News? Views?
Let us know …
Back to Main
January 31, 2008
OT 08-06
Comments
Is the dollar going the way of the 1980’s shekel?
Throw away your wallet and buy a wheelbarrow. ( While you can still afford a wheelbarrow.)
Posted by: pb | Jan 31 2008 22:35 utc | 1
I thought I’d bring this up here…
The Blood Queen of Hungary America. The Countess known as Elizabeth Báthory* as Babs (Beautiful mind)BU$H, Speaks..
WASHINGTON (AP) — It hurts far more to hear criticism of your son than of your husband, President Bush’s mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, said Friday during a wide-ranging discussion.
She was interviewed in front of an audience of nearly 300 by Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States, as part of the American Conversations series at the National Archives.
Here is some of what she said:
On the difference between being wife of President George H.W. Bush and mother of President George W. Bush: “It hurts much more if your son’s president. My husband … he’s in agony half the time.”
“You hear people say things that are untrue and unfair. It really hurts. George W. doesn’t watch the press. He’ll call us … (and say) ‘I hear the TV, turn it off.'”
=====
On Tony Blair: “I like Tony Blair very, very much, and I think he suffered a lot because of his support of the United Sates, but till this day he feels he did the right thing and I think he did too.”
=====
On her son, President Bush: “I’m very, very proud of him and he’s the most disciplined person I know. I got there yesterday afternoon, … we had dinner with friends and then he went to bed early and he was up and gone by the time I got up at 8 o’clock.”
=====
On former leaders in other countries: “We treat our former presidents much better than other countries. Half of them kill them. The other half put them in jail. … It’s astonishing to me, the British, the day of the election, they’re out and they don’t have help. They’re just gone. … We’re so generous in our country.”
* or perhaps, the first link Pic, is of Jenna or Not jenna in a decade or so…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 31 2008 22:49 utc | 2
I prefer less pomp and more circumstance, but I seem to be in a minority there. At any rate, things like this do not help me take this sideshow any more seriously. It reminds me of the comic books they distributed in World War II to try to explain to US servicemen precisely why they were there (sorry no link for that, I don’t have time at the moment to go look for it).
Posted by: Monolycus | Jan 31 2008 23:46 utc | 3
Good to see ‘Babs’ has her head screwed on about the important things in life, like whether or not other countries supply servants to their former political leaders. Can you imagine it? The english just cast Bush family pet Bliar to one side in disgust once they finally managed to rid themselves of him. Thank goodness ‘Mr Loyalty’ George ‘Shrub’ Bush was keeping an eye out for him and lined him up with a cushy and importantly titled irrelevance “Middle East Negotiator”. Truth be told Annapolis was probably more to do with Shrub rescuing a lost pet by lining Bliar up for the EC chief’s job than any ‘legacy’ thing, much less a serious hope of ‘peace in our time’.
Why don’t amerikans ask how is it that Shrub is going out of his way to provide a soft landing for a retiring foreigner, yet he only seems interested in making his retiring fellow citizens die of starvation or lack of access to proper medical care?
Posted by: Anonymous | Feb 1 2008 3:54 utc | 4
The more I think about it, the more I’ve decided that the biggest mistake Israel made with the West Bank barrier was to let the Palestinians know what it was there for. How’d they sell it in Berlin? Did they say it was to keep people out or in? I mean, really, you can put people in a zoo as long as you tell them the bars are there to protect them from the outside, not to restrict them to the inside.
At any rate, I, for one, am glad they finally got around to securing Americans against those shifty Canadians who have been massing along the northern border. I’ve long suspected Canuckistanians were up to no good and now that we can’t travel freely amongst one another, we can finally get around to understanding and appreciating one other’s respective cultures. Look how well that’s worked out for North Korea. Isolation has made them a docile people who have a profound understanding and appreciation of the grave danger they face from being exposed to anyone remotely different than they are.
Keep your papers in order and on your person at all times… and remember that if you don’t have anything to hide, you have nothing to worry about. Except for everybody and everything that is remotely different than yourself. Worry about them a lot.
Posted by: Monolycus | Feb 1 2008 4:43 utc | 5
Internet failure hits two continents
High-technology services across large tracts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa were crippled Thursday following a widespread Internet failure which brought many businesses to a standstill and left others struggling to cope.
art.dubai.gi.jpg
Hi-tech Dubai has been hit hard by an Internet outage apparently caused by a cut undersea cable.
Industry experts are blaming damage to two undersea cables but it is not known what caused the damage.
Reports say that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain Pakistan and India, are all experiencing severe problems.
Nations that have been spared the chaos include Israel — whose traffic uses a different route — and Lebanon and Iraq. Many Middle East governments have backup satellite systems in case of cable failure.
Stephan Beckert, an analyst with TeleGeography, a research company that consults on global Internet issues, said the damaged cables collectively account for the majority of international communications between Europe and the Middle East.
An official at Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, speaking on condition of anonymity told AP it was believed that a boat’s anchor may have caused the problems, although this was unconfirmed.
Two cables that carry Internet traffic deep under the Mediterranean Sea snapped, disrupting service Thursday across a swath of Asia and the Middle East.
India took one of the biggest hits, and the damage from its slowdowns and outages rippled to some U.S. and European companies that rely on its lucrative outsourcing industry to handle customer service calls and other operations.
“There’s definitely been a slowdown,” said Anurag Kuthiala, a system engineer at the New Delhi office of Symantec Corp., a security software maker based in California. “We’re able to work, but the system is very slow.”
While the cause of the damage was not yet known, the scope was wide: Traffic slowed on the Dubai stock exchange, and there was concern that workers who labor for the well-off in the Mideast might not be able to send money home to poor relatives.
Although disruptions to larger U.S. firms were not widespread, the outage raised questions about the vulnerability of the infrastructure of the Internet.
wired news has a graphic
FLAG runs about 17,000 miles, stretching from London, through the Suez canal, around India, along China’s coast to Japan.
Posted by: annie | Feb 1 2008 5:31 utc | 6
hmm
this post sounds normal to me, except the category (The Al-Qaeda Threat ).
running between Egypt and Italy — could be relied on to carry this kind of critical infrastructure load? And how might a “boat’s anchor” have caused this problem — as Egypt’s Ministry of Communications wants you to believe?
According to its website, Du Dubai Telecommunications is worth $2.2 billion and is part owned by one of the princes of Dubai. Now taken down by a anchor. Humm.
Posted by: annie | Feb 1 2008 5:39 utc | 7
You beat me to it annie I took too long to write my piece which I will post anyhow:
So how many people saw this NYT article and wrote it off as “Murphy’s law” ie when something fucks up it is certain that another accident will compound the fuck-up.
The article titled 2 Communication Cables in the Mediterranean Are Cut told us:
Two undersea telecommunication cables were cut on Tuesday evening, knocking out Internet access to much of Egypt, disrupting the world’s back office in India and slowing down service for some Verizon customers.
One cable was damaged near Alexandria, Egypt, and the other in the waters off Marseille, France, telecommunications operators said. The two cables, which are separately managed and operated, were damaged within hours of each other. Damage to undersea cables, while rare, can result from movement of geologic faults or possibly from the dragging anchor of a ship.
Now I realise how paranoid this sounds but given these submarine cables are laid pretty deep, when they are coming up into shallow waters the cables are generally laid away from areas where anchors or fishermans nets can catch them. Two in a day and both cables just ‘happen’ to carry a huge swathe of the internet traffic out of ME Arab countries and South Asia India and Pakistan.
Firstly I had better explain something about these cables, submarine cables are preferred because while they may be expensive to lay they are mostly running through international waters where no one has ownership of the ground they rest upon. Where they enter sovereign soil it is the soil of the countries who are part of the treaty of co-operation that use the cable. These cables travel around the world stopping in at a range of countries on the way. Few cables go directly from A to B without stop offs.
