In a soundbite and buzzword society, if a speech falls on the ears, is it heard?

Refreshing indeed it is to hear or read those who can intelligently convey ideas and thoughts in completely crafted sentences and paragraphs without obscuring or diluting meaning and import, and this pitch perfect, compelling synthesis is a keeper. Do take the time to read and savor the entire piece.

The Armed Services are no longer stepchildren in budgetary terms. Appropriations for defense and defense-related activities (like veterans’ care, pensions, and debt service) remind us that the costs of war continue long after the fighting ends. Objections to ever-swelling defensive expenditures are, except in rare cases, a greased slide to political suicide. It should be troublesome to you as professional soldiers that elevation to the pantheon of untouchable icons—right there alongside motherhood, apple pie and the flag—permits a great deal of political lip service to replace genuine efforts to improve the lives and working conditions—in combat and out—of those who serve.

Let me cut closer to the bone. The chickenhawks in Washington, who at this very moment are busily defending you against supposed “insults” or betrayals by the opponents of the war in Iraq, are likewise those who have cut budgets for medical and psychiatric care; who have been so skimpy and late with pay and with provision of necessities that military families in the United States have had to apply for food stamps; who sent the men and women whom you may soon be commanding into Iraq understrength, underequipped, and unprepared for dealing with a kind of war fought in streets and homes full of civilians against enemies undistinguishable from non-combatants; who have time and again broken promises to the civilian National Guardsmen bearing much of the burden by canceling their redeployment orders and extending their tours.

You may or may not agree on the justice and necessity of the war itself, but I hope that you will agree that flattery and adulation are no substitute for genuine support. Much of the money that could be directed to that support has gone into high-tech weapons systems that were supposed to produce a new, mobile, compact “professional” army that could easily defeat the armies of any other two nations combined, but is useless in a war against nationalist or religious guerrilla uprisings that, like it or not, have some support, coerced or otherwise, among the local population. We learned this lesson in Vietnam, only to see it forgotten or ignored by the time this administration invaded Iraq, creating the conditions for a savage sectarian and civil war with our soldiers trapped in the middle, unable to discern civilian from combatant, where it is impossible to kill your enemy faster than rage makes new ones.

[snip]

I want to contend that the American military systems that evolved in the early days of this republic rested on a bargain between the civilian authorities and the armed services, and that the army has, for the most part, kept its part of the bargain and that, at this moment, the civilian authorities whom you loyally obey, are shirking theirs.…

[snip]

Furthermore, the current President has made extra-Constitutional claims of authority by repeatedly acting as if he were Commander-in-Chief of the entire nation and not merely of the armed forces. Most dangerously to our moral honor and to your own welfare in the event of capture, he has likewise ordered the armed forces to violate clear mandates of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions by claiming a right to interpret them at his pleasure, so as to allow indefinite and secret detentions and torture. These claims contravene a basic principle usually made clear to recruits from their first day in service—that they may not obey an unlawful order. The President is attempting to have them violate that longstanding rule by personal definitions of what the law says and means.

[snip]

…Especially in tracking down and eliminating terrorists, we need to change our metaphor from a “war on terror”—what, pray tell, exactly is that?—to the mindset of Interpol tracking down master criminals through intense global cooperation among nations, or the FBI stalking the Mafia, or local police determined to quell street gangs without leveling the entire neighborhood in the process. Help us to think beyond a “war on terror”—which politicians could wage without end, with no measurable way to judge its effectiveness, against stateless enemies who hope we will destroy the neighborhood, creating recruits for their side—to counter-terrorism modeled on extraordinary police work. Article

Summaries here and here and here and also here.

Other blather-quoting (the reality is the blatherers quoted have only the most tenuous control of events – events now control them) summaries here and here.

And a round-up of some regional media here.

Widening the rift: In a parliamentary system, a power bloc numerically substantial enough to negate a coalition majority can control or topple the uppermost layer. It’s classic political divide and conquer, and into a power vacuum accompanied by a stew of chaos mixed with nationalism and simmered with spiritual fervor nearly always emerges not a compromise candidate but a draconian ’strongman’ (or a similarly iron-fisted tight-knit cabal) eclipsing the political structure.

Earlier on Thursday, Salih al-Agaili, a member of Sadr’s parliamentary group, said the bloc now hoped to persuade more lawmakers to follow their suspension, adding that some have “started contacting us to take a similar position. We are holding talks with them.”

He did not name the groups but said they would soon declare their intentions. “We are endeavouring to form a national front inside parliament to oppose the occupation,” Agaili said.

He stressed that the minimum condition for Sadrist deputies to rejoin the government would be “a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces.” Article

Related:

The United States and Iran have reached a critical crossroads at which the path of potential conciliation rooted in their shared “common concerns”, to paraphrase President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s latest letter to Americans, intersects with the path of even greater hostility, which could turn Iraq and the rest of the Middle Eastern landscape into a theater of their power rivalry.

Unfortunately, the latter alternative appears to be gaining, and unless remedial action is taken by both sides, in Tehran and Washington, to arrest the growing momentum toward the “clash of titans”, it may not be long before we observe a new realignment of forces in Iraq and beyond, with both sides jockeying for influence and support among the Sunni insurgents in Iraq and beyond.

