kos hears a who?
With apologies to Dr. Seuss.
Yeah, Pelosi.
“Hey, wait a minute, there’s one guy holding up both puppets!” -Bill Hicks

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 9 2007 6:01 utc | 3

Meet Ted Olsen and the Arkansas Project

Despite his evasive disavowals, Salon investigations showed the right-wing consigliere was deeply involved in a sordid plot to bring down President Clinton.

You should acquaint yourself with Bushcult’s new fake pick* for AG, and to think –who ever gets it–, the fact that this person will be seated at Bobby Kennedy’s desk never fails to amuse me.
*I say fake pick because A)it’s not who they really want, Olsen is merely a false flag to get the Dems to shoot their wad, so Bushcult can put in a real kommissar –which is a whole new ball of anthrax–or B) they will ride the clock out.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 9 2007 6:16 utc | 5

They’re baaaaacccck Looks like the Russian made RKG-3EM armor piercing hand grenades are indeed becoming a (bigger) problem. Can you say “portable IED”.

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 9 2007 7:31 utc | 7

Sorry about the screw up
b from last open thread 114:
The DKos diary on the Richardson OpEd received 24 comments – tells me something …
Since the OpEd was about getting out of Iraq my impression of this comment implies Kossacks want to stay in Iraq. Personally I think it speaks to power. Simply stated Richardson has about as much chance of getting elected President as anyone on this board has. Contrast that with the above post (3) about Pelosi boycotting KOS and you see 965 comments. When their own power is drawn into question the thread is flooded. The importance of the issue is always secondary to power.
Jonathan Schwarz posted about this explaining the thought mechanisms behind it. This point was again illustrated in the last GOP debate when Ron Paul warned that Republicans are losing elections over Iraq. Huckabee responded “Even if we lose elections, we should not lose our honor, and that is more important to the Republican Party”. In other words as long we remain the leaders of the Republican Party who cares.
Nothing warns of this more than the most popular manuscript in history, the Bible itself. Those in power will kill GOD himself in order to keep that power. For those that don’t read the bible the story was told in a movie “The Passion of the Christ”. This is the ultimate warning in speaking truth to power but it is concistantly ignored. It is one of man’s greatest vices in the struggle for freedom.
This is why Iraq is in such turmoil. The leaders are all struggling for power, squabbling amongst themselves and killing each other more than they are resisting the occupation. This is why I posted earlier that what is happening in Iraq is not ethnic cleansing. Even the sectarian parties are killing each other in the struggle for power. Sectarianism is but a tool of the leaders to rally supporters. Even the Anbar Salvation group is based on tribal Sheiks losing power to Islamist leaders fighting the very same Americans they were fighting. It is obvious that if all of Iraq united they would stand a much better chance of removing the yoke of occupation and ending the genocide, yet this remains mission impossible blinded in a struggle for power.
This is a weakness built into all of us and is always exploited with divide and conquer strategies. America installing theocrats to govern over a secular Iraq is a prime example. Nobody spoke louder against America than Hakim before the invasion yet hand him power and he travels to America to lecture the elites that their army is not brutal enough and must kill more of his own people to stop the resistance.

Posted by: Sam | Sep 9 2007 7:43 utc | 9

Geneva Bites Back?
Is a vulnerable flank is opening up.

It appears that deflecting blame / responsibility for the disbanding the Iraqi Army De-Baatification ,the rising insurgency (whatever that means) was a popular sport even whilst Larry “Call me Jerry” Bremer III was swanning about in Saddam’s Palace in 2003.
Pages 223/224 of his “My Year in Iraq” “Jerry” is having a friendly tete a tete with 4 Star General John Abizaid “The mad Arab” about November 7th 2003.
“Abizaid noted he was fed up that .. Walt Slocombe still opposed re-hiring Sunni field – grade Army oficers . “We need experienced Iraqi commanders who can lead troops. I’m sick of reading his opinion on the subject in newspapers.”
Slocombe had been responding to reporter’s questions .. questions had been raised by anononymous iniformed officers and Pentagon officials looking for someone to blame for the largely unprecedented insurgency we were now fighting.
I told Abizaid I agreed with Slocombe we needed to be very careful ….
“Listen” he said , “I’ve always told you that I opposed disbanding the Army, but I’ve never gone to the Press with my opinion.”
Always ? Disbanding ? (Jerrys’ emphasis)
“Way back in May, Walt Slocombe had consulted CENTCOM while we prepared CPA order No2 dissolving the old Iraqi Defense Ministry, Saddam’s intelligence service and security forces. The order recognised the reality that the army had disbanded itself as Coalition forces swept into the country. We had co-ordinated the CPA decision – and had reviewed every word of the order with Paul Wolfowitz and Doug Feith before issuring the decree on May 23rd. Lt. Gnl. David McKiernan , Abizaid’s commander on the ground , had been fully consulted too.”
It seems impossible to find anyone who “Jerry” didn’t discuss it with – certainly he must have included it in his nightly e-mails to his wife…. as well.
Dubya’s biographer Mr Draper it appears, is talking through his bottom – or Dubya is lying . But Dubya wouldn’t lie would he ? Would he?

The sensitivity is explained here:

At war with Whitehall
General Sir Mike Jackson strikes many blows in his autobiography. But how strongly did he express his concerns about Iraq to his political masters?
Richard Norton-Taylor
September 7, 2007 8:00 PM | Printable version
In his much-heralded autobiography, General Sir Mike Jackson, former head of the army, strikes many blows. He describes Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defence secretary, as “one of those most responsible for the current situation in Iraq”.
And after a scathing attack on the state of soldiers’ accommodation, a state of affairs he blames squarely on civil servants, he writes: “I did not find the MoD a comfortable place to be. Its values were not mine.”
Yet the general’s attacks against these pretty easy targets raise profound and unanswered questions. Other very senior defence officials say – privately – that Rumsfeld, along with Blair and Bush, should face war crimes charges for failing to discharge the responsibilities placed on occupying powers by the Geneva conventions.
Jackson says in his book that all the heads of the armed forces, including Admiral Sir Mike (now Lord) Boyce, chief of defence staff at the time, were concerned about the US failure to plan for the post-invasion of Iraq. Boyce, he writes, “represented our concerns both to the prime minister and the secretary of state [Hoon] – though it may not have helped that he didn’t have an easy relationship with Geoff Hoon”.
What we don’t know is how strongly Boyce, Jackson, and the others expressed their concerns to Blair and what Blair did about them. All the evidence suggests that as far as Bush was concerned, Blair wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Did the service chiefs protest, threaten to resign? We don’t know if they even uttered a word when Rumsfeld tore up their orders to British commanders in the field – namely, to try and deal with Iraqi army commanders for help in maintaining law and order after the invasion.
Jackson, meanwhile, suggests he was fighting a war against the Whitehall warriors – the civil servants he so despises – as much as anybody else. The criticism that could be laid against him is that his antipathy towards the bureaucrats distracted him from trying to solve the pressing problems, including the state of soldiers’ houses and allowances, he now so loudly complains about. Did he just give up fighting Whitehall?
He may have played to the gallery before the squaddies. But we need to know what he and his fellow chiefs of staff said to their political masters.

