Gone Fishin' (Yet Again)

Lots of folks visiting the APOV HQ this week-end, including today. Hence, no blogging on my part this Sunday, as for yesterday - the Weekly Revue will return next week as usual. My apologies.

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The Bush Grand Delusion

Bush wants history to see him as a liberator of millions

George W. Bush hopes history will see him as a president who liberated millions of Iraqis and Afghans, who worked towards peace and who never sold his soul for political ends.

"I'd like to be a president (known) as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace," Bush said in excerpts of a recent interview released by the White House Friday.

"I would like to be a person remembered as a person who, first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process. I came to Washington with a set of values, and I'm leaving with the same set of values."

Keep Reading (if you haven't died laughing) ...

Punditman says ... Oh, George, you are such a funny guy!

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Late Friday Night Ode To ... The Worse Of Humanity

Throughout history, from the first inter-tribal clashes to this week's recent terrorist attacks in India - truly Humanity is quite good at shackling its better angels in favor of leaving way to its worst demons.

From fear, to religion, to territory, to resources, to power - any excuse we have to commit violence upon each other, we use.

Same with exploiting others, stealing from them, or destroying our world.

For all that matters is the fullfillment of immediate, short-term wants and needs above and beyond any consequences that may result thereafter.

And never mind all the suffering and death brought upon fellow human beings.

And future generations be damned.

So I give you tonight's Ode - a double-play from my all-time favorite band ... Iron Maiden.

First, we have For The Greater Name Of God:

Followed by The Evil That Men Do:

Yup. We have a long way to go before we wise up indeed ...

(P.S. I've been busy yet again, hence why blogging on my part has been less than usual - see you folks Sunday)

(P.P.S. Impolitic? 900ft Jesus? Your move, ladies!) ;-)

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Ooopsie! Sorry - Our Bad! (Heheh)

The title is essentially what Harper and his Harpies are now saying in their backing down on their "swell" idea to strip political parties of their public financing.

While one can only acknowledge approvingly such an "enlightened" change of mind, the question nevertheless remains: how in Hell could they ever think that they would have got away with this, to begin with?

I reiterate: competence, Mr. Harper? What a joke you are, sir.

And an increasingly unfunny, pathetic one at that.

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Karzai Wishes He Could Shoot Down US Planes

Afghan President Hamid Karzai used a visit yesterday by a United Nations delegation to hit out at the international forces over their conduct in the war, expressing disbelief that after seven years “a little force like the Taliban” is continuing to flourish.

But today the Afghan President took his complaints to a new level, publicly lamenting that he was unable to shoot down the US planes which have been bombarding Afghan villages. Karzai added that if he had a rock attached to a piece of string, he’d use it to try to down the planes, “but that’s not in my hands.”

Hitting out at the war on terror as “unclear,” Karzai criticized “a war which is unclear what it is for, and what we are doing.” Addressing the media after today’s meeting with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer he called for a firm timeline for withdrawal, insisting “this war cannot be endless and forever and the Afghan nation cannot burn in a war of which the end is not clear,” and adding “we did not welcome the international community in Afghanistan so that our lives get worse.”

Karzai warned that if a timeline is not set, he feels Afghanistan has “the right to find another solution for peace and security, which is negotiations.” He also accused international troops of having set up a parallel government.

punditman says ...

Afghanistan is never far from our minds, but what a headline! Is this some blunt, off-message honesty from a Western puppet that shows signs of a very real schism in a once solid alliance? Or is it an orchestrated front? You decide ...

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Julie Morand. Terrorist. Al Qaeda.

Just because a deserving cause well, deserves support.

After all, chronic intellectual sloth-driven incompetence has to be paid for, sooner or later - eh?

Let me reiterate: Julie Morand. Terrorist. Al Qaeda.

Any questions?

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Harper - Oh, The Hypocrisy, Mendacity And Incompetence!

Ah, the palpable sense of competence and responsibility of our Prime Douchebag and his Harpies in matters regarding budgets, deficits and the economy ...

Can you smell a (politicizing) budgetary rat?

Flaherty to axe subsidies to political parties in fiscal update: sources

The Conservatives are poised to eliminate the public subsidies that Canada's five major political parties receive, a move that would save $30 million a year but could cripple the opposition.

Sources told CBC News and other media outlets Wednesday that the subsidy cut is one of the key elements of the fiscal update that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will present Thursday in Ottawa.

(...) On the surface, it would appear Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives have the most to lose if subsidies were cut because they garnered the most votes in the October election. The Conservatives earned $10 million in subsidies, compared to $7.7 million for the Liberals, $4.9 million for the NDP, $2.6 million for the Bloc Québécois and $1.8 million for the Greens.

But because the Conservatives have such a strong fundraising base, their subsidy represents only 37 per cent of the party's total revenues.

By comparison, the subsidy amounts to 63 per cent of the Liberals' funding, 86 per cent of the Bloc's, 57 per cent of the NDP's and 65 per cent of the Greens'

Typical of neocons (and thus, incompetents) - they claim the noble, moral high ground of "doing what's right" for our budget, when in truth their aim is to keep in check the opposition parties to ensure that we won't be having a no-confidence vote (and thus ensuing elections) any time soon ... in turn guaranteeing that Harper and the CPC remain in power for this much longer in the near-future.

Why do I conclude that Harper, Flaherty et al. are being obvious hypocrites here with their claim of seeking to reduce budget deficits (aside from their usual mendacity and obfuscations concerning said deficits)?

Let's just take this little bit of news as case in point:

Canada will invest up to $210 million over the next three years toward helping the Afghan government deliver basic services

And this one:

One of Canada’s six priorities for moving forward on Afghanistan is to help the Afghan government strengthen the Afghan National Army (ANA)’s ability to conduct operations and sustain a more secure environment, and increase the Afghan National Police (ANP)’s ability to promote law and order in the province of Kandahar.

In addition to the ongoing efforts by the Canadian Forces to mentor and equip the ANA, Canada will be providing up to $99 million over the next three years toward:

• training, mentoring and equipping the ANA and the ANP;
• building capacity in administration and logistical support; and
• complementary initiatives in the justice and correctional systems to support activities of the ANP.

And this one:

Canada will be contributing up to $111 million* over the next three years to help the Government of Afghanistan provide humanitarian assistance in the province of Kandahar and nationwide.

And this one:

Funding of up to $32 million* has been earmarked until 2011 for the following activities that Canada will undertake in close co-operation with the Afghan government:

• contributing to a dialogue between Afghanistan and Pakistan;
• facilitating discussions of border officials from both sides of the border;
• training of border officials; and
• providing critical infrastructure and equipment.

And this one:

Canada is ready to support Afghan-led efforts to promote outreach and reconciliation in the interest of a sustainable peace, with the clear understanding that reconciliation only involve those individuals and organizations that agree to renounce violence, respect human rights and the rule of law, and accept the legitimacy of the Afghan government and the Afghan constitution.

To this end, Canada will be contributing up to $14 million over the next three years toward:

• the development of Afghan government-led mechanisms that will encourage dialogue; and
• the improvement of the Government of Afghanistan’s capacity to communicate with its citizens, especially in the province Kandahar.

And also this one:

One of Canada’s six priorities for moving forward on Afghanistan is to help advance Afghanistan’s capacity for democratic governance by contributing to effective, accountable public institutions and electoral processes. With funding of up to $355 million allocated over the next three years, Canada will work to:

• provide financial and technical support for the elections process (presidential elections in 2009 and parliamentary elections in 2010), including the establishment of a national voter registry;
• collaborate with other international donors to provide technical and financial resources to support the Independent Elections Commission, including the establishment of an independent electoral complaints commission; and
• provide select national institutions/departments with technical expertise, training and mentoring, equipment, and program support.

Running the expense clock of Canada's war indeed.

Taking these considerations above altogether, I am left asking yet again: competence, Mr. Harper?

What a joke you are, sir.

Unfortunately enough ...

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More On Harper, Economics And Incompetence

As follow up of these previous posts here, here, here and here on the matter at hand, I offer these additional considerations:

Canada needs its own economic strategies
The Harper government is out of touch with the scale of the crisis.
by James Laxer

Much like the Bush administration, which is floundering as the economic crisis intensifies, the Harper government seems to have no idea what is going on.

Not only is the United States and the world as a whole undergoing the worst stock market crash since the Great Depression, the so-called "read economy" is about to be hit by a potent mix of falling purchasing, declining prices, business bankruptcies on a vast scale, and the loss of jobs at a pace we haven't seen in our lifetimes.

Meanwhile, on both sides of the border, policy makers are dithering as the very real threat of the collapse of the Big Three automakers grows greater every day. When Lehman Brothers expired what seems like a millennium ago, we were reassured that Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, was a student of the Great Depression and knew what to do.

Think of those grainy newsreels from 1929 and the early 1930s. We used to feel smug about them. How dumb those policy makers were not to understand that you had to pump sufficient liquidity back into the system to keep the economy from collapsing? (We were taught that in Economics 101 — oh, I forgot, when I took Economics 101 Keynesianism was still in vogue. Now in Economics 101, students learn the idiocies of Friedmanism and its successor doctrines, a perfect brew for cooking up a depression.)

If the Big Three, or any one of them, go into bankruptcy protection, the storm that will follow will be enormously more intense than what we have experienced so far. It will be felt in every community in Ontario and Quebec. The auto parts, steel, rubber, glass and other feeder sectors, along with the service sectors in the dozens of communities tied to the auto sector will be devastated. From there it will spread to every community in the country, including those nowhere near an auto plant.

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Youth - And The Future

The following provides much think-food for discussion with regards to the future of our democratic societies - including our own Canadian one (especially in light of this and this):

Disposable Youth in a Suspect Society: A Challenge for the Obama Administration
Youth and the crisis of the future.
By Henry A. Giroux

While there is little question that the United States - with its burgeoning police state, its infamous title as the world leader in jailing its own citizens, and its history of foreign and domestic "torture factories" [1] - has moved into lockdown (and lockout) mode both at home and abroad, it is a mistake to assume that the Bush administration is solely responsible for transforming the United States to the degree that it has now become unrecognizable to itself as a democratic nation. Such claims risk reducing the serious social ills now plaguing the United States to the reactionary policies of the Bush regime - a move which allows for complacency in light of the potentially inflated hopes raised by Barack Obama's successful bid for the presidency. What the United States has become in the last decade suggests less of a rupture than an intensification of a number of already existing political, economic, and social forces that since the late 1970s have unleashed the repressive anti-democratic tendencies lurking beneath the damaged heritage of democratic ideals.

What marks the present state of American "democracy" is the uniquely bipolar nature of the degenerative assault on the body politic, which combines elements of unprecedented greed and fanatical capitalism with a new kind of politics more ruthless and savage in its willingness to abandon - even vilify - those individuals and groups now rendered disposable within "new geographies of exclusion and landscapes of wealth" [2] that mark the neoliberal new world order. Nowhere is this assault more evident than in what might be called the "war on youth," a war that not only attempts to erase the democratic legacies of the past, but disavows any commitment to the future.

Any discourse about the future has to begin with the issue of youth because young people embody the projected dreams, desires, and commitment of a society's obligations to the future. In many respects, youth not only register symbolically the importance of modernity's claim to progress; they also affirm the importance of the liberal democratic tradition of the social contract in which adult responsibility is mediated through a willingness to fight for the rights of children, enact reforms that invest in their future, and provide the educational conditions necessary for them to make use of the freedoms they have while learning how to be critical citizens. Within such a modernist project, democracy is linked to the well-being of youth, while the status of how a society imagines democracy and its future is contingent on how it views its responsibility towards future generations. But the category of youth does more than affirm modernity's social contract, rooted in a conception of the future in which adult commitment and intergenerational solidarity are articulated as a vital public service; it also affirms those representations, images, vocabularies, values, and social relations central to a politics capable of both defending vital institutions as a public good and contributing to the quality of public life.

Yet as the twenty-first century unfolds, it is not at all clear that the American public and government believe any longer in youth, the future, or the social contract, even in its minimalist version. Since the 1980s, the prevailing market inspired discourse has argued that there is no such thing as society and, indeed, following that nefarious pronouncement, institutions committed to public welfare, especially for young people, have been disappearing ever since. Those of us who, against the prevailing common sense, believe that the ultimate test of morality resides in what a society does for its children cannot help but acknowledge that if we take this standard seriously, American society has deeply failed its children and its commitment to democracy.

At stake here is not merely how American culture is redefining the meaning of youth, but how it constructs children in relation to a future devoid of the moral and political obligations of citizenship, social responsibility, and democracy. Caught up in an age of increasing despair, uncertainty, and the quagmire of a global financial collapse, youth no longer appear to inspire adults to reaffirm their commitment to a public discourse that envisions a future in which human suffering is diminished while the general welfare of society is increased. Constructed primarily within the language of the market and the increasingly conservative politics of a corporate dominated media culture, contemporary youth appear unable to constitute themselves through a defining generational referent that gives them a sense of distinctiveness and vision, as did the generation of youth in the 1960s. The relations between youth and adults have always been marked by strained generational and ideological struggles, but the new economic and social conditions that youth face today, along with a callous indifference to their spiritual and material needs, suggest a qualitatively different attitude on the part of many adults toward American youth - one that indicates that the young, especially under the Bush administration, have become our lowest national priority. Put bluntly, American society at present exudes both a deep-rooted hostility and chilling indifference toward youth, reinforcing the dismal conditions that young people are increasingly living under.

The hard currency of human suffering that impacts children is evident in some astounding statistics that suggest a profound moral and political contradiction at the heart of our culture: for example, the rate of child poverty is currently at 17.4 percent, boosting the number of poor children to 13 million. In addition, about one in three severely poor people are under age 17. Moreover, children make up 26 percent of the total population but constitute an astounding 39 percent of the poor. Just as alarming as this is the fact that 9.4 million children in America lack health insurance and millions lack affordable child care and decent early childhood education. Sadly, the United States ranks first in billionaires and defense expenditures and yet ranks an appalling twenty-fifth in infant mortality. As we might expect, behind these grave statistics lies a series of decisions that favor economically those already advantaged at the expense of the young. Savage cuts to education, nutritional assistance for impoverished mothers, veterans' medical care, and basic scientific research, are often cynically administered to help fund tax cuts for the already inordinately rich.

This inversion of the government's responsibility to protect public goods from private threats further reveals itself in the privatization of social problems and the vilification of those who fail to thrive in this vastly iniquitous social order. Too many youth within this degraded economic, political, and cultural geography occupy a "dead zone" in which the spectacle of commodification exists alongside the imposing threat of massive debt, bankruptcy, the prison-industrial complex, and the elimination of basic civil liberties. Indeed, we have an entire generation of unskilled and displaced youth who have been expelled from shrinking markets, blue-collar jobs, and the limited political power granted to the middle-class consumer. Rather than investing in the public good and solving social problems, the state now punishes those who are caught in the downward spiral of its economic policies. Punishment, incarceration, and surveillance represent the new face of governance. Consequently, the implied contract between the social state and its citizens has been broken, and social guarantees for youth, as well as civic obligations to the future, have vanished from the public agenda. Within this utterly privatizing market discourse alcoholism, homelessness, poverty, joblessness, and illiteracy are not viewed as social issues, but rather as individual problems - that is, such problems are viewed as the result of a character flaw or a personal failing and in too many cases such problems are criminalized.

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A (Grim) Fable Of Woe

Once upon a time ...

There was this single cell, alone in a body of billions of other cells.

And it was unhappy and malcontent of its lot in life.

Now, in that body of billions of cells, and in order for that body to function, there was this assignment of specific roles to be played by each given cell - all for the common good of all.

Some were meant for infrastructure. Some were meant for protection. Some were meant for defense. Some were meant for repair. Other were meant to digest and absorb foodstuffs, or take in oxygen. Yet others were meant as roads and highways to keep the flow of nutriments and oxygen going to all cells. More others were meant as the motor of said vital flow.

Hence, some were workers, some were soldiers, some were mechanics, some were maintenance technicians, some were harvesters, some were waste managers, some were distributors, some were traffic comptrollers, some were programmers, some were entrepreneurs, some were decision-makers - and so on and so forth, altogether essential for the body-organism to thrive, prosper, adapt, reproduce and, through its progeny, evolve.

Again - all for the common good and perpetuation of all.

Except for the single, malcontent and unhappy cell of this story.

You see - this cell had come to resent rules and regulations. It fell in love with the idea of being able to do what it wanted to do, whenever it wanted to do it, and regulations be damned.

It also rejected the notion of long-term thinking - what it perceived as a slow, inane and petrificating way of looking at the world - in favor of pure short-term thinking.

The here and now - and maybe tomorrow, next week and/or the next three months, but that is it! - is what truly mattered in its life.

In other words: this cell had decided that it was in it for itself - first and foremost.

So this single, malcontent and unhappy cell started multiplying on its own, disregarding any signals it received from the regulators to stop.

But still the malcontent cell kept on growing.

Into two cells. Then four. Then eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, one hundred and twenty eight, and thus more and more and more.

Soon enough, the one original malcontent and unhappy cell was now a growing crowd of equally-minded rebel cells - in fact, many of them having already become even more self-centered and self-serving than the original one.

Of course, the other neighboring cells came to be disturbed by such outrageous behavior of this crowd of rebel cells - why, these uncout ones ate much more than their fare share of the food available, most of what energy they produced they kept for themselves, their presence displaced or even stiffled other normal-behaving cells and - adding insult to injury - they left a lot of waste around and about them.

So police, ordely, maintenance, repair and decision-maker cells were called in to stop such reckless, utterly selfish nonesense.

But the rebel cells, now so many clumped together in a growing mass, came to be rather crafty and smooth-tongued cells.

Upon being confronted by the aforementioned authorities and their assistants, they pleaded victimhood:

"Growth serves the common good!" They chanted mendaciously. "Do not all tissues grow thus? Does the overall body-organism not grow thus? Growth is prosperity!" They continued, in earnest. "Sure, we use local resources - we have to! But through our growing numbers, how much more proteins, sugars and macromolecules we generate than what we take in." Regaining their composure, they then delivered their ultimate argument: "Give us the proper tools and the means, lend us more energy and foodstuff, let us employ other cells, and you will see how our growth will benefit all those cells in our neighborhood - for indeed, a good portion of all the proteins, sugars and other macromolecules we generate can and will be returned to those cells we will employ which, in turn, will likewise share in the general wealth and well-being of all cells in the end!"

