The torture thirteen

They're naming names. Whether or not they can possibly be shamed is another thing entirely.

Let the backstabbing commence!

Emptywheel: Rice and Goss turn on Cheney.

How very satisfying...

Blog sprinkles

United States needs to renounce its neocon arrogance and realize that being a superpower doesn't automatically give us leadership rights. The world community has passed us by and we now need to make sure our nation just survives. Distributorcap says it best.

Obama drifting to the right? Mustang Bobby of Bark Bark Woof Woof reassures us with a poem.

Bush's last presser.

The sabotage of Condi Rice.

Dear Mr. Obama. Remember your promises. Especially to Hecate's grandson.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, George.

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

(found via scoutprime at First Draft)

Steve Bates of the Yellow Doggerel Democrat threatens us with Carbon Neutral Balls.

Blue Girl of They Gave Us a Republic talks about the decimation of the CDC during the Bush era:

Julie Gerberding, the wingnut Bushie who has driven the CDC into the ground is out come January 20. Rumor had it that she wanted to stay on, but so eager to get rid of her they are, that she isn't even being retained until a replacement is selected and confirmed. Instead, CDC chief operating officer Bill Gimson will be acting director in the interim.

A statement from the transition team didn't go into too much detail, stating simply that "As part of the transition process, the administration requested resignation letters from a number of senior-level officials, including Dr. Julie Gerberding. This week, the administration accepted Dr. Gerberding's resignation, effective January 20. As Dr. Gerberding noted in a November e-mail to CDC leadership, she has always expected that she would be leaving after the administration changes."

Gerberding took the helm of the CDC seven years ago, after the anthrax attacks, and immediately set about decimating it, ignoring science and changing the structure to one where she micromanaged everything, even things that were far outside her lane and incapacitating the agencies ability to respond in the event of a public health crisis.

Putting the public at risk because of political ideology? Wait.. that's the entire Bush administration.

Chet Scoville of Vanity Press on Joe the Plumber.

Bryan of Why Now? mentions the pragmatism of FDR:

In a way, the strength of FDR was that he didn’t have a grand strategy that everything was part of, and nothing was ignored because of the side that proposed it. There was a goal, getting out of the Depression, and if you had an idea that might help, it was tried. If it worked, it was kept. If it didn’t work, it was gone.

Hoover was a conservative, so he had already tried the conservative policies, which is why there weren’t many tried by FDR. He did back off the big stimulus packages after about 4 years to get the budget under control, but when the economy faltered, he went back to what he knew worked.

If we are going to get out of this mess, people are going to have to cut loose from their preconceived notions and go with programs that have a track record. FDR found a lot of things that worked and this is no time to reinvent the wheel - wait too long and there may be no wagon to put it on or horse to pull it.

Seems that Obama may have that same pragmatic streak...

Has anyone yet asked WHY?

Why did the concept of torture come up? Why was it even considered? Who could possibly be so cold hearted, unethical, and unconcerned about blowback that they would think it was a good idea? (Don't answer that.) Because of the recent news that Condi Rice has admitted torture was discussed at the highest levels in the White House (which we knew anyway, but it's nice to have an admission), I bring back this post:

They even watched:

JUAN GONZALEZ: And Alberto Gonzales’s trip to Guantanamo, could you talk about that?

PHILIPPE SANDS: Well, I’ve spoken for the first time, or at least people I’ve spoken with have for the first time now become publicly identified as closely involved. Diane Beaver was the lawyer down at Guantanamo. Mike Dunlavey was her boss. General Hill was the commander of United States SouthCom based at Miami. I’ve spoken to all three of them, and both Diane Beaver and Mike Dunlavey, who have largely been scapegoated by the administration, described to me the visit that Mr. Gonzales made, accompanied by Mr. Addington, who’s Vice President Cheney’s lawyer, and Jim Haynes, who is Rumsfeld’s lawyer.

They came down. They talked about interrogation techniques. They apparently even watched an interrogation or two. I was told that the driving individual was Mr. Addington, who was obviously the man in control. And I was told in particular by Diane Beaver that she was quite fearful of Mr. Haynes, and she also shared with me that Alberto Gonzales was rather quiet.

I've it before and I say it now, these members of Bush's cabal were into torture. It made them feel like they could shock and awe the world with their mighty and powerful ... military and bombs.



