e-Activism

THIS is the candidate "most qualified on foreign policy"!?

2008-03-18T20:55:00.004-04:00

And he stands by the preposterous claim that Iran supports Al Qaeda in Iraq?!

You know, one reads this passage below and almost thinks McCain doesn't understand the basic difference between Sunni and Shiite. But surely our most "accomplished" candidate grasps this most basic of facts about the the "biggest external threat to America"!?

Right? RIGHT!?

Writes Steve Benen at Carpetbagger Report:

McCain continues to show confusion about the basics in Iraq
Posted March 18th, 2008 at 2:35 pm

At some point, not too long ago, the political establishment decided that John McCain is an expert on international affairs and national security. I’ve never really understood why — by all appearances, McCain is frequently confused and bewildered by basic questions — but everyone seems to assume that the senator has developed an almost unparalleled expertise on these issues.

Thankfully, with increasing frequency, McCain reminds us that he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about most of the time.

Sen. John McCain, traveling in the Middle East to promote his foreign policy expertise, misidentified in remarks Tuesday which broad category of Iraqi extremists are allegedly receiving support from Iran.

He said several times that Iran, a predominately Shiite country, was supplying the mostly Sunni militant group, al-Qaeda. In fact, officials have said they believe Iran is helping Shiite extremists in Iraq.

Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives “taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.”

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was “common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.”

All of this is, of course, wrong. Al Qaeda is Sunni; Iran is Shiite. This is “common knowledge.” McCain was speaking with authority about the basics in the Middle East, and getting the regional dynamic backwards.

This happens quite a bit with the Republican candidate.

The WaPo’s Michael Shear added, “The mistake threatened to undermine McCain’s argument that his decades of foreign policy experience make him the natural choice to lead a country at war with terrorists. In recent days, McCain has repeatedly said his intimate knowledge of foreign policy make him the best equipped to answer a phone ringing in the White House late at night.”

Quite right. How do you suppose the media would react if Obama had screwed up Middle Eastern basics this badly? Hell, Obama talked about pursuing terrorists into Pakistan and that’s still considered a gaffe for reasons I’ll never really understand. But McCain thinks — indeed, he insists it’s “common knowledge” — that al Qaeda is being trained in Iran to fight in Iraq? As Kevin put it, “This is hardly some trivial mistake. It’s like accusing Pat Robertson of supporting NARAL. It shows a complete disconnect with what’s going on in Iraq.”

The 'Ticking Timebomb' scenario is a neocon fantasy

2008-03-16T11:22:00.001-04:00

The next time a neocon tries to justify torture, murder or illegal spying by claiming that 'we have to get the terrorists before they set off the bomb', tell them to shove it!

Reports Think Progress:

Former FBI agent: ticking bomb scenario is a ‘red herring.’

Jack Cloonan, who spent 25 years as an FBI special agent and interrogated members of al Qaeda, recently told Foreign Policy that he has “been hard pressed to find a situation where anybody” can say “that they’ve ever encountered the ticking bomb scenario” when interrogating terrorists. He said it is a “red herring” and “[i]n the real world it doesn’t happen.” Cloonan added that the Israelis, “who have been doing this for a long time,” have “never had a situation where it is quote ‘a ticking bomb.’”...

...Cloonan was one of the experts interviewed for the Oscar-winning documentary Taxi To The Dark Side.

Posted by Ben February 25, 2008 3:46 pm

Sadly my favorite writer resigned from the Obama campaign.

2008-03-09T12:13:00.007-04:00

(Samantha Power is my favorite author because of, among other things, her book on genocide: A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide and also her essay on Darfur here.)

In an interview in Ireland, Samantha Power called Hillary Clinton a "monster". For this admittedly poor sound bite, the Clinton campaign went up in arms, and Power resigned from Obama's campaign. Resigning was probably the right thing to do, but it deprives the Obama campaign of a very talented and forward-thinking adviser who could have seriously helped move our country beyond fear-based leadership that's more concerned with dropping bombs than creating peace and security for us, our allies, and disenfranchised victims around the world (from Darfur to Congo).

For more on Power's interview and aftermath, see this post on the blog Obsidian Wings. At the end of the post there are nice quotes which help show what a special person Power is. With any luck, if Obama wins the nomination she'll rejoin his campaign, and hopefully, his Presidential cabinet.

I hate it that this happened to Power in particular. Samantha Power is a genuinely impressive scholar, analyst, and journalist. She won the Pulitzer for her book "A Problem From Hell: American and the Age of Genocide." Jonathan Cohn:

"Power -- whom I know a little bit and who has written for TNR -- is a bona fide intellectual who has dedicated her career to fighting genocide. (And, oh yeah, she's an intrepid journalist who put herself at serious phsyical risk many times in order to learn about it first-hand.)"

Steve Clemons:

"I think that Samantha Power is one of the outstanding intellectuals of our time. She has struggled with the question of how nations should respond to the signs of genocidal trends and been one of the key points of conscience within our foreign policy community."

As I said, I think she had to resign. That said, she's one of the people whose voices we can least afford to lose in politics. And I hate the fact that the way politics is played these days, she had to go.

Ms. Power, you will be missed.

Readers, I strongly urge you to check out my previous post on Power and Darfur here.

Who has the oil?

2008-03-06T23:26:00.001-05:00

Saudi Arabia.

I came across this very interesting map which puts in perspective the various crude oil reserves around the world:

Sudanese government-sponsored terror and destruction resumes in Darfur

2008-03-02T13:28:00.005-05:00

As reported in a giant front page story in the NYTs today (congrats to the NYTs for devoting so much space to such an important issue), the Sudanese government's practice of a three-pronged assault (Air Force bombing, Army raids, and Janjaweed raids) on innocent Sudanese villagers under the guise of "pursuing the 'rebels'" is alive and well.

While death, displacement and suffering had remained constant in Darfur, open attacks and violence at the hands of the government had largely subsided over the past few years. Instead of dying at the barrel of a gun, Darfurians were suffering and languishing in under-supplied and under-protected refugee camps.

However, it seems that the days of the Sudanese government's relative restraint are over. The government is back to murdering its own civilians in bombing raids supposedly targeted at 'rebels', yet mysteriously inflicted upon areas which the rebels long-ago fled.

More death. More destruction. More waffling by Bush, China and the United Nations. The Sudanese government continues its campaign to wipe out, displace and kill an entire population while it muddles international opinion with claims of civil war, rebellious locals and national soverignity.

Buy hey, at least China is about to enjoy its prize for improved human rights behavior. Enjoy the Genocide, I mean Beijing, Olympics.

I encourage you to keep abreast of the latest developments in Sudan by reading the NYTs story here.

I also encourage you to check out this brilliant yet tragic photo essay on the latest violence in Darfur. It really helps put the suffering of local Sudanese into context.

Steven Spielberg backs out of Beijing Olympics

2008-02-27T22:06:00.004-05:00

Protesting the Chinese government's continued efforts to shield the government of Sudan from international pressure to deal with the catastrophe of Darfur, Director Steven Spielberg has backed out of his agreement to direct the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics this summer.

Good for Steven. In response the Chinese Government was clearly irate and publicly embarrassed. Good. Shame on them. The Chinese government helps keep the pressure off Sudan while the killing continues, and Chinese-made guns help do the killing.

Don't support the Genocide Olympics.

BBC story here: Spielberg in Darfur snub to China

President Bush: Still ignoring Darfur after all these years

2008-02-27T22:00:00.001-05:00

So writes Words of Power.

"In the next few months, we'll know about Iraq"

2008-02-23T09:19:00.001-05:00

Think Progress had this great post recently that reminds us of the multitude of times the Bush Administration and media pundits have claimed, "in a few months, we'll know whether we're succeeding in Iraq".

The first instance the post cites is Thomas Friedman, over three years ago.

It might be over in a week, it might be over in a month, it might be over in six months, but what’s the rush? Can we let this play out, please?” [NPR, 6/3/04]

Sigh.

More goodies:

DICK CHENEY: I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency. [Larry King Live, 5/30/05]

JOE LIEBERMAN (I-CT): By the end of this year, we will begin to draw down significant numbers of American troops. [Washington Post, 7/7/06]

JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ): If you talk to most military experts, we’re in a critical and crucial time. We’re either going to lose this thing or win this thing within the next several months.” [Meet The Press, 11/12/06]

ZALMAY KHALILZAD: Iraq Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki “has a window of a couple months. … If the perception is that this unity government is not able to deal with this issue, then a big opportunity would have been lost.” [Washington Post, 9/30/06]

I encourage you to read the full post here.

Largest beef recall in U.S. history

2008-02-18T12:19:00.003-05:00

And yet conservatives still claim we should let the food production industry continue to regulate itself.

USDA Orders Largest Meat Recall in U.S. History
By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 18, 2008; Page A01

The Agriculture Department has ordered the largest meat recall in its history -- 143 million pounds of beef, a California meatpacker's entire production for the past two years -- because the company did not prevent ailing animals from entering the U.S. food supply, officials said yesterday.

Despite the breadth of the sanction, USDA officials underscored their belief that the meat, distributed by Westland Meat, poses little or no hazard to consumers, and that most of it was eaten long ago.

The recall comes less than three weeks after the release of a videotape showing what the USDA later called "egregious violations" of federal animal care regulations by employees of a Westland partner, Hallmark Meat Packing in Chino.

Hallmark did not consistently bring in federal veterinarians to examine cattle headed for slaughter that were too sick or weak to stand on their own, Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said. "Because the cattle did not receive complete and proper inspection, [the USDA] has determined them to be unfit for human food, and the company is conducting a recall," he said in a statement.

About 37 million pounds of the meat -- cuts, ground beef and prepared products such as meatballs and burrito filling -- went to school lunch and other public nutrition programs, and "almost all of this product is likely to have been consumed," said Ron Vogel, a USDA administrator...

Click here for full story.

Have I ever mentioned that I love Charles Barkley?

2008-02-16T11:18:00.007-05:00

(Last photo is from Crooks & Liars)

When he played in the NBA in the 80s and 90s, Charles Barkley was one of my favorite players. Since he retired I've loved him just as much. Usually he does NBA broadcasts on TNT and is a constant source of hilarious, biting commentary.

However Barkley is also outspoken about a lot of things beyond the NBA. One of those things is politics. For years he's been an vocal Republican. But recently when he went on Wolf Blitzer's show, he laced into some of his "fellow" Republicans. Also he noted that he'll be voting Democrat in the upcoming election.

From Crooks & Liars:

Charles Barkley appeared on The Situation Room to promote Barack Obama’s candidacy. As you may remember, Barkley was a very vocal Republican not that many years ago. Well, no more. Barkley’s disgust with the Republican Party was so palpable that Wolf Blitzer could only flounder to try to make it a little less vitriolic.

BARKLEY: Hey, I live in Arizona. I have got great respect for Senator McCain. Great respect. But I don’t like the way the Republicans are taking this country. Every time I hear the word “conservative,” it makes me sick to my stomach, because they’re really just fake Christians, as I call them. That’s all they are. But I just — I’m going to vote Democratic no matter what. [..]

BLITZER: All right. One quick point before I let you go. You used the phrase “fake Christians” for conservatives. Explain what you’re talking about.

BARKLEY: Well, I think they — they want to be judge and jury. Like, I’m for gay marriage. It’s none of my business if gay people want to get married. I’m pro-choice. And I think these Christians — first of all, they’re supposed to be — they’re not supposed to judge other people. But they’re the most hypocritical judge of people we have in this country. And it bugs the hell out of me. They act like their Christians. And they’re not forgiving at all.

BLITZER: So you’re going to get a lot of feedback on this one, Charles.

BARKLEY: They can’t do anything to me. I don’t work for them.

Exposing Bush and the Repubs on FISA: two short quotes

2008-02-16T11:05:00.003-05:00

Firedoglake recently highlighted these two short but sweet quotes that help expose just how much hot air President Bush is blowing on this renewing-FISA nonsense:

Keith Olbermann's special comment on FISA last night had so much to love, but my favorite part was the quote from Ted Kennedy:

The President has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA. But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retroactive immunity. No immunity, no new FISA bill. So if we take the President at his word, he is willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies.

Bookends nicely with John Conyers:

A lot's been said about what some call 'patriotic phone companies.' Are these the same companies that cut off the FBI FISA wiretaps because the FBI hadn't paid its phone bill? This is breaking news.

The arguments being made in defense of granting retroactive telecom immunity are ludicrous, and yet -- they make them.

(Sign the petition to tell the House to stand strong on FISA here)

Intelligent discourse on U.S. Taxes, by Erza Klein

2008-02-14T22:49:00.003-05:00

Erza Klein had some interesting thoughts recently on the Tax Debate and its place in the presidential race:

The tendency to speak of taxes as an unpleasant surcharge exacted for the government and spent on...well...who knows, is poisonous. Within that mindset, folks probably prefer if you take the cash from the rich and not from them...It's worth it to have effective responses to natural disasters, worth it to have a modern national infrastructure, worth it to have national health care, worth it to have more than one safety inspector examining Chinese goods, worth it to invest in medical and scientific research, worth it to enact universal pre-kindergarten. Indeed, many of these priorities are not only worth the cost, but they're actually good investments. They're a damn good deal. And Democrats need to grow comfortable making that case. The Republicans have succeeded in moving the tax debate onto grounds of "who pays," and "how much." Democrats need to remember to ask, "what for," and "what if we don't?"

Hot air from Republicans on Bush's runaway spending

2008-02-14T22:46:00.000-05:00

Writes Paul Krugman:

A [good indicator of Bush's spending] is spending as a percentage of GDP. And this has increased, from 18.5% in fiscal 2001 to 20% in fiscal 2007.

But where did that increase come from? Three words: defense, Medicare, Medicaid. That’s the whole story. Defense up from 3 to 4% of GDP; Medicare and Medicaid up from 3.4% to 4.6%, partially offset by increased payments for Part B and stuff. Aside from that, there’s been no major movement.

Behind these increases are the obvious things: the war McCain wants to fight for the next century, the general issue of excess cost growth in health care, and the prescription drug benefit.

So the next time Mr. McCain or anyone else promises to rein in runaway spending, they should be asked which of these things they intend to reverse. Are they talking about pulling out of Iraq? Denying seniors the latest medical treatments? Canceling the drug benefit? If not, what are they talking about?

John McCain was against torture before he was for it

2008-02-09T09:50:00.000-05:00

Writes JB at Balkanization:

The White House has now admitted that the United States has waterboarded, that President Bush believes the practice is not torture, and that it violates neither the anti-torture statute, the McCain Amendment (which you sponsored) nor the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (which you voted for).

Will you condemn the White House for its latest admission? Will you say to the President what you said to Rudy Giuliani back in October?

"All I can say is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it is being used against Buddhist monks today," Mr. McCain, who spent more than five years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, said in a telephone interview.

Of presidential candidates like Mr. Giuliani, who say that they are unsure whether waterboarding is torture, Mr. McCain said: "They should know what it is. It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture."

And if that is so, Senator McCain, do you agree that the Administration is subject to criminal liability under the torture statute and the War Crimes statute? Do you agree that the United States, under the leadership of George W. Bush, has committed war crimes and has stated that it sees no obstacle to doing so again?

The country awaits your answer.

Posted 2:34 PM by JB [link]

Rebels advance on Chad capital, regional crisis expands

2008-02-03T11:30:00.000-05:00

click to enlarge

Over the past few days the major news outlets have been reporting on a scary development in East Africa: the government of Idriss Deby is increasingly threatened as a coalition of rebels advances on the Chadian capital, N'Djamena. Deby isn't the most democratic of leaders in Africa. He rose to power in a coup in 1990. For a long time Chad has been very poor and as with countries like this, rumors of corruption and abuse dog Deby. Deby's power has been threatened periodically through the years, and this latest crisis just may be the most serious yet.

I don't know enough about Deby and Chad to say whether it's a good thing or a bad thing for him to be removed from power. But what I can say is that political turmoil in Chad is fueled in part by the horrible 'conflict' just across the border in Darfur, Sudan (see map above). Similarly, the conflict in Darfur is made all the worse by political instability and insurgency from Chad. One of the main ethnic groups being assaulted in Darfur is the Zaghawa, from which Deby himself hails. Part of the coalition of rebels advancing on the capital are directly related to Deby and claim he isn't doing enough to help the victims in Darfur.

The history of Chad and Sudan is complicated and has been intertwined for decades (or centuries). In Sudan, northern ethnic groups who fancy themselves "ethnically Arab" hold power and have generally been oppressive of "African" tribes (although both groups are far more ethnically related than either cares to admit). In Chad you have the opposite, Deby comes from an "African" tribe and has held power for some time. Both nations have spent decades fighting their own respective rebellions, and both have accused the other of supporting the respective insurgencies.

Recently tensions between the two countries have been cooled. However the cross-border ethnic relationships and political instability in both countries have meant that things are never particularly stable. The Chad/Sudan region is a bit of a pressure cooker and a development or change of status quo in one area almost always has repercussions across the border.

The developments in Chad are themselves very important. But the broader ramifications are significant as well. If Deby's government falls, what does it mean for the people of Darfur, or the ethnic groups such as the Zaghawa which are divided in half by an arbitrarily decided national boundary? What will this mean for Sudan and the ugly government of "president" Omar Al-Bashir?

Observers and commentators on the genocide in Darfur have long warned that wider instability and suffering in the region is a possibility. The complex ethnic, military and political relationships that exist between these two, and other, nations mean that these conflicts could easily explode into wide regional crisis, which would mean suffering and death for the common civilians on an even larger scale.

Stay tuned.

Krugman reflects on our broken political discourse, again

2008-02-01T07:49:00.000-05:00

I couldn't agree more with this old blog post from Paul Krugman of the NYTs. Given the urgent necessity of intelligent dialogue during the upcoming presidential race, our state of affairs is even sadder than usual.

November 21, 2007, 7:35 pm
A thought about political discourse

A meta-thought inspired by the Social Security craziness:

Faced with a major public issue, such as the future of Social Security, one might think that the crucial thing would be to ascertain the facts. If I say “there is no crisis,” and you think there is, well, produce the evidence that shows that my arithmetic is wrong — not something I once said that you think proves that I’ve changed my mind. Making this a game of gotcha is just childish.

But here’s the thing: this childishness infects a lot of political discourse. Think about what passes for a “tough” question on the Sunday talk shows. It’s not “Senator Bomfog — you say X, but the statistics show that it’s actually Y. How can you explain this discrepancy?” In fact, I’ve never seen that happen. In political reporting, being wrong means, at most, that your claims are “in dispute.”

No, what actually passes for “tough” questioning is “Senator Bomfog, you say X but last year you said Y. Aren’t you flip-flopping?”

Like I said, it’s childish — and destructive.

The Democratic Race

2008-01-26T11:27:00.000-05:00

I've taken my time deciding which Democrat I support. This passage from an excellent post (on an excellent blog, Edge of the American West) accurately reflects why I prefer Obama, but would support Hillary and John Edwards too.

It gets harder to remain neutral on Hillary.

January 25, 2008
by ari

Until now, I’ve done my very best not to pass judgement on Hillary Clinton. And I’m still trying. I really (strain) am. But it’s getting harder every day.

On the one hand, I lurve the idea of a woman in the White House. Is that stupid? I don’t know. And I don’t care. People decide to vote for a candidate for any number of unknown and irrational reasons. That I relish the thought of my sons growing up in a country in which a woman demonstrably can be president hardly seems like the worst one on such a varied list. Plus, everything from this primary season suggests to me that Hillary is highly skilled, incredibly smart, and likely not to destroy the nation. At least not on purpose. And on top of all of that, the misogyny that underlies so much of the anti-Hillary coverage drives me right into her arms.

On the other hand, I believe that the country badly needs change. Now. As I suggested a long time ago — back when this blog was just emerging from the primordial ooze — no matter what Paul Krugman claims, I don’t see Hillary as anything like the change candidate in this race. Why? Because you can’t be for change if you represent stasis. Hillary, I’m afraid, is the very embodiment of Democratic stasis: the same stale cultural debates that I trace back to the Vietnam era; a deep indebtedness to monied interests; and a stake in her husband’s policies — both for better and for worse — as well as, in some cases, those of the seated president. Unless I’m missing something, there’s not much change there...

The U.S. & Iranian Navy debacle

2008-01-21T01:36:00.000-05:00

Read how a relatively run-of-the-mill encounter was manufactured into a "threat to world peace". And by coincidence, this "crisis" occurred on the eve of President Bush's trip through the Middle East on which he hoped to drum up support for his frightening desire to start a war with Iran.

This "crisis" with Iran happened during Bush's trip by coincidence. Definitely coincidence.

I'm still waiting for the mainstream media to give honest perspective on this manufactured crisis.

Still waiting...

