Thursday, November 27, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
More on what we thought about our new President-elect
Justin Raimundo
His appointments augur ill
We know the sellout is a reality when we listen to Jamie Kirchick praise Barack Obama's national security appointments: "Barack Obama isn't even president yet, and he's already angering some of his most devoted followers on the party's left wing. This is the mark of what could be a very successful presidency," he snarks.
Kirchick, in his role as Marty Peretz's alter ego, is pleased as punch with the incoming Obama-ites, who appear to have abandoned their "netroots" early on and ceded the foreign policy realm to the pro-war Clinton wing of the party. He is mostly concerned with gloating over the fact that Joe Lieberman wasn't expelled from the Democratic caucus, but the larger issue is the party's foreign policy stance in general, which looks to be shaping up as distinctly right-of-center. ("Right," in this sense, means neocon, rather than authentically conservative, but then you knew that.)
As the last surviving representative of the Scoop Jackson Democrats, who have long been on the politically endangered species list, Lieberman has a special place in the hearts of neocons everywhere, but especially in the editorial offices of The New Republic, which, in spite of unconvincing efforts to suck up to the "new politics" wing, exists to hold high the banner of that hoary tradition.
Obama's personal intervention on Lieberman's behalf hints at where the Democrats are going as a governing party, and his appointments are rapidly confirming this trend: not only Hillary Clinton at State and Robert Gates at Defense, but also retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones as national security adviser. The former commander of U.S. forces in Europe and military head of NATO was described last year as a political "hot commodity" by the Wall Street Journal. In a piece that detailed the courting of the general by both political parties, Hillary is cited as saying she'd put him in her Cabinet, perhaps as defense secretary, although her campaign qualified this by saying that "it's way premature" to speculate about such matters, as indeed it was. Jones is best buddies with John McCain, and, although he assiduously avoided a formal endorsement, he made an appearance with his old friend during the campaign. When Jones served on a commission evaluating our military operations in Iraq, he concluded that we ought to stay the course: "Understand the fact that regardless how you got there, there is a strategic price of enormous consequence for failure in Iraq." His point of agreement with President-elect Obama is that he believes we've been grievously amiss in not escalating the fighting on the Afghan front sooner.
The argument for Gen. Jones as national security chieftain echoes the case for Hillary at State: "If Obama engages Iran," avers The New Republic, "it'll be harder to dismiss his overtures as soft-headed or naïve with Jones coordinating foreign policy." The same malarkey is being uttered with a straight face by defenders of the Clinton appointment, such as Obamacon-in-chief Andrew Sullivan, who claim it will somehow give Obama the credibility to pull off a settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This assumes, however, that his "team of rivals," as the pundits have deemed it, won't mutiny. It assumes presidential omnipotence, when the reality is that without the cooperation of the vast and powerful national security bureaucracy, the White House will find it difficult to carry out its program. It also assumes Clinton and her menagerie won't actively sabotage the policies she attacked during the primaries as "naïve" and "dangerous."
On the key question of withdrawal from Iraq, Jones is a mixed bag. The Jones commission set up to evaluate Iraq's move toward creating its own military and police forces praised the Iraqi army but dissed the police as sectarian bullies and recommended they be disbanded. Of course, the police are run by the ruling Shi'ite parties, each of which has its own militia, and these will never be disbanded. The Jones plan is to reorient the U.S. mission in Iraq to protect the borders and leave internal security to the Iraqi military. At the congressional hearings held to present the commission's findings, Jones was questioned by Sen. Carl Levin:
"You say that significant reductions, consolidations and realignments would appear to be possible and prudent – is that your finding?"
"That's correct," was Jones' reply. However, when it came John McCain's turn to question his old bud, Jones told the Arizona senator what he no doubt wanted to hear. Asked if it would be in our interest to set a definite timetable for U.S. withdrawal, Jones said:
"Senator, I'll speak for myself on this, but I think deadlines can work against us, and I think a deadline of this magnitude would be against our national interest."
Is it really possible that a candidate for president elevated to front-runner status by antiwar voters in the primaries – and elected over a rival who made support for the war the leitmotif of his losing campaign – is enabling the hijacking of American foreign policy by a new cabal of warmongers?
The idea that by surrounding himself with advisers who have a long history of opposing any change in our bipartisan foreign policy orthodoxy Obama can somehow immunize himself from criticism is logical only in a Bizarro World kind of way. In that alternate universe, where up is down and black is white, it makes perfect "sense" for a president to appoint people to key posts who oppose his policies. In our own world, however, such an approach would be crazy – yet it seems to be happening right before our eyes.
Another disturbing aspect of the Jones appointment is that it underscores the rebirth of NATO as an engine of American aggression. No doubt the Bushian-neocon campaign to enlarge the archaic alliance and extend the Euro-American military umbrella into the Caucasus will be taken up by the Obama administration with fresh enthusiasm. The "unilateralist" approach attacked by Bush's Democratic critics as a strategic mistake is now about to be corrected, with a renewed NATO as its symbol. While the ostensible enemy is, at present, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, NATO is, first and foremost, a challenge to Russia. Founded as the Western shield against the Soviet empire, now it is a sword pointed straight at Putin's throat, as the Alliance moves inexorably eastward. If a new confrontation with the Russians is in the making, then it makes sense to put a former NATO military chieftain in as national security adviser.
The new president's appointments resound like slaps in the faces of his liberal supporters: Rahm Emanuel (a fierce opponent of the antiwar wing of the party), Hillary, Robert Gates (they're trying to persuade him to stay on), and now Gen. Jones. It looks like antiwar voters voted for one thing, but are getting quite another – although it won't be the first time that's happened. From "he kept us out of war" in Woodrow Wilson's day to George W. Bush's pledge of "a more humble foreign policy," presidents seem to have a penchant for inverting their campaign promises in the foreign policy realm, and Obama's appointments could presage a lot of surprises – and bitter disappointments – for his supporters.
