Via BuzzFlash:
With President Bush kicking back at his ranch, the task of nipping a nascent antiwar movement in the bud fell to Vice President Cheney yesterday, and he went at it with his typical gusto.
To the extent that Cindy Sheehan and other supporters of an Iraqi pullout aim to start a national conversation about American options in Iraq, Cheney made it very clear that as far as he's concerned, that conversation only extends this far: Are you with us or are you against us?
The text of Cheney's speech at a convention of veterans in Springfield, Mo., was distributed to the White House press corps in Crawford, lest anyone overlook it.
Casting the war in Iraq as a battle in the same great tradition as the Revolutionary War -- and as a natural response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- Cheney likened any retreat from the administration's current policies to "turn[ing] over the future of mankind to tiny groups of fanatics committing indiscriminate murder, enslaving whole populations, oppressing women, imposing an ideology of hatred on an entire region, and arming to create death and destruction on an unbelievable scale."
And the only thinkable way to honor the wounded and the dead in Iraq is to fight to the end, he said. "Every man and woman who fights and sacrifices in this war is serving a just and noble cause. This nation will always be grateful to them, and we will honor their sacrifice by completing our mission."
It was not, in a nutshell, a detailed, reasoned response to the increasingly forceful call for troop withdrawal...
Hmmm... peace with honor. Where have I heard that one before?
Even the usual Bu$h sycophants are questioning this behavior- for example, Mrs. Alan Greenspan:
Andrea Mitchell reports for NBC News: "As anti-war criticism grows, Vice President Dick Cheney addressed Purple Heart winners Thursday and strongly defended the conflict. 'We are hunting down the terrorists and training Iraqi security forces so they can take over responsibility for defending their own country,' said Cheney. 'Over time, as Iraqi forces stand up, American forces will stand down.' "
Says Mitchell: "All of this is becoming a political problem, as even some Bush supporters worry about finding an exit strategy from Iraq while the death toll mounts -- both for Iraqis and Americans."
The cheerleaders are starting to question the gameplan:
The Springfield News-Leader points out this morning that Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11.
"The blunder into Iraq and the rising toll there is stealing American resolve. It has blurred the focus on the global war on terror.
"Cheney's speech was a step toward reminding Americans that this is a worldwide conflict. We must extract ourselves, at the proper time, from Iraq and leave it in the hands of a democratically elected government. And we must go after al-Qaida everywhere it is and destroy it.
"When the White House truly regains that vision, Americans will rally behind it."
They aren't quite ready to discuss the possibility that the vision is a mirage.
And, of course, the republican peanut gallery wants a real warlord, not some silly police action. What's a guy gotta do for a good wargasm?
CNN reports: "Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska on Thursday said the United States is 'getting more and more bogged down' in Iraq and stood by his comments that the White House is disconnected from reality and losing the war.
That tends to make the DINOcrats want to respond with attacks of their own on their own (thanks to Atrios for the link).
Heavens, you wouldn't want somebody not owned by Carlyle to become Codpiece-in-Chief, would you? What would happen to the War on Terra?
Meanwhile Hillary and McCain notice the Alaskan permafrost has turned to mud this summer and the water's rising on the Artic shore, each trying to convince America and the Company they would provide more competent leadership than Cheneyburton's heir designate in '08.
Who ever that turns out to be will doubtless install Big Time Dick somewhere cushy where he doesn't have to go to the trouble of re$election in order to keep the cash flow running.
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Faith-based Physics
Newton and Einstein? Spawn of Satan trying to trick us all.
KANSAS CITY, KS—As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held "theory of gravity" is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.
"Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.
Burdett added: "Gravity—which is taught to our children as a law—is founded on great gaps in understanding. The laws predict the mutual force between all bodies of mass, but they cannot explain that force. Isaac Newton himself said, 'I suspect that my theories may all depend upon a force for which philosophers have searched all of nature in vain.' Of course, he is alluding to a higher power."
Founded in 1987, the ECFR is the world's leading institution of evangelical physics, a branch of physics based on literal interpretation of the Bible.
According to the ECFR paper published simultaneously this week in the International Journal Of Science and the adolescent magazine God's Word For Teens!, there are many phenomena that cannot be explained by secular gravity alone, including such mysteries as how angels fly, how Jesus ascended into Heaven, and how Satan fell when cast out of Paradise.
The ECFR, in conjunction with the Christian Coalition and other Christian conservative action groups, is calling for public-school curriculums to give equal time to the Intelligent Falling theory. They insist they are not asking that the theory of gravity be banned from schools, but only that students be offered both sides of the issue "so they can make an informed decision."
"We just want the best possible education for Kansas' kids," Burdett said.
Proponents of Intelligent Falling assert that the different theories used by secular physicists to explain gravity are not internally consistent. Even critics of Intelligent Falling admit that Einstein's ideas about gravity are mathematically irreconcilable with quantum mechanics. This fact, Intelligent Falling proponents say, proves that gravity is a theory in crisis.
"Let's take a look at the evidence," said ECFR senior fellow Gregory Lunsden."In Matthew 15:14, Jesus says, 'And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.' He says nothing about some gravity making them fall—just that they will fall. Then, in Job 5:7, we read, 'But mankind is born to trouble, as surely as sparks fly upwards.' If gravity is pulling everything down, why do the sparks fly upwards with great surety? This clearly indicates that a conscious intelligence governs all falling."
Critics of Intelligent Falling point out that gravity is a provable law based on empirical observations of natural phenomena. Evangelical physicists, however, insist that there is no conflict between Newton's mathematics and Holy Scripture.
"Closed-minded gravitists cannot find a way to make Einstein's general relativity match up with the subatomic quantum world," said Dr. Ellen Carson, a leading Intelligent Falling expert known for her work with the Kansan Youth Ministry. "They've been trying to do it for the better part of a century now, and despite all their empirical observation and carefully compiled data, they still don't know how."
"Traditional scientists admit that they cannot explain how gravitation is supposed to work," Carson said. "What the gravity-agenda scientists need to realize is that 'gravity waves' and 'gravitons' are just secular words for 'God can do whatever He wants.'"
Some evangelical physicists propose that Intelligent Falling provides an elegant solution to the central problem of modern physics.
"Anti-falling physicists have been theorizing for decades about the 'electromagnetic force,' the 'weak nuclear force,' the 'strong nuclear force,' and so-called 'force of gravity,'" Burdett said. "And they tilt their findings toward trying to unite them into one force. But readers of the Bible have already known for millennia what this one, unified force is: His name is Jesus."
KANSAS CITY, KS—As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held "theory of gravity" is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.
"Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.
Burdett added: "Gravity—which is taught to our children as a law—is founded on great gaps in understanding. The laws predict the mutual force between all bodies of mass, but they cannot explain that force. Isaac Newton himself said, 'I suspect that my theories may all depend upon a force for which philosophers have searched all of nature in vain.' Of course, he is alluding to a higher power."
Founded in 1987, the ECFR is the world's leading institution of evangelical physics, a branch of physics based on literal interpretation of the Bible.
According to the ECFR paper published simultaneously this week in the International Journal Of Science and the adolescent magazine God's Word For Teens!, there are many phenomena that cannot be explained by secular gravity alone, including such mysteries as how angels fly, how Jesus ascended into Heaven, and how Satan fell when cast out of Paradise.
The ECFR, in conjunction with the Christian Coalition and other Christian conservative action groups, is calling for public-school curriculums to give equal time to the Intelligent Falling theory. They insist they are not asking that the theory of gravity be banned from schools, but only that students be offered both sides of the issue "so they can make an informed decision."
"We just want the best possible education for Kansas' kids," Burdett said.
Proponents of Intelligent Falling assert that the different theories used by secular physicists to explain gravity are not internally consistent. Even critics of Intelligent Falling admit that Einstein's ideas about gravity are mathematically irreconcilable with quantum mechanics. This fact, Intelligent Falling proponents say, proves that gravity is a theory in crisis.
"Let's take a look at the evidence," said ECFR senior fellow Gregory Lunsden."In Matthew 15:14, Jesus says, 'And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.' He says nothing about some gravity making them fall—just that they will fall. Then, in Job 5:7, we read, 'But mankind is born to trouble, as surely as sparks fly upwards.' If gravity is pulling everything down, why do the sparks fly upwards with great surety? This clearly indicates that a conscious intelligence governs all falling."
Critics of Intelligent Falling point out that gravity is a provable law based on empirical observations of natural phenomena. Evangelical physicists, however, insist that there is no conflict between Newton's mathematics and Holy Scripture.
"Closed-minded gravitists cannot find a way to make Einstein's general relativity match up with the subatomic quantum world," said Dr. Ellen Carson, a leading Intelligent Falling expert known for her work with the Kansan Youth Ministry. "They've been trying to do it for the better part of a century now, and despite all their empirical observation and carefully compiled data, they still don't know how."
"Traditional scientists admit that they cannot explain how gravitation is supposed to work," Carson said. "What the gravity-agenda scientists need to realize is that 'gravity waves' and 'gravitons' are just secular words for 'God can do whatever He wants.'"
Some evangelical physicists propose that Intelligent Falling provides an elegant solution to the central problem of modern physics.
"Anti-falling physicists have been theorizing for decades about the 'electromagnetic force,' the 'weak nuclear force,' the 'strong nuclear force,' and so-called 'force of gravity,'" Burdett said. "And they tilt their findings toward trying to unite them into one force. But readers of the Bible have already known for millennia what this one, unified force is: His name is Jesus."
Friday, August 19, 2005
Land of the Brave, Home of the Fix
What They Did Last Fall
By PAUL KRUGMAN
By running for the U.S. Senate, Katherine Harris, Florida's former secretary of state, has stirred up some ugly memories. And that's a good thing, because those memories remain relevant. There was at least as much electoral malfeasance in 2004 as there was in 2000, even if it didn't change the outcome. And the next election may be worse.
In his recent book "Steal This Vote" - a very judicious work, despite its title - Andrew Gumbel, a U.S. correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, provides the best overview I've seen of the 2000 Florida vote. And he documents the simple truth: "Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election."
Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida's ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore. This was true despite a host of efforts by state and local officials to suppress likely Gore votes, most notably Ms. Harris's "felon purge," which disenfranchised large numbers of valid voters.
But few Americans have heard these facts. Perhaps journalists have felt that it would be divisive to cast doubt on the Bush administration's legitimacy. If so, their tender concern for the nation's feelings has gone for naught: Cindy Sheehan's supporters are camped in Crawford, and America is more bitterly divided than ever.
Meanwhile, the whitewash of what happened in Florida in 2000 showed that election-tampering carries no penalty, and political operatives have acted accordingly. For example, in 2002 the Republican Party in New Hampshire hired a company to jam Democratic and union phone banks on Election Day.
And what about 2004?
Mr. Gumbel throws cold water on those who take the discrepancy between the exit polls and the final result as evidence of a stolen election. (I told you it's a judicious book.) He also seems, on first reading, to play down what happened in Ohio. But the theme of his book is that America has a long, bipartisan history of dirty elections.
He told me that he wasn't brushing off the serious problems in Ohio, but that "this is what American democracy typically looks like, especially in a presidential election in a battleground state that is controlled substantially by one party."
So what does U.S. democracy look like? There have been two Democratic reports on Ohio in 2004, one commissioned by Representative John Conyers Jr., the other by the Democratic National Committee.
The D.N.C. report is very cautious: "The purpose of this investigation," it declares, "was not to challenge or question the results of the election in any way." It says there is no evidence that votes were transferred away from John Kerry - but it does suggest that many potential Kerry votes were suppressed. Although the Conyers report is less cautious, it stops far short of claiming that the wrong candidate got Ohio's electoral votes.
But both reports show that votes were suppressed by long lines at polling places - lines caused by inadequate numbers of voting machines - and that these lines occurred disproportionately in areas likely to vote Democratic. Both reports also point to problems involving voters who were improperly forced to cast provisional votes, many of which were discarded.
The Conyers report goes further, highlighting the blatant partisanship of election officials. In particular, the behavior of Ohio's secretary of state, Kenneth Blackwell - who supervised the election while serving as co-chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio - makes Ms. Harris's actions in 2000 seem mild by comparison.
And then there are the election night stories. Warren County locked down its administration building and barred public observers from the vote-counting, citing an F.B.I. warning of a terrorist threat. But the F.B.I. later denied issuing any such warning. Miami County reported that voter turnout was an improbable 98.55 percent of registered voters. And so on.
We aren't going to rerun the last three elections. But what about the future?
Our current political leaders would suffer greatly if either house of Congress changed hands in 2006, or if the presidency changed hands in 2008. The lids would come off all the simmering scandals, from the selling of the Iraq war to profiteering by politically connected companies. The Republicans will be strongly tempted to make sure that they win those elections by any means necessary. And everything we've seen suggests that they will give in to that temptation.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
By running for the U.S. Senate, Katherine Harris, Florida's former secretary of state, has stirred up some ugly memories. And that's a good thing, because those memories remain relevant. There was at least as much electoral malfeasance in 2004 as there was in 2000, even if it didn't change the outcome. And the next election may be worse.
In his recent book "Steal This Vote" - a very judicious work, despite its title - Andrew Gumbel, a U.S. correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, provides the best overview I've seen of the 2000 Florida vote. And he documents the simple truth: "Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election."
Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida's ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore. This was true despite a host of efforts by state and local officials to suppress likely Gore votes, most notably Ms. Harris's "felon purge," which disenfranchised large numbers of valid voters.
But few Americans have heard these facts. Perhaps journalists have felt that it would be divisive to cast doubt on the Bush administration's legitimacy. If so, their tender concern for the nation's feelings has gone for naught: Cindy Sheehan's supporters are camped in Crawford, and America is more bitterly divided than ever.
Meanwhile, the whitewash of what happened in Florida in 2000 showed that election-tampering carries no penalty, and political operatives have acted accordingly. For example, in 2002 the Republican Party in New Hampshire hired a company to jam Democratic and union phone banks on Election Day.
And what about 2004?
Mr. Gumbel throws cold water on those who take the discrepancy between the exit polls and the final result as evidence of a stolen election. (I told you it's a judicious book.) He also seems, on first reading, to play down what happened in Ohio. But the theme of his book is that America has a long, bipartisan history of dirty elections.
He told me that he wasn't brushing off the serious problems in Ohio, but that "this is what American democracy typically looks like, especially in a presidential election in a battleground state that is controlled substantially by one party."
