Obama's Lies…Lead to Cheney in Iowa?

One Middle East analyst interviewed in connection with Obama's Nobel Prize award ceremony this month said that despite his good intentions, Obama hasn't accomplished much as far as resolving crises, especially on the Israeli Palestinian issue.

Good intentions? I suspect that we're beginning to see that not only are the outcomes on so many crucial issues the opposite of what we would wish, but we're beginning (we latecomers) to be forced to conclude that the intentions were not what we imagined.

Which brings us to the question of presidential lying.

All presidents lie, it comes with the territory.

Yet we wonder if  BHO’s lying is perhaps among the worst in post war history, up there with LBJ, Nixon, Reagan and Bush-Cheney?

At least with Bush Jr there was something good-natured with his lies in the sense that his pronouncements weren't intended to be taken seriously – except as media fodder. He and Cheney couldn't care less that their political opponents knew they were lying. What was important to them was their power to pursue their agenda. And as for their supporters, the regime's real agenda was always clear and the lies were viewed simply as the necessary cover story. 

The difference with Obama is that he's lying to his base, intending to fool us -- perhaps less and less successfully after about a year -- into thinking that he’s on our side. 

It would seem that the difference between Obama's rhetoric and the agenda he's pursuing, -- replicating and consolidating the worst policies inherited from the most criminal regime in U.S. history -- contributes to his falling popularity and makes him a potentially weak candidate in 2012. Perhaps that is why Art Cullen, editor of The Storm Lake (Iowa) Times is predicting that “Cheney Will Visit Iowa.” According to Cullen:

       Cheney thinks Obama is a pipsqueak and that he can beat him. Most important, Cheney believes in his bad ideas and is perfectly willing to run on them.         http://www.populist.com/09.22.artcullen.html

 We're fortunate to live in an age that has produced the first Black president, and a smart, eloquent one at that. But it appears that we're just as unlucky that our first minority president has turned out to be some combination of too young and inexperienced and too feckless to rise to the challenge of providing us with the leadership so desperately needed. 

Is the US Behind the Somali Pirates?

Is the U.S. behind the Somali pirates?



Dr Kadem al Mussawi from Lebanon suggested a “conspiracy theory” on Lebanon TV, broadcast on the Mosaic News of the Middle East program on Link TV 12.3.08 regarding possible US and NATO support of the Somali pirates.

Dr Mussawi noted that the U.S. has a large naval presence in the area and gave the example that the Cole was harbored in the Yemeni port of Aden when it was bombed in 2000. He wondered why the strong U.S. naval forces in the area haven't been able to control the Somali pirates. He argued that the US, acting perhaps in concert with NATO and other forces could stop the piracy if they wanted to.

Dr Mussawi pointed out that the Somali pirate activity was completely halted by the Islamic Courts government that was in power for several months in 2006 before they were overthrown by the U.S. acting in concert with Ethiopia.

Dr Mussawi gave several high profile examples of recent piracy including a Ukrainian ship carrying arms, a Saudi Ship carrying oil and an Iranian ship carrying wheat and wondered whether there could be a political element involved. Dr Mussawi wondered if the U.S. was implementing a siege of selected countries by means of recruiting the Somali pirates.

Ronald

E.L. Doctorow: Two mayoral terms are enough for Michael Bloomberg

I had forgotten what a pleasure it was to read such clear and pointed prose from a master writer. Also I have to compliment the NY Daily News for including some leftist views. I guess they realize it's also good business.
Here's a line from Doctorow's op ed that caught my eye:

[McCain], in his cynical choice of a running mate displayed a contempt for the citizenry that verges on nihilism...

Yes, we've seen plenty of nihilism over the last 8 years. Readers will be familiar with the argument in this space that it's been all nihilism all the time, with the 9/11 terror attacks as exhibit #1.
And on the same theme:
Is it fair to place a municipal matter in a national setting? I think it is. The imperial arrogance of the White House - its secrecy, its mendacity, its subversion of the Constitution - has created a culture of faux democracy.

Just two points that Doctorow leaves out, the first not mentioned anywhere I've seen so far: Bloomberg's distaste, shall we say, for public education. The biggest disaster of a third term will be the consolidation of his public school depradations. He and Chancellor Joel Klein have done everything they could under the circumstances to undermine public education, with their brutal testing and grading programs, their arbitrary decisions, their constant reorgainizations. As part of their attack, they have shut out input from parents, and have it would seem deliberately thrown millions and tens of millions (and more?) down the toilet in no bid contracts to outside consultants. Who knows how many more crimes would be revealed by those who have been their victims?
The other obvious point which Doctorow didn't have time to mention is the natural corruption that seeps in willy nilly to virtually all regimes that go on at length.
Ronald
***

NY Daily News
Why two terms is enough for Mayor Mike Bloomberg
BY E.L. DOCTOROW

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/10/12/2008-10-12_why_two_terms_is_enough_for_mayor_mike_b-2.html?print=1&page=all

Sunday, October 12th 2008, 4:00 AM

Mayor Bloomberg wants another term. He's been a good mayor and perhaps we should give it to him. Not that he's asking us: We've been snookered - we who have in two mass participatory plebiscites expressed our wishes for a two-term limit. He's done an end-around to the City Council.

It's hard to believe Council members would vote against a measure that would allow them to extend their own terms of office. All they have to do is raise their hands when the appropriate bill is introduced and, presto, from 26 to 50 "ayes" will have superseded the emphatic votes of a city's population.

Of course there will be a campaign and presumably the voters will then decide if Bloomberg should be elected for a third term. On the other hand, no one who runs against him will have $80 million of discretionary income to run with. So that's a problem.

The mayor has intended to have another four years in office for some time. His rationale now is the economic crisis that has cut like a scythe across the land and, incidentally, frightened many influential people in this city into backing his move. They will say, correctly, that he is possessed of a superb business mind, that he understands the complexities of city government, and that if anyone can see the city through this economic crisis, he can. They will also say that he has been a good and fair mayor, and that he has run the city wisely and well. I am happy to agree. He has made one or two mistakes - his Police Department's arrest of some 1,800 protesters, and of people just standing around, during the Republican convention of 2004, seemed a graceless effort to quash peaceable dissent. And then there was the proposed football stadium in Manhattan. Over all, though, he has done well, and with a calm and friendly personal style that is a marked improvement over the dispiriting authoritarian tendencies of his predecessor.

But after eight years of a national administration's monumental indifference to the rule of law, this is not the time to chip away another chunk of the tablets of our democracy. Is it fair to place a municipal matter in a national setting? I think it is. The imperial arrogance of the White House - its secrecy, its mendacity, its subversion of the Constitution - has created a culture of faux democracy.

Surely no honest public figure who loves this country would want to further that culture. However reasonable and practical it would seem to give Bloomberg his wish for another term, in the context of a national election, in which the Republican candidate has, in his cynical choice of a running mate displayed a contempt for the citizenry that verges on nihilism, the mayor of our greatest city has the opportunity to proclaim his belief in the primacy of the electorate by accepting the will of the people and stepping down.

When politicians leave office, they set about writing their memoirs. If the mayor opted for this I would be happy to recommend a top editor to see him through the process. But that would not offer him the opportunity as a private citizen to put to use his considerable knowledge of the workings of our city.

So here is my suggestion: By virtue of his successful tenure, and of the good will and the respect he has earned, he has the power to convene the great sources of private wealth in this city, along with its enormous intellectual resources, to create a synergetic social organization designed to solve problems and fund the solutions on the model of President Bill Clinton's Global Initiative - a Bloomberg Municipal Initiative, combining ideas and investment to lift the boroughs' struggling populations, and to do for the city's social services, its educational needs, and its infrastructure, what the city may, for a while, be unable to do for itself.

If the mayor has in mind a future in politics, nothing is more likely to give him a national platform. And there will always be time to write his memoirs.

Doctorow is the author of "Ragtime," "Billy Bathgate" and "The March," among other novels. He lives in Manhattan.

Republican's (temporarily) to the rescue + Moshe Adler on toxic $700 B pill

Counterpunch continues to publish some of the best analysis I've seen:
Here's Moshe Adler on why Bush $700 B bailout is, surprise, surprise, exactly the wrong medicine.

And the claim that the credit system is clogged is not true because there is no object that can be removed in order to clear it. What is true is that the securities that Wall Street invented are toxic. But this is precisely why they should remain where they belong, in the vaults of those who created and pushed them. Otherwise they will poison the rest of us, the poorest among us the most.

There is no doubt that economic uncertainty leads to low investments and low borrowing. There is also no doubt that mortgage-based-securities are partially responsible for this uncertainty, although the rising price of oil plays an important role as well. But, as Keynes pointed out during the Great Depression, nobody knows how to restore lenders and investors? confidence once it has been lost. And, in all likelihood, passing the mortgage backed security to the government will decrease, not increase, this confidence.

Thank goodness there's been at least a delay. The worst part is that the Democrats were all too ready to sign on the dotted line no matter how malevolent the pill; and it's the Republicans who stopped it. Does this mean I need to vote Republican? After all we vote our pocketbooks, and they, temporarily at least, saved my pocketbook!!?? What is going on??

The great fear of course is that Bush and Cheney will do what's necessary to get the rebels back on board and the monster will go forward this weekend.

Adler continues with what will happen when the toxic baby is born.

If the government acquires these securities, it will be left to a government employee (or, more likely, to a private contractor) to decide when ?the price is right? to sell them. But the volume of these securities is fantastically large, and nobody knows how to price them anyway. The effect on financial markets will be colossal. Business schools will start teaching new courses devoted to predicting the behavior of this bureaucrat. New financial instruments will be invented to take advantage of this new "expertise." The government employee herself will either succumb, or be accused of succumbing, to an overwhelming temptation to sell the old-new securities for prices that will benefit those closest to her. The calls to regulate the new-new securities and to monitor the government employee in charge of selling the old-new securities will be deafening. The level of economic uncertainty will increase many times over, and unemployment will increase along with it.

