Saturday, March 05, 2005
News Summary: Bush lies re Social Security reform now being an ‘add on’ to the existing program; http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/03/20050304-9.html ; The Congressional Budget Office confirms that the budget is stuck in (huge) deficit for the foreseeable future. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20050305/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_budget. American soldiers killed the intelligence agent who helped free the now wounded Italian journalist Giuliana Srgena. Her editor termed the incident “a tragic demonstration that everything that is happening in Iraq is completely senseless and mad.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/print/a1/ Bushies are piling on Syria, joining France, Russia and Saudi Arabia in “demanding” a complete withdrawal, The Syrians make sounds of removing their 15,000 troops, though some observed trenches being dug, a contrary sign. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/05/international/middleeast/05syria.html Finally, the Administration has actually appointed someone [Stephen L. Johnson] for the EPA who is praised by some environmentalists, though, of course, as with predecessors, all decision-making power remains in the White House. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6621-2005Mar4.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: Drip, drip of casualties
Sergeant David Phillips, 23, sighed and patted his flak jacket. "I just want to stay alive and go home with all my body parts." He spoke for 150,000 American soldiers in Iraq.
Yesterday the number of US military deaths since the March 2003 invasion crept over 1,500.
There was no official acknowledgment of the milestone, just curt statements that three soldiers had died in two separate attacks on Wednesday. "Names are being withheld pending notification of next of kin." The figure includes accidents.
The daily drip of US casualties passes almost unnoticed now, a footnote to the wider slaughter of Iraqis: five policemen killed in two car bombs yesterday, 13 soldiers killed on Wednesday, a judge on Tuesday, at least 115 police and army recruits and civilians on Monday. Some 18,000 civilians are estimated to have died.
Yesterday's headlines were about the renewal of Iraq's state of emergency, fresh attacks on oil pipelines, and deadlock between Shias and Kurds over forming a new government. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1430375,00.html
Chinese Decry U.S. Righteousness:
China accused the United States on Thursday of using a double standard to judge human rights in other countries, adding to a list of nations suggesting that the government that produced the Abu Ghraib prison abuses has no business commenting on what happens elsewhere.
"No country should exclude itself from the international human rights development process or view itself as the incarnation of human rights that can reign over other countries and give orders to the others," Premier Wen Jiabao's cabinet declared, three days after the State Department criticized China in its annual human rights report.
The Chinese retort, which contained a long list of what it labeled U.S. human rights abuses at home and abroad, came directly from Wen's cabinet, giving it more weight than a Foreign Ministry comment or editorial. In addition, it used unusually direct language -- for example, charging that the United States "frequently commits wanton slaughters during external invasions and military attacks." http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3840-2005Mar3?language=printer
China and Iran: Good essay on the $70 billion gas deal that exemplifies the growing connection between Tehran and Beijing- “China’s presence seems to be everywhere in this sprawling capital of about 12 million people. Its official trade volume with Iran was about $7 billion last year, a fivefold increase since 1999.”
During the past few months that country has arrived in force in this oil-rich nation of 70 million, looking to solve a headache that will take a lot more than aspirin to overcome: a critical shortage of energy for its galloping industrial growth and for the millions of new cars on its roads.
After nearly a year of talks with Iranian oil officials, China's Sinopec Group is set to sign the biggest deal Iran has negotiated in a decade. Its ripple effects over the next few years are likely to extend far beyond Iran's balance sheet. The long-term alliance with the world's fastest-growing economy…(sign-up subscription required) http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,1025403,00.html
As the War on Terror morphs into the War on Tyranny… William Engdahl discusses how “Washington”- the military and energy conglomerates- have a flexible strategy to further their global domination. The target tyrants?: Condi listed many of them- “Cuba” (Venezuela), “Burma”, North Korea, Iran, Belarus, Zimbabwe to which Engdahl says we should add Sudan, Algeria, Somalia, Yemen, Belarus.
