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May 1, 2007
Open Thread 07-34
Comments
The story about Col. Steele is somhow fishy:
Officers Testify Against Accused U.S. Colonel
A senior U.S. military officer accused of aiding the enemy gave gifts to the daughter of a “high-value” detainee, angering the prisoner by violating cultural norms and acting as a father figure, a witness said Monday in the opening day of a hearing to determine whether the officer will stand trial.
Lt. Col. William H. Steele, 51, an Army reservist who served as a commander at a detention camp in west Baghdad, is accused of nine offenses, including fraternizing with the daughter of a detainee, having an “inappropriate relationship” with a female interpreter, possessing pornography and illegally storing classified documents.
…
Capt. Mike Borgel, an operations officer with the unit that succeeded Steele’s at Camp Cropper in October, said Steele called the camp in February — after he was no longer supervising detainees — and said he would be coming to drop off “some college papers” for the daughter of a detainee during family visitation hours.
Lt. Col. Quentin Crank, commander of the unit that took over from Steele’s, said Steele met with the daughter and gave her a box of educational items that included computer programs, literature and two sets of large blueprints. He said he believed some of the items had to do with architecture or engineering. The daughter’s mother and sister were with her, and the exchange was photographed, he said.
…
The other accusations against Steele, covering the period October 2005 to February 2007, are providing a cellphone to a detainee, failure to obey an order and dereliction of duty regarding government funds.
This sounds like the case against the Muslim chaplain in Guantanamo who was accussed of various things too because he was too friendly with the prisoners.
Evidence that Cheney was behind the Niger forgeries?
“Like the plumbers,” says Ray McGovern.
link
Secret Order By Gonzales Delegated Extraordinary Powers To Aides
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales signed a highly confidential order in March 2006 delegating to two of his top aides — who have since resigned because of their central roles in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys — extraordinary authority over the hiring and firing of most non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department. A copy of the order and other Justice Department records related to the conception and implementation of the order were provided to National Journal.
In the order, Gonzales delegated to his then-chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, and his White House liaison “the authority, with the approval of the Attorney General, to take final action in matters pertaining to the appointment, employment, pay, separation, and general administration” of virtually all non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department, including all of the department’s political appointees who do not require Senate confirmation. Monica Goodling became White House liaison in April 2006, the month after Gonzales signed the order.
The existence of the order suggests that a broad effort was under way by the White House to place politically and ideologically loyal appointees throughout the Justice Department, not just at the U.S.-attorney level. Department records show that the personnel authority was delegated to the two aides at about the same time they were working with the White House in planning the firings of a dozen U.S. attorneys, eight of whom were, in fact, later dismissed.
…
An original draft of Gonzales’s delegation of authority to Sampson and Goodling was so broad that it did not even require the two aides to obtain the final approval of the attorney general before moving to dismiss other department officials, according to records obtained by National Journal.
The department’s Office of Legal Counsel feared that such an unconditional delegation of authority was unconstitutional, the documents show.
…
The senior administration official who had firsthand knowledge of the plan said that Gonzales and other Justice officials had a “clear obligation” to disclose the plan’s existence to the House and Senate Judiciary committees — but the official said that, as far as he knew, they had not done so.
Youtube: 4 000 000 demonstrate in Istanbul
“neither religious fundamentalism nor military rule”…
Regardless of whether the numbers are right, that’s alot of goddamn people…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 1 2007 7:38 utc | 5
The U.S. wants “missile defense” in Poland against a “threat from Iran”. It especially claims that it is not against a perceived “threat from Russia”.
The Russians don’t trust the U.S. see such as a threat against themselves.
Now Poland says it is not threatened by Iran, but wants “missile defense” against Russia.
Who should the Russians believe?
Poles demand missile shield against Russia
Poland and the Czech Republic are raising the ante in negotiations with the Americans, demanding missiles to deploy against Russia and security and legal guarantees in return for hosting elements of the US missile shield.
…
The Polish demands are more incendiary and are certain to confirm the Russian belief that in the long term the new US bases in central Europe are aimed at Russia. The US and Nato say such ideas are nonsense and that the 10 interceptor rockets to be stationed in Poland will be there to deter a missile attack from the Middle East, especially Iran.
…
The Poles and the Czechs are frustrated at being taken for granted. Unless there is more in the deal for the host countries, such as jobs, money, contracts for local companies and legal guarantees governing the bases, they are telling the Americans, it will be difficult to get the agreement of their parliaments.
b @2
Special Agent Patrick Rasmussen, an Army computer forensics investigator, testified that he inspected two government laptop computers — a Dell and an IBM — recovered as part of the investigation. He said the IBM’s hard drives contained 37 adult pornographic videos, 122 adult pornographic images, evidence of pornographic Web sites visited and “the suspect’s e-mail that appeared to be adulterous in nature.” The Dell, he said, contained text from a “secret document.”
Crank, who said he shared an office with Steele for six days as their units overlapped at Camp Cropper, said he saw Steele download more than 20 computer disks from a secure Panasonic government laptop.
what i find odd, is if one was going to pass on secret military information, why sandwich it in pornography?
Posted by: annie | May 1 2007 11:41 utc | 8
Evidence that Cheney was behind the Niger forgeries?
“Like the plumbers,” says Ray McGovern.
link
~b
Probably not news to most here, but, for the curious, google “Michael Ledeen.”
____________________________
Kent State Shooting Victim Asks for Re-opening of Investigation
see also: Alan Canfora
_____________________________
To Remake the World, by Paul Hawken
[T]ens of millions of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. . .
This movement is relentless and unafraid. It cannot be mollified, pacified, or suppressed. There can be no Berlin Wall moment, no treaty-signing, no morning to awaken when the superpowers agree to stand down. The movement will continue to take myriad forms. It will not rest. There will be no Marx, Alexander, or Kennedy. No book can explain it, no person can represent it, no words can encompass it, because the movement is the breathing, sentient testament of the living world.
peace, friends!
Posted by: manonfyre | May 1 2007 13:08 utc | 9
a new mayor for mogadishu, and it almost looks like we’re back to the situation where the (u.s.-backed) warlords ran mogadishu, before the rise of the ICU, which kicked them out.
Somalia: Mohammed Dhere formally takes oath of office as Mogadishu mayor
Mogadishu 01, May.07 ( Sh.M.Network) – The new Mogadishu mayor and governor, Mohammed Dhere, promised Tuesday that he would restore peace and stability to the volatile capital, Mogadishu after he spoke to crowd of Somalis who gathered at a ceremony in which he was officially consigned the position of Mogadishu mayor and a governor.
He said he would come up with a new scheme to administer the city and abandon all former systems. “And anyone who wants a post in the offices of the district departments I am planning to set up in Mogadishu should pass by the offices of my departments,” he said.
…
Mohammed Dhere was a former warlord and member of the fallen anti-terror alliance believed to be secretly funded by the US State Department. He was also known to have controlled Jawhar in south-central Somalia with a strong fist.
that group of warlords was the “Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism” & was funded by the cia.
see
wikipedia: Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism
sourcewatch
U.S. funding Somali warlords – intelligence experts
also, in today’s news
jim lobe: Somalia: Despite Lull in Fighting, Stability Looks Remote
Four months after U.S.-backed Ethiopian forces drove the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) out of its last stronghold in Kismaayo, Somalia’s return to stability looks as distant as ever, according to experts here.
The latest round of fighting between the combined Ethiopian and transitional federal government’s (TFG) forces and a coalition of clan militias and ICU remnants in Mogadishu, described by international relief groups as the worst in more than 15 years, appears to have ended.
