McCain to Russia: Let's Get It On!

John McCain showed his real colors when he heard of Russia's invasion of Georgia. Mr. Super Hawk is ready to go to war with Russia! With both the US and NATO stretched to the max in Iraq and Afghanistan, just who's army does he want to sent to the front? Sure, the US could offer air cover to Georgia, but there go the only remaining military option. Use up the US Air Force in the Caucuses where they have been fighting for hundreds of years?
The Nation

The outbreak of war in Georgia on Friday offers a disturbing and somewhat surreal taste of what to expect from John McCain should he become our nation's Commander in Chief. As the centuries-old ethnic animosities between Georgia and Ossetia boiled over into another armed conflict, drawing in neighboring Russia, McCain issued a stark-raving statement from Des Moines that is disturbingly reminiscent of the language used in the lead-up to NATO's war against Yugoslavia in 1999, a war McCain zealously pushed for:
"We should immediately call a meeting of the North Atlantic Council to assess Georgia's security and review measures NATO can take to contribute to stabilizing this very dangerous situation," McCain said.
McCain's call to NATO-ize the war is not only frightening, it's also delusional: both NATO and US forces are already stretched beyond the breaking point, even by Joint Chief of Staff chairman Michael Millen's own recent assessment.
But McCain's brain remains undeterred by reality, a fact that became painfully clear today in Des Moines when he also demanded, "The US should immediately convene an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to call on Russia to reverse course."
The problem with McCain's bold demand about going to the UN is that Russia already tried doing exactly what McCain called for--and got rejected by McCain's neocon pals in the Bush Administration. Early this morning, Russia convened an emergency session of the UN Security Council, calling on both sides to immediately cease hostilities, return to the negotiating table and renounce the use of force--but the last part about renouncing the use of force is exactly what Georgia's president Mikhail Saakashvili refuses to do.
The Bush Administration showed that it too has no patience with crunchy "renounce the use of force" resolutions. According to a Reuters report from earlier in the day:

At the request of Russia, the U.N. Security Council held an emergency session in New York but failed to reach consensus early Friday on a Russian-drafted statement.
The council concluded it was at a stalemate after the United States, Britain and some other members backed the Georgians in rejecting a phrase in the three-sentence draft statement that would have required both sides "to renounce the use of force," council diplomats said.

The meaning of this is clear: the United States and Britain are backing Saakashvili's invasion. Why would we back Saakashvili's reckless war, when last year even Bush was denouncing the Pinochet-wannabe's violent attack on his own people during a peaceful opposition protest in Georgia's capital, as well as shutting down the opposition media and exiling of political opponents? That would be a brain-teaser if the last seven years hadn't answered this question so many painful times already.
But with McCain, answering this is a little trickier. When he issued today's Des Moines statement calling for Russia to do what Russia already did a few hours earlier, you have to ask yourself: either McCain's short-term memory is totally shot, encased in an impenetrable tomb of aluminum-zirconium plaque... or worse, McCain simply doesn't give a damn about reality, he just wants to get Georgia's war on, as badly as Saakashvili does.
The awful truth is probably a combination of the two, which is the worst of all worlds, considering McCain's raving Russophobia, and his campaign team's financial and ideological ties to Saakashvili. As has been reported, McCain's top foreign policy advisor, neocon Randy Scheunemann, has a long financial relationship with Saakashvili to lobby his interests in the United States.

Russian Ground Forces Assault Vital Georgian City

Whether provoked or not, Saakashvili, President of Georgia clearly has bit off more than he can chew. Russians have penetrated into Georgia proper apparently seeking to destroy Georgia's armed forces and possibly to depose this government and occupy a former Soviet client state. The Russians have not responded to cease fire initiatives, even by Saakashvili. They will not stop until their objectives have been acheived.
And we have a new cold war which I blame on Bush meddling in Central Asia. I suspect this is not just a lesson for Georgia, but for Ukraine and virtually every other former Soviet client state. The message is NATO is forbidden, defying Russia will be punished, and the military option is in play.
NYTimes.com

