Thnaks to McClatchy: Both McCain, Obama exaggerating Iran’s nuclear program

WASHINGTON — The presumptive Republican nominee for president and the leading contender for the Democratic nomination are exaggerating what’s known about Iran’s nuclear program as they duel over how best to deal with Tehran.
Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., say that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.
The U.S. intelligence community, however, thinks that Iran halted an effort to build a nuclear warhead in mid-2003, and the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, which is investigating the program, has found no evidence to date of an active Iranian nuclear-weapons project.

Posted by: b | Jun 4 2008 6:57 utc | 3

There’s nothing really new here
but Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence Stratton do show the difference
between “classical conservatives” with whom one can disagree while engaging in civil discourse, and the degenerate subspecies which now passes as
“conservatives”. The discussion of the Sami al Arian case seems to me particularly worthy of interest.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jun 4 2008 10:54 utc | 5

These two links to Luke Ryland’s site give recent information on Sibel Edmonds’ allegations regarding Turkish bribery of Dennis Hastert. The allegations are rather specific, but remain mere allegations because the responsible investigative authorities are loathe to strain at the leash imposed by their duly constituted political overseers. Naturally that is just my opinion. It would seem, however, that he who enjoys sufficiently powerful protection has nothing to fear from U.S. law enforcement authorities, a fitting counterpoint to the infringement of constitutional rights suffered by those who speak the unspeakable while lacking such protection.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jun 4 2008 14:21 utc | 7

Hannah K. O’Luthon, et al…
also see,
Sibel Edmonds Case: ABC News investigates Hastert scandals and the Turkish Connections.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 4 2008 17:24 utc | 9

U$
My kids and I spent time this winter handing out relief supplies to local rural folks stranded when a tailings holding dam broke, slugged up a bridge overpass (much like the debris dam now over-topping in China), and backed up flood waters to above the 500-year flood level, drowning cows up in the rafters of barns and forcing people to their rooftops. It was never supposed to happen, but the Federal dam inspectors had apparently turned a blind eye, more likely, were too busy net surfing back in town.
Late in the day, as appreciative and bedraggled folks who had lost everything made it across the last stretch of flooded washout and loaded up whatever they could carry to take the supplies back to others in need who were trapped or invalid, we were visited at last by the local FEMA disaster coordinator!
I’m not making this up….
He rolled up to our distribution site in a brand new bright red with gold decals F250 4×4 with chrome roll bar, sodium lights and a heavy winch, not a scratch or even a speck of mud on it, rolled his tinted electric windows down an inch, and snorted ‘good work’ from the comfort of his heated cab, before moseying back to his FEMA command center to “coordinate the relief effort.”
When I mentioned this to a friend of mine who’s retired from Federal government, his only response, conditioned as he is never to criticize or make waves was, I never think about my career anymore, then proceeded to shout about all the fish that had been stranded out in his hayfield by the falling flood waters! Oh boy, howdy!
I have come to loathe Federal government, so many examples of fraud, malfeasance and even deliberately endangering civilians, I could tell you that your mind would reel,
like our brave ‘roll up your shirtsleeves’ FEMA disaster coordinator, safe and warm.
50% grift! That’s right, half of our life savings goes to taxes, surcharges, fees and tariffs, to pay a now majority% of Americans who work in government or contract to it. Even the Soviet Union, at the height of its empire, didn’t tax the people 50%, and nowhere near 55% of Soviets were employees of the State Politburo.
US R NEO-SOVIET.
So sleep tight, Helicopter Ben is manning the US$ disaster rescue center tonight!
You’re in good hands with All-State: ‘We got your back!'(up against the debt wall)

Posted by: Bad Thing | Jun 5 2008 1:57 utc | 11

Ok, forget everything I wrote in # 10…
geez…
checkpoints to control movement in DC – ZONES in DC!

Lanier plans to seal off rough ’hoods in latest effort to stop wave of violence
going to ID anyone leaving designated ZONES.
Also see, Police to Seal Off D.C. Neighborhoods – read more here +_ comments

Someone from another forum asked, “DC is a rough city, but is it *that* rough that they need to impose occupied territory style zones?”

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 5 2008 5:10 utc | 13

My son & girlfriend moved to DC this winter (they do political&ecological work). After settling in a few months ago their apt. was broken into and ransacked and they lost computers heirlooms and other stuff. Crime is really bad in DC. But what they are doing about it is not so much aimed at solving/resolving crime or the conditions that produce crime in the neighborhoods, but are about containing crime within the neighborhoods, or preventing criminals from leaving/returning from neighborhoods having committed crimes elsewhere. Or in other words they’re going to try a Gaza solution right in the nations capital. You watch, next it will be a fence, maybe walls.

