly on, are told to get over it, told it is now the past (it is not), it is murky and muddy, we cannot know. Monbiot (afaik) is a straight out denier, like Chomsky; Billmon and Joe Cannon (Cannonfire) in the blogger world, to mention only two who have, or had, verve and great insight, and more, stop short at some point and are caught up in their own contradictions.
Posted by: Noirette | Feb 13 2007 22:20 utc | 16
YAY! annie!!! *dances in seat* thanks for the new annie! This calls for a round for the house I’d say,… barkeep!
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 13 2007 22:22 utc | 17
An Appeal to Conscience to Those Who Would Bomb Iran – Colonel Ann Wright (Ret.)
Posted by: Dr. Wellington Yueh | Feb 13 2007 22:31 utc | 19
Add this(see below)to your list good Dr. W. Yueh…
Wonderful cinamtography, and original ethnic soundtrack…
Rented it a few weeks ago, also saw it in one of my anthro classes…
Grass, an ethnographic film about the Bakhtiari
In 1924, neophyte filmmakers Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack hooked up with journalist and sometime spy Marguerite Harrison and set off to film an adventure. They found excitement, danger and unparalleled drama in the migration of the Bakhitiari tribe of Persia (now Iran). Twice a year, more than 50,000 people and half a million animals surmounted seemingly impossible obstacles to take their herds to pasture. The filmmakers captured unforgettable images of courage and determination as the Bakhtiari braved the raging and icy waters of the half-mile-wide Karun River. Cooper and Schoedsack almost froze when they filmed the breathtaking, almost unbelievable, sight of an endless river of men, women and children – their feet bare or wrapped in rags – winding up the side of the sheer, snow-covered rock face of the 15,000 foot high Aardeh Kuh mountain. Although many documentary historians consider GRASS second only to Nanook of the North, few people have actually seen this legendary film. This restored and full-length version, complete with an authentic new Iranian score, will astonish today’s audiences with its beautiful photography and heart stopping adventure.Bonus Feature: Film historian Rudy Behlmer audio interview with producer director Merian C. Cooper (71 minutes, B&W)
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 14 2007 1:40 utc | 20
Chris Floyd on the The Anglo-American Dirty War in Iraq, Ulster on the Euphrates.
Posted by: Alamet | Feb 14 2007 2:04 utc | 21
New Bill Requires ISPs to Monitor All Email Traffic and Surfing Activity
The 1984-esque Safety Act would require ISPs to record all users ’ surfing activity, IM conversations and email traffic indefinitely.
Of course the elite will have their own network, I suspect…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 14 2007 2:23 utc | 22
@Uncle$cam:
Thanks for the tip. Very interested in this kind of info, but it bugs my wife to no end when I watch ‘stale old movies!’ 🙂
Posted by: Dr. Wellington Yueh | Feb 14 2007 2:30 utc | 23
@Uncle $cam:
Where’d you find that little gem? The HTML source is… I was going to say “a textbook example of how not to write a web page”, except that I don’t think that even a textbook would make that many mistakes. My browser had so much trouble making sense of it that I had to read the source to figure out what the text was supposed to be. For this reason, I wonder if it’s fake.
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Feb 14 2007 8:55 utc | 25
uncle, freakyass site there
Never did I see a second sun
Never did my skin touch a land of glass
Never did my rifle point but true
But in a land empty of enemies
Waiting for the tick-tick-tick of the want
A uranium angel
Crying behold,
This land that knew fire is yours
Taken from Corruption
To begin anew
i’m w/truth gets vicious, where did you find it. btw, i copied and pasted the text to be able to read it. it’s worth the read. freaky.
Posted by: annie | Feb 14 2007 9:53 utc | 26
Following b’s #13 on Pace’s dissent would give some credence to Badgers post yesterday. In which he cites the (Sunni) Iraqi paper Azzaman’s unusual interpretation of the Iranian weapons story. Apparently the U.S. (surge) wanted to target the Mahdi and rogue elements of the Badr before going after the Sunni insurgency, but Maliki balked — so the weapons ploy was brought in to force Maliki into a compromise, by agreeing to a simultanious attack on Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods:
People in the Iraqi political milieu link these accusations [about Iranian weapons and so on] with disagreements between the American forces and the Prime Minister Maliki. Maliki had been asking that the new Baghdad security plan be applied beginning with Sunni areas and exclude the special protection forces…while the Americans were bent on starting with Sadr City, which is Shiite and the Mahdi Army stronghold. It appears the two sides reached an agreement yesterday, with Maliki’s accouncement that the plan will start with all areas simultaneously.
And lest you missed the point, the Al-Hayat reporter concludes his account with the exact same sentence that the Azzaman reporter used to close his account:
[One of the briefers] said: “We have conveyed this information [the Iranian allegations] to the highest levels of the Iraqi government”.
In a nutshell: The Iran-weapons show was part of American pressure to make sure the Iraqi government agrees to include Shiite targets as well as Sunni targets in the new security plan.