Hard to push how mighty and powerful we are when all this war has shown is how craven and cowardly these creeps actually are.



If we can't bring ourselves to do it, let there please be one brave European country who can take our war criminals to the Hague!



Because torture is always immoral.

Even the military knows this:

The former head of interrogations at Guantánamo Bay found that records of an al-Qaida suspect tortured at the prison camp were mysteriously lost by the US military, according to a new book by one of Britain's top human rights lawyers.

Retired general Michael Dunlavey, who supervised Guantánamo for eight months in 2002, tried to locate records on Mohammed al-Qahtani, accused by the US of plotting the 9/11 attacks, but found they had disappeared.

The records on al-Qahtani, who was interrogated for 48 days - "were backed up ... after I left, there was a snafu and all was lost", Dunlavey told Philippe Sands QC, who reports the conversation in his book Torture Team, previewed last week by the Guardian. Snafu stands for Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.

Saudi-born al-Qahtani was sexually taunted, forced to perform dog tricks and given enemas at Guantánamo.

The CIA admitted last year that it destroyed videotapes of al-Qaida suspects being interrogated at a secret "black site" in Thailand. No proof has so far emerged that tapes of interrogations at Guantánamo were destroyed, but Sands' report suggests the US may have also buried politically sensitive proof relating to abuse by interrogators at the prison camp.

Other new evidence has also emerged in the last month that raises questions about destroyed tapes at Guantánamo.

We need to see accountability, responsibility, justice. We need to see impeachment.

Russia stops military action

After five days of fighting. What did Russia want to achieve?:

At the start of the conflict, there were questions as to whether the Kremlin had a clear strategy.

As it went on though, it seems to have settled on two main objectives: one military, and one political.

"The logical conclusion is to destroy the military capacity of Georgia," Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, said of the aims of Russia's campaign.

Now, presumably, Russia feels it has dealt a strong enough blow to the Georgian military. That objective has been achieved.

Deep mistrust

The unspoken political objective is the weakening, or perhaps removal, of Mikhail Saakashvili.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has denied that Russia had any intention to depose the Georgian president, while adding: "It would be better if he went."

Any formal negotiation is still a way off. And, given the clear level of mistrust between the Russian and Georgian governments, it is always possible that fighting may break out again.

But even before agreeing to take part in any talks, Russia has, in effect, imposed conditions: no negotiations with Mr Saakashvili, and no Georgian troops in South Ossetia.

So... what is Bush's stratergery?:

In remarks yesterday, President Bush strongly criticized Russia's actions in Georgia. Though press analyses widely suggest that the US has little leverage in the region, this morning the Russians announced a halt to the invasion, saying they had "punished" the Georgians. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports "criticism is mounting that the Bush administration didn't do enough to manage its strategic relationship with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili -- and keep him out of trouble." The Journal adds "many officials in the US government who have worked on the Russia relationship in recent years said...Bush lionized Mr. Saakashvili as a model for democracy in the region to a point that the Georgian leader may have held unrealistic expectations about the amount of support he might receive from the US and the West." These officials "also point to a lack of clarity governing the US-Georgia military relationship" and said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "seemed so preoccupied with Iraq, Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict that she didn't have time to fashion an effective response to Russia's muscle-flexing on its borders."

And:

After a buzz of criticism in the media and on the blogosphere -- Agence-France Presse reported that the secretary of State had been "noticeably absent on the diplomatic scene, having failed to interrupt her holidays" -- she returned yesterday to tackle the Russian attacks on Georgia.

And Cheney is again way out in rightwing field:

On Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney said that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States."

So... Dick: 'Must not go unanswered'? Serious consequences?' With whose army are we going to answer Russia? Oops, sorry. You broke the military in your two self-inflicted quagmires. Are you itching to nuke just one country before you leave office? Is that it?

One of the mines being laid for Obama

Is the idiotic Star Wars missile defense which has irritated Russia. Only the Czech Republic signed on:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has signed a deal to base part of Washington's controversial missile defence system in the Czech Republic.

The deal, signed in Prague, allows a tracking radar base to be set up.

The plans remain unpopular in the Czech Republic and the US has also failed to reach agreement with Poland on housing other parts of the system there.

A senior Russian official has been quoted as saying the deal "complicates" global security.

Moscow has previously threatened to aim its own missiles at any eventual base in Poland or the Czech Republic.

