Halliburton: Actual Providers Of Nuclear Technology To Iran?

With all the fearmongering that has been going on over the last 4-5 years with regards to Iran's nuclear energy program, including the typical evocations of WMDs, WWIII and "mushroom clouds", I dug up the following article from the vault of Project Censored ("The news that didn't make the News") which has been ranked as No. 2 in the Top 25 censored stories for 2007.

Before reading the following article, keep in mind that A) Iran may not have acquired nuclear technology through Pakistan after all; and B) the CIA may have unwittingly provided Iran with blueprints for nuclear bombs already.

Then simply remember Bush's own fearmongering words (sounding like déjà vu ... all over again):

"Iran’s pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.

Iran’s actions threaten the security of nations everywhere, and the United States is rallying friends and allies to isolate Iran’s regime to impose economic sanctions. We will confront this danger before it is too late".

And now, to the article in question ...

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Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran

According to journalist Jason Leopold, sources at former Cheney company Halliburton allege that, as recently as January of 2005, Halliburton sold key components for a nuclear reactor to an Iranian oil development company. Leopold says his Halliburton sources have intimate knowledge of the business dealings of both Halliburton and Oriental Oil Kish, one of Iran’s largest private oil companies.

Additionally, throughout 2004 and 2005, Halliburton worked closely with Cyrus Nasseri, the vice chairman of the board of directors of Iran-based Oriental Oil Kish, to develop oil projects in Iran. Nasseri is also a key member of Iran’s nuclear development team. Nasseri was interrogated by Iranian authorities in late July 2005 for allegedly providing Halliburton with Iran’s nuclear secrets. Iranian government officials charged Nasseri with accepting as much as $1 million in bribes from Halliburton for this information.

Oriental Oil Kish dealings with Halliburton first became public knowledge in January 2005 when the company announced that it had subcontracted parts of the South Pars gas-drilling project to Halliburton Products and Services, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Halliburton that is registered to the Cayman Islands. Following the announcement, Halliburton claimed that the South Pars gas field project in Tehran would be its last project in Iran. According to a BBC report, Halliburton, which took thirty to forty million dollars from its Iranian operations in 2003, “was winding down its work due to a poor business environment.”

However, Halliburton has a long history of doing business in Iran, starting as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief executive of the company. Leopold quotes a February 2001 report published in the Wall Street Journal, “Halliburton Products and Services Ltd., works behind an unmarked door on the ninth floor of a new north Tehran tower block. A brochure declares that the company was registered in 1975 in the Cayman Islands, is based in the Persian Gulf sheikdom of Dubai and is “non-American.” But like the sign over the receptionist’s head, the brochure bears the company’s name and red emblem, and offers services from Halliburton units around the world.” Moreover mail sent to the company’s offices in Tehran and the Cayman Islands is forwarded directly to its Dallas headquarters.

Keep Reading ...

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Is it just me or is there a pattern here, whereby a powerful American corporation sells potentially dangerous technologies to a country, then said country becomes a politically useful "Bogeyman-Enemy", which leads to war ... and whereby the same Corporation ends up with reconstruction contracts and such - thus profiting on all sides of the equation?

I wonder ...


(Cross-posted at DKos and The Wild Wild Left)

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Late Friday Night Ode To ... (Blank)

No specific theme for tonight's Ode here at APOV - except that we're feeling bluesy, is all.

As the opener, we offer you Jimmy Page & The Black Crowes - You Shook Me:

For the middle course, we give you ZZ Top - Waitin' For The Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago:

And for the closer, we have AC/DC - Night Prowler:

Feels good, doesn't it?

Keep on rockin' ...

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Revealed: Behind The Scenes Of Operation Enduring Propaganda

In the wake of former WH press secretary Scott McClellan's revelations, especially concerning the traditional media's shameful neglect of their watchdog role in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, whereby reporters were essentially "complicit enablers" of the Bush administration’s push for war, some reporters and anchor persons have come out to corroborate such revelations (particularly concerning the roles of corporate hacks), while others remain in their self-deluded ivory towers of denial.

In any case, my (not-so-rhetorical) question is: is there anything about the MSM's subservience to the Bushies and the right-wing noise machine new here?

Answer: Not. At. All.

And then some.

In fact, virtually every blog of the progressive blogosphere has commented/criticized the traditional media's subservience and dutyful stenographism to the Bush administration over the last seven years or so (including, of course, APOV).

So in essence, what McClelland is doing is fully confirming everything that was suspected to be going on behind closed doors.

For instance: Bush secretly declassified the "cooked" 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq for Cheney and Libby to anonymously disclose to reporters.

Or this: McClelland claims that he was fooled into publicly exonerating Cheney and Rove concerning Plamegate, which turned out to be (of course) false.

Or this: the Iraq war was sold through a sophisticated political propaganda campaign by the Bush administration, which aimed at manipulating sources of public opinion and downplaying the major reason for going to war.

Which reminds me of this little post I wrote last year, titled Operation Enduring Propaganda - allow me to indulge with a few excerpts:

While being assaulted by the continuous exposures of scandalous abuses of power, politicizing of the apparels of government and erasing the separation of church and state, along with an increasing crescendo of calls for impeachment proceedings, the besieged Puppet Presidency and Unitary Regency have unleashed in recent weeks their true "surge" plans: unrelenting blitzkrieg-like, coordinated propaganda counter-strikes to sell the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while making the case for more war in the Middle-East, through it all playing on the fear and insecurity of Americans.

(...)

Hence their current Operation Enduring Propaganda, which is of course all about the politics of fear and ignorance.

Let us review how it has been playing out so far, shall we?

Step One - Keep reminding them of the threat posed by the Bogey Man: The convenient specter of terrorism has proven to be the perfect tool to keep the public cowed in fear - the modus operandi here being "all we have to fear, we must" (...).

Step Two - Spin your current disastrous wars into successes: (...) Use Step One to keep justifying the Iraq War, while parading false experts all over the MSM to sell its "growing successes" and the "steady progress" in rebuilding Iraq, falsely branding said "experts" as "Bush critics" or "war critics" in the process so as to enhance their (non-existent) credibility - and make sure to hide the fact that they contradict their own research while dishing out the propaganda. Do the same thing with regards to Afghanistan - it is as much a part of the War against Global Terrorism(TM) and therefore must be sustained at all costs, those who beg to differ be damned. After all, facts do not matter here: it is the maintenance of the fear and ignorance of the populace which is of prime concern (see Steps Four and Five).

Step Three - Ignore, attack or ridicule all those who hold up the truth of the matter: Experts are contradicting your decisions or your arguments against pulling out your troops? They are saying that your actions have made things worse or that your strategies are not working? Ignore them, attack them, smear them, make them retire, dismiss them, punish them or simply fire them. Better yet, blame them for the failures - it is, after all, their choice of having enlisted and thus should stop complaining and do their job. And what about all those other, "regular" citizens who are likewise criticizing your wars of choice? Ridicule, demonize and/or attack them - anything that will marginalize them in the eyes of the fearful and ignorant public at large.

Step Four - Call for more wars: Because the Enemy is all encompassing, spreading his evil tentacles everywhere (at least, that is how the mantra goes), keep rattling the war sabers to include nearby "unfriendly" countries as collaborators of the Enemy - use anything and everything to support/justify potential war with those "Enemy collaborators", the facts be damned of course. Iran and Syria are two striking examples of this - after all, this is a War on Global Terrorism(TM) and you are "either with us, or against us" (...)

Step Five - Ask for increases in intelligence and military means to fight the Enemy: To have full control and wage war in the struggle to establish empire, you need all the tools you can get. The Patriot Act, the Military Commission's Act are but two examples. Keep clamoring and asking for more. On the military side of things, you have to keep the "surge" going while preparing/readying for more war (see Step Four) (...)

Step Six - Recycle through Steps One to Five: This one is self-explanatory.

(...) Such is the way I envision the state of affairs to be in the decades to come - unless, that is, Operation Enduring Propaganda gets to be roundly and permanently defeated here and now.

As always, it will be up to us to meet the challenge ... or not.

Interestingly, here are two other bits of news which demonstrate to us that Operation Enduring Propaganda keeps on rolling, as strong as ever:

A) McClelland and his book are currently being debunked/spun/minimized/ridiculed/character assasinated by the White House, the right-wing noise machine and the subservient propagandist traditional media;

B) McClelland is now warning us to take the Bush administration’s claims on Iran very seriously and be skeptical about them.

On a related note - there is yet another report that the Bush administration plans to attack Iran before the end of its term ... which is of course being denied.

And thus rolls on Operation Enduring Propaganda ...

Yes - McClelland deserves a good share of the blame for his participatory mendacity in fooling the U.S. "folks at large" while he was WH Press Secretary, as much as he warrants condemnation for his cowardice in waiting until now to put forth his admissions and revelations.

Nevertheless, his warnings should be heeded.


(Cross-posted at DKos and The Wild Wild Left)

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Where Is The Outrage?

I've been asking myself the same question as the following article - over and over again.

This in turn further supports my contention that this is why we are the real problem with terrorism ...

But the real question is - are you outraged?

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Where Is the Outrage?

By Robert Scheer

28/05/08 "TruthDig " -- -- Are we Americans truly savages or merely tone-deaf in matters of morality, and therefore more guilty of terminal indifference than venality? It’s a question demanding an answer in response to the publication of the detailed 370-page report on U.S. complicity in torture, issued last week by the Justice Department’s inspector general.

Because the report was widely cited in the media and easily accessed as a pdf file on the Internet, it is fair to assume that those of our citizens who remain ignorant of the extent of their government’s commitment to torture as an official policy have made a choice not to be informed. A less appealing conclusion would be that they are aware of the heinous acts fully authorized by our president but conclude that such barbarism is not inconsistent with that American way of life that we celebrate.

But that troubling assessment of moral indifference is contradicted by the scores of law enforcement officers, mostly from the FBI, who were so appalled by what they observed as routine official practice in the treatment of prisoners by the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo that they risked their careers to officially complain. A few brave souls from the FBI even compiled a “war crimes file,” suggesting the unthinkable — that we might come to be judged as guilty by the standard we have imposed on others. Superiors in the Justice Department soon put a stop to such FBI efforts to hold CIA agents and other U.S. officials accountable for the crimes they committed.

That this systematic torture was carried out not by a few conveniently described “bad apples” but rather represented official policy condoned at the highest level of government was captured in one of those rare media reports that remind us why the Founding Fathers signed off on the First Amendment.

Keep Reading ...

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The Nexus Of Irrelevance

I have so far refrained from wasting blog space at APOV concerning the appropriately named blog Nexus of Assholery and its owner, the self-proclaimed "real intellectual" going by the name of Patrick Ross.

After all, there are matters of significantly greater importance to blog about, such as the war in Afghanistan, the Iraq war, the incompetence of the Bush administration, the incompetence of the Harper government, torture and civil rights - to name but a few.

In any case, the main reason why I have chosen not to blog in response to anything written by Mr. Ross until today will become plainly evident as I do so now.

And why do so now, you may ask? Well, simply because Mr. Ross devoted an entire post concerning yours truly, instead of inconsequentially side-jabbing at me as he has done in the past (examples here, here, here, here and here).

To give you an idea of where Mr. Ross is coming from, I offer you the very first post he wrote, titled "Welcome, Fuckers!!!". Contrast this, if you will, with the very first post written by yours truly ("A Brave, New (Old) World ...").

Until last year, I did not know who was Patrick Ross, let alone anything about his "blog" (which is now four years old). But I did get to know him when he posted "insightful" comments elsewhere (one example here), and especially when he elected to pop in at APOV in order to deliver one of his typical "edifying" comments to my post "Of Incompetence, Delusions Of Grandeur And Monomania".

You see, in Mr. Ross' imaginary world, everyone in the progressive blogosphere is an hypocritical, intellectually challenged, clueless and factless ideologue (including yours truly), while he towers above all of us minables with his giant intellect, his impressive knowledge and his admiring, meticulous precision with facts.

But the truth is that ill-mannered, fact-challenged, adolescent faux bravado, boorish, self-important and knowledge-challenged fops like him are a dime a dozen.

Case in point with his post concerning me - allow me to dissect it forthwith.

First, Mr. Ross begins thusly:

"Sticking with the facts" requires actually reporting them

...But unfortunately, some people don't seem to understand that.

Yesterday, the irredeemably intellectually lazy ideologue who calls himself Mentarch took some time out of his busy schedule to pout about being referred to as a historical revisionist naysayer.

Except that he really hasn't. Upon examining any number of Mentarch's Afghanistan posts, any number of factual errors can be identified -- some of them actually quite prevalent in the mainstream media coverage of Afghanistan (upon which he overwhelmingly relies when he isn't just vainly linking to his previous posts), others not so much.

Apparently, in Mr. Ross' world, the only way you can convincingly make a point is by ridiculing others - like your typical fatuous fop who hopes to win any argument by intimidation and/or derision instead of, well, actually articulating a point. As for my so-called "pouting", all I wrote in my post referenced by Mr. Ross was:

Call me a "historical revisionist naysayer" if you will with regards to Afghanistan, but at the very least I stick with the facts - as I have labored to time and time and time and time and time and time and time again.

And now, here is just another day in Paradise Afghanistan as another case in point.

Only in Mr. Ross' deluded, self-ego inflating imaginary world can this be called "pouting".

But let us move on to words written in Mr. Ross' post which pass off as a semblance of points, in order to support his contention that my posts concerning Afghanistan contain a "number of factual errors":

A few examples?

Treating the Taliban as an umbrella term for all of the various insurgent groups active in Afghanistan right now -- currently, at least seven -- many of whom actually have differing and opposing goals, and are as likely to fight one another as they are to fight NATO troops.

Or insisting that the Kabul government is negotiating with the Taliban when they call upon American troops to not arrest Taliban insurgents -- despite the fact that this is actually part of a calculated government program to undercut the insurgency's manpower by pardoning their foot soldiers so long as they disarm themselves and agree to accept Afghanistan's constitution. (As it turns out, the Taliban leadership is actually ineligible for such a pardon.)

Or cherry picking examples of failures in Afghanistan -- it would be naive to pretend there haven't been any -- while willfully ignoring any successes, which really has become the modus operandi of Mentarch and some of his braying associates.

"Treating the Taliban as an umbrella term" - well, I can't take credit for this, since that is how exactly the Taliban is/has always been presented to us by NATO, our politicos, the US politicos and the media - including their conflation with al Qaeda - to sell us this never ending war. And while Mr. Ross is right concerning the uneasy, complex alliance of those tribes which are part of the Taliban, and from which it draws its roots, the fact remains that the Taliban is an organized movement with its own leaders/deciders above the tribes themselves. In any case, Mr. Ross missed the whole point (as he usually does with any blog he "challenges") of my posts with regards to negotiating with "the Taliban": if negotiation is "good policy" now, why was it not so seven years ago before we got ourselves mired in this quagmire? Especially when considering the Taliban's slow evolution into network groups over the last seven years or so, making it wishful thinking that peace and stability can be achieved in Afghanistan through military means - another one of the points alluded to in my posts.

But we all know why there were no negotiation with the Taliban then, when it was better united and constituted the government of Afghanistan: Bush wanted to rush into war badly - despite the offers of the Taliban then to hand over Osama bin Laden. These are the facts, Mr. Ross - but as always, you ignore them to whip up straw men arguments whenever needed in order to support your little, petty attacks - as you have done in the present case and as you always do.

Then we have the second "point" of Mr. Ross, where he chides me for pointing out (sorry - "insisting") that Hamid Karzai is seeking to negotiate with the Taliban while calling for N.A.T.O. troops to keep their "hands off" Taliban fighters. Where are the factual errors here? This is exactly what has been going on (and I have linked properly to sources to this effect in my posts). Interestingly, the only actual factual error here is Mr. Ross' own speculation, which of course he decides to be a "fact", that all of this is part of some tactic and whatnot to undermine the Taliban movement.

But Mr. Ross has always been good at this approach of using his own speculations, however tortuous they may be, in order to offer them as unassailable facts. Go read again his comment here at APOV, back in July of last year, as a prime example of this.

Better yet - here is another example of his "fact-challenged" analytical prowess. Or this instance whereby he flatly accuses an ex-military of knowing nothing about the military.

