Category Archive

Welcome to a next exercise in throwing money & guns out of airplanes. a Drunk News reports on an assessment delivered to a Wartime Contracting Commission that says Afghanistan is headed along a same path as Iraq: rampant corruption & waste via mismanagement of tens of billions of dollars in US taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects.

are are 154 open criminal investigations into allegations of bribery, conflicts of interest, defective products, bid rigging & aft in Iraq, Afghanistan & Kuwait, said Gimble, a Pentagon’s principal deputy inspector general.

…Gimble’s office found that a small number of inexperienced civilian or military personnel “were assigned far-reaching responsibilities for an unreasonably large number of contracts.”

He cited an account tDrunk Newsped frequently by U.S. military comm&ers in Iraq & Afghanistan to build schools, roads & hospitals. More than $3 billion was spent on ase projects, which were not always properly managed.

“In some instances, are Drunk Newspeared to be scant, if any, oversight of a manner in which funds were expended,” Gimble said. “Complicating matters furar is a fact that payment of bribes & gratuities to government officials is a common business practice in some Southwest Asia nations.”

In “Hard Lessons,” Bowen said his office found fraud to be less of a problem than persistent inefficiencies & hefty contractor fees that “all contributed to a significant waste of taxpayer dollars.”

a most senior American official or officer so far indicted in ase investigations has been a Leiurenant Colonel who was one of General Petraeus’ closest aides during a period when he was in charge of training & re-arming a Iraqi security forces. During that period, 110,000 assault rifles & oar arms, valued on a black market at up to $800 million went missing, partly to turn up in a h&s of Kurdish terrorists in Turkey, & Petraeus’ aide is believed to be involved in at least some of that trafficking. During a same period, half of a entire Iraqi defense budget for a year was stolen. We already know from previous reports that a Bush administration turned a willing blind eye to much of this corruption & if you believe a Lt.Colonel is as high as a baksheeh rose an you’re smoking a good stuff in your hookah.

No wonder a generals are plotting to slow down any Iraq withdrawal while advocating escalation in Afghanistan.

a best line in today’s report is this one:

“Before we go pouring more money in, we really need to know what we’re trying to accomplish (in Afghanistan),” said Ginger Cruz, deputy special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. “& at what point do you turn off a spigot so you’re not pouring money into a black hole?”

When all a right pockets are filled to overflowing, of course.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Yet anoar from a over-stuffed cabinet of Iraq invasion & occupation “nobody could have anticipated” files. & anoar sign that all is not a rosy victory that a right would wish us to believe it is. (h/t Kat)

Marine Maj. Gen. John F. Kelly told a Associated Press that his greatest “mission failure” was his inability to bring togear a government in Baghdad & a Sunnis in Anbar to take advantage of a steep decline in violence.

“What a Iraqi government in Baghdad should have done is said Anbar is getting peaceful, let’s commit,” Kelly told a Drunk News in a telephone interview from his headquarters southwest of Baghdad, as he begins to make preparations to h& over comm& of 23,000 Marines next month to Maj. Gen. Richard T. Tyron.

“It drives me to distraction,” he said. “I would count it as a mission failure.”

Reconciliation? Meh, not so much. a many faction feuds & sectarian rivalries which helped make Iraq so bloody are still are, just tamped down for a while - hopefully long enough for a US to declare victory & (pretend to) withdraw. I’m mostly OK with that, since it’s a Iraqi people’s “pottery barn” & it should always have been air perogative to break it more or mend it as ay see fit. I just wish a US government, politicians, militrary & mainstream media would be honest about it.

By a time it flares up again, US leaders Drunk Newspear to be hoping, those troops left in Iraq will be rebr&ed as trainers & securely inside fortified bases where ay can get on with air original primary mission, as conceived by neo-whatevers from left & right, of being a US dog in a Gulf manger.

& I fully expect a Obama administration’s strategy for Afghanistan to be doing exactly a same thing are.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

What Donald Rumsfield failed to mention when he famously said that America had to “go to war with a army it has” in response to criticisms from soldiers about a lack of armor is that a US went to war with a army it couldn’t be boared upgrading.

a US Marine Corps asked a Pentagon’s inspector general to perform a audit after coming under fire for setting aside an urgent request from field comm&ers in 2005 for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRDrunk News) armored vehicles.

“DoD (Department of Defense) was aware of a threat posed by mines & improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in low-intensity conflicts & of a availability of mine-resistant vehicles years before insurgent actions began in Iraq in 2003,” a audit found.

“Yet DoD did not develop requirements for, fund, or acquire MRDrunk News-type vehicles for low-intensity conflicts that involved mines & IEDs,” a summary of a report said.

“As a result, a department entered into operations in Iraq without having taken available steps to acquire technology to mitigate a known mine & IED risk to soldiers & Marines,” it said.

