Ouch.....Robert Sheer, writing on truthdig, in "Deceit of Shakespearean Proportions", says it loud and clear what he thinks of Dick Cheney.
"Behold this unctuous knave, a disgrace to his nation as few before him, yet boasting unvarnished virtue. The deceit of Dick Cheney is indeed of Shakespearean proportions, as evidenced in his new memoir. For the former vice president, lying comes so easily that one must assume he takes the pursuit of truth to be nothing more than a reckless indulgence.
Here is a man who, more than anyone else in the Bush administration, trafficked in the campaign of deceit that caused tens of thousands to die, wasted trillions of dollars in resources and indelibly sullied the legacy of this nation through the practice of torture, which Cheney defends to this day. Still this villain claims that, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the horrid methods he endorsed were a necessary response to the threat of Osama bin Laden. How convenient to ignore that it was Barack Obama, a resolutely anti-torture president, who made good on the promise of Cheney and the previous administration to take down the al-Qaida leader."
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
International Day of the Disappeared
August 30th has been declared by the United Nations as the International Day of the Disappeared.
The "Day" came about as a result of the many who disappeared in South America, notably Chile and Argentina
"As the world marks International Day of the Disappeared today, Reporters Without Borders notes that many countries are still violating international law on this matter, including the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which the UN General Assembly adopted in 2006.
Reporters Without Borders calls for the universal ratification of this convention, which has so far been signed by 91 countries and ratified by 29. Combating enforced disappearance is vital in the struggle against dictatorships and arbitrary rule.
Enforced disappearance includes both secret imprisonment and secret house arrest, in which the families of the victims are denied any information about their fate or where they are being held. It is a form of abduction and sometimes ends in murder.
It is a radical method of oppression in which human rights defenders, opposition activists, free speech activists and independent journalists are removed from society because they are often on the front line of the struggle against authoritarian regimes. As well censoring calls for freedom and justice, dictatorships target those who make the calls."
Read "stories" of people who have simply vanished here and here.
The "Day" came about as a result of the many who disappeared in South America, notably Chile and Argentina
"As the world marks International Day of the Disappeared today, Reporters Without Borders notes that many countries are still violating international law on this matter, including the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which the UN General Assembly adopted in 2006.
Reporters Without Borders calls for the universal ratification of this convention, which has so far been signed by 91 countries and ratified by 29. Combating enforced disappearance is vital in the struggle against dictatorships and arbitrary rule.
Enforced disappearance includes both secret imprisonment and secret house arrest, in which the families of the victims are denied any information about their fate or where they are being held. It is a form of abduction and sometimes ends in murder.
It is a radical method of oppression in which human rights defenders, opposition activists, free speech activists and independent journalists are removed from society because they are often on the front line of the struggle against authoritarian regimes. As well censoring calls for freedom and justice, dictatorships target those who make the calls."
Read "stories" of people who have simply vanished here and here.
The end of "mass affluance"
The American middle class, concludes a new study from the ad industry’s top trade journal, has essentially become irrelevant. In a deeply unequal America, if you don’t make $200,000, you don’t matter.
"A small plutocracy of wealthy elites drives a larger and larger share of total consumer spending and has outsize purchasing influence."
Read a full piece from Too Much, here, of how advertising is going to change....and the losers.
"A small plutocracy of wealthy elites drives a larger and larger share of total consumer spending and has outsize purchasing influence."
Read a full piece from Too Much, here, of how advertising is going to change....and the losers.
The finger is pointed fair and square at the FBI
The FBI has built a massive network of spies to prevent another domestic attack. But are they busting terrorist plots—or leading them?
Mother Jones has investigated:
"Over the past year, Mother Jones and the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California-Berkeley have examined prosecutions of 508 defendants in terrorism-related cases, as defined by the Department of Justice. Our investigation found:
Nearly half the prosecutions involved the use of informants, many of them incentivized by money (operatives can be paid as much as $100,000 per assignment) or the need to work off criminal or immigration violations. (For more on the details of those 508 cases, see our charts page and searchable database.)
Sting operations resulted in prosecutions against 158 defendants. Of that total, 49 defendants participated in plots led by an agent provocateur—an FBI operative instigating terrorist action.
With three exceptions, all of the high-profile domestic terror plots of the last decade were actually FBI stings. (The exceptions are Najibullah Zazi, who came close to bombing the New York City subway system in September 2009; Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, an Egyptian who opened fire on the El-Al ticket counter at the Los Angeles airport; and failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad.)
In many sting cases, key encounters between the informant and the target were not recorded—making it hard for defendants claiming entrapment to prove their case.
Terrorism-related charges are so difficult to beat in court, even when the evidence is thin, that defendants often don't risk a trial."
Mother Jones has investigated:
"Over the past year, Mother Jones and the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California-Berkeley have examined prosecutions of 508 defendants in terrorism-related cases, as defined by the Department of Justice. Our investigation found:
Nearly half the prosecutions involved the use of informants, many of them incentivized by money (operatives can be paid as much as $100,000 per assignment) or the need to work off criminal or immigration violations. (For more on the details of those 508 cases, see our charts page and searchable database.)
Sting operations resulted in prosecutions against 158 defendants. Of that total, 49 defendants participated in plots led by an agent provocateur—an FBI operative instigating terrorist action.
With three exceptions, all of the high-profile domestic terror plots of the last decade were actually FBI stings. (The exceptions are Najibullah Zazi, who came close to bombing the New York City subway system in September 2009; Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, an Egyptian who opened fire on the El-Al ticket counter at the Los Angeles airport; and failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad.)
In many sting cases, key encounters between the informant and the target were not recorded—making it hard for defendants claiming entrapment to prove their case.
Terrorism-related charges are so difficult to beat in court, even when the evidence is thin, that defendants often don't risk a trial."
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Homeland Security hits the bulleye.....in spending untold billions
From Salon, a piece highlighting the sheer and utter waste of money thrown at so-called Homeland Security in the USA - and doubtlessly replicated around the world:
"The Los Angeles Times examines the staggering sums of money expended on patently absurd domestic "homeland security" projects: $75 billion per year for things such as a Zodiac boat with side-scan sonar to respond to a potential attack on a lake in tiny Keith County, Nebraska, and hundreds of "9-ton BearCat armored vehicles, complete with turret" to guard against things like an attack on DreamWorks in Los Angeles. All of that -- which is independent of the exponentially greater sums spent on foreign wars, occupations, bombings, and the vast array of weaponry and private contractors to support it all -- is in response to this mammoth, existential, the-single-greatest-challenge-of-our-generation threat:
"The number of people worldwide who are killed by Muslim-type terrorists, Al Qaeda wannabes, is maybe a few hundred outside of war zones. It's basically the same number of people who die drowning in the bathtub each year," said John Mueller, an Ohio State University professor who has written extensively about the balance between threat and expenditures in fighting terrorism.
Last year, McClatchy characterized this threat in similar terms: "undoubtedly more American citizens died overseas from traffic accidents or intestinal illnesses than from terrorism." The March, 2011, Harper's Index expressed the point this way: "Number of American civilians who died worldwide in terrorist attacks last year: 8 -- Minimum number who died after being struck by lightning: 29." That's the threat in the name of which a vast domestic Security State is constructed, wars and other attacks are and continue to be launched, and trillions of dollars are transferred to the private security and defense contracting industry at exactly the time that Americans -- even as they face massive wealth inequality -- are told that they must sacrifice basic economic security because of budgetary constraints."
"The Los Angeles Times examines the staggering sums of money expended on patently absurd domestic "homeland security" projects: $75 billion per year for things such as a Zodiac boat with side-scan sonar to respond to a potential attack on a lake in tiny Keith County, Nebraska, and hundreds of "9-ton BearCat armored vehicles, complete with turret" to guard against things like an attack on DreamWorks in Los Angeles. All of that -- which is independent of the exponentially greater sums spent on foreign wars, occupations, bombings, and the vast array of weaponry and private contractors to support it all -- is in response to this mammoth, existential, the-single-greatest-challenge-of-our-generation threat:
"The number of people worldwide who are killed by Muslim-type terrorists, Al Qaeda wannabes, is maybe a few hundred outside of war zones. It's basically the same number of people who die drowning in the bathtub each year," said John Mueller, an Ohio State University professor who has written extensively about the balance between threat and expenditures in fighting terrorism.
Last year, McClatchy characterized this threat in similar terms: "undoubtedly more American citizens died overseas from traffic accidents or intestinal illnesses than from terrorism." The March, 2011, Harper's Index expressed the point this way: "Number of American civilians who died worldwide in terrorist attacks last year: 8 -- Minimum number who died after being struck by lightning: 29." That's the threat in the name of which a vast domestic Security State is constructed, wars and other attacks are and continue to be launched, and trillions of dollars are transferred to the private security and defense contracting industry at exactly the time that Americans -- even as they face massive wealth inequality -- are told that they must sacrifice basic economic security because of budgetary constraints."
Saudi Arabia a "basket case" waiting to happen?
The vision of Saudi Arabia is one of lots of desert, sheiks in flowing robes, women largely behind veils and untold riches thanks to an endless supply of oil under all that sand.
Not so...according to a piece "The Kingdom of Magical Thinking" on FP.
"Widely assumed to be a fabulously wealthy welfare state, Saudi Arabia is in fact an economic basket case waiting to happen."
****
"But in a recent report striking for the candor of its unpalatable conclusions, Saudi investment bank Jadwa laid out the kingdom's inexorable fiscal challenge: how to balance soaring government spending, rapidly rising domestic oil demand, and a world oil market that gives little room for further revenue increases. And that was before the recent economic turmoil knocked $20 per barrel off oil prices.
Saudi Arabia's government spending, flat since the last oil boom in the 1970s, is now rising at 10 percent or more annually. And it will rise faster still: The House of Saud's survival instinct in the wake of the initial Arab revolutions led King Abdullah to announce $130 billion of largesse in February and March. The resulting increases in government employment and salaries can be cut only at the cost of more discontent.
And that's only what the kingdom is spending on its "counterrevolution" at home. Saudi Arabia will pay the lion's share of the pledged $25 billion of Gulf Cooperation Council aid to Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, and Oman. With Iraq, Syria, and Yemen likely flashpoints yet to come, the bill will only increase. Already, nearly a third of the Saudi budget goes toward defense, a proportion that could rise in the face of a perceived Iranian threat.
Meanwhile, fast-growing domestic demand poses a serious threat to oil-export revenues. The kingdom is one of the world's least energy-efficient economies: With prices fixed at $3 per barrel for power generation and $0.60 per gallon of gasoline, Saudi Arabia needs 10 times more energy than the global average to generate a dollar of output. Subsidized natural gas, too, is in short supply, undermining an economic diversification drive focused on petrochemicals. As much as 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil are burned for electricity to meet summer air-conditioning demand, yet Jeddah, Saudi Arabia's second-largest city, still suffers frequent power cuts. By around 2026, Jadwa projects that domestic consumption will be over 5 million bpd, exceeding exports, which will never again reach their 2005 peak."
Not so...according to a piece "The Kingdom of Magical Thinking" on FP.
"Widely assumed to be a fabulously wealthy welfare state, Saudi Arabia is in fact an economic basket case waiting to happen."
****
"But in a recent report striking for the candor of its unpalatable conclusions, Saudi investment bank Jadwa laid out the kingdom's inexorable fiscal challenge: how to balance soaring government spending, rapidly rising domestic oil demand, and a world oil market that gives little room for further revenue increases. And that was before the recent economic turmoil knocked $20 per barrel off oil prices.
Saudi Arabia's government spending, flat since the last oil boom in the 1970s, is now rising at 10 percent or more annually. And it will rise faster still: The House of Saud's survival instinct in the wake of the initial Arab revolutions led King Abdullah to announce $130 billion of largesse in February and March. The resulting increases in government employment and salaries can be cut only at the cost of more discontent.
And that's only what the kingdom is spending on its "counterrevolution" at home. Saudi Arabia will pay the lion's share of the pledged $25 billion of Gulf Cooperation Council aid to Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, and Oman. With Iraq, Syria, and Yemen likely flashpoints yet to come, the bill will only increase. Already, nearly a third of the Saudi budget goes toward defense, a proportion that could rise in the face of a perceived Iranian threat.
Meanwhile, fast-growing domestic demand poses a serious threat to oil-export revenues. The kingdom is one of the world's least energy-efficient economies: With prices fixed at $3 per barrel for power generation and $0.60 per gallon of gasoline, Saudi Arabia needs 10 times more energy than the global average to generate a dollar of output. Subsidized natural gas, too, is in short supply, undermining an economic diversification drive focused on petrochemicals. As much as 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil are burned for electricity to meet summer air-conditioning demand, yet Jeddah, Saudi Arabia's second-largest city, still suffers frequent power cuts. By around 2026, Jadwa projects that domestic consumption will be over 5 million bpd, exceeding exports, which will never again reach their 2005 peak."
How does your city rate?
Each year the Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Liveability Index Survey is released. How the evaluation is made is not all that easy to determine, but cities certainly vie for the title of Best City to live in.
Melbourne, Australia, has vaulted Vancouver to become the best city in the world to live.