You’re not allowed to dissolve the institutions of a state. That’s conquest. And conquest is “aggressive war”.
By the way, one of the comments is priceless:

While sqaddies from British council estates were being killed in an illegal war against the people of Iraq, our great war leader Mike Jackass was getting a face lift to remove the bags from under his eyes.

General full O shit Jackson.
I dont mind people rambling crap when they don’t know the real score.
It’s those who know, and still try and sell you BS that I despise.
Gotta hand it to those in charge though.
They sure as hell can play a shell game !

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 9 2007 8:18 utc | 11

@ 12,
that is certainly an interesting story. I like how the skinheads are described as being Jews by dubious ties to parents or grandparents that are Jewish. After all, a good kosher Jew would never do anything like kill a foreigner.
I have noticed in the past that the russian immigrants often get bad press and are treated like country cousins. Could this be an example of that? Is there a stratification of Israeli society where there are some who are more equal than others?
perhaps someone with knowledge of Israeli society will comment.

Posted by: dan of steele | Sep 9 2007 15:49 utc | 13

& the whole incident highlights the mockery israel has mad of its law of return; it is commonly accepted that they accepted many russians with only the slightest connection to judaism as a means of combating the palestinan demographic

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 9 2007 16:13 utc | 15

@Dan o’ Steele (#13)
“Is there a stratification of Israeli society where there are some who are more equal than others?”
Um… was that a rhetorical question? Hells, yes, there is. Haven’t you heard of the “ringworm children”? The Ashkenazim are far, far more “equal” than the Sephardim (who are typically easy to distinguish because of their generally darker complexion).
Of course, it will be immediately countered that I am anti-Semitic for mentioning this, I know nothing about Israeli society or Judaism in general, and, besides, this was done way, way back in the 1950’s. It’s not like contemporary Israelis do that kind of thing anymore.
I will, however, bow to Malooga when it comes to questions of Israel. He knows far more than I about that subject.

Posted by: Monolycus | Sep 9 2007 16:50 utc | 17

And it doesn’t look like my link to the “ringworm children” is working anyway. Okay, from that article (http://web.israelinsider.com/views/3998.htm)…
Snip…

“The Ringworm Children” (translated in Hebrew as “100,000 Rays”), directed by David Belhassen and Asher Hemias, recently won the prize for “best documentary” at the Haifa International film festival, and in the past year has made the rounds of Jewish and Israeli film festivals around the world. But it had yet to come to Israeli television screens. The subject is the mass irradiation of hundreds of thousands of young Israeli immigrants from Middle Eastern countries — Sephardim, as they are called today. The story goes like this:
In 1951, the director general of the Israeli Health Ministry, Dr. Chaim Sheba, flew to America and returned with seven x-ray machines, supplied to him by the American army.
They were to be used in a mass atomic experiment with an entire generation of Sephardi youths to be used as guinea pigs. Every Sephardi child was to be given 35,000 times the maximum dose of x-rays through his head. For doing so, the American government paid the Israeli government 300 million Israeli liras a year. The entire Health budget was 60 million liras. The money paid by the Americans is equivalent to billions of dollars today.
To fool the parents of the victims, the children were taken away on “school trips” and their parents were later told the x-rays were a treatment for the scourge of scalpal ringworm. 6,000 of the children died shortly after their doses were given, while many of the rest developed cancers that killed thousands over time and are still killing them now. While living, the victims suffered from disorders such as epilepsy, amnesia, Alzheimer’s disease, chronic headaches and psychosis.
That is the subject of the documentary in cold terms. It is another matter to see the victims on the screen.
To watch the Moroccan lady describe what getting 35,000 times the dose of allowable x-rays in her head feels like. “I screamed make the headache go away. Make the headache go away. Make the headache go away. But it never went away.”
To watch the bearded man walk hunched down the street. “I’m in my fifties and everyone thinks I’m in my seventies. I have to stoop when I walk so I won’t fall over. They took my youth away with those x-rays.”
To watch the old lady who administered the doses to thousands of children: “They brought them in lines. First their heads were shaved and smeared in burning gel. Then a ball was put between their legs and the children were ordered not to drop it, so they wouldn’t move. The children weren’t protected over the rest of their bodies. There were no lead vests for them. I was told I was doing good by helping to remove ringworm. If I knew what dangers the children were facing, I would never have cooperated. Never!”
Because the whole body was exposed to the rays, the genetic makeup of the children was often altered, affecting the next generation. We watch the woman with the distorted face explain, “All three of my children have the same cancers my family suffered. Are you going to tell me that’s a coincidence?”
The majority of the victims were Moroccan because they were the most numerous of the Sephardi immigrants. The generation that was poisoned became the country’s perpetual poor and criminal class. It didn’t make sense. The Moroccans who fled to France became prosperous and highly educated. The common explanation was that France got the rich, thus smart ones. The real explanation is that every French Moroccan child didn’t have his brain cells fried with gamma rays.
The film made it perfectly plain that this operation was no accident. The dangers of x-rays had been known for over forty years. We read the official guidelines for x-ray treatment in 1952. The maximum dose to be given a child in Israel was .5 rad. There was no mistake made. The children were deliberately poisoned.
David Deri makes the point that only Sephardi children received the x-rays: “I was in class and the men came to take us on a tour. They asked our names. The Ashkenazi children were told to return to their seats. The dark children were put on the bus.”
The film presents a historian who first gives a potted history of the eugenics movement. In a later sound bite, he declares that the ringworm operation was a eugenics program aimed at weeding out the perceived weak strains of society. The Moroccan lady is back on the screen. “It was a Holocaust, a Sephardi Holocaust. And what I want to know is why no one stood up to stop it.”
David Deri, on film and then as a panel member, relates the frustration he encountered when trying to find his childhood medical records. “All I wanted to know was what they did to me. I wanted to know who authorized it. I wanted to trace the chain of command. But the Health Ministry told me my records were missing.” Boaz Lev, the Health Ministry’s spokesman chimes in: “Almost all the records were burned in a fire.”
We are told that a US law in the late ’40s put a stop to the human radiation experiments conducted on prisoners, the mentally feeble and the like. The American atomic program needed a new source of human lab rats and the Israeli government supplied it.
There is one person alive who knows the truth: Shimon Peres. The only way to get to the truth and start the healing is to investigate him for his role in the mass poisoning of over 100,000 Sephardi children and youth.

