Larry Small's Legacy Is Not So Small

Larry Small is typical of the cronies that have weaseled their way into the Bush Administration by virtue of their great wealth placed in Republican hands. How does a guy who is basically anti-science end up head of the most venerable science institutions in the US? By green back hook and crookedness. Read on:
AlterNet

It's the tale of Larry Small, an Intelligent Design (and basically, anti-science) guy who has been running the most venerable of U.S. research and antiquity institutions since 2001 - the Smithsonian. How did Larry Small get his job, what kind of GOP skeletons are rattling around in his closet, and what did he do that caused him to lose his latest job? And his previous one, for that matter?


Fair warning: this has nothing to do with Fredo Gonzales, so if that's all you're interested in at the moment, move along, nothing to see here...


Larry Small has been kicking around the halls of power in Washington, DC for quite some time. In the 1990's, he presided over Fannie Mae, the organization which underwrites or owns the majority of home mortgages in the United States. During his tenure at Fannie Mae, Small was at the center of a securities fraud scandal that nearly sank the company:


[..]The report...by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, says the result was a company that engaged in "extensive financial fraud" over six years, doctoring earnings by $10.6 billion so executives could collect tens of millions of dollars in bonuses. Fannie Mae settled civil charges with OFHEO and the Securities and Exchange Commission by agreeing to pay a $400 million fine and to make vast changes in how it does business...


It would seem that after a scandal such as this, Small would have worn out his welcome inside the I-495 beltway. Not so. After all, he was a good GOP foot soldier, and a veritable font of money for the RNC. So, after he left Fannie Mae under a cloud of financial chicanery, Small landed on his feet as the head honcho at the venerable Smithsonian Institution - appointed by a GOP controlled Board of Regents - and promptly began to plunder the financial treasury and "fundie-ize" one of America's most revered and socially important public assets.


Fast forward to March, 2007:


The Smithsonian Institution announced Monday that its top official, Secretary Lawrence Small, has resigned amid criticism about his expenses.


Small resigned over the weekend, with the decision unanimously accepted Sunday by the Smithsonian's Board of Regents, the Associated Press reported.


Cristian Samper, director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, has been appointed acting secretary while the regents conduct a nationwide search for a permanent replacement. An internal audit in January found that Small had made $90,000 in unauthorized expenses, including private jet travel and expensive gifts.


Mr. Small contributed financially to such GOP congressional luminaries as Tom DeLay and Bob Ney. He knew which palms to grease. (In the interest of fair reporting, he did "seed" other side of the aisle, making a few contributions over the years to influential Democratic Party representatives.)

King Abdullah Snubs Bush

The leadership vacuum in the Middle East since Bush took office has been a boiling pot threatening to spill over into regional war. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has stepped into the void. Soon after Bush took office Abdullah has been making distance between his traditional ally and the current administration.
Hopefully, with the Arabs closer to a united front, the Bush Administration will not abdicate it's leadership role again and abandon what may be the last great change for peace between Sunni moderate states and Israel.
International Herald Tribune

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia told Arab leaders on Wednesday that the American occupation of Iraq was illegal and warned that unless Arab governments settled their differences, foreign powers like the United States would continue to dictate the region's politics.


The king's speech, at the opening of the Arab League meeting here, underscored growing differences between Saudi Arabia and the Bush administration as the Saudis take on a greater leadership role in the Middle East, partly at American urging.


The Saudis seem to be emphasizing that they will not be beholden to the policies of their longtime ally.


[..]In addition, Abdullah invited President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to Riyadh earlier this month, while the Americans want him shunned. And in trying to settle the tensions in Lebanon, the Saudis have been willing to negotiate with Iran and Hezbollah.


Last week the Saudi king canceled his appearance next month at a White House dinner in his honor, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. The official reason given was a scheduling conflict, the paper said.


Mustapha Hamarneh, director of the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan, said the Saudis were sending Washington a message. "They are telling the U.S. they need to listen to their allies rather than imposing decisions on them and always taking Israel's side," Hamarneh said.


In his speech, the king said, "In the beloved Iraq, the bloodshed is continuing under an illegal foreign occupation and detestable sectarianism."


He added: "The blame should fall on us, the leaders of the Arab nation, with our ongoing differences, our refusal to walk the path of unity. All that has made the nation lose its confidence in us."


King Abdullah has not publicly spoken so harshly about the American-led military intervention in Iraq before, and his remarks suggest that his alliance with Washington may be less harmonious than administration officials have been hoping.


[..]King Abdullah said the loss of confidence in Arab leaders had allowed American and other forces to hold significant sway in the region. "If confidence is restored it will be accompanied by credibility," he said, "and if credibility is restored then the winds of hope will blow, and then we will never allow outside forces to define our future nor allow banners to be raised in Arab lands other than those of Arabism, brothers."


The Saudis sought to enforce discipline on the two-day meeting, reminding Arab leaders and dignitaries to stay on message and leave here with some solution in hand.


"The weight of the Saudis has ensured that this will be a problem-free summit," said Ayman Safadi, editor in chief of the Jordanian daily Al Ghad. "Nobody is going to veer from the message and go against the Saudis. But that doesn't mean the problems themselves will be solved."


Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations gave a stark assessment in an address to the meeting, saying the region was "more complex, more fragile and more dangerous than it has been for a very long time."


There is a shocking daily loss of life in Iraq, he said, and Somalia is in the grip of "banditry, violence and clan rivalries."

Iran Countering Recent Abductions?

Since the disappearance of a former Deputy Defense Minister of Iran Ali Reza Asghari variously attributed to a rendition or defection to the CIA or Mossad, Israeli Intelligence.
These days one never knows when prominent individuals with important intelligence whether it was a rendition or a defection. We likely never will know. New that he was a defecting spy for Mossad may well be just disinformation to quiet the furer. At any rate, Iranian counsels for Iraq remain in US custody and many other Iranians have dissappeared all over Iraq.
Are we seeing an escalation of a covert war? I think so.
The First Post

According to Western intelligence sources, over the past four months more than a dozen Iranian agents operating undercover inside Iraq have been 'neutralised' - detained, jailed, possibly abducted, perhaps induced to defect - and Tehran is becoming badly rattled.
One Iranian diplomat was kidnapped in broad daylight in the centre of Baghdad by gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniform and driving cars with official plates. Five more Iranians were rounded up in a swoop by US troops on their 'liaison office' in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil. A senior officer from Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard corps has been arrested in the south of Iraq and has not been seen again.


On top of these disappearing acts, there are two mysteries at home in Iran. The disappearance of the retired Revolutionary Guard general and former deputy defence minister Ali Reza Asghari - reported in The First Post on March 13 - is still unresolved. Now it transpires that the day after Asghari was posted missing in Istanbul, another key official, intelligence coordinator General Mohammed Sultani, reportedly vanished en route to inspect an Iranian listening post in the port of Bandar Abbas.


For the hardliners who hold the balance of power in Tehran, this alarming sequence of events is easily explained. Coalition forces in Iraq are intensifying the battle to roll up the clandestine intelligence networks through which Iran orchestrates Iraq's radical Shia militia.


According to Israeli intelligence sources, a decision was taken at the highest political level in Iran to counter the coalition offensive by reverting to the tried and trusted policy of taking hostages as
bargaining chips.


The seizure by Iran of the 15 Royal Navy personnel last Friday was not their first success. Early in January an audacious raid, initially reported as a routine clash, was launched on the headquarters of the provincial governor in the Iraqi city of Karbala, where a high-level meeting between Iraqi and US officials was happening.


A group of around a dozen commandos wearing US uniforms and driving off-road vehicles similar to those used by coalition forces bluffed their way past the compound security. The attackers, who spoke to Iraqi guards in English, headed straight for the Americans' quarters and snatched four US soldiers before making their getaway.


With pursuers closing in, the convoy halted and the handcuffed Americans were executed in cold blood. Coalition intelligence concluded that the raid's meticulousplanning, far beyond the known capacity of any of Iraq's home-grown militias, bore all the hallmarks of an operation by Iranian intelligence.


Friday's capture of the 15 sailors and marines from HMS Cornwall seemingly confirms that Iran is adopting the strategy initiated during the Lebanese civil war in the 1980s, when Westerners in Beirut, such as William Buckley (left), were kidnapped by Hezbollah, with the aid and encouragement of the Shia group's Revolutionary Guard advisers. A recent article in the weekly paper that speaks for the Guards warned that Iran has "the ability to capture a nice bunch of blue-eyed blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks".


It's entirely feasible that before any release of the Navy personnel can be negotiated, Tehran will demand the release of the five Iranians seized by US troops in Irbil.