Posted by: anna missed | Jun 5 2008 6:08 utc | 15

Lifted THIS off Spencer Ackerman’s site, on the meeting today between Iraqi MP’s and U.S. congressmen:

At Rep. Bill Delahunt’s (D-MA) foreign affairs subcommittee this afternoon, the U.S. Congress heard for the first time from Iraqi parliamentarians. The two legislators — Sheikh Khalaf al-Ulayyan from Sunni Anbar Province and Prof. Nadeem al-Jaberi from Shiite Baghdad — vigorously denounced the forthcoming U.S.-Iraq long-term-security deal negotiated between the Bush administration and the Nouri al-Maliki government.
Wearing a dark suit, a red tie and wire-rimmed glasses, al-Jaberi couched his arguments against the deal in Iraqi sovereignty. “The Iraqi government right now does not have the full reign of its sovereignty, because of the thousands of foreign troops that are on its land,” he said through a translator. “And perhaps the Iraqi government does not have as of yet sufficient tools to run its own internal affairs. Therefore, I ask the American government not to embarrass the Iraqi government by putting it in a difficult situation with this agreement.”
The unequal status of the Iraqi and American governments at this time — that is, during occupation — will most likely “lead to more instability,” Jaberi said. “We hope any future agreement does not affect or impact iraqi sovereignty, such as permanent military bases.” If there is to be any security deal, he said, it had to wait until the occupation finally ends.
[…]
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Az) recognized what was really important in this first-ever opportunity to have a dialog with his Iraqi counterparts: getting some talking point out that will support John McCain’s campaign for president. “Why the drop in violence?,” he asked. “What is the major cause for the reduction in violence, at least against our troops.” Translation: Willya just say the surge worked? Please?
Unfortunately for him, Ulayyan is not actually a Republican. His answer — the answer of an Iraqi nationalist — deserves quotation at length.
Increasing the number of forces didn’t affect the level of violence in Iraq. Because the war there is a war against gangs and they are like ghosts. They hit and run. What led to the reduction of terrorist acts and violence are the forces of the Awakening. They are from the tribes of the area where terrorists are more [in number]. And those forces managed to eliminate the other party, the terrorists, because they know them and know the tactics. We suggested that a long time ago for our government and the American government but nobody listened.
I believe the reduction in the level of violence is due mainly to the efforts of the volunteers. The thing that will reduce the violence more is not military force but having realistic solutions to convince others to join the political process. I believe the best method to achieve that is a real national reconciliation. We need real reconciliation, not only slogans as is being done now. And reconcilition should involve all the Iraqis, whether they are involved right now in the political process or not. …
That requires changing the constitution. [We should] do away with federalism based on sectarianism and groups, but if we have to have federalism it has to be geographic federalism and we need new, transparent and fair elections. And we have to do away with quotas and have to be based on nationalis[m] and get back those refugees in Jordan and other countries that total 4,600,000 and we have to get them back and compensate them for their suffering. The prisoners, whether in Iraq jails or American jails, have to be released. If we really achieved those points we would have law and order in the country even without the presence of any military forces and American troops can withdraw.
“As soon as the troops have withdrawn, it doesn’t make sense for these groups to exist,” Jabari added. “It is my belief that when troops withdraw these groups will not bear arms any longer. For as long as we have foreign troops on our land, these gangs will increase in number, they will hold onto their goals even longer… So I say the presence of foreign troops are actually serving these groups.”

Posted by: anna missed | Jun 5 2008 8:03 utc | 17

Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.
The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq’s position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.
…
Under the terms of the new treaty, the Americans would retain the long-term use of more than 50 bases in Iraq. American negotiators are also demanding immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting the Baghdad government.

Posted by: b | Jun 5 2008 8:25 utc | 19

If this report can be believed the Bilderbergers start their annual get-together today in Chantilly, Virginia. It would be interesting to see who attends, to hear what they talk about, and especially to offer a counter program for the edification of the participants. This is really the classic “move-along, there’s nothing happening here” non-event. We are indeed fortunate that those who run this annual séance are doing it all for our benefit, selflessly dedicating their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to trying to make the world a better place.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jun 5 2008 11:17 utc | 21

#22 should have thanked HKO #21 re Bilderberg, and noted that the key Bilderbergers surely have stored food, water, whisky, armies …, the several preparations of highly successful persons.

Posted by: plushtown | Jun 5 2008 13:49 utc | 23

tomdispatch: Tomgram: William Astore, Militarizing Your Cyberspace

Be depressed. Be very depressed. You thought that cyberspace — a term conjured up long ago by that neuromancer, sci-fi author William Gibson — was the last frontier of freedom. Well, think again. If the U.S. Air Force has anything to say about it, cyber-freedom will, in the not so distant future, be just another word for domination.
Air Force officials, despite a year-long air surge in Iraq, undoubtedly worry that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s “next wars” (two, three, many Afghanistans) won’t have much room for air glory. Recently, looking for new realms to bomb, it launched itself into cyberspace. The Air Force has now set up its own Cyber Command, redefined the Internet as just more “air space” fit for “cyber-craft,” and launched its own Bush-style preemptive strike on the other military services for budgetary control of the same.
If that’s not enough for you, it’s now proposing a massive $30 billion cyberspace boondoggle, as retired Air Force Lt. Col. William Astore writes below, that will, theoretically, provide the Air Force with the ability to fry any computer on Earth. And don’t think the other services are likely to take this lying down. Expect cyberwar in the Pentagon before this is all over. In the meantime, think of cyberspace, in military terms, as a new realm for nuclear-style strategy, with its own developing version of “first-strike capability,” its own future versions of “mutually assured destruction,” its own “windows of vulnerability” to be closed (while exploiting those of the enemy), and undoubtedly its own “cyber-gaps.”
In fact, it looks like the national-security version of cyberspace may soon be a very, very busy place. …

Posted by: b real | Jun 5 2008 18:01 utc | 25

the peacock report: U.S. Propaganda Blitz to Unfold in Pakistan

A propaganda blitz aimed at swaying Pakistani citizens’ views on U.S. involvement in the region is about to unfold, The Peacock Report (TPR) has discovered. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) yesterday commenced its search for a contractor capable of carrying out the euphemistically titled “USAID/Pakistan Outreach Campaign,” as the project officially is known. According to a “presolicitation notice” dated June 5 that TPR has located, the agency envisions a multi-language delivery of U.S. government messages in urban as well as rural areas of Pakistan. The contractor will execute the campaign in English, Urdu, Pashtu, Punjabi, and other regonal languages. This USAID endeavor will place messages in newspapers, magazines, and billboards as well as radio and television broadcasts, according to the document. The agency will make available a formal and more detailed solicitation later this month. USAID hopes to launch the Pakistani campaign by summer’s end.

