Sunday, August 29, 2004
Scandal: Iran-Contra, II?
This has been festering for a while. The office of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith, which was previously at the center of the (brief) storm about leaking info. to Chalabi, is now involved with the current investigation of a suspected mole in the DoD who passed American intelligence about Iran to Israel. The investigation into the individual, Larry Franklin, has called attention to the struggle for direction of U.S. policy toward Iran. They involve so-called “back channel” communications- Pentagon officials organizing meetings with foreign intelligence folk behind the back of the CIA, neocon operative Michael Ledeen, and infamous Iranian Manucher Ghorbanifar who was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980’s, then known to the CIA as a “serial fabricator.”
Got it? This is the key summary of the article by Josh Marshall, Paul Glastris and Irene Rozen:
Over the last year, the Senate Intelligence Committee has conducted limited inquiry into the meetings, including interviews with Feith and Ledeen. But under terms of a compromise agreed to by both parties, a full investigation into the matter was put off until after the November election. Republicans on the committee, many of whom sympathize with the "regime change" agenda at DoD, have been resistant to such investigations, calling them an election-year fishing expedition. Democrats, by contrast, see such investigations as vital to understanding the central role Feith's office may have played in a range of a dubious intelligence enterprises, from pushing claims about a supposed Saddam-al Qaeda partnership and overblown estimates of alleged Iraqi stocks of WMD to what the committee's ranking minority member Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) calls "the Chalabi factor" (Rhode and others in Feith's office have been major sponsors of the Iraqi exile leader, who is now under investigation for passing U.S. intelligence to Iran). With the FBI adding potential espionage charges to the mix the long-simmering questions about the activities of Feith's operation now seem certain to come under renewed scrutiny. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.marshallrozen.html
Basics of investigation into Franklin
The FBI investigation into whether classified information was passed to the Israeli government is focused on a Pentagon analyst who has served as an Air Force reservist in Israel, and the probe has been broadened in recent days to include interviews at the State and Defense departments and with Middle Eastern affairs specialists outside government, officials and others familiar with the inquiry said yesterday.
FBI officials have been quietly investigating for months whether Franklin gave classified information -- which officials said included a draft of a presidential directive on U.S. policies toward Iran -- to two Israeli lobbyists here who are alleged to have passed it on to the Israeli government. Officials said it was not yet clear whether the probe would become an espionage case or perhaps would result in lesser charges such as improper release of classified information or mishandling of government documents. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42625-2004Aug28.html
Who is Franklin? From the LA Times:
"You're not talking about someone toiling away in the bowels of the U.S. government," said a former Pentagon official who worked for Feith until last year and spoke on condition of anonymity."Franklin was the go-to guy on Iran issues for Wolfowitz and Feith." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-spy29aug29,1,4892543.story?coll=la-home-headlines
This was front page stuff on Sunday; will it be from here on?
NY Demo: Large, no police estimate of the crowd. “Peaceful, said Michael Bloomberg, NYC mayor.
Globe Hails Bush: A lifetime of risk-taking shapes Bush's leadership
That’s the outrageous headline for Michael Kranish’s tome to Bush; They’re doing their part in the myth-making of the towel-snapper. I guess they couldn’t say, “A lifetime of sloth, privilege and failure shapes Bush’s hubris.”
When George W. Bush accepted the presidential nomination four years ago, he laced his speech with extraordinary clues about his governing style. ''I do not need to take your pulse before I know my own mind," Bush told Americans. Mocking criticism that his platform was filled with ''risky schemes," Bush told the story of a patriot who ignored warnings that he would lose his property if he signed the Declaration of Independence, saying, ''Damn the consequences, give me the pen."
