The Missing Terrorist

A group of House members is pressing the White House to provide answers for the first time to one of the biggest mysteries of the debate over pre-Iraq War intelligence: what really happened to captured terrorist leader Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi—once considered one of the U.S. military’s most prized catches in the war on terror?
…
A newly updated edition of the book, “Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War”—co-written by the author of this article and David Corn and published this week in paperback—quotes from declassified CIA operational cables that suggest that Libi had been brutally tortured by the Egyptian intelligence service and coerced into making his claims about Iraqi WMD training for Al Qaeda.
The cables indicate that Libi told agency debriefers in February 2004 that he “fabricated” his story about the weapons training only after his Egyptian interrogators crammed him into a tiny box for 17 hours. His account appears to be the first public description of a controversial “aggressive” interrogation technique called a “mock burial,” in which interrogators make their subjects believe they are being buried alive in a bid to elicit information.
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As later findings by the Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed, the account extracted from Libi was used by President Bush as the prime basis for a key assertion in his Oct. 7, 2002, speech in Cincinnati about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s regime. “We’ve learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and deadly gases,” Bush said in the speech, just days before Congress voted on the White House-requested resolution authorizing the president to go to war against Iraq.
…
As Libi recounted, he was stuffed into a box less than 20 inches high. When the box was opened 17 hours later, Libi said he was given one final opportunity to “tell the truth.” He was knocked to the floor and “punched for 15 minutes.” It was only then that, Libi said, he made up the story about Iraqi weapons training.
…

Posted by: b | May 31 2007 10:32 utc | 4

I don’t often agree with Spengler, but he is right in this, but maybe the very last sentence: Why Iran will fight, not compromise

…
That is the background to Ahmadinejad’s decree last week reducing private and state bank lending rates to 12% from 14%, that is, 5-10 percentage points below the rate of inflation. If Ahmadinejad were in the pay of a hostile intelligence service, he could not have found a more effective way to sabotage Iran’s economy. If the price of goods rises faster than the cost of money, everyone who can will borrow money to purchase and hoard goods. The result will be higher prices and reduced economic activity, and the eventual prospect of hyperinflation, which no government ever has survived. Last week’s rate reduction augmented the incentives for capital flight.
Ahmadinejad took this foolhardy step against the explicit advice of Iran’s economic authorities, which suggests that the economic suffering of his political base commanded his undivided attention. After increasing gasoline prices earlier in the month, he evidently found it necessary to throw his constituents a bone.
…
As a way of changing the Tehran regime, however, pushing Iran toward hyperinflation would be akin to cutting the brake lines of a car to spite its driver, when one is a passenger in the same car. It is easy to hasten the deterioration of Iran’s economy, for it is headed downhill in any event, but very difficult to reverse the process.
An old piece of diplomatic wisdom states that one always should give one’s enemy a way out. But I see no way out for the pocket empire of Persia. Ahmadinejad and his generation of Revolutionary Guards will fight, and cautious old men like Rafsanjani will not be able to stop them.

Posted by: b | May 31 2007 14:28 utc | 6

It was only then that, Libi said, he made up the story about Iraqi weapons training
what are the odds that, instead of libi making up a story, he submitted to accepting the one his captors wanted him to make…

Posted by: b real | May 31 2007 14:40 utc | 8

“former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and UN Development Programme (UNDP) chief Kemal Derviş are some of the international personalities expected to attend this year`s meeting.”
Gee, won’t Democratic candidate for President, John Edwards be attending this year?

Posted by: pb | May 31 2007 16:30 utc | 10

Note 1. … The correlation (Nation Master) between Energy-Oil exports per capita and wheat imports ditto (the per capita is necessary for sense-making) is astonishingly high, as the nos. are for the world, and countries are very different (includes Norway, for ex.) – .8 (point 8). It is the fifth significant correlation listed by NM, the four preceding it no brainers (eg. oil exports correlates wonderfully with oil production.)
Add’. Gapminder is a good site for visualising some stats and grasping overall situations (just bought by google and undergoing changes) link – it does not list Iraq.
Add’ alarmists:
.. The looting of Iraqi agriculture, from Counter Punch link
.. The fate of Iraq’s agriculture, From GlobalResearch.ca link

Posted by: Noirette | May 31 2007 16:39 utc | 12

Good line, like Paul Krassner’s “F**** Communism”, using cliche to mock another financed bogeyman. Fortune-500-ately, the terrorists already win, and consolidate soon.

Posted by: plushtown | May 31 2007 17:51 utc | 14

Noirette,
Note 1. … The correlation (Nation Master) between Energy-Oil exports per capita and wheat imports ditto (the per capita is necessary for sense-making) is astonishingly high, as the nos. are for the world, and countries are very different (includes Norway, for ex.) – .8 (point 8). It is the fifth significant correlation listed by NM, the four preceding it no brainers (eg. oil exports correlates wonderfully with oil production.)
This precisely demonstrates the point I made the last time we discussed Iraqi agriculture. The main decline came about with the advent of oil revenues. After the 1991 war, with imports no longer easy, people took to farming again. But at the same time government control on a local level declined, possibly because of sanctions, so the statistics may no longer be accurate.
Since 2003, no statistics have been kept. How can you do it in the situation in Iraq? I have a CD of Iraqi statistics, dated 2005, and you are right, the agricultural statistics go up to 2003, and then stop.
I have the impression that people have almost gone back to subsistence farming. I exaggerate but it is not far from that. It is very clear that there is no central control, and local government is probably not exerting decision-making power in more than urgent cases.
In Baghdad, you can imagine in the statistics office, if they make it into the office at all (but they have to in order to get paid), they sit drinking tea and discuss the latest of their relatives to be killed. Not much substantial information for FAO.
There’s been a good biweekly report on the British Library web site about office life at the National Archives in Baghdad, by the Director Saad Iskander. Sorry don’t have the link to hand, nor time to look it up. It tells you exactly what life in a Baghdad govt. office is like. This account is devastating.

Thursday, 8 Feb., I sent after Ismail, He told me that he still had
no new information concerning the whereabout of Mr. M., who had been
missing since Al-Sadriya car-bomb attack. Soon after, I contacted my
cousin, asking him to search the two lists of the names of the dead
and the injured people in Al-Sadriya attack. After ten minutes he
rang me back, informing me that he did not find his name in the two
lists.
In the meantime, two of our librarians came to my office, asking for
my permission to search for Mr. M. I emphatically rejected their
idea, I warning them that it was too dangerous to go to al-Sadriya
area, as armed men were seen in the area. I also told them that I was
doing my best to find Mr. M. Unfortunately, the two librarians (a
Sunni and a Shi’i) did not listen to my advice. They left the
building without telling anybody about their intention. About one
hour later, I saw Miss. B, weeping in front of my office. I asked her
why she was weeping? She replied that al-Mujahdeen told her by phone
that they kidnapped the Sunni librarian in al-Sadriya area. They
asked her if the librarian was Sunni or Shi’i. She told them that she
did not know his religious background, and she begged them to release
him. Initially, I thought that the kidnappers were Shi’I, and
therefore, I contacted a number of trusted people, such as my own
cousin, to contact some Shi’I armed group that was active in
al-Sadriya area. I also sent one of my Shi’I librarians to the area
to see if he could secure the release of the kidnapped librarian. I
know Al-Sadriya very well. I was born and finished my primary school
in that area, and therefore I know a lot of local people. I thought
it would be relatively easy for me to release the kidnapped
librarian. I was totally wrong, as I discovered soon after. The local
leader of the Shi’I group told me by phone that his men did not
kidnap the Sunni librarian, and that his men were doing their best to
find him. He told me that it was very possible that another armed
Sunni group, which was also very active in the same area, kidnapped
the librarian. I felt immediately that something was wrong. I
immediately asked our security if they saw another librarian with the
kidnapped librarian? They said yes. The NLA was in state of total
chaos. Some female librarians were crying laudly. They thought that
both librarians were killed. I asked my staff to go back to their
work. Thirty minutes later, the kidnapped Sunni librarian returned to
our building. My staff gathered around him very quickly; some were
kissing him and other congratulating him about his release. I was not
happy at all; I knew that the kidnapped Shi’I librarians was in a
real danger. I asked the Sunni librarian to come to my office, and
not to talk to anybody else. In my office, he disclose the story of
their kidnapping. He said that he and his Shi’I colleague left the
building without telling anybody about their destination, and that
they were kidnapped a moment later by a group of Sunni armed men in
al-Maidan (just 200 meters away from the NLA). He said that he was
beaten up and hit several times on his head. He claimed that he was
released, after the kidnappers found out that he was Sunni. Then I
asked him about the fate of his Shi’I colleague. He said that he was
separated from him, immediately after the kidnapping, and that they
were both taken to al-Fadhal area (Just across road). I felt
instantaneously that I had no enough time to save the life of my
Shi’I librarian. I immediately contacted several people who had some
influence in al-Fadhal area. I sent two female administrators to
al-Fadhal, where they live, to see if they could persuade the
kidnapers to release the Shi’I librarian. I sent another person to a
a well-know Sunni figure in the hope that he could intervene. One of
librarians had the phone number of one our former drivers, who
resigned from his job last year. He and his family and relatives live
in al-Fadhal, where they had considerable influence among the locals.
I told him please act very quickly to safe the kidnapped librarian.
He told me that, as far as he knew, no one was kidnapped that
morning. I replied that I was sure that my kidnapped librarian was in
al-Fadhal, and that he should act very quickly before it was too
late. He promised to do his best to secure the release of the
kidnapped librarian or at least safe his life. The line went dead
before we could finish our conservation. Deep in my heart I knew it
was too late to safe the life of the kidnapped librarians. One hour
later I learnt from several sources that my librarian was executed
and that his body was dumped in an abandoned alley. We were all
devastated. I thought the news might not be true. But I received a
call from my assistant, which confirmed the fact that the librarian
was executed soon after the kidnapping. The killers rang the family
of the victim, telling them in cold blood that they murdered their
son and that they should take his body. I rang some people in the
hope they could provide me with more information on the kidnapping
incident.
There was no more news on Friday morning. In the afternoon, I offered
my condolence to the family of a Youngman, who was murdered for
sectarian reasons two days ago. In fact, my friends and I spent most
of our spare time visiting the families of the victims of the
on-going sectarian violence.
I do not know why I felt in that morning that our kidnapped librarian
was not murdered on Thursday. At 19.20 in the evening, I received a
call, and I was given more information. According to one of our
guards, who accompanied the family of the kidnapped librarian, the
victim “has been shot today morning”, and that “his family have found
his body”. The killers informed the family of victim about the place
where they threw his body.
–Saad Eskander