Posted by: b real | Jun 5 2008 18:49 utc | 27

r’giap – very much enjoyed jihan el tahri’s documentary on cuba’s african odyssey. it was no substitute for piero gleijeses’ book Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976, but an otherwise excellent complementary piece, w/ fantastic archive footage & good interviews. our jaws nearly landed in our laps when pik botha was still trying to defend the old regime, complaining that s.a. was getting unfairly attacked by those who saw apartheid as “evil”, and i could have done w/o the attempts at balance by giving so much uncritical interview time to cohen, carlucci, and cohorts when deciding what to leave out in a story that covers the period from lumumba’s rise to mandela’s release, but, overall, a very worthwhile film.

Posted by: b real | Jun 5 2008 20:51 utc | 29

that Angola’s MPLA and Cuba would defeat the evil slave-masters of apartheid South Africa at Cuito Cuanavale (and the other front-lines before & after) was never a doubt for anyone but the faint-hearted & feeble-minded as those who would retreat into acceptance of the corruption and bestiality of the barbarian sub-human South African slave-masters, sons in thought, mind & deed of Leopold the depraved beast-king of Belgium. And for as long as we could not vanquish that evil, there was nothing to live for, nothing for Patrice Lumumba, for Aghostino Neto, for Nelson Mandela, for Joe Slovo, for Murtala Muhammed, for Fidel Castro, for Steve Biko …

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Jun 6 2008 2:19 utc | 31

plush:
The Fed judges’ order last year to BigAg irrigators was roundly ignored, which is why NCal rivers completely dried up, snuffing the entire salmon cohort for NCal, so closing the entire West Coast salmon fishery for the next two years, with no possibility of compensation for fishing communities, fish processors, fish sellers and lost jobs, since class-action lawsuits of this sort have been remanded up to Fed court now, where SCOTUS has twice ruled that 3rd-party negligence, even knowing, deliberate fraud in (an invoice kickback scheme) conspiracy, does not constitute an actionable tort unless malice is proven, and proven pre-discovery!!
My suggestion, since BigAg irrigators will just dry up the rivers again this year, is for everyone in the US to avoid half-ripe pithy salmonella infected S Cal tomatoes, and to only buy hand-picked field ripe through your local farmers.
If nothing else, we’ll get really, really cheap ketchup for our mud tortillas, and
ultimately that’s our only choice. Boycott now, or starve outside the NeoZi Great Fences, begging for Spam and Pepsi.

Posted by: Mo Ginsberg | Jun 6 2008 3:36 utc | 33

do as we say, not as we do…
inner city press, in sudan w/ the traveling u.n. security council contingent, writes

KHARTOUM, June 5 — The UN Security Council Ambassadors were dressed-down by Sudanese President Al Bashir on Thursday, in harsher terms than the Ambassadors afterwards acknowledged to the press. After Bashir had finished his opening speech, all journalists were asked to leave, so that the Council members’ questions and Basher’s answered would stay secret.
Surprisingly soon after this closed-door meeting began, the Ambassadors emerged, some of them grim-faced, and trooped out to their bus. Sudan’s Ambassador to the UN told Inner City Press that the procurement issue sprang directly from the PAE / Lockheed Martin no-bid contract. He said that his president had told the Ambassadors that Sudan would never turn over any of its people to the ICC, particularly when a member of the Security Council also doesn’t accept the jurisdiction of the ICC.
Back at the Rotana Hotel, Inner City Press asked if President Bashir had spoken about a member denying ICC jurisdiction, and if so how the Council had responded. UK Ambassador Sawers, gesturing to U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff, said he’d leave the response to the member in question. There are others, Amb. Wolff noted. He then said that since it involved a Security Council resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, Sudan is required to comply.
Inner City Press asked for a response to a more specific fairness question: since the U.S. has a veto on the Security Council, it could never be referred to the ICC by the Council. But that is how Sudan has been referred. Their reasons and our reasons to argue jurisdiction are different, Wolff said. And then the official press conference was over, with nary a mention of the “local procurement” issue which President al Bashir had raised even in the opening meeting.
Sources who were inside the meeting tell Inner City Press that Bashir specifically attacked the PAE – Lockheed contract in comments to the Council. Why choose an American company to build camps? he asked. Since the U.S. says that its companies can’t do business in Sudan, why is the UN assisting a violation of a sanctions regime? He asked under what legal regime this was done, and he did not get an answer.
…
On the ICC, Bashir said pointedly that Sudan learned it disregard from its “elders,” the United States. Bashir asked why, if the U.S. could invade Afghanistan and Iraq, and fire missiles into Somalia, Sudan can’t act against Chad-backed rebels who make an attack on Khartoum. The Council wanly tried to convince him to forgive, in essence, the JEM. This doesn’t seem likely.

