Chalmers Johnson

I have just spent an hour or so listening to Chalmers Johnson discuss his book Sorrows of Empire as well as a great many other things.

I'll add this to my reading list.

I don't know where you can listen to this remarkable interview. I just happened to catch the interview on RadicalRadio.org.

A somewhat expurgated and shortened text of the interview can be found at ZMag. It doesn't do the audio interview the slightest amount of justice.

The interview is very good. He slays a great many Imperial albatrosses - or golden geese if you happen to own stock in the companies that directly profit from war.

Watch..ermm...Listen for a replay!

Update: It appears that Buzzflash has a more complete version of the interview.

Russert caught in Plame Dragnet

Tim Russert, host of Nationalist Broadcasting Commission(NBC)'s Meet The Press has been subpoenaed by the Justice Department in connection with the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

NBC, vehemently opposing the move, claims Russert did not receive information concerning the affair.

Why hasn't Novak - who obviously did receive the information - been subpoenaed? After all, the FBI is supposed to be non-political. This is by law. Odd that.

Sarin Part 5

No confirmation yet?

The U.S. military has had the alleged device for over a week now. How long does it take to perform a full, comprehensive test to determine the nature of the chemicals found within the munition, and it's age and whether or not it was fired?

I'm still waiting.

"Two Minutes Hate"

Orwell's vision unfolded.

Background

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Rummy OK'd Torture

The fish rots from the head down.

(warning: LA Times onerous registration required)

This is certainly no surprise. Plausible deniability vanishes. The Pentagon blows whistle on boss.

"This is not the America I know." Perhaps not, Mr. president, but it is the America we now know Rumsfeld knows.

And now we know, too.

WorldNetDaily

This is a very odd online publication to say the least.

When your intellectual stars include such luminaries as David Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Dr. Laura, it's enough to drive an objective thinker into the arms of Bakunin.

Why even bring up such a towering intellectual site with such a wide range of thought ranging from far-right to ultra-radical right? Good question.

It seems that one Robert Knight, Director of the Culture and Family Institute has some serious issues seperating reality from his exceptionally warped ultra-right Biblical literalist worldview.

His recent 'Perfect Storm' claims - without any supporting data or evidence of course - that some mix of a permissive attitude towards homosexuality, placing women in combat conditions, and pornography, are responsible for the atrocious act perpetrated to Nicholas Berg.

Mr. Knight claims to know the mind of the terrorist when he avers: "Muslim extremists don't know that the majority of Americans are decent, law-abiding people who wish them no harm."

I wish he would give us some more pearls of wisdom such as the above.

It seems much more likely that extremists of any ilk know that the majority of any population is comprised of 'decent law-abiding people who wish them no harm.'

He offers a solution to the societal ills he lays out for the reader. One needs to be getting down "on their knees and asking God's forgiveness for letting it get this bad. Then, they should ask Him for guidance in how to restore the moral order."

If this fails, he then offers more pragmatic, deity-free advice.

Read the 'Perfect Storm' piece. It's not enlightened, but it makes for good digital fish-wrap.

Mr. Knight needs to know just how off-base he is. Direct comments here.

Kimmitt Backpedaling?

A follow-up to this post concerning the objective reality of what was transpiring in the Iraqi desert Wednesday prior to the U.S. taking military action against the now widely widely reported group of Arabs.

Here's the bit:

[snip]...Kimmitt said troops at the scene found a variety of weapons, including shotguns, handguns, rifles and machine guns. They also found foreign passports, four-by-four vehicles, jewelry, a satellite telephone, and the equivalent of $1,000 in Iraqi dinars. He did not mention Syrian currency, which military officials initially reported was among the items....[snip]

Link to article

Again, The Independent offers plausible non-militant explanations for the range of items found at the site.

We'll be watching this one. This may yet go down the memory hole.

Sarin Part 4

Hi there,

I am coming to the conclusion that the alleged discovery of Sarin in Iraq is most likely a 'dud' as noted by former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter speculates in the linked article from the referenced post.

Do I think Ritter has an 'axe to grind?' Sure.

But in comparison with all of the far-less-qualified-to-comment people on the right, Ritter's expertise in this area is likely greater than all of them combined.

Hence the Administration's restrained response to what should have been a huge sigh of relief. Instead Rummy's response was less than sanguine. Read the referenced Op-Ed piece in the last link. It's so full of excited hyperbole, it leaves a dedicated skeptic chuckling(at least this dedicated skeptic).

Brother. If you're not skeptical of ALL Bush Administration claims, you're not following along. Of course you could be experiencing a protracted case of cognitive dissonance. Three and a half years and counting.

Still awaiting confirmation and forensic details.

Love, Todd

Wedding Party? Safe House?

The Independent weighs the evidence available at this time.

