Fighting for the Constitution in Congress and in Your Town

Do you like our American way of life? Do you appreciate a country your mail and personal documents are beyond government's eyes without a court order? Do you believe anyone locked up should be charged, given a trial by jury of his peers and where you are innocent until proven guilty? This is what America is about, right?
Bush's America is a country without these rights. Stand up and make your voice heard. Or you may soon not be able to speak up with being charged with sedition and jeopardizing National Security. If you believe that isn't possible, put your head back in the sand and ignore what's going on and kiss your freedoms goodbye.

Fighting for the Constitution in Congress and in Your Town

This week, a Senate committee in secret session approved new Patriot Act provisions that are nothing less than an end-run around the Constitution. The proposed new government powers would allow the FBI to issue search orders without prior judicial approval and to seize personal records from medical facilities, libraries, hotels, gun dealers, banks and other businesses without any specific suspicion of criminal activity, or any specific facts connecting the records sought to an agent of a foreign government.

But ACLU efforts to reform the Patriot Act and resist this latest Bush Administration power grab are well underway, and Congress is facing new pressure from Americans across the political spectrum -- and from members and supporters like you.

The Bush Administration wants the Patriot Act made permanent, it wants even more power, and it doesn't want Congress to ask any more meddlesome questions about the Bill of Rights.

That's where you come in. Today we are asking ACLU members and activists to contact their representatives by phone and speak out to stop the government from stripping away their rights. If you've recently called your representative about this critical threat to our liberties, thank you. If you haven't, I urge you to do so. Congress must hear from each and every one of us who think the Patriot Act goes too far in curbing our privacy and liberty. Your call will make a difference.

One of the most inspiring things about my job and about this work is the number of dedicated individuals I come into contact with and the extraordinary passion and expertise each person and each group brings to our efforts. For our lobbying team, the focus now shifts to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees. In local communities around the country, members and affiliate staff are already burning up the pavement talking to their neighbors and their representatives about what they can do to keep us safe and free.

The full Congress could debate and vote on the Patriot Act as early as the end of this month. Without exaggeration, the stakes have never been higher for civil liberties in America. I will continue to keep you updated with recent developments in this historic debate over our system of laws, our fundamental freedoms and our national character.

I sincerely hope you will help in whatever way you can. Make your voice heard -- tell Congress that the Patriot Act should not be made permanent, and it absolutely must not be expanded.

Anthony D. Romero
Executive Director

Take Action! Urge your Members of Congress to oppose expansion of the Patriot Act.

Stay informed about the issues and our efforts.

Big Trouble in Bolivia

Bolivia has had a popular insurrection since Che Guevara stalked the mountains there in the 1960's. In that context, I did a bit of investigating about the recent history of Bolivia and found a common denominator. Oil and Natural Gas.
Senator Prepares to Take Over in Bolivia Despite Opposition

Outgoing President Carlos Mesa and other leaders warned of an impending "civil war" as a conservative senator prepared Wednesday to assume power in this conflict-ravaged country.


Hormando Vaca Diez, who could be sworn in as early as today, told reporters a "blood bath" could result if protest groups opposed his presidency. Vaca Diez, as president of the Senate, is next in line to succeed Mesa, who offered his resignation Monday.


Groups representing Indians, agricultural workers and unions that have laid siege to La Paz and other Bolivian cities said Wednesday that they would vehemently oppose Vaca Diez's succession because he represented the nation's "eastern oligarchy."

Looking through the material I found here and here. There appears to be a lot of articles about the US meddling in Bolivia to corner a profitable oil/gas market. Meanwhile, the people, the poorest in South America, have demanded a 50% share of the oil/gas profits, apparently in payments not unlike Native American casinos have paid out. Indeed, why should a few fat cats get all the profit in a dirt poor country?
AxisofLogic

The deal was approved by Congress. However, but when it went to the Senate for ratification, President Mesa made recommendations to the Senate which included the possibility of loophole-recovery of these fees by U.S.-based multinational corporations. The Senate amended the law to include new language proposed by Mesa, ratified it, and sent it back to President Mesa to sign it into law. But then president Mesa, obviously fearful of the repercussions, would not give final approval to the law and turned it over to Congress! May 18, President of the Congress, Hormando Vaca Díez stated, “I have no other option but to sign this law in light of the refusal of President Mesa”.

But the "eastern oligarchy" referred to in the LA Times article is a rich man's secessionist movement in the region around Santa Cruz, not coincidentally the area that has the oil. These fat cats, it appears, are backed by the US government. If a new President can't put down the popular insurrection, Santa Cruz will secede apparently with US support with the sole intent of selling oil to the oil companies. How better for Bush to compensate for the loss of Venezuela oil?
Today, legislators had to be flown to Sucre in military airplanes for to ensure Diez could be elected president without disruption. Will civil war break out? It seems inevitable. Poor residents of Santa Cruz have barricaded the gasoline facility to blockade gas from reaching La Paz until the oil companies are nationalized. The capital city is surrounded by the "social movements" supporters.
DallasNews.com | News for Dallas, Texas | World

At the root of Bolivia's unrest is a deep sense among the impoverished Indian majority of a lack of political representation and an unjust distribution of resources. The Indians want:


Social benefits for the poor, including more job opportunities, better wages and improved access to health care and education in rural areas. A constitutional assembly in which delegates from all sectors of society gather to craft a new constitution that would grant more power to Quechua and Aymara Indians and adopt a new economic model that gives more control to the state. Nationalization of Bolivia's oil industry, which protesters say would redistribute wealth. Privatization and plans to export gas have sparked fears that only wealthy Bolivians and corporations would benefit.


Many members of Bolivia's middle and upper classes feel disjointed from a population that paralyzes the country when they have a grievance. They want:


An end to the protests that they say halt business and development. Political autonomy from the rest of the country in the relatively prosperous regions of Santa Cruz and Tarija, where the majority of natural resources are located and the free-market economic model is embraced.


SOURCE: Associated Press

Before you assume that the "many middle and upper classes" referred to in the above quote makes it sound like an honest disagreement between large parts of the population, remember that middle class in a poor country is relatively small. So the many, is a minority of the overall population. Things are likely to get ugly very fast.

Disinformation About Iran?

This whole article smells of disinformation. It would appear the Bush Administration has found a proxy to provide intelligence now that the CIA has been discredited.
Iran Preparing for Advanced Nuclear Work, Officials Say

An inspection team from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, will begin work today in Natanz. The team will verify whether Iran is complying with the enrichment suspension ahead of an IAEA board meeting next week in Vienna.