Russian tanks and troops moved through the separatist enclave of South Ossetia and advanced on the city of Gori in central Georgia on Sunday night, for the first time directly assaulting a Georgian city with ground forces after three days of heavy fighting, Georgian officials said.
Georgian tanks were dug into positions outside Gori and planning to defend the city, said Shota Utiashvili, an official in Georgia's interior ministry. He said the city of Gori was coming under artillery and tank fire. There was no immediate comment from Russia.
A senior Western diplomat said it was unclear whether Russia intended a full invasion of Georgia. "They seem to have gone beyond the logical stopping point" to retake the separatist regions, he said.
The Bush administration said Sunday that it would seek a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Russian military actions in Georgia. And in a heated exchange with his Russian counterpart at the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador, accused the Kremlin of seeking to oust Georgia's pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili.
A column of Russian forces was also seeking Sunday night to enter Georgian territory from Abkhazia, another separatist enclave to the west, and Abkhaz fighters were massed at the boundary line, an Abkhaz official said in an interview.
The advance appeared to answer the question on which the conflict had been pivoting: Would Russia simply occupy the two separatist territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, or would it push into Georgia, raising the possibility of a full-scale invasion?
Gori, about a 45-minute drive south from the capital of South Ossetia, Tskinvali, sits in a valley that is the main route connecting the east and west halves of Georgia.
Mr. Utiashvili said the Russians were "trying to cut the country in half." He said that if they tried to occupy Georgia, "there will probably be guerilla warfare all over the country."
In Washington, American officials reacted with deepening alarm to Russia's military activities on Sunday. Georgian troops had tried to disengage, but the Russians had not allowed them.
"The Georgians told them, 'We're done. Let us withdraw," one American military official said. "But the Russians are not letting them withdraw. They are pursuing them, and people are seeing this."
The official said that it appeared that the Kremlin's objectives, at a minimum, had extended beyond securing the enclaves and now included the destruction of the Georgian armed forces, with an aim of intensifying the domestic pressure on Saakashvili.
"The Russians have gained all of their military objectives," the American official said. "This is not about military objectives. This is about a political objective -- removing a thorn in their side."
Russia had also doubled the number of its troops in Abkhazia to about 6,000, and Russian warships from the Black Sea fleet were off the territory's coast. A column of Russian tanks was negotiating with Georgian officials to enter the Georgian city of Zugdidi, just south of Abkhazia, the Abkhaz official said.
Russia also bombed the Tblisi international airport shortly before Bernard Kouchner was due to arrive to mediate on behalf of the European Union. Only light damage was reported.
Meanwhile, Georgian and Western diplomatic officials said that Georgia had offered a cease-fire proposal to Russia, though Russian officials did not acknowledge receiving such an offer.
A senior American official said that the United States had conveyed the details of a cease-fire proposal by President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia to Russia's acting ambassador in Washington late Saturday night, and that there briefly were indications that the Kremlin wanted to talk directly with the Georgian president.
"At midnight last night we got from the Russians that they would welcome a call from Saakashvili," the official said.
But the day passed, and through Sunday night in Georgia, the Kremlin had not taken Mr. Saakashvili's call and negotiations had not proceeded, an advisor to Georgia's president said.
"He has asked to talk with Putin, and he has asked to talk to Medvedev," he said, of Saakashvili. "But they have refused."
The American official also said that Georgia had managed on Sunday to provide its cease-fire proposals to Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, but there was no reply.

Russia Invades Georgia

With the US military bogged down and exhausted in Iraq, it no longer provides a deterrent to any country seeking to annex another country. Georgia is an ally of US. They've never been enamored with Russia. Perhaps they believed their "big" ally would come to their rescue. Who would want to an ally of the US today?
VOA News

Tensions between Georgia and Russia have escalated over the years as Moscow increased economic, commercial and political ties with the two breakaway regions. Over the past few months, tensions increased significantly as Tbilisi and Moscow took a series of military measures in the region: Moscow sent warplanes over the two regions and increased its military buildup in the area. Tbilisi responded in kind and sent unmanned reconnaissance planes over the breakaway regions.
"The sides of the conflict have been playing a kind of cat and mouse game for a couple of years now and they've always kind of pushed each other to the brink but then pulled back," said Sabine Freizer with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "Unfortunately, that's not what happened [in the past 24 hours] and what we've seen is a large scale military offensive throughout South Ossetia."
[..]
That appeal was echoed by United Nations spokeswoman Michele Montas who described the conditions in South Ossetia as related by a worker for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
"A UNHCR staff member in that area has reported that many buildings and houses have been destroyed and that only military personnel are moving in the streets," said Montas. "Water is in short supply. Most transport has stopped and shops are running out of food."
Analysts, including Jason Lyall from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs, say if the conflict escalates to a full-blown war between Georgia and Russia, Tbilisi has very little chance of winning.
"Russia has about 100,000 troops in the region just because it's so heavily militarized from Chechnya and the other insurgencies that are going on next door," he said. "If this is a long war, Georgia will be in a considerable amount of trouble just because its forces are so much smaller: it only has about 27,000 soldiers and it would rely also on these militia groups that it is starting to reactivate as well. But in a long war Georgia would be in trouble."

