Kofi Annan Mediates a Settlement in Kenya

allAfrica.com

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga have signed an agreement to end the country's post-election crisis. At a ceremony in Nairobi yesterday, the two men put their signatures to a power-sharing deal brokered by ex-UN head Kofi Annan. A coalition government comprising members of the current ruling party and opposition will now be formed.


Some 1,500 people died in political violence after Mr Odinga said he was robbed of victory in December's polls. International observers agreed the count was flawed. Violence has mostly receded, but tensions are still running extremely high.


Negotiations between the government and Mr Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) lasted more than a month, stalling several times. Discussions centred on the creation of the post of prime minister, likely to be taken by Mr Odinga. Both sides agreed that there should be a prime minister, but had differed on what powers the new post would have.


Speaking after the deal was signed, Mr Annan said the division of posts in the new government would reflect the two rival political parties' strengths in parliament.

One in 99 Americans Behind Bars

AlterNet

According to a new study from Pew, 1 in 99 American adults are currently in jail. From the New York Times article on the report:

For the first time in the nation's history, more than one in 100 American adults is behind bars, according to a new report.


Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars.


Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 Hispanic adults is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 black adults is, too, as is one in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34.

Military spending and incarceration rates are also both cornerstones of the booming Republican public sector economy:

In 2007, according to the National Association of State Budgeting Officers, states spent $44 billion in tax dollars on corrections. That is up from $10.6 billion in 1987, a 127 increase once adjusted for inflation. With money from bond issues and from the federal government included, total state spending on corrections last year was $49 billion. By 2011, the report said, states are on track to spend an additional $25 billion.

The Ethnology of a Chicago Gang

I have a new theory. Dirty money is spread so wide and deep that perhaps most of the wealthy families in this world started out in the underground economy, like drug and human trafficking. That would certainly explain the Kennedy's, Bush and the EU willing to look the other way in Kosovo where a gangster is running the government, and the history of the Iran Contra as well as seeding the start of Osama's Islamic jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan funded by Reagan and the Saudi family. Here is a book review about a Chicago gangster that offers some confirmation of what I'm suspecting.
Salon Books

None of Robert Taylor residents really liked the gang, but it evolved to serve a purpose: As is often the case when civil order breaks down -- whether it happens in Afghanistan, Somalia or the South Side of Chicago -- strongmen emerge to provide security, at a cost. On the other hand, at least the residents of Robert Taylor knew exactly what they were getting for their "taxes."


[..]As soon as people start using the word "community," you can be pretty sure they're trying to put something over on you. In time, Venkatesh became just as disillusioned with Ms. Bailey, the neighborhood clergy, the director of the local Boys and Girls Clubs (inventor of the much-celebrated midnight basketball leagues of the 1990s) and the cops -- the ones with the "real power" in the ghetto, and in a few cases all too prone to abusing it. Everyone he met was jostling for influence, offering protection or resources, and distributing both to whoever had the most to offer them in return.


What the budding sociologist found, in the end, was not the depraved chaos that the political right imagines ghetto life to be, nor the left's tragic melodrama of a powerless, victimized population terrorized by its most hopeless members. (J.T., a gifted manager by Venkatesh's account, went to college on an athletic scholarship and gave up a job selling office supplies when he realized that white employees were receiving preferential treatment.) What he did find was an economy, and a rough social order that the residents had assembled out of the broken pieces left to them by society at large. Without meaningful police services, they cobbled together a security force of sorts. Without much in the way of social services, they figured out how to extract some of what they needed from the main economic engine in their environment: the gang. Within the borders of a major American city, they lived in the equivalent of a corrupt third-world nation.


At times, the creativity and ingenuity of the people Venkatesh meets are impressive, but they were still spent in getting what most of their fellow citizens take nearly for granted: a roof over their heads, food for their kids, protection from thieves and brutes. The Robert Taylor Homes have since been torn down, J.T. left the gang to manage a dry-cleaning business, and Venkatesh moved on to Harvard and to see his work featured in the bestselling book "Freakonomics." (He's currently writing a blog that gathers real-life gangsters' responses to the television series "The Wire.")


He writes that few of today's gangs are as extensive, stable and well organized as the Black Kings once were, and by the time you get to the end of "Gang Leader for a Day," it's hard not to wonder if that's such a good thing. Criminals though they were, the job they did wasn't always as dirty. And somebody's got to do it.

Court Attacks Free Speech

Los Angeles Times

A coalition of media and public interest organizations went to federal court in San Francisco on Tuesday urging a judge to reconsider his order to shut down a muckraking website that publishes leaked documents from businesses and government agencies worldwide.


Lawyers for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Citizen and several news organizations, told U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White that two orders he issued last week against wikileaks.org were prior restraints that violated the 1st Amendment.


Laura Handman, a Washington, D.C., attorney for the news organizations, said White's order was so expansive that the only way to describe it was as if a judge had shut down a newspaper because of controversy over one article.


"I can't think of another injunction that was so broad," said Matt Zimmerman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil rights group that focuses on digital issues.


White acted in response to a lawsuit filed Feb. 6 by Julius Baer & Co., a Zurich-based bank, alleging that a disgruntled former employee had posted internal documents alleging money-laundering and tax evasion schemes at its Cayman Islands branch.


Wikileaks.org specifically urges readers to post leaked documents in an effort to discourage "unethical behavior" by corporations and government agencies. Among the 1.2 million documents that Wikileaks says it has posted over the last several years is an operations manual for the controversial U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.


Julius Baer, represented by the Century City firm Lavely & Singer, past lawyers for several celebrities in battles with news organizations, alleged that the postings violated privacy and bank secrecy laws of Switzerland and the Cayman Islands and posed a serious threat of identity theft.

Turkish Invasion of Iraq Threatens to Escalate to Full Scale

The Iraqi Government finally acknowledges the Turkish invasion. The Iraqi Cabinet condemned the Turkish military incursion in northern Iraq as a "violation" of its "sovereignty".
Meanwhile, the Kurds are rattling sabres and may be preparing a counter-attack which will clearly provoke a massive Turkish response. The Turks have massed over 140,000 troops near the border, as many troups as the US had before the surge.
Harpers

“The bombings are continuing by land and by air; the clashes are becoming heavier.” This was a Turkish military source quoted in a story today in the Guardian, referring to his country’s incursions into northern Iraq yesterday to pursue militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Hundreds of soldiers and rebel troops have died since fighting began last week. (I previously discussed last December’s attack by Turkey into Kurdistan.)


The Turkish offensive, which has been green-lighted by the Bush Administration, was criticized by the Iraqi government. “We know the threats that Turkey is facing, but military operations will not solve the PKK problem,” a government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, told The Guardian. Meanwhile, Kurdish anger towards the United States is growing. “We are their friends and we thought we were their allies,” the newspaper quoted Muhammad Qadir, a shopkeeper in Irbil, as saying. “We don’t support the PKK, but we are angry that the Americans are allowing the Turks to wage war against our fellow Kurds.”


A former U.S. official who works in northern Iraq emailed me to say:

The United States is being skillfully handled by the Turks, who are dragging the U.S. into a policy disaster in Kurdistan. The Kurds have moved a lot of fighters and equipment quietly into the area, and are prepared to strike the Turks. Massoud Barzani, the Iraqi Kurdish leader [NOT PKK, Peshmurga, the best Iraqi soldiers!] has issued all the press comments he can to publicly warn that Kurdish patience is gone. The United States is either ignoring the signals or missing them…The Kurds can and will bloody the Turks badly in a fight.

This former official is close to Kurdish officials and hence an interested party, but his previous reports from the ground have been well-informed.

Russian FM warns NATO, EU mission not to use force against Serbs in Kosovo

The Russians seem to be trying to provoke a run on the border between Kosovo and Serbia. Warning the Kosovar Serbs that NATO might block their escape will inevitably increase those seeking to escape.
That can only serve a plan to start a guerrilla war.
International Herald Tribune

Russia's foreign minister claimed in remarks broadcast Monday that NATO and the EU have been considering using force to keep Serbs from leaving Kosovo following its declaration of independence.


Sergey Lavrov, in an interview on state-run Vesti-24 television, said that would undermine security in the Balkans and Europe.