The complex at Natanz, about 150 miles south of Tehran, is the heart of Iran's enrichment effort. Plans call for more than 50,000 centrifuges to be installed in two vast underground halls, where they could produce large quantities of enriched uranium, the Western intelligence officials said.


Earlier this year, Iran finished covering the main plant with 25 feet of concrete and an additional layer of earth. Satellite photos show that the entrance to the underground complex and two large air shafts were concealed by what appear to be dummy buildings.


Journalists taken on a government-led tour of Natanz in March reported that the 1,100-acre site was ringed by at least 10 antiaircraft batteries. Iranian officials said the missiles and underground facilities were prompted by concerns over possible attacks by the U.S. or Israel.


The IAEA has been investigating Iran's nuclear program since an exile group disclosed the existence of Natanz in August 2002, exposing an ambitious Iranian effort that had been kept secret for nearly two decades.


Though questions remain, the IAEA says it has found no evidence of a weapons program.


Two Western intelligence officials and a nuclear expert, all from a government opposed to Iran's nuclear efforts, said they had developed "very solid information" about plans to manufacture and install 54,000 centrifuges at Natanz. They said up to two-thirds of them would be the advanced model, known as the P-2. They said they were uncertain about the key issue of when Iran would build and install the machines.


Tehran told the IAEA last year that it had stopped all research and development on P-2s. If Iran is building the advanced centrifuges, that would violate its agreements with the three European nations and the international agency, diplomats said.


In separate interviews, diplomats close to the IAEA said that, although it is likely Natanz will eventually house P-2s, they had no information that Iran was working on the machines.

What did Bush say about using unnamed sources in the press?
The western intelligence agents referred to above seem likely to be Israeli. They are not named because too many people know they routinely use disinformation without blinking to justify military actions.
Who better would benefit from a campaign against Iran? Who is most worried about Iran's nuclear weapons capability? I have no reason to doubt the credibility of the IAEA. They were right about Iraq. There are neo-con fingerprints all over this report. It's well known that neo-cons hangout with Israeli spies.

Rumsfeld Discovers "Something's Wrong" at DOD

Arms Fiascoes Lead to Alarm Inside Pentagon - New York Times

"Something's wrong with the system," Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld recently told Congress.


The Pentagon has more than 80 major new weapons systems under development, which is "a lot more programs than we can afford," a senior Air Force official, Blaise J. Durante, said. Their combined cost, already $300 billion over budget, is $1.47 trillion and climbing.


In the civilian world, next-generation technologies, like cellphones and computers, rarely cost much more than their predecessors. But the Pentagon's new planes and ships are costing three, four and five times as much as the weapons they will replace. As prices soar, the number of new weapons that the American military can afford shrinks, even with the biggest budget in decades.


"We're No. 1 in the world in military capabilities," said David M. Walker, who runs the Government Accountability Office, the budget overseer for Congress. "But on the business side, the Defense Department gets a D - giving them the benefit of the doubt. If they were a business, they wouldn't be in business."


Neither the Pentagon nor Congress nor the weapons contractors have any prescription to cure the problem. But in interviews and public testimony, military leaders, arms makers and government auditors generally agreed on why the nation's arsenal costs so much.


They said the military conjures up dream weapons, like the Extended Range Guided Munition that the Navy had such trouble with. It sets immensely expensive technological requirements that are far beyond the state of the art of war, weapons executives say. Officials at the handful of major military contractors cross their fingers and promise to fulfill those visions. Almost no one flatly rejects the wish list for weapons and requirements. The military adds new technologies to many weapons already under development. Those systems add complexity and weight, which add costs to planes, ships and tanks.


Military officials routinely understate the anticipated costs of weapons, said Winslow T. Wheeler, who analyzed armaments spending as a Senate staff member advising both Republicans and Democrats for 31 years. When costs rise far beyond the promised ceilings, he said, almost no one takes responsibility.


Oversight is dwindling, Pentagon officials acknowledge. While the dollar value of weapons contracts doubled over the last decade, the Pentagon halved the size of the work force that polices their costs. The government work of managing the design, development and production of weapons has been largely outsourced to the weapons contractors themselves.


Technological troubles add billions to the cost of armaments, Congressional auditors said. But no one knows precisely how much, since the Pentagon often cannot keep track of the money it spends.

Amazingly, Rumsfeld admits he's set off a fiasco by funding so many arms programs that the Department of Defense (DOD) can't manage them. Of course, he doesn't know what's wrong. Ummmm.... WAKE UP!
The Administration that touts itself as the champion of free enterprise can't manage it's own enterprise. One of the standing principles of good business planning is that you can't take on more than you can manage without creating a lot of mediocrity and waste. Since when is being barely adequate acceptable for our national security?
The Bush Administration has to be the most incompetent bunch since Herbert Hoover.

U.S. Has No Policy on North Korea

Japan Today - Commentary - U.S. has no policy on N Korea

The game that Kim Jong-il has played with the United States seems to be working. The U.S. has been playing a reactive role from the beginning and it is Pyongyang that is calling the shots. This is the result of a series of miscalculations, including overestimating China's role as a peacemaker. While China states that it desires a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, no one asked the question if that is really to its benefit. As long as China can cut off the food and fuel to North Korea, it has the greatest influence over that country.


However, the Chinese have chosen not to use that control to pressure North Korea back into the talks. The reason is because the ongoing threat of North Korea's nuclear arms program helps China keep both U.S. and Japan's focus in Asia on North Korea and not on less important issues such as Taiwan. In addition, this crisis keeps the United States in a position of having to rely on Chinese influence in this region. While the U.S. may express frustration over unbalanced trade practices such as the textile debate, and unfair monetary practices, it needs a close relationship with China because of North Korea.


In the final analysis, it is North Korea and China who are benefiting from this situation. Unfortunately, it is South Korea, Japan and the United States who are on the losing side of this battle. If North Korea is the child of China and the United States, China is its loving mother and the U.S. is its absent, forgotten father.

It would appear one of America's allies has noticed the truth in the Bush Administration policy for the Korean peninsula. Not surprisingly, the Bush policy was based on the grandiose Neo-con view that no country could stand up to the military might of the US. Certainly not a rag-tag insurgency armed with merely obsolete rocket propelled grenades. Certainly not the stable minds within the the government of megalomaniac playboy Kim Jong-il.
China's only interest in the US is as a customer of it's products. If that changes, which seems inevitable when the coming US correction occurs, they will reign in credit and the US economy will choke on it's deficit.

