Summaries here and here and here.

The Iraqi Central Criminal Court sentenced on Thursday, in absentia, the defense minister of the interim government under Iyad Allawi, Hazem Shaalan, to seven years imprisonment on corruption charges.

[snip]

During Shaalan’s tenure, the defense ministry is alleged to have spent about $1.3 billion on military equipment, most of which was inappropriate, out of date and bought from intermediaries rather than suppliers in contravention of the law. Article

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Hearts and minds. (emphasis added)

The soldiers usually stay only a few minutes in each house – as long as it takes to quickly go through each room checking anywhere there may be people or weapons hidden.

But they started out long before dawn and now they’re looking for an overwatch – a house that’s protected but high enough to provide visibility of the street and the surrounding houses.

Selma’s house, with its high walls and rooftop, seems to be it. She has five daughters and a son – two of them are still sleeping.

[snip]

“If you stay here, they will say we were cooperating with the Americans and they will come and attack us,” she says.

[snip]

Selma imagines she has a choice in whether the solders stay and Gaines is prepared for a while to let her believe it.

[snip]

“There’s no police in this neighborhood – no Iraqi national guard. How am I not supposed to be afraid?” Selma asks.

Gaines has heard this before. “They say that because they don’t want me to hang out here. The terrorists know these people don’t really have a choice and we can use whatever house we want and she doesn’t really have a choice either. So really what she needs to do is move in that room for her safety and we will be out as quickly as we can be.”

He tells her the family can leave if they like while they use the house.

[snip]

I wonder aloud how Americans would react if soldiers came into their homes like this and took it over. Article

A reminder of what the U.S. military has sworn to protect and defend: U.S. Constitution, Amendment 3: “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”

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C-i-v-i-l w-a-r.

Wide-scale clashes broke out on Thursday in al-Aameriya neighborhood in western Baghdad between gunmen believed to be members of al-Ashreen (1920) Revolution Brigades and the Islamic army on the one hand and elements of al-Qaeda on the other, eyewitnesses said.

[snip]

A third eyewitness told VOI by telephone that he can see through his house window scores of bodies in the main street near the police station in al-Aameriya.

“The Iraqi army and police forces have not intervened so far, but U.S. helicopters were seen hovering over the area,” the third eyewitness said.

No word was available from Iraqi police or Multi-National Forces on the clashes. Article

Some more here:

It was not clear how many people had been killed in several days of fighting. Residents gave varying death tolls while the police had no comment. Iraqi security forces rarely venture into the area. Article

Also:

Backed by helicopter gunships, U.S. troops on Thursday joined the two-day battle in the Amariyah district, according to a councilman and other residents of the Sunni district.

[snip]

Lt. Col. Dale C. Kuehl, commander of 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, who is responsible for the Amariyah area of the capital, confirmed the U.S. military’s role in the fighting in the Sunni district. He said the battles raged Wednesday and Thursday but died off at night. Article

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Delineating the multi-faceted Rubik’s cube of chaos:

…recent developments could have far-reaching implications, even into the volatile city of Kirkuk in the Kurdish-controlled north, where tensions run high between Arab Shi’ites and Kurds. Kurdish groups are intent on controlling the city and forcing other groups out, so as to control the oil-rich surrounding area to facilitate the creation of an independent Kurdish state.

Dressed in official police uniforms to gain access through a checkpoint to detain Sunni worshippers at a mosque in the area, Mahdi Army members told Kurdish members of the Iraqi Army who were participating in the crackdown in the southwestern areas of Baghdad that they were following orders from the Ministry of Interior.

A member of the local council in the area of Baghdad where the incident took place spoke with Inter Press Service (IPS) at his office on condition of strict anonymity: “The dispute started when the Mahdi Army members raided the Bayaa and Amil area to arrest 14 worshippers at a Sunni mosque while broadcasting a message through loudspeakers that they were conducting the raid by orders from Brigadier-General Nizar, the Kurdish platoon leader.”

The Kurdish unit was placed in the Amil and Bayaa areas of southwest Baghdad in March as part of the security crackdown there led by the US military.

“The detainees were found executed later, so we understood that the force was in fact a death squad working for the Ministry of Interior,” he said. “Brigadier Nizar later revealed that fact to the media, saying the attacking force had an official warrant from the Ministry of Interior and that was why he allowed them to go through his checkpoints.”

Local police believe that the Shi’ite militia, operating out of the Ministry of Interior as they have been for more than two years, also attempted to provoke a fight between the Kurdish unit in Baghdad and the local community in the area they were deployed, which is heavily Sunni.

[snip]

Sources from inside the Kurdish unit involved in the incident, who spoke with IPS on condition of anonymity since they were instructed not to speak with the media, explained that Kurdish soldiers and officers remain angry about the attack on their unit, but they had received strict orders from their command in northern Iraq not to fight back against the Mahdi Army at the moment, but “to deal firmly with any further attacks in the future”.

As a result, tensions are high and the urge to blame someone for the instability in the area has increased.

[snip]

Many analysts in Baghdad believe the US military is attempting to involve the Kurds in the escalating conflict by sending armed groups and death squads of other sects or ethnicities to engage the Kurdish forces in Baghdad in order to drag them into the conflict.

However, the Kurds are reportedly trying not to take sides and to remain neutral in the sectarian conflict, although most of them are Sunnis.

IPS sources in Baghdad believe that bringing the Kurds into Baghdad in itself is the beginning of their participation in the sectarian violence, especially when they are attacked by Shi’ite militias.

Others believe that the “divide and conquer” strategy by the US military and US-backed Iraqi politicians is being implemented across much of Baghdad. Article

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Analysis and recap du jour:

The kidnapping of a British financial specialist and four bodyguards on 29 May 2007 would not have been unusual at this juncture in Baghdad except for two aspects.

The first is that this was close to the centre of the city nearly four months into a “surge” in United States forces that was expected to bring a degree of stability.

The second was the ability of the kidnappers to use large numbers of police vehicles to cordon off the streets around the finance ministry and then to walk in past the guards and abduct the five expatriates. This indicates either a remarkable ability of insurgents to acquire official vehicles or that the operation was the work of a renegade police unit most likely linked to a militia.

Each factor gives some indication of the problems facing the US military as it continues its surge, others being the high level of bombings in Baghdad and of American military casualties. On the same day as the abductions, a bus-bomb and car-bomb together killed at least forty people and wounded almost a hundred. That day too, the US military announced that another ten of its soldiers had been killed on 28 May. In addition, over 600 American soldiers were wounded in the three weeks to 22 May, with a majority of them sustaining serious injuries.

[snip]

Although some Washington sources still speak optimistically about the prospects for success with the surge, there have been two major shifts of mood in the past two weeks.… Article

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Based on what has transpired over the past four years under her tenure, ye old scribe puts forward the proposition that her job will be to dangle the empire’s woebegone G. Walker administration’s sword of Damocles over the heads of Mailiki, et alia.

US President George W Bush on Thursday named a top aide as his personal envoy to Iraq, a move meant to increase pressure on rival Iraqi factions to reach political reconciliation.

