Impotents Say The Darnest Things

Isn't it coincidence that those "men" out there who are actually frustrated, impotent morrons always seem to be the most vocal (if not abusive) control freaks there is - especially with regards to women?

And isn't it coincidence that such "men" (and I use the term loosely here) almost invariably belong to some fundamental religious organization or cult?

Case in point:

One reason that men abuse their wives is because women rebel against their husband's God-given authority, a Southern Baptist scholar said Sunday in a Texas church.

Bruce Ware, professor of Christian theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said women desire to have their own way instead of submitting to their husbands because of sin.

"And husbands on their parts, because they're sinners, now respond to that threat to their authority either by being abusive, which is of course one of the ways men can respond when their authority is challenged--or, more commonly, to become passive, acquiescent, and simply not asserting the leadership they ought to as men in their homes and in churches," Ware said from the pulpit of Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas.

Commenting on selected passages from the first three chapters of Genesis, Ware said Eve's curse in the Garden of Eden meant "her desire will be to have her way" instead of her obeying her husband, "because she's a sinner."

What that means to the man, Ware said, is: "He will have to rule, and because he's a sinner, this can happen in one of two ways. It can happen either through ruling that is abusive and oppressive--and of course we all know the horrors of that and the ugliness of that--but here's the other way in which he can respond when his authority is threatened. He can acquiesce. He can become passive. He can give up any responsibility that he thought he had to the leader in the relationship and just say 'OK dear,' 'Whatever you say dear,' 'Fine dear' and become a passive husband, because of sin."

Ware said God created men and women equally in God's image but for different roles.

"He has primary responsibility for the work and the labor and the toil that will provide for the family, that will sustain their family," he said. "He's the one in charge of leadership in the family, and that will become difficult, because of sin."

Now, what do you think this "manly man" really needs?

Heh.

You thought it - not me.

(h/t)

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All The Courtiers Of The Corridors Of Power

Sort of a follow up on this previous post, the following article examines the corridors of power (les couloirs du pouvoir) and all of its actors - or rather, courtiers - and their incompetent, selfish quest to either gain power or simply stand close enough to it.

And for my fellow Canadians: simply replace "Washington" with "Ottawa", "Americans" with "Canadians", and so on ...

The cancer on the body democratic just keeps on spreading, doesn't it?

**********

The Hedonists of Power
By Chris Hedges

Washington has become Versailles. We are ruled, entertained and informed by courtiers. The popular media are courtiers. The Democrats, like the Republicans, are courtiers. Our pundits and experts are courtiers. We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power. It is smoke and mirrors, tricks and con games. We are being had.

The past week was a good one if you were a courtier. We were instructed by the high priests on television over the past few days to mourn a Sunday morning talk show host, who made $5 million a year and who gave a platform to the powerful and the famous so they could spin, equivocate and lie to the nation. We were repeatedly told by these television courtiers, people like Tom Brokaw and Wolf Blitzer, that this talk show host was one of our nation’s greatest journalists, as if sitting in a studio, putting on makeup and chatting with Dick Cheney or George W. Bush have much to do with journalism.

No journalist makes $5 million a year. No journalist has a comfortable, cozy relationship with the powerful. No journalist believes that acting as a conduit, or a stenographer, for the powerful is a primary part of his or her calling. Those in power fear and dislike real journalists. Ask Seymour Hersh and Amy Goodman how often Bush or Cheney has invited them to dinner at the White House or offered them an interview.

All governments lie, as I.F. Stone pointed out, and it is the job of the journalist to do the hard, tedious reporting to shine a light on these lies. It is the job of courtiers, those on television playing the role of journalists, to feed off the scraps tossed to them by the powerful and never question the system. In the slang of the profession, these television courtiers are “throats.” These courtiers, including the late Tim Russert, never gave a voice to credible critics in the buildup to the war against Iraq. They were too busy playing their roles as red-blooded American patriots. They never fought back in their public forums against the steady erosion of our civil liberties and the trashing of our Constitution. These courtiers blindly accept the administration’s current propaganda to justify an attack on Iran. They parrot this propaganda. They dare not defy the corporate state. The corporations that employ them make them famous and rich. It is their Faustian pact. No class of courtiers, from the eunuchs behind Manchus in the 19th century to the Baghdad caliphs of the Abbasid caliphate, has ever transformed itself into a responsible elite. Courtiers are hedonists of power.

Our Versailles was busy this past week. The Democrats passed the FISA bill, which provides immunity for the telecoms that cooperated with the National Security Agency’s illegal surveillance over the past six years. This bill, which when signed means we will never know the extent of the Bush White House’s violation of our civil liberties, is expected to be adopted by the Senate. Barack Obama has promised to sign it in the name of national security. The bill gives the U.S. government a license to eavesdrop on our phone calls and e-mails. It demolishes our right to privacy. It endangers the work of journalists, human rights workers, crusading lawyers and whistle-blowers who attempt to expose abuses the government seeks to hide. These private communications can be stored indefinitely and disseminated, not just to the U.S. government but to other governments as well.

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False Experts On Parade

Remember the infamous Pentagon-linked experts who shilled for the Iraq war? Well, here's one more warning to ever remain skeptical of those so-called "experts" being paraded by governments and the media to sell fearmongering about "mushroom clouds", cooked intelligence and weapons of mass destruction and, consequently, stir up a frenzied support for war.

The Nuclear Expert Who Never Was
By Scott Ritter

I am a former U.N. weapons inspector. I started my work with the United Nations in September 1991, and between that date and my resignation in August 1998 I participated in over 30 inspections, 14 as chief inspector. The United Nations Special Commission, or UNSCOM, was the organization mandated by the Security Council with the implementation of its resolutions requiring Iraq to be disarmed of its weapons-of-mass-destruction capabilities. While UNSCOM oversaw the areas of chemical and biological weapons, and ballistic missiles, it shared the nuclear file with the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA. As such, UNSCOM, through a small cell of nuclear experts on loan from the various national weapons laboratories, would coordinate with the nuclear safeguards inspectors from the IAEA, organized into an “Action Team” dedicated to the Iraq nuclear disarmament problem. UNSCOM maintained political control of the process, insofar as its executive chairman was the only one authorized to approve a given inspection mission. At first, the IAEA and UNSCOM shared the technical oversight of the inspection process, but soon this was transferred completely to the IAEA’s Action Team, and UNSCOM’s nuclear staff assumed more of an advisory and liaison function.

In August 1992 I began cooperating closely with IAEA’s Action Team, traveling to Vienna, where the IAEA maintained its headquarters. The IAEA had in its possession a huge cache of documents seized from Iraq during a series of inspections in the summer of 1991, and together with other U.N. inspectors I was able to gain access to these documents for the purpose of extracting any information which might relate to UNSCOM’s non-nuclear mission. These documents proved to be very valuable in that regard, and a strong working relationship was developed. Over the coming years I frequently traveled to Vienna, where I came to know the members of the IAEA Action Team as friends and dedicated professionals. Whether poring over documents, examining bits and pieces of equipment (the IAEA kept a sample of an Iraqi nuclear centrifuge in its office) or ruminating about the difficult political situation that was Iraq over wine and cheese on a Friday afternoon, I became familiar with the core team of experts that composed the IAEA Action Team.

I bring up this history because during the entire time of my intense, somewhat intimate cooperation with the IAEA Action Team, one name that never entered into the mix was David Albright. Albright is the president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS, an institute which he himself founded), and has for some time now dominated the news as the “go-to” guy for the U.S. mainstream media when they need “expert opinion” on news pertaining to nuclear issues. Most recently, Albright could be seen commenting on a report he authored, released by ISIS on June 16, in which he comments on the alleged existence of a computer owned by Swiss-based businessmen who were involved in the A.Q. Khan nuclear black market ring. According to Albright, this computer contained sensitive design drawings of a small, sophisticated nuclear warhead which, he speculates, could fit on a missile delivery system such as that possessed by Iran.

I have no objection to an academically based think tank capable of producing sound analysis about the myriad nuclear-based threats the world faces today. But David Albright has a track record of making half-baked analyses derived from questionable sources seem mainstream. He breathes false legitimacy into these factually challenged stories by cloaking himself in a résumé which is disingenuous in the extreme. Eventually, one must begin to question the motives of Albright and ISIS. No self-respecting think tank would allow itself to be used in such an egregious manner. The fact that ISIS is a creation of Albright himself, and as such operates as a mirror image of its founder and president, only underscores the concerns raised when an individual lacking in any demonstrable foundation of expertise has installed himself into the mainstream media in a manner which corrupts the public discourse and debate by propagating factually incorrect, illogical and misleading information.

In his résumé Albright prominently advertises himself as a “former U.N. weapons inspector.” Indeed, this is the first thing that is mentioned when he describes himself to the public. Witness an Op-Ed piece in The Washington Post which he jointly authored with Jacqueline Shire in January 2008, wherein he is described as such: “David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector, is president of the Institute for Science and International Security.” His erstwhile U.N. credentials appear before his actual job title. Now, this is not uncommon. I do the same thing when describing myself, noting that Scott Ritter was a former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. I feel comfortable doing this, because it’s true and because my résumé is relevant to my writing. In his official ISIS biography, Albright details his “U.N. inspector” experience as such: “Albright cooperated actively with the IAEA Action Team from 1992 until 1997, focusing on analyses of Iraqi documents and past procurement activities. In June 1996, he was the first non-governmental inspector of the Iraqi nuclear program. On this inspection mission, Albright questioned members of Iraq’s former uranium enrichment programs about their statements in Iraq’s draft Full, Final, and Complete Declaration.”

Now, as I have explained previously, I cooperated actively between 1992 and 1998 with the IAEA Action team, covering the same ground that David Albright claims to have. I do not doubt his assertion that he was in contact with the IAEA during the period claimed; I just doubt the use of the word actively to describe this cooperation. Maybe Albright was part of a top-secret “shadow” inspection activity which I was unaware of. I strongly doubt this. In 1992, when Albright states he began his “active cooperation” with the IAEA, he was serving as a “Senior Staff Scientist” with the Federation of American Scientists. That same year Albright, in collaboration with Frans Berkhout of Sussex University and William Walker of the University of St. Andrews, published “World Inventory of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium,” 1992 (SIPRI and Oxford University Press). From March 1991 until July 1992 Albright, together with Mark Hibbs, wrote a series of seven articles on the Iraqi nuclear weapons programs for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The final three articles of this series, entitled “Iraq’s Bomb: Blueprints and Artifacts,” “Iraq: It’s all over at Al Atheer” and “Iraq’s shop-till-you-drop nuclear program,” were in part based upon information provided to Albright and Hibbs by the IAEA in response to questions posed by the two authors. So far as I can tell, this is the true nature of David Albright’s “active cooperation.” Far from being a subject-matter expert brought in by the IAEA to review Iraqi documents, David Albright was simply an outsider with questions.


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Life Destroyed By Authoritarian State: Proof It Can Happen

No one is safe - at all. Not even agents of the government.

The plight of activist journalist Susan Lindauer is proof enough that when an administration seeks to cover its tracks for its sheer incompetence, it will go to great lenghts in order to do so - including destroying the lives of citizens.

Yes, it can happen. It has happened.

And there's no reason to think that it won't ever happen again.

First, some background on Susan Lindauer's tragic story (emphasis added):

Susan Lindauer sent her eleventh and last letter on the Iraqi political situation to then Bush chief of staff Andrew Card on January 6, 2003, just two months before General Franks gave the command to invade on March 20, 2003. She’d sent ten other letters on Iraq to Card, her second cousin, over a two year period.

In her final letter she made a prophetic plea to head off the war. Through Lindauer’s back channel contacts at the Iraqi United Nations mission, Lindauer said that she’d gathered a great deal of information. She had good reasons to believe that the Iraqis were ready to offer huge concessions on inspectors and on other United States demands.

(...) Lindauer was arrested on March 17, 2004, fifteen months after the last letter to Andy Card and two years after the trip to Baghdad referenced in the indictment. She was charged with “conspiring to act and acting as an unregistered agent of the government of Iraq” and “forbidden financial transactions” with Iraq totaling $10,000 relating to those acts. The charges cover the period of October, 1999 through February 2004.

She denies acting as an Iraqi agent and says that she’d been recruited by the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency to open a back channel for contact with Middle Eastern nations that lacked formal diplomatic ties the U.S. She asserts that CIA was overseeing her contacts with Iraq and that the U.S. government was fully informed of her activities.

(...) At her preliminary hearing, she was remanded for trial in federal court, Southern District, New York, and placed on $500,000 bail

Another 18 months passed without action until the prosecution requested that Lindauer undergo a psychiatric evaluation. The prosecution argued that she was unfit to stand trial for two reasons: she believed that she was not guilty and she was therefore unable to contribute to her defense since she didn’t understand that she might be convicted. Her failure to accept guilt by denying what the prosecution called delusions somehow proved mental incompetence.

Based on the psychiatric evaluation, (the trial judge) ordered Lindauer to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, Federal Medical Center (Carswell FMC), Ft. Worth, located on the grounds of Carswell Air Force Base. Lindauer reports considerable distress at confinement and the condition of her fellow female inmates.

(...) The psychiatrists at the federal prison facility wanted to force her to take psychotropic medication, a position strongly supported by the U.S. Attorney prosecuting the case.

(...) Rather than being sent back to the prison facility, she spent four months at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. Finally, on Sept. 8, 2006 she was released by order of the trial judge. He flatly denied the U.S. Attorney’s request for forced medication, noting contradictory opinions on diagnosis and poor support for the efficacy of the medication recommended by court appointed and prosecution experts.

His opinion and order implied that there was not much of case against her.

Susan Lindauer remains free on bail to this day - however, her case remains in limbo since it has yet to go to trial, mainly because prosecutors keep seeking orders for her to attend mandatory psychological counselling, still pushing for her being incompetent to stand trial.

Some traditional media outlets covered her story throughout the 4 years or so since her arrest - by of course following/stenographing the government's line concerning her case, i.e. that she is a shrill crazie who performed actions tantamount to treason (examples here, here and here).

To understand the impact of such callous and malicious prosecution on her life, read the following interview of her by journalist Michael Collins (reproduced in its entirety):

Collins: When you were indicted there was a broad range of media covering your story. After about a month, things seemed to go dark with the mainstream media. How has your story stayed alive?

Lindauer: I am shocked and disappointed that the mainstream media has failed to cover developments in this story. I hope that's going to change after this hearing, because a functional media is vital to protecting citizens from arbitrary and tyrannical government decisions. By contrast, the bloggers, have kept me alive. During my incarceration, friends like JB Fields (now deceased) smoked the blogs with outrage. He urged folks to write Judge Mukasey. To his own credit, Judge Mukasey actually called a court meeting when JB's readers sent letters and papers to the Court contradicting the official Psych evaluations. Judge Mukasey wanted to know why that documentation was available on the internet but not in his courtroom. He demanded a formal explanation from the Prosecutor and my own attorney, accounting for the discrepancies in their psych reporting. JB Fields blog - and all the other bloggers who picked it up-- saved my life and my freedom. No question.

Collins: You've been in court at least 15 times over four years regarding this case. What's different about this hearing?

Lindauer: The other meetings are called "status meetings." It's a formality to show that I'm still in the system. This is the first time I have been granted the right to call witnesses into court to authenticate my story. The Prosecutor has said that I am incompetent to stand trial because I am convinced of my innocence and cannot grasp that I might be convicted. Specifically, the Prosecution has used psychiatry to argue that my belief that I worked as an Asset for the U.S. Government constitutes delusional thinking. In a bizarre legal twist, the Prosecutor has argued that since I am delusional, I should be denied the right to call witnesses to prove that I am telling the Truth. Allegedly, my belief in the existence of witnesses is a function of my delusional belief in my innocence. Is that crazy or what? Talk about Kafkaesque!

Carswell's report was significant in one way that must be noted: Their staff testified that I suffer no depression, no bipolar disorder, no schizophrenia, no hallucinations or hearing voices. They said that I was socially interactive and my behavior was appropriate to the detention. Dr. Vas testified before Judge Mukasey, "that he looked really hard, but he couldn't find anything" after 7 months incarceration.

Collins: Of all the affronts and stress you've experienced in this open ended prosecution, what's been the most offensive element?

Lindauer: I am furious about the abuse that I have suffered. I regard this as a Soviet-style attack on my rights to dissent from the government. After my arrest, I was ordered to attend weekly psych meetings for a year, during which we discussed articles in the Washington Post-and nothing else. After Carswell, I spent another year in court-ordered psych meetings. The only point of conversation was how psychology has grievously harmed my life, depriving me of freedom, damaging my reputation, and terrorizing me by interfering with my rights to call participatory witnesses, who could straighten out the matter within minutes. Beyond that, the court quack surfed the internet looking for clothes and weekend entertainment for her daughter. Since August, 2007, I have refused to go back. I told the Court the game is over. Go to trial or drop the charges, which are ridiculous anyway. They don't have a case, and they know it.

Psychiatry was corrupt enough to help the Bush White House out of a jam, which says a lot. Forensic psychiatry is a profitable business. In my opinion they are charlatans and court prostitutes who are abusing their access to the Courts in order to get money out of the state and federal budgets. They have little or no value. For myself, I have never engaged in therapy or counseling. I would never confide personal affairs to them, or listen to anything they have to say. In a weird twist, anything I say could get reported to pre-trial services. It's not private. They were a huge waste of my time, burning the clock on my 6th Amendment rights.

Collins: How do you react to your treatment by the prosecution and their mental health experts?

