Found nothing today I'd like to write about.

What's up elsewhere?

Via Tom Ricks Army General Martin E. Dempsey at the Senate hearing on his appointment as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (I don't find the transcript on C-Span's site but in the Google cache):

[L]ooking back on it, at least my own personal view about Iraq in 2003 was that Iraq had a particular problem, and it was a regime that was destabilizing in the region and that we should take action, that — it was my recommendation that we should take action to change the dynamic inside of Iraq and that the region itself would become more stable. I'm not sure it turned out that way.

OMFG – This guy's new job is to be the principal military adviser of the president on military issues.

He though it was a good idea to blow up a totally defanged and isolated regime would be good idea for STABILIZATION in the Middle East?

The guy is supposed to have a Master of Science degree in national security and strategic studies. In which dollarstore did he buy that one?

I mean, it probably — it is, but it didn't happen exactly as we intended it, and that's because I don't think we understood — let me put it differently. I didn't understand the dynamic inside that country, particularly with regard to the various sects of Islam that fundamentally, on occasion, compete with each other for dominance in Islam, and so — Shia, the Shia sect of Islam, the Sunni sect of Islam — when we took the lid off of that, I think we learned some things that — and I'm not sure we could have learned them any other way.

Gen. Dempsey has obviously never learned to read a book. There was no other way to learn about Shia-Sunni rivalry than by blowing up Iraq? And he had never bothered to learn about Iraq's internal divides before he decided it was fine to invade?

How can such a person be judged fit to counsel the president?

When Obama asks Dempsey about invading China what will he say? "Sure, its a small country with a few strange looking people. We'll be done with it in week or so."

With such Generals it is no wonder that the U.S. is incapable of winning any of the wars it starts.

The Brits are now joining the French in suing for peace in Libya: Muammar Gaddafi could stay in Libya, William Hague concedes. This after, certainly with White House support, the U.S. Joint Chief Of Staff Mike Mullen admits stalemate could leave Gaddafi in charge.

Their puddle in Libya was pressed to agree: Rebel Chief Says Gadhafi, Family Can Stay in Libya. We can be sure his troops will disagree with that even though the Libyan rebels have conceded ground since bombing began. The puppet at The Hague hadn't yet read the memo, Gaddafi can't be left in Libya, says international criminal court, but we are sure that it will fall in line:

There were several editorials in the U.K. press today lauding and damning the Cameron government for coming to its senses. The Guardian: Libya: about turn, the Independent: Ceasefire and negotiate, the Daily Mail: Mr Cameron's sorry retreat over Gaddafi and the Telegraph's neoconned MI6 agent Con Coughlin: The Libyan campaign is running into the sand.

That was too much. So the British government today took another stupid step: Britain recognises Libyan rebels and expels Gaddafi's London embassy staff. This will make negotiations more difficult.

The "concessions" the "west" made in allowing Gaddhafi to stay in Libya does not mean this conflict is over: Bombing of Libya to continue as needed: NATO. Having no military targets left it can hit NATO has switched to destructing civilian infrastructure. The announcement in typical NATO propaganda style: Nato warns Qadhafi over use of civilian facilities. The results: Libya accuses NATO of bombing clinic, killing 7, Libya: bishop denounces NATO bombing of food store and Brega: NATO bombed "Great Man Made River"factory.

Bombs do not win wars. There will be No Negotiations Until NATO Attacks Stop, Libya PM Says.

We ain't there yet. Remember, there are five stages of grief those "western" leaders will have to go through to get to the end. After their plan for a fast Gaddhafi exit turned out be nonsense they were in Denial. Their Anger led to an intensified bombing and the sending of helicopters. Now they are Bargaining. What will follow next is Depression and only after that will there be Acceptance that they lost the war of aggression they started. Then they will create and/or use another crisis to divert from their sneaking away from the affair while showing the white feather.

Barack Obama planned all along to make Social Security and Medicare cuts. In early 2009 he had a dinner with conservative commentators. David Brooks was there and a few days later said:

[H]e's clearly demonstrated this week that he's committed to tackling the big entitlement projects – Medicare, Social Security – that are the real fiscal disaster waiting to happen. So, it's not only short-term spending, but there's long-term fiscal balance, that's very much in his mind, which was not in his mind, or at least not talked about as much, during the campaign.