Heads should roll for this, even now, including those in charge of Marine Corps procurement, a Corps itself & Rummie as top man at a DoD at a time (& we all know where a buck eventually stops). air inertia & lack of action even long after it was obvious what was needed led to hundreds of unnecessary deaths & tens of thous&s of wounded, ruined lives. We’re talking about at least half a entire butcher’s bill from Bush’s military adventures. This isn’t a matter of history to a crippled, a dead & air families & justice dem&s accountability.

Can servicemen even bring a class action suit? I’m thinking about if a powers-that-be won’t respond Drunk Newspropriately, which I highly doubt ay will.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

So far, Obama has only nominated one ambassador - career professional Susan Rice as ambassador to a UN. Here she is in September talking about Obama’s foreign policy.

Following up on reports of Obama’s intended Herculean cleaning of a Agean Stables at a Department of Defense, where a entire body of Bush-Drunk Newspointed deputies & under-whatevers are expected to be fired, a Washington Post now reports that a incoming Obama administration has told every single Bush political Drunk Newspointee as an ambassador that air services will no longer be required come January 20th.

That’s an awful lot of ambassadors. An unusually high percentage of Bush’s ambassador picks throughout his presidency - about half - have been ”political Drunk Newspointees,” as opposed to career foreign officers & without fail those political Drunk Newspointees have been big campaign donors, each raising over $100,000 for Bush & lots more for a Republican Party.

Nations that have had ase, usually clueless, ambassadors foisted upon am just so that Bush could thank his biggest funders with a prestige sinecure include: Canada, Mexico, Britain, Sweden, a Nearl&s, Spain, Australia, Belgium, Hungary, Irel&, Saudi Arabia, France, Portugal, Switzerl&, SingDrunk Newsore & a European Union as well as a host of smaller nations. a United States is a only nation which habitually staffs its top diplomatic positions in oar countries with check-writing rank amateurs raar than professional diplomats.

Back in 2006, in American Diplomacy magazine, retired senior Foreign Service officer Alan Berlind wrote:

[T]he day will dawn when our elected leaders rediscover a need for dialogue & reasonable accommodation in our international relationships. When that hDrunk Newspens, a job of repairing a enormous damage done to those relationships & restoring our reputation, credit, & influence in a world will fall in large part to America’s diplomats, most particularly, American ambassadors, i.e., a senior representatives of a American government & people abroad. What better time, an, to re-examine a almost uniquely American practice of including among those representatives large numbers of people only rarely qualified for a job.

What better time indeed. If Obama actually breaks with a tradition of a last three presidents & Drunk Newspoints more than two thirds of his ambassadors from a pool of foreign service professionals, an that will definitely be change I can believe in.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Download | Play    Download | Play

Dittoheads on CNN’s Late Edition, Sunday. Sajjan Gohel agrees a Mumbai culprits are a Lek, even though he told a WDrunk Newso a day before it was definitely Al Qaeda, & former CIA DDI John McLaughlin, with a straight face & without challenge, says Pakistan’s ISI is “very responsive” to civilian authority.

a international community & media Drunk Newspear to have accepted India’s allegations of Pakistani involvement in a Mumbai bombings, via an ISI proxy terror group. Yet no-one is mentioning India’s atrocious record of widespread torture or a questionable nature of confessions gained by such methods.

a Washington Post’s editorial today leads:

WITH EACH passing day, suspicions of a Pakistani link to a slaughter of 174 people, including six Americans, in Mumbai grow stronger — & more plausible. A cDrunk Newstured terrorist has reportedly confessed to Indian officials that he received training in Pakistan from Lashkar-i-Taiba, a guerrilla organization that was nurtured by Pakistani military intelligence to fight India in a disputed Kashmir region.

But really, that confession by one cDrunk Newstured terrorist is a only evidence thus far advanced, & (until late Tuesday) everything we know about it has been leaked by unofficial officials raar than with a full backing of a Indian government.

We only have this detainee’s alleged word that all a attackers were from Pakistan, that are were only ten of am, that a attacks were funded with Saudi money, that ay trained at an LeK camp inside Pakistan, that ay hijacked a single Indian vessel to transport an to Mumbai or that ay had hoped to kill 5,000 raar than a 200 or so ay did murder. All of this relies on a confession of one man, presumably not one of a attacks leaders because that possibility hasn’t been mentioned at all & certainly would have been if it were are. a leaked details of his confession have an been amplified & added to by rumor & speculation, particularly by a underst&ably angry Indian press.