This would account for the previous on/off/on again on part of the administration over the proof, and the half assed presentation of the proof itself. In this case Pace is trying to contain the damage, by not directly implicating the Iranian government itself, but keeping it an “in house” familey feud.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 14 2007 10:13 utc | 27
Interesting documentary summarizing the complicity of western governments in the current Middle East chaos. It was made for European TV and supposedly not shown in North America. Peter Galbraith collaborated in making it.
Link
Posted by: ww | Feb 14 2007 10:32 utc | 28
Feudalism is undoubtedly better than chaos.
So if you want feudalism, promote policies that generate chaos.
Et voilà. The past few years suddenly make a lot of sense.
Posted by: ww | Feb 14 2007 10:42 utc | 29
Tip o the hat to annie…
CIA blocking Hookergate investigation
In May of last year Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, the third highest-ranking member of the CIA, was implicated a scandal involving erstwhile Republican congressman Duke Cunningham, defense contracts, and orgies at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. (If this doesn’t ring a bell, refresh your memory with Jane Hamsher’s Hookergate 101.)
Now, the CIA is refusing to cooperate with federal authorities investigating Cunningham’s various national-security related influence peddling schemes.
Cunningham is already in jail for taking bribes from defense contractors. If Foggo were indicted, he would become the highest-ranking member of the CIA in history to be prosecuted for a crime.
TPM Muckraker says that Foggo’s indictment was expected months ago, but the CIA refuses to declassify key documents.
Another one down the old memory hole.
It didn’t happen, right? It was just a passing dream.
FalaLalalalalalala. Time to go to WalMart and anesthetize myself buying more cheap Chinese stuff.
Hookergate, Abramoff, Delaygate, Cunninghamgate, Iraqgate, WMDgate, Irangate (stay tuned!), 911-gate, OKC-gate, Gannon-gate, electoralcoup2000gate, electoralcoup2004gate, phonyfixnewsgate, plamegate, phonydemprezcandidateKerrygate, anthraxgate, hoaxidjigprezgate, cheneyshootsanattorneyinthefaceandnothinghappensgate… Naah, none of it happened. Back to watching O’Reilly on my new flatpaneltv from ChinaMart.
Oh, and it looks like some of those hookers weren’t wearing dresses either…
Indeed. As TPM followed up, the hookers are mentioned in Wilkes 42-page Cunningham-related indictment. As is the established norm with this case, the prostitutes are never referred to in any gender-specific way, except to say that Duke requested a different prostitute for a subsequent night.
Also in the 42-page indictment is at least an implication of attempted blackmail, as Wilkes tries to coerce someone, then Cunningham calls him/her on their cellphone while they’re with Wilkes at the Watergate hospitality suite.
I’m thinking that must be either a whole other can of worms, or hushed away somewhere safe…
Finally, Billmon, Bernhard and the MOA crew were all over this last year, in a much more indepth way…seems like Firedoglake, Antiwar.com, and some others among the anti-NeoCon bloggosphere shot their collective wads hyping the Fitzgerald case and then the anti-Lieberman campaign, only to have both of them disappoint. Funny how Firedoglake, which spent years is seems probing every detail of Fitzgerald’s investigation into WH shenanigans, now reads like Dear Abby. NOTHING happened except for the crime bosses’ steely stare which said, “I know where your daughter goes to school.” Seems FDL has sort of turned into a girls&gays coffee clatch these days (not that I have anything against either, mind you.) I’m just waiting for the day when they give up on the Dems as their saviors.
TPM
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 14 2007 14:24 utc | 30
The prosecutor who indicted Cunningham, Wilkes and Foggo today has been fired and will leave office at the end of this week. Politically motivated? If you think it’s not, then I have an Alaskan bridge to nowhere that I’d like to sell you.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 14 2007 15:01 utc | 31
Barriers to Peace in the Congo: ZNet Book Interview
David Baroudski’s Book, Laurent Nkundabatware, is available on ZNet as a free download.
(1) Can you tell ZNet, please, what your new book, Laurent Nkundabatware, his Rwandan Allies, and the ex-ANC Mutiny: Chronic Barriers to Lasting Peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is is about? What is it trying to communicate?
1. Who General Laurent Nkundabatware (the most prominent ‘rebel’ in Congo-Zaire) is and what his army has done.
2. To provide a comprehensive examination of the situation in the Kivu provinces of the Congo following the Sun City Final Act to the present day.
3. How Rwanda continues to overtly and covertly infiltrate the Congo and is the cause of the region’s instability.
4. To demonstrate the U.S. role in putting the current Rwanda regime in power, in backing the Rwandan army and Laurent Kabila to topple Mobutu for personal geopolitical gain, and how the U.S. directly contributes to the suffering in the Great Lakes region today.
5. To demonstrate the multitude of areas that must be addressed in order to secure peace for the region.
These are the macrotopics, while there are numerous smaller topics.
the pdf document in avail at the link above. it’s a 4.3MB file and 457 pages long (heavily footnoted, some pix, maps, etc) so it’s not light reading.
