This was the last tweet of Syed Saleem Shahzad:

He is dead:

Syed Saleem Shahzad, 40, worked for an Italian news agency and an online news site registered in Hong Kong. He went missing on Sunday after he left his home in the capital to take part in a television talk show, but never arrived.
…
He disappeared two days after writing an investigative report in Asia Times Online that al Qaeda carried out last week’s attack on a naval air base to avenge the arrest of naval officials arrested on suspicion of al Qaeda links.

Ali Dayan Hasan, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said Shahzad had complained about being threatened by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

The story about the 'Al-Qaeda' vs. Pakistani Navy he linked in his last tweet is here.

As he tells it, the Pakistani navy found 'Al-Qaeda' friendlies in its ranks and arrested them. The people responsible for the arrests were then threatened and it became clear that more people with inside navy knowledge about the arrests were informing 'Al-Qaeda' about the who, where and what. Naval intelligence then tried to negotiate with 'Al-Qaeda' which demanded the immediate release of the prisoners. On April 22 two navy buses in Karachi were bombed with two dead and some 50 injured. More moles where captured but the threats only increased. Then followed the big attack on the naval base in Karachi on May 22.

Syed Saleem Shahzad report is so far unconfirmed but certainly has some truth in it. That it is the reason why he was tortured and killed is plausible. But who or what part of the Pakistani military or of 'Al-Qaeda' killed him will likely never be known.

In the past I have used many of his stories in my writing here and even while he sometimes tended to dramatize, his sources on all sides of the conflict were excellent and his sometimes seemingly wild stories were often confirmed by other reporting later on.

I'll miss him and the very useful information from the ground of the conflicts in Pakistan he provided. Syed Saleem Shahzad leaves a wife and three children. Buying his just published book Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11 may help them to get through the financial trouble of this loss.

Request on an email-list:

Behind a pay wall. I urgently need to see.

As it was the requesting person's birthday the following response was seen:

Pay wall … yawn … googled "username password new yorker" … found "username: libsurvey@fordham.edu password: library" … hey, that works … print article … printer: PDF creator … upload … see link

Major points in the Hersh piece:

• Iran does not have a current nuclear bomb program
• Some U.S. intelligence folks think Iran had one until 2003 because it feared Iraq had one
• U.S. pressure on Iran is not because of anything nuclear but "to change its political behavior"

George Will asks: Is Obama above the law?

Enacted in 1973 over President Nixon’s veto, the [War Powers Resolution] may or may not be wise. It is, however, unquestionably a law, and Barack Obama certainly is violating it. It stipulates that a president must terminate military action 60 days after initiating it (or 90, if the president “certifies” in writing an “unavoidable military necessity” respecting the safety of U.S. forces), unless Congress approves it. Congress has been supine and silent about this war, which began more than 70 days ago.

In asking this question and harrumphing about the 60 day limit Will is joining both sides of congress and the executive in their obfuscation of the real breach of law.

As any reader of the War Powers Act can clearly conclude, the attack on Libya was from the very first minute a clear breach of that law. As the War Powers Act, Title 50, Chapter 33, §1541, stipulates:

(c) Presidential executive power as Commander-in-Chief; limitation

The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to

(1) a declaration of war,

(2) specific statutory authorization, or
(3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.

In the case of the War On Libya there was:

• no declaration of war (which would have to come from congress)
• no specific statutory authorization (again something congress would have to vote on)
• no national emergency through an attack on the U.S. or its forces

There are no exceptions in the War Powers Act to the above three points. Under the War Powers Act the use of U.S. forces against Libya was thereby under U.S. domestic law illegal from the get go.

But Congress does not like to be held responsible for wars. If it would take a clear stance, for or against a war, voters might have an opinion about that and vote accordingly. It therefore, like George Will, just does some partisan bickering about the 60 day limit, which is irrelevant to the legality of the war, and blames the president about it.

If Congress would do its duty, it would have voted on the war before it started or would have held the president responsible when he launched it in clear breach of the law.

This part of the game the village crowd in DC is playing. Ignore the law, avoid any responsibility and play up a conflict where it none really exist to provide a show for the masses. George Will is like many in the commentariat just a small part of the show. Nothing anyone should take serious.