Meghan O’Sullivan, 37, has helped shape US administration policy as Bush’s deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan over the past four years. She spent a year in Baghdad with the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority after Saddam Hussein was toppled. Article

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Shortages of fuel, lack of electricity, and on-again off-again curfews. Not particularly amenable to 24 hour service, not to mention the obviousness of mounting frustration and anger from those in the queues as well as the opportunistic targets for violence and mayhem such facilities create.

Iraq’s Oil Ministry will open 50 gas stations in Baghdad 24 hours a day as the fuel crisis worsens and the oil industry is unable to keep up with demand.

Iraqis wait for hours in line for gas that has skyrocketed in price since the 2003 invasion. Gas was subsidized, but that subsidy must be drawn down, according to terms of the economic structural adjustment program of the International Monetary Fund.

Issam Jihad, spokesman for the ministry, said the 50 stations would begin operating to ease the long lines at the pump, Al-Sabaah reports. He also said security at the stations would be increased as night falls. Article

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Speaking of oil, a labor-based commentary from one out in the field:

President Bush and his administration are putting great pressure on the Iraqi government to approve a new hydrocarbon (oil) law. The U.S. Congress has enacted legislation that includes adoption of the oil law as a benchmark of “progress” in Iraq and condition of continued reconstruction funding. The oil law is being promoted as a means to assure the equitable distribution to all parts of Iraq of the revenues earned from the sale of our oil.

[snip]

President Bush and his administration are putting great pressure on the Iraqi government to approve a new hydrocarbon (oil) law. The U.S. Congress has enacted legislation that includes adoption of the oil law as a benchmark of “progress” in Iraq and condition of continued reconstruction funding. The oil law is being promoted as a means to assure the equitable distribution to all parts of Iraq of the revenues earned from the sale of our oil.

Everyone knows that this oil law does not serve the Iraqi people, and that it serves Bush, his supporters and foreign oil companies at the expense of the Iraqi people who have been wronged and deprived of their right to their oil despite enduring great suffering and sacrifice.

It is common knowledge that the occupation spared neither the old nor the young, and that Iraq is passing through the most difficult of times because all and sundry are hounding it and covet a share of its riches. We see no good reason for linking the passing of this oil law to the withdrawal of the occupation troops from Iraq.

It is important that the Bush administration, the U.S. Congress and the American people understand why Iraq’s oil workers, a majority of its Parliament and most Iraqis oppose this law.

[snip]

What is wrong with the law?

You are being told the law will guarantee equitable distribution of oil revenues to all areas of Iraq. But in a law that has more than 40 articles, there is only one reference to fair distribution: “The government’s revenue, including the oil revenue, must be distributed through the federal budget in a fair and just way in adherence to the constitution.” Fair distribution of oil revenues already exists in our constitution. This law adds nothing to that. There are, however, thousands of words devoted to assuring that foreign oil corporations will be able to secure long-term contracts (up to 30 years) to develop, extract, control and sell what amounts to two-thirds of our country’s oil reserves.

The law requires a royalty payment to the Iraqi government of just 12.5 percent. Does that sound to you like a fair distribution of oil revenues? The law does not require foreign corporations to hire Iraqi workers, to purchase from Iraqi businesses, to transfer technology to Iraqis, to reinvest profits in Iraq, or to submit disputes to resolution through the Iraqi judiciary. It even puts representatives of the oil cartel on the council that will be created to issue contracts to those same corporations.

By voting to make adoption of the oil law a benchmark of Iraqi cooperation, your Congress has become complicit in a raid by the international oil cartel on the national legacy of the Iraqi people and an attack on the sovereignty of our country. Congress is now a partner with President Bush in a scheme to recolonize our country. That is something we are pledged to prevent. Prior to the nationalization of our oil in 1972, foreign corporations controlled most of our oil resources and enriched themselves while the Iraqi people suffered. We will not allow our country to return to that condition.

Your nation’s mothers and fathers have lost more than 3,400 precious lives of their sons and daughters in Iraq. Our nation’s mothers and fathers have lost many hundreds of thousands of our children’s precious lives. Millions of Iraqis have been forced from their homes; many had to flee the country. Unemployment in many areas is 70 percent. Our hospitals have been destroyed and many doctors have fled. Our schools, power plants, sanitation system and many homes have been destroyed.

The general public in Iraq is totally convinced that Bush wants to rush the promulgation of the oil law so as to be able to leave Iraq with a victory of sorts, because his project is failing every day and the occupation is collapsing in all parts of Iraq.

We wish to see you take a true stance for the children of Iraq and for your own, and we always say that history will remember those who advance peace over war. We are not your enemy. We mean you no harm. Allow us to resolve our differences free of outside interference. Please leave our country so that we can heal our wounds, as you must heal yours. Both our peoples have suffered enough. Let there be peace for us all. Article

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Gates shuffles along quiescently and toes the White House’s latest line.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday the United States is looking to a long-term military presence in Iraq under a mutually agreed arrangement similar to that it has long had with South Korea.

[snip]

“The Korea model is one, the security relationship we have with Japan is another,” he said. Article

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Is the horrendous story of the virtual slavery, abysmal labor practices and despicable treatment of those tasked with building G. Walker’s grandiose monument on the Tigris at last percolating upwards?

Repeating (again) what was last repeated here (and many times prior to that) on Nov. 1, 2006:

Have mentioned this before, but it still generates seething disgust. Rather than re-post snippets, just go read (or re-read) the tales of the virtual slavery, labor abuse and casual fungibility inflicted on the workers coralled into building the half-billion dollar (in reality, probaby much more) G. Walker’s palace embassy compound in Baghdad. #1 — #2

Analysis du jour, sober, measured, and proactive:

Increasingly bogged down in the sands of Iraq, the US thrashes about looking for an honorable exit. Restoring cooperation between Washington and Tehran is the single most important step that could be taken to rescue the US from its predicament in Iraq. Understanding why requires some historical reflection.

[snip]

Meetings just started between US and Iranian envoys could reestablish the basis for regional stability that existed until 1979 and may be the best hope for containing the chaos that the US invasion of Iraq is unleashing. Unless the US convinces Iran to play a cooperative role, the conflict will spread. Indeed, fear of sectarian violence spreading is why the Saudi leadership, usually supportive of Washington, recently called the US occupation of Iraq illegal.

Thus the US footing in the Arab camp has been eroding. If that continues, the cost in increased US military power to maintain Israel’s ultimate security will soon be beyond US means. A rapprochement with Iran, therefore, is the key to restoring regional stability as the US withdraws from Iraq.

Can it be reached? Yes, if the US is willing to pay the price of dropping its “all sticks” policy for stopping Iran’s nuclear-weapons program. Put plainly, the US has two choices: It can have an Iran with nuclear weapons that refuses to cooperate on many shared interests. Or it can have an Iran with nuclear weapons that is willing to cooperate.

Tehran has as much interest in stability in both Iraq and Afghanistan as does Washington.…

[snip]

Iran can’t help but observe the examples that the US has set with India’s and Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons programs. After opposing both for years, Washington essentially embraced both countries once they acquired nuclear weapons. The lesson for both Iran and North Korea is simple: acquire nuclear weapons and the US will not only stop threatening “regime change,” but will also seek good relations.

