SCOTT MOSS Imus and the Legal System: Protecting Racists against Lawless Firings and Meritless Lawsuits FindLaw guest columnist and U.Colorado law professor Scott Moss weighs in on two recent lawsuits involving radio personality Don Imus, who was famously fired by CBS Radio for calling the members of the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos" on his program. The first suit was brought by Imus against CBS, to challenge the firing; it has now been settled. The other suit was brought by Rutgers basketball player Kia Vaughn against Imus, for defamation, on the theory that his comment falsely suggested she was unchaste; it is still pending. Moss argues that while our sympathies should lie strongly with Vaughn and against Imus, the law's perspective is very different. Based on law alone, he says, Imus was right about his contract, and Vaughn is wrong about having a meritorious defamation suit.
Friday, Aug. 17, 2007

Montebello SPP Summit: Canada's Sovereignty in Jeopardy: the Militarization of North America - by Michel Chossudovsky - 2007-08-17 Canada is contiguous to "the center of the empire". Territorial control over Canada is part of the US geopolitical and military agenda.

How Far Will the Crash Go and What Do we Do Now? - by Richard C. Cook - 2007-08-18 As the house of cards comes tumbling down, the leading question on financial websites and blogs is how deep will the decline go

Michael Ledeen's Dangerous Iran Obsession

Michael Ledeen -- who once told me that he only supported the Iraq War because it provided momentum and pre-positioning of American military forces to then go after Iran -- is not going to feel self-actualized until America unleashes a considerable portion of its arsenal against the nation and people of Iran.

I'm not a pacifist. I have to admit that there might be circumstances in which war with Iran is our last and only option -- but we are far, far away from that situation.

I'm particularly worried that there are bad guys in Iran who so desperately want to consolidate their political positions inside Iran that they see a hot conflict with the U.S. and/or Israel as "helpful". It's also clear that Vice President Cheney as well as his followers inside the administration and his ideological following in Washington's think tank sector want war to pump up their eroding political position.

But Ledeen, James Woolsey, Norman Podhoretz, and others want war now with Iran. They want the bombs to fly. They are obsessed with delegitimating the important diplomatic efforts of Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad, and others. They despise Defense Secretary Bob Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- and they are increasingly offering defamatory comments about George W. Bush himself at their small dinner parties and neocon gatherings.

Ledeen has a piece, "Talking with Iran," that has just appeared in the Wall Street Journal that tries to savage those calling for negotiations with Iran. It's embedded throughout with distortions, but it is an important case statement profiling neocon obsession with waging war against Iran as soon as possible.

The opening of Ledeen's piece runs thus:

For some time now, the chattering classes have debated whether the United States should negotiate with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Both sides have endowed the very act of negotiating with near-mythic power. The advocates suggest that "good relations" may emerge, while opponents warn it is somehow playing into the mullahs' hands. Both seem to believe that the three recent talks in Baghdad are historically significant, since they are said to be a departure from past practice.

That claim is false. Every administration since Ayatollah Khomeini's seizure of power in 1979 has negotiated with the Iranians. Nothing positive has ever come of it, but most every president has come to believe that a "grand bargain" with Tehran can somehow be reached, if only we negotiate well enough.

Washington diplomats have steadfastly refused to see the Iranian regime for what it is: a relentless enemy that seeks to dominate or destroy us. This blindness afflicted the first American negotiators shortly after the 1979 revolution, and has been chronic ever since, even though Iran declared war on us in that year and has waged it ever since.

Ledeen is entitled to his views, but smart respondents should remember a few things when considering how to deal with Iran.

First, remember that on the night of 9/11/2001, Tehran was the only place in the Middle East where thousands of people walked out into the streets holding candles and expressing grief and empathy for Americans who died that day. There are many in Iran who identify with America and are inspired by our country (though less so under current US political leadership).

Also, remember that former Ambassador and now RAND strategist James Dobbins successfully recruited Iran to play an important and constructive role in the Bonn Conference that was necessary to stabilize Afghanistan in 2002. Iran worked with us and did not need to. Yes, Afghanistan is coming apart at the seams now, and Iran may be playing both sides, but this is a function of America's failing, not Iran's designs and machinations.

Iran is a fake democracy -- but there are elements of democracy and popular will being expressed through elections there. If we bomb Iran, we need to realize and accept that there is a strong chance that the public will rally toward rather than away from its current populist political leadership under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The worst situation would be to have a perception of citizen-given legitimacy behind an extremist Iranian government now committed more than ever to the acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Bombing Iran may also lead to the creation of a terrorist superhighway to the edge of Israel -- a nation whose security I believe America should be worried about and committed to 'help' defend.

Bombing Iran may also trigger a seismic shift in global energy politics, as Flynt Leverett has written, in which China, Russia, and Iran tie up their resources, technology and development needs into a condominium of alled interests. This prospect would break the backs of Europe and Japan which are directly, tangibly dependent on Iranian oil -- and could lead to the end of American primacy in the geoeconomy of oil.

I don't believe in appeasing Iran's worst behaviors either. But there are many, many, many other options than the "nuke them now and get it over with" calls by the likes of James Woolsey and Michael Ledeen.

Ledeen has an Iran obsession, as does Vice President Cheney. If they get what they want -- not only will nightmares be unleashed in Iran, but America, Europe, the Middle East and world at large will suffer tremendously.

And lastly Israel would suffer and be plunged into a dramatically blurred security mess. Israel does matter and is an ally of ours in the region, and its best long-term hopes are to become allied, at least "in spirit", with moderate Sunni Arab regimes in its neighborhood.

Ledeen, Woolsey, Podhoretz, Bolton and others are showing themselves to be reckless regarding Israel and its future. They are pushing a false choice between Israeli security and bombing Iran -- and Israeli voices need to reach out to common sense strategists who are far better friends to Israel and to Middle East stability and security than Curtis LeMay-inspired neocons.

Much of Ledeen's article is directed at blasting the "grand bargain" crowd advocating a re-ordering of numerous interlocking policy problems in the Middle East -- and since one of the leading advocates of a "grand bargain" strategy is my New America Foundation colleague Flynt Leverett, I re-link here his important paper published by The Century Foundation, "Dealing with Tehran: Assessing US Diplomatic Options Toward Iran."

-- Steve Clemons

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/

Prelude to an Attack on Iran By Robert Baer Reports that the Bush Administration will put Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the terrorism list can be read in one of two ways: it's either more bluster or, ominously, a wind-up for a strike on Iran. Officials I talk to in Washington vote for a hit on the IRGC, maybe within the next six months.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18210.htm

Convicting Padilla: Bad News for All Americans By Dave Lindorff With habeas corpus a thing of the past, with arrest and detention without charge permitted, with torture and spying without court oversight all the rage, with prosecutors free to tape conversations between lawyers and their clients, and with the judicial branch now infested by rightwing judges who would have been at home in courtrooms of the Soviet Union or Hitler's Germany, for all they seem to care about common law tradition, the only real thing holding the line against absolute tyranny in the U.S. has been the jury.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18208.htm

Britain faces Iraq rout says US
Sarah Baxter in Washington and Michael Smith


A MILITARY adviser to President George W Bush has warned that British forces will have to fight their way out of Iraq in an “ugly and embarrassing” retreat.