Posted by: b real | Feb 14 2007 15:57 utc | 32
Hey, just a thought, but the estrogen level here has been missing of late, where the hell is the amazon brigade???!!!
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 14 2007 17:01 utc | 33
HaHaHa Uncle#30,
Its because the people have been obsessed with:
Kerrysaidthetroopsaredumb gate
Britneybreezesherjunkinpublic gate
RosieandTrumpuptheheat gate
JusthowblackisBarack or isheaTigerinthetank gate
HillarylikeBushcantsaymistake gate
Youdontneedaweathermantoknowtheweatherisoutofcontrol gate
to name but a few
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 14 2007 18:40 utc | 35
Oh, and it just occured to me that the reason the film Idiocracy failed its potential to become a serious black comedy masterpiece — is that the director probably felt that it would have been over its audience’s head, and so ruined the film by over-explaining it.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 14 2007 18:50 utc | 36
Fidel and His Buddy Hugo, Exporting Revolution
While the Cuban political system definitely has its detractors, no one can deny that the revolution has made some amazing accomplishments. These accomplishments are what are being exported. It is also important to point out that no one is copying or implementing the Cuban political system, and that is not the intention. Each country that is working with Cuba to implement social programs has a distinct political system. As the successes of the Cuban experience will be carried on, hopefully the failures will be left behind.
However, Washington, along with private media, has always focused on distorting the truth about Fidel and the Cuban Revolution. They blame Cuba’s socialism for the problems in Cuba, but they don’t blame capitalism for the much graver problems in neighboring places like Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, or Mexico. Washington claims to want to “free Cuba” from dictatorship, but other much more brutal dictators of the region never seemed to bother them. In fact, Washington supported the long, brutal dictators of Somoza in Nicaragua, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, and Papa and Baby Doc in Haiti. The reality is that Fidel has always been portrayed as a horrible dictator because of the example he has provided for the world; because he rejected North American imperialism, refused to permit the exploitation of his country, and showed that another way is possible.
And so this is why Washington has always wanted to kill Fidel Castro; not because the United States promotes “democracy” as they claim. What has always been so threatening about Cuba is the fact that they might serve as an example for the rest of Latin America and the world, and that the revolution will spread. Washington has been afraid that the Cuban Revolution might succeed, that they might improve the lives of their people, that they might successfully get out from under Washington’s boot. If so, other countries might want to do the same thing. Washington is exactly right. They do.
there was a whole citizenry that lived in a boot…
Posted by: b real | Feb 14 2007 19:13 utc | 37
We’ve discussed Putin’s Saudi Arabian jaunt, but did anyone catch this. He’s getting together w/India & China now to discuss common interests. Giants meet to counter US power
India, China and Russia account for 40 per cent of the world’s population, a fifth of its economy and more than half of its nuclear warheads. Now they appear to be forming a partnership to challenge the US-dominated world order that has prevailed since the end of the Cold War.
Foreign ministers from the three emerging giants met in Delhi yesterday to discuss ways to build a more democratic “multipolar world”.
It was the second such meeting in the past two years and came after an unprecedented meeting between their respective leaders, Manmohan Singh, Hu Jintao and Vladimir Putin, during the G8 summit in St Petersburg in July.
It also came only four days after Mr Putin stunned Western officials by railing against American foreign policy at a security conference in Munich.
The foreign ministers, Pranab Mukherjee, Li Zhao Xing and Sergei Lavrov, emphasised that theirs was not an alliance against the United States. It was, “on the contrary, intended to promote international harmony and understanding”, a joint communiqué stated.
Their formal agenda covered issues ranging from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East and North Korea to energy security, nuclear non-proliferation and trade. The subtext, however, was clear: how to use their growing economic and political muscle to prevent Washington from tackling such issues alone.
“In the long term, they feel that the whole structure of international relations has to shift in their direction,” said Vinod C. Khanna, of the Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi. “What has happened is that quite independently they’ve reacted very similarly to recent international events.”
…
One area of agreement is opposition to outside interference in separatist conflicts in Chechnya, the northeast of India and the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang.
Another is energy. India and China are desperate for Russian oil and gas, and Moscow is worried about its dependence on Western markets. But their most significant common ground is opposition to US military intervention in Iran. The joint statement did not mention Iran, but the three countries have taken a common stance in calling for a negotiated solution through the International Atomic Energy Agency. None of them wants a nuclear-armed Iran, but Russia sells Tehran nuclear technology and India and China need Iranian gas.
Will this result in Europe having to pay more for gas, if it has to compete w/China? Or will they have to find other sources? Is that feasible?
Posted by: jj | Feb 15 2007 6:04 utc | 38
lendman: UN Peacekeeping Paramilitarism
The world community calls them “Blue Helmets” or “peacekeepers,” and the UN defines their mission as “a way to help countries torn by conflict create conditions for sustainable peace” by implementing and monitoring post-conflict peace processes former combatants have agreed to under provisions of the UN Charter. The Charter empowers the Security Council to take collective action to maintain international peace and security that includes authorizing peacekeeping operations provided a host country agrees to have them under Rules of Engagement developed and approved by all parties. At that point, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations enlists member nations to provide force contingents to be deployed once the Security Council gives final approval.
