A Partisan Paradigm Shift?
by Will Wilkinson

Will Wilkinson is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute and author of "In Pursuit of Happiness Research: Is It Reliable? What Does It Imply for Policy?"



A New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll released at the end of June suggested that young Americans may be leaning "left" relative to the rest of the population. The 17- to 29-year-old group was especially inclined to support universal government health insurance, gay marriage and vote Democratic in 2008. Does this portend an overall leftward shift in America's political future?

This sort of question is perennially confusing, because in politics, "left" and "right" just won't stand still.

For example, before 1967, Jeb Bush, who served as a conservative Republican governor for eight years in Florida, would have been tempting legal action had he married his Latina wife Columba in their home state. Conservatives in 16 states, including Florida, kept bans on interracial marriage on the books until the landmark Loving v. Virginia decision ruled them illegal.

Today, no conservative would dare speak out against such unions. And while opposition to gay marriage is now a widespread conservative position, that opposition is eroding. In a generation or two, antagonism toward gay marriage may be no more a conservative position than opposition to interracial marriage is today. Over time, the term conservative has come to stand for an increasingly permissive set of views.

Similarly, while many liberals continue to push for government control of health care and for tax increases for the wealthy, mostly we have seen increasing, if grudging, acceptance of limited government, free markets and open trade.

No serious liberal politician today threatens to go back to the price controls, regulatory burden and 70 percent top marginal tax rates of the 1970s. Most liberal economic populists today are probably well to the "right" of Richard Nixon.

As my colleague Brink Lindsey argues in his new book, "The Age of Abundance," the shifting parameters of left and right in American politics amount to a trend toward a relatively libertarian center.

This doesn't mean that polarizing far-left and far-right politicians can't run winning campaigns, it just means that positions on the ideological continuum are now closer to both social and economic nonintervention than they used to be.

Increasing economic abundance is the key. As University of Michigan political scientist Ronald Inglehart has shown, drawing on the massive World Values Survey, people in societies around the globe become increasingly focused on the meaningfulness of work and consumption, and less preoccupied with basic material security as wealth becomes ever more assured.

This tends to breed a sense of open exploration and tolerance that are corrosive to traditional social norms, but also a distrust of established authorities, including government. Widespread wealth creates both a sense of psychological safety and an expectation that we should get what we want, creating a demand for personalized gospels heavier on salvation than self-denial, and a willingness to buck convention when it chafes.

Not only do 44 percent of young adults think gay couples ought to be able to marry, compared with just 28 percent of all adults, but, according to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, one in five 18- to 25-year-old individuals say they have no religious affiliation, are agnostic or are atheist -- twice that of the previous generation.

Can this same shift explain apparently increasing comfort with lower taxes and less-regulated markets? Maybe a little, but my best guess is that the experience and expectation of continuous economic growth creates such an aversion to stagnation that politicians who promote popular policies that slow growth are punished at the polls -- even by economically liberal voters.

This might explain why taxes stay low, despite plenty of "soak-the-rich" rhetoric, and why politicians provide fewer restrictions on free trade and immigration than voters often say they want.

In a dynamic world where roiling change is the rule, yesterday's ideological categories fit like a 3-year-old's clothes fit on a 4-year-old child. Politicians here and there may continue to win office by tacking hard right or hard left.

But as the limits of left and right are redefined by our experience of growth and change, a more consistently "socially liberal, economically conservative" politics may creep up on us largely unbidden.

This article appeared in Press-Enterprise on July 21, 2007.

Time for an Independent Counsel Alberto Gonzales's testimony before Congress: a criminal investigation is warranted
by Prof. Marjorie Cohn
Global Research, July 30, 2007

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Congressional leaders are calling for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate possible perjury charges against Alberto Gonzales. As we saw during the Watergate scandal, the executive branch cannot be counted on to investigate itself.

Watergate led to the enactment of the Ethics in Government Act. Three years after Richard Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment, President Jimmy Carter asked Congress to pass a law authorizing the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute unlawful acts by high government officials. The bill empowered the attorney general to conduct a preliminary 90-day investigation when serious allegations arose involving a high government official. President Carter, who signed the bill in 1978, declared, “I believe that this act will help to restore confidence in the integrity of our government.”



Under the act, the attorney general could drop the investigation if he determined it was unsupported by the evidence. But if he found some merit to the charges, he was required to apply to a three-judge panel of federal court judges who would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate, prosecute, and issue a report.



The referral clause of the independent counsel statute provided, "An independent counsel shall advise the House of Representatives of any substantial and credible information which such independent counsel receives, in carrying out the independent counsel’s responsibilities under this chapter, that may constitute grounds for an impeachment.” But Congress, reacting to Kenneth Starr's witch hunt which led to Bill Clinton's impeachment, allowed the independent counsel statute to expire by its own terms in 1999.



With the death of the independent counsel statute, the pendulum had swung back. By failing to renew the act, Congress returned the investigation of high government officials to pre-Watergate policies. Once again, the power to appoint an independent counsel would rest with the executive branch, that is, the attorney general. The Department of Justice drafted a set of regulations to guide future investigations.



Now the attorney general, not a three-judge panel, has the authority to appoint and remove special counsel to investigate top government officials. He exercises power over indictments and other prosecutorial actions, and the special counsel remains accountable to the attorney general. He can block “any investigative or prosecutorial step” he deems “inappropriate or unwarranted."



Justice Department regulations call for the appointment of an outside special counsel when (1) a criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted, (2) the investigation or prosecution of that person or matter by a United States Attorney's Office or litigating division of the Department of Justice would present a conflict of interest for the Department, and (3) under the circumstances it would be in the public interest to appoint an outside Special Counsel to assume responsibility for the matter. When these three conditions are satisfied, the attorney general must select a special counsel from outside the government. (28 C.F.R. 600.1, 600.3 (2007).)



In light of material inconsistencies in Alberto Gonzales's testimony before Congress, a criminal investigation is warranted. Gonzales, who is suspected of committing perjury, has a conflict of interest. The public interest requires that the highest prosecutor in the land be brought to justice.



Congress should appoint a permanent special counsel to investigate and advise Congress about misconduct by high government officials, beginning with Alberto Gonzales. That procedure should lead the House Judiciary Committee to initiate impeachment proceedings against Gonzales.