Stephen Biddle, who also advises the US commander in Iraq, said Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias in the south would try to create the impression they were forcing a retreat. “They want to make it clear they have forced the British out. That means they’ll use car bombs, ambushes, RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] . . . and there will be a number of British casualties.”

The comments coincide with British military estimates that withdrawal could cost the lives of 10 to 15 soldiers.

Some British officers believe they are facing a “humiliating” retreat under fire to Kuwait or the southern Iraqi port of Umm Qasr.

“I regret to say that the Basra experience is set to become a major blunder in terms of military history,” said a senior officer. “The insurgents are calling the shots . . . and in a worst-case scenario will chase us out of southern Iraq.”

Gordon Brown, the prime minister, has agreed with Bush that no decision will be made to withdraw until after General David Petraeus, the US commander, delivers a report to Congress next month on the progress of the Americans’ “troop surge”.

But the British are expected to pull back to a single base at Basra airport soon in preparation for withdrawal.

Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who advised Bush on the troop surge, said Iran would use its influence with the Shi’ite Mahdi Army to exploit the situation.

“It will be a hard withdrawal. They want the image of a British defeat . . . It will be ugly and embarrassing,” he said.

The Ministry of Defence said the British were not heading for defeat. “Although the militias are trying to claim credit for ‘driving us out’, they are failing.”

International Herald Tribune
Concern over wider spying under new law
By James Risen and Eric Lichtblau
Saturday, August 18, 2007

WASHINGTON: Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include — without court approval — certain types of physical searches on American soil and the collection of Americans' business records, Democratic congressional officials and other experts said.

Administration officials acknowledged that they had heard such concerns from Democrats in Congress recently, and that there was a continuing debate over the meaning of the legislative language. But they said the Democrats were simply raising theoretical questions based on a harsh interpretation of the legislation.

They also emphasized that there would be strict rules in place to minimize the extent to which Americans would be caught up in the surveillance.

The dispute illustrates how lawmakers, in a frenetic, end-of-session scramble, passed legislation they may not have fully understood and may have given the administration more surveillance powers than it sought. It also offers a case study in how changing a few words in a complex piece of legislation has the potential to fundamentally alter the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a landmark national security law. The new legislation is set to expire in less than six months; two weeks after it was signed into law, there is still heated debate over how much power Congress gave to the president.

"This may give the administration even more authority than people thought," said David Kris, a former senior Justice Department lawyer in the Bush and Clinton administrations and a co-author of "National Security Investigation and Prosecutions," a new book on surveillance law.

Several legal experts said that by redefining the meaning of "electronic surveillance," the new law narrows the types of communications covered in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, by indirectly giving the government the power to use intelligence collection methods far beyond wiretapping that previously required court approval if conducted inside the United States.

These new powers include the collection of business records, physical searches and so-called "trap and trace" operations, analyzing specific calling patterns.

For instance, the legislation would allow the government, under certain circumstances, to demand the business records of an American in Chicago without a warrant if it asserts that the search concerns its surveillance of a person who is in Paris, experts said.

It is possible that some of the changes were the unintended consequences of the rushed legislative process just before this month's congressional recess, rather than a purposeful effort by the administration to enhance its ability to spy on Americans.

"We did not cover ourselves in glory," said one Democratic aide, referring to how the bill was compiled.

But a senior intelligence official who has been involved in the discussions on behalf of the administration said that the legislation was seen solely as a way to speed access to the communications of foreign targets, not to sweep up the communications of Americans by claiming to focus on foreigners.

"I don't think it's a fair reading," the official said. "The intent here was pure: if you're targeting someone outside the country, the fact that you're doing the collection inside the country, that shouldn't matter." Democratic leaders have said they plan to push for a revision of the legislation as soon as September. "It was a legislative over-reach, limited in time," said one congressional Democratic aide. "But Democrats feel like they can regroup."

Some civil rights advocates said they suspected that the administration made the language of the bill intentionally vague to allow it even broader discretion over wiretapping decisions. Whether intentional or not, the end result — according to top Democratic aides and other experts on national security law — is that the legislation may grant the government the right to collect a range of information on American citizens inside the United States without warrants, as long as the administration asserts that the spying concerns the monitoring of a person believed to be overseas.

In effect, they say, the legislation significantly relaxes the restrictions on how the government can conduct spying operations aimed at foreigners at the same time that it allows authorities to sweep up information about Americans.

These new powers are considered overly broad and troubling by some congressional Democrats who raised their concerns with administration officials in private meetings this week.

"This shows why it is so risky to change the law by changing the definition" of something as basic as the meaning of electronic surveillance, said Suzanne Spaulding, a former congressional staff member who is now a national security legal expert. "You end up with a broad range of consequences that you might not realize."

The senior intelligence official acknowledged that congressional staff members had raised concerns about the law in the meetings this week, and that ambiguities in the bill's wording may have led to some confusion. "I'm sure there will be discussions about how and whether it should be fixed," the official said.

Vanee Vines, a spokeswoman for the office of the director of national intelligence, said the concerns raised by congressional officials about the wide scope of the new legislation were "speculative." But she declined to discuss specific aspects of how the legislation would be enacted. The legislation gives the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales broad discretion in enacting the new procedures and approving the way surveillance is conducted.

Bush administration officials said the new legislation, which amends FISA, was critical to fill an "intelligence gap" that had left the United States vulnerable to attack.

The legislation "restores FISA to its original and appropriate focus — protecting the privacy of Americans," said Brian Roehrkasse, Justice Department spokesman. "The act makes clear that we do not need a court order to target for foreign intelligence collection persons located outside the United States, but it also retains FISA's fundamental requirement of court orders when the target is in the United States."

The measure, which President George W. Bush signed into law on Aug. 5, was written and pushed through both the House and Senate so quickly that few in Congress had time to absorb its full impact, some congressional aides say.

Though many Democratic leaders opposed the final version of the legislation, they did not work forcefully to block its passage, largely out of fear that they would be criticized by Bush and Republican leaders during the August recess as being soft on terrorism.

Yet Bush administration officials have already signaled that, in their view, the president retains his constitutional authority to do whatever it takes to protect the country, regardless of any action Congress takes. At a tense meeting last week with lawyers from a range of private groups active in the wiretapping issue, senior Justice Department officials refused to commit the administration to adhering to the limits laid out in the new legislation and left open the possibility that the president could once again use what they have said in other instances is his constitutional authority to act outside the regulations set by Congress.

At the meeting, Bruce Fein, a Justice Department lawyer in the Reagan administration, along with other critics of the legislation, pressed Justice Department officials repeatedly for an assurance that the administration considered itself bound by the restrictions imposed by Congress. The Justice Department, led by Ken Wainstein, the assistant attorney general for national security, refused to do so, according to three participants in the meeting. That stance angered Fein and others. It sent the message, Fein said in an interview, that the new legislation, though it is already broadly worded, "is just advisory. The president can still do whatever he wants to do. They have not changed their position that the president's Article II powers trump any ability by Congress to regulate the collection of foreign intelligence."

Brian Walsh, a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who attended the same private meeting with Justice Department officials, acknowledged that the meeting — intended by the administration to solicit recommendations on the wiretapping legislation — became quite heated at times. But he said he thought the administration's stance on the president's commander-in-chief powers was "a wise course."