Country City Rank Overall Rating (100=ideal)
Australia Melbourne 1 97.5
Austria Vienna 2 97.4
Canada Vancouver 3 97.3
Canada Toronto 4 97.2
Canada Calgary 5 96.6
Australia Sydney 6 96.1
Finland Helsinki 7 96.0
Australia Perth 8 95.9
Australia Adelaide 8 95.9
New Zealand Auckland 10 95.7
Bottom 10
Cote d'Ivoire Abidjan 131 45.9
Iran Tehran 132 45.8
Cameroon Douala 133 44
Pakistan Karachi 134 40.9
Libya Tripoli 135 40.4
Algeria Algiers 136 40.2
Nigeria Lagos 137 39.0
PNG Port Moresby 138 38.9
Bangladesh Dhaka 139 38.7
Zimbabwe Harare 140 38.2
Melbourne, Australia, has vaulted Vancouver to become the best city in the world to live.
Country City Rank Overall Rating (100=ideal)
Australia Melbourne 1 97.5
Austria Vienna 2 97.4
Canada Vancouver 3 97.3
Canada Toronto 4 97.2
Canada Calgary 5 96.6
Australia Sydney 6 96.1
Finland Helsinki 7 96.0
Australia Perth 8 95.9
Australia Adelaide 8 95.9
New Zealand Auckland 10 95.7
Bottom 10
Cote d'Ivoire Abidjan 131 45.9
Iran Tehran 132 45.8
Cameroon Douala 133 44
Pakistan Karachi 134 40.9
Libya Tripoli 135 40.4
Algeria Algiers 136 40.2
Nigeria Lagos 137 39.0
PNG Port Moresby 138 38.9
Bangladesh Dhaka 139 38.7
Zimbabwe Harare 140 38.2
Monday, August 29, 2011
An Anonymous "report" from Damascus
Regrettably we have little on-the-ground reporting from what is happening in Syria. It would certainly seem that there is internal upheaval and that Assad's "people" have been ruthless in cracking down on protestors.
Today's London Review of Books' LRB Blog provides a rare insight into at least one scenario in Damascus:
"More than five months into Syria’s uprising, at least 2200 people have been killed and thousands more detained. The activists involved in the protest movement have insisted on non-violence and non-sectarianism but it’s not clear how much longer that can last. I recently accompanied a doctor and an activist as they made their rounds of Harasta, a small town on the northern outskirts of Damascus.
In one of the low-rise blocks of flats, a middle-aged man, a manual worker who made friends with the doctor during the uprising, angrily argued that he wanted to fight. The activist, a young woman, said they mustn’t. ‘I know, I know,’ the man said. ‘Our revolution is peaceful and it is not sectarian. It is not sectarian. But how are we not supposed to fight back?’ The activist argued that the moral advantage gave the protesters the upper hand. ‘The army and police don’t know better,’ she said. ‘They are Syrians too.’
In a low-rise building off a dirt road a man helped his 26-year-old son hobble from behind the curtain that separated the living-room from the bedroom. His right eye was purple and his left hand bandaged. Three days earlier he had been beaten with iron bars; his hand still had no feeling in it. He rolled up his jogging bottoms and took off his T-shirt: he was covered in whipmarks and burns. There were thin marks round his wrists from the plastic used to tie them together. He had been detained after heading to the nearby area of Douma to protest. ‘They asked me to say I love Bashar al-Assad. I said no, I don’t, no one here does. So they took me and they beat me.’"
Today's London Review of Books' LRB Blog provides a rare insight into at least one scenario in Damascus:
"More than five months into Syria’s uprising, at least 2200 people have been killed and thousands more detained. The activists involved in the protest movement have insisted on non-violence and non-sectarianism but it’s not clear how much longer that can last. I recently accompanied a doctor and an activist as they made their rounds of Harasta, a small town on the northern outskirts of Damascus.
In one of the low-rise blocks of flats, a middle-aged man, a manual worker who made friends with the doctor during the uprising, angrily argued that he wanted to fight. The activist, a young woman, said they mustn’t. ‘I know, I know,’ the man said. ‘Our revolution is peaceful and it is not sectarian. It is not sectarian. But how are we not supposed to fight back?’ The activist argued that the moral advantage gave the protesters the upper hand. ‘The army and police don’t know better,’ she said. ‘They are Syrians too.’
In a low-rise building off a dirt road a man helped his 26-year-old son hobble from behind the curtain that separated the living-room from the bedroom. His right eye was purple and his left hand bandaged. Three days earlier he had been beaten with iron bars; his hand still had no feeling in it. He rolled up his jogging bottoms and took off his T-shirt: he was covered in whipmarks and burns. There were thin marks round his wrists from the plastic used to tie them together. He had been detained after heading to the nearby area of Douma to protest. ‘They asked me to say I love Bashar al-Assad. I said no, I don’t, no one here does. So they took me and they beat me.’"
It pays [handsomely] to have financial clout
"The first-ever audit of the U.S. Federal Reserve has revealed 16 trillion dollars in secret bank bailouts and has raised more questions about the quasi-private agency’s opaque operations."
From IPS a report which ought to have heads reeling....and people wondering what the hell is going on!
"From late 2007 through mid-2010, Reserve Banks provided more than a trillion dollars… in emergency loans to the financial sector to address strains in credit markets and to avert failures of individual institutions believed to be a threat to the stability of the financial system," the audit report states.
"The scale and nature of this assistance amounted to an unprecedented expansion of the Federal Reserve System’s traditional role as lender-of-last-resort to depository institutions," according to the report.
The report notes that all the short-term, emergency loans were repaid, or are expected to be repaid.
The emergency loans included eight broad-based programmes, and also provided assistance for certain individual financial institutions. The Fed provided loans to JP Morgan Chase bank to acquire Bear Stears, a failed investment firm; provided loans to keep American International Group (AIG), a multinational insurance corporation, afloat; extended lending commitments to Bank of America and Citigroup; and purchased risky mortgage-backed securities to get them off private banks’ books.
Overall, the greatest borrowing was done by a small number of institutions. Over the three years, Citigroup borrowed a total of 2.5 trillion dollars, Morgan Stanley borrowed two trillion; Merryll Lynch, which was acquired by Bank of America, borrowed 1.9 trillion; and Bank of America borrowed 1.3 trillion.
Banks based in counties other than the U.S. also received money from the Fed, including Barclays of the United Kingdom, the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (UK), Deutsche Bank (Germany), UBS (Switzerland), Credit Suisse Group (Switzerland), Bank of Scotland (UK), BNP Paribas (France), Dexia (Belgium), Dresdner Bank (Germany), and Societe General (France)."
From IPS a report which ought to have heads reeling....and people wondering what the hell is going on!
"From late 2007 through mid-2010, Reserve Banks provided more than a trillion dollars… in emergency loans to the financial sector to address strains in credit markets and to avert failures of individual institutions believed to be a threat to the stability of the financial system," the audit report states.
"The scale and nature of this assistance amounted to an unprecedented expansion of the Federal Reserve System’s traditional role as lender-of-last-resort to depository institutions," according to the report.
The report notes that all the short-term, emergency loans were repaid, or are expected to be repaid.
The emergency loans included eight broad-based programmes, and also provided assistance for certain individual financial institutions. The Fed provided loans to JP Morgan Chase bank to acquire Bear Stears, a failed investment firm; provided loans to keep American International Group (AIG), a multinational insurance corporation, afloat; extended lending commitments to Bank of America and Citigroup; and purchased risky mortgage-backed securities to get them off private banks’ books.
Overall, the greatest borrowing was done by a small number of institutions. Over the three years, Citigroup borrowed a total of 2.5 trillion dollars, Morgan Stanley borrowed two trillion; Merryll Lynch, which was acquired by Bank of America, borrowed 1.9 trillion; and Bank of America borrowed 1.3 trillion.
Banks based in counties other than the U.S. also received money from the Fed, including Barclays of the United Kingdom, the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (UK), Deutsche Bank (Germany), UBS (Switzerland), Credit Suisse Group (Switzerland), Bank of Scotland (UK), BNP Paribas (France), Dexia (Belgium), Dresdner Bank (Germany), and Societe General (France)."
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Israel shows it's ugly side...yet again!
"There are many Palestinian children in the West Bank villages in the shadow of Israel's separation wall and Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands. Where largely non-violent protests have sprung up as a form of resistance, there are children who throw stones, and raids by Israel are common. But lawyers and human rights groups have decried Israel's arrest policy of targeting children in villages that resist the occupation.
In most cases, children as young as 12 are hauled from their beds at night, handcuffed and blindfolded, deprived of sleep and food, subjected to lengthy interrogations, then forced to sign a confession in Hebrew, a language few of them read.
Israeli rights group B'Tselem concluded that, "the rights of minors are severely violated, that the law almost completely fails to protect their rights, and that the few rights granted by the law are not implemented".
Israel claims to treat Palestinian minors in the spirit of its own law for juveniles but, in practice, it is rarely the case. For instance, children should not be arrested at night, lawyers and parents should be present during interrogations, and the children must be read their rights. But these are treated as guidelines, rather than a legal requirement, and are frequently flouted. And Israel regards Israeli youngsters as children until 18, while Palestinians are viewed as adults from 16.
Lawyers and activists say more than 200 Palestinian children are in Israeli jails. "You want to arrest these kids, you want to try them," Ms Lalo says. "Fine, but do it according to Israeli law. Give them their rights."
From The Independent.
In most cases, children as young as 12 are hauled from their beds at night, handcuffed and blindfolded, deprived of sleep and food, subjected to lengthy interrogations, then forced to sign a confession in Hebrew, a language few of them read.
Israeli rights group B'Tselem concluded that, "the rights of minors are severely violated, that the law almost completely fails to protect their rights, and that the few rights granted by the law are not implemented".
Israel claims to treat Palestinian minors in the spirit of its own law for juveniles but, in practice, it is rarely the case. For instance, children should not be arrested at night, lawyers and parents should be present during interrogations, and the children must be read their rights. But these are treated as guidelines, rather than a legal requirement, and are frequently flouted. And Israel regards Israeli youngsters as children until 18, while Palestinians are viewed as adults from 16.
Lawyers and activists say more than 200 Palestinian children are in Israeli jails. "You want to arrest these kids, you want to try them," Ms Lalo says. "Fine, but do it according to Israeli law. Give them their rights."
From The Independent.
Fear, Inc.
A revelation which not only deserves more coverage, and scrutiny, but concern in what it is fomenting.
Darth Vader [aka Dick Cheney] reveals even more about himself
Even his appearance makes some people cringe. The man looks positively creepy - and his "politics" are simply awful and downright dangerous. A book written by him, together with his no-less charming daughter, is about to hit the bookshops. Maureen Dowd, writing in The New York Times, gives her assessment of Cheney's scribblings.
"Having lost the power to heedlessly bomb the world, Cheney has turned his attention to heedlessly bombing old colleagues.
Vice’s new memoir, “In My Time,” veers unpleasantly between spin, insisting he was always right, and score-settling, insisting that anyone who opposed him was wrong.
His knife-in-her-teeth daughter, Elizabeth Cheney, helped write the book. The second most famous Liz & Dick combo do such an excellent job of cherry-picking the facts, it makes the cherry-picking on the Iraq war intelligence seem picayune.
Cheney may no longer have a pulse, but his blood quickens at the thought of other countries he could have attacked. He salivates in his book about how Syria and Iran could have been punished.
Cheney says that in 2007, he told President Bush, who had already been pulled into diplomacy by Condi Rice: “I believed that an important first step would be to destroy the reactor in the Syrian desert.”
At a session with most of the National Security Council, he made his case for a strike on the reactor. It would enhance America’s tarnished credibility in the Arab world, he argued, (not bothering to mention who tarnished it), and demonstrate the country’s “seriousness.”
“After I finished,” he writes, “the president asked, ‘Does anyone here agree with the vice president?’ Not a single hand went up around the room.”
By that time, W. had belatedly realized that Cheney was a crank whose bad advice and disdainful rants against “the diplomatic path” and “multilateral action” had pretty much ruined his presidency.
There were few times before the bitter end that W. was willing to stand up to Vice. But the president did make a bold stand on not letting his little dog be gobbled up by Cheney’s big dog.
When Vice’s hundred-pound yellow Lab, Dave, went after W.’s beloved Scottish terrier, Barney, at Camp David’s Laurel Lodge, that was a bridge too far.
When Cheney and Dave got back to their cabin, there was a knock at the door. “It was the camp commander,” Cheney writes. “ ‘Mr. Vice President,’ he said, ‘your dog has been banned from Laurel.’ ”
But on all the nefarious things that damaged America, Cheney got his way for far too long.
Vice gleefully predicted that his memoir would have “heads exploding all over Washington.” But his book is a bore. He doesn’t even mention how in high school he used to hold the water buckets to douse the fiery batons of his girlfriend Lynne, champion twirler.
At least Rummy’s memoir showed some temperament. And George Tenet’s was the primal scream of a bootlicker caught out.
Cheney takes himself so seriously, flogging his cherished self-image as a rugged outdoorsman from Wyoming (even though he shot his Texas hunting partner in the face) and a vice president who was the only thing standing between America and its enemies.
He acts like he is America. But America didn’t like Dick Cheney.
It’s easier for someone who believes that he is America incarnate to permit himself to do things that hurt America — like torture, domestic spying, pushing America into endless wars, and flouting the Geneva Conventions.
