Duel in Des Moines
by Jed Babbin
Posted: 08/06/2007
Yesterday’s Republican debate in Iowa is likely to prove more significant than the Iowa caucuses that follow in January. For starters, it demonstrated both the wisdom and the folly in having so many candidates on stage.
Iowa frontrunners Romney (26%) and Giuliani (14%) got the chance to showcase their ideas, poise and style. Some second-tier candidates such as Huckabee (8%) and Hunter (1%) showed why they are still in the race while others, such as Constitution gadfly Ron Paul (2%), proved redundantly why they should not be. And in moments that should be remembered later in the campaign, at least four of the candidates -- Romney, Giuliani, Huckabee and Hunter -- stood taller than their rivals and all of the Democrats.
Perhaps the biggest surprise was that former Clinton staffer George Stephanopoulos conducted it as a debate and not -- as in the case of the MSNBC Chris Matthews debate -- a “let’s embarrass the Republicans” session. The 90-minute session included videotaped and e-mailed questions from real people (not snowmen, as on CNN/YouTube) and covered a lot of important topics quickly.
Stephanopoulos boiled the Iraq war down to two questions: first (from a videotape) how to exit from Iraq; second, would any candidate continue President Bush’s policy of spreading democracy. Unfortunately, he went first to Ron Paul who repeated his “just leave” rant, declaring the war unconstitutional and saying we’re losing. Worse yet, Paul implied that our troops’ morale was failing.
Which was too much for Duncan Hunter. The California congressman -- whose Marine son has served repeatedly in Iraq and Afghanistan -- spoke contemptuously about how none of the Democrats (and, implicitly, Ron Paul) while stampeding to exit from Iraq, has ever stopped to even thank the Marines who have turned Anbar province around. Former Arkansas governor Huckabee said that while we can’t stay in Iraq indefinitely, we need to win with honor.
John McCain reacted strongly to Paul’s statement, saying our troops’ morale is good. He stood solidly for the surge, despite prodding by Stephanopoulos to qualify his stand even if the Maliki government continues to fail to make progress. Rudy Giuliani had several good moments, but in this one he attacked the Dems for their failure to use the term “Islamic terrorism” in their four debates, condemning them for political correctness and saying that weakness and appeasement can’t be US policy.
Giuliani’s a great campaigner, and seems very comfortable in the debates. Referring to the O’Hanlon/Pollack piece in the New York Times that reported good news about the surge, Giuliani joked that he did a double-take to prove to himself that the Times would actually publish any such thing.
Mitt Romney -- speaking late in that round -- made a great call for a surge in Americans’ support for the troops. Rep. Tom Tancredo sideslipped, criticizing the rules of engagement which he alleged was costing American lives in Iraq. (Gen. Petraeus told me months ago that the ROE problem had been solved by eliminating local commanders’ modifications to them. The ROE are Petraeus’, and that should be good enough for Tancredo).
The neocon question produced much apparent confusion. Mike Huckabee gave the clearest (and best) answer, disavowing the spread of democracy as the core of his foreign policy. McCain, Giuliani and Romney wouldn’t disavow the Bush policy but didn’t make clear what their alternative would be, getting tangled up in a definitional contest about elections versus democracy. Romney flailed a bit, saying that we should help Muslim nations move toward modernity. That is a thought Romney should reconsider. If Islam is to be reformed, it will have to be by Muslims, not by us.
Tancredo defended his idea of deterrence against nuclear terrorism by threat of destroying the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina, declaring that anyone who took that off the table wasn’t fit to be president. Those who are fit, turned away from Tancredo’s idea -- and spoke critically of Barak Obama’s threat against Pakistan - in a lesson on presidential judgment.
McCain, Giuliani and Romney all -- in one way or another -- said that America isn’t wise to always state publicly what America will or will not do. Most of the nine, when asked about restoring the presidency après Bush spoke of restoring hope and shining cities on the hill, and such. But not Dr. Paul.
The idea of a president maintaining the constitutional underpinnings of the office escaped Ron Paul. In a startling disavowal of the separation of powers clause, Paul said that as president he would never withhold information from Congress, preemptively surrendering the president’s right to assert executive privilege and maintain the president’s ability to obtain, in confidence, the best counsel of his advisors. Rep. Paul would do well to read more and speak less on our Constitution. A good place to start would be the Supreme Court’s 1953 opinion on the constitutional underpinnings of executive privilege in US v. Reynolds. (It’s at volume 345 U.S. Reports, page 1.)
There were a lot of other issues discussed, from taxes to healthcare, infrastructure to restoring the presidency. Tommy Thompson promised to eliminate breast cancer by 2015. There was much about refusing to raise taxes, fighting earmarks, and two great moments of humor.
Mitt Romney scored first, speaking of Baby Obama’s new-found affinity for nuclear weapons. Romney’s line -- “Obama has gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove” -- will pop up on a lot of talk radio shows today. A less audible, and much funnier, moment came when Stephanopoulos asked one of the inevitably inane questions that comes up in every one of these debates.
Stephanopoulos (using an e-mailed question) asked each candidate to describe his biggest mistake and what he learned from it in thirty seconds. Most fumbled homilies, but when Giuliani’s turn came, Da Mayor looked at the camera in mock astonishment, asking, “To have a description of my mistakes in 30 seconds?” To Stephanopoulos, whose father is a priest, Giuliani promised to “…tell it to your father.”
There has too little energy, and too much conformity in the Democrats’ debates. But their amen chorus in the media continues to spotlight them as if they were rock stars. Republicans aren’t rock stars. But unlike any of the Dems, some of them are actually qualified, by experience, skill and temperament to be president in time of war.
Mr. Babbin is the editor of Human Events. He served as a deputy undersecretary of defense in President George H.W. Bush's administration. He is the author of "In the Words of our Enemies"(Regnery,2007) and (with Edward Timperlake) of "Showdown: Why China Wants War with the United States" (Regnery, 2006) and "Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe are Worse than You Think" (Regnery, 2004). E-mail him at jbabbin@eaglepub.com.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=21817
Full Version: Snuffysmith's Blog - June 26th - September 17th, 2007
Common Ground Common Sense > National & International News > Op-Ed Articles from the Mainstream Media > Op-Ed Articles from the Mainstream Media Archive
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Bush Signs Law to Widen Legal Reach for Wiretapping
By JAMES RISEN WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 — President Bush signed into law on Sunday legislation that broadly expanded the government’s authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.
Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.
They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens.
“This more or less legalizes the N.S.A. program,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who has studied the new legislation.
Previously, the government needed search warrants approved by a special intelligence court to eavesdrop on telephone conversations, e-mail messages and other electronic communications between individuals inside the United States and people overseas, if the government conducted the surveillance inside the United States.
Today, most international telephone conversations to and from the United States are conducted over fiber-optic cables, and the most efficient way for the government to eavesdrop on them is to latch on to giant telecommunications switches located in the United States.
By changing the legal definition of what is considered “electronic surveillance,” the new law allows the government to eavesdrop on those conversations without warrants — latching on to those giant switches — as long as the target of the government’s surveillance is “reasonably believed” to be overseas.
For example, if a person in Indianapolis calls someone in London, the National Security Agency can eavesdrop on that conversation without a warrant, as long as the N.S.A.’s target is the person in London.
Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said Sunday in an interview that the new law went beyond fixing the foreign-to-foreign problem, potentially allowing the government to listen to Americans calling overseas.
But he stressed that the objective of the new law is to give the government greater flexibility in focusing on foreign suspects overseas, not to go after Americans.
“It’s foreign, that’s the point,” Mr. Fratto said. “What you want to make sure is that you are getting the foreign target.”
The legislation to change the surveillance act was rushed through both the House and Senate in the last days before the August recess began.
The White House’s push for the change was driven in part by a still-classified ruling earlier this year by the special intelligence court, which said the government needed to seek court-approved warrants to monitor those international calls going through American switches.
The new law, which is intended as a stopgap and expires in six months, also represents a power shift in terms of the oversight and regulation of government surveillance.
The new law gives the attorney general and the director of national intelligence the power to approve the international surveillance, rather than the special intelligence court. The court’s only role will be to review and approve the procedures used by the government in the surveillance after it has been conducted. It will not scrutinize the cases of the individuals being monitored.
The law also gave the administration greater power to force telecommunications companies to cooperate with such spying operations. The companies can now be compelled to cooperate by orders from the attorney general and the director of national intelligence.
Democratic Congressional aides said Sunday that some telecommunications company officials had told Congressional leaders that they were unhappy with that provision in the bill and might challenge the new law in court. The aides said the telecommunications companies had told lawmakers that they would rather have a court-approved warrant ordering them to comply.
In fact, pressure from the telecommunications companies on the Bush administration has apparently played a major hidden role in the political battle over the surveillance issue over the past few months.
In January, the administration placed the N.S.A.’s warrantless wiretapping program under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and subjected it for the first time to the scrutiny of the FISA court.
Democratic Congressional aides said Sunday that they believed that pressure from major telecommunications companies on the White House was a major factor in persuading the Bush administration to do that. Those companies were facing major lawsuits for having secretly cooperated with the warrantless wiretapping program, and now wanted greater legal protections before cooperating further.
But the change suddenly swamped the court with an enormous volume of search warrant applications, leading, in turn, to the administration’s decision to seek the new legislation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/washingt...agewanted=print
By JAMES RISEN WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 — President Bush signed into law on Sunday legislation that broadly expanded the government’s authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.
Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.
They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens.
“This more or less legalizes the N.S.A. program,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who has studied the new legislation.
Previously, the government needed search warrants approved by a special intelligence court to eavesdrop on telephone conversations, e-mail messages and other electronic communications between individuals inside the United States and people overseas, if the government conducted the surveillance inside the United States.
Today, most international telephone conversations to and from the United States are conducted over fiber-optic cables, and the most efficient way for the government to eavesdrop on them is to latch on to giant telecommunications switches located in the United States.
By changing the legal definition of what is considered “electronic surveillance,” the new law allows the government to eavesdrop on those conversations without warrants — latching on to those giant switches — as long as the target of the government’s surveillance is “reasonably believed” to be overseas.
For example, if a person in Indianapolis calls someone in London, the National Security Agency can eavesdrop on that conversation without a warrant, as long as the N.S.A.’s target is the person in London.
Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said Sunday in an interview that the new law went beyond fixing the foreign-to-foreign problem, potentially allowing the government to listen to Americans calling overseas.
But he stressed that the objective of the new law is to give the government greater flexibility in focusing on foreign suspects overseas, not to go after Americans.
“It’s foreign, that’s the point,” Mr. Fratto said. “What you want to make sure is that you are getting the foreign target.”
The legislation to change the surveillance act was rushed through both the House and Senate in the last days before the August recess began.
The White House’s push for the change was driven in part by a still-classified ruling earlier this year by the special intelligence court, which said the government needed to seek court-approved warrants to monitor those international calls going through American switches.
The new law, which is intended as a stopgap and expires in six months, also represents a power shift in terms of the oversight and regulation of government surveillance.
The new law gives the attorney general and the director of national intelligence the power to approve the international surveillance, rather than the special intelligence court. The court’s only role will be to review and approve the procedures used by the government in the surveillance after it has been conducted. It will not scrutinize the cases of the individuals being monitored.
The law also gave the administration greater power to force telecommunications companies to cooperate with such spying operations. The companies can now be compelled to cooperate by orders from the attorney general and the director of national intelligence.
Democratic Congressional aides said Sunday that some telecommunications company officials had told Congressional leaders that they were unhappy with that provision in the bill and might challenge the new law in court. The aides said the telecommunications companies had told lawmakers that they would rather have a court-approved warrant ordering them to comply.
In fact, pressure from the telecommunications companies on the Bush administration has apparently played a major hidden role in the political battle over the surveillance issue over the past few months.
In January, the administration placed the N.S.A.’s warrantless wiretapping program under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and subjected it for the first time to the scrutiny of the FISA court.
Democratic Congressional aides said Sunday that they believed that pressure from major telecommunications companies on the White House was a major factor in persuading the Bush administration to do that. Those companies were facing major lawsuits for having secretly cooperated with the warrantless wiretapping program, and now wanted greater legal protections before cooperating further.
But the change suddenly swamped the court with an enormous volume of search warrant applications, leading, in turn, to the administration’s decision to seek the new legislation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/washingt...agewanted=print
US Weapons Hurt Mideast Legacy
by Robert Maginnis
Posted: 08/06/2007
President Bush has 18 months left in office and desperately wants to retrieve his legacy which is mired in the Middle East. So, last week, the President sent his Secretaries of Defense and State to the region to cajole Arab dictators into helping resolve crises in Iraq, Israel and Iran.
The US is using a package of sophisticated weapons to lure Sunni Arabs into helping America address tough challenges. What’s not clear is whether giving them more efficient killing instruments will stop or start violence and whether the burst of diplomatic energy at the tail end of the Bush administration will help or hinder the next commander-in-chief.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asserts, “This [arms package] isn’t an issue of quid pro quo.” Events suggest otherwise. After Rice visited Saudi Arabia last week, the Kingdom reversed its position on two issues: Iraq and Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal announced his country will send a diplomatic mission to Baghdad “and explore how we can start an embassy in Iraq” and Saudi Arabia will participate in peace talks.
It’s good that the Saudis have promised to talk but the Bush administration needs the Kingdom to do more. That’s why the weapons deal might just be enough to leverage meaningful assistance. After all, Riyadh is very nervous about hegemonic Iran so it’s willing to help Bush on other fronts in order to get US assistance in facing down Tehran.
However, there is a downside to the President’s policy. Selling sophisticated weapons to non-democratic Saudi Arabia is a double edged sword because Riyadh has a history of transferring military technology such as giving US weapons to Iraq in the 1980s. Besides, arming the Arabs with sophisticated weapons like laser guided Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) might further destabilize the region.
Iran is the geopolitical elephant in the living room. The US has twice failed to talk the mullahs out of their unhelpful role in Iraq and five years of weak sanctions haven’t stopped Tehran’s nuclear arms race. Obviously, Iran believes it deserves to be a regional hegemon which distresses the Arabs.
The Sunni Arab world appears to have concluded that Iran rather than Israel is their main strategic threat because the Jewish state has no imperial ambitions, Iran does.
So, the arms deal leverages the Arabs’ Iran-phobia. Therefore, the policy quid pro quo is that the Arabs will get US arms to deal with Iran if they agree to assist the US in settling the messes in Iraq and Israel.
No doubt, Iran is a regional hegemon. America helped elevate the Persians to that status by removing their worst enemy, Iraq’s former dictator, and then Tehran turned Baghdad into a Shiite ally. Iran has established footholds in both Lebanon and Gaza via proxies Hezbollah and Hamas and it is building bridges with Afghanistan’s Taliban. This is all made possible by high oil profits that fuel Tehran’s proxies and its military build-up.
Understandably, many Sunni Arabs are alarmed. “Iran is invading the Arab world and burning everything in its path,” columnist Mshari al-Zaydi wrote in Saudi daily Asharq al-Awsat. “With the Arabs standing idly by, Iran seeks to impose its control over the region.” Even Jordan’s King Abdullah has spoken of a threatening “Shiite crescent” reaching Lebanon.
It’s noteworthy that Israel is sympathetic to this view. Israel is concerned about Iran’s use of proxies and is constantly reminded by cocky Iranians that Tel Aviv will be the bull’s eye for Iran’s first nuclear weapon. Even the Saudis realize that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threat to “wipe Israel off the map” is more than rhetoric and they fear the Shiite Iranians have eyes for them as well.
Previously, Israel has loudly opposed Arab arms deals: not this time. “We understand the need of the United States to support the Arab moderate states, and there is a need for a united front … regarding Iran," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his cabinet.
Of course, there’s hush money in the deal for Israel. It gets a 25 percent increase in US military aid over 10 years and so does peace partner Egypt.
There is the risk that the arms deal will backfire, however. It could further destabilize the region and the weapons could end up in bad hands or the technology might be diverted. Even if the deal doesn’t backfire, there is little likelihood that these weapons will ever benefit the US if we go to war with Iran. The combined military force of the Arab states is so small that in a major conflict their contribution, if they provided it, would hardly be noticed.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora is irked by the alleged destabilizing Israeli part of the arms deal. He fears it “strengthens and feeds extremist currents.”
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s terrorist leader, agrees with Siniora. "The American administration is working on instigating sectarian strife and civil wars in Palestine, Iraq, the Gulf and ... between the countries of this region," Nasrallah said.
Then there is always the chance that extremists might topple the current Sunni dictators and Islamic radicals would control the advanced American weaponry. After all, none of the Arab dictators are popular and we will never be able to ensure the security of the weapons or technology.
It’s not trivial that American weapons technology is expensive and vulnerable to technological countermeasures. US government investigations have documented the unauthorized transfer of American military equipment, dual-use items and high technology by Mideast allies. Some of that technology ends up in the competition’s products or in hands of our adversaries, and gives some the opportunity to defeat our technology before a bullet is fired.
There is also the notion that these weapons are purely defensive. The problem is that defensive weapons can be turned into offensive weapons such as strapping bombs on jets intended for reconnaissance. Besides, what’s “defensive” about a laser guided JDAM? If we want to help the Saudis with defensive weapons then sell them surface to air missiles.
Predictably, Ahmadinejad attacked the arms deal by warning that America wants to “impose its ideas and hegemony” on the region. Then he took a swipe at the Arab dictators by suggesting they “spend the resources for progress and development of their countries" rather than weapons.
The US must reconsider its weapons-for-talks policy. It may provide short term Arab help but it won’t stop Iran and it risks technology diversion and further regional destabilization.
Mr. Maginnis is a retired Army lieutenant colonel, a national security and foreign affairs analyst for radio and television and a senior strategist with the U.S. Army.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=21819
by Robert Maginnis
Posted: 08/06/2007
President Bush has 18 months left in office and desperately wants to retrieve his legacy which is mired in the Middle East. So, last week, the President sent his Secretaries of Defense and State to the region to cajole Arab dictators into helping resolve crises in Iraq, Israel and Iran.
