Saturday, August 09, 2003
Niger, Tubes, TRAILERS!
8/9
WHAT'S HAPPENING- IRAQ:
Which Lie to Focus On? How about the Trailers!
The "trailers" were one of the few pieces of "evidence" that the Administration desperately cited as proof of a weapons program. The weight of opinion and "evidence" has thus far been against their claims. Today's NY Times front page story (Douglas Jehl) is the latest, noting that the Defense Intelligence Agency found that the "most likely use" for the trailers was producing hydrogen for weather balloons, not to make biological weapons.
Let's recall those presidential claims that the trailers are the wmd we've been looking for. Bush, in Poland, on May 29:
President Bush, citing two trailers that U.S. intelligence agencies have said were probably used as mobile biological weapons labs, said U.S. forces in Iraq have "found the weapons of mass destruction" that were the United States' primary justification for going to war.
In remarks to Polish television at a time of mounting criticism at home and abroad that the more than two-month-old weapons hunt is turning up nothing, Bush said that claims of failure were "wrong." "...And we'll find more weapons as time goes on," Bush said. "But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them." (AP)
Korea: (vs Syria and Iran)
Seems like a tasteless endeavor would be to take odds on which of the above three will be selected for the next rally-around-the-flag "Crisis", i.e War. The latter two are laughably not actual crises, but through Administration paralysis, Korea is an existing crisis. China has tried to be of help...may they get us through this! The latest wake-up call comes from Toronto, via the Globe & Mail (Geoffrey York):
A senior Pentagon adviser has given details of a war strategy for invading North Korea and toppling its regime within 30 to 60 days, adding muscle to a lobbying campaign by U.S. hawks urging a pre-emptive military strike against Pyongyang's nuclear facilities.
Less than four months after the end of the Iraq war, the war drums in Washington have begun pounding again. A growing number of influential U.S. leaders are talking openly of military action against North Korea to destroy its nuclear-weapons program, and even those who prefer negotiations are warning of the mounting danger of war.
Some analysts predict that North Korea could test a nuclear warhead by the end of this year — an event that could cross the "red line" that would provoke a U.S. attack.
The tensions were heightened by a recent exchange of gunfire across the border between North Korean and South Korean soldiers. Talks between U.S. and North Korean officials are expected to be held in Beijing soon, but nobody is predicting an imminent diplomatic agreement, especially after North Korea denounced a U.S. negotiator as a "bloodsucker" and "human scum."
Patriot Act: Momentum Builds Against It: The Christian Science Monitor (Tom Regan) describes the "second thoughts" that the public and lawmakers are having about the USA Patriot Act, which gave the Justice Department all but a blank check to seek terrorists without restraints. The Center for Constitutional Rights filed suit in federal court in NY against the section that makes it illegal to provide "expert advice and assistance" to groups with alleged links to terrorists. Previously, the American Civil Liberties Union and several Muslim and Arab groups had filed a suit re Section 215, which stipulates that the federal government does not need a search warrant or probable cause or even suspicion of a crime to search private records and search homes... all in the name of fighting terrorism!
California: Successful Organizing by the Right Energy companies, including Ken Lay's contribution, manipulated the energy markets resulting in California's energy "crisis"; hard Right money funded the recall effort, Cheney and Rove gave their overt blessing, and Recall organizing began soon after Davis' election. Arnold seems to have no competition and the Democrats (and Arianna Huffington) would split the vote. So, as of now, Arnold could walk in, though it's early, and there's been no focus on his lack of positions or the apparently well-known humiliation he's visited on his wife via chronic, blatant "womanizing."
BTW: Maybe someone could build on Arnold's theme: 'Davis should be recalled since he turned the state's deficit into a monumental deficit.' Well, if Davis is recalled, then I guess Bush should be 'recalled' as well, no?
Military Families Campaign: "Bring Them Home Now"
A coalition of Military Families Speak Out, Veterans for Peace and other organizations in the military community have banded together to begin this "campaign". Its goal is to end the Occupation of Iraq and bring the troops home. The Campaign will be officially launched at a press conference on Wednesday.
Bush Popularity Fades, $ to Oppose Him Grows
The Pew Center found only a 53% approval rating in its latest survey, and that Bush beats "Democrat" by only 5 percentage points. So, he's just about where he was on 9/10/01. Another sign of change is that a coalition of labor, environmental and women's organizations is raising $75 million to reduce the financial edge of the Republicans. The groups are Emily's List, the labor-backed Partnership for America's Families, the Service Employees International Union, the Sierra Club, and America Votes.
Iran Contra Redeux:
Does one chuckle when reading the AP report that "The Pentagon has had renewed contacts with a discredited Iranian exile who was a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s. Two officials from the Defense Department's policy office met over a three-day period in late 2001 with Manucher Ghorbanifar, and one of them had another meeting with Ghorbanifar this year, a senior defense official said Friday."
Ghorbanifar, a shady arms dealer identified in the nutty and unconstitutional 'arms for hostages' trade orchestrated by Ollie North and John Poindexter, is only the latest familiar figure from those scandals to be back in government. Poindexter, as noted previously, has been running schemes as as Total Information Awareness and last month's idea of a betting pool on terrorism. They are only two of a cadre of ex-Iran Contra figures in governmental positions. The Guardian captures it more graphically with the headline Convicted felons responsible for thousands of deaths are calling the shots at the White House The Isabel Hilton piece recapitulates the Central American escapes and concludes: "In Washington, under this administration, the crimes of the past have been the passport to power; the methods, far from being discarded, have merely been refined." The article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1013696,00.html
Pieces:
(1) 9/11: The desirable narrative of the Pennsylvania plane passengers rallying and storming the cockpit, and crashing the plane to prevent it from reaching Washington was altered in a quiet, buried article in Friday's papers. The report to Congress on 9/11 had included the conclusion that the hijackers had deliberately crashed the plane prior to the passengers reaching the cockpit. The clarifying doesn't diminish the horror and heroism, but is just corrects the (factual) record
(2) Chris Lydon: Those wondering where Christopher Lydon of WBUR's The Connection is: In part, he blogs! His site is http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/lydon/
(3) Buy Early! Elite Force Aviator: George W. Bush - U.S. President and Naval Aviator - 12" Action Figure Pre-order: Available 09/15/03
http://www.kbtoys.com/genProduct.html/PID/2431939/ctid/17/place/aguc?_ts=n&ls=collect&_e=3f33e&_v=3F33E7088a4FaD1987109A13&_ts=y
-R
WHAT'S HAPPENING- IRAQ:
Which Lie to Focus On? How about the Trailers!