Posted by: b real | Jun 6 2008 4:37 utc | 35

Ahhh, excellent poem lizard, is this the one you were telling me about on the tele?
Anyway, for some reason, it reminds me of Bohren & der Club of Gore. Light a candle, and wait till about two minutes in, when the horns kick in. I can be tempted to do about anything for horns…
Slow brooding horns, moves my soul or freight train blasting horns kicks my butt, makes no difference.
One good turn deserves another. And perhaps all of MOA can benefit… Thanks for sharing that.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 6 2008 5:03 utc | 37

Iraq May Request Extension For U.S.

The Iraqi government may request an extension of the United Nations security mandate authorizing a U.S. military presence, due to expire in December, amid growing domestic criticism of new bilateral arrangements now being negotiated with the Bush administration, according to senior Iraqi officials.
…
The Iraqi official, who said he could speak candidly only with anonymity, said there was virtually no chance that the July deadline, set by Bush and Maliki last fall, would be met. He said an Iraqi request to extend the U.N. mandate might come as early as next week, when Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari is to brief the U.N. Security Council.
For U.S. troops to remain in Iraq, a senior U.S. official said, “they either have to have U.N. authority or bilateral authority. You’ve got to have one or the other to have a basis for [a military] presence.”

The knockout date is June 15th and I doubt that the security council will pass anything without the Iraqi parliament agreeing.

Posted by: b | Jun 6 2008 5:55 utc | 39

Re: #36
Thanks for the heads up, I would have missed it entirely. Also, some MOA’s may want to close your browser and open it back up to delete the cookies Air Force Times.com puts on your machine.
Conspiracies eh?
meh…lol

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 6 2008 6:25 utc | 41

US issues threat to Iraq’s $50bn foreign reserves in military deal

The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq’s money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.
US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal, details of which were reported for the first time in this newspaper yesterday.
Iraq’s foreign reserves are currently protected by a presidential order giving them immunity from judicial attachment but the US side in the talks has suggested that if the UN mandate, under which the money is held, lapses and is not replaced by the new agreement, then Iraq’s funds would lose this immunity.
…
Iraqi officials say that, last year, they wanted to diversify their holdings out of the dollar, as it depreciated, into other assets, such as the euro, more likely to hold their value. This was vetoed by the US Treasury because American officials feared it would show lack of confidence in the dollar.
Iraqi officials say the consequence of the American action was to lose Iraq the equivalent of $5bn.

Blackmail writ large …

Posted by: b | Jun 6 2008 9:11 utc | 43

here’s earlier print version of NYPD helicopter in my #24, since happy video replaced daily. Think interesting it’s name is “23” (for # officers killed 9/11). These guys think of everything.
oh, claims it cost $10,000,000, video says 12. Change from us chumps.

Posted by: plushtown | Jun 6 2008 12:41 utc | 45

Dylan Endorses Obama
Sometimes all one can do is shake their heads in disbelief. I think I need a drink.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 7 2008 9:38 utc | 47

anti Guns campaigner stabbed to death
regardless of your stance on handguns and such, this has the irony meter pegged

Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 7 2008 13:37 utc | 49

Three pieces of reporting re “double” puppet’s visit to Iran:
Western & White: ABC News

The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is visiting Iran today amid tensions between the two countries over the Iranian Government’s alleged involvement in the insurgency in Iraq.
Among the Iraqi Prime Minister’s delegation is a team of military and security officials.
Government sources say they will be showing the Iranians evidence of their alleged support for Shiite militias in Iraq – especially Moqtada Al-Sadr’s Mahdi army.

Brown & Arab: Al Jazeerah

Nuri al-Maliki’s third visit to the Iranian capital since he took office two years ago comes amid criticism in Baghdad and Tehran over the planned deal to keep US soldiers in Iraq beyond 2008.
“The prime minister’s visit to Iran is considered a step in a series of visits … and to form a strategy committee to develop the relationship between the two nations,” Ali al-Dabbagh, an Iraqi government spokesman, said on Saturday.
He said al-Maliki will brief Iranian leaders on “the Iraqi vision, which is that it will not serve as a base or staging ground to launch attacks against neighbouring countries”.

Yellow & Slanty Eyes: China View

Maliki is presiding a delegation, which includes the powerful Shiite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), and some of Maliki’s minister and senior officials, the channel said.
A source from Maliki’s office told Xinhua that Maliki will explain to the Iranian leaders that “Iraq will not accept to be a launch pad for attacks against the neighboring countries.”
The visit came amid controversy in Iraq over a bill of agreement on long-term presence of U.S. troops in Iraq between Iraqi officials and the U.S. administration.

Weaving carpets takes a long long long, and you need to be clever and pay attention to detail.

Posted by: Cloned_Poster | Jun 7 2008 18:22 utc | 51

@CP – interesting details 🙂
@b real – Churchil once said something like: “The Americans get it right every time, after having exausted all other options.”

Posted by: b | Jun 7 2008 19:31 utc | 53

thank you, anna missed. here’s a little black heart procession singing one of my favorites.