Lavrov suggested that the EU's police and justice mission was seeking help from NATO forces to ease its deployment in Serb-populated northern Kosovo and to keep Serbs in the region.


"We have information that the EU mission, attempting to deploy in Serb enclaves — and the Serbs do not want this — is trying to draw the NATO forces for Kosovo onto its side," he said. He added that "the question of using force to hold back Serbs who do not want to remain under Pristina's authority ... is being seriously discussed."


Lavrov also said "there is information that NATO contingents are trying to use force" to close the borders between Kosovo and "the rest of Serbia." He did not say where he got his information.


"This will only lead to yet another 'frozen conflict' and will push the prospects for stabilizing Europe — and first of all for stabilizing the Balkans — far to the side," he said.


NATO spokesman James Appathurai, responding to Lavrov's comments, said the alliance would be evenhanded in its treatment of all Kosovo residents.


"NATO forces in Kosovo have a clear mandate from the U.N. Security Council to establish a safe and secure environment for all residents, majority and minority alike," he said. "They have done that task in a neutral and impartial way since the day they deployed in Kosovo and they will continue to do so."

The Ballot or the Bullet

The Black World Today

We don’t know what Barack will do [if elected President], but he has presented some thoughts which would mean some change in the ugliness of the policies of this country. He hasn’t spelled out an anti-poverty program like the one proposed by Martin Luther King, a program of full employment, guaranteed annual income, and 100,000 units of affordable housing each year. But he has spoken out about Social Security reform that rejects privatization and raises the income cap for imposition of the FICA tax, a move that would secure Social Security for decades to come. Obama speaks of removing tax credits for those companies that send our jobs overseas. He speaks of raising taxes on those who make more than $250,000 annually, and eliminating taxes for seniors who make less than $50,000 a year. Of course, he promises to end the war in Iraq, and bring the troops home by the end of 2009.


His foreign policy includes diplomatic overtures to Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba. Does this mean ending the rhetoric about bringing democracy to the world? This rhetoric is so hypocritical coming from a country that becomes more fascistic by the day, by the hour, by the minute.


Poverty is not confined solely to Black folks. So anything that addresses that evil does indeed have universal appeal. The belligerence of the united states causes pain to the majority of its citizens. Obama’s promise to bring the troops home reaches all corners of the u.s.


[..]I have looked to Barack’s web page to find information about his thoughts on the criminal justice system. Found nothing there, and of course the issue of Political Prisoners in the u.s. is a non-existent issue in this campaign, and seemingly a non-existent issue for Barack Obama. He has been a civil rights attorney, so I can’t believe he is completely unaware of the issue, as so many of our so-called black politicians like to claim. No point talking to him about this now. But, hopefully, we will be all over him on this matter after he is elected.


[..]We are not a stupid people. We know better than to expect miracles, freedom, or liberation if Barack Obama becomes president of the united states. But the huge turnout of the so-called African-American vote will be a major factor in placing Barack in the Oval Office. Obama will do well to take a lesson from the David Dinkins saga.


Don’t take our vote for granted; it is what will get him to the White House, and if he turns it off, it will mean his ticket out of the White House – no second term.


Michelle Obama says she doesn’t want people to vote for her husband just because he is Black. She knows better, and saying it is only being prudent. Easily 90% of the so-called African-american vote for Obama will be because he is Black. And because he is Black, a renewed hope will rise up in Black youth, the new constituency that Obama brings to the ballot box. If he crushes their hopes, plays “plantation politics,” he will leave millions in hopeless despair. That hopelessness can evolve into anger and rage, and Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, and the entire country may well face the reality of Brother Malcolm’s admonition, “the ballot or the bullet.”

Women and children in Gaza form human chain

Times Online

Thousands of Palestinians protesting against an international blockade on the Gaza Strip formed a human chain today, with Israel warning of an iron-fisted response if demonstrators tried to storm the country's border.


Men, women and children holding both Palestinian and Hamas flags turned out for the start of what organisers linked to the ruling Hamas movement claimed would be a peaceful protest eventually involving some 50,000 people.


The organisers said that the human chain - designed to link a 25-mile stretch of the main road traversing the centre of the coastal strip between the towns of Rafah and Beit Hanoun - would be designed to show up the plight of Gaza residents to the international community.


Schools were closed for the day, and thousands of pupils were taken in buses to participate. Many could be seen with banners stating: "The Siege of Gaza Will Only Strengthen Us, "The World Has Condemned Gaza to Death" and "Save Gaza".


The international community has largely boycotted Gaza since Hamas, which refuses to renounce terrorism or recognise Israel's right to exist, deposed the secular Fatah movement in a military coup to take control. Fatah, which is led by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, still controls the West Bank.


“This is a peaceful and civilised act to let the people express their rejection of the siege and of collective punishment,” Jamal al-Khudari, leader of the Popular Committee Against the Siege, the pro-Hamas organisers, said. "We are raising a cry to the world for it to act."

President Pervez Musharraf May Stepdown

The Hindu News

Having apparently run out of options, Pakistan's beleaguered President Pervez Musharraf "is considering stepping down in days" to avoid a showdown with the newly elected Parliament in that country.


"He (Musharraf) has already started discussing the exit strategy for himself. I think it is now just a matter of days and not months because he would like to make a graceful exit on a high," 'The Sunday Telegraph' quoted one of the President's close confidantes as saying.


According to senior aides, Musharraf would prefer to resign rather than waiting to be impeached and forced out of office by the victorious opposition parties who triumphed in last week's general election in that country and announced they would form a coalition government.


"He may have made many mistakes, but he genuinely tried to build the country and he doesn't want to destroy it just for the sake of his personal office," an unnamed official close to the President told the British newspaper.


Musharraf had last week said that he would not resign despite his allies suffering a crushing defeat in the election and had also asserted that he intends to stay in office to guide the democratic transition in Pakistan.


But the official said that he had considered resigning immediately after the election results were known, but was persuaded by party loyalists that his sudden departure could precipitate a crisis.

Putin Warns West Over Kosovo Dispute

The Russian are announcing a full return to the cold and sometimes neighboring hot wars in it's now shrunken sphere of influence. Putin is warning that Russia will consider an military option in dealing with it's immediate neighbors, not Kosovo. I believe he's also saying, if he had it to do again, he would have moved several divisions of the Russian Army into Serbia to prevent the secession of Kosovo. I don't believe he's threaten a war, but he is signaling a renewed arms race, one that oil rich Russia just might win.
The Associated Press

Putin used the meeting of presidents from the Commonwealth of Independent States — a loose, Russian-dominated organization of former Soviet states — to lambast Western nations that have recognized Kosovo's independence. Among those are the United States, Britain, Germany and France.


"The Kosovo precedent is a terrifying precedent. It in essence is breaking open the entire system of international relations that have prevailed not just for decades but for centuries. And it without a doubt will bring on itself an entire chain of unforeseen consequences," Putin said.


Governments that have recognized Kosovo "are miscalculating what they are doing," he added. "In the end, this is a stick with two ends and that other end will come back to knock them on the head someday."


Moscow has heatedly protested the Kosovo declaration, which has sparked violent protests by Serbs and international squabbling over whether to recognize the fledgling nation.


Russia's NATO ambassador, Dmitry Rogozin, said the Russian military might get involved if all European Union nations recognized Kosovo as independent without United Nations agreement.


"If the European Union works out a single position or NATO goes beyond its current mandate in Kosovo, these organizations will conflict with the United Nations," Rogozin said in a televised hookup from NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.


If that happens, Russia "will proceed from the assumption that to be respected, we have to use brute military force," he said, although he later said that Russia was not making plans for any such confrontation.


Rogozin's comments sparked quick reaction. Nicholas Burns, the State Department's third-ranking official, called them "highly irresponsible."

The Kurds Pretend Turkey Hasn't Invaded

How do the Kurd's deal with a major Turkish incursion? By denial. If it didn't really happen and was coordinated with Kurdish authorities to chase bandits, then there wasn't an invasion. You can hide 10,000 troops backed by tanks in the mountains. Turkish media warn a larger incursion is being prepared.
AlterNet

Turkish troops entered northern Iraq to hunt Kurdish separatist rebels after fighter jets struck at their bases, the Turkish army said Friday. Some 10,000 troops penetrated 10 kilometers (six miles) into the autonomous Kurdish northern Iraq, the NTV news channel said.