The "trailers" were one of the few pieces of "evidence" that the Administration desperately cited as proof of a weapons program. The weight of opinion and "evidence" has thus far been against their claims. Today's NY Times front page story (Douglas Jehl) is the latest, noting that the Defense Intelligence Agency found that the "most likely use" for the trailers was producing hydrogen for weather balloons, not to make biological weapons.
Let's recall those presidential claims that the trailers are the wmd we've been looking for. Bush, in Poland, on May 29:
President Bush, citing two trailers that U.S. intelligence agencies have said were probably used as mobile biological weapons labs, said U.S. forces in Iraq have "found the weapons of mass destruction" that were the United States' primary justification for going to war.
In remarks to Polish television at a time of mounting criticism at home and abroad that the more than two-month-old weapons hunt is turning up nothing, Bush said that claims of failure were "wrong." "...And we'll find more weapons as time goes on," Bush said. "But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them." (AP)
Korea: (vs Syria and Iran)
Seems like a tasteless endeavor would be to take odds on which of the above three will be selected for the next rally-around-the-flag "Crisis", i.e War. The latter two are laughably not actual crises, but through Administration paralysis, Korea is an existing crisis. China has tried to be of help...may they get us through this! The latest wake-up call comes from Toronto, via the Globe & Mail (Geoffrey York):
A senior Pentagon adviser has given details of a war strategy for invading North Korea and toppling its regime within 30 to 60 days, adding muscle to a lobbying campaign by U.S. hawks urging a pre-emptive military strike against Pyongyang's nuclear facilities.
Less than four months after the end of the Iraq war, the war drums in Washington have begun pounding again. A growing number of influential U.S. leaders are talking openly of military action against North Korea to destroy its nuclear-weapons program, and even those who prefer negotiations are warning of the mounting danger of war.
Some analysts predict that North Korea could test a nuclear warhead by the end of this year — an event that could cross the "red line" that would provoke a U.S. attack.
The tensions were heightened by a recent exchange of gunfire across the border between North Korean and South Korean soldiers. Talks between U.S. and North Korean officials are expected to be held in Beijing soon, but nobody is predicting an imminent diplomatic agreement, especially after North Korea denounced a U.S. negotiator as a "bloodsucker" and "human scum."
Patriot Act: Momentum Builds Against It: The Christian Science Monitor (Tom Regan) describes the "second thoughts" that the public and lawmakers are having about the USA Patriot Act, which gave the Justice Department all but a blank check to seek terrorists without restraints. The Center for Constitutional Rights filed suit in federal court in NY against the section that makes it illegal to provide "expert advice and assistance" to groups with alleged links to terrorists. Previously, the American Civil Liberties Union and several Muslim and Arab groups had filed a suit re Section 215, which stipulates that the federal government does not need a search warrant or probable cause or even suspicion of a crime to search private records and search homes... all in the name of fighting terrorism!
California: Successful Organizing by the Right Energy companies, including Ken Lay's contribution, manipulated the energy markets resulting in California's energy "crisis"; hard Right money funded the recall effort, Cheney and Rove gave their overt blessing, and Recall organizing began soon after Davis' election. Arnold seems to have no competition and the Democrats (and Arianna Huffington) would split the vote. So, as of now, Arnold could walk in, though it's early, and there's been no focus on his lack of positions or the apparently well-known humiliation he's visited on his wife via chronic, blatant "womanizing."
BTW: Maybe someone could build on Arnold's theme: 'Davis should be recalled since he turned the state's deficit into a monumental deficit.' Well, if Davis is recalled, then I guess Bush should be 'recalled' as well, no?
Military Families Campaign: "Bring Them Home Now"
A coalition of Military Families Speak Out, Veterans for Peace and other organizations in the military community have banded together to begin this "campaign". Its goal is to end the Occupation of Iraq and bring the troops home. The Campaign will be officially launched at a press conference on Wednesday.
Bush Popularity Fades, $ to Oppose Him Grows
The Pew Center found only a 53% approval rating in its latest survey, and that Bush beats "Democrat" by only 5 percentage points. So, he's just about where he was on 9/10/01. Another sign of change is that a coalition of labor, environmental and women's organizations is raising $75 million to reduce the financial edge of the Republicans. The groups are Emily's List, the labor-backed Partnership for America's Families, the Service Employees International Union, the Sierra Club, and America Votes.
Iran Contra Redeux:
Does one chuckle when reading the AP report that "The Pentagon has had renewed contacts with a discredited Iranian exile who was a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s. Two officials from the Defense Department's policy office met over a three-day period in late 2001 with Manucher Ghorbanifar, and one of them had another meeting with Ghorbanifar this year, a senior defense official said Friday."