At first unsure, the decision-making cells nonetheless came to be enthralled by such apparently unassailable argument in favor of growth, being lulled by the smooth tongues of the rebel cells.

Hence the police, orderly and repair cells were sent back to their stations, having been instructed henceforth to leave the rebel cells well enough alone.

The decision maker cells likewise instructed maintenance cells to remain available to the rebel cells in order to help them establish whatever infrastructure they required.

Hence, the tumor was granted irrigation with newly formed blood capillaries and vessels, allowing it greater access to food and oxygen - all the better for the common good, the rebel cells still claimed.

And thus supplied, the rebel cells went to work anew - with a vengeance.

As they kept on growing further in numbers, they came to co-opt (sorry: employ) the maintenance and road/highway cells, making them construct/deliver/divert more and more resources - which were in large part used first and foremost by the rebel cells, of course.

In time, some of the rebel cells even got the means to bribe supplier cells in giving them more resources than they needed, or endothelial cells to make cheaper capillaries, or quality control cells to look the other way, or even some decision-making cells to assure their continued support.

Then a momentous time came, when some of the rebel cells began to spread throughout their neighboring tissue - taking more and more place while increasingly displacing normal-behaving cells further.

So decision maker cells were called in again.

"We get little while they keep the most of what they make, in addition to having no other choice but to live in the mounting waste of their wake - waste which makes us sick or even dying!" The outraged normal cells shouted angrily. "Those capillaries and vessels they constructed are badly designed and all leaky!" They continued. "Not only is there less and less for us, and of us, now it has come to the point whereby we can't perform our roles adequately anymore in order to keep our tissue functional and healthy!" They added, thinking that such a potent argument would be quite difficult to counter, let alone dismiss.

But the ever crafty, self-serving rebel cells were more than prepared for such argument: "In order to keep growth going," they offered, "we must expand. Let those of us who grow the most quickly and who are the most sturdy leave this tissue in order to bring our growth-producing propsperity to other tissues and organs. Those others of us who will remain behind will slow down their growth and be more careful about waste, thus nevertheless keeping growth-producing prosperity alive and well here!"

Confused by such double-speak, the normal-behaving cells decided that this all made much sense. Consequently, the decision maker cells consented as well - especially since they were sold to the idea of "growth = prosperity" to begin with.

And so, many cancer cells used the leaky capillaries and vessels they constructed through their employment of connective tissue and endothelial cells in order to metastasize boldly go out and spread and practice their free, unregulated growth prosperity ideals to the rest of the body-organism.

Where the whole cycle was repeated again and again and again.

In between, those rebel cells which initially did slow down their growth and waste production eventually generated more aggressive cells anew - thus further amplifying the destructive cycle of unchecked, unregulated growth.

Leaving all their neighboring normal-behaving cells to gradually break down and die from lack of food, lack of oxygen and toxic waste.

**********

And thus, there eventually came a time when the body-organism came to be sick.

Very, very sick.

Lungs were bleeding, the liver was shuting down, the kidneys were malfunctionning, and a whole slew of other breakdowns and/or malfunctions were ensuing throughout all organs and tissues.

As the body-organism laid in a vegetative state on its death-bed, physician body-organisms considered what options they could enact to heal this dying one.

High dosage chemotherapy was put forth - then dismissed. Although such treatment may kill all the cancer cells, too many of the remaining healthy cells would likewise be killed in the process - thus killing the patient most assuredly.

Radiotherapy as a possibility met the same decisional fate, for essentially the very same reason.

It was finally decided to attempt to render the body-organism better prepared to undergo drastic cancer therapies - if only for a short while.

The physician body-organisms did so by pumping intravenously a glucose-saline solution and by force-feeding through a tube nutritious foodstuff preparations.

It was hoped that enough food and energy would nevertheless reach the healthy cells, consequently making the sick body-organism that bit much stronger to undergo drastic cancer treatment.

Unfortunately, the rebel cells of the now generalized cancer running throughout the dying body-organism had come to be so self-serving, so self-centered and so aggressively greedy, that they managed to hoard - and consume - all of what was being pumped/force-fed.

Hence while they remained well off, all remaining normal-behaving cells died.

Thus the body organism died as well.

"If only that body-organism paid closer attention to its symptoms of illness and sought remedy when there was still much, much time left, instead of letting such cancer grow and fester!" One of the physician body-organism bemoaned upon the very last breath of their patient.

But woe as well was there for the rebel, cancer cells - for when their host body died, all foodstuff, energy and oxygen stopped being supplied even to them, consequently leaving them in turn - and in the last - with naught but bitter-sweet memories of prosperity.

"If only our single, malcontent and unhappy ancestor cell could have forseen such a terrible fate for us all!" Thus wept the dying cancer cells in distraught unisson.

And the darkness of oblivion prevailed forevermore.

**********

Moral of the story: now you folks get to have fun "guessing" what this parabole is all about ... and what it may signify for our future.

(since I'm a good guy, here's a hint ... or two ... or three)


(Cross-posted at TWWL)

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Being While Not being?

That is the question indeed.

Here's a take on ideology vs non-ideology which raises not only interesting questions but also provides a good measure of food for thought on the matter (although for me, competence should trump any and all ideological considerations - heh):

The Ideology of No Ideology
by Norman Solomon

On Friday, columnist David Brooks informed readers that Barack Obama's picks "are not ideological." The incoming president's key economic advisers "are moderate and thoughtful Democrats," while Hillary Clinton's foreign-policy views "are hardheaded and pragmatic."

On Saturday, the New York Times front page reported that the president-elect's choices for secretaries of State and Treasury "suggest that Mr. Obama is planning to govern from the center-right of his party, surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than ideologues."

On Monday, hours before Obama's formal announcement of his economic team, USA Today explained that he is forming a Cabinet with "records that display more pragmatism than ideology."

The ideology of no ideology is nifty. No matter how tilted in favor of powerful interests, it can be a deft way to keep touting policy agendas as common-sense pragmatism -- virtuous enough to draw opposition only from ideologues.

Meanwhile, the end of ideology among policymakers is about as imminent as the end of history.

But -- in sync with the ideology of no ideology -- deference to corporate power isn't ideological. And belief in the U.S. government's prerogative to use military force anywhere in the world is a matter of credibility, not ideology.

Ideological assumptions gain power as they seem to disappear into the prevailing political scenery. So, for instance, reliably non-ideological ideological journalists sit at the studio table every Friday night on the PBS "Washington Week" program, which is currently funded by similarly non-ideological outfits including Boeing, the National Mining Association and Constellation Energy ("the nation's largest supplier of competitive electricity to large commercial and industrial customers," with revenues of $21 billion last year).

Along the way, the ideology of no ideology can corral even normally incisive commentators. So, over the weekend, as news broke about the nominations of Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers to top economic posts, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote an article praising "the members of Obama's new economic team." Reich declared: "All are pragmatists. Some media have dubbed them 'centrists' or 'center-right,' but in truth they're remarkably free of ideological preconception. ... They are not visionaries but we don't need visionaries when the economic perils are clear and immediate. We need competence. Obama could not appoint a more competent group."

Competence can be very good. But "free of ideological preconception"? I want to meet these guys. If they really don't have any ideological preconceptions, they belong in the book of Guinness World Records.


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More On The Continuing Blackmail Con Game

Following up on my post regarding the continuing blackmail con game being perpetrated at our expense (here's yet one more recent example!), here is more food for thought on the matter:

Of Arrogance, Bailouts and the Big Three
Give Them Money...Only After They Fire the Top Executives
By James Abourezk

Just as I was about to give up on Congress, BAM, POW, a California Congressman decked the auto executives with a one-two punch. As these august gentlemen were sitting before a House Committee telling the Congressmen how bad it was, and that they needed money badly, Brad Sherman asked the group of beggars to raise their hand if any of them flew by commercial airline to the hearings in Washington.

“Let the record show,” the Congressman said, “that no one raised their hand,” the Congressman said.

Then came the right hook. “Raise your hand if any of you plan to sell your private jet.”

No response. They looked at each other, then at the Committee members, most likely sensing they had lost that round by points.

“Let the record show,” Congressman Sherman said, “that no one raised their hand.”

The lack of response was hardly surprising, but what was surprising is that a member of Congress finally earned his paycheck for that day. Fear of the 30 second spot television commercial has silenced many a member of Congress. None of them want to have their words replayed during the next campaign, so they are generally silent when it comes to challenging the corporate world—oil companies and auto executives included.

But even more outrageous is the arrogance of the Big Three executives coming to the taxpayers with their hands outstretched, waiting for a bailout. And why not? You ask. Didn’t this same bunch hand over $700 billion to Henry Paulson so his banking and Wall Street friends could continue their plush lifestyle? And didn’t Henry Paulson suddenly discover that the bankers and Wall Street money men didn’t need it all, causing him to shift gears and aim the bailout at mortgage foreclosures?

As Senator Everett Dirksen used to say, “A few hundred million here and a few hundred million there—pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” Nowadays the word billion has replaced million, but, you get the idea. For the well-connected it’s Monopoly money anyway. It’s not real unless your company can’t pay a $25 or $50 million dollar bonus.

The arrogance of these fellows is being rewarded by the fearmongering of George W. Bush and others who predicted dark consequences if the money wasn’t handed over. So most everyone fell into line and voted it in.

When I was a member of the Senate Energy Committee in the 1970s I attached an amendment onto a piece of legislation that would have required the automobile manufacturers to make new cars that delivered a minimum of 26 miles to the gallon. That was in the 1970s when we all thought that mileage level would be a great victory. Nowadays, Toyota doesn’t make a car, I don’t believe, that delivers less than that. But back then, 26 miles to the gallon was revolutionary, even radical. So the Big Three came in and lobbied against it and defeated it. And they steadily moved into making and selling real he-man cars and trucks, such as the Hummers, the big pickups and the SUVs that more resemble a battleship than a car. At the same time, in Europe, taxes levied on gasoline made it so high that if one bought an American gas-guzzler, he would be thought of as crazy. So the Europeans made smaller cars that ate much less gas, and the Japanese began to move into the American market, selling high gas mileage cars to those of us who felt guilt at driving a four-wheeled monster.

The Europeans and Japanese also built high speed rail transportation that moved people so efficiently that cars became sort of redundant for longer trips. Meanwhile we Americans have spent ourselves into bankruptcy fighting wars, consuming more gasoline than we should, and telling ourselves that single payer health care and a national rail transportation system was socialistic. We listened to the lobbyists for the pharmaceutical companies and the airline and automobile industries, and said to ourselves: “We don’t need no stinking socialism.”

What this all means is that socialism is good for the Big Three automobile manufacturers and for Wall Street and for the big banks, but bad for the rest of us.


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Cruelty And Harassment - No Decency Left Indeed

Following up on this previous post and this one - here's yet more proof to my conclusion that there is "no decency left" while we are "losing ourselves beyond redemption".

War crimes indeed ... and then some.

Guantanamo Detainee Who Was Tortured Faces New War Crimes Charges
By Jason Leopold

A Guantanamo Bay detainee who was tortured by military interrogators is again being charged with war crimes by Pentagon prosecutors, six months after those charges were dropped because of the coercive techniques used to obtain information were likely to be revealed at his trial.

Mohammed al-Al-Qahtani, the alleged “20th hijacker”, is believed to be one of the first detainees subjected to harsh questioning after the Justice Department issued a legal opinion in August 2002 permitting U.S. government interrogators to sidestep the Geneva Convention and use cruel and humiliating techniques, from forced nudity to stress positions to waterboarding, to extract information.

Last February, the Pentagon announced its intention to pursue the death penalty against al-Qahtani and five other men for their alleged involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

On May 9, the Pentagon dismissed the case against al-Qahtani without explanation – and without prejudice, meaning that the charges could be reinstated at a later date. Though the charges were dropped, he remained detained at Guantanamo.

The decision to drop war-crimes charges against al-Qahtani underscored the consequences of the Bush administration’s descent into torture and other abusive treatment of “war on terror” detainees.

If al-Qahtani’s case goes forward, the U.S. government would be forced to reveal its own violations of the Geneva Convention, anti-torture statutes and the laws of war, according to lawyers representing al-Qahtani.

“All of the [incriminating] statements Mohammad al-Qahtani made or is alleged to have made were the result of torture or made under the threat of torture and that is in my view why the government decided to dismiss his case at this point,” said Vince Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York, the organization that has been representing al-Qahtani since 2005.

But the chief military prosecutor for Guantánamo, Col. Lawrence J. Morris of the Army indicated he would be willing to take that chance.


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Harper On The Economy: You Don't Say?!?

Our Prime Douchebag of Canada strikes again:

Canada could soon be in recession: Harper

Canada could be in a recession later this year or early in 2009, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Sunday.

"Since the election, Minister of Finance [Jim] Flaherty has been consulting on a regular basis with experts in the private sector as to what their forecasts are for the economy," Harper told reporters after attending a two-day summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group in Lima.

"The most recent forecasts, and there has been a series of predictions, [are that] there is a suggestion that there might be a technical recession at the end of this year or the beginning of next," he said.

"Indeed, the economic growth is just about zero, perhaps a little bit less, but it is a technical recession," Harper said.

Gee - what ever happened to "the fundamentals of our economy are strong/solid" and to "don't worry, be happy"?

Notice as well that Harper the Mini Leader has once again fully emulated his dear idol, George W. Bush, in this devolution from "the fundamentals are strong" to denying a recession and to, at last, "we are entering a recession".

Competence, Mr. Harper?

The point here is that it looks like Harper has finally decided to acknowledge reality, instead of - you know - keep on denying it.

But a competent Prime Minister would have done this months ago, at the very least.

If only because all the signs were there to see.

How unfortunate that Harper chose to diminish/deny reality back then - over and over again - while busying himself at the ideological-driven politicization of our economy ... with the result we now know all too well.

Which brings me to another point - concerning deficits. Here's again our Prime Douchebag in action mode:

Budget deficit 'essential' if economic stimulus needed: Harper

Budgetary deficits may be an inevitable reality for countries intending to use financial stimulus packages to revive their economies, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Saturday.

During a speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru, Harper suggested the Canadian government will introduce a stimulus package to boost the economy while trying to avoid setting the stage for a long-term government deficit.

Signalling a shift in his usual anti-deficit stance, he acknowledged that countries that choose to implement fiscal stimulus packages will likely find it necessary to run budgetary deficits.

"We did agree at the G20 [summit in Washington] last week that additional fiscal stimulus should be used to sustain global demand if monetary policy continues to prove to be inadequate," Harper said in Lima.

"These are, of course, the classic circumstances under which budgetary deficits are essential."

Which is, of course, an about face indeed:

It was an about-face for the prime minister, who in the lead-up to last month's election dismissed the possibility of a deficit, saying they were addictive and out of the question for Canada.

Harper said Saturday that whatever short-term new spending his government pursues, it "will ensure that Canada does not return to long-term structural budgetary deficits."

Remember what Harper and his Finance Minister And Cronie-In-Chief Flaherty have been carping previously, with regards to deficits?

First, there was denial.

Then obfuscations.

Then mendacious double-talk of "modest surpluses" and "small deficits".

And now we get "deficits are essential".

My conclusion is this: like the utter incompetents that they truly are, Harper and his Harpies keep on just making it up as they go along, reacting to each successive, worsening development concerning our economy (and every single issue presenting it self, for that matter), instead of seeing them coming while such are germinating, all the while propping themselves up as the cool, calm and steady stewards of the slowly sinking ship that is our country.

Again, I ask: competence, Mr. Harper?

Not only is our economy worsening, Harper and his Harpies are now intent on literally bankrupting our children, our grandchildren, and the very future of our country, through the ill-thought, ill-planned, ill-informed use of our taxpayer monies and assets in order to artificially keep the economy just above the water line while those corrupted and incompetents "captains of industry" end up fattening their pockets at the expense of our society.

But hey - that's what you voted for, my fellow Canadians - at least those of you who actually voted, in contrast to the overwhelming numbers who decided to sleep in this last election ... despite the evident signs that our economy was going to be hit bad.

Oh, how the chickens have come home to roost, eh?

So congratulations, fellow Canadians - especially to those who actually voted for Harper and to those lazy and irresponsible ones who did not get out and vote.

This is what you get, this is what you are stuck with - at least for the time being.

In the end, what goes around comes around, eh?

I can only wish that my country didn't have to be wrecked in the process.


(Cross-posted at NetRoots)

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The Inherent Stupidity In Testing Nuclear Devices

Following up on this older post regarding "all options on the table", as well as this more recent one ...

I've always thought that testing nuclear bombs anywhere on the planet, whether above or under ground, constituted sheer stupidity - if only because of soil-seeping/wind-surfing/water-contaminating nuclear radiation and fallout.

And to think that there are still those out there who just can't wait for the actual use of nukes in soon-to-come armed conflicts over resources ...

More food for thought on the matter:

Cautionary Tales From a Nuclear War Zone
By Barbara Rose Johnsonband Holly M. Barker

John Anjain, Alab of Rongelap, Marshall Islands:

Early in the morning of March 1, 1954, sometime around five or six o'clock, American planes dropped a hydrogen bomb on Bikini Atoll. Shortly before this happened, I had awakened and stepped out of my house. Once outside, I looked around and saw Billiet Edmond making coffee near his house. I walked up and stood next to him. The two of us talked about going fishing later in the morning. After only a few minutes had passed we saw a light to the west of Rongelap Atoll. When this light reached Rongelap we saw many beautiful colors. I expect the reason people didn't go inside their houses right away was because the yellow, green, pink, red, and blue colors which they saw were such a beautiful sight before their eyes.

The second thing that happened involved the gust of wind that came from the explosion. The wind was so hot and strong that some people who were outside staggered, including Billiet and I. Even some windows fell as a result of the wind.