Effectively the US has demolished the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Iran might settle for a security guarantee against an Israeli nuclear strike, but its fears of Pakistani nuclear capability are probably more acute – especially as Al Qaeda, hiding in Pakistan, is dedicated to the destruction of Iran’s Shiite-controlled regime and openly calls on the US to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. Article

Summary here and here and here.

Pro-Taliban militants killed thirteen people in raid on a government official’s house in Pakistan Thursday.

According to reports, around 100 militants attacked the house of Ameerud Din, the top administrator of the Khyber Tribal region in North West Frontier Province. Din himself was not at home at the time, but six family members who were inside the house were killed, including Din’s brother. The other seven killed were reportedly guests.

The attack lasted for 30 minutes, with militants using rockets, hand grenades and guns on the house. The attackers then fled the area before they could be caught. Article

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Going out on a decidedly callous and sour note.

The retiring U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, in a farewell assessment, said Thursday he did not know how long U.S. troops ought to remain in the South Asian country.

But on his last day in the foreign service, and after two years in a post his father also once held in Kabul, Ronald Neumann said helping Afghanistan to develop its first democratic government was “a long-term process.”

“There is corruption of society at all levels,” he said, but there are several positive developments, including growth of the Afghan army and the judicial system and the building of roads.

“It is a weak state and not a strong Taliban that is causing us problems,” he said.

[snip]

Five U.S. soldiers were among the victims Thursday in the downing of a CH-47 Chinook helicopter in southern Helmand province, raising the U.S. death toll for U.S. forces in the country to about 400.

“I am sorry for the loss of life,” Neumann said, after a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

“But I don’t consider it significant from a strategic point of view,” he said of the attack, noting that they have become less frequent. Article

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Things fall apart, the center cannot hold.

Under tight security by NATO and Afghan forces, hundreds of people protested on Thursday in Afghanistan’s northern town of Shiberghan, scene of a bloody protest this week against a provincial governor.

The protesters demanded the removal and trial of Governor Juma Khan Hamdard, who they accuse of being incompetent and a bigoted ethnic Pashtun.

Protesters said Hamdard should be tried for the deaths of those killed in Monday’s demonstration. Witnesses said 13 died when police fired shots into the crowd, while the government said six were killed.

A spokesman for the governor, Rohullah Samun, said the protests were part of an armed uprising provoked by General Abdul Rashid Dostum against provincial and central authorities. Article

More:

Protests had spread to the Jowzjan capital, Shebergan, by 28 May. Around 1,000 people took to the streets in support of Gen Dostum.

They chanted slogans against Jowzjan Governor Joma Khan Hamdard, an ethnic Pashtun, for “his rank inefficiency, narrow-minded nationalism and ethnic prejudice”, and called for his removal “for the sake of ethnic harmony”.

The sequence of events leading to the shooting dead of at least seven civilians remains unclear, with claims and counter claims about which side started the firing.

The interior ministry in Kabul blamed Gen Dostum’s supporters for staging a “rebellion”. A statement broadcast by Afghan state radio said police had taken “legal measures to restore order”.

“Unfortunately, the demonstrators carried out armed attacks against the police,” the ministry said.

But a statement attributed to Gen Dostum, broadcast by Aina TV, blamed Governor Hamdard for the violence. Article

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Keeping up with the Chaudhry crisis:

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf did not consult his Cabinet before suspending Pakistan’s top judge, a lawyer told a court Thursday, claiming the move that has ignited a political crisis was unconstitutional.

Hamid Khan, a lawyer for the Pakistan Bar Council, made the allegation before the Supreme Court, which is hearing more than 20 challenges to the March 9 suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry.

Khan’s claim came as more than 2,000 lawyers and opposition activists _ some chanting “Death to Musharraf!” _ protested in the eastern city of Lahore. A government lawyer, meanwhile, filed a petition to the Supreme Court accusing Chaudhry of taking part in a political protest last weekend.

[snip]

Ahmed Raza Qasuri, who is pleading the government’s case challenging Chaudhry’s suspension, filed a case in the Supreme Court on Thursday trying to stop the chief justice from “political activity” under a constitutional provision that bars judges from involvement in “any public controversy.”

Qasuri linked the allegation to Chaudhry’s attendance of a seminar at the Supreme Court on Saturday, when he gave a speech warning against any ruler wielding absolute power.

Thousands of Chaudhry supporters held a rally outside the seminar. Qasuri described it as a “pathetic sight of hooliganism and rowdyism.” Article

More:

The Supreme Court…observed that the president of Pakistan was not exempted from appearing in court. Justice Khalilur Rahman Ramday citing Article 248 of the Constitution said the president under the constitution did not enjoy any such immunity.

Earlier government’s attorney Sharifuddin Pirzada had said that the president could not be summoned by the court because he enjoys immunity under the constitution. Article

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Could be innocent, but it sure is suspicious.

Updates here and here.

Chaos abides.

A district head of the National Security Agency (NSA), Ahmed Mohamed Odaysge, was shot in Hamarweyne in southern Mogadishu where he led operations to enforce law and order.

His office confirmed the killing and vowed to pursue the gunmen who fled after the attack.

“We are investigating the killing and, as of now, we are treating it as a political assassination,” said a district official, who declined to be named.

A former top NSA official was also killed late on Tuesday in another shooting. Mohamed Muhamoud Jumale, an official in the former regime of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, ousted in 1991.

[snip]

The Somali government recently revived the NSA, a secret agency dreaded during Barre’s regime, to help combat insurgents who have vowed to crush efforts to restore stability in the country. Article

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Putting a face on the displaced:

Ambiya Abdi Hussein, a mother of seven, was first displaced from her home in the Lower Shabelle region of Somalia at the height of the 1992 civil war. After 15 years in a camp in Mogadishu, she and her family, like hundreds of thousands of others, have been displaced again. After fighting broke out between Ethiopian-backed government forces and insurgents in Mogadishu, Hussein, 35, and the children moved to the Buulo Jawaan camp in south Galkayo, 700km north of Mogadishu, where they have lived for the past three months.

[snip]

The children, aged between two and 16, do not go to school. Hussein said: “My dream is for all them to go to school and learn, so they don’t live the way I live.”

She has hopes of returning to her home in Lower Shabelle, where she had a farm and “lived much better than this … But first we need peace,” she said. “Wherever I can find peace and my children can find education that is where I will call home.” Article

Developments here.

Osama bin Laden’s ex-driver and a Canadian child soldier captured in Afghanistan face arraignment next week at Guantanamo Bay under a US military process slammed by activists as a travesty of justice.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni national born in 1970, is accused of serving both as an armed bodyguard to the Al Qaeda mastermind and as bin Laden’s personal chauffeur.

The government alleges that Toronto-born Omar Ahmed Khadr, who was 15 when he was seized in Afghanistan five years ago, murdered a US army sergeant with a hand grenade during a raid on an Al Qaeda hideout.

[snip]

“In Khadr’s case, we have a kid who was, according to the government’s own allegation, dragged off by his father from the age of 10 to meet Al Qaeda leaders, sent off to military training camp at age 15 and then sent to the battlefield to be shot at. That hardly qualifies as the worst of the worst.” Article

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Data (no doubt some of which is carefully tailored) oozes out on the latest suicide:

The Guantanamo prisoner who died in his cell this week was a Saudi army veteran who trained with U.S. soldiers in his homeland before going to fight for the Taliban in Afghanistan, military records showed on Thursday.