As reckless as this seems given the Iraq quagmire, the fact that little open debate on such a broadened war has yet taken place indicates how extensive the consensus is within the Washington establishment for the war policy. According to the January 24 New Yorker report from Seymour Hersh, Washington already approved a war plan for the coming four years of Bush II, which targets 10 countries from the Middle East to East Asia. The Rice statement gives a clue to six of the 10. She also suggested Venezuela is high on the non-public target list.
The military infrastructure for dealing with such tyrant states seems to be shaping up as well. In the January 24 New Yorker magazine, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh cited Pentagon and CIA sources to claim that the position of Rumsfeld and the warhawks is even stronger today than before the Iraq war. Hersh reported that Bush signed an Executive Order last year, without fanfare, placing major CIA covert operations and strategic analysis into the hands of the Pentagon, sidestepping any congressional oversight. He added that plans for the widening of the "war on terror" under Rumsfeld were also agreed upon in the administration well before the election.
The Washington Post confirmed Hersh's allegation, reporting that Rumsfeld's Pentagon had created, by Presidential Order, and bypassing Congress, a new Strategic Support Branch, which co-opts traditional clandestine and other functions of the CIA. According to a report by US Army Colonel (retired) Dan Smith, in Foreign Policy in Focus last November, the new SSB unit includes the elite military special SEAL Team 6, Delta Force army squadrons, and potentially a paramilitary army of 50,000 available for "splendid little wars" outside congressional purview.
The list of emerging targets in a new "war on tyranny" is clearly fluid, provisional, and adaptable as developments change. It is clear that a breathtaking array of future military and economic offensives is in the works at the highest policy levels to transform the world. A world oil price of US$150 a barrel or more in the next few years would be joined by chokepoint control of the supply by one power if Washington has its way. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GC03Dj02.html
Gingrich Returns: Elizabeth Drew. The veteran Washington observer’s essay on Gingrich’s return to public life, but also has this nugget- more re the real goal of Social Security “reform.”
Though Bush talks of his desire to set up private savings accounts as "partial privatization" of Social Security—a limited program allowing workers to put part of their Social Security payments into private accounts—Gingrich makes it clear that some influential conservatives want to completely privatize Social Security. He speaks of the supposed benefits of "shifting fundamentally all Social Security retirement benefits to the personal accounts over the long run." Among those who share this goal are Grover Norquist and some members of conservative think tanks, in particular the Cato Institute, which has long been arguing for privatization. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17864
-R
What’s Happening, Iraq: Drip, drip of casualties
Sergeant David Phillips, 23, sighed and patted his flak jacket. "I just want to stay alive and go home with all my body parts." He spoke for 150,000 American soldiers in Iraq.
Yesterday the number of US military deaths since the March 2003 invasion crept over 1,500.
There was no official acknowledgment of the milestone, just curt statements that three soldiers had died in two separate attacks on Wednesday. "Names are being withheld pending notification of next of kin." The figure includes accidents.
The daily drip of US casualties passes almost unnoticed now, a footnote to the wider slaughter of Iraqis: five policemen killed in two car bombs yesterday, 13 soldiers killed on Wednesday, a judge on Tuesday, at least 115 police and army recruits and civilians on Monday. Some 18,000 civilians are estimated to have died.
Yesterday's headlines were about the renewal of Iraq's state of emergency, fresh attacks on oil pipelines, and deadlock between Shias and Kurds over forming a new government. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1430375,00.html
Chinese Decry U.S. Righteousness:
China accused the United States on Thursday of using a double standard to judge human rights in other countries, adding to a list of nations suggesting that the government that produced the Abu Ghraib prison abuses has no business commenting on what happens elsewhere.
"No country should exclude itself from the international human rights development process or view itself as the incarnation of human rights that can reign over other countries and give orders to the others," Premier Wen Jiabao's cabinet declared, three days after the State Department criticized China in its annual human rights report.
