A DAY FOR GOODBYES.
IACOCCA: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
Author: idredit
It’s Oscar night: Best Director goes to Cheney
It’s Oscar night. Are you aware of all the nominations? Jane Hamsher notes Vanity Fair has the Scooter Awards
Best Director: Dick Cheney
Best Actor: I. Lewis Libby
Best Supporting Actress: Judith Miller
Best Makeup: Judith Miller
Best Sound Editing: Karl Rove and Richard Armitage
Best Original Song: Joseph Wilson
Best Original Score: Robert Novak
Best Original Screenplay: “Notes on a Scandal,” by Patrick Fitzgerald
Best Adapted Screenplay: “Saddam’s Labyrinth” by Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, et.al., NeoCon Features, from an original script by Robert S. McNamara
Best Artifice Direction: Tony Snow
–David Friend
Those are interesting nominations. I’m sure we could add, Best Liar, Best One-Trick and other categories that this administration keeps on giving.
As we await tonight’s red carpet roll-out, arrival of stars and the opening of envelopes, Libby and Cheney will be on hold – waiting for that other jury. …Will they end the wait on Monday?
FDL, Jane Hamsher’s tip to Vanity Fair, also highlights The New Yorker Book of lawyer cartoons.
“Look at it this way Scooter, the longer they stay out the longer you’re a free man.”
Jeralyn at TalkLeft ponders in the event Libby is convicted, will Fitz go get Cheney? Where is the precedent to indict a sitting vice-president?
Jeralyn cites a nugget from Jason Leopold’s review. Yeah, yeah that Jason, but give a dog his day. It sure is a nugget.
“There’s a cloud over the VP” said Fitzgerald in closing arguments.
“Rebutting the defense’s assertion that Cheney was not behind the leak, Fitzgerald told jurors, “You know what? [Wells] said something here that we’re trying to put a cloud on the vice president. We’ll talk straight. There is a cloud over the vice president. He sent Libby off to [meet with former New York Times reporter] Judith Miller at the St. Regis Hotel. At that meeting, the two hour meeting, the defendant talked about the wife [Plame]. We didn’t put that cloud there. That cloud remains because the defendant obstructed justice and lied about what happened.”
Fitzgerald reminded the jury of Cheney’s actions in cutting out the Wilson op-ed and putting handwritten notes on it.
“The Vice President cuts out the article, the guy he works for. That’s important. The Vice President makes the note about the wife. That’s important. Government Exhibit 412, he makes the note, the Maureen Dowd column. That’s important.”
Jeralyn: Fitz puts Cheney and Libby’s actions together in this comment:
“Let’s assume the best-case scenario, the Vice President asked the question, not Mr. Libby, since he did most of the talking. This is a fingerprint that says on July 14th, the Vice President has read the Novak column. The other exhibit shows you, around July 14th, the defendant read the Novak column. And this is a fingerprint that says the brains of the Vice President and defendant Libby are wrapped around the Novak column on July 14th.
Jeralyn: So, what happens to Cheney now? I think the answer if Libby is acquitted is likely nothing. But, what if Libby is convicted? If Libby has been promised a pardon, it’s unlikely he’d take a deal with Fitz. But, maybe Fitz will feel emboldened by a conviction of Libby regardless of whether he can get Libby’s testimony. I wonder if Fitz has other immunized testimony — from those who didn’t testify at Libby’s trial that he could use against Cheney. If he immunized others who didn’t..[.]
So can a sitting Vice-President be indicted? Yes, says Jeralyn citing a brief filed by Solicitor General Robert Bork in the Spiro Agnew case back in 1973. This is delicious. Pass the popcorn and Go read the whole thing.
The good folks over at CQ got the jump on Fitz. They are not waiting for the jury to return a verdict or hoping that Fitz will take up the politics. Oh, how I wish the gods would give a glance this way and be kind.
Shall we?
Herewith, in the absence of action for the past six years by a timid Republican Congress and a refusal to act by the new Democratic leadership, we, the Fourth Estate, take the mantle of indictment unto ourselves and present these Articles of Impeachment, to be adopted by the United States House of Representatives and voted upon by the United States Senate, at their earliest possible leisure:
Resolved, that Richard B. Cheney, vice president of the United States, should be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and that these articles of impeachment be submitted to the American people
That in the buildup to war in Iraq, the vice president, lacking confidence in the true casus belli, conspired to invent additional ones, misrepresenting the available intelligence, crafting new “intelligence,” and then spreading these falsehoods to the public, perverting the democratic process that he is sworn to uphold.
That as the war devolved into occupation, the vice president again sabotaged the democratic system, developing back channels into the Coalition Provisional Authority, a body not under his purview, to remove some of the most effective staff and replace them with his own loyal supplicants–undercutting America’s best effort at war in order to expand his own power.
That in his domestic capacity, the vice president has been equally reckless with the trust of his office, converting the vice presidency into a de facto prime ministership, conducting secret meetings with secret policy boards to determine national policy and then refusing to share the details of those meetings with the other branches of government.
Finally, that the vice president has repeatedly promoted the interests of a corporation, Halliburton, over the interests of the nation, causing untold harm to American economic, military, and public health.
For these and other offenses against the nation, Vice President Cheney, clearly, is guilty of crimes against the state.
Now it’s our turn to add more charges. How about Treason?
Don’t know about you, but I’m waiting for the opening of the only envelope, Please.
(emphasis in quotes are mine)
Is the U.S. Helping Israel die?
In the march of folly to Iran, there’s a growing consensus that Israel needs to get out of Bush’s back seat if it wants to survive. I’ve just read Ray McGovern’s very thought provoking essay:
President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are unwittingly playing Dr. Jack Kevorkian in helping the state of Israel commit suicide. For this is the inevitable consequence of the planned air and missile attack on Iran. The pockmarked, littered landscape in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan and the endless applicant queues at al-Qaeda and other terrorist recruiting stations testify eloquently to the unintended consequences of myopic policymakers in Washington and Tel Aviv.
Mesmerized. Sadly, this is the best word to describe those of us awake to the inexorable march of folly to war with Iran and the growing danger to Israel’s security, especially over the medium and long term. An American and/or Israeli attack on Iran will let slip the dogs of war. Those dogs never went to obedience school. They will not be denied their chance to bite, and Israel’s arsenal of nuclear weapons will be powerless to muzzle.
In my view, not since 1948 has the very existence of Israel hung so much in the balance. Can Bush/Cheney and the Israeli leaders not see it? Pity that no one seems to have read our first president’s warning on the noxious effects of entangling alliances. The supreme irony is that in their fervor to help, as well as use, Israel, Bush and Cheney seem blissfully unaware that they are leading it down a garden path and off a cliff.
“Provoke and Pre-empt”
It is apparent, that’s where we’re headed.
“Target Iran: US able to strike in the spring.”
For more on the Iran fixation, please read within these pages an exceptional diary:
BUT the terminal patient will be the State of Israel and, in the larger context, everyone on planet earth.
Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst, is not alone in this view. Gabriel Kolko, a leading historian of modern warfare observes in his article,
Regional War or Peace?
Israel, Iran and the Bush Administration
“Israel’s power after 1947 was based on its military supremacy over its weaker neighbors. It is in the process of losing it-if it has not already. Lesser problems, mainly demographic, will only be aggravated if tension persists.
It simply cannot survive allied with the United States, because the Americans will either leave the region or embark on a war that risks Israel’s very existence.