Taking From the Poor and Giving to the Rich

When I was a child, everyone I knew could identify with Robin Hood and his mission to take from the rich and give to the poor. Now, since Ronald Reagan's famous quote about "the deserving poor", a new scapegoat has emerged.

The development of a right-wing populist movement, based on fear and nostalgia rather than economic issues, led to the scapegoating of welfare recipients as the cause of all economic and social woes. Race and gender played central roles in the promotion of the stereotype of the unworthy welfare recipient.

The homeless and the disabled are vilified as not wanting to work. The increasing numbers of homeless families, many without recourse demonstrate the prejudice. Children are left to suffer the same fate as their "lazy, lowlife" parents.
Having won the battle against welfare, the Republicans have redirected their efforts to healthcare for the poor and at the middle class. The spill over however threatens to harm the future prospects of those with incomes between $100,000 and $400,000.
The Bush Economy - New York Times

With all of the debate about taxes, the economy and domestic spending, it is hard to imagine anyone supporting the notion of taking money from programs like Medicaid and college-tuition assistance, increasing the tax burden of the vast majority of working Americans, sending the country into crushing debt - and giving the proceeds to people who are so fantastically rich that they don't know what to do with the money they already have. Yet that is just what is happening under the Bush administration. Forget the middle class and the upper-middle class. Even the merely wealthy are being left behind in the dust by the small slice of super-rich Americans.


In last Sunday's Times, David Cay Johnston reported that from 1980 to 2002, the latest year of available data, the share of total income earned by the top 0.1 percent of earners more than doubled, while the share earned by everyone else in the top 10 percent rose far less. The share of the bottom 90 percent declined.


President Bush did not create the income gap. But the unheralded effect of his tax policy is its unequal impact on the modestly well to do. By 2015, those making between $80,000 and $400,000 will pay as much as 13.9 percentage points more of their income in federal taxes than those making more than $400,000, assuming the tax cuts are made permanent. Below $80,000, most taxpayers will see their share of taxes rise slightly or stay the same.


... a prominent economist ... argues that people care more about the chance to move from one income class to another (upward, of course) than about income distribution. But during the Bush years, the two main sources of class mobility - a good job and money for higher education - have increasingly failed to materialize for those who most need them. Last week's jobs report from the Labor Department confirmed that a strong labor market recovery has not taken hold. Wages for most working people failed even to outpace inflation in the past year.

The policies of the Bush Administration focus overwhelmingly on a very narrow group of the super rich. Yet the sound byte propaganda machine grinds out it's mind numbing message of good news, telling us of the economic recovery, the success in the Iraqi war, the "democracy" in Afghanistan, protecting the environment, and helping the deserving poor continues.
Is anyone really paying attention to the facts?

The New Macro of Globalization

Sigh

Thomasville, Broyhill Furniture to Cut Over 1,200 Jobs in N.C. GM chairman says automaker to close plants, cut 25,000 jobs. More Jobs cut. ConAgra to cut a 1000 jobs. Honeywell plans layoffs. Verizon is to cut 7000 jobs. House Committee Approves $408 Billion for Defense Spending.


Well at least the military is hiring!

Dark sarcasm is one of my favorite forms of humor. But things are indeed dark for the American worker. The recovery that has been apparent for the upper middle class has never manifested for the unemployed. More and more people fall out of the count of unemployed because they no long are eligible for unemployment compensation and so are no longer available to be counted. How convenient for the Republicans.
This is a on-going trend. Stephen Roach talks about his view of the unanticipated consequences of Globalization. It seems the old theories about the economy have to be reformulated. The only good news in this is no evidence of inflation.
The New Macro of Globalization

A complex picture emerges out of this new and powerful strain of Globalization. The cross-border arbitrage of labor, pricing, and saving renders traditional closed-economy macro models all but obsolete. Nor do these forces operate in isolation from one another -- there is a powerful interplay between the Globalization of work, income generation, price-setting, and capital flows. America’s Asset Economy is an outgrowth of this interplay. It is the principal means by which the world’s most powerful economy has kept on consuming in the face of extraordinary pressures on jobs, real wages, saving, and debt.


At least for the time being, the saving-rich developing world has been more than willing to fund the massive current-account deficit that underpins America’s Asset Economy -- providing capital inflows into the US that effectively subsidize real interest rates at historically low levels. The global price arbitrage that has been spawned by the emergence of low-cost production centers in the developing world helps keep inflation low, thereby reinforcing the staying power of this low interest rate regime. This then provides support to frothy financial markets -- the crux of the Asset Economy. Ultimately, both of these anomalies -- unsustainably low real interest rates and excess asset appreciation -- will need to be corrected in order to put the world on a more sustainable path. However, given the likelihood of a global slowdown made in China emerging over the next year, I now believe this correction will come later rather than sooner (see my 31 May 2005 essay, Rethinking Bonds).


Unfortunately, for this Brave New World there is nothing stable about this arrangement. There are stresses and strains everywhere in the system, and the perils of political intervention are mounting. Rapidly escalating trade tensions between the US and China are the most obvious case in point. Washington ignores the new macro framework at great peril -- failing to appreciate that America’s current-account and trade deficits are an unfortunate outgrowth of an unwillingness to save. China, for its part, paints itself into an equally difficult political corner by dubbing its currency issue a matter of national sovereignty. Meanwhile, as the Airbus dispute indicates, there is nothing tranquil about US-European trade relationships. And Europe is still reeling over its own intra-regional political shock, with the demise of the EU constitution very much an outgrowth of the same fears of job and income insecurity that are plaguing high-wage workers elsewhere in the developed world.


The biggest risk of all is that the new global macro could well give rise to a backlash against Globalization. Mounting trade tensions are a very visible manifestation of how the body politic has lost confidence in the gospel of free trade and comparative advantage long espoused by most economists, including yours truly. Persistently subpar employment and real wage growth in the world’s most powerful economy fuel that confidence loss. In effect, workers have lost patience with the promises of classic free-trade economics, and opportunistic politicians have seized on that angst. Globalization has met its demise in the past -- and the circumstance of that backtracking took the world right to the brink of World War I. Yes, history rhymes, rather than repeats. But the downside of a backlash against Globalization is something we can’t afford to take lightly. It would be the ultimate comeuppance for ever-blase financial markets.