Putin said today, that it was unfortunate this happened just before the grand opening at the Olympics. He seems to be implying it had been planned. Separatists were to provoke the Georgian military to invade, and the Russians would come to the rescue, effectively annexing this largely Russian populated part of Georgia. Georgia has no chance to defeat the Russians in the field, they could not stop the Russians from deposing their government and annexing all of Russia.
Clearly, Putin is claiming it's much of its old Eastern Europe and Central Asian sphere or influence. He is signaling to the West that these areas are off limits. He hopes to intimidate the Czech Republic in to backing out of its plan to base US Anti-ballistic missiles. The US is impotent to counter this move thanks to burning up all it's readiness in Iraq. NATO is more impotent than the US alone.
McClatchy Washington Bureau

It isn't clear what triggered such a large-scale military action by Georgia.
On Thursday night, Saakashvili accused the South Ossetians of attacking Georgian police, military patrols and civilians. He also said he'd ordered Georgian units not to return fire and that he was declaring "an immediate, unilateral cease-fire." Emergency peace talks had been scheduled for Friday.
Tkeshelashvili, the Georgian foreign minister, said her government did its best to hold the cease-fire but that it wasn't possible after separatist fighters staged widespread attacks on Georgian-controlled villages Thursday night and took up fighting positions that made it clear that more aggression was on the way.
South Ossetian officials denied that version of events, saying that the cease-fire was a ruse to soften their defenses before the Georgians attacked.
"He (Saakashvili) was not sincere. It was just a smokescreen . . . to carry out an ethnic purge," Dmitry Medoyev, the South Ossetian representative to Russia, said in a phone interview. Medoyev added that volunteer fighters from the caucus regions in Russia had been arriving all day to help South Ossetia.

Pakistanis Aided Attack in Kabul, U.S. Officials Say

It appears that the Bush Administration is abandoning Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, finally after many years of bribing the devil.
NYTimes.com

American intelligence agencies have concluded that members of Pakistan's powerful spy service helped plan the deadly July 7 bombing of India's embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to United States government officials.
The conclusion was based on intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the attack, the officials said, providing the clearest evidence to date that Pakistani intelligence officers are actively undermining American efforts to combat militants in the region.
The American officials also said there was new information showing that members of the Pakistani intelligence service were increasingly providing militants with details about the American campaign against them, in some cases allowing militants to avoid American missile strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Concerns about the role played by Pakistani intelligence not only has strained relations between the United States and Pakistan, a longtime ally, but also has fanned tensions between Pakistan and its archrival, India. Within days of the bombings, Indian officials accused the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, of helping to orchestrate the attack in Kabul, which killed 54, including an Indian defense attaché.
This week, Pakistani troops clashed with Indian forces in the contested region of Kashmir, threatening to fray an uneasy cease-fire that has held since November 2003.
The New York Times reported this week that a top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled to Pakistan this month to confront senior Pakistani officials with information about support provided by members of the ISI to militant groups. It had not been known that American intelligence agencies concluded that elements of Pakistani intelligence provided direct support for the attack in Kabul.

Informed Comment

There have long been suspicions that the Pakistani military was using Pushtun guerrillas to project power into Afghanistan, even as they fought them inside Pakistan itself. The NYT was told by US government officials that this intercept was the first smoking gun proving that active-duty ISI officers were complicit with violence in Afghanistan (and therefore with attacks on US and NATO troops.)
The Pakistani military has tight command and control. ISI's collaboration with the neo-Taliban and other guerrilla groups could not occur without the knowledge and acquiescence of Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, who was chief of staff until last fall. That is, Cheney, Bush and McCain have backed to the hilt a military dictator who has continued the old 1980s and 1990s policy of supporting Pushtun guerrillas as a way of a) dominating Afghanistan and b) training other guerrillas to hit Kashmir.
Here is what McCain said about Musharraf last winter: "I continue to believe Musharraf has done a pretty good job, done a lot of the things that we wanted him to do ."
[..]
This news is not about Pakistan, since most Pakistanis dislike al-Qaeda and the Taliban. It is not about the elected Pakistani government. It is not even about the Pakistani military, which has fought hard battles against the Pakistani Taliban and suffered hundreds of casualties in so doing. It is about corruption in the Pakistani officer corps and the penetration of pro- al-Qaeda elements in the ISI.

Comcast Guilty of Net Neutrality Violations

eWeek.com

FCC holds nation's second largest broadband provider broke network neutrality principles when it throttled P2P traffic from BitTorrent. FCC rejects Comcast contention that network throttling is part of routine network management by broadband service providers.
In the first major test of the FCC's (Federal Communications Commission) network neutrality principles, the agency found Comcast guilty Aug. 1 of secretly degrading network traffic. On a 3-2 vote, the FCC ordered Comcast to stop blocking traffic, disclose to the FCC the full extent of the cable giant's traffic practices and to keep the public informed of its future network management plans.
The FCC said Comcast violated the agency's Internet policy when it blocked P2P traffic by BitTorrent. The agency also found that Comcast misled consumers when it did not properly disclose its P2P policy.
Voting for the sanctions were Republican Chairman Kevin Martin and Democratic Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein. Republicans Robert McDowell and Deborah Taylor Tate opposed the measure.
"Comcast was delaying subscribers' downloads and blocking their uploads," Martin said. "It was doing so 24/7, regardless of the amount of congestion on the network or how small the file might be."

