Skeletor has a “gut feeling”

Posted by: beq | Jul 10 2007 22:45 utc | 4

Thanks. My link has moved on. Two weeks ago on MTP he was already in this mode. It must be his new calling. Homeland insecurity. Up is down. Black is white.
Fuck.

Posted by: beq | Jul 11 2007 1:17 utc | 6

Virginia Democrat decided to add his support to a growing movement in the House of Representatives to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney.
A spokesman for Rep. Jim Moran told RAW STORY

Despite vocal protestations on and off-the-record by Democratic Congressional leaders, the movement to impeach Cheney or President Bush has begun to pick up steam. According to a recent poll, a majority of Americans favor the vice president’s ouster from office, and anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan announced that she would run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi if the San Francisco Congresswoman does not introduce articles of impeachment within the next two weeks.
A group of progressives in California opened an “Impeachment Center” on Independence Day to serve as a clearinghouse for information and activism, while another group is planning to fly a pro-impeachment banner over AT&T Park in San Francisco before Tuesday’s All Star Game.

Posted by: annie | Jul 11 2007 2:17 utc | 8

weird uncle. no link in your post & no working links turn up in a search. only the cache remains.

Posted by: b real | Jul 11 2007 3:10 utc | 10

ancient, and to the future

Posted by: slothrop | Jul 11 2007 3:59 utc | 12

lots of headlines in the msm today after bush finally nominates gen. ward for commander of AFRICOM, but this reuters one seems so… well, mainstream
Bush picks black general to lead Africa operations

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President George W. Bush [, the highest ranking white official in the nation] on Tuesday nominated Army Gen. William Ward, the highest ranking black in the U.S. military, to lead the new Africa [combatant] Command and coordinate military operations on the continent.
Bush’s decision in February to create Africa [combatant] Command came after months of discussion inside the Pentagon and reflected increasing U.S. strategic interest in the continent…
Ward, who must be confirmed by the [majority white] Senate, is only the fifth black man to attain a fourth star, making him a full general.
“I am honored by President Bush’s and [fellow whitefella] (Defense) Secretary (Robert) Gates’ confidence and look forward to the confirmation process,” Ward said in a prepared statement.
…
Washington … is interested in the potential offered by Africa’s natural resources, especially as the United States tries to reduce dependence on oil from the Middle East.

Posted by: b real | Jul 11 2007 4:34 utc | 14

Iraq Vets Bear Witness “Investigating the impact of the war on Iraqi civilians, Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian reveal disturbing patterns of behavior by US troops in Iraq–brutal acts that often go unreported and almost always go unpunished.
I hope Jr, well fuck it, there just aren’t any words…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 11 2007 5:00 utc | 16

@14,
Black commander or not, one big problem with Africom is that no one asked for it. And everyone on the continent finds it highly suspect.
when the Africans asked for funds to peace-keep Darfur, they did’nt get it. But Ethiopia gets tons of money to invade Somalia. And Africom gets an open cheque.
It’ll be interesting to see which country will host Africoms HQ. It does’nt seem a lot of African countries are excited about hosting it. Its probably due to various factors of mistrust.
And its doubtful that heading Africom is a highly sought assignment among the generals.
This Africom idea is major-burdened by a dubious mission & an image problem. It kind of looks like the kind of project thats always going to be one mis-step away from disaster.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Jul 11 2007 5:54 utc | 18

Recommended – on Obama’s foreign policy “vision”: The Audacity of Fraud – How Barack Obama Is Losing My Vote

Barack Obama writes a 5,000-word manifesto on “Renewing American leadership” in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. I was expecting fresh, bold new thinking—the audacity of liberalism. What I got instead was a Republican hawk in Kennedy clothing. If this is what we are to expect from the new generation of Democratic leaders, Bush’s legacy has nothing to fear. It’s writhing with life under a new guise. Call it neo-conservatism with a human face.
…
So what’s Obama doing when he’s calling for a rebuilding of international institutions? “The mission of the United States is to provide global leadership grounded in the understanding that the world shares a common security and a common humanity”—as long as the world understands that America leads. Which means the rest follow. This is a restatement of the Bush doctrine in humbler terms, and without much substance behind it.
…

Posted by: b | Jul 11 2007 6:55 utc | 20

I just want to say thanks for your work. I have not commented as much as I should, but I look forward to reading here each day.