TEPCO, the Japanese regional power monopoly which managed to have its Daiichi nuclear plants ruined by an earthquake and tsunami, doesn’t get the political and social consequences of the catastrophe. It also seems to be slow to get a grip on the technical consequences and their remediation.That might all be somewhat understandable.

But what is not understandable is that it doesn’t even get its routine business.

The Daiichi plant number 5 was shut down in an normal automatic emergency “scram” when the earth quake hit. One of its emergency diesel generators survived the tsunami and cooling proceeded as planed. There was, if at all, only small damage to it.

But now we get this:

The seawater pump in the cooling system for the Fukushima power plant’s No. 5 reactor broke down Saturday evening, prompting repair crews to install a backup pump 15 hours later on Sunday afternoon, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.

Tepco discovered the pump had stopped at 9 p.m. Saturday but didn’t announce it to the public until Sunday morning.

According to this chart the number 5 core, even though it was shut down six weeks ago, still produces some two megawatt of thermal decay heat. Without cooling the water surrounding the core will inevitably boil off and the core will melt which will likely lead to release of radioactive substances into the environment. Why, six weeks after the catastrophe, isn’t there a secondary cooling system for number 5?

By noon Sunday, the core had reached a temperature of 93.6 degrees

Why does it take fifteen hours to replace the seemingly only cooling pump that keeps the number 5 reactor from boiling off?

The Japanese government should immediately revoke the license for Tepco to run anything technical but a one liter tea water heater in its office. If it does not get the basics of operating an undamaged nuclear plant – safety through redundancy, defense in depth – how can it be trusted with running the emergency measures on the damaged reactors that still need to be done now?

Los Angeles Times: World leaders pledge $40 billion to bolster 'Arab Spring'
Globe & Mail: G8 pledges $20-billion for Arab Spring countries
France 24: G8 – Leaders pledge $40 billion to Arab democracies
UPI: G8 to provide $20 billion in aid

Twenty billion, forty billion – which is it?

The Guardian is even more confused. It's sub-headline says 20 billion British pounds, which would roughly be 32.5 billion U.S. dollars, while the text says 20 billion dollars.

Tunisia and Egypt promised G8 help on path to democracy
G8 leaders support Arab spring goals by pledging £20bn in loans and aid to Middle East countries

G8 leaders has promised $20bn (£12bn) of loans and aid to Tunisia and Egypt over the next two years and suggested more will be available if the countries continue on the path to democracy.

David Cameron revealed he had intervened to prevent the package from being presented as more generous than it was in reality, suggesting that some at the G8 had wanted to present it as worth as much $40bn.

Cameron preaching reality – something smells wrong here.

Reuters goes with $20 billion and explains where the differences might come from:

G8 leaders promised $20bn in aid to Tunisia and Egypt today and held out the prospect of billions more to foster the Arab Spring and the new democracies emerging from popular uprisings.
…
Most is in the form of loans rather than outright grants, to the two countries in the vanguard of protest movements which have swept the Arab world from the Atlantic to the Gulf. Egypt and Tunisia are planning to hold free elections this year. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that on top of $20bn of credits provided by the World Bank and similar regional lenders dominated by the major powers, there would be as much again from other sources – $10bn from oil-rich Gulf Arab states and $10bn from other governments.

So Sarkozy promises other peoples money. Guess how much of that will arrive …

The piece also quotes the actual G8 statement:

Multilateral development banks "could provide over $20bn, including 3.5bn euros from the EIB, for Egypt and Tunisia for 2011-2013 in support of suitable reform efforts".

Ahhh – it could provide in support of suitable reform efforts. Suitable to whom?

The whole offer is just a carrot or bribe to get those countries to submit to the globalist agendas.

Not that such a big carrot would ever actually be delivered. As another Independent piece points out

Summit sources said that this figure included large sums already promised by the World Bank and the African Development Bank.

The only large amount of "new money" on the table was a promise of €2.5bn (£2.2bn) a year by the London-based, EU investment bank, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
…
Speaking after the summit, Mr Sarkozy stood by the $40bn figure. He said that pledges by other international banks and national contributions – including £110m in aid from the UK and €1bn of soft loans from France – should be added to the $20bn figure. He also threw into the pot, rather confusingly, "$10bn from the Gulf states".

Summit officials said later that there had "certainly been no firm offer from the Gulf".