A small digression. I prolly mentioned this before but when I was an adolescent layabout tired of the course I was studying at Uni, I decided I wanted to find out a bit more about communications systems in particular the telephone, so I got a gig as a trainee telecommunications technician for a while. I had a few incidents around discovering ‘extra-legal interceptions’ but mostly the job was a daily grind of tracking faults in the decaying publicly owned system and fixing the faults. this may seem counter-intuitive at first but one of the quickest ways to find a problem with a cable is by systematically disconnecting it.
If a cable appears to be losing power to earth or picking up extra power (battery) the way to find it is to start from the endpoint and work inwards disconnecting the line until the problem disappears appears then you know that the problem is between the last two disconnection points. Clear as mud? Sorry about that but the point I am trying to make is that if someone, say for the sake of argument USuk intelligence services, wanted to know where some group of ME patriots were introducing their data into the network, then one way to do it would be by way of a series timed disconnections. This is far more complex than the straight cable pair running out to someone’s phone because the internet has built in redundancy. If one piece of the network is damaged the data is automatically re-routed another way.
Of course there are limits to that redundancy and this article explains a little better than the NYT story how much loss of net connectivity there has been throughout the ME.
This quote from the article would get any conspiracy theorists going:
“”It is a problem off the coast of Alexandria in Egypt. For some reason ships were asked to anchor in a different place to normal – 8.3km from the beach. One of the ship’s anchors cut our cable but there are multiple cuts – we’re not the only company having problems.””
ahh. . . who moved the ships? Why?. . . several cuts? Hmmmm!
THe NYT provides a little more information on Thursday. There had been some glee on the Register link’s bulletin board that this damage would mean fault and warranty calls would have to be dealt with in the same country as the caller, that the huge Indian helpdesk industry would have been neutered, Even better Indian telemarketing would take a break. Not so according to the NYT where we were told:
India took one of the biggest hits, and the damage from its slowdowns and outages rippled to some U.S. and European companies that rely on its lucrative outsourcing industry to handle customer service calls and other operations.
”There’s definitely been a slowdown,” said Anurag Kuthiala, a system engineer at the New Delhi office of Symantec Corp., a security software maker based in California. ”We’re able to work, but the system is very slow.” . . .
The cables, which lie undersea north of the Egyptian port of Alexandria, were snapped Wednesday just as the working day was ending in India, so the full impact was not apparent until Thursday
This bit gets me:
“There was speculation a ship’s anchor might be to blame. The two cables, named FLAG Europe Asia and SEA-ME-WE 4, are in close proximity.
Yeah OK, both cables run through the Suez canal but didn’t they say earlier “One cable was damaged near Alexandria, Egypt, and the other in the waters off Marseille, France”?
This last quote from the Thursday’s NYT got me thinking.
With two of the three cables that pass through the Suez Canal cut, Internet traffic from the Middle East and India intended for Europe was forced to reroute eastward, around most of the globe.
Apart from the NYT slipping up on the ‘cut’ bit; throughout the rest of the article the cables whose fragility is emphasised at least a couple of times, and the cables are alleged to have ‘snapped’ rather than been cut, there is a another interesting factoid in the NYT piece.
2 out of 3 cables running through Suez and which carry all the net data for the ME and India Pakistan are not functioning and may be down for days’ possibly weeks. There is now no redundancy on that cable which would make the job of tracing data which has up until now been injected into the net somewhat surreptitiously, a lot easier. Say for example a video of this week’s exploding hummers, accompanied by the latest anthemic islamic pop song, may now be easier to trace or at least it may be possible to uncover enough about the route to block out future data injections.
The mainstream media doesn’t go out anywhere much in rural iraq. Anywhere much outside the Green Zone really. Since those gangsters kidnapped journos in Gaza last year, very few mainstream journos go there either. If these outages weren’t accidental we may be at the end of the oppressed people of the ME getting their side of the story onto the net.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 1 2008 7:03 utc | 8
The NYT takes 19 paragraphs and a lot of dumb explenation into Kurds’ Power Wanes as Arab Anger Rises before it mentions Turkey. Turkey’s attacks, with U.S. help, on Iraqi-Kurdish territory have been the mayor reason of the Kurdish loss of power in Iraq. Finally the other groups saw that they could oppose the Kurds without getting penalized by the U.S. masters.
The U.S. simply plays off one group against the other. But that’s nothing the NYT would ever mention …
The pet market – again and again – Baghdad hit by two deadly market bombs
Up to 35 people were killed and dozens wounded in bombings at two Baghdad pet markets within 20 minutes of each other today.
A bomb hidden in a birdbox exploded at about 10.20am at the central al-Ghazl market, killing at least 17 people and wounding 27, police and hospital officials said. Six children and many teenagers were reported to be among the victims.
About 20 minutes later, another bomb targeted a bird market in the mainly Shiite southeastern neighborhood of New Baghdad.
…
In late November, a bomb hidden in a box of small birds exploded at the al-Ghazl market, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens, but it has recently re-emerged as a popular venue after security was improved and a driving ban was lifted.
b – 9. I don’t know that the issue of Turkey is as important for waning Kurdish power as you suggest. The Kurds have long overplayed their hand in Iraq, demanding a vast increase in territory, apart from Kirkuk , as well as effective independence, and nevertheless domination of the national government. Kurdish success in getting what they want depended 1) on the Sunni Arab community having zero influence – perhaps true a year ago, and 2) Iraqi Arabs (that is, both Sunni and Shi’a) being split and in disarray. However the re-emergence of Iraqi nationalism has made major strides in the last year. Nobody talks any more about splitting up Iraq into cantons – Shi’a, Sunni and Kurd. However the ambitions of Kurdish politicians depended on that breakup; it was necessary to enfeeble the rest of Iraq. That is really why Kurdish power is on the decline, and in effect that is what the article says, though Iraqi nationalism is not mentioned. I should imagine that US readers of the NYT don’t want to hear about Iraqi nationalism, because it spells the death-knell of the occupation.
Posted by: Alex | Feb 1 2008 10:34 utc | 11
The World Bank at work:
Iraq Gov to ditch food rations program for the poor
“Hell is a place, a time, a consciousness, in which there is no love.”
Richard Bach
Posted by: Juan Moment | Feb 1 2008 11:04 utc | 12
Thought-provoking piece from Naomi Klein:
Class is Back in the US as the Ownership Society Crumbles
Remember the “ownership society”, fixture of major George Bush addresses for the first four years of his presidency? “We’re creating … an ownership society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property,” Bush said in October 2004.
Washington thinktanker Grover Norquist predicted that the ownership society would be this president’s greatest legacy, remembered “long after people can no longer pronounce or spell Falluja”. Yet in Bush’s final state of the union address this week, the once-ubiquitous phrase was conspicuously absent. And little wonder: rather than its proud father, Bush has turned out to be the ownership society’s undertaker.
Posted by: Bea | Feb 1 2008 15:16 utc | 13
“US oil cos. offered 5 million dollars to each Iraqi MP to pass oil law.” link
Can’t judge the credentials of the source or the veracity of the information, but it is just what one would expect, isn’t it.
On the food front, Iraqis are set to starve, posted elsewhere here.
And this, from 22 Jan, caught my eye:
“Venezuela Imports 74,000 Tons Of Food To Avert Crisis” link
and this, from 24 jan: “Venezuelan troops seize food”
snippet:
“Anyone who is distributing food … and is speculating, we must intervene and we must expropriate (the business) and put it in the hands of the state and the communities,” Chavez said during the inauguration of a new state-run market in Caracas. link
also, e.g. “Chavez Border Crackdown Hits Venezuelans” AP today
Some more than half – even up to 80% of food products – terms are always ambiguous – of Venezuela’s food is imported. A fast google on import/export didn’t turn up postable facts. The FAO has food progs. for Venez since forever, but that doesn’t mean much…FAO, from 2002 Mercal: chose Znet, 2005: link
The curse of *black gold.* The Gvmt., in the shape of a powerful head of state, Comrade Chavez, and its military, and new – , with a National *Oil* Co. – in effect sequestering, nationalizing, and distributing food with a rationing system, at ‘semi fixed’ prices… Oil for food, version 4 beta.