To be able to make those cuts Obama needed a crisis.

The debt ceiling could have been lifted earlier when the Democrats still held the House. Or the lifting could have been attached to a must-agree-on bill like the budget. Or the debt ceiling, which is anyway superficial as congress dictates the spending and the revenues in other laws, could just be ignored. But no. A fight over the debt ceiling is the Obama planned crisis that would allow for entitlement cuts.

The expectation was that the Republican would agree to the deal Obama would offer. He gave them some 50% of their points even before starting negotiations. He added another 40% since they started. The republican leadership in the House as well as Obama thought they had a deal. Both had miscalculated.

The tea party side of the Republican caucus is bigger then Boehner and Obama had thought and it wants 150%. Only cuts but  not a penny revenue increases no matter of how much they are needed. Most Democrats are unlikely to be suicidal enough to agree to that.

While there still might be a last minute deal the small chances for a selective default, a temporary stop of interest payments, are increasing. That would trigger a downgrading of U.S. debt.

It would be very interesting to see how the financial markets would react to such an event. Many financial instruments and papers depend on the validity and the high rating of U.S. debt. If that is in doubt and things unravel I'd expect considerable chaos and some of the banksters to make huge profits from it. The White House is unlikely to be prepared for a default event. Some hectic unplanned moves from it that would likely worsen a default or downgrade situation.

Still a selective default, which in itself can and would be healed over pretty soon anyway, is not a big catastrophe. There is even a positive side to it. It would decrease the U.S. standing in the world and thereby lower its capabilities to wage more wars.

What the U.S. really needs is jobs and the programs to create them. Instead it gets austerity. Additionally it may now get a new chaotic debt crisis that would expand and extend the recession.

Whatever. The point is that there was no need, not one, to get into this situation. We all know who we have to thank for it.

Saturday June 11 – Day 41: […] I prayed for the first time in a very long time today. I explained to God that unless he wanted the Marxist-Islamic alliance and the certain Islamic takeover of Europe to completely annihilate European Christendom within the next hundred years he must ensure that the warriors fighting for the preservation of European Christendom prevail. He must ensure that I succeed with my mission and as such; contribute to inspire thousands of other revolutionary conservatives/nationalists; anti-Communists and anti-Islamists throughout the European world.
2083 – A European Declaration Of Independence (big pdf) (page 1459)

I am pretty sure God, should that concept exist, did not understand what the terrorist Breivig "explained" to the all knowing.

That's because the numbers are all wrong. Given the immigration rates, fertility rates of immigrants, their adherence to religion and the trends of those numbers there is no chance for Muslim immigrants to become more than a 6% minority in Europe within the next decades (they are now at 4% of which only 20% are observant). As other historic migrations have show it is indeed quite likely that within one or two generations the offspring of the immigrants will be indistinguishable from the general population.

But besides to explain that the numbers are wrong we should also understand why there is increasing fear of immigration in large parts of "western" populations. It has, I believe, to do with the lack of wage growth (in the U.S. declining wages) in the past decades.

There is a legitimate argument to be made against immigration. Whenever a country's economy is in a uptrend and unemployment goes down, business interests, which want to to keep wages from growing, argue for more immigration. Workers do have a legitimate interest in increasing their wages in times of economic upturns and therefore also a legitimate interest in keeping immigration down at least until long term full employment is achieved.

But hardly any political party, at least in Europe, still makes the above argument and I wonder why. Social-democrats and other parties on the left should have this issue at their core. Instead they try to catch up with the demagogues at the right which want to fight immigration because they their follower perceive it as a cultural threat or use the "muslim threat" to further Israel's interests in keeping support from Europe and the U.S.

The left should also be more careful in embracing "multiculturism". Yes I prefer to live in a multicultural neighborhood and I am all for it. But that pro-multicultural argument can also, via the business interest as explained above, be used to further immigration to suppress wages. Pro-mulitcultural should be an argument for integration, not to further immigration.