It is time for it to become “normal” and make peace with its neighbors, and that will require it to make major concessions.
It can do that if it embarks upon an independent foreign policy, and it can start immediately to do so with Syria.”[.]
Now, we’ve all read how Bush and Cheney gave their backs to an overture from Iran in 2003. This is their modus on any agreement that is likely to restore or keep the peace.
I’m saying this is an act of high treason with the only remedy being the immediate removal of Cheney and the Impeachment of George W. Bush.
Here is revealed the Bush administration’s role in scuttling a peace accord with Syria. Say what?
From Gabriel Kolko:
“It is this context that secret Israeli talks with Syria have enormous significance. They began in January 2004 in Turkey with the approval of Sharon, moving on to Switzerland, where the Swiss Foreign Office played the role of intermediary. By August 2005 they had reached a very advanced form and covered territorial, water, border and political questions. Details remained to be ironed out but they were a quantum leap in solving one of the region’s crucial problems.[.]
Ha’aretz’ Akiva Eldar then published a series of extremely detailed accounts, including the draft accord, confirming that Syria ‘offered a far reaching and equitable peace treaty that would provide for Israel’s security and is comprehensive-and divorce Syria from Iran and even create a crucial distance between it and Hezbollah and Hamas.
The Bush Administration’s role in scuttling any peace accord was decisive. C. David Welch, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, sat in at the final meeting, two former senior CIA officials were present in all of these meetings and sent regular reports to Vice President Dick Cheney’s office. The press has been full of details on how the American role was decisive, because it has war, not peace, at the top of its agenda.
Most of the Israeli Establishment favors it. On January 28 important Israelis met publicly in Jaffa and called the Israeli response “an irresponsible gamble with the State of Israel” since it made Cheney arbiter of Israeli national interests.[.]
Mr. Cheney please tell us. Will it be Peace or War?
There are voices in Israel – voices for peace – coming in from the wilderness with scant reporting in Western media.
Selected links:
Rattling the Cage: Against a preemptive Holocaust – by Larry Derfner
“The risk of living with a nuclear Iran is much, much, much smaller than that in nuking Iran first.”
Almost imperceptibly, the debate in Israel over what to do about Iran’s nuclear development has gone over the edge. The unthinkable is now not only thinkable, it’s speakable, it’s writeable, it’s doable. In the last few weeks or so, it has become acceptable, legitimate, to argue for an Israeli nuclear first strike to knock out Iran’s nuclear facilities.”
And
“Former Shin Bet Chief Yaakov Peri calls for dialogue with Syria”
“Listen to the voices from Damascus and start a dialogue with Syria,” participants in the Forum of the Peace Initiative with Syria told the government Sunday.
“We all know that in recent month Syrian sources, including President Bashar Assad, have been indicating their readiness to begin negotiations with Israel without preconditions,” Peri said.
Academics, intellectuals, former Shin Bet head and former army chief establish group calling on government to respond to Syria’s peace overtures
“The government, due to internal pressure, or preoccupation with other issues, or American pressure, has not answered this call. I think that ignoring the signal is detrimental for the government,” he added.
Again, from Kolko’s article: “Israel, Iran and the Bush Administration”
“Serious Israeli strategists overwhelmingly believe, to cite Reuven Pedatzur in Ha’aretz last November, that “mutual assured deterrence, can be forged, with high degree of success, between Israel and Iran.” Israeli strategic thinking is highly realistic.
Early this February a study released at a conference by the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University predicted that Iran would behave rationally with nuclear weapons and “that the elimination of Israel is not considered to be an essential national interest” for it….Pedatzur warned the conference, and the use of tactical nuclear weapons against them sheer folly. “Our best option is open nuclear deterrence.” [..]
Israeli experts have come to the realization that American policy in the Middle East is not merely an immense failure but also a decisive inhibition to Israel reorienting its foreign policy to confront the realities of the region that the Jews have chosen to live in. It has ousted the Taliban from Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein from Iraq and created an overwhelming Iranian presence.
In Palestine its campaign for democracy has brought Hamas to power. Troop escalation in Iraq is deemed futile. “It’s a total misreading of reality,” one Israeli expert is quoted when discussing America’s role in the region. Israeli interests were no longer being served. American policies have failed and Israel has given a carte blanche to a strategy that leaves it more isolated than ever.”
[.]
Peace or War? Surely the signs are everywhere. We are not setting the table for peace.
Russia has become increasing nervous demanding that Syria and Iran be included in the peace process.
Russia expects the United States to explain its growing military presence in the Middle East when the countries next meet to discuss the region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian news agencies on Saturday.
“I have seen no change in Washington’s fairly aggressive rhetoric,” Lavrov said. “It continues, just like its actions to increase the military presence in the region. It will be one of the questions which we want to clarify in Washington. What’s it all about?”
See our very own Oui’s diary,
Putin has lashed out that the “U.S.wants to dominate world.”
and from a Reuters report, here’s one of the money quotes:
“Putin accused the United States of making the world a more dangerous place by pursuing policies aimed at making it “one single master”…It has nothing in common with democracy because that is the opinion of the majority taking into account the minority opinion,” he told the gathering of top security and defense officials.”
“People are always teaching us democracy but the people who teach us democracy don’t want to learn it themselves.”
[..]
Sadly, picking up on Putin’s words, war with Iran is on target and the Fatah-Hamas peace accord for Palestine is dashed as we read, in Ha’aretz,
Oh, at their peril it would appear.
Call me cynical. I say follow the money – from the Iranian oil and gas fields – all the way to Haliburton’s bank account. War profiteering trumps peace dividends. The proof is in the new budget for the Pentagon.
So, to keep the patient in ICU and on life support, how much U.S. money should Israel ask for?
I say, Enough already.
{Idredit Notes: emphasis in quotes from articles are mine}
Obama says yes. Is it a symbolic day for America?
February is Black History month. It’s expected Barack Obama will announce his run for the US presidency today. Obama is not the first, before him came Al Sharpton, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Yea, let’s not overlook Allan Keyes. Who could forget!
And so it is, we’ll write another page in the history of America, recorded during Black History month.
One UK paper, The Independent, sees the day as “A symbolic moment for America as Obama sets out for the White House”
“Today’s announcement by Senator Barack Obama that he will seek the Democratic nomination for the US presidency should be an inspiring occasion, and a highly symbolic one, too.
The 45 year-old senator for Illinois has chosen to stake his claim at the same State Capitol building in Springfield where Abraham Lincoln, the liberator of America’s slaves, served his political apprenticeship. Mr Obama’s many fans – and perhaps some of his rivals too – believe he could be elected the first black President of the United States.
Much can happen between now and November 2008. The public announcement is the very first step on a testing marathon of a campaign. Even to have a realistic shot at the presidency, Mr Obama has to raise a mountain of money and continue to raise it. He has to recruit a veritable army of advisers.
He has to tailor his appeal separately to the states where the early primaries are held, and then broaden it again for the states whose delegates will decide the party convention. Only then will his name even figure on the presidential ballot. He then has to possess the reserves of energy necessary to criss-cross the country many times until the final exhausting and exhilarating coast-to-coast sprint to get the vote out.
[.]
In the lead profile of Mr. Obama The Independent offered this:
The Great Black Hope: Obama sets out on his mission to excite and unite a divided nation.