http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...va&aid=6442

STATE DEPARTMENT SEEKS TO REACH OUT TO MUSLIMS - ALINA L. ROMANOWSKI, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE (LETTER TO THE EDITOR, WALL STREET JOURNAL, JULY 27): “The State Department is working aggressively to expand America's engagement with Muslim populations around the world. .... We believe that NGOs can play an important role in our outreach efforts, and we continually seek ways to engage and involve them.”
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PAKISTAN'S FUTURE: BUILDING DEMOCRACY, OR FUELING EXTREMISM? R. NICHOLAS BURNS, UNDER SECRETARY FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS, STATEMENT BEFORE THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS – (REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION BLOG, JULY 26): Burns: “Our public diplomacy programs in Pakistan disseminate our message to the widest possible audience and expose influential people and institutions to U.S. policies, views, and values. ... But it is our concrete assistance to average Pakistanis that has been the best form of public diplomacy.”
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RECONSTRUCTION TEAMS HELP IRAQIS CONNECT WITH CENTRAL GOVERNMENT - GERRY J. GILMORE (AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE, JULY 26): The 25 provincial reconstruction teams (PRT) operating across Iraq are showing local authorities how to work with the country's central government to obtain needed services. These organizations help establish stability in Iraq by building capacity in areas that include public diplomacy.
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AFTER THE NEXT 9/11 - MARTY KAPLAN (HUFFINGTON POST, JULY 29): “I wish ... that jihadi malaise, or Obamian public diplomacy, or whatever other cure for global hatred you favor, could conquer the evil that George W. Bush pretends he can deliver us from. But ... an act of domestic terrorism is inevitable.”
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CANDIDATE ‘SURROGATES’ TALK FOREIGN POLICY - MICHAEL FALCONE (NEW YORK TIMES, JULY 25): Adam Smith, a Democrat of Washington State, said Senator Barack Obama, when he stated that he would be willing to talk to leaders of nations hostile to the United States during his first term, “was saying was, we have to be confident in our diplomacy.” Smith added: “We’re afraid to talk to Hugo Chavez? What, we’re going to accidentally say, ‘Oh no, you’re right, we’re wrong, we’re sorry, we are a horrible country,’ if we get in a room with him? We’re that afraid of public diplomacy?”
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WHY THE MUSLIM AND WESTERN CULTURES WILL CONTINUE TO CLASH [REVIEW OF “THE ENEMY AT HOME” BY DINESH D’SOUZA] - GARY ATER (AMERICAN CHRONICLE, JULY 26): After US Under Secretary of State Karen Hughes said in Saudia Arabia in 2005 that women should be “free and equal participants in society” and that being able to drive an automobile was “an important part of my freedom,” she was surprised her female audience didn’t feel oppressed by Saudi driving laws prohibiting them from driving an automobile. Like most well-to-do-women, they all had their own drivers. They didn’t understand, “Why we should want to learn to drive?” They also did not see “working outside the home” as being liberating. “What is the joy of going to work and being bossed around by your boss? Why not stay at home where you can boss around your own domestic servants?” All in all, they felt a declaration of freedom by not having to go to work.
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MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: THE NEW PEACE ENVOY SUITS ISRAEL AND NOBODY ELSE - KHALED AMAYREH (AL-AHRAM, JULY 26 – AUGUST 1): Israel wants to use Tony Blair -- now a peace envoy to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict -- as another propaganda ambassador in the service of Israeli public diplomacy for the purpose of diverting attention from the real issue, namely the 40-year-old occupation.
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INTELLIGENT INTELLIGENCE - ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE (WASHINGTON TIMES, JULY 29): At the end of World War II, there were 2,500 U.S. foreign correspondents; today, less than 250. The global Tower of Babel babble includes 26,000 radio stations; 21,000 TV stations; 108 million Web sites; 75 million blogs; 56 million MySpace squatters; 100 million hits a day on YouTube; 8,000 news and information portals; 200 million photos on flickr.com, increasing by 5,000 per minute; 45,000 daily podcasts, and 2.5 million Web-enabled devices. The pipe input into the Internet doubles every six months.
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ARMY PRIVATE DISCLOSES HE IS NEW REPUBLIC'S BAGHDAD DIARIST - HOWARD KURTZ (WASHINGTON POST JULY 27): The New Republic's anonymous "Baghdad Diarist" identified himself yesterday as Scott Thomas Beauchamp, an Army private in Iraq, and disputed as "maddening" accusations that he had invented his accounts of cruelty by American soldiers.
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MAYBERRY TESTIMONY ON KIDNAPPING OF WORKERS FOR US EMBASSY BAGHDAD – JUAN COLE (INFORMED COMMENT: THOUGHTS ON THE MIDDLE EAST, HISTORY, AND RELIGION, JULY 29): ”I mentioned story the other day briefly about allegations that the Kuwaiti contracting firm building the US embassy in Baghdad has Shanghaied workers, bringing them to the Middle East under false pretences and depriving them of their passports -- In essence, of kidnapping them. The video testimony below by medic Rory Mayberry is much more powerful than a newspaper report could be. He talks about a gun being used to silence protesting workers just told they are really going to Baghdad!”
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THE FIRST VICTIMS OF AMERICA’S MEGA-EMBASSY – TRUTHDIG (JULY 27)
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BUSH ADMINISTRATION UTTERLY CALLOUS TOWARD IRAQI REFUGEES - AMITABH PAL (PROGRESSIVE, JULY 28/COMMON DREAMS)
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IRAQ FAILS TO TAKE OVER U.S. PROJECTS: RECONSTRUCTION EFFORTS AREN'T BEING ADEQUATELY FUNDED OR MAINTAINED, A WASHINGTON AUDIT FINDS - LESLIE HOFFECKER (LOS ANGELES TIMES, JULY 30)
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INTERIOR MINISTRY MIRRORS CHAOS OF A FRACTURED IRAQ: THE NERVE CENTER OF THE NATION'S POLICE IS NOT SO MUCH A GOVERNMENT AGENCY AS AN 11-STORY POWDER KEG OF FACTIONS - NED PARKER (LOS ANGELES TIMES, JULY 30)
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IRAQI GOVERNMENT IN DEEPEST CRISIS: US AND IRAQI OFFICIALS ARE TRYING TO PREVENT COMPLETE DISINTEGRATION - SAM DAGHER (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR,
JULY 27)
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ARM CHAIR GENERALS HELP SHAPE SURGE IN IRAQ - ROWAN SCARBOROUGH, (EXAMINER, JULY 25): When it comes to the troop surge in Iraq, a bunch of arm chair generals in Washington are influencing the Bush Administration as much as the Joint Chiefs or theater commanders. A group of military experts at the American Enterprise Institute, concerned that the U.S. was on the verge of a calamitous failure in Iraq, almost single handedly convinced the White House to change its strategy.
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WHO REALLY TOOK OVER DURING THAT COLONOSCOPY - FRANK RICH (NEW YORK, JULY 29): General Petraeus may well be, as many say, the brightest and bravest we have. But that doesn’t account for why he has been invested by the White House and its last-ditch apologists with such singular power over the war.
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A WAR WE JUST MIGHT WIN - BY MICHAEL E. O’HANLON AND KENNETH M. POLLACK (NEW YORK TIMES, JULY 30): Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. A surprise is how well the coalition’s new Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams are working.
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POLITICAL EQUATIONS -- IRAQ MATH: FROM ONE, MAKE THREE - HELENE COOPER (NEW YORK TIMES, JULY 29): Senator Biden’s so-called soft-partition plan -- a variation of the blueprint dividing up Bosnia in 1995 -- calls for dividing Iraq into three semi-autonomous regions, held together by a central government. There would be a loose Kurdistan, a loose Shiastan and a loose Sunnistan, all under a big, if weak, Iraq umbrella.
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IT'S HOW WE PULL BACK - DAVID IGNATIUS (WASHINGTON POST, JULY 29): The United States is on its way out of Iraq eventually, but it matters powerfully how we disengage.
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IRAQ WITHDRAWAL: FIVE DIFFICULT QUESTIONS - BILL MARSH (NEW YORK TIMES, JULY 29): Getting out of a war requires as much planning as getting into one. After more than four years of buildup, the American footprint in Iraq is enormous. There are more than 75 major bases: Some have their own retail stores, with products from magazines to luxury goods like large-screen televisions for purchase by soldiers.
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THE WITHDRAWAL FOLLIES: THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION PLANTS ITS FLAG IN THE FUTURE - TOM ENGELHARDT (TOMDISPATCH, JULY 26): It's time to bring not only the word, but the idea of withdrawal in from the cold.
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BUSH'S TURKISH GAMBLE - ROBERT D. NOVAK (WASHINGTON POST, JULY 30): High-level U.S. officials are working with their Turkish counterparts on a joint military operation to suppress Kurdish guerrillas and capture their leaders. Through covert activity, their goal is to forestall Turkey from invading Iraq.
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A TIMELY VICTORY IN TURKEY: RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN SHOWS THAT DEMOCRACY AND MODERATE ISLAM CAN BE A GOOD MIX – EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON POST, JULY 27): The causes of Middle East democracy and moderate Islam should get a badly needed boost from last weekend's parliamentary elections in Turkey. The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AK Party, which is led by the religious, liberal and pro-Western Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, won a convincing victory, dealing a rebuff not only to leftist and nationalist opponents but also to the Turkish military.
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LIBERAL TURKEY? - SONER CAGAPTAY (WALL STREET JOURNAL, JULY 30): The new AKP government can prove its liberal credentials in its second turn in power by desisting from political illiberalism and anti-Westernism. This is a chance Turkey cannot afford to miss.
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U.S. VS. IRAN: COLD WAR, TOO - ROBIN WRIGHT (WASHINGTON POST, JULY 29): In the new Cold War, the United States and Iran are using eerily familiar tools to undermine each other. Over the past 18 months, inter alia, Washington has allocated $75 million for this year and $108 million for next year to promote democracy in Iran, and reportedly begun covert operations that included disinformation campaigns and currency manipulation.
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THE COLD WAR BETWEEN WASHINGTON AND TEHRAN - NOAM CHOMSKY (ZMAG.ORG, JULY 28/COMMON DREAMS): “Despite the saber-rattling, it is, I suspect, unlikely that the Bush administration will attack Iran.”
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HOW TO MANAGE ASSAD - JON B. ALTERMAN (WASHINGTON POST, JULY 27): If the U.S. strategy were to "manage" Syrian actions with the confidence that comes from overwhelming U.S. strength, the possibilities to “fix” relations would be broad.
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THE PAKISTAN DILEMMA: THE PERILS OF A PRECARIOUS ANTITERROR ALLY – HOT TOPIC (OPINION JOURNAL FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL PAGE, JULY 28): What the U.S. can do is nudge Pakistan’s president Musharraf toward a compromise with his non-radical opposition that would restore genuine democracy while strengthening his ability to challenge the jihadists.
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GETTING BIN LADEN UP A TREE: THE US CAN BETTER CORNER AL QAEDA IN PAKISTAN IF IT HELPS EASE THAT NATION'S RETURN TO DEMOCRACY - EDITORIAL (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, JULY 30)
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MUSHARRAF'S BIG CHANCE – ED ROYCE (WASHINGTON TIMES, JULY 29): This recent upsurge in violence in Pakistan may finally force Mr. Musharraf to take a hard-line stance against radicals. His not doing so may precipitate a U.S. tactical intervention over the Afghan border to quell cross border raids on the Taliban. This is an eventuality neither Mr. Musharraf nor the U.S. would like to see. (Ed Royce, California Republican, is ranking member of the U.S. House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade Subcommittee.)
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BET ON INDIA: THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION PRESSES FORWARD WITH A NUCLEAR AGREEMENT -- AND HOPES FOR A STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP – EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON POST, JULY 29): The Bush administration and New Delhi announced the principles by which the United States will resume sales of civilian nuclear fuel and technology to India, as promised by President Bush in July 2005.
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KOSOVO REDUX: INDEPENDENCE FOR THE SERBIAN PROVINCE IS INEVITABLE, BUT RUSSIA HOPES TO MAKE IT A CRISIS FOR THE WEST – EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON POST, JULY 28): The consequences of a Western failure to recognize an independent Kosovo this year could be severe.
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THE EROTIC UNDERTONES OF THE ADMINISTRATION'S WORDS ON ENHANCED INTERROGATIONS: WHY IS IT THE MORE THE WHITE HOUSE REFINES THE RULES, THE PERVIER THINGS GET? - A.S. HAMRAH (LOS ANGELES TIMES, JULY 30): Instead of just banning torture outright Bush's new executive order, which purports to be an "interpretation of the Geneva Convention Common Article 3," reduces torture to a series of deviant acts.
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DARK POWERS, THE SEQUEL: THE PRESIDENT'S RECENT EXECUTIVE ORDER ALLOWS THE CIA TO DETAIN ANYONE THE AGENCY THINKS IS A TERRORIST -- OR A TERRORIST'S KID - ROSA BROOKS (LOS ANGELES TIMES, JULY 27)
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WEST POINT PR: WHY THE PENTAGON'S GUANTÁNAMO STUDY IS A JOKE - ANDY WORTHINGTON (COUNTERPUNCH, JULY 26): On the one hand, the administration commissions its boys to come up with a report stating that 73 percent of the detainees were a "demonstrated threat," and 95 percent were a "potential threat," and on the other hand the administration itself has released, or cleared for release, 75 percent of the detainees because they were "not or no longer a threat" (and that's not counting the 201 detainees who were released before the tribunal process began). How are we supposed to take these clowns seriously?
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GITMO AND AL QAEDA – REVIEW & OUTLOOK (WALL STREET JOURNAL, JULY 26): In his speech this week, Mr. Bush went on the political offense and made a strong case that al Qaeda in Iraq is part and parcel of the larger al Qaeda network. To leave Iraq too soon would hand bin Laden a victory. Mr. Bush can strengthen his argument -- and protect Americans -- by dispatching al Qaeda in Iraq captives to the Guantanamo prison for terrorist killers.
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BUSH'S FOLLY: HIS FIXATION ON AL QAEDA'S ROLE IN IRAQ REVEALS THE SHALLOWNESS OF HIS THINKING -- AND OF THE U.S. STRATEGY ON FIGHTING TERRORISM – EDITORIAL (LOS ANGELES TIMES, JULY 30)
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OH, HENRY! A HISTORIAN'S EXAMINATION OF KISSINGER'S REALPOLITIK WORLDVIEW REVIEW OF HENRY KISSINGER AND THE AMERICAN CENTURY BY JEREMI SURI] - DAVID GREENBERG (WASHINGTON POST, JULY 26): As Suri notes, Kissinger was so disdainful of democratic accountability that he came to think that effective statecraft "depended on an almost mythical grand master" -- a philosopher-king, a professor in a Superman uniform -- whose brilliance and personality could hold it all together. Regarding his own era, Kissinger left no doubt about whom he considered that grand master to be.
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QUOTATIONS FOR THE DAY

"I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes."