Posted by: Alex | May 31 2007 19:53 utc | 16

commandante chavez has warned the media of the oligarchs to calm down, to take a tranquiliser, before he has to administer one
the oligarchs can wail & moan but comrade chavez is doing what the good presidente allende was too timid to do – confront directly the institutions that are completely connected to washington’s desire & wishes

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 31 2007 21:57 utc | 18

about being/monolingual

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 31 2007 22:27 utc | 20

About the US mission in Ethiopia. I have started to wonder, if the Ethiopian government falls because of the Somali adventure who takes over? There is always the separatist groups who are not allowed to seperate (because it is Africa) and so might aim at the capitol instead (indeed, the current gang was Tigray seperatists once upon a time). Are there other – less ethnicly defined – groups active?
I have not kept up the different groups in Ethiopia (or in exile). There was a student movement in 2001, guess their leaders are in the torture camps now.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Jun 1 2007 0:54 utc | 22

thanks alamet. i’ve grabbed a copy & will check it out this w/e. i see it’s a CSIS thinktank piece by an ex-brookings guy & an american friends service committee representative, so it may be as interesting as it is informative 🙂

Posted by: b real | Jun 1 2007 2:54 utc | 24

Apparently, after six years in office, the Bush administration has begun to deplete its own strategic reserves of batshit craziness. Fortunately, this resource is in no short supply and patriotic lunatics are quick to fill the gap. USA Today writes: Sci-fi writers join war on terror

“We spend our entire careers living in the future,” says author Arlan Andrews, one of a handful of writers the government brought to Washington this month to attend a Homeland Security conference on science and technology.
Those responsible for keeping the nation safe from devastating attacks realize that in addition to border agents, police and airport screeners, they “need people to think of crazy ideas,” Andrews says.

It sounds like something from The Onion here, but I have little doubt this is genuine (where else does this kind of crap come from?). Just like every long-running scripted drama, you occasionally have to fire the current staff of writers and replace them with fresh blood. I’m projecting that next season we will see the Fonz jumping a shark in the square in Baghdad where the statue of Hussein used to be… only there will be zombie-cyborg moths.

Posted by: Monolycus | Jun 1 2007 4:04 utc | 26

USA arming Iraqi insurgents?

The report forwarded by American intelligence officers is brief and to the point: “Hostiles” in Iraq are toting Berettas. Insurgents have a large number of Italian-made side arms, all recent-model weapons, and what is even more disturbing, with illegible or non-existent serial numbers.
…
However, the weapons found by the Americans are state-of-the-art 92 models, which are standard U.S. Armed Forces issue, among others.
…
In fact, the United States has become a major market in side arms, because regulations governing the sale of handguns allow wholesalers to purchase very large quantities of weapons. The only difference is the price. The U.S. Marines pay $263 for a Beretta 92, but in Falluja, the going rate is $850 dollars.
…
The crucial detail is the erasure of the serial numbers. The numbers do not appear to have been physically removed. Instead, the guns seem to have come off the production line without any serial numbers, or they could have been erased with high-tech industrial technology. The lack of serial numbers suggests that the weapons were intended for intelligence operations or terrorist cells with substantial government backing.
The investigating magistrates in Brescia are reminded of an old inquiry by the Anti-mafia authority into a stock of Beretta pistols with no serial numbers, or with the serial numbers erased. The mystery involved preliminary investigations by Judge Carlo Palermo, but failed to reach any conclusions. Now the Americans face a similar quandary, but on a much larger scale. The total number of weapons found when Saddam fell, and recovered during anti-insurgency operations, runs into the many thousands. The final figure will certainly exceed 10,000, and the Brescia public prosecutor’s office will have to try to shed light on their origin.

This sort of thing is common in Italy, land of
Gladio, Compass Rose and P2.
So:

There were also media reports that British arms and equipment exported to Iraq, specifically some of a consignment of 20,000 used Beretta Italian police pistols, were being diverted to terrorists.
But the latest and most interesting development on the small-arms front in Iraq was the news in May that the Pentagon has secretly shipped tens of thousands of small arms to Iraq from Bosnia-Herzegovina in the past two years, using a web of private companies. At least one supplier is a noted arms smuggler, Viktor Bout, blacklisted by Washington and the United Nations.
The US government arranged for delivery of at least 200,000 Kalashnikov machine-guns, together with tens of millions of rounds of ammunition, from Bosnia to Iraq in 2004-05, according to a report by Amnesty International, which investigated the sales. But though the weaponry was said to be for arming the fledgling Iraqi military, there is no evidence the guns reached their intended recipient.
The US and local authorities in Iraq and Bosnia when questioned could not or would not account for the deliveries and denied all knowledge of any weapons purchases from Bosnia.

Hmm. Coincidence, I suppose. The Americans send 20,000 Berettas to Iraq, no-one ever sees them again and 10,000 suddenly end up in the hands of “terrorists”. I wonder if carabinieri weapons have serial numbers. I like this:

The British Broadcasting Corp’s File on Four program said it was shown paperwork about a consignment of 20,000 AK-47-type assault rifles that shows they were imported by a company in the north of England called York Guns Ltd, which sells shotguns and sporting rifles. Its managing director Gary Hyde denied having imported the AK-47s and claimed that a third-party dealer had legally brought them into the United Kingdom.

Interesting. The open question is whether this is by design or blowback or to paraphrase Jeff Wells, “What can “state-sponsored” mean, when much of the United State’s security apparatus has been contracted out to private cartels, private intel corporations?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 1 2007 6:22 utc | 28

More on PSI’s (private security industry) or PMC’S (private military contractors)?

On its website, GlobalOptions, a Washington-based corporate security and investigations firm, describes itself as a “private CIA, Defense Department, Justice Department, and FBI, all rolled into one,” and says it offers

attorneys, crisis communications specialists, investigators, former senior policymakers and even commandos who can be mobilized on a moment’s notice to protect you, your employees, corporate reputation, bottom line, and share holder value.

I’ve been watching this trend since before March of 03, when CNN did a posting of a Fortune magazine article by Nelson D. Schwartz entitled: THE WAR BUSINESS, and post it here in full only because it is no longer on line.