How the Pentagon planted a false story
By Gareth Porter
Middle East
Jan 17, 2008

WASHINGTON - Senior Pentagon officials, evidently reflecting a broader administration policy decision, used an off-the-record Pentagon briefing to turn the January 6 US-Iranian incident in the Strait of Hormuz into a sensational story demonstrating Iran's military aggressiveness, a reconstruction of the events following the incident shows...

...A Pentagon consultant who asked not to be identified told IPS he had spoken with officers who had experienced similar encounters with small Iranian boats throughout the 1990s, and that such incidents are "just not a major threat to the US Navy by any stretch of the imagination".

"Surge to nowhere"

2008-01-21T01:28:00.001-05:00

A very interesting take on the current media narrative that "The Surge Is Working"...

Surge to Nowhere
Don't buy the hawks' hype. The war may be off the front pages, but Iraq is broken beyond repair, and we still own it.
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Sunday, January 20, 2008; Page B01

An important question the Neocons refuse to deal with regarding Iran:

2008-01-10T07:46:00.000-05:00

"If the regionally ascendant Islamic Iran, with or without an actual bomb, is here to stay, would U.S. interests in the region be better served through a friendlier, even if not trouble free, relationship with it, or further antagonism that pushes Iran to act as a spoiler in the region and look for tactical and strategic alliances to the East to counter to American belligerence?"

-Farideh Farhi, on Informed Comment: Global Affairs (a great blog)

Even civilian rule has hurt Pakistan

2008-01-08T07:49:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend the NYT's Week in Review section ran an interesting overview of Pakistan's troubled history since the partition from India in 1947. Pakistan's had its share of military dictators. But as this article points out, some of the 'democratically' elected representatives have been as corrupt or violent as some of the military dictators, if not worse.

Ghosts That Haunt Pakistan
By John F. Burns
Published: January 6, 2008
The New York Times

On Benazir Bhutto's tragic death in Pakistan last week

2008-01-05T11:32:00.000-05:00

In my opinion what happened to Bhutto is tragic. Murder is sad no matter what the situation. However I fear that many observers are turning her into some kind of posthumous martyr/would-be-savior for Pakistan. And that is not entirely accurate. Bhutto's previous tenure in Pakistan was as rife with corruption and murder as any common dictatorship.

Writes William Dalrymple in last week's NYTs:

Benazir Bhutto’s death is, of course, a calamity, particularly as she embodied the hopes of so many liberal Pakistanis. But, contrary to the commentary we’ve seen in the last week, she was not comparable to Myanmar’s Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Ms. Bhutto’s governments were widely criticized by Amnesty International and other groups for their use of death squads and terrible record on deaths in police custody, abductions and torture. As for her democratic bona fides, she had no qualms about banning rallies by opposing political parties while in power.

Within her own party, she declared herself the president for life and controlled all decisions. She rejected her brother Murtaza’s bid to challenge her for its leadership and when he persisted, he was shot dead in highly suspicious circumstances during a police ambush outside the Bhutto family home.

Benazir Bhutto was certainly a brave and secular-minded woman. But the obituaries painting her as dying to save democracy distort history. Instead, she was a natural autocrat who did little for human rights, a calculating politician who was complicit in Pakistan’s becoming the region’s principal jihadi paymaster while she also ramped up an insurgency in Kashmir that has brought two nuclear powers to the brink of war.

Greenwald & the U.S. "defense" budget (part II)

2008-01-04T23:49:00.000-05:00

(Click here for Part I)

On the topic of our bloated defense budget and the excessive state of our military spending, my man Glenn Greenwald writes:

The complete absurdity of this state of affairs is self-evident, but is also acutely highlighted by this revealing statistic:

The US military budget was almost 29 times as large as the combined spending of the six "rogue" states (Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) who spent $14.65 billion.

In indisputable sum, we are the world's empire, in a state of permanent war readiness. In American politics and policy, there is no distinction between "peacetime" and "war." We're the most militarized country in the world by far, on permanent war footing, far beyond what anyone could ever remotely argue is necessary for "defense" or a "strong defense," no matter how broad a definition one wants to adopt for those terms.

Our permanent war culture not only means that we fight far more wars than anyone else, with far less of a threat required to trigger such wars, though that is true. It is also the case that the opportunity costs for this state of affairs are enormous...

Beyond that, it's been evident for some time that the country simply can't afford to sustain any of this.

Greenwald & the U.S. "defense" budget (part I)

2008-01-04T23:42:00.000-05:00

Here is a really fascinating chart from a recent Glenn Greenwald post showing how American taxpayer money is spent.

41% of our taxes are spent on "defense"!! The next closest category is Health Research & Services at 19%. The rest of the categories (such as social programs, science & energy, and general govt) all come in at 12% or less.

Is the military really what 41% of our taxes should be going towards? Really?

Like I Said: Middle East Extremism is not an existential threat to our existence

2007-12-21T14:11:00.001-05:00

So agrees Richard Armitage, former Bush Administration official, on CNN, via Crooks and Liars:

BLITZER: Are you suggesting that the “War on Terror” is not the central component of U.S. policy right now?

ARMITAGE: There’s two different things. I’m suggesting that it perhaps shouldn’t be. The fact that we make a war on “terror”–which I think is a bit of a misnomer—perhaps it should be a war on extremism, certainly Islamic extremism right now—is keeping us from focusing on other issues, both domestic and international. Look, these terrorists want to hurt us; they’re a real and growing threat. But absent the availability of WMDs to them, they don’t pose an existential threat to us. This is not like fascism during the second world war or communism. The threat they pose to us is whether we in response to their activities will actually do harm to ourselves by changing our way of life, by suspending writs of habeas corpus and by engaging in such activities as torture.

A shocking new idea is taking hold America: a bunch of disconnected radicals without a national safe haven, let alone an organized army, is simply not capable of destroying the United States. Perhaps Bush, Cheney, Giuliani and Podhoretz should adjust their priorities as such.

idealist.org

2007-12-14T22:25:00.001-05:00

I went to a really cool event this week at the Art Directors Club of NY. It was called Designism 2.0 and its theme was helping designers get involved in activism and the world around them.

There were fascinating panels. One involved younger designers, and another involved legends in the field such as Milton Glaser. It was a very inspiring, uplifting and fascinating evening. There are amazing ways designers are getting involved. One such way is through idealist.org.

I had never heard of this site before, but it connects people throughout the world who are interested in a specific cause, or who are looking for a cause or organization to help. It's a very cool site, I encourage you to check it out.

Meet Iran's real leader.

2007-12-09T10:11:00.000-05:00

Since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's death in 1989, the real power in Tehran has belonged to Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad makes the noise, but Khamenei pulls the strings.

In a very informative op-ed piece in the WP today, that is how Vali Nasr described the true power structure in Iran. As conservative hawks such as Cheney, Bush and Bolton try to rush us into another disastrous war of choice, this time with Iran, it is important to know as much as possible about the country they want to attack. Today, Nasr gives an important overview of a key fact about the Iranian political structure. A fact which Bush and Cheney are largely in denial about: President Ahmadinejad is slightly more than a mere figurehead. The true power lies with Khamenei.

Meet 'The Decider' of Tehran. It's Not the Hothead You Expect
By Vali Nasr
The Washington Post
Sunday, December 9, 2007; Page B01

What the President knew

2007-12-04T21:13:00.000-05:00

By Tim Grieve at salon.com

What the president knew
Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2007 07:10 EST

What you need to know about the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran: George W. Bush was first told in August or September that "fresh intelligence" suggested that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

Yes, that was before Bush said that he took "the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously," and that the best way to prevent "World War III" would be to prevent the Iranians from obtaining the "knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

It was before Condoleezza Rice said Iran is "pursuing nuclear technologies that can lead to nuclear weapons-grade material."

It was before Dick Cheney said that the United States should "reach for any tool that's available" -- including the "possible use of military force" -- to "discourage the Iranians from enriching uranium and producing nuclear weapons."

It was before Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the United States should "have no illusions about the nature of [the Iranian] regime or its leaders -- about their designs for their nuclear program, their willingness to live up to their rhetoric, their intentions for Iraq, or their ambitions in the Gulf."

It was before Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said of the Iranians: "We are convinced that they are developing nuclear weapons."

It was, however, four years after the Bush administration started a different war based on similarly false and misleading claims.

― Tim Grieve

Health Care Excuses, by Paul Krugman

2007-12-01T11:05:00.001-05:00

Paul Krugman recently wrote a very handy quick guide to all the excuses (and falsehoods) that conservatives trot out to oppose universal or single-payer health care. In fact, it seems conservative ideologues oppose health care reform of any kind. Despite the fact that Americans spend more money, and get less care per dollar spent, than any Western nation on Earth.

You read that right: we have the most expensive, least efficient health care system of any rich country in the world. God bless our free market system. The market solves all!

Health Care Excuses
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: November 9, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
The New York Times

The United States spends far more on health care per person than any other nation. Yet we have lower life expectancy than most other rich countries. Furthermore, every other advanced country provides all its citizens with health insurance; only in America is a large fraction of the population uninsured or underinsured.

You might think that these facts would make the case for major reform of America’s health care system — reform that would involve, among other things, learning from other countries’ experience — irrefutable. Instead, however, apologists for the status quo offer a barrage of excuses for our system’s miserable performance.

So I thought it would be useful to offer a catalog of the most commonly heard apologies for American health care, and the reasons they won’t wash...

I encourage you to read the whole column here. (remember, the NYTs no longer requires a subscription to access their op-ed and archive columns.)

Students Protest Alberto Gonzales

2007-11-20T21:36:00.000-05:00

(h/t firedoglake)

Methinks this won't be the last time Alberto Gonzales faces protests at a speaking event. Gonzales is a disgrace to the country and I bet more than few Americans are truly embarrassed by what he stands for.

Some students at the University of Florida made their feelings known:

Protesters arrested at Gonzales speech
By DEVIN CULCLASURE, Alligator Writer
Tuesday, November 20, 2007 1:26 AM EST

In his first appearance at a university since resigning in August, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was met at UF on Monday with a mixture of cheers, boos and scattered interruptions by protesters, two of whom were arrested.

Gonzales, who resigned from his position after a controversial tenure, spoke to more than 800 people at the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.

During his prepared speech, Gonzales largely avoided discussing the controversies he faced in office, including his dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys.

Instead, he focused on encouraging students to consider a career in public service while describing his own experiences in that field.

About 15 minutes into his speech, two UF students, Richard Gutierrez and Kevin Hachey, climbed onto the stage wearing orange jumpsuits and black hoods on their heads.

University Police Department officers scrambled onto the stage to remove them.

Matthew Cox, an employee of the Phillips Center, wrestled with one protester on the far side of stage, grabbing his legs and pulling him down.

The other stood directly next to Gonzales, who calmly avoided looking in his direction.

As police took the protester away, Gonzales glanced in his direction before attempting to continue his speech while he waited for the raucous crowd to settle down after a few minutes.

A few more protesters climbed onto the stage.

Meanwhile, even more protesters stood up, removed shirts or jackets revealing yellow T-shirts that read "SHAME," and stood with their backs toward Gonzales.

They remained standing in their positions for the rest of the event.

Eventually, Gonzales continued his speech and then sat across from Henry Wihnyk, a UF law professor, for a question-and-answer session.

Wihnyk read students' questions, which had been written on index cards before and during Gonzales' speech.

During Gonzales' address, the self-described "son of a Mexican immigrant and cotton picker" said his life was evidence of the American dream.

"I love America for all that she has done for me," he said. "We are not perfect. Sometimes we stumble, but we always get up."

Gonzales said he was proud of his record and defended his work with President Bush, though there were missteps, he said.

Later, he ignored scattered jeers from the crowd to answer questions about his dismissal of the attorneys, the Geneva Convention and torture.

Despite what you hear, Giuliani is not a moderate

2007-11-14T21:52:00.000-05:00

Glenn Greenwald made an excellent point recently which is that because Giuliani is moderate on some social issues (abortion, gay marriage), he can safely be classified as a "moderate" candidate. Not so.

This whole "moderate" myth is grounded exclusively in Giuliani's non-doctrinaire views of social issues. But that's pure fallacy. Political ideology doesn't function like mathematics, where two numbers situated on opposite extreme poles can be averaged together to produce a nice, comfortable number in the middle.

That isn't how political ideology works. A warmonger with authoritarian impulses and liberal positions on social issues isn't a "moderate" or a "centrist." He's just a warmonger with authoritarian impulses and liberal positions on social issues.

Greenwald sums up how Giuliani can more accurately be viewed:

But even if he were Noam Chomsky on social issues, the term "moderate" would be the least accurate term for Giuliani. He has one of the most extremist and war-loving foreign policy teams ever assembled for a major candidate. He has advocated or expressed openness to such radical policies as imprisoning American citizens with no trials, having Israel join NATO, and launching a first-strike tactical nuclear attack on Iran. And he speaks more glibly than virtually any individual in the country about torture.

Fareed Zakaria: Still A Voice of Reason on Iran

2007-11-11T10:38:00.000-05:00

I've written about Fareed Zakaria before. He's one of my favorite political commentators and writers. He's an Iranian American who's an editor at Newsweek Magazine and a frequent guest on the Daily Show. As the Iran Issue becomes of great and greater importance, I find myself looking to Zakaria with increasing frequency as a voice of reason.

Recently Zakaria debated Neil Podhoretz on PBS' Newshour. Podhoretz is the godfather of neoconservativism, he's also the central foreign policy adviser to Rudy Giuliani. Few voices are more extreme and more passionate in favor of yet another war of choice in the Middle East, this time with Iran, as Podhoretz. Podhoretz and his ilk remind me of the various chicken littles who during the Cold War screamed at the top of their lungs that if we didn't nuke Russia immediately, we would all be annhilited or overrun by the Commies. Podhoretz is a disaster and he's one of the main reasons I think Rudy Giuliani is, by far, the one candidate I fear most as far as the safety of the known universe is concerned.

Anyway, The Carpetbagger Report recently recapped Zakaria and Podhoretz's excellent debate. Who won? Read/watch for yourself...

Connecting 2007 Iran to 1933 Germany
Posted October 30th, 2007 at 1:25 pm

Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria recently had a terrific piece on the right’s foolish desire to attack Iran: “Iran has an economy the size of Finland’s and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century…. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?”

Commentary Magazine editor Norman Podhoretz, meanwhile, is desperately trying to convince the president and the rest of the country to invade Iran as soon as humanly possible.

They discussed the issue together last night on PBS’s Newshour. It didn’t go well.

Zakaria tried reason…

“We have a policy that we understand, which is containment plus deterrence. We’re using sanctions. We’re using a kind of anti-Iranian alliance mechanism in the Middle East, which has become quite successful, by the way. We have isolated Iran.

“Time is not on their side; time is on our side. I think that the onus surely must be on the other side to explain to us why, because Iran might gain the knowledge to make nuclear weapons in the next three to five to eight years, we should launch a unilateral American invasion.”

…and Podhoretz didn’t.

“I want to say that I think the attitude expressed by Fareed Zakaria represents an irresponsible complacency that I think is comparable to the denial in the early ’30s of the intentions of Hitler that led to what Churchill called an unnecessary war involving millions and millions of deaths that might have been averted if the West had acted early enough.”

It’s even worse watching the video.

Zakaria did his level best, noting that Iran has “followed a pretty rational, national interest-oriented foreign policy” for 30 years, is opposed to al Qaeda, opposed to the Taliban, and is easily deterred by Israel’s 200 nuclear weapons, “including a second strike capacity on submarines.”

But it wasn’t to be. Zakaria is Chamberlain, Ahmadinejad is Hitler, Podhoretz is Churchill, and the interview was painful.

Keep in mind, Zakaria would fairly be characterized as a center-right pundit. Indeed, as Josh Marshall noted, “It’s perhaps an apt commentary on the rightward, lunatic turn of this country’s foreign policy that Fareed is taking what I guess must be called the left (?) in this debate.” The cliche about reality having a liberal bias continues to be surprisingly apt.

Podhoretz referenced Hitler and 1930s Germany repeatedly last night, prompting Marshall to add what should be obvious.

It’s almost an insult to what the world faced in the late 1930s. Germany, industrial powerhouse, with arguably the most powerful army in the world, at the forefront of technology, overawing and invading neighboring countries. Iran, minor economic power, second or third-rate military power, which may get a couple of small nuclear-weapons compared to the couple hundred high-end nuclear warheads in Israel’s arsenal (plus, a robust second strike capacity, as Fareed notes) and the many thousands we have — and our blue water navy, satellites, air force. Please. Time’s running out for us? We’re going to look back on this fifty years from now and see the non-podhoretz-loons as the Chamberlains of the day? I don’t know what to say.

I know the feeling.

Of course, it’s important to remember, Podhoretz is not just some random nut, popping off on a right-wing blog. He’s Rudy Giuliani’s chief foreign policy advisor. Indeed, Podhoretz recently boasted, “As far as I can tell there is very little difference in how he sees the war and how I see it.”

Be afraid.

Hidden Costs of the Iraq Fiasco: An excerpt from "Blind Into Baghdad"

2007-11-06T20:05:00.000-05:00

Blind Into Baghdad is an excellent book by James Fallows. Published in 2006, it is originally comprised of a series of articles Fallows wrote for Atlantic Monthly chronicling the lead-up to and execution of the Iraq War by the Bush Administration. It is required reading for anyone who wants details of what exactly the Bush Administration did (and worse, didn't do) in invading Iraq. Below, I would like to share with you a passage I recently read which points out the horrible consequences of the way the Iraq War hemorrhages American tax dollars.

But hey, at least the Iraq War is making us safer, right?

Because of outlays for Iraq, the United States cannot spend $150 billion for other defensive purposes. Some nine million shipping containers enter American ports each year; only 2 percent of them are physically inspected, because inspecting more would be too expensive. The Department of Homeland Security, created after 9/11, is a vast grab bag of federal agencies, from the Coast Guard to the Border Patrol to the former Immigration and Naturalization Service; on-going operations in Iraq cost significantly more each month than all Homeland Security expenses combined. The department has sought to help cities large and small to improve their "first responder" systems, especially with better communications for their fire and emergency medical services. This summer a survey by the U.S. Conference of Mayors found that fewer than a quarter of 231 major cities under review had received any of the aid they expected. An internal budget memo from the administration was leaked this past spring. It said that outlays for virtually all domestic programs, including homeland security, would have to be cut in 2005–and the federal budget deficit would still be more than $450 billion.

Worst of all, the government-wide effort to wage war in Iraq crowded out efforts to design a broader strategy against Islamic extremists and terrorists; to this day the administration has articulated no comprehensive long-term plan. It dismissed out of hand any connection between policies toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and increasing tension with many Islamic states. Regime change in Iraq, it said, would have a sweeping symbolic effect on worldwide sources of terror. That seems to have been true–but in the opposite way from what the president intended. It is hard to find a counterterrorism specialist who thinks that the Iraq War has reduced rather than increased the threat to the United States.

And here is the startling part. There is no evidence that the president and those closest to him ever talked systematically about the "opportunity costs" and trade-offs in their decision to invade Iraq. No one has pointed to a meeting, a memo, a full set of discussions, about what America would gain and lose.

Pictures Capture the Killing In Darfur

2007-11-03T10:35:00.000-04:00

Pictures Capture the Killing In Darfur
By Jonathan Mummolo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 2, 2007; Page C01

He thought that by shooting the dead, he might keep others alive.

But former Marine captain and Loudoun Valley High School graduate Brian Steidle has found that using his photographs to rouse the public and government officials to address the violence in Darfur is not as simple as he once thought.

Armed only with a camera, Steidle toured the war-torn region of Sudan for six months in 2004 and 2005 with the African Union, the association of nations charged with monitoring -- but not enforcing -- a cease-fire in Darfur.

A documentary film chronicling his experience, "The Devil Came on Horseback," will be screened at Leesburg's Tally Ho Theatre from Friday through Sept. 13, and Steidle will be in attendance on opening night -- a sort of homecoming for the former Hillsboro resident who has become one of the foremost U.S. voices against the violence that international experts say has killed as many as 450,000 people and displaced 2.5 million.

As a sanctioned observer with the A.U., Steidle had access that no journalist could acquire in Darfur, watching firsthand as militia groups known as the Janjaweed cooperated with the Sudanese government in an extermination campaign -- a claim backed by human rights groups but denied by officials in the capital, Khartoum -- against African tribes and rebel groups that had taken up arms against the government in 2003.

Janjaweed means "devil on a horse."

"It's just ludicrous," Steidle said of Sudan's denials of working with the militias. "It's like saying the sky isn't blue."

After the frustration of not being able to protect victims became too much to bear -- combined with his reports not being released -- Steidle returned home in 2005, went public with his images and recollections via New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof, and has been on a whirlwind advocacy tour since. He has testified before Congress, met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and returned to neighboring Chad to help refugees from the conflict.

The film, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January, is a journey through the worst that human nature has to offer. The sharply melded collection of video and still images displays burned carcasses, butchered infants and testimonials by jaded and devastated refugees, many of whom have seen their families slaughtered.