Make John McCain Disavow His Dishonest Obama Ad

Pssst... do something!

House Committee Holds Rove in Contempt!

AlterNet

Until now, Rove's been lying and avoiding questions about his involvement in leaking Valerie Plame's identity, the politicization of the Justice Department, and the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman. Just look at his written denials to ranking HJC member Lamar Smith (R-TX), when he refrained from denying that he spoke to longtime confidant Bill Canary, who links Rove to the Siegelman prosecution. Rove has also claimed immunity and touted executive privilege, which doesn't apply in this case.
Now that the decision to hold Rove in contempt will move from the HJC to the full House, however, Rove could be forced to testify under oath or face jail time.

Strike on Iran still possible, U.S. tells Israel

Los Angeles Times

Bush administration officials reassured Israel's defense minister this week that the United States has not abandoned all possibility of a military attack on Iran, despite widespread Israeli concern that Washington has begun softening its position toward Tehran.
In meetings Monday and Tuesday, administration officials told Defense Minister Ehud Barak that the option of attacking Iran over its nuclear program remains on the table, though U.S. officials are primarily seeking a diplomatic solution.

Heavy Fighting Erupts Along India-Pakistan Border in Kashmir

Ominous news from south Asia. They say the most likely first nuclear war will be between India and Pakistan. They have been largely at peace since 2003, but one has to wonder if the change of government in Pakistan has undermined politics across the Indian and Afghani border where the US is crossing the border with unmanned drones to bomb.
VOA News

The Indian Army has claimed that Pakistani troops infiltrated to its side of the line of control in Kashmir on Monday and fired at its border post killing an Indian soldier. Pakistani officials have denied their troops crossed the border and blame India for border provocations. The two sides have since exchanged fire for over twelve hours. Shahnawaz Khan reports for VOA from Srinagar.
In the latest allegations of ceasefire violations along the Kashmir border, the Indian army said Monday that a group of Pakistani troops infiltrated to its side of the line of control that divides Kashmir between the two nuclear neighbors. Pakistan disputes that version of events and says Indian troops wanted to establish a forward observation post on the border and they objected.
[..]
Despite recent skirmishes and complaints about violations, a ceasefire has largely held on the line of control in Kashmir since 2003. Up until that time India and Pakistan regularly exchanged heavy fire. Nearly a dozen Muslim rebel groups have been fighting since 1989 for Kashmir's independence from India or its merger with Pakistan.

I-35E reopened after part of bridge falls

Incredibly, a chunk of a bridge over 35E fell on two cars, narrowly missing killing the occupants.
StarTrib

Chunks of concrete crashed down from the Maryland Avenue overpass onto Interstate 35E Saturday, shutting down the busy freeway for several hours and causing a big traffic jam. The freeway is open today.
Concrete pieces struck two vehicles, one on the hood and the other on the windshield, but no one was hurt, said Kent Barnard, a spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
A section, about 6 feet by 9 feet and 1 inch thick, fell from the bottom of the overpass in several pieces and covered the northbound lanes of I-35E with powdery debris.
The State Patrol closed the freeway in both directions shortly after the incident at 4:45 p.m. Traffic was rerouted onto exit ramps to get around the overpass.

Of course MNDOT is working on it's image.
TwinCities.com

Over the past year, the department has worked to rebuild its image. For an agency that often seems to live and breathe safety, the bridge collapse led to a secondary disaster within the department -- a tattered image.

Meanwhile, rumors of the Governor shifting money from highway projects over past years persist from within MNDOT.

Wind energy faces daunting challenges

McClatchy Washington Bureau

Led by billionaire Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, pioneers in the emerging wind-power industry are touting their product as The Next Big Thing as they chart a course to produce at least 20 percent of the nation's electricity in just over two decades.
But reaching that goal won't be easy. The most daunting challenge centers on the fundamental question of how to get the product to customers. That will require building thousands of miles of transmission lines to carry electricity from turbines clustered on wind-swept prairies in America's heartland to distant cities and towns.
Industry leaders are calling for a national commitment to wind power on the same scale as the Eisenhower administration's commitment to constructing the Interstate Highway System. Erecting a transmission grid for wind-generated electricity, they say, would require up to 20,000 miles of new lines at a minimum cost of $60 billion -- and possibly much more.
[..]
Most of the nation's turbine farms are located in the "wind corridor" stretching through the center of the country from Texas to the Canadian border. Texas, with more than 4,000 turbines, is the biggest wind producer, surpassing California for that title in 2006.
But wind power is also what experts call a "location-constrained resource," meaning that it can't be transported like coal or oil and is thus dependent on a network of lines and towers to reach a market often hundreds of miles away. It is thus burdened by a "chicken-and-egg problem" -- wind farms don't want to locate in a site without transmission lines, and utilities don't want to erect lines where there are no wind farms.
Additionally, Pickens told a Senate committee, "long-distance transmission is only economic if it is built to high capacity, which means that there must be a large amount of generation capacity in one place."
Lindenberg, who participated in a briefing on wind energy for congressional aides, said existing lines are capable of carrying only a small amount of projected wind power, thus requiring an ambitious plan to construct new lines and towers. Walker pegged the cost at $60 billion but Pickens projects a cost of about $200 billion.

