Monday, 22 September 2008

Judy Benson: Wetlands - Nature's 'Horizontal Levees' - Blunt Storm Damage: Recent study puts a dollar value on their ability to protect coast Kevin G. Hall: Can You Trust A Wall Street Veteran with A Wall Street Bailout?

Paulson presided over one of the most profitable runs on Wall Street as chairman and chief executive officer of investment banking titan Goldman Sachs & Co. from 1999 until President Bush nominated him on May 30, 2006 to take over the Treasury Department.

Bernd Debusmann: Socialism US-Style and Ronald Reagan

"We do not support government bailouts of private institutions," [the 2008 platform of the Republican Party] said. "Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself. We believe in the free market as the best tool to sustained prosperity and opportunity for all."

[...]

McCain's initial reaction to the unfolding crisis was a call for the establishment of a commission to find out what led to the crisis, a classic Washington insider's response. He could have started by asking Phil Gramm, until recently his economic guru and once thought a leading contender for the post of Treasury Secretary if McCain won the election.

[...]

Gramm was the driving force behind the two pieces of legislation at the bottom of the crisis -- the repeal, in 1999, of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act which had created a firewall between commercial and investment banking; and the Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000. The way the latter passed was extraordinary: 262 pages of dense language slipped into an 11,000-page omnibus bill on the Friday before the Christmas recess.

"The act freed complex derivatives from any regulation," said Michael Greenberger, who served in the Commodities and Futures Trading commission in the late 1990s. "It set the stage for the present mess and the problem is, no one knows how many of these instruments are still out there or who holds them."

Richard W. Behan: The $700 Billion Wall Street Bailout: One More Weapon of Mass Deception

The $700 billion of taxpayers' money, in the plan suggested by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, will buy enough of the toxic obligations to allow the companies to avoid bankruptcy. Not coincidentally a major beneficiary of the scheme will be the investment bank Goldman, Sachs. Mr. Paulson resigned as CEO of Goldman, Sachs to become Treasury Secretary in 2006, having amassed a personal net worth of $700 million during his 32-year tenure at the bank. (On average, $21.9 million per year.)

[...]

The distressed assets-that is the losses-can and should be absorbed by the executives, directors, and stockholders of the corporate banks and other institutions that propagated the financial firestorm. They can and should, as the dictates of the free market insist, stand accountable for their actions and accept bankruptcy. It is not the responsibility of the American taxpayers to shield them.

Chris Hedges: Fleecing What's Left of the Treasury

John McCain and Barack Obama know, after all, who funds their campaigns. The financial industry has given $22.5 million in the current election cycle to Obama and $19.6 million to McCain, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Thursday, 7 February 2008

Speakers at Academy Said to Make False Claims

The Air Force Academy was criticized by Muslim and religious freedom organizations for playing host on Wednesday to three speakers who critics say are evangelical Christians falsely claiming to be former Muslim terrorists.

The three will be paid a total of $13,000 for their appearance, some of it from private donors, said Maj. Brett Ashworth, a spokesman for the academy.

Members of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a group suing the federal government to combat what it calls creeping evangelism in the armed forces, said it was typical of the Air Force Academy to invite born-again Christians to address cadets on terrorism rather than experts who could teach students about the Middle East.

"This stuff going on at the academy today is part of the endemic evangelical infiltration that continues," said David Antoon, a 1970 academy graduate and a foundation member.

Academic professors and others who have heard the three men speak in the United States and Canada said some of their stories border on the fantastic, like Mr. Saleem's account of how, as a child, he infiltrated Israel to plant bombs via a network of tunnels underneath the Golan Heights. No such incidents have been reported, the academic experts said. They also question how three middle-aged men who claim they were recruited as teenagers or younger could have been steeped in the violent religious ideology that only became prevalent in the late 1980s.

Prof. Douglas Howard, who teaches the history of the modern Middle East at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., heard Mr. Saleem speak last November at the college and said he thought the three were connected to several major Christian evangelical organizations.

"It was just an old time gospel hour --- 'Jesus can change your life, he changed mine,' " Mr. Howard said. "That is mixed in with 'Watch out America, wake up America, the danger of Islam is here.' "

Mr. Howard said his doubts about their authenticity grew after stories like the Golan Heights saga as well as something on Mr. Saleem's Web site along the lines that he was descended from the grand wazir of Islam. "The grand wazir of Islam is a nonsensical term," Mr. Howard said.

Arab-American civil rights organizations question why, at a time when the United States government has vigorously moved to jail or at least deport anyone with a known terrorist connection, the three men, if they are telling the truth, are allowed to circulate freely. A spokesman for the F.B.I. said there were no warrants for their arrest.

Israel launches deadly Gaza raids

The teacher, 38, was killed when a surface-to-surface missile hit a school in Beit Hanoun in a separate raid.

Seven Palestinians killed in IDF raid in Gaza; 7 Qassams hit Negev Israeli raids in Gaza leave seven dead Egyptian FM threatens to break Palestinians' legs if they breach border again

CAIRO, Egypt: Egypt's foreign minister said that no further violations of its borders would be tolerated in the wake of a 12-day breach of its frontier with Gaza and said anyone daring to cross would have their legs broken, the state news agency reported.

Related items:

• $50 billion later, taking stock of US aid to Egypt

  Aid is central to Washington's relationship with Cairo. The US has provided Egypt with $1.3 billion a year in military aid since 1979, and an average of $815 million a year in economic assistance. All told, Egypt has received over $50 billion in US largesse [sic] since 1975.

Wednesday, 30 January 2008

Bush asserts authority to bypass defense act

WASHINGTON - President Bush this week declared that he has the power to bypass four laws, including a prohibition against using federal funds to establish permanent US military bases in Iraq, that Congress passed as part of a new defense bill.

John Edwards to Quit Presidential Race

Tuesday, 29 January 2008

Kathleen Newman & Barbara Ehrenreich: Bush Has Ignored the Working Poor and Failed to Address Growing Economic Inequality Newman on John Edwards:

"As far as I'm concerned he's the only candidate who has made the issue of poverty central. And this is why I am a supporter of his from the very beginning. he understands theses structural inequalities are not going to go away unless we attack the problem of poverty."

Sunday, 27 January 2008

Religious Leaders Assail Bush Agenda Antarctic Glaciers Melting More Quickly Big business says addressing climate change 'rates very low on agenda': Poll of 500 major firms reveals that only one in 10 regard global warming as a priority Margaret Thatcher told navy to raid Swedish coast

MARGARET THATCHER ordered the Royal Navy to land Special Boat Service (SBS) frogmen on the coast of Sweden from British submarines pretending to be Soviet vessels, a new book has claimed.

Saturday, 26 January 2008

Biofuels a Lose-Lose Strategy, Critics Say

BROOKLIN - U.S. biofuels production is driving up food prices around the world, giving billions of poor people a very good reason to hate U.S. policy, say environmentalists.

Bush Opens Roadless Tongass National Forest to Logging Money Left Behind: Lincoln Elementary is among a small number of U.S. schools turning down Title I funds --- and gaining independence.

Friday, 25 January 2008

Scott Horton: The Illustrated President

George W. Bush is famous for his attachment to a painting which he acquired after becoming a "born again Christian." It's by W.H.D. Koerner and is entitled "A Charge to Keep." Bush was so taken by it, that he took the painting's name for his own official autobiography. And here's what he says about it:

'I thought I would share with you a recent bit of Texas history which epitomizes our mission. When you come into my office, please take a look at the beautiful painting of a horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and rough trail. This is us. What adds complete life to the painting for me is the message of Charles Wesley that we serve One greater than ourselves.'

So Bush's description of "A Charge to Keep" struck me as very strange. In fact, I'd say highly improbable. Now, however, Jacob Weisberg has solved the mystery. He invested the time to track down the commission behind the art work and he gives us the full story in his forthcoming book on Bush, The Bush Tragedy:

'[Bush] came to believe that the picture depicted the circuit-riders who spread Methodism across the Alleghenies in the nineteenth century. In other words, the cowboy who looked like Bush was a missionary of his own denomination.

'Only that is not the title, message, or meaning of the painting. The artist, W.H.D. Koerner, executed it to illustrate a Western short story entitled "The Slipper Tongue," published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1916. The story is about a smooth-talking horse thief who is caught, and then escapes a lynch mob in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The illustration depicts the thief fleeing his captors. In the magazine, the illustration bears the caption: "Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught."

Broadcast Exclusive: Abu Ghraib Whistleblower Samuel Provance Speaks Out on Torture and Cover-Up at U.S. Military Jail

He was the first intelligence specialist to speak openly about abuse at the prison and is the only Military Intelligence soldier listed as a witness in the Taguba report. Among the abuses he lists is the torture of a sixteen-year-old Iraqi boy in order to make his father talk. After Provance spoke out, the Army stripped him of his security clearance, demoted him and threatened him with ten years in jail.

Friday, 18 January 2008

Coffee, Tea, or Should We Feel Your Pregnant Wife's Breasts Before Throwing You in a Cell at the Airport and Then Lying About Why We Put You There?

This morning I'll be escorting my wife to the hospital, where the doctors will perform a caesarean section to remove our first child. She didn't want to do it this way -- neither of us did -- but sometimes the Fates decide otherwise. The Fates or, in our case, government employees.

Tuesday, 15 January 2008

The approximately three-kilometer-wide inbound traffic lane in the Strait of Hormuz is within Iran's territorial water Harold Bloom: "What We Are Seeing Is the Fall of America"

Media outlet owned by WMD manufacturer GE tries to block nuclear abolitionist Kucinich from Democratic debates

• John Nichols: NBC Battles To Keep Kucinich Out of Las Vegas Debate
• NV Judge to NBC: Let Kucinich Participate or the Debate is Cancelled
• Kucinich Introduces Legislation To Abolish All Nuclear Weapons
• Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons, and Our Environment
• The Stories Television Doesn't Tell

  Or ask Todd Putnam, who edited National Boycott News in the early 1990s. That's when NBC's "Today" decided to do a segment on boycotts -- and sent a producer to ask Putnam, "What's the biggest boycott going on right now?" After Putnam informed her that America's premier boycott was the one targeting NBC-owner General Electric over its production of nuclear weapons, the producer responded: "We can't do that one. Well, we could do that one, but we won't." Weeks later, she told Putnam that "Today" was looking for a boycott that was "small," "local" and "sexy." Still later, a more senior producer remarked that he feared for his job if GE were mentioned.

