It's a slick way to beef up the terra'ist database:
OTTAWA (CP) - Software that will help sort millions of Canadian health records was developed by a company funded through the CIA's venture capital partner, sparking concerns about the confidentiality of patient data.
Privacy advocates are raising questions about Canadian use of the Initiate Systems indexing program given its creator's financial connection to In-Q-Tel - a private firm that helps the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency zero in on promising technology...
Initiate Systems of Chicago has sold the indexing software to Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland, Saskatchewan and Ontario for use in a national initiative to better manage health records.
Canada Health Infoway, a non-profit corporation accountable to the federal, provincial and territorial governments, aims to create compatible electronic health information systems across the country.
In-Q-Tel was established seven years ago as a private company to help the CIA and the broader U.S. intelligence community identify, acquire and use cutting-edge technologies.
Though not part of the CIA, In-Q-Tel consults with the intelligence agency on the strategic value of potential transactions.
The venture capital firm made an investment in Initiate Systems earlier this year.
The intelligence connection, first reported by U.S.-based Government Health IT magazine, prompted Canada Health Infoway staff to ask participating provinces about potential problems...
The software company adds that In-Q-Tel has no member on Initiate's board of directors, nor any decision-making power.
Despite the assurances, Darrell Evans of the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association remains skeptical Initiate Systems will not see patient data.
"I simply don't believe they will never have access," he said.
"I think there's reason to be concerned about this."
Evans contends the arrangement with a U.S. firm with intelligence ties increases the vulnerability of such files in an era when security agencies are keenly interested in personal dossiers to fight terrorism.
"Governments want this information. There's no question. If they see the need for it, they will get it."
Thanks to the Project for the link.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Inflation
Major arms soar to twice pre-9/11 cost
Systems to have little direct role in terror fight
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | August 19, 2006
WASHINGTON -- The estimated costs for the development of major weapons systems for the US military have doubled since September 11, 2001, with a trillion-dollar price tag for new planes, ships, and missiles that would have little direct role in the fight against insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The soaring cost estimates -- disclosed in a report for the Republican-led Senate Budget Committee -- have led to concerns that supporters of multibillion-dollar weapons programs in Congress, the Pentagon , and the defense industry are using the conflicts and the war on terrorism to fulfill a wish-list of defense expenditures, whether they are needed or not for the war on terrorism.
The report, based on Defense Department data, concluded that the best way to keep defense spending in check in the coming years lies in ``controlling the cost of weaponry," especially those programs that the Pentagon might not necessarily need.
The projections of what it will cost to acquire ``major weapons programs" currently in production or on the drawing board soared from $790 billion in September 2001 to $1.61 trillion in June 2006, according to the congressional analysis of Pentagon data.
Costs for some of the most expensive new weapon systems -- such as satellite-linked combat vehicles for ground troops; a next-generation fighter plane ; and a cutting-edge, stealth-technology destroyer for the Navy -- are predicted to cost even more by the time they are delivered, because many of them are still in their early phases. In a quarterly report to Congress on weapons costs earlier this month, the Pentagon reported that of the $1.61 trillion it thinks it will need for big-ticket weapons, it has spent more than half so far -- about $909 billion.
But the huge increase in weapons costs is already placing enormous strain on the federal budget, according to government budget specialists, who predict major increases in defense spending for years to come so that the Pentagon can afford all the weapons it has on the books. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, for example, estimates that between 2012 and 2024 the Pentagon budget will have to grow between 18 percent and 34 percent over what was appropriated this year...
The tail is quite a bit larger than the dog, and appears to have developed an appetite for wagging all its own.
Why we fight [a 32.7 MB .ram file, requires RealPlayer or equivalent].
Systems to have little direct role in terror fight
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | August 19, 2006
WASHINGTON -- The estimated costs for the development of major weapons systems for the US military have doubled since September 11, 2001, with a trillion-dollar price tag for new planes, ships, and missiles that would have little direct role in the fight against insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The soaring cost estimates -- disclosed in a report for the Republican-led Senate Budget Committee -- have led to concerns that supporters of multibillion-dollar weapons programs in Congress, the Pentagon , and the defense industry are using the conflicts and the war on terrorism to fulfill a wish-list of defense expenditures, whether they are needed or not for the war on terrorism.
The report, based on Defense Department data, concluded that the best way to keep defense spending in check in the coming years lies in ``controlling the cost of weaponry," especially those programs that the Pentagon might not necessarily need.
The projections of what it will cost to acquire ``major weapons programs" currently in production or on the drawing board soared from $790 billion in September 2001 to $1.61 trillion in June 2006, according to the congressional analysis of Pentagon data.
Costs for some of the most expensive new weapon systems -- such as satellite-linked combat vehicles for ground troops; a next-generation fighter plane ; and a cutting-edge, stealth-technology destroyer for the Navy -- are predicted to cost even more by the time they are delivered, because many of them are still in their early phases. In a quarterly report to Congress on weapons costs earlier this month, the Pentagon reported that of the $1.61 trillion it thinks it will need for big-ticket weapons, it has spent more than half so far -- about $909 billion.
But the huge increase in weapons costs is already placing enormous strain on the federal budget, according to government budget specialists, who predict major increases in defense spending for years to come so that the Pentagon can afford all the weapons it has on the books. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, for example, estimates that between 2012 and 2024 the Pentagon budget will have to grow between 18 percent and 34 percent over what was appropriated this year...
The tail is quite a bit larger than the dog, and appears to have developed an appetite for wagging all its own.
Why we fight [a 32.7 MB .ram file, requires RealPlayer or equivalent].
Friday, August 18, 2006
Thursday, August 17, 2006
The Bigger the Lie, the Stronger the Belief
Oliver Stone, 9/11, and the Big Lie
By Ruth Rosen
...You might say, "But everyone knows it was al-Qaeda." And you'd be right, but do most Americans really know just who those terrorists were or that they had no connection to Iraq -- that not a single one of them even came from that country? It doesn't sound very important until you realize that various polls over the last five years have reported from 20% to 50% of Americans still believe Iraqis were on those planes. (They were not.) As of early 2005, according to a Harris poll, 47% of Americans were convinced that Saddam Hussein actually helped plan the attack and supported the hijackers. And in February, 2006, according to a unique Zogby poll of American troops serving in Iraq, "85% said the U.S. mission is mainly ‘to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 attacks'; 77% said they also believe the main or a major reason for the war was ‘to stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq.'"
The Big Lie, first coined by Adolf Hitler in his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf,was made famous by Joseph Goebbels, propaganda minister for the Third Reich. The idea was simple enough: Tell a whopper (the larger the better) often enough and most people will come to accept it as the truth. During World War II, the predecessor of the CIA, the Office of Strategic Services, described how the Germans used the Big Lie: "[They] never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."
This is, in fact, just what the Bush administration has been doing ever since 9/11. As a result, in 2005, an ABC/Washington Post poll found that 56% of Americans still thought Iraq had possessed weapons of mass destruction "shortly before the war," and 60% still believed Iraq had provided "direct support" to al-Qaeda prior to the war. In June 2006, Fox News ran a story once again dramatizing the supposed links between 9/11 and Iraq. And, as recently as July, 2006, a Harris poll found that 64% of those polled "say it is true that Saddam Hussein had strong links to Al Qaeda."
The Bush administration's Big Lie has worked very well. Dick Cheney, the point man on this particular lie, has repeated it year after year. In a similar way, George Bush has repeatedly explained his 2003 invasion of Iraq, which had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, by insisting that we must fight terrorists in that country so that we don't have to fight them here. (It turned out to be something of a self-fulfilling prophesy.)
Neither these, nor so many other administration statements had a shred of truth to them. Even the President, who repeatedly linked Saddam Hussein to the terrorist organization behind the September 11th attacks, admitted on September 18, 2003 that there was no evidence the deposed Iraqi dictator had had a hand in them...
This is the tragic failure of Stone's "World Trade Center". It undercuts the historical value of the film and reinforces the Biggest Lie of the last five years, still believed by far too many Americans -- that in Iraq, we are fighting those who attacked our country.
The Big Lie really works well for a segment of America Goebbels would have really liked.
Says John Sugg: Two really devilish guys materialized in Toccoa, Ga., last month to harangue 600 true believers on the gospel of a thoroughly theocratic America. Along with lesser lights of the religious far right who spoke at American Vision's "Worldview Super Conference 2006," Herb Titus and Gary North called for nothing short of the overthrow of the United States of America.
Titus and North aren't household names. But Titus, former dean of TV preacher Pat Robertson's Regent University law school, has led the legal battle to plant the Ten Commandants in county courthouses across the nation. North, an apostle of the creed called Christian Reconstructionism, is one of the most influential elders of American fundamentalism.
"I don't want to capture their (mainstream Americans') system. I want to replace it," fumed North to a cheering audience. North has called for the stoning of gays and nonbelievers (rocks are cheap and plentiful, he has observed). Both friends and foes label him "Scary Gary."
...the Reconstructionists are the folks behind attacks on science and public education. They're allied with proselytizers who have tried to convert Air Force cadets -- future pilots with fingers on nuclear triggers -- into religious zealots. Like the communists of the 1930s, they exert tremendous stealth political gravity, drawing many sympathizers in their wake, and their friends now dominate the Republican Party in many states.
Titus' and North's speeches, laced with conspiracy theories about the Rockefellers and the Trilateral Commission, were more Leninist than Christian in the tactics proposed -- as in their vision to use freedom to destroy the freedom of others. That's not surprising -- the founder of Christian Reconstruction, the late fringe Calvinist theologian Rousas J. Rushdoony, railed against the "heresy" of democracy.
...Everything they need to know about the universe and the origin of man is in the first two chapters of Genesis. They know the answer before any question is asked. DeMar's spin is what he calls a clash of "worldviews." According to DeMar and his speakers, God sanctions only their worldview. And that worldview is a hash of enforcing Old Testament Mosaic law (except when it comes to chowing down on pork barbecue), rewriting American history to endorse theocracy and explaining politics by the loopy theories of the John Birch Society. (Christian Reconstructionism evolved, so to speak, from a radical variation of Calvinism, AKA Puritanism, and the Bircher politics of such men as the late Marietta, Ga., congressman, Larry McDonald.) For most of the four-day conference, DeMar turned the Bible over to others to thump. North blamed the Rockefellers and the Trilateral Commission for the success of secularists. Titus told of Jesus making a personal appearance in the rafters of his Oregon home.
At the heart of what was taught by a succession of speakers:
* Six-day, "young earth" creationism is the only acceptable doctrine for Christians. Even "intelligent design" or "old earth" creationism are compromises with evil secularism.
* Public education is satanic and must be destroyed.
* The First Amendment was intended to keep the federal government from imposing a national religion, but states should be free to foster a religious creed. (Several states did that during the colonial period and the nation's early days, a model the Reconstructionists want to emulate.)
* The Founding Fathers intended to protect only the liberties of the established ultra-conservative denominations of that time. Expanding the list to include "liberal" Protestant denominations, much less Catholics, Jews and (gasp!) atheists, is a corruption of the Founders' intent.
Education earned the most vitriol at the conference. Effusing that the Religious Right has captured politics and much of the media, North proclaimed: "The only thing they (secularists) have still got a grip on is the university system." Academic doctorates, he contended, are a conspiracy fomented by the Rockefeller family. All academic programs (except, he said, engineering) are now dominated by secularists and Darwinists...
They must think they need engineers to build and launch their Holy Hand Grenades.