The film also chronicles Steidle's initial hopefulness at his blitz of media appearances when he returned and follows him as he gives in to the realization that the evidence he had taken public had not spurred productive intervention.

"I thought that if you showed these things, people are going to be empowered, they're going to be totally amazed these things are going on," said Steidle, 30, who lives in Los Angeles. "What came about was people kind of shrugged their shoulders, rolled their eyes and said, 'Yeah, it's a terrible situation.' Not everybody, but a lot of people. . . . Somebody told me once after a Q and A that if Anna Nicole Smith had just died in Darfur, maybe we'd hear about it."

But Steidle has not lost hope. He said he is encouraged by news that a 26,000-member U.N.-A.U. peacekeeping force could be in Darfur by the end of the year.
Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), who led the first congressional delegation to Darfur along with Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) in 2004, said he is skeptical of whether that plan will come to fruition.

"Every time it gets close, they seem to move the goal post," said Wolf of the Sudanese government. "They agree to certain things, the world takes its focus off and then they slip out of it."

Full text here.

Middle East fanatics are simply not the greatest threat we've ever faced.

2007-10-31T18:53:00.000-04:00

And they never will be...

Here's a dose of reality from Paul Krugman, via The Carpetbagger Report

Krugman: No such thing as Islamofascism
Posted October 29th, 2007 at 4:45 pm

I suspect David Horowitz will be very disappointed to hear it, but Paul Krugman explains that Islamofascism isn’t a real phenomenon.

[T]here isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism — it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 — in fact, the Iranian regime was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.

Beyond that, the claim that Iran is on the path to global domination is beyond ludicrous. Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons. But let’s have some perspective, please: we’re talking about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden’s.

Mr. Podhoretz, in short, is engaging in what my relatives call crazy talk. Yet he is being treated with respect by the front-runner for the G.O.P. nomination. And Mr. Podhoretz’s rants are, if anything, saner than some of what we’ve been hearing from some of Mr. Giuliani’s rivals.

Krugman goes on to skewer Mitt Romney’s ad about the threat of a “single jihadist Caliphate,” which doesn’t really make any sense, before turning his attention to Mike Huckabee’s recent assertion that “Islamofascism” is the “greatest threat this country’s ever faced.”

Responded Krugman, “Yep, a bunch of lightly armed terrorists and a fourth-rate military power — which aren’t even allies — pose a greater danger than Hitler’s panzers or the Soviet nuclear arsenal ever did. All of this would be funny if it weren’t so serious.”

The point, of course, isn’t to argue that America doesn’t have dangerous enemies; we do. It’s just that the politics of fear can lead to a certain unhealthy hysteria, which leads to even more unhealthy policy proposals — such as attacking Iran.

In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration adopted fear-mongering as a political strategy. Instead of treating the attack as what it was — an atrocity committed by a fundamentally weak, though ruthless adversary — the administration portrayed America as a nation under threat from every direction.

Most Americans have now regained their balance. But the Republican base, which lapped up the administration’s rhetoric about the axis of evil and the war on terror, remains infected by the fear the Bushies stirred up — perhaps because fear of terrorists maps so easily into the base’s older fears, including fear of dark-skinned people in general.

And the base is looking for a candidate who shares this fear.

Just to be clear, Al Qaeda is a real threat, and so is the Iranian nuclear program. But neither of these threats frightens me as much as fear itself — the unreasoning fear that has taken over one of America’s two great political parties.

Well said.

Only fools believed George W. Bush...

2007-10-28T12:18:00.000-04:00

...when he said that he had exhausted all diplomatic options leading up to the Iraq War. But in case you want further proof that our President and Vice President were hellbent on starting one of the worst foreign policy blunders in American history, here it is.

From El Pais, a newspaper in Spain, via Harper's, via Activate, here are exerpts of a discussion between GW Bush and then-Prime Minister of Spain Jose Maria Aznar. It kind of says all you need to know...

[Condoleezza Rice has just described the diplomatic situation to Bush and Aznar, explaining that Iraq is continuing to insist that it has no weapons of mass destruction.]

Bush: This is like Chinese water torture. We have to put an end to it.

Aznar: I agree, but it would be best to have as much support as possible. Have a little patience.

Bush: My patience has ended. I’m not thinking of waiting beyond mid-March.

Aznar: ’m not asking that you have endless patience. Simply that everything is done to [have maximum international support].

Bush: Countries like Mexico, Chile, Angola, and Cameroon should know that what’s at stake is the security of the United States . . . [Chilean President Ricardo] Lagos should know that the Free Trade Accord with Chile is awaiting Senate confirmation and a negative attitude about this could put ratification in danger. Angola is receiving Millennium Account funds [to help alleviate poverty] and that could be jeopardized also if he’s not supportive…

Aznar: Tony [Blair] wants to wait until March 14.

Bush: I prefer the 10th. This is like a good cop, bad cop routine. I don’t care if I’m the bad cop and he’s the good cop.

One woman's take on Rudy Giuliani

2007-10-25T18:54:00.000-04:00

(h/t The Washington Note)

Writes Rachel Morris in her story, "Rudy Awakening", in Washington Monthly:

Many Giuliani watchers already understand that Rudy is a hothead and a grandstander, even a bit of a dictator at times. These qualities have dominated the story of his mayoralty that most people know. As that drama was unfolding, however, so was a quieter story, driven by Giuliani's instinct and capacity for manipulating the levers of government.

His methods, like those of the current White House, included appointments of yes-men, aggressive tests of legal limits, strategic lawbreaking, resistance to oversight, and obsessive secrecy.

As was also the case with the White House, the events of 9/11 solidified the mindset underlying his worst tendencies. Embedded in his operating style is a belief that rules don't apply to him, and a ruthless gift for exploiting the intrinsic weaknesses in the system of checks and balances.

That's why, of all the presidential candidates, Giuliani is most likely to take the expansions of the executive branch made by the Bush administration and push them further still. The blueprint can be found in the often-overlooked corners of his mayoralty.

After Review of Iraq Security, State Dept. Official Quits

2007-10-24T21:22:00.000-04:00

After Review of Iraq Security, State Dept. Official Quits
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post
Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Richard J. Griffin, the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, resigned today after a scathing review of security in Iraq that criticized the supervision of private contractors there and recommended changes in the way diplomats are protected.

Griffin, a former Department of Veterans Affairs and Secret Service official who held the security job for two years, announced his departure this morning at a staff meeting. He is expected to leave office by Nov. 1.

In a memorandum to President Bush dated today, Griffin gave no reason for his departure, saying only that he would "move on to new challenges." Saying that Diplomatic Security (DS) agents "serve on the front lines of the Global War on Terror" Griffin wrote that the State Department could "not possibly carry out its foreign policy mission" without them.

A State Department announcement said Gregory B. Starr, a career DS official who served as Griffin's deputy, would take over as acting head of the office.

Upheaval in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security began with the Sept. 16 deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians, who were shot by guards working for Blackwater USA. Blackwater is one of three private U.S. companies employed under State Department contracts to protect U.S. diplomats and other civilian officials in Iraq.

Following the shootings, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice named a commission to review State's security operations in Iraq. It examined whether the proper regulations and oversight were in place, whether contractors were following rules, and what types of changes should be made.

Its key finding, in a report released yesterday, was that "prompt measures should be taken to strengthen the coordination, oversight and accountability aspects of the State Department's security practices in Iraq in order to reduce the likelihood that future incidents will occur that adversely affect the overall U.S. mission in Iraq."

The panel appointed by Rice found that the U.S. Embassy lacks sufficient guidelines for the use of deadly force and for investigating incidents resulting from such force.

Rice adopted 19 of the panel's recommendations, including the need for improvements in communication among the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, U.S. military forces and the Iraqi government. She also endorsed a new structure to quickly collect evidence on use of force by contractors and determine whether it was justified.

The Sept. 16 shootings are under investigation by an FBI team in Iraq for possible criminal prosecution. The Iraqi government has asked that Blackwater's nearly 900 personal security guards be ejected from the country.

Reality Check: Iran might not be a giant, hulking threat to civilization

2007-10-23T18:18:00.000-04:00

Writes Fareed Zakaria (h/t carpetbagger report):

The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism." For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?

Zakaria is a frequent guest on the Daily Show, and I always enjoy hearing him speak. I encourage you to read his full column here.

R.I.P. Lucky Dube, reggae star of South Africa

2007-10-22T21:51:00.000-04:00

Lucky Dube is one of the greatest African musicians of all time. In his senseless murder we lose a truly great man and musician. Crime in South Africa is almost incomprehensibly high. What South Africa needs is not a crime crackdown, but rather a war on poverty and unemployment.

Shock at SA reggae star shooting
BBC NEWS

Fans across the world are mourning the South African reggae star, Lucky Dube, who has been shot dead.

He was dropping his teenage son and daughter off in a Johannesburg suburb when he was attacked by car thieves.

Local radio stations have been flooded with tearful callers expressing outrage at the murder and renewing demands that the authorities act to curtail crime.

South Africa's leader paid tribute to him and called on people to "confront this terrible scourge of crime".

Alongside Bob Marley, Lucky Dube was thought of as one of the great reggae artists - singing about social problems.

He was also one of the apartheid regime's most outspoken critics.

'Freedom fighter'

Correspondents say the killing of the 43-year-old singer has shocked South Africans who are already accustomed to one of the highest murder rates in the world.

Music producer TK of TS records and a friend of Dube's told the BBC the killing was tragically ironic.

"The whole continent has lost a performer, musician, a guy that fought for freedom in his own way, in his own right, was just shot by some guy who wanted to take his car, you know, which is Mickey Mouse really," he said.

Opposition parties and the youth wing of the ruling African National Congress party have called on the government to take drastic measures against crime.

Callers to radio stations have urged the country's rugby team to show some form of respect when they take to the field in Saturday's World Cup final against England in Paris.

President Thabo Mbeki is attending the final and took time to pay tribute to the dreadlocked reggae star before he jetted off to France.

"It's indeed very very sad that this happens to an outstanding South African, an outstanding musician - world renowned," he said.

"We shall continue to act together as a people to confront this terrible scourge of crime, which has taken the lives of too many of our people - and does so every day."

The BBC's Mpho Lakaje in Johannesburg says police are still hunting for three men thought to be behind the attack.

Police say Dube's son and daughter were already out of the car when three shots were fired through the car window killing their father on Thursday evening in Rosettenville.

Witnesses say the wounded singer tried to drive away, but lost control of his car and hit a tree.

"He was declared dead on the scene," Police inspector Lorrain Van Immareck told the BBC.

'Big blow'

The BBC has been inundated with thousands of text and email messages paying tribute to the singer.

"I am a 27-year-old black South African girl. I have dreadlocks and I love reggae music so much and I am proud to be who I am, being black and African. I will miss Lucky Dube, you are an inspiration to many of us," Sbongile Diko in Durban wrote.

But the tributes have been worldwide - especially from Africa.

"Lucky filled up stadiums all over the continent. I would say he was far bigger outside South Africa then he was in South Africa," South African music journalist Peter Makurube told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

Dube began his career by singing mbaqanga (traditional Zulu) music and recorded his first album with the Super Soul band in 1982.

He later moved into reggae, producing Rastas Never Die which was banned by the apartheid government.

His albums Slave, Prisoner and Together As One saw him gain first national, and then global, recognition.

Three years ago his 1989 anti-apartheid hit Together as One, which calls for world peace and harmony, was voted one of Africa's top 10 songs by BBC readers and listeners.

Lucky Dube released his most recent album, Respect, in April.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7052050.stm

Published: 2007/10/19 16:38:17 GMT

© BBC MMVII

For the BBC report, click here.

Surely Thomas Friedman isn't as ignorant as GW Bush?

2007-10-21T11:07:00.000-04:00

In the New York Times, Friedman recently wrote (h/t atrios):

One of the most troubling lessons of the Iraq invasion is just how empty the Arab dictatorships are. Once you break the palace, by ousting the dictator, the elevator goes straight to the mosque. There is nothing in between — no civil society, no real labor unions, no real human rights groups, no real parliaments or press. So it is not surprising to see the sort of clerical leadership that has emerged in both the Sunni and Shiite areas of Iraq.

Um, excuse me? This was a lesson learned in Iraq? The only people to whom this was a lesson were ignorant and bloodthirsty neocons like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith and Wolfowitz. (And perhaps ignorant columnists like Friedman too.)

Prior to the invasion of Iraq any and every scholar or expert on Iraq was shouting from the roof tops that if you removed Saddam, you would create chaos and a vacuum that would likely be filled with extremists of all kinds.

But here we are, four years, 3500 deaths and 20,000 wounded later, and Freidman is just now learning this lesson.

The ignorance and incompetence of the pro-war and pro-surge camp is simply stunning sometimes.

But hey, Iran is obnoxious, lets bomb them too! Father* knows best.

*Cheney/Bush and their media enablers

From the horse's mouth

2007-10-16T21:33:00.000-04:00

This is an extremely important op-ed piece that appears in today's Washington Post. To call it a sobering view of Iraq would be a gross understatement. It is written by 12 former Army captains:

The Real Iraq We Knew
By 12 former Army captains
Tuesday, October 16, 2007; 12:00 AM
The Washington Post

Today marks five years since the authorization of military force in Iraq, setting Operation Iraqi Freedom in motion. Five years on, the Iraq war is as undermanned and under-resourced as it was from the start. And, five years on, Iraq is in shambles.

As Army captains who served in Baghdad and beyond, we've seen the corruption and the sectarian division. We understand what it's like to be stretched too thin. And we know when it's time to get out.

What does Iraq look like on the ground? It's certainly far from being a modern, self-sustaining country. Many roads, bridges, schools and hospitals are in deplorable condition. Fewer people have access to drinking water or sewage systems than before the war. And Baghdad is averaging less than eight hours of electricity a day.

Iraq's institutional infrastructure, too, is sorely wanting. Even if the Iraqis wanted to work together and accept the national identity foisted upon them in 1920s, the ministries do not have enough trained administrators or technicians to coordinate themselves. At the local level, most communities are still controlled by the same autocratic sheiks that ruled under Saddam. There is no reliable postal system. No effective banking system. No registration system to monitor the population and its needs.

The inability to govern is exacerbated at all levels by widespread corruption. Transparency International ranks Iraq as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. And, indeed, many of us witnessed the exploitation of U.S. tax dollars by Iraqi officials and military officers. Sabotage and graft have had a particularly deleterious impact on Iraq's oil industry, which still fails to produce the revenue that Pentagon war planners hoped would pay for Iraq's reconstruction. Yet holding people accountable has proved difficult. The first commissioner of a panel charged with preventing and investigating corruption resigned last month, citing pressure from the government and threats on his life.

Against this backdrop, the U.S. military has been trying in vain to hold the country together. Even with "the surge," we simply do not have enough soldiers and marines to meet the professed goals of clearing areas from insurgent control, holding them securely and building sustainable institutions. Though temporary reinforcing operations in places like Fallujah, An Najaf, Tal Afar, and now Baghdad may brief well on PowerPoint presentations, in practice they just push insurgents to another spot on the map and often strengthen the insurgents' cause by harassing locals to a point of swayed allegiances. Millions of Iraqis correctly recognize these actions for what they are and vote with their feet -- moving within Iraq or leaving the country entirely. Still, our colonels and generals keep holding on to flawed concepts.

U.S. forces, responsible for too many objectives and too much "battle space," are vulnerable targets. The sad inevitability of a protracted draw-down is further escalation of attacks -- on U.S. troops, civilian leaders and advisory teams. They would also no doubt get caught in the crossfire of the imminent Iraqi civil war.

Iraqi security forces would not be able to salvage the situation. Even if all the Iraqi military and police were properly trained, equipped and truly committed, their 346,000 personnel would be too few. As it is, Iraqi soldiers quit at will. The police are effectively controlled by militias. And, again, corruption is debilitating. U.S. tax dollars enrich self-serving generals and support the very elements that will battle each other after we're gone.

This is Operation Iraqi Freedom and the reality we experienced. This is what we tried to communicate up the chain of command. This is either what did not get passed on to our civilian leadership or what our civilian leaders chose to ignore. While our generals pursue a strategy dependent on peace breaking out, the Iraqis prepare for their war -- and our servicemen and women, and their families, continue to suffer.

There is one way we might be able to succeed in Iraq. To continue an operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately. A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition.

America, it has been five years. It's time to make a choice.

This column was written by 12 former Army captains: Jason Blindauer served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005. Elizabeth Bostwick served in Salah Ad Din and An Najaf in 2004. Jeffrey Bouldin served in Al Anbar, Baghdad and Ninevah in 2006. Jason Bugajski served in Diyala in 2004. Anton Kemps served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005. Kristy (Luken) McCormick served in Ninevah in 2003. Luis Carlos Montalván served in Anbar, Baghdad and Nineveh in 2003 and 2005. William Murphy served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005. Josh Rizzo served in Baghdad in 2006. William "Jamie" Ruehl served in Nineveh in 2004. Gregg Tharp served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005. Gary Williams served in Baghdad in 2003.

Original link here.

Beware the Media's Broken Coverage of the presidential race

2007-10-15T20:11:00.000-04:00

firedoglake today directed me to this great story on MediaMatters.org. If you are a voter it is well worth a read. The article looks at the "storylines" the media chooses to attach itself to (and sometimes create out of thin air) during an election campaign.

The story referenced an embarassing occurrence (for the media) during the Bush/Gore 2000 race. Remember Gore's 'sigh' during one of the later debates? Remember how voters were supposedly turned off by this show of condescension by Gore?

Well:

It's true, as the Daily Howler noted, that every instant poll taken after the debate indicated that Americans thought Gore had won the debate, and won it easily. So where was the proof that viewers detested Gore's allegedly smug style? Journalists didn't need actual proof. They just knew Gore was disliked. By whom? By journalists, of course.

In 2008, we're going to have many versions of The Sigh. First it was John Edwards' $400 haircut. And now it's Hilary's cackle.

Beware voters. Despite whether or not you as a group choose to focus on real issues like health care, foreign policy or Iraq, the ever-vigilant media will focus on the important issues like how a candidate laughs.

I encourage you to read the full article here.

Congrats Al

2007-10-12T08:23:00.000-04:00

Gore, U.N. Body Win Nobel Peace Prize
By Howard Schneider and Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 12, 2007; 7:20 AM

Former Vice President Al Gore Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today, along with a United Nations panel that monitors climate change, for their work educating the world about global warming and advocating for political action to control it.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee characterized Gore as "the single individual who has done most" to convince world governments and leaders that climate change is real, is caused by human activity, and poses a grave threat.

Gore has focused on the issue through books, promotional events and his Academy Award-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a joint project between the United Nations Environment Program and the World Meteorological Organization, has been monitoring evidence of climate change and possible solutions since 1988.

The science showcased by the panel and Gore's advocacy have helped to "build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change," the committee said.

"Whereas in the 1980s global warming seemed to be merely an interesting hypothesis, the 1990s produced clear scientific support."

As with last year's award to Bangladeshi banker Mohammad Yunus, whose pioneering use of small loans to the very poor contributes to the stability of developing nations, this year's prize focused on an issue not directly related to war and peace, but seen as critical to maintaining social stability.

The panel said that global warming "may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the Earth's resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world's most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states."

Highlighting those risks, and the role people play in both creating and potentially mitigating them, has defined public life for Gore since he lost the closely fought 2000 presidential election to President Bush.

From that difficult race, in which he won the popular vote but lost the electoral college in a case ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, he emerged as a controversial figure -- ridiculed by opponents as an environmental extremist, and hailed by supporters as "the Gore-acle" for his foresight on issues like the Internet and climate change.

In a statement, Gore, 59, said he was honored to receive the prize. He said he would donate his half of the approximately $1.5 million award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a non-profit he chairs that works to educate the public about climate change and mobilize global support for action...

Full story here.

A little known secret: The GOP is actually terrible on national defense.

2007-10-10T20:33:00.001-04:00

Here is a blog post that was written before the '06 elections. You know, the ones the GOP got trounced in. As we gear up for the '08 Congressional and Presidential elections, here are some interesting points to bear in mind (and share with anyone you know who thinks the GOP is stronger on National Defense).

This is from RJ Eskow, via firedoglake.com

Before They Vote, Tell Your Friends Just How Bad Republicans Are at National Security - They'll Say "WTF!"

By RJ Eskow
Posted November 6, 2006 | 12:49 AM (EST)

Wherever you are, this can be your last-minute campaign effort: tell your undecided friends and co-workers about the Republicans' stunning record of incompetence in managing our national security. They don't know the truth, so lay it on 'em. I promise you - they'll say "WTF!"*

WTF! "Homeland Security estimates that the detonation (of a rail-based) chlorine container would kill 17,500 and injure 100,000. Yet despite its own calamitous assessment of the risk ... DHS continues to rely on the voluntary cooperation of the rail industry ..." (The Next Attack, by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon)

WTF! The investigative unit that was uncovering outrageous cost overruns and contract failures - failures that put our troops in danger - was just shut down by the Republicans in Congress.