So what does U.S. democracy look like? There have been two Democratic reports on Ohio in 2004, one commissioned by Representative John Conyers Jr., the other by the Democratic National Committee.
The D.N.C. report is very cautious: "The purpose of this investigation," it declares, "was not to challenge or question the results of the election in any way." It says there is no evidence that votes were transferred away from John Kerry - but it does suggest that many potential Kerry votes were suppressed. Although the Conyers report is less cautious, it stops far short of claiming that the wrong candidate got Ohio's electoral votes.
But both reports show that votes were suppressed by long lines at polling places - lines caused by inadequate numbers of voting machines - and that these lines occurred disproportionately in areas likely to vote Democratic. Both reports also point to problems involving voters who were improperly forced to cast provisional votes, many of which were discarded.
The Conyers report goes further, highlighting the blatant partisanship of election officials. In particular, the behavior of Ohio's secretary of state, Kenneth Blackwell - who supervised the election while serving as co-chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio - makes Ms. Harris's actions in 2000 seem mild by comparison.
And then there are the election night stories. Warren County locked down its administration building and barred public observers from the vote-counting, citing an F.B.I. warning of a terrorist threat. But the F.B.I. later denied issuing any such warning. Miami County reported that voter turnout was an improbable 98.55 percent of registered voters. And so on.
We aren't going to rerun the last three elections. But what about the future?
Our current political leaders would suffer greatly if either house of Congress changed hands in 2006, or if the presidency changed hands in 2008. The lids would come off all the simmering scandals, from the selling of the Iraq war to profiteering by politically connected companies. The Republicans will be strongly tempted to make sure that they win those elections by any means necessary. And everything we've seen suggests that they will give in to that temptation.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Funny, They Don't Sound Like Enemies...
Thanks to the translation from French by Leslie Thatcher at Truthout, we have another story you won't hear on CNN:
The gesture is symbolic, but when members of an imposing North Korean delegation bowed for a long time in front of the monument to the South Korean dead from the fratricidal war of 1950 to 1953, an emotional threshold was crossed in the reconciliation of the two countries. Sunday, for the first time, a North Korean delegation, lead by Kim Ki-nam, Vice President of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, paid tribute to the southern soldiers who fell during the war at the Seoul National Cemetery.
Monday, August 15, day of commemoration of the Japanese defeat - and for Koreans, the anniversary of their national liberation - 60,000 South Koreans, standing, welcomed the North Korean delegation in the World Cup Football Stadium to cries of "Korea is one!"
History is accelerating in the peninsula. On June 15, for the fifth anniversary of the first summit between the leaders of the two countries, ceremonies animated by the same patriotic fervor took place in Pyongyang. In Seoul, where a football match between the teams of North and South marked the event, the stadium was decorated only - as had been the case in the North Korean capital in June - with the flags of unified Korea: a blue peninsula on a white background. "The national tragedy can no longer continue," Mr. Kim declared to ovations.
The North Korean two-hundred-strong delegation's four day visit to Seoul continued with a visit to the National Assembly. On Wednesday, August 17, the visit was supposed to be capped by a reception in the presence of President Roh Moo-hyun, to whom the delegation's leader gave a message from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
It's not the first delegation from the North to come to Seoul, but generally the objectives of these visits are political or economic. This time, the reconciliation of "people to people" was advanced, as had been the case in Pyongyang in June. This displacement was not exempt from political implications either, since the Six Party Talks (the two Koreas, China, United States, Japan, and Russia) on North Korea's nuclear ambitions are supposed to resume August 29 in Beijing.
It is more and more obvious that South Korea, while remaining firm in its opposition to North Korean nuclearization, is dissociating itself from the United States' intransigent position toward Pyongyang. Seoul has just declared itself to be in favor of the peaceful use of nuclear energy Pyongyang demands, divorcing itself thereby from the categorical rejection of Washington, which deems that the regime cannot be trusted. The civil use of atomic energy was the main snag in the Six Party Talks in July in Beijing: "North Korea has a right to use atomic energy for civilian purposes," declared Chung Dong-young: a position shared by China and Russia.
Pyongyang is cultivating rapprochement with the South by increasing gestures of reconciliation. According to a recent poll by the conservative daily newspaper Chosun Ilbo, 66% of Koreans aged 16-25 would be on Pyongyang's side should the United States launch a war against North Korea. The generations that experienced the war are more reticent, and the North Korean delegation's visit to the cemetery was intended for their benefit. Another sign of détente: the two Koreas endowed themselves with a "red telephone" on August 10th to avoid border incidents. It's a first direct line between their military authorities.
The development of inter-Korean relations is a reality Washington is forced to take into account: it is less and less likely that Seoul will align itself with the American hard line, using sanctions as a key, against Pyongyang.
Washington limit itself to realities? Isn't that what those Frenchmen do? Since Algeria, anyway.
The gesture is symbolic, but when members of an imposing North Korean delegation bowed for a long time in front of the monument to the South Korean dead from the fratricidal war of 1950 to 1953, an emotional threshold was crossed in the reconciliation of the two countries. Sunday, for the first time, a North Korean delegation, lead by Kim Ki-nam, Vice President of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, paid tribute to the southern soldiers who fell during the war at the Seoul National Cemetery.
Monday, August 15, day of commemoration of the Japanese defeat - and for Koreans, the anniversary of their national liberation - 60,000 South Koreans, standing, welcomed the North Korean delegation in the World Cup Football Stadium to cries of "Korea is one!"
History is accelerating in the peninsula. On June 15, for the fifth anniversary of the first summit between the leaders of the two countries, ceremonies animated by the same patriotic fervor took place in Pyongyang. In Seoul, where a football match between the teams of North and South marked the event, the stadium was decorated only - as had been the case in the North Korean capital in June - with the flags of unified Korea: a blue peninsula on a white background. "The national tragedy can no longer continue," Mr. Kim declared to ovations.
The North Korean two-hundred-strong delegation's four day visit to Seoul continued with a visit to the National Assembly. On Wednesday, August 17, the visit was supposed to be capped by a reception in the presence of President Roh Moo-hyun, to whom the delegation's leader gave a message from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
It's not the first delegation from the North to come to Seoul, but generally the objectives of these visits are political or economic. This time, the reconciliation of "people to people" was advanced, as had been the case in Pyongyang in June. This displacement was not exempt from political implications either, since the Six Party Talks (the two Koreas, China, United States, Japan, and Russia) on North Korea's nuclear ambitions are supposed to resume August 29 in Beijing.
It is more and more obvious that South Korea, while remaining firm in its opposition to North Korean nuclearization, is dissociating itself from the United States' intransigent position toward Pyongyang. Seoul has just declared itself to be in favor of the peaceful use of nuclear energy Pyongyang demands, divorcing itself thereby from the categorical rejection of Washington, which deems that the regime cannot be trusted. The civil use of atomic energy was the main snag in the Six Party Talks in July in Beijing: "North Korea has a right to use atomic energy for civilian purposes," declared Chung Dong-young: a position shared by China and Russia.
Pyongyang is cultivating rapprochement with the South by increasing gestures of reconciliation. According to a recent poll by the conservative daily newspaper Chosun Ilbo, 66% of Koreans aged 16-25 would be on Pyongyang's side should the United States launch a war against North Korea. The generations that experienced the war are more reticent, and the North Korean delegation's visit to the cemetery was intended for their benefit. Another sign of détente: the two Koreas endowed themselves with a "red telephone" on August 10th to avoid border incidents. It's a first direct line between their military authorities.
The development of inter-Korean relations is a reality Washington is forced to take into account: it is less and less likely that Seoul will align itself with the American hard line, using sanctions as a key, against Pyongyang.
Washington limit itself to realities? Isn't that what those Frenchmen do? Since Algeria, anyway.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
The Sound of Crickets and Cicadas
...as fireflies drift at the end of a Michigan summer.
Fortunately the drill didn't go live.
We'll probably never know the whole story.
I like what that Rod Serling wanna-be Jeff Wells says about this kind of thing.
..."When the other shoe drops, it probably won't be the one we're expecting. But you know what? After all our studious anticipation, we'll know enough to know it's a shoe, and who dropped it. And there's also this: there is the possibility that public expectation - raising our own terror alert over "chatter," suspicious movements and exercises - could possibly forestall synthetic terror events. Why not? It's the same logic Tom Ridge applied to measure the success of Homeland Security. It can never be verified but I have to wonder what might have not happened if, before 7/7, someone had got wind of the drills and posted "Look out, London: the morning of July 7 there's an 'anti-terror' simulation of simultaneous detonations of three bombs at the following stations." (A "fear-mongerer" might have added "OMG, Giuliani's going to be in town!") If the news of the drill had entered public conciousness beforehand to the degree that Fort Monroe's drill has in Charleston - this was a front page story - it's difficult to imagine the bombings proceeding as planned. And so, when no bombs exploded, those who had sounded the alarm would likely think they'd gotten excited over nothing, and might be reticent to do the same again. In such a scenario, this is the price of success: ignorance.
"So we shouldn't be shy on Thursday, after the world hasn't blown up more than usual on Wednesday, about sharing what we see, next time we see an ominous convergance of opportunities. It's not forecasting - we've already done that to the limits of our knowledge when we say Americans can expect 90% probability of more of the same - it's saying This is probably nothing, but - Heads up. We're not crying wolf here. After all, we know there is a wolf, and we know him well enough to know he'll strike again when he has the chance and the need. But perhaps, the closer we observe him, and the more vocal we are about it, the more we reduce his chances. His need - there's not much we can do about that..."
No, we can't do much about his need. A wolf is a wolf. We can pen up his pack where they can do us no harm. We can if we have the resolve.
And if every progressive blog has at least heard of the possibility of an opportunity for an attack, it makes it much less likely.
Why do suppose there was so much noise about Y2K terror- and none apparently appeared? Far from being foolish, there was at least one real terror plot that was discovered and aborted. I think it was the vigilance that blocked the violence.
Once Bu$hCo gained control, for whatever reason, the vigilance was lacking.
To disasterous effect.
You can believe it: if we took our eyes off of what Cheneyburton has in store for Iran, and quit our shrill incessant noise about the Iraqi war, Bu$hCo would be sending in private contractors to seize every oilfield from Syria to the Afghanistan border. They would do it under the cover and spending the lives of American soldiers.
But if the Company is watching us, we're watching them, too.
Fortunately the drill didn't go live.
We'll probably never know the whole story.
I like what that Rod Serling wanna-be Jeff Wells says about this kind of thing.
..."When the other shoe drops, it probably won't be the one we're expecting. But you know what? After all our studious anticipation, we'll know enough to know it's a shoe, and who dropped it. And there's also this: there is the possibility that public expectation - raising our own terror alert over "chatter," suspicious movements and exercises - could possibly forestall synthetic terror events. Why not? It's the same logic Tom Ridge applied to measure the success of Homeland Security. It can never be verified but I have to wonder what might have not happened if, before 7/7, someone had got wind of the drills and posted "Look out, London: the morning of July 7 there's an 'anti-terror' simulation of simultaneous detonations of three bombs at the following stations." (A "fear-mongerer" might have added "OMG, Giuliani's going to be in town!") If the news of the drill had entered public conciousness beforehand to the degree that Fort Monroe's drill has in Charleston - this was a front page story - it's difficult to imagine the bombings proceeding as planned. And so, when no bombs exploded, those who had sounded the alarm would likely think they'd gotten excited over nothing, and might be reticent to do the same again. In such a scenario, this is the price of success: ignorance.
"So we shouldn't be shy on Thursday, after the world hasn't blown up more than usual on Wednesday, about sharing what we see, next time we see an ominous convergance of opportunities. It's not forecasting - we've already done that to the limits of our knowledge when we say Americans can expect 90% probability of more of the same - it's saying This is probably nothing, but - Heads up. We're not crying wolf here. After all, we know there is a wolf, and we know him well enough to know he'll strike again when he has the chance and the need. But perhaps, the closer we observe him, and the more vocal we are about it, the more we reduce his chances. His need - there's not much we can do about that..."
No, we can't do much about his need. A wolf is a wolf. We can pen up his pack where they can do us no harm. We can if we have the resolve.
And if every progressive blog has at least heard of the possibility of an opportunity for an attack, it makes it much less likely.
Why do suppose there was so much noise about Y2K terror- and none apparently appeared? Far from being foolish, there was at least one real terror plot that was discovered and aborted. I think it was the vigilance that blocked the violence.
Once Bu$hCo gained control, for whatever reason, the vigilance was lacking.
To disasterous effect.
You can believe it: if we took our eyes off of what Cheneyburton has in store for Iran, and quit our shrill incessant noise about the Iraqi war, Bu$hCo would be sending in private contractors to seize every oilfield from Syria to the Afghanistan border. They would do it under the cover and spending the lives of American soldiers.
But if the Company is watching us, we're watching them, too.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Cylons-R-US
One of the frontiers of Future Combat Systems is Robotics.
Why draft 'em when you can make 'em?
One of the more successful efforts in Robotics has to do with Unmanned Aircraft, possibly because autopilots were one of the first artificial intelligence systems.
It is curious that DARPA releases what ought to be one of its most exciting and revolutionary but practical concepts in robot aircraft in a document that can be captured and distributed to every techno-geek, competing foreign government, or budding terrorist that reads the web.
A lot of this materiel is being used as I write. A lot is in the pilot stage, and some hasn't begun to be tested.
For what's new, for example, check out (p.6):
2.1.3 RQ-4 Global Hawk
User Service: Air Force
Manufacturer: Northrop Grumman
Inventory: 12 Delivered/58 Planned (7 ACTD + 51 Production aircraft)
Background: The Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk is a high altitude, long endurance UA designed to provide wide area coverage of up to 40,000 nm2 per day. The size differences between the RQ-4A (Block 10) and RQ-4B (Blocks 20, 30, 40) models are shown above. Global Hawk completed its first flight in February 1998 and transitioned from an ACTD into engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) in March 2001. Global Hawk carries both an EO/IR sensor and a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) with moving target indicator (MTI) capability, allowing day/night, all-weather reconnaissance. Sensor data is relayed over CDL LOS (X-band) and/or beyond line- of-site (BLOS) (Ku-band SATCOM) data links to its mission control element (MCE), which distributes imagery to up to seven theater exploitation systems...