[snip]

He is the fourth detainee to die of apparent suicide at the camp, which holds about 380 captives. Another 395 have been released or transferred to other governments since the camp opened in January 2002.

[snip]

According to records previously released by the U.S. military, al Aameri told his captors he had been trained by Americans during the nine years and four months he served in the Saudi army.

He said went to Afghanistan six months after leaving the army because he felt it was his duty to fight jihad, or holy war, when asked by a Muslim government, in this case the Taliban. But he denied he intended to fight Americans.

“Had his desire been to fight and kill Americans, he could have done that while he was side by side with them in Saudi Arabia,” he said through a U.S. military officer assigned as his representative before an administrative panel that classified him as an “unlawful enemy combatant.” Article

More:

Though it gave no details about him, U.S. records say he was 34 and had been held without charges at the prison at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in southeastern Cuba since February 2002.

Al-Amry had no attorney of record, although the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights has filed a blanket legal challenge on behalf of all Guantanamo detainees. Lawyers say many detainees have little faith in the American legal system but others simply do not understand it.

“People just don’t know where to turn so there are absolutely people in Guantanamo who want a lawyer but don’t have one,” said Zachary Katznelson, an attorney for the British human rights group Reprieve, which represents 37 detainees.

[snip]

Al-Amry was said by another detainee to have been on a hunger strike in March. Military records recently obtained by The Associated Press suggest he had also refused food in the past, with his weight dropping below 90 pounds at one point in 2005. He weighed 150 pounds when he entered Guantanamo. Article

Related:

Prisoners in Camp 5, which is similar to the highest-security U.S. prisons, are kept in individual, solid-wall cells and allowed outside for only two hours a day of recreation in an enclosed area.

Wells Dixon, a defense attorney who met with detainees at Camp 5 last month, said many showed signs of desperation.

“I can assure you that it is hell on earth,” Dixon said. “You can see the despair on the faces of detainees. It’s transparent.”

Other critics said detainees are frustrated at being held indefinitely without charges.

“You have five and a half years of desperation there with no legal way out,” said Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents hundreds of Guantanamo detainees. “Sadly, it leads to people being so desperate they take their own lives.”

Lawyer Julia Tarver Mason, whose firm represents eight Saudi detainees at Guantanamo, said the government so far has declined to tell her if the man who died was among her clients. There are about 80 detainees from Saudi Arabia held at Guantanamo. Article

We’re welded into the car, with the windshield blacked out and a loose nut behind the wheel.

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After 30 years, expressing what he must have wanted to say for 29½ of them, more especially for the past 6½:

I want you to know that it strains credulity for you folks to describe the last 175 diplomatic meetings as being fruitful and useful. They couldn’t possibly have all been fruitful and useful. Source

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You can’t spell lackey without K-y-l.

Go, Jerry, go. “Crisis” is a word-and-a-half. That’s a helluva lot on one plate; slow and steady wins the race.

Today, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (NY-08), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, announced a series of hearings titled “The Constitution in Crisis: The State of Civil Liberties in America.” In these hearings, the Subcommittee will examine the Bush Administration’s policies, actions and programs that threaten Americans’ fundamental constitutional rights and civil liberties and also hear proposals for potential legislative fixes.

The series will begin with a hearing on June 7, 2007, which will examine the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program and the Administration’s proposals for expanding it.

“This Congress must void the blank check the White House has enjoyed for the last six years,” said Rep. Nadler. “The time for real accountability and meaningful oversight is now, and this Subcommittee will fulfill its constitutional duty to protect the fundamental freedoms of all Americans.”

Topics to be covered by the hearings include:

· The National Security Agency’s wiretapping program and proposed expansions;
· The erosion of Habeas Corpus through the Military Commissions Act;
· The sanctioning of torture through the Military Commissions Act and other government policies;
· The practice of “extraordinary rendition,” or government sponsored kidnapping;
· PATRIOT Act threats to privacy rights, including the FBI’s abuses of the National Security Letter authority and intrusions into Americans’ “Freedom to Read”;
· Government surveillance of First Amendment-protected activities; and
· The gutting of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights and Voting Rights Divisions. Article

A good Lynch-ing, further establishing pairriage, in the “Live Free or Die” state.

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Spinning — nay, dizzily pirouetting — at the egress: Be sure not wear you best togs when being swept into that dustbin of history.

Tony Blair has mounted a final, passionate defence of his foreign policy, beseeching rich nations and African leaders to keep up his agenda of “liberal interventionism” after he leaves office next month.

The Prime Minister, who has sent British troops into conflicts in five countries since being elected in 1997, insisted the UK must remain willing to take a hand in the affairs of other states.

As he continued his valedictory tour with a visit to South Africa, Mr Blair said he still believes that it is right for governments to try to project western values around the world. “International politics should not be simply a game of interests but also of beliefs, things we stand for and fight for,” Mr Blair wrote in a magazine article. [At gunpoint, Mr. Blair? At long last, have you no conscience, sir? — voxd] Article

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Keeping up with the kidnappings in Nigeria’s oil region.

Nigerian rebels from the oil-producing Niger Delta who had promised to release six foreign hostages on May 30 have yet to do so and have not given any explanation for the delay. Article

Related:

A protest by villagers at a major oil export pipeline complex in Nigeria entered a third day on Thursday and no crude was flowing through the facility, a protest leader said.

Villagers from K-Dere occupied the pipeline hub at Bomu, which feeds the Bonny shipping terminal, on Tuesday and forced Shell to shut 150 000 barrels per day of output.

“The lines are still shut. They are not flowing. We locked up the place and slept here last night,” said Teddy Penedibebari, who is leading the protest.

Shell, the biggest foreign oil operator in Nigeria, had said it was “ramping up production” on Wednesday, but confirmed that output was still down by 150 000 bpd on Thursday.

[snip]

Shell suspended production in Ogoni 14 years ago because of popular protests, but the area is still criss-crossed by pipelines and many residents are still aggrieved about oil spills and what they see as a history of neglect.

Shell had only just resumed normal production levels at its 400 000 bpd Bonny terminal before Tuesday’s attack on Bomu.

Exports remain under a force majeure, a legal measure exempting Shell from its contractual export obligations. Article

More:

The main militant group in Nigeria’s Niger Delta says it is willing to stop its violent campaign only if the new government frees its jailed kinsmen.

Newly sworn-in President Umaru Yar’Adua has said the crisis in the oil-rich region will be his priority and has called for a ceasefire.

But the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said he must show “genuine willingness” for dialogue.

The government must prepare for more violence if it fails to act, Mend said.

The militants have waged a sabotage campaign for more than a year in the under-developed region, including kidnapping dozens of foreign oil workers.

The activities of the militants have led to a more than 25% cut in oil production.

Criminal gangs in the region have used similar tactics to obtain ransoms for the release of captives.

[snip]

Analysts say putting an end to the Niger Delta violence will be a slow and frustrating as hostage taking has become a very profitable business and the proliferation of arms in the region all combine to make the militants very powerful. Article

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No sympathy for the charged whatsoever, but it is going to be quite the task to empanel an impartial jury.

