Noble Resolve 07: April 23-27, nuclear terror drills in USA

Noble Resolve will examine how to deter, prevent and respond to a nuclear attack on the United States. At one point in the experiments, the bomb will explode inside the simulation, Kersh said. Noble Resolve will also strive to create processes for interactions among local, state, national and international officials, he added.

What’s left out here in this ‘program’ (like it was too in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, as well as Yugoslavia and Iraq and Afghanistan and Haiti and Vietnam and Nicaragua etc. on suitably ‘appropriate’ scales)?
Networking, cooperation, accountability, concern, regards, and oversight with/for/by The People.
That’s the inherant ‘flaw’ in their plans and programs — it’s not EVER about empowerment or genuinely helping citizens survive natural or manufactured catastrophes while developing their OWN community-enhancing systems and strategies etc., but about the Status Quo brokers creating or using Chaos to increase the PTB’s power and control.
And so it goes — Till We, The People have finally had enuff and refuse to let ourselves continue to be defrauded, victimized and made unwitting accomplices.
Note: For the record, this very post may be part of it. In other words, they very well may be watch this info being passed around, making it part of the drill in and of itself.
Also see my earlier post for more.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 23 2007 6:39 utc | 4

Haaretz: A peace or war initiative?

Arming the Palestinian Presidential Guard is part of Elliott Abrams’ plan to bury the Mecca agreement, the basis of the national unity government. Abrams, deputy national security adviser to U.S. President George W. Bush and an acknowledged expert in the language of force, related in a closed-doors briefing that non-Hamas cabinet ministers would resign and that Abbas would dissolve the government and announce new elections. Apparently, the neo-conservatives have not learned that in the Middle East, a problematic regime’s removal can lead to the emergence of an infinitely more problematic one.

Israel: Syria readying for war

The gist of the Israeli message in its recent talks with United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates is that Syria is preparing for a military confrontation with Israel.
The U.S. message to Israel on Syria, in contrast, remained unchanged: Israel should at present avoid diplomatic talks with Damascus because President Bashar Assad plans on using such talks to extricate Syria from its isolation. Israeli talks with Damascus would be a knife in the back of the government of Fouad Siniora in Lebanon.
No tangible evidence exists, Israel told the U.S., that Damascus is planning an all-out war with Israel. But it is believed that Damascus has concluded that Israel might respond to various Syrian actions and that would be the cause of a full-blown confrontation.
Such an Israeli response might come following Syrian assistance to Hezbollah or Palestinian terror organizations like Islamic Jihad. Damascus would have no choice but to respond with a more extensive operation.
Such evaluations have been made before and proven mistaken.
…

A war in the summer?

The talk about a sizable war this summer already started in the midst of the war last summer (there were those who called it a promo and thanked Hezbollah for having revealed its weaknesses in ample time). A “sizable war” is a code name for a war that includes Syria. The outgoing chief of staff estimated in November that there would be a war with Syria this summer, and in a series of general-staff discussions he held, there was talk of “a working assessment” that dictated exercises in anticipation of a war this summer.
Now the summer is almost upon us. Was this an assessment or a self-fulfilling prophecy? When the Syrian president says that if there is no peace there will be a war, he is responding to incessant mumbling from our side. This is where the dynamics of another war start. In a situation as explosive as that in the Middle East, the sparks can be ignited even when no one really wants that to happen.

Posted by: b | Apr 23 2007 10:01 utc | 6

Here’s their “War Tsar”

Abrams, deputy national security adviser to U.S. President George W. Bush and an acknowledged expert in the language of force, related in a closed-doors briefing that non-Hamas cabinet ministers would resign and that Abbas would dissolve the government and announce new elections.

This guy does what he wants to. He pays no more attention to George XLIII than he did to Ronald I. If you doubt that there’s been a putsch in America watch what this guy and his henchmen do.

…an Israeli response might come following Syrian assistance to Hezbollah or Palestinian terror organizations like Islamic Jihad…
The talk about a sizable war this summer already started in the midst of the war last summer.

This is the Neocon sickness unfolding before our eyes. No one in the United States is lifting a finger to stop them.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Apr 23 2007 10:36 utc | 8

Palestinian minister ‘resigns’

The Palestinian interior minister has submitted his resignation after just one month in office because little progress has been made to reform the security services, officials have said.
In his first act after the unity government was formed on March 17, Abbas appointed Mohammad Dahlan of Fatah as national security adviser, a move criticised by Hamas.
Some Palestinian analysts saw the appointment of Dahlan as a bid to sideline al-Qawasmi, an academic with no experience in security matters, minimising his control over the security services, which are mostly loyal to Fatah.
Fatah also has been bolstering its force and the US has begun a $59-million programme to support Abbas’s presidential guard, and Fatah recently sent about 500 fighters to Egypt for more advanced training.

Elliot Abrams’ terrorist fund is about to bear its strange fruit. I wonder why Juan Cole and the other big name Demoplican pundits are so quiet about this?
Could it be that they, like the Demoplican politicians, are the property of the AIPAC?