The US is using a package of sophisticated weapons to lure Sunni Arabs into helping America address tough challenges. What’s not clear is whether giving them more efficient killing instruments will stop or start violence and whether the burst of diplomatic energy at the tail end of the Bush administration will help or hinder the next commander-in-chief.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asserts, “This [arms package] isn’t an issue of quid pro quo.” Events suggest otherwise. After Rice visited Saudi Arabia last week, the Kingdom reversed its position on two issues: Iraq and Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal announced his country will send a diplomatic mission to Baghdad “and explore how we can start an embassy in Iraq” and Saudi Arabia will participate in peace talks.
It’s good that the Saudis have promised to talk but the Bush administration needs the Kingdom to do more. That’s why the weapons deal might just be enough to leverage meaningful assistance. After all, Riyadh is very nervous about hegemonic Iran so it’s willing to help Bush on other fronts in order to get US assistance in facing down Tehran.
However, there is a downside to the President’s policy. Selling sophisticated weapons to non-democratic Saudi Arabia is a double edged sword because Riyadh has a history of transferring military technology such as giving US weapons to Iraq in the 1980s. Besides, arming the Arabs with sophisticated weapons like laser guided Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) might further destabilize the region.
Iran is the geopolitical elephant in the living room. The US has twice failed to talk the mullahs out of their unhelpful role in Iraq and five years of weak sanctions haven’t stopped Tehran’s nuclear arms race. Obviously, Iran believes it deserves to be a regional hegemon which distresses the Arabs.
The Sunni Arab world appears to have concluded that Iran rather than Israel is their main strategic threat because the Jewish state has no imperial ambitions, Iran does.
So, the arms deal leverages the Arabs’ Iran-phobia. Therefore, the policy quid pro quo is that the Arabs will get US arms to deal with Iran if they agree to assist the US in settling the messes in Iraq and Israel.
No doubt, Iran is a regional hegemon. America helped elevate the Persians to that status by removing their worst enemy, Iraq’s former dictator, and then Tehran turned Baghdad into a Shiite ally. Iran has established footholds in both Lebanon and Gaza via proxies Hezbollah and Hamas and it is building bridges with Afghanistan’s Taliban. This is all made possible by high oil profits that fuel Tehran’s proxies and its military build-up.
Understandably, many Sunni Arabs are alarmed. “Iran is invading the Arab world and burning everything in its path,” columnist Mshari al-Zaydi wrote in Saudi daily Asharq al-Awsat. “With the Arabs standing idly by, Iran seeks to impose its control over the region.” Even Jordan’s King Abdullah has spoken of a threatening “Shiite crescent” reaching Lebanon.
It’s noteworthy that Israel is sympathetic to this view. Israel is concerned about Iran’s use of proxies and is constantly reminded by cocky Iranians that Tel Aviv will be the bull’s eye for Iran’s first nuclear weapon. Even the Saudis realize that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threat to “wipe Israel off the map” is more than rhetoric and they fear the Shiite Iranians have eyes for them as well.
Previously, Israel has loudly opposed Arab arms deals: not this time. “We understand the need of the United States to support the Arab moderate states, and there is a need for a united front … regarding Iran," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his cabinet.
Of course, there’s hush money in the deal for Israel. It gets a 25 percent increase in US military aid over 10 years and so does peace partner Egypt.
There is the risk that the arms deal will backfire, however. It could further destabilize the region and the weapons could end up in bad hands or the technology might be diverted. Even if the deal doesn’t backfire, there is little likelihood that these weapons will ever benefit the US if we go to war with Iran. The combined military force of the Arab states is so small that in a major conflict their contribution, if they provided it, would hardly be noticed.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora is irked by the alleged destabilizing Israeli part of the arms deal. He fears it “strengthens and feeds extremist currents.”
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s terrorist leader, agrees with Siniora. "The American administration is working on instigating sectarian strife and civil wars in Palestine, Iraq, the Gulf and ... between the countries of this region," Nasrallah said.
Then there is always the chance that extremists might topple the current Sunni dictators and Islamic radicals would control the advanced American weaponry. After all, none of the Arab dictators are popular and we will never be able to ensure the security of the weapons or technology.
It’s not trivial that American weapons technology is expensive and vulnerable to technological countermeasures. US government investigations have documented the unauthorized transfer of American military equipment, dual-use items and high technology by Mideast allies. Some of that technology ends up in the competition’s products or in hands of our adversaries, and gives some the opportunity to defeat our technology before a bullet is fired.
There is also the notion that these weapons are purely defensive. The problem is that defensive weapons can be turned into offensive weapons such as strapping bombs on jets intended for reconnaissance. Besides, what’s “defensive” about a laser guided JDAM? If we want to help the Saudis with defensive weapons then sell them surface to air missiles.
Predictably, Ahmadinejad attacked the arms deal by warning that America wants to “impose its ideas and hegemony” on the region. Then he took a swipe at the Arab dictators by suggesting they “spend the resources for progress and development of their countries" rather than weapons.
The US must reconsider its weapons-for-talks policy. It may provide short term Arab help but it won’t stop Iran and it risks technology diversion and further regional destabilization.
Mr. Maginnis is a retired Army lieutenant colonel, a national security and foreign affairs analyst for radio and television and a senior strategist with the U.S. Army.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=21819
Ahmadinejad's bureaucratic revolution
Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is promising "revolutionary changes" in the country's diplomacy in the next few months, leading to a significant improvement in the country's external affairs. Reforms to another vital bureaucratic rampart, economic management, are in full swing, moving Iran away from the rigid five-year plans that have stifled the economy. - Kaveh L Afrasiabi (Aug 6, '07)
Iran faces challenges from within
An umbrella organization of anti-regime movements based in Iran and the diaspora is cause enough for Tehran to be concerned. In addition, US planners are likely to use the threat of aiding active insurgent groups as an effective lever over Iran. (Aug 6, '07)
http://www.atimes.com/
Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is promising "revolutionary changes" in the country's diplomacy in the next few months, leading to a significant improvement in the country's external affairs. Reforms to another vital bureaucratic rampart, economic management, are in full swing, moving Iran away from the rigid five-year plans that have stifled the economy. - Kaveh L Afrasiabi (Aug 6, '07)
Iran faces challenges from within
An umbrella organization of anti-regime movements based in Iran and the diaspora is cause enough for Tehran to be concerned. In addition, US planners are likely to use the threat of aiding active insurgent groups as an effective lever over Iran. (Aug 6, '07)
http://www.atimes.com/
SPENGLER
Christianity finds
a fulcrum in Asia
China is poised to become a driving force on yet another front, one that would have seemed impossible just a brief while ago: the global spread of Christianity. By the middle of this century, Chinese may comprise the world's largest concentration of Christians, and the largest missionary force in history. If democracy is ever to flourish in China, it will be at the behest of its fearless grassroots evangelists.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IH07Ad03.html
Christianity finds
a fulcrum in Asia
China is poised to become a driving force on yet another front, one that would have seemed impossible just a brief while ago: the global spread of Christianity. By the middle of this century, Chinese may comprise the world's largest concentration of Christians, and the largest missionary force in history. If democracy is ever to flourish in China, it will be at the behest of its fearless grassroots evangelists.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IH07Ad03.html
Abbas staring at oblivionPalestinian President Mahmoud Abbas violated the one true principle that motivated every one of his predecessors when he set out to divide the Palestinian nation by turning his back on the people in Gaza. In crossing that line he has sealed his fate. - Mark Perry (Aug 3, '07)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH04Ak05.html
Maliki is out on his feet
Thirteen out of 37 ministers in Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's cabinet have walked out, and more are likely to follow soon. This leaves him with no Sunnis, and no representatives of "kingmaker" Muqtada al-Sadr. Maliki's days are clearly numbered, and already candidates are positioning themselves to take over the premiership, with secular Shi'ite Mahdi al-Hafez an early front-runner. - Sami Moubayed (Aug 3, '07)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH04Ak02.html
Iraq bleeds US, enriches contractors
The US is spending more than 10% of its budget on the Iraq war, and it ultimately could cost taxpayers more than US$1 trillion when the carnage is finally totaled up. Meanwhile, several of Washington's biggest defense contractors are rolling in dough from their work in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Aug 3, '07)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH04Ak04.html
The US is spending more than 10% of its budget on the Iraq war, and it ultimately could cost taxpayers more than US$1 trillion when the carnage is finally totaled up. Meanwhile, several of Washington's biggest defense contractors are rolling in dough from their work in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Aug 3, '07)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH04Ak04.html
August 6, 2007
Al Qaeda Issues Warning to America (and others) with an American Accent !
By Animesh Roul
Another chilling video from Qaeda production house Al Sahab reportedly warned India, Israel, Russia and of course the United States. This one hour long terror docu-drama came within a week after Abu Yahya al-Libi’s call for overthrowing Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. This time the presenter is one American Qaeda member Adam Gaddhan (Azzam al Amriki). The video declared, besides targeting US at home and its diplomatic missions abroad, the outfit is planning to target Tel Aviv, Moscow and New Delhi. For the first time a video from Al Qaeda inventories reportedly accused India directly for killing thousands of Muslims in Kashmir and that to with US support. Gaddhan came to limelight in 2004 when he threatened in one such video, “Allah willing, the streets of America will run red with blood.” This is not the first time Gaddhan featured in such videos.
Not surprisingly the Qaeda documentary has footages of most of the earlier attacks including March 02, 2006 attack in Karachi, Pakistan in which US diplomat David Foy was killed along with his two Pakistani associates. The documentary largely in English with Arabic and Urdu recitals as background scores, has clippings of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri among others.
This is a story of Abu Uthman (focussed on his journey to so called Martyrhood, citing examples of Yousef Ramzi and others), speaking in fluent Urdu and appealing muslims to join Jihad and why. Gaddhan appeared in later part of the video. This one and al-Libi’s video message (Aug 01) used Urdu language (with Arabic) in a desperate attempt to incite fervor among the Muslims in South Asia.
Excerpts[from Adam Gaddhan]:
“[We] shall continue to target you, at home and abroad, just as you target us, at home and abroad. These spy dens and military command and control centres from which you plotted your aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq, and which still provide vital moral, military material, and logistical support to the Crusade, shall continue to be legitimate targets for brave Muslims, like our martyred brother Othman, until and unless you heed our demands. Stop the Crusade and leave the Muslims alone."
Couplet from the background scores in Urdu:
“Salame akhir kubul karana, Shaheed hamle pe ja raha hun, Na luatkar aa sakunga sayyed, Mahaj aisa saja raha hun”
[Accept my salute, I may not be back this time as I am going for a suicide mission]
Read More »
See, SITE Intelligence Group's Brief analysis here.
For Complete details and the 73 MB video here at http://www.lauramansfield.com.
For a shorter version: Times Now
August 6, 2007 04:28 AM Link
http://counterterrorismblog.org/
Al Qaeda Issues Warning to America (and others) with an American Accent !
By Animesh Roul
Another chilling video from Qaeda production house Al Sahab reportedly warned India, Israel, Russia and of course the United States. This one hour long terror docu-drama came within a week after Abu Yahya al-Libi’s call for overthrowing Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. This time the presenter is one American Qaeda member Adam Gaddhan (Azzam al Amriki). The video declared, besides targeting US at home and its diplomatic missions abroad, the outfit is planning to target Tel Aviv, Moscow and New Delhi. For the first time a video from Al Qaeda inventories reportedly accused India directly for killing thousands of Muslims in Kashmir and that to with US support. Gaddhan came to limelight in 2004 when he threatened in one such video, “Allah willing, the streets of America will run red with blood.” This is not the first time Gaddhan featured in such videos.
Not surprisingly the Qaeda documentary has footages of most of the earlier attacks including March 02, 2006 attack in Karachi, Pakistan in which US diplomat David Foy was killed along with his two Pakistani associates. The documentary largely in English with Arabic and Urdu recitals as background scores, has clippings of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri among others.
This is a story of Abu Uthman (focussed on his journey to so called Martyrhood, citing examples of Yousef Ramzi and others), speaking in fluent Urdu and appealing muslims to join Jihad and why. Gaddhan appeared in later part of the video. This one and al-Libi’s video message (Aug 01) used Urdu language (with Arabic) in a desperate attempt to incite fervor among the Muslims in South Asia.
Excerpts[from Adam Gaddhan]:
“[We] shall continue to target you, at home and abroad, just as you target us, at home and abroad. These spy dens and military command and control centres from which you plotted your aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq, and which still provide vital moral, military material, and logistical support to the Crusade, shall continue to be legitimate targets for brave Muslims, like our martyred brother Othman, until and unless you heed our demands. Stop the Crusade and leave the Muslims alone."
Couplet from the background scores in Urdu:
“Salame akhir kubul karana, Shaheed hamle pe ja raha hun, Na luatkar aa sakunga sayyed, Mahaj aisa saja raha hun”
[Accept my salute, I may not be back this time as I am going for a suicide mission]
Read More »
See, SITE Intelligence Group's Brief analysis here.
For Complete details and the 73 MB video here at http://www.lauramansfield.com.
For a shorter version: Times Now
August 6, 2007 04:28 AM Link
http://counterterrorismblog.org/
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.aspx?GUID=C047EE60-03FD-4A85-97AA-19F3CF14C516
Muslims Silence Critics
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | 8/6/2007
FrontPageMagazine.com | 8/6/2007
After a police raid Friday at Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland, bakery employee Devaughndre Broussard admitted to murdering Chauncey Bailey, the editor of the Oakland Post. Bailey was writing a series of investigative articles about the Bakery – and that’s why, according to police, Broussard killed him.
Your Black Muslim Bakery is an outpost of the Nation of Islam, not of any orthodox Islamic sect, but in this murder Devaughndre Broussard has followed a pattern that some orthodox Muslims have also followed. Violent reprisal has long been an occupational hazard of those who dare to question or investigate Islamic groups or criticize Islamic practices. Filmmaker Theo van Gogh was brutally murdered in November 2004 by a Muslim who took exception to his criticism of the oppression of women in Islamic societies. In 1947, the Iranian lawyer Ahmad Kasravi was murdered in court by Islamic jihadists; Kasravi was there to defend himself against charges that he had attacked Islam.
Four years later, members of the same radical Muslim group, Fadayan-e Islam, assassinated Iranian Prime Minister Haji-Ali Razmara after a group of Muslim clerics issued a fatwa calling for his death. In 1992, the Egyptian writer Faraj Foda was murdered by Muslims enraged at his “apostasy” from Islam — another offense for which traditional Islamic law prescribes the death penalty. Foda’s countryman, the Nobel Prizewinning novelist Naguib Mahfouz, was stabbed in 1994 after accusations of blasphemy. And of course, there is the Iranian regime’s notorious death fatwa against Salman Rushdie.
Chauncey Bailey, moreover, is not the first person in the United States to have been murdered by a Muslim who didn’t like what he said. That distinction may belong to Rashad Khalifa, an unorthodox interpreter of the Qur’an who was murdered in Tucson, Arizona, in January 1990 – probably by a member of the jihadist group Jamaat al-Fuqra. But Bailey’s is still a singular case. Much more common has been the practice of trying to intimidate critics into silence through legal threats.
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has had great success with this over the years, although lately the tactic appears to be faltering. CAIR was unsuccessful in bullying the Young America’s Foundation into canceling a talk by me last week: the address went on as scheduled on Thursday. In 2006, CAIR dropped a lawsuit against Andrew Whitehead of Anti-CAIR after Mr. Whitehead’s attorney asked a series of probing questions during the discovery process. But before that, CAIR successfully cowed National Review magazine, Fox’s 24, and others into muting in various ways their criticism of Islamic violence and extremism.
Nor is CAIR alone among Muslims in its efforts at legal intimidation. Billionaire Saudi financier Khalid bin Mahfouz has sued journalist Rachel Ehrenfeld and others for libel in the U.K., where the libel laws favor plaintiffs. Ehrenfeld’s offense? In her book Funding Evil, she wrote that bin Mahfouz was involved in funding Hamas and al Qaeda. Bin Mahfouz denied that he had knowingly given any money to either. And Cambridge University Press has, in response to another libel suit filed by bin Mahfouz, just removed from circulation and destroyed all unsold copies of Alms for Jihad by Robert Collins and J. Millard Burr, because the book made essentially the same allegations. But France’s foreign intelligence agency has recently revealed that as long ago as 1996 Mr. bin Mahfouz was known as one of the architects of a banking scheme constructed for the benefit of Osama bin Laden – and that both U.S. and British intelligence services knew this.
The most notorious attempt at legal intimidation of all may be the Flying Imams case, in which six imams are suing US Airways because they were removed from a flight for suspicious behavior. They are also – although some reports now dispute this – suing the passengers who reported them. If this suit succeeds, imagine the effect: no one will dare report suspicious behavior in an airport or airplane, for fear of being sued. And jihad terrorists will have a free hand.
The lawyer for the Flying Imams is Omar T. Mohammedi, who as of 2006 was president of CAIR’s New York chapter.
The murder of Chauncey Bailey should provide renewed impetus to call upon the American Muslim community to take genuine action against the deeply ingrained culture of violence that provides the context in which such things happen. And the pattern of legal intimidation has been followed so many times now that Americans are becoming increasingly aware of how it works and how it can and must be resisted. For if this intimidation – both violent and nonviolent – is not resisted, those who are doing the intimidating will eventually succeed in establishing a protected class in America, an ideology that cannot be questioned or rejected. And that, more than anything else, will be the end of any semblance of Constitutional government.
Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of six books, seven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World’s Fastest Growing Faith and the New York Times Bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad.
'Ron Paul Is a Big Problem'
by Burton S. Blumert
"Look, Blumert," the lawyer told me. "There's nothing complex here. Ron Paul is a big problem for you people." So I responded:
BLUMERT: You can’t imagine how strange that sounds. Ron is a problem only to the moribund political establishment, and their cowardly media. At LewRockwell.com (LRC) we revere Ron Paul and regard him as a modern day Thomas Jefferson. Indeed, Ron’s even more principled than Jefferson, and he knows Austrian economics as well.
