What Are The Long Consequences Of Abuse And Mistreatment To Those Interned in Guantanamo

Few are thinking about what the long-term human consequences for those held at Gitmo. The truth is we are not only hold people we can't be sure are guilty by our own standards, but we are doing irreparable harm to most of them. The following article documents a frequently documented figure. Of those who are mistreated or tortured, more than 50% suffer the long term psychological effects and permanent neurological damage of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. One third of them will still be very ill in 40 years, effectively a life time sentance to chronic nightmares, impaired relationships, irritability, controlling behavior and rages.
Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health

Long-Term Consequences of Traumatic Experiences: An Assessment of Former Political Detainees in Romania
Dana Bichescu , Maggie Schauer , Evangelia Saleptsi , Adrian Neculau , Thomas Elbert and Frank Neuner


Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health 2005, 1:17 doi:10.1186/1745-0179-1-17


Abstract (provisional)


Published 26 September 2005


Background


Research has suggested that organized violence and torture have long-term psychological effects that persist throughout the lifespan. The present survey aimed at examining the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and other disorders and symptoms, all present in old age, as long-term consequences of politically motivated violence in a comparison design.


Methods


A group of former political detainees (N = 59, mean age 73.5 years) who had been arrested by the Romanian communist regime were compared to an age- and gender-matched control group (N = 39). PTSD was assessed using a structured clinical interview (CIDI). The investigation of the clinical profile was further accomplished by self-rating measures for anxiety, depression, and health-related functioning, as well as by clinician-administrated interviews for substance abuse, dissociation, and somatization symptoms.


Results


Lifetime prevalence of PTSD was 54%. In the case of participants left untreated, PTSD persisted, often over four decades, such that current PTSD was diagnosed still in a third of the survivors. Other clinical conditions such as somatization, substance abuse, dissociative disorders, and major depression were also common among the former political detainees and often associated with current PTSD.


Conclusions


Our findings suggest that political detention may have long-term psychological consequences that outlast the changes in the political system.

Balancing World Economies

This article addresses a compelling issue playing behind the scenes in most venues in America. The Labor movement understands what's happening. Many Free Traders also understand it. While my sympathies lie with the Laborites, I'm committed to ultimate Globalization. The only question for me is how and when. I've retained a view that slowly is the best. The accumulation of wealth in America simply has to end. The more interdependent the world economies, the less chance there is for war.
Worldwide Labor aggitates about the potential to further concentrate wealth in the multi-national corporations and that truly cannot be good news. However, there are growing examples that the owners of important commodities, oil and cheap labor, can retain control of their market. Witness Venezuela, Iran, India, China, Brazil and many other emerging economies.
TomPaine.com

Much attention has been devoted to the adverse impacts of the U.S. trade deficit, particularly with China. And the U.S. government has been rightly criticized for failing to apply adequate pressure to get China to remedy its unfair and illegal trading practices. However, no one in Washington is talking about the deeper question of what happens to wages when two billion people from low-wage countries join the global labor market.


Such an event is unprecedented in history. In the past, countries joined the international economy through a slow evolutionary process. Initially, they would export a few goods in which they specialized and had natural competitive advantage. Thereafter, countries would gradually deepen their involvement in international trade. The process was one of gradual integration, and production was largely immobile across countries.


Globalization has changed this by accelerating the process of international integration. It has also made capital, technology and methods of production mobile, marking a watershed with the past. The new order is exemplified by China’s recent experiences. In fewer than two decades, China has become a global manufacturing powerhouse through massive foreign direct investment and technology transfer. The impact of this transformation on the U.S. economy is seen in the trade deficit, the loss of manufacturing jobs and downward pressure on wages.


Whereas classical free trade connected goods markets across countries, globalization creates a global labor market and moves jobs. Previously trade arbitraged goods prices, now it also arbitrages wages through job shifting.


With the emergence of China, India and Eastern Europe, the dam of Socialism that held back two billion workers has been removed. If two swimming pools are joined, the water level will eventually equalize. That is what is happening with globalization. Manufacturing has already been placed in competition across countries, with dire consequences for manufacturing workers. The internet promises to do the same for previously un-tradable services, and higher-paid knowledge workers will start feeling similar effects.


Not since the industrial revolution has there been a transformation of this magnitude, and that revolution took one hundred and fifty years to complete. By comparison the new revolution is a mere 25 years old. These developments have a significance that goes far beyond the currency manipulation and WTO rules violations that have been the focus of trade deficit policy discussions. There is no reason to think the end is in sight, and American workers can look forward to the international economy exerting downward pressure on wages and work conditions for the next several decades.


As is so often the case, workers have understood the new reality long before economists and policymakers. Workers realize that trade is no longer a matter of exchanging exotic commodities for manufactured products, and that the new system involves trading their jobs and arbitraging wages. Especially bitter is the fact that the process of globalization is being driven by large American multinational corporations that American workers helped build. U.S. policymakers have also abandoned American workers by promoting free trade agreements that have de facto created a global labor market that threatens workers’ livelihoods and economic security.


Globalization demands that we begin anew the task of establishing fair and just rules that make the economy work for all. This challenge is the same as that faced by American workers at the beginning of the 20th century. Unions, minimum wages, and fair labor practices were essential to meeting that challenge, and they are essential again. But such tools are no longer sufficient when applied nationally. They must be applied globally. That means China, India and other industrializing developing countries must agree to, and enforce, core labor standards and worker rights. Trade cannot be free without worker freedom and the right to share in the wealth created.


Successive administrations have pushed free trade without worker protections and they have given the green light to a global system without core labor standards. Through poor diplomacy and lax enforcement we have given away access to U.S. markets and valuable negotiating leverage without getting commitments on labor standards in recent free trade agreements. The consequences of these trade policies and the reality of the new global system must be exposed so that our approach can be changed. This is a task that will not be easy given Washington’s captive economic policy elite and big business’ interest in concealing the new reality.

I'd love to understand the economic consequences of negotiating higher wages for workers worldwide. Certainly very significant inflation would result. Inflation hurts the poor more than anyone. But after the initial bump in prices, what would happen?

Iraq Builds Bridges to Iran, Begins Burning Those to the US/Britain

Relations continue to warm between the new government Iraq and the Mullahs in Iran.
Informed Comment

Muhsin al-Hakim, the son of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, spoke out in Tehran about the British attack on a Basra jail. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is widely underestimated, but he is the leader of the majority party coalition in parliament as well as of one of its constituents, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. His party controls 9 of the 18 Iraqi provincial governments as well as key cabinet posts. He is among the more important leaders in Iraq. His son Muhsin is probably expressing views more frankly than his father could afford to. The Financial Times reports Muhsin as "horrified" at the British military demolition of the central Basra jail to free two undercover SAS officers. Muhsin says that the two shouldn't have been out of uniform in a sovereign Iraq, and that they forfeited their legal immunity when they put on civilian clothes.

[...]
Meanwhile, Iran says it supports a free and fair referendum on the new Iraqi constitution on October 15. Major Iranian figures have said that they hope the constitution, which privileges Islamic law, is adopted. And the Iraqi ambassador in Tehran, Muhammad Shaikh, praised Iran's positive role with regard to Iraq and called for even greater cooperation between the two countries.

The Bush adminstration can only hope to influence events in Iraq by actively undermining the Iranian government.

Will Republican Corruption Come Home to Roost?

New York Times

Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the powerful House Republican majority leader, was accused by a Texas grand jury today of criminal conspiracy in a campaign fund-raising scheme. Representative Tom DeLay maintained his innocence, asserting that the indictment resulted from a "purely political investigation." Representative Tom DeLay maintained his innocence, asserting that the indictment resulted from a "purely political investigation." Mr. DeLay was indicted on one count charging that he violated state election laws in September 2002. Two political associates, John D. Colyandro and James W. Ellis, were indicted with him.


The indictment of Mr. DeLay, while not entirely unexpected, still reverberated through the Capitol. The House Republican rules require a member of the leadership to step down, at least temporarily, if indicted.

[...]
The DeLay indictment asserts that Mr. Colyandro and Mr. Ellis were part of a scheme in which corporations contributed large sums ($50,000 in one instance, and $25,000 in at least three other instances) that were destined for the Republican National Committee. The indictment includes a copy of a check for $190,000 made out to the Republican National State Elections Committee, a component of the party's national committee. That money was to go to various candidates for the Texas Legislature, the indictment says. MORE

Bloomberg.com

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist faces a near-term ordeal unwelcome to anyone, particularly an ambitious politician: an official probe into his personal financial dealings by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.


The SEC authorized a formal order of investigation of Frist's sale in June of HCA Inc. shares, people with direct knowledge of the inquiry said yesterday. The order allows the agency's enforcement unit to subpoena documents and compel witnesses to testify, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the order hasn't been made public. MORE

Putting all this together with other on-going investigations of Bush Administration actions makes the morality of the "Christian Evagelical President" suspect. The Justice Department appears to be covering-up evidence brought forth by FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds of possible bribery of House Speaker Hastert (R - Ill.). Using the "Patriot's Act", the Justice Department is withhold information from the courts that might undermine "national security" that just happens to protect Speaker Hastert from indictment. Then there is apparent violation of national security laws by a high ranking White House staffer, possibly Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, or John Bolton, who have been rumored as possible administration sources in the outing of CIA undercover operative Valerie Plame for political paybacks to her husband. We see an administration hoping to return the US to the Hoover administration for liaise faire government and official corruption in the highest ranks of government. Perhaps we shall see Bush and the Republicans get their come-upence.