Once in place, Blue Helmets are supposed to help in various ways including monitoring the withdrawal of combatants, building confidence, enforcing power-sharing agreements, providing electoral support, aiding reconstruction, upholding the rule of law, maintaining order, and helping efforts toward economic and social development. Above all, “peacekeeping” missions are supposed to be benevolent interventions. They’re sent to conflict areas to restore order, maintain peace and security and provide for the needs of people during a transitional period until a local government takes over on its own.
Far too often, however, things don’t turn out that way, and Blue Helmets end up either creating more conflict than its resolution or being counterproductive or ineffective. In the first instance, peacekeepers become paramilitary enforcers for an outside authority. In the second, they do more harm than good because they’ve done nothing to ameliorate conditions or improve the situation on the ground and end up more a hindrance than a help. This article focuses mostly on the former using Haiti as the primary case study example after reviewing peacekeeping operations briefly in six other countries. In each case, the examples chosen show people on the ground as helpless victims of imperial exploitation (usually US-directed) with UN Blue Helmets used by outside powers for social control and domination, not keeping the peace.
that lendman guy must really be putting away the wheaties b/c he’s been quite prolific. this understanding of the blue helmets is not new, and haiti is indeed a good current example. a look at the discrediting that the UN peacekeepers took in somalia back in the early 1990’s would also be appropriate here, esp in light of the plans to bring UN forces back into that area this year. the track record of peacekeepers in africa does not bode well for future interventions.
a i wrote back in ’05 in this here establishment
fanon: “In reality, the UN is the legal card used by the imperialist interests when the card of brute force has failed.” and, refering to lumumba’s mistake of appealing to the UN, “For after all, before the arrival of the UN, there were no massacres in the Congo. After the hallucinating rumors deliberately propagated in connection with the departure of the Belgians, only some ten dead were to be counted. But since the arrival of the UN we have grown used to learning every morning that the Congolese were mutually massacring one another by the hundreds.” i think of the recent stories of blue helmet attrocities in haiti for confirmation that little has changed.
Posted by: b real | Feb 15 2007 15:51 utc | 39
Will this result in Europe having to pay more for gas, if it has to compete w/China? Or will they have to find other sources? Is that feasible?
If Russia builds some big pipelines to China and India, Europe will have to pay more. The alternative is Liquified Gas from Iran which the US is trying to lock up.
Scott Ritter interviewed by Sy Hersh 5 Month ago – its’s still relevant and here is the video part1, part 2
klare: Global Warming: It’s All About Energy
Finally, after years of effort by dedicated scientists and activists like Al Gore, the issue of global warming has begun to receive the international attention it desperately needs. The publication on February 2 of the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), providing the most persuasive evidence to date of human responsibility for rising world temperatures, generated banner headlines around the world. But while there is a growing consensus on humanity’s responsibility for global warming, policymakers have yet to come to terms with its principal cause: our unrelenting consumption of fossil fuels.
When talk of global warming is introduced into the public discourse, as in Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” it is generally characterized as an environmental problem, akin to water pollution, air pollution, pesticide abuse, and so on. This implies that it can be addressed – like those other problems – through a concerted effort to “clean up” our resource-utilization behavior, by substituting “green” products for ordinary ones, by restricting the release of toxic substances, and so on.
But global warming is not an “environmental” problem in the same sense as these others – it is an energy problem, first and foremost. Almost 90% of the world’s energy is supplied through the combustion of fossil fuels, and every time we burn these fuels to make energy we release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; carbon dioxide, in turn, is the principal component of the “greenhouse gases” (GHGs) that are responsible for warming the planet. Energy use and climate change are two sides of the same coin.
Hyrids, Biofuels and Other False Idols: What’s Being Left Out of Solutions to Fossil Fuel?
Posted by: b real | Feb 15 2007 22:34 utc | 42
today on newshour, undersec of state christopher hill on the north korean people:
“alas, their threshold for pain is great”
bummer
Posted by: slothrop | Feb 16 2007 1:48 utc | 43
at first, reading this made me think of dan of steele’s fireman-soldier analogy a week or two back. but upon further reflection, i think it’s either a colorful illustration of exactly what point these peoples’ intellectual development reached, or a powerful indictment of the contempt that state has for explaining itself to adults. the passage is from deputy assistant secretary of defense (DASD) for african affairs, theresa whelan, at a press briefing last week on the announcement of the new combatant command for africa
we actually like to think of AFRICOM as a new kind of fire department. Normally, you have the fire department, they stay in their firehouse and they spend time polishing their shiny fire truck. And when a fire breaks out, then they rush to the fire and they try to put the fire out. And then when they’re done, they go back to their fire house and they go back to polishing their truck and waiting for the next fire.