LAWYER: That’s my point. In the past few months, too many articles and blogs at LRC have cast a positive light on Ron Paul, and therefore on his presidential candidacy. LRC, and its parent, the Center for Libertarian Studies, are non-profit entities, and you guys cannot be involved with political campaigns in any way, shape, or form.
BLUMERT: The Center for Libertarian Studies (CLS) was chartered in 1975, and we have never been involved with electoral politics. The same is true for LRC, which has been around since 1999.
Now, Ron Paul has been a champion for freedom for his entire career, and we have been proud to publish his articles and speeches as important libertarian documents. By doing so, we dramatically raised his internet profile. But that doesn’t mean we are involved with any political campaign.
LAWYER: The fact remains that Ron Paul is now a real world candidate for president, and you guys are playing with fire every time you publish a positive article about him.
Sure, you might win the argument that you are not political, but you have some powerful enemies, the pro-war crowd, for example. They would love to destroy you, and if they can use the levers of power against you, they will.
And by the way, given the way you are legally structured now, you also can’t run articles or blogs that are critical of other candidates. No going after Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Giuliani, Thompson, or McCain.
So here are your choices as I measure them: You can stop publishing articles and blogs on Ron Paul and other candidates (and cross your fingers), or you can shut down LRC immediately. Total closure is what I recommend, and right now.
BLUMERT: Abandon Ron Paul? Never.
Close down LRC? You might as well cut off Lew Rockwell’s fingers.
I’ll pretend I didn’t hear either of your suggestions.
Look, LRC is too important to silence. It has become the most significant libertarian website in the world. Literally thousands of people, from all over the world, have told me that LRC has been key to their intellectual development, and a source of sanity in this Age of the Neocon.
Of course, we also get hatemail; we’re "anti-Semites" for opposing endless Mideast wars; we’re "traitors" for resisting the omnipotent executive; we’re "pro-terrorist" for fighting the police state; we’re "mean-spirited" for supporting the free market; we’re "conspiracy nuts" for criticizing the Federal Reserve; and we’re "anti-American" for working against the empire.
But even our enemies can’t stay away; vast numbers of people visit the site every day, to learn, to cheer, or to boo, because this is where it’s happening – for everyone dedicated (or opposed) to freedom and peace.
As to Ron Paul, we have some history here. In 1988 I was chairman of Ron’s first presidential campaign. Lew has been his friend and associate since 1975, and served as Ron’s chief of staff in Congress. We both know him very well, and, like all who know him, think the world of him, as a man of great integrity and as a leader. This is not political; it is supporting the ideas we have loved and promoted for decades.
Of course, it’s no coincidence that Ron calls LRC his favorite website. Bail on him? Never. Lew and I have worked all our lives for this moment. And we will keep working.
As Ron himself has said, "More important than the man is the message for liberty." And after today’s debates, primaries, and elections, are over, LRC will still be spreading that message.
LAWYER: Okay, okay, Blumert, I get the message. To protect both LRC and CLS, and you and Lew, you only have one prudent course of action. You must spin LRC off from CLS. The good news: CLS will stay as it is. The not-so-good news: donations to LRC will no longer be tax-deductible, though it still can be a non-profit educational effort.
There was a certain surrealism in dealing with this tax attorney; profit vs. non-profit; tax-exempt vs. non-tax-exempt. These are state-created categories, and libertarians should never have to deal with such distinctions. Some libertarian purists refuse to use a state driver’s license. Others, on the fringe, don't want to travel a government built roadway. (And after Minneapolis, who can blame them?)
Still, Lew has sufficient challenge six days a week, every week of the year, without some bureaucrat peering over his shoulder determining whether an LRC article falls under regulation A (politically acceptable) or B (politically unacceptable).
So, on June 30, 2007, LRC seceded (an appropriate word for us!) from the Center for Libertarian Studies, which will carry on its scholarly work. LRC, now to become a 501©4, will continue as a popular educational endeavor, operating on a not-for-profit basis, but not tax-deductible.
That is, donations to LRC as of July 1, 2007 (Lew’s 63rd birthday), are NOT tax-deductible.
Frankly, this worries me very much. (Of course, to know me is to know that everything worries me very much.) Can LRC survive under this new regime? Will people donate to LRC if they no longer can claim a deduction on their taxes? Some people tell me No. Lew says Yes, we can. Frankly, I don’t know. What I do know is that our decision is the right one.
Our "Ron Paul Problem" has a price tag. It’s going to cost us at least $15K to set-up our new non-profit entity. In addition, since we started suffering with the lawyers, and stopped fundraising given the uncertainty, we have consumed about $30K of our reserves. Then we need about $25,000 to keep going for the rest of the year, and I’d like to restore our reserve so we are not perpetually on the knife-edge. So that is $70,000 in total.
Will you help? You have never failed us. And now LRC needs you more than ever.
I know I don’t have to remind you (but I will anyway!) that the neocons are smart, well-organized, and unscrupulous. They seem committed to one bloody war after another: Iraq today; Iran or Syria next; and then maybe China. They control wealthy foundations, powerful mass media, and part of the Bush administration. We have done them damage, so waving bye-bye to LRC as it sank beneath the waves would give them great pleasure.
After all, Lew has been fighting these "big-government conservatives," in one way or another, since the late 1960s. In the old days, they regarded him as a small dog nipping at their heels. Today, they fear him. And they really do want him to disappear. Especially now, thanks to Ron Paul.
In my 78 years, I have never seen a moment like this. The enemy has done serious damage. But their evil influence is vulnerable to a motivated, educated people in revolt, and using the ideas of Mises, Rothbard, and other great libertarians, Ron Paul has jump-started the revolution against all the statists who threaten us. And Lew Rockwell has been laying the groundwork for 40 years, to be ready for just this time.
I believe this is The Moment. Will LRC be able to play its essential role? Or will the neocons be toasting our demise? How I would hate to tell Ron we had to close our doors.
Please help. If you want us to keep fighting, please send your most generous donation. Keep LRC going. We have never needed it more.
PS: We owe it to the great men and women of our past, to Ron, and to the future, to never give in and never give up. Please help Lew keep fighting. How we need him.
August 6, 2007
Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt's Gold Page.
Copyright © 2007 LewRockwell.com
Burton S. Blumert Archives
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blumert/blumert122.html
by Burton S. Blumert
"Look, Blumert," the lawyer told me. "There's nothing complex here. Ron Paul is a big problem for you people." So I responded:
BLUMERT: You can’t imagine how strange that sounds. Ron is a problem only to the moribund political establishment, and their cowardly media. At LewRockwell.com (LRC) we revere Ron Paul and regard him as a modern day Thomas Jefferson. Indeed, Ron’s even more principled than Jefferson, and he knows Austrian economics as well.
LAWYER: That’s my point. In the past few months, too many articles and blogs at LRC have cast a positive light on Ron Paul, and therefore on his presidential candidacy. LRC, and its parent, the Center for Libertarian Studies, are non-profit entities, and you guys cannot be involved with political campaigns in any way, shape, or form.
BLUMERT: The Center for Libertarian Studies (CLS) was chartered in 1975, and we have never been involved with electoral politics. The same is true for LRC, which has been around since 1999.
Now, Ron Paul has been a champion for freedom for his entire career, and we have been proud to publish his articles and speeches as important libertarian documents. By doing so, we dramatically raised his internet profile. But that doesn’t mean we are involved with any political campaign.
LAWYER: The fact remains that Ron Paul is now a real world candidate for president, and you guys are playing with fire every time you publish a positive article about him.
Sure, you might win the argument that you are not political, but you have some powerful enemies, the pro-war crowd, for example. They would love to destroy you, and if they can use the levers of power against you, they will.
And by the way, given the way you are legally structured now, you also can’t run articles or blogs that are critical of other candidates. No going after Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Giuliani, Thompson, or McCain.
So here are your choices as I measure them: You can stop publishing articles and blogs on Ron Paul and other candidates (and cross your fingers), or you can shut down LRC immediately. Total closure is what I recommend, and right now.
BLUMERT: Abandon Ron Paul? Never.
Close down LRC? You might as well cut off Lew Rockwell’s fingers.
I’ll pretend I didn’t hear either of your suggestions.
Look, LRC is too important to silence. It has become the most significant libertarian website in the world. Literally thousands of people, from all over the world, have told me that LRC has been key to their intellectual development, and a source of sanity in this Age of the Neocon.
Of course, we also get hatemail; we’re "anti-Semites" for opposing endless Mideast wars; we’re "traitors" for resisting the omnipotent executive; we’re "pro-terrorist" for fighting the police state; we’re "mean-spirited" for supporting the free market; we’re "conspiracy nuts" for criticizing the Federal Reserve; and we’re "anti-American" for working against the empire.
But even our enemies can’t stay away; vast numbers of people visit the site every day, to learn, to cheer, or to boo, because this is where it’s happening – for everyone dedicated (or opposed) to freedom and peace.
As to Ron Paul, we have some history here. In 1988 I was chairman of Ron’s first presidential campaign. Lew has been his friend and associate since 1975, and served as Ron’s chief of staff in Congress. We both know him very well, and, like all who know him, think the world of him, as a man of great integrity and as a leader. This is not political; it is supporting the ideas we have loved and promoted for decades.
Of course, it’s no coincidence that Ron calls LRC his favorite website. Bail on him? Never. Lew and I have worked all our lives for this moment. And we will keep working.
As Ron himself has said, "More important than the man is the message for liberty." And after today’s debates, primaries, and elections, are over, LRC will still be spreading that message.
LAWYER: Okay, okay, Blumert, I get the message. To protect both LRC and CLS, and you and Lew, you only have one prudent course of action. You must spin LRC off from CLS. The good news: CLS will stay as it is. The not-so-good news: donations to LRC will no longer be tax-deductible, though it still can be a non-profit educational effort.
There was a certain surrealism in dealing with this tax attorney; profit vs. non-profit; tax-exempt vs. non-tax-exempt. These are state-created categories, and libertarians should never have to deal with such distinctions. Some libertarian purists refuse to use a state driver’s license. Others, on the fringe, don't want to travel a government built roadway. (And after Minneapolis, who can blame them?)
Still, Lew has sufficient challenge six days a week, every week of the year, without some bureaucrat peering over his shoulder determining whether an LRC article falls under regulation A (politically acceptable) or B (politically unacceptable).
So, on June 30, 2007, LRC seceded (an appropriate word for us!) from the Center for Libertarian Studies, which will carry on its scholarly work. LRC, now to become a 501©4, will continue as a popular educational endeavor, operating on a not-for-profit basis, but not tax-deductible.
That is, donations to LRC as of July 1, 2007 (Lew’s 63rd birthday), are NOT tax-deductible.
Frankly, this worries me very much. (Of course, to know me is to know that everything worries me very much.) Can LRC survive under this new regime? Will people donate to LRC if they no longer can claim a deduction on their taxes? Some people tell me No. Lew says Yes, we can. Frankly, I don’t know. What I do know is that our decision is the right one.
Our "Ron Paul Problem" has a price tag. It’s going to cost us at least $15K to set-up our new non-profit entity. In addition, since we started suffering with the lawyers, and stopped fundraising given the uncertainty, we have consumed about $30K of our reserves. Then we need about $25,000 to keep going for the rest of the year, and I’d like to restore our reserve so we are not perpetually on the knife-edge. So that is $70,000 in total.
Will you help? You have never failed us. And now LRC needs you more than ever.
I know I don’t have to remind you (but I will anyway!) that the neocons are smart, well-organized, and unscrupulous. They seem committed to one bloody war after another: Iraq today; Iran or Syria next; and then maybe China. They control wealthy foundations, powerful mass media, and part of the Bush administration. We have done them damage, so waving bye-bye to LRC as it sank beneath the waves would give them great pleasure.
After all, Lew has been fighting these "big-government conservatives," in one way or another, since the late 1960s. In the old days, they regarded him as a small dog nipping at their heels. Today, they fear him. And they really do want him to disappear. Especially now, thanks to Ron Paul.
In my 78 years, I have never seen a moment like this. The enemy has done serious damage. But their evil influence is vulnerable to a motivated, educated people in revolt, and using the ideas of Mises, Rothbard, and other great libertarians, Ron Paul has jump-started the revolution against all the statists who threaten us. And Lew Rockwell has been laying the groundwork for 40 years, to be ready for just this time.
I believe this is The Moment. Will LRC be able to play its essential role? Or will the neocons be toasting our demise? How I would hate to tell Ron we had to close our doors.
Please help. If you want us to keep fighting, please send your most generous donation. Keep LRC going. We have never needed it more.
PS: We owe it to the great men and women of our past, to Ron, and to the future, to never give in and never give up. Please help Lew keep fighting. How we need him.
August 6, 2007
Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt's Gold Page.
Copyright © 2007 LewRockwell.com
Burton S. Blumert Archives
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blumert/blumert122.html
Fission And Fusion As Iran Fronts UN Nuclear Watchdog
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Fission_An...tchdog_999.html
The IAEA experts' visit to Arak is cause for optimism. But not a single expert predicts an early settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue. It will take a lot of time to find a solution acceptable to all sides, all the more so since Washington at one time included Iran in the "axis of evil." The United States carries a lot of weight in the IAEA, both as a great nuclear power and the source of a quarter of its budget. This is a serious lever which Washington is using to further its own interests. Photo courtesy AFP. by Tatyana Sinitsyna
Moscow (RIA Novosti) Aug 06, 2007
A group of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived in Iran to visit a heavy-water reactor being built near Arak, in the center of the country. This time, the Iranians are ready to give the IAEA exhaustive answers to questions about their experiments with plutonium and their uranium-enrichment program. This is a real breakthrough in Tehran's long-running dispute with the nuclear watchdog. In the middle of July, Iran suddenly announced its readiness to resume contacts with the IAEA. Foreign Ministry spokesman Muhammad Ali Hosseini explained: "Our dialogue with the West on this problem has become more realistic and rational." Iran-IAEA relations can be likened to nuclear fission and fusion. Both release enormous amounts of energy, which acts as a catalyst for either severing relations or moving towards dialogue.
The IAEA has many grievances against Iran. In late 2003, the IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution stating that Iran had concealed its nuclear program from the world community for 18 years. This fact called into doubt the civilian nature of the program. The Iranians are out to prove that they have been developing peaceful nuclear energy in full compliance with the IAEA charter, but the skeptical nuclear watchdog demands that its experts should see for themselves that Iran's nuclear program is not pursuing any military purposes.
The IAEA suspects Iran of developing nuclear weapons at no fewer than three secret installations. It is also worried about Iran's contacts with a clandestine network which is illegally trading in materials and spare parts for uranium-enrichment centrifuges. The IAEA believes that Iran is hiding them deep underground at some 30 different locations.
Now that the recent Vienna plan has eased tensions between the two sides, the IAEA wants Iran to disclose all the required information about its nuclear program. "Not a single question should remain unanswered," said Olli Heinonen, IAEA deputy director general.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov believes that at this point "it is important to achieve specific results and not to provoke a rupture in the relationship between the IAEA and Iran." He said that once the world is convinced that Iran's nuclear intentions are peaceful, it will step up comprehensive cooperation with Tehran, while the latter will be able to fully take advantage of its right to develop a civilian nuclear energy program.
The IAEA experts' visit to Arak is cause for optimism. But not a single expert predicts an early settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue. It will take a lot of time to find a solution acceptable to all sides, all the more so since Washington at one time included Iran in the "axis of evil." The United States carries a lot of weight in the IAEA, both as a great nuclear power and the source of a quarter of its budget. This is a serious lever which Washington is using to further its own interests.
The stubborn discussions with the IAEA brought the Iranian issue to the UN Security Council, which was ready to pass a new resolution slapping sanctions on Tehran, but Russia and China intervened on Iran's behalf.
The Iranian nuclear saga is turning out to be more of a hassle for Russia, which is building a two-unit nuclear power plant in Bushehr, than for any other country. There seems to be no end in sight for this project - Iran has been trying to complete it for 30 years now. First, the Germans gave up on an almost finished installation because of Iran's war against Iraq (1980-1988), and now the Russians are dragging it out.
Moscow has lamented more than once that it ever got involved in Bushehr. The project is without technical precedent, and Russian engineers have had to rack their brains trying to integrate the components left behind by Siemens, the German company that started work on the plant, with the Russian VVER-1000 reactor. Political tensions have made it even worse.
Iran was supposed to receive the keys to its first nuclear power plant in October 2007, but the launch has been delayed again, at least for a year. "The Bushehr plant will be assembled and commissioned no sooner than the fall of 2008 - a year later than promised," said Ivan Istomin, head of Energoprogress, one of the companies involved in the project. He explained this delay by Iran's failure to pay for the project in full.
In turn, Iranian managers are accusing Russia of delaying nuclear fuel supplies. But the technical procedures require that fuel should be loaded into a completed plant six months before its physical commissioning and not a day earlier.
The solution is deceptively simple: things will only improve if Iran pays the Russian builders and answers the IAEA's well-founded questions. In the meantime, the world can only watch and wait.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Fission_An...tchdog_999.html
The IAEA experts' visit to Arak is cause for optimism. But not a single expert predicts an early settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue. It will take a lot of time to find a solution acceptable to all sides, all the more so since Washington at one time included Iran in the "axis of evil." The United States carries a lot of weight in the IAEA, both as a great nuclear power and the source of a quarter of its budget. This is a serious lever which Washington is using to further its own interests. Photo courtesy AFP. by Tatyana Sinitsyna
Moscow (RIA Novosti) Aug 06, 2007
A group of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived in Iran to visit a heavy-water reactor being built near Arak, in the center of the country. This time, the Iranians are ready to give the IAEA exhaustive answers to questions about their experiments with plutonium and their uranium-enrichment program. This is a real breakthrough in Tehran's long-running dispute with the nuclear watchdog. In the middle of July, Iran suddenly announced its readiness to resume contacts with the IAEA. Foreign Ministry spokesman Muhammad Ali Hosseini explained: "Our dialogue with the West on this problem has become more realistic and rational." Iran-IAEA relations can be likened to nuclear fission and fusion. Both release enormous amounts of energy, which acts as a catalyst for either severing relations or moving towards dialogue.