Murder is Up in Some Major Cities

New York Times

Louisville, like many other American cities, has seen a sharp rise in the number of homicides in the past two years; 70 were reported a year ago, a 30 percent increase over 2003, and 50 have been logged so far this year. In the city's two black neighborhoods, the West End and Newburg, where the crime problem is most acute, residents have accused the Police Department of being unresponsive or even hostile. About 33 percent of Louisville's 256,000 residents are black, while African-Americans represent about 14 percent of the city's nearly 1,150 police officers.


White officers have fatally shot more than a half-dozen young black men in the city in the past five years. More than 20 killings in the West End and Newburg remain unsolved. Blacks contend that some officers harass them and that many refuse to get out of their cars and walk beats in their neighborhoods. MORE

Murder rates had been rising in many of the nations cities over the past few years. The overall murder rate has been dropping according to the FBI. It would appear that there is some significant shifting is going on from some large cities to middle sized cities, possibly because of the influence of meth manufacture is more practical in areas where population is less dense. I would love to see a comparision of economic indicators and murder rate and crime rate.
The Bush Administration has been cutting Federal funding for law enforcement and increasing those below the poverty rate by 30 million in four years. Murder is about believing there is no opportunity without taking the law into ones own hands. When success in your neighborhood is represented by the local drug dealer, murder rates go up. Remember that murder rates have been dropping in the cities throughout the past decade. Building hope in the city is the only way crime can come down and stay down.

The World Economy Teeters On the Brink

Bush's reckless actions with destabilizing the Middle East by invading Iraq and effectively taking Iraqi oil out of the world market and running up the US deficit was the beginning. Then with Bush's instructions, Greenspan holds interest rates down artificially allowing the US trade deficit to mushroom, housing prices to surge and the consumer indebtedness to spiral to the sky. Add the unforeseen lost production in Venezuela and the Gulf Coast, oil prices have created a huge winfall for the oil industry.
Business News : app6" href="http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article315144.ece">Independent

Bitter disagreements over global economic policy broke out into the open yesterday as the French Finance Minister claimed that Alan Greenspan had admitted America had "lost control" of its budget while China warned the US to drop demands for radical economic policy changes. In an extraordinary revelation after a meeting between Thierry Breton and Mr Greenspan, M. Breton told reporters: "'We have lost control,' that was his [Mr Greenspan's] expression.


"The US has lost control of their budget at a time when racking up deficits has been authorised without any control [from Congress]," M. Breton said. "We were both disappointed that the management of debt is not a political priority today. The situation that is creating tension today on the currency market ... is clearly the American deficit." MORE

FT.com

Finance ministers and central bank governors of the world's leading industrial countries have warned of economic disruption from high oil prices and and vulnerabilities in financial markets. The mood at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings was downbeat, with senior politicians and officials airing their fears that global economic expansion may have peaked and that more challenging times lie ahead. Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, said that high oil prices were having a "very significant impact" on growth and inflation.


The communiqué of the international monetary and financial committee - the ministerial board that oversees the IMF - said: "Global growth is expected to continue, although downside risks to the outlook have increased, especially high and volatile oil prices, recently exacerbated by the effects of Hurricane Katrina, increasing protectionist sentiment and the possibility of tighter financial market conditions."


A senior US Treasury official said: "We freely acknowledged the things that we worry about - do interest rates appropriately reflect the risks?"

[...]
Gerard Lyons, chief economist at Standard Chartered, said the global economic cycle had peaked, pointing to rising interest rates, the potential for slower growth in the US and China and the fact that the Japanese and eurozone economies were not in a position to take up the slack. "The next six months will be a challenging time, dealing with the high oil price, and global imbalances loom. The global economy has peaked and liquidity conditions are set to tighten. When things turn around you can have significant fallout." MORE

Interest rates will rise and as they do the housing price bubble will collapse, consumers will be saddled with mortgages that will not pay off upon selling the homes. Foreclosures will skyrocket, bankers will acquire property like mad. Mortgage equities, largely owned by pension funds will crash. The pension fund crisis will be universal.
Is there any question who Bush's base is? It's not the homeowner. It's not the small business owner. It's not the wage or even salary earner. It's those folks who live off of investments. Thats where the lions share of tax cuts occurred. Wage and salary earnings have stagnated for the past four years. Federal tax cuts have effectively been offset by social security and property tax increases.
Now to maintain the safety nets for the poor, the only people to pay are the wage earners and the salaried. Obviously the poor will not get all they need. Without health care, tens of thousands will die unnecessarily. The economic disaster will make Katrina look like a rehearsal for the real thing. This story has been foretold for the past year.

The Prospects of Regional Conflict Over Iraq

The trouble with the US military is Iraq is that they are not helping, they are making things worse. The Bush Administration has no sophistication of strategy. It's Bushies way or else he'll level the neighborhood, or the city or the country. The war on terror is more about winning over the minds of the Muslim world than about scaring them into submission. It doesn't work to scare a religious fanatic. Juan Cole provides his justification for withdrawl of ground troops while retaining special forces and air force to provide close air support for Iraqi troops. The various militias already run the country, let them have at it.
Informed Comment

Basically, if all the US military in Iraq is capable of is operations like Fallujah and Tal Afar, then they really need to get out of the country quick before they drive the whole country, and the region, into chaos. Even as they are chasing after shadows in dusty border towns, the US military is allowing much of Baghdad to fall into the hands of the guerrillas.


And that is why we have to get the ground troops out. Counter-insurgency has to have both a military and a political track. Even as the enemy is being pressed, you have to reach out to the civilian leadership and try to draw them into a truce.


The US military has had no political successes in the Sunni Arab areas. Mosul and some parts of Baghdad could have been pointed to in summer of 2004. In summer of 2005, these earlier successes have evaporated like a desert mirage toward which thirsty soldiers race.


The situation in the Sunni Arab areas was worse in summer of 2004 than it had been in summer of 2003. It is worse in the summer of 2005 than it had been in 2004. Even the Iraqi political groupings that had earlier been willing to cooperate with the US boycotted the Jan. 30 elections and are now assiduously working to defeat the new constitution. Things in the Sunni Arab areas are getting worse, not better. I conclude that the presence of the US ground troops is making things worse, not better.

One of Juan's point is that the Shiites and Kurds might be more interested in negotiating if they were on their own militarily. I think that is a very powerful point. The presense of American troops is strengthening the Shiite's allied with Iran and ensures Iran will have considerable political influence in Iraq. If the Sunni's remain the powerless one, the surrounding Sunni countries will not stand bye. Al-Faisal's approach to the Bush Administration is not just warning about Iraq fracturing, but about the other Sunni countries entering the war to counter the Iranian influence.
Informed Comment

Saud al-Faisal had accused Iran of moving substantial numbers of men, as well as goods and materiel, into Iraq. The charges mirror those of hard line Iraqi Sunnis, who have never reconsiled themselves to the Shiite majority in Iraq and so are always positing big Iranian population transfers into the south. This charge is frankly silly. Saud al-Faisal also let it it slip that Saudi Arabia and the United States actively helped Saddam Hussein to put down the Shiite uprising in spring of 1991. He said, "We fought a war together to keep Iran out of Iraq after Iraq was driven out of Kuwait. Now we are handing the whole country over to Iran without reason." ' How else can this statement be interpreted?


Many Iraqi Shiites are still furious at the US for allowing the Baath regime to suppress the Shiite uprising, since some 60,000 lives were lost in the repression.

Politics of Greed

The Republicans do seem to have shown their colors this week with their "Operation Offset" plan to pay for the Katrina devastation. The problem is that it is a blantant move to place all the sacrifice on those among us that have the least. The plan is to cut Medicare and Medicaid and quality of life benefits to veterans among other things, while retaining the trillions of dollars in cuts to taxes of the very rich with plans for more.
The Carpetbagger Report

It may have seemed at the time like a political coup. Conservative lawmakers in the Republican Study Committee seized an opportunity, hosted a well-attended press conference, and laid out an aggressive budget-cutting agenda to help improve the government's deteriorating budget outlook. They even came up with a clever little name: "Operation Offset."


Under the circumstances, the frugal Republicans appeared "bold." They're willing to make "tough choices" that others are afraid of. They're "taking the lead" in restoring fiscal sanity.


Of course, none of these things is true. As Kevin Drum noted, the proposed spending cuts are "mostly just a standard conservative wish list, and not a very serious one at that." In a partisan sense, however, this is a debate the Dems should welcome. If offers an opportunity to lay out two competing visions of government.


This, in essence, is the right laying its cards on the table. There's a massive deficit, hurricane relief and reconstruction efforts will be exceedingly expensive, and there's at least talk about keeping the budget from spiraling completely out of control. The Republican Study Committee stepped up to explain what conservative Republicans think is the appropriate solution: slash Medicare and Medicaid; cut military quality-of-life programs, including health care; and rely on arithmetic mistakes to find savings that don't exist.