"They were careful not to concede any authority that they believe they have under Article II," Walsh said. "If they think they have the constitutional authority, it wouldn't make sense to commit to not using it."

Asked whether the administration considered the new legislation legally binding, Vines, the national intelligence office spokeswoman, said: "We're going to follow the law and carry it out as it's been passed."

Bush issued a so-called signing statement about the legislation when he signed it into law, but the statement did not assert his presidential authority to override the legislative limits.

At the Justice Department session, critics of the legislation also complained to administration officials about the diminished role of the FISA court, which is limited to determining whether the procedures set up by the executive administration for intercepting foreign intelligence are "clearly erroneous" or not.

That limitation sets a high bar to set off any court intervention, argued Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, who also attended the Justice Department meeting.

"You've turned the court into a spectator," Rotenberg said.

Nonpartisan Group Calls for Three-State Split in Iraq
Think Tank Report Says Country Is 'Near Total Collapse'

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 17, 2007; 11:16 AM

In a report to be released next week, the Fund for Peace calls for the "managed" break-up of Iraq into three separate states with their own governments and representatives to the United Nations, but continued economic cooperation in a larger entity modeled on the European Union.

Prospects of Iraqi leaders being able to establish a multiethnic democracy are now "fanciful," the nonpartisan Washington think tank says in its report titled "A Way Out: The Union of Iraqi States." Based on data tracked monthly since before the U.S. invasion in 2003, the report authored by Fund president Pauline Baker concludes that

Iraq is now "near total collapse."

"While there may be pockets of improvement from the 'surge,' these are transitory and limited achievements that are about four years too late . . . Rather than fight fragmentation, it would be better to manage the trend with a view toward establishing an entirely new political order," the report concludes.

The report is one of several official and unofficial Iraq assessments coming over the next month, culminating with the Bush administration's own much-awaited evaluation of Iraq's security and political progress due on Sept. 15.

The military campaign underway with Gen. David H. Petraeus might have worked after the 2003 invasion, during a security vacuum and before militias emerged, but the Iraqi government's lack of political will and inability to broker reconciliation have divided the country in irretrievable ways, the report concludes.

The Fund has monitored twelve indicators -- ranging from the economy to political factionalization and the rule of law -- and concludes that all have deteriorated significantly since before the war. Working out a transition that divides political power while continuing to allow Iraq's three major communities -- Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds -- to share economic wealth may be the only way to bring U.S. troops home in the near future, the report concludes.

"This is the best, and possibly the last, chance to end the war, limit spillover and reduce U.S. troop presence, while leaving something constructive behind," Baker writes.

The idea of an economic union would bypass the problem of dividing up current and future oil resources. There are a number of alternatives for Baghdad, the multiethnic capital, including making it the Brussels of Iraq as the headquarters for the new "Union of Iraqi Sates," the report says.

In Sunday’s Times

Magazine
The West has separated religion and politics. We are the exception.

+ US says cannot rework nuclear deal with India
New Delhi (AFP) Aug 18, 2007 - A top US official has said a controversial nuclear pact with New Delhi cannot be renegotiated amid demands from Indian critics for a radical reworking of the deal. "We cannot renegotiate it because the agreement is done. Neither government wishes it to be renegotiated because it is now complete," US under secretary of State Nicholas Burns told Outlook magazine in an interview published on th ... more

Australia close to deal to supply uranium to Russia: FM
Sydney (AFP) Aug 17, 2007 - Australia is close to signing a deal to supply uranium to Russia for civilian purposes which could be completed next month, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Friday. Australia could be supplying the nuclear element to Russian reactors as early as next year, and a pact could be signed when Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Australia in September for a summit of the Asia-Pacific ... more

Yemen says foreign firms to build nuclear reactor
Sanaa (AFP) Aug 19, 2007 - Yemen's energy minister said on Sunday that international companies would build a nuclear reactor in the impoverished Arabian peninsula state, the official Saba news agency reported. "International companies will undertake building... the nuclear reactor that Yemen aspires to own for peaceful purposes of producing electricity," Mustafa Yahia Bahran said. He did not give details about the ... more

+ Analysis: Kazakhstan's nuclear future
Washington (UPI) Aug 14, 2007 - While Western attention focuses on the rising oil and natural gas potential of Caspian states, rising energy player Kazakhstan has another energy asset up its sleeve: uranium. Kazakhstan contains the world's second-largest uranium reserves, estimated at 1.5 million tons. In 2006 it produced 5,279 tons of uranium, 21 percent more than in 2005, and intends in 2007 to increase uranium prod ... more

Debt crunch puts mega-buyouts in jeopardy
By Thomas S. Mulligan
Clear Channel, Sallie Mae and other deals await completion, but investors signal
doubts about the terms.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/eBV...Io30G2B0IrEE0EX

U.S. action on free trade is left hanging
By Peter G. Gosselin
Congress is finding ways to check globalization. But some experts say such
protectionist measures are detrimental to U.S. workers.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/eBV...Io30G2B0IrER0Ek

Analysis: U.S. deal in Pakistan may fail
Washington (UPI) Aug 17, 2007 - The future ruling setup in Pakistan may include both President Pervez Musharraf and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the two leaders who have little in common except a desire to work with the United States against Muslim extremists. Together they would form what the White House and the State Department describe as a "moderate political center" in a country Washington believes may ... more

Russia revives Soviet-era strategic bomber patrols
Chebarkul, Russia (AFP) Aug 17, 2007 - Russia is immediately to resume the Soviet-era practice of sending strategic bombers on long-range flights well beyond its borders, President Vladimir Putin announced here on Friday. Speaking as he and Chinese President Hu Jintao wrapped up joint military exercises at a training ground in the Ural Mountains, Putin said: "We have decided to renew flights of Russian strategic aviation on a ... more

US military sees looming China threat to satellites
Huntsville, Alabama (AFP) Aug 14, 2007 - China may be just three years away from being able to disrupt US military satellites in a regional conflict, a senior US military leader said Tuesday, citing a recent anti-satellite test and other advances. The warning came amid calls at a conference in Huntsville, Alabama for intensified efforts to ensure US "space superiority" in the wake of China's shoot-down January 11 of one of its own ... more

Wherein I argue that national Democrats should be talking about the fact that there aren't any.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/where-are-the-democrats-o_b_61146.html ://http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rober...o_b_61146.html

--
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org

Just Foreign Policy's current estimate of Iraqi deaths due to violence since the U.S. invasion - now more than a million:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html

US senators suggest Maliki government be replaced
Washington (AFP) Aug 20, 2007 - Two key US senators suggested Monday that Iraq's parliament replace Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government if it fails in a "last chance" political reconciliation bid. Senators Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and John Warner, the ranking Republican, said after a two-day visit to Iraq that they were not optimistic about the prospects for compromise. ... more

Russia Builds Highly Effective Pechora Surface-To-Air Missiles
Moscow (RIA Novosti) Aug 21, 2007 - The final stage of the Combat Fraternity 2007 military exercise will be held at the Ashuluk firing range in the Astrakhan Region (southern Russia) on August 22. Defense ministers from ten CIS states will fly to the range after the opening ceremony of the MAKS 2007 aerospace show, which opens in Zhukovsky near Moscow on August 21. They will see the operation of the S-125 Pechora (NATO repor ... more

The Lighthouse
“Enlightening Ideas for Public Policy”
Volume 9, Issue 34: August 20, 2007

In this week’s issue:

1) Time for “Benign Neglect” in Mideast?
2) Stifled at Home, More Latin American Businesses Invest Overseas
3) Risk of Persian Gulf Oil Shock Overblown
4) Self-Government versus World Governance

Time for “Benign Neglect” in Mideast?