The third thing that happened concerned the smoke-cloud which we saw from the bomb blast. The smoke rose quickly to the clouds and as it reached them we heard a sound louder than thunder. When people heard this deafening clap some of the women and children fled to the woods. Once the sound of the explosion had died out everyone began cooking, some made donuts and others cooked rice.

Later some men went fishing, including myself. Around nine or ten-o'clock I took my throw net and left to go fishing near Jabwon. As I walked along the beach I looked at the sky and saw it was white like smoke; nevertheless I kept on going. When I reached Jabwon, or even a little before, I began to feel a fine powder falling all over my body and into my eyes. I felt it but I didn't know what it was.

I went ahead with my fishing and caught enough fish with my throw-net to fill a bag. Then I went to the woods to pick some coconuts. I came back to the beach and sat on a rock to drink the coconuts and eat some raw fish. As I was sitting and eating, the powder began to fall harder. I looked out and saw that the coconuts had changed color. By now all the trees were white as well as my entire body. I gazed up at the sky but couldn't see the clouds because it was so misty. I didn't believe this was dangerous. I only knew that powder was falling. I was somewhat afraid nevertheless.

When I returned to Rongelap village I saw people cooking food outside their cook-houses. They didn't know the powder was very dangerous. The powder fell all day and night long over the entire atoll of Rongelap. During the night people were sick. They were nauseous, they had stomach, head, ear, leg and shoulder aches. People did not sleep that night because they were sick.

The next day, March 2, 1954, people got up in the morning and went down to get water. It had turned a yellowish color. "Oh, Oh" they cried out and said "the powder that fell down yesterday and last night is a harmful thing." They were sick and so Jabwe, the health-aide, walked around in the morning and warned the people not to drink the water. He told them that if they were thirsty to drink coconuts only.

. . . At three o'clock in the afternoon of March 2, 1954 a seaplane from Enewetak Atoll landed in the lagoon of Rongelap and two men came ashore. Billiet and I asked them why they had come to Rongelap and they responded by saying they had come to inspect the damage caused by the bomb. They said they would spend twenty minutes looking at all the wells, cement water catchments, houses and other things. The two men returned quickly to their plane and left without telling anyone that the food, water, and other things were harmful to human beings.

Everyone was quite surprised at the speed with which the men surveyed everything in the island and then returned to their plane. People said maybe we've been really harmed because the men were in such a hurry to leave. Although they said they would look around for about twenty minutes, they probably didn't stay here for more than ten minutes. So in less than ten minutes after their arrival on Rongelap, the two men had already taken off.

. . . On that day we looked at the water catchments, tubs and other places where there was a great deal of water stored. The water had turned a strong yellow and those who drank it said it tasted bitter.

On March 3, early in the morning, a ship and a seaplane with four propellers appeared on Rongelap. Out of the plane came Mr. Oscar de[Brum] - and Mr. Wiles, the governor of Kwajelein Atoll. As their boat reached the shore, Mr. Oscar cried out to the people to get on board and forget about their personal belongings for whoever thought of staying behind would die. Such were the words by which he spoke to them. Therefore, none of the people went back to their houses, but immediately got on the boats and sailed to board the ship that would take them away. Those who were sick and old were evacuated by plane.

. . . At ten o'clock in the morning we left Rongelap for Ailinginae Atoll and arrived there at three in the afternoon. We picked up nineteen people on this atoll and by five o'clock we were on our way to Kwajalein.

On March 4, we arrived on Kwajalein and met the Admiral who then sent us to where we were to stay. A day later, Dr. Conard and his medical team arrived. The doctors were very thorough in checking and caring for our injuries and showed much concern in examining us. The Admiral was also very concerned about our situation and took us in as if we were his own children. His name was Admiral Clark.

Ever since 1954 Dr. Conard has continued to examine the fallout victims on a yearly basis. These visits are very important for all the people on Rongelap and others in the Marshall Islands. These medical examinations are also of great importance for men throughout the world.

. . . From 1959 to 1963 and 1964, after the Rongelapese had returned to Rongelap from Majuro, many women gave birth prematurely to babies which looked somewhat like animals. Women also had miscarriages. During these years many other strange things happened with regard to food, especially to fish in which the fertilized eggs and liver turned a blackish color. In all my forty years I had never seen this happen in fish either on Rongelap or in any of the other places I've been in the Marshall Islands. Also, when people ate fish or [arrowroot] starch produced on Rongelap, they developed a rash in their mouths. This too I had never seen before.

. . . I, John, Anjain, was magistrate of Rongelap when all this occurred and I now write this to explain what happened to the Rongelap people at that time.

[In 1954] the people of Rongelap stayed on Kwajalein for three months and the DOE [Atomic Energy Commission] people removed the Rongelap people to Majuro. The people lived in Majuro for three years and in 1956 the DOE, Trust Territory government and the UN came to Majuro and I went with them to attend a meeting with them at the school in Rita. And they told me that it is time that we go back home. And I asked "are we really going home while Rongelap is contaminated?" And the answer that they give me is that "it is true that Rongelap is contaminated but it is not dangerous. And if you don't believe us, well then stay here and take care of yourself."

. . . In 1957 the people returned to Rongelap and the DOE promised that there wouldn't be any problems to the Rongelap people. However in 1958 and 1959 most of the women gave birth to something that was not resembling human beings. There was a woman giving birth to a grape. Another woman gave birth to something that resembles a monkey. And so on. There was a child born at that time and there was no shell covering the top of that child's head.

The American doctors came every year to examine us. Every year they came, and they told us that we were not sick, and then they would return the next year. But they did find something wrong. They found one boy did not grow as fast as boys his age. They gave him medicine. Then they began finding the thyroid sickness.

My son Lekoj was thirteen when they found his thyroid was sick. They took him away to a hospital in America. They cut out his thyroid. They gave him some medicine and told him to take it every day for the rest of his life. The same thing happened to other people. The doctors kept returning and examining us. Several years ago, they took me to a hospital in America, and they cut out my thyroid. They gave me medicine and told me to take it every day for the rest of my life.

A few years after the bomb, Senator Amata Kabua tried to get some compensation for the people of Rongelap. He got a lawyer, and the lawyer made a case in court. The court turned our case down. The court said it could not consider our case because we were not part of the United States. Dwight Heine went to the United Nations to tell them about us. People from the United Nations came to see us, and we told them how we felt. Finally, in 1964, the U.S. Congress passed a bill. The bill gave us money as a payment for our experience. Some of the people spent all their money; some of them still have money in the bank. After we got the money, they began finding the thyroid sickness.

In 1972, they took Lekoj away again. They said they wanted to examine him. They took him to America to a big hospital near Washington. Later, they took me to this hospital near Washington because they said he was very sick. My son Lekoj died after [I] arrived. He never saw his island again. He returned home in a box. He is buried on our island. The doctors say he had a sickness called leukemia. They are quite sure it was from the bomb.

But I am positive.

I saw the ash fall on him. I know it was the bomb. I watched him die.

**************

Statement of Almira Matayoshi to the Nuclear Claims Tribunal, Marshall Islands (2001):

I was pregnant when they dropped the bomb [Bravo]. I was flown off of Rongelap with the other pregnant women and elderly people. The rest of the people left on the boat. I gave birth to Robert on Ejit, and he was normal. The child I had after Robert, when we had returned to Rongelap, I gave birth to something that was like grapes. I felt like I was going to die from the loss of blood. My vision was gone, and I was fading in and out of consciousness. They emergency evacuated me to Kwajalein, and I was sure I was going to die. After the grapes, I had a third child. It wasn't like a child at all. It had no bones and was all skin. When I gave birth they said, "Ak ta men en?" [What is that thing?]. Mama said uror [a term denoting exacerbation]. It was the first strange child that people had seen. I was the first. That time was the worst in my life. I feel both angry and embarrassed.

**********

What words can possibly communicate what it is like to see and survive such sights? To become increasingly fearful that the intense beauty of your world-the water, the sand, the plants, the soil, the sea, and all the creatures within-has been fundamentally transformed by invisible, untouchable, all-encompassing poison? After years and years of living in a radioactive laboratory as the subject of scrutiny and study, what does it mean to find your fears confirmed-that your favorite foods are taboo, that your loved ones grow old before their time and your children fail to thrive? What does it mean to "survive" downwind from the the United States proving grounds - where nuclear war was practiced and perfected by Cold War warriors?

In 1946, after evacuating the people of Bikini and nearby atoll communities in the Marshall Islands, the United States detonated two atomic weapons: the same type of bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. In 1947 the United Nations designated the Marshall Islands a United States Trust Territory. Over the next eleven years, this U.S. territory played host to another sixty-five atmospheric atomic and thermonuclear tests. The largest of these tests, code named Bravo, was detonated on March 1, 1954. This 15-megaton hydrogen bomb was purposefully exploded close to the ground. It melted huge quantities of coral atoll, sucking it up and mixing it with radiation released by the weapon before depositing it on the islands and inhabitants in the form of ash, or radioactive fallout. The wind was blowing that morning in the direction of inhabited atolls, including Rongelap and Utrik, some 100 and 300 miles from the test site at Bikini. The Marshallese communities on Rongelap, Ailinginae, and Utrik atolls, U.S. servicemen on Rongerik Atoll (weathermen who were monitoring winds and fallout), and the twenty-three-man crew of the Japanese fishing vessel Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon) received near-lethal doses of radiation from the Bravo event.

International protests and calls for a ban on nuclear weapons testing prompted the U.S. government to publicly acknowledge the incident and accept liability. The Marshallese filed an April 20, 1954, complaint to the United Nations Trusteeship Council:

We, the Marshallese people feel that we must follow the dictates of our consciences to bring forth this urgent plea to the United Nations, which has pledged itself to safeguard the life, liberty and the general well being of the people of the Trust Territory, of which the Marshallese people are a part.

. . . The Marshallese people are not only fearful of the danger to their persons from these deadly weapons in case of another miscalculation, but they are also very concerned for the increasing number of people who are being removed from their land.

. . . Land means a great deal to the Marshallese. It means more than just a place where you can plant your food crops and build your houses; or a place where you can bury your dead. It is the very life of the people. Take away their land and their spirits go also.

In response to this petition the United States assured the General Assembly of the United Nations:

The fact that anyone was injured by recent nuclear tests in the Pacific has caused the American people genuine and deep regret. . . . The United States Government considers the resulting petition of the Marshall Islanders to be both reasonable and helpful. . . . The Trusteeship Agreement of 1947 which covers the Marshall Islands was predicated upon the fact that the United Nations clearly approved these islands as a strategic area in which atomic tests had already been held. Hence, from the onset, it was clear that the right to close areas for security reasons anticipated closing them for atomic tests, and the United Nations was so notified; such tests were conducted in 1948, 1951, 1952 as well as in 1954. . . . The question is whether the United States authorities in charge have exercised due precaution in looking after the safety and welfare of the Islanders involved. That is the essence of their petition and it is entirely justified. In reply, it can be categorically stated that no stone will be left unturned to safeguard the present and future well-being of the Islanders.

The United States promised the Marshallese and the United Nations General Assembly that "Guarantees are given the Marshallese for fair and just compensation for losses of all sorts."

These guarantees worked: the United States was able to continue its atmospheric weapons testing program in the Marshall Islands through 1958 and at its Nevada test site through 1963, when the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union finally signed on to a limited test ban treaty.

The United States has not, however, fully lived up to its promises to the United Nations or the Marshallese people to safeguard their well-being. Atmospheric weapons testing in the Pacific resulted in considerable human and environmental harm.

Atmospheric nuclear weapons tests released numerous radioisotopes and dangerous heavy metals. An estimated 2 percent of the radioactive fallout was iodine-131, a highly radioactive isotope with an 8-day half-life. The nuclear war games conducted by the United States in the Marshall Islands released some 8 billion curies of iodine-131. To place this figure in broader context, over the entire history of nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Proving Grounds, some 150 million curies of iodine-131 were released, and varying analyses of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster estimate an iodine-131 release of 40 to 54 million curies. Much of the iodine-131 released in the Marshall Islands was the by-product of the March 1, 1954, Bravo test detonation of the hydrogen bomb. Designed to produce and contain as much radioactive fallout in the immediate area as possible, in order to create laboratory-like conditions, Bravo unleashed as much explosive yield as one thousand Hiroshima-sized bombs. Communities living downwind from the blast, especially the Rongelap community, were acutely exposed to its fallout.

Evacuated three days after the blast, the people of Rongelap spent three months under intense medical scrutiny as human subjects in Project 4.1. They spent three years as refugees and were returned to their still-contaminated atoll in 1957 with assurances that their islands were now safe. They lived on Rongelap for another twenty-eight years and as the closest populated atoll to the Pacific Proving Grounds, they were exposed to additional fallout from another series of nuclear tests in 1958. While living on Rongelap, the community was visited annually, and later biannually, by U.S. government scientists and medical doctors conducting follow-up studies begun under Project 4.1. Researchers collected fish, plants, soil, and human body samples to document the presence of radioisotopes deposited from sixty-seven tests, the movement of these isotopes through the food chain and the human body, and the adverse health impact of this radiation on the human body.


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Harper Still Passing The Buck ...

... and evading his responsibilities as Prime Minister of Canada, again with regards to Omar Khadr.

Competence indeed, Mr. Prime Douchebag.

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Afghanistan: History Being (Re)Enacted

It's déjà vu all over again ...

Back in this older post, I opined on the matter of trying to understand the history of Afghanistan, its wars and failed occupations, after having already invaded and occupied the country - therefore constituting nothing more than an empty exercize seeking hindsight while sinking deeper and deeper into the quagmire already well jumped into.

The following article essentially explores the same theme, albeit more exhaustively:

Kabul 30 Years Ago, and Kabul Today. Have We Learned Nothing?
'Terrorists' were in Soviet sights; now they are in the Americans'.
by Robert Fisk

I sit on the rooftop of the old Central Hotel - pharaonic-decorated elevator, unspeakable apple juice, sublime green tea, and armed Tajik guards at the front door - and look out across the smoky red of the Kabul evening. The Bala Hissar fort glows in the dusk, massive portals, the great keep to which the British army should have moved its men in 1841. Instead, they felt the king should live there and humbly built a cantonment on the undefended plain, thus leading to a "signal catastrophe".

Like automated birds, the kites swoop over the rooftops. Yes, the kite-runners of Kabul, minus Hollywood. At night, the thump of American Sikorsky helicopters and the whisper of high-altitude F-18s invade my room. The United States of America is settling George Bush's scores with the "terrorists" trying to overthrow Hamid Karzai's corrupt government.

Now rewind almost 29 years, and I am on the balcony of the Intercontinental Hotel on the other side of this great, cold, fuggy city. Impeccable staff, frozen Polish beer in the bar, secret policemen in the front lobby, Russian troops parked in the forecourt. The Bala Hissar fort glimmers through the smoke. The kites - green seems a favourite colour - move beyond the trees. At night, the thump of Hind choppers and the whisper of high-altitude MiGs invade my room. The Soviet Union is settling Leonid Brezhnev's scores with the "terrorists" trying to overthrow Barbrak Karmal's corrupt government.

Thirty miles north, all those years ago, a Soviet general told us of the imminent victory over the "terrorists" in the mountains, imperialist "remnants" - the phrase Kabul communist radio always used - who were being supported by America and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Fast forward to 2001 - just seven years ago - and an American general told us of the imminent victory over the "terrorists" in the mountains, the all but conquered Taliban who were being supported by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The Russian was pontificating at the big Soviet airbase at Bagram. The American general was pontificating at the big US airbase at Bagram.

This is not déjà-vu. This is déjà double-vu. And it gets worse.

Almost 29 years ago, the Afghan "mujahedin" began a campaign to end the mixed schooling of boys and girls in the remote mountain passes, legislation pushed through by successive communist governments. Schools were burned down. Outside Jalalabad, I found a headmaster and his headmistress wife burned to death. Today, the Afghan Taliban are campaigning to end the mixed schooling of boys and girls - indeed the very education of young women - across the great deserts of Kandahar and Helmand. Schools have been burned down. Teachers have been executed.

As the Soviets began to suffer more and more casualties, their officers boasted of the increasing prowess of the Afghan National Army, the ANA. Infiltrated though they were by the "mujahedin", Moscow gave them newer tanks and helped to train new battalions to take on the guerrillas outside the capital.

Fast forward to now. As the Americans and British suffer ever greater casualties, their officers boast of the increasing prowess of the ANA. Infiltrated though they are by the Taliban, America and other Nato states are providing them with newer equipment and training new battalions to take on the guerrillas outside the capital. Back in January of 1980, I could take a bus from Kabul to Kandahar. Seven years later, the broken highway was haunted by "mujahedin" fighters and bandits and the only safe way to travel to Kandahar was by air.

In the immediate aftermath of America's arrival here in 2001, I could take a bus from Kabul to Kandahar. Now, seven years later, the highway - rebuilt on the express instructions of George W but already cracked and swamped with sand - is haunted by Taliban fighters and bandits and the only safe way to travel to Kandahar is by air.


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APOV's Weekly Revue (01/23/2008)

That's right folks - time yet again for Teh Weekly Revue!

Oh, Canada!

Harper's non-self aware vision of his (non)mandate;

What lurks beneath Harper's outlining of his (non)mandate;

Harper's (non)sense of the future;

The sickness in Harper's "brain";

Harper's heart: no empathy allowed;

Harper and Flaherty - fiscal charlatans;

Harper and his stock market tips: blatant incompetence.

(You know - maybe I should've simply called this section "Oh, Harper!". But I digress ...)

Oh, USA!

The real Bush doctrine;

G.O.P.: rise of the wingnuts;

G.O.P. wingnuts: losing themselves further down the rabbit hole;

The Pentagon and its cronies are seeking to buy flying submarines;

The Pentagon and its cronies unveil a new scam: the "4% Freedom" sales pitch;

Meet the archetype of the White House suck-up;

Saying no to "enemy combatants" through actual, bona fides legal interpretation of the law;

The change that's really needed;

Economy: pass on the bad medicine;

The Bush Economic "Miracle";

U.S.A.: taser nation.

Oh, History!

The massacre for which Thanksgiving is named.

Oh, World!