Ending free trade might seem attractive to some workers, but it won't be if the end result is an angry vengeful China. China holds much of our most recent outstanding national debt. If the cheap money dries up quickly for the US, so will the means to pay our bills. China now has in its power the means to do so. That can't bode well for world peace.
Some day historians may debate whether the Bush presidency created the impetis for WWIII as opposed to exposed the underlying dynamics. I'd rather not settle the debate. Contrary to many of my progressive collegues, Globalization has been my last best hope for peace. If every country benefits by getting along, how can that be bad?

The Beginings of Fascism in America

Here is an outstanding post by Juan Cole in his Informed Comment. It's worth repeating.

Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware has now called for Guantanamo to be closed down. Absolutely right.


The main reason is not that it is a continued scandal and creates a very poor image among Muslims worldwide of the United States. This allegation is true, and the US press has done a poor job of covering the continued fall-out of the Quran desecration story among Muslims world-wide. But it isn't the main reason the prison should be closed.


The main reason is that the Bush Administration established the prison at Guantanamo in hopes of gutting the Bill of Rights. They wanted the prisoners there to be beyond the law, outside the framework of judiciality. They would have no lawyers. They would be tried only if the administration wanted to try them. They would be held indefinitely. They would be outside the framework of US law and also of the Geneval Conventions-- though Rumsfeld keeps slipping and calling them prisoners of war.


Terrorists are dirty criminals who should be tried, and if found guilty, put away for life. Terrorists are criminals. They are not non-human, and any attempt to create a category of human beings to whom the protections of the law do not apply is an attempt to undermine the Republic. It is a return of the Bill of Attainder, a feature of absolute monarchy that the Founding Fathers stood against. It is something to which even Rehnquist is opposed.


Once it was established that these Muslims could be treated in this way, Bush would be a sort of absolute monarch over all such detainees (remember that some of them might be innocent for all we know) And then gradually others could be added to the category of the "rights-less." The Patriot Act II envisages stripping Americans of their citizenship for supporting terrorist organizations. Without citizenship, they would not be afforded the protections of the Constitution. And gradually, in this way, the American nationalist Right would be able to circumscribe that pesky Bill of Rights, which so interferes with Executive (i.e. Royal) Privilege. The legal minds on the American Right have clearly been annoyed with the Bill of Rights for some time and the speed with which they foisted the so-called PATRIOT Act (makes it kinda hard to oppose, calling it that, huh?) on an unwary Congress, which had no time to read it, suggests that they had a lot of these ideas on the shelf ready to go.


Guantanamo Prison should be closed because it was conceived as the beginning of the end of the American Republic.

US "Intelligence" Claims Iran Is Harboring Terrorists

Evidence points to terrorists hiding in Iran - Terrorism & Security - MSNBC.com

U.S. intelligence this week has been checking some reports, still uncorroborated as of Friday, that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida’s leader of the Iraqi insurgency, may have dipped into Iran, officials said.


On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned countries in the Middle East not to help al-Zarqawi. “Were a neighboring country to take him in and provide medical assistance or haven for him, they, obviously, would be associating themselves with a major linkage in the al-Qaida network and a person who has a great deal of blood on his hands,” Rumsfeld said.


The U.S. and foreign officials said evidence gathered by intelligence agencies indicates the following figures are somewhere in Iran, perhaps under some form of house arrest or surveillance:


* Saad bin Laden, the son of the al-Qaida leader whom U.S. authorities have aggressively hunted since the Sept. 11 attacks.
* Saif al-Adel, an al-Qaida security chief wanted in connection with the deadly 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa.
* Suleiman Abu Ghaith, the chief of information for al-Qaida and a frequently quoted spokesman for bin Laden.

US Intelligence is certainly a "reliable source". I'd be willing to bet the foreign source is Israel and perhaps MEK, both with major axes to grind in Iran. Clearly, this is just building the case to increase pressure on Iran and continue quietly tampering internally with Special Forces operatives.
As for "harboring" Zarqawi, I think that's very unlikely. Zarqawi has been deliberately attempting to spark a civil war in Iraq. I fail to see how Iran would benefit from an Iraqi civil war when it's new ally controls the government. Besides I agree with Juan Cole. Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been elevated by the Bush administration to an almost mythical figure in an attempt to demonize the insurgency by putting his face on it. He is a loud mouth minor leader who is leading more of a propaganda war than a fomenter of much of the violence in Iraq. That simply isn't true. The Baathists or Iraqi nationalists are responsible focusing their effort on trying to drive the US out and undermining the new government. The Bush Administration seems to have correctly concluded that they are losing the war in Iraq and have created an ally for Iran. So, rather than cutting their losses, they think by destabilizing Iran, they can consolidate their failing invasion in Iraq.
I suspect they will only make the situation worse. They will be unable to mount an effective support of an Iranian insurgency and will in fact create the conditions for the majority of Iranians to coalesce around the Mullahs against a meddling US. It's very possible that the Iraqi civil war already is unstoppable and shaping up into a battle between Shiites and Sunni's.
The US may find itself in the bizarre position of eventually backing the Baathist insurgency along with the surrounding Sunni countries against the Iranian proxy in Iraq. China and Russia already have a strategic relationship with Iran and they may well support them in a regional conflict.
What incentive does Iran have to allow peace to return to Afghanistan? A second front against the beleagered Americans would just make imposing their will easier in Iraq. With the US building a strategic relationship with India, I'm sure Pakistan are less than believing of similar promises from the US, and are continuing to play both sides against the middle and are supporting along with Iran the various Taliban holdouts in Afghanistan. Things could get pretty ugly in the Middle East.

Tiananmen Square Massacre 16th Anniversary

Demonstrators participate in a candlelight vigil to mark the 16th anniversary of China's Tiananmen Square crackdown in Hong Kong June 4, 2005. REUTERS/Kin Cheung
China will have a tough time escaping it's history. Perhaps they can keep the truth a secret inside China, but the whole world knows what really happened.
China keeps watch on Tiananmen anniversary. 04/06/2005. ABC News Online

"The police are at the foot of my building," said Ding Zilin, head of the Mothers of Tiananmen group which has been fighting since 1989 for those responsible for the crackdown to be held to account.


"They told me clearly that they would not allow me to go to the cemetery today," Mrs Ding, whose son was among those killed, said. "For 16 years, I have never been able to go to the Muxidi intersection, where my son died," she said.


Mrs Ding was one of 125 people who sent an open letter to President Hu Jintao last week calling on the government to apologise.

"You and your predecessors have wiped the memory of the June 4 massacre from the books and have covered up this despicable event from history," the letter said.