[snip]

As for the Iraqi Shi’ites and their present quandary, signs of a more assertive anti-occupation stance on their part point to a growing realization that the best way to avert a costly civil war might, indeed, be none other than to form common cause with the Sunni insurgents against the occupation forces. Switching allegiance from government backers to outright opponents is a distinct possibility that may save the beleaguered Shi’ites from the Sunnis’ wrath, yet expose them to the lethal power of the United States.

Who could blame the Shi’ites if they shed their collaborationist behavior and put their military prowess at the disposal of a great nationalist crusade to liberate Iraq? For more than three years, the Shi’ites have vested their hopes on the state-building process, elections and non-violence with regard to the occupation armies. With those hopes increasingly dashed at a time of their growing military strength, the Shi’ites now seem poised to challenge the United States’ power directly, with direct assistance from Iran, should the US refuse to set a timetable for withdrawing its forces.

[snip]

…short of a massive infusion of new troops to bolster the insufficient troop levels currently deployed by the Pentagon, Bush’s bravado about fighting in Iraq until victory sounds hallow. And so does the White House’s new thinking that somehow the insurgency can be channeled into a civil war that pits Iraq’s religio-military sects against each other. That thinking is flawed on two grounds. First, it fails to take into account the Shi’ites’ counter-strategy mentioned above and, second, it takes for granted that US forces could remain insulated from the waves of civil war. Article

So how’s that freedom and democracy going?

Iraq’s Interior Ministry said Thursday it had formed a special unit to monitor news coverage and vowed to take legal action against journalists who failed to correct stories the ministry deemed to be incorrect.

Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, spokesman for the ministry, said the purpose of the special monitoring unit was to find “fabricated and false news that hurts and gives the Iraqis a wrong picture that the security situation is very bad, when the facts are totally different.” Article

The many colors of chaos.

“Do you agree that security can be colour-coded green?” asked the US colonel. There was an awkward pause. The governor of Mosul, the deputy governor, and the police chief looked at each other, then focused on the piece of paper the Americans had handed them at the start of the meeting.

[snip]

The deputy governor decided not to beat about the bush. “I don’t agree that security is green and people feel safe. Not one day goes by without someone being killed in Mosul.” He added: “The terrorists are a hidden force. They go out in civilian clothes and threaten contractors with death if they start work on reconstruction projects. They kill interpreters. They hand out flyers at the mosques, calling for support for al-Qaida and the Ba’athists. On Thursday when I was visiting people they told me 15 families had been told to leave town. A well-known singer was shot in the street this week.”

Mosul, in northern Iraq, is Iraq’s second city, with a population of 1.7 million people. Yet unlike Baghdad and Basra it receives minimal media coverage. Car bombs and suicide attacks are relatively rare, but as the city’s senior officials make clear, a more complex war is under way.

“Of course the army can do raids, but what we have here is a cat and mouse game,” the deputy governor said. “We have 18,000 police now and orders to recruit 3,000 more. It would be good to have them as secret agents, in the mosques and at the university.…

[snip]

The security discussion was over and the colonel summed up. “We’ll change the coding to yellow,” he said. The US colonel embraced the three Iraqis. His officers picked up their M16 rifles and they all piled back into their armoured vehicles.

“Americans can sometimes be naive,” Mr Goran suggested. “At least they now call it yellow. They’re moving in the right direction.” Article

Perhaps the one thing at which the woebegone G. Walker administration excels: finger pointing.

When we think about an exit strategy for Iraq, we are really thinking about two things. Most obviously, we’re thinking about when and where to move U.S. troops, whether and how to replace those troops with Iraqi soldiers or an international force, and other material concerns. But we’re also thinking about something less tangible. We’re thinking about what we’re going to tell ourselves in the future about this fiasco, to borrow the title of Thomas Ricks’ disturbing book about the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. We’re thinking about who or what to blame. No troop withdrawal can occur until this narrative has been assembled.

That work has now begun. In a Nov. 29 Washington Post article, Ricks and Robin Wright report that a governmental consensus is emerging that nation-building failed in Iraq because the Iraqis just weren’t up to it.

[snip]

…there’s a crucial difference between the Vietnam war and the U.S. occupation of Iraq. [Actually, there are many, but let that go for now. — voxd] In Vietnam, we backed a weak but indigenous military force that was already battling the North Vietnamese. In Iraq, there was no indigenous military battling Saddam’s regime, and none emerged after we got there (unless you count the Kurds, who’ve enjoined relative success in stabilizing and governing their corner of Iraq). Overthrowing Saddam Hussein wasn’t the Iraqis’ idea; it was ours. Americans expected Iraqis to be grateful for ridding them of a bloodthirsty dictator, and for a brief time, they were. But it somehow doesn’t compute that Iraqis, following the same logic, now blame the United States for the civil war we unleashed.

[snip]

It may feel good to say that postwar Iraq is a failed society because of the Iraqis themselves. Ingratitude is a common theme among embittered reformers, because it’s usually too painful to blame oneself. But it’s rarely true, and it certainly isn’t true in the case of Iraq. We just have to live with that. Article

Bad means against bad actors ensures that, no matter what, bad comes out on top. This is from a decidedly British persoective, but the constant is clear: “security” and “order” imposed rather than organically established is a repressive stopgap.

…the deteriorating security situation casts a dark shadow over everything else. We owe it to our troops, just as we owe it to the people of Iraq, to be clear about the direction we should now take in Iraq.