THE WAR BUSINESS
The Pentagon’s Private Army
They run the mess halls. They program the weapons. They even recruit soldiers. And if America goes to war against Iraq, private military companies will play a bigger role than ever before.
FORTUNE
Monday, March 3, 2003
By Nelson D. Schwartz
American tanks move down a narrow street as explosions rattle the ramshackle town. Behind them, infantrymen outfitted in the latest high-tech gear creep forward, looking out for snipers, as well as for refugees and other civilians who could end up in the middle of a firefight. The brass has told the commanders in the field to keep collateral damage to a minimum, and headquarters is monitoring every step the grunts take via real-time voice and data links. Suddenly shouts are heard over the roar of the tanks, and a figure rushes onto the road. The soldiers tense and prepare to fire, only to see that it’s a man from the town, hollering at them in a language they don’t understand. A specially trained member of the unit quickly approaches him, says a few words in the man’s native tongue, and gets him out of harm’s way.
This scenario could come to pass in a few weeks in Baghdad if America does go to war, but for now it’s an exercise soldiers are taking part in at the U.S. Army’s Joint Readiness Training Center in Fort Polk, La. The drill reveals more than just the Pentagon’s concern for civilian casualties. It also demonstrates the large–and growing–role that private companies play in war. For while the men and machines are from the Army, just about everything else–from the explosive charges and electronics to the refugees and even the war game itself–has been supplied by a publicly traded company called Cubic.
If and when the shooting starts in Iraq, American companies will be more critical than in any previous conflict, including the last Gulf war. That’s because the Army has changed dramatically in the past decade, shedding almost one-third of its soldiers even as it has taken on missions from Kosovo to Kabul. At the same time, a government-wide push to privatize, as well as the increasing complexity of military hardware, makes the military more and more dependent on contractors. The upshot is that the Pentagon is outsourcing as many tasks as possible to enable the military, if you’ll forgive the MBA-speak, to focus on its core competency: fighting.
Mundane chores like KP duty and laundry detail have been outsourced at bases as far away as Afghanistan and Kuwait. Closer to home, even recruiting is being privatized. At stations in ten states, the medal-bedecked, ramrod-straight recruiter of yesteryear has been replaced by a casual-Friday-outfitted headhunter from one of two private firms. You probably have never heard of these corporations–Cubic, DynCorp, ITT, and MPRI aren’t exactly household names–but the Pentagon would clearly be lost without them. “You could fight without us, but it would be difficult,” says Paul Lombardi, CEO of DynCorp, which saw revenues rise 18% in 2002, to $2.3 billion. “Because we’re so involved, it’s difficult to extricate us from the process.”
The process, as Lombardi calls it, happens to be big business–very big business. Computer Sciences Corp., an IT-consulting giant, agreed late last year to buy DynCorp for nearly $1 billion, and L-3 Communications scooped up MPRI for $35 million in 2000. Cubic Corp.’s profits rose 41% in fiscal 2002, and its stock price has tripled over the past four years. By one estimate, the Pentagon this year will spend at least $30 billion–or 8% of its overall budget, on private military companies (PMCs), even if the U.S. doesn’t invade Iraq.
Like the peddlers who shadowed Napoleon’s armies, many of these companies are nestled close to the Pentagon, in bland northern Virginia office complexes. Staffed largely by ex-military types and former top Defense Department officials, they are the latest iteration of the military-industrial complex. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell the civilians from the warriors on today’s battlefield. While executives at DynCorp and other companies emphasize that most of their work consists of noncombat jobs like maintaining planes and choppers, installing software, mowing base lawns, and hauling garbage–“ash and trash” in industry parlance–certain missions blur the lines. For example, DynCorp won a State Department contract to protect Afghan leader Hamid Kharzai, who survived an assassination attempt last fall. Former members of Delta Force and other elite units, the DynCorp employees in Kabul carry guns and serve right alongside active-duty Special Forces soldiers. MPRI, for its part, has trained foreign militaries in places like Croatia and Bosnia.
Perhaps nowhere have private military companies played a more significant role than in the war against drugs in Colombia. At least a half-dozen companies, including Airscan, Northrop Grumman, and DynCorp, receive up to $1.2 billion a year from the Pentagon and the State Department to fly the planes that spray suspected coca fields and to monitor smugglers from remote radar sites, says Brookings Institution scholar P.W. Singer. Just last month a small plane carrying employees of Northrop Grumman crashed in rebel-held territory. One of the employees was killed, and three are being held prisoner by the rebels. U.S. and Colombian forces are still searching for them.
“That is exactly the kind of situation that I was concerned about,” says Democratic Representative Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, a critic of the private companies that help fight the drug war in Colombia. “There’s a great lack of transparency when you contract out, yet if something happens, we’re supposed to use our military to go in and rescue them and get involved in other conflicts.” Indeed, Northrop Grumman has refused to say what its employees were doing when the plane crashed, or even to answer questions about how many people it has in Colombia or what the company does there, citing the terms of its contract with the State Department.
As we’ll see, the question raised by the incident in Colombia is but one of many concerning the rising prominence of private military companies. “This is a huge and growing industry that is increasingly active in a number of conflict zones,” says Singer, who is completing a book on the subject. “The state is usually thought of as having a monopoly on the use of force. But it doesn’t anymore.”
Despite misgivings about PMCs in Congress and elsewhere, the Pentagon has had little choice but to embrace privatization as part of its ongoing effort to modernize and become more efficient. “Only those functions that must be performed by the Defense Department should be kept by the Defense Department,” an internal Defense Department study concluded shortly after Sept. 11, 2001. “Any function that can be provided by the private sector is not a core government function.” If that sounds like a broad mandate to privatize, well, it is. “There’s a recognition that we can’t be good at everything,” says Ken Krieg, a former International Paper executive and Pentagon veteran who is now a top advisor to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. “It’s an acceptance of what companies are already thinking in terms of core competencies. Do we need to have privates on KP duty slicing potatoes? Probably not. So I think this trend is just starting.”
While Big Business may play a more significant role in the next war than ever before, it’s hardly a stranger to the battlefield. Just as private companies aid high-tech communications today, contractors helped man telegraphs in the Civil War while other private firms hauled wagons and provided food. A century later DynCorp helped airlift troops to Korea and had some 3,000 employees stationed in Vietnam servicing Huey helicopters and other aircraft.
What’s different now is the scale and scope of the services the companies provide. In the late 1990s Halliburton’s KBR unit provided nearly all the food, water, laundry, mail, and heavy equipment to the roughly 20,000 U.S. troops stationed in the Balkans, according to a study by the General Accounting Office. It’s a massive job–since 1999, KBR has served 42 million meals and washed 3.6 million bags of laundry. Nor has it been cheap: The military has paid KBR $3 billion. (Halliburton’s CEO in the late 1990s was Vice President Dick Cheney, who had served as Defense Secretary in the first Bush administration.) When you figure that ten times as many U.S. troops are in the Middle East today as were in the Balkans in the late 1990s, you get a sense of how big a job KBR now has providing support at bases in Kuwait. “There are a lot of people to take care of,” says Butch Gatlin, a former Army engineer who is now KBR’s project manager in Kuwait. “As long as the Army needs us, we’ll be here.” Several hundred KBR employees are scattered over at least half a dozen bases in Kuwait.
As the military has downsized and privatized, the number of private contractors in the field has soared. Back in 1991, when American troops last faced down Saddam Hussein, the Army had 711,000 active-duty troops. Today it has 487,000–a 32% drop. Cuts in the number of Navy and Air Force personnel have been just as steep. (The Marine Corps has been more stable–semper fi–dropping only 10% in the past decade.) So no one should be surprised that private companies have picked up the slack. Singer of Brookings estimates that during the last Gulf war there was one contractor for every 50 to 100 soldiers. This time around the ratio is more like one for every ten. “Though we’ve relied on contractors forever, it’s unprecedented how much we depend on them right now,” says Paula Rebar, a senior Pentagon analyst who focuses on management issues. “Whether it’s good or bad, it’s the reality we have to deal with.” For the companies, it means having many more workers in what military people call “forward areas”–that is, close to the action. SAIC, a $6.1-billion-a-year employee-owned firm that specializes in engineering, software, and IT consulting, has 150 workers in the Middle East. At this stage of Desert Storm, it had just five in the region.
Unfortunately, military policy hasn’t caught up with the new reality. “It’s all unfolded so quickly that the Defense Department is playing catch-up,” says Rebar, ticking off some of the thorny questions that arise from having privately employed personnel on the battlefield: Can they carry arms? If employees of private companies run from their posts when attacked, are they considered deserters? If taken prisoner, are contractors considered POWs and covered by the Geneva Convention? The answers to those questions aren’t reassuring–because the Pentagon doesn’t yet have any. “Policy is still being drafted, and it’s still kind of mushy,” Rebar says. “It’s being studied.”
It’s probably too late to reverse the military’s need for private know-how. Although the Pentagon is reportedly considering new weapons that aren’t as dependent on contractors, many tech functions have already been outsourced. “We don’t have that organic capacity anymore, so we’re forced to go to war with contractors,” says Rebar. “It can put us at risk. And it places added burdens on the commander in the field. Not only does he have to worry about his soldiers, he has to provide protection for the contractors.”
The Reston, Va., headquarters of Dyncorp, the country’s premier private military company, is as bland as the corporate art on its walls. The only giveaway that there might be a martial connection is the black POW-MIA flag that stands alongside the Stars and Stripes in the reception area. While many of the company’s 23,000 employees are ex-soldiers, CEO Paul Lombardi is a soft-spoken veteran of the IT business and civilian positions in the Navy and Department of Energy. Because of DynCorp’s work in Colombia and Afghanistan, among other places, media accounts often portray it as the kind of shadowy company that might show up in an Oliver Stone film.
Yet unlike several of his counterparts at other firms, Lombardi seems eager to talk about DynCorp’s work. The bulk of the company’s $2.3 billion in sales last year came from much less sexy stuff than toting guns around Kabul or buzzing coca fields in the Andes–operating bombing ranges in California, maintaining military aircraft in Oklahoma, installing secure communications links for overseas troops. Although the federal government provides nearly all of DynCorp’s revenue, the company has a growing private-sector business as well. In 1994, for example, it installed a wireless network on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. “But you’re not going to write about that,” Lombardi tells FORTUNE, sounding almost weary from the media’s focus on the Karzai and Colombia deals. Still, it’s hard not to notice his company’s PMC-type work, which is handled mostly by its international division. In the past five years DynCorp International’s revenues have gone from a few million dollars to $700 million, or about 25% of total revenues.
DynCorp’s roots are in aviation–the firm started as California Eastern Airways in 1946–and its aircraft-maintenance business has received a big boost in recent years from a wave of outsourcing by the Air Force. Two and a half years ago DynCorp won a $280 million contract from the Air Force to service the government’s executive air fleet, including the Vice President’s plane and the President’s choppers. (Air Force One is still maintained by the military.) At Fort Rucker in Alabama, where DynCorp’s headcount has doubled to 3,000 in the past five years, DynCorp’s mechanics service the planes and store aircraft parts.
DynCorp’s impressive growth (total revenues have tripled since 1994) and rock-solid relationship with the Pentagon explain why Computer Sciences Corp. decided late last year to buy DynCorp for $950 million. The deal should close this month, and Lombardi says he plans to stay until the transition is complete, which could take up to a year. Looking ahead, Singer of Brookings predicts that CSC might spin off DynCorp’s more dangerous operations–like flying planes in Colombia and guarding imperiled world leaders–and focus on safe, predictable businesses like IT and aircraft maintenance. “You might not want your stock price to go down every time a plane crashes in Colombia or there’s an assassination attempt in Kabul,” he says. In 2000, DynCorp was embarrassed by a sex scandal in Bosnia, where seven of its employees allegedly owned prostitutes, including one as young as 12. The episode raised questions about the company’s management of its overseas operations. Lombardi responds that all the employees linked to the prostitution ring were immediately fired and that the company did nothing wrong.
Meanwhile, back in the U.S., PMCs are broadening their portfolio. Companies like DynCorp and MPRI are offering services ranging from teaching leadership to formulating military doctrine. Guess who helped write the manual on dealing with contractors? A contractor–MPRI. That company, as well as RCI, a private firm in Vienna, Va., is also moving aggressively into the recruiting market, sharing a new $171 million contract to operate 60 stations in ten states. Lt. Col. Diane Potts of the Army’s recruiting command says the goal of this pilot program isn’t to save money–it’s to free up troops for more vital needs. So far, 360 soldiers have been returned to the field.
With a ready pool of young retirees (soldiers can retire with full benefits while still in their 40s) and a military desperate to keep officers in the field, combat simulations, classes, and live-action war games are also being run by corporations like DynCorp, MPRI, and Cubic. The Pentagon is paying private companies as much as $4 billion a year for training, according to Singer, and the companies provide more than laser-signal-equipped guns and smoke bombs. Along with preparing after-action reports and adjudicating “kills,” Cubic brings in Bosnian refugees from around the U.S. to recreate their experiences at the Army war games at Fort Polk. It’s a big production–in January more than 600 Cubic employees were needed to create an exercise for 6,500 troops.
And now the military training industry is expanding overseas. MPRI advised the Croatian army shortly before it launched a pivotal attack against Serb forces in Bosnia in 1995 and more recently advised the Colombian Defense Ministry. Cubic has won contracts from the Pentagon and the State Department to train the armies of new NATO members like Romania, Hungary, and the Czech Republic in NATO doctrine. That work has given the San Diego company entree to winning direct business from these governments in the future. “We may not be a household name in America,” says Gerald Dinkel, who runs Cubic’s defense unit, “but we’re getting to be pretty well known in Eastern Europe.” DynCorp helped train the Haitian police and is now advising members of the new Afghan police.
All of which brings us to Iraq. We wouldn’t be so crass as to describe that crisis as a business opportunity–too many lives are on the line. But the fact is that if America goes to war, private companies are going to be deeply involved both in supporting the troops during the fighting and in whatever peacekeeping and reconstruction efforts follow. Just getting water into the heart of the Iraqi desert, let alone food and other supplies, is a monumental challenge. And it’s clear from Halliburton’s experience with much smaller forces in Kosovo and Bosnia that taking care of several hundred thousand soldiers in Iraq for a year or more won’t be cheap either. Even after the bulk of U.S. forces leave, it’s likely that companies like MPRI and DynCorp will be busy training whatever military and police forces arise in a post-Saddam Iraq. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. If war breaks out, employees of private military companies will be tested right next to the soldiers they serve. And unlike the war games at Louisiana’s Fort Polk, this time the bullets and bombs will be real.

