As expected, the Democritters in Congress caved in on telecom immunity:

The agreement would also pave the way for companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. to shed the nearly 40 lawsuits they face for allegedly participating in a prior version of the NSA program, which have cast a shadow over their reputation on Wall Street and Main Street. To win immunity, they would have to pass review from a U.S. District Court.

Laura at War & Piece has a two good question to Pelosi that gets to the gist of the issue:

Doesn’t that actually endorse and extend to private actors the Nixonian view that if the president says it’s legal, it’s legal, regardless of what the law says and the Constitution says? Wouldn’t that set an awful precedent that an administration could get private actors to do whatever they wanted including breaking the law?

Answers: Yes and yes.

Why do Democrats choose to support this? Maybe they do really want that precedent?

I fail to see other reasons here.

What is the war in Afghanistan about?

Yes, you guessed it: hydrocarbons. Today’s Globe and Mail reports:

Afghanistan and three of its neighbouring countries have agreed to build a $7.6-billion (U.S.) pipeline that would deliver natural gas from Turkmenistan to energy-starved Pakistan and India – a project running right through the volatile Kandahar province – raising questions about what role Canadian Forces may play in defending the project.

To prepare for proposed construction in 2010, the Afghan government has reportedly given assurances it will clear the route of land mines, and make the path free of Taliban influence.
…
The so-called Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline has strong support from Washington because the U.S. government is eager to block a competing pipeline that would bring gas to Pakistan and India from Iran.

The TAPI pipeline would also diminish Russia’s dominance of Central Asian energy exports.

The project to build that pipeline was nearly ready in 1998 when Unocal had a deal with the Taliban government and the Northern Alliance.

The deal was stopped in 1998 because no one was willing to finance it:

An internationally-recognised government in Kabul would have paved the way for securing the financing, but American anger at the Taleban for harbouring Osama bin Laden, has, for the time being, stopped that.

Following the US air strikes Unocal suspended its plans.

This time the deal is supposed to be financed by the Manila-based Asian Development Bank.

Still there are several issues that will make it very difficult to build the pipeline.

• Russian and Iranian (and Chinese?) interests are touched and both have incentives and capabilities to hinder it by various means.
• As the occupation troops continue to bomb the Afghan population, the support for the resistance against the occupation will increase.
• It is impossible to ‘make the path free of Taliban influence’, because the most of the Taliban in that pipeline path is the native population living there.
• Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan are getting worse by the day and may endanger the deal.
• NATO countries will be reluctant to support further action in Afghanistan as the real interests behind these are now revealed.

Until now whoever mentioned such a deal as being behind the Afghan War was seen as falling for conspiracy theories. That will now end and I welcome the discussion that will follow.

Today we also learn that Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP are getting no-bid, two years contracts to ‘service’ Iraq’s largest fields. This puts them into the position to win further exploration rights.

As the real war reason are now in the open the key question is: How many of their sons and daughters are ‘western’ democracies willing to get killed in support of such schemes?

U.S. campaign thougth of the day:

If McCain is President we will call it The Nursing House.

link

Someone timewarp me to December please.

You will remember the ‘outrage’ in the media about Myanmar denying access by ‘westerners’ to the people hit by cyclone Nargis.

Today a U.S. government paid guy from RAND builds on that to attack China in the WaPo op-ed pages: China’s Responsibility to Protect

The responsibility to protect is being tested today by the Myanmar military junta’s refusal to allow massive aid to the victims of Cyclone Nargis, just as it has been tested by the Sudanese government’s support for genocide against the people of Darfur.
…
Now the world is blocked by Myanmar’s junta from getting aid to those caught in Nargis’s path. The United States and its allies have little sway with the junta, except for force, which they seem disinclined to use. Once again, the country with the greatest leverage is China.
…
China obviously is big enough to be a world leader. But it is it principled enough? It is time — high time — for China to accept the code of conduct that befits a great power in an era of globalization. Nargis gives the Chinese a golden opportunity to do their fellow humans and themselves some good.

What this guy actually wants is China to join the U.S. in raping the rest of the world. (China will not do so.)

To that gain he is peddling false information about Myanmar, the help it did accept and the kind of additional economic help that is needed.

But, oh wonder, today we also get a mainstream media piece that actually reports the realities on the ground in Myanmar. It confirms to me that the junta was mostly right when it said that more ‘western’ helpers were unneeded.   