So all the big contradicting headlines are just lies. The only real money on the table is €2.5 billion, 3.6 billion dollars, from the EBRD which will be a loan that will have to be paid back, with interests, and which will have some likely horribly neoliberal conditions attached. This as part of the Saudi-U.S. counterrevolution. The money will be too little to make a difference and the stings attached will attempt to destroy the new movements.

As Soumaya Ghannoushi wrote a few days ago:

Washington hopes that these rising forces can be stripped of their ideological opposition to US hegemony and turned into pragmatists, fully integrated into the existing US-led international order.
…
Containment and integration are not only political, but economic, to be pursued through free markets and trade partnerships in the name of economic reform.
…
As usual, investment and aid are conditional on adoption of the US model in the name of liberalisation and reform, and on binding the region's economies further to US and European markets under the banner of "trade integration". One wonders what would be left of the Arab revolutions in such infiltrated civil societies, domesticated political parties, and dependent economies.

Submission to the G8 conditions would kill the revolutions. The offers should therefore be rejected.

David Sanger and Eric Schmitt hit the propaganda ball out of the park:

WASHINGTON — President Obama has subtly shifted Washington’s public explanation of its goals in Libya, declaring now that he wants to assure the Libyan people are “finally free of 40 years of tyranny” at the hands of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, after first stating he wanted to protect civilians from massacres.

What please is "subtle" with a "shift" that never happened?

Feb 28: Clinton Calls for Libyan Leader Muammar Qadhafi to 'Go'
Mar 3: Obama: Qaddafi has lost legitimacy and must leave
Mar 22: Obama insists Gaddafi 'needs to go'
Apr 7: Gaddafi has no other option but to leave, says Hillary Clinton
Apr 14:  Obama: "[I]t is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Qaddafi in power."

Why am I still amazed about how bluntly and shameless these journalists are lying to their readers? I probably need to be more cynical.

Promoting their war on Libya the three stooges boosted:

[I]t is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Qaddafi in power.

It seems that in sight of the stalemate in Libya they now have some second thoughts:

“I do think that is it going to be difficult to meet the UN mandate of security for the Libyan people as long as Gaddafi and his regime are still attacking them,” [Obama] said. “And so we are strongly committed to seeing the job through, making sure that, at minimum, Gaddafi doesn’t have the capacity to send in a bunch of thugs to murder innocent civilians.”

The minimum Obama layed out does not include the removal of Gaddhafi. This smells of retreat.

The Independent, boosting an “exclusive” about yet another of Gaddhafi’s ceasefire offer, also has some bits on this:

Behind the scenes, there are signs that Western powers may agree to a ceasefire without the precondition of Muammar Gaddafi and his immediate family going into exile.
..
Whitehall sources say there is a widespread feeling that the Cameron government “set the bar too high” in stating that the departure of the Libyan leader was a prerequisite for a deal to end the strife.

That indeed does sound like a change of purported aims of the war.

But now comes the problem:

Meanwhile the opposition’s political leadership, based in Benghazi – some of them senior former regime officials – insists that no talks can be held until Colonel Gaddafi and his family go into exile.

Having rushed into the war without a strategy and any plan b, c or d, the three stooges now depend on the goodwill of the rebels they promoted. It will be very difficult to get them to agree to any scheme which keeps Gaddhafi in some position of power.

But the only alternative is a much longer and continuously escalating war to which the political constituencies of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy are unlikely to agree.

A predicament for which they only have to blame themselves.

The prime minister of a West-Asian colony of East-Europeans receives more standing ovations in Congress than the U.S. president.

Judging only from the comments on various news sites the mood expressed by Congress seems not to be widely shared by the U.S. people. Is this impression correct? How do people in the U.S. really think about this? And does their opinion matter?

A piece by David Sanger and William Broad in today's New York Times asserts that: Watchdog Finds Evidence That Iran Worked on Nuclear Triggers

The world’s global nuclear inspection agency, frustrated by Iran’s refusal to answer questions, revealed for the first time on Tuesday that it possesses evidence that Tehran has conducted work on a highly sophisticated nuclear triggering technology that experts said could be used for only one purpose: setting off a nuclear weapon.
…
Tuesday’s report gave new details for all seven of the categories of allegations.
…
The report said it had asked Iran about evidence of “experiments involving the explosive compression of uranium deuteride to produce a short burst of neutrons” — the speeding particles that split atoms in two in a surge of nuclear energy.