• GE Can Be Beat: An Interview with Kathryn Mulvey

  Multinational Monitor: Why did Infact target GE? Kathryn Mulvey: We targeted GE as the leader in 50 years of the production and promotion of nuclear weapons in all phases of that business ---- from design in the Manhattan Project all the way through testing and delivery.

• Nuclear industry stirs with plans for new plants (MSNBC.com pro-nuclear PR puff piece)
• Public Citizen: Truth is Stranger than Fiction: GE-NBC Re-Edits Atomic Train to Erase Nuclear Waste
• CorpWatch: GE
• General Dynamics & GE/NBC Leading Suppliers of Depleted Uranium; GE AN GAU 8; 22' Long Nuclear Manure Spreaders!

Friday, 11 January 2008

Gareth Porter: Official Version of U.S.-Iranian Naval Incident Starts to Unravel

Saturday, 24 November 2007

Robert Fisk: Darkness falls on the Middle East

In Beirut, people are moving out of their homes, just as they have in Baghdad

So where do we go from here? I am talking into blackness because there is no electricity in Beirut. And everyone, of course, is frightened. A president was supposed to be elected today. He was not elected. The corniche outside my home is empty. No one wants to walk beside the sea.

When I went to get my usual breakfast cheese manouche there were no other guests in the café. We are all afraid. My driver, Abed, who has loyally travelled with me across all the war zones of Lebanon, is frightened to drive by night. I was supposed to go to Rome yesterday. I spared him the journey to the airport.

It's difficult to describe what it's like to be in a country that sits on plate glass. It is impossible to be certain if the glass will break. When a constitution breaks -- as it is beginning to break in Lebanon -- you never know when the glass will give way.

Wednesday, 21 November 2007

Alberto Gonzales Heckled At University Of Florida Speech

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales delivered his $40,000 speech at the University of Florida last night. Gonzales' first stop on a nationwide college speaking tour got off to a very rocky start, as he had to endure shouts of "criminal" and "liar" throughout his speech.

Embattled former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was a few minutes into his speech Monday night when the first two protesters took the stage, their heads covered and hands tied behind their backs like Abu Ghraib prisoners.

• Gonzales Faces Protests in First Public Speech

Monday, 19 November 2007

American and Russian Publics Strongly Support Steps to Reduce and Eliminate Nuclear Weapons

Large majorities of Americans and Russians favor taking nuclear weapons off high alert, sharply cutting the numbers of nuclear weapons, banning the production of weapons-grade nuclear material, and---once advanced methods of international verification are established---undertaking the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.

Prison system a costly, harmful failure: report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of people in U.S prisons has risen eight-fold since 1970, with little impact on crime but at great cost to taxpayers and society, researchers said in a report calling for a major justice-system overhaul.

[...]

It recommends shorter sentences and parole terms, alternative punishments, more help for released inmates and decriminalizing recreational drugs as steps to cut the prison population in half, save $20 billion a year and ease social inequality without endangering the public.

But the recommendations run counter to decades of broad U.S. public and political support for getting tough on criminals through longer, harsher prison terms and to the Bush administration's anti-drug and strict-sentencing policies.

Related items (Public Opinion vs. Public Policy)

• National Priorities Project: Proposed Total Federal Outlays, FY2008
• NPR: Traveling Economists Sound Alarm on Fiscal Crisis

  "What's the biggest problem? Among these experts, it's Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security -- the promised future benefits for retirees and the poor and sick."

  (National Defense -- 21% of Federal budget, equal to Social Security, almost double any other budget category -- never mentioned as "problem" in piece)
• The Federal Budget: The Public's Priorities A PIPA Knowledge Networks Study [March 07, 2005]

  "College Park, MD: A new poll finds that the American public would significantly alter the Bush administration's recently proposed federal budget. Presented a breakdown of the major areas of the proposed discretionary budget and given the opportunity to redistribute it, respondents made major changes.

  "The most dramatic changes were deep cuts in defense spending, a significant reallocation toward deficit reduction, and increases in spending on education, job training, reducing reliance on oil, and veterans. These changes were favored by both Republicans and Democrats, though the changes were generally greater for Democrats."

  (Public opinion directly contradicts NPR's "expert" consensus that problem lies in Social Security and Medicare.)

Friday, 2 November 2007

Bruce Schneier: The War on the Unexpected

We've opened up a new front on the war on terror. It's an attack on the unique, the unorthodox, the unexpected; it's a war on different. If you act different, you might find yourself investigated, questioned, and even arrested -- even if you did nothing wrong, and had no intention of doing anything wrong. The problem is a combination of citizen informants and a CYA attitude among police that results in a knee-jerk escalation of reported threats.

Saturday, 13 October 2007

The man who knew too much

He was the CIA's expert on Pakistan's nuclear secrets, but Rich Barlow was thrown out and disgraced when he blew the whistle on a US cover-up. Now he's to have his day in court.

US aid to Pakistan tapered off when the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan. Dejected and impoverished, in 1987 Pakistan's ruling military responded by selling its nuclear hardware and know-how for cash, something that would have been obvious to all if the intelligence had been properly analysed. "But the George HW Bush administration was not looking at Pakistan," Barlow says. "It had new crises to deal with in the Persian Gulf where Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait."

As the first Gulf war came to an end with no regime change in Iraq, a group of neoconservatives led by Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Donald Rumsfeld were already lobbying to finish what that campaign had started and dislodge Saddam. Even as the CIA amassed evidence showing that Pakistan, a state that sponsored Islamist terrorism and made its money by selling proscribed WMD technology, was the number one threat, they earmarked Iraq as the chief target.

When these neocons came to power in 2001, under President George W Bush, Pakistan was indemnified again, this time in return for signing up to the "war on terror". Condoleezza Rice backed the line, as did Rumsfeld, too. Pakistan, although suspected by all of them to be at the epicentre of global instability, was hailed as a friend. All energies were devoted to building up the case against Iraq.

[...]

At first Barlow thought he was helping safeguard the world. "I just loved it," he says. His focus from the start was Pakistan, at the time suspected of clandestinely seeking nuclear weapons in a programme initiated by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the father of Benazir. "Everywhere I looked I kept coming up against intelligence about Pakistan's WMD programme," Barlow says. "I thought I was telling them what they needed to hear, but the White House seemed oblivious." Immersed in the minutiae of his investigations, he didn't appreciate the bigger picture: that Pakistan had, within days of Reagan's inauguration in 1981, gone from being an outcast nation that had outraged the west by hanging Bhutto to a major US ally in the proxy war in Afghanistan.

Within months Barlow was out of a job. A small band of Republican hawks, including Paul Wolfowitz, had convinced the president that America needed a new strategy against potential nuclear threats, since long-term policies such as détente and containment were not working. Reagan was urged to remilitarise, launch his Star Wars programme and neutralise ACDA. When the agency's staff was cut by one third, Barlow found himself out of Washington and stacking shelves in a food store in Connecticut, where he married his girlfriend, Cindy. He was not on hand in 1984 when intelligence reached the ACDA and the CIA that Pakistan had joined the nuclear club (the declared nuclear powers were Britain, France, the US, China and Russia) after China detonated a device on Pakistan's behalf.

Soon after, Barlow was re-employed to work as an analyst, specialising in Pakistan, at the Office of Scientific and Weapons Research (OSWR). The CIA was pursuing the Pakistan programme vigorously even though Reagan was turning a blind eye - indeed, Reagan's secretary of state, George Schultz, claimed in 1985: "We have full faith in [Pakistan's] assurance that they will not make the bomb."

Back on a government salary, Barlow, aged 31, moved to Virginia with his wife Cindy, also a CIA agent. From day one, he was given access to the most highly classified material. He learned about the workings of the vast grey global market in dual-use components - the tools and equipment that could be put to use in a nuclear weapons programme but that could also be ascribed to other domestic purposes, making the trade in them hard to spot or regulate. "There was tonnes of it and most of it was ending up in Islamabad," he says. "Pakistan had a vast network of procurers, operating all over the world." A secret nuclear facility near Islamabad, known as the Khan Research Laboratories, was being fitted out with components imported from Europe and America "under the wire". But the CIA obtained photographs. Floor plans. Bomb designs. Sensors picked up evidence of high levels of enriched uranium in the air and in the dust clinging to the lorries plying the road to the laboratories. Barlow was in his element.

[...]

Trawling through piles of cables, he found evidence that two high-ranking US officials extremely close to the White House had tipped off Islamabad about the CIA operation. Furious, Barlow called his superiors. "The CIA went mad. These were criminal offences," Barlow says. The State Department's lawyers considered their position. They argued that an inquiry would necessitate the spilling of state secrets. The investigation was abandoned just as Reagan made his annual statement to Congress, testifying that "Pakistan does not possess a nuclear explosive device."

[...]

Congressman Stephen Solarz, a Democrat from New Jersey, demanded a closed congressional hearing to vet the intelligence concerning Pakistan's bomb programme. Barlow was detailed to "backbench" at the meeting, if necessary offering advice to the White House representative, General David Einsel (who had been chosen by Reagan to head his Star Wars programme). An armed guard stood outside the room where the hearing was held.

Barlow recalls that Solarz got straight to the point: "Were Pervez and ul-Haq agents of the Pakistan government?" Without flinching, Einsel barked back: "It is not cut and dried." It was a criminal offence to lie to Congress, as other hearings happening on the same day down the corridor were spelling out to Colonel Oliver North, the alleged mastermind behind Iran-Contra. Barlow froze. "These congressmen had no idea what was really going on in Pakistan and what had been coming across my desk about its WMD programme," he says. "They did not know that Pakistan already had a bomb and was shopping for more with US help. All of it had been hushed up."

Then Solarz called on Barlow to speak. "I told the truth. I said it was clear Pervez was an agent for Pakistan's nuclear programme. Everyone started shouting. General Einsel screamed, 'Barlow doesn't know what he's talking about.' Solarz asked if there had been any other cases involving the Pakistan government and Einsel said, 'No'." Barlow recalls thinking, " 'Oh no, here we go again.' They asked me and I said, 'Yes, there have been scores of other cases.' "

[...]

