Thousands of figurative tactical errors.
Topic: Bush Administraiton

Boy, whoever thought a U.S. Secretary of State would have so many problems on a visit to our best friend in the world the UK? Condi Rice has been dodging anti-Iraq war protesters from the minute she landed. Jack Straw wanted to give her the royal treatment in his home constituency, but that plan hasn't turned out so well. The British foreign minister's name might not be a household word in Alabama, but an international warmonger like Condi is world famous for the blood on her hands.

A visit to a local mosque in Blackburn was called off on 'fears of an invasion' by anti-war Muslims; a football match she was supposed to attend was rescheduled to avoid her; Paul McCartney declined to meet her and when she went to the school that he attended in Liverpool instead, a half a dozen students lined up at the front door with t-shirts that read, "No torture, no compromise." Protesters outside the school chanted, "Hey, hey, Condi hey, how many kids did you kill today?" [Guardian]

Even a former Foreign Minister under Margaret Thatcher, Lord Hurd, in a speech at the empty football stadium said, "The world only works if the world's only superpower follows the rule like everyone else." Hmmm...I wonder who he was talking about. For her part, Condi said she was used to this sort of thing. "I've see it in every city I visit in the United States." Of course, she's so beloved and so many people support her policies that no matter where she goes at home or abroad she has to avoid massive protests.

I don't know if it was the constant pounding she was taking form the demonstrators or if it was the jet-lag, but at one point in answer to a question about the Iraq war she said the Bush administration had made, "tactical errors, a thousand of them perhaps, I'm sure." But it was all OK she explained because the overall strategy of getting rid of Saddam had worked. "Saddam Hussein wasn't going anywhere without a military intervention," she said. It's nice to see she has such faith in the Iraqi people to take control of their own destinies. (If Daddy Bush hadn't signed off on letting Saddam use his helicopters after he surrendered in the Gulf War maybe they would have had a chance to get rid of him on their own.) Later, one of her spokesman she was only speaking figuratively.

What the hell does that mean? She said her and her buddies had made thousands of tactical errors in a war W. keeps insisting is going great; "lessons learned" and all that, not thousands of tactical errors. It's lucky this bunch wasn't around when we were fighting Hitler. He made thousands of tactical errors, too, and you see where it got him. Unbelievable!

Meanwhile, W. was busy explaining things to the foreign press:

"I'm the funny guy. Go ahead"

Global Warming?

"We -- first of all, there is -- the globe is warming. The fundamental debate: Is it manmade or natural. Put that aside."

Foreign interference in Iraq?

"Syria is a complicated issue because of Lebanon. It's not complicated, actually, it's quite clear what needs to be done." Kaboom!

On remembering history:

"It's what Americans have got to understand. We tend to forget. Ours is a society where things are like instant, so therefore, history almost is like so far back it doesn't count."

On his upcoming visit to the G8 summit in Russia:

"And so I'm pretty confident...that I be in a position where I'm able to walk into the room with the President of Russia and him not throw me out."

Elections in Egypt:

"I appreciate the fact that there were elections in Egypt. That's positive...I think Egypt is a -- has a chance to be one of the leaders of the freedom movement in the Middle East."

[News item: "The Egyptian parliament Tuesday postponed local elections for two years despite opposition from the United States and a leading fundamentalist group, a state-owned newspaper and lawmakers said."

Progress for girls in Afghanistan:

"Afghanistan -- it's obvious -- when you have a society in which young girls weren't allowed to go to school because the Taliban thought it was like against humanity to send girls to school, and now they can, there's an amazing change in that society."

[News itemNews Item: Girls scholl's attacked in Afghanistan]

More figurative tactical errors to come....

More preemption coming.
Topic: Bush Administraiton

The Bush administration is releasing its updated national security strategy plan which advocates preemptive strikes against countries W. & Co. think might be a danger to us at some point in the future. (This is the same kind of loose thinking that led us into Iraq.) This time around, it's Iran in the cross-hairs for "anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's strike." But, of course, this applies to countries with WMD and would only be used as a "last resort." Just like in Iraq, only then it was a first resort. It does say, though, that diplomacy to stop Iran's nuclear enrichment program "must succeed if confrontation is to be avoided," so that's hopeful right? Didn't we try diplomacy on Iraq? No?

The NYT reports that the new document makes "no such direct threat of confrontation with North Korea," which, after all, actually has nukes. Asked about this double standard --- because some think a crazy regime like North Korea with nukes might be more of a danger than a not as crazy that just wants nukes --- National Security Director Steven Hadley said, "the sentence applies to both Iran and North Korea." Right, you can take that to the bank. So watch out Kim Jung-Il, you're still on the list. (But not really)

Of course, we know Iran is a major threat to this country and could pass the "point of no return" within minutes, but North Korea, who actually has WMD and has threatened to use them against us, makes Iran's human rights record look like Denmark's. A new musical, the Yoduk Story, in South Korea about the north's Gulags is stirring up all kinds of controversy, mainly because the government there is trying to make friendly with Kim Jung-Il and doesn't want to offend him. Jung Sung San, the musical's producer, who was sent to a camp for listening to a South Korean radio broadcast, had to actually use one of his kidneys as collateral to get the money to put the show on and still risks losing it if he doesn't make money by the end of the month. This is the lengths this man is willing to go to get the word out about the horrors that go on beyond the DMZ. I'm just wondering where the Bush administration, the great defender of democracy, is on the issue of the perhaps millions of North Koreans who have died under this regime? When you consider how really dangerous North Korea is along their egregious human rights violations compared to Iran, which has elections however flawed, one wonders what is really going on here. (Oh, right, they're a threat to Israel!)