Now doctors and aid workers returning from remote areas of the delta are offering a less pessimistic picture of the human cost of the delay in reaching survivors.
…

Cont. reading: Myanmar – The Junta Was Mostly Right

An Afghan warlord and tribal chief welcomed the ‘western’ attack against Mullah Omar’s Taliban. The Talibs were from a different power group than his own and he hoped to get a better deal with the new rulers.

But those ‘westerners’ put another rival group of his into power. Sure, they gave him a bit power too. He was elected into the parliament and the loot coming with that job made things better. But then the rival group in power screwed him. They used the ‘westerners’ to fight his interests with deadly consequences.

But he is a smart men and he fights back against these folks with sophisticated public relation. When that does not work, he shows off some of his real power.

The other side responds by again trying to use the ‘westerners’ to suppress him and his followers.

The outcome of this fight is uncertain. But it definitely shows one thing. Most ‘westerners’ have no real comprehension of what the conflict in Afghanistan is really about, what Taliban are and are not and why ‘the west’ will end up defeated in Afghanistan just like Alexander the Great, the British imperialist of the 19th century and the Sowiets.

Thus follows the story of Haji Habibullah Jan, the leader of the small but proud Pashtun Alizai tribe reconstructed from some deep Goggle dives.

It is longish, sorry for that, but it is also a mind opening look into a foreign culture even while based on ‘western’ news sources.

My search started with this story about the big Afghan jail break every major newssource recently covered. Those reports included this ridiculous line:

Cont. reading: Haji Habibullah Jan – Or Why ‘The West’ Will Lose in Afghanistan

The Saudis allegedly said they will produce more oil and promptly oil hits $140/barrel.

U.S. refiners don’t want more Saudi Oil saying it is too pricy. If the journos were knowledgeable they would point out that U.S. refiners simply can not refine the sulphur heavy stuff the Saudis peddle as additional capacity.

This hapless UN idiot Ban Ki-moon was the one who brought the original message of increased Saudi oil production. Like usual, he has no idea of the real problems. He is now announcing even more of unusable Saudi spice. Is that in his job description?

Pat Lang thinks the Saudis are angry at the "west" and keep production down for that reason. Maybe that is part of the story, but I do not believe it is the main issue.

There is population growth on this planet – fed by and demanding oil.
There is too little additional supply possible for now to feed that demand.
There is too little refinery capacity to make use of marginal quality stuff.
There are too many conflicts in the producing areas to allow additional supply.
There is like always a lot of speculation that exacerbates price moves.

In short: Get used to it.

$250 a barrel by next June would be a slower increase in price than last years surge. 

That’s a positive sign, isn’t it?

Meanwhile many people will die because we covert food into gas.

Big powers to offer Iran "generous" deal in atom row

The EU’s top diplomat said he would hand Iran a generous offer on Saturday aimed at resolving a deepening dispute over its nuclear ambitions that has helped push up oil prices to record highs.

…
"I am traveling to Tehran to present a generous and comprehensive offer," [European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana] said in a statement on Friday.

Thanks to the Tehran Times, we can now read the "generous" offer (slow link):

In order to seek a comprehensive, long-term and proper solution of the Iranian nuclear issue consistent with relevant UN Security Council resolutions and building further upon the proposal presented to Iran in June 2006, which remains on the table, the elements below are proposed as topics for negotiations between China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, joined by the High Representative of the European Union, as long as Iran verifiably suspends its enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, pursuant to OP 15 and OP’ 19(a) of UNSCR 1803. In the perspective of such negotiations, we also expect Iran to heed the requirements of the IJNSC and the IAEA. For their part, China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union High Representative state their readiness:

• to recognize Iran’s right to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in conformity with its NPT obligations;
• to treat Iran’s nuclear program in the same manner as that of any Non-nuclear Weapon State Party to the NPT once international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program is restored.

The "generous offer" is to recognize rights that Iran, as a member of the Non Proliferation Treaty, already has. As sweetener to the "generous offer" some fluffy material and immaterial promisses are added.

Some immaterial points are:

• Support Iran in playing an important and constructive role in international affairs.
• Promotion of dialogue and cooperation on non-proliferation, regional security and stabilization issues.

Ain’t that "generous"?

The material points all have one common attribute. They do not include any prices:

• Support for construction of LWR based on state-of-the-art technology.