But wait! Condi says it's Iran that we should be afraid of!

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the shield is a good deal for the Czech Republic and for Poland, where the United States hopes to place another part of the system, although Warsaw hasn't yet agreed.

The next American president will have to decide whether and how to go forward with the missile defense system, Rice said, adding that the threat from Iran is growing and it is hard to imagine any administration giving up an effective deterrent.

Then ... it's not Russia that we're trying to contain? Then why aren't we setting up missile defenses in Iraq, Turkey and Armenia if it's Iran we're focusing on? Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan? India? Saudi Arabia? Why not Israel, which is about the only hostile country Iran can reach with its missiles.

But the Czech Republic? And ... Poland? The neocons sure do miss the Cold War days, don't they? Life was simple then, men were men and bad guys spoke in Russian accents.

Condi must go

And go on trial along with all the other high ranking officials of the Bush administration. Watch the video and sign the petition:

The incompetence of Condi

Condi Rice went to the Middle East to get the peace process back on track:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has held talks with Egyptian officials, the first stage of a trip aimed at saving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas broke off contacts with Israel in protest at its recent offensive in Gaza, which has left more than 110 Palestinians dead.

Ms Rice said the US was concerned about the toll of innocent life, but blamed Hamas for triggering the bloodshed.

She said talks must not be sabotaged by those rejecting a peace deal.

Ms Rice headed on to Israel and the West Bank for further negotiations with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Yet still the circle of violence and the helplessness of those caught in its vortex continues:

Israeli tanks and infantry moved out of Gaza before dawn today after a five day operation to kill militants that left more than 110 Palestinians dead, including 22 children.

Hopes that the incursion had ended the barrage of Palestinian rockets raining down from Gaza on Israeli border towns proved in vain, however, when three missiles hit the resort town of Ashkelon this morning, damaging an apartment building. No-one was hurt.

Israel said that its withdrawal did not mean it was scaling back its operation against the Islamists, but merely suspending it temporarily for a two day visit by Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State.

“This very limited (Gaza) operation was intended to show Hamas what could happen, what you may call a ’prequel’,” said an Israeli official.

So then:

The killing of eight people at a Jewish religious college by a Palestinian gunman will not derail peace talks, the Israeli government has said.

The gunman was shot dead after opening fire with an assault rifle inside a crowded library at the Mercaz Harav seminary in West Jerusalem.

Israeli police said the attacker was a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem.

Some Israelis have called for peace talks with the Palestinians to end but Israel has said they will continue.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned his Hamas rivals - who are in control of Gaza - for hailing the attack.

Hamas described the shooting as a "natural reaction" to Israeli military actions in the Gaza Strip last week that left more than 120 Palestinians dead.

And in Gaza:

Gaza's humanitarian situation is at its worst since Israel occupied the territory in 1967, say UK-based human rights and development groups.

They include Amnesty International, Save the Children, Cafod, Care International and Christian Aid.

They criticise Israel's blockade on Gaza as illegal collective punishment which fails to deliver security.

Israel says its military action and other measures are lawful and needed to stop rocket attacks from Gaza.

Israel pulled its troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005, but retains control over Gaza's airspace and coastline, and over its own border with the territory.

And into this confusion and endless retaliations we send ....

There is no plan. There never has been a plan...

For Iraq... for Israel ... for peace:

New York Times reporter Philip Shenon’s new book — The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation — paints a damning portrait of Condoleezza Rice. Shenon argues that Rice was “uninterested in actually advising the President,” but was instead more concerned with being his “closest confidante — specifically on foreign policy — and to simply translate his words into action.”

Today’s Sydney Morning Herald prints an extract from Shenon’s book which provides further details about Rice’s incompetence. “Emails from the National Security Council’s counter-terrorism director, Richard Clarke, showed that he had bombarded Rice with messages about terrorist threats” before 9/11, Shenon writes.

[snip]

The former weapons inspector in Iraq — David Kay — passed word to the 9/11 Commission that he believed Rice was the “worst national security adviser” in the history of the job.

Wait... I have a picture for this 'closest confidante' thing:



and maybe even a love letter?