Is it only me, or is it a strange thing for DARPA to brag about it's newest spy drones, and the models about to be built? Is it odd to talk about- to advertise futuristic experimental and doubtless (in other documents) Top Secret unmanned stealth fighters like (p. 11)
Boeing X-45C (L) and Northrop Grumman X-47B (R) J-UCAS Demonstrators
...
Characteristics:
Model---------------X-45C------------X-47B
Length--------------39 ft-------------38 ft
Wing Span-----------49 ft-------------62 ft
Gross Weight--------36,500 lb---------46,000 lb
Payload Capacity----4,500 lb----------4,500 lb
...
And more. Lots more. Fuel capacity, engine make, max/loiter speeds, ceiling, all the specifications someone who might have to fight it might want to know.
Or how about the brand new system DARPA wants to add to augment our ability to watch incoming Cruise missiles?
2.5.3 Joint Land Attack Elevated Netted Sensor (JLENS)
User Service: Joint (Army Lead)
Manufacturer: Raytheon/TCOM
Inventory: 12 Planned
Background: JLENS is primarily intended to tackle the growing threat of cruise missiles to U.S. forces deployed abroad with radars to provide over-the-horizon surveillance. A JLENS system consists of two aerostats, one containing a surveillance radar (SuR) and one containing a precision track illumination radar (PTIR). Each aerostat is tethered to a mobile mooring station and attached to a processing station via a fiber optic/power tether. The SuR provides the initial target detection and the
cueing to the PTIR, which generates a fire control quality track. The JLENS system is integrated into the joint tactical architecture via Link 16, cooperative engagement capability, single-channel ground and air radio system, and enhanced position location reporting system. Both radar systems will include identification, friend or foe interrogators...---p.33
It's a blimp, for crying out loud, a stationary target, and now anybody firing a cruise missile realizes they might want to shoot these things down first...
How much money are they spending building and implementing these toys? Not to mention shooting their surprise potential down before it's started.
(see Table 2.6-1). In the wake of September 11, 2001, FY03 was the first billion-dollar year in UAS history and FY05 will be the first two billion-dollar year (see Figure 2.6-1 and Tables 2.6-2 and 2.6-3). The U.S. UAS inventory is expected to grow from 250 today to 675 by 2010 and 1400 by 2015 (not including micro and mini UA) and to support a wider range of missions—e.g. signals intelligence (SIGINT), cargo, communication relay, and Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD)—compared to today’s imagery reconnaissance and strike roles.--pp.36-37.
One gets the impression it's been a good wake indeed.
Keeping this stuff Top Secret would be a little silly, particularly since our buddies the Russians are not only kissy-face with Dear Leader (like our buddies the Saudis) they're actually building a lot of stuff for us and deploying their own models (see pp 38-40).
And, presumably, buying it from- us? Or more precisely, the people who own the US these days. The whole document reads like an advertising brochure, and not just for Northop-Grumman or General Atomics. Because it's not just private contractors building this stuff, it's private contractors running it. Or showing the D.o'D. how to use it:
All DoD UAS operating today employ contractors to conduct the majority of their UAS training requirements....
-p.76
The entire document is splashed with Heroic high tech soldiers in Iraq, usually manly crewcut men (Jeff Gannon would fit right in) deploying drone aircraft designed to watch- and shoot at- insurgents.
There's a whole Homeland Security section. Yes, Virginia, they are watching you. They even show action pictures of it.
Where is all this vast and shiny expenditure heading? Why, to autonomous Warfighters, of course.
The number one future priority:
1. Develop and operationally assess for potential fielding a joint unmanned combat aircraft system capable of performing SEAD/Strike/Electronic Attack/ISR in high threat environments. (OSD, USAF, USN)...
-p. 75
This is all part of the Joint Roadmap for Robotics, downloadable at http://www.jointrobotics.com/activities_new/masterplan.shtml.
You know I'll have more to say about that later.
Note that the D.o'D. is again using a contractors to distribute a roadmap of current equipment, experimental plans, and projections for the next 25 years.
That's so the War Machine can franchise itself.
Why draft 'em when you can make 'em?
One of the more successful efforts in Robotics has to do with Unmanned Aircraft, possibly because autopilots were one of the first artificial intelligence systems.
It is curious that DARPA releases what ought to be one of its most exciting and revolutionary but practical concepts in robot aircraft in a document that can be captured and distributed to every techno-geek, competing foreign government, or budding terrorist that reads the web.
A lot of this materiel is being used as I write. A lot is in the pilot stage, and some hasn't begun to be tested.
For what's new, for example, check out (p.6):
2.1.3 RQ-4 Global Hawk
User Service: Air Force
Manufacturer: Northrop Grumman
Inventory: 12 Delivered/58 Planned (7 ACTD + 51 Production aircraft)
Background: The Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk is a high altitude, long endurance UA designed to provide wide area coverage of up to 40,000 nm2 per day. The size differences between the RQ-4A (Block 10) and RQ-4B (Blocks 20, 30, 40) models are shown above. Global Hawk completed its first flight in February 1998 and transitioned from an ACTD into engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) in March 2001. Global Hawk carries both an EO/IR sensor and a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) with moving target indicator (MTI) capability, allowing day/night, all-weather reconnaissance. Sensor data is relayed over CDL LOS (X-band) and/or beyond line- of-site (BLOS) (Ku-band SATCOM) data links to its mission control element (MCE), which distributes imagery to up to seven theater exploitation systems...
Is it only me, or is it a strange thing for DARPA to brag about it's newest spy drones, and the models about to be built? Is it odd to talk about- to advertise futuristic experimental and doubtless (in other documents) Top Secret unmanned stealth fighters like (p. 11)
Boeing X-45C (L) and Northrop Grumman X-47B (R) J-UCAS Demonstrators
...
Characteristics:
Model---------------X-45C------------X-47B
Length--------------39 ft-------------38 ft
Wing Span-----------49 ft-------------62 ft
Gross Weight--------36,500 lb---------46,000 lb
Payload Capacity----4,500 lb----------4,500 lb
...
And more. Lots more. Fuel capacity, engine make, max/loiter speeds, ceiling, all the specifications someone who might have to fight it might want to know.
Or how about the brand new system DARPA wants to add to augment our ability to watch incoming Cruise missiles?
2.5.3 Joint Land Attack Elevated Netted Sensor (JLENS)
User Service: Joint (Army Lead)
Manufacturer: Raytheon/TCOM
Inventory: 12 Planned
Background: JLENS is primarily intended to tackle the growing threat of cruise missiles to U.S. forces deployed abroad with radars to provide over-the-horizon surveillance. A JLENS system consists of two aerostats, one containing a surveillance radar (SuR) and one containing a precision track illumination radar (PTIR). Each aerostat is tethered to a mobile mooring station and attached to a processing station via a fiber optic/power tether. The SuR provides the initial target detection and the
cueing to the PTIR, which generates a fire control quality track. The JLENS system is integrated into the joint tactical architecture via Link 16, cooperative engagement capability, single-channel ground and air radio system, and enhanced position location reporting system. Both radar systems will include identification, friend or foe interrogators...---p.33
It's a blimp, for crying out loud, a stationary target, and now anybody firing a cruise missile realizes they might want to shoot these things down first...
How much money are they spending building and implementing these toys? Not to mention shooting their surprise potential down before it's started.
(see Table 2.6-1). In the wake of September 11, 2001, FY03 was the first billion-dollar year in UAS history and FY05 will be the first two billion-dollar year (see Figure 2.6-1 and Tables 2.6-2 and 2.6-3). The U.S. UAS inventory is expected to grow from 250 today to 675 by 2010 and 1400 by 2015 (not including micro and mini UA) and to support a wider range of missions—e.g. signals intelligence (SIGINT), cargo, communication relay, and Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD)—compared to today’s imagery reconnaissance and strike roles.--pp.36-37.
One gets the impression it's been a good wake indeed.
Keeping this stuff Top Secret would be a little silly, particularly since our buddies the Russians are not only kissy-face with Dear Leader (like our buddies the Saudis) they're actually building a lot of stuff for us and deploying their own models (see pp 38-40).
And, presumably, buying it from- us? Or more precisely, the people who own the US these days. The whole document reads like an advertising brochure, and not just for Northop-Grumman or General Atomics. Because it's not just private contractors building this stuff, it's private contractors running it. Or showing the D.o'D. how to use it:
All DoD UAS operating today employ contractors to conduct the majority of their UAS training requirements....
-p.76
The entire document is splashed with Heroic high tech soldiers in Iraq, usually manly crewcut men (Jeff Gannon would fit right in) deploying drone aircraft designed to watch- and shoot at- insurgents.
There's a whole Homeland Security section. Yes, Virginia, they are watching you. They even show action pictures of it.
Where is all this vast and shiny expenditure heading? Why, to autonomous Warfighters, of course.
The number one future priority:
1. Develop and operationally assess for potential fielding a joint unmanned combat aircraft system capable of performing SEAD/Strike/Electronic Attack/ISR in high threat environments. (OSD, USAF, USN)...
-p. 75
This is all part of the Joint Roadmap for Robotics, downloadable at http://www.jointrobotics.com/activities_new/masterplan.shtml.
You know I'll have more to say about that later.
Note that the D.o'D. is again using a contractors to distribute a roadmap of current equipment, experimental plans, and projections for the next 25 years.
That's so the War Machine can franchise itself.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Reality-based Education
Pharyngula points to an excellent essay regarding the teaching of evolution.
In the beginning, creationists tried to ban the teaching of evolution altogether. Most famously, 80 years ago, John Scopes was tried for breaking a Tennessee law outlawing such instruction. He was found guilty, and evolution effectively disappeared from the high school curriculum shortly thereafter, though it continued to be taught in universities.
But when university scientists began writing high school biology textbooks in the late 1950s and early '60s, evolution returned to the curriculum, provoking a second outbreak of anti-evolutionism during the '70s and '80s.
Creationism was repackaged as "creation science" in the hope that it would be taught along with evolution.
In the '70s and '80s, at least 26 states tried to legislate equal time for creation science with evolution, bringing the courts back in. The 1982 U.S. district court decision in McLean v. Arkansas— Scopes II — showed that such laws violated the First Amendment's Establishment Clause by promoting a sectarian religious idea inappropriate for the public school science classrooms. In 1987, the Supreme Court reached the same decision in Edwards v. Aguillard.
Such decisions doomed creation science in the public schools, but they opened a niche for a repackaging of creationism: "intelligent design" (ID).
Like creation science, ID was presented as a scientific "alternative" to evolution, though its scientific content was intentionally vague. Its proponents claimed to have a method to identify natural phenomena that are, supposedly, incapable of being explained by evolution. ID advocates contend that "irreducibly complex" structures such as the bacterial flagellum can only be explained by appealing to the action of an intelligent agent.
To secure a wide base of creationist supporters, ID advocates are coy about when and how such actions occurred. Because creation science, which insists on a 6,000-year-old Earth, is still the dominant form of anti-evolutionism, ID can't afford to take a stand to the contrary. Nonetheless, the mainstream of the ID movement is sympathetic to what theologians call progressive creationism, where God creates in fits and starts over time, rather than in six days. It's still creationism, and so is ID.
To avoid this accusation, and thus circumvent the Establishment Clause, ID advocates are also coy about the identity of the designer, claiming that it doesn't have to be God. But, token allusions to the possibility of extraterrestrial or time-traveling biochemists notwithstanding, no one is fooled into thinking that the designer is not the Designer: God.
Initially, ID proponents encouraged the teaching of ID in the public schools, but lately they've had second thoughts. They likely have figured out that if a school district required the teaching of ID, a judge would inevitably ask, "By the way, who's the 'intelligent designer'? Sounds a lot like God." And the jig will be up.
To avoid this legal predicament, the ID movement's leaders have shifted strategy, encouraging school districts and teachers not to teach ID but to teach "evidence against evolution" or "the controversy." This message comes too late for Dover, Pa., where last fall the school board passed a policy requiring the teaching of ID. In September, Dover's ID policy will go on trial, in what might aptly be called Scopes III.
Elsewhere — in Kansas, for example, where a creationist majority on the State Board of Education is monkeying with the state's science standards — "teach the controversy" is the new rallying cry of creationists. The hope is that if students are taught that evolution is suspect, they will automatically embrace creationism. But "teach the controversy" is not a pedagogical device that will help them in college: Evolution is taught matter-of-factly at the nation's most prestigious universities, including religious institutions such as Brigham Young, Baylor and Notre Dame.
The propaganda that evolution is a theory in crisis is hardly new. In 1925, William Jennings Bryan falsely contended that evolutionary science was on the verge of collapse, as his heirs argue today. Yet the evidence for evolution is stronger than ever.
Historically, improvements in the teaching of evolution are inevitably followed by a backlash. When anti-evolutionists couldn't ban evolution, they tried to get creationism taught alongside it. When the courts said creationism couldn't be taught in public schools, anti-evolutionists called for teaching spurious "evidence against evolution" in the hope that students would come to mistrust evolution and accept creationism by default...
What ought to be taught in high school science class? The basic methods and results of the consensus view of the scientific community. Evolution is part, and a vital part, of this consensus; creation science and intelligent design are not. Students should understand evolution, both if they are going on to college and for general scientific literacy. But in too many places across the country, students are not learning it.
And that's a problem, because it is widely recognized that the 21st century will be the century of biology, in which genomic, medical and biotechnological discoveries are bound to revolutionize our economy and our lives — and those of our children. America needs to produce the scientists who will pioneer in these fields, which means maintaining and improving the quality of science education — including a healthy dose of evolution, uncompromised by sectarian dogma, bad science and fake "critical analysis." Because those high school kids in India, China, Korea and Singapore are learning evolution, even if ours aren't.
Reality. At USA Today of all places. Whatever's going on there, let's hope it spreads.
In the beginning, creationists tried to ban the teaching of evolution altogether. Most famously, 80 years ago, John Scopes was tried for breaking a Tennessee law outlawing such instruction. He was found guilty, and evolution effectively disappeared from the high school curriculum shortly thereafter, though it continued to be taught in universities.
But when university scientists began writing high school biology textbooks in the late 1950s and early '60s, evolution returned to the curriculum, provoking a second outbreak of anti-evolutionism during the '70s and '80s.
Creationism was repackaged as "creation science" in the hope that it would be taught along with evolution.