...There are big theological differences between the Religious Right's generals and the Reconstructionists. Traditional Christian theology teaches that history will muddle along until Jesus' Second Coming. That teaching is tough to turn into a political movement. Reconstructionists preach that the nation and the world must come under Christian "dominion" (as they define it) before Christ's return -- a wonderful theology to promote global conquest.
In short, Dobson, Robertson, Falwell and the Southern Baptist Convention (the nation's largest Protestant denomination) may not agree with everything the Reconstructionists advocate, but they sure don't seem to mind hanging out with this openly theocratic, anti-democratic crowd...
No wonder Dear Leader cultivates the biggest lie of all.
By Ruth Rosen
...You might say, "But everyone knows it was al-Qaeda." And you'd be right, but do most Americans really know just who those terrorists were or that they had no connection to Iraq -- that not a single one of them even came from that country? It doesn't sound very important until you realize that various polls over the last five years have reported from 20% to 50% of Americans still believe Iraqis were on those planes. (They were not.) As of early 2005, according to a Harris poll, 47% of Americans were convinced that Saddam Hussein actually helped plan the attack and supported the hijackers. And in February, 2006, according to a unique Zogby poll of American troops serving in Iraq, "85% said the U.S. mission is mainly ‘to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 attacks'; 77% said they also believe the main or a major reason for the war was ‘to stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq.'"
The Big Lie, first coined by Adolf Hitler in his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf,was made famous by Joseph Goebbels, propaganda minister for the Third Reich. The idea was simple enough: Tell a whopper (the larger the better) often enough and most people will come to accept it as the truth. During World War II, the predecessor of the CIA, the Office of Strategic Services, described how the Germans used the Big Lie: "[They] never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."
This is, in fact, just what the Bush administration has been doing ever since 9/11. As a result, in 2005, an ABC/Washington Post poll found that 56% of Americans still thought Iraq had possessed weapons of mass destruction "shortly before the war," and 60% still believed Iraq had provided "direct support" to al-Qaeda prior to the war. In June 2006, Fox News ran a story once again dramatizing the supposed links between 9/11 and Iraq. And, as recently as July, 2006, a Harris poll found that 64% of those polled "say it is true that Saddam Hussein had strong links to Al Qaeda."
The Bush administration's Big Lie has worked very well. Dick Cheney, the point man on this particular lie, has repeated it year after year. In a similar way, George Bush has repeatedly explained his 2003 invasion of Iraq, which had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, by insisting that we must fight terrorists in that country so that we don't have to fight them here. (It turned out to be something of a self-fulfilling prophesy.)
Neither these, nor so many other administration statements had a shred of truth to them. Even the President, who repeatedly linked Saddam Hussein to the terrorist organization behind the September 11th attacks, admitted on September 18, 2003 that there was no evidence the deposed Iraqi dictator had had a hand in them...
This is the tragic failure of Stone's "World Trade Center". It undercuts the historical value of the film and reinforces the Biggest Lie of the last five years, still believed by far too many Americans -- that in Iraq, we are fighting those who attacked our country.
The Big Lie really works well for a segment of America Goebbels would have really liked.
Says John Sugg: Two really devilish guys materialized in Toccoa, Ga., last month to harangue 600 true believers on the gospel of a thoroughly theocratic America. Along with lesser lights of the religious far right who spoke at American Vision's "Worldview Super Conference 2006," Herb Titus and Gary North called for nothing short of the overthrow of the United States of America.
Titus and North aren't household names. But Titus, former dean of TV preacher Pat Robertson's Regent University law school, has led the legal battle to plant the Ten Commandants in county courthouses across the nation. North, an apostle of the creed called Christian Reconstructionism, is one of the most influential elders of American fundamentalism.
"I don't want to capture their (mainstream Americans') system. I want to replace it," fumed North to a cheering audience. North has called for the stoning of gays and nonbelievers (rocks are cheap and plentiful, he has observed). Both friends and foes label him "Scary Gary."
...the Reconstructionists are the folks behind attacks on science and public education. They're allied with proselytizers who have tried to convert Air Force cadets -- future pilots with fingers on nuclear triggers -- into religious zealots. Like the communists of the 1930s, they exert tremendous stealth political gravity, drawing many sympathizers in their wake, and their friends now dominate the Republican Party in many states.
Titus' and North's speeches, laced with conspiracy theories about the Rockefellers and the Trilateral Commission, were more Leninist than Christian in the tactics proposed -- as in their vision to use freedom to destroy the freedom of others. That's not surprising -- the founder of Christian Reconstruction, the late fringe Calvinist theologian Rousas J. Rushdoony, railed against the "heresy" of democracy.
...Everything they need to know about the universe and the origin of man is in the first two chapters of Genesis. They know the answer before any question is asked. DeMar's spin is what he calls a clash of "worldviews." According to DeMar and his speakers, God sanctions only their worldview. And that worldview is a hash of enforcing Old Testament Mosaic law (except when it comes to chowing down on pork barbecue), rewriting American history to endorse theocracy and explaining politics by the loopy theories of the John Birch Society. (Christian Reconstructionism evolved, so to speak, from a radical variation of Calvinism, AKA Puritanism, and the Bircher politics of such men as the late Marietta, Ga., congressman, Larry McDonald.) For most of the four-day conference, DeMar turned the Bible over to others to thump. North blamed the Rockefellers and the Trilateral Commission for the success of secularists. Titus told of Jesus making a personal appearance in the rafters of his Oregon home.
At the heart of what was taught by a succession of speakers:
* Six-day, "young earth" creationism is the only acceptable doctrine for Christians. Even "intelligent design" or "old earth" creationism are compromises with evil secularism.
* Public education is satanic and must be destroyed.
* The First Amendment was intended to keep the federal government from imposing a national religion, but states should be free to foster a religious creed. (Several states did that during the colonial period and the nation's early days, a model the Reconstructionists want to emulate.)
* The Founding Fathers intended to protect only the liberties of the established ultra-conservative denominations of that time. Expanding the list to include "liberal" Protestant denominations, much less Catholics, Jews and (gasp!) atheists, is a corruption of the Founders' intent.
Education earned the most vitriol at the conference. Effusing that the Religious Right has captured politics and much of the media, North proclaimed: "The only thing they (secularists) have still got a grip on is the university system." Academic doctorates, he contended, are a conspiracy fomented by the Rockefeller family. All academic programs (except, he said, engineering) are now dominated by secularists and Darwinists...
They must think they need engineers to build and launch their Holy Hand Grenades.
...There are big theological differences between the Religious Right's generals and the Reconstructionists. Traditional Christian theology teaches that history will muddle along until Jesus' Second Coming. That teaching is tough to turn into a political movement. Reconstructionists preach that the nation and the world must come under Christian "dominion" (as they define it) before Christ's return -- a wonderful theology to promote global conquest.
In short, Dobson, Robertson, Falwell and the Southern Baptist Convention (the nation's largest Protestant denomination) may not agree with everything the Reconstructionists advocate, but they sure don't seem to mind hanging out with this openly theocratic, anti-democratic crowd...
No wonder Dear Leader cultivates the biggest lie of all.
More than a President
Greenwald discusses some of the rationale as the grand struggle for the Ring of Power continues:
The most under-appreciated influence on the Bush presidency is almost certainly Michael Gerson, the evangelical Christian who served as Bush's chief speechwriter from the beginning of Bush's presidency until recently, when he resigned… and he is a close confidant of the President.
He has a new essay in Newsweek purporting to describe how the 9/11 attacks "changed George W. Bush." Most of it is nothing more than the now-cliched neoconservative claptrap…
…it is somewhat baffling that those who seek to defend the President do so by claiming that battling terrorism is dependent upon reducing the level of chaos and hatred in the Middle East -- even though the region has more chaos, violence, and anti-American resentment than at any time in recent history… We achieve Middle East peace with war, stability with chaos, pro-American alliances with elections of intensely anti-U.S. regimes….
What is most notable about Gerson's essay is that it certainly seems as though he believes a military confrontation with Iran is both necessary and imminent:
"First, the nation may be tired, but history doesn't care. It is not fair that the challenge of Iran is rising with Iraq, bloody and unresolved. But, as President Kennedy used to say, "Life is not fair."
"Behind all the chaos and death in Lebanon and northern Israel, Iran is the main cause of worry in the West Wing—the crisis with the highest stakes. Its government shows every sign of grand regional ambitions, pulling together an anti-American alliance composed of Syria, terrorist groups like Hizbullah and Hamas, and proxies in Iraq and Afghanistan. And despite other disagreements, all the factions in Iran—conservative, ultraconservative and "let's usher in the apocalypse" fanatics—seem united in a nuclear nationalism.
"Some commentators say that America is too exhausted to confront this threat. But presidential decisions on national security are not primarily made by the divination of public sentiments; they are made by the determination of national interests. And the low blood-sugar level of pundits counts not at all. Here the choice is not easy, but it is simple: can America (and other nations) accept a nuclear Iran? . . .
"There are still many steps of diplomacy, engagement and sanctions between today and a decision about military conflict with Iran—and there may yet be a peaceful solution. But in this diplomatic dance, America should not mirror the infinite patience of Europe. There must be someone in the world capable of drawing a line—someone who says, "This much and no further." At some point, those who decide on aggression must pay a price, or aggression will be universal. If American "cowboy diplomacy" did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it."
…
(1) It has been obvious for some time that the President's most bloodthirsty supporters are pushing for war with Iran, and the disappointment and humiliation they feel in the face of a collapsing Iraq and a failed Lebanon invasion has intensified that need -- hence, all the talk about how "Iran won" the war in Lebanon…
(2) The unbridled disdain for the democratic process is palpable in Gerson's sermon. ..
The 9/11 attacks justify all of this because it made the President something more than a President; it made him a Great Cause. ..
Gerson's claim that "presidential decisions on national security are not primarily made by the divination of public sentiments" would come as a great surprise to the Founders, who expressly required a Declaration of War from Congress precisely because they believed the nation should fight wars only if the American people decide to take that risk…
(3)… the administration's theory of executive power almost certainly means that they believe they have the right to initiate a war on Iran even without any declaration of war or any other form of Congressional approval. Indeed, they would be empowered to do so even in the face of Congressional opposition. ..
This administration would have a very hard time convincing a majority of Americans -- and a majority of a war-weary and frightened Congress -- to explicitly authorize military force against Iran... Would that be an impediment to finding a way to provoke a military confrontation?
That's just what we've seen in Lebanon, although this conflict seems to be deflating.
Doubtless the recent resignation of Gerson has helped take the edge off of the Dominionist faction in the Oval Office. But the long knives among the Presidential advisors are coming out: Kristol second guessing Rumsfeld is a good example. The recent smokescreen attempt to portrary the President as an idiot also has propaganda value in plausible deniability.
But Dear Leader not knowing the difference between Sunni and Shiite before the Iraqi invasion? That's unbelievable disinformation, especially given the long and lucrative financial dealings he and his family have had with the Arab world. And continue to have. That's unbelievable disinformation, given the close involvement many members of his administration and family had with the Iranian government.
It's the Sergeant Schultz defense
designed to appeal to a popular meme, and you shouldn't believe it for a moment.
The most under-appreciated influence on the Bush presidency is almost certainly Michael Gerson, the evangelical Christian who served as Bush's chief speechwriter from the beginning of Bush's presidency until recently, when he resigned… and he is a close confidant of the President.
He has a new essay in Newsweek purporting to describe how the 9/11 attacks "changed George W. Bush." Most of it is nothing more than the now-cliched neoconservative claptrap…
…it is somewhat baffling that those who seek to defend the President do so by claiming that battling terrorism is dependent upon reducing the level of chaos and hatred in the Middle East -- even though the region has more chaos, violence, and anti-American resentment than at any time in recent history… We achieve Middle East peace with war, stability with chaos, pro-American alliances with elections of intensely anti-U.S. regimes….