In retrospect, the Texan left no doubt: He intended his presidency to be built on a foundation of bold and broad risks. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/08/29/a_lifetime_of_risk_taking_shapes_bush146s_leadership/
Najaf: Assessment: Juan Cole, U. of Michigan Middle East expert, widely quoted by major media:
I think the big losers from the Najaf episode (part deux) are the Americans. They have become, if it is possible, even more unpopular in Iraq than they were last spring after Abu Ghuraib, Fallujah and Najaf Part 1. The US is perceived as culturally insensitive for its actions in the holy city of Najaf. The Allawi government is also a big loser. Instead of looking decisive, as they had hoped, they ended up looking like the lackeys of neo-imperialists.The big winner is Sistani, whose religious charisma has now been enhanced by solid nationalist credentials. He is a national hero for saving Najaf.For Muqtada, it is a wash. He did not have Najaf until April, anyway, and can easily survive not having it. His movement in the slums of the southern cities is intact, even if its paramilitary has been weakened. http://www.juancole.com/2004_08_01_juancole_archive.html#109359005659851262
Iraq, Iran: A Perspective. Ehsan Ahrari from Asia Times:
What the US may not have realized is that the real struggle about the future of Iraq has just entered another phase. Through Muqtada, Iran is emerging as a potent power in the political maneuvering with the US over whether Iraq will become some sort of a secular or semi-secular democracy, or an Islamic democracy. Through this, the chances of Iran's preference for the emergence of an Islam-based Iraqi government seem to have perceptibly improved. The shock and awe aspects of the Bush doctrine in Iraq suffered a serious setback because of the deteriorating security situation, but US aspirations to transform the shape of the political map of Iraq and the larger Middle East remain undeterred. That is one reason why Washington made a very crucial tactical shift from an overall preference for unilateralism to selective application of multilateralism in Iraq, and allowed the United Nations to play a limited role in the formation of the interim government. However, a potent competition between the US and Iran is currently taking place, not only to maintain control over the shape of events in Iraq, but also to determine whether the future elected government there will have a heavy presence and influence of the Islamic or secular elements. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FH28Ak01.html
Former BBC Head Blisters Blair
The BBC's former director general Greg Dyke has made a scathing attack on Downing Street over the Iraq war and its treatment of the BBC.
In the Mail on Sunday, Mr Dyke accuses Tony Blair of either being incompetent or lying to Parliament about the war in Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3609072.stm
Same choice applies to Bush, of course.
Australian Elections Announced
An important up or down for a Bush ally: Prime Minister John Howard has announced that Australians will go to the polls on October 9.
Slander of the Day: Denny Hastert on moveon.org contributor George Soros: [on Fox News]
"You know, I don't know where George Soros gets his money; I don't know where -- if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from.”
From the mouth of Kevin Phillips, conservative:
As Phillips recalls the moment, his fellow panelists spoke of Bush and the Republicans in terms, to Phillips's mind, that were far too mild and tempered.
"The Democrats understand that they killed themselves politically when they reached a point where they couldn't talk to the blue-collar worker in South Philadelphia or Queens," he says. "But now they just want to raise as much money as the Republicans, and so they're mute." The Democrats accumulated all this dirt on Bush, but they wouldn't use it," he says. "These people have no taste for the jugular."
Phillips's critique meets with eager nods from the Democratic left. Richard Borosage,
Nixon, he says, regarded the elder Bush as a lightweight and so assigned him to the United Nations. Nixon then appointed him as chairman of the Republican National Committee, where Bush proved swell at sweet-talking donors into parting with large sums of money for the sake of the party. (In this way, Phillips says, the father prefigured the son. George W. Bush never ran a profitable oil business, but he was terrific at raising copious sums of finance capital and walked away from each oil venture with a fatter bank account. What bothers him is that generation after generation of Bushes are so unwilling to transcend their class interests.
"An old buccaneer and bootlegger like Joe Kennedy became an SEC head for Roosevelt and cracked down on his own class," Phillips says, adding: "The Bush family would just appoint a Gucci-shoe-licking sycophant. The family has simply developed a culture of being enormously supportive of their class."
Even the president's Texas twang grates on Phillips, whose own accent is clipped and clear and, we must note, a tad patrician. "Listen to them! Assemble the very best panel of linguists you could find and have them listen to brothers Jeb and G.W. -- they wouldn't even guess they're in the same family," Phillips says. "G.W. talks like a cowboy and he's no more a backwoods Texan than I am."
"I'm hoping that Kerry's a seven on a scale of 10, but I'm afraid maybe he's just a five," Phillips says. "But Kerry's running against a zero. So my choice is clear." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42831-2004Aug28_3.html
Swift Boat:
Following the Right’s playbook, Bush has taken the “high” road, letting 3 weeks of attacks on Kerry pass and then says such should stop. He’s also seeking to flee the admission by Texan Ben Barnes who noted last week that he still felt guilty for being the one to get Bush out of military service and into the Texas Air National Guard. Bush is still hoping we swallow, "They just had an opening for a pilot and I was there at the right time."