In the '70s and '80s, at least 26 states tried to legislate equal time for creation science with evolution, bringing the courts back in. The 1982 U.S. district court decision in McLean v. Arkansas— Scopes II — showed that such laws violated the First Amendment's Establishment Clause by promoting a sectarian religious idea inappropriate for the public school science classrooms. In 1987, the Supreme Court reached the same decision in Edwards v. Aguillard.
Such decisions doomed creation science in the public schools, but they opened a niche for a repackaging of creationism: "intelligent design" (ID).
Like creation science, ID was presented as a scientific "alternative" to evolution, though its scientific content was intentionally vague. Its proponents claimed to have a method to identify natural phenomena that are, supposedly, incapable of being explained by evolution. ID advocates contend that "irreducibly complex" structures such as the bacterial flagellum can only be explained by appealing to the action of an intelligent agent.
To secure a wide base of creationist supporters, ID advocates are coy about when and how such actions occurred. Because creation science, which insists on a 6,000-year-old Earth, is still the dominant form of anti-evolutionism, ID can't afford to take a stand to the contrary. Nonetheless, the mainstream of the ID movement is sympathetic to what theologians call progressive creationism, where God creates in fits and starts over time, rather than in six days. It's still creationism, and so is ID.
To avoid this accusation, and thus circumvent the Establishment Clause, ID advocates are also coy about the identity of the designer, claiming that it doesn't have to be God. But, token allusions to the possibility of extraterrestrial or time-traveling biochemists notwithstanding, no one is fooled into thinking that the designer is not the Designer: God.
Initially, ID proponents encouraged the teaching of ID in the public schools, but lately they've had second thoughts. They likely have figured out that if a school district required the teaching of ID, a judge would inevitably ask, "By the way, who's the 'intelligent designer'? Sounds a lot like God." And the jig will be up.
To avoid this legal predicament, the ID movement's leaders have shifted strategy, encouraging school districts and teachers not to teach ID but to teach "evidence against evolution" or "the controversy." This message comes too late for Dover, Pa., where last fall the school board passed a policy requiring the teaching of ID. In September, Dover's ID policy will go on trial, in what might aptly be called Scopes III.
Elsewhere — in Kansas, for example, where a creationist majority on the State Board of Education is monkeying with the state's science standards — "teach the controversy" is the new rallying cry of creationists. The hope is that if students are taught that evolution is suspect, they will automatically embrace creationism. But "teach the controversy" is not a pedagogical device that will help them in college: Evolution is taught matter-of-factly at the nation's most prestigious universities, including religious institutions such as Brigham Young, Baylor and Notre Dame.
The propaganda that evolution is a theory in crisis is hardly new. In 1925, William Jennings Bryan falsely contended that evolutionary science was on the verge of collapse, as his heirs argue today. Yet the evidence for evolution is stronger than ever.
Historically, improvements in the teaching of evolution are inevitably followed by a backlash. When anti-evolutionists couldn't ban evolution, they tried to get creationism taught alongside it. When the courts said creationism couldn't be taught in public schools, anti-evolutionists called for teaching spurious "evidence against evolution" in the hope that students would come to mistrust evolution and accept creationism by default...
What ought to be taught in high school science class? The basic methods and results of the consensus view of the scientific community. Evolution is part, and a vital part, of this consensus; creation science and intelligent design are not. Students should understand evolution, both if they are going on to college and for general scientific literacy. But in too many places across the country, students are not learning it.
And that's a problem, because it is widely recognized that the 21st century will be the century of biology, in which genomic, medical and biotechnological discoveries are bound to revolutionize our economy and our lives — and those of our children. America needs to produce the scientists who will pioneer in these fields, which means maintaining and improving the quality of science education — including a healthy dose of evolution, uncompromised by sectarian dogma, bad science and fake "critical analysis." Because those high school kids in India, China, Korea and Singapore are learning evolution, even if ours aren't.
Reality. At USA Today of all places. Whatever's going on there, let's hope it spreads.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
New Tales from the DARPA Side of the Force
Lots of new stuff of interest at Defense Tech.
Yes, Virginia, we are living in a Philip K. Dick novel, and more so every day.
*The first public appearance of the Robot Fighter.
*Sonic blasters and super sensitive listening devices are being experimented with in Iraq (human experimentation on "insurgents"?) and distributed to some police forces like Los Angeles in the Homeland.
*The Pentagon came out with its Unmanned Forces Roadmap for the next 25 years, which is a declassified .pdf document you can get here from the Federation of American Scientists.
That's one roadmap you'll be hearing more about here in the days to come.
Yes, Virginia, we are living in a Philip K. Dick novel, and more so every day.
*The first public appearance of the Robot Fighter.
*Sonic blasters and super sensitive listening devices are being experimented with in Iraq (human experimentation on "insurgents"?) and distributed to some police forces like Los Angeles in the Homeland.
*The Pentagon came out with its Unmanned Forces Roadmap for the next 25 years, which is a declassified .pdf document you can get here from the Federation of American Scientists.
That's one roadmap you'll be hearing more about here in the days to come.
Who Ya Gonna Believe?
albert champion points to a nice perspective on the Able Danger revelations.
We knew the terrorists of 9/11 were waltzing around the country doing things like going to strip joints and throwing wild parties, but aside from the kinds of things a righteous Dominionist would disapprove of, the main$tream media has been really quiet about exactly what they were doing and who they were partying with.
Time sez:
Just how damning are allegations by Congressman Curt Weldon that a secret Pentagon intelligence operation pegged hijacker Mohammed Atta as a threat nearly two years before he led the 9/11 attacks? When Weldon first made the charge in a new book and in a June speech on the House floor, it met with little attention, but perhaps due to the August heat or the approaching fourth anniversary of the attacks, the accusation ignited controversy last week.
The question is whether it has any substance. Weldon says a data-mining exercise, called Able Danger, spotted Atta and other hijackers in 1999, but Pentagon lawyers in September 2000 blocked officials running the program from handing the tip to the FBI. Weldon’s further allegation that the 9/11 commission was alerted to the alleged oversight but ignored it prompted the defunct panel to conduct an investigation last week before issuing a statement late Friday saying members had received only an 11th-hour mention of Atta that “was not sufficiently reliable to warrant revision of the report or further investigation"...
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
Hopsicker asks :
Upon what basis did the 9.11 Commission conclude that the FBI’s timeline was correct and that an elite Army Intel unit was mistaken in saying they were tracking Mohamed Atta roaming freely across America during 1999 and 2000?
And why exactly is this important?
Calling unwelcome attention to the massive inaccuracies in the FBI’s timeline was probably not Republican Curt Weldon’s purpose when he brought the story to light...But if his efforts to implicate Clinton Administration officials results in highlighting the FBI's incomplete and corrupt investigation, we think he get some kind of medal, maybe called the Inadvertent 'Dumb-Ass' Hero Award.
We suspect his Republican friends would much prefer to let sleeping dogs lie. Because it isn’t just one elite Army Intel unit that’s saying it... In the aftermath of the 9.11 attack numerous eyewitnesses came forward to attest to Atta’s presence in the U.S. before June of 2000.
Their number even includes a U.S. Government official with a signed and dated loan application from Mohamed Atta his-ownself.
In interviews with major news organizations Johnelle Bryant, an official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, revealed that Atta and three other September 11th terrorists visited her Florida office seeking a government loan.
ABC’s Brian Ross reported: “Johnelle Bryant is the USDA loan officer in Homestead, Florida, who Atta approached in May of 2000, long before al-Qaeda and bin Laden were household words.”
Mr. Atta swung by in May, 2000, and Ms. Bryant remembers quite a bit about it.
"At first," she says, "he refused to speak with me," on the grounds that she was, in his words, "but a female."
"I told him that if he was interested in getting a farm-service agency loan in my servicing area, then he would need to deal with me."
Ms. Bryant says the applicant was asking for $650,000 to start a crop-dusting business. His plan was to buy a six-seater twin-prop and then remove the seats. "He wanted to build a chemical tank that would fit inside the aircraft and take up every available square inch of the aircraft except for where the pilot would be sitting."
Here’s the kicker, or rather, the smoking gun: Before Atta left her office he filled out a loan application.
Loan applications are dated, aren’t they? That’s why Johnelle Bryant knows exactly when Atta was in her office. so, without even referencing any of the other numerous indicators of Atta’s presence in the U.S., one thing that can be said with absolute certainty:
The FBI’s timeline, their chronology of events, the essential tool of any homicide investigation, is wrong. And not wrong by accident, either.
Wrong on purpose. Wrong by design.
By the way: don’t try dropping by Bryant’s Homestead office to confirm the details with her, as we did...She’s no longer there.
She’s (presumably) been airlifted to the Island of Lost Witnesses...
There's lots more to ponder. The gist is there are some major inconsistencies in the timeline the FBI published with the 9/11 commission. But as to what the truth is... only the Players know.
We knew the terrorists of 9/11 were waltzing around the country doing things like going to strip joints and throwing wild parties, but aside from the kinds of things a righteous Dominionist would disapprove of, the main$tream media has been really quiet about exactly what they were doing and who they were partying with.
Time sez:
Just how damning are allegations by Congressman Curt Weldon that a secret Pentagon intelligence operation pegged hijacker Mohammed Atta as a threat nearly two years before he led the 9/11 attacks? When Weldon first made the charge in a new book and in a June speech on the House floor, it met with little attention, but perhaps due to the August heat or the approaching fourth anniversary of the attacks, the accusation ignited controversy last week.
The question is whether it has any substance. Weldon says a data-mining exercise, called Able Danger, spotted Atta and other hijackers in 1999, but Pentagon lawyers in September 2000 blocked officials running the program from handing the tip to the FBI. Weldon’s further allegation that the 9/11 commission was alerted to the alleged oversight but ignored it prompted the defunct panel to conduct an investigation last week before issuing a statement late Friday saying members had received only an 11th-hour mention of Atta that “was not sufficiently reliable to warrant revision of the report or further investigation"...
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
Hopsicker asks :
Upon what basis did the 9.11 Commission conclude that the FBI’s timeline was correct and that an elite Army Intel unit was mistaken in saying they were tracking Mohamed Atta roaming freely across America during 1999 and 2000?
And why exactly is this important?
Calling unwelcome attention to the massive inaccuracies in the FBI’s timeline was probably not Republican Curt Weldon’s purpose when he brought the story to light...But if his efforts to implicate Clinton Administration officials results in highlighting the FBI's incomplete and corrupt investigation, we think he get some kind of medal, maybe called the Inadvertent 'Dumb-Ass' Hero Award.
We suspect his Republican friends would much prefer to let sleeping dogs lie. Because it isn’t just one elite Army Intel unit that’s saying it... In the aftermath of the 9.11 attack numerous eyewitnesses came forward to attest to Atta’s presence in the U.S. before June of 2000.
Their number even includes a U.S. Government official with a signed and dated loan application from Mohamed Atta his-ownself.
In interviews with major news organizations Johnelle Bryant, an official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, revealed that Atta and three other September 11th terrorists visited her Florida office seeking a government loan.
ABC’s Brian Ross reported: “Johnelle Bryant is the USDA loan officer in Homestead, Florida, who Atta approached in May of 2000, long before al-Qaeda and bin Laden were household words.”
Mr. Atta swung by in May, 2000, and Ms. Bryant remembers quite a bit about it.
"At first," she says, "he refused to speak with me," on the grounds that she was, in his words, "but a female."
"I told him that if he was interested in getting a farm-service agency loan in my servicing area, then he would need to deal with me."
Ms. Bryant says the applicant was asking for $650,000 to start a crop-dusting business. His plan was to buy a six-seater twin-prop and then remove the seats. "He wanted to build a chemical tank that would fit inside the aircraft and take up every available square inch of the aircraft except for where the pilot would be sitting."
Here’s the kicker, or rather, the smoking gun: Before Atta left her office he filled out a loan application.
Loan applications are dated, aren’t they? That’s why Johnelle Bryant knows exactly when Atta was in her office. so, without even referencing any of the other numerous indicators of Atta’s presence in the U.S., one thing that can be said with absolute certainty:
The FBI’s timeline, their chronology of events, the essential tool of any homicide investigation, is wrong. And not wrong by accident, either.
Wrong on purpose. Wrong by design.
By the way: don’t try dropping by Bryant’s Homestead office to confirm the details with her, as we did...She’s no longer there.
She’s (presumably) been airlifted to the Island of Lost Witnesses...
There's lots more to ponder. The gist is there are some major inconsistencies in the timeline the FBI published with the 9/11 commission. But as to what the truth is... only the Players know.
Are Technophobes Necessary?
The New York Pravda editorial page as usual skips past the details and gets right down to the nitty-gritty the Dominionists and the Carlyle War Machine would like the people to think about:
Is the Space Station Necessary?
Now that the space shuttle fleet has been grounded until NASA can solve its foam-shedding problem, it's time to re-examine the future of the International Space Station.
The space station is circling the globe, partly finished, some 240 miles overhead. Its fate and that of the shuttle fleet are intertwined. The shuttle is a finicky and technologically outdated vehicle that should be replaced with a safer and more reliable spacecraft. The rub is that a replacement is at least five years away and the space station cannot be completed without many more shuttle flights.
If the space station did not have to be finished, there would be little reason to keep the shuttle fleet in operation beyond a single flight to refurbish the Hubble Space Telescope. But how important, really, is the station?...
Juxtaposed to it is this little ditty: Meanwhile, People Starve.
Somehow the Pravda NeoLibs Hawks weren't really concerned about starving innocent people in the lead -up to the Iraqi War where Judith Miller and the Pravda played a front line role in convincing the nation to go for broke.
Why the bother to shoot down the international space station?
Think of all that money that could be going to DARPA contractors. Northrop-Grumman. Raytheon. All the D.o'D. black budget items that aren't as transparent as NASA.
Don't get me wrong. With an ex-CIA money launderer in charge of NASA, I'm quite sure the budget is a little, shall we say, padded. It's also a good bet that despite the fact the man is a Ph.D. physicist from M.I.T., scientific curiosity isn't tops on his agenda.
But let's get real. They don't like the space station because it can't be Darth Rumsfeld's tinker toy. They can't make a Death Star with the Russians on board.
Count on it: they'll see this one fall and burn up like Mir, and float another one- D.o'D. controlled- for their interplanetarypork aspirations.
Meanwhile, as pointed out to me by a friend, global warming has progressed to a point where Mount Kilimanjaro is stripped of its snowcap for the first time in 11,000 years. This photo was intended to be shown at London this summer, but with all the terra'ist chaos, somehow the point just didn't sink in to the main$tream media.