What is most notable about Gerson's essay is that it certainly seems as though he believes a military confrontation with Iran is both necessary and imminent:
"First, the nation may be tired, but history doesn't care. It is not fair that the challenge of Iran is rising with Iraq, bloody and unresolved. But, as President Kennedy used to say, "Life is not fair."
"Behind all the chaos and death in Lebanon and northern Israel, Iran is the main cause of worry in the West Wing—the crisis with the highest stakes. Its government shows every sign of grand regional ambitions, pulling together an anti-American alliance composed of Syria, terrorist groups like Hizbullah and Hamas, and proxies in Iraq and Afghanistan. And despite other disagreements, all the factions in Iran—conservative, ultraconservative and "let's usher in the apocalypse" fanatics—seem united in a nuclear nationalism.
"Some commentators say that America is too exhausted to confront this threat. But presidential decisions on national security are not primarily made by the divination of public sentiments; they are made by the determination of national interests. And the low blood-sugar level of pundits counts not at all. Here the choice is not easy, but it is simple: can America (and other nations) accept a nuclear Iran? . . .
"There are still many steps of diplomacy, engagement and sanctions between today and a decision about military conflict with Iran—and there may yet be a peaceful solution. But in this diplomatic dance, America should not mirror the infinite patience of Europe. There must be someone in the world capable of drawing a line—someone who says, "This much and no further." At some point, those who decide on aggression must pay a price, or aggression will be universal. If American "cowboy diplomacy" did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it."
…
(1) It has been obvious for some time that the President's most bloodthirsty supporters are pushing for war with Iran, and the disappointment and humiliation they feel in the face of a collapsing Iraq and a failed Lebanon invasion has intensified that need -- hence, all the talk about how "Iran won" the war in Lebanon…
(2) The unbridled disdain for the democratic process is palpable in Gerson's sermon. ..
The 9/11 attacks justify all of this because it made the President something more than a President; it made him a Great Cause. ..
Gerson's claim that "presidential decisions on national security are not primarily made by the divination of public sentiments" would come as a great surprise to the Founders, who expressly required a Declaration of War from Congress precisely because they believed the nation should fight wars only if the American people decide to take that risk…
(3)… the administration's theory of executive power almost certainly means that they believe they have the right to initiate a war on Iran even without any declaration of war or any other form of Congressional approval. Indeed, they would be empowered to do so even in the face of Congressional opposition. ..
This administration would have a very hard time convincing a majority of Americans -- and a majority of a war-weary and frightened Congress -- to explicitly authorize military force against Iran... Would that be an impediment to finding a way to provoke a military confrontation?
That's just what we've seen in Lebanon, although this conflict seems to be deflating.
Doubtless the recent resignation of Gerson has helped take the edge off of the Dominionist faction in the Oval Office. But the long knives among the Presidential advisors are coming out: Kristol second guessing Rumsfeld is a good example. The recent smokescreen attempt to portrary the President as an idiot also has propaganda value in plausible deniability.
But Dear Leader not knowing the difference between Sunni and Shiite before the Iraqi invasion? That's unbelievable disinformation, especially given the long and lucrative financial dealings he and his family have had with the Arab world. And continue to have. That's unbelievable disinformation, given the close involvement many members of his administration and family had with the Iranian government.
It's the Sergeant Schultz defense
designed to appeal to a popular meme, and you shouldn't believe it for a moment.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Only Idiots Want This War
Professor Juan Cole notices:
…Since the United Nations resolution calling for a halt to hostilities, Prime Minister Olmert, President Bush, Secretary-General Nasrallah, President al-Asad and President Ahmadinejad have all been procliaming the war a personal victory.
I don't know why they would want to claim it.
It was such a stupid war. It was thick-as-two-blocks-of-wood strategy on all sides. It was moronic for the Israelis to plan it out last year. It was idiotic for Hizbullah to cross over into Israel, kill soldiers, and take two captive. It was brain dead for the Israeli officer corps and politicians to think they could get anything positive out of bombing Lebanon back to the stone age and making a million people homeless. It was dim-witted for Hasan Nasrallah to threaten Israelis with releasing poison gases from Haifa chemical plants on them. It was obtuse for the Israelis to confront a dug-in guerrilla movement with green conventional troops marching in straight lines. It was dull of Hizbullah to fire thousands of katyushas into open fields where they mainly damaged wild grass. The few times when the rockets managed to kill someone, it was often an Arab Israeli civilian. Stupid.
Israeli's armed forces chief, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, unwisely sold off $27,000 in stock when he heard that Hizbullah had captured 2 Israeli soldiers… It is further proof that the war was planned well in advance, and that Halutz knew that the capture would trigger it. But what could he have saved or made from this transaction? A few thousand dollars? It was stupid for him to risk the public perception of impropriety for such a small sum. Unprofessional.
…this war was a keystone cops war. It was horribly destructive for Lebanon, but not to any purpose for anyone, including the Israelis. The Americans and Israelis seem to have thought that the small farmers and small shopkeepers of south Lebanon were a sinister wraith army of the ghost of Ayatollah Khomeini. In fact, they were . . . small farmers and shopkeepers. One of the reasons they are rushing back down south is to see to their small farms, even if the small farmhouse isn't there any more.
But there you have it. Everyone wants credit for this cornucopia of foolishness.
Bush came out and said that Hizbullah had been defeated, and tried to link Hizbullah to the Sunni Arab guerrillas who make his life hell in Iraq. But, George, Hizbullah is Shiite. It was your Shiite allies in Iraq who supported it. Bush underscored his permanent deer-in-the-headlights cluelessness when at a press conference he said this:
…"The first step is -- and part of the mandate in the U.N. resolution was to secure Syria's borders. Iran is able to ship weapons to Hezbollah through Syria.
Secondly is to deal -- is to help seal off the ports around Lebanon.
… In other words, part of the mandate and part of the mission of the troops, the UNIFIL troops, will be to seal off the Syrian border."
…I can't even understand what he means by "the ports around Lebanon" being sealed. Does he mean Lebanon's ports? Note that you wouldn't want to seal off Lebanon's ports, since Lebanon will need to import things through them. That you could have such good port security in Lebanon that you could altogether screen out missile shipments is unlikely. Does he mean that Turkish, Syrian, and Israeli ports around Lebanon should be sealed. Just Syrian? Impractical.
Note also that the little blue strip at the bottom of Lebanon is generally where the UN peacekeeping troops will be. They aren't in a position to "seal off" the Syrian border, which stretches far to their northeast, and can't be "sealed off" by anyone at all, being rugged and long. The blue helmets of the UN, being a land force, are not in a position to seal off Lebanon's ports, such as Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, Jounieh or Tripoli. Nor could they seal off the Syrian port of Latakiya, if that is what Bush meant.
In other words, Bush doesn't have the slightest idea what he is talking about and nothing he said on this subject makes any sense at all. Why does the US press always let him get away with this?
Possibly because they're idiots who can't read a map, too?
Like Saint Ronnie before him, the dementia of the old dry drunk in office serves as the perfectly plausible deniability for his handlers. His arrogance and belligerance make it seem unlikely he could be taking orders from anyone else. But with Darth Rumsfeld and the Cheneyburton Corporation, and their host of sychophants, increasingly at odds over exactly who's in control of the Ring of Power, the gaps in Dear Leader's behavior become increasingly noticable.
…Since the United Nations resolution calling for a halt to hostilities, Prime Minister Olmert, President Bush, Secretary-General Nasrallah, President al-Asad and President Ahmadinejad have all been procliaming the war a personal victory.
I don't know why they would want to claim it.
It was such a stupid war. It was thick-as-two-blocks-of-wood strategy on all sides. It was moronic for the Israelis to plan it out last year. It was idiotic for Hizbullah to cross over into Israel, kill soldiers, and take two captive. It was brain dead for the Israeli officer corps and politicians to think they could get anything positive out of bombing Lebanon back to the stone age and making a million people homeless. It was dim-witted for Hasan Nasrallah to threaten Israelis with releasing poison gases from Haifa chemical plants on them. It was obtuse for the Israelis to confront a dug-in guerrilla movement with green conventional troops marching in straight lines. It was dull of Hizbullah to fire thousands of katyushas into open fields where they mainly damaged wild grass. The few times when the rockets managed to kill someone, it was often an Arab Israeli civilian. Stupid.
Israeli's armed forces chief, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, unwisely sold off $27,000 in stock when he heard that Hizbullah had captured 2 Israeli soldiers… It is further proof that the war was planned well in advance, and that Halutz knew that the capture would trigger it. But what could he have saved or made from this transaction? A few thousand dollars? It was stupid for him to risk the public perception of impropriety for such a small sum. Unprofessional.
…this war was a keystone cops war. It was horribly destructive for Lebanon, but not to any purpose for anyone, including the Israelis. The Americans and Israelis seem to have thought that the small farmers and small shopkeepers of south Lebanon were a sinister wraith army of the ghost of Ayatollah Khomeini. In fact, they were . . . small farmers and shopkeepers. One of the reasons they are rushing back down south is to see to their small farms, even if the small farmhouse isn't there any more.
But there you have it. Everyone wants credit for this cornucopia of foolishness.
Bush came out and said that Hizbullah had been defeated, and tried to link Hizbullah to the Sunni Arab guerrillas who make his life hell in Iraq. But, George, Hizbullah is Shiite. It was your Shiite allies in Iraq who supported it. Bush underscored his permanent deer-in-the-headlights cluelessness when at a press conference he said this:
…"The first step is -- and part of the mandate in the U.N. resolution was to secure Syria's borders. Iran is able to ship weapons to Hezbollah through Syria.
Secondly is to deal -- is to help seal off the ports around Lebanon.
… In other words, part of the mandate and part of the mission of the troops, the UNIFIL troops, will be to seal off the Syrian border."
…I can't even understand what he means by "the ports around Lebanon" being sealed. Does he mean Lebanon's ports? Note that you wouldn't want to seal off Lebanon's ports, since Lebanon will need to import things through them. That you could have such good port security in Lebanon that you could altogether screen out missile shipments is unlikely. Does he mean that Turkish, Syrian, and Israeli ports around Lebanon should be sealed. Just Syrian? Impractical.
Note also that the little blue strip at the bottom of Lebanon is generally where the UN peacekeeping troops will be. They aren't in a position to "seal off" the Syrian border, which stretches far to their northeast, and can't be "sealed off" by anyone at all, being rugged and long. The blue helmets of the UN, being a land force, are not in a position to seal off Lebanon's ports, such as Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, Jounieh or Tripoli. Nor could they seal off the Syrian port of Latakiya, if that is what Bush meant.
In other words, Bush doesn't have the slightest idea what he is talking about and nothing he said on this subject makes any sense at all. Why does the US press always let him get away with this?
Possibly because they're idiots who can't read a map, too?
Like Saint Ronnie before him, the dementia of the old dry drunk in office serves as the perfectly plausible deniability for his handlers. His arrogance and belligerance make it seem unlikely he could be taking orders from anyone else. But with Darth Rumsfeld and the Cheneyburton Corporation, and their host of sychophants, increasingly at odds over exactly who's in control of the Ring of Power, the gaps in Dear Leader's behavior become increasingly noticable.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Company Board Dispute
A Self-Defeating War
by George Soros
The war on terror is a false metaphor that has led to counterproductive and self-defeating policies. Five years after 9/11, a misleading figure of speech applied literally has unleashed a real war fought on several fronts -- Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia -- a war that has killed thousands of innocent civilians and enraged millions around the world. Yet al Qaeda has not been subdued; a plot that could have claimed more victims than 9/11 has just been foiled by the vigilance of British intelligence.