--Senator Hillary Clinton, cited in E. J. Dionne Jr., “Defining Moment?” (Washington Post, July 27)
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“[H]iring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering.”

--From a study published in June 2006 by the military's Joint Special Operations University; cited in “Tom Ricks's Inbox” (Washington Post, July 29)
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Why Wolfensohn Quit
A Warning to Tony Blair

By URI AVNERY

Tel Aviv.

Last week, James Wolfensohn gave a long interview to Haaretz. He poured out his heart and summed up, with amazing openness, his months as special envoy of the US, Russia, the EU and the UN (the "Quartet") in this country - the same job entrusted now to Tony Blair. The interview could have been entitled "A Warning to Tony".Among other revelations, he disclosed that he was practically fired by the clique of Neo-cons, whose ideological leader is Paul Wolfowitz.

What Wolfensohn and Wolfowitz have in common is that both are Jews and have the same name: Son of Wolf, one in the German version and the other in the Russian one. Also, both are past chiefs of the World Bank.

But that's where the similarity ends. These two sons of the wolf are opposites in almost all respects. Wolfensohn is an attractive person, who radiates personal charm. Wolfowitz arouses almost automatic opposition. This was made clear when they served, successively, at the World Bank: Wolfensohn was very popular, Wolfowitz was hated. The term of the first was renewed, a rare accolade, the second was dumped at the earliest opportunity, ostensibly because of a corruption affair: he had arranged an astronomical salary for his girl friend.

Wolfensohn could be played by Peter Ustinov. He is a modern Renaissance man: successful businessman, generous philanthropist, former Olympic sportsman (fencing) and Air Force officer (Australia). In middle age he took up the cello (under the influence of Jacqueline du Pre). The role of Wolfowitz demands no more finesse than that of the average gunman in a western.

But beyond personal traits, there is a profound ideological chasm between them. To me, they personify the two opposite extremes of contemporary Jewish reality.

Wolfensohn belongs to the humanist, universal, optimistic, world-embracing trend in Judaism, a man of peace and compromise, an heir to the wisdom of generations. Wolfowitz, at the other end, belongs to the fanatical Judaism that has grown up in the State of Israel and the communities connected with it, a man of overbearing arrogance, hatred and intoxication of power. He is a radical nationalist, even if it is not quite clear whether it is American or Israeli nationalism, or if he even distinguishes between the two.

Wolfowitz is a standard-bearer of the neo-cons, most of them Jews, who pushed the US into the Iraqi morass, promote wars all over the Middle East, advise the Israeli Prime Minister not to give up anything and are ready to fight to the last Israeli soldier.

To avoid misunderstanding: I don't know either of the two personally. I have never seen Wolfowitz in person, and heard Wolfensohn only once, at a Jerusalem meeting of the Israeli Council for Foreign Relations. I admit that I liked him on sight.

Wolfensohn arrived in this country some months before the "separation plan" of Ariel Sharon. He says now that the separation would have succeeded "if the withdrawal had been accompanied by the second part of the separation, which, according to my understanding, would have created an independent entity that would become a Palestinian state." He believes (mistakenly, I think) that this was the intent of Sharon, whom, unlike his successor as Prime Minister, he respects.

Wolfensohn envisioned a blooming Gaza Strip, flourishing economically, open in all directions, a model to the West Bank and a basis for the new state. To this purpose he raised eight billion dollars. Unlike other idealists, he invested several millions of his own money in the greenhouses left behind by the settlers, hoping to turn them into the basis of the Palestinian economy.

He stood at Condoleezza Rice's side during the signing ceremony for the document that was to prepare the way to a brilliant future: the agreement for the opening of the border crossings. The crossings between the Strip and Israel were to be again wide open, Israel undertook to fulfill at long last the obligation it took upon itself in the Oslo agreement (and has violated ever since): to open the vital passage between Gaza and the West Bank. On the border between the Strip and Egypt, a European unit was already taking control.

And then the whole edifice collapsed. The passage between the Strip and the West Bank remained hermetically sealed. The other border crossings were closed more and more frequently. The products of the greenhouses (together with Wolfensohn's investment) went down the drain. The frail economy of the Strip disintegrated altogether, most of the 1.4 million inhabitants descended into misery, with 50 per cent and more unemployment. The inevitable result was the ascent of Hamas.

Wolfensohn's complaint stresses the immense importance of the border crossings. Their closure - ostensibly for security reasons - spelled death to the Gaza economy, and, by extension, to the hope for peaceful relations between Israel and the Palestinians. Before the Hamas victory, Wolfensohn saw with his own eyes the awful corruption that governed the crossings. Relations between Israelis and Palestinians there were openly based on bribery. The Palestinian products could not cross without payment being made to the people in control on both sides.

Wolfensohn lays at least some of the responsibility for the ascent of Hamas on the Palestinian Authority - meaning Fatah – which was infected by the cancer of corruption. The victory of Hamas in the democratic elections both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip did not surprise him at all.

What caused this idealistic person to resign?

He puts the main blame on one person, who belongs to the clique of Wolfowiz: Elliott Abrams. Like Wolfowitz, Abrams is a Jew, a neo-con, a radical Zionist beloved by the Israeli Right. He was appointed by President Bush as deputy advisor for national security, responsible for the Middle East. With this appointment, Wolfensohn says, "all the elements of the agreement achieved by Condoleezza Rice were destroyed". The passages were closed, Hamas took over.

Wolfensohn accuses Abrams openly of undermining him, in order to get him out. True, the Quartet is not under the authority of Abrams, but a person in this position cannot function without solid American support. Abrams pushed him out in cooperation with Ehud Olmert and Dov Weisglass, Sharon's confidant, whose plans were menaced by Wolfensohn's activity. It was Weisglass, it will be remembered, who promised to "put the Palestinian issue in formaldehyde."

In the eyes of Wolfensohn, both sides are to blame for the current situation, but he clearly blames Israel more, since it is the stronger and more active party. No doubt, Israel is very important for him. He had a lot of sympathy for it (In World War I, his father was a soldier in the Jewish battalions which were set up by the British army and sent to Palestine.) He gave the interview to the Israeli paper in order to voice a severe warning: time is not working for us.

The demographic clock is ticking. Today, Israel is surrounded by some 350 million Arabs. In another 15 years, it will be surrounded by 700 million. "I don't see any argument that supports the idea the Israel's situation will get better."

As an expert on the global economy, with a world-wide perspective, Wolfensohn could also point out that the importance of the US in the world economy is gradually declining, with new giants like China and India rising.
We, the Israelis, like to think that we are the center of the world. Wolfensohn, a person with a world-wide outreach, sticks a pin into this egocentric balloon. Already now, he says, only the West considers the Israeli-Palestinian issue so important. Most of the world is indifferent. "I have visited more than 140 countries: you are not such a big deal there."

Even this limited interest will also evaporate. Wolfensohn rubs salt into the wound: "A moment will come when the Israelis and the Palestinians will be compelled to understand that they are a secondary performance … The Israelis and the Palestinians must get rid of the idea that they are a Broadway performance. They are only a play in the Village. Off-off-off-off-off Broadway." Knowing that this is the worst one can tell an Israeli, he adds: "I hope that I am not getting into trouble by saying this, but, what the hell, that's what I believe, and I am already 73 years old."

I do believe him - and I, what the hell, am already 83.
The metaphor from the world of theater looks to me even more apt that Wolfensohn himself imagines.

What is happening now to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is mostly theater, and not the best in town.

The actors drink from empty glasses, recite texts that nobody believes, put on false smiles and embrace heartily while loathing each other.

The best scene so far was the Gaza "separation". Contrary to Wolfensohn's belief, it was merely a performance, melodrama at its best, directed by Sharon and the chiefs of the settlers, the army and the police. Many tears, many embraces, many sham battles. This week the performance was again in the media, with a huge propaganda machine trying to show how immense was the pain, how the poor evacuees have remained without villas, how many more billions will still be needed. The intended conclusion: it is impossible to dismantle the settlements in the West Bank.

The new actor on the stage, Tony Blair, is exuding charm and joviality, embracing and kissing. We, the audience, know that his lot will be exactly like that of his predecessor. Like him, he is the "special envoy of the Quartet". His terms of reference are exactly the same as those of Wolfensohn before him: much of nothing. He is supposed to help the Palestinians to build "democratic institutions", after the US and Israel have systematically destroyed the democratic institutions that were set up after the last Palestinian elections.

He has embraced Olmert, kissed Tzipi Livni, smiled at Ehud Barak, and we know that all three of them will do their utmost to disrupt his mission before he reaches a position that would enable him to realize his real dream: to conduct peace negotiations, as he successfully did in Northern Ireland.

All that is happening now is theater. Olmert pretends that he really wants to "save Abu Mazen", while doing the opposite. At Bush's request, he allowed the transfer of a thousand rifles, with a lot of fanfare, from Jordan to Abbas, so he can fight Hamas - understanding full well that to an ordinary Palestinian this will look like collaboration with the occupier against the resistance. He enlarges the settlements, keeps the "illegal outposts" and closes his eyes while the army is helping the settlers to put up more outposts. That is a foolproof recipe for a Hamas takeover in the West Bank, too.

Everybody knows that there is only one way to strengthen Abu Mazen: immediately to start rapid and practical negotiations for the establishment of the State of Palestine in all the occupied territories, with its capital in East Jerusalem. Not more discussions about abstract ideas, as proposed by Olmert, not another plan (No. 1001), not a "peace process" that will lead to "new political horizons", and certainly not another hollow fantasy of that grand master of sanctimonious hypocrisy, President Shimon Peres.