The IAEA has many grievances against Iran. In late 2003, the IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution stating that Iran had concealed its nuclear program from the world community for 18 years. This fact called into doubt the civilian nature of the program. The Iranians are out to prove that they have been developing peaceful nuclear energy in full compliance with the IAEA charter, but the skeptical nuclear watchdog demands that its experts should see for themselves that Iran's nuclear program is not pursuing any military purposes.
The IAEA suspects Iran of developing nuclear weapons at no fewer than three secret installations. It is also worried about Iran's contacts with a clandestine network which is illegally trading in materials and spare parts for uranium-enrichment centrifuges. The IAEA believes that Iran is hiding them deep underground at some 30 different locations.
Now that the recent Vienna plan has eased tensions between the two sides, the IAEA wants Iran to disclose all the required information about its nuclear program. "Not a single question should remain unanswered," said Olli Heinonen, IAEA deputy director general.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov believes that at this point "it is important to achieve specific results and not to provoke a rupture in the relationship between the IAEA and Iran." He said that once the world is convinced that Iran's nuclear intentions are peaceful, it will step up comprehensive cooperation with Tehran, while the latter will be able to fully take advantage of its right to develop a civilian nuclear energy program.
The IAEA experts' visit to Arak is cause for optimism. But not a single expert predicts an early settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue. It will take a lot of time to find a solution acceptable to all sides, all the more so since Washington at one time included Iran in the "axis of evil." The United States carries a lot of weight in the IAEA, both as a great nuclear power and the source of a quarter of its budget. This is a serious lever which Washington is using to further its own interests.
The stubborn discussions with the IAEA brought the Iranian issue to the UN Security Council, which was ready to pass a new resolution slapping sanctions on Tehran, but Russia and China intervened on Iran's behalf.
The Iranian nuclear saga is turning out to be more of a hassle for Russia, which is building a two-unit nuclear power plant in Bushehr, than for any other country. There seems to be no end in sight for this project - Iran has been trying to complete it for 30 years now. First, the Germans gave up on an almost finished installation because of Iran's war against Iraq (1980-1988), and now the Russians are dragging it out.
Moscow has lamented more than once that it ever got involved in Bushehr. The project is without technical precedent, and Russian engineers have had to rack their brains trying to integrate the components left behind by Siemens, the German company that started work on the plant, with the Russian VVER-1000 reactor. Political tensions have made it even worse.
Iran was supposed to receive the keys to its first nuclear power plant in October 2007, but the launch has been delayed again, at least for a year. "The Bushehr plant will be assembled and commissioned no sooner than the fall of 2008 - a year later than promised," said Ivan Istomin, head of Energoprogress, one of the companies involved in the project. He explained this delay by Iran's failure to pay for the project in full.
In turn, Iranian managers are accusing Russia of delaying nuclear fuel supplies. But the technical procedures require that fuel should be loaded into a completed plant six months before its physical commissioning and not a day earlier.
The solution is deceptively simple: things will only improve if Iran pays the Russian builders and answers the IAEA's well-founded questions. In the meantime, the world can only watch and wait.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
NUKEWARS Russia Plans New Nuclear Missile Production
Moscow (AFP) Aug 05, 2007
The Russian Navy announced Sunday it will produce a series of intercontinental missiles for its next generation of nuclear submarines. "The last test trial of the Bulava-M at the end of June was very important ... After examining the results we decided to start work on these missiles for our new armament system," navy chief Admiral Vladimir Marossin told Russian news agencies. The Bulava-M miss ... more
NUKEWARS Pakistan Says US-India Nuke Deal Risks Arms Race
Islamabad (AFP) Aug 02, 2007
Pakistan warned Thursday that a civilian nuclear accord between India and the United States threatens regional stability, saying it would allow its arch rival to produce more atomic bombs. The caution came at a meeting of Pakistan's National Command Authority (NCA) chaired by President Pervez Musharraf, a statement said. The body oversees the country's nuclear strategy. The long-delayed deal ann ... more
NUKEWARS The Benefits Of Talking To Iran
Moscow (UPI) Aug 02, 2007
In time, things that once seemed impossible can become part of our everyday reality. Who would have imagined a hundred years ago that space travel would one day become so routine that only catastrophes are deemed front-page news? Though it took decades for space travel to develop, the nature of relations between Washington and Tehran has fundamentally changed in much less time. So far, the ... more
NUKEWARS Russia Eyes Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty As Next Pullout
Washington (UPI) July 30, 2007
As disagreements over NATO's eastward expansion, ballistic missile defense deployments in Eastern Europe, the status of Kosovo and others continue to strain NATO-Russian relations, Russia has shown an increasing willingness to re-examine its arms-control obligations with the alleged intent of guarding its national interests. Most recently, Russia has suspended participation in the Conventional F ... more
NUKEWARS UN Nuclear Inspectors Say North Korea Is Cooperating
Beijing (AFP) July 31, 2007
North Korea has cooperated fully with UN inspectors after shutting down its main nuclear reactor site, the head of the monitoring team said Tuesday after their first two-week mission ended. "I should say that in doing our activities we had complete cooperation from DPRK (North Korean) authorities," Adel Tolba, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspection team, told reporters after ... more
Moscow (AFP) Aug 05, 2007The Russian Navy announced Sunday it will produce a series of intercontinental missiles for its next generation of nuclear submarines. "The last test trial of the Bulava-M at the end of June was very important ... After examining the results we decided to start work on these missiles for our new armament system," navy chief Admiral Vladimir Marossin told Russian news agencies. The Bulava-M miss ... more
NUKEWARS Pakistan Says US-India Nuke Deal Risks Arms Race
Islamabad (AFP) Aug 02, 2007Pakistan warned Thursday that a civilian nuclear accord between India and the United States threatens regional stability, saying it would allow its arch rival to produce more atomic bombs. The caution came at a meeting of Pakistan's National Command Authority (NCA) chaired by President Pervez Musharraf, a statement said. The body oversees the country's nuclear strategy. The long-delayed deal ann ... more
NUKEWARS The Benefits Of Talking To Iran
Moscow (UPI) Aug 02, 2007In time, things that once seemed impossible can become part of our everyday reality. Who would have imagined a hundred years ago that space travel would one day become so routine that only catastrophes are deemed front-page news? Though it took decades for space travel to develop, the nature of relations between Washington and Tehran has fundamentally changed in much less time. So far, the ... more
NUKEWARS Russia Eyes Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty As Next Pullout
Washington (UPI) July 30, 2007As disagreements over NATO's eastward expansion, ballistic missile defense deployments in Eastern Europe, the status of Kosovo and others continue to strain NATO-Russian relations, Russia has shown an increasing willingness to re-examine its arms-control obligations with the alleged intent of guarding its national interests. Most recently, Russia has suspended participation in the Conventional F ... more
NUKEWARS UN Nuclear Inspectors Say North Korea Is Cooperating
Beijing (AFP) July 31, 2007North Korea has cooperated fully with UN inspectors after shutting down its main nuclear reactor site, the head of the monitoring team said Tuesday after their first two-week mission ended. "I should say that in doing our activities we had complete cooperation from DPRK (North Korean) authorities," Adel Tolba, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspection team, told reporters after ... more
SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2007, Issue No. 80
August 6, 2007
** HOUSE MOVES TO BLOCK INTEL BUDGET DISCLOSURE
** PUBLIC INFO IN PLAME CASE CLASSIFIED, JUDGE RULES
** FOIA REFORM ADVANCES IN SENATE
** DOD REPORTS ON CHEMICAL, BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE
** CRS REPORTS ON 2008 BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE MOVES TO BLOCK INTEL BUDGET DISCLOSURE
One day after President Bush signed into law a bill that requires
public disclosure of the national intelligence budget, the House of
Representatives adopted an amendment to prevent that requirement from
taking effect.
The budget disclosure provision appeared in legislation enacting the
recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, which was passed by Congress
last month and signed by President Bush on August 3.
If implemented, it would mark the first time that Congress successfully
asserted its authority to compel disclosure of currently classified
information over the objections of the executive branch. Since 1998,
the intelligence bureaucracy has consistently refused to divulge the
intelligence budget total. The White House stated on February 28 that
budget disclosure "could cause damage to the national security
interests of the United States."
The opposing view, adopted by the 9/11 Commission and endorsed by
Congress last month, is that budget disclosure is an indispensable
precondition to broader accountability and that it is essential to
restoring the credibility of a defective classification system.
But despite the fact that the requirement to disclose the intelligence
budget has finally passed into law, it may not happen after all.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) offered an amendment to the Defense
Appropriations Act on August 4 that would prohibit budget disclosure.
Without any debate, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) announced that the
amendment was accepted.
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2007_cr/issa.html
The Issa amendment will have to be addressed in a House-Senate
conference before it effectively repeals the new disclosure
requirement.
PUBLIC INFO IN PLAME CASE CLASSIFIED, JUDGE RULES
A federal court last week accepted a Central Intelligence Agency
argument that the date on which former covert officer Valerie Plame
Wilson's employment at the CIA began should remain classified even
though it is irrevocably in the public domain.
The date in question appeared in a seemingly unclassified letter sent
by CIA to Ms. Wilson and published in the Congressional Record. But
when she sought to include the information in the manuscript of her
forthcoming memoir, the CIA objected that it is still classified. Now
the Court has agreed.
"To be sure, the public may draw whatever conclusions it might from the
fact that the information at issue was sent on CIA letterhead by the
Chief of Retirement and Insurance Services," wrote Judge Barbara S.
Jones in an August 1 ruling. "However, nothing in the law or its
policy requires the CIA to officially acknowledge what those in the
public may think they know."
http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/wilson/order080107.pdf
The text of the CIA letter containing the classified information citing
the start of Ms. Wilson's employment on November 9, 1985 was published
in the Congressional Record on January 16, 2007 and is available here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/wilson/cr011607.pdf
In their June 28 motion to overturn CIA censorship, Ms. Wilson's
attorneys cited a lawsuit of mine in which the CIA was compelled to
disclose its 1963 budget after I showed that the figure had previously
been declassified. "As in 'Aftergood'," they argued by analogy, "the
Court should reject the CIA's belated and unsupported effort" to deny
access to information in the public domain.
But that case was different, the government replied on July 13. The
1963 budget figure was declassified, albeit inadvertently. The
information on Ms. Wilson's employment was never formally declassified,
inadvertently or otherwise, but was merely disclosed by accident.
An unclassified declaration by Stephen R. Kappes, deputy director of
CIA, provided a lucid explanation of CIA's perspective on
classification of information about covert employees, intelligence
liaison relationships, and related topics.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/wilson/kappes071807.pdf
Other selected case files may be found here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/wilson/index.html
FOIA REFORM ADVANCES IN SENATE
The Open Government Act, a bipartisan bill to strengthen the Freedom of
Information Act, passed the Senate on August 3 after objections from a
lone Senator were finally overcome.
Senators Pat Leahy (D-VT) and John Cornyn (R-TX) successfully
shepherded the legislation, which is intended to expedite agency
responsiveness to FOIA requests and improve the freedom of information
regime in various other ways.
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), who had earlier placed a hold on the bill blocking
its advance, explained his concerns in an August 3 floor statement and
how they had been resolved. The measure passed on a voice vote.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2007/opengovt.html
DOD REPORTS ON CHEMICAL, BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE
Earlier this year, the Department of Defense released two annual
reports on the status of its chemical and biological defense efforts:
"Department of Defense Chemical and Biological Defense Program," Annual
Report to Congress, April 2007 (5.9 MB PDF):
http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/cbdp2007.pdf
"Report on Activities and Programs for Countering Proliferation and NBC
Terrorism," Counterproliferation Program Review Committee, Volume I,
Executive Summary, May 2007:
http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/nbcterror2007.pdf
CRS REPORTS ON 2008 BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS
Recent reports of the Congressional Research Service on the 2008 budget
appropriation cycle obtained by Secrecy News include the following.
"Homeland Security Department: FY2008 Appropriations," updated July 17,
2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL34004.pdf
"Federal Research and Development Funding: FY2008," updated July 26,
2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34048.pdf
"Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies: FY2008
Appropriations," July 20, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34092.pdf
"Financial Services and General Government (FSGG): FY2008
Appropriations," updated July 20, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33998.pdf
"Energy and Water Development: FY2008 Appropriations," updated July 13,
2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34009.pdf
_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.
The Secrecy News Blog is at:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, go to:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/subscribe.html
To UNSUBSCRIBE, go to
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/unsubscribe.html
OR email your request to saftergood@fas.org
Secrecy News is archived at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html
SUPPORT Secrecy News with a donation here:
http://www.fas.org/static/contrib_sec.jsp
_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web: www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email: saftergood@fas.org
voice: (202) 454-4691
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2007, Issue No. 80
August 6, 2007
** HOUSE MOVES TO BLOCK INTEL BUDGET DISCLOSURE
** PUBLIC INFO IN PLAME CASE CLASSIFIED, JUDGE RULES
** FOIA REFORM ADVANCES IN SENATE
** DOD REPORTS ON CHEMICAL, BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE
** CRS REPORTS ON 2008 BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE MOVES TO BLOCK INTEL BUDGET DISCLOSURE
One day after President Bush signed into law a bill that requires
public disclosure of the national intelligence budget, the House of
Representatives adopted an amendment to prevent that requirement from
taking effect.
The budget disclosure provision appeared in legislation enacting the
recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, which was passed by Congress
last month and signed by President Bush on August 3.
If implemented, it would mark the first time that Congress successfully
asserted its authority to compel disclosure of currently classified
information over the objections of the executive branch. Since 1998,
the intelligence bureaucracy has consistently refused to divulge the
intelligence budget total. The White House stated on February 28 that
budget disclosure "could cause damage to the national security
interests of the United States."
The opposing view, adopted by the 9/11 Commission and endorsed by
Congress last month, is that budget disclosure is an indispensable
precondition to broader accountability and that it is essential to
restoring the credibility of a defective classification system.
But despite the fact that the requirement to disclose the intelligence
budget has finally passed into law, it may not happen after all.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) offered an amendment to the Defense
Appropriations Act on August 4 that would prohibit budget disclosure.
Without any debate, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) announced that the
amendment was accepted.
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2007_cr/issa.html
The Issa amendment will have to be addressed in a House-Senate
conference before it effectively repeals the new disclosure
requirement.
PUBLIC INFO IN PLAME CASE CLASSIFIED, JUDGE RULES
A federal court last week accepted a Central Intelligence Agency
argument that the date on which former covert officer Valerie Plame
Wilson's employment at the CIA began should remain classified even
though it is irrevocably in the public domain.
The date in question appeared in a seemingly unclassified letter sent
by CIA to Ms. Wilson and published in the Congressional Record. But
when she sought to include the information in the manuscript of her
forthcoming memoir, the CIA objected that it is still classified. Now
the Court has agreed.
"To be sure, the public may draw whatever conclusions it might from the
fact that the information at issue was sent on CIA letterhead by the
Chief of Retirement and Insurance Services," wrote Judge Barbara S.
Jones in an August 1 ruling. "However, nothing in the law or its
policy requires the CIA to officially acknowledge what those in the
public may think they know."
http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/wilson/order080107.pdf
The text of the CIA letter containing the classified information citing
the start of Ms. Wilson's employment on November 9, 1985 was published
in the Congressional Record on January 16, 2007 and is available here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/wilson/cr011607.pdf
In their June 28 motion to overturn CIA censorship, Ms. Wilson's
attorneys cited a lawsuit of mine in which the CIA was compelled to
disclose its 1963 budget after I showed that the figure had previously
been declassified. "As in 'Aftergood'," they argued by analogy, "the
Court should reject the CIA's belated and unsupported effort" to deny
access to information in the public domain.
But that case was different, the government replied on July 13. The
1963 budget figure was declassified, albeit inadvertently. The
information on Ms. Wilson's employment was never formally declassified,
inadvertently or otherwise, but was merely disclosed by accident.
An unclassified declaration by Stephen R. Kappes, deputy director of
CIA, provided a lucid explanation of CIA's perspective on
classification of information about covert employees, intelligence
liaison relationships, and related topics.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/wilson/kappes071807.pdf
Other selected case files may be found here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/wilson/index.html
FOIA REFORM ADVANCES IN SENATE
The Open Government Act, a bipartisan bill to strengthen the Freedom of
Information Act, passed the Senate on August 3 after objections from a
lone Senator were finally overcome.
Senators Pat Leahy (D-VT) and John Cornyn (R-TX) successfully
shepherded the legislation, which is intended to expedite agency
responsiveness to FOIA requests and improve the freedom of information
regime in various other ways.
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), who had earlier placed a hold on the bill blocking
its advance, explained his concerns in an August 3 floor statement and
how they had been resolved. The measure passed on a voice vote.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2007/opengovt.html
DOD REPORTS ON CHEMICAL, BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE
Earlier this year, the Department of Defense released two annual
reports on the status of its chemical and biological defense efforts:
"Department of Defense Chemical and Biological Defense Program," Annual
Report to Congress, April 2007 (5.9 MB PDF):
http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/cbdp2007.pdf
"Report on Activities and Programs for Countering Proliferation and NBC
Terrorism," Counterproliferation Program Review Committee, Volume I,
Executive Summary, May 2007:
http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/nbcterror2007.pdf
CRS REPORTS ON 2008 BUDGET APPROPRIATIONS
Recent reports of the Congressional Research Service on the 2008 budget
appropriation cycle obtained by Secrecy News include the following.
"Homeland Security Department: FY2008 Appropriations," updated July 17,
2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL34004.pdf
"Federal Research and Development Funding: FY2008," updated July 26,
2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34048.pdf
"Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies: FY2008
Appropriations," July 20, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34092.pdf
"Financial Services and General Government (FSGG): FY2008
Appropriations," updated July 20, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33998.pdf
"Energy and Water Development: FY2008 Appropriations," updated July 13,
2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34009.pdf
_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.