Posted by: Lizard | Jun 8 2008 2:30 utc | 55

bmaz notes the procedural strategy at Gitmo show trials that has gone unremarked, briefly mentioned at msnbc. The fingerprints of the torture masters are all over it, as bmaz points out.
msnbc reported, as summarized by bmaz:

… first was the report we already heard about KSM in the courtroom yesterday at the arraignment being the leader and speaking to the other detainees there as a group, clearly exhibiting his authority. But then the reporter relates how a couple of the other detainees seemed hesitant to give up their military lawyers and be martyrs, but how KSM was explicit in commanding the others, and how the government is not necessarily unhappy with this because the more the military lawyers are out of the picture, the easier the detainees all will be to convict…

bmaz notes the discrepancy in separating the Gitmo prisoners for years and then bringing them together for the trial, where KSM was permitted to lecture the others, some of whom had lawyers. Every reporter’s suspicion meter should have gone off.

The US has assiduously kept the detainees separated and isolated all this time so that they could not communicate and have structural control from the top down and, then, out of the blue, viola! Right in the middle of the courtroom, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is blithely allowed to huddle them up like Favre does the Packers. When they break huddle, all of them, even the hesitant ones, suddenly want to dismiss their JAG/military lawyers that have been doing such commendable work under impossible conditions. Exactly at the point it is useful to help the US rid themselves of those meddlesome military lawyers that have been beating up their dog and pony shows.
First the Cheney Administration sacked the military judge that had the gall to allow even a shred of due process to the detainees, and now they have effectively sacked the military lawyers that had the temerity to seek it. This was a knowing and intentional play to deny counsel. The US Administration knew what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would do…. So the US made sure it happened… I have found one other person (h/t to Siun) that has also realized what occurred… Anthony Romero, the Director of the ACLU; everybody should know and be ashamed of what has been done in our name.

Posted by: small coke | Jun 8 2008 3:01 utc | 57

bmaz recommends Carol Rosenberg at Miami Herald for the best reporting on Gitmo.

The director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Anthony Romero, watched from the spectators gallery in a fury. He had been building a death penalty defense fund and pool of criminal defense lawyers to help the military lawyers.
”It was one of the saddest days in American jurisprudence,” he said. ‘The word `torture’ was used so abundantly and the legal process continued.”
He blamed Pentagon haste to get the men to trial before the end of the Bush administration. Defense lawyers were not given sufficient time to forge attorney-client relationships ”with men who were tortured for five years,” before Thursday’s arraignment, he said….
********
… At one point, after earning the right to defend himself, Bin Attash interjected with a question: “If we are executed, will we be buried in Guantánamo or sent back to our home countries?”
Kohlmann [judge] didn’t answer.

Posted by: small coke | Jun 8 2008 3:12 utc | 59

Is it just me, or are the women doing the most interesting things these days?

Posted by: anna missed | Jun 8 2008 3:57 utc | 61

anna missed: wow. never heard of Lykke Li. thank you indeed.
i think it’s important to remember–as i’m slogging through reports of secret meetings of the ObamaClintathon Bilderberging together in W. Virginia–that art’s transcendent power makes human dignity possible. which is why fascists attack artists and prohibit certain substances that may help activate those transcendent powers.
it seems increasingly difficult to create effective politically conscious art, like some of the great pieces shared here by anna missed, because the successes of image managers, dumbed down journos, and other professional liars are vamping and leeching our creative impulses of vitality.
i am lucky to live in a community where writers and artists and other colorful crazies are nurtured more than treated with suspicion, but that is slowly changing. the gentrification happening nation wide is particularly troubling where i live, because the vibrant dynamic is getting re-channeled by the viral condo trend pricing out the local color as this vapid boomer retirement atmosphere sneaks in.
i apologize in advance to any boomers undeserving of my broad generalizations. having been reared in “suburbia,” i find myself acutely sensitive to the upper middle class attitude of superiority that seems to follow the retaking and upscaling of urban centers.
on the upside, at the state level, as Uncle indicated @48, Bob Kelleher’s victory is a total surprise. the butte lawyer goes so far as publicly advocating shifting the structure of amrka govt to a parliamentary system. then, on the docfilm front, i attended a free screening of a documentary called off the grid about a 15 square mile mesa in New Mexico where people live hard and free. a glimpse of the future?

Posted by: Lizard | Jun 8 2008 6:02 utc | 63

The new Baghdad?
Groups to monitor D.C. vehicle checkpoints

Police in neon yellow vests stopped motorists traveling through the main thoroughfare of Trinidad _ a neighborhood near the National Arboretum in the city’s northeast section. Police checked drivers’ identification and turned away those who didn’t have a “legitimate purpose” in the area, such as a church visit or doctor’s appointment.
…
The checkpoints will be enforced at random hours for at least five days, though it could be extended to 10 days, police said. Officers will search cars only if they observe guns or drugs. Pedestrians will not be affected.
…
He cited an amnesty program, later scaled back, in which officers planned to go door-to-door asking for permission to search homes for guns. He also pointed to a plan for a large surveillance camera network that he claims lacks adequate privacy rules.
“One has to ask ‘What is going on? What is the thinking?'” he said.