Readers here will not be astonished to learn that the cited assertions in the article are completely false.

The IAEA does not claim to have found any evidence that Iran worked on nuclear triggers. Its recent report expresses, like every of its reports did in the past years, "concern about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed nuclear related activities". There is no claim, none at all, in the report that the IAEA "possesses evidence" related to this. Sanger and Broad are pulling that from thin air.

The alleged uranium deuteride experiments claim comes from a much discussed 2009 article in the London Times. That one was likely based on fake documents presented by the U.S. to the IAEA on the infamous Laptop Of Death.

Nothing has changed at the NYT since the false Iraq Weapon of Mass Destruction claims. Yes, David Sanger and William Broad replaced Judith Miller and Michael Gordon and Iran replaced Iraq. But the scheme of making up false claims to further a war of aggression against a country Israel perceives as enemy is just the same.

There is a bit of a war going on around the town of Abyei in Sudan. The (U.S. engineered) partition of Sudan into North and South is somewhat agreed upon but there is no decision on who will own the town and area of Abyei and the accompanying oil fields. Forces from both sides are currently not permitted in the area.

The UN has an official role in supervising the partition and has peacekeepers on the ground. But its real role is somewhat weird. Back in March the South asked UN peacekeepers to stay away while it was killing some northern rebels and the UN did stay away:

The southern military has told the U.N. that more civilians could be put in harm's way because of the military campaign, but according to internal U.N. security reports, the U.N. mission has agreed to follow a request from the southern military to suspend operations in the contested area inside Jonglei.

The South attacked several rebel sites, killing whoever all along, while the UN forces stood down.

Then last week southern troops attacked Abyei as well as UN forces:

According to the U.N., southern troops started the clash Thursday by attacking a column of northern troops and U.N. troops peacekeepers who moving away from Abyei. The U.N. condemned the attack. A U.N. spokeswoman, Hua Jiang, said Tuesday that no U.N. troops were killed.

On Saturday some northern troops moved into Abyei and some hundred of them were killed while they chased away the southern forces. The northern troops pulled back again. Then looters took over. Yesterday the UN asked the North to come back and to stop the looting:

The U.N. mission in Sudan said gunmen were burning and looting in Abyei town on Monday and called on the Sudanese Armed Forces to intervene to "stop these criminal acts."

Then again the UNSC says those northern troops shall leave:

France, which currently holds the presidency of the UN security council, called on the northern army to withdraw immediately.

Which is it? Stop the looting or leave?

My hunch on this is that the UN feet on the ground do know that the South is the real troublemaker here, but that the "western" parts in the UN security council are trying to put the blame for the fighting on the North.

The UN Security Council is currently visiting in South Sudan and it had planned to go to Abyei on Monday. That was of course canceled.

But why did this escalation happen during the UNSC visit?

Inner City Press sees some similarities to the Georgian attack on Russian troops that led to a short war. I agree. The South seems to have provoked this spat in the hope, partly fulfilled, that the "west" would press the North for it in spite of the facts reported by the UN folks on the ground.

Anyway. All of this is just foreplay, information warfare for the real war that will soon come back to Sudan. You will remember that back in 2008 some hundred tanks and many other weapons were delivered to the South. Some of them, previously pirated, under U.S. Navy protection.

When those tanks are seen in action, the real war will have begun.

The nuts take another step to escalate their war on Libya:

Britain and France are to deploy attack helicopters against Libya in an attempt to break the military stalemate, particularly in the important coastal city of Misrata, security sources have told the Guardian.

Those helicopters will of course not change the stalemate. Nor will further massive bombing of Tripoli like it happened last night. But the "western" countries involved in this do not want a political solution. We can therefore expect further mission creap.

Soon the self imposed political pressure on those who committed themselves to take down Gaddahfi, and to steal the Libyan oil, will again increase and the only escalation left will be to commit real ground troops along those special forces already there.

Meanwhile the UNSC resolution for a "no-fly zone" is getting a slight reinterpretation:

[France's foreign minister] Juppé said the helicopters would not be used to deploy ground forces in Libya and that the decision to send them was fully in line with the UN security council resolution mandating attacks in Libya.