Just how docile is the rank-and-file of the Obama "movement" – will they take this lying down? We're about to find out. So far, the outrage of the "netroots" and the Rachel Maddow crowd seems limited to the triumph of Lieberman over the attempt to purge the evil spirit of Scoop Jackson from party precincts once and for all. And even this has nothing to do with Lieberman's rabidly pro-war views, per se, only with the Connecticut senator's endorsement of McCain.
As it slowly dawns on the netroots that they've been had, however, don't expect "netroots" entrepreneur Arianna Huffington to start asking uncomfortable questions. After all, she has a lot to lose. As the Times of London reports:
"Arianna Huffington looks set to cement her position as the Queen of Capitol Hill in the next few days.
"The Times has learnt that the Huffington Post, her influential political Web site, will confirm within the next week that it has completed a $15 million (£10 million) fundraising from investors.
"The money will finance the expansion of HuffPo, as it is known, into the provision of local news across the United States and into more investigative journalism. And it will ensure that Ms. Huffington's influence continues to spread across the U.S. political scene.
"She is a close friend of Barack Obama, the president-elect – who, with Hillary Clinton, has posted on her site – and, at a dinner in London on Wednesday night, joked: 'I only text three people – my two teenage children and Barack Obama.'"
Arianna criticize the Dear Leader's appointments? That might get her blocked from the presidential cell, not to mention alienate those generous investors whose interest in her money-losing, aesthetically disastrous, and painstakingly trite Web site might lessen considerably. Which just goes to show that no matter how high the price, a whore is still a whore – and what better occupation for the Queen of Capitol Hill?
The circus aspect of all this may be amusing, if you take your humor black, but the joke is on the rest of us when the Obama-ites take office, because that's when our real problems will begin.
Obama's appointments on the foreign policy front prefigure a policy of paralyzing caution and indecision. Just look at the cast of characters who will be major players on the national security field: not only Hillary and Gen. Jones, but also Joe Biden, who fancies himself a foreign policy maven and will no doubt want to play a major role in the decision-making process. This has all the makings of a three-way bureaucratic turf war, and the result is bound to be paralysis, rather than change of any desirable sort. Obama's first concern, as he takes office, will be facing America's economic crisis, and his full attention will be required for an extended period – plenty of time for the built-in rivalry in the foreign policy apparatus to take root and fester.
The outlook for the foreign policy of the new administration is not good. I foresee a protracted period of confusion and internal struggle, punctuated by periodic foreign crises in which Team Obama will be all too eager to prove their "toughness." Diverted by trouble on the home front, President Obama is likely to let the tremendous opportunities opened up by his international popularity and stature go to waste. Putting Hillary Clinton to work on forging a Middle East peace agreement is another example of Bizarro World logic in action: Obama might as well assign the task to Norman Podhoretz.
Original article posted here.
Interesting news regarding US cronies in Georgia
Russia's top investigator claims to have evidence that citizens from Nato member states including the US and Turkey fought for Georgia in the five-day war in August.
Asked to list the nationalities of the foreign fighters it believes were involved, Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Prosecutor-General's investigative committee said: "America, the Czech Republic, Chechnya, the Baltic States, Ukraine and Turkey."
"There were also two snipers - one from Ukraine and I believe a Latvian woman" - Alexander Bastrykin"It was a fairly small number of people. They mainly fulfilled support roles", Mr Bastrykin told reporters in Russia's second city of St Petersburg.
Suggesting that some had conducted training for the Georgian armed forces, he said: "There were also two snipers - one from Ukraine and I believe a Latvian woman."
He added that he considered the presence of foreign fighters a criminal offence and would raise the issue at a meeting with representatives of Interpol.
A senior security official in Tbilisi dismissed the statement and said by law only Georgian nationals could serve in the country's armed forces.
Kakha Lomaia, the Secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, said: "The statement that almost half of the world was fighting in our army in August is just a fantasy of those in the Russian leadership who would like to justify killings of the peaceful population."
Russia launched a massive counter-offensive on land and sea in August after Georgian forces tried to retake South Ossetia, a Moscow-backed separatist region that rejects Tbilisi's rule.
Original article posted here.
Not a global warming scientist, but am open to the possibility that we are being scammed and scared a bit.
By Christopher Booker
Second only to the melting of the Arctic ice and those "drowning" polar bears, there is no scare with which the global warmists, led by Al Gore, more like to chill our blood than the fast-vanishing glaciers of the Himalayas, which help to provide water for a sixth of mankind. Recently one newspaper published large pictures to illustrate the alarming retreat in the past 40 years of the Rongbuk glacier below Everest. Indian meteorologists, it was reported, were warning that, thanks to global warming, all the Himalayan glaciers could have disappeared by 2035.
Read more from Christopher Booker
Yet two days earlier a report by the UN Environment Program had claimed that the cause of the melting glaciers was not global warming but the local warming effect of a vast "atmospheric brown cloud" hanging over that region, made up of soot particles from Asia's dramatically increased burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
Furthermore a British study published two years ago by the American Meteorological Society found that glaciers are only shrinking in the eastern Himalayas. Further west, in the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram, glaciers are "thickening and expanding".
Meanwhile, all last week, ITV News was running a series of wearisomely familiar scare stories on the disappearing Arctic ice and those "doomed" polar bears - without telling its viewers that satellite images now show ice cover above its 30-year average, or that polar bear numbers are at record level. But then "polar bears not drowning after all - as snow falls over large parts of Britain" doesn't really make a story.
Original article posted here.