Mercenaries have a long, bloody history of annihilating humans for cold hard cash. Huge, hairy Gauls stocked the Roman phalanxes; Hessians were hired by the British to perform their filthy colonial chores; 1960s vipers like “Mad” Mike Hoare and Bob Denard pillaged the Congo and Indian Ocean archipelagos. Mercs’ well-earned reputation as sadistic slaughterers-for-hire has been shattered in the last eight years, though, by three organizations that coolly operate with impeccable behavior.
For example:
Executive Outcomes (EO) of South Africa, though it has now closed shop, serves as today’s prototype for civilized mercenary activity. This Pretoria-based outfit boasted a multiracial force (70 percent black) of between 500 and 2,000 soldiers, primarily battle-toughened veterans from apartheid-era special forces. The commando-killers were paid the equivalent of between U.S. $2,700 per month for basic infantry mayhem and $13,000 per month for bomber pilots. Life insurance was duly included.
EO’s first spectacular assignment arrived in March 1993, when it was commissioned by the government of Angola to recapture a oil refinery that UNITA guerrillas had seized. With Ramboesque efficiency, 50 EO officers trained and led 600 Angolan troops in a victorious assault in which only three soldiers were wounded. The impressed Angolans next hired EO to protect its diamond mines: Continued success eventually earned the mercs more than $100 million.
Sierra Leone was EO’s next destination — in 1995. With only 170 men and six aircraft, the foreign pros managed to miraculously quell a civil war. The subsequent calm enabled the population to hold the first democratic elections in 28 years. Only two mercs were killed, and EO picked up another check for $35 million — a small bill for national peace.
Executive Outcomes also supplied soldiers to Uganda, Mozambique, and Kenya, to aid regimes that were struggling against internal chaos. International admiration for its battle prowess ensued, with a grudging reappraisal of mercenary potential. “I think there’s a place for these companies,” suggested Canadian Brigadier General Ian Douglas to United Nations officials. “You have to stop violence before you can start negotiations. Executive Outcomes did that in nine days (in Sierra Leone). They literally stopped the war.”
On January 1, 1999, EO abruptly closed its Pretoria business, prompted perhaps by recent South African “no-merc” legislation that prohibits the bartering of armed conflict for personal profit. Today, EO’s staff and expertise has been transferred to its once-subsidiary operations: LifeGuard in Sierra Leone and Saracen in Angola.
There’s more if anyone is interested, but I don’t want to siphon b’s bandwidth.
Are we feeling safe yet?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 1 2007 7:32 utc | 30

CNBC “Big Brother, Big Business” Recorded Nov 1, 2006

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 1 2007 9:17 utc | 32

whatever benefits in moral-superiority gainable by “saving” Darfur pale by far in realistic-effect compared to China’s gains from the varied loan & credit programs to Chinese companies engaged in Africa.
USA could be doing the same, and providing loans & credits to USA companies to enhance Africa investment for export to China & Asia. Because thats where the new markets & the new greenbacks are.
But no. Thats just not enough of a return on the moral superiority index.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Jun 1 2007 9:49 utc | 34

jcairo @29 – yes. yes. yes. probably would entail (at a minimum) something like having their license immediately revoked & the imposition of heavy punitive fines & jail time. yes.
even amy goodman on democracynow thursday kept repeating that chavez shut down RCTV, which is the lie the opposition wants people to believe. RCTV can still broadcast on cable & satellite, just not on the publicly-owned spectrum. the opposition is attempting to use this incident to oust chavez again, manipulating the facts to wage a pr battle against the chavez govt, hoping that the protests will provoke the police into using excessive force.
b @31 – thanks for that one. it’s amazing/disgusting to watch this campaign. and it’s disheartening how many well-intentioned people get used & manipulated by these bastards.

Posted by: b real | Jun 1 2007 14:53 utc | 36

@Hannah K O’Luthon #35
The link to the Debkafile piece seems to be right up in sinc with the campaign that we have seen grace the front pages of the NYT this week… there is a big propaganda effort afoot to justify some kind of bigger military intervention, whether due to “seepage” of terrorists out of Iraq or “stirring up” of Palestinians beyond Palestine into Lebanon… all of these things are “planted” efforts it would appear… to justify the large amount of military aid planned for the Lebanese Army, as well as installing the desired Air base in place of Nahr el-bared, but all this is perhaps also in preparation for something bigger … something involving Iran? Syria? August was the month I believe that Bush said would be “violent” or “difficult” or whatever word he used… Did anyone else catch that? We are definitely seeing the prelude getting well underway these days.

Posted by: Bea | Jun 1 2007 15:19 utc | 38

What’s Mossad’s slogan again?
The Israeli secret service and radical Palestinians may have engineered the hijacking of an Air France plane that flew to Entebbe in Uganda, according to a claim in newly released government documents.
This extraordinary interpretation on the Entebbe raid was cited by a British diplomat, DH Colvin of the Paris embassy, in June 30 1976 as the world was transfixed by the hostage crisis in Entebbe, which features in the recent film The Last King of Scotland.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jun 1 2007 15:59 utc | 40

Beautiful morphing video: Women In Art

Posted by: b | Jun 1 2007 17:05 utc | 42

With regards to Monolycus’s #26 post, seems like all this is nothing new…
How the CIA used a fake science fiction film to sneak six Americans out of revolutionary Iran.
Does it seem like– to anyone else besides moi,– that we are living in a Hunter S. Thompson novel?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 1 2007 20:13 utc | 44

Beautiful b! (#42) I love the way the eyes act as a fulcrum.
Thank you.

Posted by: beq | Jun 1 2007 21:24 utc | 46

uncle
whatever novel it is, it is a badly written one

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 1 2007 22:50 utc | 48

reuters: U.S. Navy strike reported on Qaeda suspect in Somalia

Sat Jun 2, 2007 3:26AM BST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. military launched a strike against a suspected al Qaeda target in northern Somalia on Friday, CNN reported.
A U.S. Navy destroyer targeted the suspect from off the coast of the African nation, the cable news network said, citing unidentified sources.
There was no information about the results of the attack, it said.
The target was a suspect in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 240 people, CNN said.
The destroyer’s guns appeared to be targeting a single person, perhaps moving in a convoy, according to the report.
A Pentagon spokesman would not comment on the details of the CNN report.

lauched a strike against a single individual? maybe traveling in a convoy. and they don’t get called terrorists for it!

Posted by: b real | Jun 2 2007 3:41 utc | 50

Dunno if we’re living in Hunter Thompson world, or the stomach of Alice in Wonderland, Uncle.
I just posted 2 interesting tidbits on Words Not Action thread, which prob. should have been here, but they seemed more a riff off the Crimes, Money & Power post, than Somalia.