Unfortunately, the "war on terror" metaphor was uncritically accepted by the American public as the obvious response to 9/11. It is now widely admitted that the invasion of Iraq was a blunder. But the war on terror remains the frame into which American policy has to fit. Most Democratic politicians subscribe to it for fear of being tagged as weak on defense.
What makes the war on terror self-defeating?
* First, war by its very nature creates innocent victims. A war waged against terrorists is even more likely to claim innocent victims because terrorists tend to keep their whereabouts hidden. The deaths, injuries and humiliation of civilians generate rage and resentment among their families and communities that in turn serves to build support for terrorists.
* Second, terrorism is an abstraction. It lumps together all political movements that use terrorist tactics. Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Sunni insurrection and the Mahdi army in Iraq are very different forces, but President Bush's global war on terror prevents us from differentiating between them and dealing with them accordingly. It inhibits much-needed negotiations with Iran and Syria because they are states that support terrorist groups.
* Third, the war on terror emphasizes military action while most territorial conflicts require political solutions. And, as the British have shown, al Qaeda is best dealt with by good intelligence. The war on terror increases the terrorist threat and makes the task of the intelligence agencies more difficult. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are still at large; we need to focus on finding them, and preventing attacks like the one foiled in England.
* Fourth, the war on terror drives a wedge between "us" and "them." We are innocent victims. They are perpetrators. But we fail to notice that we also become perpetrators in the process; the rest of the world, however, does notice. That is how such a wide gap has arisen between America and much of the world.
Taken together, these four factors ensure that the war on terror cannot be won. An endless war waged against an unseen enemy is doing great damage to our power and prestige abroad and to our open society at home. It has led to a dangerous extension of executive powers; it has tarnished our adherence to universal human rights; it has inhibited the critical process that is at the heart of an open society; and it has cost a lot of money. Most importantly, it has diverted attention from other urgent tasks that require American leadership, such as finishing the job we so correctly began in Afghanistan, addressing the looming global energy crisis, and dealing with nuclear proliferation.
With American influence at low ebb, the world is in danger of sliding into a vicious circle of escalating violence. We can escape it only if we Americans repudiate the war on terror as a false metaphor. If we persevere on the wrong course, the situation will continue to deteriorate. It is not our will that is being tested, but our understanding of reality. It is painful to admit that our current predicaments are brought about by our own misconceptions. However, not admitting it is bound to prove even more painful in the long run. The strength of an open society lies in its ability to recognize and correct its mistakes. This is the test that confronts us.
George Soros is absolutely right. And a very close business partner of the Bush family. His rivals.
Thus the world's largest private equity firm is positioned to have a controlling interest in whomever wins in 2006- or 2008. Indeed, the Empire is in reality not America owned, only America based.
by George Soros
The war on terror is a false metaphor that has led to counterproductive and self-defeating policies. Five years after 9/11, a misleading figure of speech applied literally has unleashed a real war fought on several fronts -- Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia -- a war that has killed thousands of innocent civilians and enraged millions around the world. Yet al Qaeda has not been subdued; a plot that could have claimed more victims than 9/11 has just been foiled by the vigilance of British intelligence.
Unfortunately, the "war on terror" metaphor was uncritically accepted by the American public as the obvious response to 9/11. It is now widely admitted that the invasion of Iraq was a blunder. But the war on terror remains the frame into which American policy has to fit. Most Democratic politicians subscribe to it for fear of being tagged as weak on defense.
What makes the war on terror self-defeating?
* First, war by its very nature creates innocent victims. A war waged against terrorists is even more likely to claim innocent victims because terrorists tend to keep their whereabouts hidden. The deaths, injuries and humiliation of civilians generate rage and resentment among their families and communities that in turn serves to build support for terrorists.
* Second, terrorism is an abstraction. It lumps together all political movements that use terrorist tactics. Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Sunni insurrection and the Mahdi army in Iraq are very different forces, but President Bush's global war on terror prevents us from differentiating between them and dealing with them accordingly. It inhibits much-needed negotiations with Iran and Syria because they are states that support terrorist groups.
* Third, the war on terror emphasizes military action while most territorial conflicts require political solutions. And, as the British have shown, al Qaeda is best dealt with by good intelligence. The war on terror increases the terrorist threat and makes the task of the intelligence agencies more difficult. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are still at large; we need to focus on finding them, and preventing attacks like the one foiled in England.
* Fourth, the war on terror drives a wedge between "us" and "them." We are innocent victims. They are perpetrators. But we fail to notice that we also become perpetrators in the process; the rest of the world, however, does notice. That is how such a wide gap has arisen between America and much of the world.
Taken together, these four factors ensure that the war on terror cannot be won. An endless war waged against an unseen enemy is doing great damage to our power and prestige abroad and to our open society at home. It has led to a dangerous extension of executive powers; it has tarnished our adherence to universal human rights; it has inhibited the critical process that is at the heart of an open society; and it has cost a lot of money. Most importantly, it has diverted attention from other urgent tasks that require American leadership, such as finishing the job we so correctly began in Afghanistan, addressing the looming global energy crisis, and dealing with nuclear proliferation.
With American influence at low ebb, the world is in danger of sliding into a vicious circle of escalating violence. We can escape it only if we Americans repudiate the war on terror as a false metaphor. If we persevere on the wrong course, the situation will continue to deteriorate. It is not our will that is being tested, but our understanding of reality. It is painful to admit that our current predicaments are brought about by our own misconceptions. However, not admitting it is bound to prove even more painful in the long run. The strength of an open society lies in its ability to recognize and correct its mistakes. This is the test that confronts us.
George Soros is absolutely right. And a very close business partner of the Bush family. His rivals.
Thus the world's largest private equity firm is positioned to have a controlling interest in whomever wins in 2006- or 2008. Indeed, the Empire is in reality not America owned, only America based.
The Complete 9/11 Timeline Revisited
Monday, August 14, 2006
Out of This World Hot Property
NASA can't find original tape of moon landing
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government has misplaced the original recording of the first moon landing, including astronaut Neil Armstrong's famous "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," a NASA spokesman said on Monday.
Armstrong's famous space walk, seen by millions of viewers on July 20, 1969, is among transmissions that NASA has failed to turn up in a year of searching, spokesman Grey Hautaloma said.
"We haven't seen them for quite a while. We've been looking for over a year and they haven't turned up," Hautaloma said.
The tapes also contain data about the health of the astronauts and the condition of the spacecraft. In all, some 700 boxes of transmissions from the Apollo lunar missions are missing, he said.
"I wouldn't say we're worried -- we've got all the data. Everything on the tapes we have in one form or another," Hautaloma said.
NASA has retained copies of the television broadcasts and offers several clips on its Web site.
But those images are of lower quality than the originals stored on the missing magnetic tapes...
700 boxes! Those tapes are valuable. Some private contractor probably pulled up a trailer one night when his security boys were on guard, told 'em to fill it up, and pulled off into the night.
Did I ever mention that Michael Griffin was an ex CSC/ DynCorp CEO?
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government has misplaced the original recording of the first moon landing, including astronaut Neil Armstrong's famous "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," a NASA spokesman said on Monday.
Armstrong's famous space walk, seen by millions of viewers on July 20, 1969, is among transmissions that NASA has failed to turn up in a year of searching, spokesman Grey Hautaloma said.
"We haven't seen them for quite a while. We've been looking for over a year and they haven't turned up," Hautaloma said.
The tapes also contain data about the health of the astronauts and the condition of the spacecraft. In all, some 700 boxes of transmissions from the Apollo lunar missions are missing, he said.
"I wouldn't say we're worried -- we've got all the data. Everything on the tapes we have in one form or another," Hautaloma said.
NASA has retained copies of the television broadcasts and offers several clips on its Web site.
But those images are of lower quality than the originals stored on the missing magnetic tapes...
700 boxes! Those tapes are valuable. Some private contractor probably pulled up a trailer one night when his security boys were on guard, told 'em to fill it up, and pulled off into the night.
Did I ever mention that Michael Griffin was an ex CSC/ DynCorp CEO?
An Uneasy Triumvirate: Who Holds the Ring of Power?
Among other items of interest, Juan Cole says:
...Any US attack on Iran could well lead to the US and British troops in Iraq being cut off from fuel and massacred by enraged Shiites. Shiite irregulars could easily engage in pipeline and fuel convoy sabotage of the sort deployed by the Sunni guerrillas in the north. Without fuel, US troops would be sitting ducks for rocket and mortar attacks that US air power could not hope completely to stop (as the experience of Israel with Hizbullah in Lebanon demonstrates). A pan-Islamic alliance of furious Shiites and Sunni guerrillas might well be the result, spelling the decisive end of Americastan in Iraq. Shiite Iraqis are already at the boiling point over Israel's assault on their coreligionists in Lebanon. An attack on Iran could well push them over the edge. People like Cheney and Bush don't understand people's movements or how they can win. They don't understand the Islamic revolution in Iran of 1978-79. They don't understand that they are playing George III in the eyes of most Middle Eastern Muslims, and that lots of people want to play George Washington.
By the way, Hersh maintains that US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has at least some inkling of all this, which is one reason he hasn't been enthusiastically cheering on the Lebanon war.
I had this second hand, from someone who knows someone in the know. It confirms Hersh's account:
' Rumsfeld is very uneasy with the unquestioning support for the Israeli offensive because of the impact it will have on American troops in Iraq. His point to Bush and Rice is that Iraq's Shias will not stand by while their Lebanese Shia brothers are destroyed. He has pointed out to them -- to Rice and Bush -- that there are close family and political ties between the Moqtada al-Sadr family and the Musa al-Sadr and the close friendship between Maliki and Nawaf Moussawi, the foreign minister of Hezbollah. That Hezbollah worked to free the Dawa 17 at one point in its history was a surprise to Rice, as well as to Bush. With American casualties mounting in Iraq Rumsfeld does not believe we need to make enemies of the Shia. The demonstration of last week shook him -- and American commanders. '
If Hersh and my correspondent are correct, we are beginning to see an "India Office" effect in the US government. When Britain ruled India, the British Government of India often developed its own foreign policy and priorities that were not the same as London's Foreign Office. Rumsfeld does have Iraq interests for which he has to speak, however much he hates Hizbullah and Iran.
The strategeric analogy with Kosovo is unsettling. That was a dust-up NATO more-or-less won, but the guys in charge were Democrats. It's an uneasy analogy, though, since that was a conflict where the neo liberals- and DynCorp private security cut their teeth. It was also where DynCorp got their fame in human trafficking. Dr. Cole goes on to say:
As for the Israelis, the Kosovo analogy is plausible, since Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has instanced Kosovo as justification for his actions. The irony is that the Israelis misunderstood Kosovo. Hizbullah is like the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), not like Milosevic's Serbs. If Wesley Clarke had bombed the KLA, the Kosovo war would have failed completely. More ironically, in its decision to expel the Shiite population from the area of Lebanon south of the Litani river, and to make nearly 1 million Lebanese homeless, the Israelis acted more like Milosevic himself than like NATO...
The perception of reality by Darth Rumsfeld is to be encouraged, if only to keep us all out of World War III. Rumsfeld likes slow simmering wars where men of low profile can make lots of dirty money. Cheney likes the money too, but the siren song of colonialism and all that oil in the ground and all those nukes we've got stockpiled makes him yearn for a Final Solution for those difficult people.
