The State of Play in the Bomb-Iran Debate

The State of Play in the Bomb-Iran Debate by Justin Logan at Cato@Liberty.

Mr. Logan is commenting on a debate recently held about whether the US should commit more war crimes by launching an unprovoked attack on Iran. There are two interesting things in this debate. The first of course is that its all based on a false premise. That Iran is developing nuclear weapons. And that they are close enough that we should bomb them about it.

Actually, I'd be a little surprised if Iran wasn't at least thinking about developing nuclear weapons. They've seen what happened to Iraq and North Korea, and the obvious lesson the US is teaching the rest of the world is that they'd better go get nukes to try to deter the US. But, there's been zero proof so far that the Iranians have done anything substantial towards producing nuclear weapons. No inspection of their facilities have ever found any traces of any bomb-grade uranium being made. Uranium for a power plant can't be used to make a bomb, and all the IAEA has ever found is power-reactor-grade uranium.

But there's a second part that really strikes me as incredibly ridiculous. The fool Elliott Abrams makes this argument in his portion of the debate.

we are not talking about the Americans killing civilians, bombing cities, destroying mosques, hospitals, schools. No, no, no – weʹre talking about nuclear facilities which most Iranians know very little about, have not seen, will not see, some quite well hidden.

So they wake up in the morning and find out that the United States if attacking those facilities and, presumably with some good messaging about why weʹre doing it and why we are not against the people of Iran.

Itʹs not clear to me that the reaction letʹs go to war with the Americans, but rather, perhaps, how did we get into this mess? Why did those guys, the very unpopular ayatollahs in a country 70 percent of whose population is under the age of 30, why did those old guys get us into this mess.

The man can't possibly be that ignorant of US-Iranian history over the last 60 years. But, just in case he his, let me try to give him a few hints.

• 
  In the 1950's, the Iranians overthrew their shah and tried to put into place a western-style democracy. The problem was, these poor deluded Iranian democrats viewed the oil under their country as theirs. Whereas the US and Britain thought of the oil as their own. So, the CIA and British intelligence ran a joint operation to overthrow the Iranian government and put the shah's son in power as the new shah.
  
• 
  The Shah ran the country for almost thirty years. One of the things the Shah was well known for was for his vicious secret police which was trained by and worked with the CIA.
  
• When Khomeni overthrew the Shah, the US condemned this act. We tried to find ways to make the revolution fail, while at the same time inviting the Shah to come into the United States. This last act sparked the storming of the US embassy and the hostage crisis.
  
• The US responded by trying to launch a military operation into Iran to retake the embassy, but it failed when the helicopters didn't react well to sand and flying into each other.
  
• Next, the US used Saddam Hussein to launch a horribly nasty war against Iran. For the people involved, this war was as bad as World War I. Except it lasted far longer. It had trench warfare, and human-wave attacks against those trenches. The US and western Europe helped supply Saddam Hussein with poison gas, which he used to try to attack the Iranian trenches. All of this lasted for most of the 1980's.
  
• Then came Bush and his axis of evil. And all of the constant threats that the US would bomb Iranian nuclear facilities over the last four years of so.
  verthrow their government and welcome Osama Bin Laden as our liberator.
  

Hey, the Iranians call the US 'The Great Satan'. Please, there's not a chance in heck of the Iranian people greeting us as liberators.

Bush policies are back?

This is from an email I received from Amnesty International. They are organizing a lobbying campaign for when our pro-torture Congress-critters are back in the districts the weeks of April 6-17.

This past weekend we got a deeply troubling glimpse into the heart of the Obama administration's counter-terrorism policies.

On Friday, in a symbolic break with the past, the Obama administration announced it would drop the term "enemy combatant" - only to argue in the same breath that the administration has the legal authority to hold detainees indefinitely, without charge. 1

We're beginning to fear the worst: that the Obama administration will hold onto the failed counter-terrorism policies of the Bush administration. Such a move would solidify and make indefinite detention and other Bush policies the new norm in America.

Our most powerful antidote to these cancerous counter-terrorism policies is a full investigation that includes holding those responsible accountable.

Follow the link above for more details on how to join a delegation in your area.

Obstruction of Justice

Obstruction of Justice by Chris Hedges on Truthdig.com

If you don't know about the case of Dr. Al-Arian, then you should read this article.

To try to give the short version, Dr. Al-Arian was a professor at Univ of South Florida who vocally supported Palestinian rights. After years of FBI surveillence, he was arrested and tried on terrorism charges. The jury acquitted him on most charges, and hung 10-2 in his favor on others.

Government lawyers made wild assertions that showed a profound ignorance of the Middle East and exposed a gross stereotyping of the Muslim world. It called on the FBI case agent, for example, who testified as an expert witness that Islamic terrorists were routinely smuggled over the border from Iran into Syria, apparently unaware that Syria is separated from Iran by a large land mass called Iraq. The transcripts of the case against Al-Arian—which read like a bad Gilbert and Sullivan opera—are stupefying in their idiocy. The government wiretaps picked up nothing of substance; taxpayer dollars were used to record and transcribe 21,000 hours of banal chatter, including members of the Al-Arian household ordering pizza delivery. During the trial the government called 80 witnesses and subjected the jury to inane phone transcriptions and recordings, made over a 10-year period, which the jury curtly dismissed as “gossip.” It would be comical if the consequences were not so dire for the defendant.

A jury, on Dec. 6, 2005, acquitted Dr. Al-Arian on eight of the counts in the superseding indictment after a six-month trial in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. On the 94 charges made against the four defendants, there were no convictions. Of the 17 charges against Al-Arian—including “conspiracy to murder and maim persons abroad”—the jury acquitted him of eight and was hung on the rest. The jurors, who voted 10 to 2 to acquit on the remaining charges, could not reach a unanimous decision calling for his full acquittal. Two others in the case, Ghassan Ballut and Sameeh Hammoudeh, were acquitted of all charges.

After losing before a jury, the federal government refused to drop the case. Instead they promised to move forward with another years-long trial on the charges on which the jury hung. In order to end the ordeal, Dr. Al-Arian agreed to a plea bargain where he would leave this country. A part of the deal was that he refused to testify in other cases. So, then a federal prosecutor had him hauled up to Virginia to force him to testify in other cases. When Dr. Al-Arian refused, citing his plea bargain deal, he was charged with contempt of court and kept in federal prisons.

Despite the refusal of a jury to convict him, he's been held in federal prisons for years.

PS ... note that while the author refers to the Bush Justice Dept and 'right-wing' prosecutors, the Obama Justice Dept is still pursuing the case. And note also that incredible amounts of extra jail time that they are asking for comes from the 'Patriot Act II', which was supported by Obama and the Democrats.

Obama the Republican

Obama: won't speed up Iraq pull out on AP

Obama the Republican ....

"I think the plan that we put forward in Iraq is the right one" because it calls for "a very gradual withdrawal through the national elections in Iraq,"

...

"I'm confident that we're moving in the right direction. But Iraq is not yet completed. We still have a lot of work to do," the president said of the war that's winding down after six hard-fought years.

And, for people in the National Guard who thought they might be able to spend some time at home. Well, not so fast. Obama has other 'wars' to fight.

_His administration was considering putting more National Guard troops on the U.S. border with Mexico to stem violence from the illicit drug trade.

And, gotta make sure that short-term 'anger' over million dollar bonuses to the very people who caused this crash doesn't get in the way of the long term policies of pumping trillions of our dollars into the Wall St firms.

_Anger over giant bonuses for bailout-recipient American International Group Inc. was justified, but he doesn't want his long-term focus threatened by what he calls the legitimate, but short-term frustrations over some of Wall Street's actions.

"My most important job is to get this economy moving again, to get credit flowing again so that businesses large and small can start rehiring, open their doors and we can start seeing economic growth again," Obama said.

Oh, and there's this other article announcing that Obama's relations with Iran will stay on the same saber-rattling, war-like course as Bush's. You didn't really think we were going to talk to Iran, like Obama promised in the primaries, did you?

Wow, the 'change' we are getting is just stunning isn't it? We can't 'change' the war in Iraq'. We are only 'changing' the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the worse. And, of course we can't 'change' the fact that Wall St. owns this government, and that they now have an apparently unlimited pipeline direct from the public treasury into their pockets.

People need to burn this into their memories as what the Democrats mean by 'change we can believe in.' If people want real change, voting Democrat is not the answer.

Some times, all you can do is cry ...