The economic argument against immigration must be put back into the discussion. It is logical, sensible and will keep the people, who I believe instinctively understand it, out of the cloud of the demagogues.

I am skimming through the 1,518 pages of the Breivik terrorist manifesto, 2083 – A European Declaration Of Independence (long PDF). It must be a work of several years and I have no doubt that it is genuine.

There are the usual tips on how to make bombs, a diary of his describing how he prepared his deed, a biography and personal notes on friends and relatives, a political program consisting of a lot of ideological right wing chapters copied from neo-fascist bloggers in Europe, the U.S. and from likudnik zionists, his ideas and regulations for an underground knight order including what medals it will provide for what deeds, ranked lists of enemies and targets and some more detailed political ideas which may be his own.

While Breivik emphasizes on every corner that his stand is anti-nazi and not fascist such statements are then immediately followed by typical nazi and fascist ideas. 

There is emphasis of a nordic race, plans of creating a pan-nordic union, detailed "cultural conservatism" pieces (anti-abortion etc.) as the tea party and evangelicals understands it, antisemitism, support for ethnic cleansing by Israel but also elsewhere, calls for crusades to conquer several middle east countries and extreme nationalism. He is quite clear about the "necessity" to kill lots of people to achieve these goals.

It is a wide field and quite a complete agenda for a new praetorian-dictatorial system. A 50 year program to create a bunch of national-socialist states in Europe.

While the outer argument is a fight against a perceived Muslim take over of Europe, the primary targets he lists are not those Muslims but those political forces who, in his mind, allow and further this perceived takeover. His primary target is simply the political left, though he names it differently.

At one point Breivik copies from the Unabomber manifesto without naming him: The original:

20. Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics. Leftists protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them, etc. These tactics may often be effective, but many leftists use them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist trait.

Breivik's version:

Notice the masochistic tendency of cultural Marxist tactics. Cultural Marxists protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them, etc. These tactics may often be effective, but many cultural Marxists use them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a cultural Marxist trait.

His "cultural marxists" are the left, which to him includes all people who call for tolerant, "multicultural" societies. The target he hit, a youth camp of social-democrats, is exactly what he argues to aim for.

The rightwing blogs, forums and authors in Europe where he posted and copied from are now all busy to distance themselves from him. But there is no denying that they provided the ideas, ground and fertilizer on which Breivik grew.

The manifesto is the program and the killing of over ninety of the Norwegian Labor Youth was the program lauch and the starting point of a marketing campaign to distribute it. Surrendering to the police, staying alive to use the propaganda value of a public trial is part of that campaign. So far all that worked out as planned.

While the Breivik argument is false and neither logical nor intellectual consistent, it will find new followers. Over the next years we can expect smaller amateur copycat attacks of wannabe Breiviks. But there will also be more serious ones by those who will follow the ideological strain he laid out.

The target will be the political left.

Reading through comments on various newssites about yesterday's attack in Norway the following classification system seems to be prevalent.

• Right wing white man in local terror attack on white people => lone operator, psychic, copycat of Muslim terrorists; not really connected to any society defects or any bigger social group.
• White man in local terror attack on non-white people => hero; a justified defense against the vast Muslim conspiracy to conquer the world.
• Non-white man in local terror attack on white people => terrorist; part of the vast Muslim conspiracy to conquer the world.
• Non-white man in local terror attack on non-white people => crazy dude; molded by a crazy society that is part of the vast Muslim conspiracy to conquer the world.

Norway horror: 80 die in camp shooting, 7 in blast

OSLO, Norway (AP) — A Norwegian who dressed as a police officer to gun down summer campers killed at least 80 people at an island retreat, horrified police said early Saturday.
…
The motive was unknown, but both attacks were in areas connected to the ruling Labor Party government. The youth camp, about 20 miles (35 kilometers) northwest of Oslo, is organized by the party's youth wing, and the prime minister had been scheduled to speak there Saturday.

The terrorist was a right wing Christian. Norwegian TV via automated translation:

According to TV2's sources, the arrested belong to the right-extremist groups in eastern Norway, and the man must have registered two weapons on their name – an automatic weapon and a pistol of the type of Glock. … Breivik listed in their Facebook profile as a conservative and Christian, and he may have a connection to the extreme right environment.