Global warming, not a threat!

This new document says a lot about the major perils of regimes like Iran and Syria (The fact that they're neighbors of Israel is just a coincidence), but nothing at all about global warming. It does say that "new flows of trade, investment, information and technology" are changing national security when it comes to disease and natural disasters, but nothing about global warming. I seem to remember an article in the Observer about a Pentagon report on global warming came out a while back saying that, "Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters," and that, "Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world," but since it didn't mention Israel, I guess, its not that much a threat.

Recalcitrant Persians: 1 U.N.: 0
Topic: Bush Administraiton

The IAEA report on Iran has made its way to the Security Council, but beyond some mild chastisement there's no sign of any "meaningful consequences" being imposed on the recalcitrant Persians, despite Dick Cheney's fevered thundering at the Aipac meeting this week. A draft of the Council's report, which the NYT writes will come out some time next week, says they continue to hope a negotiated solution can be found "that guarantees Iran's nuclear program is for exclusively peaceful purposes." And now the Iranian portfolio goes back to the IAEA which will be asked to report back "within a very short time frame," but doesn't say what that might be.

John Bolton was being characteristically diplomatic yesterday, saying all options are on the table, including the military option. Bolton said the U.S. would "proceed in a deliberate and orderly fashion," but, "how long and to what extent we pursue this in the Council, I think, principally rests in the hands of Iran." So, in other words, we'll give this talking crap a little more time and then we'll lower the boom. (You know, you can't just move a carrier task force or two into position over night.)

Sometimes I wonder who all this saber rattling is really intended to scare; the Iranians or the Russians. In the past few days there have been some rumblings in the Op-Ed pages and in policy circles that maybe Russia isn't such a good friend after all. Those in the administration who are advocating for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian crisis might be running out of time. The idea that we should let the Russians use their leverage with Iran to get them to come around is rapidly losing its cache. Russian Foreign Minister Sergie Lavrov didn't help the Russian position by saying that all the talk about punitive measures reminded him of the run up to the Iraq invasion. "That looks so deja vu. I don't believe that we should be engaging in something that might become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We are convinced there is no military solution to this crisis."

That sort of talk isn't going to go down well in the Oval Office. We've already seen how W. reacts to any point of view that is contrary to his preconceived notions. Whenever Congress gets uppity he threatens vetoes and when it comes to other countries getting the idea they're sovereign nations with their own interests he brings out the big stick. I've heard a lot of speculation that the neocons are on the outs in the administration these days, but judging by the speeches at the Aipac shindig, I don't buy it.

Condi Rice is doing a masterful job of appearing to be the reasonable one in all of this, but she's still the same old "mushroom cloud" lady, pushing the noecon agenda. In front of the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday, while testifying about Iraq, she had the unmitigated gall to say, "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than Iran." (OK, so we screwed the pooch on Iraq, we'll get it right the next time.) Naturally, things are pretty much under control in Iraq, so Iran would have to be the biggest threat we face. The fact that we're still losing 10 or 12 soldiers a week and there are several refrigerator trucks parked behind the Baghdad morgue full of corpses that were piling up on the floors last week because there wasn't enough space to store them, should lead any reasonable person to the conclusion that Iran is a continuing and growing threat.

Rummy's plan for civil war in Iraq:

For his part, Rummy was back in fine fettle assuring Senator Robert Byrd that any money Congress gave to him wouldn't be spent to put our troops "right in the middle of a civil war," as Byrd put it. "The plan is to prevent a civil war, and to the extent one were to occur, to have the --- from a security standpoint --- have the Iraqi security forces deal with it to the extent they're able to." Boy, that's reassuring. There is no civil war right now, "by most experts’ calculations," but if one were to break out, we'd leave it to the security forces; the same security forces who are presently rounding up large numbers of Sunnis and killing them. That's some plan.

Speaking of those security forces: The WaPo got some heat from the pentagon and the Iraqi government a while back when they reported that 1,300 Iraqis had been killed in the week following the Samarra mosque bombing, mainly involving sectarian killings. The Iraqi PM, Ibrahim Jafari, came out and said the actual number was 379 and then the General George Casey backed them up saying the WaPo report was exaggerated and inaccurate. It turns out now that an official in the Health Ministry, who wants to remain unnamed for fear of his life---no doubt afraid of the threat presented by Iran --- says a Sciri official came to the main morgue and ordered "government hospitals and morgues catalogue deaths caused by bombings or clashes with insurgents, but not by execution-style shootings." [WaPo](Gosh, I wonder why?) The U.N. human rights department in Baghdad cooberates this account saying that, "the current acting director is under pressure by the Interior Ministry in order not to reveal such information and to minimize the number of casualties."

So, what does Sciri have to say about this? Sciri spokesman Haitham al-Husseini says, "How can a Sciri official put pressure on authorities or people? I don't expect you can believe such a thing." Of course not, its not like the authorities at the morgue would in any way feel pressured by being knee deep in Sciri's handy work. Husseini adds, "This is part of the campaign that the enemies of Iraq are still trying to lead to confuse the situation." Right, al-Qaeda is suddenly concerned about their public image and is trying to blame all these execution style deaths on the Shiites. That makes sense. Or maybe, the Interior Ministry is trying to hide the fact that they're conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing that they have no intention of stopping until all the Sunnis are either dead or pushed into the deserts of Anbar. Judging by the evidence at hand, and all the bodies, I'd have to go with the latter explanation.