Posted by: bucky | Jul 11 2007 10:43 utc | 22

A very solid piece by Tom Engelhardt on war by bombing in Afghanistan and Iraq: Death from above

Actually, bombs are already being dropped in Iraq in 2007 at almost twice the rate of the previous year. In this sense, the Afghan model is available as an example of things to come, as is the historical model of the Vietnam War in the period in which president Richard Nixon was employing what might now be called the “Gates Plan”. It was then called “Vietnamization”.
…
Any similar “Iraqification” plan would surely have an equivalent effect, the gap in manpower being plugged by air power. And the Washington “consensus” Gates hopes for is already forming. The two leading Democratic candidates for president, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, adhere to it. Both call for “withdrawal” from Iraq, but define withdrawal (as Gates would) as the “redeployment” of US “combat brigades” (possibly less than half the US forces in that country at present).
In other words, we are almost guaranteed that, either this winter or in the spring of 2008 (as the presidential election looms), some kind of drawdown, surely to be headlined as a “withdrawal” plan, will begin and that significantly lower levels of troops will be supported by a rise in air strikes – and in Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, this means the bombing not of peasant villages but of urban neighborhoods.
This, in turn, means that we should prepare ourselves for a rise in “incidents”, in “mistakes”, in the “inadvertent” or “errant” death of civilians in escalating numbers. Whether in Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq, the formula, with a guerrilla war, is simple and unavoidable: Air Power = Civilian Deaths. Or put another way, “Incidents” R Us.

Posted by: b | Jul 11 2007 18:53 utc | 24

Adherents of the relatively new science of epigenetics (put quickly and only partially accurately as nurture causing nature -the ability of trauma to cause a change to various attributes of DNA without modifying the actual DNA sequence. These modifications can be passed on – horrors inflicted upon a people now can effect the behaviour of their as yet unborn offspring and their offspring and onwards) can assume that the horror that has been Afghanistan at least since a century and a half ago when the friction between England and Russia tripped off the ‘north west frontier’ boys own yarn adventure, will become just as firmly entrenched in Iraq.
And that means a way needs to be found to quell the cycle of violence in Afghanistan before the same can be achieved in Iraq.
It seemed the cycle may have been broken when the Taliban held power, however as the former Yugoslavia demonstrated, any re-occurrence of the old ways will drag out the old demons in an instant, so once the coalition of the shilling got going in Afghanistan the progress Afghanistan had been making towards a peaceful society disappeared in an instant.
We all like to see the face of evil. The appalling COPS with it’s unending feast of unshirted drunks, junkies and wife beaters, all impoverished needless to say, provides middle class families with a real insight into “who those people are”. Not evil just poor but in the eyes of a consumerist culture, what’s the difference?
The other day Bernard put a face on one of the troop commanders in Iraq; a Ralph Kauzlarich, also responsible for some of the initial lies about one of the dead ‘heroes’ of Afghanistan. The post caused a reasonable reaction within the MoA community; here was someone we could consider ‘responsible’ for the unending horror. Many won’t look at cannon fodder in that way, and see them responsible for their evil, so finding paid killer in a position of responsibility who was happy to be gleeful in his self-justification of the murder, rape, and pillage of Iraq was a godsend.
Now me old mate Richard Neville, has exposed the man behind the recent upswing in needless deaths in Afghanistan – “Bomber” McNeill, USAF General Dan McNeill, a true picture of evil personified.
This scum has been deliberately bombing towns and villages in Afghanistan, even organising rocket attacks on houses in Pakistan for no apparent reason other than his need to kill fellow humans. Certainly it can’t be to win the war or defeat the Taliban since as Neville points out: “When invading an impoverished land peopled by extended families with interlocking tribal loyalties, the world’s mightiest air power has an obligation to proceed with respect and restraint.” Otherwise of course every citizen needlessly, heedlessly murdered by this hi-tech terrorism becomes a recruiting officer for the whole of his or her clan by forcing them to join the other side out of respect for familial loyalty.
The lack of restraint displayed by the command has trickled down as it always does. There should be be no shock at the reaction of a group of marines, who after an attack on their convoy by an IED, then proceeded on a rampage, blood lust killing every local they could. Ultimately killing 19 and wounding 50. They finally calmed down enough to beat up on any survivors who may have attempted to record this atrocity on their phone camera.
As Richard points out the General has won. He has managed to beat the Taliban who have only killed 279 Afghanis this year against McNeill and the allied forces P.B.(personal best) of 314 civilian deaths.
When considering the relative scores one should also remember that we are using the NATO forces’ own figures and given their penchant for talking up enemy atrocities while playing down their own, we can see that this is no small achievement on McNeill’s part. Now before everyone starts on about “The Shrub this and The Shrub that” it is worth remembering that this is a joint Whitefella United effort. The bulk of the heavy lifting on the ground is being done by NATO troops from the Europe side of the North Atlantic, ably assisted by Australia and I’m sad to say, NZ forces, although our govt claims that NZ’s involvement in offensive operations ended with the withdrawal of the S.A.S. (special air service) troops last year and all that is left in Afghanistan is a mob of engineers attempting to repair the Bamiyan Buddhas.
The anti-whitey B.S indicator beeps at this. I don’t remember anyone dedicating a contingent of troops to fix the ancient Mesopotamian structures blown away by the whitefellas in Iraq, or any effort being made to repair the ruins of the old Imperial City of Hue; destroyed by the US during Tet 67 in order to save it. Anyway the fact is that we are all responsible in one way or another. And no no NO! That does not mean we should let the debate be subsumed by pseudo-intellectual twaddle about how culpable one should be/feel/is for the collective actions of one’s society. The rapidly accelerating slaughter in Afghanistan means we must consider strategies to change to the way our respective communities view Afghanistan and then act on those.
For a start the current coalition policy of blowing the bejeezus outta the citizenry should become known within the larger community. Neville has managed to reduce this horror down to numbers, a very effective if perhaps inhumane way of summing up what is askew in the “global war on terra”. There is a reason why our society isn’t really concerning themselves with Afghanistan and that needs to be confronted if people are going to look at this horror.
There is a real difference in the way the average bourgeois whitey looks at the murder in Afghanistan compared to the slaughter in Iraq. It is something that has grown as we have concentrated our interest on Iraq where the bulk of the horror has been occurring. I suspect the difference traces back to the immediately post 911 period when everyone more or less gave amerika free rein to wreak havoc upon the brownfellas in Afghanistan since they had been (wrongly, there were Saudis and Egyptians on the planes but no Afghanis) deemed responsible for the killings. Ironically 911 now seems no worse than a bad day in Baghdad. Of course we aren’t meant to say it that way, lest we disrespect the holy GWOT, putting the events of 11 September 2001 into perspective must be part of having Joey Balanda consider what the fuck it is that is happening in Afghanistan one more time.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jul 12 2007 0:14 utc | 26