But despite Ethiopian claims that the month-long campaign has “broken the backbone” of the rebels, as well as reports that the TFG has begun talking with Hawiye leaders, most analysts here believe that the current calm is unlikely to last more than a few weeks before fighting resumes.
Posted by: b real | May 1 2007 15:16 utc | 10
Guardian on the protests in Turkey:
Turkish police break up May Day protest
Turkish riot police today clashed with protesters in Istanbul marking the 30th anniversary of a deadly May Day rally.
Police sprayed tear gas, used a water cannon and clubbed demonstrators to clear crowds from around Taksim Square. About 600 people were arrested.
…
Posted by: a swedish kind of death | May 1 2007 15:44 utc | 11
you just beat me out on that story, r’giap. very good news indeed, for it gives courage to other nations to stand up to the bullies.
interview w/ john pilger on his new film
The U.S.’ War on Democracy
I wanted to make a film that illuminated this disguised truth — that the United States has long waged a war on democracy behind a facade of propaganda designed to contort the intellect and morality of Americans and the rest of us. For many of your readers, this is known. However, for others in the West, the propaganda that has masked Washington’s ambitions has been entrenched, with its roots in the incessant celebration of World War Two, the “good war”, then “victory” in the cold war. For these people, the “goodness” of US power represents “us”. Thanks to Bush and his cabal, and to Blair, the scales have fallen from millions of eyes. I would like “The War on Democracy” to contribute something to this awakening.
The film is about the power of empire and of people. It was shot in Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, and the United States and is set also in Guatemala and Nicaragua. It tells the story of “America’s backyard,” the dismissive term given to all of Latin America. It traces the struggle of indigenous people first against the Spanish, then against European immigrants who reinforced the old elite. Our filming was concentrated in the barrios where the continent’s “invisible people” live in hillside shanties that defy gravity. It tells, above all, a very positive story: that of the rise of popular social movements that have brought to power governments promising to stand up to those who control national wealth and to the imperial master. Venezuela has taken the lead, and a highlight of the film is a rare face-to-face interview with President Hugo Chavez whose own developing political consciousness, and sense of history (and good humour), are evident. The film investigates the 2002 coup d’etat against Chavez and casts it in a contemporary context. It also describes the differences between Venezuela and Cuba, and the shift in economic and political power since Chavez was first elected. In Bolivia, the recent, tumultuous past is told through quite remarkable testimony from ordinary people, including those who fought against the piracy of their resources. In Chile, the film looks behind the mask of this apparently modern, prosperous “model” democracy and finds powerful, active ghosts. In the United States, the testimony of those who ran the “backyard” echo those who run that other backyard, Iraq; sometimes they are the same people. Chris Martin (my fellow director) and I believe “The War on Democracy” is well timed. We hope people will see it as another way of seeing the world: as a metaphor for understanding a wider war on democracy and the universal struggle of ordinary people, from Venezuela to Vietnam, Palestine to Guatemala.
Posted by: b real | May 1 2007 16:19 utc | 13
asia times online: ATol’s “Roving Eye”, Pepe Escobar, is back in Iraq and in the Red Zone – that is, outside “Fortress USA”, the Green Zone. This is the first of his unembedded, non-Kevlar-protected, bodyguardless reports.
Baghdad up close and personal
Posted by: b real | May 1 2007 18:05 utc | 14
Venezuela: 20% Minimum Salary Raise, Withdrawal from World Bank and IMF
Caracas, May 1, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)— Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced yesterday that the country’s minimum wage would be raised by 20%, to $286 per month, and that Venezuela would withdraw its membership from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Also, Chavez said that by 2010 the Venezuelan work week will be lowered from 44 to 36 hours.
…
..Chavez announced that Venezuela will withdraw its membership from the World Bank and the IMF. According to Chavez, Venezuela can leave these institutions because, “We do not need to go to Washington, to the Monetary Fund nor to the World Bank. We will withdraw. I want to sign the order this evening and ask that they return what is owed us.”
Venezuela’s foreign currency reserves are currently at $29 billion, plus it has a development fund, known as Fonden, which is estimated to contain another $13 billion. As such, Venezuela currently appears to have plenty of funds to cover a financial emergency.
An additional reason Venezuela can leave these two key financial institutions is that it is in the midst of setting up the Bank of the South, together with Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, and Ecuador, which would be able to support member countries. Brazil indicated an interest in joining only recently, which would be able to provide significant assets to the new bank.
Posted by: b real | May 1 2007 19:33 utc | 15
This is good news for my Turkish friends.
Turkish Court Blocks Islamist Candidate
Turkey’s constitutional court today supported an effort to block a candidate for the country’s presidency whose background is in political Islam, pitching the country into early national elections and a referendum on the role of religion in its future.
In a 9 to 2 ruling, the court upheld an appeal by the main secular political party to stop Abdullah Gul, the current foreign minister and a close ally of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, from becoming president, objecting to what it says are his Islamic credentials.
If Erdogan had pulled this of and installed Gul, the military would have taken over. That’s not unsual in Turkey and usually peaceful, but new elections is certainly a better way.
62 yesterday.
Gorgeous elegy to memory.
Animated poetry. Ever hear of it? Do click.
Posted by: Hamburger | May 1 2007 21:23 utc | 17
This week’s Harper’s review could have been lifted from a novel by Vonnegut.
… Researchers investigating the collapse of honeybee colonies in Europe and the Americas identified several possible reasons for the catastrophe: poor diet; radiation from mobile phones that disturbs bees’ sense of navigation so they cannot fly home; increased solar radiation due to the thinning of the ozone layer; bee AIDS; stress from cross-country travel in trucks; falling queen fertility; the microsporidian fungus Nosema ceranae; or imidacloprid, a pesticide sold under the brand name Gaucho and banned by France in 1999 for spreading “mad bee disease.” Investors were advised to put their money in gold and corn futures to profit off the recession that may result from the disruption of the food chain caused by the vanishing bees. Grapes, which self-pollinate, and olives, which are pollinated by the wind, will not be affected by the bees’ disappearance; Christians pointed out that the Book of Revelation predicts that a famine sparing grapes and olives will precede the apocalypse.
Yes, you are not dreaming.
Posted by: PeeDee | May 2 2007 1:15 utc | 18
If a government falls in the forest and no one reports it…
Of course, after all the smokewriting celebrations of Loyalty Day and such.
What are we doing after all? Well, vlogging the apocalypse of course. What Klare calls ‘energo-fascism’ I guess.
Welcome to Huntingdonian culture and total war my friends. Believe me when I tell you, if the ptb can get to this:
Cryptome Shutdown even after all the so called progress of the “opposition parties victories” then it hasn’t curtailed the Leviathan one bit.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 2 2007 4:51 utc | 21
The story of Col. Steele (see 2) is getting more fishy. Looks like they will “hang him” for not being brutal enough. First the accusations, than the facts:
U.S. Jailer in Iraq Admits Mistakes, Investigator Says
A senior commander in the American military’s main detention center here lent prisoners his government cellphone, regularly exchanged e-mail messages with the daughter of a high-value detainee and used public funds to supply Saddam Hussein with hair dye and Cuban cigars, investigators said at a military hearing on Tuesday.
Lt. Col. William H. Steele, 51, a reservist from Prince George, Va., faces nine charges relating to his command at the detention center, Camp Cropper, from October 2005 to October 2006. The suspected cellphone misuse led to an accusation of “aiding the enemy” — potentially a capital offense. But testimony by military investigators at the second and last day of the hearing suggested that the cellphone issue was a sign of Colonel Steele’s lenient approach to detention.