Despite President Bush’s recent pledge to help restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the time may be ripe for U.S. policymakers to employ an opposite strategy—one of “constructive disengagement” or “benign neglect”—Mideast policy expert Leon T. Hadar, a research fellow with the Independent Institute’s Center on Peace & Liberty, argued in an op-ed published last week in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Attempts to mediate the Arab-Israeli conflict may be doing more harm than good to the cause of peace and also to U.S. interests, according to Hadar. “By pursuing the illusion that the United States has the power and moral authority to broker a ‘peace’ in the Middle East, Washington has created unrealistic expectations that cannot be fulfilled,” he writes. “Meanwhile, America’s repeated failures as an ‘honest broker’ ends up producing an anti-American backlash, which creates even more pressure on Washington to ‘do something’ or else.”

Paradoxically, by not pushing for peace talks, the United States could actually create incentives for the two sides to achieve real peace. Continues Hadar: “The United States should be more than ready, if necessary, to work with other international players to facilitate a resolution to the conflict but only if and when both sides are ready to make peace, and deal seriously with core existential issues, such as Israel’s right to exist securely and in peace, the fate of the remaining Jewish settlements, and the status of Arab refugees and the city of Jerusalem.”

“Time for ‘Benign Neglect’ in Mideast?” by Leon T. Hadar (San Diego Union-Tribune, 8/14/07) Spanish Translation

Upcoming Event: Troop Withdrawal: Looking Beyond Iraq September 21, featuring Leon T. Hadar, David R. Henderson, and Ivan Eland at the Independent Institute’s Washington, D.C., office.

Center on Peace & Liberty

Stifled at Home, More Latin American Businesses Invest Overseas

While media coverage of Latin America has focused on the region’s stormy politics and steamy soap operas, foreign investments made by the region’s largest private companies are beginning to change the global business landscape in significant but underreported ways.

Mexican cement producer Cemex’s $14 billion purchase of Australia’s Rinker Group and Brazilian mining giant Companhia Vale do Rio Doce’s $17 billion purchase of Canada’s Inco are just two deals that have contributed to a six-fold increase of Latin American investments made overseas in the past three years.

“Few people anticipated that underdevelopment could be a stimulus for the globalization of Latin American businesses,” writes Alvaro Vargas Llosa, director of the Independent Institute’s Center on Global Prosperity, in his latest syndicated column. “We tend to think that a country needs to save a lot of capital before its entrepreneurs can become international players.”

Latin American businesses have accelerated their investments overseas, according to Vargas Llosa, in part because thickets of bureaucratic red tape and a high cost of capital have made it too hard for them to thrive by serving only domestic markets. “Latin America’s global players are sending a powerful signal back home, showing that the potential for a spectacular leap forward is there if politicians can get their act together,” he concludes.

“Latin America’s Global Players,” by Alvaro Vargas Llosa (8/15/07) Spanish Translation

Liberty for Latin America: How to Undo Five Hundred Years of State Oppression, by Alvaro Vargas Llosa

The Che Guevara Myth, by Alvaro Vargas Llosa

Center on Global Prosperity (Alvaro Vargas Llosa, Director)

Spanish version of the Independent Institute website

Spanish-language blog

Risk of Persian Gulf Oil Shock Overblown

The Joint Economic Committee, a bipartisan congressional office, has just released a surprising—and fundamentally optimistic—study on Persian Gulf oil supplies, reports Independent Institute Research Fellow David Isenberg.

“Contrary to the usual dire warnings one usually sees about threats to Persian Gulf and other regional oil supplies, which have been regularly issued since the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo of 1973 and subsequently the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the study concluded that the increased flexibility and resiliency of the U.S. economy have improved its ability to withstand a temporary oil-supply disruption,” writes Isenberg in the Asia Times.

Isenberg also notes that most parties in the Persian Gulf, including Iran, have incentives to keep the oil shipping lanes of the Straits of Hormuz open. “The study makes a point that even those who flunked Economics 101 can understand that economic interdependency discourages embargos, boycotts, and other interference with trade,” Isenberg continues, “The Middle East is no exception�. Even if one believes that al-Qaeda would like to disrupt oil-tanker traffic, as the White House claimed in the ‘10 Foiled al-Qaeda Plots’ document it released in October 2005, the result would not be very significant.”

“A New Oil Crisis? Not So Fast,” by David Isenberg (Asia Times, 8/9/07) Spanish Translation (pending)

Self-Government versus World Governance

Should nation-states be held accountable to universal, transnational legal standards? Would an expanded United Nations or an International Criminal Court that enforces such standards help or hinder the cause of liberty? In his recent book, Law Without Nations? Jeremy Rabkin provides the historical and political context necessary to help readers see why the seemingly liberalizing move toward “global governance” poses a threat to limited government, individual autonomy, and consent-based politics.

“Without a doubt, Rabkin’s book represents a timely addition to an important debate,” writes Georg Vanberg in the summer issue of The Independent Review. “The perspective he brings to bear, including a healthy skepticism about the questionable normative commitments underlying appeals to transnational legal standards and a hard-nosed look at the actual efficacy of efforts to realize ‘global governance,’ is provocative and perhaps underemphasized.”

Rabkin’s revealing look at efforts to enforce international human-rights agreements, as well as the edicts of the World Trade Organization and the European Union, shows how inept and invasive the enforcement of transnational legal standards already is. “Although the book does not present the strongest case that can be made for its position, its arguments should be taken seriously by those who clamor for supranational governance,” Vanberg concludes.

Law Without Nations? Why Constitutional Government Requires Sovereign States, by Jeremy Rabkin, reviewed by Georg Vanberg (The Independent Review, Summer 2007)

The Independent Review

The Iraq War As We See It By Buddhika Jayamaha Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18212.htm

Padilla Jury Opens Pandora's Box Paul Craig Roberts Jose Padilla's conviction on terrorism charges on August 16 was a victory, not for justice, but for the US Justice (sic) Department's theory that a US citizen can be convicted, not because he committed a terrorist act but for allegedly harboring aspirations to commit such an act. By agreeing with the Justice (sic) Department's theory, the incompetent Padilla Jury delivered a deadly blow to the rule of law and opened Pandora's Box.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18215.htm

Managing Consent The Art of War, Democracy and Public Relations By Ramzy Baroud It is Edward Bernays who fine-tuned the art of public relations in the 20th century. Using many of the psychoanalytic theories put forward by his uncle Sigmund Freud, he developed a mastery of public manipulation, suggesting that such manipulation was essential to democracy itself.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18221.htm