Polls:
The Zogby/Williams poll of 20,900 voters finds Kerry leading President Bush, 50.8% to 46.7%, among likely voters, with only 2.4% "undecided or so soft in their support of either candidate that they could easily change."
CNN’s analysis of state polls has Bush ahead in the electoral college by 274-264. The Electoral Vote Predictor still has Kerry leading, 270 to 259.
Minnesota: Kerry 48%, Bush 44% (Rasmussen)
Alabama: Bush 53%, Kerry 42% (Rasmussen)
Arkansas: Bush 49%, Kerry 43% (Rasmussen)
Georgia: Bush 54%, Kerry 43% (Rasmussen)
Iowa: Kerry 48%, Bush 46% (Rasmussen)
Maine: Kerry 49%, Bush 44% (Rasmussen)
Missouri: Bush 49%, Kerry 44% (Rasmussen)
Ohio: Kerry 48%, Bush 46% (Rasmussen)
California: Kerry 51%, Bush 42% (Rasmussen) http://politicalwire.com/
Dark Chocolate: The Benefits [cont.]: I’ve been trying to tell you…
Good news for chocoholics: Eating dark chocolate improves healthy blood flow, according to research published today.
Greek scientists said they had demonstrated for the first time how chocolate improved blood vessels' function, allowing them to dilate and preventing the formation of potentially damaging clots.
The heart-protecting properties of dark chocolate, which contains high levels of antioxidants known as flavonoids, have been acknowledged for some time. But the latest research sheds new light on how the mechanism might work, protecting blood vessels from damage by unstable oxygen compounds called free radicals.
The results showed that functioning of the endothelium, a thin layer covering the innermost surface of blood vessels, was improved in the dark chocolate group but not in the other.
Last year, Italian and British scientists found plain chocolate increased levels of antioxidants in the blood by nearly 20 percent. Milk chocolate did not have the same effect, possibly because milk interferes with absorption. http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/08/29/dark_chocolate_found_to_aid_blood_flow/
-R
This has been festering for a while. The office of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith, which was previously at the center of the (brief) storm about leaking info. to Chalabi, is now involved with the current investigation of a suspected mole in the DoD who passed American intelligence about Iran to Israel. The investigation into the individual, Larry Franklin, has called attention to the struggle for direction of U.S. policy toward Iran. They involve so-called “back channel” communications- Pentagon officials organizing meetings with foreign intelligence folk behind the back of the CIA, neocon operative Michael Ledeen, and infamous Iranian Manucher Ghorbanifar who was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980’s, then known to the CIA as a “serial fabricator.”
Got it? This is the key summary of the article by Josh Marshall, Paul Glastris and Irene Rozen:
Over the last year, the Senate Intelligence Committee has conducted limited inquiry into the meetings, including interviews with Feith and Ledeen. But under terms of a compromise agreed to by both parties, a full investigation into the matter was put off until after the November election. Republicans on the committee, many of whom sympathize with the "regime change" agenda at DoD, have been resistant to such investigations, calling them an election-year fishing expedition. Democrats, by contrast, see such investigations as vital to understanding the central role Feith's office may have played in a range of a dubious intelligence enterprises, from pushing claims about a supposed Saddam-al Qaeda partnership and overblown estimates of alleged Iraqi stocks of WMD to what the committee's ranking minority member Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) calls "the Chalabi factor" (Rhode and others in Feith's office have been major sponsors of the Iraqi exile leader, who is now under investigation for passing U.S. intelligence to Iran). With the FBI adding potential espionage charges to the mix the long-simmering questions about the activities of Feith's operation now seem certain to come under renewed scrutiny. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.marshallrozen.html
Basics of investigation into Franklin
The FBI investigation into whether classified information was passed to the Israeli government is focused on a Pentagon analyst who has served as an Air Force reservist in Israel, and the probe has been broadened in recent days to include interviews at the State and Defense departments and with Middle Eastern affairs specialists outside government, officials and others familiar with the inquiry said yesterday.