Nice offer – but how much will those Light Water Reactors cost? That is of course still to be negotiated. The costs turn out to be prohibitive? Oh, too bad. But the offer to talk about them was really "generous".

This offer is exactly the same that was made two years ago. It is nothing but a public relation ploy to justify further sanctions, especially by the EU, against Teheran.

Solana will say: "See, we did give it a try." But that is incorrect. The offer contains nothing that is specific enough to be valuable. Most importantly it does not contain any security guarantees by the U.S.

Muqtada al’Sadr took several surprising step with interesting implications.

1. His movement will not take part in the provincial elections, but will support ‘independent’ candidates.
2. He shut down the general Sadr army and announced a special closed group that will as its sole task attack the occupation forces.
3. He tasked his movement to take care of social issues and do welfare.

His official reasoning for the first point:

"We don’t want anybody to blame us or consider us part of this government while it is allowing the country to be under occupation," said Liwa Smeisim, head of the Sadr movement’s political committee.

That is certainly good marketing, but there are other reasons too. Maliki had threatened to forbid all parties that have a militia (and are not, like the Badr army, a government militia). As a Sadr party would likely win in the provinces in the south, Maliki would just as likely try everything to prevent that. The best way to avoid that threat is to support some surrogates that Maliki can not easily reject.

It is anyway unclear if the elections will be held this fall or next spring or whenever. It is also still open if there will be closed lists, i.e. only party votes are possible without knowing the candidates, or open lists where people can vote for actual candidates. The leader of the election commission, a Kurd, has his own agenda in the fight over that and clearly prefers closed lists and elections as late as possible. Al-Sadr is right to expect to get disenfranchised in the election no matter what he does. Now he avoids the fight over that while winning points with the nationalist public.

Number two is smart too.

Several top aides to Sadr said they would not be involved with the new group and said they knew nothing about it. Garawie said the members would have classified names and that some of their military activities might not be publicized.

The so far open Sadr army was neither well trained nor disciplined. But if Sadr, as one of his people says, really has some companies of trained fighters near the class of Hizbullah, these are best to operate from the underground and not wasted in open battles. To emphasize attacks only on occupation forces is another cookie point on the nationalist sheet.

The third point is what made his, and his dead father’s, movement great in the first place. Sadr taking care of welfare delegitimizes the government which neither has the ability nor the will to take care of its people. It also allows him to nurture his base and to keep credibility in the eyes of the people.

The Maliki followers and the rightwing U.S. commentators will see this as a retreat of a beaten Sadr movement and a win for their side. I disagree with that view. This is a sidestep move that avoids useless open near-term conflict and will give gains in the long-term.

The task of this piece on the front page of today’s Washington Post is to establish the believe that Iran has a nuclear weapon design.

An international smuggling ring that sold bomb-related parts to Libya, Iran and North Korea also managed to acquire blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon, according to a draft report by a former top U.N. arms inspector that suggests the plans could have been shared secretly with any number of countries or rogue groups.

The drawings, discovered in 2006 on computers owned by Swiss businessmen, included essential details for building a compact nuclear device that could be fitted on a type of ballistic missile used by Iran and more than a dozen developing countries, the report states.

The Swiss ‘businessmen’, Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, are alleged to have sold several nuke related stuff to Lybia and other countries.

There is more to the Tinner story, but for now let me concentrate on the date. The WaPo says the laptop has been discovered in 2006. But Tinner was under CIA control at least since the 2003 bust of nuclear related stuff on board of the ‘BBC China’.

The German magazine Der Spiegel had a big story about this in March 2006:

Cont. reading: CIA, Khan and the Nuclear Weapon Designs

Picking up from Tangerine’s comment:

In the Supreme Court decision on Boumediene vs. Bush (pdf, 134 pages) the majority opines (page 78):

The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times. Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law.

Tangerine mocks the words I highlighted:

The opposition between liberty and security is in any case a false one and rests on the presuppositiion that being submissive to jackboots is for one’s own (the nation’s!) good. The law can either accept this nonsense, or refute it. Here it is openly accepted


Well – no. There is opposition between liberty and security. It is not "in any case a false one".

Cont. reading: Liberty vs. Secruity – Dimensions Vary

Unlike Debs is dead predicted the Irish today voted against the European Lisbon treaties. Thanks folks!

