Tuesday, November 30, 2004
What’s Happening, Iraq: It’s Going Terribly…ever worsening
‘
Tantamount to torture’ and Napalm
The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The finding that the handling of prisoners detained and interrogated at Guantánamo amounted to torture came after a visit by a Red Cross inspection team that spent most of last June in Guantánamo. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/politics/30gitmo.html
Napalm was dropped on Fallujah. And its associated gas: US troops are secretly using outlawed napalm gas to wipe out remaining insurgents in and around Fallujah. News that President George W. Bush has sanctioned the use of napalm, a deadly cocktail of polystyrene and jet fuel banned by the United Nations in 1980, will stun governments around the world. http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/
British nervous re Iraqi security:
Disintegrating security in Baghdad was underlined in a sombre warning yesterday from the British embassy against using the airport road or taking a plane out of Iraq.
The embassy says a bomb was discovered on a flight inside Iraq on 22 November. It shows that insurgents have been able to penetrate the stringent security at Baghdad airport. The embassy says its own staff have been advised against taking commercial planes.
The warning is in sharp contrast to more optimistic statements from US military commanders after the capture of Fallujah in which they have spoken of "breaking the back of the insurgency". http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=588095
Iraqi Military “founder”
Iraqi police and national guard forces, whose performance is crucial to securing January elections, are foundering in the face of coordinated efforts to kill and intimidate them and their families, say American officials in the provinces facing the most violent insurgency. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/international/middleeast/30police.html?oref=login
Annan in Trouble: The reputation, if not legitimacy of the UN is arguably being undermined, not always by the Right. This is trouble…
The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, said yesterday that he had not known that his son had continued receiving payments until February of this year from a Swiss inspection company being investigated for suspected fraud and abuses in the oil-for-food program in Iraq. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/international/middleeast/30annan.html
Al-Qaeda Threat Exaggerated? I’m not the only one to think this has been hyped from Moment One so as to terrorize and silence the public. Unfortunately, one still has to look overseas to hear how al-Qaeda is a frightening, yet marginal threat. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction to a BBC’s 3-part documentary.
During the three years in which the "war on terror" has been waged, high-profile challenges to its assumptions have been rare. The sheer number of incidents and warnings connected or attributed to the war has left little room, it seems, for heretical thoughts. In this context, the central theme of The Power of Nightmares is riskily counter-intuitive and provocative. Much of the currently perceived threat from international terrorism, the series argues, "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services, and the international media." The series' explanation for this is even bolder: "In an age when all the grand ideas have lost credibility, fear of a phantom enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power." http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1327786,00.html
Olbermann on the Electoral Fraud issue:
..the pile of evidence that suggests Ohio did a very lousy job of running an election four weeks ago. “We don’t want to be presumptuous, but these numbers in Butler, Clermont, Warren and Hamilton counties are suspicious.” Jackson refers in part to what several voters’ groups see as the incongruity of an underfunded Democratic candidate for the Ohio Supreme Court, C. Ellen Connally, getting a net 45,000 more votes in Butler County relative to her Republican opponent than Kerry did relative to his. She finished ahead of her party’s presidential nominee by 10,000 net votes or more in five Ohio counties; by 5,000 or more in ten others.
It is not unprecedented for a statewide candidate - especially a popular, well-publicized one - to finish “ahead of the ticket.” But Connally was a retired African-American judge from Cleveland, and Butler County is as about as far away from Cleveland (on the Indiana border, and 40 miles north of Kentucky) as you can get and still be in Ohio. Moreover, The Cleveland Plain Dealer noted that the Republican candidates in the three Supreme Court races raised 40% more in official campaign funds than did Connally and the other Democrats. The Toledo Blade showed that the fund-raising, and thus visibility, was far more lopsided than even the party documents would suggest: “Citizens for a Strong Ohio, a nonprofit arm of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, raised $3 million to fund TV and radio ads that gave the winners exposure Democrats couldn't match,” the newspaper reported on November 4th.