That requires four things. First, we must be much more candid about the situation we are now dealing with. Sir Richard Dannatt, the Chief of the General Staff, did the country a service in taking the gloss off some of the more optimistic assessments we have been given. People want to be told the truth – good or bad. The security situation is dire, and there is no point in hiding it.

Secondly, we need to be more practical in the scale of our ambition in Iraq. It is just not realistic to talk of establishing a fully functioning Iraqi version of a liberal democracy. That process will take many years. Iraqis are crying out for a government that can give them security before anything else. They see every day that without order, there is no law, and no prospect of peaceful development that lasts.

Thirdly, it follows that we must give overriding priority to security, which means building up the Iraqi Army. It is the one institution in the country that appears to command a degree of respect and effectiveness – in contrast to the police, which is so heavily infiltrated by sectarians that some members are nominally police officers by day, but paramilitaries by night. The Iraqi Army has impressed coalition commanders in its ability to help to hold the ring. It fights well, but lacks critical logistical, intelligence and command and control capability. These deficiencies must be rectified urgently.

Fourthly, we have to accept that there is no purely military solution to Iraq’s problems. Lasting peace will depend on an internal political settlement between Arab and Kurd, between Sunni and Shia. That in turn will require the support of Iraq’s neighbours, who must be persuaded that their long-term interest lies in a stable Iraq at peace with itself and the region.

There is a great deal of discussion about the various models of federalism that might make sense for Iraq. But what matters more than the precise model of governmental structure is the need for a fundamental political accommodation between the different communities that will be required to underpin it. Without that, any structure, no matter how cleverly designed, will fall apart. Article

The woebgeone G. Walker administration’s fatally flawed foundation of not recognizing and accepting that the region’s conflicts are inter-connected, inter-related and interdependent – is grudging change in the air? Frankly, their own chief policy architects and top-level promoters, their statements, actions and history belie and dash to smithereens even that miniscule nugget of hope.

While diplomatic sources describe repeatedly the main motive for America’s renewed interest in the Israeli-Palestinian ongoing violence as eagerness to have moderate Arab countries pressure Iraqi Sunnis into backing the government of Nuri al-Maliki, the administration formally maintains there is no linkage between the two. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said this week that the United States is interested in both achieving stability in Iraq and reaching a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but that the two goals are pursued “separately and apart.” Also viewed separately is the goal of stabilizing Lebanon’s democracy, a third trouble spot cited by the Jordanian king. “I don’t think these are linked in some kind of game,” Hadley said. [No, they are linked in actual, palapable reality. — voxd ]

The only senior figure in the administration known to have acknowledged a linkage between the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and the larger problems of the region, State Department counselor Philip Zelikow, resigned this week, due to what some administration sources described as frustration with the direction of American foreign policy. This past September, Zelikow said in a speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy that easing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a “sine qua non” to securing cooperation from moderate Arab countries on broader regional issues.

The State Department leadership publicly rejected Zelikow’s ideas at the time, but numerous sources close to the administration agreed this week that the notion of linkage between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the situation in Iraq, and to a certain extent in Iran, as well, is now emerging as the prevailing view guiding America’s Middle East policy. Article

George Monbiot gets it:

In other words, our “defence” capability is now retained for the purpose of offence. Our armed forces no longer exist to protect us. They exist to go abroad and cause trouble.

[snip]

…the danger and paradox of military spending is that the bigger the budget, the more powerful the lobby becomes which can fight for its own survival. Article

Yet another dreadful page to stuff into the Pakistan folder:

…tens of thousands of other haris toil as slaves on estates across Sindh, in return for meagre quantities of food and clothing. In theory, all of them should have been released under the 1992 Bonded Labour Systems (Abolition) Act, but the political power of the landlords, combined with their influence over police and local administrations has prevented this from happening, HRCP [Human Rights Commission of Pakistan] says. Article

Reference

Predicating a near future scenario most dire.

Nigeria, the fifth-largest source of U.S. imported oil, is falling apart and will likely require intervention by the U.S. government and the Navy in particular, according to Michael Vlahos, a national security analyst with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

As it struggles with separatist unrest, Nigeria is “a place that we’re going to be hearing a lot about in a year,” he said Nov. 16 during a colloquium at the university.

“The situation in Nigeria is literally coming apart,” Vlahos told the audience. “It’s a country that makes Iraq look simple and doable.” As Nigeria falls apart, people in the United States are going to become increasingly aware of its role as a U.S. oil supplier, he said.

“And the place is just unspeakable,” he said. “And how we go in there and what we do there . . . it won’t work unless we have special capabilities.”

Secret assessments prepared for oil companies have concluded the companies will not be able to operate in Nigeria after about two years because they have “screwed things up so bad,” he said.

[snip]

At this month’s conference, 11 West African nations, brought together by the U.S. military and the State Department, approved a plan to improve maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea.

Asked about the situation in Nigeria, Rear Adm. Philip Greene, head of strategy and policy for Naval Forces Europe, told ITN the conference did not focus on any specific assessments of the security situation in the Gulf of Guinea. But he said there was “a sense of urgency” from regional actors to “move out on solutions.”

Vlahos predicted the Navy will play a key role supporting new kinds of U.S. engagement around the world in places where U.S. national security interests intersect with alternative communities of impoverished people seeking legitimacy.

Many of these communities exist in vast slums, outside of Western notions of modernity, globalization and nation states, he said. Piety is growing in these regions, he said. But this is a global phenomena that is not merely confined to Muslim areas, he said.