And, Snip…

But here is why (disclosure) won’t happen. The film was aired at the same time as the highest-rated TV show of the year, the finale of Israel’s talent-hunt show: “A Star Is Born.” The next day, the newly-born star’s photo took up half the front pages. There was not a word about “The Ringworm Children” in any paper, nor on the Internet. Until now.

Posted by: Monolycus | Sep 9 2007 17:01 utc | 19

@b
The jews look down on the Arab and christians
True, but I need to correct one apparent mistake here — most of the indigenous Christians in Israel are Arabs. If I am not mistaken, your sentence implies that “Arab” and “Christian” are two separate groups. The Christians who are native to the country (including Armenians) are Palestinian. There are of course foreign Christians from various countries, including Russians who immigrated from the Soviet Union and got Israeli citizenship by virtue of Jewish ancestry, even though they themselves are Christian.
The Arab Christians are a small minority of the non-Jewish population however — they comprise only about 8% of the Arab population of Israel (which itself comprises nearly 20% of the country). Still, it is often overlooked that they are both Christian and Arab.

Posted by: Bea | Sep 9 2007 19:56 utc | 21

it seems to me that the state of Israel is in very sad shape. the unlucky ones who went there seeking a better life free of discrimination and hatred for being Jewish soon found themselves hated by their own as well as the indigenous people they displaced from their homes.
the dream that the early settlers in the kibbutzes had of a homeland for the Jews was soon subverted by greedy men taking advantage of the vulnerable, just like it always was, just like it always is. the dream lives on and is been made into a myth and legend with all kinds of tragedy and sadness giving support and reason to its existence. but it is no different than life anywhere else, with the small exception of some 200 nuclear warheads and the means to deliver them anywhere in the world.
I suppose that many would make fun of me and accuse me of crying crocodile tears but I have come to feel sorry for the Jewish people. I believe that fate has dealt them another bad hand and they are about to lose all over again. not all of them mind you, just the common folks like us.

Posted by: dan of steele | Sep 9 2007 20:17 utc | 23

Apparently not much has changed in the mentality since the ringworm children “experiments” were conducted.
Tragically. Terribly, terribly tragically.

Posted by: Bea | Sep 9 2007 20:40 utc | 25

Oops! maybe I was wrong about the new look. It might just have been a corrupted code at the bottom that caused the color to change and the right-hand column not to display properly, causing me to jump to conclusions. Never mind…. but do please read his very informative post!!!

Posted by: Bea | Sep 9 2007 21:09 utc | 27

@Uncle
Look at #3 on this list.
Kudos to b real!

Posted by: Bea | Sep 9 2007 21:22 utc | 29

even newsweek, which only considers the GWOT narrative, is having trouble finding a good reporting angle on AFRICOM

Perhaps the biggest source of concern is the recent U.S. track record in the Horn of Africa, where Washington has been pursuing an increasingly militarized policy for more than a year with disastrous results. Twice in the past year, the United States has intervened in Somalia — first by supporting local warlords, then by backing an Ethiopian invasion—to undermine the regime of the fundamentalist Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which Washington accuses of maintaining links with Al Qaeda. Fighting has raged across Mogadishu ever since, killing hundreds of innocent civilians and forcing some 400,000 from their homes, without decisively toppling the Islamists. U.S. and European attempts to create a government of national unity have failed spectacularly.
Now the conflict is spreading west to Ethiopia — where tensions between ethnic Somalis and Ethiopians are at a high — and north to Eritrea, which the United States accuses of harboring Qaeda operatives with ties to the ICU. The Bush administration is now on the verge of labeling Eritrea, once a U.S. ally, a state sponsor of terror. None of this helps Washington sell the idea that Africom will be a force for peace. “We have done a horrible job in getting our message out in the War on Terror,” says one senior U.S. official in Ethiopia, who provided comment on the condition that his name not be used. “We’ve ceded the battlefield to these extremist elements.” [bullshit. no wonder they don’t want their name associated w/ the stmt.]
One of the mistakes Washington has made — a mistake the creation of Africom might compound — has been to rely so heavily on Ethiopia. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who just 10 years ago President Bill Clinton hailed as one of a “new generation of African leaders,” now has one of the worst human-rights records in Africa. Secret police repress opposition members while the Meles government intimidates international aid organizations, kicking the medical charity Doctors Without Borders out of Ethiopia’s conflicted eastern border region last week.
Similar concerns elsewhere may make it harder for Africom to find a permanent base. But there will probably always be takers. Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has offered her country as a possible location. And Frazer maintains that she’s “positive” Africom will find a home on the continent somewhere. But with so much hostility, it may never feel entirely welcome.

Posted by: b real | Sep 9 2007 21:47 utc | 31

b real…I sent your posts on Africom to several people. It was and continues to be very nice work. Thanks

Posted by: R.L. | Sep 10 2007 0:23 utc | 33

b real
felicitations & keep researching & giving – your researches contain both force & tenderness

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 10 2007 1:38 utc | 35

Thanks Bea, I was like wtf???…lol (Still not clear of their –that persons–context on metatfilter or if they were being flippant).
Also, an added bravo to b real, good work.
I would imagine you can take the same models and methods of IMF, WTO, and all the other agencies OF America’s imperialism on S. America thus only retooled and reworked to subjugate the whole of Africa. Colonialism by any other name etc…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 10 2007 2:09 utc | 37

in an earlier OT thread on the somali congress for liberation and reconstitution conference underway in asmara, i wrote that “asst sec frazer will probably waddle back out before the microphones to disseminate more disinformation” and that’s exactly what she did this weekend in ethiopia.
buying time for her GWOT allies in addis ababa on the growing concerns over ethiopia’s counterinsurgency operations in the ogaden region, frazer chose her words carefully.
voa: US Official Urges Greater African Involvement in Somalia Peace Efforts