Robert Alan Soloway, 27, from Seattle, appeared in a US court yesterday, accused of a series of federal crimes including mail fraud, email fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering.

US authorities said such was the scale of his activities, web users could easily notice a reduction in the amount of junk email clogging their inboxes.

“He’s one of the top 10 spammers in the world,” said Tim Cranton, a lawyer and director of Microsoft’s Worldwide Internet Safety Programs. Article

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Paddy Ashdown’s stellar and universally lauded term in the Balkans entitles his views to be given weight above and beyond those of the usual pack:

This book is his opportunity to say what he thinks about international administration, not just in Bosnia but generally. He recognises that he has an uphill task: Iraq has mercilessly exposed the hubris and stupidity of much American and British thought about spreading beneficent political ideas to oppressed peoples. He is properly scathing in his account of the US failure to plan for the administration of Iraq. The question any citizen must ask today is: has anything of this colonial role in any post-Cold War intervention worked?

[snip]

Here, at a time when we in Britain might be at risk of swinging from Blair’s excess of interventionism to an equally damaging extreme of endemic non-interventionism, Ashdown sets down clearly some important propositions. The first and most fundamental is that there remains a need for international efforts at state-building. He is consistently clear that outside powers cannot simply ignore problems of state-failure and post-conflict reconstruction. If such problems are left to fester, the results will return to haunt us, as they did in the case of Afghanistan when left to its own (and the Taliban’s) devices after the departure of the Red Army in 1989.

Ashdown’s second key conclusion is that some valuable results have been achieved by international administrative assistance. East Timor is one such case: despite the setback in 2006 when the UN had to authorise a re-intervention, the role of the UN and Australia in assisting the creation of a new state was positive. Similarly in Bosnia, the extensive - albeit ill-planned - role of outsiders since 1995 has helped to prevent a reversion to war, and has started a deeply divided community on a road that leads, potentially, to EU and Nato membership.

The third and most important conclusion is that international assistance in state-building needs to be stripped of lazy political rhetoric and cultural blinkers. Ashdown is scathing about the shallow Western belief that holding elections is the key proof of advance towards democracy. He reminds us that, in occupied Germany after 1945, it took four years to lay the groundwork for the elections. Indeed, elections can be damaging if they do not take place in a framework of honest institutions and an impartial judiciary. They may merely reinforce the cronyism of government and the depth of ethnic divisions in a society.

[snip]

From all this follows the book’s central conclusion: that planning for the post-conflict phase is no mere add-on, but should be an integral part of all political and military planning for international action in divided communities. There should be no models or templates; every divided society is divided in its own way. There must be involvement of neighbouring states. There must also be an attempt to get agreement of local and regional partners about the goals of the international assistance. All these lessons were shockingly ignored in Iraq - but it may not be too late to take them into account in other cases, including that key case where they have been applied in part but not as a whole: Afghanistan. Article

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This comes across as salesmanship of the glitz of technology rather than as something meaningfully utilitarian, as well as a program and system that will end up costing more in maintenance and manpower dedicated to its functioning rather than to its function than common sense would deem prudent.

Schools in Korea could soon be guarded by hi-tech robots that will patrol their grounds, according to reports.

The Korea Times reports that a pilot scheme will get underway at a school in Seoul this week, testing out the robot – named ‘OFRO’ – along with an associated security system called KT Telecop. Article

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Noted FYI:

The Vatican will install solar photovoltaic panels on the roof of its Paul VI audience hall in a comprehensive energy project that will pay for itself in a few years, according to the brains behind the idea.

The solar array will power the building’s heating, cooling and lighting systems year-round, Pier Carlo Cuscianna, head of the Vatican’s department of technical services, told the Catholic News Service.

“The Paul VI hall was chosen first for a number of reasons: Cooling and heating the large audience hall makes it one of the top energy guzzlers in the Vatican, and its roof was in need of repair,” the news service quoted Cuscianna as saying. When completed, the project will include more than 1,000 panels, according to Cuscianna, and the excess electricity generated will be added to the Vatican City grid. Article

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40 years later, still a Sgt. It really does seem like only yesterday.

DIRE WARNING

Now this is four-alarm scary.

The vast amount of radioactive waste that is the legacy of Russia’s nuclear-powered submarines has been known to be a looming environmental disaster - now it can be far worse.

Research now indicates that the enormous tanks holding discarded submarine fuel rods in the Andreeva Bay may explode at any time, creating a nuclear nightmare for Northern Europe.

Norway and other Western authorities have argued for years that the stockpile of highly radioactive nuclear waste on the Kola peninsula poses an environmental hazard to the local population and for Norway.

A new report from Rosatom, the Russian government’s highest nuclear authority, shows that there is a grave danger that the stockpile can explode. For Norway the consequences could exceed the fallout from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, and no one knows how imminent the danger is - if it is a question of years - or hours. Article

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CLIMATE CHANGE

Pull the string on the Sen. Brownback action figure and it says “Thinking’s hard!” There cannot be any such thing as “atheistic theology” — a nonsensical and jejune construction — that’s what that leading ‘a’ means - an absence of theology. It’s excatly like speaking of an ‘asymmetrical symmetry,’ or and atypical typlicality,’ or an ‘immature maturity,’ or a non-round sphere. It is a billboard advertising idiocy.

Woebegone G. Walker administration policy? Still the same: Delay, deflect, and toos the hot potato to the next administration.

But even the woebegone and obstructionist G. Walker administration is not distancing, but running at warp speed away from the politically-appointed head of NASA’s bizarre interpretation and comments.

More:

Griffin’s own agency put out a news release yesterday about a research paper written by nearly 50 NASA and Columbia University scientists and published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. The paper shows how “human-made greenhouse gases have brought the Earth’s climate close to critical tipping points, with potentially dangerous consequences for the planet.”

Jerry Mahlman, a former top scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who is now at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said Griffin’s remarks showed he was either “totally clueless” or “a deep anti-global warming ideologue”. Article

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A truly auspicious day. Wow.

Surgeons at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago performed a groundbreaking robotic pancreatectomy in a 39-year-old man to relieve him of debilitating pain. They also performed an autologous islet cell transplant to prevent him from developing surgical diabetes.

[snip]

During surgery, physicians inserted the laparoscope and robotic arms of the da Vinci surgical system through five small incisions in the patient’s abdomen. The pancreas was then removed through a two-inch incision.

“Removing a chronically inflamed pancreas in a patient with chronic pancreatitis is a very difficult operation, even with a large incision,” Oberholzer said. “We were surprised to experience that doing this surgery with the robotic system made it almost easier than doing the case via a large incision with the open technique.”

Oberholzer said the robotic surgery allowed him to carefully preserve the spleen, which is usually removed during a pancreatectomy.

Robotic-assisted minimally invasive surgery provides a level of dexterity not possible with traditional laparoscopic instruments. While seated at a surgical console, physicians view the operating field in 3-D and use computerized controls to precisely manipulate instruments inside the patient, with 360-degree range of motion. Article

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POLO PREQUEL

“Human remains found in a 1,400-year-old Chinese tomb belonged to a man of European origin, DNA evidence shows” Article

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USE IT OR LOSE IT

In some parts of Germany, devolving giant generalist monopolies to take advantage of local mean and needs.