The next scene of the play, for which all the actors are now learning their lines, is the "international meeting" this autumn, according to the screenplay by President Bush. Condoleezza will chair, and it is doubtful whether Tony, the new actor, will be allowed to take part. The playwrights are still deliberating.

If all the world is a stage, as Shakespeare wrote, and all the men and women merely players who have their exits and their entrances, that is true even more for Israel and Palestine. Sharon exited and Olmert entered, Wolfensohn exited and Blair entered, and everything is, as Sakespeare wrote in another play, "words, words, words."

Wolfensohn can view the next parts of the play with philosophical detachment. We, who are involved, cannot afford that, because our comedy is really a tragedy.

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is one of the writers featured in The Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's hot new book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.

http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery07302007.html

Midsummer Market Meltdown: Is the End Near?
By Dean Baker
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Monday 30 July 2007

Last week's stock market tailspin has many of the big-time money folks worried. They have suddenly discovered risk. It turns out leveraged buyouts are not always successful, and mortgages and other debts sometimes don't get paid off. Who could have known?

While some of the big rollers who helped propel the housing and debt bubbles of the last five years will lose substantial sums, the fact is most will still end up much richer as a result of their efforts. This is because most of the risk they take is with other people's money. The biggest risk these folks face is a smaller paycheck.

This is most obviously the case with the standard contract used to pay hedge fund managers. Typically, these contracts give managers a fee equal to 2 percent of the value of the funds being managed, plus 20 percent of earnings in excess of some benchmark. Under such a contract, if a hedge fund controls $4 billion, and manages to get a return that exceeds its benchmark by 5 percentage points, the manager walks away with $120 million. Of this sum, $80 million comes from the 2 percent flat fee and the other $40 million comes from the commission on the excess return.

Now suppose the genius fund manager managed to lose half the value of the fund's assets by speculating on bonds backed by subprime mortgages. The manager still gets the $80 million in fees, even though he lost the fund $2 billion. Perhaps the fund manager will get fired, but with $80 million in the bank (which gets the special low fund manager tax rate), he will be able to take his time looking for a new job. Many of the people most directly responsible for the subprime meltdown will also be in a similar boat. Some of the big issuers of subprime mortgages have already gone belly-up after they were unable to meet obligations on bad mortgages. While the people who hold the mortgages are out of luck, many of the top executives of these mortgage-lending companies will walk away with millions of dollars in profit.

When you see people making vast fortunes in this economy, it is usually a good start to ask what the government did to allow for their success. In the case of the fund managers, a substantial chunk of their business comes from pension funds. Some of these pensions involve government money in the form of public employee pension funds. Others carry a government guarantee; so, if the fund managers blow the wad, the government picks up the tab. In both cases, it would be a good first step if regulators let the pension fund trustees, who hand billions of dollars to fund managers, know that they will lose their jobs if these investments don't pay off as promised. Ripping-off the public to make the richest people in the country even richer is not funny, and pension fund trustees must understand this.

As far as the mortgage industry, this is a complete mess. The current regulatory system provides enormous opportunities for sharp operators to pilfer millions, while leaving investors out of luck and homebuyers out on the street. This will be a topic for future columns. But, it is long past time we hold the people who control the investment of public funds or publicly guaranteed funds more accountable. If they want to give the fund managers huge paychecks, then they should do it from their own pockets.



Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer (www.conservativenannystate.org). He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues. You can find it at the American Prospect's web site.

FORBES

7/27/07

U.S.-Saudi Tensions To Increase In 2008

Oxford Analytica

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates will visit Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh on July 31. As the United States looks to regional actors for support on Iraq, Iran and Israeli-Palestinian issues, it will find that Riyadh is not going to play its assigned role. While President George W. Bush's administration faces long odds on these issues already, the Saudi position makes the prospect for success even less likely.

On the major regional questions, the United States and Saudi Arabia are in agreement to a greater extent than at almost any time in their relationship. They each:

--worry about increasing Iranian regional influence and the Iranian nuclear program;

--see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a wound that needs to be healed;

--worry about the spill-over effect of Iraqi violence; and

--vigorously oppose al-Qaida and its regional affiliates.

However, they have very different tactical approaches, which will become more salient as Washington puts forward new initiatives to move the Arab-Israeli peace process forward, salvage something from Iraq and isolate Iran.

Bush announced on July 16 a high-profile diplomatic effort to move Israel and the Fatah-led Palestinian National Authority (PNA) toward a political settlement. Saudi Arabia quickly voiced its support, but Washington and Riyadh have very different visions of how to approach the issue. The Bush administration seeks to isolate Hamas diplomatically and choke off the economy in Gaza. Meanwhile, it hopes to encourage economic growth and political progress in the Fatah-controlled West Bank, showing Palestinians that their best choice is to abandon Hamas and support PNA President Mahmoud Abbas. Riyadh is pushing for a renewal of Fatah-Hamas dialogue and a return to the Mecca Agreement on power-sharing, which the Saudis brokered earlier in the year.

In Iraq, the Bush administration needs to show tangible progress to fend off congressional pressures to begin troop withdrawals. To that end, it has opened direct (if low-level) talks with Iran and encouraged greater regional involvement to support the Iraqi government, symbolized by the May Sharm al-Sheikh summit. While Saudi Arabia attended that summit and agreed to forgive the bulk of Iraqi Saddam-era debt, it has made clear that it is not willing to take other steps to support the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, which it sees as an extension of Iranian influence in Iraq.

Indeed, Saudi Arabia is supporting efforts by Maliki's opponents (including former prime minister Iyad Allawi, various Sunni political factions and Maliki's Shia opponents) to form a political front to challenge the government's parliamentary majority. Saudi King Abdallah also very publicly refused to receive Maliki on the latter's regional trip preceding the summit. With Riyadh facing the likelihood of a reduced U.S. role in Iraq, it is less likely to follow the U.S. lead there and more willing to forge its own alliances with Iraqi players and factions.

Both Washington and Riyadh want to limit Iranian regional influence and discourage Iranian nuclear plans. As long as the United States continues using diplomatic pressure, multilateral and United Nations sanctions and indirect military threats to push Iran away from the nuclear path, it will have Saudi support. However, if the Bush administration pursues a military option, this will change. The Saudi leadership is pursuing a subtle policy of both engaging and containing Iran. It does not want to return to the 1980s, when the two states were directly confronting each other and Tehran was actively encouraging domestic opposition to the Saudi regime. Moreover, it knows that it will be on the front line of any Iranian retaliation for a U.S. military strike.

Such tensions are a normal feature of the Saudi-U.S. relationship and do not necessarily herald a crisis in the making. However, while core relations will not be affected, they will add to the tensions likely to emerge between the countries on Middle East issues and make for an uncomfortable few months in bilateral relations in 2008.

Ex-CIA officer Slams US Allegations against Iran as Sham
US Creating False pretexts for Another War

Global Research, July 29, 2007
CASMII - 2007-07-28

In an alarming exposure of the acceleration and urgency of the American war party's push towards catastrophic war with Iran, Philip Giraldi, former CIA counter terrorism officer, in an interview [1] on 24th July with Anti War Radio debunked the NeoCons' repeated myth of Iran's support for AlQaeda as a pretext for war. Whilst acknowledging Iran's helpfulness in trying to establish security in both Afghanistan and Iraq, Giraldi spoke of the United States' hypocritical and illegal support for terrorist separatists groups inside Iran, and various plans and scenarios which have been drawn up to destroy Iran's military and economic infrastructure by massive bombardment, with the use of nuclear bombs a real and stated possibility.

Giraldi refuted the assumption that sharing hostilities towards the US, placed Iran and AlQaeda in the same camp and sharing similar agenda, arguing that Iran followed a very different agenda in its dealings with the US. He emphasised both the fact of Iranians' helpfulness in Iraq, in terms of pushing for greater stability, and also their help and cooperation in Afghanistan, as well as the reality of the deep hostilities between Shiia Iran and Sunni extremism of AlQaeda. Giraldi recalled the major attack against the Iranian consulate general in Afghanistan by the Taliban, a close ally of AlQaeda, in which 11 Iranian diplomats were killed, and the regular AlQaeda violent attacks against Shiia population in Iraq, and concluded that a Shiia Iranian-AlQaeda alliance was not a plausible possibility.

He described the recent New York Sun's allegation [2] that AlQaeda prisoners in Iran led terrorist operations inside Iraq under the advice of the Iranian government, as one of many propaganda pieces making a case for war. He said how in 2003, the Iranian government, through the Swiss embassy, had offered to hand over the six AlQaeda prisoners kept in Iran, which includes Osama Bin Laden's son, in exchange for the US ceasing its support for the MEK, and how this offer was rejected by the US. He said of the MEK that it was sheltered and armed by Saddam against Iran, and now supported and armed by Pentagon against Iran.

Highlighting what he called American "ultimate hypocrisy", Giraldi explained how the US government is supporting terrorist groups and ethnic division in Iran and charging the Iranians in Iraq for what the US was doing in Iran itself and with a lot more evidence. Giraldi talked of US's support for Jundollah which he described as a Sunni Baluchi separatist group in eastern Iran that has launched deadly terrorist attacks inside Iran. He also spoke of US support for separatists amongst the Arab minority which is closer to the border with Iraq.

Giraldi repeated the alarm call he first made in his revelations in the American Conservative Magazine in 2005 that Dick Cheney, who has no authority under the constitution, had ordered the air force to draw up plans for air strike against Iran that even included the use of nuclear weapons. He said he thought there was a lot of evidence since then to suggest that nuclear weapons are still very much on the table and named Republican Senators such as McCain, Gilliani and Romney who had not "flinched at all" in the debate about the prospect of using nuclear weapons against Iran.

He spoke of various war scenarios cooked up by the war party. One scenario was of the automatic use of the nuclear weapons in order to reach and destroy the Iranian nuclear sites buried under ground. Another scenario was to use the nuclear threat if the "Iranians continue to fight back after we staged our attack", the idea being "that's what the nukes are for, our nukes that everybody knows that we in fact do have, is to tell them, listen, you are going to sit there and take it while we bomb you for a week or two and you are not going to fight back and if you do fight back then we will use nuclear weapons on you", and he cited the example scenario of Iranians resisting by staging attack in the Strait of Hormouz or destabilising Afghanistan.