Assistant Secretary Frazer held talks in Addis Saturday with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and African Union chairman Alpha Omar Konare. A day earlier she and President Bush’s Special Assistant for Africa Bobby Pittman made a whirlwind tour of the vast Ogaden region of southeastern Ethiopia, where government forces have launched a military crackdown against rebel groups.
…
In recent weeks, international aid agencies have accused Ethiopia of denying humanitarian workers access to the region, where civilian casualties are said to be heavy. The rebels say government troops are imposing an economic blockade, creating a man-made famine. The Ethiopian government strongly denies the charges.
At a news conference in Addis Ababa Saturday, Frazer described the allegations as ‘unsubstantiated‘. But she said she had urged Ethiopian leaders to avoid casualties and human rights violations.
She said efforts to investigate the charges, and to ensure adequate supplies to needy civilians are complicated by the rebels’ links to warring factions in neighboring Somalia.
“Part of the challenge is that the chaos, I shouldn’t call it chaos, but fighting taking place in Somalia has disrupted that market, the rice and products that normally come into the Ogaden have been disrupted by the situation in Somalia itself,” said Frazer. “In addition to that, there are those extremists, insurgents who have tried to make a link with the ONLF and they are trying to, the ONLF is trying to get contraband in through those trade routes. Weapons, arms trafficking is taking place with the same trucks bringing in rice.”

huh? the ogaden, which is in ethiopia & tightly controlled by that govt, has been affected by the sitch in somali which has “disrupted” the flow of “rice and products”, yet the ONLF is allegedly bringing in contraband in those same “disrupted” trade routes?
the editorial staff at ogaden online sorta sees what’s going on here
Jendayi Frazer :Unofficial TPLF Spokeswoman or a Top US Official?

At a time when multiple sources including human rights and Non-Governmental Organizations, NGOs, working in Ogaden have detailed not only the type of atrocities but also the extent of the war crimes committed against the Ogaden citizenry by the TPLF army and its’ associated militias;
At a moment when no international journalist is allowed to set foot in Ogaden, it is quiet disappointing, to say the least, to hear the recent outburst from Jendayi Frazer who is a host to the same Ethiopian junta that has not only ordered but carried out the current war crimes reported in Ogaden.
When Frazer terms the genocide that has and is taking place in Ogaden as merely allegations that are ‘unsubstantiated’, which happens to be the same terms used by Zenawi in the recent Time’s interview, we are left to wonder whether Frazer is a top US diplomat for African affairs or an unofficial spokeswoman for the Tigrian People’s Liberation Front, TPLF.
What evidence, other than the propaganda fed to her by the TPLF misinformation minions, does Frazer have that can make all the horror stories provided the internationally renowned human rights organizations, Ogaden survivors of the current Ogaden war crimes, and the NGOs who have an innate knowledge of the Ogaden landscape and people, as mere ‘unsubstantiated’ allegations?
We, the Ogaden Editorial Board, EOB, believe that Frazer has accepted in face value, the misinformation provided by the TPLF junta headed by Zenawi.

i said “sorta” though, b/c frazer knows exactly what is going on. she’s been closely involved in ethiopia’s activities in the horn for close to a year now.
an AFP article has her bringing eritrea into the ogaden crisis
US, UN concern over Ethiopian rebel crackdown

Human rights groups have accused the army of razing villages, displacing thousands of civilians and imposing an economic blockade on the region, which has suffered flooding and drought.
“We urge all governments to respect the human rights, but it is difficult when you are fighting an insurgency,” said Jendayi Frazer, Assistant Secretary for African Affairs at the US State Department.
…
Formed in 1984, the ONLF is fighting for the independence of ethnic Somalis in Ogaden, saying they have been marginalised by Addis Ababa.
Frazer said the group was being supported by neighbouring Eritrea.
“Eritrea is undermining the security and the stability in the Horn of Africa,” she said. “They harbor terrorists, it is a state sponsoring terrorism. We hope they will stop doing so if not we’ll see what actions to take.”
Ogaden, an arid area in the Somali state of eastern Ethiopia, is believed to contain oil and natural gas, but rebel activities have scuppered efforts to carry out conclusive explorations.

interesting, but predictable, spin to put the blame on the rebels, who are defending the rights of the people being kicked off their lands by govt forces, as ‘scuppering’ exploration activities. but then the article itself is flawed, first stating the un team had already left the region, which was reported a few days ago, and then saying that it was still there & that the ONLF just declared a ceasefire – it was declared sept 1st.
sloppy reporting like this makes it difficult to assign credulity to the article or those it represents, which is par for the course when it comes to frazer’s rhetoric on eritrea anyhow, given the mendacity of stmts pouring forth from her & meles practically every time they open their mouths in public
iht: Eritrea needs to stop alleged support of terrorists, says U.S. official

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia: The U.S. could halt plans to declare Eritrea a “state sponsor of terrorism” if it stops its support of “terrorists” in Somalia, the top U.S. African affairs diplomat said.
“There’s always a chance for Eritrea to stop what it’s doing,” Jendayi Frazer, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, told journalists late Saturday.
It was the second time that Frazer had publicly spoken of the evidence her country is compiling of alleged Eritrean support of al-Qaida-linked Islamist militants in Somalia.
The Ethiopian Ministry of Information called for “appropriate measures,” to be taken against Eritrea, its archrival, for “openly pursuing its strategy of destabilizing Somalia and the region.”

what a crock. the illegal invasion and continued occupation of somalia by proxy is the fundamental destabilizer of the horn right now, and it’s not eritrea behind it, it is the u.s. & ethiopia.
the opposition conference in asmara has provided frazer an opportunity to turn up the rhetoric a bit more, however, since sheik hassan dahir aweys has shown up in attendance.

Frazer said that evidence of Eritrean support for extremists includes a conference of Somali dissidents Eritrea is currently hosting that includes individuals who have been linked to al-Qaida.
“We are continuing to gather information and evidence, and I think that we need to do a very thorough job there. But clearly the fact that Eritrea is providing sanctuary for terrorists is best illustrated by the report that Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys was in Asmara yesterday (Friday),” Frazer said.
Aweys has been singled out in a U.S. executive order and a U.N. Security Council resolution for his association with al-Qaida, Frazer said. “So he’s a designated terrorist attending a conference in Asmara that’s supported by the (Eritrean) government.”
Aweys has denied he is a terrorist or has any links with al-Qaida.

now he wouldn’t be a very good role model & inspiration for other “jihadists” if he continually denied affiliation w/ AQ, would he? yet that’s been his claim all along & the u.s. keeps bluffing on this ca(na)rd. and frazer further demonizes eritrea, largely because it refuses to play along w/ u.s. interests & the superpower’s assignment of ethiopia as the regional power. as frazer’s deputy, james swan, recently made clear, eritrea is the only horn nation that the u.s. isn’t working closely with. all the others have submitted parts of their sovereignty to u.s. policies & interests.
last week, the eritrean ministry of information laid out an itemized rebuttal to frazer’s august 17th farcical briefing, which served as a transparent threat to leverage more power over the nation & shape international opinion, outlining the “numerous acts of hostility that Washington has taken against Eritrea in the past ten years” and its position of u.s. policy in the region.
US Policy in Eritrea: A Pattern of Unprovoked Hostility