Wikipedia has a bit on the history of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, shorter, the constitution.

The central point of the issue is a reform of the decision making process within the European Union. Today every head of state within the EU can block EU decisions. While I believe this to be a good solution, others believe that this hinders progress. (Haven’t we progressed under the old rules too?)

But the constitution also did many other things. It was not a simple understandable paper of principles and rules, but a 500 page mashup that touched on every issue and speciality one can think of. That, in my view, was the real mistake the people who thought it up have made.

To stand behind it people have to understand and to accept a constitution. Having a bit of education on constitutional law, I read the proposed one, tried to understand it and failed. But maybe I am the dumbest person in Europe.

The constitution was rejected by voters in the Netherlands and in France. Voters in other countries were not asked, but their parliaments voted on it.

The politicians then found a way to circumvent the will of the people. They split the proposed constitution into two papers, the ‘Lisbon treaties’ and pushed these through their parliaments. Only Ireland allowed its people a direct vote on the issue.

Thankfully the Irish rejected it.

Now the trickery will start anew. Some politicians already speak of giving Ireland a ‘special status’ and keep the treaties for the rest of the EU.

A better solution would be to stop this project for now and start anew:

• Define the fields a constitution will touch on, like how a European government is elected, how the European court is seated, the rights of the European parliament.
• Develop alternative solutions for each field.
• Let all people in the EU vote for the alternatives they like best.
• Put the selected alternatives together into one constitution.
• Let everybody vote on this final paper.

Circular reasoning:

Definition:
Supporting a premise with the premise rather than a conclusion.

Example:
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES – Nos. 06–1195 and 06–1196

JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE THOMAS, and JUSTICE ALITO join, dissenting (pdf, page 110ff):

America is at war with radical Islamists. The enemy
began by killing Americans and American allies abroad: ..
…
It has threatened further attacks against our homeland; one need only walk about buttressed and barricaded Washington, or board a plane anywhere in the country, to know that the threat is a serious one.

Shorter example:
Because the President says we have to fear, we do fear.

—
Why are such idiots allowed to judge?

Good news with an ugly headline:

This has nothing to do with taking sides. What the headline should have said is:

or

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.

In its third rebuke of the Bush administration’s treatment of prisoners, the court ruled 5-4 that the government is violating the rights of prisoners being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The court’s liberal justices were in the majority.
…
The court said not only that the detainees have rights under the
Constitution, but that the system the administration has put in place
to classify them as enemy combatants and review those decisions is
inadequate.

This is the reason why the U.S. elections are so important. I do not really like Obama’s policy proposals. But the danger of another wingnut judge replacing one of the moderate ‘liberals’ is just too big. This is the good reason to urge anyone who can to vote for him.

The US-led coalition in Afghanistan on Thursday deflected accusations
that it killed 11 Pakistani soldiers in an air strike, releasing video
footage which it says shows its forces targeting insurgents.

"Deflect accusations …" Hmmm – AFP describes the video:

The video footage, taken by an unmanned drone, shows a first strike targeted at men hiding behind a rock, and three subsequent attacks on men seeking cover in a ravine.

"It is clear there are no structures or (Pakistani) outposts in the impact area," a voice says off-camera.

The video shows a total of four strikes. Now what is that supposed to deflect?

As WaPo reports the strikes:

U.S.-led forces dropped more than a dozen bombs in and near Pakistan’s tribal regions Wednesday ..
…
According to the U.S. military, two Air Force F-15E jets and a B-1B Lancer bomber then dropped the bombs, which included both precision-guided and unguided munitions and which weighed between 500 and 2,000 pounds. The bombs were used "to destroy anti-coalition members in the open and in buildings in the vicinity of Asadabad," Afghanistan, according to a statement released by the U.S. military’s Combined Air and Space Operations Center for Southwest Asia.

…
"This a complex attack involving . . . an airstrike and artillery and a number of forces . . . along a border that has traditionally been a problem and is often the cause of some confusion as to who the forces are that are involved," [Pentagon press secretary] Morrell said.

The video shows four precious strikes involving no structures.

But the military also used artillery and it dropped more than 12 bombs, guided and unguided once, including some hitting buildings. So what is this video supposed to prove?

Nothing!

But the media nevertheless will use it to explain how innocent the military is in this. They also will be outraged when the Pashtun and Pakistani will eventually hit back.