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AVERSION TO WONDERMENT

Thought-provoking thesis: “Why Do Some People Resist Science?” Article

ULTIMATE CRITIC

Karaoke chaos.

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FAX FOLLIES

Whoopsie.

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SHAMAN SHAME

(1) In the today of the 21st century, all our yesterdays yet co-exist.

(2) Beyond bizarre.

(3) Can a quack witch doctor be brought up for malpractice?

Technical probs. Hang on for a few minutes, please.

Problems resolved.

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Summaries here and here and here.

A Sunni police chief praised by U.S. forces for clearing his city of insurgents has been arrested following an investigation into alleged murder, corruption and crimes against the Iraqi people, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

Col. Hamid Ibrahim al-Jazaa, his brother and 14 bodyguards were taken into custody Tuesday in the city of Hit, 85 miles west of Baghdad, according to a statement by the public affairs office of Multinational Corps-Iraq. “The apprehensions were the result of an investigation which alleges murder, corruption and crimes against the Iraqi people. The apprehension of this group was authorized and coordinated with local Hit city officials,” the statement said. “All the accused are currently being held in coalition force custody.”

The statement gave no details of the allegations. Article

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A grim quick-march backwards.

When Suha Abdel-Azim, 38, received a letter from her boss saying she had to stop working for security reasons, she couldn’t believe it. After three years as an engineer for a local company, she was fired without compensation.

“I was shocked when they told me I was being fired. I was an excellent worker and had done many fantastic and profitable projects but they didn’t want a woman with them any more. They tried to explain, saying it was too dangerous for the company to employ women: the company had received threats,” Suha said.

[snip]

“Discrimination against women today is unprecedented. They are being sacked because of their gender; that is unacceptable,” she added.

[snip]

Women have also been prohibited by Shia militias from teaching other women. The threat has become real after two teachers - one in the mostly Shia Sadr City district and one in Kadhmiyah neighbourhood - were killed after giving lessons to illiterate women near their homes.

“They were brave women who stood up against the violence, and tried to promote education among those who had never had the opportunity,” Nuha said. “They were killed just because they wanted to help other women to read and write.”

In many villages, girls have been taken out of school and forced to stay at home without education. Article

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Noted FYI (and also a sharp slap on the wrist to ABC for continuing the fallacious construction of using “terrorism” or variations thereof as a descriptor of attacks on a military).

Weapons from another generation have become another tool in the arsenal of terror groups in Iraq.

The devices are believed to be military grenades, likely Russian-made and dating back to the World War II. Article

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Follow-up info on an incident from earlier this week:

The U.S. helicopter that crashed and killed two soldiers in Diyala province Monday was shot down by enemy fire, a senior U.S. military official said Wednesday.

[snip]

Providing further details on the helicopter crash and subsequent roadside attacks, Wiggins said the military believes the aircraft was brought down by small arms fire. He added that the roadside bomb that killed a response team headed to the crash site was not the newer, armour-piercing explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, that have killed hundreds of U.S. soldiers. Article

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Analysis du jour:

…what is most telling against Petraeus’ ’surge’ strategy is not the rising U.S. casualties, which were anticipated, but that it has failed to erode the Sunni insurgents’ capabilities to continue inflicting havoc on Shiite and Kurdish civilian populations.

Further, the rising tensions with Sadr are a fire bell in the night to U.S. policymakers that their time is running out. It remains uncertain how long the Shiite majority will endure a major U.S. troop presence that does not appear to be bringing them the basic security they need.

Defenders of the ’surge’ strategy say it still needs time and that effective counter-insurgency tactics against such guerrilla groups take many months, or even years, to become effective.

There are three answers to that argument: First, in 1950s Malaya, 1950s Algeria, 1921 Ireland and late 1970s Ireland, effective counter-insurgency measures did not take that long to become effective. Improvements should usually be seen within a few months.

Second, there has been no real sign of significant attrition of the Sunni insurgent groups’ overall capabilities since the surge strategy began nearly three months ago, and many U.S. combat and intelligence officers privately have no expectation that there will be.

That is because counter-insurgency can only work when there is a real, credible government backing up the military forces trying to win the counter-insurgency campaign, and as we have repeatedly documented in these columns, the ramshackle parliamentary system imposed arbitrarily on Iraq by the Bush administration is incapable of producing any kind of credible national government. The writ of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki runs exactly as far as either the U.S. armed forces or his Shiite militia allies who exercise the real power will let him use it. Without them, his government is powerless.

Third, and most important, even if current U.S. strategies could still prove effective over the long term, they are not going to be allowed to have a long term. The key dynamic here is not the growing anti-war sentiment within the United States — it is the growing danger of conflict with elements of the Shiite majority in Iraq.

[snip]

Washington now teems with unsubstantiated reports of upcoming policy reassessments on Iraq. No doubt they will happen. But all current indications are that they will only tinker with existing policies, like the recent playacting over naming a powerless, middle-rank general officer as a ‘war czar’ when he was in reality no such thing. Meanwhile, the soldiers in the field will continue to die. Article

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Now, more than ever, keep an eye on Kirkuk.

In a blaze of pomp showcasing Kurdish military muscle, US forces handed over responsibility for security in Iraq’s three northern provinces to the Kurdish regional government on Wednesday.

[snip]

Organisers had planned to raise the Iraqi national flag to symbolise the transfer of authority but many Kurds wanted to raise their own regional flag, a horizontal tricolour of orange, white and green with a golden sun motif.

In the end, no flag was raised.

Controversy erupted in September when regional Kurdish president Massud Barzani forbade the flying of the Iraqi flag in the Kurdish region — a move taken as a sign of the region’s separatist ambitions.

“Kurdish forces are Iraqi forces,” National Security Advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie emphasised forcefully to AFP as rank after rank of Kurdish soldiers, commandos, special forces units and police marched by.

Emblazoned on the soldiers’ shoulders was the sunburst Kurdish flag. Article

Update — Juan Cole provides translation of a related Kurdish territory story:

Although it is expected that today responsibility for security will be handed over to the Kurdistan authorities, exclusive military sources have told Hawlati that the US forces intend to open three huge US military bases in the Arbil, Duhok, and Al-Sulaymaniyah areas. Meanwhile, senior peshmerga forces’ officials expressed their pleasure at such a move.

The three bases will be located in Qaradagh (south of Al-Sulaymaniyah), Zakho area (north of Duhok), while the third one will be based near Arbil.…

[snip]

Asked whether the US forces are unilaterally entitled to embark on such an action, the source said: “According to the memorandum signed between the coalition forces and the (Kurdistan) region president, they should inform us (of such actions). As far as I know, no such plans are in the pipeline. However, I do not know if such an action is considered for the future or if it was discussed it internally (presumably referring to the US).”

[snip]

A few months ago, US infantry and air force surveyed villages near Qaradagh administrative sub-district for a day, throughout which they neither allowed the locals to approach them nor allowed local officials to visit them. Source

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Woebegone G. Walker administration sycophants and enablers, please take note: The previous lies about not building or planning bases are now inoperative.

This is not a drill.