Posted by: b | Jun 8 2008 6:47 utc | 65

are you depressed? here is some happy news
almost as unbelievable, a Polish guy just won the Canadian Grand Prix

Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 8 2008 18:49 utc | 67

HKOL
I’d hope the wisdom of this idea wouldn’t go unnoticed by the dems. If not in terms of our election, at least in terms of the Iraqi elections. There’s no reason, should he alliance hold together, that the dems could bring Ja’fari to Washington for a little barnstorming that would discredit the administrations Iran based MalikiSICI program with a genuine reconciled alliance, that itself would gain support in the Iraqi elections with an agreed upon phased and withdrawal schedule coordinated with the future president. A rather tidy endgame of developing a consensus for an Iraqi solution for reconciliation that could also fit the “secure and stable democracy that can defend itself” reasoning needed for the U.S. to exit with a facimilie of “peace with honor” face saving rubric necessary for the U.S. to exit. The only defense the Bush/McCain strategy could make against such a solution would be somehow justify all the (neo-colonial) things they deny they are doing in the first place. Seems like it would be worth a try anyhow.

Posted by: anna missed | Jun 9 2008 10:50 utc | 69

Interesting Sec Def Gates put a transport and special operations pilot on top of the Air Force. The job was for decades reserved for the fighter pilot and bomber mafia.
Wonder what General Norton Schwartz thinks about bombing Iran …

Posted by: b | Jun 9 2008 17:36 utc | 71

and as a companion to Bernstein’s work (and other language poets, like the prolific Ron Silliman) the San Francisco artist, Jess, is noteworthy. ron silliman used a collage by jess, picture here and for a quick bio this article, printed after his passing in 2004, is good.

Posted by: Lizard | Jun 9 2008 19:44 utc | 73

lizard
i am not a great fan of american poetry tho i love hart crane, theodor roethke & despite myself there is something i really respect in charles olson – his gloucester series really something – “my balls as big as buddha”

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 9 2008 20:21 utc | 75

tantalus
soon, i imagine all under the empire will either be using meth or largactil – perhaps simultaneouslly

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 9 2008 20:27 utc | 77

‘giap: crane and roethke are great. in that vein, poets like William Carlos Williams, Frank O’Hara, and Weldon Kees have been big influences for me. Olson takes study, and i haven’t put in the work yet. Hart Crane is a monumental poet often not given due recognition. his presumed suicide mirrors the suspected dive Weldon Kees took off the golden gate bridge. Weldon Kees is a deeply bitter poet, born in Nebraska, and his bleak verse is critical of the times he lived (40’s mainly) more than any of his contemporaries i’m aware of.
tantalus: i agree. it’s dumbfounding to watch “Maine” say he’d do it all again, go off and fight; that amerika is the greatest country in the world, while living out the end of his prolonged sacrifice to political leaders who care nothing about him. what’s even more frightening is OFF THE GRID may be a little peak into the future (except all that driving over sage brush in pickups) if current escalations continue. it would be much more beneficial to watch a documentary about the community of people in New Mexico who live in earthships

Posted by: Lizard | Jun 10 2008 0:00 utc | 79

It has been noted that Kucinich’s impeachment motion certainly comes at an odd time since we’re already in the eleventh hour of this particular permutation of the vile administration in question. It can be interpreted as a waste of resources that would be better spent securing the Democrat electoral position if you’re a freeper, or sheer spitefulness at this stage of the game akin to Mossad stalking down geriatrics if you’re a beltway Republican.
If you’re me, it comes as across as quixotic (since Pelosi will ensure it doesn’t come to a vote) and far, far too late in coming.
There might be some strategery (sic) here, though. McCain can not distance himself from this administration if he is called upon to publicly comment on this, which he will have to do if Pelosi doesn’t shut the whole thing down quickly and quietly. Any stance McCain takes is going to hurt his candidacy badly. Heh. Good.
We’ll see how this plays itself out.