The Secrecy News Blog is at:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, go to:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/subscribe.html
To UNSUBSCRIBE, go to
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/unsubscribe.html
OR email your request to saftergood@fas.org
Secrecy News is archived at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html
SUPPORT Secrecy News with a donation here:
http://www.fas.org/static/contrib_sec.jsp
_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web: www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email: saftergood@fas.org
voice: (202) 454-4691
Yearly Kos Appeal to Soros: Fund a Real Counterweight to AIPAC
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naima...os_b_59258.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/6/10577/87614
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naima...os_b_59258.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/6/10577/87614
Obama Streaks Ahead, But Wait: Hillary is "Sweeping the Table" : The Insanity of Polls
Don Hazen: Now how is this possible? Which is it?
Don Hazen: Now how is this possible? Which is it?
Why the Progressive Movement Couldn't Stop the Bush FISA Bill
Matt Stoller: We have to get our house in order if we are to restore civil liberties.
Matt Stoller: We have to get our house in order if we are to restore civil liberties.
And the GOP '08 Nominee Is...None of the Above?
Steve Benen: The '08 Republicans out-of-touch performance at the Iowa debate, highlighted why only 19 percent of their party are satisfied with them.
Steve Benen: The '08 Republicans out-of-touch performance at the Iowa debate, highlighted why only 19 percent of their party are satisfied with them.
Foreign Policy News and Commentary, August 6, 2007
VIDEO
Footage of the video on SWORDS ("special weapons observation remote
reconnaissance direct action system") in action; from Christina Davidson,
'Battle Zone: Armed Robots Join the Battle in Iraq; Army Quietly Testing First
Three SWORDS in the Combat Zone' (IraqSlogger, August 3)
http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/..._Battle_in_Iraq
NO SURRENDER - BRUCE CHAPMAN (SEATTLE TIMES, AUGUST 5): If we lose in Iraq,
the central front of the war on terror, the people who urged our withdrawal will
start to call for an exit from Afghanistan next. Instead of calling it quits,
our government needs to do a much better job of public diplomacy in the world --
explaining what's at stake.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/P...p;date=20070805
IS THE 'GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR' PHONY? (POLITICALWARFARE.ORG: EMPLOYING
WORDS, IMAGES AND IDEAS TO WIN THE CURRENT WORLD WAR, AUGUST 5): The Bush
Administration has a can't-do attitude when it comes to fighting ideological
warfare. It seems to want to, but it won't. It's manifest at every level of
government -- from the White House to the lowliest contractor in the field.
Policymakers seem to default to the feckless public diplomacy shop at the State
Department. The Pentagon won't let its information operations people say
anything much about Islam, and its public affairs officers keep illegally
invoking a Cold War law that applies only to the State Department, as if to
ensure that we don't fight the propaganda war we need to be waging.
http://jmw.typepad.com/political_warfare/2...e-global-w.html
WAR OF IDEAS: BIN LADEN, TERRORISM MAY BE GOING OUT OF STYLE GADGETS
(POLITICS, AUGUST 4): Muslim extremists, it seems, are losing ground in one of
the most important battlefields of this conflict: the war of ideas. We certainly
cannot give Washington credit for what looks like the first signs of an emerging
trend toward moderation. American efforts at public diplomacy have invited
ridicule. The most likely explanation is that there is, after all, something
human about human beings. In the end, most people are revolted by the savagery
of terrorism.
http://worldpolitics-shabbir.blogspot.com/...ism-may-be.html
NEXT US LEADER 'MUST REACH OUT TO MUSLIMS' - ARVIND NAR (GULF TIMES, AUGUST
20: According to analyst Hady Amr, the author of the 2004 Brookings analysis
paper 'The Need to Communicate: How to Improve US Public Diplomacy with the
Islamic World,' to win the war of ideas with those advocating violence against
America and Americans, the US must act quickly to rebuild the shattered
foundations of understanding between the US and predominantly Muslim states and
communities.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/arti...mp;parent_id=16
CAN U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY SURVIVE THE FOREIGN POLICY PRONOUNCEMENTS OF
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES? SUCH AS BARACK OBAMA'S TALK OF INVADING PAKISTAN, OR
TOM TANCREDO'S THREAT TO BOMB MECCA - (KIM ANDREW ELLIOTT DISCUSSING
INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING AND PUBLIC DIPLOMACY, ITEM POSTED AUGUST 5), latest
edition.
http://www.kimandrewelliott.com/
OBAMA AS THE NEW KENNEDY. AND NOT IN A GOOD WAY ... - JUSTIN RAIMONDO
(ANTIWAR.COM, AUGUST 3): The Kennedy-esque undertone of Obama's campaign is made
quite explicit: "I will also launch a program of public diplomacy that is a
coordinated effort across my Administration, not a small group of political
officials at the State Department explaining a misguided war. We will open
'America Houses' in cities across the Islamic world, with Internet, libraries,
English lessons, stories of America's Muslims and the strength they add to our
country, and vocational programs. Through a new 'America's Voice Corps' we will
recruit, train, and send out into the field talented young Americans who can
speak with -- and listen to -- the people who today hear about us only from our
enemies." Shades of the Peace Corps, and the "idealism" of exporting
"Americanism" worldwide, "selling" ourselves and our way of life to a grateful
world.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11390
GUANTANAMO, THE DAY AFTER - CORINE HEGLAND (NATIONAL JOURNAL, AUGUST 3):
Regarding Guantanamo, Benjamin Wittes, a fellow and the research director in
public law at the Brookings Institution, says, "The problem is not an optical
problem. It's not a public diplomacy problem. The problem is that we don't have
a legal regime. Building a legal regime is a very separate question from whether
you choose to do it in Guantanamo Bay or somewhere else."
http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/...007/0803nj1.htm
OUTCRY AS BRITISH COUNCIL QUITS EUROPE TO WOO MUSLIM WORLD - HELENA SMITH,
(OBSERVER, AUGUST 5): Across Europe, half a century of promoting British culture
and values is slowly being wound down in favour of a huge increase in funding
for activities in the Middle East and Muslim world. Iraq, Afghanistan and
Bangladesh are among 'high priority' regions that will also receive a 50 per
cent boost in support for projects to steer Muslims away from extremism. And as
the British Council's physical presence in Europe is cut back, public access
buildings, some recently renovated at spectacular cost, will close.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story...2141835,00.html
AMERICAN MIS[E]-EN-SCENE? - BURAK BEKDÝL(TURKISH DAILY NEWS, AUGUST 3):
Rumor has it that American and Turkish bigwigs planned a joint major blow on the
PKK in which the PKK's wing leaders would have been captured. The rumor also
goes that the planned operation failed only because some unknown American(s)
leaked the plan to one of the jewels of the American press (Robert D. Novak,
'Bush's Turkish Gamble,' July 30, 2007, Washington Post). The possible public
diplomacy effort surrounding this Washington Post story reminds one of skillful
American strategic planning, which is rare these days.
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=79994
LETTER FROM WASHINGTON: FIRST SALVOS ON FOREIGN POLICY SHED LIGHT ON AN
AMERICAN PROBLEM ALBERT R. HUNT (INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, AUGUST 5):
Global anti-American sentiments extend beyond security and military issues.
There are widespread complaints about the U.S. posture on the environment, a
growing concern to people in most countries. This is part of the complaint that
American leaders simply don't care what others think.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/05/america/letter.php
POPULARITY CONTEST: WHY THEY HATE, AND LIKE, US - VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
(NATIONAL REVIEW, AUGUST 5): How strange that poor countries in Africa, Eastern
Europe, and South America are more favorable to America than are oil-rich
sheikdoms, rich European socialist republics, and Middle East recipients of
massive U.S. aid. Or perhaps it's not so strange at all. The more confident a
nation is, even when poor, the more likely it seems to admire America.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MmFiZ...2Y1Njg5NmNiODA=
HOW INDIA SEES AMERICA - AMAR C. BAKSHI (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 2):
America's most important role in India is perhaps the ideals it stands for. But
as a country, Indians complain, America bows to no one, and cannot be trusted.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglo..._america_2.html
NEW AL-QAEDA VIDEO WARNS U.S. MISSIONS 'LEGITIMATE TARGETS' RFE/RL (AUGUST
5): A new video from a wanted American member of Al-Qaeda warned that U.S.
diplomatic missions were "legitimate targets" for terrorists.
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/...212b2c0bcc.html
MAKING THE GREEN ZONE A BETTER PLACE - AL KAMEN (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 3):
The US embassy in Baghdad has issued several notices regarding "duck and cover"
procedures, and it seems that people must have fretted about not having cover to
duck into. Help is on the way, as President Bush liked to say during the 2000
campaign. "We have ordered an additional 60 bunkers, 40 of which are for the NEC
(New Embassy Compound)," Ambassador Ryan Crocker said, "for a total of 151
bunkers when installation is completed."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0202413_pf.html
WILL WE BETRAY OUR IRAQI WORKERS? - ANDREW GREELEY (CHICAGO SUN TIMES,
AUGUST 2/COMMON DREAMS): What will happen to those Iraqis who worked for the
United States when we finally pull up stakes In Iraq, someone will cut off
their heads. Americans will feel no more responsibility for their deaths than
they do for the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have already died during our
feckless occupation.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/02/2930/
WAR GOING HORRIBLY FOR IRAQIS - AMITABH PAL (COMMON DREAMS, AUGUST 5):
There's something of a whiff of racism in claiming that the Iraq War is not
going too badly because American casualties have been marginally lower last
month. On purpose or otherwise, this analysis misses the larger purpose of why
U.S. troops are meant to be in Iraq: to make life better for the Iraqis. As the
numbers show, U.S. troops are spectacularly failing in this regard.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/04/2989/
SOUTH OF BAGHDAD, A CAUTIONARY TALE: AFTER HEAVY LOSSES, U.S. TROOPS IN THE
'TRIANGLE OF DEATH' SAY THEY'RE MAKING PROGRESS, THOUGH SLOWLY AND SUBTLY - TINA
SUSMAN (LOS ANGELES TIMES, AUGUST 6)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...=la-home-center
IN IRAQI SOUTH, SHIITES PRESS FOR AUTONOMY: MOMENTUM IS BUILDING FOR A
FEDERATION OF SOUTHERN PROVINCES IN A FURTHER CHALLENGE TO IRAQ'S NATIONAL UNITY
- SAM DAGHER (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, AUGUST 6)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0806/p01s03-woiq.html
WEAPONS GIVEN TO IRAQ ARE MISSING: GAO ESTIMATES 30% OF ARMS ARE UNACCOUNTED
FOR - GLENN KESSLER (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 6): The Pentagon has lost track of
about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in
2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of
those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in
Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...ml?hpid=topnews
WHY IRAQ INSURGENCY HASN'T LOST STEAM BUT HOPE HAS - JAY BOOKMAN (ATLANTA
JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, AUGUST 2/COMMON DREAMS): The surge was never intended to
win the war, it was intended to temporarily suppress the insurgency while the
Iraqi government makes good on its promises to the Iraqis and to the Americans
fighting and dying on their behalf. That hasn't even begun to happen.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/02/2929/
THE NEGATIVE POWER OF PRESIDENTIAL WISHFUL THINKING ON IRAQ - ELIZABETH
SULLIVAN (CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER, AUGUST 2/COMMON DREAMS): Instead of Iraq
becoming the crucible in which America would prove its military prowess against
rogues and terrorists, it has become the touchstone for resistance. Instead of
making America safer, Iraq has put America in greater peril, as terrorist cells
become more diffuse and harder to track.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/02/2928/
BEYOND DISASTER - CHRIS HEDGES (TRUTHDIG, AUGUST 6): The war in Iraq is
about to get worse -- much worse. The security of the Green Zone, our imperial
city, will be increasingly breached. Command and control will disintegrate. And
we will back out of Iraq humiliated and defeated. But this will not be the end
of the conflict. It will, in fact, signal a phase of the war far deadlier and
more dangerous to American intersts.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200708...eyond_disaster/
PATRIOTS WHO LOVE THE TROOPS TO DEATH - FRANK RICH (NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST
5): It was a rewriting of history that made the blogosphere (and others) go
berserk last week over an Op-Ed article in The Times, 'A War We Just Might Win,'
by Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack. The two Brookings Institution scholars,
after a government-guided tour, pointed selectively to successes on the ground
in Iraq in arguing that the surge should be continued 'at least into 2008.' The
hole in their argument was gaping. Hiding behind the troops is the last refuge
of this war's sponsors.
html?pagewanted=print" target="_blank">
THE REALLY SMART, SERIOUS, CREDIBLE IRAQ EXPERTS O'HANLON AND POLLACK -
GLENN GREENWALD (SALON, JULY 30): What is the most vivid and compelling evidence
of how broken our political system is? It is that the exact same people who
urged us into the war in Iraq, were wrong in everything they said, and issued
one false assurance after the next as the war failed, continue to be the same
people held up as our Serious Iraq Experts.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/200...ings/index.html
MEDIA BLITZ FOR WAR: THE BIG GUNS OF AUGUST - NORMAN SOLOMON (COMMON DREAMS,
AUGUST 2): Arguments over whether U.S. forces can prevail in Iraq bypass a truth
that no amount of media spin can change: The U.S. war effort in Iraq has always
been illegitimate and fundamentally wrong. Whatever the prospects for America?s
war there, it shouldn?t be fought.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/02/2932/
TO BUSH, GEN. PETRAEUS IS THE SECOND COMING - AT LEAST FOR NOW - ARIANNA
HUFFINGTON (BALTIMORESUN.COM, AUGUST 5): ?For months now, I've been trying to
blow some of that pixie dust off General Petraeus so that, come September, his
vaunted report will be seen for what it inevitably will be: one more stall
tactic designed to deny reality and delay the inevitable."
www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.huffington05aug05,0,3077117.story
LOWER EXPECTATIONS: IRAQ, REALISTICALLY - JONAH GOLDBERG (NATIONAL REVIEW,
AUGUST 3): 'At this point I'm in favor of whatever modest success we can eke out
of Iraq. But we should keep in mind that 'strong states' alone do not a drained
swamp make.'
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDg2Y...zFlZDQ3ZjkwZTM=
LEGION OF THE LOST - R. EMMETT TYRRELL JR. (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 3): The
new strategy of Lt. Gen. David Petraeus seems to be working. Casualties among
civilians in Iraq are perceptibly lower.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...mplate=printart
THE TURN: DEFEATISTS IN RETREAT - WILLIAM KRISTOL (WEEKLY STANDARD, AUGUST
13): In the real world, the news from Iraq had been (relatively) good for a
couple of months.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...0rsadr.asp?pg=1
WHAT IF WE WIN? - CAL THOMAS (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 3): Democrats appear
unable to conceive of victory, or at least stability in Iraq.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/200...1012/commentary
TO EXIT IRAQ, HOW IS AS IMPORTANT AS WHEN: ANY TROOP WITHDRAWAL COULD TAKE
UP TO 18 MONTHS AND WOULD NEED CAREFUL PLANNING, MILITARY EXPERTS SAY - GORDON
LUBOLD (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, AUGUST 6)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0806/p03s04-woiq.html
NOSTRA CULPA - MICHAEL KINSLEY (TIME, AUGUST 2): Bush's decision to go to
war in Iraq was scandalously unilateral, but it did in fact have the support of
most American citizens, which surely egged him on.
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1649312,00.html
GETTING IRAQ WRONG - MICHAEL IGNATIEFF (NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST 5): We might
test judgment by asking, on the issue of Iraq, who best anticipated how events
turned out. But many of those who correctly anticipated catastrophe did so not
by exercising judgment but by indulging in ideology. They opposed the invasion
because they believed the president was only after the oil or because they
believed America is always and in every situation wrong. The people who truly
showed good judgment on Iraq predicted the consequences that actually ensued but
also rightly evaluated the motives that led to the action.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/magazine...agewanted=print
SEE ALSO
http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/indulging_ideology?tx=3
SYRIAN SURVEY - KEN BALLEN (WALL STREET JOURNAL, AUGUST 4): Despite powerful
anti-American feelings and support for Iraqi fighters, 63% of Syrians still
favor Syria working with the United States to help resolve the Iraq war. In
Iran, close to 70% of the people favor better relations with the U.S.; in Syria
only 40% favor closer ties.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1186187250...in_commentaries
PAID SUBSCRIPTION
ARMING THE SAUDIS MAKES NO ONE SAFER - FRIDA GHITIS (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, AUGUST
3)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion...0,7408029.story
BUSH'S GULF GAMBIT: BY CONTAINING IRAN, THE U.S. REMAINS IN IRAQ - MICHAEL
YOUNG (REASON, AUGUST 2): We're back to the days when the Gulf kingdoms and
emirates were avid consumers of high-tech American weaponry, in the context of a
broader quid pro quo where the U.S. took on the burden of security in the Gulf
region in exchange for Saudi intervention to stabilize the oil markets.
http://reason.com/news/show/121695.html
THE MYSTERIES OF AMERICAN LOGIC - ZVI BAR'EL (HAARETZ, AUGUST 5): If it is
hard to be impressed by the pure strategic logic of the Saudi arms deal, it is
permissible to worry about America's strategic standing in the region -- because
neither Saudi nor Kuwaiti arms protect the Gulf, but rather the massive presence
of the U.S. army and the understanding that it is Washington who will act
against any threat to the Arab states. Israel's safety also depends on this.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/889704.html
MEDIATED TERRORISM: DOUBLE STANDARDS IN U.S. AID TO THE MIDDLE EAST -
ANTHONY DIMAGGIO (COUNTERPUNCH, AUGUST 4/5): Corrupt authoritarian rulers in
Saudi Arabia and Egypt require U.S. aid in order to defend their regimes from
the increasing threats of their own populations, rather than from phantom
outside "threats" discussed in American political and media propaganda.
http://www.counterpunch.org/dimaggio08042007.html
APPEASEMENT OR 'GRAND STRATEGY' DIANA WEST (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 3):
Inspired by the teachings of James Baker -- practically an honorary Saudi
princeling -- Condi, Bob, and, of course, George, see the Saudis as Our Moderate
Allies. Who cares if they promote jihad doctrine? Who cares if they sponsor
Hamas? Who cares how many Saudis support (or belong to) al Qaeda?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...mplate=printart
THE MIDEAST NEEDS MORE GUNS? EDITORIAL (BOSTON GLOBE, AUGUST 5): The last
thing the Middle East needs is a new round of arms sales, but that is what the
Bush administration wants Congress to approve, the better to contain Iran's bid
for dominance in the region.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...re_guns?mode=PF
MUSHARRAF'S OBSOLETE WAY - JIM HOAGLAND (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 5):
Pakistan?s president Musharraf's long run as President Bush's personal favorite
among Third World leaders is in such serious trouble that some administration
officials have quietly conducted a review of the general's ability to survive.