However, we want AFRICOM to be a command that essentially goes out and helps to develop, along with our African partners, fire safety techniques, advises on putting in sprinkler systems in order to reduce damage from fire and do preventative things so that hopefully, fires won’t break out. But because accidents happen and you can’t control everything in life, if a fire does break out, the fire will not be as severe and it might be put out a little bit more easily and maybe it might not impact as many people. So I think that would be the way that we would look at it.
Posted by: b real | Feb 16 2007 2:45 utc | 44
happy belated valentine to all you dedicated mooners.
luv ya
that means you, you know who you are.
Posted by: annie | Feb 16 2007 7:59 utc | 45
We’re having a Spring Meet of Expats, Kossacks, EuroTribbers, etc in beautiful downtown Carcassonne on March 24. If you plan to be in the area, the details are here.
Posted by: Lupin | Feb 16 2007 9:11 utc | 46
@ b real
I don’t really read it as contempt for the little people as an innovative way to explain imperialism without saying as much. for some reason, we are not prepared to acknowledge the fact that the US must be able to call the shots all over the world in order to satisfy the insatiable hunger of our elite.
Of course the US must have a presence in Africa, that we don’t already points to massive incompetence in Washington. Every nation must ask permission from the US to buy, sell, or trade anything that has any value to the US. All nations must borrow money from the US so that they may buy things from the US so that they will become ever more dependent upon the US.
Try to explain that to your average taxpayer. His or her eyes will quickly glaze over OR he or she will ask embarrassing questions like, “why?”
now the fireman analogy is something you can get your head around. we are being good, no? after all, we all love firemen. right.
Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 16 2007 16:50 utc | 48
dan of steele- i left out that this was the foreign press briefing, and nearly all of the questions they fielded were very good. much better grasp of the political situation than the questions that came from the u.s. press at the DoD briefing two days earlier. but the responses from the podium dodged all of the issues raised by the questions — is this about oil? how does china play into this decision? is this related to the new scramble for africa? — and gave simplistic responses that i read as an insult to the intelligence of the foreign press, and deliberate. it’s not that the questions were necessarily hostile, but they did not fit into the perceptions that the state dept wants to create around this new command. so the analogy can be read as a distraction tactic — keep your eyes on the shiny object parked in the station — while the real strategic objectives are left for discussion amongst only the adults who need to know. what is interesting is the analogy used, and that is why i suggested that it could be indicative of what stage of development the presenter(s) peaked at. how other to describe it than to recognize it as a childish analogy. perhaps i am unaware of some other factors which would explain the tone in which this analogy was delivered — maybe ms. whelan used to teach pre-school and thus operates on the basis of an adult-to-infant communication channel — though i am sure that we can agree that her answers hardly measured up to the content presented in the press members’ inquiries of such an important announcement from empire on the concentrating of it’s military resources on the second largest land mass on the planet.
the u.s. already does have a fairly large presence in africa right now, and have had for decades. the u.s. is actively involved in “counter-insurgency” training in a number of countries, they have already established and are in the process of establishing even more forward-operating locations across the continent. SOF is on the ground. naval ships (and seals) are on the coasts & in the deltas. etc… i will cover more of this in a rpt that i am working on WRT the niger delta which i hope to finish this w/e.
Posted by: b real | Feb 16 2007 17:46 utc | 49
One often encounters rhetoricians who insist that removing troops from Iraq, or limiting the freedom of the president to use them any way he damn well pleases is equivalent to betraying one’s countrymen in Iraq.
Although I know that some people are entirely insincere, there is a much larger group that has actually wound up believing this shinola. So I’ve wanted a reply that would actually cause thought. Last night on teh Stephen Colbert show (last clip) Shasi Tharoor (ex-Under Secretary General of the UN iirc) provided just the right enlightening phrase.
From memory, he said – Taleyrand said it two hundred years ago, “The one thing you cannot do with a bayonet is sit on it.”
I think that takes their argument and sets it on just the right fine point. If they insist, let them wriggle.
Posted by: citizen | Feb 16 2007 18:00 utc | 50
@annamissed#36
So right.
The eugenics humor was pretty queasy and totally unnecessary if they did away with explanations. Not to mention that the real dumb-shift we’re experiencing has a lot to do with the return of pictorial/visual thinking over symbolic/literary thought.
Posted by: citizen | Feb 16 2007 18:14 utc | 51
january 2007 CRS report for congress, via secrecynews
“Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2006,” updated January 8, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32170.pdf [209KB]
from the report’s intro
This report lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its armed forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes. It was compiled in part from various older lists and is intended primarily to provide a rough survey of past U.S. military ventures abroad, without reference to the magnitude of the given instance noted. The listing often contains references, especially from 1980 forward, to continuing military deployments especially U.S. military participation in multinational operations associated with NATO or the United Nations. Most of these post-1980 instances are summaries based on Presidential reports to Congress related to the War Powers Resolution. A comprehensive commentary regarding any of the instances listed is not undertaken here.
