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May 14, 2009
Links May 14 09
  • What was the reason for this warning? – Obama warns Netanyahu: Don't surprise me with Iran strike – (Haaretz)
  • The "most moral army" – IDF probing whether troops forced Gaza man to drink urine – (Haaretz)
  • Artificial dates: Dennis Ross' evil work – U.S., Allies Set October Target for Iran Progress – (WSJ)
  • Mr. No-Change ignores court order – Obama Reverses Promise To Unveil Abuse Photos – (WaPo)
  • Afghan official: 95 kids died in US-Taliban clash – (AP)
  • Roubini on the demise of the dollar – The Almighty Renminbi? – (NYT)
  • "Your pilot is paid $16,200 per year – have a good flight" – Panel on Fatal Crash Looks at Pilots' Pay, Commutes – (WaPo)
  • A chart: The beginning to the end … and back again – The global financial crisis – (Good)
Posted by b on May 14, 2009 at 06:03 UTC | Permalink
Comments

Obama warns Netanyahu: Don’t surprise me with Iran
I wonder to what degree this is political theater. Israel needs authorization from the US to fly through Iraqi airspace, so how could Netanyahu et al “surprise” Obama? Stratfor, last June:
Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch?

If Greece were the target in this exercise, then the equivalent distance would mean that the Israelis are planning to cross Jordanian airspace, transit through Iraq and strike Iran from that direction. A strike through Turkey — and there is no indication that the Turks would permit it — would take much longer.
The most complex part of the operation’s logistics would be the refueling of aircraft. They would have to be orbiting in Iraqi airspace. One of the points discussed about the Mediterranean exercise was the role of Israeli helicopters in rescuing downed flyers. Rescue helicopters would be involved, but we doubt very much they would be entering Iranian airspace from Israel. They are a lot slower than the jets, and they would have to be moving hours ahead of time. The Iranians might not spot them but the Russians would, and there is no guarantee that they wouldn’t pass it on to the Iranians. That means that the Israeli helicopters would have to move quietly into Iraq and be based there.
And that means that this would have to be a joint American-Israeli operation. The United States controls Iraqi airspace, meaning that the Americans would have to permit Israeli tankers to orbit in Iraqi airspace. The search-and-rescue helicopters would have to be based there. And we strongly suspect that rescued pilots would not be ferried back to Israel by helicopter but would either be sent to U.S. hospitals in Iraq or transferred to Israeli aircraft in Iraq.
The point here is that, given the exercise the Israelis carried out and the distances involved, there is no way Israel could do this without the direct cooperation of the United States.

Posted by: Colin | May 14 2009 7:26 utc | 1

Mental break with with some nice picking:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWEJPqJtZsk

Posted by: biklett | May 14 2009 7:54 utc | 2

That “don’t surprise me with Iran strike” sounds a lot like “let me know about it before”. If those were the words Obama actually said, I don’t know if he thought this through.
The private contracting surge in Afghanistan.
Obama, Pakistan and the Rule of Law.
Interview to Scott Horton about torture and impunity.

Posted by: andrew | May 14 2009 10:30 utc | 3

Meanwhile, in Peru and Sri Lanka (caution: the video contains disturbing images).
Reflections of war, an al Jazeera documentary about war in Gaza.

Posted by: andrew | May 14 2009 10:38 utc | 4

The links that didn’t appear in the last comment:
http://intercontinentalcry.org/peru-indigenous-people-declaring-the-real-state-of-emergency/
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=3713&updaterx=2009-05-14+04%3A03%3A05
http://pulsemedia.org/2009/05/14/reflections-of-war/

Posted by: andrew | May 14 2009 10:40 utc | 5

I’ve never understood why anyone ever bought into the likelihood that the US would “gift” the use of Iraqi airspace to the Israelis for an attack on Iran. The only period of time that the Israelis could have done this was prior to the US invasion ( and it should be remembered that the Israelis have been threatening to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities since 1994 ).
In the period that the US was “in occupation” via its UN mandate, doing so would have been a direct abroagation of said mandate. Anyone trying to predict the short, medium and longer-term political, legal and diplomatic consequences to the US of doing so would be compiling a list of utterly negative outcomes.
Naturally, green-lighting such an operation now would be a complete abrogation of the US’s security agreement with the Iraqi government – again, it’s hard to see any short, medium or long-term consequences that aren’t massively deleterious to the US.