No? Then this one of Rice and her husb... the president will do:



Incompetence has its own reward:

In 2005, an “unprecedented 19 reporters” accompanied Condoleezza Rice on her first trip overseas as Secretary of State. Now, however, things have changed. The Washington Post reports that “vastly fewer reporters” joined Rice on her latest trip to the Middle East:

The three wire services–Associated Press, Reuters and Agence-France Presse–are on board. Bloomberg News and National Public Radio took seats. But only three newspapers–The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Washington Times–are on the plane, down from the standard five. And the networks did not even bother to send a camera crew, let alone a correspondent.

Sidney Blumenthal in 2006 wrote:

A few months after Rice became secretary of state, in July 2005, she transported senior staff to a West Virginia retreat where her head of policy planning, Stephen Krasner, delivered a lecture on the Peace of Westphalia followed by one on the Truman Doctrine to explain the magnitude of Rice - and Bush's - ambition for "transformational diplomacy".

This May, as the situation in Iraq drastically worsened, Rice told senior staff that she wants no more reporting from the embassies. She announced in a meeting that people write memos only for each other, and that no one else reads them. She said she wouldn't read them. Instead of writing reports, the diplomats should "sell America", she insisted. "We are salesmen for America!"

On Tuesday, kicking off the mid-term elections campaign, Bush delivered a speech that cited Bin Laden's screeds, Lenin's What Is To Be Done? and Hitler's Mein Kampf, and promised "complete victory". Rice contributed her own comparison of the "war on terror" to the American civil war. "I'm sure there are people who thought it was a mistake to fight the civil war to its end and to insist that the emancipation of slaves would hold," she said.

But the more delirious the rhetoric, the more hollow the policy. "There is no plan for Iraq," a senior national security official with the highest intelligence clearance and access to the relevant memos told me. "There is no plan."

We have an incompetent president who has surrounded himself with incompetent sycophants.

The Taliban are gone.. no, wait, they are resurgent... no.. wait ...

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says the Taliban are gone:

In a congressional hearing today, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates implied that the U.S. military had routed the Taliban from Afghanistan. Echoing his recent assessment that the Taliban has “lost” in Afghanistan, Gates said the Taliban has been “thrown out”:

The Taliban no longer occupy any territory in Afghanistan. They were thrown out of Musa Qala a few weeks ago before over Christmas. And the Taliban have had some real setbacks. Probably 50 of their leaders have been killed or captured over the past year, and we know that that’s had an impact on their capability and also on their morale.

But Condi Rice says:

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she has seen progress in Afghanistan during the past few years, despite a determined Taliban insurgency that has disrupted security and prompted concerns that the NATO-led military campaign is faltering.

[snip]

The article goes on to state:

The high-level U.S.-British visit comes in the bloodiest year in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led toppling of the Taliban in 2001. More than 6,500 people - mostly insurgents - died in violence in 2007, according to an Associated Press count of figures provided by local and international officials.

The Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants have turned to suicide bombings and other tactics that make it more challenging to fight, she said.

"It's not work that's going to be completed overnight," Rice said of the efforts to rebuild the country and fight insurgents at the same time.

We're winning! Because we aren't defeated! Or something...

And just a question... how can you tell the Taliban are gone/ no longer functional/ lurking/ sending suicide bombers? Do they look any different than any other Afghani person? Do they wear uniforms?

No. The reason we 'won' in Afghanistan is because those warlords who 'supported' the Taliban shifted their 'support' to us because of promises we made. Which we then neglected to fulfill once we began pulling out to go attack the real prize, Iraq. So we now have pissed off warlords who look for someone else to get behind... Osama, al-Qaeda, or the Taliban.

If we had taken care of Afghanistan in the first place, flooded the place with goods and money, roads and infrastructure, we'd have possibly created the 'shining example' of democracy for Asia and the Middle East to admire.

Instead we have those pesky one a day bombs that kill people and sap morale....

Only 935?

Ohhhh, this is just counting the lies about Iraq, not about all the other stuff.

WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

[snip]

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.

The question we should really be asking is .... just exactly when did this administration ever tell the truth?
crossposted at SteveAudio

Silly diplomats!

Of course Iraq is safe! Hasn't the White House said this over and over again? So get your ass on out there to Baghdad!

WASHINGTON - Nearly half of U.S. diplomats unwilling to volunteer to work in Iraq say one reason for their refusal is they don't agree with Bush administration's policies in the country, according to a survey released Tuesday.

Security concerns and separation from family ranked as the top reasons for not wanting to serve in Iraq. But 48 percent cited "disagreement" with administration policy as a factor in their opposition, said the survey conducted by the American Foreign Service Association, the union that represents U.S. diplomats.