News & views …

We welcome your comments.

Since World War II the U.S. has abused the status of the dollar as the world currency to live beyond its means. It has forced others to finance its wars by exporting inflation. This was done after the Vietnam war and today the U.S. is trying to do it again and to let the world pay for its War on Iraq.

As a defensive measure against abuses like after Vietnam european countries established their common currency. Today, as the U.S. tries to repeat its old trick, the defense gets tested and it seems to be working fine.

After World War II and the decline of the British Empire the U.S. became the leading economic power of the world. The Bretton Woods
agreement fixed world currencies to the U.S. dollar and the U.S. dollar
to gold. But soon the U.S. economy declined relatively to the western
European and the Japanese economies.

President Johnson decided not to increase taxes to pay for the
Vietnam War and his Great Society program. Instead the Fed printed more
dollars. The war led to an outflow of these dollars, high inflation and
a deterioration of the U.S. balance of trade position. The peg of the
dollar to gold at $35/once became untenable.

Cont. reading: The Dollar Abuse Leads To A Multipolar World

Some issues in today’s news. Obviously the silly season has started.

In today’s most degenerated op-eds the flatman muses about Arab reactions to Obama’s "Muslim heritage" and Maureen Dowd warns of attacks on Obama’s wife from the right while helpfully listing all attack lines, including the debunked "whitey" quote, and the links to the relevant hate sites.

Some excellent reviews, one even by Putin, the President of Germany, of the Father’s Day McCain Golf Pack the McCain’s campaign is selling for some cheap fifty bucks.

How do gag orders work in the U.S.?

A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.
…
A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations.

The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.

The head of Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, says the price of oil will double "in the foreseeable future."

The IDF kills a 9 year old Palestinian girl and several "gunmen" and U.S. troops off four Afghan civilians, including a boy and two women.

Kucinich reads impeachment articles into the congressional record. A stunt which will of course lead nowhere. But let me ask Mr. Kucinich: What is in your 35 articles that has not be known for years? Why then are you doing this only now as time is too short for impeachment proceedings?

Why are Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries urged to keep their currencies pegged to the U.S. dollar while China is chided for being too slow in abandoning their managed peg?

In early June Secretary of the Treasury Paulson visited several Gulf countries:

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Saudi Arabian Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf agreed that the Gulf kingdom benefits from keeping its currency pegged to the dollar.

The riyal’s peg "has served this country and the region well," Paulson said today at a joint press conference in Jeddah. "I totally agree with Secretary Paulson," al-Assaf said. "As we have said many times, we have no intention of de- pegging or of revaluation."

Paulson is getting an update on the fixed exchange rates retained by most oil-rich nations in the Middle East on his four-day trip to the region.

…
Any change to currency regimes in the region "is a sovereign decision," Paulson said.

But just a few days later Paulson says this:

Despite rising nearly 20 pct against the dollar in the last 3 years, China’s yuan needs to appreciate even more — and even more quickly — if China is going to successfully deal with its growing economic imbalances, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Tuesday.

So the Gulf shall stick to it the dollar and China shall not. Does this make any sense?

Cont. reading: Dollar Peg Good, Dollar Peg Bad

diplomacy

1 : the art and practice of conducting negotiations between nations

2 : skill in handling affairs without arousing hostility : tact

diplomacy, lack of

"We hope that Koreans will begin to learn more about the science and about the facts of American beef and that this issue can be addressed constructively," [U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Alexander] Vershbow said.

by Debs is dead
excerpted from
a comment

The Treaty of Lisbon seems to be a naked grab for power by the already
meglomaniacal european pols and technocrats who figure pushing this
through in europe will be easy after a win in Ireland which is claimed
to be the EU’s greatest success story.

A rags to riches tale of
neo-liberal alliances with corrupt pols exploiting a too trusting
public who imagined that ‘the boys’ (their elected representatives)
were still looking out for them while they had a couple of ‘small
drinks’ on the side.

Those Irish pols must be desperate to remove a chunk of political power
from the electorate before the shit hits the fan. That is before much
of Ireland’s new found wealth disappears down the gurgler, leaving the
Irish people searching for culprits. The disadvantages of
trans-national financial entanglements become revealed when the reality
of being in hock to a plethora of foreign financiers takes shape.

Cont. reading: Treaty of Lisbon – The Absentee Landlords Return