Peace - what is it good for?

And on this note ends Teh Weekly Revue for this Sunday, November 23rd 2008.


(P.S. My apologies for being inactive this week-end blogwise - I was busy visiting family. I'll try to pick back my usual pace starting tomorrow ...)

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There is no Country

"Patriotism is the last vestige of Scoundrels"
Benjamin Franklin.

"Follow the Money"
Molly Ivans

"There is no spoon"
The Matrix



Shut the door, quickly! Keep your voice down, man. These things have to be spoken about with extreme caution. Cell phones, off, and remove your batteries. GPS and all.

Settle down, listen up. We may only get to meet like this once.


"If you follow the money, there is no Patriotism, there is no Country"
Me

There have always been the Elites. The moneyed, the entitled. For centuries, they worked under the guise of Country, even while using Imperialism to amass more wealth. They had to work, use and employ the Patriotism of Country to do so. They needed the armies.

Not anymore, man, not anymore.

The game has gone Global.

Even the CEO's with their jets are just well-paid house slaves to keep the Masters comfortable. They believe the illusion, too.

Shhh. Hear me out. The CEO's are patsies.

They aren't the real power. They are the curtains. They are their Seconds taking the lance for their Knights. Hubris filled, thinking they are protecting their own power and minuscule wealth; they fight their own people.

This is a new age. I've talked about it before.

The Bin Ladens, the Bush's, the Royal Families of Kuwait, The House of Saud, sure there are visible members of the Elites... but what I am telling you is that there are more, generations of more, whose names you will never know.

It matters not a whit to them whether their serfs are Vietnamese, Chinese or from India. They can with a click of their mouse, put their wealth in any Country on the Globe.

The rich don't have borders. They have moves.



It matters not who their market is either. 45%ish of GM's market is overseas, anyway.

So, right now, as India's buying power is rising, thats where they sell. When they ask too many wages, the jobs will move elsewhere, and the market will follow.

Thing is, it is no longer, "Whats good for General Motors is good for America." It's what's good for the elites is good for the elites.

They don't even have to follow the illusion of Patriotism, because they no longer need our armies and our public permission to play Globally. Whether or not the US Government says so.

I know, you 're thinking if we restored accountability to those offices, we could take back some reins. Not so much, my dear friends.

Hey, keep those curtains closed. You want Blackwater, Crescent or Vinnell looking in?

They have private armies now.

Anyway, America has become a pain in their ass. Its expendable now.

They need to break the masses down. They need us to be a Third World Country, and after a time, when we are willing to work for slave wages, they'll come back.

See, they can play the loop endlessly Globally. Pay tiny wages, increase bit by bit, making people able to buy your product, and then move the shell game elsewhere when it gets too expensive.

I've talked about that before, too. They left China for Vietnam, the cost of moving a factory was less than paying inflated wages.

Right now, its a series of slow-motion sieges.

Do you really think they give a fuck who is in any office here anymore? Sure, to the extent that some are more easily made into a house-boy than others. But really? Really? All can be brought to their knees with the money. The assets. The food. Or Weapons.



Wars are an illusion to them too, just profits, and ways to bring people to bay, for their next crop. Think about how we invest in every Country we have ever fought.

"They've all gone to look for America"
Paul Simon

"She's not There"
The Zombies.

Yeah, I know I shouldn't be making a joke right now.

But we can no longer have "Let them eat cake" rebellions in any one Country. They can just play elsewhere until we collapse upon ourselves.

The only way to break the cycle is to go after the source, dig? Shhhhhh. Its Class Warfare. They have created Global Warfare on the People.

We are just fodder, have been for a long time, only now they don't have to placate any Country, any Citizenship, any so-called Patriotism. Their only loyalty is to themselves.



Their only question is "Where to next?"

"As if I really didn't understand
That I was just another part of their plan
I went off looking for the promise
Believing in the Motherland"
Jackson Browne

Yeah, he almost got it right, but the disillusioned with Vietnam boy missed that even the war was for profit, and she ain't gonna "Come around" or "find her conscience" as a Country.

There are no Countries any more.

You can't bend it until you realize that much.

There are only the People, and without us as a commodity, without us as a crop they will wither.

All we can do is fight back locally.

That is, until we manage to remind the People everywhere THERE IS NO COUNTRY and get them with us as People.



The only way to win is to fight back Globally.

The rest? The Patriotism, is fucking illusion, dudes. Always. Was. That ended when Man stopped traveling in small Tribes.

We get all excited thinking we can make ourselves exceptional and proud again.

That was always a shadow on the cave wall.

In the past, they had to give us more, when they had nowhere else to play, that's all. They no longer have to. Period.

Period.

They have never cared about us. They played along with our strikes, had to make concessions until they could bring all the World's other Elites on board with Them.

They are a United Front now.

So must we be.




There is no Country, man.

There is Them. There is Us.

There are no Countries.

This concludes our meeting. Pass it on, but pass it carefully.

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Late Friday Night Ode To ... War (Yet Another Encore)

We have wars of choice and resource wars in the works ... and now this "comforting" piece of news (I can hear those neocons applauding giddily).

Allow me to reiterate:

For the sake of our continued existence, we must strive to forget nevermore that rationalizations supporting the use of violence - other than the need for the rightful exercise of self-defense when set upon by a genuinely clear, present and immediate danger - invariably constitute deceitful fabrications meant to conceal, disguise or justify incompetence ...

... including our very own for embracing such mendacity.

When will we wise up to this, indeed?

Hence, tonight's Ode features a double-play of Audioslave.

First, we have Moth (warning: adult/graphic depictions):

And then, we have We Got The Whip:

Peace, ya'll - and I mean it.

(P.S. how's that for new school, Impolitic?) ;-)

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Antiwar Groups Fear Hawkish Cabinet

As President-elect Barack Obama’s national security team begins to take shape, there is increasing disquiet among antiwar activists that his appointees and rumored appointees have thus-far, without exception, favored the Iraq invasion and held hawkish foreign policy positions.

The persistent reports that Obama is in talks with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates about keeping his position in the new administration had already prompted loud complaints that keeping him on was not in keeping with his campaign’s mantra of change. His apparent preference to make Sen. Hillary Clinton his Secretary of State, despite all the times he publicly trashed her position on the Iraq War during the primaries, has only added to those concerns.

But nowhere in Obama’s “Team of Rivals” cabinet is any suggestion of an appointee less-hawkish than himself, meaning his increasingly tenuous claim to being an antiwar politician will serve as the base-line for his administration’s foreign policy, with his cabinet pulling it in ever more bellicose directions.

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punditman says ...

Punditman is adding to current bad economic news with this bad political news, which can only be construed as a disappointment to those who hoped for some sort of progressive foreign policy out of Obama (Punditman is not one of those naive types). Oh well. Perhaps the economic mess will constrain any further military adventurism?

On the bright side, Punditman scored a nice goal on a slapshot through the five-hole today and is therefore happy with his new hockey shaft purchase, which he got on sale. He recommends that everyone stock up on sporting goods of all kinds -- before world shipping grinds to a halt and store shelves become bare. In the days to come, recreational equipment may well be scarce -- and God knows we'll need it.

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Decency, Civility And Compassion In The U.S. - Not

As follow up of this post back there, here is a bit of news that could not constitute a more definite exclamation point on demonstrating the matter (I know that words simply fail me ...):

Number of juveniles held at Guantanamo almost twice official Pentagon figure
By Andy Worthington

Canadian national Omar Khadr is still being held at Guantanamo Bay. Accused of murder, Khadr was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 when he was 15.

On Sunday, the Pentagon admitted that 12 juveniles -- those under the age of 18 at the time their alleged crimes took place -- have been held at Guantanamo Bay (as opposed to the figure of eight that was submitted to the UN in May). But a RAW STORY count, drawn from the Pentagon's own records, reveals that the total number of juveniles held at Guantanamo is at least 22 -- nearly double the official Pentagon figure.

In a submission to the 48th Session of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (PDF), the Pentagon claimed that it had only held eight juveniles during the life of the Guantanamo Bay prison. It acknowledged that three Afghans under the age of 16 were released in January 2004 (as reported in the New York Times), stated that another three juveniles were repatriated between 2004 and 2006 and claimed that it was only holding two prisoners who were juveniles at the time of their capture: the Canadian Omar Khadr and the Afghan Mohamed Jawad, who are both facing a trial by Military Commission. The much-criticized Commission was created by the Defense Department as part of "terror trials" conceived in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Last week, the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, based at the University of California, issued a report pointing out that, contrary to the Pentagon's assertions, at least 12 prisoners were juveniles at the time of their capture. The report correctly stated that, in addition to Omar Khadr and Mohamed Jawad, Mohamed El-Gharani, a Saudi resident born to parents from Chad, was still imprisoned. Just 14 years old when he was seized in October 2001, El-Gharani had traveled to Pakistan to study information technology, but had been rounded up in a random raid on a mosque, tortured in Pakistani custody and then held in U.S. detention, first in Afghanistan, and then in Guantanamo.

The report also asserted that the Pentagon had forgotten to include Yasser Talal al-Zahrani. Al-Zahrani, a Saudi national, was 17 when he was seized in Afghanistan, andwas one of three prisoners who died in Guantanamo (apparently by committing suicide) in June 2006.

After the report was issued, the Pentagon acknowledged that it had revised its figure from eight to 12, and said it had provided a corrected submission to the United Nations. Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon claimed that the problems arose because many of the prisoners did not know their dates of birth. But as the director of the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas explained the Center's report had drawn on the Pentagon's own sources, specifically the list of all the prisoners held at Guantanamo from January 11, 2002 until May 15, 2006, which included their names, nationalities, and dates of birth.

Close scrutiny of this list reveals that the Pentagon will need to revise its figures once more, as, by its own account, a total of 22 prisoners were juveniles at the time of capture. Moreover, contrary to the Pentagon's account, five of these prisoners are still being held.

This imprecision seems to reflect the Pentagon's lack of concern for whether prisoners were juvenile at the time of capture. Under the terms of Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (on the involvement of children in armed conflict), the U.S. administration is required to promote "the physical and psychosocial rehabilitation and social reintegration of children who are victims of armed conflict," but in May 2003, when the story first broke that juvenile prisoners were being held at Guantanamo, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a press conference, "This constant refrain of 'the juveniles,' as though there's a hundred children in there -- these are not children."

Although the three juveniles released in January 2004 were held separately from the adult population and given some educational and recreational opportunities, there is no evidence that the rest of the juveniles held at Guantanamo received any preferential treatment whatsoever. In many cases, they were subjected to the kind of chronic abuse that has earned Guantanamo (and the U.S. prisons in Afghanistan) a reputation as facilities where the use of torture was routine.

The following is a list of the 22 juveniles held at Guantanamo:


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The Obama Transition Team Going Down To The Dog House Already?

With all the reporters, journalists and pundits getting way over excited about the rumor of Hillary Clinton as a possible Secretary of State in an Obama administration, including the whole media/MSM/traditional media going all out drama over this, I thought the following would be a nice opportunity for some more needed chuckles - and yet the piece remains quite à propos with what is currently going on and how the whole media fenzy/Hillary hysteria has been playing out so far:

BREAKING: Tensions Erupt Over White House Puppy Appointment
by The Field

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, NOVEMBER 20, 2008: George Stephanopoulos' report last week on ABC that the Obama family had secretly met with "Rex" at the Hyde Park Humane Society Kennel has touched off a firestorm of conflicting reports, rumor, gossip, innuendo, drama and questions about whether the young golden retriever could be vetted in time for Inauguration Day next January 20.

President-elect Barack Obama had, on the night of November 4, issued a vague set of promises involving "change" to his two daughters, Sasha and Malia, that they had earned a new puppy that would be coming with them to the White House. But serious questions remained as to what kind of puppy, from what region of the country, whether it would be a mutt (the president-elect's personal choice) or hold a pedigree, and its level of experience at tackling the tough White House challenges ahead...

Rex did not return phone calls from this reporter, directing us to the Transition Team, which declined to respond. But speculation swirled across Washington today about the implications of the rumors.

But shortly after attempting to contact the Rex camp, the newsroom phone lit up like a Christmas tree with unnamed sources to fill in the blanks.

"Barney, the lame duck dog of the Bush White House, leaves heavy paw prints to fill," two Democratic Party sources told Andrea Mitchell of NBC. "It is unknown whether the puppy to be chosen by the Obamas will be able to tackle the challenges of knowing which members of the White House press corps to bite, where the bones are buried in the Rose Garden, and solving the Middle East peace process."

The New York Times reported earlier this week that Malia Obama had officially offered the job to Rex. The Guardian then published a story stating that Rex had agreed to the position. But now tensions have erupted between the Rex and the Obama camps over a constant stream of leaks, and a high placed source reveals that Michelle Obama is concerned that those leaks could continue to trickle over the carpet in the Oval Office come January.

The Huffington Post has cited three sources close to Rex revealing that he is undecided about the job, "because there is so much important work yet to be done at the kennel." But high placed kennel sources note that Rex, at six weeks old, is very low on the seniority totem pole and will have to wait months before the possibility of becoming alpha-puppy in any of the cages there. Rex is also reportedly concerned that his possible role in an Obama White House will be curtailed by infighting and competition from the pitbull already chosen (said to be named "Rahm") and a lack of clarity as to whether he would be able to choose his own team of under-puppies and assistant puppies.

"Rex is worried about Obama's pledge of bipartisanship," a highly placed source told The Drudge Report. "I mean, think about it: Obama reaches out to Mitt Romney and the next thing you know Rex ends up on the roof of the family car in a cage on the way to Camp David."

The long trail left by Rex’s controversial mate (said to be named “Big Dog”) is at the center of the drama. The National Fire Hydrants Association has warned that if the 900-pound tail-wagger in the room, Big Dog, gets in the door he’ll also bring the pack he runs with (Terrier McAuliffe, Ron Bark-le, Malamute Penn, Antolian Villaraigosa, Shih Tzu Blumenthal, Collie Rangel, Elliot Schnauzer and Lahsa Davis, among others) and there will four years of yapping and stepping in it ahead for the White House’s new residents.

The speculation about Rex - will he or won't he? - has been the major topic in the media and across the blogosphere. Michelle Malkin of Hot Air called it "an affirmative action appointment" and questioned whether Rex is in fact a US citizen or a Golden Labrador. ‘If they allow a Canadian puppy onto US soil illegally, next thing you know Obama will be negotiating with terriers, and without preconditions," she told Fox News. "Furthermore, Rex should be required to learn English first." And Dick Morris told the Sean Hannity that passing up the black Labrador in the next kennel will definitively end the honeymoon between Obama and civil rights leaders.

But the editorial board at National Review has cheered the possibility that Rex will become the White House puppy, stating: "The last Democrat in the White House had a cat named Socks, clearly a wealth redistributor, and we're encouraged that the Obamas have chosen a symbol of capitalism in a dog, although we would have preferred a pig... with lipstick."

In other news, the big three automobile manufacturers went into bankruptcy today, the Dow tumbled 1500 points, and Vice President Dick Cheney signed an executive order making his fourth branch of government permanent.

But, wait, we have a breaking story, this just in: Sources close to Rex have said that the puppy has already passed the vetting process, the Big Dog is now scratching at the White House back door, and they will be leaking more important news tomorrow and for the next four years (on all of our legs) about Rex's preconditions for accepting the post. Film at 11!

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Shocking News: There Will Be Sex In The Obama White House!!!

Just because we all need to laugh a little - read the following "shocking" and "scandalous" news item:

Obamas Expected to Have Sex in White House, Insiders Say
By Billy Kimball

In what is sure to be a controversial move, President-elect Barack Obama has indicated to his inner circle of advisors that he and his wife may have sex in the White House sometime during the four years of his first term in office.

"He's not saying they definitely will have sex," said an Obama confidante who declined to be named, "But he's not ruling it out. He's also not ruling out having sex more than once."

Although Mr. Obama himself is a regarded as something of a sex symbol, there has been surprisingly little speculation and rumor about the incoming First Couple's romantic life. Longtime observers and friends regard both Mr. and Mrs. Obama as somewhat emotionally chilly. "From what I understand, it's a bit like the Vulcan mating ritual, the Pon Far," said outgoing Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean. "Barack will feel a seasonal urge that he knows rationally and logically that he is powerless to control. He will inform Michelle and she will attempt to satisfy the urge. Their schedulers work out the precise details."

Although it was common for American presidents to have marital sex in the White House throughout the 19th Century, the practice has become increasingly rare in modern times. The last president believed to have frequent intercourse in the White House was Calvin Coolidge whose relationship with his wife, Grace, became intensely passionate following the death of their younger son from an infected blister.

The two chief executives most often associated with presidential sex in recent years, Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, did not have the sex they are famous for with their First Ladies. Jimmy Carter, a former president known for a tendency to overshare wrote in his memoir, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President, that he and his wife Rosalynn had intercourse once a year on New Year's Eve "for five minutes with the lights off" during his presidency. Mrs. Carter disputed her husband's account in her own memoir, First Lady from Plains.

With four large bedrooms, the First Family's private apartment on the second floor of the White House is designed to accommodate whatever marital configuration the President and First Lady happen to prefer, according to Rear Admiral Stephen Rochon, the Chief Usher of the Executive Mansion. "The President's bedroom and the First Lady's bedroom can be as close together or as far apart as they want," Adm. Rochon said, adding that, as with many couples, sleeping arrangements are usually decided based on who snores. As for the possibility that the Obamas might share a bedroom, Adm. Rochon said he "could not see any reason for that."

The Secret Service has already begun preparing for the possibility that the president's tight schedule might be interrupted on occasion by a brief sexual interlude. The code phrase to indicate that the president (code name "Renegade") and First Lady (code name "Renaissance") are having sex will be "discussing the Bosnian problem" as in "Renegade can't be disturbed right now. He and Renaissance are discussing the Bosnian problem." In the event that president and Mrs. Obama are, in fact, discussing the Bosnian problem and not having sex, Secret Service agents have been instructed to say that they are "reviewing the Bosnian situation." A spokesman for the Bosnian government could not be reached for comment.