FBI officials have been quietly investigating for months whether Franklin gave classified information -- which officials said included a draft of a presidential directive on U.S. policies toward Iran -- to two Israeli lobbyists here who are alleged to have passed it on to the Israeli government. Officials said it was not yet clear whether the probe would become an espionage case or perhaps would result in lesser charges such as improper release of classified information or mishandling of government documents. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42625-2004Aug28.html
Who is Franklin? From the LA Times:
"You're not talking about someone toiling away in the bowels of the U.S. government," said a former Pentagon official who worked for Feith until last year and spoke on condition of anonymity."Franklin was the go-to guy on Iran issues for Wolfowitz and Feith." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-spy29aug29,1,4892543.story?coll=la-home-headlines
This was front page stuff on Sunday; will it be from here on?
NY Demo: Large, no police estimate of the crowd. “Peaceful, said Michael Bloomberg, NYC mayor.
Globe Hails Bush: A lifetime of risk-taking shapes Bush's leadership
That’s the outrageous headline for Michael Kranish’s tome to Bush; They’re doing their part in the myth-making of the towel-snapper. I guess they couldn’t say, “A lifetime of sloth, privilege and failure shapes Bush’s hubris.”
When George W. Bush accepted the presidential nomination four years ago, he laced his speech with extraordinary clues about his governing style. ''I do not need to take your pulse before I know my own mind," Bush told Americans. Mocking criticism that his platform was filled with ''risky schemes," Bush told the story of a patriot who ignored warnings that he would lose his property if he signed the Declaration of Independence, saying, ''Damn the consequences, give me the pen."
In retrospect, the Texan left no doubt: He intended his presidency to be built on a foundation of bold and broad risks. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/08/29/a_lifetime_of_risk_taking_shapes_bush146s_leadership/
Najaf: Assessment: Juan Cole, U. of Michigan Middle East expert, widely quoted by major media:
I think the big losers from the Najaf episode (part deux) are the Americans. They have become, if it is possible, even more unpopular in Iraq than they were last spring after Abu Ghuraib, Fallujah and Najaf Part 1. The US is perceived as culturally insensitive for its actions in the holy city of Najaf. The Allawi government is also a big loser. Instead of looking decisive, as they had hoped, they ended up looking like the lackeys of neo-imperialists.The big winner is Sistani, whose religious charisma has now been enhanced by solid nationalist credentials. He is a national hero for saving Najaf.For Muqtada, it is a wash. He did not have Najaf until April, anyway, and can easily survive not having it. His movement in the slums of the southern cities is intact, even if its paramilitary has been weakened. http://www.juancole.com/2004_08_01_juancole_archive.html#109359005659851262
Iraq, Iran: A Perspective. Ehsan Ahrari from Asia Times:
What the US may not have realized is that the real struggle about the future of Iraq has just entered another phase. Through Muqtada, Iran is emerging as a potent power in the political maneuvering with the US over whether Iraq will become some sort of a secular or semi-secular democracy, or an Islamic democracy. Through this, the chances of Iran's preference for the emergence of an Islam-based Iraqi government seem to have perceptibly improved. The shock and awe aspects of the Bush doctrine in Iraq suffered a serious setback because of the deteriorating security situation, but US aspirations to transform the shape of the political map of Iraq and the larger Middle East remain undeterred. That is one reason why Washington made a very crucial tactical shift from an overall preference for unilateralism to selective application of multilateralism in Iraq, and allowed the United Nations to play a limited role in the formation of the interim government. However, a potent competition between the US and Iran is currently taking place, not only to maintain control over the shape of events in Iraq, but also to determine whether the future elected government there will have a heavy presence and influence of the Islamic or secular elements. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FH28Ak01.html
Former BBC Head Blisters Blair
The BBC's former director general Greg Dyke has made a scathing attack on Downing Street over the Iraq war and its treatment of the BBC.
In the Mail on Sunday, Mr Dyke accuses Tony Blair of either being incompetent or lying to Parliament about the war in Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3609072.stm
Same choice applies to Bush, of course.
Australian Elections Announced
An important up or down for a Bush ally: Prime Minister John Howard has announced that Australians will go to the polls on October 9.
Slander of the Day: Denny Hastert on moveon.org contributor George Soros: [on Fox News]
"You know, I don't know where George Soros gets his money; I don't know where -- if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from.”