The question is what are we going to do about it? All the hand wringing over what the new government is going to look like or who the PM will eventually wind up being seems somewhat academic at this point. (The elections in December seem like they were a million years ago.) Do we enable the killing by continuing to pretend that we're providing security in order for democracy and rebuilding to flourish or do we extract our troops before they're sucked into the middle of this maelstrom? Only the most deluded supporters of Bush could fail to see there's a full blown war going on. There's a whole new dynamic here and whoever comes out on top, now that this war is engaged, is who will wind up being in charge of Iraq. The only thing we can hope for is that we can somehow maintain some influence in Iraq through the Kurds, who seem to have stayed out of this mess so far. But then again, if they try to take advantage of this war between the Shiites and Sunnis to take over Kirkuk, then all bets are off.

This is a fine mess the Cheney/Rummy cabal has got us into, we'd better attack Iran!

W.s big adventure in India.
Topic: Bush Administraiton

Potus hits the ground running in New Delhi and signs on the dotted line in record time. Now the only problem is getting India's parliament and the U.S. Congress on board. For the Indians, as I understand it, many in the majority and the opposition parties hew to the Nehru policy of nonalignment and knuckling under to international or American interference in their nuclear sphere is a nonstarter. In the U.S., there's much opposition to this new plan based on the idea of not letting every Tom, Dick and Harry have nukes. But don't worry, W. says, this deal will reduce the price of gas. "It's in our economic interests that India have a civilian nuclear power industry to help take the pressure off of the global demand for energy. ... To the extent that we can reduce demand for fossil fuels, it will help the American consumer." (It always comes back to oil, doesn't it.)

That's great, but the next time W. drones on about Iranian and North Korean nukes and what a danger to the civilized world they are, he's going to get India thrown right back in his face. W. says, "times change" and those against this plan have to get over it and move on. Hey, I would be the first one to agree that change is a good thing, but in the realm of international politics and law, I don't think you can just unilaterally bend the rules on the NPT like this and not have it backfire when it comes to trying to convince the rest of the world to go along with you on keeping Iran from having their own civilian nuclear program.

The Pakistan angle:

And what are the Pakistanis going to think about this? W. has just signed off on a deal that says we'll sell their arch rival modern reactor technology, and on top of that, they can hold on to the reactors they've already got, which are busily making plutonium for bombs aimed at Islamabad. And they don't have to comply with any IAEA inspections or anything; such a deal! Whereas we're still punishing Pakistan for their nuclear program, India is getting rewarded for theirs. Pervez Musharraf staged a raid on an al-Qaeda base in Waziristan yesterday, just in time for the big presidential visit; he must be wondering what a tin pot dictator has to do to get little respect.

The China angle:

But don't get the idea that India has all their nukes pointed at Pakistan; China is in the cross-hairs, too. With the help of Israel and all the high tech weaponry we've given them, which they naturally turned around and resold to the rest of the world, India is well on its way to having its Triad of land, sea and air delivery systems. In order to arm this Triad, you've got to figure they've got more than just a few H-bombs to play with. If I were Chinese, I'd be defiantly looking at this new friendship between India and the U.S. with some trepidation and would continue to help Pakistan build even more bombs. Remember, they've got their own issues with India over Kashmir. Gosh, I wonder why the Chinese are so hell bent on building up their military? Are they feeling a bit surrounded these days?

With all the pitfalls of opening the nuclear floodgates in South Asia one wonders what the hell this administration is thinking about. All you have to do is flash a little money in front of this bunch and they'll sell their grandmother. Yes, India is a big and growing market, but couldn't we sell them something other than nuclear power plants? Don't we have anything other than that to sell them? Judging by our trade deficit with them, I guess we really don't. What about those Domino's pizzas W. was talking about?

DP World is just the tip of the iceberg?

Even as W. has got a hard sell in front of him on this India deal, he's got another big problem in Congress, and that's the DP World take over of our ports. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse for the administration, now it turns out that the Anti-Defamation League has a problem with it based on the DP World's parent company, Ports, Customs & Free Trade Zone Corp., enforcement of the Arab League's boycott on Israel.

But don't worry, as W. said the other day while he was feting Silvio Berlusconi (aka Jesus), "If there was any doubt in my mind...that our ports would be less secure and the American people endangered, this deal wouldn't go forward." Just because the 9/11 Commission report found the UAE to be "A persistent counterterrorism problem," I wouldn't take their word over W.'s. If he says there's no doubt in his mind, you can take that to the bank, his judgment up this point has been pretty solid, right?

The WaPo reports the administration is now reviewing whether, "Another Dubai-owned company set to take over plants in Georgia and Connecticut that make precision components used in engines for military aircraft and tanks...[the] secretive Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is investigating the security implications of Dubai International Capital's $1.2 billion acquisition of London-based Doncasters Group Ltd.."

Well, if we're going to turn over our ports to rich Arabs with connections to OBL why not turn over our aerospace industry, too? But to counter the Arabs we'll sell our defense sofware buisness to the Israelis. That ought to play in Peoria, especially in an election year.