These communities, formed by residents in specific regions, should not be confused with outsider groups such as al Qaeda.

“It’s alternative in the true sense of the word,” said Vlahos. “It isn’t a fictive community like al Qaeda is. Al Qaeda is really more of a fraternity. It may be on its way to being a true community, but that hasn’t happened yet.”

Referring to militias in such areas as non-state actors, as the U.S. government often does, misses the point that these are non-state communities, he said. Vlahos called for greater engagement in these areas. Forging relationships with leaders of such communities is necessary, he said.

“We can’t escape these places,” he said. “These places are now . . . where our national security problems are.”

The people in these places “know how to fight us,” he said. Using military force against such people can turn them into hardened enemies by creating a shared experience of struggle that forges a collective identity and leadership, he said.

Unfortunately, he said, the Bush administration’s policies — including the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent occupation — have “militarized” the United States’ relationship with people around the world who have been “left behind.” This sets up a dramatic narrative of counter-resistance, in which fighting the United States becomes the means of achieving legitimacy, he said.

Seen from this perspective, he said, Iraq is about the United States “going into a place of alternative communities and unsuccessfully engaging in combat with several of them, just as we did in Mogadishu, just as we’re doing in Afghanistan.”

[snip]

He urged the Pentagon to embrace a culture-driven, rather than technology-driven, military ethos. Beyond mere language training, the U.S. military needs many people with cultural empathy who have the capability to develop relationships, as well as fight, he said. That is difficult to achieve, if it is achievable at all, he added. Article

Injecting further imbalance into the problem of (crypto-) atomically armed Korean peninsula.

Japan has the technological know-how to produce a nuclear weapon but has no immediate plans to do so, the foreign minister said Thursday, several weeks after communist North Korea carried out a nuclear test.

Foreign Minister Taro Aso, who has called for discussion of Japan’s non-nuclear policy, also asserted in parliament that the pacifist constitution does not forbid possession of the bomb.

“Japan is capable of producing nuclear weapons,” Aso told a parliamentary committee on security issues. “But we are not saying we have plans to possess nuclear weapons.”

Japan, the only country ever attacked by atomic weapons, has for decades espoused a strict policy of not possessing, developing or allowing the introduction of nuclear bombs on its territory.

[snip]

In a hearing before the lower house of parliament’s Security Committee, Aso reiterated his belief that the constitution’s pacifist clause does not prevent Japan from having nuclear bombs for the purpose of defense.

The constitution’s Article 9 bars Japan from the use of force to settle international disputes.

“Possession of minimum level of arms for defense is not prohibited under the Article 9 of the Constitution,” Aso said. “Even nuclear weapons, if there are any that fall within that limit, they are not prohibited.” Article

Related:

Japan’s lower house of parliament passed a bill to create a cabinet-level defence ministry for the first time since World War II.

[snip]

The bill overwhelmingly passed the lower house with support of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s coalition as well as the largest opposition Democratic Party of Japan.

[snip]

The bill will be sent to the upper house, where the ruling coalition also enjoys a majority. Abe wants the proposal to be enacted before the current parliament session ends on December 15.

While largely symbolic, the bill will help the military in domestic power wrangling by giving the defence minister a spot in cabinet meetings with the right to make budget requests.

Previous attempts to create a defence ministry stalled over political sensitivities in light of Japan’s past aggression and fears of upsetting neighbouring countries.

Abe, Japan’s first premier born after World War II, vowed to create a defence ministry in his first policy speech after taking over from Junichiro Koizumi in late September.

Abe also supports rewriting the constitution to allow Japan to have a military again in name. Article

Also:

The Japanese military, facing a renewed nuclear threat from neighboring North Korea, successfully launched a new surface-to-air defensive missile Thursday in a remote area of Fort Bliss.

The Chu-SAM missile was launched at McGregor Range, where Japanese forces have been training on their defensive missile systems. The missile is designed to knock down aircraft, air-to-surface missiles and cruise missiles.

North Korea announced a successful underground nuclear test in October, but Thursday’s firing was not in response to that threat, said Japanese Maj. Gen. Masanori Takeda.

Thursday’s launch was the first as part of a live-training exercise. The missile already has been tested six times at nearby White Sands Missile Range. Article

So we have another outcome (and another gross overreaction) of the woebegone and monomaniacal G. Walker administration – accepting and pushing overt militarization (in a region in delicate balance among Japan, Russia, the Koreas and China – with Indonesia and some of the former Soviet entities as additional nearby political teeter-totters) of an economic powerhouse (which, by the way, is also the largest holder of U.S. debt, at over $600 billion).

PEDAL PUCKER

Tres strange, no?

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STICK IT WHERE?

In this case, the one-liners write themselves.

IRAQ IIO

Cogent overview and recap.

Summary here.

Reading the entrails.

Related:

Washington’s realization that Iraq can no longer be won or even stabilized unless the regional framework changes, has come late — perhaps too late. The United States will have to find agreement with its allies and enter into direct talks with all the other players to try to achieve a new regional consensus.

If this policy shift had taken place a year ago or even early last summer, the prospects would have been better. And with every passing day, America’s position in the region is weakening further and the chances of a successful new political strategy become more remote. Article

Shorter version: Nothing to see here. Move along.

President Bush and Rice repeatedly probed al-Maliki on his plans to deal with the Mahdi Army militia loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the aide said. The Iraqi prime minister was noncommittal.