Read more:
www.counterpunch.org

September 26, 2008
Return to Trickle Down
Bailing Out Wall Street Won't Save Main Street

By MOSHE ADLER


PS: Here’s Bush on the economy [if he doesn’t get his $700 B added to the national debt].
“This sucker’s going down.”
Isn’t it clear that that’s exactly what he wants?

Michael Hudson: $700 Billion (with a B) Giveaway Insanity + Update + Michael Collins

Here's Michael Hudson's analysis. Quoting the Financial Times, he writes:

“The simplest way to recapitalize institutions,” He concludes, is “by forcing them to raise equity and halt dividends. If that did not work, there could be forced conversions of debt into equity. The attraction of debt-equity swaps is that they would create losses for creditors, which are essential for the long-run health of any financial system.” This is the key: if debts cannot be paid, then creditors must take losses.


That's the point, to recapitalize institutions, so that they can resume lubricating the economy with their loans. The Bush plan, the only one on the table, is not meant to do this, and if any recapitalization happens, it's marginal and by the way. The main point is to throw money down the toilet bowl, as they did/are doing in Iraq, and if some of it goes into the pockets of their cronies, their base, that's well and good. But their main objective is to destroy, and once again, they've cleverly forced Congress and Obama (advised by Robert Rubin) to go along with it.
(Latest sound bite: Schumer wants it done today.)
Ronald


From
The Big Bank Job
The Insanity of the $700 Billion Giveaway
September 25, 2008
www.counterpunch.org

By MICHAEL HUDSON
(excerpts)

As Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf noted on Wednesday, Sept. 24, the problem is that the face value of mortgage loans and a raft of other bad loans far exceeds current market prices or prices that are likely to be realized this year, next year or the year after that. They are packaged into what the financial press rightly calls “toxic.” The bailout is not efficient, he writes, “because it can only deal with insolvency by buying bad assets at far above their true value, thereby guaranteeing big losses for taxpayers and providing an open-ended bail-out to the most irresponsible investors.” “The simplest way to recapitalize institutions,” He concludes, is “by forcing them to raise equity and halt dividends. If that did not work, there could be forced conversions of debt into equity. The attraction of debt-equity swaps is that they would create losses for creditors, which are essential for the long-run health of any financial system.” This is the key: if debts cannot be paid, then creditors must take losses.

These bad loans are toxic because they can only be sold at a loss – if at all, because foreign investors no longer trust the U.S. investment bankers or money managers to be honest. That is the problem that Congress is not willing to come out and face. Many of these loans are outright fraudulent. And they are being sold by crooks. Crooks who work for banks. Crooks who use accounting fraud – such as the fraud that led to the firing of Maurice Greenberg at A.I.G. and his counterparts at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other companies engaging in Enron-type accounting.

Read more:
www.counterpunch.org

***

We’re done for. They’re determined to get it done this week or weekend, It’s going to be $700 billion. Will it include immunity? Any Congressional oversight will be meaningless – Bush would veto anything useful. It’s clearly going to do long term harm which is the point. Cheney and Bush are already chortling over another trillion added to the national debt. ( At the G8 Climate Summit in Japan in July, Bush joked to fellow leaders: “Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter.”)


One question is whether the bailout of the criminals will do any short term good.

The only possible silver lining is that McCain’s attempt at a bum rush into passing this thing may backlash.



But we’ve got to concede that they have handled this public relations job with malevolent brilliance. McCain’s numbers had been tanking -–who knows if this will stop the slide temporarily or not. But their main objective, to destroy the economy, to force Congress into doing the worst possible thing, barring some miracle, will have been accomplished. And this despite the whole country’s desperate anger over such a giveaway to the villains. Even worse, the Democrats and Obama are going to be seen as enablers at the very least.
Ronald


**

Here's Michael Collins
Stunning ripoff isn't it. They threaten us with deprivation, then demand $700 billion. Who do they think they're kidding.
Peace, Michael Collins
The Money Party (7):


Bailout Blackmail - Just Say No!
By Michael Collins
Thursday, 25 September 2008,Wash. DC

We're being blackmailed into accepting the responsibility and debt for the worst managed financial institutions in the history of this country. The starting price, our debt, is $700 billion dollars.
What's really about to happen is that the failed financial institutions will be rewarded for their bad behavior. As a result, they and others will be encouraged to do it again. It's just a matter of time.
Link @ "Scoop": http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0809/S00311.htm
This article may be copied in whole or part with attribution of authorship, a link to this article, and acknowledgment for any images used.

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Democrats Supporting $700 Billion Bailout + Update

9.23.08
I write this as I'm watching the Senate hearings on Federal Intervention in Financial Markets: the 700 Billion bailout -- mostly with the sound off, noting from time to time the captions…I also watched much of the coverage of the issue including interviews with Republican Senator Kyle and Democrat Chris Dodd on the PBS news hour yesterday.

It doesn’t seem that hard to read between the lines. Pelosi and Dodd are supporting the President. Reid seems to be wavering about whether or not to put up a fight. My guess is that Bush has the votes to push it through both Houses immediately --this week -- despite the country’s outrage. They understand, like Lady Macbeth, that if it is to be done, it must be done quickly.

Watching Paulson fumfer (what’s a good English equivalent?) meaninglessly as he pretends to answer questions, dancing around the outrageous proposal, revealing that he’s aware that there will be no accountability is truly sickening.

What the Democrats will do if this goes through is, to coin a phrase, put lipstick on a pig, in the same fashion as they pretended to dress up their compliance with the FISA telecom unaccountability bill. Since Bush'll veto anything meaningful, they’ll claim that they have added accountability to the grand theft of an incredible $700 billion, which will be passed to the usual suspects, and do little or nothing to regain some of the balance that the economy requires.

The market understands this and that’s why it fell so hard yesterday. Nothing stabilizing is being offered. That’s why the dollar fell and oil spiked. Paulson and Bush and Cheney don’t want to do anything that will help and are opportunistically using the situation to make it as bad as they can.

The key could be Schumer, Hillary and Obama. If they don’t come out strongly against such a bill, we’re toast.

Too lazy to call Congress I managed to find an online petition to sign.

No to the bailout:

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/bailout/petition.html

Here's another one:

Email your Senators and Representative and spread the word:
http://www.democrats.com/stop-paulsons-plunder


Update on 700B giveaway
9.24.08

Watching a little of the latest Barney Frank interview on Charlie Rose, it seems clear that he’s playing ball with Bush. Why would he do that? My guess is that just like so many of them, he’s in Wall Street’s pocket -- ready and willing to throw billions at the criminals with no thought to the economy.

Sadly it’s looking like lipstick on a pig as previously predicted. They’ll dress it up a little bit, some meaningless oversight here, some irrelevant amendment about CEO salaries there and pass it this week or this weekend. That’s the clue: any quick bill will be Bush’s bill and it’ll be the disaster everyone can now see. One ominous soundbite I heard was that the White House was willing to negotiate.

If the leadership were going to resist they would offer a more moderate bill (say $150 B) targeted not at Wall Street and their foreign counterparts, but at homeowners/ foreclosures.

Although Dodd, Hillary, Obama (and Schumer?) may not be on board, if Pelosi and Reid give it the nod, they'll go forward quickly. And the guess now is that with most of the Republicans and enough Democrats, they’ll have the votes.
Ronald

Joe Nocera (NYT): Fannie and Freddie's Expensive Scam

Joe Nocera of the NYT exposes the scam conducted by Fanny and Freddie whose officers were warned off sub prime loans in good time but chose to continue buying them since they assumed correctly that they would be bailed out if they failed, and since CEO's multi million dollar salaries were unaffected if not enlarged. Repeatedly in public testimony they cynically used the excuse of their alleged mission to maintain low cost housing loans as a cover for their reckless malfeasance.

Are they really too big to fail or is it simply a case (surprise surprise) of the Bush administration protecting Wall St and hedge funds and other investors?
Ronald
***

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/23/business/23nocera.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=joe%20nocera&st=cse&oref=slogin

New York Times
August 23, 2008
Talking Business
A Mission Goes Off Course
By JOE NOCERA
Whenever the mortgage finance giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, find themselves in a tough spot — and boy, are they in a tough spot now! — they always seem to find a way to blame their problems on “the mission.” “We exist to expand affordable housing,” says Fannie Mae on its Web site, and although it also lists its other mission — providing liquidity for the American housing market — it is the former that has long been the companies’ trump card.

That mission of creating affordable housing is the reason that Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, could testify, year after year, that Fannie and Freddie had become so large, and took so much risk, that they could one day damage the nation’s financial system — only to be utterly ignored by the same members of Congress who otherwise hung on his every word.

The mission is why Representative Barney Frank, the powerful, and usually clear-eyed, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, will defend Fannie and Freddie even now, when their misdeeds are so clear. The mission is why the two companies were able to run roughshod over their regulator for years, and why the Bush administration was unable to rein them in, even after an accounting scandal.

Read more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/23/business/23nocera.html?_r=2&sq=joe%20nocera&st=cse&oref=slogin&scp=5&pagewanted=print

Left I on New Yorker Obama Cartoons: Willful Demagoguery

Ever read something you wish you'd thought of yourself? Once blogger Left I explained it, it was so clear. Satire is when there's a difference between the reality and the "satire." When the New Yorker reproduces exactly what the most ruthless and vicious elements of our society believe and attempt to propagate, it's like trying to get away with a calumny by saying (as Left I points out), "Some people say, Senator, that you beat your wife..."

Before I read Left I's two blogs which are worth quoting entire, I was confused. As a long time New Yorker subscriber I guess I didn't want to believe what my eyes were telling me (despite Jeffrey Goldberg and so much else). I was also reminded of the incident of the Dutch cartoons where right wing forces tried (and succeeded) in raising tensions between the communities.