[...]
This is the first real talk about "sacrifice" in a long while. The RSC's report is effectively saying that everyone can't have everything; some folks are going to have to get less. On this, we agree. The trick of it is, for the right, those folks are exclusively Americans who have less, at the expensive of those who have more. It is, to borrow another phrase, Robin Hood in reverse. Why ask millionaires to give up some of their tax breaks when we cut health care for families in poverty?

Saudi Warns U.S. Iraq May Face Disintegration

NY Times

Prince Saud argued: "But what I am trying do is say that unless something is done to bring Iraqis together, elections alone won't do it. A constitution alone won't do it." Prince Saud is a son of the late King Faisal and has been foreign minister for 30 years. The prince said he served on a council of Iraq's neighboring countries - Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iran and Kuwait as well as Saudi Arabia - "and the main worry of all the neighbors" was that the potential disintegration of Iraq into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish states would "bring other countries in the region into the conflict." Turkey, he noted, has long threatened to send troops into northern Iraq if the Kurds there declare independence. Iran, he asserted, is already sending money and weapons into the Shiite-controlled south of Iraq and would probably step up its relationship, should the south become independent. Saudi Arabia has long been wary of Iran's influence in the region, given that it is a Shiite theocracy. "This is a very dangerous situation," he said, "a very threatening situation."
MORE

The prospect of a regional war with Sunni against Shiite is a terrifying prospect. The world oil supply could be totally disrupted. The US would very likely have to choose sides. It's hard to imagine the US joining sides with Iran.
Could the Bush Administration be so out of touch with the world that they think they have control of the situation? Or could promoting conflict between Sunni and Shiite have been one of their options all along? Or lately given the intransigence of Iran and the Iraq lost to the Shiites? Given Sistani's recent endorsement of Iran's nuclear program, one has to wonder what Bush is thinking. Will the US have to change sides in Iraq?
Iran News

Concerning the western countries trouble making for Iran in its peaceful nuclear energy program, Ayatollah Sistani's envoy said, " the arrogant powers do not want a powerful and free Iran to emerge as a pattern for the whole Islamic world.

Defend religious freedom against "intelligent design"

Rightwing Christian Extremists are trying to turn the US into a theocracy. They want to impose their interpretation of the Bible on all of us by destroying science education in America. Some of you might remember the history of science during the Dark Ages. Galileo wrote a book endorsing the view successfully suppressed by the Church for nearly 200 years by Copernicus that the earth was round, not flat like the Bible says. For his heresy, Galileo was condemned to house arrest for the rest of his life. Today, Rightwing Christian extremists are trying to convince the world that the earth is flat, because the Bible says so. Do you think the supporters of creationism in the schools will stop there? I think not. These folks believe that the Bible is absolute truth.
Do you want to save the US from a new Dark Ages? Support the ACLU.

 

Dear Reader,

I am writing to let you know about a vitally important ACLU case that will begin in a few days.

Once again, the ACLU will be defending religious freedom against those who want to force creationism into our public schools. The underlying conflict has been going on at least since the Scopes trial, a famous ACLU case from an earlier era.

At the core, the conflict is between those who believe science should be taught in science classes and those who want to use our public schools to promote one set of religious beliefs over another.

But, this time, the creationists have a new ploy. It's called "intelligent design" -- an "alternative" to the scientific theory of evolution that religious extremists have cooked up as a way to sneak religious proselytizing into our public schools.

The intelligent design campaign to replace science with faith-based theories in our schools is part of a larger movement that threatens our religious freedoms in a profound way. To learn more about this case, please click here.

The trial about to begin in Dover, Pennsylvania, stems from an ACLU lawsuit challenging a controversial decision by the Dover Area School Board to require biology teachers to present intelligent design as an alternative to the scientific theory of evolution.

The intelligent design movement has two new, powerful spokesmen. In recent weeks, George W. Bush and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist have both endorsed shoving science aside in our children's science classrooms.

It is all too clear that powerful political forces are not just tinkering around the edges of our religious freedom -- they have set their sights on transforming our country from a constitutional democracy to a thinly veiled theocracy. They want to turn America into a country governed by their interpretation of the Bible, serviced by faith-based, taxpayer-funded institutions and guided by religious doctrine against which neither citizens nor judges should dare to speak up.

You and I can't let them get away with it.

As an ACLU member, your support for our work makes it possible for us to carry out a strong defense of religious liberty in cases like this and nationwide. Please take a moment to learn more about our efforts to resist attempts to undermine religious freedom wherever they surface -- from the classrooms of Pennsylvania to the White House. Together, we'll defend religious liberty with every ounce of energy we have.

Sincerely,


Anthony D. Romero
Executive Director
American Civil Liberties Union
www.aclu.org

FEMA Chief Brown Paid Millions in False Claims to Help Bush Win Fla. Votes

The Free Press

Michael Brown, the embattled head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, approved payments in excess of $31 million in taxpayer money to thousands of Florida residents who were unaffected by Hurricane Frances and three other hurricanes last year in an effort to help President Bush win a majority of votes in that state during his reelection campaign, according to published reports.


“Some Homeland Security sources said FEMA's efforts to distribute funds quickly after Frances and three other hurricanes that hit the key political battleground state of Florida in a six-week period last fall were undertaken with a keen awareness of the looming presidential elections,” according to a May 19 Washington Post story.


Homeland Security sources told the Post that after the hurricanes that Brown “and his allies [recommended] him to succeed Tom Ridge as Homeland Security secretary because of their claim that he helped deliver Florida to President Bush by efficiently responding to the Florida hurricanes.”


The South Florida Sun-Sentinel uncovered emails from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush that confirmed those allegations and directly implicated Brown as playing politics at the expense of hurricane victims.


“As the second hurricane in less than a month bore down on Florida last fall, a federal [FEMA] consultant predicted a "huge mess" that could reflect poorly on President Bush and suggested that his re-election staff be brought in to minimize any political liability, records show,” the Sentinel reported in a March 23 story.


“Two weeks later, a Florida official summarizing the hurricane response wrote that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was handing out housing assistance "to everyone who needs it without asking for much information of any kind."


The records the Sentinel obtained were contained in hundreds of pages of Gov. Jeb Bush's storm-related e-mails the paper received from the governor’s office under the threat of a lawsuit.
MORE

Corruption apparently doesn't get the national press coverage. But this explains how a man with no experience in emergency management got the job with FEMA. Brown got his job because he bought votes for Bush in Florida with FEMA funds.

US jobless claims hit two year hig

FT.com

The number of workers claiming unemployment benefit as a result of Katrina rose to 214,000, according to figures to official data on Thursday. This pushed the number of first time claimants to 432,000, its highest level in two years. Economists had been braced for an even higher figure of 450,000. Many believe the claims will rise even higher, as more people displaced by Katrina are able to file for support.
MORE

Katrina has brought about an undoing of the American worker. According to the FT.com's own analysis, unemployment is roughly 15 times higher than a healthy economy. Add this to the threats to home owner's equity, their pension plans, a 12.7% increase in people living under the poverty line, bringing the total to 37 million Americans, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita promising a one-two punch to the highest gas prices every seen in America and a likely recession to match, and $50 billion in cuts to Medicaid, how bad can it get?

The Making of Propaganda Case Study: British Tanks Storm a Basra Jail

The events in Basra between September 11th and today offer us a case study of how facts are spun into propaganda to support the agenda of the reporting agency. Why would a British tank battalion attack a Basra jail to free two British undercover soldiers charged with terrorism? Juan Cole helps us piece it together.
Informed Comment

The BBC reports, "Major Matthew Bacon was killed in an attack in Basra, in southern Iraq, on 11 September 2005 when a roadside bomb struck the armoured vehicle he was travelling."


So the British are facing increased casualties and concerted attacks in early September. Convinced that the attacks are coming from Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, they finally move against that group on Sunday.

[...]
On Monday there were further protests by Sadrists about the detainment of Shaikh Ahmad Fartusi and other Sadrist leaders. The Washington Post reported, "Earlier Monday, gunmen loyal to Sadr attacked the house of Basra's governor to press demands for the release of two prominent members of the cleric's militia whom British forces arrested Sunday."


Two British undercover men seem to have seen something suspicious and intervened. But somehow they got involved in a firefight with Iraqi government police. The two Britons were slightly wounded and were captured by Iraqi police (which seems to be penetrated by the Badr Corps, the Sadrists and other Shiite paramilitaries.)


Then a Sadrist crowd tried to storm the jail where the two British special forces operatives were being held by the provincial government. The Shiite crowds appear to have intended to hold them as hostages to be traded for Fartusi et al.


It was at that point that the British tanks rolled against the jail. In freeing the two Britons, they inadvertently let 150 other prisoners escape, presumably some of them involved in the guerrilla movement. Two Iraqis were killed in related violence. Then crowds attacked British military vehicles, setting 2 afire with Molotov cocktails.


The entire episode reeks of "dual sovereignty," in which there are two distinct sources of government authority. Social historian Charles Tilly says that dual sovereignty signals a revolutionary situation. Note that in Basra, a city of about 1.3 million, largely Shiite, the Muqtada al-Sadr group is not very big. Most Sadrists belong to the rival al-Fadila party, led by Muhammad Yaqubi. But small groups can cause a lot of trouble.