The fun continues throughout the Buckeye State. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/
More Recounts: New Mexico and Nevada
Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb and Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik announced that they are seeking recounts in two more battleground states: New Mexico and Nevada.
The third-party candidates, who already have requested a recount in Ohio, won few votes in both states. But a Cobb spokesman said they were concerned that reports of Election Day problems at the states' polls were being ignored. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20655-2004Nov29.html
James Galbraith on Ohio/Ukraine
But if the Ukraine standard were applied in Ohio -- as it should be -- then the late lamented U.S. election certainly was stolen. In Ohio, the secretary of state in charge of the elections process was co-chairman of the Bush campaign in the state. He obstructed the vote count systematically -- for instance, by demanding that provisional ballots without birth dates on their envelopes be thrown out, even though there is no requirement for that in state law. He also required that provisional ballots be cast in a voter's home precinct, ensuring that there would be no escape from long lines. Republicans fielded thousands of election challengers to Democratic precincts, mainly to try to intimidate black voters and to slow down the voting process. A recount, demanded and paid for by the Green and Libertarian parties, has been stalled in court, so that it won't possibly upset the certification of Ohio's electoral votes. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/11/30/ukraine_election/print.html
Wal-Mart: Trouble for the merchandizing giant?
The stores are dowdy. The aisles are ugly. There's nothing exciting or different or even colorful at Wal-Mart. It feels almost Soviet in its selection and presentation.
Ouch. The larger issue for Wal-Mart investors and management isn't simply decor. It's existential. Could it be that Wal-Mart has reached the limits of its cheapness? The company's raison d'etre is to function as pass-through between (increasingly foreign) manufacturers and lower- and middle-income consumers. Acting as an agent for its vast customer base, Wal-Mart delivers low prices. But there's a limit to how low the company can go. Wal-Mart's sales didn't grow more rapidly last month in part because it didn't cut prices on promotional items aggressively. At long last, the weaker dollar and higher costs for commodities, raw materials, food, and energy are working their way even into Wal-Mart's ruthlessly efficient supply chain. http://slate.msn.com/id/2110205/
-R
‘
Tantamount to torture’ and Napalm
The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The finding that the handling of prisoners detained and interrogated at Guantánamo amounted to torture came after a visit by a Red Cross inspection team that spent most of last June in Guantánamo. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/politics/30gitmo.html
Napalm was dropped on Fallujah. And its associated gas: US troops are secretly using outlawed napalm gas to wipe out remaining insurgents in and around Fallujah. News that President George W. Bush has sanctioned the use of napalm, a deadly cocktail of polystyrene and jet fuel banned by the United Nations in 1980, will stun governments around the world. http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/
British nervous re Iraqi security:
Disintegrating security in Baghdad was underlined in a sombre warning yesterday from the British embassy against using the airport road or taking a plane out of Iraq.
The embassy says a bomb was discovered on a flight inside Iraq on 22 November. It shows that insurgents have been able to penetrate the stringent security at Baghdad airport. The embassy says its own staff have been advised against taking commercial planes.
The warning is in sharp contrast to more optimistic statements from US military commanders after the capture of Fallujah in which they have spoken of "breaking the back of the insurgency". http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=588095
Iraqi Military “founder”
Iraqi police and national guard forces, whose performance is crucial to securing January elections, are foundering in the face of coordinated efforts to kill and intimidate them and their families, say American officials in the provinces facing the most violent insurgency. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/international/middleeast/30police.html?oref=login
Annan in Trouble: The reputation, if not legitimacy of the UN is arguably being undermined, not always by the Right. This is trouble…
The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, said yesterday that he had not known that his son had continued receiving payments until February of this year from a Swiss inspection company being investigated for suspected fraud and abuses in the oil-for-food program in Iraq. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/international/middleeast/30annan.html
Al-Qaeda Threat Exaggerated? I’m not the only one to think this has been hyped from Moment One so as to terrorize and silence the public. Unfortunately, one still has to look overseas to hear how al-Qaeda is a frightening, yet marginal threat. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction to a BBC’s 3-part documentary.