"In this you have been very successful. You have been more thorough than those Japanese right-wing plotters who have tried to erase the history of the Nanjing massacre."

Some in America are Guilty Until Proven Innocent

A very disturbing trend of aggressive FBI investigations are emerging in post 9/11 America. Bush gave himself the power to declare anyone, including American citizens, an "enemy combatant" and then jail such people indefinitely without charges or due process.
Your government just needs a reason to believe you may at some point want to commit a terrorist act. Some of you may say that they wouldn't do it unless someone really deserved it. One would hope our government would act with good faith. But here are some disturbing examples:
Shining Light in Dark Corners

Brandon Mayfield, an Oregon lawyer who was imprisoned for two weeks after the F.B.I. botched a fingerprint match and accused him of complicity in the Madrid railroad bombings, is suing to have parts of the Patriot Act overturned. Mr. Mayfield says federal agents invaded his home secretly, tapped his phone and seized some of his family's belongings. His name was among 20 produced by a computerized fingerprint comparison. He was the only one arrested, and Mr. Mayfield says he was singled out because he is a Muslim.

There were 20 others who matched the finger print. He was the only Muslim. The other 19 people could have included you and me.
Shining Light in Dark Corners

Several of the Muslim citizens held at the border for up to six hours on Sunday night and Monday morning told CAIR they objected strenuously to being fingerprinted, but were informed by CBP representatives that "you have no rights" and that they would be held until they agreed to the fingerprinting procedure. One person was allegedly threatened with arrest if she attempted to leave the detention area without being fingerprinted.

The only reason they were held and required to submit fingerprinting was because they were Muslim.
Teachers and Classmates Express Outrage at Arrest of Girl, 16, as a Terrorist Threat

At Heritage High School in East Harlem, where the student idiom is hip-hop and salsa, the 16-year-old Guinean girl stood out, but not just because she wore Islamic dress. She was so well liked that when she ran for student body president, she came in second to one of her best friends - the Christian daughter of the president of the parent-teacher association, Deleen P. Carr.


Now Ms. Carr, a speech pathologist who calls herself "a typical American citizen," is as outraged as the girl's teachers and classmates, who have learned that the girl and another 16-year-old are being called would-be suicide bombers and are being held in an immigration detention center in Pennsylvania.


"They have painted this picture of her as this person that is trying to destroy our way of life, and I know in my heart of hearts that this is bogus," said Ms. Carr, who welcomed the Guinean girl to her house daily and knows her family well. "I feel like, how dare they? She's a minor, and even if she's not a citizen, she has rights as a human being."


According to a government document provided to The New York Times by a federal official earlier this week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has asserted that both girls are "an imminent threat to the security of the United States based on evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers." No evidence was cited, and federal officials will not comment on the case.

Two 16 year old girls were held for 6 weeks. If there were evidence, I'm sure they would have been charged. One of them could have been your daughter.
Shining Light in Dark Corners

Confidence in the Justice Department's judgment and sense of proportion has been undermined by the government's tendency to make a huge deal out of arrests that turn out to involve unimportant people with bad attitudes but no ability - or even any apparent will - to do anything dangerous.

This comment was made in the NY Times in October 2004. Yet, there has been no change or adjustments to Bush's policy. It continues unabated.
You Can't Talk to an F.B.I. Agent That Way, or Can You? - New York Times

The government's focus on undercover sting operations and the recruitment of a network of Muslim informers has provoked the sharpest criticism. The most recent sting, which produced arrests last week in New York and Florida, has further stirred debate, although many details of the investigation, which led to charges that two American Muslim men conspired to aid Al Qaeda, remain unknown.


But, of late, perhaps no case has caused more ire than that of two teenage Muslim girls who were detained on immigration violations in March after the F.B.I. became concerned that they might be planning to become suicide bombers. After six weeks in detention the girls were quietly released, and officials have declined to comment on the case.


To more distant observers, these cases offer varying degrees of intrigue. But among Arab-Americans, they have become something of local lore, their details endlessly picked over and debated, their impact on public opinion about Muslims a source of dread.


"It's nerve-racking that every time you hear there was a sting operation you start praying it won't be an Arab," said Antoine Faisal, the publisher of Aramica, an English and Arabic newspaper in Bay Ridge. "There has been no disassociation between individuals and the community itself. It's, 'Those Arabs did it again.' "


The arrests, detentions and mass deportations of Muslim men as part of a now-suspended government program gave rise to what many Muslims describe as a culture of fear.


"When I criticize America in my Friday prayer, they say, 'Don't do that, sheik," said Sheik Tarek Youssof Saleh, 42, of the Oulel-Albab Masjid in Bay Ridge. "America is not like America before. They can arrest you."

Muslim's afraid of being victimized by an overzealous law enforcement system unfettered by the protections of due process.
But most disturbingly, the definition of "terrorism" worthy of investigation has broadened to those who advocate feeding the homeless and advocating for mistreatment of animals.
Shining Light in Dark Corners

Meanwhile, the ACLUissued a statement that said "the FBI and local police are engaging in intimidation based on political association and are improperly investigating law-abiding human rights and advocacy groups." The statement was based on information gathered from numerous Freedom of Information Act requests. The ACLU said it was filing a lawsuit in federal court to force the FBI to turn over "thousands of pages" of extra information that had been withheld.

"Since when did feeding the homeless become a terrorist activity?" asked ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson. "When the FBI and local law enforcement target groups like [Colorado-based] Food Not Bombs under the guise of fighting terrorism, many Americans who oppose government policies will be discouraged from speaking out and exercising their rights."

I'm reminded of the "witch hunts" of the McCarthy era. What has America come to?

Pentagon details mishandling of Quran

Pentagon details mishandling of Quran - Terrorism & Security - MSNBC.com

The findings, released after normal business hours Friday evening, are among the results of an investigation last month by Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, the commander of the detention center in Cuba, that was triggered by a Newsweek magazine report — later retracted — that a U.S. soldier had flushed one Guantanamo Bay detainee’s Quran down a toilet.


Desecration allegations linked to deadly demonstrations
The story stirred worldwide controversy and the Bush administration blamed it for deadly demonstrations in Afghanistan.


Hood said in a written statement released Friday evening, along with the new details, that his investigation “revealed a consistent, documented policy of respectful handling of the Quran dating back almost 2 1/2 years.”


Hood said that of nine mishandling cases that were studied in detail, five were confirmed to have happened. He could not determine conclusively whether the four others took place.