From the mouth of Kevin Phillips, conservative:
As Phillips recalls the moment, his fellow panelists spoke of Bush and the Republicans in terms, to Phillips's mind, that were far too mild and tempered.
"The Democrats understand that they killed themselves politically when they reached a point where they couldn't talk to the blue-collar worker in South Philadelphia or Queens," he says. "But now they just want to raise as much money as the Republicans, and so they're mute." The Democrats accumulated all this dirt on Bush, but they wouldn't use it," he says. "These people have no taste for the jugular."
Phillips's critique meets with eager nods from the Democratic left. Richard Borosage,
Nixon, he says, regarded the elder Bush as a lightweight and so assigned him to the United Nations. Nixon then appointed him as chairman of the Republican National Committee, where Bush proved swell at sweet-talking donors into parting with large sums of money for the sake of the party. (In this way, Phillips says, the father prefigured the son. George W. Bush never ran a profitable oil business, but he was terrific at raising copious sums of finance capital and walked away from each oil venture with a fatter bank account. What bothers him is that generation after generation of Bushes are so unwilling to transcend their class interests.
"An old buccaneer and bootlegger like Joe Kennedy became an SEC head for Roosevelt and cracked down on his own class," Phillips says, adding: "The Bush family would just appoint a Gucci-shoe-licking sycophant. The family has simply developed a culture of being enormously supportive of their class."
Even the president's Texas twang grates on Phillips, whose own accent is clipped and clear and, we must note, a tad patrician. "Listen to them! Assemble the very best panel of linguists you could find and have them listen to brothers Jeb and G.W. -- they wouldn't even guess they're in the same family," Phillips says. "G.W. talks like a cowboy and he's no more a backwoods Texan than I am."
"I'm hoping that Kerry's a seven on a scale of 10, but I'm afraid maybe he's just a five," Phillips says. "But Kerry's running against a zero. So my choice is clear." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42831-2004Aug28_3.html
Swift Boat:
Following the Right’s playbook, Bush has taken the “high” road, letting 3 weeks of attacks on Kerry pass and then says such should stop. He’s also seeking to flee the admission by Texan Ben Barnes who noted last week that he still felt guilty for being the one to get Bush out of military service and into the Texas Air National Guard. Bush is still hoping we swallow, "They just had an opening for a pilot and I was there at the right time."
Polls:
The Zogby/Williams poll of 20,900 voters finds Kerry leading President Bush, 50.8% to 46.7%, among likely voters, with only 2.4% "undecided or so soft in their support of either candidate that they could easily change."
CNN’s analysis of state polls has Bush ahead in the electoral college by 274-264. The Electoral Vote Predictor still has Kerry leading, 270 to 259.
Minnesota: Kerry 48%, Bush 44% (Rasmussen)
Alabama: Bush 53%, Kerry 42% (Rasmussen)
Arkansas: Bush 49%, Kerry 43% (Rasmussen)
Georgia: Bush 54%, Kerry 43% (Rasmussen)
Iowa: Kerry 48%, Bush 46% (Rasmussen)
Maine: Kerry 49%, Bush 44% (Rasmussen)
Missouri: Bush 49%, Kerry 44% (Rasmussen)
Ohio: Kerry 48%, Bush 46% (Rasmussen)
California: Kerry 51%, Bush 42% (Rasmussen) http://politicalwire.com/
Dark Chocolate: The Benefits [cont.]: I’ve been trying to tell you…
Good news for chocoholics: Eating dark chocolate improves healthy blood flow, according to research published today.
Greek scientists said they had demonstrated for the first time how chocolate improved blood vessels' function, allowing them to dilate and preventing the formation of potentially damaging clots.
The heart-protecting properties of dark chocolate, which contains high levels of antioxidants known as flavonoids, have been acknowledged for some time. But the latest research sheds new light on how the mechanism might work, protecting blood vessels from damage by unstable oxygen compounds called free radicals.
The results showed that functioning of the endothelium, a thin layer covering the innermost surface of blood vessels, was improved in the dark chocolate group but not in the other.
Last year, Italian and British scientists found plain chocolate increased levels of antioxidants in the blood by nearly 20 percent. Milk chocolate did not have the same effect, possibly because milk interferes with absorption. http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/08/29/dark_chocolate_found_to_aid_blood_flow/
-R