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Apr 23 2007 12:44 utc | 10

Some of us need a scorecard to keep track of the scandals of the Bush administration. Thankfully, Yahoo!News just updated theirs.
The money quote? “From the very beginning, this administration emphasized loyalty over competence. And at some point, that catches up with you.”

Posted by: Monolycus | Apr 23 2007 14:56 utc | 12

Is Shaha Riza a Spy?

This is not a matter that those who would know Ms. Riza or who trust Wolfowitz’s judgment should say “how dare someone raise that question?!” This should be the question that should have been asked at every stage of Shaha Riza’s apparent penetration of the Department of Defense, the Department of State, and the private firm, SAIC.

Well, I hope she is one – now that really would bring Wolfowitz down …

Posted by: b | Apr 23 2007 16:38 utc | 14

yes RGiap the results were not too bad, a little better than I expected. The turn out was great.
Still, if I may introduce some pessimism here, what happened is that a good bit of the Le Pen vote went to Sarko. Sarko has pummelled the ‘immigration’ / ‘crime’ / ‘profiteering from the state’ themes enough to prick many dullard’s ears. Le Pen has complained bitterly about Sarko (and Sego) stealing his ‘issues.’ He used to boast that ppl prefered the original to the copy, now it is the other way about. So many lepenites became sarko champions, for various reasons: a mainstream candidate, dynamic and young, a genuine leader; somebody, finally, they could vote for, with pride, or even hysteria, and submission (the authoritarian aspect.)
World events as reported by the corporate media, and Le Pen’s influence, have made these prototypical populist right wing stances respectable. The one who did the most in that direction was Sarkozy. Any nerdy electoral strategist would have lined up that one. (Sego did the same thing in her own way.) In the case of Sarko, morevoer, the fit is good… his only interest in poor people, immigrants (etc.) is maintaining a cheap labor pool (therefore the ‘reforms’ vis. a vis ‘state regulations’ in that area – it is all perfectly standard) and he would willingly sweep them all away if it was politically possible.
Let me digress a bit.
We have the Swiss version of Le Pen in the Gvmt, that is the Federal Council – Blocher. He was elected, by the Parliament (would have been by the ppl if ..) to ‘defang’ him. As leader of one of the electorally most popular parties he ‘deserved’ a seat; and the only way to reduce their power, it was felt, was to bring them into the mainstream, whereupon reality hits and the kudos of easily gathering ‘oppositional votes’ (damn the Govmint, damn the disgusting foreignors, damn the big bosses, damn pollution, etc.) is to make them stand behind their words and to act within their contradictions (eg. they represent business interests who would never in a million years curb illegal immigration or pollution, yet scream endlessly about crimes done by blacks, by Kosovars, as well as about the essential purity of Swiss mountain air, all of it a copy-paste of Nazi garbage.) Others judged that electing him was dangerous, he would do a lot of harm; marginalize these people, let them keep their oppositional votes, don’t give them a look in. Upshot, he was elected.
Recently, he set up a meeting, just him, with the ‘respectable’ parts of the Muslim community, of course with Tariq Ramadan as a star (Tariq is Swiss), and the usual lot, a friendly lady in multiple scarves, thrilled by her new fame and smiling toothily at the cameras. The Fed. council was appalled, this is against both law and custom. Blocher cared not a bit; it is all sugary fluff about communities getting together and favoring integration. Net result? The differences between different religious communities becomes pointed and of more interest. There are, of course, good Muslims, but….many bad ones! So everyone will have to collaborate to ensure that the Swiss agree to the building of more mosques – minarets, don’t ya know, are objectionable (Blocher himself opposes them, architecturally, to boot!), terrorism is the scourge of the ‘modern world’, all this will have to be…worked out. Smile for take 5.
Sarkozy does exactly the same thing. He has campaigned at least somewhat in the ‘banlieues’ and has a woman (natch) Muslim spokesperson. She usually insists that Sarko is the most sympathetic type, the only one who ‘cares’. This is of course stealing a trick from the left, though the left is usually more sincere. Le Pen would not have set up such a meet; nor would he have campaigned in the ‘banlieues’. Sarko is more modern, wily; his supporters can say that he ‘understands’ Arabs, etc., so they – vote for him. (Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité? Huh?)
Sarko is also setting himself up internationally. Repressing or killing Arabs and Muslims in France, at a symbolic lower level – immigration policy, or ordering or allowing the media to enter this terrain with a lot of fanfare (already happening), to foster, in fact, present conflicts, or whatever WWx it is supposed to be, must be managed delicately. He will have to make insistent speeches to foreign potentates about the large Arab pop. in France and how he has to tread delicately, but is doing his utmost best to push ‘integration’, ‘democracy’, ‘women’s rights’ – his hands are clean, and he cannot do more, look at his track record! Nobody will dare to object in public, it will be all wise nodding (wink wink) – on the part of both parties. Still, he will be asked, or forced, to push the ‘anti-semitism’ memes.
That may even be happening now – the latest alarming depredation / graffiti in a French cemetery, swastikas (and ‘skin’ emblems) sprayed on headstones and tombs, while amply reported on the tee vee, radio, and some written press, often neglected to mention that the cemetery targeted was …the Muslim corner. I suppose the teeny Goths who did this had no clue about the fact that one can’t have it both ways, and that the hidden irony of their hapless gesture would stay unappreciated, but was – thru media prop – a perfect expression of the present state of affairs.
Sorry for the length!
Long term, that is what it is about. Quarreling about the 35 hour work week changes little on the ground…