Dear Leader just thinks what Dick sez, and loves his pretty Precious.
But the ceasefire went through. Darth Rumsfeld may have won this round. One wonders if Shotgun Dick will let the balance stand, with the power of the moustache of Sauron himself humilated before the whole U.N.?
...Any US attack on Iran could well lead to the US and British troops in Iraq being cut off from fuel and massacred by enraged Shiites. Shiite irregulars could easily engage in pipeline and fuel convoy sabotage of the sort deployed by the Sunni guerrillas in the north. Without fuel, US troops would be sitting ducks for rocket and mortar attacks that US air power could not hope completely to stop (as the experience of Israel with Hizbullah in Lebanon demonstrates). A pan-Islamic alliance of furious Shiites and Sunni guerrillas might well be the result, spelling the decisive end of Americastan in Iraq. Shiite Iraqis are already at the boiling point over Israel's assault on their coreligionists in Lebanon. An attack on Iran could well push them over the edge. People like Cheney and Bush don't understand people's movements or how they can win. They don't understand the Islamic revolution in Iran of 1978-79. They don't understand that they are playing George III in the eyes of most Middle Eastern Muslims, and that lots of people want to play George Washington.
By the way, Hersh maintains that US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has at least some inkling of all this, which is one reason he hasn't been enthusiastically cheering on the Lebanon war.
I had this second hand, from someone who knows someone in the know. It confirms Hersh's account:
' Rumsfeld is very uneasy with the unquestioning support for the Israeli offensive because of the impact it will have on American troops in Iraq. His point to Bush and Rice is that Iraq's Shias will not stand by while their Lebanese Shia brothers are destroyed. He has pointed out to them -- to Rice and Bush -- that there are close family and political ties between the Moqtada al-Sadr family and the Musa al-Sadr and the close friendship between Maliki and Nawaf Moussawi, the foreign minister of Hezbollah. That Hezbollah worked to free the Dawa 17 at one point in its history was a surprise to Rice, as well as to Bush. With American casualties mounting in Iraq Rumsfeld does not believe we need to make enemies of the Shia. The demonstration of last week shook him -- and American commanders. '
If Hersh and my correspondent are correct, we are beginning to see an "India Office" effect in the US government. When Britain ruled India, the British Government of India often developed its own foreign policy and priorities that were not the same as London's Foreign Office. Rumsfeld does have Iraq interests for which he has to speak, however much he hates Hizbullah and Iran.
The strategeric analogy with Kosovo is unsettling. That was a dust-up NATO more-or-less won, but the guys in charge were Democrats. It's an uneasy analogy, though, since that was a conflict where the neo liberals- and DynCorp private security cut their teeth. It was also where DynCorp got their fame in human trafficking. Dr. Cole goes on to say:
As for the Israelis, the Kosovo analogy is plausible, since Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has instanced Kosovo as justification for his actions. The irony is that the Israelis misunderstood Kosovo. Hizbullah is like the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), not like Milosevic's Serbs. If Wesley Clarke had bombed the KLA, the Kosovo war would have failed completely. More ironically, in its decision to expel the Shiite population from the area of Lebanon south of the Litani river, and to make nearly 1 million Lebanese homeless, the Israelis acted more like Milosevic himself than like NATO...
The perception of reality by Darth Rumsfeld is to be encouraged, if only to keep us all out of World War III. Rumsfeld likes slow simmering wars where men of low profile can make lots of dirty money. Cheney likes the money too, but the siren song of colonialism and all that oil in the ground and all those nukes we've got stockpiled makes him yearn for a Final Solution for those difficult people.
Dear Leader just thinks what Dick sez, and loves his pretty Precious.
But the ceasefire went through. Darth Rumsfeld may have won this round. One wonders if Shotgun Dick will let the balance stand, with the power of the moustache of Sauron himself humilated before the whole U.N.?
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Darth Rumsfeld detects a disturbance in the Force
...but Big Time Dick and Dear Leader go on spinning their new realities anyway.
Seymour M. Hersch:
...Donald Rumsfeld, who is one of the Bush Administration’s most outspoken, and powerful, officials, has said very little publicly about the crisis in Lebanon. His relative quiet, compared to his aggressive visibility in the run-up to the Iraq war, has prompted a debate in Washington about where he stands on the issue.
Some current and former intelligence officials who were interviewed for this article believe that Rumsfeld disagrees with Bush and Cheney about the American role in the war between Israel and Hezbollah. The U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said that “there was a feeling that Rumsfeld was jaded in his approach to the Israeli war.” He added, “Air power and the use of a few Special Forces had worked in Afghanistan, and he tried to do it again in Iraq. It was the same idea, but it didn’t work. He thought that Hezbollah was too dug in and the Israeli attack plan would not work, and the last thing he wanted was another war on his shift that would put the American forces in Iraq in greater jeopardy.”
A Western diplomat said that he understood that Rumsfeld did not know all the intricacies of the war plan. “He is angry and worried about his troops” in Iraq, the diplomat said. Rumsfeld served in the White House during the last year of the war in Vietnam, from which American troops withdrew in 1975, “and he did not want to see something like this having an impact in Iraq.” Rumsfeld’s concern, the diplomat added, was that an expansion of the war into Iran could put the American troops in Iraq at greater risk of attacks by pro-Iranian Shiite militias.
At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on August 3rd, Rumsfeld was less than enthusiastic about the war’s implications for the American troops in Iraq. Asked whether the Administration was mindful of the war’s impact on Iraq, he testified that, in his meetings with Bush and Condoleezza Rice, “there is a sensitivity to the desire to not have our country or our interests or our forces put at greater risk as a result of what’s taking place between Israel and Hezbollah. . . . There are a variety of risks that we face in that region, and it’s a difficult and delicate situation...”
It turns out the Sith Lord isn't the only one uneasy about the timeline he seems to be on. In Israel:
Amid the political and diplomatic fallout from Israel’s faltering invasion of Lebanon, some Israeli officials are privately blaming President George W. Bush for egging Prime Minister Ehud Olmert into the ill-conceived military adventure against the Hezbollah militia in south Lebanon.
Bush conveyed his strong personal support for the military offensive during a White House meeting with Olmert on May 23, according to sources familiar with the thinking of senior Israeli leaders.
Olmert, who like Bush lacks direct wartime experience, agreed that a dose of military force against Hezbollah might damage the guerrilla group’s influence in Lebanon and intimidate its allies, Iran and Syria, countries that Bush has identified as the chief obstacles to U.S. interests in the Middle East.
As part of Bush’s determination to create a “new Middle East” – one that is more amenable to U.S. policies and desires – Bush even urged Israel to attack Syria, but the Olmert government refused to go that far, according to Israeli sources.
One source said some Israeli officials thought Bush’s attack-Syria idea was “nuts” since much of the world would have seen the bombing campaign as overt aggression...
So perhaps a few of the voices in thePentagramPentagon and the IDF have a preoccupation with winning instead of the Great Global Cultural Armageddon the Dominionists have planned for us.
Maybe some of the Company are beginning to wonder just how messy this World War III (or IV, or whatever Bill Kristol's buddies are calling this) thing will get. A slow simmering burn of hot coals is good for the Company. But increasingly Dear Leader's preoccupied with pouring gasoline on the flame.
No way to make money on that.
Seymour M. Hersch:
...Donald Rumsfeld, who is one of the Bush Administration’s most outspoken, and powerful, officials, has said very little publicly about the crisis in Lebanon. His relative quiet, compared to his aggressive visibility in the run-up to the Iraq war, has prompted a debate in Washington about where he stands on the issue.
Some current and former intelligence officials who were interviewed for this article believe that Rumsfeld disagrees with Bush and Cheney about the American role in the war between Israel and Hezbollah. The U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said that “there was a feeling that Rumsfeld was jaded in his approach to the Israeli war.” He added, “Air power and the use of a few Special Forces had worked in Afghanistan, and he tried to do it again in Iraq. It was the same idea, but it didn’t work. He thought that Hezbollah was too dug in and the Israeli attack plan would not work, and the last thing he wanted was another war on his shift that would put the American forces in Iraq in greater jeopardy.”
A Western diplomat said that he understood that Rumsfeld did not know all the intricacies of the war plan. “He is angry and worried about his troops” in Iraq, the diplomat said. Rumsfeld served in the White House during the last year of the war in Vietnam, from which American troops withdrew in 1975, “and he did not want to see something like this having an impact in Iraq.” Rumsfeld’s concern, the diplomat added, was that an expansion of the war into Iran could put the American troops in Iraq at greater risk of attacks by pro-Iranian Shiite militias.
At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on August 3rd, Rumsfeld was less than enthusiastic about the war’s implications for the American troops in Iraq. Asked whether the Administration was mindful of the war’s impact on Iraq, he testified that, in his meetings with Bush and Condoleezza Rice, “there is a sensitivity to the desire to not have our country or our interests or our forces put at greater risk as a result of what’s taking place between Israel and Hezbollah. . . . There are a variety of risks that we face in that region, and it’s a difficult and delicate situation...”
It turns out the Sith Lord isn't the only one uneasy about the timeline he seems to be on. In Israel:
Amid the political and diplomatic fallout from Israel’s faltering invasion of Lebanon, some Israeli officials are privately blaming President George W. Bush for egging Prime Minister Ehud Olmert into the ill-conceived military adventure against the Hezbollah militia in south Lebanon.
Bush conveyed his strong personal support for the military offensive during a White House meeting with Olmert on May 23, according to sources familiar with the thinking of senior Israeli leaders.
Olmert, who like Bush lacks direct wartime experience, agreed that a dose of military force against Hezbollah might damage the guerrilla group’s influence in Lebanon and intimidate its allies, Iran and Syria, countries that Bush has identified as the chief obstacles to U.S. interests in the Middle East.
As part of Bush’s determination to create a “new Middle East” – one that is more amenable to U.S. policies and desires – Bush even urged Israel to attack Syria, but the Olmert government refused to go that far, according to Israeli sources.
One source said some Israeli officials thought Bush’s attack-Syria idea was “nuts” since much of the world would have seen the bombing campaign as overt aggression...
So perhaps a few of the voices in the
Maybe some of the Company are beginning to wonder just how messy this World War III (or IV, or whatever Bill Kristol's buddies are calling this) thing will get. A slow simmering burn of hot coals is good for the Company. But increasingly Dear Leader's preoccupied with pouring gasoline on the flame.
No way to make money on that.
Strategeric Advice on the Demo War
If it has a few scratches, do they still charge full retail?
Lambert points to Hersch's expose that the lead up to the Lebanese conflict was coached by those wild Dominionist flyboys in the U.S. Air Force:
...The Bush Administration, however, was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground...
The United States and Israel have shared intelligence and enjoyed close military coöperation for decades, but early this spring, according to a former senior intelligence official, high-level planners from the U.S. Air Force—under pressure from the White House to develop a war plan for a decisive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities—began consulting with their counterparts in the Israeli Air Force.
“The big question for our Air Force was how to hit a series of hard targets in Iran successfully,” the former senior intelligence official said. “Who is the closest ally of the U.S. Air Force in its planning? It’s not Congo—it’s Israel. Everybody knows that Iranian engineers have been advising Hezbollah on tunnels and underground gun emplacements. And so the Air Force went to the Israelis with some new tactics and said to them, ‘Let’s concentrate on the bombing and share what we have on Iran and what you have on Lebanon.’ ” The discussions reached the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he said.
“The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits,” a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said. “Why oppose it? We’ll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran...”