31. The charges of “sponsoring terrorism” and “destabilizing the region” are the most preposterous allegations that belie the ulterior motives of the US State Department. Eritrea’s position on Somalia has been spelled out unequivocally in various occasions and forums before; including at the IGAD and UN sessions. Equating Somalia’s quest for national reconstitution after 16 years of mayhem with “Islamist terrorism” is either inexcusable ignorance or deliberate distortion of facts and events. As Eritrea has underlined repeatedly, the presumed presence of one or two alleged international terrorists cannot justify, by any stretch of imagination, the invasion of a sovereign country; and, the deaths of tens and thousands and displacement of almost half a million civilians.
32. The charge of regional destabilization is equally preposterous. Ethiopia has invaded Somalia in violation of UN Security Council Resolutions which were adjusted to “fit the new reality” because of the US support. Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia was long planned with the tacit encouragement and joint planning of the respective US agencies. Ethiopia is violating international law to occupy sovereign Eritrean territories and to spawn a permanent situation of regional tension and instability.
…
34. The spiral of hostility that characterizes US policy towards Eritrea boiled down to one overriding reason. This was true in the 1950s and it is also true today. It has nothing to do with principles of international law or with values of justice, democracy and human rights. The United States has all along believed that its perceived strategies in the region can be better served by Ethiopia; irrespective of the philosophical persuasions of the regime in power in Addis Abeba. This consistent and overriding policy was couched in Cold War terms in the 1950s. It has now been articulated in terms of the regional “Anchor States” as spelled out in the US National Security Strategy of 2002.
35. This policy did not serve the interests of Eritrea, Ethiopia, the region, and even United States itself when we look, in retrospect, to what has transpired in the second half of the last century. It is unfortunate to note that the follies of the past century are not being redressed today.

hardly sounds unreasonable, doesn’t it? reportedly frazer shrugged off the ministry’s points this w/e and honed in on the fact that aweys was at the asmara conference to the point of excluding any mention at all of what the conference is about or intended to do. this is a similar diversion tactic to that used back in the august briefing to shift attention from the human rights watch rpt on the war crimes in mogadishu to eritrea & DoS political lists.
the eritrean ministry expressed its position on the conference in an article date 6 sept.
Victory to the Somali Congress for Liberation and Reconstitution!

Starting Thursday September 6, Asmara has been hosting a significant and historic congress aimed at promoting understanding and reconciliation among the entire Somali people.
Over the past 16 years the Somali people had been victimized by prolonged and violent civil war which had brought on clan-based division and conflict and nearly destroyed the feelings of nationhood and patriotism. The untold agonies the Somali people had suffered during this chaos are an embarrassing history for a world that prides itself on its humane and modern principles.
The ‘Federal Transitional Government’ that gained power in Mogadishu through an illegal invasion is itself a part and extension of the civil war by the Somali warlords. In an attempt to enforce this unwelcome government on the Somali people, regional and international forces had in the past nine months of invasion killed thousands of civilians, displaced millions more and plunged that country into further turmoil and violence. Now the time has come for the international community in general and the Somali people in particular to gain valuable lessons from the destructive past experience and work on finding a comprehensive political solution that leads to national reconciliation and the reconstitution of the Somali nation. The basic objective of the Congress in Asmara the liberation and reconstitution of Somalia, but its immediate target is to create a common understanding that could secure final and sustainable solution.
Emanating from the Somali people’s support and cooperation with the Eritrean people’s liberation struggle, the Eritrean government’s stand regarding the Somali case is and will always be clear and precise. The Eritrean policy in this case comprises no other ulterior motive except the desire to help create grounds for understanding and dialogue as well as to provide political support so as to enable the Somali people settle their differences on their own and live peacefully once again in a united country. It is not difficult to understand the contribution which national reconciliation and reconstitution of Somalia will have on regional peace and stability.
The Government of Eritrea would like to point out that the US led TPLF invasion of Somalia will have a dangerous consequence on the Horn of Africa and that the Somali case should be left for the Somalis to solve on their own. It is with this understanding that the Eritrean government is exerting efforts to create grounds for dialogue. International peace and stability being its founding objective, the UN and its agencies should call for an end to external interference in Somalia and encourage the constructive internal political initiatives. Victory to the Congress for Somali Liberation and Reconstitution!

unfortunately, that does not fit the usa’s objectives for the region, as they are still heavily vested in supporting the TFG and its ethiopian lifeline, at the expense of everything they claim to want for the peoples of somalia. as the VOA article stated,
“Frazer … said she sees no early withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from Somalia.” she should know. she’s the one calling the shots.

Posted by: b real | Sep 10 2007 5:10 utc | 39

Great thread!
**************
Again, thank so much, b real, that you have chosen to make this place home and share all of your very important work with us. I am awed and honored.
The only minor critique I could offer is if you could give a monthly, or quarterly, Billmon-like (sigh) basic synopsis of events, with maps, to help bring newbies in to the circle and up to speed.
**********
Not much I can add to the Israeli thread above that wasn’t said better by someone else. Except to say, as I never got around to on the Holocaust thread, that there is a strand of Jewish complicity running through the entire narrative, at times aiding and abetting events, and at times, even facilitating the very evil we now rail against.
We are always told that stories like the irradiation of the Sephardim, the syphilitic poisoning of African-Americans, etc. are unfortunate aberrations in OUR system of government, “a few bad apples,” but when similar events happen in official enemies like Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Iraq, Iran, China, Burma, etc., they are the signature indicator of the inhumanity of their systems. (Yet, when Iraq gassed a few thousand Kurds with US supplied gas, that gave the US license to invade and kill 1M Iraqis and counting.)
It is time we face the fact that atrocity is the Hallmark of OUR system, along with its bastard half-brothers, deflection, denial, self-justification, sanctimony. and propaganda. But instead of facing our own complicity in EVIL, and in perpetuating a system which spawns evil, we project our own guilt and crimes onto others. This false projection always results in a mystification of reality, which then, more concretely, results in self-justifying myth-making.
This mystification of evil reached its apogee with the Holocaust industry’s treatment of Nazi Germany, and the murder of Jews, as unique in history.
To quote Finkelstein speaking of that moral weasel, Weisel:

Now here’s my question: Please cite even a single article in the vast output of scholarship on American slavery that even remotely echoes such insane preoccupations. Or, point to me a single article in the scholarly literature on American slavery making the claim that it “leads into darkness,” “negates all answers,” “lies outside, if not beyond, history,” “defies both knowledge and description,” “cannot be explained nor visualized,” is “never to be comprehended or transmitted,” marks a “destruction of history” and a “mutation on a cosmic scale,” is “non-communicable ” – “we cannot even talk about it.” I am, or course, quoting here the high-priest of Holocaust studies, Elie Wiesel. Does this sound to anyone on the listserv like rational inquiry or is it, as I’ve suggested, a highly lucrative and politically useful mystery religion?