Maybe be wishful thinking or propaganda, but I thought it was good news so posted. Caveat emptor: I wouldn't rely on its prognostication.
TBILISI. Nov 25 (Interfax) - Georgian opposition leader Giorgy
Khaindrava believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is losing
popularity, but is doing everything to retain power.
"Saakashvili realizes that his days [as president] are numbered,
and he is doing everything to hold on to power to ensure his security,"
Khaindrava told Interfax on Tuesday.
"After the August catastrophe," Saakashvili is "a political corpse"
and "is unlikely to stay in power before the end of his second (and
last) presidential term," said Khaindrava.
"What is dangerous in Georgia now is not so much Saakashvili, but
the criminal group that has usurped power and that can create a lot more
problems," he said.
"We have more than once warned Western politicians that the coming
to power of Saakashvili and people close to him is dangerous not only
for Georgia, but nobody listened to the Georgian opposition. Now the
West is probably reconsidering its attitude to Saakashvili because he
was the catalyst of the aggravation of relations between the West and
Russia," said Khaindrava.
Khaindrava did not rule out that the situation in Georgia may
seriously aggravate in the next few months as a result of the August
events and the world crisis and that "Saakashvili and the Georgian
opposition will no longer be able to control it and people will take to
the streets."
When asked how pragmatic it would be for the Georgian opposition to
come to power in this situation, Khaindrava said: "There will be no
other way out, because otherwise Georgia will face a humanitarian
catastrophe."
"After the August events, Georgia virtually lost its statehood and
its fate is now being decided in the capitals of other countries, but it
cannot go on like this," he said.
Khaindrava accused the Russian authorities of "aggression and
occupation of Georgia." "Russia's imperialist policy is interested in
chaos in Georgia, and a second occupation stage is possible to maintain
it," he said, adding that the issue of Georgia's territorial integrity
and the return of Abkhazia and South Ossetia "will not be taken off the
agenda under any circumstances" if the Georgian opposition comes to
power in Georgia.
Commenting on the November 23 attack on the cars carrying the
presidents of Georgia and Poland, Khaindrava called this incident "a
prank by Saakashvili and [Polish President Lech] Kaczynski, who have
long lost the trust of their people in their countries."
Original article posted here.
As Obummer continues his fucked up policies of throwing money to the people who least need it, the middle class is getting crushed
76 percent of American middle-class households not financially secure
As the economy continues to reel, a new report finds that 4 million American households lost economic security between 2000 and 2006, and that a majority of America's middle class households are either borderline or at high risk of falling out of the middle class altogether. The new report, "From Middle to Shaky Ground: The Economic Decline of America's Middle Class, 2000-2006" was published by the policy center Demos and the Institute for Assets and Social Policy (IASP) at Brandeis University.
"From Middle to Shaky Ground" is based on the Middle Class Security Index, co-developed by Demos and IASP/Brandeis, which uses government data and measures the financial security of the middle class by rating household stability across five core economic factors: assets, educational achievement, housing costs, budget and healthcare. Based on how a family ranked in each of these factors, they were defined as financially "secure," "borderline" or "at risk". In addition to the report, Demos and IASP/Brandeis have published an "Economic Security Scorecard" that the average family can use to measure where they fall on the Middle Class Security Index.
"The increases we're witnessing in housing costs and the number of families who lack health insurance, coupled with the extreme volatility of the average household's savings, show that a large percentage of America's middle class are not well equipped to weather this current economic storm," said Jennifer Wheary, one the report's co-authors and a Senior Fellow at Demos.
"From Middle to Shaky Ground" shows some worrying trends in America's households, including:
-- The median financial assets held by middle-class families declined by 22 percent. This means that for every dollar in median assets that middle-class families held in 2000, they held just 78 cents in 2006. These figures do not include home equity and therefore do not reflect additional losses families may have experienced due a decline in their home values.
-- Monthly housing expenses for the middle class rose by 9 percent. As a result, the percentage of middle-class families who match the Department of Housing and Urban Development's definition of "housing burdened" rose from 31 percent in 2000 to 37 percent in 2006.
-- The number of middle-class families in which at least one member lacks health insurance grew from 18 percent in 2000 to 25 percent in 2006.
"Declines such as these in any one area are alarming," said Tom Shapiro, Professor of Law and Director of the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis. "Bad news across a range of areas supporting financial stability means the middle class is confronting its greatest challenge since the Great Depression."
Original article posted here.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
O'bummer and the recycled warmongers
Obama transition points to more war and repression
President-elect Barack Obama owes his victory, both in the Democratic primaries and the general election, in large part to the overwhelming hostility of the American people to the years of military aggression, torture, extraordinary rendition, domestic spying and all of the other crimes that will constitute the indelible legacy of the Bush administration.
Thanks to his carefully calibrated criticisms of these policies, as well as his indictment of his principal Democratic opponent, Senator Hillary Clinton, for her October 2002 vote authorizing the US invasion of Iraq, Obama’s “change you can believe in” was perceived by many, both in the US and abroad, as a promise that his election would signal an end to militarism and attacks on democratic rights.
As the transition to the new administration unfolds, however, belief in Obama’s promise of change can be sustained only to the extent that one fails to examine the political record of those who are involved in this process.
For the most part, the Obama-Biden transition team is staffed by veterans of the Clinton administration, associated with the US wars in the Balkans and the policy of regime change in Iraq that set the stage for the war that followed under the Bush presidency.
Symbolic of this relationship is Obama’s decision to send Clinton’s former secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, to this weekend’s Group of 20 meeting in Washington as his personal emissary. Confronted in a 1996 interview on the CBS News program “60 Minutes” with the fact that US sanctions against Iraq had led to the deaths of half a million Iraqi children, Albright replied, “It’s a hard choice, but the price, we, think, is worth it.” She subsequently became a key architect of the US-backed dismemberment of Yugoslavia and the subsequent war against Serbia, which was marked by the widespread bombing of civilian targets. Such is Obama’s face to the world.