Lindauer: Psychiatrists are terrified of witness testimony to the point of psychotic reaction. They're so insecure as to be deeply threatened that reality will impose limitations on their phony authority in the courtroom.

The consequence for due process of law is quite terrifying. One horrific shrink-Dr. Robert L. Goldstein, a Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University-- actually testified that the depth of my belief in witness testimony confirmed the "seriousness of my mental illness." He said the Court must be patient and tolerant of my requests to call witnesses. He said it showed I was still very sick, and the Court should pity me for not understanding that these people were a figment of my imagination.

I was a prisoner in shackles at the time. I experienced a total state of shock that this corrupt quack could actual testify that my requests for due process demonstrated my incompetence to stand trial. As a "professional psychiatrist"-who had never spoken to me OR my witnesses, Goldstein nonetheless assured the Court that he would stake his professional reputation on their non-existence.

It was the most terrifying and Kafkaesque experience of my life. Truly it proves that psychiatry is out of control in the Courts. They invent and fabricate, and if the truth contradicts them, they don't even care. As Dr. Vas at Carswell put it, "we'll just tell the Court you made it up. Who do you think the Judge is going to believe? You or me? I am a doctor!"

I am firmly convinced that Congress must change the laws so that defendants can file for punitive damages against this sort of quackery. Judges should have the right to file sanctions against psychiatrists who blatantly lie to the Court-which would have to be reported to other Judges, if they testify in other cases. In the most extreme cases of outright perjury, wherein the psychiatrist verifies the truthfulness of a defendant's story and then lies about it as a so-called expert witness, then the matter should be turned over to a grand jury for indictment. I have no mercy for this garbage.

Collins: The wheels of justice grind slowly for you. It's been almost four years and there hasn't even been an evidentiary hearing. How could the process have been simplified?

Lindauer: If the Court wanted to know if my witnesses would validate my story, the Judge could very easily have set a hearing date & called everybody into Court to answer questions. Authenticity would have been established, one way or the other, within the first 15 minutes of testimony. Then the question would be answered. Finished. That's Due Process 101.

What does this say about psychology in the court-room???

In my experience, court psychology is rife with corruption and fraud. Immediately after my arrest four years ago, the psychologist referred me to himself, and then was shocked to find out that I was wholly disinterested in anything he had to say. I told him that I had no intention of changing anything about myself. In one year I intended to be exactly the same person that I was when I walked into his office.

I took a cook-book to the first meeting and forced him to listen to recitations of recipes, sans commentary. When he asked if I intended to cook any of the recipes, I assured him that I would never do such a thing. I said that I consider his insights to be as useless as a recipe that I would never bake.

He had the sense to be embarrassed. From that day on, he always had a copy of the Washington Post, and we discussed news articles and current affairs. That continued for a year. He might have enjoyed it. I didn't. I don't recall that we discussed anything except my complaints about how our court-ordered psych meetings interfered with my employment, since the bail order stopped me from working full time. I had to take a part-time job, which killed me financially. I made perfectly clear that he was wasting my time.

After almost a year of this, I told him point blank that I refused to continue. I told him that he contributed nothing to my life, except to stop me from buying groceries, paying my utilities, and forcing me to borrow money to pay my mortgage and my property taxes-- because he was so selfish as to persist in interfering with my employment, so he could make money off the court.

Collins: What happened after this period of "freedom" after your initial hearings.

Lindauer: Life got to be good again until the fateful day when i was ordered to go to Carswell.

I was told that I would be held for no more than 120 days. That's 4 months. And Judge Mukasey's clerk assured my uncle, who attended the court date, that more likely I would be home within 60 days, because the Judge expected the psych evaluation to be finished rapidly. Then it would be over. Ok, I could do that. I'm a pretty tough lady.

I went in on October 3, 2005 and waited for my release. I got tons of letters of encouragement from friends. I stayed active, walking four to six miles a day on the track, reading lots of books, working at the law library and entertaining myself with NYT crossword puzzles.

Only the prison staff on the Texas military base had other plans. They didn't want to let me go home. They actually argued for the right to detain me indefinitely, and forcibly drug me until I could be cured of claiming that I had ever worked as a U.S. asset.

I was released after 11 months. Judge Mukasey retired on the day of my release. I want to be clear that the man is my hero. Though I was detained, he issued a lengthy and well considered decision that blocked the Prosecution from forcibly drugging me. It's a decision that deserves to be considered in other cases in the future. I am profoundly grateful to Judge Mukasey. He has a great and formidable legal mind.

To this day, I am still pre-trial. I have never been convicted of a crime, nor accepted a guilty plea. All of my most fundamental rights under the precious Constitution of the United States have been revoked because a crooked psychiatrist made up a bullshit story & lied to a federal judge.

Collins: What did you do to get things moving with the court?

In August, 2007, I refused to go back to the Court-ordered meetings. Judge Loretta Preska is now hearing the case. In August I stopped attending the meetings, and told the Court that it's time to drop the charges or go to trial. If the Prosecutor wants to pretend that I'm delusional, I would gladly call witnesses for a pre-trial hearing on competency, at the earliest possible date, to smash his arguments all to hell.

In September, October and November, the Prosecutor desperately tried to get my bail revoked and get me sent back to Carswell. That motivated friends to cough up the legal fees for my new attorney. Everybody was terrified that he might prevail and the Court might actually send me back to Carswell.

I refused to let them intimidate me into backing down.

My mother would be proud if she was still alive.

Collins: What will you try to prove in court on June 17, 2008 and where do you go from there?

I am confident that my witnesses will establish that I most definitely worked as long-time asset supervised by individuals in U.S. intelligence. At that point, I hope the Justice Department would seize the opportunity to end the case before we have to go into the specifics of my work. It would be hugely embarrassing for politicians in Washington, if a trial exposes how badly the politicians have mismanaged opportunities to engage the U.S. in counter-terrorism. They are not the innocent of bystanders of intelligence failures that they pretend to be. They made serious mistakes in leadership that they have refused to acknowledge.

Assets like me are just the scapegoats for bad policy decisions.

Her life has been put on hold and essentially bulldozed over, while at the same time being smeared repeatedly by traditional media and have her sanity continuously questionned by the government so as to head off trial while keeping her in legal limbo - with the obvious goal here managing to lock her up in a mental facilty and thus put her "off the grid" for a long, long time.

Her competency hearings are still ongoing.

She wants to go to trial and put an end to this, especially since the charges against her are flimsy at best, trumped up at worse.

She is a victim of malicious political prosecution for having been right about a whole lot of things - in stark contrast to the Bush administration's demonstrated incompetence with regards to 9/11 warnings, Iraq WMDs and the impact of the Iraq war on fostering further terrorism.

Now we know what an administration can do - will do - to cover its ass.

My question is: how many other Susan Lindauers are there, out there, that we do not know of?

In the meantime, do well to remember this: if you claim to be not guilty, or refuse to plead guilty, then this shows that you are deluded and unfit to stand trial ...

More than ever - welcome to the Orwellian States of America!

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

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Big Lies And Bombing Iran: The Media's Role

Got war? The U.S. is escalating covert operations in Iran. Not surprisingly, this is being denied. Interestingly, some 30 0000 more troops are set to be deployed in neighboring Iraq - and not necessarily to replace those troops already deployed there.

Operation Enduring Propaganda, anyone?

Then there is this:

Ball Girls, Big Lies and Bombing Iran
by Mac McKinney

The Distortion of Reality

Take a look at this video for a minute: click here. Pretty amazing, pretty fantastic, right? When I first saw it I remarked to myself that that has got to be the most amazing catch I've seen since Willie Mays' famous catch in 1954. And then later in the day, very curious about the amazingly talented ball girl, I ran across Snopes.com's exposure of the whole video sequence as an extremely clever, viral Gatorade commercial. The ball girl had been flung into the air by stunt men above who hoisted her up with cables, and digitized editing and speech had done the rest, even adding the ball, to create an apparently seamless, very real sports event. Ball girl, I am pained to say, is a phony. To read how the producers did it, click here. And what is the moral here? We can no longer believe our own eyes in the media.

Now what has this got to do with Iran exactly? Actually, it has something to do with the entire fabric of modern civilization, with the media, with politics, with our perception of reality, for this little video is so convincingly real to the average eye, so minutely nuanced in every little detail that it is stark proof-positive that technology has now ushered in limitless horizons for propaganda, falsehood and deception. Let us think back to Colin Powell in February 2003 giving his infamous Power Point presentation that was essentially setting up Iraq for the kill. At one point he had to revert to some 3-D animations to show those supposed mobile biological/chemical warfare labs in the desert. That software technology in and off itself wowed millions, but some of us knew then and there, because Powell was really resorting to fancy cartoons, that something was definitely not right.

Indeed, nothing was right, as it turned out. But if they had gone to the extent taken in making the Ball Girl video, with actual video footage, they would have possibly fooled everybody at that point in time. Maybe they had that capacity but thought better of it, because the White House, State Department and Pentagon still would not have found their fantasy mobile labs in the desert, and this would have exposed the fact that they had utilized cutting edge video technology to create great new levels of deceit.

But in light of the proven capabilities of media technology to now manipulate or fabricate reality, we have to start asking ourselves, what else might we have been shown in the media in the last few years that just isn't real, that is pure lies, pure propaganda, pure wizardry? What readily comes to mind is the veracity of the infamous Osama bin Laden "Confession Tape" in late 2001, in which a healthy, suddenly plump and rounder-faced bin Laden is sandwiched, chronologically, between an earlier and then later al Qaeda video showing an increasingly gaunt and sickly bin Laden.

In fact, some of us have intuited that bin Laden likely died in December of 2001, which would mean that somebody has been pulling the Ball Girl routine on the world for some seven years now, with artistic renditions of bin Laden in audio and video format. This is why I am rather convinced that bin Laden will never be captured and never be prosecuted, despite the melodramatic pledges of both Senators McCain and Obama to do so. Good luck Senators! Meanwhile, both Pro-Taliban tribal warlord Baitullah Mehsud recently and the late Benazir Bhutto, in an interview before she died, have stated that bin Laden is dead. But this kind of fly in the ointment news never reaches the mainstream media, with its ever-fleeting relationship with truth.

Regurgitating Hitler

The media's pathetic acquiescence to White House/Pentagon propaganda in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq was part and parcel of the grand Neocon strategy to capture the media and play it like a talking puppet. The Neocon strategy in turn is lifted right out of the pages of Mein Kampf, and let us never forget that. Hitler's autobiographical manifesto is actually one of the first extensive works on mass psychology and how to manipulate the masses. His propaganda principles are now time-tested and proven to work, and work well, so long as you are dealing, of course, with ignorant and authority-craving people, eager to believe whatever their rulers throw at them. That they were so effective in 2002 and 2003 during the propaganda onslaught against Saddam Hussein doesn't speak well of the sophistication of the American people or of much of the planet for that matter, for Bush had his cheerleaders in many, many countries brainwashing their citizens, particularly those that became the Coalition of the Willing.


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APOV's Weekly Revue (06/29/2008)

If it's Sunday - then it's time again for APOV's Weekly Revue!

Oh, Canada!
While the Canadian traditional media/MSM tends to follow the disinformative scripted narrative of "controllers" with regards to Afghanistan, it has begun to change its tune with regards to Stephen Harper's so-called political sharpness. Perhaps because journalists and reporters now finally see the Prime Minister's opportunistic and out of place politicking for what it is, or perhaps many of them have noticed his all-too-often empty chair during sessions of Parliament (or maybe they've finally realized what a douchebag he is - but I digress) ...

Oh, U.S.A.!
As odious and destructive of liberty and privacy as the new FISA "compromise" bill is, let's not forget that FISA itself was but the prelude to the nightmare. However much Barack Obama may justify his support of the FISA compromise capitulation by submitting that national security trumps accountability for telecoms, the fact remain that he has failed completely on this vital issue - which translates into "not much change at all". So, welcome to Planet Bush - where "bipartisanship" means giving all that he wants and where the crazies rule supreme. With all that is going FUBAR, perhaps it is time to rise up to the call to (political) arms? Or have Americans become too dumb to understand fully what is happening?

On related notes to this last question: Gitmo gets a makeover as an R&R resort, care of the Pentagon Tourism Sub-Division; it is now quite mundane to speculate on - if not actually appreciate - the political usefulness of another terrorist attack in gaining electability points; many women have fallen for the "maverick" meme concerning John McSame; up is still down and wrong is still right; the myth of the free market as solution to everything still dominates; and leaders are apparently still chosen for being religious automatons whom merely do what their religion teaches them.

Oh, Environment!
Why is there an energy crisis? Because of those goddamn F&!%$#%!$ treehuggers, that's why - or so goes the meme. And never you mind the facts as to why more oil drilling won't solve the problem. Perhaps it is high time for some serious selling pitches on means to fight global warming, like carbon taxing. Then again, what's not to like about global warming?

And it is on this sarcastic note that we end the Weekly Revue for this June 29th, 2008.

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U.S.: School Education Failing?

Item: Poll - U.S. schools not properly preparing kids.

Here's one appalling example why.

The main underlying cause can be read about there.

Any questions?


Addendum: when you read crass, uninformed and utterly ignorant tripe like this in a Canadian national newspaper, you know the problem has already reached Canada for quite some time now ...

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The Prime Douchebag Of Canada

I can't believe this.

I. Just. Can't. Believe. This.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper told a delegation of B'nai B'rith members yesterday that Canada is refusing to participate in a United Nations conference on racism because Ottawa will not be party to an anti-Semitic "anti-Western hatefest."

This is the person elected to head our government, the supposed leader of our country to represent us on the world stage?

Thank you for such a nice gift to all Canadians just a few days before Canada Day, Prime Minister Harper.

Your intellectual sloth-driven incompetence and your fatuous, shallow and petty approach to international relations are simply appalling.

You are nothing more than a little neoconservative primitive mind.

You are a genuine douchebag.

I am ashamed by you.

I am ashamed to be Canadian.

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Elections, Capitalism, And Democracy

What the following article says - along with intellectual sloth, the need for instant gratification and the resulting cancer on the body democratic. Just think about all those folks out there who actually still defend Barack Obama for his ludicrous flip-flop with regards to telecom immunity. Hell, they are even inventing stories -literally- about secret plans/strategies and all on his part in order to excuse this. And then, there is also Stéphane Dion and the LPC over here in Canada ...

Triangulation and kneeling before Big Money and Big Corporation lobbyists.

Politics business as usual indeed.

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Elections, Capitalism, And Democracy
By Charles Sullivan

Because so many of the people on the political left fear that John McCain will become the next president, they have allowed themselves to see the very moderate democratic candidate, Barach Obama, as a desirable alternative to the decidedly ghoulish McCain, rather than supporting a genuine progressive like Dennis Kucinich, Cynthia McKinney, or Ralph Nader. They thus perceive Obama to be far more progressive than he really is. Such comparisons lead us down a dichotomous pathway that assures a continuous drift to the right.

Each election cycle the people on the left find themselves out-flanked by those on the right by allowing them to frame the debate and to define who we are. So each election we end up supporting a very moderate candidate rather than a truly progressive one. Because all of the mainstream candidates are intensively influenced by corporate lobbyists and the electoral system is owned by capital, democracy has remained as elusive as capturing the ghost of a saint with a piece of duct tape.

According to Ambrose I. Lane Sr., host of Pacifica radio’s “We Ourselves,” John McCain has the third most conservative voting record of anyone in the senate. Running an extremist from the opposite end of the political spectrum forces the democratic candidate further to the right than he or she already is. So when progressives fall into this trap, as they so often do, it is a win-win for the corporate lobbyists pulling the strings behind the curtain. They end up supporting a candidate they think can compete against extremists rather than one who actually represents their values. If you have to become like your opponent in order to defeat them, what can you honesty say has been won?

Progressives cannot gain ground by ceding their ideology to their conservative opponents in order to gain office. Without having a viable candidate coming from the far left of the Democratic Party, progressives cannot reasonably expect to push the debate back toward the political center, much less to the left of center. You can make a good case, however, that the democratic leadership under Howard Dean has no real desire to move to the left or to represent traditional progressive values. It likes the status quo just fine; a position that has served its corporate funders well.

Because it has been co-opted by corporate lobbyists—who always hedge their bets—the Democratic Party no longer houses a genuine left-wing faction that can effectively compete for votes in a way that emulates the success of the far right. Because right-wing extremism and corporate fascism are portrayed in the corporate media as reasonable centrist positions beneficial to the people—that is how they are perceived by those who receive their political education from those sources. Thus extremism packaged as democracy is widely considered to be the norm when, in fact, it is not; it is fanaticism couched as something much more benign or beneficial, even if it is a poison pill. Yet it is this extremism that undermines the interests of the nation’s working class people and keeps them subservient to corporate fascism. Voting for meaningful change is like running on a treadmill and expecting to actually go somewhere.

The problem is that capital, rather than informed citizens interested in democracy, is in control of the electoral process. Capital furthers the interest of capital, rather than the interest of the people, and this creates an irreconcilable conflict with genuine human interests. So we end up with a sociopolitical system that is not only fundamentally unjust; it is also predatory and cannibalistic. It consumes the very people who feed it and give it the appearance of legitimacy: the great unwashed working class.

Capitalism flourishes, for a short time, at least, by socializing costs and by privatizing profits and this concentrates and centralizes power into the hands of a select few. Its real purpose is not to serve people; it is to exploit them. Capitalism isn’t even a natural system; it is a purely human construct that has no basis in nature. It is a synthetic system and, as we have seen through chemistry, synthetic systems tend to become mutagens, and thus promote cancer.