The real lesson is that the Holocaust was not unique, was not sui generis, but was just one event in a long string of events, what Arendt called the [endless] “banality of evil:” the long parade of human pathology, of those who separate their fate from the world’s, and pit themselves against life itself, in the endless, but, tragically, temporally delimited, quest for MORE — a vast parade of fools and little men, as r’giap might say.
As Finkelstein heroically asserts, evil can be de-mystified by scholarship and education — which is his task, Naomi Klein’s, our’s here on this blog, and the task of those who seek justice the world over.
And Jews are not immune from this pathological sickness anymore than any other group of people. Indeed, the pressure to “achieve” in society, common to immigrant groups and minorities, only heightens the temptation to cut oneself, and one’s fate, off from humanity, to cleave oneself from life, as it were — the very conditions necessary for creating human monsters.
And so it should be no surprise that Israel has held the world title for “Little Shop of Horrors” for so long. Nor should it be a surprise that funding for this program comes from the bigger shop of horrors across the sea.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 10 2007 16:40 utc | 41

In the meantime, speaking to Congress as I’m typing, Gen. Petraeus is hammering repeatedly on Iran’s supposed complicity in Iraq. And protesters in the gallery are being quickly hauled away.

Posted by: catlady | Sep 10 2007 18:14 utc | 43

la times: Fading superpower?
Like all empires before it, the U.S. will slip from the top of the heap. Let’s start getting ready.

It is hardly farfetched to scan the historical record and conclude that self-love and imperialism go together, whether it was the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes insisting that British colonialism in Africa had been “philanthropy plus 5%” or President Bush insisting that it was America’s special mission to spread democracy throughout the world. But what the historical record also shows is that imperial moments are, in fact, fleeting, and that hegemony has a shorter and shorter shelf life. The Roman Empire lasted more than 700 years (more than a millennium if you count the Byzantines); the British Empire lasted a little more than 300 years in India and less than a century in much of Africa. The economic challenges facing the U.S. at least suggest that America’s time as sole superpower could be shorter still.
Americans, who grow up believing in their country’s exceptionalism (which in foreign policy terms often seems to mean not believing that the historical constraints that apply to other nations apply to the U.S.), are not predisposed to believe that American predominance could possibly be coming to an end. And yet it seems more like wishful thinking than rational analysis to believe that the United States — which in the coming decades will certainly have to adapt to a multipolar world in geo-economic terms, as China and India reoccupy the central place in the global economy that they had 500 years ago — can continue indefinitely to play a hegemonic role.
The truth is that whether it is imperial Rome, imperial Spain or imperial Britain, economic strength and political strength have always gone together. Because no one denies that the U.S. will decline in comparative terms economically (though it will almost certainly remain one center of the world economy), the only way one can believe that geopolitics will not also become multipolar is to believe that the U.S. is somehow exempt from what seems one of history’s few ironclad laws. And that is not analysis; that is faith.

Posted by: b real | Sep 10 2007 22:13 utc | 45

This is ominous:
Qassam Rocket Fired from Gaza Hits Israeli Army Base

Preliminary reports indicate that Tuesday’s early morning attack would mark the largest number of injuries sustained in a single Qassam attack against Israel.

Posted by: Bea | Sep 11 2007 0:48 utc | 47

& suharto is nothing short of a swine

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 11 2007 2:18 utc | 49

OPEC meets tomorrow (911) – maybe the mexico bombings, which have pushed crude prices even higher, are yet another attempt to pressure the coalition into increasing production. they still didn’t bite on the niger delta terror warning or the stories about depleted reserves.

Posted by: b real | Sep 11 2007 3:04 utc | 51

OT squared/Off-Topic for Open Thread, for Malooga:
misattributed, but good anyway: Dorothy Parker and Clare Booth Luce — arguably two of America’s great twentieth century literary women — come to a door at the same time. Luce steps aside, saying, “Age before beauty”. Dorothy Parker walks through the door, saying, “…and pearls before swine.”

Posted by: catlady | Sep 11 2007 3:39 utc | 53

I have a 911 Anniversary Post I wanted to contribute, but I’ll wait a bit to see if b- gives us a dedicated thread.

Posted by: jj | Sep 11 2007 6:48 utc | 55

In the interim, here’s a Blockbuster …gag…vomit…weep… but at least Israeli TV showed it, unlike xAm. TV which would NEVER dare…
On August 14, at 9 PM, Israel’s Channel Ten television screened a documentary film which exposes the ugliest secret of Israel’s Labor party founders: the deliberate mass radiation poisoning of nearly all Sephardi youths of a generation.
“The Ringworm Children” (translated in Hebrew as “100,000 Rays”), directed by David Belhassen and Asher Hemias, recently won the prize for “best documentary” at the Haifa International film festival, and in the past year has made the rounds of Jewish and Israeli film festivals around the world. But it had yet to come to Israeli television screens. The subject is the mass irradiation of hundreds of thousands of young Israeli immigrants from Middle Eastern countries — Sephardim, as they are called today. The story goes like this: link

Posted by: jj | Sep 11 2007 7:06 utc | 57

Bernanke sees some progress in reducing global imbalances
Ohhh…, that’s trade and current account imbalances — not standard of living, income healthcare, food, security and lifespan imbalances.
Stupid me! I thought the Fed had turned red for a second.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 11 2007 16:01 utc | 59

william blum on tim weiner’s cia tome, “legacy of asses”
A pullet surprise for “Legacy of Ashes” by Tim Weiner