Posted by: jj | Jun 2 2007 4:12 utc | 52

meanwhile, in the niger delta
Nigeria: Day 3 Protest – Shell Shuts 150,000 BPD of Production

Following the Bomu protest that has gone on for three days, Shell has been ramping production, cutting down on 150,000 barrels per day of output.
Villagers from K-Dere have since Tuesday, forcefully occupied the pipeline hub at Bomu, which feeds the Bonny shipping terminal destroying the environment by opening some pressure indicator valves.
According to Teddy Penedibebari, who led the protesters, “the lines are still shut. They are not flowing. We locked up the place and slept here last night.”
He said the protesters have decided not to leave the premises till Shell obliges them their request, which is allocating them contract to supply the company with goods and services.
Report revealed that the same protesters, from the Ogoni area, attacked the same pipeline hub on May 10, and occupied it for six days, forcing a 170,000 bpd closure.
Penedibebari said they demanded contracts worth N50 million, but a local source said the protesters yesterday modified their demand, calling for N200 million in cash. Reacting to the incident, a Shell spokesman said it was “ramping up production” and confirmed that output was still down by 150,000 bpd yesterday.
The company, which hopes that the situation changes very soon, said it had suspended production in Ogoni 14 years ago, because of popular protests, but the area is still criss-crossed by pipelines and many residents are aggrieved about oil spills and what they see as a history of neglect.
Shell had only just resumed normal production levels at its 400,000 bpd Bonny terminal before the villagers attack on Tuesday. Exports remain under a force majeure.
The latest disruption brings the total amount of output shut in in Nigeria to 845,000 bpd, or one-third of capacity.
Meanwhile, the protesters invaded the facility of Trans-Niger pipeline on that same day, which feeds the Bonny crude export terminal, prompting partial shutdown of the company three days ago.

Shell Halts Exports of 150,000 bpd Due to Nigerian Unrest

Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC has suspended the export of 150,000 barrels per day of crude oil because of community unrest in southern Nigeria, a company spokesman said.
“We had to halt production from the Bomu manifold until we are able to resolve our problems with the community,” Precious Okolobo told AFP.
He said villagers from K-Dere in the restive Ogoniland had stormed the
facility that feeds the Bonny export terminal, disrupting supply of crude.
It was the second seizure in two weeks. Shell reported on May 15 that protesters occupied the same facility, causing a daily output loss of 170,000 barrels, out of which the company directly accounted for 137,000.
…
Shell, Nigeria’s largest oil operator, accounts for around half of the country’s daily output of 2.6 million barrels, but unrest in the oil-producing south has cut production by 25 percent.

Our conditions for peace in the Niger-Delta, by MEND leader

JOMO Gbomo is the name with which he is known in the world of militants in the Niger-Delta and he is one of the leaders of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta. But only very few persons have seen him face-to-face. He spits fire in the many statements he had issued on behalf of the MEND. It was typical Gbomo in this online interview, Wednesday night, with this paper.
Excerpts.
…
In all honesty, don’t you think that the region would be the loser in terms of investment by investors if the militants do not drop their arms?
Already, companies are moving away from the Niger-Delta region, the same companies that would provide the much sought-after employment for the youths…
The same companies moving out of the Delta have been there for nearly 50 years and what have we got from their presence? Pollution and menial jobs for the people of the Delta. They will not be missed. As long as there is oil, I assure you, they will return at our terms, whenever there is peace in the Delta, when we get justice. The temporary exit of these dubious oil companies is a very small price to pay for freedom.
What do you think the new government should do for the MEND to stop hostage taking and the bombings in the Niger-Delta?
Ultimately, the Nigerian state must do what is right. As we have maintained, the terms presented to us in the pre-independence constitution were the basis upon which we consented to being a part of Nigeria. These terms must be restored, otherwise we should be permitted to peacefully exit Nigeria. It is only if both of these options are refused, that we are left with no choice but to fight to enforce our rights within Nigeria or our exit.

Navy to Lead Gulf of Guinea Maritime Security Initiative

WASHINGTON, May 31, 2007 – This fall, a U.S. Navy ship will embark on a six-month deployment to the Gulf of Guinea region, part of a multinational maritime security and safety initiative that partners with several west- and central-African nations, a senior U.S. Navy officer said here today.
The yet-to-be designated amphibious ship will carry 200 to 300 sailors and U.S. Coast Guard members who will man training teams that will work with eleven Gulf of Guinea nations, helping them to build their maritime security capabilities, Navy Adm. Henry G. Ulrich III, commander of U.S. Naval Forces, Europe — based in Naples, Italy — told reporters today at a news conference held at Fort Lesley J. McNair here.

U.S. Naval Forces Europe Prepares For AFRICOM Stand Up

WASHINGTON, June 1, 2007 – U.S. Naval Forces Europe, an organization responsible for naval operations in much of Africa, is preparing to work with the new U.S. Africa Command, which is slated to stand up sometime in October, the naval forces’ commander said here yesterday.
…
A U.S. Navy ship will embark on a six-month deployment to the Gulf of Guinea region this fall, part of a multinational maritime security and safety training initiative that partners with several west- and central-African countries. Ulrich said his command did the planning for the Gulf of Guinea initiative. That mission, he said, falls within “the spirit of AFRICOM and the initial operating capacity of AFRICOM.”
…
The Gulf of Guinea mission dovetails with U.S. Africa Command’s mandate, Ulrich said.
“If you look at the direction that the Africa Command has been given and the purpose of standing up the AFRICOM, you’ll see that (the Gulf of Guinea initiative) is closely aligned,” the admiral said.

Posted by: b real | Jun 2 2007 4:32 utc | 54

Good piece on the Cheney/Rice fight with regard to Iran: Rice Plays Down Hawkish Talk About Iran

“The president of the United States has made it clear that we are on a course that is a diplomatic course,” Ms. Rice said here. “That policy is supported by all of the members of the cabinet, and by the vice president of the United States.”
Ms. Rice’s assurance came as senior officials at the State Department were expressing fury over reports that members of Vice President Dick Cheney’s staff have told others that Mr. Cheney believes the diplomatic track with Iran is pointless, and is looking for ways to persuade Mr. Bush to confront Iran militarily.
…
The reports about hawkish statements by members of Mr. Cheney’s staff first surfaced last week in The Washington Note, an influential blog put out by Steve Clemons of the left-leaning New America Foundation. The reports have alarmed European diplomats, some of whom fear that the struggle over Iran’s nuclear program may evolve into a decision by the Bush administration to resort to force against Iran.
In interviews, people who have spoken with Mr. Cheney’s staff have confirmed the broad outlines of the reports, and said that some of the hawkish statements to outsiders had been made by David Wurmser, a former Pentagon official who is now the principal deputy assistant to Mr. Cheney for national security affairs. The accounts were provided by people who expressed alarm about the statements, but refused to be quoted by name.
…
During an interview with BBC Radio broadcast Friday, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he did not want to see another war like the one still raging in Iraq four years after the American-led invasion there.
“You do not want to give additional argument to new crazies who say, ‘Let’s go and bomb Iran,’ ” Dr. ElBaradei said. “I wake up every morning and see 100 Iraqis, innocent civilians, are dying.”
…
several Western European officials echoed his concern, and said privately that they were worried that Mr. Cheney’s “red line” — the point at which he believed Iran was on the brink of acquiring a nuclear weapon and a military strike was necessary — may be coming soon. “We fully believe that Foggy Bottom is committed to the diplomatic track,” one European official said Wednesday, referring the State Department. “But there’s some concern about the vice president’s office.”
…

Posted by: b | Jun 2 2007 8:46 utc | 56

Neecons tried to start a war with China: Defense Officials Tried to Reverse China Policy, Says Powell Aide

While Bush publicly continued the one-China policy of his five White House predecessors, Wilkerson said, the Pentagon “neocons” took a different tack, quietly encouraging Taiwan’s pro-independence president, Chen Shui-bian.
“The Defense Department, with Feith, Cambone, Wolfowitz [and] Rumsfeld, was dispatching a person to Taiwan every week, essentially to tell the Taiwanese that the alliance was back on,” Wilkerson said, referring to pre-1970s military and diplomatic relations, “essentially to tell Chen Shui-bian, whose entire power in Taiwan rested on the independence movement, that independence was a good thing.”
Wilkerson said Powell would then dispatch his own envoy “right behind that guy, every time they sent somebody, to disabuse the entire Taiwanese national security apparatus of what they’d been told by the Defense Department.”
…
“They are dangerous men who will lie about almost anyone or anything,” Wilkerson angrily responded by e-mail, singling out Feith, DiRita, Cheney and Rumsfeld for scorn.
He called back-stage encouragement of the Taiwanese “even more serious” than the alleged manipulation of Iraq intelligence, because it could provoke China to attack the island, triggering a U.S. response and the world’s first nuclear shooting war.
The independence issue, agrees China experts Richard Bush and Michael O’Hanlon, is Beijing’s third rail—touch it and you die.

Posted by: b | Jun 2 2007 9:38 utc | 58

@vbo – Chavez is not closing any TV station. The license of one station that helped to run a coup against him ran out and wasn’t renewed. In any other country, such a station would have been closed years ago.
Chavez also asked the independent media commission to look into a program on another TV station that pictured him next to Bin Laden. Is that unfair?
Most media in Venezuela, press and TV, are still firm in the hand of the big media companies opposed to Chavez.

Posted by: b | Jun 2 2007 15:33 utc | 60

about starting a war with china
literally, of course not. nor was that implied.
Beyond that, the dream was always for labor to be as fluid as capital, right?
And China and the US are in economic cahoots – the US sells its bonds or treasury notes or whatever and the Chinks produce irons, fans, tvs, radios, soon (..) cars; underwear, wedding dresses, toys, candy and favors, shoes, furniture, optical instruments, chemical products, plastics; toothpaste, make up, etc.: food: spicy chicken drum sticks, and much more –
‘slave’ labor, the stuff is sent right to the US, sold at Wallmart, etc. I mean by now, without the Chinese, Americans would be eating beets, turnips, cabbage, ground maize, -grits?- and scratching their calendars and love notes on scrap paper found in the litter bin of the corps who just toss everything.
Even out of work, producing nothing, they can buy machines, pickles, frothy party dresses, shaky BBQs, fake plants, garish aprons, plastic gnomes, lovely party dishes, chairs, lace, glass end tables, and semi-sexy repros of great works of art. (In Europe also.)
There is no way the US establishment will ever take action against China. The jockeying for energy resources is wink wink. The neo cons judge that China is not baad, as China is not anti-israel, its interests are purely commercial, the energy China uses to produce plastic shoes (etc.) is big benefit for the US, as US citizens can then pay ‘very little’ for shoes and need not really have ‘jobs’ and can go along grumbling about having no jobs.
I am, hah, a little economically naive.