One wonders what those veto countries who did not vote for the resolution may think of this. This reinterpretation will likely make further UN resolutions in equivalent cases impossible. That, and the damage this does to NATO, may well be the only positives coming from this conflict.

Earlier today the Afghan spy-service NDS claimed that Mullah Omar, the head of the Taliban, was dead. The Afghan Taliban denied this.

Since then the NDS has took the story one notch back:

Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has been disappeared from Quetta city of Pakistan for the past three or four days,"spokesman of Afghan National Directorate for Security (NDS) or intelligence agency said Monday.

"We can confirm he (Mullah Omar) has been disappeared from his hideout in Quetta for the past three or four days,"Lutfullah Mashal told newsmen at a press conference.
…
Mashal also emphasized that Taliban senior commanders have lost contact with Mullah Omar over the past four days.

The spokesman of Afghan intelligence agency also insisted that Taliban chief Omar had used to live in Quetta city of Pakistan over the past 10 years.

The NDS wants us to believe that they actually knew where Mullah Omar was, when he, allegedly, left and when and how senior commanders communicate with him?

This is the Afghan state enemy no 1. Are we to believe the NDS really knew all along where he was and about his communication with commanders and did not go after him or them?

It seems the NDS is making up a fake story here, pushing a stick into a beehive, to see who will react to this. With all mobile phones in Afghanistan under constant automatized observation through the U.S. military and the NDS, a panic reaction by some lower Taliban making some frantic calls to Pakistan, could reveal parts of the Taliban communication network.

Nice try. But I doubt though that such tricks will work. With the U.S. special forces constantly hunting for "Taliban leaders" via mobile phone locationing the surviving ones have by now certainly learned their communication discipline.

Meanwhile the U.S. still has so little intelligence in Afghanistan that it mixes up the spied on phone numbers and kills the wrong people.

by Malooga
lifted from a comment

Before I say what I am going to say, let me explain a little about my background. I spent a number of years as one of the head trainers in what at the time was the second largest oil refinery in the western hemisphere. In that capacity, I trained operators, and wrote training manuals of the type that b has linked too. More specifically, I oversaw the preparation of refinery-wide emergency procedures for final FEMA approval and licensing of our refinery. In that role, I interfaced with the relevant senior operators and supervisors in reviewing, and in most cases, revising or rewriting hundreds of individual unit emergency procedures. I was expected to be the one who asked the "What If? questions, and foresaw unplanned events. In this role, I was required to read the classic text on industrial accidents, "What Went Wrong," and digest the historical record on oil refinery accidents. I played a key role in dealing with accidents at our plant — and there were many — though obviously none even approaching this in magnitude. I held certifications on a score of different units and worked on about fifteen different types of refining units. I have and have had friends who were/are certified nuclear plant operators. Additionally, my father was a chemical engineer who worked on Oak Ridge. I grew up with the blueprints of a number of reactors covering my father's workshop walls. My uncle, also a chemical engineer, worked for Exxon, then moved to AIG where he insured large industrial plants.

I consider that I know a lot about industrial accidents from a number of different angles, and can certainly read blueprints, piping and instrumentation diagrams, etc. I know a lot about emergency procedures and how they are formulated and understand whaat really goes on during accidents. Obviously, I am not an expert on nuclear power, per say.

One thing I know for sure, all accidents are political events and financial events involving gargantuan corporations. The larger the event, the truer this is. The safety of workers and the public is subordinate to those facts. That is simply how things work on the planet at this point in time. Workers lives may be insured for $250k and it may be cheaper to "expend" a number of workers, rather then use an intermediary device. It is simple cost-benefit analysis, made simpler if the tax payers are now picking up the tab.

Lest anyone think otherwise after saying this, I am against nuclear power categorically. The fact that a "cold shutdown" requires "hot powered" circulation pumps is Orwellian. An entire oil refinery can be rapidly shut down. Everything is designed with a failsafe mode. In other words, I reject nuclear power from a design point of view even before I consider radiation contamination such as we are seeing, or the geologically long-term unsolved issues of waste storage.

Nevertheless, I have nothing but the utmost respect for the operators, maintainence crews, engineers and other employees of nuclear power plants. I believe that until you get up to the corporate management level, all employees have the safety and best interests of the public, as they see it, at heart.

With that said, this is what I have learned from this accident.

