Summaries here and here and here.

Hmm. Retrenchment?

Muqtada al Sadr, the firebrand Shiite Muslim cleric whose Mahdi Army is arguably Iraq’s most powerful armed group, has ordered his followers to put down their weapons temporarily, three of his aides told McClatchy Newspapers on Friday.

Analysts differed on the significance of the directive, which Sadr delivered in secret to his commanders two weeks ago in the southern city of Kufa. Some saw it as Sadr’s way of distancing himself from rising sectarian violence, most of which has been blamed on his followers.

[snip]

“The American and the Iraqi governments are starting to feel how powerful he is getting. It’s obvious that both of them are fed up,” said Mithal Alusi, a secular Shiite member of parliament. “That’s why the Sadrists are playing a tactical game: to quiet the attacks and buy time.”

[snip]

Regaining control may be one reason that Sadr issued his four-point mandate orally to his commanders. According to three top Sadr aides, who agreed to discuss the meeting only if they weren’t identified because it had been secret, Sadr told the commanders to:

-Reduce the size of units to 75 fighters from as many as 400, to make the units more manageable.

-Issue new identification cards to Mahdi Army members to replace IDs that have been forged.

-Send every member to an orientation course that would outline the group’s mission.

-Lay down weapons temporarily. Article

A neighborhood named Liberty; a reality called chaos.

Hurriya, Arabic for “liberty,” is a working-class area known for its inexpensive food markets, tailors and electronics stores, and as the birthplace of famous ballad singers Basil Aziz and Kadhim Saher. Both men now live abroad, and Hurriya’s shops are closed.

The neighborhood has 17 offices for rival political groups, including three linked to Sadr. All 17 are guarded by gunmen.

Residents are divided about who started the recent bout of violence, but most interviewed for this article agreed that Sadr’s Al Mahdi militia now has the upper hand.

“Shiites are threatening Sunni families and forcing them to leave Hurriya,” said Mohammed, the Shiite. “Anyone who doesn’t obey will be killed. There used to be a lot of Sunnis in east Hurriya – now there are none.”

Adnan Dulaimi, head of the Iraqi Accordance Front, a leading Sunni party that has offices in Hurriya, said 60% of the Sunni families that used to live in the neighborhood have fled.

Dulaimi said Shiite militiamen, some of them dressed in Iraqi army uniforms, attacked one of his party’s offices less than two weeks ago. Several residents described a brutal firefight that ended when mortar rounds pounded the party building into ruins and killed two women living nearby. Article

The occupation’s clarion call for putting the entire blame on the Iraqis is becoming louder and more shrill.

The United States may cut off funding for Iraq’s police because of its failure to punish people responsible for torture, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq said in an interview published on Saturday.

Zalmay Khalilzad told the New York Times that Washington has yet to formally notify Baghdad that funding may be cut, but officials are reviewing programmes because of a U.S. law that forbids funding armies or police that violate human rights.

[snip]

The United Nations said in a report earlier this month that torture was rampant in Iraqi detention centres and in the widespread sectarian killings seen across the country, based on the signs of abuse on victims’ bodies.

The world body has demanded punishment of police responsible for abuse in Iraq after U.S. and Iraqi inspectors uncovered evidence in May of systematic torture at a prison known as Site 4, run by the Interior Ministry’s national police.

Some 1,400 inmates were kept at the site. No Iraqi officials have been arrested. Khalilzad said Bolani was waiting for written assurances that indictments had been handed down. Article

The bland leading the blind: Do the depicted (and all the others) worshipful ‘journalistic’ enablers and stenographers (and those who stuporifically lap up their feel-good muck) sleep with the rose-colored glasses on as well?

Too many threads lead directly to Pakistan (which, need we be reminded, has in stock nuclear weapons and know-how) as a nexus.

Pakistani authorities have illegally sent hundreds of Pakistanis and foreigners to prisons or handed them to the United States for money, said a report released Friday by Amnesty International.

“Bounty hunters, including police officers and local people, have captured individuals of different nationalities, often apparently at random, and sold them into U.S. custody,” said Claudio Cordone, the senior director of research at the human rights organization.

The report is based on a number of interviews with former detainees, including citizens from Bahrain, Australia, Britain, Ethiopia and Sweden, who say they were illegally abducted while in Pakistan and handed over to American authorities.

[snip]

“The road to Guantanamo very literally starts in Pakistan,” said Amnesty’s Cordone. Article

Summary here.

Slow-motion quagmire.

…”Now the ground has been lost and all we’re doing in places like Sangin is surviving,” said Docherty. “It’s completely barking mad.”

[snip]

Development and rights groups have for long been critical of an exclusively military intervention. They have warned also that military action of this kind appears to local Afghans as part of a larger Western assault on the Muslim world.

“There were windows of opportunity for collaboration five years ago between the West and Muslim countries, but the window of opportunity is closed now, that is for sure,” said Emmanuel Reinert, head of the Senlis Council, an independent group studying the effects of drug policies in Afghanistan.

“We can still reopen it, but we need to show that we are going to change our ways,” he said. “There has to be a clear change in our approach, a change of management.”

[snip]

The Senlis Council has reported starvation conditions in several parts of southern Afghanistan. And this is only increasing support for the Taliban, and potentially for terrorism, too. Article

Related: Senlis Council report here.

Tit-for-tat?

The head of the Iranian parliament’s energy commission said Tehran would cancel a two-billion-dollar contract signed with Japan’s Inpex to develop its largest onshore oil field after a string of delays.

[snip]

Japan, which is almost entirely dependent on Middle Eastern oil, has been under US pressure to give up the contract. Article

Yuppers.

I see a Dem takeover of Congress this November as a stopgap measure. Even if Dems take both houses of Congress we face enormous challenges to pull the nation back from the brink and restore our pathological political culture to something approaching health. But if the Republicans keep control of both houses of Congress, the task of saving our nation may become impossible.

Time is short. We cannot afford to sit on our hands and wait for the Messiah Candidate to come and save us. We’ve got to work with the tools we have. Once we’ve pulled back from the brink of disaster we can take steps to get better tools.

Here’s another analogy: Imagine you are stranded on your roof in rising floodwaters. Sooner or later you’re going to drown if you aren’t rescued. Yet you refuse to be rescued in an old rowboat because it might be leaky and you are waiting for a helicopter.

Well, folks, the Dems are the rowboat, and there ain’t gonna be a helicopter. Article

It has been quite a while since mention of Herr Ashcroft has been made. This has potential to develop into something quite legally explosive.