Is this a mission we desire (or can afford) or a use (de facto petroleum protection and reaction force — a virtual turning over of government forces as a security arm for private business interests) we want or envisioned for the troops? Enrolling them, for all intents and purposes, without end under a unilateral, crypto-colonialist if not outright hegemonic (different in context from, but not entirely disanalagous to, a China/Tibet type of situation, stripped of even dubious and contrived ‘justification’) agenda? “Superpower” is not synonymous with empire.

Lots more insight here and here and here.

The glaring absence of a Status of Forces agreement (reference) years after “sovereignty” was announced as re-established must also be strongly noted.

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Shorter version: A roadblock cannot lead, can do naught but impede.

Any discussion of Iraq in Washington, or indeed across the country, today quickly arrives at the expected impasse. It’s the Berlin Wall of the imagination — no go and no exit!

Then everyone retreats to his or her original position to scowl and sigh and simmer. Those who were against the war from the beginning (like me), neocons still inventing excuses for their arrogant stupidity, and our “leaders” seeking their Napoleonic moment in history: All are silenced.

Why? Because of the question no one can answer: “What do we do now?” Implicit is the supposition by all parties that, if America were to leave Iraq now, the insurgency would metastasize to the entire Middle East, destroying kingdoms, overthrowing more-or-less stable governments and endangering the entire civilized world.

But is that really true? Perhaps it is time to “think anew,” as Lincoln once cried out during the Civil War.…

[snip]

Only one problem: Our president has not the slightest intention of reassessing the war. He speaks, with a strange gleam in his eyes, of August as being the worst month to come. We talk with the Iranians, but only if they agree to our preconditions (another unique way of “negotiating”). And nothing — nothing at all — is proposed or carried through from Washington on the central Israeli-Palestinian tragedy, where, as of this writing,
Israel is holding one-third of the Palestinian parliament. (So much for our beloved “elections”!) Article

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McClatchy news interviews the afoementioned roadblock G. Walker (whose word-of-the-day calendar apparently came up with ’speculate’):

At some point — there’s a lot of speculation about what the world could look like at some point in time. In my press conference, I talked about the idea of having a different force posture that would enable us to be there to help the Iraqis in a variety of ways: protect the border, chase down al Qaeda, embed and train their troops, and provide security — psychological security of helping this new government.

David Petraeus will make the recommendations as to how our forces ought to be postured. The people here — Baker-Hamilton — to them, that means, withdrawal from Iraq. That’s not what I mean, and that’s not what others who are speculating about what this means. Article

Cry me a river. The blatant inability to fulfill the job, the spectacle of stepping up to the plate and then virtually throwing the bat away, the pivoting into an abrupt about face and then touting that as standing firm — those are whence the upset, those are what inflame the denunciations.

Some Democratic lawmakers and aides are frustrated with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and feel whatever they do would not be good enough. Article

“Whatever they do” — get this through your skulls: in the end you did not “do” anything, did not alter anything which the previous Congress would have done, nothing of even any microscopic consequence. Is that clear and blunt enough to sink in? Don’t just look at the handwriting on the wall, read it — and internalize it.

Related, and pertinent to the other side of the aisle:

Through four elections, Debbie Thompson has supported Representative Mark Steven Kirk, a Republican and staunch backer of the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq.

[snip]

“My patience for this war, it’s run out,” said Ms. Thompson, 53. “I think this is the most expensive, stupidest thing ever done. My frustration has reached a level that is so unsettling, something has to be done.”

Though voters here in the 10th Congressional District have elected a Republican to the House for as long as anyone can remember, there is a newfound hostility about the war that is being directed toward Mr. Kirk, who was narrowly re-elected to a fourth term last November. Article

Each incident, each incursion, adds kindling to the as yet unlit bonfire.

Iranian security forces have killed 10 armed “counter-revolutionary” rebels in clashes in a Kurdish-populated area close to its borders with Iraq and Turkey, media said on Wednesday.

The clash took place Monday near the town of Salmas in Iran’s West Azarbaijan province, 30 kilometres from the border with Turkey and 100 kilometres from Iraq, an army statement carried by media said.

“Operational units succeeded on Monday in killing 10 armed counter-revolutionaries in the Salmas region as part of a campaign to cleanse and secure this border region,” the statement said.

It did not give further details on the rebels but past incidents in the area and its ethnic composition indicate they were linked to Kurdish militants.

West Azarbaijan province has been the scene of regular armed clashes between Iranian security forces and Kurdish militant parties, in particular Pejak, a group linked to Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

[snip]

Iran is bound by treaty with Turkey to fight the PKK. In return, Turkey has pledged to fight Iran’s main armed opposition group, the Iraq-based People’s Mujahedeen. Article

Regionally and topically related:

Turkey sent more tanks to its border with Iraq on Wednesday in a military build-up that is fuelling U.S. concern about a possible incursion into northern Iraq against Kurdish rebels.

A group of 20 tanks loaded on trucks emerged from army barracks in Mardin near Syria and headed towards the Iraqi border in southeast Turkey, already the scene of a major army offensive against rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Speculation about an imminent incursion into Iraq has grown since Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said last week he saw eye to eye with the army over possible military action, despite unease in the United States, Turkey’s NATO ally, about such a move.

There was also anxiety along the border in southeast Turkey, where many Kurdish villagers form part of a state-backed militia which fights alongside the army against the PKK rebels.

[snip]

The prospect of an operation has also stirred tensions between Turkey and the United States.

On Tuesday, Turkey formally asked Washington to avoid any further violation of its air space after two U.S. F-16 warplanes briefly flew into Turkish air space near the Iraqi border.

U.S. diplomats said the incident was an “accident” but Turkish media said it was intended to send a message to Ankara not to send its troops into Iraq. Article

Summary here and here, and an overview here.

According to a coalition statement there were no coalition or civilian casualties suffered during a firefight that erupted in an operation in the mountains of Nangarhar province.

The statement did not mention the location in Nangarhar, but Dadak Zalmai, the chief of Khogiani district, said there was a pre-dawn raid on a house in his district.

“The troops killed three civilians and took four with them,” Zalmai said.

Several residents said seven civilians, including women and children, were killed and eight wounded in the raid. Article

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Bravo, brava. However, one cannot help but worry about severe and swift counter-backlash.

Hundreds of Afghans launched a protest on Wednesday in Kabul to call for the restoration of the membership of an outspoken and controversial female lawmaker.

Supporters of Malalai Joya, a parliament member sacked days ago, gathered before the office of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), to ask UN officials to help restore her membership.

[snip]

Similar demonstrations showing support to Joya have been held in several other provinces in this country such as Farah, Nangarhar and Baghlan. Article

Some more info here

Summaries here and here and here.

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Remember the previous statements here of portents of incipient crackdown? The ‘down’ escalator is in motion.

All kinds of gathering of five or more persons, rallies and demonstrations at any public place are banned in the capital city of Islamabad, a Pakistani official order said Wednesday.

District Magistrate Chaudhry Muhammad Ali put the ban on processions and rallies, the order said.

“Certain sections of public are planning to take out processions and to stage demonstrations in district Islamabad which is likely to threat public peace and tranquillity,” said the order.

