Protect Free Speech

Incredibly, the FCC is considering locking up the final market place of ideas that drives our great democracy. With conservative corporations controlling all of our news media, giving them the final frontier of freedom, the Internet, to lock down to serve their own interests. This is unconscionable. You have two days to speak out.
ACT NOW!

Big corporate communication companies, AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast are petitioning the FCC to allow control of the Internet. They think companies that can afford to pay steep fees should be able to travel in the “fast lane” on the Internet.


Those who can’t afford those steep fees will be stuck in the slow lane – from blogs and non-profits to small business and campaigns – most of us will suffer in an internet traffic jam.


If the FCC won’t protect Net Neutrality now, our right to free speech will be impinged and the Internet as we know it will cease to exist.


The FCC is accepting public comments until June 15 – just 2 more days.


Email the FCC now and tell them to Protect Net Neutrality.

Civil War In Palestine?

United Press International - International Intelligence - Analysis
Islamic Hamas militants have reportedly seized control over many areas in the Gaza Strip routing their Fatah rivals, some of whom have fled to Egypt.
The Islamic victories aroused fears that the area would become a radical "Hamastan" backed by Iran and Syria, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas were trying to halt the clashes.
Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades seized control over large areas in the northern and southern Gaza Strip as well as in Gaza City while Fatah's security forces were "quickly disintegrating," an Israeli intelligence report said. Fatah is militarily inferior and lack an effective command, the intelligence report said.
Tuesday Hamas reportedly seized Fatah-affiliated security forces headquarters in Jabaliya, in the northern Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Media Center, affiliated with Hamas, said that more than 70 members of a family affiliated with Fatah's strongman Mohammad Dahlan, and who live nearby, have surrendered to Hamas. Dahlan is in Egypt recovering from an operation. Hamas reportedly met very little resistance when it occupied the National Security's main headquarters in the central Gaza Strip, Haaretz reported. Further south, in Khan Yunes, militants blew up a tunnel underneath the headquarters of the Preventive Security and destroyed it. Fighting then spread to Rafah, beside the border with Egypt, and militants blew up a building there, al-Jazeera TV reported.
An al-Jazeera correspondent said 52 Palestinian national security servicemen had fled towards the Egyptian border. According to another report they blew up part of the border wall and crossed.
Hamas stationed snipers atop high-rise buildings while combatants moved against buildings that Fatah-affiliated militants controlled and attacked them with rocket propelled grenades, the Ma'an news agency reported.
Fatah's stronghold is in the center of Gaza City where the Preventive Security, the Intelligence, National Security and the Presidential Guard units are located. Abbas' offices are in that area.
President Abbas nominally commands the large National Security forces but has not ordered them into action, possibly to avoid civil war.
A report carried by al-Jazeera said those forces were ordered to remain in their positions but "defend the security headquarters with all your might."
Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades have reportedly given all Fatah-affiliated security services until Friday evening to turn themselves in and surrender their arms, Ma'an reported.
Abbas appealed for a cease-fire. He reportedly contacted Hamas' Damascus-based leader Khaled Mishaal but failed to reach an agreement and then talked to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, whose house was attacked Monday night. According to Ma'an news Abbas stated the necessity of "stopping the cycle of violence in the Gaza Strip."
The report said that the two, who spoke on the phone, confirmed that "efforts must be exerted in order to reach a cease-fire agreement. They called on all parties to cease hostilities, resume dialogue ... in order to protect national unity."
However it is unclear how much of an impact such a call might have. Palestinian leaders have concluded numerous cease-fire agreements, but many were short lived. Moreover, Haniyeh apparently does not have much influence over Hamas militants.
Fatah is more powerful in the West Bank, has threatened to attack Hamas men there and sporadic clashes including a short-lived kidnapping in Nablus were reported.
Countering Hamas' apparent upper hand in Gaza, Fatah Al Aksa Brigades brought out its people in the West Bank town of Nablus. A leader, who was not named, said they were giving Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades and Executive Force "12 hours to stop the aggression against Fatah members and the security bodies in the (Gaza) Strip and return to their bases. If not, we will hit Hamas in the West Bank," they reportedly said.
Meanwhile there were appeals for Arab involvement to stop the fighting.
Abbas called several Arab and other leaders including the Egyptian and Yemeni presidents, the German chancellor and EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana. They discussed the situation, the official Wafa news agency said.
These calls had some effect. The president of the Islamic Conference, Ihsdan Addin Oghlo, reportedly phoned Haniyeh, expressed concern over the continued clashes and called for an immediate cease-fire. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh reportedly did the same.

Turkey Sees Many Incentives to Invade Iraqi Kurdistan, Few Deterents

The final straw to invade Iraqi Kurdistan may have already been broken. Recent attacks by the PKK on targets in Turkey near the Iraqi border come in the context of a election campaign that threatens to unseat the moderate Islamic Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Dar Al Hayat

Turkey fought a bitter war against the PKK from 1984 to 1999 which resulted in 35,000 dead and the displacement of some 2 million. On both sides, memories of this war are very fresh, and there is great reluctance to see it break out again. The argument on the Turkish side is that a decisive campaign against the PKK is the best way to prevent its recurrence.


What seems certain, however, is that a Turkish assault on northern Iraq would deal a serious blow to Turkey's already frayed relations with the United States, further destabilize the fragile American-backed government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad, and possibly put Turkey's own economic growth at risk.


On the other hand, a war against the PKK could yield political benefits for Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he prepares for general elections on 22 July. It could heal tensions between his moderately Islamic government and the army chiefs, who are eager for a showdown with the PKK. It could also blunt the attacks on him from the ultra-secular and ultra-nationalist Kemalist opposition.


A key legacy of Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic, was the defence of the 'territorial integrity' of the new Turkey, which he rescued in the early 1920s from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire defeated in the First World War. Ottoman domains had suffered repeated and large-scale plundering by the Great Powers throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Ataturk was determined that no one would ever again be allowed to take a bite out of Turkish territory.


[...]An autonomous Kurdish 'statelet' has already taken shape. It is now actively seeking, by an official plebiscite, to incorporate Kirkuk and is rich oil-rich region, into its domain. For Turkey, this is a red rag to a bull, because the absorption of Kirkuk would give the Kurds the economic means for full independence.