U.S. foreign policy experts oppose Bush's surge: More than half of top U.S. foreign policy experts oppose President George W. Bush's troop increase as a strategy for stabilizing Baghdad, saying the plan has harmed U.S. national security, according to a new survey.
http://tinyurl.com/yt4k7p

U.S. Army running out of troops: The Army's 38 available combat units are deployed, just returning home or already tapped to go to Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere, leaving no fresh troops to replace five extra brigades that President Bush sent to Baghdad this year, according to interviews and military documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
http://www.pjstar.com/stories/082007/NAT_BE4FCM78.052.php

Mercenaries in Iraq Have Become U.S. Crutch: The expanded contractor use has evoked new attention to a 1995 criticism of the practice. According to the study, a Defense Department Commission on Roles and Missions found then that depending on contractors was detrimental and that it kept the Pentagon "from building and maintaining capacity needed for strategic or other important missions."
http://tinyurl.com/2vjayn

White House: Iraq progress report could be Sept 11: U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, will likely testify to Congress about progress in the war on Sept. 11 or Sept. 12, the White House said on Monday.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N20291179.htm

U.S. media curtail Iraq "war" coverage: stud: Attention to the war dropped in all five media sectors surveyed. Network evening news, the sector that gave the war the greatest share of attention in the first quarter, scaled back more than 40 percent, from 33 percent in the first quarter to 19 percent in the second, the study showed.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070820/pl_nm/usa_iraq_media_dc

Ahmadinejad may visit Iraq: report: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accepted an invitation to visit neighboring Iraq, Iran's foreign minister said on Sunday, a move that would be unlikely to be welcomed by the United States.
http://tinyurl.com/2g7bxz

Special Report: We Can Win In Iraq By Hitting Iran: The media campaign to play down some anticipated good military news from Iraq is heating up.
http://www.postchronicle.com/commentary/ar..._21298512.shtml

US experts see more dangerous world for Americans: A majority of top U.S. foreign policy experts say the world is a more dangerous place for Americans today than just six months ago, thanks largely to the war in Iraq and a failing U.S. war on terrorism, a new survey shows.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N08396596.htm

The Russians Are Coming: Mosaic Intelligence Report: Video: When Condoleezza Rice unveiled plans to funnel a staggering quantity of US military aid to several countries in the Middle East, it made headlines all over the world. Now it seems that Russia is moving its fleet to the Mediterranean. How will this affect Syria, Israel and Iran?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18214.htm

Scott Horton Interviews Rep. Ron Paul
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2007/08/17/rep-ron-paul-3/

FAILING SURGE TERRORISM INDEX (FOREIGN POLICY, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER): In the
third Terrorism Index, more than 100 of America?s most respected foreign-policy
experts see a world that is growing more dangerous, a national security strategy
in disrepair, and a war in Iraq that is alarmingly off course. When the experts
were asked to grade the government's handling of the Iraq war, the news was even
worse. They gave the overall effort in Iraq an average point score of just 2.9
on a 10-point scale. The government's public diplomacy record was the only
policy that scored lower.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php...3924&page=1
SEE ALSO
http://politics.boogietrain.nl/2007/08/20/...ogress-metrics/

KAREN HUGHES SCREWS WITH THE MUSLIMS AGAIN TO MAKE THE WORLD SAFE FOR
BASEBALL AND BOSS BUSH (GRUMPY LION: SNARLING LITTLE TIDBITS...) : "Yeah,
Karen, teach 'em baseball. It's a great lesson in American hypocrisy all by
itself. And they can play while they dodge bullets and bombs made in the good
ol' USA. But Karen, you might not want to walk around over there without a bunch
of troops and gunships protecting you. Some of those kids are pretty pissed off.
Their folks, too."
http://grumpylion.wordpress.com/2007/08/18...-for-boss-bush/

U.S. TAXPAYERS FORK OUT $1.6 BILLION FOR PROPAGANDA -Y TUMERICA TUMERICA
(OPEDNEWS, AUGUST 18): A 2006 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report
reveals what we already know: that the Bush administration has been buying news.
That is, federally funded public relations contracts to report "news" that
spouts a predetermined agenda written by the Bush administration -- all while
the networks and other agencies that air the instanews disclose nothing about
the source of the information. What we did not know was how enormous the expense
was, and why the media, who may also be on the government payroll, are not
making huge efforts to publicize this finding (or maybe we know that too).
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_tu...ayers_fork_.htm

CIA, FBI COMPUTERS USED FOR WIKIPEDIA EDITS - RANDALL MIKKELSEN, REUTERS
(WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 16)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7081601727.html

IS WIKIPEDIA BECOMING A HUB FOR PROPAGANDA? TRACKING WEBSITE SHOWS THOUSANDS
OF CHANGES TO ARTICLES ORIGINATED FROM FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OFFICES - DAVID
GEORGE-COSH (GLOBE AND MAIL, AUGUST 16)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...Technology/home

Foreign Policy News and Commentary Update August 21, 2007

FAILING SURGE TERRORISM INDEX (FOREIGN POLICY, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER): In the
third Terrorism Index, more than 100 of America's most respected foreign-policy
experts see a world that is growing more dangerous, a national security strategy
in disrepair, and a war in Iraq that is alarmingly off course. When the experts
were asked to grade the government's handling of the Iraq war, the news was even
worse. They gave the overall effort in Iraq an average point score of just 2.9
on a 10-point scale. The government's public diplomacy record was the only
policy that scored lower.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php...3924&page=1
SEE ALSO
http://politics.boogietrain.nl/2007/08/20/...ogress-metrics/

THE PROMISE OF NOÖPOLITIK - DAVID RONFELDT AND JOHN ARQUILLA (FIRST MONDAY):
From the new postscript to this paper: '[D]ue to assorted sorry matters this
decade (some but not all involving the war in Iraq), leaders and publics around
the world have become increasingly doubtful that America is deeply dedicated to
the ideals and practices it professes. U.S. public diplomacy is on the defensive
more than ever before. ... New thinking about information strategy and strategic
communication is occurring in official circles. But in too many instances, what
has been put into practice seems to emphasize perception management, information
operations, and propaganda more than the arts of public diplomacy.'
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_...eldt/index.html
SEE ALSO
http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2007/08/america-neck-de.html
http://polizeros.com/2007/08/20/america-ne...war-and-losing/

DIPLOMACY EFFORT REACHES OUT TO MUSLIM YOUTHS: STRIVES TO CREATE POSITIVE
VIEWS OF UNITED STATES - FARAH STOCKMAN (BOSTON GLOBE, AUGUST 18): The State
Department is launching what it says will be the first comprehensive public
diplomacy effort targeting children, hoping to shape the views of Muslim youths
ages 8 to 14 with a series of summer camps and enrichment programs designed to
counter negative images of the United States. The new initiative is the
brainchild of Karen Hughes, a confidante of President Bush who has become the
most powerful public-diplomacy czar in decades. Hughes has argued forcefully
that the US government must reach out to children younger than age 14, a
population the State Department has largely neglected because they are too young
for traditional exchange programs. Hughes modeled her program for children in
the Muslim world on American summer camps and intended to use the term "Camp
Friendship." But after critics said people abroad might associate "camp" with
reeducation camps or even the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, the State
Department switched to calling them "youth enrichment programs."
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washingt..._muslim_youths/