It's a similar tactic: distraction and subversion.
The space program could be designed as a model for international co operation and the development of new technology to spur international economies. But that grates on the Dominionists, who don't like all those new fangled ideas being spread around, nor do they like the evidence for a non-theological cosmology. It grates on the Military-Industrial complex, who like the idea of moving technological toys for quick bucks, not the idea of producing technology directed for a purpose. And finally it grates on the NeoCon jingoists, who view co operation as big obstacle to Empire.
Is the Space Station Necessary?
Now that the space shuttle fleet has been grounded until NASA can solve its foam-shedding problem, it's time to re-examine the future of the International Space Station.
The space station is circling the globe, partly finished, some 240 miles overhead. Its fate and that of the shuttle fleet are intertwined. The shuttle is a finicky and technologically outdated vehicle that should be replaced with a safer and more reliable spacecraft. The rub is that a replacement is at least five years away and the space station cannot be completed without many more shuttle flights.
If the space station did not have to be finished, there would be little reason to keep the shuttle fleet in operation beyond a single flight to refurbish the Hubble Space Telescope. But how important, really, is the station?...
Juxtaposed to it is this little ditty: Meanwhile, People Starve.
Somehow the Pravda NeoLibs Hawks weren't really concerned about starving innocent people in the lead -up to the Iraqi War where Judith Miller and the Pravda played a front line role in convincing the nation to go for broke.
Why the bother to shoot down the international space station?
Think of all that money that could be going to DARPA contractors. Northrop-Grumman. Raytheon. All the D.o'D. black budget items that aren't as transparent as NASA.
Don't get me wrong. With an ex-CIA money launderer in charge of NASA, I'm quite sure the budget is a little, shall we say, padded. It's also a good bet that despite the fact the man is a Ph.D. physicist from M.I.T., scientific curiosity isn't tops on his agenda.
But let's get real. They don't like the space station because it can't be Darth Rumsfeld's tinker toy. They can't make a Death Star with the Russians on board.
Count on it: they'll see this one fall and burn up like Mir, and float another one- D.o'D. controlled- for their interplanetary
Meanwhile, as pointed out to me by a friend, global warming has progressed to a point where Mount Kilimanjaro is stripped of its snowcap for the first time in 11,000 years. This photo was intended to be shown at London this summer, but with all the terra'ist chaos, somehow the point just didn't sink in to the main$tream media.
It's a similar tactic: distraction and subversion.
The space program could be designed as a model for international co operation and the development of new technology to spur international economies. But that grates on the Dominionists, who don't like all those new fangled ideas being spread around, nor do they like the evidence for a non-theological cosmology. It grates on the Military-Industrial complex, who like the idea of moving technological toys for quick bucks, not the idea of producing technology directed for a purpose. And finally it grates on the NeoCon jingoists, who view co operation as big obstacle to Empire.
Friday, August 12, 2005
The Carlyle Group Hearts Google
You knew it was only a matter of time (thanks to Lambert ) :
Somehow, even through all the outages and that Chinese government thing, I always thought of Google as a different kind of corporation. Another illusion—shattered. A strong draft of UK-grade irony here...
... Via alert reader Alice Marshall, Google now has a new Vice President: Scott "Sucker MC" McClellan lacky and Caryle Group Associate Dan "I am the Mouth of Bremer" Senor. Yech...
Over at my favorite Canadian tinfoil site, Jeff Wells reminds us the best way to cook a frog is by a slow boil.
After the shock of a mass casuality event, and during the aftershocks of martial law, what will be the chief tone Homeland Security will want to set? It will be reassurance. Why? Because FEMA may have many camps, but it doesn't have enough to hold everyone. For the few to maintain power, the many need to participate in their own subjugation. They must be self-contained. And so, Michael Chertoff will attempt to alleviate the psychological sting of martial law, while he rubs the poison in, and invite Americans to "go about their business." (Privacy fears unjustified, Chertoff said this week.) It will be a soft sell of "temporary" measures, dictated by a supposed self-necessity. Americans will be encouraged to pretend that things are normal, or normal enough, and that the measures, while serious and unfortunate, don't affect them. And to keep it that way, many will watch what they say and watch what they do, and become detainees under self-monitored house arrest.
Somehow, even through all the outages and that Chinese government thing, I always thought of Google as a different kind of corporation. Another illusion—shattered. A strong draft of UK-grade irony here...
... Via alert reader Alice Marshall, Google now has a new Vice President: Scott "Sucker MC" McClellan lacky and Caryle Group Associate Dan "I am the Mouth of Bremer" Senor. Yech...
Over at my favorite Canadian tinfoil site, Jeff Wells reminds us the best way to cook a frog is by a slow boil.
After the shock of a mass casuality event, and during the aftershocks of martial law, what will be the chief tone Homeland Security will want to set? It will be reassurance. Why? Because FEMA may have many camps, but it doesn't have enough to hold everyone. For the few to maintain power, the many need to participate in their own subjugation. They must be self-contained. And so, Michael Chertoff will attempt to alleviate the psychological sting of martial law, while he rubs the poison in, and invite Americans to "go about their business." (Privacy fears unjustified, Chertoff said this week.) It will be a soft sell of "temporary" measures, dictated by a supposed self-necessity. Americans will be encouraged to pretend that things are normal, or normal enough, and that the measures, while serious and unfortunate, don't affect them. And to keep it that way, many will watch what they say and watch what they do, and become detainees under self-monitored house arrest.
It's Worse Than They Thought
Satellite and weather-balloon research released Friday removes a last bastion of scientific doubt about global warming, researchers say.
Surface temperatures have shown small but steady increases since the 1970s, but the tropics had shown little atmospheric heating - and even some cooling. Now, after sleuthing reported in three papers released by the journal Science, revisions have been made to that atmospheric data.
After examining the satellite data, collected since 1979 by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather satellites, Carl Mears and Frank Wentz of Remote Sensing Systems in Santa Rosa, Calif., found that the satellites had drifted in orbit, throwing off the timing of temperature measures. Essentially, the satellites were increasingly reporting nighttime temperatures as daytime ones, leading to a false cooling trend. The team also found a math error in the calculations...
So get your boats ready, campers:
Two global coupled climate models show that even if the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere had been stabilized in the year 2000, we are already committed to further global warming of about another half degree and an additional 320% sea level rise caused by thermal expansion by the end of the 21st century. Projected weakening of the meridional overturning circulation in the North Atlantic Ocean does not lead to a net cooling in Europe. At any given point in time, even if concentrations are stabilized, there is a commitment to future climate changes that will be greater than those we have already observed.
----------Science, Vol 307, Issue 5716, 1769-1772 , 18 March 2005
Surface temperatures have shown small but steady increases since the 1970s, but the tropics had shown little atmospheric heating - and even some cooling. Now, after sleuthing reported in three papers released by the journal Science, revisions have been made to that atmospheric data.
After examining the satellite data, collected since 1979 by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather satellites, Carl Mears and Frank Wentz of Remote Sensing Systems in Santa Rosa, Calif., found that the satellites had drifted in orbit, throwing off the timing of temperature measures. Essentially, the satellites were increasingly reporting nighttime temperatures as daytime ones, leading to a false cooling trend. The team also found a math error in the calculations...
So get your boats ready, campers:
Two global coupled climate models show that even if the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere had been stabilized in the year 2000, we are already committed to further global warming of about another half degree and an additional 320% sea level rise caused by thermal expansion by the end of the 21st century. Projected weakening of the meridional overturning circulation in the North Atlantic Ocean does not lead to a net cooling in Europe. At any given point in time, even if concentrations are stabilized, there is a commitment to future climate changes that will be greater than those we have already observed.
----------Science, Vol 307, Issue 5716, 1769-1772 , 18 March 2005
Thursday, August 11, 2005
They Stone 'Em in the Kingdom
Some observations on some odd behavior...
In a rare move, the Army relieved a four-star general of his command amid allegations that he had an extramarital affair with a civilian, Army officials said yesterday.
Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, 55, led the Army's Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va., where he supervised the recruitment and academic programs at 33 Army schools, from basic training to the war colleges. Byrnes, who several military sources said had a previously unblemished record, was set to retire in November after 36 years of service.
The Army released few details about the decision to relieve one of its 11 four-star generals, with spokesmen saying only that Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, relieved Byrnes of his command on Monday as the result of an investigation by the Defense Department's inspector general. A spokesman said Army officials could find no case of another four-star general being relieved of duty in modern times...
His defense attorney, Lt. Col. David H. Robertson, said the allegation against Byrnes involves an affair with a private citizen. Byrnes has been separated from his wife since May 2004; their divorce was finalized on Monday, coincidentally the same day he was relieved of command, Robertson said...
Yes, the same D.o'D. run by people who maintained a male prostitute to deliver propaganda for White House press briefings fired this General.
Sure, I believe that. Who wouldn't? Apparently not Simbaud, who points to two alternative explanations.
The paranoid explanation (wild man Wayne Madsen):
The sudden firing of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine (TRADOC) Commander, four star General and New York City native Kevin P. Byrnes, one of only 11 four star generals in the Army, has much more to do with a policy dispute than an anonymous Pentagon-reported story about an alleged "extra-marital affair." Although Byrnes has recently been involved in divorce proceedings, Pentagon insiders report that Byrnes was fired for insubordination . . . .
What has not been reported is that recently, one of Byrnes' subordinate commands, Fort Rucker in Alabama, had been told to stand by for an influx of 50,000 military trainees -- a level the base has not seen since the Vietnam War. Byrnes' relief of command came on the heels of the Pentagon announcing that it might permit Spanish-language entrance examinations. Byrnes, who was in charge of Army training, would not only face recruits with lower education levels, criminal records, but a lack of proficiency in English. Pentagon insiders report that it was Byrnes' policy disagreements with the Pentagon neo-cons over the new recruitment policies and the potential for calling up Army retirees and reinstating military conscription without adequate TRADOC funding that resulted in his firing. The personal misconduct charges were concocted by the Pentagon to cover up the fact that there are serious disagreements with Bush and Rumsfeld among the flag officer ranks in the military...
This has a wiff of reality about it, though. The next one is somewhat more intriguing:
The tinfoil explanation (Prison Planet):
Other sources however have offered a different explanation for Byrnes' dismissal which ties in with the Bush administration's unpopular plan to attack Iran and the staged nuclear attack in the US which would provide the pretext to do so.
According to reporter Greg Szymanski, anonymous military sources said that Brynes was the leader of a faction that was preparing to instigate a coup against the neo-con hawks in an attempt to prevent further global conflict.
Indications are that, much like popular opinion amongst the general public, half the military oppose the neo-con's agenda and half support it.
Further revelations were imparted by journalist Leland Lehrman who appeared today on The Alex Jones Show.
Lehrman's army sources, including a former Captain in intelligence, became outraged when they learned that the official story behind 9/11 was impossible.
They told Lehrman that the imminent Northcom nuclear terror exercise based in Charleston, S.C, where a nuclear warhead is smuggled off a ship and detonated, was originally intended to 'go live' - as in the drill would be used as the cover for a real false flag staged attack. This website has relentlessly discussed similar style drills which took place on the morning of 9/11 and on the morning of 7/7 in London.
"Speculation exists that he had potentially discovered the fact that it was gonna go live and that he was trying to put a stop to it or also speculation indicates that he may be part of a military coup designed to prevent the ridiculous idea of doing a nuclear war with Iran, " said Lehrman.
Lehrman said that other sources had told him all army leave had been cancelled from September 7th onwards, opening the possibility for war to be declared within that time frame...
Speaking of terra'ist activities, what do you call it when a young Wrepublican boards an airplane with a home-made bomb?
OKLAHOMA CITY -- A small explosive device was found in a passenger's carryon bag as the man passed through a checkpoint, and federal agents arrested him, the FBI said Thursday.
Officials have found no apparent connection between Charles Alfred Dreyling Jr. and any terrorist group or activity, said Agent Gary Johnson, an FBI spokesman.
Dreyling, 24, was going through the security checkpoint at Will Rogers World Airport on Wednesday when a Transportation Security Administration employee noticed something suspicious in his bag on the X-ray machine, Johnson said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Troester described the device as a carbon-dioxide cartridge with a black-powder detonator.
But Dreyling's landlord, former Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humphreys, said he had created a "glorified firecracker" and forgot it was in his luggage.
"I know Charlie Dreyling quite well," Humphreys said. "I appreciate what the authorities are doing making our airlines safe. I have every confidence that they'll find out Charlie Dreyling is a fine young man and no terrorist."
Dreyling had planned to take a Delta flight that travels to Philadelphia through Atlanta, airport spokeswoman Karen Carney said.
He was at the Oklahoma County jail on a federal hold and was to appear before a federal magistrate Thursday afternoon, the U.S. Attorney's office said. He could face charges related to possessing an explosive device at an airport, Johnson said.
The arrest did not disrupt any flights, Carney said...
I wonder if it had exploded, would we be dropping nukes on Tehran right now?
I wonder if recent events have Karl Rove and Tom DeLay trying to talk Company people into finding someone to do something similar right now?
In a rare move, the Army relieved a four-star general of his command amid allegations that he had an extramarital affair with a civilian, Army officials said yesterday.
Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, 55, led the Army's Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va., where he supervised the recruitment and academic programs at 33 Army schools, from basic training to the war colleges. Byrnes, who several military sources said had a previously unblemished record, was set to retire in November after 36 years of service.
The Army released few details about the decision to relieve one of its 11 four-star generals, with spokesmen saying only that Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, relieved Byrnes of his command on Monday as the result of an investigation by the Defense Department's inspector general. A spokesman said Army officials could find no case of another four-star general being relieved of duty in modern times...
His defense attorney, Lt. Col. David H. Robertson, said the allegation against Byrnes involves an affair with a private citizen. Byrnes has been separated from his wife since May 2004; their divorce was finalized on Monday, coincidentally the same day he was relieved of command, Robertson said...
Yes, the same D.o'D. run by people who maintained a male prostitute to deliver propaganda for White House press briefings fired this General.
Sure, I believe that. Who wouldn't? Apparently not Simbaud, who points to two alternative explanations.