…
Under questioning from Captain McCray, Mr. Nocella also said that he knew of only one case in which Colonel Steele had been seen letting detainees use his cellphone, and that involved juveniles calling their parents.
Mr. Nocella also said the high-value detainee’s daughter had told him there was no improper relationship between them despite the exchange of two to three e-mail messages a week. The gift that Colonel Steele gave her, which contributed to the charge of fraternization, was architectural software “for her studies.”
“It was software she could not obtain in Iraq,” he said.
With many of the other charges, the defense lawyers tried to show that Colonel Steele had acted roughly within the prison’s accepted norms. Brig. Gen. Kevin R. McBride, the commander of a military police brigade that oversaw detention facilities, said the purchase of Cuban cigars for Mr. Hussein had been a practice approved by the command for more than a year.
Maj. Gen. John D. Gardner, deputy commanding general of detainee operations in Iraq, acknowledged that some senior Baath Party officials had been allowed to tend gardens to help ease the tedium of their stay, but said that he did not know about the cigar purchases. The Americans also paid for dry cleaning in the case of detainees appearing in court, and televisions so they could watch news programs selected by the military, he said.
Some lawyers for detainees at Camp Cropper said Colonel Steele may have been the target of ire from some of the military’s top commanders because he did not favor rougher treatment for prisoners.
So there was one phonecall he let a juvenile prisoner do with his parents on his governement cellphone.
There was his behaviour to Saddm Hussein which was approved from above.
There were emails to a detainees daughter and a gift of study material in architecture which is now called fraternization.
There were secret documents on his official laptop – how supprising.
The want to hang this guy because he didn’t run his prison like Abu Graibh.
Anger in Baghdad as Americans finish wall
American forces have completed construction of a concrete wall around the Baghdad district of Adhamiya despite protests from the Iraqi prime minister and local residents who claim that they are now at the mercy of militants.
The wall was intended to help control the activities of militants in the predominantly Sunni Muslim district. But it remains a bastion of extremist al-Qa’eda linked groups. Parts of the district are so thick with armed militants that they are no-go zones to coalition forces.
Capt Mohammad Jasim, an Iraqi soldier manning a checkpoint on the Adhamiya bridge, said: “The Americans did not listen to us. We think this wall has made the area inside the wall more dangerous for people.
So what is Maliki doing in this?
And now for something completely different…
if charlie parker was a gunslinger, there’d be a whole lot of dead copycats
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 2 2007 7:50 utc | 24
A noble cause to join (this one is for annie)
Stand to Save the World on May 13
Pass it on.
Posted by: Bea | May 2 2007 14:10 utc | 25
TMP: Today’s Must Read
How many more suprises are hidden in the Patriot Act?
The chief judge in Mercer’s district has been complaining about his absence for years, at one point berating him during a court hearing: “You have no credibility — none…. Your office is a mess.” And that judge did what he could to get Mercer thrown out, even writing to Alberto Gonzales in 2005 that Mercer was violating federal law by not living in the district of which he was supposedly U.S. attorney.
Oh it gets better, wait for it…
Mercer was the one who changed the goddamned law! In other words, he introduced the change in the patriot act to make what they were doing legal.
The chief judge talked about above is Judge Donald W. Molloy and I am going to do everything in my power to see that he becomes fully aware of this dirty mess.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 2 2007 14:23 utc | 26
thanks bea, that being mother’s day i will be spending it in the bay area w/my mom. i’ll check out where they are standing and head on over..
nice to have you back, i noticed your absense..
Posted by: annie | May 2 2007 15:02 utc | 27
Text of CA Democratic Party Impeachment Resolution
April 30, 2007, San Diego, CA
CALLING FOR FULL INVESTIGATION INTO ABUSES OF POWER
BY PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH AND RICHARD B. CHENEY
WHEREAS, George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney have acted in a manner contrary to their trust as President and Vice President, subversive of the Constitution, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of California and the United States of America, by intentionally disseminating and propagating knowingly false and fabricated “evidence” regarding the threat from Iraq in order to wage a tragic, bloody war with the loss of thousands of brave American troops and Iraqi civilians, and
WHEREAS, it is clear that since September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have abused their powers of office by: 1) using information they knew to be false as justification for the U.S. invasion of Iraq; 2) condoning and authorizing the torture of prisoners of war; 3) authorizing wiretaps on U.S. citizens without obtaining a warrant; 4) disclosing the name of an undercover CIA operative contrary to law in order to harm her for her husband’s opposition to the Iraq War; 5) having suspended and denied the historic Writ of Habeas Corpus by ordering the indefinite detention of so-called enemy combatants without charge and without access to legal counsel; and 6) overstepping Presidential authority by signing statements used to ignore or circumvent portions of over 750 Congressional statutes he brought into law; and
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the California Democratic Party supports vigorous investigation of these charges by the Congress of the United States, including the full use of Congressional subpoena power authority to completely disclose the actions of the Administration to the American people and to take necessary action to call the Administration to account with appropriate remedies and punishment, including impeachment.
Submitted by Senator Art Torres (Ret.), Chairman of the California Democratic Party; CDP Resolutions Co-Chairs; Emily Thurber; Bob Farran; Michael Barnett; Tim Carpenter, Joye Swan; Patrick Henry Demo Club; 69th AD Cmte.; The Hull-Richters; Alexandar, Mark and Natasha
(Adopted April 29, 2007)
Posted by: annie | May 2 2007 15:26 utc | 28
btw, we had a 5,000 strong may day protest in seattle yesterday. i must be way out of the loop because i didn’t hear about it til today. apparently it shut down traffic as it traveled down forth street at rush hour garnering lots of coverage.
Posted by: annie | May 2 2007 15:31 utc | 29
Amnesty International: Kenya denied Somalia refugees
Kenya has turned away thousands of refugees at its border with Somalia and forcibly returned hundreds who had fled Somalia’s rampant violence before the border was closed — leaving them susceptible to hunger, beatings and rape, Amnesty International said Tuesday in a new report.
The human rights group urged the Kenyan government to reopen its border with Somalia, which it closed in January as Ethiopian and Somali government troops drove Islamic insurgents toward the frontier. The group also called on Kenya to help those Somali refugees stranded at the border receive proper humanitarian aid and protect them from attacks by armed groups.
“It’s very dangerous for civilians in Somalia right now,” said Ann Corbett, a Kenya specialist for Amnesty International. “Kenya’s action in closing its border is deplorable and a violation of a fundamental right enshrined in international law — the right to seek sanctuary from persecution.”
Kenya’s government said in January that it closed the border to keep militants from entering the country. It also said it would not accept any Somali refugees because the Ethiopian and Somali soldiers were not directly attacking civilians.
Amnesty International said in its report there were between 5,000 and 7,000 Somali refugees waiting for entrance to Kenya when the border closed in January. The group also reported that Kenyan border guards ejected 400 people, mostly women and children, on the day of the closure — what it called a violation of international law.
