From AfterDowningStreet.org:
Kucinich: Iraq War Funding Deal Is Immoral
Submitted by davidswanson on Mon, 2007-12-10 21:42. Congress
WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 10, 2007) — Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) released the following statement before Congress takes up yet another Iraq war funding bill this week:
“It is immoral for Congress to make a deal to keep this war going. It is immoral to keep a war going that is based on lies. And it is immoral to make a deal to claim legislative victories unrelated to the war while at the same time spending money to keep the war going,” Kucinich said.
The House is expected to bring up an omnibus spending package this week. The mechanism and timing for inclusion of Iraq war funding in the bill is not yet decided. One option is for the Senate to amend a House-passed version of the bill to reflect the back room deal on domestic spending. It would reportedly not include Iraq war funding. The Senate would add funding for the Iraq war and send it back to the House.
“In politics, you can make a deal where one party gets its way and the other party gets its way and that’s okay when people don’t die,” Kucinich said.
“This war funding plan shows a distressing lack of concern about the situation of our troops. It shows a disregard for the Democrats’ promise to the American people to end the war.”
“We do not have to fund the war. We have the money to bring the troops home. It does not require a vote. It requires determination and truth.
“This is yet another example of leadership becoming increasingly unwilling to end this war,” Kucinich concluded.
Wrap...
Monday, December 10, 2007
Amateur hour at the White House....
From Information Clearing House:
White House, Press Spinning Iran's Centrifuges
By Ray McGovern
Those who know about the centrifuges used to refine uranium tell me they must spin at an almost unrivaled velocity-almost unrivaled, because Bush administration statements are being spun at equivalent speed by White House and corporate media spiders. Without Spinmeister Karl Rove and former spokesman Tony Snow, it is amateur hour at the White House.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18859.htm
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
White House, Press Spinning Iran's Centrifuges
By Ray McGovern
Those who know about the centrifuges used to refine uranium tell me they must spin at an almost unrivaled velocity-almost unrivaled, because Bush administration statements are being spun at equivalent speed by White House and corporate media spiders. Without Spinmeister Karl Rove and former spokesman Tony Snow, it is amateur hour at the White House.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18859.htm
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Potrero and Blackwater go round and round...
From CBS8.com :
Calif. Town Divided Over Blackwater Plan
Last Updated:
12-10-07 at 4:20PM
POTRERO, Calif. -- A proposal by security contractor Blackwater has divided residents of this sleepy mountain village into two camps: Those who welcome the company's plans to build a firing range here and critics who want to keep it out of town.
The issue has become so controversial that voters on Tuesday are set to consider removing from office five members of the advisory planning board that endorsed Blackwater's plans.
Blackwater Worldwide wants to turn an 800-acre former chicken farm into a training camp for law enforcement officers. The facility would include 11 firing ranges, a driving track and a helipad. But opposition to the plan intensified in September, after Blackwater guards were investigated in the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.
"This type of company _ is this what America represents?" said Carl Meyer, a former planning board member who is running as an alternate candidate. "With all the news that's come out about them, most people wouldn't want them in their backyards."
The San Diego County Board of Supervisors has the final say on the project, but it has not scheduled a vote.
At the edge of town, hand-painted wooden signs festooned with American flags say: "Stop Blackwater." But not everyone in this mountain community 45 miles east of San Diego is opposed to the military contractor.
Gordon Hammers, the 70-year-old chairman of the planning board and chief target of the recall, believes Blackwater can bring development to turn Potrero into a middle-class town.
Like much of rural San Diego County, Potrero thrives on a pioneer spirit. The town of about 850 people relies on its own ground water and is cut off from wealthy coastal California by mountains and miles of state wilderness preserve.
Many residents moved to the area seeking a connection to nature and a slower pace of life. They frequently talk about being able to hear cows lowing at night from miles away.
But Chris Lelevier, a 74-year-old former school board member, fears Potrero is getting left behind. She wants to ensure her grandchildren can earn a living without leaving town.
"You hardly even see a house go up," she said. At a planning board meeting last summer, she asked a Blackwater representative whether her son, a military veteran, would be able to get a job with the training camp.
On the other side of the issue are residents such as 64-year-old Marion Bowles, a dreadlocked former schoolteacher who talks about old American Indian myths that imagined the valley as a child's cradle. She said she would rather see the former ranch turned into an organic farm and wildlife preserve.
"This is where God comes down to earth. That's his throne!" said Bowles, pointing at the peaks surrounding the town. "This is land designated by the county as agricultural preserve, forest, park land, and they want to start shooting and making noise."
For Blackwater, the valley would be an ideal complement to its headquarters in Moyock, N.C., and a satellite training center in Mount Carroll, Ill., about 150 miles west of Chicago.
The California site is remote and shielded by mountains, but it is also a short drive from downtown San Diego and its array of military bases and federal law-enforcement field offices _ including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol.
In the wake of the Baghdad shootings, the company is focusing on its training operations and trying to wean itself from overseas contracts.
"We're all aware that the war will end and the security operations will wind down eventually," said Brian Bonfiglio, a company vice president who is overseeing the proposal. "So we're focusing on training, and that's where we're growing."
Wrap...
Calif. Town Divided Over Blackwater Plan
Last Updated:
12-10-07 at 4:20PM
POTRERO, Calif. -- A proposal by security contractor Blackwater has divided residents of this sleepy mountain village into two camps: Those who welcome the company's plans to build a firing range here and critics who want to keep it out of town.
The issue has become so controversial that voters on Tuesday are set to consider removing from office five members of the advisory planning board that endorsed Blackwater's plans.
Blackwater Worldwide wants to turn an 800-acre former chicken farm into a training camp for law enforcement officers. The facility would include 11 firing ranges, a driving track and a helipad. But opposition to the plan intensified in September, after Blackwater guards were investigated in the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.
"This type of company _ is this what America represents?" said Carl Meyer, a former planning board member who is running as an alternate candidate. "With all the news that's come out about them, most people wouldn't want them in their backyards."
The San Diego County Board of Supervisors has the final say on the project, but it has not scheduled a vote.
At the edge of town, hand-painted wooden signs festooned with American flags say: "Stop Blackwater." But not everyone in this mountain community 45 miles east of San Diego is opposed to the military contractor.
Gordon Hammers, the 70-year-old chairman of the planning board and chief target of the recall, believes Blackwater can bring development to turn Potrero into a middle-class town.
Like much of rural San Diego County, Potrero thrives on a pioneer spirit. The town of about 850 people relies on its own ground water and is cut off from wealthy coastal California by mountains and miles of state wilderness preserve.
Many residents moved to the area seeking a connection to nature and a slower pace of life. They frequently talk about being able to hear cows lowing at night from miles away.
But Chris Lelevier, a 74-year-old former school board member, fears Potrero is getting left behind. She wants to ensure her grandchildren can earn a living without leaving town.
"You hardly even see a house go up," she said. At a planning board meeting last summer, she asked a Blackwater representative whether her son, a military veteran, would be able to get a job with the training camp.
On the other side of the issue are residents such as 64-year-old Marion Bowles, a dreadlocked former schoolteacher who talks about old American Indian myths that imagined the valley as a child's cradle. She said she would rather see the former ranch turned into an organic farm and wildlife preserve.
"This is where God comes down to earth. That's his throne!" said Bowles, pointing at the peaks surrounding the town. "This is land designated by the county as agricultural preserve, forest, park land, and they want to start shooting and making noise."
For Blackwater, the valley would be an ideal complement to its headquarters in Moyock, N.C., and a satellite training center in Mount Carroll, Ill., about 150 miles west of Chicago.
The California site is remote and shielded by mountains, but it is also a short drive from downtown San Diego and its array of military bases and federal law-enforcement field offices _ including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol.
In the wake of the Baghdad shootings, the company is focusing on its training operations and trying to wean itself from overseas contracts.
"We're all aware that the war will end and the security operations will wind down eventually," said Brian Bonfiglio, a company vice president who is overseeing the proposal. "So we're focusing on training, and that's where we're growing."
Wrap...
Farewell San Diego Union-Tribune...a shadow of its former self...
From Voice of San Diego:
THE PEANUT GALLERY
The Union Tribune's Gutting
By Seth Hettena
Monday, Dec. 10, 2007 | Ever since it exposed former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham as a bribe-taker and won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for National Service, bad things keep happening to The San Diego Union-Tribune. A year ago, 19 senior newsroom employees were bought out. Already this year, the company has gutted its Washington bureau, and Marcus Stern and Jerry Kammer, two reporters singled out by the Pulitzer judges, have decided to leave by year’s end. But the worst was yet to come.
On Dec. 3, employees in Union-Tribune were summoned into meetings (features reporters were told it was to discuss a "new initiative") and handed a memo outlining 43 editorial positions slated for elimination by year’s end. The buyout list included 15 reporters, a half-dozen editors, three columnists, three critics, two photographers and so on. Employees who weren’t on the list were invited to place their own jobs on the chopping block.
Seth Hettena
Only a few areas were spared. There were no cuts to the newspaper’s website,
SignOnSanDiego.com, or the breaking news team of reporters who write for it. Also off limits is the newspaper’s Spanish-language edition, Enlace, as well as the free North County edition put out by Copley Press with the imaginative title of Today’s Local News. The newspaper is also saving its computer-assisted reporting team, the geeks who crunch big government databases and help generate stories popular with journalism judges.
The mood in the Union-Tribune’s newsroom on the third floor of its Mission Valley headquarters is funereal. I heard a couple of old hands say it feels like the end of something, more so than even the 1992 merger of the morning Union and the Evening Tribune. There is a widespread fear that the Union-Tribune will be an even thinner and weaker newspaper in 2008 when at least 12 percent of its newsroom will have been bought out.
Two days after the buyouts were announced a list made its way around the newsroom with the names of 42 people said to be considering the offer. Several U-T reporters told me Kelly Thornton was among them.
Thornton, who has been on maternity leave, is a fiercely competitive reporter with excellent sources in San Diego’s law enforcement community. She produced a string of unmatched scoops following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. More recently, she broke the news that U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, whose office had been investigating members of Congress, had been fired for reasons that remain unclear.
Another potential loss is Susan White, an editor. She is less well known but her departure would be an even bigger blow. White is a passionate, hard-working editor in charge of the enterprise team and also edits other stories that find their way onto the front page. She cares about every word and makes her reporters re-write their copy multiple times, which drives them crazy. Being reporters, they groan and moan, but they go along with it because the final product is much, much improved and White will fight to get a story into the paper. One veteran described her as the heart of the newsroom.
White told me she was still deciding what to do. She and others have until 5 p.m. on Dec. 12 to make it final.
What’s clear is the Union-Tribune, like so many other newspapers, seems to have entered what has now become a familiar tailspin. Faced with declining circulation and slumping ad revenues, newspapers cut, slash and eliminate and then cut some more, and the result is the ever-shrinking newspaper. The Internet is overtaking the newspaper, so everything is shifted there, while the paper is gutted.
Too often, the Union-Tribune’s front page is filled with wire copy and the business section fits on a single full broadsheet. How, exactly, will this bring newspaper subscribers back? The only ones left soon will be coupon clippers and fans of the comics and crossword puzzles.
None of the reporters I spoke with seemed surprised by the buyouts. Painful as these cuts are, it’s still preferable to the fate of newsrooms in publicly-traded companies that make wholesale layoffs or sell each other newspapers like trading cards. The Union-Tribune is in private hands, so there are no shareholders screaming for more, more, more. And the reporters know what’s happening in the industry. Given the direction of things, the company’s executives would be crazy not to do something.
BIA Financial Network of Virginia, which calculates sales figures for media outlets across America, estimated that the Union-Tribune had revenues in 2006 of $386.74 million. To put that in perspective, the newspaper takes in more revenue than all the television stations in San Diego combined. However, and it’s a big however, circulation is plummeting, and so are ad sales, which account for three-quarters of all revenue at the Union-Tribune. The paper sold $292.95 million worth of ads in 2006, the same level as three years ago, according to BIA Financial. This year is likely to be worse, and the Union-Tribune is just trying to hang on.
So are the reporters who aren’t taking the buyout. One reporter told me he’s feeling like the guy with the push broom at the end of the parade, and he shared with me an e-mail he wrote to friends after the buyouts were announced:
But now the newspaper business model is eroding, with much of the advertising revenue moving to the Internet or drying up with the consolidation of you name it: department stores, auto dealers, car makers. A newspaper could have F. Scott Fitzgerald and Norman Mailer on their staff, but what difference would it make if the business doesn't generate enough revenue to support them? What difference does it make if people don't want to read anything longer than what fits on the screen of their cell phone?
Ten or 15 years ago, I would return to San Diego after reading newspapers in Denver, St. Louis or Pittsburgh and conclude that the Union-Tribune looked good in comparison. It's been a strong regional newspaper, probably as good as I deserved. Every newspaper in America has its own peculiar legacy of sacred cows and self-serving practices. The Union-Tribune was gradually shedding its conservative legacy and compromised politics, and becoming more insightful and critical. It was just getting better -- or at least it was until the industry downturn forced these cutbacks.
So now journalism is becoming subject to the Internet's "long tail" like everything else. It's more democratic, but also unvetted, unedited and so cacophonic that most of it just seems like so much background noise. You can have a blog, but anybody can have a blog. How do you build a mass audience big enough to earn a living?
And where does it leave the journeyman journalists like me?
Where indeed?
Seth Hettena, a San Diego-based freelance journalist and author, writes an occasional column "The Peanut Gallery" about local media and journalism. You can e-mail him at seth@sethhettena.com with your complaints, thoughts or stories about San Diego reporters.
Wrap...
THE PEANUT GALLERY
The Union Tribune's Gutting
By Seth Hettena
Monday, Dec. 10, 2007 | Ever since it exposed former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham as a bribe-taker and won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for National Service, bad things keep happening to The San Diego Union-Tribune. A year ago, 19 senior newsroom employees were bought out. Already this year, the company has gutted its Washington bureau, and Marcus Stern and Jerry Kammer, two reporters singled out by the Pulitzer judges, have decided to leave by year’s end. But the worst was yet to come.
On Dec. 3, employees in Union-Tribune were summoned into meetings (features reporters were told it was to discuss a "new initiative") and handed a memo outlining 43 editorial positions slated for elimination by year’s end. The buyout list included 15 reporters, a half-dozen editors, three columnists, three critics, two photographers and so on. Employees who weren’t on the list were invited to place their own jobs on the chopping block.
Seth Hettena
Only a few areas were spared. There were no cuts to the newspaper’s website,
SignOnSanDiego.com, or the breaking news team of reporters who write for it. Also off limits is the newspaper’s Spanish-language edition, Enlace, as well as the free North County edition put out by Copley Press with the imaginative title of Today’s Local News. The newspaper is also saving its computer-assisted reporting team, the geeks who crunch big government databases and help generate stories popular with journalism judges.
The mood in the Union-Tribune’s newsroom on the third floor of its Mission Valley headquarters is funereal. I heard a couple of old hands say it feels like the end of something, more so than even the 1992 merger of the morning Union and the Evening Tribune. There is a widespread fear that the Union-Tribune will be an even thinner and weaker newspaper in 2008 when at least 12 percent of its newsroom will have been bought out.
Two days after the buyouts were announced a list made its way around the newsroom with the names of 42 people said to be considering the offer. Several U-T reporters told me Kelly Thornton was among them.
Thornton, who has been on maternity leave, is a fiercely competitive reporter with excellent sources in San Diego’s law enforcement community. She produced a string of unmatched scoops following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. More recently, she broke the news that U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, whose office had been investigating members of Congress, had been fired for reasons that remain unclear.
Another potential loss is Susan White, an editor. She is less well known but her departure would be an even bigger blow. White is a passionate, hard-working editor in charge of the enterprise team and also edits other stories that find their way onto the front page. She cares about every word and makes her reporters re-write their copy multiple times, which drives them crazy. Being reporters, they groan and moan, but they go along with it because the final product is much, much improved and White will fight to get a story into the paper. One veteran described her as the heart of the newsroom.
White told me she was still deciding what to do. She and others have until 5 p.m. on Dec. 12 to make it final.
What’s clear is the Union-Tribune, like so many other newspapers, seems to have entered what has now become a familiar tailspin. Faced with declining circulation and slumping ad revenues, newspapers cut, slash and eliminate and then cut some more, and the result is the ever-shrinking newspaper. The Internet is overtaking the newspaper, so everything is shifted there, while the paper is gutted.
Too often, the Union-Tribune’s front page is filled with wire copy and the business section fits on a single full broadsheet. How, exactly, will this bring newspaper subscribers back? The only ones left soon will be coupon clippers and fans of the comics and crossword puzzles.
None of the reporters I spoke with seemed surprised by the buyouts. Painful as these cuts are, it’s still preferable to the fate of newsrooms in publicly-traded companies that make wholesale layoffs or sell each other newspapers like trading cards. The Union-Tribune is in private hands, so there are no shareholders screaming for more, more, more. And the reporters know what’s happening in the industry. Given the direction of things, the company’s executives would be crazy not to do something.
BIA Financial Network of Virginia, which calculates sales figures for media outlets across America, estimated that the Union-Tribune had revenues in 2006 of $386.74 million. To put that in perspective, the newspaper takes in more revenue than all the television stations in San Diego combined. However, and it’s a big however, circulation is plummeting, and so are ad sales, which account for three-quarters of all revenue at the Union-Tribune. The paper sold $292.95 million worth of ads in 2006, the same level as three years ago, according to BIA Financial. This year is likely to be worse, and the Union-Tribune is just trying to hang on.
So are the reporters who aren’t taking the buyout. One reporter told me he’s feeling like the guy with the push broom at the end of the parade, and he shared with me an e-mail he wrote to friends after the buyouts were announced:
But now the newspaper business model is eroding, with much of the advertising revenue moving to the Internet or drying up with the consolidation of you name it: department stores, auto dealers, car makers. A newspaper could have F. Scott Fitzgerald and Norman Mailer on their staff, but what difference would it make if the business doesn't generate enough revenue to support them? What difference does it make if people don't want to read anything longer than what fits on the screen of their cell phone?
Ten or 15 years ago, I would return to San Diego after reading newspapers in Denver, St. Louis or Pittsburgh and conclude that the Union-Tribune looked good in comparison. It's been a strong regional newspaper, probably as good as I deserved. Every newspaper in America has its own peculiar legacy of sacred cows and self-serving practices. The Union-Tribune was gradually shedding its conservative legacy and compromised politics, and becoming more insightful and critical. It was just getting better -- or at least it was until the industry downturn forced these cutbacks.