Later that year, Reagan would tell the US Congress: "There is no diminution in the president's commitment to restraining the spread of nuclear weapons in the Indian subcontinent or elsewhere."

[...]

When he was commissioned to write an intelligence assessment for Dick Cheney, defence secretary, giving a snapshot of the Pakistan WMD programme, he thought he was making headway. Barlow's report was stark. He concluded that the US had sold 40 F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan in the mid-80s - it had been a precondition of the sale that none of the jets could be adapted to drop a nuclear bomb. He was convinced that all of them had been configured to do just that. He concluded that Pakistan was still shopping for its WMD programme and the chances were extremely high that it would also begin selling this technology to other nations. Unbeknown to Barlow, the Pentagon had just approved the sale of another 60 F-16s to Pakistan in a deal worth $1.4bn, supposedly with the same provison as before.

"Officials at the OSD kept pressurising me to change my conclusions," Barlow says. He refused and soon after noticed files going missing. A secretary tipped him off that a senior official had been intercepting his papers. In July 1989, Barlow was hauled before one of the Pentagon's top military salesmen, who accused him of sabotaging the new F-16 deal. Eight days later, when Congress asked if the jet could be adapted by Pakistan to drop a nuclear bomb, the Defence Department said, "None of the F-16s Pakistan already owns or is about to purchase is configured for nuclear delivery." Barlow was horrified.

[...]

Barlow still would not give up. His almost pathological tenacity was one of the characteristics that made him a great analyst. With no salary and few savings, he found a lawyer who agreed to represent him pro-bono. At this point, more documents surfaced linking several familiar names to Barlow's sacking and its aftermath; these included Cheney's chief of staff, Libby, and two officials working for Wolfowitz. Through his lawyer, Barlow discovered that he was being described as a tax evader, an alcoholic and an adulterer, who had been fired from all previous government jobs. It was alleged that his marriage counselling was a cover for a course of psychiatric care, and he was put under pressure to permit investigators to interview his marriage guidance adviser. "I had to explain to Cindy that her private fears were to be trawled by the OSD. She moved out. My life, professionally and personally, was destroyed. Cindy filed for divorce."

Barlow's lawyers stuck by him, winning a combined inquiry by the three inspector generals acting for the Defence Department, the CIA and the State Department (inspector generals are the equivalent of ombudsmen in Britain). By September 1993, the lead inspector, Sherman Funk, concluded that the accusation of treachery was "an error not supported by a scintilla of evidence. The truth about Barlow's termination is, simply put, that it was unfair and unwarranted." The whole affair, Funk said, was "Kafka-like" - Barlow was sacrificed for "refusing to accede to policies which he knew to be wrong".

It seemed Barlow had been vindicated. However, when the report was published it had been completely rewritten by someone at the Pentagon. Funk was appalled. When Barlow's lawyers called the Pentagon, they were told it was the department that had been exonerated. Now it was official: Pakistan was nuclear-free, and did not have the capability of dropping a bomb from an American-supplied F-16 jet and the reputation of the only man who claimed otherwise was destroyed. Later, Barlow's lawyers would find his brief to Cheney had been rewritten, too, clearing Pakistan and concluding that continued US aid would ensure that the country would desist from its WMD programme.

The Pentagon officials who were responsible for Barlow's downfall would all be out of government by 1993, when Bill Clinton came into the White House. In opposition they began pursuing an aggressive political agenda, canvassing for war in Iraq rather than restraining nuclear-armed Pakistan. Their number now included Congressman Donald Rumsfeld, a former Republican defence secretary, and several others who would go on to take key positions under George Bush, including Richard Armitage, Richard Perle and John Bolton.

Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz headed the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, which concluded in July 1998 that the chief threat - far greater than the CIA and other intelligence agencies had so far reported - was posed by Iran, Iraq and North Korea: the future Axis of Evil powers. Pakistan was not on the list, even though just two months earlier it had put an end to the dissembling by detonating five nuclear blasts in the deserts of Balochistan.

It was also difficult not to conclude that Islamist terrorism was escalating and that its epicentre was Pakistan. The camps that had once been used to train the US-backed mujahideen had, since the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan, morphed into training facilities for fighters pitted against the west. Many were filled by jihadis and were funded with cash from the Pakistan military.

It was made clear to the new president, Bill Clinton, that US policy on Pakistan had failed. The US had provided Islamabad with a nuclear bomb and had no leverage to stop the country's leaders from using it. When he was contacted by lawyers for Barlow, Clinton was shocked both by the treatment Barlow had received, and the implications for US policy on Pakistan. He signed off $1m in compensation. But Barlow never received it as the deal had to be ratified by Congress and, falling foul of procedural hurdles, it was kicked into the Court of Federal Claims to be reviewed as Clinton left office.

When the George Bush came to power, his administration quashed the case. CIA director George Tenet and Michael Hayden, director of the National Security Agency, asserted "state secrets privilege" over Barlow's entire legal claim. With no evidence to offer, the claim collapsed. Destroyed and penniless, the former CIA golden boy spent his last savings on a second-hand silver Avion trailer, packed up his life and drove off to Bear Canyon campground in Bozeman, Montana, where he still lives today.

Even with Barlow out of the picture, there were still analysts in Washington - and in the Bush administration - who were wary of Pakistan. They warned that al-Qaida had a natural affinity with Pakistan, geographically and religiously, and that its affiliates were seeking nuclear weapons. Some elements of the Pakistan military were sympathetic and in place to help. But those arguing that Pakistan posed the highest risk were isolated. Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were in the ascendant, and they returned to the old agenda, lobbying for a war in Iraq and, in a repeat of 1981 and the Reagan years, signed up Pakistan as the key ally in the war against terror.

Contrary advice was not welcome. And Bush's team set about dismantling the government agency that was giving the most trouble - the State Department's Nonproliferation Bureau. Norm Wulf, who recently retired as deputy assistant secretary of state for non-proliferation, told us: "They met in secret, deciding who to employ, displacing career civil servants with more than 30 years on the job in favour of young, like-thinking people, rightwingers who would toe the administration line." And the administration line was to do away with any evidence that pointed to Pakistan as a threat to global stability, refocusing all attention on Iraq.

The same tactics used to disgrace Barlow and discredit his evidence were used again in 2003, this time against Joseph Wilson, a former US ambassador whom the Bush administration had sent to Africa with a mission to substantiate the story that Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy material to manufacture WMD. When Wilson refused to comply, he found himself the subject of a smear campaign, while his wife, Valerie Plame, was outed as a CIA agent. Libby would subsequently be jailed for leaking Plame's identity (although released on a presidential pardon). Plame and Wilson's careers and marriage would survive. Barlow and his wife, Cindy's, would not - and no one would be held to account. Until now.

When the Republicans lost control of both houses of Congress in 2006, Barlow's indefatigable lawyers sensed an opportunity, lodging a compensation claim on Capitol Hill that is to be heard later this month. This time, with supporters of the Iraq war in retreat and with Pakistan, too, having lost many friends in Washington, Barlow hopes he will receive what he is due. "But this final hearing cannot indict any of those who hounded me, or misshaped the intelligence product," he says. "And it is too late to contain the flow of doomsday technology that Pakistan unleashed on the world."

Sunday, 25 February 2007

Israel seeks all clear for Iran air strike

Israel is negotiating with the United States for permission to fly over Iraq as part of a plan to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

Seymour M. Hersh: Is the Administration's new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism? US Generals 'will quit' if Bush orders Iran attack

Monday, 26 February 2007

US Economy Leaving Record Numbers in Severe Poverty

The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.

A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of 2005 census figures, the latest available, found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. A family of four with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 - half the federal poverty line - was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less than $5,080 a year.

The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005. That's 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period. McClatchy's review also found statistically significant increases in the percentage of the population in severe poverty in 65 of 215 large U.S. counties, and similar increases in 28 states. The review also suggested that the rise in severely poor residents isn't confined to large urban counties but extends to suburban and rural areas.

Thursday, 15 February 2007

Top Prosecutor, Lobbyist Bought Home

The prosecutor, Sue Ellen Wooldridge, bought a $1 million vacation home on Kiawah Island, S.C., with ConocoPhillips Vice President Donald R. Duncan, nine months before agreeing to let the company delay a half-billion-dollar pollution cleanup. It was one of two proposed consent decrees Wooldridge signed with ConocoPhillips just before resigning last month.

The third buyer of the beachshore getaway was former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles, the highest-ranking Bush administration official targeted for criminal prosecution in the Jack Abramoff corruption probe.

In one of her last acts, Wooldridge signed proposed consent decrees with ConocoPhillips, one delaying the required installation of $525 million in pollution controls at nine refineries and the other dealing with a Superfund toxic waste cleanup.

Last April, Wooldridge, Duncan and Griles bought a $980,000 home in a gated community at Kiawah Island. Records from the Charleston County Auditor's office obtained by the AP list Duncan as a 50 percent owner of the home and Wooldridge and Griles as 25 percent owners.

[...]

Griles, now an oil and gas lobbyist, began dating Wooldridge while he was her boss at Interior. He was the department's No. 2 official from July 2001 to January 2005, behind only former Secretary Gale Norton. He and Duncan, ConocoPhillips' chief Washington lobbyist, both served on President Bush's presidential transition team.

Wooldridge and Griles have known each other at least since the first year of the Bush administration in 2001, when Wooldridge became deputy chief of staff and counselor to Norton. Bush appointed Wooldridge as Interior's top lawyer in June 2004.

Friday, 2 February 2007

Humans blamed for climate change

Global warming is "very likely" to have been caused by human activity, the leading international body studying climate change said in a report today.

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Saturday, January 27 2007

Gonzales Appoints Political Loyalists into Vacant US Attorneys Slots

Among those dismissed were Carol Lam of San Diego, whose office won a bribery conviction against then-Rep. Randolph "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., and prosecuted several members of San Diego's city council. The Cunningham case is ongoing.

Also ordered to resign was Kevin Ryan, the U.S. attorney in San Francisco, who was overseeing high-profile investigations into steroids use by major league baseball players and the backdating of stock options by Apple Inc., and other firms.