Posted by: b real | May 2 2007 15:57 utc | 30
National Review
The piece by one Thomas Sowell goes like this:
The left and the Democrats are so bad in governing that we need to do something about it. His conclusion:
When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.
b, you think that is something? check this out
The rule of law has two defects, each of which suggests the need for one-man rule. That is what is on the Op-Ed page of The Wall St. Journal this morning. The article is then filled with one paragraph after the next paying homage to the need for a Great Leader who stomps on the rule of law when he chooses — literally:
Posted by: dan of steele | May 2 2007 19:39 utc | 32
second in series of pepe escobar’s “roving in the red zone”, taking a look at the alleged death of the mysterious leader of AQ in iraq & what it portends
Masri: Dead or alive, the terror continues
Posted by: b real | May 2 2007 19:56 utc | 33
DOS’s #32 Article is ***MUST READ ARTICLE ALERT**
DOS under-emphasizes it. Radical Right Wing Harvard Prof. of Govt. Argues case for DICTATORSHIP IN USA – WSJ Prints It. Amusingly it comes from his woman-hating Hysteria:
He has long been a folk hero to the what used to be the most extremist right-wing fringe but is now the core of the Republican Party. He devoted earlier parts of his career to warning of the dangers of homosexuality, particularly its effeminizing effect on our culture.
He has a career-long obsession with the glories of tyrannical power as embodied by Machiavelli’s Prince, which is his model for how America ought to be governed. And last year, he wrote a book called ‘Manliness’ in which “he urges men, and especially women, to understand and accept manliness” — which means that “women are the weaker sex,” “women’s bodies are made to attract and to please men” and “now that women are equal, they should be able to accept being told that they aren’t, quite.” Publisher’s Weekly called it a “juvenile screed.”
I’ll leave it to Bob Altemeyer and others to dig though all of that to analyze what motivates Mansfield and his decades-long craving for strong, powerful, unchallengeable one-man masculine rule — though it’s more self-evident than anything else.
Posted by: jj | May 2 2007 23:48 utc | 34
@jj I see this as intimately (ahem) connected with a juvenile and terrified insistence on simplification, uniformity, control. the ultimate simplification is to have one person make all the decisions and everyone else obey — in theory anyway. but ecosystems simplified to this extent will collapse… some people are very, very frightened of complexity and absolutely piss themselves at the idea that things are not — and cannot be — under total control.
Posted by: DeAnander | May 3 2007 0:15 utc | 35
that fear of complexity & the adulation of absolutes & the rejection of multiplicity makes ours the most firightening of ages
Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 3 2007 0:23 utc | 36
AP puts lipstick on a terrorist
story on today’s AP wire that, spin frantically though it may, has a tough time getting around the fact that mogadishu is now being officialy ran by terrorist warlords
Mogadishu’s new mayor says ’the time of the terrorists is over’
May 2, 2007 (MOGADISHU) — Mogadishu’s new mayor isn’t new to town _ he is one of the country’s most feared and ruthless warlords. His new role may have as much to do with the calm Mogadishu has seen in recent days as the government’s claimed victory over insurgents with alleged links to al-Qaida.
Mohamed Dheere, who has long cooperated with the CIA in grabbing al-Qaida operatives off the streets of Mogadishu, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the “time of terrorists is over.”
…
While his readiness to fight terrorism makes him appealing to the United States and Ethiopia, which support the Somali government, his use of clan warfare and indiscriminate violence over the last 16 years makes him unpopular with regular Somalis.
that line about grabbing AQ operatives off the streets is, of course, nonsense, as dhere was likely one of the key sources of such dubious claims, useful for getting help to eliminate your rivals (ain’t that right, meles?). what’s amazing, though not unexpected, about the AP narrative, is how they can seriously let dhere — “one of the country’s most feared and ruthless warlords,” widely hated for his use of “indiscriminate violence” — get away w/ making proclamations that the “time of terrorists is over.”
quoting again from the article,
Dheere _ whose name roughly translates as “the tall one” _ has a reputation for being one of the most violent and ruthless of warlords. He used his militia to help frustrate the Transitional National Government formed in 2000 and was considered a potential spoiler in the formation of the current Transitional Federal Government in 2004, threatening to use force against the new government if he was not given a key Cabinet position.
Dheere also was the leader of a self-proclaimed counterterrorism alliance that had battled the Islamists courts for months but lost, and had to flee the capital.
He told the AP on Wednesday that his plan to pacify the capital using 20 police vehicles that will patrol the streets “day and night.”
“These police forces will arrest every suspected terrorist or bandits,” he said.
The United States backed Dheere’s alliance in an attempt to root out any al-Qaida members operating in the Horn of Africa.
i can only imagine the guy was laughing to himself as the reporter wrote that crap down. twenty police cars to pacify a city of more than 1.5 million? heh. but they bought the AQ story, so why not…
the article also mentions that another one of dhere’s warlord buddies, abdi hasan awale qeybdiid, is the new deputy police terroris.. i mean chief!
Posted by: b real | May 3 2007 4:26 utc | 37
why not a moment of silence…
in the name of all who have lost their lives and way of life in this quagmire. iraqis, yanks, brits, iranians, italians, bulgarians, poles, aussies,…
ohm shanti shanti shanti…
Posted by: conchita | May 3 2007 6:24 utc | 38
News from Mr Karzai, mayor of Kabul: Afghans Say U.S. Bombing Killed 42 Civilians
“We are very sorry when the international coalition force and NATO soldiers lose their lives or are injured,” he said. “It pains us. But Afghans are human beings, too.”
Wow – who would have thought that …
4 Killed in Green Zone Rocket Attack
Four Filipino contractors working for the U.S. government were killed in a rocket attack on the heavily fortified Green Zone, the American Embassy said Thursday.
…
It was the third straight day that the U.S.-controlled area in central Baghdad was hit by rockets or mortars, heightening concerns about security in the area that is home to the U.S. and British embassies and thousands of American troops.
An Israeli air-strike against Iran’s nuclear installations may never
take place; nevertheless one can be sure that interested parties try to calculate force requirements and probabilities of success (or countermeasures) on a daily basis. Since we are unlikely to see
authentic working documents from the IAF, the USAF, or the Iranian air defense forces this
working paper from MIT is a plausible substitute. For those unwilling to plod through 33 pages of war-gaming, a brief resumè of the conclusions may be found here (second article
on the page as of 2/5/2007).
Needless to say, one may foresee a brilliant future in governmental service for the authors without in any way endorsing the basic notion
under study.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | May 3 2007 10:50 utc | 42
wolfowitz – he seems not only to lack decency but dignity as well – still holding on the slenderest of threads at the world bank & making a dog’s dinner of it
Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 3 2007 12:57 utc | 43
still holding … at the world bank & making a dog’s dinner of it
That’s the best that can happen to the World Bank …
new PINR somalia analysis(?) up
Somalia Falls into Political Collapse
In the year that PINR has been reporting regularly on Somalia, the multiple and overlapping conflicts that rive the country have never been as confused and intense as they are now, making grounded predictions impossible, except for the general observation that destabilization is likely to continue.
Andrew Young, bagman for US capitalism in Africa
Andrew Young, the former black civil rights leader and confidant of Martin Luther King Jr., has recently come under criticism for his dirty dealings with corrupt African governments, especially for his close relationship with General Olusegan Obasanjo, Nigeria’s former president.
Young has followed the well-worn path from protest to politician to venal corporate bagman. His case is particularly repugnant in that his earlier struggles against segregation and police repression in the American South of the 1960s contrast starkly with his present political alliances with brutal dictators. While operating as a purveyor for American corporations in their plunder of African resources, he has, not incidentally, gotten very rich in the process.
Recently both the New York Times and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published exposes on Young’s consulting firm, ironically named GoodWorks International (GWI), as a lucrative conduit for facilitating US interests in the “emerging markets” of Africa.
…
Young put it another way, “For 40 years of my life,” he told the Times, “I was on the outside seeking change. I realized that I could be more effective being on the inside implementing it.”