...The U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel told me, however, that, from Israel’s perspective, the decision to take strong action had become inevitable weeks earlier, after the Israeli Army’s signals intelligence group, known as Unit 8200, picked up bellicose intercepts in late spring and early summer, involving Hamas, Hezbollah, and Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader now living in Damascus.
One intercept was of a meeting in late May of the Hamas political and military leadership, with Meshal participating by telephone. “Hamas believed the call from Damascus was scrambled, but Israel had broken the code,” the consultant said. For almost a year before its victory in the Palestinian elections in January, Hamas had curtailed its terrorist activities. In the late May intercepted conversation, the consultant told me, the Hamas leadership said that “they got no benefit from it, and were losing standing among the Palestinian population.” The conclusion, he said, was “ ‘Let’s go back into the terror business and then try and wrestle concessions from the Israeli government.’ ” The consultant told me that the U.S. and Israel agreed that if the Hamas leadership did so, and if Nasrallah backed them up, there should be “a full-scale response.” In the next several weeks, when Hamas began digging the tunnel into Israel, the consultant said, Unit 8200 “picked up signals intelligence involving Hamas, Syria, and Hezbollah, saying, in essence, that they wanted Hezbollah to ‘warm up’ the north.” In one intercept, the consultant said, Nasrallah referred to Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz “as seeming to be weak,” in comparison with the former Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak, who had extensive military experience, and said “he thought Israel would respond in a small-scale, local way, as they had in the past...”
Islamic fundamentalists fighting inexperienced Israeli zealots, taking advice from Dominionist faithful.
A cakewalk, surely. After all, God is on *our* side. But whom God would destroy...
Lambert points to Hersch's expose that the lead up to the Lebanese conflict was coached by those wild Dominionist flyboys in the U.S. Air Force:
...The Bush Administration, however, was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground...
The United States and Israel have shared intelligence and enjoyed close military coöperation for decades, but early this spring, according to a former senior intelligence official, high-level planners from the U.S. Air Force—under pressure from the White House to develop a war plan for a decisive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities—began consulting with their counterparts in the Israeli Air Force.
“The big question for our Air Force was how to hit a series of hard targets in Iran successfully,” the former senior intelligence official said. “Who is the closest ally of the U.S. Air Force in its planning? It’s not Congo—it’s Israel. Everybody knows that Iranian engineers have been advising Hezbollah on tunnels and underground gun emplacements. And so the Air Force went to the Israelis with some new tactics and said to them, ‘Let’s concentrate on the bombing and share what we have on Iran and what you have on Lebanon.’ ” The discussions reached the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he said.
“The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits,” a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said. “Why oppose it? We’ll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran...”
...The U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel told me, however, that, from Israel’s perspective, the decision to take strong action had become inevitable weeks earlier, after the Israeli Army’s signals intelligence group, known as Unit 8200, picked up bellicose intercepts in late spring and early summer, involving Hamas, Hezbollah, and Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader now living in Damascus.
One intercept was of a meeting in late May of the Hamas political and military leadership, with Meshal participating by telephone. “Hamas believed the call from Damascus was scrambled, but Israel had broken the code,” the consultant said. For almost a year before its victory in the Palestinian elections in January, Hamas had curtailed its terrorist activities. In the late May intercepted conversation, the consultant told me, the Hamas leadership said that “they got no benefit from it, and were losing standing among the Palestinian population.” The conclusion, he said, was “ ‘Let’s go back into the terror business and then try and wrestle concessions from the Israeli government.’ ” The consultant told me that the U.S. and Israel agreed that if the Hamas leadership did so, and if Nasrallah backed them up, there should be “a full-scale response.” In the next several weeks, when Hamas began digging the tunnel into Israel, the consultant said, Unit 8200 “picked up signals intelligence involving Hamas, Syria, and Hezbollah, saying, in essence, that they wanted Hezbollah to ‘warm up’ the north.” In one intercept, the consultant said, Nasrallah referred to Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz “as seeming to be weak,” in comparison with the former Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak, who had extensive military experience, and said “he thought Israel would respond in a small-scale, local way, as they had in the past...”
Islamic fundamentalists fighting inexperienced Israeli zealots, taking advice from Dominionist faithful.
A cakewalk, surely. After all, God is on *our* side. But whom God would destroy...
Premature Incarceration
Via Tinfoil Hat Boy
LONDON - NBC News has learned that U.S. and British authorities had a significant disagreement over when to move in on the suspects in the alleged plot to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners bound for the United States.
A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.
In contrast to previous reports, the official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports...
British security was concerned that Rauf be taken into custody "in circumstances where there was due process," according to the official, so that he could be tried in British courts. Ultimately, this official says, Rauf was arrested over the objections of the British...
The Great Strategerizer apparently also decided they didn't need all that high falutin' technowlergy about the same time they were bustin' up the Brits' bust.
After all, if they had let the Brits find out too much, or if they checked things too carefully, it might interfere with the planned October surprise.
LONDON - NBC News has learned that U.S. and British authorities had a significant disagreement over when to move in on the suspects in the alleged plot to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners bound for the United States.
A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.
In contrast to previous reports, the official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports...
British security was concerned that Rauf be taken into custody "in circumstances where there was due process," according to the official, so that he could be tried in British courts. Ultimately, this official says, Rauf was arrested over the objections of the British...
The Great Strategerizer apparently also decided they didn't need all that high falutin' technowlergy about the same time they were bustin' up the Brits' bust.
After all, if they had let the Brits find out too much, or if they checked things too carefully, it might interfere with the planned October surprise.
Kool Aid in the Canteen
Billmon: A Different Kind of Cluelessness
Marine officer Brian Humphreys looks at his experience trying to win hearts and minds in Iraq and wonders what Hizbullah has got that the few and the proud don't got:
"Whatever the objective truth of Hezbollah's motives, its many supporters in southern Lebanon believe fervently that it is their organization, not an Iranian surrogate. Few if any American units in Iraq have achieved anything close to this level of success in winning the support of the local population . . . Hezbollah's success among civilians in Lebanon, which is only reinforced by a ruthless pummeling from a reviled enemy, contrasts sharply with the continued fragility of the much more modest U.S. gains in Iraq, achieved at a much higher price.
The lessons should be clear. To engage in insurgency or counterinsurgency -- fancy terms for grass-roots politics by other means -- one must be willing and, most of all, able to work in the underbelly of local politics, as Hezbollah has done in Lebanon. . . one has to ask why Hezbollah has been able to pull it off in Lebanon, while young Americans continue to endure a host of nasty surprises in Iraq."
Washington Post
Learning from Hezbollah
August 12, 2006
I dunno. Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that Hizbullah in Lebanon is an authentic grassroots political movement composed of local Shiites, while the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq is an occuping army of foreign infidels. Could that be it?
I probably shouldn't be so harsh on officer Humphreys. He at least understands what has gone so disastrously wrong in Iraq. But the fact that even he can't figure out why Hizbullah has been able to achieve what the military might and financial majesty of the United States government could not is a pretty sad commentary on the fog of delusion that constitutes how Americans tend to see themselves and their place in the world...
Marine officer Brian Humphreys looks at his experience trying to win hearts and minds in Iraq and wonders what Hizbullah has got that the few and the proud don't got:
"Whatever the objective truth of Hezbollah's motives, its many supporters in southern Lebanon believe fervently that it is their organization, not an Iranian surrogate. Few if any American units in Iraq have achieved anything close to this level of success in winning the support of the local population . . . Hezbollah's success among civilians in Lebanon, which is only reinforced by a ruthless pummeling from a reviled enemy, contrasts sharply with the continued fragility of the much more modest U.S. gains in Iraq, achieved at a much higher price.
The lessons should be clear. To engage in insurgency or counterinsurgency -- fancy terms for grass-roots politics by other means -- one must be willing and, most of all, able to work in the underbelly of local politics, as Hezbollah has done in Lebanon. . . one has to ask why Hezbollah has been able to pull it off in Lebanon, while young Americans continue to endure a host of nasty surprises in Iraq."
Washington Post
Learning from Hezbollah
August 12, 2006
I dunno. Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that Hizbullah in Lebanon is an authentic grassroots political movement composed of local Shiites, while the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq is an occuping army of foreign infidels. Could that be it?
I probably shouldn't be so harsh on officer Humphreys. He at least understands what has gone so disastrously wrong in Iraq. But the fact that even he can't figure out why Hizbullah has been able to achieve what the military might and financial majesty of the United States government could not is a pretty sad commentary on the fog of delusion that constitutes how Americans tend to see themselves and their place in the world...
Hot Times for American Veterans
Is an Armament Sickening U.S. Soldiers?
by Deborah Hastings
It takes at least 10 minutes and a large glass of orange juice to wash down all the pills — morphine, methadone, a muscle relaxant, an antidepressant, a stool softener. Viagra for sexual dysfunction. Valium for his nerves...
Four hours later, Herbert Reed will swallow another 15 mg of morphine to cut the pain clenching every part of his body. He will do it twice more before the day is done.
Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, his gums bleed. There is more blood in his urine, and still more in his stool. Bright light hurts his eyes. A tumor has been removed from his thyroid. Rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside his skin. Migraines cleave his skull. His joints ache, grating like door hinges in need of oil.
There is something massively wrong with Herbert Reed, though no one is sure what it is. He believes he knows the cause, but he cannot convince anyone caring for him that the military's new favorite weapon has made him terrifyingly sick...
Reed believes depleted uranium has contaminated him and his life. He now walks point in a vitriolic war over the Pentagon's arsenal of it — thousands of shells and hundreds of tanks coated with the metal that is radioactive, chemically toxic, and nearly twice as dense as lead.
A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter, exploding on impact into a charring inferno. As tank armor, it repels artillery assaults. It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
Depleted uranium is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and energy plants. It is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium. The U.S. has an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of it, sitting in hazardous waste storage sites across the country. Meaning it is plentiful and cheap as well as highly effective.
Reed says he unknowingly breathed DU dust while living with his unit in Samawah, Iraq. He was med-evaced out in July 2003, nearly unable to walk because of lightning-strike pains from herniated discs in his spine. Then began a strange series of symptoms he'd never experienced in his previously healthy life.
At Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C, he ran into a buddy from his unit. And another, and another, and in the tedium of hospital life between doctor visits and the dispensing of meds, they began to talk.
"We all had migraines. We all felt sick," Reed says. "The doctors said, 'It's all in your head.' "
Then the medic from their unit showed up. He too, was suffering. That made eight sick soldiers from the 442nd Military Police, an Army National Guard unit made up of mostly cops and correctional officers from the New York area.
But the medic knew something the others didn't.
Dutch marines had taken over the abandoned train depot dubbed Camp Smitty, which was surrounded by tank skeletons, unexploded ordnance and shell casings. They'd brought radiation-detection devices. The readings were so hot, the Dutch set up camp in the middle of the desert rather than live in the station ruins...
...they contacted The New York Daily News, which paid for sophisticated urine tests available only overseas.
Then they hired a lawyer.
___
Reed, Gerard Matthew, Raymond Ramos, Hector Vega, Augustin Matos, Anthony Yonnone, Jerry Ojeda and Anthony Phillip all have depleted uranium in their urine, according to tests done in December 2003, while they bounced for months between Walter Reed and New Jersey's Fort Dix medical center, seeking relief that never came.
The analyses were done in Germany, by a Frankfurt professor who developed a depleted uranium test with Randall Parrish, a professor of isotope geology at the University of Leicester in Britain.
The veterans, using their positive results as evidence, have sued the U.S. Army, claiming officials knew the hazards of depleted uranium, but concealed the risks.