The operation started late Thursday when tanks were reported heading for the frontier and came as the region is in the thick of winter with sub-zero temperatures. The army did not state the number of troops involved but said the incursion followed eight hours of air and artillery strikes on Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) camps across the border on Thursday.


"Following this successful offensive, a cross-border ground operation backed by the Air Force was launched at 7:00 pm (1700 GMT)," said an army statement posted on the general staff Internet site. The army said troops "will return home as soon as possible after achieving their planned objective of incapacitating members of the terror organization and destroying their infrastructure." The statement highlighted that Turkish armed forces "attach special importance to Iraq's territorial integrity and stability."


[..]Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari denied a large-scale Turkish raid had been launched but said tension was high and rising in the border region.


[..]In Baghdad, the foreign minister, a Kurd, denied there had been an incursion but said there had been intense Turkish air and artillery strikes and that forces loyal to northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish government had been involved in a stand-off with Turkish forces. Turkey has bases of its own in Iraq's northern mountains and on Thursday attempted to launch a land operation, Zebari said. "They were prevented from doing this because this is not their mandate," he said, explaining that Turkish troops were allowed to operate inside Iraq only as observers. "There weren't any clashes. It was resolved peacefully," he said.


The Turkish army and Iraqi forces both denied media reports Thursday that fighting had broken out between Turkish troops and Peshmarga forces in northern Iraq.


Turkish media reported Thursday that the army was moving reinforcements and equipment to the border in preparation for a large-scale incursion.

Obama Threatened and Secret Service Drops Gun Checks

While Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists publish ominous threats to Obama's life, reportedly, Secret Service ordered an end to gun checks at Obama rally. Now what is up with this?

"The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security," reported the paper's Jack Douglas, Jr. More than 10 days remain until the Texas primary and a key vote for president.


"Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department's homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order -- apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service -- was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena's vacant seats before Obama came on. '"Sure,' said Lawrence, when asked if he was concerned by the great number of people who had gotten into the building without being checked. But, he added, the turnout of more than 17,000 people seemed to be a 'friendly crowd.'"


The Secret Service did not return a call from the Star-Telegram seeking comment.

Israel Bigoted Against Palestinians

M & C

Israel rejects nearly all Palestinian requests for building permits in those areas of the West Bank which are still under its full control, according to a report published Wednesday by Peace Now.


In the past seven years, only 91 of 1,624 requests submitted had been granted, the Israeli settlement watchdog said. That means more than 94 per cent of the Palestinian requests have been rejected.


Israel also issued demolition orders against 4,993 illegally-built Palestinian houses. One third of them have been executed.


By contrast, such demolition orders were issued against 2,900 houses built illegally by Jewish settlers, and less than 7 per cent of these had been executed, Peace Now said.


It added in all 18,472 new apartments had been built between 2000 and 2007 in Jewish settlements in 'area C' - those parts of the West Bank which under the 1993 Oslo interim peace accord are still under full Israeli military and civil control.


The figures proved Israel was 'clearly and bluntly' discriminating against the Palestinian population in area C, Peace Now charged.

The Secret of Obama's Success: He Listens to George Lakoff

AlterNet: Blogs

Why that is has befuddled many Democrats, particularly Clinton followers. How can Obama score so many wins by offering so little -- just hope -- and yet everything -- hope?


I can answer that question. It's because Obama gets it. He's been reading the George Lakoff and Rockridge Institute playbook, Thinking Points and skillfully applying it. Lakoff rewrote the progressive strategy with the concept of framing. Had my guy, John Edwards, followed Lakoff's advice and like Obama, gone lighter on the policies and heavier on the values, he might be where Obama is today. Dennis Kucinich would have won a primary or two. John Kerry might be president now. Al Gore would not have needed the Supreme Court in 2000.

Rigged Trials at Gitmo

The Nation

According to Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for Guantanamo's military commissions, the process has been manipulated by Administration appointees to foreclose the possibility of acquittal.


Colonel Davis's criticism of the commissions has been escalating since he resigned in October, telling the Washington Post that he had been pressured by politically appointed senior Defense officials to pursue cases deemed "sexy" and of "high interest" (such as the 9/11 cases now being pursued) in the run-up to the 2008 elections. Davis, once a staunch defender of the commissions process, elaborated on his reasons in a December 10, 2007, Los Angeles Times op-ed. "I concluded that full, fair and open trials were not possible under the current system," he wrote. "I felt that the system had become deeply politicized and that I could no longer do my job effectively."


Then, in an interview with The Nation in February after the six Guantánamo detainees were charged, Davis offered the most damning evidence of the military commissions' bias--a revelation that speaks to fundamental flaws in the Bush Administration's conduct of statecraft: its contempt for the rule of law and its pursuit of political objectives above all else.


When asked if he thought the men at Guantánamo could receive a fair trial, Davis provided the following account of an August 2005 meeting he had with Pentagon general counsel William Haynes--the man who now oversees the tribunal process for the Defense Department.


"[Haynes] said these trials will be the Nuremberg of our time," recalled Davis, referring to the Nazi tribunals in 1945, considered the model of procedural rights in the prosecution of war crimes. In response, Davis said he noted that at Nuremberg there had been some acquittals, which had lent great credibility to the proceedings.


"I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process," Davis continued. "At which point, [Haynes's] eyes got wide and he said, 'Wait a minute, we can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can't have acquittals. We've got to have convictions.'"


Davis submitted his resignation on October 4, 2007, just hours after he was informed that Haynes had been put above him in the commissions' chain of command. "Everyone has opinions," Davis says. "But when he was put above me, his opinions became orders."


Reached for comment, Defense Department spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said, "The Department of Defense disputes the assertions made by Colonel Davis in this statement regarding acquittals."


"The fact that [Haynes] said there can be no acquittals will stain the entire [tribunal] process," says Scott Horton, who teaches law at Columbia University Law School and has written extensively about Haynes's conflicts with the Judge Advocate General's (JAG) corps, the judicial arm of the armed forces, which is charged with implementing the military commissions. According to Horton, Haynes tried to cut the JAG corps out of internal debates over the detention and prosecution of detainees, knowing it was critical of the Administration's views. In private memos and in public Senate testimony, high-ranking officers of the corps have repeatedly expressed concerns about the Administration's justification of "extreme interrogation techniques."


"The JAG corps consists of a group of rigorous professionals, but Haynes never trusted them to do their job," says Horton. "His clashes have always had the same subtext--they want to be independent; he wants them to do political dirty work."


Haynes, a political appointee and chief legal adviser to Defense secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates, was nominated in 2006 by the Bush Administration for a lifetime seat as a judge in the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. But his nomination never got out of committee, primarily because of the opposition of Republican Senator (and former military lawyer) Lindsey Graham and other members alarmed over Haynes's role in writing, or supervising the writing of, Pentagon memos advocating the use of harsh interrogation techniques the Geneva Conventions classify as torture.


Currently, in his capacity as Pentagon general counsel, Haynes oversees both the prosecution and the defense for the Guantánamo commissions.


"You would think a person in that position wouldn't be favoring one side," says Colonel Davis.


Told of Davis's story about Haynes, Clive Stafford Smith, a defense attorney who has represented more than seventy Guantánamo clients, said, "Hearing it makes me think I'm back in Mississippi representing a black man in front of an all-white jury."


He adds, "It confirms what people close to the system have always said," noting that when three prosecutors--Maj. Robert Preston, Capt. John Carr and Capt. Carrie Wolf--requested to be transferred out of the Office of Military Commissions in 2004, they said they'd been told the process was rigged. In an e-mail to his supervisors, Preston had said that there was thin evidence against the accused. "But they were told by the chief prosecutor at the time that they didn't need evidence to get convictions," says Stafford Smith.

McCain's Holiday from History in Pakistan: Lies about Obama

Juan Cole in his Informed Comment takes McCain apart.

Senator John McCain could not get the independents out in Wisconsin, and the Republican turnout was lackluster. In politics, failure always produces bluster. McCain spoke after his primary victory in Wisconsin last night, casting himself as a voice of experience in foreign policy. He said things like this:

' I will fight every moment of every day in this campaign to make sure Americans are not deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change that promises no more than a holiday from history . . .