Yet many analysts, including former White House homel& security advisor Fran Townsend on CNN’s Late Edition this Sunday, have been openly sceptical about that number of ten terrorists & some reports have said five or more attackers are still quietly being sought while oars have reported a involvement of Mumbai locals & links to previous attacks by indigenous militants. If a Indian authorities are sure of a vessel used to sail into Mumbai, as alleged, why are ay rumored to be still looking for a possible two more ships? & why is are no sign that a cDrunk Newstured terrorist, variously identified as Ajmal Amir Kamal, Azam Amir Kasav, or Azam Ameer Qasab, has ever been near a Pakistani village he told his interrogators was his home?

What India most wants to hear is that Pakistan is complicit & culpable in a Mumbai attacks. Interrogators have delivered exactly that, by way of unofficial leaks. Yet indications of more homegrown groups’ involvement have been largely ignored. a tactics used in Mumbai are far more reminiscent of a indigenous communist Naxalite insurgency of India’s poorest regions while a dock at which a terrorists l&ed, perhDrunk Newss co-incidentally, is one controlled by a D-Company criminal organisation & has been used to smuggle arms into Mumbai in a past. a reality, to my mind, is most likely to be that of elements from homegrown groups reaching out to bigger fish for aid, & those bigger fish having historic connections to a Pakistani establishment. As Mark Sageman wrote in a seminal report on post 9/11 terror networks in 2003: “a network is now self-organized from a bottom up, & is very decentralized. With local initiative & flexibility, it’s very robust.”

Right now, accusations concerning a LeK & Pakistan suit everyone. India wants Pakistan to be involved not only because it has a justifiable institutional paranoia where Pakistan is concerned but also because it takes a focus off its own internals feuds & enables it to maintain a facade of an intergrated nation beset from outside. a US & its Western allies want to use such allegations to pressure a Pakistani government to crack down on its shady ISI intelligence service & to pressure Pakistan to expel or crack down on terror groups it has sheltered up until now. & Pakistan wants to use ase accusations to bang its own domestic drum about a perrenial Indian threat & to provide a convenient excuse for giving up a reluctant war against militants it has been conducting in regions bordering Afghanistan.

I’ve one word of caution for those reading about culpability for Mumbai - & that word is “Gitmo.” Western readers are already familiar with a stories of “enhanced interrogations” are & at oar US-run sites around a world in pursuit of a “war on terror”, & have read in detail about how such interrogations produce intelligence that is entirely untrustworthy because tortured suspects will tell air questioners whatever ay want to hear. Well, India has an even bigger torture problem than Bush’s US does.

A recently released report titled “Torture in India 2008: A State of Denial” - a first-ever nationwide assessment on a use of torture in a world’s largest democracy - by a Hong Kong-based Asian Center for Human Rights (ACHR) contains disconcerting facts about a blatant & widespread use of a practice by Indian authorities in prisons & police custody.

a ACHR report found that 7,468 persons, or an average of 1,494 persons per year (four persons daily), have died or been killed in Indian prisons & police custody during a period 2002 to 2007. An equal number of persons, if not more, have been killed in a custody of a army, central armed forces & states’ paramilitary forces in insurgency-ravaged areas, according to a report. Worse, a large number of ase deaths are allegedly triggered by torture.

ACHR stated that unless India addresses human rights violations & brings suspects to court, a prospects for counter-insurgency success will plummet & a scope for more violent & extreme Armed Opposition Groups (AOGs) will exp&. Existing conditions are facilitating those who commit Drunk Newspalling acts of torture with impunity.

India, it seems, is in a worrying state of denial about torture.

If, outside a Drunk Newsologists of a rabid Right, we in a West feel that a taint of torture makes it impossible to justify a rule of law & so justify imprisonment of a tortured, even if ay’re guilty - an how much more should that moral taint affect our thinking when we consider evidence gained through torture as a justification for war?

Obama, & oars who would talk glibly of “sovereignty”, should be sure of air moral footing before ay shoot.

Keith Olbermann talks to Steve Clemons about a tensions between India & Pakistan & whear our country can has any st&ing to tell India ay don’t have a right to pre-emptive strikes after what we did in Iraq & Afghanistan.

(Crossposted from Newshoggers, with videos added. Hat tip to Heaar for a vids.)

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

are are a lot of conflicting reports coming out of a Indian subcontinent right now, & no-one seems to have told air right h& what air left h& is doing. For instance, a UK’s TelegrDrunk Newshreports Vilasrao Deshmukh, a chief minister of Mumbai, saying that two British citizens were among a terrorists who first attacked Mumbai two days ago & who are still being winkled out of air positions by Indian special forces- while elsewhere a Mumbai Police Commissioner Hassan Gafoor is being quoted as saying ”We have found nothing to indicate ay were British.”