Remember when Bush said the new Iraqi government would be in charge? Obviously there is a difference of opinion about who is in charge in Basra. Now lets see what people with an ax to grind takes bits and pieces to spin up a perspective that serves their political ends.
Globalresearch.ca is a Canadian based apparently independent internet-based politically motivated news agency that frequently takes positions on the left side of the political spectrum. Either by lack of homework, or by design, they report only part of the story, this one is broadcast on Al Jazeera's Satellite TV news.
Text of report by Qatari Al-Jazeera satellite TV on 19 September (emphasis added)

A report of Al Jazeera TV, which preceeded the raid on the prison, suggests that the British undercover soldiers were driving a booby trapped car loaded with ammunition. The Al Jazeera report (see below) also suggests that the riots directed against British military presence were motivated because the British undercover soldiers were planning to explode the booby trapped car in the centre of Basra:

[Anchorman Al-Habib al-Ghuraybi] We have with us on the telephone from Baghdad Fattah al-Shaykh, member of the Iraqi National Assembly. What are the details of and the facts surrounding this incident?


[Al-Shaykh] In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate. There have been continuous provocative acts since the day before yesterday by the British forces against the peaceful sons of Basra. There have been indiscriminate arrests, the most recent of which was the arrest of Shaykh Ahmad al-Farqusi and two Basra citizens on the pretext that they had carried out terrorist operations to kill US soldiers. This is a baseless claim. This was confirmed to us by [name indistinct] the second secretary at the British Embassy in Baghdad, when we met with him a short while ago. He said that there is evidence on this. We say: You should come up with this evidence or forget about this issue. If you really want to look for truth, then we should resort to the Iraqi justice away from the British provocations against the sons of Basra, particularly what happened today when the sons of Basra caught two non-Iraqis, who seem to be Britons and were in a car of the Cressida type. It was a booby-trapped car laden with ammunition and was meant to explode in the centre of the city of Basra in the popular market. However, the sons of the city of Basra arrested them. They [the two non-Iraqis] then fired at the people there and killed some of them. The two arrested persons are now at the Intelligence Department in Basra, and they were held by the National Guard force, but the British occupation forces are still surrounding this department in an attempt to absolve them of the crime.


[Al-Ghuraybi] Thank you Fattah al-Shaykh, member of the National Assembly and deputy for Basra.

It's not clear who Fattah al-Shaykh, member of the National Assembly represents politically. But it seems likely it is someone who wishes to diminish the credibility of the British in Basra. Shiite fundamentalists have a firm grip on southern Iraq near Basra. Moving the British out simply solidifies their power as the sole institution of government in the area, at the expense of the National Assembly.
Now lets see what Muqtada al-Sadr has to say about the arrest of his allies in Basra.
Informed Comment

Statement of the Office of Muqtada al-Sadr


"Two soldiers from the British occupation forces opened fire on passers-by in the vicinity of a religious center where the people of Basra use to go, after which police patrols have a white car and arrested two persons riding it. It was found that they are British, and British occupation forces intervened to try to set them free. The people of Basra demonstrated to prevent this from occurring, and occupation forces reacted by opening fire on the demonstrators killing and wounding many of them. In retaliation the inhabitants burned two British tanks. The two Britons that were arrested had in their possession explosives and remote-control devices, as well as light and medium weapons and other accessories.


Late this night, British forces raided the police headquarters of the Basra province, set free the two Britons as well as close to 150 terrorists, and burned the police vehicles."

Again, Sadr's agenda is to weaken the British hold on Basra, strengthen his fellow Shias, even though they are hardly allies. Sadr benefits because the weakness of the US/British coalition, the stronger his Mahdi Army.
Why would these two political rivals take advantage of a rather aggressive move by the British? One can only speculate. As I understand it, the Shias near Basra are heavily allied with Iranian Revolutionary Guard. They want to create an Iraqi Shia theocracy on the model of Iran in Iraq. They're willing to fight a long civil war to make this happen. They seem willing to accept a partitioning of Iraq as well if they have to to achieve their goal of an Iranian style theocracy.
Sadr is a dangerous political radical who has clear allegiance only to his future political power. He shifts his alliances pragmatically as it serves his immediate purpose to raise his political viability as a powerful alternative to the US, the weak central government and Sistani. While he also is interested in a Shia theocracy, he is willing to ally with Sunnis, Sistani, and Shia fundamentalists to further is goal of running the country. His model of government in his vision is one of his own making. This man is completely ruthless on the order of Sadaam himself. Except he seems to be an even wiser political operative.

Clinton Launches the 2006 Campaign Season for Democrats

The election season is indeed upon us.
Yahoo! News

Former US president Bill Clinton sharply criticised George W. Bush for the Iraq War and the handling of Hurricane Katrina, and voiced alarm at the swelling US budget deficit. Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq "virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction."


The Iraq war diverted US attention from the war on terrorism "and undermined the support that we might have had," Bush said in an interview with an ABC's "This Week" programme.


Clinton said there had been a "heroic but so far unsuccessful" effort to put together an constitution that would be universally supported in Iraq.


The US strategy of trying to develop the Iraqi military and police so that they can cope without US support "I think is the best strategy. The problem is we may not have, in the short run, enough troops to do that," said Clinton.


On Hurricane Katrina, Clinton faulted the authorities' failure to evacuate New Orleans ahead of the storm's strike on August 29. People with cars were able to heed the evacuation order, but many of those who were poor, disabled or elderly were left behind. "If we really wanted to do it right, we would have had lots of buses lined up to take them out," Clinton.


He agreed that some responsibility for this lay with the local and state authorities, but pointed the finger, without naming him, at the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). FEMA boss Michael Brown quit in response to criticism of his handling of the Katrina disaster. He was viewed as a political appointee with no experience of disaster management or dealing with government officials.


"When James Lee Witt ran FEMA, because he had been both a local official and a federal official, he was always there early, and we always thought about that," Clinton said, referring to FEMA's head during his 1993-2001 presidency. "But both of us came out of environments with a disproportionate number of poor people." On the US budget, Clinton warned that the federal deficit may be coming untenable, driven by foreign wars, the post-hurricane recovery programme and tax cuts that benefitted just the richest one percent of the US population, himself included.


"What Americans need to understand is that ... every single day of the year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, and our tax cuts," he said. "We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money from somewhere else."


Clinton added: "We depend on Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Korea primarily to basically loan us money every day of the year to cover my tax cut and these conflicts and Katrina. I don't think it makes any sense."


Copyright (c) 2005 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse. Copyright (c) 2005 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

I saw this interview on TV. Bill's whithering attack was about as soft spoken as Bill gets. But his characterizations were indeed significant. It feels good to see some of my favorite Dems speaking out, finally.

As Much As $2 Billion Stolen in Iraq

In what may be the largest theft in history, nearly $2 Billion of US tax dollars were embezzled under the noses of the US Military and civilian administration in Iraq by the Iraqi officials appointed by them. The Iraqis are investigating the possibility that rogue elements of the US military may have been involved or at least grossly negligent. Yet, do you find this story in the American press?
Middle East : app1" href="http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article313538.ece">Independent

One billion dollars has been plundered from Iraq's defence ministry in one of the largest thefts in history, The Independent can reveal, leaving the country's army to fight a savage insurgency with museum-piece weapons.


The money, intended to train and equip an Iraqi army capable of bringing security to a country shattered by the US-led invasion and prolonged rebellion, was instead siphoned abroad in cash and has disappeared.


"It is possibly one of the largest thefts in history," Ali Allawi, Iraq's Finance Minister, told The Independent. "Huge amounts of money have disappeared. In return we got nothing but scraps of metal."


The carefully planned theft has so weakened the army that it cannot hold Baghdad against insurgent attack without American military support, Iraqi officials say, making it difficult for the US to withdraw its 135,000- strong army from Iraq, as Washington says it wishes to do.

[...]
The Iraqi Board of Supreme Audit says in a report to the Iraqi government that US-appointed Iraqi officials in the defence ministry allegedly presided over these dubious transactions.


Senior Iraqi officials now say they cannot understand how, if this is so, the disappearance of almost all the military procurement budget could have passed unnoticed by the US military in Baghdad and civilian advisers working in the defence ministry.


Government officials in Baghdad even suggest that the skill with which the robbery was organised suggests that the Iraqis involved were only front men, and "rogue elements" within the US military or intelligence services may have played a decisive role behind the scenes.


Given that building up an Iraqi army to replace American and British troops is a priority for Washington and London, the failure to notice that so much money was being siphoned off at the very least argues a high degree of negligence on the part of US officials and officers in Baghdad. MORE

Every time a new scandal emerges from the Bush Administration, I think people will finally understand who they have as President. But of course, the American press has been all but cowered into submission by the Republican party. The press have been publishing some bad news about Bush ever since Republican leadership started making distance from Bush.

John Kerry Steps to the Plate

In what might be the first speech in Kerry's run for President in 2008, he delivers a one-two punch without holding back.
Senator John Kerry's Speech at Brown University

Today, let’s you and I acknowledge what’s really going on in this country. The truth is that this week, as a result of Katrina, many children languishing in shelters are getting vaccinations for the first time. Thousands of adults are seeing a doctor after going without a check-up for years. Illnesses lingering long before Katrina will be treated by a health care system that just weeks ago was indifferent, and will soon be indifferent again.