In terms of the military policy of an incoming Obama presidency, the most telling indication of the narrow character of the change that can be anticipated are the persistent reports that Bush’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, may be kept at his post after the change in administrations.
Citing two of the president-elect’s advisers, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that “President-elect Barack Obama is leaning toward asking Defense Secretary Robert Gates to remain in his position for at least a year.”
The retention of Gates, as the Journal points out, would send the clearest signal of essential continuity with the militarist foreign policy of the Bush administration. “Like the president-elect, Mr. Gates supports deploying more troops to Afghanistan,” the paper noted. “But the defense secretary strongly opposes a firm timetable for withdrawing American forces from Iraq, and his appointment could mean that Mr. Obama was effectively shelving his campaign promise to remove most troops from Iraq by mid-2010.”
The substantial support within the Democratic leadership for keeping Gates on was expressed last weekend by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrat of Nevada) in an interview with CNN. “Why wouldn’t we want to keep him?” said Reid. “He’s never been a registered Republican.”
The other figure most often cited as a potential pick as defense secretary is former Clinton-era Navy Secretary Richard Danzig. Last June, Danzig delivered his own endorsement for retaining Gates, telling the Times of London, “My personal position is Gates is a very good secretary of defense and would be an even better one in an Obama administration.”
Whether Gates stays or goes, Obama’s selection of key personnel on his Pentagon transition team signals that the incoming administration “will handle Iraq and Afghanistan differently from the Bush administration—but will stop well short of a complete restructuring of American military strategy in the two war zones,” the Journal’s Yochi Dreazen reported in a subsequent column.
The co-leader of this team, Michele Flournoy, who was in the Defense Department under Clinton, is the current president of the Center for New American Strategy, a bipartisan think tank on military policy. She has publicly opposed the idea of setting a fixed timetable for withdrawing US troops from Iraq. In March 2007, she co-wrote a position paper on Iraq for the center, declaring, “The US has enduring interests in that besieged country and the surrounding region, and these interests will require a significant military presence there for the foreseeable future.”
Another prominent member of the transition team is Sarah Sewall, a Harvard University “human rights” specialist who served as an adviser to Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq and participated in the drafting of the military’s counterinsurgency field manual.
Also serving as senior adviser to the Pentagon transition effort is Sam Nunn, who was chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services from 1987 to 1995. A right-wing Democrat and cold warrior, Nunn left the Senate after leading a campaign against President Bill Clinton over the proposal to lift the ban on gays serving openly in the military.
The character of this transition team is in keeping with the real intentions of the incoming Obama administration: the continued occupation of Iraq by tens of thousands of US troops and a sharp escalation of the ongoing colonial war in Afghanistan.
The same picture emerges with the transition team at the Central Intelligence Agency. According to published reports, the leading figure in that effort is John Brennan, who headed up what is now known as the National Counter-Terrorism Center and previously served as CIA deputy executive director and former CIA Director George Tenet’s chief of staff. He left the agency in 2005.
It must be assumed that Brennan, a senior operator in the so-called global war on terrorism, was intimately familiar with and involved in decisions to carry out torture, assassinations, extraordinary rendition and domestic spying that were implemented during his tenure at the CIA.
Also figuring prominently in Obama’s intelligence transition team is Jamie Miscik, who headed the CIA’s analytical operations under Tenet. She played a leading role in manufacturing the phony intelligence about Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” and ties to Al Qaeda that was used to sell the war, and in suppressing reports from agency analysts that rejected both claims as unfounded. After leaving the agency at the end of 2004, she found a lucrative—though relatively short-lived—position as the head of global sovereign risk analysis at the now-bankrupt Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers.
While on the campaign trail, Obama on occasion denounced the Bush administration’s intelligence abuses—warrantless wiretapping, waterboarding, indefinite detention without trial—but when it came to a vote in the Senate last summer, he supported vastly expanded domestic spying powers for the National Security Agency and retroactive immunity for the telecom companies that collaborated with the Bush administration in carrying out the illegal wiretapping.
As with Gates, it is not ruled out that those in charge of US intelligence under Bush will stay on under Obama. Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell and CIA Director Michael Hayden have both indicated they are prepared to remain at their posts in the incoming Democratic administration. McConnell, who gave Obama a presidential-style intelligence briefing last week, described the president-elect’s team as “very smart, very strategic.”
While Obama’s overall transition chief, John Podesta, stressed last weekend that the incoming president would swiftly repeal a number of executive orders issued by the Bush administration, the specific ones he cited—stem cell research, domestic oil drilling, etc. —did not include the multiple directives authorizing US military and intelligence forces to carry out acts of aggression around the world.
Given that Obama has vowed to escalate cross-border raids against Pakistan and prosecute the so-called war on terror—the pretext used to justify Washington’s use of military force to dominate the oil-rich regions of the globe—he will in all likelihood adopt these orders as his own.
It has been less than two weeks since Obama was swept to victory in the presidential election by a wave of popular hostility to the Bush administration. Yet the actions of the president-elect and his advisers are already making it clear that the longing of millions of Americans for an end to the growth of US militarism and international criminality are not to be realized after the inauguration in January.
Original article posted here.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Looks like there would be a down side for Obama not negotiating . . . (Hint: Get rid of the Polish and Czech missiles)
By ALAN CULLISON
MINSK, Belarus -- President Alexander Lukashenko is in talks with Moscow about placing in Belarus advanced Iskander missiles that could hit targets deep inside Europe.