Related items

• Chalmers Johnson: My Congressman Stands for Money, Not for Me: And, what's even worse, there's no way I can get rid of him

  It is news to no one who pays the slightest attention to American politics that Congress is no longer responsive to the people. Incumbency is so well institutionalized that elections generally don't mean much. Take the case of guns: House Majority Leader Tom DeLay approves of the private ownership of assault weapons and machine guns, despite complaints from police across the country that they're outgunned by criminals, despite the 65% of the public that wants them banned, despite pleas from the relatives of murdered Americans. On this issue, the National Rifle Assn. seems to own the Congress.

  A similar situation exists with regard to munitions makers. In one district after another, the weapons industry has bought the incumbent, and would-be challengers are unable to overcome the advantage of incumbency. On really big projects like the B2 Stealth bomber, contracts for different parts of the airplane are placed in as many congressional districts as possible. This is done to spread the pork (in the form of jobs) around. But it also ensures that a wide swath of congressional representatives have a disincentive to ever ask whether we really need another weapon of massive destruction. It's part of the reason we have defense budgets of $425 billion per year (plus that extra $87 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan, $20 billion for nuclear weapons and $200 billion more for veterans and the wounded), leading to the highest governmental deficits in postwar history. It seems likely that only bankruptcy will stop the American imperial juggernaut.

  California's 50th Congressional District in northern San Diego County where I live is a good example of exactly how this plays out at the local level. The constituents of the 50th have been misrepresented in Washington for the last 14 years by a wholly paid-for tool of the military-industrial complex, the Republican incumbent, Randy "Duke" Cunningham. The heavily populated 50th District has changed in recent years from the wealthy Republican stronghold it once was to a much more politically diverse mix, and that should spell trouble for Cunningham, whose record on such things as abortion, school vouchers and the environment are increasingly out of step with a wide swath of his constituents.

• Congressman Sold Home -- and Could Pay Dearly: Rep. Cunningham faces criminal probes after a high-price sale to a military contractor.

  Cunningham, 63, a former Navy fighter pilot who shot down five MIGs during the Vietnam War and was a role model for Tom Cruise in the movie "Top Gun," is being investigated by the FBI and other federal agencies for selling his house in November 2003 to a military contractor for what may have been an inflated price.

  Mitchell Wade, 42, president and chief executive of Washington-based MZM Inc., bought the house for $1,675,000, then sold it seven months later for $975,000, a $700,000 loss. The house deal was first disclosed earlier this month by the San Diego Union-Tribune.

• Selling Out His Country

  Yes, Randy "Duke" Cunningham was both the first U.S. ace --- a combat pilot who shoots down five enemy aircraft --- of the Vietnam war and a "Top Gun" Navy pilot. Those credentials helped him in 1990 to win election from San Diego to the Congress, where according to his official bio, he was "recognized by several law enforcement agencies for his tough-on-crime position." And where he spoke often and emotionally of his commitment to and "passion for national security."

  The Bush-Cheney campaign used Cunningham as a designated hit man in 2004. He went on national TV to attack Democrat John Kerry --- "We do not need a 'Jane Fonda' as commander in chief" --- and as someone who "would depreciate our military and our intelligence services in a time of war."

• Congressman Doolittle, Wife Profited from Cunningham-Linked Contractor

  A week before former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham was sentenced to prison, he stressed to the court that a number of other lawmakers also helped arrange federal funding for the defense contractors who bribed him.

  None of the lawmakers Cunningham mentioned by name --- Reps. Katherine Harris of Florida, Virgil Goode of Virginia and John Doolittle from the Sacramento suburb of Granite Bay --- has been accused of criminal wrongdoing. But each has admitted assisting either Mitchell Wade or Brent Wilkes, co-conspirators in the Cunningham case, at a time when the two businessmen were giving them tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions.

• CREW Demands Ethics Investigation into Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's Shady Housing Deal with Defense Contractor: Cunningham Dukes It Out for Contractor in Congress for Hefty Profit

  WASHINGTON, DC -- Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) called on the House ethics committee today to investigate San Diego Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham's (R-CA) sale of his house to a defense contractor who had pending legislation before the House defense appropriations subcommittee, of which Cunningham is an influential member.

• Molly Ivins: Eaten Alive by Corruption

  The stirring tale of Randy "Duke" Cunningham, congressman and bon vivant, becomes more entertaining by the day, and it is far more instructive than another case of a missing white female.

  True, Duke Cunningham is merely an obscure Republican from San Diego (Crow Eaten Here: In a recent column, I said Cunningham was in charge of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, whereas actually he is only a member thereof ... apologies. He is also on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.) On the other hand, the whole tale is so ... so prototypical, so archetypal, so (even though I keep promising not to use the word) paradigmatic.

  Cunningham was a decorated pilot in Vietnam who has oft campaigned on the claim that he is the original model for Top Gun. In 2003, he sold his house in Del Mar, a very upscale town north of San Diego. The buyer was Mitchell Wade, a defense contractor, who paid $1.675 million. Wade later resold the house at a $700,000 loss.

  Now, either this makes Wade the only person in recent history to lose money on a San Diego real estate deal, or the guy paid way too much for the house.

• Crashing Watergate

  We knew this was big back in March, when a court sent ex-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif.--convicted of taking $2.4 million in bribes from military contractors--off to serve eight years in prison, the most severe sentence ever handed out to a member of Congress.

  Too many in the media treat a juicy mess like the Cunningham Affair as a shocking aberration. Consider the wording in a New York Times article on Sunday, which described "a growing suspicion among some lawmakers that corrupt practices may have influenced decision-making in Congress and at executive-branch agencies."

  The main mistake Randy Cunningham made was accepting the goodies while he was still in Congress. There is no crime involved in doing the exact same favors for government contractors, and later joining the company's board or getting hired as a highly-paid lobbyist, or getting payback on a more indirect basis. That's the deal all over town, and some of the most "well-respected" names in America have such arrangements--and not all of them are Republicans. The whole thing stinks, but what to do about it? That's the rub.

  Speaking of a rub, besides the careless greed, in the Cunningham Caper we are blessed by the emergence of a sexual angle worthy of a British tabloid, with the congressman alleged to have enjoyed the favors of big-league prostitutes in return for military contracts. Sexual peccadilloes always get the public's attention in a way that other misdeeds, like accepting bribes from defense contractors, cannot. That Cunningham and his buddies may have preferred presumably-discreet professional company over out-of-wedlock friends of the Gennifer Flowers ilk, makes perfect sense in an atmosphere where holier-than-thou sanctimony cannot bear scrutiny. That might take the story to a new level, since these sins would have been committed by the staunchest defenders of the "sanctity of marriage."

  With this new WatergateGate, we must at all costs beware the Woodward Fallacy--that sanitation is a substitute for politics and ideas. It is the conceit of the reigning elite. But in fact we can get rid of Cunningham and his cronies and the rot will continue, unless change goes much deeper to the root.

• Deal Maker Details the Art of Greasing the Palm

  Last November, Mr. Wilkes was described as "co-conspirator No. 1" in a plea agreement signed by Representative Randy Cunningham, a California Republican on the House Appropriations Committee. In the plea deal, Mr. Cunningham admitted accepting more than $2.4 million in cash and gifts from Mr. Wilkes and other contractors. Another defense contractor, Mitchell J. Wade, pleaded guilty to paying some of the bribes.

  Speaking publicly for the first time since Mr. Cunningham's plea agreement, Mr. Wilkes said in recent interviews that he had done nothing wrong and did not believe that Mr. Lewis and Mr. Lowery had broken the law. Mr. Wilkes, who has not been charged in the Cunningham case, has refused prosecutors' appeals to plead guilty.

  The Cunningham scandal set off alarms about the proliferation of Congressional earmarks " money for pet projects inserted anonymously in spending bills " which critics say pervert public policy, encourage cronyism and waste federal money. The 12,000 earmarks in this year's spending bills amount to $64 billion.

  Mr. Wilkes said that at his suggestion, several recipients of his campaign contributions " Mr. Lewis; Mr. Cunningham; Representative Charlie Wilson, Democrat of Texas; and Representative Duncan Hunter, Republican of California " wrote a letter to top defense officials supporting the expenditures. Mr. Lewis wrote a second letter to an admiral.

  In Mr. Cunningham's guilty plea, prosecutors portrayed the lawmaker as eager to help Mr. Wilkes. In court documents, they say Mr. Wilkes made cash payments of more than $500,000 to Mr. Cunningham, who intervened to help him earn earmarks and pressed a Defense Department official for faster payment of an inflated invoice. Mr. Cunningham was sentenced to eight years and four months in prison.

  Business in Jeopardy

  In the end, it was the Cunningham investigation that jeopardized Mr. Wilkes's business with the government. In August 2005, a team of F.B.I. agents swept through Mr. Wilkes's headquarters. The flow of earmarks, his companies' lifeblood, dried up. He laid off 200 employees.

  Ms. Luque said her client's legal problems were a battle that he "will fight and win."

  She said federal prosecutors told her in January that they were not interested in Mr. Wilkes's dealings with Mr. Lowery and Mr. Lewis. "Cunningham couldn't have followed through on what he did without the cooperation of other people on the committee," Ms. Luque said. Prosecutors should be looking at the entire committee, she said.

• 'DeLay Inc.' Lobbying Firm Has Links to Three Capital Scandals

  Representative Tom DeLay's campaign to get Republicans to dominate Washington lobbying may have worked too well for Alexander Strategy Group.

  The firm has links to no fewer than three of the scandals convulsing the U.S. capital. One partner, former DeLay aide Tony Rudy, is now a focus of a federal investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The group's founder, former DeLay chief of staff Ed Buckham, set up a South Korea junket for his old boss that violated ethics rules. And the firm represents a company whose owner, prosecutors allege, bribed former Representative Randy Cunningham.

  The Cunningham Connection

  One of the biggest clients Alexander landed was Group W Advisors, a San Diego-based defense consultant. The company is owned by Brent Wilkes, a businessman who is one of the four un- indicted co-conspirators in a Nov. 28 criminal complaint for allegedly bribing Cunningham, his lawyer, Michael Lipman, told USA Today. Cunningham pleaded guilty and resigned his House seat on Nov. 28.