So now journalism is becoming subject to the Internet's "long tail" like everything else. It's more democratic, but also unvetted, unedited and so cacophonic that most of it just seems like so much background noise. You can have a blog, but anybody can have a blog. How do you build a mass audience big enough to earn a living?
And where does it leave the journeyman journalists like me?
Where indeed?
Seth Hettena, a San Diego-based freelance journalist and author, writes an occasional column "The Peanut Gallery" about local media and journalism. You can e-mail him at seth@sethhettena.com with your complaints, thoughts or stories about San Diego reporters.
Wrap...
The best man for president....
From The Christian Science Monitor:
Bill Richardson: a negotiator's faith in fairness and finding the common good
The Democratic presidential hopeful, perhaps best known for his success in hostage-rescue missions, says he's motivated by 'a big desire to resolve problems.'
By Jane Lampman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Reporter Jane Lampman discusses what motivates New Mexico governor and Democratic presidential contender Bill Richardson.
Des Moines, Iowa - Send in Bill Richardson.
Starting in the 1990s, that became the way to win release of US citizens and others held captive in hostile countries. The energetic negotiator, a congressman back then, brought them home every time – from North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, and Iraq.
His secret weapon: "respect," he says, even for adversaries.
In some ways, Mr. Richardson proved to be particularly suited to the troubleshooting job abroad. Raised in both the United States and Mexico, he'd learned early how to bridge different cultures. And the teachings of his family and his church – to help one's fellow human beings – were a powerful motivator for those rescue missions.
"I have a big desire to resolve problems ... and to help people in need," says Richardson, now a Democratic candidate for president of the United States, during a recent interview on the stump in Iowa. "Coming from two cultures, I appreciate that people have different viewpoints but that everyone should be treated with respect."
One key reason he's running for president now, he says, is to try to bring Americans together to end the current era of intensely polarized politics in the US. Another taps his international credentials: to try to restore America's "moral authority" in the world community, which he sees as severely eroded as a result of the Bush administration's foreign policy.
It may well be Richardson's experience abroad that sets him apart from much of the presidential field. He's currently the popular governor of New Mexico, having won reelection in 2006 with 69 percent of the vote. But he's also served 18 months as United Nations ambassador during the Clinton presidency, run the US Department of Energy, and, before that, pulled off multiple negotiating coups with foreign leaders while a seven-term congressman.
"He really wants America to be a force for peace and democracy, and he understands the need today for interdependence," says long-time friend Mickey Ibarra, who served along with Richardson under Mr. Clinton.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1206/p01s05-uspo.html
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Bill Richardson: a negotiator's faith in fairness and finding the common good
The Democratic presidential hopeful, perhaps best known for his success in hostage-rescue missions, says he's motivated by 'a big desire to resolve problems.'
By Jane Lampman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Reporter Jane Lampman discusses what motivates New Mexico governor and Democratic presidential contender Bill Richardson.
Des Moines, Iowa - Send in Bill Richardson.
Starting in the 1990s, that became the way to win release of US citizens and others held captive in hostile countries. The energetic negotiator, a congressman back then, brought them home every time – from North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, and Iraq.
His secret weapon: "respect," he says, even for adversaries.
In some ways, Mr. Richardson proved to be particularly suited to the troubleshooting job abroad. Raised in both the United States and Mexico, he'd learned early how to bridge different cultures. And the teachings of his family and his church – to help one's fellow human beings – were a powerful motivator for those rescue missions.
"I have a big desire to resolve problems ... and to help people in need," says Richardson, now a Democratic candidate for president of the United States, during a recent interview on the stump in Iowa. "Coming from two cultures, I appreciate that people have different viewpoints but that everyone should be treated with respect."
One key reason he's running for president now, he says, is to try to bring Americans together to end the current era of intensely polarized politics in the US. Another taps his international credentials: to try to restore America's "moral authority" in the world community, which he sees as severely eroded as a result of the Bush administration's foreign policy.
It may well be Richardson's experience abroad that sets him apart from much of the presidential field. He's currently the popular governor of New Mexico, having won reelection in 2006 with 69 percent of the vote. But he's also served 18 months as United Nations ambassador during the Clinton presidency, run the US Department of Energy, and, before that, pulled off multiple negotiating coups with foreign leaders while a seven-term congressman.
"He really wants America to be a force for peace and democracy, and he understands the need today for interdependence," says long-time friend Mickey Ibarra, who served along with Richardson under Mr. Clinton.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1206/p01s05-uspo.html
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
From Tenet said NO to Perino and Cuba....
From American Progress:
Think Fast...
Operatives within the CIA's clandestine service were reportedly turned down when they asked former Director George Tenet for permission to destroy the torture tapes.
Several former CIA colleagues describe Jose Rodriguez as "a cautious operator who probably would have ensured that top CIA managers knew of the plan" to destroy the torture tapes. One former official said Rodriguez was concerned that midlevel officers would get in trouble despite the fact "they were carrying out the direction from higher-ups."
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden (D-DE) yesterday called on the Justice Department to appoint a "Special Counsel to investigate the CIA's destruction of videotapes that included the interrogation of terrorism suspects."
A year after being involved in a partisan purge by the Bush administration, most of the fired U.S. attorneys "have landed on their feet, in law partnerships or private-sector jobs where their compensation dwarfs government pay. Some carry scars from the experience. Six of the attorneys marked the anniversary of their firings at a private dinner in San Diego 10 days ago, where they toasted one another for persevering."
Army leaders are pushing to shorten tour lengths for active-duty soldiers in Iraq back to 12 months by summer, though senior commanders in Baghdad appear reluctant to commit to a change. In April, Defense Secretary Robert Gates extended tours to 15 months to enable the "surge."
China and the United States, the world's top two polluters, "say they are not ready to commit to mandatory caps on greenhouse gases." At the U.N. climate talks in Bali, the United States has instead indicated that it will "come up with its own plan."
The New York Times writes, "Congressional leaders, who have disappointed frequently this year, have done it again. This time, the House leadership has failed to find a way to get a bipartisan law against hate crimes passed and signed into law."
"The United States is rife with racial discrimination and the authorities have an 'abysmal' record on promoting equality," according to a report by a coalition of 250 civic groups published on Monday. The report says U.S. minorities "face discrimination in a range of areas including voting, policing and education."
And finally: Appearing on NPR's quiz show "Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me" over the weekend, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino revealed one of her most stressful moments on the job. During a White House briefing, a reporter referred to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Perino "panicked a bit" because she didn't "know about" it. "It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I'm pretty sure," she said. When she told her husband about the incident, he simply said, "Oh, Dana."
Wrap...
Think Fast...
Operatives within the CIA's clandestine service were reportedly turned down when they asked former Director George Tenet for permission to destroy the torture tapes.
Several former CIA colleagues describe Jose Rodriguez as "a cautious operator who probably would have ensured that top CIA managers knew of the plan" to destroy the torture tapes. One former official said Rodriguez was concerned that midlevel officers would get in trouble despite the fact "they were carrying out the direction from higher-ups."
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden (D-DE) yesterday called on the Justice Department to appoint a "Special Counsel to investigate the CIA's destruction of videotapes that included the interrogation of terrorism suspects."
A year after being involved in a partisan purge by the Bush administration, most of the fired U.S. attorneys "have landed on their feet, in law partnerships or private-sector jobs where their compensation dwarfs government pay. Some carry scars from the experience. Six of the attorneys marked the anniversary of their firings at a private dinner in San Diego 10 days ago, where they toasted one another for persevering."
Army leaders are pushing to shorten tour lengths for active-duty soldiers in Iraq back to 12 months by summer, though senior commanders in Baghdad appear reluctant to commit to a change. In April, Defense Secretary Robert Gates extended tours to 15 months to enable the "surge."
China and the United States, the world's top two polluters, "say they are not ready to commit to mandatory caps on greenhouse gases." At the U.N. climate talks in Bali, the United States has instead indicated that it will "come up with its own plan."
The New York Times writes, "Congressional leaders, who have disappointed frequently this year, have done it again. This time, the House leadership has failed to find a way to get a bipartisan law against hate crimes passed and signed into law."
"The United States is rife with racial discrimination and the authorities have an 'abysmal' record on promoting equality," according to a report by a coalition of 250 civic groups published on Monday. The report says U.S. minorities "face discrimination in a range of areas including voting, policing and education."
And finally: Appearing on NPR's quiz show "Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me" over the weekend, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino revealed one of her most stressful moments on the job. During a White House briefing, a reporter referred to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Perino "panicked a bit" because she didn't "know about" it. "It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I'm pretty sure," she said. When she told her husband about the incident, he simply said, "Oh, Dana."
Wrap...
To BushCo: No info...No money...
From Secrecy News:
INTELLIGENCE OVERSIGHT FLEXES ONE NEW MUSCLE
The ability of Congress to provide an effective check on Bush
Administration intelligence policy has been increasingly called into
question by each succeeding departure from the norms of accepted
intelligence conduct, including most recently the destruction of CIA
interrogation videos.
Even the Intelligence Committee leadership has expressed a
disconcerting degree of self-doubt and inadequacy.
"For seven years, I have witnessed first-hand how the Intelligence
Committee has been continually frustrated in its efforts to understand
and evaluate sensitive intelligence activities by an Administration
that responds to legislative oversight requests with indifference, if
not out-right disdain," said Senate Intelligence Committee chair Sen.
Jay Rockefeller at a hearing last month.
"For years, the White House and the Intelligence Community have
repeatedly withheld information and documents -- even unclassified
documents -- from the Committee that we have asked for," he said.
So it is all the more remarkable that the intelligence oversight
committees have finally dusted off and used one of the tools they have
always had to compel executive branch cooperation -- the power of the
purse.
Specifically, a provision of the new FY2008 intelligence authorization
bill would prohibit expenditure of certain funds for an unidentified
classified program unless and until every member of the oversight
committees is briefed on intelligence about the September 6, 2007
Israeli strike on a Syrian facility.
See Section 328 ("Limitation on use of funds") of the Conference Report
on the FY 2008 Intelligence Authorization Act completed last week:
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2007_rpt/hrpt110-478.html
Although disputes over congressional access to information date back to
the first months of the Bush Administration, a review of past
legislation shows that the intelligence committees have not previously
exercised their budget authorization power in this way to compel
disclosure of information, or to penalize non-disclosure, under the
current Administration.
In fact, a former staffer told Secrecy News he could not remember this
approach ever having been used by the intelligence committees (though
other committees have often made release of funds contingent on
submission of required reports under their jurisdiction).
So why did they do it now?
The former staffer pointed to testimony last month by former Rep. Lee
Hamilton at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in which he
stressed the use of financial incentives to induce intelligence
agencies to submit to oversight:
"Okay, they don't share information. What do you do about it? You've
only got one tool: 'If you don't give us this information, you're not
going to get the money.' That's it," Mr. Hamilton told the Committee on
November 13.
The scales seemed to fall from the members' eyes.
"I think you've given us a game-changing scenario," replied Sen. Kit
Bond (R- MO) at the hearing.
The use of appropriations authority to elicit information from the
executive branch actually dates back to the earliest days of the
Republic, observed Louis Fisher in a 2001 Congressional Research
Service report.
"Presidents may have to surrender documents they consider sensitive or
confidential in order to obtain funds from Congress to implement
programs important to the executive branch. This congressional leverage
is evident in a number of early executive-legislative confrontations."
See "Congressional Access to Executive Branch Information: Legislative
Tools," May 17, 2001:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/RL30966.pdf
[Use links above to continue reading]
Wrap...
INTELLIGENCE OVERSIGHT FLEXES ONE NEW MUSCLE
The ability of Congress to provide an effective check on Bush
Administration intelligence policy has been increasingly called into
question by each succeeding departure from the norms of accepted
intelligence conduct, including most recently the destruction of CIA
interrogation videos.
Even the Intelligence Committee leadership has expressed a
disconcerting degree of self-doubt and inadequacy.
"For seven years, I have witnessed first-hand how the Intelligence
Committee has been continually frustrated in its efforts to understand
and evaluate sensitive intelligence activities by an Administration
that responds to legislative oversight requests with indifference, if
not out-right disdain," said Senate Intelligence Committee chair Sen.
Jay Rockefeller at a hearing last month.
"For years, the White House and the Intelligence Community have
repeatedly withheld information and documents -- even unclassified
documents -- from the Committee that we have asked for," he said.
So it is all the more remarkable that the intelligence oversight
committees have finally dusted off and used one of the tools they have
always had to compel executive branch cooperation -- the power of the
purse.
Specifically, a provision of the new FY2008 intelligence authorization
bill would prohibit expenditure of certain funds for an unidentified
classified program unless and until every member of the oversight
committees is briefed on intelligence about the September 6, 2007
Israeli strike on a Syrian facility.
See Section 328 ("Limitation on use of funds") of the Conference Report
on the FY 2008 Intelligence Authorization Act completed last week:
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2007_rpt/hrpt110-478.html
Although disputes over congressional access to information date back to
the first months of the Bush Administration, a review of past
legislation shows that the intelligence committees have not previously
exercised their budget authorization power in this way to compel
disclosure of information, or to penalize non-disclosure, under the
current Administration.
In fact, a former staffer told Secrecy News he could not remember this
approach ever having been used by the intelligence committees (though
other committees have often made release of funds contingent on
submission of required reports under their jurisdiction).
So why did they do it now?
The former staffer pointed to testimony last month by former Rep. Lee
Hamilton at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in which he
stressed the use of financial incentives to induce intelligence
agencies to submit to oversight:
"Okay, they don't share information. What do you do about it? You've
only got one tool: 'If you don't give us this information, you're not
going to get the money.' That's it," Mr. Hamilton told the Committee on
November 13.
The scales seemed to fall from the members' eyes.
"I think you've given us a game-changing scenario," replied Sen. Kit
Bond (R- MO) at the hearing.
The use of appropriations authority to elicit information from the
executive branch actually dates back to the earliest days of the
Republic, observed Louis Fisher in a 2001 Congressional Research
Service report.
"Presidents may have to surrender documents they consider sensitive or
confidential in order to obtain funds from Congress to implement
programs important to the executive branch. This congressional leverage
is evident in a number of early executive-legislative confrontations."
See "Congressional Access to Executive Branch Information: Legislative
Tools," May 17, 2001:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/RL30966.pdf
[Use links above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Sunday, December 09, 2007
CIA Torture Tapes...the Inquiry Facts.....
From The LA Times:
The facts behind the CIA tape inquiry
A preliminary investigation has begun into whether the agency acted illegally in destroying video of interrogations.
By Times Staff Writers
December 9, 2007
The Justice Department and CIA have announced a preliminary investigation into whether CIA officials obstructed justice or engaged in an illegal coverup by destroying videotapes in 2005 that showed the interrogations of two terrorism suspects.
Here is what's behind the inquiry
Question: What are the CIA tapes?
Answer: Beginning in 2002, the CIA held terrorism suspects in secret locations and interrogated them, using highly controversial techniques that critics say are tantamount to torture. The techniques included sleep deprivation, stressful physical positions and waterboarding, or simulated drowning. In at least two cases, the CIA videotaped the interrogations, compiling hundreds of hours of clear images of American agents sometimes engaging in harsh treatment of foreign prisoners. One prisoner was Abu Zubaydah, the CIA's first terrorism detainee; the other has not been identified.
Q: When were the tapes destroyed?
A: The CIA destroyed the tapes in late 2005. At that time, Congress was adopting new restrictions on the use of harsh detainee treatment and the Army was rewriting its field manual to emphasize the need for moderation. At the same time, domestic U.S. prosecutions of terrorism suspects -- including Zacarias Moussaoui and Jose Padilla -- were underway. An issue in those cases was what other suspected terrorists had said about the defendants while under interrogation. Also at that time, the Sept. 11 commission, which failed in its effort to obtain records of interrogations before issuing its 2004 report, was completing a year of follow-up reports that criticized U.S. anti-terrorism efforts.
Q: Why did the CIA destroy the tapes?
A: Director Michael V. Hayden told the CIA workforce last week that the tapes were destroyed because they were "not relevant to any internal, legislative or judicial inquiries" and, if made public, could identify CIA employees who would be vulnerable to retaliation by militants.
Q: Was that explanation accepted?
A: No. Members of Congress said the tapes had potential value to ongoing congressional proceedings, and critics said they could have had a high degree of relevance to the Sept. 11 commission and in terrorism trials. Critics also said the CIA could have obscured any images of Americans in the tapes, and noted that the agency possesses vast amounts of other material that could identify CIA employees which have not been destroyed. As important to many critics, the tapes could have settled years of debate about the nature of U.S. treatment of detainees, including questions about how they were interrogated and whether it constituted legal questioning, harsh treatment or torture.
Q: Did the CIA provide adequate notice that it was going to destroy the tapes?
A: Hayden said the CIA told Congress about the tapes and its plans to destroy them and that it consulted with appropriate agency officials, including the CIA general counsel and inspector general. However, lawmakers said the CIA provided only cursory information about the tapes and did not detail the plans to destroy them. Other top CIA officials may have disagreed with the decision, and it is not known what the CIA inspector general, an agency watchdog who has been critical of detention practices, had to say about the tapes.
Q: Did others agree with the decision to destroy the tapes?
A: Many did not. Members of Congress, including Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), then a ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, warned the CIA not to destroy the tapes. In addition, then-White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers was reported to have told agency officials to preserve them.
Q: Are the tapes germane to trials of suspected terrorists?
A: Possibly. Attorneys in the case of Moussaoui, who is serving a life sentence, want the judge to review the issue. Padilla faces sentencing in the near future. More important, the CIA initially told U.S. prosecutors that no such tapes existed, an assertion provided to judges in sworn legal documents that later had to be corrected when the tapes' existence was revealed.
Q: What happens next?
A: The Justice Department and CIA will determine whether a full investigation is warranted. In Congress, members of the intelligence and judiciary committees -- and possibly others -- will have to decide how deeply to investigate. In courts, judges may be asked to rule whether the CIA acted improperly in not revealing the existence of the tapes and whether they might have affected the outcomes of trials.
Times staff writers Greg Miller, Richard B. Schmitt and Josh Meyer in Washington contributed to this report.
Wrap...
The facts behind the CIA tape inquiry
A preliminary investigation has begun into whether the agency acted illegally in destroying video of interrogations.
By Times Staff Writers
December 9, 2007
The Justice Department and CIA have announced a preliminary investigation into whether CIA officials obstructed justice or engaged in an illegal coverup by destroying videotapes in 2005 that showed the interrogations of two terrorism suspects.
Here is what's behind the inquiry
Question: What are the CIA tapes?