President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, left, who met Oct. 26 near Moscow with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, says that Belarus would like to deploy missiles even if it doesn't reach an agreement with Moscow.
The talks raise the ante in the debate over a U.S. plan to deploy missile defense in Europe. They also complicate Western hopes for warmer ties with Belarus, which some in the U.S. and Europe hope could help to counterbalance an increasingly hostile Kremlin.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Lukashenko said that he would like to see closer relations with the West but that he sympathizes with Russia on two flashpoints that have rocked relations -- the conflict in Georgia and U.S. plans to place antimissile systems in Europe to counter a potential threat from Iran.
Mr. Lukashenko said he "absolutely supports" Russia's plans to place Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad that would target the U.S. missile system. Kaliningrad is a Russian enclave in Europe that borders NATO members Poland and Lithuania, and missiles there could reach the proposed U.S. missile sites in Poland.
Mr. Lukashenko said Russia also had proposed putting Iskander missiles in Belarus, which is situated between Russia and Poland. And if a deal on the issue isn't reached, Belarus itself would like to deploy the missiles, he said.
"Even if Russia does not offer these promising missiles, we will purchase them ourselves," said Mr. Lukashenko, who said the technology for the Iskander optics and fire-control systems comes from Belarus. "Right now we do not have the funds, but it is part of our plans -- I am giving away a secret here -- to have such weapons."
Analysts said it is far from clear that Russia would really need to place missiles inside Belarus. The Kremlin has offered to give up its Kaliningrad plans if Washington drops its missile-defense system. Mr. Lukashenko's missile ambitions also could be a bargaining chip in his maneuvering between Russia and the West.
Though closely allied with and heavily dependent on Moscow, Mr. Lukashenko, a former collective-farm boss who has kept a tight grip on Belarus since he was elected president 14 years ago, has resisted the Kremlin's embrace.
But financial necessity may be tugging harder at Minsk than before. On Wednesday, Russia announced that it agreed to grant Belarus a $2 billion stabilization loan to shore up the government's finances, which have been strained by the credit crisis.
Under loan terms, Belarus agreed to pay for future oil and gas debts in rubles, a major priority of the Kremlin, which has sought to expand the use of the Russian currency beyond its borders.
Advisers to Mr. Lukashenko said he has lately put out feelers to improve relations with the U.S. and Europe, which slapped his government with sanctions in 2006 after he was accused of rigging his re-election. Sanctions were eased this year, after Mr. Lukashenko ordered the release of some political prisoners.
Like other leaders of former Soviet states, he has resisted Moscow pressure to side with the Kremlin in its conflict with Georgia by recognizing the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. So far the only countries to confer recognition are Russia and Nicaragua.
But he signaled he may tip toward Moscow on the issue and echoed Russia's argument that the West paved the way for the independence of Georgia's breakaway regions by recognizing Kosovo.
Original article posted here.
Lukashenko, in His Own Words
Below, excerpts from Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko's interview with The Wall Street Journal Tuesday. The interview was conducted in Russian, and translated by the Journal.
On the release of political opponent Alexander Kozulin earlier this year:
"The West perceived this as some kind of step toward democracy. You are welcome, thank you very much. You know, strictly between us, sometimes I think if they could find five or six more political prisoners here and told us to free them, and that then perhaps we would make a few more steps forward, we would do it readily. We could free even more. But they haven't found any more."
On the possibility of recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia:
"If you [the West] recognized Kosovo, why not recognize Abkhazia? I don't see any problems here. There is a precedent[hellip] Europe and America understand our position and our situation. And I will be honest, they are no longer pushing it as rigidly with us as before. So I don't think there would be negative repercussions for our relations or the like. I think this question is finished. It is no longer as acute as it was two months ago."
On the financial crisis:
"And I warned the Americans and others. No one listened to me. As it turned out, I was right. Now in America they are talking about an alternative to this ultraliberal market system, where everything is allowed, where you can eat more than what you make, and spend more than what you earn."
On Barack Obama:
"I look at Obama, a young man, a good-looking person. That is my first impression, I feel sorry for him. He looks 100% like Lukashenko, when I came to power after the downfall of the Soviet Union. The store shelves were empty, a severe financial crisis."
The never-ending legal charade of 9/11 insider Jacob Kobi Alexander
Government has complied with the High Court ruling, in effect concurring with fugitive Jacob Kobi Alexander's legal team, that a chief of Lower Court is a public ser-vant and not a magi-strate, hence a person occupying that office could not hear cases such as Alexander's extradition case.
Cabinet has now instructed the Ministry of Justice to delete the definition of the chief of Lower Court in the Magistrate Act and substitute it with the proper definition and expressions.
Alexander, wanted in the United States to face 33 criminal charges consisting mostly of counts of fraud, has been fighting extradition to the US since his arrest in Windhoek in September 2006.
Alexander's legal team has to date mounted a successful legal fight, that has been characterised by legal delaying tactics as well as a challenge that parts of the Extradition Act are not constitutional.
The biggest challenge, however, was when Alexander's legal team protested that the Chief of Lower Court, Petrus Unengu, could not hear the extradition case because he is a public ser-vant and not a magistrate. The legal team wanted the case to appear before Uaatjo Uanavi, the magistrate before whom the case was first heard and who granted the N$10 million bail to Alexander in October 2006.
The legal team argued that as a public servant, the chief of Lower Court could neither be nor regarded as independent. The case went before the High Court that ruled in favour of Alexander. The High Court ruled that the concept of judicial independence stands on two inseparable pillars of individual independence and institutional independence, which as such means complete liberty of individual judges and magistrates to hear and decide the cases that come before them.