The Department of Defense says depleted uranium is powerful and safe, and not that worrisome.
Four of the highest-registering samples from Frankfurt were sent to the VA. Those results were negative, Reed said. "Their test just isn't as sophisticated," he said. "And when we first asked to be tested, they told us there wasn't one. They've lied to us all along."
The VA's testing methodology is safe and accurate, the agency says. More than 2,100 soldiers from the current war have asked to be tested; only 8 had DU in their urine, the VA said...
An estimated 286 tons of DU munitions were fired by the U.S. in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991. An estimated 130 tons were shot toppling Saddam Hussein.
Depleted uranium can enter the human body by inhalation, the most dangerous method; by ingesting contaminated food or eating with contaminated hands; by getting dust or debris in an open wound, or by being struck by shrapnel, which often is not removed because doing so would be more dangerous than leaving it.
Inhaled, it can lodge in the lungs. As with imbedded shrapnel, this is doubly dangerous — not only are the particles themselves physically destructive, they emit radiation...
There are several studies on how it affects animals, though their results are not, of course, directly applicable to humans. Military research on mice shows that depleted uranium can enter the bloodstream and come to rest in bones, the brain, kidneys and lymph nodes. Other research in rats shows that DU can result in cancerous tumors and genetic mutations, and pass from mother to unborn child, resulting in birth defects.
Iraqi doctors reported significant increases in birth defects and childhood cancers after the 1991 invasion.
Iraqi authorities "found that uranium, which affected the blood cells, had a serious impact on health: The number of cases of leukemia had increased considerably, as had the incidence of fetal deformities," the U.N. reported.
Depleted uranium can also contaminate soil and water, and coat buildings with radioactive dust, which can by carried by wind and sandstorms.
In 2005, the U.N. Environmental Program identified 311 polluted sites in Iraq. Cleaning them will take at least $40 million and several years, the agency said. Nothing can start until the fighting stops...
That ought to be sometime before the next half-life in about 100,000 years.
Darth Rumsfeld is an equal opportunity war crime perpetrator.
He's indifferent to his own troops as much as he is to the other side.
by Deborah Hastings
It takes at least 10 minutes and a large glass of orange juice to wash down all the pills — morphine, methadone, a muscle relaxant, an antidepressant, a stool softener. Viagra for sexual dysfunction. Valium for his nerves...
Four hours later, Herbert Reed will swallow another 15 mg of morphine to cut the pain clenching every part of his body. He will do it twice more before the day is done.
Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, his gums bleed. There is more blood in his urine, and still more in his stool. Bright light hurts his eyes. A tumor has been removed from his thyroid. Rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside his skin. Migraines cleave his skull. His joints ache, grating like door hinges in need of oil.
There is something massively wrong with Herbert Reed, though no one is sure what it is. He believes he knows the cause, but he cannot convince anyone caring for him that the military's new favorite weapon has made him terrifyingly sick...
Reed believes depleted uranium has contaminated him and his life. He now walks point in a vitriolic war over the Pentagon's arsenal of it — thousands of shells and hundreds of tanks coated with the metal that is radioactive, chemically toxic, and nearly twice as dense as lead.
A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter, exploding on impact into a charring inferno. As tank armor, it repels artillery assaults. It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
Depleted uranium is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and energy plants. It is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium. The U.S. has an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of it, sitting in hazardous waste storage sites across the country. Meaning it is plentiful and cheap as well as highly effective.
Reed says he unknowingly breathed DU dust while living with his unit in Samawah, Iraq. He was med-evaced out in July 2003, nearly unable to walk because of lightning-strike pains from herniated discs in his spine. Then began a strange series of symptoms he'd never experienced in his previously healthy life.
At Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C, he ran into a buddy from his unit. And another, and another, and in the tedium of hospital life between doctor visits and the dispensing of meds, they began to talk.
"We all had migraines. We all felt sick," Reed says. "The doctors said, 'It's all in your head.' "
Then the medic from their unit showed up. He too, was suffering. That made eight sick soldiers from the 442nd Military Police, an Army National Guard unit made up of mostly cops and correctional officers from the New York area.
But the medic knew something the others didn't.
Dutch marines had taken over the abandoned train depot dubbed Camp Smitty, which was surrounded by tank skeletons, unexploded ordnance and shell casings. They'd brought radiation-detection devices. The readings were so hot, the Dutch set up camp in the middle of the desert rather than live in the station ruins...
...they contacted The New York Daily News, which paid for sophisticated urine tests available only overseas.
Then they hired a lawyer.
___
Reed, Gerard Matthew, Raymond Ramos, Hector Vega, Augustin Matos, Anthony Yonnone, Jerry Ojeda and Anthony Phillip all have depleted uranium in their urine, according to tests done in December 2003, while they bounced for months between Walter Reed and New Jersey's Fort Dix medical center, seeking relief that never came.
The analyses were done in Germany, by a Frankfurt professor who developed a depleted uranium test with Randall Parrish, a professor of isotope geology at the University of Leicester in Britain.
The veterans, using their positive results as evidence, have sued the U.S. Army, claiming officials knew the hazards of depleted uranium, but concealed the risks.
The Department of Defense says depleted uranium is powerful and safe, and not that worrisome.
Four of the highest-registering samples from Frankfurt were sent to the VA. Those results were negative, Reed said. "Their test just isn't as sophisticated," he said. "And when we first asked to be tested, they told us there wasn't one. They've lied to us all along."
The VA's testing methodology is safe and accurate, the agency says. More than 2,100 soldiers from the current war have asked to be tested; only 8 had DU in their urine, the VA said...
An estimated 286 tons of DU munitions were fired by the U.S. in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991. An estimated 130 tons were shot toppling Saddam Hussein.
Depleted uranium can enter the human body by inhalation, the most dangerous method; by ingesting contaminated food or eating with contaminated hands; by getting dust or debris in an open wound, or by being struck by shrapnel, which often is not removed because doing so would be more dangerous than leaving it.
Inhaled, it can lodge in the lungs. As with imbedded shrapnel, this is doubly dangerous — not only are the particles themselves physically destructive, they emit radiation...
There are several studies on how it affects animals, though their results are not, of course, directly applicable to humans. Military research on mice shows that depleted uranium can enter the bloodstream and come to rest in bones, the brain, kidneys and lymph nodes. Other research in rats shows that DU can result in cancerous tumors and genetic mutations, and pass from mother to unborn child, resulting in birth defects.
Iraqi doctors reported significant increases in birth defects and childhood cancers after the 1991 invasion.
Iraqi authorities "found that uranium, which affected the blood cells, had a serious impact on health: The number of cases of leukemia had increased considerably, as had the incidence of fetal deformities," the U.N. reported.
Depleted uranium can also contaminate soil and water, and coat buildings with radioactive dust, which can by carried by wind and sandstorms.
In 2005, the U.N. Environmental Program identified 311 polluted sites in Iraq. Cleaning them will take at least $40 million and several years, the agency said. Nothing can start until the fighting stops...
That ought to be sometime before the next half-life in about 100,000 years.
Darth Rumsfeld is an equal opportunity war crime perpetrator.
He's indifferent to his own troops as much as he is to the other side.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
What's Good for Business Gives Us the Business
For the subcontractors of the Company, business is very good indeed:
While the Bush Administration calls for the immediate disbanding of what it has labeled "private" and "illegal" militias in Lebanon and Iraq, it is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into its own global private mercenary army tasked with protecting US officials and institutions overseas. The secretive program, which spans at least twenty-seven countries, has been an incredible jackpot for one heavily Republican-connected firm in particular: Blackwater USA. Government records recently obtained by The Nation reveal that the Bush Administration has paid Blackwater more than $320 million since June 2004 to provide "diplomatic security" services globally...
Blackwater's highly lucrative "diplomatic security" contract was officially awarded under the State Department's little-known Worldwide Personal Protective Service (WPPS) program, described in State Department documents as a government initiative to protect US officials as well as "certain foreign government high level officials whenever the need arises."
A heavily redacted 2005 government audit of Blackwater's WPPS contract proposal, obtained by The Nation, reveals that Blackwater included profit in its overhead and its total costs, which would result "not only in a duplication of profit but a pyramiding of profit since in effect Blackwater is applying profit to profit." The audit also found that the company tried to inflate its profits by representing different Blackwater divisions as wholly separate companies...
According to the most recent Government Accountability Office report, some 48,000 private soldiers, working for 181 private military firms, are deployed in Iraq alone. Blackwater, now one of the most prominent and successful companies providing soldiers in Iraq, was relatively unknown until March 31, 2004, when four of its contractors were ambushed and killed in Falluja [see Scahill, "Blood Is Thicker Than Blackwater," May 8]. In the days and weeks that followed, company executives hired ultra-connected lobbyists and were welcomed by powerful government officials as heroes, allowing the firm to solidify its role in the Bush Administration's foreign policy apparatus...
It's the Praetorian Guard, helping with policy details for Secretary Supertanker and her Dear Leader, who might miss his vacation otherwise. Blackwater runs State, and CSC/ DynCorp runs Star Wars. It's so much easier when you let the help do your thinking and fighting for you.
While the Bush Administration calls for the immediate disbanding of what it has labeled "private" and "illegal" militias in Lebanon and Iraq, it is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into its own global private mercenary army tasked with protecting US officials and institutions overseas. The secretive program, which spans at least twenty-seven countries, has been an incredible jackpot for one heavily Republican-connected firm in particular: Blackwater USA. Government records recently obtained by The Nation reveal that the Bush Administration has paid Blackwater more than $320 million since June 2004 to provide "diplomatic security" services globally...
Blackwater's highly lucrative "diplomatic security" contract was officially awarded under the State Department's little-known Worldwide Personal Protective Service (WPPS) program, described in State Department documents as a government initiative to protect US officials as well as "certain foreign government high level officials whenever the need arises."
A heavily redacted 2005 government audit of Blackwater's WPPS contract proposal, obtained by The Nation, reveals that Blackwater included profit in its overhead and its total costs, which would result "not only in a duplication of profit but a pyramiding of profit since in effect Blackwater is applying profit to profit." The audit also found that the company tried to inflate its profits by representing different Blackwater divisions as wholly separate companies...
According to the most recent Government Accountability Office report, some 48,000 private soldiers, working for 181 private military firms, are deployed in Iraq alone. Blackwater, now one of the most prominent and successful companies providing soldiers in Iraq, was relatively unknown until March 31, 2004, when four of its contractors were ambushed and killed in Falluja [see Scahill, "Blood Is Thicker Than Blackwater," May 8]. In the days and weeks that followed, company executives hired ultra-connected lobbyists and were welcomed by powerful government officials as heroes, allowing the firm to solidify its role in the Bush Administration's foreign policy apparatus...
It's the Praetorian Guard, helping with policy details for Secretary Supertanker and her Dear Leader, who might miss his vacation otherwise. Blackwater runs State, and CSC/ DynCorp runs Star Wars. It's so much easier when you let the help do your thinking and fighting for you.
מיסיון אקומפלישעד, מיסיון אכומפלישעד
Billmon calls the play:
Kabuki Offensive
This is like a scene from a bar fight, where one of the pugilists first makes sure his friends have a good strong hold of him, and then starts yelling "Let me at him!"
'Ehud Olmert's office said late Friday that the expanded incursion into Lebanon would continue "for the time being," despite agreeing to a cease-fire resolution drafted by the United Nations Security Council.