Answer: Beginning in 2002, the CIA held terrorism suspects in secret locations and interrogated them, using highly controversial techniques that critics say are tantamount to torture. The techniques included sleep deprivation, stressful physical positions and waterboarding, or simulated drowning. In at least two cases, the CIA videotaped the interrogations, compiling hundreds of hours of clear images of American agents sometimes engaging in harsh treatment of foreign prisoners. One prisoner was Abu Zubaydah, the CIA's first terrorism detainee; the other has not been identified.
Q: When were the tapes destroyed?
A: The CIA destroyed the tapes in late 2005. At that time, Congress was adopting new restrictions on the use of harsh detainee treatment and the Army was rewriting its field manual to emphasize the need for moderation. At the same time, domestic U.S. prosecutions of terrorism suspects -- including Zacarias Moussaoui and Jose Padilla -- were underway. An issue in those cases was what other suspected terrorists had said about the defendants while under interrogation. Also at that time, the Sept. 11 commission, which failed in its effort to obtain records of interrogations before issuing its 2004 report, was completing a year of follow-up reports that criticized U.S. anti-terrorism efforts.
Q: Why did the CIA destroy the tapes?
A: Director Michael V. Hayden told the CIA workforce last week that the tapes were destroyed because they were "not relevant to any internal, legislative or judicial inquiries" and, if made public, could identify CIA employees who would be vulnerable to retaliation by militants.
Q: Was that explanation accepted?
A: No. Members of Congress said the tapes had potential value to ongoing congressional proceedings, and critics said they could have had a high degree of relevance to the Sept. 11 commission and in terrorism trials. Critics also said the CIA could have obscured any images of Americans in the tapes, and noted that the agency possesses vast amounts of other material that could identify CIA employees which have not been destroyed. As important to many critics, the tapes could have settled years of debate about the nature of U.S. treatment of detainees, including questions about how they were interrogated and whether it constituted legal questioning, harsh treatment or torture.
Q: Did the CIA provide adequate notice that it was going to destroy the tapes?
A: Hayden said the CIA told Congress about the tapes and its plans to destroy them and that it consulted with appropriate agency officials, including the CIA general counsel and inspector general. However, lawmakers said the CIA provided only cursory information about the tapes and did not detail the plans to destroy them. Other top CIA officials may have disagreed with the decision, and it is not known what the CIA inspector general, an agency watchdog who has been critical of detention practices, had to say about the tapes.
Q: Did others agree with the decision to destroy the tapes?
A: Many did not. Members of Congress, including Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), then a ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, warned the CIA not to destroy the tapes. In addition, then-White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers was reported to have told agency officials to preserve them.
Q: Are the tapes germane to trials of suspected terrorists?
A: Possibly. Attorneys in the case of Moussaoui, who is serving a life sentence, want the judge to review the issue. Padilla faces sentencing in the near future. More important, the CIA initially told U.S. prosecutors that no such tapes existed, an assertion provided to judges in sworn legal documents that later had to be corrected when the tapes' existence was revealed.
Q: What happens next?
A: The Justice Department and CIA will determine whether a full investigation is warranted. In Congress, members of the intelligence and judiciary committees -- and possibly others -- will have to decide how deeply to investigate. In courts, judges may be asked to rule whether the CIA acted improperly in not revealing the existence of the tapes and whether they might have affected the outcomes of trials.
Times staff writers Greg Miller, Richard B. Schmitt and Josh Meyer in Washington contributed to this report.
Wrap...
The Moderates of Islam....
From Internation Herald Tribune:
ISLAM IN THE WORLD I
The silence of the moderates
By Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Published: December 7, 2007
"The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with 100 stripes: Let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day." (Koran 24:2)
In the last few weeks, in three widely publicized episodes, we have seen Islamic justice enacted in ways that should make Muslim moderates rise up in horror.
A 20-year-old woman from Qatif, Saudi Arabia, reported that she had been abducted by several men and repeatedly raped. But judges found the victim herself to be guilty. Her crime is called "mingling": When she was abducted, she was in a car with a man not related to her by blood or marriage, and in Saudi Arabia, that is illegal. Last month, she was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes with a bamboo cane.
Two hundred lashes are enough to kill a strong man. Women usually receive no more than 30 lashes at a time, which means that for seven weeks the "girl from Qatif," as she's usually described in news articles, will dread her next session with Islamic justice.
When she is released, her life will certainly never return to normal: Already there have been reports that her brother has tried to kill her because her "crime" has tarnished her family's honor.
We also saw Islamic justice in action in Sudan, when a 54-year-old British teacher named Gillian Gibbons was sentenced to 15 days in jail before the government pardoned her this week; she could have faced 40 lashes.
When she began a reading project with her class involving a teddy bear, Gibbons suggested the children choose a name for it. They chose Muhammad; she let them do it. This was deemed to be blasphemy.
Then there's Taslima Nasreen, the 45-year-old Bangladeshi writer who bravely defends women's rights in the Muslim world. Forced to flee Bangladesh, she has been living in India. But Muslim groups there want her expelled, and one has offered 500,000 rupees for her head.
In August she was assaulted by Muslim militants in Hyderabad, and in recent weeks she has had to leave Calcutta and then Rajasthan. Taslima Nasreen's visa expires next year, and she fears she will not be allowed to live in India again.
It is often said that Islam has been "hijacked" by a small extremist group of radical fundamentalists. The vast majority of Muslims are said to be moderates.
But where are the moderates? Where are the Muslim voices raised over the terrible injustice of incidents like these? How many Muslims are willing to stand up and say, in the case of the girl from Qatif, that this manner of justice is appalling, brutal and bigoted - and that no matter who said it was the right thing to do, and how long ago it was said, this should no longer be done?
Usually, Muslim groups like the Organization of the Islamic Conference are quick to defend any affront to the image of Islam. The organization, which represents 57 Muslim states, sent four ambassadors to the leader of my political party in the Netherlands asking him to expel me from Parliament after I gave a newspaper interview in 2003 noting that by Western standards some of the Prophet Muhammad's behavior would be unconscionable. A few years later, Muslim ambassadors to Denmark protested the cartoons of Muhammad and demanded that their perpetrators be prosecuted.
But while the incidents in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and India have done more to damage the image of Islamic justice than a dozen cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, the organizations that lined up to protest the hideous Danish offense to Islam are quiet now.
I wish there were more Islamic moderates. For example, I would welcome some guidance from that famous Muslim theologian of moderation, Tariq Ramadan. But when there is true suffering, real cruelty in the name of Islam, we hear, first, denial from all these organizations that are so concerned about Islam's image.
We hear that violence is not in the Koran, that Islam means peace, that this is a hijacking by extremists and a smear campaign and so on. But the evidence mounts up.
Islamic justice is a proud institution, one to which more than a billion people subscribe, at least in theory, and in the heart of the Islamic world it is the law of the land. But take a look at the verse above: More compelling even than the order to flog adulterers is the command that the believer show no compassion. It is this order to choose Allah above his sense of conscience and compassion that imprisons the Muslim in a mindset that is archaic and extreme.
If moderate Muslims believe there should be no compassion shown to the girl from Qatif, then what exactly makes them so moderate?
When a "moderate" Muslim's sense of compassion and conscience collides with matters prescribed by Allah, he should choose compassion. Unless that happens much more widely, a moderate Islam will remain wishful thinking.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former member of the Dutch Parliament and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Infidel."
Wrap...
ISLAM IN THE WORLD I
The silence of the moderates
By Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Published: December 7, 2007
"The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with 100 stripes: Let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day." (Koran 24:2)
In the last few weeks, in three widely publicized episodes, we have seen Islamic justice enacted in ways that should make Muslim moderates rise up in horror.
A 20-year-old woman from Qatif, Saudi Arabia, reported that she had been abducted by several men and repeatedly raped. But judges found the victim herself to be guilty. Her crime is called "mingling": When she was abducted, she was in a car with a man not related to her by blood or marriage, and in Saudi Arabia, that is illegal. Last month, she was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes with a bamboo cane.
Two hundred lashes are enough to kill a strong man. Women usually receive no more than 30 lashes at a time, which means that for seven weeks the "girl from Qatif," as she's usually described in news articles, will dread her next session with Islamic justice.
When she is released, her life will certainly never return to normal: Already there have been reports that her brother has tried to kill her because her "crime" has tarnished her family's honor.
We also saw Islamic justice in action in Sudan, when a 54-year-old British teacher named Gillian Gibbons was sentenced to 15 days in jail before the government pardoned her this week; she could have faced 40 lashes.
When she began a reading project with her class involving a teddy bear, Gibbons suggested the children choose a name for it. They chose Muhammad; she let them do it. This was deemed to be blasphemy.
Then there's Taslima Nasreen, the 45-year-old Bangladeshi writer who bravely defends women's rights in the Muslim world. Forced to flee Bangladesh, she has been living in India. But Muslim groups there want her expelled, and one has offered 500,000 rupees for her head.
In August she was assaulted by Muslim militants in Hyderabad, and in recent weeks she has had to leave Calcutta and then Rajasthan. Taslima Nasreen's visa expires next year, and she fears she will not be allowed to live in India again.
It is often said that Islam has been "hijacked" by a small extremist group of radical fundamentalists. The vast majority of Muslims are said to be moderates.
But where are the moderates? Where are the Muslim voices raised over the terrible injustice of incidents like these? How many Muslims are willing to stand up and say, in the case of the girl from Qatif, that this manner of justice is appalling, brutal and bigoted - and that no matter who said it was the right thing to do, and how long ago it was said, this should no longer be done?
Usually, Muslim groups like the Organization of the Islamic Conference are quick to defend any affront to the image of Islam. The organization, which represents 57 Muslim states, sent four ambassadors to the leader of my political party in the Netherlands asking him to expel me from Parliament after I gave a newspaper interview in 2003 noting that by Western standards some of the Prophet Muhammad's behavior would be unconscionable. A few years later, Muslim ambassadors to Denmark protested the cartoons of Muhammad and demanded that their perpetrators be prosecuted.
But while the incidents in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and India have done more to damage the image of Islamic justice than a dozen cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, the organizations that lined up to protest the hideous Danish offense to Islam are quiet now.
I wish there were more Islamic moderates. For example, I would welcome some guidance from that famous Muslim theologian of moderation, Tariq Ramadan. But when there is true suffering, real cruelty in the name of Islam, we hear, first, denial from all these organizations that are so concerned about Islam's image.
We hear that violence is not in the Koran, that Islam means peace, that this is a hijacking by extremists and a smear campaign and so on. But the evidence mounts up.
Islamic justice is a proud institution, one to which more than a billion people subscribe, at least in theory, and in the heart of the Islamic world it is the law of the land. But take a look at the verse above: More compelling even than the order to flog adulterers is the command that the believer show no compassion. It is this order to choose Allah above his sense of conscience and compassion that imprisons the Muslim in a mindset that is archaic and extreme.
If moderate Muslims believe there should be no compassion shown to the girl from Qatif, then what exactly makes them so moderate?
When a "moderate" Muslim's sense of compassion and conscience collides with matters prescribed by Allah, he should choose compassion. Unless that happens much more widely, a moderate Islam will remain wishful thinking.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former member of the Dutch Parliament and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Infidel."
Wrap...
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Harmon says: Kiss your rights good-bye...
From The Baltimore Sun via Buzzflash:
Here come the thought police
By Ralph E. Shaffer and R. William Robinson
November 19, 2007
With overwhelming bipartisan support, Rep. Jane Harman's "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act" passed the House 404-6 late last month and now rests in Sen. Joe Lieberman's Homeland Security Committee. Swift Senate passage appears certain.
Not since the "Patriot Act" of 2001 has any bill so threatened our constitutionally guaranteed rights.
The historian Henry Steele Commager, denouncing President John Adams' suppression of free speech in the 1790s, argued that the Bill of Rights was not written to protect government from dissenters but to provide a legal means for citizens to oppose a government they didn't trust. Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence not only proclaimed the right to dissent but declared it a people's duty, under certain conditions, to alter or abolish their government.
In that vein, diverse groups vigorously oppose Ms. Harman's effort to stifle dissent. Unfortunately, the mainstream press and leading presidential candidates remain silent.
Ms. Harman, a California Democrat, thinks it likely that the United States will face a native brand of terrorism in the immediate future and offers a plan to deal with ideologically based violence.
But her plan is a greater danger to us than the threats she fears. Her bill tramples constitutional rights by creating a commission with sweeping investigative power and a mandate to propose laws prohibiting whatever the commission labels "homegrown terrorism."
The proposed commission is a menace through its power to hold hearings, take testimony and administer oaths, an authority granted to even individual members of the commission - little Joe McCarthys - who will tour the country to hold their own private hearings. An aura of authority will automatically accompany this congressionally authorized mandate to expose native terrorism.
Ms. Harman's proposal includes an absurd attack on the Internet, criticizing it for providing Americans with "access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda," and legalizes an insidious infiltration of targeted organizations. The misnamed "Center of Excellence," which would function after the commission is disbanded in 18 months, gives the semblance of intellectual research to what is otherwise the suppression of dissent.
While its purpose is to prevent terrorism, the bill doesn't criminalize any specific conduct or contain penalties. But the commission's findings will be cited by those who see a terrorist under every bed and who will demand enactment of criminal penalties that further restrict free speech and other civil liberties. Action contrary to the commission's findings will be interpreted as a sign of treason at worst or a lack of patriotism at the least.
While Ms. Harman denies that her proposal creates "thought police," it defines "homegrown terrorism" as "planned" or "threatened" use of force to coerce the government or the people in the promotion of "political or social objectives." That means that no force need actually have occurred as long as the government charges that the individual or group thought about doing it.
Any social or economic reform is fair game. Have a march of 100 or 100,000 people to demand a reform - amnesty for illegal immigrants or overturning Roe v. Wade - and someone can perceive that to be a use of force to intimidate the people, courts or government.
The bill defines "violent radicalization" as promoting an "extremist belief system." But American governments, state and national, have a long history of interpreting radical "belief systems" as inevitably leading to violence to facilitate change.
Examples of the resulting crackdowns on such protests include the conviction and execution of anarchists tied to Chicago's 1886 Haymarket Riot. Hearings conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee for several decades during the Cold War and the solo hearings by a member of that committee's Senate counterpart, Joseph McCarthy, demonstrate the dangers inherent in Ms. Harman's legislation.
Ms. Harman denies that her bill is a threat to the First Amendment. It clearly states that no measure to prevent homegrown terrorism should violate "constitutional rights, civil rights or civil liberties."
But the present administration has demonstrated, in its response to criticism regarding torture, that it can't be trusted to honor those rights.
Ralph E. Shaffer, professor emeritus of history at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and R. William Robinson, an elected director of a Southern California water district, wrote this article for the History News Service.
Copyright © 2007, The Baltimore Sun
Wrap...
Here come the thought police
By Ralph E. Shaffer and R. William Robinson
November 19, 2007
With overwhelming bipartisan support, Rep. Jane Harman's "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act" passed the House 404-6 late last month and now rests in Sen. Joe Lieberman's Homeland Security Committee. Swift Senate passage appears certain.
Not since the "Patriot Act" of 2001 has any bill so threatened our constitutionally guaranteed rights.
The historian Henry Steele Commager, denouncing President John Adams' suppression of free speech in the 1790s, argued that the Bill of Rights was not written to protect government from dissenters but to provide a legal means for citizens to oppose a government they didn't trust. Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence not only proclaimed the right to dissent but declared it a people's duty, under certain conditions, to alter or abolish their government.
In that vein, diverse groups vigorously oppose Ms. Harman's effort to stifle dissent. Unfortunately, the mainstream press and leading presidential candidates remain silent.
Ms. Harman, a California Democrat, thinks it likely that the United States will face a native brand of terrorism in the immediate future and offers a plan to deal with ideologically based violence.
But her plan is a greater danger to us than the threats she fears. Her bill tramples constitutional rights by creating a commission with sweeping investigative power and a mandate to propose laws prohibiting whatever the commission labels "homegrown terrorism."
The proposed commission is a menace through its power to hold hearings, take testimony and administer oaths, an authority granted to even individual members of the commission - little Joe McCarthys - who will tour the country to hold their own private hearings. An aura of authority will automatically accompany this congressionally authorized mandate to expose native terrorism.
Ms. Harman's proposal includes an absurd attack on the Internet, criticizing it for providing Americans with "access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda," and legalizes an insidious infiltration of targeted organizations. The misnamed "Center of Excellence," which would function after the commission is disbanded in 18 months, gives the semblance of intellectual research to what is otherwise the suppression of dissent.
While its purpose is to prevent terrorism, the bill doesn't criminalize any specific conduct or contain penalties. But the commission's findings will be cited by those who see a terrorist under every bed and who will demand enactment of criminal penalties that further restrict free speech and other civil liberties. Action contrary to the commission's findings will be interpreted as a sign of treason at worst or a lack of patriotism at the least.
While Ms. Harman denies that her proposal creates "thought police," it defines "homegrown terrorism" as "planned" or "threatened" use of force to coerce the government or the people in the promotion of "political or social objectives." That means that no force need actually have occurred as long as the government charges that the individual or group thought about doing it.
Any social or economic reform is fair game. Have a march of 100 or 100,000 people to demand a reform - amnesty for illegal immigrants or overturning Roe v. Wade - and someone can perceive that to be a use of force to intimidate the people, courts or government.
The bill defines "violent radicalization" as promoting an "extremist belief system." But American governments, state and national, have a long history of interpreting radical "belief systems" as inevitably leading to violence to facilitate change.
Examples of the resulting crackdowns on such protests include the conviction and execution of anarchists tied to Chicago's 1886 Haymarket Riot. Hearings conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee for several decades during the Cold War and the solo hearings by a member of that committee's Senate counterpart, Joseph McCarthy, demonstrate the dangers inherent in Ms. Harman's legislation.
Ms. Harman denies that her bill is a threat to the First Amendment. It clearly states that no measure to prevent homegrown terrorism should violate "constitutional rights, civil rights or civil liberties."
But the present administration has demonstrated, in its response to criticism regarding torture, that it can't be trusted to honor those rights.
Ralph E. Shaffer, professor emeritus of history at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and R. William Robinson, an elected director of a Southern California water district, wrote this article for the History News Service.
Copyright © 2007, The Baltimore Sun
Wrap...
Friday, December 07, 2007
In Kucinich's defense...Sean Penn....
From Raw Story:
Penn endorses Kucinich, challenges 'conventional wisdom' on electability
Jason Rhyne
Published: Friday December 7, 2007
Actor Sean Penn endorsed dark horse Democratic presidential contender Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) in what was billed as a "major political address" given by the actor Friday in San Francisco.
Lambasting Democrats in Congress for their refusal to pursue the impeachment of President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other members of the current administration, Penn praised Kucinich for his "moral courage," according to an advance copy of the speech provided to RAW STORY.