Posted by: Noirette | Jun 2 2007 17:52 utc | 62

european trade deficit with china is around a $100b last year, compared to the us/china gap which is around $250b last year. Euro trade deficit w/ russia is also ballooning.
again, not just an american problem. the imbalances are global.

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 2 2007 20:07 utc | 64

even hotter in rostock

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 2 2007 20:57 utc | 66

singing of the dark times in the dark times

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 2 2007 22:20 utc | 68

@b
Quote:
Chavez is not closing any TV station. The license of one station that helped to run a coup against him ran out and wasn’t renewed. In any other country, such a station would have been closed years ago.
—
vbo: How exactly did they help to “run a coup”? Sorry but I am not very well informed. If so who did it and why that person/s are not in jail then?
Quote:
Chavez also asked the independent media commission to look into a program on another TV station that pictured him next to Bin Laden. Is that unfair?
—
vbo: Well, depend how exactly that happened…I don’t mind seeing Bush’s picture next to monkey that looks much more intelligent then him. Chavez can sue them through normal courts if he wants, like any other citizen.
Quote:
Most media in Venezuela, press and TV, are still firm in the hand of the big media companies opposed to Chavez.
—
vbo: Maybe, I don’t know but that was not said here on TV. Just opposite. That’s exactly why I don’t like all media to be controlled by small group of people who can fail to inform public properly and get away with it.

Posted by: vbo | Jun 3 2007 2:55 utc | 70

#69 – Nice.
Thank you r’giap.

Posted by: beq | Jun 3 2007 3:14 utc | 72

vbo- as others have recommended before, set aside 75 minutes of your time & watch the revolution will not be televised, an iris documentary that was being filmed when the short coup took place. you’ll see how RCTV was involved. and it’s a riveting film unlike anything you’ve likely seen.
i haven’t heard about an image of chavez juxtaposed w/ UBL, but cnn international used a background triptych featuring chavez & an dead (alleged) al qa’idah baddie. there has been a series of imagery associating chavez w/ death imagery — from cnn also showing a mexican funeral procession in a story about the RCTV protests to globovision showing footage of pope jp2 getting shot to a tune saying “have faith, for this doesn’t end here … everything has its end. people, go look for the end” — that tv stations have played to help manipulate viewers. video of these is here.
as a general rule of thumb, the opposite of what the western media reports on chavez is closer to the truth.
gregory wilpert of venezuela analysis has a good writeup
RCTV and Freedom of Speech in Venezuela

As far as world public opinion is concerned, as reflected in the international media, the pronouncements of freedom of expression groups, and of miscellaneous governments, Venezuela has finally taken the ultimate step to prove its opposition right: that Venezuela is heading towards a dictatorship. Judging by these pronouncements, freedom of speech is becoming ever more restricted in Venezuela as a result of the non-renewal of the broadcast license of the oppositional TV network RCTV. With RCTV going off the air at midnight of May 27th, the country’s most powerful opposition voice has supposedly been silenced.
It is generally taken for granted that any silencing of opposition voices is anti-freedom of speech. But is an opposition voice really being silenced? Is this the correct metaphor? Is the director of RCTV, Marcel Granier, actually being silenced? No, a better metaphor is that the megaphone that Granier (and others) used for the exercise of his free speech is being returned to its actual owners – a megaphone that he had borrowed, but never owned. Not only that, he is still allowed to use a smaller megaphone (cable & satellite).
In other words, the radio frequency that RCTV used for over half a century is being returned to its original owners—the Venezuelan people—under the management of its democratically elected leadership. Still, while the decision about how to use the airwaves might be the prerogative of the government (as many critics concede), critics of the move have a point when they complain that the freedom to use the airwaves cannot be solely a matter of majority rule. After all, shouldn’t minorities (in this case a mostly relatively wealthy minority) also have access to the megaphone, so it may use it to convince the majority of its point-of-view? At least, progressives who defend the rights of traditionally disenfranchised minorities would argue that minorities should always have access to the media.[1] Even though Marcel Granier and his friends cannot be considered to be a disenfranchised minority, surely this minority deserves to be heard in the media, at least a little bit, in the name of pluralism.
Chavez supporters concede the validity of this argument in that they counter by pointing out that the opposition still has plenty of broadcast frequencies to present its point-of-view. Their argument for the justness of the decision to let RCTV’s license expire for good is that, first, the opposition still has plenty of other media outlets to broadcast its views, second, RCTV is a subversive and law-breaking broadcaster (because it participated in the coup and oil industry shutdown, among other things), and third, it needs to make way for a new public service television channel that is mandated by the constitution. Let us briefly examine each of these arguments, starting with Venezuela’s media landscape.

Posted by: b real | Jun 3 2007 5:42 utc | 74

@VBO – a Guardian comment by a member of the Committee to Protect Journalists: Chávez TV

while Chávez never hesitates to attack members of the press by name, and his administration harasses them with defamation suits which are never consummated, unlike Castro’s Cuba where dissent is often the shortest route to prison, nobody is put in prison and dissent seems as omnipresent as the arapas Venezuelans seem to consume with breakfast, lunch and dinner. And besides, where is it written that broadcasting licenses – even 20 year concessions like the one RCTV enjoyed and perhaps abused – should be automatically renewed?
The CPJ delegation ended up condemning the lack of transparency and due process in the RCTV case, although I still find it difficult to say whether and when the non-renewal of a license become censorship. In the US, Fox news had no trouble reporting that Chávez “shut down” the station, and the only question they raised, under the banner of “Thousands marching for free speech in Venezuela,” was to ask a former assistant secretary of state for Latin America under Ronald Reagan: “Will the poor people revolt and throw him out?” The last time I looked, Chávez was re-elected by a clear majority of more than 60%, most of them poor.

By a Labour MP http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2087696,00.html

Washington’s outriders characterise the decision as an affront to freedom of speech, yet the facts speak in louder tones. Over 80% of Venezuelan television and radio outlets are privately owned; this excludes a number of cable and satellite television networks that are widely available. Of this 80%, significant sections are owned by corporate groups. According to a recent New York Times editorial, this has led to a situation in which “even the best news outlets tend to be openly ideological…so the owners’ views can permeate reporting”.
Almost all Venezuelan newspapers remain in private hands. The press is free to report, and express opinions, without government interference. Most do so with considerable brio on a daily basis. No media outlet has encountered licensing problems for the expression of political views. No journalist has been imprisoned or punished for report or comment.
In RCTV’s case, the broadcaster failed to meet basic public-interest standards. The criterion for this assessment is similar to that used by the US Federal Communications Commission. RCTV will be free to broadcast via cable and satellite, which are available across the country.
In the UK, if Channel 4 aided an attempted coup against the government that resulted in civil unrest and even death, would anyone be supporting the renewal of its licence? RCTV has lost its licence because its wealthy owners slanted news coverage to provide support to the April 2002 coup against Chávez and the elected government. This will not be news to those who gathered in parliament last week to view John Pilger’s excellent documentary The War on Democracy, which shows footage of RCTV involvement.
As the coup failed and Venezuelans questioned Chávez’s “resignation”, RCTV prohibited correspondents from airing these developments.

Posted by: b | Jun 3 2007 6:43 utc | 76

My search for the West Bank’s ‘invisible’ town

Somewhere on the road north, however, I completely lost the plot. I turned to my new UN map of the West Bank, which meticulously traced even the roughest of Palestinian roads and marked every boundary, including the 1967 old Green Line, separating Israel from the West Bank. The UN map also marked the new Israeli barrier, but none of this was any help because it showed not a single West Bank settler road, so it was impossible to see how or where the two networks might intersect. I tried holding the UN map next to an Israeli map, but the two would not join.
Suddenly I realised that I didn’t even know if I was in the West Bank or Israel proper. A mile or so away I had seen a stretch of the Israeli barrier, here an electric fence with trenches, running through a fertile valley. But I knew that the fence did not follow the old 1967 Green Line but encroached far into the West Bank. So was I in some kind of eerie no man’s land in between the new fence and the Green Line?
So I tried to get into Jenin another way. An Israeli army spokesman in Jerusalem had spoken of another checkpoint at a place called Rehan, but that too seemed to be unmarked on any map. Reached by phone, the same spokesman now offered to find out where this checkpoint was but called back to say that even army HQ did not have a clue. I turned round and headed southeast towards where I hoped Jenin might be. Another checkpoint suddenly loomed ahead of me.
‘Jenin?’ asked an Israeli soldier. It was somewhere ‘over there’, he thought, though he seemed unsure. But taking in a car could be a problem. I knew it was impossible to drive into Gaza nowadays, but then, already separated from the West Bank by Israel proper, it is now severed from the outside world.
…
I then set off to the Kabatia road where Ashraf Haneishe, a Jenin taxi driver, was recently shot dead by Israeli soldiers disguised as Arabs. Mohammed Nazzal, 42, owner of a nearby garage and Ashraf’s cousin, said he had heard shots and ran out to see Ashraf being dragged from his taxi and pumped with bullets in the knees, as his two passengers watched in shock. Then Ashraf was dragged to cypress trees by the road where, still alive, he was shot again and killed.
Mohammed picked up his mobile phone, flicked opened the screen and thrust it in front of me. I found myself peering at a video of Ashraf’s bloodstained body lolling around in a moving car as he was rushed to Jenin hospital.
The Israelis later said Ashraf was a ‘terrorist’ in the al-Aqsa Brigades but Mohammed said al-Aqsa claims these people after the event ‘for the propaganda’. Mohammed let Ashraf drive his young family around, which he would not have done if his cousin was ‘wanted’. In any event, why not arrest him after blasting his knees? Instead the 25-year-old was finished off in a ditch. ‘But these killings are normal,’ said Mohammed.