Today, political change in Pakistan is occurring that might affect our relationship with a nuclear armed nation that is indispensable to our success in combating Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and elsewhere. . .


Will the next President have the experience, the judgment experience informs, and the strength of purpose to respond to each of these developments in ways that strengthen our security and advance the global progress of our ideals? Or will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested invading our ally, Pakistan, and sitting down without pre-conditions or clear purpose with enemies who support terrorists and are intent on destabilizing the world by acquiring nuclear weapons?'

These remarks were aimed at Barack Obama, and they are lies. McCain has repeatedly made this false charge, warning against sending troops to Waziristan. But Obama never advocated invading Pakistan with US ground troops. He said that the US should strike at al-Qaeda if it had actionable intelligence about its whereabouts in Pakistan, even if the Pakistani authorities refused to give permission.


This stance is US policy. In fact, George W. Bush implemented it with a Predator attack on an al-Qaeda leader in Pakistan just a couple of weeks ago, an attack that the Pakistani government declined to authorize.
[..]I mind McCain pulling a Rove and making hay with a policy stance of his opponent that he actually agrees with. And I think there is good reason to ask whether McCain helped create al-Qaeda and the mess in Pakistan to begin with. It is time for someone to start holding the Cold Warriors who deployed a militant Muslim covert army against their leftist enemies accountable for the blow-back they created.

NATO checks Serbs' Kosovo border challenge

Kosovo has shaped into a classic East/West challenge. Russia, in particular is concerned about insurgencies within. Just how provocative the politicians will be at the expense of the people of Kosovo has yet to be seen.
Reuters

NATO thwarted overnight a bid by Kosovo Serbs to assert their authority in a northern slice of the newly independent republic, restoring control on the border with Serbia where crowds had burnt down two crossing points.


"I just want everybody to be fully aware of my determination to maintain, restore a safe and secure environment wherever in Kosovo," said General Xavier de Marnhac, commander of the NATO-led peacekeeping force, KFOR. He said Kosovan and U.N. authority would be restored at the crossings, known as Gate 1 and Gate 3-1, which would reopen once the destroyed customs and police buildings had been repaired.


The test of Western resolve to back up Kosovo's independence with military force came on Tuesday, two days after Pristina declared its secession from Serbia, a step the West has backed.


NATO said the attacks were clearly an organised challenge.


Destroying the border posts was "perhaps not pretty, but legitimate", said Serbia's Minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, who added that Serbia planned to take over customs authority in northern Kosovo.


Kosovo's U.N. administrator Joachim Ruecker said the action was no legitimate at all. "The Serbian government is bound by their commitment to refrain from all acts that could be seen as encouraging violence and this was really violence so I disagree with that statement," he told a news conference with KFOR commander de Marnhac.


The crossings were empty for some hours on Tuesday after Kosovo and U.N. police pulled out and called NATO for help. Some 40 French and U.S. troops moved in and put coils of razor wire across the Jarinje post, where Serbs had burnt down the buildings and pushed official vehicles over a ravine. The peacekeepers were harassed by stone-throwing Serb men but held the position without major incident, backed by Polish U.N. riot police. NATO also secured the other crossing near Zubin Potok town. The NATO force commander accused "some local leaders" in the Serb-dominated north of putting women and children at risk. "Everybody has been very lucky, the way it went. But the leaders should think very deeply on their responsibility when they trigger this type of demonstration," de Marnhac said.


Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said the comments by the Serbian minister Samardzic "belong to the past and do not at all fit with the current situation". Pristina's declaration of independence from Serbia, quickly recognised by the United States and EU powers, was denounced by Serbia and Russia as an illegal violation of a U.N. resolution on Kosovo, whose population is mainly Albanian.


Serbia has recalled envoys and plans a mass protest march in Belgrade for Thursday but says it will not resort to violence. The border attacks highlight the challenge facing an EU law-enforcement mission deploying soon to Kosovo, which has been under U.N. administration for nearly nine years following NATO's air war to push out Serb forces.


The EU mission does not have a U.N. mandate. Serbia does not recognise its authority, and Serb ally Russia has warned it will not permit any attempts at "repressive measures should Serbs in Kosovo decide not to comply". "The EU's unilateral decision to send a mission ... to Kosovo ... is in breach of the highest international law," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday.


Russia, which has no troops in the Balkans, says Western recognition of Kosovo will open a "Pandora's Box" of separatist tension across Europe. Pieter Feith, the EU's new special representative in Pristina, told a news conference Kosovo Serbs should stay and feel welcome in the new republic but the Serb-dominated north would not be permitted to opt out. "It is the intention of the European Union to deploy its presences ... the rule-of-law mission, for police, judges, prosecutors ... that we will deploy all over Kosovo," he said. "And all over the territory of Kosovo includes the north." "It should be clear to the Serb community that we are not a threat to their way of life and they should not feel afraid."


EU defence ministers will review security arrangements in the Balkans on Thursday. NATO says it has no immediate plans to reduce the strength of KFOR, which is about 17,000 made up by contingents from 35 countries led by Germany, Italy, France and the United States. (Writing by Douglas Hamilton; edited by Richard Meares)

BBC NEWS

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has declared the EU's police and justice mission to Kosovo illegal. He told reporters that Brussels' "unilateral decision... is in breach of the highest international law".


[..]Students in the Serb-dominated town of Mitrovica are organising daily protests at 12.44 pm, referring to UN Security Council resolution 1244 under which Serbia insists it still has sovereignty of Kosovo under international law.


Russia has already objected to Kosovo's declaration of independence, agreeing with Belgrade's interpretation of the UN resolution and raising the prospect of the established world order being destroyed.


[..]Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said that by "pursuing the unilateral scenario of solving the Kosovo problem... the European Union encourages separatism in the world".

STANCE ON RECOGNITION

• For: Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Italy, France, UK, Austria, US, Turkey, Albania, Afghanistan


• Against: Russia, Spain, Romania, Slovakia, Cyprus

The Rise and Fall of the Neocon American Empire

Thank you George Bush, for squandering America's political and economic capital, and it's bright future, on a useless war in Iraq, a war that will haunt us for many years to come.
IPSNEWS.net

What a difference five years and an invasion and bungled occupation of Iraq make! References to the Roman Empire at this point are more likely to refer to its decline than to its power -- an observation confirmed even by Donald Kagan, a dean of neo-conservatism and Kennedy’s colleague at Yale, whose sons, Robert and Frederick, have been champions of the Bush Doctrine and the Iraq War.


"I’ve argued that not since the Roman Empire has anyone had such extraordinary power as the United States after the Cold War," Kagan told Kitfield. "But all of the elements of our strength are now being challenged, and it’s perfectly possible that we are seeing a relative decline in U.S. power that will prove lasting."


Indeed, that possibility has been transformed into a probability, if not a certainty, by a growing number of policy analysts who see major structural shifts in the distribution of global power -- both "hard" and "soft" -- none of which are likely to lead to the maintenance, let alone the enhancement of Washington’s post-Cold War dominance.


Not only have both Iraq and Afghanistan shown the world the limits of U.S. military power, but they are also exacting an increasingly fearsome toll on Washington’s ability to wage war.


Despite gains in the security situation in Iraq over the past year, top Pentagon brass and independent experts are warning that the current pace of deployments is creating a "hollow force" both in terms of personnel and equipment. In an echo of Kennedy 20 years ago, "overstretched" is the adjective most frequently associated with the U.S. military.


Just as Kennedy had warned against the deadly long-term impact on empires of budgetary deficits, the Bush years have seen an explosion not just of government debt -- currently more than nine trillion dollars -- but also of trade and balance-of-payments deficits. Much of this is due to the high price of oil and gas imports -- which a growing number of experts now believe has become a permanent fixture of the international economy.


The results of the evolving global geo-economy include a much-weakened dollar and increased reliance by both the U.S. government and U.S. business on foreign creditors. Among these creditors are state-controlled agencies (or sovereign wealth funds) some of which -- notably those of China, Russia, and oil-exporting Gulf states -- are not enthralled, to say the least, with Krauthammer’s unipolar vision.


If, for commercial or political reasons, any of these creditors decided to dump their hundreds of billions of dollars of dollar-denominated assets -- or in the case of key energy exporters, for example, to price their commodities in a currency other than the dollar -- the economic impact would be "grave", according to Charles Freeman, retired U.S Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Freeman’s point was echoed for the first time last week in the U.S. intelligence community’s annual review of the major global threats facing the nation.