"[O]ur cowardly Democratically dominated House and Senate can barely find one voice willing to propose so much as an impeachment. That one voice of a true American," said the actor. "That one voice of Congressman Dennis Kucinich."
Penn went on to say that the former Cleveland mayor's record and vision outweighed "conventional wisdom" about Kucinich's long-shot chances of winning the presidency.
"I'm torn between the conventional wisdom of what we all keep being told is electability and the idealism that perhaps alone can live up to the challenges of our generation," said Penn. "Of the Democrats running for President, only Congressman Dennis Kucinich's candidacy is backed by a voting record of moral courage and a history of service to our country that has fully earned our support and our gratitude."
Added Penn, "So, here's the question. We got Iowa coming up, we got New Hampshire right on its ass. Do we sell it for electability? If Hitler were the only candidate, would voting for him be most American?"
Electability, he said, was in the eye of the beholder. "It is for us to determine what is electable. And here's how simple it is: If we, those of us who truly believe in the Constitution of the United States of America, all of us, vote for Dennis Kucinich, he will be elected. Could we call him electable then?"
Earlier, Penn excoriated the Bush administration for treason, adding that although he wasn't a proponent of the death penalty, "existing law provides that the likes of Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld and Rice, if found guilty, could have hoods thrown over their heads, their hands bound, facing a 12-man rifle corps executing death by firing squad."
The actor also had some harsh words for Kucinich's frontrunning rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY). "Let's remind our friends in the social circles of New York and the highbrow winner-friendly and monied major cities that support Mrs. Clinton, that this is not Bill Clinton," he said, going on to praise the former president. But he warned that the same "personal agendas" that led to what he characterizes as poor policy decisions from the president could rub off on the former first lady.
"Don't underestimate the damage her poisonous ambition can do to this country," he said of Sen. Clinton. "We can't wait for the benefit of hindsight to service the benefit of Mrs. Clinton's career." Penn took another shot at Clinton while speaking about the recent Democratic debate in Las Vegas. "I found the debate infuriating, nearly an argument for fascism with few exceptions, key among them Dennis Kucinich," he said. "Of course as a strategic politician, Mrs. Clinton pulled out her set of Ginzu knives and dominated once again on 'centrist' political strategy."
Concluded Penn, "So, let's give the Constitution another read, shall we? And then decide who its greatest defender would be. I suggest that Republicans, Independents, and Democrats alike will find that they know what's really right in their hearts and minds."
Wrap...
Penn endorses Kucinich, challenges 'conventional wisdom' on electability
Jason Rhyne
Published: Friday December 7, 2007
Actor Sean Penn endorsed dark horse Democratic presidential contender Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) in what was billed as a "major political address" given by the actor Friday in San Francisco.
Lambasting Democrats in Congress for their refusal to pursue the impeachment of President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other members of the current administration, Penn praised Kucinich for his "moral courage," according to an advance copy of the speech provided to RAW STORY.
"[O]ur cowardly Democratically dominated House and Senate can barely find one voice willing to propose so much as an impeachment. That one voice of a true American," said the actor. "That one voice of Congressman Dennis Kucinich."
Penn went on to say that the former Cleveland mayor's record and vision outweighed "conventional wisdom" about Kucinich's long-shot chances of winning the presidency.
"I'm torn between the conventional wisdom of what we all keep being told is electability and the idealism that perhaps alone can live up to the challenges of our generation," said Penn. "Of the Democrats running for President, only Congressman Dennis Kucinich's candidacy is backed by a voting record of moral courage and a history of service to our country that has fully earned our support and our gratitude."
Added Penn, "So, here's the question. We got Iowa coming up, we got New Hampshire right on its ass. Do we sell it for electability? If Hitler were the only candidate, would voting for him be most American?"
Electability, he said, was in the eye of the beholder. "It is for us to determine what is electable. And here's how simple it is: If we, those of us who truly believe in the Constitution of the United States of America, all of us, vote for Dennis Kucinich, he will be elected. Could we call him electable then?"
Earlier, Penn excoriated the Bush administration for treason, adding that although he wasn't a proponent of the death penalty, "existing law provides that the likes of Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld and Rice, if found guilty, could have hoods thrown over their heads, their hands bound, facing a 12-man rifle corps executing death by firing squad."
The actor also had some harsh words for Kucinich's frontrunning rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY). "Let's remind our friends in the social circles of New York and the highbrow winner-friendly and monied major cities that support Mrs. Clinton, that this is not Bill Clinton," he said, going on to praise the former president. But he warned that the same "personal agendas" that led to what he characterizes as poor policy decisions from the president could rub off on the former first lady.
"Don't underestimate the damage her poisonous ambition can do to this country," he said of Sen. Clinton. "We can't wait for the benefit of hindsight to service the benefit of Mrs. Clinton's career." Penn took another shot at Clinton while speaking about the recent Democratic debate in Las Vegas. "I found the debate infuriating, nearly an argument for fascism with few exceptions, key among them Dennis Kucinich," he said. "Of course as a strategic politician, Mrs. Clinton pulled out her set of Ginzu knives and dominated once again on 'centrist' political strategy."
Concluded Penn, "So, let's give the Constitution another read, shall we? And then decide who its greatest defender would be. I suggest that Republicans, Independents, and Democrats alike will find that they know what's really right in their hearts and minds."
Wrap...
Romney vs the Constitution....
From The International Herald Tribune:
An Editorial...
Distorting the faith of the founding fathers
Friday, December 7, 2007
Mitt Romney obviously felt he had no choice but to give a speech on his Mormon faith. Even by the low standards of this campaign, the speech on Thursday was a distressing moment and just what the American nation's founders wanted to head off with the immortal words of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution - a presidential candidate cowed into defending his way of worshiping God by a powerful minority determined to impose its religious tenets as a test for holding public office.
Romney spoke with an evident passion about the hunger for religious freedom that defined the birth of the nation. He said several times that his faith informs his life, but he would not impose it on the Oval Office.
Still, there was no escaping the reality of the moment. Romney was not there to defend freedom of religion, nor to champion the indisputable notion that belief in God and religious observance are longstanding parts of American life. He was trying to persuade Christian fundamentalists in the Republican Party, who do want to impose their faith on the Oval Office, that he is sufficiently Christian for them to support his bid for the Republican nomination.
No matter how dignified he looked, and how many times he quoted the founding fathers, he could not disguise that sad fact.
Romney tried to cloak himself in the memory of John F. Kennedy, who had to defend his Catholicism in the 1960 campaign. But Kennedy had the moral courage to do so in front of an audience of Southern Baptist leaders and to declare: "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute." Romney did not even come close to that in his speech, at the George Bush Presidential Library in Texas, before a carefully selected crowd.
Instead, he courted the most religiously intolerant sector of American political life by buying into the myths at the heart of the "cultural war," so eagerly embraced by the extreme right.
Romney filled his speech with the first myth - that the nation's founders, rather than seeking to protect all faiths, sought to imbue the United States with Christian orthodoxy. He cited the Declaration of Independence's reference to "the creator" endowing all men with unalienable rights and the founders' proclaiming not just their belief in God, but their belief that God's hand guided the American revolutionaries.
Romney dragged out the old chestnuts about "In God We Trust" on American currency, and the inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, conveniently omitting that those weren't the founders' handiwork, but were adopted in the 1950s, at the height of McCarthyism.
He managed to find a few quotes from John Adams to support his argument about America's Christian foundation, but overlooked George Washington's letter of reassurance to the Jews in Newport, Rhode Island, that they would be full members of the new nation.
He didn't mention Thomas Jefferson, who said he wanted to be remembered for writing the Declaration of Independence, founding the University of Virginia and drafting the first American law - a Virginia statute - guaranteeing religious freedom.
In his book, "American Gospel," Jon Meacham quotes James Madison as saying law was "meant to comprehend, with the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination."
The founders were indeed religious men, as Romney said. But they understood the difference between celebrating religious faith as a virtue, and imposing a particular doctrine, or even religion in general, on everyone. As Meacham put it, they knew that "many if not most believed, yet none must."
The other myth permeating the debate over religion is that it is a dispute between those who believe religion has a place in public life and those who advocate, as Romney put it, "the elimination of religion from the public square."
That same nonsense is trotted out every time a court rules that the Ten Commandments may not be displayed in a government building.
We believe democracy cannot exist without separation of church and state, not that public displays of faith are anathema. We believe, as did the founding fathers, that no specific religion should be elevated above all others by the government.
The authors of the Constitution knew that requiring specific declarations of religious belief (like Romney saying he believes Jesus was the son of God) is a step toward imposing that belief on all Americans. That is why they wrote in Article VI that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
And yet, religious testing has gained strength in the last few elections. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, has made it the cornerstone of his campaign. John McCain, another Republican who struggles to win over the religious right, calls America "a Christian nation."
CNN, shockingly, required the candidates at the recent Republican debate to answer a videotaped question from a voter holding a Christian edition of the Bible, who said: "How you answer this question will tell us everything we need to know about you. Do you believe every word of this book? Specifically, this book that I am holding in my hand, do you believe this book?"
The nation's founders knew the answer to that question says nothing about a candidate's fitness for office. It's tragic to see it being asked at a time when Americans need a president who will tell the truth, lead with conviction and restore the nation's moral standing - not one who happens to attend a particular church.
Wrap...
An Editorial...
Distorting the faith of the founding fathers
Friday, December 7, 2007
Mitt Romney obviously felt he had no choice but to give a speech on his Mormon faith. Even by the low standards of this campaign, the speech on Thursday was a distressing moment and just what the American nation's founders wanted to head off with the immortal words of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution - a presidential candidate cowed into defending his way of worshiping God by a powerful minority determined to impose its religious tenets as a test for holding public office.
Romney spoke with an evident passion about the hunger for religious freedom that defined the birth of the nation. He said several times that his faith informs his life, but he would not impose it on the Oval Office.
Still, there was no escaping the reality of the moment. Romney was not there to defend freedom of religion, nor to champion the indisputable notion that belief in God and religious observance are longstanding parts of American life. He was trying to persuade Christian fundamentalists in the Republican Party, who do want to impose their faith on the Oval Office, that he is sufficiently Christian for them to support his bid for the Republican nomination.
No matter how dignified he looked, and how many times he quoted the founding fathers, he could not disguise that sad fact.
Romney tried to cloak himself in the memory of John F. Kennedy, who had to defend his Catholicism in the 1960 campaign. But Kennedy had the moral courage to do so in front of an audience of Southern Baptist leaders and to declare: "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute." Romney did not even come close to that in his speech, at the George Bush Presidential Library in Texas, before a carefully selected crowd.
Instead, he courted the most religiously intolerant sector of American political life by buying into the myths at the heart of the "cultural war," so eagerly embraced by the extreme right.
Romney filled his speech with the first myth - that the nation's founders, rather than seeking to protect all faiths, sought to imbue the United States with Christian orthodoxy. He cited the Declaration of Independence's reference to "the creator" endowing all men with unalienable rights and the founders' proclaiming not just their belief in God, but their belief that God's hand guided the American revolutionaries.
Romney dragged out the old chestnuts about "In God We Trust" on American currency, and the inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, conveniently omitting that those weren't the founders' handiwork, but were adopted in the 1950s, at the height of McCarthyism.
He managed to find a few quotes from John Adams to support his argument about America's Christian foundation, but overlooked George Washington's letter of reassurance to the Jews in Newport, Rhode Island, that they would be full members of the new nation.
He didn't mention Thomas Jefferson, who said he wanted to be remembered for writing the Declaration of Independence, founding the University of Virginia and drafting the first American law - a Virginia statute - guaranteeing religious freedom.
In his book, "American Gospel," Jon Meacham quotes James Madison as saying law was "meant to comprehend, with the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination."
The founders were indeed religious men, as Romney said. But they understood the difference between celebrating religious faith as a virtue, and imposing a particular doctrine, or even religion in general, on everyone. As Meacham put it, they knew that "many if not most believed, yet none must."
The other myth permeating the debate over religion is that it is a dispute between those who believe religion has a place in public life and those who advocate, as Romney put it, "the elimination of religion from the public square."
That same nonsense is trotted out every time a court rules that the Ten Commandments may not be displayed in a government building.
We believe democracy cannot exist without separation of church and state, not that public displays of faith are anathema. We believe, as did the founding fathers, that no specific religion should be elevated above all others by the government.
The authors of the Constitution knew that requiring specific declarations of religious belief (like Romney saying he believes Jesus was the son of God) is a step toward imposing that belief on all Americans. That is why they wrote in Article VI that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
And yet, religious testing has gained strength in the last few elections. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, has made it the cornerstone of his campaign. John McCain, another Republican who struggles to win over the religious right, calls America "a Christian nation."
CNN, shockingly, required the candidates at the recent Republican debate to answer a videotaped question from a voter holding a Christian edition of the Bible, who said: "How you answer this question will tell us everything we need to know about you. Do you believe every word of this book? Specifically, this book that I am holding in my hand, do you believe this book?"
The nation's founders knew the answer to that question says nothing about a candidate's fitness for office. It's tragic to see it being asked at a time when Americans need a president who will tell the truth, lead with conviction and restore the nation's moral standing - not one who happens to attend a particular church.
Wrap...
The Kitty Hawk carrier and Hong Kong...
From the International Herald Tribune:
Wave of mixed signals as U.S. ship is snubbed
By Howard W. French
Friday, December 7, 2007
SHANGHAI: Ships are not supposed to turn on a dime, especially American aircraft carriers that travel in large convoys.
But that's exactly what happened with the USS Kitty Hawk as it approached Hong Kong for a long-scheduled Thanksgiving visit.
Hours before the ship was to dock, with the families of many of the crew members having flown to Hong Kong for reunions, the Chinese authorities notified the U.S. Navy that permission to dock had been revoked.
Surprised by the measure but eager to salvage something of the holiday, the Kitty Hawk made a quick U-turn and steamed toward Japan, saving time and returning China's slight by sailing through the narrow Taiwan Strait, which the United States regards as international waters but China claims as its own.
Before the battle group had reached that point, though, the Chinese authorities radioed again announcing a change of mind: for "humanitarian reasons," the Kitty Hawk would be welcome after all.
There would be no repeat U-turn this time, although the saga of the Kitty Hawk was, in fact, just beginning, and would come to involve an even more surprising flip-flop.
The U. S. Navy, whose ships make 50 or so port calls in Hong Kong each year, was incensed by what it saw as China's bad form. The Pentagon must have been puzzled by the incident too, coming just two weeks after a visit to Beijing by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, during which the two sides agreed to establish a hotline between the two military commands and spoke of other ways to strengthen ties and build confidence.
"Mr. Cao and I discussed ways to build on positive momentum in our defense relations and how to use the interactions to improve communications and reduce the risk of misunderstanding," Gates told the press after meeting with Cao Gangchuan, the Chinese defense minister.
When President George W. Bush personally asked the Chinese foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, for an explanation of the Kitty Hawk incident during a visit to Washington, the White House said, Yang answered that it had all been a "misunderstanding" and the result of just the kind of "poor communications" that Gates and Cao had said they had agreed to eliminate.
Niceties like these have a long enjoyed an honored place in diplomacy, papering over differences and letting dark clouds blow past. Two days later, however, the niceties were exploded by Yang's nominal subordinate, Liu Jianchao, a spokesman who denied the foreign minister had said anything like that at all.
"We have taken note of the reports," Liu said. "I want to clarify that all the reports are not true." He went on to assert that the Kitty Hawk incident had had nothing to do with miscommunication, which at least had the virtue of truth, even if it left many big questions unanswered, including: Who is in charge of Beijing's security-diplomatic apparatus during moments like these?
Liu ascribed the last-minute port call about-face to China's anger over the Dalai Lama's visit in October to Washington, where he had been received by Bush and given a Congressional Gold Medal. At that time, the very same spokesman had fumed that "this move is a blatant interference in China's internal affairs. It has hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and gravely undermined bilateral relations."
Later, and most unusually, the spokesman's comments on the subject failed to appear on the Foreign Ministry's Web site, where a record of each day's commentary is regularly published.
Trying to make sense of Beijing's actions, others quickly speculated about anger over a recent anti-missile arms sale to Taiwan. Still others spoke of large-scale, unannounced Chinese naval maneuvers simulating a pincer action against Taiwan, which were under way just as the Kitty Hawk drew near to Hong Kong, as a possible reason for the Chinese decision to keep the ship out of its waters.
Official media here observed a news blackout about the drills, even as they disrupted hundreds of commercial flights out of Shanghai and Guangzhou and angered neighboring Vietnam.
China has a right, of course, to be upset over both issues, Tibet and Taiwan, but one wonders if throwing fits about the Dalai Lama, in particular - as Beijing has done repeatedly in recent months - is in any way serving the country's interests.
More seriously, at precisely the moment when China is projecting power and influence like never before, the handling of the Kitty Hawk matter highlights grave weaknesses for an incipient superpower: the lack of the kind of transparency essential to international confidence and an unwieldy decision-making process, with subterranean divisions over turf, that bodes ill for crisis management.
China lacks any effective equivalent of the U.S. National Security Council, leaving management of its most sensitive international affairs - particularly relations with Washington, Taipei and Tokyo - in the consensual hands of Politburo Standing Committee leaders.
Ordinarily, at the top, this is among the most scripted of political systems, with the state striving to project a kind of majestic tranquility and sureness. Spontaneity and improvisation, or at least the appearance of it, is loathed, and yet that's exactly what the Kitty Hawk business revealed.
"Either there was a Chinese decision to 'just say no' to the U.S. or a lack of internal coordinated decision-making that then they attempted to cover up by pretending it was a unified stance to protest recent government actions regarding Taiwan arms sales and the White House honoring the Dalai Lama," said Susan Shirk, a former senior U.S. diplomat and author of "China: Fragile Superpower."
"China has been working hard since the 1999 and 2001 crises to improve its crisis management system," she added, referring to the American bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and the collision of a Chinese fighter jet and a U.S. spy plane off the Chinese coast. "This affair will tell them they have a lot more work to do."
Wrap...
Wave of mixed signals as U.S. ship is snubbed
By Howard W. French
Friday, December 7, 2007
SHANGHAI: Ships are not supposed to turn on a dime, especially American aircraft carriers that travel in large convoys.
But that's exactly what happened with the USS Kitty Hawk as it approached Hong Kong for a long-scheduled Thanksgiving visit.
Hours before the ship was to dock, with the families of many of the crew members having flown to Hong Kong for reunions, the Chinese authorities notified the U.S. Navy that permission to dock had been revoked.