Ghorbanifar, a shady arms dealer identified in the nutty and unconstitutional 'arms for hostages' trade orchestrated by Ollie North and John Poindexter, is only the latest familiar figure from those scandals to be back in government. Poindexter, as noted previously, has been running schemes as as Total Information Awareness and last month's idea of a betting pool on terrorism. They are only two of a cadre of ex-Iran Contra figures in governmental positions. The Guardian captures it more graphically with the headline Convicted felons responsible for thousands of deaths are calling the shots at the White House The Isabel Hilton piece recapitulates the Central American escapes and concludes: "In Washington, under this administration, the crimes of the past have been the passport to power; the methods, far from being discarded, have merely been refined." The article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1013696,00.html
Pieces:
(1) 9/11: The desirable narrative of the Pennsylvania plane passengers rallying and storming the cockpit, and crashing the plane to prevent it from reaching Washington was altered in a quiet, buried article in Friday's papers. The report to Congress on 9/11 had included the conclusion that the hijackers had deliberately crashed the plane prior to the passengers reaching the cockpit. The clarifying doesn't diminish the horror and heroism, but is just corrects the (factual) record
(2) Chris Lydon: Those wondering where Christopher Lydon of WBUR's The Connection is: In part, he blogs! His site is http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/lydon/
(3) Buy Early! Elite Force Aviator: George W. Bush - U.S. President and Naval Aviator - 12" Action Figure Pre-order: Available 09/15/03
http://www.kbtoys.com/genProduct.html/PID/2431939/ctid/17/place/aguc?_ts=n&ls=collect&_e=3f33e&_v=3F33E7088a4FaD1987109A13&_ts=y
-R
Thursday, August 07, 2003
TIME TO RE-TOOL
8/7
What's Happening, Iraq:
Time for re-tooling the policy. As today's NY Times (Michael R. Gordon) reported, we've alienated too many Iraqis with our 'search and capture/destroy' tactics and are making more enemies than capturing Saddamites. This development belies the steady stream of reassuring news releases from the Pentagon as to "progress" in winning the heart and minds of the Iraqis, and responds to such dispatches as from the Mercury News (Drew Brown, BayArea):
Nearly four months after the defeat of Saddam Hussein's regime, the euphoria most Iraqis expressed over their leader's ouster largely has evaporated, replaced by growing resentment of the American presence.The discontent suggests that, even as U.S. officials claim they are closing on in the deposed dictator with a $25 million bounty on his head, capturing or killing Saddam won't help restore order in the country the way some U.S. leaders have suggested.
Many Iraqis increasingly view American troops as foreign occupiers. And as attacks against U.S. troops continue, the low-level guerrilla war that American military officials say is being waged by former regime loyalists, foreign terrorists and criminals threatens to escalate into a wider nationalist struggle. The unelected Iraqi Governing Council is widely distrusted.
Iraqi Scientist Held: I've previously referred to Mahdi Obeidi, the Iraqi nuclear scientist who had buried parts of a gas centrifuge for uranium enrichment in his backyard. According to Josh Marshall at talkingpointsmemo.org, he's being held on house arrest, as he doesn't provide information that confirms the existence of a wmd program.
Casualties: Julian Borger in the Guardian (UK) reports that US military casualties from the occupation of Iraq have been more than twice the number most Americans have been led to believe because of an extraordinarily high number of accidents, suicides, and other non-combat deaths in the ranks that have gone largely unreported in the media. Iraqbodycount.org notes that civilian casualties range between 6087 and 7798. The Gordon NY Times piece noted that attacks on American servicemen average 12 a day, now admitting they have been that high or higher for the past 10-12 weeks.
Blix Strikes Back: Hans Blix, the former chief weapons inspector, waxes and wanes in his condemnation of the US invasion. Lately he's been waxing. A CBS/AP report notes Former chief weapons inspector Hans Blix gave his sharpest critique yet Wednesday of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, which he said violated international law.
Speaking on Swedish Radio, Blix questioned whether Saddam Hussein posed an immediate threat to his neighbors or to the United States, and said the Bush administration had other reasons to invade besides destroying alleged weapons of mass destruction. He said the U.S. also needed to show what he calls "striking power" following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Lieberman: What to say. The former leading contender is slipping and desperate to be the anti-Dean. You must've seen the quote, from his National Press Club speech:
Most of the other Democratic candidates are threatening the change that Bill Clinton and Al Gore brought on the Democratic Party and threatening to take us back into the political wilderness. I'm not going to stand back and let this party be taken over by people who would take us into the political wilderness again.
Chutzpah! Jon Stewart on The Daily Show handled this well, asking, 'Now, let's see, who lead us into this political wilderness?', as a picture of the Gore-Lieberman ticket appeared.
9/11: Joe Conason in a NY Observer piece asks some tough questions about the Administration excising the 28 pages re Saudi Arabia in the 9/11 Report.
After all, if they reveal damaging information about the Saudis, what might the Saudis reveal about them?
For more than three decades, Saudi Arabia has sought to influence American politicians, often through investment in American business. While they have occasionally sought out Democrats, they are far more comfortable with Republicans—and in particular, with Bush Republicans. At the moment, for example, the kingdom’s defense attorney in a lawsuit brought by families of 9/11 victims happens to be James Baker, that ultimate Bushie whose résumé includes stints as Secretary of State and Treasury. (Mr. Baker’s last big court case was Bush v. Gore.)
Commercial connections between the Saudis and the Bushes extend from limited-partner investments in George W.’s failed oil ventures more than 20 years ago to the Carlyle Group, a mighty merchant bank that currently employs Mr. Baker, former President George Herbert Walker Bush and a host of lesser family vassals. Saudi money has also figured in several of the most significant political scandals of the postwar era, notably the Iran-contra affair and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International blowup. Whatever the Saudis might say about any of those matters is probably better left unsaid—not only to protect state secrets, but also for the sake of Bush senior, the former C.I.A. director and suspected Iran-contra conspirator.
The U.S. government knows many unflattering stories about the Saudi rulers. Unfortunately, they know many and perhaps worse about ours. The preference for silence and secrecy is understandably mutual.
Liberia et al: There is a bit of an intervention happening, leading to quotes from locals that 'At least it's better today than it's been'. But mediatenor.com(Germany) notes that much else is going on that is habitually not reported in that continent. They choose Ethiopia, noting that "extreme drought continues to plague Ethiopia. Agriculture accounts for 90% of exports and 80% of employment. The impact has been that over 11 million people in the region face the risk of starvation. Presently, it is estimated that the total number of people in need of food assistance in Ethiopia is 13.1 million. Among them are thousands of children who are already suffering from malnutrition. Two-thirds of all children in Ethiopia have some kind of deficiency as a result of chronic malnutrition."