In addition, nearly 70 percent of U.S. diplomats oppose forced assignments to Iraq, a prospect that sparked a storm of controversy last year when the State Department announced it might have to require such tours under penalty of dismissal in the largest diplomatic call-up to a war zone since Vietnam.

The results suggest the State Department is facing a far more serious revolt over Iraq among its ranks than previously thought, and call into question its ability to fully staff diplomatic missions in Iraq, as well as those in Afghanistan and other dangerous posts deemed critical to the administration's foreign policy goals.

The survey was conducted late last year among the 11,500 members of the U.S. diplomatic corps and found deep frustration over Iraq, safety and security issues elsewhere, pay disparities and the leadership of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her top deputies.

"The results of this survey raise serious questions about the long-term health of the Foreign Service and, with it, the future viability of U.S. diplomatic engagement," said union President John Naland. "This argues for immediate action to deal with the concerns highlighted in the survey."

We'll talk to you after you've done everything we demand of you

And then there'll be nothing to talk about:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday the United States remains open to negotiations with Iran and Syria if both these countries change what she characterized as confrontational policies in the Middle East.
Iran has been frequently criticized by U.S. officials for supplying weapons to insurgent forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and for pressing ahead with a nuclear weapons program.
Rice said the U.S. would not meet with the top Iranian leaders until they suspend their uranium enrichment program, a stance she said is supported by the U.N. Security Council. Even a short suspension of Tehran's enrichment program, which could lead to the fissile material needed for an atomic weapon, would be welcome, she said.
«As long as the Iranians are talking and practicing enrichment, we're not getting anywhere,» Rice said.
Rice just returned from a trip to Iraq where she said progress has been made reducing violence since a surge of U.S. forces earlier this year, adding 30,000 troops for a total of more than 160,000 now.

And she finishes with this cheerful note:

«Iraq today is a different country than it was a year ago,» she said. But she also called the security gains fragile and said long-term success hinges on the Iraqis settling their political differences.

It sure is a different country from four years ago, too.

Impeach

Impeachment or jail time. We need to see justice done.

And I want my money back.

Just what does it take to start a war around here?

[Insert country of choice] is involved with [weapons of mass destruction-related program activities; a big scary mustached leader; illegal immigration; brown people; voodoo] and even though we are using [all; some; none] of our [well-trained; partisan hack; not sure where the United States is on a map] diplomatic personnel, we need to keep [all options on the table; only one option on the table; total and endless war]:

The US today branded Iran's elite revolutionary guards as a supporter of terrorism as it imposed the toughest sanctions on Tehran since the Islamist revolution of 1979.

The al-Quds unit within the guards corps is accused of providing powerful bomb-making equipment to fighters in Iraq that has led to the deaths of US soldiers. The revolutionary guards as a whole, which have business interests ranging from newspapers to cars, were branded "proliferators of weapons of mass destruction" in reference to its alleged role in developing nuclear weapons.

Three major state-owned Iranian banks, which Washington claims help fund Tehran's alleged support for the Taliban in Afghanistan, Shia militants in Iraq, and Hamas and Hizbullah, are also targeted.

The unprecedented sanctions, which also target the country's defence ministry, will cut off more than 20 Iranian entities, including individuals and companies owned or controlled by the revolutionary guards.

The secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said today: "What this means is that no US citizen or a private organisation will be allowed to engage in financial transactions with these persons and entities."

"These actions will help to protect the international financial system from the illicit activities of the Iranian government. They will provide a powerful deterrent to every international bank and company that thinks of doing business with the Iranian government."

Ms Rice said the US was "fully committed to a diplomatic solution with Iran" and had "no conflict" with the Iranian people.

But she added: "Unfortunately the Iranian government continues to spurn our offer of open negotiations, instead threatening peace and security by pursuing nuclear technologies that can lead to a nuclear weapon, building dangerous ballistic missiles, supporting Shia militants in Iraq and terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, and denying the existence of a fellow member of the United Nations, threatening to wipe Israeli off the map."

It's deja vu all over again. Now we get to watch how stupid the media really is as they fall all over themselves to agree with the catapulted propaganda.

That boat has already sailed, that test has already been graded

That bird has already flown. What on earth have you guys been doing for the last seven years?