Mr. Obama preferences with regard to birth control are not mentioned in either of his books, The Audacity of Hope and Dreams of my Father, though Michelle Obama has said on several occasions that she does not plan to have any more children.

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Prosecuting The Torturers ... ?

Prosecuting those who gave the directive to torture would be justice. But I doubt this will ever happen.

Nonetheless, it is a nice thought ...

Ending Torture, Prosecuting the Torturers
Unfinished Business
By Benjamin G. Davis

Recently released reports confirm that the United States still has very important unfinished business with regard to torture. Civilians at the highest levels of government as well as military generals have committed crimes. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger, and documents from 2003 and 2004 provide further evidence that the White House endorsed the use of torture. The Department of Justice, Department of Defense, Department of State, Intelligence, and other leadership have all been complicit. Congressional leadership has been far too passive and encouraged these acts. These are bipartisan crimes. They are crimes against the United States and the world community.

As usual, we read in the press that no one will prosecute these crimes. They will if we insist.

We need to criminally prosecute the perpetrators. We must prosecute them because low-level soldiers ordered to do their bidding have been prosecuted. Soldiers who served at Bagram and Abu Ghraib have been court-martialed for the heinous acts they were ordered to and urged to perform on detainees. These soldiers, sons and daughters from decent, ordinary American families, are serving life sentences for betraying their oath. It is time that their leaders who ordered them to betray their oath face the music. No one gets a pass just because they are high up.

These leaders not only consider themselves above the law, but above the United States. We need to prosecute them to reaffirm who we are as Americans. We are not vicious torturers. These people have no place in our city on the hill.

In September, the Massachusetts School of Law hosted a conference that resulted in ordinary American citizens coming together and forming a Steering Committee to develop the political will and the actual prosecution of these high-level civilians and military leaders. We ask all persons of goodwill to join us in this effort.

The range of actions we encourage are:

1) impeaching President George Bush before he leaves office particularly if prior to leaving office he tries to pardon himself and those who have done his bidding in violation of United States law. In the absence of that impeachment and consistent with precedent we should impeach him after he leaves office for crimes committed. Impeachment would ensure that President Bush could not hold any federal office on commission etc. for the rest of his life.

2) impeaching Judge Jay Bybee of the Ninth Circuit. Judge Bybee signed the infamous August 1, 2002 torture memo ascribed also to Professor John Yoo at the University of Berkeley School of Law. It shocks the conscience that a person who enabled torture is permitted to sit on a federal bench.

3) criminally prosecuting high-level civilians in state courts. The legendary Vincent Bugliosi knows how to do it.

4) criminally prosecuting civilian and military leaders in federal and military courts. There are 2700 state prosecutors across the country. American families all over have suffered the loss of a loved one or live with an injured member who served in wars started by President George Bush. Some of these families are willing to assist their state prosecutors in seeking criminal trials. If a sufficient number of these cases are brought forth, a federal prosecutor might initiate a prosecution, notwithstanding Attorney General Mukasey's unwillingness to faithfully execute our federal laws with regard to criminal prosecution of these leaders.

5) removing from academia former Bush administration officials who created and put in place the torture policies and practices. Ordering and abetting torture has nothing to do with academic freedom.

6) encouraging, to the extent courts allow, "citizen prosecutors" to exercise citizen mandamus and step in to prosecute where their state or federal prosecutors have failed to act. This was attempted recently in Minnesota to permit a citizen arrest of President Bush for murder if he came into St. Paul to attend the Republican Convention.

7) organizing peaceful civil actions that convey to those holding the levers of power in the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches that we intend to vindicate United States law and United States international obligations and hold them accountable.

8) Seeking assistance from foreign and international tribunals to make sure that these perpetrators serve time for their crimes.

It is abundantly clear that President George Bush ordered torture.


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Wars Of Choice Are Self-Administered Poisons

'Nuff said - following up from these recent posts here, here, here, here, here and here ...

Let us not forget that violence is the last refuge of incompetence.

Or, in other words:

Ignorance breeds fear. Fear fosters hate. In turn, hate leads inevitably to violence.

The History of Humanity constitutes a sad and tragic testament to this senseless and vicious progression. Incidentally, there is a further underlying, self-evident axiom to this assertion which posits that violence is the last refuge of incompetence - incompetence as nations, as communities, and as thinking, reasoning human beings.

Therefore, when will we acknowledge the fact, once and for all, that it is the incompetents among us who consistently promulgate violence as a solution for anything, to everything?

For the sake of our continued existence, we must strive to forget nevermore that rationalizations supporting the use of violence - other than the need for the rightful exercise of self-defense when set upon by a genuinely clear, present and immediate danger - invariably constitute deceitful fabrications meant to conceal, disguise or justify incompetence ...

... including our very own for embracing such mendacity.

Here's more food for thought on the matter:

America’s Wars of Self-Destruction
By Chris Hedges

War is a poison. It is a poison that nations and groups must at times ingest to ensure their survival. But, like any poison, it can kill you just as surely as the disease it is meant to eradicate. The poison of war courses unchecked through the body politic of the United States. We believe that because we have the capacity to wage war we have the right to wage war. We embrace the dangerous self-delusion that we are on a providential mission to save the rest of the world from itself, to implant our virtues—which we see as superior to all other virtues—on others, and that we have a right to do this by force. This belief has corrupted Republicans and Democrats alike. And if Barack Obama drinks, as it appears he will, the dark elixir of war and imperial power offered to him by the national security state, he will accelerate the downward spiral of the American empire.

Obama and those around him embrace the folly of the “war on terror.” They may want to shift the emphasis of this war to Afghanistan rather than Iraq, but this is a difference in strategy, not policy. By clinging to Iraq and expanding the war in Afghanistan, the poison will continue in deadly doses. These wars of occupation are doomed to failure. We cannot afford them. The rash of home foreclosures, the mounting job losses, the collapse of banks and the financial services industry, the poverty that is ripping apart the working class, our crumbling infrastructure and the killing of hapless Afghans in wedding parties and Iraqis by our iron fragmentation bombs are neatly interwoven. These events form a perfect circle. The costly forms of death we dispense on one side of the globe are hollowing us out from the inside at home.

The “war on terror” is an absurd war against a tactic. It posits the idea of perpetual, or what is now called “generational,” war. It has no discernable end. There is no way to define victory. It is, in metaphysical terms, a war against evil, and evil, as any good seminarian can tell you, will always be with us. The most destructive evils, however, are not those that are externalized. The most destructive are those that are internal. These hidden evils, often defined as virtues, are unleashed by our hubris, self-delusion and ignorance. Evil masquerading as good is evil in its deadliest form.

The decline of American empire began long before the current economic meltdown or the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It began before the first Gulf War or Ronald Reagan. It began when we shifted, in the words of the historian Charles Maier, from an “empire of production” to an “empire of consumption.” By the end of the Vietnam War, when the costs of the war ate away at Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and domestic oil production began its steady, inexorable decline, we saw our country transformed from one that primarily produced to one that primarily consumed. We started borrowing to maintain a lifestyle we could no longer afford. We began to use force, especially in the Middle East, to feed our insatiable demand for cheap oil. The years after World War II, when the United States accounted for one-third of world exports and half of the world’s manufacturing, gave way to huge trade imbalances, outsourced jobs, rusting hulks of abandoned factories, stagnant wages and personal and public debts that most of us cannot repay.

The bill is now due. America’s most dangerous enemies are not Islamic radicals, but those who promote the perverted ideology of national security that, as Andrew Bacevich writes, is “our surrogate religion.” If we continue to believe that we can expand our wars and go deeper into debt to maintain an unsustainable level of consumption, we will dynamite the foundations of our society.

“The Big Lies are not the pledge of tax cuts, universal health care, family values restored, or a world rendered peaceful through forceful demonstrations of American leadership,” Bacevich writes in “The Limits of Power.” “The Big Lies are the truths that remain unspoken: that freedom has an underside; that nations, like households, must ultimately live within their means; that history’s purpose, the subject of so many confident pronouncements, remains inscrutable. Above all, there is this: Power is finite. Politicians pass over matters such as these in silence. As a consequence, the absence of self-awareness that forms such an enduring element of the American character persists.”

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So. You want to be an Automaker?

I would have settled for being able to get a factory rat job back in the day. I'd be retired by now.

Romney was here today saying that they shouldn't bail them out. Romney. From Here. Let them go bankrupt. Get rid of the Unions. The workers are the problem.

Really Mitt? Whats your angle in all this?



We ain't gonna bend over, Mitt.

You & your Amway buddies wanna buy them up, cheap? God know their workers are paid on a glorified Ponzi scheme.

Its never the 100 times the salary upper echelons making the decision to jerk off on the backs of the sweating plebes. Noooooooo.

Blame the auto workers, who have taken pay cut after pay cut, concession after concession and still cannot afford to buy one of the luxury cars they lease, so they can legally be sold as used to Kuwait.

See the market isn't us, you fools. Its Kuwaitis and Saudis. The cap on what we sell them doesn't apply to "used", hence the leases.

Actually, I'm glad.

Close it down, mutha fuckas.

Bring it on!

When 6 million people are out of work, foreclosing on loans, homes and defaulting on taxes, you gonna see backlash like you ain't ever seen before.

Shock doctrine this, baby.

You may think after a week or two of being hungry, Detroiters and Suburbians will roll over and settle for crumbs.

You ain't seen nothing yet. The '68 riots weren't shit.

See, me and my 9mm brothers.... me and my shotgun wielding redneck cousins... me and my holy rollin' praise the lord and pass the ammunition sisters will not go quietly into this dark night.

The 68 riots were just part of Detroit.

Now you're fucking with all of Michigan.

Now you're fucking with 2/3rds of the World's fresh water supply.



Bring it. BRING IT!

Michigan may be the most heavily armed State in the Union, and that's without the unregistered shit, dig? The AKs. The Macks, the 15's. We got lotsa steel and lots of people. We all hunt. Most of us have looked down a barrel from one end or the other, and not at no deer.

Getting thirsty yet?

We won't play beggar, bitches. We'll fuck you up. We'll take your shit, fuck your dogs and eat your kittens with your finest silver.

We have steel plants. We have oil reserves. We have vast areas of agriculture to grow food and forests to hide in. Hell, Grayling Military base is so easy to get into, I got on it 4 wheel driving, shit faced drunk with a bunch of buddies. By accident. Looked down a cannon barrel that day, but amazing what flashing will do to a bunch of guys on a tank.

I coulda owned that tank.



We control shipping.

BTW, we got a fucking nuclear plant, just fucking upwind from the belly of the beast in Washington.



The weak here are killed and eaten.

You have the money to give rich bankers to go to Spas on holidays, you always find the money for your wars....

and you ain't got shit for us?

Gonna commit genocide on all us weak kneed liberals and slum dwellers?

Gonna make us a right to work for a nickel state?

Gonna throw all us gun-toting motherfuckers back into the 3rd world dark ages?

Go'head. Wake the beast.



Bring.

It.

On.

First off, roll up the sidewalks in Grand Rapids.

We know where you and your money comes from. Next?

Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink.

This will not be a shit storm.

This will be a shit tsunami.

So, you want to be an Automaker?

I thought so.

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Primitive Minds And Their Lies: Beating A Dead Horse

I know the point has been made over and over again, here at APOV, with regards to primitive minds and the 2nd and 4th principles of incompetence ... but what the Hell - just for the sake of "documenting the atrocities":

Michelle Bachmann denies saying she wanted the media to investigate members of Congress who might be anti-American

Michelle Bachmann is a pretty wild person as we've seen, but after spewing venom at Barack Obama for a few minutes with Hannidate, she then lied to Alan Colmes and denied saying this on Hardball:

Bachmann: I would say, what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look -- I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think the people would love to see an expose like that.

She's come up with a new one folks. She said that she never made those statements and they have now become an "urban legend." Is she living in a B type Horror/Slasher film world or what? Here's what she told Alan Colmes Tuesday night.

Colmes: You said you were concerned during the campaign that Obama had anti American views and you said the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look at the people and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America

Bachmann: Actually that's not what I said. It's an urban legend that was created and that's not what I said.

Colmes: I have the tape at my website Alan.com

Bachmann: What I called on Alan was for the main stream media to do their job. They failed to vet Barack Obama the way they had John McCain. That's what I was called for.

Colmes: I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America. Do you really want...

Bachmann: What I said was that I'm not qualified to say whether members views are pro or anti American. That's not my job to do.

She really is out there. Obama was subjected to a level of scrutiny McCain never faced since he was in a heated primary battle that went on for months after McCain won his nomination. She really should apologize to Obama, but what the heck.

And yes - we are talking about the same Michelle Bachmann as in here, here and here.

So, let us recap the sequence: Bachmann called Obama anti-American while at the same time calling for anti-American investigations of Congress by the media, then she lied by claiming that her comments to this effect were "misread" (even if she made such comments live on TV), then she obfuscated more by claiming that Obama is not anti-American per se but that his views actually are, then she claimed that an Obama White House would be like the Sopranos, then she attempted to claim credit for Barack Obama's election as some kind of racial vindication for America, and now she comes full circle by further dissembling about her initial call for the media to investigate anti-Americanism in Congress.

To reiterate one more time: that is what primitive minds (and/or incompetents) do.

That is all they can do.

Q.E.D. yet once again.

In the meantime, I'll keep wondering how the Hell this insane person managed to actually get re-elected last November 4th ...

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Creationism, ID = Primitive Mind-Thinking Syndrome

Yes, I call "primitive mind-thinking" on everything creationism and/or intelligent designism. Not just because I am a scientist, but first and foremost because I understand where beliefs in spirits, ghosts and Gods come from: seeking to understand the universe based on ignorance.

That is how our ancestors proceeded to explain what was going on - not only around them, but about themselves. Which eventually lead to the Will of God(s) as the end all, be all, to explain Everything That Can, Or Can't, Happen In Our Universe (one recent example here) - including the (false) need to codify such ignorance-based beliefs into holy books and wrap them around religious rituals (hence creationism and its faux science-disguised bastard child, intelligent design, constitute nothing more than religious fundamentalism).

But such a way of explaining life, the universe, reality, never had any validity to begin with - even more so in today's modern world.

Except, of course, in the fevered, fearful thoughts of those still too-numerous primitive minds lingering among us (recent examples here, here, here, here, here and here), doing everything they can to keep all of us mired in a Semi-Dark Age.

Here's additional food for thought on the matter, including asking the question "how progressives should deal with this?":

Cats, Dogs and Creationism
By Jean Bricmont

With all due respect to cats and dogs, I don’t expect them to ever understand the laws that govern planetary motion. Does this prove the existence of God? Of course not! What a silly question! Yet, if you replace cats and dogs by humans and the problem of planetary motion by the question of the origin of life, or of the universe, or why a number of physical constants take certain precise values, then the "yes" answer summarizes the entire content of the so-called Intelligent Design movement.

Why devote a whole book to that argument, as John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark and Richard York do in their recent Critique of Intelligent Design (Monthly Review, 2008)? Well, one reason is that the argument is unfortunately extremely popular, especially in the United States. Besides, the book is not about only that, but it also reviews brilliantly the eternal struggle between materialism and spiritualism or idealism, going through the works of Epicurus, Lucretius, Hume, Feuerbach, Marx, Darwin, Freud, Lewontin and Gould and their adversaries. Materialism can be defined as the attempt to explain the world in terms of itself, an idea that goes back to the Greeks. Of course, to avoid tautologies, one has to know what one means by "itself". For religious people, God is part of the world and therefore explaining the world in terms of God is part of explaining the world in terms of itself.

Here is where modern science and British empiricism (which can be characterized as the working philosophy of most scientists) enter. Science explains the visible world, let’s say the structure of matter, by appealing to the invisible one, the properties of atoms. So, why can’t science postulate an invisible Intelligent Design to account for the origin of the Universe or its unexplained properties? The difference is that we do not use merely the word "atom" in our explanations, but also their many quantitative and testable properties. On the other hand, the Design of the ID movement is just a word -- nobody has ever proposed that it possesses any given properties, nor how, if such properties were proposed, one could test them. The postulated Design has just whichever properties were needed to make the world as it is and not otherwise. But then why was the ID not intelligent enough to create a world without birth defects, tsunamis or American imperialism ? The only thing that the defenders of ID are able to establish is that there are certain things we don’t know -- and with that, of course, all scientists agree.

Because of the specificity and testability of its explanations, modern science has introduced a new factor into the spiritualism/materialism debate that was absent among the classical materialist philosophers. The latter had their hearts in the right place but, because of lack of experiments, their physics was fanciful and open to the objection that it was not any more credible than religious stories. Since then, modern science has turned the tables decisively in favor of materialism.

More to the point, this postulated Design has nothing whatsoever to do with the Gods of the traditional religions. Theologians constantly try to present such "arguments" as ID in favor of a deity as if they supported their favorite belief systems. But those belief systems are all based on some kind of revelations and "sacred" scriptures. Even if the ID arguments were valid, they would tell us nothing about particular revelations. The God of ID is a philosopher’s God, like the one whose existence St Thomas Aquinas or Descartes thought to have proven. But the God of the traditional religions is entirely different. It is a being that defines what is good and evil, answers our prayers, and punishes us in the afterlife. Those belief systems are even more radically undermined by modern science than ID. Indeed, whenever one looks at the facts in an undogmatic way, the sacred books turn out to be essentially wrong. Not only about evolution but about almost everything. There is no independent evidence for the story told in the Gospels, the Bible is mythological, and even the Jewish people is, as Shlomo Sand puts it, "an invention" .

Given that, there are two routes open to the believer. There is that of Sarah Palin, clinging literally to the belief system, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. That school of Christians enter into direct conflict with science. Or one can choose the metaphorical route, which most liberal and European Christians (including even the Pope, at times) follow -- declare that, whenever the Scriptures conflict with science, they have to be "interpreted" in a non-literal way. That leads to total defeat for religious belief, because, if the parts of the Scriptures that can be checked with the facts are not to be taken seriously, why pay any attention to the parts that cannot be checked (notably concerning Heaven and Hell or God himself )? The whole of liberal Christianity is the result of a double standard: follow the Scriptures whenever they are "metaphysical" or ethical and cannot be checked independently, and discard them when they can. Since God is not good enough to tell us what he really meant in his "revelations", and which parts have to be taken seriously and which parts not, we are left with total arbitrariness.