A federal judge in Idaho has ruled that former attorney general John D. Ashcroft can be held personally responsible for the wrongful detention of a U.S. citizen arrested as a “material witness” in a terrorism case.

U.S. District Judge Edward J. Lodge, in a ruling issued late Wednesday, dismissed claims by the Justice Department that Ashcroft and other officials should be granted immunity from claims by a former star college football player arrested at Dulles International Airport in 2003.

Attorneys for the plaintiff in the civil suit, Abdullah al-Kidd, said the decision raises the possibility that Ashcroft could be forced to testify or turn over records about the government’s use of the material witness law, a cornerstone of its controversial legal strategy after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

[snip]

While not deciding on the veracity of Kidd’s claims, Lodge, who was appointed to the federal bench in 1989 by President George H.W. Bush, ruled that Ashcroft could be found personally liable in the case because of his role in establishing and enforcing the government’s material-witness policies. Article

Hats off to Mr. Gnjidic. Thank you.

When Khaled al Masri walked into Manfred Gnjidic’s small-town law office more than a year ago, spinning a tale of government kidnappings, torture and secret prisons, the lawyer thought he was dealing with a crazy man.

[snip]

Hans-Christian Stroebele, a member of the German parliamentary secret services investigation committee, said the work Gnjidic had started could lead to criminal charges in the coming weeks against American CIA agents, and had led many to rethink Germany’s relationship with the United States.

“Politicians of all camps are now calling for warrants of arrest to be issued for the kidnappers,” he said, adding that the case has led many to “resent the German investigators’ `muzzle’ when it comes to attacking Americans. A crime is a crime, regardless of who commits it. You can’t spare a friend from facing the facts if he did wrong.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has declined to admit error in Masri’s case [Soo-prize, soo-prize — voxd], and other U.S. officials won’t discuss it.

[snip]

…From passport stamps to witnesses from the original bus to chemical studies of Masri’s hair - which showed he’d been under food stress and, from nutrients he’d consumed, also showed he’d been in Central Asia - it panned out.

News reports and European investigations further verified the story.

Armed with the written version of the story, Gnjidic set out to try to right the wrongs done to his client. Article

George Soros lays out the spreadsheet the woebegone G. Walker administration cannot will not see.

What makes the war on terror self-defeating?

• First, war by its very nature creates innocent victims. A war waged against terrorists is even more likely to claim innocent victims because terrorists tend to keep their whereabouts hidden. The deaths, injuries and humiliation of civilians generate rage and resentment among their families and communities that in turn serves to build support for terrorists.

• Second, terrorism is an abstraction. It lumps together all political movements that use terrorist tactics. Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Sunni insurrection and the Mahdi army in Iraq are very different forces, but President Bush’s global war on terror prevents us from differentiating between them and dealing with them accordingly.

• Third, the war on terror emphasizes military action while most territorial conflicts require political solutions. And, as the British have shown by foiling a plan to blow up to ten airplanes, terrorists are best dealt with by good intelligence. The war on terror increases the terrorist threat and makes the task of the intelligence agencies more difficult.
Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are still at large; we need to focus on finding them, and preventing attacks like the one foiled in England.

• Fourth, the war on terror drives a wedge between “us” and “them.” We are innocent victims. They are perpetrators. But we fail to notice that we also become perpetrators in the process; the rest of the world, however, does notice. That is how such a wide gap has arisen between America and much of the world.

Taken together, these four factors ensure that the war on terror cannot be won. An endless war waged against an unseen enemy is doing great damage to our power and prestige abroad and to our open society at home. It has led to a dangerous extension of executive powers; it has tarnished our adherence to universal human rights; it has inhibited the critical process that is at the heart of an open society; and it has cost a lot of money. [And ended or diminished thousands upon thousands of lives — voxd] Most importantly, it has diverted attention from other urgent tasks that require American leadership, such as finishing the job we so correctly began in Afghanistan, addressing the looming global energy crisis, and dealing with nuclear proliferation. Article

Schutzhaft.

What brought that up? Was reminded of this post from the previous incarnation of this blog, made on Feb. 5, 2004:

Not a new comparison, but the official name for the organization created in the ’30s in Germany, Geheime Staatspolizei, literally translates as ‘(private, institutional) Home Nation Police.’

A non-literal translation would appproximate to ‘Office of Homeland Security.’

The German organization was commonly known by its abbreviated name: Gestapo.

The role of the Gestapo was to investigate and combat “all tendencies dangerous to the State.” They had the authority to investigate treason, espionage and sabotage cases, and cases of criminal attacks on the party and the state. The Gestapo’s actions were not restricted by the law or subject to judicial review. A Nazi jurist, Dr. Werner Best, stated, “As long as the [Gestapo]… carries out the will of the leadership, it is acting legally.” The Gestapo was specifically exempted from being responsible to administrative courts, where citizens normally could sue the state to conform to laws. The power of the Gestapo most open to misuse was Schutzhaft (protective custody) - a euphemism for the power to imprison people without judicial proceedings.

The Texas office of Homeland Security actually ran a promotional ad featuring a decorated Luftwaffe officer standing in front of an American flag.

said reminder triggered by reading through this commentary:

At least the Nazis bothered to construct a cover for their tactics, describing the detention of the opposition as Schutzhaft, or protective custody. Bush and the neocons offer no such cover, instead proffering the same old threadbare and transparent palliative—in order to protect the American people from ubiquitous and around-every-corner terrorism, promised to last for generations, the state is unfortunately forced to resort to eviscerating the Constitution, not that most Americans have an inkling of what the document spells out—the rights and the responsibilities—or will they particularly care so long as they are free to shop and watch football and sit-coms.

[snip]

So keen are the neocons to gather intelligence on American “enemy combatants,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England issued a memorandum directing intelligence personnel to receive “refresher training on the policies for collection, retention, dissemination and use of information related to U.S. persons,” that is to say traitors, mostly involved in criminal plots to exercise constitutionally guaranteed liberties such as free speech and the right to assemble, now anathema to the fascist state, as it was to Hitler and his minions. Article

More on the dastardly dismantling of America this past week.

The congressmen who supported this mockery have put their contempt for freedom on full display. They have rescinded the oldest and most treasured principle in American jurisprudence dating back 800 years to the Magna Carta. Habeas corpus is the fundamental protection that the one has from the tyrannical and erratic actions of the state.

The proposed legislation allows the president to apply the moniker of “enemy combatant” to any terror “suspect” taken into US custody and strip him of all his human rights. The president is under no obligation to file charges or provide evidence of guilt. The arrest is completely arbitrary and depends entirely on the discretion (whims?) of the executive. It is a flat rejection of the basic belief that “men are innocent until proven guilty”.