Posted by: b | Jun 3 2007 9:10 utc | 78

OK. I Googled a little bit and here it is. Just first few :
1. Bloomberg – June 1 (Bloomberg) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s shutdown of the country’s most-watched television network has set off growing condemnation in Latin America and may derail his drive to become the region’s leader.
Brazilian senators today debated a motion to “condemn” Chavez after he called lawmakers there “parrots” of the U.S. for criticizing his decision to close the broadcaster. Chavez last month branded Chile’s legislature “a bunch of fascists” after the body passed a resolution objecting to his plans…
Chavez, in speeches before the shutdown, said the station lost its license because it backed an attempted coup against him in 2002 and broadcast violence-and-sex-laced programs. The station denies participating in the coup.
…Earlier this week, the government accused Globovision of seeking to incite Chavez’s murder by showing images of the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in 1981 while playing Ruben Blades’ song `This Doesn’t End Here.’
2. link
“Freedom of speech is a right, [as is] the right to be informed,” he said, accusing Chavez of seeking to eliminate all but state-run media that toe the government’s line.
…”[Chavez’s] regime is always looking to accuse those who dissent against him,” she said, arguing that many journalists were prevented from covering the turmoil during the 2002 coup because of attacks by pro-government supporters.
3. link
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has threatened to take action against another private television station if it incites violence and promotes student demonstrations against his government.
The warning came Tuesday as thousands of students were protesting for the second consecutive day in the capital Caracas over the removal on Sunday of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) from terrestrial broadcasting.
Venezuela’s oldest and most popular television station RCTV was shut down at midnight Sunday and replaced by a new government-controlled channel.
And so on…
I haven’t seen any PROOF that station was involved in coupe…sorry
And having this in mind:
link
The Venezuelan parliament has granted a series of special powers to President Hugo Chavez which will allow him to rule by decree for the next 18 months.
Since opposition parties boycotted the 2005 elections, the assembly has been made up completely of Chavez supporters.
It passed the controversial new law unanimously at a specially convened session in the main square in the capital, Caracas.
…This would include nationalisation of strategic parts of the economy, such as electricity and telecommunications, as well as greater state control over the oil and gas sectors.
—————–
No , no , no…I don’t like Chavez…do not ask me why! I have lived through “socialism with human face” …most of you did not! Nationalization, confiscation …those things shouldn’t be done by decree…NO WAY! NEVER AND NOWHERE AGAIN, thank you very much!
And NO satellite and cable is NOT the same as being on a state frequency. That is a good way to limit audience just to the rich and middle class. Opposition DESERVES and HAVE TO HAVE same chance to broadcast to wide audience, by law.
C’mon people , you shouldn’t be so biased and blind just because you are leftists. There are other more just ways to “bit” rightists…this is not one of them.

Posted by: vbo | Jun 3 2007 14:28 utc | 80

I guess I would have to take the side of vbo in this debate. I am fully aware that RCTV is run by rightwing elites and was complicit in the coup against Chavez. I believe that the station would still like nothing more than the return of rich privileged rule of Venezuela. I am probably against everything the station is for and I watched with a small degree of amusement the piece that either BBC or CNN did on the student protests against the cancellation of RCTV’s license. It was very misleading and the students involved were the Venezuelan equivalent of US college republicans.
However, if Chavez is popular there is no need to stifle the opposition. The people who support him can make up their own minds and should be allowed to do so. His actions are no different than any other rightwing dictator who shuts down opposition media. This action can be excused by his supporters because of a tit for tat or get-even mentality but it looks bad and gives RCTV more importance than it deserves or could have without this supposed attack.
this is a bad move and hopefully he will reverse himself.

Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 3 2007 15:31 utc | 82

the documentary ‘ the revolution will not be televised’ show the facts without any ambiguity

Posted by: r’giap | Jun 3 2007 15:53 utc | 84

The Oil Drum: Wind power: some lessons from 2006, posted by Jerome A Paris, June 3rd, 2007

Posted by: Rick | Jun 3 2007 16:45 utc | 86

Interesting article in WaPo today about the evolving lethality of resistance in Iraq.

“It is very clear that the number of attacks against U.S. forces is up” and that they have grown more effective in Baghdad, especially in recent weeks, said Maj. Gen. James E. Simmons, deputy commander for operations in Iraq. At the same time, he said, attacks on Iraqi security forces have declined slightly, citing figures that compare the period of mid-February to mid-May to the preceding three months. “The attacks are being directed at us and not against other people,” he said.
[…]
The intensity of combat and the greater lethality of attacks on U.S. troops is underscored by the lower ratio of wounded to killed for May, which fell to about 4.8 to 1 — compared with an average of 8 to 1 in the Iraq conflict, according Pentagon data. “The closer you get to a stand-up fight, the closer you’re going to get to that 3-to-1 ratio” that typified 2oth-century U.S. warfare, said John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, a defense information Web site.
[…]
U.S. deaths have risen sharply in some of Baghdad’s outlying regions, such as Diyala province, where Sunni and Shiite groups have escalated sectarian violence and fought back hard against American forces moving into their safe havens. “Extremists on both sides of this thing are trying to make a statement by attacking U.S. troops,” Simmons said.
[…]
But after lying low to a degree and watching U.S. tactics, fighters are now responding and retaliating. “In February, all sides — including al-Qaeda in Iraq, Jaish al-Mahdi — stepped back to take the measure of the surge, and by late April and May, they stepped forward again and are aggressively testing the resolve of U.S. forces,” said Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at Queen Mary College University of London, using the Arabic name of the Shiite Mahdi Army.

I can’t help wondering if that a significant part of the up tick in violent response to the surge, is in fact, the beginnings of joint Mahdi/(nonAQ)Sunni resistance operations. That the long ago political speculations of such an alliance may be taking shape by the fighters on the ground — in advance of, or instead of, a major political announcement. After the decider’s big Korea statement, the handwriting on the wall about the long range U.S. plans can’t be lost on anyone, least of all those most against occupation.

Posted by: anna missed | Jun 3 2007 20:52 utc | 88

me, sorry

Posted by: annie | Jun 3 2007 21:59 utc | 90

The corporate takeover of U.S. Intelligence

June 1, 2007 | More than five years into the global “war on terror,” spying has become one of the fastest-growing private industries in the United States. The federal government relies more than ever on outsourcing for some of its most sensitive work, though it has kept details about its use of private contractors a closely guarded secret. Intelligence experts, and even the government itself, have warned of a critical lack of oversight for the booming intelligence business.
On May 14, at an industry conference in Colorado sponsored by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the U.S. government revealed for the first time how much of its classified intelligence budget is spent on private contracts: a whopping 70 percent. Based on this year’s estimated budget of at least $48 billion, that would come to at least $34 billion in contracts. The figure was disclosed by Terri Everett, a senior procurement executive in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the agency established by Congress in 2004 to oversee the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence infrastructure. A copy of Everett’s unclassified PowerPoint slide presentation, titled “Procuring the Future” and dated May 25, was obtained by Salon. (It has since become available on the DIA’s Web site.) “We can’t spy … If we can’t buy!” one of the slides proclaims, underscoring the enormous dependence of U.S. intelligence agencies on private sector contracts.
The DNI figures show that the aggregate number of private contracts awarded by intelligence agencies rose by about 38 percent from the mid-1990s to 2005. But the surge in outsourcing has been far more dramatic measured in dollars: Over the same period of time, the total value of intelligence contracts more than doubled, from about $18 billion in 1995 to about $42 billion in 2005.
“Those numbers are startling,” said Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists and an expert on the U.S. intelligence budget. “They represent a transformation of the Cold War intelligence bureaucracy into something new and different that is literally dominated by contractor interests.”
Because of the cloak of secrecy thrown over the intelligence budgets, there is no way for the American public, or even much of Congress, to know how those contractors are getting the money, what they are doing with it, or how effectively they are using it. The explosion in outsourcing has taken place against a backdrop of intelligence failures for which the Bush administration has been hammered by critics, from Saddam Hussein’s fictional weapons of mass destruction to abusive interrogations that have involved employees of private contractors operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Aftergood and other experts also warn that the lack of transparency creates conditions ripe for corruption.