Posted by: Monolycus | Jun 10 2008 4:12 utc | 81

Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 8:21 pm Post subject: After Bobby Kennedy
After Bobby Kennedy
John Pilger
Published 29 May 2008
Bobby Kennedy’s campaign is the model for Barack Obama’s current bid to be the Democratic nominee for the White House. Both offer a false hope that they can bring peace and racial harmony to all Americans, writes John Pilger
In this season of 1968 nostalgia, one anniversary illuminates today. It is the rise and fall of Robert Kennedy, who would have been elected president of the United States had he not been assassinated in June 1968. Having travelled with Kennedy up to the moment of his shooting at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on 5 June, I heard The Speech many times. He would “return government to the people” and bestow “dignity and justice” on the oppressed. “As Bernard Shaw once said,” he would say, “‘Most men look at things as they are and wonder why. I dream of things that never were and ask: Why not?'” That was the signal to run back to the bus. It was fun until a hail of bullets passed over our shoulders.
Kennedy’s campaign is a model for Barack Obama. Like Obama, he was a senator with no achievements to his name. Like Obama, he raised the expectations of young people and minorities. Like Obama, he promised to end an unpopular war, not because he opposed the war’s conquest of other people’s land and resources, but because it was “unwinnable”.
Should Obama beat John McCain to the White House in November, it will be liberalism’s last fling. In the United States and Britain, liberalism as a war-making, divisive ideology is once again being used to destroy liberalism as a reality. A great many people understand this, as the hatred of Blair and new Labour attest, but many are disoriented and eager for “leadership” and basic social democracy. In the US, where unrelenting propaganda about American democratic uniqueness disguises a corporate system based on extremes of wealth and privilege, liberalism as expressed through the Democratic Party has played a crucial, compliant role.
In 1968, Robert Kennedy sought to rescue the party and his own ambitions from the threat of real change that came from an alliance of the civil rights campaign and the anti-war movement then commanding the streets of the main cities, and which Martin Luther King had drawn together until he was assassinated in April that year. Kennedy had supported the war in Vietnam and continued to support it in private, but this was skilfully suppressed as he competed against the maverick Eugene McCarthy, whose surprise win in the New Hampshire primary on an anti-war ticket had forced President Lyndon Johnson to abandon the idea of another term. Using the memory of his martyred brother, Kennedy assiduously exploited the electoral power of delusion among people hungry for politics that represented them, not the rich.
“These people love you,” I said to him as we left Calexico, California, where the immigrant population lived in abject poverty and people came like a great wave and swept him out of his car, his hands fastened to their lips.
“Yes, yes, sure they love me,” he replied. “I love them!” I asked him how exactly he would lift them out of poverty: just what was his political philosophy? “Philosophy? Well, it’s based on a faith in this country and I believe that many Americans have lost this faith and I want to give it back to them, because we are the last and the best hope of the world, as Thomas Jefferson said.”
“That’s what you say in your speech. Surely the question is: How?”
“How . . . by charting a new direction for America.”
The vacuities are familiar. Obama is his echo. Like Kennedy, Obama may well “chart a new direction for America” in specious, media-honed language, but in reality he will secure, like every president, the best damned democracy money can buy.
Embarrassing truth
As their contest for the White House draws closer, watch how, regardless of the inevitable personal smears, Obama and McCain draw nearer to each other. They already concur on America’s divine right to control all before it. “We lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good,” said Obama. “We must lead by building a 21st-century military . . . to advance the security of all people [emphasis added].” McCain agrees. Obama says in pursuing “terrorists” he would attack Pakistan. McCain wouldn’t quarrel.
Both candidates have paid ritual obeisance to the regime in Tel Aviv, unquestioning support for which defines all presidential ambition. In opposing a UN Security Council resolution implying criticism of Israel’s starvation of the people of Gaza, Obama was ahead of both McCain and Hillary Clinton. In January, pressured by the Israel lobby, he massaged a statement that “nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people” to now read: “Nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people from the failure of the Palestinian leadership to recognise Israel [emphasis added].” Such is his concern for the victims of the longest, illegal military occupation of modern times. Like all the candidates, Obama has furthered Israeli/Bush fictions about Iran, whose regime, he says absurdly, “is a threat to all of us”.
On the war in Iraq, Obama the dove and McCain the hawk are almost united. McCain now says he wants US troops to leave in five years (instead of “100 years”, his earlier option). Obama has now “reserved the right” to change his pledge to get troops out next year. “I will listen to our commanders on the ground,” he now says, echoing Bush. His adviser on Iraq, Colin Kahl, says the US should maintain up to 80,000 troops in Iraq until 2010. Like McCain, Obama has voted repeatedly in the Senate to support Bush’s demands for funding of the occupation of Iraq; and he has called for more troops to be sent to Afghanistan. His senior advisers embrace McCain’s proposal for an aggressive “league of democracies”, led by the United States, to circumvent the United Nations.
Amusingly, both have denounced their “preachers” for speaking out. Whereas McCain’s man of God praised Hitler, in the fashion of lunatic white holy-rollers, Obama’s man, Jeremiah Wright, spoke an embarrassing truth. He said that the attacks of 11 September 2001 had taken place as a consequence of the violence of US power across the world. The media demanded that Obama disown Wright and swear an oath of loyalty to the Bush lie that “terrorists attacked America because they hate our freedoms”. So he did. The conflict in the Middle East, said Obama, was rooted not “primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel”, but in “the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam”. Journalists applauded. Islamophobia is a liberal speciality.
The American media love both Obama and McCain. Reminiscent of mating calls by Guardian writers to Blair more than a decade ago, Jann Wenner, founder of the liberal Rolling Stone, wrote: “There is a sense of dignity, even majesty, about him, and underneath that ease lies a resolute discipline . . . Like Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama challenges America to rise up, to do what so many of us long to do: to summon ‘the better angels of our nature’.” At the liberal New Republic, Charles Lane confessed: “I know it shouldn’t be happening, but it is. I’m falling for John McCain.” His colleague Michael Lewis had gone further. His feelings for McCain, he wrote, were like “the war that must occur inside a 14-year-old boy who discovers he is more sexually attracted to boys than to girls”.
The objects of these uncontrollable passions are as one in their support for America’s true deity, its corporate oligarchs. Despite claiming that his campaign wealth comes from small individual donors, Obama is backed by the biggest Wall Street firms: Goldman Sachs, UBS AG, Lehman Brothers, J P Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, as well as the huge hedge fund Citadel Investment Group. “Seven of the Obama campaign’s top 14 donors,” wrote the investigator Pam Martens, “consisted of officers and employees of the same Wall Street firms charged time and again with looting the public and newly implicated in originating and/or bundling fraudulently made mortgages.” A report by United for a Fair Economy, a non-profit group, estimates the total loss to poor Americans of colour who took out sub-prime loans as being between $164bn and $213bn: the greatest loss of wealth ever recorded for people of colour in the United States. “Washington lobbyists haven’t funded my campaign,” said Obama in January, “they won’t run my White House and they will not drown out the voices of working Americans when I am president.” According to files held by the Centre for Responsive Politics, the top five contributors to the Obama campaign are registered corporate lobbyists.
What is Obama’s attraction to big business? Precisely the same as Robert Kennedy’s. By offering a “new”, young and apparently progressive face of the Democratic Party – with the bonus of being a member of the black elite – he can blunt and divert real opposition. That was Colin Powell’s role as Bush’s secretary of state. An Obama victory will bring intense pressure on the US anti-war and social justice movements to accept a Democratic administration for all its faults. If that happens, domestic resistance to rapacious America will fall silent.
Piracies and dangers
America’s war on Iran has already begun. In December, Bush secretly authorised support for two guerrilla armies inside Iran, one of which, the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, is described by the state department as terrorist. The US is also engaged in attacks or subversion against Somalia, Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Bolivia and Venezuela. A new military command, Africom, is being set up to fight proxy wars for control of Africa’s oil and other riches. With US missiles soon to be stationed provocatively on Russia’s borders, the Cold War is back. None of these piracies and dangers has raised a whisper in the presidential campaign, not least from its great liberal hope.
Moreover, none of the candidates represents so-called mainstream America. In poll after poll, voters make clear that they want the normal decencies of jobs, proper housing and health care. They want their troops out of Iraq and the Israelis to live in peace with their Palestinian neighbours. This is a remarkable testimony, given the daily brainwashing of ordinary Americans in almost everything they watch and read.
On this side of the Atlantic, a deeply cynical electorate watches British liberalism’s equivalent last fling. Most of the “philosophy” of new Labour was borrowed wholesale from the US. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were interchangeable. Both were hostile to traditionalists in their parties who might question the corporate-speak of their class-based economic policies and their relish for colonial conquests. Now the British find themselves spectators to the rise of new Tory, distinguishable from Blair’s new Labour only in the personality of its leader, a former corporate public relations man who presents himself as Tonier than thou. We all deserve better.