The rightwing Norwegian Progress Party and its surrounding allotment of rightwing groups are historic fascistic, pro-apartheid and today very much in support of a likudnik Israel.

Via Newshoggers a report from a Norwegian TV site on the activities in the Labour Party youth camp may explain the killer's motive.

bigger

Automated translation:

Cont. reading: Youthcamp Terrorist May Have Pro-Israel Motive

Libya is likely to get blamed for this bomb attack in Norway.

Huge bomb blast kills at least two in attack on government office block in Oslo

At least two people have been killed in a massive explosion in Oslo which has shattered the windows of the Norwegian Prime Minister's offices and forced the evacuation of nearby buildings.

Police in Norway say the blast – which happened just after 3.30pm today – was caused by a bomb.

The tangled wreckage of a car was seen outside one building leading to suggestions it could be have been a car bomb – although this has not been confirmed.

The Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was not in the city at the time and is unharmed, it has been reported.

Norway had send 6 of its F-16 fighter jets to take part in the war on Libya.

On July 7 Gaddhafi has "threatened" that revenge attacks may occur in Europe:

In a speech on Libyan television the Libyan leader said: "Hundreds of Libyans will martyr in Europe. I told you it is eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. But we will give them a chance to come to their senses."

The conflation of these three items will be used to blame Gaddhafi for the bomb in Oslo.

But that does not make any sense because on June 10th Norway had already announced that it will draw back its fighters:

Norway's government says it will scale down its fighter jet contribution in Libya from six to four planes and withdraw completely from the NATO-led operation by August 1.

If one believes that Gaddhafi's "threat" to Europe was real, one also has to believe the restriction he himself set is real: "… we will give them a chance to come to their senses."

Already before Gaddhafi's "threat" was issued Norway had come to its senses and had announced the soon end of its involvement with the war on Libya.

Gaddhafi isn't dumb. He would not attack a country that has done exactly what he asked for, to end the attacks on Libya.

This attack on a government building came on a public holiday. On other days the number of casualties would have likely been higher. One can follow that maximizing casualties was not the intent.

"Al Qaeda" was earlier seen as a potential suspect for an attack in Oslo.

But there may also be parties able to set off a bomb in Oslo with the intent to get Gaddhafi blamed. If only to counter the fading of enthusiasm for that war. Who do you think are likely suspects with such a motive?

On 27 May Rommel opened his offensive in the Western Desert, but all the first reports were optimistic and we had little expectation of being involved. Intelligence reports in the Middle East always breathed the same air of bland cheeriness and patronizing appreciation of the enemy's struggles no matter how badly things were going for us. I don't know at what level commanders were told the truth; corps and divisional commanders may have seen truthful reports. At the Brigadier level they were often infuriating.
H.K. Kippenberger Infantry Brigadier Chap 8

One can only hope that the politicians involved in the assault on Libya do get truthful reports. If they depend on "bland cheeriness" of reports like in today's Wall Street Journal they are likely to make very bad decisions.

Libyan Rebels Advance on a Gadhafi Stronghold

ZINTAN, Libya—Rebel fighters have penetrated Libya's southwest desert and pulled within 80 miles of Col. Moammar Gadhafi's southern stronghold, opening a new front and suggesting the strongman's grip is slipping even in areas believed firmly in his control.

The rebels captured a small village south of Sebha on Monday. The fall of Sebha, one of Col. Gadhafi's three regional power centers, would be a huge symbolic and strategic blow.

The city of 130,000 is a logistics hub for the regime, channeling food, fuel and other war supplies northward from southern farmlands and neighboring Algeria, Chad and Niger, said rebel leaders.

With the latest offensive, rebels have now made progress on every front of the war.

The last sentence is obviously wrong. As reported yesterday the rebel assault against Brega was pushed back. The rebellious Berber in the south west dare not attacking any further and are begging for ammunition and the move out towards west from Misurata had no success either. The civil war is in a stalemate.

But let us analyze the rebel move described in the WSJ article which was written in Zintan, several hundred miles away from the city of Sebha, and is based on rebel accounts.