WTF! Several studies have shown that airport screeners are no more effective at preventing weapons from getting on planes than they were before 9/11.

WTF! In another sign of lousy postwar planning, they failed to secure the arms depots in Iraq: "In the fall of 2004, U.S. intelligence estimated that at least 4,000 missiles from Iraq's arsenal could not be accounted for ... The RAND Corporation ... determined that if a single aircraft were destroyed by a missile, the direct economic cost to the United States would be $1 billion. The indirect cost ... would reach $50 billion." (The Next Attack)

Guess they were too busy stealing missiles to welcome us with flowers.

WTF! The missile defense system they keep bragging about is just a boondoggle for their rich contractor friends. It just keeps failing and failing.

WTF! Generals, defense experts, and even the Army Times have called for Rumsfeld's resignation, but they keep him in place anyway. If bullshit was bullets, his name would be Winchester. Talk is cheap and Rummy's the cheapest guy the've got. He's an amateur. Lose him.

WTF! They place politics over our national defense, time and time again: "A number of key appointments to White House posts involving career civil servants with vital experience have been held up because of concerns about the political loyalties of the individuals ... candidates report being flummoxed in their interviews by questions from White House staff about who they voted for in the last election." (The Next Attack )

WTF! The cost of bomb-detection machines at airports has skyrocketed, although the machines are so inefficient that their usefulness is being questioned altogether. Still, somebody's getting rich. (Funny how that keeps happening.)

WTF! There still has been no coordinated effort to create countermeasures against the use of private planes and/or ultralights in a terrorist attack. But did you hear that Michael Chertoff was just given a medal? Unbelievable. Must have had something to do with New Orleans.

There's more - a lot more - where that came from. But you get the picture. The Republicans, who have survived on the image that they're "strong on defense," have actually provided the weakest civilian military leadership ever. These guys live in dreamland. When they're not concocting harebrained schemes that are guaranteed to fail, they're selling out our country to help their defense contractor friends.

So tell your friends and co-workers: Republicans suck at national security. This is the chickenhawk party, and it shows. They couldn't win a stuffed animal in a carnival shooting contest with a bazooka.

Do your friends and coworkers say they want to protect the United States from terrorism? Great. Tell them their best bet is to vote for a Democratic House and Senate. The Dems will demand better performance from incompetent managers (or better yet, insist they be fired), and they'll pass laws that really upgrade our defense capability.

Tell them that if they believe in a safe and strong America, they need to vote for change. They'll thank you someday.

(*"WTF" stands for "What the f.... free people of the world agree is a poor job of protecting us from terrorism.")

Dan Rather vs CBS, Bush and Lies

2007-10-10T20:30:00.000-04:00

As you may have heard, Dan Rather recently filed a lawsuit in New York state court over his wrongful termination at CBS after he was accused of using unverified documents in the President Bush National Guard story in 2004.

I have a faint memory of that controversy. It seemed Rather had been overzealous in his pursuit of details of President Bush's time in the Texas National Guard during the Viet Nam War. It seemed that in his overzealousness, Rather had relied on forged documents. When Rather was fired over the accusations of relying on false documents, it seemed a sad end to an otherwise good career. I felt bad for Rather, I pitied him.

It turned out I was pitying him for the wrong reasons. I shouldn't have been pitying him because he made an error in judgment. I should have pitied him because he was the victim of the rightwing noise machine and CBS leadership that was eager to curry favor with the seemingly dominant and asendant Republican Party (this was right around Bush's reelection in 2004).

Fast forward to today and the new media narrative is that Rather's lawsuit is a pathetic attempt by a has-been to grab whatever he can. Turns out that's not the case at all. I refer to you an excellent piece on salon.com about Rather's lawsuit, Bush's time in the National Guard (or lack thereof) and the spinelessness of CBS News.

...intent on vindicating his reputation, capable of financing an expensive legal challenge, and armed with the power of subpoena, Rather will charge his attorneys to interrogate news executives and perhaps administration officials under oath on a secret and sordid chapter of the Bush presidency.

Most cases of this sort are usually settled before discovery. But Rather has made plain that he is uninterested in a cash settlement. He has filed his suit precisely to be able to take depositions.

In his effort to demonstrate his mistreatment, Rather will detail how network executives curried favor with the administration, offering him up as a human sacrifice. The panel that CBS appointed and paid millions to in order to investigate Rather's journalism will be exposed as a shoddy kangaroo court.

The lastest chapter in this controversy appears to be this: Rather's documents have not been proven to be fake and the facts they contain are verified by multiple sources. The New York Times carried an article by James Goodale which found that, "..."underlying facts of Rather's '60 Minutes' report are substantially true." He observed, "Since the broadcast, no one has come forward to say the program was untruthful.""

Mary Mapes was a producer with Rather at CBS and she too lost her job over this affair. In her memoirs, published in 2005, she made a very critical point:

In order to conclude that the documents are forged or utterly unreliable, two questions must be answered: 1) how could anyone have forged such pristinely accurate information; and 2) why would anyone have taken such great pains to forge the truth?"

After reading into this story, it becomes apparent that in all likelihood, Dan Rather's report was accurate and George Bush never served time in the Texas National Guard. In fact, a 2004 piece on Salon.com by Mary Jacoby reported the following:

Offering extensive documentation, including photographs and letters, Linda Allison, who had housed Bush during his missing year, explained that his drunken misbehavior was creating havoc for his father's political aspirations and that the elder Bush asked his old friend Jimmy Allison, a political consultant from Midland, Texas, now living in Alabama, to handle the wastrel son. "The impression I had was that Georgie was raising a lot of hell in Houston, getting in trouble and embarrassing the family, and they just really wanted to get him out of Houston and under Jimmy's wing," Linda Allison told Salon. During the time the younger Bush was under the watchful eye of the Allisons, he never went to a National Guard base or wore a uniform. "Good lord, no. I had no idea that the National Guard was involved in his life in any way," said Allison. She did, however, remember him drinking, urinating on a car, screaming at police and trashing the apartment he had rented.

The recent Salon story finishes with this:

Rather could have simply allowed the statute of limitations to run out, lived off his millions, and faded away. But the incident ate at him. On one level, the Bush National Guard story is about Bush and the National Guard. On another, of course, it is about Rather's reputation. But on yet another it is about CBS's overwhelming desire to please the Bush White House and censor itself. The White House campaign against Rather has been so successful that many in the national press corps behave as though in mouthing its talking points they are demonstrating their own independent thought.

On Sept. 20, the day after he filed his suit, Rather said, "The story was true." Rather's suit may turn into one of the most sustained and informative acts of investigative journalism in his long career. He is not going gentle into that good night.

So stay tuned to Dan Rather's suit in New York State, this story could be just beginning.

Shocking story of the day: Non-Blackwater investigators find Blackwater at fault

2007-10-05T18:13:00.000-04:00

You'll be absolutely shocked to hear that after a semi-independent investigation, it seems Blackwater guards fired on civilians without provocation in the incident at Nisoor Square.

The U.S. Military, which isn't exactly the most objective source of information from scandals in Iraq, reports:

U.S. military reports from the scene of the Sept. 16 shooting incident involving the security firm Blackwater USA indicate that its guards opened fire without provocation and used excessive force against Iraqi civilians, according to a senior U.S. military official.

For those of you scoring at home, the Army's findings are in line with Iraqi findings and shockingly not in line with Blackwater's reporting on its own actions:

The U.S. military reports appear to corroborate the Iraqi government's contention that Blackwater was at fault in the shooting incident in Nisoor Square, in which hospital records say at least 14 people were killed and 18 were wounded.

Even better than firing unprovoked on civilians, was the excessive use of force:

"It was obviously excessive, it was obviously wrong," said the U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident remains the subject of several investigations. "The civilians that were fired upon, they didn't have any weapons to fire back at them. And none of the IP or any of the local security forces fired back at them," he added, using a military abbreviation for the Iraqi police. The Blackwater guards appeared to have fired grenade launchers in addition to machine guns, the official said.

Might hired mercenaries begin to face a modicum of oversight? One can only hope:

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack hinted Thursday that Blackwater guards could face legal proceedings. Announcing a decision to have FBI agents lead a State Department inquiry into the shootings, he said it was "a hedge against the possibility that an investigation leads to the point where there may need to be a referral" to U.S. prosecutors.

In response to the shootings, the Pentagon is also conducting a broad review of its relationship with the private security contractors it employs. The military has issued about 7,000 weapons permits to private contractors, the senior U.S. military official said, but has stopped issuing new permits until it can review who has the weapons and how they have been used.

In conclusion, make no mistake about the reputation that Blackwater has in Iraq. Draw your own conclusions:

"They tend to overreact to a lot of things. They maneuver around town very aggressively, they've got weapons pointed at people, they cut people off, of course their speeds -- I mean a whole bunch of things they do fairly consistently. But when it comes to shooting and firing, they tend to shoot quicker than others," the U.S. military official said.

Full WP story here.

"We're outsourcing our investigations of Blackwater to Blackwater."

2007-10-03T21:31:00.000-04:00

As the firestorm ensues from the Blackwater scandal where at least 17 Iraqi civilians were killed, and 24 more injured, Josh Marshall at TPM notes the following:

A few days ago the State Department released what it called a "first blush" report on the Blackwater incident in Baghdad, a report which largely exonerated the Blackwater personnel involved.

I noted at the time that "first blush" was something of an understatement since the report was based exclusively on statements the State Department took from Blackwater operatives on the scene. In other words, the Blackwater employees who did the shooting gave State an account that largely exonerated themselves. A truly shocking development.

But it seems that I was behind the curve on the level of caricature and self-parody that is the military contracting biz in Iraq these days.

The report was written out of the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the folks who hired Blackwater to provide security for US diplomats in Iraq. But it turns out that the State Department employee who interviewed the Blackwater folks and wrote the report, Darren Hanner ... well, he wasn't a State Department employee. He was another contractor from Blackwater.

So yes, you've got that right. We've now reached what can only be called the alpha and the omega of contracting accountability breakdown ridiculousness. We're outsourcing our investigations of Blackwater to Blackwater.

Report Details Shooting by Drunken Blackwater Worker

2007-10-02T20:42:00.000-04:00

Today's NYTs:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — A Blackwater USA employee under investigation in the killing last December of an Iraqi bodyguard in an off-duty confrontation was so drunk after fleeing the shooting that another group of guards took away the loaded pistol he was fumbling with, a report to a House committee said Monday.

It continues:

According to the report, which was based largely on internal Blackwater e-mail messages and State Department documents and compiled by the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the episode began between 10:30 and 11:30 p.m. on Dec. 24 when the off-duty Blackwater employee, who witnesses said had been drinking heavily, passed through a gate near Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s compound in the Green Zone.

When confronted by bodyguards to Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi of Iraq, the Blackwater employee fired his Glock 9-millimeter pistol, hitting one of the guards, Raheem Khalif, three times. Mr. Khalif, 32, later died at an American military hospital.

The Blackwater employee fled to the Triple Canopy guard post, where he told the guards that he had been in a gunfight with Iraqis who were chasing him and shooting at him. But the guards had not heard any shots.

This controversy is unbelievable. I cannot believe the US State Department would be so stupid as to employ private mercenaries and offer no oversight whatsoever.

Blackwater. Blackwater. Blackwater.

2007-10-02T18:45:00.000-04:00

I think it's official: Blackwater=Free Reign to Kill

2007-10-01T19:02:00.000-04:00

This is a point I'm going to harp on over and over again: Blackwater, a private mercenary army hired and used in Iraq by Bush and Cheney, has almost no legal or moral oversight whatsoever. They're not beholden to the laws of our Army, or the laws of Iraq. There are no laws for Blackwater and rest assured, when the day comes that the American people finally want to bring this mercenary army to account, Bush and Cheney are going to cloak Blackwater in a shroud of State Secrets and National Security thicker than you've ever seen.

'We don't care what the American people want, we know what's best for them' -Bush and Cheney on Blackwater, on a date to be determined

Writes Paul Finkleman on Balkinization (a great blog, btw):

Blackwater and the other contractors have in effect created private armies or mercenaries. Congress has ordered that the Blackwater mercenaries and other private armies be placed under the same rules of engagement as the United States military. But, according to the Times, “no action has been taken, leaving the contractors in a legal no-man’s land – in effect, at liberty to treat all Iraq as a free-fire zone.” (NY Times, Sept. 23, Week-in-Review, p. 3). In practice there is no one controlling them and no one authority from whom they take orders. They are hired guns, who it appears, are accountable to no one, unless, or until, they are indicted for criminal activity. However, as the N.Y. Times noted (Sept. 23, 2007, Sec. 1; p. 14) “Even if murder charges [against Blackwater employees] were referred to Iraqi courts, it is unclear what real legal peril would be faced by Blackwater or any of its employees.” This is because in 2004, the chief U.S. civilian in Iraq, L. Paul Brenner, III issued Order 17, which, as the Times writes, give “security companies working for the United States government immunity from prosecution” in Iraq.

Blackwater: Still above the law, still killing in your name

2007-09-30T23:46:00.000-04:00

From the NYTs the other day:

The American security contractor Blackwater USA has been involved in a far higher rate of shootings while guarding American diplomats in Iraq than other security firms providing similar services to the State Department, according to Bush administration officials and industry officials...

...The officials said that Blackwater’s incident rate was at least twice that recorded by employees of DynCorp International and Triple Canopy, the two other United States-based security firms that have been contracted by the State Department to provide security for diplomats and other senior civilians in Iraq...

...Blackwater, based in North Carolina, has gained a reputation among Iraqis and even among American military personnel serving in Iraq as a company that flaunts an aggressive, quick-draw image that leads its security personnel to take excessively violent actions to protect the people they are paid to guard. After the latest shooting, the Iraqi government demanded that the company be banned from operating in the country...

...“You can find any number of people, particularly in uniform, who will tell you that they do see Blackwater as a company that promotes a much more aggressive response to things than other main contractors do,” a senior American official said.

Just so you know: This is who Dick Cheney is. This is what he's about.

2007-09-28T18:51:00.000-04:00

From Glen Greenwald:

Neoconservative extremists want endless war, and they are supported by the most powerful faction in our government, led by Dick Cheney, who has prevailed in every significant conflict over the last six years. And their radicalism has eroded not only the standing and strength of the United States as a country, but is close to shattering our military forces as well. Even with Iraq draining away all of our resources, they are eager, hungry and increasingly impatient for a new war with the much more formidable Iranians.

They crave regime change in Iran, and, sitting safe and protected in the U.S., they do not care at all what the aftermath is, certainly not for the 160,000 American troops sitting in Iraq. There has been a long-simmering conflict of interests between the war-crazy neocons and the U.S. military -- evidenced, by among other things, the intense hostility of Gen. Franks towards Douglas Feith. Eventually, as neocons push their war agenda further and further, that conflict will inevitably grow, since the neocons' ideological obsessions comes at the expense of the military, which serves as pure cannon fodder for their goals. It is the American military that pays the real price for the neocon's pursuit of their endless war agenda.

You may have noticed that I've gone back and tagged a lot of my Iraq/War-on-Terror posts with the tag "Bush/Cheney". I am using this tag to refer to the cabal of warmongers who led us into one of the worst foriegn policy blunders in American history (Iraq), and who right now want nothing more than to start another war, this one with Iran.

George W. Bush
Dick Cheney
Doug Feith
Paul Wolfowitz
Scooter Libby

These are your elected leaders, and their cabinet of advisers. These are the men that want endless war for America. None of them served in the Armed Forces. All of them want war in the Middle East at any cost. Iraq is an unmitigated disaster, resulting in 600,000 dead Iraqis. It's a conflict of choice, started because of lies, and continued against the will of a majority of Americans. Despite this almost incomprehensible failure, this Cabal of War has now set its sites on Iran.

It is up to us, the American People, to resist the Bush/Cheney cabal's efforts to start another disastrous war, killing civilians in our name, wasting billions of our tax dollars, and ruining our country in a multitude of ways.

Cheney and Ahmadinejad need each other.

2007-09-27T18:23:00.001-04:00

Steve Clemons makes a really interesting argument in his blog post here that Dick Cheney and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually need each other in order to perpetuate their own careers. Both are extremists who badly want to consolidate their power, but aren't necessarily achieving it. Cheney wants war with Iran, Ahmadinejad wants badly to be more than a figurehead leader who does the bidding of the Supreme Council in Iran.

I encourage you to read Clemons' post. He closes with the following excellent passage:

Ahmadinejad is failing in Iran. But we spend a lot of time fretting over his words and posture. We need to stop letting him define Iran's character and ultimate direction. But Cheney and Ahmadinejad need each other -- they push each other's buttons.

We need to move beyond both.

Microfinancing: You, Too, Can Be a Banker to the Poor

2007-09-27T18:23:00.000-04:00

Microfinancing is a relatively new concept in the realm of charity, aid and development. The basic premise is that through a third party, you can donate small amounts of money ($25, $250, whatever) to small business owners throughout the third world. Usually within months or a year, your money is paid back, and in the meantime it has allowed someone in the developing world to start or expand a business, thereby raising their quality of living and that of those around them. One of the brilliant aspects of microfinancing is that it bypasses big national and aid bureaucracies and connects you directly to the people in need.

It really is an incredible idea and has met with unheralded success. A while back Nick Kristof wrote a NYTs column about it, and he linked to one such microfinancing organization: kiva.org.

Here is Kristof's column. It gives a great overview of microfinancing:

You, Too, Can Be a Banker to the Poor
Nicholas D. Kristof/The New York Times
Published: March 27, 2007

KABUL, Afghanistan

For those readers who ask me what they can do to help fight poverty, one option is to sit down at your computer and become a microfinancier.

That’s what I did recently. From my laptop in New York, I lent $25 each to the owner of a TV repair shop in Afghanistan, a baker in Afghanistan, and a single mother running a clothing shop in the Dominican Republic. I did this through www.kiva.org, a Web site that provides information about entrepreneurs in poor countries — their photos, loan proposals and credit history — and allows people to make direct loans to them.

So on my arrival here in Afghanistan, I visited my new business partners to see how they were doing.

On a muddy street in Kabul, Abdul Satar, a bushy-bearded man of 64, was sitting in the window of his bakery selling loaves for 12 cents each. He was astonished when I introduced myself as his banker, but he allowed me to analyze his business plan by sampling his bread: It was delicious.

Mr. Abdul Satar had borrowed a total of $425 from a variety of lenders on Kiva.org, who besides me included Nathan in San Francisco, David in Rochester, N.Y., Sarah in Waltham, Mass., Nate in Fort Collins, Colo.; Cindy in Houston, and “Emily’s family” in Santa Barbara, Calif.

With the loan, Mr. Abdul Satar opened a second bakery nearby, with four employees, and he now benefits from economies of scale when he buys flour and firewood for his oven. “If you come back in 10 years, maybe I will have six more bakeries,” he said.

Mr. Abdul Satar said he didn’t know what the Internet was, and he had certainly never been online. But Kiva works with a local lender affiliated with Mercy Corps, and that group finds borrowers and vets them.

The local group, Ariana Financial Services, has only Afghan employees and is run by Storai Sadat, a dynamic young woman who was in her second year of medical school when the Taliban came to power and ended education for women. She ended up working for Mercy Corps and becoming a first-rate financier; some day she may take over Citigroup.

“Being a finance person is better than being a doctor,” Ms. Sadat said. “You can cure the whole family, not just one person. And it’s good medicine — you can see them get better day by day.”

Small loans to entrepreneurs are now widely recognized as an important tool against poverty. Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his pioneering work with microfinance in Bangladesh.

In poor countries, commercial money lenders routinely charge interest rates of several hundred percent per year. Thus people tend to borrow for health emergencies rather than to finance a new business. And partly because poor people tend to have no access to banks, they also often can’t save money securely.

Microfinance institutions typically focusing on lending to women, to give them more status and more opportunities. Ms. Sadat’s group does lend mostly to women, but it’s been difficult to connect some female borrowers with donors on Kiva — because many Afghans would be horrified at the thought of taking a woman’s photograph, let alone posting on the Internet.

My other partner in Kabul is Abdul Saboor, who runs a small TV repair business. He used the loan to open a second shop, employing two people, and to increase his inventory of spare parts. “I used to have to go to the market every day to buy parts,” he said, adding that it was a two-and-a-half-hour round trip. “Now I go once every two weeks.”

Web sites like Kiva are useful partly because they connect the donor directly to the beneficiary, without going through a bureaucratic and expensive layer of aid groups in between. Another terrific Web site in this area is www.globalgiving.com, which connects donors to would-be recipients. The main difference is that GlobalGiving is for donations, while Kiva is for loans.

A young American couple, Matthew and Jessica Flannery, founded Kiva after they worked in Africa and realized that a major impediment to economic development was the unavailability of credit at any reasonable cost.