Last, but not least, Mr. Ross accuses me of "cherry-picking examples of failures in Afghanistan" while "willfully ignoring any successes". Aside from Mr. Ross' own actually demonstrated cherry-picking in proclaiming success in Afghanistan, he is apparently oblivious to the actual reality in Afghanistan (and on this, I let all my posts on this subject stand to that effect, regardless of Mr. Ross' warped, delusional "critique" of them), including the fact that we are certainly not winning there.

And to think that he calls me an "irredeemably intellectually lazy ideologue" ...

In the end, Mr. Ross' invariably reveals himself for what he truly is through his own words:

And if Mentarch has shown us anything, it's that if you're a "Progressive Historian" for whom the actual "historian" part of that label takes a backseat to the ideology, revising history while it's still in progress really is just the ticket.

But one shouldn't be surprised if someone as abrasively arrogant as Mentarch -- an individual who actually believes he can politicize the very concept of incompetence -- either doesn't understand this, or simply won't admit it.

Sadly, it's all par for the course.

It's all par for the course indeed ...

The fact is that I have never claimed of being an historian (I am a cellular biologist), although I do post at the site "Progressive Historians"... at the invitation of the site's administrators who are actual history scholars, teachers and graduate students. But Mr. Ross' tripe on this matter, along with his accusation that I "politicize incompetence", are nevertheless very telling of what he truly is.

And if you haven't guessed yet, here is another example of what I allude to - again concerning his opinion with regards to the Eight Principles of Incompetence, whereby he offers the following to a reminder of mine (in italics):

"Why, Mr. Ross, I am *shocked* that you omitted calling me also "stupid, because he doesn't understand that incompetence doesn't have 'principles'", as you are fond of doing in your comments at other blogs."

Hey, when it's been said, it's been said. And when it becomes obvious that you aren't smart enough to comprehend precisely why that is so, I'm more than content to leave you to your delusions -- ignorance being bliss, and all.

I just think it's funny that something you promote as some sort of philosophical epiphany completely unravels based on its premise alone.

Aside that he is obviously ignorant of the fact that "principle" also means "law" (as in "rule" and "rationale"), the shorter meaning of his own words is: "I feel threatened and I am simply jealous".

Indeed, his childish habit of gratuitously insulting and ridiculing others is just that - insecurity with pure and simple jealousy.

But of course, in Mr. Ross' imaginary world where his towering intellect rules supreme, I am the one who is "not smart enough" and "abrasively arrogant".

So - to recap what we have regarding Mr. Ross' behavior: arrogance, intellectual sloth, immaturity, aggressiveness, fact-spinning, straw man arguing, intellectual vanity, incapacity to recognize/acknowledge competence, feeling threatened by others and petty jealousy.

Sounds like incompetence to me.

And that is why the Nexus of Assholery is actually the Nexus of Irrelevance - despite four years of existence.

That is also why I will return to my policy of not wasting space at APOV concerning Mr. Ross - however much he rants, insults, decries and rages to this effect, and regardless of what he henceforth writes about APOV.

To quote the esteemed Red Tory, concerning Mr. Ross: "It would almost be comical if it wasn’t so utterly pathetic."

And to quote also the always direct Canadian Cynic: "I don't care what rubbish you want to spew, Patrick, or who you want to spew it to."

Agreed - on both accounts.

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Twisted Priorities: War Abroad And Poverty At Home

Because we at APOV always seek to inform: after reading the following article concerning U.S. military spending, and taking into account Stephen "I-can't-settle-for-Viagra-in-making-me-a-manly-man" Harper's recent announcement to significantly invest into Canada's own military in order to be "taken more seriously" in the world, I can't help but be disgusted by such wasteful spending while the poor get poorer, the homeless get no shelter and the hungry get to live with famine - day in and day out.

That is how fear-driven and completely twisted our priorities as "free and democratic" societies have become.

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War Abroad And Poverty At Home

By Paul Craig Roberts

The US Senate has voted $165 billion to fund Bush’s wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq through next spring.

As the US is broke and deep in debt, every one of the $165 billion dollars will have to be borrowed. American consumers are also broke and deep in debt. Their zero saving rate means every one of the $165 billion dollars will have to be borrowed from foreigners.

The “world’s only superpower” is so broke it can’t even finance its own wars.

Each additional dollar that the irresponsible Bush Regime has to solicit from foreigners puts more downward pressure on the dollar’s value. During the eight wasted and extravagant years of the Bush Regime, the once mighty US dollar has lost about 60% of its value against the euro.

The dollar has lost even more of its value against gold and oil.

Before Bush began his wars of aggression, oil was $25 a barrel. Today it is $130 a barrel. Some of this rise may result from run-away speculation in the futures market. However, the main cause is the eroding value of the dollar. Oil is real, and unlike paper dollars is limited in supply. With US massive trade and budget deficits, the outpouring of dollar obligations mounts, thus driving down the value of the dollar.

Keep on reading ...

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Action Alert: Iraq War Resister Facing Deportation

Press Release: IRAQ WAR RESISTER FACES DEPORTATION FROM CANADA

(TORONTO) – U.S. Iraq war resister Corey Glass was told on May 21, 2008, that his application stay in Canada has been rejected and he now faces deportation.

Glass, 25, came to Canada in August 2006 after serving in Iraq as a Military Intelligence Sergeant. “What I saw in Iraq convinced me that the war is illegal and immoral. I could not in good conscience continue to take part in it,” said Glass. “I came here because Canada did not join the Iraq War. Also, I knew Canada had welcomed many Americans during the Vietnam War,” Glass stated.

It is estimated that several hundred Iraq War resisters are currently in Canada, many of them living underground.

“Corey Glass would be the first Iraq War resister to be deported from Canada. He would face imprisonment and severe penalties in the US,” said Lee Zaslofsky, coordinator of the War Resisters Support Campaign and a Vietnam War resister. “This goes against Canada’s tradition of welcoming Americans who disagree with policies like slavery and the Vietnam War.”

On December 6, 2007, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration called on the Canadian Government to “immediately implement a program to allow conscientious objectors and their immediate family members […] to apply for permanent resident status and remain in Canada; and … the government should immediately cease any removal or deportation actions … against such individuals.”

“The Government should implement that recommendation immediately,” said author Lawrence Hill. “Corey Glass had the courage to listen to his conscience. He is working hard to build a new life in this country. He should be allowed to stay.”

“We must not forget that the invasion of Iraq was a war justified only by lies, greed and stupidity for which permission was not sought nor granted to the Bush administration by the United Nations,” said Alexandre Trudeau, son of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and director of the documentary film Embedded In Baghdad. “This outlaw war has ravaged the Iraqi landscape, destroyed tens of thousands of lives and sorely sapped the American treasury all while filling the coffers of profiteers.”

“Those Americans who served in Iraq and have come to Canada to avoid being pressed into further participation in the indignities of the American occupation there are brave men and women of principle who should be given a chance to become landed in Canada. Like many Vietnam draft dodgers before them, their heightened sense of morality and truth can only be a benefit to our nation,” Trudeau concluded.

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punditman says...

For more information please call Lee Zaslofsky at 416.598.1222 or Michelle Robidoux at 416.856.5008.

More stuff you can do:

CALL LIBERAL LEADER Stéphane Dion: 613.996.6740 or 613.996.5789

Tell him you want the Liberal Party...

• to support the Parliamentary motion to allow Iraq War resisters to remain in Canada,
• to oppose the deportation of people of conscience who have resisted an illegal war, and
• to support the will of the Canadian people, not Stephen Harper’s decision to deport war resisters, and not the U.S.’s war agenda.
• Let Them Stay!

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Death-Wish Hillary Primes Manchurian Candidate

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Ever since she realized back in early March that Obama was going to take the nomination Hillary Clinton’s long-term strategy has been to do her best to ensure McCain will win this November so she can become the Democratic nominee in 2012. But she had a short term strategy too and on Friday she deliberately made it explicit in a newspaper office in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. There she suggested that some is likely to step up to the plate and assassinate Barack Obama in the waning moments of the California primary, just as Bobby Kennedy was forty years go almost to the day. The wish is mother to the deed. If anything does happen to Obama in California Mrs Clinton should surely be indicted as a co-conspirator.

How to else construe her grotesque remarks in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in the editorial offices of the Argus Leader newspaper. Here she told the editors, "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

There is no other way to construe these sentences, not thrown over her shoulder on a campaign walk, but delivered in measured tones to the Argus-Leader editorial board, but to interpret them as Mrs Clinton’s more or less explicit statement that she is spending a million a day just to keep her hat in the ring because Obama might well get killed. Then, just like the scenario at the end of the Manchurian candidate, Hillary will straddle Obama’s bleeding body, make the speech of her life and become the assured nominee. In fact, right now she’s probably sitting down with some numbed vet and whispering coyly in her best Angela Lansbury mode to the Lawrence Harvey stand-in, “How about passing the time by playing a little solitaire?" I pass on whether Hillary reprises Angela Lansbury’s famous incestuous kiss on her son’s lips. Perhaps Sid Blumenthal is the stand-in, though I doubt he’s a very good shot.

To get added insight into what a truly nasty woman Hillary Clinton is, remember that her remarks on Friday came a couple of days after Edward Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Next thing you know, his fellow senator is saying that California might well be celebrating the fortieth anniversary of his brother’s murder by killing the candidate he has endorsed for the nomination.

Keep Reading...

punditman says...Wow.

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Canada Doesn't Need Triangulation, Mr. Dion, But True Opposition

I have so far refrained from commenting on Liberal Party of Canada leader Stéphane Dion, for the simple reason that I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt ("laisser la chance au coureur") and allow him some time to get his game on in order to demonstrate his leadership vision and qualities.

But now I find myself in complete agreement with Red Tory, Canadian Cynic and Pretty Shaved Ape: Mr. Dion, your measure has been taken and you have been found wanting.

It is a no-brainer as to why and how the (neo)Conservative minority government of Stephen Harper has so far managed to govern largely like a majority government: the opposition parties, especially the LPC under Dion, have been too busy triangulating their positions in order to buy time until the next general elections.

In other words: they have refrained from undoing Harper and his Harpies because they feel they are not "ready" to win a majority.

The problem is that in the meantime, Harper and his Harpies have been imposing their neoconservative agenda on all Canadians, including the death of Kyoto and the extension - as well as politization - of our mission in the Afghanistan quagmire (which, by the way, has not been about reconstruction for a long time, but rather as a full combat mission). And that is without including the ludicrous bills C-484 and C-537, among other "accomplishments".

Since the two years or so that we've been under the Harper minority government, Canada has slowly but surely lost its trustworthiness and relevance in the world, all the while transforming gradually into a redux version of Bush's U.S.A., if not on the way of actually becoming a subservient satrapy of our neighbors to the south.

Why, we even have one of our own generals on the ground in Iraq - Iraq, of all places!

And through it all, where were Dion and the LPC? One example as an answer:

While the Conservative minority appears to skip from scandal to gaffe to failure, Dion's Liberals not only cannot capitalize on the governments errors, they can't even manage to whip a vote. Hell, they can barely be bothered to turn up and cast a vote.

And the consequences, aside from enabling Harper and his Harpies into doing whatever they want? This:

According to the latest Toronto Star/Angus Reid opinion poll, Dion’s approval rating has sunk to its lowest level yet, with nine of 10 Canadians now saying they disapprove or are not sure of his performance as the head of the party.

Polling since the convention in Montreal almost a year and a half ago has consistently indicated that the new leader is failing to create a positive impact with the Canadian public. Had there been any hopeful signs of improvement in this regard perhaps my opinion would be rather more sanguine, but the incontestable fact of the matter is that things are actually getting progressively worse: an ever-increasing numbers of people are forming a distinctly unfavourable impression of Dion — and not, it has to be reluctantly admitted, entirely without reason.

What actually demonstrated to me the lack of vision and leadership of Stéphane Dion was this specific (and apparently forgotten) instance (emphasis added):

The last nail in the coffin of Canada's commitment to Kyoto was hammered in when the Harper government flat out announced that Canada would not meet its targets under the Kyoto accords. In the end, Harper and his Harpies came up with what I have come to call Kyoto-Ultra Light - which was such a fraud that it prompted opposition parties in the House of Commons to put forth legislation (bill C-288) in order to force the Harper government in meeting Kyoto targets by 2012. However, Harper and his Harpies resorted to the usual economic scare tactics (same ones they used against Kyoto) to debunk the bill which, since then, has remained essentially lettre morte and unlawfully ignored by the Harper government.

Such blatant disregard of the will of the House of Commons by a minority government should have warranted a swift and succint no-confidence vote and subsequent booting out of governance.

But it never happened, because doing so would have instantly triggered a general election - and Dion could not have that, figuring that he could not win a majority just yet.

So he chose to wait ... and wait ... and wait ...

Such are the landmarks of non-leaders, of meek calculators, of indecisive triangulators.

Meanwhile, Harper and his Harpies have been going forth with imposing their neoconservative agenda - largely unhindered.

They could even win a majority next time around, thanks to Dion's ineffectiveness in opposing Harper and his Harpies, in the process utterly failing in exposing them for the neoconservatives and incompetents that they truly are.

How is it that progressive bloggers, even including a neophyte like me, have done a better job in this than a supposedly experienced politician and LPC leader like Stéphane Dion?

The answer is simple: when you busy yourself at triangulating your positions and stances on issues, you lose sight of the actual job you were elected to do.

In this case: being a true leader of a true opposition party for all Canadians.

To put it in other words:

It should be obvious by now that Stephane Dion has been an utter failure as Liberal leader. And I'm tired -- really, truly tired -- of being told how he's finally learning how to run that party, or how he's finally getting comfortable with himself, or how he's finally whatever the fuck it is he's finally figured out how to do.

(...)

It's been almost a year and a half, and there's only so much "Hang in there, it's happening" someone can take. I want someone who can protect me from the imbecilic fuckwits in the Conservative Party of Canada, and Stephane Dion is not up to the job. Period. Never has been. Never will be.

For indeed, we got little or no opposition, let alone any fully articulated vision for Canada, from Dion and the LPC.

Canadians do not need triangulation, Mr. Dion - we need true leadership and vision to stop the diseases of far right Christianism and neoconservatism.

Having failed miserably so far, you should do the honorable thing for the sake of not only the LPC, but of all Canadians as well, and resign.

Then it will be up to the LPC to repair its mistake and choose a true, commited and determined leader this time around.

Otherwise, we can expect 2-8 more years of Bush-emulating Harper and his Harpies at the helm of our country.

Oh, joy.

I think it is safe to say that Canadians (including yours truly) would take a Liberal minority government over a neoconservative minority or majority one, any time.

Do you get it now, Monsieur Dion?

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Just Another Day In Afghanistan

Call me a "historical revisionist naysayer" if you will with regards to Afghanistan, but at the very least I stick with the facts - as I have labored to time and time and time and time and time and time and time again.

And now, here is just another day in Paradise Afghanistan as another case in point.

Signs (or signposts) of success indeed.

Afghanistan - time to abandon this wasteful, ludicrous political exercize ... now.

Seems to me there should be no confusion about this - except, of course, for those intellectual sloth-driven, incompetent primitive minds out there who are simply incapable of actually dealing with reality.

Just sayin' ...

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APOV's Weekly Revue (05/25/2008)

Time yet again for APOV's Weekly Revue!

On the Operation Enduring Propaganda front, Steven D @ Booman Tribune sarcastically proclaims "The surge lives!", tristero @ Hullabaloo explores the further revelations of incompetence and corruption in Iraq, Eric Martin @ Total Information Awareness expounds on Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's rising militant stand in Iraq ("it's the occupation, stupid!"), and Glenn Greenwald @ Blog of Rights expounds on the Bush Torture Regime. On a related note, Kathy @ Comments From Left Field talks about the Right's neurotic addiction to war (it's all about their wet dreams, I say).

Concerning the waste of Afghanistan specifically, Cernig @ Newshoggers focusses on Gen. Petraeus' re-affirmation that Afghanistan in the central front of the Global War on Terror(TM), not Iraq.

With regards to Iran and other assorted "evil" regimes, Matt Eckel @ Foreign Policy Watch talks about fearing to negociate with them, while Cernig (again) @ Newshoggers explains why negociation can make sense (to which I agree). In between, Jeff Huber @ The Wild Wild Left tells us how the MSM has dropped the ball on Iran once again - in part because, as explained by David Neiwert @ Firedoglake, the traditional media is busying itself at fanning the flames of immigration irrationality. Interestingly, JollyRoger @ Reconstitution introduces us to the world's worst terrorist organization - something entirely overlooked by the traditional media, of course.