…nurture causing nature -the ability of trauma to cause a change to various attributes of DNA without modifying the actual DNA sequence. These modifications can be passed on – horrors inflicted upon a people now can effect the behaviour of their as yet unborn offspring and their offspring and onwards…
Yes, this is what I have long suspected and wanted to understand better. Any additional sources you have would be much appreciated.
This is, I deeply believe, the true untold cost of war — one that is paid not just by the dead but by the living, not just by the “stressed one” but by all his or her loved ones, and not just by this generation but by many, many to come. In that sense, we could all still be paying for the Spanish Inquisition… think about it. And how many generations to come will have to pay the price of the unfathomable, innumerable crimes that we have committed in just the past five years alone?

Posted by: Bea | Jul 12 2007 3:03 utc | 28

A private bank in Baghdad with $282,000,000 cash in the vault?
BAGHDAD, July 11 — In an astonishing heist, guards at a bank here made off with more than a quarter-billion dollars on Wednesday, according to an official at the Interior Ministry.
The robbery, of $282 million from the Dar Es Salaam bank, a private financial institution, raised more questions than it answered, and officials were tight-lipped about the crime. The local police said two guards engineered the robbery, but an official at the Interior Ministry said three guards were involved.
Both confirmed that the stolen money was in American dollars, not Iraqi dinars. It was unclear why the bank had that much money on hand in dollars, or how the robbers managed to move such a large amount without being detected. hmm – 282 million buys a lot of MANPADs, big mortars or other nifty stuff. Then again, its a nice fund for a looong vacation.