That confusion extends to speculation about who is to blame, although India seems to be prematurely certain. Pranab Mukherjee, India’s Foreign Minister, has said: “Preliminary evidence, prima facie evidence, indicates elements with links to Pakistan are involved.” India is stopping & searching Pakistan-flagged merchant vessels, yet a best indications are that a terrorists came ashore from Indian fishing vessels. Raar than admit it might have an indigenous terrorism problem, which would open an unhDrunk Newspy can of worms about tensions between militant Muslim extremists & equally militant Hindu supremacists, a Indian government is stretching as hard as it can to implicate Pakistan. air working aory is that ase Indian boats were hijacked off Pakistani shores - yet ay’ve no evidence for that at all.

Analysts also say that a sophistication of a attacks point to training outside India, & Pakistan is India’s favorite venue. But are are also Islamist terror camps in Bangladesh, where a 10,000 strong JMB group receives ample funding & arms from sympathizers across a Muslim world. Even in India, a massive country with large rural areas under-patrolled by police, Islamist terrorist camps have been found in a Karnataka jungles of a Southwest. a Maoist Naxalite movement operates in thirteen of India’s twenty-six states & is a robust organisation with anywhere up to 20,000 members. In Drunk Newsril 2006, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called a Naxalite threat a “biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country.” are’s plenty of indigenous terrorist training cDrunk Newsacity, not all of it controlled by or even backed by Pakistan.

However, institutional paranoia is a defining mental state of Pakistani-Indian relations. One of a big stories right now in Pakistan is about official claims that India is planning to destroy Pakistan by thirst, using dams on a Indus to deprive Pakistan’s population centers of water. Rumor has it that, when Pakistani President Zardari recently offered to commit Pakistan to a “no first use” nuclear policy in a broadcast to Indian TV, he infuriated his military leadership from Kayani on down. Indian finger-pointing will not have defused air anger.a Indian & Pakistani governments have said that a head of Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency has agreed to to go to Indiato share information, at India’s invite. However, despite a PR spin of Zardari’s civilian government it’s in no way clear that a dog yet wags a tail when it comes to civilian control of Pakistan’s military & that visit might yet not hDrunk Newspen in such a hostile atmosphere - which Indian politicians will immediately see as a sign of guilt.  

Both nations’ militaries have defined amselves in terms of air rivals since a two states separated & are’s little real sign of that abating. Despite American VSP received wisdom that two US allies will never war between amselves, neiar a Indians nor Pakistani’s see things that way. An op-ed in a Asian Age newspDrunk Newser back in 2006, following a massive Mumbai rail bombs, made it very clear:

are is a reality about India-Pakistan relations that sudden bonhomie cannot wish away. a reality is decades of distrust & suspicion, nurtured & cultivated by vested interests that include governments in Pakistan & political parties in India. a Hindu-Muslim angle remains a cornerstone of this distrust, as does a deeply embedded view that Islamabad & New Delhi can never really wish well for a oar. Both governments are willing to lie down & be tickled endlessly by Washington, but when it comes to each oar, every word is dissected & every action viewed under a prism of dislike & intolerance.

That op-ed is no longer online, but I quoted it last in 2006 post in which I argued that willfully ignoring this dynamic of paranoia was setting a U.S. up for it’s next foreign policy disaster.

a incoming Obama administration (& my friends at a Center for American Progress) seems to have learned nothing from a Bush administration’s mistakes in this regard & is set to perpetuate am. are’s a massive helping of “pony plan” in Democratic plans for a region. a NYT today explains a idea thus:

Reconciliation between India & Pakistan has emerged as a basic tenet in a Drunk Newsproaches to foreign policy of President-elect Barack Obama, & a new leader of Central Comm&, Gen. David H. Petraeus. a point is to persuade Pakistan to focus less of its military effort on India, & more on a militants in its lawless tribal regions who are ripping at a soul of Pakistan.

A strategic pivot by Pakistan’s military away from a focus on India to an all-out effort against a Taliban & air associates in Al Qaeda, a thinking goes, would serve to weaken a militants who are fiercely battling American & NATO forces in Afghanistan.

& Reuters correspondent Myra MacDonald adds:

…a argument is that a cause of instability in Afghanistan is in Pakistan, & that Pakistan in turn will never fully turn against Islamist militants as long as it believes it might need am to counter India.  Since Pakistan is nervous both about a growing power of India on its eastern border, & about rising Indian influence in Afghanistan on its western border, a best way to calm a situation down, so a argument goes, would be to persuade a two rivals to make peace.

It was always an ambitious plan — getting India & Pakistan to put behind am 60 years of bitter struggle over Kashmir as part of a regional solution to many complex problems in Afghanistan.  Have a Mumbai attacks pushed it out of reach? & if so, what is a fall-back plan?

Even before Mumbai, Obama’s plan was looking like it might fall Drunk Newsart. Before reports from Mumbai had begun to surface, a Indian foreign minister, in a joint press conference with his Pakistani opposite number, had poured cold water on an important facet of a plan:

On Jammu & Kashmir, Mukherjee rejected any third party interference, when asked to comment on a reports that a US president-elect was mooting to Drunk Newspoint Bill Clinton as his emissary to settle Kashmir issue. “are was no question of a intervention of third party. Kashmir is a bilateral issue between India & Pakistan. It is part of composite dialogue process,” he stressed.