Homeless people being targeted. The National Coalition of Homelessness (nationalhomeless.org) released a report detailing the increasing number of laws that target homeless people. Examples: a Church in Milwaukee was cited as a public nuisance for feeding and sheltering homeless people and in Gainsville, FL, police threatened students with arrest unless they ceased serving meals to homeless people in a public park.
Boston was not cited as one of the so-called "meanest cities". Las Vegas, San Francisco and New York were cited as the worst offenders.
The Rove hand is everywhere. We know the White House has politicized all, and has its hands in many a local issue. Credit the NY Times editorial board with a strong rebut of Rove's intervention in Oregon (Rove's Water Policy, below); credit the Wall Street Journal with reporting on the issue.
The Times: It's hardly news that Karl Rove, President Bush's political strategist, keeps a hawklike eye on domestic policies emerging from the executive branch, the better to make sure that everything meshes with his boss's political interests and those of the Republican Party. Yet rarely have Mr. Rove's efforts to bend policy to politics been more transparent than his intervention in a seemingly remote dispute involving water rights in Oregon's Klamath River basin. ... Mr. Rove has worked almost obsessively behind the scenes to ensure that the outcome satisfies the party's agricultural base at the expense of conservationists and Indian tribes.
At issue is a long-simmering dispute over water flows in the Klamath River, which runs through southern Oregon and Northern California. Even in good years these flows can barely satisfy rival claims. Farmers want water for irrigation, while conservationists and Indian tribes want it for endangered fish species, including downriver salmon. The farmers have prevailed at almost every step of the way.
EPA Integrity: Guy Gugliotta at the Washington Post reports on whether the EPA had misled the public as to water quality. Apparently, agency audits have found that the claim that 94% of the nation's water supply met "all health-based standards" was overstated. Instead it seems that only between 79 and 84% have safe water, meaning that an additional 30 million Americans are at risk.
It Wasn't Me: I received some emails wondering where my "usual Wednesday blog" was. Well, I had some business to take care of, but I must clarify- here and now- that I was not out-of-town, that I'm not the mastermind, the destructive organizer, behind this activity, reported by the AP:
Vandals Hit Several Starbucks in SF
Police are investigating a coordinated attack on at least 17 Starbucks outlets in downtown San Francisco. The vandals spread glue and posted official-looking "For Lease'' and "Closed'' signs on store windows.
-R
What's Happening, Iraq:
Time for re-tooling the policy. As today's NY Times (Michael R. Gordon) reported, we've alienated too many Iraqis with our 'search and capture/destroy' tactics and are making more enemies than capturing Saddamites. This development belies the steady stream of reassuring news releases from the Pentagon as to "progress" in winning the heart and minds of the Iraqis, and responds to such dispatches as from the Mercury News (Drew Brown, BayArea):
Nearly four months after the defeat of Saddam Hussein's regime, the euphoria most Iraqis expressed over their leader's ouster largely has evaporated, replaced by growing resentment of the American presence.The discontent suggests that, even as U.S. officials claim they are closing on in the deposed dictator with a $25 million bounty on his head, capturing or killing Saddam won't help restore order in the country the way some U.S. leaders have suggested.
Many Iraqis increasingly view American troops as foreign occupiers. And as attacks against U.S. troops continue, the low-level guerrilla war that American military officials say is being waged by former regime loyalists, foreign terrorists and criminals threatens to escalate into a wider nationalist struggle. The unelected Iraqi Governing Council is widely distrusted.
Iraqi Scientist Held: I've previously referred to Mahdi Obeidi, the Iraqi nuclear scientist who had buried parts of a gas centrifuge for uranium enrichment in his backyard. According to Josh Marshall at talkingpointsmemo.org, he's being held on house arrest, as he doesn't provide information that confirms the existence of a wmd program.
Casualties: Julian Borger in the Guardian (UK) reports that US military casualties from the occupation of Iraq have been more than twice the number most Americans have been led to believe because of an extraordinarily high number of accidents, suicides, and other non-combat deaths in the ranks that have gone largely unreported in the media. Iraqbodycount.org notes that civilian casualties range between 6087 and 7798. The Gordon NY Times piece noted that attacks on American servicemen average 12 a day, now admitting they have been that high or higher for the past 10-12 weeks.
Blix Strikes Back: Hans Blix, the former chief weapons inspector, waxes and wanes in his condemnation of the US invasion. Lately he's been waxing. A CBS/AP report notes Former chief weapons inspector Hans Blix gave his sharpest critique yet Wednesday of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, which he said violated international law.
Speaking on Swedish Radio, Blix questioned whether Saddam Hussein posed an immediate threat to his neighbors or to the United States, and said the Bush administration had other reasons to invade besides destroying alleged weapons of mass destruction. He said the U.S. also needed to show what he calls "striking power" following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Lieberman: What to say. The former leading contender is slipping and desperate to be the anti-Dean. You must've seen the quote, from his National Press Club speech:
Most of the other Democratic candidates are threatening the change that Bill Clinton and Al Gore brought on the Democratic Party and threatening to take us back into the political wilderness. I'm not going to stand back and let this party be taken over by people who would take us into the political wilderness again.
Chutzpah! Jon Stewart on The Daily Show handled this well, asking, 'Now, let's see, who lead us into this political wilderness?', as a picture of the Gore-Lieberman ticket appeared.
9/11: Joe Conason in a NY Observer piece asks some tough questions about the Administration excising the 28 pages re Saudi Arabia in the 9/11 Report.
After all, if they reveal damaging information about the Saudis, what might the Saudis reveal about them?