Posted by: Noirette | Apr 23 2007 17:54 utc | 16

There is an unwritten rule in French politics.
It is: he or she who most wants to win, wins.
Chirac won in 2002 because losing would have sent him to jail.
(Say. And Bernadette Chirac has said that if the left wins now, – “we” – will both go to jail .. Oh the horrors!)
This is contrast to Switz. where ppl stand, are elected, but refuse the positiom; they stood because they wanted media attention on an issue; stood to divide the vote; stood as a favor to others; stood for a temporary egotistic thrill. (Frequently occurs.)
In contrast as well to the US, where the candidates are paid for, planned, in a kind of linear scheme, they are true representatives of some interests, unfortunately not the people’s, so they hardly ever withdraw in the scripted ballet.
Also in ‘new’ Europe, people stand and hope to win on a ticket which is usually based on ethnic guff (encouraged by the richer West.)
In France, there remains a spirit of let the best, keenest, most vociferous, leader, win, because the society is, after all, very cohesive and/or ‘monarchist’
– c’est selon.
ok I will shut up for now…

Posted by: Noirette | Apr 23 2007 18:26 utc | 18

On a lighter note…
Iggy Pop celebrates his 60th birthday on stage
How the hell does he keep that sixpack belly, jeez…lol
Anywhy, his latest work, is quite catchy and hypnotic in a weird way…
Youtoobz: Punkrocker Featuring Iggy Pop

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 23 2007 19:54 utc | 20

from fisk’s bigass book, a vignette about the iran-iraq war:

Seven years after the war ended, it was easier to go back to the battlefields. I just turned up one summer’s morning in 1995 at Mehrabad Airport for Iran Air’s flight IR417 to Ahwaz, ate hot rolls with marmalade on the Airbus-yes, another A3oo-as my guide from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance snored beside me and, an hour later, circled the butane gas flames above the refineries before picking up Gholamreza’s Peugeot taxi to the deserts where we all lost years of our lives. The moment I pass the first sand revetments, the sun a white blister at seven in the morning, Gholamreza points into the grey immensity of dust and says: “Bang bang! Jang”
Jang, of course, meant “war,” and “bang,” for all its cliched, simplistic quality, is an accurate enough representation of the sound of the Iraqi field gun that destroyed so much of my hearing just across the desert to the west of here a decade and a half ago. As Gholamreza accelerates the Peugeot through the dawn, my tinnitus is ringing merrily away from that distant bombardment, as if those guns were still firing over these withered killing fields. To left and right of us, as the desert grows from grey to dun-coloured in the rising sun, the trenches and tank emplacements stretch away for scores of kilometres, some turned by farmers into windbreaks for corn, others untouched by a breeze in fifteen years, the track-marks of long-destroyed Iraqi and Iranian tanks still cut into the sand. Already it is loo degrees in the shade; perspiration is slicking down my face. In the back of the car, the man from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance has fallen asleep.
Perhaps a million men died here and in the battle line that snaked over goo kilometres to the north, to the snows of the Turkish border, almost twice the length [280] of the 1914-18 Western Front and fought over for almost twice as long. A whole generation of Iranians and Iraqis walked up the line to death in villages that sound, to the survivors and to the families of the dead, as sombre as Ypres and Verdun and Hill 6o, Vimy Ridge and Beaumont Hamel. The names of their calvaries are almost as familiar to me now: Kerman and Shalamcheh, Penjwin and Khorramshahr, Abadan and Fateh and Ahwaz and Fao and the battle of Fish Lake. The Iranians suffered most. I used to ask in my reports then, stunned by the resilience of the Iranian defenders, whether they had their Owens and Sassoons to write about war and the pity of war.
But-perhaps because the Iranians were so xenophobic, so alien in creed, so hostile to the West, even to us reporters who risked our lives to visit their trenches-we never really tried to understand their motivation, or the effect of this bloodbath upon their minds. Even today, we forget this. The Iranians do not. Did they, like so many soldiers in the First World War, return home broken in body and spirit, their faith abandoned in the blood-drenched desert? I asked a senior Revolutionary Guard Corps officer this question. What, I asked him over dinner in Tehran, was the worst moment of the war? “July eighteenth, 1988,” he snapped back at me. “It was the day we accepted the UN resolution to end the war, when our Imam said he had to eat poison and accept a ceasefire. I was driving a two-anda-half-ton truck to the front at Shalamcheh and I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard the news on the radio. I drove off into the desert and switched off the engine and I lay down in the sand, on my back with the sun above me. And I asked God why I was here on this earth. This was the worst day of my life.”
Gholamreza’s car raced south, the temperature rising, past a massive stockade of decaying Iraqi armour and trucks, mile after mile of it, stretching to the horizon and beyond. An Iranian sentry stood guard at this enormous war park, a museum of Iraqi tanks and smashed vehicles that belittled anything we saw in the aftermath of Norman Schwarzkopf’s puny offensive against the same army back in 1991. On the right, a great train of burnt, twisted carriages lay on its side next to the Ahwaz-Khorramshahr railway line. The Iraqis had crossed and recrossed this bit of Iran; the trenches and gun-pits streamed away from the road, thousands of them, each year of desert warfare grafted onto the next. With a telescope, you could see this webbed terrain from the moon. We crossed the brown waters of the Karun River; the last time I was here, there were corpses floating in its hot currents. It was 110 degrees; they fought in this heat, died in these ovenlike winds, rotted in less than three hours. No wonder they buried the Iraqis in mass graves and freighted home the Iranian dead in less than a day.
The poetry they wrote-for they did write war poems in their thousands, the peasant Basiii volunteers and the Pasdaran and the artists drafted to the front-was not like Owen’s or Sassoon’s. In the volumes of war verse in the Tehran bookshops, old soldiers thank God who has matched them with His hour. Rifling through the shops near Tehran University, I found the ghosts of Rupert Brooke and W. N. Hodgson in these fat volumes. Here, for example, is the Iranian poet Mohamed Reza Abdul-Malikian, writing his “Letter Home” from the Ahwaz Khorramshahr front, where twelve-year-olds led suicide attacks on the Iraqi wire:
Here on our front line,
Our gift of sacrifice is strewn around,
Their power greater than the Karun’s waves.
Right here, you can admire the children and old men
Who crave to walk the minefields.
It’s here for all to see.
There was something frightening in this: not just the terrifying image of child martyrdom, but what appeared-to my Western mind-to be a kind of stasis of maturity and development. True, Hodgson was writing like this in 1914:
Sons of mine,
I hear you thrilling
To the trumpet call of war …
Steeled to suffer uncomplaining
Loss and failure, pain and death.
But by 1916, our war poets had comprehended the obscenity of war. AbdulMalikian had written his lines after many more years of war. He hadn’t lost his faith. Was this because he was fighting to defend his own country or because Islam does not permit doubt in a believer? Or was it because in Iran a poem is supposed to be something holy, words that are intended to be spiritual rather than provocative? We in the West wait to be moved by a poem-simple patriotism and faith were not enough for Sassoon or Robert Graves. Wouldn’t they have said something more than Abdul-Malikian? After all, in the eight years that followed Saddam’s invasion of 22 September 198o, the war had embraced both poison gas and missile attacks, the worst horror of the First World War and one of the most terrifying potential weapons of the Second.
When I first wrote in The Independent about the “stasis of maturity” in AbdulMalikian’s poem and the obscenity of war that pervaded the work of the later British war poets, I received a long and challenging letter from a British Muslim.
If I wanted to comprehend the Iranian motivation and resilience, Zainab Kazim wrote, I must understand the meaning of the seventh-century battle of Kerbala:
I doubt whether I would be inaccurate in saying that the Iranians-in general-were aware of and understood the horrors of war before they were involved in the Iran-Iraq bloodbath. I think that Shias, on the whole, know a great deal more about the reality of martyrdom than the average non-Shia. I remember trying to explain the tragedy of Kerbala to my British friends at school and being astonished by their reaction. After all, I had already visualised the images of baby Ali Asghar with an arrow in his neck, Abbas with his arms slashed off, Akbar with a spear through his [281] chest and Hussain picking up each body, weeping over it and carrying it back to the tents … I had imagined the ladies of Imam Hussain’s family being led through the bazaars after their bereavements and speaking out against the rulers. I have grown up with this history and it was and is a part of me. Most Shias are well aware of the price one may have to pay for standing by one’s principles …

what great prose. but also an unsettling examination of khomenist deathcult.

Posted by: slothrop | Apr 24 2007 1:33 utc | 22

Studio gets critics to pimp ‘United 93’ for Oscar nomination

Universal enlists critics for ‘United’ campaign
Does studio strategy blur lines between review and advocacy?
By Rachel Abramowitz, Times Staff Writer
January 11, 2007
In what appears to be a first in Oscar campaigning, Universal Studios has enlisted real-life film critics to appear in radio ads for its Oscar hopeful, “United 93” – Paul Greengrass’ film about the 9/11 flight that crashed in Pennsylvania.
Hence, instead of the ubiquitous voice of Mr. Moviefone invoking the film’s merits or snippets of dialogue over a pop song (tacky, given the film’s subject matter), the studio has opted for Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers solemnly declaring “United 93” to be “a monumental achievement.”
Travers adds, “There’s not an ounce of Hollywood bull in this movie’s 111 minutes.”
…..
Universal’s recent embrace of film critics is ironic, given that over the summer many of the studios waged campaigns to stress the irrelevancy of such arbiters of taste who panned such popular fare as “The Da Vinci Code.”
…..
“United 93” is based on real-life interviews with family members after the tragedy as well as phone and FCC transcripts from that fateful day. Far from being a tear-jerker, the movie re-creates what could have happened on the flight , which crashed and killed all aboard after 40 ordinary Americans took on the hijackers rather than sit helplessly and let the plane become another lethal firebomb dropping on more helpless civilians.
…..
Although the film is available only on DVD, Universal has recently put on television ads and somber print ads that say “Honor United 93.”