Mostly, Cheney grumbles about having his power checked. It’s bad enough when the president does it, much less Congress and the courts.
A person who is always for the use of military force is as doctrinaire and irrelevant as a person who is always opposed to the use of military force.
Cheney shows contempt for Tenet, Colin Powell and Rice, whom he disparages in a sexist way for crying, and condescension for W. when he won’t be guided to the path of most destruction."
"Having lost the power to heedlessly bomb the world, Cheney has turned his attention to heedlessly bombing old colleagues.
Vice’s new memoir, “In My Time,” veers unpleasantly between spin, insisting he was always right, and score-settling, insisting that anyone who opposed him was wrong.
His knife-in-her-teeth daughter, Elizabeth Cheney, helped write the book. The second most famous Liz & Dick combo do such an excellent job of cherry-picking the facts, it makes the cherry-picking on the Iraq war intelligence seem picayune.
Cheney may no longer have a pulse, but his blood quickens at the thought of other countries he could have attacked. He salivates in his book about how Syria and Iran could have been punished.
Cheney says that in 2007, he told President Bush, who had already been pulled into diplomacy by Condi Rice: “I believed that an important first step would be to destroy the reactor in the Syrian desert.”
At a session with most of the National Security Council, he made his case for a strike on the reactor. It would enhance America’s tarnished credibility in the Arab world, he argued, (not bothering to mention who tarnished it), and demonstrate the country’s “seriousness.”
“After I finished,” he writes, “the president asked, ‘Does anyone here agree with the vice president?’ Not a single hand went up around the room.”
By that time, W. had belatedly realized that Cheney was a crank whose bad advice and disdainful rants against “the diplomatic path” and “multilateral action” had pretty much ruined his presidency.
There were few times before the bitter end that W. was willing to stand up to Vice. But the president did make a bold stand on not letting his little dog be gobbled up by Cheney’s big dog.
When Vice’s hundred-pound yellow Lab, Dave, went after W.’s beloved Scottish terrier, Barney, at Camp David’s Laurel Lodge, that was a bridge too far.
When Cheney and Dave got back to their cabin, there was a knock at the door. “It was the camp commander,” Cheney writes. “ ‘Mr. Vice President,’ he said, ‘your dog has been banned from Laurel.’ ”
But on all the nefarious things that damaged America, Cheney got his way for far too long.
Vice gleefully predicted that his memoir would have “heads exploding all over Washington.” But his book is a bore. He doesn’t even mention how in high school he used to hold the water buckets to douse the fiery batons of his girlfriend Lynne, champion twirler.
At least Rummy’s memoir showed some temperament. And George Tenet’s was the primal scream of a bootlicker caught out.
Cheney takes himself so seriously, flogging his cherished self-image as a rugged outdoorsman from Wyoming (even though he shot his Texas hunting partner in the face) and a vice president who was the only thing standing between America and its enemies.
He acts like he is America. But America didn’t like Dick Cheney.
It’s easier for someone who believes that he is America incarnate to permit himself to do things that hurt America — like torture, domestic spying, pushing America into endless wars, and flouting the Geneva Conventions.
Mostly, Cheney grumbles about having his power checked. It’s bad enough when the president does it, much less Congress and the courts.
A person who is always for the use of military force is as doctrinaire and irrelevant as a person who is always opposed to the use of military force.
Cheney shows contempt for Tenet, Colin Powell and Rice, whom he disparages in a sexist way for crying, and condescension for W. when he won’t be guided to the path of most destruction."
The fruits [Apples] of Steve Jobs' labours
The first incarnation of an Apple in 1976......
Steve & Co. have sure come a long way!
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Kafka alive and well at the US State Dept.
One might have thought that post the start of the WikiLeaks leaks, and the revelations from them, politicians, and their public service minions, might have become at least a tad more savvy. No such luck, as Glenn Greenwald reveals in his latest piece "Secrecy, leaks, and the real criminals" in Salon.
"Ali Soufan is a long-time FBI agent and interrogator who was at the center of the U.S. government's counter-terrorism activities from 1997 through 2005, and became an outspoken critic of the government's torture program. He has written a book exposing the abuses of the CIA's interrogation program as well as pervasive ineptitude and corruption in the War on Terror. He is, however, encountering a significant problem: the CIA is barring the publication of vast amounts of information in his book including, as Scott Shane details in The New York Times today, many facts that are not remotely secret and others that have been publicly available for years, including ones featured in the 9/11 Report and even in Soufan's own public Congressional testimony.
Shane notes that the government's censorship effort "amounts to a fight over who gets to write the history of the Sept. 11 attacks and their aftermath," particularly given the imminent publication of a book by CIA agent Jose Rodriguez -- who destroyed the videotapes of CIA interrogations in violation of multiple court orders and subpoenas only to be protected by the Obama DOJ -- that touts the benefits of the CIA's "tough" actions, propagandistically entitled: "Hard Measures: How Aggressive C.I.A. Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives." Most striking about this event is the CIA's defense of its censorship of information from Soufan's book even though it has long been publicly reported and documented:
A spokeswoman for the C.I.A., Jennifer Youngblood, said . . . ."Just because something is in the public domain doesn't mean it's been officially released or declassified by the U.S. government."
Just marvel at the Kafkaesque, authoritarian mentality that produces responses like that: someone can be censored, or even prosecuted and imprisoned, for discussing "classified" information that has long been documented in the public domain. But as absurd as it is, this deceitful scheme -- suppressing embarrassing information or evidence of illegality by claiming that even public information is "classified" -- is standard government practice for punishing whistleblowers and other critics and shielding high-level lawbreakers.
The Obama DOJ has continuously claimed that victims of the U.S. rendition, torture and eavesdropping programs cannot have their claims litigated in court because what was done to them are "state secrets" -- even when what was done to them has long been publicly known and even formally, publicly investigated and litigated in open court in other countries. Identically, the Obama DOJ just tried (and failed) to prosecute NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake for "espionage" for "leaking," among other things, documents that do not even remotely contain properly classified information, leading to a formal complaint by a long-time NSA official demanding that the officials who improperly classified those documents themselves be punished."
"Ali Soufan is a long-time FBI agent and interrogator who was at the center of the U.S. government's counter-terrorism activities from 1997 through 2005, and became an outspoken critic of the government's torture program. He has written a book exposing the abuses of the CIA's interrogation program as well as pervasive ineptitude and corruption in the War on Terror. He is, however, encountering a significant problem: the CIA is barring the publication of vast amounts of information in his book including, as Scott Shane details in The New York Times today, many facts that are not remotely secret and others that have been publicly available for years, including ones featured in the 9/11 Report and even in Soufan's own public Congressional testimony.
Shane notes that the government's censorship effort "amounts to a fight over who gets to write the history of the Sept. 11 attacks and their aftermath," particularly given the imminent publication of a book by CIA agent Jose Rodriguez -- who destroyed the videotapes of CIA interrogations in violation of multiple court orders and subpoenas only to be protected by the Obama DOJ -- that touts the benefits of the CIA's "tough" actions, propagandistically entitled: "Hard Measures: How Aggressive C.I.A. Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives." Most striking about this event is the CIA's defense of its censorship of information from Soufan's book even though it has long been publicly reported and documented:
A spokeswoman for the C.I.A., Jennifer Youngblood, said . . . ."Just because something is in the public domain doesn't mean it's been officially released or declassified by the U.S. government."
Just marvel at the Kafkaesque, authoritarian mentality that produces responses like that: someone can be censored, or even prosecuted and imprisoned, for discussing "classified" information that has long been documented in the public domain. But as absurd as it is, this deceitful scheme -- suppressing embarrassing information or evidence of illegality by claiming that even public information is "classified" -- is standard government practice for punishing whistleblowers and other critics and shielding high-level lawbreakers.
The Obama DOJ has continuously claimed that victims of the U.S. rendition, torture and eavesdropping programs cannot have their claims litigated in court because what was done to them are "state secrets" -- even when what was done to them has long been publicly known and even formally, publicly investigated and litigated in open court in other countries. Identically, the Obama DOJ just tried (and failed) to prosecute NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake for "espionage" for "leaking," among other things, documents that do not even remotely contain properly classified information, leading to a formal complaint by a long-time NSA official demanding that the officials who improperly classified those documents themselves be punished."
Think again about a withdrawal from Afghanistan by 2014
If you thought, or perhaps were misled by what politicians have been saying, that there would be a US withdrawal from Afghanistan by 2014, think again. Recalibrate your think to a long haul presence until 2024.
"America and Afghanistan are close to signing a strategic pact which would allow thousands of United States troops to remain in the country until at least 2024, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
The agreement would allow not only military trainers to stay to build up the Afghan army and police, but also American special forces soldiers and air power to remain.
The prospect of such a deal has already been met with anger among Afghanistan’s neighbours including, publicly, Iran and, privately, Pakistan.
It also risks being rejected by the Taliban and derailing any attempt to coax them to the negotiating table, according to one senior member of Hamid Karzai’s peace council.
A withdrawal of American troops has already begun following an agreement to hand over security for the country to Kabul by the end of 2014.
But Afghans wary of being abandoned are keen to lock America into a longer partnership after the deadline. Many analysts also believe the American military would like to retain a presence close to Pakistan, Iran and China.
Both Afghan and American officials said that they hoped to sign the pact before the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan in December. Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai agreed last week to escalate the negotiations and their national security advisers will meet in Washington in September."
"America and Afghanistan are close to signing a strategic pact which would allow thousands of United States troops to remain in the country until at least 2024, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
The agreement would allow not only military trainers to stay to build up the Afghan army and police, but also American special forces soldiers and air power to remain.
The prospect of such a deal has already been met with anger among Afghanistan’s neighbours including, publicly, Iran and, privately, Pakistan.
It also risks being rejected by the Taliban and derailing any attempt to coax them to the negotiating table, according to one senior member of Hamid Karzai’s peace council.
A withdrawal of American troops has already begun following an agreement to hand over security for the country to Kabul by the end of 2014.
But Afghans wary of being abandoned are keen to lock America into a longer partnership after the deadline. Many analysts also believe the American military would like to retain a presence close to Pakistan, Iran and China.
Both Afghan and American officials said that they hoped to sign the pact before the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan in December. Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai agreed last week to escalate the negotiations and their national security advisers will meet in Washington in September."
Getting reporting right
Yet again FAIR highlights how The New York Times has been wanting in reporting something, especially where it involves Israel.
"The coverage of the Israeli attacks on Gaza is following some predictable patterns. The New York Times has a headline today (8/26/11), "Israeli Strikes in Retaliation Kill Nine Gazans." Readers should ask: Retaliation for what?
It's widely understood that this violence stems from the attack last week in the southern Israeli town of Eilat. As the Times puts it: "The recent round of violence started a week ago, with a terrorist attack on southern Israel in which eight Israelis were killed."
The real question, though, is who committed these acts. The Times says:
Israeli officials said the perpetrators and planners of the terrorist attack were originally from Gaza, and Israel has retaliated with strikes that have killed at least 23 Palestinians. Gazan officials say they know nothing about the source of the attack.
That's a massive understatement.
To date, no armed Palestinian groups have claimed responsibility for the Eilat attack. Israeli officials claimed the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) were behind it, but have offered no proof to back up these allegations. And there has been almost no critical coverage of the weakness of the Israeli case. On NPR (8/18/11), for example, listeners have heard Israeli ambassador Michael Oren claim that Palestinian militants carried out the attack, and five days later London Times reporter James Hider (8/23/11) stated the same thing as if it were a well-established fact.
A handful of journalists have been persistently pointing out that the weakness of this case. One of those writers, Yossi Gurvitz, explains in his latest piece at the Israeli website +972 (8/25/11) that Israeli media are beginning to raise serious questions:
Since Monday, there have been a few more reports in the Israeli media, casting more doubt on the official story. Yediot reported on Tuesday (Hebrew) that nameless people in the security apparatus doubt the PRC were responsible for the attacks, and raise an interesting question: If they were responsible, why was the PRC's entire leadership in the same place?
According to Yediot’s anonymous intelligence sources (bear in mind that such sources should always be viewed with skepticism; by their very nature they cannot be corroborated, and they tend to be unreliable even when speaking openly), the attribution of the attacks to the PRC stems from one somewhat incoherent comment on some Jihadi message board.
Ha'aretz reported on Tuesday (Hebrew) that at least three on the attackers were Egyptian Jihadis. American intelligence sources – the same caveat above applies here--told Globes (Hebrew) that they, too, doubt the PRC are responsible, though they may have had a small role in the attacks.
Two days ago, the IAF attacked the Gaza Strip again--naturally, it does not consider itself bound by the ceasefire; only the Palestinians are, and only them can be blamed for breaking it--and killed some Islamic Jihad apparatchick. Yesterday, the IDF claimed (Hebrew) that he was in charge of funding the Eilat attacks. Hold on a minute, I'm confused: I thought you said the attacks were carried out by the PRC, and now it’s the Islamic Jihad left holding the bag? As of yesterday, reported Amira Hass in Ha'aretz (Hebrew), there are no mourning tents in Gaza. As of today, one week after the attack, the IDF refrains from exposing the identity of the attackers it killed.
This is a remarkable story that deserves serious coverage. Two dozen people in Gaza have been killed in "retaliation" for an attack that very well could have originated somewhere else."