Their conclusion -- that he can continue to hang on -- may well ignore changing
Pakistani and international realities.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0301951_pf.html
A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE? - EDITORIAL (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, AUGUST 5): Since
the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Musharraf has been a key ally to the U.S. in its
fight against Al Qaeda. But he has not been an entirely reliable ally, and in
recent weeks he has been weakened in his own country.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion...0,7212507.story
JIHADI GALAXY IN PAKISTAN - CLAUDE SALHANI (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 5):
More cooperation with the United States is placing Mr. Musharraf in even more
negative light with many of his citizens. One avenue that seems to be left open
to Mr. Musharraf is to extend an offer of reconciliation to former Prime
Minister Benazir Bhutto. But, again, can she fix Pakistan?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...mplate=printart
ONWARD INTO WAZIRISTAN! - PATRICK J. BUCHANAN (ANTIWAR.COM, AUGUST 3):
U.S. troops in an Arab or Muslim country are more likely to create an insurgency
than quell one.
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=11389
POWER FAILURE: THE U.S.'S CATASTROPHIC NUCLEAR DEAL WITH INDIA - SHARON
SQUASSONI (TRN ONLINE, AUGUST 3): Many see hypocrisy in rewarding India, a
nuclear weapon state outside the NPT, while punishing Iran, an NPT member state
that does not yet have the bomb.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w070730&s=squassoni080307
YOUNG RUSSIA'S ENEMY NO. 1: ANTI-AMERICANISM GROWS - BY SARAH E. MENDELSON
AND THEODORE P. GERBER (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 3): The legacy of a new
generation of Russians who are nostalgic for the Soviet Union, ambivalent about
Stalin and hostile toward the United States may jeopardize U.S.-Russian
relations long after Putin is gone.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0202148_pf.html
KOSOVO AS PART OF RUSSIA'S DESIGN - JANUSZ BUGAJSKI (WASHINGTON TIMES,
AUGUST 3): For the Putin administration, the birth of new pro-American states
and the expansion of democracies in former communist territories presents a
long-term threat to Russia's strategic designs.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...mplate=printart
5 MYTHS ABOUT THE JAPAN THAT JUST SAID NO - MICHAEL ZIELENZIGER (WASHINGTON
POST, AUGUST 5): Just a few weeks ago, the Bush administration seemed convinced
that it could rely on a newly assertive Japan to contain China's rise and help
prosecute the global fight against terrorism. Then last weekend, Japan's voters
just said "No."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0201753_pf.html
THE BLACK SITES: A RARE LOOK INSIDE THE C.I.A.'S SECRET INTERROGATION
PROGRAM - JANE MAYER (NEW YORKER, AUGUST 13): The Bush Administration has gone
to great lengths to keep secret the treatment of the hundred or so ?high-value
detainees? whom the C.I.A. has confined, at one point or another, since
September 11th.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08...?printable=true
POEMS FROM GUANTÁNAMO (BOSTON GLOBE, AUGUST 5): The just-released "Poems
from Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak" is a collection of 22 poems by 17
detainees at the US detention center at Guantánamo Bay. Edited by Marc Falkoff,
each poem had to be cleared by the Pentagon. The result offers a rare glimpse
into the lives of the prisoners.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...antnamo?Mode=PF
STAMPEDING CONGRESS, AGAIN EDITORIAL (NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST 3): Since the
9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration has repeatedly demonstrated that
it does not feel bound by the law or the Constitution when it comes to the war
on terror. It cannot even be trusted to properly use the enhanced powers it was
legally granted after the attacks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/opinion/...agewanted=print
AL-QAIDA WILL DEFEAT AL-QAIDA - NELLY LAHOUD (BALTIMORESUN.COM, AUGUST 3):
Strategists ought to realize that al-Qaida cannot be defeated through
conventional wars. Instead, it must be given the space to self-destruct.
www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.alqaida03aug03,0,4040490.story
WE'RE STILL THE WORLD'S CAPED CRUSADER: THE UNITED STATES IS THE BEST HOPE
TO HELP STEER NATIONS THROUGH DANGEROUS TIMES - ROBERT KAGAN (FROM THE LOS
ANGELES TIMES, AUGUST 5): American predominance does not stand in the way of
progress toward a better world. It stands in the way of regression toward a more
dangerous world. The choice is not between an American-dominated order and a
world that looks like the European Union. The future international order will be
shaped by those who have the power to shape it. Its leaders will not meet in
Brussels but in Beijing, Moscow and Washington.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-...inion-rightrail
VIDEO
Footage of the video on SWORDS ("special weapons observation remote
reconnaissance direct action system") in action; from Christina Davidson,
'Battle Zone: Armed Robots Join the Battle in Iraq; Army Quietly Testing First
Three SWORDS in the Combat Zone' (IraqSlogger, August 3)
http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/..._Battle_in_Iraq
NO SURRENDER - BRUCE CHAPMAN (SEATTLE TIMES, AUGUST 5): If we lose in Iraq,
the central front of the war on terror, the people who urged our withdrawal will
start to call for an exit from Afghanistan next. Instead of calling it quits,
our government needs to do a much better job of public diplomacy in the world --
explaining what's at stake.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/P...p;date=20070805
IS THE 'GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR' PHONY? (POLITICALWARFARE.ORG: EMPLOYING
WORDS, IMAGES AND IDEAS TO WIN THE CURRENT WORLD WAR, AUGUST 5): The Bush
Administration has a can't-do attitude when it comes to fighting ideological
warfare. It seems to want to, but it won't. It's manifest at every level of
government -- from the White House to the lowliest contractor in the field.
Policymakers seem to default to the feckless public diplomacy shop at the State
Department. The Pentagon won't let its information operations people say
anything much about Islam, and its public affairs officers keep illegally
invoking a Cold War law that applies only to the State Department, as if to
ensure that we don't fight the propaganda war we need to be waging.
http://jmw.typepad.com/political_warfare/2...e-global-w.html
WAR OF IDEAS: BIN LADEN, TERRORISM MAY BE GOING OUT OF STYLE GADGETS
(POLITICS, AUGUST 4): Muslim extremists, it seems, are losing ground in one of
the most important battlefields of this conflict: the war of ideas. We certainly
cannot give Washington credit for what looks like the first signs of an emerging
trend toward moderation. American efforts at public diplomacy have invited
ridicule. The most likely explanation is that there is, after all, something
human about human beings. In the end, most people are revolted by the savagery
of terrorism.
http://worldpolitics-shabbir.blogspot.com/...ism-may-be.html
NEXT US LEADER 'MUST REACH OUT TO MUSLIMS' - ARVIND NAR (GULF TIMES, AUGUST
20: According to analyst Hady Amr, the author of the 2004 Brookings analysis
paper 'The Need to Communicate: How to Improve US Public Diplomacy with the
Islamic World,' to win the war of ideas with those advocating violence against
America and Americans, the US must act quickly to rebuild the shattered
foundations of understanding between the US and predominantly Muslim states and
communities.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/arti...mp;parent_id=16
CAN U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY SURVIVE THE FOREIGN POLICY PRONOUNCEMENTS OF
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES? SUCH AS BARACK OBAMA'S TALK OF INVADING PAKISTAN, OR
TOM TANCREDO'S THREAT TO BOMB MECCA - (KIM ANDREW ELLIOTT DISCUSSING
INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING AND PUBLIC DIPLOMACY, ITEM POSTED AUGUST 5), latest
edition.
http://www.kimandrewelliott.com/
OBAMA AS THE NEW KENNEDY. AND NOT IN A GOOD WAY ... - JUSTIN RAIMONDO
(ANTIWAR.COM, AUGUST 3): The Kennedy-esque undertone of Obama's campaign is made
quite explicit: "I will also launch a program of public diplomacy that is a
coordinated effort across my Administration, not a small group of political
officials at the State Department explaining a misguided war. We will open
'America Houses' in cities across the Islamic world, with Internet, libraries,
English lessons, stories of America's Muslims and the strength they add to our
country, and vocational programs. Through a new 'America's Voice Corps' we will
recruit, train, and send out into the field talented young Americans who can
speak with -- and listen to -- the people who today hear about us only from our
enemies." Shades of the Peace Corps, and the "idealism" of exporting
"Americanism" worldwide, "selling" ourselves and our way of life to a grateful
world.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11390
GUANTANAMO, THE DAY AFTER - CORINE HEGLAND (NATIONAL JOURNAL, AUGUST 3):
Regarding Guantanamo, Benjamin Wittes, a fellow and the research director in
public law at the Brookings Institution, says, "The problem is not an optical
problem. It's not a public diplomacy problem. The problem is that we don't have
a legal regime. Building a legal regime is a very separate question from whether
you choose to do it in Guantanamo Bay or somewhere else."
http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/...007/0803nj1.htm
OUTCRY AS BRITISH COUNCIL QUITS EUROPE TO WOO MUSLIM WORLD - HELENA SMITH,
(OBSERVER, AUGUST 5): Across Europe, half a century of promoting British culture
and values is slowly being wound down in favour of a huge increase in funding
for activities in the Middle East and Muslim world. Iraq, Afghanistan and
Bangladesh are among 'high priority' regions that will also receive a 50 per
cent boost in support for projects to steer Muslims away from extremism. And as
the British Council's physical presence in Europe is cut back, public access
buildings, some recently renovated at spectacular cost, will close.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story...2141835,00.html
AMERICAN MIS[E]-EN-SCENE? - BURAK BEKDÝL(TURKISH DAILY NEWS, AUGUST 3):
Rumor has it that American and Turkish bigwigs planned a joint major blow on the
PKK in which the PKK's wing leaders would have been captured. The rumor also
goes that the planned operation failed only because some unknown American(s)
leaked the plan to one of the jewels of the American press (Robert D. Novak,
'Bush's Turkish Gamble,' July 30, 2007, Washington Post). The possible public
diplomacy effort surrounding this Washington Post story reminds one of skillful
American strategic planning, which is rare these days.
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=79994
LETTER FROM WASHINGTON: FIRST SALVOS ON FOREIGN POLICY SHED LIGHT ON AN
AMERICAN PROBLEM ALBERT R. HUNT (INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, AUGUST 5):
Global anti-American sentiments extend beyond security and military issues.
There are widespread complaints about the U.S. posture on the environment, a
growing concern to people in most countries. This is part of the complaint that
American leaders simply don't care what others think.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/05/america/letter.php
POPULARITY CONTEST: WHY THEY HATE, AND LIKE, US - VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
(NATIONAL REVIEW, AUGUST 5): How strange that poor countries in Africa, Eastern
Europe, and South America are more favorable to America than are oil-rich
sheikdoms, rich European socialist republics, and Middle East recipients of
massive U.S. aid. Or perhaps it's not so strange at all. The more confident a
nation is, even when poor, the more likely it seems to admire America.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MmFiZ...2Y1Njg5NmNiODA=
HOW INDIA SEES AMERICA - AMAR C. BAKSHI (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 2):
America's most important role in India is perhaps the ideals it stands for. But
as a country, Indians complain, America bows to no one, and cannot be trusted.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglo..._america_2.html
NEW AL-QAEDA VIDEO WARNS U.S. MISSIONS 'LEGITIMATE TARGETS' RFE/RL (AUGUST
5): A new video from a wanted American member of Al-Qaeda warned that U.S.
diplomatic missions were "legitimate targets" for terrorists.
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/...212b2c0bcc.html
MAKING THE GREEN ZONE A BETTER PLACE - AL KAMEN (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 3):
The US embassy in Baghdad has issued several notices regarding "duck and cover"
procedures, and it seems that people must have fretted about not having cover to
duck into. Help is on the way, as President Bush liked to say during the 2000
campaign. "We have ordered an additional 60 bunkers, 40 of which are for the NEC
(New Embassy Compound)," Ambassador Ryan Crocker said, "for a total of 151
bunkers when installation is completed."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0202413_pf.html
WILL WE BETRAY OUR IRAQI WORKERS? - ANDREW GREELEY (CHICAGO SUN TIMES,
AUGUST 2/COMMON DREAMS): What will happen to those Iraqis who worked for the
United States when we finally pull up stakes In Iraq, someone will cut off
their heads. Americans will feel no more responsibility for their deaths than
they do for the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have already died during our
feckless occupation.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/02/2930/
WAR GOING HORRIBLY FOR IRAQIS - AMITABH PAL (COMMON DREAMS, AUGUST 5):
There's something of a whiff of racism in claiming that the Iraq War is not
going too badly because American casualties have been marginally lower last
month. On purpose or otherwise, this analysis misses the larger purpose of why
U.S. troops are meant to be in Iraq: to make life better for the Iraqis. As the
numbers show, U.S. troops are spectacularly failing in this regard.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/04/2989/
SOUTH OF BAGHDAD, A CAUTIONARY TALE: AFTER HEAVY LOSSES, U.S. TROOPS IN THE
'TRIANGLE OF DEATH' SAY THEY'RE MAKING PROGRESS, THOUGH SLOWLY AND SUBTLY - TINA
SUSMAN (LOS ANGELES TIMES, AUGUST 6)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...=la-home-center
IN IRAQI SOUTH, SHIITES PRESS FOR AUTONOMY: MOMENTUM IS BUILDING FOR A
FEDERATION OF SOUTHERN PROVINCES IN A FURTHER CHALLENGE TO IRAQ'S NATIONAL UNITY
- SAM DAGHER (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, AUGUST 6)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0806/p01s03-woiq.html
WEAPONS GIVEN TO IRAQ ARE MISSING: GAO ESTIMATES 30% OF ARMS ARE UNACCOUNTED
FOR - GLENN KESSLER (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 6): The Pentagon has lost track of
about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in
2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of
those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in
Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...ml?hpid=topnews
WHY IRAQ INSURGENCY HASN'T LOST STEAM BUT HOPE HAS - JAY BOOKMAN (ATLANTA
JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, AUGUST 2/COMMON DREAMS): The surge was never intended to
win the war, it was intended to temporarily suppress the insurgency while the
Iraqi government makes good on its promises to the Iraqis and to the Americans
fighting and dying on their behalf. That hasn't even begun to happen.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/02/2929/
THE NEGATIVE POWER OF PRESIDENTIAL WISHFUL THINKING ON IRAQ - ELIZABETH
SULLIVAN (CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER, AUGUST 2/COMMON DREAMS): Instead of Iraq
becoming the crucible in which America would prove its military prowess against
rogues and terrorists, it has become the touchstone for resistance. Instead of
making America safer, Iraq has put America in greater peril, as terrorist cells
become more diffuse and harder to track.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/02/2928/
BEYOND DISASTER - CHRIS HEDGES (TRUTHDIG, AUGUST 6): The war in Iraq is
about to get worse -- much worse. The security of the Green Zone, our imperial
city, will be increasingly breached. Command and control will disintegrate. And
we will back out of Iraq humiliated and defeated. But this will not be the end
of the conflict. It will, in fact, signal a phase of the war far deadlier and
more dangerous to American intersts.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200708...eyond_disaster/
PATRIOTS WHO LOVE THE TROOPS TO DEATH - FRANK RICH (NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST
5): It was a rewriting of history that made the blogosphere (and others) go
berserk last week over an Op-Ed article in The Times, 'A War We Just Might Win,'
by Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack. The two Brookings Institution scholars,
after a government-guided tour, pointed selectively to successes on the ground
in Iraq in arguing that the surge should be continued 'at least into 2008.' The
hole in their argument was gaping. Hiding behind the troops is the last refuge
of this war's sponsors.
html?pagewanted=print" target="_blank">
THE REALLY SMART, SERIOUS, CREDIBLE IRAQ EXPERTS O'HANLON AND POLLACK -
GLENN GREENWALD (SALON, JULY 30): What is the most vivid and compelling evidence
of how broken our political system is? It is that the exact same people who
urged us into the war in Iraq, were wrong in everything they said, and issued
one false assurance after the next as the war failed, continue to be the same
people held up as our Serious Iraq Experts.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/200...ings/index.html
MEDIA BLITZ FOR WAR: THE BIG GUNS OF AUGUST - NORMAN SOLOMON (COMMON DREAMS,
AUGUST 2): Arguments over whether U.S. forces can prevail in Iraq bypass a truth
that no amount of media spin can change: The U.S. war effort in Iraq has always
been illegitimate and fundamentally wrong. Whatever the prospects for America?s
war there, it shouldn?t be fought.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/02/2932/
TO BUSH, GEN. PETRAEUS IS THE SECOND COMING - AT LEAST FOR NOW - ARIANNA
HUFFINGTON (BALTIMORESUN.COM, AUGUST 5): ?For months now, I've been trying to
blow some of that pixie dust off General Petraeus so that, come September, his
vaunted report will be seen for what it inevitably will be: one more stall
tactic designed to deny reality and delay the inevitable."
www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.huffington05aug05,0,3077117.story
LOWER EXPECTATIONS: IRAQ, REALISTICALLY - JONAH GOLDBERG (NATIONAL REVIEW,
AUGUST 3): 'At this point I'm in favor of whatever modest success we can eke out
of Iraq. But we should keep in mind that 'strong states' alone do not a drained
swamp make.'