A resident of the southern town of Al Qatrun, which rebels took last week, estimated the force includes 60 to 65 4X4 vehicles and as many as 300 fighters.

Earlier this month, the force captured a remote desert airfield and army outpost called Al Wigh, near Libya's borders with Chad and Niger, and soon after seized the Tummu border crossing with Chad.

The force began advancing north toward Sebha, and last week, the force took the village of Qatron without a fight. On Sunday, pro-Gadhafi fighters attacked the advancing rebels, said a resident of the village and a rebel commander on the ground, Ramadan Al-Alakie.

The rebel fighters repulsed the attack and pressed their advance, both men said.

The retreating Gadhafi forces concentrated in Taraghin, the hometown of Bashir Salah, Col. Gadhafi's chief of staff, to block the rebel advance to Sebha. The rebel force simply went around the town, and on Monday took control of the tiny village of Umm Al-Aranib, they said.

Now, just 80 miles of empty desert and one tiny village stand between the rebels and Sebha.

That sounds impressive but:

• The rebel group advancing is just some 300 untrained men strong. They come from Al Kufrah, an oasis in the south east of Libya where mostly people from the Arabized Berber tribe of the Zuwayya are living. These are not Gaddhafi's best friends.
• The rebels are aiming for a city of 130,000 people which also includes a large military garrison and which is the traditional base of the Magariha, the tribe with the strongest and longest allegiance to Gaddafi.

Those two points alone should already make clear that any attempt of these rebels to "take" Sebha would be unlikely to further their wellbeing.

But, according to the WSJ, these rebels' already had impressive successes so lets take a look at how big those really were.

• From their home the rebels moved westward by 4x4s through some 500 miles of empty desert. That is a two or three day drive in difficult terrain but also a rather long line for reinforcements and general logistics. What will they do when they run out of gas, ammunition or need medical help?
• While the WSJ says they "captured a remote desert airfield and army outpost called Al Wigh" a look at satellite pictures reveals that airfield to be just a very empty strip of tarmac in the sand with no planes and no bigger building or settlement in the wider vicinity.
• The Tummu border crossing with Chad the rebels "seized" at 22°39' 14°5' (pdf) consists of one small building.
• The town Qatron the rebels "took" without a fight has some 25 houses amid some irrigated fields. I doubt that such a small town would even have a single policeman.
• The rebels then claim they went from Qatron to Taraghin where Gaddhafi forces were and "went around" them to "take" Umm Al-Aranib. This claim can not be true. The road from Qatron goes first north to Umm Al-Aranib and then west to Taraghin. If the rebels went around Taraghin it must have been in a full circle. Besides that, going around a group of the enemy to attack another group of the enemy further down a road would put one into a rather uncomfortable sandwich position.

The "successes" these rebels had so far, while sounding solid to a cursory reader, are in reality nothing. They "captured" empty areas, "seized" an irrelevant checkpoint at a wide open border and "took" undefended small towns. To assume that they will be able to take on a 130,000 strong city with likely opposing inhabitants is foolish.

Let's just hope that the political deciders, who do not even have plans of how to avoid or stop a very likely tribal war and brutal retaliations in the case that the Gaddhafi regime comes down, do not take the bland cheeriness slant in the WSJ piece for real.

Since last Thursday and with very active support from NATO air forces the eastern rebels in Libya have tried to conquer the oil city Brega. At one point they even claimed victory and that they were in "full control" of the city. But that does not seem to have been true at all. Instead the rebels seem to be losing that fight:

Rebel forces have been pushing to seize the frontline town, which is home to an oil refinery and terminal, for nearly a week, but they say minefields planted by Gaddafi's forces have slowed the advance.

They took positions 10km east of the oil port, working to clear the mines so they can move forward.

"Maybe within three or four days we will solve this problem of mines and we will be in Brega," said rebel spokesman Ahmed Bani.

Good luck with that.

As any military knows a minefield, like any military engineering barrier, can only hold when it is monitored and defended and it seems that is exactly what Gaddhafi loyals are doing. A reporter from the LA Times who is in the area observes:

[F]ighters described a rocket barrage by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi that ripped through a rebel unit trying to advance into the city. The advance halted as rebels treated and evacuated casualties, they said.