"The coverage of the Israeli attacks on Gaza is following some predictable patterns. The New York Times has a headline today (8/26/11), "Israeli Strikes in Retaliation Kill Nine Gazans." Readers should ask: Retaliation for what?
It's widely understood that this violence stems from the attack last week in the southern Israeli town of Eilat. As the Times puts it: "The recent round of violence started a week ago, with a terrorist attack on southern Israel in which eight Israelis were killed."
The real question, though, is who committed these acts. The Times says:
Israeli officials said the perpetrators and planners of the terrorist attack were originally from Gaza, and Israel has retaliated with strikes that have killed at least 23 Palestinians. Gazan officials say they know nothing about the source of the attack.
That's a massive understatement.
To date, no armed Palestinian groups have claimed responsibility for the Eilat attack. Israeli officials claimed the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) were behind it, but have offered no proof to back up these allegations. And there has been almost no critical coverage of the weakness of the Israeli case. On NPR (8/18/11), for example, listeners have heard Israeli ambassador Michael Oren claim that Palestinian militants carried out the attack, and five days later London Times reporter James Hider (8/23/11) stated the same thing as if it were a well-established fact.
A handful of journalists have been persistently pointing out that the weakness of this case. One of those writers, Yossi Gurvitz, explains in his latest piece at the Israeli website +972 (8/25/11) that Israeli media are beginning to raise serious questions:
Since Monday, there have been a few more reports in the Israeli media, casting more doubt on the official story. Yediot reported on Tuesday (Hebrew) that nameless people in the security apparatus doubt the PRC were responsible for the attacks, and raise an interesting question: If they were responsible, why was the PRC's entire leadership in the same place?
According to Yediot’s anonymous intelligence sources (bear in mind that such sources should always be viewed with skepticism; by their very nature they cannot be corroborated, and they tend to be unreliable even when speaking openly), the attribution of the attacks to the PRC stems from one somewhat incoherent comment on some Jihadi message board.
Ha'aretz reported on Tuesday (Hebrew) that at least three on the attackers were Egyptian Jihadis. American intelligence sources – the same caveat above applies here--told Globes (Hebrew) that they, too, doubt the PRC are responsible, though they may have had a small role in the attacks.
Two days ago, the IAF attacked the Gaza Strip again--naturally, it does not consider itself bound by the ceasefire; only the Palestinians are, and only them can be blamed for breaking it--and killed some Islamic Jihad apparatchick. Yesterday, the IDF claimed (Hebrew) that he was in charge of funding the Eilat attacks. Hold on a minute, I'm confused: I thought you said the attacks were carried out by the PRC, and now it’s the Islamic Jihad left holding the bag? As of yesterday, reported Amira Hass in Ha'aretz (Hebrew), there are no mourning tents in Gaza. As of today, one week after the attack, the IDF refrains from exposing the identity of the attackers it killed.
This is a remarkable story that deserves serious coverage. Two dozen people in Gaza have been killed in "retaliation" for an attack that very well could have originated somewhere else."
Friday, August 26, 2011
Libya headed for Iraq Mark II?
Veteran journalist Robert Fisk, writing in "History repeats itself, with mistakes of Iraq rehearsed afresh" in The Independent, predicts that the West is headed for Iraq Mark II in what is happening in Libya - despite Gaddafi's days there seemingly numbered.
"Doomed always to fight the last war, we are recommitting the same old sin in Libya.
Muammar Gaddafi vanishes after promising to fight to the death. Isn't that just what Saddam Hussein did? And of course, when Saddam disappeared and US troops suffered the very first losses from the Iraqi insurgency in 2003, we were told – by the US proconsul Paul Bremer, the generals, diplomats and the decaying television "experts" – that the gunmen of the resistance were "die-hards", "dead-enders" who didn't realise that the war was over. And if Gaddafi and his egg-headed son remain at large – and if the violence does not end – how soon will we be introduced once more to the "dead-enders" who simply will not understand that the lads from Benghazi are in charge and that the war is over? Indeed, within 15 minutes – literally – of my writing the above words (2pm yesterday), a Sky News reporter had re-invented "die-hards" as a definition for Gaddafi's men. See what I mean?
Needless to say, all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds as far as the West is concerned. No one is disbanding the Libyan army and no one is officially debarring the Gaddafi-ites from a future role in their country. No one is going to make the same mistakes we made in Iraq. And no boots are on the ground. No walled-off, sealed-in Green Zone Western zombies are trying to run the future Libya. "It's up to the Libyans," has become the joyful refrain of every State Department/ Foreign Office/Quai d'Orsay factotum. Nothing to do with us!"
"Doomed always to fight the last war, we are recommitting the same old sin in Libya.
Muammar Gaddafi vanishes after promising to fight to the death. Isn't that just what Saddam Hussein did? And of course, when Saddam disappeared and US troops suffered the very first losses from the Iraqi insurgency in 2003, we were told – by the US proconsul Paul Bremer, the generals, diplomats and the decaying television "experts" – that the gunmen of the resistance were "die-hards", "dead-enders" who didn't realise that the war was over. And if Gaddafi and his egg-headed son remain at large – and if the violence does not end – how soon will we be introduced once more to the "dead-enders" who simply will not understand that the lads from Benghazi are in charge and that the war is over? Indeed, within 15 minutes – literally – of my writing the above words (2pm yesterday), a Sky News reporter had re-invented "die-hards" as a definition for Gaddafi's men. See what I mean?
Needless to say, all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds as far as the West is concerned. No one is disbanding the Libyan army and no one is officially debarring the Gaddafi-ites from a future role in their country. No one is going to make the same mistakes we made in Iraq. And no boots are on the ground. No walled-off, sealed-in Green Zone Western zombies are trying to run the future Libya. "It's up to the Libyans," has become the joyful refrain of every State Department/ Foreign Office/Quai d'Orsay factotum. Nothing to do with us!"
Looks like they [Wall St] will simply walk away unscathed.......
Indefensible is the only word for it! It looks like Wall St. won't need to be concerned about any repercussions from its critical and major role in the 2008 GFC.
"They will get away with it, at least in this life. “They” are the Wall Street usurers, people of a sort condemned in Scripture, who have brought more misery to this nation than we have known since the Great Depression. “They” will not suffer for their crimes because they have a majority ownership position in our political system. That is the meaning of the banking plea bargain that the Obama administration is pressuring state attorneys general to negotiate with the titans of the financial world.
It is a sellout deal that, in return for a pittance of compensation by banks to ripped-off mortgage holders, would grant the banks blanket immunity from any prosecution. That is intended to short-circuit investigations by a score of aggressive state officials, inquiries that offer the public a last best hope to get to the bottom of the housing scandal that has cost U.S. homeowners $6.6 trillion in home equity in the past five years and left 14.6 million Americans owing more than their homes are worth.
The $20 billion or so that the banks would pony up is chump change to them compared with the trillions that the Fed and other public agencies spent to bail them out. The banks were given direct cash subsidies, virtually zero-interest loans, and the Fed took $2 trillion in bad paper off their hands while the banks exacerbated the banking crisis they had created through additional shady practices, including fraudulent mortgage foreclosures.
Yet the administration has rushed to the aid of the banks once again and is attempting to intimidate the few state attorneys general who have the gumption to protect the public interest they are sworn to serve."
"They will get away with it, at least in this life. “They” are the Wall Street usurers, people of a sort condemned in Scripture, who have brought more misery to this nation than we have known since the Great Depression. “They” will not suffer for their crimes because they have a majority ownership position in our political system. That is the meaning of the banking plea bargain that the Obama administration is pressuring state attorneys general to negotiate with the titans of the financial world.
It is a sellout deal that, in return for a pittance of compensation by banks to ripped-off mortgage holders, would grant the banks blanket immunity from any prosecution. That is intended to short-circuit investigations by a score of aggressive state officials, inquiries that offer the public a last best hope to get to the bottom of the housing scandal that has cost U.S. homeowners $6.6 trillion in home equity in the past five years and left 14.6 million Americans owing more than their homes are worth.
The $20 billion or so that the banks would pony up is chump change to them compared with the trillions that the Fed and other public agencies spent to bail them out. The banks were given direct cash subsidies, virtually zero-interest loans, and the Fed took $2 trillion in bad paper off their hands while the banks exacerbated the banking crisis they had created through additional shady practices, including fraudulent mortgage foreclosures.
Yet the administration has rushed to the aid of the banks once again and is attempting to intimidate the few state attorneys general who have the gumption to protect the public interest they are sworn to serve."
A giant of a man
MPS is an Apple tragic! With that declaration out of the way, the news of Steve Job's retirement as CEO of Apple - not as Chairman - has swept around the world.
By all accounts the man is more than an astute, clever businessman. Visionary is a word which comes to mind. Think too of the impact Apple products have had on everyone's life, be they Apple users or not.
"When Steve Jobs resigned as the chief executive of Apple on Wednesday, his note to the public and the Apple board was short and classy. The gist was this: “I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s C.E.O., I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.”
As you can imagine, this news is rocking the world — and not just the tech world. Mr. Jobs, after all, has almost single-handedly reshaped a stunning range of industries: music, TV, movies, software, cellphones, and cloud computing. The products he’s shepherded into existence with single-minded vision read like a Top 10 list, or a Top 50 list, of the world’s most successful inventions: Macintosh. iPod. iPhone. iTunes. iMovie. iPad."
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Did 9/11 teach the US anything?
What happened on 9/11, as it has come to be known, was downright awful and unpardonable. But as the 10the anniversary of the day approaches Dr. Paul Craig Roberts - who was appointed by President Reagan Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury and confirmed by the US Senate - raises the question whether America has learned anything from the events of that day.
"In a few days it will be the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001. How well has the US government’s official account of the event held up over the decade?
Not very well. The chairman, vice chairman, and senior legal counsel of the 9/11 Commission wrote books partially disassociating themselves from the commission’s report. They said that the Bush administration put obstacles in their path, that information was withheld from them, that President Bush agreed to testify only if he was chaperoned by Vice President Cheney and neither were put under oath, that Pentagon and FAA officials lied to the commission and that the commission considered referring the false testimony for investigation for obstruction of justice.
In their book, the chairman and vice chairman, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, wrote that the 9/11 Commission was “set up to fail.” Senior counsel John Farmer, Jr., wrote that the US government made “a decision not to tell the truth about what happened,” and that the NORAD “tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public.” Kean said, “We to this day don’t know why NORAD told us what they told us, it was just so far from the truth.”
Most of the questions from the 9/11 families were not answered. Important witnesses were not called. The commission only heard from those who supported the government’s account. The commission was a controlled political operation, not an investigation of events and evidence. Its membership consisted of former politicians. No knowledgeable experts were appointed to the commission."
"In a few days it will be the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001. How well has the US government’s official account of the event held up over the decade?
Not very well. The chairman, vice chairman, and senior legal counsel of the 9/11 Commission wrote books partially disassociating themselves from the commission’s report. They said that the Bush administration put obstacles in their path, that information was withheld from them, that President Bush agreed to testify only if he was chaperoned by Vice President Cheney and neither were put under oath, that Pentagon and FAA officials lied to the commission and that the commission considered referring the false testimony for investigation for obstruction of justice.
In their book, the chairman and vice chairman, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, wrote that the 9/11 Commission was “set up to fail.” Senior counsel John Farmer, Jr., wrote that the US government made “a decision not to tell the truth about what happened,” and that the NORAD “tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public.” Kean said, “We to this day don’t know why NORAD told us what they told us, it was just so far from the truth.”
Most of the questions from the 9/11 families were not answered. Important witnesses were not called. The commission only heard from those who supported the government’s account. The commission was a controlled political operation, not an investigation of events and evidence. Its membership consisted of former politicians. No knowledgeable experts were appointed to the commission."
Australia's shame
On the very day it was revealed that there are 12 million displaced persons in the world, these figures just out in Australia detail the situation in which asylum seekers to that country find themselves:
5,880 people were in detention by the end of June this year.
991 children were in detention on June 30 (including 513 in community detention).
316 days in detention is the average time it takes from arrival to receiving a visa.
240% increase in reported medical conditions including self-harm, hunger-strikes and suicide.
722 million dollars is how much the policy cost taxpayers in the last financial year.
A shocking indictment on the Government and people of the land Down Under.
5,880 people were in detention by the end of June this year.
991 children were in detention on June 30 (including 513 in community detention).
316 days in detention is the average time it takes from arrival to receiving a visa.
240% increase in reported medical conditions including self-harm, hunger-strikes and suicide.
722 million dollars is how much the policy cost taxpayers in the last financial year.
A shocking indictment on the Government and people of the land Down Under.
Gaddafi was "our" friend just 2 years ago....with an offer of US military hardware
Remember John McCain, the US senator who ran against Obama in 2008? He continues a senator.
Oh, how cruel looking back can be. Leave aside all those sickening photos a few years ago of chameleon UK PM Tony Blair embracing Gaddafi, WikiLeaks reveals that McCain, and some of his cohorts, just 2 years ago offered US military hardware to the Libyian dictator. The Raw Story reveals the background.
"Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) promised to help former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi obtain U.S. military hardware as one of the United States' partners in the war on terror, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released Wednesday by anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
The meeting, which took place just over a year ago on Aug. 14, 2009, included other influential Americans, such as Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Susan Collins (R-SC) and Senate Armed Services Committee staffer Richard Fontaine, the document explains.