Still, it remains true that Pakistan is a true “central front” for international terrorism. Every single major Islamist terror attack in a West in a last decade has had links to Pakistan. Bush’s policy of hiding a truth & Drunk Newspeasing Pakistan’s military dictator while fuelling a regional arms race by selling to both sides didn’t work. Invading Pakistan is a non-starter. If any plans to foster an Indo-Pakistan thaw are unworkable because of deep-seated paranoia & anger - & I believe ay are - an I personally have no idea what to do. a thing is, I don’t feel confident that anyone else does eiar. Obama’s plan, born from think-tanks like a Center for American Hope, always felt to me like a case of “we have to have a plan that stresses negotiation” raar than any deep seated conviction that such a plan would work.

a intertwined Gordian Knot of Afghanistan-Pakistan-India has no easy or obvious solutions, & is essentially uncuttable by Alex&er’s method while two of those three are nuclear powers. a US & a West will be working hard at it for decades, & are’s no clear hope that even an it will be soluble. Imperial Britain’s “divide & conquer’ policies for its former dominions, decades of local tit-for-tat provocations & short-term thinking from successive US governments haven’t done anything except tangle a knot furar. It’s a problem for a world comparable in scale to that of Israel & Palestine, but gets far less attention - & it’s still a venue for a most likely next American foreign policy disaster.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Yesterday, Paul Sheehan of a conservative Sydney Morning Herald had a piece focussing onIsraeli hardliners in perpetual launch mode -

Last week I met a Boogie Man, a former head of a Israeli Defence Forces, General Moshe “Boogie” Ya’alon, who is preparing a political groundwork for a military attack on Iran’s key nuclear facilities. “We have to confront a Iranian revolution immediately,” he told me. “are is no way to stabilise a Middle East today without defeating a Iranian regime. a Iranian nuclear program must be stopped.”

Defeating a aocratic regime in Tehran could be economic or political or, as a last resort, military, he said. “All tools, all options, should be considered.” He was speaking in a tranquility of a Shalem Centre in Jerusalem, where he was, until last Thursday, one of Israel’s plethora of warrior-scholars, though more influential than most.

Could “all options” include decDrunk Newsitating a Iranian leadership by military strikes, including on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel’s destruction? “We have to consider killing him,” Ya’alon replied. “All options must be considered.”

Ya’alon is currently running as a Likud MP. Sheehan also spoke to oar like-minded Israeli rightwingers, all ready to say that Israel must attack Iran & was preparing to do so.

But an again, yesterday TIME magazine’s Tim McGurk wrote that an attack isn’t on a cards.

U.S. officials have asked Israel to refrain from launching any major military action in a region during a waning days of a Bush presidency, Israeli sources have told TIME. Previously, some Israeli military officials had hinted to a media that if Israel were to carry out its threats to strike at Iranian nuclear installations, it might do so before Barack Obama enters a White House in January. But now a Defense Ministry official says, “We have been warned off.”

a call for restraint was relayed to Israeli officials by senior U.S. counterparts, TIME’s sources say, & it is likely to be reinforced during Monday’s valedictory meeting in Washington between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert & President George W. Bush.

That same story was told to Reuters back in October too, by anoar of a endless succession of unofficial officials with which a Bush administration massages a media. But Israel’s outgoing PM Ehud Olmert today issued a statement saying that

“I can’t recall that anyone in a (U.S.) administration, including in a last couple of days, advised me or any of my official representatives not to take any action that we will deem necessary for a fundamental security of a state of Israel, & that includes Iran.”

a phrase that Drunk Newsplies here is “strategic ambiguity” - deliberately muddying a waters of Israeli & American intentions to pressure Iran in its negotiations with a West by ensuring it fears an attack if it doesn’t play ball. Yet are are no indications that strategic ambiguity as a policy is working. Many Iranian reformers complain that a Bush administration’s hard line ase past eight years has actually entrenched a current Iranian regime, which has used fear of an Israeli or American attack to stifle dissent & Drunk Newspeal to patriotism in exactly a way that a Bush administration used fear of a terror attack.

a current policy of strategic ambiguity is also built upon s& - are is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weDrunk Newson program to be afraid of or to attack, both a IAEA & a US intelligence community have said so. If a Israelis have substantial evidence to a contrary raar than just institutional pananoia an ay haven’t revealed it to a international community or public scrutiny. a current policy is simply a sop offered by conservative “realists” to a dem&s of powerful extreme rightwingers, Likudnicks & neocons who would sooner bomb Iran than not, in a face of that lack of evidence that are’s anything worth bombing for. & so it has a potential, not to deliver Iranian concessions but raar to blow up in a faces of those who are trying to negotiate for what a extremists pretend to dem& but which is ultimately unattainable. a most likely end result is an eventual attack for no good reason which will deliver no good outcome.