Erdogan's immediate dilemma is this: whether to authorize a military attack on the PKK in Iraq and risk a breach not only with the U.S., but also with the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government of northern Iraq under its president Mas'ud Barzani and with the Maliki government in Iraq; or fail to attack the PKK and face damaging accusations from the armed forces and from secular nationalists of capitulating to Kurdish 'separatism.'


Many observers believe the odds are that he will in the coming weeks authorize an attack. Some 150,000 Turkish troops with tanks and artillery have been massing on the border with Iraq. Mine-clearing operations on the Iraqi side of the border have been underway for several weeks, while Turkish Special Forces, often in civilian clothes, are said to have penetrated some 20 to 40 kilometers inside Iraq to prepare the ground for an attack and seal off PKK escape routes in the mountains.

PM aides fear talks with Syria could harm U.S. ties

Amid reports of a Syrian and Israeli military build up on their shared border, both countries are making peacemaking jestures as well. Apparently, the Israelis have decided that either there will be a peace settlement or there will be war with Syria.

The Cabinet met a day after the military staged war games, including a simulated attack on a Syrian village and another that simulated a surprise attack by Syrian commandos on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israeli media has reported a Syrian troop and missile build-up along its borders.


"The Syrians are making very concrete preparations but these are defensive," Major General Amos Yadlin, Israel's military intelligence chief, told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday. "They are preparing more for a war than they have done before, but that does not mean they will be ready tomorrow."

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's advisors have warned him that the Bush Administration might not look kindly on peace talks now that an UN Tribunal is looking into Syrian involvement in the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, the popular multi-billionnaire Lebanese Sunni prime minister of Lebanon.

Some of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's advisors are concerned that an initiative to renew peace talks with Syria might undermine Israel's relations with the United States. The Bush administration is not keen on reviving the Syrian track, as it considers Bashar Assad's regime problematic and harmful to regional stability. However, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi strongly supports renewed talks with Syria, with the goal of distancing Damascus from its alliance with Iran and contributing to a new regional order in which Syria would forge closer relations with moderate Arab states.


[..]According to the Israeli government source, the "evaluation" that Olmert is currently conducting via a third party is aimed at trying to determine the "strategic return" that Syria will offer Israel in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights. "We wish to know whether the border overlooking [Lake] Kinneret will be quiet, or whether there will be Hamas outposts and Iranian forces," the source said. This question is at the crux of the "evaluation," along with the transmission of messages aimed at preventing the outbreak of a war between Israel and Syria due to a "miscalculation" in Damascus.


Intelligence assessments received by Olmert emphasize Syria's central role in the "axis of evil." The prime minister would therefore like to ensure that Syria will cool its relations with Iran and reintegrate into the group of moderate Sunni states - Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia - as part of any peace deal. According to the government source, a withdrawal from the Golan Heights would be a mistake if Syria's alliance with Iran, and the support Damascus offers to Hezbollah and Hamas, continue.

Sunni/Sadr Alliance Pass Binding Resolution to End US Occupation

An alliance of Sunni and Shia legislators in the Iraqi government passed a binding resolution that if signed by Malaki will require the government to come back to the legislature before 2008 to get authorization to renew the UN Mandate that allows the US occupation of Iraq. As Nassar al Rubaie, the head of Al-Sadr bloc in Iraq's Council of Representatives explains it,

This new binding resolution will prevent the government from renewing the U.N. mandate without the parliament's permission. They'll need to come back to us by the end of the year, and we will definitely refuse to extend the U.N. mandate without conditions.... There will be no such a thing as a blank check for renewing the U.N. mandate anymore, any renewal will be attached to a timetable for a complete withdrawal."

Malaki is expected to veto the resolution.
Contrary to US disinformation campaigns that insisted that Moqtada al-Sadr was hiding in Iran, he was in fact building his coalition with the Sunnis and negotiating with insurgents who sought to isolate Salafi insurgents associated with Al Qaeda. Wouldn't it be interesting to see the future of a united Iraq come together through the efforts of Sadr, a man who the US has worked hard to isolate and discredit.
The following article that purports to give a history of Sadr's coalition building efforts, while apparently at least partially true, appears to contain elements of another attempt to discredit Sadr, this time alleging the Mahdi Army might join the insurgency. I find that part highly unlikely. But, all the negative attention that the US has given Sadr has only strengthened his political position and served to recruit more Shia to the Mahdi Army. While I suppose it is possible that US intelligence sought to strengthen Sadr by villifying him, I just don't give them that much credit. Shrewd moves is not what the Pentagon is known for these days.
Financial Express

Nationalist Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's bid to unite Sunnis and Shiites on the basis of a common demand for withdrawal of U.S. occupation forces, reported last weekend by the Washington Post's Sudarsan Raghavan, seems likely to get a positive response from Sunni armed resistance.


An account given Pentagon officials by a military officer recently returned from Iraq suggests that Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province, who have generally reflected the views of the Sunni armed resistance there, are open to working with Sadr.


Sadr's aides say he was encouraged to launch the new cross-sectarian initiative by the increasingly violent opposition from nationalist Sunni insurgents to the jihadists aligned with Al Qaeda. One of his top aides, Ahmed Shaibani, recalled that the George W. Bush administration was arguing that a timetable was unacceptable because of the danger of Al Qaeda taking advantage of a withdrawal. Shaibani told Raghavan that sectarian peace could be advanced if both Sadr's Mahdi Army and Sunni insurgent groups could unite to weaken Al Qaeda.


[..]The talks with Sunni resistance leaders have been coordinated with a series of other moves by Sadr since early February. Although many members of Sadr's Mahdi Army have been involved in sectarian killings and intimidation of Sunnis in Baghdad, Sadr has taken what appears to be a decisive step to break with those in his movement who have been linked to sectarian violence. Over the past three months, he has expelled at least 600 men from the Mahdi Army who were accused of murder and other violations of Sadr's policy, according to Raghavan.