McCain opened the meeting by characterizing Libya's relationship with the U.S. as "excellent," to which Liebermann added: "We never would have guessed ten years ago that we would be sitting in Tripoli, being welcomed by a son of Muammar al-Qadhafi."
"Lieberman called Libya an important ally in the war on terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends," the cable continues. "The Senators recognized Libya's cooperation on counterterrorism and conveyed that it was in the interest of both countries to make the relationship stronger."
Part and parcel to that relationship: military hardware, including helicopters and non-lethal weaponry, meant to ensure the security of Tripoli. In exchange for this and assisting the nation in rehabilitating its image with other lawmakers, Gaddafi pledged to send Libya's highly enriched uranium supplies to Russia for proper disposal.
The cable does not mention anything about the senators pressing Gaddafi for democratic reforms."
Oh, how cruel looking back can be. Leave aside all those sickening photos a few years ago of chameleon UK PM Tony Blair embracing Gaddafi, WikiLeaks reveals that McCain, and some of his cohorts, just 2 years ago offered US military hardware to the Libyian dictator. The Raw Story reveals the background.
"Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) promised to help former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi obtain U.S. military hardware as one of the United States' partners in the war on terror, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released Wednesday by anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
The meeting, which took place just over a year ago on Aug. 14, 2009, included other influential Americans, such as Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Susan Collins (R-SC) and Senate Armed Services Committee staffer Richard Fontaine, the document explains.
McCain opened the meeting by characterizing Libya's relationship with the U.S. as "excellent," to which Liebermann added: "We never would have guessed ten years ago that we would be sitting in Tripoli, being welcomed by a son of Muammar al-Qadhafi."
"Lieberman called Libya an important ally in the war on terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends," the cable continues. "The Senators recognized Libya's cooperation on counterterrorism and conveyed that it was in the interest of both countries to make the relationship stronger."
Part and parcel to that relationship: military hardware, including helicopters and non-lethal weaponry, meant to ensure the security of Tripoli. In exchange for this and assisting the nation in rehabilitating its image with other lawmakers, Gaddafi pledged to send Libya's highly enriched uranium supplies to Russia for proper disposal.
The cable does not mention anything about the senators pressing Gaddafi for democratic reforms."
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
As racial inequality deepens, so does the number of children living in poverty
The image of America for those outside the country is one of wealth and well-being. And comparatively for those in poor countries, like some in Africa or South America, that is probably the case. However, on closer examination Americans suffer wide-spread poverty, even if it is so-called rich nation. Racial inequality has not helped either. To think that some 33 million children in the US live in poverty is a disgrace.
"Today, one in five U.S. kids are living in poverty, says a new report on how kids are faring in the recession. Everything about the foreclosure crisis and recession and the attack on the public safety net that has made the last few years difficult for U.S. adults has also made things tough for U.S. children. But for kids of color, the numbers are much worse.
More than one in three black kids—a full 36 percent of black youth—live in poverty and 31 percent of Latino kids lives in poverty. And for many of the indicators of child welfare that the Annie E. Casey Foundation, whose 2011 Kids Count Data Book was released on Wednesday, tracks, like infant mortality rates and school achievement, black and Latino kids fare far worse than their white counterparts.
For example, in 2009, a full 16 states reported poverty rates for black children that were upwards of 40 percent. And in five states, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas and Alabama, more than 40 percent of Latino kids there lived in poverty. However, no state has a white children’s poverty rate that’s over 23 percent."
"Today, one in five U.S. kids are living in poverty, says a new report on how kids are faring in the recession. Everything about the foreclosure crisis and recession and the attack on the public safety net that has made the last few years difficult for U.S. adults has also made things tough for U.S. children. But for kids of color, the numbers are much worse.
More than one in three black kids—a full 36 percent of black youth—live in poverty and 31 percent of Latino kids lives in poverty. And for many of the indicators of child welfare that the Annie E. Casey Foundation, whose 2011 Kids Count Data Book was released on Wednesday, tracks, like infant mortality rates and school achievement, black and Latino kids fare far worse than their white counterparts.
For example, in 2009, a full 16 states reported poverty rates for black children that were upwards of 40 percent. And in five states, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas and Alabama, more than 40 percent of Latino kids there lived in poverty. However, no state has a white children’s poverty rate that’s over 23 percent."
And you want this man [Glenn Beck], of all people, to support you?
There are many who consider Glenn Beck, one-time commentator on Fox News, with considerable contempt and loathing. However, there are many who embrace his views. Strangely, even some Jews in Israel. Perhaps no wonder if you are an Israeli from the far Right, but is it in the interests of Israelis generally, or Jews overall, to give Beck any sort of credence?
From Haaretz:
"Israel's international standing and relationship with Jewish-Americans is threatened as Israel is increasingly linked to right-wing political agendas in the United States. This situation has been exacerbated as controversial American broadcaster Glenn Beck has tried to remake himself into Israel's champion. Beck, who is currently in Israel to lead his "Restoring Courage" rally in Jerusalem, has become a marginal and toxic figure in the United States. So much so that Fox News ended his daily show earlier this year.
Beck has used his media platforms to promote secular anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists and evangelical end-times prophets. What these two groups have in common is an obsession with Jews and the belief that Jews control and manipulate the lives and destiny of non-Jews."
Meanwhile, Forward editorialises:
"Americans are by now very familiar with the wild and irresponsible side of politics that Beck represents. Beck stokes hate among ethnic groups and pays little respect to democratic traditions in his own country, let alone in the rest of the world. Many of his comments in recent years have bordered on anti-Semitic. He embraced anti-Semitic writers, and all but one name on his list of “enemies of America and humanity” were Jews. Those were still mild references compared with the language Beck uses against liberals — and Jews are the most liberal group in America. Beck is toxic: Even Fox News got that, and eventually dumped him. If you were representing a company and your product was in trouble, Beck would have been the last public relations man on earth you’d call. Yet this is exactly what Israel has done.
By supporting the right-wing government in Jerusalem, Beck seems to have found new respect in the eyes of many Jews and Israelis. While in Israel, Beck will be meeting with Vice Premier Moshe Ya’alon and a couple of other government ministers, and even with centrist MK Einat Wilf from Ehud Barak’s Atzmaut party.
This is not the kind of help Israel needs. Beck’s religious rhetoric, his radical conservative positions and his fondness for the idea of Armageddon present a real danger to the well-being of Israelis and Palestinians alike, especially given that Beck’s rallies are taking place less then a month before the Palestinian Authority’s United Nations bid. Beck claims to stand by Israel but his views are similar to a small, extreme minority in this country.
Beck places the conflict with the Palestinians within a childish “clash of civilization” context. His belief, shared by many in evangelical circles, is that Israel is the focal point of a worldwide struggle between good and evil. This notion is at odds with the need to see the conflict as a political problem and thus strive for a peaceful and just solution that would allow Palestinians and Jews to live together. Even scarier is the fact that those who push for this ultimate morale showdown between good and evil in the holy land live in a faraway country and would not have to face the terrible consequences of their actions."
From Haaretz:
"Israel's international standing and relationship with Jewish-Americans is threatened as Israel is increasingly linked to right-wing political agendas in the United States. This situation has been exacerbated as controversial American broadcaster Glenn Beck has tried to remake himself into Israel's champion. Beck, who is currently in Israel to lead his "Restoring Courage" rally in Jerusalem, has become a marginal and toxic figure in the United States. So much so that Fox News ended his daily show earlier this year.
Beck has used his media platforms to promote secular anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists and evangelical end-times prophets. What these two groups have in common is an obsession with Jews and the belief that Jews control and manipulate the lives and destiny of non-Jews."
Meanwhile, Forward editorialises:
"Americans are by now very familiar with the wild and irresponsible side of politics that Beck represents. Beck stokes hate among ethnic groups and pays little respect to democratic traditions in his own country, let alone in the rest of the world. Many of his comments in recent years have bordered on anti-Semitic. He embraced anti-Semitic writers, and all but one name on his list of “enemies of America and humanity” were Jews. Those were still mild references compared with the language Beck uses against liberals — and Jews are the most liberal group in America. Beck is toxic: Even Fox News got that, and eventually dumped him. If you were representing a company and your product was in trouble, Beck would have been the last public relations man on earth you’d call. Yet this is exactly what Israel has done.
By supporting the right-wing government in Jerusalem, Beck seems to have found new respect in the eyes of many Jews and Israelis. While in Israel, Beck will be meeting with Vice Premier Moshe Ya’alon and a couple of other government ministers, and even with centrist MK Einat Wilf from Ehud Barak’s Atzmaut party.
This is not the kind of help Israel needs. Beck’s religious rhetoric, his radical conservative positions and his fondness for the idea of Armageddon present a real danger to the well-being of Israelis and Palestinians alike, especially given that Beck’s rallies are taking place less then a month before the Palestinian Authority’s United Nations bid. Beck claims to stand by Israel but his views are similar to a small, extreme minority in this country.
Beck places the conflict with the Palestinians within a childish “clash of civilization” context. His belief, shared by many in evangelical circles, is that Israel is the focal point of a worldwide struggle between good and evil. This notion is at odds with the need to see the conflict as a political problem and thus strive for a peaceful and just solution that would allow Palestinians and Jews to live together. Even scarier is the fact that those who push for this ultimate morale showdown between good and evil in the holy land live in a faraway country and would not have to face the terrible consequences of their actions."
Two sides of Gaza........
There is no doubting that the majority of people in Gaza are doing it very hard - to say the least. However, as this piece in Haaretz explains there are some who are doing quite well. A new rising middle class. That must, perforce, have consequences for the iron-fisted "rule" of Hamas.
"A budding middle class in the impoverished Gaza Strip is flaunting its wealth, sipping coffee at gleaming new cafes, shopping for shoes at the new tiny shopping malls, and fueling perhaps the most acrimonious grass roots resentment yet toward the ruling Hamas movement.
This middle class, which has become visible at the same time as a mini-construction boom in this blockaded territory, is celebrating its weddings in opulent halls and vacationing in newly built beach bungalows. That level of consumption may be modest by Western standards, but it's in startling contrast to the grinding poverty of most Gazans, who rely on UN food handouts to get by.
What do you think about this article? Visit Haaretz.com on Facebook and share your views.
Some of the well-off are Hamas loyalists. That rankles many Gaza residents because the conservative Islamic movement gained popularity by tending to the poor, through charitable aid, education and medical care - along with its armed struggle against Israel.
Palestinians shopping at the new al-Andulusia mall in Gaza City on August 16, 2011.
Photo by: AP
"Hamas has become rich at the expense of the people," fumed a 22-year-old seamstress, Nisrine, as she stitched decorative applique onto a dress. She wouldn't disclose her family name, not wanting to be seen criticizing the militant group.
Gaza's Hamas government denies its loyalists have gotten wealthy since the group came to power. Corruption "doesn't touch us," said Hamas official Yusef Rizka.
But others - even those close to Hamas - say the militant group must pay attention. "There is a nouveau riche that has followed the rise of the government," said Alaa Araj, a former Gaza economic minister and businessman considered close to Hamas. "We must sound the alarm," he said. "(Resentment) is growing in Gaza."
Gaza residents are also resentful because they feel they have suffered the worst effects of the Israeli and Egyptian blockade that was slapped on the territory when the militant group seized power in 2007. The blockade was a failed attempt to crush Hamas; instead it impoverished already poor Gazans, killed off trade and effectively imprisoned residents inside the territory.
Some two-thirds of Gaza's 1.6 million people live in poverty and rely on UN food aid. About half the work force is unemployed. Many employed Gazans are paid miserly wages, keeping them struggling."
"A budding middle class in the impoverished Gaza Strip is flaunting its wealth, sipping coffee at gleaming new cafes, shopping for shoes at the new tiny shopping malls, and fueling perhaps the most acrimonious grass roots resentment yet toward the ruling Hamas movement.
This middle class, which has become visible at the same time as a mini-construction boom in this blockaded territory, is celebrating its weddings in opulent halls and vacationing in newly built beach bungalows. That level of consumption may be modest by Western standards, but it's in startling contrast to the grinding poverty of most Gazans, who rely on UN food handouts to get by.
What do you think about this article? Visit Haaretz.com on Facebook and share your views.
Some of the well-off are Hamas loyalists. That rankles many Gaza residents because the conservative Islamic movement gained popularity by tending to the poor, through charitable aid, education and medical care - along with its armed struggle against Israel.
Palestinians shopping at the new al-Andulusia mall in Gaza City on August 16, 2011.
Photo by: AP
"Hamas has become rich at the expense of the people," fumed a 22-year-old seamstress, Nisrine, as she stitched decorative applique onto a dress. She wouldn't disclose her family name, not wanting to be seen criticizing the militant group.
Gaza's Hamas government denies its loyalists have gotten wealthy since the group came to power. Corruption "doesn't touch us," said Hamas official Yusef Rizka.
But others - even those close to Hamas - say the militant group must pay attention. "There is a nouveau riche that has followed the rise of the government," said Alaa Araj, a former Gaza economic minister and businessman considered close to Hamas. "We must sound the alarm," he said. "(Resentment) is growing in Gaza."