Saddam set up a similar system, – better in my mind – and then was coerced further along that route. Since the US took over, Iraqi food basket, access to meds, etc. was cut, curtailed, reviewed down again, etc.
Chavez has now officially legitimized straight trade between oil and food.
[released from spam control – b.]
Posted by: Tangerine | Feb 1 2008 18:10 utc | 14
it is just impossible to post with links… i thought about cutting all the links out but it makes no sense without…and I don’t have time to do sneaky stuff, like the links are on some other board..
Posted by: Tangerine | Feb 1 2008 18:18 utc | 15
#9 the diminution in Kurdish power is part of a larger problem of political divisiveness that has plagued its efforts to build a functioning government in Iraq.
excuse me??? should read Kurdish power is part of a larger problem of political divisiveness that has plagued its efforts to build a functioning government in Iraq.
more from b’s nyt the Kurds have refused to back down on the oil exploration contracts they have signed with foreign companies.
and they are on board w/the much anticipated signing of the gas and oil legislation.
there is a new and visible fault line on the Iraqi political scene.
new to US msm maybe. this has been going on for a long time. the US doesn’t publish negative stories about their favorite iraqi pets.
Posted by: annie | Feb 1 2008 18:18 utc | 16
the scum who would call themselves journalist pass over the pillage of iraq in silence – especially with this new oil law
& at the same time make broadway tunes out of the death of one a q functionary – who is repeatedly described as 3rd most important. but at the moon how many times have they sd that since 2001 – i’d hesitate to say it must be ten thousand times as the buddha says
in fact they wouldn’t know the operational command of the resistance in iraq, of the taliban in afghanistan or the the vast armies of pakistan – even if it mortared them. they know nothing
really these so-called experts are on to a good thing – like bill kristol who is not exceptional but entirely the rule – they are never correct – not once & provably so – they just go on to their next prediction as if the mass had no memory at all
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 1 2008 19:14 utc | 18
A very useful economic piece from the Asia Times Online for those of us (like me) who have no clue what underlies the economic implosion.
How Oil Burst the American Bubble
At the end, I take note of this graph:
Nothing better captures the debilitating nature of America’s dependence on imported oil than President George W Bush’s humiliating recent performance in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He quite literally begged Saudi King Abdullah to increase the kingdom’s output of crude oil in order to lower the domestic price of gasoline. “My point to His Majesty is going to be, when consumers have less purchasing power because of high prices of gasoline – in other words, when it affects their families, it could cause this economy to slow down,” he told an interviewer before his royal audience. “If the economy slows down, there will be less barrels of [Saudi] oil purchased.”
Needless to say, the Saudi leadership dismissed this implied threat for the pathetic bathos it was. The Saudis, indicated Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, would raise production only “when the market justifies it”. With that, they made clear what the whole world now knows: The American bubble has burst – and it was oil that popped it. Thus are those with an “oil addiction” (as Bush once termed it) forced to grovel before the select few who can supply the needed fix.
And then today we hear this:
Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) — OPEC decided to keep oil production targets unchanged at its meeting in Vienna today as the slowing U.S. economy threatens to curb energy demand.
The decision was “easy” to make as oil market fundamentals are “sound,” Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said. The expected economic slowdown means the group’s current production is sufficient to meet demand in the first quarter, OPEC President Chakib Khelil told a press conference.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries rebuffed a request from U.S. President George W. Bush for more oil and delayed discussion of a supply cut to bolster prices until March. Oil has slipped 9 percent from a Jan. 3 record of $100.09 a barrel.
Sorry Georgie, this is one big ‘ole mess that Big Daddy can’t fix for you…
Posted by: Bea | Feb 1 2008 19:41 utc | 22
Well I should amend that — it’s not that I have no clue, thanks to all the wonderful posting here, it’s just that my knowledge is definitely limited and can use the help of such a lucid and straightforward piece as this one from the Asia Times.
Posted by: Bea | Feb 1 2008 19:43 utc | 23
Murdoch’s prediction of $20 a barrel oil if the US invaded Iraq gives you an indication of the intellect that led to the invasion. They thought the shock and awe display would prompt the stunned Iraqis to sign on the oiled line. The fact that killing babies with those bombs would naturally produce hatred and resistance never even entered their cakewalk minds. Telling the troops Iraq was behind 9/11 instilling the grunts with revenge just invreased that hatred.
They didn’t even bother to guard the munition dumps instead deploying the troops to the oil infrastructure. Tanks in front of the Oil Ministry while the people were looting everthing else paints the picture of the US mindset.
Of course they try to deflect the arguement by pointing to China even as they send Bush over to beg the Saudis to open up the spigots. How pathetic is that? The combination of depressed Iraq oil production and the Pentagon sucking back record amounts of oil maintaining the high tech equipment needed for the occupation tells a different story.
Posted by: Sam | Feb 1 2008 22:39 utc | 24
British soldiers ‘tortured and killed’ 22 Iraqis
(snip)
It is alleged the abuse happened after British troops were ambushed on the road from Amara to Basra.
Following a firefight, a 31-strong band of Iraqis are said to have been seized by soldiers and taken into custody. They were held at British headquarters in Abu-Naji in south-east Iraq.
Out of the 31 people detained only nine survived and they claim they were subjected to torture. Iraqi death certificates are said to state that the corpses of the Iraqis who were rounded up showed signs of “mutilation” and “torture”.
(snip)
That was in 2004. This, from yesterday:
British base in Basra hit by heavy rocket barrage
Militants fired a barrage of two dozen rockets at the British military base on the outskirts of the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Thursday (…)
To which the British responded with shells, of course, and now they are “unclear if the casualties were militants or civilians”.
Posted by: Alamet | Feb 2 2008 1:01 utc | 25
Re the Baghdad pet market bombings, a lot of official statements, both Iraqi and US, saying the bombers had down syndrome, that one wasn’t even Iraqi, etc. I don’t believe it, not yet. They terrorized Iraqi women into wearing those horrid black shrouds and now they are discovering the downside to it.
Posted by: Alamet | Feb 2 2008 1:15 utc | 26
Adding to the oil discussion above, apparently the peak oil camp has a new convert.
We are experiencing a step-change in the growth rate of energy demand due to rising population and economic development. After 2015, easily accessible supplies of oil and gas probably will no longer keep up with demand.
says Shell Oil’s CEO.
Posted by: Alamet | Feb 2 2008 1:19 utc | 27
A thick fence, surveillance cameras, and armed guards protect the U.S. Embassy in La Paz. The embassy is a tall, white building with narrow slits of windows that make it look like a military bunker. After passing through a security checkpoint, I sit down with U.S. Embassy spokesman Eric Watnik and ask if the embassy is working against the socialist government of Evo Morales. “Our cooperation in Bolivia is apolitical, transparent, and given directly to assist in the development of the country,” Watnik tells me. “It is given to benefit those who need it most.”
From the Bush Administration’s perspective, that turns out to mean Morales’s opponents. Declassified documents and interviews on the ground in Bolivia prove that the Bush Administration is using U.S. taxpayers’ money to undermine the Morales government and coopt the country’s dynamic social movements—just as it has tried to do recently in Venezuela and traditionally throughout Latin America.
Much of that money is going through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
USAID… another JFK legacy
Posted by: b real | Feb 2 2008 7:55 utc | 31
Rather wonderfully written piece on the Village People. How the sordid Washington DC society life operates as punditry.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 2 2008 9:46 utc | 32
John McCain is Dr. Strangelove
1 Minute video by Robert Greenwald
Thanks to the casting sensibility of Arianna Huffington, we learned that John McCain has been channeling Dr. Strangelove! Duly inspired, Phillip and our Issues 2008 team jumped into action, and 24 hours later, here’s the video!
Pass it far and wide and pitch us your casting ideas for John McCain in the comments.
Posted by: DM | Feb 2 2008 10:23 utc | 33
Sputtering Surge?
Two other indications:
1) Talk of removing god General Petreaus from Iraq. Remember, he left his other big success in Mosul, just before it went to shit.