“I believe the real solutions to poverty alleviation hinge on bringing capitalism and business to areas where there wasn’t business or where it wasn’t efficient,” Mr. Flannery said. He added: “This doesn’t have to be charity. You can partner with someone who’s halfway around the world.”

Out of Iraq: A Reality Check

2007-09-25T12:56:00.000-04:00

Via Glen Greenwald, from a CBS poll:

Sixty-eight percent of Americans say that U.S. troop levels in Iraq should either be reduced or that all troops should be removed...

What America does in the world

2007-09-24T19:58:00.000-04:00

Glen Greenwald, my favorite blogger, recently offered up a helpful reminder about what exactly America does out there in the world, and how we meddle in everyone's affairs, and do so more than any other country.

I encourage you to read the passage below, lest we forget why there might be some anti-Americanism around the world. Contrary to GWB's assertions, it's not because "they hate our freedom."

Put simply, there is no reasonable way to compare the use of military force by the U.S. to any other country on the planet. We spend more on our military than every other country combined. We spend six times more on our military than China, the next largest military spender. And it is a bipartisan consensus that, even as the sole remaining superpower, we should increase both military spending and the size of our military further still.

No country can even remotely compare to us in terms of the sheer magnitude of invasions, bombing campaigns, regime changes, occupations and other forms of direct interference via military force in sovereign countries. We have military bases in well over 100 nations. In the last 10 years alone, we bombed Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Sudan, Afghanistan again, Somalia, and Iraq again. Even after the end of the Cold War, we changed the governments of multiple countries from Panama to Iraq, and we've attempted (or are attempting) to do so in Iran and Venezuela. We single-handedly prop up tyrannical governments in scores of nations using financial and military aid. No other country can hold a candle to the breadth and frequency of our involvement in the affairs of other countries. That is just fact.

Obviously, that we intervene, bomb and invade far more than any other country is not, standing alone, proof that our various military campaigns are unjust. But it is rather compelling evidence that we have a far lower hair-trigger for when we use military force than any other country in the world, and we use our military force in far more places and with a far wider range of motives and reasons than any other country.

"Anybody who talks about terrorism this way is...a witch doctor."

2007-09-22T18:54:00.000-04:00

Giuliani is almost criminally incompetent to run for President. I cannot stress this point enough, people.

The following is one of my heroes, Anonymous Liberal, quoting a Time Magazine article which explains just how incompetent Giuliani is on national defense:

From the Time article:

[M]ore than anything else, counterterrorism experts interviewed by Time cited Giuliani's campaign rhetoric as a cause for concern. He frequently conflates different threats, from Iraqi insurgents to al-Qaeda to Iran, into one monolithic dark force. He routinely compares the terrorism threat to the Holocaust and the cold war. In one 15-min. phone interview in August, Giuliani compared the terrorism threat with Nazism or communism six times. When I asked him if he risked exaggerating the threat, since most terrorist plots against the West are not the kind of attacks that will bring down a nation, he replied, "I'm not saying it would take down a country. What terrorism can do and has done is kill thousands and thousands of people. It's real, it's existential, it's independent of us."

Retired Lieut. General William Odom was director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan from 1985 to 1988. He calls Giuliani's terrorism rhetoric "the most delightful thing that al-Qaeda could want." And he laments that Giuliani isn't showing the stoicism he displayed on 9/11. "We need a President who cools it," says Odom, a senior fellow with the conservative Hudson Institute. As for Giuliani's analogy to the cold war, a period Odom knows rather well, he is unimpressed. "Jihadism is a mosquito bite compared to communism," he says. "Anybody who talks about terrorism this way is like a witch doctor."

Hired American guns in Iraq: Above the law

2007-09-20T19:01:00.000-04:00

The Blackwater scandal is only growing. Anyone paying even a minimal amount of attention could have seen this scandal coming from a mile away.

Where Military Rules Don't Apply
Blackwater's Security Force in Iraq Given Wide Latitude by State Dept.

By Steve Fainaru
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 20, 2007; Page A01

Blackwater USA, the private security company involved in a Baghdad shootout last weekend, operated under State Department authority that exempted the company from U.S. military regulations governing other security firms, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials and industry representatives.

In recent months, the State Department's oversight of Blackwater became a central issue as Iraqi authorities repeatedly clashed with the company over its aggressive street tactics. Many U.S. and Iraqi officials and industry representatives said they came to see Blackwater as untouchable, protected by State Department officials who defended the company at every turn. Blackwater employees protect the U.S. ambassador and other diplomats in Iraq.

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Blackwater "has a client who will support them no matter what they do," said H.C. Lawrence Smith, deputy director of the Private Security Company Association of Iraq, an advocacy organization in Baghdad that is funded by security firms, including Blackwater.

The State Department allowed Blackwater's heavily armed teams to operate without an Interior Ministry license, even after the requirement became standard language in Defense Department security contracts. The company was not subject to the military's restrictions on the use of offensive weapons, its procedures for reporting shooting incidents or a central tracking system that allows commanders to monitor the movements of security companies on the battlefield.

"The Iraqis despised them, because they were untouchable," said Matthew Degn, who recently returned from Baghdad after serving as senior American adviser to the Interior Ministry. "They were above the law."...

A Blackwater spokeswoman referred questions about how the company is regulated to the State Department.

But hey, at least there's good US oversight of these armed mercenaries, so that their actions are coordinated with our Army, right?

Blackwater is not required to report its movements to the military. "There is no oversight or coordination of Blackwater by the U.S. military," said Jack Holly, a retired Marine colonel who oversees several private security firms as director of logistics for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Blackwater has said that it uses its own internal tracking system that is visible to both the military and the State Department.

Holly said Blackwater angers the Iraqis: "Their aggressive attitude is not what you would say is trying to mitigate disagreements between two societies." Earlier this year, he said, Iraqi employees on the national rail system were so intimidated that they refused to meet State Department officials escorted by Blackwater guards.

Accountability. At least there's accountability, right?

After [an] incident this May 24, in which Blackwater guards shot and killed an Iraqi driver outside the Interior Ministry, the Blackwater team was surrounded by Interior Ministry commandos with AK-47 assault rifles. The Blackwater guards refused to provide their names or details of the incident. A U.S. military convoy happened on the scene and an officer tried to mediate.

Eventually, a State Department official arrived, according to a security company representative familiar with the incident. The Blackwater team was allowed to return to the Green Zone.

Later, both Blackwater and the State Department initially denied that the shooting occurred. The company and agency officials then confirmed that the incident had taken place but defended the guards, saying they had followed the rules on the use of force.

The State Department said it planned a thorough investigation. Four months later, no results have been announced.

The important thing is, these mercenaries fighting in our name handle themselves diplomatically in a very tense and dangerous occupation where relations between Americans and Iraqis is of the utmost importance, right?

"They consider Iraqis like animals, although actually I think they may have more respect for animals. We have seen what they do in the streets. When they're not shooting, they're throwing water bottles at people and calling them names. If you are terrifying a child or an elderly woman, or you are killing an innocent civilian who is riding in his car, isn't that terrorism?" -An Iraqi Interior Ministry official

Maybe the mercenaries don't realize how their behavior is viewed by Iraqis?

'Our mission is to protect the principal at all costs. If that means pissing off the Iraqis, too bad,'- A Blackwater PSC

As I said, anyone with half a brain could have seen this scandal coming from a mile away. With Bush and Cheney's strict belief in using private contractors in Iraq with an almost complete lack of oversight, this is a horrible problem that's only going to get worse. Unless Congress and the American people speak up against this unacceptably volatile situation, this is going to repeat itself over and over, presumably resulting in more dead Iraqi civilians in each episode.

The Administration's False Choice

2007-09-20T18:02:00.000-04:00

From TPM:

“The position urged by the Administration, that we must choose between Constitutional rights and fighting terrorism effectively, is simply wrong. Our strength as a nation, and our status as a world leader, is based in part on the fact that Americans do not choose between national security and liberty; we demand both,” said Sen. Biden.

Killing in your name, on your dime

2007-09-19T22:09:00.000-04:00

From True Majority Action:

Mercenaries paid with our tax dollars opened fire on Iraqi civilians over the weekend. They killed 8 people and shot 13 more.

"They are untouchable," one private soldier told the Los Angeles Times. "They've shot up other private security contractors, Iraqi military, police and civilians."1

Now the Iraqi government has had enough, and has ordered Blackwater to stop work in the country. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has promised an investigation, but that's not enough.

Tell Sec. of State Rice to stop using hired mercenaries as state department guards.

http://act.truemajorityaction.org/o/2/t/21/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=21

Most of Blackwater's work is guarding officials from the State Department. They are among the most high-profile mercenaries working in Iraq, but hardly the only ones. An astounding 120,000 "private security contractors" are in Iraq, 48,000 of them working as combat soldiers.2 They get paid far more than real soldiers, their deaths are not included in the official casualty counts, and they are essentially accountable to no one, according to state department officials.

This is still America. We can't hire mercenaries to fire on civilians with no accountability.

Tell Sec. Rice to put an end to it, and follow the Iraqi government's demand that Blackwater leave the country.

This has to stop,

Ben Kroetz
TrueMajorityACTION.org Online Organizer

1. "U.S. rushes to smooth Iraq's anger over Blackwater," Los Angeles Times, September 18, 2007

2. U.S. GAO report

News outlets focus on Hillary's donor problems, but ignore Mitt Romney's

2007-09-18T20:48:00.000-04:00

How does this kind of bias go ignored among the broader electorate? How does anyone argue that Republicans and Democrats get equal treatment in the media during Presidential Elections?

From mediamatters.org:

Fri, Aug 31, 2007 8:24pm ET

TV news outlets focused on Clinton fundraiser Hsu but ignored Romney finance co-chair Fabian's indictment for fraud

Summary: In recent days, NBC, CNN, and Fox News have all aired reports or discussed the case of Norman Hsu, who The Wall Street Journal suggested may have funneled illegal campaign contributions to Sen. Hillary Clinton. However, when Mitt Romney's national finance committee co-chairman Alan Fabian was charged with mail fraud, money laundering, bankruptcy fraud, perjury and obstruction of justice, the three networks did not report or discuss it during programs available in the Nexis database.

Between August 28 and August 31, NBC, CNN, and Fox News all aired reports or discussions on Norman Hsu, the Democratic donor known for being a top contributor and fundraiser to the campaigns of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY). The Los Angeles Times reported on August 29 that, in 1991, Hsu "pleaded no contest to grand theft, agreed to serve up to three years in prison and then seemed to vanish. 'He is a fugitive,' Ronald Smetana, who handled the case for the state attorney general, said in an interview." The previous day, The Wall Street Journal had suggested that Hsu may have funneled illegal campaign contributions to Clinton by reimbursing people for contributions made to Clinton under their names. However, there is no evidence that any candidate or committee who received money from Hsu knew anything about the controversies surrounding him, and many campaigns that received money from Hsu -- including Clinton's -- have since said they will donate it to charity. On August 31, Hsu turned himself in to authorities in California. The August 29 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, for example, teased the story with a picture of Clinton with the caption: "Fugitive Link."

By contrast, when Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's national finance committee co-chairman, Alan B. Fabian was, according to an August 9 Associated Press article, "charged in a 23-count indictment unsealed Thursday [August 9] with mail fraud, money laundering, bankruptcy fraud, perjury and obstruction of justice," NBC, CNN, and Fox News did not air reports or discussions about it during programs available in the Nexis database. The AP reported that Fabian "allegedly ran a scheme to make $32 million in false purchases of computer equipment, spending the money instead on beach real estate and private jet travel." Fabian resigned from Romney's finance committee shortly after being indicted, and the Romney campaign said it would return Fabian's $2,300 contribution, but not, however, "contributions from donors who were recruited by or have ties to Fabian," as The Boston Globe reported. While Fabian's indictment has generated some print coverage, it has resulted in no television coverage on news shows airing on NBC, CNN, or prime-time shows broadcast on Fox News, according to a Nexis database search conducted by Media Matters for America on August 31.

Fabian, a former Bush Pioneer, has also made donations to other Republican candidates and committees, including to Rudy Giuliani, according to the Federal Election Commission's searchable donor database. Giuliani's campaign said it would return Fabian's contribution. At least one other campaign did not immediately return the money. The Hill reported on August 15: "'We have no intention of returning the contribution,' said Matt Leffingwell, spokesman for [Rep. Jon] Porter [R-NV], who received nearly $1,500 from Fabian in 2004. 'Until the individual is convicted in a court of law, we don't return contributions.' " Fabian's arraignment is scheduled for Sept. 28.

According to Media Matters' review, the following shows included reports on or discussions about Hsu, but none reported or discussed Fabian:

* CNN Newsroom, August 31
* CNN's American Morning, August 31
* CNN's The Situation Room, August 30
* NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams, August 30
* CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, August 30
* Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, August 30
* NBC's Today, August 30
* American Morning, August 30
* Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, August 29
* Special Report, August 29
* Fox News' The Big Story with John Gibson, August 29
* The Situation Room, August 29

—S.P.

It will not be a troop 'draw down'

2007-09-11T18:33:00.000-04:00

Writes David Kurtz, on TPM:

Putting Lipstick on a Pig
09.11.07 -- 5:07PM
By David Kurtz

As part of the surge-week PR offensive, the President will make a primetime address Thursday announcing that he intends to bring the surge to an end next summer. That means 30,000 U.S. troops will be rotated home without replacements. The White House--and most press reports--will describe this as a troop withdrawal, which is true in a very narrow sense. But this can't seem to be repeated often enough, if credulous press reports are any indication: the surge was only ever designed to be temporary and could not be sustained for any longer than next summer without seriously compromising overall U.S. military readiness. So the surge is coming to end, and troop levels will return to late 2006 levels. The White House can tout it as a troop withdrawal. Gen. Petraeus can claim it is his best professional military judgment. But bringing the surge to an end is a hard reality born of an overstretched military. They can smear all the lipstick they want on that pig, but it's still a pig.

The first in my new series: The Moral Hypocrisy of Conservative Moral Crusaders

2007-09-07T20:33:00.000-04:00

This is something I've been thinking about doing for a while, and now with another instance coming to light, I'm going forward with my plan: I would like to document each and every time a moral crusading Congressman or other leader (almost always Republican, and/or conservative, and/or Christian) is exposed for doing the very things they rail against from a bully pulpit of 'moral righteousness'. Such "dire threats to Our Way Of Life" usually include things like preferring same-sex romantic relations or cheating on your wife.

I am tired of moral crusaders. I find it hypocritical, intrusive, and a primarily waste of America's (little remaining) intellectual capacity. Homosexuality is not the biggest threat to America. Neither is drug abuse. Or divorce. So if these politicians or community leaders want to rise to power on a platform of moral lecturing, then I am going to document every time one of them falls prey to their own 'threats to Our Way Of Life'. I hope there is a special place in Hell for Moral Hypocrites. So without further adieu...

Every few months it comes out that another Republican moral crusader is a closet homosexual, or underage predator, or drug user, or serial cheater-on-wife-guy. Here is the latest instance:

GOP Senator Pleaded Guilty After Restroom Arrest
Idaho's Craig Denies 'Inappropriate Conduct,' Says He Regrets Entering Plea
By Paul Kane and Shailagh Murray
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer and Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 28, 2007; Page A01

[Republican] Sen. Larry E. Craig pleaded guilty earlier this month to misdemeanor disorderly-conduct charges stemming from his June arrest by an undercover police officer in a men's restroom at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, a court spokeswoman and the senator's office said yesterday.

Here is what police say happened:

Roll Call, citing a copy of a report by airport police, said officers had been conducting a sting operation inside the men's room because of complaints of sexual activity there. The police report gives this account of the arrest:

The undercover officer was monitoring the restroom on June 11. A few minutes after noon, Craig entered and sat in the stall next to him. Craig began tapping his right foot, touched his right foot to the left foot of the officer and brushed his hand beneath the partition between them. He was then arrested.

It appears this isn't the first time Senator Craig has had homosexual encounters:

In 2006, a gay activist said he had spoken with men who had sexual encounters with Craig, including in the restrooms at Union Station. Craig's office told the Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash., that the allegations were "completely ridiculous."

And here's the Moral Hypocrisy part:

The activist, Mike Rogers, who runs the Web site BlogActive.com, has complained about Craig's opposition to gay rights. The conservative senator has supported an amendment to the Constitution banning same-sex marriage and voted for the Defense of Marriage Act in the 1990s. Craig, who served in the National Guard, has also spoken out against homosexuals serving in the military.

I salute you, Senator Craig. You are another in the long line of pathetic, worthless hypocrites who spend too much time telling America what's wrong with our morals, and not enough time facing real issues. And you can't even be bothered to be honest with yourself or with the country.

Screw you.

Wow. Judith Giuliani used to torture dogs. Literally.

2007-09-05T19:50:00.000-04:00

Where was this tidbit of information during the Mike Vick controversy??? Holy hell. I cannot believe what I just read about Judith Giuliani's past career as a surgical products salesperson:

(h/t firedoglake)

Judith Giuliani once demonstrated surgical products for a controversial medical-supply company that used dogs - which were later killed - in operations whose only purpose was to sell equipment to doctors, The Post has learned.

"It was a horribly cruel, outrageous program," Friends of Animals President Priscilla Feral said about the demonstrations of medical staplers on dogs conducted by U.S. Surgical Corp. employees during Giuliani's tenure there in the late 1970s.

Feral said U.S. Surgical's demonstrations on hundreds of dogs each year through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s were done to boost sales, not for medical re search or testing.

The dogs were "either put to death following the sales demonstrations because they can't re cover from them, or they die during them," Feral said.

"I'm not going to characterize her, but I hope she regrets it for what it was - a money-grubbing effort," said Feral, whose Darien, Conn.-based activist group waged a heated public-relations battle with the Norwalk-based company for more than a decade.

"I guess the question would be, how does she justify this now? What is her conscience at this stage?" Feral asked about Giuliani's as sociation with U.S. Surgical.

"There's no ethical justification for this."

- originally from the NYPost, via firedoglake

More:

“Every salesperson at U.S. Surgical was trained for six weeks with dogs at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, and that was really brutal,” explains a former employee. “They spent days and days with dogs, taking out the spleen or stomach or the lobe of a lung. Then if the dog started moaning or fidgeted, whoever was closest would push more sedative into him from the syringe. It was horrible. Then the dog would be killed with potassium chloride.”

After training, the salespeople marketed the staplers to doctors, and, once again, in many cases large dogs were used, as they had organs comparable in size to those possessed by humans. “After the stapling, sometimes they’d put a big clamp above and below the staple lines of the dog, and fill [the area] with lots of fluid,” the ex-employee says. “It would fill up like a balloon, and the salesperson would say to the doctor, ‘See—it doesn’t leak!’ That’s how they marketed and sold the product.”…

…”Think of all the hacks and politicos who sit down and they say to Judi, ‘O.K., we’ve gone through your background, husbands, etc.,’” he muses. “‘Is there any other thing in your background, some crazy little thing, that might catch someone’s attention?’ It’s at that point you should raise your hand and say, ‘Oh, you mean when I was killing puppies?’”

- originally from Vanity Fair, via firedoglake

New Yorkers- Visit Dumbo! See this Darfur exhibit!

2007-08-31T18:13:00.000-04:00

Darfur: Twenty Years of War and Genocide in Sudan
An exhibition for social justice curated by Leora Kahn
The powerHouse Arena, 37 Main St., Brooklyn, NY
August 30 - September 30, 2007

Photographs by Lynsey Addario, Pep Bonet, Colin Finlay, Ron Haviv,
Olivier Jobard, Kadir van Lohuizen, Chris Steele-Perkins, and Sven Torfinn.

Even by conservative estimates, the situation in the Darfur region of the Sudan is grave. There are 3.5 million people who are hungry, 2.5 million who have been displaced by violence, and 400,000 individuals who have died since the crisis began in 2003. The international community has failed to take steps to protect civilians, or to influence the Sudanese government to intervene. The spread of violence, rape, and hate-fueled killings across the border into Chad is simply the latest atrocity. Call it war. Call it genocide. Call it famine. There is no single word to describe the plight of these people. They face all of these horrors at once.
In answer, Proof: Media for Social Justice, Amnesty International, and the Holocaust Museum of Houston have partnered to create Darfur: Twenty Years of War and Genocide in Sudan.

powerhousearena.com/darfur/

See ya, Alberto

2007-08-28T19:41:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus summed things up nicely:

...During the attorney general's last, disastrous appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee a month ago, Wisconsin Democrat Herb Kohl asked the question that was on the mind of anyone watching, and wincing, at Gonzales's pummeling: "What keeps you in the job, Mr. Attorney General?"

"Ultimately I have to decide whether or not it's better for me to leave or just stay and try to fix the problems," Gonzales replied. "I've decided to stay and fix the problems."

This captured precisely why Gonzales needed to go. The notion that Gonzales could "fix the problems" ignored the fact that these were problems of his own creation -- in many ways, he was the problem. Gonzales tended to talk about himself as if he were having an out-of-body experience, saying, for example, about the firing of U.S. attorneys: "I am not aware that it certainly was in my mind a problem or basis to accept the recommendation that they be asked to leave."