Due in part to their extreme political naiveté and to delusional thinking, too many people have accepted corporate fascism as a centrist or “normal” position. Thus they have unwittingly allowed predatory and cannibalistic forces—unregulated markets—to determine the fate of the nation and its people. Neoconservatives and neoliberals, alike, have defined the free market as an unregulated market, which has become their concept of democracy. The so called free market is not under the control of human beings in any meaningful sense, and it does not respond to human needs. Like a creation of Frankenstein, it is a man-made monster that has escaped from the laboratory and is wreaking havoc across the countryside, menacing everyone and everything in its gargantuan steel-booted path.

By themselves, markets are not necessarily a bad thing. Certainly people need commerce and trade. However, it is when markets are deregulated—as required by the adherents of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics—that they turn upon people and become predatory, undemocratic, and cannibalistic. When markets are given more power and more rights than people, people will cede not only their power to them, but also their humanity. This is how markets have become all-powerful entities that have no soul or conscience and are answerable to no one: monstrosities in every sense of the word.

I would argue, however, that the object of commerce and trade should be to serve people and to benefit the whole of society, rather than to generate enormous profits for the benefit of a select few. Commerce without democracy cannot help us toward a free and democratic society; it can only undermine our every effort at genuine democratization.

Either you work for the public interest or you work for self-interest. It is this assertion that finally brings us back to our starting point—the electoral process. Because the process is under the control of capital rather than working class people, it undermines the democratic process and substitutes something else in its place. That process has led us to where we are and it can never take us back to where we started from. Nor can it ever lead us to genuine democracy or to justice. It can only bear the fruit of its own seeds; it can only provide us with more of what it has already produced.

If we the people are serious about real democratic government, we must work for it outside of the electoral process, as well as from within. We must organize a revolutionary force so powerful that it cannot be ignored or denied. We must institute effective and prolonged economic boycotts. We must organize work slow-downs, work stoppages, and general strikes in order to make corrupt government feel our pain. We must create labor unions that genuinely fight for worker’s rights while simultaneously transitioning the country away from an exploitive and self-destructive capital economy toward a people-oriented economy based upon need, rather than privatized profit subsidized by public funds. These are the means to creating a democratic workplace and bringing malignant capitalism to a grinding halt. The electoral process does not provide the tools for revolution; it subverts the process and only delays the inevitable.


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Late Friday Night Ode To ... Da Blues

We've been peltered by huge electric thunder storms throughout the last week or so over here in Sherbrooke, and it looks like more of the same is on the way for the week-end and next week.

Considering everything else that is going on (and going FUBAR), we've been feelin' da blues aplenty in APOV HQ. Therefore, let's go for a triple play of some mighty fine blues guitars - just what the doctor ordered.

As opener, we have Eric Clapton/Buddy Guy & Friends - Sweet Home Chicago:

For mid-course, we have BB King/Gary Moore - The Thrill Is Gone:

For the closer, we have Albert King/Stevie Ray Vaughan - Stormy Monday:

Keep on singin' them blues, sisters and brothers ...

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Domestic Spying: The Ever Convenient Rationale Of The Security State

I've said it before, but I'll say it yet again - because apparently it bears repeating ad nauseam until enough people out there finally wake up and do something about it:

It is a given, demonstrated 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 shown so far) actually justified.

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.

This not just about what is going on in the U.S.A. This is also very much about what is going on over here in Canada.

Take this little tidbit of news, as but one small example:

Intelligence reports obtained by National Post reveal for the first time how the Canadian government tracked "ongoing and planned protests" by First Nations and their supporters from British Columbia to the Maritimes.

The Integrated Threat Assessment Centre, based at CSIS headquarters and made up of representatives of CSIS, the RCMP, Canadian Forces and other departments, circulated lists of protestors' plans in a series of intelligence reports.

Now here's the clincher:

The Government Operations Centre was also involved. It coordinates the national response to terrorist attacks, natural disasters and anything else that threatens the safety and security of Canadians or the integrity of Canada's critical infrastructure.

As if this was not frightening in and of itself, here comes the rationale that I have come to expect, but one which apparently still escapes the grasp of far too many people out there:

According to the documents, security officials were concerned "a small minority" of demonstrators could escalate the protests "as a means of attracting attention to their cause." Sympathetic environmentalists, "social issues extremists" and criminal groups could also exploit the protests, the reports say.

(...) "In addition to these, there are also non-aboriginals who may oppose the aspirations of the aboriginals (local residents, cottagers, fishermen, etc. and also white supremacists and other extremists)," it adds. "These factors may cause instability and drive an individual protest in unpredictable ways."

(...) The reports say the right to protest "is a cornerstone of Canada's democratic society. ITAC is concerned only where there is a threat of politically motivated violence, or where protests threaten the functioning of critical infrastructure."

So - to recap: just because there may or may not be some violence during protests, whether by protestors or infiltrators or counter-protestors or extra-terrestrials or monsters from outer space, this warrants the mobilization of the terrorist monitoring apparatus of the government to spy on activist groups, especially those who are planning lawful protest events.

Let me put it in other words: because something/anything deemed potentially disruptive (even remotely or not at all) to "the safety and security of Canadians or the integrity of Canada's critical infrastructure" may or may not happen, this warrants the full use and deployment of the government's terrorism monitoring apparatus to spy on lawful citizens.

Let this reality sink in for a minute or two ... or five ... or ten.

Do you get it now?

This means that anything can and will be viewed by our security agencies within the narrow, paranoid prism of terrorism and threats to security.

Anything.

From blogging to writing a dissenting letter to a newspaper editor to a journalist trying to do investigative work to gathering at a coffee shop to rant about politics to reading "suspicious" stuff (books, blogs) to organizing/participating in activist actions (letter/phone/email campaigns, peaceful protests), etc., etc., etc.

Because any such activities may or may not -immediately or at some point in time or never at all - lead to acts which may or may not "threaten the safety and security of citizens or the integrity of the country's critical infrastructure".

So just in case and to be safe, let's monitor and survey and spy away on the citizenry.

And that is the ever convenient rationale of authoritarian security states for spying on their citizens.

I repeat: no one is safe.

What is happening south of the border is also happening here. More cases in point to this effect:

• 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?"
• The Harper government has unilaterally 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;
• 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.

It appears that we Canadians are indeed riding fast down the same road to perdition with regards to our human rights, our civil liberties and our constitution, as the Americans.

All in the sacro-saint name of Security.

It sure does seem like everyone over here is sleeping at the switch on this matter.

I've written to my MP, to newspapers and news stations to ask them to look into the extent through which we are being surveyed by our security agencies and whether such activities conflict with our constitutional/privacy rights. But nothing has happened - because when you are only one, of just a few, then nothing gets done.

Now imagine if thousands and thousands of letters/emails were sent to MPs, newspapers and news stations, demanding to know what exactly has been going on with regards to domestic spying of lawful citizens.

Let us ask en masse those questions of vital importance to our privacy, civil liberties and constitutional rule of law.

We must draw the line once and for all - unless we really want to go all the way of our neighbor south of the 49th.

Either we Canadians stand up for our civil rights and therefore win against terror, or stand down in the name of Security and lose to terror.

It is as simple as that.

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The Self-Renewing Global War On Terror

The following is an insightful article which illustrates well what we've come to understand: that the Global War on Terror(TM), especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined with the U.S. policies of rendition, detention and torture, only serve to create the terrorists of tomorrow:

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Prisons of war, furnaces of radicalism
Paul Rogers

The global detention policy of the United States and its allies is incubating the insurgents of the future.

A long-term consequence of the Iraq war is the production of a new generation of young paramilitaries with combat experience in urban environments against the world's best equipped army (see "Afghanistan in an amorphous war", 19 June 2008). Even if the conflict in Iraq does ease in the coming months, the experience of combat there will serve well an al-Qaida movement that measures its aims in decades rather than years.

The battalions of paramilitaries in Afghanistan that fought against Soviet conscripts in the 1980s war operated in a largely rural environment, in a conflict very different from its successor. Indeed, in one of the many "blowback" effects of the "war on terror", the methods and technologies that have been learned in Iraq have now been exported back to Afghanistan. The use of roadside-bombs, for example, has escalated alarmingly in the first half of 2008, demonstrating the skills of Taliban militias as they develop their guerrilla tactics.

The jail blowback

If the combat experience gained in Iraq has been one aid to the paramilitary movements, another has been the unexpected effect of the holding by the United States and its allies of large numbers of people without trial, sometimes for years on end. The overall figures are difficult to assess, although there were indications in 2007 that at least 120,000 people have been detained since 9/11. The great majority of these have been in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the incarcerated also include some thousands of people across the middle east and south Asia, and hundreds in Europe.

Some details surface from time to time. It is known, for example, that the United States forces in Afghanistan are building a new prison at Bagram capable of housing 600 long-term and up to 1,100 short-term prisoners (see "A world beyond control", 22 May 2008). This is in addition to, and outside the control of, the Afghan prison system. The numbers are far higher in Iraq, where the US forces are currently detaining 21,000 Iraqis - a number exceeded by thousands more held in Iraqi prisons. The American-held number represents a decrease of 4,000 from mid-2007, though US contractors are in the process of building new prisons in the country, such as one in Taji near Baghdad (see Walter Pincus, "U.S. Official Cites 'Hardening' Of Iraqi Detainees", Washington Post, 10 June 2008).

In addition, there is a constant throughput of detainees as new people are imprisoned and others are released. At present, thirty people are detained and imprisoned by US forces every day, while fifty are released. This explains the net drop in overall numbers but also means that, at current rates, about 10,000 more Iraqis experience detention in the US system each year.

US sources report that their own personnel are getting more efficient at determining which detainees are the most radical and will be kept in prison for long periods of time. They estimate that there are approximately 8,000 detainees who cannot be proved to have committed crimes under the Iraqi judicial system and cannot therefore be handed over to the Iraqi for trial. These are people, though, who are deemed to pose such serious security threats that they must be incarcerate even without judicial process.

What this means is that there are many thousands of "hard-core" detainees in the prisons who are interacting repeatedly with much greater numbers coming through the system. It has to be remembered that all of these people are being detained without trial by what is seen as a foreign occupying force. The potential for radicalisation within prison, let alone the impact on their friends and families, is therefore considerable.

In a related issue, there has been recurrent concern within the British prison system that convicted Muslim prisoners will do their best to proselytise fellow Muslim convicts in prison for non-political offences (see Jamie Doward, "Extremists train young convicts for terror plots", Observer, 15 July 2007). The chief prisons inspector, Anne Owers, drew attention to this issue in supporting the work of Muslim chaplains while highlighting a lack of training for prison officers (see Dominic Casciani, "Warning over jail radicalisation", BBC News, 14 April 2008).

The enemy effect

The worries reflected in the British reports are shared elsewhere. The most striking example comes from the most closely guarded and controversial detention centre - Guantánamo in Cuba (see David Rose, "Guantánamo: America's war on human rights", 23 September 2004). A remarkable report by one of the best informed of US journalists, Tom Lasseter of McClatchy Newspapers, gives some indication of the extent of the problem (see Tom Lasseter, "How Guantánamo became a terror training ground", Miami Herald, 17 June 2008).

He starts with an example that is worth quoting in full:


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Beware Bush's Madman Theory

punditman says ...

Sure, enough, it seems that with prodding from the Israelis, Bush the Sociopath is seriously considering a bombing campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities, as reported by CBS News. This, despite the fact that there is no evidence that Iran is currently developing nuclear weapons--not from US intelligence agencies, who late last year, stated that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, and not from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Not that facts ever mattered to the Bush gang. Surprise, surprise, Dick "Darth Vader" Cheney along with his cadre of neo-con storm troopers is pushing for an Iran attack. Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates is worried that this may touch off yet another mid-east war.

Duh? What was his first clue? Attacking other countries usually does cause wars. Perhaps the myriad of warnings has finally had some impact? I speak of those thoughtful and sane analysts in and out of government who predict that a bombing campaign against Iran would be the most catastrophic and dumbest thing that the US could possibly do at this historic juncture. Has a modicum of smarts and caution somehow seeped into the mind of the one person who wields Pentagon meta power? A tiny hope, perhaps?

It is a safe bet to conclude that Secretary Gates appears to have at least one foot (or maybe a big toe) in the old fashioned realist camp of international thuggery, where bluffing the other guy is akin to an old boys' poker game but the chips are big honkin' aircraft carriers, cruise missiles and strategic bombers. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has proven to be a willing participant in this type of pissing match and normally these are fun things to watch and analyze, and they make for cool case studies in Poly Sci 101 courses: "de jure" versus "de facto" foreign policy--or the gap between what a nation is poised to do, even "as a matter of law" versus what it actually does in practice. (In this case, the US Congress introduced a new resolution May 22, 2008, H. Con Res. 362, that many fear is tantamount to declaring that the President should pursue a naval blockade against Iran, which would be an act of war).

There's only one problem: Leave it to this administration to actually do what they threaten to do and leave it to them to always choose precisely the worst possible course of action. A blockade of Iran leading to a unilateral attack is becoming increasingly likely.

Actually, I have always thought that this peculiar combination of stupidity and ferocity, places BushCo$ in a different category of governments altogether--as contemptible as many others have been. My logic flows thusly: in October, 1969, President Nixon came up with what he thought was a brilliant idea: the "Madman Theory." For no known tactical reason, he ordered the US Military onto full global war readiness alert and US bombers armed with nukes flew patterns near the Soviet border for three consecutive days. WTF? Most Americans didn't have a clue that this was happening, but it didn't matter. The audience was the Soviet government; Nixon's sole reason for this crazy game of chicken was to scare the beejezus out of them and make them wonder just what else he was capable of doing. According to the theory, every so often the madman needs to make "bold moves," so along those lines, Nixon then invaded neutral Cambodia in 1970 in a criminal and wasteful extension of the already criminal and wasteful war in Vietnam. It was to be a "limited" incursion although US bombings continued from 1969-1973. Nixon also went to China and opened up a dialogue, which could be considered the inverse of the Madman Theory.

Reagan's version of the Madman Theory amounted to outspending the Soviets in the largest build up of nuclear weapons ever, while huffing, bluffing and threatening Nicaragua's Sandinista government. But instead of sending in US troops and planes to invade Central America, he chose instead to dispatch a rampaging, murderous proxy army of CIA-trained "Contras" to attack Nicaragua, while funding and training the brutal Salvadoran and Guatemalan regimes to fight leftist guerillas. All very nasty stuff for the people on the ground and all very criminal in nature. In fact, the attack against Nicaragua was condemned by a World Court ruling in 1986. Make no mistake: Ray-gun was a gangster, but a "rational" gangster who actually negotiated with Gorbachev. When he did decide to attack other countries outright, he chose his targets carefully: Grenada and Libya couldn't fight back.

Not so with Iran. What keeps aware people awake at night is the fact that you can count on Bush the Madman to not only scare the crap out of everyone, but to actually bomb the crap out of everything.

I sometimes think that Bush's appalling ineptness and blinkered worldview is a form of sorcery because no one seems to be able to break the spell. It is a very odd situation that defies conventional logic; record low poll numbers somehow transmute into Bush's uncanny ability to wield military power almost at will--thanks in no small part to his willing accomplices throughout the Congress and Senate. Low approval ratings? Here's more Iraq war funds! What, everyone hates you? Bomb Iran and we Democrats will stand by you 100%, Sir! It is like there exists a kind of inverted relationship, privy only to an inner circle of alchemists, who apparently are all bonkers. Of course, the media knows its place as well.

In order to avoid starting World War Four (it's hard to keep track), cool-headed rationality is the very least we should demand; and, given the bleak landscape of possibilities it is probably the best we can hope for. Simply put, the political system of the most powerful nation on earth is broken; its citizenry lost, apparently unable to exert any meaningful influence in what is left of their democracy. A majority may despise the King, but they are far from storming the palace.

Where does this leave a world headed into the abyss? Well, there is always the Hope candidate. But from what I have seen, I have to say with expected disappointment: Obama, schmama! He will not save the day. In fact, the scuttlebutt says that despite the fact that Obama is falling all over himself to show his pro-Israel-no-matter-what stance, an Iran attack is nevertheless scheduled before Bush leaves office because the Israelis don't trust that Obama will do the deed. So they are pushing hard to make sure Iran is attacked before inauguration day next January. Even if Secretary Gates convinces Bush of the folly of such an attack, then Israel will attack Iran themselves. And though I shutter to even mouth the phrase "President McCain," we already know what he will do.

The Bush administration has boxed itself into an unnecessary collision course with Iran, and the elephant in the room is the fact that the US is beholden, as never before, to narrow Israeli interests.

Hence, I would be perfectly willing to write you off, America (sadly, of course), resigning myself to the mantra that every country gets the government it deserves, (occupations and genocides excluded). Yes, America, I would gladly do this if not for the fact that the consequences of an attack on Iran have such vast reaching potential military, political, economic, health and human consequences that it is almost unfathomable to contemplate.

But contemplate it we must. And then work to prevent it.

And, yes, hope. Hope that Bush reads Gates' memos and ignores Cheney's.

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Idiot's Guide On How To Become A Cult Leader

You want it all? You want to have followers, who will devote their lives to you, slave for you, attend to your every whim, make you rich and empower you to such degrees that even your pathological, inflated ego may actually get its fill?

Then this instruction video is for you!