2) All the warning talk of not removing troops to pre-surge levels, to maintain all the gains made. Or in other words, they already know its falling apart.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 2 2008 10:38 utc | 34
Alamet @27:
Adding to the oil discussion above, apparently the peak oil camp has a new convert.
Interesting that in the midst of failing to get Iraq’s vast oil reserves onto their own books, and actively suppressing production from both Iran and Venezuela, and failing to get concessions on Sudan’s oil fields, and losing the pipeline wars in the Caspian Basin to Russia, Shell trots out the peak oil hype to divert attention from their own failures. It’s like watching a losing gambler that keeps doubling the bet trying to cover the losses. In the meantime all those countries I mentioned are raking in the dough anyway via the tripling of oil prices.
Posted by: Sam | Feb 2 2008 11:45 utc | 35
By way of open thread —
Does anybody know the Dutch word for “window brothel” ??
Posted by: rjj | Feb 2 2008 13:02 utc | 36
@rjj – Does anybody know the Dutch word for “window brothel” ??
Not me 🙂 – But the area in Amsterdam where these are prominent is called Walletjes and that name, as far as I know, can be used as a synonym.
There girls (and since last spring also boys) are standing “achter de ramen”, i.e. “behind the (window-)frame”. “Ramen” is also used in Dutch press reports and this Dutch wiki entry to describe these brothels.
(My small Dutch/German dictonary does not include that word meaning.)
Chad Rebels Fight Gov’t Force in Capital
Hundreds of rebels penetrated the capital of Chad on Saturday, clashing with government troops and moving on the presidential palace after a three-day advance through the oil-producing central African nation, officials and witnesses said.
No idea what is behind this. The rebel movement is Chad is quite a mix of interests …
Germany Rebuffs U.S. On Troops in Afghanistan
Germany on Friday rejected a formal request from the United States to send forces to war zones in southern Afghanistan, the latest setback to the NATO alliance as it tries to scrape together enough troops to battle resurgent Taliban forces and stabilize the country.
…
German officials said they had received a “stern” letter in recent days from U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, pressing for thousands more troops, including for southern Afghanistan. Although they did not release a copy of the letter, officials in Berlin said they resented what they described as pressure tactics.
The letter must have been very unfriendly. Politicians here used various strong attributs to describe the tone of Gates’ letter: “coercion”, “insult”, “impertinence” and the like.
The government and all German parties – from the very right to the left – spoke out against a change of the German troops mandate – “stabilizing in North Afghanistan”. A seldom pose of political unity. The French rebuffed a similar “request”.
Bush the uniter …
The general spat is about strategy in Afghanistan. The U.S. wants “to fight” and the Germans say more fighting makes more enemies and that is not what is needed. Six years of U.S. incompetence in Afghanistan and five years of catastrophy in Iraq is proof enough.
Gates recently already spat on the U.S. allies when he claimed that they don’t know how to do counter-insurgency. Such behaviour is not helping his argument. From my point of view that’s good 🙂
b@ 39
When I saw this story yesterday, my jaw dropped. This goes far beyond Schroeder’s refusal to join in the invasion of Iraq. I frankly did not expect the center right government of Merkel and Steinmeier to openly refuse a request from ihren Amerikanischen Freunden. That this makes the corporate press is a very strong signal to the US to knock it off.
I doubt this will get much press in the US as it will cause the rightwing idiots to have to reverse their love affair with Angie and Sarko…..better just to pretend it didn’t happen.
next thing you know, Poland will be withdrawing from the coalition!
Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 2 2008 17:03 utc | 40
imust be very naive – i thought anything that rupert murdoch owned became a brothel ipso facto & not ipse dixit
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 2 2008 18:04 utc | 41
& again it would seem – that the suicide bombers in iraq were not ‘disabled’ – on the contrary a witness spoke of one of the womans precision in targeting – indeed the concern of iraquis is the fact that u s power for all its bellowing cannot offer a minimum of security
& the surge – an insignificant ejaculation by some soldier general jacking off to a photo of patton
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 2 2008 18:34 utc | 42
& the surge – an insignificant ejaculation by some soldier general jacking off to a photo of patton
Now can someone please photoshop “Holy” Petraeus into that picture …
b, thanks for the Dutch terms.
achter der ramen (if ramen is frame) makes a gem of a meme.
Posted by: rjj | Feb 2 2008 19:40 utc | 44
if ramen is frame ramen IS frame – in German the word is “der Rahmen”. The Dutch one is “de ramen”.
The languages are quite similar. Even though I never learned Dutch I, as a North German, can read most of the easier Dutch newspapers stuff and understand regular radio shows. (Life conservation with people in front of or behind “de ramen” is still restricted.)
Dutch is an interesting mix of languages – north german dialects mixed with cockney english with some spanish and french (flamish) words and a dose of native and colonial flair. Did I ever say that I love Amsterdam?
Sam @ 35,
On the other hand Shell just announced an all-time record profit, so they are probably feeling pretty smug about themselves:
Shell was today accused of making “obscene” profits at a time when pensioners, motorists and industry are struggling with higher energy prices when it unveiled annual earnings of $27.6bn (£13.9bn).
The oil major has made British corporate history with the record figures, which are equivalent to more than £1.5m an hour and come at the end of a three month period when crude prices have averaged over $90 a barrel.
Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, described the performance as “satisfactory” and admitted that overall production for the year had actually dropped 2%.
(snip)
“If it weren’t for those pesky Nationals, we’d be doing even better,” says the CEO, with slightly different wording.
Posted by: Alamet | Feb 3 2008 1:06 utc | 46
Hamas defies Egyptian efforts to reseal porous Rafah border
(snip)
The Hamas prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said his group would not allow the border to be resealed.
”The Palestinian people have many options,” Haniyeh was quoted as telling the pro-Hamas daily Palestine in an interview published Friday. He did not elaborate.
Shortly after, members of Hamas dragged away metal spikes that had been placed at the main breach. Egyptian soldiers, who have been avoiding confrontation with Hamas, removed the remaining obstacles there. Witnesses also reported that a Hamas bulldozer shoved aside spikes at a gap about 100 meters to the east.
(snip)
Posted by: Alamet | Feb 3 2008 1:10 utc | 47
About the Baghdad pet market bombings again, and my comment above, my apologies. I got distracted by the mentally disabled bombers nonsense and got carried away. I should have first stopped to ask why in the world the resistance -any kind of resistance regardless of creed or whatever- attack public marketplaces where there were no legitimate targets.
Posted by: Alamet | Feb 3 2008 1:15 utc | 48
alamet
it is one of the terrible dialectics of liberation that the resistance or at least part of it must show in the face of overwhelming u s force – that there is no security
the terror itself is wholly u s created – it did not exist before the invasion not under saddam & not before him – indeed the only time these form of actions appeared was under the british
it is terrible but the daily aerial bombings of iraq constitutes the real terror against the people of iraq
fanaticism does not fall from the skies – it is created by concrete conditions. it is instrumentalised
& we are far from knowing – in 2008 – the extent of the manipulation of differing forces in iraq by the u s
it is such a dark time in our history & given what we know we know that after fallujah & haditha u s forces are capable of anything
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 3 2008 2:44 utc | 49
@uncle – finally read that rolling stone piece on JTTFs wild goose chase, fallacious reasoning & the cynical use of provocateurs to justify a (racist) mandate. pretty good, esp in the fact that RS has solid reach & an educated audience. really, though, it’s only the interagency sanctioning of the practice that is new. this type of “lawfare” has been going on for ages, useful as a way to discredit a whole range of movements — though typically w/ some connection to foreign agents/influence — or to supply the pretext for self-justification/importance/funding. they’ve always been putting bombs, guns, and ideas into the hands & minds of the pliable.
for instance, check out gary marx’s 1974 article Thoughts on a Neglected Category of Social Movement Participant: the Agent Provocateur and the Informant for episodes from the days of COINTELPRO-New Left/Black Nationalist/Hate Groups/White Hate Groups/CPUSA. (and you may have pointed this article out previously – i’m quite sure you’ve at least linked to some of marx’s works there.)