At its 20th ordinary meeting on October 28, Cabinet, in principle, permitted the Ministry of Justice to make the required amendments. The amendments are "so as to delete the definition of chief of Lower Court to define the expression chief magistrate, to provide for the administrative head of the magistracy, to substitute the expression chief magistrate for the expression chief of Lower Court, wherever it occurs in certain legislation and to provide for incidental matters," a statement from Cabinet said.
It is alleged Alexander committed fraud while he was Chief Executive Officer of the New York-based Comverse Technology, a software and system company he co-founded in the 1980s. Alexander is alleged to have profited illegally through illegal stock option backdating schemes, earning himself nearly US$10 million in profits.
Original article posted here.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Deja vu all over again. CIA setting itself up for another Bay of Pigs, demanding that Obama cede conventional control of military to spooks. Kennedy 2
By Jeff Stein, CQ Staff
Let’s say that on Jan. 21 a massive car bomb meant for Osama bin Laden goes off in a Pakistani village, killing 120 local citizens but missing the elusive al Qaeda leader, who was riding in another vehicle.
In an elaborate press conference, the president of Pakistan blames the CIA. On an easel next to him is a three-by-five foot photo of the CIA’s station chief in Islamabad, who is sent packing.
President Obama, in office for mere hours, finds out that the CIA did, in fact, plant the bomb, based on what it thought was solid intelligence that bin Laden was in the car.
How will the new president react?
That’s much on the mind of intelligence officials awaiting the Jan. 20, 2009, inauguration of Obama, a short-time U.S. senator with no discernable record and little demonstrated interest, so far, in intelligence issues.
“I was with a group of intelligence officers today,” Roger Cressey, a counterterrorism official in the Clinton White House, said on MSNBC Thursday night, “and I think the most important thing for the president to say is, ‘We’ve got your back.’ That ‘we want you to take risks — risks that conform with our law and our values as a country.’
“What the intelligence community is afraid of more than anything is the game of ‘Gotcha,’” Cressey said. “Which is, if they make a mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, the White House doesn’t support them, they’re left out to dry, and Congress crushes them. And then you get into that risk-averse mentality, which we saw for awhile. So that is what they want. They want support, so they know that the president is going to be behind them. But also that he’s going to lead them.”
CIA spokesman George Little parried a query about the agency’s expectations of Obama, but said, “Risk-taking is, of course, an essential and inherent part of what we do.
“CIA officers work hard every day to confront national security challenges, such as terrorism and weapons proliferation, with a level of creativity, agility, and sense of mission that the American people undoubtedly expect — and do so in accord with U.S. law,” Little said.
The bin Laden car bomb scenario, of course, isn’t far fetched.
In Beirut in 1985, the CIA hatched a plot to kill Sheikh Fadlallah, a leading figure in the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement of Lebanon, with a car bomb, according to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward. The bomb killed 80 people, but not Fadlallah.
But the CIA, at least back then, wasn’t adverse to hiring killers.
In 1969, CIA Beirut station chief Robert Ames recruited a spy at the highest levels of the Palestine Liberation Organization, a charismatic terrorist by the name of Ali Hassan Salameh, AKA The Red Prince.
Three years later Salameh was an architect of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of Israeli athletes.
How would it play out today if something like that came out? Will Obama permit his CIA to recruit a stone-cold al Qaeda killer, not to mention stand by it if something goes wrong?
(The Israelis took care of the Salameh problem by killing him, according to various accounts.)
Or how about this scenario: The CIA, which has been trying to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program, gets caught shipping centrifuges to Iran?
How will the new president react?
Such questions will only be answered when the new president enters the White House and “takes off the gloves,” in one of those tiresome post-9/11 phrases, with the world’s nasty boys.
I have no doubt the Chicago-made man will do it, and be smarter at it than his feckless predecessor.
And when something goes wrong, as it inevitably will, that he’ll stand up and take it like a man, as John F. Kennedy did in April 1961, after he green-lighted his predecessor’s ridiculous plan for the CIA to invade Cuba with a force of 1,511 men.
“There’s an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan,” Kennedy said at a White House press conference, adding, “I am the responsible officer of the government.”
But the best favor a President Obama could do for the CIA is to nix such hare-brained schemes before they hatch, as Kennedy later wished he’d done with the Bay of Pigs caper.
For inspiration, he could take a page from the late Sen. Barry Goldwater. In 1985 the colorful Arizonan was presiding over the Senate Intelligence Committee when a CIA official mentioned the agency was thinking about overthrowing the leftist government of Suriname.
Goldwater was incensed. The CIA should be worrying about bigger things than a tiny country in South America.
“That,” Goldwater said, “is the dumbest f***** operation I’ve ever heard of in my life.”
“Do you really need this?” he asked President Reagan.
The idea was dropped.
Obama will need such friends of his own.
Jeff Stein can be reached at jstein@cq.com.
Never mind reality, al CIAda is STILL coming to getcha!
US facing second wave of 9/11 attacks
NEXT FEATURE
Boy hailed as Buddha's reincarnation
Thousands of people flocked to see a boy who reappeared after missing for more than a year and who some believe is a reincarnation of Buddha.
Al-Qaeda is reportedly planning a terrorist attack against the United States which will "outdo by far" the attacks of September 11 in 2001.
Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi in London reports a senior Yemen official close to Al-Qaeda as warning of a new wave of terror attacks against the western nation.
The source, who is not named, is quoted as being "very close to Al-Qaeda"
The newspaper is edited by Abdel al-Bari Atwan, who was the last journalist to edit Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 1996.
The newspaper report, contained on the front page, suggests bin Laden has ordered a large scale attack against the United States which would "outdo by far" the attacks of September 11.
It comes as reports in Britain say there is clear evidence that thousands of extremists are living inside the United Kingdom.