Former Iraqi PM Allawi Testifies Before Congress, Blasts Maliki

News you won't see in the mainstream.
AlterNet

Allawi blasted the so-called surge, saying that it failed in its primary objective, namely, to end the Iraqi civil war and foster political reconciliation. He said that General Petraeus personally came to his house early in 2007 to assure him that the surge would accomplish its intended objective. Instead, things got worse, said Allawi.
"There is an urgent need to build nonsectarian institutions," he told the committee. Sitting alone, dressed conservatively in a gray suit, Allawi said that Iraq's police and army are still organized on a sectarian basis. Asked about the importance of U.S. training for Iraqi forces, Allawi said, "The issue is not training. By and large, training is secondary." The problem, he said, is that the police and army are not loyal to Iraq, not loyal to a national chain of command, but report informally to Shiite militias.
Asked by subcommittee chairman Rep. Willian Delahunt (D.-Mass.) if the Iraqi army was composed of sectarian militias that have just "exchanged uniforms," Allawi replied, "Unfortunately, this is the case." He said that he'd discussed the problem directly with President Bush and General Petraeus, but without answer.
Allawi said that 13 members of his party had been assassinated by thugs tied to the army and police. "They were killed by people in uniforms, dressed in police and army uniforms. We had not only 13 killed, but we had hundreds arrested." Such arrests and killings, Zimbabwe-style, made a sham of the 2005 and 2006 elections. Backed by more than 100 Iraqi parliamentarians, Allawi is trying to ensure the UN and Arab League observers keep a close watch on provincial and national elections in 2009.
Most of the militia gangs who've infiltrated Iraq's security forces are tied to the Iran-backed Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) and its Badr Brigade, who provide Maliki's main political support.
Allawi stressed the Iraq's constitution, which he called "divisive," needs to be rewritten. Allawi demanded that the Iraqi parliament be given a chance to review any U.S.-Iraq accords signed by Bush and Maliki.

Rebels could win Pakistan's nuke haven

The Australian

A CRISIS meeting of Pakistan's new coalition Government has been warned that it could lose control of the North West Frontier Province, which is believed to hold most of its nuclear arsenal. The warning came yesterday from the coalition leader, who, although he is part of the new Government, is regarded as having the closest links to al-Qa'ida and Taliban militants sweeping through the region. Maulana Fazlur Rehman bluntly told his colleagues: "The North West Frontier province is breaking away from Pakistan. That is what is happening. That is the reality." This came just days before new Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's scheduled meeting with US President George W. Bush to discuss al-Qa'ida and Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan.
Reports last night said Maulana Fazlur Rehman, regarded as having unparalleled insight into the mood of the three million tribesmen in the NWFP, and leader of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, was backed in his assessment by members of the coalition Government from the Awami National Party, which rules in the province's capital, Peshawar. They, too, told the meeting of jihadi militant advances throughout the province, with their influence extending to most so-called "settled areas", including Peshawar. Yesterday, the army was reported to have abruptly ended an operation in the Hangu district, close to Peshawar, after threats by militant leaders.
[..]Al-Qa'ida's operational commander in Afghanistan, a 53-year-old Egyptian named Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, was interviewed on Pakistani television yesterday and claimed the organisation's strength in Afghanistan was growing so rapidly it would "soon occupy the whole country". He claimed that "the morale of our fighters in Afghanistan is very high and they are putting up a tough fight against US troops". He also claimed responsibility in the interview for a terrorist attack on the Danish embassy in Islamabad.
The fact of the interview, as much as what he said, is seen as indicating an important new stage in the crisis. "The bad guys are even popping up and giving television interviews: that's a reflection of what's happening," one foreign diplomat in Islamabad said last night.
A leading think tank warned this week about the Taliban's use of a media strategy to exaggerate their strength and undermine confidence in the Afghanistan Government. The International Crisis Group says the administration and its backers must counter this propaganda if they are to defeat an insurgency "that is driving a dangerous wedge between them and the Afghan people", in a report entitled Taliban Propaganda: Winning the War of Words?
The Taliban now publicise their messages, warnings and claims of battle successes through a website, magazines, DVDs, cassettes, pamphlets, nationalist songs, poems and mobile telephones. Audacious tactics such as the Kandahar jailbreak last month and the April assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai show that the intent is to grab attention. "The result is weakening public support for nation building, even though few actively support the Taliban," the report says. It says the international community should also examine its own actions, adding the benefits of military action are outweighed by the alienation they cause. "The Taliban is not going to be defeated militarily and is impervious to outside criticism," the ICG says. Rather, the legitimacy of its ideas and actions must be challenged more forcefully by the Afghan government and citizens."