Setting out the horrifying context of the possibility of the US using nuclear strikes against Iran, under the pretext of destroying Iranian nuclear bombs which do not exist and Iran's cooperation with AlQaeda, another propaganda fabrication, Giraldi drew attention to the recent warning to Iran and the threat of war issued by AlQaeda for Iran's support for the Shiia government in Iraq, as well as AlQaeda's constant horrific attacks inside Iraq targeting Shiia population and mosques.

Prof. Abbas Edalat of CASMII said today: "Giraldi's revelations is consistent with and confirms the emergence of a shift in the dynamics of the American foreign policy decision making away from dialogue and in favour of war. The reality of the shared strategic interests between Iran and the US in stabilising Iraq and the possibility and great benefits for both countries in reaching a rapprochement in their bilateral relationship, based on mutual respect and cooperation rather than threat and coercion, is persistently obscured and sabotaged by the fanatical warmongers of Cheney camp and the Israeli lobby, who are relentlessly pushing for war".

It is incumbent upon the media and journalists to give active voice to informed and conscientious individuals like Giraldi who have well-established connections within the intelligence community and are warning the international community about the impending catastrophic war against Iran.

For more information please contact CASMII or visit http://www.campaigniran.org

Notes

[1] http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2007/07/24/philip-giraldi-5/
[2] http://www.nysun.com/article/58599

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...va&aid=6434

Cheney Favors Attack On Iran

Vice President Cheney has proposed a measure that would launch a very limited military strike at one or more known Iranian training centers whose forces are being deployed to Iraq. Cheney's proposal has gotten no approval, so far, say sources. Photo courtesy AFP.
by Claude Salhani
UPI International Editor
Washington DC (UPI) July 30, 2007
Diplomatic arm-wrestling between Iran and the West over the future of the Islamic republic's nuclear program has not prevented talk of the military option as a solution to the crisis, despite the tsunami-like reaction such a military adventure would generate in the Arab and Islamic world. Of late, there has been much speculation regarding the probability of U.S. and/or Israeli military strikes intended to destroy the Islamic republic's nuclear power sites before they become fully operational.

The Iranians say the plants are being built for peaceful purposes, but Western sources believe Iran's intention is to develop military-grade nuclear material.

In fact, President George W. Bush has reiterated on numerous occasions that "everything is still on the table" when it comes to discussing Iran's nuclear development and how to sanction Iran over its continuing refusal to abide by directives from the international community.

But a well-informed source tells United Press International that according to senior U.S. intelligence officials, President Bush has definitely decided not to strike any of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons production facilities this year.

The sources say the officials stressed the words "this year," meaning in 2007. That, however, does not rule out the possibility of military intervention in 2008, right until January 2009, when Bush's term in the White House comes to an end.

This information seems to back up a report published in the July 16 issue of the London Guardian that claims President Bush gave in to Vice President Dick Cheney, accepting to carry out military action against Iran before he leaves office.

According to the Guardian, a series of meetings held during June and July involving top White House, Pentagon and State Department officials was used by the vice president to stress the point that the diplomatic approach to solving the crisis had failed. The London newspaper went on to say that the vice president was able to convince the president by saying that no future U.S. administration would have the courage to act militarily against Tehran.

At the same time, sources familiar with the intelligence community report that there have been "a lot of stories about bunker buster bombs being moved to the region." The source says, however, that there is no basis for these reports, which, according to them, are being floated by Israeli intelligence.

"This is 'PSYOP' rubbish," a well-informed source told UPI. PSYOP stands for psychological operations; or in other words, playing mind games with the enemy.

The aim of PSYOP is to demoralize the enemy by inseminating doubt among his troops as well as the local population. Psychological operations play a vital role in military and political planning of most countries.

One prime example of PSYOPs was used during Operation Desert Storm in 1990-91, when the United States led an international coalition to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, which he had occupied in August 1990. By placing a Marine expeditionary force aboard Navy vessels anchored off the coast, U.S. military planners had Saddam believe that the U.S. Marines would launch a seaborne assault on Kuwait, therefore tying down large numbers of Iraqi forces and building massive defenses along Kuwait's beachfront for an attack that never materialized. Instead, the major thrust came across the desert from Saudi Arabia, a move the Iraqi leader did not expect.

Part of the task performed by PSYOPs includes developing and employing propaganda in a convincing manner.

Instead of a direct attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, Vice President Cheney has proposed a measure that would launch a very limited military strike at one or more known Iranian training centers whose forces are being deployed to Iraq.

Cheney's proposal has gotten no approval, so far, say the sources.

Indeed, the Bush administration accuses Iran of supporting terrorism, primarily groups in Lebanon and in the Palestinian territories, groups Washington considers to engage in terrorist activities. A particular point of contention between Iran and the Bush administration are accusations from Washington over the nefarious role Iran continues to play in neighboring Iraq, while Iran accuses the United States of trying to implement regime change in Iran.

One of the primary culprits accused by the Bush administration of fomenting trouble in Iraq is Moqtada Sadr, the pro-Iranian firebrand young Shiite cleric, and his Mahdi Army. It is believed that Iran supplies Sadr and his fighters with logistic and financial support, as well as weapons and improvised explosive devices.

U.S. intelligence sources, however, say that the White House estimates of the assistance provided to the Iraqi Shiite community by Iran, as well as the amounts, "are exaggerated."

Launching a war against Iran in 2008 -- their last year in office -- the Bush administration would in fact be leaving a second war they started in the Middle East for the next administration to resolve.

earlier related report
Tough Sanctions May Tame Iran
by Megan Harris
Washington DC (UPI) July 27 - Strengthening existing sanctions against Iran and divesting state pension funds of Iran-connected assets may offer the best hope to change the regime's behavior. Recent outrage over the billions of dollars in U.S. state pensions that are invested in companies that do business with Iran -- inadvertently supporting terrorism and Iran's nuclear ambitions -- has triggered a divestiture movement in several states to rid pension funds of assets connected to Iran. Congress has also introduced a number of bills since last fall to strengthen sanctions.

Sanctions to date do appear to be working -- at least to slow Iran's nuclear activities, said Patrick Clawson, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Speaking Thursday during a conference on divestment from Iran at the American Enterprise Institute, Clawson pointed out that Iran has developed only a few more centrifuges than they had a few years ago.

"If we can slow down Iran's nuclear program, we can have some success," he said.

Even though sanctions may not have a detrimental impact, Clawson told United Press International that sanctions aim not to cripple Iran, but to convince the leaders to change their behavior.

Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, a global political consulting firm, agrees, but, he told UPI in a phone interview: "We need to recognize that we don't have a lot of leverage."

The Iran Sanctions Enabling Act of 2007, introduced in both the House and the Senate, would strengthen existing legislation by mandating a comprehensive federal list of companies that invest more than $20 million in Iran's energy sector, directing states to divest such company holdings, and protecting pension-fund managers from lawsuits if purified pension funds have poor returns.

The Iran Sanctions Act, first passed as the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act in 1996, forbids most business activity between American firms and Iran and threatens penalties for foreign firms that invest more than $20 million in one year in the energy sector. Enforcement has been weak, however, in part because the executive branch has utilized the waiver provision.

Foreign investment is critical for Iran's mismanaged economy and has totaled almost $100 billion since 1999. Clawson referred Thursday to the "stunningly poor" condition of Iran's economy in light of "the incredible opportunities of the last five years."

Oil revenues pay for social services and subsidies on imported gasoline, but experts predict Iran's declining oil exports may cease entirely by 2015. Otherwise, there's just a little industry and revenues from permitted exports: nuts, caviar and carpets.

Pension fund divestment could make a sizable dent in Iran's finances because the amount invested in Iran-invested companies is in the tens of billions of dollars. During the AEI conference, Missouri State Treasurer Sarah Steelman, a pioneer in state pension divestment, discounted the perceived lack of fiduciary responsibility, pointing to the high performance of Missouri's purified funds. Florida Democratic state senator Ted Deutsch emphasized that the outrage of pensioners outweighs the resistance of fund managers who'd rather not deal with divestment.

Several other states are close to passing divestment legislation.

Bremmer told UPI that state-driven pension divestment will be difficult to legislate since pension funds involve numerous companies and hedge funds.

"If that becomes more than a symbolic step by a couple of states, it's going to be hard."

Bremmer argues that sanctions overall are both unlikely to become very tough and unlikely to have the desired effects. Sanctions are a bad policy for nations on the left side of the J-curve, which means that they are highly authoritarian with very little openness, as his book "The J-Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall" describes, because they rally support around the regime.

While Bremmer pointed to ISA's successes in limiting the availability of foreign management skills and technology in the Iranian energy sector, he noted that sanctions led to the rapid expansion of Iran's nuclear program because Iran saw that it would have a problem getting oil and gas and wanted more leverage.

He said Iran's recently imposed gas rationing is a bad sign.

"The fact that they took a politically unpopular step says to me clearly that they are not exactly planning on sitting down and moving toward a diplomatic resolution."

Bremmer noted that only an embargo on Iranian oil and gas, which is very unlikely, would seriously harm Iran's economy, so sanctions probably won't prevent a nuclear program. Moreover, the Iranians are in a better geopolitical position than three years ago, given the violence in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq. And with high oil prices, they don't think they need to back down.

Another unlikely scenario that could hurt Iran is if oil prices fell to $30 per gallon -- through increased production in other countries, he said.

Short of these unlikely scenarios, more pressure is needed and that has worked, particularly to persuade German and Swiss banks to comply.

At the conference, Clawson also emphasized the use of carrots, including advanced technology and inclusion in the world economy, such as through membership in the World Trade Organization.

Source: United Press International
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Cheney_Fav...n_Iran_999.html

Half Billion Dollar U.S. Embassy in Baghdad 'Not Big Enough'?
By Sharon Weinberger EmailJuly 24, 2007 | 8:32:04 AMCategories: War Update

Embassy The massive embassy rising in Baghdad's fortified green zone may not be big enough to house all the planned employees, the LA Times reports. "Despite its brash scale and nearly $600-million cost, the compound designed to accommodate more than 1,000 people is not big enough, and may not be safe enough if a major military pullout leaves the country engulfed in a heightened civil war, U.S. planners now say," the paper writes.