This is a unique event and highlights how important Hollywood is to the US government’s cover-up of the shoot-down of United flight 93 on 9/11.
Anything that can pump a little air back into the myth zeppelin of 9/11 will be milked.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 24 2007 5:17 utc | 24

from the series, “you can’t make this shit up”
History will be made today when Copperas Cove resident Bill Thomas and his wife, Georgia, present President George W. Bush with a Purple Heart at the Oval Office.
link

Posted by: dan of steele | Apr 24 2007 7:01 utc | 26

Network Hosting Attorney Scandal E-Mails Also Hosted Ohio’s 2004 Election Results

Did the most powerful Republicans in America have the computer capacity, software skills and electronic infrastructure in place on Election Night 2004 to tamper with the Ohio results to ensure George W. Bush’s re-election?
The answer appears to be yes. There is more than ample documentation to show that on Election Night 2004, Ohio’s “official” Secretary of State website — which gave the world the presidential election results — was redirected from an Ohio government server to a group of servers that contain scores of Republican web sites, including the secret White House e-mail accounts that have emerged in the scandal surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s firing of eight federal prosecutors.
Recent revelations have documented that the Republican National Committee (RNC) ran a secret White House e-mail system for Karl Rove and dozens of White House staffers. This high-tech system used to count and report the 2004 presidential vote- from server-hosting contracts, to software-writing services, to remote-access capability, to the actual server usage logs themselves — must be added to the growing congressional investigations.
Numerous tech-savvy bloggers, starting with the online investigative consortium epluribusmedia.org and their November 2006 article cross-posted by contributor luaptifer to Dailykos, and Joseph Cannon’s blog at Cannonfire.blogspot.com, outed the RNC tech network. That web-hosting firm is SMARTech Corp. of Chattanooga, TN, operating out of the basement in the old Pioneer Bank building. The firm hosts scores of Republican websites, including georgewbush.com, gop.com and rnc.org………..

wow, recommend

Posted by: annie | Apr 24 2007 8:49 utc | 28

The Voting Rights Act, Voter Disfranchisement and the Tail Wagging the Dog

Posted by: annie | Apr 24 2007 9:12 utc | 30

america & race 2007 – fuck me dead

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 24 2007 12:05 utc | 32

heh vbo
you might consider heading back to Serbia. They now have found something there that strikes fear into the heart of Superman!
link

Posted by: dan of steele | Apr 24 2007 15:22 utc | 34

Anyone know anything about this UK blog called TRUTHSEEKER?
I know nothing about them, however, my gut told me weeks ago that somehow, in someway, the Israeli’s and their company Amdocs Ltd/Cramer was tied to these Whitehouse e-mail server shenanigans.

But the real story this week concerns the collapse of the BlackBerry system on a national level. This was the direct result of Israeli-owned US firms’ technological probings into American top-secret communications network. As direct result of these break-ins via inside plantings of trap-doored systems, the famous BlackBerry systems crashed for almost 10 hours.

Amdocs had contracts with the 25 biggest telephone companies in America, and even more worldwide. The White House and other secure government phone lines are protected, but it is virtually impossible for any American to make a call on any American phone without generating an Amdocs record of it.

mere speculation of course, but one can’t really know anything these days as we no longer have investigative journalist’s.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 24 2007 17:30 utc | 36

Plunge in Existing-Home Sales Is Steepest Since ’89

Sales of previously owned homes suffered their biggest drop in nearly two decades last month, raising concerns that a rebound in the housing market is still far off.

“Far off” is interesting – in Japan, 20 years later, housing prices have not yet reached their previous levels.
Still have assets in US$? It may rebound bit on technics now as it is again on a historic low. But I wouldn’t bet on that …