Rumors of Russian Bombers Coming to Cuba

Tri-City Herald

Moscow is angry about U.S. plans for missile-defense sites in eastern Europe and Izvestia cited a "highly placed" military aviation source as saying, "While they are deploying the anti-missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, our long-range strategic aircraft already will be landing in Cuba." Izvestia said this apparently refers to long-range nuclear-capable bombers.
Izvestia points out that there would have to be a political decision on landing bombers in Cuba, and quoted the unnamed source as saying there have been such discussions.
In Washington, U.S. State Department Acting Deputy spokesman Gonzalo R. Gallegos said that American officials had received no official confirmation from the Russian government about the newspaper report, and was unaware of any U.S. efforts to directly contact Moscow about it.
"We continue to continue to work with the Russians on this issue," Gallegos said Tuesday, referring to talks aimed at explaining the U.S. government's missile defense plan. "We have consistently made it clear to them that our proposed deployment of a limited missile defense system in Europe poses no threat to them or to their nuclear deterrent."

A Social History of the Surge

Did the surge work? Juan Cole at Informed Comment has an in depth analysis of the facts. The answer is the surge probably had little to do with the changes. Major changes were due to the practice of bribing Sunni tribesman to fight Al Qaeda and the disarming of Sunni's in Baghdad which resulted in the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad of Sunni's by Shia Militia.

America's Middle Class Can't Take Much More Punishment

Alternet.org By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com.

The key factors in almost all of the Sanders letters are exploding gas and heating oil costs, reduced salaries and benefits, and sharply increased property taxes (a phenomenon I hear about all across the country at campaign trail stops, something that seems to me to be directly tied to the Bush tax cuts and the consequent reduced federal aid to states). And it all adds up to one thing.
"The middle class is disappearing," says Sanders. "In real ways we're becoming more like a third-world country."
[..]None of this is a secret. Here, however, is something that is a secret: that this is a class issue that is being intentionally downplayed by a political/media consensus bent on selling the public a version of reality where class resentments, or class distinctions even, do not exist. Our "national debate" is always a thing where we do not talk about things like haves and have-nots, rich and poor, employers versus employees. But we increasingly live in a society where all the political action is happening on one side of the line separating all those groups, to the detriment of the people on the other side.
Here's the thing: nobody needs me or Bernie Sanders to tell them that it sucks out there and that times are tougher economically in this country than perhaps they've been for quite a long time. We've all seen the stats -- median income has declined by almost $2,500 over the past seven years, we have a zero personal savings rate in America for the first time since the Great Depression, and 5 million people have slipped below the poverty level since the beginning of the decade. And stats aside, most everyone out there knows what the deal is.
[..]Our economic reality is as brutal as it is for a simple reason: whether we like it or not, we are in the midst of revolutionary economic changes. In the kind of breathtakingly ironic development that only real life can imagine, the collapse of the Soviet Union has allowed global capitalism to get into the political unfreedom business, turning China and the various impoverished dictatorships and semi-dictatorships of the third world into the sweatshop of the earth. This development has cut the balls out of American civil society by forcing the export abroad of our manufacturing economy, leaving us with a service/managerial economy that simply cannot support the vast, healthy middle class our government used to work very hard to both foster and protect. The Democratic party that was once the impetus behind much of these changes, that argued so eloquently in the New Deal era that our society would be richer and more powerful overall if the spoils were split up enough to create a strong base of middle class consumers -- that party panicked in the years since Nixon and elected to pay for its continued relevance with corporate money. As a result the entire debate between the two major political parties in our country has devolved into an argument over just how quickly to dismantle the few remaining benefits of American middle-class existence -- immediately, if you ask the Republicans, and only slightly less than immediately, if you ask the Democrats.
The Republicans wanted to take Social Security, the signature policy underpinning of the middle class, and put it into private accounts -- which is a fancy way of saying that they wanted to take a huge bundle of American taxpayer cash and invest it in the very companies, the IBMs and Boeings and GMs and so on, that are exporting our jobs abroad. They want the American middle class to finance its very own impoverishment! The Democrats say no, let's keep Social Security more or less as is, and let that impoverishment happen organically.
Now we have a new set of dire problems in the areas of home ownership and exploding energy prices. In both of these matters the basic dynamic is transnational companies raiding the cash savings of the middle class. Because those same companies finance the campaigns of our politicians, we won't hear much talk about getting private industry to help foot the bill to pay for these crises, or forcing the energy companies to cut into their obscene profits for the public good. We will, however, hear talk about taxpayer-subsidized bailouts and various irrelevancies like McCain's gas tax holiday (an amusing solution -- eliminate taxes collected by government in order to pay for taxes collected by energy companies). Ultimately, however, you can bet that when the middle class finally falls all the way down, and this recession becomes something even worse, necessity will force our civil government -- if anything remains of it by then -- to press for the only real solution.
"Corporate America is going to have to reinvest in our society," says Sanders. "It's that simple."
These fantasy elections we've been having -- overblown sports contests with great production values, decided by haircuts and sound bytes and high-tech mudslinging campaigns -- those were sort of fun while they lasted, and were certainly useful in providing jerk-off pundit-dickheads like me with high-paying jobs. But we just can't afford them anymore. We have officially spent and mismanaged our way out of la-la land and back to the ugly place where politics really lives -- a depressingly serious and desperate argument about how to keep large numbers of us from starving and freezing to death. Or losing our homes, or having our cars repossessed. For a long time America has been too embarrassed to talk about class; we all liked to imagine ourselves in the wealthy column, or at least potentially so, flush enough to afford this pissing away of our political power on meaningless game-show debates once every four years. The reality is much different, and this might be the year we're all forced to admit it.