On the "North American Homeland Security" front, mrvnmouse @ 1337haxOr informs us on why fingerprints are not secure, while Kvatch @ Ragebot explains how the airlines extort extra money from flyers with the complicity of the TSA.

Through it all, oil prices keep on rising while supplies can only decline, as explained by Ken Anderson @ Shockfront with his piece "The $12 Gallon".

The obvious question then becomes: why was the Bush Regime never impeached? Chris Floyd @ Empire Burlesque explains why the progressive vision has failed to make this happen. Over at The Wild Wild Left, liberalamerican expounds further on this subject with his piece "Democracy and Faith in the American People".

Meanwile, on the continuing assault of science, evolution and global warming by the religious right (intellectual sloth, anyone?), Daniel DiRito @ Bring It On! explains how with each day it is increasingly becoming harder and harder to be a climate change denying Christian creationist (weep indeed for those poor primitive minds), whereas winter rabbit @ The Wild Wild Left reminds us that climate disintegration is a human rights issue.

As a (related) aside, Tom Harper @ Who Hijacked Our Country waxes cynical at the U.S.A ranking 97th on the Global Peace Index (Canada ranked 11th, dropping three ranks from last year ...).

And speaking of Canada - Canadian Cynic @ Canadian Cynic dissects the failures of the hypocritical Federal Accountability Act passed some two years ago by the (neo)Conservative Harper government, while skdadl @ Peace, order and good government, eh? expounds on the Canadian Supreme Court's unanimous decision to order the Harper government to hand over any and all information to alleged terrorist Omar Khadr concerning his "interviews" since being incarcerated at Gitmo, so he can better prepare his defense. In between, Matt Bin @ Canadian Cynic dissects the Refugee Board of Canada's ruling that American war resister and Iraq veteran Corey Glass is not eligible for refugee status - and therefore must be deported back to the U.S.A..

Thus on this sad note concludes APOV's Weekly Revue for May 25th, 2008.

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Nice To Know I Am Onto Something Here ...

Two days ago, I wrote about the Bouchard-Taylor commission and its report. My personal observations and conclusions can be summarized as follows (emphasis added):

The commission was not without its detractors from the get-go. On the one side, there were those who feared (irrationally) that both the reasonable accommodation debate in Québec, and the commission itself, were rooted in xenophobia, racism and sexism (two examples here and here). On the other side, there were those who feared (irrationally) that the commission would act as a mouth-piece for promoting multi-culturalism and "unreasonable" accomodation to immigrants, thus severely diminishing the french culture and identity of Québec (two examples here and here).

What the two opposing sides missed is that such a debate was needed, badly. And yes, some ugly things were aired out - but such things are always better being expressed and discussed than left festering inside, forcing us to face our reality instead of clinging to myths about our society being open and tolerant or, worse, inflating stereotypes about immigrants. Likewise, immigrants participating in such a debate can not only express their concerns and experiences, but also get a full spectrum measure of the concerns and experiences of the society they have adopted and which yet remain "foreign" to them culturally.

(...)

My humble hope is that what happened here in Québec with regards to the Bouchard-Taylor commission, and what will result/is resulting from its travails, will serve as an example on how to confront and deal with the growing pains of any society who has the courage to open up to the rest of Humanity - in all its various colors and cultures.

Well 'lo and behold this editorial in today's The Star (emphasis added):

It would be easy for Canadians outside Quebec to feel smug after witnessing the spasms of intolerance that have gripped that province in the debate over "reasonable accommodation." After all, nowhere else has a town council felt it necessary to propose a code of conduct that forbids the stoning of women, as Hérouxville notoriously did.

But the result of these uncomfortable deliberations – a moderate and thoughtful report this week by academics Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor – warrants our attention. For while the report reflects the minority position of Quebec's francophone population within Canada, it also contains some valuable messages for the rest of the country.

One of the report's major themes can be summed up by an overused self-help mantra: don't sweat the small stuff. The authors shine a bright light on some of the controversies that whipped up public anger over "reasonable accommodation" and conclude that there were "significant distortions between facts and perceptions."

The Muslims who reportedly demanded a sugar shack make pea soup without ham and clear a dancehall so they could say their prayers? The group had arranged the modified menu a week in advance, and it was served only to its members. Prayers were conducted in the dance hall at the invitation of the owners, who wanted to free up the dining room for other patrons.

Without this and other media-fuelled tempests in teapots, the "accommodation crisis" likely would not have happened, the authors argue. This is a welcome reminder to all Canadians not to jump to conclusions or get worked up about the minor frictions that are inevitable when different cultures live together.

On the substantive side, the report emphasizes that our duties to newcomers do not stop when we let them in the door. Bouchard and Taylor recommend more government funding for settlement programs, more language services, and better recognition of international degrees and credentials to help immigrants integrate more quickly. These ideas are as applicable to Toronto as to Montreal.

Bouchard and Taylor also advocate a concept they call "open secularism" – essentially the separation of church and state. It is a sound idea in principle, but can be tricky to put into practice, as the ongoing debate over the use of the Lord's Prayer in the Ontario Legislature highlights.

Here the report fights with itself, however. To underscore the separation of church and state, the report recommends the removal of the crucifix in Quebec's National Assembly and a ban on the wearing of religious headgear such as turbans and yarmulkes by certain public officials. Don't the report's recommendations regarding these relatively trivial concerns violate the authors' first imperative, which is to focus on the bigger picture?

Bouchard and Taylor don't have all the answers. But they have provided some good ideas for further discussion. As immigrants continue to arrive at Canada's doors, it is a debate in which we all need to engage.

All I can add to this is: hear, hear!

As I already wrote: let's move on to the future indeed and explore it ... together.

Nice to know I'm not alone in thinking this way ...

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Late Friday Night Ode To ... Humanity's Oldest Activity

Another triple-play tonight, this time in honor of Humanity's oldest activity. I'll give you three guesses which one it is ...

The first clue is a blues song provided by The Spicewood Seven:

The second clue is a psychedelic rock song provided by Jimi Hendrix:

And the third clue is a heavy metal song provided by Metallica:

Easy, wasn't it?

Now here's the really tough part - try answering this question:

When are we going to learn?

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Afghanistan: Here Come Those Benchmarks!

We've all become very much acquainted with the so-called "Iraq benchmarks" - you know, those unrealistic goalposts enumerated by the Bush administration which keep on being moved time and again by said administration, all in order to claim that "there is progress" while justifying further occupation of the country in order to "fully achieve the benchmarks" initially set out?

Well guess what? Benchmarks are coming to Afghanistan - seven years after the start of the war over there - care of the Canadian Bush emulator Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Harpie government.

Communicating vases and quagmires, anyone?

From the CBC (emphasis added):

A special cabinet subcommittee has been set up to co-ordinate Canada's efforts (concerning the mission in Afghanistan).

Senior government officials insist the cabinet is very focused on Afghanistan, while sources say task forces within Foreign Affairs and CIDA are working to unveil a series of "signposts of progress" on the mission, perhaps as soon as mid-June, the CBC's Stewart said.

But Roland Paris, associate professor at the University of Ottawa's Centre for International Policy Studies, told CBC News that despite the urgent need for more information on the Afghan mission, there has been "no significant change" in the level of transparency or detailed reporting from the Canadian government.

"What we've been lacking is a very specific set of goals and clear benchmarks that we can use to evaluate whether or not we are making progress toward these goals," Paris told CBC News.

He added there is "much more detailed, much more unvarnished reporting" on the mission in Iraq than the mission in Afghanistan.

Earlier this year, International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda said the government would increase the number of briefings it offers reporters on the Afghan mission in an attempt to be more open about what is happening there.

"Our goal is to better inform Canadians about Canada's activities on the ground," she told reporters at a press conference in February.

But Oda also suggested the media was at fault for government's difficulty in communicating the Canadian mission's good news stories.

Here is how I break all of this down:

- The Harper Government is working on establishing a list of signposts of progress (i.e. "benchmarks") to be waived in the face of Canadians and moved whenever politically convenient, in order to claim that "there is progress" while at the same time justifying the need for extending the stay of our troops in Afghanistan to "ensure completion of the signposts of progress", thus once again plagiarizing the Bush administration playbook of war propaganda and disinformation;

- In the meantime, the Harper government remains mum on what is actually going on in Afghanistan (see this previous post of mine and also this recent news item), preparing its full blown campaign of propaganda and disinformation which will ignore reality (like this, as example) while painting a rosy picture (like "the surge is working!" did for Iraq);

- In between, actual news reporting of what is actually going on in Afghanistan will be labelled as media bias, as usual - and never you mind that the Harper government is largely at fault for keeping at bay the news media, due to its incompetence-driven abhorrence of transparency and accountability, as well as its incompetence-driven need to control information in order to keep face and give the illusion that it is in full control of things.

All of this is quite consistent with Harper having made the war in Afghanistan Canada's War, along with his pathological emulation of the Bush administration.

And lest we forget: selling a war is much more important than whether it was right or wrong, or whether the war is being won or not.

God Bless Canada indeed.

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Where Are Those Iranian Weapons In Iraq?

The US military command in Iraq continues to talk about an alleged pipeline of Iranian weapons to Iraqi Shiites opposing the US occupation, implying that they have become dependent on Iran for indirect-fire weapons and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).

But US officials have failed thus far to provide evidence that would support that claim, and a long-delayed US military report on Iranian arms is unlikely to offer any data on what proportion of the weapons in the hands of Shiite fighters are from Iran and what proportion comes from purchases on the open market.

When Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner was asked that question at a briefing May 8, he did not answer it directly. Instead Bergner reverted to a standard US military line that these groups "could not do what they're doing without the support of foreign support [sic]." Then he defined "foreign support" to include training and funding as well as weapons, implicitly conceding that he did not have much of a case based on weapons alone.

Keep Reading...

punditman says... Answer: Overwhelmingly, the weapons used by Iraqi insurgents are purchased on the open market, meaning that the Bush administration claims are once again, a pack of lies.

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iRack And iRan: New Products From The Bush Administration

From the "might as well laugh a little instead of depressing about it" department (huge h/t to srliberal):

'Nuff said ...

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Opening Up To Humanity: Growing Pains Of A Society

(Note: although the following deals with what has been happening in my own province, I feel that the subject of the matter and its dénouement are quite à propos for any secular, free and "open" society - especially with regards to the still on-going debates about immigrants and immigration)

The Bouchard-Taylor Commission on cultural differences and immigrant integration in Québec launched a series of public hearings in September 2007, travelling throughout the province in order to hear from individual citizens, groups and institutions, in addition to experts on cultural communities, immigrant issues, religion and Québec's identity.

The commission, headed by philosopher Charles Taylor and sociologist Gérard Bouchard, aimed at capping the often bitter public debate on reasonable accomodation and integration of immigrants in the province.

The report has been released and is now available online for public consultation (the english version is to come "shortly").

The commission was not without its detractors from the get-go. On the one side, there were those who feared (irrationally) that both the reasonable accommodation debate in Québec, and the commission itself, were rooted in xenophobia, racism and sexism (two examples here and here). On the other side, there were those who feared (irrationally) that the commission would act as a mouth-piece for promoting multi-culturalism and "unreasonable" accomodation to immigrants, thus severely diminishing the french culture and identity of Québec (two examples here and here).

What the two opposing sides missed is that such a debate was needed, badly. And yes, some ugly things were aired out - but such things are always better being expressed and discussed than left festering inside, forcing us to face our reality instead of clinging to myths about our society being open and tolerant or, worse, inflating stereotypes about immigrants. Likewise, immigrants participating in such a debate can not only express their concerns and experiences, but also get a full spectrum measure of the concerns and experiences of the society they have adopted and which yet remain "foreign" to them culturally.

From my own (ahem) point of view, the whole question boiled down to this: Can there be too much reasonable accomodation? Yes. Can there be not enough accomodation? Also, yes. Must we first shed our intellectual sloth-driven fears in order to find paramount? Definitely.

Thus the main conclusions of the Bouchard-Taylor commission (emphasis added):

The time has come for Quebec to get over its collective identity crisis and adapt to the realities of a secular, pluralistic society, says a provincial commission report on the thorny issue of reasonable accommodation.

"The foundations of collective life in Quebec are not in a critical situation," said the Bouchard-Taylor commission, in its final report on the state of so-called reasonable accommodation of religious and cultural beliefs.

"What we are facing, instead, is the need to adapt," and the government must play a leading role in establishing better guidelines for "interculturalism," the report concludes.

(...)

The commission said that the insecurity in the province was largely fuelled by a crisis of perception, stoked by distortions in media reports on cases of accommodation. It also emphasized that Quebecers of French-Canadian descent, even though they are a minority in North America, remain the ruling majority in Quebec, where they have nothing to worry about.

The province needs to define its secular nature to improve relations between the majority and ethnic minorities, said the commission.

That includes greater measures, statutes and guidelines to counteract discrimination.

But accommodation should not be overly legislated, the commission said. Rather, it noted that it’s up to individuals and community groups to work out how they will accommodate each other on a case by case basis, respecting provincial guidelines.

And all I can add to this is: hear, hear!

Québec's Prime Minister Jean Charest expressed determination in following suit on the commission's report:

Premier Jean Charest promised (...) to act quickly and concretely following the release of a report into the accommodation of Quebec immigrants but he rejected the idea of a provincial constitution that would set out the fundamental values of Quebec society.

Charest said that an action plan would have the "greatest impact and most immediate impact."

The premier said the plan would defend the "profound" values of Quebecers, which are the "rule of French, gender equality (and) the separation of church and state."

Truth be told, it doesn't reality matter whether we adapt through legislation or through writting a provincial constitution (although that in itself would be problematic and play right into the hands of nationalistes/séparatistes, who still cling to the self-serving fearmongering tactic of claiming that our French-Canadian language, culture and identity ever remain in danger of being eradicated - but I disgress) - because we already have our Québec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms as as guide and template.

It is indeed time for all Québecois and Québecoises of French-Canadian descent to grow up and adapt to the realities of welcoming different cultures into our own, just like it is time for all our neo-citizens to undertake some measures of adaptation to the secular society they have chosen to live in.

In this last respect, I have no qualm that this is not only happening but will keep on happening. Why am I so confident? Simple: whenever I see a Muslim, Haitian, Eastern European, Asian - or so on and so forth - speaking French with the "Québecois" accent, including the use of typical Québecois expressions and (gasp!) cusses, or being fans of Québecois artists, I know that my culture has been adopted in large part by my fellow neo-citizen compatriots of mine, and that their children will do (or are already doing) so as well.

And I smile - because at the same time, I see and hear things from my fellow French-Canadian compatriots that they have clearly borrowed in turn from their neo-citizen compatriots - whether in music, dancing, litterature or use of expressions.

That is what I call opening up to Humanity - without intellectual sloth-driven fear, ignorance and hate.

Oh sure - there remains a tiny minority of parochial xenophobes and/or religious intolerants, just like there remains a tiny minority of immigrants who stubbornly refuse to accept little, if anything, of the culture they have elected to move into - especially its secularism.

But as years and decades go by, these two opposing minorities will slowly but surely disappear, eventually vanishing into the dark night of irrelevance while the rest of us, and our descendants, keep moving forward into the future.

Provided of course that our society and its overwhelming majority of citizens remain courageous, dedicated and vigilant to that effect.

My humble hope is that what happened here in Québec with regards to the Bouchard-Taylor commission, and what will result/is resulting from its travails, will serve as an example on how to confront and deal with the growing pains of any society who has the courage to open up to the rest of Humanity - in all its various colors and cultures.

Let's move on to the future indeed and explore it ... together.

Food for thought, eh?


(Cross-posted at The Wild Wild Left and DKos)

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Canadians Losing Big To Big Oil

punditman:

Oil equals money, but neither belongs by right to Big Oil
by Duncan Cameron

In the last year the price of a barrel of oil has gone up by $45 or 65 per cent. It averaged $70 in 2007, while this year it is looks to average $115.

n Canada, as recently as 2003, the cost of producing a barrel of oil, including royalties, averaged only $5.57. Of course, that year Canadian royalties were again among the lowest in the world, 23 cents a barrel.