Surprised by the measure but eager to salvage something of the holiday, the Kitty Hawk made a quick U-turn and steamed toward Japan, saving time and returning China's slight by sailing through the narrow Taiwan Strait, which the United States regards as international waters but China claims as its own.
Before the battle group had reached that point, though, the Chinese authorities radioed again announcing a change of mind: for "humanitarian reasons," the Kitty Hawk would be welcome after all.
There would be no repeat U-turn this time, although the saga of the Kitty Hawk was, in fact, just beginning, and would come to involve an even more surprising flip-flop.
The U. S. Navy, whose ships make 50 or so port calls in Hong Kong each year, was incensed by what it saw as China's bad form. The Pentagon must have been puzzled by the incident too, coming just two weeks after a visit to Beijing by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, during which the two sides agreed to establish a hotline between the two military commands and spoke of other ways to strengthen ties and build confidence.
"Mr. Cao and I discussed ways to build on positive momentum in our defense relations and how to use the interactions to improve communications and reduce the risk of misunderstanding," Gates told the press after meeting with Cao Gangchuan, the Chinese defense minister.
When President George W. Bush personally asked the Chinese foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, for an explanation of the Kitty Hawk incident during a visit to Washington, the White House said, Yang answered that it had all been a "misunderstanding" and the result of just the kind of "poor communications" that Gates and Cao had said they had agreed to eliminate.
Niceties like these have a long enjoyed an honored place in diplomacy, papering over differences and letting dark clouds blow past. Two days later, however, the niceties were exploded by Yang's nominal subordinate, Liu Jianchao, a spokesman who denied the foreign minister had said anything like that at all.
"We have taken note of the reports," Liu said. "I want to clarify that all the reports are not true." He went on to assert that the Kitty Hawk incident had had nothing to do with miscommunication, which at least had the virtue of truth, even if it left many big questions unanswered, including: Who is in charge of Beijing's security-diplomatic apparatus during moments like these?
Liu ascribed the last-minute port call about-face to China's anger over the Dalai Lama's visit in October to Washington, where he had been received by Bush and given a Congressional Gold Medal. At that time, the very same spokesman had fumed that "this move is a blatant interference in China's internal affairs. It has hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and gravely undermined bilateral relations."
Later, and most unusually, the spokesman's comments on the subject failed to appear on the Foreign Ministry's Web site, where a record of each day's commentary is regularly published.
Trying to make sense of Beijing's actions, others quickly speculated about anger over a recent anti-missile arms sale to Taiwan. Still others spoke of large-scale, unannounced Chinese naval maneuvers simulating a pincer action against Taiwan, which were under way just as the Kitty Hawk drew near to Hong Kong, as a possible reason for the Chinese decision to keep the ship out of its waters.
Official media here observed a news blackout about the drills, even as they disrupted hundreds of commercial flights out of Shanghai and Guangzhou and angered neighboring Vietnam.
China has a right, of course, to be upset over both issues, Tibet and Taiwan, but one wonders if throwing fits about the Dalai Lama, in particular - as Beijing has done repeatedly in recent months - is in any way serving the country's interests.
More seriously, at precisely the moment when China is projecting power and influence like never before, the handling of the Kitty Hawk matter highlights grave weaknesses for an incipient superpower: the lack of the kind of transparency essential to international confidence and an unwieldy decision-making process, with subterranean divisions over turf, that bodes ill for crisis management.
China lacks any effective equivalent of the U.S. National Security Council, leaving management of its most sensitive international affairs - particularly relations with Washington, Taipei and Tokyo - in the consensual hands of Politburo Standing Committee leaders.
Ordinarily, at the top, this is among the most scripted of political systems, with the state striving to project a kind of majestic tranquility and sureness. Spontaneity and improvisation, or at least the appearance of it, is loathed, and yet that's exactly what the Kitty Hawk business revealed.
"Either there was a Chinese decision to 'just say no' to the U.S. or a lack of internal coordinated decision-making that then they attempted to cover up by pretending it was a unified stance to protest recent government actions regarding Taiwan arms sales and the White House honoring the Dalai Lama," said Susan Shirk, a former senior U.S. diplomat and author of "China: Fragile Superpower."
"China has been working hard since the 1999 and 2001 crises to improve its crisis management system," she added, referring to the American bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and the collision of a Chinese fighter jet and a U.S. spy plane off the Chinese coast. "This affair will tell them they have a lot more work to do."
Wrap...
Sean Penn and Hillary Clinton...
From Information Clearing House:
Piano Wire Puppeteers
By Sean Penn
Didn't Senator Clinton just vote in essence to give President Bush the power to bomb Iran? If he had done it last week, would that have made her right? I mean, if she knew then what she knows now? Or am I getting that backward? Golly, I'm confused.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18848.htm
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Piano Wire Puppeteers
By Sean Penn
Didn't Senator Clinton just vote in essence to give President Bush the power to bomb Iran? If he had done it last week, would that have made her right? I mean, if she knew then what she knows now? Or am I getting that backward? Golly, I'm confused.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18848.htm
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Americans under microscope...via space...
From CorpWatch via truthout.org :
Bush Goes Private to Spy on You
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120607M.shtml
Tim Shorrock reports for CorpWatch, "A new intelligence institution to be inaugurated soon by the Bush administration will allow government spying agencies to conduct broad surveillance and reconnaissance inside the United States for the first time."
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Bush Goes Private to Spy on You
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120607M.shtml
Tim Shorrock reports for CorpWatch, "A new intelligence institution to be inaugurated soon by the Bush administration will allow government spying agencies to conduct broad surveillance and reconnaissance inside the United States for the first time."
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Reagan carved on Mt Rushmore?!!! Oh hell no....
From American Progress:
Think Fast...
Today, President Bush will announce a freeze on some subprime mortgages in an effort to stop a wave of foreclosures. Bloomberg writes, "Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's success in crafting an agreement on a five-year fix of subprime mortgage rates owes a debt to an unlikely source: congressional Democrats."
The National Intelligence Estimate's conclusion that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program came about after intelligence agencies obtained notes last summer of Iranian military officials complaining "bitterly" about the decision by their superiors in late 2003 to shut down a central part of the program.
In the ongoing Guantanamo Bay case, Boumediene v. Bush, the Supreme Court may "finally bring an end to the disastrous six-year military commission experiment that has so far brought about only one plea-bargained conviction," writes Michael Hoffman and Ken Gude of the Center for American Progress.
One in three Americans "want to deny social services, including public schooling and emergency room healthcare," to undocumented immigrants, according to a LAT/Bloomberg poll. However, 60 percent still favor creating a pathway to citizenship for law-abiding individuals.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) yesterday took offense at being described as a "puppet" of President Bush by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). Jim Manley, a Reid spokesman, "said it's understandable that Republicans are sensitive about being associated with Bush."
"President Bush has sent North Korea's reclusive leader Kim Jong-il a personal letter, Pyongyang revealed on Thursday, as it faces uncertainty over when and how it will meet nuclear disarmament steps agreed with Washington."
"Car bombs in Baghdad and three northern Iraqi cities killed at least 22 people and wounded more than 60 others on Wednesday, as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived for an unannounced visit with senior Iraqi officials." The wave of killings accounted for the highest daily death toll in several weeks."
Gates has "decided against a proposal to shift Marine Corps forces from Iraq to take the lead in American operations in Afghanistan." Gates told Marine officials that Iraq "remained too volatile to contemplate such a significant change."
The White House formally nominated Mark Filip, a federal judge in Chicago, for the Justice Department's No. 2 job on Wednesday, a day after the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman threatened to postpone confirmation hearings until next year.
And finally: Conservatives dream of Reagan on Mount Rushmore. Former ambassador Fred J. Eckert, a staunchly conservative former Republican congressman from New York, has worked to create an image of what Rushmore would look like with Reagan carved into it. The result can be viewed at ReaganRushmore.com. Eckert claims that, "in time," his fantasy will become reality.
Wrap...
Think Fast...
Today, President Bush will announce a freeze on some subprime mortgages in an effort to stop a wave of foreclosures. Bloomberg writes, "Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's success in crafting an agreement on a five-year fix of subprime mortgage rates owes a debt to an unlikely source: congressional Democrats."
The National Intelligence Estimate's conclusion that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program came about after intelligence agencies obtained notes last summer of Iranian military officials complaining "bitterly" about the decision by their superiors in late 2003 to shut down a central part of the program.
In the ongoing Guantanamo Bay case, Boumediene v. Bush, the Supreme Court may "finally bring an end to the disastrous six-year military commission experiment that has so far brought about only one plea-bargained conviction," writes Michael Hoffman and Ken Gude of the Center for American Progress.
One in three Americans "want to deny social services, including public schooling and emergency room healthcare," to undocumented immigrants, according to a LAT/Bloomberg poll. However, 60 percent still favor creating a pathway to citizenship for law-abiding individuals.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) yesterday took offense at being described as a "puppet" of President Bush by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). Jim Manley, a Reid spokesman, "said it's understandable that Republicans are sensitive about being associated with Bush."
"President Bush has sent North Korea's reclusive leader Kim Jong-il a personal letter, Pyongyang revealed on Thursday, as it faces uncertainty over when and how it will meet nuclear disarmament steps agreed with Washington."
"Car bombs in Baghdad and three northern Iraqi cities killed at least 22 people and wounded more than 60 others on Wednesday, as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived for an unannounced visit with senior Iraqi officials." The wave of killings accounted for the highest daily death toll in several weeks."
Gates has "decided against a proposal to shift Marine Corps forces from Iraq to take the lead in American operations in Afghanistan." Gates told Marine officials that Iraq "remained too volatile to contemplate such a significant change."
The White House formally nominated Mark Filip, a federal judge in Chicago, for the Justice Department's No. 2 job on Wednesday, a day after the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman threatened to postpone confirmation hearings until next year.
And finally: Conservatives dream of Reagan on Mount Rushmore. Former ambassador Fred J. Eckert, a staunchly conservative former Republican congressman from New York, has worked to create an image of what Rushmore would look like with Reagan carved into it. The result can be viewed at ReaganRushmore.com. Eckert claims that, "in time," his fantasy will become reality.
Wrap...
Blackwater's #2 man advises Mitt Romney....
From Information Clearing House:
Blackwater's Bu$ine$$
By Jeremy Scahill
12/06/07 "The Nation" -- -- Gunning down seventeen Iraqi civilians in an incident the military has labeled "criminal." Multiple Congressional investigations. A federal grand jury. Allegations of illegal arms smuggling. Wrongful death lawsuits brought by families of dead employees and US soldiers. A federal lawsuit alleging war crimes. Charges of steroid use by trigger-happy mercenaries. Allegations of "significant tax evasion." The US-installed government in Iraq labeling its forces "murderers." With a new scandal breaking practically every day, one would think Blackwater security would be on the ropes, facing a corporate meltdown or even a total wipeout. But it seems that business for the company has never been better, as it continues to pull in major federal contracts. And its public demeanor grows bolder and cockier by the day.
Rather than hiding out and hoping for the scandals to fade, the Bush Administration's preferred mercenary company has launched a major rebranding campaign, changing its name to Blackwater Worldwide and softening its logo: once a bear paw in the site of a sniper scope, it's now a bear claw wrapped in two half ovals--sort of like the outline of a globe with a United Nations feel. Its website boasts of a corporate vision "guided by integrity, innovation, and a desire for a safer world." Blackwater mercenaries are now referred to as "global stabilization professionals." Blackwater's 38-year-old owner, Erik Prince, was No. 11 in Details magazine's "Power 50," the men "who control your viewing patterns, your buying habits, your anxieties, your lust.... the people who have taken over the space in your head."
In one of the company's most bizarre recent actions, on December 1 Blackwater paratroopers staged a dramatic aerial landing, complete with Blackwater flags and parachutes--not in Baghdad or Kabul but in San Diego at Qualcomm Stadium during the halftime show at the San Diego State/BYU football game. The location was interesting, given that Blackwater is fighting fierce local opposition to its attempt to open a new camp--Blackwater West--on 824 acres in the small rural community of Potrero, just outside San Diego. Blackwater's parachute squad plans to land at the Armed Forces Bowl in Texas this month and the Virginia Gold Cup in May. The company recently sponsored a NASCAR racer, and it has teamed up with gun manufacturer Sig Sauer to create a Blackwater Special Edition full-sized 9-millimeter pistol with the company logo on the grip. It comes with a Limited Lifetime Warranty. For $18, parents can purchase infant onesies with the company logo.
In recent weeks, Blackwater has indicated it might quit Iraq. "We see the security market diminishing," Prince told the Wall Street Journal in October. Yet on December 3 Blackwater posted job listings for "security specialists" and snipers as a result of its State Department diplomatic security "contract expansion." While its name may be mud in the human rights world, Blackwater has not only made big money in Iraq (about $1 billion in State Department contracts); it has secured a reputation as a company that keeps US officials alive by any means necessary. The dirty open secret in Washington is that Blackwater has done its job in Iraq, even if it has done so by valuing the lives of Iraqis much lower than those of US VIPs. That badass image will serve it well as it expands globally.
Prince promises that Blackwater "is going to be more of a full spectrum" operation. Amid the cornucopia of scandals, Blackwater is bidding for a share of a five-year, $15 billion contract with the Pentagon to "fight terrorists with drug-trade ties." Perhaps the firm will join the mercenary giant DynCorp in Colombia or Bolivia or be sent into Mexico on a "training" mission. This "war on drugs" contract would put Blackwater in the arena with the godfathers of the war business, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon.
In addition to its robust business in law enforcement, military and homeland security training, Blackwater is branching out. Here are some of its current projects and initiatives:
§ Blackwater affiliate Greystone Ltd., registered offshore in Barbados, is an old-fashioned mercenary operation offering "personnel from the best militaries throughout the world" for hire by governments and private organizations. It also boasts of a "multi-national peacekeeping program," with forces "specializing in crowd control and less than lethal techniques and military personnel for the less stable areas of operation."
§ Prince's Total Intelligence Solutions, headed by three CIA veterans (among them Blackwater's number two, Cofer Black), puts CIA-type services on the open market for hire by corporations or governments.
§ Blackwater is launching an armored vehicle called the Grizzly, which the company characterizes as the most versatile in history. Blackwater intends to modify it to be legal for use on US highways.
§ Blackwater's aviation division has some forty aircraft, including turboprop planes that can be used for unorthodox landings. It has ordered a Super Tucano paramilitary plane from Brazil, which can be used in counterinsurgency operations. In August the aviation division won a $92 million contract with the Pentagon to operate flights in Central Asia.
§ It recently flight-tested the unmanned Polar 400 airship, which may be marketed to the Department of Homeland Security for use in monitoring the US-Mexico border and to "military, law enforcement, and non-government customers."
§ A fast-growing maritime division has a new, 184-foot vessel that has been fitted for potential paramilitary use.
Meanwhile, Blackwater is deep in the camp of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Cofer Black is Romney's senior adviser on counterterrorism.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18842.htm
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Blackwater's Bu$ine$$
By Jeremy Scahill
12/06/07 "The Nation" -- -- Gunning down seventeen Iraqi civilians in an incident the military has labeled "criminal." Multiple Congressional investigations. A federal grand jury. Allegations of illegal arms smuggling. Wrongful death lawsuits brought by families of dead employees and US soldiers. A federal lawsuit alleging war crimes. Charges of steroid use by trigger-happy mercenaries. Allegations of "significant tax evasion." The US-installed government in Iraq labeling its forces "murderers." With a new scandal breaking practically every day, one would think Blackwater security would be on the ropes, facing a corporate meltdown or even a total wipeout. But it seems that business for the company has never been better, as it continues to pull in major federal contracts. And its public demeanor grows bolder and cockier by the day.
Rather than hiding out and hoping for the scandals to fade, the Bush Administration's preferred mercenary company has launched a major rebranding campaign, changing its name to Blackwater Worldwide and softening its logo: once a bear paw in the site of a sniper scope, it's now a bear claw wrapped in two half ovals--sort of like the outline of a globe with a United Nations feel. Its website boasts of a corporate vision "guided by integrity, innovation, and a desire for a safer world." Blackwater mercenaries are now referred to as "global stabilization professionals." Blackwater's 38-year-old owner, Erik Prince, was No. 11 in Details magazine's "Power 50," the men "who control your viewing patterns, your buying habits, your anxieties, your lust.... the people who have taken over the space in your head."
In one of the company's most bizarre recent actions, on December 1 Blackwater paratroopers staged a dramatic aerial landing, complete with Blackwater flags and parachutes--not in Baghdad or Kabul but in San Diego at Qualcomm Stadium during the halftime show at the San Diego State/BYU football game. The location was interesting, given that Blackwater is fighting fierce local opposition to its attempt to open a new camp--Blackwater West--on 824 acres in the small rural community of Potrero, just outside San Diego. Blackwater's parachute squad plans to land at the Armed Forces Bowl in Texas this month and the Virginia Gold Cup in May. The company recently sponsored a NASCAR racer, and it has teamed up with gun manufacturer Sig Sauer to create a Blackwater Special Edition full-sized 9-millimeter pistol with the company logo on the grip. It comes with a Limited Lifetime Warranty. For $18, parents can purchase infant onesies with the company logo.
In recent weeks, Blackwater has indicated it might quit Iraq. "We see the security market diminishing," Prince told the Wall Street Journal in October. Yet on December 3 Blackwater posted job listings for "security specialists" and snipers as a result of its State Department diplomatic security "contract expansion." While its name may be mud in the human rights world, Blackwater has not only made big money in Iraq (about $1 billion in State Department contracts); it has secured a reputation as a company that keeps US officials alive by any means necessary. The dirty open secret in Washington is that Blackwater has done its job in Iraq, even if it has done so by valuing the lives of Iraqis much lower than those of US VIPs. That badass image will serve it well as it expands globally.
Prince promises that Blackwater "is going to be more of a full spectrum" operation. Amid the cornucopia of scandals, Blackwater is bidding for a share of a five-year, $15 billion contract with the Pentagon to "fight terrorists with drug-trade ties." Perhaps the firm will join the mercenary giant DynCorp in Colombia or Bolivia or be sent into Mexico on a "training" mission. This "war on drugs" contract would put Blackwater in the arena with the godfathers of the war business, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon.
In addition to its robust business in law enforcement, military and homeland security training, Blackwater is branching out. Here are some of its current projects and initiatives:
§ Blackwater affiliate Greystone Ltd., registered offshore in Barbados, is an old-fashioned mercenary operation offering "personnel from the best militaries throughout the world" for hire by governments and private organizations. It also boasts of a "multi-national peacekeeping program," with forces "specializing in crowd control and less than lethal techniques and military personnel for the less stable areas of operation."