Nine Reasons to Investigate War Crimes Now

AlterNet

1. World peace cannot be achieved without human rights and accountability.

According to Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, chief American prosecutor at the Nuremberg Tribunals, "The ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars, which are inevitable in a system of international lawlessness, is to make statesmen responsible to law." Moving in that direction will be impossible unless such responsibility applies to the statesmen of the world's most powerful countries, and above all the world's sole superpower. U.S. support for the war crimes charges like those just brought by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will represent little more than hypocrisy if U.S. Presidents are not held to the same standard.
2. The rule of law is central to our democracy.
Most Americans believe that even the highest officials are bound by law. If we send mentally-disabled juveniles to prison as adults, but let government officials who authorize torture and launch illegal wars go scot-free, we destroy the very basis of the rule of law.
3. We must not allow precedents to be set that promote war crimes.
Executive action unchallenged by Congress changes the way our law is interpreted. According to Robert Borosage, writing for Huffington Post, "If Bush's extreme assertions of power are not challenged by the Congress, they end up not simply creating new law, they could end up rewriting the Constitution itself."
4. We must restore the principles of democracy to our government.
The claim that the President, as commander-in-chief, can exercise the unlimited powers of a king or dictator strikes at the very heart of our democracy. As Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson put it, we, as citizens, would "submit ourselves to rules only if under rules." Countries like Chile can attest that the restoration of democracy and the rule of law requires more than voting a new party into office -- it requires a rejection of impunity for the criminal acts of government officials.
5. We must forestall an imperialist resurgence.
When they are out of office, the advocates of imperial expansion and global domination have proven brilliant at lying in wait to undermine and destroy their opponents.
They did it to destroy the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. They'll do it again to an Obama Administration unless their machinations are exposed and discredited first.
6. We must have national consensus on the real reasons for the Bush Administration's failures.
Republicans are preparing to dominate future decades of American politics by blaming the failure of the Iraq war on those who "sent a signal" that the U.S. would not "stay the course" whatever the cost. Establishing the real reasons for the failure of the U.S. in Iraq -- the criminal and anti-democratic character of the war -- is the necessary condition for defeating that effort.
7. We must restore America's damaged reputation abroad.
The world has watched as the United States -- the self-proclaimed steward of democracy -- has systematically broken the letter and spirit of its Constitution, violated international treaties, and ignored basic moral tenets of humanity. As former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora recently pointed out to the Senate Armed Services Committee, our nation's "policy of cruelty" has violated our "overarching foreign policy interests and our national security." To establish international legitimacy, we must demonstrate that we are capable of holding our leaders to account.
8. We must lay the basis for major change in U.S. foreign policy.
Real security in the era of global warming and nuclear proliferation must be based on international cooperation. But genuine cooperation requires that the U.S. entirely repudiate the course of the past eight years. The American people must understand why international cooperation rather than pursuit of global domination is necessary to their own security. And other countries must be convinced that we really mean it.
9. We must deter future U.S. war crimes.
The specter of more war crimes haunts our future. Rumors continue to circulate about an American or American-backed Israeli attack on Iran. A recently introduced House resolution promoted by AIPAC "demands" that the President initiate what is effectively a blockade against Iran -- an act seen by some as tantamount to a declaration of war. Nothing could provide a greater deterrent to such future war crimes than establishing accountability for those of the past.
Holding war criminals accountable will require placing the long-term well-being of our country and the world ahead of short-term political advantage. As Rep. Wexler put it, "We owe it to the American people and history to pursue the wrongdoing of this Administration whether or not it helps us politically or in the next election. Our actions will properly define the Bush Administration in the eyes of history and that is the true test."