An Israeli company, "Check Point's proposed $225 million purchase of Laurel-based Sourcefire raised red flags with government cybersecurity officials...Check Point was built by Gil Shwed, whom Forbes magazine has described as an Israeli billionaire who served in the electronic intelligence arm of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Sourcefire makes network defense and intrusion detection software for an array of customers, including the Defense Department. The company has deep roots in the National Security Agency. Its founder and chief technology officer, Martin Roesch, has served as an NSA contractor. Its vice president of engineering, Tom Ashoff, developed software for the secretive spy agency."

Great now the Isrealis can spy on us too!

W.'s trippin' on India.
Topic: Bush Administraiton

Today, W. is off on his big trip to India and Pakistan. He's bringing a suitcase full of deals that will benefit the U.S. nuclear industry---as if they needed anymore government handouts---but whether he'll be able to get Congress to go along the whole thing is another matter. See, the only little spot of bother with the plan to help India build more nuclear power plants is that W. would be giving them a pass on their bombs in return for buying reactors made in the USA. There is perception of double standards. While we're busy threatening the Iranians on their bomb-making plans, we're signing off on India's. Whereas Iran has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has been playing by the rules, the Indians are a nuclear pariah. Rep. Edward Markey (D.Mass.) spells out what many in Congress feel about this boneheaded policy, "American cannot credibly preach nuclear temperance from a barstool." I thought the whole idea of non-proliferation was...well, non-proliferation. Singling out countries for different treatment based on what kind of money a special interest can make is not a good way to go about reducing our chances of being vaporized. (1)

Of course, I understand our new interest in getting cozy with India, they've got a booming economy and their a potential ally against the Chinese, but enabling their appetite for more nukes doesn't seem like the best strategy in that part of the world. If anything, we should be trying to disarm South Asia. Right now, the Indian government is making kissy faces at Pakistan, but that could change in an instant. As W. said himself, "The world changes. It's never static." Thinking ahead isn't exactly W. & Co.'s strong suit, though, so I shouldn't expect miracles.

And what about the Pakistan leg of the trip, anyway? They've got illicit nukes too, how is W. going to circle that square? (My bet that little inconsistency in our schizophrenic foreign policy won't come up.) Besides showing up for a few minutes to have pictures taken and giving our bastard in Islamabad a 'that-a-boy' for sort of helping out in the 'war on terror,' what advantage do we gain by this visit? You'd think any administration that claimed it was bent on spreading democracy around the world and preventing nuclear proliferation would snob a dictator like Musharraf. At the very least, you would think he would tell Musharraf to stop looking the other way while al-Qaeda and the Taliban conduct their war in Afghanistan right under his nose, but he probably won't. (2) Gosh, that doesn't leave a lot to for W. and Musharraf to discuss over their state dinner, does it? There's always the earthquake relief thing, I guess.

(1) Mohamed ElBaradei warned that 30 countries could have nukes within the next 10 to 20 years if we don't get serious about disarmament and non-proliferation. A world full of nukes, "is the beginning of the end for us," he said back in December. But, of course, he wouldn’t roll over and play dead when Cheney was trying to get everyone to believe Saddam had restarted his nuclear program, so what does he know?

(2) Hamid Karzai visited Pakistan two weeks ago and it was reported that he gave Musharraf evidence that Mullah Omar, among others, was in Pakistan and gave locations of terrorist training camps operating along the border. The AP reported that Pakistani Interior Minister, Aftab Khan Sherpao, said he would capture these Afghani fugitives "if they are here." [Inquirer]

Hey, way to win hearts and minds on the sub-continent!
Topic: Bush Administraiton

Boy, Dubya is in for a real interesting trip...

The WaPo reports: "A decision two weeks ago by a U.S. consulate in India to refuse a visa to a prominent Indian scientist has triggered heated protests in that country and set off a major diplomatic flap on the eve of President Bush's first visit to India.

Goverdhan Mehta said in a written account obtained by The Washington Post that he was humiliated, accused of "hiding things" and being dishonest, and told that his work is dangerous because of its potential applications in chemical warfare. Mehta denied that his work has anything to do with weapons. He said that he would provide his passport if a visa were issued, but that he would do nothing further to obtain the document: 'If they don't want to give me a visa, so be it.'

In his written account, the scientist said that after traveling 200 miles, waiting three hours with his wife for an interview and being accused of deception, he was outraged when his accounts of his research were questioned and he was told he needed to fill out a detailed questionnaire. In his written account, the scientist said that after traveling 200 miles, waiting three hours with his wife for an interview and being accused of deception, he was outraged when his accounts of his research were questioned and he was told he needed to fill out a detailed questionnaire. 'I indicated that I have no desire to subject myself to any further humiliation and asked that our passports be returned forthwith," he wrote. The consular official, Mehta added, "stamped the passports to indicate visa refusal and returned them.'" The State Department says it "regrets" that Mehta was "upset by the visa interview process." That ought to mollify him, right?

Speaking more of W.'s trip to India:

In preparation for his big trip to South Asia W. was trumpeting the wonders of outsourcing yesterday at the Asia Society. [Inquirer] Dubya' said, "It's true that a number of Americans have lost jobs because companies have shifted operations to India. We must also recognize that India's growth is creating new opportunities for our businesses and farmers and workers." They have? Last year the U.S. had a $10.8 billion trade deficit with India. Not to worry, though, W. says, "Younger Indians are acquiring a taste for pizzas from Dominoes Pizza Hut." He probably should have added that they shouldn't expect their pizzas delivered in 30 minutes or less. What the hell is he talking about? Indians eating American junk food is going to restore all the good paying jobs that have evaporated here at home?