(h/t)

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No One Is Safe: The Real Low Down

Considering all the (righteous) hooplah concerning the capitulation on the FISA + "telecom immunity" + FISA "wide open", we should all be taking into account what FISA always was to begin with - an affront to the 4th Amendment of the Constitution of the U.S.A. (emphasis added):

The act was passed in 1979, in the wake of the Church Hearings and other congressional action that exposed and shut down the FBI's COINTELPRO domestic spying program. From the late 1940s through the early 1970s, the FBI was spying on tens of thousands of American citizens, with little or no oversight. What began as a search for communist inflitrators widened into surveillance on political groups, right and left, that were seen as threats. After Watergate and the end of Nixon's "imperial presidency," as it became apparent that the FBI had been used as a tool to stifle dissent, Congress put an end to COINTELPRO with a series of statutes that forbade electronic surveillance except by means of a search warrant.

But the intelligence agencies argued - persuasively - that this left a gap in terms of intelligence-gathering on foreign agents operating in the U.S. Having to go to an ordinary judge, many of whom have only minimal security vetting, and lay out specific "sources and methods" information to get an intelligence wiretap warrant, might compromise the security of those "sources and methods." In some instances, it might put the lives of informants and other assets at risk. The intelligence agencies argued that they needed another, more secure way to gain such warrants.

And thus was born FISA - the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - and the very first secret court in our nation's history. Yes, the FISA Court is a secret court. FISC judges undergo full security vetting, because they will have access to "sources and methods" material, the factual allegations constituting probable cause for a FISA warrant. The affidavits for FISA warrants are classified. The subject cannot see the affidavit, nor challenge its factual basis in court.

See how FISA and its FISC constituted an affront to the 4th Amendment to begin with? That is what some bloggers have been decrying all along since the current "telecom immunity" issue began - most notably Chris Floyd (example here) and, especially, Arthur Silber (example here).

But as if this was not bad enough, then came the "breaking of the wall of separation" between intelligence gathering and regular law enforcement (emphasis added):

And that seemed reasonable, because the original FISA specified that no information gained by means of a FISA warrant could be used in a criminal prosecution. There was a "wall of separation" between the intelligence-gathering and law enforcement sections within the FBI. The former was to investigate foreign espionage cases; the latter was to investigate crimes and gather evidence for prosecution. And because FISA warrants were not reviewable in a trial court, the two were not allowed to mix.

That ended with the USA PATRIOT Act. The consensus, after 9/11, was that the plot might have been stopped had the intelligence and law enforcement agencies been able to share information. Foreign-trained and -financed terrorists acting in the United States do seem to pose a special case, as they are not "spies," but rather are plainly "criminals." Thus the USAPA took down that "wall of separation," allowing information gained from FISA warrants (and other classified intelligence methods) to be used by law enforcement agencies and in criminal prosecutions.

And thus, after being maimed by FISA proper, the 4th Amendment was effectively killed once and for all by the USAPA. In other words (emphasis added):

Not even (a) trial judge can see the FISA affidavit. It is classified, "sources and methods" information. The prosecutor can show the judge that a FISA warrant was indeed issued, but that's as far as it goes.

Because (the defense) can't see the factual allegations underlying the FISA warrant - not even the trial judge can see that - (the defense) cannot challenge the validity of that warrant. It's not reviewable. Not at trial. Not on appeal. Not ever.

Which means they could have said anything they wanted. They could have had only the flimsiest pretext of probable cause. They could even have lied outright. You'll never know, so you can't challenge it.

Oh, and the FISC has refused fewer than five of the tens of thousands of warrant requests submitted, in the past 19 years. The FISC is, quite literally, a rubber-stamp court.

This is the "protection" offered by FISA. This is the "constitutional safeguard" so many of you are so up in arms to preserve. It is no safeguard at all.

See? It is a basic truism that one's constitutional rights exist only so long as one (or one's lawyer) can challenge their violation in court. In this respect, FISA is definitely not the last bastion of the 4th Amendment - as too many progressives out there like to claim in the context of the current issue of "telecom immunity" capitulation.

Even worse, there are those progressives who are actually supporting/defending/excusing some of the Democrats who capitulated, including Barack Obama (examples here and here), or worse - deciding to accept the lesser of two evils.

This is ludicrous, since, as Silber puts it:

(...) as odious and destructive of liberty and privacy as the new FISA "compromise" bill is, there is one perspective from which the momentous to-do about this legislation is very badly misplaced. The selective focus on FISA misses the crucial larger picture (...) if we were genuinely concerned about civil liberties and privacy, we would return to the Fourth Amendment and the procedures it requires, and the FISA regime would be abolished entirely. That's right: it would be abolished. No one wants to do that. Too radical, doncha know. That's scary talk, much scarier, it would appear, than the tyranny which daily strengthens its death grip on all our throats. Nonetheless, if you want to understand the nature and scope of the decades-long attack on individual liberty, you had better remember what FISA is.

Moreover, understand the nature of the old FISA regime, which appears to be just fine with almost everyone, Republicans, Democrats, progressives, everyone. Steny Hoyer has helpfully spelled out the near-omnipotent powers of FISA under the old scheme. Understand how comprehensive it is, and how comprehensively it destroys civil liberties.

Silber then goes on to provide but a few further examples of "sinister instruments", detailing their forceful penetration into every aspect of the lives of Americans.

And Chris Floyd to add:

Watch the layers peel away. The FISA compromise bill is abominable, without question; anyone who supports it cannot possibly be regarded as a serious believer in constitutional democracy. Yet behind this truth is another one, noted above: the FISA system itself is an abomination for a free people. And behind this comes yet another, grimmer truth: the FISA system, either old-style or the new Obama-abetted version, is just a miniscule part of the "endless array of weapons" at the disposal of the National Surveillance State (...).

In short: no one is safe.

And I submit here this further axiom - Canadians are not safe either:

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.

It is a given, demonstrated 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 shown so far) actually justified.

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.

And that is not taking into account the plain, typical bureaucrat, often frustrated by his/her bleak, menial job and driven by his/her petty jealousies. Such potential banality of evil is clearly illustrated by Silber:

The fact that every aspect of our lives is regulated, directed and controlled has a further result, one of the most dangerous of all: If someone in government decides to go after you, he has an endless array of weapons from which to choose. Even if you emerge from the battle with your life largely intact, anyone in government who wishes to do so can turn your life into hell for years on end, even for decades. It may all begin with some pathetic bureaucrat in a cramped, stifling cubicle. Perhaps someone cut him off in traffic that morning; perhaps he had a fight at home the night before. Perhaps he's just a rotten human being. He happens to come across your name on some document, and he thinks: "I know: I'll go after him. That could be fun." And your life is destroyed.

Once again: welcome to the Security State of North America, my friends.

Food for thought, eh?


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

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McCain's Hypocrisy: The League Of Democracies

Here is a very interesting article I stumbled upon:

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John McCain's : "League of Democracies" Is a Frightening Thought

The world already has a peace-maintaining institution: the UN.

By Robert Skidelsky

US Republican presidential candidate John McCain has been calling for the creation of a “League of Democracies.” This new international group would possess a formidable military capacity, based partly on NATO and partly on a “new quadrilateral security partnership” in the Pacific between Australia, India, Japan and the US. Neither Russia nor China, of course, would be invited to join: Indeed, McCain wants to exclude Russia from the G8.

The league is necessary, argues McCain, because in matters vital to the US, such as fighting Islamic terrorism, humanitarian intervention and spreading liberty, democracy and free markets, the US and its democratic partners must be able to act without permission from the UN — and thus from Russia and China. In other words, the League’s main purpose is to marginalize Russia and China in world affairs.

The most damning criticism of McCain’s plan is that it would launch a new Cold War between states labeled democracies and autocracies. This is not only dangerous, but incoherent. Russia and China do not “threaten” the “free world” with a powerful ideology and massive armed forces, as they did during the Cold War. Moreover, the world’s democracies are themselves divided on how to deal with Islamic terrorism or genocide in Darfur: It was France, after all, that led the opposition in the UN Security Council to the US invasion of Iraq.

On issues like terrorism, nuclear proliferation and climate change, the US needs Russian and Chinese help. Stigmatizing Russia and China will not get them on board.

In fact, Russia has mostly cooperated with the US in the “war against terrorism.”

Finally, the idea is impracticable. One cannot imagine India or Brazil wanting to be part of any such a combination. So we would all spare ourselves an awful lot of trouble if McCain’s brainchild were buried as quickly as possible.

Yet underlying this idea is a serious proposition, to which former British prime minister Tony Blair often gave eloquent expression: Democracies don’t fight each other, so if the whole world were democratic, wars would stop.

Presumably, McCain’s League of Democracies is designed to bring philosopher Immanuel Kant’s dream of perpetual peace closer to realization by putting pressure on non-democracies to change their ways, by force if necessary.

Leave aside the fact that efforts to make democracy bloom have become bloodily unstuck in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is it true that democracies never fight each other? The affirmative answer seems to depend on two separate claims.

The first is that democracies have, as a matter of historical record, never fought each other. This is true of a rather small group of rich countries — India is a partial exception — mainly in western Europe and its overseas offshoots, since World War II. Moreover, they are “our kind” of democracy — constitutional democracies that contain all the features we take for granted in modern Western systems, not “Islamic democracies” like Iran.

A reasonable generalization from this rather small sample would be that “prosperous and constitutional democracies tend to live in peace with each other.”

Keep reading ...

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Now here's my question: considering the Patriot Act, the Protect America Act, the Military Commissions Act, FISA, the recent FISA "wide open with telecom immunity" capitulation/extension, the signing statements of the President, torture, renditions, indefinite detentions, and so on and so forth, does this mean that the U.S. would be actually eligible for membership in McCain's League of Democracies?

If the answer is "yes", then McCain's "league" would be nothing more than a complete, hypocritical sham.

Just like the so-called American exceptionalism.

Not surprisingly.

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Afghanistan: "It's Bad! It's Ba-ad, We Tells Ya!"

What I've been writing about all along ...

Of course, the Harpies still can't get a clue even when it bites them in the arse:

Earlier in June, the federal government announced its priorities for Afghanistan as well as three key "signature projects."

"Our ultimate goal remains the same -- to leave Afghanistan to Afghans, in a country that is better governed, more peaceful, and more secure," said Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister David Emerson in a statement.

"What is new is that we will significantly concentrate Canadian efforts and resources on the areas most likely to help us reach that goal."

The key projects include the following initiatives:

• The rehabilitation of the Dahla Dam and its related irrigation and canal system in order to promote agriculture and generate jobs.
• The construction, expansion and repair of 50 schools.
• Expanded support of polio immunization in Kandahar in hopes to eradicate the disease in Afghanistan by the end of 2009.

Oh yeah - Canada's in charge all right - blind, deaf and dumb.

Either that, or we've just been served yet more "leader-like" lip service by the Harpies.

Or all of the above.

Then again, we should not forget that our "mission' in Afghanistan is our single most important endeavor. So sez our Mini Leader, the Grand Harper.

And if it all fails, we'll just blame it all on the Afghanis. No sweat, then.

Hip hip, hooray!

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44% Of Americans Approve Torture: The Descent Is Nearly Over

Via Raw Story: A new poll of citizens’ attitudes about torture in 19 nations finds Americans among the most accepting of the practice. Although a slight majority say torture should be universally prohibited, 44 percent think torture of terrorist suspects should be allowed.

Think about this: almost half of Americans actually support torture of suspected terrorists.

No, really: Think. About. This.

Hard.

No wonder, then, that there are politicians who still think that torture techniques, such as those used in Gitmo or those revealed in Abu Ghraib, are nothing more than hazing pranks from some Fraternity.

No wonder, then, that G.O.P. Senators are trying their best to close down hearings on torture - if it's OK, why hold hearings about it, right?

No wonder, then, that radio loudmouths can proudly say - and without any backlash whatsoever - that they would hang any lawyer doing their job in defending Gitmo detainees.

No wonder, then, that the President can claim with a straight face that critics of Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and rendition are slandering America.

And I could go on and on and on.

Words fail me.

44% - almost half of Americans - approve of torture.

This is what I wrote before:

There is no going deeper into the pit of savagery and perversion here, folks. This is the very bottom, the lowest of the lowest, level of inhumanity.

No civilization allowed here - when the debate is about the efficiency and validity of torture in getting solid intelligence and confessions, as things are now, instead of being about the inherent immoral nature of torture, then you know you have lost any semblance of human rationality and grace.

Case in point.

I could also add this, this, this and that, as further cases in point.

Incidentally, I also wrote the following:

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.

And here we are, with 44% of Americans who approve torture.

Again, words fail me - so I'll offer this instead:

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.

Looks like my contempt now extends to nearly half of America.

So I say this in parting: cheer up, America! The road to perdition you have been fast driving upon over the last seven years or so is nearing its end at last.

Your descent towards the bottom of the dark pit of barbarous and savage injustice will soon be over.

Because you will have finally reached destination.

Congratulations on your full and complete capitulation.

And vive la civilization, eh?


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

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Harper And Harpies In A Post-Bush World?

Allan Woods at The Star wrote a nice article in anticipation of a "post-Bush world", whereby Prime Minister Stephen Harper has an opportunity in today's cabinet shuffle to reposition Canada's foreign policy for a number of significant shifts that are anticipated on the international horizon.

In short: Mr. Woods hopes Harper and his Harpies will suddenly stop emulating Bush and his Bushies.

Don't count on it.

As Woods himself mentioned in his article, "few expect the Prime Minister and his top policy advisers to relinquish the tight control they have held on the foreign affairs file or moderate their "with-us-or-against-us" view of global politics."

Obviously, I am not holding my breath for this to happen - ever.

Rather, I suspect that Harper and his Harpies are in fact anticipating greatly the coming of a "post-Bush world" ... which they hope will be a "McCain world".

Which will mean "Same old Bush world anyways".

Case in point - Mr. McCain goes to Ottawa:

At the forefront of our minds, in these years since the Millennium Plot and the events of 9/11, is the security of our citizens. Our governments have made real progress in keeping our borders closed to terrorists and open to trade. Yet this will remain an ongoing challenge and a key issue for the next American administration. Tens of millions of people and vehicles cross the Canadian-American border every year. The two-way trade that crosses the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor equals all American exports to Japan. That transit, and all our crossing points, must remain secure. In extending our security partnership, we can ensure continued flows of people and commerce while maintaining security on which these very flows depend. We need to do an even better job of managing the regular traffic across our border.

Already, we cooperate in preparing for emergencies-- exchanging information and manpower to coordinate our response to danger. We have agreements in place to work together in detecting radiological and nuclear threats, to improve security at ports, borders, and airports, and to assist first responders. We exchange public health officers and have agreed on principles for screening intercontinental air travelers in the event of a pandemic. In all of this, we are drawing upon the skills and knowledge of one another, and we are joined in the crucial work of protecting our people.

At the same time, Canada and America are joined in other vital causes around the world-- from the fight against nuclear proliferation to the fight against global warming, from the fight for justice in Haiti to the fight for democracy in Afghanistan. I, for one, will never forget the response of our Canadian friends to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. It was here in Ottawa, three days later, where tens of thousands of Canadians filled the streets on a National Day of Mourning. The Canadian people even took in Americans who has been left stranded by the shutdown of American air space. We in America have not forgotten your kindness. And we will never forget the solidarity, compassion, and friendship of Canada when it mattered most.

We know as well that Canada, too, has suffered casualties in the years since 9/11, and we honor their memory as we do our own. As always in Canada's history, this nation has been willing to do hard things, even when the costs run high. Along with our other allies, Canada and America are still fighting in defense of Afghanistan-- in the honorable cause of freedom for that long suffering country, and greater security for ourselves. To date, Canada has committed nearly two billion dollars to the rebuilding of Afghanistan, including a recent 50% increase at the Paris Conference. It is a generous investment, and a wise one, and together our countries are going to see this mission through.

Interestingly, Harper and his Harpies dodged McCain's visit - perhaps knowing all too well that meeting with him at this time would be detrimental to their "image" as (ahem) Bush-independents (yeah, right).

As Mr. Woods reported:

"If we don't get ourselves correctly engaged now I think we're really going to become marginalized, big time. That to me is the core issue," said Gordon Smith, former Canadian ambassador to NATO. "There's an underlying issue here of the changing shape of global politics."

Harper has had the last year to "change gears", what with the Bush administration living out its final days in office. The opportunities were there - but Harper chose to continue threading the same road as Bush's.

Just one more case in point. For good measure, here's another. Hell, just look back over the last six months, will you?

Not even the dimmest glimmer of signs of change, here.

Hence, I strongly suspect that Harper's ideal "post-Bush world" is a "McCain's world" indeed.

After all, there are plenty of reasons (which I will spare you here) as to why McCain is nicknamed McSame, eh?

Therefore, do not expect any "shifts" in policy from Harper and his Harpies - they are simply waiting the confirmation of their wishes for a McCain election to the White House.

In the meantime, here's a radical idea: how about the opposition parties (especially you, LPC!) show some intestinal fortitude and boot the Harpies out of government once and for all? An August-early September election would be nice, I think.

Now that would put a crimp on the Harpies' plans for their anticipated "McSame world" ... whether McCain wins or not in November.

Unfortunately, with Parliament out on recess for the whole summer, looks like Harper and his Harpies will be free instead to continue messing with our country - especially regarding our reputation abroad.

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The Folly of Attacking Iran: Lessons from History

punditman says ... "The approach should be negotiations without preconditions."

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Bonne Fête Nationale!

Bonne et heureuse fête nationale du Québec à tous, et à toutes, mes compatriotes Québecois/Québecoises!

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Canada's Single Most Important Endeavor: The Blame Game Has Begun

Remember former Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier's gaffe of last April? You know, this specific one:

Bernier, on the final day of a tour of Canada's embattled patch in southern Afghanistan, initially told reporters the status of the controversial governor was in doubt as Ottawa redoubles its efforts to persuade President Hamid Karzai to crack down on corruption.