Posted by: b real | Feb 3 2008 3:36 utc | 50
second part of that chomsky interview @ fpif.
Chomsky on the Rise of the South
(jj linked to part one when it came out – don’t recall seeing a link for the followup)
Posted by: b real | Feb 3 2008 6:40 utc | 51
Been reading the wingnut blogs tonight, and oh my, the disarray is amazing. McCain seems universally hated, and only just a little bit more than Romney. Even the real swiftboat gang has swiftboated him, with rumors of him living in an apartment in Hanoi with hookers and such, ratting out his comrades, insane from torture, theres no end to it. I almost felt sorry for him, but then again, naaaaah. Bush himself fares no better, being blamed for destroying the republican party. The weird thing is that they’ve gotten everything they wanted over the last 7 years, (and are still getting it) so why isn’t it what they expected to end up with? And why are they paralyzed to changing their message. They’ve really taken out the knives and are hacking themselves to bits.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 3 2008 10:59 utc | 52
lol. i know. i went to freeperland last week and they were going batshit.
Posted by: annie | Feb 3 2008 12:53 utc | 53
Re the Baghdad pet market bombings,
roads to iraq
Iraqi resistance factions condemn the bombings in Iraqi markets asking for international investigation
Before you read this I hope people remember that the last Souk Al-Ghasil [Pet Market] explosion was done by Shiite militia supported by Iran as the occupation forces said [read……U.S.: Iran-linked Shiites admit pet market blast], with the new explosion Iraqi police said [reported on Al Hayat] that the woman bomber is not an Iraqi nationality.
This statement reported today.
The “Iraqi Resistance Islamic Front” [jaami] and Hamas-Iraq issued a joint statement condemns the bombing of Iraqi markets called for the international community to intervene saying:
The blood of the innocent people of Zindjeli in Mosul is not yet dry and once again the random mass murders and the organized crimes are back to choose its crime scene in Souk Al Ghasil [Pet Market] in Baghdad taking the lives of dozens of innocent people.
The American occupation forces mentioned in the previous explosion that a well known militia was involved supported by neighborings country
The groups demand an urgent international investigation to uncover the truth of what happened in Zindjeli in Mosul, especially after clear evidence of the involvement of certain government groups in the incident [read… Video: The American military did the explosion in Mosul].
Posted by: annie | Feb 3 2008 13:06 utc | 54
Google removed Abu Trika’s “Sympathize with Gaza” images from the internet
Reported on Saudi newspaper AL-Watan, Israel pressured Google to remove all the images of Egyptian footballer Abu Trika showing his T-shirt with the text “Sympathize with Gaza”
Egyptian “Islamic Group” [Al Jamaa Al Islamiya] issued a rare statement, applauded Abu Trika action in an article called “Abu Trika…playing football or playing with fire” on their website, saying:
“I cried from joy because the young generation feels the scale of the tragedy experienced by their countries….
I cried and cried and cried because saying “Sympathize with Gaza” become a crime requires punishment…..
Abu Trika, I salute you, you are an example for the youth…”
Algerian newspaper El Khabar interviewed Abu Trika [English]
I think it’s normal, I’ve expressed a feeling; a natural feeling of any Arab…and if you ask any Arab about what is happening to Palestinians and Gaza population he would tell you the same…
makes me cry twice now reading it
Posted by: annie | Feb 3 2008 13:12 utc | 55
UK: Police bugged Muslim MP Sadiq Khan
SCOTLAND YARD’S antiterrorist squad secretly bugged a high-profile Labour Muslim MP during private meetings with one of his constituents.
Sadiq Khan, now a government whip, was recorded by an electronic listening device hidden in a table during visits to the constituent in prison.
The bugging of MPs is a breach of a government edict that has barred law agencies from eavesdropping on politicians since the bugging scandal of Harold Wilson’s government. There was no suspicion of criminal conduct by Khan to justify the operation.
A document seen by The Sunday Times shows there was internal concern about the propriety of bugging an MP, who was also a lawyer, but the operation nevertheless went ahead.
This takes the piracy to a whole new level:
Increased Iraqi oil revenues stemming from high prices and improved security are piling up in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York rather than being spent on needed reconstruction projects, a Washington Times study of Iraq’s spending and revenue figures has shown.
U.S. officials and outside analysts blame the collapse of the country’s political and physical infrastructure for Baghdad’s failure to spend the money on projects considered vital to restoring stability in the country.
Out of $10 billion budgeted for capital projects in 2007, only 4.4 percent had been spent by August, according to official Iraqi figures reported this month by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). The report cited unofficial figures saying about 24 percent had been spent.
Meanwhile, some $6 billion to $7 billion from last year’s budget is “being rolled over” and invested in U.S. treasuries, said Yahia Said, director of Iraq Revenue Watch, part of the private watchdog group Revenue Watch Institute.
More at link, Iraq not using oil cash to rebuild
Found via Kurt Nimmo who rightly describes it as Federal Reserve Stealing Iraqi Oil Revenues.
Posted by: Alamet | Feb 4 2008 0:32 utc | 57
Who knew?!
Societe Generale on trial in French-Israel scam
Embattled French bank Societe Generale faces fresh troubles Monday when a trial opens in Paris involving a vast money laundering scam between France and Israel.
Four banks, including Societe Generale, and 138 people, including the bank’s chairman Daniel Bouton, are on trial over the multi-million dollar scam that allegedly began in the late 1990s.
The other banks include Societe Marseillaise de Credit, Barclays France and the National Bank of Pakistan.
(snip)
Cheques trafficked from France were allegedly cleared in money exchange offices or banks in Israel, where a third party can clear a cheque by paying a cash sum, making it difficult to trace the origin of the funds. The sums were then repatriated to French banks.
Among those charged in the France-Israel scam include six rabbis, a former French prosecutor and 57-year-old Bouton, along with other banking managers.
In the case of Societe Generale, investigators cite one example in which the bank received seven million euros (10.4 million dollars) in stolen cheques from the Israel Discount Bank between 1997 to 2001, “knowing these influxes had a criminal origin.”
(snip)
Not a new story either, the investigation actually began in 2002.
Posted by: Alamet | Feb 4 2008 0:38 utc | 58
BAGHDAD is drowning in sewage, thirsty for water and largely powerless, an Iraqi official said today in a grim assessment of services in the capital five years after the US-led invasion.
One of three sewage treatment plants is out of commission, one is working at stuttering capacity while a pipe blockage in the third means sewage is forming a foul lake so large it can be seen “as a big black spot on Google Earth,” said Tahseen Sheikhly, civilian spokesman for the Baghdad security plan.
But wait, it’s not all bad!
Education and health across Iraq had both seen improvements, according to US military commander Brigadier-General Jeffrey Dorko of the US Gulf Regional Division, which is engaged in reconstruction projects.
Brig-Gen Dorko said 76 new health clinics – 21 of them in Baghdad – had been built while 1885 new schools had been constructed countrywide and another 1604 repaired.
See? There now…
Posted by: Alamet | Feb 4 2008 0:43 utc | 59
That Frazer really is a busybody.
Top US diplomat for Africa meets Somaliland leader
(snip)
“We will continue to work with the leaders of the African Union to recognize the decision that they would make on Somaliland’s recognition and independence,” Frazer told reporters.
(snip)
Tortuous language. Wouldn’t “we’ll be bending some arms” work just as well?
Posted by: Alamet | Feb 4 2008 0:49 utc | 60
Clinton’s assault on last benefit the middle class still gets from employers – that they do not wish to pay, thank you very much…Medical Care…She’ll impose medical rationing via garnishing your paycheck….
Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she might be willing to garnish the wages of workers who refuse to buy health insurance to achieve coverage for all Americans.