Posted by: dan | May 14 2009 12:00 utc | 6

The administration is clueless about an Afghanistan strategy.
May 11, 2009
Press Conference with Secretary Gates and Adm. Mullen on Leadership Changes in Afghanistan From the Pentagon
SEC. GATES: After consultation with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the commander of Central Command, and with the approval of the president, I have asked for the resignation of General David McKiernan. He will remain in command of both ISAF and U.S. Forces Afghanistan until such time as a relief can be nominated and confirmed. I am today recommending to the president that Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal be nominated to replace General McKiernan as commander U.S. Forces Afghanistan. . .
Q : Can you talk even in general terms about what might take place differently on the ground, as far as the prosecution of the war?
SEC. GATES: No, I don’t know.
ADM. MULLEN: I think — I mean, in some ways, we’re learning as we go here. I mean, we’re — what General McKiernan has recommended, in terms of the troops that are going there now, are the ones that we’re resourcing. But I’d also certainly want to hear from new leadership what their beliefs are once they get there, get on the ground and make some recommendations about how to move forward as rapidly as possible.
So I’m not aware of any changes. And I wouldn’t speak to exactly how they’re going to — how they’d fight it, although I’ve been briefed, for instance, on, you know, how it’s going to apply in the south here over the course of this year.
But certainly with new leadership, there will probably be some fresh views, which we will have very, very good discussions about.
Q: Admiral, you said, we can and must do better. And so I’m surprised you don’t have any more solid idea of how we need to do better.
ADM. MULLEN: I can’t think of a more important decision than putting in new leadership, with respect to that, and then having the impact that is so critical.
Q: Actually the secretary said, we must and can do better. Any thoughts on how?
SEC. GATES: Well, I think, that’s the challenge that we give to the new leadership. How do we — how do we do better? What new ideas do you have? What fresh thinking do you have? Are there different ways of accomplishing our goals? How can we be more effective? The admiral and I aren’t the source of those ideas. General McChrystal and General Rodriguez are. And that’s what we expect from them.
Q: Let me ask it a different way. One of the criticisms of General McKiernan was that he hadn’t implemented a joint campaign plan, essentially an implementation of the way the strategy would be used on the ground. When the new leadership gets there, do you have a sense that then they will provide new feedback that could change the Af-Pak strategy as we know it? And what might it be?
SEC. GATES: Well, I — first of all, the new strategy is a strategy approved by the president. And it is a whole-of-government strategy. If there are any changes that they would recommend, it would be in the military part of that strategy.
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4424
So it’s: “No, I don’t know” and “we’re learning as we go here.”
Reminds me of the Lone Ranger (kemosabe) and Tonto.
Kemosabe comes from quien sabe (sp.) = who knows
and tonto (sp.) means stupid.
So when the Lone Ranger talks to Tonto you’ve got Who Knows talking to Stupid.
Or, Gates and Mullen, Mullen and Gates. Thousands of people in the Pentagon, the National Security staff and the Joint Chiefs Staff and they don’t have a clue.

Posted by: Don Bacon | May 14 2009 15:35 utc | 7

Covering up Israel’s Gaza crimes with UN help.
Nepal’s maoists cry Indian foul play.
Pakistan government prepares for long-term war.

Posted by: andrew | May 14 2009 15:54 utc | 8

The links:
about Gaza: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10522.shtml
about Nepal: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KE15Df02.html
about Pakistan: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/paki-m14.shtml
Anyway, I’m sure I wrote correctly the html tags, what could this be?

Posted by: andrew | May 14 2009 15:59 utc | 9

I’m surprised that, with all the tough torture talk from all the burly he-men of TV, Nintendo hasn’t developed a Wii torture simulator so Americans can learn exactly what being tortured feels like.

Posted by: DavidS | May 14 2009 17:12 utc | 10

No. 10 – re: Wii torture simulator: have movies like Elie Roth’s Hostel, the Saw series, and the rest of the goregasm crap desensitized American civilians to the reality of suffering/torture? And what about the dreams/reality of our brothers and sisters that serve(ed) in Iraq/Afghanistan? Nightmares walk the streets at high noon.

Posted by: euclidcreek | May 15 2009 3:06 utc | 11

@andrew – Anyway, I’m sure I wrote correctly the html tags, what could this be?
I don’t know but try to find out.

Posted by: b | May 15 2009 6:56 utc | 12

don’t let the darkness eat you up

Posted by: Lizard | May 16 2009 5:29 utc | 13

my hunch is that the disappearing html markup in the comments has to do w/ a flaky flag that enables/disables html tags in the user comments
i found that if, after previewing & verifying that the formatting is being displayed as i intend it to, i click the dynamically-rendered ‘post’ button added in the preview section, rather than the static one near the base of the window, my comments get posted correctly
of course the results of those steps could be entirely coincidental, but i have not had the problems today that appeared to be affecting the entire site, as i noticed in the postings of others
it seems to me that the software cannot remember which state it is supposed to be in, which would explain why sometimes the formatting disappears entirely from the entire comments section, or when making an individual post. sometimes it enables html markup; other times it doesn’t
there did not appear to be any pattern to it
yesterday i had a screen up that displayed all of the html formatting but when i viewed the source (using firefox) that formatting had been stripped from all comments – links, blockquotes, bold, italics… everything
i just quickly peeked at the contents of the js includes linked in the page (& w/i those includes), but did not see any global vars that looked like they were keeping track of whether html formatting was enabled or where the function “interceptPost” was defined, which may provide a clue to when such a flag is used

Posted by: b real | May 16 2009 6:31 utc | 14

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