In a message to loyalists, bin Laden is reported to have asked that his followers ignore all efforts to reconcile with Governments and other political parties - in effect keeping extremists isolated.
The newspaper's source said it was likely a sign of an imminent attack may be sent within the coming weeks.
The September 11 attacks against the United States killed nearly 3,000 people.
Russia's Pravda breaks the media silence and states the obvious
The basic truth is that Al Qaeda does not exist and never has. Al Qaeda is a manufactured enemy who was created by the Bush Administration in order to have an excuse to wage a war for the control of the world’s oil resources.
Did an American even hear the words “Al Qaeda” before 9-11? Or were we told that its alleged leader Osama Bin Laden has family who themselves have personal business relationships with George W. Bush’s family and that both families had financially profited considerably from the “War on Terror”?
If “Al Qaeda” was such an organized group terrorists as we are being told then why weren’t we the people notified of this evil threat when the US Cole was bombed a few months before 9-11? “Al Qaeda” is nothing more than a broad euphemistic umbrella classification used to group any Middle Eastern fighter under the Sun as an enemy. The most diabolical aspect of this public relations stunt is that it enables the current Administration to label any group it feels necessary to attack to appear to be related to an unprovable organized enemy while at the same time actually increasing its approval ratings by exploiting the basic primal fears of the American public. Furthermore when one realizes the questionable motivations that this Administration has used previously to attack an enemy, as what is now surfacing about the Iraq War, one begins to get the strange feeling that this Orwellian double-speak is nothing more than a smoke and mirror illusion whose true intentions would of made Goebbels himself jealous.
Think about it: How could a bunch of technologically unadvanced group of people from third-world nations such as “Al Qaeda” ever have any real central organization structure? If they had any real organization they would have most certainly attacked us again after September eleventh. Where are all the terrorist cells in this country? Contrary to what has been implicitly presented in the media there HAS NEVER been a single domestic terror cell caught since Bush has been in office! The majority of suspects that have been arrested and detained in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 with the exception of a handful have not been charged with crimes in anyway associated with terrorism. All of their crimes are minor and for the most part are ! related to immigration violations of some sort. There is some ambiguity in all of this though because to this day the Ashcroft Justice Department has been less than forthcoming with the specifics of these arrests. Why would this be the case if the justifications for these arrests were really legitimate? We have been bombarded by the media with every indignity from the duck-tape chronicles to the crop dusting threat. You would think that with all this seeming sensitivity by our government about informing the general populace about possible terror threats, especially when some of their sources came from “unnamed and confidential secondary sources”, that the Ashcroft Justice Department would have gone out of it’s way to mention to the public any terrorist connections that the people detained after 9-11 had and would of sworn by it on a stack of Bibles.
To date the only really suspicious activity of people detained after 9-11 were a group of Israelis who were caught in Jersey City, New Jersey filming themselves in the foreground of the burning World Trade Center with “looks of jubilation on their faces”. It was later confirmed that two of the gentlemen detained had known Mossad ties. While they were detained it is of no matter now as they were subsequently released from jail a few! weeks later and were allowed to go back to Israel with no questions asked by the direct authorization of the Justice Department. I guess they were just dropping off a box of cigars to Governor McGreevy?
What is even more illuminating about all of this is that to this day nobody has taken responsibility for the attacks of 9-11, including “Al Qaeda”. The only thing to link these attacks to anyone is the video tape of Osama Bin Laden that was conveniently found in a cave in Afghanistan that had him talking about the physical structure of the World Trade Center and the plane strike. The audio quality of this tape is so poor that any objective Arab-speaking analyst who was asked to give their opinion was unable to do so! as they claimed that just about all the words on it were inaudible. I believe an objective investigation into this original tape’s authenticity could verify if this admission is in fact genuine and could shed some light on the truth of the existence of “Al Qaeda”. But even if this tape is genuine what would this really prove? As I have already mentioned it is common knowledge that Osama Bin Laden is connected to George W. Bush’s family by a minimum of two degrees of separation. So in the grand scheme of things what does this really matter? That the Cobra Commander said he did it?
In summary, “Al Qaeda” does not exist nor has it ever. If it really existed to anywhere near the extent that we have been told then there would have been an attack on our homeland. Of course this proof of a negative is used by the Administration to justify themselves to the American public that they are doing their jobs, but when one realizes that “Al Qaeda” is really nothing more than an artificially manufactured enemy then what job are they really doing other than capitalizing off of people’s fears? What other issue does the present Administration have to offer the average working-class citizen other than security? And if security is really only a Red Herring platform issue, then of what use are they to begin with? In addition, ! if there were any degree of truth in the strength of “Al Qaeda” or even of their very existence then there would have been a much larger resistance in Afghanistan and especially in Iraq. If an organization structure existed within “Al Qaeda” then you would have seen the Iraqi resistance be a much more conventional ! one. They would have had the communication capability and weapons arsenal to mount a more traditional counter-offensive against our troops and they would have been successful doing it because our force’s numbers are so minimal. This would have been a prime opportunity to defeat “the great satan” in front of the entire world. Their motivation to do so would have been so strong that in order for them to of not of done this one must make the quantum leap and conclude that “Al Qaeda” is much to do about nothing and always has been. The emperor is naked and running through the courtyard with a great big barrel of oil.
Original article posted here.
Monday, November 10, 2008
The fucking scam marches on . . .
By Mark Pittman, Bob Ivry and Alison Fitzgerald
Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsonsaid in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.
``The collateral is not being adequately disclosed, and that's a big problem,'' said Dan Fuss, vice chairman of Boston- based Loomis Sayles & Co., where he co-manages $17 billion in bonds. ``In a liquid market, this wouldn't matter, but we're not. The market is very nervous and very thin.''