Posted by: b | Jul 12 2007 5:44 utc | 30

I wonder how many Iraq based contractors will claim they had all their money in that bank. this could be a clever way to cover up some accounting shortfalls. it is conceivable that no money at all was stolen or at least an amount much smaller than that reported.
you hear about this sometimes with drug busts, the cops report finding $50,000 and duly turn that in, the fact that the dealer had $100,000 never sees the light of day.

Posted by: dan of steele | Jul 12 2007 6:06 utc | 32

that was me. maybe it is my imagination there are an abundance of closeted republican gays in public service. maybe they are in public service in direct proportion to their numbers in society. maybe there are millions of them everywhere and i just don’t detect them because my gaydar is off.

Posted by: annie | Jul 12 2007 6:58 utc | 34

annie,
as you might expect, from TPM:
Late Update: TPM Reader JP notes, perhaps not surprisingly, that the Rainbow Democratic Club, a Dem gay rights group in Central Florida gave Allen its “worst of the worst” rating for his votes on gay issues.
lets call it the anti-gay gay mayor syndrome, or as someone? said why do these self hating gays insist on running as republicans for public office?

Posted by: anna missed | Jul 12 2007 8:43 utc | 36

@Bea there is a great doco on epigenetics called “The Ghost in the genes”.
Some of the issues it looked at were:
An english clinical geneticist by the name of Pembrey made a weird discovery back in the 80’s, namely that two completely different diseases–Angelman’s syndrome and Prader-Willi syndrome- were being caused by exactly the same genetic fault. Further study led Pembrey to conclude that the different disease were attributable to whether the genetic abnormality was passed on from the mother or the father. Perhaps that difference was important and was somehow related to an issue that Pembrey had considered long before.
Pembrey had also been wondering how it was that an unborn child ‘knew’ not to have too large a head when the child’s mother had a narrow pelvis, usually caused by famine during the mother’s infancy. He had written a paper on this but without any hard data to back it up he had moved on, until years later when a Swedish researcher named Olov Bygren contacted him with 19th century data from an Arctic community which had kept complete records of harvests and births. The northern latitude meant the community had experienced numerous famines and the data seems to support Pembrey’s notion. Children born of mothers who had small pelvis’s because of famine suffered during their childhood, somehow managed to be small enough to pass through the birth canal, even if when they were born there was plenty of food and one would expect them to be larger.
In New York, psychologist Rachel Yehuda who had been studying how people reacted to stress was surprised to find that her clinic for holocaust survivors was getting more business from the children of holocaust survivors than actual survivors themselves. Although she thought that the ‘nervous’ children were a result of their parents telling them stories about the camps, she was in contact with Britsh researcher Jonathan Seckl who believed that stress could be inherited.
After 911 Yehuda and Secckl began a study of pregnant women who had been in and around the World Trade Centre on the 11th September 01.
Approx 50% of the women developed post traumatic stress disorder, to be expected I would have thought, however many of those PTSD women had lower than normal levels of a hormone called cortisol in their saliva and so did their children, babies who can’t yet have been told interminable stories about 911 much less be effected by them!
The hormone variations seem to be a function of the stage of pregnancy on 911, that is if the woman with PTSD was less than six months pregnant on 911 then her child would have normal cortisol levels but if she was in the last trimester then it was likely her child would also have a cortisol dysfunction. Is that weird? Coincidence? There were close to 200 women and their children in the study so not a huge sample but not a an insignificant one either.
This issue has all sorts of ramifications. Let’s look at our most common topic – Iraq. Up until the illegal invasion Iraqis weren’t really known for their propensity to ’cause trouble’ around the place. In fact I can’t think of any incidents prior to the invasion where individual Iraqis set about attacking people in other countries, now even Iraqi doctors are feeling pissed off enough to attack the Brits, so given that the invasion has created the nearest thing to hell on earth yet achieved on the planet, if this stuff is on the ball, has the invasion condemned Iraqis to generations of violence?
I have always pondered how much real choice an individual has. Whether the decisions we make really were as open to alternatives as we suppose. If we are in fact as much a captive of our genes as our environment, epigentics explains one of the mechanisms by which this could happen. It also brings with it the proof that it is truly impossible to save a nation by invasion, bombing or any of the other common techniques of oppression; because the effects of anything done to a population may live on in the national behaviour long after the ‘target’ generation – the victims- have kicked the bucket. It also means that a country whose population has never suffered the horror of war that decides to start war of aggression, is provably committing a sick and inexcusable crime against the generations of humans to come.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jul 12 2007 9:18 utc | 38

Debs,
Or, what I always have assumed to be post conflict, as a residual “addiction” to war – as a cultural manifestation of a long term conflict. As for instance the Vietnamese post U.S. defeat kept, on a war footing (in Cambodia/China) for many years after. Being an animist I wouldn’t be suprised at all to find cultural matter embedded in the genetic.