"There's the question to maybe have a new governor," Bernier said when asked what Karzai could do about perceptions of corrupt rule in the province, where Canadian forces are based.

"I think (Karzai) can work with us to be sure the (new) governor will be more powerful ... will do what he has to do to help us."

This gaffe borne out of arrogance caused quite the headeache to the government of Kabul Mayor President Hamid Karzai:

(...) according to an Afghan government source, the impact of Bernier's public comments unleashed a political shock wave that will be difficult to roll back.

Bernier is believed to have spoken candidly with Karzai on the subject of replacing Khalid during a weekend meeting in Kabul. According to one Afghan government source, Karzai pleaded with Bernier for "some weeks" to explore his options on appointing a new governor to the volatile province.

"By speaking publicly on this sensitive issue, the Canadian minister has put Karzai in a difficult position," a highly placed Afghan source in Kandahar said last night.

"If he stays with this governor, Karzai will look like he is ignoring the Canadians. But if he makes a change, it will be obvious to Afghans where the real power lies. It will make Karzai look like Canada's puppet."

Of course, Bernier quickly "clarified" his bold, "See? I am in charge!" statement:

"Afghanistan is a sovereign state that makes its own decisions about government appointments. I can assure you that Canada fully respects this and is not calling for any changes to the Afghan government. In fact, our primary goal is promoting the self-sufficiency of Afghanistan in all aspects of nationhood, including development, security and governance. We will continue working closely with all levels of the Afghan government to advance this objective."

And of course, Prime Minister Harper likewise chimed in:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper scrambled to Bernier's defence even as he expressed regret that his government's private concerns about Khalid had been so openly aired.

"Minister Bernier very quickly corrected a misimpression that I think had been left from some earlier comments," Harper said.

"Obviously we have talked to the government of Afghanistan from time to time about performance of that government, and some of our concerns, and we'll continue to express some of those concerns privately," he said.

So case closed, right?

Not quite - for Defense Minister Peter McKay picked up Bernier's baton yesterday:

The Afghan government must eliminate the corruption that threatens to undermine the good work being done by Canadian soldiers and their allies, says Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

MacKay made the comments Monday night during a break at a fundraising dinner for the Manitoba Progressive Conservative Party.

He said corruption, particularly in the southern region of Kandahar, is like a cancer that must be eradicated.

"The Afghan government must address those issues that can be like a cancer," MacKay said.

Canada is playing an "enabling" role in Afghanistan, assisting the government, its military and its administration in the pivotal task of rebuilding the country and defeating the Taliban, the defence minister said.

The obvious question is, of course: whatever happened to Prime Minister Harper's "regret" (see above) that his government's private concerns about Afghan corruption were being so openly aired out?

Nothing more than lip service, of course. Indeed, we must not dismiss the context in which McKay made this new (albeit quite true) condemnation, and once again so "publicly aired". For just last week, there was this massive jailbreak from Kandahar's Sarposa prison, right? What was the very first reaction of McKay? That's right - he laid the blame squarely at the feet of the Afghan government:

Defence Minister Peter MacKay tried to distance Canada from blame in the Kandahar jailbreak that freed hundreds of prisoners – including 400 pro-Taliban insurgents – saying the Afghan government must answer for failing to prevent it.

“Let's not forget this is an Afghan lead. It's not a Canadian-run prison,” Mr. MacKay told CTV's Question Period, adding later that the Afghans “have obviously a lot to account for as to what happened.”

Therefore, McKay's renewed charge of corruption in the Karzai government is nothing more than a pathetic attempt at further making the case that if things are going so bad in Afghanistan, well it is not Canada's fault and, by extension, has nothing to do with the incompetence of Harper and his Harpies.

In other words: the blame game has begun on the Afghanistan FUBAR.

And not surprisingly, the Harper government is borrowing yet again from the Bush administration's playbook, such as when they (and their supporters and enablers) deflect blame for the failures in Iraq on Iraqis and their government in order to escape their own, actual responsibilities for these same utter failures (one example here, among so many).

Because, of course, such failures have *nothing* to do with incompetence on the part of the "deciders" who entered such wars, misrepresented them, misconducted them, misplanned for them, mismanaged them, and utterly FUBARed them.

That is what the 4th Principle of Incompetence is all about.

Just you wait when Harper begins to also shifts blame to ... the Liberal Party of Canada.

However, there is just one problem for Harper and his Harpies: they are the ones who have made Afghanistan Canada's war. Why, let us recall Harper's very own words (emphasis added):

"Very quickly after assuming office, looking at all of Canada's interests abroad, we determined that the single most important thing we're doing in terms of our commitments, in terms of the risks were taking, in terms of the leadership we're showing, the most important thing is what we're doing in Afghanistan."

It will be up to us to keep reminding our fellow Canadians, and especially the Harpies themselves, of such "bold" words.

It is quite simple: responsibility for the FUBAR of Afghanistan, the absolute waste of lives, resources and money it has become, is to be shared in good part by the Harper government - who wants to keep us there until 2011 and beyond - and there is no escaping from this fait accompli.

However much the Harpies attempt to deflect blame on the Afghanis (or whomever else).

Obviously, the solution is quite simple: bring our troops home. Now.

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Afghanistan: Downgraded From Quagmire To FUBAR

Things have now reached such a sorry state of affairs in Afghanistan, that if one would wish to cherry-pick failures over "successes" simply could not do so - however much one would try.

For before, failures "only" overwhelmingly outnumbered small, inconsequential "successes". Now, even such small, inconsequential "successes" have become a full fledged rarity.

Things have to be bad and out of control when the Taliban can waltz in and free some 1200 prisoners - including some 400 fellow Talibs - from Kandahar's Sarposa prison.

This, not counting the usual fare regularly occurring in Afghanistan (you know - business as usual and all that).

And as Canadian, American and other fellow N.A.T.O. soldiers provided "intelligence support" (say what?!?) for Afghan forces in hunting down the escaped prisoners, one "top general" (Gen. Denis Thompson, the Canadian commandeer in Afghanistan) could not help but state the painfully obvious on the consequences of the spectacular jailbreak:

"Eventually it may impact us in the field."

Eventually?

The commandeer was actually overly optimistic. Case in point: hundreds of Taliban fighters took over several villages in a district just north of Kandahar City - a mere two-three days after the Sarposa jailbreak.

In between, Afghan senior officials are beginning to be scared ... really scared:

Walid Karzai, brother of President Hamid Karzai, told The Canadian Press on Monday that he's also worried the Taliban could mount attacks within Kandahar.

"There are also strong rumours that they will attack Kandahar city at certain strategic points. My house, the governor's house (and) the police station," he said.

"Whenever they get close to Kandahar city, there could be problems. Every one in Kabul is very much concerned," said Karzai, who serves as president of the provincial council.

In fact, senior Afghan officials are so scared nowadays, that the Mayor of Kabul President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, went as far as issuing the threat of sending troops into Pakistan to battle the Taliban (you know - who keeps hiding there).

Shit hitting the fan, indeed.

The response from N.A.T.O. following the Sarposa jailbreak? Same old dissembling "all is well" and "we're ready!" bullshit:

NATO spokesperson Mark Laity said NATO and Afghan military officials are sending troops to the district to "meet any potential threats."

Laity seemed to link the jailbreak with the Taliban push into Arghandab.

"It's fair to say that the jailbreak has put a lot of people (rebels) into circulation who weren't there before, and so obviously you're going to respond to that potential threat," he said.

Obviously - that they did.

Now, how long will this last? Remember the last time N.A.T.O. had to "do it again"?

(Answer: it is always going on - N.A.T.O. pushes Talibs away from one place and they come back another place another day, and eventually return to the first place they were pushed from to begin with, and on and on and on and on. That is how things have been since the resurgence of the Taliban back in 2003)

And in between, those incompetent politicians who keep on cheering, supporting and defending this war could not help themselves in laying the blame for the Sarposa jailbreak squarely at the feet of the Afghan authorities - of course:

Defence Minister Peter MacKay tried to distance Canada from blame in the Kandahar jailbreak that freed hundreds of prisoners – including 400 pro-Taliban insurgents – saying the Afghan government must answer for failing to prevent it.

“Let's not forget this is an Afghan lead. It's not a Canadian-run prison,” Mr. MacKay told CTV's Question Period, adding later that the Afghans “have obviously a lot to account for as to what happened.”

Alternately, blame your N.A.T.O. allies for being inefficient - even if you were the ones responsible for this mess to begin with.

And never mind that the Afghan government is inept and corrupt, thanks in good part to your own incompetence (emphasis added):

(Sarah) Chayes’s input has become regarded as a vital source of intelligence for those stakeholders trying to get a full picture of the situation on the ground without many eyes and ears outside the wire. She supports a continued NATO presence in Kandahar but is highly critical of the political strategy and combat tactics of the coalition forces.

"I was very happy to see NATO come (to Kandahar) but disappointed that NATO hasn’t altered their policy of using corrupt Afghan officials," she said. "They have given a blank cheque to the local government authorities and you simply can’t do that. Fighting corruption is a daily process. You can’t just remove a few officials and consider the task complete."

According to Chayes, NATO’s killing of insurgents is negated by the unchecked corruption of the local government, which is causing an even greater number of volunteers to take up arms and join the resistance.

(...) "These corrupt Afghan officials will respond to foreign pressure because they know they are in power thanks to NATO," Chayes said. "If NATO wasn’t here, the Karzai regime wouldn’t last five days, or five minutes, because the people are so upset."

And never mind as well the fact that N.A.T.O. troops do not even have the proper means, let alone any comprehensive plan, to actually train competently Afghan police and soldiers.

Hell, they don't even have translators to interact properly with Afghanis.

No wonder this is a hopeless clusterfuck, a lost cause.

And if things weren't bad enough, Taliban insurgents use profits from the sales of opium as their prime source of revenue - Afghan opium traffic is now a $4 billion/year business, as Afghanistan has become the premier world supplier of illegal opium, while the never-ending Taliban insurgency is giving way to the idea of N.A.T.O. actually fighting the Taliban in Pakistan, an idea which seems to get increasing traction.

Wanna bet how this will make things even worse? I mean, much worse?

Oh wait - now we learn that U.S. abuse of detainees was routine at Afghanistan bases, and that Afghan soldiers apparently like to indulge in sexual assaults, while Canadian soldiers allegedly had to turn a blind eye and stay silent on such matters.

I have previously endeavored to make the case that the war in Afghanistan has turned out to be absolutely for nothing, namely because:

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 exercise 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.

Indeed, Bush lied about the Taliban refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden, the "official" prime reason for waging war in Afghanistan.

And what about removing the Taliban for good? Why, we now want to negotiate with them!

Furthermore, there was also this seldom-mentioned matter of oil pipelines needing to go through Afghanistan at the time - which of course brought forth the suspicion that the war in Afghanistan may have been first and foremost about oil.

Well, guess what? Canadian troops would help (if asked) the Afghan army defend a proposed $7.6-billion U.S.-backed natural gas pipeline running from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan, to Pakistan and India.

I guess it is now official: Afghanistan has now devolved from quagmire to genuine FUBAR.

Talk about "signposts of success".

So my question (again and again) is: what the Hell are we still doing there?

When will we wake up to the sheer inanity of this "mission"?

How can there be anyone out there of the mind to keep on justifying this utter, ludicrous waste of lives, resources and money?

"What war?" fucking indeed.


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

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Telecom Immunity Capitulation: The Other Problem With This

So, "they" capitulated on FISA in order to grant telecom companies and corporations immunity from lawsuits for illegally using and providing private information of their consumers to security agencies at the behest of the U.S. government.

Here's a question that has been nagging at me all along with this desire on the part of telecom companies to be granted such immunity: was it really in order to avoid lawsuits?

I'm no conspiracy buff. But I have been wondering about that talking point, the one repeated over and over again that immunity and protection must be granted so that telecom companies will be shielded from lawsuits for having helped the government in the fight against terrorism.

One the one hand, it is obvious that this talking point serves well as a (false) argument to grant further powers to the government in bypassing FISA and getting any and all information it wants on any citizen from any company. We've all been seeing through this one - except for all those fear-gripped idiots who haven't, of course.

No, what is nagging at me is the question as to what is the real agenda of companies/corporations behind this "need" to be granted such immunity in the first place.

Could it really be about avoiding lawsuits from outraged citizens whose privacy was violated without their knowledge or consent, considering the collective wealth at the disposal of these companies and corporations to either fight such lawsuits or simply settle them?

Ask yourself this: what is the single most descriptive characteristic of any company or corporation, with regards to their employees?

Authoritarianism, of course.

History shows us all too well how company/corporate "elites" behave towards their "lower" employees when kept unchecked - instances of exploitation, quasi-slavery, bullying, outright ruling by force and intimidation, the ever-present threat of being fired, and so on and so forth.

That is why unions became a necessity at one point, along with labor laws and other such "regulations", in order to keep in check the authoritarian/tyrannical default behavior of company/corporate "elites" vis à vis their workers and employees.

Yet, here we are today ... and what have companies/corporations been up to lately?

Whenever you apply for a job, you must submit yourself to all sorts of intrusions in your privacy, regardless what kind of job you apply for - from giving urine and/or blood samples, to granting permission for "security checks" on you (including credit reports), to submitting to wide-ranging questionnaires to assess your personality, including your psychological/cognitive/emotional state of being (not counting having to actually go through the ludicrous exercise of submitting yourself to a lie detector).

And when you are employed, you are under constant scrutiny - electronic or otherwise - in order to continually assess your performance during your "day at work". In addition, how many companies/corporations nowadays have "proper employee conduct" codes to which all employees must adhere to - including outside of the work place?

But company/corporate "elites" crave total control over their employees and there are large periods of time in a day, a week, a month and a year, when their employees escape their ever-watching, scrutinizing and controlling gaze: off-work hours, week-ends, holidays and vacation time.

Companies/corporations have kept increasing their requirements of what they consider "appropriate performance" on the part of their employees, while freezing (or reducing) wages at the same time.

In short: they ask you to do more and more and more, while they pay less.

Now imagine a day when company/corporate elites can actually know what you do in your "off-work" time - surfing the internet? Watching TV? Renting/buying movies? Reading books? Going to shows? Cheering your favorite team? Just spending time with your family in the backyard?

Imagine also if your employers became intimately aware of every facet of your private life, including whether you are having an affair (or your partner/spouse does), you or a member of your family has been diagnosed with a grave illness, your sexual practices (with or without your partner/spouse), which political party you adhere to, etc.

What kind of power, then, would your employers hold over you, your job and your career?

As example, how many people have so far been fired for "moral conduct incompatible with moral values/proper employee conduct" of a company/corporation outside of work, based only on rumors? Now imagine what can and will happen when actual facts are known.

For facts will be known indeed because your employers now have free reign in gathering any and all private data about you, their employees. And thanks to the immunity capitulation on FISA, companies/corporations will literally spy on their employees, if only in order to "ensure proper checks on performance", which will always be their excuse and their self-proclaimed "right".

That is the other grave problem I fear lurks behind all of this - what we have here is a bright, green light for companies/corporations to let loose their craven authoritarian need to fully and completely control their employees.

Granted - I could be wrong about this. But history, if only that of the last 25 years or so, shows us that companies/corporations will do anything to keep a firm, if not tyrannical, grip over their little "empires" and the "subjects" they lord over.

Still, I will go one step further: thanks to this immunity capitulation, companies/corporations now have free reign in investigating anyone - not just their employees, but politicians, competitors and, especially, anyone who speaks out against suspicious practices (accounting, environmental, fraud, etc.) - all in the name of "security" (i.e. their own).

Funny, but I keep thinking of movies about dystopic corporate world-states like Rollerball (1975), or books dealing with a background of corporate hegemony in lieu of governments, such as Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy.

Or maybe I just happen to have woken up this morning with a tinfoil hat on my head.

Nonetheless, here are some hypothetical examples of what I suspect we'll be hearing about in the years to come (if these are not happening already):

Newly hired employees, as well as all those already employed, will have to sign new "disclosure consent" agreements in order to allow their employers to use all necessary and "legal" means to monitor employee performance (fine print: even when they are off work);

Thanks to such new monitoring measures, pay reductions will be enacted to employees who fail to do sufficient "additional" work on the week-ends - however "voluntary" such extra work may be;

Family crises (of any kind - illness, affair, falling out, kid doing drugs, etc.) occurring will swiftly lead to an employee having a "sit down" with a director/VP of human resources in order to assess the gravity of said crisis and how it may impact on job performance - possibly leading to either suspension or dismissal;

Employees buying products from competitors (because products are better and cheaper) will be known and dealt with swiftly;

"At home" moral behavior of employees will become an integral part of performance assessments and reviews for raises and/or promotions;

Reading/viewing/listening habits of employees (and family members) will be subject to evaluation as indicators of "proper employee conduct" and other such nonsense.

As any company/corporation would say: "We want the best for our loyal employees" ...

While we were busying ourselves at keeping watch on the government and its drive in gathering authoritarian powers, we forgot about the true authoritarian that was standing in the room all along:

The companies and corporations - whom now have been given the green light to spy as they well please.


Then again, maybe I'm being a tad too much paranoid today.

Maybe.

On the other hand, who would've thought that a law would be passed to excuse illegal violations of the privacy of citizens by a government in a democracy-based society?

Who would've thought indeed ...


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

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APOV's Weekly Revue (06/22/2008)

Since it is Sunday, I managed to commandeer a computer belonging to somebody else for just long enough to bring to you today's scheduled Weekly Revue.