“A gaffe, they say in politics, is when someone inadvertently blurts out the truth. Thus it was when Joe Biden, the incorrigibly loquacious senator from Delaware, held forth the other day about Barack Obama, his fellow aspirant for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. “Look,” he declared, “you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
The remark was of course profoundly politically incorrect, and profuse apologies were instantly on their way to Jesse Jackson, Alan Keyes, and Al Sharpton, all blacks who have run for the White House in recent years, and all of presumably impeccable personal hygiene and boasting impressive rhetorical skills.
But deep down, Mr Biden was spot on. Mr Obama, the 45-year-old junior senator from Illinois, is different. He is the first African-American candidate with a realistic chance of winning. And the reason, as Mr Biden so clumsily made clear, is that to the white majority of the country he hardly seems black at all.”
[Obama’s]family history, coupled with a gentle manner and a political message of reconciliation and healing, make Mr Obama one of a select group of blacks – Tiger Woods and Colin Powell are two others that come to mind – who transcend race. Whites do not feel threatened by them. Rather they make Americans feel good about themselves and a society in which this sort of ascent is possible. All of which, of course, only makes many blacks suspicious.
And the question has been asked in African-American circles; Is Obama black enough?
Writes the Independent,
“A majority of blacks, say the polls, support Hillary Clinton, if only out of the warm glow inspired by the Clinton name. Nor should John Edwards, the third top-tier contender for the Democratic nomination be overlooked.”
Obama has no paper trail Mostly.
“Mr Obama has no such “form.” There is no risk of him making statements like “I actually voted for the $87bn before I voted against it,” that fatally nailed the Massachusetts senator and had him branded as as a “flip-flopper.”
As for complaints that Mr Obama lacks the experience to lead America in a desperately complicated world, his response is simple and devastating. The Bush administration, with the likes of Powell, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld had perhaps the most experienced national security team in US history, he says – and look what a mess they made of things in Iraq, and what they’ve done for America’s good name in the world. Enough said.
Wow! Enough to get you excited?
“At this point, the mantle of JFK fits easily on his shoulders. In reality, a president Barack Obama would be 47 when he took office, four years older than Kennedy was on Inauguration Day 1961.”
But he projects something of Camelot’s glamour and excitement, and shares Kennedy’s self-deprecating charm, not to mention his stirring ability as a speaker, and has an ability to attract powerful supporters.
His emerging campaign team is very strong. His fundraising ability, even with the formidable Clinton machine ranged against him, is massive. If New York is lining up behind Mrs Clinton, Chicago is going with Mr Obama and – even in Clinton-besotted Hollywood – the big donors are giving the man from Illinois a very serious look.[.]
So, where does that leave Hillary? In British lingo,
Hillary fights to retain pole position
Not by Terry McCauliffe. Terry does not agree…. “It’s her turn”
“The former chairman of the Democratic Party is backing their other star to take the nomination. “She is winning,” he said at a party in Washington to launch his newly-penned book. “It’s her turn.”
Now, really Terry. There you go again – that dynasty thing. Why is it Hillary’s turn? Why is she so entitled?
From the first linked article:
[Obama] “has one signal policy advantage. In an election where the Iraq war is likely to be an issue, Mr Obama has the distinction of having opposed it all along.”
These are, it cannot be stressed too much, very early days in the 2008 presidential race. But the enthusiastic head of steam Mr Obama’s incipient campaign has already built up starts the contest on an especially positive note. It marks a new stage in the long overdue entry of black Americans into the political mainstream.
[.]
Obamamania. It may be catching. Or is it Hillary’s turn?
Surge is set to Go, then what?
We read that Bush’s new strategy for Iraq is now in place.
Earlier today Thinkprogress cited this wee gem:
“Pentagon’s planning for failure of the escalation plan.”
What’s going on? Well, they’ll tell ya… that’s a contingency – always, always our military men are required to work up a contingency plan.
“Pentagon “policy planners are conducting secret meetings to discuss what to do in the worst-case scenario in Iraq about a year from today if and when President Bush’s escalation of more than 20,000 troops fails,” according to a participant in the discussions.
“None of those who are taking part in these exercises, shielded from the public view and the immediate scrutiny of the White House, believes that the so-called surge will succeed.”
In Friday’s edition (tomorrow – on this side of the Atlantic – we get to read it tonight) The Independent, UK has published a series of related articles. On the one hand there’s an offer on the table..for peace. But on the other hand..Be still my heart. ..the last time talks with the Sunni insurgents went no where.
“One of Iraq’s principal insurgent groups has set out the terms of a ceasefire that would allow American and British forces to leave the country they invaded almost four years ago.
The present terms would be impossible for any US administration to meet – but the words of Abu Salih Al-Jeelani, one of the military leaders of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Resistance Movement show that the groups which have taken more than 3,000 American lives are actively discussing the opening of contacts with the occupation army.
[.]
but the likely
View from America: Bush won’t cut a deal that tears up his one success
“The offer of a ceasefire by one of the main Sunni insurgent groups will be received with interest in Washington. But there is scant chance it will be accepted by the Bush administration as a serious basis
for a negotiated exit from Iraq – or that such talks are even practical amid the current chaos in the country.Feelers between the two sides are not new. Over the past two years, as the depth and scope of the insurgency grew, reports surfaced of back-channel contacts between US military representatives and the insurgents – including the “1920 Revolution Brigade”, a wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement that is behind the latest offer.
Details of the talks, never officially confirmed by the US, were sketchy. But insurgent leaders were said to have been willing to accept a United Nations peacekeeping force, as the US forces pulled out. Then as now, however, Washington refused to accept anything resembling a fixed timetable for a pull-out.
[.]
The new offer has some points acceptable to the US, notably the involvement of the UN and the Arab League in any deal. But the US would be required to sit down publicly with “terrorists”. Implicitly, too, it would be siding against the Shia-dominated government of Nouri al-Maliki, to which the Bush administration is still committed.”
The demands for the current Baghdad government to be disbanded, and past elections to be nullified, would moreover repudiate the only concrete achievements the Bush White House can claim in its efforts to bring “democracy” to Iraq.
and what of the
View from Iraq: A dialogue with the Sunnis will not help the Shia difficulties
“The United States is stepping up the war in Iraq. For almost four years, it has been fighting the Iraqi Sunni community. Now it has started to confront the followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, the nationalist Shia cleric who leads the powerful Mehdi Army militia.
It is a very dangerous strategy for the US. It risks alienating the Shia without gaining the support of the Sunni. It brings it into conflict with the democratically elected Iraqi government in Baghdad, whose views and interests are ignored by Washington.
[.]
Bizarrely, US policy in Iraq is now very similar to that of the Baath party whom President Bush used to denounce so fervently. The US and the Baath both see the not-so-hidden hand of Iran as being behind the Shia militias and political parties. The Baath is by far the most anti-Iranian party in Iraq
US and Iraqi soldiers yesterday kicked in the door of the Iraqi deputy minister of health, Hakil al-Zamili, a Sadr supporter. He was led away in handcuffs, accused of being implicated in the deaths of several government officials in Diyala province, and siphoning off money to the Mehdi Army. Employees of the Health Ministry fled in panic as troops stormed their headquarters.
[.]
“It may be that, observing the increasingly anti-Shia and anti-Iranian trend in US policy, the insurgents are testing the water to see if there is common ground with Washington.”
(emphasis added)
All very interesting. Twisted. No, we are not likely to find success here. The Shia, knowing that they are in the majority, will bide their time and lie low.