  Alexander took in at least $525,000 in fees from 2002 to 2004 from Group W to lobby on defense appropriations. Those appropriations are among the legislative favors Cunningham gave to receive his gifts, according to the former lawmaker's plea agreement. It isn't clear what role, if any, Alexander strategists had. Lipman didn't return a call seeking comment.

• CREW Files DOJ Complaint Against Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.); Corrupt Activities Mirror Abramoff and Cunningham Criminal Actions

  Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director, urged Attorney General Gonzales and Public Integrity Chief Noel Hillman to immediately commence an investigation into the Lewis/Lowery relationship, stating, "it is a little Duke Cunningham mixed with a lot of Jack Abramoff: Rep. Lewis doles out earmarks a la Cunningham and Lowery plays Abramoff, offering an unending stream of campaign contributions." Sloan continued, "Corruption in Congress does not end with Tom DeLay or Jack Abramoff. There is not just one scandal, but a host of unethical activities that need to be investigated."

• Pentagon Hired Contractor to Advise on Collecting Information on Churches, Mosques, Other US Site

  WASHINGTON - A Pentagon intelligence agency that kept files on American anti-war activists hired one of the contractors who bribed former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., to help it collect data on houses of worship, schools, power plants and other locations in the United States.

  MZM Inc., headed by Mitchell Wade, also received three contracts totaling more than $250,000 to provide unspecified "intelligence services" to the White House, according to documents obtained by Knight Ridder. The White House didn't respond to an inquiry about what those intelligence services entailed.

  MZM's Pentagon and White House deals were part of tens of millions of dollars in federal government business that Wade's company attracted beginning in 2002.

  MZM and Wade, who pleaded guilty last month to bribing Cunningham and unnamed Defense Department officials to steer work to his firm, are the focus of ongoing probes by Pentagon and Department of Justice investigators.

  Wade, who faces up to 20 years in prison, was one of four men charged in the Cunningham case. Cunningham, who resigned from Congress in November after serving for 15 years, was sentenced to eight years and four months in prison earlier this month.

• House Report Shows Arm-Twisting for Vote

  After the marathon vote finally ended and members were leaving, Smith encountered Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif. Smith said Cunningham began waving what appeared to be a billfold.

  "We've got $10,000 already ... to make sure your son doesn't get elected," Smith recalled Cunningham saying.

  Cunningham said he didn't recall waving the billfold and denied mentioning any specific amount.

Friday, January 19 2007

Paul Krugman: Surging and Purging

Last month, Bud Cummins, the U.S. attorney (federal prosecutor) for the Eastern District of Arkansas, received a call on his cellphone while hiking in the woods with his son. He was informed that he had just been replaced by J. Timothy Griffin, a Republican political operative who has spent the last few years working as an opposition researcher for Karl Rove.

Mr. Cummins's case isn't unique. Since the middle of last month, the Bush administration has pushed out at least four U.S. attorneys, and possibly as many as seven, without explanation. The list includes Carol Lam, the U.S. attorney for San Diego, who successfully prosecuted Duke Cunningham, a Republican congressman, on major corruption charges. The top F.B.I. official in San Diego told The San Diego Union-Tribune that Ms. Lam's dismissal would undermine multiple continuing investigations.

Monday, 15 January 2007

Administration Leaving out Important Details on Iraq

[...] the president's account understates by at least 15 months when Shiite death squads began targeting Sunni politicians and clerics. It also ignores the role that Iranian-backed Shiite groups had in death squad activities prior to the Samarra bombing.

Blaming the start of sectarian violence in Iraq on the Golden Dome bombing risks policy errors because it underestimates the depth of sectarian hatred in Iraq and overlooks the conflict's root causes. The Bush account also fails to acknowledge that Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite groups stoked the conflict.

President Bush met at the White House in November with the head of one of those groups: Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. SCIRI's Badr Organization militia is widely reported to have infiltrated Iraq's security forces and to be involved in death squad activities.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recited Bush's history of events on Thursday in fending off angry questioning from Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., about why Rice had offered optimistic testimony about Iraq during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in October 2005.

• Full hearings (C-SPAN realaudio; Boxer's questions at 1:42:30)
• Senate Foreign Relations Committee page

Sunday, 14 January 2007

Eric Lichtblau and Mark Mazzetti: Military Is Expanding Its Intelligence Role in US

The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States, part of an aggressive expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering.

The C.I.A. has also been issuing what are known as national security letters to gain access to financial records from American companies, though it has done so only rarely, intelligence officials say.

Banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions receiving the letters usually have turned over documents voluntarily, allowing investigators to examine the financial assets and transactions of American military personnel and civilians, officials say.

Stephen Foley: Shock and Oil: Iraq's Billions & the White House Connection

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.

Saturday, 13 January 2007

Carol Rosenberg: Official Calls for Boycott of Law Firms Representing Detainees

A Defense Department official has stirred up a maelstrom in the American legal community by calling on U.S. corporations to boycott law firms whose attorneys represent suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Public Inaction Dismays Watada: Officer faces court-martial for refusing Iraq deployment

"Could it be that ... many people don't care about the illegality of this war?" Watada asked students and others who packed a hall at Seattle Central Community College. "It is my belief that the American people have relinquished their responsibility."

Scientists Prepare to Move Doomsday Clock Forward

"The major new step reflects growing concerns about a 'Second Nuclear Age' marked by grave threats, including: nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea, unsecured nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere, the continuing 'launch-ready' status of 2,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held by the U.S. and Russia, escalating terrorism, and new pressure from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear power that could increase proliferation risks," the release reads.

Rice Says Bush Authorized Iranians' Arrest in Iraq

Friday, 12 January 2007

EU Urged to Lead on Human Rights as U.S. Loses Moral Authority

With U.S. credibility undermined by the use of torture and detention without trial, the European Union must fill the global leadership void on human rights, New York-based Human Rights Watch said Thursday in releasing its World Report 2007.

Thursday, 11 January 2007

Molly Ivins: Stand Up Against the Surge

Anyone who wants to talk knowledgably about our Iraq misadventure should pick up Rajiv Chandrasekaran's "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone." It's like reading a horror novel. You just want to put your face down and moan: How could we have let this happen? How could we have been so stupid?

As The Washington Post's review notes, Chandrasekaran's book "methodically documents the baffling ineptitude that dominated U.S. attempts to influence Iraq's fiendish politics, rebuild the electrical grid, privatize the economy, run the oil industry, recruit expert staff or instill a modicum of normalcy to the lives of Iraqis."

We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush's proposed surge. If you can, go to the peace march in Washington on January 27. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, "Stop it, now!" m

Saturday, 23 December 2006

New German Community Models Car-free Living Iraqi Hopes Dim Through Worst Year of Occupation Richest 2 Percent Own Half the World's Wealth

Tuesday, 12 December 2006

Pinochet Dies

Related Items

ON 30th ANNIVERSARY OF ARGENTINE COUP: NEW DECLASSIFIED DETAILS ON REPRESSION AND U.S. SUPPORT FOR MILITARY DICTATORSHIP

The documents record Washington's initial reaction to the military takeover. "I do want to encourage them. I don't want to give the sense that they're harassed by the United States," Secretary of State Kissinger ordered his staff after his assistants warned him that the junta would initiate a bloodbath following the coup. According to the transcript, Kissinger's top deputy on Latin America, William Rogers, told him two days after the coup that "we've got to expect a fair amount of repression, probably a good deal of blood, in Argentina before too long."

Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents relating to the Military Coup, 1970-1976 CIA Intelligence Report Tied Pinochet to Letelier Assassination CHILE: 16,000 SECRET U.S. DOCUMENTS DECLASSIFIED THE SECRET PINOCHET PORTFOLIO: FORMER DICTATOR'S CORRUPTION SCANDAL BROADENS THE CASE AGAINST PINOCHET: EX-DICTATOR INDICTED FOR CONDOR CRIMES NIXON ON CHILE INTERVENTION: WHITE HOUSE TAPE ACKNOWLEDGES INSTRUCTIONS TO BLOCK SALVADOR ALLENDE LIFTING OF PINOCHET'S IMMUNITY RENEWS FOCUS ON OPERATION CONDOR

Friday, 3 November 2006

Canadians Believe Bush is a Threat to Peace: Poll British Believe Bush Is More Dangerous Than Kim Jong-il

Thursday, 26 October 2006

Report: Germany Suspected US Prison Abuse Early in Balkans

Wednesday, 25 October 2006

WWF: Humans Far Outstripping Planet's Resource-Replacement Rate

"We are in serious ecological overshoot, consuming resources faster than the Earth can replace them," WWF International Director General James Leape said. "The consequences of this are predictable and dire."

Eventually, ecological assets, such as forests and fisheries will be harvested to such a degree that they might disappear altogether. In 2003, 25 percent more natural resources were used than the Earth could sustainably replenish, the report said.

According to the WWF, humanity's ecological footprint -- measuring the area of biologically productive land and sea required to provide all the resources used and absorb waste -- has more than tripled between 1961 and 2003.

Biennial report on the state of the natural world

Sunday, 15 October 2006

Bush hails 'tough' UN action on North Korea nuclear test Human rights concerns fail to staunch flow of UK arms: China tops list with £70m of exports in one year as military sales soar to blacklisted regimes US 'plot to force out Hamas' Nuclear proliferation: The Axis of Anxiety: The UN has agreed sanctions against the newest and least predictable of nuclear powers. North Korea said this amounted to 'a declaration of war'. So who will blink first? By David Usborne and Raymond Whitaker Ambush: How one interview blew apart Blair's disastrous foreign policy: The General was no innocent abroad. His comments were born of frustration at the Prime Minister's failure to stick to an agreed timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. By Francis Elliott Guantanamo guards 'boast about abuse': Troops at Guantanamo Bay routinely hit detainees, and then bragged about it afterwards, according to a US military lawyer Patrick Cockburn: War and Resistance in Iraq: an exclusive extract from his new book

Saturday, 14 October 2006

The British Officer Said: 'We Are Now Just Another Tribe' A Global Call to Stand Against Poverty One Eye on the Polls

Friday, 13 October 2006

Documents Reveal Scope of U.S. Database on Antiwar Protests Climate Change Inaction Will Cost Trillions: Study

Failing to fight global warming now will cost trillions of dollars by the end of the century even without counting biodiversity loss or unpredictable events like the Gulf Stream shutting down, a study said on Friday.