For more than three decades, Saudi Arabia has sought to influence American politicians, often through investment in American business. While they have occasionally sought out Democrats, they are far more comfortable with Republicans—and in particular, with Bush Republicans. At the moment, for example, the kingdom’s defense attorney in a lawsuit brought by families of 9/11 victims happens to be James Baker, that ultimate Bushie whose résumé includes stints as Secretary of State and Treasury. (Mr. Baker’s last big court case was Bush v. Gore.)
Commercial connections between the Saudis and the Bushes extend from limited-partner investments in George W.’s failed oil ventures more than 20 years ago to the Carlyle Group, a mighty merchant bank that currently employs Mr. Baker, former President George Herbert Walker Bush and a host of lesser family vassals. Saudi money has also figured in several of the most significant political scandals of the postwar era, notably the Iran-contra affair and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International blowup. Whatever the Saudis might say about any of those matters is probably better left unsaid—not only to protect state secrets, but also for the sake of Bush senior, the former C.I.A. director and suspected Iran-contra conspirator.
The U.S. government knows many unflattering stories about the Saudi rulers. Unfortunately, they know many and perhaps worse about ours. The preference for silence and secrecy is understandably mutual.
Liberia et al: There is a bit of an intervention happening, leading to quotes from locals that 'At least it's better today than it's been'. But mediatenor.com(Germany) notes that much else is going on that is habitually not reported in that continent. They choose Ethiopia, noting that "extreme drought continues to plague Ethiopia. Agriculture accounts for 90% of exports and 80% of employment. The impact has been that over 11 million people in the region face the risk of starvation. Presently, it is estimated that the total number of people in need of food assistance in Ethiopia is 13.1 million. Among them are thousands of children who are already suffering from malnutrition. Two-thirds of all children in Ethiopia have some kind of deficiency as a result of chronic malnutrition."
Homeless people being targeted. The National Coalition of Homelessness (nationalhomeless.org) released a report detailing the increasing number of laws that target homeless people. Examples: a Church in Milwaukee was cited as a public nuisance for feeding and sheltering homeless people and in Gainsville, FL, police threatened students with arrest unless they ceased serving meals to homeless people in a public park.
Boston was not cited as one of the so-called "meanest cities". Las Vegas, San Francisco and New York were cited as the worst offenders.
The Rove hand is everywhere. We know the White House has politicized all, and has its hands in many a local issue. Credit the NY Times editorial board with a strong rebut of Rove's intervention in Oregon (Rove's Water Policy, below); credit the Wall Street Journal with reporting on the issue.
The Times: It's hardly news that Karl Rove, President Bush's political strategist, keeps a hawklike eye on domestic policies emerging from the executive branch, the better to make sure that everything meshes with his boss's political interests and those of the Republican Party. Yet rarely have Mr. Rove's efforts to bend policy to politics been more transparent than his intervention in a seemingly remote dispute involving water rights in Oregon's Klamath River basin. ... Mr. Rove has worked almost obsessively behind the scenes to ensure that the outcome satisfies the party's agricultural base at the expense of conservationists and Indian tribes.
At issue is a long-simmering dispute over water flows in the Klamath River, which runs through southern Oregon and Northern California. Even in good years these flows can barely satisfy rival claims. Farmers want water for irrigation, while conservationists and Indian tribes want it for endangered fish species, including downriver salmon. The farmers have prevailed at almost every step of the way.
EPA Integrity: Guy Gugliotta at the Washington Post reports on whether the EPA had misled the public as to water quality. Apparently, agency audits have found that the claim that 94% of the nation's water supply met "all health-based standards" was overstated. Instead it seems that only between 79 and 84% have safe water, meaning that an additional 30 million Americans are at risk.
It Wasn't Me: I received some emails wondering where my "usual Wednesday blog" was. Well, I had some business to take care of, but I must clarify- here and now- that I was not out-of-town, that I'm not the mastermind, the destructive organizer, behind this activity, reported by the AP:
Vandals Hit Several Starbucks in SF
Police are investigating a coordinated attack on at least 17 Starbucks outlets in downtown San Francisco. The vandals spread glue and posted official-looking "For Lease'' and "Closed'' signs on store windows.
-R
Monday, August 04, 2003
The Second Nuclear Age
8/4
No Nukes?:
Some of us mark the "anniversary" of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by participating in vigils or similar activities. The Bush Administration has a different way to mark the occasion. They are planing to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons! The latest report on such from the front page of the NY Times [William J. Broad].
Topping the wish list are weapons meant to penetrate deep into the earth to destroy enemy bunkers. The Pentagon believes that more than 70 nations, big and small, now have some 1,400 underground command posts and sites for ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction.
Determined to fight fire with fire, the Defense Department wants bomb makers to develop a class of relatively small nuclear arms — ranging from a fraction the size of the Hiroshima bomb to several times as large — that could pierce rock and reinforced concrete and turn strongholds into radioactive dust.
Welcome to the second nuclear age and the Bush administration's quiet responses to the age's perceived dangers.
WHAT's HAPPENING, IRAQ:
WMD Missing, destroyed (Slobodan Lekic, AP) Still another report that quotes "a close aide to Saddam Hussein", that Saddam blustered about his dire weapons, but actually had destroyed them. This is almost identical to the account of Saddam's son-in-law who after defecting told the CIA that stocks had been destroyed.
According to the aide, by the mid-1990s "it was common knowledge among the leadership" that Iraq had destroyed its chemical stocks and discontinued development of biological and nuclear weapons.
According to the dailytelegraph.co.uk (David Harrison) the Administration has warned the Niger government to keep out of the controversy about Saddam Hussein seeking to buy uranium for his nuclear weapons from the impoverished Niger.
Herman Cohen, a former assistant secretary of state for Africa and one of America's most experienced Africa hands, called on Mamadou Tandja, Niger's president, in the capital Niamey last week to relay the message from Washington, according to senior Niger government officials.