Bloomberg News has requested details of the Fed lending under the U.S.Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure.
The Fed made the loans under terms of 11 programs, eight of them created in the past 15 months, in the midst of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
``It's your money; it's not the Fed's money,'' said billionaire Ted Forstmann, senior partner of Forstmann Little & Co. in New York. ``Of course there should be transparency.''
Treasury, Fed, Obama
Federal Reserve spokeswoman Michelle Smith declined to comment on the loans or the Bloomberg lawsuit. Treasury spokeswoman Michele Davisdidn't respond to a phone call and an e-mail seeking comment.
President-elect Barack Obama's economic adviser, Jason Furman, also didn't respond to an e-mail and a phone call seeking comment from Obama. In a Sept. 22 campaign speech, Obama promised to ``make our government open and transparent so that anyone can ensure that our business is the people's business.''
The Fed's lending is significant because the central bank has stepped into a rescue role that was also the purpose of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, bailout plan -- without safeguards put into the TARP legislation by Congress.
Total Fed lending topped $2 trillion for the first time last week and has risen by 140 percent, or $1.172 trillion, in the seven weeks since Fed governors relaxed the collateral standards on Sept. 14. The difference includes a $788 billion increase in loans to banks through the Fed and $474 billion in other lending, mostly through the central bank's purchase of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds.
Sept. 14 Decision
Before Sept. 14, the Fed accepted mostly top-rated government and asset-backed securities as collateral. After that date, the central bank widened standards to accept other kinds of securities, some with lower ratings. The Fed collects interest on all its loans.
The plan to purchase distressed securities through TARP called for buying at the ``lowest price that the secretary (of the Treasury) determines to be consistent with the purposes of this Act,'' according to the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, the law that covers TARP.
The legislation didn't require any specific method for the purchases beyond saying mechanisms such as auctions or reverse auctions should be used ``when appropriate.'' In a reverse auction, bidders offer to sell securities at successively lower prices, helping to ensure that the Fed would pay less. The measure also included a five-member oversight board that includes Paulson and Bernanke.
At a Sept. 23 Senate Banking Committee hearing in Washington, Paulson called for transparency in the purchase of distressed assets under the TARP program.
`We Need Transparency'
``We need oversight,'' Paulson told lawmakers. ``We need protection. We need transparency. I want it. We all want it.''
At a joint House-Senate hearing the next day, Bernanke also stressed the importance of openness in the program. ``Transparency is a big issue,'' he said.
The Fed lent cash and government bonds to banks, which gave the Fed collateral in the form of equities and debt, including subprime and structured securities such as collateralized debt obligations, according to the Fed Web site. The borrowers have included the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Banks oppose any release of information because it might signal weakness and spur short-selling or a run by depositors, said Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs for the Financial Services Roundtable, a Washington trade group.
Frank Backs Fed
``You have to balance the need for transparency with protecting the public interest,'' Talbott said. ``Taxpayers have a right to know where their tax dollars are going, but one piece of information standing alone could undermine public confidence in the system.''
The nation's biggest banks, Citigroup, Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, declined to comment on whether they have borrowed money from the Fed. They received $120 billion in capital from the TARP, which was signed into law Oct. 3.
In an interview Nov. 6, House Financial Services Committee ChairmanBarney Frank said the Fed's disclosure is sufficient and that the risk the central bank is taking on is appropriate in the current economic climate. Frank said he has discussed the program with Timothy F. Geithner, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and a possible candidate to succeed Paulson as Treasury secretary.
``I talk to Geithner and he was pretty sure that they're OK,'' said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. ``If the risk is that the Fed takes a little bit of a haircut, well that's regrettable.'' Such losses would be acceptable, he said, if the program helps revive the economy.
`Unclog the Market'
Frank said the Fed shouldn't reveal the assets it holds or how it values them because of ``delicacy with respect to pricing.'' He said such disclosure would ``give people clues to what your pricing is and what they might be able to sell us and what your estimates are.'' He wouldn't say why he thought that information would be problematic.
Revealing how the Fed values collateral could help thaw frozen credit markets, said Ron D'Vari, chief executive officer of NewOak Capital LLC in New York and the former head of structured finance at BlackRock Inc.
``I'd love to hear the methodology, how the Fed priced the assets,'' D'Vari said. ``That would unclog the market very quickly.''
TARP's $700 billion so far is being used to buy preferred shares in banks to shore up their capital. The program was originally intended to hold banks' troubled assets while markets were frozen.
AIG Lending
The Bloomberg lawsuit argues that the collateral lists ``are central to understanding and assessing the government's response to the most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the Great Depression.''
The Fed has lent at least $81 billion to American International Group Inc., the world's largest insurer, so that it can pay obligations to banks. AIG today said it received an expanded government rescue package valued at more than $150 billion.
The central bank is also responsible for losses on a $26.8 billion portfolio guaranteed after Bear Stearns Cos. was bought by JPMorgan.
``As a taxpayer, it is absolutely important that we know how they're lending money and who they're lending it to,'' said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Arlington, Virginia- based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Ratings Cuts
Ultimately, the Fed will have to remove some securities held as collateral from some programs because the central bank's rules call for instruments rated below investment grade to be taken back by the borrower and marked down in value. Losses on those assets could then be written off, partly through the capital recently injected into those banks by the Treasury.
Moody's Investors Service alone has cut its ratings on 926 mortgage-backed securities worth $42 billion to junk from investment grade since Sept. 14, making them ineligible for collateral on some Fed loans.
The Fed's collateral ``absolutely should be made public,'' said Mark Cuban, an activist investor, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team and the creator of the Web site BailoutSleuth.com, which focuses on the secrecy shrouding the Fed's moves.
The Bloomberg lawsuit is Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 08-CV-9595, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).