[..]Sadr's decision in mid-April to pull his representatives out of the al-Maliki government also appears to have been aimed in part at clearing the way for an agreement with the Sunni insurgents. Leaders of those organisations have said they would not accept the U.S.-sponsored government in any peace negotiations with the United States.
U.S. officials have been quietly trying to counter Sadr's approach to the Sunni insurgents by discrediting him. Sadr went underground in February, fearing an attempt by U.S. forces to capture or kill him, and the U.S. official line on Sadr since then has been the persistent claim that he has left Iraq to take refuge in Iran. That appears to be an attempt to feed into Sunni suspicions of all Shiite leaders as agents of Iran.
Sadr's aides have repeatedly denied that Sadr has left the country. The speed with which Sadr's strategy has unfolded in recent months suggests that he has remained in close contact with his organisation. Relying on electronic communication with Sadr outside Iraq would be highly risky, given the well- known capability of U.S. intelligence to intercept any such calls.


[..]The officer also reported that Sunni tribal sheiks have explicitly disavowed the notion that Sadr is a pawn of the Iranians, insisting instead that he doesn't like either Iran or the newly-renamed Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq, which was created in Iran and supported by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.


They said Sadr hopes such provocative United States actions will ultimately result in a new Shiite resistance war against U.S. forces, and they urge swift withdrawal to avoid that outcome.


Sadr's project for a Sunni-Shiite united front against both Al Qaeda and U.S. occupation offers a potential basis for an eventual settlement of the sectarian civil war in Iraq as well as for U.S. withdrawal. But it could also be the basis for a new and more deadly phase of fighting if Sadr returns once more to military resistance.

Turkey Shelling Kurdish Iraq

Turkish paramilitary police are the target of a suicide bomber. Turkey strikes back with bringing tanks to the border and shelling Kurdish positions in Iraq.
Al Jazeera English

At least eight Turkish paramilitary police have been killed after Kurdish fighters attacked their headquarters in eastern Turkey, security sources say. Monday's attack, blamed on the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), came amid speculation that Turkey may send troops into neighbouring Iraq to attack Kurdish separatists based there. The US has pleaded for Turkey to avoid military action. Three people thought to belong to the PKK drove into the gendarmerie complex in the eastern province of Tunceli, opened fire and threw a grenade, killing eight and wounding six more. One fighter was also killed, the security sources said. The gendarmerie is a paramilitary force responsible for security in rural areas of Turkey.

Everyone wants to know if Turkey will invade Iraq. The answer is embedded in this article. Turkey has troops in Iraq and they have routinely engaged in hot pursuit engagements. They will continue with perhaps a bit larger incursion. Indeed, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul asserted it's right to take all measures necessary to deal with the PKK.
The Daily Star

Turkish forces shelled a mountain stronghold of Turkish Kurd rebels in northern Iraq on Sunday, shortly after US Defense Secretary Robert Gates cautioned Turkey against sending troops into the area. The latest attack also comes a day after Iraq's prime minister and the president of the country's northern region hit back at Turkish invasion threats, and called for diplomacy to solve the problems.


Sunday's shelling targeted Haji Umran, a mountainous area which fighters of Turkey's separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) use as a springboard to carry out attacks in Turkey.


Residents told Reuters the attack lasted about 30 minutes and caused no casualties.


"There were some strikes from Turkish forces on areas next to the Turkish border, but until now there has been no Turkish military invasion of Kurdish lands in Iraq," Massoud Barzani, president of Iraq's Kurdistan region, told a news conference Sunday.


Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, also a Kurd, told the same briefing that "we do not accept interference in others' affairs and we do not accept interference in our affairs."


Last week, Turkey moved tanks near to the Iraqi border after bomb attacks killed 12 Turks. Ankara swiftly blamed the PKK for the bombings and said its troop movement was routine.


US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, on a trip to Asia, urged Ankara not to resort to military action to solve the crisis. "We hope there would not be a unilateral military action across the border into Iraq," Gates told a news conference.


[..]Turkish commandos occasionally stage so-called "hot pursuits" of the rebels, who operate in small bands, carry little food and know fresh water sources in the region. Those pursuits are limited in time and scope.


Turks accuse Iraqi Kurds, who once fought alongside the Turkish soldiers against the PKK in Iraq, of supporting the separatist rebels and worry that the war in Iraq could lead to Iraq's disintegration and the creation of a Kurdish state in the north.Turkey also is concerned that Iraqi Kurds' efforts to incorporate the oil-rich city of Kirkuk into their self-governing region in northern Iraq could embolden rebels seeking self-rule in southeast Turkey.


Turkey already has more than 1,000 troops deployed mainly in the Suleimaniyya area in northern Iraq, since the last major incursion a decade ago. The troops run several liaison offices in the region from where they collect intelligence and monitor rebel activities in the region. On Friday, Iraqi Kurds questioned some Turkish officers in civilian clothes at gunpoint, according to the Turkish military.

The News Americans Never See: Iraq is Near Collapse

The hype you hear from Washington via mainstream media is just propaganda these days. Iraq is near collapse. The federal government in fact only governs the US guarded and walled "green zone" and very little more.
Update: US Military says 3/4 of Baghdad out of control.
The Daily Star

Iraq's government has lost control of vast areas to powerful local factions and the country is on the verge of collapse and fragmentation, a leading British think tank said on Thursday.


Chatham House also said there was not one civil war in Iraq, but "several civil wars" between rival communities, and accused Iraq's main neighbors - Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey - of having reasons "for seeing the instability there continue."


[..]"It can be argued that Iraq is on the verge of being a failed state which faces the distinct possibility of collapse and fragmentation," the group's report said. "The Iraqi government is not able to exert authority evenly or effectively over the country. Across huge swathes of territory, it is largely irrelevant in terms of ordering social, economic and political life."


The report also said that a US-backed security crackdown in Baghdad launched in February has failed to reduce overall violence across the country, as insurgent groups have just shifted the focus of their activities outside the capital.


While cautioning that Iraq might not ultimately exist as a united entity, the 12-page report said a draft law to distribute Iraq's oil wealth equitably among Sunni Arabs, Shiites and ethnic Kurds was "the key to ensuring Iraq's survival."