Here’s what Winston Churchill said about habeas corpus, “The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.” Article

Yet more:

The way in which Bush and the republicans insist on calling the suspects that he’s decided to detain indefinitely and without charge, “enemy combatants”, is an affront to our basic principles of due process which our government regularly expects other nations to adhere to at the risk of being targeted for retaliatory action as violators of human rights. How can any of those held get a fair trial in any proceeding when the government has already paraded them around as guilty? The very language, ‘enemy combatant’, is not even descriptively accurate except in the way they’ve, again, made up a definition to suit their made-up law.

Whether or not these defendants have been ‘combatants’ (or not) is a matter to be determined in court. Yet, the label is applied to every individual Bush grants permission to detain. In effect, under this law, the mere act by the president of detaining someone takes away their presumption of innocence which is the most basic of protections against any prosecution, in any system.

[snip]

When, in our system of jurisprudence, have defendants been required to prove unaccountable witnesses unreliable? Our own legal system would be a travesty if we allowed anyone to have us convicted of a crime without our being able to face that accuser. Further, the ‘probative evidence’ allowed under the law would be subject to arbitrary rules of admissibility from the very court prosecuting. Don’t bother presenting evidence against the military tribunal, because they will assume the power to decide whether your evidence is “unfair, confusing, misleading, or wasting their time.”

Here is the provision:

“The military judge shall exclude any evidence the probative value of which is substantially outweighed - “(i)”by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the commission; or “(ii) “by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence.”

[snip]

There was a great rush in putting this torture and detention bill into law. Bush and his cabal must have felt the heat of the higher court’s ruling on their tribunals and didn’t think they could withstand a challenge to release these suspects outside of Gitmo. There’s no question that this has to be rear-covering for Bush himself, who alone has the assumed power to tell our government’s military and intelligence to commit these illegal abuses of liberty and due process. The only thing that’s missing is a Congress with a majority which will hold him accountable, and not just serve as a sop to wipe Bush’s nose every time he dribbles.

The other need for a rush on this bill is obviously the republican’s need to hold onto the power they derived from five years of fanning the flames of fear that flashed from the 9-11 attacks. The torture and detention law republicans just passed, in every provision, enhances or expands the government’s ability to intrude in the private affairs of American citizens and weakens the very protections of freedom and individual rights that are embodied in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which they claim to defend. These constitutional protections serve to restrain our government and its elected representatives as they perform their duties, to act in a manner which preserves the promises of democracy and provides for free expression, debate, and advocacy, and representation in our political and legal system.

Yet, republicans are intent on destroying these protections in the name of defending us from those threats they have failed to counter using means which have sustained our nation through generations marked by grave dangers and risks in defending against Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and against the mischief of the Cold War.

There is a weakness and fear that the republicans possess which they want to spread to the rest of the nation as they hope to have us cowering behind their skirted flag. They fear the American voter most of all; those who would resist their hijacking of our democracy are to be intimidated once again from rejecting their discredited, ‘protections’ they are imposing without our consent.

Republicans have revealed themselves as the party of fear. Americans need to let them know that we are not afraid to exercise the strength of our vote, rejecting that fear in November. Article

Summary here and here.

Reality does have its way of rudely intruding on the delusional sunny statements made by the woebegone G. Walker administration doesn’t it?

And sometimes from the most unexpected of mouths, too.

Former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says the situation in Iraq is “dire” as a result of mistakes made by the US government.

Straw was in office during the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and was a firm supporter of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s decision to join the US-led operation.

“The current situation is dire,” Straw said Thursday during an appearance on British Broadcasting Corp. television.

“I think many mistakes were made after the military action - there is no question about it - by the United States administration. Why? Because they failed to follow the lead of Secretary (of State Colin) Powell. Article

So how’s that “freedom is on the march” meme going?

Under a broad new set of laws criminalizing speech that ridicules the government or its officials, some resurrected verbatim from Saddam Hussein’s penal code, roughly a dozen Iraqi journalists have been charged with offending public officials in the past year. Article

Meanwhile, back at the ‘homeland:’

A revolt is brewing among our retired Army and Marine generals. This rebellion–quiet and nonconfrontational, but remarkable nonetheless–comes not because their beloved forces are bearing the brunt of ground combat in Iraq but because the retirees see the US adventure in Mesopotamia as another Vietnam-like, strategically failed war, and they blame the errant, arrogant civilian leadership at the Pentagon. The dissenters include two generals who led combat troops in Iraq: Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack Jr., who commanded the 82nd Airborne Division, and Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who led the First Infantry Division (the “Big Red One”). These men recently sacrificed their careers by retiring and joining the public protest.

[snip]

I speak regularly to retired generals, former intelligence officers and former Pentagon officials and aides, all of whom remain close to their active-duty friends and protégés. These well-informed seniors tell me that whatever the original US objective was in Iraq, our understrength forces and flawed strategy have failed, and that we cannot repair this failure by remaining there indefinitely. Fundamental changes are needed, and senior officers are prepared to make them. According to my sources, some active-duty officers are working behind the scenes to end the war and are preparing for the inevitable US withdrawal. “The only question is whether a war serves the national interest,” declares a retired three-star general. “Iraq does not.”

[snip]

The dissenting retired generals are bent on making Iraq this nation’s last strategically failed war–that is, one doggedly waged by civilian officials largely to avoid personal accountability for their bad decisions. A failed war causes mounting human and other costs, damaging or entirely destroying the national interest it was supposed to serve.

[snip]

The senior military dissenters will not rest until they indict the mistakes of Rumsfeld and his principal civilian aides at Congressional hearings. The military always plays this game of accountability for keeps. Should the Democrats gain control of a Congressional chamber in the November midterms, televised Capitol Hill hearings in 2007 will feature military protagonists speaking of “betrayal” and “tragically wasted sacrifices.” The retired generals believe nothing would be gained, and much would be lost, by keeping the truth about Iraq from the families of America’s dead and wounded.

[snip]

The obvious diplomatic recourse is for the Bush Administration to talk to Tehran about our pending exit from Iraq, but the White House refused to do so until late September, when the Bush family’s longtime political fixer, former Secretary of State James Baker, entered the picture as a deal-maker. Baker is co-chair, with retired Indiana Democratic Representative Lee Hamilton, of the Congressionally created Iraq Study Group (ISG), which is due to issue a comprehensive report on US options in Iraq after the November elections. After a four-day visit to Iraq, Baker, Hamilton and the eight other members of the bipartisan task force returned to Washington with an obvious recommendation: Start talking to Tehran. After receiving President Bush’s immediate approval, Baker invited an unidentified “high representative” of the Iranian government, as well as Syria’s foreign minister, to meet with the ISG. Baker realizes the leverage is largely on Iran’s side of the table. Article

It was Saddam. No, the Baathists. No, foreign fighters. No, al-Zarqawi. Um, quick, remind us, who’s the bogeyman put up as the be-all and end-all this week?