If Only the World Had Listened by Robert Fisk in The Independent

I don’t know if I met Tom Hurndall. He was one of a bunch of “human shields” who turned up in Baghdad just before the Anglo-American invasion in 2003, the kind of folk we professional reporters make fun of. Tree huggers, that kind of thing. Now I wish I had met him because – looking back over the history of that terrible war – Hurndall’s journals (soon to be published) show a remarkable man of remarkable principle. “I may not be a human shield,” he wrote at 10.26 on 17 March from his Amman hotel. “And I may not adhere to the beliefs of those I have travelled with, but the way Britain and America plan to take Iraq is unnecessary and puts soldiers’ lives above those of civilians. For that I hope that Bush and Blair stand trial for war crimes.”

Hurndall got it about right, didn’t he? It wasn’t so simple as war/no war, black and white, he wrote. “Things I’ve heard and seen over the last few weeks proves what I already knew; neither the Iraqi regime, nor the American or British, are clean. Maybe Saddam needs to go but ... the air war that’s proposed is largely unnecessary and doesn’t discriminate between civilians and armed soldiers. Tens of thousands will die, maybe hundreds of thousands, just to save thousands of American soldiers having to fight honestly, hand to hand. It is wrong.” Oh, how many of my professional colleagues wrote like this on the eve of war? Not many.

We’re Paying Congress for This?

We’re Paying Congress for This? by Stanley Kutler on Truthdig

As someone who became aware of politics back when my mom had the Watergate hearings on TV in the house every day, this is something I'm painfully aware of. Congress no longer does real investigations.

And now comes Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank’s choreographed extravaganza in the House of Representatives, supported by an echoing committee, with sound bites worthy of a night in the Borscht Belt. The ostensible probe of executive bonuses at AIG—forget about any investigation of the company’s decisions that so damaged the financial world—offered a painful reminder of Congress’ now largely ignored unique power of investigation, derived from its constitutionally sanctioned authority to legislate. True, Congress has abused this power from time to time, but that is no argument against its existence.

Rep. Frank provided a perfunctory, carefully staged hearing this month. His fellow committee members had been prepped and primed—seemingly by their press aides rather than by any legal staff.

I stopped that excerpt in mid-paragraph because this is undoubtably true. The whole purpose of a Congressional hearing these days is to give each member 5 or 10 minutes to talk in front of a camera. That is the whole point of a modern congressional hearing. It was true when the Republicans were refusing to do any oversight of their president, and it was true for the last two years when the Democrats refused to do any oversight on a Republican President.

Hearings used to be much more open-ended. The main questioners of witnesses were the legal staff of the hearing that had spent long hours compiling and reviewing evidence and taking depositions from key witnesses. Each congress-critter would also ask questions, but the time they had for this wasn't nearly so limited as today.

In a modern hearing, its all designed to fit into a nice slot on C-span, and to provide each congress-critter with film clips of them looking officious asking questions at a hearing. But, you can see how each Congress-critter usually only gets one 5 minute slot to do this in. This of course makes it possible for any witness to dodge answering questions by running out that 5 minutes and moving on to the next questioner. The whole thing is just a giant PR show, and getting any real information out of the witnesses is not the point.

Its clear that replacing the Republicans with Democrats didn't change this. And that's very unfortunate because congressional hearings play a key role in our democracy. We are supposed to have separate but equal branches of government that provide checks and balances upon each other. And if any of these is supposed to be strongest, it is supposed to be the Congress, not the Executive Branch. Having an independent Congress with the power to investigate is a key pillar in what is supposed to be our free and democratic government.

Each Congress-critter takes an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. When they shirk that key constitutional duty to instead just posture for the cameras, they are doing grave damage to our country. Want to know who's 'un-American' these days? Watch a Congressional hearing. But its not some supposed secret communist who's the un-American person on your screen. Its the congress-critters who are failing to live up to the oath they took with their hand on a bible at the start of the session of Congress.

Flim-Flam Obama Man: The “New Democrat[ic]” President's Wall Street Loyalties Get Clearer Every Day

Flim-Flam Obama Man: The “New Democrat[ic]” President's Wall Street Loyalties Get Clearer Every Day by Paul Street on ZNet

Obama briefly expresses calculated outrage against "excessive" executive bonuses at AIG. He makes carefully orchestrated visits expressing concern about poverty and job-loss to hard-hit places like Pomona, California and Elkhart, Indiana. But it's all a public relations game. It's about pricking the boil of citizen fury to more effectively screw the citizenry over. The White House says mean things about capitalist parasites and then proceeds to give the financial overlords yet more of the public treasure - all in the name of restoring the "free enterprise" system.



The real point is to provide faux-populist cover for Obama's corporate, Wall Street agenda. Meanwhile the "mainstream" (corporate) media continues to ignore the new administration's related commitment to the amazingly unmentionable 1$ trillion-a-year Pentagon budget, a giant subsidy to high-tech industry that pays for more than 760 bases across more than 130 nations and accounts for nearly half the military spending on earth - all in the name of "defense." The leading Wall Street investment firm and bailout recipient Morgan Stanley reported one day after Obama's election victory that Obama has been advised and agrees that there is no peace dividend." [11]



At the same time, Obama's tepid and undersized stimulus plan is deceptively described as "massive" in much of the business press. It is dysfunctionally over-loaded with business-friendly tax cuts and too short on labor-intensive projects to put people to work right away. He says nothing about the overdue labor law reform he campaigned on, the Employee Free Choice Act. He speaks in support of the anti-union, teacher-bashing, and test-based corporate education agenda, advocating teacher "merit pay" and charter schools. He makes a public visit (in support of his stimulus bill) to the headquarters of Caterpillar, a provider of bulldozers for illegal Israeli settlements. Caterpillar was also the first large U.S. manufacturer in decades to break a major strike with scabs.

Witness to Israel's war crimes

Witness to Israel's war crimes Interview with James Leas, who visited Gaza after the main attacks, as a part of a National Lawyer's Guild delegation. Interview posted on SocialistWorker.org

UN Director [of Operations in Gaza] John Ging was actually in telephone contact with the Israelis before they attacked the UN compound, telling them that bombing was coming quite close. Ging told the Israelis that they should avoid hitting the UN compound.

The Israelis knew its coordinates, they knew exactly where it was, they could see it from the air very clearly. Ging told the Israelis that there were hundreds of refugees there, and that there were fuel tanks near the building, which if hit could create a massive explosion.

Ging told them that if they hit it with the white phosphorous bombs that were raining down around the city, there could be an enormous tragedy. But the Israelis went ahead and hit it anyway. Fortunately, there were some very brave people who ran out during the fire bombing and moved the trucks away, so they didn't have that explosion.

Just one of many incidents described in this article.

Iran Nuclear Nonsense

MI chief: Iran has crossed nuclear bomb threshold in Haaretz.

From a nuclear engineer's point of view (at least that's what my degree was in), what's in this article is total nonsense.

Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin told lawmakers on Wednesday that Iran has "crossed the technological threshold" for making a nuclear bomb.

Ooooh. Sounds scary. But, notice there's no detail in there. Just a scary statement. If you read further, and if you have your brain engaged, you'll find its nonsense.

The article then swerves into a side issue about how the evil Iranians have developed a 'surface to surface' missile capable of carrying nuclear weapons. But that has nothing to do with the headline or the first quote. I'll return to that point later.

Then we get to the roll-on-the-floor-laughing part ....

According to Yadlin, the bottleneck in Iran's nuclear weapons program was in obtaining fissionable material.

No kidding?

That's like saying, the main bottleneck to cooking dinner tonight is that there is no food in the house. Oh, we can see alarming preparations towards cooking dinner. We can tell they've tested the gas burners on the stove. And we feel they could have dinner ready in 20 minutes once they obtain actual food.

But hey, without the food, there ain't gonna be no dinner. And, likewise, the main obstacle to building a nuclear weapon is always going to be 'obtaining fissionable material'.

Oh, and here's the fun part where the Israelis decide to tell you that they've been lying their rear's off to you all along.

The Iranians enrich between one and two kilos of low grade uranium, Yadlin said. However, once they decide to bring that to weapon's grade enrichment levels (93%) they could produce the amount needed for a bomb within several months to a year.

Note that the Israeli Military Intelligence chief says 'once they'. But, the Israelis have been screaming for years now that the Iranians have already been doing this. Now, the Israeli Military Intelligence chief is clearly saying that they haven't been, but that they might decide to do it. Gee, I guess its a good thing we didn't already bomb Iran based on the Israeli assertions that the Iranians were building a bomb.

This by-the-way, is in total agreement with what the IAEA has been saying all along. That there is no evidence that the Iranians have ever gone beyond the 4% or so enrichment needed to fuel a nuclear power reactor.

The Israelis don't seem to be able to keep their lies straight. In today's 'You-should-be-very-scared' story, they managed to admit they've been lying all along.