One said: "Let's say Mr Cohen put a friendly arm around the president to say sorry about the forged documents, but then squeezed his shoulder hard enough to convey the message, 'Let's hear no more about this affair from your government'. Basically he was telling Niger to shut up."
Try him or kill him: The NY Times has followed the storyline of the Administration seeking to show its responsiveness to Iraqi public opinion by allowing the Iraqis to try a captured Saddam. However, its Boston Globe (Bryan Bender) has tracked the theme of killing Saddam to avoid a trial where Saddam could have a potentially embarrassing soapbox, embarrassing us as to our past coddling of him or having him confirm the destruction of their wmd in the mid 90's
Meanwhile, Saddam's bravado, or delusional state, results in his Al Jazeera tape where he promises law and order and the protection of state property when "things return to normal."
Lest we forget:
- This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year. - Bush, 9/28/02
- Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year. Bush at the UN, 9/12/02
And, then Condi says on PBS on 7/30, He trying to acquire nuclear weapons. Nobody ever said that it was going to be the next year.
First Blair, then Bush? The ongoing question. Tony is in dire shape. A perusal of the British media finds the Daily Mail noting "Broken promises, wasted years"; A poll last week noted that 2/3 of Britons see a "culture of deceit" at the heart of the government.
Here, we're still looking at each individual deceit, one at a time, since that's all the American public/media seem capable of handling. We've had little focus on the aluminum tubing misrepresentation, cited by Powell at the UN, amongst other venues. Perhaps the biggest lie of all was the Administration’s claim that it was pursuing the diplomatic route to resolve the Iraqi situation, when it had early-on locked into a late winter-early Spring invasion.
Media: Local reports try to emphasize the positive, that many soldiers have been gracious w/ the Iraqi public under declining circumstances. But, as I blogged a while back as to the end of embeddedism and the increasing limitations put on the press, the military has been much less friendly to the press.
arabnews.com (Paul Michaud) notes that Reporters sans frontieres said yesterday in Paris that it "deplored the worsening attitude" of US troops toward journalists in Iraq and called on US Administrator Paul Bremer to explain exactly why two Iranian newsmen, Said Aboutaleb and Soheil Karimi, of the public TV station IRIB, have been held since July 1 for alleged "security violations."
RSF spokesman Severine Cazes-Tschann said that "confiscations of equipment, arrests of journalists and incidents between the media and US soldiers had increased in recent days." He also expressed concern at the worsening conditions under which journalists have to work in Iraq, and recent statements by US deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz who accused pan-Arab satellite TV stations Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya of "putting out reports encouraging violence against US troops."
As to one recent incident:
A spokesman for the US-British forces said the journalists had been arrested for "security violations" because when they were picked up "they were not behaving like journalists," although the spokesman did not say what he or the US-British forces of occupation considered "proper journalistic behavior.
Air travel hassles: I look, generally forlornly, for U.S. media to be commenting on this; found the best source for now to be, (sigh), the UK. The Independent (independent.co.uk, Andrew Gumbel) tracks the issue:
After more than a year of complaints by some US anti-war activists that they were being unfairly targeted by airport security, Washington has admitted the existence of a list, possibly hundreds or even thousands of names long, of people it deems worthy of special scrutiny at airports.
The list had been kept secret until its disclosure last week by the new US agency in charge of aviation safety, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). And it is entirely separate from the relatively well-publicised "no-fly" list, which covers about 1,000 people believed to have criminal or terrorist ties that could endanger the safety of their fellow passengers.
The strong suspicion of such groups as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is suing the government to try to learn more, is that the second list has been used to target political activists who challenge the government in entirely legal ways. The TSA acknowledged the existence of the list in response to a Freedom of Information Act request concerning two anti-war activists from San Francisco who were stopped and briefly detained at the airport last autumn and told they were on an FBI no-fly list.
Military Purge:
If you’re a fan of Seven Days in May, the book (Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II) and film (John Frankenheimer) re an attempted coup by the U.S. military, you might shiver a tad about this report from Newsweek (John Barry)
Military: The Army Cleans House
In a move widely seen within the Pentagon as a purge, a dozen or more Army generals are being ushered into retirement as Army’s new chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, takes over.
In advance of Shoomaker’s swearing-in last Friday, the Army’s acting chief, Gen. John Keane- who is himself retiring- spoke with a list of three- and four-star generals, thanked them for their services and told them it was time to go. Sources say Keane first contacted half a dozen names, but by the end of the week the list had reportedly grown to 11- "with more to come within 30 days.
According to one Army source. The Army has a total of 50 three- and four-star generals. A senior Pentagon civilian called the move "housecleaning…"
The list of retirees was, sources, say, drawn up in discussions between Rumsfeld, Shoomaker and Keane. Most of those going are being axed not for personal failings but to open by job slots that are viewed as key to Army transformation But Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita said any suggestion the moves were at Rumsfeld’s behest was "utter nonsense."
9/11: The prescient Alex Cockburn: Long familiar to many of us from The Nation, Cockburn is known for his acerbic bluntness. And, he's often terribly 'right-on.' Witness the following, posted 2 days after 9/11 in the LA Times: (excerpts)
The Next Casualty: Bill of Rights?
Tuesday's onslaughts on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are being likened to Pearl Harbor. The comparison is just. The attacks were near miracles of logistical calculation, timing, execution and devastation inflicted on the targets.
There may be another similarity. The possibility of a Japanese attack in early December 1941 was known to U.S. naval intelligence and to President Roosevelt. On Tuesday, derision at the failure of U.S. intelligence was widespread. The Washington Post quoted an unnamed top official at the National Security Council as saying, "We don't know anything here. We're watching CNN too." Are we to believe that the $30-billion annual intelligence budget, immense electronic eavesdropping capacity, thousands of agents around the world, produced nothing in the way of a warning?
In fact, the editor of the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, said he heard three weeks ago that Osama bin Laden, now the prime suspect, planned "very, very big attacks against American interests."