Sarin Part 3

Scott Ritter chimes in.

While Ritter may well be right in his analysis, it remains to be confirmed that the artillery shell of fame did indeed carry sarin(GB), or the binaries needed to produce GB. We'll wait for the outcome of definitive tests.

Soldier for the Truth

Interrogators at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison viewed sleep deprivation, stripping inmates naked and threatening them with dogs as normal ways of dealing with "the enemy," a soldier attached to military intelligence at the prison said Thursday.

Nothing to add, save for go and read the article.

New Get Your Truth Here!

Or Get Your War On.

I know, the GYWO panels are 5 days old. But hey, I have a life outside of blogging..honest, I do :)

Two More

Israel defies us.

Turn off the tap. Israel must stop this action. It's time. This is crazy by any remotely sane standard.

We shouldn't allow naked aggression by any state..including our own. We have the means to stop this insane action. Let's do it!!

While were at it, we should pursue normalizing U.S. - Cuba relations...after all, the reason for thirty-eight(?) years of sanctions - the Soviet Union - has been gone for 15 years.

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In a sign that the U.S. and the neocons can actually say; "enough is enough," Chalabi's HQ raided by U.S. troops.

More later..I'm working on a few things.

Dismal Science Stuff

Weekly New Jobless unemployment claims rise to 345,000.

Wall Street analysts had forecast a slight decline in claims to 326,000 from a revised 333,000 the previous week.

I found a really good, easy to follow article that MSN has posted by The Street.com's Peter Eavis. Debt matters. The facts concerning debt, and debt to equity ratios aren't in question. What is open to debate, is what this may mean. I would say that Eavis lays out a convincing case for the likely consequences of a series of rate hikes.

They Hate us?

Attacking a wedding party with aircraft isn't likely to win the 'hearts and minds.'

[snip]..Iraqis interviewed on the videotape said revelers had fired volleys of gunfire into the air in a traditional wedding celebration before the attack took place. American troops have sometimes mistaken celebratory gunfire for hostile fire.

Al-Ani, the doctor, said American troops came to investigate the gunfire and left. However, al-Ani said, helicopters later arrived and attacked the area. Two houses were destroyed, he said.

"This was a wedding and the (U.S.) planes came and attacked the people at a house. Is this the democracy and freedom that (President) Bush has brought us?" said a man on the videotape, Dahham Harraj. "There was no reason."

Another man shown on the tape, who refused to give his name, said the victims were at a wedding party "and the U.S. military planes came ... and started killing everyone in the house."

Lt. Col. Dan Williams, a U.S. military spokesman, said earlier that the military was investigating.

"I cannot comment on this because we have not received any reports from our units that this has happened nor that any were involved in such a tragedy," Williams wrote in an e-mail in response to a question from The Associated Press.

"We take all these requests seriously and we have forwarded this inquiry to the Joint Operations Center for further review and any other information that may be available," Williams said.

The strike, widely reported in Iraq and the Middle East as an attack on a wedding party, comes at a time when American prestige is under fire as the United States tries to stabilize this country before the June 30 transfer of sovereignty are foundering.

Anti-American sentiment has risen following last month's bloody Marine siege of Fallujah, a Shiite Muslim uprising and the scandal over treatment of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.

"Many Iraqis have been killed so far" during the occupation, said Adnan Pachachi, one of the most pro-American figures on the Iraqi Governing Council. He said Iraqis "hope that these acts, from all parties, come to an end because the victims are Iraqis."...[snip]

I have been pretty critical of Pachachi in the past. I have come to the conclusion - and I understand that this may well be wrong - that Pachachi has the best interests of his fellow Iraqis at heart.

This really looks like another massive military screw-up.

It is highly unlikely that the U.S. forces, if found to be at fault, will face any retribution.

Contrast this outcome with the collective punishment which has befallen the residents of Fallujah for the deaths of four.

The U.S. government, and it's military arm, regard all peoples equally. It is simply that some peoples are more equal than others.

Note: I'm still waiting for confirmation of GB - or the binaries needed to produce GB - in the suspected artillery round.

Sarin Part 2

The usual Right-Wing suspects, notably, Horowitz's "Front Page Magazine" and Safire, in the NYT, are leading the charge that the as yet to be confirmed-by-further-testing, missile warhead containing the alleged Sarin gas is precisely the reason we went to war with Iraq.

This is disingenuous. Both Frank Gaffney and William Safire know the publicly stated reason we went war against Iraq. It wasn't because Hussein had old warheads containing Sarin lying about.

It was because of the now entirely refuted allegation that under Saddam, Iraq was a major and growing threat to the U.S.