For natural resources, the difference between the cost of production, including normal profits and the selling price, represents the resource rent, a one-time benefit to the owners. If we assume the cost of production has nearly doubled since 2003, including small royalties increases in Alberta, the resource rent per barrel this year is $105.

This resource rent money has been treated as a windfall profit and has gone directly into the pockets of the oil producers. As many of them are foreign-owned, the profits go directly out of the country.

Since, under the constitution, the beneficial owners of the resources are the people of the provinces where the resources are located, the rent belongs to the people, and it should have subject to an excess profits tax. Indeed when the price of oil increased in the late 1970s, the Alberta government introduced just such a measure.

Keep Reading...

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The Iranian Chessboard

punditman:

The Iranian Chessboard: Five Ways to Think About Iran Under the Gun

By Pepe Escobar
TomDispatch.com

More than two years ago, Seymour Hersh disclosed in the New Yorker how George W. Bush was considering strategic nuclear strikes against Iran. Ever since, a campaign to demonize that country has proceeded in a relentless, Terminator-like way, applying the same techniques and semantic contortions that were so familiar in the period before the Bush administration launched its invasion of Iraq.

The campaign's greatest hits are widely known: "The ayatollahs" are building a Shi'ite nuclear bomb; Iranian weapons are killing American soldiers in Iraq; Iranian gunboats are provoking U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf - Iran, in short, is the new al-Qaeda, a terror state aimed at the heart of the United States. It's idle to expect the American mainstream media to offer any tools that might put this orchestrated blitzkrieg in context.

Here are just a few recent instances of the ongoing campaign: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates insists that Iran "is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons." Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admits that the Pentagon is planning for "potential military courses of action" when it comes to Iran. In tandem with U.S. commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus, Mullen denounces Iran's "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq, although he claims to harbor "no expectations" of an attack on Iran "in the immediate future" and even admits he has "no smoking gun which could prove that the highest leadership [of Iran] is involved."

But keep in mind one thing the Great Saddam Take-out of 2003 proved: that a "smoking gun" is, in the end, irrelevant. And this week, the U.S. is ominously floating a second aircraft carrier battle group into the Persian Gulf.

But what of Iran itself under the blizzard of charges and threats? What to make of it? What does the world look like from Tehran? Here are five ways to think about Iran under the gun and to better decode the Iranian chessboard.

Keep reading about how to decode the Iranian Chessboard...

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Dark Storm Brewing Over The Middle East

The neocons' wet dreams are slowly but surely coming to fruition as Operation Enduring Propaganda keeps on rolling.

The following comprehensive article illustrates how preparations are gradually being implemented on all sides of a looming conflict in the Middle East - which reminds me of what I wrote last year:

With the Iraq and Afghanistan wars causing much chaos while encouraging increased insurgency and terrorism, with a confrontation against Iran looming, and with Pakistan now being likewise sandwiched between terrorism and the rattling of American sabers, the rest of the Middle East is in turn gradually destabilizing, hopelessly caught in a sinking vortex that will lead ultimately to more war and chaos.

And this makes me ask again: Got War?

**********

Beating the Drums of a Broader Middle East War

Israel, Syria, and Lebanon Prepare the "Home Fronts"

by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

Global Research, May 7, 2008

The Levant could be the starting point of a major international conflict with global ramifications and which could quickly spin out of control. Such a conflict could even involve the use of Israeli or American nuclear weapons against Iran and Syria. Syria has additionally declared that it is preparing for an inevitable war with Israel despite the fact that it believes that the chances of a war in 2008 are slim.

In the scenario of a war against Iran, the reaction of Syria will be pivotal. Damascus plays a central role and how it acts and reacts will have a definitive impact on Israeli military strategy in regards to Iran. It is in this context that Israel, the U.S. and the E.U., with the help of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, have been attempting to undermine and ultimately destroy the alliance between Syria and Iran. This is part of a geo-strategic stride to foreclose the possibility of a Mediterranean battle-front that might emerge in the Levant as a result of an attack on Iran.

The casus belli for an Israeli attack or a joint Israeli-U.S. attack, possibly involving NATO, against Syria or against both Syria and Iran could use the pretext of any form of retaliation by Hezbollah against Israel for the assassination in Damascus of one of its leaders, Imad Fayez Mughniyeh.

Hezbollah has joined Iranian officials in saying that the U.S. military is incapable of starting another war in the Middle East by launching attacks on Iran and Syria. [1] Israeli officials have also renewed calls for peace by openly mentioning that Tel Aviv is willing to return the Golan Heights back to the Syrians, while there have been strong political noises against the move in Israel. [2]

Tel Aviv is simultaneously part of a U.S. endeavour that claims Syria has a secret nuclear program aided by North Korea. [3] Strategic efforts, with strong links to war preparations, have also started with the aim of bringing temporary calm to the Palestinian Territories as part of the same track of events in the Levant.

Redrawing the Arab-Israeli Conflict as an Iranian-Israeli Conflict to justify War

Momentum is being built up against Iran in a list of growing, and more frequent, accusations against Tehran.

Iran is portrayed as the main threat against Israel. It is also accused of intervening in occupied Iraq and Afghanistan. In this sense, the Israeli-U.S. war plans in the Levant have been tied to Iran, as well as Syria. The investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize winner, reported in 2006 that the Israeli war against Lebanon was part of this Israeli-U.S. military roadmap to ultimately target Iran.

The accusations against Tehran and Damascus are part of a calculated effort to justify attacks against Iran and Syria as the only means to achieve peace in the Levant between Israel and the Arabs. They are also upheld as justification to ensure the security and success of occupation forces, for Anglo-American and NATO forces respectively in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In this regard, the Gaza Strip, alongside Lebanon, is now being described by Tel Aviv as an “Iranian base” against Israel. Israel is pointing the finger more and more towards Tehran as the source of its problems.

This argument is fabricated. It is in blatant contradiction with the history of the Palestinian struggle. The inner causes and history of the Arab-Israeli Conflict are now being brushed aside and ignored. The Arab-Israeli Conflict is now being redefined as a mere existential conflict between Israel and a few irrational and violent Arab organizations controlled by Tehran.

All players, state or non-state, have rational interests and motives. All actions are also based on these interests and motives. Any analysis without the mention of these interests seeks to sidestep specific issues. By portraying the Arabs as inherently violent, the truth is being sidestepped without explaining the full rationale for their attacks against Israel.

This brushing aside of motives is part of a disinformation campaign, which is used to camouflage the truth. The historical facts of the Arab-Israeli Conflict are being redrawn with a view to presenting Tehran as having always been in the picture as a spoiler and a source of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. The motives for this agenda are to justify the outbreak of a conflict with Iran.

Keep reading ...

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The Traditional Media: Still M.I.A. On Iraq War

Iraq: Five Years of War ... and the Media are still M.I.A.

punditman says...

Five years of combat, over 1.2 million Iraqi deaths, almost 4,000 American dead and tens of thousands of US wounded -- and still, the Iraq War's apologists and its media sycophants still don't get it. Or they refuse to. Instead, they remain so blinded by chesty notions of "American exceptionalism" and "good intentions" that they still can't see the desert for the shrubs.

Meanwhile, Iraq drowns in an ocean of suffering.

And whose fault could this be? According to the war's apologists, it lies not only with Jihadists and suicide bombers (who, it should be stressed, were conspicuously missing in pre-invasion Iraq), and other insurgents, who for some reason refuse to lay down their arms -- but also with the incompetents responsible for the "poor planning" behind the occupation and the lack of a "effective counter-insurgency strategy." In other words, blame the bureaucrats for messing up an otherwise "noble project." Missing from this analysis is the vileness of the project itself. Also missing is any hint that those who are directly responsible should be held directly accountable; namely, the Bush administration and others in the "coalition of the willing."

Typical of this mindset are the views expressed in an article by Pulitzer prize winner, John F. Burns, of the New York Times, entitled No end in sight to bleeding in Iraq.

Burns chronicles his and other journalists' boosterism as the first bombs began to fall on Baghdad five years ago:

On the evening of March 19, 2003, a few Western journalists had grandstand seats for the big event in Baghdad, the start of the full-scale American bombing of targets in the Iraqi capital.We were on the 21st-storey roof of the Palestine Hotel, with a panoramic view of Saddam Hussein's command complex across the Tigris River.

The first cruise missile struck the vast, bunker-like presidential command complex in what would become, under the U.S. occupation, the Green Zone. Then missiles and bombs struck palaces, military complexes, intelligence buildings, the heart of Saddam's tyranny. Iraqis yearning for their liberation called it "the air show.''

Among many on the roof, there was a sense that the suffering of millions of Iraqis that we had chronicled, and pitied, was ending. Those missiles and bombs seemed to be retribution for a ruthless dictator and the wretchedness he had visited on Iraq's people.

I get it. So the sentiment went something like this: "Yeah, sure, war is hell and all that, but we're embedded with the good guys...now on with the big event"!

Burns sees the whole Iraq debacle primarily in terms of a series of bureaucratic missteps, from the failure to stop mobs from looting historic sites while US marines stood by and followed their orders to protect only the Oil Ministry, to "the failure to find weapons of mass destruction; the absence of a serious plan for the period after Baghdad fell; the disbanding of the Iraqi army, and thus casting aside the help it might have given in fighting the insurgency; the lack of an effective American counterinsurgency strategy until the troop increase last year."

The failure to "find" weapons of mass destruction? Is he suggesting there was something significant to find? Are we to believe he never listened to former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter?, who, in the lead up to the ill-fated Iraq invasion, argued that Iraq possessed no significant weapons of mass destruction?

The lack of an "effective" American counterinsurgency strategy until the troop increase last year? Ah, yes the "surge is working" -- that is if you consider ethnic cleansing and a bloody stalemate to be signs of "success."

Burns continues...

There were also instances when America's intentions were betrayed by its troops, with the abuse and torture of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib, with the shooting deaths of 24 civilians in Haditha and with the rape and murder of a teenage girl at Mahmudiya, along with the killing of three of her family, all leading to court-martial hearings that tore at the heart of anyone who starts from a position of admiration for the U.S. military.

Alright, now I am embarrassed for the guy. America's "intentions" (lilly white of course), were "betrayed" by a few soldiers? What did he expect would happen? I have a sneaky feeling he may have missed a few more "instances," so perhaps he should tune in to Winter Soldier.

Burns can easily be considered an early cheerleader of the Iraq invasion -- one of those journalists who urged it on, a laptop bombardier, if you will. Here is an excerpt from an October 2007 interview with him in The Independent:

In the pages of the New York Times he has argued that, even without WMD, "the stronger case [for military intervention] was the one that needed no inspectors to confirm: that Saddam Hussein, in his 23 years in power, plunged this country into a bloodbath of medieval proportions, and exported some of that terror to his neighbours."

This is liberal interventionism at its worst. Find a dictator with an appalling human rights record (easy enough), and viola! Causis belli! Invade the country, foist our Western ways on them, toss an election in and install a puppet regime. Aside from myopic idiocy, this sort of media cheerleading supports the doctrine of "preventive war," which stands in direct contravention to, and respect for, international law, treaties and institutions.

What's more, Burns sees his home-side rooting as having had no impact:

Although I was writing for an American newspaper with considerable reach and influence in Washington, DC, I didn't see myself as being a player in that process. I felt that that was something that was quite independent, at least in my mind.

Not a player? Just another "guy with an opinion" who called for the invasion of a country of 27 million people? I guess we are not supposed to notice where he works or the power of that soapbox (oddly enough, he is correct, but in hindsight: why should anyone trust the NY Times anymore, after the unmasking of Judith Miller as an administration mouthpiece in the lead up to war?).

The sycophantic mindset necessitates turning a blind eye to the crime of international aggression while ignoring other possible motives that the US and Britain might have had. Why Iraq? Why not Burma?

So, if there was no legal basis to invade Iraq, what moral imperative gave Bush the right to invade? Wait...it always comes to me...9-11! Media mealy mouths never fail to remind me of this. Never mind that Iraq had nothing to do with what occurred on that fateful day. But the sycophants ignored this long established fact, and in many cases, actually parroted this Cheney fiction in the lead up to war.

In an world full of honest reporting, the American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq would by now be considered, an historic crime of great magnitude. A crime not just against the Iraqi people, who did not threaten anyone, but a crime against humanity and a crime against the truth. Not so.

You would think that after the release of a study by The Centre for Public Integrity that shows that at least 935 demonstrably false statements were made on 532 separate occasions by President George W. Bush, Vice-President Richard Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan -- that the media would care to report the truth about stove-piped intelligence. Not so.

What should be headline news is generally ignored or brushed aside and instead, we are supposed to believe that 935 false statements were the result of "faulty intelligence" -- instead of blatant lying and systematic propaganda.

If the mainstream media had viewed the Iraq War as the supreme crime that it is, then impeachment proceedings against Team Bush would have begun by now. And Team Blair and all other team members in the "coalition of the willing" would be facing similar charges. But not so.

Part of the basis for any such legal action would necessarily involve the idea of deliberate deception. Not surprisingly, neo-con apologists have never liked such talk. Back in July, 2003, Norman Specter wrote in the The Globe and Mail that, "The case for war did not rest on whether he (Saddam) had X number of biological weapons laboratories or Y amount of nerve agent. It rested on his record and ambitions."

At the time, Punditman wrote the following:

Well, no actually.

The "case for war", at least according to those who sent soldiers to wage it at their behest, actually rested upon Iraq being an imminent threat to the security of the US, indeed to "the peace of the world," (to pluck just one Orwellian passage from Bush's infinite inventory).

And that "case" was built upon a very specific set of claims, accusations, and assertions concerning Mr. Hussein's apparent possession of "vast quantities" of WMDs and his supposed links to Al Queda. These "facts" we were told, left the United States and Britain no choice but to attack ASAP. The cruelty of Saddam's regime and his previous aggressions and miscalculations notwithstanding were simply ad-on pretexts for regime change, once it became clear that the world wasn't buying the Bush-Blair "case for war."

Finally, you would think--you would hope, by now--that establishment media would at least view the Iraqi catastrophe through the lens of the victims while pointing out the underlying cause of the tragedy. Not so.

In June 2007, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees published a study that estimated that 2.2 million Iraqis had been displaced to neighbouring countries, another 2 million were displaced internally and 40% of Iraq's middle class is believed to have fled the country.

Meanwhile, in the seven months preceding the end of May, 2007, a mere 69 Iraqis were given refugee status in the United States. Good luck to the Iraqi refugee trying to flee to America! And yet his or her plight is the direct result of the violence and chaos brought about by this horrific war--a war initiated by the United States, a war that was unnecessary, unprovoked, and illegal -- and a war that has made conditions much worse in the region and, in many ways, much worse for America itself.

Then again, average Iraqis, and I dare say average Americans, were never the main concern of those who have so callously plotted their destinies, their deaths and their sufferings.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media continues to do their job of masquerading as a functioning "fourth estate" -- as they kiss the king's behind.

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APOV's Weekly Revue (05/18/2008)

If it's Sunday, then it is time for APOV's Weekly Revue!

Over here in Canada, Prime Minister Harper and his Harpies are ripping their shirts in hypocritical, self-righteous indignation over the mere mention that Canada and the U.S. are losing moral standing in the way they've been conducting their wars and treating prisoners of war. 900ft Jesus @ In The House and Senate deservingly takes them to task for this, while pogge @ Peace, order and good government, eh? pours more salt on their self-inflicted wounds to this effect. In between, pretty shaved ape @ Canadian Cynic rightly calls the Harpies on for shooting the messenger in this matter. As a bonus, pale @ A Creative Revolution dissects the empty, double-talking rhetoric of Harper and his Harpies in their ridiculous conflation of fighting global warming with their "plan" of investing billions more in Canada's military.

Through it all, The Commentator @ The Commentator tells us how small gestures can keep Humanity alive.

Meanwhile, over there in the U.S.A., torture (ahem - enhanced interrogation techniques - sorry) remains a major topic of criticism (and rightly so, I might add). Steven D @ Booman Tribune waxes cynical and sarcastic on the subject with his piece "They had it coming", while Catnip @ Liberal Catnip keeps us appraised on torture investigations and Gitmo developments. Also, geomoo @ Daily Kos has more on this.