Posted by: b | Apr 24 2007 19:55 utc | 38

From Business Week:
BENTONVILLE, Ark.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has been recruiting former military and government intelligence officers for a branch of its global security office aimed at identifying threats to the world’s largest retailer, including from “suspect individuals and groups”.
Wal-Mart’s interest in intelligence operatives comes at a time when the retailer is defending itself against allegations by a fired security employee that it ran surveillance operations against targets including critics, dissident shareholders, employees and suppliers. Wal-Mart has denied any wrongdoing.
Wal-Mart posted ads in March on its own web site and sites for security professionals, including the bulletin of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, for “global threat analysts” with a background in government or military intelligence work.
The jobs were listed with the Analytical Research Center, part of Wal-Mart’s Global Security division, which is headed by former senior CIA and FBI senior officer Kenneth Senser. The analytical unit was created over the past year and half, according to published comments by its head, Army Special Operations veteran David Harrison.
The job description includes collecting information from “professional contacts” and public data to anticipate and assess threats stemming from “world events, regional/national security climates, and suspect individuals and groups.”
“Familiarity with a broad spectrum of information resources and data-mining techniques” is listed among the skills sought, along with a foreign language, preferably Chinese or Spanish.
A Wal-Mart spokesman declined to comment on the Analytical Research Center for this story or to make any security executives available for interviews.
Many corporations hire law enforcement officers for their security departments.
But Steven Aftergood, who runs the government secrecy project for the Washington-based Federation of American Scientists, said Wal-Mart’s efforts appear to go beyond what most companies are doing, raising questions about corporate intelligence work outside of the oversight process in place for government spying.
“It’s a troubling new departure in corporate security. We’re not just talking about security, we’re talking about intelligence operations,” Aftergood said.
Harrison told a meeting of security professionals last year that Wal-Mart was learning to defend itself by using the vast information it routinely collects about its employees, shoppers and suppliers.
The only public comment to date on the work of the Analystical Research Center, the speech was reported on by the trade magazine Government Security News. Wal-Mart did not dispute the report when contacted by The Associated Press this week.
Harrison told the meeting that Wal-Mart tracks customers including those who use its pharmacies, buy propane tanks and anyone making “bulk purchases” of prepaid cell phones, which some law enforcement officials have tied in the past to terrorist or criminal activities.
Harrison did not elaborate on how that information could be better used, except to say the data could be shared with law enforcement.
Wal-Mart’s union-backed critics said culling customer data for intelligence was disturbing.
“The idea that Wal-Mart is creating its own personal CIA should make every American — Wal-Mart customer or not — nervous about whether Wal-Mart is invading their privacy or could do so in the future,” said Chris Kofinis, spokesman for WakeUpWalMart.com.

Wal-Mart recruits intelligence officers

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 25 2007 0:37 utc | 40

re somalia, the u.s.continues to give the greenlight to ethiopia’s meles to go on killing civies.
despite getting caught lying about the intensity of the fighting going on in somalia, the spokesperson still was able to get away w/ not clarifying which party he was refering to when making the stmt that the battle is against “violent extremists who do not have an interest in building up the institutions of a democratic state.”
given that the destabilization of somalia after six months of unification by the islamic courts & the fragmentation of somalia under the 4.5 clan formula were two objectives of the invasion, it’s quite clear who the violent extremists really are. what’s going on is no doubt most violent & extreme.
and it’s apparently okay, according to the u.s. govt. from the transcript of tuesday’s DoS daily press briefing

QUESTION: Are you calling for a ceasefire in Somalia or are you urging the Ethiopians to go for these insurgents with as much intensity as they could?
MR. MCCORMACK: You don’t want to see any more violence in Somalia. Everybody would like that to be the case, but there are clearly people there, individuals who are intent upon using violence in order to further a so-called political cause. And we have seen that in other areas around the world. And what can’t be allowed to happen is for those forces to gain a foothold to develop a safe haven from which they could possibly launch attacks against other states in the region and further.
QUESTION: So you’re not calling for a ceasefire?
MR. MCCORMACK: We want to see an end to the violence. But the real way to get an end to the violence is (a) stabilize the security situation and (b) find a political situation that is workable for the major political factions in Somalia life that have an interest in actually building a different kind of Somalia as opposed to the one we’ve seen for the past few decades.

nearly 300 people are reported known to have been killed in the last 6 days of fighting in mogadishu. casualties are a lot higher. in the heavy fighting a few weeks ago, more than 1,000 were killed. i haven’t ran across any numbers that were killed in the original invasion back in december.
and the numbers will go higher, so long as the domestic population & international community continue to sit on their asses and not call the u.s. on this bullshit!

Posted by: b real | Apr 25 2007 4:27 utc | 42

Preview: “Buying the War”
How the administration marketed the war to the American people has been well covered, but critical questions remain: How and why did the press buy it, and what does it say about the role of journalists in helping the public sort out fact from propaganda?
Bill Moyers Journal:
Buying the War
Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 9 PM on PBS (check local listings)

Posted by: b | Apr 25 2007 8:19 utc | 44

Interesting analysis: The last thing the Middle East’s main players want is US troops to leave Iraq

while the US can no longer successfully manipulate regional actors to carry out its plans, regional actors have learned to use the US presence to promote their own objectives. Quietly and against the deeply held wishes of their populations, they have managed to keep the Americans engaged with the hope of some elusive victory.
…
The grand disconnect in the region is between the political sentiments of ordinary people, which are overwhelmingly for an end to occupation, and the political calculations of leaders, which emphasise the benefits of using the Americans and consequently of extending their stay – at least for the time being.
In this grim picture, the Americans appear the least sure and most confused. With unattainable objectives, wobbly plans, changing tactics, shifting alliances and ever-increasing casualties, it is not clear any longer what they want or how they are going to achieve it. By setting themselves up to be manipulated, they give credence to an old Arab saying: the magic has taken over the magician.