And eventhough India now has a middle class of 300,000 people; out numbering the total population of the U.S. they're not making anywhere as much as an American would make for the same work. No doubt, they're making a whole lot more than they could have made a few years ago, but their relatively low wages are dragging down our standard of living. This probably has something to do with why 25 million Americans, mainly working poor, had to go to soup kitchens last year. AP reports, "Those seeking food included nine million children and nearly three million senior citizens, a report from America's Second Harvest says. Ertharin Cousins, executive vice president of the group said, '36 percent of the people seeking food came from households in which at least one person had a job. About 35 percent came from households that received food stamps. 'The benefits they are receiving are not enough,' cousins said."

I can personally attest to that. When my girl friend and I were both suddenly laid off a few years back we had to live on our unemployment, which wasn't anywhere enough to pay the rent and eat too, so we tried to get food stamps but all we qualified for was $20 a month. I can't even imagine how people who are really SOL are supposed to live on what the government barely provides. And this "cost saving" bill Congress just passed that zeroed out a slew of assistance programs is going to make things a lot harder for people who are already down on their luck. Common' Congress, let's get to work on making those tax cuts for the rich permanent! That big windfall for the wealthiest 1% isn't going to trickle down all by itself!

Bush and his tin-ear.
Topic: Bush Administraiton

Well, isn't this Dubai Ports World story just typical of the Bush administration? Just as they thought they were getting everybody's mind off Cheney shooting a lawyer, here comes this. Of course, it's SOP for Bush & Co. do things without telling anyone, but the political tin-ear on this one is truly mind boggling. I think Congress has finally had enough of this administration sort of operating its own government out of sight of anyone else. Last time I checked there were two other branches.

W. can't understand why everyone is so exercised about this. "I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a [British] company," he says.

Geez, W. do you really need it explained to you? In a post 9/11 world like you're always reminding us, you don't turn over port operations in 6 of your most strategic ports to a country that supplied 2 of the 9/11 hijackers and gives a wink and a nod to the Taliban. It may be all much to do about nothing, but the political perception is more important. Imagine what all those pooor republican representivies with tough elections in their districts this year are thinking!

Man, what a mess W.'s handlers have got him into. They've got every governor from New York to Maryland, both democrats and republican, up in arms and filing law suits and Congress has finally emerged from their long slumber to directly challenge our "unitary executive." Bill Frist and Dennis Hastert are threatening to pass legislation to block the sale and in characteristic fashion our gun slinging president has threated a veto. "If they pass a law, I'll deal with it, with a veto." Yeah, you'll deal with it alright, right after the veto is overturned, because I think the votes are there. But that was yesterday, before they could tell W. what to say. Today, Scott McClellan, "the Oracle," said, "we probably should have briefed members of Congress about it sooner." Oh, you think?

But not to worry, McClellan says, "The president made sure to check with all the Cabinet secretaries that are part of this process, or whose agencies or departments are part of this process. He made sure to check with them - even after this got more attention in the press - to make sure that they were comfortable with the decision that was made." But after the fact, because he didn't find out about this until the deal had already gone through, so what difference does it make whether he's satisfied with the procesS? He was satisfied with the jobs George Tenet and Michael Brown did too.

What I don't get about this whole thing is that the government of Dubai won't be in charge of security at these ports, yet there were extra steps taken to make sure everything was on the up and up. McClellan says, "The Coast Guard and the Customs and Border Patrol remain in charge of our security. The Coast Guard remains in charge of physical security."

But last night on the NewsHour Clay Lowery, a lower rung treasury official said, they took evxtra time to go over this "transaction." "We went well beyond that 30-day transaction, and this company, we actually gave extra scrutiny, and the Department of Homeland Security actually worked with the company on creating an arrangement so that to enhance the security apparatus that we already have in place with this company because, as I said earlier, it is one that we have built up a track record with."

So, if it's really no big deal, why all the special attention? I mean, here we have David Sanborn who heads DP World's European and Latin American operations being nominated to head the the U.S. Maritime Administration, he should know whether DP World are straight shooters or not, right? Maybe, congress should have a nice long chat with Mr. Sanborn. The timing does seem a little strange, but that's business as usual in Dubya' Land. Not to fear, though, White House spokesman Trent Duffy says, "we're told he had nothing to do with the transaction." There you have it...Scooter Libby had nothing to do with the Plame leak and David Sanborn, who just happens to work for DP World and is being given the job of overseeing the ports and it's all just a funny coincidence.

Cheney and Abu Ghraib.
Topic: Bush Administraiton

Dick Cheney emerged from his lair today and admitted to Brit Hume of FOXNEWS in a hard hitting interview that the shooting of his friend a Texas lawyer was his fault. "You can't blame anybody else. Ultimately, I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend...The image of him falling is something that I'll never be able to get out of my mind. I fired and there's Harry falling. And it was ... one of the worst days of my life at that moment," Cheney said.

Interesting how he qualifies that by saying, "at that moment." He's over it, I guess, now it's back to screwing up the country. Asked if it was the right thing to do to leave it up to Katarine Armstrong (who's mother got him hhired at Halliburton) to inform the American public that the vice president shot someone, he gave no ground (even if it means setting Scott McClellan up for more abuse).