Speaking of the Global War on Terror(TM), Matt Stoller @ Open Left expounds on the collapse of House Republicans with regards to the Iraq war, GregMitch @ Daily Kos keeps us appraised on the ongoing Congress testimonials by Iraq vets, and Carl @ Simply Left Behind debunks Bush's recent proclamation that talking to Iran is defeatist appeasement. And speaking of Iran ... Glenn Greenwald @ Salon dissects moron neocon par excellence Tom Friedman and his latest declaration of war. In between, Cernig @ Newshoggers discusses how the tables have been turned on the Bush administration, whereby it is them who are actually fostering terrorism in Iran and not the other way around. On a related note, LithiumCola @ Daily Kos exposes Defense Secretary Robert Gates' rhetoric and the forever war, while Omnipotent Poobah @ The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks! invites us to the Apocalypse Invitational Golf Tournament, c/o one G.W. Bush.

And speaking of the Bush administration and all their neocon supporters and enablers ... mole333 @ Diatribune exposes what Bush and McCain were doing together while New Orleans was drowning after hurricane Katrina, JollyRoger @ Reconstitution discusses how the U.S. healtcare system is a job-killer, and azgoddess @ The Peace Tree confides to us sarcastically how Bush's economic stimulus package is actually ... well ... "stimulating" her. In between, Ken Anderson @ Shockfront informs us how "real voter ID" has not flown in virtually all the states of the U.S.

Meanwhile, on the matter of the growing world food crisis, Daniel DiRito @ Bring It On! talks about understanding this crisis beyond the mainstream media. As a case in point, Asinus Asinum Fricat @ Daily Kos informs us of terrible news related to said growing food crisis which we won't find in traditional media outlets.

Thus concludes APOV's Weekly Revue for May 18th, 2008.

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Can You Really Shame Despots?

punditman says:

First, before I rant: to donate to the Myanmar (Burma) cyclone relief effort or to the victims of the China earthquake, there are many options available online including Oxfam, Save the Children, The Humanitarian Coalition, Doctors Without Borders, and World Vision.

I urge you all to give.

Natural Disasters, Rhetoric and Politics

According to numerous reports, Burma’s military junta continues to insist on being the sole distributor of aid in the cyclone-ravaged country. They persist in restricting movement of foreign aid workers, while pilfering aid for themselves and their supporters or selling it to those who need it most. This of course, is contemptible.

Not surprisingly, President Bush, First Lady Laura Bush, various allies and much of the Western media immediately climbed all over the Burmese junta for their tepid and tainted response to Cyclone Nargis.

Mrs. Bush, (who has suddenly found her US foreign policy towards Burma chops rather late in the game), is a vocal critic of Burma's generals. Straight away, she accused the military junta of failing to give people adequate warning about the approaching cyclone. According to the Washington Post, this did not sit well with exiled Burmese political analyst Aung Naing Oo, who called her verbal scolding “totally and utterly inappropriate. She is trying to score political points out of people’s disaster.”

The article also quoted Thant Myint-U, a former United Nations official and Burmese historian: “the problem is that everything, including aid, has been politicized, with suspicions on all sides.”

It is hard to see how the US lambasting the Burmese military junta will accomplish anything of value—other than make an already paranoid regime even more mistrustful. Such chastising rhetoric does nothing to alleviate the suffering of the people and therefore should be understood within the greater political and strategic context in which it occurs.

Just prior to the cyclone, the Bush administration strengthened its trade and investment ban against Burma, along with the freezing of assets, only slightly easing restrictions on financial aid. The West, led by the United States wants to counter China's influence, which has close ties with the military regime and sees the country as a critical point of access into the Indian Ocean.

Interestingly, the sanctions have not affected US oil giant, Chevron, of San Ramon, California. Through its subsidiary Unocal, the company has multibillion-dollar investments in Burma and has been flagged by human rights groups as being complicit in abuses in Burma in order to protect its pipeline routes. Also of note is Presidential nominee John McCain's initial choice to manage the Republican convention this summer: lobbyist and PR guy, Doug Goodyear, who as CEO of the firm DCI Group, represented Burma's repressive regime in 2002 by attempting to polish up their ah…image. Oops, time to resign.

Those Republicans: such inconvenient connections.

Speaking on May 12, after the first American military aid flight to Burma, President Bush denounced the Burmese junta for failing to act more quickly to accept international help, saying "either they are isolated or callous.”

"It's been days and no telling how many people have lost their lives as a result of the slow response," he said.

He's right, but he's also the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the US Department of Homeland Security refused aid from Canada of all places. Slow response, indeed. So says the hypocrite-in-chief, who, when not pursuing wars of aggression or plotting new international crimes, occasionally transforms, as if by magic, into champion humanitarian--a fantastical veneer so tarnished by objective reality that only the severely indoctrinated can fathom the transcendence.

The hurricane Katrina/Rita comparison is instructive. According to an article that appeared last year in the New York Sun entitled, U.S. Refused Most Offers of Aid for Hurricane Katrina, the US declined 54 of 77 recorded aid offers from three of its staunchest allies: Canada, Britain, and Israel.

In another instance, according to the Sun...

State Department officials anguished over whether to tell Italy that its shipments of medicine, gauze, and other medical supplies spoiled in the elements for weeks after Katrina's landfall on August 29, 2005, and were destroyed. "Tell them we blew it," one disgusted official wrote. But she hedged: "The flip side is just to dispose of it and not come clean. I could be persuaded."

U.S. officials also turned down many offers of help from allied troops and search-and-rescue teams to save people from rooftops. Melanie Sloan of the public interest group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which called for an investigation into the foreign aid offers said, "It's clear that they're trying to hide their ineptitude, incompetence, and malfeasance."

The US has offered a measly $3.5 million in relief aid to Myanmar. For a reality check, the Iraq War costs an astounding $341.4 million per day. That's over 2 billion a week. The contrast is beyond obscene; it is more in the realm of a great cosmic injustice.

The Bush administration also favours regime change for Myanmar. And who doesn't? But theirs should be viewed as part of a permanent cyclone of corporatism intended to sweep up every hamlet on the planet, commodifying everything in its wake. The affects--a downward spiral of wages and the expansion of a global reserve labour force--are mostly hidden from view under the pretext of "democratization."

Obviously, the military regime in Burma deserves condemnation for its horrendous human rights record and its ruthless indifference to the plight of its people. But when the rebuke comes from the Bush administration, it rings rather hollow. Why would the Burmese regime respond positively to scolding verbiage from those who want to defeat them?

Is it beyond the pale to compare their reaction to how Bush dealt with the storm of criticism that occurred when storms Katrina and Rita ravished New Orleans and Texas? Let's see: is there any evidence that Bush felt ashamed at his administration's slow and lame reaction? Did the hue and cry of the people cause him to rectify his incompetence and neglect? Ask the victims who are still suffering from a lack of any coherent plan to rebuild their infrastructure—and their lives. It appears he behaved as he always does: without shame.

Perhaps I am off base to draw a comparison between how a dictatorship and how the so-called "world's greatest democracy" each reacted to their own natural catastrophes. But democracies aren't supposed to launch wars of conquest or destroy people by putting their names on bogus lists. They are not supposed to arrest citizens without charges and without access to legal assistance. They are not supposed to scrap habeas corpus and they are not supposed to condone torture and official lying. And they are not supposed to disgrace themselves in times of national emergency. That's what tyrannies do.

Then again, maybe I have a point.

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Gone Fishin' (Once Again)

Just to let you good folks know that I'll be in San Diego from this coming Saturday 05/17/08 to Wednesday 05/21/08, attending/participating in a scientific convention. Although blogging will be light on my part, it will nevertheless happen - thanks to Blogger's new "scheduling" feature (for instance, the Weekly Revue will be posted on Sunday, as usual).

I apologize for any inconvenience.

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Late Friday Night Ode To ... Peace

Turn about is fair play, they say.

Since I borrowed a song/album title concept from them for this post, I hereby return the favor by highlighting this band in tonight's Late Friday Night Ode - and a triple play at that.

So without any further delay, I give you good folks Megadeth!

First - Holy Wars:

Next - Symphony of Destruction:

And for the finale - Peace Sells (But Who's Buying?):

I don't know about you, but I find it rather disheartening that those "old" mid-to-late '80s metal songs remain very much à propos in this 21st Century of ours ...

Keep on rockin', eh?

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How To Make A Stand Against Wars Of Choice

Here's a very interesting way to make a stand against pre-emptive wars of choice - enjoy the read of this following article (via ICH).

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Taking a Stand Against War

By Scott Ritter

13/05/08 "Truthdig" -- - As someone who has been urging focused citizen activism for some time now, I find it heartening that there are those in the United States who put action to words and seek to lead by example. This is the case with Chicago Alderman Joe Moore, who, together with seven of his 49 colleagues (Toni Preckwinkle, Sandi Jackson, Eugene Schulter, Robert Fioretti, Freddrenna Lyle, Ricardo Munoz and Mary Ann Smith), has prepared a resolution for the Chicago City Council opposing war on Iran. By itself, this resolution most probably will not serve to alter the policies currently being pursued by the Bush administration. But when a great American city such as Chicago takes the lead in expressing its rejection of irresponsible national policy, other cities should, and will, take notice.

I have been asked to be a witness, together with other experts on Iran and U.S. Middle East policy, before the City Council as it considers this resolution. I think it is of great importance that the representatives of the people of Chicago vote to adopt it in its entirety. I would also encourage other municipalities to consider similar resolutions opposing war on Iran, and to express their concern through the adoption of resolutions which, collectively, might serve as a notice to the United States Congress, as well as the administration of President Bush, that a war with Iran would not be supported by the citizens of this land.

In preparing for my role as witness, I carefully considered the Chicago resolution in its entirety, and offer my analysis of its content as a primer for interested parties. I sincerely hope that the leadership and courage exhibited by the Chicago council members can be replicated across America in a timely fashion, and that the resultant will of the people is recognized by the Congress in time for effective legislation to be drafted and passed which reduces the threat of U.S.-Iranian conflict.

“WHEREAS, The Bush Administration and its Congressional allies are engaging in a systematic campaign to convince the American people that the Islamic Republic of Iran poses an imminent threat to the American nation, American troops in the Middle East and U.S. allies.”

The propaganda war being waged by the Bush administration in this regard has been as intense and relentless as any in recent memory. Either directly or through proxy, the administration has painted a one-sided portrait of Iran which is inaccurate and misleading in the extreme. To have a nation of nearly 80 million people, possessing a history and culture several thousands of years old, suddenly personified in the image of a single individual, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a gross misrepresentation. Imagine if one tried to characterize the entire American people in the form of George W. Bush. Iran is a diverse nation, with numerous political and social constituencies which compete across a broad spectrum of forums, governmental and nongovernmental alike. To take the words and deeds of one man, out of context in some cases and inaccurately in others, and use them to paint a picture of national policy is as wrong as it is deceitful.

Iran today poses no threat to the American nation, its allies (including Israel) or American troops in the region. To the extent that U.S. service members are threatened in Iraq, one must consider the reality of a genuine popular resistance by Iraqis to a brutal and illegitimate occupation. It should also be noted that Iran is primarily interested in securing a stable Iraq in the post-Saddam period, a policy requiring Iran to back the current Iraqi government, a Shiite-dominated government which the United States helped empower and which the United States currently supports.

Keep reading ...

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Canadians Still Oppose Afghan Mission Extension

punditman:

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Many adults in Canada believe the House of Commons should not have extended the country’s military mandate in Afghanistan until the end of 2011, according to a poll by Angus Reid Strategies. 54 per cent of respondents disagree with the decision.

When asked if the Canadian government should actively negotiate with the Taliban if this helps the peace efforts led by the elected Afghan government, 48 per cent of respondents reject the idea, while 37 per cent are open to it.

Afghanistan has been the main battleground in the war on terrorism. The conflict began in October 2001, after the Taliban regime refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked and crashed four airplanes on Sept. 11, 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people.

At least 800 soldiers—including 82 Canadians—have died in the war on terrorism, either in support of the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom or as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Keep Reading...

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Suffer The Forgotten And Faceless

(Updated below)

The following constitutes mainly a repost of something I've written last year, along with new commentary added. The reasons for this are two-fold: A) there has been zero development on the matter since last year; and B) today is BloggersUnite's Human Rights day.

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The No Land's Men

August 16, 2007

No - the title is not a mistake, nor a typographical error of the term "No man's land". This is about real human beings who find themselves without a land to call their own for the sole crime of having been wrongly imprisoned at Gitmo.

As of the month of August, 2007, some 80 Guatanamo Bay detainees have been cleared of all charges with regards to terrorism, as well as having been definitely established as constituting no threat whatsoever to the security of the U.S.A.

Yet they remain Gitmo detainees.

Furthermore, Army officials expect about 70 more of the remaining other 360 detainees to be likewise cleared.

Yet, most of them will also remain Gitmo detainees.

Why? Because no one wants them.

You see, once detainees are cleared of charges and whatnot, then the U.S.A. has the responsibility of transferring them to a terre d'acceuil (welcoming country) where they will not be tortured, mistreated or executed. This is in fact a matter of stated policy:

"Before it puts detainees on a plane, the U.S. must find a country to accept them. It also must obtain assurances the prisoners will be prevented from attacking the United States or its allies, and will not be tortured or face other treatment that violates international law."

Now, try to put aside the outrageously mendacious irony of these "righteous" proclamations for a moment, especially when considering what actually goes on at Gitmo or the Maher Arar affair (as one example among others), and allow me nonetheless the opportunity to illustrate to you as best as I can the real underlying reason why "no one wants them", thus condemning these fully, unquestionably innocent men to remain stuck in Gitmo.

Take the example of those 22 ethnic Uyghurs from China's Xinjiang region - Muslims one and all. They were transferred to U.S. custody by Pakistani bounty hunters after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, thereafter branded by the U.S. military as enemy combatants and consequently shipped to Gitmo. All the while, they maintained that they were en route to Iran and Turkey in order to seek refugee status in these Muslim countries - because Uyghurs are harshly persecuted in China. It was not until early 2005 that they were finally given a chance to defend themselves, whereby a (secret) military tribunal determined that they posed no threat to the U.S.A.

The problem came when U.S. officials sought to transfer them to another country - after all, they could not be sent back to China where they would be most certainly persecuted. Western countries were approached to grant these innocent men asylum, but all so approached refused - including Canada. Albania accepted to welcome five of the twenty-two back in 2006 - and those five are currently living in squalid conditions. The remaining 17 still languish to this day in Gitmo. There is no information available on whether the U.S. approached Turkey or (gasp!) Iran as well, two of the countries the detainees were seeking to reach initially, or whether the thought of doing so even crossed the obtuse minds of the officials involved in this apparently extraordinarily challenging repatriation process. Then again, perhaps these two countries have indeed been approached, but could not provide "satisfactory" assurances that "the prisoners will be prevented from attacking the United States or its allies".

(Oh-Hum)

Indeed - Heaven forbid that innocent Muslims be repatriated to welcoming Muslim countries - after all, virtually every single one of these countries is complicit in one way or another with radical Muslim terrorists, right? And forget about welcoming such people in the U.S.A. proper - if only as a small gesture of reparation for the horrific and brutal injustice perpetrated upon them - because, apparently, more Muslims are not wanted.

Another example of such utter injustice provides further evidence to support my suspicions that the whole "challenging" aspect of repatriating innocent Muslim Gitmo detainees lies primarily with intellectual sloth-driven fear, mistrust and/or outright bigotry: about ten days ago, Britain's new Prime Minister Gordon Brown asked for the transfer of five (innocent/cleared) Muslim British residents held at Gitmo, whereas his predecessor, Tony Blair, would not accept the detainees because they were not citizens proper.

Good on Prime Minister Brown, but bully on Tony Blair.

I also call bully on my own Canadian government for still mendaciously disassembling on the decision to take any of these poor, innocent men who have been ravaged by barbarity.

So, in short: Muslims come to be wrongly detained at Gitmo. Said Muslims are thereafter cleared of any charges and established as being of no threat to the U.S.A. Same said Muslims will not be granted asylum by Western countries (and U.S. allies), while Muslim countries are not likewise approached - apparently. End result: same said innocent Muslims remain incarcerated nevertheless.

Moral of the story: go to Gitmo and become a no land's man.

Oh, sure - innocent residents of Gitmo get to be moved to an "upgraded" part of the prison called Camp Iguana, where they live nine to a hut. They have a recreation room and a view of the Caribbean (oh, goody!). But they are still surrounded by barbed wire and are rarely able to communicate with their families. They still remain in utter limbo.