SEE ALSO
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/91000.pdf

CONDI, KAREN AND CAL - CHRISTOPHER DICKEY (SHADOWLAND JOURNAL, AUGUST 17):
The Bush administration has never been much for public diplomacy. Its audience
is always the American public, and if the rest of the world doesn't respond,
then there must be something fundamentally wrong with the rest of the world. But
the most recent effort to win the hearts and minds of young Muslims is surreal.
http://christopherdickey.blogspot.com/2007...y-baseball.html


YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING - JONATHAN SALEM BASKIN (DIMBULB, AUGUST 20):
"[D]iplomacy isn't about thinking, any more than branding is. It's about
behavior. ... Finding ways to deliver such behaviors, and ways to get people
involved in them, is the communications/branding/public diplomacy challenge of
our Times. We lose the debate if all we do is talk. ... No stack of clippings
at the State Department featuring Cal [Ripken], Michelle Kwan (another important
diplomat), or similarly-staged events for their boss, Karen Hughes (a party
player who got the plum travel-the-world gig), will change the way anybody
lives. They stay focused on image and reputation, and wholly ignorant of the
behavioral reality from which those attributes emerge.
http://dimbulb.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/...-got-to-be.html

KAREN HUGHES SCREWS WITH THE MUSLIMS AGAIN TO MAKE THE WORLD SAFE FOR
BASEBALL AND BOSS BUSH ?(GRUMPY LION: SNARLING LITTLE TIDBITS...) : "Yeah,
Karen, teach 'em baseball. It's a great lesson in American hypocrisy all by
itself. And they can play while they dodge bullets and bombs made in the good
ol' USA. But Karen, you might not want to walk around over there without a bunch
of troops and gunships protecting you. Some of those kids are pretty pissed off.
Their folks, too."
http://grumpylion.wordpress.com/2007/08/18...-for-boss-bush/


MUSLIM PR ROCKER (ROCK THE TRUTH, AUGUST 18): "You won't win over people by
dropping bombs on their heads, killing them, imprisoning them, torturing them,
and all the other 'wonderful' things 'liberation' has given the Iraqis. This
Hughes lady is just spewing HOT FART MIST, folks!!!"
http://rockthetruth.blogspot.com/2007/08/muslim-pr.html

WHILE YOU WERE OUT: A LIGHTER, SUMMERY SIDE OF PUBLIC DIPLOMACY - PAUL D.
KRETKOWSKI (BEACON, AUGUST 20): Cal Ripken is now working for State as a
"special sports envoy." The legendary Orioles iron man can be expected to
connect nicely with audiences in East Asia and Latin America, where baseball and
its heroes carry a lot of weight. His work ethic and self-deprecating view of
himself are exactly what the U.S. should hope to project abroad, so good call by
Undersecretary Hughes. Los Angeles's Ozomatli, has been touring on State's
behalf and performed in Tunisia, Jordan and Egypt in July. This is a much
gutsier call by State and presumably by Karen Hughes; although Ozomatli
exemplifies L.A.'s multicultural melting pot and plays in well-known Latin,
African and American musical styles, some of their lyrics talk about American
racism and fears of a coming race war.
http://softpowerbeacon.blogspot.com/2007/0...u-were-out.html

KAREN HUGHES HAS DIFFICULT JOB IN 'WAGING PEACE' : THE TEXAN IS WORKING TO
CHANGE THE MINDS OF THOSE WHO DISLIKE U.S. - PATTY REINERT (HOUSTON CHRONICLE,
AUGUST 19): See Hughes out in the world, bobbing her head to the beat. See her
shaking hands, hugging toddlers, kissing babies. She's been doing this nonstop
for two years. This is her job now: to change the hearts and minds of those who
hate us ? one at a time, if she has to. ''I call it waging peace," she said. At
home, Hughes' critics deride her as a ''diplomacy czarina" spinning a thin
message of friendship while the Bush administration clings to an unpopular war,
flouts the Geneva Conventions and struggles to rub out the stains of Abu Ghraib,
Haditha and Guantanamo. Hughes' supporters, however, credit her for making
revolutionary changes at the State Department in the way U.S. embassies respond
more quickly to anti-American news reports, communicate more effectively with
the public and engage younger people in hopes of countering the influence of
violent extremists in a post-9/11 world.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/5067251.html

Q&A WITH KAREN HUGHES IN LIMA, PERU: BUSH CONFIDANT HAPPY WITH HER CHOICES
(HOUSTON CHRONICLE, AUGUST 19)
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/news/5067187.html

DOD PRESS BRIEFING WITH DR. WARD, CAPT. BOYNTON, MR. LEITCH ON USNS COMFORTS
FOUR-MONTH, 12-COUNTRY HUMANITARIAN MISSION TO SOUTH AMERICA, CENTRAL AMERICA
AND THE CARIBBEAN FROM THE PENTAGON BRIEFING ROOM, ARLINGTON VA. NEWS
TRANSCRIPT (OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (PUBLIC AFFAIRS), U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE): Robert Leitch, who is the director of operation Project
Hope aboard the Comfort: 'I consider myself to be part of a huge experiment.
It's called medical diplomacy and it was elaborated to me last week by the
undersecretary of State, Karen Hughes, when she visited -- a charming and
persuasive lady, and I understand entirely what the idea is.'
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/tra...anscriptid=4024

DWINDLING TEXAS POSSE NEARING LAST ROUNDUP KEN HERMAN (STAR-TELEGRAM.COM,
AUGUST 19): Karen Hughes roams the globe trying to make the US more popular.
http://www.star-telegram.com/national_news/story/206772.html

GUANTANAMO BAY CHIEF PROSECUTOR DEFENDS MILITARY COMMISSIONS THE YALE LAW
JOURNAL - IN DEFENSE OF GUANTANAMO BAY - DAVID J. BETZ (PO BETZ, AUGUST 20):
"Clearly the legal issues surrounding the Guantanamo Bay camp are complex. I'd
put myself in the camp of those who think whatever the legality Guantanamo has
become a massive liability. (I wonder if just constituting field tribunals of
two captains and a major in the field and shooting those judged unlawful
combatants would have caused less damage. Bad public diplomacy to be sure; but
straightforward, cheap and legal.)"
http://wimw-dbetz.blogspot.com/2007/08/gua...or-defends.html

AMERICA'S NEW AMBASSADOR TO HANOI CONFRONTS A GROWING CRACKDOWN ON HUMAN
RIGHTS - PATRICK TAN (ASIA SENTINEL, AUGUST 20): In his trip to the US,
Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet said 'education is the strongest link in
bringing our nations closer together." On the American side, educational and
cultural exchange programs have long been a cornerstone of public diplomacy.
http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=c...9&Itemid=31

MONEY AND POLITICS MIX AS MOSCOW RADIO STATION DUMPS BBC - MICHAEL HEDGES
(FOLLOWTHEMEDIA.COM, AUGUST 18): Mixing media, politics and money is common in
Russia, as it is everywhere. The lesson for international broadcasters like the
BBC and governments engaged in public diplomacy is simple: the cost has gone up.
And there?s always the internet.
http://followthemedia.com/pubserve/bigradio18082007.htm