For the rest of the year this nation silently tolerates the injustice of 11 million children and over 30 million adults in desperate need of health care. We tolerate a chasm of race and class some would rather pretend does not exist. And ironically, right in the middle of this crisis the Administration quietly admitted that since they took office, six million of our fellow citizens have fallen into poverty. That’s over ten times the evacuated population of New Orleans. Their plight is no less tragic - no less worthy of our compassion and attention. We must demand something simple and humane: health care for all those in need - in all years at all times.


This is the real test of Katrina. Will we be satisfied to only do the immediate: care for the victims and rebuild the city? Or will we be inspired to tackle the incompetence that left us so unprepared, and the societal injustice that left so many of the least fortunate waiting and praying on those rooftops?

[...]
But for those who still believe in the great tradition of Americans doing great things together, it’s time we started acting like it. We can never compete with the go-it- alone crowd in appeals to selfishness. We can’t afford to be pale imitations of the other side in playing the ‘what’s in it for me’ game. Instead, it’s time we put our appeals where our hearts are - asking the American people to make our country as strong, prosperous, and big-hearted as we know we can be - every day. It’s time we framed every question - every issue -- not in terms of what’s in it for ‘me,’ but what’s in it for all of us?


And when you ask that simple question - what’s in it for all of us? - the direction not taken in America could not be more clear or compelling.


Instead of allowing a few oil companies to drill their way to windfall profits, it means an America that understands we can’t drill our way to energy independence, we have to invent our way there together.


Instead of making a mockery of the words No Child Left Behind when China and India are graduating tens of thousands more engineers and PhDs than we are, it means an America where college education is affordable and accessible for every child willing to work for it.


Instead of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, it means an America that makes smart investments in your future like funding the science and research and development that will assure American technological leadership.


Instead of allowing lobbyists to rewrite our environmental laws, it means an America where lakes and rivers and streams are clean enough that when a family takes the kids fishing, it’s actually safe to eat the fish they catch.


Instead of letting a few ideologues get in the way of progress that can make us a stronger and healthier society, it means an America where the biology students here today will do the groundbreaking stem cell research tomorrow.


And instead of stubbornly disregarding intelligence, using force prematurely and shoving our allies aside, it means an America that restores its leadership in the world. An America that meets its responsibility of creating a world where the plagues of our time and future times - from terror to disease to poverty to weapons of mass destruction to the unknown - are overcome by allies united in common cause, and proud to follow American leadership.


That is the direction not taken but still open to us in the future if we answer that simple question - ‘what’s in it for all of us?’ It comes down to the fact that the job of government is to prepare for your future - not ignore it. It should prepare to solve problems - not create them.


This Administration and the Republicans who control Congress give in to special interests and rob future generations. Real leadership stands up to special interests and sets the course for future generations. And the fact is we do face serious challenges as a nation, and if we don’t address them now, we handicap your future. My generation risks failing its obligation of assuring you inherit a safer, stronger America. To turn this around, the greatest challenges must be the starting point. I hope Katrina gives us the courage to face them and the sense of urgency to beat them. MORE

Kerry apparently feels the political climate allows him to position himself to the left of Hillary. I think this is a shrewd move. Unfortunately, he stubs his toe a couple times in what might be seen as shaming remarks about the American public's complacency in the face of rising poverty. Lets hope it's not taken that way.
I think this guy could be a very good President. He is a man of integrity and honor. The question is can he get elected.

Insurgents Taking Neighborhoods in Baghdad?

One of Juan Cole's informants on the ground in Baghdad is reporting that several neighborhoods in Baghdad have been occupied by insurgents. This was posted by Juan Saturday night at 11:30pm. Googling news sources finds no confirmation. Perhaps this story is not true. Or perhaps there is a news blackout on the topic because only sources on the ground in Iraq are Iraqis who can only operate secretly. Given the scoops Cole has produced in the past, I'll go on faith and repost it.
Informed Comment

"The situation has deteriorated in Baghdad dramatically today. Five neighborhoods (hay) in Baghdad are controlled by insurgents, and they are Amiraya, Ghazilya, Shurta, Yarmouk and Doura. It is very bad. My guys there report that cars have come into these neighborhoods and blocked off the streets. Masked gunmen with AKs and other weapons are roaming these areas, announcing that people should stay home. One of my drivers in Amiraya reports that his neighborhood is shut down totally, and even those who need food or provisions are warned not to go out.


The government will respond feebly. It will go into a contested neighborhood, and then just like Fallujah, Ramadi, Tel Afar, the insurgents will flee to take over another area on another day. Bit by bit they are taking over the main parts of Baghdad. The only place we are sure they cannot control is Sadr City, unless of course they want to take on Jaish Mahdy [Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army], and that would be bloody.


A few minutes ago Jaafari came on television to tell everyone in Baghdad to stay home. Can't wait for his next bold move. There are flyers in public areas of Baghdad warning people not to gather in large numbers because they will thereby become targets. I am trying to get a copy of the flyer.


Notwithstanding Al-Hayat's claim that Zarqawi and the Sunni resistance are not together, my street listeners claim otherwise. My folks are convinced that the two groups, broadly defined, are together, "100 percent" is the claim of certainty. It is hard to get a handle on this because people in Baghdad tend to lump all resistance groups, except for Zarqawi, into one large category.


More and more of even the most patriotic intelligentsia are departing. The situation is dire, and those with escape valves are using them. [Some organizations are]sending more of [their] staff to Arbil and Sulamaniyah and out of Baghdad. Until about March this year, [some] thought that there was a chance of returning to Baghdad. It is remarkable how incapable this government is. Its only success is that it exists at all.


In the meantime, the embassy people act as if nothing in Baghdad is wrong (except that they cannot walk in the Green Zone without body armor and they have to take precautions against kidnapping). Recently, a group from State and the military parachuted in from Washington [with fatuous advice] . . . It is a fantasy world."

Liberal Blogs Eclipse Conservatives

MyDD

Two years ago, Instapundit had an audience three times larger than Dailykos. Now, Dailykos is the equal of nearly the entire conservative blogosphere, and five other progressive blogs, Talking Points Memo, Eschaton, Crooks and Liars and AmericaBlog, all have audiences larger than Instapundit, which remains the largest conservative blog in terms of audience size.

Can this be a sign of things to come in the 2006 and 2008 elections? Let's hope so!

Congressman: Atta Papers Destroyed on Pentagon Orders

MSNBC.com

A Pentagon employee was ordered to destroy documents that identified Mohamed Atta as a terrorist two years before the 2001 attacks, a congressman said Thursday. The employee is prepared to testify next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee and was expected to identify the person who ordered him to destroy the large volume of documents, said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa.


Weldon declined to identify the employee, citing confidentiality matters. Weldon described the documents as “2.5 terabytes” — as much as one-fourth of all the printed materials in the Library of Congress, he added. A Senate Judiciary Committee aide said the witnesses for Wednesday's hearing had not been finalized and could not confirm Weldon’s comments.


Pentagon: Nothing found


Army Maj. Paul Swiergosz, a Pentagon spokesman, said officials have been “fact-finding in earnest for quite some time. We’ve interviewed 80 people involved with Able Danger, combed through hundreds of thousands of documents and millions of e-mails and have still found no documentation of Mohamed Atta,” Swiergosz said. He added that certain data had to be destroyed in accordance with existing regulations regarding “intelligence data on U.S. persons.”


Did program exist?


Weldon has said that Atta, the mastermind of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and three other hijackers were identified in 1999 by a classified military intelligence unit known as “Able Danger,” which determined they could be members of an al-Qaida cell. On Wednesday, former members of the Sept. 11 commission dismissed the “Able Danger” assertions. One commissioner, ex-Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., said, “Bluntly, it just didn’t happen and that’s the conclusion of all 10 of us.”


Weldon responded angrily to Gorton’s assertions. “It’s absolutely unbelievable that a commission would say this program just didn’t exist,” Weldon said Thursday.


Pentagon officials said this month they had found three more people who recall an intelligence chart identifying Atta as a terrorist prior to the Sept. 11 attacks. Two military officers, Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott, have come forward to support Weldon’s claims.


(c) 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

One has to wonder just what they were hiding. Or was this a result of a little known excess of the Reno Justice Department? There is plenty of blame to go around about 9/11. Here is a skeleton from the Clinton Administration. Consider the source. There is a lot of propaganda interspersed within the document. But I suspect some of the detail is true.
Freerepublic.com

Attorney General Reno’s “Procedures for Contacts Between the FBI and the Criminal Division Concerning Foreign Intelligence and Foreign Counterintelligence Investigations,” issued in July 1995. Immediately dubbed “the Wall,” the 1995 guidelines erected a mind-boggling and ultimately lethal set of impediments to cooperation among all relevant anti-terrorist personnel.

[...]
Analogous to the Wall between FBI agents working in intelligence and those working on criminal cases was another wall, between the FBI and prosecutors, who also are barred from bringing their accumulated knowledge to bear on all intelligence information. According to Kenneth Bass, who helped draft FISA for the Carter administration, none of these Reno-mandated restrictions reflects the law’s original intent. “The Wall is absolutely ludicrous,” he says. “It is not in the national interest.”