More problematic, however, is how the embassy appears to be viewed by Iraqis.

"It's all for them, all of Iraq's resources, water, electricity, security," said Raid Kadhim Kareem, who has watched the buildings go up at a floodlighted site bristling with construction cranes from his post guarding an abandoned home on the other side of the Tigris River. "It's as if it's their country, and we are guests staying here."

Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations had a different way to describe the embassy, particularly in the even of an all out civil war: "If the government of Iraq collapses and becomes transparently just one party in a civil war, you've got Ft. Apache in the middle of Indian country, but the Indians have mortars now."

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/07/half-billion-do.html

July 31, 2007 Terrorists Are Everywhere
Philip Giraldi In an attempt to reverse plummeting approval ratings, the Bush administration is mounting an unprecedented, sustained campaign of disinformation on the terrorist threat confronting the United States. Even the mainstream media has noted how the White House has attempted falsely to tie al-Qaeda to the war in Iraq, with President Bush increasing the number of references to the group in speeches made during the month of July. On July 10, al-Qaeda was referred to 30 times in a Cleveland speech on the Iraq war. By July 25, the president referred to al-Qaeda no less than 95 times in a speech made before a group of airmen in Charleston, S.C.

The frantic attempts to fearmonger by linking the failed venture in Iraq to the other failed venture dubbed the "global war on terror" is pathetic, even by the standards of an administration that cannot tell right from wrong and that cannot, apparently, differentiate one terrorist group from another. One of the most troublesome aspects of the Bush agenda is the conflation of a whole basket of groups with the terrorism menace even if they pose no actual danger to the U.S. Buying into the Bush rhetoric, even to a small degree, makes it impossible to classify and confront the genuine terrorists that actually threaten the United States. It makes a confused and unfocused America weaker rather than stronger.

There should be no confusion about what constitutes the terrorist threat against the United States. There is only one terrorist group that is genuinely willing and able to attack the U.S., and that is al-Qaeda in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda in Pakistan has attacked the United States, has both the desire and capability to do so again, and has stated its intention to stage new attacks on a number of occasions. And the danger of even al-Qaeda in Pakistan should be put in some kind of perspective. The group is weaker than it was in 2001, having lost many of its leaders and funding mechanisms. It has decentralized and is largely dependent on unreliable local resources: witness the bungled planning and execution that went into the recent attempted attacks in Britain. There is no evidence whatsoever that al-Qaeda has anything like a weapon of mass destruction that could cause massive damage or fatalities, and there is no intelligence that suggests that al-Qaeda has any group or organization currently in place in the U.S. that might be capable of carrying out a major terrorist attack. Recent arrests of terrorism suspects in the United States suggest that while there are a number of disgruntled individuals who have made the transition into terrorism supporters, most of the groups have been infiltrated FBI informants and there would appear to be little danger that any of their frequently far-fetched plans might evolve into actual terrorist attacks.

Bush's increasingly strident rhetoric is supported by the unclassified summary of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of July 17 on the terrorist threat to the homeland. The NIE is a curious document, on one hand a frank admission of failure but in other ways surely one of the most dishonest and politically motivated documents to be seen since the Iraq estimate of October 2002. It is a sign, if one were needed, that the new chiefs of the intelligence community are willing to play politics, adopting the admittedly low standards for professional integrity established by former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet. The document concedes that al-Qaeda has reconstituted itself in three out of four core areas – an admission that nearly six years of global counter-terrorism warfare at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars has been a failure – but it then goes on to grossly over-hype the significance of the al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq and place Hezbollah into the terrorism threat matrix in a bid to further blacken "axis of evil" state Iran.

Al-Qaeda affiliates in Iraq and North Africa do not threaten the United States. Such groups use the al-Qaeda trademark, but they are financed, organized, and recruited locally. They are operationally independent. Hezbollah and Hamas likewise do not threaten the United States and almost certainly have little to no capability to carry out an operation on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. The NIE's assertion that al-Qaeda in Iraq has stated its intention to attack the U.S. is reportedly based solely on a speech made by the group's leader, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, in which he threatened to "bomb the White House." Hezbollah and Hamas have no intention or ability to attack the U.S. They do indeed threaten Israel, though some in the White House and Congress appear to have some difficulty in separating the legitimate security concerns of Tel Aviv from American interests.

The White House argument that al-Qaeda in Iraq is controlled by al-Qaeda in Pakistan and will be directed to stage attacks against the United States is false and is not even supported by the NIE, which merely stated that the parent organization al-Qaeda might well try to use the Iraq affiliate as a resource for recruitment and fundraising. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is small, amounting to 5 percent or less of the broader insurgency and having only 1,000 to 2,000 activists. Most of its attacks have been directed against the Iraqi government and, most particularly, Shi'ite religious institutions, like the Samara mosque attack in February 2006 that almost produced open sectarian war. Most of the known leadership consists of foreign jihadists, but intelligence on the group is poor, and the makeup of the rank-and-file is not clear and might be mostly Iraqi. The group does not have a completely comfortable relationship with al-Qaeda in Pakistan, which has criticized it more than once for its killing of civilians. There is no indication whatsoever that the group is controlled from Pakistan or that it has any capability of carrying out operations outside of Iraq and its immediate neighborhood.

The real terrorism threat that persists in Pakistan's ungovernable tribal areas should be the focus of American efforts. Al-Qaeda could have been destroyed in late 2001 through early 2002, but the opportunity was wasted through the sheer incompetence of policymakers in Washington. Now, after six years of dithering, there are problems in developing any strategy for rooting out al-Qaeda that might be successful without destabilizing all of central Asia. The comments of the White House Homeland Security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend on July 22 were particularly maladroit, suggesting that it might be necessary to take military action against Pakistan to solve the al-Qaeda problem. Her comments suggest that she is unaware that the U.S. lacks the kind of tactical intelligence that would make such a strike effective. Nor were her comments coordinated with the Pentagon or the State Department, both of which have been taking pains to reassure Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf that Washington will do nothing that will lead to his overthrow. Both Musharraf and some of the better-informed voices in the administration know that a U.S. invasion of the tribal areas would lead to an immediate change in government in Islamabad. The new government would almost certainly have to incorporate religious extremists and would be unlikely to continue to cooperate with the United States. Ironically, Pakistan is also under pressure from some of its American allies. It has been increasingly criticized by the U.S. Congress in spite of the fact that its security services have arrested and killed more al-Qaeda than the rest of the world's intelligence services combined. The U.S. would have no effective program against al-Qaeda without Pakistani assistance.

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/giraldi.php?articleid=11366

Outsourcing Intelligence: How Bush Gets His National Intelligence from Private Companies

By R.J. Hillhouse, The Nation. Posted July 31, 2007.

Private corporations are now a major staple of national intelligence and are heavily involved in producing the most important and most sensitive national security document -- the President's Daily Brief.


The unprecedented involvement of private corporations in the Iraq War has been well documented. Private soldiers working for Blackwater USA, Triple Canopy and others provide security services against military-level threats, and they regularly engage in combat.

But what is not generally known is that the secret side of the Iraq War and the larger "war on terror" is also conducted by private corporations, fielding private spies. The reach of these corporations has extended into the Oval Office. Corporations are heavily involved in creating the analytical products that underlie the nation's most important and most sensitive national security document, the President's Daily Brief (PDB).

Over the past six years, a quiet revolution has occurred in the intelligence community toward wide-scale outsourcing to corporations and away from the long-established practice of keeping operations in US government hands, with only select outsourcing of certain jobs to independently contracted experts. Key functions of intelligence agencies are now run by private corporations. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) revealed in May that 70 percent of the intelligence budget goes to contractors.

For all practical purposes, effective control of the NSA is with private corporations, which run its support and management functions. As the Washington Post's Walter Pincus reported last year, more than 70 percent of the staff of the Pentagon's newest intelligence unit, CIFA (Counterintelligence Field Activity), is made up of corporate contractors.

Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) lawyers revealed at a conference in May that contractors make up 51 percent of the staff in DIA offices. At the CIA, the situation is similar. Between 50 and 60 percent of the workforce of the CIA's most important directorate, the National Clandestine Service (NCS), responsible for the gathering of human intelligence, is composed of employees of for-profit corporations.

Employees of private corporations -- "green badgers," in CIA parlance -- provide sensitive services ranging from covert CIA operations in Iraq to recruiting and running spies. They also gather human intelligence on behalf of the CIA and analyze it, creating intelligence products used by the intelligence community and also shared with other branches of government.

Corporate intelligence professionals from companies such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Booz Allen Hamilton, SAIC and others are thoroughly integrated into analytical divisions throughout the intelligence community, including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It is the ODNI that produces the final document of the President's Daily Brief.

The President's Daily Brief is an aggregate of the most critical analyses from the sixteen agencies that make up the intelligence community. Staff at the ODNI sift through reports to complete the PDB, which is presented to the President every day as the US government's most accurate and most current assessment of priority national security issues. It was the PDB that warned on August 6, 2001, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US."

It's true that the government pays for and signs off on the assessment, but much of the analysis and even some of the underlying intelligence-gathering is corporate. Knowledgeable members of the intelligence community tell me that corporations have so penetrated the intelligence community that it's impossible to distinguish their work from the government's.

Although the President's Daily Brief has the seal of the ODNI, it is misleading. To be accurate, the PDB would look more like NASCAR with corporate logos plastered all over it.

Concerned members of the intelligence community have told me that if a corporation wanted to insert items favorable to itself or its clients into the PDB to influence the US national security agenda, at this time it would be virtually undetectable. These companies have analysts and often intelligence collectors spread throughout the system and have the access to introduce intelligence into the system.

To take an extreme example, a company frustrated with a government that's hampering its business or the business of one of its clients could introduce or spin intelligence on that government's suspected collaboration with terrorists in order to get the White House's attention and potentially shape national policy.

Or, more subtly, a private firm could introduce concerns about a particular government to put heat on that government to shape its energy policy in a favorable direction.

To get us into the Iraq War, intelligence regarding alleged weapons of mass destruction had to be very artfully manipulated to short-circuit a formidable bureaucracy designed to prevent just such warping of intelligence. Due to the shift toward wide-scale industrial outsourcing in the intelligence community, even that fallible safeguard has been eroded.