Gonzales proved that he could, at least for a time, defy the laws of political gravity. By the end, members of his own party -- privately, for certain, and some publicly -- had had enough of his eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind memory and his hair-splitting approach to the truth. Gonzales stayed long enough to drain his departure of nearly all its political benefit. His resignation made Donald Rumsfeld's exit look precipitous...

More on our broken Presidential Race

2007-08-27T23:48:00.000-04:00

Writes the Daily Howler, on the recent Republican Debate:

...Simply put, [NYTs writer Michael] Shear—and the Post—don’t seem to care if these candidates’ statements were true or false. But then, big news orgs rarely seem to care about the things candidates say. In a rare exception, Adam Nagourney does some modest “fact-checking” in today’s Times. He seems to question Giuliani’s claim that, when he was mayor, he raised extra revenue by cutting taxes:

NAGOURNEY (8/6/07): In response to questions, the candidates said they would not support raising the gasoline tax to finance spending on the nation's roads and bridges in response to the collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis last week...

Mr. Giuliani said that as mayor of New York, he had increased revenues to pay for bridge and road repair by cutting taxes, thereby jolting the economy, and that he would do the same thing as president. The city's treasury in that period was flush largely with revenues produced by the stock-market boom of the late 1990s.

Nagourney seems to imply that the actual source of the added revenue was unrelated to the mayor’s tax cuts. But during this debate, a number of candidates went on at some length about the wonders of raising revenue by cutting taxes. As we’ve long noted, modern news orgs routinely wink at this iconic talk-show fantasy, letting the public be badly misled in the process. Will any news orgs “fact-check” this part of Sunday’s debate? Yes, they will—on the same day that the cow jumps over the moon.

Then too, there was “socialized medicine.” Candidates blathered on about the horrors of European-style health coverage. As usual, Giuliani bull-roared the most. (“I know the Democrats get upset when you say this, but they are taking us toward socialized medicine. If we want to have the kinds of results they have in England or France or Canada or Cuba, then we should go in that direction. But that would be a terrible thing to do.”) Will any news orgs present the simple, elementary facts about the actual “kind of results” produced by these low-cost, single-payer systems? The cow will have to jump the moon—and Neptune too—before you see such a thing happen. (More on this topic below.)

In short, it doesn’t matter what candidates say! In our current arrangements, GOP candidates are allowed to say the darnedest things—and big news orgs just sleep-walk and stare. Yesterday, viewers were told that cutting taxes yields extra revenue—and they were told that the world’s top-ranked health care systems get horrific results. But so what? Our biggest news orgs will sleep-walk and stare, as they have done for so many years now. Your big news orgs will let Rudy be Rudy. After all, he’s America’s mayor.

Does it matter what candidates say? In our sleep-walking press corps, the answer is obvious. They simply don’t care what’s true and what’s false. Hopefuls can say the darnedest things; the “journalists” don’t seem to care.

Krugman on our broken Presidential Race

2007-08-24T00:03:00.000-04:00

Normally NYTs columnist Paul Krugman is a little too partisan for my taste, especially when it comes to his economic analyses (not that I know much about economics to begin with). However, recently he wrote a great column lamenting the current state of how Presidential races in America operate. Specifically he takes issue with how candidates get away with uttering nothing but empty sound bites, that leave us, the electorate, completely in the dark about what these candidates might actually stand for.

In other words, there's no substance in our presidential race and it's become little more than a popularity contest. Maybe that explains how George W. Bush was "elected" over Al Gore in 2000. Al Gore may have prevented us from getting stuck in the worst foreign policy disaster in US history, but would you want to have a beer with him?...

Excerpts below...

The Substance Thing
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 6, 2007

...So what are the current presidential candidates saying about policy, and what does it tell us about them?

Well, none of the leading Republican candidates have said anything substantive about policy. Go through their speeches and campaign materials and you’ll see a lot of posturing, especially about how tough they are on terrorists — but nothing at all about what they actually plan to do.

In fact, I suspect that the real reason most of the Republicans are ducking a YouTube debate is that they’re afraid they would be asked questions about policy, rather than being invited to compare themselves to Ronald Reagan.

But didn’t Rudy Giuliani just announce a health care plan? No, he vaguely described a tax cut proposal that he says would do something good for health care. (Most experts disagree.) But he offered no specifics about how the plan would work, how much it would cost or how he would pay for it.

As Ezra Klein of The American Prospect has pointed out, in the speech announcing his “plan” — and since no policy document has been released, the speech is all we have to go on — Mr. Giuliani never uttered the word “uninsured.” He did, however, repeatedly denounce “socialized medicine” or some variant thereof.

The entire G.O.P. field, then, fails the substance test...

...Hillary Clinton, however, has been evasive. She conveys the impression that there’s not much difference between her policy positions and those of the other candidates — but she’s offered few specifics. In particular, unlike Mr. Edwards or Mr. Obama, she hasn’t announced a specific universal care plan, or explicitly committed herself to paying for health reform by letting some of the Bush tax cuts expire.

For those who believe that the time for universal care has come, this lack of specifics is disturbing. In fact, what Mrs. Clinton said about health care in February’s Democratic debate suggested a notable lack of urgency: “Well, I want to have universal health care coverage by the end of my second term.”...

Click here for the full column.

Iran is looking for a way out. Are we paying attention?

2007-08-18T18:23:00.000-04:00

According to this and other stories, Iran is looking for a way out of its current Cold War-style stalemate with the U.S. They don't want war. And they are growing increasingly tired of economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation. Make no mistake, Iran is an oil-rich country that is in little danger of collapse or regime change. However it is still growing increasingly desparate for a way to end the war of words with the Bush Administration. A war which could lead to a real war. But sometimes it seems the Bush Administration has its finger in its ears, doesn't it? And undeniably, there are fanatics in the White House who want nothing more than war with Iran, most notably the Hawkish King himself, Dick Cheney.

So while dangerous ideologues in the White House try to manipulate our country into another disasterous war, various signs are coming out of Iran that peace is very achievable. Furthermore, in the right situation, Iran could be by far our best ally in pacifying Iraq, rebuilding Afghanistan, and even finding peace in Israel and Palestine.

We know the Bush/Cheney cabal isn't listening, but America, are you?

I encourage you to read this story in the Washington Post, about signs that Iran wants peace.

TECHNICALLY Bush & Cheney should be impeached

2007-08-14T20:53:00.000-04:00

Actually, according to Federal Law and the US Constitution, they should both be jailed for up to 5 years for warantless wire-tapping. However, let's start small, how about censuring. Or at least having Congress go on record highlighting how the Bush/Cheney Imperial Presidency agenda has fundamentally weakened our Constitution, our Checks and Balances, and our country.

How about that, HARRY?

Writes Salon's War Room:

When Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., offered his earlier censure resolution against the administration's illegal wiretapping program, Democrats in the Senate behaved like petulant children, complaining that he was showboating and failing to go through channels. It will be interesting to see if he gets a better reception among his peers when he puts forth a new censure resolution, which he announced on "Meet the Press" Sunday:

There's a lot of sentiment in the country ... for actually impeaching the president and the vice president. I think that they have committed impeachable offenses with regard to this terrorist surveillance program and making up their own program. What I am proposing is a moderate course, not tying up the Senate and the House with an impeachment trial, but simply passing resolutions that make sure that the historical record shows the way they have weakened our country, weakened our country militarily and against al-Qaida and weakened our country's fundamental document, the Constitution.

Is anyone taking bets on how many Democrats will sign on this time? Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said that he "wouldn't go along with it" because the Senate had more important things to do. On "Face the Nation," he said, "He has been here as part of a culture of corruption. He is spying on Americans ... The president already has the mark of the American people that he's the worst president we've ever had, and I don't think we need a censure resolution in the Senate to prove that."

No, but a censure resolution would at least put the Congress on record as objecting to it, no? That doesn't seem too much to ask.

Katrina vanden Heuvel argued in the Nation Sunday that progressives should help their senators along:

Feingold needs citizens' help to develop and push these resolutions forward. E-mail your representatives, bombard them with your appeals and demand that they stop this White House from shredding the Constitution and, as Feingold puts it, "thumbing their noses at the American people."

In case anyone's wondering, the latest poll on the question of impeachment had 46 percent in favor of impeaching President Bush and 54 percent in favor of impeaching Vice President Cheney. One wonders what kind of response a censure would get.

On the Democrats disgraceful passage of Bush's Spying Bill

2007-08-10T17:59:00.000-04:00

E.J. Dionne had a great column today in the Washington Post. Below are some excerpts with my added analysis...

At a meeting with House Speaker Pelosi, some Democrats ALMOST wanted to show some spine... ALMOST....

At one point, according to participants in the Pelosi meeting, the passionate discussion veered toward the idea of standing up to the administration -- even at the risk of handing President Bush a chance to bash Democrats on "national security," as is his wont.

Almost...

But the moment passed. Even some very liberal Democrats worried about the political costs of blocking action before the summer recess. That Saturday night, the House sent the president a bill that, as a disgusted Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) put it, with just a touch of exaggeration, "makes Alberto Gonzalez the sheriff, the judge and the jury."

Dionne tells it like it is:

The episode was the culmination of a shameful era in which serious issues related to national security and civil liberties were debated in a climate of fear and intimidation, saturated by political calculation and the quest for short-term electoral advantage.

The truth comes out:

Democrats concede they made an enormous tactical blunder by not dealing with the issue earlier, forcing the question to the fore in the days before the recess. One anxiety hovered over the debate: If a terrorist attack happened and Congress had not given Bush what he wanted, the Democrats would get blamed for a lack of vigilance.

"Could something happen over August?" Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.) asked in an interview. "Sure it could. What bothered me is that too many Democrats allowed that fear to turn into a demand for some atrocious legislation."

Our political environment right now is destructive, and I largely lay blame at the feet of the Rove-Bush-Cheney triumverate of evil, I mean of politicking...

The entire display was disgraceful because an issue of such import should not be debated in a political pressure cooker. It's not even clear that new legislation was required; Holt, for one, believes many of the problems with handling interceptions involving foreign nationals are administrative in nature and that beefing up and reorganizing the staff around the FISA court might solve the outstanding problems.

I encourage to read Dionne's full column. Click here.

The Democrats caved on Bush's Warrantless Wiretapping

2007-08-07T20:20:00.000-04:00

...and I'm pretty heartbroken about it. I mean, I'm as cynical as anyone else. And there's a lot of reasons I have for not respecting the Democratic Party. But caving on warrantless wiretapping is truly above and beyond (or is it below and beyond?). Clearly the Dems think they're playing it safe and that somehow this will make them look 'tough on terror' during the next election cycle. Well, News Flash: Republicans are still going to paint Dems as soft on terror, and the idiots out there who believe in sound bites like that are going to fall for it whether or not the Dems voted to increase warrantless wiretapping.

It's pathetic political pandering by the Dems and it's not even going to gain them any points in the next election. I am truly saddened by this development and I think considerably less of Nancy Pelosi and all the other Democratic leaders who couldn't muster the courage to get the party to vote against Bush's law-breaking and explain to the American Public just why this goes against core American values.

The Dems showed no leadership whatsoever.

Lately I haven't been fond of any NYTs editorials, but their piece today on this shameful act by the Democrats was excellent. The last paragraph below really says it all, 'when are the Dems going to start talking to the electorate like adults?'

Excerpts below, full text here.

The Fear of Fear Itself
Editorial
Published: August 7, 2007

It was appalling to watch over the last few days as Congress — now led by Democrats — caved in to yet another unnecessary and dangerous expansion of President Bush’s powers, this time to spy on Americans in violation of basic constitutional rights. Many of the 16 Democrats in the Senate and 41 in the House who voted for the bill said that they had acted in the name of national security, but the only security at play was their job security...

...But mostly, the spectacle left us wondering what the Democrats — especially their feckless Senate leaders — plan to do with their majority in Congress if they are too scared of Republican campaign ads to use it to protect the Constitution and restrain an out-of-control president...

...But the problem with Congress last week was that Democrats were afraid to explain to Americans why the White House bill was so bad and so unnecessary — despite what the White House was claiming. There are good answers, if Democrats are willing to address voters as adults. To start, they should explain that — even if it were a good idea, and it’s not — the government does not have the capability to sort through billions of bits of electronic communication. And the larger question: why, six years after 9/11, is this sort of fishing expedition the supposed first line of defense in the war on terrorism?

U.N. Authorizes 26,000 Peacekeeping Troops for Darfur

2007-08-03T20:28:00.000-04:00

"U.N. Authorizes 26,000 Peacekeeping Troops for Darfur" touts this article in the Washington Post. While this is welcome news, this is certainly the type of empty promise we've heard from the International Community before. And the UN Force isn't going anywhere until Khartoum decides to let it in. Initial word out of Khartoum is that they will allow the force. But the Sudanese government has made an infinite number promises in the past and they all ended up broken.

A peacekeeping force in Darfur would be extremely welcome to those of us who have concern for the 100's of thousands of dead or dying civilians. However violence at the hands of the Janjaweed (and by extension, the Gov of Sudan) has died down in the last year as much of the population of Darfur has resettled into dirty, disgusting refugee camps where food is scarce and security is scarcer. To a certain extent, the Janjaweed and the GoS has achieved its aim of pushing the "African Muslim" population off of its land and scaring it into complete submission (or death).

The main cause of death in Darfur these days is starvation in the refugee camps which don't have close to enough food or resources to support the 100's of thousands of people that fled there to escape the violence the Janjaweed inflicted on villages across Darfur. Now the GoS is content to let starvation and disease do the dirty work for it by killing civilians in the refugee camps without the Janjaweed having to lift a finger.

So again, peacekeepers could ideally prevent future outbreaks of violence by the Janjaweed, however the biggest killer in Darfur is starvation and disease, which peacekeepers can't do a whole lot to combat. What the peacekeepers can do is oversee a ceasefire long enough for aid agencies to get back into Darfur and try to make up the huge gap in food needed to keep the people alive. Again the success of such efforts depends entirely on whether the GoS wants to let the people of Darfur live. To date the GoS has been very effective at scaring off (or out-right barring) aid groups from entering the area. This directly leads to starvation and disease and the GoS is fully aware of this.

So what's my point? The peacekeepers are a good start, but they themselves won't save lives. They will only be able to faciliate efforts by other groups to help improve the situation on the ground in dry, starved Darfur.

For the WaPo article on the UN Peacekeeping force, click here.

"The Devil Comes on Horseback"

2007-08-02T20:53:00.000-04:00

This is an article on a new, devastating and disturbing documentary about the death and destruction caused in Darfur by the government-sponsored Janjaweed militias.

If you can stomach it, I encourage you to see this movie, or at the least, read this review from Salon.com

"The Devil Comes on Horseback": The first Holocaust of the 21st century, as a ratings flop

This shouldn't be a competitive sport or anything, but I'm pretty sure that Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern's documentary "The Devil Came on Horseback" has the most horrifying images I have ever seen in a motion picture. There aren't words to describe them, really. There are pictures of people who have been tortured and burned alive, children who have been chained in place and hacked to pieces, corpses reduced to ghostly outlines of ash on the ground, people so badly mutilated you can't identify them as male or female, child or adult. You won't sleep well after you see this movie, and I don't suppose you should.

One could argue that Claude Lanzmann's "Shoah," which includes very few images of atrocity, is a more chilling exploration of genocidal history. But "The Devil Came on Horseback" has galvanized audiences at film festivals around the world precisely because it presents, in its calm, measured fashion and without much ceremony, pictures that nobody really wants to see.

Most of those photographs were taken by Brian Steidle, a former U.S. Marine Corps captain who served for six months as an unarmed military observer in and around the Sudanese province of Darfur, not realizing at the time that he was one of a tiny number of documentary eyewitnesses to the ongoing massacres that have resulted in about 450,000 deaths and perhaps 2.5 million refugees, according to some estimates. In 2003, the long-running civil war between Sudan's Arab-dominated government and the largely black southern rebels sputtered to a close, freeing the government to focus on a few unrelated bands of ragtag rebels in Darfur.

As everyone except Sudan's government now admits, the Arab militias known as "janjaweed" (linguistic experts differ, but Steidle says it means "devil on a horse") who have been killing off or driving out the black population of Darfur are funded, supported and egged on by Sudanese authorities, often with air support from Antonov bombers. The African Union sent a tiny group of observers to Sudan, with the faint hope of quelling the violence, toward the end of 2003. Among them was Steidle, who snapped away with his telephoto lens as he watched janjaweed raiders shoot children, rape women, massacre men and burn entire villages to the ground.

Of course "The Devil Came on Horseback" is about a big issue, a horrifying conflict most of us, including our highest officials, have chosen not to learn too much about. But it's also about a smaller, exemplary issue, the transformation of an ordinary, jocked-out military dude into a crusader. Steidle says he joined the African Union's observer force mostly out of a taste for travel and exotic adventure; he was hoping to retire soon, at age 35, and spend the rest of his life on his sailboat. He came back from the Sudan partway through 2004 and tried to forget about the whole thing.

But after realizing that he was virtually the only American who had seen the Darfur massacres personally, and could prove it, he became something of a national conscience and gadfly, testifying before Congress, speaking at rallies, talking to journalists whenever and wherever he could. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times published several of his pictures to accompany an Op-Ed, which created a brief wave of media interest in Darfur, and in the question of whether the West could or should do something.

Steidle says he often had the thought in Darfur that if Americans could see what he was seeing, Marines would be there inside a week. Fearsome as they are to Darfur's villagers, the janjaweed are bands of a few dozen men with automatic weapons and Toyota pickup trucks. Two or three battalions of Western troops with helicopters and armored vehicles would suffice to stop them; a few more could disperse or kill them. (And believe me, after you see this movie you won't feel too many scruples about using force against those people.)

But the people of Darfur, predictably, have become more collateral damage in the bottomless fiasco documented in Ferguson's film. Both in the political and financial senses, U.S. policy makers believe they cannot afford to intervene in another overseas conflict, and the tense racial politics that affects all interactions between the West and the developing world, between the United Nations and the barely functioning African Union, has meant that bureaucrats continue to dither in big cities while the killing goes on.

Steidle and his activist sister continue to work for Darfur-related charities and visit the refugee camps across the border in Chad (for obvious reasons, he can't return to the Sudan). He has written a book, and testified before the International Criminal Court in the Hague, giving names, dates and places of the massacres he observed. But if the court hands down indictments, who's going to go into that hellhole and arrest the suspects? To paraphrase Gandhi's famous quip, international justice sounds like a good idea, but we haven't seen it yet. Ultimately, if the American people are too numb, too infotained and too narcotized to care, then we don't have anyone to blame for Darfur, or for the next Darfur, whenever and wherever it happens.

"The Devil Came on Horseback" is now playing at the IFC Center in New York. It opens Aug. 17 in Boston and Helena, Mont., Aug. 24 in San Francisco, Sept. 7 in Nashville and Sept. 21 in Seattle. Other screenings include July 28 in Philadelphia, July 29 in Rochester, Minn., July 31 in Sedona, Ariz., Aug. 6 in Wilmington, N.C., Aug. 23 in Huntington, N.Y., Aug. 28 in Norfolk, Va., Sept. 7 in St. Louis and Sept. 20 in Milwaukee. See Web site for complete schedule.

Gonzalez' Lie

2007-07-27T20:31:00.000-04:00

In a recent post, Anonymous Liberal recapped how exactly Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez lied to Congress, and why:

...This appears to be a classic example of backing oneself into a corner. Back when the NSA story first broke in December 2005, the Bush administration was fighting very hard to convince the media and Congress that the program was legal (which, by the way, it isn't). At the time, various press reports hinted that there had been a major dust up within the administration over the legality of the program. James Comey's name was floated around by anonymous sources.

It was in this context that Alberto Gonzales went to testify (not under oath) before the Republican-controlled Senate in February 2006. The White House was undoubtedly anxious to downplay the suggestion that there had been significant internal dissent over the program and wave Congress and the media away from the Comey angle of the story. So, I suspect, some clever White House official seized upon a semantic distinction between "the program the president confirmed" and its predecessor. Only the program as currently constituted would be called the Terrorist Surveillance Program. Any features that had been dropped in 2004 would be considered "other intelligence activities."

Relying on this unstated and hyper-legalistic distinction, Gonzales then testified that there had been no internal dissent over "the program that the president has confirmed." He even went to the trouble of clarifying this point following his testimony:

Using the administration's term for the recently disclosed operation, he continued, "I was confining my remarks to the Terrorist Surveillance Program as described by the President, the legality of which was the subject" of the Feb. 6 hearing.

And this tactic worked, at least for a while. What Gonzales and the White House didn't count on was that the Democrats would take over both chambers of Congress and eventually call on Comey to testify.