"I thought that was the right call. I still do," Cheney said. "I had no press person with me .... I was there on a private weekend with friends." [Reuters] He has no press person with him? What the hell kind of lame excuse it that?

Also, talking to FOX, Cheney said he had authority to declassify information. In response to a question about "Scooter" Libby saying his "superiors" had OK'd him leaking info from an NIE about Iraqi weapons capability, Shooter said, "There is an executive order that specifies who has classification authority and obviously focuses first and foremost on the president but also includes the vice president...I've certainly advocated declassification and participated in declassification decisions."

The WaPo: Cheney was referring to an executive order on classification of information first signed by President Bill Clinton in 1995. In March 2003, just days after ordering U.S. troops into Iraq, President Bush amended order to, among other things, give the vice president the same classification power as the president."

[see moreon Cheney at Non Sum Dignus]

Limited and targeted spying?

The WaPo reports:

"The National Counterterrorism Center maintains a central repository of 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects or people who allegedly aid them, a number that has more than quadrupled since the fall of 2003, according to counterterrorism officials.

Timothy Sparapani, legislative counsel for privacy rights at the American Civil Liberties Union, says 'We have lists that are having baby lists at this point; they're spawning faster than rabbits. If we have over 300,000 known terrorists who want to do this country harm, we've got a much bigger problem than deciding which names go on which list. But I highly doubt that is the case.'"

The WaPo article goes on to say:

"Its [NCTC]central database is the hub of an elaborate network of terrorism-related databases throughout the federal bureaucracy. Terrorism-related names and other data are sent to the NCTC under standards set by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 6, signed by President Bush in September 2003, according to a senior NCTC official. The directive calls upon agencies to supply data only about people who are "known or appropriately suspected to be . . . engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism. 'We work on the basis that information reported to us has been collected in accordance with those guidelines,' Vice Adm. John Scott Redd, the center's director, said in a statement."

Well, that's reassuring. I'm sure those several hundred thousand names are all legitimately dangerous terrorists and not anti-war protesters that demonstrate outside military facilities and Halliburton HQ, or anything like that.

On the torture front:

While the government is busy reading our email and listening in on our conversations and making little lists of who's naughty and nice, Abu Ghraib has reared its ugly head again.

The NYT reports: "An Australian television network broadcast [The SBS] today previously unseen pictures of Iraqi prisoners being abused by American soldiers." Of course, the pentagon says there nothing new here, everything has already been investigated and 'we nailed those two dozen Pfcs to the wall.'

"The State Department legal adviser, John B. Bellinger 3d, noted that, following the instances of abuse in late 2003 and their disclosure early in 2004, there had been numerous public investigations, prosecutions and internal reviews. 'And it's unfortunate, in fact, that these photographs are coming out further and fanning the flames,' Mr. Bellinger said, referring to the Australian broadcast."

Yes, blame the messenger, that's it! I think it's pretty likely most Iraqis haven't forgotten about Abu Ghraib, but the reminder that there really hasn't been an independent investigation into who really ordered the stuff that went on there is timely. (That's what's really eating the pentagon.)

Oddly, the photos that the SBS showed were the same ones the ACLU has been trying to get the government to give up for quite a while.

The SBS reports says, "The latest photographs reveal further abuse including new incidents of killing, torture and sexual humiliation, the program’s producers said. Dateline said the photos are the subject of a legal battle in the United States. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been granted access to the photographs under Freedom of Information provisions, but the US government is currently appealing the decision."

Abu Ghraib: Jihad University:

Meanwhile, the boneheaded decision to use Abu Ghraib, Saddam's notorious torture prison, in the first place is being compounded by squeezing Iraqis in there like sardines.

NYT: American commanders in Iraq are expressing grave concerns that the overcrowded Abu Ghraib prison has become a breeding ground for extremist leaders and a school for terrorist foot soldiers. 'Abu Ghraib is a graduate-level training ground for the insurgency,' said an American commander in Iraq."

It seems that since we've stopped turning over Iraqis we capture to the Iraqi interior ministry because of their little torture and killing problem, the American military prisons have become even more over crowed than they were before. [Iraqi death squad caught in the act.BBC]

"The overall detainee population stood at 14,767 this week, an increase from 10,135 in June 2005 and a significant jump even from the end of December, when the number stood at 14,055, according to American military statistics. Abu Ghraib held 4,850 detainees as of Jan. 31, a steep increase from 3,563 last June but a slight dip from 4,924 in late December."

Amazingly, some officers are actually saying we might want to differentiate between those who just get caught up in sweeps and those that are really dangerous. Imagine that!

"These decisions have to be intelligence driven, on holding those who are extreme threats or who can lead us to those who are," another American officer in Iraq said. 'We don't want to be putting everybody caught up in a sweep into Jihad University.'"

Too late.

More torutre news:

You know, Guantanmao is really a big time black eye for the US. But, what to do? If you let those 500 or so guys out, they're going to start spouting all this stuff about being tortured, which naturally are all lies. All a-Qaeda types are instructed to say they were tortured so you can't believe any of it.

Today, the long awaited UN Human Rights report came out and says "The United States government should close the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities without further delay."

The NYT: "In a response included in an appendix to the 54-page report, the United States noted that the investigators had turned down an invitation to visit Guantanamo Bay, and it rejected the findings and faulted the investigators for using selective information to support their conclusions. The investigators declined to go to the camp after being told that they would be denied the opportunity to interview detainees."