The paranoid explanation (wild man Wayne Madsen):
The sudden firing of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine (TRADOC) Commander, four star General and New York City native Kevin P. Byrnes, one of only 11 four star generals in the Army, has much more to do with a policy dispute than an anonymous Pentagon-reported story about an alleged "extra-marital affair." Although Byrnes has recently been involved in divorce proceedings, Pentagon insiders report that Byrnes was fired for insubordination . . . .
What has not been reported is that recently, one of Byrnes' subordinate commands, Fort Rucker in Alabama, had been told to stand by for an influx of 50,000 military trainees -- a level the base has not seen since the Vietnam War. Byrnes' relief of command came on the heels of the Pentagon announcing that it might permit Spanish-language entrance examinations. Byrnes, who was in charge of Army training, would not only face recruits with lower education levels, criminal records, but a lack of proficiency in English. Pentagon insiders report that it was Byrnes' policy disagreements with the Pentagon neo-cons over the new recruitment policies and the potential for calling up Army retirees and reinstating military conscription without adequate TRADOC funding that resulted in his firing. The personal misconduct charges were concocted by the Pentagon to cover up the fact that there are serious disagreements with Bush and Rumsfeld among the flag officer ranks in the military...
This has a wiff of reality about it, though. The next one is somewhat more intriguing:
The tinfoil explanation (Prison Planet):
Other sources however have offered a different explanation for Byrnes' dismissal which ties in with the Bush administration's unpopular plan to attack Iran and the staged nuclear attack in the US which would provide the pretext to do so.
According to reporter Greg Szymanski, anonymous military sources said that Brynes was the leader of a faction that was preparing to instigate a coup against the neo-con hawks in an attempt to prevent further global conflict.
Indications are that, much like popular opinion amongst the general public, half the military oppose the neo-con's agenda and half support it.
Further revelations were imparted by journalist Leland Lehrman who appeared today on The Alex Jones Show.
Lehrman's army sources, including a former Captain in intelligence, became outraged when they learned that the official story behind 9/11 was impossible.
They told Lehrman that the imminent Northcom nuclear terror exercise based in Charleston, S.C, where a nuclear warhead is smuggled off a ship and detonated, was originally intended to 'go live' - as in the drill would be used as the cover for a real false flag staged attack. This website has relentlessly discussed similar style drills which took place on the morning of 9/11 and on the morning of 7/7 in London.
"Speculation exists that he had potentially discovered the fact that it was gonna go live and that he was trying to put a stop to it or also speculation indicates that he may be part of a military coup designed to prevent the ridiculous idea of doing a nuclear war with Iran, " said Lehrman.
Lehrman said that other sources had told him all army leave had been cancelled from September 7th onwards, opening the possibility for war to be declared within that time frame...
Speaking of terra'ist activities, what do you call it when a young Wrepublican boards an airplane with a home-made bomb?
OKLAHOMA CITY -- A small explosive device was found in a passenger's carryon bag as the man passed through a checkpoint, and federal agents arrested him, the FBI said Thursday.
Officials have found no apparent connection between Charles Alfred Dreyling Jr. and any terrorist group or activity, said Agent Gary Johnson, an FBI spokesman.
Dreyling, 24, was going through the security checkpoint at Will Rogers World Airport on Wednesday when a Transportation Security Administration employee noticed something suspicious in his bag on the X-ray machine, Johnson said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Troester described the device as a carbon-dioxide cartridge with a black-powder detonator.
But Dreyling's landlord, former Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humphreys, said he had created a "glorified firecracker" and forgot it was in his luggage.
"I know Charlie Dreyling quite well," Humphreys said. "I appreciate what the authorities are doing making our airlines safe. I have every confidence that they'll find out Charlie Dreyling is a fine young man and no terrorist."
Dreyling had planned to take a Delta flight that travels to Philadelphia through Atlanta, airport spokeswoman Karen Carney said.
He was at the Oklahoma County jail on a federal hold and was to appear before a federal magistrate Thursday afternoon, the U.S. Attorney's office said. He could face charges related to possessing an explosive device at an airport, Johnson said.
The arrest did not disrupt any flights, Carney said...
I wonder if it had exploded, would we be dropping nukes on Tehran right now?
I wonder if recent events have Karl Rove and Tom DeLay trying to talk Company people into finding someone to do something similar right now?
Because That Would Be Telling
The Sept. 11 commission knew military intelligence officials had identified lead hijacker Mohamed Atta as a member of al-Qaida who might be part of U.S.-based terror cell more than a year before the terror attacks but decided not to include that in its final report, a spokesman acknowledged Thursday.
Al Felzenberg, spokesman for the commission's follow-up project called the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, had said earlier this week that the panel was unaware of intelligence specifically naming Atta. But he said subsequent information provided Wednesday confirmed that the commission had been aware of the intelligence.
The information did not make it into the final report because it was not consistent with what the commission knew about Atta's whereabouts before the attacks, Felzenberg said.
The intelligence about Atta recently was disclosed by Rep. Curt Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees. The Pennsylvania Republican has expressed anger that the intelligence never was forwarded by the military establishment to the FBI.
The discourse project, Pentagon and at least two congressional committees are looking into the issue. If found accurate, the intelligence would change the timeline for when government officials first became aware of Atta's links to al-Qaida.
According to Weldon, a classified military intelligence unit called "Able Danger" identified Atta and three other hijackers in 1999 as potential members of a terrorist cell in New York City. Weldon said Pentagon lawyers rejected the unit's recommendation that the information be turned over to the FBI in 2000...
Thanks to Woody for the heads up.
This link was from Rigorous Intuition, where they've a lot of interesting links tonight.
Here’s the scenario …A seafaring vessel transporting a 10-kiloton nuclear warhead makes its way into a port off the coast of Charleston, S.C. Terrorists aboard the ship attempt to smuggle the warhead off the ship to detonate it. Is this really a possibility?
Joint Task Force Civil Support (JTF-CS) here is planning its next exercise on the premise that this crisis is indeed plausible.
Sudden Response 05 will take place this August on Fort Monroe and will be carried out as an internal command post exercise. The exercise is intended to train the JTF-CS staff to plan and execute Consequence Management operations in support of Federal Emergency Management Agency Region IV’s response to a nuclear detonation...
You get a lot of Homeland Security cookies with that one. Not for the tinfoil paranoid.
Al Felzenberg, spokesman for the commission's follow-up project called the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, had said earlier this week that the panel was unaware of intelligence specifically naming Atta. But he said subsequent information provided Wednesday confirmed that the commission had been aware of the intelligence.
The information did not make it into the final report because it was not consistent with what the commission knew about Atta's whereabouts before the attacks, Felzenberg said.
The intelligence about Atta recently was disclosed by Rep. Curt Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees. The Pennsylvania Republican has expressed anger that the intelligence never was forwarded by the military establishment to the FBI.
The discourse project, Pentagon and at least two congressional committees are looking into the issue. If found accurate, the intelligence would change the timeline for when government officials first became aware of Atta's links to al-Qaida.
According to Weldon, a classified military intelligence unit called "Able Danger" identified Atta and three other hijackers in 1999 as potential members of a terrorist cell in New York City. Weldon said Pentagon lawyers rejected the unit's recommendation that the information be turned over to the FBI in 2000...
Thanks to Woody for the heads up.
This link was from Rigorous Intuition, where they've a lot of interesting links tonight.
Here’s the scenario …A seafaring vessel transporting a 10-kiloton nuclear warhead makes its way into a port off the coast of Charleston, S.C. Terrorists aboard the ship attempt to smuggle the warhead off the ship to detonate it. Is this really a possibility?
Joint Task Force Civil Support (JTF-CS) here is planning its next exercise on the premise that this crisis is indeed plausible.
Sudden Response 05 will take place this August on Fort Monroe and will be carried out as an internal command post exercise. The exercise is intended to train the JTF-CS staff to plan and execute Consequence Management operations in support of Federal Emergency Management Agency Region IV’s response to a nuclear detonation...
You get a lot of Homeland Security cookies with that one. Not for the tinfoil paranoid.
Hedonic Adjustments
Because it's the quality that matters.
Now that we're on the downside of the Hubbert Oil curve, the prices of petroleum and petroleum-based products will inevitably rise.
So how do Greenspan and Bu$hCo get away with the lie that inflation is under control?
Uggabugga points out how the main$tream media propagates the disinformation, but if you read the fine print you can find the spin source:
Gasoline has risen $1.00 from $1.50 to $2.50 in three years, a 66% increase, or 18% per year. And that's just gasoline at the pump. Higher gasoline prices also affect what you pay for other goods since transportation costs are folded into food and other merchandise.
How come the inflation rate is reported to be so low? Samuelson gives a hint with this line: (emp add)
"In June new car prices -- after adjustment for quality improvements -- were actually 2.1 percent lower than 10 years earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics."
That's the controversial "hedonic adjustments" you've heard about. A new computer comes out with double the CPU speed, but has same retail price as a similar model a year ago. The adjustment by the BLS results in a computer at half the price! This didn't happen in the past. Improvements in performance had been assumed to be part of the territory and not something to be "adjusted" for.
Hedonic adjustments are an economic tool used to compare actual prices with the quality of what you're enjoying right now.
So if you're paying $2.50 a gallon for gasoline, it's obvious that you're only really paying a dollar or so, because with that gasoline you're buying a Righteous Dear Leader and everything the Company has to improve your life.
If your vote is vaporized into the ether by an algorithm from the Diebold Corporation, you are actually more empowered than ever before, because you've $elected a popular president.
Or at least that's what the hedonic adjustment says.
Now that we're on the downside of the Hubbert Oil curve, the prices of petroleum and petroleum-based products will inevitably rise.
So how do Greenspan and Bu$hCo get away with the lie that inflation is under control?
Uggabugga points out how the main$tream media propagates the disinformation, but if you read the fine print you can find the spin source:
Gasoline has risen $1.00 from $1.50 to $2.50 in three years, a 66% increase, or 18% per year. And that's just gasoline at the pump. Higher gasoline prices also affect what you pay for other goods since transportation costs are folded into food and other merchandise.
How come the inflation rate is reported to be so low? Samuelson gives a hint with this line: (emp add)
"In June new car prices -- after adjustment for quality improvements -- were actually 2.1 percent lower than 10 years earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics."
That's the controversial "hedonic adjustments" you've heard about. A new computer comes out with double the CPU speed, but has same retail price as a similar model a year ago. The adjustment by the BLS results in a computer at half the price! This didn't happen in the past. Improvements in performance had been assumed to be part of the territory and not something to be "adjusted" for.
Hedonic adjustments are an economic tool used to compare actual prices with the quality of what you're enjoying right now.
So if you're paying $2.50 a gallon for gasoline, it's obvious that you're only really paying a dollar or so, because with that gasoline you're buying a Righteous Dear Leader and everything the Company has to improve your life.
If your vote is vaporized into the ether by an algorithm from the Diebold Corporation, you are actually more empowered than ever before, because you've $elected a popular president.
Or at least that's what the hedonic adjustment says.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Halliburton: Bringing Good Things to Iranian Life
Scandal-plagued Halliburton, the oil services company once headed by Vice President Dick was secretly working with one of Iran’s top nuclear program officials on natural gas related projects and, allegedly, selling the officials' oil development company key components for a nuclear reactor, according to Halliburton sources with intimate knowledge into both companies’ business dealings.
Just last week a National Security Council report said Iran was a decade away from acquiring a nuclear bomb. That time frame could arguably have been significantly longer if Halliburton, which just reported a 284 percent increase in its fourth quarter profits due to its Iraq reconstruction contracts, was not actively providing the Iranian government with the financial means to build a nuclear weapon.
Now comes word that Halliburton, which has a long history of flouting U.S. law by conducting business with countries the Bush administration said has ties to terrorism, was working with Cyrus Nasseri, the vice chairman of the board of directors of Oriental Oil Kish, one of Iran’s largest private oil companies, on oil development projects in Tehran. Nasseri is also a key member of Iran’s nuclear development team.
“Nasseri, a senior Iranian diplomat negotiating with Europe over Iran's controversial nuclear program is at the heart of deals with US energy companies to develop the country's oil industry”, the Financial Times reported.
Nasseri was interrogated by Iranian authorities in late July for allegedly providing Halliburton with Iran’s nuclear secrets and accepting as much as $1 million in bribes from Halliburton, according to Iranian government officials.
It’s unclear whether Halliburton was privy to any of Iran’s nuclear activities. A company spokesperson did not return numerous calls for comment. A White House spokesperson also did not return calls for comment.
Oriental Oil Kish dealings with Halliburton became public knowledge in January when the company announced that it had subcontracted parts of the South Pars natural gas drilling project to Halliburton Products and Services, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Halliburton that is registered in the Cayman Islands.
Following the announcement, Halliburton announced the South Pars gas field project in Tehran would be its last project in Iran. The BBC reported that Halliburton, which took in $30-$40 million from its Iranian operations in 2003, "was winding down its work due to a poor business environment." ...
This isn't just about a sleazy back room deal by bunch of uranium-for-oil smuggling gangstahs.
The Company has connections to Iran reaching back to the hostage crisis of the 1970s.
Although the administration has discredited the story, there are former hostages who think the new hardline Iranian president was one of the minds behind the kidnappers.
..."As soon as I saw the face, it rang a lot of bells to me," Don Sharer, who served as the embassy's naval attache at the time, told CNN.
"...Take 20 years off of him. He was there. He was there in the background, more like an adviser."
Abbas Abdi, the man well-known to be the leader of the 1979 hostage-takers, told CNN that Ahmadinejad, the Tehran mayor, "absolutely was not" part of the event that involved the captivity of 52 people.
Abdi later became a supporter of reformist President Mohammed Khatami and was recently released from jail for advocating closer ties with the United States.
Iranian officials also deny Ahmadinejad was involved...
Like any of that can be taken at face value.
With a new Iranian hardline preznit, deeply religious and righteous as Hell, Iran is doing the manly macho one might say Texan thing and cranking up its uranium enrichment facilities again.
ISFAHAN, Iran - A defiant
Iran resumed full operations at its uranium conversion plant Wednesday, as Europe and the United States struggled to find a way to stop the Islamic republic from pushing ahead with a nuclear program they fear will lead to weapons of mass destruction.
ADVERTISEMENT
With
United Nations inspectors watching, Iranian officials removed U.N. seals that had been placed voluntarily on equipment at the facility eight months ago when Tehran agreed to freeze most of its nuclear program.
Technicians then immediately resumed work on the process that turns raw uranium into gas for enrichment.