Now Gonzales is trapped by his original, highly misleading testimony. If he concedes that Comey's objections involved the same program (which he did in a June press conference before realizing his error), he'll essentially be admitting to having misled Congress. So instead he's clinging to his original "linguistic parsing."

Compounding the problem for Gonzales, though, is the fact that other members of the Bush administration, including Bush himself, haven't been very good about observing the definitional distinction that Gonzales is relying upon. The President has repeatedly referred to the Terrorist Surveillance Program as extending back to 2001, and the letter unearthed by the AP demonstrates that the DNI's office wasn't observing this distinction in its responses to Congressional inquiries.

Gonzales is in a real bind here. Even assuming his semantic parsing is a sufficient defense against perjury charges, it seems pretty clear that he intentionally misled Congress. And this is a clear enough case that I don't imagine the press or the Democrats in Congress will just let it slide. Not this time.

I encourage you to click here for the full post.

Alberto Gonzalez currently is going down in flames

2007-07-25T21:32:00.000-04:00

He's trapped by his own lies, and his ship is sinking like the Titanic as he tries desperately to get out from under this web of lies that he built before Congress.

Bush's warrantless wiretapping, and the mysterious early incarnation of it that was so egregious his own Attorney General wouldn't sign off on it, are a huuuuuuuuge deal, regardless of whether or not CNN and USA Today are going to stop their Linsday Lohan coverage long enough to mention the destruction of our Constition and the Bush/Cheney/Gonzalez assault on the pillars of American Society.

From talkingpointsmemo.com:

Blinded Justice
07.24.07 -- 3:37PM
By David Kurtz

Since Alberto Gonzales has about as much credibility left as professional cycling, maybe it's no surprise that members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are hinting that Gonzales may be subject to an inquiry into whether he perjured himself before the committee in denying that there was any serious dispute within the Justice Department about the legality of the President's warrantless wiretapping program. (Spencer Ackerman and Paul Kiel have the details.)

While it may not be surprising per se, think about what it means for the institutions of justice in this country that the sitting Attorney General of the United States is suspected of perjury, by senators from his own party, who are willing to say so publicly, in matters involving national security and the fundamental constitutional rights of American citizens; yet, the President does nothing but voice his support for man.

I suppose we should not be surprised, but we should also not lose our capacity to be outraged.

“Our Media Is Missing the Story of the Century”

2007-07-23T19:47:00.000-04:00

The Mainstream Media is pretty much ignoring a controversy that outshines all others, but we aren't ignoring it. Right friends? Right!?!

Writes Scarecrow on www.firedoglake.com:

As the New York Times lead editorial recognized Sunday, the Bush White House is now in complete and open defiance of all lawful Congressional efforts to hold the executive accountable for misconduct and possible crimes committed by members of the White House staff. Just as Bush claimed he had an inherent right to disregard Congressional statutes (e.g., FISA, the Geneva Conventions, signing statements) and the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments, or to cover up WH complicity in crimes (via commuting Scooter Libby’s prison term), the President is now claiming he can ignore any Congressional oversight of White House misconduct.

I’ve almost given up waiting for the media’s most public faces to express outrage over what is happening. The Administration has so systematically undermined the Constitution’s established checks and balances and means of accountability via Congressional and judicial oversight that there is virtually nothing left to check their lawless excesses except impeachment and removal from office. Fielding’s moves suggest that Bush and Cheney just want to “bring it on.”

The traditional media can’t seem to get their heads around how dangerously unAmerican this is and how serious a threat it poses to our constitutional framework. And there are too many in the media like the editorial writers at the Washington Post who pretend that the Administration might be more cooperative if only the Congress would be less insistent and simply offer the WH a face-saving compromise.

So I’m going to appeal to whatever remaining instincts the journalists in our media might still have as news people, and as Americans. There’s a story here, folks; a really big story. The details may be hard to follow, but the basics are simple: we are already deeply into a constitutional crisis deliberately provoked by a brazenly lawless Administration, a regime that is violating the laws with impunity because it regards itself as above the law, and a regime that is openly daring Congress to impeach it. Can any of you smell a story here?

I encourage you to read the full post here.

Why blogging matters...

2007-07-21T10:32:00.000-04:00

...not my blog, per se, but what I like to call "professional bloggers" such as Glen Greenwald and Anonymous Liberal:

In an excellent post written in response to the Salon book excerpt, Paul Curtis explains why such an examination is necessary if our course is to be meaningfully altered:

Right-wing Manicheanism has taken over the national debate on security matters, operating as a literally totalitarian thought system, in that it subsumes all discourse into its own unanswerable internal logic. We've become familiar with the notion of framing in political discourse: well, this is the meta-frame. It quashes every attempt by liberals and moderates to raise rational points and does tremendous damage to constitutional liberties, the national interest, and global well-being. . .

Because it is a totalitarian framework of logic, the only way to defeat it is to attack it at its foundations, to root out its very premise, as Greenwald is doing. Conservatives have often gained the advantage in American public discourse because they build and re-enforce these meta-frames with great care; for liberals to bring reason back to the debate we'll need to do a considerable amount of foundational work of our own. This means, in the present case, repeatedly making the argument that Manicheanism is foolish and destructive, that we cannot afford to make policy according to a worldview defined by a simpleminded division of Good v. Evil.

That is a project to which many people -- liberals and non-liberals alike -- are devoted. Daily blogging provides an opportunity incrementally -- one by one -- to rebut falsehoods, expose deceit, challenge misleading orthodoxies, and identify responsible parties. But a book enables a much broader argument about the irrational and fact-free propositions at the root of our political decisions. Uprooting those premises -- beginning with the binary moralistic imperatives we use to determine America's role in the world and the power we vest in our political leaders -- is a prerequisite for the vital goal of restoring reason to our political process.

As the fawning Chris Matthews remarks about Ann Coulter yesterday demonstrate, a book's success can, by itself, guarantee access to our media organs in order to make arguments and offer perspectives which are otherwise excluded. Ultimately, all other considerations are washed aside by product success, the overarching language they truly understand.

I wrote the book for the same reason I blog: because I believe that arguments can be advanced, evidence marshalled and facts revealed which can serve as an antidote to our deeply dysfunctional political discourse and, through reasoned-based (though impassioned) persuasion, constructively influence our political process. A book's success can force media outlets to provide a platform for the book's arguments and to expand the range of voices and perspectives which are heard.

My continued love for Glen Greenwald

2007-07-18T23:45:00.000-04:00

Glen Greenwald is an extremely sharp blogger on Salon.com and I cannot stress enough how quickly you should go to his blog and check him out.

He recently did an interview with Activate, a political newsletter I get (and you should too). Here are a few excerpts that show why I like Greenwald so much. I encourage you to read the whole interview. I encourage you to read Greenwald's blog. I encourage you to read his books (here and here).

Heed my encouragement!

Glen Greenwald: But by and large, I think political bloggers are motivated by a central principle: namely, that the entire Beltway system, including the Beltway media, is dysfunctional or corrupt. And one key role of blogs is to force a whole variety of views into mainstream news that, in their absence, are simply excluded...

Q: Is part of a journalist's job description automatically questioning the motives of any presidential administration?

GG: The only way that the political press is worthwhile is if they are adversarial to the government; if they treat government claims skeptically and investigate their veracity, rather than mindlessly passing them on. Because the press, with some noble exceptions, engages in the latter and almost never the former, it has become virtually worthless, other than as an amplifier and credibility provider for government statements.

I don't think it can be reasonably disputed that we had a massive failure of the press in the run-up to the war. By itself, the fact that 70% of Americans believed — even six months after the invasion of Iraq — that Saddam Hussein personally planned the 9/11 attacks potently indicts the performance of journalists. They became war cheerleaders, handing out playing cards with pictures of Iraqi bad guys and breathlessly and uncritically reciting every White House pro-war claim. War opponents, in the run-up to the war, were virtually invisible...

Q: You have a book coming out this month about the Bush administration called Tragic Legacy. What is the "tragic legacy," in your mind?

GG: One of the few things Bush supporters and opponents agree about is that this presidency has been enormously consequential. It really has changed America's national character, standing in the world, and the way we perceive our political institutions.

Like all countries, America has been imperfect and disliked in some parts of the world. But it had a moral credibility that was a vital part of its security and identity, and it was built up over decades. That has been eroded almost completely over the last six years. America is literally perceived as a rogue nation on every continent and in most countries on the planet. Hundreds of millions of people are too young to know anything about America other than the face it has shown under the Bush presidency, which is soon to be eight years long. Those perceptions are going to be exceedingly difficult to reverse.

Here are some recent posts I made based on things Greenwald has written:

• Greenwald's Books
• Masculinity in the '08 Race
• Bush's Military Tribunals
• US Torture

The myth of fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq

2007-07-16T00:21:00.000-04:00

As Glen Greenwald points out, virtually every news report on Iraq cites "Al Qaeda militants killed'. It seems everyone the military kills is Al Qaeda. This is actually extremely inaccurate, and shame on the New York Times and every other news outlet in the country that perpetuates this over-simplified, Bush/Cheney propaganda point.

Writes the Christian Science Monitor, via Glen Greenwald:

The US and Iraqi governments have vastly overstated the number of foreign fighters in Iraq, and most of them don't come from Saudi Arabia, according to a new report from the Washington-based Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS). According to a piece in The Guardian, this means the US and Iraq "feed the myth" that foreign fighters are the backbone of the insurgency. While the foreign fighters may stoke the insurgency flames, they make up only about 4 to 10 percent of the estimated 30,000 insurgents.

Why is the national media, at the behest of the Bush/Cheney war machine, suddenly calling every enemy in Iraq 'Al Qaeda'? Says the Cato Institute, via Glen Greenwald:

...claims of "Al Qaeda in Iraq" is "a canard that the perpetrators of the current catastrophe use to frighten people into supporting a fatally flawed, and seemingly endless, nation-building debacle."

PS. If you're angry about the war in Iraq and the way Bush is destroying America, you simply must read Glen Greenwald's blog on Salon.com. I can't put it in simpler terms.

The True Failure of Bush & Cheney’s war machine

2007-07-11T18:30:00.000-04:00

From WaPo:

"The only person in Washington who cares less about his public image than David Addington is Dick Cheney," said a former White House ally. "What both of them miss is that ..... in times of war, a prerequisite for success is people having confidence in their leadership. This is the great failure of the administration -- a complete and total indifference to public opinion."

_________________________________________________

This is what I have believed for a while now. What will truly bring about the ultimate failure of the Bush/Cheney war agenda is an inability to build public support. The only way they could sell the war was to claim it would cost no lives and very little money. In this way they set themselves up for failure. When the war indeed ended up costing many lives and a lot of money and was very difficult to win (as wars generally are), the bottom fell out of any momentum that the Bush/Cheney war machine may have had.

At a time when true leaders can build public support for a long and difficult slog, Bush/Cheney have no moral or leadership capital whatsoever. The public feels betrayed that this war isn't going to be as easy as it was portrayed, and in something that's as impossible as the Iraq War has become, there is no way for Bush or Cheney to overcome the public's disenchanted, disenfranchised view of this aspect of the WoT.

Bush and Cheney bet the house on their extreme correctness and relied the unflinching use of any power available, Constitution be damned. They also bet the house on the winnability of the war, and the belief that once Iraq flowered into a democracy, the entire Middle East would follow suit. Of course that outcome was never even a possibility. But even if it had been, Bush and Cheney's plan was so narrow-minded, so short-sighted, and so self-rightous, that their was no way for them to achieve their pipe dream goals of an easy, cheap, and quick establishment of a pro-American democracy.

The war has gone down the tubes and with no moral capital or respect as wartime leaders, there was no way Bush/Cheney were ever going to be able to maintian public support for a fight that was exposed for what it truly is: something very risky, and very costly, and that was going to be very difficult to achieve.

Bush and Cheney have failed miserably. They abused every power they could get their hands on. They literally thought they were above the Constitution, the courts and the American concept of justice. They thought American and Iraqi lives could be spent for a greater good. And from the very beginning, when they tried to pass off this war as something inexpensive and easy, it has been an incomprehensible failure.

WaPo feature on The Bush presidency

2007-07-08T23:36:00.000-04:00

On the heels of their amazing four part series on the machinations of Dick Cheney, the Washington Post recently ran this insightful/depressing profile of the Bush Presidency, in all its unprecedented failure.

I encourage you to read the whole story, but here are a few highlights (or lowlights?)...

No modern president has experienced such a sustained rejection by the American public. Bush's approval rating slipped below 50 percent in Washington Post-ABC News polls in January 2005 and has not topped that level in the 30 months since. The last president mired under 50 percent so long was Harry S. Truman. Even Richard M. Nixon did not fall below 50 percent until April 1973, 16 months before he resigned...

...The polls reflect the events of Bush's second term, an unyielding sequence of bad news. Social Security. Hurricane Katrina. Harriet E. Miers. Dubai Ports World. Vice President Cheney's hunting accident. Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay and Mark Foley. The midterm elections. I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Alberto R. Gonzales and Paul D. Wolfowitz. Immigration. And overshadowing it all, the Iraq war, now longer than the U.S. fight in World War II....

..."He does a very good job of keeping out the extreme things in his life," Conaway, the congressman, said. "He doesn't watch Leno and Letterman. He doesn't spend a lot of time exposing himself to that sort of stuff. He has a terrific knack of not looking through the rearview mirror..."

...Our members just wish this thing would be over," said a senior House Republican who met with Bush recently. "People are tired of him." Bush's circle remains sealed tight, the lawmaker said. "There's nobody there who can stand up to him and tell him, 'Mr. President, you've got to do this. You're wrong on this.' There's no adult supervision. It's like he's oblivious. Maybe that's a defense mechanism..."

...Bush's unpopularity appears to impose limits on where he goes. He turned down an invitation from the Washington Nationals to throw out the first pitch on Opening Day, pleading a busy schedule. The former baseball team owner instead hosted an invitation-only ceremony for a college football team in the East Room, where no one would boo. When commencement season rolled around, he stayed away from major universities, delivering addresses at a community college in Florida and a small religious school in Pennsylvania run by a former aide. And even then he was met by student and faculty protests...

And here, in my opinion*, is possibly the central reason why Bush's presidency has been such an unequivocal disaster:

Much of the discussion [with a White House visitor] focused on the nature of good and evil, a perennial theme for Bush, who casts the struggle against Islamic extremists in black-and-white terms.

This isn't the movies. This isn't a video game. This isn't Lord of the Rings. This isn't the friggin Bible. It's real life George. Diplomacy. Compromise. Nuance. Detail. Negotiation. Politicking. And did I mention diplomacy?

He's the most powerful man in the world and he's only capable of seeing the world in terms of good vs. evil.

What a disaster of a presidency. A complete disaster.

For the full story, click here.

*And the opinion of one of my favorite writers, Glen Greenwald of Salon.com. (see the post below)

Great reading: A seminal WaPo series on Dick Cheney

2007-07-02T10:06:00.001-04:00

Last week I read an incredibly enlightening series of articles in the Washington Post on VP Dickie Cheney and his tenure in the White House.

The series is a brilliant education in what exactly Cheney has done to the US in his time in office, and more importantly, how he managed to do it.

The good news is that Cheney's career-long goal to monopolize executive power and run the war on terror as a war-mongering extremist is failing miserably.

The bad news is the 100,000's of dead Iraqis (and maimed/killed Americans).

Oh, and a completely destabilized Middle East.
Oh, and a weakened U.S. Constitution
Oh, and the complete destruction of any international US prestige... & on... & on...

Please read this series of articles. PLEASE! Print them out, bring them on the subway! Take them to the beach!

Just read them!!!

Cheney's assault on America.

The 5-4 Roberts Supreme Court

2007-07-01T11:54:00.001-04:00

Much has been in the news lately about a string of 5-4 decisions by the Supreme Court which have struck down liberal political initiatives in favor of conservative ones: school integration, abortion, campaign finance reform, free speech and a slew of others.

While being disappointed at each of the courtroom losses, I find myself thinking back to the 2004 presidential campaign and something which I felt wasn't receiving enough attention at the time: the winner of that race was going to get to appoint two supreme court justices. This was something that is arguably as significant as occupying the White House for four more years, if not moreso. The Supreme Court will shape the American landscape for decades to come. And as the '04 winer, George W. Bush had the final say on the make up of the court.

Now we are truly seeing the effects of Bush's win in '04. Case after case is being decided in favor of conservatives. So what to make of this? In today's Washington Post, Edward Lazarus had this to say:

The challenge for progressives...is twofold. The first is to wean themselves off what has become an excessive reliance on the judicial branch to achieve their social and political goals. Progressives will now have to win their battles in the political arena.

Second, progressives need to consider whether they can make common cause with some conservatives. Such a potential agenda does exist. Call it the "accountability agenda," focused on greater transparency in government and on enforcing the checks and balances at the Constitution's structural core.

For more on the current Supreme Court make up, as well as historical perspective, read the whole story here.

Did Pfizer test drugs on Nigerian children?

2007-07-01T11:53:00.001-04:00

Reports the Times (UK):

From The Times
June 27, 2007
Pfizer under fire after drug trial
The drugs giant is being accused of using poor people as guinea-pigs for its clinical tests
Jonathan Clayton in Kano, Nigeria

Ramatu Musa has little doubt why her eldest son is deaf. He is, she alleges, a victim of an illegal drug trial in Nigeria by Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company.

“I am so bitter because he is my eldest. All my hopes were on him. I expected him to care for me when I am older,” Mrs Musa, 47, told The Times. “We are poor. I have no money to look after him. They [Pfizer] did this to him.”

Nigerian lawyers maintain that Smai’la, 17, was one of about 200 children used as guinea-pigs by Pfizer during one of the worst meningitis epidemics to hit the country, in 1996. By the time that it had run its course, more than 10,000 people, many of them children, had died.

Last month the Kano state government and the Nigerian federal Government filed lawsuits against Pfizer seeking nearly $10 billion (£5 billion) in damages. They allege that an untested drug, Trovan Floxacin, which at the time was not licensed anywhere else in the world, was administered.
Related Links

The company denies the allegations. “Trovan unquestionably saved lives and Pfizer strongly disagrees with any suggestion that the company conducted its study in an inappropriate and unethical manner,” it said.

Trovan was approved for use in the United States in 1997 – but for adults, not children. It was withdrawn two years later because several patients died of liver problems. “It is not in use anywhere today,” a company spokesperson said.

According to papers submitted by the authorities, the drug trial resulted in deaths, brain damage, paralysis and slurred speech – all neurological side-effects of the type of virulent meningococcal disease that then devastated the region.

One US court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by disabled Nigerians, but the case may be reheard on appeal. Either way, the new cases would be binding outside Nigeria because of international conventions.

“A successful prosecution would affect Pfizer’s operations well beyond Nigeria’s borders,” said a senior company lawyer in Lagos who acts for other big international companies operating in Nigeria. “I think they will have to settle out of court.”

The accusations against Pfizer surfaced seven years ago, when doctors involved in the trials questioned the ethics involved in using poor countries as testing grounds for unapproved drugs after an in-depth inquiry by The Washington Post newspaper. One physician suggested that Nigerian documents had been falsified; another said that follow-up monitoring tests on the children were inadequate.

A doctor involved in the trials even brought a lawsuit against the company, but it was dropped and since then neither he nor the company has made any further comment...

For the full story, click here.

Masculinity is irrelevant to Presidential credentials

2007-07-01T11:52:00.001-04:00

But don't tell blowhard conservative talk show hosts that. They're too busy reducing the public dialogue on the future of our country (aka the '08 Race) into a popularity contest where the manliest man wins. Writes Glen Greenwald:

[A shallow obsession with masculinity] is what enables an effete and bloated figure like Rush Limbaugh to parade around as the icon of masculinity, and it is what drives him not only to dismiss -- but to overtly celebrate -- the abuses of Abu Grahib and other torture policies as just good, clean fun had by real men (like Rush, as proven by his support for it). As John McCain pointed out in the GOP debate in South Carolina, men who have actually served in the military find torture to be dishonorable, dangerous and repulsive. Only those with a throbbing need to demonstrate their masculine virtues would glibly embrace things of that sort.

Why does this shallow obsession with masculinity matter?

...there is simply no way to understand our degraded political discourse and the radical militarism of the last six years without thinking about these twisted character traits, which their carriers tout quite overtly and even proudly.

More on Bush's failed, if not dangerous, Military Tribunals

2007-06-29T18:33:00.001-04:00

Writes Glen Greenwald:

Having now carefully reviewed the Al-Marri decision, as well as ample commentary from those defending and criticizing the opinion, there are several points worth making. But the overarching point is how extraordinary it is -- specifically, how extraordinarily disturbing it is -- that we are even debating these issues at all.

Although its ultimate resolution is complicated, the question raised by Al-Marri is a clear and simple one: Does the President have the power -- and/or should he have it -- to arrest individuals on U.S. soil and keep them imprisoned for years and years, indefinitely, without charging them with a crime, allowing them access to lawyers or the outside world, and/or providing a meaningful opportunity to contest the validity of the charges?