§ Prince's Total Intelligence Solutions, headed by three CIA veterans (among them Blackwater's number two, Cofer Black), puts CIA-type services on the open market for hire by corporations or governments.
§ Blackwater is launching an armored vehicle called the Grizzly, which the company characterizes as the most versatile in history. Blackwater intends to modify it to be legal for use on US highways.
§ Blackwater's aviation division has some forty aircraft, including turboprop planes that can be used for unorthodox landings. It has ordered a Super Tucano paramilitary plane from Brazil, which can be used in counterinsurgency operations. In August the aviation division won a $92 million contract with the Pentagon to operate flights in Central Asia.
§ It recently flight-tested the unmanned Polar 400 airship, which may be marketed to the Department of Homeland Security for use in monitoring the US-Mexico border and to "military, law enforcement, and non-government customers."
§ A fast-growing maritime division has a new, 184-foot vessel that has been fitted for potential paramilitary use.
Meanwhile, Blackwater is deep in the camp of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Cofer Black is Romney's senior adviser on counterterrorism.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18842.htm
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Homeland Security gets a failing grade....
From CREW:
Five years ago, President Bush signed legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security. Over the past five years, the American people have become far too familiar with stories about DHS and its gross overruns on projects, the worst employee morale in the federal government, the inoperability of information technology, our exposure to cyber-terrorism and FEMA's fake press conference.
Today, CREW is releasing a new report, Homeland Security for Sale - DHS: Five Years of Mismanagement, detailing massive failures and billions wasted at the Department of Homeland Security.
The report can be found at www.homelandsecurityforsale.org, along with a video produced by Brave New Foundation.
CREW details billions of dollars in waste and mismanagement of taxpayer dollars, for example:
$24 billion has been spent, and at least $178 million wasted, on the failed Coast Guard Deepwater program;
over $600 million has been allocated for unworkable radiation border scanners;
$1.3 billion has been lost on the US-VISIT program, which was never fully implemented; and
projected $2 billion loss on the SBInet "virtual fence" border program.
Those who run the agency must be held accountable for its massive failures and CREW wants to spark a public debate about how DHS can and must be improved in the next administration. The next President will have to fix DHS -- and all the candidates need to provide specific plans to address the massive failings outlined in Homeland Security for Sale - DHS: Five Years of Mismanagement.
Ask your presidential candidate what he or she would do to fix DHS in the next administration.
The report is divided into five sections. For each, we name the worst offender and the runner-up earning dishonorable mention:
I. Most Troubled DHS Component: FEMA
Dishonorable Mention: TSA
II. Most Outrageous Contract: Deepwater
Dishonorable Mention: Radiation Detection Portal Monitors
III. Failed Program: US-VISIT
Dishonorable Mention: SBInet
IV. Component with the Most Serious Crime Problem:
CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)
Dishonorable Mention: TSA
V. Beneficiary of the Revolving Door: Tom Ridge
Dishonorable Mentions: Holman, Buchholz, Davis, Hutchison
The Department of Homeland Security is an embarrassment that would be comical if only our national security were not at stake.
This is a national security crisis. The American people deserve far better from their government.
[Use links above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Five years ago, President Bush signed legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security. Over the past five years, the American people have become far too familiar with stories about DHS and its gross overruns on projects, the worst employee morale in the federal government, the inoperability of information technology, our exposure to cyber-terrorism and FEMA's fake press conference.
Today, CREW is releasing a new report, Homeland Security for Sale - DHS: Five Years of Mismanagement, detailing massive failures and billions wasted at the Department of Homeland Security.
The report can be found at www.homelandsecurityforsale.org, along with a video produced by Brave New Foundation.
CREW details billions of dollars in waste and mismanagement of taxpayer dollars, for example:
$24 billion has been spent, and at least $178 million wasted, on the failed Coast Guard Deepwater program;
over $600 million has been allocated for unworkable radiation border scanners;
$1.3 billion has been lost on the US-VISIT program, which was never fully implemented; and
projected $2 billion loss on the SBInet "virtual fence" border program.
Those who run the agency must be held accountable for its massive failures and CREW wants to spark a public debate about how DHS can and must be improved in the next administration. The next President will have to fix DHS -- and all the candidates need to provide specific plans to address the massive failings outlined in Homeland Security for Sale - DHS: Five Years of Mismanagement.
Ask your presidential candidate what he or she would do to fix DHS in the next administration.
The report is divided into five sections. For each, we name the worst offender and the runner-up earning dishonorable mention:
I. Most Troubled DHS Component: FEMA
Dishonorable Mention: TSA
II. Most Outrageous Contract: Deepwater
Dishonorable Mention: Radiation Detection Portal Monitors
III. Failed Program: US-VISIT
Dishonorable Mention: SBInet
IV. Component with the Most Serious Crime Problem:
CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)
Dishonorable Mention: TSA
V. Beneficiary of the Revolving Door: Tom Ridge
Dishonorable Mentions: Holman, Buchholz, Davis, Hutchison
The Department of Homeland Security is an embarrassment that would be comical if only our national security were not at stake.
This is a national security crisis. The American people deserve far better from their government.
[Use links above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Oh this should be good...Stone & Ahmadinejad?...
From Secrecy News:
OLIVER STONE SEEKS TO FILM "AHMADINEJAD'S ADVENTURES"
Filmmaker Oliver Stone is expected to visit Tehran in the near future
to negotiate arrangements for a film about Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, the Iranian press reported last week.
"We have announced that he has asked for permission to travel to Iran
for direct negotiations and to plan the project," one official told the
Tehran Times.
Stone first sought Iranian permission last summer to make the film,
variously referred to as "Ahmadijenad's Adventures" or "The Truth About
Ahmadinejad." His initial request was denied, but was then reconsidered
and approved by the President himself "if certain conditions were met."
Among such conditions, the Tehran Times reported, "Stone would not be
allowed to invent any scenarios. [Instead,] he should only use
incidents from the president's real life in the film."
See "Oliver Stone may visit Tehran for Ahmadinejad biopic: Sajjadpur,"
Tehran Times, November 30:
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=158249
News about the proposed film project "has amazed and worried many
friends of Islamic Iran's honour and power and those concerned about
its reputation," according to one Iranian commentator.
"How can one trust a person... who, despite efforts at proclaiming
himself to represent the opposition in America's ruling system, is in
line and in accordance with the essence and the overall policies of
this system," wrote Elham Rajabpur in the conservative Tehran daily
Keyhan.
The writer objected to several of Stone's films including Alexander ("a
hated figure among Iranians") and The Doors (about "one of America's
perverted and half-mad singers").
"We are afraid that the outcome of [Stone's Iranian film] venture will
not be the true and realistic portrayal of an intellectual and a
peacemaker such as Ahmadinejad, but a portrayal of Ahmadinejad
according to Stone, Hollywood, and global Zionism."
See "Oliver Stone's Presence in Iran: Opportunity or Threat" by Elham
Rajabpur, Keyhan, December 3 (translated by the DNI Open Source
Center):
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2007/12/stone.html
[Use links above to continue reading]
Wrap...
OLIVER STONE SEEKS TO FILM "AHMADINEJAD'S ADVENTURES"
Filmmaker Oliver Stone is expected to visit Tehran in the near future
to negotiate arrangements for a film about Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, the Iranian press reported last week.
"We have announced that he has asked for permission to travel to Iran
for direct negotiations and to plan the project," one official told the
Tehran Times.
Stone first sought Iranian permission last summer to make the film,
variously referred to as "Ahmadijenad's Adventures" or "The Truth About
Ahmadinejad." His initial request was denied, but was then reconsidered
and approved by the President himself "if certain conditions were met."
Among such conditions, the Tehran Times reported, "Stone would not be
allowed to invent any scenarios. [Instead,] he should only use
incidents from the president's real life in the film."
See "Oliver Stone may visit Tehran for Ahmadinejad biopic: Sajjadpur,"
Tehran Times, November 30:
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=158249
News about the proposed film project "has amazed and worried many
friends of Islamic Iran's honour and power and those concerned about
its reputation," according to one Iranian commentator.
"How can one trust a person... who, despite efforts at proclaiming
himself to represent the opposition in America's ruling system, is in
line and in accordance with the essence and the overall policies of
this system," wrote Elham Rajabpur in the conservative Tehran daily
Keyhan.
The writer objected to several of Stone's films including Alexander ("a
hated figure among Iranians") and The Doors (about "one of America's
perverted and half-mad singers").
"We are afraid that the outcome of [Stone's Iranian film] venture will
not be the true and realistic portrayal of an intellectual and a
peacemaker such as Ahmadinejad, but a portrayal of Ahmadinejad
according to Stone, Hollywood, and global Zionism."
See "Oliver Stone's Presence in Iran: Opportunity or Threat" by Elham
Rajabpur, Keyhan, December 3 (translated by the DNI Open Source
Center):
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2007/12/stone.html
[Use links above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Replace Blue Dogs...
From The Washington Post via truthout.org :
Blue Dogs Make a Stand on Alternative Minimum Tax Bill
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120607E.shtml
Jonathan Weisman, reporting for The Washington Post, writes, "As if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) did not have enough problems, the House's conservative Blue Dog Democrats have decided to take a stand for fiscal discipline - at a very difficult time."
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Blue Dogs Make a Stand on Alternative Minimum Tax Bill
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120607E.shtml
Jonathan Weisman, reporting for The Washington Post, writes, "As if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) did not have enough problems, the House's conservative Blue Dog Democrats have decided to take a stand for fiscal discipline - at a very difficult time."
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Single-Payer Ins...Docs want it....
From Philadelphia Inquirer via truthout. org:
Doctors Endorse Single-Payer
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/120507HA.shtml
The Philadelphia Inquirer's Stacey Burling reports: "The Philadelphia-based American College of Physicians - the nation's second-largest physician group - endorsed a single-payer health-care system yesterday."
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Doctors Endorse Single-Payer
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/120507HA.shtml
The Philadelphia Inquirer's Stacey Burling reports: "The Philadelphia-based American College of Physicians - the nation's second-largest physician group - endorsed a single-payer health-care system yesterday."
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
CREW nails Bush on missing emails...
From truthout.org :
Waxman, Mukasey and Ten Million Missing Emails
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120507J.shtml
Truthout's Matt Renner reports: "a government watchdog group now says that ten to twenty million White House emails which may contain information about the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's covert CIA status, have been destroyed by the Bush administration.
In a report from April, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) detailed a massive hole in the White House email records. The report, titled 'Without a Trace: The Missing White House Emails and the Violations of the Presidential Records Act,' accused the Bush administration of destroying 'more than 5 million' emails and failing to attempt to recover them."
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Waxman, Mukasey and Ten Million Missing Emails
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120507J.shtml
Truthout's Matt Renner reports: "a government watchdog group now says that ten to twenty million White House emails which may contain information about the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's covert CIA status, have been destroyed by the Bush administration.
In a report from April, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) detailed a massive hole in the White House email records. The report, titled 'Without a Trace: The Missing White House Emails and the Violations of the Presidential Records Act,' accused the Bush administration of destroying 'more than 5 million' emails and failing to attempt to recover them."
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
On the way...a whole raft of good books....
From Publishers Lunch Weekly:
FICTION/DEBUT:
Film director David Cronenberg's first novel, partially set in Toronto, to Nicole Winstanley at Penguin Canada, who wrote him "several months ago to inquire about whether or not he'd consider writing a novel," in a pre-empt, for publication in early 2010, by Andrew Wylie of The Wylie Agency.
Doubleday editor Sarah Rainone's LOVE SONGS FOR LOST CHILDREN, set at a wedding where a group of twenty-somethings, reunited for the first time in years, are forced to live through and live down who they were then, and reveal the secrets that have defined them since, to Carrie Thornton at Three Rivers Press, by Jud Laghi at LJK Literary Management (NA).
Film/TV rights are being handled by Shari Smiley at CAA.
Recent Harvard grad, 23-year-old Pakistani writer Ali Sethi's debut novel, set in his native Lahore, the story of a fatherless Pakistani boy being raised in a family of outspoken women, and the guilt he experiences when his fate diverges from that of his closest friend and cousin, whose unconventional behavior brings severe consequences for her, to Megan Lynch at Riverhead, at auction, by Barney Karpfinger at The Karpfinger Agency (US). Rights have also gone to Hamish Hamilton in the UK and Penguin India.
Ivy Pochoda's THE ART OF LOSING, in which a woman weds a talented magician, whose hands attract stray saltshakers and poker chips�after one of his tricks goes terribly awry, the newly-wed is left with the question whether things she believes in are real or just another illusion, to Hilary Rubin Teeman of St. Martin's, in a nice deal, by Kim Witherspoon of Inkwell Management (World).
MYSTERY/CRIME:
Former firearms industry professional Lori Armstrong's RITUAL SACRIFICES, the first in a new mystery series featuring an Army sniper who has returned home to run her family's South Dakota ranch, to Trish Lande Grader at Touchstone Fireside, in a two-book deal, by Scott Miller at Trident Media Group (NA).
GENERAL/OTHER:
Bridie Clark's novel I THINK SHE'S GOT IT, a modern retelling of Pygmalion, the story of a shy, young Midwesterner who is transformed into a sophisticated socialite by a dashing but arrogant man-about-town who is convinced he can turn anyone -- even the most awkward wallflower -- into this year's "it" girl, to Rob Weisbach at the Weinstein Company, also optioning film and TV rights for the Weinstein Company, for publication in 2009, by Daniel Greenberg at the Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (world).
CHILDREN'S/MIDDLE GRADE:
Ann Haywood Leal's debut ALSO KNOWN AS HARPER, about a girl named after Harper Lee (and her brother, named after Hemingway) whose family is evicted from their house and makes a new home at a run down motel, to Reka Simonsen at Holt, at auction, by Daniel Lazar at Writers House (world).
CHILDREN'S/YOUNG ADULT:
Aprilynne Pike's AUTUMN WINGS, a four-book series about an ordinary girl who discovers that she is a faerie sent to guard the gateway to Avalon in the mortal world, and when she is thrust into the midst of a centuries-old battle between faeries and trolls, she's torn between a mortal and a faerie love, as well as her loyalties to both worlds, to Tara Weikum at Harper Children's, in a pre-empt, by Jodi Reamer at Writers House (World English).
John Green and David Levithan's WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON, about two teens - both named Will Grayson - whose paths cross and lives become intertwined after a chance meeting in a very unexpected place, to Julie Strauss-Gabel at Dutton Children's, by Jodi Reamer at Writers House (world).
Children's librarian Josh Berk's debut BIG DEAF FATTY, set in coal mining Pennsylvania and narrated with sardonic humor by a boy who is overweight, deaf, and mute during his first year in mainstream high school, when he begrudgingly solves a murder and uncovers a secret truth about his family history, to Cecile Goyette at Knopf, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, by Ted Malawer at Firebrand Literary.
ted@firebrandliterary.com
Jane Smiley's daughter, Lucy Silag's debut trilogy PERFECTLY PARIS follows four Americans to Paris for their junior year of high school, where they enjoy their first taste of real freedom until one girl mysteriously disappears, to Lexa Hillyer at Razorbill, by Molly Friedrich at Friedrich Agency.
ADVICE/RELATIONSHIPS:
Computer science professor Dr. Randy Pausch's THE LAST LECTURE, written with WSJ columnist Jeff Zaslow, based on his lecture "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," in which he disclosed his terminal pancreatic cancer and talked about "how we play the hand" we are dealt, now viewed by millions of people online, to Bob Miller and Will Balliett at Hyperion, in a major deal, reportedly for approximately $6.75 million, for publication in spring 2008, by David Black and Gary Morris at the David Black Literary Agency (world).
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:
Bob Schieffer's FACE THE NATION, a review of issues the show has dealt with over the years, to Neil Nyren at Putnam, for publication in Fall 2008, by Esther Newberg at ICM (NA).
Former Fortune managing editor Eric Pooley's first book CLIMATE WARS: Politics, Business and the Next Flight to Save the Planet, looking at global warming from a political point of view, to Will Balliett at Hyperion, for publication in 2009, by Suzanne Gluck at William Morris Agency.
NYT bestselling author of IT'S GETTING UGLY OUT THERE Jack Cafferty's untitled book, returning with a totally new, spot on take on our world...and his, to Tom Miller at Wiley, for publication in early 2009, by Paul Fedorko at Trident Media Group (World English).
MEMOIR:
Senator Ted Kennedy's book of "reflections [to] contribute to a deeper understanding of many events in the history of this great country and to a more in-depth picture of an American family," to Jamie Raab at Grand Central and Jonathan Karp at Twelve, with Karp editing, at auction, reportedly for $8 million or more, for publication in 2010, by Robert Barnett and Gregory Craig at Williams & Connolly (world).
Former worldwide head of television for the William Morris Agency who retired three years ago at 49, Sam Haskell's memoir with life lessons, a roadmap to living a principled life in unprincipled times, written with bestselling collaborator David Rensin, to Susan Mercandetti for Ballantine, at auction, for publication in spring 2009, by Richard Abate of Endeavor (world English).
Syndicated political cartoonist Jeffrey Koterba's INKLINGS, the moving story about the survival of a family, the power of artistic creation, and the spirit of one sensitive child who went on to do amazing things - not despite but because of his relationship with his complicated father, who, like Koterba, suffers from Tourette's Syndrome, to Rebecca Saletan at Harcourt, by Amy Moore-Benson at AMB Literary Management (NA).
NARRATIVE:
Tara Austen Weaver's THE BUTCHER & THE VEGETARIAN: One Woman's Romp Through a World of Men, Meat, and Moral Crisis, to Leigh Haber at Modern Times, by Danielle Svetcov, at auction, for Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (NA).
dsvetcov@levinegreenberg.com
SPORTS:
Former New York Giants star and long-time Monday Night Football broadcaster Frank Gifford's THE GLORY GAME: How the 1958 NFL Championship Changed Pro Football Forever, written with Peter Richmond, about the memorable showdown between the Giants and the Baltimore Colts that featured thirteen players including Gifford who would later be enshrined in the Hall of Fame, to David Hirshey at Harper in a pre-empt, by Andrew Blauner of the Blauner Books Literary Agency.
Wrap...
FICTION/DEBUT:
Film director David Cronenberg's first novel, partially set in Toronto, to Nicole Winstanley at Penguin Canada, who wrote him "several months ago to inquire about whether or not he'd consider writing a novel," in a pre-empt, for publication in early 2010, by Andrew Wylie of The Wylie Agency.
Doubleday editor Sarah Rainone's LOVE SONGS FOR LOST CHILDREN, set at a wedding where a group of twenty-somethings, reunited for the first time in years, are forced to live through and live down who they were then, and reveal the secrets that have defined them since, to Carrie Thornton at Three Rivers Press, by Jud Laghi at LJK Literary Management (NA).