People who call themselves agnostics are often confused about these two notions of God. What they claim to be agnostic about is the philosopher’s god not, say, the Gods of Homer. With respect to the latter, they are atheist, just as all religious people are atheist with respect to all gods except their own.

It is also a pity that some secular leftists, like Stephen Jay Gould, support liberal Christianity with the idea of non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA): science deals with facts, religion deals with values. But if you really remove all statements of facts from religion, including those about the existence of God or of Heaven and Hell, then why should one care about what religion says about values ? (That is why the NOMA argument adds to the confusion on the secular side, but is rarely accepted by the religious one).


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Torture Or No Torture? Perino Vs Rice

Condoleeza Rice, U.S. Secretary of State, a couple of months ago on renditions, indefinite detentions and torture: "because it was necessary".

Dana Perino, White House Press Secretary, today on torture: "we did not torture".

Don't pay attention to that silly Secretary of State or all that fuzzy "evidence" stuff to the contrary (like Abu Ghraib), and never you mind the plethora of additional testimonies like this one, Mme Press Secretary.

Oh, the arrogance, mendacity and incompetence ...

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Harper, Harpies And Today's CPC: Q.E.D.

Chassez le naturel et il revient vite au gallop.

Roughly translated, this old French proverb means "you can chase away one's natural predisposition, but it always comes back-a-running".

That the CPC is nothing more than a franchise of the (utterly failing and now apparently irrelevant) Republican party, that the CPC's base is essentially the same as that of the G.O.P. (examplified by Sarah Stillson Palin and her rabid followers), can no more be put into question.

Case in point (emphasis added):

Stephen Harper can put on all the warm and fuzzy sweaters he likes, smile and say soothing things to politically moderate Canadians but, every time his base speaks out, the Prime Minister's carefully crafted image begins to unravel.

This was evident during the Conservative national policy convention in Winnipeg last weekend, at least when it came to issues concerning women.

Passed were three policy resolutions that affect women, and their rights, and choices.

In ascending order of outrageousness, they are:

Resolution P-305 would allow for income splitting for families with children, which would ease the tax burden on the main earner and put more cash in the couple's pockets.

That means spouses – usually women – who don't work outside of the home for pay could also get some financial reward for their contributions to the family, assuming, of course, that they actually see some of the dough.

Now, on the surface, this is great.

Except for one thing: It discriminates against single-parent families, many of who struggle to make ends meet.

It also works more to the benefit of the rich than the middle classes. The more income that a couple can split, the bigger and better the tax break. And aren't non-working spouses dependents anyway?

What income splitting as official policy really says is, especially in the absence of a national daycare program, a woman's place is in the home.

Resolution P-213 should hardly come as a surprise to anybody following the Harper government's efforts to wipe out any and all support for women's rights.

The proposal eliminates support for full gender equality as well as equal pay for work of equal value.

Let me repeat that: It would eliminate support for full gender equality.

Oh it couches that in airy fairy speak, stating that the party is all for "the full participation of women in the social, economic, and cultural life of Canada." But the phrase "gender equality" was scrubbed and equal pay will only go for "equal work."

That means male parking lot attendants can continue to make more than female child care workers, even if the latter have university educations and are entrusted with your precious kid instead of your car.

Which says a lot about where the Cons stand on the issue of women's work and independence.

(...) Last but, oh so very far from least, is Resolution P-207 which is all about, here we go again, protecting "unborn children" from violence.

Rewind to the eve of the last federal election when Harper pulled the plug on the controversial Bill C-484, the so-called "Unborn Victims of Crime Act" because it contained language that could lead to the definition of the fetus as a legal person.

Well, a similar bill could be back like the stink of skunk after the rain. According to Kady Malley of Maclean's, when one delegate got up to say that passing this would open the door to fetal rights, she was cheered. But, when the applause died down, she concluded that this was not a good thing. Which was when she was booed.

True, after the vote, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson told reporters Harper has publicly stated he has no intention of reopening the abortion debate. So why can't he close it in his own party ranks?

It's obvious that, whatever face Harper presents to Canadians, his dark grass roots will always be showing.

Q.E.D. - ce qu'il fallait démontrer.

Harper the Theocon indeed ...

Any questions?

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Afghanistan: Operation Enduring Disaster

Following up on this post back here (and a whole bunch of previous ones) ...

I prefer to call it Operation Enduring Propaganda. But this alternate name works for me as well:

Operation Enduring Disaster
Breaking with Afghan Policy
by Tariq Ali

Afghanistan has been almost continuously at war for 30 years, longer than both World Wars and the American war in Vietnam combined. Each occupation of the country has mimicked its predecessor. A tiny interval between wars saw the imposition of a malignant social order, the Taliban, with the help of the Pakistani military and the late Benazir Bhutto, the prime minister who approved the Taliban takeover in Kabul.

Over the last two years, the U.S./NATO occupation of that country has run into serious military problems. Given a severe global economic crisis and the election of a new American president -- a man separated in style, intellect, and temperament from his predecessor -- the possibility of a serious discussion about an exit strategy from the Afghan disaster hovers on the horizon. The predicament the U.S. and its allies find themselves in is not an inescapable one, but a change in policy, if it is to matter, cannot be of the cosmetic variety.

Washington's hawks will argue that, while bad, the military situation is, in fact, still salvageable. This may be technically accurate, but it would require the carpet-bombing of southern Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan, the destruction of scores of villages and small towns, the killing of untold numbers of Pashtuns and the dispatch to the region of at least 200,000 more troops with all their attendant equipment, air, and logistical support. The political consequences of such a course are so dire that even Dick Cheney, the closest thing to Dr. Strangelove that Washington has yet produced, has been uncharacteristically cautious when it comes to suggesting a military solution to the conflict.

It has, by now, become obvious to the Pentagon that Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his family cannot deliver what is required and yet it is probably far too late to replace him with UN ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. On his part, fighting for his political (and probably physical) existence, Karzai continues to protect his brother Ahmad Wali Karzai, accused of being involved in the country's staggering drug trade, but has belatedly sacked Hamidullah Qadri, his transport minister, for corruption.

Qadri was taking massive kickbacks from a company flying pilgrims to Mecca. Is nothing sacred?

A Deteriorating Situation

Of course, axing one minister is like whistling in the wind, given the levels of corruption reported in Karzai's government, which, in any case, controls little of the country. The Afghan president parries Washington's thrusts by blaming the U.S. military for killing too many civilians from the air. The bombing of the village of Azizabad in Herat province last August, which led to 91 civilian deaths (of which 60 were children), was only the most extreme of such recent acts. Karzai's men, hurriedly dispatched to distribute sweets and supplies to the survivors, were stoned by angry villagers.

Given the thousands of Afghans killed in recent years, small wonder that support for the neo-Taliban is increasing, even in non-Pashtun areas of the country. Many Afghans hostile to the old Taliban still support the resistance simply to make it clear that they are against the helicopters and missile-armed unmanned aerial drones that destroy homes, and to "Big Daddy" who wipes out villages, and to the flames that devour children.

Last February, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell presented a bleak survey of the situation on the ground to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence:

"Afghan leaders must deal with the endemic corruption and pervasive poppy cultivation and drug trafficking. Ultimately, defeating the insurgency will depend heavily on the government's ability to improve security, deliver services, and expand development for economic opportunity.

"Although the international forces and the Afghan National Army continue to score tactical victories over the Taliban, the security situation has deteriorated in some areas in the south and Taliban forces have expanded their operations into previously peaceful areas of the west and around Kabul. The Taliban insurgency has expanded in scope despite operational disruption caused by the ISAF [NATO forces] and Operation Enduring Freedom operations. The death or capture of three top Taliban leaders last year -- their first high level losses -- does not yet appear to have significantly disrupted insurgent operations."

Since then the situation has only deteriorated further, leading to calls for sending in yet more American and NATO troops -- and creating ever deeper divisions inside NATO itself. In recent months, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British Ambassador to Kabul, wrote a French colleague (in a leaked memo) that the war was lost and more troops were not a solution, a view reiterated recently by Air Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the British Defense Chief, who came out in public against a one-for-one transfer of troops withdrawn from Iraq to Kabul. He put it this way:

"I think we would all take some persuading that there would have to be a much larger British contingent there… So we also have to get ourselves back into balance; it's crucial that we reduce the operational tempo for our armed forces, so it cannot be, even if the situation demanded it, just a one for one transfer from Iraq to Afghanistan, we have to reduce that tempo."

The Spanish government is considering an Afghan withdrawal and there is serious dissent within the German and Norwegian foreign policy elites. The Canadian foreign minister has already announced that his country will not extend its Afghan commitment beyond 2011. And even if the debates in the Pentagon have not been aired in public, it's becoming obvious that, in Washington, too, some see the war as unwinnable.

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G.W. Bush + S.J. Harper = Accomplices?

Wha-at?

You don't say!

...

Why - I ... I'm ... I'm utterly, completely, absolutely and definitely shocked!

Shocked, I tell ya!

No - really. I am.

Oh yes, believe you me.

As a matter of fact, I am so shocked at such a possibility that words simply fail me.

Any questions?

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Georgia And Russia: What's Next?

Aside from revealing how Bush can be used as a convincing argument for showing reserve, responsibility and civility, what else lies beyond the ongoing conflict between Russia and Georgia?

Hence the following exhaustive, additional food for thought on the matter:

Georgia And Russia: The Aftermath
By Donald Rayfield

The Georgia-Russia war of 8-12 August 2008 has left a host of issues unresolved. The future of the contested territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the resettlement of the expelled and displaced, the fate of Georgia's aspiration to join Nato, and the ambitions of an emboldened Russia are just a few. The bitter fallout of a vicious conflict means that it will be some time before the longer-term impact of the war in these and other areas will become clear.

It is far too early to talk of a return to normality, even were such a notion to apply to the Georgia-Russia relationship and the pre-war political situation in the region. A cautious return to diplomatic dialogue - from the European Union-Russia summit in Nice on 14 November (which emerged with a proposal for a new "security architecture" in Europe) to the resumption of talks between Moscow and Tbilisi in Geneva on 18 November - may at least offer some signals about the prospects for movement on the core tensions that the war revealed.

But in order for more substantial progress to be possible, the outstanding questions surrounding the August conflict itself - how it began, who is to blame, and what are the implications of answers to these questions - must also be faced. These continue to be matters of intense dispute, in an atmosphere overlain by politically-driven public-relations campaigns on all sides. What follows is an assessment based on current knowledge about the circumstances of the war and its possible consequences, which builds on earlier contributions in openDemocracy (see, for example, "Russia vs Georgia: a war of perceptions" [24 August 2007], and "The Georgia-Russia conflict: lost territory, found nation" [13 August 2008]).

A chain of responsibility

It is famously said that truth is the first casualty of war. In this case, however - thanks to the careful work and independent research of journalists and other observers - it can also be the first to recover from its injuries.

Seven points can be made about the circumstances of the war:

The first is that the full-scale attack by Georgian forces on South Ossetia's capital Tskhinvali on the night of 7-8 August 2008 - involving indiscriminate artillery-fire from Grad rockets - was not provoked by any Ossetian forces' shelling of Georgian villages in the enclave. A number of sources - including three observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), of whom only one was from the former Soviet Union, and two experienced British military observers in the area at the time - report that there was no immediate provocation that would justify the Georgian escalation of what had hitherto been a low-key conflict. This conclusion is supported too by the evidence of a number of Georgian inhabitants of South Ossetia, and has been reinforced by the findings of the journalist Tim Whewell in meticulous reports featured on the BBC World Service and other outlets.

Moreover, reports of Russian forces making their way through the Roki tunnel into South Ossetia on 7 August (rather than 8 August) are not backed up by any satellite or other confirmed intelligence. The conclusion must be that blame for the death of over 100 Ossetian civilians and Russian "peacekeepers" in the Georgian assault belongs to Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and his military commanders; and Saakashvili, even if he has convinced himself of the truth of his version of events, needs to be confronted with the disparities between his allegations and the verifiable facts.

The second point is that it would however be quite wrong to follow Russia's president and prime minister, Dmitri Medvedev and Vladimir Putin (and their western acolytes such as Silvio Berlusconi) in blaming Saakashvili, his army and their United States advisers for initiating the war.

True, Russian forces may have taken no special action on or just before 7-8 August to justify the Georgian army's attack on Tskhinvali. But Russian forces were clearly prepared for and expecting such a conflict: their armies were in place in North Ossetia, their battleships were ready to reach Georgian ports within a day or two; the Ossetians, whose government and armed forces are effectively controlled by Russians, had for several weeks escalated the usual petty violence of kidnappings, shootings, blockades and banditry to a point where the death-rate among Georgian police was more than worrying. Saakashvili's attack, if it can be justified at all, can be called a pre-emptive strike.

The third point is that the Georgian army had at least 130 American advisers who answer to the US authorities. It is difficult to believe that the move north from Tbilisi of the most heavily armed, motorised forces of the Georgian army went unnoticed by these Americans. Did they remonstrate; and if not, why not? Worse, did they, as Putin alleges, actively encourage the Georgians out of cynical curiosity to see how the Russians would respond - or out of even more cynical political calculation in seeking to boost John McCain's election chances? The answers to these questions will eventually leak out, whether from Tbilisi or from the Arlington (Virginia) headquarters of the CIA.

The fourth point is that the Russian army could not have failed to repel the Georgian attack, even if it were to keep to its fiction of being merely a "peacekeeping" force. But it must be blamed for its actions in two areas:

* deliberately destroying Georgian infrastructure and severely damaging the economy by cutting the only east-west railway line and the only motorable east-west road, and bombing near enough the airport to deter commercial aircraft from landing at Tbilisi

* embarking on an orgy of looting and allowing Ossetian and Chechen "irregulars" (a more polite word than they deserve) to steal, rape, kill and drive out Georgian villagers from South Ossetia (see Tanya Lokshina, "A month after the war", 16 September 2008).

The background of Chechen hatred for Georgians (which reached its height in 1944 when Stalin used Georgian detachments of the NKVD to deport the entire Chechen nation to central Asia) makes it as as cruel a decision to use Chechen forces in South Ossetia as it was to let them fight with the Abkhaz against the Georgians in 1992.

The fifth point is that the Russians are guilty of the sheer hypocrisy of pretending to be neutral peacekeepers in the region, when since 1992-93 they have been seeking gradually to integrate both South Ossetia and Abkhazia into the Russian Federation by a variety of means: common currencies, introducing pension and healthcare rights, issuing Russian-citizenship passports to the inhabitants.

The Georgians may have been originally to blame for their cavalier treatment of Abkhaz and Ossetian nationalism in the 1989-92 period, but in later years have watched with increasing frustration at seeing their country dismembered while the outside world remained all but indifferent. This helps explain if not justify the crime of shelling Tskhinvali - a crime which gave the Russians the long-awaited pretext to "recognise" the breakaway territories' independence and thus effectively absorb them for good. In addition, the Russians lied even more brazenly than the Georgians in the first stages of the war, in proclaiming a "genocide" of Ossetians with as many as 2,000 victims, when the verifiable total is far less.

The sixth point is that western politicians, particularly ambassadors and donors, failed in their duty to make clear to Mikheil Saakashvili - in terms that he could not pretend to misunderstand - that they would in no way support a "war of liberation" aimed at recovering the lost territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Any diplomat in Georgia soon realises that, regardless of reality and common sense, every Georgian politician has had to promise his electorate that they would meet next year in Sukhumi and Tskhinvali. The inevitable danger of such rhetoric is that at moments of despair, the irresponsible politician - whether Eduard Shevardnadze or Saakashvili himself - gambles on an attempt to turn it into reality. Georgia's economic resurgence since 2004 has depended on tranches of grants and investments which should have been absolutely conditional on conforming to basic ground-rules (see Vicken Cheterian, "Georgia's forgotten legacy", 3 September 2008).

The seventh point is that some western politicians made culpable errors at the outset of the war by laying total blame on Russia for its outbreak, then compounded this by reversing Franklin D Roosevelt's advice and "talking hard while carrying a soft stick". They included the hapless John McCain, the leaders of the Baltic states, and two callow British politicians (foreign minister David Miliband and opposition leader David Cameron).

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Say Hello To ... Harpergirl!

The following is hilarious - and yet so à propos:

(h/t)

Mea culpa, mea culpa vox populi, eh?

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U.S.-Pakistan: Teh Scam In Teh Works?

On the one hand, you get news like this, that, this, this or that, or reports like this, and/or analyses like this or that.

And then, something like the following comes along - making you wonder just what the Hell is going on here ...

Pakistan and U.S. Have Tacit Deal On Airstrikes
By Karen DeYoung and Joby Warrick

The United States and Pakistan reached tacit agreement in September on a don't-ask-don't-tell policy that allows unmanned Predator aircraft to attack suspected terrorist targets in rugged western Pakistan, according to senior officials in both countries. In recent months, the U.S. drones have fired missiles at Pakistani soil at an average rate of once every four or five days.

The officials described the deal as one in which the U.S. government refuses to publicly acknowledge the attacks while Pakistan's government continues to complain noisily about the politically sensitive strikes.

The arrangement coincided with a suspension of ground assaults into Pakistan by helicopter-borne U.S. commandos. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said in an interview last week that he was aware of no ground attacks since one on Sept. 3 that his government vigorously protested.

Officials described the attacks, using new technology and improved intelligence, as a significant improvement in the fight against Pakistan-based al-Qaeda and Taliban forces. Officials confirmed the deaths of at least three senior al-Qaeda figures in strikes last month.

Zardari said that he receives "no prior notice" of the airstrikes and that he disapproves of them. But he said he gives the Americans "the benefit of the doubt" that their intention is to target the Afghan side of the ill-defined, mountainous border of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), even if that is not where the missiles land.

Civilian deaths remain a problem, Zardari said. "If the damage is women and children, then the sensitivity of its effect increases," he said. The U.S. "point of view," he said, is that the attacks are "good for everybody. Our point of view is that it is not good for our position of winning the hearts and minds of people."