One last note. The article acts like to go from the 4% levels of enrichment to 93% levels of enrichment, its just like putting something in the microwave for 5 minutes. Its not nearly that easy. 'Enrichment' means trying to separate atoms that are nearly identical except for the weight of three additional neutrons in one atom over the other. If I gave that difference in weight in grams, it would be an incredibly small number. And I mean like a decimal point then 20 or so zeros before you get to the numbers sort of small amount of weight in even milligrams. They are trying to separate one thing that weighs almost nothing from something else that weighs just the tiniest bit more than almost nothing. Remember, they are trying to separate molecules of gas based on weight. They do this by spinning this around in a centrifuge.

The trick is, that you could have imperfections in your system that might allow you to get to 4%, but that would never let you get anywhere near 93%. This is a very tricky task, to spin atoms of a gas to one end of a centrifuge, then pull those atoms, and only those atoms out of the centrifuge and separate them. Each run through a centrifuge only 'enriches' by a tiny amount. Quite likely, if the Iranians were to try to go to 93%, they would discover flaws in their system that stop them at a lower level. At least that's what's happened to everyone else who's tried to do this, as far as I know. Those flaws aren't insurmountable, but its likely to be a 'try it - it didn't work - why didn't it work - oh fix this - try it again' sort of process. Ie, it doesn't just happen because someone throws a switch.

And all of this would take both a long time and all of those thousands of centrifuges the Iranians claim to have. Which means this, if we have IAEA inspectors going to the facilities, there is no way they could do this in secret. The US built a massive facility in Oak Ridge and ran thousands of centrifuges for months to do this during the Manhattan project.

In other words, there is no reason to be scared at all. If the Iranians were to go down this path, the whole world would know it months before they ever got there.

One more last note. When they say 'surface-to-surface missiles that can carry nuclear warheads', this is obviously dependent on the size of the nuclear warheads. That's the part of nuclear weapon design that takes some skill. Its simple to make the dang thing blow up. The trick is to make it small enough to fit on top of a missile, and still blow up. Go find pictures of the first American bombs, they were huge, and needed the entire bomb-bay of a WWII super-bomber to carry them. No way they'd fit on top of a missile.

So, the key question is, how big would be the nuclear bomb that would go on this missile? I suspect that what the Israelis are really saying is that the Iranians have a missile that would carry a modern American nuclear weapon, which the Americans have been designing on for 60 years to make a warhead small enough to fit on top of it.

This in no way means that the Iranians, who've never even exploded a test nuclear warhead of any size, can design and build a nuclear weapon to fit on top of this missile.

The Making of an 'Animal Rights Terrorist'

How Corporate Provacateurs Made Fran Trutt an “Animal Rights Terrorist” by Will Potter at GreenIsTheNewRed.com

Can't really excerpt this. The short version is that a purported attempt to pipe-bomb the executive of a company that uses dogs for product testing and training was actually orchestrated by a company called "Perceptions International" that was hired by the same executive. Follow the link to go read the whole story.

Remember the old rule of thumb some old 60's activist once taught me. If you want to know who the FBI informant in the group is, they'll be the one urging others to some sort of violent and illegal act.

Quakers for War

I'm on an email alert list for a group called "Friends Committee on National Legislation." They are basically the same people as the American Friends Service Committees.

The email they sent me staggered me. They are trying to get me to contact my Congress-critters to support "new, transformative vision that President Barack Obama laid out for this country in his budget proposal for 2010."

This is the same budget that increases Pentagon spending by $22 billion. I never thought I'd see the day that the Quakers would contact me and urge me to support a budget that RAISES Pentagon spending.

I'd say that they want me to support increased spending on the wars, but technically, that's not true. The Democrats have already broken their earlier promise to bring the wars 'on-budget'. Instead, the Democrats are doing exactly what Bush did and are asking for another $200 billion of 'off-budget', 'emergency' supplemental money to continue to fight the wars this year and next.

This is the same budget that increases Homeland Security spending by 6%

The Department of Homeland Security will receive $42.7 billion in discretionary spending for 2010, a 6 percent increase over 2009. The increase may be only 1.2 percent after Congress completes appropriations for 2009, according to the Associated Press. While the document describes how some of the homeland security money will be spent, intelligence spending is classified.

Dont' be fooled it the percentage increase goes 'down' to 1.2%. That just means that our lovely Democratic Congress is likely to spend even more on Homeland Security in 2009. Thus the 2010 money represents less of an increase over what we'll waste on this pork-barrel in 2009.

The words 'discretionary spending' are worrisome. That must mean there is non-discretionary spending, or perhaps compulsory spending in the Dept of Homeland of Security. I understand non-discretionary spending that keeps people fed or with shelter. But, for the Dept of Homeland Security? I'd say that whole department is 'discretionary'. Doesn't mean we shouldn't spend anything here. But, surely in a collapsing economy with out-of-control government deficits, almost all of this can be called 'discretionary'.

"Intelligence" spending is classified. Of course, most other nations know pretty much what we spend on this, so this is more about not telling the American tax-payers how much we spend on this. But this particular bit about what they want to do is fascinating.

Facilitates information Sharing. The President’s 2010 Budget will support initiatives to improve the sharing of intelligence, including terrorist-related information, with Federal, State, local, tribal and foreign partners. These efforts include advancing the National Suspicious Activity reporting Initiative; establishing agency-based, outcome-oriented performance targets for information sharing; and institutionalizing the use of
effective business practices.

This is exactly the programs that end up with Quakers on Terrorism Watch Lists and with records on file with what used to be called "Terrorism task forces" around the country.

Amazing, the Quakers seemed to have bought into Obama-mania so completely that they are urging me to contact my Congress-critters and beg them to support the budget that promises to spend even more money collecting and sharing information about groups like the Quakers.

Absolutely amazing.

Where is it easy?

Robert Fisk’s World: I told him I admired his refusal to sign the death sentences by Robert Fisk in The Independent.

I told him I always admired him for refusing to sign the death sentences on two condemned men. He smiled faintly and pointed out to me that as soon as Rafiq Hariri became prime minister – yes, the same supposedly saintly Hariri who was cruelly murdered in Beirut just over four years ago – Hariri signed the death sentences and the two men were hanged. Word has it that even then, the executioners messed up their work and at least one of the two had to be throttled to death by policemen who pulled on his legs. Did they ever, in their brief extension of life, thank the prime minister who tried to save them? "They didn't have time," Dr el-Hoss replied. Defenders of human rights have a tough time in the Middle East.

OK, where in the world do 'defenders of human rights' have it easy?

Or, another question that comes to mind. America was one of the few great powers left after World War II. America had a 'sphere of influence' over which it had a great deal to say about what happened there. Around about 1990, the other great superpower, the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving America as the world's only remaining superpower.

Given that we've been the world's only superpower for nearly 20 years, and were one of only two or so for fifty years before that, lets ask this question again. Where in the world is it easy for defenders of human rights? Not just merely less awful than some other place, but what places in the world truly respect human rights? And, did America have anything to do with its creation?

Since America has been fighting to defend freedom for fifty years now, and since the country that was supposed to be our main opponent left the field 20 years ago, isn't it worth asking just how well we are doing?

Red Light Flashing

When Things Fall Apart by Paul Craig Roberts on CounterPunch.org

On March 19 the New York Times reported: “The Fed said it would purchase an additional $750 billion worth of government-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities, on top of the $500 billion that it is currently in the process of buying. In addition, the Fed said it would buy up to $300 billion worth of longer-term Treasury securities over the next six months.”

The current estimate for the 2009 budget deficit is now over $1.8 trillion dollars. This is a huge jump from the deficts of $400 to $500 billion a year that the government had been running.

It sounds nice to plan on spending this money. And in many ways, the new spending on 'stimulus' is needed. But the question always was 'who are we going to borrow this money from?' The rest of the world had already become leery of US debt, and the US didn't have a 'savings rate' even before the collapse.

So, this news is one big giant flashing red light warning of trouble ahead. The government is now playing Enron like accounting games, taking advantage of the fact that the Fed is not a government entity to use them to loan money to the rest of the government by buying massive amounts of bonds.

We need the stimulus. We need money pumped into this economy to try to create jobs. What we don't need is the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We can't afford them. What we don't need is trillions of dollars being pumped into banks to keep them afloat. What we don't need is one to two trillion dollars a year being spend on 'defense' and 'homeland security'.

Obama and the Democrats are making the classic mistake. They are trying to keep spending huge amounts on war and the military, while also trying to ramp up the domestic economy. They've failed to notice that its always guns OR butter. Guns AND butter at the same time never works.

We need the butter. We don't need the guns. We are heading for a major crisis worse than it is today if we foolishly fail to end these wars and massively slash what we spend on the military, intelligence, and homeland security.

Sometimes, you see evil

This image is from Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009 in Haaretz. Warning, its only the tip of the iceberg as to what you'll find in this story about a print shop that does work for members of IDF units.

Sometimes, you see evil. Its just right there in front of you.