Book: Bush Aides Called Evangelicals 'Nuts'

A new book by a former White House official says that President Bush's top political advisors privately ridiculed evangelical supporters as "nuts" and "goofy" while embracing them in public and using their votes to help win elections.

British TV Journalist Was 'Unlawfully Killed' by US Forces in Iraq Britain's Top Soldier Sparks Storm with Call to Withdraw from Iraq Soon U.S. Neo-Cons Call For Japanese Nukes, Regime Change

Encouraging Japan to build nuclear weapons, shipping food aid via submarines, and running secret sabotage operations inside North Korea's borders are among a raft of policy prescriptions pushed by prominent U.S. neo-conservatives in the wake of Pyongyang's nuclear test.

U.S. Army Plans for Current Iraq Troop Level to 2010 Iraq: The Reality

The overthrow of Saddam Hussein was supposed to bring them freedom democracy and peace. But murder, kidnap and lawlessness have become the facts of life for the people of Iraq. In an exclusive extract from his new book, Patrick Cockburn describes the terrifying disintegration of a nation

Gaza Sliding into Civil War: Economic crisis worsens clashes between Hamas and Fatah

Saturday, 6 October 2006

Experts Warn of an Accidental Atomic War: Nuclear missile modified for conventional attack on Iran could set off alarm in Russia

A Pentagon project to modify its deadliest nuclear missile for use as a conventional weapon against targets such as North Korea and Iran could unwittingly spark an atomic war, two weapons experts warned Thursday.

Russian military officers might misconstrue a submarine-launched conventional D5 intercontinental ballistic missile and conclude that Russia is under nuclear attack, said Ted Postol, a physicist and professor of science, technology and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Pavel Podvig, a physicist and weapons specialist at Stanford.

"Any launch of a long-range nonnuclear armed sea or land ballistic missile will cause an automated alert of the Russian early warning system," Postol told reporters.

Thursday, 28 September 2006

Israeli Group Calls Power Plant Attack a 'War Crime' Forests Worth Far More Alive Than Dead

Boreal forests provide 250 billion dollars a year in ecosystem services like reducing atmospheric carbon and water filtration, but which have gone unacknowledged by governments and industry, experts say.

Governments need to begin accounting for those services before allowing timber, oil and gas and mining to carve up the world's remaining northern forests, argues the Edmonton, Canada-based ecological economist Mark Anielski.

Media Critic Takes on Major TV Networks

Mainstream media outlets are tools of America's most powerful corporations, media critic Jeff Cohen - who formerly worked for CNN, MSNBC and Fox News - told an audience of roughly 50 people in Salomon 001 last night.

Corporate leaders are concerned with protecting their power and reputations, while leaders at major news networks focus on maximizing ratings rather than delivering "real journalism," said Cohen, who worked as a weekly panelist at Fox News, a co-host of CNN's "Crossfire" and a senior producer at MSNBC before leaving the mainstream media in 2003.

Since corporations' interests are aligned with the interests of conservatives, conservative opinion dominates "hopelessly imbalanced" television networks, Cohen said, adding that corporate pressure caused journalists to "utterly fail the country" leading up to the war in Iraq.

Hundreds Turn Out to Hear Views of Former CIA Analyst

Wednesday, 27 September 2006

Cluster Bombs Imperil Southern Lebanon: Pose huge threat to reconstruction, UN agency says Most Iraqis Want US to Leave Now White House Blocked Report Tying Global Warming, Stronger Hurricanes

Sunday, 17 September 2006

Ultimately, the U.S. will attack Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq

Saturday, 16 September 2006

Bush defends demands for CIA 'torture' power Robert Fisk: The US military and its cult of cruelty

In the week that George Bush took to fantasising that his blood-soaked "war on terror" would lead the 21st century into a "shining age of human liberty" I went through my mail bag to find a frightening letter addressed to me by an American veteran whose son is serving as a lieutenant colonel and medical doctor with US forces in Baghdad. Put simply, my American friend believes the change of military creed under the Bush administration - from that of "soldier" to that of "warrior" - is encouraging American troops to commit atrocities.

IRS Orders All Saints to Yield Documents on '04 Political Races EPA Plans to Close Labs, Drop Scientists and Reduce Oversight Afghanistan: U.S. 'Handed Off a Mess' to NATO Forces

Friday, 15 September 2006

US to cut funds for two renewable energy sources Lawyer Says FCC Ordered Study Destroyed Gaza's poor struggling to survive in the face of an economic blockade

Though she wasn't expecting visitors, Itidal al-Nazli, 35, was happy to display the sparse contents of her refrigerator. Despite the daily and lengthy interruptions to electricity supply since the Israelis bombed Gaza's only power station in early July, it's where she still stores the more perishable food for her family of 10 children. Yesterday morning, after the family had breakfasted on two large potatoes and an aubergine donated by a kindly neighbour, it contained six rather shrivelled peppers, a bag of coffee, three olives in a bowl, a bag of charcoal, and three bags containing crusts of bread.

Republican senators revolt over terror suspects' rights From Alaska to Australia, The World is Changing in Front of Us IAEA Says Congress Report on Iran's Nuclear Capacity is Erroneous and Misleading World has 10-Year Window to Act on Climate Warming - NASA Expert Even in Winter, Arctic Ice Melting Reclaiming The Issues: Islamic Or Republican Fascism?

Thursday, 14 September 2006

Hizbollah rocket attacks on Israelis 'war crimes'

Wednesday, 13 September 2006

Junk Culture Killing Childhood: Experts IDF Commander: We Fired More Than a Million Cluster Bombs in Lebanon As America Mourned, the Impact of the 'War on Terror' Was Felt Worldwide New Data Erases Doubt on Storms and Warming

Tuesday, 12 September 2006

ABC 9/11 Docudrama's Right-Wing Roots

Sunday, 6 August 2006

Former ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith says that two months before the U.S. invaded Iraq, George W. Bush did not know that there were two major sects of Islam in Iraq. According to Galbraith, a year after giving his "Axis of Evil" speech, Bush met with three Iraqi Americans, who described to him what they thought the consequences might be if Saddam Hussein were taken out of power.

According to Galbraith, it became clear to them that Bush had no clue that there were Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq. The Iraqi American consultants explained the situation to him, and his response was: "I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!"

Fatal Strikes: Israel's Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon

This report documents serious violations of international humanitarian law (the laws of war) by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Lebanon between July 12 and July 27, 2006, as well as the July 30 attack in Qana. During this period, the IDF killed an estimated 400 people, the vast majority of them civilians, and that number climbed to over 500 by the time this report went to print. The Israeli government claims it is taking all possible measures to minimize civilian harm, but the cases documented here reveal a systematic failure by the IDF to distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Israeli pilots 'deliberately miss' targets: Fliers admit aborting raids on civilian targets as concern grows over the reliability of intelligence CNN RELIABLE SOURCES: Coverage of War in the Middle East (Transcript)

One of the things that is going on, according to some U.S. military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon.

Thursday, 20 July 2006

Dozens more die as air strikes continue

The Israeli offensive continued as international sources told the Guardian that the Bush administration had given Israel a one-week window to attack Hizbullah before it would join international calls for a ceasefire.

United States to Israel: you have one more week to blast Hizbullah: Bush 'gave green light' for limited attack, say Israeli and UK sources

The US is giving Israel a window of a week to inflict maximum damage on Hizbullah before weighing in behind international calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon, according to British, European and Israeli sources.

Friday, 14 July 2006

Noam Chomsky: U.S.-Backed Israeli Policies Pursuing "End of Palestine"; Hezbollah Capture of Israeli Soldiers "Very Irresponsible Act" That Could Lead To "Extreme Disaster" Israel intensifies Lebanon offensive Lebanese Tremors Rock Syria Beirut under Siege as Israel Attacks from Air and Sea Bush's Indifference Drives Conflict Ehoud Olmert donne son feu vert pour de nouvelles attaques au Liban

Thursday, 13 July 2006

Rumor: Israel Tells Condi Rice to "Back Off"

Wednesday, 5 July 2006

Bush Urges Leaders to Unite Vs. N. Korea Washington is Losing 'War on Terror': Experts

In May the influential US magazine Foreign Policy and a Washington-based think-tank questioned 116 leading US experts -- a balanced mix of Republicans and Democrats -- on the progress of the US campaign against terrorism.

Among others, they consulted a former secretary of state, two former directors of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and dozens of the country's top security analysts.

The result? Eighty-four percent believe the United States is losing the "war on terror," 86 percent that the world has become a more dangerous place in the past five years, and 80 percent that a major new attack on their country was likely within the next decade.

[...]

For Leslie Gelb, president of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, the unity of views expressed by those questioned reflects a deeply critical attitude towards the administration of President George W. Bush.

"It's clear to nearly all that Bush and his team have had a totally unrealistic view of what they can accomplish with military force and threats of force," he said.

Other experts questioned the very nature of the US campaign.

"It was a doomed enterprise from the very start: a 'war on terror' -- it's as ridiculous as a 'war on anger'. You do not wage a war on terror, you wage a war against people," said Alain Chouet, a former senior officer of France's DGSE foreign intelligence service.

[...]

The United States "have fallen into the classic terrorist trap -- they're lashing out at the wrong targets," causing collateral damage that boosts the cause of their opponents, he said.

Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA's Osama Bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999, agreed that Washington was acting as its own worst enemy in the fight against Islamic terrorism.

"We're clearly losing. Today, Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and their allies have only one indispensable ally: the US' foreign policy towards the Islamic world."

Palestine: Hamas besieged

"I've never seen a government put under such pressure: we're being squeezed out of existence. There's no time to breathe or think," said Dr Aziz Dwaik in Ramallah. He is the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and knows the West well, having two MAs and a PhD from universities in the United States. He continued: "If the West wants Hamas to fail, OK. But it won't serve international peace and prosperity because it risks radicalising the Palestinians. The region will pay the price."

Monday, 3 July 2006

Bush urged to intervene after Castro's death

Thursday, 15 June 2006

Top court upholds no-knock police search

Wednesday, 14 June 2006

How Israel's Jewish terrorist became a victim Global Image of the US Is Worsening, Survey Finds

Favorable views of the United States dropped sharply over the past year in Spain, where only 23 percent said they had a positive opinion, down from 41 percent last year, according to the survey. It was done in 15 nations, including the United States, this spring by the Washington-based Pew Research Center.