Harper and his Harpies:

• A new great game;
• Jimminy Prentice, More Ice For Eskimos;
• Green Shift: The “Conservative” Response;
• It's a hope versus fear palooza comin' our way.

The capitulation on FISA:

• George Bush's latest powers, courtesy of the Democratic Congress;
• Why Do We Care About FISA?;
• Respect for Our Founding Fathers;
• Ghosts of the revolution.

Torture 'R US:

• Newt the Impaler;
• Canadian crimes against humanity in Afghanistan?

Bush incompetence and economics:

• King George's Regime once again Flooded with Incompetence;
• Energy Policy: It’s the Trust Stupid;
• Let’s See, Who Hasn’t Been Squeezed and Gouged Yet? Renters!;
• June 22, 1633: Upon further review, the Earth does not orbit the Sun.

Religious ignorance, intolerance and hypocrisy:

• Cult of the Promise Keepers. On Newstands now!;
• With God on their side;
• The “Culture Of Life” Hates the Living.

Signing out for now ... hopefully, the new machines will be coming in early this coming week so that APOV can resume its regular blogging schedule (keeping my fingers crossed).

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Teh ComPuTErs 'R On StRIke

Damn it all. We are experiencing serious computer issues here at APOV HQ. Consequently, expect blogging to be erratic at best over the next week and a half or so.

I hate Murphy's Law ...

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U.S.: On-Going State Of Emergency?

punditman:

State of Emergency: The US in the Final Six Months of the George W. Bush Administration

by Lewis Seiler and Dan Hamburg
www.commondreams.org

In short, we are living in an on-going state of emergency whose exact limits are unknown, on the basis of a controversial deep event — 9/11 — that is still largely a mystery. - UC Professor Emeritus Peter Dale Scott

Unhindered by a neutered Congress and a compliant Court, President Bush has six months remaining to pursue his agenda of expanding the war in the Middle East and ensuring the continuation of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) beyond his tenure in office.

The current administration has taken unto itself unprecedented, nearly hegemonic powers since the events of 9/11. On that day, George W. Bush issued his “Declaration of Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks” under the authority of the National Emergencies Act. This declaration, which can be rescinded by joint resolution of Congress, has instead been extended six times. In 2007, the declaration was strengthened with the issuance of National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51) which gave the president the authority to do whatever he deems necessary in a vaguely defined “catastrophic emergency” including everything from canceling elections to suspending the Constitution to launching a nuclear attack.

Despite time constraints, there are clear signs that the president, the vice-president and their neocon collaborators are not finished. The constant saber-rattling toward Iran, with strong support from Israel, should send a chill down the spine of any peace-loving American. Military chiefs who oppose the president are “retired,” as observed most recently with the March dismissals of CENTCOM commander Admiral William Fallon and 6th Fleet commander Vice-Admiral John Stufflebeem. Public opinion counts for nothing. In a March 24 interview with ABC’s Martha Raddatz, vice president Dick Cheney responded to a question about the war weariness of Americans with a languid “So?”

According to J. Scott Carpenter, former deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, Cheney pushed hard for airstrikes against Iranian Revolutionary Guard bases last summer. He was deterred by Pentagon officials who insisted that retaliation might be difficult to contain. Now, with Cheney ally General David Petraeus poised to take over Fallon’s command, a significant obstacle has been removed.

Keep Reading ...

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Iraqi Refugees: From Bad To Worse

I am yet still insanely busy, but I thought I'd share the following two articles concerning Iraqi refugees.

Winning hearts and minds indeed ...

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Iraq: World Governments Misleading and Failing Iraqi Refugees
By Amnesty International

The international community is evading its responsibility towards refugees from Iraq by promoting a false picture of the security situation in Iraq when the country is neither safe nor suitable for return, Amnesty International said today.

In its new report, Rhetoric and reality: the Iraqi refugee crisis, which is based on recent research and interviews with Iraqi refugees, the organization said that the world's richest states are failing to provide the necessary assistance to Iraqi refugees, most of whom are plunged in despair and hurtling towards destitution.

"Governments have done little or nothing to help Iraqi refugees, failing in their moral, political and legal duty to share responsibility for them," said Amnesty International. "Instead, apathy and rhetoric have been the overwhelming response to one of the worst refugee crises in the world."

Amnesty International said that the Government of Iraq and states involved in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, in particular the USA and the UK, highlight "improved" security or "voluntary" returns to Iraq out of political expedience, to demonstrate that their military involvement has been a success.

"Rhetoric cannot hide the reality that the wider human rights situation in Iraq remains dire," said Amnesty International.

"People are being killed every month by armed groups, the Multinational Force, Iraqi security forces and private military and security guards. Kidnappings, torture, ill-treatment and arbitrary detention pervade the daily lives of Iraqis. People continue to attempt to flee, something that is now very difficult with the recent imposition of visa restrictions on Iraqis by Jordan and Syria."

According to the latest estimates of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of Iraqis who have fled their homes has now reached 4.7 million, the highest since the US-led invasion of Iraq and the subsequent internal armed conflict.

While Syria and Jordan have shouldered most of the refugee influx, they have now resorted to drastic measures such as restricting entry and deporting people who may be at risk of persecution, partly due to the lack of support from the international community.

Having exhausted savings, many refugees are now living in complete destitution and facing new dangers, such as being forced into so-called "voluntary" return to Iraq and child labour -- many families have been forced to send their children to work in the streets in a desperate bid to help them survive.

For some refugees, the difficulties they are facing in the host country are prompting them to make the difficult and dangerous decision to return to Iraq, either temporarily to collect a pension or food ration or for other such reasons, or more permanently because of their desperate situation, not because they feel they are no longer at risk of human rights abuses in Iraq.

They are making this decision as they feel they have no other option.

Keep reading ...

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The Iraqi refugee crisis
By Amnesty International

"Omar, a 69-year-old refugee from Baghdad, said he will die a 'slow death' if assistance is stopped. He and his family have depended on food and medical assistance since they fled to Syria in 2006." – UNHCR, May 2008.

Iraq remains one of the most dangerous places in the world. Its refugee crisis is worsening. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, an estimated 4.7 million have been displaced both within and outside Iraq and for many the situation is desperate.

A new report by Amnesty International, Rhetoric and reality: the Iraqi refugee crisis, says that the international community continues to fail to respond to the crisis in a meaningful way. Countries like Jordan and Syria host most of the refugees but are simply not equipped to meet the needs of all those arriving.

Syria alone may be hosting more than a million refugees. As of 2007, only 1 percent of the total Iraqi displaced population was estimated to be in the industrialized world.

To mark World Refugee Day, Amnesty International has called on the international community and, in particular, those states who participated in the US-led invasion of Iraq, to take real steps to alleviate the suffering of those displaced. The organization said these countries must urgently act on their responsibility to assist the host nations and humanitarian organizations operating in the region to support the large numbers of refugees.

"Many refugees are finding it difficult to survive," said Philip Luther, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme. "They are banned from working and unable to pay rents, buy adequate food for themselves and their families, or obtain medical treatment. Those lucky enough to escape Iraq rely on savings which, for many, are rapidly running out."

Many families are destitute and facing impossible choices and new risks, like having to resort to child labour and the prospect of being forced through circumstances to undertake "voluntary" return to Iraq.

Humanitarian agencies cannot cope with growing demands as more refugees need help with the basics to survive. The UNHCR had planned that by the end of the year it would be distributing food to around 300,000 people in Syria alone. However, the agency recently announced that inadequate funding means that, by August 2008, it will not be able to "cover all basic health needs of Iraqis, and many serious and chronically ill Iraqis will not be able to receive their monthly medication."

Current food aid for 150,000 refugees in Syria and Jordan could be reduced, forcing many Iraqis "into further destitution and raise the likelihood of higher malnutrition rates and increased child labor."

Amnesty International believes it is imperative that the international community increase its contributions to humanitarian agencies such as UNHCR, as well as to the countries hosting Iraqi refugees. Furthermore, there must be a real and sustained effort to resettle vulnerable refugees, such as those with serious medical conditions, to countries where they will receive adequate care.

Manal (not her real name), a refugee living in Damascus, told Amnesty International in February 2008 that three of her children, aged between six and 15 years, work so the family can survive.

Her six-year-old boy sells chewing gum in the street, for about one US dollar a day; her 10-year-old daughter sells chewing gum about three days a week; her oldest son polishes shoes, for the equivalent of about US$2 a day. Her daughter is the only one who goes to school. The family fled to Syria in 2006 after their house in Baghdad was damaged by explosions.

Despite claims among the international community that an "improvement" in the security situation in Iraq has led to people "voluntarily" returning, in reality, most return because they have run out of money and can no longer survive. They return despite the real danger to their lives.

Keep reading ...

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Obama's "Chicago Boys"

by Naomi Klein

Barack Obama waited just three days after Hillary Clinton pulled out of the race to declare, on CNBC, "Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market."

Demonstrating that this is no mere spring fling, he has appointed 37-year-old Jason Furman to head his economic policy team. Furman is one of Wal-Mart's most prominent defenders, anointing the company a "progressive success story." On the campaign trail, Obama blasted Clinton for sitting on the Wal-Mart board and pledged, "I won't shop there." For Furman, however, it's Wal-Mart's critics who are the real threat: the "efforts to get Wal-Mart to raise its wages and benefits" are creating "collateral damage" that is "way too enormous and damaging to working people and the economy more broadly for me to sit by idly and sing 'Kum-Ba-Ya' in the interests of progressive harmony."

Obama's love of markets and his desire for "change" are not inherently incompatible. "The market has gotten out of balance," he says, and it most certainly has. Many trace this profound imbalance back to the ideas of Milton Friedman, who launched a counterrevolution against the New Deal from his perch at the University of Chicago economics department. And here there are more problems, because Obama — who taught law at the University of Chicago for a decade —is thoroughly embedded in the mind-set known as the Chicago School.

Keep Reading ...


punditman says ... Progressives: Don't get your hopes up too high.

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Because A Picture ...

... is worth a thousand words. Still insanely busy, but I thought I'd offer this schematic picture of the three predominant religious belief systems of humanity and what they actually are in relation to each other, as well as to their true origins. Enjoy - and feel free to pass it along:



(h/t)

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APOV's Weekly Revue (06/15/2008)

Here we go ...

C&L - accountability for the punditocracy proposal;

Brilliant at Breakfast - Tim Russert: nothing more to add to this;

Booman Tribune - this was done in your name;

Who Hijacked Our Country - enemy combatants vs. power grab;

Les Enragés/Unruly Mob - McCain's phony reformer cred fracturing;

Shockfront - biofuel mandate expands coastal dead zones;

Newshoggers - oil facts;

The Peace Tree - poppycock!

Idealthoughts - Republicans: things to consider before voting;

Daily Kos - the end of the Republican Party as we know it;

Revellian - crooked politicians and the honor of a common thief;

Liberal catnip - Pierre Poilièvre's racism.

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Striving Towards Better Media

Still too busy to blog properly - but here's something interesting for you good folks to read:

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This way to better media

by Amy Goodman

"This way to better media," read the floor sign directing people through a skyway to the Minneapolis Convention Center. Thousands of people gathered there for the fourth National Conference for Media Reform, hosted by freepress.net. They came from all walks of life and all ages to address a central crisis in our society: our broken media system. I was one of the invited speakers.

Despite increasingly complex digital-media offerings and hundreds of channels, we see the diversity of media ownership shrinking, along with the diversity of voices that are broadcast. People are fighting back, organizing, creating alternatives and holding the corporate media giants accountable. The corporations are pushing back. With life and death, war and peace, at stake, hinging on an informed and engaged populace, the stakes have never been higher, the media never more important.

Prominent traditional journalists with decades of experience mingled with the emerging generation of new media producers. Journalist Bill Moyers, who has won more than 30 Emmys, authored four best-sellers and currently hosts the popular PBS weekly news program "Bill Moyers Journal," opened Saturday with a plenary address, saying:

"Our dominant media are ultimately accountable only to corporate boards whose mission is not life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the whole body of our republic, but the aggrandizement of corporate executives and shareholders." Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is the poster child of media conglomerates. Murdoch's media empire spans the globe, with 35 TV stations in the U.S., the Fox News Channel (so-called) and many other cable channels, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, HarperCollins, 20th Century Fox movie studios and a slew of interrelated sports and entertainment properties.

Keep on reading ...

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Afghanistan: Military Vs. Political Solutions

Once again, looks like I was not that far off the grid, this time on two counts with regards to Afghanistan (this post and that one). Case in point - the following article I stumbled upon:

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NATO's Lost Cause

The West's 'good war' in Afghanistan has turned bad. A local solution, rather than a neocolonial one, is what's needed.

By Tariq Ali

In the latest clashes on the Pakistan-Afghan border, Nato troops have killed 11 Pakistani soldiers and injured many more, creating a serious crisis in the country and angering the Pakistan military high command, already split on the question.

US failure in Afghanistan is now evident and Nato desperation only too visible. Spreading the war to Pakistan would be a disaster for all sides. The Bush-Cheney era is drawing to a close, but it is unlikely that their replacements, despite the debacle in Iraq, will settle the American giant back to a digestive sleep.

The temporary cleavage that opened up between some EU states and Washington on Iraq was resolved after the occupation. They could all unite in Afghanistan and fight the good fight. This view has been strongly supported by every US presidential candidate in the run up to the 2008 elections, with Senator Barack Obama pressuring the White House to violate Pakistani sovereignty whenever necessary. He must be pleased.

That the "good war" has now turned bad is no longer disputed by a number of serious analysts in the US, even though there is no agreed prescription for dealing with the problems. Not least of which for some is the future of Nato, stranded far away from the Atlantic in a mountainous country, the majority of whose people, after offering a small window of opportunity to the occupiers, realised it was a mistake and became increasingly hostile.

The "neo-Taliban" control at least 20 districts in the Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan provinces where Nato troops replaced US soldiers. It is hardly a secret that many officials in these zones are closet supporters of the guerrilla fighters. As western intelligence agencies active in the country are fully aware, the situation is out of control. The model envisaged for the occupation was Panama. The then US secretary of State, Colin Powell, explained that: "The strategy has to be to take charge of the whole country by military force, police or other means". His knowledge of Afghanistan was limited.

Panama, populated by 3.5 million people, could not have been more different to Afghanistan, which has a population approaching 30 million and is geographically quite dissimilar. To even attempt a military occupation of the entire country would require a minimum of 200,000 troops.

A total of 8000 US troops were dispatched to seal the victory. The 4000 "peacekeepers" sent by other countries never left Kabul. The Germans concentrated on creating a police force that could run a police state and the Italians, without any sense of irony, were busy "training an Afghan judiciary" to deal with the drugs mafia. The British were in Helmand amidst the poppy fields. As for the new satellite states involved – Czechs, Slovenes, Poles, Estonians, Slovakians and Romanians – it was useful training for the future.

Five years later, in September 2006, an attempted bombing of the US embassy came close to hitting its target. A CIA assessment that same month painted a sombre picture, depicting Karzai and his regime as hopelessly corrupt and incapable of defending Afghanistan against the Taliban. Ronald E Neumann, the US Ambassador in Kabul supported this view and told an interviewer that the US faced "stark choices" and defeat could only be avoided through
"multiple billions" over "multiple years".

The repression, striking blindly, leaves people with no option but to back those trying to resist, especially in a part of the world where the culture of revenge is strong. When a whole community feels threatened it reinforces solidarity, regardless of the character or weakness of those who fight back.


Keep on reading ...

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The Pentagon - In Disarray?

Who would've thought? (Sarcasm) Not surprisingly, you won't read, see or hear this through MSM/traditional outlets:

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Trouble at the Pentagon

- Frida Berrigan

The Pentagon is in crisis: The war in Iraq is entering its fifth hot summer. And while U.S. troop casualties are down, the light at the end of the occupation tunnel is no closer and no brighter.

Headaches mount on the home front as well. The head of the Air Force was recently embarrassed and forced from the cockpit. Billions of dollars have been misplaced or misspent. Huge cost overruns bedevil weapons contractors. And, private contractors have formed a cubicle mercenary force, outnumbering uniformed personnel and federal employees in many DoD agencies.

The Government Accountability Office has issued a series of reports on these problems. While the watchdog agency sticks to the script of analytic bureaucratese, what they document is cumulatively damning to business as usual at the Pentagon.

Money Problems

The Pentagon has its work cut out for it. Keeping track of its more than half trillion dollar budget and the hundreds of billions more in war spending is no easy task. There is bound to be some slippage here and there. But the Pentagon’s Inspector General’s Office recently reported to Congress that the Pentagon is unable to account for nearly $15 billion earmarked for the Iraq reconstruction effort. In a May report to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Inspector General’s Office highlights $7.8 billion paid to contractors for everything from telephones to trucks without any support documentation—like a check for $5.6 million to an Iraqi contractor. For what? No one knows. Or the $32 million doled out to build a facility for the Iraqi military. Never built. Why not? No one knows.

One reason that money just seems to disappear is that there are not enough people watching the books. While the Pentagon budget has soared in the past seven years, the resources and staff time devoted to making sure that money is well spent have not increased.

In fiscal year 2007, the Pentagon contracted with companies for $316 billion in military goods and services. But the Inspector General’s Office only had the resources to track fewer than half those projects. And they also have to keep an eye on war spending. At the beginning of June, Inspector General Claude Kicklighter went to Congress with hat in hand to ask for another $25 million for his department next year. He is also arguing for a 25% increase in staffing over the next seven years. The funds – comparable to just a few hours of the war in Iraq – are in the proposed 2009 defense authorization bill now before Congress.