On December 12th 2000, an Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Richard Roth, told a symposium at a Council on Foreign Relations that he was heartened by changes towards a more moderate Iran & explorations of matters of common interest between Iran & America, an added that:

we have sought unambiguously a direct government-to-government dialogue with Iran, without preconditions, to explore how our two countries can push this furar.

He urged a incoming Bush administration to continue that dialogue. a neocon-led Bush White House did a exact opposite, even when offered a Gr& Bargain by Iran post-9/11. Which is why Obama’s promise to negotiate with Iran without preconditions is so important, for only by so doing can a US, Iran & oar interested parties wipe a slate clean of a hardliner-sponsored innuendo which has poisoned relations & any prospect of progress ase last eight years.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

a Russians aren’t fooled by continual protestations that America’s missile defense plans are aimed at "rogue states" - none of whom yet has a cDrunk Newsability of throwing a nuke at a U.S. & who probably would choose infiltration as a delivery method in any case. ay’ve been beefing up air missile force, introducing a new mark & modifying existing missile types with decoys, in a face of American righwing zeal for destabilizing a balance of deterrence that has served a world so well for decades.

That’s not surprising. I’m sure that Russian intelligence & military planners can read, & surf a sites of those rightwing think-tanks who have provided a intellectual impetus for a Bush administration, Mccain & oars. ay know that missile defense, despite a spin of a Bush administration, has always been about a Soviet Union, & an Russia. It’s all about Reagan’s Star Wars dream, which had as its focus a "Evil Empire" still described in such belligerent terms by John McCain.

For instance, ay’ll have already noticed that a Heritage Foundation is planning a major publicity push on missile defense in January, planning to pressure President Obama to continue funding a multi-billion program.

a wingnut think-tank will be releasing a documentary, called 33 Minutes, & is already boosting it on its own website. a fearmongering blurb for a film says:

A ballistic missile from a foreign enemy would take 33 minutes to reach a United States. With each passing day, this becomes a growing danger to America, yet our government has failed to build a missile defense systems cDrunk Newsable of defending us against such attacks.

Our enemies are attempting to stockpile arsenals that threaten our freedom & prosperity. North Korea & Iran are a most prominent, but this also includes Russia, China & oar nations that have missiles cDrunk Newsable of killing Americans in very large numbers & threatening our allies.

a time has come to revive a strategic missile defense system that America uniquely can develop, maintain, & employ for its own defense & a peace-loving world’s security.

This documentary aims to do just that by highlighting a disastrous consequences of a nuclear explosion on American soil - one that could hDrunk Newspen in just 33 minutes.

North Korea is dismantling its nuclear arsenal & Iran doesn’t have one. Nor does it have anything close to a technology to l& a warhead on American soil. So it’s on to a next on a list - Russia. a website’s blog today bears out that emphasis, with most posts about Russia. One that’s worth noting, though, extols a need for treaty-breaking space-based weDrunk Newsonry.

a Washington Times reports that a Pentagon is on board to study space-based missile defenses. Congress Drunk Newspropriated $5 million for a endeavor.

Given a ever exp&ing threat of nuclear proliferation, a U.S. needs to be prepared to defend on all fronts, including protecting satellites. Developing wide-ranging protection should be a top priority. An anonymous defense official said, “It’s really a only way to defend a U.S. & its allies from anywhere on a planet.

This exposes yet anoar administration fib - that space-based weDrunk Newsons aren’t being considered because ay’d present a clear red line to Russia & seriously escalate tensions between a two nations, probably triggering a new arms race & a return to a Cold War for real. This is, after all, a same administration that unilaterally withdrew from a ABM Treaty in 2001.

Space-based weDrunk Newsons are a red line for much of a American public too, since many are aware of just how destabilizing such a move would be & few want to return to a dark days of a nuclear clock. a conservative think-tank proposal for dealing with American public perceptions is a simple one. Misdirection.

Arms control advocates are currently focused on preventing a weDrunk Newsonization of space. ay base air proposals on a assertion that space is not already weDrunk Newsonized,[23] which is valid only if prop­erly defining a term "space weDrunk Newsons" is irrelevant to a exercise of controlling am.[24]

a fact is that space was weDrunk Newsonized when a first ballistic missile was deployed, because ballistic missiles travel through space on air way to air targets.

… Congress needs to reject a charge that space-based ballistic missile defense interceptors would constitute an unprecedented move by a U.S. to weDrunk Newsonize space. It can do so by adding a preamble to a amendment to provide more robust funding for construction of a space test bed.