Apropos, the New York Times in its regular Sunday (7.20.08) political cartoons section, featured one from the Los Angeles Daily News replicating the New Yorker cartoon. Patrick O'Conner's version has Bush in the Oval Office toting Michelle's Ak-47 and fist bumping Cheney dressed in Taliban garb (complete with sandals) while the Constitution burns in the fireplace underneath a painting of Richard Nixon flashing V for Vendetta.
My question naturally about the Daily News cartoon is: Is it satire?
Ronald
***
Racism as "satire"
by Left I on the News

http://lefti.blogspot.com/
7.14.08
You've probably all seen or heard about the latest New Yorker cover (at left) which the magazine defends as "satire." No, anti-black racism (Michelle Obama as an armed black militant) and anti-Arab racism (Barack Obama depicted as a Muslim burning the American flag and honoring Osama bin Laden) is not "satire," and it's not just "tasteless and offensive" as the Obama camp labels it. McCain won't even go that far, apparently doesn't think it's offensive himself, he just would "understand if Senator Obama and his supporters would find it offensive".

The whole cartoon is kind of like the scurrilous "some people say" mode of reporting which has overrun the national media. They never make accusations themselves, you understand. "Some people say, Senator, that you beat your wife. How do you respond?"

Some people say :-) (no, really, I heard someone on TV say it) that the cartoon is just "politically incorrect," and people who don't like it are just insensitive. But criticism of "political correctness" almost always disguises the real message behind it. If someone is fat, making a joke about them being fat could be described as "politically incorrect" (not to mention tasteless, offensive, insensitive, and downright bad manners). But if someone isn't fat, making a joke about them being fat not only isn't funny, but it reveals the joke-teller's prejudice against fat people.

I can't speak for the actual prejudices of the artist or the editors of this magazine. But for reinforcing existing prejudices, they've managed to do a heck of a job. The same "defender" of the cartoon I heard on TV made the argument that people who read the New Yorker won't believe the cartoon represents anything real, and anyone who does wouldn't have voted for Obama anyway. Maybe, maybe not, but wherever they stand, their subconscious prejudices have been enhanced. Maybe they won't ever make a public statement about Muslims, but deep down inside they might well be a little more inclined to think of all Muslims as bin Laden-loving, America-hating terrorists, and support legislation or vote for candidates who reinforce those ideas. Not to mention the effect the cover and its attendant publicity will have on the millions of non-New Yorker readers who see it and have their prejudices reinforced.

How about a cover making fun of Obama for talking out of both sides of his mouth on Iraq, or a host of other issues? How about a cover showing Obama saying "let's withdraw troops from Iraq" and then saying "let's send more troops to Afghanistan" labeled "man of peace?"? But this cover? To me, it's blatant racism, and I'll have none of it.

Update: I should have commented on the New Yorker's defense: the cover "combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are." Really? How does it show them for "obvious distortions"? Maybe Michelle Obama really was an armed Black Panther when she was young. How would this cover show such an idea as an "obvious distortion"? Maybe Barack Obama really is a closet Muslim. Plenty of people believe it (of course, plenty of people still believe that there were WMD in Iraq and even that they were found after the invasion). How would this cover demonstrate that that idea was an "obvious distortion"? It does nothing of the sort.

Second update: CNN (I think) did a feature where they interviewed people in front of a newsstand, asking if this cover made them feel positive or negative about Obama. It was of course an edited piece, but everyone they showed thought it was negative. And the figures they gave on, e.g., how many people believe Obama is a Muslim, emphasized all the more that encouraging that belief with this cover is a gross disservice to the truth. There are lots of reasons not to vote for Obama (from my point of view). The "fact" that he's a Muslim, which he isn't, certainly isn't one of them, and it shouldn't be for anyone on the right (i.e., in the wrong) either. The New Yorker's reinforcing of that belief is truly despicable.

--posted @ 7/14/2008

Once again on satire

I've been thinking some more about the New Yorker cover and the question of satire. Long-time readers may recall that we've had disagreements here over Stephen Colbert, whose "satire" I have claimed is often not (although I feel that less so recently than I did a year or two ago).

Expanding on things I've written before, here's my working definition, which applies to Colbert and the New Yorker: if the only thing that distinguishes alleged "satire" from an original is the source, it isn't satire, it's "imitation." It may or may not be funny, but it isn't satire.

If you could take a transcript of a Colbert interview, hand it to Bill O'Reilly, and have him read it without batting an eye, then it wasn't satire - it was imitation.

Likewise, imagine if the Obama cover had appeared not in the New Yorker but in "Ku Klux Klan Monthly." Would it be satire then? Hardly. People would immediately brand it as scurrilous racist trash. How about a more "respectable" (and actually existing) magazine like National Review? Same deal. I doubt people would just be talking about how it was "tasteless." Nor would they be claiming with a straight face it was "satire."

Satire has to be distinguishable in some way, if only with a wink (but preferably with a lot more), from the original or the imagined original or it isn't satire. Take the New Yorker cover. Most people will be familiar with the famous "a New Yorker's view of the world" which shows an utterly distorted view of the country from the point of view of a New York-centric person. It's obviously exaggerated, and funny (well, it was the first time). The Obama cover could have been done as "a right wingers view of Obama" as both a parody of the "New Yorker's view of the world" and a satire on ludicrous right-wing views of Obama, with a cover making it clear that the object of the satire wasn't Obama, but the ridiculous rumor-mongers. It didn't do that, though.

Real satire is both over the top and, and the same time...not. Stephen Colbert's talk at the White House Correspondent's dinner in 2006 was one of the best examples ever, a nuclear bomb of satire, so powerful that, to mix metaphors a bit, it went over like a lead balloon with the crowd and the corporate media because it hit too close to home. The New Yorker cover, as is, could never be that, because something that corresponds too closely to something actually believed by far too many people couldn't possibly be over the top.

--posted @ 7/15/2008

APM's Marketplace: Enron Loophole Drives High Oil Prices

If former regulator Michael Greenberger is correct in this mid-June Marketplace interview, then the Cheney Bush administration could if it wished, reduce oil prices to reflect real world supply and demand simply by closing the Enron loophole that allows/encourages speculators to manipulate oil prices for their gain. Greenberger says we could have "normal" oil prices in a month if the administration was on board.

Once again, if Greenberger is correct, that would add fuel to my theory of Cheney-Bush as extremist nihilists, whose agenda is permanent war, chaos, tension and the destruction of civilization. In this scenario, impossibly high oil prices, destroying the US and the world economy would make sense.

Below is the complete text of Marketplace interview and a selected comment with more information posted on the Marketplace website.

Ronald
***

American Public Media (APM)

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/06/16/cftc/

Monday, June 16, 2008

Deflating the oil bubble


Congress is calling regulators to task for runaway oil prices. Host Kai Ryssdal talks with former commodity regulator Michael Greenberger about ways to keep tabs on speculation.

More on The Economy

TEXT OF INTERVIEW
Kai Ryssdal: Alright, so let's see.... Yesterday, we had Saudi Arabia saying it's going to boost production by 2 percent. Next week, the Saudis are hosting a meeting aimed at bringing some sanity to crude prices. And yet at one point today, oil was trading within 11 cents of $140 a barrel.

That's probably why tomorrow morning will find the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Capitol Hill.

The CFTC's in charge of regulating oil markets in this country and Congress has been after the agency to do something -- to do anything -- about oil and gas prices, what lawmakers perceive to be speculation, in particular.

Michael Greenberger used to run the Trading division of the CFTC.

Mr. Greenberger, good to have you here.

Michael Greenberger: Nice to be here.

Ryssdal: Why is it so hard to figure out what's going on in commodities markets -- oil specifically?

Greenberger: Well, the reason it's hard to figure out is about 30 percent of our crude oil energy futures are traded in what is called a dark market -- that is a market that was deregulated in December of 2000 at the behest of Enron. Prior to that legislation being passed, all energy futures traded in the United States or affecting the United States in a significant fashion were regulated by United States regulators under a very careful regime that had been perfected over about 78 years and many observers believe that because those markets are not being policed, malpractices are being committed and traders are able to boost the price virtually at their will.

Ryssdal: You're not really telling me that seven years on, we're still paying the price for Enron, are you?

Greenberger: Well, this has been called the "Enron Loophole" and there are many legislators working very hard to close that loophole. There is tremendous concern about this on Capitol Hill and on a bipartisan basis, people are drafting legislation to try and get a handle on this and not eliminate speculation, but bring the speculation under the kind of time-tested controls that were used until Enron had its way and amended the law to escape traditional tested regulation on speculative activities.

Ryssdal: So what's Congress going to do? Congress is going to get together, they're going to pass a law and it's going to say, "CFTC, fix this?"

Greenberger: Well, there are several proposals suggesting or proposing that light shine on these dark markets and some of the legislation goes further than others, but the bottom line is the speculators will, in the end, be policed. We will know who they are, what they're doing, what their controls are, what effect they're having on the market. Maybe we'll find out that there's nothing there.

Ryssdal: So just to be clear, you do think that we're in a bubble, then?

Greenberger: I believe it and I'm certainly not alone in my belief. If you talk to anybody who trades in these markets on a regular basis, they will tell you that the markets are completely dysfunctional and out of control because of speculative activity.

Ryssdal: How long is it going to take then if we are, as you say, in a bubble, for it to work its way through and us to get back to something more realistic for the price of a barrel of oil, whether its 50 bucks or 80 bucks?

Greenberger: From my own experience as a commodity regulator, I believe that if the Bush Administration were serious about its regulation, we could begin seeing prices drop within a month. If we don't get the kind of regulation that has been done for decades and the market proceeds along the pace its proceeding, we will have to go through a very, very serious recession. The question is do you want to deflate the bubble by that kind of suffering or do you want to deflate the bubble by applying tight U.S. regulatory controls?

Ryssdal: Michael Greenberger used to run the Division of Trading and Markets for the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. He teaches law at the University of Maryland now. Mr. Greenberger, thanks a lot for your time.

Greenberger: You're welcome.

***

Comment by Richard Pendergrass

From Danbury, CT, 06/20/2008

The "Enron Loophole" allows oil traders to set their own prices in advance of delivery of product. Mr. Greenberger made the point in Senate testimony that the largest owner of of heating oil in Mew England is Morgan Stanley. That should be one large clue that speculation is a very large factor. Yes, demand is increasing; yes, supply is diminishing. But not at the rates that would justify these price gains without rampant speculation. Countdown with Keith Olberman had a piece on 06/18/08 on this very subject. (It is still available on msnbc.com) I suspect it was spurred by the Observer piece mentioned in these comments. Everyone should be writing or calling their Senators and Congressmen to complain about this "loophole".