The breaking of the seals at the facility in the mountains outside the southern city of Isfahan was the latest move of Iranian brinkmanship over its nuclear ambitions. The hard-line government's determination to move ahead left Europe and the United States scrambling over what to do next...
Scrambling? Surely you jest. Why, I'm sure Big Time Dick and the other Carlyle Barons are investing shrewdly in this opportunity even as you read this.
Doubtless the new deeply religious King of a devout nation surrounded by burning sands and sitting on top of most of the world's oil is pleased to see his biggest customer and his biggest sectarian and remaining production rival are getting ready to do the Wild Thing. It's gotta be good for him to lay his money down. No matter who gets burned, he and his Princes win.
Not to mention the posse at General Electric ( more good things from Saudi Arabia ), Bechtel, General Dynamics, and the rest of the Carlyle Crew.
Just last week a National Security Council report said Iran was a decade away from acquiring a nuclear bomb. That time frame could arguably have been significantly longer if Halliburton, which just reported a 284 percent increase in its fourth quarter profits due to its Iraq reconstruction contracts, was not actively providing the Iranian government with the financial means to build a nuclear weapon.
Now comes word that Halliburton, which has a long history of flouting U.S. law by conducting business with countries the Bush administration said has ties to terrorism, was working with Cyrus Nasseri, the vice chairman of the board of directors of Oriental Oil Kish, one of Iran’s largest private oil companies, on oil development projects in Tehran. Nasseri is also a key member of Iran’s nuclear development team.
“Nasseri, a senior Iranian diplomat negotiating with Europe over Iran's controversial nuclear program is at the heart of deals with US energy companies to develop the country's oil industry”, the Financial Times reported.
Nasseri was interrogated by Iranian authorities in late July for allegedly providing Halliburton with Iran’s nuclear secrets and accepting as much as $1 million in bribes from Halliburton, according to Iranian government officials.
It’s unclear whether Halliburton was privy to any of Iran’s nuclear activities. A company spokesperson did not return numerous calls for comment. A White House spokesperson also did not return calls for comment.
Oriental Oil Kish dealings with Halliburton became public knowledge in January when the company announced that it had subcontracted parts of the South Pars natural gas drilling project to Halliburton Products and Services, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Halliburton that is registered in the Cayman Islands.
Following the announcement, Halliburton announced the South Pars gas field project in Tehran would be its last project in Iran. The BBC reported that Halliburton, which took in $30-$40 million from its Iranian operations in 2003, "was winding down its work due to a poor business environment." ...
This isn't just about a sleazy back room deal by bunch of uranium-for-oil smuggling gangstahs.
The Company has connections to Iran reaching back to the hostage crisis of the 1970s.
Although the administration has discredited the story, there are former hostages who think the new hardline Iranian president was one of the minds behind the kidnappers.
..."As soon as I saw the face, it rang a lot of bells to me," Don Sharer, who served as the embassy's naval attache at the time, told CNN.
"...Take 20 years off of him. He was there. He was there in the background, more like an adviser."
Abbas Abdi, the man well-known to be the leader of the 1979 hostage-takers, told CNN that Ahmadinejad, the Tehran mayor, "absolutely was not" part of the event that involved the captivity of 52 people.
Abdi later became a supporter of reformist President Mohammed Khatami and was recently released from jail for advocating closer ties with the United States.
Iranian officials also deny Ahmadinejad was involved...
Like any of that can be taken at face value.
With a new Iranian hardline preznit, deeply religious and righteous as Hell, Iran is doing the manly macho one might say Texan thing and cranking up its uranium enrichment facilities again.
ISFAHAN, Iran - A defiant
Iran resumed full operations at its uranium conversion plant Wednesday, as Europe and the United States struggled to find a way to stop the Islamic republic from pushing ahead with a nuclear program they fear will lead to weapons of mass destruction.
ADVERTISEMENT
With
United Nations inspectors watching, Iranian officials removed U.N. seals that had been placed voluntarily on equipment at the facility eight months ago when Tehran agreed to freeze most of its nuclear program.
Technicians then immediately resumed work on the process that turns raw uranium into gas for enrichment.
The breaking of the seals at the facility in the mountains outside the southern city of Isfahan was the latest move of Iranian brinkmanship over its nuclear ambitions. The hard-line government's determination to move ahead left Europe and the United States scrambling over what to do next...
Scrambling? Surely you jest. Why, I'm sure Big Time Dick and the other Carlyle Barons are investing shrewdly in this opportunity even as you read this.
Doubtless the new deeply religious King of a devout nation surrounded by burning sands and sitting on top of most of the world's oil is pleased to see his biggest customer and his biggest sectarian and remaining production rival are getting ready to do the Wild Thing. It's gotta be good for him to lay his money down. No matter who gets burned, he and his Princes win.
Not to mention the posse at General Electric ( more good things from Saudi Arabia ), Bechtel, General Dynamics, and the rest of the Carlyle Crew.
More Churning in the Combine
Looks like Pat Fitzgerald is burning his candle at both ends now there's a good chance the Bu$hCo $yndicate will have his new boss shut him down in October.
CHICAGO - Federal prosecutors investigating corruption at a state pension fund have subpoenaed records concerning $4.5 million in fees a Washington-based investment firm is paying the new treasurer of the Republican National Committee, government sources confirmed Tuesday.
The subpoena calls for documents related to the fund, the Carlyle Group and Robert Kjellander, said sources familiar with the investigation who spoke only on condition of anonymity, saying prosecutors want details of the probe kept secret.
Kjellander, a Springfield-based lobbyist who headed President Bush's re-election campaign in three states, was named the RNC's treasurer over the weekend.
Illinois Teachers Retirement System officials expressed concern about the amount of finders fees Carlyle offered Kjellander for helping to land business with the pension fund - $3.1 million paid and $1.4 million due.
"I believe that we were all taken aback when we learned of the size of his compensation for services to the Carlyle Group," said Jon Bauman, executive director of the pension fund...
CHICAGO - Federal prosecutors investigating corruption at a state pension fund have subpoenaed records concerning $4.5 million in fees a Washington-based investment firm is paying the new treasurer of the Republican National Committee, government sources confirmed Tuesday.
The subpoena calls for documents related to the fund, the Carlyle Group and Robert Kjellander, said sources familiar with the investigation who spoke only on condition of anonymity, saying prosecutors want details of the probe kept secret.
Kjellander, a Springfield-based lobbyist who headed President Bush's re-election campaign in three states, was named the RNC's treasurer over the weekend.
Illinois Teachers Retirement System officials expressed concern about the amount of finders fees Carlyle offered Kjellander for helping to land business with the pension fund - $3.1 million paid and $1.4 million due.
"I believe that we were all taken aback when we learned of the size of his compensation for services to the Carlyle Group," said Jon Bauman, executive director of the pension fund...
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
With Liens Like This, Who Needs Enemies?
Mortgaged to the House of Saud
The only evidence you need that President Bush is losing the "war on terror" is this: On Sunday, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia said that relations with the United States "couldn't be better."
Tell that to the parents of those who have died in two wars defending this corrupt spawning ground of violent extremism. Never mind the ugly facts: We are deeply entwined with Saudi Arabia even though it shares none of our values and supports our enemies.
Yet on Friday, Bush's father and Vice President Dick Cheney made another in a long line of obsequious American pilgrimages to Riyadh to assure the Saudis that we continue to be grateful for the punishment they dish out.
"The relationship has tremendously improved with the United States," Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal told a news conference in Riyadh. "With the government, of course, it is very harmonious, as it ever was. Whether it has returned to the same level as it was before in terms of public opinion [in both countries], that is debatable."
Well, score one for public opinion. It makes sense to distrust the mercenary and distasteful alliance between the US and Saudi Arabia. We protect the repressive kingdom that spawned Osama bin Laden, and most of the 9/11 hijackers, in exchange for the Saudis keeping our fecklessly oil-addicted country lubricated.
Yes, it has stuck deep in the craw of many of us Americans that after 9/11, Washington squandered global goodwill and a huge percentage of our resources invading a country that had nothing to do with al Qaeda, while continuing to pander to this dysfunctional dynasty. After all, Saudi Arabia is believed to have paid Bin Laden's murderous gang millions in protection money in the years before 9/11, and it lavishly funds extremist religious schools throughout the region that preach and teach anti-Western jihad.
"Al Qaeda found fertile fundraising ground in the kingdom," noted the 9/11 commission report in one of its many careful understatements. The fact is, without Saudi Arabia, there would be no al Qaeda today.
Our president loves to use the word "evil" in his speeches, yet throughout his life he and his family have had deep personal, political and financial ties with a country that represents everything the American Revolution stood against: tyranny, religious intolerance, corrupt royalty and popular ignorance. This is a country where women aren't allowed to drive and those who show "too much skin" can be beaten in the street by officially sanctioned mobs of fanatics. A medieval land where newspapers routinely publish the most outlandish anti-Semitic rants. A place where executions are held in public, torture is the norm in prison and the most extreme and expansionist version of Islam is the state religion.
It's hard to see how Saddam Hussein's brutal and secular Iraq was worse than the brutal theocracy run by the House of Saud. Yet one nation we raze and the other we fete. Is it any wonder that much of the world sees the United States as the planet's biggest hypocrite?
As insider books by former White House terrorism advisor Richard Clarke, journalist Bob Woodward and others have recounted, punishing Saudi Arabia in any way for its long ideological and financial support of terrorism was not even on the table in the days after 9/11. Instead, within hours of the planes hitting the towers, the powerful neoconservatives in the White House rushed to use the tragedy as an excuse for a long-dreamed invasion of Iraq.
Meanwhile, after two wars to make the Middle East safe for the Saudis, wars that cost hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars and thousands of American lives, the price of oil is soaring - up 42% from just a year ago. Good thing we just passed a pork-laden energy bill that will do little to nothing to ease our crushing - and rising - dependence on imported oil. Federal officials project that by 2025, the US will have to import 68% of its oil to meet demand, up from 58% today.
There are those who argue that the best rationale for invading Iraq was to ease our dependence on Saudi Arabia's massive oil fields, which might allow for a more rational or moral relationship. Yet the dark irony is that with Iraq in chaos and its oil flow limited by insurgent attacks and a bungled reconstruction, Saudi Arabia is now more important to the United States than ever.
It's scary, but these gaping contradictions don't seem to trouble our president a whit.
As the drumbeat of devastating terrorist attacks in Baghdad, London and elsewhere continue, Bush prattles on - five times in a speech last Wednesday - about his pyrrhic victories in the "war on terror." This is a sorry rhetorical device that disguises the fact that the forces of Islamic fanaticism in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the world are stronger than ever.
The only evidence you need that President Bush is losing the "war on terror" is this: On Sunday, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia said that relations with the United States "couldn't be better."
Tell that to the parents of those who have died in two wars defending this corrupt spawning ground of violent extremism. Never mind the ugly facts: We are deeply entwined with Saudi Arabia even though it shares none of our values and supports our enemies.
Yet on Friday, Bush's father and Vice President Dick Cheney made another in a long line of obsequious American pilgrimages to Riyadh to assure the Saudis that we continue to be grateful for the punishment they dish out.
"The relationship has tremendously improved with the United States," Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal told a news conference in Riyadh. "With the government, of course, it is very harmonious, as it ever was. Whether it has returned to the same level as it was before in terms of public opinion [in both countries], that is debatable."
Well, score one for public opinion. It makes sense to distrust the mercenary and distasteful alliance between the US and Saudi Arabia. We protect the repressive kingdom that spawned Osama bin Laden, and most of the 9/11 hijackers, in exchange for the Saudis keeping our fecklessly oil-addicted country lubricated.
Yes, it has stuck deep in the craw of many of us Americans that after 9/11, Washington squandered global goodwill and a huge percentage of our resources invading a country that had nothing to do with al Qaeda, while continuing to pander to this dysfunctional dynasty. After all, Saudi Arabia is believed to have paid Bin Laden's murderous gang millions in protection money in the years before 9/11, and it lavishly funds extremist religious schools throughout the region that preach and teach anti-Western jihad.
"Al Qaeda found fertile fundraising ground in the kingdom," noted the 9/11 commission report in one of its many careful understatements. The fact is, without Saudi Arabia, there would be no al Qaeda today.
Our president loves to use the word "evil" in his speeches, yet throughout his life he and his family have had deep personal, political and financial ties with a country that represents everything the American Revolution stood against: tyranny, religious intolerance, corrupt royalty and popular ignorance. This is a country where women aren't allowed to drive and those who show "too much skin" can be beaten in the street by officially sanctioned mobs of fanatics. A medieval land where newspapers routinely publish the most outlandish anti-Semitic rants. A place where executions are held in public, torture is the norm in prison and the most extreme and expansionist version of Islam is the state religion.
It's hard to see how Saddam Hussein's brutal and secular Iraq was worse than the brutal theocracy run by the House of Saud. Yet one nation we raze and the other we fete. Is it any wonder that much of the world sees the United States as the planet's biggest hypocrite?
As insider books by former White House terrorism advisor Richard Clarke, journalist Bob Woodward and others have recounted, punishing Saudi Arabia in any way for its long ideological and financial support of terrorism was not even on the table in the days after 9/11. Instead, within hours of the planes hitting the towers, the powerful neoconservatives in the White House rushed to use the tragedy as an excuse for a long-dreamed invasion of Iraq.
Meanwhile, after two wars to make the Middle East safe for the Saudis, wars that cost hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars and thousands of American lives, the price of oil is soaring - up 42% from just a year ago. Good thing we just passed a pork-laden energy bill that will do little to nothing to ease our crushing - and rising - dependence on imported oil. Federal officials project that by 2025, the US will have to import 68% of its oil to meet demand, up from 58% today.
There are those who argue that the best rationale for invading Iraq was to ease our dependence on Saudi Arabia's massive oil fields, which might allow for a more rational or moral relationship. Yet the dark irony is that with Iraq in chaos and its oil flow limited by insurgent attacks and a bungled reconstruction, Saudi Arabia is now more important to the United States than ever.
It's scary, but these gaping contradictions don't seem to trouble our president a whit.
As the drumbeat of devastating terrorist attacks in Baghdad, London and elsewhere continue, Bush prattles on - five times in a speech last Wednesday - about his pyrrhic victories in the "war on terror." This is a sorry rhetorical device that disguises the fact that the forces of Islamic fanaticism in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the world are stronger than ever.