Ordinary Customers Flagged as Terrorists

Republicans once were the party against regulation. That has changed. Now with the continued fascistic tactics of the Bush Administration, ordinary businesses have been enlisted in a manditory program intended to deny terrorists access to resources in the US, but that has effectively created an officially sanctioned program of discrimination against Muslim and even some Hispanic Americans and legally documented aliens.
Facing 10 to 30 years in prison, businesses without the resources to do background checks are denying anyone with a name similar to one on the list. That means anyone with the name of Muhammad, Hassan, Hussein could be denied loans, and plane tickets. Technically, landlords and sandwich shops could be held accountable by the government for serving someone on the list.
Welcome to Dubya's America.
washingtonpost.com

Private businesses such as rental and mortgage companies and car dealers are checking the names of customers against a list of suspected terrorists and drug traffickers made publicly available by the Treasury Department, sometimes denying services to ordinary people whose names are similar to those on the list.


The Office of Foreign Asset Control's list of "specially designated nationals" has long been used by banks and other financial institutions to block financial transactions of drug dealers and other criminals. But an executive order issued by President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has expanded the list and its consequences in unforeseen ways. Businesses have used it to screen applicants for home and car loans, apartments and even exercise equipment, according to interviews and a report by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area to be issued today.


The lawyers' committee has documented at least a dozen cases in which U.S. customers have had transactions denied or delayed because their names were a partial match with a name on the list, which runs more than 250 pages and includes 3,300 groups and individuals. No more than a handful of people on the list, available online, are U.S. citizens.


Yet anyone who does business with a person or group on the list risks penalties of up to $10 million and 10 to 30 years in prison, a powerful incentive for businesses to comply. The law's scope is so broad and guidance so limited that some businesses would rather deny a transaction than risk criminal penalties, the report finds.


[..]Saad Ali Muhammad is an African American who was born in Chicago and converted to Islam in 1980. When he tried to buy a used car from a Chevrolet dealership three years ago, a salesman ran his credit report and at the top saw a reference to "OFAC search," followed by the names of terrorists including Osama bin Laden. The only apparent connection was the name Muhammad. The credit report, also by TransUnion, did not explain what OFAC was or what the credit report user should do with the information. Muhammad wrote to TransUnion and filed a complaint with a state human rights agency, but the alert remains on his report, Sinnar said.


Colleen Tunney-Ryan, a TransUnion spokeswoman, said in an e-mail that clients using the firm's credit reports are solely responsible for any action required by federal law as a result of a potential match and that they must agree they will not take any adverse action against a consumer based solely on the report.


The lawyers' committee documented other cases, including that of a couple in Phoenix who were about to close on their first home, only to be told the sale could not proceed because the husband's first and last names -- common Hispanic names -- matched an entry on the OFAC list. The entry did not include a date or place of birth, which could have helped distinguish the individuals.


In another case, a Roseville, Calif., couple wanted to buy a treadmill from a home fitness store on a financing plan. A bank representative told the salesperson that because the husband's first name was Hussein, the couple would have to wait 72 hours while they were investigated. Though the couple eventually received the treadmill, they were so embarrassed by the incident they did not want their names in the report, Sinnar said.

PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN: Shifting Stakes, Partners

President Musharraf has based his entire administration on playing both sides against the middle. However, the sides are further apart than ever, and Musharraf is at risk of falling between them. Musharraf was never the enemy of the Taliban. In fact, the Taliban are seen as kin to the Pashtun tribes in Pakistan and allies in a major war against India. They have enjoy logistical support from Pakistan intelligence. Musharraf even signed a peach treaty with them.
The Taliban is firmly rooted in the hostile border country between Pakistan and Afghanistan. While Al Qaeda is their ally, they are seen as outsiders and have been on the outs lately since fighting has broken out between them.
IPS News

A sizeable section of the Pakistan establishment regards Afghanistan as Pakistan's backyard, which can offer it "strategic depth" against India. "It regards the Taliban as ‘quasi-allies'," Pervez Hoodbhoy, a peace activist and political analyst based at Islamabad's Qaid-e-Azam University told IPS. The Taliban are expected to offer Pakistan a base in Afghanistan when the NATO forces, led by the U.S., eventually leave.


"This section of the establishment wields considerable influence in the army's middle-level ranks and the secret services; Musharraf has to pay heed to it," says Qamar Agha, a Central and West Asia expert at the Jamia Millia Islamia university in Delhi. "Besides being pro-Taliban, it is also hostile to any Indian influence in Afghanistan. Musharraf, weakened by the domestic crisis, would want to deepen relations with the Taliban." "This would also suit his agenda of creating a mutually beneficial relationship with domestic Islamicist elements, whose support he needs to get re-elected as President by October, the deadline set by the Supreme Court,'' added Agha.


Musharraf is believed to have recently extracted from the Taliban a promise to allow the free flow of energy from Central Asia and Iran overland to Pakistan. Musharraf now acts against the Taliban only when forced to by the U.S. An instance is the visit earlier this month by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, during which he threatened to cut off aid to Pakistan. Shortly before Cheney landed, Pakistan announced the capture of Mullah Obaidullah, a senior Taliban leader and deputy of chief Mullah Omar. The U.S. had to welcome this.


Musharraf has also been trying to neutralise U.S. pressure by turning to China. Following Cheney's visit, he despatched his Foreign Minister, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, to Beijing to emphasise and deepen the two countries' close, "all-weather" friendship.


During Kasuri's visit, Pakistan offered China a lucrative overland energy route from Gwadar port in Baluchistan, which would cut transit distance for oil and gas by almost one-half. China is investing heavily in developing Gwadar.


China and Pakistan have close military relations and are jointly developing a new-generation jet fighter. China is believed to have clandestinely transferred missile technology to Pakistan in the past.


Thus, the U.S.'s ability to push Musharraf is limited. A few weeks ago, Washington delivered threats and hinted that it would look beyond Musharraf. Analysts in Washington reassured themselves that the alternative to Musharraf might not be an Islamist takeover of Pakistan.

washingtonpost.com

An intense clash between local tribesmen and foreign al-Qaeda fighters that has left approximately 130 people dead this week suggests that resentment toward the outsiders is growing, according to Pakistani officials.


The battle, in the semi-autonomous region of South Waziristan, has involved thousands of fighters. Local Pashtun tribe members -- including many Taliban supporters -- have squared off against Uzbek, Chechen and Arab militants, who since 2001 have massed near the border to plan attacks in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, officials say. Most of those killed have been foreigners. About 10 civilian bystanders have also been killed, and many more have fled.


[...]Retired Lt. Gen. Talat Masood, a military analyst, urged caution, however. He said the fighting could lead to new problems. "This is movement in the right direction," he said. "But I hope it doesn't lead to a situation where the militants establish their own control and don't listen to what the government has to say." Masood said the tribal leaders, who already possess considerable autonomy, are not fighting because they support the government. Instead, he said, they are battling the foreigners to show their own people they are still capable of providing security.


Tension between the tribal members and the foreign fighters has been simmering for months. Tribesmen had accused the foreigners of violating local customs, and the foreigners had begun to charge locals with spying for the Pakistani and U.S. governments, according to a local official. Uzbek militants had already beheaded a number of local people, according to Maulana Mairajuddin, a member of a far-right religious party who represents South Waziristan in parliament. Speaking by satellite telephone from Wana, a town where much of the fighting has taken place, Mairajuddin said the fighting this week started with the abduction of four local women by the Uzbeks. He said he wished that locals and the foreigners would stop fighting each other and return to battling U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan. "This is the worst news for those who hate the occupation of foreign forces in neighboring Afghanistan," Mairajuddin said.

Ahmadinejad Sends A Signal

Here is an interesting take on the arrest of 15 British marines in Iraqi territorial waters. Haaretz is known as Israel's "liberal" newspaper.

Following the disappearence of Askari, Iranian analysts with ties to the regime wrote that Iran could respond with abductions of its own. It is possible that the arrest of the British troops is Iran's countermove. Such action against U.S. troops would have been unlikely because of concerns of a severe American response. From Iran's point of view, the British are a 'soft' target, and a convenient way to signal it will respond to any assault on its sovereignty.


If the British Marines are not released in a few days, as happened in a similar incident in 2004, the crisis my take a sharp turn for the worst..

South African UN Envoy Accuses Israel of Apartheid

It seems that Jimmy Carter is not the only public official with the courage to face Israel with the truth. Given that he is from South Africa, it seems likely he would be in a position to know what apartheid is. I have to wonder if Mr Dugard will have his job for long. I'm sure he's not made a friend with the Bush Administration's ambassador.
Al Jazeera

A UN human rights envoy has likened Israel's treatment of Palestinians in occupied territory to "apartheid", and said that failure to tackle the situation will make it hard to solve abuses elsewhere. John Dugard, a UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, made his remarks to the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday. Dugard, a South African lawyer, said restrictions on movement and separate residential areas gave a sense of "deja vu" to anyone with experience of apartheid, noting that apartheid was "contrary to international law".


[..]Israel dismissed the statement and Dugard's regular reports to the council as "one-sided, highly selective and unreservedly biased".