Evil comes when people forget to treat other people as people. Evil comes when minds get so twisted by thoughts, dreams, ideology, greed, or anything else, that they forget that others are people just like them with their own loves and hopes and dreams. Evil can only occur when the mind has become so twisted that it thinks of others as some object or name, but never other human beings.

Listen to soldiers talk, and you always hear the most violent, racist demeaning language used to describe those they kill. Both the military command and the soldiers themselves know that this is the only way they can commit the evil that they commit.

In a war, it goes both ways. I'm sure one could easily find evil people on the Arab side that talk in racist terms about Jews, and easily justify to themselves the launching of rockets aimed at mothers and children, or the bombing of a pizza parlor or an ice cream shop.

Awhile back, I printed a famous quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr about violence. Since it applies here, let me requote it here.

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. . . Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. . . . Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; Only love can do that." - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Among the killers, among those who believe in evil, the myth is that killing can always settle the fight. The myth is that one can kill all of one's enemy, thus achieving peace. It never works that way.

Or to put it another way. The soldier that made this t-shirt probably believes he is defending the security of his country. And its easy for the soldier in the middle of the battle to think of only how many kills he is racking up, much like the dwarf and the elf did in the Lord of the Rings movies. But, someone in charge needs to be smart enough to realize that if this sniper fulfills his evil dreams, there would be others outraged by the death of a pregnant young woman and her child that will never see the light. Her husband, her father, her brothers would all know the shock of this. Maybe that young child that would never be already has an older brother who just lost both a mother and sibling.

What are the odds that these people might walk into a pizza parlor in Israel with explosives strapped to their chest? The snipers 'two kills' for one bullet would very likely lead to more exploding pizza parlors and ice cream shops and more attempts to launch missiles to try to hit other mothers and children.

Violence always begets more violence. Dr. King was right about that. In war, there is no 'security'. In war, someone is always trying to find a way to do harm to you. And, often times they will succeed.

The only 'security' comes from peace.

Contracts

Contracts, according to Obama and the Democrats.

When Labor Unions have contracts with auto-companies, Obama and the Democrats insist that these contracts must be given up and new concessions made by workers as a pre-condition for any government bailout.

When investment bankers have contracts with AIG that guarantee them millions of dollars of bonuses, despite the fact that these are the very people who drove the company 'too big to fail' into government ownership, then Obama and the Democrats insist that these contracts are sacred, that they must be honored, and that these people must get their millions of dollars.

With the Democrats, always watch ACTIONS. Ignore their words, as they are often designed to mislead and sometimes are outright lies. But watch the ACTIONS of the Democrats. Watch who the Democrats really support, watch where the money goes with the Democrats, and you'll see the true nature of that party.

If you don't like what you see, check out the Green Party.

Note: I see David Sirota saying much the same thing.

Last month, the same government that says it “cannot just abrogate” executives’ bonus contracts used its leverage to cancel unions’ wage contracts. As The Wall Street Journal reported, federal loans to GM and Chrysler were made contingent on those manufacturers shredding their existing labor pacts and “extract[ing] financial concessions from workers.” In other words, our government asks us to believe that it possesses total authority to adjust contracts at car companies it lends to, and yet has zero power to modify contracts at financial firms it owns. This, even though the latter set of covenants might be easily abolished

Of course, since Mr. Sirota is a Democratic party activist, the bad guys in the piece mysteriously become an anonymous 'government' instead of the party and President he just helped bring to power.

House Passes Bill With 'Mandatory' National Service Clause

House Passes Bill With 'Mandatory' National Service Clause from FoxNews.com

During an election season, we are often told that its better with the Democrats in power than with Republicans. And in some ways, that's correct. But it is also can be very dangerous to have conservative Democrats in control of the White House and Congress.

When there is a Republican President, many if not all Democrats will tend to vote against him. If for no other reason than party loyalty. This means votes in the House can be close, and sometimes, like on the first bailout bill last summer, the Republicans can be defeated.

But when there is a conservative Democrat in the White House, this dynamic changes dramatically. Now, the default option is for Democrats to 'support their President' and vote for his proposals. When these are conservative or militaristic, this means a large majority Congress is created as 'loyal' Democrats are joined with conservative Republicans.

This is how the bill bringing the DRAFT back to America just passed the House, 321-105.

Oh, the propaganda will tell you this isn't the draft. This story manages not to use the 'word' draft. 'Volunterism' is the propaganda word of the day, and its of course in the headline and prominent in this piece. Hidden most subtly are the words 'national service'. Some article correctly add 'mandatory'. This article downplace all of this by saying that 'forced service' is merely a concern. If you use the word 'slavery' for 'forced-service', are you more concerned? Although the propagandist for centuries have made sure the word 'slavery' is never used when it is the state that is demanding your 'forced service', at gunpoint if you dare to resist.

I was in the first group of 18 year olds not to be subject to the Draft after Vietnam. We still had to go fill out the selective service cards, but unlike those around me a year or more older than me, I didn't have to worry about being drafted. The main feeling I remember having back then was that I had other things to do with my life, other priorities to fulfill, other paths to follow. I thought it was fundamentally wrong for the government to step in and make me its slave for several years.

I still feel that way. You can dress it up with talk about doing other service beside military, you can hide it by duct-taping it to an existing volunteer agency. But this is still slavery. And, you know the bottom line is, the military is going to get enough bodies to fill what it considers its requirements.

It was the Jimmy Carter Democrats who ended the draft back during my youth. Now its the Obama Democrats that bring it back. Just one of the many ways you can see how radically the party has changed during my lifetime.

The Democrats bring back the draft. When I was 18, I never would have imagined I'd type those words.

Hersh: 'Executive assassination ring' reported directly to Cheney

Hersh: 'Executive assassination ring' reported directly to Cheney on RawStory

Hersh replied, "After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet."

Hersh then went on to describe a second area of extra-legal operations: the Joint Special Operations Command. "It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently," he explained. "They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. ... Congress has no oversight of it."

"It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on," Hersh stated. "Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us."

Hmmm, wonder who they report to now? Because the one thing you can be certain of is that they didn't just pack up and go home on Jan 20th.

Teddy :)

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day. - Theodore Roosevelt

courtesy of Progressive Review

The Rape of Washington

The Rape of Washington by Uri Avnery on Antiwar.com

Speaking of the Charles Freeman nomination, Mr. Avnery asserts ...

This has a significance that goes far beyond the already far-reaching implications of the affair itself. Many people in Israel who view the establishment of the new rightist government with apprehension cite as their main fear the danger of a clash with the new Obama administration. Such a clash, they believe, could be fatal for Israel's security. But the rightists deride such arguments. They assert that no American president would ever dare to confront the Israeli lobby. The captive congressmen and senators, as well as the supporters of the Israeli government in the media and even in the White House itself, would sink on sight any American policy opposed by even the most extreme right-wing government in Israel. Now the first skirmish has taken place, and the president of the United States has blinked first. Perhaps one should not rush to conclusions, perhaps Obama needs more time to find his bearings, but the signs are ominous for any Israeli interested in peace. It may be too early to call this episode the Rape of Washington, but it is certainly vastly more important than Katsav's sexual escapades.

If You Are Reading This, You May Already be a Terrorist

If You Are Reading This, You May Already be a Terrorist by Antiwar.com

So, now its official. Express public support for non-approved candidates for President, and you'll be suspected of being a 'terrorist' by that friendly state trooper you are driving past.

The Feb. 20 report called “The Modern Militia Movement” specifically identifies people who “display Campaign for Liberty, Constitution Party, or Libertarian material. These members are usually supporters of former Presidential candidate: Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr.”

The report identifies red flags that can identify potential domestic terrorists:

* Bumper stickers for third-party candiates like Ron Paul
* Talk of “New World Order” conspiracy theories
* Opposition to the Federal Reserve and support of the gold standard
* Opposition to US Army takeover of Homeland Security
* Opposition to the North American Union
* Opposition to universal military service
* Tax resistance
* Possession of subversive literature: “pictures, cartoons, bumper stickers that contain anti-government rhetoric. Most of this material will depict the FRS, IRS, FBI, ATF, CIA, UN, Law Enforcement, and ‘New World Order’ in a derogatory manner.”

One of the examples shown is the Gadsden Flag (”Don’t Tread on Me”).

The last gets even better. If you show support for the American Revolution by showing a historic flag from that era, then you are to be considered a 'terrorist'. King George III must be looking up from hell a look of pride on his face in the accomplishments of those who've come after him.

Of course, sometimes the scariest thing in a police state is that the police aren't really very smart. Ron Paul did not run as a 'third party'. He's a Republican Congressman from Texas. But hey, he rocks the boat so he must be both kooky and dangerous. Still, the report is written by someone who probably voted Republican, but couldn't tell you who just ran for President in the Republican primaries. Given the power of the police, that's just scary.