Tension increasing on the border between Turkey and Iraq

Tensions are rising in and around Iraq. Mosul, Kirkuk and Baghdad, large cities in Iraq, are seeing daily ethnic cleansing. Basra is in virtual anarchy with the Brits packing to leave and hunkered down while the Madhi Army and Badr Corps fight for supremacy. Saudi Arabia is funding and arming the Sunni insurgency with the tacit approval of the Bush Administration, while the US Military engages them.
Turkey, concerned about chaos in Iraq and it's border with it and terrorism in it's Kurdish minority is building troops on the border and announced it's intention to do hot pursuit of PKK fighters across the Iraqi border. An incursion into Iraq by Turkey is just a matter of time.
Al Jazeera

Turkish troops have killed two Kurdish fighters in clashes in the southeast overnight, the regional governor's office said, bringing the number killed this week to at least 16. The separatists, meanwhile, attacked a Turkish military vehicle near the border with Iraq on Friday, injuring eight soldiers, the governor's added. The overnight clash, near the town of Tunceli, was part of a series of large-scale offensives that the military has launched against separatists who cross into Turkey from bases in northern Iraq to stage attacks.


Turkey's military has been deploying troops near its border with Iraq, but says it is a routine precaution against separatist infiltrations. The massing of troops, however, coincides with debate over whether to stage an incursion into Iraq to try to eradicate separatist bases there. Turkey's military chief said on Thursday that his army was prepared to attack Kurdish fighters in a cross-border offensive but such action would need to be order by the government.


Turkey last carried out a major incursion into Iraq to chase fighters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, a decade ago. Separatist Kurdish fighters, taking advantage of a power vacuum in northern Iraq, have escalated attacks on Turkish targets. Turkey complains that the United States and Iraqi Kurds have done little to stop them. The United States opposes a Turkish military incursion into northern Iraq, fearing it could destabilise what is one of the most stable regions of the country.

The Daily Star

Turkey sent more tanks to its border with Iraq on Wednesday in a military build-up that is fueling US concern about a possible incursion into northern Iraq against Kurdish rebels.


The move came on the day that US forces handed over responsibility for security in Iraq's three Northern provinces to the Kurdish regional government.


A group of 20 tanks loaded on trucks emerged Wednesday from army barracks in Mardin near Syria and headed toward the Iraqi border in southeastern Turkey, already the scene of a major army offensive against rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).


"The PKK must be eliminated as a problem between Iraq and Turkey," Turkey's special envoy to Iraq, Oguz Celikkol, told CNN-Turk television on Wednesday after visiting Baghdad this week.


Asked whether Turkey could take unilateral action, Celikkol said: "Our expectation is that this issue is resolved before it comes to that point."

And as TomPaine.com aptly points out, it's all because of "crackpot realism", an ideological world view that has little connection with the real world, more connection with the biases and preferences of those in the Bush Administration who feel the need to act.

I’m talking about his concept of "crackpot realism," a tough-talking, no-nonsense, power-driven line of thought and action that invariably leads to disaster. Mills was particularly concerned with looming nuclear war, but his analysis holds fine in today’s non-nuclear (so far) conflict.


“In crackpot realism,” he wrote, “a high-flying moral rhetoric is joined with an opportunist crawling among a great scatter of unfocused fears and demands. ... So instead of the unknown fear, the anxiety without end, some men of the higher circles prefer the simplification of known catastrophe.”


You might think he was reporting on the planning of the Iraq invasion when he wrote, “... They know of no solutions to the paradoxes of the Middle East and Europe, the Far East and Africa except the landing of Marines... In place of these paradoxes they prefer the bright, clear problems of war—as they used to be. For they still believe that ‘winning’ means something, although they never tell us what.”


[...]On May 23, John Edwards told the Council on Foreign Relations, "By framing this as a war, we have walked right into the trap the terrorists have set—that we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war on Islam."


First we framed the Middle East conflict as a war when it wasn’t, then we initiated a full-scale war to match our language. Then, we lost.


The response to Edwards was either to attack the messenger, as the RNC did, or to dismiss it as fantasy, as the right-wing blog world did. Hard-headed realists like Dick Cheney simply continued to push the war, and the Congress continued to fund it. Apparently, a majority of federal legislators fear being identified as traitors to a war that was crackpot from the get-go. Mills would understand.

Serbia Turning Away From Europe, Toward Russia

Russia is moving quickly to consolidate it's gains in view of the power vacuum created by the US bogged down in Iraq. Central Asia has drift back towards Russia. Russia has felt strong enough to rein in Belarus and will do the same with Ukraine if given a chance. Serbia Nationalists have always felt an ethnic tie to Russia.
The current shared government that includes pro-European and pro-nationalist politicians is unlikely to continue it's flirtation with joining the EU. To maintain a stable government, it will have to steer a course away from Europe and towards Russia. Russia in turn is supporting Serbia's ambition to hold onto it's last predominantly Muslim/Albanian province Kosovo.
International Crisis Group

Serbia finally has a new government but one that is deeply divided between pro-Western and nationalist forces. Facing two difficult issues – Kosovo status and cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) – its choice is between moving towards European integration or on to a more isolationist path. The government’s composition, deep mistrust among many of its members and the parliament’s nationalist majority suggest it will follow the second option. Pro-Western forces have suffered a significant setback, the government is vulnerable to manipulation by the security services and oligarchs, and the system of divided responsibility for the security services renders unlikely serious cooperation with the ICTY, especially the arrests of Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic. Although Kosovo independence could destabilise the government, it may surprise and last far longer and prove more stable than expected. The West should prepare for Serbia turning increasingly away from Europe and towards Moscow.


[..]Brussels and Washington should resist the temptation of appeasing Serbia further in a misguided effort to purchase acceptance of Kosovo’s independence. Since February 2007, the EU has been saying that it is willing to restart Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) talks and no longer insist on as a precondition the arrest of the most notorious war criminals. The requirement set during the long haggling over a new government – that Tadic and the DS control the power ministries – is not guaranteed under the new coalition. Some in the EU still believe that by re-engaging Serbia via the SAA they can encourage pro-European forces and ease the pain of Kosovo’s formal loss, but this is misguided. The new government will choose Kosovo over Europe; appeasement would weaken, not strengthen pro-Western forces; and in the short term at least, security structures are unlikely to arrest war criminals.


The new government does plan to continue gradual economic reforms but social and political change risks bogging down in disputes between the DS and DSS. The real point of contention between the two will be foreign policy, as the latter attempts to continue nationalist and confrontational policies. Kostunica is likely to try to hide his Milosevic-era nationalist policies behind Tadic’s pro-Western inclinations, making it difficult for Washington and Brussels to confront Serbia effectively on key issues, though it is uncertain how long Tadic will permit himself to be used to defend the Kostunica line, particularly on the ICTY and Kosovo.