FRIGHTENING TO THINK OF U.S. TURNING INWARD - MARK TRAHANT (SEATTLE
POST-INTELLIGENCER, AUGUST 17): Our obsession with security is turning us into
an island; it's more difficult for Americans to travel around the world and for
people from other nations to come here.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/328058_trahant19.html

FORTRESS AMERICA - JANE C. LOEFFLER (FOREIGN POLICY, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER): A
citadel is rising on the banks of the Tigris. There, on the river's western
side, the United States is building the world?s largest embassy. Why is the
United States building something so large, so expensive, and so disconnected
from the realities of Iraq? In a country shattered by war, what is the meaning
of this place?
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/users/login.p...tory_id=%203936
FULL ARTICLE AVAILABLE ONLY TO SUBSCRIBERS

U.S. TAXPAYERS FORK OUT $1.6 BILLION FOR PROPAGANDA -Y TUMERICA TUMERICA
(OPEDNEWS, AUGUST 18): A 2006 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report
reveals what we already know?that the Bush administration has been buying news.
That is, federally funded public relations contracts to report "news" that
spouts a predetermined agenda written by the Bush administration -- all while
the networks and other agencies that air the instanews disclose nothing about
the source of the information. What we did not know was how enormous the expense
was, and why the media, who may also be on the government payroll, are not
making huge efforts to publicize this finding (or maybe we know that too).
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_tu...ayers_fork_.htm

THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE: THE GOAL OF HASBARA IS TO DISSEMINATE GOOD NEWS
ABOUT ISRAEL, LARGELY INDEPENDENT OF WHETHER THE NEWS IS TRUE OR NOT - JONATHAN
COOK (GUARDIAN, AUGUST 20): Israel's leaders have turned the small community of
Jews in Tehran into pawns in a struggle to persuade the world that Iran is a
genocidal threat to world Jewry.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jonath...da_machine.html

HEZBOLLAH LAUNCHES PROPAGANDA VIDEO GAME DAVID PRICE (PC ADVISOR, AUGUST
17): Fans of Islamist propaganda and poor-quality graphics will be pleased to
hear that Hezbollah has launched a sequel to its Special Force video game.
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/blogs/index.cfm...09&blogid=4

CIA, FBI COMPUTERS USED FOR WIKIPEDIA EDITS - RANDALL MIKKELSEN, REUTERS
(WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 16)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7081601727.html

IS WIKIPEDIA BECOMING A HUB FOR PROPAGANDA? TRACKING WEBSITE SHOWS THOUSANDS
OF CHANGES TO ARTICLES ORIGINATED FROM FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OFFICES - DAVID
GEORGE-COSH (GLOBE AND MAIL, AUGUST 16)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...Technology/home

GERMAN EXPERT ON NAZI FILMS AND PROPAGANDA (DW-WORLD.DE, AUGUST 12) Film
expert Gerd Albrecht: 'The first and foremost aim of National Socialist films
was to entertain. They were intended to be escapist and offer reassurance in the
face of everyday hardships. The further that these films were removed from
reality, the better they functioned in National Socialist terms. Almost all
references to political life and the everyday life of the viewers were missing.
Any critical reference to contemporary reality was forbidden. Only a fraction of
the films had direct propagandistic aims.'
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2728383,00.html

August 16, 2007
Backlash Over Book on Policy for Israel
By PATRICIA COHEN
http://www.nytimes.com

“The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” is not even in bookstores, but already anxieties have surfaced about the backlash it is stirring, with several institutions backing away from holding events with the authors.

John J. Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, were not totally surprised by the reaction to their work. An article last spring in the London Review of Books outlining their argument — that a powerful pro-Israel lobby has a pernicious influence on American policy — set off a firestorm as charges of anti-Semitism, shoddy scholarship and censorship ricocheted among prominent academics, writers, policymakers and advocates. In the book, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and embargoed until Sept. 4, they elaborate on and update their case.

“Now that the cold war is over, Israel has become a strategic liability for the United States,” they write. “Yet no aspiring politician is going to say so in public or even raise the possibility” because the pro-Israel lobby is so powerful. They credit the lobby with shutting down talks with Syria and with moderates in Iran, preventing the United States from condemning Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon and with not pushing the Israelis hard enough to come to an agreement with the Palestinians. They also discuss Christian Zionists and the issue of dual loyalty.

Opponents are prepared. Also being released on Sept. 4 is “The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control” (Palgrave Macmillan) by Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. The notion that pro-Israel groups “have anything like a uniform agenda, and that U.S. policy on Israel and the Middle East is the result of their influence, is simply wrong,” George P. Shultz, a former secretary of state, says in the foreword. “This is a conspiracy theory pure and simple, and scholars at great universities should be ashamed to promulgate it.”

The subject will certainly prompt furious debate, though not at the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a Jewish cultural center in Washington and three organizations in Chicago. They have all turned down or canceled events with the authors, mentioning unease with the controversy or the format.

The authors were particularly disturbed by the Chicago council’s decision, since plans for that event were complete and both authors have frequently spoken there before. The two sent a four-page letter to 94 members of the council’s board detailing what happened. “On July 24, Council President Marshall Bouton phoned one of us (Mearsheimer) and informed him that he was canceling the event,” and that his decision “was based on the need ‘to protect the institution.’ He said that he had a serious ‘political problem,’ because there were individuals who would be angry if he gave us a venue to speak, and that this would have serious negative consequences for the council. ‘This one is so hot,’ Marshall maintained.”

Mr. Mearsheimer later said of Mr. Bouton, “I had the sense that this phone call pained him deeply.”

Mr. Bouton was out of town, but Rachel Bronson, vice president for programs and studies at the council, said, “Whenever we have topics that are particularly controversial or sensitive, we try to make sure someone from another point of view is there.” In this case, she said, there was not sufficient time to set up that sort of panel before the council calendar went out. There are no plans to have the authors speak at a later date, however.

“One of the points we make in the book is that this is a subject that’s very hard to talk about,” Mr. Walt said in an interview from his office in Cambridge. “Organizations, no matter how strong their commitment to free speech, don’t want to schedule something that’s likely to cause controversy.”

After the cancellation Roberta Rubin, owner of the Book Stall, a store in Winnetka, Ill., offered to help find a site for the authors. She said she tried a Jewish community center and two large downtown clubs but they all told her “they can’t afford to bring in somebody ‘too controversial.’ ” She added that even she was concerned about inviting authors who might offend customers.

Some of the planned sites, like the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, a cultural center in Washington, would have been host of an event if Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt appeared with opponents, said Esther Foer, the executive director.

Mr. Walt said, “Part of the game is to portray us as so extreme that we have to be balanced by someone from the ‘other side.’ ” Besides, he added, when you’re promoting a book, you want to present your ideas without appearing with someone who is trying to discredit you.

As for City University, Aoibheann Sweeney, director of the Center for the Humanities, said, “I looked at the introduction, and I didn’t feel that the book was saying things differently enough” from the original article. Ms. Sweeney, who said she had consulted with others at City University, acknowledged that they had begun planning for an event in September moderated by J. J. Goldberg, the editor of The Forward, a leading American Jewish weekly, but once he chose not to participate, she decided to pass. Mr. Goldberg, who was traveling in Israel, said in a telephone interview that “there should be more of an open debate.” But appearing alone with the authors would have given the impression that The Forward was presenting the event and thereby endorsing the book, he said, and he did not want to do that. A discussion with other speakers of differing views would have been different, he added.