That. Is. Justice. For. You.

All in the sacro-sanct name of Security.

Doesn't it make you feel so proud and patriotic?

God bless America and God bless Canada, f***ing indeed.

But the ugly truth is that all of us are guilty for our silence and absence of outrage. All of us have been irremediably stained for such a sociopathic lack of basic human decency, empathy, compassion and contrition.

Period.

How's that working out for you?

(Update: 08/16/2007 - While writing this article, news came out that former Gitmo detainee/enemy combatant Jose Padilla has been found guilty-by-jury of terror charges in a Miami court. This clearly illustrates the merits and requirement of a judicial system which provides due process, justice and due punishment (if warranted) - as if we ever needed to be reminded of such a truism in the first place. The whole of my present article remains nonetheless.)

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So here we are, some one year later - and those poor, stranded souls remain at Gitmo ... still forgotten and faceless.

As I think of them, I also think of those dozens (hundreds?) who have been tortured over the years, thanks to the Bush administration's policy which has ever been supported - if not encouraged and staunchly defended - by pundits, lawyers, justices, politicians, warhawks, chickenhawks and all assorted fear- and hate-driven neocon enablers, supporters and apologists - including all those ostriches who would rather bury their heads in the sand rather than face the awful, ugly truth:

The U.S.A. has become a rogue state which practices indefinite detention and torture.

And who cares if some of those "evil Muslims" die in the process, right? After all, indefinite detentions, secret tribunals and enhanced interrogation techniques torture are valuable means and tools for the defense of freedom, liberty and democracy ...

Thus I ask again: how's that working out for you?

I humbly assume that I will be forgiven if I do not appreciate the "courageous" work done over the last seven years by the Bush administration and its cheerleading supporters - because from where I stand, they have spat upon and irreversibly sullied every precept of human dignity, of human respect, of Humanity, which used to be held as unassaillable and uncompromising, sacrosaint values.

And it doesn't matter however much they try to justify/legalize/spin their actions - for indeed, nothing justifies indefinite detention, secret tribunals and torture.

Nothing.

Period.

Every single one of these fear- and hate-driven incompetents have pushed us from the moral high ground of justice, freedom and human rights into the bottomless precipice of barbarous and savage injustice.

In other words - I have naught but utter contempt for those uncivilized, primitive non-human beings.

And that is how it has been working out for me.


Update (05/15/2008): From Raw Story ... read it and weep. Really. My contempt meter just blew up.


(Cross-posted at DKos and The Wild Wild Left)

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Peace Sells - But Who's Buying?

I hope I will be forviven for borrowing from Megadeth - but the question posed in this title essentially summarizes the last seven years which have followed the tragic day of 9/11.

The following likewise summarizes these same last seven years:

"Violence is the last refuge of incompetence" - The Sixth Principle of Incompetence.

I have felt much "sympathy" for President Bush when he declared that he wished he was standing alongside soldiers in Afghanistan and/or Iraq; I was especially "misty-eyed" when I heard that he keeps making great sacrifices for the Global War on Terror(TM), such as "feeling for the fallen soldiers' and putting aside golfing.

I have likewise felt much "empathy" for John McCain and Joe Lieberman, who keep beating the drums of war - increased troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as waging war aginst the evil Iranian Regime.

As a Canadian, my chest swelled with patriotic "pride" when Prime Minister Harper announced his vague plans to invest greatly in our military, if only because "if you want to be taken seriously in the world, you need the capacity to act".

And then ...

Then I remembered this:

"Ignorance breeds fear. Fear fosters hate. In turn, hate leads inevitably to violence (...) when will we acknowledge the fact, once and for all, that it is the incompetents among us who consistently promulgate violence as a solution for anything, to everything? (...) we must strive to forget nevermore that rationalizations supporting the use of violence - other than the need for the rightful exercise of self-defense when set upon by a genuinely clear, present and immediate danger - invariably constitute deceitful fabrications meant to conceal, disguise or justify incompetence ... including our very own for embracing such mendacity."

For indeed, we have much to atone for giving into fear following 9/11 - as this video illustrates:

Which, in turn, made me remember this:

"So - what exactly happened on the day after the fateful and tragic morning of 9/11?

We lost and the terrorists won.

Right there and then.

Whatever else has happened in the (seven) years which followed to this day merely constitutes the gradual and methodical enactment of the terms of our surrender.

No more, no less."

We have allowed bona fides incompetents to run our governments, to represent "us".

We have allowed ourselves to be enthralled by the fearmongering, the hatemongering and the cries for blind vengeance bellowed by false patriots, making us forget what true patriotism is and what it means.

Consequently, this is the price exacted from us when we entrust governance to incompetents:

And this is the price the incompetents that we've entrusted have exacted from "them":

All of this also reminded me of one of Ghandi's quotes:

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"

Along the way, we have forgotten what true leaders are all about:

"What is power?

We all know the saying: 'Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely'. However, how many among us actually realize that this adage is nothing more than an excuse for incompetence in wielding, or exercising, power?

For it is a fact that those individuals who are 'corrupted' by power are inevitably revealed at their core to be selfish, greedy, covetous, paranoid or fearful. Consequently, these use power expediently as a tool for the wasteful satisfaction of their every whim, want and need, or as a weapon to aim recklessly at their outwardly-projected inner demons.

In short: only incompetents abuse power.

Why is this so? Because, their petty minds are blind to the principle that factual power constitutes that which serves not only to better our own personal lives, but to improve those of others as well. We are indeed the keepers of our brothers, our sisters, our families, our relatives and our neighbors: this is a plain and simple verity, which also happens to define the very essence of Humanity.

It is not coincidence that incompetents invariably forget - or deny - such a fundamental truth."

Whether we like it or not, whether we accept it or not, this much remains true: all that blood is on our hands.

If only because we have met the enemy, and the enemy is ourselves.

We The People - this is what it has, and always has been, about. In a democracy, it is the electorate who holds all the keys and guard all the doors - provided that the citizens actually live up to their responsibility.

We are the ones who have broken the "contract between citizens and their government" because, in essence, we surrendered to fear, hate and desire for blind vengeance, all the while thinking that somehow our vigilance and implication had become optional with regards to our own governance.

My only remaining hope lies with the possibility that it is not too late, that we may yet veer off the road to perdition upon which we are fast riding on and take another, more enlightened, one.

After all, are our noble precepts of democracy, liberty, human rights and peace nothing but empty, boastful, self-gratifying and hypocritical shams?


(Cross-posted at The Peace Tree, DKos, The Wild Wild Left, and Progressive Historians)

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Bush administration Ignored Iraq Corruption

punditman:

Ex-State employees allege Bush Admininstration ignored corruption at senior levels in Iraq

ANNE FLAHERTY
AP News

May 12, 2008 20:04 EST

The Bush administration repeatedly ignored corruption at the highest levels within the Iraqi government and kept secret potentially embarrassing information so as not to undermine its relationship with Baghdad, according to two former State Department employees.

Arthur Brennan, who briefly served in Baghdad as head of the department's Office of Accountability and Transparency last year, and James Mattil, who worked as the chief of staff, told Senate Democrats on Monday that their office was understaffed and its warnings and recommendations ignored.

Brennan also alleges the State Department prevented a congressional aide visiting Baghdad from talking with staffers by insisting they were too busy. In reality, Brennan said, office members were watching movies at the embassy and on their computers. The staffers' workload had been cut dramatically because of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's "evisceration" of Iraq's top anti-corruption office, he said.

Full Article...

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Ratcheting Up For War on Iran

punditman:

Disturbing Stirrings - Ratcheting Up For War on Iran

by Stephen Lendman
Global Research, May 12, 2008

Led by Dick Cheney, Bush administration neocons want war on Iran. So does the Israeli Lobby, but it doesn't mean they'll get it. Powerful forces in Washington and the Pentagon are opposed and so far have prevailed. Nonetheless, worrisome recent events increase the possibility and must be closely watched.

Recall George Bush's January 10, 2007 address to the nation. He announced the 20,000 troop "surge" and more. "Succeeding in Iraq," he said, "also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing 'terrorists' and 'insurgents' to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt (those) attacks....we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."

That was then; this is now. On May 3, Andrew Cockburn wrote on CounterPunch: "Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret 'finding' authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, (is) 'unprecedented in its scope.' " The directive permits a range of actions across a broad area costing hundreds of millions with an initial $300 million for starters. Elements of the scheme include:

-- targeted assassinations;

-- funding Iranian opposition groups; among them - Mujahedin-e-Khalq that the State Department designates a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO); Jundullah, the "army of god militant Sunni group in Iranian Baluchistan; Iranian Kurdish nationalists; and Ahwazi arabs in southwest Iran;

-- destabilizing Syria and Hezbollah; the current Lebanon turbulence raises the stakes;

-- putting a hawkish commander in charge; more on that below; and

-- kicking off things at the earliest possible time.

These type efforts and others were initiated before and likely never stopped. So it remains to be seen what differences emerge this time and how much more intense they become.

More concerns were cited in a Michael Smith May 4 Times Online report headlined "United States is drawing up plans to strike on Iranian insurgency camp." It refers to a "surgical strike" against an "insurgent training camp." In spite of hostile signals, however, "the administration has put plans for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities on the back burner" after Gates replaced Rumsfeld. The article makes several other key points:

-- "American defense chiefs (meaning top generals and admirals) are firmly opposed to (attacking) Iranian nuclear facilities;"

-- on the other hand, they very much support hitting one or more "training camps (to) deliver a powerful message to Tehran;"

-- in contrast, UK officials downplay Iranian involvement in Iraq even though Tehran's Revolutionary Guard has close ties to al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army; and

-- Bush and Cheney are determined not to hand over "the Iran problem" to a successor.

Full Article...

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The Limits of Exposure

punditman says: I couldn't agree more with the following piece by Gary Leupp (who has been kind enough to grant full re-publication below). I would only add the following: While it is true that politicians, institutions and the "lamestream media" are all hopelessly tied into the pro-war power nexus, a US attack on Iran and all its ramifications--including, I would expect, stratospheric oil prices--may just be enough to wake up the American public. At least one can always hope for a silver lining amongst a stirred up citizenry...

Why All of Our Efforts Won't Stop an Attack on Iran
By GARY LEUPP

www.counterpunch.org

May 9. I read tonight a brief article by Philip Giraldi posted on the American Conservative website: “War with Iran Might Be Closer than You Think.”

“There is considerable speculation,” writes the former CIA officer, “and buzz in Washington today suggesting that the National Security Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an Iranian al-Qods [Revolutionary Guards]-run camp that is believed to be training Iraqi militants. The camp that will be targeted is one of several located near Tehran.”

Giraldi provides details. He reports that the meeting came as “the direct result” of Hizbollah advances in Lebanon in recent days. (Recall that the U.S. State Department lists the Shiite organization Hizbollah as “terrorist” and as a tool of both Iran and Baathist Syria. In fact it is probably the country’s largest and most popular political party and has built significant ties with some Christian and Sunni groups. Hizbollah’s rapid seizure of the Muslim sections of Beirut, accomplished with little resistance, may have been deliberately provoked by the U.S.-backed quasi-government of Lebanon when the latter shut down the party’s private communications network.)

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, according to Giraldi, was the only senior official present urging delay. That suggests that the military is not enthusiastic about a widened war in Southwest Asia, but that the other regular members of the NSC (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley as well as President Bush and Vice President Cheney) are willing to provoke just that.

They will do what they do with the solid backing of Congress, the presidential candidates, and the mainstream press which if history is our guide will for a time shape shockingly malleable public opinion. Yes, I fear that we (most of us) will be fooled again.

The Congress has passed near-unanimous resolutions against Iran, endorsing the administration’s unprecedented designation of a component of a nation’s military as a “terrorist organization.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be on board the program. Recall how after the Democratic victory two years ago she capitulated to AIPAC by stripping from a military spending bill the requirement that Bush seek Congressional approval before attacking Iran. (That was after she’d pointedly declared that Bush-Cheney impeachment hearings were “off the table.” And after Rep. John Conyers, head of the House Judiciary Committee and sometimes maverick, bitterly disappointed those pinning their hopes on him by going along with the Democratic leadership’s line. And after the Democrats had made it clear they weren’t serious about ending the war they’d been elected to end---showing us how very well the democratic system works in this country.)

John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton (all of whom agree that an attack on Iran is “on the table”) will publicly approve. The media will call upon the same “military analysts”/military industry consultants who have been disseminating Pentagon propaganda for pay since 2002 to explain why the attack is justified and necessary. The main talking-point has been decided: “Iran is killing American soldiers in Iraq.” Public opinion polls will show the public divided, but a majority in support of the action because, regardless of their feelings about the war in Iraq, they want to “support our troops” and after all, Iran was asking for it by interfering in Iraq and attacking us.

All the “exposure” that so many journalists and academics have tried to provide for years will have failed to prevent another illegal attack on a sovereign nation based on lies and bound to produce more outrage against the U.S. throughout the world. A cruise missile strike on an alleged training camp site won’t end there. It will be designed to provoke an Iranian response and legitimate further U.S. attacks, not only on Iran but Syria and Lebanon, probably in coordination with Israel. Some in Israel badly want the U.S. to behead all their main enemies in the region before their good friend George Bush leaves the White House. If that means regional chaos---clashes between Iranian and U.S. forces, the fall of the Maliki puppet regime in Baghdad (which actually is friendly with Tehran and says it’s playing a positive role in Iraq), the collapse of Shiite cooperation with the U.S. occupation, Iran-Iraq border clashes, U.S. forays into Iranian territory, the closing of ranks in fractious Iran against the imperialist assault on their country---so be it!

If it means renewed war in Lebanon including Israeli invasion, an Iranian shift from supporting U.S. puppet Karzai to Iran’s longtime enemy the Taliban in Afghanistan, active Syrian support for Sunni forces in Iraq, the disintegration of the fragile Sunni-“Coalition” alliance against al-Qaeda in western Iraq as the region descends into a Shiite-Sunni war---so be it! If it means the use of nuclear weapons against Iran to try to cow its leaders and people into accepting a U.S.-Israeli blueprint for the region---so be it! If it means the unthinkable in the U.S.—a return to the draft---so be it! All of this will at least have prevented the “nuclear holocaust” that the neocons, Cheney and Bush have been insisting the Iranians plan to inflict on the Jewish state unless they are stopped now. (No matter that all the U.S. intelligence agencies in their National Intelligence Estimate on Iran published late last year agreed that Iran does not now have a nuclear weapons program. And no matter that the Ahmadinejad quote about “wiping Israel off the map” has been exposed as a lie by Juan Cole and others.)

If Benjamin Netanyahu is Israeli prime minister at the time of the planned attack on Iran, a time of apocalyptic confusion might be the perfect opportunity to empty the West Bank of its Palestinians. This NSC agreement “in principle” to attack Iran is an agreement to risk all these ramifications, confident that the press and politicians will cooperate.

* * * * *

So often in recent months I’ve started to write a column exposing some recent lie (or at least some report pertaining to Iran or Syria that strikes me as obvious neocon-generated disinformation) only to give up midway through. Not because of writer’s block, fatigue, or even the thought that “Someone else has already written this, or someone like Alex Cockburn or Justin Raimondo or Scott Ritter or Gordon Prather will in the next day or so.” It’s more a matter of despairing at how much exposure can accomplish.

A friend of mine was saying last month, “People are ‘exposured’ out. They’re “Chomskyed” out.” He was speaking about young antiwar activists mainly, but his point was that people who know what’s going on are eager to act on the knowledge. To paraphrase Marx, the point is not to expose the world, or have it further exposed to you, but to change it.

The readership of sites like Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, and Antiwar.com know the main points. They know that Dick Cheney, the most powerful vice president in history (and the most secrecy-obsessed among powerful figures in U.S. history), has made his office the hub of a cabal of neocons hell-bent of effecting “regime change” throughout Southwest Asia by the end of Bush’s second term. They know that the Office of Special Plans fabricated “intelligence” to terrify the masses and gain support for the invasion of Iraq. They know that U.S. intelligence has actually concluded that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, and that the UN’s IAEA scientists have found no evidence for one. But they also know that Cheney insists that he knows there’s one, just as the neocons such as Norman Podhoretz and Michael Ledeen know there’s one. Just as top Israeli officials know there’s one as they demand U.S. action against Iran. They know there’s a huge anti-Iran propaganda campaign underway very similar to the one that preceded the lie campaign leading up to the Iraq War now in its disastrous sixth year. They know that the U.S. is funding terrorist groups to carry out attacks in Iran. They know that the administration’s allegations about a Syrian nuclear program are highly dubious.