Film/TV rights are being handled by Shari Smiley at CAA.
Recent Harvard grad, 23-year-old Pakistani writer Ali Sethi's debut novel, set in his native Lahore, the story of a fatherless Pakistani boy being raised in a family of outspoken women, and the guilt he experiences when his fate diverges from that of his closest friend and cousin, whose unconventional behavior brings severe consequences for her, to Megan Lynch at Riverhead, at auction, by Barney Karpfinger at The Karpfinger Agency (US). Rights have also gone to Hamish Hamilton in the UK and Penguin India.
Ivy Pochoda's THE ART OF LOSING, in which a woman weds a talented magician, whose hands attract stray saltshakers and poker chips�after one of his tricks goes terribly awry, the newly-wed is left with the question whether things she believes in are real or just another illusion, to Hilary Rubin Teeman of St. Martin's, in a nice deal, by Kim Witherspoon of Inkwell Management (World).
MYSTERY/CRIME:
Former firearms industry professional Lori Armstrong's RITUAL SACRIFICES, the first in a new mystery series featuring an Army sniper who has returned home to run her family's South Dakota ranch, to Trish Lande Grader at Touchstone Fireside, in a two-book deal, by Scott Miller at Trident Media Group (NA).
GENERAL/OTHER:
Bridie Clark's novel I THINK SHE'S GOT IT, a modern retelling of Pygmalion, the story of a shy, young Midwesterner who is transformed into a sophisticated socialite by a dashing but arrogant man-about-town who is convinced he can turn anyone -- even the most awkward wallflower -- into this year's "it" girl, to Rob Weisbach at the Weinstein Company, also optioning film and TV rights for the Weinstein Company, for publication in 2009, by Daniel Greenberg at the Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (world).
CHILDREN'S/MIDDLE GRADE:
Ann Haywood Leal's debut ALSO KNOWN AS HARPER, about a girl named after Harper Lee (and her brother, named after Hemingway) whose family is evicted from their house and makes a new home at a run down motel, to Reka Simonsen at Holt, at auction, by Daniel Lazar at Writers House (world).
CHILDREN'S/YOUNG ADULT:
Aprilynne Pike's AUTUMN WINGS, a four-book series about an ordinary girl who discovers that she is a faerie sent to guard the gateway to Avalon in the mortal world, and when she is thrust into the midst of a centuries-old battle between faeries and trolls, she's torn between a mortal and a faerie love, as well as her loyalties to both worlds, to Tara Weikum at Harper Children's, in a pre-empt, by Jodi Reamer at Writers House (World English).
John Green and David Levithan's WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON, about two teens - both named Will Grayson - whose paths cross and lives become intertwined after a chance meeting in a very unexpected place, to Julie Strauss-Gabel at Dutton Children's, by Jodi Reamer at Writers House (world).
Children's librarian Josh Berk's debut BIG DEAF FATTY, set in coal mining Pennsylvania and narrated with sardonic humor by a boy who is overweight, deaf, and mute during his first year in mainstream high school, when he begrudgingly solves a murder and uncovers a secret truth about his family history, to Cecile Goyette at Knopf, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, by Ted Malawer at Firebrand Literary.
ted@firebrandliterary.com
Jane Smiley's daughter, Lucy Silag's debut trilogy PERFECTLY PARIS follows four Americans to Paris for their junior year of high school, where they enjoy their first taste of real freedom until one girl mysteriously disappears, to Lexa Hillyer at Razorbill, by Molly Friedrich at Friedrich Agency.
ADVICE/RELATIONSHIPS:
Computer science professor Dr. Randy Pausch's THE LAST LECTURE, written with WSJ columnist Jeff Zaslow, based on his lecture "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," in which he disclosed his terminal pancreatic cancer and talked about "how we play the hand" we are dealt, now viewed by millions of people online, to Bob Miller and Will Balliett at Hyperion, in a major deal, reportedly for approximately $6.75 million, for publication in spring 2008, by David Black and Gary Morris at the David Black Literary Agency (world).
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:
Bob Schieffer's FACE THE NATION, a review of issues the show has dealt with over the years, to Neil Nyren at Putnam, for publication in Fall 2008, by Esther Newberg at ICM (NA).
Former Fortune managing editor Eric Pooley's first book CLIMATE WARS: Politics, Business and the Next Flight to Save the Planet, looking at global warming from a political point of view, to Will Balliett at Hyperion, for publication in 2009, by Suzanne Gluck at William Morris Agency.
NYT bestselling author of IT'S GETTING UGLY OUT THERE Jack Cafferty's untitled book, returning with a totally new, spot on take on our world...and his, to Tom Miller at Wiley, for publication in early 2009, by Paul Fedorko at Trident Media Group (World English).
MEMOIR:
Senator Ted Kennedy's book of "reflections [to] contribute to a deeper understanding of many events in the history of this great country and to a more in-depth picture of an American family," to Jamie Raab at Grand Central and Jonathan Karp at Twelve, with Karp editing, at auction, reportedly for $8 million or more, for publication in 2010, by Robert Barnett and Gregory Craig at Williams & Connolly (world).
Former worldwide head of television for the William Morris Agency who retired three years ago at 49, Sam Haskell's memoir with life lessons, a roadmap to living a principled life in unprincipled times, written with bestselling collaborator David Rensin, to Susan Mercandetti for Ballantine, at auction, for publication in spring 2009, by Richard Abate of Endeavor (world English).
Syndicated political cartoonist Jeffrey Koterba's INKLINGS, the moving story about the survival of a family, the power of artistic creation, and the spirit of one sensitive child who went on to do amazing things - not despite but because of his relationship with his complicated father, who, like Koterba, suffers from Tourette's Syndrome, to Rebecca Saletan at Harcourt, by Amy Moore-Benson at AMB Literary Management (NA).
NARRATIVE:
Tara Austen Weaver's THE BUTCHER & THE VEGETARIAN: One Woman's Romp Through a World of Men, Meat, and Moral Crisis, to Leigh Haber at Modern Times, by Danielle Svetcov, at auction, for Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (NA).
dsvetcov@levinegreenberg.com
SPORTS:
Former New York Giants star and long-time Monday Night Football broadcaster Frank Gifford's THE GLORY GAME: How the 1958 NFL Championship Changed Pro Football Forever, written with Peter Richmond, about the memorable showdown between the Giants and the Baltimore Colts that featured thirteen players including Gifford who would later be enshrined in the Hall of Fame, to David Hirshey at Harper in a pre-empt, by Andrew Blauner of the Blauner Books Literary Agency.
Wrap...
SOP for Gitmo...and more...
From an email:
Wikileaks
a place for journalists, truth tellers and everybody else;
global defense of sources and press freedoms, circa now.
Wednesday 5 December, 2007
Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable system for safe mass document leaking and public analysis. Our primary interests are in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we expect to be of assistance to peoples of all countries who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact; this means our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by non-technical people. We have received over 1.2 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources...(more)
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Wikileaks
a place for journalists, truth tellers and everybody else;
global defense of sources and press freedoms, circa now.
Wednesday 5 December, 2007
Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable system for safe mass document leaking and public analysis. Our primary interests are in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we expect to be of assistance to peoples of all countries who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact; this means our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by non-technical people. We have received over 1.2 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources...(more)
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
The NIE ain't what it used to be....
From Secrecy News:
NIE ON IRAN'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM: NO SLAM DUNK
In an unusual policy pirouette, the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence yesterday published the key judgments of a National
Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear weapons program little more
than a month after the DNI issued guidance declaring that "It is the
policy of the Director of National Intelligence that KJs [key
judgments] should not be declassified." (Secrecy News 11/01/07).
"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its
nuclear weapons program," the new Estimate states dramatically.
http://www.fas.org/irp/dni/iran120307.pdf
Although it goes on to assert "moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran
at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons,"
the new Estimate effectively distances the U.S. intelligence community
from those who insist that Iran is irrevocably bent on acquiring
nuclear weapons.
By challenging the prejudices of the Administration rather than
reinforcing them, the NIE on Iran does what earlier estimates on Iraq
notoriously failed to do.
It also departs from the judgments of the 2005 NIE on Iran, which is
why it has now been publicly disclosed, according to Deputy DNI Donald
Kerr.
"Since our understanding of Iran's capabilities has changed, we felt it
was important to release this information to ensure that an accurate
presentation is available," he said.
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2007/12/ddni120307.pdf
In fact, however, Congress directed the DNI in the FY 2007 defense
authorization act to prepare an unclassified summary of the Estimate.
"Consistent with the protection of intelligence sources and methods, an
unclassified summary of the key judgments of the National Intelligence
Estimate should be submitted." (House Report 109-702, section 1213,
Intelligence on Iran).
[Use links above to continue reading]
Wrap...
NIE ON IRAN'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM: NO SLAM DUNK
In an unusual policy pirouette, the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence yesterday published the key judgments of a National
Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear weapons program little more
than a month after the DNI issued guidance declaring that "It is the
policy of the Director of National Intelligence that KJs [key
judgments] should not be declassified." (Secrecy News 11/01/07).
"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its
nuclear weapons program," the new Estimate states dramatically.
http://www.fas.org/irp/dni/iran120307.pdf
Although it goes on to assert "moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran
at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons,"
the new Estimate effectively distances the U.S. intelligence community
from those who insist that Iran is irrevocably bent on acquiring
nuclear weapons.
By challenging the prejudices of the Administration rather than
reinforcing them, the NIE on Iran does what earlier estimates on Iraq
notoriously failed to do.
It also departs from the judgments of the 2005 NIE on Iran, which is
why it has now been publicly disclosed, according to Deputy DNI Donald
Kerr.
"Since our understanding of Iran's capabilities has changed, we felt it
was important to release this information to ensure that an accurate
presentation is available," he said.
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2007/12/ddni120307.pdf
In fact, however, Congress directed the DNI in the FY 2007 defense
authorization act to prepare an unclassified summary of the Estimate.
"Consistent with the protection of intelligence sources and methods, an
unclassified summary of the key judgments of the National Intelligence
Estimate should be submitted." (House Report 109-702, section 1213,
Intelligence on Iran).
[Use links above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Monday, December 03, 2007
New blog: NOT TO BE MISSED....
From Strategic Intelligence, Inc via www.stratfor.com :
Friedman Writes Back
The NIE Report: Solving a Geopolitical Problem with Iran
By Dr. George Friedman
The United States released a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Dec. 3. It said, “We judge with high confidence that in the fall of 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” It went on to say, “Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005.” It further said, “Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.”
With this announcement, the dynamics of the Middle Eastern region, Iraq and U.S.-Iranian relations shift dramatically. For one thing, the probability of a unilateral strike against Iranian nuclear targets is gone. Since there is no Iranian nuclear weapons program, there is no rationale for a strike. Moreover, if Iran is not engaged in weapons production, then a broader air campaign designed to destabilize the Iranian regime has no foundation either.
The NIE release represents a transformation of U.S. policy toward Iran. The Bush administration made Iran’s nuclear weapons program the main reason for its attempt to create an international coalition against Iran, on the premise that a nuclear-armed Iran was unacceptable. If there is no Iranian nuclear program, then what is the rationale for the coalition? Moreover, what is the logic of resisting Iran’s efforts in Iraq, rather than cooperating?
In looking at the report, a number of obvious questions come up. First, how did the intelligence community reach the wrong conclusion in the spring of 2005, when it last released an NIE on Iran, and what changed by 2007? Also, why did the United States reach the wrong conclusions on Iran three years after its program was halted? There are two possible answers. One is intelligence failure and the other is political redefinition. Both must be explored.
Let’s begin with intelligence failure.
http://blogs.stratfor.com:80/friedman/
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Friedman Writes Back
The NIE Report: Solving a Geopolitical Problem with Iran
By Dr. George Friedman
The United States released a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Dec. 3. It said, “We judge with high confidence that in the fall of 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” It went on to say, “Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005.” It further said, “Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.”
With this announcement, the dynamics of the Middle Eastern region, Iraq and U.S.-Iranian relations shift dramatically. For one thing, the probability of a unilateral strike against Iranian nuclear targets is gone. Since there is no Iranian nuclear weapons program, there is no rationale for a strike. Moreover, if Iran is not engaged in weapons production, then a broader air campaign designed to destabilize the Iranian regime has no foundation either.
The NIE release represents a transformation of U.S. policy toward Iran. The Bush administration made Iran’s nuclear weapons program the main reason for its attempt to create an international coalition against Iran, on the premise that a nuclear-armed Iran was unacceptable. If there is no Iranian nuclear program, then what is the rationale for the coalition? Moreover, what is the logic of resisting Iran’s efforts in Iraq, rather than cooperating?
In looking at the report, a number of obvious questions come up. First, how did the intelligence community reach the wrong conclusion in the spring of 2005, when it last released an NIE on Iran, and what changed by 2007? Also, why did the United States reach the wrong conclusions on Iran three years after its program was halted? There are two possible answers. One is intelligence failure and the other is political redefinition. Both must be explored.
Let’s begin with intelligence failure.
http://blogs.stratfor.com:80/friedman/
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
From Imus to W.H. Hanukkah party....
From American Progress:
Think Fast...
Don Imus's morning radio program returned to the air this morning on ABC Radio Networks, with a new cast featuring two black comedians, Karith Foster and Tony Powell. Republican presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and John McCain, as well as Democratic political consultant James Carville, were all slated to make appearances this morning.
56 percent: Percentage of likely Alabama voters who "believe it is somewhat likely or very likely that the prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman was politically motivated."
House Democratic leaders say they are "hopeful" that the full House will consider a motion of contempt against former White House counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten before the end of the year.
$1 million: Amount the national debt expands per minute, totaling approximately $1.4 billion a day. The debt is up from $5.7 trillion when President Bush took office in January 2001 and it will top $10 trillion sometime right before or right after he leaves in January 2009."
The U.S. military is "join[ing] the green movement." On Dec. 17, the Air Force will dedicate the largest solar array in North America at Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base, on the same day that a C-17 transport plane makes the Air Force's first cross-country flight using a blend of synthetic fuel. Giant wind turbines rise from the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."
As the U.N. conference on climate change gets underway, Bloomberg observes, "Seven years after he lost the U.S. election, Al Gore has more influence on U.S. global warming policy than the man who defeated him."
Reverend Canon Andrew White, an Anglican chaplain working in Iraq, says that although Christians have been in the country for 2,000 years, the current situation is "the most difficult [it has] ever been for Christians. Probably ever in history. They've never known it like now."
A Wall Street Journal analysis of subprime mortgages issued after 2000 shows that "an increasing proportion of them went to people with credit scores high enough to often qualify for conventional loans with far better terms." The study reveals "how far such mortgages have spread into the economy -- including middle-class and wealthy communities where they once were scarce."
"The Food and Drug Administration is so underfunded and understaffed that it's putting U.S. consumers at risk in terms of food and drug safety, an advisory panel to the FDA says in a report to be discussed Monday."
And finally: Hanukkah begins Tuesday at sunset, but the White House will be kicking off the festivities early with a party tonight. According to White House staff, President Bush is the first "to include a Hanukkah party among about two dozen holiday parties at the White House, as well as the first to light a menorah in the Executive Mansion." White House aide Jeremy Katz, who is in charge of the party, said that the guest list is a "challenge." "I have had to turn down relatives who have made creative pleas to get in," he said.
Wrap...
Think Fast...
Don Imus's morning radio program returned to the air this morning on ABC Radio Networks, with a new cast featuring two black comedians, Karith Foster and Tony Powell. Republican presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and John McCain, as well as Democratic political consultant James Carville, were all slated to make appearances this morning.
56 percent: Percentage of likely Alabama voters who "believe it is somewhat likely or very likely that the prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman was politically motivated."
House Democratic leaders say they are "hopeful" that the full House will consider a motion of contempt against former White House counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten before the end of the year.
$1 million: Amount the national debt expands per minute, totaling approximately $1.4 billion a day. The debt is up from $5.7 trillion when President Bush took office in January 2001 and it will top $10 trillion sometime right before or right after he leaves in January 2009."
The U.S. military is "join[ing] the green movement." On Dec. 17, the Air Force will dedicate the largest solar array in North America at Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base, on the same day that a C-17 transport plane makes the Air Force's first cross-country flight using a blend of synthetic fuel. Giant wind turbines rise from the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."
As the U.N. conference on climate change gets underway, Bloomberg observes, "Seven years after he lost the U.S. election, Al Gore has more influence on U.S. global warming policy than the man who defeated him."
Reverend Canon Andrew White, an Anglican chaplain working in Iraq, says that although Christians have been in the country for 2,000 years, the current situation is "the most difficult [it has] ever been for Christians. Probably ever in history. They've never known it like now."
A Wall Street Journal analysis of subprime mortgages issued after 2000 shows that "an increasing proportion of them went to people with credit scores high enough to often qualify for conventional loans with far better terms." The study reveals "how far such mortgages have spread into the economy -- including middle-class and wealthy communities where they once were scarce."
"The Food and Drug Administration is so underfunded and understaffed that it's putting U.S. consumers at risk in terms of food and drug safety, an advisory panel to the FDA says in a report to be discussed Monday."
And finally: Hanukkah begins Tuesday at sunset, but the White House will be kicking off the festivities early with a party tonight. According to White House staff, President Bush is the first "to include a Hanukkah party among about two dozen holiday parties at the White House, as well as the first to light a menorah in the Executive Mansion." White House aide Jeremy Katz, who is in charge of the party, said that the guest list is a "challenge." "I have had to turn down relatives who have made creative pleas to get in," he said.
Wrap...
AT&T has all you've done...and gives it to governemnt...
From San Francisco Examiner via truthout.org :
Melanie Scarborough | Somebody Is Lying About FISA
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120307E.shtml
Melanie Scarborough, writing in The San Francisco Examiner, says, "As a technician for AT&T, Mark Klein says he helped connect a device three years ago that copied onto a government supercomputer every phone call, e-mail and Internet search made through the company's network."
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Melanie Scarborough | Somebody Is Lying About FISA
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120307E.shtml
Melanie Scarborough, writing in The San Francisco Examiner, says, "As a technician for AT&T, Mark Klein says he helped connect a device three years ago that copied onto a government supercomputer every phone call, e-mail and Internet search made through the company's network."
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Chavez is a good guy...but he has OIL...
From Greg Palast:
FEAR OF CHAVEZ IS FEAR OF DEMOCRACY
Bush: If it’s our oil, why do Venezuelans get to vote on it?