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDg2Y...zFlZDQ3ZjkwZTM=
LEGION OF THE LOST - R. EMMETT TYRRELL JR. (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 3): The
new strategy of Lt. Gen. David Petraeus seems to be working. Casualties among
civilians in Iraq are perceptibly lower.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...mplate=printart
THE TURN: DEFEATISTS IN RETREAT - WILLIAM KRISTOL (WEEKLY STANDARD, AUGUST
13): In the real world, the news from Iraq had been (relatively) good for a
couple of months.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...0rsadr.asp?pg=1
WHAT IF WE WIN? - CAL THOMAS (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 3): Democrats appear
unable to conceive of victory, or at least stability in Iraq.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/200...1012/commentary
TO EXIT IRAQ, HOW IS AS IMPORTANT AS WHEN: ANY TROOP WITHDRAWAL COULD TAKE
UP TO 18 MONTHS AND WOULD NEED CAREFUL PLANNING, MILITARY EXPERTS SAY - GORDON
LUBOLD (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, AUGUST 6)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0806/p03s04-woiq.html
NOSTRA CULPA - MICHAEL KINSLEY (TIME, AUGUST 2): Bush's decision to go to
war in Iraq was scandalously unilateral, but it did in fact have the support of
most American citizens, which surely egged him on.
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1649312,00.html
GETTING IRAQ WRONG - MICHAEL IGNATIEFF (NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST 5): We might
test judgment by asking, on the issue of Iraq, who best anticipated how events
turned out. But many of those who correctly anticipated catastrophe did so not
by exercising judgment but by indulging in ideology. They opposed the invasion
because they believed the president was only after the oil or because they
believed America is always and in every situation wrong. The people who truly
showed good judgment on Iraq predicted the consequences that actually ensued but
also rightly evaluated the motives that led to the action.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/magazine...agewanted=print
SEE ALSO
http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/indulging_ideology?tx=3
SYRIAN SURVEY - KEN BALLEN (WALL STREET JOURNAL, AUGUST 4): Despite powerful
anti-American feelings and support for Iraqi fighters, 63% of Syrians still
favor Syria working with the United States to help resolve the Iraq war. In
Iran, close to 70% of the people favor better relations with the U.S.; in Syria
only 40% favor closer ties.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1186187250...in_commentaries
PAID SUBSCRIPTION
ARMING THE SAUDIS MAKES NO ONE SAFER - FRIDA GHITIS (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, AUGUST
3)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion...0,7408029.story
BUSH'S GULF GAMBIT: BY CONTAINING IRAN, THE U.S. REMAINS IN IRAQ - MICHAEL
YOUNG (REASON, AUGUST 2): We're back to the days when the Gulf kingdoms and
emirates were avid consumers of high-tech American weaponry, in the context of a
broader quid pro quo where the U.S. took on the burden of security in the Gulf
region in exchange for Saudi intervention to stabilize the oil markets.
http://reason.com/news/show/121695.html
THE MYSTERIES OF AMERICAN LOGIC - ZVI BAR'EL (HAARETZ, AUGUST 5): If it is
hard to be impressed by the pure strategic logic of the Saudi arms deal, it is
permissible to worry about America's strategic standing in the region -- because
neither Saudi nor Kuwaiti arms protect the Gulf, but rather the massive presence
of the U.S. army and the understanding that it is Washington who will act
against any threat to the Arab states. Israel's safety also depends on this.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/889704.html
MEDIATED TERRORISM: DOUBLE STANDARDS IN U.S. AID TO THE MIDDLE EAST -
ANTHONY DIMAGGIO (COUNTERPUNCH, AUGUST 4/5): Corrupt authoritarian rulers in
Saudi Arabia and Egypt require U.S. aid in order to defend their regimes from
the increasing threats of their own populations, rather than from phantom
outside "threats" discussed in American political and media propaganda.
http://www.counterpunch.org/dimaggio08042007.html
APPEASEMENT OR 'GRAND STRATEGY' DIANA WEST (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 3):
Inspired by the teachings of James Baker -- practically an honorary Saudi
princeling -- Condi, Bob, and, of course, George, see the Saudis as Our Moderate
Allies. Who cares if they promote jihad doctrine? Who cares if they sponsor
Hamas? Who cares how many Saudis support (or belong to) al Qaeda?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...mplate=printart
THE MIDEAST NEEDS MORE GUNS? EDITORIAL (BOSTON GLOBE, AUGUST 5): The last
thing the Middle East needs is a new round of arms sales, but that is what the
Bush administration wants Congress to approve, the better to contain Iran's bid
for dominance in the region.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...re_guns?mode=PF
MUSHARRAF'S OBSOLETE WAY - JIM HOAGLAND (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 5):
Pakistan?s president Musharraf's long run as President Bush's personal favorite
among Third World leaders is in such serious trouble that some administration
officials have quietly conducted a review of the general's ability to survive.
Their conclusion -- that he can continue to hang on -- may well ignore changing
Pakistani and international realities.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0301951_pf.html
A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE? - EDITORIAL (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, AUGUST 5): Since
the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Musharraf has been a key ally to the U.S. in its
fight against Al Qaeda. But he has not been an entirely reliable ally, and in
recent weeks he has been weakened in his own country.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion...0,7212507.story
JIHADI GALAXY IN PAKISTAN - CLAUDE SALHANI (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 5):
More cooperation with the United States is placing Mr. Musharraf in even more
negative light with many of his citizens. One avenue that seems to be left open
to Mr. Musharraf is to extend an offer of reconciliation to former Prime
Minister Benazir Bhutto. But, again, can she fix Pakistan?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...mplate=printart
ONWARD INTO WAZIRISTAN! - PATRICK J. BUCHANAN (ANTIWAR.COM, AUGUST 3):
U.S. troops in an Arab or Muslim country are more likely to create an insurgency
than quell one.
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=11389
POWER FAILURE: THE U.S.'S CATASTROPHIC NUCLEAR DEAL WITH INDIA - SHARON
SQUASSONI (TRN ONLINE, AUGUST 3): Many see hypocrisy in rewarding India, a
nuclear weapon state outside the NPT, while punishing Iran, an NPT member state
that does not yet have the bomb.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w070730&s=squassoni080307
YOUNG RUSSIA'S ENEMY NO. 1: ANTI-AMERICANISM GROWS - BY SARAH E. MENDELSON
AND THEODORE P. GERBER (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 3): The legacy of a new
generation of Russians who are nostalgic for the Soviet Union, ambivalent about
Stalin and hostile toward the United States may jeopardize U.S.-Russian
relations long after Putin is gone.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0202148_pf.html
KOSOVO AS PART OF RUSSIA'S DESIGN - JANUSZ BUGAJSKI (WASHINGTON TIMES,
AUGUST 3): For the Putin administration, the birth of new pro-American states
and the expansion of democracies in former communist territories presents a
long-term threat to Russia's strategic designs.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...mplate=printart
5 MYTHS ABOUT THE JAPAN THAT JUST SAID NO - MICHAEL ZIELENZIGER (WASHINGTON
POST, AUGUST 5): Just a few weeks ago, the Bush administration seemed convinced
that it could rely on a newly assertive Japan to contain China's rise and help
prosecute the global fight against terrorism. Then last weekend, Japan's voters
just said "No."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0201753_pf.html
THE BLACK SITES: A RARE LOOK INSIDE THE C.I.A.'S SECRET INTERROGATION
PROGRAM - JANE MAYER (NEW YORKER, AUGUST 13): The Bush Administration has gone
to great lengths to keep secret the treatment of the hundred or so ?high-value
detainees? whom the C.I.A. has confined, at one point or another, since
September 11th.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08...?printable=true
POEMS FROM GUANTÁNAMO (BOSTON GLOBE, AUGUST 5): The just-released "Poems
from Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak" is a collection of 22 poems by 17
detainees at the US detention center at Guantánamo Bay. Edited by Marc Falkoff,
each poem had to be cleared by the Pentagon. The result offers a rare glimpse
into the lives of the prisoners.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...antnamo?Mode=PF
STAMPEDING CONGRESS, AGAIN EDITORIAL (NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST 3): Since the
9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration has repeatedly demonstrated that
it does not feel bound by the law or the Constitution when it comes to the war
on terror. It cannot even be trusted to properly use the enhanced powers it was
legally granted after the attacks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/opinion/...agewanted=print
AL-QAIDA WILL DEFEAT AL-QAIDA - NELLY LAHOUD (BALTIMORESUN.COM, AUGUST 3):
Strategists ought to realize that al-Qaida cannot be defeated through
conventional wars. Instead, it must be given the space to self-destruct.
www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.alqaida03aug03,0,4040490.story
WE'RE STILL THE WORLD'S CAPED CRUSADER: THE UNITED STATES IS THE BEST HOPE
TO HELP STEER NATIONS THROUGH DANGEROUS TIMES - ROBERT KAGAN (FROM THE LOS
ANGELES TIMES, AUGUST 5): American predominance does not stand in the way of
progress toward a better world. It stands in the way of regression toward a more
dangerous world. The choice is not between an American-dominated order and a
world that looks like the European Union. The future international order will be
shaped by those who have the power to shape it. Its leaders will not meet in
Brussels but in Beijing, Moscow and Washington.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-...inion-rightrail
Any Sunnis want to be in my government?
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has refused to accept the resignations of the six Sunni members who quit last week, probably because he loves them so much and can't imagine Cabinet meetings without them. That kind of make-believe response may be enough to convince those Americans who want to be convinced that he's trying, though. Bush reportedly had private phone conversations with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Vice Presidents Tareq al-Hashemi and Adel Abd al-Mahdi over the resignations. According to al-Jazeera, Bush told Hashemi that he understood his reasons for quitting Maliki's government (which has got to make Maliki feel good). Talibani reportedly met with Hashemi. But if the AP has it right, Maliki met with Talabani and Abd al-Mahdi, but not Hashemi... which tells you much of what you need to know. They're slated to all get together soon, though, which should be quite a meeting.
Maliki doesn't seem particularly frantic, and it's understandable why. His government won't fall as long as he maintains the support of the Shia bloc (and the Parliament isn't in session anyway to carry out a no-confidence vote). He probably likes seeing Sunnis running around all pissed off better than he likes seeing them around the table at Cabinet meetings. He certainly would rather lose his Sunni cover in the Cabinet than actually make any concessions on the sectarian policies which are kind of the raison d'etre of his government (as if he'd really move against Shi'a militia penetration of the army at a time when, in his view, the Americans are arming Sunni militias in a parallel security force). He probably knows that Bush has no real leverage since he won't withdraw American troops no matter what (one of the Sunni cabinet members who quit complained that Maliki cares more about keeping Bush's support than about Iraq's national interest, but I don't see much evidence that he's all that worried about losing Bush). Personally, I think he's counting on the fact that the Sunni bloc desperately wants to be invited back in to the government, since if they stay out they lose lots of personal privileges plus they will quickly lose what political relevance they've got in the Sunni community. I doubt that Maliki is really willing to offer them enough to even allow them to save face, but that doesn't mean they won't come back anyway.
Adding to the delusional quality of all this, al-Hayat reports that Maliki approached the Anbar Salvation Council to propose that the tribal shaykhs contribute six cabinet members to replace the departed Tawafuq Bloc. They reportedly declined; al-Hayat doesn't say why, but we can safely assume that they saw no point in joining Maliki's government if there was no American cash forthcoming to make it worth their while. The fact that Anbar residents seem to support the Bloc's withdrawal may have had a little to do with it too. I was curious as to whether Maliki could legally even do this. From what I can tell (but correct me if I'm wrong), the Iraqi Constitution is actually quite vague about the composition of the government, so as long as he can survive a no-confidence vote Maliki could probably bring in six Sunni cab drivers and make them Cabinet members (if he could find six Sunni cab drivers willing to work with him, which I doubt).
What makes this so bizarre is that the Anbar Salvation Council is a creature of the American military, not the Iraqi state, and Maliki has publicly objected to the American arming of Sunni tribes outside the armed forces (it's a matter of principle: he doesn't like militias that aren't on his side). The prospect of Maliki talking to the ASC actually throws a spotlight on something interesting. What we're seeing seems to be the escalating irrelevance of formal Iraqi institutions, or at least the escalating public admission of their irrelevance. The US military certainly seems to be acting on that assumption: Gates, Mullin and other top DOD officials seem to have publicly given up on political progress at the national level, while Petraeus is focusing on local level initiatives and tactical alliances which completely ignore - and often are opposed by - the Iraqi government.
Forget for a moment the admittedly vital question of whether the September Crocker/Petraeus report acknowledges these realities (I've been thinking that this report might be more honest than many people expect in that regard, even if few of my smart and well-connected colleagues agree with me). If this were really the trend, what kind of American strategy would follow from a tacit abandonment of the institutions of the Iraqi state and the formal political process? Would this make withdrawal easier and more likely, since the unresolvable political contradictions at the national level could just be ignored? Could the US really maintain its military presence while jettisoning the political system it has created and defended over the last four years? I've got no answers here, just questions worth putting out there.
UPDATE: it's just reported that Allawi is out - ordered his five ministers to boycott the Maliki government. That leaves Maliki with a purely sectarian government, with sectarian-minded Shia allied with the Kurds.
http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has refused to accept the resignations of the six Sunni members who quit last week, probably because he loves them so much and can't imagine Cabinet meetings without them. That kind of make-believe response may be enough to convince those Americans who want to be convinced that he's trying, though. Bush reportedly had private phone conversations with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Vice Presidents Tareq al-Hashemi and Adel Abd al-Mahdi over the resignations. According to al-Jazeera, Bush told Hashemi that he understood his reasons for quitting Maliki's government (which has got to make Maliki feel good). Talibani reportedly met with Hashemi. But if the AP has it right, Maliki met with Talabani and Abd al-Mahdi, but not Hashemi... which tells you much of what you need to know. They're slated to all get together soon, though, which should be quite a meeting.
Maliki doesn't seem particularly frantic, and it's understandable why. His government won't fall as long as he maintains the support of the Shia bloc (and the Parliament isn't in session anyway to carry out a no-confidence vote). He probably likes seeing Sunnis running around all pissed off better than he likes seeing them around the table at Cabinet meetings. He certainly would rather lose his Sunni cover in the Cabinet than actually make any concessions on the sectarian policies which are kind of the raison d'etre of his government (as if he'd really move against Shi'a militia penetration of the army at a time when, in his view, the Americans are arming Sunni militias in a parallel security force). He probably knows that Bush has no real leverage since he won't withdraw American troops no matter what (one of the Sunni cabinet members who quit complained that Maliki cares more about keeping Bush's support than about Iraq's national interest, but I don't see much evidence that he's all that worried about losing Bush). Personally, I think he's counting on the fact that the Sunni bloc desperately wants to be invited back in to the government, since if they stay out they lose lots of personal privileges plus they will quickly lose what political relevance they've got in the Sunni community. I doubt that Maliki is really willing to offer them enough to even allow them to save face, but that doesn't mean they won't come back anyway.
Adding to the delusional quality of all this, al-Hayat reports that Maliki approached the Anbar Salvation Council to propose that the tribal shaykhs contribute six cabinet members to replace the departed Tawafuq Bloc. They reportedly declined; al-Hayat doesn't say why, but we can safely assume that they saw no point in joining Maliki's government if there was no American cash forthcoming to make it worth their while. The fact that Anbar residents seem to support the Bloc's withdrawal may have had a little to do with it too. I was curious as to whether Maliki could legally even do this. From what I can tell (but correct me if I'm wrong), the Iraqi Constitution is actually quite vague about the composition of the government, so as long as he can survive a no-confidence vote Maliki could probably bring in six Sunni cab drivers and make them Cabinet members (if he could find six Sunni cab drivers willing to work with him, which I doubt).
What makes this so bizarre is that the Anbar Salvation Council is a creature of the American military, not the Iraqi state, and Maliki has publicly objected to the American arming of Sunni tribes outside the armed forces (it's a matter of principle: he doesn't like militias that aren't on his side). The prospect of Maliki talking to the ASC actually throws a spotlight on something interesting. What we're seeing seems to be the escalating irrelevance of formal Iraqi institutions, or at least the escalating public admission of their irrelevance. The US military certainly seems to be acting on that assumption: Gates, Mullin and other top DOD officials seem to have publicly given up on political progress at the national level, while Petraeus is focusing on local level initiatives and tactical alliances which completely ignore - and often are opposed by - the Iraqi government.
Forget for a moment the admittedly vital question of whether the September Crocker/Petraeus report acknowledges these realities (I've been thinking that this report might be more honest than many people expect in that regard, even if few of my smart and well-connected colleagues agree with me). If this were really the trend, what kind of American strategy would follow from a tacit abandonment of the institutions of the Iraqi state and the formal political process? Would this make withdrawal easier and more likely, since the unresolvable political contradictions at the national level could just be ignored? Could the US really maintain its military presence while jettisoning the political system it has created and defended over the last four years? I've got no answers here, just questions worth putting out there.
UPDATE: it's just reported that Allawi is out - ordered his five ministers to boycott the Maliki government. That leaves Maliki with a purely sectarian government, with sectarian-minded Shia allied with the Kurds.
http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/
Beyond Disaster
<h6 class="date">Posted on Aug 6, 2007</h6>
AP Photo / Hameed Rasheed
By Chris Hedges
The war in Iraq is about to get worse—much worse. The Democrats' decision to let the war run its course, while they frantically wash their hands of responsibility, means that it will sputter and stagger forward until the mission collapses. This will be sudden. The security of the Green Zone, our imperial city, will be increasingly breached. Command and control will disintegrate. And we will back out of Iraq humiliated and defeated. But this will not be the end of the conflict. It will, in fact, signal a phase of the war far deadlier and more dangerous to American interests.