“It is not a big problem and we will find a solution for it,” the official quoted al-Maliki as telling Bush. Article

WHAT HAVE WE BECOME

After nearly six years of the woebegone G. Walker administration, it has come to this – their own staff in the trenches imploring them to face facts.

Good luck.

In an unprecedented action, representatives for more than 10,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientists are calling on Congress to take immediate action against global warming, according to a petition released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The petition also calls for an end to censorship of agency scientists and other specialists on topics of climate change and the effects of air pollution. Article

NOTED IN PASSING

Cloak and dagger conclave. Presumably, all the catered food was served under wraps.

En-chanted rings.

GRECIAN GEARS

Re-imagining a peak of ancient technology.

“This device is just extraordinary, the only thing of its kind,” said study leader Mike Edmunds of Cardiff University in the UK. “The design is beautiful, the astronomy is exactly right…In terms of historical and scarcity value, I have to regard this mechanism as being more valuable than the Mona Lisa.” Article

Summaries here and here and here.

Whatever the anithesis of gold stars is, the woebegone G. Walker administration’s pages should be festooned with them.

…the Bush administration, spearheaded by outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, has failed the grade badly so far, according to the conclusions of the new report ‘Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil War’ by Anthony H. Cordesman, who holds the Arleigh A. Burke chair in strategy at the Center for International and Strategic Studies, a Washington think tank. The report was published Monday by CSIS.

[snip]

Cordesman is scathing in his assessment of how the Iraqi government functions, or, perhaps more accurately, malfunctions. ‘The national government cannot even spend its budget; much less demonstrate that it now has an effective ministerial structure or the ability to actually govern in many areas,’ he writes. ‘Actual governance continues to default to local authorities and factions.’

Because of the failure of the central government, ‘There is no real consensus on what legal system to use, courts do not exist in many areas and are corrupt and ineffective in many others,’ the report says. ‘Legal authority, like governance, is devolving down to the local level.’

[snip]

Cordesman is also dismissive of U.S. Department of Defense and White House claims about the major gains that have allegedly been made in restoring the economy of oil-rich Iraq.

‘Increases in macroeconomic figures like the total GDP disguise massive problems with corruption, the distribution of income, and employment, particularly in troubled Sunni areas and the poorer parts of Iraq`s major towns and cities,’ he writes. ‘Young men are often forced to choose between the ISF (Iraqi Security Forces), insurgency, and militias for purely economic reasons.’

The economic picture is depressing across most of Iraq, Cordesman concludes. ‘The real-world economy of Sunni areas continues to deteriorate, and investment in even secure Shiite areas is limited by the fear of crime and insurgency,’ he writes. ‘Only the Kurdish area is making real progress towards development.’ Article

The power and the curse: oil.

Chaos abides.

Every day it seemed more Iraqis woke up to death threats tossed into their carports. At first the death threats were handwritten, but as kidnappings became a daily occurrence, the kidnappers grew more brazen and organized. The terrorists now issue generic, computerized threats with the organization’s name as letterhead. Only the name of the victim is written by hand.

“To the traitors cooperating with Americans,” began one typed death threat received in 2005 by a young architect employed by an American contractor working in the Green Zone. “If you don’t repent, the Mujahideen will punish you and behead you.” The frightened architect, who asked not to be identified, has escaped, leaving some of her family behind. Article

Let’s see: Ticket – check; passport – check; cellphone – check. Codebook?

Hunkering in the Green: So how’s that freedom and democracy going?

Iraq’s parliament will bar the media from future sessions and began on Monday by refusing access to reporters and then cutting off television coverage as a debate on mounting sectarian violence became heated.

Spokesmen for the government and parliament said it was part of efforts, newly agreed by Iraq’s National Security Council, to stop political leaders contradicting each other in public and prevent media coverage that was deemed to inflame conflicts.

“If there is any tension in the state, then the media should be kept out because it may increase tension,” speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani told lawmakers in a televised session after dozens of journalists were barred from the building by security guards.

When one lawmaker rose to object, Mashhadani, from the Sunni minority, ordered the cameras turned off, effectively shutting off public access to a legislature whose election was held up by the United States as a beacon for democracy in the Middle East.

No transcript is published and journalists and members of the public have always been barred from the chamber itself.

After reporters were left standing outside the Saddam Hussein-era convention centre in Baghdad’s Green Zone which houses parliament, Mohammed Abu Bakr, a parliament spokesman, told Reuters that he could not say when they could return. Article

G. Walker and his woebegone administration may not undertsand or “do nuance,” but it, thankfully, has not been expunged from the bazaar, and a crucial distinction is still alive and kicking.

The head of Jordan’s Bar Association Saleh al-Armuti said: “For us this is a day of mourning. The Jordanian government should not have welcomed him here and should not have hosted any summit.”

Earlier dozens of protestors gathered outside parliament in response to a call from the small Al-Rafaah (prosperity) centrist party, brandishing anti-Bush banners.

“Yes to the American people, no to Bush’s policies in the Middle East” one of them read. Article

Contrary to G. Walker’s fortune cookie philosophy, there is no “new phase.” The Moon has phases; war does not. War grinds on and over and through everything in its path and around it, macerating lives, destroying livelihood, sundering family, twisting psyches, immolating treasure, razing achievement, despoiling nature, puncturing policy, perverting probity, disintegrating civil society, laying waste and mulching the warp and woof of what came before.