No wonder the same guys we’re counting on to deliver success in Iraq are holding secret meetings planning for a sure-fire failure. One analysts called this new, new strategy of Bush, “A surge to Failure.”
Indeed it does bolster some points in Steven N. Simon’s report for the Council of Foreign Relations:
After the Surge: The Case for U.S. Military Disengagement from Iraq”
Some key points: Link to full text of Simon’s Report in pdf.
“The United States has already achieved all that it is likely to achieve in Iraq: the removal of Saddam, the end of the Ba’athist regime, the elimination of the Iraqi regional threat, the snuffing out of Iraq’s unrequited aspiration to weapons of mass destruction, and the opening of a door, however narrow, to a constitutionally based electoral democracy.
Staying in Iraq can only drive up the price of these gains in blood, treasure, and strategic position. Any realistic reckoning for the future will have to acknowledge six grim realities:
- The United States cannot determine political outcomes or achieve its remaining political aims via military means. American military forces have not brought the violence to an end or under control and will not do so in the future. In the absence of the understanding and the intelligence needed to operate effectively in the complex and violent political situation in Iraq, this should not be surprising.
- Leaving U.S. forces in Iraq under today’s circumstances means the United States is culpable but not capable–that is, Washington bears substantial responsibility for developments within Iraq without the ability to shape those developments in a positive direction. In consequence, Iraqi support for the U.S. presence has collapsed. Polls indicate that most Iraqis want the United States to pull out. Moreover, the Iraq war has fueled the jihad and apparently been a godsend to jihadi recruiters–and the process of self-recruitment–as indicated by the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the global war on terror. More broadly, the Iraq war has had a very damaging effect on the U.S. reputation in the Arab and wider Islamic world. Authoritative opinion surveys show this as well. The continued presence of U.S. forces is thus a severe setback in the canonical war of ideas, which the Bush administration has correctly assessed as crucial to American interests.
- The ongoing war has empowered and advanced the interests of the chief U.S.rival in the region, Iran. At this stage, the best way to regulate Iran’s attempts to exploit its advantages is to negotiate with Tehran either bilaterally or in a multilateral framework while protecting Americans in Iraq against Iranian attack.
- By siphoning resources and political attention away from Afghanistan, a continuing military commitment to Iraq may lead to two U.S. losses in southwest Asia.
- The Iraq war constrains the U.S. military, making it very difficult if not impossible to handle another significant contingency involving ground forces. It also damages the U.S. military, making it difficult for Washington to credibly employ coercive policies against others in the near to medium term even once the United States has disengaged from Iraq. Furthermore, the military commitment in Iraq impedes the U.S. ability to address other important international contingencies, in part because of the limitations of the U.S. military but also because of the preoccupation with Iraq at the highest decision-making levels. In short, U.S. interests in the Middle East and Persian Gulf region can be more effectively advanced if the United States disengages from Iraq. Indeed, the sooner Washington grasps this nettle, the sooner it can begin to repair the damage that has been done to America’s international position. Staying longer means more damage and a later start on repair.
- The implosion of domestic support for the war will compel the disengagement of U.S. forces; it is now just a matter of time. Better to withdraw as a coherent and at least somewhat volitional act than withdraw later in hectic response to public opposition to the war in the United States or to a series of unexpectedly sharp reverses on the ground in Iraq.
The United States should therefore make clear now to the Iraqi government that, as the results of the anticipated surge become apparent, the two sides will begin to negotiate a U.S. military disengagement from Iraq. That would entail withdrawing the bulk of American forces from Iraq within twelve to eighteen months (that is to say, over the course of calendar year 2008); shifting the American focus to containment of the conflict and strengthening the U.S. military position elsewhere in the region; and engaging Iraq’s neighbors, including Iran and Syria, members of the UN Security Council, and potential donors in an Iraq stabilization plan.
Since the surge is a fait accompli, according to the vice president, and its results will be known very soon, in the view of General Petraeus, there is little point in proposing that negotiation of a drawdown begin immediately. The prospect of disengagement, however, should be a matter of discussion with the Iraqi government now….[.]
The proposed military disengagement would not be linked to benchmarks that the Iraqi government is probably incapbale of fulfilling. This analysis differs from the Bush administration’s new strategy in its repudiation of the idea that victory in Iraq, however defined, can be won militaryily…[.]
(H/T: Laura Rozen)
Six grim realties. Unfortunately reports from the real world are never, never well received by the BushCheney cabal. No one will be allowed to deprive this administration of a war they bought with lies.
"They’re broken men, so don’t let them take us…"
..”Don’t let them take us to a new war.”
Some have observed, “a terrible calamity is just around the corner.” We now see Iran, Israel and the U.S. are at a cross-road. Will they take the road to the right, to the left or double back?
We are being led by broken men, ‘a couple of second-raters’ reads one of the Editorials in The Guardian, UK, (Sunday Edition):
“Presidents Bush and Ahmadinejad have lost face at home; now others must forge peaceful settlements in the Middle East.”
And by extension, do include Ehud Olmert, his popularity is barely at double digits. He too has lost face at home and is ratcheting up against Iran – saying just this past week he will move to prevent Iran’s nuclear program.
From The Guardian, UK,
“They’re broken men, so don’t let them take us to a new war.”
“Make no mistake: this a much more dangerous situation than Iraq and it is unfolding on the watch of a couple of second-raters.
It is true that few nations that have been more estranged over the last quarter of a century, but with the stakes so high, it seems extraordinary that America has no representation in Tehran and almost no contact except through the Swiss embassy.
As Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times reminded us last week, in 2003, America rebuffed an advance made by the Iranians through the Swiss, which, in exchange for the lifting of sanctions, suggested the two countries work together on the capture of terrorists in Iraq, stabilising the country after invasion and coming to an agreement on uranium enrichment as well as the financing of Hizbollah and Hamas.
The offer, made almost two years before Ahmadinejad was elected, was layered with insincerity and bluff, but professional diplomats are used to this. At least the two sides would have been talking and Tehran could have been held to account for some of the things that have been going on in Iraq.
But the situation is not beyond hope. The West must realise that if a first strike takes place we have lost. Whatever is destroyed in Iran, the Iranians will come back and produce a bomb that they may feel more entitled to use. The clash of civilisations predicted by neocon academics for years will have moved a step closer to dominating the 21st century at the very moment when all civilisation needs to concentrate on the multiple threats presented by climate change.”
Down this road we go – ‘To Teheran by way of Baghdad’ observes a second editorial. From The Independent, UK
“There was not a chink of light between the British and American positions in Iraq, said a White House spokesman on Wednesday night. No, indeed. What there is is growing darkness. The US President has announced a “new strategy” to send 20,000 more US troops to Iraq.
No one knows whether the Senate will grant the money, what the extra troops are actually for and how long they’ll be there, or whether the British are part of it or embarked on a withdrawal all of our own.
So confused is the discussion that there is now a whole new theory that the additional American forces are not there to bring security to Iraq at all. They’re there to face off Iran for the moment when Washington, or more likely Jerusalem, decides to launch the bombers.
[.]Iran is the spectre that haunts the Middle East at the moment. Almost every comment from Washington suggests that the White House sees it as the greatest single threat to its policy in the region, and that neither the US nor, even less, Israel will sit by and let Iran continue on its nuclear course, peaceful or otherwise.
Every diplomatic and military action also suggests that the US is looking to face down the regime in Tehran by erecting a coalition of Sunni countries around and suppressing the Shia groups within Iraq which are held to be under Tehran’s control.