Posted by: b | Apr 25 2007 10:00 utc | 46

A good piece on Lebanon and the Chirac – Hariri connections:
Lebanon: France Moves To Incite Civil Unrest

Negotiations to find a compromise between the International Tribunal and the protection of the Lebanese Resistance from US and Israeli vindication have been going on, but very slowly. Chirac, however, is in a hurry. He wants a tribunal before the end of his term in May 2007. He has been unremittingly lobbying for the Tribunal to be approved by special UN Security Council resolution under the 7th Article of the UN Charter. This would effectively declare Lebanon a non-state, and place it under the control of the UN. This is also the best way to start a civil war. The Opposition has repeatedly warned that forcing the International Tribunal through the Security Council will lead to “chaos”, a euphemism for unbridled civil violence.
…
In reality, the Chirac-Hariri relationship has to be viewed from a different perspective. As soon as he leaves office in a few weeks time, Chirac will be investigated by the French judiciary on charges of corruption and undeclared personal and political “funding” during his tenure as mayor of Paris. Many of his senior aides have already received prison sentences.
It is very likely that Chirac has received “funding” from his Saudi-Lebanese billionaire friend. It is very likely that Chirac did not declare this money. Chirac needed funds. Hariri needed credibility. And Chirac has no shame when it comes to selling French credibility. A few weeks ago, he bestowed the French Honor Legion onto Saad Hariri, son of the late Rafic Hariri. Saad’s achievements in the political arena before his dad’s death are well known: he was spending his dad’s money between Riyadh, Paris, Monte Carlo and Washington. Well worthy of the honor legion.
The Hariris still need President Chirac, a powerful ally with permanent membership on the UN Security Council. Chirac may still need the Hariris, one of the biggest fortunes on earth, with tentacular connections to help him in his legal predicament. This may well be the dark side of this friendship.
In his efforts to restart the Lebanese civil war, Chirac is supported by the US and Britain. They’re happy to lead him down the path they have cleared in their Iraqi adventure, and to teach him one last lesson before he goes: never say “I told you so” when you are a corrupt politician. Lebanon could well become Chirac’s Iraq.

And now connect this

14:24 Chirac to live in home owned by family of murdered ex-Lebanese PM Hariri (Reuters)

Posted by: b | Apr 25 2007 12:37 utc | 48

well, Dennis got the ball rolling. it is now up to the other wobblycrats to grow a collective spine. who knows? it could happen…
Dropping the first shoe

Posted by: dan of steele | Apr 25 2007 15:31 utc | 50

b,
You could as well have pointed to annie’s link in @28 above.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Apr 25 2007 16:38 utc | 52

@John, annie – opps – sorry …

Posted by: b | Apr 25 2007 17:18 utc | 54

don’t miss this link

On this visit, Curtis says Feeney wanted him to write a software program that could alter election results on electronic voting machines. Curtis, a lifelong Republican, assumed Feeney wanted to pre-emptively head off any Democratic attempts to steal elections. So he wrote the software.
The program installed hidden “buttons” on the screens of voting machines that would enable a user who knew they were there to recalibrate the tally, giving a preferred candidate 51 percent of the vote automatically, and splitting the remaining 49 percent of the vote among other candidates proportionately so that no one would be the wiser.

the mike mcConnell story refers to CDI, Synhorst, Tidewater Consulting.. all those guys were contributors to feeney’s campaign. he was in thick w/all them, plus abramoff.
once you go dumpster diving into ohio and florida it’s hard to emerge thinking the elections weren’t stolen. very hard. as they became less and less popular they just kept designing more ways to abolish the system. you’ld think it would have occurred to them to just become more electable.
these criminal minds know no bounds.
curtis testifying youtube
bradblog CLINT CURTIS ‘STUNS’ JUDICIARY
of course the national press never writes about this stuff.

Posted by: annie | Apr 25 2007 18:18 utc | 56

Posted by: annie | Apr 25 2007 19:31 utc | 58

Good on ya Juannie !

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 25 2007 21:35 utc | 60

addendum:
Prosecutor Purge: Will Duke Cunningham’s Briber Go Free?
Of course…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 25 2007 21:51 utc | 62

There was an immense property/housing bubble in Spain. Now it went bust and a lot of Brits who had invested in Spanish holiday homes will go bust too. There are still such bubbles in the US so it’s a good case to learn from.
Spain feels the heat: UK investors left vulnerable as fears of a crash spread

A wave of panic spread through the Spanish bourse over the past week as property developers saw up to 65% of their share price wiped out in frantic trading. The loss of confidence came amid growing signs that the market was already suffering from overbuilding and rising interest rates on euro mortgages. “We will definitely see house price growth stop and a fall in nominal prices is likely in Spain over the next 12 to 18 months,” Ms Choyleva said.
…
Long-standing worries about Spain’s overheated housing market were transformed into speculation that the bubble had finally burst. There had been unmistakable signs that the construction sector was slowing, as borrowing costs rose in a market where 98% of buyers are on variable rate mortgages. The owners of some 4m holiday homes in Spain, many of them foreigners from Britain and elsewhere, were already concerned at reports that holiday home prices might drop by 10%.
…
House prices have grown at an average of 15% a year since 1999, though the rate has now slowed to 10%. Further along the chain, Spain’s big banks, including BBVA and Santander, which have lent to both builders and buyers, also saw stocks drop. About half of all Spanish corporate loans are now in the construction and property sector. Pedro Solbes, the economy minister, tried to calm fears. “Are we in a worrying situation? My thesis is that we are not, because family income is consolidating, there are good prospects for employment,” he said in the Senate.