Meanwhile, the GAO estimates that the Pentagon has $900 billion in planned spending on weapons systems over the next five years. While Congressional and Pentagon leaders point to the need to “reset” military forces worn out by years of warfighting, the lion’s share of this money is not going to repair equipment or replenish dwindling stocks of needed material. Rather, it is going to pay the ever-spiraling bill for high tech weapons systems still in the pipeline.


Keep on reading ...

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Bush Wants To Expand And Share His Data Collection Scheme

I guess I was not so far off the grid after all, eh? Here's an article I stumbled upon to that effect:

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Bush Executive Order Expands Data Collection, Will Share Data with "Foreign Partners"

Big Brother wants your irises.

By Matthew Rothschild

George Bush just issued a directive to expand the acquisition of biometric information, and to ensure that agencies across the executive branch share it.

And the Bush Administration may give it to foreign governments, too.

All this according to National Security Presidential Directive Number 59, also known as Homeland Security Presidential Directive Number 24, which George W. Bush signed on June 5.

The directive is aimed at “known and suspected terrorists,” as well as “other persons who may pose a threat to national security.”

The directive does not say how these other persons who “may pose a threat” are to be defined.

And the directive is so broadly worded that it appears to cover anyone the government has biometric or other personal data on.

“To be most effective, national security identification and screening systems will require timely access to the most accurate and most complete biometric, biographic, and related that are, or can be, made available throughout the executive branch,” the
document states.

Bush ordered executive departments and agencies to “use mutually compatible methods and procedures in the collection, storage, use, analysis, and sharing of biometric and associated biographic and contextual information of individuals.” Agencies are supposed to share this information with each other “to the fullest extent permitted by law” whenever “there is an articulable and reasonable basis for suspicion” that an individual poses a “threat to national security.”

The directive does not specify what an “articulable and reasonable basis” might be.

“Known and suspected terrorists,” or KSTs, as the document calls them, are not the only concern of the Bush Administration.

It has whole groups of other people that it wants to gather biometric information on.

Keep on reading ...

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That's It: I'm Voting (Neo)Conservative!

Here's a definite classic ad (h/t):

Now, substitute "Republican" with "CPC" ...

Oh yeah - I'm absolutely voting (neo)conservative next time around, baby!

But ... I guess I should acquaint myself with the (neo)conservative lingo. Good thing I have a tutorial (another classic):

Oh yeah baby, I am so totally sold indeed (yet another classic!):

Keep on rockin'!

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Light Blogging Ahead ...

I am insanely busy along with a rush of social commitments over the next couple of days - hence, blogging will be light on content.

However, normal blogging activity should resume this coming Sunday late afternoon/early evening.

I apologize for the inconvenience ...

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Calls To Stop Drumbeat Of War With Iran

punditman:

'Hotline to Iran' Aims to Head Off War
Alison Raphael
OneWorld US

Members of Congress joined religious and civil society leaders today in an urgent call to stop the "drumbeat of war" with Iran and open up diplomatic talks to resolve growing tensions between Washington and Tehran.

At a previous 'hotline' event. © Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran

"We hear the same people who supported a disastrous war in Iraq now steadily beating the drum for war with Iran," said Congresswoman Barbara Lee, adding: "We have been down this road before."

Lee joined Reps. Ron Paul and Sheila Jackson Lee in a "Time to Talk to Iran" event on Capitol Hill, organized by the Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran (CNAPI), along with groups such as Physicians for Social Responsibility and the American Friends Service Committee.

The event featured 1960s-style red "hotline" telephones that enabled people to speak with ordinary citizens in Iran, including Washington, D.C. tourists attracted by the outdoors event.

Keep Reading ...

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Residential Schools And Mass Graves: End Of "Code Grey"

Prime Minister Harper made the official and formal apology to former students (alive and dead) of native residential schools. To whit:

Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today to offer an apology to former students of Indian residential schools. The treatment of children in Indian residential schools is a sad chapter in our history.

In the 1870's, the federal government, partly in order to meet its obligation to educate aboriginal children, began to play a role in the development and administration of these schools.

Two primary objectives of the residential schools system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture.

These objectives were based on the assumption aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal.

Indeed, some sought, as it was infamously said, "to kill the Indian in the child."

Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country.

Most schools were operated as "joint ventures" with Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian or United churches.

The government of Canada built an educational system in which very young children were often forcibly removed from their homes, often taken far from their communities.

Many were inadequately fed, clothed and housed.

All were deprived of the care and nurturing of their parents, grandparents and communities.

First Nations, Inuit and Métis languages and cultural practices were prohibited in these schools.

Tragically, some of these children died while attending residential schools and others never returned home.

The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian residential schools policy were profoundly negative and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging impact on aboriginal culture, heritage and language.

While some former students have spoken positively about their experiences at residential schools, these stories are far overshadowed by tragic accounts of the emotional, physical and sexual abuse and neglect of helpless children, and their separation from powerless families and communities.

The legacy of Indian residential schools has contributed to social problems that continue to exist in many communities today. It has taken extraordinary courage for the thousands of survivors that have come forward to speak publicly about the abuse they suffered.

It is a testament to their resilience as individuals and to the strength of their cultures.

Regrettably, many former students are not with us today and died never having received a full apology from the government of Canada.

The government recognizes that the absence of an apology has been an impediment to healing and reconciliation.

Therefore, on behalf of the government of Canada and all Canadians, I stand before you, in this chamber so central to our life as a country, to apologize to aboriginal peoples for Canada's role in the Indian residential schools system.

To the approximately 80,000 living former students, and all family members and communities, the government of Canada now recognizes that it was wrong to forcibly remove children from their homes and we apologize for having done this.

We now recognize that it was wrong to separate children from rich and vibrant cultures and traditions, that it created a void in many lives and communities, and we apologize for having done this.

We now recognize that, in separating children from their families, we undermined the ability of many to adequately parent their own children and sowed the seeds for generations to follow, and we apologize for having done this.

We now recognize that, far too often, these institutions gave rise to abuse or neglect and were inadequately controlled, and we apologize for failing to protect you.

Not only did you suffer these abuses as children, but as you became parents, you were powerless to protect your own children from suffering the same experience, and for this we are sorry.

The burden of this experience has been on your shoulders for far too long.

The burden is properly ours as a government, and as a country.

There is no place in Canada for the attitudes that inspired the Indian residential schools system to ever again prevail.

You have been working on recovering from this experience for a long time and in a very real sense, we are now joining you on this journey.

The government of Canada sincerely apologizes and asks the forgiveness of the aboriginal peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly.

We are sorry.

In moving towards healing, reconciliation and resolution of the sad legacy of Indian residential schools, implementation of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement agreement began on September 19, 2007.

Years of work by survivors, communities, and aboriginal organizations culminated in an agreement that gives us a new beginning and an opportunity to move forward together in partnership.

A cornerstone of the settlement agreement is the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

This commission presents a unique opportunity to educate all Canadians on the Indian residential schools system.

It will be a positive step in forging a new relationship between aboriginal peoples and other Canadians, a relationship based on the knowledge of our shared history, a respect for each other and a desire to move forward together with a renewed understanding that strong families, strong communities and vibrant cultures and traditions will contribute to a stronger Canada for all of us.

Leaders of the three opposition parties likewise got into this much needed exercise, whereas various First Nations leaders were deservedly given the opportunity to speak on this most grave historical matter.

Such blackest of stains on our history will forever remain with us - but at the very least we are now trying to make best amends possible.

Indeed, we are owning up to the tragically brutal and arrogantly callous policies of our bigoted - and shamefully uncivilized - predecessors.

Yet, such a formal apology was but the first step. Compensation must be given, whereas the full records must come to light - in this respect, the rest is now up to the LaForme commission which has already begun its hearings.

Consequently, we here at APOV now end our "code grey" display of our flag.

But make no mistake: we will keep on watching further developments, along with (I have no doubt) all Canadian progressive bloggers, and stand ready to shine the glaring spotlight of truth and justice should today's apology, or the LaForme commission, end up being nothing more than empty political exercises.

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War?

punditman:

by Jim Lobe
LobeLog.com

Once again, notably in the wake of this week’s annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference and the visit here of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, there’s a lot of chatter about a possible attack by Israel and/or the United States on Iran. Olmert appears to have left the White House (and a dinner with Cheney Tuesday evening before the prime minister’s meeting with Bush) quite satisfied on this score, while rumors — most recently voiced by Daniel Pipes — that the administration plans to carry out a “massive” attack in the window between the November elections and Bush’s departure from office, particularly if Sen. Obama is his successor, continue to swirl around the capital.

What to make of this? Is this real? Or is it psychological warfare designed to persuade Tehran that it really does face devastation if it doesn’t freeze its uranium enrichment program very, very soon and/or U.S. allies, Russia, and China that they have to put more pressure on Tehran or deal with the consequences of such an attack?

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve generally been sceptical of the many reports over the last two years that an attack — either Israeli or U.S. — was imminent, as those reports had often warned at the time of their publication. After the release of the December NIE, I, like just about everyone else, became even more doubtful that Bush would order an attack before leaving office (and I didn’t think the Israelis would mount an attack without a green light from Washington), in part because neo-conservatives, who had been and remain the most eager champions of military action, seemed to simply give up on Bush and, in any event, were not showing any signs of orchestrating a major new media campaign to mobilize public opinion in that direction, as they did in the run-up to the Iraq invasion.

Since the abrupt resignation of Adm. Fallon as Centcom commander, which I saw as a major blow to the realist faction in the administration, and Cheney’s subsequent visit to the region, as I noted at the time, however, I’ve been increasingly concerned about the possibility of an attack, and the past week’s events have done nothing to allay that concern.

Let me just lay out a few items, other than those mentioned above, that I find disturbing.

Keep Reading ...

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The 35 Impeachment Articles Against President Bush

While these come too little too late, the articles of impeachment against President Bush presented to Congress are nevertheless historic.

For your information, here are the 35 articles of impeachment:

Article I
Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for War Against Iraq;

Article II
Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression;

Article III
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War;

Article IV
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States;

Article V
Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression;

Article VI
Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of HJRes114;

Article VII
Invading Iraq Absent a Declaration of War;

Article VIII
Invading Iraq, A Sovereign Nation, in Violation of the UN Charter;

Article IX
Failing to Provide Troops With Body Armor and Vehicle Armor;

Article X
Falsifying Accounts of US Troop Deaths and Injuries for Political Purposes;

Article XI
Establishment of Permanent U.S. Military Bases in Iraq;

Article XII
Initiating a War Against Iraq for Control of That Nation's Natural Resources;

Article XIIII
Creating a Secret Task Force to Develop Energy and Military Policies With Respect to Iraq and Other Countries;

Article XIV
Misprision of a Felony, Misuse and Exposure of Classified Information And Obstruction of Justice in the Matter of Valerie Plame Wilson, Clandestine Agent of the Central Intelligence Agency;

Article XV
Providing Immunity from Prosecution for Criminal Contractors in Iraq;

Article XVI
Reckless Misspending and Waste of U.S. Tax Dollars in Connection With Iraq and US Contractors;

Article XVII
Illegal Detention: Detaining Indefinitely And Without Charge Persons Both U.S. Citizens and Foreign Captives;

Article XVIII
Torture: Secretly Authorizing, and Encouraging the Use of Torture Against Captives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Other Places, as a Matter of Official Policy;

Article XIX
Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to "Black Sites" Located in Other Nations, Including Nations Known to Practice Torture;

Article XX
Imprisoning Children;

Article XXI
Misleading Congress and the American People About Threats from Iran, and Supporting Terrorist Organizations Within Iran, With the Goal of Overthrowing the Iranian Government;

Article XXII
Creating Secret Laws;

Article XXIII
Violation of the Posse Comitatus Act;

Article XXIV
Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment;

Article XXV
Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens;

Article XXVI
Announcing the Intent to Violate Laws with Signing Statements;

Article XXVII
Failing to Comply with Congressional Subpoenas and Instructing Former Employees Not to Comply;

Article XXVIII
Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of the Administration of Justice;

Article XXIX
Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965;

Article XXX
Misleading Congress and the American People in an Attempt to Destroy Medicare;

Article XXXI
Katrina: Failure to Plan for the Predicted Disaster of Hurricane Katrina, Failure to Respond to a Civil Emergency;

Article XXXII
Misleading Congress and the American People, Systematically Undermining Efforts to Address Global Climate Change;

Article XXXIII
Repeatedly Ignored and Failed to Respond to High Level Intelligence Warnings of Planned Terrorist Attacks in the US, Prior to 911;

Article XXXIV
Obstruction of the Investigation into the Attacks of September 11, 2001;

Article XXXV
Endangering the Health of 911 First Responders.

And thus these have been entered in the records of Congress.


(Cross-posted at Progressive Historians)

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Too Little, Too Late

Last night, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) presented 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush to Congress (video here), following up on his previous introduction of impeachment articles against Vice-President Cheney last year.

Kucinich's resolution against Cheney was sent to the Judiciary Comittee some seven months after its initial presentation to Congress - and since then has been kept in limbo.

Aside from the appalling lack of MSM/traditional media coverage of this, chances are nevertheless that Kucinich's new resolution against Bush will suffer the same fate.

There are largely two reasons for this:

A) Just prior to the victories of the Democrats in 2006 which gave them a clear majority in Congress and better control of the Senate, House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) infamously pledged that impeachment would be "off the table", never considering such proceedings a priority and going as far as to characterize them as being a "waste of time";

and B) Kunicich's resolutions, especially the latest one against Bush, come far too little, too late.

Of course, the overall cause behind reasons A and B is nothing more than utter and shameful lack of political courage on the part of too many Democrats in doing what must be done - the right thing.

And the consequences are likely to be felt for decades to come:

On the one hand, not impeaching would increase the bar of minimal requirements for impeachment so high, no one will ever be impeached. The same result will happen if representatives and the People simply "wait out" the rest of the Bush-Cheney term - or if criminal charges are actually brought up (the proceedings themselves, along with the usual stalling tactics, stonewalling and various legal delays, would certainly take quite a long time, no?). On the other hand, not impeaching will represent the ultimate expression of lack of democratic courage, principles and responsibilities.

(...) In other words: impeachment is a must if the health, the sanctity and continuity of the U.S. Constitution are to be preserved and protected.

Thus will Bush and Cheney end quietly their term, leaving behind them nothing but the rotten fruits of a failed administration.

Meanwhile, back in Canada, I continue to see parallels between the Democratic Party's failures at opposing the Bush administration (if not actually booting them out of governance), with the all-too-similar failures of the Liberal Party of Canada at opposing the Harper government and taking them out of power.

One more recent case in point:

Tories survive another confidence vote, MPs vote in favour of Bill C-50

The Tories survived yet another confidence vote on Monday when politicians voted in favour of a government bill that also contains controversial changes to Canada's immigration law.

(...) The Liberals' abstention (from voting) ensured the vote on Bill C-50, a confidence motion, did not bring down Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government.

Earlier on Monday, the CBC's Rosemary Barton reported that there was debate within the Liberal caucus over the bill, but Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion didn't seem to want an election right now.

Thus, this is the lot of triangulators, whom are ever obsessed with threading the safest of roads: they ultimately and inevitably fail to courageously walk the higher road.

Why? Because whenever they (finally) realize their grave mistake, it is invariably too little and too late already.

And so it goes ... in Canada, as in the U.S.

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Oil Prices: High Cost Of A Single War-Like Remark

Oil, Israel, Iran, America and the High Cost of a Single War-Like Remark

by Dave Lindorff
www.thiscantbehappening.net

One remark by a minor Israeli cabinet officer hinting at a possible US or Israeli attack on Iran has sent oil prices up by a record $11/barrel to a record $139 per barrel Friday. That should tell us what would happen if the Bush administration were crazy enough to attack Iran, or to let its vassal state of Israel do it.

Most analysts say an actual attack on Iran would send oil almost immediately to past $300 per barrel—a level that would strangle economies worldwide and send the world into an economic collapse not since the Smoot-Hawley Tariffs kicked off the Great Depression.

The repercussions of that would be staggering.

America, which runs on oil, would grind to a halt. Gasoline and home heating oil would double or triple in price, leading to desperation in the coming winter for those living north of the Mason-Dixon line, and to a mass exodus of the elderly from Florida and Arizona, where air-conditioning would no longer be affordable.

In China, an economy almost wholly dependent upon the manufacture of goods for sale to American consumers, hundreds of millions of workers would suddenly find themselves unemployed. With their remittances to their peasant relatives halted, half the country would be kicked back to the pre-capitalist era, only without guaranteed wages, homes, food and healthcare. It is likely that unrest unprecedented since the Cultural Revolution would erupt.

The Middle East would explode.

In Iraq, Shia fighters would rise up in solidarity with their Shia neighbor, Iran, and begin attacking American forces in Iraq in earnest, probably making the Tet Offensive in 1968 Vietnam look like a picnic. Where the US had half a million troops in Vietnam in that offensive, the military is already stretched to the breaking point in Iraq, with supply lines barely defended.

It makes you wonder what is going on in the higher reaches of the US bureaucracy. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has in the past intimated that he’s no fan of war with Iran, just sacked the two top men in the Airforce—the most gung-ho of the service branches in terms of Iran war mongering. The unprecedent surprise firing of Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and the Air Force’s top officer, Gen. T Michael “Buzz” Moseley, was officially blamed on their poor handling of the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal, in the wake of last year’s unauthorized and improper removal from storage and cross-country aerial transfer of six nuclear-armed cruise missiles in launch position on a B-52 Stratofortress, and the discovery this year of an earlier “inadvertent” shipment of ICBM missile warhead nuclear triggers to Taiwan. While it is possible that those two incidents were the cause of the firings, there remain serious unanswered questions about both incidents, and particularly about the cruise missile flight.