Cont. reading: Where b Was Wrong On Fukushima

Patent Application: A secure 1,000 mSv/h radiation protection barrier

bigger

Nir Rosen: Western media fraud in the Middle East
"Too many journalists report official narratives of the powerful, missing the stories of working class people"

Greg Palast: Strauss-Kahn Screws Africa

Matt Taibbi: The People vs. Goldman Sachs (<- a week old but a must read)

Corp Orwell: In its submission to the Federal Court in Oakland, California, Apple’s legal team stated that:

Apple denies that, based on their common meaning, the words ‘app store’ together denote a store for apps.

At least 32 killed as Syrian troops open fire headlines the Washington Post:

BEIRUT — Defying a stern warning from President Obama, Syrian forces opened fire on protesters after Friday prayers, killing at least 32 people as the regime led by President Bashar al-Assad showed no sign of easing its military crackdown.

But the piece does not explain when, where and under what circumstances those 32 have supposedly died. There is not one bit of information in the piece about this. In which cities did this happen? Who opened fire? When was this? Where is that number coming from?

In addition to the 32 deaths, about 200 people were injured by gunfire aimed at protesters, and the toll could rise, said Tarif, the human rights activist.

That would be one "Wissam Tarif of the human rights group Insan". Insan is an organization in Spain with a website that does not say much about the group. There is especially no say who is funding it. The FAQ on the side only has this:

[S]ince 2009 INSAN has re-strategized its approach, turning, instead to project partners and funding institutions for support.

No project partner or institution is listed. This organization could be a front for about anything. I have no idea why any decent journalist would trust it especially when it throws out numbers without any factual backing.

The group claims to have grown out of other organisations:

INSAN began in 2001 as an awareness and educational project in Syria under the name ‘LCCI.’

and

The lobbying and opinion-forming organization which was born from this endeavor was to be called ‘FDPOC’ (Foundation for the Defense of Prisoners of Conscience).

There is no trace on the Internets of LCCI and an FDPOC link to FDPOC.com in an Wikipedia article is dead. The current nameserver for FDPOC.com is NS1.SUSPENDED-FOR.SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM. I find one Syria bashing piece from 2008 that mentions FDPOC and Wissam Tarif.

My hunch is that Wissan Tarif and INSAN are front for some intelligence service.

But the Post doesn't bother. Some numbers thrown around of some people killed in Syria, no matter from where, seems to be enough for a big headline and a piece which doesn't back it up.

Tepco today gave a big press conference announcing a loss of some $15 billion for this year. This does not yet include compensation for the people who were evacuated because of the Daiichi plant failures nor does it include cleanup costs.

In another announcement Tepco also said that reactor 1 to 4 will be decommissioned, which is obvious, and that the no 7 and 8 planned for that site will not be build. It did not mention no 5 and 6. Technically those could be reactivated and I believe that is Tepco's plan. But to assume that it will ever get a license to do so from the relevant local governments is crazy. It just shows how absolutely tone deaf to public opinion these big monopolists are.

As for the status of the plants the announcement include this bit which is the very first admittance of serious trouble in the no 4 spent fuel pool:

In particular, the melting of the fuel pellets inside Units 1 to 4 caused them significant damage.

The no 4 reactor was shut down and contained no fuel when the quake hit. Fuel pellet damage there then must be in the no 4 spent fuel pool.

On the status of the reactors:

Cont. reading: Fukushima Update – May 20

The Washington Post reports on Obama’s Middle East speech:

Obama […] called, to Israel’s consternation, for a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict on the basis of Israel’s 1967 borders — an unprecedented step for a U.S. president.

Wow. What an outright lie. Every president I can remember has called for a deal on the basis of the 1967 borders.

How embarrassing for the Post when one can even turn to a pro-Israel propagandist like Jeffery Goldberg to find that admitted:

I’m amazed at the amount of insta-commentary out there suggesting that the President has proposed something radical and new by declaring that Israel’s 1967 borders should define — with land-swaps — the borders of a Palestinian state. I’m feeling a certain Groundhog Day effect here. This has been the basic idea for at least 12 years. This is what Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat were talking about at Camp David, and later, at Taba. This is what George W. Bush was talking about with Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. So what’s the huge deal here? Is there any non-delusional Israeli who doesn’t think that the 1967 border won’t serve as the rough outline of the new Palestinian state?