GOP panicked that counting votes in Venezuela will spread to Florida
by Greg Palast
Monday December 3, 2007
The Family Bush can fix Florida. They can fix Ohio. But it’s just driving them crazy that they can’t fix the vote in Venezuela.
[Note: Watch the reports taken from the Palast BBC investigations in Venezuela in the newly released DVD, “The Assassination of Hugo Chavez.“]
The Bush Administration and its press puppies - the same ones who couldn’t get enough of the purple thumbs of voters of Iraq - are absolutely livid that this weekend the electorate of Venezuela had the opportunity to vote.
Typical was the mouth-breathing editorial by the San Francisco Chronicle, that the referendum could make Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s President, “a constitutional dictator for life.” And no less a freedom fighter than Donald Rumsfeld, from the height of the Washington Post, said that by voting, Venezuela was “receding into dictatorship.” Oh, my!
Given that Chavez’ referendum was defeated at the ballot box, we now that, as a dictator, Chavez is a flop. Of course, without meaning to gainsay Secretary Rumsfeld, maybe Chavez is not a dictator.
Let’s get clear exactly what this vote was about. Firstly, it was a referendum to change the nation’s constitution to end term limits for President.
Oh, horror! Imagine if we eliminated term limits in the US! We could end up stuck with a president - like Franklin Roosevelt. Worse, if Bill Clinton could have run again, we’d have missed out on the statesmanship of Junior Bush. While US media called Chavez a “tyrant” for suggesting an end to term limits, they somehow forgot to smear the tyrant tag on Mr. Clinton for suggesting the same for the America.
We were not told this weekend’s referendum was a vote on term limits, rather, we were told by virtually every US news outlet that the referendum was to make Chavez, “President for Life.” The “President for Life” canard was mis-reported by no less than The New York Times.
But ending term limits does not mean winning the term. As Chavez himself told me, “It’s up to the people” whether he gets reelected. And that infuriates the US Powers That Be.
Secondly, beyond ending term limits, the referendum would have loaded the nation’s constitution with changes in property law, work hours and so many other complex economic adjustments that the entire referendum sank of its own weight.
It’s the Oil.
Term limits and work hours in Venezuela? Why was this a crisis for Washington?
Why is the Bush crew so bonkers about Hugo? Is it because Venezuela sits on the world’s largest reserve of coconuts?
Like Operation Iraqi Liberation (”OIL”) - it’s all about the crude, dude. And lots of it. The US Department of Energy documents I obtained indicate that the guys holding Bush’s dipstick figure that Venezuela is sitting on 1.36 trillion barrels of crude, five times the reserves of Saudi Arabia.
Chavez’ continuing tenure means that Venezuelans’ huge supply of oil will now be in the hands of … Venezuelans!
As Arturo Quiran, resident of a poor folks’ housing complex, told me, “Ten, fifteen years ago … there was a lot of oil money here in Venezuela but we didn’t see it.” Notably, Quiran doesn’t particularly agree with Chavez’ politics. But, he thought Americans should understand that under Chavez’ Administration, there’s a doctor’s office in his building with “free operations, x-rays, medicines. Education also. People who never knew how to read and write now know how to sign their own papers.”
Not everyone is pleased. As one TV news anchor, violently anti-Chavez, told me in derisive tones, “Chavez gives them (the poor) bricks and bread!” - how dare he! - so, they vote for him.
Big Oil has better ideas for Venezuela, best expressed in several Wall Street Journal articles attacking Chavez for spending his nation’s oil wealth on “social programs” rather than on more drilling platforms to better fill the SUVs of Texas.
Chavez has committed other crimes in Washington’s eyes. Not only has this uppity brown man spent Venezuela’s oil wealth in Venezuela, he withdrew $20 billion from the US Federal Reserve. Weirdly, Venezuela’s previous leaders, though the nation was dirt poor, lent billions to the US Treasury on crap terms. Chavez has said, Basta! to this game, and has called for keeping South America’s capital in … South America! Oh, no!
Oh, and did I mention that Chavez told Exxon it had to pay more than a 1% royalty to his nation on the heavy crude the company extracted?
And that’s why they have to kill him. In 2002, The New York Times sickeningly applauded the coup d’etat against Chavez. But that failed. Therefore, as the electorate of Venezuela is obstinately refusing to vote as Condi Rice tells them, there’s only one solution left for democracy-loving Bush-niks, the view express out loud by our President’s spiritual advisor, Pat Robertson:
“We have this enemy to our south controlling a huge pool of oil. Hugo Chavez thinks we’re trying to assassinate him. I think we ought to go ahead and do it. … … We don’t need another $200 billion war … It’s a whole lot easier to have some covert operatives do the job.”
But Hugo’s not my enemy. Indeed, he’s made a damn good offer to the American people: oil for $50 a barrel - nearly half of what it sells today. By locking in a long-term price, Venezuela loses its crazy Iraq war oil-price windfall. In return, we agree not to let oil prices fall through the floor (it dropped to $9 a barrel in 1998) and bankrupt his nation. But Saudi Arabia doesn’t like that deal. And Abdullah’s wish is George Bush’s command. (Interestingly, Chavez’ fellow no-term-limits dictator Bill Clinton endorsed the concept.)
I don’t agree with everything Chavez does. And I’ve found some of his opponents’ point well taken. But unlike Bush, I don’t think I should have a veto over the Venezuelan vote.
And the locals’ sentiments are quite clear. I drove with one opposition candidate, Julio Borges, on a campaign stop to a small town three hours from Caracas. We met his supporters - or, more accurately, his lone supporter. The “rally” was in her kitchen. She served us delicious arepas.
The next day, I returned to that very same town when Chavez arrived. Nearly a thousand screaming fans showed up - and an equal number were turned away. (The British Telegraph laughably reports that Chavez’ boosters appear “under duress.”) You’d think they were showing for a taping of “South American Idol.” (Well, the Venezuelan President did break into song a few times.)
It’s worth noting that Chavez’ personal popularity doesn’t extend to all his plans for “Bolivarian” socialism. And that killed his referendum at the ballot box. I guess Chavez should have asked Jeb bush how to count votes in a democracy.
So there you have it. Some guy who thinks he can take Venezuela’s oil and oil money and just give it away to Venezuelans. And these same Venezuelans have the temerity to demand the right to pick the president of their choice! What is the world coming to?
In Orwellian Bush-speak and Times-talk, Chavez’ referendum was portrayed before the vote as a trick, Saddam goes Latin. Maybe their real fear is that Chavez has brought a bit of economic justice through the ballot box, a trend that could spread northward. Think about it: Chavez is funding full health care for all Venezuelans. What if that happened here?
*****************
Greg Palast has just returned from South America. Catch his investigations for BBC Television and Democracy Now! in the newly-released DVD, The Assassination of Hugo Chavez, including Palast’s interviews with Chavez, his opponents - even the man who kidnapped Chavez.
You can watch the trailer on YouTube.
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse. This week, Palast will release his new film on DVD, The Election Files: Theft of 2008, with music by Moby.
These films are made available only as gifts to donors to the Palast Investigative Fund, a not-for-profit charitable foundation supporting investigative reporting.
More information at www.GregPalast.com or www.PalastInvestigativeFund.org
[Use links above to continue reading]
Wrap...
FEAR OF CHAVEZ IS FEAR OF DEMOCRACY
Bush: If it’s our oil, why do Venezuelans get to vote on it?
GOP panicked that counting votes in Venezuela will spread to Florida
by Greg Palast
Monday December 3, 2007
The Family Bush can fix Florida. They can fix Ohio. But it’s just driving them crazy that they can’t fix the vote in Venezuela.
[Note: Watch the reports taken from the Palast BBC investigations in Venezuela in the newly released DVD, “The Assassination of Hugo Chavez.“]
The Bush Administration and its press puppies - the same ones who couldn’t get enough of the purple thumbs of voters of Iraq - are absolutely livid that this weekend the electorate of Venezuela had the opportunity to vote.
Typical was the mouth-breathing editorial by the San Francisco Chronicle, that the referendum could make Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s President, “a constitutional dictator for life.” And no less a freedom fighter than Donald Rumsfeld, from the height of the Washington Post, said that by voting, Venezuela was “receding into dictatorship.” Oh, my!
Given that Chavez’ referendum was defeated at the ballot box, we now that, as a dictator, Chavez is a flop. Of course, without meaning to gainsay Secretary Rumsfeld, maybe Chavez is not a dictator.
Let’s get clear exactly what this vote was about. Firstly, it was a referendum to change the nation’s constitution to end term limits for President.
Oh, horror! Imagine if we eliminated term limits in the US! We could end up stuck with a president - like Franklin Roosevelt. Worse, if Bill Clinton could have run again, we’d have missed out on the statesmanship of Junior Bush. While US media called Chavez a “tyrant” for suggesting an end to term limits, they somehow forgot to smear the tyrant tag on Mr. Clinton for suggesting the same for the America.
We were not told this weekend’s referendum was a vote on term limits, rather, we were told by virtually every US news outlet that the referendum was to make Chavez, “President for Life.” The “President for Life” canard was mis-reported by no less than The New York Times.
But ending term limits does not mean winning the term. As Chavez himself told me, “It’s up to the people” whether he gets reelected. And that infuriates the US Powers That Be.
Secondly, beyond ending term limits, the referendum would have loaded the nation’s constitution with changes in property law, work hours and so many other complex economic adjustments that the entire referendum sank of its own weight.
It’s the Oil.
Term limits and work hours in Venezuela? Why was this a crisis for Washington?
Why is the Bush crew so bonkers about Hugo? Is it because Venezuela sits on the world’s largest reserve of coconuts?
Like Operation Iraqi Liberation (”OIL”) - it’s all about the crude, dude. And lots of it. The US Department of Energy documents I obtained indicate that the guys holding Bush’s dipstick figure that Venezuela is sitting on 1.36 trillion barrels of crude, five times the reserves of Saudi Arabia.
Chavez’ continuing tenure means that Venezuelans’ huge supply of oil will now be in the hands of … Venezuelans!
As Arturo Quiran, resident of a poor folks’ housing complex, told me, “Ten, fifteen years ago … there was a lot of oil money here in Venezuela but we didn’t see it.” Notably, Quiran doesn’t particularly agree with Chavez’ politics. But, he thought Americans should understand that under Chavez’ Administration, there’s a doctor’s office in his building with “free operations, x-rays, medicines. Education also. People who never knew how to read and write now know how to sign their own papers.”
Not everyone is pleased. As one TV news anchor, violently anti-Chavez, told me in derisive tones, “Chavez gives them (the poor) bricks and bread!” - how dare he! - so, they vote for him.
Big Oil has better ideas for Venezuela, best expressed in several Wall Street Journal articles attacking Chavez for spending his nation’s oil wealth on “social programs” rather than on more drilling platforms to better fill the SUVs of Texas.
Chavez has committed other crimes in Washington’s eyes. Not only has this uppity brown man spent Venezuela’s oil wealth in Venezuela, he withdrew $20 billion from the US Federal Reserve. Weirdly, Venezuela’s previous leaders, though the nation was dirt poor, lent billions to the US Treasury on crap terms. Chavez has said, Basta! to this game, and has called for keeping South America’s capital in … South America! Oh, no!
Oh, and did I mention that Chavez told Exxon it had to pay more than a 1% royalty to his nation on the heavy crude the company extracted?
And that’s why they have to kill him. In 2002, The New York Times sickeningly applauded the coup d’etat against Chavez. But that failed. Therefore, as the electorate of Venezuela is obstinately refusing to vote as Condi Rice tells them, there’s only one solution left for democracy-loving Bush-niks, the view express out loud by our President’s spiritual advisor, Pat Robertson:
“We have this enemy to our south controlling a huge pool of oil. Hugo Chavez thinks we’re trying to assassinate him. I think we ought to go ahead and do it. … … We don’t need another $200 billion war … It’s a whole lot easier to have some covert operatives do the job.”
But Hugo’s not my enemy. Indeed, he’s made a damn good offer to the American people: oil for $50 a barrel - nearly half of what it sells today. By locking in a long-term price, Venezuela loses its crazy Iraq war oil-price windfall. In return, we agree not to let oil prices fall through the floor (it dropped to $9 a barrel in 1998) and bankrupt his nation. But Saudi Arabia doesn’t like that deal. And Abdullah’s wish is George Bush’s command. (Interestingly, Chavez’ fellow no-term-limits dictator Bill Clinton endorsed the concept.)
I don’t agree with everything Chavez does. And I’ve found some of his opponents’ point well taken. But unlike Bush, I don’t think I should have a veto over the Venezuelan vote.
And the locals’ sentiments are quite clear. I drove with one opposition candidate, Julio Borges, on a campaign stop to a small town three hours from Caracas. We met his supporters - or, more accurately, his lone supporter. The “rally” was in her kitchen. She served us delicious arepas.
The next day, I returned to that very same town when Chavez arrived. Nearly a thousand screaming fans showed up - and an equal number were turned away. (The British Telegraph laughably reports that Chavez’ boosters appear “under duress.”) You’d think they were showing for a taping of “South American Idol.” (Well, the Venezuelan President did break into song a few times.)
It’s worth noting that Chavez’ personal popularity doesn’t extend to all his plans for “Bolivarian” socialism. And that killed his referendum at the ballot box. I guess Chavez should have asked Jeb bush how to count votes in a democracy.
So there you have it. Some guy who thinks he can take Venezuela’s oil and oil money and just give it away to Venezuelans. And these same Venezuelans have the temerity to demand the right to pick the president of their choice! What is the world coming to?
In Orwellian Bush-speak and Times-talk, Chavez’ referendum was portrayed before the vote as a trick, Saddam goes Latin. Maybe their real fear is that Chavez has brought a bit of economic justice through the ballot box, a trend that could spread northward. Think about it: Chavez is funding full health care for all Venezuelans. What if that happened here?
*****************
Greg Palast has just returned from South America. Catch his investigations for BBC Television and Democracy Now! in the newly-released DVD, The Assassination of Hugo Chavez, including Palast’s interviews with Chavez, his opponents - even the man who kidnapped Chavez.
You can watch the trailer on YouTube.
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse. This week, Palast will release his new film on DVD, The Election Files: Theft of 2008, with music by Moby.
These films are made available only as gifts to donors to the Palast Investigative Fund, a not-for-profit charitable foundation supporting investigative reporting.
More information at www.GregPalast.com or www.PalastInvestigativeFund.org
[Use links above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Repubs scare kids...
From The NY Times via truthout.org :
Bob Herbert | Rambo and the GOP
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120207G.shtml
Writing for The New York Times, Bob Herbert says, "I don't know if children should be allowed to watch the Republican presidential debates. There's so much talk of violence and mayhem as the solution to our ills. The candidates seem so eager to flex their muscles and engage the nation in conflict: Let's continue the war in Iraq. Let's show them what we're made of in Iran. Let's round up those immigrants and ship 'em back where they came from."
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Bob Herbert | Rambo and the GOP
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120207G.shtml
Writing for The New York Times, Bob Herbert says, "I don't know if children should be allowed to watch the Republican presidential debates. There's so much talk of violence and mayhem as the solution to our ills. The candidates seem so eager to flex their muscles and engage the nation in conflict: Let's continue the war in Iraq. Let's show them what we're made of in Iran. Let's round up those immigrants and ship 'em back where they came from."
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Fidel Castro speaks....on Venezuela...
From Information Clearing House:
Reflections on Venezuela: A People Under Fire
By Fidel Castro
Venezuela, whose people are heirs to Bolivar's ideas which transcend his era, is today facing a world tyranny a thousand times more powerful than that of Spain's colonial strength added to that of the recently born United States which, through Monroe, proclaimed their right to the natural wealth of the continent and to the sweat of its people.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18815.htm
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Reflections on Venezuela: A People Under Fire
By Fidel Castro
Venezuela, whose people are heirs to Bolivar's ideas which transcend his era, is today facing a world tyranny a thousand times more powerful than that of Spain's colonial strength added to that of the recently born United States which, through Monroe, proclaimed their right to the natural wealth of the continent and to the sweat of its people.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18815.htm
[Use link above to continue reading]
Wrap...
Backstory on Hugo Chavez...
From Information Clearing House:
Venezuela: Not What You Think
By Robin Hahnel
In the case of Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelan Bolivarian Revolution, the mainstream media and politicians in the United States have elevated their game of demonizing all who oppose US foreign policy and business interests to a higher level of absurdity than usual.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18816.htm
Wrap...
Venezuela: Not What You Think
By Robin Hahnel
In the case of Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelan Bolivarian Revolution, the mainstream media and politicians in the United States have elevated their game of demonizing all who oppose US foreign policy and business interests to a higher level of absurdity than usual.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18816.htm
Wrap...
One horrifying piece of work...
Sent this film by a friend. It's an hour and a half long. Three parts. None of them anything less than...
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
Wrap...
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
Wrap...
A Barrel of Crude Oil makes.....
From AOL:
What Does One Barrel Of Crude Oil Make?
QUICK STATS
- One barrel of crude oil contains 42 gallons
- About 46% of each barrel of crude oil is refined into automobile gasoline
- In the US and Canada an average of 3 gallons of crude oil are consumed per person each day
- The US imports about 50% of its required crude oil and about 50% of that amount comes from OPEC countries
Product Refined Gallons/Barrel
Gasoline 19.3
Distillate Fuel Oil (Inc. Home Heating and Diesel Fuel) 9.83
Kerosene Type Jet Fuel 4.24
Residual Fuel Oil 2.10
Petroleum Coke 2.10
Liquified Refinery Gases 1.89
Still Gas 1.81
Asphalt and Road Oil 1.13
Petrochemical Feed Supplies 0.97
Lubricants 0.46
Kerosene 0.21
Waxes 0.04
Aviation Fuel 0.04
Other Products 0.34
Processing Gain 2.47
What Does One Barrel Of Crude Oil Make?
QUICK STATS
- One barrel of crude oil contains 42 gallons
- About 46% of each barrel of crude oil is refined into automobile gasoline
- In the US and Canada an average of 3 gallons of crude oil are consumed per person each day
- The US imports about 50% of its required crude oil and about 50% of that amount comes from OPEC countries
Product Refined Gallons/Barrel
Gasoline 19.3
Distillate Fuel Oil (Inc. Home Heating and Diesel Fuel) 9.83
Kerosene Type Jet Fuel 4.24
Residual Fuel Oil 2.10
Petroleum Coke 2.10
Liquified Refinery Gases 1.89
Still Gas 1.81
Asphalt and Road Oil 1.13
Petrochemical Feed Supplies 0.97
Lubricants 0.46
Kerosene 0.21
Waxes 0.04
Aviation Fuel 0.04
Other Products 0.34
Processing Gain 2.47
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