The possibility that some combination of those creditors, whose own commercial ties have been growing at an accelerating rate, could decide to act in concert in order to constrain Washington’s freedom of action -- in Central Asia or Iran, for example -- is the emerging nightmare of U.S. policy- makers.


Some analysts, including the director of the Geopolitics of Energy Initiative of the New America Foundation (NAF), Flynt Leverett, profess to see the emergence of a potential counterweight to U.S. power -- one, significantly, that does not depend on the co-operation of Washington’s western allies.


"A ‘community’ of largely non-democratic manufacturing powers and energy exporters is already laying the groundwork for real strategic collaboration, aimed at limiting America’s ability to carry out [its] hegemonic agendas," Leverett, who served in the National Security Council under Bill Clinton and Bush, wrote recently in the ‘National Interest’ journal published by the Nixon Centre.


As a result, the degree to which Washington can slow its decline and preserve its primacy will depend increasingly on its willingness to suppress its unilateralist reflexes and "to take account of the perceptions and interests of others in its foreign-policy decision-making," according to Leverett.

The Nuclear Espionage Media Cover-up

Hat tip to The Brad Blog.
This story smells like Cheney all over. There may be a good reason why the Sibel Edmunds allegations were covered up. I wonder if the Bush Administration ordered a violation of treaty obligations, and very likely a violation of US and International law. Bush could have authorized passing nuclear secrets to Turkey as a counter to Iran and to persuade it to support the invasion of Iraq. But those same sources may have leaked nuclear secrets to Pakistan as well, perhaps deliberately, to buy Musharraf's cooperation in the "War on Terror."
Dallas Morning News: Philip Giraldi

Most Americans have never heard of Sibel Edmonds, and if the U.S. government has its way, they never will.


The former FBI translator turned whistle-blower tells a chilling story of corruption at Washington's highest levels – sale of nuclear secrets, shielding of terrorist suspects, illegal arms transfers, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, espionage. She may be a first-rate fabulist, but Ms. Edmonds' account is full of dates, places and names.


And if she is to be believed, a treasonous plot to embed moles in American military and nuclear installations and pass sensitive intelligence to Israeli, Pakistani and Turkish sources was facilitated by figures in the upper echelons of the State and Defense Departments. Her charges could be easily confirmed or dismissed if classified government documents were made available to investigators.


But Congress has refused to act, and the Justice Department has shrouded Ms. Edmonds' case in the state-secrets privilege, a rarely used measure so sweeping that it precludes even a closed hearing attended only by officials with top-secret security clearances. According to the Department of Justice, such an investigation "could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the foreign policy and national security of the United States."


After five years of thwarted legal challenges and fruitless attempts to launch a congressional investigation, Sibel Edmonds is telling her story, though her defiance could land her in jail. After reading its November piece about Louai al-Sakka, an al-Qaeda terrorist who trained 9/11 hijackers in Turkey, Ms. Edmonds approached the Sunday Times of London. On Jan. 6, the Times, a Rupert Murdoch-owned paper that does not normally encourage exposés damaging to the Bush administration, featured a long article. The news quickly spread around the world – but not in the United States.


[..] After exhausting all appeals through her own chain of command, Ms. Edmonds approached the two Department of Justice agencies with oversight of the FBI and sent faxes to Sens. Chuck Grassley and Patrick Leahy on the Judiciary Committee. The next day, she was called in for a polygraph. According to a DOJ inspector general's report, the test found that "she was not deceptive in her answers."


But two weeks later, Ms. Edmonds was fired. Her home computer was seized. Her family in Turkey was visited by police and threatened with arrest if they did not submit to questioning about an unspecified "intelligence matter."


When Ms. Edmonds' attorney sued to obtain the documents related to her firing, Attorney General John Ashcroft imposed the state-secrets gag order. Since then, she has been subjected to another federal order, which not only silenced her but retroactively classified the statements she eventually made before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the 9/11 commission.


[..] Ms. Edmonds alleges to have heard evidence linking him to bribery from an ATC contact, to his intervening with the FBI to halt the interrogation of four Turkish and Pakistani intelligence operatives, and helping seed U.S. nuclear facilities with Turkish and Israeli Ph.D. students who in turn sold nuclear secrets abroad, primarily to Pakistan. The accused, who emphatically denies Ms. Edmonds' charges, is now a senior executive at a Washington lobbying firm.


A low-level contractor might seem poorly positioned to expose major breaches of national security, but the FBI translators' pool, riddled with corruption and nepotism, was key to keeping these secrets from surfacing. Ms. Edmonds' claims that the section was infiltrated by translators who should never have received security clearances and who were deliberately failing to translate incriminating material are supported by the Justice Department inspector general investigation and by an FBI internal investigation, which concluded that she had been fired after making "valid complaints."


Ms. Edmonds' revelations have attracted corroboration in the form of anonymous letters apparently written by FBI employees. There have been frequent reports of FBI field agents being frustrated by the premature closure of cases dealing with foreign spying, particularly when those cases involve Israel, and the State Department has frequently intervened to shut down investigations based on "sensitive foreign diplomatic relations."


Curiously, the state-secrets gag order binding Ms. Edmonds, while put in place by DOJ in 2002, was not requested by the FBI but by the State Department and Pentagon – which employed individuals she identified as being involved in criminal activities. If her allegations are frivolous, that order would scarcely seem necessary. Under the Bush administration, the security gag order has been invoked to cover up incompetence or illegality, not to protect national security.

Woman sues Ohio sheriff's deputy over 'outrageous' strip search

The Raw Story

Hope Steffey's night started with a call to police for help. It ended with her face down, naked, and sobbing on a jail cell floor. Now, the sheriff's deputies from Stark County, Ohio who allegedly used excessive force during a strip search 15 months ago face a federal lawsuit, and recently released video won’t help their case.


Steffey's ordeal with the Stark County sheriff's deputies began after her cousin called 9-1-1 claiming Steffey had been assaulted by another one of their cousins. When a Stark County police officer arrived, he asked to see Steffey's driver's license. But instead of handing over her own ID, she mistakenly turned over her dead sister's license, which she contends she keeps in her wallet as a memento. That's when the situation became complicated.


"Hope was not treated as a victim," her lawyer told WKYC News. "The officer said to her 'shut up about your dead sister.'"


Eventually, Steffey was arrested and taken to the Stark County Jail, charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. But once in custody, her attorney says seven jail workers, male and female, forcibly removed Steffey of all her clothes, including her undergarments, while she lay face down in handcuffs. Local news footage shows Steffey wailing, asking "What are you doing?!?"


"And you have to ask yourself, what was the purpose of the strip search?" said Steffey's lawyer. "What was the necessity of it? This was a disorderly conduct claim."


The lawsuit says that Steffey remained in the cell for six hours and wrapped herself in toilet paper to stay warm. During that time, she was not allowed to use a phone or seek medical assistance for injuries she accrued that night, including a cracked tooth, bulging disc, and bruises.


Although the sheriff's policy requires officers conducting any strip search to be of the same sex, the sheriff contends that the tactic used on Steffey was not actually a strip search. He also questions the validiy of the events leading up to Steffey’s arrest.


Once shown the exclusive video, Steffey’s husband was in disbelief. "You don't treat people like this," he said. "I don't think murderers are treated like this."

This video is from WKYC News, broadcast February 1, 2008

Serbia/Russia: Kosovo breakaway 'illegal'

The issue of Kosovo has received very little press play in the US. But I suspect this issue, and Bush's meddling in Central Asia, is why Putin is pulling away from the West. Russia's return to the stage as a world petrol power necessarily brings with it a willingness to stand up to the west and their traditional interests. I do believe Bush's actions in Central Asia, promoting pro-western governments was provocative to Putin and helped restart a cold war. Kosovo gives advantage to Putin politically by pointing at the encroaching west.
CNN.com

Serbian government officials said Thursday an independent Kosovo would be an illegal "false state" that will never be recognized by Serbia. The flurry of statements from Serbia's prime minister, deputy prime minister, and foreign minister came ahead of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence, which is widely expected to happen in the next few days. "For us, any form of the declaration of the province's independence is illegal," said Serbian Foreign Affairs Minister Vuk Jeremic, in an official interview posted on the government's Web site. "Therefore, any such decision will be declared null and void."