Bush/Cheney Attempts to Change the Facts on Obama's Visit to Iraq Fails

Bush/Cheney are again engaging in illegal propaganda activities now seeking to influence the US elections. Juan Cole has the scoop.
Informed Comment

Despite all the talk about Iraq being "calm," I'd like to point out that the month just before the last visit Barack Obama made to Iraq (he went in January, 2006), there were 537 civilian and ISF Iraqi casualties. In June of this year, 2008, there were 554 according to AP. These are official statistics gathered passively that probably only capture about 10 percent of the true toll.
That is, the Iraqi death toll is actually still worse now than the last time Obama was in Iraq!
[..]And for the piece de resistance, it turns out that Der Spiegel has an audiotape of the Arabic of the interview, which they leaked to The New York Times. Sabrina Tavernise and Jeff Zeleny write:

But the interpreter for the interview works for Mr. Maliki's office, not the magazine. . . The following is a direct translation from the Arabic of Mr. Maliki's comments by The Times: "Obama's remarks that -- if he takes office -- in 16 months he would withdraw the forces, we think that this period could increase or decrease a little, but that it could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq." He continued: "Who wants to exit in a quicker way has a better assessment of the situation in Iraq."

[..]But you see, it does not matter that al-Maliki actually said what he said. It does not matter that Der Spiegel can prove it. All that matters is that the Goebbelses around Bush and Cheney have managed to muddy the waters and produce doubt, taking the hard edge off the interview. Even AFP, the usually skeptical French wire service, asserted that al-Maliki had "denied" the accuracy of the Der Spiegel interview! Of course, al-Maliki has done no such thing. CENTCOM ventriloquising al-Dabbagh engaged in the denial, and a very vague one at that.
That is the way propaganda works, to obscure the truth and ensure it can be denied. Some wingnut even tried to pressure me to retract the little sentence I had written on the affair yesterday, on the grounds of "al-Dabbagh's" mendacious and ridiculous assertions. Our information system is so corrupt and easily manipulated that even a clumsy ploy can obscure the truth and bully the journalists.

McCain Incites Al-Qaeda, while Bush Negotiates Withdrawal of Troops

McCain struts for the press talking tough, while Bush agrees to pull outs.
Bloomberg.com

Republican presidential candidate John McCain warned that al-Qaeda will step up terrorist attacks in Iraq leading up to the November election in the U.S.
``Al-Qaeda is on their heels but not defeated,'' McCain said today at a town hall meeting with General Motors workers in Warren, Michigan. ``I also predict that they will make an attempt, as we get into election season, to make more of these spectacular kinds of attacks'' by suicide bombers to destabilize the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

I'm sure al-Maliki intends to interpret the agreement with Bush as much more firm about dates of withdrawal than Bush will admit to. Apparently, McCain hopes the voters aren't paying attention to the facts on the ground in Iraq makes Obama right on withdrawal and transfer attention to Afghanistan.
Juan Cole as usual has it right on Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama needs to "prove" to the voters he's stronger on Al Qaeda. I don't think he'll make the same mistakes Bush did in Afghanistan.

US Coastguard says Russia beating America to the Arctic

Every wondered why Bush and the Oil Barons have been so against acting on global warming? It's because there is oil in the Arctic that can only be had if there is no ice!
BigNewsNetwork.com

A top US Coast Guard official has told the Congress that Russia is getting ahead of the United States in the Arctic race. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen has said the government must urgently revise its approach to polar exploration. Admiral Allen told a Congress committee that he was concerned about the decline in the nation's ice-breaking capabilities. The Coast Guard chief said Russia had finally put to sea last year the largest icebreaker in its polar fleet, guaranteeing Russia easy access to the vast natural resources in the Arctic region. Allen said Russia is the only other country, besides the US, with polar ice breaking capabilities, but the Russian fleet is in far better shape, with 'seven to eight' nuclear-powered polar icebreakers.
Russia has undertaken two Arctic expeditions - to the Mendeleyev underwater chain in 2005 and to the Lomonosov ridge last summer to back Russian claims to the region. The area is believed to contain vast oil and gas reserves and other mineral riches, likely to become accessible in future decades due to man-made global warming. Russia said it would submit documentary evidence to the UN of the external boundaries along Russia's territorial shelf in 2009.
Under international law, the five Arctic Circle countries, the US, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Russia, currently have a 322-km economic zone each in the Arctic Ocean.