…with whom do we stand, and who stands with us, in Iraq? Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki heads a Shiite-dominated government that grows closer to Iran and that is propped up by Moqtada al-Sadr, whose militia is the most powerful force in the country other than the U.S. Army, which Sadr has called on to leave Iraq forthwith.

As for the Sunni minority, it’s among that group that the insurgency against both the U.S. occupation and the string of post-Hussein governments took root. At first the number of insurgents was relatively small, but as the Shiite-controlled police force joined the Shiite militias in anti-Sunni pogroms, the number of Sunnis taking up arms ballooned.

So — which side are we on?

In the face of escalating civil war, of an increasingly Hobbesian conflict of each against all, the calls still coming from the U.S. military, the administration and Capitol Hill to step up our training of Iraqi forces seem light-years off the mark. The problem with Iraqi security isn’t that Iraqi forces are poorly trained. It’s that, like the rest of their countrymen, like the very government whose uniform they wear, they’re not really invested in fighting for a unified, nonsectarian Iraq. Why do we expect them to defend an ideal that their countrymen either never believed in or were compelled to abandon under pressure of civil war?

[snip]

We have plumb run out of mission in Iraq.… Article

Keeping up with the courts-martial:

UK troops abused Iraqis detainees and later bragged about it, a soldier has told a court martial. Article

Summary here.

Noted FYI:

A retired Canadian major-general, Lewis MacKenzie, says NATO needs many more soldiers in Afghanistan to keep up the pressure on the Taliban militants.

[snip]

“Unless some large number of nations get off their butts – and get down to Southern Afghanistan and augment our troops, then the mission is threatened,” he said. Article

The new Taliban rulebook.

Can’t happen fast enough, and good riddance.

“I think we’re seeing the beginning of the end of cluster munitions, cluster bombs, at long last,” Egeland told journalists in Geneva, Switzerland.

“These are medieval type of weapons where you believe they have military use today and you don’t really care that civilians are killed tomorrow. This is not a way civilised nations should behave,” he added. Article

Room with views, plural.

Up against the wall.

Why?

The bees stuck their tongues out at you.

Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a method for training the common honey bee to detect the explosives used in bombs. Based on knowledge of bee biology, the new techniques could become a leading tool in the fight against the use of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, which present a critical vulnerability for American military troops abroad and is an emerging danger for civilians worldwide.

[snip]

According to Tim Haarmann, principal investigator for the Stealthy Insect Sensor Project, the project applies old knowledge to a pressing new problem. Haarmann said, “Scientists have long marveled at the honey bee’s phenomenal sense of smell, which rivals that of dogs,” said Haarmann. “But previous attempts to harness and understand this ability were scientifically unproven. With more knowledge, our team thought we could make use of this ability.” Article

Wordfest.

LOO TO-DO

And the upshot? The Queen crossed her legs.

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ANSWER: THIS WEDDING

Question: What’s orange, and black and blue all over?

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THE PRINCE AND THE PETER

Parker, that is.

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FUNNYBONE DEPOT

This, it must be stressed, is exaggerated satire. And smirk-worthy as well.

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DIG THEY MUST

Last of the president to be buried after nearly 30 years.

IRAQ IIO

Summary here and here.

The political bloc loyal to Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr Wednesday announced suspension of their role in the parliament and government to protest Iraqi prime minister’s meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush. Article

Details are lacking, and sure to be lost in the rush of coverage of the G. Walker/Maliki meeting, but possibly of more significance, as Talabani also represents Kurdish interests.

Iraq’s president said Wednesday he had reached a security agreement with Iran, which the United States accuses of fueling the chaos in the war-torn country. Iran’s president called on countries to stop backing “terrorists” in Iraq and for the Americans to withdraw. Article

The Saudi-based piece mentioned just below is here.

Writing in the Washington Post, Saudi security expert Nawaf Obaid said the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq could result in Saudi King Abdullah opening the gates to provide Iraq’s Sunnis funds, arms and logistical support to counter Teheran’s support for Iraqi Shia fighters. Article

More:

“To be sure, Saudi engagement in Iraq carries great risks — it could spark a regional war. So be it: the consequences of inaction are far worse,” Nawaf Obaid wrote in the Washington Post. He said the opinions were his own, not the government’s. Article

This all ties in as well with the coveniently-timed leaked memo in the news today, and scoped out by Dan Froomkin:

Who’s more delusional about Iraq: President Bush or Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki?

Whichever side of that argument you’re on, a classified memo from national security adviser Steve Hadley to President Bush — leaked to the New York Times yesterday — gives you more ammunition.

The memo describes a guy who talks a good game, but is ultimately clueless and incompetent — and who has been lulled into believing that his rhetoric is true by a small circle of like-minded advisers.

[snip]

It then suggests: “If it is Maliki’s assessment that he does not have the capability — politically or militarily — to take the steps outlined above, we will need to work with him to augment his capabilities. We could do so in two ways. First, we could help him form a new political base among moderate politicians from Sunni, Shia, Kurdish and other communities. . . . [Not much of structure anyone could build on a base that small and narrow. — voxd]

“Second, we need to provide Maliki with additional forces of some kind.” [“of some kind” leaves the door open to the funding of militias (the “Salvador option“) and/or covert support for one side in a civil war — voxd]

[snip]

Among the suggestions the memo makes is for the United States to persuade Saudi Arabia to use its influence with the Sunnis in Iraq to stop the violence and engage in the political process.