As I reported earlier on this site and in Counterpunch magazine and American Conservative magazine, there were a half dozen unexplained deaths of US airmen, including two suicides, which occurred just before and after that flight last August 30, none of which were investigated at least publicly by the Pentagon or the FBI according to local prosecutors and medical examiners contacted. A number of experts in nuclear weapons handling have said that it would be “impossible” for the six warheads to have been removed from guarded bunkers at Minot AFB in North Dakota, mounted on cruise missiles, loaded onto launch pylons under the wing of a B-52, and flown to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana, all as a “mistake.”

This leads inexorably to the question: What was being planned for those warheads, if they were not being removed from storage by mistake, and if they were being moved without the knowledge of the top brass, including Gates, at the Pentagon? Recall that the only reason anyone learned about the incident was that it was reported outside the military chain of command to a reporter at Military Times newspaper by several Air Force whistle-blowers upset by what they were seeing.

We already witnessed the sudden resignation from the post of CentCom Command of Adm. William Fallon, whose outspoken opposition to the Bush/Cheney administration’s talk of attacking Iran led to his being pushed aside in favor of the more pliant Gen. David Petraeus. Fallon was pushed out by Iran war hawks because of his opposition to an attack. Were the Air Force Secretary and Chief of Staff forced out by Gates because of their pro-attack position?

Plenty to ponder here, but the concerns of oil speculators, who have driven up the price of oil by 8.6 percent (and the stock market down by 3.2 percent) in a single day, in large part on war rumors, should have us all concerned.

It’s not just about the price of gasoline.


punditman says... Remember this when you go to fill-up at the pumps, folks. Remember who is to blame.

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Canada Lax With Secrets?!?

Dixit Wesley Wark, national security expert of the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies:

"I think other G8 countries tend to be a little more security-conscious on these matters than Canada does".

(...) "From the beginning (of when the Bernier-Couillard scandal broke) ... I thought, 'This is not the way things are meant to work'".

(...) "The government should have been made aware of this, certainly whispered in Bernier's ear that this was perhaps an inappropriate relationship."

(...) "The loss of documents should have never happened in a government seriously concerned about security".

Let's see if I understand this: it is Canada which is lax on keeping secrets because of the incompetence of the Harper government?

You mean, this Canada - the country where its military goes as far as to classify hairstyles as a matter of national security?!?

Interestingly, this is the same Wesley Wark who has been serving on the Advisory Council on National Security since its creation in 2005.

The same Wesley K. Wark who is a staunch proponent of tough, all encompassing, anti-terorism laws.

Need I say that he's all for absolute secrecy?

However, and considering his mind-bloggling conclusion on Canada's laxness with regards to national security secrets which he apparently based solely on Harper's demonstrated incompetence (and that of his Harpies), I am seriously wondering here whether Mr. Wark was simply "off his game" when he made this proclamation, or if this is "par for the course" where he is concerned.

It is quite worrying that the latter could be the case ... considering all the "big ears" who are listening to his "expertly" advice.

Food for thought, eh?

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Goodbye Tour To Irrelevance And Ash Heap Of History

President George W. Bush launched a "farewell tour" to Europe in order to "solidify" relations, among other delusional objectives to bolster his self-importance in the judging eyes of History, as opposed to remedy in a small measure his demonstrated incompetence - and that of his administration - over his two mandates as President.

This is what the worse President ever had to say on his launching of this little trip:

"I'm looking forward to meeting with our friends and allies. We've got strong relations in Europe, and this trip will help solidify those relations. And we got a lot to talk about".

On the menu, we have:

- Afghanistan;
- the economy;
- Iran;
- Middle East peace talks.

Now, I will not delve into (once again) why Bush and his administration have zero credibility with regards to these issues.

But I will give you another fine example as to why he and his administration simply can not be taken seriously about anything: the Bush administration is blackmailing Iraq into accepting its long-term military occupation plans - by holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq’s money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

And for good measure, here's another example: the U.S. has pulled out of the United Nations' Human Rights Council unless specifically compelled to attend - citing the Council's stance on relations between Israel and Palestine.

On a related note, the President of Israel has been urging Bush to attack Iran.

And Bush, the saber rattling-in-chief on Iran, says he wants to discuss sanctions against this country with his European "friends and allies" while on this "farewell tour" of his?

It is no wonder, then, that increasing numbers of people in European countries see the United States as a "force for evil in today’s world".

It is likewise no wonder, then, that Bush is considered a disgrace among long-time allies of the U.S.A.

And it is no wonder, then, that many European countries have begun to "look beyond Bush".

Think about it: the President who was chiefly responsible for the worsening of relations between the U.S. and the European Union still thinks that he has "friends and allies" over there, no doubt expecting to be taken seriously and be welcomed with open arms.

As someone else wrote:

To say Europeans will welcome U.S. President George Bush on his farewell visit to Europe next week would invite a charge of verb-abuse. Welcome is hardly the word. But they will be glad to see the back of him.

Like a man drowning in a tsunami of his own making, Bush is desperately seeking any life-line, real or imagined, to save his legacy.

Why, he continues to envision a distant future in which Iraq is a peaceful democracy, Palestinians live side-by-side and hand-in-hand with Israelis and terrorism is a thing of the past - all thanks to his policies.

But the harsh truth of the matter is that President George W. Bush and his administration constitute a failed presidency - and a criminal one at that - built on lies, mendacity, arrogance and incompetence.

And only fellow incompetents, ever eager to emulate him and his administration, keep supporting him and singing his praises - like these folks, I am ashamed to say (being Canadian and all).

Consequently, Bush's "farewell tour" constitutes nothing more than a pathetic exercise of deluded and inflated self-importance - one last tired, asinine "mission accomplished" phony parade towards irrelevance and the ash heap of History.

Seeing "the back of him" won't come soon enough - because it is in fact some four years too late, at the very least.


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

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APOV's Weekly Revue (06/08/2008)

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

Oh, Canada!
As Ontario and Québec signed a cap-and-trade agreement, the (neo)Con Harper government can do nothing but rant about it to excuse their own procrastination and incompetence with regards to healing the environment. This made Steve V. @ Far and Wide wonder whether the federal government as become obsolete in this matter, while pretty shaved ape @ Canadian Cynic takes the Harpies to task for emitting more hot air on this issue. But incompetence on the part of the Harper government spreads to everything - including ignoring the world stage, as Dave @ The Galloping Beaver explains. Meanwhile, right-wing uninformed and/or lying bloviators keep blathering negatively about Human Rights commissions - Dr. Dawg @ Dawg's Blawg sets the record straight with facts and truths.


Oh, U.S.A.!
Newsflash: the Bush administration doesn't want war with Iran, it just wants to bomb Iran - more spin to confuse the truth of the matter, as Cernig @ Newshoggers explains. Speaking of nuclear technology and unranium enrichment - Chris Floyd @ Empire Burlesque provides all the suspicious links between the Bushes, the Saudis and the bomb. On the renditions and torture issues, Ken Anderson @ Shockfront informs us that Bush-sanctioned renditions are still occuring, this time using U.S. Navy vessels as prisons and interrogation centers, whereas Jesselyn Radack @ Daily Kos writes about her own testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on "handling" detainees. Meanwhile, Maryscott O'Connor @ My Left Wing reveals the ugly truth about the true nature of American post-Civil War racism and continued underhanded slavery in her sublime piece titled "The American Stain".

And on the political front, proximity1 @ The Wild Wild Left expounds on the essential things Democrats must do to rid the landscape of those G.O.P.-created memes which have been plaguing the political discourse for the last couple of decades or so. To this effect, Windspike @ Bring It On! illustrate the consequences of voting the G.O.P. to the White House yet again in the coming general elections ...


Oh, World!
On the Global War on Terror(TM) front, skdadl @ Peace, order and good government, eh? expounds on the counter-terrorism neurosis mindset which has gripped all Western democracies since 9/11. Speaking of the Middle East, Tom Harper @ Who Hijacked Our Country talks about Palestinians and how they are living behind the walls of a police state. On the matter of the "clash of civilizations", Red Tory @ Red Tory digs up more self-righteous ignorance on the part of those Christian Right fanatics with regards to Islam, with his piece "Onward Christian Soldiers!".

Last, but not least, Diane G. @ The Wild Wild Left wonders what would a world without borders look like.


And thus, it is on this note of hope that concludes APOV's Weekly Revue for this June 8th, 2008.

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Maher Arar: Will He Finally Get American Justice?

A newly declassified report reveals true motivations for sending Maher Arar to Syria - where he was tortured - as the U.S. reopens the probe into his mistreatment (h/t) (emphasis added):

High-level U.S. officials intervened to make sure Maher Arar was sent to Syria instead of Canada because they feared the porous border would not keep him "from returning to the United States for nefarious purposes," according to a previously secret internal U.S. probe released yesterday.

Richard Skinner, head of internal investigations at the Department of Homeland Security, also told a congressional hearing yesterday that he was reopening the probe into Mr. Arar's deportation because new classified information had been received in recent weeks that cast doubt on the conclusions that exonerated U.S. officials for sending him to Syria.

"We have reopened our review into the Mr. Arar matter because, less than a month ago, we received additional information that contradicts one of the conclusions," Mr. Skinner told the committee hearing.

Well, well, well ... a cover-up of fear-, paranoid- and incompetence-driven mistakes and expediency-hasted malicious intent, which included the interventions of "high officials" in the White House? Who could have ever even suspected something like this? Yeah - right (emphasis added):

The report is heavily redacted and paints an incomplete but compelling picture of high-level intervention that overruled the assessments of anti-terrorism agents, ignored warnings that Mr. Arar would likely be tortured in Syria and ran roughshod over legal safeguards in a rush to get him on a chartered plane out of the country before the deportation could be stopped.

(...) The U.S. report released yesterday shows a U.S. database flagged border agents that Mr. Arar was flying to New York, dubbing him "armed and dangerous" and a "special interest" alien. Yet after being initially detained and interrogated by a special Joint Terrorism Task Force agency at the airport, they concluded they "had no interest in Arar as an investigative subject."

What reversed that conclusion was the still obscure high-level meeting on Friday, Oct. 4, 2002, when senior officials in Washington determined that not only would Mr. Arar be removed from the United States, but he would be sent to Syria and imprisoned, not allowed to return to Canada. Larry Thomson, then the acting attorney-general, signed an order that rejected Mr. Arar's request to return to Canada because it would be "prejudicial to the interest of the United States."

Got it? What we have here yet once again is more of the Bush administration legalese maneuvering to circumvent/bypass due process, all in order to act according to their petty, paranoid fears.

In the end, Mr. Arar's always-consistent account of those events which lead to his rendition to Syria (instead of deportation to Canada) is finally being vindicated (emphasis and links added):

The timeline revealed in yesterday's U.S. report is broadly consistent with a chronology Mr. Arar has posted on his website and the findings of a Canadian government commission led by Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor.

(...) The U.S. report finds that the circumstances of Mr. Arar's detention, from being taken into custody while changing planes at New York's John F. Kennedy airport on Friday, Sept. 27, 2002, until his removal to the Middle East, on Tuesday, Oct. 8, was "questionable," but not clearly illegal.

The report notes, Mr. Arar could have been sent to several places. "Canada was also an option and would have been a more efficient country of return both logistically and economically," it said.

(...) Arrested while passing through the United States to Canada, Mr. Arar was taken from JFK airport and sent directly to a "special handling unit" at a detention centre. The isolation "contributed to his difficulties in obtaining counsel and advice on his immigration case," the report finds.

And the rest, as they say, is history:

Sept. 27, 2002: The Immigration and Naturalization Service scuttles a plan to send Maher Arar to Switzerland, the country he had last transited through on his journey from Tunisia to Canada. The FBI manoeuvres to keep him from calling the Canadian consulate so it can investigate.

Oct. 1: The INS says it gives Mr. Arar a form indicating he has five days to respond to his removal, but the urgency of the matter is never clearly communicated.

Oct. 3: A Canadian consular official visits Mr. Arar in custody.

Oct. 4: Mr. Arar, a dual Syrian-Canadian citizen, requests he be sent to Canada, and expresses fears about torture in Syria. U.S. officials decide they would prefer to send him to the Middle East.

Oct. 5: An immigration lawyer visits Mr. Arar and recalls him being "emotional and distraught." The lawyer does not know he has only one day left to respond to a bid to remove him from the United States.

Oct. 6: At 5 p.m., officials leave messages notifying Mr. Arar's lawyers that an important hearing for him is about to take place. The messages are left on their office voicemails during the weekend. At 9 p.m., officials begin a six-hour interview with Mr. Arar. They leave unpersuaded that he is at risk of torture in Syria, even though other officials have already concluded that he very much is.

Oct. 7: The acting U.S. Attorney-General turns down Mr. Arar's request to return to Canada as "prejudicial to the interest of the United States" because of the "porous" border.

Oct. 8: Mr. Arar is taken out of his cell and brought to a private jet. En route, he is served with a form declaring him permanently inadmissible to the United States.

And thereafter he was renditioned to Syria, where he was tortured.

Maher Arara was denied American justice in 2006 when he sought compensation from the U.S. government for his mistreatment. The main reason cited by the judge who dismissed Arar's lawsuit was "the need for national security and secrecy".

Except that secrecy here was used to cover-up wrongdoing.

Considering that the truth is finally coming out, I wonder if Mr. Arar now has grounds to appeal this unjust and near-sighted 2006 decision or to re-initiate a lawsuit based on these "new findings".

Maher Arar already got Canadian justice - and deservedly so.

He may yet get American justice as well.

At least, I do hope so.


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

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Late Friday Night Ode To ... Hope

Hope and resolve ... to rise out of despair: a play in three acts.

First act: Metallica - Turn the page.

Second act: Poison - Something to believe.

And Third act: Metallica - Bleeding me.

'Nuff said ...

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U.S. Economy: Withering While On Life-Support

Economic depression in America: Evidence of a withering economy is everywhere

by Mike Whitney
www.globalresearch.ca

Look around. The evidence of a withering economy is everywhere. In "good times" consumers shun the canned meat aisle altogether, but no more. Today, Spam sales are soaring; grocery stores can't keep it on the shelves. Everyone is looking for cheaper ways to feed their families. The Labor Dept. assures us that core-inflation is only 4 per cent, but everybody knows it's load of malarkey. Food prices are going through the roof. White bread is up 13 percent, bacon is up 7 percent and peanut butter is up 9 percent. Inflation is rampant and there's no end in sight. The dollar is closing in on the peso and working people are struggling just to get by. The bottom line is that more and more people in "the richest country on earth" are now surviving on processed pig-meat. That says it all.

In Santa Barbara parking lots are being converted into hostels so that families that lost their homes in the subprime fiasco can sleep in their cars and not be hassled by the cops. The same is true in LA where tent cities have sprung up around the railroad yards to accommodate the growing number of people who've lost their jobs or can't afford to rent a room on service-industry wages. It's tragic. Everywhere people are feeling the pinch; that's why 9 out of 10 Americans now believe the country is now headed in the wrong direction and that's why consumer confidence is at its lowest ebb since the Great Depression. This is the great triumph of Reagan's free trade "trickle down" Voodoo economics; whole families living out of their cars waiting for the pawn shop to open.

The economy is on life-support. The rest of the world would be doing us all a favor if they decided to chuck the dollar and boycott US financial products altogether. That would put an end to Wall Street's chicanery once and for all. Foreign investors should be demanding restitution and impounding American assets to compensate for the trillions of dollars they lost in the subprime/securitization swindle. Litigate, litigate, litigate; that's the only way to make the guilty parties pay for their crimes. Either that or set up a gallows on Wall Street and get down to business.

The pundits on the business channel are telling us that the "worst is over"; that the Force 5 hurricane in the financial markets has weakened to a squall. Don't believe it. The corporate bond market is still frozen, housing is in free fall, and the banking system is buckling from the overload of bad investments. The FDIC is even trying to lure former employees out of retirement to deal with the tsunami of bank failures set to touch down later in 2008. Corporate defaults are on the rise and and commercial real estate is crashing.

"Commercial property prices in the US in February saw their sharpest decline since records began nearly 15 years ago as sources of finance for deals has dried up, according to data from Standard & Poor’s out yesterday. Sales of commercial properties were down 71 per cent in the first quarter compared with a year earlier." (Financial Times) Commercial real estate is following the same downward trajectory as residential housing. They're both headed for the bottom of the fish-tank. Any slump in CRE will send unemployment skyrocketing while adding to the solvency problems facing the banks.

We're not out of the woods by a long shot, and won't be for years to come. According to Bloomberg News, soaring raw material costs have caused a sharp rise in costs to producers that they won't be able to pass on to cash-strapped consumers. That means that corporate profits will fall and stock values will plunge.

Last week, Oppenheimer analyst Meredith Whitney announced that:

"The real harrowing days of the credit crisis are still ahead of us and will prove more widespread in effect than anything yet seen. Just as strained liquidity pushed so many small and mid-sized specialty finance companies to the brink, we believe it will do the same to the US consumer. We believe losses will only accelerate further and far worse than the most draconian estimates."

Full article ...


punditman says ... From the Full article link above: "The country is undergoing a collapsing real estate market that surpasses the Great Depression and former Fed-chief Alan Greenspan's book is still on the New York Times Best Seller list. How's that for irony?"

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