The article had this link to the report.

It gets even better than this as I read the report. For instance, this is listed under the section talking about militia 'Organization.'

Committees of Safety (COS) Organizations formed to lobby government officials and confront corruption. These groups claim to be a voice of the people and usually control or associate with militia organizations in their area.

Wow, so citizens who organize to 'lobby government officials and confront corruption' are smeared as associating with militia members. Remember, this report went out to the Missouri State Troopers as what to look out for with regards to dangerous militias, so if you are a Missouri citizen who has a habit of trying to confront local corruption, don't be surprised when that Missouri State Trooper first pulls you over for no reason (he'll say the tail-light blinked out or something, or maybe that you touched a line), then approaches the car with his weapon drawn and forces you out of the car to lay face down on the pavement. He's gotten this report from his superior officers telling him that you my friend are a dangerous terrorist and a threat to the American way of life by daring to challenge that local corruption.

To make sure that message comes through loud and clear, that exact section of text quoted above is next to a picture of a group of men in camoflauge and carrying automatic rifles captioned "Missouri militia members during a field training event." There is a visual image of men with automatic weapons designed to scream 'danger' to police officers in the field, and it is paired with text about those awful people in the community who try to 'lobby government officials and confront corruption.'

So, when you drive past that state trooper, with a bumper sticker supporting an alternative candidate to the corrupt local sheriff on one side of your rear bumper, and a Ron Paul for President sticker on the other side, what that state trooper is going to remember is a picture of a bunch of dangerous looking men with automatic weapons. Feel safer now?

This is from Missouri, but the AntiWar.com article points out that its done with information compiled by Dept Homeland Security. Thus its a reasonable assumption that similar reports are being compiled elsewhere under DHS prompting. And its another reasonable assumption that these viewpoints have some support in DHS and other federal agencies who are a part of this.

Seven Avoidance Indicators

Seven Avoidance Indicatorsby Ralph Nader on Nader.org

Indicators of avoidance are what come to mind while absorbing the various rescue, recovery, stimulus and guarantee programs coming out of the Obama Administration to slow and reverse a splintering and shattering economy. If the Obamites do not act now when the political time is ripest, to put into motion forces of deterrence and prevention, the casino capitalists of tomorrow will again be able to de-stabilize our economy.

Follow that link above, and you'll see a list of seven things that should be happening, but aren't. Of course, when you realize that Wall Street was the biggest group of donors to the Obama campaign, as well as being the group of early donors that were so vital to getting his campaign started, its no surprise at all that tasks such as "comprehensive law enforcement against the Wall Street crooks" and "shifting power to shareowners and investors" (instead of the CEOs where it resides today) aren't being acted on at all by Obama and the Democrats.

What Obama and the Demcocrats are really doing is making sure that the people who stole money during the Bush years get to keep it. And that the people who stole money during the Bush years don't face any prosecution or prison time. On top of that, the Obama administration keeps pouring trillions of dollars down the rat-hole of making sure these Wall Street firms don't go under.

Sure, Obama and the Dems throw out a few hundred billion for infrastructure projects, and not all their tax cuts go to the wealthy. But they still give huge tax cuts to the very people who've gotten every benefit over the last decade or more. The screaming from the Republicans and the wealthy is only because they aren't getting all the money like they are used to, so they howl bloody murder when they only get most of it.

So, follow the link above to read Ralph Nader. The suggestions he makes are very sensible and practical. And of course, they are hugely different from anything the Republicans or the Democrats say, as Wall Street owns both those parties.

Obama Administration Abandons Enemy Combatant Label, Invents New Rationale

Obama Administration Abandons Enemy Combatant Label, Invents New Rationale

A memorandum filed by the Justice Department today reveals that the Obama Administration is abandoning the “enemy combatant” label for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, while maintaining that they can continue to hold them on the basis of executive authority.

Obama is rather pointing to the international laws of war as a basis for indefinite detentions, as well as the joint resolution passed by the 107th Congress in the wake of 9/11, which does not contain the word “detain” or “detention.”

Where Obama and Bush differ: They use different PR terms to describe the people they illegally detain.

Where Obama and Bush agree: Both try to stretch the 9-11 resolution to support the illegal detention of anyone they don't like.

Remember, it is estimated that beyond Gitmo, the US still holds some 26,000 people in its illegal, secret prisons around the world. Now that's a highly 'anti-American' act. The founders of this country would be shocked. Then they would swear their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to make sure it ended.

--------------
Then there's this ... Obama Justice Dept. defends Rumsfeld in torture case from Rawstory.com

In a brief filed Thursday evening, Obama Justice Department lawyers extended many of the same arguments made by Bush attorneys -- that top government officials have qualified immunity from prosecution and that Guantanamo detainees do not have constitutional rights to due process.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss ...

American citizen critically injured after being shot in the head by Israeli forces in Ni’lin

American citizen critically injured after being shot in the head by Israeli forces in Ni’lin by International Solidarity Movement.

For those who might not know, the International Solidarity Movement is a group of people from around the world who journey to Palestinian lands occupied by Israel in order to stand with the Palestinians in non-violent resistance to the occupation. In this case, several members of the ISM were with members of a Palestinian village that is having the Israeli wall built right through the middle of it.

This raises the question of how much can be accomplished by non-violent resistance. A couple of posts below, you'll find Dr. Martin Luther King's famous quote about violence. And that is a philosophy that I agree with. But, there also seems to be limits to what can be accomplished with non-violence.

In order for non-violent resistance to succeed, it appears that one of two things must occur. One is that the opposition must respect it and not respond with violence of its own. If you read this article, you'll find that four residents of this village have already been killed by Israeli forces. Also, over the years, this is at least the fourth member of the ISM to be either killed or to suffer serious injuries from Israeli violence.

The other way in which non-violence might be successful, even in the face of violent suppression, is if the citizens of the country or the world see the violence and object. This was the result of Ghandi's march on the salt mine. The marchers were violently beaten by the English military. But the citizens of England couldn't tolerate the news that their soldiers were viciously beating unarmed protesters. Likewise, Dr. King was successful with his non-violent resistance in the south because Americans of the 1960's objected to the images of police dogs and fire hoses being used on non-violent demonstrators.

Today, this has two problems. The independent news media that used to report on the violence used against non-violent resisters is no more. When hundreds of thousands of people go into the street to peacefully protest, it is ignored or derided in the corporate press. In this case, a visit to CNN shows stories like what Prince William feels on Mother's Day without Diana, but nothing about this story. A search on the name Tristan Anderson shows no stories on CNN at all about this.

And when the news does get through, like with Rachel Corrie, another ISM voluteer murdered by the Israelis while peacefully protesting home demolitions in Gaza, the people of both Israel and the United States seem not to care about the murder that is committed in their name.

What to do? Well, first off, the rest of us can try to raise our voices in protest. Even though its officially ignored, we must trust that it really isn't. One thing that is for certain is that the day before our final victory, the corporate media will be failing to report on that coming victory and it will be telling us that our cause is hopeless and doomed to defeat. Only after we win will we see the magnitude of our cause and our victory. We must continue to act trusting that what we do will be effective, and ignore the corporate voices that tell us its hopeless.

But beyond that, there rises a question of submission or violent resistance. If non-violent resistance is met with violence and murder, that's the only choice left. When people are pushed so far that their very survival is threatened. Or when people have strong moral beliefs that they must oppose evil, then submission is not a valid alternative. The only course left then is violence.

In some ways, that's what Dr. King is saying, but from the other side of the fence. When a government decides to meet non-violence with violence, it starts or continues a death spiral that leads to more violence on all sides.

If the governments of the US or Israel of the rest of the world expect the Palestinians to end their violence, then they must give the Palestinians non-violent alternatives. When non-violent demonstrators are shot down and killed, then violence becomes the only alternative.

Meanwhile, we must try to do whatever we can to let our governments know that this is not acceptable.

The Return of Socialism?

The Return of Socialism? editorial from Socialist Worker.

With all the Republican nonsense about how Obama's Republican-like or Republican-lite policies are really 'socialist', its always interesting to go hear what the real socialists are saying.

Certainly, activists need to be fighting for reforms in the here and now--opposing racist police violence, organizing unions, demanding that LGBT people have the right to marry and more.

But unless we ultimately uproot an exploitative system that gave us crazed financial speculation, enormous inequality, a gravely damaged environment and endless imperial wars, we will have to fight the same battles over and over again.

The socialist transformation of U.S. society won't come through a vote in Congress, Republican hype notwithstanding. It will be the product of countless struggles taking place now and in the future, which give rise to a militant, working-class left in the U.S. and internationally that can organize a fight to turn the very structure of society upside down.