Left I and Paul Watson on Terror and Massacre in Afghanistan

Can't help quoting Left I on the News's very good, always on target blog. (Although I'm not quite as disillusioned with Obama as he is, but I'm getting there. This weekend I cut out the NYT reprint of a cartoon showing Obama running for Bush's first term as opposed to McCain for B's 3rd term.)
Left I's blog is on the latest US massacre in Afghanistan which was mentioned on Democracy Now's headlines.
The quibble I have with Left I is that he doesn't seem to acknowledge that the US is purposefully behind virtually all the major violence, either themselves or through their support of the Taliban through the Pakistani ISI.

Unlike Left I, Paul Joseph Watson, from Prison Planet, in the 2nd blog I'm highlighting today, cites the terrible bombing in Kabul this week and indicates that the signs point to the hand of the US via the ISI via the Taliban in another false flag attack. It was David Ray Griffin, the guru of the 911 Truth movement, in the still very important The New Pearl Harbor, who clued me into the US/ISI/Taliban connection.
Now why would the Cheney Bush administration want more chaos, anarchy, war in Afghanistan where their own soldiers are dying (and killing Afghanis)? Here's Paul Watson's theory.

Paul Watson wrote:
Could the Kabul bombing be a joint ISI-CIA false flag for the purposes of creating a pretext for the continued presence of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, control of the booming opium drugs trade and the construction of permanent military bases?

Ronald
***


Afghanistan: Another day, another 23 dead
by Left I on the News.
http://lefti.blogspot.com/

Left I wrote:
This one another wedding party (this report says 27 dead). There are rather conflicting reports of the incident, to put it mildly.

From the U.S. military:
"We have had no reports of any non-combatants killed or injured in this incident," said 1st Lt. Nathan Perry. "This may just be normal, typical militant propaganda."

The U.S. military issued a statement, saying "intelligence revealed a large group of militants operating in Deh Bala district. Coalition forces identified the militants in a mountainous region and used precision air strikes to kill them."

And from the local governor:
Haji Amishah Gul, governor of Deh Bala, told the Times just two of the dead were men. The rest, he said, were women and children.
"The bride is among the dead," he said.

Gosh, who to believe? Other than relying on decades of lies from the U.S. military to guide you as to their credibility, it's unlikely you'll be able to decide by reading the U.S. corporate press, since after tomorrow, your chances of reading about the story, beyond yet another story about Afghan President Karzai "ordering an investigation" into the incident, are slim to none. Partly that's because the chance that the Democrats will seek to turn it into a political issue are also slim to none, since their own criticism of U.S. policy in Afghanistan is that we should have been doing it sooner.


Paul Joseph Watson
Afghanistan Accuses “Foreign Intelligence Agency” Of Deadly Embassy Bombing
Prison Planet | July 7, 2008
http://www.truthnews.us/?p=2241

Paul Watson wrote:
Afghanistan’s interior ministry has accused a “foreign intelligence agency” of being behind today’s deadly suicide bombing that ripped apart the country’s Indian embassy in Kabul, killing 41 people. Could the event represent another “false flag” run by American intelligence as a means of maintaining a military presence in Afghanistan and control of the country’s lucrative opium trade?
A further 141 were injured when the bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into two diplomatic vehicles entering the embassy and the blast also devastated nearby shops and buildings.
“The interior ministry believes this attack was carried out in coordination and consultation with an active intelligence service in the region,” the ministry said in a statement.
“Afghanistan has previously accused Pakistani agents of being behind a number of attacks on its soil,” according to a London Guardian report, referring to the notorious Pakistani ISI intelligence agency.
As Jane’s Information Group notes, “The CIA has well-established links with the ISI, having trained it in the 1980s to ‘run’ Afghan mujahideen (holy Muslim warriors), Islamic fundamentalists from Pakistan as well as Arab volunteers by providing them with arms and logistic support to evict the Soviet occupation of Kabul.”
“Opium cultivation and heroin production in Pakistan’s northern tribal belt and neighbouring Afghanistan was also a vital offshoot of the ISI-CIA co-operation. It succeeded not only in turning Soviet troops into addicts, but also in boosting heroin sales in Europe and the US through an elaborate web of well-documented deceptions, transport networks, couriers and payoffs. This, in turn, offset the cost of the decade-long anti-Soviet ‘unholy war’ in Afghanistan.”
Could the Kabul bombing be a joint ISI-CIA false flag for the purposes of creating a pretext for the continued presence of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, control of the booming opium drugs trade and the construction of permanent military bases?
As we reported last month, Middle East sources indicated that U.S. forces gave the green light for the Taliban to attack a government prison in Kandahar on June 13th, and stood idly by while Taliban fighters violently freed more than 1000 inmates.
According to some observers, the recent apparent resurgence of the Taliban has been encouraged by NATO and the U.S. as a bulwark against political pressure and calls for troops to leave the country.
Without an enemy to fight, there would be no justification for a continued U.S. and NATO presence in Afghanistan. There would be no more weapons sales contracts and no more rebuilding contracts for Halliburton. Opium cultivation would fall back into the hands of warlords and the Taliban, who banned production before the U.S. invasion in 2001, after which heroin flooded the streets of the U.S. and UK in record numbers as cultivation soared 50 per cent year on year. Afghanistan now exports upwards of 92 per cent of the world’s supply of opium, which is used to make heroin.
As Professor Michel Chossudovsky writes, “U.S. military presence has served to restore rather than eradicate the drug trade.”
“Implemented in 2000-2001, the Taliban’s drug eradication program led to a 94 percent decline in opium cultivation. In 2001, according to UN figures, opium production had fallen to 185 tons. Immediately following the October 2001 US led invasion, production increased dramatically, regaining its historical levels.”
“Based on wholesale and retail prices in Western markets, the earnings generated by the Afghan drug trade are colossal. In July 2006, street prices in Britain for heroin were of the order of Pound Sterling 54, or $102 a gram,” Chossudovsky notes.
The necessity for continued violence in Afghanistan exists just like it does in Iraq, for the pretext of justifying an endless military occupation and the opportunity to build military bases that will be used as launch pads for future wars, as is now being discussed for Iraq.
As we have highlighted in the past, links between Taliban leadership and the U.S. military-industrial complex are documented.
As Seymour Hersh reported in January 2002, at the height of the war in Afghanistan, hundreds of Taliban fighters “accidentally” ended up on U.S. organized special safety corridor airlifts right before the fall of Kunduz.
The Taliban itself was a creation of the CIA having been set up and bankrolled by the U.S. in tandem with Pakistan’s ISI.
“In the 1980s, the CIA provided some $5 billion in military aid for Islamic fundamentalist rebels fighting the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, but scaled down operations after Moscow pulled out in 1989. However, Selig Harrison of the DC-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars recently told a conference in London that the CIA created the Taliban “monster” by providing some $3 billion for the ultra-fundamentalist militia in their 1994-6 drive to power,” reported the Times of India.

Thanks to Glenn Greenwald, once again on warrantless wiretapping, on telecom immunity and Constitutional protections against unreasonable (unreviewed by an independent judge) search and seizure. And specifically in his June 26th blog for disillusioning many of us about our hero, Keith Olbermann, who has, up till now. done such terrific work nailing Bush and Cheney for their ruthless and reckless lawlessness.

And now if Olbermann's defense of Obama's position on the FISA bill is an accurate indication, our hero has fallen, putting him into the category of a nondescript hack, like too many others.

But once again, we find that Greenwald's blind spot is the Lobby, and the dual loyalty that has risen to such a level that we'd rather pay $4,5, 6 and perhaps much more for a gallon of gas rather than adopt policies that AIPAC considers bad for Israel.

Does Greenwald ask why Obama (and Olbermann) choose to support a policy that we believe they know is bad? Isn't it clear that the reason the Democrats choose to support the FISA law is because if they don't support the war on terror, which means the war against the Muslim world, they will lose the support of AIPAC? Even if bowing to AIPAC means destroying the economy and ripping the Constitution to shreds?

One estimate that I've heard is that half the current price of oil is due to the war in Iraq and the threats to expand the war to Iran, Syria and Lebanon. It used to be that bowing to AIPAC's wishes simply meant that Palestinians and other Arabs near Israel would suffer. Now the policies that they advocate amount to national and international suicide which apparently is less evil than opposing AIPAC. But I guess there's a certain amount of justice involved. We're only doing to ourselves what we've done to the Palestinians for 60 years and more.
Ronald
***
Keith Olbermann: Then and now
by Glenn Greenwald


Thursday June 26, 2008

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

On January 31 of this year, Keith Olbermann donned his most serious face and most indignant voice tone to rail against George Bush for supporting telecom immunity and revisions to FISA. In a 10-minute "Special Comment," the MSNBC star condemned Bush for wanting to "retroactively immunize corporate criminals," and said that telecom immunity is "an ex post facto law, which would clear the phone giants from responsibility for their systematic, aggressive and blatant collaboration with [Bush's] illegal and unjustified spying on Americans under this flimsy guise of looking for any terrorists who are stupid enough to make a collect call or send a mass email."