Dugard, who was appointed to his position in 2001, said that Gaza was an imprisoned society and that the situation in the West Bank was little better. He said about 500,000 Israeli settlers were now living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories seized by Israel during the 1967 Middle East war.


"Settlers, largely unrestrained by the Israel Defense Forces [the Israeli military], subject many Palestinians to a reign of terror - particularly in Hebron," he said.


Itzhak Levanon, Israel's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, said such language was "inflammatory and inciteful" and would not contribute to a "process of constructive dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians".

Provocation to Attack Iran?

If Bush was looking for the appropriate provocation to attack Iran, I think he just got it.
washingtonpost.com

The Iranian military seized 15 British naval personnel in the waters off Iraq early this morning, the British Ministry of Defense said today in a statement posted to its Web site.
The British sailors, assigned to the frigate H.M.S. Cornwall, were conducting what the ministry described as "routine boarding operations" of a merchant marine vessel when they were surrounded by Iranian military boats and escorted into Iranian waters.

British Defence Internet

The incident took place at approximately 1030 Iraqi time.
The British Personnel were engaged in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters in support of UNSCR 1723 and the government of Iraq.
Operating from HMS Cornwall, the UK boarding party had completed a successful inspection of a merchant ship when they and their two boats were surrounded and escorted by Iranian vessels into Iranian territorial waters.


[..]We are urgently pursuing this matter with the Iranian authorities at the highest level and on the instructions of the Foreign Secretary, the Iranian ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office. The British Government is demanding the immediate and safe return of our people and equipment.

Musharraf At A Cross Roads

Iraq has proven to be a disasterous distraction from the counter terrorism war against Jihadis. Bin Ladin must be smiling. The main theater was Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan is now teetering on the brink of further de-stabilization. With support from the US lagging, Musharraf faces growing opposition from home, both within and outside the military.
Musharraf has had amazing staying power because of his willingness to do what most would find reprehensible. While he has been helping to catch al-Qaeda members, he has accepted the reality that he can't control the border frontier without civil war. So he backs the Taliban in the Pakistani tribal areas.
Opinions within the military about what to do vary from new elections to a major crackdown. Somehow I think the latter is more likely because democracy is not likely to be favorable to the US or India. The military's recent spending spree is dependent on US taxpayers dollars.
washingtonpost.com

Across the country, in law offices, in the media, among the opposition parties and other organized sections of civil society, the feeling is growing that Musharraf will have to quit sooner rather than later. After eight years of military rule it appears people have had enough.


Moreover, Musharraf is losing control of three key elements that have sustained his rule but are now either distancing themselves or turning on him completely. The first is the ruling Pakistan Muslim League Party, which has acted as the civilian appendage to the military but faces an election and knows that going to bat for the unpopular Musharraf will turn off voters. Party leaders and cabinet ministers are already distancing themselves from him.


The second element is the country's three intelligence agencies, which are at loggerheads over control of Musharraf, Pakistan's foreign policy, its political process and the media. Military Intelligence and the Inter-Services Intelligence are military agencies, while the largest civilian agency, the Intelligence Bureau, is now run by a military officer. Ironically, Inter-Services Intelligence, the most powerful agency in the country, has been the moderate element urging Musharraf to open up the political system to the opposition parties. The other two agencies are the hard-liners and are urging Musharraf to adopt even tougher measures.


The third loss for Musharraf has been the unqualified international support he has received since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Anger in the U.S. Congress and media, and particularly among members of the Republican Party, toward Musharraf's dual-track policy in Afghanistan -- helping to catch al-Qaeda members but backing the Taliban -- is making it difficult for President Bush to continue offering Musharraf his blanket support.


That was the tough-love message that Vice President Cheney delivered to Musharraf in Islamabad last month: Unless Musharraf goes after the Taliban, the Bush administration can no longer protect him.


Any loss of Western support will be critical to the army, which is on an arms-buying spree and depends on annual U.S. military aid of about $300 million. Musharraf has balanced the pro- and anti-American factions in the army's officer corps, but if both sides see him as a lame duck, unable to deliver the goods or stabilize the country, their support will dwindle.


Musharraf is now too weak to pursue policies that could keep his back-stabbers in check, restore his credibility at home and abroad, and pursue his agenda of remaining in power for the next five years.


It is far better that he revert to the promise he made when he seized power in 1999: to return the country to democracy. His best course of action would be to say he is not a candidate for president, hold free and fair elections, allow the return of exiled politicians, restore full political rights and gracefully depart with his legacy, which is considerable, intact.


It is in the interest of the United States to support such an exit strategy. The military can no longer counter the phenomenal growth of Islamic extremism in Pakistan through offensives alone. What the country needs is greater political consensus and a popularly elected government, and to replace the extortions of the mullahs with the return of day-to-day parliamentary politics. The army created a political vacuum in which extremism has thrived. Pakistan needs a return to civil society and government.

Bahrain Warns Iran and US

A blustering statement emerged from Bahrain of all places this weekend. Threats clearly pointed at Iran, but also included a message pointed directly at the US who this defense minister accuses of attempting to redrawing national boundaries. Apparently, Arab Sunnis are beginning to see the US as stoking tensions between Shia and Sunni nations.
Lebanon: Daily Star

Arab states in the Gulf have the capability to respond to any attack from Iran, Bahrain's defense minister said in an interview published on Sunday. Meanwhile, Israel and the US are conducting a large-scale missile-defense exercise aimed at combining their systems, US and Israeli officials said Sunday, as both countries warned that Iran could obtain nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.


"Gulf countries are able to defend themselves against Iran ... We have the military strength and capability," Defense Minister Khalifa bin Ahmad al-Khalifa told Al-Hayat newspaper.


He added that any conflict between Western powers and Iran over its controversial nuclear program would impact other states in the region, including Bahrain.


He also warned against Western plans to re-draw the region and divide it into "mini-states." "One the most significant, if not most dangerous, challenges facing the Arab and Gulf countries today are attempts and schemes to partition the Arab world. This is evident in the operations taking place in Iraq, Sudan and Somalia," he said.


He added, though, that "we do not want to put the blame on the entire West," singling out France and Germany as examples of Western countries that have "a different perspective of the Middle East," while other countries "take the position of Israel on some issues."


The minister said Bahrain, as well as other Arab states, would "respond with force to defend itself" if Iran blocked the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the event of a confrontation over its nuclear drive. The strait at the southeastern tip of the Gulf separates Oman from Iran.


Almost all crude exports from Arab Gulf states go through the strait, making it the world's most important oil passage.

What is this "redrawing" national boundaries? Here is a map that has floated a training program at NATO's Defense College for senior military officers and most probably the National War Academy as well as in military planning circles. The map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, but it's implications are obvious.

GlobalResearch.ca

Secretary Condoleezza Rice stated during a press conference that “[w]hat we’re seeing here [in regards to the destruction of Lebanon and the Israeli attacks on Lebanon], in a sense, is the growing—the ‘birth pangs’—of a ‘New Middle East’ and whatever we do we [meaning the United States] have to be certain that we’re pushing forward to the New Middle East [and] not going back to the old one.”1 Secretary Rice was immediately criticized for her statements both within Lebanon and internationally for expressing indifference to the suffering of an entire nation, which was being bombed indiscriminately by the Israeli Air Force.


[..]This map of the “New Middle East” seems to be based on several other maps, including older maps of potential boundaries in the Middle East extending back to the era of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and World War I. This map is showcased and presented as the brainchild of retired Lieutenant-Colonel (U.S. Army) Ralph Peters, who believes the redesigned borders contained in the map will fundamentally solve the problems of the contemporary Middle East.


The map of the “New Middle East” was a key element in the retired Lieutenant-Colonel’s book, Never Quit the Fight, which was released to the public on July 10, 2006. This map of a redrawn Middle East was also published, under the title of Blood Borders: How a better Middle East would look, in the U.S. military’s Armed Forces Journal with commentary from Ralph Peters.5


It should be noted that Lieutenant-Colonel Peters was last posted to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, within the U.S. Defence Department, and has been one of the Pentagon’s foremost authors with numerous essays on strategy for military journals and U.S. foreign policy.


It has been written that Ralph Peters’ “four previous books on strategy have been highly influential in government and military circles,” but one can be pardoned for asking if in fact quite the opposite could be taking place. Could it be Lieutenant-Colonel Peters is revealing and putting forward what Washington D.C. and its strategic planners have anticipated for the Middle East?


The concept of a redrawn Middle East has been presented as a “humanitarian” and “righteous” arrangement that would benefit the people(s) of the Middle East and its peripheral regions. According to Ralph Peter’s:


"International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference — often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war."