Sources like "Curveball," the Iraqi informant who wrongly asserted the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and upon whom the CIA relied, are no longer needed. This is particularly frightening when one considers that the "war on terror" is fought by a $100 billion-plus industry that has a vested interest in its continuation.

The tools needed to close this vulnerability are available, and they can be found in the private sector. Existing techniques could be applied to monitor the intelligence community for any suspicious activity to insure that no corporation could manipulate US government policy in this way.

Closing the gaps is simply a matter of the Director of National Intelligence acknowledging the problem, then finding the political will and leadership to implement a solution. Unfortunately, it will probably take a public outcry to make this happen.

http://www.alternet.org/story/57979/?page=2

Yahoo! News
The Saudi Connection

Stephen SchwartzMon Jul 30, 11:59 AM ET

ALMOST SIX YEARS after September 11, 2001, and more than four years since the beginning of the U.S.-led intervention in Iraq, the American government and media have begun to admit something every informed and honest Muslim in the world has known all along. That is: the "Sunni insurgency" in Iraq, as well as 9/11 and certain acts of extremist Sunni violence inside Iraq before then, are consequences of the official status of the ultra-fundamentalist Wahhabi sect in Saudi Arabia, Iraq's southern neighbor. Saudi Wahhabi clerics have preached and recruited for terror in Iraq; Saudi money has sustained it; the largest number of those who have carried out suicide bombings north of the Saudi-Iraqi border have been Saudi citizens.

Does this sound obvious and familiar? Perhaps to regular readers of THE WEEKLY STANDARD and THE DAILY STANDARD, which have reported frequently on the Saudi connection to terror in the Iraq war since the phenomenon first appeared. But the truth is finally seeping out elsewhere. On Friday, July 27, the Washington Post and the New York Times reported on the links between Saudi Arabia and the Wahhabi terror in Iraq, employing their usual cautious and polite language when dealing with the desert kingdom. The Post ran a Reuters rewrite of the Times reportage, casting the problem in terms of Saudi distrust for the Shia-led Iraqi administration of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and the resulting difficulties facing Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates as they visit the Saudis this week. Seven paragraphs down, the story quoted the Times about the real issue: "the Saudis had offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq and U.S. officials were increasingly concerned about its close Arab ally's 'counterproductive' role in Iraq."

"Counterproductive" is a euphemism for Saudi state subsidies to Wahhabi clerics who demand the genocide of Shia Muslims, urge young men to go north and sacrifice themselves to that end, and preach eulogies after their deaths. It is also a diplomatic way to describe the official Saudi policy of ignoring financial contributions by rich Saudi citizens to support Wahhabi terror in Iraq. Others might call such behavior acts of war rather than merely "counterproductive."

The Times itself, in an article by Helene Cooper, further noted, "Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow." Administration officials, the paper reported "spoke on the condition of anonymity because they believed that openly criticizing Saudi Arabia would further alienate the Saudi royal family." Then came the bald truth: "the majority of suicide bombers in Iraq are from Saudi Arabia [and] about 40 percent of all foreign fighters are Saudi. Officials said that while most of the foreign fighters came to Iraq to become suicide bombers, others arrived as bomb makers, snipers, logisticians and financiers."

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal has "revealed" information about the Al Rajhi Bank, one of the kingdom's main financiers of Wahhabism, most of which has been available in print for several years. The "fresh" disclosures include the role of the Al Rajhi Bank in facilitating Saudi extremist operations. But the Journal admits that the Al Rajhi name appeared on a document many Westerners were loath to take seriously, the "Golden Chain" roster of al Qaeda donors seized by Bosnian authorities in Sarajevo, and handed over to the U.S. government in 2002.

Yet even the Journal seems not to have noticed that the Al Rajhi financial system's Suleiman Abdul Al-Aziz Al Rajhi also created the SAAR Foundation, an object of the federal raid known as GreenQuest, which struck a nest of Islamist entities in Northern Virginia in 2002.

Why has there been so little media interest in the role of Saudi money and influence in Iraq and elsewhere? The best explanation is media cooperation with the official U.S. preference for the "quiet, behind-the-scenes influence" that one administration after another has defaulted to in dealing with Saudi problems, and which the Saudis exploit to continue their deceptive ways.

Saudis and Iraqis, even with own imperfect media, are much better informed. Here is what they have been reading.

* On July 25, the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan reported on 61 Saudis held in Iraqi jails. The inferred charge was terrorism.

* The day before, Al-Watan described an uproar over Saudi clerics advocating the destruction of Shia holy sites in Iraq. According to Iraqi sources, the Wahhabis have specifically called for the destruction of the shrines of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, in Karbala, and of Caliph Ali, the prophet's son-in-law, in Najaf--the two most sacred Shia sites. As also reported in Iraqi media, students at the Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, located in Riyadh and known as the "terrorist factory," have organized activist groups and sent members streaming north to join the onslaught on Iraqi Shias.

* On July 17, the Grand Mufti or chief Islamic cleric of the Saudi kingdom, Abd al-Aziz Al Ash-Shaykh, cautioned Saudis not to go to Iraq to engage in terror, and said that "those who mislead young Muslims, calling them to jihad, refuse to send their own sons to participate in the same conflict."

* On July 16, the Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat quoted the comment of Prince Nayef, the Saudi interior minister who wriggles like an eel on this issue, that Saudis lured to participate in the Iraq terror are "brainwashed teenagers." The same day, the Saudi daily Al-Hayat interviewed U.S. Treasury undersecretary Stuart Levey, who argued that financing terror in Iraq is no different from contributing to al Qaeda elsewhere.

* And the day before that, on July 15, the Wahhabi website Al-Sahat posted a list of Saudi terrorists recently killed in Iraq, with names, addresses, and dates and places of their demise.

This, too, is merely the beginning of a long inventory of such information reported in the Muslim world. Nobody can say the Saudis, Iraqis, and other Muslims do not know who organizes and supports the Wahhabi terror in Iraq.

None of the recent "revelations" should come as a suprise to anyone. In 2002, THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported on the Al Rajhi financial network and terrorism; in 2003 on the Saudi injection of Wahhabi radicals into Iraq, including Saudi media publicity about their deaths in defense of Saddam Hussein and on Saudi involvement in combat against the U.S.-led coalition at Falluja; in 2004 on general Saudi support for terror in Iraq, and yet more on the Saudi involvement in the fight for Falluja.

One question remains: How many more American and Coalition soldiers, as well as innocent Iraqis, will be killed before the Saudis are compelled to end their support for terrorism in Iraq?


Stephen Schwartz is a frequent contributor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Copyright © 2007 Weekly Standard
Copyright © 2007 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Getting bin Laden up a tree

Mon Jul 30, 4:00 AM ET

The Bush doctrine of expanding democracy to flush out Islamic terrorism has reached a critical test in Pakistan, where Al Qaeda leaders are in hiding. The nation's military ruler was forced last week to meet with the leading opposition figure. The move offers hope of a democracy restored.

Much more bargaining will likely be needed before President Pervez Musharraf gives up command of the military and allows a free election for a civilian prime minister, perhaps in a few months. Dictatorships don't usually go easily.

But it is to General Musharraf's credit that he appears ready to recognize his worsening political plight as well as the threat from Islamic radicals and seek a peaceful transition to civilian rule – if all sides can pull it off.

His secret meeting Friday in the Middle East with former prime minister Benazir Bhutto – who was forced into exile after Musharraf's 1999 coup and still leads the largest opposition party – comes after months of trauma to Pakistan: Musharraf's sacking of the chief justice, a military raid on Muslim militants holed up in the capital's Red Mosque, the Supreme Court's reinstatement of the chief justice, and then a report this month from all 16 US intelligence agencies that the central front in the war on Al Qaeda lies in the "comfort zone" in Pakistan's border areas with Afghanistan.

The report, known as the National Intelligence Estimate, has heightened concern that the US might soon step up military action inside Pakistan against Al Qaeda beyond the limited incursions that have been condoned so far by Musharraf. But violating another nation's sovereignty for the sake of an uncertain victory against Osama bin Laden could possibly lead to serious political backlash in Pakistan, and create an opening for Islamic parties to gain an upper hand. (In the 2002 parliamentary elections, Islamist parties did their best ever.)

The threshold for any preemptive US attacks needs to be extremely high if the US is not to "lose" Pakistan to anti-American leaders.

After eight years in power, Musharraf has done much to bolster Pakistan against Islamic radicalism, but not nearly enough. While the economy has grown at a healthy clip, it's likely that a civilian government – one that honors the rule of law and fights graft – could do better to meet both the US and Pakistani interests in curbing the jihadi training in the nation's largely lawless border areas. Only then can Mr. bin Laden be put on the run again, or captured.

The most difficult part in the expected political transition is to define the military's role in government. As a nationalist force, it sees itself as guardian of Pakistan's interests in tense relations with Afghanistan and India. If the US can help reduce those tensions, the better civilians can rule.

Musharraf took power because civilian rulers were wrecking the country. If he now hangs up his army uniform as part of a deal and remains as a civilian president, a delicate political balance must be maintained. The US can respond with greater assistance in trade, aid, and other areas.

As much President Bush says Iraq is the central battlefield with Al Qaeda, he now needs to focus on Pakistan in the coming days.

The battle can be won with ballots as much as with bullets.

Copyright © 2007 The Christian Science Monitor
Copyright © 2007 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Russia leads race for North Pole oil


The Arctic's untapped resources include huge reserves of fuel and minerals. Now Moscow has raised tensions by dispatching an expedition to annex a vast expanse of the ocean.

Jamie Doward, Robin McKie and Tom Parfitt
Sunday July 29, 2007
The Observer

In the darkest depths of the Arctic Ocean a new Cold War is brewing. American and British nuclear submarines lurk in the shadows, preparing for company.

'Why has Britain been sending submarines into Arctic waters?' asked Rob Huebert, associate director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies in Calgary. 'Because it wants to retain its capability to deal with the Russian threat.'

Such talk is redolent of a Le Carré novel. But the battle between the West and Russia over who owns the Arctic has been building for years. Last week it entered a new phase when Russia announced it was sending a miniature submarine, equipped with a team of explorers, to claim a chunk of the Arctic Ocean the size of Western Europe.