Iraq’s two most deadly Shiite Muslim militias have killed thousands of Sunni Arabs since February, with the more experienced Badr Brigade often working in tandem with Al Mahdi army, collecting intelligence on targets and forming hit lists that Al Mahdi militia members carry out, a senior U.S. military official said Wednesday.

In some cases, death squads have been accompanied by a “clerical figure to basically run” an Islamic court to provide “the blessing for the conduct of the execution,” the official said.

[snip]

The official said U.S. investigators in Iraq have evidence that militiamen have acquired shoulder-fired rockets capable of shooting down aircraft, as well as Iranian-made explosives capable of puncturing armor plating. Article

Related:

The United States and Britain have in the past accused Iran of fostering violence in Iraq. The Islamic Republic denies it.

But the official gave far more detail, and said the latest weapons finds — including explosives bearing factory stamps indicating they come from Iran — show that the policy of arming Iraqi militia is supported at high levels in Iran and not the work of rogue Iranian operatives.

“You see them enabling all comers,” he said. “And by the way, nobody in this country stays bought. You’re rented.” Article

Could be reading in more than is there, but the sudden and focused emphasis and seeming willingness to provide some specificity smacks of psy-ops to exploit undeniable cracks in his sphere of control and internally portray al-Sadr as “anti-Iraqi.” If so, and keeping in mind that the shuttering of al-Sadr’s newspaper some time ago was what set off a fierce round of violence, including the street battles in Najaf (and the current fact of al-Sadr’s 30 seats in Parliament and hold of several ministries), this could be a v-e-r-y dicey tack that is quite capable of taking on a life of its own and swirling out of control.

Yuppers.

Short version: Iraq wasn’t a terrorist threat when we attacked it; it is now because we did attack and botched the job so badly that terrorists are dying to go there and learn how to kill Americans anywhere. So the world is safe from Saddam (who was never a threat) but more vulnerable to terrorism, which (back to the beginning) was on the ropes in the early days in Afghanistan. Article

Summary here and here.

The enduring lethal ‘toys’ of war. While this has been covered many times here before, it should never be far from one’s mind whenever the subject of the Israel/Lebanon conflict (or modern warfare in general) should come up.

The UN children’s fund (UNICEF) says one third of the casualties caused by cluster bombs since the ceasefire in the July-August war between Israel and Hezbollah have been children, who often mistake the lethal devices for toys.

[snip]

Nabatiyah hospital director, Dr Ali Hajj Ali, has a grim warning: “The artificial limb technicians are going to have their work cut out for them in the weeks and months to come.”

[snip]

Ibrahim Naim, who runs Al-Abbas laboratory where artificial limbs are fitted, said his centre has received two to three new patients a day since the end of the conflict that cost more than 1 200 people in Lebanon alone. Article

Summary here.

The good news: we’re relying on Rice to stand up to being steamrolled by Rummy.

The bad news: we’re relying on Rice to stand up to being steamrolled by Rummy.

…Rice has once again voiced support for the ongoing EU-Iran talks, which are scheduled to continue, but this raises a curious question: Is the US favoring a process with one hand while the other hand undermines it?

No doubt such a schizophrenic approach is a direct result of immense infighting, reportedly pitting the State Department against the Defense Department. Within the White House too there are signs of a lack of a consensus, resulting in a contradictory approach that ultimately may win the day in favor of hawkish elements pushing for an eventual confrontation with Iran.

The US policy debate has its mirror image inside Iran, with the policymakers grappling with the contours of a sound approach that would simultaneously maintain Iran’s nuclear rights while showing signs of flexibility and accommodation so that Iran could take advantage of the rather generous net of incentives offered by the P5+1 and avert a UN showdown, let alone a military showdown with the US and or Israel in the future.

Both the US and Iranian policy debates have been raging outside the purview of public opinion, for the most part, except when one hears contradictory and/or contrasting points of views expressed by different officials. For now, both sides in the Berlin talks have reported “progress” and have agreed to follow-up talks, yet the chances are that the deliberate leak of behind-the-scene talks in the Washington Times has managed, albeit temporarily, to set the process back at a delicate and exceedingly critical moment in the negotiations.

[snip]

A recent report, in fact, shows that the vast majority of US citizens are opposed to the military option and favor a diplomatic solution. The latter strengthens the hands of Secretary Rice and other US officials pushing the edge of negotiations and is a positive development that acts as a timely antidote to the Machiavellian manipulations mentioned above.

On Iran’s part, on the other hand, there is the danger of it boxing itself into predetermined positions that tie the hands of the nuclear-negotiation team led by Larijani. Ahmadinejad’s speeches at mass rallies are clearly aimed at domestic consumption, but should they be the pillars of Iran’s nuclear diplomacy?

Again, the perils of nuclear populism are discernible here, whatever their advantages. And since Iran’s outspoken president has gone on record opposing the suspension of uranium-enrichment activities even for one day, this in turn raises the prospect for another option not seriously considered so far, that is, the standby option. Article

That insistent sound you hear approaching is the wheezing of the propaganda engine and the riling up of those old rheumatic dogs of war.

Remain suspicious. As Gilbert & Sullivan wrote, “Things are seldom what they seem.”

…From a strategic point of view, there’s no serious debate among U.S. experts over the decision to invade Iraq: It is pretty universally regarded […] as a f[*]ckup. That doesn’t mean there’s consensus about how the U.S. should proceed there (although there’s general agreement that it needs a strategy quite different from the one it’s currently pursuing). But whatever the White House would have you believe, Iraq is viewed by serious national security types now as a salvage operation rather than a theater of offense against global jihadism.

The more immediate danger, however, is that the U.S. public and policymakers get stampeded into a second monumental strategic blunder … attacking Iran. That’s precisely the outcome sought by those in Washington and in the media who are talking up a sense of imminent crisis in which the U.S. must in matter of months choose to go to war or live with a nuclear-armed Iran. The reasoning is spurious, almost absurd on the face of it. But it serves a clear purpose: Despite how the Iraq case may look to the wider world, the American people don’t sanction their government going to war unless they are led to perceive military action as prudent self-defense. And that can’t happen unless the media allows it to happen, as it did in the case of Iraq.