Edwards Has An Early Lead in Iowa

In my opinion, the most substansive candidate in the presidential race is Edwards. He is a southern Democrat who can talk about fiscal responsibility as well as addressing poverty, disparity and greed. Why more people aren't paying attention to him is beyond me, maybe because he's not in the pocket of big media. Here is a good article from the LA Times on the candidate, who is currently ahead in the polls in Iowa.
Los Angeles Times

Surveys show Edwards ahead in Iowa, which holds the first vote and is a crucial momentum-builder for the rapid series of contests that follow.


[..]This is a harder-edged Edwards than the candidate of four years ago. The biting tone is all the more notable given the relentlessly upbeat campaign Edwards ran last time. (Some Democrats complained he was too nice to Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.)


The Republican National Committee issued a compendium of prickly quotes headlined, "Edwards turns to the dark side." When he traveled to Harlem, on Clinton's turf, to criticize congressional inaction on the war, her camp jabbed back by comparing Edwards' assault with his repeated 2004 boasts of running a clean campaign.


But Edwards insisted his approach remained "very positive, very ideas-driven." That said, he added: "I do think it's important the candidates tell the truth, and sometimes people react to the truth."


Edwards, 53, has never really stopped running for president. Just four months after the last election, he was back on the Sunday talk-show circuit, distancing himself from former running mate Sen. John F. Kerry. (People familiar with their relationship say the senator from Massachusetts feels betrayed. "I have a lot of admiration for him," Edwards said tersely when asked about Kerry in an interview. "I like him very much.")


Stepping down after a single Senate term, Edwards returned to North Carolina and formed an academic center to study ways of fighting poverty, the centerpiece of his 2004 bid. Some of the proposals, such as giving poor families vouchers to move to better neighborhoods and finding ways to boost savings among people of modest means, have surfaced in this presidential race.


He also traveled the world, meeting foreign leaders including Britain's Tony Blair and Germany's Angela Merkel, in an effort to pad one conspicuously thin part of his resume. Today, Edwards appears far more fluent on global affairs — questions about Iran, Iraq and North Korea yield long tutorials — than the neophyte who groped his way through foreign policy issues four years ago.


[..]Now Edwards said he was wrong — not just about Iraq, but about its political import. When the war failed to come up, he implored Iowa audiences to ask his position, then called for withdrawing 40,000 to 50,000 U.S. troops, followed by a complete pullout within 18 months. At each stop, this drew the biggest cheers.


The war is not the only issue on which Edwards has moved left.


In the Senate, he lamented Democrats' big-spending ways and called for greater fiscal prudence. But now he minimizes the importance of deficit reduction and proposes a universal healthcare plan that would cost up to $120 billion a year. The plan would be financed by rolling back Bush's tax cuts and targeting loopholes that aid the wealthy.


"The president of the United States will have to make choices," Edwards told a crowd at the Council Bluffs Senior Center. "I do not believe you can achieve universal healthcare, energy transformation and [do] the other things that need to be done in America or, for that matter, in other parts of the world, and eliminate the deficit."


Asked in an interview what had changed, he replied: "The fundamentals have changed. The healthcare system is worse than it's ever been. Our addiction to oil is stronger in America. The wealth gap in America has gotten worse, and those things have to be corrected."


Edwards has worked hard to build labor support, walking picket lines, campaigning door-to-door for state minimum-wage hikes and helping union recruitment drives. He has also courted the left-leaning blogosphere, becoming the first Democrat to quit a Fox News-sponsored debate, since canceled, that drew liberal ire.


In Iowa, Edwards won high marks for his specificity on immigration, Iraq, and especially healthcare. As he repeatedly noted, he is the only candidate with a full-blown plan for universal coverage; more big policy rollouts are scheduled as part of a strategy to make Edwards the most ideas-oriented candidate in the race.


Many appreciated the detail, even when they disagreed. Dale Sullivan didn't much care for Edwards' stance on illegal immigration: a border crackdown along with "earned citizenship" for those already in the country. "But at least he was honest," said the 75-year-old retired farmer, who left Ottumwa leaning toward Edwards over Obama.

Will Bush Hide Behind Executive Privilege To Cover Tainting the Courts?

A number of the US Attorney's fired were investigating Republicans or declined to investigate Democrats for lack of evidence. So of course the intent of Executive Privilege is to allow the President to cover his tracks, right? I suspect a case could be made that someone could be accused of obstruction of justice.
New York Times

The Democratic senator leading the inquiry into the dismissal of federal prosecutors insisted Sunday that Karl Rove and other top aides to President Bush must testify publicly and under oath, setting up a confrontation between Congress and the White House, which has said it is unlikely to agree to such a demand.


[..]He said his committee would vote Thursday on whether to issue subpoenas for Mr. Rove as well as Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, and William K. Kelley, the deputy White House counsel.


“I do not believe in this ‘We’ll have a private briefing for you where we’ll tell you everything,’ and they don’t,” Mr. Leahy said on “This Week” on ABC, adding: “I want testimony under oath. I am sick and tired of getting half-truths on this.”


Lawmakers in both parties agree that the fate of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales may rest on what happens this week, as the White House and Congress come to blows — or find a compromise — over the testimony lawmakers are demanding. With Mr. Bush at Camp David, the White House counsel, Fred F. Fielding, spent the weekend in Washington weighing whether to allow Mr. Rove and the others to talk and, if so, under what conditions.


[..]Dan Bartlett, counselor to Mr. Bush, has said it is “highly unlikely” that the president would waive executive privilege to allow his top aides to testify publicly. One Republican strategist close to the White House, speaking on the condition of anonymity so as not to appear to be representing the administration, said: “No president is going to let their senior staff assistant to the president go testify. Forget that. They might agree to do an informal interview, but they’ll never testify.”


Democrats, citing a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, say presidential advisers, including 47 from the Clinton administration alone, have frequently testified before Congressional committees, both while serving the president and after they had left the White House.


Even so, legal experts say precedent does not play a role in decisions about whether to waive executive privilege; each administration, in effect, writes its own rules. The Bush administration has been particularly protective of executive privilege, and Republicans close to the White House say the decision about whether, or how much, to cooperate will come down to a calculation of the political risks and rewards.


Senior White House officials have given public testimony in the past, including before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. But more times than not, it has come on the administration’s terms; Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney agreed to appear before the Sept. 11 commission, but only in private and without being required to take an oath.

Al Qaeda In Iraq Focused Home Turf

Al-Qaeda in Iraq has evolved into the major insurgent organization in Iraq. An organization that started as dominated by foreign Jihadis, is now dominated by Iraqi Sunni fundamentalists, well established in their home territory and prepared to fight the Shia majority for many years. It has been largely supported by family ties in Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, contrary to the following excerpt from the washingtonpost.com. Official support from those countries governments has been begrudging at best, driven by the popularity of the movement on the Sunni Arab streets and the perception that Shia are conducting ethnic cleansing through kidnappings and executions and torture.
Recent reports assertions by King Abdullah of Jordan and actions by Saudi Arabia demonstrate their support for the Bush Administration's positions on Iraq have become paper thin. They are just as limited as any country to the opinions of their populous.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq is the United States' most formidable enemy in [Iraq]. But unlike Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization in Pakistan, U.S. intelligence officials and outside experts believe, the Iraqi branch poses little danger to the security of the U.S. homeland.


As the Democratic Congress continues to push for a military withdrawal, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have repeatedly warned that bin Laden plans to turn Iraq into the capital of an Islamic caliphate and a staging ground for attacks on the United States. "If we fail there," Bush said in a February news conference, "the enemy will follow us here."


Attacking the United States clearly remains on bin Laden's agenda. But the likelihood that such an attack would be launched from Iraq, many experts contend, has sharply diminished over the past year as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has undergone dramatic changes. Once believed to include thousands of "foreign fighters," it is now an overwhelmingly Iraqi organization whose aims are likely to remain focused on the struggle against the Shiite majority in Iraq, U.S. intelligence officials said.


[...]"In a year, AQI went from being a major insurgent group, but one of several, to basically being the dominant force in the Sunni insurgency," said terrorism consultant Evan F. Kohlmann. "It managed to convince a lot of large, influential Sunni groups to work together under its banner -- groups that I never would have imagined," Kohlmann said. In November, many of the groups joined AQI in declaring an Islamic State of Iraq.


AQI's new membership and the allied insurgents care far more about what happens within Iraq than they do about bin Laden's plans for an Islamic empire, government and outside experts said. That is likely to remain the case whether U.S. forces stay or leave, they added.


The Sunni extremist movement in Iraq owes its existence to the U.S. invasion, said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert and Georgetown University professor. "There were no domestic jihadis in Iraq before we came there. Now there are. . . . But the threat they pose beyond Iraq is not so certain. There will be plenty of fighting to keep them there for years."


In congressional testimony late last month, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell indicated that, despite bin Laden's rhetoric, it isn't necessarily true that al-Qaeda sees its future in Iraq. "I wouldn't go so far as to say al-Qaeda would necessarily believe that," McConnell said. "They want to reestablish their base, and their objective could be in Afghanistan."