Gaza residents are also resentful because they feel they have suffered the worst effects of the Israeli and Egyptian blockade that was slapped on the territory when the militant group seized power in 2007. The blockade was a failed attempt to crush Hamas; instead it impoverished already poor Gazans, killed off trade and effectively imprisoned residents inside the territory.
Some two-thirds of Gaza's 1.6 million people live in poverty and rely on UN food aid. About half the work force is unemployed. Many employed Gazans are paid miserly wages, keeping them struggling."
Knock, knock! Anyone out there in the world taking notice let alone doing something about it?
The New York Times reports:
"Hundreds of Turkish airstrikes and artillery assaults over the last week have killed at least 100 Kurdish separatists and injured more than 80, an army statement said Tuesday.
The airstrikes, aimed at militant bases, focused on the mountainous Qandil, Hakurk, Avasin-Basyan, Zap and Metina regions, the statement posted on the military headquarters’ Web site said.
The Turkish military said its operations would continue."
It was a simple and short news item.
Jeff Goldberg writing in "Turkey Kills Dozens of Kurds, World Shrugs" in The Atlantic raises something to consider......
"I'd organize a flotilla in support of the Kurds, but I'm afraid no one would join. Perhaps the world believes the Turkish military when it claims that only Kurdish rebels have been killed. Of course, there's this bit of information to suggest that Turkey's surgical operation isn't so surgical:
Turkish authorities have not responded to reports from the Iraq's Kurdish authorities that a family of seven civilians was killed by an airstrike on Sunday."
"Hundreds of Turkish airstrikes and artillery assaults over the last week have killed at least 100 Kurdish separatists and injured more than 80, an army statement said Tuesday.
The airstrikes, aimed at militant bases, focused on the mountainous Qandil, Hakurk, Avasin-Basyan, Zap and Metina regions, the statement posted on the military headquarters’ Web site said.
The Turkish military said its operations would continue."
It was a simple and short news item.
Jeff Goldberg writing in "Turkey Kills Dozens of Kurds, World Shrugs" in The Atlantic raises something to consider......
"I'd organize a flotilla in support of the Kurds, but I'm afraid no one would join. Perhaps the world believes the Turkish military when it claims that only Kurdish rebels have been killed. Of course, there's this bit of information to suggest that Turkey's surgical operation isn't so surgical:
Turkish authorities have not responded to reports from the Iraq's Kurdish authorities that a family of seven civilians was killed by an airstrike on Sunday."
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Whither Libya after Gaddafi
The media is full of news asserting the end of the Gaddafi regime in Libya. It seems a tad premature to break out the champagne just yet! Whenever the dictator's reign does come to an end, what has been exercising the minds of some is what happens then?
From The New Yorker's piece "Enigmas and Lies in Libya":
"The workings of the Qaddafi machine are shrouded in seven veils of obfuscation, and it is unlikely we will ever get the full story about what has gone on there, insofar as such a story is even knowable. Saying what will happen is an even dicier exercise; those who cannot know the past are destined to befuddlement, though things are looking pretty grim for the regime.
You did not have to be in Libya for very long to discover that Qaddafi was friendless; even the people on his payroll hated him. One of those former employees recently said to me in genuine bewilderment, “Who the hell are these people who are fighting for him?” The rebels have continued to say that Qaddafi’s forces are mercenaries; Qaddafi has countered that the rebel forces are imported Al Qaeda operatives and Western imperialists. Neither version bears much congruity with the facts of the case. It would be a bit more accurate to propose that the rebels represent the eastern tribes of Libya, with support from international Islamists and crucial NATO air power, while the challenge to their advances has been undertaken by members of western tribes such as Qaddafi’s, with some deployment of mercenaries. If the tribal divisions were geographically neat, and loyalties were consistent, one might call this a civil war, but to do so would be grossly inaccurate in a situation where all parties keep lying about what side they’re on, why, and what they hope to get out of the conflict. Truth was not the lingua franca of Qaddafi’s Libya; there is no honor among these thieves. Even those who oppose the Leader have emulated his predisposition against reality and his disdain for clarity.
This does not bode well for whatever comes next. Few citizens will cry if Qaddafi hangs, but many fear that the eastern tribes, long disadvantaged inside Libya, will be harsh to the western ones if they win power. The Transitional National Council, which speaks for the rebellion, has been surprisingly effective at keeping the fighting going for six months; but to suggest that it represents the views of all Qaddafi’s opponents would be naïve. It doesn’t even represent the views of all members of the established resistance in the eastern part of Libya, and it will surely not represent the interests of the many sophisticated Tripolitans who despise the Leader, but also dislike the rebels’ ragtag chaos. The T.N.C. has tended to describe itself in whatever terms will most effectively secure it NATO’s continued allegiance. These are nothing more than campaign promises, irrelevant to postwar leadership and reconstruction."
Veteran Middle-Eastern journalist, and author, Paul McGeough, writing in The Sydney Morning Herald:
"But with the protracted Afghanistan and Iraq ventures on display, not too many will quibble with the observation that at this stage, we don't have a clue on how events will unfold in post-Gaddafi Libya.
Because of Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington and the rest have been reluctant to be seen to be planning to ''manage'' the new Libya. Two days ago, a senior American military officer shared his concerns with The New York Times: ''… There [is] no clear plan for a political succession or for maintaining security in the country. The [African and Arab] leaders I have talked to do not have a clear understanding how this will play out.''
The rebel National Transitional Council, recognised by 32 countries, has promised none of the bedlam of liberated Baghdad and it has undertaken to reissue its greenhorn fighters with a booklet on the finer points of human rights and the laws of war.
The Americans disposed of the security forces in Iraq, but the NTC says it plans to retain parts of the Libyan security machine. But the rebels will want to run the show and many will be bent on revenge against those who fought for the regime.
The NTC is an unknown quantity. The murder of its rebel military commander Abdel Fatah Younis is unexplained, as is the dissolution this month of the rebel cabinet, and the failure to appoint a new one.
In a part of the world in which power brokers have mastered the art of telling the West what it wants to hear while getting on with their own local agendas, it remains to be seen if signs of what has been read as evidence of common sense, democratic instinct, idealism and decency are to be deployed on behalf of all Libyans."
From The New Yorker's piece "Enigmas and Lies in Libya":
"The workings of the Qaddafi machine are shrouded in seven veils of obfuscation, and it is unlikely we will ever get the full story about what has gone on there, insofar as such a story is even knowable. Saying what will happen is an even dicier exercise; those who cannot know the past are destined to befuddlement, though things are looking pretty grim for the regime.
You did not have to be in Libya for very long to discover that Qaddafi was friendless; even the people on his payroll hated him. One of those former employees recently said to me in genuine bewilderment, “Who the hell are these people who are fighting for him?” The rebels have continued to say that Qaddafi’s forces are mercenaries; Qaddafi has countered that the rebel forces are imported Al Qaeda operatives and Western imperialists. Neither version bears much congruity with the facts of the case. It would be a bit more accurate to propose that the rebels represent the eastern tribes of Libya, with support from international Islamists and crucial NATO air power, while the challenge to their advances has been undertaken by members of western tribes such as Qaddafi’s, with some deployment of mercenaries. If the tribal divisions were geographically neat, and loyalties were consistent, one might call this a civil war, but to do so would be grossly inaccurate in a situation where all parties keep lying about what side they’re on, why, and what they hope to get out of the conflict. Truth was not the lingua franca of Qaddafi’s Libya; there is no honor among these thieves. Even those who oppose the Leader have emulated his predisposition against reality and his disdain for clarity.
This does not bode well for whatever comes next. Few citizens will cry if Qaddafi hangs, but many fear that the eastern tribes, long disadvantaged inside Libya, will be harsh to the western ones if they win power. The Transitional National Council, which speaks for the rebellion, has been surprisingly effective at keeping the fighting going for six months; but to suggest that it represents the views of all Qaddafi’s opponents would be naïve. It doesn’t even represent the views of all members of the established resistance in the eastern part of Libya, and it will surely not represent the interests of the many sophisticated Tripolitans who despise the Leader, but also dislike the rebels’ ragtag chaos. The T.N.C. has tended to describe itself in whatever terms will most effectively secure it NATO’s continued allegiance. These are nothing more than campaign promises, irrelevant to postwar leadership and reconstruction."
Veteran Middle-Eastern journalist, and author, Paul McGeough, writing in The Sydney Morning Herald:
"But with the protracted Afghanistan and Iraq ventures on display, not too many will quibble with the observation that at this stage, we don't have a clue on how events will unfold in post-Gaddafi Libya.
Because of Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington and the rest have been reluctant to be seen to be planning to ''manage'' the new Libya. Two days ago, a senior American military officer shared his concerns with The New York Times: ''… There [is] no clear plan for a political succession or for maintaining security in the country. The [African and Arab] leaders I have talked to do not have a clear understanding how this will play out.''
The rebel National Transitional Council, recognised by 32 countries, has promised none of the bedlam of liberated Baghdad and it has undertaken to reissue its greenhorn fighters with a booklet on the finer points of human rights and the laws of war.
The Americans disposed of the security forces in Iraq, but the NTC says it plans to retain parts of the Libyan security machine. But the rebels will want to run the show and many will be bent on revenge against those who fought for the regime.
The NTC is an unknown quantity. The murder of its rebel military commander Abdel Fatah Younis is unexplained, as is the dissolution this month of the rebel cabinet, and the failure to appoint a new one.
In a part of the world in which power brokers have mastered the art of telling the West what it wants to hear while getting on with their own local agendas, it remains to be seen if signs of what has been read as evidence of common sense, democratic instinct, idealism and decency are to be deployed on behalf of all Libyans."
Guilty until proven innocent
Yasmeen El Khoudary is a freelance writer based in Gaza, occupied Palestine. She graduated from the American University in Cairo with a BA in Political Science, and works now as a self-employed writer and researcher.
Her piece on AlJazeera ought to be read by all-fair minded people as a call to view events in Gaza, and how Israel deals with the 1.5 million people trapped in the tiny piece of land - imprisoned is probably more accurate - as a warning that the situation there cannot continue indefinitely.
"The mini war that Israel waged on Gaza following the turmoil in South Israel is just another perfect example of how Gaza is the Middle East's "Biggest Loser." Caught in a thorny network composed of selfish interests and different agendas, the 1.5 million people of Gaza are indeed the biggest losers when it comes to just about anything in the Middle East.
Our destiny does not lie within our hands. We do not have any control over even the smallest aspects of our lives. We do not enjoy the luxury of planning for tomorrow, let alone next week. We, the people of Gaza, valiantly try to go on with our daily lives as if things are in perfect order. But there are times when things are so bleak and so dark that everything we have been trying to build collapses in the blink of an eye.
On Thursday, and after a rough night full of Israeli air attacks on different locations in the Gaza Strip, we woke up to another hot Ramadan day which was interrupted by news about a shooting operation in Eilat, whereby five Israeli soldiers were killed and 36 others were injured. Immediately and without even waiting for the details of the operation to be announced, people started fretting about a likely Israeli attack on Gaza.
It was much like the instantaneous reactions of Muslims in Norway to the terrorist attacks that took Oslo by storm recently, which ignited fear in their hearts because of inevitable racist attacks that they were going to suffer had the attacker been a Muslim. More inevitable than the racist attacks was of course the media threat, which also instantaneously and without any evidence linked the terrorist attacks to Al Qaeda and to Muslim extremists. However, the murderer turned out to be a Norwegian, allowing Norwegian Muslims to heave a sigh of relief.
The scenario in Gaza was not very different. The 'operation' killed five soldiers, but nobody knows who led the operation. At first, we read reports indicating that Egypt's involvement, only to find that Israel promptly denied Egypt's intervention before Egypt itself did. Immediately afterwards, we heard Ehud Barak's statements accusing 'Gaza' of the attacks and promising to "punish those who were responsible". How he came to that conclusion, what evidence he holds, or who in Gaza he thinks is responsible, we have no idea (and neither does he, I'm starting to believe). What we know for sure is that we are doomed, and that ahead of us lies what might be a live reminder of Cast Lead, regardless of the fact that not a piece of evidence connected the people of Gaza to the Eilat operation.
That is the only difference between the case with Norwegian Muslims and us. The former were safe after the truth was revealed, but we are never safe - with or without the truth. Between Israel, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, the USA, and whoever happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, we, the innocent people of Gaza, can be found struggling to catch our breath from under the feet of these selfish giants whenever something happens. Today is no exception- and as usual, there's no one that can be blamed cost-free but the people of Gaza. Even if Egypt was involved in this operation, it seemed that Israel was emphasizing 'Gaza's' sole responsibility for the operation because it felt like avenging and retaliating. I would not be surprised if the communication blackout that was imposed on Gaza ten days ago was the first of many to come, and that we might be experiencing one in case a military operation is indeed launched.
Amidst the wild rumors, leaks and speculations, the constant Israeli threats, the rising toll of people killed and injured by Israel, Friday prayers around the Strip calmed people down. In times like these, mosques play a very important role, by reading soothing prayers, make urgent announcements, etc. Last Friday, however, and as Israel was bombing Gaza, the Imam leading the prayers in the mosque next to our house was concerned with something else. He dedicated his sermon and his prayers to Somalia and asked people to donate to it. That humanity, that beating human conscience and respect for human life are the qualities that are inseparable from Palestinians, even if the world might think otherwise.