The New York senator has criticized presidential rival Barack Obama for pushing a health plan that would not require universal coverage. Clinton has not always specified the enforcement measures she would embrace, but when pressed on ABC’s “This Week,” she said: “I think there are a number of mechanisms” that are possible, including “going after people’s wages, automatic enrollment.” Clinton Plan Includes Garnishing Wages
Why do I call it Medical Rationing? Firstly, I heard Robt. Reich discuss it. Secondly, if you’re going through private predator insurance companies, prices are determined by risk. If you’re over 40 & have a medical history, the risk continues to go up – while peoples pay checks continue to decline. Thus people won’t be able to afford real medical care for their ailments. But that will “privatize” the problem – you can’t afford medical care…gee, shucks too bad…that’s your problem. (They’ve probably already calculated the savings to Social Security by killing off workers prior to retirement by pricing them out of medical care.) …just as issuing credit cards to everyone privatized the social problem of elites driving down wages…you can’t afford to pay off your credit card…you must be profligate…Where are the Activists organizing a movement to Demand National Health Care via slashing the Dept. of War Budget??? Squeezed out of the national media, that’s for sure.
Posted by: jj | Feb 4 2008 4:51 utc | 61
reuters: [U.S.-trained] Philippine troops clash with Muslim rebels, 5 dead
MANILA, Feb 4 (Reuters) – At least five people were killed on a remote island in the southern Philippines on Monday when U.S.-trained troops clashed with Islamic militants holding two people hostage, an army spokesman said.
Major Eugene Batara said troops were on a mission to rescue the two hostages, including the daughter of a wealthy local trader, when they clashed with the Abu Sayyaf rebels on the island of Jolo.
“We lost two men but we killed three on their side,” Batara said, adding five soldiers were also wounded in the hour-long gunbattle.
“Our troops recovered an assault rifle and the bodies of three dead rebels.”
…
Since 2002, Washington has sent elite military units to help train and advise local soldiers in the south of the archipelago, including on Jolo.
On Feb. 18, about 6,000 U.S. soldiers will hold conventional and anti-terrorism drills with 2,000 Filipino troops during the two-week annual Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) exercises in several areas in the country, including on Jolo.
in case you missed it first time around, another link to the focus on the global south report
‘At the Door of all the East’: The Philippines in United States Military Strategy
Understanding why US troops are in the Philippines, why they come for exercises, why they seek the kind of legal agreements they require to govern their stay, why they fund and train the Philippine military, and whether and how they want to establish bases in or secure access to the country – all these require understanding the larger aims and strategy of the United States; the role of its military in attempting to secure these aims; their perceived threats, enemies, and constraints; and their expressed needs and requirements to carry out their strategy, overcome their constraints, and achieve their objectives. Only in light of all these could we assess how the Philippines fits in – how it meets their requirements and what role it plays in the larger strategy.
Posted by: b real | Feb 4 2008 5:03 utc | 62
Oh jj, it will all be okay, just get you one of these new fangled debit cards.
Reserve Solutions is marketing a new kind of debit card – one that lets you stop at the ATM and withdraw money from your 401(k). The withdrawals are treated as loans against your retirement account, and you must repay the funds to the plan with interest. Of course, it’s being marketed as a convenient way to access your money in a time of need.
But this is the most horrible idea ever. 401(k) funds are meant to be saved for retirement, not frittered away when you’re a little low on cash. This card is a disaster waiting to happen… with consumers having immediate access to funds… possibly without thinking it all the way through.
Even though the funds withdrawn will initially be treated as a loan, that loan can quickly turn into a “distribution” if the employee defaults on the loan or leaves the employer (and therefore the plan). And taking a distribution from your 401(k) before you’re retirement age can have dire tax consequences. In addition to regular income taxes that may be owed on the withdrawal, there are federal and state penalties that often apply. People typically end up losing about 50% of their money to the taxes and penalties.
If you need money and you have a 401(k), the first step is to stop contributing to that plan and use the money that would have gone into the plan for your current needs. The next step is to find cash anywhere but the retirement plan. Withdrawing from the 401(k) should be an absolute last resort, and should only be done in the direst of circumstances.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 4 2008 5:06 utc | 63
a look at uganda’s use of u.s. lobbyists to supposedly influence u.s. politicians & businessmen
the east african: Uganda paid over $75,000 for a ‘good image’ letter to US Congress
Uganda’s Parliament is investigating the manner in which the government hired a lobbyist and paid her firm $75,000 for writing a letter of response to a United States Senate resolution commending the government’s role in the ongoing peace talks over northern Uganda.
The lobbyist, Rosa Whitaker, is a former assistant US trade representative for Africa in the Bush administration and is close to senior Ugandan government officials, including President Yoweri Museveni. Her firm, the Whitaker Group, which is based in Washington DC, reportedly wrote the letter between July and October 2006 as part of her brief to build the government’s image in the US.
Her firm also claims that in the same period it wrote a speech for the Ugandan ambassador to the US, Perezi Kamunanwire, to deliver at the Gulu Walk for Peace in Northern Uganda held in Washington DC on October 21, 2006.
However, the Public Accounts Committee of parliament has described the deal as “an illegal arrangement that is hurting the country’s resources” and initiated an investigation.
The chairman of the committee, Member of Parliament Nandala Mafabi (MP for Budadiri West), told The EastAfrican that the consultants do not possess practising licenses.
“They are operating illegally,” Mr Mafabi said. “They are doing so because of influence-peddling. We are investigating the matter critically.”
Parliament’s attention was drawn to the lobbying firm after the Auditor General raised a query in his 2005/06 report saying the firm had not settled its tax obligations despite drawing colossal sums of money from the Ugandan Treasury. He had raised a similar query in the 2004/05 report but there was “insufficient response” from either the government or the consultants.
…
The government of Uganda hired the Whitaker Group on January 20, 2003 to promote trade and investment opportunities in the country.
…
According to the contract, the Uganda government is supposed to pay Whitaker $300,000 annually in four instalments of $75,000 each. The agreement also stipulates that Whitaker and her senior counsel Gillespie-White are entitled to an annual round trip by business class from the US to Uganda inclusive of hotel accommodation at the expense of the government.
However, there are doubts over whether Uganda is getting value for money in its contract with the lobby firm, which rose to prominence by taking the credit for helping Uganda qualify for the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act (Agoa), a Bush administration initiative that allows quota-free and tax-free export of about 4,500 items to the United States.
Tri-Star Apparels, the textile firm set up with much fanfare to export garments to the US through Agoa, went under in November 2006, taking with it about Ush24 billion ($14 million) in taxpayers’ money. President Museveni had previously defended the Tri-Star deal as an important avenue to show that Uganda can export value-added products to the world’s biggest economy.
…
The Whitaker Group’s efforts were also recently exposed after Uganda failed to qualify for the Millennium Challenge Account, despite frenetic lobbying by the group. The fund rewards countries with good-governance records with several hundred millions of dollars in grants. Malawi, which was selected in place of Uganda, did not retain a lobbying firm in its efforts and relied, instead, on its government officials.
Posted by: b real | Feb 4 2008 6:26 utc | 64
“Surge” results …
U.S. Says It Accidentally Killed 9 Iraqi Civilians
The statement did not further identify the civilian victims, but the Iraqi police said American aircraft, responding to an attack on an American convoy, had erroneously bombed Iraqi civilian guardsmen who have contracted with the American military to fight Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
…
In Baquba, capital of Diyala Province, Hussein Zubaidi, chief of the provincial council security committee, was wounded by a bomb that had been secretly planted inside the Diyala provincial headquarters, the police said. … After the attack, American soldiers sealed off the building and imposed an indefinite curfew in Baquba.
…
In Baghdad, the anti-Baath legislation effectively became law when the 10-day constitutional deadline for President Jalal Talabani to formally object to it passed.
The Justice and Accountability Law, as the anti-Baath legislation is known, is widely believed to be harsher than the old de-Baathification process, which barred high-ranking members of Saddam Hussein’s predominately Sunni Arab Baath Party from holding government jobs.