The Chinese retort, which contained a long list of what it labeled U.S. human rights abuses at home and abroad, came directly from Wen's cabinet, giving it more weight than a Foreign Ministry comment or editorial. In addition, it used unusually direct language -- for example, charging that the United States "frequently commits wanton slaughters during external invasions and military attacks." http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3840-2005Mar3?language=printer
China and Iran: Good essay on the $70 billion gas deal that exemplifies the growing connection between Tehran and Beijing- “China’s presence seems to be everywhere in this sprawling capital of about 12 million people. Its official trade volume with Iran was about $7 billion last year, a fivefold increase since 1999.”
During the past few months that country has arrived in force in this oil-rich nation of 70 million, looking to solve a headache that will take a lot more than aspirin to overcome: a critical shortage of energy for its galloping industrial growth and for the millions of new cars on its roads.
After nearly a year of talks with Iranian oil officials, China's Sinopec Group is set to sign the biggest deal Iran has negotiated in a decade. Its ripple effects over the next few years are likely to extend far beyond Iran's balance sheet. The long-term alliance with the world's fastest-growing economy…(sign-up subscription required) http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,1025403,00.html
As the War on Terror morphs into the War on Tyranny… William Engdahl discusses how “Washington”- the military and energy conglomerates- have a flexible strategy to further their global domination. The target tyrants?: Condi listed many of them- “Cuba” (Venezuela), “Burma”, North Korea, Iran, Belarus, Zimbabwe to which Engdahl says we should add Sudan, Algeria, Somalia, Yemen, Belarus.
As reckless as this seems given the Iraq quagmire, the fact that little open debate on such a broadened war has yet taken place indicates how extensive the consensus is within the Washington establishment for the war policy. According to the January 24 New Yorker report from Seymour Hersh, Washington already approved a war plan for the coming four years of Bush II, which targets 10 countries from the Middle East to East Asia. The Rice statement gives a clue to six of the 10. She also suggested Venezuela is high on the non-public target list.
The military infrastructure for dealing with such tyrant states seems to be shaping up as well. In the January 24 New Yorker magazine, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh cited Pentagon and CIA sources to claim that the position of Rumsfeld and the warhawks is even stronger today than before the Iraq war. Hersh reported that Bush signed an Executive Order last year, without fanfare, placing major CIA covert operations and strategic analysis into the hands of the Pentagon, sidestepping any congressional oversight. He added that plans for the widening of the "war on terror" under Rumsfeld were also agreed upon in the administration well before the election.
The Washington Post confirmed Hersh's allegation, reporting that Rumsfeld's Pentagon had created, by Presidential Order, and bypassing Congress, a new Strategic Support Branch, which co-opts traditional clandestine and other functions of the CIA. According to a report by US Army Colonel (retired) Dan Smith, in Foreign Policy in Focus last November, the new SSB unit includes the elite military special SEAL Team 6, Delta Force army squadrons, and potentially a paramilitary army of 50,000 available for "splendid little wars" outside congressional purview.
The list of emerging targets in a new "war on tyranny" is clearly fluid, provisional, and adaptable as developments change. It is clear that a breathtaking array of future military and economic offensives is in the works at the highest policy levels to transform the world. A world oil price of US$150 a barrel or more in the next few years would be joined by chokepoint control of the supply by one power if Washington has its way. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GC03Dj02.html
Gingrich Returns: Elizabeth Drew. The veteran Washington observer’s essay on Gingrich’s return to public life, but also has this nugget- more re the real goal of Social Security “reform.”
Though Bush talks of his desire to set up private savings accounts as "partial privatization" of Social Security—a limited program allowing workers to put part of their Social Security payments into private accounts—Gingrich makes it clear that some influential conservatives want to completely privatize Social Security. He speaks of the supposed benefits of "shifting fundamentally all Social Security retirement benefits to the personal accounts over the long run." Among those who share this goal are Grover Norquist and some members of conservative think tanks, in particular the Cato Institute, which has long been arguing for privatization. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17864
-R