What changes have GWI implemented? As the principal lobbying agent for the government of Nigeria in the US, it is making millions representing major companies like ChevronTexaco, General Electric, and Motorola seeking contracts from the Nigerian government.
The company generally receives a commission equal to 1 ½ percent of a contract’s value. This is a tidy sum when GoodWorks consults on contracts such as General Electric Energy’s agreement to provide $400 million in turbines for Nigeria, as they did last year.
The firm is a major shareholder in a Nigerian energy company, Suntrust Oil, which won a lease for offshore oil fields. According to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Nigeria provides as much as 40 percent of GoodWorks revenues, paying $1.75 million to the company since 2000, not including a retainer fee of $60,000 a month.
…
Reports indicate that Young’s ties to Africa developed while he was the US ambassador to the UN in the late 70s, meeting Obasanjo, the military-installed president of Nigeria, at the time. “Obasanjo and I kind of hit it off immediately,” Young told the Times. “We were mainly interested in democracy.”
Actually, Obasanjo was a US operative, closely allied to the CIA, who took power in 1976 after his predecessor, Murtala Muhammad, was assassinated under unexplained circumstances. At the time, the US was still reeling from the OPEC oil embargo and was vitally concerned with Nigerian oil interests.
When Obasanjo left power the first time, in 1979, he was appointed to the board of directors of the CIA-run African American Institute, headed by the former US ambassador to Nigeria Donald B. Easum. In the 1980s, Obasanjo was sent on high-profile speaking tours by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the US Institute for Peace.
…
Meanwhile, the funds flowing into GWI and the hands of Andrew Young are at the expense of the Nigerian and African masses. Despite the nation’s wealth in natural resources, 70 percent of its population of 140 million lives on less than US $1 per day.
Posted by: b real | May 3 2007 15:29 utc | 45
Youtube: Rove / Nixon :
CBS Evening News
January 18th, 1972
Karl Rove, GOP College Director of the Republican National Committee, third pillar of the Nixon Campaign tripod (the other two being the White House and the Campaign for Re-Election of the President).
Let’s re-elect Nixon!
(Rove working for Nixon – Rove appears at 4 minutes into the clip)
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 3 2007 17:33 utc | 46
My, my. Life is full of surprises, isn’t it.
By Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 3, 2007; A01
President Bush and congressional leaders began negotiating a second war funding bill yesterday, with Democrats offering the first major concession: an agreement to drop their demand for a timeline to bring troops home from Iraq.
Posted by: DM | May 3 2007 18:45 utc | 47
third installment from pepe escobar unembedded in iraq
What Muqtada wants
– – –
and i found the opening quote of this news release from the UN’s food & agricultural organization
“Organic agriculture is no longer a phenomenon in developed countries only, as it is commercially practiced in 120 countries, representing 31 million hectares and a market of US$40 billion in 2006,” FAO underlines in a paper, Organic Agriculture and Food Security, presented here at an International Conference on Organic Agriculture and Food Security (3-5 May 2007).
a most bizarre premise, especially as the article goes on to define organic agriculture
“The strongest feature of organic agriculture is its reliance on fossil-fuel independent and locally-available production assets; working with natural processes increases cost-effectiveness and resilience of agro-ecosystems to climatic stress,” the paper says.
“By managing biodiversity in time (rotations) and space (mixed cropping), organic farmers use their labour and environmental services to intensify production in a sustainable way. Organic agriculture also breaks the vicious circle of indebtedness for agricultural inputs which causes an alarming rate of farmers’ suicides.”
is the premise that the developed countries are responsible for creating this agricultural “phenomenon”?
Posted by: b real | May 3 2007 19:52 utc | 48
Conchita was following a movement in Mexico that ended with federales storming the city and beating the crap out of the folks there.
Well, you don’t have to go far to see that sort of thing any more. It is enough to visit the city of angels.
and Fox doesn’t miss a beat with the babe describing it as an “illegal immigration” rally.
Will Crosby Stills Nash and Young make a new version of “Four dead in Ohio”?
Posted by: dan of steele | May 3 2007 19:58 utc | 49
very general but well worth it
From Orion Magazine:
The idols of Environmentalism
….”ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION proceeds apace in spite of all the warnings, the good science, the 501(c)3 organizations with their memberships in the millions, the poll results, and the martyrs perched high in the branches of sequoias or shot dead in the Amazon. This is so not because of a power, a strength out there that we must resist. It is because we are weak and fearful. Only a weak and fearful society could invest so much desperate energy in protecting activities that are the equivalent of suicide.”….
link
From Kurt Nimmo:
Anti Semitism and the Beirut Pogrom.
by Fredy Perlman, 1983, Fifth Estate.
(about 15 pages.)
link
Posted by: Noirette | May 3 2007 20:05 utc | 51
is the premise that the developed countries are responsible for creating this agricultural “phenomenon”?
absolutely. that is always the premise. the developed countries are always “bringing wealth to” the benighted third world, even when they are quite visibly-to-the-naked-eye tearing it apart and stuffing the tasty bits in their pockets to take home.
btw, how non-fossil-fuel dependent is an agriculture whose markets are thousands of klicks away — for fresh produce no less which has to travel by air? hello? who writes these goram articles anyway?
when the technocrats finally admit that the so-called Green Revolution was a combination of dumber-than-paint C19 biotic ignorance, racist/colonial arrogance, and a giant porkbarrel scam by the chem and oil industries, they will “invent a new agriculture” — which will of course just be the way that intelligent farmers have raised food for millennia all over the world. but, like the patenting of genomes of crops bred and tended for millennia by third world farmers, organic/sustainable farming will have a nice big dayglo happyface “Invented by Whitefellas, Profits Inside” label slapped on it, and earnest young technocrats from the peace corps will be sent around to mexico and indonesia to explain to puzzled peasants that Great-Gramps was right all along… and by the way, sorry about the miscarriages and stillbirths and defects and contaminated groundwater and premature mortality and vitamin deficiencies, it was just our way of helping you with your overpopulation problem…
sometimes I could just spit…
Posted by: DeAnander | May 3 2007 22:12 utc | 52
Our household just went through four days of imperial- middle-class trauma. First our water main broke and our first best guess at a dig missed the pipe and took our some roots of a 60 foot Blue Spruce. The first diagnostic by the water company and the excavator were that we might have to take out an enclosed porch that sits over the water feed. Major bucks if so.
The major trauma was my wife loves and hugs and worships and blesses trees. Next minor trauma was that I had to bear the brunt of her emotional stages before her acceptance of what is.
The long and short is that a major and neighborly effort by the crews that did the work and we can take a hot shower again and wash our hides.
As soon as the crews left us with a functioning system, the power went out. Oh, the discomfort of lack of everyday utilities.
I think of Bagdad and 80% of the rest of the not-so-fortunate and I want to just wither… but really know that’s not the answer. The best I can muster is that at this instant I really feel a deep soulful pain.
Posted by: Juannie | May 4 2007 0:02 utc | 53
an example of how u.s. government propaganda get disseminated
the original voice of america propaganda piece
US Ambassador Optimistic About Somali Reconciliation Conference
The US Ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, says that despite the violence in Mogadishu, he is optimistic that a successful national reconciliation conference can take place in Somalia.
…
Ambassador Ranneberger called the recent fighting in Mogadishu “horrendous,” noting that the United States from the outset urged the fighting be stopped.