Olbermann added that telecom amnesty was a "shameless, breathless, literally textbook example of Fascism -- the merged efforts of government and corporations that answer to no government." Noting the numerous telecom lobbyists connected to the Bush administration, Olbermann said:

This is no longer just a farce in which protecting telecoms is dressed up as protecting us from terrorists conference cells. Now it begins to look like the bureaucrats of the Third Reich, trying to protect the Krupp family, the industrial giants, re-writing the laws of Germany for their benefit.
Olbermann closed by scoffing at the idea that telecom amnesty or revisions to FISA were necessary to help National Security:
There is not a choice of protecting the telecoms from prosecution or protecting the people from terrorism, Sir. This is a choice of protecting the telecoms from prosecution or pretending to protect the people from terrorists. Sorry, Mr. Bush, the eavesdropping provisions of FISA have obviously had no impact on counter-terrorism, and there is no current or perceived terrorist threat the thwarting of which could hinge on an email or phone call that is going through Room 641 of AT&T in San Francisco.
Strong and righteous words indeed. But that was five whole months ago, when George Bush was urging enactment of a law with retroactive immunity and a lessening of FISA protections. Now that Barack Obama supports a law that does the same thing -- and now that Obama justifies that support by claiming that immunity and revising FISA are necessary to keep us Safe from the Terrorists -- everything has changed.
Last night, Olbermann invited Newsweek's Jonathan Alter onto his show to discuss Obama's support for the FISA and telecom amnesty bill (video of the segment is here). There wasn't a syllable uttered about "immunizing corporate criminals" or "textbook examples of Fascism" or the Third Reich. There wasn't a word of rational criticism of the bill either. Instead, the two media stars jointly hailed Obama's bravery and strength -- as evidenced by his "standing up to the left" in order to support this important centrist FISA compromise:

OLBERMANN: Asked by "Rolling Stone" publisher, Jann Wenner, about how Democrats have cowered in the wake of past Republican attacks, Senator Obama responding, quote, "Yeah, I don't do cowering." That's evident today in at least three issues . . .
Senator Obama also refusing to cower even to the left on the subject of warrantless wiretapping. He's planning to vote for the FISA compromise legislation, putting him at odds with members of his own party . . . But first, it's time to bring in our own Jonathan Alter, also, of course, senior editor of "Newsweek" magazine.

Good evening, Jon.

JONATHAN ALTER, NEWSWEEK: Hi, Keith.

OLBERMANN: "Yeah, I don't do cowering." This is not just the man, but the campaign?

ALTER: Yes. This is part of the message that is consistent across the last couple weeks and it comes down to one word -- strength. The United States is not going to elect a president that perceives to be as weak. You look weak if you're flip-flopping. You look weak if you're not taking actions that seem to be securing the United States against terrorists. And you look weak if you don't fight back against your political adversaries.

Read more:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

Democracy Now: AS’AD ABUKHALIL: US instigates civil war in Lebanon as elsewhere

Amy Goodman's Democracy Now is the only place I've so far found which indicates that the civil war in Lebanon is spurred by the US (although Prof Abukhalil references a good article in the Los Angeles Times.) The US is funding the right wing in Lebanon to prevent stability and democracy there. It's for the purpose of creating a civil war. To the extent that it's happening, the US is succeeding. Which is why those Lebanese players who were for a peaceful resolution have been rubbed out, no doubt with Israeli intelligence help if not direct assistance.

Khalil says it clearly: Something similar is taking place right now in Lebanon, and this is very much similar to what’s happening in Sudan, in Palestine, in Iraq, in Afghanistan and Somalia. The United States is basically instigating, funding and arming civil wars in all those places.

Once again, why would the US be instigating civil war in all these places? One advantage of understanding the criminal sociopathic US leadership for what it is (besides that it explains the data), is that one can predict their actions: do the maximum harm everywhere.
Ronald

May 12, 2008

81 Dead in Lebanon as Hezbollah Clashes with US-Backed Pro-Government Forces
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/12/81_dead_in_lebanon_as_hezbollah

AMY GOODMAN: In Lebanon, armed clashes since last Wednesday between Hezbollah-led opposition groups and US-backed pro-government forces have left at least eighty-one people dead, many more wounded. Opposition forces overpowered pro-government militias and took over large parts of the capital city of Beirut late last week before handing over control to the Lebanese army.
The fighting shifted to the north and east of the country over the weekend, and fresh clashes were reported in Beirut this morning. Meanwhile, the Arab League has agreed to send a high-level political delegation to Lebanon to dialogue with leaders from all sides.
The violence, which has been described as the worst since the civil war, erupted last week during a general strike called by the General Federation of Labor Unions to protest the high cost of living.
On Thursday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah held a news conference in Beirut to mark what he called the beginning of a “new era” in Lebanese politics. He condemned a decision by the Lebanese cabinet to outlaw Hezbollah’s telecommunications network and dismiss the head of airport security for his alleged ties to the party. Nasrallah said their private communication network was a vital tool in combat and critical to their success during the July 2006 war with Israel. He described the government crackdown as “tantamount to a declaration of war.”
HASSAN NASRALLAH: [translated] If we want to get off of this crisis, to get out of this standoff, of this confrontation, they need to revoke the decisions of the illegitimate government, and they need to go to the dialogue. That’s all. If they want to be stubborn, they will go elsewhere. The game is very dangerous. If they are truly keen about preserving the country, they have only these two solutions.

AMY GOODMAN: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticized Hezbollah and declared US support for the Lebanese government led by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. But after four days of fighting, Siniora capitulated and announced Saturday the decision regarding Hezbollah’s demands now lay in the hands of the Lebanese army. The army commander, General Michel Suleiman, is slated to be the new president of the country.
For analysis of the situation in Lebanon, I’m now joined on the phone from California by As’ad AbuKhalil, professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, and the creator of the Angry Arab News Service blog at angryarab.blogspot.com. We welcome you to Democracy Now!
AS’AD ABUKHALIL: Thank you very much, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what’s happening in Lebanon right now?
AS’AD ABUKHALIL: Well, yes. I think that people may remember, back in the 1980s, the United States government, for two years in the administration of Ronald Reagan, deployed troops from ’82 to ’84. And there was a civil war, and the United States was supporting the rightwing militias of Israel in Lebanon, and they used the discourse of supporting the central government of Lebanon.
Something similar is taking place right now in Lebanon, and this is very much similar to what’s happening in Sudan, in Palestine, in Iraq, in Afghanistan and Somalia. The United States is basically instigating, funding and arming civil wars in all those places. We hear a lot about this inability of the international community to tolerate armed militias. Of course, Hezbollah is an armed militia, but so are the pro-militias of the government. There’s a Los Angeles Times article today detailing the efforts by the United States and allies to create militias throughout the country. And the Washington Post indicated that this government of the United States spent $1.4 billion to prop up the administration of Siniora in Lebanon.
And basically, what happened in Lebanon in the last few days is a partial coup d’etat that was in response to a full coup d’etat that was engineered by the United States and Saudi Arabia and Israel from behind the scene back in 2005, capitalizing on the assassination of Rafik Hariri.
And things have gotten to this point because America basically is responsible, more than their clients in Lebanon. I mean, there were ideas of dialogue in Lebanon, and things were moving in that direction, and then, suddenly, lo and behold, the Assistant Secretary of State of the United States for the Near East, David Welch, shows up in Lebanon, and he basically wanted to stiffen the resolve of the clients and to basically prevent the possibility of dialogue. And then, Walid Jumblatt, one of the clients of the United States and Saudi Arabia and Lebanon today, escalated by deciding on taking the issue of disarming Hezbollah, which is supported at least by half of the Lebanese, and Lebanese parties, including clients of the United States, agreed that the issues of disarming Hezbollah should be left for internal dialogue of the Lebanese themselves.
But it seems the Bush administration, while it’s sailing into the sunset, wanted to achieve a victory that has long eluded it in Iraq and elsewhere. They were getting too excited about Lebanese affairs in the Washington Post, who were celebrating the so-called Cedar Revolution. Well, they tried to push them further, and look what happened. This is something that experts have warned the United Nations about. If you push things to that point, the other side is going to lash out, and they did lash out, even if one, like me, does not like the scenes of these militias and armed thugs running into the streets of Beirut and so on. But basically, we have to say that this is the doing of US foreign policy, and this is the true face of the Bush Doctrine in the Middle East.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk overall about the United States—what you feel the US role should be right now?
AS’AD ABUKHALIL: Well, I mean, just to get out, just to not be as heavily involved. We have to see that US policy is not only in funding and arming the militias in the Anbar province in Iraq or places in Iraq—I mean, Afghanistan, the warlords, or in Lebanon, the various militias. But we have to say that this level of intense tensions and conflict and animosity is the product of a deliberate American-Saudi policy of instigating a Sunni-Shiite conflict, the likes of which Lebanon has never seen. I mean, even somebody like myself who come from a split background—my mother is Sunni, and my father is Shiite—I mean, we’ve never seen anything like this. Saudi media, with the full cooperation of the United States, have been for three years mobilizing the Lebanese opposition, because that’s the only thing they have. I mean, if patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, sectarianism in Lebanon is the last refuge of scoundrels of the United States and Israel. They have been for serious propagandizing to splitting Sunnis from Shiites in order that they create a militia that can stand up to Hezbollah.
Well, this militia of Hariri’s, as supported by the United States, trained in Jordan, funded by Saudi Arabia, basically didn’t last. It’s very much like the Dahlan gangs in Palestine in Gaza. They do not have a cause. The United States can provide them with weapons and with money; it cannot provide them with a doctrine or an ideology. And that’s why, when push comes to shove, they flee. They flee for their life, just as militias of Israel fled across the border when Israel attacked and left, humiliatingly, South Lebanon in 2000.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor AbuKhalil, we have thirty seconds. What’s next? What do you make of Hassan Nasrallah’s comment that this is a new era in Lebanese politics?
AS’AD ABUKHALIL: Basically, he is saying that they will no more allow this heavy-handed role by the Saudis in Lebanon, and they want to change the balance of forces on the ground. Now, that in itself does not bode well for the future in Lebanon. I fear that Hezbollah may get too intoxicated with their so-called victories on the streets of Lebanon, and they may assert a sectarian agenda that is going to provoke the other side. I worry about a [inaudible] syndrome among the Sunnis of Lebanon.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much for being with us. Professor As’ad AbuKhalil teaches political science at California State University at Stanislaus, visiting professor at UC Berkeley.

Glenn Greenwald: Bush's Phantom Syrian WMDs

Once again, Glenn Greenwald nails it on the latest disinformation/fear campaign against Syria. This time the transparency of the lies is laughably (I wish) obvious. As Greemwald points out there's little push-back in the media, and, he might have added, the candidates for president. Can you imagine Obama or Clinton challenging Bush on this issue? At best they'll be quiet as mice. Yet another indication of the depths to which monsters like Bush & Cheney can bring us as they count on Zionist support as they beat the drums to enlarge the war against Syria and Iran (and Lebanon if they can squeeze it in.)