It may be pure and fanciful speculation, but it has to be said that half the military and political establishment believes that an attack on Iran is likely.
[.]
Everything is connected? Really! Everything? The signs are everywhere.
We have the neo-cons banging the drums for a new war. Why not two?
There’s the disinformation, as our own Steven D observed in his front page article today, and there’s the shameless direct ad campaigns. That’s surely something new. Who would’ve thought, an ad campaign to set up a war! Who is behind that?
But, hold on a minute.
We are now hearing from other Israelis, that ‘Israel’s image needs an extreme makeover.’ or ‘A Brand-New Approach’ – not a new policy approach but a re-branding – as in hiring on Madison Avenue advertising consultants.
There is also another view that “Israel needs to get out of Bush’s Back seat.”
‘Olmert is seen as outsourcing Israel’s strategic decisions to a bungling Bush.’
the money graphs:
“Olmert appears to be outsourcing Israel’s strategic decision-making to a White House that has repeatedly demonstrated a catastrophic failure to grasp the realities of the region.
Betting Israel’s security on the ability of the Bush crowd to transform the strategic landscape in the Middle East is rather like leaving a party in the backseat of an SUV whose driver is cradling a bottle of tequila and slurring his words as he rebuffs offers by more sober friends to take the wheel.”
Warning signs have been there for months: When Olmert stumbled into Lebanon last summer, he may have been expecting Washington to play the role of the big brother who would drag him, still swinging, off Hassan Nasrallah, having demonstrated his “deterrent” power without getting himself into too much trouble.
Instead, he found Washington impatiently egging him on, demanding that he destroy Nasrallah to prove a point to the Shiite leader’s own big brother, and holding back anyone else who tried to break up the fight. As neocon cheerleaders like Charles Krauthammer made plain, the administration was disappointed at Olmert’s wimpish performance.
Clearly, the game changed when the United States blundered into Iraq, believing it could transform the region through the application of its overwhelming military force. Sober minds in Washington have concluded that Iraq is lost, but Bush is having none of it – as he made clear last week,[.]
Speaking of brands. I thought it was a JD. But seriously, one can only guess they’ve read Harold Meyerson’s piece:
“Hedgehog Follies”
“Bush, in all matters pertaining to his war, is a one-trick president who keeps doing the same thing over and over, never mind that it hasn’t worked… He’s a delusional hedgehog who knows one thing that isn’t so.”
Setting up the conflagration: Escalation Against Iran before the bombs drop:
The Pieces Are Being Put in Place – Col. Sam Gardiner
On the brink is Lebanon, destabilized by Bush’s egging on Olmert.
“We ignore at our peril a new and terrible page opening as the world blithely looks on,”-Robert Fisk
Why is the U.S Arming Fatah against Hamas?– Christopher Brauchli – because ‘When in doubt, start another civil war.’
Question of the Day: What is the U.S. role in the region?
This from TAP: “Trapped in an Iron Cage.”– Jo-Ann Mort interviewed Rashid Khalidi on the Palestinians’ decades struggle for statehood, the failure to establish a state in 1948.
In a nutshell:
And the U.S. role in the region?
“Everything is now connected.”
“It’s not just Palestinians and Israelis … it’s much bigger than that now, for good or for ill. It involves the Lebanese crisis, which is in a critical state now … The Syrians don’t just want something in Lebanon or to have influence in the Palestinian arena; they also want to do a deal in Iraq.”
“The Iranians don’t just want to have influence in Iraq; they also want an end to American hostility. …The problem with that is it requires a 180 degree shift on behalf of people whose feet, as far as I can tell, are entrenched in solid concrete. By that I mean the president and vice president. [Deputy National Security Advisor] Elliot Abrams hasn’t gone anywhere. One can go on and on….”
“That to me is the $64,000 question, which is not to say that I think that the U.S. is key to everything. But I really do think that if the U.S. plays a negative role in two or three [situations] — let’s say Lebanon or Iran, or Iraq, let’s say they refuse to talk to the Sunni insurrectionists or they refuse to give Iran what it sees as its due or they refuse to … allow Israel to talk to Syria — it’s a real problem. Because the hip bone is connected to the backbone, etc.”
So is everything connected? ‘Yes, more than you know’ say some Israelis – bringing to light this most damning charge: that Israel’s ratcheting up on Iran is a campaign that has nothing to do with nukes.
It is a planned distraction, says Ilan Pappe, (professor at Haifa University), during an interview on his book: ‘Ilan Pappe and the Nakba Deniers’ -“The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine:”
A book that shines 10,000 candles:
Excerpt from one review: John Whitbeck, an international lawyer from South Africa.
“For anyone who possesses a strong stomach and an equally strong desire to know the truth, I strongly recommend Israeli historian Ilan Pappe’s new book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”, which makes painstakingly and painfully clear the extent to which the expulsion of the great majority of Palestinians from their homes and homeland between 1947 and 1949 (an expulsion absolutely essential to create a “Jewish state” in a country where, in 1947, the population was still 70% Muslim and Christian and these non-Jews still owned 94% of the land) was meticulously planned, programmed and documented, ruthlessly carried out and, thereafter, efficiently covered up, sanitized, erased from minds and memories and, to the extent necessary, denied.
Pappe also makes clear that the cleansing spirit and cleansing practices have continued ever since, with public discussion in Israel of the “demographic threat” posed by those Palestinians still remaining in Palestinian never more openly conducted and with a recent poll showing 68% of Israeli Jews in favor of expelling all Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Unfortunately, this book, published in England (and available from amazon.com), is highly likely to go unreviewed and largely unnoticed in the United States, a country where objective historical truth is much less popular than “revealed truth” and pure fantasy and where the Israel-First Lobby starts with a distinct home-field advantage in pursuing its successful efforts to convince American public opinion that American interests and values are identical to Israeli interests and values and to make American foreign policy and America’s wars indistinguishable from Israeli foreign policy and Israel’s wars. [.]
In addition, a significant proportion of the American population embraces a perverted interpretation of Christianity which ignores the humane message of Jesus Christ and the Golden Rule and focuses the devotions of its adherents not on God but, rather, on “God’s Chosen People”, through whose success in ethnically cleansing Palestine and provoking cataclysmic warfare these so-called “Christians” hope to achieve their personal, selfish “rapture” and “salvation”.[.]
Unless we are saved by an Impeachment of Bush – book mark this link for a fictional read over the book salon at Firedoglake “The United States v. George W. Bush, et al– we have two more years of bungling Bush, so we look ahead to his successor to clean up this mess.
Not much hope here. Silence is golden. Why should our presidential candidates seek anointment and be vetted by others?
“In a crowded field of presidential hopefuls, one would think the campaign trail begins in…”
New Hampshire? No.
Iowa? No.
Wisconsin? No.
North Carolina? No.
Where then?
[As] “the cardboard cut-out presidential wannabes trek to Israel for acceptance, bending over backwards to parrot the Likudnik line on Iran, we turn to Ilan Pappe, an Israeli-born professor at Haifa University. Pappe was recently interviewed by Today’s Zaman, a Turkish web site. Going after Iran, Pappe insists, has nothing to do with nukes. Instead, it has everything to do with the Zionist project, i.e., the task of dispossessing Palestinians of their land and inflicting privation upon them.