Posted by: b real | Feb 16 2007 18:24 utc | 52
For any 9/11 conspiracy theorists, I recommend checking out Justin R’s column today at AntiWar.com
Real conspiracy intrigue concerning the High-Fivers.
Posted by: Juannie | Feb 16 2007 23:52 utc | 53
Documents show new secretive US prison program isolating Muslim, Middle Eastern prisoners
Program in apparent violation of federal law
The US Department of Justice has implemented a secretive new prison program segregating “high-security-risk” Muslim and Middle Eastern prisoners and tightly restricting their communications with the outside world in apparent violation of federal law, according to documents obtained by RAW STORY.
Quietly implemented in December, the special “Communications Management Unit” (CMU) at a federal penitentiary in Indiana targeting Muslim and Middle-Eastern inmates was not implemented through the process required by federal law, which stipulates the public be notified of any new changes to prison programs and be given the opportunity to voice objections. Instead, the program appears to have been ordered and implemented by a senior official at the Department of Justice.
…..
The program originally proposed was said to be applicable only to terrorists and terrorist-related criminals. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), however, along with a coalition of other civil liberties groups, objected to the language of the regulation as too broad, and potentially applicable to non-terrorists and even to those not convicted of a crime but merely being held as “witnesses, detainees, or otherwise.”
After pushback from civil rights groups, the program appeared to have been dropped by the Prisons Bureau, with coalition groups believing that they had made their case regarding Constitutional rights. Yet documents obtained by RAW STORY show that a similar program, the CMU, was surreptitiously implemented in December 2006.
…..
Documents show new secretive US prison program isolating Muslim, Middle Eastern prisoners
Jennifer Van Bergen
Published: Friday February 16, 2007
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Sponsored by: The Agenda with Joe Solmonese
Program in apparent violation of federal law
The US Department of Justice has implemented a secretive new prison program segregating “high-security-risk” Muslim and Middle Eastern prisoners and tightly restricting their communications with the outside world in apparent violation of federal law, according to documents obtained by RAW STORY.
Quietly implemented in December, the special “Communications Management Unit” (CMU) at a federal penitentiary in Indiana targeting Muslim and Middle-Eastern inmates was not implemented through the process required by federal law, which stipulates the public be notified of any new changes to prison programs and be given the opportunity to voice objections. Instead, the program appears to have been ordered and implemented by a senior official at the Department of Justice.
In April of last year, the US Federal Bureau of Prisons — part of the Department of Justice — proposed a set of strict new regulations and, as required, there was a period of public comment. Human rights and civil liberties groups voiced strong concerns about the constitutionality of the proposed program.
The program originally proposed was said to be applicable only to terrorists and terrorist-related criminals. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), however, along with a coalition of other civil liberties groups, objected to the language of the regulation as too broad, and potentially applicable to non-terrorists and even to those not convicted of a crime but merely being held as “witnesses, detainees, or otherwise.”
After pushback from civil rights groups, the program appeared to have been dropped by the Prisons Bureau, with coalition groups believing that they had made their case regarding Constitutional rights. Yet documents obtained by RAW STORY show that a similar program, the CMU, was surreptitiously implemented in December 2006.
Executive Director Howard Kieffer of Federal Defense Associates, a legal group based in California that assists inmates and lawyers of inmates on post-conviction defense matters, says the order for the program must have been issued by one of the offices which oversee the US Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Only three government offices have the authority to issue such changes in federal prison operations, and they all fall within the senior management of the Justice Department: the office of Harley Lappin, the Director of Prisons Bureau, the Office of Legal Counsel, or directly from the office of the US Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales.
The Public Affairs offices of the Department of Justice and the Attorney General referred all requests for comment to the Prisons Bureau. As of press time, Felice Ponce, an officer in the Prisons Bureau Office of Information, was unable to answer requests to confirm the existence of the program, provide details about it, or comment on it at all.
Those who had such information at the Bureau were all “out of pocket,” Ponce said.
Documents obtained by RAW STORY show that the CMU program, instituted Dec. 11, 2006 — shortly after the mid-term elections in which Democrats won both chambers of Congress — is being implemented at Terre Haute Federal Correctional Institution in Indiana.
Under the CMU program, telephone communications must be conducted using monitored phone lines, be live-monitored by staff, are subject to recording, and must be in English only. All letters must be reviewed by staff prior to delivery or sending. Visits must be non-contact only, live-monitored, and subject to recording in English.
Keiffer asserts that the program, which purports to house high-risk inmates for the purpose of better monitoring their communications, “is not related to inmate security” at all.
…
Goldberger notes that “what’s different” about the program, “is limitation of contact with friends, family and outsiders — instead of 300 minutes of telephone time per month, it’s one 15 minute call per week, which can be reduced in the Warden’s discretion to a mere three minutes once a month.”
“Instead of all-day visiting every week or every other week, it’s only two hours at a time, twice a month, with no physical contact, presumably sitting on opposite sides of a plexiglas window,” Goldberger continued.