Such a perspective may seem distant from today. But as the economic slump continues and the U.S. government rushes to take previously unthinkable measures to bail out the financial system, there's an increasingly urgent debate over what to do next. It's time to put socialism--the real thing--into the mix.

So the Republicans say that Obama is a socialist? Yeah, right. This sounds so much like Obama that I can't tell the difference .... not!

The Ultimate Weakness of Violence

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. . . Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. . . . Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; Only love can do that." - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Budget deficit reaches $765B in 5 months

Budget deficit reaches $765B in 5 months by AP

Lower tax revenue and massive government spending on the bank bailout pushed the federal deficit to $765 billion in the first five months of the budget year, well on its way to hitting the Obama administration's projection of a record annual imbalance of $1.75 trillion.

The Treasury Department also said Wednesday that the February deficit reached $192.8 billion. That's a record for the month and up 10 percent from a year ago, but below analysts' expectations of $205.7 billion.

With seven months left in the current budget year, which ends Sept. 30, the deficit already has shattered last year's record annual gap of $454.8 billion.

As some one who was recently laid off, I have some recent experience in what to do when revenues suddenly drop. YOU STOP SPENDING!

If you read this article, what is the one word that never appears? "War" is the word that never appears. Yet, this is exactly where we could immediately cut back our federal spending. Obama and the Democrats have proposed a $22 billion increase in the Pentagon budget. This is in ADDITION to the money being spent on the war, which is still officially 'off-budget' for Obama and the Democrats. (That also means the spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan isn't included in this $765 billion figure in the headline ... remember, the wars are 'off-budget').

Obama and the Democrats have also proposed spending over $200 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Between the Pentagon budget and the supplemental war funds, Obama and the Democrats want to spend about $750 billion. We simply do not have that money. We need to end both wars as soon as possible and stop spending there. We need to cut the Pentagon budget drastically. We simply can't afford it.

And this $750 billion isn't even all we are spending on 'defense'. It doesn't include for instance the billions that the Energy Dept is spending making 'nuclear sustainment' our 'top priority'. It also doesn't include the intelligence agencies like the CIA or the National Reconnaissance Office, which spends billions launching and maintaining spy satellites such that the US can spy on anyone in the world. I think I saw Winston Wheeler (writing on Counterpunch.org) estimate that last year the real 'defense' budget was over $1 Trillion. And Obama and the Democrats just keep raising every aspect of this, when instead they should be cutting hundreds of billions of dollars here. We are borrowing all of this money, and we simply can not afford it.

INSIDE OBAMA'S HEALTHCARE SHOW SUMMIT: SINGLE PAYER PRESENT BUT IGNORED

INSIDE OBAMA'S HEALTHCARE SHOW SUMMIT: SINGLE PAYER PRESENT BUT IGNORED by Oliver Fein, MD on Progressive Review

Well, after a stink was raised, some people who support single payer were actually allowed into this 'Summit' staged by Pres. Obama. Not that they were allowed to actually speak, but there were allowed into the building.

In sum, I came out of the White House Health Care Summit with conviction that single payer that is, publicly funded, privately delivered health care, which removes the wasteful for-profit, private health insurance companies as middlemen, remains the only solution that can guarantee access to comprehensive, quality health care with choice of doctor and hospital, and reduce overall cost. Single-payer, an improved and expanded Medicare-for-All, is the gold standard against which all other proposals for health care reform should be measured.

Advocates need to focus on Congress during the next few months. We need to make the case that co-sponsorship of H.R. 676 raises its legitimacy as a gold standard, and that single-payer advocates should be called to testify at congressional hearings.

The one thing that gets me is that people elect Democrats, then expect them to act like Greens. Very few Democrats have backed single-payer in the last decade or so. This is striking to someone like me who grew up listening to Democratic rhetoric where 'national health insurance' was one of their key talking points back in the 70's. So, its no surprise that in a Congress full of these pro-corporate Democrats, single-payer advocates barely can get in the door, and have to beg to even speak at a hearing.

Face it, except for a few exceptions, the Democrats don't support this. That simply means that the majorities of Americans who respond favorably to the idea in poll after poll need to stop voting Democrat. The few Democrats who support this, we should of course support. But we should also realize that for most Democrats, the (D) after the name just indicates an auxiliary employee of the big health corporations.

If you are a part of the majority of Americans that feels this is the solution, then go find your local Green Party.

----------------

Here in CO, a group called Health Care for All - Colorado is pushing the state legislature to consider HB09-1273. There's a key hearing on March 18th if you happen be passing through this neck of the prairie.

Nuclear sustainment is top priority

Nuclear sustainment is top priority from Middle East Times

OK, most of this article is just double-talk. I notice that the word 'sustainment' in the headline isn't even recognized as a word by my spell-checker. Be wary of anyone who makes up big new words. They probably just want to steal your money.

The scariest sentence in the article is this one...

Thomas said nuclear sustainment, ... requires proper attention to provide "war-winning capabilities to the war fighter," according to a press release.

The ellipses are there because the reporter makes the article very confusing by referring to something completely irrelevant for half the sentence. Cant' tell if that's just incompetent writing, or a deliberate attempt to mask the very scary impact of the quote from the general.

The US military views nuclear weapons as 'war-winning capabilities', while most of the rest of the world views them as the ultimate terror horror that we wish had never been unleashed. And the US military feels these terror-horror weapons should always be available to 'the war-fighter.' Note how far away this is from the old cold-war notion that these weapons of mass terror were only there as a deterrent. The words 'deter' or 'deterrent' never appear in this article.

Our economy is crashing. We've borrowed too much money already, and now we need to borrow trillions of dollars more to try to prop up the collapsing financial system that's left after the crooks stole all they can. Yet, the US government and the US military view these horrible weapons of ultimate terror as a 'top-priority' for our nation.

If you don't agree, stop voting Democrat or Republican. Check out www.gp.org for a different vision of the world. Are you for that vision or against that vision?

Message from Charles Freeman

Message from Charles Freeman by Charles Freeman in the Wall Street Journal

The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East. The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth. The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors.

There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government – in this case, the government of Israel. I believe that the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics has allowed that faction to adopt and sustain policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel. It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so. This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United State

I'm old fashioned enough to believe that the US government should be following policies that help the American people and improve the lives and security of the American people. I would call it 'treason' for individuals in the US government to be working for the benefit of a foreign nation.

ADDENDUM: I've reread the last words a few times since I wrote and posted them. Its striking that those of us on the left who care about and love our country and try to move towards what we see as the best future for it, we are often accused as being 'traitors' by those who disagree with us. Meanwhile, we have people with power and influence in this country that set policies that favor another nation at considerable cost to our own.

Can anyone think of a country who's economy is in the tank, and that is borrowing money like mad, which could use $5 to $10 Billion a year to pump up our own economy and help take care of citizens who are struggling through tough times? That's roughly how much we give Israel every year. Regardless of what you think of Israel, its time to bring that money home.

Open Thread

..........

U.N. report says U.S. rendition policy broke international law

U.N. report says U.S. rendition policy broke international law from McClatchy newspapers.

A U.N. expert is accusing the United States and some of its allies of breaching international law for the so-called extraordinary renditions and subsequent alleged torture of terrorism suspects during the Bush administration's global war on terrorism, and is launching a probe into the detention of suspects.

Of course, this is still refered to as the 'Bush administration's global war on terrorism' even though the Obama administration deliberately refused to stop this policies in its executive orders.

This means two things legally to the Obama administration. One is that it is the responsibility of government officials to move to investigate and prosecute breaches of the law. This is a report from a "U.N. special rapporteur and expert on international law" to the effect that international law (and most likely US law) has been broken. This places an obligation on the Obama administration officials to investigate to see if crimes were committed, and to prosecute them if they were.

Secondly, since the Obama administration deliberately refused to stop this practice of extraordinary rendition, then it may very well be breaking international law as we speak. The Obama administration needs to move quickly and decisively to make sure international law is obeyed in this area.

So, we add to the list of impeachable offenses being committed by Obama. He is refusing to follow the oath he took to 'uphold and defend the Constitution'. He is refusing to properly investigate and prosecute people who've violated the law. His administration is likely continuing to break the same laws. Add this on top of his launching of illegal strikes into the sovereign nation of Pakistan, the refusal of the US military to obey the SOFA with Iraq, and his continued detention of some 26,000 prisoners in the CIA's secret gulag.

Officials: Iran does not have key nuclear material

Officials: Iran does not have key nuclear material by AP

Actually, the headline undersells this a bit. By saying 'key nuclear material', they act like they are just missing one of several materials. But the 'key nuclear material' that they are missing is the essential stuff that goes BOOM to make a nuclear bomb.

Kinda like calling flour a 'key material' for a cake. Or maybe calling 'eggs' a 'key material for 'scrambled eggs'.