“Israel has its own plan for imposing its will and this is in Palestine,” Pappe told Ali Cimen. “It wishes unilaterally to annex large parts of the areas it occupied in 1967 and to imprison the Palestinians in small Bantustans and by that destroy the Palestine will and aspirations. Only two movements, Hezbollah and Hamas, and only two states, Syria and Iran, oppose this scheme.
Israel sees the present American administration and mood as providing a rare window of opportunity to use its military might for destroying the only forces willing to resist its policies in Palestine.”Naturally, come the election next year, with the American election selectees all lined up neatly in a row like rubber ducks with their Likudnik endorsements in hand, we will hear nothing of this long planned ethnic cleansing campaign, although we will assuredly hear about the threat of Iran, determined to cobble together a nuclear bomb or two and take out Israel in one last suicidal gasp.
Of course, come the election, large areas of Iran may be already smoldering under a dreadful radioactive pall cast by “mini-nukes,” as only a blind, deaf, and dumb person–or one tuned in incessantly to Fox News–is unable to hear the alarm bells screaming, drawing closer from the distance, foretelling a terrible calamity right around the corner.”
And in a side bar, former Democratic senator from South Dakota: “The Hidden Cost of Free Congressional Trips to Israel”
“If Congress is serious about ethics reform, it should not protect the Israel lobby from the consequences. A totally taxpayer-funded travel budget for members to take foreign fact-finding trips, with authorization to be made by committee heads, would be an important first step toward a foreign policy that genuinely serves America.”
Having taken sides, the The U.S. has lost the role of honest broker in the Middle East and along with the Palestinians find themselves and Israelis trapped.
It’s time to end a foreign policy that is crafted by the ‘Israel-First’ Lobby. We’re not so chosen.
Idredit’s Notes:
- Those who are inclined to assail me as anti-Semite, take note as you honor the mezuzah on my door, my family roots are Sephardi.
- emphasis where applicable are mine
Stop The Assault on President Carter
Under our rights of free speech why should President Carter have to defend his book?. Oh, I forgot. The right of free speech and thought was scrubbed along with habeas corpus.
What’s all the fury about? President Carter dared to call it as he sees it and uttered the A word: A as in APARTHEID.
Carter defends his book: “Palestine: Peace Not apartheid”
“I have been called a liar,”[.]
I have been called an anti-Semite,” he said. “I have been called a bigot. I have been called a plagiarist. I have been called a coward. Those kind of accusations, they concern me, but they don’t detract from the fact the book is accurate and is needed.”
“Not one of the critics of my book has contradicted any of the basic premises … that is the horrible persecution and oppression of the Palestinian people and secondly that the formula for finding peace in the Middle East already exists,” the 82-year-old Carter said.
Carter said he was pleased the book has stimulated discussion of an issue that has been “omitted from the public consciousness” for at least the last six years.
“Israel needs peace and the Palestinian people need peace and justice and I hope my limited influence will help to precipitate some steps,” he said.
My rail is against the dumb Israel lobby – the Israel factor that dominates Western governments, a group that finds the truth most inconvenient. The same group that labels anyone who dares to criticize the policies of any Israeli government as anti-Semite.
They’ve marshalled their forces, pressured directors of The Carter Center to resign. Get this, over his book!
Yes they’re dumb. But not just dumb, they’re evil, vile and ungrateful.
How can anyone call President Jimmy Carter an anti-Semite for telling the truth is beyond me. And before Alan Dershowitz or Daniel Pipes comes at me, honor the Mezuzah as you open my door. My family tree is of Sephardi roots (not Ashkenazi)- we hail from Portugal.
I’m appalled, ashamed of those who support and encourage you, Alan Dershowitz, shame on you for siding with leading proponents of torture. I’m equally ashamed of followers of Ariel Sharon, Avigdor Lieberman, Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Olmert.
We Jews need to stop seeing everyone as a threat. Stop the propaganda and make peace. I stand with former President Carter. In fact he did not tell all.
But what do we have here? A little distraction.
First Bomb Carter; Then Nuke Iran!
“The Israel Lobby Trips and Tilts”
“For weeks now the lobby has hurled its legions into battle against Carter. He has been stigmatized as an anti-Semite, a Holocaust denier, a patron of former concentration camp killers, a Christian madman, a pawn of the Arabs who “flatly condones mass murder” of Israeli Jews. (This last was from Murdoch’s New York Post editorial, relayed to its mailing list by the Zionist Organization of America.)
The trouble with the lobby and the Christian zealots who act as its echo chamber is that they believe their own propaganda about Israel’s equitable social arrangements and immaculate political and legal record in its relations with the Palestinians. Use the word apartheid and they howl with indignation. The shock is about thirty years out of date.
Israeli writers have used the word apartheid to describe arrangements in the occupied territories for years. Hundreds of prominent South African Jews issued a statement six years ago making the same link.
That headline, “Bomb Carter, Then Nuke Iran” is shocking, isn’t it? The article was posted January 20/21/2007. Tonight, 01/24/07 in The Independent, UK, is this headline:
Israel raises nuclear stakes with Iran
“The Jewish people, with the scars of the Holocaust fresh on its body, cannot afford to allow itself to face threats of annihilation once again,” Mr Olmert said in a speech to a high-level security conference in Herzliya.
“No nation has the right even to consider its position. It is the obligation of every country to act against this with all its might.”
“We can stand up against nuclear threats and even prevent them,” he said.”
Tough talk Ehud. I say to Mr. Olmert there is a greater threat than Iran on your doorstep – on the other side of that wall. The Palestinians are being annihilated, slowly. Oh so slowly. Collective punishment. No medicines. The tax revenues of the Palestinians are confiscated because you Mr. Olmert and your backers, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair, did not like the results of the election that brought Hamas to power – an election declared to be free and fair.
After Israel nukes Iran, what then and who is next?
Why should we be grateful to President Jimmy Carter? Let us remind – as rightfully President Carter observes:
“Israel needs peace and the Palestinian people need peace and justice and I hope my limited influence will help to precipitate some steps,”
Also Saturday, Carter, at times emotional, told a town hall meeting of how he saved the 1978 Camp David peace talks when it appeared Egyptian president Anwar Sadat would leave.
Carter said in the first three days of the talks Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin often argued.
After about a week, Carter said, Sadat reached a breaking point and packed his bags to return to Egypt — and Carter “knelt down and prayed and I asked God to help me.”
Carter said he then walked to Sadat’s cabin.
“Sadat and I stood with our noses almost touching and I told him that he had betrayed me and betrayed his own people and if he left our friendship was severed forever and the relationship between the United States and Egypt would suffer.”Sadat agreed to stay, and the Camp David Accords were signed.”
But read on. Racism is alive and well in Israel. Oh yes, it is because Carter “Doesn’t Tell the Half of It”
How Israel Enforces “Demographic Separation”
Not a word is said of Israel quietly putting in place the ethnic cleansing – the plan to deport Arabs. In the march to recognize Israel as a Jewish and Zionist state, politicians compete for the title of Pure Zionist-in-chief.
Here is an excerpt from the book, A History of The Jews – by Paul Johnson – on a warning written in 1891 that went unheeded. Mr Johnson writes:
“A few Zionist had foreseen that to use Palestine to settle ‘the Jewish problem’ might in turn create ‘the Arab problem. Ahad Ha’Am, who had visited Erez Israel, had written an article, “The Truth from Palestine” in 1891. He issued a warning. It was a great mistake, he said for Zionists to dismiss the Arabs as stupid savages who did not realize what was happening…..