…
“I believe the Somali people are strongly committed to achieving peace. They have seen decades of war and chaos and I think they want to see a peaceful situation led by a government that is inclusive, fair and transparent. I think the National Reconciliation Congress will be a very important step forward in achieving that, so I would say that we are optimistic that Somalis will stay on the right path to achieve this and I would say that the prospects are reasonable and that they will be successful,” he said.
it was picked up in a few other media outlets, which did source the article to VOA. but it also runs today in shabelle word-for-word and credited to Aweys Osman Yusuf
US Ambassador Optimistic About Somali Reconciliation Conference
which then gets picked up by the influential news aggregator allafrica.com
Somalia: US Ambassador Optimistic About Reconciliation Conference
voila! the article is now archived, no longer sourced to VOA.
Posted by: b real | May 4 2007 15:28 utc | 55
rfk’s conspiracy theory and personal investigation about the assasination of john kennedy from “brothers” by david talbot, salon’s founder and former editor in chief.
Posted by: conchita | May 4 2007 18:55 utc | 56
catching up: last month slate ran some excerpts from john ghazvinian’s new book on the scramble for african oil
Untapped: The Scramble for Africa’s Oil
The United States now imports more of its oil from Africa than it does from Saudi Arabia. How is oil and the money it brings to the continent’s treasuries transforming Africa? For his new book, Untapped: The Scramble for Africa’s Oil, John Ghazvinian traveled from the parched dust bowls of Chad and Sudan to the swamps and jungles of Nigeria and the Congo, and from the corridors of Washington to the gleaming offices of “Big Oil.” Does oil-producing Africa live up to the hype? Why is it impossible to buy bananas in Gabon, when they grow in profusion in the nation’s virgin rainforest? Can an underdeveloped country like São Tomé and Príncipe learn from other nations’ mistakes and avoid the “curse of oil”? What effect does the establishment of an oil-company compound in the middle of Chad have on the neighboring land and people? This week, we are publishing four excerpts from Untapped that answer these questions.
from the first installment, among the many reasons he states that the african oil is so valued by the imperialists, ghazvinian writes:
Yet another strategic benefit, particularly from the perspective of American politicians, is that, until recently, with the exception of Nigeria, none of the oil-producing countries of sub-Saharan Africa had belonged to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Thus they have not been subject to the strict limits on output OPEC imposes on its members in an attempt to keep the price of oil artificially high. The more non-OPEC oil that comes onto the global market, the more difficult it becomes for OPEC countries to sell their crude at high prices, and the lower the overall price of oil. Put more simply, if new reserves are discovered in Venezuela, they have very little effect on the price of oil because Venezuela’s OPEC commitments will not allow it to increase its output very much. But if new reserves are discovered in Gabon, it means more cheap oil for everybody.
well, i’m not convinced that big oil is really worried about keeping the price of oil down, nor are they having troubles securing enough oil right now to worry about limits on production. nigeria & angola, the two largest oil producers in sub-saharan africa, are already members of OPEC. the attraction is easier exploitation & less restriction at points in the future, if those other oil producers are not members of OPEC or some intergovernmental OPEC-type of organization.
maybe that situation will change, though
Why Africa Needs Its Own Opec
The world is seeing the rise of resources nationalism, with potentially far-reaching implications for South Africa and Africa, which are richly endowed with natural resources. Countries in South and Central America, Europe and Asia are crafting and implementing strategies to maximise returns from their natural resources to promote development and prosperity for their own people.
Africa, however, has thus far failed to leverage its natural competitive advantage as a force for prosperity and global competitiveness. It conspicuously lacks the appropriate strategic approaches to maximise returns from its mineral resources for the broader public good.
…
In Latin America, Venezuela and Bolivia are examples of the current tide of resources nationalism that has unleashed the winds of economic change across the resource-rich countries of the world. All countries and regions that are winners have mainly become so by deploying their comparative advantages.
Africa is the only exception. It has unsurpassed comparative advantages in mineral resources, which it has failed to leverage effectively. As a result, it occupies the unenviable paradoxical position of being the world’s most resource-endowed continent which is, simultaneously, the world’s poorest. To add insult to injury, there are no signs of change, even after 50 years of independence in countries such as Ghana.
…
Africa is the world’s leader in the production of gold, platinum, diamonds and other minerals and has huge untapped oil reserves. But Africa has no structures or mechanisms in place to ensure that the benefits from its natural resources accrue, in tangible and meaningful ways, to current and future generations. The case for an Opec of Africa’s mineral producers is as compelling as it is strategically important if Africa is to assert itself in the mainstream of global economic affairs.
…
In a world that is ruthlessly competitive, we must learn to leverage our core strategic advantages to advance our national interests.
OTOH, AFRICOM is the u.s. form of leverage to prevent this type of strategic development.
Posted by: b real | May 4 2007 19:21 utc | 57
Hmm – this NYT story didn’t get much echo – at least in the blogs I read. Could it be that it doesn’t fit the approved tale?
In Jihadist Haven, a Goal: To Kill and Die in Iraq
Zarqa [in Jordan] has been known as a cradle of Islamic militancy since the beginning of the war in Iraq. It was the home of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, who was killed last summer. Today it is a breeding ground for would-be jihadists like Abu Ibrahim and five of his friends who left about the same time last fall, bound for Iraq.
Interviews with Abu Ibrahim and relatives of the other men show that rather than having been individually recruited by an organization like Mr. Zarqawi’s, they gradually radicalized one another, the more strident leading the way. Local imams led them further toward Iraq, citing verses from the Koran to justify killing civilians. The men watched videos depicting tortured and slain Muslims that are copied from Internet sites.
…
“Most of the young people here in Zarqa are very religious,” an Islamist community leader said. “And when they see the news and what is going on in the Islamic countries, they themselves feel that they have to go to fight jihad. Today, you don’t need anyone to tell the young men that they should go to jihad. They themselves want to be martyrs.”
The anger is palpable on the streets of Zarqa. “He’s American? Let’s kidnap and kill him,” one Islamist activist said during an interview with a reporter before the host of the meeting dissuaded him.
The stories of the men from Zarqa help explain the seemingly endless supply of suicide bombers in Iraq, most of whom are believed to be foreigners.
Suicide bombings in Iraq are averaging roughly 42 a month, American military officials said.
they keep telling us that little king sarkozy will win – my french compatriots do not understand what damage thatcher did in englan & reagan in america, howard has transformed the larrikan australians into simple & cruel clowns
my french compatriots do not understand that what was won in the popular front in 1936 mr sarkozy intends to destroy in exactly the same way that those militant morons reagan/thatcher have led humanity to the hole, the shitty hole we are now living in
america has needed france’s critical policy towards it but now the atlanticists – which is really just another way of saying economic & cultural cretinism
makes you long for keynes
perhaps – slothrop through little king sarkozy gets his revenge on my anti imperialism
Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 4 2007 21:34 utc | 59
just learned that howard zinn has put out a call for activist groups to come together to organize nationwide town meetings towards impeachment. worldcan’twait is acting on this and believes codepink and others are joining in. watch for a townhall meeting near you towards the end of june or if you’re inspired get involved with organizing one. i’m sure juannie will have suggestions and i should be ablet to help put you in touch with other organizers.
Posted by: conchita | May 4 2007 23:07 utc | 60
The pet food recall issue is beginning to look like a replay of Katrina, only in slower motion:
The U.S. Agriculture Department said on Friday as many as 20 million chickens currently on U.S. farms in several states may have been fed contaminated feed.
A USDA official said the birds must be held until the government can complete a risk assessment to determine if they can be processed. The results could come as early as Monday.