[...]As al-Qaeda recoups its numbers and organizational structure in the lawless and inaccessible territory along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, it is seen as having little need for major bases in western Iraq, where the flat desert topography is ill-suited for concealment from U.S. aerial surveillance.


Al-Qaeda has also learned tactical lessons from AQI, adopting the suicide-bombing and roadside-explosive techniques perfected in Iraq and putting them to use in Afghanistan and elsewhere.


"That genie is already out of the bottle," Hoffman said. "The lesson of Iraq," he said, is that "a bunch of guys with garage-door openers and cordless phones can stymie the most advanced military in the history of mankind."


[...]"It is very likely that the effects of the current jihad in Iraq will, like the earlier one in Afghanistan, be felt for years to come in the form of inspiration, skills and networking opportunities for a new generation of jihadis," said Paul Pillar, the CIA's former national intelligence officer for the Middle East and author of previous intelligence assessments on Iraq. "That does not mean that a U.S. withdrawal would make AQI more likely to attempt attacks against the United States.

Valerie Plame Speaks

There is so many grounds for impeachment of George Bush. Plamegate is just one of them. But it is symbolic of the total disrespect for the process. Our Vice-President, irritated by a CIA sponsored investigation that confirmed previous reports that the reports of Iraq buying Uranium in Niger was false. Cheney had quashed this information because it was one of the featured evidence that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq. So what did Cheney do? He sought revenge, sent a signal to CIA agents around the world, "If you bring in information I don't like, I will blow your cover and put you at grave risk as well as destroy your credibility." This whole thing was about a vendetta Cheney and Rumsfeld held for the CIA.
Finally, Valerie Plame Wilson speaks to a House Committee.
The Nation

Testifying to the committee, Valerie Wilson reported that the CIA still prohibits her from saying much about her CIA career. (The agency has held up the publication of her memoirs, claiming at one point that she cannot acknowledge working for the CIA prior to 2002.) But Plame was able to tell the committee, "I was a covert officer." She said she helped to "manage and run operations." She noted that prior to the Iraq war she had "raced to discover intelligence" on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. "I also traveled to foreign countries on secret missions," she said under oath, "to find vital intelligence." She said these trips had occurred within the past five years. She added that she could "count on one hand" the number of people outside the CIA who knew of her employment at the agency: "It was not common knowledge on the Georgetown cocktail circuit." She also explained that a covert officer at the CIA is "just like a general" who may spend time commanding troops in Afghanistan and then return to the Pentagon before heading off to another theater: "Covert operations officers, when they rotate back for temporary assignment in Washington, are still covert."


Before she testified, Representative Henry Waxman, the committee chairman, read an opening statement in which he said that Valerie Wilson had been a "covert" officer" who had "served at various times overseas" and "worked on the prevention of the development and use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States." Waxman noted that the CIA had cleared this statement. And during the questioning period, Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings reported that General Michael Hayden, the CIA director, had told him, "Ms. Wilson was covert."


[...]At the hearing, other aspects of the leak affair were discussed. Valerie Wilson noted she certainly didn't know if any of the administration officials who disseminated information about her (Libby, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Richard Armitage) realized she was undercover. But she added, "They should have been diligent in protecting me and other CIA officers." She explained that many employees of the CPD--where she worked--are covert, suggesting that Cheney and Libby (who both knew she was employed in that division) should have been careful in handling information about her.


One lingering question in the leak scandal is how much damage was done by the disclosure of her CIA connection. Her career as an operations officer was derailed. But were past or present operations blown? Specific sources and contacts endangered? Wilson testified that the CIA did a damage assessment but did not share it with her.


Wilson also addressed the issue of whether she dispatched her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, on his February 2002 trip to Niger, where he concluded there was not much to the allegation that Iraq had been uranium-shopping there. For years, White House allies have tried to dismiss the importance of Wilson's trip by suggesting he was not qualified for the mission and had been sent (perhaps on a nepotistic junket) by his wife. They have pointed to a Senate intelligence committee report that suggested Valerie Wilson was instrumental in sending him. Before the House committee, she testified that she did not have the authority to dispatch her husband on such a trip, that a coworker had the idea to send Joe Wilson (who years earlier had taken on a similar assignment for the Counter-proliferation Division), and that she had merely been asked to write a note confirming her husband's credentials. She also said that a colleague was misquoted within the Senate intelligence committee report (saying she had proposed her husband for the trip) and that this colleague subsequently was prevented by a superior from sending the committee a memo correcting the record. In other words, her husband's detractors have overplayed this angle. (By he way, much of this story was reported in Hubris.) Democrats on the committee said they would ask the CIA for a copy of the smothered memo.


After Valerie Wilson, who left the CIA in early 2006, finished, Waxman declared, "We need an investigation. This is not about Scooter Libby and not just about Valerie Plame Wilson." Waxman was right in that the Libby trial did not answer all the questions about the leak affair, especially those about the roles of Bush administration officials other than Libby. How did Cheney learn of Valerie Wilson's employment at the Counter-proliferation Division and what did he do with that information? How did Karl Rove learn of her CIA connection? How did Rove manage to keep his job after the White House declared anyone involved in the leak would be fired? (Rove confirmed Armitage's leak to Novak and leaked information about Valerie Wilson's CIA employment to Matt Cooper, then of Time.) What did Bush know about Cheney's and Rove's actions? What did Bush do in response to the disclosure that Rove had leaked and had falsely claimed to White House press secretary Scott McClellan that he wasn't involved in the leak?

New Face of Jihad Vows Attacks

While Bush brags that he's beated back Al Qaeda, all he's done is ensure Al Qaeda has thousands of potential recruits from all over the Middle East, but especially Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and now Lebanon.
The Lebanese looked at the US as their hero and protector as Syria was driven out. But then the indiscriminate bombing by Israel showed that the US cares nothing about the man on the street in Lebanon and ensured a new source of recruits.
New York Times

The men belong to a new militant Islamic organization called Fatah al Islam, whose leader, a fugitive Palestinian named Shakir al-Abssi, has set up operations in a refugee camp here where he trains fighters and spreads the ideology of Al Qaeda. He has solid terrorist credentials. A former associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia who was killed last summer, Mr. Abssi was sentenced to death in absentia along with Mr. Zarqawi in the 2002 assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan, Laurence Foley. Just four months after arriving here from Syria, Mr. Abssi has a militia that intelligence officials estimate at 150 men and an arsenal of explosives, rockets and even an antiaircraft gun.


[..]“Guys like Abssi have the capability on the ground that Al Qaeda has lost and is looking to tap into,” said an American intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Mr. Abssi has shown himself to be a canny operator. Despite being on terrorism watch lists around the world, he has set himself up in a Palestinian refugee camp where, because of Lebanese politics, he is largely shielded from the government. The camp also gives him ready access to a pool of recruits, young Palestinians whose militant vision has evolved from the struggle against Israel to a larger Islamic cause.


Intelligence officials here say that he has also exploited another source of manpower: they estimate he has 50 militants from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries fresh from fighting with the insurgency in Iraq.


The officials say they fear that he is seeking to establish himself as a terror leader on the order of Mr. Zarqawi. “He is trying to fill a void and do so in a high-profile manner that will attract the attention of supporters,” the American intelligence official said.


Mr. Abssi has recently taken on a communications adviser, Abu al-Hassan, 24, a journalism student who dropped out of college to join Fatah al Islam. His current project: a newsmagazine aimed at attracting recruits.


The arc of Mr. Abssi’s life shows the allure of Al Qaeda for Arab militants. Born in Palestine, from which he and family were evicted by the Israelis, Mr. Abssi, 51, said he stopped studying medicine to fly planes for Yasir Arafat. He then staged attacks on Israel from his own base in Syria. After he was imprisoned in Syria for three years on terrorism charges, he said he broadened his targets to include Americans in Jordan. MORE