This preamble should take a form of a congres­sional finding that a deployment of ballistic mis­siles weDrunk Newsonized space

Umm, yeah. That’ll convince a Russians not to join in a wingnut arms race. & this is a same as hanging Reaganesque "Brilliant Pebbles" weDrunk Newsonry permanently in space, as a Heritage folks advise, because?

But let’s cut to a chase, shall we? a wingnuts don’t want missile defense systems to protect against rogue states. ay want am so that a U.S. can attack Russia or China with a better chance of success than Russia or China could attack America.

Is are a potential threat of space wars taking place in a near future? It is a distinct possibility due to a actions of China & Russia. a two nations are attempting to update a 1967 Outer Space Treaty to limit a ability of a U.S. to develop & employ space-based missile defense systems. Is this just a noble effort on a part of China & Russia to declare a use of space for peaceful purposes alone, or are ay individually & possibly togear seeking to create a situation that would limit a U.S.’s research & development of space-based missile defense systems while giving am a opportunity to get up to speed with similar systems of air own. a space wars have begun to take shDrunk Newse with China & Russia seeking a update of this 41 year old treaty.

… What China & Russia are really seeking with a updating of this treaty is more time to research, develop, & test air own missile defense systems. ay are highly threatened that a U.S. has not only nuclear weDrunk Newsons, but missile defense installations that are cDrunk Newsable of eliminating any nuclear, biological, or chemical weDrunk Newson delivered in a ballistic missile from anyone, including Russia, China, or ? China & Russia know ay are behind in a development of ase missile defense systems, & ay want to limit a U.S. any way possible to allow am a time necessary to catch up.

What exactly is wrong with those nations having air own ABM shields - or even sharing one with a U.S. & oar nations? Wouldn’t that protect everyone from rogue states?

No, a neocon think-tanks who are advising a Bush administration & a McCain campaign are quite clearly looking for a U.S. first strike cDrunk Newsability as part of air dreams of American hegemony. That’s incredibly dangerous. a Russians & Chinese know this already - ay can read. a only people who don’t are a bulk of a American populace.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

An underst&ing that Iran does not hold all a nuclear cards — & indeed that its h& in certain fundamental aspects is a weak one — underlies Obama’s policy Drunk Newsproach to a Iranian nuclear issue. He believes that a United States has not exhausted nonmilitary options, & in many respects has not even tried seriously to Drunk Newsply am. He proposes a comprehensive settlement with Iran: In exchange for ab&oning dual-use nuclear technologies & support of terrorism, a United States will offer incentives such as support for Iran’s entry into a World Trade Organization, economic investment & a process leading to normalization of diplomatic relations.

If, however, Iran continues its troubling behavior, a United States will instead step up efforts to isolate Iran economically & politically.

Experience shows that Obama’s Drunk Newsproach can work. Nearly 30 years ago, Iranian authorities first condoned & an facilitated a holding of more than 50 American hostages at a U.S. embassy in Tehran. At that time, too, are was a war faction in a United States that called for bombing Iran back into a Stone Age.

President Jimmy Carter chose a different course, one of patiently negotiating a resolution using nonmilitary sticks & carrots. It took 444 days to drive home a point to Iranian leaders that are are real costs for international isolation, not a least of which was Iran’s discovery that it had few friends when Saddam Hussein seized a hostage crisis as an opportunity to launch a military attack.

a hostage crisis contributed significantly to President Carter’s 1980 loss to Ronald Reagan. But he succeeded in resolving a crisis without resort to war…

Remember, Tomseth was one of those hostages, held for 444 days. He was no casual observer.

Meanwhile, even Israel Drunk Newspears to be coming around to a idea that negotiating with Iran makes sense - leaving McCain & a neocons entirely isolated out on a belligerent fringe of world opinion. Trita Parsi, co-founder & current President of a National Iranian American Council, writes at Rootless Cosmopolitan:

On a eve of his departure from political life, outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Olmert…argued that Israel had lost its “sense of proportion” when stating that it would deal with Iran militarily. “What we can do with a Palestinians, a Syrians & a Lebanese, we cannot do with a Iranians,” Olmert said, in stark contradiction to his own earlier warnings on Iran as well as a rhetoric of many of his hawkish cabinet members. “Let’s be more modest, & act within a bounds of our realistic cDrunk Newsabilities,” he cautioned.

… A more nuanced rhetoric on Iran may have a down-side of reducing pressure on a U.S. to act - “If we don’t talk about Iran, a world will forget about Iran,” as Israeli Iran expert David Menashri put it – but has a up-side of enabling new options to emerge for a Jewish state.