[...]
Intelligence agents thought that things could not get much worse. They were wrong. In November 2000, the chief judge of the FISA court, Royce Lamberth, blasted the Bureau and one of its most respected agents for trivial violations of the Wall. The Reno Justice Department, it had turned out, was unable to abide by the Reno Wall. In September 2000, the Clinton administration had notified the FISA court that there had been over 75 breaches of the Wall since its inception. These included such violations as: disseminations of FISA intelligence to terrorist criminal squads in the FBI’s New York field office and to the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York without court permission; a claim in a wiretap application that the target was not under criminal investigation for terrorism when in fact he was; and misstatements about the existence of a Wall in one particular FBI office between intelligence and criminal squads, when actually all the agents were on the same squad, and a supervisor overseeing both investigations screened the raw intelligence intercepts.

[...]
In recoil, the FBI and Justice Department hunkered down completely. FBI headquarters and the OIPR, already a crippling drag on terrorist investigations, became paralyzing weights. Recalls Mary Jo White: “The walls went higher. Nothing could have been worse.” It was as if the Wall had become covered with concertina wire and broken glass, says Kallstrom. Morale plummeted. Agents in the New York bureau put signs on their desks saying: “You may not talk to me.”


Fast-forward to August 2001. Coleen Rowley and other FBI agents in her Minneapolis office were furiously banging their fists against the Wall. A Minneapolis agent had flagged Zacarias Moussaoui as a possible terrorist threat, after a local flight school disclosed that Moussaoui had been acting strangely and had paid cash (nearly $7,000) for simulator training. The Minneapolis office learned from the French Intelligence Service that Moussaoui, now in custody on an INS violation, had connections to radical Islamic groups. Desperate to search Moussaoui’s computer and possessions, the agents sought permission from FBI central headquarters to ask the OIPR to seek a warrant, as per Wall procedures.


They met only resistance. Finally, on August 28, 2001, the FBI’s National Security Law Unit (NSLU)—incredibly, yet another bureaucratic gatekeeper that stymies counterintelligence operations—pronounced that there was insufficient evidence of Moussaoui’s connection specifically to al-Qaida to justify a FISA search. FISA required no such showing: the French Intelligence Services’ linking of Moussaoui to Islamic radical groups in general was sufficient. The NSLU had imported a new, non-mandated roadblock into the act in the mania of risk-aversion that had gripped the agency after the Lamberth outburst. The investigation was over—until September 11, when FBI headquarters decided that maybe it ought to look into that computer after all.


Astoundingly, on August 29, 2001, the day after the National Security Law Unit killed the Moussaoui investigation that would have led to two 9/11 hijackers and to the Hamburg cell that planned the attack, it cited the Wall to rebuff as well a New York agent’s urgent pleas to let him and his subordinates help track down al-Qaida member Khalid Almihdar. According to the Bureau’s paranoid Wall interpretation, because the New York agent was working criminal cases against terrorists, and Almihdar had not been indicted for a crime, the agent and his men could not cooperate with the intell agents searching for Almihdar.


Immediately after the NSLU’s prohibition, the agent sent an angry e-mail to FBI headquarters: “Someday someone will die—and wall or not—the public will not understand why we were not . . . throwing every resource” at terrorists.


On September 11, when his office received the passenger manifests of the four hijacked flights, the agent shouted: “This is the same Almihdar we’ve been talking about for three months.” In a parody of bureaucratic buck-passing, his supervisor responded: “We did everything by the book.”

Of course, the information about Atta and his apparent association with Al Qaeda was reported to the Defense department under Rumsfeld. But the 9/11 report outlines a very different truth about the "Wall".
ACLU

The “Wall”


The 9/11 Commission is quite clear that the internal and inter-agency obstacles to information sharing, as they developed during the 1980s and 1990s, were, as the ACLU has argued, almost exclusively the result of a misunderstanding and misapplication of both FISA and internal procedures designed to keep criminal prosecutors from exploiting the lower standards for intelligence surveillance – and not a result of FISA itself. Pages 78 through 80 tell this story.
Prior to 1978, the attorney general claimed authority to allow foreign intelligence surveillance without any court review, although this authority was hotly contested. In response to the broad misuse of this power to investigate political dissenters, a reformist Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which established a secret court to oversee the investigation and surveillance of foreign powers and foreign agents. FISA was then interpreted by the courts to require that an intelligence order have as its “primary purpose” the acquisition of foreign intelligence information. According to sources examined by the commission, the Justice Department interpreted the primary purpose test to mean that federal prosecutors could be briefed on FISA information but could not direct or control its collection.


From 1978 to the mid-1990s, federal prosecutors had “informal” arrangements for accessing information gleaned from FISA tools, under the understanding that they would not exploit this material for their criminal cases. However, after the Aldrich Ames case in 1994, anxiety rose significantly within the Justice Department that the current system could result in the courts excluding evidence obtained through FISA orders. Consequently, the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review in the Justice Department, which presents all FISA applications to the FISA court, decided to regulate the flow of FISA information to prosecutors.


In July 1995, OIPR complaints finally resulted in a working group led by the Justice Department’s Executive Office of National Security, in consultation with FBI, OIPR and the criminal division. The U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York was permitted to comment on the working group’s product. The procedures developed by the working group, led by Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, mandated the disclosure ofinformation obtained under FISA authority, but regulated the manner in which it was to be shared.


The procedures were, in the words of the commission, “immediately misunderstood and misapplied.” After some time, they became known as what is often referred to as the “wall.” “The term ‘the wall’ is misleading, however,” the report says, “because several factors led to a series of barriers to information sharing that developed.” (pg. 79) The OIPR then became the sole gatekeeper for passing FISA information to the criminal division, arguing that if it were not permitted to play this role, it would no longer present FISA applications to the court.


This bottleneck was then compounded by an institutional aversion to information sharing among agents themselves. The FISA primary purpose proviso was intended to leash criminal prosecutors, not necessarily investigative agents themselves. However, pressure from the OIPR, FBI leadership and the FISA court itself began to build barriers between FBI agents working on criminal matters and those working on intelligence investigations. At one point, the report relates, FBI Deputy Director Robert “Bear” Bryant informed agents that too much sharing could be a “career stopper.”


This overly cautious view leeched into the mindset of agents in the field. As a result, intelligence investigators began to stop sharing any intelligence information, even if it had not been gathered using FISA at all. Reports from the CIA and NSA failed to make their way across the growing divide to criminal investigators. Limited restrictions on the transfer of information disclosed during grand jury proceedings turned into a blanket interpretation barring the sharing of “much of the information” unearthed during investigations. And so on.


The practical consequences of this broad confusion were serious. As related in chapter eight (pgs. 269-276), an intelligence FBI agent assigned to the U.S.S. Cole bombing, confused about the complex rules governing information sharing, mistakenly told a criminal FBI agent assigned to the criminal Cole investigation that the rules barred him from participating in the search for Khalid al Midhar, one of the hijackers who the FBI had discovered was in the U.S. “As a result of this confusion,” the report says, “the criminal agents who were knowledgeable about Al Qaeda and experienced with criminal investigative techniques, including finding suspects and possible criminal charges, were thus excluded from the search.” Furthermore, the report finds that if additional resources had been applied and a significantly different approach taken (presumably one where the limitations of the so-called “wall” were properly interpreted by investigators), Midhar and another hijacker, Nawaf al Hazmi, could have been located, as they had used their real names in the U.S. Authorities also knew that Midhar had met with another terrorist facilitator, known as Khallad, in Kuala Lumpur.


In short, the findings of the 9/11 Commission report highlight the fallacy in the argument, ubiquitous among supporters of the Patriot Act, that the 2001 law was instrumental in breaking down the “wall” between intelligence and law enforcement. The “wall,” the report’s findings make clear, was not a result of FISA, but a result of confusion about FISA.

While full of legalese technicalities, the report makes it's point. The "Wall" was largely the result of a misunderstanding of what appears to have been a very difficult law to understand. Whether it was incredibly complex or vague is probably not important for anyone but a lawyer. "The Wall", regardless if it was based on rule of law or misapplication, helped create a situation where complete information could not be put together to increase the likelihood of someone acting.
However, since several sufficient warnings appeared and reappeared over and over again several times through the Clinton Administration well into the Bush Administration, it seems pretty weak to blame 9/11 on the "Wall".
In a quick perusal of Google's references, this report is turning up all over the internet. It would appear we are beginning to see media campaign trying to deflect attention from the total incompetence of the Bush Administration and blame 9/11 on the Democrats.

Katrina Makes For A Boom and Bust for Residents

World-wide, former communist regimes with few exceptions are embracing capitalism. They have found that socialism, as they were living it, breeds complacency and corruption, discourages creativity and change. Personally I can't think of a way to make a vibrant economy without some form of capitalism. Perhaps some day something better will emerge as humans continue to evolve. Meanwhile, someone's suffering creates opportunity for boom in someone elses life.
Los Angeles Times

Brandy Farris is house hunting in New Orleans. The real estate agent has $10 million in the bank, wired by an investor who has instructed her to scoop up houses — any houses. "Flooding no problem," Farris' newspaper ads advise. Her backer is a Miami businessman who specializes in buying storm-ravaged property at a deep discount, something that has paid dividends in hurricane-prone Florida. But he may have a harder time finding bargains this time around.