[snip]

The most important enablers of this catastrophe, then, were those that allowed public discourse to be distorted to the point that the Iraq being discussed in American public life bore little resemblance to reality – in other words, the media, which with a few honorable exceptions, largely refrained from aggressively challenging political leaders making absurdly alarmist claims. In classic Hollywood movies, when a person bursts on the scene babbling hysterically about some unspecified threat, eventually a more sober authority figure steps up and slaps the hysteric and says “Calm down, man!” The slap is harsh, but necessary, because hysteria doesn’t allow for rational decision making.…

[snip]

So, why dwell now on the media’s complicity in enabling the Iraq war? Because the same thing is being attempted in the case of Iran. Article

There’s that pesky reality again.

Five years ago, when the repressive Islamist government was ousted, women celebrated the end of restrictions that banished them from jobs, schools or even walking alone on the street without a male family member. But social change has come neither dramatically nor as easily as some expected.

Afghanistan has a new constitution that guarantees equality for women - a rare declaration in the Islamic world. And nearly 2 million girls have returned to schools and women have returned to the workplace, including to Parliament, where a quarter of the members are women.

But women say the new freedoms are largely superficial - that profound cultural restrictions remain. Most women still wear burkas in public, and those who don’t must endure stares and hisses on the street.

“We do have rights on paper, but we don’t have them in reality,” said Fatima Kazimyan, Bamiyan’s representative for the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

What quickly became clear after the Taliban’s ouster five years ago was that Afghanistan was not going to return to the ways of the 1980s, when the Soviet-backed government diminished Islamic influences, and women discarded their veils. Article

We’ve plummeted through Alice’s looking glass.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who is defending President Bush’s anti-terrorism tactics in multiple court battles, said Friday that federal judges should not substitute their personal views for the president’s judgments in wartime.

[snip]

“Respectfully, when courts issue decisions that overturn long-standing traditions or policies without proper support in text or precedent, they cannot – and should not – be shielded from criticism,” Gonzales said. “A proper sense of judicial humility requires judges to keep in mind the institutional limitations of the judiciary and the duties expressly assigned by the Constitution to the more politically accountable branches.” Article

The entire Constitutional premise of keeping the federal judiciary as unattached as it does from politics is to have them act as a counterbalance to the “politically accountable branches.”

That anyone in the most rarefied tier of government, much less the freakin’ A.G. of the United States, has had no exposure to Civics 101 or to the barest digest of American history is scandalous.

That he spouts this tripe publicly brands him a fool.

The CIA tries to be MTV. ’nuff said.

Karen Hughes all but blames MTV for terorism. News flash Karen, the cultural and social things you dragged out were in place before the invasion of Iraq (and foreign views of America remained at much higher levels), foreign public support in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 was strengthened as well.

Pander to the arch-conservative and fundamentalist base just before the election much, Karen?

Apologies for the navel-gazing, but simply have to do it this once.

Your attention is commended (just for a moment) back to the day after the elections in 2004.

N.B.: Because the previous incarnation of this blog is no longer directly accessible, the link goes to a Google cache of it, and you’ll have to scroll down there to the entry for Wednesday, November 3, 2004.

The crux is putting the brakes on the deprecations, especially those to come over the next two years. That requires having at least one chamber of the Congress no longer in Republican control.

But a desire to see the Democrats take over Congress — even a strong desire for that outcome and willingness to work for it — does not have to be, and at least for me is not, driven by a belief that Washington Democrats are commendable or praiseworthy and deserve to be put into power. Instead, a Democratic victory is an instrument — an indispensable weapon — in battling the growing excesses and profound abuses and indescribably destructive behavior of the Bush administration and their increasingly authoritarian followers. A Democratic victory does not have to be seen as being anything more than that in order to realize how critically important it is.

A desire for a Democratic victory is, at least for me, about the fact that this country simply cannot endure two more years of a Bush administration which is free to operate with even fewer constraints than before, including the fact that George Bush and Dick Cheney will never face even another midterm election ever again. They will be free to run wild for the next two years with a Congress that is so submissive and blindly loyal that it is genuinely creepy to behold. A desire for a Democratic victory is also about the need to have the systematic lawbreaking and outright criminality in which Bush officials have repatedly engaged have actual consequences, something that simply will not happen if Republicans continue their stranglehold on all facets of the Government for the next two years.

[snip]

In the real world, one has to either choose between two more years of uncontrolled Republican rule, or imposing some balance — even just logjam — on our Government with a Democratic victory. Or one can decide that it just doesn’t matter either way because one has given up on defending the principles and values of our country. But, for better or worse, those are the only real options available, and wishing there were other options doesn’t mean that there are any. And there are only six weeks left to choose the option you think is best and to do what you can to bring it to fruition. Article

The lights of the “shining city on a hill” have been extinguished, the buildings abandoned and left to crumble.

Q: How many people does it take to gut a nation?

A: 65.

791 years — *phffft*:From Magna Carta in 1215 (and even preceding traditions of habeas corpus) as a foundation of law and civility, how far we have fallen. Debasing those properly in custody debases us all. Disappearing people into custody, uncharged and indefinitely, endangers us all.

“Either we are a nation that stands against this cruel and unusual torture and for the rule of law. Or we are not. We cannot have it both ways.”
–– Sen. Russ Feingold

Digby is livid. But out of heat also often comes light.

The refusal to mount a filibuster (it is obvious that, going in, the Democrats knew that pecisely zero of their amendments would pass – they glaringly, idiotically, chose posturing over principle) – the abandonment of the few applicable tools at their disposal – has reduced the status of the opposition party to that of a modern-day Maginot Line of the Senate.

The votes for the relegation of the ideals, legacy and concept of America to the dustbin of history was made even more ghastly by having the since-crowned Torquemada-in-Chief show up to arm twist and gloat over a Congress that has publicly announced by their votes for passage that they hate our freedoms.

…we are legalizing tyranny in the United States. Period.

[snip]

There is a profound and fundamental difference between an Executive engaging in shadowy acts of lawlessness and abuses of power on the one hand, and, on the other, having the American people, through their Congress, endorse, embrace and legalize that behavior out in the open, with barely a peep of real protest. Our laws reflect our values and beliefs. And our laws are about to explicitly codify one of the most dangerous and defining powers of tyranny — one of the very powers this country was founded in order to prevent. Article

For the 12 Democrats voting Yea: Carper (Del.), Johnson (S.D.), Landrieu (La.), Lautenberg (N.J.), Lieberman (Conn.), Menendez (N.J), Pryor (Ark.), Rockefeller (W. Va.), Salazar (Co.), Stabenow (Mich.), Nelson (Fla.), Nelson (Neb.):

We’re ashamed to share a planet, much less a country with you. You have turned your back on the Constitution and there is nothing one can conceive of that will ever erase this blot on your reord as Senators or as decent human beings. Nothing.