“And all letters, except to lawyers, courts, and Congress, will be read and copied, with weeks of delay, instead of cursorily inspected and sent right on,” he adds. “It’s a totally new and different program.”
Director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, D.C. Kate Martin told RAW STORY that restrictions of inmate communications must be narrowly tailored to serve a specific identifiable need of the government. Martin said that there was a clear rationale for restricting communications of those who had previously handled classified information — for example a former CIA agent who had passed secrets to a foreign government. But with individuals who never possessed classified information, she said, that rationale doesn’t exist.
…..
According to a letter obtained by RAW STORY, sent by CMU inmate Dr. Rafil Dhafir to one of his supporters, the current unit has at present only 16 prisoners, but is expected to have 60-70 more added soon. Dhafir writes that the CMU “is still not fully understood. The staff here is struggling to make sense of the whole situation,” and says that the prisoners are “so far treated with great respect and good accommodation” but “with the new system we will have absolutely no privacy.” The letter has been posted on a support site for Dhafir.
Posted by: annie | Feb 17 2007 0:05 utc | 54
oh crap, nothing like a totally fouled post. sorry, check the link, there is much more to the article w/another great link.
Posted by: annie | Feb 17 2007 0:08 utc | 55
fpif: Chomsky on Iran, Iraq, and the Rest of the World
Noam Chomsky is a noted linguist, author, and foreign policy expert. On February 9, Michael Shank interviewed him on the latest developments in U.S. policy toward Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Venezuela. Along the way, Chomsky also commented on climate change, the World Social Forum, and why international relations are run like the mafia.
Posted by: b real | Feb 17 2007 3:11 utc | 56
Abu Ayyub al-Masri looks like he might be considering giving Mullah Abdul Ghafoor a run for the title of “Man Most Often Expediently Killed or Wounded”. Mileage may vary.
The interesting thing to me is that the source of the report of al-Masri’s battlefield antics come from CNN :
The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq has been wounded and his top aide killed in a clash with police, an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman told CNN Thursday.
Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf said Iraqi police got into a firefight with insurgents on the road between Falluja, west of Baghdad, and Samarra, north of Baghdad, and wounded Abu Ayyub al-Masri.
Whereas the retraction comes from London’s Telegraph, with the headline “US denies reports al-Qa’eda leader wounded”.
They just can’t be bothered to deny the reports for domestic consumption, apparently.
So, again, what kind of simple-minded idiots are the target demographic here… or are they merely talking to themselves now?
Posted by: Monolycus | Feb 17 2007 5:40 utc | 57
Mono link talking; classic Virgil Goode redneck identity blather, advocating (for Iraq) a system “of toleration for divergent views and religions” and in the same breath warns in horror against “a mass imigration” of Muslims into this country should Baghdad fall. It could just as easily be 1861 to this guy.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 17 2007 7:45 utc | 58
Curious timeline on when the civil war in Iraq started. The convential wisdom (backed up by the media) puts the beginning last February, but this graph shows that the monumental increase in violence occured between June and July last year — not in February. And it just so happens that the June/July cusp was also the intiation of operation “forward together” — the implication being, that the civil war in Iraq was triggered not by the mosque bombing, but by the Baghdad security sweeps. Interesting, in light that those sweeps have just been escalated.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 17 2007 8:26 utc | 59
The surge is surging, possibly as high as 50,000 new troops.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 17 2007 8:52 utc | 60
Re: anna missed timeline link above.
Very good article, Blaming the Golden Mosque, by Eric Brewer. This leads credence to what I like to call the “Riverbend” Theory; that is, most violence, whether Iraqi on Iraqi or not, has in some way or another, been caused by U.S. actions. Simply blaming Iraq violence on differences between Iraq religious sects is short-sighted.
Posted by: Rick | Feb 17 2007 13:23 utc | 61
Sorry- did’t mean to shout above – forgot to preview and close Bold tag. Just wanted to highlite the name of the article, by Eric Brewer
Posted by: Rick | Feb 17 2007 13:26 utc | 62
@b real #49
how other to describe it than to recognize it as a childish analogy. perhaps i am unaware of some other factors which would explain the tone in which this analogy was delivered — maybe ms. whelan used to teach pre-school and thus operates on the basis of an adult-to-infant communication channel — though i am sure that we can agree that her answers hardly measured up to the content presented in the press members’ inquiries of such an important announcement from empire on the concentrating of it’s military resources on the second largest land mass on the planet.
Thanks for the great belly laugh this comment provided me with. ROFLMAO.
Posted by: Bea | Feb 17 2007 13:38 utc | 63
Here is how the game is played:
Brandeis Donors Exact Revenge for Carter Talk
Major donors to Brandeis University have informed the school they will no longer give it money in retaliation for its decision last month to host former President Jimmy Carter, a strong critic of Israel.
The donors have notified the school in writing of their decisions — and specified Carter as the reason, said Stuart Eizenstat, a former aide to Carter during his presidency and a current trustee of Brandeis, one of the nation’s premier Jewish institutions of higher learning.