How can that question not answer itself? Who would possibly believe that an American President has such powers, and more to the point, what kind of a person would want a President to have such powers? That is one of a handful of powers which this country was founded to prevent.

U.S. Torture

2007-06-27T00:29:00.000-04:00

Something to keep in mind as George W. Bush and his cadre of fanatics go around the globe torturing people in our name:

Freezing prisoners to near-death, repeated beatings, long forced-standing, waterboarding, cold showers in air-conditioned rooms, stress positions [Arrest mit Verschaerfung], withholding of medicine and leaving wounded or sick prisoners alone in cells for days on end - all these have occurred at US detention camps under the command of president George W. Bush. Over a hundred documented deaths have occurred in these interrogation sessions. The Pentagon itself has conceded homocide by torture in multiple cases.

-Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic online, 29 May 2007

That passage is from a post Sullivan made here, where he calmly and scientifically points out the similarities between the Bush, Yoo and Gonzalez' justifications of torture and those of the Nazis during WWII. I encourage you to read the short and enlightening piece by Sullivan.

* * * * *

Repeatedly in political debate these days you hear hawkish conservatives justify American reliance on torture because "Al Qaeda does it too".

Writes Glenn Greenwald on Salon:

The reason that it is news that the U.S. tortures, but not news that Al Qaeda does, is because Al Qaeda is a barbaric and savage terrorist group which operates with no limits, whereas the U.S. is supposed to be something different than that. Isn't it amazing that one even needs to point that out?

But neoconservatives and other Bush followers do not recognize that distinction and do not believe in it. They see an equivalency between the U.S. and Al Qaeda -- since they do it, we are justified in doing it. And thus, based on that equivalency, they demand that the media treat stories of torture from the U.S. and Al Qaeda exactly the same, as though they are equally newsworthy.

And with that twisted equivalency bolted into place, they have dragged our country on a path where that premise is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our own interrogation methods are reverse-engineered from the most brutal and barbaric countries and groups on the planet. And the policies and practices we have adopted over the last six years embody everything which this country, for decades, vocally deplored. But all of that happened because of this "belief" -- which is really just a self-justifying rationalization -- that we not only have the right to be, but that we must be, exactly like Al Qaeda, do what they do, in order to defeat them.

That is what leads to such indescribably inane though revealing protests: "Hey, you reported that the U.S. tortures, so why aren't you reporting that Al Qaeda does? Whose side are you on?" That is the rancid depth to which our public discourse and our national standards have descended, and those who brought it to that point have designs on dragging it far lower still.

Gays serve in British Military, Universe doesn't combust

2007-06-24T22:38:00.000-04:00

Serious news out of the UK in a recent NY Times article: Gays have been serving openly in the military for a few years now and none of the predicted conflict, disaster or dischord has occurred. In fact, British soldiers largely seem to -gasp!- not care what sexual orientation their fellow soldiers are.

Oh my god! You mean who adults choose to sleep with may not matter on the battlefield!?! surely you jest!?

After one squadron leader came out, "he found that coming out to his troops actually increased the unit’s strength and cohesion."

Another quote: "all the problems the services thought were going to come to pass really haven’t materialized,” the official said."

Full story here.

For Rudy Giuliani, it's always Sept 12th

2007-06-20T18:40:00.000-04:00

Rudy Giuliani is a bad Presidential candidate.

And I say that as a New Yorker who very much appreciates what he did for crime in the city. And his leadership on 9/11. (Although I still maintain he didn't do all that much on 9/11. All he had to do was go in front of the cameras, say the right things, and not mess up. He didn't do anything spectacular. Contrary to what some people believe, the city was going to survive with or without him.)

My new favorite blog, The Anonymous Liberal, has two recent posts on Giuliani. Summaries below:

1. He has no credentials to run for president, especially when it comes to foriegn policy. "For Rudy Giuliani, it's always 9/12". Full post here.

2. Let me say that again: He has NO CREDENTIALS WHATSOEVER when it comes to foreign policy and he is actively avoiding any discussion of what his beliefs might be. Basically he wants to be elected without the electorate knowing anything about his foreign policies. But he WAS mayor on 9/11, so maybe we should just trust him. Read the full post here.

The flawed debate on war funding and Iraq deadlines

2007-06-19T18:38:00.000-04:00

from Glen Greenwald:

Quoting another writer:

The whole "support the troops" meme has become a terrible problem for Democrats. Even though, as Glenn Greenwald has argued in Salon, cutting off funding doesn't mean soldiers will have their guns and bullets and armor taken away in the middle of a battle, Americans have been convinced that it does. They want to end the war and support the troops at the same time -- i.e., send back the food and still eat.

...(a) de-funding does not even arguably constitute "endangerment or abandonment of the troops," but (b) "Americans have been convinced that it does." And therein one finds what is the most extraordinary and telling fact of our political landscape. Namely, our Iraq war policy was just determined, in large part if not principally, by a complete myth: that de-funding proposals constitute an abandonment or, more ludicrously still, "endangerment" of the troops.

It is difficult to overstate how irrational this theme is, and yet it is equally difficult to overstate what a decisive role it just played in ensuring the continuation of the war. Polls consistently demonstrate that Americans overwhelmingly favor compelled withdrawal of the troops from Iraq. Other than defunding, they overwhelmingly favor every legislative mechanism for achieving that goal -- from a straightforward bill setting a mandatory time deadline to a rescission of the resolution authorizing military force to compulsory benchmarks. Yet polls are equally uniform in showing that a solid majority of Americans oppose de-funding.

Yet, rationally speaking, this makes absolutely no sense. De-funding is nothing more than a legislative instrument for ending the war, and is substantively indistinguishable in every way from the other war-ending legislative means which Americans favor. Congress has used de-funding or the threat of de-funding multiple times in the past to compel the President to cease military action, and to invoke it, Congress simply consults with the military, determines how much time is needed to effectuate a safe withdrawal, and then de-funds the war accordingly.

Sen. Lieberman calls for war with Iran, Gen. Clark puts Liebs in his place

2007-06-16T09:57:00.001-04:00

From The Huffington Post, via Glen Greenwald:

Gen. Wesley Clark on Joe Lieberman's public calls for dropping bombs on Iran:

Senator Lieberman's saber rattling does nothing to help dissuade Iran from aiding Shia militias in Iraq, or trying to obtain nuclear capabilities. In fact, it's highly irresponsible and counter-productive, and I urge him to stop.

This kind of rhetoric is irresponsible and only plays into the hands of President Ahmadinejad, and those who seek an excuse for military action. What we need now is full-fledged engagement with Iran. We should be striving to bridge the gulf of almost 30 years of hostility and only when all else fails should there be any consideration of other options. The Iranians are very much aware of US military capabilities. They don't need Joe Lieberman to remind them that we are the militarily dominant power in the world today.

Only someone who never wore the uniform or thought seriously about national security would make threats at this point. What our soldiers need is responsible strategy, not a further escalation of tensions in the region. Senator Lieberman must act more responsibly and tone down his threat machine.

Life in Bush's America

2007-06-14T17:29:00.001-04:00

(click to enlarge)

This image was taken from the Washington Post's homepage at 5:30 this evening. Look at the headlines.

Headline 1: The Middle East continues its descent into hell
Headline 2: Bush official told to report to jail because he's been convicted in Federal court.
Headline 3: Bush's Attorney General to be investigated
Headline 4: The Clinton's are millionaires
Headline 5: Mortgage payments are doubling.

Don't blame me. I voted for Kerry.

The Colossal Failure of the Bush Military Tribunals

2007-06-13T20:32:00.000-04:00

It would be one thing if the Bush Administration defied long-standing American legal traditions such as Habeas Corpus and allowing defendants to see the evidence against them (oh, and not using evidence obtained through torture) in a successful campaign to prosecute high-level terrorists, but what makes Bush, Gonzalez and company's blatant disregard for the constitution so insulting is that Military Tribunals have been almost a complete failure.

Writes Jennifer Daskal for Salon:

The Bush administration's attempt to create an entirely new system of quasi-justice -- one without any established precedent or rules, where even the basis for jurisdiction was made up on the fly -- has been dysfunctional since day one.

Established with fanfare more than five years ago, the military commissions were touted by the administration and its supporters as the best forum in which to bring the masterminds of 9/11 to justice. They "don't deserve the same guarantees and safeguards that would be used for an American citizen going through the normal judicial process," Vice President Cheney declared at the time. Instead, suspected terrorists would be deprived of the basic principles of due process and could potentially be convicted on evidence they had never seen -- including evidence obtained by interrogators using torture.

Only 10 charges were ever brought under these military commissions. In June 2006, the Supreme Court found the commissions unlawful, holding the administration had failed to seek congressional approval for them, and the pending cases were dismissed. But a few months later, Congress came to the administration's rescue, rushing through legislation to authorize the continued use of commissions. It passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which gave the president the authorization he needed to proceed.

The first and only conviction came just two months ago, when Australian David Hicks, the former kangaroo skinner, pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorism in exchange for a sentence of just nine months, to be served in Adelaide.

Compared with the prosecution of terrorists in the federal court system, the military commissions are an abysmal failure. In the same five and a half years that the commissions have convicted just one individual, the Department of Justice has successfully prosecuted hundreds of terrorism cases, including dozens of international ones. A few are well-known: Richard Reid, the shoe bomber arrested in Logan airport and sentenced to life in prison; Zacarias Moussaoui, who got life in prison for his involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks.

How 'The Worst President Ever' got into the White House

2007-06-10T14:40:00.000-04:00

From NYTs columnist Paul Krugman, via the blog The Carpetbagger Report:

In Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate, Mitt Romney completely misrepresented how we ended up in Iraq. Later, Mike Huckabee mistakenly claimed that it was Ronald Reagan’s birthday.

Guess which remark The Washington Post identified as the “gaffe of the night”?

Folks, this is serious. If early campaign reporting is any guide, the bad media habits that helped install the worst president ever in the White House haven’t changed a bit.

You may not remember the presidential debate of Oct. 3, 2000, or how it was covered, but you should. It was one of the worst moments in an election marked by news media failure as serious, in its way, as the later failure to question Bush administration claims about Iraq.

Throughout that debate, George W. Bush made blatantly misleading statements, including some outright lies — for example, when he declared of his tax cut that “the vast majority of the help goes to the people at the bottom end of the economic ladder.” That should have told us, right then and there, that he was not a man to be trusted.

But few news reports pointed out the lie. Instead, many news analysts chose to critique the candidates’ acting skills. Al Gore was declared the loser because he sighed and rolled his eyes — failing to conceal his justified disgust at Mr. Bush’s dishonesty. And that’s how Mr. Bush got within chad-and-butterfly range of the presidency.

Now fast forward to last Tuesday. Asked whether we should have invaded Iraq, Mr. Romney said that war could only have been avoided if Saddam “had opened up his country to I.A.E.A. inspectors, and they’d come in and they’d found that there were no weapons of mass destruction.” He dismissed this as an “unreasonable hypothetical.”

Except that Saddam did, in fact, allow inspectors in. Remember Hans Blix? When those inspectors failed to find nonexistent W.M.D., Mr. Bush ordered them out so that he could invade. Mr. Romney’s remark should have been the central story in news reports about Tuesday’s debate. But it wasn’t.

Normally Paul Krugman's writing is a little too partisan for me. But the points he makes in this column truly made me take pause.

I simply cannot believe Mitt Romney is this uninformed about the lead-up to possibly the worst foreign policy and war disaster in U.S. history. Is this really the best he could do while trying to campaign for president??

Thumbs down for 'candidate' Romney.

A taste of what President Giuliani might be like?

2007-06-08T15:24:00.000-04:00

At a Republican Presidental Campaign event in New Hampshire recently a reporter got aggressive and obnoxious when Giuliani's press secretary wouldn't answer a (a very kooky conspiracy theory, IMO) question. How does the Giuliani official respond? He points the reporter out to police, who immediately remove the man from the venue (Despite having a CNN press pass), and he is subsequently charged with trespassing. He also had a web camera with a live video feed so the police are considering espionage charges.

I find this an unbelievable abuse of the reporter's rights. I am astounded by the Giuliani official's inability to handle a question he didn't like. I think this is chilling insight into how Giuliani operates. And I simply cannot believe this story isn't being picked up yet by major news outlets.

Was the reporter obnoxious? Yes.
Did he deserved to be forcefully removed and criminally charged? Absolutely not.

To paraphrase the pompous head of Fox News, if Giuliani can't handle annoying political reporters, how is he going to face Al Qaeda?

This whole fiasco is a little to Bush-like for me.

The entire episode was captured on film, you can watch here:

For more on the story, check here.

Here is another short recap of the story, by the blog Addicted to Coffee:

A reporter was arrested following Tuesday night’s debates. He was asking questions that the Giuliani people didn’t like, so they booked him. There’s more to the story. I’ll boil it down in bullet points to make it as simple as possible:

* Reporter was a freelance journalist named Matt Lepacek
* He had official CNN press credentials (in other words, he belonged in the building)
* Lepacek was advancing a 9/11 conspiracy theory when the Giuliani aide waved the police over (Giuliani himself was not near the scene, as far as I can tell)
* Witnesses say that the police roughed up Lepacek and another journalist, and damaged their equipment before arresting Lepacek.
* There is a YouTube video of it out there.

Shaking my head at Democratic "congressman" Jefferson

2007-06-05T21:33:00.000-04:00

How could he be this corrupt? How could he have this many schemes that stretch so far and wide? The Democrats orchestrate a legendary retaking of Congress, only to be undercut by a selfish, seemingly criminal congressman like Jefferson. As this WaPo editorial points out, it's hard to even consider Jefferson a congressman when he spent so much time organizing kickbacks and illegal deals.

If he's guilty, I hope he spends a long time in jail. I also hope this is a wake up call to Democrats and all congressmen.

Mr. Jefferson Indicted
Prosecutors allege he took much more than the $90,000 seized from his freezer.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007; Page A16

TO READ the indictment of Rep. William J. Jefferson is to wonder how, if the allegations are true, the Louisiana Democrat, so busy soliciting and dispensing bribes, had any time left over for his day job. The 16-count indictment handed up yesterday by a federal grand jury in Alexandria is staggering in the scope and audacity of the bribery schemes it portrays Mr. Jefferson as having peddled, from sugar plant and waste recycling projects in Nigeria to telecommunications deals in Ghana to oil concessions in Equatorial Guinea to satellite transmission contracts in Botswana to offshore oil rights in Sao Tome and Principe. All this might explain why it took nearly two years for prosecutors to secure the indictment after a search of Mr. Jefferson's home found $90,000 wrapped in tin foil in his freezer.

The indictment describes how Mr. Jefferson, who has a law degree from Harvard and a masters in taxation from Georgetown, allegedly arranged for a lengthy menu of payoffs to shell companies he set up with family members: "monthly fees and retainers, consulting fees, percentage shares of revenue and profit, flat fees per item sold, and stock ownership in the companies seeking his official assistance." The lawmaker is accused of accepting some $500,000 in bribes. "I make a deal for my children," Mr. Jefferson allegedly told an associate as he was trying to bump up his ownership stake in one company from 7 percent to as much as 20 percent. "It wouldn't be for me."

Corruption on this scale isn't unheard of -- Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) is serving time for taking $2.4 million in bribes -- but Mr. Jefferson's alleged activities are nonetheless sickening. If the charges are true -- he has asserted his innocence -- this is the sort of criminality that no set of ethics rules, however carefully constructed, can guard against...

Denying Genocide in Darfur -- and Americans Their Coca-Cola

2007-06-05T00:03:00.000-04:00

As WaPo writer Dana Milbank points out, we have to cut Sudanese Ambassador to the US John Ukec Lueth Ukec some slack, after all he does have a terribly difficult job: representing a government complicit in genocide and trying to explain away 400,000 deaths.

(photos above are stills from a video of the press conference available here.)

On Wednesday May 30th, following in the footsteps of Tokyo Rose and Baghdad Bob, Khartoum Karl, aka Ambassador John Ukec Lueth Ukec, gave a press conference in Washington, attempting to denounce the accusations of the US government as well as demonstrate to the world how unfair the sanctions were that President Bush recently announced. After all, in Ukec's words, the government of Sudan is 'an agent of peace'. As Milbank said, such ludicrous denials of reality would be hilarious, if it wasn't for the 400,000 dead. Read Milbank's summary of the 'press conference' below.

Why is there a bottle of Coca-Cola on Ukec's podium? Not because the Ambassador enjoys the refreshing taste, but because Ukec threatened that if the US did not lift sanctions, "They would cut off shipments of the emulsifier gum arabic, thereby depriving the world of cola."

Denying Genocide in Darfur -- and Americans Their Coca-Cola
By Dana Milbank
Thursday, May 31, 2007; A02
washingtonpost.com

The Iraq war gave us Baghdad Bob, the Iraqi information minister who, while American troops patrolled nearby streets, held a defiant news conference to proclaim that there were no U.S. forces in the city.

Baghdad Bob, whose real name is Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, earned a place among the ranks of colorful propagandists such as Hanoi Hannah and Tokyo Rose. Now, the genocidal Sudanese government has an entry in this category. Let's call him Khartoum Karl.

Karl -- a.k.a. John Ukec Lueth Ukec, the Sudanese ambassador to Washington -- held a news conference at the National Press Club yesterday to respond to President Bush's new sanctions against his regime. In his hour-long presentation, he described a situation in his land that bore no relation to reality.

Genocide in the Darfur region? "The United States is the only country saying that what is happening in Darfur is a genocide," Ukec shouted, gesticulating wildly and perspiring from his bald crown. "I think this is a pretext."

Ah. So what about the more than 400,000 dead? "See how many people are dying in Darfur: None," he said.

And the 2 million displaced? "I am not a statistician."

Khartoum Karl went on to say that, all evidence to the contrary, his government does not support the murderous Janjaweed militia. "It cannot happen," he said, "so rule it out." As for the Sudanese regime itself: "We are the agents of peace, people like me, my colleagues who are in the central government of Sudan."

What's more, the good and peaceful leaders of Sudan were prepared to retaliate massively: They would cut off shipments of the emulsifier gum arabic, thereby depriving the world of cola.

"I want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft drinks all over the world, including the United States, mainly 80 percent is imported from my country," the ambassador said after raising a bottle of Coca-Cola.

A reporter asked if Sudan was threatening to "stop the export of gum arabic and bring down the Western world."

"I can stop that gum arabic and all of us will have lost this," Khartoum Karl warned anew, beckoning to the Coke bottle. "But I don't want to go that way."

As diplomatic threats go, that one gets high points for creativity: Try to stop the killings in Darfur, and we'll take away your Coca-Cola.

But then, Ukec is a very creative man. While millions in Darfur go hungry, he suggested that the U.S. sanctions would limit "the sugar the Darfurians need seriously." He explained: "The people of Darfur, they need a lot of sugar and they are used to it."

The gems kept tumbling from his lips. "Sudan is the breadbasket of the world," he boasted, and it is setting up "the best democracy in the world." Further, "we have opened our arms to the rest of the world." All this genocide talk "is just a concocted idea." After all, "Darfur is a very small spot," he argued, and "we are not warmongers."

"We are just telling you the facts," he added.

Khartoum Karl paid about $600 for a small room at the press club and a spread of Coca-Cola products. A dozen reporters, and a similar number of Sudanese Embassy officials, watched the ambassador for an hour as he shouted into the microphone and delivered a circular and rambling complaint about the injustice of U.S. sanctions. His fingers, fists and arms flew through the air, exposing the flashy gold watch on his wrist.

Growing less lucid as the hour progressed, Ukec blamed a Darfur lobby "that has taken control of the Democratic Party," which in turn pressured Bush to take action against Sudan. "The Democrats do not want Bush to go through with the success he has made in Sudan," the ambassador reasoned.

Whenever he found himself in a rhetorical jam, which was frequently, Ukec had an all-purpose answer: Iraq. Justifying the killings in Darfur that he had just denied, he asked: "How many times have we seen on the TV civilians in Iraq have been killed? And they are said to be collateral. Why does it apply to United States and it doesn't apply to the army of Sudan?"

The ambassador's perspiration became more profuse as he answered questions about the killings. "It's Darfurians fighting among themselves," he ventured. "It's just you and your cousin fighting with you."

A reporter asked Ukec how he would describe the situation in Darfur. The ambassador compared it to the American West: "The farmers are being squeezed by the herders, just like you had here in the 18-something, when the cowboys were fighting . . . with the farmers over land for grazing."

Undoubtedly, Khartoum Karl is under a great deal of stress these days, and, toward the end, he revealed the personal nature of his complaint. "You are failing me in particular," he said. "The people of Sudan sent me here because they know I have good relationship with you guys. . . . And I come and I've been slammed with the sanctions."

It was, perhaps, the only honest thing the ambassador said all day. "I am the man with the toughest job in the world," he asserted. With Baghdad Bob out of business, that just may be the truth.

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