In particular, the memo urged Bush to “[d]irect your cabinet to begin an intensive press on Saudi Arabia to play a leadership role on Iraq, connecting this role with other areas in which Saudi Arabia wants to see U.S. action.” Article

Noted FYI:

A computer virus may have caused information related to U.S. forces in Iraq and other sensitive data to be posted to the Internet from a Japanese soldier’s computer, a news report said Wednesday.

The data was copied Friday from a PC owned by a first lieutenant of Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force based in Okinawa, south Japan, Kyodo News agency reported, citing unnamed force officials.

It included information on the past location of U.S. forces in Iraq, as well as data on U.S. military supplies, the report said. The leak involved old data and wasn’t thought to endanger U.S. personnel, according to the report. Article

NOVEMBER 7 MATTERED

While aggressive (hell, any) oversight and accountability, which is the focus of the piece, is welcome, what particularly struck ye old scribe was the sad indictment of both basic education and of the outgoing Republican majority’s proclivity for herd groupthink and record of laissez-faire submissiveness. (emphasis added)

In a 44-page look at areas in need of oversight, GAO investigators focused substantial attention on contractors. The government spent $388 billion on contracts last year, the GAO said, and much of that money is exposed to “potential waste and misuse” because of the way the government buys goods and services.

Meanwhile, congressional workers are getting ready. In September, the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group, began holding seminars for Hill workers of both parties on how to conduct investigations, including sessions on the anatomy of a government contract and skits in which oversight hearings were acted out. About 150 people have attended the sessions, said Jennifer Gore, the group’s spokeswoman.

“Younger staff members were not quite sure what Congress’s role is,” she said. “We knew they needed to get a review on what congressional power really is, how it works, and why it’s so important.” Article

Quasi-related:

Business interests, seizing on concerns that a law passed in the wake of the Enron scandal has overreached, are advancing a broad agenda to limit government oversight of private industry, including making it tougher for investors to sue companies and auditors for fraud. Article

WHAT HAVE WE BECOME

Early skirmishes in the Constitutional crisis set in motion by the dictatorial claims (and actions) of the woebegone G. Walker adminsitration.

A federal judge struck down President Bush’s authority to designate groups as terrorists, saying his post-Sept. 11 executive order was unconstitutionally vague, according to a ruling released Tuesday.

[snip]

The case centered on two groups, the Liberation Tigers, which seeks a separate homeland for the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, and Partiya Karkeran Kurdistan, a political organization representing the interests of Kurds in Turkey.

[snip]

The judge’s ruling does not invalidate the hundreds of other designated terrorist groups on the list but “calls them into question.”

[snip]

The judge’s 45-page ruling was a reversal of her own tentative findings last July in which she indicated she would uphold wide powers asserted by Bush under an anti-terror financing law. She delayed her ruling then to allow more legal briefs to be filed. Article

TECH TOPICS

Something about its efficacy comes across as a bit squishy, but noted nonetheless.

Developers from the University of Toronto plan to release software this week that will allow residents in restrictive countries to gain uncensored Internet access through friends’ and family members’ home computers. Article

NOTED IN PASSING

Deep in the heart pockets of Texas.

Sheesh.

It’s the thought that counts, not the size of the gift, the Texas Ethics Commission has ruled, saying public officials don’t have to tell anyone how much money they get as presents from political donors.

One legislator said that violates the intent of state law and calls the commission “spineless.”

Texas law requires public officials to file personal financial disclosure statements describing any gifts they get that are worth more than $250.

However, the ethics commission voted 5-3 on Monday to approve a staff advisory opinion that said describing such a gift simply as a “check” is enough. Article

Summary here.

Waiting for autocracy – a not at all farfetched interpretation of twisting and turning the Rubik’s Cube that has now become Iraq:

Non-stop White House and Pentagon accusations swirl around: Syria facilitates the flow of jihadis into Iraq through their deserted, 1,200-kilometer border. This simply does not make sense (in fact the exodus is the other way around: every day up to 2,000 Iraqis flee to Syria, and more than 1,000 to Jordan, according to the United Nations). Syria may have a Ba’athist regime, but the power elite is configured by Alawites - who follow a branch of Shi’ism completely different from Iran’s duodecimals (who believe in 12 imams). The utmost fear of the Assad regime is exactly Salafi-jihadis of the al-Qaeda kind, so Damascus would not be aiding them.

[snip]

Call it the return of the Ba’athists - minus Saddam. Even before rumors of a coup began circulation, one could see the so-called diplomatic strategists of Baker’s ISG coming up with the idea of trying to co-opt the resistance into entering a coalition government.

But that does not mean the plan will work. The US might invest in an Asian-style face-saving operation spun by heavy public relations by getting involved in direct negotiations with the Sunni Arab resistance. But only a Saddam-style dictator is capable of assuring a strong, stable central government in Baghdad in charge of security for everyone, with no discrimination. That would mean alienating the Shi’ite religious parties and their paramilitary factions to the limit.

[snip]

The Maliki government is, for all purposes, already dead. Maliki, the No 2 of the Islamist Da’wa Party, controls only 25 representatives in the 275-member parliament. He depends on the SCIRI - which has the majority - and the Sadrists. So obviously Maliki cannot order any kind of crackdown either on the Badr or the Mehdi Army factions. According to the Islamic Party - which has the majority of parliamentarians under the Sunni Concord Front - the police and the army are totally infiltrated by Shi’ite militias. The Sadrists for their part denounce the US “return of the Ba’athists” strategy - and defend the Mehdi Army as patriots who protect Shi’ites from the takfiris (Sunni radicals).