JERUSALEM (AP) -- In an effort to salvage a Middle East peace conference planned for next month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hoped to find some common ground during a meeting Monday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

After her first round of talks with Israeli leaders on Sunday, State Department officials indicated the conference, called by President Bush, might have to be postponed.

[snip]

Heads of negotiating teams have been appointed only in recent days - former Palestinian premier Ahmed Qureia last week and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Sunday - and officials said they would meet for the first time later this week, six weeks before the tentative date of the Mideast gathering.

After Rice's first series of meetings Sunday, a senior State Department official hinted that the date could slide.

"This is going to take some time," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity to describe the private conversations. "This is going to require a lot of hands-on American diplomacy. These are really tough issues."

Rice cautioned against expecting breakthroughs during her four days of meetings, punctuated by a trip to Cairo and followed by talks in London with the king of Jordan.

Olmert also appeared to scale back hopes for broad agreement before the conference.

Hands-on diplomacy? Does the Bush administration have any diplomats left? And to help things along, there's this from John Dugard:

Earlier this year, in his role as special rapporteur to the UN Human Rights Council for the Palestinian Territories, the South African law professor wrote a report for the UN General Assembly in which he compared Israel's actions to those of apartheid South Africa.

Indeed, the word "apartheid" appears 24 times in the 24-page report.

But in his interview with the BBC, Mr Dugard goes further than before.

He has been trenchant in his belief in the past seven years that he has held the UN post that Israel is collectively punishing the Palestinians.

Now, though, he has the international community, and the UN itself, in his sights for complicity.

[snip]

Although some inside Israel agree that the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has distorted and damaged Israel's democratic values, there are plenty who will say Mr Dugard's view is one-sided.

They will argue that condemnation of the restrictions on Palestinians' freedom of movement fails to take into account the right of Israelis to live free from terrorist attack.

Mr Dugard's argument - again shared by some inside Israel - is that the military occupation fuels what he calls "resistance".

And, in an unusually harsh warning from a senior UN official, he worries aloud about how high the Palestinian leadership is raising expectations ahead of next month's scheduled peace conference with Israel.

If, as he fears, those expectations are not met, then, he says, a third intifada could be unleashed.

And he compares the actions of Palestinian militants to those of the French Resistance during World War II.

I put it to Mr Dugard that that comparison in particular would be very difficult for some to stomach. He was unabashed.

"History is replete with examples of populations that have resisted military occupation," he said.

"I can't see why one shouldn't draw these analogies."

It sounds like a lot of heavy duty homework for a C student....

Bush's form of diplomacy

'Ah'll crumple yer stoopid country like this coat if'n you don't let my cronies build that Star Wars Missile Shield thing!'

MOSCOW (AP) -- High-level talks Friday between the United States and Russia failed to bridge major differences over U.S. plans for a missile defense system in Europe and a range of strategic arms issues.

After a series of tense meetings that began with a blunt rebuff from Russian President Vladimir Putin, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates appeared to have been unable to turn around Moscow's opposition to missile defense.

Rice and Gates brought several new detailed proposals to the table meant to ease Russian concerns that the system would be aimed at Moscow, but the pair was unable to convince Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov or Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov.

"We see two serious problems with these proposals," Lavrov told reporters at a four-way news conference following the talks.

He said the two sides still disagree about the nature of the missile threat to Europe and that the Bush administration refuses to freeze its deployment plans while the issue is discussed.

"There is no agreement on this," Lavrov said. He said that while the initial U.S. plan to place elements of the system in Poland and the Czech Republic were small, it could grow to become a threat to Russia's deterrent force. "There is a potential threat for us here."

Serdyukov agreed.

"The principal thing to which we did not agree today is the deployment of anti-missile elements which have an anti-Russian character and which are to be placed in Europe," he said.

Rice said the ideas that she and Gates presented are "conceptual at this point" and would be handed to experts to consider further. The two sides plan to meet again in Washington in about six months.

"I know that we don't always see eye-to-eye on every element of the solutions to these issues, nonetheless, I believe we will do this in a constructive spirit, that we will make progress during these talks as we continue to pursue cooperation," Rice said.

Gates said that one idea is to have Russian personnel stationed at each missile defense site to improve coordination and openness with Moscow.

Neither Lavrov nor Serdyukov appeared impressed with the suggestion.