In 1971 the New York Times published its edition of the Pentagon Papers, based on the government documents concerning Vietnam policy which had been borrowed by Daniel Ellsberg. In its preface to the book, the Times commented about certain omissions and distortions in the government’s view of political and historical realities as reflected in the papers: “Clandestine warfare against North Vietnam, for example, is not seen … as violating the Geneva Accords of 1954, which ended the French Indochina War, or as conflicting with the public policy pronouncements of the various administrations. Clandestine warfare, because it is covert, does not exist as far as treaties and public posture are concerned. Further, secret commitments to other nations are not sensed as infringing on the treaty-making powers of the Senate, because they are not publicly acknowledged.”[6]
In his new book, “Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA”, New York Times reporter Tim Weiner also relies heavily on government documents in deciding what events to include and what not to, and the result is often equally questionable. “This book,” Weiner writes, “is on the record — no anonymous sources, no blind quotations, no hearsay. It is the first history of the CIA compiled entirely from firsthand reporting and primary documents.”(p.xvii)
Thus, if US government officials did not put something in writing or if someone did not report their firsthand experience concerning a particular event, to Tim Weiner the event doesn’t exist, or at least is not worth recounting. British journalist Stewart Steven has written: “If we believe that contemporary history must be told on the basis of documentary evidence before it becomes credible, then we must also accept that everything will either be written with the government’s seal of approval or not be written at all.”
As to firsthand reporting, for Weiner it apparently has to be from someone “reputable”. Former CIA officer Philip Agee wrote a 1974 book, “Inside the Company: CIA Diary”, that provides more detail about CIA covert operations in Latin America than any book ever written. And it was certainly firsthand. But Agee and his revelations are not mentioned at all in Weiner’s book. Could it be because Agee, in the process of becoming the Agency’s leading dissident, also became a socialist radical and close ally of Cuba?
Former CIA officer John Stockwell also penned a memoir (“In Search of Enemies”, 1978), revealing lots of CIA dirty laundry in Africa. He later also became a serious Agency dissident, and the Weiner book ignores him as well.
Also ignored: Joseph Burkholder Smith, another Agency officer, not quite a left-wing dissident like Agee or Stockwell but a heavy critic nonetheless, entitled his memoir “Portrait of a Cold Warrior” (1976), in which he revealed numerous instances of CIA illegality and immorality in the Philippines, Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia.
There’s also Cambodian leader Prince Sihanouk, who provided his firsthand account in “My War With The CIA” (1974). Sihanouk is also a non-person in the pages of “Legacy of Ashes”.
Even worse, Weiner ignores a veritable mountain of impressive “circumstantial” and other evidence of CIA misdeeds which doesn’t meet his stated criteria, which any thorough researcher/writer on the Agency should give serious attention to, certainly at least mention for the record. Among the many CIA transgressions and crimes left out of “Legacy of Ashes”, or very significantly played down, are:
…

Posted by: b real | Sep 11 2007 16:24 utc | 61

Poor Monolycus. Thanks for your post on *Sunday* It blew my mind. I sent it out to others after reading.

Posted by: beq | Sep 11 2007 18:52 utc | 63

Nevermind. It happens. Some things should get posted twice.

Posted by: beq | Sep 11 2007 18:57 utc | 65

b, yes, that is exactly what they are, cowards

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 11 2007 19:43 utc | 67

They’re not cowards, they’re puppets. Puppets don’t have emotions.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 11 2007 20:26 utc | 69

No Terror Charges for Chiquita Execs

Source: AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department said Tuesday it will not prosecute 10 Chiquita Brands International executives involved in the company’s now-defunct payoff of Colombian terrorists protecting its most profitable banana-growing operation.
The banana company admitted to paying about $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as AUC for its Spanish initials.
The AUC has been responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia’s civil conflict and for a sizable percentage of the country’s cocaine exports.

What! How can that be! har har… snark.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 12 2007 3:57 utc | 71

@70
Trying to keep up with Africoms mission is making me dizzy. Its been billed as terra-buster, fire-fighter, teacher/trainer, tree-planter, well-driller, welfare-provider, … and now, it wants to be prince charming
how about dog-catcher, hooter-waitress, ice-cream-truck-driver, meter-maid … ?
we will all be dead & gone before Africoms mission is done.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Sep 12 2007 9:39 utc | 73

Japan isn’t the only government undergoing a quick shakeup and game of musical chairs… Putin springs surprise choice for PM’s job
Snip…

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday named the little-known head of a financial market watchdog as his prime minister in a surprise move that kept Russians guessing over who would succeed him in the Kremlin.
Earlier, Putin accepted Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov’s resignation and then left Moscow for a planned trip to the Volga region without publicly disclosing a replacement.
It was left to the speaker of the State Duma (parliament), Boris Gryzlov, to announce that Putin had nominated Viktor Zubkov, the 65-year-old head of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service as new prime minister.
The agency’s main duty is to fight money laundering and Zubkov worked with Putin in the St Petersburg mayor’s office during the 1990s.

There’s also the BBC’s coverage… Putin names next prime minister

The choice of a Mr Zubkov suggests a behind-the-scenes power struggle between “clans” within the Kremlin that are differentiated mainly by their degree of hostility toward the West, says the BBC’s Russia analyst Steven Eke.
White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the choice of leaders was a matter for the people of Russia to decide and that the US “looks forward to continuing its good relations with the Russian government”.

Or, for the more alarmist, there’s the FoxNews take on it… Putin Dissolves Government, Nominates Viktor Zubkov as New Prime Minister
Snip…

President Vladimir Putin dissolved Russia’s government Wednesday and then quickly nominates Viktor Zubkov, a Russian Cabinet official who oversees the fight against money laundering, to be the new prime minister.
Boris Gryzlov, the speaker of the State Duma, said Putin nominated Zubkov, who heads the Federal Financial Monitoring Service and who served under Putin when the two worked in the city administration of St. Petersburg in the early 1990s.
Earlier Wednesday, in a major political shakeup, Putin dismissed Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and dissolved his cabinet, paving the way for Putin to name a new head of government.

Read this last loosely as “Oh God, Oh God, The Evil Empire has awakened. We’re all gonna die.”
Or don’t read it at all. I won’t blame you this time.

Posted by: Monolycus | Sep 12 2007 14:48 utc | 75

Oh, yeah… speaking of Russia, for those of you who haven’t heard… The Russian air force has tested a giant fuel-air bomb which the military says is the biggest non-nuclear explosive device in the world.
At this rate, the world won’t go out with a whimper after all. Choke on it, T.S. Eliot!