This is the most important thing to watch in the discussions about Iran and nuclear weapons. Do they have the highly enriched uranium that they need for a bomb? Don't let the corporate media confuse you on this. There are two dramatically different levels of enrichment for a nuclear power plant and a nuclear weapon. A nuclear power plant require enrichment to around 3% U-235. A nuclear weapon requires enrichment to somewhere around 95% U-235. The two aren't even close. Doing one doesn't mean that they've done the other. Doing the 3% enrichment (referred to as 'low-level' in this AP piece) doesn't even mean that they are capable of doing 95% enrichment.

Inspectors should be able to tell if a facility has been used to enrich beyond 3%. As just one example, they could test trace residues left on equipment or in pipes and see if there is more U-235 than they would expect from low-level enrichment. I won't say that's completely certain, but it seems like a massive amount of work would need to be done to scrub an industrial facility to hide that sort of high-level enrichment.

The key point is that at no time has the IAEA ever said that they've found more than 3% enrichment in Iran. And here you have the leaders of US intelligence saying they have no evidence that Iran has gone beyond 3% enrichment.

This is the key fact to watch. Ignore a lot of the other BS that the killers throw around to justify another war. If you don't ever see PROOF, rock-solid proof, that Iran has gone to bomb-grade, 95% or so enrichment, then you should assume that its just the lying killers who used phony fears of a non-existent nuclear weapon to start that war trying to do it again.

U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael Maples said Tuesday that Iran has only low-enriched uranium — which would need to be refined into highly enriched uranium before it can fuel a warhead. Neither officials said there were indications that refining has occurred.

See Also: Muslim Weapons of Mass Destruction by Eric Margolis

UN inspectors report Iran has produced 1,010 kg of 2–3% enriched uranium (LEU). Iran insists it is for energy generation. Theoretically that is enough for one atomic bomb.

But to make a nuclear weapon, U-235 must be enriched to over 90% in an elaborate, costly process. Iran is not doing so, say UN inspectors, though they have raised certain technical questions about Iran’s nuclear process. Some believe Iran may go up to "breakout position," that is, having the components to assemble a weapon on fairly short notice.

Mr. Margolis is mostly very accurate in this piece. But I strongly disagree when he says 1000 kg of 2.5% enriched Uranium is 'theoretically enough for one atomic bomb.' You can have all the 2.5% enriched uranium you want and it will NEVER be enough for a bomb. Because to have a bomb you need it enriched to somewhere in the 90% range. Since he goes on to say something similar in the next sentence, I'm hoping maybe bad editing got to Mr. Margolis on that sentence.

Guantánamo Under Obama

Guantánamo Under Obama by Stephen Lendman on counterpunch.org

Despite Obama's EO, "conditions at Guantanamo have not improved" and continue in violation of the law. Since it opened in 2002, CCR enlisted over 500 pro bono lawyers to represent hundreds of detainees. This report is based on "direct accounts from (them) and their attorneys," as recently as January and February 2009. The results are deeply disturbing.

Current Guantanamo Conditions

In a word, they're unchanged, outrageous, and illegal. Inmates struggle for their sanity and say conditions are like living in a tomb. The Pentagon and Obama administration deny it and describe isolation as greater "privacy" and "single-occupancy cells." Conditions, however, "speak for themselves."

Much more detail in the article, so I'd encourage you to follow the link and read it. There is so much I could quote, but I'll stick to just this one other part that really strikes me.

'By its own admission (then and likely now), the US government (is detaining up to) 26,000 people without trial in secret prisons, and information suggests that around 80,000 have been 'through the system' since 2001. The US government must show a commitment to rights and basic humanity by immediately revealing who these people are, where they are, and what has been done to them.' The Bush administration's response (at the time was) silence." So far, it's no different under Obama.

On February 22, the UK Independent's Stephen Foley headlined: "Very Bad News - Afghanistan's Bagram Air Base Will Be Obama's Guantanamo." It's to undergo a $60 million expansion to hold 1100 more prisoners, above the 600 now there, and nearly five times the 240 at Guantanamo. Other than occasional ICRC visits, human rights groups and journalists are barred from a facility notorious for the worst of mistreatment, according to the few former inmates released.

Twenty Six thousand prisoners. 26,000! Stop and think about that huge number for a minute.

To Nationalize or Not to Nationalize

To Nationalize or Not to Nationalize on Bill Moyers Journal blog.

"People talk about nationalization – I just call it restructuring. Restructuring is part of capitalism. That’s how the airlines get restructured when they go through bankruptcy, or how you deal with the auto industry, how you deal with venture capital projects. Do the same thing with the banks... I think the notion of ‘nationalization’ has been a little bit of a PR spin. Restructuring is what you do in capitalist economies to maintain function and continuity. Nationalization evokes the specter of the state seizing the means of production, like Che Guevera is about to take over or something... The government just becomes the stockholder until such time that they sell the stock back to the market and get paid back a little bit for all the lost support that they’re creating for these banks." - economist Robert Johnson

US says 12,000 US troops to leave Iraq by Sept.

US says 12,000 US troops to leave Iraq by Sept. from AP

So, Obama's promise to remove a combat brigade every month has transformed into a vague promise to remove a few troops from Iraq six months from now. Of course, we have to wait six months to see if this token withdraw really occurs, or if we are then told the situation is maybe 'too unstable' for us to leave. Given Obama's record of breaking campaign promises ....

Meanwhile, what does the presence of US troops in Iraq mean for Iraqis ...

U.S. forces kill citizen, relatives say was executed from Aswat al-Iraq.

“The dead man was in his thirties, and he was shot in the chest,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
“The U.S. side of the story is that he was a gunman who attacked a U.S. patrol in central Baiji suburb (35 km north of Tikrit), and the patrol responded and killed him instantaneously,” he said.
Ahmed Abdullah, one of the dead man’s relatives, said “U.S. forces conducted a raid operation on al-Taameem neighborhood and killed the 37-year-old man in front of his family after entering his room.”
“The victim was detained by U.S. forces and released three days ago,” Abdullah added.
No comment is available from the U.S. side.

What's beyond me is how the so-called 'anti-war' Democrats can be perfectly happy with these sorts of deaths? It may be all a game to them, with their personal accumulation of power as their goal. But its life-and-death for others.

Obama lawyers argue to drop Yoo torture suit

Obama lawyers argue to drop Yoo torture suit in SF Chronicle.

President Obama's Justice Department defended former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo in a San Francisco federal court Friday, arguing that a prisoner formerly held as an enemy combatant had no right to sue Yoo for writing legal memos that allegedly led to his detention and torture.

"We're not saying we condone torture," department attorney Mary Mason said at a hearing on the government's request to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Jose Padilla. But any recourse against a government lawyer "is for the executive to decide, in the first instance, and for Congress to decide," not the courts, she said.

"You're not saying that if high public officials commit clearly illegal acts, a citizen subject to those acts has no remedy in this court?" asked U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White.

Not unless Congress has expressly authorized a lawsuit, Mason replied. She cited the argument the Justice Department made in Yoo's case last year, with President George W. Bush still in office, that courts should not interfere in executive decision-making, especially in wartime.

So lets see, the Democrats in Congress have been remarkably steadfast for two years now in refusing to prosecute Bush era crimes. And the Obama administration has been strongly on the side of making sure there are no prosecutions of Bush era criminals. And now they argue that the VICTIMS of the crimes have no ability to seek any justice for Bush era crimes.

Remember, top Democrats were secretly briefed on this during the Bush years. They did nothing to oppose it. Remember, most of this came out into public during the Bush years, but still the Democrats in Congress did nothing to oppose it. Now that the Justice Dept and the CIA are under Democrat control, they do everything possible to make sure that the torturers are not punished.

And, the Democrats started extraordinary rendition during the Clinton years, and Obama has refused to end the practice. What this really means is that the US still tortures. Only, we don't hold the blade or throw the switch to the electricity ourselves. Instead, we give the victim to someone like Egyptian intelligence. Then we stand there and listen to the screams while they wield the knife or apply the electricity. Then we look all pompous and proud as we use the technicality that we didn't wield the blade ourselves to say that we don't support torture.

Gotta love them Democrats.

Open Thread

Meet the New Boss, same as the Old Boss

Supreme Court urged to drop enemy combatant case on Yahoo News.

Al-Marri's lawyers filed papers to the Supreme Court late Tuesday asking the justices to keep the case alive because the government "has not renounced the legal authority under which al-Marri was designated and detained as an 'enemy combatant' and has made no commitment that al-Marri will not be re-designated and re-detained as an 'enemy combatant' in the future."

The Obama administration once again continues the course of the Bush administration. What they desperately don't want is a Supreme Court decision that states the obvious. Under the US Constitution, a President can not order the indefinite detention of a person.