The United States and European Union are expected to recognize Kosovo's independence, but Jeremic said Serbia never will because Kosovo remains a Serbian province. "I will never have any contact with illegal institutions of any illegally declared state, such as the so-called Kosovo state," Jeremic said. Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica also said an independent Kosovo would be a "false state on our territory," and Serbia should not be expected to relinquish any part of it. Serbia views Kosovo as the spiritual birthplace of the Serbian nation. "The greatest humiliation for Serbia would be to give even indirect consent to the existence of this puppet creation on its territory," Kostunica said in a separate interview on the government site. "Kosovo belongs solely and only to Serbia," he said. "Kosovo is ours and we will never give it to anyone."
Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic held a meeting with European ambassadors Thursday and reiterated that Serbia would never recognize the independence of Kosovo, a government statement said.


At Serbia's request, the U.N. Security Council planned to hold a private debate later Thursday to discuss Kosovo's pending declaration. Kosovo has been under U.N. control since shortly after NATO warplanes forced out Serbian forces in 1999. NATO acted after Serbian forces repressed an uprising of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo with a brutal campaign that spawned reports of ethnic cleansing and sparked an exodus of tens of thousands of refugees.


Serbia's historic ally Russia also opposes independence and plans to use its position as a permanent Security Council member to veto any resolutions supporting Kosovo. In his final news conference as Russian president Thursday, Vladimir Putin questioned why Kosovo should receive the West's backing for independence when other separatist groups -- including the Basques in Spain -- and breakaway republics -- including the Turkish republic of Northern Cyprus -- have no support. Putin accused Europe of having double standards. "You've been always telling us Kosovo is allegedly a special case. That's not true, that's a lie," he said.


Kosovar Prime Minister Hashim Thaci has refused to compromise on independence.

Valerie Plame Wilson Describes Sibel Edmonds Disclosures as 'Stunning'

The UK Sunday Times Published a series of three articles releasing information that may have been covered by Sibel Edmonds' Bush Administration gag order. She has been claiming her gag order was covering up a scandal. Perhaps the UK articles represent the real story, or at least part of it. Plame now calls the Times articles "stunning" and decries the media black out of the story in the US.
There is no freedom of the press in the Bush era.
The BRAD BLOG

Former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson says the recent disclosures in the UK's Sunday Times concerning the sale of U.S. nuclear secrets to the foreign black market, as aided by high-ranking government officials, are "stunning"...


The previously covert agent, who had worked in the agency's counter-proliferation division for years monitoring traffic in the nuclear black market under the guise of a cover company named Brewster Jennings until being outed by Bush Administration officials, was asked about the recent series of explosive stories in the British paper during an interview this morning with Florida radio host Henry Raines of American AM.


Those disclosures include allegations that Brewster Jennings' real identity as a CIA front company was outed to Turkish officials by then-Asst. Sec. of State for European Affairs Marc Grossman as early as 2001...


A text transcript of the interview, as well as the audio, is now posted at the end of this article.


The series of three Times stories so far has corroborated information detailed by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. Edmonds has been gagged by the Bush Administration's Department of Justice in this country under the "State Secrets Privilege" since 2002, disallowing her from speaking about her work at the bureau. In a BRAD BLOG exclusive late last year, Edmonds announced she would disclose all of the information she'd be barred from revealing to any major U.S. broadcast media outlet that would allow her to tell the full story.


Every U.S. mainstream media outlet failed to take up her offer, though the London Times contacted her through us after we ran our story. After they subsequently ran their first blockbuster in the series early last month, the story became front page news around the world, yet the U.S. media continue, incredibly enough, to ignore it.


The second and third articles in the Times series allege a "senior State Department" official participated, along with a network of moles at sensitive nuclear instillations and military bases, in the sale of nuclear secrets to American allies and enemies alike. The official has subsequently been identified as Grossman, a former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, and, at the time of the alleged disclosures, the #3 State Department official beneath Colin Powell and Richard Armitage.


Grossman, according to the Times' and Edmonds' allegations, even tipped off Turkish officials, as long ago as 2001, to the fact that Plame Wilson's Brewster Jennings was a CIA cover company. Grossman denies the charges.


While Plame Wilson offered today that she has "no insight" into the story, other than what has been published by the Times, she joined Edmonds and other whistleblowers such as Daniel Ellsberg in her criticism of the U.S. mainstream media for failing to investigate and report on the story.


"I think it's very interesting that it's showing up across the pond and not here at all, in any of our newspapers," Plame Wilson said.


"It's fair to say that in general the American media has been extremely intimidated, it's been supine, and I think it's let the American people down," she explained, pointing to the run-up to the Iraq War when the U.S. media, "took simply what the Administration was dishing up and didn't question it, didn't analyze it, didn't go seek secondary sources. And look where we are today as a result of that."

Save the Internet: Take Action!

Both Campaigns Believe It's "Virtually Impossible" for Clinton to Win Most Delegates?

Is it over already? At least Fineman from Newsweek thinks so.
AlterNet [VIDEO]

Last night, during MSNBC's campaign coverage, Newsweek's Howard Fineman told Keith Olbermann that he's spoken to anonymous sources in both the Clinton and Obama campaigns and apparently both believe that it's "virtually impossible" for Hillary to beat Obama in pledged delegates (especially after last night's three blowout victories for Obama in DC, Maryland and Virginia). Which means, the best scenario Clinton can hope for is to keep it close and hope that her superdelegate advantage makes the difference.

AlterNet

Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.'s non-voting representative in Congress, provided one of the better explanations for this trend in her endorsement of Barack Obama today:

I had expected to announce my endorsement much closer to the general election, as I always have done in the past. However this year's primary has raised new issues. As a super delegate, I decided I had to speak up now to separate myself from the idea that is afoot for the first time that super delegates, especially those who have not announced their choice, could or should decide our nominee under some circumstances. The notion that a candidate who has not earned delegates could become the Democratic nominee for president is at odds with the democratic principles of our party reforms. Super delegates were never intended to allow the return of smoked-filled room, behind the scenes selection of our candidate. I have carried a banner for a democracy of the District of Columbia too long to depart from principles of democracy within my own party.

Taiwan accesses damage after US unveils Chinese espionage

In a story right out of the shadow of the new cold wars, four Chinese spies are arrested in the US. Taiwan is accessing the damage.
M&C

Taiwan said Tuesday it is trying to determine exactly what kind of classified information China may have received after four people were charged in espionage cases in the US that involved the passing of military secrets to the Chinese government. 'Regarding the news that the US has cracked a spy ring, we are taking it seriously. We have formed a taskforce to assess damage and to evaluate security control,' Taiwan's Defence Ministry said in a statement.


The suspects arrested in two separate espionage cases Monday included an analyst in the Pentagon's office overseeing foreign military sales, Greg Bergersen, 51, and Dongfan 'Greg' Chung, a 72- year old former Boeing engineer. Bergersen allegedly provided documents detailing planned US military sales to Taiwan to an agent of the Chinese government. He faces 10 years in prison if convicted on charges of providing secret information to someone not permitted to receive it.


'All our arms purchases from the US are conducted directly with the (US) Defense Department. As to if there has been security leaks on the US side, we have expressed concern and have taken counter- measures,' Taiwan's Defence Ministry said.


Bergerson is believed to have provided information to Tai Shen Kuo, 58, a naturalized US citizen and New Orleans resident in the furniture business. A fourth individual, Yu Xin Kang, 33, also of New Orleans, has been charged with serving as the conduit between Kuo and the Chinese. The activities took place between January 2006 and February 2008. Kang and Kuo face life sentences if convicted for passing classified US documents to a foreign government. The United Evening News reported that Kuo may have passed to China vital information about Taiwan-US military contacts, especially Taiwan's purchase of communications and systems integration technology.


Taiwan has budgeted 5.3 million dollars to introduce the command, control, intelligence and surveillance systems. The US is Taiwan's main arms supplier, although Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979. The largest US arms sale to Taiwan was the sale of 150 F-16 A/B warplanes, approved by former president George HW Bush. Taiwan is also seeking to buy 12 P3-C anti-submarine aircraft, eight conventional submarines, six PAC-III anti-missile batteries and 60 F-16 D/C jets from the US.