Posted by: anna missed | Jul 12 2007 9:43 utc | 40

It also brings with it the proof that it is truly impossible to save a nation by invasion, bombing or any of the other common techniques of oppression; because the effects of anything done to a population may live on in the national behaviour long after the ‘target’ generation – the victims- have kicked the bucket. It also means that a country whose population has never suffered the horror of war that decides to start war of aggression, is provably committing a sick and inexcusable crime against the generations of humans to come.
YES!!! I cannot believe that you have put into words so eloquently exactly what I have been thinking and hypothesizing for so long. Thank you… I am going to go off and do more research on this wealth of information you have just handed me. Thank you again.

Posted by: Bea | Jul 12 2007 13:50 utc | 42

@Rick just a preference for good honest theives who grab the cash in a way everyone can see. If this was the work of a handful of Iraqi bank guards who saw an opportunity from grafting at their jobs, I reckon those blokes deserve to have it more than any of the underhand ‘white collar theieves, fraudsters and con-men who had probably scarfed it up and slipped it into the bank in the first place. The guards are more likely to ‘waste’ the money on living and eating and friends and family, where-as anyone else from the assholes who took it into Iraq to the amerikan or Iraqi scuzz bags who grabbed it are likely to use it to accumulate more wealth and power. A few hundred million should be enough for a normal person to content themselves with.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jul 12 2007 14:10 utc | 44

It also brings with it the proof that it is truly impossible to save a nation by invasion, bombing or any of the other common techniques of oppression; because the effects of anything done to a population may live on in the national behaviour long after the ‘target’ generation – the victims- have kicked the bucket. It also means that a country whose population has never suffered the horror of war that decides to start war of aggression, is provably committing a sick and inexcusable crime against the generations of humans to come.
Prime example – Israel
But then the theorie is a bit too unfounded yet to bet on it … history may be carried in genes, but that is certainly not the only way it’s carried.

Posted by: b | Jul 12 2007 17:07 utc | 46

Just judging by the headlines, it looks like the US Congress has finally found that long lost stub from when they took their spines to the dry cleaners.
House OKs Plan to Withdraw US Troops
Snip…

The House measure passed 223-201 in the Democratic-controlled chamber despite a veto threat from President Bush, who has ruled out any change in war policy before September.

Snip…

To (Bush’s) critics – including an increasing number of Republicans – he said bluntly, “I don’t think Congress ought to be running the war. I think they ought to be funding the troops.”
Democrats saw it differently.
A few hours after Bush’s remarks, Democratic leaders engineered passage of legislation requiring the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops to begin within 120 days, and to be completed by April 1, 2008. The measure envisions a limited residual force to train Iraqis, protect U.S. assets and fight al-Qaida and other terrorists.
The vote generally followed party lines: 219 Democrats and four Republicans in favor, and 191 Republicans and 10 Democrats opposed.

And there’s this… House panel rejects Bush privilege claim
Snip…

House Democrats on Thursday took the first step toward holding former White House counsel Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress after she defied a subpoena – at President Bush’s order – and skipped a hearing on the firing of U.S. attorneys.
Over the strenuous objections of Republicans, a subcommittee cleared the way for contempt proceedings by voting 7-5 to reject Bush’s claim of executive privilege. He says his top advisers, whether current or former, cannot be summoned by Congress.
“Those claims are not legally valid,” Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., said of Bush’s declaration. “Ms. Miers is required pursuant to the subpoena to be here now.”
Republicans complained that Democrats were choosing showy, televised proceedings and the threat of court action to force the testimony rather than agree to Bush’s offer for private, off-the-record interviews.
In the absence of an agreement with the administration, House leaders and committee members were likely to pursue contempt proceedings against Miers but were still talking about when, according to some Democratic officials.