Afterhours today, the Pentagon released the report about the abuse of the Quran and curtailing freedom of religion at Guantanamo. What a great way to keep the story quiet. Surely four days ago, Gen. Richard B. Myers knew of this report. I'm sure he was doing his master's bidding by spreading disinformation before the release of this report. It sounds like the kind of thing that would go on in a gulag. I can see why the world see the US as running a gulag in Guantanamo.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Sunday strongly defended the military's treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, calling the prison, which has been harshly criticized by human rights organizations and others, a "model facility."


Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers rejected criticism leveled last week by Amnesty International, the London-based human rights organization, in its annual report on abuses across the globe.

The Abu Ghraib Cover-up

Seymour Hersh gets down to the facts of the Abu Ghraib cover-up.

By the beginning of October 2003 the reservists on the night shift at Abu Ghraib had begun their abuse of prisoners. They were aware that some of America's elite special forces units were also at work at the prison. Those highly trained military men had been authorised by the Pentagon's senior leadership to act far outside the normal rules of engagement. There was no secret about the interrogation practices used throughout that autumn and early winter, and few objections. In fact representatives of one of the Pentagon's private contractors at Abu Ghraib, who were involved in prisoner interrogation, were told that Condoleezza Rice, then the president's national security adviser, had praised their efforts. It's not clear why she would do so - there is still no evidence that the American intelligence community has accumulated any significant information about the operations of the resistance, who continue to strike US soldiers and Iraqis. The night shift's activities at Abu Ghraib came to an end on January 13, 2004, when Specialist Joseph M Darby, one of the 372nd reservists, provided army police authorities with a disk full of explicit images. By then these horrors had been taking place for nearly four months.


Three days later the army began an investigation. But there is no evidence that President Bush, upon learning of the devastating conduct at Abu Ghraib, asked any hard questions of Rumsfeld and his own aides in the White House; no evidence that they took any significant steps, upon learning in mid-January of the abuses, to review and modify the military's policy toward prisoners. I was told by a high-level former intelligence official that within days of the first reports the judicial system was programmed to begin prosecuting the enlisted men and women in the photos and to go no further up the chain of command.

Bush and Rumsfeld are clearly responsible. Not only are they covering up their responsibility by limiting the investigation, they are pinning responsibility on some loyal soldiers who believed they were following orders. How is that for courage?

Israel Doesn't Want Peace Without the West Bank

Informed Comment

...the aggressive settling of Palestinian land, the displacement of Palestinians, the rendering of their lives hell with a network of checkpoints and expropriations, contributed mightily to the turn of traditionally secular, peaceful Palestinians to religious violence and extremism.


... The fact is that Americans are put in danger by the Israeli Settlers and their persecution of Palestinians, since their actions spread hatred for the US throughout the Muslim world of 1.3 billion persons. The US has never taken any practical steps to stop or roll back Israeli land theft on a grand scale.


As The Guardian notes, the Israelis have just announced that they are going to destroy nearly 100 Palestinian dwellings. This comes a couple months after they announced they were going to build 3500 new dwellings on Palestinian land. What other government in the world is behaving this way with its neighbors?

Truly Israel doesn't want peace without the West Bank. While Juan Cole refers to polls that show the Israeli public would trade land for peace, there has been no evidence of this in past elections. The Likud has been firmly in power for a long time. I can't believe the Abbas can accept this. He would lose all respect of Hamas and many of the factions in Fatah. The Palestinian Authority would collapse without support of all the factions. There can be nothing but more pain and suffering as a result of this: Sharon's concession to the extremists.

The Iraqization of Afghanistan

Informed Comment

A suicide bomber walked into the Abd al-Rabb Mosque in the southwestern city of Qandahar, Afghanistan, at 9 am Wednesday morning and detonated his payload, killing nearly 20 and wounding dozens. The mosque was holding a commemoration for a slain cleric, killed last week, who opposed the Taliban.


The bombing comes against the backdrop of a Taliban spring offensive. Taliban forces launched three attacks on US troops on Monday and took casualties. On Sunday, they clashed with the Afghanistan government troops. Each side claims to have killed 9 of the other, but independent sources quoted by Reuters support the Taliban claim that 9 government troops died in the encounter.

On Monday, a roadside bomb targetting a Nato convoy in Kabul instead killed 7 Afghans.


The reports out of Afghanistan are extremely worrying. It seems clear that the Taliban have learned from observing events in Iraq, and are developing a similar strategy of targetted bombings to destabilize the country and force US troops out.


In switching his attention from Afghanistan to Iraq so abruptly in November, 2001, Bush opened a second front. Second fronts are always problematic, and sometimes they are fatal.

Juan Coles commentary has the kind of bold face courage and practical realism that's missing from mainstream media. Here is makes the obvious statement about a second front, one that has not only be ignored by Rumsfeld planning but also by news commentary. Although it was obvious to me from the time I heard of Bush's ambition for Iraq, no one dares ask the tough questions of the President. What has happened to our free press?

Senate Intelligence Committee No Long Acts As the Voter's Representatives

Patriot Act Redux, and in the Dark - New York Times

Citizens who want to keep an eye on the process will have no easy task. The most crucial debates of the Senate Intelligence Committee are being kept closed to the public.


This is a terrible idea that gives credence to the worst fears of opponents of Patriot Act I. When the committee resumes its work next week, its leaders should rethink their policy and open their deliberations to the light of day. Accommodations can be made for legitimate security concerns without keeping such a bedrock issue under wraps.


One of the most common complaints about the Patriot Act is that rather than addressing the real but narrow problems with existing law, it was a wish list of powers law enforcement officials had yearned for over the years that Congress had rightly resisted conferring. Now the Bush administration and its Senate allies have come up with another: a proposal to let F.B.I. agents write their own "administrative subpoenas," without the need to consult prosecutors or judges, in demand of all manner of records, from business to medical and tax data. There is no serious evidence that agents have been hamstrung by the lack of such wide authority.


Freeing agents from getting a judge's sign-off is an invitation to overreaching and abuse, as is a proposal to let the F.B.I. ignore postal law restraints when antiterrorism agents choose to monitor someone's letter envelopes and package covers.


Parts of the existing Patriot Act are reasonable law enforcement measures, but other sections should be repealed. Chief among these is the so-called library provision that lets the government seize entire databases at libraries, hospitals and other institutions when just one person is under investigation. Another part of the law makes it a crime for record holders to let the public know when a government data sweep has occurred.


Legitimate complaints that the existing law is overbearing have been heard from hundreds of state and local officials and from civil liberty and libertarian groups. Rather than addressing these flaws, Senate Republicans seem to be planning to compound them, under cover of closed hearings.