* From the nuclear priesthood comes the demand that mini-nukes be deployed on a preemptive basis against the enemies of America.
* The targets abroad will be all the usual suspects—the Taliban or Saddam Hussein, who started off as creatures of U.S. intelligence. The target at home will be the Bill of Rights.
* Tuesday's explosions were not an hour old before terror pundits such as Anthony Cordesman, Wesley Clark, Robert Gates and Lawrence Eagleburger were saying that these attacks had been possible "because America is a democracy," adding that now some democratic perquisites might have to be abandoned? What might this mean? Increased domestic snooping by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies? Ethnic profiling? A national ID card system?
* Tuesday did not offer a flattering exhibition of America's leaders. President Bush gave a timid and stilted initial reaction in Sarasota, Fla., then disappeared for an hour before resurfacing in at a base in Barksdale, La., where he gave another flaccid address with every appearance of being on tranquilizers. He was then flown to a bunker in Nebraska, before someone finally had the wit to suggest that the best place for the U.S. president at time of national emergency is the Oval Office.
* Bush will have no trouble in raiding the famous lock-box, using Social Security trust funds to give more money to the Defense Department.
* Three planes are successfully steered into three of America's most conspicuous buildings and America's response will be to put more money in missile defense as a way of bolstering the economy.
http://www.latimes.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=la-091301cockburn§ion=/printstory
Courts: More shamelessness. The Right’s tactic is to accuse the Democrats of outright prejudice in rejecting their reactionary nominees. So, Pryor is opposed allegedly because of the Democrats’ anti-Catholicism, Estrada because the Dems are anti-Hispanic. As Josh Marshall points out at talkingpointsmemo.org, "No one with a shred of intellectual honesty thinks that this is really the case in any of these cases."
Australian T.V.: As my daughter has long talked about spending a chunk of time there next year, I’ve been following its rigidly pro-US stance, and, thus far, isolated terrorist threats. Now, different news: "State Terror", a new game show where question and subject matter depart from the usual and focus on crimes of states, especially the US / UK and allies. It will focus both on current events and historical matters, and is slated to air in September in Sydney and Melbourne.
-R
No Nukes?:
Some of us mark the "anniversary" of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by participating in vigils or similar activities. The Bush Administration has a different way to mark the occasion. They are planing to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons! The latest report on such from the front page of the NY Times [William J. Broad].
Topping the wish list are weapons meant to penetrate deep into the earth to destroy enemy bunkers. The Pentagon believes that more than 70 nations, big and small, now have some 1,400 underground command posts and sites for ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction.
Determined to fight fire with fire, the Defense Department wants bomb makers to develop a class of relatively small nuclear arms — ranging from a fraction the size of the Hiroshima bomb to several times as large — that could pierce rock and reinforced concrete and turn strongholds into radioactive dust.
Welcome to the second nuclear age and the Bush administration's quiet responses to the age's perceived dangers.
WHAT's HAPPENING, IRAQ:
WMD Missing, destroyed (Slobodan Lekic, AP) Still another report that quotes "a close aide to Saddam Hussein", that Saddam blustered about his dire weapons, but actually had destroyed them. This is almost identical to the account of Saddam's son-in-law who after defecting told the CIA that stocks had been destroyed.
According to the aide, by the mid-1990s "it was common knowledge among the leadership" that Iraq had destroyed its chemical stocks and discontinued development of biological and nuclear weapons.
According to the dailytelegraph.co.uk (David Harrison) the Administration has warned the Niger government to keep out of the controversy about Saddam Hussein seeking to buy uranium for his nuclear weapons from the impoverished Niger.
Herman Cohen, a former assistant secretary of state for Africa and one of America's most experienced Africa hands, called on Mamadou Tandja, Niger's president, in the capital Niamey last week to relay the message from Washington, according to senior Niger government officials.
One said: "Let's say Mr Cohen put a friendly arm around the president to say sorry about the forged documents, but then squeezed his shoulder hard enough to convey the message, 'Let's hear no more about this affair from your government'. Basically he was telling Niger to shut up."
Try him or kill him: The NY Times has followed the storyline of the Administration seeking to show its responsiveness to Iraqi public opinion by allowing the Iraqis to try a captured Saddam. However, its Boston Globe (Bryan Bender) has tracked the theme of killing Saddam to avoid a trial where Saddam could have a potentially embarrassing soapbox, embarrassing us as to our past coddling of him or having him confirm the destruction of their wmd in the mid 90's
Meanwhile, Saddam's bravado, or delusional state, results in his Al Jazeera tape where he promises law and order and the protection of state property when "things return to normal."
Lest we forget:
- This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year. - Bush, 9/28/02
- Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year. Bush at the UN, 9/12/02
And, then Condi says on PBS on 7/30, He trying to acquire nuclear weapons. Nobody ever said that it was going to be the next year.
First Blair, then Bush? The ongoing question. Tony is in dire shape. A perusal of the British media finds the Daily Mail noting "Broken promises, wasted years"; A poll last week noted that 2/3 of Britons see a "culture of deceit" at the heart of the government.
Here, we're still looking at each individual deceit, one at a time, since that's all the American public/media seem capable of handling. We've had little focus on the aluminum tubing misrepresentation, cited by Powell at the UN, amongst other venues. Perhaps the biggest lie of all was the Administration’s claim that it was pursuing the diplomatic route to resolve the Iraqi situation, when it had early-on locked into a late winter-early Spring invasion.
Media: Local reports try to emphasize the positive, that many soldiers have been gracious w/ the Iraqi public under declining circumstances. But, as I blogged a while back as to the end of embeddedism and the increasing limitations put on the press, the military has been much less friendly to the press.
arabnews.com (Paul Michaud) notes that Reporters sans frontieres said yesterday in Paris that it "deplored the worsening attitude" of US troops toward journalists in Iraq and called on US Administrator Paul Bremer to explain exactly why two Iranian newsmen, Said Aboutaleb and Soheil Karimi, of the public TV station IRIB, have been held since July 1 for alleged "security violations."