They know that there are conflicts between the traditional intelligence community and the neocons, and that the latter draw upon a coherent (Straussian) philosophy that justifies the “noble lie” in order to induce the foolish masses to support what the “wise”---who must conceal their real objectives---want them to support. They distrust anything the administration says about Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan…

Yes, they’re “Chomskyed out.”

Maybe we need to shift the focus of exposure a bit. From the particular to the general. From nasty individuals to nasty institutions. From the symptoms to the system.

What’s worse? Cheney and his attorney David Addington crafting a document in November 2001, bypassing routine staff review before receiving Bush’s signature, which denied “foreign terrorist” suspects in the U.S. access to any courts and allowing for their indefinite detention? (This was exposed by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker in the Washington Post last summer.) Or the failure of the elected officials in Congress to even start impeachment proceedings against Cheney and Bush?

What’s worse? John Yoo writing up his torture memos in 2002 as a Justice Department employee, as eventually exposed in the mainstream press? Or the decision of the trustees of the University of California, Berkeley to hire him as a law professor in 2003?

What’s worse? Judith Miller’s willingness to funnel disinformation to the American people through her NYT articles before and after the Iraq invasion? Or the Time’s willingness to publish them, and now those of her sometimes co-author Michael Gordon, cheerleading the coming Iran attack?

The Congress, the Justice Department, academia, and the press are all complicit in imperialist war and attacks on the Constitution. Does this mean the system isn’t working, or that it’s working all too well?

Is the system supposed to expose itself, through congressional hearings, investigative reporting, war crimes trials? Or is it, serving the small minority it’s designed to serve, supposed to simply tolerate exposure (in the name of freedom of the press) while saturating citizens with propaganda? (If the exposure ever gets widely enough disseminated, and threatens to undermine its objectives, it can always “kill the messenger”---or at least accuse the writer of undermining national security, abetting terrorism, etc.)

Voting for “antiwar” Democrats two years ago didn’t end the war. Even millions in the streets, peacefully demonstrating as the system encourages, didn’t prevent the assault on Iraq over five years ago. Now there’s no feasible political recourse to stop an attack on Iran. And little time to mobilize mass demonstrations against it. It will come as a thief in the night, presented to the American people as a fait accompli. As the Bush-Cheney cowboys ride off into the sunset, smirkin’ and grinnin’ and slapping each other’s backs, the people will start to pay.

A character in Bertolt Brecht’s The Beggar’s Opera asks what’s worse---robbing a bank, or owning a bank? The system itself, that is to say, is the criminal product of wrongly acquired wealth, much of it obtained through imperialist war. Exposure alone, no matter how voluminous, eloquent and persuasive, will not change it.

* * * * *

Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades.
He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu

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Secrecy is a nasty virus that can lay low the body politic

by Lloyd Axworthy

Global Research,

theglobeandmail.com

Canada's former Minister of Foreign Affairs Speaks Out

There is a disturbing virus settling into Ottawa. Let's call it the Spreading Northern Security Plague, a variation of a virulent strain of illegal counterterrorism practices imported from the Bush White House. Its symptoms were first detected in the Maher Arar case, where a Canadian was sent off to be tortured in a Syrian jail. Only years later was an inquiry established, presided over by a courageous judge who blew the whistle on such nefarious practices by our security forces.

But by then, the disease had become embedded in the body politic of successive governments with all the signs of a well-established syndrome in which security trumps human rights, international covenants can be disregarded, commissions of inquiry can be secretive and dismissive of rule and procedure, and vital information on crucial issues such as the transfer of Afghan detainees is deliberately withheld.

And now, we learn of Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Sudanese Canadian who was imprisoned in Khartoum, allegedly at the request of CSIS, and who has been stranded in the country for nearly five years. That the Canadian government, knowing full well the egregious human-rights record of the Sudanese regime, would leave one of its citizens marooned in the Sudan, is inexplicable.

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punditman says:

As soon as the State has the right to apprehend you without charges or a fair trial, as soon as they can act in the name of "national security" without oversight or transparency, as soon as they can send you on a "rendition" flight, well, you have lost your freedom, buddy boy. And here's an elementary civics lesson: a violation to one is a violation to all. Too bad they don't teach this in Canadian schools, because we now see the result: where there should be outrage and solidarity, there is mostly silence.

Good for Mr. Axworthy for speaking up.

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APOV's Weekly Revue (05/11/2008)

If it's Sunday, then it is time for APOV's Weekly Revue!

As in the case of Afghanistan, Kathy @ Comments From Left Field concludes that the U.S. has come full circle in Iraq. Constitutionalist @ Idealthoughts offers his experiences as a decorated Vietnam vet to bring the point home that it is the "deciders" of the Iraq war which must be harassed and protested against, not the soldiers. In the meantime, war propaganda continues and what the traditional media did pre-Iraq war is being perpetrated again with regards to Iran, as discussed by Chris Floyd @ Empire Burlesque. As Cernig @ Newshoggers also puts it, this is war stenography at its very best worse. No wonder, then, that the humanitarian void in Iraq - as revealed by mattbastard @ bastard.logic - is essentially ignored by the traditional media.

Of course, the Bush administration and its entourage remain fully disconnected from reality through it all - the latest example being Laura Bush's empty-headed declaration that Myanmar is refusing help for the recent cyclone victims there, which prompted pretty shaved ape @ Canadian Cynic to reply "STFU, Laura Bush". As another example, Steven D @ Booman Tribune warns not to drink the water, thanks to a Bush administration incompetence-driven EPA. In between, John Chuckman @ Chuckman's Other Choice of Words debunks the self-gratifying, deluded propagandist myth that America is an inspiration to the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, back in Canada, the self-righteous hypocrisy of the Canadian G.O.P. franchise prompted BigCityLib @ BigCityLib Strikes Back to make a list of scandals of Stephen Harper's "accountable" government. Boris @ The Galloping Beaver further expands on this. In between, Impolitic @ Impolitical explains how free speech on Parliament Hill is being stiffled by the Harper government.

In further human affairs, Bobby Revell @ Revellian discusses how (and why) society rewards liars, while Kyle E. Moore @ Comments From Left Field exposes the roadblocks between science and religion. Of much interest, Prole @ A Creative Revolution offers the latest installment of an on-going series about right wing think tanks and the governments who love them.

Last, but not least, Jill @ Brilliant at Breakfast asks the prime existential question of bloggers: "Why on earth do we do this?".

Thus concludes APOV's Weekly Revue for May 11th, 2008.

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Quick One: Almost Getting It On Biofuels

I admit that this post deals with a very local matter (the town where I live), but this addresses nonetheless the bigger issue of biofuels.

From the CBC (emphasis added):

Sherbrooke says no to plant biofuels on ethical grounds

The city of Sherbrooke has decided against running its municipal fleet on plant-based biofuels, saying it's unethical to divert agricultural products from the food chain.

Employees spent a few weeks looking at fuels derived from corn, soy or canola as a way to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, said Coun. Jean-François Rouleau, who heads the Quebec city's sustainable development committee.

"I said, 'Listen, whoa, whoa, whoa! Agricultural [products] are for feeding people, not for feeding cars and trucks," he said.

Biofuels are partly to blame for today's global food shortage, Rouleau said, and he disagrees with taking potential food off people's plates in order to put it in fuel tanks.

"We want to work with something else that does not come out of the agricultural chain."

Earlier this week, Rouleau's committee released a report indicating that Sherbrooke's municipal buildings and activities generated about 43,800 tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in 2006 alone.

The city of about 150,000 people located about 100 kilometres east of Montreal burns thousands of litres of diesel and gasoline each year in its garbage and recycling trucks, police cars, and maintenance vehicles.

Coun. Rouleau shows that he, and the rest of Sherbrooke's city council, get it.

However, they still have ways to go, as the news report illustrates further (emphasis added):

Sherbrooke has not given up its search for a greener alternative for its vehicles, Rouleau said.

It is now looking into biofuels made from oils reclaimed from deep-frying machines, or from animal fats.

Putting aside the obvious that cooking oils and animals fats also "come out of the agricultural chain", what they don't get here is that biofuels - whether from crops or animal fats (or even "recycled frying pan oil") - will still result in significant man-made greenhouse gases emissions in addition to taxing actual food production by agriculture.

Also what they still "do not get" is that the answer has been in everyone's faces all along, and was actually "out there" for a short while in the mid-to-late-1990's.

Nevertheless, being half-way on "getting it" fully constitutes a marked improvement over not "getting it" all or, even worse, actually deniying that we keep on screwing up the global climate cycle.

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The Morality of the Stomach

Food Riots are Coming to the U.S.
www.counterpunch.org

By BINOY KAMPMARK

"I don’t want to alarm anybody, but maybe it’s time for Americans to start stockpiling food. No this is not a drill."

--Brett Arends

There is a time for food, and a time for ethical appraisals. This was the case even before Bertolt Brecht gave life to that expression in Die Driegroschen Oper. The time for a reasoned, coherent understanding for the growing food crisis is not just overdue, but seemingly past. Robert Zoellick of the World Bank, an organization often dedicated to flouting, rather than achieving its claimed goal of poverty reduction, stated the problem in Davos in January this year. ‘Hunger and malnutrition are the forgotten Millennium Development Goal.’

Global food prices have gone through the roof, terrifying the 3 billion or so people who live off less than $2 a day. This should terrify everybody else. In November, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization reported that food prices had suffered a 18 percent inflation in China, 13 percent in Indonesia and Pakistan, and 10 percent or more in Latin America, Russia and India. The devil in the detail is even more distressing: a doubling in the price of wheat, a twenty percent increase in the price of rice, an increase by half in maize prices.

Finger pointing is not always instructive. In this case, it may be. The US and various European countries are moving food crops into the bio-fuel business, itself an environmentally unsound business. This, in addition to encouraging developing countries to not merely ‘liberalize’ their agricultural sectors, but specialize in exporting specific cash crops (cotton, cocoa), has done wonders to precipitate the shortages. Consumption in developing economies, added to the vicissitudes of climate change, water availability, and rising fertilizer costs, are others.

Political stability is being undermined. Food shortages are proving endemic. Food riots are becoming common. Riots have been sparked in Cameroon, Egypt, Burkina Faso, Uzbekistan and Yemen. There have been riots over spiraling grain prices in Mauritania and Senegal. In Mexico City, mass protests were sparked by a price hike in tortillas. In Haiti, biscuits are being made from a mud compound. The Somali capital Mogadishu bore witness to the deaths of five people.

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punditman says...As the article points out, US Secretary of State Condi Rice, being a free-market fundamentalist fool, blames export caps from India and China. You see, in a radical move beyond her blinkered neo-con comprehension, these countries know that it may actually be important to feed their own populations first in times of crisis. This makes sense for any self-preserving government; a hungry population can become a very angry population, very quickly. She'd be wise to abide by this maxim (although I'm all but convinced that the Bush administration has sent the United States on several simultaneous suicide missions--wrecking the economy being just one of many).

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Media Disinformation: Iran's Link to Iraqi Insurgents

punditman:

New York Times vs McClatchy by Greg Mitchell

Global Research, May 6, 2008

Editor and Publisher - 2008-05-05

Michael Gordon, the military writer for The New York Times who contributed several false stories about Iraqi WMD in the runup to the U.S. attack on Iraq in 2002, has written several articles in the past year about Iran’s alleged training of Iraqi insurgents -- or supplying them with weapons to kill Americans. He produced another major report on this subject for today’s Times – based solely on unnamed sources -- which is at odds with an account from McClatchy’s Baghdad bureau.

Gordon asserts that “Militants from the Lebanese group Hezbollah have been training Iraqi militia fighters at a camp near Tehran…An American official said the account of Hezbollah’s role was provided by four Shiite militia members who were captured in Iraq late last year and questioned separately.

“The United States has long charged that the Iranians were training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran, which Iran has consistently denied, and there have been previous reports about Hezbollah operatives in Iraq.

“But the Americans say the reports of Hezbollah’s role at the Iranian camp offer important details about Iranian assistance to the militias, including efforts Iran appears to be making to train the fighters in unobtrusive ways.”

But McClatchy has a quite different take.

Leila Fadel, the bureau chief, and Shashank Bengali report: “The Iraqi Government seemed to distance itself from U.S. accusations towards Iran Sunday saying it would not be forced into conflict with its Shiite neighbor. And Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki ordered the formation of a committee to look into foreign intervention in Iraq.

“As the government appeared to back down from its hardening stance against Iran, four marines were killed in Anbar in the deadliest attack in the Sunni province in months.

"The government spokesman, Ali al Dabbagh, told reporters Sunday that a committee was formed to find ‘tangible information’ about foreign intervention, specifically Iran's role in Iraq rather than ‘information based on speculation.’

"’We don't want to be pushed into any conflict with any neighboring countries, especially Iran. What happened before is enough. We paid a lot,’ Dabbagh said, referring to the eight years war between the two nations in which an estimated 1 million people died.”

Also today from Agence France-Press: “Iraq said on Sunday it has no evidence that Iran was supplying militias engaged in fierce street fighting with security forces in Baghdad.

“Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said there was no 'hard evidence' of involvement by the neighbouring Shiite government of Iran in backing Shiite militiamen in the embattled country. Asked about reports that weapons captured from Shiite fighters bore 2008 markings suggesting Iranian involvement, Dabbagh said: ‘We don't have that kind of evidence... If there is hard evidence we will defend the country.’"

Here is a list of Gordon’s sources in his Times article:

-- “An American official”

-- “But the Americans say”

-- “American officials”

-- “American officials”

-- “The Americans “

--“American officials”

--“An American official”

-- ditto, and so on

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Afghanistan: All For Absolutely Nothing

It is now official: every single justification behind the Afghanistan War and its seeming never ending occupation have been disavowed - by the very politicos that have been not only responsible for the lauching and conduct of this war, but likewise by those who have been staunchly supporting this conflict.

In other words: the Afghanistan war was absolutely for nothing.

Let us re-visit the main justifications/objectives for the Afghanistan war, which began in October 2001:

1) Defeat the Taliban;
2) Defeat al-Qaeda;
3) Bring freedom and democracy to Afghanistan.

Over the span of seven years since this war began, major combat operations have kept on going and going in Afghanistan - despite the proclamation in May 2002 that major combat operations were over and in the face of repeated claims that this war has been a big success.

Defeat the Taliban? Whether fueled by drug trade or corrupted misappropriations of U.S.A. funds to Pakistan (!), the Taliban insurgency shows no signs of wavering - not only in the South of Afghanistan where it has been most active but slowly spreading to the North of the country as well - all the while profiting from Pakistan's ineptitude (or incompetence, or fear?) to deal with them on their own side of the border. Just recently, Pakistan released a senior Taliban leader on his pledge to cease attacks in Pakistan - proving once again that Pakistan looks out for itself first and foremost, despite being a much touted "ally against terrorism". In the meantime, there have been repeated calls to negociate with the Taliban, going as far as to promise them a significant presence in the Afghanistan government - with the tacit approval of the U.S.A., Canada (for which the Afghanistan war has pretty much become its war) and other N.A.T.O. allies. Why, even after a much publicized recent attack by the Taliban on Afghani officials and foreign dignitaries (of which the Afghani government had been warned about), Afghani President Hamid Karzai went as far as to demand that N.A.T.O. "leave the Taliban alone" in order to stop "undermining negociations" with them! And guess what? N.A.T.O. forces are apparently following suit by putting the word out to Taliban fighters that they want to talk!

"If we don't succeed in Afghanistan, the Taliban will return" indeed. Interestingly, many Afghanis are not unhappy to see the Taliban returning!

Yes siree, the Taliban has lost - definitely.

(To learn more about the Taliban and "how much" they know about us and hate our freedoms and whatnot, I strongly suggest that you to read/watch the series Talking to the Taliban, via Red Tory: part I, II, III, IV, V, VI and VII - but I disgress).