The insurgents said government forces had flown rebel flags from some rocket launchers and vehicles as a ploy to close in on rebel units.

The rebels are trying to clear mine fileds in the open desert where the artillery of the loyals can reach them. They do not have armored vehicles to protect them against artillery and have no mechanical mine clearing equipment. The result is, very predictably, high casualties:

The latest rebel assault on Port Brega, which began Thursday, had left at least 32 antigovernment fighters dead and 291 others wounded, according to the hospital's running tally.

That is about a battalion worth of troops dead or wounded. I doubt that after these losses the rebels will continue a sustained assault.

In the west, the rebels had captured the small town of Qawalish and thoroughly looted it. As C.J Chivers reports, they also seem to have committed further war crimes and are trying to cover them up:

Last week we reported about the five dead men in the uniforms of Qaddafi soldiers found rotting in a cement basin near Qawalish. […] Since those reports, questions surrounding what happened to these men have found traction among other news agencies, and reports from other journalists are forthcoming. And since then the site has been bulldozed.
…
Over the weekend, upon noticing as we drove past the basin that the site had been dismantled and bulldozed, we tried to stop to learn more. Our driver refused, announcing that he was under orders from the rebel military leadership not to allow us near the site.

The five dead soldiers were tortured and beheaded.

Despite some resistance from the U.S. France has repeated the offer for Gaddhafi to stay in Libya:

"One of the possibilities is that he (Gadhafi) remains in Libya," Alain Juppe told French news channel LCI. "But on the condition that he stays away from Libyan political life. This is what we are waiting for before we begin the political process for a cease-fire."

One wonders how that would work. Do the French really expect that everything would be well and fine if only Gaddhafi steps down? What about those people who actually support him? What about the disunity in the rebel ranks? What about their crimes? I have yet to see answers to those questions.

Wouldn't it be better to just declare that a mistake has been made, to simply end the war and leave the cleanup to Gaddhafi?

Good journalists come up with their own metaphors when writing a story. Not so good ones steal them from their colleagues. Doing so in a story that is fundamentally about ethics in the media is an especially bad behavior.

Patrick Wintour, Nicholas Watt and Vikram Dodd write in The Guardian How Paul Stephenson and PM fell out over hacking scandal

Cameron may also find time to reflect that his attempt last Friday to get a grip of the situation by announcing a judicial inquiry has clearly failed. The number of dead bodies on the stage is beginning to resemble the final scene of a Shakespearian tragedy.

Anthony Faiola writes in the Washington Post Cameron cuts short Africa trip; police second-in-command resigns

Pressure on Cameron mounted as the scandal began to resemble a Shakespearean play, with its high-profile victims strewn across Britain’s public stage.

Copyright protection is argued to be based on the originality of content creation. The WaPo piece seems to lack in that regard.

(Note: According to the article history of the Guardian piece: "This article appeared on p2 of the Main section section of the Guardian on Monday 18 July 2011. It was published on guardian.co.uk at 00.46 BST on Monday 18 July 2011. It was last modified at 09.52 BST on Monday 18 July 2011." While the Washington Post piece was also published in the 18th, the first of the 480+ comments to it is "lafayette89 – Resign, Cameron, resign. – 7/18/2011 3:32:25 PM GMT+0200". It thereby seems evident that the Washington Post piece was launched some 13+ hours hours later than the Guardian piece.)

Live fish view from the Georgia Aquarium. Sharks, mantas and lots of others. The live stream is available until August 7.

Cont. reading: Fish!