Whether what awaits us is another cruel Israeli attack where we would be both the aggressor and the victim, or whether it's going to be a deceiving live political soap opera where we sit back and watch, we do not know. We will wait for it to happen, because the selfish world decides our fate. It is because we, the people of Gaza, are guilty until proven innocent - if ever."
Her piece on AlJazeera ought to be read by all-fair minded people as a call to view events in Gaza, and how Israel deals with the 1.5 million people trapped in the tiny piece of land - imprisoned is probably more accurate - as a warning that the situation there cannot continue indefinitely.
"The mini war that Israel waged on Gaza following the turmoil in South Israel is just another perfect example of how Gaza is the Middle East's "Biggest Loser." Caught in a thorny network composed of selfish interests and different agendas, the 1.5 million people of Gaza are indeed the biggest losers when it comes to just about anything in the Middle East.
Our destiny does not lie within our hands. We do not have any control over even the smallest aspects of our lives. We do not enjoy the luxury of planning for tomorrow, let alone next week. We, the people of Gaza, valiantly try to go on with our daily lives as if things are in perfect order. But there are times when things are so bleak and so dark that everything we have been trying to build collapses in the blink of an eye.
On Thursday, and after a rough night full of Israeli air attacks on different locations in the Gaza Strip, we woke up to another hot Ramadan day which was interrupted by news about a shooting operation in Eilat, whereby five Israeli soldiers were killed and 36 others were injured. Immediately and without even waiting for the details of the operation to be announced, people started fretting about a likely Israeli attack on Gaza.
It was much like the instantaneous reactions of Muslims in Norway to the terrorist attacks that took Oslo by storm recently, which ignited fear in their hearts because of inevitable racist attacks that they were going to suffer had the attacker been a Muslim. More inevitable than the racist attacks was of course the media threat, which also instantaneously and without any evidence linked the terrorist attacks to Al Qaeda and to Muslim extremists. However, the murderer turned out to be a Norwegian, allowing Norwegian Muslims to heave a sigh of relief.
The scenario in Gaza was not very different. The 'operation' killed five soldiers, but nobody knows who led the operation. At first, we read reports indicating that Egypt's involvement, only to find that Israel promptly denied Egypt's intervention before Egypt itself did. Immediately afterwards, we heard Ehud Barak's statements accusing 'Gaza' of the attacks and promising to "punish those who were responsible". How he came to that conclusion, what evidence he holds, or who in Gaza he thinks is responsible, we have no idea (and neither does he, I'm starting to believe). What we know for sure is that we are doomed, and that ahead of us lies what might be a live reminder of Cast Lead, regardless of the fact that not a piece of evidence connected the people of Gaza to the Eilat operation.
That is the only difference between the case with Norwegian Muslims and us. The former were safe after the truth was revealed, but we are never safe - with or without the truth. Between Israel, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, the USA, and whoever happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, we, the innocent people of Gaza, can be found struggling to catch our breath from under the feet of these selfish giants whenever something happens. Today is no exception- and as usual, there's no one that can be blamed cost-free but the people of Gaza. Even if Egypt was involved in this operation, it seemed that Israel was emphasizing 'Gaza's' sole responsibility for the operation because it felt like avenging and retaliating. I would not be surprised if the communication blackout that was imposed on Gaza ten days ago was the first of many to come, and that we might be experiencing one in case a military operation is indeed launched.
Amidst the wild rumors, leaks and speculations, the constant Israeli threats, the rising toll of people killed and injured by Israel, Friday prayers around the Strip calmed people down. In times like these, mosques play a very important role, by reading soothing prayers, make urgent announcements, etc. Last Friday, however, and as Israel was bombing Gaza, the Imam leading the prayers in the mosque next to our house was concerned with something else. He dedicated his sermon and his prayers to Somalia and asked people to donate to it. That humanity, that beating human conscience and respect for human life are the qualities that are inseparable from Palestinians, even if the world might think otherwise.
Whether what awaits us is another cruel Israeli attack where we would be both the aggressor and the victim, or whether it's going to be a deceiving live political soap opera where we sit back and watch, we do not know. We will wait for it to happen, because the selfish world decides our fate. It is because we, the people of Gaza, are guilty until proven innocent - if ever."
Monday, August 22, 2011
Obama on a slippery slope......downwards
The voices are getting louder! The populace is unhappy with Obama - and perhaps with more than a degree of justification.
Three op-pieces, form different quarters, would seem to reflect the thinking in America. Of course, the opinion polls are excoriating Obama.
From The Daily Beast:
"With a stinging budget defeat behind them and unemployment in the black community soaring to 16 percent, members of the Congressional Black Caucus say they’re done waiting for Barack Obama to fight their battles for them.
Instead, the 43 African-American lawmakers say they’re taking matters into their own hands and will carry the fight to Tea Party Republicans, whom they blame for Obama’s latest lurch to the right.
“The Tea Party discovered something. That is if they organize, if they talk loud enough, if they threaten, if they register to vote and elect a few people, they can take over the Congress of the United States,” said Rep. Maxine Waters. “They called our bluff and we blinked. We should have made them walk the plank.”
Charles M Blow in "Obama in the Valley" in The New York Times:
"But one person I never thought would fall into this valley was Barack Obama, the charismatic candidate who electrified the electorate in 2008 and whom many saw as the fulfillment of the dream of the even-more-electrifying Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Yet here Obama is, down in the valley, struggling to connect with the American people and failing, increasingly coming across as dispassionate to some and outright revolting to others.
Of course, Republicans haven’t helped. They’re absolutely committed to, and obsessed with, his failure. But that cannot be the excuse. Great leadership isn’t shaped in the absence of opposition but in the presence of it. Great leaders draw us together by our universal humanity; they galvanize the wills of the willing; they draw clarity from the spigot of chaos.
But that is not how this president is performing at this critical moment, and people are growing increasingly unhappy with him. A Gallup poll released on Aug. 15 found that Obama’s approval rating had fallen to the lowest level of his presidency, and Gallup polls released a few days later found that the number of people not satisfied with the direction of the country and who disapproved of the president’s performance on the economy, budget deficit, job creation, education and foreign affairs had reached the highest levels of the administration.
The country needs the president to rise to this crisis in word, spirit and deed. We need him to reach out of his nature and into the nation’s need. We are on the precipice. There’s growing concern that we may slip into a second, more painful recession. There is little optimism that the housing crisis will loosen its grip on the economy anytime soon. The unspeakable truth is that we may well be on the leading edge of a prolonged period of national stagnation, if not decline.
A robotic Sustainer-in-Chief with an eerie inhumanity will not satisfy. At this moment, we need less valley and more mountaintop."
Finally, Maureen Dowd, also writing in The New York Times:
"Is Obama so isolated he can’t see that Americans are curled up in a ball, beaten down by a financial crisis, an identity crisis, a political crisis and a leadership crisis?
He got the job by blaming Washington. But once you’re in the White House, you are Washington. It’s like the plumber who came to fix the sink waiting for the sink to fix itself."
Three op-pieces, form different quarters, would seem to reflect the thinking in America. Of course, the opinion polls are excoriating Obama.
From The Daily Beast:
"With a stinging budget defeat behind them and unemployment in the black community soaring to 16 percent, members of the Congressional Black Caucus say they’re done waiting for Barack Obama to fight their battles for them.
Instead, the 43 African-American lawmakers say they’re taking matters into their own hands and will carry the fight to Tea Party Republicans, whom they blame for Obama’s latest lurch to the right.
“The Tea Party discovered something. That is if they organize, if they talk loud enough, if they threaten, if they register to vote and elect a few people, they can take over the Congress of the United States,” said Rep. Maxine Waters. “They called our bluff and we blinked. We should have made them walk the plank.”
Charles M Blow in "Obama in the Valley" in The New York Times:
"But one person I never thought would fall into this valley was Barack Obama, the charismatic candidate who electrified the electorate in 2008 and whom many saw as the fulfillment of the dream of the even-more-electrifying Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Yet here Obama is, down in the valley, struggling to connect with the American people and failing, increasingly coming across as dispassionate to some and outright revolting to others.
Of course, Republicans haven’t helped. They’re absolutely committed to, and obsessed with, his failure. But that cannot be the excuse. Great leadership isn’t shaped in the absence of opposition but in the presence of it. Great leaders draw us together by our universal humanity; they galvanize the wills of the willing; they draw clarity from the spigot of chaos.
But that is not how this president is performing at this critical moment, and people are growing increasingly unhappy with him. A Gallup poll released on Aug. 15 found that Obama’s approval rating had fallen to the lowest level of his presidency, and Gallup polls released a few days later found that the number of people not satisfied with the direction of the country and who disapproved of the president’s performance on the economy, budget deficit, job creation, education and foreign affairs had reached the highest levels of the administration.
The country needs the president to rise to this crisis in word, spirit and deed. We need him to reach out of his nature and into the nation’s need. We are on the precipice. There’s growing concern that we may slip into a second, more painful recession. There is little optimism that the housing crisis will loosen its grip on the economy anytime soon. The unspeakable truth is that we may well be on the leading edge of a prolonged period of national stagnation, if not decline.
A robotic Sustainer-in-Chief with an eerie inhumanity will not satisfy. At this moment, we need less valley and more mountaintop."
Finally, Maureen Dowd, also writing in The New York Times:
"Is Obama so isolated he can’t see that Americans are curled up in a ball, beaten down by a financial crisis, an identity crisis, a political crisis and a leadership crisis?
He got the job by blaming Washington. But once you’re in the White House, you are Washington. It’s like the plumber who came to fix the sink waiting for the sink to fix itself."
Let's just hope that it doesn't come to pass........
Credited to R.J. Matson, NY, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Roll Call
Unsocial social networking
More and more governments want to step in and inhibit freedom of movement and speech - and the inter-action between people. Witness recent events as highlighted in this piece from The Observer in the UK.
"After the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and this summer's looting in England, there is no longer any doubt about the speed with which large crowds can be mobilised on to the streets. As flash-mobbing morphs into flash-robbing, the attention of British authorities is turning to the mobile phones and social media that empower everything from benign groups dancing in railway stations to the vandalism of entire high streets.
During the riots, two London MPs called for a BlackBerry Messenger curfew, proposing a 6pm to 6am shutdown of the service being used by gangs to organise looting. It was not implemented but in the aftermath, a review of police powers, including those to intervene in mobile communications, was announced. Theresa May is to meet Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (Rim) to discuss tighter controls, and the prime minister has warned: "When people are using social media for violence, we need to stop them."
Companies and politicians are being forced to rethink the extent to which governments or the police should be able interfere with communication networks. This year has seen at least two heavy-handed interventions. The Egyptian government ordered the closure of Vodafone's network, and those of other operators, during the Tahrir square uprising. Vodafone remained down for 24 hours, and when service resumed the company was strong-armed into sending out pro-government text messages urging demonstrators to stay at home.
In the week of the England riots, the operator of San Francisco's subway pulled the plug on its own mobile network for three hours, even preventing passengers from making emergency calls. In an echo of the killing that sparked the Tottenham riots, the San Francisco shutdown was designed to prevent a demonstration over the fatal shooting of an unarmed man by a transport policeman. Last year, Vodafone's partner company in Bahrain complied with restrictions forcing sim card users to register their personal details. More than 400,000 of those who did not were cut off."
"After the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and this summer's looting in England, there is no longer any doubt about the speed with which large crowds can be mobilised on to the streets. As flash-mobbing morphs into flash-robbing, the attention of British authorities is turning to the mobile phones and social media that empower everything from benign groups dancing in railway stations to the vandalism of entire high streets.
During the riots, two London MPs called for a BlackBerry Messenger curfew, proposing a 6pm to 6am shutdown of the service being used by gangs to organise looting. It was not implemented but in the aftermath, a review of police powers, including those to intervene in mobile communications, was announced. Theresa May is to meet Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (Rim) to discuss tighter controls, and the prime minister has warned: "When people are using social media for violence, we need to stop them."
Companies and politicians are being forced to rethink the extent to which governments or the police should be able interfere with communication networks. This year has seen at least two heavy-handed interventions. The Egyptian government ordered the closure of Vodafone's network, and those of other operators, during the Tahrir square uprising. Vodafone remained down for 24 hours, and when service resumed the company was strong-armed into sending out pro-government text messages urging demonstrators to stay at home.
In the week of the England riots, the operator of San Francisco's subway pulled the plug on its own mobile network for three hours, even preventing passengers from making emergency calls. In an echo of the killing that sparked the Tottenham riots, the San Francisco shutdown was designed to prevent a demonstration over the fatal shooting of an unarmed man by a transport policeman. Last year, Vodafone's partner company in Bahrain complied with restrictions forcing sim card users to register their personal details. More than 400,000 of those who did not were cut off."
Sunday, August 21, 2011
As if Assad cares a jot and tittle what Obama says!
Obama calls for President Assad, of Syria, to step aside. Yes, terrible, terrible things are happening in Syria. But it is hard top believe that someone like Assad will heed Obama's demand. As Robert Fisk points out in his latest piece "It's his fast-disappearing billions that will worry Assad, not words from Washington" for The Independent, Assad has more pressing things to concern himself with - his substantial horde of money.
"Obama roars. World trembles. If only.