Should a power shift come about after November (and should those of you up for election be re-elected) you will rightfully be the red-headed step-children of the new majority. You should be required to forever after appear on the floor of the Senate sportingan ‘I (broken heart) America’ T-shirt.

Virtually all Republicans will vote for torture and arbitrary detention. The vast majority of Democrats will vote against torture and arbitrary detention. Therefore, it seems to me that opponents of torture and arbitrary detention ought to vote Democratic, and work for Democratic candidates, and give money to Democratic candidates, this year, even if the Democrats disappoint us by failing to mount a filibuster.

As Michael Harrington told the McCarthy supporters who decided to sit out the 1968 Presidential election – thus ensuring the election of Richard Nixon – because they were angry at Hubert Humphrey, “Coalitions are built by victories, not by defeats.” Article

More:

The […] legislation removes a thirty-nine word definition in the Federal Criminal Code defining “war crimes” as including “any conduct … which constitutes a violation of common Article 3,” and replacing that definition with a seven hundred and eighty-six word laundry list of what the Administration wants to define as war crimes.

Since 1949, when this accord was signed, Common Article 3 has prohibited “(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; (b) taking of hostages; (c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment; and (d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”

Bush claims, however, that these terms are too vague. So he has offered new definitions for the war crimes statue. Not surprisingly, he offers no equivalent language to “violence to life and person,” “cruel treatment,” “outrages upon personal dignity,” and most strikingly, “passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court.” With regard to this last prohibition of Common Article 3, Bush is asking Congress to join him in violating it by establishing tribunals contrary to this treaty.

But no provision of the proposed law is more telling that the law’s provision mandating its own retroactive application. It states, in effect, that it has been the law since September 11, 2001. This, of course, is intended to ensure that all those officials and employees of the Bush government who have been involved in war crimes (acts prohibited by Common Article 3) are home free.

It is a retroactive immunization of torturers. It also retroactively removes the jurisdiction of all federal courts relating to any pending or future habeas corpus actions filed by detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere. In fact, it takes the federal courts out of the business of providing any redress whatsoever to any alien detained for any reason as “an unlawful enemy combatant.”

One of the most sweeping provisions of this proposed law takes the federal courts out of the business of providing any redress whatsoever, to anyone who becomes entangled - correctly or incorrectly - on the wrong side of the war on terror. It simply removes federal jurisdiction “to hear or consider any claim or cause of action, including an application for a writ of habeas corpus” filed by any non-citizen of the United States who has been detained “as an unlawful enemy combatant.”… Article

Yet more:

…because the compromise bill that the Republicans agreed on last week bars the courts from hearing cases brought by detainees held overseas, it still leaves detainees extremely vulnerable to future abuse.

And that’s not all. Tucked into the bill’s military commission rules are a couple of provisions meant to stop detainees from revealing the facts even of past abuses. As President Bush understood when he omitted the ugly details of the CIA’s detainee program from his televised speech, what the public doesn’t know can’t hurt him.

From the testimonies of a few former CIA detainees and of several Guantanamo detainees who were previously held by the CIA, as well as from documents and intelligence sources, there is abundant information about a range of abuses committed against detainees in CIA custody. Stories of physical violence, sexual humiliation, and extended sleep deprivation have been common.

[snip]

…according to Newsweek magazine, which could not say whether the practice had actually been used, the CIA also asked for authorization to conduct “mock burials,” in which the detainee would be made to believe he was being buried alive.

[snip]

The Administration likes to talk tough about its counterterrorism policies, but it does not want the most graphic stories of abuse to be aired publicly. The president has repeatedly denied that the U.S. allows torture; a first-hand account of water-boarding would be an unwelcome rebuttal.

The fourteen detainees who have likely been subject to the worst abuses in CIA custody are now at Guantanamo, having been transferred there earlier this month. They will, at some point in the future, have access to attorneys. With attorneys and fair procedures, comes a risk that information about their treatment will become public. But the Administration has taken steps to block such revelations.

One important barrier already exists. Attorneys who represent Guantanamo detainees have to sign an agreement restricting their ability to speak publicly. They must turn over all their notes and documents before they leave Guantanamo, and they can only speak about the information they have obtained after it undergoes classification review. Only the information that is declassified can be disseminated. The result may, in some cases, be censorship of unwanted information.

The […] detainee bill also helps block such information by stripping the courts of jurisdiction over Guantanamo. The filing of a habeas action is not only a means of stopping abuse, it is also a means of divulging that abuses exist.

And the bill has a final trump card in the form of two provisions. Subchapter IV of the bill, which covers the trial procedures of military commissions, has specific provisions that allow the government to protect the “sources, methods or activities by which the United States acquired evidence” if those practices are classified. Because the government has said that all “alternative” interrogation procedures are classified, this provision could prevent military commission defendants from revealing any information about their torture or mistreatment. Article

And if your blood pressure hasn’t soared yet:

This bill is not a national security issue - this is about torturing helpless human beings without any proof they are our enemies. Perhaps this could be considered if we knew the administration would use the power with enormous care and thoughtfulness. But of the over 700 prisoners sent to Gitmo, only 10 have ever been formally charged with anything. Among other things, this bill is a CYA for torture of the innocent that has already taken place.

[snip]

Fellow citizens, this bill throws out legal and moral restraints as the president deems it necessary - these are fundamental principles of basic decency, as well as law.

I’d like those supporting this evil bill to spare me one affliction: Do not, please, pretend to be shocked by the consequences of this legislation. And do not pretend to be shocked when the world begins comparing us to the Nazis. Article

Summaries here and here and here.

And the reports just keep on coming.

The Iraq war has acted as a “recruiting sergeant” for extremists in the Muslim world, according to a paper prepared for a Ministry of Defence thinktank, which also said the British government sent troops into Afghanistan “with its eyes closed”.

The paper, which describes the west as being “in a fix” and includes a savage attack on Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, was written by an officer attached to the Defence Academy, according to BBC2’s Newsnight programme. Its release provoked a furious response from the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, who has been touring the US.

The MoD was quick to play down the significance of the report. However, the study reflects what the MoD, military commanders, and the Foreign Office, have been saying in private.…

[snip]

…”The war in Iraq … has acted as a recruiting sergeant for extremists across the Muslim world … Iraq has served to radicalise an already disillusioned youth and al-Qaida has given them the will, intent, purpose and ideology to act.”