And just so that people don’t forget what we are talking about, the above article mentions this little throwaway factoid…

Miers’ testimony emerged as the battleground for a broader scuffle between the White House and Congress over the limits of executive privilege. Presidents since the nation’s founding have sought to protect from the prying eyes of Congress the advice given them by advisers, while Congress has argued that it is charged by the Constitution with conducting oversight of the executive branch.
Bush’s invocation of executive privilege comes during the Democrats’ probe of whether the firings were really an effort by the White House to fire and replace federal prosecutors in ways that might help Republican candidates. Democrats say testimony by numerous aides that Bush was not involved in deciding whom to fire undercuts his privilege claim.
Administration officials acknowledge that the firings were botched in their execution, but they insist there was no improper motive for them. They point out that U.S. attorneys are political appointees and that the president can fire them for almost any reason.
The probe has prompted calls by Democrats and a few Republicans for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. With Bush’s support behind him, Gonzales shows no sign of stepping down.
The dispute extended to Congress’ request for information on other matters, including the FBI’s abuses of civil liberties under the USA Patriot Act and Bush’s secretive wiretapping program.

Almost forgot about the wiretapping amidst the brouhaha and outrage over Libbey’s commutation, hadn’t you? No, you hadn’t… this isn’t a smokescreen; it’s just just spinning, and the faster the spin, the more evident the hub becomes. That PATRIOTACT program that Gonzalez testified has not produced “…one documented case of abuse” (he’s technically correct… there have been several), is still producing fodder… FBI Patriot Act Abuse Documents: What Special Project Lives in FBI HQ Room 4944?
Snip (with links removed… go to hell, Typepad)…

The most striking thing about these expedited letters (.pdf) (made public via the Electronic Frontier Foundation) is that they all use the same pathetic, passive bureaucratese: “Due to exigent circumstances, it is requested that records for the attached list of telephone numbers be provided.”
So far they seem to all be coming from the same office: the Communications Analysis Unit which looks to be located in Room 4944 in FBI Headquarters. The “exigent letters” also refer almost exclusively to a “Special Project” and the only name on any of the letters is Larry Mefford.
Mefford was no rookie FBI agent. Mefford was the Executive Assistant Director, in charge of the Counterterrorism/Counterintelligence Division. In English, that means he was in charge of preventing another terrorist attack domestically.
What does that mean? Well, Mefford’s name is on documents that requested personal information on Americans. Some of those requests included information known to be false to the agents signing them. That’s a federal crime, according to one former FBI agent.

That apparently new-found spine the Democrats are demonstrating might be in some way related to the growing realization that whatever “sensitive intelligence” this program has gathered, it can not possibly be more scandalous than anything the Republicans are routinely busted for.

Posted by: Monolycus | Jul 13 2007 3:10 utc | 48

McClatchy on the unsolvable chaos in Darfur: Darfur conflict takes unexpected turn

The account of the clashes around Songa village on June 9 and 10, given by African Union peacekeepers manning a small mountain outpost here in central Darfur, illustrates part of an increasingly upside-down security picture in Darfur. With some janjaweed now fighting alongside rebels they once tried to kill – and with the rebels riven by disputes and attacking peacekeepers and aid workers – this is hardly the same conflict of four years ago.
…
Now there’s a new set of problems: Few people know who’s attacking or why. Armed groups are breaking off and recombining according to the tactical advantage that day. Aid agencies and peacekeepers are at greater risk than ever.
“One of the problems with the security situation at this point – it is not two sides fighting against each other,” Andrew Natsios, President Bush’s special envoy to Sudan, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April. “It’s anarchy.”
…
But the biggest obstacle to peace – and the gravest threat to Darfur’s people – is the rebels themselves, who have split from three groups into as many as 16. Few articulate any clear political demands, but their young, undisciplined fighters increasingly act as bandits, targeting Darfur’s 12,500 aid workers and 7,000 African Union peacekeepers.
…

Posted by: b | Jul 13 2007 10:17 utc | 50

July 14, 2007, at 9:30 a.m., BBC Radio 4 will be broadcasting a play entitled “Called to Account”

In early 2007, two leading barristers tested the evidence as to whether there would be sufficient grounds to indict the British Prime Minister for the crime of aggression against Iraq. They examined a number of distinguished witnesses, including Members of Parliament, diplomats, United Nations officials, Intelligence experts and journalists.
Their revealing testimony was re-told by actors in The Tricycle Theatre’s critically acclaimed tribunal play Called to Account—The Indictment of Anthony Charles Lynton Blair for the crime of aggression against Iraq—A Hearing. To mark the resignation of Tony Blair, the original cast return in this specially adapted version for BBC Radio 4.