The squabbling over a government deepened the DS-DSS rift. Radical leader Tomislav Nikolic’s five days as parliament speaker exposed a serious weakness in the new constitution – the possibility of a parliament-authorised dictatorship – that could become a real threat following a Kosovo status decision. The West may well have to accustom itself to a Serbia that for a number of years is anti-Europe, pro-Russia and unrepentant in its dangerously self-destructive nationalism.

The Rich and the Wage Slaves

While the term "class warfare" has become politically incorrect, it seems that it also has become much more obvious, even blatant. What we are witnessing is doublethink on a cultural scale. It's not just Dubya who is into doublethink.
The incomes of CEOs have topped out, at over 250% of his third in command. But real income for the workers has been receding. Even worse, some of the professions are experiencing a glut of qualified workers that is depressing wages beyond belief. Then there is the real story of modern slavery, yes, in the US.
AlterNet

Recent findings shed new light on the increasingly unequal terrain of American society. Starting at the top executive level: You may have thought, as I did, that the guys in the C-suites operated as a team -- or, depending on your point of view, a pack or gang -- each getting his fair share of the take. But no, the rising tide in executive pay does not lift all yachts equally. The latest pay gap to worry about is the one between the CEO and his -- or very rarely her -- third in command.


According to a just-reported study by Carola Frydman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Raven E. Saks at the Federal Reserve, 30-40 years ago, the CEO's of major companies earned 80 percent more, on average, than the third-highest-paid executives. By the early part of the 21st century, however, the gap CEO and the third in command had ballooned up to 260 percent.


Now take a look at what's happening at the very bottom of the economic spectrum, where you might have pictured low-wage workers trudging between food banks or mendicants dwelling in cardboard boxes. It turns out, though, that the bottom is a lot lower than that.


On May 16, a millionaire couple in a woodsy Long Island suburb was charged with keeping two Indonesian domestics as slaves for five years, during which the women were paid $100 a month, fed very little, forced to sleep on mats on the floor, and subjected to beatings, cigarette burns and other torments.


This is hardly an isolated case (see my book, Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy, co-edited with Arlie Hochschild.) If the new "top" involves pay in the tens or hundreds of millions, a private jet and a few acres of Nantucket, the new bottom is slavery.


Some of America's slaves are captive domestics, like the Indonesian women in Long Island. Others are factory workers, and at least 10,000 are sex slaves lured from their home country to American brothels by promises of respectable jobs. CEOs and slaves: these are the extreme ends of American class polarization.


But a parallel kind of splitting is going in many of the professions. Top-ranked college professors, for example, enjoy salaries of several hundred thousand a year, often augmented by consulting fees and earnings from their patents or biotech companies. At the other end of the professoriate, you have adjunct teachers toiling away for about $5000 a semester or less, with no benefits or chance of tenure. There was a story a few years ago about an adjunct who commuted to his classes from a homeless shelter in Manhattan, and adjuncts who moonlight as waitresses or cleaning ladies are legion.


Similarly, the legal profession, which is topped by law firm partners billing hundred of dollars an hour, now has a new proletariat of temp lawyers working for $19-25 an hour in sweatshop conditions. On sites like http://temporaryattorney.blogspot.com/, temp lawyers report working 12 hours a day, six days a week, in crowded basements with inadequate sanitary facilities. According to an article in American Lawyer, a legal temp at a major New York firm reports being "corralled in a windowless basement room littered with dead cockroaches," where six out of seven exits were blocked.

Northern Iraq Begins to Unravel

Ethnic cleansing takes on a new seriousness and demonstrates Iraq teetering on the brink of partitian. Arabs are being driven out of Kirkuk, Kurds from Mosul. It seems likely that Turkey is supporting the Arab move in Mosul, hoping to weaken the Kurdish hold on their border areas. Turkey has stated they will not tolerate a Kurdish independent state on their border.
Partition is just a matter of time in Iraq. A united Iraq is only a vague concept in a minorities thoughts, no one seems capable of acting in a nation's interest.
New York Times

Sunni Arab militants, reinforced by insurgents fleeing the new security plan in Baghdad, are trying to rid Mosul of its Kurdish population through violence and intimidation, Kurdish officials said.


Mosul, Iraq’s third largest city, with a population of 1.8 million, straddles the Tigris River on a grassy, windswept plain in the country’s north. It was recently estimated to be about a quarter Kurdish, but Sunni Arabs have already driven out at least 70,000 Kurds and virtually erased the Kurdish presence from the city’s western half, said Khasro Goran, the deputy governor of surrounding Nineveh Province and a Kurd.


The militants “view this as a Sunni-dominated town, and they view the Kurds as encroaching on Mosul,” said Col. Stephen Twitty, commander of the Fourth Brigade, First Cavalry Division, which is deployed in Nineveh. Some Kurdish and Christian enclaves remain on the east side, though their numbers are dwindling. Kurdish officials say the flight has accelerated in recent months, contributing to the wider ethnic and religious partitioning that is taking place all over Iraq.


Nineveh is Iraq’s most diverse province, with a dizzying array of ethnic and religious groups woven into an area about the size of Maryland. For centuries, Arabs, Kurds, Christians, Turkmens, Yezidis and Shabaks lived side by side in these verdant hills, going to the same schools, bartering in the same markets, even intermarrying on occasion.


But what took generations to build is starting to unravel in the shadow of the Sunni Arab insurgency, which is tapping into several wells of ethnic resentment.

Time to Defend Our Freedom of Information

Concerned about protecting our freedom of speech and access to information? The FCC is about to give our rights away to the huge tele-coms who have demonstrated their intent to control our access and expression of information.
This may be our last chance to save the internet from corporate control.

The FCC is on the verge of turning over a large chunk of the public airwaves to the same giant phone and cable companies that control high-speed Internet access for 96 percent of American home users.


This public "spectrum" could revolutionize the Internet in America. Its wireless signal passes through concrete buildings and over mountains; it can connect tens of million of Americans that are now being bypassed by Internet providers like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast.


Don't let the FCC turn over these airwaves to the same price-gouging network giants that control wired access. We need a new alternative to DSL and cable. The FCC must use this wireless opportunity to connect more Americans to an open, neutral and accessible Internet.