Cheney, Cornered

Cheney, Cornered
"A full validation of the Al Qaeda strategy" are the shameless, slandering words the most powerful Vice President in American history flung Monday at Congressional critics of the war--including those from his own party.
While he is still as dangerous as any cornered animal, Cheney stands brightly revealed as the main culprit in cherry-picking the evidence to make the case for a stupid, failed war. He has been exposed as a vindictive, inflexible ideologue, who attempts to destroy all who publicly disagree with him, such as former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and Wilson's CIA agent wife, Valerie Plame Wilson. His extensive ties and loyal political service to energy and defense companies such as Halliburton (which now, in a burst of honesty, is moving its headquarters to Dubai), reveal him to be a man of deep corruption.
Like Nixon during Watergate, Cheney is now shrilly on the defensive. "National security made me do it!" he insists, clinging to pseudo-patriotism, that last refuge of scoundrels. But it is an argument that no longer flies with a public that has caught on to the rhythm of his screechy lies. After all, this is the leader, dominating a weak President, who pushed so hard for a complete occupation of a Muslim country not linked to 9/11. A man who hung his arguments for adventuristic war on known falsehoods, such as the attempted purchase of yellowcake uranium in Niger.
In fact, the recent terrorist bombing in Afghanistan that came too close to ending the Vice President's life aptly underscored just how reckless the decision was to direct our policy away from the religious fanatics of Al Qaeda, based in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and instead pour our resources into overthrowing Osama bin Laden's sworn enemy, Saddam Hussein.
Of course, things have changed quite a bit since then for formerly secular Iraq. Ironically, Cheney's remarks on Monday correctly evoke the nightmare world of religious fratricide that is the Bush Administration's legacy to Iraq. If the United States withdraws, "Shiite extremists backed by Iran could be in all-out war with Sunni extremists, led by Al Qaeda and remnants of the old Saddam regime," Cheney told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the leading pro-Israel lobbying organization.
Like Nixon during Watergate, Cheney is now shrilly on the defensive. "National security made me do it!" he insists, clinging to pseudo-patriotism, that last refuge of scoundrels. But it is an argument that no longer flies with a public that has caught on to the rhythm of his screechy lies. After all, this is the leader, dominating a weak President, who pushed so hard for a complete occupation of a Muslim country not linked to 9/11. A man who hung his arguments for adventuristic war on known falsehoods, such as the attempted purchase of yellowcake uranium in Niger.
In fact, the recent terrorist bombing in Afghanistan that came too close to ending the Vice President's life aptly underscored just how reckless the decision was to direct our policy away from the religious fanatics of Al Qaeda, based in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and instead pour our resources into overthrowing Osama bin Laden's sworn enemy, Saddam Hussein.
Of course, things have changed quite a bit since then for formerly secular Iraq. Ironically, Cheney's remarks on Monday correctly evoke the nightmare world of religious fratricide that is the Bush Administration's legacy to Iraq. If the United States withdraws, "Shiite extremists backed by Iran could be in all-out war with Sunni extremists, led by Al Qaeda and remnants of the old Saddam regime," Cheney told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the leading pro-Israel lobbying organization.
What he neglected to mention is that those Shiite extremists are militias associated with the very pro-Iran political parties that the Bush Administration brought to power and sustains in the surreally isolated Green Zone, or that our presence in Iraq is the main recruitment tool for the Sunni militants who oppose the Shiite majority.
The argument for troop withdrawal is that, after four years of occupation, the presence of US troops on every street corner in Baghdad is part of the problem, not the solution. As the French learned in Algeria, the Russians in Afghanistan and the Israelis in the Palestinian territories, foreign occupation is the mother's milk of terrorism. It is thus Cheney who has played right into Al Qaeda's plans, heightening tension between the US and the Arab and Muslim worlds by evoking an image of US imperial conquest of Mideast oil resources. His palpable disdain for civil liberties, bald-faced lies and support for torture have even tarnished the reputation of democracy itself, which has to please tyrants and theocrats everywhere.
As if we needed more evidence, the conviction last week of Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, provided ample evidence of the Vice President's bottomless cynicism. Surely Congressional investigators will now ask Cheney, among other awkward questions, what he meant in that note he wrote to himself prior to the conviction stating, "Not going to...sacrifice the guy who was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others." Who could have ordered Libby to break the law, other than his boss?
If the occupation had gone well, of course, Cheney wouldn't be under fire. But as it heads into its fifth year, the only winners in this war are the aforementioned radical Shiites, Iran, mercenaries, Al Qaeda, oil companies and military contractors such as Halliburton, which has scooped up $27 billion in contracts paid with our taxes. Now Halliburton is making its home in an undemocratic oil-garchy so distasteful to Americans that we wouldn't let a company from there manage our ports.
Perhaps Cheney, in disgrace, can build his retirement cave there.

Scandal Du Jour

Clinton Would Stay in Iraq

Hillary has now back pedaled on a pullout of Iraq. Her guns are aimed at Al Qaeda and Iran. So it would appear she is part of the prevailing neo-con establishment. More endless war with a Clinton White House. So maybe we'll see more action from other candidates?
New York Times

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton foresees a “remaining military as well as political mission” in Iraq, and says that if elected president, she would keep a reduced military force there to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and possibly support the Iraqi military.


In a half-hour interview on Tuesday in her Senate office, Mrs. Clinton said the scaled-down American military force that she would maintain would stay off the streets in Baghdad and would no longer try to protect Iraqis from sectarian violence — even if it descended into ethnic cleansing.


In outlining how she would handle Iraq as commander in chief, Mrs. Clinton articulated a more nuanced position than the one she has provided at her campaign events, where she has backed the goal of “bringing the troops home.”


She said in the interview that there were “remaining vital national security interests in Iraq” that would require a continuing deployment of American troops.


The United States’ security would be undermined if parts of Iraq turned into a failed state “that serves as a petri dish for insurgents and Al Qaeda,” she said. “It is right in the heart of the oil region,” she said. “It is directly in opposition to our interests, to the interests of regimes, to Israel’s interests.”


“So it will be up to me to try to figure out how to protect those national security interests and continue to take our troops out of this urban warfare, which I think is a loser,” Mrs. Clinton added. She declined to estimate the number of American troops she would keep in Iraq, saying she would draw on the advice of military officers.

Ian Welsh at The Agonist pretty much sums up my point of view.

Yeah, plenty of people will spin that as ending the war, but it won't. This is a recipe for war without end. Clinton is establishment to the nines, and she wants to keep those bases in Iraq. Since a small US presence in Iraq isn't possible (becaue, ummm, the government would fall and the new government would tell the US to leave, assuming they hadn't already put the bases under siege) her plan is just pie-in-the sky.

Iraqi Troops' Suicide Rate Highest Ever

UPDATE HERE
The US was so unprepared for this voluntary, unnecessary war, it is morally reprehensible. The entire war was based on the premise of establishing a US colony in Iraq, with the consequence of controlling the oil of the second largest oil producer in the world.
The cost to our son's and daughters, to our economy, and to our children's children in terms of debt and increased terrorism is incalculable. Nothing short of a dramatic redirection of this country as called for by Zbigniew Brzezinski has any hope of retrieving any credibility and effectiveness for US foreign policy.
AlterNet

Like most National Guard soldiers, my husband didn't receive a comprehensive mental health evaluation until eight months after he returned from a yearlong tour at the most-attacked base in Iraq. Nearly a year after his exam, in August of 2006, he was notified of the outcome: Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides free healthcare services to veterans for a period of two years beginning on the date of their separation from active military service. By the time my husband was informed of his diagnosis and advised to get treatment, he had approximately six months remaining to access care. But the waiting list is long, and time is running out for him and for tens of thousands just like him.


The clock has already stopped for hundreds of National Guard soldiers and Army reservists who returned from Iraq suffering from PTSD that was either undiagnosed by the military, or the VA refused/delayed treatment. Pentagon statistics reveal that the suicide rate for U.S. troops who have served in Iraq is double what it was in peacetime.


Soldiers who have served -- or are serving -- in Iraq are killing themselves at higher percentages than in any other war where such figures have been tracked. According to a report recently released by the Defense Manpower Data Center, suicide accounted for over 25 percent of all noncombat Army deaths in Iraq in 2006. One of the reasons for "the higher suicide rate in Iraq [is] the higher percentage of reserve troops," said military analyst James F. Dunnigan.


Despite the high risk factor, many soldiers who seek treatment are not receiving urgent care. "When he went to the VA, they didn't have room to treat him that day," said the mother of Jason Cooper, an Army reservist in the Iraq war. Jason hung himself four months after coming back to Iowa. He was 23, a year older than Army reservist Josh Omvig and Marine reservist Jeffrey Lucey, who also committed suicide after the VA's failure to care. As did National Guardsmen Doug Barber, Tim Bowman, Staff Sgt. Jeffrey Jerome Sloss, and far too many others who have ended their lives rather than live them with the psychological equivalent of a sucking chest wound.
[..]The Department of Defense has known this for at least a decade. They commissioned the Comprehensive Clinical Evaluation Program, which conducted post-deployment studies of Gulf War veterans. Rates of PTSD and attendant mental health issues were found in approximately 20 percent of regular enlisted, but upwards of 90 percent of reservists who fought in the first Gulf War reported one or more PTSD-specific symptoms six months [post-deployment].
[..]"We have heard so much about what this military has learned in Vietnam [about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder], and how they're doing it differently now. We don't see that at all," said Nancy Lessin of Military Families Speak Out. For us, as we care for our wounded by ourselves, struggle alone with the phantoms of war, and watch our families fall apart, it is already far too late to "get it right this time."MORE

"Friends" of Israel Envision "Final Holocaust" and "Jewish Toast"

After 60 years of war in Israel, they must ally themselves with an essentially anti-semitic movement that calls for hastening Armageddon by stoking the fires of war in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Republican candidates for president parade one by one to beg the support of these Christian Nazis.
This world has indeed gone crazy. Israel is apparently disparately afraid of Iran and it's proxies, so much so, it flirts with Christian Nazis to ensure it has the support of the US in any coming war. Meanwhile the US government's key positions is dominated by those who believe in the coming End Times.
AlterNet

I've examined the beliefs of Pastor John Hagee, founder of "Christians United For Israel", an ostensibly pro-Israel lobby whose members seek to trigger a Mideast conflict they hope will spiral into a devastating world war that will cause Global mass death and the death of 2/3 of Jews in Israel. Hagee, who calls for a preemptive nuclear strike on Iran and also states that will trigger the apocalyptic war he craves, has also warned in his sermons about a conspiracy of "Illuminati" and international bankers seeking to create a "New World Order". John Hagee spoke, before many US Senators and Congress members, to a cheering crowd, at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual convention last Sunday evening.