Of course, the great lie is put forward that Obama is different from Bush.

The transfer signals that Obama is likely to handle accused terrorists in a significantly different way from the Bush administration's aggressive use of preventive detention.

That's a total, bald-faced lie. This case is being handled in exactly the same way the Bush Administration handled the Padilla case. That is they kept him in a military brig up until the moment when the Supreme Court threatened to rule against their power to do so. Then they hurriedly filed criminal charges against Padilla before telling the Supreme Court not to rule because the arguments were no longer valid. Obama is doing EXACTLY what Bush did.

Ron Paul on War Lies

Ron Paul on War Lies

This is a short video of a speech made on the floor of the US House of Representatives, so no text excerpts. Follow the link to watch it.

One giant problem we have is that our efforts are always splintered into separate little pieces, while we never unify behind a single effort. We see that in our protest efforts, where we always have separate groups staging their own protests. Or in the current case, we see the groups that are closer to the Democrats refusing to protest at all against a Democratic President's wars. What we don't see is one mass unified protest.

We see it in campaigns, where we splinter off into separate campaigns. In the last election, there were three separate candidates who all took nearly identical positions on issues like opposing the wars, opposing the attacks on civil liberties, and calling for the prosecution of Bush/Cheney officials for their crimes. Barr, McKinney and Nader all had nearly identical positions on key issues like these, but they ran three separate campaigns instead on one unified campaign.

Our goal is of course to return America to being a nation with a government 'of the people, by the people and for the people' to recall Lincoln's wonderful turn of a phrase. To do that, we must throw out of power forces that are powerful in their own right, and which also have the power of the incumbency in controlling the power of the US. We want a country that puts the interests of its people first. But if we achieve that, the people and forces now in control will lose wealth, power and influence. And they are determined to hold on to just that.

We face an uphill battle in every fight we wage. We face a government that is turned against us. We face a corporate media that serves the interests of those in power and not our own. We face deceit and trickery. We face dirty tricks and sabotage. We face an enemy that can spend great amounts of money to defeat us and not release its hold on what they regard as the golden goose making even larger sums of money for them. Its nothing for them to spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to retain their control over billions of dollars.

I don't say this to discourage or depress others. I say this to point out that its critical that we stop being stupid. When we fail to unify. When we all splinter and go our separate ways, we weaken ourselves. And we already seem to be fatally weak. One key measure of this is that our political campaigns are lucky to get say 2% or 3% of the vote.

Its ridiculous for us to fail to unify to oppose such great power. So, go give a listen to this speech by Ron Paul, and ask yourself what parts of this you disagree with. Then ask yourself in the last election why we ran two separate campaigns in the primaries (Paul and Kucinich) when neither had anything close to the strength required to challenge in either party? Then ask yourself why we ran three separate Presidential campaigns when none had anything close to the strength required to challenge Obama or McCain?

There is great agreement between the dissenters on the left and the dissenters on the right. Sure, there are differences. But why can't we focus on what we agree on, which to me happen to be the key issues of ending these wars, returning our economy to one that benefits the people and not the elite, and cleaning up our corrupt elections and government?

So, follow the link and watch this speech.

Impeach Obama!

Obama DOJ Defies Federal Judge from "The Washington Independent"

So on Friday, in a move that Al-Haramain’s lawyer called “mind-boggling”, the Obama administration told the federal court, once again, that it did not have the authority to order the government to make the critical document in the case available to the organization’s lawyers. The decision to reveal the document, wrote the government, “is committed to the discretion of the Executive Branch, and is not subject to judicial review.”

We've already had him break his campaign promises to withdraw from Iraq. And we've already had what's been a combination of a refusal to investigate and indict criminals from the last administration combined with an active defense to shield them. As a part of that work to shield the Bush criminals, the Obama administration has taken up exactly the same sort of fascist arguments about the power of the executive that the Bush administration used.

Now, in front of at least one federal judge, those don't seem to have worked. A judge is ordering that defense lawyers be able to see a document that the Bush/Obama administration considers to be a 'state secret.' The defense lawyers would have to obtain security clearances to even see the document, and would not be allowed to make it public. The document is important because it is purported to state that their client was indeed under NSA surveillance. The government has made other lawsuits about their illegal spying go away by contending that the plaintiffs had no 'standing' to sue as they couldn't prove they were the targets of the secret and illegal spying. So, I'm guessing that's the reason this document is important in this case.

So, a federal judge has ordered the Obama administration to make this document available. And the Obama administration is now in OPEN DEFIANCE of a federal court by REFUSING to do so.

The original design of this country's government was to have three separate but co-equal branches of government. The idea was that each would provide checks and balances against the others grabbing too much power and destroying our sacred liberties. One would suspect that a case like this, where the government has been engaging in illegal and unconstitutional spying on its own citizens is precisely the sort of case that the framers of our constitution had in mind when they create this system.

And note very, very carefully, this puts the Obama administration as taking exactly the same positions as the Bush administration in claiming unconstitutional powers for itself. And by claiming that its 'national security' powers somehow trump and over-ride the other branches of government.

During the last two years, as the Democratic controlled Congress refused to investigate or control the unconstitutional executive powers claimed by the Bush administration, one could get the sense that perhaps they didn't do so because they wanted those powers for themselves on the day they grabbed power.

The Democrats are fully in power today, and they are vigorously defending the executive's right to exactly those same powers that the Bush/Cheney group of criminals so obnoxiously claimed for themselves.

Anyone wishing they'd voted for McKinney or Nader last time? Or willing to start right now to be putting together the long grassroots campaigns we need for 2010 and 2012?

Open Thread

I keep trying to remember to do this! Honest! :)

Obama and the Democrats RAISE Pentagon Spending by $22 Billion

Obama to seek $537 billion defense budget: Murtha by Reuters

OK, in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, when the government is having to spend TRILLIONS of dollars to try to prop of failing financial institutions and keep the economy from crashing, when the government is having to BORROW that money because its already running a deficit, when the government is having trouble borrowing the money and when the entire worldwide financial system is on the verge of switching to the EURO as its 'reserve currency' .............................. one would think this is the time to CUT BACK on military spending and try to invest any dollar we can into the American economy, right?

Not if you're Obama and the Democrats. They just announced that they plan on INCREASING the Defense Dept budget by $22,000,000,000.00 (that's $22 Billion if you don't want to count all those zeroes).

Representative John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who oversees defense spending in the House, told Reuters that "$537 billion will be the base budget" for the Pentagon.

...

The Pentagon's base budget -- not counting most war funding -- totaled $515 billion for the current year.

Further more, just like Bush and the Republicans, Obama and the Democrats are keeping the wars 'off-budget'. They won't announce the details until Thursday, but this article says they are going to ask for ANOTHER $140,000,000,000.00 (that's $140 Billion for those who don't want to count all those zeroes) to continue fighting the wars in Afghtanistan and Iraq.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said the White House Office of Management and Budget will announce a supplemental war request -- on top of the regular military budget -- on Thursday when it unveils the Obama spending plan for fiscal year 2010.

"There will be a war supplemental for FY'10," he told reporters at a briefing, without disclosing budget numbers.

Oh yeah, there's other stories out there that Obama now wants to keep the troops in Iraq both longer than the SOFA agreement allows and also longer than what his 'plan' was during the campaign.

REMEMBER
70% of the American people oppose these wars. We've tried voting Democrat to end what's been misleadingly labeled the 'Bush wars'. But that obviously hasn't worked. If that wasn't obvious from the actions of the last Congress before the last election, surely its becoming obvious now.

REMEMBER
Any news network that has to go out of their way to tell you how they are 'fair and balanced' likely is not fair and balanced. Likewise, any political candidate that has to go out of their way to tell you that they represent 'Change' probably doesn't.

WHAT TO DO?
Its time for the American people to stop these wars. We've been misled into believing that voting Democrat would do just that. But clearly that wasn't the solution. Join the MARCH 21, 2009 antiwar protests!

And next time, stop voting Democrat!

Update: When the announcement was made, the Obama Administration actually asked for over $200 billion more of our money to continue these wars. The number above that leaked early was only for the year 2010. There's another huge chunk of money requested to also continue the wars in 2009.

Messages ...

Not sure what happened to the little message tool. I went back to try to find the Gadget again in Google\Blogger, mainly to see if the author left any contact links. The one hint I found there said that they'd added the popup ads because they couldn't afford the bandwidth the tool was using. Maybe the author hit some limit and the site is now shut down???????

All I really wanted was something that could be commented on, but that stayed at the top of the page. Oh well. I'll try to remember to add some Open Thread entries ... Feel free to comment below.

Also, since there seems to be a small number of people who like to comment, I could also open up the ability to post new blog posts to others.