Meanwhile another Russian leader shows what outreach can do:

Mikhail Gorbachev drew loud cheers in New Orleans Friday when he promised to lead a local revolution if the Army Corps of Engineers doesn't keep its promise to improve levees by 2011.
"We will be coming back," the Soviet Union's last leader said, through an interpreter, during a ceremony in the Lower Garden District. "If this pledge is not fulfilled, we will start a new revolution in New Orleans."
After the applause died down, Gorbachev said that action should be a last resort, even though, he added, most Americans apparently have forgotten that their country is the result of a revolution.
"We shouldn't want another revolution," he said. "We should do our best in every (other) way."
Gorbachev, who is in New Orleans as the board chairman of a worldwide organization that promotes environmentally friendly construction, spoke at the International School of Louisiana after a quick tour of the Katrina-ravaged Lower 9th Ward.
"A few brief hours are not enough to see everything," he said, "but it is enough to appreciate the scale of the disaster that the city had to go through."

The diplomacy of Blackwater in Iraq

Obviously helps win hearts and minds....

While the shooting in Nisour Square has put the issue of private forces in Iraq -- and Blackwater's name specifically -- on the front pages of newspapers around the globe, this is hardly the first deadly incident involving these forces. What is new is that the Iraqi government responded powerfully. Within twenty-four hours of the shooting, Iraq's Interior Ministry announced that it was expelling Blackwater from the country; Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called the firm's conduct "criminal."

The next day, the State Department ordered all non-US military officials to remain inside the Green Zone, and diplomatic convoys were halted. The Iraqi government, acting as though it was in control of the country, announced that it intended to prosecute the Blackwater men responsible for the killings. "We will not allow Iraqis to be killed in cold blood," Maliki said. "There is a sense of tension and anger among all Iraqis, including the government, over this crime."

But getting rid of Blackwater would not prove to be so easy. Four days after being grounded, Blackwater was back on Iraqi streets. After all, Blackwater is not just any security company in Iraq; it is the leading mercenary company of the US occupation. It first took on this role in the summer of 2003, after receiving a $27 million no-bid contract to provide security for Ambassador Paul Bremer, the original head of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Since then, it has kept every subsequent US Ambassador, from John Negroponte to Ryan Crocker, alive. It protects Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she visits the country, as well as Congressional delegations. Since its original Iraq contract, Blackwater has won more than $700 million in "diplomatic security" contracts through the State Department alone.

The company's domestic political clout has been key to its success. It is owned by Erik Prince, a reclusive right-wing evangelical Christian who has served as a major bankroller of the campaigns of George W. Bush and his allies. Among the company's senior executives are former CIA official J. Cofer Black, who once oversaw the extraordinary-rendition program and led the post-9/11 hunt for Osama bin Laden (and who currently serves as GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's top counterterrorism adviser), and Joseph Schmitz, the Pentagon Inspector General under Donald Rumsfeld.

So embedded is Blackwater in the US apparatus in Iraq that the incident in Nisour Square has sparked a crisis for the occupation that is both practical and political. Now that Blackwater's name is known (and hated) throughout Iraq, the bodyguards themselves are likely to become targets of resistance attacks, perhaps even more so than the officials they are tasked with keeping alive. This will make their work much more difficult. But beyond such security issues are more substantive political ones, as Blackwater's continued presence on Iraqi streets days after Maliki called for its expulsion serves as a potent symbol of the utter lack of Iraqi sovereignty.

Maliki has been under heavy US pressure to back off his initial demands. While Rice immediately called the Iraqi prime minister ostensibly to apologize, she made a point of emphasizing publicly that "we need protection for our diplomats." A few days later, Tahseen Sheikhly, a representative of Maliki's government, stated, "If we drive out this company immediately, there will be a security vacuum. That would cause a big imbalance in the security situation." Given the carnage of September 16, it was a difficult statement to wrap one's head around.

Maliki then agreed to withhold judgment on Blackwater's status, pending the conclusion of a joint US-Iraqi investigation. If he ultimately goes along with the United States and tolerates Blackwater's presence, the political consequences will be severe. Among those calling for the firm's expulsion is Muqtada al-Sadr. A cave-in by Maliki could weaken his already tenuous grip on power and reinforce the widespread perception that he is merely a puppet of the US occupation. Clearly aware of this, while visiting the United States a week after the shootings, Maliki went so far as to call the situation "a serious challenge to the sovereignty of Iraq" that "cannot be accepted."