Now it would seem the hidden subterfuge that has characterized the Bush Administration has now been replaced by a Senate Intelligence Committee determined to restrict our rights for our own good without our advice and consent, the irreplacable tenets of representative government. Fascism is alive and well in the US.

American Conservative Condemns Wolfowitz/Bush War

The next issue of the American Conservative takes a well deserved swipe at Paul Wolfowitz, the primary spokesman for invading Iraq post 9/11. It also notes an early hero who was forced to retire in the aftermath of standing up to Wolfowitz and telling Congress the truth, Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki. It seems some conservatives are awakening from their honeymoon inspired by a Republican dominated government.
Trigger Man

In the months preceding the U.S.-led invasion, with the ranks of those opposing the administration swelling, Wolfowitz figured prominently among the officials called upon to rebut any objections to war. Never has a deputy cabinet secretary played such a visible role in making the case for a policy so fraught with controversy. Cool, imperturbable, and relentlessly “on message,” Wolfowitz performed impressively. Only once did his mask of self-assurance slip: when the United States Army, in the person of its chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, ventured to say nay.


The clash between Shinseki and Wolfowitz received considerable media coverage. For some, it lives on as emblematic of the arrogance and over-confidence attributed to the Bush administration on the eve of war. But the full significance of this civil-military confrontation remains unappreciated. For Shinseki, an honorable soldier with few intellectual pretensions, was also in his own way the embodiment of specific forces, very much at odds with those that Wolfowitz had championed. Although couching his critique in green-eyeshade, bean-counting terms, the general set out to subvert the very project that represented the deputy defense secretary’s life’s work.


The administration, Shinseki told members of Congress, was badly underestimating the number of troops that pacifying Iraq was likely to require. Given that the requisite additional troops simply did not exist, Shinseki was implicitly arguing that the U.S. armed services were inadequate for the enterprise. Further, he was implying that invasion was likely to produce something other than a crisp, tidy decision; from a soldier’s viewpoint, a display of precision warfare was not likely to settle the matter. “Liberation” would leave loose ends. Unexpected and costly complications would abound.


In effect, Shinseki was offering a last-ditch defense of the military tradition that Wolfowitz was intent on destroying, a tradition that saw armies as fragile, that sought to husband military power, and that classified force as an option of last resort. The risks of action, Shinseki was suggesting, were far, far greater than the advocates for war had let on.


Shinseki’s critique elicited an immediate retaliatory response. One could safely ignore the complaints of liberal Democrats or the New York Times, not to mention those coming from a largely inchoate antiwar movement. But if the brass openly opposed the war, they could halt the march on Baghdad even before it began. Besides, how could Shinseki dare even to raise the question of an occupation? Wolfowitz was already on the record as declaring that the United States was “committed to liberating the people of Iraq, not to becoming an occupation force.” Shinseki had to be discredited then and there, lest the opportunity to validate the new American way of war be lost forever.


So the normally unflappable Wolfowitz responded with uncharacteristic brusqueness, caustically dismissing the general’s estimate as “wildly off the mark.” For his dissent, Shinseki paid dearly. Publicly rebuked and immediately marginalized, he soon retired, his fate an object lesson for other senior military professionals. (The episode affirmed the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz theory of civil-military relations: heap lavish public praise on soldiers in the ranks while keeping the generals and admirals on an exceedingly short leash.)


In the end, Wolfowitz got his war. Operation Iraqi Freedom provided the first salvo in an open-ended campaign to transform the Islamic world. Should the conduct of that campaign require the anticipatory use of force, it also provided ample precedent to do just that.

[...]
In its trial run, the doctrine of preventive war—Wolfowitz’s handiwork as much as the president’s—has produced liberation and occupation, a crisp demonstration of “shock and awe” and a protracted, debilitating insurgency, the dramatic toppling of a dictator and horrifying evidence implicating American soldiers in torture and other abuses. The Iraq War has now entered its third year with no end in sight, taxing U.S. forces to the limit. The ongoing conflict has divided the nation like no event since Vietnam. Like Vietnam, it is sapping our economic strength and has already done immeasurable damage to our standing in the world. Despite expectations of Saddam’s overthrow paving the way for what some expected to be a foreign policy of moral incandescence, the United States finds itself obliged once again to compromise its ideals, cozying up to little Saddams like Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf and Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov.


The forces that Paul Wolfowitz helped unleash—a dangerous combination of hubris and naivete—are exacting an ever mounting cost. His considerable exertions notwithstanding, truth in matters of statecraft remains implacably gray. Even assuming honorable intentions on the part of those who conceived this war, wielding power in Iraq has left the United States up to its ankles, if not up to its knees, in guilt.


In his solitude, General Shinseki can await the final judgment of history with considerable confidence. At the pinnacle of professional success, Paul Wolfowitz must look forward to a different verdict that will be anything but kind.

Sanitizing MEK To Promote Regime Change in Iran

Since the Bush Administration has blown their Iraq policy, further isolated the US, strengthened Iran via it's new ally Iraq with whom they are building a a model relationship built on economic cooperation. In order to control Iraq, they have to destabilized Iran. They have been actively attempting since late last year. They've been probing air defenses in Iran. The Senate Intelligence Committee has been discussing Iran since the early this year at least.
Yet, the Administration has little credibility about military matters these days. So they need to create cover. IPC is the means to the end. One can be sure there are Neo-cons all over this plan. The plan is to build up and support Saddam's personal Iranian insurgents, the Mujahedeen e-Khalq Organization (MEK), to act as US surrogates in Iran and probably support them with Special Forces already in Iran and air support in a scenario very much like how Afghanistan was destabilized. MEK is currently on the US terrorist lists.
Lately the Sunni minority in Iraq has been blaming the US for marginalizing Sunnis. Could it be that the US has changed tactics, recognizing the US has failed in its objective to place a friendly Arab democracy in the Middle East, they instead hope to use the budding civil war as a way to occupy the Muslims in a conflict amongst themselves? The Sunnis and the Shiites have been rivals for centuries. The Sunnis fear a Shiite dominated Iraq and may begin actively supporting the insurgency now that its turning fratricidal. Jihadis from all over the Muslim world will join the battle in Iraq if it escalates.
Iran Policy Committee (IPC): U.S. Policy Options on Iran

By calling for change in Tehran based on Iranians instead of Americans, IPC stresses the potential for a third alternative: Keep open diplomatic and military options, while providing a central role for the Iranian opposition to facilitate regime change.