But is anyone asking why Bush and Cheney are still desperately trying to make more war happen?

It's not, as Xymphora is fond of saying, a war for the Jews. No, they are cleverly using the Zionists to further their endless war agenda.

Now, why would they want to make more war? For oil? Do people still believe this? What do you have to do to show that it's not to the benefit of anyone -- ok, a handful of the base will, for a short time rake in more of the windfall. But that can't be sufficient reason to further destroy the US and world economy, not to mention the incredible suffering on top of what's already going on worldwide with food and energy costs.

All we have left -- in conventional terms -- is Empire.

People like to use this as an explanation for the Bush-Cheney unprovoked aggression (and all the other destruction they manage) but this explanation doesn't address the anomaly that everything Bush is doing is WEAKENING the American Empire as fast as possible. The military has all kinds of readiness issues. Empire is for building up, and Bush and Cheney are only for destruction.

When are people going to understand that when we say that we're at the mercy of criminal psychopaths, it's not an exaggeration. It's the literal truth.

I snorted with laughter this morning when I heard the proposal that Bush and Cheney should release some oil from the national oil reserve. As if anyone thinks that they would do ANYTHING that would help people. Reminds me that I recall being mystified during the last couple of years of the Clinton administration. At a certain moment there was a spike in the oil price and Clinton quickly acted to release oil which had the desired effect. But all the while the predictable right wing voices howled in protest. It took me awhile to figure out that they were opposed on principle to any government action that would help people. It might give people a reason to vote for the Democrats.
One way to explain Bush's low poll numbers is to observe that people understand on some level that he's not interested in helping them.
Ronald
***

Glenn Greenwald wrote:
Friday April 25, 2008
Skepticism toward Bush claims about Syria and North Korea

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/07/media_coverage/

There are multiple reasons why substantial skepticism is warranted concerning the Bush administration's claims that the structure which Israeli jets destroyed inside Syria last September was a nuclear reactor Syria was developing with the aid of North Korea. Such skepticism, however, is difficult to find in most (though not all) American press accounts, which do little other than repeat Government claims without challenge.

Read more:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/07/media_coverage/
***

See similarly JOHN W. FARLEY on Counterpunch:
http://counterpunch.org/farley04252008.html
The Media Falls for Fake News Once Again: Syrian Nukes: the Phantom Menace

Last September 6, Israel bombed a Syrian building at Dair el Zor. In the immediate aftermath of the bombing, little was said in public, by either Israel or Syria, but later the Israelis started claiming that the Syrians were building a nuclear reactor. On the radio today (April 25), I heard NPR's Tom Jelton repeat, as if it were undisputed fact, the US. government claim to have "proof" of a Syrian-North Korean nuclear connection. Now I see that AP writers Pamela Hess and Deb Reichmann have a story headlined "White House says Syria 'must come clean' about nuclear work," while ABC news has a video entitled "Syria's Nuclear Reactor".

Are the wonderful mainstream media, who gave us Saddam's mythical Weapons of Mass Destruction, lying to us again? The answer is yes.


Read more:
http://counterpunch.org/farley04252008.html

Patrick J. Buchanan: Petraeus Points to War with Iran

Robert Stiver wrote:

Here's the latest commentary by an informed, deeply concerned citizen:
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=12673 ("Petraeus Points to War With Iran," by Patrick Buchanan, April 11th, 2008)
(I disagree with one element of Buchanan's analysis: "The general's testimony is forcing Bush's hand...." Petraeus is, IMHO, an ambitious, willing military-side stooge for the Cheney-led zionazineocons [note particularly the odious Lieberman in the article] and the dry-drunkenly adolescent, bellicose, irrational Bush. A lethal combination, and Gates and Mullen -- with Fallon gone and no longer providing adult supervision -- today added additional voice to the warmongering set....)
The Evil USrael Empire is on the march to war...Bob
***

Ronald wrote:
It's hard to improve on Bob's comment and Buchanan's short article.. One question that comes to mind: why do Bush and Cheney want to go to war against Iran and use their nuclear arsenal?

Bob suggests that it is for Israel's benefit. But such an adventure is just as dangerous for Israel as it is for the rest of the world, not least the US. (Just imagine what $200-300/ barrel oil will do to the world's economy.)

This reminds me: haven't we read recently that Putin warned Bush not to attack Iran? But if Putin did so, that might only spur Bush and Cheney to go ahead. Once again, we ask for what purpose?

One result (if not the only result) will be chaos, destruction, and more war. Does that cohere with wars for oil, for Empire or for Israel? Does that put Cheney and Bush squarely in the tradition of US presidents or does it suggest that they are exceptional, as in pathologically criminal, intent only on the elimination of the possibility of civil life everywhere just as they have succeeded in accomplishing in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Kenya, Palestine, elsewhere? Is Empire strengthened by these disasters? Are we achieving more or less control over ($110/barrel) oil?
Ronald
***



Petraeus Points to War With Iran
by Patrick J. Buchanan

April 11, 2008
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=12673
The neocons may yet get their war on Iran.

Ever since President Nouri al-Maliki ordered the attacks in Basra on the Mahdi Army, Gen. David Petraeus has been laying the predicate for U.S. air strikes on Iran and a wider war in the Middle East.

Iran, Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee, has "fueled the recent violence in a particularly damaging way through its lethal support of the special groups."

These "special groups" are "funded, trained, armed and directed by Iran's Quds Force with help from Lebanese Hezbollah. It was these groups that launched Iranian rockets and mortar rounds at Iraq's seat of government (the Green Zone) ... causing loss of innocent life and fear in the capital."

Is the Iranian government aware of this – and behind it?

"President Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders" promised to end their "support for the special groups," said the general, but the "nefarious activities of the Quds force have continued."

Are Iranians then murdering Americans, asked Joe Lieberman:

"Is it fair to say that the Iranian-backed special groups in Iraq are responsible for the murder of hundreds of American soldiers and thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians?"

"It certainly is. ... That is correct," said Petraeus.

The following day, Petraeus told the House Armed Services Committee, "Unchecked, the 'special groups' pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq."

Translation: The United States is now fighting the proxies of Iran for the future of Iraq.

The general's testimony is forcing Bush's hand, for consider the question it logically raises: If the Quds Force and Hezbollah, both designated as terrorist organizations, are arming, training and directing "special groups" to "murder" Americans, and rocket and mortar the Green Zone to kill our diplomats, and they now represent the No. 1 threat to a free Iraq, why has Bush failed to neutralize these base camps of terror and aggression?

Hence, be not surprised if President Bush appears before the TV cameras, one day soon, to declare:

"My commanding general in Iraq, David Petraeus, has told me that Iran, with the knowledge of President Ahmadinejad, has become a privileged sanctuary for two terrorist organizations – Hezbollah and the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard – to train, arm and direct terrorist attacks on U.S. and coalition forces, despite repeated promises to halt this murderous practice.

"I have therefore directed U.S. air and naval forces to begin air strikes on these base camps of terror. Our attacks will continue until the Iranian attacks cease."

Because of the failures of a Democratic Congress elected to end the war, Bush can now make a compelling case that he would be acting fully within his authority as commander-in-chief.

In early 2007, Nancy Pelosi pulled down a resolution that would have denied Bush the authority to attack Iran without congressional approval. In September, both Houses passed the Kyl-Lieberman resolution designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.

Courtesy of Congress, Bush thus has a blank check for war on Iran. And the signs are growing that he intends to fill it in and cash it.

Israel has been hurling invective at Iran and conducting security drills to prepare its population for rocket barrages worse than those Hezbollah delivered in the Lebanon War.

Adm. William "Fox" Fallon, the Central Command head who opposed war with Iran, has been removed. Hamas and Hezbollah have been stocking up on Qassam and Katyusha rockets.

Vice President Cheney has lately toured Arab capitals.

And President Ahmadinejad just made international headlines by declaring that Tehran will begin installing 6,000 advanced centrifuges to accelerate Iran's enrichment of uranium.

This is Bush's last chance to strike and, when Iran responds, to effect its nuclear castration. Are Bush and Cheney likely to pass up this last chance to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities and effect the election of John McCain? For any attack on Iran's "terrorist bases" would rally the GOP and drive a wedge between Obama and Hillary.

Indeed, Sen. Clinton, who voted to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, could hardly denounce Bush for ordering air strikes on the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, when Petraeus testified, in her presence, that it is behind the serial murder of U.S. soldiers.

The Iranians may sense what is afoot. For Tehran helped broker the truce in the Maliki-Sadr clash in Basra, and has called for a halt to the mortar and rocket attacks on the Green Zone.

With a friendly regime in Baghdad that rolled out the red carpet for Ahmadinejad, Iran has nothing to gain by war. Already, it is the big winner from the U.S. wars that took down Tehran's Taliban enemies, decimated its al-Qaeda enemies and destroyed its Sunni enemies, Saddam and his Baath Party.

No, it is not Iran that wants a war with the United States. It is the United States that has reasons to want a short, sharp war with Iran.

[Another quibble: Do Bush and Cheney want a short war? Will a short or long war help them stay in power longer? Although I'm wondering if Cheney's health may play a role. He seems to be sounding weaker than ever. --RB]

COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Free Trade -- Starving the Poor and impoverishing the Middle Class

Free Trade – Starving the Poor and Middle Class

Now that it’s clear that prices for food all over the world are going through the roof it should be even clearer that so-called free trade, which is dominated by the intention of the stronger powers to eliminate local agriculture, is making a major contribution to starving the poorest peoples, and making the classes just above – including the middle classes -- more and more hungry.

Bush-Cheney Rapidly Privatizing Medicare

We’ve known from the beginning that the Bush Prescription Drug plan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_Prescription_Drug,_Improvement,_and_Modernization_Act was deeply flawed in so many ways, in particular because it’s an attack on Medicare, a solid program that is vital to scores of millions of retirees. But there have been so many attacks on the people of this country (and we’re getting off easy compared to so many elsewhere) that for some of us – even a retiree like me – it’s been hard to focus on the particulars and to realize how successful has been the Bush-Cheney assault.