One expects such outright lying on the neoconned op-ed pages of the Post. But to have such blatant lies produced in a page 1 report is much more serious. It makes all reporting by the Post untrustworthy.

Otherwise it was a lame speech by a lame president who anyway never does what he promises.

A while ago I wrote about the tribal insurrection in Libya and some readers took issue especially with this sentences:

With "western" intervention the situation on the ground would quickly deteriorate. This would cost a lot more lives than any situation in which the Libyan people fight this out by and for themselves.

The military situation is currently a stalemate and on the humanitarian side the situation is bad and getting  worse:

In launching the appeal, U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Libya, Panos Moumtzis, says his main concern is for the western part of Libya where 80 percent of the population lives. “Our concern for the west is that the situation in the west due to the sanctions, with the low availability of medical supplies, of food supplies, the fuel embargo, the cash flow shortages-it is really like a time bomb ticking where the longer the crisis lasts, the more grave the humanitarian situation is,” said Moumtzis.

With the country under blockade by the "western" militaries, there are now gasoline shortages which make the supply of food, medicines and everything else difficult. 750.000 people fled the country including some 60% of the mostly foreign health staff.

Intervention by sanctions and/or by military means inevitably makes a conflict situation worse for the majority of the people on the ground. There are countless examples for this and I am not aware of even one situation where international sanctions or military intervention led to less a conflict. The outcome here was really obvious.

I do not wonder about Cameron's, Sarkozy's or Obama's motivation, that's oil and power. But why some commentators at MoA had the idea that an intervention by "western" might in Libya, be it through sanctions or no fly zones or anything else, would be somewhat "humanitarian" and called for it is something I don't get.

There is a general assumption within in the Washington DC Villagers crowd, the officialdom and media, that anything good happening in the world, happens because they did something, while anything bad happening, happens because someone else did something.

The usual way to do this is to assume that correlation is a sign for causation. If A happens while B happens and the result is good then whatever the U.S. did, A or B, must be the cause of the result. If the result is bad then anything someone else, likely the villian of the year, did, A or B, must be the cause of the result.

This is how we get stories about how the Egyptian revolution happened because the U.S. gave money to train a few activists and because of U.S. social media services. Does anyone serious really believes that millions, most of whom likely have no Internet access at all, take to the streets because a few activist learned to formulate Twitter one-liners?

This general way of Villager thinking sometimes leads to rather comical reports for which we find an fine example today in a NYT piece on an arrest in Pakistan:

A Pakistani intelligence official said in Karachi Tuesday night that the operative was arrested in the Gulshen-i-Iqbal area of the city on May 4 or May 5, just two days after the American raid that killed bin Laden in the city of Abbottabad.

The army said the operative was of Yemeni descent.

“The arrest of al-Makki is a major development in unraveling the al Qaeda network in the region,” the Pakistani army said in a statement.

The arrest of the al Qaeda operative appeared to be the result of a pledge by Pakistan and the United States Senator, John Kerry, on Monday that the two sides would mount joint operations against important militants in Pakistan.

“It was also agreed that the two countries will work together in any future actions against high-value targets in Pakistan,” the statement said.

An arrest happened on May 4 or May 5. But it "appeared to be the result" of a Kerry visit on Monday, May 12?

In the Villagers world, time seems to be a two way road. The Pakistanis arrested someone which is good, so it must have been some Villager's action that caused this. A correlation must be found that can then be constructed into a causation. But as there wasn't an correlation, one has to be constructed no matter how much such construction defies any logic. Then the constructed correlation is interpreted as causation.

In general the scheme is a bit more subtle than the example above. But it holds. Self congratulation for any positive outcome, damning someone else for anything less. Spoiled children who lack consciousness of themselves and others.

Israel again killed peaceful unarmed protesters who wanted to commemorate the Nakba, when the Zionist terrorists chased the Palestinian people from off land the Palestinians owned. According to the Times in 2011 the Nakba only happened after Israel was established and at war with some volunteer Arab army. According to the Times in 1947, and many other sources, the Nakba happened before Israel became a state and before the war.

It is time for the Times to up its Zionist credentials and to burn its archive. It seems that keeping it and the truth alive will only help those who want to wipe Israel off the map.

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