Other countries where positive views dropped significantly include India (56 percent, down from 71 percent); Russia (43 percent, down from 52 percent); and Indonesia (30 percent, down from 38 percent). In Turkey, only 12 percent said they held a favorable opinion, down from 23 percent last year.

Keeping Iraq's Oil in the Ground 30 die in Afghan fighting before offensive Crackdown on Baghdad begins: New security operation aims to 'enable Iraqis to live in peace' EU and US "Partners in Crime" on CIA Flights: Amnesty International Call for sanctions after beating of Three Gorges dam activist Fu Xiancai

Reporters Without Borders urged China's foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing, to intervene in the case of Fu Xiancai, an activist opposed to the Three Gorges dam who was left paralysed from a beating after giving an interview to foreign journalists.

Tuesday, 13 June 2006

Many Iraqis dismiss Bush visit as stunt Doctors forbid roles in harsh interrogations

The 544-member house of delegates, which sets policy for the leading U.S. physicians group, voted at its annual meeting to approve a seven-page report that outlined a physician's duty "as healer" not to take any part in interrogating prisoners.

A New "Perle Harbor" - Richard Perle reveals US War Plans in the Iranian Theater House Approves $94.5 Billion for Iraq War and Katrina Aid

The House-Senate compromise bill contains $66 billion for the two wars, bringing the cost of the three-year-old war in Iraq to about $320 billion. Operations in Afghanistan have now tallied about $89 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service.

PM: IDF is still most moral army in world

"The IDF is the most moral army in the world, which had never directed a policy of harming innocent civilians, and is not doing so today."

Related items:

• Robert Fisk: Massacre in Sanctuary; Eyewitness
• Robert Fisk: Sabra and Chatila Massacres: After 19 years, The Truth at Last?
• Jenin: IDF Military Operations

Monday, 12 June 2006

Global military spend hits $1.12 trillion: report

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - U.S. spending in Iraq and Afghanistan helped push up global 2005 military expenditure by 3.5 percent to $1.12 trillion, a research body said on Monday.

Global warming may already be a killer

Earth's rising temperatures may be a precipitating factor in the extinctions of dozens of tropical frog species.

Friday, 2 June 2006

stopsleeping.com is now officialssay.com! For more info on the idea behind officialssay, please see the following interview with journalist Robert Fisk, who coined the term "Officials Say" in the sense used here.

Thursday, 25 May 2006

Iran Proposal to U.S. Offered Peace with Israel

The two-page document contradicts the official line of the George W. Bush administration that Iran is committed to the destruction of Israel and the sponsorship of terrorism in the region.

Monday, 13 March 2006

Former top judge says US risks edging near to dictatorship: Sandra Day O'Connor warns of rightwing attacks: Lawyers 'must speak up' to protect judiciary

She pointed to autocracies in the developing world and former Communist countries as lessons on where interference with the judiciary might lead. "It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings."

The War Dividend: The British Companies Making a Fortune Out of Conflict-Riven Iraq

British businesses have profited by at least £1.1bn since coalition forces toppled Saddam Hussein three years ago, the first comprehensive investigation into UK corporate investment in Iraq has found.

Sunday, 12 March 2006

Donald Rumsfeld Makes $5 Million Killing on Bird Flu Drug Iraq: The Reckoning: What Have We Achieved Three Years On from Shock and Awe?

In December and January, daily oil production was around 1.1 million barrels a day, the lowest since May 2003, when President Bush declared major combat operations at an end. Before 2003, oil output was 2.5 million barrels a day. Ironically, revenue has risen to about $2.5bn a month, because world oil prices have shot up, at least partly because of the situation in Iraq.

Death of the World's Rivers: Disaster warning from UN as investigation reveals half of the planet's 500 biggest rivers are seriously depleted or polluted Pollution Soaring to Crisis Levels in Arctic: Scientists plead for action to save poles from 'tipping point' disaster

Saturday, 18 February 2006

Global warming may already be a killer

Earth's rising temperatures may be a precipitating factor in the extinctions of dozens of tropical frog species.

Wednesday, 8 February 2006

Fear of U.S. Drove Iran's Nuclear Policy

Tuesday, 31 January 2006

US savings rate sinks to lowest since Great Depression

Americans spent $42bn (£24bn) more than they earned last year, turning the annual US savings ratio negative for the first time since the Great Depression.

Bush says only US can secure world peace

President George Bush insisted last night that, despite its difficulties in Iraq, America would not retreat from the world, arguing that US leadership " is the only way to secure the peace". Isolationism and protectionism, he warned in his annual State of the Union address, led ultimately only " to danger and decline."

Nearly Half of Iraqis Support Attacks on U.S. Troops, Poll Finds

WASHINGTON - A new poll found that nearly half of Iraqis approve of attacks on U.S.-led forces, and most favor setting a timetable for American troops to leave.

The poll also found that 80 percent of Iraqis think the United States plans to maintain permanent bases in the country even if the newly elected Iraqi government asks American forces to leave. Researchers found a link between support for attacks and the belief among Iraqis that the United States intends to keep a permanent military presence in the country.

The world according to George W Bush

Monday, 30 January 2006

James Carroll: Is America Actually in a State of War?

Wednesday, 25 January 2006

Dilip Hiro: The Rise of Political Islam: The Palestinian Election and Democracy in the Middle East

Put all of this together and you have what looks like a single phenomenon sweeping the region. However, focus on these developments one by one and what you see is that the reasons for Islamist advances are not only different in each case but particular to each country.

Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman: The Gospel of Work vs. the Gospel of Wealth

Sunday, January 8 2006

Excerpt from 'A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror'

Thursday, 5 January 2006

The man who bought off Washington: Lobbyist's guilty plea set to expose bribery scandal at the heart of US political system Anger as Britain admits it was wrong to blame Iran for deaths in Iraq NSA Destroyed Evidence of Domestic Spying Lobbyist ties could keep DeLay out of leadership: GOP aides say his links to the scandal-ridden Abramoff make him a liability Surveillance Court Is Seeking Answers: Judges Were Unaware of Eavesdropping End This Evasion on Permanent Military Bases in Iraq

Wednesday, 4 January 2006

US sees coalitions of the willing as best ally

Building on its experience in Iraq, the Bush administration says it wants to be able to form "coalitions of the willing" more efficiently for dealing with future conflicts rather than turning to existing but unreliable institutional alliances such as Nato.

"We 'ad hoc' our way through coalitions of the willing. That's the future," a senior State Department official said in a briefing this week that reflected Washington's search for alternatives to the post-second world war global architecture in the new era of its "war on terror".

CIA 'ignored Iraqi weapons evidence'

The Bush administration is facing new charges over its handling of pre-war intelligence, with a book alleging that the CIA ignored a mass of evidence gleaned from Iraqi weapons scientists, months before the 2003 invasion, that Saddam Hussein had abandoned his WMD programmes.

According to the book, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, Sawsan alHaddad, sister of an Iraqi nuclear scientist, was one of 30 foreign-based Iraqis who agreed to contact relatives supposedly working on weapons development. Every one reported that the programmes did not exist.

"Don't they know there is no nuclear programme?," her brother told her. The nuclear programme had been dead since 1991. "We don't have enough spare parts for our conventional military, we can't even shoot down an aeroplane, we don't have anything left," she reported him saying. A month later the national intelligence estimate on Iraq's alleged WMD was issued, stating that Iraq was "reconstituting its nuclear programme".

Files Say Agency Initiated Growth of Spying Effort CDI Space Security Update 1.2006 ~ Jan. 5, 2006

Friday, 30 December 2005

German media: U.S. prepares Iran strike

Wednesday, 21 December 2005

Lobbyist Abramoff's `Equal Money' Went Mostly to Republicans

Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. President George W. Bush calls indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff ``an equal money dispenser'' who helped politicians of both parties. Campaign donation records show Republicans were a lot more equal than Democrats.

Between 2001 and 2004, Abramoff gave more than $127,000 to Republican candidates and committees and nothing to Democrats, federal records show. At the same time, his Indian clients were the only ones among the top 10 tribal donors in the U.S. to donate more money to Republicans than Democrats.

Cheney Argues for Nixon-Era Powers: Watergate eroded presidential clout; VP comments fuel firestorm in U.S.

Sunday, 11 December 2005

Israel readies forces for strike on nuclear Iran

Saturday, 10 December 2005

Naomi Klein: The US has used torture for decades. All that's new is the openness about it

Monday, 28 November 2005

Moyers Has His Say: Former Now host on media bias and his feud with former CPB Chairman Ken Tomlinson

If reporting on what's happening to ordinary people thrown overboard by circumstances beyond their control and betrayed by Washington officials is liberalism, I stand convicted.

Monday, 7 November 2005

JAMES BAMFORD: The Man Who Sold the War: Meet John Rendon, Bush's general in the propaganda war Master mind

BOSTON - Three weeks ago, Prof. Noam Chomsky was voted the most important public intellectual in the world today. About 20,000 people took part in the poll, which was conducted jointly by a British monthly called Prospect and the Washington-based Foreign Policy. The 77-year-old linguist received 4,827 votes, nearly twice as many as the runner-up, the Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco (2,464). (For the full list, see www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/intellectuals/results.) Given Chomsky's criticism of intellectuals, it is not clear whether the outcome of the vote is a compliment to him, or an insult.

Monday, 8 August 2005

Exclusive: Secret Memo--Send to Be Tortured

Aug. 8, 2005 issue - An FBI agent warned superiors in a memo three years ago that U.S. officials who discussed plans to ship terror suspects to foreign nations that practice torture could be prosecuted for conspiring to violate U.S. law, according to a copy of the memo obtained by NEWSWEEK. [...] This memo appears to be the first that directly questions the legal premises of the Bush administration policy of "extraordinary rendition" -- a secret program under which terror suspects are transferred to foreign countries that have been widely criticized for practicing torture.