But every so often comes a reminder or something pops to the surface. And this one came for me in the form of a United Federation of Teachers petition on the subject which I took the trouble to read and was duly shocked to see how much they’ve been able to get away with, in this case by already going a long way to privatizing (i.e., destroying) the program.

Note that we can’t blame this one on the Zionists, perhaps the majority of whom are liberals. It’s a good example of how successful Bush-Cheney have been in using the various pressure groups for their own purposes of destruction. --RB

From the
United Federation of Teachers Petition on Medicare

Government health programs such as Medicare have faced substantial cuts while private for profit plans such as Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage) are estimated to gain $54 billion in subsidies over five years.

The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 was designed to have an automatic triggering mechanism which will initiate a process calculated to provide a large reduction in Medicare Part B as early as 2009.

Medicare Advantage is a disadvantage to Medicare beneficiaries. The overpayment to private for profit plans increases Part B premiums for all Medicare beneficiaries. 81 % of Medicare beneficiaries are paying to subsidize 19% of those in private for profit plans.

Insurance industries' profits have greatly increased because the subsidies they receive are not completely passed along to their beneficiaries. Private for profit plans $ are subject to few public reporting requirements.

The President has shown his hostility to government health programs as exemplified by his veto to the S-CHIP program (Children's Health Program) and by his insistence that the Federal government can not afford to continue supporting Medicare.

We are demanding that the playing field be made level by equalizing payments between the traditional plan, Part B (Medicare) and the private for profit plans within Medicare Part C.

The New York Times, the "War on Terror," Habeas Corpus, Zionism and Battlefields

Glenn Greenwald ably deconstructs -- rips to pieces – the deplorable Michael R. Gordon's Sunday 1.20.08 NYT article which blasts the Democratic contenders because they dare to mildly reflect the electorate’s understanding that Iraq is a great catastrophe, that the war is destroying the US just as it is destroying Iraq. Gordon, as Greenwald points out, is incensed that the Democrats do not shout from the rooftops their support of Bush's plan to maintain the US occupation of Iraq indefinitely. Greenwald incisively points to the responsibility of the New York Times.

It is not hyperbole to say that the Liberal Media's New York Times bears as much responsibility for both the commencement of the war and its endless duration as any other American institution. Judy Miller and Gordon, of course, jointly led the way in funneling false pro-war claims to the public to justify the invasion, and ever since, its lead reporters on that conflict, Gordon as well as John Burns, have been overt proponents of continuing the war (thus becoming heroes to the pro-war, media-hating Right). It is, then, entirely predictable that we have yet another ostensible "news article" by Gordon today, preaching on the imperatives of our ongoing occupation of Iraq.

(see below for links to Greenwald and Gordon)

But Greenwald doesn't explain why Gordon is still employed by the NYT, why despite his insuperable credibility challenges, the Paper of Record still prints his blatant disinformation.

There are basically two reasons for US policy in Iraq and for the support that the NYT doggedly offers: one reason Greenwald hints at and the other he ignores.

Greenwald prefers not to dwell on Zionist interest in insuring that Iraq remain destroyed indefinitely. Greenwald is far from alone as a liberal or a progressive who misses or ignores the Zionist angle. Take the Center for Constitutional Rights' Michael Ratner who co-hosts one of New York City's WBAI-FM's best radio programs. It’s a Monday mornings, show called Law and Disorder wherein he and his colleagues detail and courageously struggle against the administration’s gross violations of human rights particularly in respect of the Guantanamo detainees and others.

Although it's apparent that a crucial reason that Bush has managed to proceed so far with his criminal actions is because of Zionist anti Muslim bias, you'll rarely if ever hear the words Israel or Zionism pass Ratner's lips. It would be nice if Ratner acknowledged that the reason that there are so few sympathizers for those detained at Guantanamo is because of the society-wide practice of religious and ethnic profiling. Thus far Bush and Cheney have made sure to incarcerate mainly those who could be viewed as real or potential enemies of Israel.

Secondly, Greenwald only hints at the Bush-Cheney CIA/military interest in endless war and destruction for its own sake. But the interesting question is why would the NYT support such a suicidal policy? My best guess is that the CIA, with the necessary collaboration of executive editor Bill Keller, and publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. continues to claim the required NYT real estate when it comes issues of U.S. state terror.

Three points on Zionism, habeas and disputing the "war on terror"

1. Zionism. Some mistakenly think that the Zionists have forced Bush-Cheney into many of their policy choices, particularly the war in Iraq, and the "war on terror" (which should always be within quotation marks) and torture and so on. It's pretty much the other way around. Bush and Cheney cleverly and cynically use the power of Zionism to smooth the way for their agenda of perpetual war. It's not always noticed that on some issues where the American Jewish community has a stake, such as in sharing Faith Based Initiative dollars, Jewish organizations are completely shut out just as are their Muslim brethren, and as they both are from other discretionary health and welfare funds. It’s no accident that the Zionists only get their way on war and militarism.



2. Why are Bush and Cheney determined not to allow habeas corpus and why is torture an essential element of their policy? If you've got all these guilty, (the "worst of the worst") villains down there in Guantanamo and in perhaps in a score of other places, why not charge them with crimes and convict them?

Isn’t it clear that the policies of Bush-Cheney betray an understanding that the guilty parties in the “war on terror” are not behind bars in Guantanamo? Shouldn’t the task of the left be to at least disprove the contention that the entire “war on terror” is nothing but a massive false flag operation? Needless to say this gets us into 9/11 truth issues. If Bush and Cheney are responsible for the 9/11 terror, and if no planes crashed that day in NYC, or Washington DC or in Pennsylvania or anywhere else in the country, then young Islamic extremists had nothing to do with it. But even on the left, it seems that a majority are most comfortable blaming Muslims, despite the lack of evidence and the common sense notion that it takes the resources of the state to pull off such huge high profile events like 9/11, Oklahoma City, London, Madrid, Jordan, the African Embassy bombings and on and on.


3. Why do we accept that we are at war?

I've never understood why even our most brilliant and dedicated lawyers like Michael Ratner, Glenn Greenwald, Marjorie Cohn and many others seem to accept at face value the government contention that we are at war. War with whom? Where's the opponent? Where's the battlefield?

Most of us would agree that on the battlefield, due process must sometimes be adjusted or postponed until conditions permit. Our current wars against Afghanistan and Iraq shouldn’t complicate the discussion. When it comes to torture or the Guantanomo detainees, some of the 350 remaining have been there for 6 years, and none have faced charges. The WSJ editorial page early on understood this issue and dared anyone on the left to argue that we are not at war. To my knowledge no one has yet taken them up. Why can we not raise the issue in court? Why can’t we assert that we’re not on a battlefield. There’s no state fighting against us. Why has no one made this argument? What am I missing?
Ronald


Glenn Greenwald: "Michael Gordon 'reports' on the 'only serious' Iraq option: Staying forever” 1.20.08
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/20/gordon/index.html


Michael R. Gordon: War, Meet the 2008 Campaign NYT, 1.20.08

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/weekinreview/20gordon.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&ref=weekinreview&oref=slogin

Glenn Greenwald: Iranian Speedboats: More Bush Disinformation

After seeing the evening before some of the evidence below about WH disinformation regarding the Iranian speedboat (Gulf of Tonkin they apparently hoped)incident posted by less distinguished bloggers, I wondered to myself how quickly if ever this particular bit of Bush Cheney disinformation would be exposed for what it is. I should say that perhaps like most people I was prepared to believe the WH version if no contrary evidence appeared. But once such evidence appeared the only question was how high a level would it reach? Would it be completely exposed everywhere as in the Pat Tillman/Jessica Lynch cases which Greenfield mentions or would it stop at the marginalized posters I saw the evening of the 9th.

That it has gone to the level of Glenn Greenfield is a very good sign and I'd predict that it may even make it to the NYT, and WP -- but perhaps not to Fox TV for awhile. No matter, we'll soon see President Bush saying: I don't care. The Iranians are still provocative. They're still a threat.
Reminds me: the symbolic imagery of the more or less fake video the Pentagon presented was clear: a huge US armada right on top of the Iranian border vs. a couple of speedboats. Very provocative.

Ronald

Update: 1.11.08
The Washington Post picked up the story. See below. Now let's see if the NYT is also forced to do the same. --R

***
Glenn Greenwald
Thursday January 10, 2008 14:49 EST
The U.S. military inflicts more damage on its own credibility
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html


It seems increasingly clear that the U.S. military's initial claims about its interaction with those five Iranian speed boats in the Strait of Hormuz was exaggerated in significant ways, approaching Jessica Lynch/Pat Tillman/Iraq-is-going-great territory. It's impossible to resolve all of the conflicting details of each side's self-serving version, but the most inflammatory facts which the Navy originally asserted, and which the American news media uncritically regurgitated, are quite dubious, if not demonstrably false.

Here, for instance, was the first paragraph of Tuesday's Washington Post story by Robin Wright and Ann Scott Tyson, highlighting the most dramatic and scariest part of the U.S. military's narrative:
We're coming at you, the Iranian radio transmission warned. Your ships will explode in a couple of minutes.
The next paragraph summarized the Navy's version that "five Iranian patrol boats sped toward the USS Port Royal and two accompanying ships as they crossed the Strait of Hormuz" and then "'maneuvered aggressively' on both sides of the U.S. ships." The next paragraph recounted:
After the radio transmission, two of the Iranian boats dropped "white box-like objects" into the water, [Vice Adm. Kevin J.] Cosgriff said.
Those are the two "facts" that infused the story with such a sinister tone -- explicit threats from the Iranian boats to destroy the American ships, followed by their dropping of unidentifiable boxes, which, one was supposed to infer, could easily have been explosive devices.

But the first "fact" seems almost certainly false, and the second one is highly questionable. Iranian Hooman Majd at The Huffington Post noted that the voices on the tapes issuing the melodramatic threats were unquestionably not Persian. As he put it: "the person speaking doesn't have an Iranian accent and moreover, sounds more like Boris Karloff in a horror movie than a sailor in the elite branch of Iran's military." A regular Iranian commenter at Cernig's blog made the same point. Listen for yourself to the audio and see how credible the threats sound.