A senior Pakistani official said that although the attacks contribute to widespread public anger in Pakistan, anti-Americanism there is closely associated with President Bush. Citing a potentially more favorable popular view of President-elect Barack Obama, he said that "maybe with a new administration, public opinion will be more pro-American and we can start acknowledging" more cooperation.

The official, one of several who discussed the sensitive military and intelligence relationship only on the condition of anonymity, said the U.S-Pakistani understanding over the airstrikes is "the smart middle way for the moment." Contrasting Zardari with his predecessor, retired Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the official said Musharraf "gave lip service but not effective support" to the Americans. "This government is delivering but not taking the credit."

From December to August, when Musharraf stepped down, there were six U.S. Predator attacks in Pakistan. Since then, there have been at least 19. The most recent occurred early Friday, when local officials and witnesses said at least 11 people, including six foreign fighters, were killed. The attack, in North Waziristan, one of the seven FATA regions, demolished a compound owned by Amir Gul, a Taliban commander said to have ties to al-Qaeda.

Pakistan's self-praise is not entirely echoed by U.S. officials, who remain suspicious of ties between Pakistan's intelligence service and FATA-based extremists. But the Bush administration has muted its criticism of Pakistan. In a speech to the Atlantic Council last week, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden effusively praised Pakistan's recent military operations, including "tough fighting against hardened militants" in the northern FATA region of Bajaur.

"Throughout the FATA," Hayden said, "al-Qaeda and its allies are feeling less secure today than they did two, three or six months ago. It has become difficult for them to ignore significant losses in their ranks." Hayden acknowledged, however, that al-Qaeda remains a "determined, adaptive enemy," operating from a "safe haven" in the tribal areas.

Along with the stepped-up Predator attacks, Bush administration strategy includes showering Pakistan's new leaders with close, personal attention. Zardari met with Bush during the U.N. General Assembly in September, and senior military and intelligence officials have exchanged near-constant visits over the past few months.


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G20 = New Era Of Global Governance?

I'm not so sure (and then some) ... although the positive potentials are there nonetheless.

From G8 to G20: the end of exclusion
The Washington summit of the G20 nations represents the opening to a new era of global governance
By Larry Elliott

Despite all the pre-match hype, yesterday's gathering was never going to be a second Bretton Woods, the 1944 conference that laid the foundations for the international economic order of the postwar era.

The first Bretton Woods took two and a half years to prepare and was dominated by the United States. Countries have had barely a month to prepare for the gathering convened by George Bush in the midst of the financial markets' meltdown and, predictably enough, they have different views on what needs to be done.

Some - Germany and Canada in particular - are wary of letting borrowing rip in order to fund tax cuts. Washington, despite the huge problems caused by the reckless lending of banks, is hostile to the heavy regulation of big finance favoured by the French and Germans.

Barack Obama cast a long shadow over the talks, even though the President-elect carefully allowed Bush to hog the limelight on his last big set-piece occasion. Obama is thought to favour a bigger package of tax cuts and is open to ideas such as clamping down on tax havens, but these decisions will not be taken until after his January inauguration. The summit was Hamlet without the prince.

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President-Elect Obama And Gitmo, Torture: Renewed Pledge At Last

From back here and there - I finally got a post-election clear and definitive answer:

Obama Pledges To End Torture To Help ‘Regain America’s Moral Stature In The World’

In recent weeks, there has been rampant media speculation that President Barack Obama would back off his campaign pledges to end torture.

The Wall Street Journal recently wrote, “President-elect Barack Obama is unlikely to radically overhaul controversial Bush administration intelligence policies.” In addition, some in the blogosphere have raised concerns about the fact that a key intelligence adviser to Obama has supported the Bush administration’s enhanced interrogation techniques.

Tonight, in his interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes, Obama bluntly and directly clarified his incoming administration’s position:

CBS: There are a number of different things you can do early on pertaining to executive orders.

OBAMA: Right.

CBS: One of them is to shut down Guantanamo Bay. Another is to change interrogation methods that are used by U.S. troops. Are those things that you plan to take early action on?

OBAMA: Yes. I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that. I have said repeatedly that America doesn’t torture, and I’m going to make sure that we don’t torture. Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America’s moral stature in the world.

Watch it:

Obama also emphasized that “capturing or killing” Osama bin Laden is a critical aspect of his national security strategy of stamping out al Qaeda. “He is not just a symbol, he is also the operational leader of an organization that is planning attacks against U.S. targets,” Obama said of bin Laden.

To which I respond: bravo, Mr. President-elect, for such unambiguous and definitive, post-election pledge renewal to end torture and close Gitmo. Thank you, sir, indeed!

(Now, about renditions, military commissions, indefinite detentions, indiscriminate domestic spying and restoring habeas corpus ... ?)

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U.S. $700B Bailout: What Was It For, Again?

A very à propos question, especially when considering this little bit of news:

U.S. financial giant Citigroup to cut 53,000 jobs

Citigroup Inc. is shedding approximately 53,000 more employees in the coming quarters as the banking giant struggles to steady itself after suffering massive losses from deteriorating debt.

The New York-based bank, which has already reduced its assets by about 20 per cent since the first quarter of the year, also plans to trim expenses by 19 per cent in 2009 from third-quarter levels, to US$50 billion.

The plans, posted on the company's website, were discussed by CEO Vikram Pandit at the company's town hall meeting in New York Monday with employees.

The company said it is shrinking its work force by 20 per cent from its 2007 peak of 375,000. The company had already announced in October that it was eliminating about 22,000 jobs from that level.

About half of the expected work force reductions will come from business sales; Citigroup already announced that it was selling Citi Global Services and its German retail banking business, accounting for about 18,000 jobs. Citi is planning to sell other businesses, too, but has not announced them yet, a spokesman said.

The other half of the work force reductions will come from layoffs and attrition, the spokesman said.

The New York-based bank has posted four straight quarterly losses, including a loss of $2.8 billion during the third quarter.

Doing badly indeed, no?

Not so fast:

In an effort to instill confidence in the company, Citigroup emphasized in its presentation Monday that its Tier 1 capital ratio, a measure of financial strength, is 10.4 per cent after a $25 billion investment from the government -- part of the $700 billion financial rescue package passed by Congress last month. That ratio is higher than peers Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co., after their purchases of Merrill Lynch and Wachovia Corp., respectively.

Citigroup also stressed that it has doubled reserves in a year to $24 billion; that its revenues are stable; and that Citigroup has lower exposure to U.S. consumer mortgages than JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

Ri-ight. I thought so.

Of course, you know where I'm going with this:

It is always the same story - "give us tax breaks or we will have to close down and folks will lose their jobs"; "give us some bailout monies or we'll have no choice but to close down and folks will lose their jobs"; "deregulate or it will cost us too much and we'll have no choice but to reorganize and folks will lose their jobs".

Or, in other words: "let us do whatever we damn well please or folks will lose their jobs, and whenever we screw things up, then better bail us out or folks will lose their jobs".

That is because we allow our governments to give our taxpayer monies to corporations as incentives, rescues and/or outright bail outs, which instead never fail to use such monies as plain capital to further their own self-serving ends.

(...) "Let us do whatever we damn well please or folks will lose their jobs, and whenever we screw things up, then better bail us out or folks will lose their jobs" - yes, that's sounds like the best summary of today's prevailing business model, which is nothing more than a continuing blackmail con game at the expense of all of us taxpayers ... we taxpayers, who constitute the very fuel of the economic engine of our democratic societies.

And the con game just made another 53,000 victims - not counting the increasing amount of billions of taxpayer money wasted ...

Any questions?


(Cross-posted at TWWL)

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Bush's Ode To The Free Market

Bush the incompetent strikes back to further sell the continuing blackmail con game of our times ...

Bush Sells Free Market as Cure-All, Despite Crash
By Matthew Rothschild

On Thursday, Bush gave a speech in New York about the financial crisis, and it was a laughable ode to the free market.

It sure was an odd time for such an ode, since the free market is crashing down upon us.

Ever incoherent, Bush himself admitted as much.

“I’m a market-oriented guy, but not when I’m faced with the prospect of a global meltdown,” he said.

And so he enumerated the market interventions that his administration has already taken. He talked about the need to “make our financial markets more transparent”— though his bailout is anything but. And he even called for more regulation.

But then he went back to singing his ode.

“The greater threat to economic prosperity is not too little government involvement in the market,” he said. “It is too much government involvement in the market.”

This is economic idiocy at a time of global collapse, and to utter it, Bush had to distort the cause of the collapse, blaming a lot of it on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and denying that it was caused by “greed and exploitation” or “a failure of the free market system.”

Nice try, George.

But that’s exactly what it was: A failure of cowboy capitalism. Deregulation come a cropper.

Bush can deny it all he wants. But the evidence is right in front of us.

This is what happens when you knock down the wall between commercial banks and other financial institutions, as Bill Clinton and Robert Rubin did by abolishing Glass-Steagall.

This is what happens when you allow Wall Street to issue all sorts of clever derivatives and swaps that are unregulated, as Bill Clinton (with encouragement from Larry Summers) did when he signed Phil Gramm’s Commodities Futures Modernization Act.

This is what happens, in short, when you believe in the Reagan-Clinton-Bush ideology that big government is bad and that any regulation is suspect and that the free market will regulate itself.

Hell, even Alan Greenspan has given up on that now.

But not Bush.


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APOV's Weekly Revue (11/16/2008)

If it's Sunday ...

Oh, Canada!

Harper: a Third Rate Actor Gutting the Script on the World Stage™;

More Harper Hypocrisy and Double-Talk;

Prime Minister Harper: I've Got Your Cooperation Right Here;

Canada: the Great (Leadership) Void;

Afghanistan: Simple Answers to Stupid Questions;

November 11.

Oh, U.S.A.!

Missile Shield and Iran: A Boondoggle To Defend Against A Fiction?

Moving away from anti-intellectualism;

Sarah Palin Cannot Move On;

Bush's parting gift to al Qaeda;

Remembering the Big Lie;

Questions for the Obama Administration.

Oh, Economy!

FDIC vs. the Paulson Bailout;

Laid Off After 34 years;

Eat, Drink and Be Merry While the Commoner Starves;

Free Market: Trial and Error;

Another of a Common Man's Analysis of the Economic Crisis;

IEA Oil Report: The End of Oil is Nigh.

Oh, World!

Israel-Palestine: Re-branding Oppression.

And that is it for the Weekly Revue on this Sunday, November 16 2008.

Peace and all that stuff.

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The Continuing Blackmail Con Game

It is always the same story - "give us tax breaks or we will have to close down and folks will lose their jobs"; "give us some bailout monies or we'll have no choice but to close down and folks will lose their jobs"; "deregulate or it will cost us too much and we'll have no choice but to reorganize and folks will lose their jobs".

Or, in other words: "let us do whatever we damn well please or folks will lose their jobs, and whenever we screw things up, then better bail us out or folks will lose their jobs".

That is because we allow our governments to give our taxpayer monies to corporations as incentives, rescues and/or outright bail outs, which instead never fail to use such monies as plain capital to further their own self-serving ends (yet one more example here).

Allow me to reiterate yet again:

Giving any bailout money to any corporation and/or financial institution without oversight and stringent conditions for use of said money, including limits/cuts on compensations for (failing/incompetent/irresponsible) CEOs, is the same thing as a parent giving $10 to an 8-years old to "buy a healthy lunch only" and not bothering to make sure that the kid doesn't use the money to stuff his/her face with fast food and/or sweets instead.

The same applies with regards to lack of regulations (or enforecement thereof) and "laissez faire" economic/environmental policies such as "voluntary measures" - in the end, corporate entities end up doing whatever they damn please, if only because one thing ever matters to their existence: the bottom line.

That is the nature of the beast, as "responsible" and self-serving as an 8-years old kid.

It is as simple as that.

What is needed is not just a "reshaping" of the financial systems of the world.

What is needed first and foremost is a reshaping of the free market system in a way that enforces responsibility through stringent regulations, in order to protect our democratic societies from the recklessness, blind greed, dangerous self-serving expediency and outright incompetence currently en force in virtually all of today's business models - whereby the possibility of short term gains/profits far outweights any long term, adaptable strategies for sustainable economic growth and prosperity.

Free market? Yes. Anything-goes-free-market? No more. Because it has indeed shown itself to be not only an utter failure, but as well as inherently dangerous to our prosperity, our health and our environment - regardless of what Bush (or even Harper) think.

I mean - selling our assets in order generate liquidity to help bailout incompetent, self-serving corporations and/or CEOs (one more recent example here)? Never a more a ludicrous and outright stupid idea have I ever heard as a "solution" to our current economic woes, folks.

As example: remember the electric car and what happened to it? Talk about being a little too late ...

"Let us do whatever we damn well please or folks will lose their jobs, and whenever we screw things up, then better bail us out or folks will lose their jobs" - yes, that's sounds like the best summary of today's prevailing business model, which is nothing more than a continuing blackmail con game at the expense of all of us taxpayers ... we taxpayers, who constitute the very fuel of the economic engine of our democratic societies.

Here's (lots more) food for thought on the matter:

The New Trough
The Wall Street bailout looks a lot like Iraq — a "free-fraud zone" where private contractors cash in on the mess they helped create
By Naomi Klein

On October 13th, when the U.S. Treasury Department announced the team of "seasoned financial veterans" that will be handling the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, one name jumped out: Reuben Jeffery III, who was initially tapped to serve as chief investment officer for the massive new program.

On the surface, Jeffery looks like a classic Bush appointment. Like Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, he's an alum of Goldman Sachs, having worked on Wall Street for 18 years. And as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 2005 to 2007, he proudly advocated "flexibility" in regulation — a laissez-faire approach that failed to rein in the high-risk trading at the heart of the meltdown.

Bankers watching bankers, regulators who don't believe in regulating — that's all standard fare for the Bush crew. What's most striking about Jeffery's résumé, however, is an item omitted when his new job was announced: He served as executive director of Paul Bremer's infamous Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, during the early days of the Iraq War. Part of his job was to hire civilian staff, which made him an integral part of the partisan machine that filled the Green Zone with Young Republicans, investment bankers and Dick Cheney interns. Qualifications weren't a big issue back then, because the staff's main function was to hand over stacks of taxpayer money to private contractors, who were the ones actually running the occupation. It was this nonstop cash conveyor belt that earned the Green Zone a reputation, in the words of one CPA official, as "a free-fraud zone." During Senate hearings last year, when Jeffery was asked what he had learned from his experience at the CPA, he said he thought that contracts should be handed out with more "speed and flexibility" — the same philosophy he cited back when he was in charge of regulating Wall Street traders.

The Bush Administration has since reversed the Jeffery appointment, perhaps thinking better of giving a CPA alum such a central role in the Wall Street bailout. Still the original impulse underscores the many worrying parallels between the administration's approach to the financial crisis and its approach to the Iraq War. Under cover of an emergency, Treasury is rapidly turning into an economic Green Zone, overrun with private companies collecting lucrative contracts. Fittingly, one of the first to line up at the new trough was none other than the law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani — yes, that Giuliani. The firm's chairman, Patrick Oxford, could scarcely conceal his glee over the prospect of cashing in on the bailout. "This one," he told reporters, "is very, very big." At least four times bigger, in fact, than the post-9/11 homeland-security bubble, from which Giuliani and his various outfits have profited so extravagantly. Even bigger, potentially, than the price tag for the Iraq War itself.


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Darkness In Afghanistan

The savagery in Afghanistan is reaching new heights. Whether it is assaulting schoolgirls with acid or the torture (including at the hands of U.S. soldiers), as well as mass executions, are slowly becoming the norm.

Just like in the good old days of the Taliban regime, eh?

(oh, the bitter irony - or is it blatant hypocrisy?)

It's no wonder then, that Harper and his Harpies keep trying again and again to block public hearings into whether they allowed the transfer of prisoners to Afghan authorities, despite having full knowledge that they could be tortured - why, this would definitely put a stain on Harper/Canada's war, eh?

All in all - it makes one wonder yet again what the Hell this FUBAR war was for anyway ...

Here's more food for thought on the matter:

No End to the Savagery in Afghanistan
By Robert Fisk

Back in Afghanistan, the mind turns to the small matter of savagery. Not the routine cruelty of war, but the deliberate inhumanity with which we behave. The torture and killing of prisoners in this pitiful place—the American variety in Bagram and the Taliban variety in Helmand—is a kind of routine of history. Even execution has to be made more painful. A knife is more terrible than a bullet. The cult of the suicide bomber in the Middle East began its life in Lebanon, moved to “Palestine”, arrived in Iraq, leached over the border here to Afghanistan and passed effortlessly through the Khyber Pass into Pakistan. And New York. And Washington. And London ...

Are human beings at war—any kind of war—by definition bound to commit atrocities? The International Committee of the Red Cross tried to answer this question in a report four years ago. Were combatants unaware of international humanitarian law? Unlikely, I would think. They just don’t care. The Red Cross enquiry interviewed hundreds of fighters in Colombia, Bosnia, Georgia—a bit of real prescience, there, on the part of the ICRC—and the Congo, and suggested that those who commit reprehensible acts see themselves as victims, that this then gives them the right to act savagely against their opponents. Certainly, this might apply to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, very definitely to the Serbs of Bosnia—I’m not so sure about Georgia—and quite definitely to the Taliban (not least when we’ve been bombing more wedding parties).

Such cruelty is abetted with a bodyguard of clichés—“police operations”, “clean up”, “mop up”, “surgical strikes”—where you can kill by remote control, “especially when the media are not present to show the realities of a conflict”. This is most certainly the case today, for what journalist will now dare to wander the village streets of Helmand or the city of Baquba in Iraq or, for that matter, the border towns of Pakistan? War has never, it seems, been so underreported. And both the good guys and the bad guys like it that way; they prefer to indulge in savagery unseen.

There is nothing new in all this. At the Battle of Omdurman—where the British executed all the Arab wounded—the young Winston Churchill wrote of a sight which is familiar today in a land which was then called Mesopotamia and in another which was already called Afghanistan. He described “grisly apparitions”, of “horses spouting blood, struggling on three legs, men staggering on foot, men bleeding from terrible wounds, fish-hook spears stuck right through them, arms and faces cut to pieces, bowels protruding, men gasping, crying, collapsing, expiring ... ”. To the men can now—this very week—be added the suicide-bombed schoolgirls of Baghdad.