[snip]

The ISG may recommend more summits and more covert contacts with the Sunni Arab resistance. Ahmadinejad, Talabani and Assad may even meet again. But Baghdad sources close to the resistance in the Sunni belt have told Asia Times Online of another coup in the making - and that goes way beyond the removal of the Maliki government.

Secular former Ba’athists and Saddam’s fighters congregated in the Army of Mohammed - the paramilitary wing of the Awda Party - are already in control of the Syrian border (and not Salafi-jihadis of the al-Qaeda kind). Article

Buggin’ out?

Faced with that situation in al-Anbar, and the desperate need to control Iraq’s capital, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace is considering turning al-Anbar over to Iraqi security forces and moving U.S. troops from there into Baghdad.

“If we are not going to do a better job doing what we are doing out [in al-Anbar], what’s the point of having them out there?” said a senior military official. Article

Summary here and here.

So how’s that security (or is it the auxiliary security this week) training going?

Across the country, intelligence reports that it is often the police themselves who smuggle drugs and commit crimes have driven the international powers to demand reform. A US government report recently described endemic corruption and incompetence in a force which it largely funds. About 70 per cent of policemen are former mujahedin, recruited wholesale from their old militia units and maintaining loyalties to their factional commanders. One senior diplomat described Afghan police simply as, “the providers of violence”. Article

Noted FYI:

Defence ministry spokesman Gen Zahir Azimi said the US had pledged giving copters and passenger planes to Afghanistan, but he would not specify the quantity.

The pledge was made during the defence minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak’s recent trip to Washington. Azimi told a press conference here on Monday the US-led coalition troops would also hand over a range of light weapons, mortars and armoured vehicles to the Afghan National Army in the near future.

[snip]

…Afghanistan currently owns only two jets, 11 helicopters and seven passenger airbuses. Article

Constricting Kabul.

Four such gates already exist at different points, including the Mahipar highway (east), Kotal-i-Khairkhana (north) while the western and southern gates are located at the Arghandi and Sang-i-Nawishta areas.

The new gate in Tarakhail area will be used for checking people entering Kabul from the eastern areas. The step has been taken to avoid terrorists from sneaking in into the capital. Article

If conclusively confirmed, holy crap.

The madrasah in the tribal agency of Bajaur was bombed during a visit to Pakistan by the Prince of Wales amid allegations that it was being used to train suicide bombers.

“We thought it would be less damaging if we said we did it rather than the US,” said a key aide to President Pervez Musharraf. “But there was a lot of collateral damage and we’ve requested the Americans not to do it again.” Article

U.S. forces in Pakistan? That’ll be explosive news. (emphasis added)

The indictment said the men acquired a number of guns, including semi-automatic rifles, shotguns and ammunition. Beginning in 2005, they met at various shooting ranges in and around Houston “to hone their skills with weapons to assist fighters engaging United States forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq,” according to court documents. Article

Leftover, lamentable legacy of lethality.

Israel is not among the 152 countries that have ratified the 1997 Ottawa pact banning the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel landmines, which activists say kill and maim long after conflicts have ended.

But it is a party to a protocol of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons, which requires they be placed within a demarcated area to ensure that civilians are not harmed.

The incidents near the village of Deir Mimas were the “first evidence we have that the Israeli forces laid new mines in south Lebanon in 2006,” the United Nations Mine Action Co-ordination Centre South Lebanon (MACCSL) said.

[snip]

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), a co-laureate of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, denounced Israel’s use of mines.

Only the government forces of Myanmar and Russia, and armed groups in about 10 countries, are thought to be still laying anti-personnel mines, the ICBL said.

“By using antipersonnel mines in south Lebanon, Israel will have joined the infamously exclusive club of states still resorting to these barbaric weapons,” Sylvie Brigot, ICBL’s executive director, said in a statement. Article

The drip, drip, drip of the scope of the fetid depths into which the woebegone G. Walker administration has dragged the world cannot be entirely squelched.

European countries knew about U.S. secret jails for terrorism suspects and have obstructed an investigation into the transport and illegal detention of prisoners, a draft European Parliament report said on Tuesday.

It criticised a string of top European Union officials including foreign policy chief Javier Solana and counter-terrorism coordinator Gijs de Vries, and complained of lack of cooperation from nearly all member states.

[snip]

The draft, obtained by Reuters, echoed charges from the Council of Europe human rights body that European states were complicit in U.S. abuses during the war on terrorism. Article

More:

Most EU member nations knew about the US policy of CIA seizures of terror suspects abroad and kept the information from a European parliamentary enquiry, the committee’s rapporteur Claudio Fava said.

“Many governments cooperated passively or actively (with the CIA). They knew,” said Fava, presenting the committee’s final report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) alleged use of European countries for the illegal transport and detention of prisoners.

[snip]

He named 12 EU nations as being involved — Austria, Britain, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden — along with Romania, which will join the bloc in January, and non-EU nations Bosnia, Macedonia and Turkey.

[snip]

He added that the Europeans had been informed of the practice by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, at a NATO-EU meeting in February 2005 and subsequently at high-level meetings in Brussels on February 8 and May 3 this year. Article