[The Arabs] see through our activity in the country and its purpose but they keep silent, since for the time being they do not fear any danger for their future. When however the life of our people develop to the point when indigenous people feel threatened, they will not easily give way any longer.
How careful must we be in dealing with an alien people in whose midst we want to settle! How essential it is to practise kindness and esteem towards them!…If ever the Arab judges the action of his rivals to be oppression or the robbing of his rights, then even if he is silent and waits for his time, the rage will stay alive in his heart.”
This warning was largely ignored.[.]
Thankfully, a few Israelis do recognize the slippery slope we’ve taken. Shulamit Aloni, former Education Minister of Israel, puts it best-
Yes, There is Apartheid in Israel – It’s an order–this is Jews-only road”
“Jewish self-righteousness is taken for granted among ourselves to such an extent that we fail to see what’s right in front of our eyes. It’s simply inconceivable that the ultimate victims, the Jews, can carry out evil deeds. Nevertheless, the state of Israel practises its own, quite violent, form of Apartheid with the native Palestinian population.
The US Jewish Establishment’s onslaught on former President Jimmy Carter is based on him daring to tell the truth which is known to all: through its army, the government of Israel practises a brutal form of Apartheid in the territory it occupies.
Its army has turned every Palestinian village and town into a fenced-in, or blocked-in, detention camp. All this is done in order to keep an eye on the population’s movements and to make its life difficult. Israel even imposes a total curfew whenever the settlers, who have illegally usurped the Palestinians’ land, celebrate their holidays or conduct their parades.
If that were not enough, the generals commanding the region frequently issue further orders, regulations, instructions and rules (let us not forget: they are the lords of the land).
By now they have requisitioned further lands for the purpose of constructing “Jewish only” roads. Wonderful roads, wide roads, well-paved roads, brightly lit at night–all that on stolen land. When a Palestinian drives on such a road, his vehicle is confiscated and he is sent on his way.
On one occasion I witnessed such an encounter between a driver and a soldier who was taking down the details before confiscating the vehicle and sending its owner away. “Why?” I asked the soldier. “It’s an order–this is a Jews-only road”, he replied.
And from Uri Avnery, an Israeli writer and contributor to Ha’aretz writes “Israel and Apartheid.”
“Yesterday, a decree of the Officer Commanding the Central Sector, General Yair Naveh, was about to come into force. It forbade Israeli drivers from giving a ride to Palestinian passengers in the occupied territories. The knitted-Kippah-wearing General, a friend of the settlers, justified this as a vital security necessity.
In the past, inhabitants of the West Bank have sometimes reached Israeli territory in Israeli cars. Israeli peace activists decided that this nauseating order must be protested.
At the last moment, the general “froze” the order. The demonstration was called off.THE ORDER that was suspended (but not officially rescinded) emitted a strong odor of apartheid. It joins a large number of acts of the occupation authorities that are reminiscent of the racist regime of South Africa, such as the systematic building of roads in the West Bank for Israelis only and on which Palestinians are forbidden to travel. Or the “temporary” law that forbids Palestinians in the occupied territories, who have married Israeli citizens, to live with their spouses in Israel.
And, most importantly, the Wall, which is officially called “the separation obstacle”. In Afrikaans, “apartheid” means separation.
The “vision” of Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert amounts to the establishment of a “Palestinian state” that would be nothing more than a string of Palestinian islands in an Israeli sea.
It is easy to detect a similarity between the planned enclaves and the “Bantustans” that were set up by the White regime in South Africa–the so-called “homelands” where the Blacks were supposed to enjoy “self-rule” but which really amounted to racist concentration camps.[.]
SOME PEOPLE in Israel and around the world follow the Apartheid analogy to its logical conclusion: the solution here will be the same as the one in South Africa
There, the Whites surrendered and the Black majority assumed power. The country remained united. Thanks to wise leaders, headed by Nelson Mandela and Frederick Willem de Klerk, this happened without bloodshed.
American tax dollars – billions per year spent in shame – building ghettos. No health care for the poor, the under-insured here in America.
Billions to Israel, well spent in shame. And we affirm by our silence.
The wall will not save us as a people or the promised land, the State of Israel.
South Africa has Mandela. Who will be his equal in Israel?
“The poorest deserve the best – when you hear that, I wonder if you can take in just how revolutionary it is”
“Every wall we build to defend ourselves and keep out what may destroy us is also a wall that keeps us in and that will change us in ways we did not choose or want”
So said Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, England, on his recent Christmas pilgrimage with Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor.Dr. Williams told the BBC the Israel’s wall- security barrier was causing problems, preventing people from going about their lives.”
More voices are raising an outcry but as yet, there’s is no ‘Coalition of The Willing’. Maybe soon. Had the Palestinians erected that Wall of Shame, a coalition to tear it down would have been assembled before the first bag of cement was mixed.
Israeli separation barrier is cutting off Palestinians from their livelihood
“A British government-funded report says the route of Israel’s separation barrier is trapping 250,000 Palestinians in enclaves designed to protect Jewish settlers in the occupied territory.
It says that creation of the enclaves cutting Palestinian communities off from the rest of the West Bank “almost totally ignores the daily needs of the Palestinian population” and is “focused almost exclusively on the desire to maintain the fabric of life of Israeli settlers”.
The critical report – which says the existence of some Palestinian communities is threatened by the barrier – was produced by the Israeli planning and rights organisation Bimkom. The research was jointly funded by the New Israel Fund and the British Embassy in Tel Aviv. [.]
‘Enclaves’ that’s a 21st century sanitizing of words: less odious than “ghettos” “Bantuslands” “concentration camps”
Less we forget. Flashback: “It’s December 1938. Himmler has just reduced Jewish mobility, to assist the concentration process, simply by revoking all Jewish drivers licences.” – The History of The Jews – Paul Johnson (Harper & Row).
How history does repeat. Never thought I’d have to call upon the late President Reagan.
Mr. Olmert, Tear down that Wall!
(emphasis added throughout)
FIREWORKS In Court!: Libby Blames Rove
Deserving of a little diary. Scooter Libby’s trial is now underway.
For the best live blogging from the court room, EmptyWheel is posting over at Firedoglake
This morning the jury heard Fitzgerald’s Opening Statement followed by Ted Wells, Scooter Libby’s Attorney.
In my view, Wells dropped a bombshell: It’s posted by Emptywheel best there’s and, at The Corner here’s how it’s reported
LIBBY ATTACKS ROVE AND THE WHITE HOUSE
A dramatic split inside the Bush White House is coming to light on the first day of the Lewis Libby trial. At this moment, defense lawyer Ted Wells is making an impassioned opening argument, and much of it is a hard-edged attack on Libby’s former White House colleague Karl Rove.
“There will be some people at the White House — at the White House, not the office of the vice president — who you will learn may have pushed reporters to write stories about Mrs. Wilson,” Wells said. “There may be people at the State Department who pushed reporters to write stories about Mrs. Wilson. But Scooter Libby did not push any reporter to write a story about Mrs. Wilson. Yet the man who pushed no one is sitting here in this courtroom.”
“Wells told the jury that the White House went all out to defend Rove against accusations he revealed Mrs. Wilson’s identity, but did not protect Libby in the same way, leading Libby to suspect that he was being singled out for blame in the matter. “[Mr. Libby] was concerned about being the scapegoat,” Wells said. “Mr. Libby said to the vice president, ‘People in the White House are trying to set me up, people in the White House are trying to make me a scapegoat.’ People in the White House are trying to protect a man named Karl Rove, the president’s right-hand man,” Wells said.[.]