Monday, August 08, 2005
Failed $tate
If you haven't gotten into the habit of reading TomDispatch, you should:
...The truth is that Iraq, which was to be only the first stop on a Bush administration (and neocon) military tour of the Middle East, and then assumedly the world, has so far proven the last stop on the global domination line. It has revealed to a startled world the remarkable weakness of the Earth's last superpower, the land which was, Roman-style, supposed to imprint a Pax Americana on the planet. It has ripped up the all-volunteer military and confounded the dreams of the ever angrier neocons.
In the period before 9/11, neocon writers often focused on the spread of a failed-state world, a supposed jungle of unrulable instability out there on the peripheries, one on which only the sole global hyperpower would assumedly have the capability to impose some level of order. Some of those neocons, in their eagerness to whack various regimes in the Middle East -- Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon -- probably didn't care greatly if, as a result, they created failed states throughout the region. Chaos didn't perhaps seem the worst fate for many of those lands (as long as Ariel Sharon's Israel was strengthened in the process).
Little did they know. Now, they have indeed succeeded in creating a failed-state right in the oil-rich heart of the Middle East and the chaos of Iraq has proceeded to suck the American military as well as Bush administration policies and dreams of every sort down with it, creating maneuvering space for countries as disparate as Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela.
In fact, it's unlikely that the Bush administration -- possibly any American government -- will be able to live comfortably with Iraq as a failed state, its ripples of chaos spreading regionally, even globally. And yet the administration has already demonstrated with definitive thoroughness that it is capable of doing little about the situation -- except continually making it worse.
Someday, withdrawal will come, "permanent" bases or no. Staying is not conceivable and the longer we remain, the worse the situation is likely to be when we depart. But on such subjects and on the matter of taking any responsibility for its actions, this administration is not only shameless, but quite hopeless. It can only create more chaos, foster yet more mad plans for future operations like -- if the latest rumors leaked to ex-CIA official Philip Giraldi of American Conservative magazine are to be believed -- taking out the Iranian nuclear program using... doh!... nuclear weapons. Even Homer Simpson, six beers to the wind, couldn't have come up with that one, but evidently our Vice President has...
Ouch, that's gotta hurt.
Pity Bu$hie can't read without his earpiece, and Big Time Dick is too busy counting the WarBuck$ to feel the pain. Besides, these same plans are coming out as big fluff pieces, distractions planted with the main worry about American troops being used on U.S. soil.
The war plans represent a historic shift for the Pentagon, which has been reluctant to become involved in domestic operations and is legally constrained from engaging in law enforcement. Indeed, defense officials continue to stress that they intend for the troops to play largely a supporting role in homeland emergencies, bolstering police, firefighters and other civilian response groups.
Like it's never happened yet.
Protecting the Homeland was what the National Guard was for. But while they're sweating the heat in Iraq, you might as well bring those DynCorp/ CACI/ Blackwater private contractors home, Big Time. After the next Big Strike run by your Saudi buddies they'll smoke out those terra'ists fighting your plans to drill in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge.
But Englehardt's got it. The Bu$hCo strategeries are all like the demented plans of some stoned Yale fratboys. The harder Big Time hits, the messier it gets.
Fifty years from now they'll seem hilarious to our great-grandchildren.
Assuming, of course, we stop them in time, and there's anyone left in the world to do the laughing.
...The truth is that Iraq, which was to be only the first stop on a Bush administration (and neocon) military tour of the Middle East, and then assumedly the world, has so far proven the last stop on the global domination line. It has revealed to a startled world the remarkable weakness of the Earth's last superpower, the land which was, Roman-style, supposed to imprint a Pax Americana on the planet. It has ripped up the all-volunteer military and confounded the dreams of the ever angrier neocons.
In the period before 9/11, neocon writers often focused on the spread of a failed-state world, a supposed jungle of unrulable instability out there on the peripheries, one on which only the sole global hyperpower would assumedly have the capability to impose some level of order. Some of those neocons, in their eagerness to whack various regimes in the Middle East -- Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon -- probably didn't care greatly if, as a result, they created failed states throughout the region. Chaos didn't perhaps seem the worst fate for many of those lands (as long as Ariel Sharon's Israel was strengthened in the process).
Little did they know. Now, they have indeed succeeded in creating a failed-state right in the oil-rich heart of the Middle East and the chaos of Iraq has proceeded to suck the American military as well as Bush administration policies and dreams of every sort down with it, creating maneuvering space for countries as disparate as Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela.
In fact, it's unlikely that the Bush administration -- possibly any American government -- will be able to live comfortably with Iraq as a failed state, its ripples of chaos spreading regionally, even globally. And yet the administration has already demonstrated with definitive thoroughness that it is capable of doing little about the situation -- except continually making it worse.
Someday, withdrawal will come, "permanent" bases or no. Staying is not conceivable and the longer we remain, the worse the situation is likely to be when we depart. But on such subjects and on the matter of taking any responsibility for its actions, this administration is not only shameless, but quite hopeless. It can only create more chaos, foster yet more mad plans for future operations like -- if the latest rumors leaked to ex-CIA official Philip Giraldi of American Conservative magazine are to be believed -- taking out the Iranian nuclear program using... doh!... nuclear weapons. Even Homer Simpson, six beers to the wind, couldn't have come up with that one, but evidently our Vice President has...
Ouch, that's gotta hurt.
Pity Bu$hie can't read without his earpiece, and Big Time Dick is too busy counting the WarBuck$ to feel the pain. Besides, these same plans are coming out as big fluff pieces, distractions planted with the main worry about American troops being used on U.S. soil.
The war plans represent a historic shift for the Pentagon, which has been reluctant to become involved in domestic operations and is legally constrained from engaging in law enforcement. Indeed, defense officials continue to stress that they intend for the troops to play largely a supporting role in homeland emergencies, bolstering police, firefighters and other civilian response groups.
Like it's never happened yet.
Protecting the Homeland was what the National Guard was for. But while they're sweating the heat in Iraq, you might as well bring those DynCorp/ CACI/ Blackwater private contractors home, Big Time. After the next Big Strike run by your Saudi buddies they'll smoke out those terra'ists fighting your plans to drill in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge.
But Englehardt's got it. The Bu$hCo strategeries are all like the demented plans of some stoned Yale fratboys. The harder Big Time hits, the messier it gets.
Fifty years from now they'll seem hilarious to our great-grandchildren.
Assuming, of course, we stop them in time, and there's anyone left in the world to do the laughing.
Combine
The farmer comments on letters:
I have been reading pages and pages about the DNC and the DLC and I want to tell you why I am so opposed to the direction the DLC has taken the Party in the last 20 years.
I have been advocating, writing letters, talking locally within the Democratic Party for 25 frickin' years now. To no avail.
My message is simple: talk about workers' rights. Unionizing, outsourcing (especially outsourcing!), management cheating (we have ALL been cheated out of portions of our wages by innumerable statistical tricks). SPEAK OF THEM and blue-collar men go absolutely NUTS with recognition of the problems! Followed 5 minutes later with the most intense hunger to do something about it all that you have ever witnessed.
I speak of them to my blue-collar friends all the time! All. By. Myself.
Millions of white, male blue-collar workers go around in right-wing talk radio induced ignorance. Each and every one of them thinks that the problems they have with their employer is unique, puzzling and sure to get better after a change of management ...or something.
What I do: I simply point up how these "puzzling anomalies" are actually well-known and ancient un-fair labor practices. With NAMES!
Speed-ups. Wage stagnation policies. Two-tiered wage systems. Worker isolation. These are some of the names of the classic Unfair Labor Practices that my friends experience everyday. But they don't even know that there are such things as Unfair Labor Practices!
I'd say what's going on with the blue collar worker ought to be opening the eyes of the DNC.
Howard Dean likely sees it, but the bitter fact is the American worker has been sold down the river by the organized crime syndicates running the Unions.
Digby had a nice piece on the Illinois Combine of corrupt Democrat and Republican government that Patrick Fitzgerald's been taking down in his spare time, but the DINOcrat-Wrepublican Combine may prove a tougher nut to crack, especially now Fitzgerald's new boss is in Bu$hCo's pocket.
The departure this week of Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who has accepted the post of general counsel at Lockheed Martin, leaves a question mark in the probe into who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Comey was the only official overseeing special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's leak investigation. With Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recused, department officials say they are still trying to resolve whom Fitzgerald will now report to. Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum is "likely" to be named as acting deputy A.G., a DOJ official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter tells NEWSWEEK. But McCallum may be seen as having his own conflicts: he is an old friend of President Bush's and a member of his Skull and Bones class at Yale.
That's supposed to be in press by the 15th. Let's hope it makes it out. Often such news is amended before it hits the presses.
Bu$hCo is an organized criminal syndicate if there ever was one- and it's in organized crime's and Bu$hCo's best interest to keep the American worker ignorant and in harness.
In another story in the same issue, we see more ex-Agency people saying what John Kerry made public in 2004: the DINOcrat-Wrepublican combine extends all the way to Saudi Arabia, and even to Afghanistan, where they let Osama take an airlift out of Tora Bora.
...in a forthcoming book, the CIA field commander for the agency's Jawbreaker team at Tora Bora, Gary Berntsen, says he and other U.S. commanders did know that bin Laden was among the hundreds of fleeing Qaeda and Taliban members. Berntsen says he had definitive intelligence that bin Laden was holed up at Tora Bora—intelligence operatives had tracked him—and could have been caught. "He was there," Berntsen tells NEWSWEEK. Asked to comment on Berntsen's remarks, National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones passed on 2004 statements from former CENTCOM commander Gen. Tommy Franks. "We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001," Franks wrote in an Oct. 19 New York Times op-ed. "Bin Laden was never within our grasp." Berntsen says Franks is "a great American. But he was not on the ground out there. I was."
In his book—titled "Jawbreaker"—the decorated career CIA officer criticizes Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department for not providing enough support to the CIA and the Pentagon's own Special Forces teams in the final hours of Tora Bora, says Berntsen's lawyer, Roy Krieger. (Berntsen would not divulge the book's specifics, saying he's awaiting CIA clearance.) That backs up other recent accounts, including that of military author Sean Naylor, who calls Tora Bora a "strategic disaster" because the Pentagon refused to deploy a cordon of conventional forces to cut off escaping Qaeda and Taliban members. Maj. Todd Vician, a Defense Department spokesman, says the problem at Tora Bora "was not necessarily just the number of troops."...
Now that's a Combine.
I have been reading pages and pages about the DNC and the DLC and I want to tell you why I am so opposed to the direction the DLC has taken the Party in the last 20 years.
I have been advocating, writing letters, talking locally within the Democratic Party for 25 frickin' years now. To no avail.
My message is simple: talk about workers' rights. Unionizing, outsourcing (especially outsourcing!), management cheating (we have ALL been cheated out of portions of our wages by innumerable statistical tricks). SPEAK OF THEM and blue-collar men go absolutely NUTS with recognition of the problems! Followed 5 minutes later with the most intense hunger to do something about it all that you have ever witnessed.
I speak of them to my blue-collar friends all the time! All. By. Myself.
Millions of white, male blue-collar workers go around in right-wing talk radio induced ignorance. Each and every one of them thinks that the problems they have with their employer is unique, puzzling and sure to get better after a change of management ...or something.
What I do: I simply point up how these "puzzling anomalies" are actually well-known and ancient un-fair labor practices. With NAMES!
Speed-ups. Wage stagnation policies. Two-tiered wage systems. Worker isolation. These are some of the names of the classic Unfair Labor Practices that my friends experience everyday. But they don't even know that there are such things as Unfair Labor Practices!
I'd say what's going on with the blue collar worker ought to be opening the eyes of the DNC.
Howard Dean likely sees it, but the bitter fact is the American worker has been sold down the river by the organized crime syndicates running the Unions.
Digby had a nice piece on the Illinois Combine of corrupt Democrat and Republican government that Patrick Fitzgerald's been taking down in his spare time, but the DINOcrat-Wrepublican Combine may prove a tougher nut to crack, especially now Fitzgerald's new boss is in Bu$hCo's pocket.
The departure this week of Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who has accepted the post of general counsel at Lockheed Martin, leaves a question mark in the probe into who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Comey was the only official overseeing special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's leak investigation. With Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recused, department officials say they are still trying to resolve whom Fitzgerald will now report to. Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum is "likely" to be named as acting deputy A.G., a DOJ official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter tells NEWSWEEK. But McCallum may be seen as having his own conflicts: he is an old friend of President Bush's and a member of his Skull and Bones class at Yale.
That's supposed to be in press by the 15th. Let's hope it makes it out. Often such news is amended before it hits the presses.
Bu$hCo is an organized criminal syndicate if there ever was one- and it's in organized crime's and Bu$hCo's best interest to keep the American worker ignorant and in harness.
In another story in the same issue, we see more ex-Agency people saying what John Kerry made public in 2004: the DINOcrat-Wrepublican combine extends all the way to Saudi Arabia, and even to Afghanistan, where they let Osama take an airlift out of Tora Bora.
...in a forthcoming book, the CIA field commander for the agency's Jawbreaker team at Tora Bora, Gary Berntsen, says he and other U.S. commanders did know that bin Laden was among the hundreds of fleeing Qaeda and Taliban members. Berntsen says he had definitive intelligence that bin Laden was holed up at Tora Bora—intelligence operatives had tracked him—and could have been caught. "He was there," Berntsen tells NEWSWEEK. Asked to comment on Berntsen's remarks, National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones passed on 2004 statements from former CENTCOM commander Gen. Tommy Franks. "We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001," Franks wrote in an Oct. 19 New York Times op-ed. "Bin Laden was never within our grasp." Berntsen says Franks is "a great American. But he was not on the ground out there. I was."
In his book—titled "Jawbreaker"—the decorated career CIA officer criticizes Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department for not providing enough support to the CIA and the Pentagon's own Special Forces teams in the final hours of Tora Bora, says Berntsen's lawyer, Roy Krieger. (Berntsen would not divulge the book's specifics, saying he's awaiting CIA clearance.) That backs up other recent accounts, including that of military author Sean Naylor, who calls Tora Bora a "strategic disaster" because the Pentagon refused to deploy a cordon of conventional forces to cut off escaping Qaeda and Taliban members. Maj. Todd Vician, a Defense Department spokesman, says the problem at Tora Bora "was not necessarily just the number of troops."...
Now that's a Combine.
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