In some ways, Hurricane Katrina seems to have taken a vibrant real estate market and made it hotter. Large sections of the city are underwater, but that's only increasing the demand for dry houses. And in flooded areas, speculators are trying to buy properties on the cheap, hoping that the redevelopment of New Orleans will start a boom.


This land rush has long-term implications in a city where many of the poorest residents were flooded out. It raises the question of what sort of housing — if any — will be available to those without a six-figure salary. If New Orleans ends up a high-priced enclave, without a mix of cultures, races and incomes, something vital may be lost. "There's a public interest question here," said Ann Oliveri, a senior vice president with the Urban Land Institute, a Washington think tank. "You don't have to abdicate the city to whoever shows up." For now, though, it's a seller's market, at least for habitable homes.

[...]
Some black New Orleans residents say dourly that they know what's coming. Melvin Gilbert, a maintenance crew chief in his 60s, stood outside an elegant hotel in the French Quarter this week and recalled how the neighborhood had been gentrified. He remembered half a century ago when the French Quarter had a substantial number of black residents. "Then the Caucasians started offering them $10,000 for their homes," he said. "Well, they only bought the places for $2,000, so they took it and ran." The white residents restored the homes, which rose quickly in value. Gilbert said he expected the same dynamic when the floodwaters receded in the heavily black neighborhoods east of downtown. MORE

Can you imagine losing your home and all of your belongings then being transported without your permission to a refugee camp thousands of miles away from home? Rather than being encouraged to plan for a return home, you are offered housing and helped in job hunting in your new location.
The Black Commentator

The disproportionate hardships shouldered by poor, mostly minority residents of the Gulf Coast in the wake of Katrina have been well-documented and acknowledged by most observers. It is not enough, however, to address this reality merely by issuing debit cards, formulating more equitable evacuation plans or otherwise better preparing for future disasters. Rather, as the U.N. principles clearly state, continued relief efforts must be viewed in the context of providing meaningful opportunities for the displaced and their families in the months and years to come. Stories of evacuees airlifted to destinations far from their families and friends, sometimes against their will, reinforce the importance of viewing the emergency measures as a temporary, not a permanent, solution. The idea that evacuees will remain where they’ve been dropped assumes that they have no other options; providing such options is an essential component of the government’s obligation according to the U.N. principles.


Missing from the press conferences and official statements has been any commitment to another of the U.N. principles: that the victims of Hurricane Katrina have the ability to decide for themselves how to reconstruct their lives. As the principles state unequivocally, the displaced have an inalienable right to participate in decisions about their future, and any recovery plan in Katrina’s aftermath must therefore include substantive input by those who have the most at stake. This is not a courtesy that can be discarded if it becomes inconvenient, but an absolute necessity.


It is important to note that the United States has consistently upheld the U.N. Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement when similar circumstances have arisen in other countries. If the fundamental rights of displaced people apply in countries far less able to cope with such disasters as Hurricane Katrina, they certainly apply here. MORE

The UN charter says even poor countries are required to enable people to make their own choices including the option to return home. I doubt Bush and the Republicans will support that, especially since their buddies are set to make millions on the real estate boom.

Greenspan, the Wizard of Bubbleland

Here is a very interesting article from another economist whose columns explain the unfathomable, Henry C K Liu. He has consistently been more pessimistic than even Steve Roach, predicting the coming housing bubble burst will in fact put pension funds in the tank. He describes Greenspan as the ideological bedfellow of Bush and is contributing to the massive redistribution of wealth to the super rich, at everyone else's expense. His ideas are chilling and very believable.
Asia Times Online

Greenspan's formula of reducing market regulation by substituting it with post-crisis intervention is merely buying borrowed extensions of the boom with amplified severity of the inevitable bust down the road. The Fed is increasingly reduced by this formula to an irrelevant role of explaining an anarchic economy rather than directing it towards a rational paradigm. It has adopted the role of a cleanup crew of otherwise avoidable financial debris rather than that of a preventive guardian of public financial health. Greenspan's monetary approach has been "when in doubt, ease". This means injecting more money into the banking system whenever the US economy shows signs of faltering, even if caused by structural imbalances rather than monetary tightness. For almost two decades, Greenspan has justifiably been in near-constant doubt about structural balances in the economy, yet his response to mounting imbalances has invariably been the administration of off-the-shelf monetary laxative, leading to a serious case of lingering monetary diarrhea that manifests itself in runaway asset price inflation mistaken for growth.


Paul Volcker, as chairman of the Fed before Greenspan, [...] adopted a "new operating method" for the Fed in 1980 as a therapeutic shock treatment for Wall Street, which had been spoiled fearless by the brazen political opportunism of Arthur Burns, Volcker's predecessor during the Nixon-Ford era. Wall Street had lost faith in the Fed's political will to control inflation.


Volcker's new operating method reversed the traditional mandate of the Fed, which, as a central bank, was supposed to be responsible for maintaining orderly markets, meaning smooth, gradual changes in interest rates. The new operating method was an attempt to induce the threat of short-term pain to stabilize long-term inflation expectations. The reversal was necessary because the market had come to expect the Fed only gradually to raise interest rates to keep even an unbalanced economy from collapsing.


Targeting the money supply generates large sudden swings in short-term interest rates that produce unintended shifts in the real economy that then feed back into demand for money. The process has been described as the Fed acting as a monetarist dog chasing its own tail. Unlike the Keynesian formula of deficit financing to reduce unemployment in a down cycle, the Fed's easy-money approach since the administration of president Richard Nixon had been to channel the funny money to the rich who needed it least, rather than to the poor who would immediately spend it to sustain aggregate demand to moderate the business cycle. This supply-side easy-money approach led to an economy of overcapacity, with idle plants unable to produce goods profitably for lack of consumer demand. Say's law, that supply creates its own demand, is inoperative unless there is full employment, which sound money deems undesirable.


Greenspan's measured-paced interest-rate policy is a reversal back to the Fed's tradition of gradualism. The trouble with a measured-paced interest-rate policy in a debt-driven economy of overcapacity is that the debt cancer is spreading faster than the gradual doses of medical radiation can handle. Yet fatality is a poor tradeoff for the avoidance of hair loss from radiation. Greenspan's measured pace represents a lack of political courage to acknowledge that it is preferable by far for the finance sector to take a huge haircut preemptively than for the whole economy to collapse later. Moral hazard is increased unless risk takers in the finance sector are made to bear the consequences of their actions, and not be allowed to pass the pain from risk on to the economy at large.

[...]
What Greenspan did was to punish the general public by devaluing their future pension and cash flow, to pay for the sins of the aggressively investing rich who continued to add to their wealth with Greenspan's blessing as long as the ill-gained riches from speculation were reinvested for more speculation for more ill gains.

[...]
When a homeowner loses his or her home through default of its mortgage, the homeowner will also lose his or her retirement nest egg invested in the securitized mortgage pool, while the banks stay technically solvent. That is the hidden network of linked financial landmines in a housing bubble financed by mortgage-backed securitization to which no one is paying attention. The bursting of the housing bubble will act as a detonator for a massive pension crisis.
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To Bush and Roberts, Discrimination Doesn't Exist

Los Angeles Times

Speaking about the black residents of New Orleans, who were the storm's most visible victims, Dean said that Roberts' "entire legal career appears to be about making sure those folks don't have the same rights everybody else does."


"That's probably not the right thing to do," Dean continued, "two weeks after a disaster where certain members of society clearly did not have the same protections that everybody else did because of their circumstances…. I know Judge Roberts loves the law. I'm not sure he loves the American people."


Obama, appearing on ABC's "This Week," picked up the same head-and-heart theme: "I think what we do need to ask ourselves is whether he has the heart, the breadth of perspective and the recognition that historically the role of the court has been to look out not just for the powerful but also the powerless. "I think that Katrina does indicate that we've got a lot of problems in our midst … in terms of poverty, in terms of the differences in life opportunities for blacks, whites, Hispanics," Obama said. "That has to inform how we think about every branch of government and their functions, and I think that the Supreme Court is no different."


Obama, like Roberts, is a magna cum laude Harvard Law School graduate and a former top editor of the Harvard Law Review. He said Roberts had not appeared to take racial issues seriously in his judicial thinking. "There is an underlying concern that a judicial philosophy that ignores the possibilities of racial discrimination or gender discrimination, a political philosophy that typically errs on the side of the powerful, rather than the powerless, that's a judicial philosophy that can … exacerbate some of the problems that we have in this country," Obama said.
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In another demonstration of the pendeluum swing, the back lash to busing and affirmative action, makes the color/gender blind perspective very popular. However, the truth of discrimination is real and growing. Discrimination comes in many forms. Race is just one form, another is gender, disability, and religious belief. America has an intolerent history. The only way it has made progress on this issue has been through legislation and favorable court decisions.
The Bush Administration and the Republicans wish to push back our common beliefs to one where behavior is a matter of character and religious practice. Then punishment and natural consequences are divine retribution. Any sort of support or a hand up interferes with the will of God. So, conveniently, the powerful rule.