[snip]

Iraq's anger would be understandable even if the only incident involving Blackwater was the Nisour shootings -- more so if you take into account the past year of the company's actions. But this is a four-year pattern that goes beyond Blackwater. The system of "private security" being paid billions in US taxpayer dollars has not only continued despite rampant abuses; it has flourished. Blackwater and its ilk operate in a demand-based industry, and with US forces stretched thin, there has been plenty of demand. According to the Government Accountability Office, there are as many as 180 mercenary firms in Iraq, with tens of thousands of employees. Without the occupation and continued funding for the war, these companies would not be in Iraq.

Even though this scandal is about a system, not about one company or "a few bad apples," Blackwater does stand out. While it has no shortage of US and British competitors in Iraq, no other private force's actions have had more of an impact on events in Iraq than those of the North Carolina-based company. Blackwater's primary purpose in Iraq, at which it has been very effective, is to keep the most hated US occupation officials alive by any means necessary. This has encouraged conduct that places American lives at an infinitely higher premium than those of Iraqi civilians, even in cases where the only Iraqi crime is driving too close to a VIP convoy protected by Blackwater guards.

It isn't just the Iraqi government and the country's civilian population that are angered by Blackwater's conduct. Col. Thomas Hammes, the US military official who once oversaw the creation of a new Iraqi military, has described driving around Iraq with Iraqis and encountering Blackwater operatives. They "were running me off the road. We were threatened and intimidated," Hammes said. But, he added, "they were doing their job, exactly what they were paid to do in the way they were paid to do it, and they were making enemies on every single pass out of town." Hammes concluded they were "hurting our counterinsurgency effort."

It is always good to know what is done in our name with our tax money for our country. We should demand our money back.

And we should believe you

Because you aren't talking about smoking guns or mushroom clouds? We know who you hang out with:

MADRID, Spain - The U.S. is not preparing for war against Iran and Vice President Dick Cheney supports that policy, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says, taking a swipe at a U.N. official who says he's worried about "crazies" who want to start bombing.
[snip]

Rice said the United States is using diplomacy to avoid "getting to a place where we have an unpalatable choice." She described that as a choice "between having to do something on the military side or allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon. That's a choice that people talk about."

Rice, who has tangled with ElBaradei before, suggested he is giving Iran mixed signals.

"We have a diplomatic choice, but it's only going to succeed if we are absolutely clear with the Iranians — not muddying the message in any way," she said.

Muddying the message? Like having nine warships playing leapfrog in the Persian Gulf?

Cheney's mindcontrol over Georgie is fading

And the Deciderer Commander Guy is coming to and wondering why everyone on earth thinks he's a fucking bastard:

There is a race currently underway between different flanks of the administration to determine the future course of US-Iran policy.

On one flank are the diplomats, and on the other is Vice President Cheney's team and acolytes -- who populate quite a wide swath throughout the American national security bureaucracy.

The Pentagon and the intelligence establishment are providing support to add muscle and nuance to the diplomatic effort led by Condi Rice, her deputy John Negroponte, Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, and Legal Adviser John Bellinger. The support that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and CIA Director Michael Hayden are providing Rice's efforts are a complete, 180 degree contrast to the dysfunction that characterized relations between these institutions before the recent reshuffle of top personnel.

However, the Department of Defense and national intelligence sector are also preparing for hot conflict. They believe that they need to in order to convince Iran's various power centers that the military option does exist.

But this is worrisome. The person in the Bush administration who most wants a hot conflict with Iran is Vice President Cheney. The person in Iran who most wants a conflict is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Quds Force would be big winners in a conflict as well -- as the political support that both have inside Iran has been flagging.

[snip]

The zinger of this information is the admission by this Cheney aide that Cheney himself is frustrated with President Bush and believes, much like Richard Perle, that Bush is making a disastrous mistake by aligning himself with the policy course that Condoleezza Rice, Bob Gates, Michael Hayden and McConnell have sculpted.

According to this official, Cheney believes that Bush can not be counted on to make the "right decision" when it comes to dealing with Iran and thus Cheney believes that he must tie the President's hands.

Iran is next on the to-do list for the neocons. They may never get another chance at Iran, so it doesn't matter that Afghanistan and Iraq are in ruins, full speed ahead!



Bring me the ring....