“The district magistrate has also prohibited the distribution of hand-bills, pamphlets, affixing of posters and wall chalking” in the district, it said.

[snip]

The orders will come into force with immediate effect and remain enforced for a period of two months. Article

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Bad, bad signs of bad, bad times.

Three Pakistani journalists working for international news organisations found bullets placed in their cars late Tuesday in what a local media group said was an attempt to intimidate them.

The Karachi Union of Journalists said an envelope containing a bullet was taped to the windscreen of one journalist, while envelopes – each with a bullet inside – were left inside the vehicles of the two others.

The action comes a week after a shadowy organisation with links to a party that supports military ruler President Pervez Musharraf issued a list of a dozen journalists, declaring them as “enemies”. Article

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Are we witnessing the spontaneous gestation of possibly the world’s first juristocracy?

A former judge claimed Wednesday that President Gen. Pervez Musharraf had no authority to suspend Pakistan’s chief justice, arguing that the 2002 referendum that kept the military ruler in power was unconstitutional.

Fakhruddin G. Ibrahim, a senior lawyer and former judge, said Pakistan is at a “defining moment” in its history as it faces political turmoil over the March 9 suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry on allegations he abused his office.

[snip]

The 2002 referendum gave Musharraf, who seized control in a 1999 coup, five more years in power. Ibrahim said the Constitution has no provision for such a referendum, leaving Musharraf’s continued rule with no legitimacy.

“People were being made fools of,” Ibrahim said of the referendum, adding that the vote’s lack of legal authority leaves Musharraf “not competent.”

Ibrahim called for an end to military rule, saying Musharraf had received a stamp of approval from a subservient Parliament.

Musharraf is expected to seek a new five-year presidential term later this year from the same Parliament, but has yet to announce whether he will give up his position as army chief – the source of most of his power.

“If you don’t say farewell to arms, farewell to the Constitution,” Ibrahim said. Article

Summaries here and here and here and here.

Summaries here and here and here and here.

Former Somali officer Mohammed Mohamoud Sheik was shot and killed by two gunmen Tuesday while exiting a Mogadishu mosque. The gunmen were dressed as government army officers. Article

Developments here and here.

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Documenting a journey through the minotaur’s maze:

Alan Pfeuffer, a 20-year cop turned federal public defender, volunteered to represent two Afghanis held at Guantanamo Bay.

The two men, labeled enemy combatants, said they were wrongly held and wanted their day in court.

A federal judge in Washington appointed Pfeuffer to represent Ahsanallah Pirzai and Abdul Ahmad in October 2005, but Pfeuffer was forbidden from seeing them, talking to them or writing them.

“I don’t know if they even know I exist,” Pfeuffer said from his office on W. Broad Street.

[snip]

Reports on both men also say the tribunals and boards met behind closed doors to discuss allegations that included classified information.

Pfeuffer got a security clearance to see the classified information. He sought a court order for access to the information and to meet, speak to and mail Pirzai and Ahmed.

The Department of Justice countered that enemy combatants have no right to a lawyer. Article

That it is in use and providing care is well and fine, and to be applauded.

That it was necessary to build, run and fund is utterly sad.

That the military felt the need (or urge) to paste the both vague and blatantly John Waynesque monicker of “Center for the Intrepid” upon it is intentionally misleading, passingly distasteful and, face it, macho-expressionistically sappy — all rolled into one.

So far, the Army has treated nearly 600 service members who have come back from Iraq or Afghanistan without an arm, leg, hand or foot. Thirty-one have gone back to active duty, and no one who asked to remain in the service has been discharged, Arata said. Article

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A spate of stories addressing the panic-driven evisceration of the standards and precepts of America:

As the Bush administration completes secret new rules governing interrogations, a group of experts advising the intelligence agencies are arguing that the harsh techniques used since the 2001 terrorist attacks are outmoded, amateurish and unreliable.

[snip]

While billions are spent each year to upgrade satellites and other high-tech spy machinery, the experts say, interrogation methods – possibly the most important source of information on groups like Al Qaeda – are a hodgepodge that date from the 1950s, or are modeled on old Soviet practices. [And how did that whole Soviet thing work out? ’nuff said. — voxd] Article

Marty Lederman helps o deconstruct and provid pespective to the above story, here.

Highly related:

…[Zelikow’s] remarks are worthy of careful scrutiny; they reflect a very careful waltz around the issue—acknowledging the administration’s legal arguments while presenting a soft personal challenge to them on moral grounds.

…the elementary question would not be: Did you get information that proved useful? Instead it would be: Did you get information that could have been usefully gained only from these methods? Article

Also see here and here and here at Scott Horton’s site, and the internally linked articles there.

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The Sigma group, tossing the future against the wall to see what sticks. Not directly evidenced, but a caveat should be noted: that the government penchant for secrecy and classification is a death knell for such cross-discipline freewheeling salons of imagineering.

Coin of the realm — on the one side, technology; on the other, ethics. Analysis du jour:

1984’s police state was centralized; today’s is decentralized. Your phone company knows who you talk to, your credit card company knows where you shop and NetFlix knows what you watch. Your ISP can read your email, your cell phone can track your movements and your supermarket can monitor your purchasing patterns. There’s no single government entity bringing this together, but there doesn’t have to be. As Neal Stephenson said, the threat is no longer Big Brother, but instead thousands of Little Brothers.

1984’s Big Brother was run by the state; today’s Big Brother is market driven. Data brokers like ChoicePoint and credit bureaus like Experian aren’t trying to build a police state; they’re just trying to turn a profit. Of course these companies will take advantage of a national ID; they’d be stupid not to. And the correlations, data mining and precise categorizing they can do is why the U.S. government buys commercial data from them.

1984-style police states required lots of people. East Germany employed one informant for every 66 citizens. Today, there’s no reason to have anyone watch anyone else; computers can do the work of people.

1984-style police states were expensive. Today, data storage is constantly getting cheaper. If some data is too expensive to save today, it’ll be affordable in a few years.

And finally, the police state of 1984 was deliberately constructed, while today’s is naturally emergent. There’s no reason to postulate a malicious police force and a government trying to subvert our freedoms. Computerized processes naturally throw off personalized data; companies save it for marketing purposes, and even the most well-intentioned law enforcement agency will make use of it.

Of course, Orwell’s Big Brother had a ruthless efficiency that’s hard to imagine in a government today. But that completely misses the point. A sloppy and inefficient police state is no reason to cheer….

The fear isn’t an Orwellian government deliberately creating the ultimate totalitarian state, although with the U.S.’s programs of phone-record surveillance, illegal wiretapping, massive data mining, a national ID card no one wants and Patriot Act abuses, one can make that case. It’s that we’re doing it ourselves, as a natural byproduct of the information society.We’re building the computer infrastructure that makes it easy for governments, corporations, criminal organizations and even teenage hackers to record everything we do, and–yes–even change our votes. And we will continue to do so unless we pass laws regulating the creation, use, protection, resale and disposal of personal data. It’s precisely the attitude that trivializes the problem that creates it. Article

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A normative and fascinating legal case, as well as a vitally important question, one whose precedent as decided will be readily extarpolatable far beyond the parameters of any single suit or investigation, directly impacting the rights and status of every single dwelling, person and all property.