Posted by: Bea | Jun 3 2007 23:20 utc | 92

Re Venezuela, what gets me most is how most of the high profile champions of so called free speech, the press, etc. never show the same level of interest in instances of real shutdowns and clamp downs.
MEDIA-LATIN AMERICA:
Easy to See the Speck in the Other’s Eye

People have been collectively tearing their hair out all over Latin America because of the Venezuelan government’s decision not to renew the broadcasting licence of that country’s most popular television station, RCTV.
Three former Panamanian presidents — Mireya Moscoso, Guillermo Endara and Ernesto Pérez-Balladares — are planning to lobby the Organisation of American States (OAS) to get its general assembly to discuss the case in its meeting next weekend.
(snip)
In neighbouring Colombia, which has been in the grip of civil war for nearly half a century, journalist Juan Gossaín with the RCN Radio station said in an interview with President Álvaro Uribe: “Your remarks on respect for freedom of the press lead me to suppose, for example, that you would not strip RCTV of its broadcasting licence.”
To which the president responded: “I would not do that to anybody. Or rather, let them exercise journalism even without a licence; they can say whatever they want; they can operate wherever they want.”
But the rightwing Uribe cannot shut down opposition TV stations for the simple reason that there aren’t any, by contrast with Venezuela, where most privately-owned media outlets are openly opposed to the government.
Earlier, however, in October 2004, the Uribe administration closed the public Instituto de Radio y Televisión (Inravisión), which broadcast on three stations. Its programming included educational and cultural content, a daily interview programme on social movements, and documentaries that were often awkward for the government.
(snip)
In Honduras, meanwhile, President Manuel Zelaya ordered all TV and radio stations to broadcast 10 daily one-hour programmes during prime time, starting Monday, to counteract what he called “misinformation” on his administration provided by the press.
(snip)
In Nicaragua, the last media outlet to lose its broadcasting licence for apparently political reasons was the La Poderosa radio station in 2002, during the administration of Enrique Bolaños, when the station’s equipment was seized without any legal proceedings.
(snip)
RCTV is not the only media outlet that has stopped operating in Venezuela as the result of a government measure. During the April 2002 coup in which Chávez was removed from power for two days, the public station Canal 8 was shut down.
And in 2003, Caracas Mayor Alfredo Peña, an outspoken Chávez opponent, also closed down the community station Catia TV for several days.
That is why the government and its supporters argue that only the opposition has closed down media outlets in Venezuela. Former information minister Andrés Izarra, who is president of the Venezuela-based international TV network Telesur, pointed out to IPS that in the case of RCTV, the station “was not closed down; what happened was that its concession was not renewed.”
With respect to the question of freedom of speech, Chávez supporters also note that during the April 2002 coup, private stations like RCTV refused to provide coverage of the Apr. 13 popular uprising that swept the president back to power with the support of loyal army troops, airing instead reruns, cartoons and old Hollywood films.
(snip)
In Uruguay, the only party that ever revoked a broadcasting licence was the centre-right National Party, which has now called on the governing leftist Broad Front to issue a statement condemning the Venezuelan government’s decision in the RCTV case.
In its refusal to do so, the Broad Front has noted that the government of former president Luis Alberto Lacalle (1990-1995) of the National Party was the only one to take a similar measure in the history of Uruguay, and “without waiting for the licence to expire,” said Broad Front Senator Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro.
In 1994, Lacalle stripped the CX 44 Radio Panamericana station of its licence after it urged the public to take part in a demonstration, (snip)

Sorry about the lengthy excerpts, but I had never heard about any of that, and neither had most people here I suspect. And it does highlight the class war aspect of the current shrieking going on.

Posted by: Alamet | Jun 4 2007 0:21 utc | 94

my hunch in #51 was correct, wrt the u.s. attacks on puntland friday. when i flagged the article on the men in boats of whom the puntland info minister initially stated “were most likely on their way further north, possibly to Yemen, but rough seas forced them to come ashore.”
Conflicting reports about the U.S. air strikes in northern Somalia

BOSSASO, Somalia June 3 (Garowe Online) – There are conflicting reports emerging after the U.S. military bombed a coastal town in northern Somalia’s Puntland region on Friday.
Both American and Somali officials have claimed that the strikes targeted a group of armed men who arrived in Bargal town by speedboats last week, sparking a gunfight with lightly-armed local police.
According to the officials, the men included Somalis and foreign-born fighters from various countries, and number somewhere between 35 and 70 men.
…
Hassan Dahir Afqura, the vice president of Puntland, told local media on Saturday in the regional capital Garowe that 8 suspected militants were killed in the air strike. Five Puntland intelligence (PIS) agents were wounded during a gunfight with the militants, according to VP Afqura.
…
Afqura said Puntland security forces had recovered U.S., Swedish and British passports among others from the dead men. The vice president did not produce any evidence to that effect, however.
But Bargal locals have told Garowe Online that the U.S. air strikes missed their target, and instead wounded four PIS agents.
Describing the beginning of events, one local elder said 13 armed men led by a man from Puntland landed at the coast on Wednesday. The group’s leader apparently told the locals that his men, who clearly included foreigners, came to Bargal for fishing.
But local policemen attacked the 13 men, who defended themselves and fled into nearby mountains. “No one knows who they [really] were or where they went,” the elder said.
Local police then contacted PIS agents in the port city of Bossaso, Puntland’s commercial hub. Security forces were dispatched to the area and U.S. warships operating off Somali coast alerted, security sources said.
VP Afqura said 3 American intelligence agents were on location to help with the hunt for the militants.

nobody disputes that the boats were traveling north. if you look at the map in the article above, not too far north is the city of bossaso. a couple weeks back, there was an article on bossaso that may possibly offer some context.
Somalia: Bossaso teeming with would-be migrants

BOSSASO, Somalia May 21 (Garowe Online) – The port city of Bossaso in northern Somalia is teeming with young men and women seeking to take the dangerous journey across the Red Sea to the Mideast, residents and officials said.
Hundreds of young Somalis who fled conflict in southern Somalia and young Ethiopians seeking better opportunities aboard can be seen walking up and down major city streets in Bossaso.
Residents said some of these young people can be seen sleeping on the side of the streets, since they can’t afford to pay rent or live at a hotel.
Some of the would-be migrants said in interviews with local media that they plan to take the perilous trek across the Red Sea to Yemen, despite knowing the full consequences of the journey.

because of the desperate situation in somalia, intensified by the u.s.-backed ethiopian invasion which drove nearly 400,000 residents from the capital city of mogadishu alone (of which the UN said friday that maybe only 90,000 have returned), somali’s are risking the boat ride to yemen, often relying on boat operators & smugglers who exort large fees & have reportedly forced many passengers to attempt to swim to shore, no wanting to get their boats too close to land. so there have been reports all year of numerous deaths & drownings of those fleeing somalia, compounding the tragic state of life there.
could these foreigners have also been related to that journey, either smugglers themselves or involved in moving people up from the south toward bossoso? after all, as ‘terrorism experts’ claim, al qa’idah cells comprise at most 20-30 people, and accounts put the traveler’s group at 35 figures and up.
and i cannot even recommend mcclatchy newspapers — which has been one of the only hopeful signs of journalistic integrity wrt the iraq quagmire — as a good source of information on this coverage. in the article i’m looking at now, American among those killed by U.S. attack in Somalia
there’s this unchallenged stmt

The violence has increased since December, when a U.S.-backed invasion by Ethiopia toppled a fundamentalist Islamic regime that Bush administration officials said was run by al-Qaida.

they’re gonna leave it at that (the AQ connection), despite all evidence to the contrary.

On Sunday, Somalia’s interim prime minister escaped an assassination attempt when a car bomb detonated outside his heavily guarded residence. News reports said five Somali soldiers and two civilians were killed.
Somali officials immediately blamed al-Qaida-linked insurgents for the attack, the second in as many weeks on the prime minister, Ali Mohammed Gedi.
“We have been patient for so long,” Gedi later said on a radio broadcast. “We can no longer cohabit with these terrorists. … We have to eliminate them.”

the “somali officials” are the same people who were selling the cia on AQ operatives running around the country from the 1990s onward. the plain facts are that the imposed government is very unpopular, as it was crafted & comprised largely of one particular clan from the north, the “insurgents” do not recognize it’s authority, which only exists because of u.s. and ethiopian muscle & mayhem. it was not AQ that sets off bombs in mogadishu, it is indigenous resistance to an occupation. the “somali officials” use the AQ tag to get help eliminating their opposition.
next, getting back to the u.s. attacks this w/e, the mcclatchy article states

The clashes in Puntland were the first in the north of the country, which has largely escaped Somalia’s recent violence.

this is not so. for instance, there were a week or two of clashes in april. see Fighting in northern Somalia between Somaliland, Puntland forces.
finally, the article gives a somali official the last word

“Quite a number of international terrorist groups have been looking for Somalia as an alternative base,” said Somalia’s foreign minister, Ismail Mohammed Hurre.

ironically, the minister is, in part, correct, as one is unlikely to currently find a larger int’l terrorist group on the planet than the u.s. military/govt

Posted by: b real | Jun 4 2007 3:12 utc | 96

General Ricardo Sanchez: U.S . Can’t Win In Iraq.

san antonio, Texas • The man who led coalition forces in Iraq during the first year of the occupation says the United States can forget about winning the war.
“I think if we do the right things politically and economically with the right Iraqi leadership we could still salvage at least a stalemate, if you will — not a stalemate but at least stave off defeat,” retired Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez said in an interview.
Sanchez, in his first interview since he retired last year, is the highest-ranking former military leader yet to suggest the Bush administration fell short in Iraq. “I am absolutely convinced that America has a crisis in leadership at this time,” Sanchez said after a recent speech in San Antonio, Texas.
“We’ve got to do whatever we can to help the next generation of leaders do better than we have done over the past five years, better than what this cohort of political and military leaders have done,” adding that he was “referring to our national political leadership in its entirety” — not just President George W Bush.
Sanchez called the situation in Iraq bleak and blamed it on “the abysmal performance in the early stages and the transition of sovereignty.” He included himself among those who erred in Iraq’s crucial first year after Saddam. Sanchez took command in the summer of 2003 and oversaw the occupation force amid an insurgency that has sparked a low-grade civil war in Iraq.

Fessin’up.

Posted by: anna missed | Jun 4 2007 6:04 utc | 98

@anna missed – 91 – simple Molotov cocktails – you can see in the video that people are throwing bottles which ignite. The hummers just drive on. These can be quite useful, but are neither sophisticated weapons nor armour piercing.
A simple glass bottle, some petrol-tar mixture and something to ignite them when they break. If one is lucky one will get some secondary explosions from ammunition that is carried on the vehicle that’s hit.
Here’s how to make them. Standard infantry anti-tank weapons since the Finish winter-war.

Posted by: b | Jun 4 2007 10:05 utc | 100