There isn't much point in going if you can't talk to the detainees, but never mind about all that, everybody knows the UN Human Rights commission is full of anti-American types.

So, if the FBI sees torture taking place at Gitmo, they must be involved in some turf war with the pentagon or something.

CNN: A memo from a senior FBI counterterrorism official has outlined three alleged cases of abuse in 2002 that FBI agents had become aware of while serving at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base prison. The complaints included allegations of a female interrogator grabbing a detainee's genitals and bending back his thumbs and a prisoner being gagged with duct tape. Another complaint talked of a dog being used to intimidate a prisoner and jailers subjecting the same prisoner to what the FBI official called "intense isolation" in a "cell that was always flooded with light."

All made up, it didn't happen!

No quail is safe around Dick Cheney.
Topic: Bush Administraiton

On Saturday, Dick Cheney, "a practiced hunter," managed to shoot a prominent Austin lawyer at a ranch in Texas. Katharine Armstrong the owner of the ranch where the vice-president was hunting said the lawyer, Harry Whittington, was "sprayed---peppered...on his right side, on part of his face, neck, shoulder and rib cage." According to the NYT, Cheney was "shooting a 28-gauge shotgun" at a covey of quail when Whittington appeared about 30 feet in front of him, right in the line of fire. Armstrong explained that "A shotgun sprays a bunch of little bitty pellets; it’s not a bullet involved." Of course, that's what hunting is all about, splattering as many quail as possible with "little bitty pellets." If Cheney had been using bullets he might have missed.

Immediately after gunning down Whittington, Cheney's ran right up to him and, Armstrong says, "made sure his detail was totally focused on him." It's lucky for Whittington that the U.S. secret service was there to make sure he got immediate medical aid and got a helicopter ride, courtesy of the US taxpayer, to the hospital. When all the excitement was over with, "The rest of the party had dinner, and Mr. Cheney, who had flown to Texas on Friday, departed on Sunday." Boy that was a close one; imagine if Darth had actually been a good shot and had killed the guy!

"Today, White House press secretary Scott McClellan declined to comment on the vice-president's killing of a prominent lawyer in a hunting accident in Texas. McClellan said his office 'Didn't comment while investigations were on-going.' NRA president Charlton Heston decried those who are calling for Cheney to resign and defended the vice-president's right to bare arms. Heston said, 'These communists and fellow travelers will not take away our rights to self defense nor will they succeed in taking that gun out of Harry Whittington’s cold dead hands!' GOP lawmakers quickly came to Cheney's defense accusing Democrats of being soft on crime laws and called for investigation into who first reported the story in the press. Kansas Senator Pat Roberts complained that the leaking of information about the whereabouts of the vice-president could have, 'tipped al-Qaeda off to the location of the man who is heartbeat away from the presidency.'"

For some reason no one found out about this for about 24-hours afterwards because Cheney's office didn't bother to tell the press. Cheney's press spokesperson Lea Ann McBride explained, "We deferred to the Armstrongs regarding what had taken place on their ranch." That makes sense, it's only the vice-president of the United States that shot someone, just another hunting accident among many. The liberal media is blowing this all out of proportion and OBL is having a big laugh at our expense.

Bruce Bartlett: Turncoat.

Elisabeth Bumiller writes in the NYT today on an upcoming book written by Bruce Bartlett, a former domestic policy aid in the Reagan administration and assistant treasury secretary under Bush Sr. The book, "Imposter: Why George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy," really rips into Bush accusing him of being a "pretend conservative" and compares him to Nixon "a man who used the right to pursue his agenda." The book due out on Feb. 28, also criticizes Bush & Co. of "an anti-intellectual distrust of facts and analysis" and an obsession with secrecy. Bartlet said in an interview with the Times that, "The Clinton people were vastly more open and easier to deal with and, quite frankly, a lot better on the issues."

Shocking! Up until last October Bartlett was working for a think tank called the NationalCenter for Policy Analysis, but he was let go after one too many anti-administration opinion pieces. You know, think-tanks are those places were real academic integrity emanates, not like today's universities where liberal fascism abounds. Some have said right wing think tanks produce opinions and facts based on how much they get paid, but that could not be further from the truth. Bartlett provided an email sent to him by Jeanette Goodman, the vice president of the think tank that fired him which said, "100K is off the table if you do another 'dump Cheney' column and 65K donor is having a rebuttal done, in a national magazine, to your attack on the fair tax people so that 65K may be gone also. Do you have any idea where I could raise that amount quickly?" See, that's academic integrity if I ever saw it. David Horowitz is right!

In response to Bartlett's criticism that Bush is bankrupting the government, Scott McClellan, the "Oracle," says, "Spending is coming under control. The president put forward the most disciplined non-security discretionary proposal since the Reagan era." Soon, ketchup will become a vegetable once more!