They are “more than a handful,” he said. “So, this is a concern. There are evidently a fair number of donors who have indicated they will withhold contributions.”
Brandeis history professor Jonathan Sarna, who maintains close ties with the administration, told The Jewish Week, “These were not people who send $5 to the university. These were major donors, and major potential donors.
Posted by: Bea | Feb 17 2007 16:54 utc | 64
What’s up with AP? They actually have a West Bank story: ‘Outposts’ thriving in the West Bank
Bruchin is among more than 100
West Bank outposts never officially authorized by the Israeli government. And
Israel’s repeated commitments to freeze settlement construction haven’t hampered Bruchin’s transformation from a cluster of trailers less than eight years ago into a thriving community of 380 people, girded by government supplied roads, electricity and water.
…
The army office in charge of the West Bank has issued orders to stop construction at the outpost and to demolish what has already been built, spokesman Capt. Zidki Maman said without providing details. It has also prevented Bruchin from upgrading its electricity hookup, which the settlers complain is too small for its growing population.
“Bruchin is an illegal outpost,” Maman said.
The settlers blame U.S. pressure, and say they feel betrayed by the government.
Meanwhile, Bruchin continues to thrive — with the government’s help.
On a sunny winter morning, soldiers sent by the government stand guard at Bruchin’s gates, while the squeals of children at play ring out from the outposts’ nine preschools, many of them funded by the Education Ministry.
Down a tidy road lined with tall street lights and brick sidewalks, past the marble-walled synagogue and the community center, stand 40 two-story yellow stucco houses in two rows. A large sign says they were built with Housing Ministry help.
Nearby, a cluster of nearby trailers houses another 40 families, who arrived in recent year
The story misses on big point – the “outpost” is build on private palestinian land – takin in it pure and simply robbery
Can someone explain to me why the Republicans with 53 seats in the Senate did manage to get everything they wanted through the Senate while the Democrats with 51 seats do not manage to do so?
“The whole body starts to shake and hurt,” he said. “And you lose consciousness for a couple of seconds. One time they used it on my tongue. One guard held me from the left and another on my back and another used it against my tongue and for four or five days I couldn’t eat.”
Can someone explain to me why the Republicans with 53 seats in the Senate did manage to get everything they wanted through the Senate while the Democrats with 51 seats do not manage to do so?
because republicans rubberstamp and stick together. this was championed by delay in the house (the hammer)
democrats have more ‘moderates’ that would join w/republicans. republican tend to purge members who don’t vote the party line out of office. there is a differnce now (not much) because many of those republicans are up for re election in districts that are against the war now that a good portaion of rethugs have turned against the war.
when the dems stuck together, which they stared doing more and more they can block passage (like w/SS)
also, remember when the dems threatened to filibuster rethugs judge nominees and rethugs countered by threatening to pass unprecidented legislation to change the balance in congress to a simple majority rather than a 60/40 split?
also, aipac has dems by the balls too. ‘moderate dems’ yuk.
Posted by: annie | Feb 17 2007 21:21 utc | 68
The NewsHog does a great follow-up of the “Daily Telegraph story about the sniper rifles, made in Austria and exported to Iran, that ended up in Iraq”: Oops, Wrong Country?
Posted by: Alamet | Feb 18 2007 0:07 utc | 69
Will this result in Europe having to pay more for gas, if it has to compete w/China? Or will they have to find other sources? Is that feasible?
Jerome has claimed a couple of times that building a pipeline to China or India is not worth it commercially for Russia as Europe will buy what Russia produces. Pipelines are expensive. On the other hand threathening to build one to hike up the price Europe pays does not cost anything. Or building one can be worth it politically.
Speaking of Russian gas to Europe, there is a fight in Sweden about a gaspipeline being planned from Russia to Germany by way of the Baltic Sea. It is planned to go through Swedish waters.
Reasons Sweden might stop it:
1. Sweden uses very little gas, so there is no incentive for Sweden to approve. The gas being used today is bio-gas and those producing it does not want competetion from fossile gas.
2. The Baltic Sea is very polluted and there are a lot of concerns as to the building of a pipeline on the bottom of it. There are a lot of dumped weapons there, including canisters of mustard gas.
3. Russia is Swedens traditional enemy (together with the danish but we are all friends now). Since the cold war has ended, the Swedish military main defense plan is being attacked from the east and not by finnish troops. The Swedish navy – that was still hunting russian submarines in the 90’ies – is not too fond of having Gazprom having pressure stations for the pipeline in Swedish waters.
Reasons Sweden might approve it:
1. Russia and Germany is much bigger countries then Sweden.
2. Our new minister of foreign affairs – Carl Bildt – has spent the last couple of years in the oil and gas industry. Among other things he was on the board of Vostok Nafta until he was appointed minister. So you can count on him to see the need for pipelines, especially those of his former employers (Vostok Nafta is mainly owned by Gazprom). He has been harshly critized for his role both by right and left papers but he hangs on as he has the support of the prime minister.
Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Feb 18 2007 14:32 utc | 70