Senior Israel Defense Forces officers said that the IDF is "continuing forward at full power. . . " '
This, of course, is 100% kosher bullshit -- nobody in their right mind would start a major offensive at "full power" knowing full well it will all have to be shut down within 48 or at most 72 hours. So it looks like the big push was just a big fraud all along -- a desperate attempt by Olmert and his bedraggled colleagues to try to kick a little dust in the eyes of their domestic constituents. But the message -- "Yeah, boy, if they had'na stopped me I would have kicked Hizbullah's ass but good" -- isn't very original or at this point even slightly believable.
What else are they going to do? They've blown it, right down the line, from the opening bid for an aerial knockout, through the defeats and retreats, the incredible shrinking war aims, and the daily humiliation of seeing a third of Israel bombarded with rockets. And now this -- a ceasefire that appears to give Hizbullah all or nearly all of what it demanded (although not the Laker tickets), supervised by a "reinforced" version of UNIFIL (most of the reinforcements will probably never arrive) working under a limited one-year mandate...
And for this, Lebanon was ravaged, thousands were killed, millions of civilians on both sides spent weeks couped up in air raid shelters, and the credibility and any lingering shreds of respectability the U.S. government had in the Islamic world were flushed straight down the you-know-what.
All for this:
'Why did we embark on the war, if not to ensure that French soldiers will protect Israel from the Hezbollah rocket battery.'
The long knives are out -- for Olmert, for Peretz (the ward boss and ex-"peace" activist turned defense minister) for Halutz and the commander of the Northern Front (who was effectively sacked in the middle of the war) and for that matter probably half of entire IDF general staff -- if they don't sink daggers into each other's backs first. Losing is never pretty, and the post-war settling of accounts after this loss is going to be even less so.
Already it seems as if every minor league neocon in Washington is taking the opportunity to remind Israel that if there's one thing Americans detest it's a loser. So much for all that tearful singing of the Ha'tikvah. If Washington's Middle Eastern Rottweiler wants to keep getting its kennel ration, it's going to have to put a little more teeth into its work next time.
At this point I'm not sure if the Israeli branch of the punditburo has yet to recognize the full magnitude of the debacle, or whether it's just trying to put a brave face on it. But this statement, from Ha'aretz's Ze'ev Schiff, is a leading nominee for the Emperor Hirohito Memorial Prize for Ridiculous Understatement:
"In regard to other Arab elements, it is very possible that Israeli deterrence will be somewhat undercut."
All the bellicose rhetoric in the world -- like Schiff's threat that Israel will respond with "cruel craziness" if other red lines are crossed in the future -- can't conceal the multiple failures: of a miltary aristocracy's arrogant faith in technology, of an Army that's grown accustomed to waging war against Palestinian teenagers, of a political establishment that believes with zombie-like intensity that the cure for its own incompetence is ever greater applications of military force. (Because, of course, that's the only thing the Arabs understand.)
There will be hell to pay for this fiasco -- coming as it did on top of Uncle Sam's own murder suicide pact in Iraq. When and where that payment wil be demanded isn't clear yet, but if the past is any guide it will be paid in the blood of the innocent, not the guilty...
As always, you should read it all to get the full flavor.
Kabuki Offensive
This is like a scene from a bar fight, where one of the pugilists first makes sure his friends have a good strong hold of him, and then starts yelling "Let me at him!"
'Ehud Olmert's office said late Friday that the expanded incursion into Lebanon would continue "for the time being," despite agreeing to a cease-fire resolution drafted by the United Nations Security Council.
Senior Israel Defense Forces officers said that the IDF is "continuing forward at full power. . . " '
This, of course, is 100% kosher bullshit -- nobody in their right mind would start a major offensive at "full power" knowing full well it will all have to be shut down within 48 or at most 72 hours. So it looks like the big push was just a big fraud all along -- a desperate attempt by Olmert and his bedraggled colleagues to try to kick a little dust in the eyes of their domestic constituents. But the message -- "Yeah, boy, if they had'na stopped me I would have kicked Hizbullah's ass but good" -- isn't very original or at this point even slightly believable.
What else are they going to do? They've blown it, right down the line, from the opening bid for an aerial knockout, through the defeats and retreats, the incredible shrinking war aims, and the daily humiliation of seeing a third of Israel bombarded with rockets. And now this -- a ceasefire that appears to give Hizbullah all or nearly all of what it demanded (although not the Laker tickets), supervised by a "reinforced" version of UNIFIL (most of the reinforcements will probably never arrive) working under a limited one-year mandate...
And for this, Lebanon was ravaged, thousands were killed, millions of civilians on both sides spent weeks couped up in air raid shelters, and the credibility and any lingering shreds of respectability the U.S. government had in the Islamic world were flushed straight down the you-know-what.
All for this:
'Why did we embark on the war, if not to ensure that French soldiers will protect Israel from the Hezbollah rocket battery.'
The long knives are out -- for Olmert, for Peretz (the ward boss and ex-"peace" activist turned defense minister) for Halutz and the commander of the Northern Front (who was effectively sacked in the middle of the war) and for that matter probably half of entire IDF general staff -- if they don't sink daggers into each other's backs first. Losing is never pretty, and the post-war settling of accounts after this loss is going to be even less so.
Already it seems as if every minor league neocon in Washington is taking the opportunity to remind Israel that if there's one thing Americans detest it's a loser. So much for all that tearful singing of the Ha'tikvah. If Washington's Middle Eastern Rottweiler wants to keep getting its kennel ration, it's going to have to put a little more teeth into its work next time.
At this point I'm not sure if the Israeli branch of the punditburo has yet to recognize the full magnitude of the debacle, or whether it's just trying to put a brave face on it. But this statement, from Ha'aretz's Ze'ev Schiff, is a leading nominee for the Emperor Hirohito Memorial Prize for Ridiculous Understatement:
"In regard to other Arab elements, it is very possible that Israeli deterrence will be somewhat undercut."
All the bellicose rhetoric in the world -- like Schiff's threat that Israel will respond with "cruel craziness" if other red lines are crossed in the future -- can't conceal the multiple failures: of a miltary aristocracy's arrogant faith in technology, of an Army that's grown accustomed to waging war against Palestinian teenagers, of a political establishment that believes with zombie-like intensity that the cure for its own incompetence is ever greater applications of military force. (Because, of course, that's the only thing the Arabs understand.)
There will be hell to pay for this fiasco -- coming as it did on top of Uncle Sam's own murder suicide pact in Iraq. When and where that payment wil be demanded isn't clear yet, but if the past is any guide it will be paid in the blood of the innocent, not the guilty...
As always, you should read it all to get the full flavor.
Riders on the Storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house we're born
Into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan
Riders on the storm...
-The Doors
CHICAGO -- When gunmen broke into Nabil Toma Shabo's Baghdad home a year ago and threatened to kill his family, he says he decided to flee Iraq. He had no idea how long the search for safety would last -- or where it would take him.
The seven-month trek began in Istanbul, where Mr. Shabo, traveling with his family, found a smuggler who promised to get them to Mexico and then the U.S. for $10,000 -- their life savings. After four months in Mexico, the Shabos were driven to the border. The driver pointed to a fence and told the family to start walking.
"He said, 'There it is, there is America,' " Mr. Shabo remembers. The Shabos walked to a U.S. guard post and, in halting English, requested political asylum. While they wait for a ruling, they are living in a Chicago suburb with Mr. Shabo's parents, who fled to the U.S. with an earlier migratory wave during the regime of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Amid sectarian violence in Iraq, senior U.S. military commanders warned lawmakers last week that the country is at risk of sliding into civil war. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are becoming refugees, with thousands of them trying to reach the U.S. But with visas difficult to come by, a growing number -- including the Shabo family -- are entering illegally and then seeking asylum, sparking questions about how much Washington should assist those fleeing a U.S.-led war.
The Iraqi exiles entering America are part of one of the largest exoduses in modern Middle Eastern history. The Iraqi government has over the past 12 months issued more than 1.8 million new passports, a figure that corresponds with nearly 10% of the country's population. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates there are more than 800,000 Iraqi exiles in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
Some U.S. border officials express general concern that Iraqi insurgents might try to enter the U.S., though they say there is no evidence any have...
No evidence, of course. And perfect cover. Like Don John Negroponte needed an excuse.
...Theres a killer on the road
His brain is squirmin like a toad
Take a long holiday
Let your children play
If ya give this man a ride
Sweet memory will die
Killer on the road, yeah...
-The Doors
Riders on the storm
Into this house we're born
Into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan
Riders on the storm...
-The Doors
CHICAGO -- When gunmen broke into Nabil Toma Shabo's Baghdad home a year ago and threatened to kill his family, he says he decided to flee Iraq. He had no idea how long the search for safety would last -- or where it would take him.
The seven-month trek began in Istanbul, where Mr. Shabo, traveling with his family, found a smuggler who promised to get them to Mexico and then the U.S. for $10,000 -- their life savings. After four months in Mexico, the Shabos were driven to the border. The driver pointed to a fence and told the family to start walking.
"He said, 'There it is, there is America,' " Mr. Shabo remembers. The Shabos walked to a U.S. guard post and, in halting English, requested political asylum. While they wait for a ruling, they are living in a Chicago suburb with Mr. Shabo's parents, who fled to the U.S. with an earlier migratory wave during the regime of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Amid sectarian violence in Iraq, senior U.S. military commanders warned lawmakers last week that the country is at risk of sliding into civil war. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are becoming refugees, with thousands of them trying to reach the U.S. But with visas difficult to come by, a growing number -- including the Shabo family -- are entering illegally and then seeking asylum, sparking questions about how much Washington should assist those fleeing a U.S.-led war.
The Iraqi exiles entering America are part of one of the largest exoduses in modern Middle Eastern history. The Iraqi government has over the past 12 months issued more than 1.8 million new passports, a figure that corresponds with nearly 10% of the country's population. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates there are more than 800,000 Iraqi exiles in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
Some U.S. border officials express general concern that Iraqi insurgents might try to enter the U.S., though they say there is no evidence any have...
No evidence, of course. And perfect cover. Like Don John Negroponte needed an excuse.
...Theres a killer on the road
His brain is squirmin like a toad
Take a long holiday
Let your children play
If ya give this man a ride
Sweet memory will die
Killer on the road, yeah...
-The Doors
Friday, August 11, 2006
...and it stays on your Permanent Record
Buried underneath the Terra headlines this week:
WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 — A federal commission approved a final report on Thursday that urges a broad shake-up of American higher education. It calls for public universities to measure learning with standardized tests, federal monitoring of college quality and sweeping changes in financial aid...
...the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, which represents 900 private institutions including liberal arts colleges, major research universities and church- and other faith-related colleges, attacked the recommendation to develop a national database to follow individual students’ progress as a way of holding colleges accountable for students’ success...
Not to mention the former students themselves. Imagine that, a government database the Company can access to follow the progress of an employee or a prospective employee.
...The association called the proposal a dangerous intrusion on privacy, saying, “Our members find this idea chilling.”
But count on it, there are right-thinking folks who think this is a very cool idea indeed.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 — A federal commission approved a final report on Thursday that urges a broad shake-up of American higher education. It calls for public universities to measure learning with standardized tests, federal monitoring of college quality and sweeping changes in financial aid...
...the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, which represents 900 private institutions including liberal arts colleges, major research universities and church- and other faith-related colleges, attacked the recommendation to develop a national database to follow individual students’ progress as a way of holding colleges accountable for students’ success...
Not to mention the former students themselves. Imagine that, a government database the Company can access to follow the progress of an employee or a prospective employee.
...The association called the proposal a dangerous intrusion on privacy, saying, “Our members find this idea chilling.”
But count on it, there are right-thinking folks who think this is a very cool idea indeed.
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