Pastor John Hagee's warmly received AIPAC speech illustrates the extent to which political leaders who espouse ideology that in the 1960's was considered to be scandalously close the extreme end of the political spectrum can now expect to broadcast their views from a national stage.

[...]What's also striking is the willingness of AIPAC partisans to embrace the political support of the Christian "Apocalypse lobby" while dismissing statement from CUFI's board members and from other Christian Zionists, that the hoped for catastrophic conflict will kill most Jews in Israel and that Jews who survive will have convert to Christianity or die. American fundamentalist leaders such as John Hagee have been saying that quite loudly for decades and now, more than ever perhaps, the attainment of such bloody and ultimately anti-Semitic goals seems within the bounds of possibility but Jews who are grateful for the political support CUFI and its predecessor organizations have given Israel seem almost schizophrenic in their willingness to dismiss the underlying ideology of totalistic religious warfare that's lurking under the cuddly philosemitic face, to Christian Zionism, which John Hagee has so zealously constructed.


But, Jews might do well to consider the implications of the fact that apocalyptic thinking has penetrated the United States military, to unknown effect, or the possibility that Christian Zionist thought is popular in the White House. Claims, by Jack Van Impe and Paul Rosenberg, of having been consulted by the White House on end-times prophecy, might by self serving hype but it's worth noting that back in 1998, with the gearing up of George W. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign, that John Hagee made of gift to Bush of one of Hagee's books, "Final Dawn Over Jerusalem".


In the end, even neoconservative boosters such as Michael Ledeen who have promoted the idea of turning the entire Mideast into a "cauldron" should have pause at this ; the oldest apostasy in the Judeo-Christian and Abramic theological traditions is the human presumption to divinity and that's what in effect the CUFI lobby presumes : to influence divinely appointed fate.


Even the most hard bitten of neo-conservatives might do well to dwell on the possibility that recent theological mutations in some streams of American Christianity might have led to a situation where, quite literally, key national decision makers both in the White House, The Pentagon, and the US Armed Forces, with control over nearly godlike destructive powers, might also think of themselves as quasi-divine and hold end-times views in which Israel is reduced to smoking rubble in a future conflagration that some Christian Zionists have described as "worse than Auschwitz". In light of such statements, the bargain AIPAC has made with John Hagee and his fellow Christian Zionist raises the question ; how lucky does Israel feel ? MORE

Zbigniew Brzezinski - A Manifesto For the Next President

David Ignatius writes an Op-Ed today about Zbigniew Brzezinski's new book, Second Chance. Brzezinski writes that there is still perhaps one more chance to capture an historic opportunity to re-establish the US as a true Super Power, not based on grandiose schemes of world domination, but about world leadership. Brzezinski's thesis is based on his perception that the world has awakened to a common awareness of the need for human dignity. Ignatius uses his column to connect Obama to this thesis, even thought he admits he doesn't have a clue what Obama thinks.
But his idealism is shared by many. Whatever happened to that "shining city on the hill" so tarnished by the policies of the president that called us that and the Republican presidents that followed. Brzezinski's book is headed for my shelf.
washingtonpost.com

Brzezinski's real focus is the "catastrophic leadership" of the current president. Regular talk-show watchers know Brzezinski's views, but he lays them out here in blistering language: The war in Iraq "has caused calamitous damage to America's global standing," "has been a geopolitical disaster" and "has increased the terrorist threat to the United States." By Brzezinski's account, what drove Bush's presidency so far off course was a combination of sunny "End of History" optimism about America's ability to impose its values with a "Clash of Civilizations" gloom about the threat posed by Muslim enemies.


[..]Brzezinski argues that the world is undergoing a "global political awakening," which is apparent in radically different forms from Iraq to Indonesia, from Bolivia to Tibet. Though America has focused on its notion of what people want (democracy and the wealth created by free trade and open markets), Brzezinski points in a different direction: It's about dignity.


"The worldwide yearning for human dignity is the central challenge inherent in the phenomenon of global political awakening," he argues. His worry is that America -- enfeebled by "material self-indulgence, persistent social shortcomings, and public ignorance about the world" -- may not get it.


The next president, Brzezinski writes, will need "an instinctive grasp of the spirit of the times in a world that is stirring, interactive, and motivated by a vague but pervasive sense of prevailing injustice in the human condition."

Now the Saudis tool up for war

King Abdullah of Jordan was in the US last week making an uncharacteristic pitch for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
NewsHour | PBS

If America does not actively engage, then the ability to be able to get both sides to sit down, to agree, to compromise, to move the process forward, the odds are stacked against us.

What he's talking about is the consequences of continued conflict in Israel with increasing acrimony between Iran and the Moderate Sunni Arab states. They see the hand of Iran with Hamas and Hezbollah as decreasing influence for their Sunni allies, a radicalization of the population and ultimately war all over the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and Jordan are preparing now to bolster the insurgency in Iraq as a way to contain Iran.
I can't think of a better reason to get out of Iraq now. We are cannon fodder in a regional war. Saudi dollars are killing more Americans in Iraq than Iran, by far.
The First Post : Neighbours arm their proxies in Iraq's civil war

This weekend, buyers from across the Gulf states and the Middle East will descend on a huge arms fair in Dubai. Sheikhs, emirs, princes and kings will be buying anything from specialised sniper ammunition by the ton, to the highest-tech surveillance gear and even the odd British Aerospace gunboat or Eurofighter.


The Arab world will use the International Defence Exhibition (IDEX), to tool up for a coming confrontation with Iran, and to arm Sunni insurgents to fight Iran's allies in Iraq, the Shia militias.


Even the Bush administration will now admit, under its collective breath of course, that Iraq is in the throes of a full-blown civil war between armed groups of its Sunni and Shia Arab communities, triggered a year ago by the destruction of the al-Laskar mosque in Samara, a revered Shia shrine.


What the American authorities are reluctant to admit, however, is that there are signs that the Sunnis of Saudi Arabia and their allies - including Jordan - have been equipping and training Sunni extremists in Iraq for some time now. Critically, not all the weaponry and munitions have been used against the militants' Shia and Kurdish Iraqi enemies. Some of them - including lethal roadside bombs - have been aimed at US forces.


"The growth of the official and unofficial Saudi and Jordanian support for the militants is one of the most worrying developments," a senior British officer has told me privately after a visit to Iraq.


The Bush administration has kept mum about this while it tries to concentrate the minds of America and the world on their new public enemy number one, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the region's chief sponsor of terrorism and nuclear proliferation.


British strategic advisers to the Pentagon and the National Security Council report that, undeterred by their unfinished business in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Bush and Vice-President Cheney are now intent on opening up a third front against Iran. Their argument runs that Saddam Hussein was bad and al-Qaeda even worse, but the threat to world peace now comes from Ahmadinejad. He must be stopped before he gets a nuclear weapon and uses it against Israel.

Guest Worker Program Is Fraught With Abuse

There is a reason Bush is so high on the guest worker program. It's a great money maker for the employers. They get workers at a great disadvantage. The current guest worker program results in many workers treated like chattel, treated virtually as slaves by their recruiters and their employers. A bigger program would just allow more abuse.
IPS News

So-called "guest workers" in the United States are routinely forced to handover the deeds to their homes to recruiters, cheated out of wages, held captive by employers who seize their passports and visas, and denied basic standards of living conditions and health care, according to report released Monday in Washington.


The report, "Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programmes in the United States," by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) says that the H-2 guest worker visa, administered by the U.S. Department of Labour, has created a system ripe for exploitation of immigrant workers both in their home countries and in the United States.


"Congress should reform our broken immigration system, but reform should not rely on creating a vast new guest worker programme," Mary Bauer, director of the SPLC's Immigrant Justice Project and author of the report, said in a press release. "The current program is shamefully abusive in practice, and there is almost no enforcement of worker rights."