Obama says Assad must "step aside". Do we really think Damascus trembles? Or is going to? Indeed, the titan of the White House only dared to go this far after condemnation of Bashar al-Assad by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Turkey, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, the EU and Uncle Tom Cobley and all (except, of course, Israel – another story). The terrible triplets – Cameron, Sarkozy and Merkel – did their mimicking act a few minutes later.
But truly, are new sanctions against Assad "and his cronies" – I enjoyed the "cronies" bit, a good old 1665 word as I'm sure Madame Clinton realised, although she was principally referring to Bashar's businessman cousin Rami Makhlouf – anything more than the usual Obama hogwash? If "strong economic sanctions" mean a mere freeze on petroleum products of Syrian origin, the fact remains that Syria can scarcely produce enough oil for itself, let alone for export. A Swedish government agency recently concluded that Syria was largely unaffected by the world economic crisis – because it didn't really have an economy.
Of course, in the fantasy of Damascus – where Bashar appears to live in the same "sea of quietness" in which the Egyptian writer Mohamed Heikel believes all dictators breathe – the world goes on as usual. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon – another earth-trembler if ever there was one – no sooner demands an "immediate" end to "all military operations and mass arrests", than dear old Bashar tells him that "military and police action" has stopped."
"Obama roars. World trembles. If only.
Obama says Assad must "step aside". Do we really think Damascus trembles? Or is going to? Indeed, the titan of the White House only dared to go this far after condemnation of Bashar al-Assad by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Turkey, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, the EU and Uncle Tom Cobley and all (except, of course, Israel – another story). The terrible triplets – Cameron, Sarkozy and Merkel – did their mimicking act a few minutes later.
But truly, are new sanctions against Assad "and his cronies" – I enjoyed the "cronies" bit, a good old 1665 word as I'm sure Madame Clinton realised, although she was principally referring to Bashar's businessman cousin Rami Makhlouf – anything more than the usual Obama hogwash? If "strong economic sanctions" mean a mere freeze on petroleum products of Syrian origin, the fact remains that Syria can scarcely produce enough oil for itself, let alone for export. A Swedish government agency recently concluded that Syria was largely unaffected by the world economic crisis – because it didn't really have an economy.
Of course, in the fantasy of Damascus – where Bashar appears to live in the same "sea of quietness" in which the Egyptian writer Mohamed Heikel believes all dictators breathe – the world goes on as usual. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon – another earth-trembler if ever there was one – no sooner demands an "immediate" end to "all military operations and mass arrests", than dear old Bashar tells him that "military and police action" has stopped."
If that isn't unethical it's hard to know what is
The facts speak for themselves. The "hand" of Wall St., and especially those people at Goldman Sachs - remember, the ones who gave "shitty advice" to their clients before the GFC - at play yet again!
"No matter how bad you think the Republicans are, they can always surprise you by being even worse. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has jurisdiction over regulatory affairs, including of the financial services sector of the economy. He has actually hired a former Goldman Sachs vice-president to work on his staff. That, by itself, would be worrisome. But the man is actually working under an assumed name. When he worked at Goldman Sachs he was known as Peter Simonyi. But, as he was leaving Goldman Sachs in 2009, he adopted his mother's maiden name. Why would someone do that? Why would a grown man change his name?
Initially, he went to work for the law/lobbying firm Brickfield Burchette Ritts & Stone, but as soon as the Republicans retook the House, he was hired to work on Darrell Issa's staff. In that capacity, Peter Simonyi, now known as Peter Haller, began lobbying against new financial regulations concerning collateral requirements for firms who trade in derivatives. One of those firms is Goldman Sachs.
So, in a nutshell, after helping to blow up the global economy and cause mass joblessness and home loss, Goldman Sachs sent a vice-president under an assumed name to work as a lowly congressional staffer on a committee that has oversight of the departments that regulate Goldman Sachs.
Don't tell me that you thought they could be this unethical."
"No matter how bad you think the Republicans are, they can always surprise you by being even worse. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has jurisdiction over regulatory affairs, including of the financial services sector of the economy. He has actually hired a former Goldman Sachs vice-president to work on his staff. That, by itself, would be worrisome. But the man is actually working under an assumed name. When he worked at Goldman Sachs he was known as Peter Simonyi. But, as he was leaving Goldman Sachs in 2009, he adopted his mother's maiden name. Why would someone do that? Why would a grown man change his name?
Initially, he went to work for the law/lobbying firm Brickfield Burchette Ritts & Stone, but as soon as the Republicans retook the House, he was hired to work on Darrell Issa's staff. In that capacity, Peter Simonyi, now known as Peter Haller, began lobbying against new financial regulations concerning collateral requirements for firms who trade in derivatives. One of those firms is Goldman Sachs.
So, in a nutshell, after helping to blow up the global economy and cause mass joblessness and home loss, Goldman Sachs sent a vice-president under an assumed name to work as a lowly congressional staffer on a committee that has oversight of the departments that regulate Goldman Sachs.
Don't tell me that you thought they could be this unethical."
Saturday, August 20, 2011
The increasing creep of surveillance
In his latest op-ed piece "A prime aim of the growing Surveillance State" for Salon, Glenn Greenwald highlights the increasing threat to us all stemming from governments, and others, surveillance.
"This is the point I emphasize whenever I talk about why topics such as the sprawling Surveillance State and the attempted criminalization of WikiLeaks and whistleblowing are so vital. The free flow of information and communications enabled by new technologies -- as protest movements in the Middle East and a wave of serious leaks over the last year have demonstrated -- is a uniquely potent weapon in challenging entrenched government power and other powerful factions. And that is precisely why those in power -- those devoted to preservation of the prevailing social order -- are so increasingly fixated on seizing control of it and snuffing out its potential for subverting that order: they are well aware of, and are petrified by, its power, and want to ensure that the ability to dictate how it is used, and toward what ends, remains exclusively in their hands."
****
"But, in the wake of recent riots in London and throughout Britain -- a serious upheaval to be sure, but far less disruptive than what happened in the Middle East this year, or what happens routinely in China -- the instant reaction of Prime Minister David Cameron was a scheme to force telecoms to allow his government the power to limit the use of Internet and social networking sites. Earlier this week, when San Francisco residents gathered in the BART subway system to protest the shooting by BART police of a 45-year-old man, city officials shut down underground cell phone service entirely for hours; that, in turn, led to hacking reprisals against BART by the hacker collective known as "Anonymous." As the San-Fransisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation put it on its website: "BART officials are showing themselves to be of a mind with the former president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak." Those efforts in Britain and San Fransisco are obviously not yet on the same scale as those in other places, but it illustrates how authorities react to social disorder: with an instinctive desire to control communication technologies and the flow of information."
"This is the point I emphasize whenever I talk about why topics such as the sprawling Surveillance State and the attempted criminalization of WikiLeaks and whistleblowing are so vital. The free flow of information and communications enabled by new technologies -- as protest movements in the Middle East and a wave of serious leaks over the last year have demonstrated -- is a uniquely potent weapon in challenging entrenched government power and other powerful factions. And that is precisely why those in power -- those devoted to preservation of the prevailing social order -- are so increasingly fixated on seizing control of it and snuffing out its potential for subverting that order: they are well aware of, and are petrified by, its power, and want to ensure that the ability to dictate how it is used, and toward what ends, remains exclusively in their hands."
****
"But, in the wake of recent riots in London and throughout Britain -- a serious upheaval to be sure, but far less disruptive than what happened in the Middle East this year, or what happens routinely in China -- the instant reaction of Prime Minister David Cameron was a scheme to force telecoms to allow his government the power to limit the use of Internet and social networking sites. Earlier this week, when San Francisco residents gathered in the BART subway system to protest the shooting by BART police of a 45-year-old man, city officials shut down underground cell phone service entirely for hours; that, in turn, led to hacking reprisals against BART by the hacker collective known as "Anonymous." As the San-Fransisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation put it on its website: "BART officials are showing themselves to be of a mind with the former president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak." Those efforts in Britain and San Fransisco are obviously not yet on the same scale as those in other places, but it illustrates how authorities react to social disorder: with an instinctive desire to control communication technologies and the flow of information."
An Arab Spring coming to India?
India is a country hard to overlook, let alone ignore. After China it has the largest population in the world. And, unlike China, India is a democratic country.
Troubles are brewing in India because of the widespread corruption which is almost a way of life in the country. It is even suggested that India could face its own Arab Spring movement.
"An anti-corruption movement led by a feisty 74-year-old social activist is snowballing into one of the biggest challenges in decades for the ruling Congress party and if not contained risks sparking India's own version of an Arab Spring revolt.
While no one is expecting an Egypt-like overthrow in the world's biggest democracy, a galvanized and frustrated middle class and the mushrooming of social networking sites combined with an aggressive private media may be transforming India's political landscape.
Anna Hazare has quickly become a 21st century Mahatma Gandhi inspiration for millions of Indians fed up with rampant corruption, red tape and inadequate services provided by the state despite the country posting near-double digit economic growth for almost a decade.
"Democracy means no voice, however small, must go unheard. The anti-corruption sentiment is not a whisper-it's a scream. Grave error to ignore it," Anand Mahindra, one of India's leading businessmen and managing director of conglomerate Mahindra Group, wrote on Twitter."
Troubles are brewing in India because of the widespread corruption which is almost a way of life in the country. It is even suggested that India could face its own Arab Spring movement.
"An anti-corruption movement led by a feisty 74-year-old social activist is snowballing into one of the biggest challenges in decades for the ruling Congress party and if not contained risks sparking India's own version of an Arab Spring revolt.
While no one is expecting an Egypt-like overthrow in the world's biggest democracy, a galvanized and frustrated middle class and the mushrooming of social networking sites combined with an aggressive private media may be transforming India's political landscape.
Anna Hazare has quickly become a 21st century Mahatma Gandhi inspiration for millions of Indians fed up with rampant corruption, red tape and inadequate services provided by the state despite the country posting near-double digit economic growth for almost a decade.
"Democracy means no voice, however small, must go unheard. The anti-corruption sentiment is not a whisper-it's a scream. Grave error to ignore it," Anand Mahindra, one of India's leading businessmen and managing director of conglomerate Mahindra Group, wrote on Twitter."
George W Obama?
No comment called for.....any real differences between George Bush and Barack Obama? From TomDispatch:
"Those first acts of that first shining full day in the Oval Office are now so forgotten, but on January 21, 2009, among other things, Barack Obama promised to return America to “the high moral ground,” and then signed a straightforward executive order “requiring that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year.” It was an open-and-shut case, so to speak, part of what CNN called “a clean break from the Bush administration.” On that same day, as part of that same break, the president signed an executive order and two presidential memoranda hailing a “new era of openness,” of sunshine and transparency in government. As the president put it, "Every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known."
Of course, nothing could have been more Bushian, if you were thinking about “clean breaks,” than America’s wars in the Greater Middle East. When it came to the Iraq War, at least, President Obama arrived in office with another goal and another promise that couldn’t have been more open and shut (or so his supporters thought), not just drawing down Bush’s disastrous war in Iraq, but “ending” it “responsibly.” (Admittedly, he was also muttering quietly about “residual forces” there, but who noticed?)
Two and a half years later, Guantanamo remains thrivingly open, while all discussion of ever closing it has long since ended; the administration has, in those same years, gained a fierce reputation as an enforcer of government secrecy and, while it has prosecuted neither torturers, nor financial titans, it has gone after government whistleblowers with a passion. In the meantime, the Iraq War was indeed wound down “responsibly” (which turned out to mean incredibly slowly), but in recent months, as U.S. casualties again rose, the Obama administration and the U.S. military have visibly been in a desperate search for ways to keep sizeable numbers of American forces there as “trainers,” while also militarizing a vast State Department mission in Baghdad and outfitting it for the long haul with more than 5,000 armed mercenaries as well as a mini-air force. "
"Those first acts of that first shining full day in the Oval Office are now so forgotten, but on January 21, 2009, among other things, Barack Obama promised to return America to “the high moral ground,” and then signed a straightforward executive order “requiring that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year.” It was an open-and-shut case, so to speak, part of what CNN called “a clean break from the Bush administration.” On that same day, as part of that same break, the president signed an executive order and two presidential memoranda hailing a “new era of openness,” of sunshine and transparency in government. As the president put it, "Every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known."
Of course, nothing could have been more Bushian, if you were thinking about “clean breaks,” than America’s wars in the Greater Middle East. When it came to the Iraq War, at least, President Obama arrived in office with another goal and another promise that couldn’t have been more open and shut (or so his supporters thought), not just drawing down Bush’s disastrous war in Iraq, but “ending” it “responsibly.” (Admittedly, he was also muttering quietly about “residual forces” there, but who noticed?)
Two and a half years later, Guantanamo remains thrivingly open, while all discussion of ever closing it has long since ended; the administration has, in those same years, gained a fierce reputation as an enforcer of government secrecy and, while it has prosecuted neither torturers, nor financial titans, it has gone after government whistleblowers with a passion. In the meantime, the Iraq War was indeed wound down “responsibly” (which turned out to mean incredibly slowly), but in recent months, as U.S. casualties again rose, the Obama administration and the U.S. military have visibly been in a desperate search for ways to keep sizeable numbers of American forces there as “trainers,” while also militarizing a vast State Department mission in Baghdad and outfitting it for the long haul with more than 5,000 armed mercenaries as well as a mini-air force. "
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