CBS Proposes to Leave Behind Journalism For Ratings

It seems the only news worth watching any more on TV is the Lehrer Report on PBS. If Bush has his way, that will change too.
Los Angeles Times

When this nation's founding fathers set out on their experiment in democratic governance, one of their most revolutionary ideas was that political power would be moderated not only by checks and balances built into the government, but by a free and independent press that would provide knowledge to the public and warn of pending dangers.


As James Madison bluntly observed, "A popular government without popular information, or the means of securing it, is but a prelude to a farce or tragedy, perhaps both." It is increasingly difficult to discern the vision of Madison in broadcast news today, even though most of it comes over airwaves owned by the public and licensed to commercial outlets for a few hundred dollars a year.


And now, Moonves, one of the most powerful figures in American media, says that, because of poor ratings (7 million daily viewers) and aging demographics, his network needs to go even further and "break the mold in news."


But if avoiding "dark" becomes the criterion for broadcast, how will Americans learn about such stories as New Orleans and Iraq, never mind Sierra Leone, Kosovo, the melting polar ice cap or the dying oceans? If only perky, upbeat stories and shows make it onto the air, who will inform the public and play the watchdog role?


Most correspondents, editors and producers at CBS (and elsewhere in the industry) want to do serious journalism. But as the media get increasingly ratings-driven and profit-hungry, fewer and fewer news division executives support them in this effort. The result is that too many excellent broadcast journalists now feel discouraged, debased and disgusted.

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Remember September 11, 2001

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength To Love, 1963

Assad Feels the Heat in Syria

Assad won't be making his planned trip to New York to address the UN and hopes to meet with American Government officials. Apparently, the UN Prosecutor, who is investigating the assassination of popular Lebanese leader Hariri, sees culpability extending to the highest levels of both the Lebanese and Syrian government. He has interviewed numerous top officials in Lebanon.

German Prosecutor Detlev Mehlis is back in Beirut, putting together a formidable team of U.N. interrogators and translators to go with him to Damascus on Monday to verify Syria's role in ex-Premier Hariri's assassination. Mehlis arrived in the Lebanese capital Friday evening, flying straight back from New York, where he formally lodged with U.N. chief Kofi Annan a request for a 40-day extension of his investigative mandate beyond the Sept. 15 deadline that had been set by the Security Council.


Mehlis is due to interrogate five senior Syrian intelligence officers—Gen. Asef Shawkat, Gen. Ghazi Kenaan and Brig. Gens. Rustom Ghazaleh, Mohammed Khallouf and Jameh Jameh-- plus several other officials of the Assad administration in Damascus. There is still no estimate on how long the U.N. investigation in Syria will last. The Mehlis commission held fresh interrogation sessions with Lebanon's four detained generals who headed the main security services when Hariri was murdered along with ex-Economy Minister Bassel Fleihan and 21 others Feb. 14. Former Surete Generale chief Jamil Sayyed and former commander of the Internal Security Forces (ISF) Ali Hajj were brought from their solitary confinement along with Presidential Guard Brigade commander Mustafa Hamdan to the questioning session at the commission's Monteverde headquarters at 8 a.m. Friday and were returned to their cells at 1 a.m. Saturday. The fourth detainee, former army intelligence chief Raymond Azar, was in a wretched physical shape when he arrived at Monteverde. So the commission sent him back to prison for the jail doctor to decide whether Azar should be moved to the military hospital or be treated at his cell, An Nahar reported. Media reports said up to 24 new cells have been prepared at the central government prison in Roumieh to receive new suspects sent by the Mehlis commission in Hariri's case.

Mehlis has been very busy putting together his information talking to many pro-Syrian officials in Lebanon. The pressure on current president of Lebanon Emile Lahoud has resulted in him rethinking his political future.

Emile Lahoud is determined to go to the U.N. summit in New York on Monday despite widespread opposition at home and his effective proclamation an international outcast abroad. But the beleaguered president reportedly began to make concessions, agreeing to hinge the fate of his extended term in power on the indictment the U.N. investigation commission will make in ex-premier Hariri's assassination.
"If the indictment is empty from any blame concerning the president, he will complete his extended term," An Nahar on Saturday quoted a ministerial source involved in the contacts between the Baabda Palace and the patriarchal seat in Bkirki as saying. The implication is that the president would be ready to abdicate if he is indicted.

He has already talked to Assad's brother-in-law and is scheduled to return to Damascus.

German State Prosecutor Detlev Mehlis who heads a U.N. investigating commission has formally asked for a 40-day extension of his mandate to catch Rafik Hariri's assassins, adding Syria's overall intelligence Chief Gen. Asef Shawkat to the list of officials he will interrogate in Damascus as of Saturday, the Arab media reported Friday.


An Nahar said Mehlis revealed his 40-day extension request during a meeting he held in New York Thursday with acting chief of Lebanon's U.N. mission Ibrahim Assaf. The original deadline set by the Security Council for the Mehlis investigation expires Sept. 15. Four other Syrian figures are already on Mehlis' list to interview. They are Interior Minister Gen. Ghazi Kenaan who served for years as Syria's military intelligence in Lebanon, his successor Brig. Gen. Rustom Ghazaleh and his two top security aides in Beirut when Hariri was assassinated Feb. 14, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Khallouf and Brig. Gen. Jameh Jameh. Gen. Shawkat, who is President Assad's brother-in-law, was named to head Syria's overall intelligence apparatus shortly before Hariri's assassination. Media reports said the Syrian president himself plans to give Mehlis an audience in the People's Palace in Damascus.

The Bush Administration has been making as much of this investigation as they can expecting that it will further their agenda of regime change in Syria.

The Bush administration has implied that President Assad cancelled plans to attend the impending U.N. Summit in New York because of evidence that implicates him personally in Lebanese ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination, An Nahar reported on Thursday. An Nahar's Washington correspondent Hisham Milhem quoted official American sources as saying Assad canceled his U.N. trip "because the United States opposed his visit after the emergence of serious evidence pinning the responsibility for Hariri's assassination up to the peak of the Syrian pyramid."


The U.S. has sent word to Assad via Saudi Arabia and Egypt about the Bush administration's anger over the "involvement of top Syrian political and intelligence figures in Hariri's assassination" and this contributed to Assad's decision to scrap the New York trip, Milhem reported. He quoted the American sources as attributing news of the new evidence to U.N. chief investigator Detlev Mehlis, who spent a few days at the United Nations and plans to leave back to the Middle East on Thursday. "His serious and convincing information have given us a clearer picture of the extent of the Syrian involvement in Hariri's assassination," one American official source was quoted by Milhem as saying.

There will be many casualties in Syria besides Assad. Syria is a multicultural country. Much of eastern Syria is controlled by people will strong ties to Iraq, even considered themselves Iraqi. Their support for the insurgency that they see as a Shiite power grab, is complicated by their never having the attention of the Syrian government. The blog SyriaComment.com explains the ties across the Syrian-Iraqi border.

The most important feature of regional society is tribalism. The tribal connections between the people on both sides of the border are strong and close. Almost every family has relatives in Iraq. Perhaps a mere 3% of families in the region do not have members in Iraq. The big tribes of Iraq extend into Eastern Syria, especially in the Deir az-Zur region. The leadership and strength of the tribes are centered in Iraq and not Syria, thus people took to Iraq and not Syria as their real home. Saddam had personal and strong relations with many tribal leaders in Bou Kamal and Deir ez-Zor, which made the Syrian government worry a great deal, especially when relations between the two countries deteriorated.


Most of the people in Eastern Syria often say that “our government has offered us nothing since it came to power in 1970.” All of these realities are painful but real. When you get to know these people you get to know just how confused they are about their identity. They are lost and confused by the border and divisions between the two countries. They don’t know where they belong. Because Bou Kamal is a border region, it is now important because there is war in the region. Unfortunately this was not the case previously, causing the region to be ignored by the Syrian government. Recently, Syria has tried to control the region by placing many border guards there to stop the flow of fighters across the border. Despite this effort, the United States continues to use threatening language with the Syrians.


Bou Kamal is an extension of the Ramadi governorate in Iraq, where the Iraqi opposition is centered. [Everyone here believes that] America is trying to fuel the Iraqi resistance. Thus, if Syria tries to stop the flow of goods and men into Iraq from Syria, it will put it at odds with America.


Finally, I conclude that a realistic appreciation of the geographical, social, and historical realities of this region will serve the security situation in Iraq and bring together Syrian and American policies, because the two countries ultimately share the same interests.

• Most important, Syria and the United States must dealing with the security situation in Iraq by creating better joint US - Syrian cooperation. Syria has already started showing its willingness for serious cooperation.


• Both powers must control all fundamentalist Islamic parties before they organize to the point of becoming violent and produce an effective cell structure. This should be done soon to take advantage of the current religious mood among the vast majority of religious people in the region, who realize the dangers of these movements.


• Solving the border issue should be a priority for it will help secure Iraq, much as Pakistan’s help in securing the southern border of Afghanistan has helped stabilize the new government there.

Clearly, the Bush Admininstration does not recognize what Assad can do for America. However, the more isolated and powerless he becomes in Syria, the more empowered the eastern Sunni relatives of Mosel in Syria and the less control there will be of Syrian's border.