Lest you think I am in error, consider the following:

"The Iraqi regime is a serious and growing threat to peace." - President Bush, 10/16/02

"There are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists." - President Bush, 10/7/02

"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency." - President Bush, 10/2/02

"There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is." - President Bush, 10/2/02

('there just is'?..not terribly convincing)

"This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined." - President Bush, 9/26/02

"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq." - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/19/02

"Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent - that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons." - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/18/02

According to the public statements of Bush Administration officials, as well at the President himself, Iraq needed to dealt with now because it was a growing threat. The reason was not whether or not we would find the odd pre-Gulf War relic.

No. The Administration assured us, as noted in their statements above and from Bush's 2003 SOTU Address, that Iraq was a growing danger. Saddam was sending Ba'athists to conquer America. In the 2003 SOTU he delivered the following:

From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

No, we don't.

We had no evidence that Saddam ever had any such labs.

Chalabi and Co. told the neocons exactly what they wanted to hear. Don't need any corroborating evidence when you get your information from a convicted embezzler.

Nope.

Strange company our leaders keep.

By the way, for all of the pure bs he was spreading, Chalabi's finally getting his funding cut-off.

Remember, Chalabi and friends are the people that fed the Bush Administration packs of fabrications in order to 'assist' the current White House occupant with his pre-determined plan for dealing with the neutered Saddam.

Chalabi was the guy that could sell it to the U.S. populace. And did so.

He provided the 'product details' that fomented irrational fear and loathing of Iraq and its leader. Just exactly what was needed to get the public to support the war.

Now that we know the 'publicly stated' reason for invading sovereign Iraq, whatever is the real reason or reasons?

By the way, GW Bush is widely recognized as a unique threat in the world. His environamental policies could kill us all.

Sarin? Or not?

Okay. It is beginning to look like an artillery shell used as an Improvised Explosive Device(IED) may contain two chemicals that when mixed produce sarin(GB).

As in all of the previous false alarms about illegal Iraqi weapons, "additional testing will be done outside of Iraq, more detailed testing, but the initial tests in the field show the presence of sarin." So said an unnamed U.S. military official.

Sorry, but I'm skeptical. There have been too many lies and too many false alarms for a thinking person to rush to judgment.

If this can be shown by a third party to be a binary device of the type noted by the FAS here, it doesn't begin to validate the casus belli for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

The critical thing for the GB to be viable is for the difluoromethylphosphonate to have retained its integrity. I'll cede the point that this is mostly an academic one, but it does require comment.

It seems likely that if this story fleshes out, that the binary device was manufactured prior to the 1991 Iraq War.

It must be remembered that we went to war over ongoing WMD programs, including nuclear, bio, and chemical weapons production taking place contemporarily for which there is simply no evidence that has been shared publicly.

The last point is the key point. Iraq was a growing threat we were told.

"Iraq is busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents, and they continue to pursue an aggressive nuclear weapons program. These are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale, developed so that Saddam Hussein can hold the threat over the head of any one he chooses. What we must not do in the face of this mortal threat is to give in to wishful thinking or to willful blindness."

That was everyone's favorite Dick speaking on 08/29/2002.

The truth is something altogether contrary to what we were told. Iraq was not a growing threat. Well, maybe in this sense; sanctions against Iraq were a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions. This could engender anti-U.S. sentiments. That was certainly a threat.

This fact could be a threat to the veneer of the U.S. being a benevolent power. That's the only threat.

Geneva Conventions and Bush

Newsweek is allegedly reporting that Bush had decided by January of 2002 that the Geneva Conventions would not apply to members of the Taliban or Al Qaeda. Newsweek obtained a memo to the president from White House legal counsel Alberto Gonzales that read:

"As you have said, the war against terrorism is a new kind of war. The nature of the new war places a - high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians. In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."

Quaint? WTF? I wonder if Bush thinks that execution for convicted war criminals is "quaint."

If this can be confirmed, it's a very grey day for humanity.

"Why do they hate us?"

Bothered by Powell, etc.

Colin comes clean - sort-of. It's certainly not news to readers of this site that Powell's critical presentation to the U.N. was deeply flawed and out of date.

Also, in the same linked article, it is being reported that the U.S. is moving 4,000 troops from South Korea to Iraq. Coincidentally, IAEA chief Mohammed El-Baradei declares North Korea to the number one "international security concern." I think that this is demonstrably false. I'll elucidate later.

Again, drawing from the same article, King Abdullah of Jordan sees an Iraqi civil war more likely now than a year ago.

Abdullah:

"If we see a disintegration of Iraq, if we see, God forsake, the worst scenario, civil war, then the whole region will be dragged into Iraq."

There is a lot more at link - the article is a meta-article. It would be a great format if it provided more depth, or links to more in-depth articles.

A shout to newly linked blog Digital Dissent for the heads-up on the El-Baradei assertions, and Powell's admission of 'being duped.' I don't buy Powell's explanation.