RSF spokesman Severine Cazes-Tschann said that "confiscations of equipment, arrests of journalists and incidents between the media and US soldiers had increased in recent days." He also expressed concern at the worsening conditions under which journalists have to work in Iraq, and recent statements by US deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz who accused pan-Arab satellite TV stations Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya of "putting out reports encouraging violence against US troops."
As to one recent incident:
A spokesman for the US-British forces said the journalists had been arrested for "security violations" because when they were picked up "they were not behaving like journalists," although the spokesman did not say what he or the US-British forces of occupation considered "proper journalistic behavior.
Air travel hassles: I look, generally forlornly, for U.S. media to be commenting on this; found the best source for now to be, (sigh), the UK. The Independent (independent.co.uk, Andrew Gumbel) tracks the issue:
After more than a year of complaints by some US anti-war activists that they were being unfairly targeted by airport security, Washington has admitted the existence of a list, possibly hundreds or even thousands of names long, of people it deems worthy of special scrutiny at airports.
The list had been kept secret until its disclosure last week by the new US agency in charge of aviation safety, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). And it is entirely separate from the relatively well-publicised "no-fly" list, which covers about 1,000 people believed to have criminal or terrorist ties that could endanger the safety of their fellow passengers.
The strong suspicion of such groups as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is suing the government to try to learn more, is that the second list has been used to target political activists who challenge the government in entirely legal ways. The TSA acknowledged the existence of the list in response to a Freedom of Information Act request concerning two anti-war activists from San Francisco who were stopped and briefly detained at the airport last autumn and told they were on an FBI no-fly list.
Military Purge:
If you’re a fan of Seven Days in May, the book (Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II) and film (John Frankenheimer) re an attempted coup by the U.S. military, you might shiver a tad about this report from Newsweek (John Barry)
Military: The Army Cleans House
In a move widely seen within the Pentagon as a purge, a dozen or more Army generals are being ushered into retirement as Army’s new chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, takes over.
In advance of Shoomaker’s swearing-in last Friday, the Army’s acting chief, Gen. John Keane- who is himself retiring- spoke with a list of three- and four-star generals, thanked them for their services and told them it was time to go. Sources say Keane first contacted half a dozen names, but by the end of the week the list had reportedly grown to 11- "with more to come within 30 days.
According to one Army source. The Army has a total of 50 three- and four-star generals. A senior Pentagon civilian called the move "housecleaning…"
The list of retirees was, sources, say, drawn up in discussions between Rumsfeld, Shoomaker and Keane. Most of those going are being axed not for personal failings but to open by job slots that are viewed as key to Army transformation But Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita said any suggestion the moves were at Rumsfeld’s behest was "utter nonsense."
9/11: The prescient Alex Cockburn: Long familiar to many of us from The Nation, Cockburn is known for his acerbic bluntness. And, he's often terribly 'right-on.' Witness the following, posted 2 days after 9/11 in the LA Times: (excerpts)
The Next Casualty: Bill of Rights?
Tuesday's onslaughts on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are being likened to Pearl Harbor. The comparison is just. The attacks were near miracles of logistical calculation, timing, execution and devastation inflicted on the targets.
There may be another similarity. The possibility of a Japanese attack in early December 1941 was known to U.S. naval intelligence and to President Roosevelt. On Tuesday, derision at the failure of U.S. intelligence was widespread. The Washington Post quoted an unnamed top official at the National Security Council as saying, "We don't know anything here. We're watching CNN too." Are we to believe that the $30-billion annual intelligence budget, immense electronic eavesdropping capacity, thousands of agents around the world, produced nothing in the way of a warning?
In fact, the editor of the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, said he heard three weeks ago that Osama bin Laden, now the prime suspect, planned "very, very big attacks against American interests."
* From the nuclear priesthood comes the demand that mini-nukes be deployed on a preemptive basis against the enemies of America.
* The targets abroad will be all the usual suspects—the Taliban or Saddam Hussein, who started off as creatures of U.S. intelligence. The target at home will be the Bill of Rights.
* Tuesday's explosions were not an hour old before terror pundits such as Anthony Cordesman, Wesley Clark, Robert Gates and Lawrence Eagleburger were saying that these attacks had been possible "because America is a democracy," adding that now some democratic perquisites might have to be abandoned? What might this mean? Increased domestic snooping by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies? Ethnic profiling? A national ID card system?
* Tuesday did not offer a flattering exhibition of America's leaders. President Bush gave a timid and stilted initial reaction in Sarasota, Fla., then disappeared for an hour before resurfacing in at a base in Barksdale, La., where he gave another flaccid address with every appearance of being on tranquilizers. He was then flown to a bunker in Nebraska, before someone finally had the wit to suggest that the best place for the U.S. president at time of national emergency is the Oval Office.
* Bush will have no trouble in raiding the famous lock-box, using Social Security trust funds to give more money to the Defense Department.
* Three planes are successfully steered into three of America's most conspicuous buildings and America's response will be to put more money in missile defense as a way of bolstering the economy.
http://www.latimes.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=la-091301cockburn§ion=/printstory
Courts: More shamelessness. The Right’s tactic is to accuse the Democrats of outright prejudice in rejecting their reactionary nominees. So, Pryor is opposed allegedly because of the Democrats’ anti-Catholicism, Estrada because the Dems are anti-Hispanic. As Josh Marshall points out at talkingpointsmemo.org, "No one with a shred of intellectual honesty thinks that this is really the case in any of these cases."
Australian T.V.: As my daughter has long talked about spending a chunk of time there next year, I’ve been following its rigidly pro-US stance, and, thus far, isolated terrorist threats. Now, different news: "State Terror", a new game show where question and subject matter depart from the usual and focus on crimes of states, especially the US / UK and allies. It will focus both on current events and historical matters, and is slated to air in September in Sydney and Melbourne.
-R