Looks like the Brits have been working on a Surge of their own. Not so much as an escalation in numbers, but more on the U.S. “awakening” model of co-opting insurgents. Its interesting that Karzai’s operatives arrested the high level Brit and his EU buddy to get the incriminating goods on a computer stick – then proceeded to throw them out of the country, and then proceeded to reject Paddy Ashdown. Apparently the Afghans are having no part of paying off and training insurgents without loyalty to the central government. So I guess Maliki is a weakling even by Afghan standards.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 4 2008 9:07 utc | 67
Some good articles on Gaza (and the significance of Israel’s actions/policies — toward Gaza/the Palestinians, Lebanon, and its own Arab citizens — for Israel):
Gaza’s Future ~ Henry Siegman in the London Review of Books
The Lights Have Been Turned Off ~ Gideon Levy in Haaretz
One after another, the final lights are being turned off, and a moral gloom is falling upon us [Israel] as we stand at the edge of an abyss. Just last week, three more lights were turned off. The Winograd Report did not come out clearly against the fact that Israel embarked on a pointless war; the Supreme Court authorized collective punishment and the attorney general concluded that the killing of 12 Israeli citizens and someone from the territories by the police does not warrant a trial. The final keepers of order, the lighthouses of justice and law, are reconciling themselves with the most serious injustices of the institutions of authority and no one so much as utters a word about it. The upsetting and depressing crop of a single week has drawn the moral portrait of the country.
As expected, the Winograd Committee became irrelevant. It avoided dealing with the first question that should have been on its agenda: Was there any justification for embarking on the war? A committee that says nothing about a country that declares war on its neighbor, kills a thousand of its citizens, causes mass destruction, makes use of horrific munitions and continues to kill dozens of innocents to this day – is a derelict committee.
Shock Treatment ~ Opinion piece in Haaretz
For generations, spokesmen of the left [in Israel] (and some decent spokesmen of the right as well) viewed the supremacy of the law and morality as a cardinal rule of politics, both as part of Israel’s humanist self-image and for the sake of its national interest. One does not need to be a “bleeding heart,” or even a leftist, to shudder at the craven abdication of every moral dimension of Israeli policy and the support for committing brutal crimes in the name of national security. The question of whether this will contribute to solving the problem is irrelevant. The true question is whether anyone is prepared to live in such a country.
Posted by: Bea | Feb 4 2008 13:08 utc | 68
This has become something of a running joke, but after following it for so long it just wouldn’t feel right not to link to the latest announcement.
The long-awaited Iranian Oil Bourse, a place for trading oil, petrochemicals and gas in various non-dollar currencies, will soon open.
Iran’s Finance Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari told reporters the bourse will be inaugurated during the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution (February 1-11) at the latest.
(snip)
Posted by: Alamet | Feb 4 2008 18:54 utc | 69
Bea, thanks for that impt. link, but I think an earlier paragraph provides some helpful background on that stunning last line from Haartetz editorial:
… the latest views espoused by Yaron London, someone who has always been considered a leading member of the peace camp. “It seems that we have exhausted the attempt to cool Hamas’s fanaticism via measured action,” he wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth. “The time has come to overwhelm the population of Gaza via actions that until now, we have viewed as abhorrent.” To what actions is he referring? For example, assassinating Gaza’s political leadership, starving the population and even bombing crowded urban areas, which would likely result in hundreds of deaths, if not more (“I think a quarter of a neighborhood would be enough,” he told a stunned Razi Barkai on Army Radio).
I have always wondered in the back of my mind, how, given what the Jews went through in WWII, they could avoid becoming like their “oppressors”, a fate that few individuals escape. It’s no small problem for a nation shaped by such trauma to find a way to sanity. What the hell can you not rationalize. Then throw in, the nature of the neighborhood in which they’re living, and the price they pay for “Am. support” & you have a surefire formula for catastrophe.
That said, they’re still far ahead of the xUS, at least in their press. Many flesh & blood Americans are wondering if we’re prepared to live in the country America has degenerated into, yet can anyone not loaded on some amazing drug, seriously imagine Haaretz’s Am. counterpart, the NYT, actually ending an editorial the way Haaretz did?
Posted by: jj | Feb 4 2008 19:55 utc | 70
Succinct, but thorough Must Read Article Ruling class conducts its hidden primary by Larry Shoup, author of The Carter Presidency and Beyond: Power and Politics in the 1980’s, and Imperial Brian Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and U.S. Foreign Policy. You only need to look at list of McCain’s foreign policy advisers & you know media will do its part to ensure he’s the Repug candidate, rabble rousers notwithstanding.
Posted by: jj | Feb 4 2008 20:21 utc | 71
Jon schwarz nails political analysis again!
Power makes human beings stupid
Make sure you read the 4 examples:
Saddam Hussein, Bill Clinton, Thomas Jefferson, Me
I do get discouraged at the sheer power accrued to our elite head cases from time to time. So I sure do love me some JS for reminding me — the only way to actually know other people is to meet them as equals.
Today is another good day to be at the Moon.
Posted by: citizen | Feb 4 2008 20:36 utc | 72
Funny headlines:
Google dips below $500 for 1st time, AP, Feb 4, 2008
Google IPOed in 2004 at $85 and today “dips below $500 for 1st time“???
AP calls such news “reporting”. The real facts are a different issue …
I’d consider to buy Google if it where less that inflaltion adjusted $100-$150. And that’s marginal because the lost the edge.
Real shares deliver constant dividents. Not press hype.
Looking deeper into citizens link – another American Zombie emerges from the depths of time.
Posted by: anna missed | Feb 4 2008 21:41 utc | 74
meen irhabi!
palestinian rap video, translates ‘who’s the terrorist’..i think.
Posted by: annie | Feb 5 2008 1:28 utc | 75
jj, as the always excellent Uri Avnery pointed out, Israel could have a ceasefire with Hamas today if they cared to:
SO WHAT to do? After all, it is impossible to tolerate the suffering of the inhabitants of Sderot, who are under constant fire.
What is being hidden from the embittered public is that the launching of the Qassams could be stopped tomorrow morning.
Several months ago Hamas proposed a cease-fire. It repeated the offer this week.
A cease-fire means, in the view of Hamas: the Palestinians will stop shooting Qassams and mortar shells, the Israelis will stop the incursions into Gaza, the “targeted” assassinations and the blockade.
Why doesn’t our government jump at this proposal?
Simple: in order to make such a deal, we must speak with Hamas, directly or indirectly. And this is precisely what the government refuses to do.
Why? Simple again: Sderot is only a pretext – much like the two captured soldiers were a pretext for something else altogether. The real purpose of the whole exercise is to overthrow the Hamas regime in Gaza and to prevent a Hamas takeover in the West Bank.
In simple and blunt words: the government sacrifices the fate of the Sderot population on the altar of a hopeless principle. It is more important for the government to boycott Hamas – because it is now the spearhead of Palestinian resistance – than to put an end to the suffering of Sderot. All the media cooperate with this pretence.
Posted by: ran | Feb 5 2008 2:39 utc | 76
I found Jesus yall! this has got to be the “Jesus” we always hear Republicans talking about.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 5 2008 6:19 utc | 77
Report: Egypt reopens border after clashes with Gazans
The border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip was reopened Monday evening and Egyptian troops are allowing free passage, Palestinian sources told Haaretz.
A Palestinian man was killed and at least 44 Gazans and Egyptians were wounded Monday in an exchange of fire that erupted between masked Palestinian gunmen and Egyptian forces at Gaza’s border with Egypt, Palestinian medical officials said.
It was the most serious outbreak of violence on the border since Hamas militants blew down the border wall on January 23. Egyptian forces resealed the border on Sunday.
IAEA chief brushes off concern over Arab nuclear development
ElBaradei said the IAEA was making good progress resolving outstanding
questions about the history of Iran’s nuclear program and called on Tehran to cooperate with the agency to clarify its present activities. Many Western countries fear Iran’s program could pave the way for weapons development, but Tehran insists it is focused only on electricity generation.
“I hope again that Iran will continue to demonstrate full cooperation with the agency because the more we can clarify the past, have a good grasp on the present, the more we can help to build confidence about the future nuclear activities of Iran,” said ElBaradei.
Unnoticed (?) by the blogsphere the Senate today will give immunity to Telecoms and Dick Cheney for spying on U.S. people.