[W]e are going after them across the spectrum. We have more of our special, special operations forces going in on the ground, and you've seen the results, you've heard some of the initial results of that with more Afghan shadow governors, the Taliban shadow governors being captured, more of the high value targets being taken down.
'Meet the Press' transcript for February 21, 2010 – David Petraeus

Indeed. Though not as Petraeus announced:

• Taliban assassinate key district governor in Kandahar, June 15 2010
• Afghanistan governor killed in blast, July 11 2010
• Afghan Governor Killed by Taliban, September 7 2010
• Afghan Governor Is Killed in Blast at Mosque, October 8 2010
• 4 Afghan police, including district chief, killed in blast, October 26 2010
• Suicide bomber kills a top official in key Afghan province, January 30 2011
• Police chief killed in Afghanistan, March 11 2011
• Blast Kills Afghan Police Chief and 2 Officers in Kandahar, April 15 2011
• Afghanistan: Suicide blast kills top police commander, May 28 2011
• Taliban bomber targets Afghan governor, kills two, June 21 2011
• Karzai's Half-Brother Assassinated In Kandahar, July 12 2011
• Suicide bomber kills 4 at Karzai memorial service, July 14 2011
• Afghan president's top advisor killed, July 17 2011

This should lead to some rethinking of Petraeus backfiring "kill the leaders" campaign. The Taliban would probably agree to a ceasefire with regards to "high value targets". Unfortunately it is unlikely that the military will give up on this.

This week's Swoop analysis includes this quite sardonic sentence:

Secretary of State Clinton is well respected, if not for her strategic vision but for her diligent commitment to her office.

Ooch. This is job reference language code which translates into "has no strategic vision" and "is a phlecmatic worker bee". But that's fitting well.

The Guardian reports:

The Metropolitan police said a 43-year-old woman was arrested at noon Sunday, by appointment at a London police station. Brooks, 43, resigned on Friday as News International's chief executive. She is a former News of the World editor.

Brooks is due to give evidence before MPs on the culture select committee on Tuesday. An arrest by appointment on a Sunday by police is unusual.

The police is getting nearer to the core of the criminal enterprise. It is pretty clear that other within News Corp hierarchy were aware of the illegal communication intercepts and police bribery by the Murdoch media.

So who's next? A Murdoch?

Update: More analysis from the Guardian:

The arrest of Rebekah Brooks in relation to phone hacking and corruption drags News Corporation deeper into crisis.

It must surely mean that the police investigation is edging closer to James Murdoch, who has been head of all News Corporation's businesses in Europe and Asia since 2007. He personally approved payments to civil litigants against the News of the World in settlement of their cases – deals that involved gagging clauses that appears to have prevented them discussing potential criminal activity in public.

Hmm – so James is now the target for paying hush money, not Rupert who certainly knew about that too   and who is the real ideologue behind the criminal enterprise?

For those who love "it's the Jews" conspiracy stuff an old piece from the New York Sun via Xymphora:

The pro-Israel outlook of the Wall Street Journal and many News Corp. outlets could waver if one of Rupert Murdoch's sons, James Murdoch, takes the helm of the publishing and broadcasting company, a new book suggests.

The just-published diaries of a communications director for Prime Minister Blair, Alastair Campbell, indicate that James Murdoch launched into a foul-mouthed tirade that suggested that the behavior of Palestinian Arabs was justified by their poor treatment by Israelis.
…
Advocates for Israel expressed distress yesterday at the report of James Murodch's stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Certainly, it's troubling," a spokesman for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, Alexander Safian, said. "It's a little upsetting to hear that perhaps a son who might eventually have a lot of power is not favorably inclined towards Israel."

Screencap from today’s Washington Post website

According to ISAF:

An individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Force service members in southern Afghanistan today, killing one service member.

A service member in ISAF speech is just a normal soldier. But the Washington Post is headlining the story as “NATO official”. Are we now to take all those anonymous “NATO officials” the Washington Post regularly quotes for propaganda purposes as being just this or that lowly Private First Class?

The Washington Post's Checkpoint Washington blog does another "Blame Pakistan" post:  Al-Qaeda’s terrorist tool kit now includes training manuals from Pakistani spy agency

After losing key rounds in what some al-Qaeda operatives call the “intelligence war,” the terrorist network has introduced a new online course in operational security with material from an unusual source: Pakistan’s powerful spy service.

The Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate has long been accused of coddling militant groups, even while helping the CIA kill or capture dozens of senior al-Qaeda operatives including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Now al-Qaeda operatives can study directly from some of the ISI’s training manuals, according to a new report by Abdul Hameed Bakier at The Jamestown Foundation.