[...]In 2005, 121,000 temporary H-2 guest workers -- 32,000 H-2A workers for agricultural labour and 89,000 H-2B workers for jobs in forestry, seafood processing, landscaping, construction and other non-agricultural industries -- were "imported" by U.S. employers.


The exploitation for these workers begins in their home countries when they respond to advertisements for labourers claiming generous pay and eventual residency in the United States.


These private agencies then require payment from the workers -- sometimes in the thousands of dollars -- often financed by a loan shark at interest rates as high as 20 percent per month.


Recruiting agencies also sometimes require workers to leave collateral, in the form of deeds to their houses or cars, to ensure they fulfill the term of their contracts.


Once guest workers receive their H-2 visas and arrive in the U.S. deeply in debt, it is common for them to find out that the wages promised to them are false -- for example, many workers in the pine tree planting industry earn less than 1,000 dollars per month, says the report.


Abuse of guest workers in the U.S. often stems from the fact that employers have seized their passports and social security cards -- documents crucial to their case if they are faced with deportation.


Workers claim that the documents are taken to prevent guest workers from leaving in the middle of their contracts.


The SPLC has also documented cases where employers have refused to return or destroyed passports in order to convert workers to undocumented status.


If undocumented, workers receive little assistance from law enforcement officials and have few legal safeguards to prevent them from being deported if their employer reports them to the authorities.


The power held over migrant workers allows employers to renege on promises and pay workers at lower wages and for fewer hours than they actually work, says the report.


Workers who do speak out about mistreatment and abuse are often threatened with deportation or physical violence in a "campaign of intimidation" against workers who bring claims of unlawful treatment.


Violence often faces those who take legal action against the abuses they face by their H-2 visa sponsors in the United States.

Twelve Year Old is Unlawful Combatant at Gitmo

The blog the talking dog has an interview with James Yee, the Muslim Caplain charged with espionage then released with an honorable discharge and commendations. He's wrote a book!
It seems that Bush has twelve year olds at Gitmo as well as Abu Ghraib. Just where does this guy get off?

James Yee is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 2002 and 2003, he served as the Muslim Chaplain at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, with the rank of Captain in the United States Army. After ten months of deployment at Guantanamo, while traveling home for a two week leave, Captain Yee was arrested, and accused of espionage and spying, charges which carried the death penalty. He was then placed in solitary confinement in the Naval Brig in Charleston, South Carolina, under conditions resembling those in which Guantanamo detainees were kept, for 76 days. As the case against Yee fell apart, the military instead added criminal charges of adultery and having pornography on his computer, charges that were also eventually dropped. Captain Yee left the Army with an honorable discharge and service commendations. He is the author of For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire.


As for the juveniles, there were at least three boys in Camp Iguana between 12 and 14 years old. There were at least 6 others, by the way, who were 15 or 16, definitely younger than 18, in general population. The three in Camp Iguana I met weekly. We were led to believe they were "hard core terrorists" but this was utterly ridiculous. The guards in charge of them would frequently discipline them with "time-outs" just as many American parents discipline their own children.


I spent a fair amount of time with the youngsters; they learned to throw footballs, and I watched them kick soccer balls- occasionally over the fence and into the ocean. These kids were not the hard-core super-terrorists capable of slitting anyone's throat, as we were led to believe, and as portrayed by our military and governmental officials. Nevertheless, it was no fun and games for these pre-teens boys. They were subjected to harsh interrogations just like the other prisoners. Several of these interrogations were taking place when I would come visit and thereby prevent me from accessing Camp Iguana.

The Rise and Fall of the Middle Class

AlterNet quoted a excerpt from a speech by Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. In a rambling speech full of vague statements designed apparently to avoid offending his employer, he attempts to explain in "simple terms how the American economy went from having the world's most dynamic middle class to being on the verge of a rich-poor state in only 30 years."
It's shocking but true. While the Republican Party distracted us with the "evil empire" and "axis of evil", our precious middle class has been squeezed until the American dream has been considerably redefined. The poor have gone from a welfare system that created a permanent underclass, largely designed by Democrats, to a slippery slope of what is called "workfare", but is in fact a means to cut people off the rolls. The result is that 1/3 of the millions homeless in America are children. That is simply not acceptable for the richest country in the world.
It's fallen out of fashion to call it "class warfare". But I believe the term is justified. The Republican drive to "starve the beast" has bankrupted our country, dug a huge hole of debt that leaves us owing huge interest payments to China and Japan. Those payments will ensure that any participation of the US government in the solution to our middle class and poor dilemma will necessarily be limited.

[..]And if you're looking for a progressive agenda, certainly from my point of view, a large part of that ought to be straightforward orthodox stuff, which is still very hard to do politically. It would be essentially restoring progressivity of the tax system, and using the revenue to improve social insurance and, above all, health care.
So, if you say what would I really like if I went into a Rip Van Winkle sleep and woke up ten years from now, I'd like to wake up and discover that we have a national health care in some version with the necessary funding supplied in part by higher taxes on me, or actually, the top two percent of the income distribution. But people a lot richer than me, of course. But it's not the whole story that the only thing you can do is taxes and social insurance. And the arc of history for the United States suggests that there's actually a lot more that can happen.


[..]If you actually look at some of the measures -- I'm really into quantitative political science these days -- of political positions that political scientists calculate, it does look as if what the main thing that moves actually over time is in fact the Republican party. The Democratic Party has not -- at least with northern Democrats -- gotten significantly more liberal over the past. They haven't moved much at all over the past 30 years.


But the Republican Party, which had largely converged on the Democrats in the age of Eisenhower, has moved sharply to the right. And so that one party, in effect, moves with the income of the top 5 percent or 1 percent of the population. So that seems to be the story. I mean, we can think about reasons why that might be true.


[..]The official economic story about rising inequality is one in which we have a whole bunch of villains, which all seem to be playing a role.


So we've got skill bias and technological change, which is shifting demand towards highly educated workers. We've got growing international trade with increased imports of labor-intensive products further reducing demand for less educated workers. We have immigration, possibly similar in its effect to trade. We have the falling real value of the minimum wage contributing at the bottom end. We have some affected unionization driving the change in income distribution.


Finally, in terms of at least the after-tax distribution, we have changes in taxes which have, in general, reinforced rising inequality. It could be true, but it's kind of funny that all of these different things should be working in the same direction. In "Murder on the Orient Express," there is an elaborate conspiracy that means that all 12 of the potential suspects were actually in collusion. It's a little hard to see how all of these factors and economics are in collusion.


[..]You might say that's the causation running from income distribution to politics. But if you actually then just start to look at it through history, the timing actually seems to be reversed. The rise of an aggressive or rightwing movement and the rise of a really major assault on the New Deal great society legacy both come before the big shift in income distribution takes place.


The emergence of the modern right is something that obviously dates back to Goldwater, but really becomes a political force in the '70s. You don't really see the big changes in income distribution until the '80s. So it looks almost as if, just in this crude sense, politics is leading the economic changes. How could that operate? I just want to talk about two things. I suspect that there are quite a few channels that we don't really perceive, but there are two that are fairly clear. One of them is unionization.


Obviously, private sector unions were very important in the U.S. 30 years ago and have very nearly -- not completely, but very nearly -- collapsed, and they are down to eight percent of private employment. Why did that happen? You will often see people saying -- well, that's because of de-industrialization, and because of the decline of manufacturing. But that is actually not right. It's not right in two ways.


First of all, arithmetically, most of the decline in unionization is a result not of the decline in manufacturing share, but of the decline of the unionization of manufacturing itself. So the big thing that happens is that there is a collapse of unionization within the manufacturing sector and then of course also a smaller share of manufacturing in the economy, but it's much more dramatic on the collapse within the sector.


The other is that there is no law that says that unionization should be a manufacturing phenomenon. What it really is, to the extent that there is a story, is that large enterprises are more likely to be to be unionized. The reason why the high tend of unionization was also a period when manufacturing was the core of the union movement, is that at that time, large enterprises were largely a manufacturing phenomenon.


Now we have a service economy in which there are a lot of large service sector enterprises. Not to put too fine a point on it, but why exactly couldn't Wal-Mart be unionized? It doesn't face international competition. There is no obvious reason why it wouldn't be possible to have a strong union in Wal-Mart and in the big box sector and other parts of the economy. And just think of how different the whole political economy would look if the service sector enterprises were unionized.


[..]Not necessarily all the effects would be positive, but it would certainly be very, very different. What happened? Why did manufacturing unionization collapse? Why didn't the emerging service sector get unionized? And the answer is actually pretty straightforward and pretty brutal. It's politics and aggressive employer behavior enabled by politics.


I have seen estimates of a fraction of workers who voted for a union and who were fired in the early '80s. They range from a low of one in 20 to a high of one in eight. There is no question that aggressive, often illegal, union busting is the reason the union movement declined. And the change in the political climate that began in the '70s clearly played a role in making that possible.