Posted by: b | Jul 13 2007 14:36 utc | 52

A good article summarizing the background of the Corries’ case against Caterpillar, mentioned in my link above, for anyone who is interested. It helps to set the stage for listening to the audio.
Corrie Family Asks US Court to Reopen Trial Against Bulldozer Company

Posted by: Bea | Jul 13 2007 14:56 utc | 54

I don’t think the Corries have a leg to stand on, Bea, as long as the Israelis can show that the tractors had a use outside of demolishing homes. It will generate press, but not change. Besides, if they could by some slim chance achieve victory, it’d open up a huge can of worms with regard to all the other U.S. corporations (defense industry) that provide goods and services elsewhere.

Posted by: Pyrrho | Jul 13 2007 18:44 utc | 56

U.S. Army Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel

WASHINGTON — Nearly 12% of Army recruits who entered basic training this year needed a special waiver for those with criminal records, a dramatic increase over last year and 2 1/2 times the percentage four years ago, according to new Army statistics obtained by the Globe.
With less than three months left in the fiscal year, 11.6% of new active-duty and Army Reserve troops in 2007 have received a so-called “moral waiver,” up from 7.9% in fiscal year 2006, according to figures from the US Army Recruiting Command. In fiscal 2003 and 2004, soldiers granted waivers accounted for 4.6% of new recruits; in 2005, it was 6.2%.
Army officials acknowledge privately that the increase in moral waivers reflects the difficulty of signing up sufficient numbers of recruits to sustain an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq; the Army fell short of its monthly recruiting goals in May and June.

Posted by: Bea | Jul 13 2007 22:01 utc | 58

some jew music

Posted by: slothrop | Jul 14 2007 2:45 utc | 60

China wins permit to look for oil in Somalia

The Chinese state oil giant, CNOOC, has won permission to search for oil in part of Somalia, underlining China’s willingness to brave Africa’s most volatile regions in its hunt for natural resources.
Somalia has been a no-go area for US oil companies since it descended into anarchy in the early 1990s. This year the capital, Mogadishu, has seen its worst violence in 16 years as insurgents seek to topple a fragile interim government.
But CNOOC has not been deterred and last month met Somali government officials in a Nairobi hotel to hammer out the details of its planned survey work, which is due to begin in September.
…
The Chinese company’s deal with Somalia’s transitional federal government gives it exploration rights in the north Mudug region, some 500km north-east of the capital.
CNOOC and a smaller group, China International Oil and Gas (CIOG), signed a production-sharing contract with the interim government in May 2006. The contract, which gives the government 51 per cent of oil revenues, was endorsed at last November’s China-Africa summit in Beijing.
…
The data collected by oil companies has formed the basis of interest in Somalia today. Range Resources, an oil group listed in Sydney, estimates that the Puntland province – which includes the Mudug region – has the potential to yield 5bn-10bn barrels of oil.
Puntland is semi-autonomous and relatively stable compared with Mogadishu, where insurgents are launching near-daily assaults on the government and its Ethiopian military backers.
…
The government is preparing a new national oil law even though its authority across the country is limited. Its decision to grant CNOOC exploration rights in Puntland could spark a dispute with the local authorities, which have given Range Resources exploration rights elsewhere in the province.
A western diplomat who follows Somalia from Nairobi cautioned that he had seen copies of three similar deals signed by the interim government in the past two years. “If there is ever enough peace and stability to allow oil to be extracted, there’ll be a huge [argument over the agreements] down the line,” he said.