Defeat al-Qaeda? Osama bin Laden got away and is still in hiding, along with most of the al-Qaeda leadership, quite alive and well - thank you very much. In the meantime, Pakistan is once again of little help here - not only are bin Laden and al-Qaeda hiding in Pakistan, Pakistan freed suspected al-Qaeda members in 2006, whereas al-Qaeda funding keeps going through Pakistan. At one point, Pakistan even "lost" the trail of bin Laden - and recently, Pakistani President Musharraf declared that Pakistan was "not particularly looking" for him. All well and good, considering that al-Qaeda presumably assassinated opposition leader and staunch al-Qaeda opponent Benazir Bhutto, while continuing to cause much chaos in Pakistan alongside Taliban fighters. And through it all, the now-infamous "on and off" hunt for bin Laden by the U.S.A., Canada and other N.A.T.O. allies still goes on (or not) ... in Afghanistan! No wonder such a wild goose chase will be a very long one ...

Meanwhile, al-Qaeda keeps fighting alongside the Taliban in the continuing insurgency in Afghanistan, and is poised to launch more terrorist attacks around the world ... from Pakistan. That, in addition to the fact that al-Qaeda continues to be a source of inspiration for would-be extremists - especially in Iraq.

Yes siree, al-Qaeda is on the run - definitely.

Bring freedom and democracy to Afghanistan? Yes, there have been some positive steps towards democracy in Afghanistan - but such gains are far from being faits accomplis. Rampant corruption and the booming drug trafficking (and the Drug Lords behind it) are but two of the prevailing problems which keep undermining said gains. The biggest problem of them all lies with the remaining powerful, brutish Warlords. Although having been elected in 2004, President Karzai holds power in Kabul only ... with the consent of said Warlords who hold power practically everywhere else in the country, thanks to more short-sighted, expedient incompetence on the part of the Bush administration. It doesn't help either when one of the Warlords declares allegiance to Osama bin Laden. And Karzai's government remains hardly stable, thanks to the ongoing insurgency. Last, but not least, what of the Afghani women? Little has changed since 2001 and things are in fact worsening in this respect, while laws are slowly but surely returning to the "old style" Taliban ones. On a related note, freedom of the press is not that free just yet and is likewise worsening - all of this thanks to seven years after Afghanistan's liberation from the "Taliban Regime".

Yes siree, the Afghanis have freedom and democracy - definitely.

So all in all, after looking closely at the main justifications/objectives for the war in Afghanistan and how "successfully" they have been achieved, it is safe to conclude that for all the boasts from the Bush administration, as well as those coming from Canada's Harper government (and from the British, and the Australians, and the French, and so on and so forth), soldiers and civilians have been dying in Afghanistan over the last seven years for absolutely nothing.

But we know all too well why we've arrived to this point, which is more or less right back where the Afghanistan war began on all accounts, despite all the empty rhetoric of touting all the progress achieved "over there": botched pre-war planning, botched post-war planning and the disastrous diversion of the Iraq war.

This war is indeed a veritable catalogue of errors.

No wonder Afghanistan is a quagmire. No wonder it's damn hard work. No wonder the situation is grim. No wonder the Afghanistan "mission" is in trouble, if not actually in crisis. No wonder Afghanistan has been assessed as a 30-years long marathon "mission" while we keep running in circles.

For indeed, each one of the prime justifications/objectives for the Afghanistan war have now been either completely disavowed ("defeat the taliban"), more or less abandoned ("defeat al-Qaeda"), or outrightly dismissed/ignored ("bring freedom and democracy"), by the very same people who have been pushing and supporting said justifications and this war.

In essence, the core-reasons for going into Afghanistan are being put aside in lieu of political salvage operations of appearances - with the price continuing to be exacted with the lives of N.A.T.O. soldiers and Afghan civilians in the meantime.

To put it in other words: people and soldiers have been dying over the last seven years for nothing more than what in the end has amounted to a needless and ludicrous political exercize on the part of incompetent "deciders" as their response to 9/11.

The idea of military intervention as the crux of the strategy behind the Global War on Terror(TM) was wrong-headed to begin with and has proven itself to be wrong-headed ever since - if only because one does not wage war on a method/technique of fighting. In this respect, it is now safe to say that the Global War on Terror(TM) has been a colossal failure so far, in addition to fostering more terrorism and extremism than prior to its implementation.

And Afghanistan will forever constitute grave testimony to that effect.

Hip, hip, hooray.


(Cross-posted at DKos, Progressive Historians, and The Wild Wild Left)

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Punditman's Musical Interlude: Rush: The Larger Bowl

If we're so much the same like I always hear
Why such different fortunes and fates?
Some of us live in a cloud of fear
Some live behind iron gates

Why such different fortunes and fates?
Some are blessed and some are cursed
Some live behind iron gates
While others only see only the worst

Some are blessed and some are cursed
The golden one or scarred from birth
While others only see the worst
Such a lot of pain on the earth

The golden one or scarred from birth
Some things can never be changed
Such a lot of pain on this earth
It's somehow so badly arranged

Some things can never be changed
Some reasons will never come clear
It's somehow so badly arranged
If we're so much the same like I always hear

Some are blessed and some are cursed
The golden one or scarred from birth
While others only see the worst
Such a lot of pain on the earth

Some are blessed and some are cursed
The golden one or scarred from birth
While others only see the worst
Such a lot of pain on the earth
Such a lot of pain on the earth

Some are blessed and some are cursed
The golden one or scarred from birth
While others only see the worst
Such a lot of pain on the earth

Some are blessed and some are cursed
The golden one or scarred from birth
While others only see the worst
Such a lot of pain on the earth

Such a lot of pain
Such a lot of pain
Such a lot of pain on the earth

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Welcome To The Security State Of North America

The free sharing of intelligence databases between American security agencies and Canadian ones paves the way for full, unrestrained and potentially abusive domestic spying-by-proxy on both sides of the border. Why? Because Americans can spy on Canadians without warrants and Canadians can spy on Americans without warrants, being allowed to store their data into databases ... which are in turn freely shared between American and Canadian security agencies.

That's North American integration for you.

Some nine months ago, I asked the following questions:

Considering A) the propensity of the current Canadian (neocon) government to not only follow in the footsteps of the Bush administration, but to actually emulate it; B) the clearly established propensity of the Bush administration to spy and monitor (illegally or not) and, as in many other things, lie and lie about it, then ask for more; C) the demonstrated stance of the Bush administration to demand full information-sharing from Canada and yet arrogantly refusing to disclose all its knowledge (if it really has any) concerning Maher Arar in support of its decision to keep him on the terrorist watch list; D) the demonstrated propensity of the RCMP and CSIS to unquestioningly share data with the FBI and the CIA; E) the still remaining lack of oversight of the RCMP and CSIS; F) the fact that the Canadian Security Establishment (CSE) — the functional equivalent of the NSA — may be authorized once again to perform the same kind of domestic spying in Canada as in the U.S.A., as it was authorized before; and G) the now-apparent primacy of the Third-Party Rule in Canada;

I) To which extent is the privacy of Canadian citizens being illegally invaded, through indiscriminate sharing of private information and data, for the benefit of the FBI and CIA - in clear violation of our privacy of information laws?

II) To which extent Canadian citizens are being illegally spied and monitored, either by the RCMP, CSIS, the CSE, the FBI, the CIA or the NSA, in clear violation of our constitutional rights?

These questions stemmed from an earlier one I asked here:

Considering the propensity of Harper and his Harpies in mimicking and integrating with the Bushies, and considering how said Bushies have no qualms about illegal surveillance operations on their own citizens, I find myself asking this dreadful question: to what extent has the Harper government been allowing similar illegal electronic surveillance on Canadians (presumably by the RCMP and CSIS), and to what extent is such data shared with the U.S.A.?

It is a given fact that governmental security agencies are not seekers of truth, but seekers of guilt. Whenever they are given any powers to spy on their own citizens, they will do so - for reasons frivolous, paranoid or (apparently very rarely as demonstrated so far) actually justified.

Remember this instance, whereby anti-war, environmental, gay rights and animal rights advocacy groups were put on a terrorist watch list by the Alabama Department of Homeland Security, because these were automatically assumed suspect to include terrorists?

Or the numerous instances of American peaceful, grass roots anti-war advocacy groups being infiltrated by agents of law enforcement (local sheriff departments, local city police, Military Intelligence, or FBI) to spy/report on them (if not actually trying to goad them into performing "direct action" protests)?

Such things are now par for the course in America, these days.

It is no small wonder, then, that the U.S. no-fly list is an ever growing, bloating database containing more than 900000 names (!).

Just think for a moment about that number and the absurdity of it.

For yes indeed - the U.S. watch list is now nearing one million "suspected terrorists" - like this nefarious thug, or this shifty bastard, or this evil mastermind, or this sonsofbitch, or this anti-American, or this terrorist sympathizer, or this definite islamofascist, or this scar of evil, or all others of their evildoing kind (I could go on and on and on with more examples).

That is not taking into account the National Security Letters (NSLs) abuses, gratuitous wide-net data mining of personal information programs, illegal warrantless surveillance activities, and so on and so forth.

Anything and nothing can - and will - be held against you.

Because in the mindset of governmental security agencies, everyone is suspect, everyone is guilty. Period.

Aided and abetted by the secretive and authoritarian Bush administration, the U.S. agencies have had free reign in letting loose their rampant paranoia, seeing enemies domestic in every public library, gathering and expression of dissent - whether in real life or online.

And as things are going in the U.S., so they are coming to in Canada - slowly but surely.

A few cases in point:

Canada has its own no-fly list, which is shared with the U.S. (and the U.S. shares its own with Canada) - more "efficiency" in snaring "suspected terrorists", I am sure;

The Canadian military is keeping tabs on peace advocacy groups;

CSIS has been monitoring Olympics protesters (and definitely other kinds of advocacy groups), all the while doing everything it can to escape public scrutiny and accountability;

The RCMP has been keeping secret files on Canadians in a highly secretive database meant for criminal intelligence information - in fact, more than 60% of the data stored therein is related to innocent Canadians;

The RCMP has also been keeping files on Canadians in a highly secretive database meant for national security investigations - in fact, more than half of the data therein was found "inappropriate" (i.e. relating to innocent Canadians);

One year ago, the Harper government announced that it was planning to institute extraordinary anti-terror police powers of "investigative hearings" and "preventive arrests" as part of a series of major security initiatives, including beefing the powers of CSIS - then the matter disappeared completely from public view and consciousness, as I am left to wonder: "what's been happening since then? What has been implemented outside of proper legislation, if anything?"

Some eight months ago, it was revealed that the Harper Government was conducting "behind closed doors" discussions in order to create legislation that would force telecommunications providers to cough up personal information about their clients to authorities, without the need for court ordered warrants - the revelation forced the hand of the Harper government to open said discussions to the public. Since then? I keep hearing crickets chirping through the overwhelming silence on this matter;

The Harper government has unilateraly and quietly clamped down on a free database of all the requests it is answering under the Access to Information Act, using a most duplicitous excuse after being found out.

Stephen Harper - the Canadian Nixon indeed and an authoritarian definitely bent on secrecy and lack of transparency, although I still call him Mini Leader for his persistent emulation of Bush's tactics, policies and neoconservatism.

Which brings me back to my questions posed at the begining of this post.

While I am not one bent on conspiracy theories, I do find myself wondering in alarm at some facts which, when put together, paint a very bleak and disheartening picture:

1) As FISA currently stands, U.S. security agencies can monitor phone calls, emails and whatnot outside of the U.S. without the need of warrants - this of course, includes Canada;

2) Similarly, current Canadian laws do not require that Canadian security agencies obtain court approved warrants in order to monitor phone calls, emails and whatnot outside of Canada - which includes, of course, the U.S.;

3) If anything, the Maher Arar affair has shown to which extent American and Canadian security agencies have been freely sharing information compiled into databases for quite some time now;

and 4) the Security and Prosperity Partneship of North America (SPPNA) aims at full integration/cooperation of security measures, police activities, anti-terrorism policies, and even use of armed forces domestically - including, of course, the complete sharing of intelligence databases, such as no fly lists, private citizen files, private citizen informations, etc. And by the way: the establishment of the SPPNA keeps on advancing slowly but surely ...

Taking all of this together, along with the demonstrated propensity of governmental security agencies (both American and Canadian ones) to use indiscriminate, wide-net data gathering/compiling approaches, I guess I now have the answers to my questions above.

American security agencies are most likely spying on Canadians.

But at the same time, Canadian security agencies are most likely spying on Americans.

All of which means that, thanks to the free sharing of intelligence databases, American security agencies are spying-by-proxy on Americans, whereas Canadian security agencies are spying-by-proxy on Canadians.

And its all legal, since the sharing of intelligence databases circumvents law requirements currently imposed on American and Canadian security agencies with regards to domestic spying in their respective countries.

Just do the math, as I just did.

Now think about American databases containing files of private information on Canadian citizens and Canadian databases containing files of private information on American citizens - each in the end legally accessible by both American and Canadian security agencies.

And that is not taking into account that such free sharing between American and Canadian databases allows, if not encourages, the dumping/shuffling of illegally obtained information between the databases, thus bypassing appearances of (or de facto) improprieties.

So - welcome to the Security State of North America, my friends.

Food for thought, eh?


(Cross-posted at DKos and The Wild Wild Left)

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APOV's Weekly Revue (05/04/2008)

If it's Sunday, then it is time again for APOV's Weekly Revue.

On the growing food price/shortage crisis, Steven D @ Booman Tribune talks about Food Wars, coming soon near you, while Ken Anderson @ Shockfront explains how food has become the new new Wall Street Bubble.

On the worsening environment and Global Climate Change issue, Richard Littlemore @ DesmogBlog exposes the shifty denialist Heartland Institute's tactics in artificially/falsely inflating the number of scientists who doubt Global Warming. Meanwhile, liberalamerican @ The Wild Wild Left talks about the SUV dinosaurs and Jet Netwal @ Bring It On! announces that the Party's Over for gas guzzlers. In between, Tom Harper @ Who Hijacked Our Country sarcastically offers THE solution for How To Solve The Energy Crisis.

On the warwaging and mongering front, Meteor Blades @ Daily Kos thinks of those soldiers who died in April as month 61 since Mission Accomplished begins, whereas Jeff Huber @ The Wild Wild Left explains how the U.S. is losing Vietnam all over again, while also wondering when Iran started beating its wife again.

Last, but not least, Bobby Revell @ Revellian reminds us how inappropriately invasive employers have become in screening potential employees - all in the sacrosaint name of Security.

Thus concludes APOV's Weekly Revue for May 4th, 2008.

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APOV: Progressive Patriot Award

Back in March 2008, Politics Plus introduced the Progressive Patriot Award:

"(...) the Progressive Patriot Award (is) to honor bloggers with the courage to stand up and oppose those in power when they abuse that power to the detriment of the people and fight for progressive ideals, such as human rights, tolerance, non-aggression, freedom and equity."

Just today, Politics Plus bestowed such a Progressive Patriot Award to APOV - the second Canadian blog to receive such an honor!

But with awards come responsibilities:

"If you receive this award from me (TomCat) or another blogger, please do the following to accept it. Display the award graphic of your choice (or both) proudly in your sidebar. Copy this paragraph (more, if you wish) into a post on your blog. In that post, pass the award on to a minimum of three and a maximum of five deserving bloggers. If you receive the award from another blogger, reply to this message HERE with a comment including the name and URL of your blog and the identity and date of the blogger who awarded it to you. I will then add you to a special blogroll of Progressive Patriots here (at Politics Plus).

On occasion, every one to three months, I will also choose other bloggers to honor in this manner, as I do not expect to receive it, being the originator."

Henceforth, here are five blogs which are definitely deserving of a Progressive Patriot Award (very much more so than APOV, I might add); in no particular order:

Shockfront - One of the best of the best of the progressive blogosphere, as far as I am concerned.

The Galloping Beaver - The folks there speak truth to power day in and day out, whether said power be Canadian, American or otherwise.

Les Enragés/Unruly Mob - Great place to be and to read in-depth, hard hitting progressive opinions.

Who Hijacked Our Country - Tom Harper is always straight to the point and his posts are simply excellent.

Newshoggers - Cernig and the rest of the gang there deliver great analysis and opinion pieces - day in and day out.

So, there you have it. Give these blogs a round of applause - and a read! There are so many other blogs (especially Canadian ones) that I feel really deserve such an award - but since I am restricted to a maximum of five ... oh well.

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