Posted by: b | Apr 26 2007 9:46 utc | 64

More about Wolfowitz: The puppet who cleared the way for Iraq’s destruction

Earlier Wolfowitz had manoeuvred to have himself appointed as viceroy in Iraq. That effort failed. But a newly revealed inquiry by the Pentagon’s inspector general found that, in a foretaste of things to come, he did his best to secure a high-level position in the administration of the conquered country for Riza. Seemingly, he was in awe of her expertise on Iraqi matters. Participants in high level meetings to discuss intelligence on Iraq told me they were startled to hear the deputy secretary of defence invoke his girlfriend: “Shaha says …” Other Pentagon officials were less impressed by her knowledge of the country, not to mention the enormous salary she demanded for her services, and successfully blocked the appointment. Instead, a huge Pentagon contractor, Saic, was directed to hire Riza for a temporary Iraq mission.

Posted by: b | Apr 26 2007 10:19 utc | 66

So… what’s going to happen if, when apparently, the US just votes its %16 “controlling” interest in the World Bank and Wolfowitz stays?
There have been threats about no more “replenishments” of funds. I would imagine that it will be a hard sell to EU citizens who’ve been ignored in the choice of World Bank president to have them cough up their traditional 60% when the US’ 16% runs the show.
Perhaps there will be a change in the rules, so that those who fund the bank are actually given control over it?
That’s all agonizingly medium/long range.
The EUs face “will be rubbed in it” immediately by mad George XLIII.
Perhaps many of the staff at the World Bank will resign?
But I hear they are very well paid and just as reluctant as Wolfowitz is to deprive the World Bank of their services.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Apr 26 2007 11:49 utc | 68

Democratic presidential candidate and New York Senator Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that it might be necessary for America to confront Iran militarily, addressing that possibility more directly than any of the other presidential candidates who spoke this week to the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Whoa. She really wants the job, doesn’t she.

Posted by: DM | Apr 26 2007 12:14 utc | 70

Juannie –
sorry to hear you were tossed a loaf of bread at the circus as your enthusiasm and confidence were palpable
the result was as I feared and the mob was appeased
perhaps if the impeachable offences were of a sexual rather than a violent(normal,patriotic)/legal(boring) nature, they’d be more of a distraction
Try going here

Posted by: jcairo | Apr 26 2007 13:35 utc | 72

a couple more articles on the ONLF attacks on the ethiopian forces guarding chinese oil exploration facilities in ogaden, which i brought up earlier in #43
Ethiopian Defeat at Cobole: An eyewitness account

…
For the Cobole operations, eyewitnesses put the number of ONLF fighters that took part in this operation between two and three hundred. Eyewitnesses confirmed that ONLF fighters gathered closer to all three military posts around midnight on Monday April 23rd, 2007.
Myriad of local sources agreed that the actual military strike did not start until around 3:00 AM Tuesday morning. It is reported that ONLF having studied the locations of all three military battalions struck the rear battalion first while positioning about hundred fighters in between the first and the second.
While attacking the rear battalion it is said ONLF communication specialists with access to the emergency codes used by these three battalions steered the first battalion away from helping their comrades in arms. It is said these specialists speaking fluent Amharic asked the first battalion to go south for mobbing out operations while they said the third
battalion had the situation under control.
By the time the first battalion realized that they were guided away from the fight, the third and second battalions have already been defeated. Many of the dead Ethiopian military personnel were killed not by ONLF but by indiscriminate shootings carried by confused comrades shooting in all directions.

and a broader look at the ONLF & the situation in ogaden
ONLF rebellion

Ogadenia is a forgotten land wrecked by war and very harsh living conditions. The region, which is still today at the center of the volatile Horn of Africa, has seen little economic progress since its first taste of brief independence in the first Ogaden war of 1977/78. In 1991, the Meles government came into power. The region remains to this day a barren land with only two main roads a few large towns like Kabri Dahar, Jijiga and Quabribayah, which are controlled by government forces trying to tame the rebellion led by the ONLF (Ogaden National Liberation Front). However, to fully understand the war of today’s Ogadenia, one needs to go back further in history and take a look at the European influence in the region.

Posted by: b real | Apr 26 2007 15:51 utc | 74

From Norman Rockwell to Abu Ghraib
…sorry if it’s been posted, just back from the boonies.

Posted by: beq | Apr 27 2007 2:44 utc | 76