Save the Internet

Diary of a Christian Terrorist

Here is a profile of a student at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. While I'm sure that University officials will disavow any knowledge of his actions. Here is a good example of what sort of Right Wing Christian terrorists are being produced in the Bible belt today.
AlterNet

Visitors to Mark David Uhl's Myspace page will quickly learn that Uhl is a student at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, that he is a devoted Christian, that his name means "Mighty Warrior" -- and that he likes Will Smith's saccharine tear-up-the-club track, "Switch." Uhl reveals his career ambitions on his page as well: "I will join the Army as an officer after college." Already, Uhl was preparing in Liberty's ROTC program.


Uhl waited until he was offline, however, to reveal his plot to kill the family of itinerant Calvinist provocateur Fred Phelps (famous for their "Fag Troops" rallies outside soldiers' funerals). The Phelpses planned to protest Falwell's funeral, a bizarre stunt designed to highlight Falwell's somehow insufficiently draconian attitude towards homosexuals. Uhl made several bombs and allegedly told a family member he planned to use them to attack the Phelps family.


He was arrested soon after and charged with manufacturing explosives. On the surface, Uhl appears to be the latest version of Virginia Tech rampage killer (and "Richard McBeef" author) Cho Seung-Hui. Indeed, both Uhl and Cho were alienated young men who conceived or carried out campaigns of mass murder on college campuses.


But there is a crucial difference between Uhl and Cho: while Cho's motives remain a source of intense debate, Uhl was an a devout evangelical Christian who advocated religious violence in the name of American nationalism. Uhl's blog, featured on his Myspace page, offers a window into the political underpinnings of his bomb plot. In one post, Uhl implores Christians to die on the battlefield for "Uncle Sam." He justifies his call to arms by quoting several Biblical passages and reminding his readers that the "gift of God" is eternal life.


"Christians, we have been given life after death and we should help others receive it and not sit here in our big buildings and sing to ourselves so we can go home and feel good about ourselves," Uhl writes. "Christians, fear of death, fear of death. The fear of death shows you don't believe."


Uhl concludes, "God needs soldiers to fight so his children may live free. Are you afraid??? I'm not. SEND ME!!! "

US Media Distorting Truth About Chavez

The sad thing is, we can no long trust our mainstream media sources. The owners and sponsors of mainstream media are distorting the truth to further their political agenda. And their politics are inconsistency with freedom of speech. Our democracy is in grave danger.
The issue here is the control the multi-national corporations have through the World Bank and via globalization. Chavez has instituted trade policies that favor the Venezuelan people, rather than the multi-nationals.
Fair: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting

The story is framed in U.S. news media as a simple matter of censorship: Prominent Venezuelan TV station RCTV is being silenced by the authoritarian government of President Hugo Chavez, who is punishing the station for its political criticism of his government.


[...]RCTV and other commercial TV stations were key players in the April 2002 coup that briefly ousted Chávez's democratically elected government. During the short-lived insurrection, coup leaders took to commercial TV airwaves to thank the networks. "I must thank Venevisión and RCTV," one grateful leader remarked in an appearance captured in the Irish film The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. The film documents the networks’ participation in the short-lived coup, in which stations put themselves to service as bulletin boards for the coup—hosting coup leaders, silencing government voices and rallying the opposition to a march on the Presidential Palace that was part of the coup plotters strategy.


On April 11, 2002, the day of the coup, when military and civilian opposition leaders held press conferences calling for Chávez's ouster, RCTV hosted top coup plotter Carlos Ortega, who rallied demonstrators to the march on the presidential palace. On the same day, after the anti-democratic overthrow appeared to have succeeded, another coup leader, Vice-Admiral Victor Ramírez Pérez, told a Venevisión reporter (4/11/02): "We had a deadly weapon: the media. And now that I have the opportunity, let me congratulate you."


That commercial TV outlets including RCTV participated in the coup is not at question; even mainstream outlets have acknowledged as much. As reporter Juan Forero, Jackson Diehl's colleague at the Washington Post, explained (1/18/07), "RCTV, like three other major private television stations, encouraged the protests," resulting in the coup, "and, once Chávez was ousted, cheered his removal." The conservative British newspaper the Financial Times reported (5/21/07), "[Venezuelan] officials argue with some justification that RCTV actively supported the 2002 coup attempt against Mr. Chávez."


As FAIR's magazine Extra! argued last November, "Were a similar event to happen in the U.S., and TV journalists and executives were caught conspiring with coup plotters, it’s doubtful they would stay out of jail, let alone be allowed to continue to run television stations, as they have in Venezuela."


When Chávez returned to power the commercial stations refused to cover the news, airing instead entertainment programs—in RCTV's case, the American film Pretty Woman. By refusing to cover such a newsworthy story, the stations abandoned the public interest and violated the public trust that is seen in Venezuela (and in the U.S.) as a requirement for operating on the public airwaves. Regarding RCTV's refusal to cover the return of Chavez to power, Columbia University professor and former NPR editor John Dinges told Marketplace (5/8/07):

What RCTV did simply can't be justified under any stretch of journalistic principles…. When a television channel simply fails to report, simply goes off the air during a period of national crisis, not because they're forced to, but simply because they don't agree with what's happening, you've lost your ability to defend what you do on journalistic principles.

Patrick McElwee of the U.S.-based group Just Foreign Policy:

The RCTV case is not about censorship of political opinion. It is about the government, through a flawed process, declining to renew a broadcast license to a company that would not get a license in other democracies, including the United States. In fact, it is frankly amazing that this company has been allowed to broadcast for 5 years after the coup, and that the Chávez government waited until its license expired to end its use of the public airwaves.

US Ties Trade Conflict with China to Taiwan

Typical of the militarist actions of the Bush Administration, they have somehow decided that the implicit trade competition with China is one sphere of conflict. When trade talks fail to make progress, the Pentagon sends a threatening message defensive of Taiwan.
In their twisted view of the world, somehow the huge in indebtedness to China must also have some calculation in the process. Perhaps the threat of defaulting on the loans to China has some coercive power. At any rate, the Chinese will certainly take this threat seriously and will also escalate their defensive posture and offensive rhetoric.
washingtonpost.com

In the report, the Defense Department explicitly describes what would happen if China should attack Taiwan, the self-governing democratic island that Beijing claims as its own. It says China does not yet have "the military capability to accomplish with confidence its political objectives on the island, particularly when confronted with the prospect of U.S. intervention."