On Afghanistan, the paper said Britain went in “with its eyes closed”. It claims that a secret deal to extricate UK troops from Iraq so they could focus on Afghanistan failed when British military leaders were overruled.

The paper also accuses the Pakistan army of indirectly supporting the Taliban by backing Pakistan’s religious parties. Article

Related: Tony Blair as Emily Litella. “Never mind.”

Tony Blair has managed to allay the anger of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf after an MoD report claimed his intelligence service supports al Qaida and the Taliban.

Following two hours of talks between the two leaders, a No 10 spokesman said Gen Musharraf had accepted assurances that the leaked document did not represent Government policy. Article

Further related:

“What is more important, Afghanistan or Iraq?” a senior defence source asked yesterday. “There is a group within the Ministry of Defence pushing hard to get troops out of Iraq to get more into Afghanistan.”

Military chiefs have been losing patience with the slow progress made in building a new Iraqi national army and security services. Significantly, they now say the level of violence in the country will not be a factor determining when British troops should leave.

[snip]

Political arguments, including strong US pressure against British troop withdrawals, have won, at least for the moment. US generals in Iraq privately made it clear they were deeply unhappy about British talk of troop reductions and complained that the British seemed interested only in the south of the country.

The debate within the MoD is unusual: arguments about the size and shape of the defence budget are common, but arguments about the merits of military deployments overseas are much rarer.

[snip]

The fierce debate at the highest military and political levels in the MoD is reflected in a passage of a leaked memo written by a staff officer at the Defence Academy, an MoD thinktank. It reads: “British armed forces are effectively held hostage in Iraq - following the failure of the deal being attempted by COS [chief of staff] to extricate UK armed forces from Iraq on the basis of ‘doing Afghanistan’ - and we are now fighting (and arguably losing or potentially losing) on two fronts.”

The MoD, which is downplaying the significance of the memo, said yesterday it was written by a naval commander, the equivalent of a lieutenant colonel in the army, and that it was reporting views from a variety of military sources. Article

The finger pointing is coming fast and furious as chaos abides, as is that pesky on-again, off-again ’sovereignty.’

Senior U.S. military officials have stepped up complaints that Iraq’s Shiite-led government is thwarting efforts to go after Shiite death squads blamed in the execution-style killings of Sunni Arabs in neighborhoods across this capital.

[snip]

The statements by ranking U.S. authorities complaining about the situation highlight rising American dissatisfaction with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and an increasing willingness to exert pressure on the fledging Iraqi government.

[snip]

A map provided by the U.S. military on Wednesday identified nine neighborhoods that have been targeted in a Baghdad security plan, a major effort aimed at ridding the capital of Sunni Arab insurgents and Shiite militias.

However, all but two of these neighborhoods are predominantly Sunni.

Publicly, U.S. military leaders say they are simply conducting operations in areas where they are tracking the most killings, but privately they acknowledge that the Iraqi government has been reluctant to go after Shiite militias.

Tensions increased between the U.S. military and the Iraqi government after the Iraqi army’s recent failure to deploy 4,000 troops to Baghdad.

Iraqi officials have attempted to send soldiers from the south to Diyala province to stabilize sectarian strife in the provincial capital, Baqubah, 35 miles north of the capital.

But a U.S. military official with knowledge of combat operations in Iraq said, “We told them that they can’t send anybody to Diyala until they give us the troops we need for Baghdad.”

[snip]

U.S. military leaders described various obstacles facing them as they attempt to quell sectarian violence in Baghdad, including “no-touch lists” that prohibit them from arresting politicians and other high-status individuals, and off-limits areas in Baghdad that the U.S. military may not enter without permission from the Iraqi government. Article

A quarter of a million Iraqis have fled sectarian violence and registered as refugees in the past seven months, data released on Thursday showed, amid an upsurge in attacks that has accompanied the Ramadan holy month. Article

And that ever-growing number is just those who have registered.

Oh (slaps forehead) — we thought the contract was for something for the movie Police Academy.

Seriously though, this is outright criminal and actionable. The hump of the rug under which screw-ups such as this have been swept is bumping the ceiling.

A $75 million project to build the largest police academy in Iraq has been so grossly mismanaged that the campus now poses health risks to recruits and might need to be partially demolished, U.S. investigators have found.

The Baghdad Police College, hailed as crucial to U.S. efforts to prepare Iraqis to take control of the country’s security, was so poorly constructed that feces and urine rained from the ceilings in student barracks. Floors heaved inches off the ground and cracked apart. Water dripped so profusely in one room that it was dubbed “the rain forest.”

“This is the most essential civil security project in the country — and it’s a failure,” said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, an independent office created by Congress. “The Baghdad police academy is a disaster.”

[snip]

The Coalition Provisional Authority hired Parsons in 2004 to transform the Baghdad Police College, a ramshackle collection of 1930s buildings, into a modern facility whose training capacity would expand from 1,500 recruits to at least 4,000. The contract called for the firm to remake the campus by building, among other things, eight three-story student barracks, classroom buildings and a central laundry facility.

[snip]

…one entire building and five floors in others had to be shuttered for repairs, limiting the capacity of the college by up to 800 recruits. His memo, too, pointed out that the urine and feces flowed throughout the building and, sometimes, onto occupants of the barracks.

“This is not a complete list,” he wrote, but rather a snapshot of “issues we are confronted with on a daily basis (as recent as the last hour) by the incomplete and/or poor work left behind by these builders.”

The Parsons contract, which eventually totaled at least $75 million, was terminated May 31 “due to cost overruns, schedule slippage, and sub-standard quality,” according to a Sept. 4 internal military memo. But rather than fire the Pasadena, Calif.-based company for cause, the contract was halted for “the government’s convenience.”

[snip]

“They may have to demolish everything they built,” said Robert DeShurley, a senior engineer with the inspector general’s office. “The buildings are falling down as they sit.” Article

21 questions, 21 answers.

A National Guardsman makes a death threat against an Iraqi blogger touring the U.S.

Not someone ye old scribe is prone to quoting, but there is always an exception.

Bismarck called pre-emptive war committing suicide out of fear of death — not a bad description of what we did in invading Iraq. Article

Summary here and here.

How to derail diplomacy in one fell swoop.

The House voted Thursday to impose mandatory sanctions on entities that provide goods or services for Iran’s weapons programs. The vote came as U.S diplomats continued to press the U.N. Security Council to penalize Tehran if it fails to end its uranium enrichment program.