Iran is emerging as the primary threat against the United States and its allies: Iran’s drive to acquire nuclear weapons, continuing support for and involvement with terrorist networks, publicly-stated opposition to the Arab-Israel peace process, disruptive role in Iraq, expansionist radical ideology, and its denial of basic human rights to its own population are challenges confronting U.S. policymakers.

State-led murder and rape of villagers in Darfur uncovered

Scotsman.com- State-led murder and rape of villagers in Darfur uncovered

AU monitors have collected photographic evidence of Sudanese helicopter gunships in action attacking villages, and their reports conclude that the Sudanese government has systematically breached the peace deals that it signed to placate the United Nations Security Council.


Reports from Darfur indicate that air attacks on villages have continued amid defiance of UN resolutions calling on the Khartoum regime to disarm the Janjaweed, with the latest helicopter attack in south Darfur reported to have taken place on 13 May as the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, was preparing to visit the province.


Pictures taken by AU monitors document attacks by a Sudanese helicopter gunship on the village of Labado in December, a month after the Sudanese government gave an assurance that there would be no more such attacks. The Sudanese government markings are clearly visible on the tailfin of the helicopter.


The village was visited by Mr Annan last week as he toured the region to see for himself whether anything had changed a year after he first visited Darfur.


The government in Khartoum has consistently denied using air attacks against villagers, insisting that they have only been used defensively against attacks by rebel forces.


The US and British governments have accepted Sudanese assurances that there have been no air attacks since February, but the anti-genocide Aegis Trust - which is campaigning for an enlarged AU force to be sent to Darfur - claims it has received reports of a bombing raid involving an Antonov aircraft on 23 March and a helicopter attack in south Darfur on 13 May witnessed by AU monitors.

Why would the Bush administration believe an administration that has routinely lied to the world? There is a reason. I talked about it in early March.

There is a reason why the Bush Administration has been all talk and no action on Darfur. At first they thought it was Muslims killing Christians. Then they found out that was only in the case of the civil war between north and south. US diplomas very quickly got involved in settling that long standing dispute, especially since the southern Sudan is oil rich and dominated by Christian Africans. Oil and Christians in trouble are priorities for this Administration.It turns out the conflict in Darfur involved Muslim Arabs supported by the Sudanese Government killing Muslim Blacks. That isn't a priority for the Bush administration. Besides, the Sudanese government just gave the US a new oil trading partner. What's a few black Muslims when there's oil at stake?

Now finally two months later peacekeepers have witnessed that the genocide continues. Will Bush do anything now other than to support African Union peacekeepers? AU is requesting $723 million to support it's mission. I'm betting Bush will do no more than what he has to to avoid criticism.

Anyone Doubt Iran's Intention for the Bomb?

Here is a great compilation of articles from various sources from The Agonist.

Der Spiegel - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf rules a country on the front lines in the war against terror. For years he has walked the difficult tight-rope of pacifying a Muslim population and maintaining a close alliance with the US. SPIEGEL spoke with him about anti-Americanism, the hunt for Osama bin Laden and whether Iran should be allowed to go nuclear.

BBC - Pakistan has denied that President Pervez Musharraf told a German magazine that Iran was "very anxious" to have a nuclear bomb.

Reuters - Iran demanded an explanation on Sunday of comments attributed to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf saying Iran was eager to develop a nuclear bomb.

Makes you wonder what the real truth is. Sometimes the context of the interview tells the truth. Here is the incriminating excerpt:
Print - SPIEGEL Interview with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf - SPIEGEL ONLINE

SPIEGEL: Pakistan justified its going nuclear with the imbalance of power in South Asia after India had gone nuclear. Iran is setting out to break the monopoly of Israel in the Middle East.


Musharraf: But Iran doesn't have a border with Israel. We have a big border with India which is a real threat for us.


"You in there Osama?" Tora Bora was the closest bin Laden has come to being captured after the September 11 attacks.


"You in there Osama?" Tora Bora was the closest bin Laden has come to being captured after the September 11 attacks.
SPIEGEL: The US is trying hard to protect the world from Iran going nuclear. Would you support a pre-emptive strike?


Musharraf: In the present environment it would be disastrous because it would agitate the Muslim world. Why keep opening new fronts?


SPIEGEL: What would you suggest for keeping the Iranians from producing the bomb?


Musharraf: I can't say. They are very keen on building the bomb.


SPIEGEL: As Pakistan was.


Musharraf: Yes, we were keen. Nobody can accept a threat to its existence. Therefore we are very proud to have nuclear weapons.


SPIEGEL: Did Pakistan help Iran and North Korea to go nuclear?


Musharraf: An individual from Pakistan did.
SPIEGEL: His name is A.Q. Khan and it is very hard for people like us to accept that he indulged in a clandestine enterprise without anybody in Pakistan being aware of it.


Musharraf: That is exactly what happened. When India went nuclear in 1974, Dr. A.Q. Khan was brought in (to Pakistan). He came from Holland. He is only an expert in enriching uranium, bringing it to weapons grade. He is not an expert in making nuclear bombs. He started establishing the process. This had to be kept secret from the world because otherwise the world would not have allowed it. For reasons of secrecy, A.Q. Khan was given total autonomy. He was doing a job nobody else knew about except for the President, the army chief and the scientists.


SPIEGEL: And you -- when did you become aware of what was going on?


Musharraf: During my career in the army I was never involved in nuclear affairs. I came in as army chief in 1998, in 1999 I became President. I realized that this man was doing something wrong. Nobody was checking. I removed him in January 2001, much before 9/11 because, as my intelligence told me, he was behaving suspiciously on two or three occasions. To remove him was the most difficult job. He was a national hero. I organized the custodial system.


SPIEGEL: What was A.Q. Khan driven by? Greed?


Musharraf: Greed, ego and dreams, because he is not religious. That I know. And in any case, North Korea is certainly not an Islamic country.

The context says to me Musharraf knows Iran wants the bomb add made the faux paux by sharing the truth rather than the politically correct answer. And just how would Musharraf know so much about Iran's intentions? Because he knows all about Kahn's interactions with Iran. He speaks confidently about his knowledge, telling the truth.
He only denies it later because he has back channel communications with Iran and doesn't want to jeopardize them with the fickle actions of the US with India. Certainly, these back channel communications are not a recent development with the "strategic" alliance with the US. I suspect that Pakistani intelligence knew all about Kahn's activities while it happened with it's tacit support.