The Edwards Factor

I think it's unlikely Edwards would endorse the "Corporate Democrat" Hillary. But will he stay on the sidelines or endorse Obama. Will Obama offer him the Attorney General job? Edwards would make a hell of an Attorney General.
The Nation

Clinton rearranged her schedule to meet last week with Edwards in Chapel Hill. She then said while campaigning in Maine that, "There is a lot that John and I have in common... And I intend to ask John Edwards to be part of anything I do.. when I'm in the White House."


Clinton does not necessarily expect an Edwards endorsement. She wants him to stay out.


Obama wants him in.


So watch for veiled references from Obama -- think "Attorney General Edwards" -- about how much he wants to work with the former senator.


And when should we expect an endorsement -- or a formal decision to stay on the sidelines?


No doubt, there will have to be an Edwards-Obama meeting. But once that happens, expect a decision in short order. Edwards is not meeting with the candidates for fun. He knows that this is the moment when he matters most. He will move sooner rather than later.

Obama Sweeps All Weekend's Races; Voting Impairments

AlterNet

With 59% of precincts reporting, MSNBC says Obama beats Clinton in Maine 57% to 42%


He was just endorsed by Virginia's governor.


"I look forward to being on the ticket with Mark Warner?" Oh, he didn't mean THAT ticket...right?


He's calling himself the underdog in Washington ...until ..."something started to happen." We're tired of "being disappointed, let down, hearing promises but have nothing change. Because lobbyists write another check. Or who's up or who's down instead of who matters."


Poetically speaking about unemployment, deployment, unauthorized war... wow he's good. How can that sound poetic? Well, he makes it sound poetic.


No more "same old Washington games". Turn the page.


The west coast to the Gulf Coast to the heart of America said "yes we can". We won in La., Washington, Nebraska, north, south, in between...and we can win in Virginia. The crowd's going nuts, doing the "yes we can" chant...loudly.

[..]The Obama campaign submitted an urgent request for assistance to the Secretary of State’s Division of Elections today, after receiving widespread reports from Democrats across Louisiana who reported that they were not allowed to vote because their party affiliation had been switched. Hundreds of Louisiana democrats went to the polls to vote in today’s presidential primary and found that they were now on registration lists as Independent or Unaffiliated voters.

Imagine a world in which everyone's vote counted. You can't? That's how outrageous this is.

Is the U.S. Failing in Afghanistan?

TIME

It was malice in wonderland at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday as Bush Administration envoys insisted things are getting better in Afghanistan, while angry lawmakers from both parties cited facts and figures showing just the opposite. Even the senior Republican on the panel, Senator Richard Lugar, found the Administration's claims wanting. "I'm not sure that we have a plan for Afghanistan," he said.


Long seen as the "forgotten war" eclipsed by Iraq in U.S. priorities, Afghanistan is in the Washington spotlight this week with the release of three independent reports concluding that without a change in U.S. policy there, the erstwhile sanctuary of Osama bin Laden would remain a failed state. After spending $25 billion over six years to try to defeat the Taliban, the radical Islamist militia that had been dispersed into the mountains by the initial U.S. invasion is now a growing presence in large parts of the country. The Taliban is now setting off more bombs — including one in Kabul's fanciest hotel on January 14 that killed eight people — and fueling its insurgency with profits from the opium trade. (Last year, the country produced 93% of the world's supply.) The declining security situation saw foreign investment in Afghanistan fall by 50% last year.


The Taliban is also killing more Americans: From 2002 to 2004, an average of one U.S. soldier was killed per week in Afghanistan; by 2007, that figure had more than doubled. Indeed, nearly 500 U.S. troops have perished in America's "forgotten war." Despite the presence of 50,000 foreign troops, including 28,000 Americans, arrayed against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Pentagon has just ordered another 3,200 Marines into the fight. And the reluctance of other NATO members to send additional troops is threatening the future of the alliance. "Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan," said a study by the Atlantic Council released Wednesday. "Unless this reality is understood, and action is taken promptly, the future of Afghanistan is bleak, with regional and global impact."

FBI Deputizes Private Contractors With Extraordinary Powers, Including 'Shoot to Kill'

AlterNet

Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does -- and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to "shoot to kill" in the event of martial law. InfraGard is "a child of the FBI," says Michael Hershman, the chairman of the advisory board of the InfraGard National Members Alliance and CEO of the Fairfax Group, an international consulting firm.


[..]"There is evidence that InfraGard may be closer to a corporate TIPS program, turning private-sector corporations -- some of which may be in a position to observe the activities of millions of individual customers -- into surrogate eyes and ears for the FBI," the ACLU warned in its August 2004 report The Surveillance-Industrial Complex: How the American Government Is Conscripting Businesses and Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society.


[..] "On the back of each membership card," Schneck says, "we have all the numbers you'd need: for Homeland Security, for the FBI, for the cyber center. And by calling up as an InfraGard member, you will be listened to." She also says that members would have an easier time obtaining a "special telecommunications card that will enable your call to go through when others will not."


This special status concerns the ACLU. "The FBI should not be creating a privileged class of Americans who get special treatment," says Jay Stanley, public education director of the ACLU's technology and liberty program. "There's no 'business class' in law enforcement. If there's information the FBI can share with 22,000 corporate bigwigs, why don't they just share it with the public? That's who their real 'special relationship' is supposed to be with. Secrecy is not a party favor to be given out to friends. . . . This bears a disturbing resemblance to the FBI's handing out 'goodies' to corporations in return for folding them into its domestic surveillance machinery."


[..]He says InfraGard "absolutely" does emergency preparedness exercises. When I ask about discussions the FBI and Homeland Security have had with InfraGard members about their use of lethal force, he says: "That much I cannot comment on. But as a private citizen, you have the right to use force if you feel threatened."


"We were assured that if we were forced to kill someone to protect our infrastructure, there would be no repercussions," the whistleblower says. "It gave me goose bumps. It chilled me to the bone."

Middle East Loses Five Internet Cables

<a title="Apparently, Ships Can Drag Anchors from Egypt to Malaysia | I Love Bonnie.net" href="http://www.ilovebonnie.net/2008/02/06/submarine-cables-subsidiares-and-subversion/"I Love Bonnie.net

The Iranian oil bourse was going to be a stock market for petroluem, petrochemicals and gas. What’s the big catch here? The exchange planned on being ran with currencies excluding the U.S. dollar. If you remember from earlier in the post, Iran stopped allowing purchases of their oil with the U.S. dollar in December of 2007. So, obviously, the U.S. is not going to be happy about this. The biggest piece of information linking this to the recent damages is the proposed location of the bourse: the island of Kish. This is the island that is RIGHT NEXT TO at least two of the cuts that have recently occurred. And the locations of the cable damages once more:

To make matters even more interesting, the bourse was scheduled to open this month. Some of you may suddenly be thinking to yourselves that this sounds familiar. That’s because the last person who decided to stop using the U.S. dollar for trading oil was a man by the name of Saddam Hussein in the fall of 2000.

Hot Pursuit Authorized into Iran and Syria

Informed Comment

The Bush administration authorized hot pursuit of Iraqi Baathists into Syria and Iran, according to a just-released document at wikileak. The document also reveals that as late as 2005, the US military authorities were still unaware that the "mobile weapons labs" were a Neocon scam and never existed. (Biological weapons labs require a clean room, difficult to install on a winnebago).


The document shows that by 2005, the US military had a de facto truce with the Mahdi Army (a paramilitary whose political party parent actually joined the Iraqi government later that year).


It also shows that the Mojahedin-i Khalq terror group engaged in hostile action toward the US forces, but also were granted a truce in 2005. The MEK is an Iranian terror group that has killed civilians inside Iran and was given a base in Iraq by Saddam Hussein. US Neoconservatives have tended to support it and to want to use it to do further terrorism against Iran. The MEK has been defended by Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (the think tank of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and by notorious Islamophobe and Giuliani adviser Daniel Pipes. Danny Postel explains cogently. In other words, key figures in the Israel lobbies support a terrorist group that has fired on US troops.

Russia: An Energy Superpower?