Risks Rise for Western Oil Firms in Africa

Big foreign oil companies are finding it harder to make money in Africa because of the region’s often unstable politics, output restrictions and moves by some governments to rewrite contracts.
Africa remains one of the last big regions open to foreign oil exploration, and companies of all stripes are benefiting from record energy prices. But fresh obstacles threaten to crimp future production in a region that is crucial to global energy supplies.
Africa’s economically recoverable oil and natural gas reserves account for almost 10% of the world’s total. U.S. and European consumers are increasingly reliant on West Africa nations like Nigeria for crude oil that is easy and cheap to refine into products like gasoline because of its low sulfur content.
African producers such as Nigeria and Angola now ship about as much crude oil to the U.S. as Persian Gulf producers like Saudi Arabia, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
To meet this rising demand and improve their own growth prospects, companies like Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Total SA (TOT) and smaller firms such as Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) have plowed billions of dollars into the continent at a time when they’re effectively shut out of drilling in tightly protected energy sectors in much of the rest of the world.
In Russia and Latin American countries such as Venezuela, governments buoyed by high oil prices have recently moved to take control of energy exploration projects and raised taxes on foreign operators.
Some of these same problems are now popping up in Africa. Governments in Algeria, Chad and Equatorial Guinea have rewritten contracts or oil laws to advance national interests. Operational risks, including security of staff and infrastructure, have swelled in places like Nigeria. State-run oil companies less focused on profit are snatching business from their Western peers.

heritage foundation: Africa’s Oil and Gas Sector: Implications for U.S. Policy

n his 2006 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush said, “[W]e have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.” Increasing political instability in the Middle East and growing U.S., Indian, and Chinese demand for oil have made energy security a paramount concern.
As the 2001 National Energy Policy Report notes, U.S. energy security depends on diversity of supply. African states, particularly West African producers, are an ideal source of U.S. oil imports because transport­ing oil from Africa is cheaper than shipping oil from the Middle East, and protecting Africa’s onshore and offshore reserves is easier.
Increasing U.S. investment in Africa has numerous advantages. Geographically, the United States is much closer to West African oil states than it is to the Middle East. Most African oil reserves are offshore and there­fore largely secure from domestic and political ten­sions. Oil can be transported via open sea lanes rather than through shallow water canals or straits. As a result, African oil accounts for a growing share of the oil refined on the U.S. East Coast. In addition, Africa offers the ideal climate for private investors to create an ethanol industry to supply the U.S. with an alterna­tive energy source and to diversify African economies.
…
Many Americans do not recognize the impor­tance of Africa, particularly West African oil. Cur­rently, over 18 percent of U.S. crude oil imports comes from Africa, compared to 17 percent from the Persian Gulf. (See Table 1.) Nigeria accounts for 47 percent of African oil imports, and Algeria and Angola provide 19 percent each. A discussion paper issued by the National Intelligence Council in 2004 predicts that the U.S. will import 25 percent of its oil from Africa by 2015.
The main focus of this paper is to identify the for­midable barriers to investment in the African energy sector and how they can be reduced.

from john ghazvinian’s untapped: the scramble for africa’s oil,

..those who fear China’s rapidly strengthening position in Africa might do well to maintain a sense of perspective. After all, the reality is that China has a long way to go before it catches up to the Western presence on the African oil scene. When it comes to exploration licenses, Chinese companies still make do with what one analyst calls “the absolute dregs” and, overall, China’s overseas-drilling portfolio is very much in its infancy. Ninety-five percent of the proven reserves of both CNPC [their state-owned oil comp] and CNOOC [China National Offshore Company] are still inside China. Compare that with the British supermajor BP, for whom the UK accounts for only 7 percent of its reserves, or the three biggest American companies, where the corresponding figures average around 30 percent. [p. 289]

Posted by: b real | Jul 14 2007 4:45 utc | 62

Floyd :The Senate’s Blank Check for War on Iran

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 14 2007 8:14 utc | 64

Well, well, whadya know…The planes used to evacuate the Saudis after 9-11 linked to CIA

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 14 2007 17:36 utc | 66

Pakistan is on which side in the war on Russia, China, India Terror?
Kommersant added that “the permission does not imply Pakistan’s inclusion in the list of countries with which Russia has direct military-technical cooperation.”

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jul 14 2007 20:46 utc | 68

Iran declares war on America?

Posted by: DM | Jul 14 2007 21:51 utc | 70

sad to say, but i have been so busy that i have not had time to read never mind post. however, i just took a half hour or so to watch bill moyers discuss impeachment with bruce fein and john nichols. brilliant television. every congress person should be required to watch this. maybe then we might actually have a legislative branch that cares about the tripartite government our founders carefully concocted. here’s the link to stream the show. worth every moment.

Posted by: conchita | Jul 15 2007 4:01 utc | 72