These bad, bad Pakistani. Always blame the Pakistani …

At the Jamestown Foundation we find:

According to its translator and editor, jihadi activist Obaida Abdullah al-Adam, the security and intelligence training material originally consisted of Urdu language documents obtained from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), known for its close ties to various jihadi movements.

So it is a translator and editor who claims that parts of his recipes are from an ISI handbook. If I claim that my pork belly recipe is also translated from an Urdu original by ISI does that make it true?

But if even that claim were true and if even ISI would be involved, unlikely in my view, the U.S. is by no means innocent with regard to putting military and intelligence manuals into the wrong hands. As C.J.Chivers reported back in 2003:

David Rohde, a New York Times correspondent, entered Kabul as the Taliban fell and found sections of the Improvised Munitions Handbook in a terrorist group's house, partially translated into Arabic script. Diagrams from its pages also appear in notebooks from camps at Al Farouk, near Kandahar, and in notebooks that I found among Namangani's papers. In another camp, I came across volume one of Al Qaeda's Encyclopedia of the Jihad. Much of it was a direct lift, diagram by diagram–car blasts, door traps, exploding books–from Field Manual 5-31, the U. S. Army's 1965 booby-trap guide.

Every IED that explodes in Afghanistan and elsewhere is likely produced following the recipes in the U.S. Technical Manual 31-210 Improvised Munitions Handbook and the Field Manual 5-31 – BoobyTraps (pdf).

Can we now accuse the authors and publishers of these manuals for working with the Taliban or for every IED that kills Afghans and other people?

Besides being idiotic, this is a great advertisement for Swiss banking: US, other Western nations declare Gadhafi regime no longer legitimate

The recognition of the Libyan opposition as the legitimate government gives foes of Gadhafi a major financial and credibility boost. Diplomatic recognition of the council means that the U.S. will be able to fund the opposition with some of the more than $30 billion in Gadhafi-regime assets that are frozen in American banks.

Anyone in power somewhere around the world is now advised to not keep any money in a U.S. based banking account. As soon as some idiots come up and proclaim a revolution, the U.S. will likely size that money and give a few crumbs of it to the revolution leader. (The rest will be taken by the usual banking crooks.)

This will be one of the many blowbacks from this lunatic attack on Libya. Others will include downed "western" passenger planes that will be hit by the Strela man portable air defense missiles the rebels took away from the Libyan military depots, a renewed recession due to high oil prices as Libyan capacity will be off the markets for years and lots of more unwanted emigrants to "western" countries.

AP, July 11: Panetta: Iran supplying insurgents with weapons

Panetta and the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, expressed worry about increasingly deadly attacks on U.S. troops by Shiite militias using weapons that Panetta and others assert are supplied by Iran.

"We're very concerned about Iran and the weapons they're providing to extremists in Iraq," Panetta said.

"We cannot simply stand back and allow this to continue to happen" he said. "This is not something we're going to walk away from. It's something we're going to take on head-on."

Aswat al-Iraq, July 13: Iranian ambassador gravely injured in accident

The semi-official Iranian Mehr News Agency reported that the Iranian ambassador to Baghdad was gravely hit with injuries to his face and body in an accident inside the Green Zone, in the center of Baghdad.

The agency added that ambassador Hassan Dana'i Fer had an accident at the inspection point.

Mehr, July 13: Iranian envoy to Iraq injured in suspicious accident

Iranian ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Danaiifar, has been superficially injured in a suspicious road accident in Iraq.

On Tuesday, the Iranian ambassador’s car smashed into obstacles placed by a number of Iraqi officers, slightly injuring Danaiifar and the people who accompanied him.

Reportedly, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maleki has ordered an investigation into the incident.

Gulfnews, July 23, 2010: Iran appoints new ambassador to Iraq

Hassan Danaifar, Iran's new ambassador to Iraq, is an important figure in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and resents the Kurdish inclination towards separatism.

Hassan Danaifar, born in Baghdad in 1962, was deported with his family by Saddam Hussain during the Iraq-Iran war (1980-88) because of his Iranian origins and initially joined the Badr militia, Kuwaiti daily Al Watan reported on Friday, quoting Iraqi media.

He has served as deputy commander of the naval forces of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

What is the relation between the first item and the others? Is there one?