Iraq no longer exists as a unified country. The experiment that was Iraq, the cobbling together of disparate and antagonistic patches of the Ottoman Empire by the victorious powers in the wake of World War I, belongs to the history books. It will never come back. The Kurds have set up a de facto state in the north, the Shiites control most of the south and the center of the country is a battleground. There are 2 million Iraqis who have fled their homes and are internally displaced. Another 2 million have left the country, most to Syria and Jordan, which now has the largest number of refugees per capita of any country on Earth. An Oxfam report estimates that one in three Iraqis are in need of emergency aid, but the chaos and violence is so widespread that assistance is impossible. Iraq is in a state of anarchy. The American occupation forces are one more source of terror tossed into the caldron of suicide bombings, mercenary armies, militias, massive explosions, ambushes, kidnappings and mass executions. But wait until we leave.
It was not supposed to turn out like this. Remember all those visions of a democratic Iraq, visions peddled by the White House and fatuous pundits like Thomas Friedman and the gravel-voiced morons who pollute our airwaves on CNN and Fox News? They assured us that the war would be a cakewalk. We would be greeted as liberators. Democracy would seep out over the borders of Iraq to usher in a new Middle East. Now, struggling to salvage their own credibility, they blame the debacle on poor planning and mismanagement.
There are probably about 10,000 Arabists in the United States—people who have lived for prolonged periods in the Middle East and speak Arabic. At the inception of the war you could not have rounded up more than about a dozen who thought this was a good idea. And I include all the Arabists in the State Department, the Pentagon and the intelligence community. Anyone who had spent significant time in Iraq knew this would not work. The war was not doomed because Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz did not do sufficient planning for the occupation. The war was doomed, period. It never had a chance. And even a cursory knowledge of Iraqi history and politics made this apparent.
This is not to deny the stupidity of the occupation. The disbanding of the Iraqi army; the ham-fisted attempt to install the crook and, it now turns out, Iranian spy Ahmed Chalabi in power; the firing of all Baathist public officials, including university professors, primary school teachers, nurses and doctors; the failure to secure Baghdad and the vast weapons depots from looters; allowing heavily armed American units to blast their way through densely populated neighborhoods, giving the insurgency its most potent recruiting tool—all ensured a swift descent into chaos. But Iraq would not have held together even if we had been spared the gross incompetence of the Bush administration. Saddam Hussein, like the more benign dictator Josip Broz Tito in the former Yugoslavia, understood that the glue that held the country together was the secret police.
Iraq, however, is different from Yugoslavia. Iraq has oil—lots of it. It also has water in a part of the world that is running out of water. And the dismemberment of Iraq will unleash a mad scramble for dwindling resources that will include the involvement of neighboring states. The Kurds, like the Shiites and the Sunnis, know that if they do not get their hands on water resources and oil they cannot survive. But Turkey, Syria and Iran have no intention of allowing the Kurds to create a viable enclave. A functioning Kurdistan in northern Iraq means rebellion by the repressed Kurdish minorities in these countries. The Kurds, orphans of the 20th century who have been repeatedly sold out by every ally they ever had, including the United States, will be crushed. The possibility that Iraq will become a Shiite state, run by clerics allied with Iran, terrifies the Arab world. Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia, the United States and Israel, would most likely keep the conflict going by arming Sunni militias. This anarchy could end with foreign forces, including Iran and Turkey, carving up the battered carcass of Iraq. No matter what happens, many, many Iraqis are going to die. And it is our fault.
The neoconservatives—and the liberal interventionists, who still serve as the neocons' useful idiots when it comes to Iran—have learned nothing. They talk about hitting Iran and maybe even Pakistan with airstrikes. Strikes on Iran would ensure a regional conflict. Such an action has the potential of drawing Israel into war—especially if Iran retaliates for any airstrikes by hitting Israel, as I would expect Tehran to do. There are still many in the U.S. who cling to the doctrine of pre-emptive war, a doctrine that the post-World War II Nuremberg laws define as a criminal "war of aggression."
The occupation of Iraq, along with the Afghanistan occupation, has only furthered the spread of failed states and increased authoritarianism, savage violence, instability and anarchy. It has swelled the ranks of our real enemies—the Islamic terrorists—and opened up voids of lawlessness where they can operate and plot against us. It has scuttled the art of diplomacy. It has left us an outlaw state intent on creating more outlaw states. It has empowered Iran, as well as Russia and China, which sit on the sidelines gleefully watching our self-immolation. This is what George W. Bush and all those "reluctant hawks" who supported him have bequeathed us.
What is terrifying is not that the architects and numerous apologists of the Iraq war have learned nothing, but that they may not yet be finished.
Chris Hedges, the former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times, spent seven years in the Middle East. He was part of the paper's team of reporters who won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of global terrorism. He is the author of "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning." His latest book is "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America."
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Yahoo<h6 class="date">Posted on Aug 6, 2007</h6>
AP Photo / Hameed Rasheed By Chris Hedges
The war in Iraq is about to get worse—much worse. The Democrats' decision to let the war run its course, while they frantically wash their hands of responsibility, means that it will sputter and stagger forward until the mission collapses. This will be sudden. The security of the Green Zone, our imperial city, will be increasingly breached. Command and control will disintegrate. And we will back out of Iraq humiliated and defeated. But this will not be the end of the conflict. It will, in fact, signal a phase of the war far deadlier and more dangerous to American interests.
Iraq no longer exists as a unified country. The experiment that was Iraq, the cobbling together of disparate and antagonistic patches of the Ottoman Empire by the victorious powers in the wake of World War I, belongs to the history books. It will never come back. The Kurds have set up a de facto state in the north, the Shiites control most of the south and the center of the country is a battleground. There are 2 million Iraqis who have fled their homes and are internally displaced. Another 2 million have left the country, most to Syria and Jordan, which now has the largest number of refugees per capita of any country on Earth. An Oxfam report estimates that one in three Iraqis are in need of emergency aid, but the chaos and violence is so widespread that assistance is impossible. Iraq is in a state of anarchy. The American occupation forces are one more source of terror tossed into the caldron of suicide bombings, mercenary armies, militias, massive explosions, ambushes, kidnappings and mass executions. But wait until we leave.
It was not supposed to turn out like this. Remember all those visions of a democratic Iraq, visions peddled by the White House and fatuous pundits like Thomas Friedman and the gravel-voiced morons who pollute our airwaves on CNN and Fox News? They assured us that the war would be a cakewalk. We would be greeted as liberators. Democracy would seep out over the borders of Iraq to usher in a new Middle East. Now, struggling to salvage their own credibility, they blame the debacle on poor planning and mismanagement.
There are probably about 10,000 Arabists in the United States—people who have lived for prolonged periods in the Middle East and speak Arabic. At the inception of the war you could not have rounded up more than about a dozen who thought this was a good idea. And I include all the Arabists in the State Department, the Pentagon and the intelligence community. Anyone who had spent significant time in Iraq knew this would not work. The war was not doomed because Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz did not do sufficient planning for the occupation. The war was doomed, period. It never had a chance. And even a cursory knowledge of Iraqi history and politics made this apparent.
This is not to deny the stupidity of the occupation. The disbanding of the Iraqi army; the ham-fisted attempt to install the crook and, it now turns out, Iranian spy Ahmed Chalabi in power; the firing of all Baathist public officials, including university professors, primary school teachers, nurses and doctors; the failure to secure Baghdad and the vast weapons depots from looters; allowing heavily armed American units to blast their way through densely populated neighborhoods, giving the insurgency its most potent recruiting tool—all ensured a swift descent into chaos. But Iraq would not have held together even if we had been spared the gross incompetence of the Bush administration. Saddam Hussein, like the more benign dictator Josip Broz Tito in the former Yugoslavia, understood that the glue that held the country together was the secret police.
Iraq, however, is different from Yugoslavia. Iraq has oil—lots of it. It also has water in a part of the world that is running out of water. And the dismemberment of Iraq will unleash a mad scramble for dwindling resources that will include the involvement of neighboring states. The Kurds, like the Shiites and the Sunnis, know that if they do not get their hands on water resources and oil they cannot survive. But Turkey, Syria and Iran have no intention of allowing the Kurds to create a viable enclave. A functioning Kurdistan in northern Iraq means rebellion by the repressed Kurdish minorities in these countries. The Kurds, orphans of the 20th century who have been repeatedly sold out by every ally they ever had, including the United States, will be crushed. The possibility that Iraq will become a Shiite state, run by clerics allied with Iran, terrifies the Arab world. Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia, the United States and Israel, would most likely keep the conflict going by arming Sunni militias. This anarchy could end with foreign forces, including Iran and Turkey, carving up the battered carcass of Iraq. No matter what happens, many, many Iraqis are going to die. And it is our fault.
The neoconservatives—and the liberal interventionists, who still serve as the neocons' useful idiots when it comes to Iran—have learned nothing. They talk about hitting Iran and maybe even Pakistan with airstrikes. Strikes on Iran would ensure a regional conflict. Such an action has the potential of drawing Israel into war—especially if Iran retaliates for any airstrikes by hitting Israel, as I would expect Tehran to do. There are still many in the U.S. who cling to the doctrine of pre-emptive war, a doctrine that the post-World War II Nuremberg laws define as a criminal "war of aggression."
The occupation of Iraq, along with the Afghanistan occupation, has only furthered the spread of failed states and increased authoritarianism, savage violence, instability and anarchy. It has swelled the ranks of our real enemies—the Islamic terrorists—and opened up voids of lawlessness where they can operate and plot against us. It has scuttled the art of diplomacy. It has left us an outlaw state intent on creating more outlaw states. It has empowered Iran, as well as Russia and China, which sit on the sidelines gleefully watching our self-immolation. This is what George W. Bush and all those "reluctant hawks" who supported him have bequeathed us.
What is terrifying is not that the architects and numerous apologists of the Iraq war have learned nothing, but that they may not yet be finished.
Chris Hedges, the former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times, spent seven years in the Middle East. He was part of the paper's team of reporters who won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of global terrorism. He is the author of "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning." His latest book is "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America."
White Elephants
by Uri Avnery
The king of Siam knew how to deal with domestic opponents: he would present them with a white elephant. White elephants are rare in nature, and therefore sacred. Being sacred, they may not be put to work. But even a sacred elephant does eat, and eat a lot. Enough to turn a rich man into a pauper.
My late friend, Gen. Matti Peled, onetime quartermaster general of the army, pointed out the similarity between this elephant and many of our gifts from the president of the United States.
According to the stipulations of the grant, most of it must be spent in the United States. Let's assume that Israel needs Merkava tanks, made in Israel. Or anti-missile systems, also made in Israel. Instead of acquiring these in Israel, the Israeli army buys American airplanes, which it does not need.
A state-of-the-art military airplane is an immensely expensive object. True, we get it for nothing. But like the white elephant, the airplane is very costly to maintain. It needs pilots, whose training costs a fortune. It needs airfields. All these expenses add up to much more than the price of the airplane itself.
But which army can refuse such a wonderful present?
The Middle East is now being invaded by a herd of white elephants.
This week it became known that President Bush is about to supply Saudi Arabia with huge quantities of the most advanced weapons. The price tag is $20 billion (20,000,000,000).
Ostensibly, the arms are needed to strengthen Saudi Arabia against the Great Satan: Iran. In Saudi eyes, this is now the great danger.
How did this happen? For centuries, Iraq served as a wall between Shi'ite Persian Iran and the Sunni Arab Middle East. When President Bush toppled the Sunni regime in Iraq, the whole region was opened up to the Shi'ite power. In Iraq itself, a Shi'ite government was installed, and Shi'ite militias roam at will. The Shi'ite Hezbollah is growing in power in Lebanon, and Iran is extending its long arm to all the Shi'ites in the region.
Allah, in his infinite wisdom, has seen to it that almost all the huge Middle East oil reserves are located in Shi'ite areas: in Iran, in the south of Iraq, and the Shi'ite areas of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf principalities. If these reserves slip away from U.S. control, it will cause a drastic change in the balance of power, not only in the region but in the entire world.
Therefore, the strengthening of Saudi Arabia – ruled by conservative Sunnis – makes a lot of sense from the American point of view. However, the arms deal is quite irrelevant to this.
The Saudis do not need weapons. They have an instrument that is much more effective than any number of airplanes and tanks: an inexhaustible supply of dollars. They use it to finance friends, buy influence, and bribe leaders.
On the other side, Saudi Arabia is unable to maintain the weapons that are flowing to it. It does not have enough pilots for the airplanes it is buying, nor crews for the tanks. The new weaponry will collect sand in the desert, like all the expensive weapons it has bought in the past.
So what is the sense in buying more weapons to the tune of $20 billion?
Well, the Saudis are selling oil to the Americans for dollars. A lot of oil, a lot of dollars. The United States, with a huge gap in its balance of trade, cannot afford to lose these billions. So, in order to make it possible for the U.S. to carry this burden, the Saudis must give back at least a part of the money. How? Quite simple: they buy American arms that they don't need.
This is a merry-go-round that benefits all. Especially the Saudi princes. Saudi Arabia is blessed with a great abundance of these – some 9,000 princes, all belonging to the House of Saud. A prince has a lot of wives, a wife has a lot of offspring. Some of them are arms dealers, who automatically receive fat commissions from the arms billions. (It is easy to work it out: a mere 1 percent of 20 billion amounts to 200 million. And they would laugh at a commission of 1 percent.)
The princes have, therefore, a vested interest in this convenient arrangement.
This is where Israel enters the picture.
Every arms deal made by the White House needs the assent of Congress. In Congress, the "friends of Israel" – the Jewish and the Evangelical lobbies – rule supreme. Any senator or congressman can forget about being reelected if he offends one of these lobbies.
When Israel raises its voice against an arms deal with Saudi Arabia, the White House has a problem. The more so since there is a certain logic to the Israeli objection: the Saudi air base in Tabuk is but a few minutes flying time from the Israeli port of Eilat.
What to do? Easy: give us a present of weapons, in order to maintain "the balance of power" and our "qualitative superiority over all the Arab armies combined."
So, together with the $20 billion deal with the Saudis, President Bush decreed that the American yearly grant of military assistance to Israel should be raised from $2.4 billion to $3 billion. This means
by Uri Avnery
The king of Siam knew how to deal with domestic opponents: he would present them with a white elephant. White elephants are rare in nature, and therefore sacred. Being sacred, they may not be put to work. But even a sacred elephant does eat, and eat a lot. Enough to turn a rich man into a pauper.
My late friend, Gen. Matti Peled, onetime quartermaster general of the army, pointed out the similarity between this elephant and many of our gifts from the president of the United States.
According to the stipulations of the grant, most of it must be spent in the United States. Let's assume that Israel needs Merkava tanks, made in Israel. Or anti-missile systems, also made in Israel. Instead of acquiring these in Israel, the Israeli army buys American airplanes, which it does not need.
A state-of-the-art military airplane is an immensely expensive object. True, we get it for nothing. But like the white elephant, the airplane is very costly to maintain. It needs pilots, whose training costs a fortune. It needs airfields. All these expenses add up to much more than the price of the airplane itself.
But which army can refuse such a wonderful present?
The Middle East is now being invaded by a herd of white elephants.
This week it became known that President Bush is about to supply Saudi Arabia with huge quantities of the most advanced weapons. The price tag is $20 billion (20,000,000,000).
Ostensibly, the arms are needed to strengthen Saudi Arabia against the Great Satan: Iran. In Saudi eyes, this is now the great danger.
How did this happen? For centuries, Iraq served as a wall between Shi'ite Persian Iran and the Sunni Arab Middle East. When President Bush toppled the Sunni regime in Iraq, the whole region was opened up to the Shi'ite power. In Iraq itself, a Shi'ite government was installed, and Shi'ite militias roam at will. The Shi'ite Hezbollah is growing in power in Lebanon, and Iran is extending its long arm to all the Shi'ites in the region.
Allah, in his infinite wisdom, has seen to it that almost all the huge Middle East oil reserves are located in Shi'ite areas: in Iran, in the south of Iraq, and the Shi'ite areas of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf principalities. If these reserves slip away from U.S. control, it will cause a drastic change in the balance of power, not only in the region but in the entire world.
Therefore, the strengthening of Saudi Arabia – ruled by conservative Sunnis – makes a lot of sense from the American point of view. However, the arms deal is quite irrelevant to this.
The Saudis do not need weapons. They have an instrument that is much more effective than any number of airplanes and tanks: an inexhaustible supply of dollars. They use it to finance friends, buy influence, and bribe leaders.
On the other side, Saudi Arabia is unable to maintain the weapons that are flowing to it. It does not have enough pilots for the airplanes it is buying, nor crews for the tanks. The new weaponry will collect sand in the desert, like all the expensive weapons it has bought in the past.
So what is the sense in buying more weapons to the tune of $20 billion?
Well, the Saudis are selling oil to the Americans for dollars. A lot of oil, a lot of dollars. The United States, with a huge gap in its balance of trade, cannot afford to lose these billions. So, in order to make it possible for the U.S. to carry this burden, the Saudis must give back at least a part of the money. How? Quite simple: they buy American arms that they don't need.
This is a merry-go-round that benefits all. Especially the Saudi princes. Saudi Arabia is blessed with a great abundance of these – some 9,000 princes, all belonging to the House of Saud. A prince has a lot of wives, a wife has a lot of offspring. Some of them are arms dealers, who automatically receive fat commissions from the arms billions. (It is easy to work it out: a mere 1 percent of 20 billion amounts to 200 million. And they would laugh at a commission of 1 percent.)
The princes have, therefore, a vested interest in this convenient arrangement.
This is where Israel enters the picture.
Every arms deal made by the White House needs the assent of Congress. In Congress, the "friends of Israel" – the Jewish and the Evangelical lobbies – rule supreme. Any senator or congressman can forget about being reelected if he offends one of these lobbies.
When Israel raises its voice against an arms deal with Saudi Arabia, the White House has a problem. The more so since there is a certain logic to the Israeli objection: the Saudi air base in Tabuk is but a few minutes flying time from the Israeli port of Eilat.
What to do? Easy: give us a present of weapons, in order to maintain "the balance of power" and our "qualitative superiority over all the Arab armies combined."
So, together with the $20 billion deal with the Saudis, President Bush decreed that the American yearly grant of military assistance to Israel should be raised from $2.4 billion to $3 billion. This means