If Saddam's neighbors in the region weren't in fear of him, and remember, he invaded both Iran and Kuwait, then how come the Bush Administration officials were talking of 'mushroom clouds' and thousands of liters of chem. and bio-weapons?

The first Gulf war, a decade plus of sanctions, along with the now rarely mentioned UNMOVIC triad had left Iraq the weakest country in the region. We knew it, and so did Iraq's neighbors. It was an unpopular fact to mention that perhaps all of Iraq's WMD capacities were destroyed. Either during Gulf War I, or during the subsequent UNMOVIC actions, all verified WMD facilities were eliminated as a source of production.

That begs the question: What about existing hidden stockpiles?

The answer is that were never any viable WMD stockpiles. Iraq likely never developed adequately stabilized agents to store for long periods. Everything used to engender fear in the American population so that there would be popular support for the war were ghosts in the sands of Iraq.

Now, faced with the lack of Saddam's feared WMD programs, we are faced with explaining how the hell we were so wrong? We weren't wrong. We knew Saddam was no threat. That is the only explanation that makes sufficient sense to me.

Since Powell is on the hotseat, we might as well dispense with the myth that Powell is the Administration moderate. There is simply no evidence to support this oft repeated claim. Just because you may be slightly to the left of Donald Rumsfeld does not make you a moderate.

If presented with contrary evidence, I'll post a retraction.

Thank You

A huge thanks to the anonymous reader that sent me this book.

I only mentioned Wilson's book last Friday in this post.

Scary. The book was sent before I made mention of it. To my clairvoyant reader:Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Did I forget to thank you? Thank you!

IGC Head Killed in Bombing

As if the security situation in Iraq needed further underscoring.

There are reports everywhere that Abdul Zahra Othman Mohammad, head of the Iraqi Governing Council has been killed in a car bomb attack today while at a checkpoint waiting to enter the U.S. controlled "Green Zone" in Baghdad.

Here's the Reuters report.

Details seem to be few at this time, but according to Reuters:

A statement purporting to be from a group headed by leading al Qaeda figure Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for that attack.

"Leading al Qaeda figure Abu Musab al-Zarqawi?"

Well, I don't know that Zarqawi has any al-Qaeda ties whatever.

In this BBC profile of al-Zarqawi we find the following statements:

• The cell-members also told their German interrogators their group was "especially for Jordanians who did not want to join al-Qaeda".



• Intelligence reports indicated he was in Baghdad and - according to Mr Powell - this was a sure sign that Saddam Hussein was courting al-Qaeda, which, in turn, justified an attack on Iraq.
  
  But some analysts contested the claim, pointing to Mr Zarqawi's historical rivalry with Bin Laden.



• Both men rose to prominence as "Afghan Arabs" - leading foreign fighters in the "jihad" against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
  
  After the Soviets were defeated, Mr Zarqawi went back to Jordan.

So, while I am certain that al-Zarqawi is a very bad guy, I am unconvinced that he is, as claimed by the U.S., a top al-Qaeda figure.

I mourn for our brothers in Iraq. Anything remotely like security and or stability appears to some distance away.

Mixed Nuts

I thought the entry title appropriate given the planetary weirdness going on.

Just some quick observations.

More evidence on the reported Shia/Sunni solidarity against the 'coalition' forces. The heavy use of 'coalition' military force may revive the support that Muktada al-Sadr was reportedly losing. No mention of those nefarious foreign fighters - I have noted that we hear less and less about them all the time.

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What's all this about the Arab League not condemning the murder of Nick Berg? I think that the response has been surprisingly strong in condemning the act. Have we condemned our murder of thousands of Iraqi civilians?

HAMAS and Hizbollah joined Arab governments in "condemning this grisly act." I'd say that's pretty strong.

What does Powell expect? I'll speculate. He expects his rebuking of Arab leaders to shift American thought from the Abu Ghraib situation. I don't think that this has anything to do with Arab leaders. I think it's all about a certain event that will be happening in Nov. of this year.

We rightly condemn the abuse of prisoners held by all countries everywhere, but have little to say about 'collateral damage.' How odd we are.

I am totally freaked-out about all of this - Abu Ghraib, Berg, all the killing. All the killing. For what?

In case you haven't read about Berg's alleged relationship with Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person publicly charged in relation to 9-11, now you have a link.

With Berg's death, we'll likely not hear anthing more from official sources about Berg's encounter with Moussaoui. This is just too weird.


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The huge crater that is now being recognized as the causative factor of the mass extinction event at the Permian-Triassic juncture was mentioned in aboriginal folklore.

Archeologists, reviewing a petroglyph in northwestern Australia that has been deciphered as meaning: George Bush Jr. is going to be president of the most powerful country on the planet in the future.

The impression[crater] is God slapping his forehead in disbelief. :)