Reid has timed this well for Super Tuesday … nobody will be looking …
No to Tony Blair as President of the European Union Council
Petition against the nomination of Tony Blair as “President of the European Union”
You find more background information on European Tribune
Amazingly enough, the Link has already been mentioned in the Financial Times
Posted by: Fran | Feb 5 2008 10:02 utc | 81
very disatisfying film, ‘no end in sight’ – available at rebel resource – it is in it’s way – both the narrative & the narrato an instance of american exceptionalism
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 5 2008 18:29 utc | 83
If you think I’ll sit around as the world goes by
You’re thinkin’ like a fool ’cause it’s a case of do or die.
Out there is a fortune waitin’ to be had
If you think I’ll let it go you’re mad
You’ve got another think comin’.
That’s right here’s where the talkin’ ends
Well listen this night there’ll be some action spent.
Drive hard I’m callin’ all the shots
I got an ace card comin’ down on the rocks.
Dick Cheney – 1962
Posted by: gus | Feb 5 2008 21:03 utc | 84
secrecynews: Rendition to Torture: The Case of Maher Arar
The case of Maher Arar, the Canadian national who was mistakenly identified as an Islamist extremist and deported from the United States to Syria for interrogation under torture, was explored in a Congressional hearing last October. The record of that hearing (pdf) has just been published.
“The refusal of the Bush administration to be held accountable [for its handling of the Arar case] is an embarrassment to many of us,” said Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA) of the House Judiciary Committee, who issued his own apology to Mr. Arar.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) endorsed the apology to Maher Arar, but also defended the Bush Administration policy of extraordinary rendition.
“Should we halt every government program that, due to a human error, results in a tragedy?” asked Mr. Rohrabacher. “I challenge anybody to compare the error rate of rendition, this program, with the error rate in any other government program.”
Posted by: b real | Feb 5 2008 21:41 utc | 85
Wait! Gus, Dick Cheney is the original Judas Priest !???
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 5 2008 21:57 utc | 86
isn’t it remarkable how pop music has been warning us about American Fascism for the entirety of pop music?
…and there just has to be a animated cartoon of Cheney singing that song – somewhere!
Posted by: gus | Feb 5 2008 22:04 utc | 87
Iraq Oil Deals Near Completion
Officials from the world’s largest oil companies have been meeting with Iraqi Oil Ministry officials to fix the terms of technical support contracts.
And while on the subject of Iraq’s oil, some strange goings on:
No evidence on Iran’s use of Iraqi oilfields – official
The gist of it is, a couple of days ago Iraq’s anti-corruption agency and foreign ministry accused Iran of having seized several Iraqi oilfields on the Iran-Iraq border; but National Security Adviser Muwafaq al-Rubaei, US asset numero uno, says the accusation is unfounded.
Posted by: Alamet | Feb 6 2008 0:16 utc | 88
Ahem. Scott Ritter thinks Al Qaeda in Iraq is in fact… the Baath resistance in disguise.
(snip)
The United States’ embrace of the “awakening” will go down in the history of the Iraq conflict as one of the gravest strategic errors made in a field of grave errors. The U.S. military in Iraq has never fully understood the complex interplay between the Sunni resistance, al-Qaida in Iraq, and the former government of Saddam Hussein. Saddam may be dead, but not so his plans for resistance. The massive security organizations which held sway over Iraq during his rule were never defeated, and never formally disbanded. The organs of security which once operated as formal ministries now operate as covert cells, functioning along internal lines of communication which are virtually impenetrable by outside forces. These security organs gave birth to al-Qaida in Iraq, fostered its growth as a proxy, and used it as a means of sowing chaos and fear among the Iraqi population.
(snip)
at Iraq’s Tragic Future
I guess I’m not the only one going slightly mad with despair, looking under the unlikeliest stones to see if some hope is hidden there…
Posted by: Alamet | Feb 6 2008 0:26 utc | 89
An international citizen’s tribunal on the crimes committed by the Israeli army in Lebanon will be held in Brussels, Belgium, on February 22-24, 2008. The International Action Center has endorsed this tribunal and the work of the Commitee of International Citizens that is organizing the tribunal. More information is below.
Posted by: Alamet | Feb 6 2008 0:31 utc | 90
ran, Hell, Israel could have had this settled in its entirety for good. A comprehensive Peace Treaty was worked out by Israeli citizens w/knowledge of the requisite authorities. All set to go. Then Mossad etc. was ordered to arrest them… I think I linked to this just before Israeli assault on Lebanon last yr. There are powerfully dangerous radically right-wing elements in Israel just like here that are wrecking everything for everyone……
Posted by: jj | Feb 6 2008 2:19 utc | 92
here are a couple items to go w/ Alamet’s #60
somaliland times: Jendayi Frazer Visits Somaliland
Hargeysa, Somaliland, 3 February 2008 (SL Times) – U.S. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer flew in to Egal international Hargeysa airport with the US ambassador to Ethiopia, Donald Y. Yamamoto, for a one day brief visit. This is the highest US ranking diplomat to visit the republic since its independence declaration in 1991.
…
Miss Jendayi Frazer briefly spoke to the media at VIP lounge and was asked the purpose of her visit to Hargeysa.
“Our visit to Somaliland is in connection and follow-up to President Dahir Rayale Kahin’s recent, visit, to Washington and on top of that to continue to work with the Somaliland authorities in the issues concerning peace, stability and security of the region. Our visit is also an acknowledgement of the democratic progress made by Somaliland,” said Jendayi Frazer
In addition, the U.S. Assistant Secretary said that “the US, assisted Somaliland in past elections and will continue to do so in the coming elections. We are here, today, to show our support for this and to mark the friendship and cooperation existing between the two countries.”
…
he US delegation left the airport for Ambassador Hotel and held talks with President Dahir Rayale Kahin and the opposition political parties.
Jendayi Frazer met with President Rayale and top government officials behind closed doors. She also met Kulmiye, Ucid and Udub political party heads in private.
The US delegation also talked to the leaders of the unregistered political party ‘Qaran’ at the Ambassador Hotel.
Jendayi Frazer’s discussions with the president, government officials and political parties concerned issues relating to strengthening US and Somaliland ties and strenghthening cooperation of the two countries and discussed in detail the republic’s up and coming general elections, scheduled to take place in six months time.
A Bill On Somaliland Recognition To Be Introduced To US Congress
Washington DC, January 24, 2008 – A draft Bill on expressing the sense of the Congress that the United States should recognize an independent Somaliland is prepared and presented to members of the US Congress.
Prepared by a group that calls itself “Friends of Somaliland People” the Draft Bill urges the government of the United States to formally recognize the independent status of Somaliland “within its colonial borders which are still in tact, being a very reasonable step toward bringing peace to the Horn of Africa and constituting the acceptance of established international law.”
“Patrick Linberry, head of the US wing of the group has met with legislators to discuss the introduction of a bill that would recognize Somaliland as an independent country, reads a press release by the group.
“Right now we are looking for a co-sponsor for the bill so that it can be introduced into one of the two houses. It has already been looked over by the Somaliland government and the Somaliland lobby in the US. As a starting point I have met with senators and representatives of whom I am a constituent,” he told a news wire called addishorn.com.
“He has met with and spoken to the offices of Senators Dole (R-NC) and Burr (R-NC) and Representatives Miller (D-NC), who is member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Coble (R-NC), it was learnt.
“Rep. Howard Coble’s office said it is willing to offer support, whether it means writing a letter of support to the Department of State or actually seeing that this bill is introduced in the House, said the press release.
Posted by: b real | Feb 6 2008 5:54 utc | 93
I could get with Ritter on this except, I think some elements of AQ are our own CIA, Brits SAS, our Special forces and or private contractors (or a mixture) to keep the shit stirred up and the taxpayer funding on non stop flow. None the less, it’s well worth your time to read. And his summation is just fucked enough to be on target. Thanks Alamet…
Posted by: Anonymous | Feb 6 2008 8:20 utc | 94