In his earlier military campaign on the North West Frontier, Churchill saw how some of the Taliban’s ancestors dealt with a wounded British officer: the leader of “half a dozen Pathan swordsmen ... rushed upon the prostrate figure and slashed it three or four times with his sword. I forgot everything else at this moment except a desire to kill this man. I wore my long cavalry sword well sharpened. ... The savage saw me coming ... ”. Well there’s something for the ICRC to think about.

Yet it pays to remember that Afghan wars have always been dreadful. Sir Mortimer Durand—he who created the Durand line which masquerades as the Afghan-Pakistani border, crossed with such impunity today by Americans and Taliban warriors in order to kill each other—witnessed the cruelty of the Afghan war at first hand. “During the action in the Chardeh valley on the 12th of Dec 1879,” he wrote, “two squadrons of the 9th Lancers were ordered to charge a large force of Afghans in the hope of saving our guns. The charge failed, and some of our dead were afterwards found dreadfully mutilated by Afghan knives-… I saw it al-l... ”

Yet Durand himself objected profoundly to a statement from General Frederick Roberts—he of Kandahar fame—after the murder of the British mission diplomats in Kabul. The killings had been “a treacherous and cowardly crime, which has brought indelible disgrace upon the Afghan people-… all persons convicted of playing a part in (the murders) will be dealt with according to their deserts”. Durand confronted Roberts over this Victorian version of the message that George Bush would give to the Afghans 122 years later.

“It seemed to me so utterly wrong in tone and in matter,” Durand would later write, “that I determined to do my utmost to overthrow it ... the stilted language, and the absurd affectation of preaching historical morality to the Afghans, all our troubles with whom began by our own abominable injustice, made the paper to my mind most dangerous for the General’s reputation.”

Of course, it did Roberts no harm at all. In the age of “shock and awe” —when a Canadian general can call his Taliban opponents “scumbags”—it still doesn’t seem to worry Nato officers. They should know better. Montgomery never cursed Rommel; he kept a photograph of the Afrika Korps commander in his caravan to remind him of the man he was fighting. But then again, didn’t Montgomery fight in the age of the Holocaust, of industrial killing, of the Hamburg and Dresden firestorms? Indeed, the very Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 were supposed to end the mass destruction of human life. And President Bush has torn them up.


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A Phenomenon Of Systemic Criminality

Obama and the Rogue Regime

By Ralph Nader

Barack Obama is receiving lots of advice from many people these days about the collapse of Wall Street, the sinking economy and the quagmire wars he will inherit from the Bush regime. However, there is one important matter that he alone can address with his legal training and the sworn oath he will take on January 20 to uphold the Constitution. That phenomenon is the systemic, chronic lawlessness and criminality of the Bush/Cheney regime which he must unravel and stop.

To handle this immense responsibility as President, he needs to bring together a volunteer task force of very knowledgeable persons plus wise, retired civil servants to inventory the outlaw workings of this rogue regime.

Much is already known and documented officially and by academic studies and media reporting. In the category of “high crimes and misdemeanors”, are (1) the criminal war—occupation of Iraq, (2) systemic torture as a White House policy, (3) arrests of thousands of Americans without charges or habeas corpus rights, (4) spying on large numbers of Americans without judicial warrants and (5) hundreds of signing statements by George W. Bush declaring that, he of the unitary presidency, will decide whether to obey the enacted bills or not.

To its everlasting credit, the conservative American Bar Association sent to President Bush three reports in 2005-2006 concluding that he has been engaged in continuing serious violations of the Constitution. This is no one-time Watergate obstruction of justice episode ala Nixon that led to his resignation just before his impeachment in the House of Representatives.

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punditman says ...
Ralph Nader is at his best when doing what he does best: documenting injustice (as opposed to running for election). Will Obama do anything about the Bush administration's crimes? Punditman is doubtful.


(Mentarch here, taking another break from his blogging break to barge in and add: I agree that it remains to be seen to what extent President-elect Obama will undo all the FUBAR caused - and still being caused - by Bush. However, I have difficulty taking stock in what Nader says nowadays, especially because of this recent ludicrous hyperbole of his, which speaks a whole lot more about him than it does potentially about Obama ...)

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The West Ignoring The Truth About The War In Georgia

Mary Dejevsky: Why did the West ignore the truth about the war in Georgia?

The US and UK left the impression that Russia was the guilty party

Thank goodness, they might be thinking at the US State Department and the British Foreign Office, for the financial crisis. Were it not for the ever-blacker news about the Western world's economy, another scandal would be vying for the headlines – and one where the blame would be easier to apportion. It concerns our two countries' relations with Russia and the truth about this summer's Georgia-Russia war.

Over the past couple of weeks, a spate of reports has appeared in the American and British media, questioning many assumptions about that war, chief among them that Russia was the guilty party. Journalists from the BBC, The New York Times and Canada's Embassy magazine, among others, travelled to South Ossetia, the region at the centre of the conflict, in an effort to establish the facts.

Not the "facts" as told by the super-slick Georgian PR machine at the time, nor the "facts" as eventually dragged from the hyper-defensive and clod-hopping communicators of the Kremlin. But the facts as experienced on the ground by those who were there: civilians, the local military commander, and the small number of unarmed monitors stationed in the region by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The journalists travelled to the region separately and by different routes. They spoke to different people. But their findings are consistent: Georgia launched an indiscriminate military assault on South Ossetia's main town, Tskhinvali. The hospital was among the buildings attacked; doctors were injured even as they operated.

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punditman says ...

Where were these reporters when it really mattered? Punditman has been documenting the blatant use of propaganda by Western governments in the Georgia-Russia war — accompanied by hopelessly biased reporting in the western press — since that conflict occurred last summer. This occurred despite the indisputable fact that Georgia launched an indiscriminate military assault on South Ossetia's main town, Tskhinvali — which led to a Russian response.

It seems there is now some pull back from the official position.

Nevertheless, a recent case in point: In a November 12th broadcast, BBC's HARDtalk programme host, Stephen Sackur accused Russia alone of starting the war when he interviewed Konstantin Simonov, Director General of the National Energy Security Fund, Russia. It was as if the West and Israel played no role whatsoever in stirring up and training Georgian forces, and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili is all lilly white.

So this is all old hat. Does that make us "pro-Russian"? No. Does it make us truth-seekers? Yes, because we smelled a rat from the beginning — and we were right.


(Mentarch here, taking a break from his blogging break to barge in and add: well put, punditman - especially since that only now the media is beginning to report sporadically, instead of trumpeting, the truth of the matter. Meanwhile ...)

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Late Friday Night Ode To ... TGIF

It's Friday - so take a break and have fun, eh?

I know I will ;-)

Hence for tonight's Ode, I offer a triple play of those bad boys from Germany - Scorpions!

First - we have Bad Boys Running Wild:

Then we have their classic - and all-time-all-around fun - Rock You Like A Hurricane:

And for the closer, we have Big City Nights:

Bonus song - for Teh Ladies ... Lee Aaron's Hot To Be Rocked:

(because rock is an equal opportunity party inducer, eh?)

Rock'n roll all night, folks!

(I'll be taking a blogging break until Sunday afternoon - so have a great week-end, ya'll!)

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Anyone Know, Or Care, What NorthCom Is Actually Up To?

Damn good question indeed, if I do say so myself ...

What Is NorthCom Up To?
By Matthew Rothschild

This week and into next, NorthCom and NORAD are conducting a joint exercise called “Vigilant Shield ’09.”

The focus will be on “homeland defense and civil support,” a NorthCom press release states.

From November 12-18, it will be testing a “synchronized response of federal, state, local and international partners in preparation for homeland defense, homeland security, and civil support missions in the United States and abroad.”

NorthCom is short for the Pentagon’s Northern Command. President Bush created it in October 2002. (The Southern Command, or SouthCom, covers Latin America. Central Command, or CentCom, covers Iraq and Afghanistan. And the new AfriCom covers, well, you get the picture.)

Vigilant Shield ’09 “will include scenarios to achieve exercise objectives within the maritime, aerospace, ballistic missile defense, cyber, consequence management, strategic communications, and counter terrorism domains,” the press release states.

NorthCom’s press release also says that other participants in the exercise include the U.S. Strategic Command’s “Global Lightning 09,” which is a plan to use nuclear weapons in a surprise attack.

The Pentagon’s “Bulwark Defender 09” is also involved in the exercise, and it is a cyberspace protection outfit of the Pentagon.

Something called the “Canada Command DETERMINED DRAGON” also is participating, as is the California National Guard and California’s “Golden Guardian.”

California’s involvement appears to center around planning for a catastrophic earthquake.

“Under the leadership of Governor Schwarzenegger and direction of his Office of Homeland Security, the nation’s largest state sponsored emergency exercise will take place November 13-18,” a press release from the governor’s office states.

“Golden Guardian 2008 tests California’s capability to respond and recover during a major catastrophic earthquake. The Golden Guardian 2008 full-scale exercise scenario focuses on a simulated, catastrophic 7.8 magnitude earthquake along the southern portion of the San Andreas Fault.”

NorthCom is being shy about giving out additional information about Vigilant Shield ’09. When I called for a fact sheet on it, I was told there was none.

But the Pentagon did issue such a fact sheet for Vigilant Shield ’08.

Last year’s exercise included “the simulated detonation of three nuclear dispersal devices.” The fact sheet stressed the need to support a “civilian-led response” and to “exercise defense support of civil authorities,” including involvement in “critical infrastructure protection events” and coordinating “Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection activities.”

That fact sheet ended by saying: “There will be minimal deployment of active duty forces and no crossborder deployments. We anticipate little to no direct impact on local communities.”

NorthCom has been in the news lately, after the Pentagon designated to it a battle-tested fighting unit from the war on Iraq. This appears to be against the law, according to the ACLU, since the army isn’t supposed to be patrolling our own country.


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G20: Another Empty Political Exercize-To-Be?

Following up of these previous posts here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here - one has to wonder whether the upcoming G20 summit will turn out as nothing more than an empty political exercize, taking the climate change challenge as being but one example among many of the pervasive sclerosis that has gripped the "wealthiest" nations, resulting in their doing, well, pretty much nothing significantly positive for the world over the last eight years or so ...

More food for thought on the matter:

A world in the balance
The summits of the elite world must begin to address the insecurity and inequality that afflict the majority of the earth's inhabitants, or pay a great price in the years to come.
By Paul Rogers

It can be useful at moments of transition to stand back from the flux of immediate events and try to identify wider patterns that can help make sense of them - and where they might be heading. The election victory of Barack Obama in the United States provides such an opportunity. This column outlines five principle areas of concern that the new president will inherit: Iraq, Afghanistan/Pakistan, the al-Qaida movement, tensions between the west and Russia, and the security implications of the global economic recession. The analysis here is developed further in the Oxford Research Group's latest international-security monthly briefing (see "The Tipping Point?", ORG, October 2008).

Iraq: time of flux

The security situation in Iraq has eased over 2007-08, for a mix of reasons that reflect the changing dynamics of conflict there. The American military's "surge" strategy has undoubtedly had an effect, though the singling out of this by its neo-conservative and other supporters in the United States as the main or even the sole factor is misconceived. The enforced division of Sunni and Shi'a communities as a result of violence and insecurity, involving the displacement of millions of people, has also played a role; as have the ceasefire by the Mahdi army of the radical Shi'a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Sunni "awakening movement" which turned against al-Qaida and established an alliances of convenience with the Americans.

In any event, these security improvements remain fragile. A series of attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq since the last week of October 2008 is one indication of this; an even more potent one is the persistent reluctance of US military commanders to redirect troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, no matter how firm the requests for reinforcements from the commanders there.

The negotiations on the status-of-forces-agreement (SOFA) to secure the future of United States troops in Iraq have proved difficult. Whether or not they are brought to a successful conclusion before Barack Obama's inauguration on 20 January 2008, it is highly likely that the new administration will seek a more rapid drawdown - which may well improve relations with the Nouri alMaliki government.

A bottom-line remains, however, and it will influence the thinking of the new administration as it has shaped the departing one: Iraq is immensely important to the United States, both for its own oil reserves (nearly four times as great as those of the United States) and for its geopolitical location. The promise of the first two years of an Obama administration is of a complete withdrawal of US combat-troops and a scaling-down of the remaining forces, leaving less than 20% of those currently deployed. If this is fulfilled, the outlook for the US in the immediate region could become calmer; if it is not, then Iraq could remain a jihadist combat-training zone for many years to come.

Afghanistan-Pakistan: hard terrain

The easing of the security situation in Iraq has gone alongside a major deterioration in Afghanistan and western Pakistan. This has boosted both the disparate Taliban militias and helped the al-Qaida movement. As a candidate, Barack Obama pledged to enhance US military forces and even to be more forceful in taking the war into western Pakistan is sustained - a stance that has led to suspicion of him among the Pakistani populace.

It is not clear whether this was a position developed with a domestic audience in mind for electoral purposes. The political rationale is evident: to oppose an unpopular war is one thing, but even to entertain the possibility of withdrawal in defeat from two war-zones might be risky indeed. In any event, if the commitment made during the campaign was sustained, an Obama administration would be close to George W Bush on this issue at least.

Many senior military officers (and not a few civil servants) in Canada and Britain are, however, very dubious about the prospects for any kind of military victory in the Afghan theatre. Whatever else it does, an Obama administration will be consciously engaging with close allies, especially those mired in Afghanistan. Here, above all, is where alliance pressure might lead to a serious rethink. It is still a lot to expect, since any rethink must be part of a wider realisation that the days of western occupations across the region are over; but the sheer disarray in Afghanistan and the degree of instability and risk in Pakistan might change minds.

Russia: open door

The heightening of tensions between the west and Russia - over energy pipelines, the August 2008 war with Georgia, and the United States's missile-defence installations, among other issues - will be an area of serious concern to the new president and his team.

This is one policy-field where Barack Obama could make a difference. The sharp falls in energy prices have made Moscow increasingly preoccupied with its economic problems. Moscow is also aware that its intervention in Georgia over South Ossetia has provoked intense hostility and fear in the west, notwithstanding the clear evidence of Georgian provocation. Thus, Russia has an interest in cooling tensions, and a more emollient stance would find a ready echo in several western capitals (the summit between the European Union and Russia on 14 November 2008 is a signal of the desire of both sides to repair relationships frayed by the war).

Obama's team can help improve ties, not least by delaying the missile-defence programme in Poland and the Czech Republic; and more broadly by developing a more consciously multilateral approach in the US's relations with Europe, both east and west. The chance of avoiding the escalation of cold-war-style tensions is in his administration's grasp.

Global order: crisis, crises

There is increasing awareness among many experts in armed conflict and insurgency of the need to go beyond conventional understandings to see how far such security issues are rooted in socio-economic divisions and environmental constraints.

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Chilling Tale Of The Financial Black Hole

A grim tale of warning indeed from that Land South of The Border, especially in light of Harper and his Harpies considering to expand their largesse at our taxpayer's expense without any conditions, any oversight, any anything:

The Two Trillion Dollar Black Hole
A Credit Crisis or a Collapsing Ponzi Scheme?
By Pam Martens

Purge your mind for a moment about everything you've heard and read in the last decade about investing on Wall Street and think about the following business model:

You take your hard earned retirement savings to a Wall Street firm and they tell you that as long as you "stay invested for the long haul" you can expect double digit annual returns. You never really know what your money is invested in because it’s pooled with other investors and comes with incomprehensible but legal looking prospectuses. The heads of these Wall Street firms have been taking massive payouts for themselves, ranging from $160 million to $1 billion per CEO over a number of years. As long as new money keeps flooding in from newfangled accounts called 401(k)s, Roth IRAs, 529 plans for education savings, and hedge funds (each carrying ever greater restrictions for withdrawing your money and ever greater opacity) everything appears fine on the surface. And then, suddenly, you learn that many of these Wall Street firms don't have any assets that anybody wants to buy. Because these firms are both managing your money as well as having their own shares constitute a large percentage of your pooled investments, your funds begin to plummet as confidence drains from the scheme.

Now consider how Wikipedia describes a Ponzi scheme:

“A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves promising or paying abnormally high returns (‘profits’) to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business. It is named after Charles Ponzi...One reason that the scheme initially works so well is that early investors – those who actually got paid the large returns – quite commonly reinvest (keep) their money in the scheme (it does, after all, pay out much better than any alternative investment). Thus those running the scheme do not actually have to pay out very much (net) – they simply have to send statements to investors that show how much the investors have earned by keeping the money in what looks like a great place to get a high return. They also try to minimize withdrawals by offering new plans to investors, often where money is frozen for a longer period of time...The catch is that at some point one of three things will happen:

(1) the promoters will vanish, taking all the investment money (less payouts) with them;

(2) the scheme will collapse of its own weight, as investment slows and the promoters start having problems paying out the promised returns (and when they start having problems, the word spreads and more people start asking for their money, similar to a bank run);

(3) the scheme is exposed, because when legal authorities begin examining accounting records of the so-called enterprise they find that many of the 'assets' that should exist do not."

Looking at outcomes 1, 2, and 3 above, here’s where we are today. The promoters have clearly not vanished as in outcome 1. In fact, they are behaving as if they know they have nothing to fear. As over $2 trillion of taxpayer money is rapidly infused through Federal Reserve loans and over $125 Billion in U.S. Treasury equity purchases to keep these firms from collapsing, the promoters are standing at the elbow of the President-Elect in press conferences (Citigroup promoter, Robert Rubin); they are served up as business gurus on the business channel CNBC (former AIG CEO and promoter, Maurice “Hank” Greenberg); they are put in charge of nationalized zombie firms like Fannie Mae (Herbert Allison, former President of Merrill Lynch); they are paying $26 million and $42 million, respectively, for new digs at 15 Central Park West in Manhattan, where their chauffeurs have their own waiting room (Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs; Sanford “Sandy” Weill, former CEO of Citigroup, who put