AlterNet: ForeignPolicy

As Vladimir Putin nears the end of his second term as Russian president, it is clear that energy exports have become a major component of a resurgent Russia's foreign policy. According to the conventional wisdom, Russia's vast resources make it a superpower to be reckoned with. Not only is it a major supplier of natural gas to the states of the former Soviet Union, it sells oil and natural gas to Europe and it has made new contract commitments for both oil and gas to China. Additionally, as the January 2006 cut-off of gas to Ukraine, the January 2007 oil and gas cut-off to Belarus, and Gazprom's threat (again) to Ukraine in the wake of the September 2007 parliamentary elections indicate, Russia is willing to use its resources for political purposes.


[..]The January 2006 cut-off of natural gas supplies to Ukraine made headlines. The reporting indicated that Russia was using energy to punish Kyiv for its 2004 Orange Revolution and that Gazprom, the state-owned natural gas company, wanted to gain control of Ukraine's pipeline infrastructure. Energy has been a contentious issue between Moscow and Kyiv since the Soviet collapse, but in December 2005, Gazprom escalated tensions when it demanded that Ukraine pay world market rates for its gas. The government in Kyiv asked for a phased-in rate hike, but Russia instead cut off gas to Ukraine, resulting in serious downstream disruptions. Under intense international pressure, a deal was quickly made: A shadowy intermediary, RusUkrEnergo, would purchase 17 billion cubic meters of gas from Gazprom, at $230 per thousand cubic meters, blend it with cheaper gas from Turkmenistan, and sell it at a guaranteed price of $95 per thousand cubic meters. Steady price increases have occurred since then.


The January 2007 stoppages to Belarus began with Gazprom demanding a steep price increase, with steady rises thereafter to world market rates; in addition, Gazprom demanded 50 percent ownership of Belarus's gas pipeline network. As for oil, Russia initiated export duties on oil sold to Belarus. (Prior to January 2007, Russian oil had been piped to Belarus duty free; however, Belarus garnered huge profits by selling refined products to Europe.) Belarus retaliated by charging Russia an export fee and reducing the amount of oil flowing to Poland. Russia then blocked all oil exports. Again under international pressure, oil flowed freely within days.


In both cases, Russia appeared to have made short term gains: most obviously, Gazprom won the price wars. Moreover, many claim that Russia seemingly influenced the outcome of the March 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary elections in which Viktor Yanukovich, the loser during the Orange Revolution, became prime minister. In Belarus, Minsk was forced to recognize Moscow's claim to a large share of the profits from the sale of refined products and to agree to a debt-for-equity swap of part of its pipeline system. What makes the Belarus case so interesting is that Moscow was clearly willing both to risk another disruption of supplies to Western Europe and to endure damage to its prestige in order to gain major control over Belarus.


Beyond the former Soviet states, the two crises highlighted European vulnerabilities to supply disruptions and raised the possibility that Russia might use its resources to influence European policies. Soviet/Russian supply to Europe began in the 1970s and has continued virtually without disruption until two years ago. Currently, 43 percent of European energy consumption is oil, while only 24 percent is gas. Yet, gas utilization will rise as Europe limits it use of coal. Christian Cleutinx, director of the EU-Russia Energy Dialogue, estimates that EU's gas requirements will increase by 2020 to approximately 200 million metric tons/year. Of that, 75 percent will be imported, mostly from Russia. Table 1 indicates the current European dependence.


In addition to increasing its European market share, Gazprom has sought downstream infrastructure investment opportunities in Europe. Concerned, the European Union is looking both to limit the ability of non-EU companies to purchase distribution and refining assets in its territory and to force Russia/Gazprom to open the latter's pipelines to outsiders. In an effort to enhance competitiveness, recent draft regulations mandate separating resources from transmission infrastructure. The proposed rules have strong implications for Gazprom, which could not own controlling stakes in distribution networks and would have to offer reciprocal access to its domestic pipelines. Press reports at the time of the EU announcement noted that Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Duma's International Affairs Committee, threatened to retaliate against foreign investors. And most recently, Aleksandr Medvedev, the head of Gazprom Export, threatened that Europe risks a doubling of natural gas prices, if it implements the new legislation.


Even before the discussions about the proposed EU-wide policy, Gazprom executives threatened to shift export eastward toward China. Russia has already signed several deals with China and announced new pipeline projects to supply Beijing's growing market. Over the long-term, such a shift in emphasis is, of course, possible; however, effecting it in the short- to medium-term is inherently difficult. Vladimir Milov, a Russian energy expert, notes that Russia's limited capacity and technology make it only a regional supplier of energy. He argues that the great distances and high construction costs hinder the development of pipeline infrastructure to China. In fact, this past summer, Russian officials announced considerable delays in new gas pipeline construction to China, and Moscow and Beijing have been unable to agree on oil prices or oil pipeline routing. Thus, at the present time, the threat to redirect exports is hollow.


[..]Russia holds the world's largest reserves of natural gas, approximately 1680 trillion cubic feet, and it is also the largest exporter. Lacking liquefaction technology, Russia exports all of its natural gas through pressurized pipelines. Production has remained relatively flat overall, increasing by only 1-2 percent per year; moreover, Gazprom has invested little in new fields and its three largest fields, which produce 70 percent of output, have suffered annual decreased production. Company officials are hopeful that new fields, such as the recently acquired stake in Sakhalin II and the Shtokman fields, will bolster production.


Thus far the discussion has not centered on domestic consumption and supplies, which are crucial factors in judging Russia's ability to meet its forward contracts. Currently, more than half of Russia's energy consumption is gas; however, domestic gas prices are effectively subsidized. The government acknowledges that prices will increase, but Putin has declared that even at peak they will equal no more than two-thirds of international prices. Low prices do not promote conservation: in 2006, experts estimated that by 2010 domestic gas consumption would rise by 24 billion cubic meters (bcm), or by 6-7 percent per year. Herman Gref, minister of economic development, predicted likely domestic shortages of 5-6 bcm. In comments on October 31, 2006, he noted that "Russia is encountering some real restrictions on economic growth due to a shortage of energy resources." These forecasts were seconded by ministry predictions that output would grow by only 0.9 percent in 2007 and 0.6 percent in 2008.


Estimates vary regarding the extent of Gazprom's gas deficit, but most analysts agree that Gazprom will need both to develop new fields and to import gas from Central Asia in order to meet its contractual obligations. With regard to new fields, the story of the Shtokman fields is illustrative. The fields hold 3.7 trillion cubic meters of gas, but the location north of the Arctic Circle renders them technologically challenging. A year ago, Gazprom withdrew the international tender for the fields, opting instead to develop them by itself. At the time, the decision seemed congruent with other actions to ensure state ownership of energy resources, but it also indicated that Gazprom had decided to rely on new pipelines instead of liquefaction technology. Gazprom apparently rethought its position and in July 2007 reopened the tender, ultimately awarding 25 percent to the French company, Total, and more recently an additional 24 percent to Norway's StatoilHydro. According to Russian press accounts, these new agreements represent open acknowledgment that Gazprom lacked the ability and technological know-how to develop the fields on its own. It can also be seen as recognition that export via new pipelines, instead of in liquid form, would limit the market for the gas from Shtokman.


Prospectively, what is in question is Gazprom's use of those revenues. Gazprom's attempts to snap up assets in Europe indicate that it is not using its huge revenues to invest in green fields and to refurbish decaying pipelines. This leaves Gazprom dependent on cheap gas from Central Asia, especially from Turkmenistan. Second, even if Gazprom were to invest more wisely, would those revenues go to develop fields and infrastructure to supply the European market or would they go to developing sources in eastern Siberia and infrastructure to feed the growing Asian markets? A wise investment strategy -- one that would increase export capacity and develop new fields in both eastern and western Siberia -- requires a steady revenue stream. In effect this means that should Europe successfully find new suppliers, the money available to the Russian state to build new pipelines would be limited. Putin implicitly acknowledged this by repeatedly calling for security of demand, and as noted earlier, Aleksandr Medvedev has threatened huge price increases.


The bottom line is that Russia possesses huge amounts of oil and natural gas, but the legacies of poor investment decisions and neglect of infrastructure hamper its export capacity. Russia may want to use its energy clout, but its neighbors and customers further afield are increasingly wary of its political ambitions. Thus, Russia is indeed an energy colossus, but it is a giant with limited reach and standing on only one foot.