The stakes are high. The ocean is home to vast oil and mineral reserves as well as massive shoals of fish and strategically important shipping lanes. 'It could get very ugly,' Huebert said. 'Nobody knows how much oil and gas is down there. Shell, for example, is quite pessimistic, but the likes of Exxon are quite gung-ho. I've seen some people make the case that up to 18 per cent of the world's oil reserves are there - that's getting into Saudi Arabia's league.'

To symbolise its claim, Russia will plant its flag on the sea bed before taking samples it believes will prove the Lomonosov Ridge, which runs underneath the Arctic Ocean, is an extension of the Siberian continental shelf and therefore Russian territory.

The expedition is led by Artur Chilingarov, Russia's most famous explorer. A sturdy 68-year-old with a sweeping salt-and-pepper beard, last week he could be seen pacing the decks of his ship, the Akademik Fyodorov, followed by a posse of state television journalists who filed breathless accounts of the groundbreaking voyage.

'The Arctic is Russian,' Chilingarov told the media scrum. 'We must prove the North Pole is an extension of the Russian coastal shelf. Of course, [the expedition] is important in terms of science, but also in terms of geopolitics as well.'

There has never been a manned journey to the sea bed of the North Pole. 'Who knows, we may even discover some as yet unknown organism,' said Valery Kuznetsov, head of the expedition's oceanography team.

In 2001, Russia made a similar claim to the Arctic Ocean but its evidence was disputed. An official panel of experts backed by the UN has been established to consider claims and Russia is determined to prove its case. A UN convention dictates that countries bordering the Arctic Ocean can exploit resources within a 200-nautical-mile economic zone of their territory. But this can be extended if a country can, as the Russians are attempting, prove the continental shelf beneath the ocean is connected to their land.

So far the US has refused to engage in the debate over extending exploitation rights, a policy throwback to the Eighties when the Reagan administration feared such an action would see large parts of the Arctic handed over to the Soviets.

Meanwhile, Canada and Denmark, through its sovereignty over Greenland, claim that the Lomonosov Ridge is connected to their territories and therefore the ocean is effectively their property. In a sign of how tense the situation is becoming, the Canadian government recently placed a C$7bn (£3.25bn) order for new naval patrol vessels, a move that Prime Minister Stephen Harper said was designed to 'defend its sovereignty over the Arctic'.

But the battle for the Arctic is fast becoming a global issue. Melting ice has meant the opening up of the North West Passage to commercial shipping is now possible in the summer months and, given rising temperatures, a possibility all year round in the future. The opening up of the passage can shorten the distance ships have to travel between Europe and Asia by up to 2,000 nautical miles over the established trade route through the Panama Canal.

Given the area's geopolitical importance, it is no surprise Britain is closely monitoring the situation as part of its commitment to Nato. 'Britain has been sending Trafalgar SSN-class submarines to the Arctic since 1986 because it wants to retain its under-ice capability,' said Huebert, who predicted it would not be long before their sonar registers the presence of an old foe. 'The Russians are rebuilding their navy,' Huebert said. 'They've just launched a submarine for the first time since 1987 and they've placed orders for three more.'

Soaring oil prices have created a new urgency among the countries competing to make their claim. When oil prices were low it was considered uneconomic to tap into the Arctic Ocean's reserves. But with China and India now desperate for energy, oil prices are spiralling. Experts say oil prices of around $70 a barrel makes drilling in the Arctic a viable proposition. In 2004, a joint Swedish and Russian venture proved it was possible to drill into the ocean's floor from a rig secured by three ships.

Nor is oil the only resource that is ripe for exploitation in the thawing north. There are also large mineral deposits and coal beds in the Arctic, for example. In addition, there is the prospect of opening up vast new fish reserves as ice cover disappears over the Arctic Ocean. For several years, British research vessels from Dunstaffnage Marine Research Station, near Oban, have been studying these stocks.

'There is strong evidence that there are still good reserves of fish such as cod and capelin in some regions of the Arctic,' said Prof Graham Shimmield, Dunstaffnage's director. 'However, these are probably the world's last refuges. We should restrain ourselves from catching them on an industrial scale until we learn more about how strong they are. It remains to be seen whether that will happen, however.'

The rush to exploit the Arctic worries other scientists. They point out that the region is important because the effects of climate change are more pronounced here, and arrive earlier, than in any other part of the world. When things go wrong, they are first noticed in the Arctic. But if oil companies and mining firms start pumping out carbon dioxide and other waste as they open up the region, the pristine conditions that have helped scientists make past observations will be destroyed, obscuring our view of our dangerously warming world.

This problem is already an issue in the archipelago of Svalbard where European scientists are studying glacier retreat, carbon emissions and other effects of pollution, but are having their work hampered by the emissions from coal mines dug by the Russians.

Tensions are already running high in the Arctic, it would seem. Nevertheless, hopes remain that a diplomatic conclusion can be achieved to resolve what has been dubbed the 'battle for the North Pole'.

'We must wake up to the fact that the Arctic is going to become a much busier area,' Huebert said. 'And try to produce a solution that will provide an equitable, fair and safe division of resources. We cannot just proceed with the old unilateral approach.'

Observers point to the Antarctic Treaty, which severely limits the exploitation of the land mass around the South Pole. No waste disposal, no mining, no introduction of animal species and no commercial work have been allowed on the continent for more than 40 years. Some diplomats have suggested that a similar set of rules could be agreed for the Arctic. Such a plan is unlikely to succeed, however. 'Countries agreed to the Antarctic Treaty as a way to save money,' said a senior UK official. 'The South Pole is an expensive place to exploit and it was realised that if everyone agreed not to touch it, they could all rest easy about pouring millions into the area. This is not the issue with the Arctic. It is becoming easier and easier to exploit. Nations aren't going to give up on these rich pickings.

Hence the Russian expedition - although this has not gone totally smoothly so far. Last week the Akademik Fyodorov was forced to send out a distress signal and then drifted for several hours because of an engine failure. It has since made good progress towards the pole and the first research dives from the ship are expected to take place tomorrow.

During its journey last week a mysterious aircraft appeared above the Akademik Fyodorov, causing a ripple of excitement among the journalists on board. Russian media widely reported the aircraft to be a Nato spy plane. It may have been paranoia but in the frozen waters around the North Pole one thing is certain: the days of the Cold War are back.

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=39525

rense.com

Bush's EO - Ruling
By Executive Decree
From Joel Skousen
Editor - World Affairs Brief
7-28-7
http://www.rense.com/general77/dne.htm

The only major difference between the German experience with executive decree (Hitler's 1933 Enabling Act) and the Bush administration's continual use of executive orders to dictate policy is the speed of implementation. The German Bundestag gave Hitler all power in one bill. In the US, Congress is allowing Bush to take it one small step at a time. Both ways justify greater executive power on a continual state of national emergency. Both used deception and black operations to provoke fear of terror to keep the nation in a state of fear and war. The fact that these US emergency powers were enacted long ago and enhanced by both parties over time attests that this is not merely a Bush/Cheney phenomenon. We are simply seeing its long-intended implementation at a very accelerated pace. This week I'll analyze the two latest Bush Executive Orders.

Executive Order Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20.../20070717-3.htm

The President begins the EO by addressing his "constitutional" authority: "By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code... "

Interestingly, the National Emergencies Act of 1976 was passed to "stop open-ended states of national emergency and formalize Congressional checks and balances on Presidential emergency powers. The act sets a limit of two years on states of national emergency. It also imposes certain 'procedural formalities' on the President when invoking such powers, and provides a means for Congress to countermand a Presidential declaration of emergency and associated use of emergency powers.[source:Wikipedia]" It is clear that the president is not abiding by these restrictions and/or that Congress is complicit by not challenging the president on his continued use of emergency powers. Naturally, the 1976 law is full of loopholes that make it easy to extend the two year limit.

If you go to the trouble of reading these acts, you will see how just how totalitarian these powers are that are granted to the president in an emergency. Worse, there are no limitations on his power to declare such an emergency for almost any reason. These powers are not necessarily constitutional even though passed by Congress. The Constitution limits legislative powers to its enumerated functions. No such emergency powers were ever enumerated in the Constitution.

This EO essentially directs federal agencies to confiscate or block access to funds or property of any person (including US Citizens) without due process and without warning [direct violations of the constitution] who the administration determines "commit or pose a significant risk of committing [dangerously broad language], an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq,.. undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq."

Then the President boldly asserts, " I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 [2003] and expanded in Executive Order 13315, [also 2003] there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination [meaning: no warning to the affected parties]."

At first glance, it appears as if these powers could be used directly against commentators and critics of US government policy. Certainly many of us could be viewed as "undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform."

The singularly courageous Devvy Kidd recently criticized the Bush administration's lack of constitutional authority to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on behalf of Iraqi reconstruction. Is she guilty of "undermining Iraq reconstruction"? Your editor has criticized the phony puppet government of Iraq in all its various iterations. Am I guilty of "undermining efforts" for political reform? I'm sure some could construe it as such.

Steven Watson of Prisonplanet.com complained loudly, "President Bush's newest executive order states that any American citizen who threatens the peace and stability of Iraq and undermines efforts to promote reconstruction and reform there may have all their property and interests seized by the Treasury department without warning."

G. Edward Griffin and Aaron Russo agree when they claim, "President Bush signed an Executive order that authorized blocking the use of any property held by anyone he says is a threat to the 'stabilization' of Iraq. That means anyone who opposes his Middle East foreign policy now is subject to loss of home, automobiles, savings, investments, and anything else considered as property."

But as Devvy Kidd correctly notes: "I'm sorry, but this EO says no such thing." She's right, as usual. The specific language of the order limits its reach, "to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States."

That said, there is another part of the order which is so broad that it can include innocent citizens who unknowingly are deemed in "support" of those whose property is blocked by the order: Under Sec B, the president also claims the power to include persons who "(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of... any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order;" "Materially assisted" is a very broad legal phrase that can include almost any form of financial dealing-even innocent and unknowing. Clearly due process is necessary for these persons since the line of "support" needs careful adjudication.

Thus, using one's first amendment right to criticize government action in Iraq does NOT fit under giving "material support." So, you won't find Devvy Kidd or me arrested for having accused the government of improperly funding Iraqi reconstruction or the current puppet political regime in Baghdad.

Nevertheless, I do have to agree with the critic's long term view that all o