Since then, additional facts have emerged strongly negating the claim that that message came from those Iranian boats. The audio of the threats is crystal clear in sound quality, with no ambient noise -- something highly unlikely to be the case if delivered from a small, speeding boat. Moreover, as the New York Times' Mike Nizza reports today, quoting a reader claiming to be a former Naval officer, the channel that was used to convey the transmission is easily accessible to all sorts of private parties and is often the venue for hoaxes, pranks, and false messages.

Even the Pentagon itself is now acknowledging the lack of proof for the initial version, "saying that the voice on the tape could have come from the shore or from another ship." As Nizza put it: "The list of those who are less than fully confident in the Pentagon's video/audio mashup of aggressive maneuvers by Iranian boats near American warships in the Strait of Hormuz now includes the Pentagon itself."

Read more:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html


Iranian Boats May Not Have Made Radio Threat, Pentagon Says


By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 11, 2008; A13


The Pentagon said yesterday that the apparent radio threat to bomb U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf last weekend may not have come from the five Iranian Revolutionary Guard speedboats that approached them -- and may not even have been intended against U.S. targets.

The communication Sunday was made on radio channel 16, a common marine frequency used by ships and others in the region. "It could have been a threat aimed at some other nation or a myriad of other things," said Rear Adm. Frank Thorp IV, a spokesman for the Navy.

In the radio message recorded by the Navy, a heavily accented voice said: "I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes." But Farsi speakers and Iranians told The Washington Post that the accent did not sound Iranian.

In part because of the threatening language, the United States has elevated the encounter into an international incident. Twice this week, President Bush criticized Iran's behavior as provocative and warned of "serious consequences" if it happens again. He is due to head today to the Gulf area, where containing Iran is expected to be a major theme of his talks in five oil-rich sheikdoms.

Pentagon officials insist that they never claimed Iran made the threat. "No one in the military has said that the transmission emanated from those boats. But when they hear it simultaneously to the behavior of those boats, it only adds to the tension," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell. "If this verbal threat emanated from something or someone unrelated to the five boats, it would not lessen the threat from those boats."

Read more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/10/AR2008011000692_pf.html

Kurt Nimmo: CIA-ISI Destablized Pakistan, not Al Qaeda

CIA-ISI Created “Qaeda Network” Blamed for Pakistan Troubles

Kurt Nimmo
Truth News
December 30, 2007

It is a familiar if not worn-out refrain: “The Qaeda network accused by Pakistan’s government of killing the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto is increasingly made up not of foreign fighters but of homegrown Pakistani militants bent on destabilizing the country, analysts and security officials here say.”

If we are to believe the New York Times — you know, the propaganda sheet in large part responsible for selling the “war” in Iraq, that is to say the plan to mass murder of more than a million Iraqis — the contrived terrorist scare crow al-Qaeda has “clearly expanded their ranks and turned to a direct confrontation with the Pakistani security forces while also aiming at political figures like Ms. Bhutto,” never mind there is absolutely no evidence of this and never mind as well al-Qaeda was in fact created by Pakistan’s ISI, with a large infusion of CIA cash and directives.

“Al Qaeda right now seems to have turned its face toward Pakistan and attacks on the Pakistani government and Pakistani people,” averred Robert Gates, one of the primary founders of al-Qaeda, a fact he willingly admitted in his memoir, From the Shadows. Of course, no mention of this slimy connection in the “liberal” New York Times, the former home of the neocon disinfo operative Judith Miller.

“The expansion of Pakistan’s own militants, with their fortified links to Al Qaeda, presents a deeply troubling development for the Bush administration and its efforts to stabilize this volatile nuclear-armed country.”

And yet few seem to be troubled by the fact these militants were mentored and lavishly funded by the CIA. Long ago relegated to the memory hole are uncomfortable facts: Gen. Akhtar Abdul Rahman, Pakistani ISI’s head from 1980 to 1987, regularly met with bin Laden in Peshawar, Pakistan; the CIA essentially micromanaged Afghanistan’s opium production; the ISI trained “militants” (i.e., patsies and useful idiots) to attack the Soviet Union proper; well over 100,000 Islamic militants were trained in Pakistan between 1986 and 1992 in camps constructed and overseen by the CIA and MI6, with the British SAS training future al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in bomb-making and other black arts, etc., on and on, ad nauseam.

Now we are expected to believe al-Qaeda, appearing out of the mist of amnesia, is a portentous threat to the poor people of Pakistan, as related by the premier propaganda sheet, the New York Times.

Al Qaeda in Pakistan now comprises not just foreigners but Pakistani tribesmen from border regions, as well as Punjabis and Urdu speakers and members of banned sectarian and Sunni extremists groups, Najam Sethi, editor of The Daily Times, wrote in a front-page analysis. “Al Qaeda is now as much a Pakistani phenomenon as it is an Arab or foreign element,” he wrote.

Excuse me, but al-Qaeda, the database and perennial boogieman, has always been a “Pakistani phenomenon,” that is with the good grace of the CIA and MI6, with a bit of collaboration from the Mossad and German intelligence.

How long before we are told the U.S. has to send an infusion of soldiers, pronto, the fight the evil al-Qaeda in Pakistan?

Soon. Lest we face the specter of that Muslim atom bomb falling into the hands of al-Qaeda.

Oh, please.

Rawstory: Anomalies in Bhutto Assassination point to ISI/CIA Responsibility

From rawstory.com we get some of the anomalies regarding the Bhutto assassination pointing the finger at Musharraf/Bush-Cheney as the parties responsible.

a. the crime scene was hosed down within an hour with a high pressure hose

b. Police bodyguards were withdrawn

c. No autopsy was permitted in a situation that would normally require one by law. Although the NYT story (12.29.07) highlighted Bhutto's email charging Musharraf with responsibility in case of her death, it parroted the Pakistani government line that her husband wanted no autopsy.

d. The change in the government story about how she was killed is very strange. Even if the Pakistani ISI were responsible, one would have thought that the first story about a shooting would be more credible, -- unless it's clear that as in JFK, the alleged assassin couldn't have produced the shots that killed her. According to some reports now emerging she was shot professionally from multiple angles -- as was JFK. But you'd think such minor details could be more easily covered up -- as in JFK -- than the surreal sunroof story.

Raw story also carried a separate story on fanatical right winger Josh Bolton's charges criticizing the US for arranging the return of Bhutto. The relevant quote below, pointing to the destabilization of a nuclear armed Pakistan also points to the motive for her assassination. As he says, we have a prescription for chaos. And we thought we were gonna survive Bush-Cheney's term in office.
Ronald
***


from rawstory.com

Bolton said the primary concern of the US needs to be the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. With Bhutto's death plunging the country into chaos, there is now a "very grave danger" the weapons will fall under control of radical Islamist militants within the Pakistani military.

"What we have now is a prescription for chaos," Bolton said.

***

from rawstory.com

http://rawstory.com//printstory.php?story=8711

Revealed: Pakistan hosed away scene after Bhutto attack
12/29/2007 @ 9:48 am
Filed by John Byrne


May have violated law by skipping autopsy

Despite official reports by Pakistan's interior ministry claiming that the government had intercepted congratulatory messages sent by al Qaeda surrounding the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, a motley of strange occurrences has sparked new suspicion of the government's official story.

On Friday, doctors at Rawalpindi General Hospital, where she died, said that Bhutto had been killed by shrapnel to the head from an explosion, not by two bullets that Bhutto supporters cited in the aftermath of the attack. Bhutto, 54, was killed as in the aftermath of a shooting and suicide bombing as she left a political rally in the city of Rawalpindi.

The government soon changed their story, saying she'd been killed by hitting the sunroof of her LandCruiser after she'd stood up to wave to a crowd. Doctors said there were no bullet marks on the former prime minister's body, and released a limited x-ray of what they said was her skull.

More alarming, however, to Bhutto supporters was the fact no autopsy was conducted prior to burial. The official line -- according to Pakistan's interim prime minister Mohammadmian Soomro -- was that Bhutto's husband had insisted no autopsy be performed.

But according to veteran lawyer Athar Minallah who spoke to McClatchy Newspapers Friday, "an autopsy is mandatory under Pakistan's criminal law in a case of this nature."

"It is absurd, because without autopsy it is not possible to investigate," Minallah told McClatchy's Saeed Shah and Warren Strobel in a little publicized piece. "Is the state not interested in reaching the perpetrators of this heinous crime or there was a cover-up?"

Autopsies are generally not conducted in Islam unless ordered by a court, because the religion calls for burial as quickly as possible. It's unclear whether Bhutto's circumstances would have warranted an exception.

According to the reporters, "the scene of the attack also was watered down with a high-pressure hose within an hour, washing away evidence."

Shah, who reported from the scene Thursday, wrote in a second piece that police rangers charged with protecting her "abandoned their posts" shortly before the bombing, leaving just a handful of Bhutto's own bodyguards protecting her.

"Police officers had frisked the 3,000 to 4,000 people attending Thursday's rally when they entered the park, but as the speakers from Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party droned on, the police abandoned many of their posts," Shah wrote. "As she drove out through the gate, her main protection appeared to be her own bodyguards, who wore their usual white T-shirts inscribed: 'Willing to die for Benazir.'"

Some of Bhutto's supporters were suspect of the "sunroof theory."

A "senior official" of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party called the claim "false," saying he'd seen at least two bullet marks on her body after the attack.

"It was a targeted, planned killing," BPP's Babar Awan said. "The firing was from more than one side."

Another newspaper also asserted witnesses saw her shot.

Multiple reports said Bhutto had shown disregard for her personal safety by waving to the crowd.

"In her enthusiasm, she got carried away, and exposed herself in ways" she shouldn't have, a former State Department official told Shah.

Pakistan indicated Saturday it would delay January elections because of turmoil caused by Bhutto's death. Protests and looting have left at least 38 people dead.

Updated to include background on autopsies as regards Islam.