In a memo forwarded to a senior FBI lawyer on Nov. 27, 2002, a supervisory special agent from the bureau's behavioral analysis unit offered a legal analysis of interrogation techniques that had been approved by Pentagon officials for use against a high-value Qaeda detainee. After objecting to techniques such as exploiting "phobias" like "the fear of dogs" or dripping water "to induce the misperception of drowning," the agent discussed a plan to send the detainee to Jordan, Egypt or an unspecified third country for interrogation. "In as much as the intent of this category is to utilize, outside the U.S., interrogation techniques which would violate [U.S. law] if committed in the U.S., it is a per se violation of the U.S. Torture Statute," the agent wrote. "Discussing any plan which includes this category could be seen as a con-spiracy to violate [the Torture Statute]" and "would inculpate" everyone involved.

Intel officials estimate that more than 100 terror suspects have been rendered to foreign countries by the CIA under a classified directive signed by President George W. Bush after 9/11.

A Pentagon spokesman said the Defense Department does not engage in renditions, but officials have confirmed that 65 detainees have been transferred from Guantanamo for further detention or prosecution by foreign governments, including 29 to Pakistan, seven to Russia, five to Morocco and four to Saudi Arabia -- countries the State Department criticizes for practicing torture.

Saturday, 30 July 2005

'Doomsday' plan approved for House

WASHINGTON -- Congress approved a plan yesterday that would quickly replace members of the House in the event many die in an attack or disaster.

The so-called doomsday bill would require special elections within 49 days if more than 100 of the House's 435 members were killed.

Monday, 25 July 2005

John Pilger: Blair Is Unfit to Be Prime Minister Bush Met With Judge Roberts One Day Before Crucial Ruling on Guantanamo Military Tribunals Roberts Listed in Federalist Society '97-98 Directory: Court Nominee Said He Has No Memory of Membership

Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. has repeatedly said that he has no memory of belonging to the Federalist Society, but his name appears in the influential, conservative legal organization's 1997-1998 leadership directory.

Having served only two years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit after a long career as a government and private-sector lawyer, Roberts has not amassed much of a public paper record that would show his judicial philosophy. Working with the Federalist Society would provide some clue of his sympathies. The organization keeps its membership rolls secret, but many key policymakers in the Bush administration are acknowledged current or former members.

Roberts has burnished his legal image carefully. When news organizations have reported his membership in the society, he or others speaking on his behalf have sought corrections. Last week, the White House told news organizations that had reported his membership in the group that he had no memory of belonging. The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and the Associated Press printed corrections.

Police say more innocents could die in bomb hunt Recidivism Senate to Vote on Repealing Estate Tax The Roberts Court? Shots to the Heart of Iraq Bush Aide Learned Early of Leaks Probe

Sunday, 24 July 2005

John Roberts' rule: Reach for the top Intellect, discipline, savvy have served nominee since youth Defying U.S. Efforts, Guerrillas in Iraq Refocus and Strengthen For Bush, Effect of Investigation of C.I.A. Leak Case Is Uncertain

Saturday, 23 July 2005

CIA Leak Investigation Turns to Possible Perjury, Obstruction Poll: Six in 10 Americans expect new world war: 60 years after WWII, U.S. public, Japanese differ on global conflict Congress Report: TSA Broke Privacy Laws

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Transportation Security Administration violated privacy protections by secretly collecting personal information on at least 250,000 people, congressional investigators said Friday.

How the United States Marked the 3rd Anniversary of the Downing Street Memo

Hundreds of people were turned away today as capacity crowds packed public forums in U.S. cities to discuss the Downing Street Memo and related evidence that President Bush lied about the reasons for war. Halls were filled to capacity and beyond in LA, Oakland, Seattle, Detroit, Northampton, New York, and elsewhere, for events led by Congress Members, including Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, Jim McDermott, John Conyers, and Maurice Hinchey.

Thursday, 21 July 2005

Amira Hass: On the slope of Jewish democracy

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is not dividing Jerusalem. Neither is Minister Haim Ramon. They have simply found a faster and more efficient way than those tried before to get rid of tens of thousands of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem - after the process of robbing them of their lands for the benefit of the Jewish residents has been exhausted.

Tuesday, 19 July 2005

Ray McGovern: Why "White House v. Wilson/Plame" Matters Iraq role driving terror, UK warned

Monday, 18 July 2005

Lawrence Korb: Americans: Cut Pentagon spending

It's fashionable for pundits to point to polls and claim the public is ignorant, ill-informed or apathetic. But an illuminating new survey released last Monday shows that -- though citizens may indeed be confused about specific issues -- they are clear about one federal agency whose budget should be cut.

Did Iraq invasion bolster extremism? Studies: War radicalized most foreign fighters in Iraq

Saudi and Israeli studies show that most foreign fighters were not terrorists before Iraq war.

Tube bombs 'linked to Iraq conflict'

Think tank says war boosts al-Qaida

Blair dismisses connection

• Full report

Straw rejects war link to bombings

Friday, 15 July 2005

What May Come After the Evacuation of Jewish Settlers from the Gaza Strip: A Warning from Israel

We believe that one primary, unstated motive for the determination of the government of the State of Israel to get the Jewish settlers of the Qatif (Katif) settlement block out of the Gaza Strip may be to keep them out of harm?s way when the Israeli government and military possibly trigger an intensified mass attack on the approximately one and a half million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, of whom about half are 1948 Palestine refugees.

Civilians bear brunt of Iraqi insurgency

Iraqi civilians and police officers are being killed by insurgents at a rate of more than 800 a month - one an hour, according to new figures released by the interior ministry.

Saturday, 9 July 2005

Fox News slammed over 'callous' line

Friday, 8 July 2005

Robert Fisk: The Reality of This Barbaric Bombing

Thursday, 7 July 2005

Who's Watching the Watch List? Donation Brought Access to DeLay

Tuesday, 5 July 2005

Bush, the obstacle to a deal on global warming

Wednesday, 22 June 2005

Bill Moyers: A Moral Transaction G8 Countries Defying Arms Embargoes, Says Report

Arms supplied by G8 countries are being used by regimes that violate human rights, impoverish their people and fight their neighbors, a report by leading development agencies and campaigners warns today.

The G8 countries - Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the US - account for 84% of all worldwide arms supplies, according to the report, published by Amnesty, Oxfam, and the International Action Network on Small Arms and titled The G8: Global Arms Exporters. (.pdf)

Tuesday, 21 June 2005

How Warming Is Changing the Wild Kingdom Gov't Collected Data on Airline Passengers

Wednesday, 8 June 2005

Revealed: How Oil Giant Influenced Bush: White House sought advice from Exxon on Kyoto stance

Thursday, 17 March 2005

Bush Names Iraq War Architect Paul Wolfowitz to Head World Bank

First of all I think people are first I appreciate the world leaders taking my phone calls as I explain to them why I think Paul will be a strong President of the World Bank. I said he's a man of good experiences. He helped manage a large organization, World Bank's a large organization. The Pentagon's a large organization. He's been involved in the management of that organization. He's a skilled diplomat, worked at the State Department in high positions as Ambassador to Indonesia, where he did a very good job representing our country, and Paul is committed to development. A compassionate, decent man who will do a fine job in the World Bank and that's why I called leaders of countries and that's why I put him up.

Wednesday, 23 February 2005

Company's Work in Iraq Profited Bush's Uncle: William H.T. 'Bucky' Bush earned $450,000 on stock options with defense contractor ESSI. The Secret Genocide Archive Bush and Chirac reopen wounds Doomed to fail

"Freedom is on the march," Mr. Bush has said. Unfortunately for the United States, North Korea and Iran don't see it that way. And if America keeps marching, it could very well be in the direction of a nuclear apocalypse.

Tuesday, 22 February 2005

Dr Annabelle Lukin: Grammar and ideology in reporting war

Thursday, 10 February 2005

No Place to Hide: Award-Winning Journalist Robert O'Harrow Goes Behind the Scenes of Our Emerging Surveillance Society

• Articles by Robert O'Harrow
• In Age of Security, Firm Mines Wealth Of Personal Data
• Bahamas Firm Screens Personal Data To Assess Risk: Operation Avoids U.S. Privacy Rules
• Privacy Eroding, Bit by Byte

White House Queried on Media Policy: Web-site Reporter Using Pseudonym Allowed in Briefings As Union Nears Win, Wal-Mart Closes Store U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings: More than 200 Fish and Wildlife researchers cite cases where conclusions were reversed to weaken protections and favor business, a survey finds The Battle of the (Bush) Bulge: Why Did the 'NYT' Kill Its Story?

Tuesday, 8 February 2005

Outsourcing Torture: The Secret History of America's "Extraordinary Rendition" Program George Monbiot: Fraud and Corruption: Forget the UN. The US Occupation Regime Helped Itself to $8.8b of Mostly Iraqi Money in Just 14 Months

Sunday, 6 February 2005

Apocalypse Now: How Mankind is Sleepwalking to the End of the Earth

Floods, storms and droughts. Melting Arctic ice, shrinking glaciers, oceans turning to acid. The world's top scientists warned last week that dangerous climate change is taking place today, not the day after tomorrow. You don't believe it? Then, says Geoffrey Lean, read this...

Thursday, 3 February 2005

UK climate meeting calls for action: Researchers discuss 'dangerous' change as global-warming fears grow.

"Major investment" is needed to help people mitigate and adapt to global warming. So say the 200 top climate scientists, and a handful of economists and politicians, assembled this week at Britain's Met Office.

Thursday, 27 January 2005

Max Boot: Digging Into Seymour Hersh: You don't have to scratch too deeply to find an enormous reservoir of left-wing bias. Bush and Kerry Renew Debate on Health Care

During last year's presidential campaign, President Bush and Senator John Kerry laid out sharply contrasting visions for improving health care. That clash continued today, as Mr. Kerry called for repealing tax cuts for the most affluent Americans to pay for providing insurance for all the nation's children, and Mr. Bush spoke of the benefits that information technology promises for improvements in care and efficiency.

Across Baghdad, Security Is Only an Ideal

Starkly put, Baghdad is not under control, either by the Iraqi interim government or the American military.

Odd Detour Disturbs Terror Jury

Some of the jurors in the terrorism trial of the lawyer Lynne F. Stewart complained yesterday that they had felt threatened on Tuesday when their van driver took an unexpected turn outside court. He steered through a crowd of news camera crews and then rolled down his window to shout at a cluster of Ms. Stewart's supporters, they told the judge.

Kennedy Calls On Bush to Begin Troops Pullout Soon