Posted by: Lizard | Jun 10 2008 7:04 utc | 83

McCain says that my country has changed and I didn’t notice: “Putin, the president of Germany, …”

Posted by: b | Jun 10 2008 7:39 utc | 85

Kucinich: “i’m gonna go for it.”
See the rats running! Hear Nancy’s petulant sigh! Marvel at the courage of this man to stand up to power. [At least it’s in the congressional record.]

Posted by: beq | Jun 10 2008 9:56 utc | 87

Obama hires second neoliberal advisor.
Nothing progressive there …

Posted by: b | Jun 10 2008 13:14 utc | 89

two items to lobby against
Bush: Troops could miss paychecks, civilians could be laid off

President Bush warned in his national radio address on Saturday that the Defense Department will not be able to pay troops next month and civilian Defense workers could face layoffs if Congress does not pass the 2008 emergency war supplemental bill soon.
In a related development, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that spiraling fuel costs have imposed an additional burden on the Defense budget. “Every time the price of oil goes up by $1 per barrel, it costs us about $130 million — and frankly, my credit card limit is getting narrow on that,” Gates told the Asia Security Summit last week.
In May, the Pentagon asked Congress for approval to transfer nearly $10 billion from Navy and Air Force budgets to pay soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan before the Army budget runs out in July.
In his radio address, Bush said if Congress does not act on the war supplemental “critical accounts at the Defense Department will soon run dry.” He said civilian Defense employees could face temporary layoffs, and if Defense does not get its required funding by July, “the department will no longer be able to pay our troops — including those serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
The funding crunch Defense faces is “no exaggeration,” said Army Lt. Col. Brian Maka, a Defense Department spokesman. He said the date Defense would run out of funds to pay troops depends on whether or not Congress approves the transfer. If Congress does not allow Defense to reprogram funds, paychecks to troops would stop as early as the middle of June. If the request is approved, troops would be paid through mid-July. Congress approved roughly $70 billion in 2008 supplemental funds for Defense last December. But the department still needs $102 billion out of the $189 billion it had requested then, Maka said.

House bill would extend protections to ex-vice presidents

WASHINGTON (AP) – Vice President Dick Cheney would continue to be shielded by the Secret Service for at least six months after he leaves office under legislation the House is taking up Monday.
The measure, endorsed by both Democrats and Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee last month, writes into law a common practice of extending federal protections for the vice president and his family in the months immediately after his time in office ends.
…
Recent vice presidents, going back to Hubert Humphrey in 1969, have generally been accorded about a half-year of protection after leaving office. But because there has been no law in place, it has required a special act of Congress or a presidential directive.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the extra protection would cost about $4 million in fiscal year 2009.

no need for taxpayers to foot this

Posted by: b real | Jun 10 2008 15:30 utc | 91

meant to highlight this sentence from teh narco news links in #90

McCain’s top advisor on Latin American affairs turns out to be none other than Otto Reich

Posted by: b real | Jun 10 2008 15:41 utc | 93

This league of democracies is utter nonsense. It is simply a “coalition of the willing” in new cloth.
Russia and Venezuela are both democracies with real elections, but the U.S. shuns them. Georgia is highly manipulated “democracy” – will it count? Israel? Only if you are jewish. Who decides?
It is a crazy scheme that will not get track. Bush has tried this before. See Community of Democracies.

Posted by: b | Jun 10 2008 18:42 utc | 95

re the league/concert of democracies, esp w/ kagan singling out russia & china, it sounds to me that it’s an attempt to counter the shanghai cooperation organisation. the autocracy vs democracy pretext is complete hogwash, given the number of u.s. client states that are genuine autocracies b/c that’s how you ensure “stability”, security & order.

Posted by: b real | Jun 10 2008 21:03 utc | 97

me, posting Kucinich

Posted by: catlady | Jun 10 2008 23:56 utc | 99