“I don’t think the book is very good,” said Mr. Goldberg, who said he read a copy of the manuscript about six weeks ago. “They haven’t really done original research. They haven’t talked to the people who are being lobbied or those doing the lobbying.”

Overall Mr. Mearsheimer said he thinks the response to their views will be “less ferocious than last time, because it’s becoming increasingly difficult to make the argument in a convincing way that anyone who criticizes the lobby or Israel is an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew.” Both Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt pointed to the growing dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq, criticism of Israel’s war in Lebanon and the publication of former President Jimmy Carter’s book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” as making it somewhat easier to criticize Israel openly.

“This isn’t a cabal; this isn’t anything secretive,” Mr. Walt said.

American Jews who lobby on Israel’s behalf are not all that different from the National Rifle Association, the anti-tax movement, AARP or the American Petroleum Institute, he said, “They just happen to be really good at it.”

“It’s the way American politics work,” he continued. “Sometimes powerful interest groups get what they want, and it’s not good for the country as a whole. I would say that about the farm lobby and about the Cuba lobby.”

To the authors, dual loyalty is as American as Presidents’ Day sales and “Law & Order” reruns. As Mr. Mearsheimer explained: “People are allowed to have multiple loyalties. They have religious loyalties, loyalty to family, to an organization and you can have loyalty to other countries. Someone who is Irish can have a loyalty to Ireland.”

“The problem,” he said “is when you raise the subject of dual loyalty, many people tend to think of it in the context of the old anti-Semitic canard and making the argument that Jews are disloyal to the U.S.”

In print and in interviews both authors have stressed that they hold no animus towards Israel or Jews. “We think Israeli policy is fundamentally flawed,” Mr. Mearsheimer said, “just as we think American policy is fundamentally flawed.”

The debate about the Mearsheimer/Walt book continues. See below. Their book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy will appear next month.

----- Original Message -----
From: James Morris
To: justicequest2000@yahoo.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 7:57 AM
Subject: '60 Minutes' refusing to do a segment on the soon to be released Mearsheimer/Walt book

Subject: Re: '60 Minutes' refusing to do a segment on the soon to be released Mearsheimer/Walt book
To: patcohen@nytimes.com
CC: "Kuzmarov, Sara" <KuzmarovS@cbsnews.com>, mbouton@thechicagocouncil.org, crose@bloomberg.net, yvega@bloomberg.net, charles.gibson@abc.com, brian.williams@nbc.com, mike_kirk@wgbh.org, newshour@pbs.org, jlehrer@newshour.org, jwoodruff@newshour.org, rsuarez@newshour.org, gifill@newshour.org, nightly@nbc.com, mfugo@thechicagocouncil.org, tbowman@npr.org, jnortham@npr.org, vohara@npr.org, Send an Instant Message seelyek@yahoo.com, mkelly@npr.org
Dear Ms. Cohen,

Thank you for your article which appeared in the New York Times today. You might be interested in the recent email exchange (included after your article below) that I had with Sara Kuzmarov (an associate producer in the office of Jeff Fager who is the executive producer for '60 Minutes') as '60 Minutes' is also refusing to cover the Mearsheimer/Walt book after it is released next month.

With kindest regards,

James Morris

August 16, 2007
Backlash Over Book on Policy for Israel
By PATRICIA COHEN
http://www.nytimes.com

“The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” is not even in bookstores, but already anxieties have surfaced about the backlash it is stirring, with several institutions backing away from holding events with the authors.

John J. Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, were not totally surprised by the reaction to their work. An article last spring in the London Review of Books outlining their argument — that a powerful pro-Israel lobby has a pernicious influence on American policy — set off a firestorm as charges of anti-Semitism, shoddy scholarship and censorship ricocheted among prominent academics, writers, policymakers and advocates. In the book, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and embargoed until Sept. 4, they elaborate on and update their case.

“Now that the cold war is over, Israel has become a strategic liability for the United States,” they write. “Yet no aspiring politician is going to say so in public or even raise the possibility” because the pro-Israel lobby is so powerful. They credit the lobby with shutting down talks with Syria and with moderates in Iran, preventing the United States from condemning Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon and with not pushing the Israelis hard enough to come to an agreement with the Palestinians. They also discuss Christian Zionists and the issue of dual loyalty.

Opponents are prepared. Also being released on Sept. 4 is “The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control” (Palgrave Macmillan) by Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. The notion that pro-Israel groups “have anything like a uniform agenda, and that U.S. policy on Israel and the Middle East is the result of their influence, is simply wrong,” George P. Shultz, a former secretary of state, says in the foreword. “This is a conspiracy theory pure and simple, and scholars at great universities should be ashamed to promulgate it.”

The subject will certainly prompt furious debate, though not at the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a Jewish cultural center in Washington and three organizations in Chicago. They have all turned down or canceled events with the authors, mentioning unease with the controversy or the format.

The authors were particularly disturbed by the Chicago council’s decision, since plans for that event were complete and both authors have frequently spoken there before. The two sent a four-page letter to 94 members of the council’s board detailing what happened. “On July 24, Council President Marshall Bouton phoned one of us (Mearsheimer) and informed him that he was canceling the event,” and that his decision “was based on the need ‘to protect the institution.’ He said that he had a serious ‘political problem,’ because there were individuals who would be angry if he gave us a venue to speak, and that this would have serious negative consequences for the council. ‘This one is so hot,’ Marshall maintained.”

Mr. Mearsheimer later said of Mr. Bouton, “I had the sense that this phone call pained him deeply.”

Mr. Bouton was out of town, but Rachel Bronson, vice president for programs and studies at the council, said, “Whenever we have topics that are particularly controversial or sensitive, we try to make sure someone from another point of view is there.” In this case, she said, there was not sufficient time to set up that sort of panel before the council calendar went out. There are no plans to have the authors speak at a later date, however.

“One of the points we make in the book is that this is a subject that’s very hard to talk about,” Mr. Walt said in an interview from his office in Cambridge. “Organizations, no matter how strong their commitment to free speech, don’t want to schedule something that’s likely to cause controversy.”

After the cancellation Roberta Rubin, owner of the Book Stall, a store in Winnetka, Ill., offered to help find a site for the authors. She said she tried a Jewish community center and two large downtown clubs but they all told her “they can’t afford to bring in somebody ‘too controversial.’ ” She added that even she was concerned about inviting authors who might offend customers.

Some of the planned sites, like the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, a cultural center in Washington, would have been host of an event if Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt appeared with opponents, said Esther Foer, the executive director.

Mr. Walt said, “Part of the game is to portray us as so extreme that we have to be balanced by someone from the ‘other side.’ ” Besides, he added, when you’re promoting a book, you want to present your ideas without appearing with someone who is trying to discredit you.

As for City University, Aoibheann Sweeney, director of the Center for the Humanities, said, “I looked at the introduction, and I didn’t feel that the book was saying things differently enough” from the original article. Ms. Sweeney, who said she had consulted with others at City University, acknowledged that they had begun planning for an event in September moderated by J. J. Goldberg, the editor of The Forwa