An attack could severely damage China's economy and lead to international sanctions, spur a Taiwan insurgency that could tie up the Chinese military for years, and possibly cause Beijing to lose its coveted hosting rights for the 2008 Olympics, the report said.


"Finally, China's leaders recognize that a conflict over Taiwan involving the United States would give rise to a long-term hostile relationship between the two nations _ a result that would not be in China's interests," the report said.


[...]The report comes after high-level U.S.-China economic meetings this week failed to reach any breakthrough on the countries' biggest economic dispute: China's currency, which American manufacturers say is undervalued by as much as 40 percent. That makes Chinese products cheaper for Americans and U.S. goods more expensive in China.


The Pentagon report also said the People's Liberation Army has been acquiring better missiles, submarines and aircraft and should more fully explain the purpose of a military buildup that has led some to view China as a threat. It noted, however, that "the PLA remains untested in modern warfare."


Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute, said China's military still is relatively modest, despite the country's huge population and booming economy.


"There really isn't much in China's military programs that would lead you to the conclusion that they want to do anything beyond being influential in East Asia," he said.


If the Bush administration were truly worried about the possibility of a Chinese military challenge, he said, it would be rethinking the vibrant trade ties between the countries, which it has yet to do.


"If China was really a threat, would we be moving our factories there at the rate of one a day?" he asked. "During the Cold War, nobody in America ever proposed building television sets or cars in Russia."

Dark Deeds Alleged of Cheney

Recently the President signed an executive order formulating a plan to take dictatorial powers should there be a national emergency. The nature of that emergency was not defined. Nine more ships including two aircraft carriers have entered into the Persian Gulf. Although I've not found confirmation, but I believe that makes four carriers in operating distance of the Gulf. That is the same number that was needed to invade Iraq.
CIA sources have allegedly leaked that Bush has authorized covert operations against Iran. I seriously doubt the CIA would aid the Bush Administration in any such way. This leak serves the Administration's policy and increases pressure on Iran.
Now comes a startling but believable allegation that Cheney has gone rouge. Clearly, there has been entirely too much Israeli access to US foreign policy. In fact, I believe that Israeli agents planted part of the information that the Bush Administration use to justify the invasion of Iraq with the long range intent to confront Iran.
The Washington Note

Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney's national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush's tack towards Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.


This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an "end run strategy" around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument.


The thinking on Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).


This strategy would sidestep controversies over bomber aircraft and overflight rights over other Middle East nations and could be expected to trigger a sufficient Iranian counter-strike against US forces in the Gulf -- which just became significantly larger -- as to compel Bush to forgo the diplomatic track that the administration realists are advocating and engage in another war.


There are many other components of the complex game plan that this Cheney official has been kicking around Washington. The official has offered this commentary to senior staff at AEI and in lunch and dinner gatherings which were to be considered strictly off-the-record, but there can be little doubt that the official actually hopes that hawkish conservatives and neoconservatives share this information and then rally to this point of view. This official is beating the brush and doing what Joshua Muravchik has previously suggested -- which is to help establish the policy and political pathway to bombing Iran.


The zinger of this information is the admission by this Cheney aide that Cheney himself is frustrated with President Bush and believes, much like Richard Perle, that Bush is making a disastrous mistake by aligning himself with the policy course that Condoleezza Rice, Bob Gates, Michael Hayden and McConnell have sculpted.


According to this official, Cheney believes that Bush can not be counted on to make the "right decision" when it comes to dealing with Iran and thus Cheney believes that he must tie the President's hands.


On Tuesday evening, i spoke with a former top national intelligence official in this Bush administration who told me that what I was investigating and planned to report on regarding Cheney and the commentary of his aide was "potentially criminal insubordination" against the President. I don't believe that the White House would take official action against Cheney for this agenda-mongering around Washington -- but I do believe that the White House must either shut Cheney and his team down and give them all garden view offices so that they can spend their days staring out their windows with not much to do or expect some to begin to think that Bush has no control over his Vice President.

A Coherent Voice in the Darkness

John Edwards stands taller every day in my view. Most recently, he's reputiated the Democratic leadership capitulation to the Bush Iraq policy. Secondly, he notes the problem with whole concept of the "War on Terror" and the need the address the underlying cause: global poverty.
John Edwards for President

Russia's direction is critically important to America's national security—from non-proliferation and energy security to the spread of HIV/AIDS. And as our report's title made clear, Russia has been headed in the wrong direction, whether in its de-democratization or by bullying its neighbors.


Unfortunately, we have not been able to concentrate sufficient energy on critical issues like getting our relationship with Russia right. Instead, we've been distracted by larger problems created by this president's military and national security policy.


The core of this presidency has been a political doctrine that George Bush calls the "Global War on Terror." He has used this doctrine like a sledgehammer to justify the worst abuses and biggest mistakes of his administration, from Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, to the war in Iraq. The worst thing about the Global War on Terror approach is that it has backfired—our military has been strained to the breaking point and the threat from terrorism has grown.


[..]Iraq has done tremendous damage to the U.S. interests in the Middle East, our military, and to our moral authority to lead. It has also completely consumed our country's foreign policy debate. In Congress and the White House, the focus has been on when to get out, how to get out, and how quickly. Too little consideration has been given to what happens after we get out—and that is the very least we owe to the men and women of the U.S. armed forces and their families, who have sacrificed so much.


I believe that once we are out of Iraq, the U.S. must retain sufficient forces in the region to prevent a genocide, deter a regional spillover of the civil war, and prevent an Al Qaeda safe haven. We will most likely need to retain Quick Reaction Forces in Kuwait and in the Persian Gulf. We will also need some presence in Baghdad, inside the Green Zone, to protect the American Embassy and other personnel. Finally, we will need a diplomatic offensive to engage the rest of the world in Iraq's future—including Middle Eastern nations and our allies in Europe.


[..]As we all saw six years ago, on September 11, America's greatness alone does not protect us from very real threats.


At that moment, the president could have sent a message of swift justice but also moral leadership. He could have told us where destroying Al Qaeda fit into the broader challenges America faces in the new century. He could have asked all Americans to sacrifice in this new struggle, inviting a hopeful new era of citizenship as the ultimate answer to the terrorists' cynical, evil attack.