The birds were among those believed to have been given contaminated feed with pet food containing melamine, a chemical used in plastics and fertilizer. It is uncertain how many chickens have been processed.
That’s the entire article, found via Itchmo
Posted by: Alamet | May 5 2007 0:31 utc | 61
just learned that howard zinn has put out a call for activist groups to come together to organize nationwide town meetings towards impeachment. worldcan’twait is acting on this and believes codepink and others are joining in.
@Conchita. Great, but in practice it’s too late for impeachment. Could just give Repug candidate power of incumbency. So, I hope there’s a fall back position that you’d agree to settle for that is more realistic – Demanding Immediate Repeal of all Police State Legislation – beginning w/”Patriot Act” including everything through Military Commissions Act. That is doable w/no weaseling excuses. I’d prefer digging up enough evidence to try them after they leave office. Even if they were impeached, the Criminals would merely get another Presidential Pardon as the price for new thug to get the Office – see GFord.
Posted by: jj | May 5 2007 1:01 utc | 62
I think I have spent the better part of two days reading through this thread and following up most of the links, bookmarking several to pass on. It contains a wealth of stuff!
Many of these topics hold particular fascination for me:
°Development and Refinement of the use of Assassinations over the last half century (I have strong memories of the day JFK was killed, for instance, and have learned all I can about both brothers’ assassinations and others that have followed over the years.);
°Strong skepticism of almost any news presented to wide American audiences, whether it has to do with foreign affairs, our domestic elections, our food supply, environmental info, our pharmaceuticals, or whatever. (if it reaches a certain critical mass, it is probably wrong);
°The development of language “memes” which are a deliberate part of the psychological shaping of society (never just read the headline and the first paragraph, and of course with TV “News” there is never a “continuation on page 16” or even a second paragraph);
°Our government is successfully trying to keep Americans frightened of many things and confused and suspicious of each other. The fear is not necessarily of an Islamic Jihad (although there is that fear), it applies to confusion and fear about food and food contamination first it was Canadian beef, then we had dog food, now chicken feed. Do we dare buy and eat eggs?
and so on.
So, naturally, I have some questions to ask. For now just one will do:
1. Is Pepe Escobar for Real? He seems a bit too good to be true. His accomplishments that appear on this page: almost uninhibited movement in the most dangerous places, and the trek across western Chinese provinces into Afghanistan and the interview of someone who was subsequently assassinated there, etc.
Posted by: Oregongal | May 5 2007 2:30 utc | 63
oregongal- yes, pepe escobar is for real. always worth the read, imo. his latest report is
The man who might save Iraq
– – –
meanwhile, i was tempted to post this one on the garden thread… but it’s too tragic
Goat, married to man, dies after having first kid in South Sudan
May 4, 2007 (JUBA) — The goat married to a man at Hai Malakal, Juba, last year has now died. It delivered a baby goat four months ago. The goat, “Rose”, was used for sexual intercourse and a man was caught red-handed. Elders forced the man to marry the goat.
According to eyewitness and goat owner, Mr Alifi, he found the goat defiler, Mr C.T., naked in his goat shed having intercourse with his goat. After consulting local elders in a customary court case, the elders decreed that the goat offender must pay a dowry of 75 dollars. Since last year, the wedded goat has now produced a kid; but not a human one.
Mr Alifi further says that he did not give a name to the goat before, but during the local court deliberations the elders jokingly referred to the goat as Rose. Rose was black and white in colour and unfortunately died recently. Neighbours suspect Rose may have eaten a plastic bag littered near Mr T.’s compound. She is survived by a newly born male goat, now four months old and staying with Mr T.
One of the elders present during the hearing says they were invited by Alifi to come and solve the issue. “We found Mr T. was tied down by Alifi at the door of the goat shed,” said the elder; he said the marriage was to teach Mr T. a lesson.
Posted by: b real | May 5 2007 3:28 utc | 64
From Pat Lang’s site 🙂
It’s a pity the Red Indians didn’t have AK47’s.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | 04 May 2007 at 07:07 PM
Posted by: DM | May 5 2007 4:10 utc | 65
What is it with typepad? Never had trouble before with short comments without links. Is AK47 a dirty word?
Posted by: DM | May 5 2007 4:12 utc | 66
Oregongal – Escobar for real? – good question – saw some blog entry form someone who met him in Iran – but who knows – does it matter?
one of the sources (endnote #54) i used in my AFRICOM report stated that the u.s. was strategically working to control the strait of malacca in order to block china’s flow of raw materials, esp oil, from africa (& the ME). currently, eighty percent of china’s oil imports ship through that narrow strait.
spotted this in friday’s news (on a strange vatican[?] propaganda website which, in describing its purpose, informs its readers that “Already many Chinese intellectuals think China can be saved by Christianity, so as not to explode into a soulless market or a dictatorship that humiliates the individual.”)
Gas and oil from Africa and the Middle East will pass through Myanmar
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – China and India are courting Myanmar’s energy supplies. While Beijing aims to transport Middle Eastern and African oil through the region, New Delhi is planning a gas pipeline from Myamnar to India through Bangladesh. But experts are concerned that the country’s natural wealth favours the military junta to the detriment of the population.
At the beginning of April, the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planning body, approved the oil pipeline linking Myanmar’s deepwater port of Sittwe with Kunming, capital of south-western China’s Yunnan province. China will invest 8 billion Yuan (1.04 billion dollars) to build a gas pipeline, which will stretch 2,380 kilometres, linking Myanmar with Kunming. This pipeline will transport 170 billion cubic meters of natural gas from the Middle East to south-western China in the next 30 years. The long-awaited pipeline would provide an alternative route for China’s Strait of Malacca crude-oil imports from the Middle East and Africa.
there’s already a controversy over existing gas & oil pipeline projects exploiting the natural resources of myanmar. for instance, total & unocal are involved in the yadana natural gas pipeline project. throw chinese & indian pipelines into the mix & things are likely to reach the level of combustion.
Posted by: b real | May 5 2007 4:48 utc | 68
b real #68
Sounds like at least two more flashpoints that could start a World War — Myanmar and the Strait of Malacca.
btw, thanks for the reassurance about Escobar.
and, b, yes it matters what others who have been following his reports actually think about his authenticity. There is more than enough confusion to go around.
Posted by: Oregongal | May 5 2007 6:08 utc | 69
Washington’s War by Michael Rose
When I first started visiting the battlefields of the American War of Independence, it was well before the 9/11 terrorist attacks had taken place and President Bush had yet to declare global war against Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. My intention had originally been to write an analysis of the military lessons learned by the British Army in what for them had been an unfortunate and ultimately disastrous war. Over the next five years I came to see how great the similarities are between the policies being pursued by America in the present Iraq war and those of Britain in the eighteenth century. Not only do the same political and military imperatives apply, but also George III’s inability to recognize what drove the American colonists to rebel against the British Crown is exactly matched by George Bush’s lack of understanding of the motivations of Islamic extremist terrorists.
…
In spite of the evident failure of their strategies in the Balkans, the politicians of NATO have reinforced the belief that it is possible to solve complex humanitarian, political and even international security crises through military means. This view has been translated into a doctrine of offensive military action, which has been now been applied in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet the past clearly shows that military action unsupported by an agreed political framework, and one, furthermore, that is backed by adequate economic and social programmes, simply will not endure. Nearly one decade after the end of the Balkan Wars, European Union troops are still required to maintain a presence on the ground in order to prevent a return to war. Both Bosnia and Kosovo have become, in effect, protectorates of Europe.