(emphasis added)
It’s gonna be interesting when Cheney testifies on that note he wrote..And Fitzergald said Libby lied.
Go read for yourself….
Who woulda thought? A well kept secret..a split in the White House..that’s now seeing the light of day.
Update [2007-1-23 18:21:25 by idredit]: Fireworks indeed: Cheney ‘Deeply Involved’ Watch the video via Thinkprogress. Turns out that note Cheney wrote, Libby destroyed the evidence prior to testifying.
Any tailors in the house? Who will volunteer to make Libby’s jumpsuit?
Sen. Patrick Leahy Slams Gonzales: He has 1 Wk.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. He needs a cold shower after the grilling he received. First he got the soft touch from Orin Hatch “lauding his extreme integrity and diligence” WTF?
Then the grilling began from Senator Feingold on TSA, Terrorists Surveillance Program and FISA. Caught by Glenn Greenwald
“The Grave and Epic War – Spending time with Alberto Gonzales, Orin Hatch and Russ Feingold”
In an exchange is this weird reply from Gonzales:
Feingold’s first question – “do you know of any one in the country who opposed eavesdropping on terrorists?”
Gonzales: Sure – if you look at blogs today, there is a lot of concern about all types of eavesdropping, who don’t want us eavesdropping at all.
Feingold: Do you know anyone in government who ever took that position?
Gonzales: No, but that is not what I said.
Feingold: It is a disgrace and disservice to your office and the President to have accused people on this Committee of opposing eavesdropping on terrorists.
Gonzales: I didn’t have you in mind or anyone on the Committee when I referred to people who oppose eavesdropping on terrorists. Perish the thought.
Feingold: Oh, well it’s nice that you didn’t have us “in your mind” when making those accusations, but given that you and the President were running around the country accusing people of opposing eavesdropping on terrorists in the middle of an election, the fact that you didn’t have Congressional Democrats in “mind” isn’t significant.
Your intent was to make people think that anyone who opposed the “TSP” did not want to eavesdrop on terrorists, even though that was false. No Democrats oppose eavesdropping on terrorists.Gonzales: I wasn’t referring to Democrats.
(emphasis added)
Hmmm, Good to know Gonzales reads the blogs and that we’re under watch. You know what am saying? BEWARE!
That was just the warm-up of his grilling. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales got BBQed, Well Done and crispy. Senator Patrick Leahy at this point is joined by Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Laura Rozen caught some of this segment on the US attorneys that were pressured to resign:
10:45am: Sen. Feinstein, a member of both the Judiciary and Intel committees, now up. How many US attorneys have been asked to resign in the past year?
Gonzales: You know…. I don’t know the answer to that question. …. We gave you a lot of information in the letter Tuesday. …
Feinstein: I know of at least six who have been asked to resign. I know we amended the Patriot Act…We did not amend it to prevent the confirmation process from taking place. I have had two of them asked to resign from my state with substantially good records as prosecutors, and I am very concerned. Because technically under the Patriot Act you can appoint someone without confirmation for the remainder of the President’s term.
Gonzales: No evidence that is what I am trying to do. […]
Feinstein: Was there any other reason to ask Bud Cummings of Arkansas to resign other than to put [former RNC opposition researcher and Rove aide] Tim Griffin in?
Gonzales: (won’t say). . . .
Leahy: Would it be possible during lunch to get the numbers Sen. Feinstein asked for?
Gonzales: I don’t want to have a public discussion about personnel decisions…..
Leahy: Just the numbers . . .
But the fire to Gonzales’ feet was to come when Sen. Leahy turned to torture and the Canadian Maher Arar case. Leahy showed his anger. He was scathing and gave Gonzales ONE week, saying:
U.S. ‘knew damn well’ Arar would be tortured”
WATCH VIDEO via C&L HERE
From the CBC
“Gonzales was grilled relentlessly on Thursday by Senate judiciary committee chairman Patrick Leahy.
Leahy said that when Arar — a citizen of both Canada and Syria travelling on a Canadian passport — was detained in 2002, American authorities knew he would be tortured if they deported him to Syria.
“We knew damn well if he went to Canada he wouldn’t be tortured,” said Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont. “He’d be held and he’d be investigated.
“We also knew damn well if he went to Syria, he’d be tortured. And it’s beneath the dignity of this country — a country that has always been a beacon of human rights — to send somebody to another country to be tortured.
“You know and I know that has happened a number of times in the past five years by this country. It is a black mark on us.”
Leahy noted that U.S. officials claimed to have had assurances that people sent to Syria would not be tortured.
“Assurances,” he snorted, “from a country that we also say now that we can’t talk to them because we can’t take their word for anything.” Gonzales was not attorney general in 2002 but drafted some of the administration’s justifications for harsh interrogation practices in combating terrorism.
He promised the committee a briefing on the Arar case. It was not immediately clearly whether the information would be made public.
“Before you get more upset,” he told Leahy, “perhaps you should wait to receive the briefing.”
“How long?” the senator responded.
“I’m hoping that we can get you the information next week.”
(emphasis added)
NPR, All Things Considered aired an interview with Senator Leahy.. In short he was still fuming. Leahy is not satisfied and notes the administration did an abrupt U-turn on the NSA wire taps. He has asked the FISA court judge to release records. “No one is above the law and that includes the president” said Leahy. So Stay tuned.
Some BBQ.
Guess Mr. Gonzales saw this coming when he pre-announced Bush would now seek court warrants. But don’t be fooled. Leahy isn’t buying. There are those National Security letters.
SHOCK and OIL: Iraqi billions, GOP coffers
This scandal deserves a little diary. Revealed in the Sunday Edition of The Independent, UK, how a private company is an arm of the U.S. government – a part of the U.S. government’s strategy of spreading ‘free market reforms’ – and receiving contracts under a skewed bidding process that cannot be considered transparent.
“Shock and oil: Iraq’s billions & the White House connection”
“The American company appointed to advise the US government on the economic reconstruction of Iraq has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars into Republican Party coffers and has admitted that its own finances are in chaos because of accounting errors and bad management.[.]
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, BearingPoint employees gave $117,000 (£60,000) to the 2000 and 2004 Bush election campaigns, more than any other Iraq contractor. Other recipients include three prominent Congressmen on the House of Representatives’ defence sub-committee, which oversees defence department contracts.[.]
Despite annual revenues of $3.4bn, the company made a loss of $722m in 2005. Those figures were released only last month, nine months late, and the company has not yet been able to report any fully audited figures at all for 2006.
Last week The Independent on Sunday revealed that a BearingPoint employee, based in the US embassy in Baghdad, had been tasked with advising the Iraqi Ministry of Oil on drawing up a new hydrocarbon law.
The legislation, which is due to be presented to Iraq’s parliament within days, will give Western oil companies a large slice of profits from the country’s oil fields in exchange for investing in new oil infrastructure.[.]
(emphasis added)
There is more. Go read the whole thing. Despite the company lossing money, The Independent reports,
“It also dramatically increased its political contributions in the run-up to the midterm elections, distributing $120,000 to candidates and campaign groups from its employee-sponsored political fund. That compares with $61,000 in the 2004 elections.”
“BearingPoint has dramatically stepped up its attempts to buy influence in Washington. Its contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan coincide with a big increase in its lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill.”
How’s it that we have to read it over there and not here?