During the three years in which the "war on terror" has been waged, high-profile challenges to its assumptions have been rare. The sheer number of incidents and warnings connected or attributed to the war has left little room, it seems, for heretical thoughts. In this context, the central theme of The Power of Nightmares is riskily counter-intuitive and provocative. Much of the currently perceived threat from international terrorism, the series argues, "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services, and the international media." The series' explanation for this is even bolder: "In an age when all the grand ideas have lost credibility, fear of a phantom enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power." http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1327786,00.html
Olbermann on the Electoral Fraud issue:
..the pile of evidence that suggests Ohio did a very lousy job of running an election four weeks ago. “We don’t want to be presumptuous, but these numbers in Butler, Clermont, Warren and Hamilton counties are suspicious.” Jackson refers in part to what several voters’ groups see as the incongruity of an underfunded Democratic candidate for the Ohio Supreme Court, C. Ellen Connally, getting a net 45,000 more votes in Butler County relative to her Republican opponent than Kerry did relative to his. She finished ahead of her party’s presidential nominee by 10,000 net votes or more in five Ohio counties; by 5,000 or more in ten others.
It is not unprecedented for a statewide candidate - especially a popular, well-publicized one - to finish “ahead of the ticket.” But Connally was a retired African-American judge from Cleveland, and Butler County is as about as far away from Cleveland (on the Indiana border, and 40 miles north of Kentucky) as you can get and still be in Ohio. Moreover, The Cleveland Plain Dealer noted that the Republican candidates in the three Supreme Court races raised 40% more in official campaign funds than did Connally and the other Democrats. The Toledo Blade showed that the fund-raising, and thus visibility, was far more lopsided than even the party documents would suggest: “Citizens for a Strong Ohio, a nonprofit arm of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, raised $3 million to fund TV and radio ads that gave the winners exposure Democrats couldn't match,” the newspaper reported on November 4th.
The fun continues throughout the Buckeye State. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/
More Recounts: New Mexico and Nevada
Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb and Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik announced that they are seeking recounts in two more battleground states: New Mexico and Nevada.
The third-party candidates, who already have requested a recount in Ohio, won few votes in both states. But a Cobb spokesman said they were concerned that reports of Election Day problems at the states' polls were being ignored. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20655-2004Nov29.html
James Galbraith on Ohio/Ukraine
But if the Ukraine standard were applied in Ohio -- as it should be -- then the late lamented U.S. election certainly was stolen. In Ohio, the secretary of state in charge of the elections process was co-chairman of the Bush campaign in the state. He obstructed the vote count systematically -- for instance, by demanding that provisional ballots without birth dates on their envelopes be thrown out, even though there is no requirement for that in state law. He also required that provisional ballots be cast in a voter's home precinct, ensuring that there would be no escape from long lines. Republicans fielded thousands of election challengers to Democratic precincts, mainly to try to intimidate black voters and to slow down the voting process. A recount, demanded and paid for by the Green and Libertarian parties, has been stalled in court, so that it won't possibly upset the certification of Ohio's electoral votes. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/11/30/ukraine_election/print.html
Wal-Mart: Trouble for the merchandizing giant?
The stores are dowdy. The aisles are ugly. There's nothing exciting or different or even colorful at Wal-Mart. It feels almost Soviet in its selection and presentation.
Ouch. The larger issue for Wal-Mart investors and management isn't simply decor. It's existential. Could it be that Wal-Mart has reached the limits of its cheapness? The company's raison d'etre is to function as pass-through between (increasingly foreign) manufacturers and lower- and middle-income consumers. Acting as an agent for its vast customer base, Wal-Mart delivers low prices. But there's a limit to how low the company can go. Wal-Mart's sales didn't grow more rapidly last month in part because it didn't cut prices on promotional items aggressively. At long last, the weaker dollar and higher costs for commodities, raw materials, food, and energy are working their way even into Wal-Mart's ruthlessly efficient supply chain. http://slate.msn.com/id/2110205/
-R