FDA thinks Seniors might be redundant:

One of the 141 non-security related programs on Bush's target list is food for poor seniors. Bush wants to dump the Comodity Supplemental Food Program which costs the government a whopping $111million a year and, if cut, will make a huge dent in that trillion dollar defect. (Hell, $111 million is a weeks worth of body guard money for Ahmad Chalabi.) The program provides boxes of food to churches and senior centers for distribution to "half a million poor people," according to the AP. "Kate Coler, the USDA's deputy undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, said the department believes it can serve people more efficiently through food stamps and the Woman, Infants and Children program. 'It's really a duplicative program,' she said of CSFP" [AP]

Right, just like the cuts W. called for in last year's budget like the program to get kids to be more physically fit. The WaPo reported Feb 12, 2005:

"Despite the national rise in child obesity, the White House wants to eliminate a $59 million media campaign to encourage children ages 9 to 13 to be more physically active, judging it redundant given similar drives by Nickelodeon and the Disney channel." See, the private sector can do all these things much more efficiently. In fact, just think about all the perfectly good food Burger King and McDonald’s throws out in their dumpsters, couldn't seniors just hang around them at trash time? Or maybe, Cheney and friends could donate some of the quails they kill, grandma can just spit out those little bitty pellets. We are talking about the "greatest generation," after all, they got through one depression and they can get through another. Doesn't anybody understand we're in a war here!

Katrina whitewash?

The all Republican 11-member select committee on Katrina is coming out this Wednesday with thier report on the failures of the government to do anything about the disaster until it was too late. The Senate is still working on their investigation, but the House was tough on everybody, from the local authorities to the federal government. Oddly, even though everybody is to blame but no one should be fired.

Michael Chertoff, who should be #1 on the list to be fired, was only partly to blame for not making timely reports to his superiors. DHS, the draft report says, 'Failed to anticipate the likely consequences of the storm and procure the buses, boats and aircraft that were ultimately necessary to evacuate the flooded city prior to Katrina's landfall." No biggie.

The White House gets off pretty easy, too, but that's not a big surprise since they hardly provided any records of what went on at Crawford during W.'s vacation. For their part, they're ready to move on into the future and continue their good work for the American people. Allen Abney, a White House spokesman, says W. has "full confidence" in his staff at DHS. "The president is less interested in yesterday and more interested with today and tomorrow, so that we can be better prepared for next time." Right, because there's no use in looking too closely at this major screw up to see what went wrong. [Except in the case of not telling the press about Whittington getting shot in which case McClellan says, “I think you can always look back at these issues and look at how to do a better job,”.]

The GAO report on Katrina faulted Chertoff and Brownie for failing to provide a crucial "leadership role during hurricane Katrina." This void, "serves to underscore the immaturity of and weaknesses relating to the current national response framework." [Inquirer]David Walker, the GAO Comptroller General wrote, "no one was designated in advance to lead the overall federal response in anticipation of the event despite clear warning from the National Hurricane Center." James Lee Witt, former FEMA director under Clinton blames Chertoff for marginalizing FEMA within DHS and creating a chain of command that was fragmented. "It was not only leadership, but it was minimizing the capability of FEMA." The report goes on to say Chertoff, "designated Hurricane Katrina as an incident of national significance on August 30, the day after landfall. However, he did not designate the storm as a catastrophic event, which would have triggered additional provisions of the National Response Plan, calling for a more proactive response. As a result, the federal posture generally was to wait for the affected states to request assistance."

See, he really didn't understand what the law said and adding insult to injury he let Michael Brown go over his head to the White House and did nothing about it nor did he even appear to care. I don't know, Michael Chertoff is a slam dunk for a medal pinning from W.

W. and making up phoney excuses to go to war.
Topic: Bush Administraiton

Man, what's with all this wackiness over some cartoons? Even the Indonesians are losing their stuff over this!

The problem with these cartoons according to Deutsche Welle reports is that, "Among the 12 caricatures, one shows Mohammed with a bomb-shaped turban; another depicts him as a wild-eyed, knife-wielding Bedouin flanked by two women shrouded in black. In Islam, depicting the Prophet Mohammed is tantamount to blasphemy."

Of course, its only blasphemy if the person who believes in the religion actually draws the cartoons, right? It's ironic that after all the worries over Hamas and their religious fervor it turns out it's Fatah's militant wing that has gone the craziest over this:

"Earlier in the day, two armed groups, the Popular Resistance Committee and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, had threatened to harm Danes, French and Norwegians in the Palestinian territories after newspapers in France and Norway opted to reprint the Danish cartoons.

'Every Norwegian, Dane and Frenchman in our country is a target,' said the Popular Resistance Committee and the radical Al-Aqsa brigades. If the three countries in question don't shut down their offices and consulates in the Palestinian territories, "we won't hesitate to destroy them.'"

In contrast Hamas leaders called ro calm!

See Nobody's Business for a much better discussion of this than I can offer, plus some of the cartoons.

Bush and Blair try to provoke war:

While everyone is preoccupied with this very silly religious nonsense, The Independent reports today:

George Bush considered provoking a war with Saddam Hussein's regime by flying a United States spyplane over Iraq bearing UN colours, enticing the Iraqis to take a shot at it, according to a leaked memo of a meeting between the US President and Tony Blair.

Mr Bush said: "The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach."

He added: "It was also possible that a defector could be brought out who would give a public presentation about Saddam's WMD, and there was also a small possibility that Saddam would be assassinated." The memo damningly suggests the decision to invade Iraq had already been made when Mr Blair and the US President met in Washington on 31 January 2003 when the British Government was still working on obtaining a second UN resolution to legitimize the conflict.

Hmmm. you think? Of course, this 'he's shooting at our planes' excuse is nothing new. In the Downing Street Memo there's reference to "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime by bombing runs back when the memo was written on July 23, 2002.

What's new about this is that W. actually thought about surreptitiously sending a plane with UN colors and risk a pilot being shot down to have an excuse to start a war.

That's pretty amazing...and impeachable, I think.