House sponsors of the Iran Freedom Support Act said they had hoped for Senate action as early as Thursday night, sending it to President Bush for his signature. But they said there was resistance from Senate Democrats to passing it without a debate. [Which is just the way the House did it — by rubber stamping. Democracy is such a quaint concept, don’tcha know? — voxd]

[snip]

…critics questioned the need for unilateral action when the United States was pushing for a multinational approach to Iran’s alleged nuclear program. “It is, if you will, a cruise missile aimed at a difficult diplomatic effort just as they are reaching their most sensitive point,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore. “The timing for this legislation could not be worse.”

[snip]

The revised version takes out one section that would have cut off aid to countries, such as Russia, investing in projects in Iran that could be linked to weapons proliferation.… Article

Summaries here and here and here.

Militant attacks in eastern Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan, have tripled in some areas, the U.S. military said on Thursday, despite a peace agreement on the Pakistani side meant to end the violence. Article

The right-wingers and other assorted jingoists should start foaming at the mouth over ‘U.S. troops under foreign command’ in 3…2…1…

NATO agreed on Thursday to take command of peacekeeping across all of insurgency-hit Afghanistan next month after the United States pledged to transfer an extra 12,000 troops to its force.

Pentagon officials said the transfer of troops currently in Afghanistan’s eastern region would entail the biggest deployment of U.S. forces under foreign command since World War Two.

[snip]

The NATO accord came as European nations failed to plug all troop shortfalls identified by commanders battling the Taliban insurgency, and will mean the United States providing 14,000 of some 32,000 NATO troops that will be under British command. Article

Additional data:

The move would put ISAF in control of international operations across the country, boosting its numbers to more than 30,000 troops — almost half of them US forces — from some 37 nations.

It would also permit NATO’s commanders to move US soldiers from the east down to the Taliban’s southern heartland, where British, Dutch and Canadian troops have been locked in battle with Taliban-led fighters. Article

The same NATO command, by the way, that left this platoon unsupported for eight weeks.

A British reconnaissance platoon that set out on a four-day mission to a town in the north of Helmand province in Afghanistan ended up spending 52 days under siege by the Taleban.

[snip]

“Resupply was difficult. There was incredible risk for the helicopter landing inside the compound and we didn’t have enough men to secure the field [where the helicopter could land outside the compound] and defend the compound,” the officer said.

[snip]

The group was supposed to be reinforced by a company of 120 paratroops but they had to be diverted to the town of Sangin when they came under heavy assault by Taleban insurgents. Article

Evolution is preferable and more conducive to survival than devolution. Gee, ya think? (emphasis added)

In a wide-ranging report released in Washington on Wednesday, the Princeton Project on National Security suggested that the policies pursued by President George W Bush since September 11, 2001, had been simplistic - even counter-productive - for the challenges facing the United States in the 21st century.

To be effective, according to the report, US policy needed to rely less on military power and more on other tools of diplomacy; less on its own strength exercised unilaterally and more on cooperation with other democratic states; and less on rapid democratization based on popular elections and more on building what it called “popular, accountable, rights-regarding [PAR] governments”. Article

Under the current radar, but no less egregious an abuse of authority by the woebegone G. Walker administration:

The federal judge who ordered a halt to the Bush administration’s program of domestic wiretapping on Thursday allowed the surveillance to continue for a week to allow an appeals court to weigh in on an issue expected to end up with the U.S. Supreme Court.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit denied the Justice Department’s request for a lengthy stay pending an appeal of her August ruling that the National Security Agency’s five-year-old surveillance program violates the civil rights of Americans, the lawyer who brought the lawsuit said. Article

How to win lose friends and influence piss off people.

The United States Coast Guard has started to patrol the Great Lakes with machine guns mounted on their vessels and is conducting live-ammunition training drills on the U.S. side to prepare officers to combat terrorists flooding across the border from Canada by boat.

The automatic-weapon drills started earlier this year but came to light only in the past two weeks after information about the Coast Guard’s move to create 34 permanent live-fire training zones in the Great Lakes was published in the U.S. federal register.

[snip]

Toronto Mayor David Miller chairs a coalition of U.S. and Canadian mayors working to restore and protect the lakes.

He said the target practice violates a treaty signed after the War of 1812 that outlaws military weapons on the Great Lakes, tampering with two centuries of peaceful history.

[snip]

The Coast Guard said the drills have so far been conducted without a hitch. By way of safety precautions, broadcasts on marine radio bands will be made repeatedly a few hours before training begins, and a second Coast Guard vessel will monitor boat traffic around the training zones during the shooting exercises.

But critics on both sides of the border say that many small pleasure boats are either not equipped with marine radio, seldom tune in, or could mistakenly wander into the unmarked firing range.

Others are raising alarms about the impact of tens of thousands of bullets made from lead, which has been linked to brain-development and behaviour problems in children. In recent years there have been efforts to reduce lead in the lakes, including the banning of lead paint and a more recent campaign asking fishermen to replace lead sinkers. Article

Shut uppa you mouth.

Congressmen who visit the U.S.-Mexico border unannounced are being monitored by the Department of Homeland Security, and at least one U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent has been suspended for speaking to a congressman without first getting supervisory clearance, according to documents obtained by the Daily Bulletin.

Congressional members interviewed by the newspaper said they were unaware until recently that Border Patrol agents were required to file Significant Incident Reports - normally used for shootings and other serious border incidents - when congressional members made unannounced visits in the summer along the U.S.-Mexico border.

A second document obtained by the paper reveals that one agent was suspended for 10 days without pay for speaking with Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who made an unannounced visit to the border in May.

“Preventing Congress from speaking freely to federal employees violates at least two federal statutes, and agents are fearful of telling the truth,” said King, who recounted several visits to the Mexican border when Border Patrol agents would not speak with him for fear of reprisal. Article

Ah, yes, those showcased values.

The spectacle of the Republican presidential prospects competing for Dobson’s affection underscored the surprising remarks that the former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey made to journalist Ryan Sager a year ago in the wake of the Terri Schiavo affair. Asked for his assessment of the 109th Republican Congress, Armey singled out the special bill legislators had introduced to preserve the brain-dead Schiavo. “That was pure, blatant pandering to James Dobson,” Armey said. “Nobody serious about the Constitution would do that. But the question was, Will this energize our Christian conservative base for the next election?” Armey added, “Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies.” Article

2 academic takes on the history, concept, implementation and movable meaning of “jihad.” #1 — #2

Gracie Allen, foreign policy doyenne for G. Walker? Say good night, America.

Remember, Gen. Custer stayed the course too.

$550,000,000,000.

Running late - - - stay tuned.