Posted by: Monolycus | Sep 12 2007 15:24 utc | 77

I don’t much care for PC Roberts racist politics, but his writing is superb:

The jobs data and the absence of growth in real income for most of the population are inconsistent with reports of US GDP and productivity growth. Economists take for granted that the work force is paid in keeping with its productivity. A rise in productivity thus translates into a rise in real incomes of workers. Yet, we have had years of reported strong productivity growth but stagnant or declining household incomes. And somehow the GDP is rising, but not the incomes of the work force.
Something is wrong here. Either the data indicating productivity and GDP growth are wrong or Karl Marx was right that capitalism works to concentrate income in the hands of the few capitalists. A case can be made for both explanations.
Recently an economist, Susan Houseman, discovered that the reliability of some US economics statistics has been impaired by offshoring. Houseman found that cost reductions achieved by US firms shifting production offshore are being miscounted as GDP growth in the US and that productivity gains achieved by US firms when they move design, research, and development offshore are showing up as increases in US productivity. Obviously, production and productivity that occur abroad are not part of the US domestic economy.
Houseman’s discovery rated a Business Week cover story last June 18, [The Real Cost Of Offshoring, by Michael Mandel] but her important discovery seems already to have gone down the memory hole. The economics profession has over-committed itself to the “benefits” of offshoring, globalism, and the non-existent “New Economy.” Houseman’s discovery is too much of a threat to economists’ human capital, corporate research grants, and free market ideology.
The media has likewise let the story go, because in the 1990s the Clinton administration and Congress overturned US policy in favor of a diverse and independent media and permitted a few mega-corporations to concentrate in their hands the ownership of the US media, which reports in keeping with corporate and government interests.
The case for Marx is that offshoring has boosted corporate earnings by lowering labor costs, thereby concentrating income growth in the hands of the owners and managers of capital.
According to Forbes magazine, the top 20 earners among private equity and hedge fund managers are earning average yearly compensation of $657,500,000, with four actually earning more than $1 billion annually. The otherwise excessive $36,400,000 average annual pay of the 20 top earners among CEOs of publicly-held companies looks paltry by comparison.
The careers and financial prospects of many Americans were destroyed to achieve these lofty earnings for the few.
Hubris prevents realization that Americans are losing their economic future along with their civil liberties and are on the verge of enserfment.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 12 2007 16:24 utc | 79

Putin picks surprise nominee for PM

The nomination of Viktor Zubkov, who currently oversees the government’s fight against money laundering, appeared to have caught much of the Russian political elite off-guard.

Not only the Russian’s I bet. Every ambassador in Moscow is scrambling now to find out who the guy is.
The prime minister usually will be the next president.
But Putin may well change that. Anyway, it’s an important decision.
Zubkov is:
– From Leningrad, Putin’s political hometown.
– A longtime tax and anti-money-laundering bureaucrat.
– No obvious FSB (secret service) connections.
Certainly Russia could need someone cleaning up the robber barons tax evasions. But how strong is this guy and will he have the political support?

Posted by: b | Sep 12 2007 18:21 utc | 81

The Jewish New Year and Muslim Ramadan both start today. Weird how those religious holidays completely overlap this year, although the two religions could not, at this point in time, possibly be more estranged from one another.

Posted by: Bea | Sep 12 2007 20:06 utc | 83

New UN Report highlights the hardships that Israeli settlements in Hebron are imposing on the Palestinian residents there.

Posted by: Bea | Sep 12 2007 20:23 utc | 85

jony_b_cool @73 – and now, it wants to be prince charming
no no no, that’s charmin!
check out this headline which summarizes how far in the crapper AFRICOM’s ideas of successful “capacity building” programs have stunk sunk.
Building Loyalty, One Toilet at a Time
yet, in the end, newsweek is still unable to evoke the fragrance of bouquets of roses & help jendayi float the woyane regime in addis ababa.
recall that their previous feature on AFRICOM, dated last saturday, also had a most telling subheading — The United States is planning a new strategic command to take the global War on Terror to the Horn of Africa
while newsweek tries to push the GWOT spin & the image of AFRICOM as a “peace corps w/ guns”, the u.s. militarization of african nations continues.

The Kenya Army has acquired a fleet of Hummer (H1) vehicles worth Sh335 million from the US Government.
Defence minister, Mr Njenga Karume, received 41 of the 100 vehicles at the Kahawa Barracks in Nairobi.
US Ambassador to Kenya, Mr Michael Ranneberger, presided over the colourful ceremony also attended by deputy Chief of General Staff, Lt-Gen Julius Karangi, and Army Commander, Lt-Gen Augstine Njoroge.
The fleet included troops carriers and ambulances.
The envoy said the gesture was part of his Government’s efforts to combat terrorism in the East African region.
He said the US would continue to strengthen the country’s military.
…
He added the US would continue to strengthen and protect Kenya from terrorists.
…
The vehicles come amid another US donation of four speedboats last year to the Navy to help fight marine-related crimes.
Reports indicate that the US has increased its military aid to Kenya by nearly 800 per cent since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The rise in grants for training and sale of arms reflects Kenya’s designation by the US State Department as a “frontline state” in its global war on terrorism.
Washington-based Centre for Defence Information says US military aid of other kinds is due to expand.
The country is set to receive $3 million (Sh190 million) through a special anti-terrorism programme, with funding projected to rise to $5.5 million (Sh368 million) next year.

those figures are taken from the recent center for defence information report U.S. Arms Exports and Military Assistance in the “Global War on Terror”, which i linked to in an earlier open thread, covering 25 individual country case studies – eight being african.

Since 2001, CDI has sought to thoroughly evaluate and analyze this trend of increased military assistance. Over the last six years, CDI has profiled 25 countries that have a unique role in the “war on terror” through the strategic services they have provided to the United States as it conducts anti-terror operations across the globe. The series features analysis of the current political situations in the profiled countries, taking into account other indicators of the relative stability and openness of the country, such as military expenditures, total number of armed forces, and the human rights situation as assessed by the U.S. State Department, alongside an evaluation of U.S. military assistance to these countries over the past 17 years – the post-Cold War years.
CDI’s ongoing research continues to document some troubling trends. Using U.S. government data, CDI has documented that, in the five years after Sept. 11, total U.S. arms sales (Foreign Military Sales and Direct Commercial Sales ) to these 25 countries were worth four times more than those concluded in the five years prior to Sept. 11, and these countries received 18 times more total U.S. military assistance (Foreign Military Financing and International Military Education and Training) after Sept. 11 than before. Furthermore, 72 percent of the countries in this series received more military assistance and 64 percent conducted more arms sales with the United States during the five years after Sept. 11 than during the entire period between the end of the Cold War and Sept. 11 (FY 90-01).

Posted by: b real | Sep 13 2007 4:07 utc | 87

U.S. in Anbar like talks with Mahdi Army.

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 13 2007 5:56 utc | 89

#88
Wow that guy sounds like an MoA’er.
Loved the RR pic’s, especially the Littorina railcar, serious competition for the galloping goose.

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 13 2007 6:48 utc | 91