Francis Fukuyama Beating an orderly retreat
The surge was the last military card we had to play, and now our bluff will soon be called.
…
This means that we will have to engage in a very different debate from the one we have been having up to now, a debate not about surging and not about withdrawing with our goals accomplished but about how to draw down our forces in a way that minimizes the costs that will inevitably accompany our loss of control.
This is a difficult situation, but it is necessary. The questions we need to address include: How do we reconfigure our forces to provide advice, training and support, rather than engaging in combat? How we can withdraw safely without a serious Iraqi army to cover our retreat? How will we dismantle enormous bases like Camp Liberty or Camp Victory and protect the diminishing numbers of U.S. troops in the country? Do we trust the Iraqi military and police sufficiently to turn over our equipment to them? How do we protect the lives of those who collaborated with us? The images of South Vietnamese allies hanging to the skid pads of U.S. helicopters departing Saigon should be burned into our memories.
…
The presence of U.S. forces has itself been a spur to terrorist recruitment, but as it becomes clear that we are on our way out, it will be easier for Iraqi nationalists to turn against the foreign jihadists (as they have already begun to do in Al Anbar province).
An intensifying civil war will be a tragedy for Iraq, but it is not the worst outcome from a U.S. standpoint to have a number of bitterly anti-American groups duking it out among themselves.
Civil wars eventually come to an end when one side wins (unlikely, in this case) or when the parties exhaust themselves and drop their maximalist aims.
And another marginal “neocon”: The Global Empire of Niall Ferguson
But he claims he has never had the slightest contact with the Bush administration, and says the “neocon” charge is “absolutely malicious.” He notes, “I was always consistent in saying that the United States was not likely to make a success of the invasion of Iraq because, unlike Britain, it had the three deficits I wrote about: in manpower, capital, and above all, staying power. I also opposed British involvement in the war. I wrote in the Financial Times that this may have been in the interest of the United States, but it was not in Britain’s interest. But I was heeded neither in London nor in Washington.
“My lament and refrain in those distant days was, ‘Why does America ignore British history? Why does nobody here talk about 1920, and Britain’s experiences in Baghdad?’ Remember what Churchill said: ‘At present we are paying eight millions a year for the privilege of sitting on an ungrateful volcano out of which we will in no circumstances get anything worth having.’ It was a revelation to me that Americans were so parochial. I must say I came here no doubt with all kinds of illusions, but I was still surprised. I think that what happened is that people said, ‘Well, this guy is in favor of empire (which empire they don’t say), so therefore he must be in favor of the war.’ What I did say was that the United States should use its power more aggressively to get rid of rogue regimes and failed states, but the notion that that had any role to play in 2003 is absurd.
…
“I don’t think running away is an option,” he explains. “I think regardless of who is president, we are still going to have a military presence in Iraq by 2012. It’s not like Vietnam; you can’t just walk away, leaving it to go to hell, with everybody killing one another. As bad as that was, it had no geopolitical cost at all for Americans; the costs of failure were zero. Whereas the geopolitical cost of running away here is almost unimaginable. Not only would a full-scale regional civil war create all sorts of opportunities for Iran. It creates all sorts of opportunities for the Iranian-backed Shi‘ah and the wildest Sunni radicals who are behind al Qaeda. It makes your most important ally in the region, Israel, desperately vulnerable.”
Inconsistent to the core …
From b’s #73
“As bad as that was, it had no geopolitical cost at all for Americans; the costs of failure were zero.”
Read: Nobody discovered oil in VietNam.
Posted by: Monolycus | May 5 2007 11:13 utc | 74
Bush administration proposes retroactive immunity for phone companies
Pattern recognition?
#75 was moi…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 5 2007 14:50 utc | 76
On the subject of the ethics of our “freedom fighters” in Iraq turns out quite a few of them don’t have any. What a surprise.
Posted by: ran | May 5 2007 17:38 utc | 77
Milbank the cynic: Dozens of Heads Were Bowed
Let us pray.
Let us pray that, on next year’s National Day of Prayer, there is better attendance at the “Bible Reading Marathon” on the West Front of the Capitol.
…
By 11 a.m., as a woman read a passage from Revelations, attendance had grown — to four people. Finally, at 1 p.m., 37 of the 600 seats were occupied, though many of those people were tourists eating lunch.
Where was everybody?
“This isn’t that kind of event,” explained Jeff Gannon, spokesman for the host, the International Bible Reading Association.
…
bringing all the old warlords back into mogadishu
Former Somalia warlords to be renamed to Cabinet posts
MOGADISHU, Somalia May 5 (Garowe Online) – Leaders in Somalia’s transitional government are planning to rename some of Mogadishu’s former warlords to key Cabinet posts, confidential sources said.
Sources close to the office of Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi told Garowe Online that at least three ex-warlords who carved Mogadishu into warring fiefdoms since the 1990s will be renamed as Cabinet ministers.
All three ex-warlords – Mohamed Qanyare, Muse Sudi Yalahow and Omar Filish – are members of the transitional federal Parliament that operates from the inland city of Baidoa.
MP Qanyare is expected to be renamed to his former post of national security minister, while the inside sources could not confirm what post his colleagues Yalahow and Filish will be appointed to.
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Last week, two other ex-warlords, Mohamed Dheere and Abdi Qeybdiid, were named to the posts of Mogadishu mayor and national police commander, respectively.
All these warlords are members of a U.S.-funded coalition known as the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Anti-Terror, a group that fought against the Union of Islamic Courts and ultimately led to the Islamists’ rise to power in mid-2006.
Posted by: b real | May 6 2007 6:13 utc | 79
Always sort of wondered what A Swedish Kind of Death actually is. Turns out it’s cancer.
On an unrelated note, we need bigger memorials. As of last November, Memorial honoring fallen soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan runs out of room.
“It’s just another example of how pathetically unprepared and unrealistic the supporters of this war have been,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a San Jose Democrat and member of the Administration Committee that oversees operations in House buildings.
Not to carry over the vitriol from the thread about US soldier’s deaths, but I’ve been thinking about it and this story illustrates the conclusion I’ve come to about the whole thing. The pro-side creates and perpetuates the meat grinder and accuses the anti-side of enjoying it. Meanwhile, the anti-side is too uncomfortable with the idea to use growing casualty rates as leverage to end this thing. And the beat goes on. Mounting casualty rates will continue, staggering costs to the taxpaying public will continue… it’s a fucking, unstoppable juggernaut.
But we’ve already beaten that horse. Just like Chernobyl, it’s old news. Time to move on to the next unresolvable disaster.
Posted by: Monolycus | May 6 2007 7:08 utc | 80
JERUSALEM — Israel’s Shin Bet security service uses torture in its interrogation of Palestinian prisoners, violating a 1999 court ruling outlawing such practices, two Israeli human rights groups charged in a report Sunday.
The physical abuse includes “beating, painful binding, back bending, body stretching and prolonged sleep deprivation,” according to the report. These methods constitute torture under international law, according to the report by B’Tselem and The Center for the Defense of the Individual.
Israel’s Supreme Court in 1999 outlawed what the Shin Bet called “moderate physical pressure,” such as sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures and tying up detainees in painful positions.
Despite the ruling, prisoners are shackled to chairs in painful positions for protracted periods of time and subjected to humiliation, swearing and threats by the interrogators, the report said.
It’ll be interesting to see if Laura Rozen over at War and Piece ackowledges this story B. (she hasn’t yet)
I quit reading her several years ago when she claimed in a piece about US torture policy that Israel does not use torture.
Posted by: ran | May 6 2007 14:23 utc | 82