But he didn't. Instead, he adopted the most short-sighted, ideological policies available. His strategy has put severe strain on our military... tarnished our moral standing in the eyes of the world... and emboldened our enemies.


It is now clear that George Bush's misnamed "war on terror" has backfired—and is now part of the problem.


The war on terror is a slogan designed only for politics, not a strategy to make America safe. It's a bumper sticker, not a plan. It has damaged our alliances and weakened our standing in the world. As a political "frame," it's been used to justify everything from the Iraq War to Guantanamo to illegal spying on the American people. It's even been used by this White House as a partisan weapon to bludgeon their political opponents. Whether by manipulating threat levels leading up to elections, or by deeming opponents "weak on terror," they have shown no hesitation whatsoever about using fear to divide.


But the worst thing about this slogan is that it hasn't worked. The so-called "war" has created even more terrorism—as we have seen so tragically in Iraq. The State Department itself recently released a study showing that worldwide terrorism has increased 25% in 2006, including a 40% surge in civilian fatalities.


By framing this as a "war," we have walked right into the trap that terrorists have set—that we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war against Islam.

Read on for a comprehensive review of Edward's foreign policy ideas. He is truly a breath of fresh air.

Gore Hasn't Ruled Out Running for President

Since Barry Goldwater, politicians have decided that being too honest will get you rejected by the voters. Because of dishonest politicians, our country is in grave danger of losing it's democracy.
Perhaps, the greatest statesman of our time is speaking out. Having already lost an election being percieved as "wishy washy" waffling on the issues, he's been bluntly honest ever since. Perhaps because of that, he's not running for President.
But would he accept a draft from the floor of the convention? I'd bet my paycheck he would.
New York Times Blog

On whether he may run for president again, and what it would take for him to run:


“I’m not looking for factors that will cause me to run. I’m not – some people here have heard me answer this question enough times that I worry about being repetitious. It’s true that I haven’t completely ruled it out, I don’t think it’s necessary to do that. I don’t expect to run, so I don’t know how to answer that question.”


“Maybe at some point in the future I will have some interest in doing that again. But I don’t feel that right now.”


On whether he believed the Supreme Court stole the 2000 presidential election with its decision in Bush v. Gore:


“I’ve chosen not to challenge the rule of law, because in our system there really is no intermediate step between a Supreme Court decision and violent revolution. When the Supreme Court makes a decision, no matter how strongly one disagrees with it, one faces a choice –are we, in John Adams’ phrase, a nation of laws, or is it a contest made on raw power?”


On whether he believes he won the state of Florida in 2000:


“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll write another book about that.”


On the state of American democracy:


“Mark my words: it is in danger today, it has been weakened to a very dangerous degree. The politicians are paralyzed. The system is not going to right itself until we, all of us, take a much greater responsibility in participating as citizens.”

Oil Law Debate in Iraq Headed for Disaster

All the hoohaa about the surge appears to be headed for naught. This think tank which in my experience is middle of the road and seldom emphatic, is quite blunt about the incompetence of the diplomatic efforts by the US with the Iraqis on the oil law that could heal most wounds. It's predicted to fail here. The whole article is worth the read.
PINR

It now appears impossible for Iraq's parliament to pass the national oil law by the government-imposed deadline of May 31, 2007. The immediate cost of this failure will be economic -- while many of the Western majors would not invest in Iraq due to the remaining security risks, Eastern and smaller oil firms appear willing if the political risks were first removed through legislation.


However, the long-term damage done by the failure to reach a consensus on the oil law will be a hardening of the sectarian fractures in Iraq's political landscape. The debates surrounding the oil law do not center on what is best for the country as a whole, but only on what is best for each sectarian group. By defining the debate as yet another zero sum competition, Iraq's politicians have made it impossible to emerge from the negotiations without at least one group feeling like the losers. The U.S. Embassy in Iraq has only encouraged this situation by insisting on a greater role for foreign firms in future investments.


[..]Iraq's national oil law has become an important factor in gauging the country's progress on political reconciliation. Judging by the debate surrounding the oil law, such a reconciliation will not be in the offing any time soon. Each sectarian and political group brings to the debate its own agenda, and these are incompatible with each other. Rather than looking for areas where compromise might be found, each group has dug in and looks to demand further concessions before voting for the oil law.


This puts Washington and al-Maliki in the precarious position of pushing for any law to be passed, even if it may be against their interests in the long term. Washington has hinged its military surge on progress from al-Maliki's government to pass measures demonstrating the political reconciliation of Iraq's sectarian groups. In turn, al-Maliki must push for the passage of such measures out of fear of losing support from Washington.


This is a situation that the Kurdish, Sunni, and al-Sadr-led groups would like to use to their advantage. Because the debate has been framed in these zero-sum terms, there will invariably be a loser. This, by definition, makes the possibility of Iraq's oil law leading to national reconciliation zero. It is likely that the law will be passed in some form in the next few weeks, but its passage will only hasten rather than slow Iraq's drift toward factionalism.

Provoking Iran: Leaked "Covert" Ops against Iran and Two Carrier Battle Groups Join Two Already in Gulf

I think we are seeing the predicted hard play to provoke Iran into defending it's honor with two major moves. Special Ops have been in Iran since at least late 2004. So the most recent leak is very likely disinformation designed to provoke Iran into acting when the US has the strongest hand available, four carrier battle groups in the Gulf.
Last month, some were asserting that as soon as there are four carrier battle groups in the Gulf, look for a provocation to Iran, a "Gulf of Tonkin" incident designed to make it appear that Iran started the fight.
Well, there are now four carriers in the Gulf. One has been scheduled to be relieved, and another was a last minute addition for the "exercises".
Al Jazeera

Nine US warships carrying 17,000 personnel have entered the Gulf in a show of force off Iran's coast. Navy officials said on Wednesday that this was the largest daytime assembly of ships since the 2003 Iraq war. The group of ships crossed the Straits of Hormuz at roughly 03:55 GMT on Wednesday.


Rear Admiral Kevin Quinn, the group leader, said the ships would conduct exercises as part of a long-planned effort to assure regional allies of US commitment to Gulf security. Navy officials said the decision to send a second aircraft carrier was made at a last minute, without giving a reason.

It's interesting to see the comments below this post slamming ABC for releasing "secret" information. Bush gets a double punch, Iran gets provoked and ABC gets a black eye. These are scary times.
The Blotter

The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.