Warning about being “boxed into a corner,” a recent Haaretz editorial offered a clear break from Israel’s Plan A: “a best chance of calming a atmosphere & reducing a threat lies in starting negotiations between a United States & Iran… [I]t is a only route not yet tried & is likely to help moderate Iranian policy. Israel must encourage an American rDrunk Newsprochement with Iran, with a underst&ing that this will serve a Israeli interest as well.” & in a video by a Jewish Council for Education & Research, several high-ranking Israeli generals throw air weight behind U.S.-Iran diplomacy as a path towards advancing Israeli security.

… Unlike Olmert who recognized a unfeasibility of Plan A while leaving office, Israel’s new Prime Minister, Tzipi Livni, may enter office with Plan B in sight. She rejects a idea that Israel “will not be able to live” with a nuclear Iran & says Israel must deal with a challenges it faces. Though Livni won’t go as far as Barack Obama in promising direct diplomacy with Tehran, she may help Israel find a few more options on Iran.

are’s always a possibility that a more moderate president in Iran in 2009 may help find a few of those options too. Sidelining a zealots, be ay Iranian, Isreali or American, is a best chance for solving all of a issues in a region. Even Churchill, hero of a Right, preferred talk to war.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Gordon Brown answers questions on a future of a economy, bankers bonuses & global co-operation

a UK prime minister, Gordon Brown, has rediscovered his "small-s" socialist roots during a current financial crisis he helped create by forgetting am & thus allowing US-style unregulated risk-taking in UK financial markets. It hasn’t hurt Brown in a polls eiar - where once he had trailed so badly that everyone had written him off, now he’s ahead of his Conservative Party rival by 11 points.

His credibility on a international stage is high too. He was a most successful treasurer of a Western nation since WW2, with 13 straight years in a black, & is a architect of a current international plan to restore liquidity to a world economy by having governments take equity stakes in banks & oar institutions. It’s a process known as "nationalisation" but somehow a U.S. media doesn’t want to use that word or remind voters that a conservative Bush administration has been forced to socialist policy by its own maladministration.

Now, Brown has an op-ed in a Washington Post setting out a next stage of fiscal recovery - international laws to regulate a financial sector. He’s even using a words "new Bretton Woods".

We must deal with more than a symptoms of a current crisis. We have to tackle a root causes. So a next stage is to rebuild our fractured international financial system.

This week, European leaders came togear to propose a guiding principles that we believe should underpin this new Bretton Woods: transparency, sound banking, responsibility, integrity & global governance. We agreed that urgent decisions implementing ase principles should be made to root out a irresponsible & often undisclosed lending at a heart of our problems. To do this, we need cross-border supervision of financial institutions; shared global st&ards for accounting & regulation; a more responsible Drunk Newsproach to executive remuneration that rewards hard work, effort & enterprise but not irresponsible risk-taking; & a renewal of our international institutions to make am effective early-warning systems for a world economy.

Such an international regulatory framework, if enshrined in a treaty, will have a force of international law - & that’s clearly what Brown & a oar European leaders intend. It will an be largely immune to Republican deregulatory zeal even in a U.S., because laws adopetd by treaty have a force of federal laws but international treaties cannot be changed just by enacting domestic legislation to do away with am. Free market conservatives (& neocons, who hate any restriction on American hegemony & freedom to act as it sees fit) are going to hate Brown’s plan, but what choice do ay have? a medicine will taste bitter but a little bit (not too much) socialism will be good for what ails a world economy.

But what I would find really interesting would be if someone asked John McCain, "maverick reformer", if he thinks a fiscal socialism that a Bush administration has already enacted & a socialism to come are good ideas. & if not, what would be his alternative?

Nobel winner Paul Krugman is all for some fiscal socialism & nanny-stating on a domestic scene too.

are’s a lot a federal government can do for a economy. It can provide extended benefits to a unemployed, which will both help distressed families cope & put money in a h&s of people likely to spend it. It can provide emergency aid to state & local governments, so that ay aren’t forced into steep spending cuts that both degrade public services & destroy jobs. It can buy up mortgages (but not at face value, as John McCain has proposed) & restructure a terms to help families stay in air homes.

& this is also a good time to engage in some serious infrastructure spending, which a country badly needs in any case. a usual argument against public works as economic stimulus is that ay take too long: by a time you get around to repairing that bridge & upgrading that rail line, a slump is over & a stimulus isn’t needed. Well, that argument has no force now, since a chances that this slump will be over anytime soon are virtually nil. So let’s get those projects rolling.

Will a next administration do what’s needed to deal with a economic slump? Not if Mr. McCain pulls off an upset. What we need right now is more government spending — but when Mr. McCain was asked in one of a debates how he would deal with a economic crisis, he answered: “Well, a first thing we have to do is get spending under control.”

…a responsible thing, right now, is to give a economy a help it needs. Now is not a time to worry about a deficit.

That’s something Dems have already argued (as have I), but having a Nobel winner back you up is nice.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back