AS THE WORLD SQUIRMSã

Sunday, November 23, 2008

 

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Note: Some hotlinks, formatting and emphasis added for context and perspective

 ~ Owen

 

 

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 Base monetary cost of the War in Iraq - thus far

$573,689,710,096

 

 

For more details, click here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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“Political language ... is designed to make lies sound

truthful and murder respectable, and to give an

appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

 

~George Orwell~

 

 

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Brave New World: Economy, not human rights, rules the new China-US World

 

Christopher Bodeen reports from Beijing for the Associated Press (AP): “The crisis that Obama is inheriting has pushed aside the old points of contention and underscored how profoundly the power equation between Washington and Beijing has changed. China now owns over half-a-trillion dollars in U.S. government bonds, more than any other country, and Washington needs Beijing to continue buying them to help finance the national debt and the $700 billion financial industry bailout. And while China's economy is heavily dependent on exports to the U.S., it is also a growing market for U.S. products, making trade retaliation — long a threat wielded solely by Washington — more of a two-way street. ‘The power shift in China-U.S. relations is making them more interdependent,’ said Cheng Xiaohe, an international relations scholar at Beijing's Renmin University. ‘This next president will need to exercise greater caution.’"

 

 

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'Millions of jobs' in danger next year as worst is yet to come, warns Obama

 

MSNBC reports: “WASHINGTON - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama said on Saturday that he was crafting an aggressive, two-year stimulus plan to revive the troubled economy, warning that swift action was needed to prevent a deep slump and a spiral of falling prices.

 

‘If we don't act swiftly and boldly, most experts now believe that we could lose millions of jobs next year,’ Obama said in prepared remarks for the weekly Democratic radio and video address. ‘We now risk falling into a deflationary spiral that could increase our massive debt even further,’ he said.”

 

 

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How Obama is Already Taking Charge

 

Robert Reich: "Obama's immediate challenge is to fill the leadership vacuum created by a lame-duck president with historically-low approval ratings who seems to have lost interest in his job (at this writing, he's out of the country) and who's disappeared from the media, and a Treasury chief who has all but punted on coming up with any workable solution to the crisis. But Obama doesn't become president until 12 noon eastern standard time on January 20 - and the national economy is imploding right now."

 

 

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Hillary plays hardball

The first sign of friction in the Obama camp as Mrs Clinton demands - and gets - a purge of her critics before accepting Secretary of State role

 

Leonard Doyle reports from Washington for The Independent (London): “Foremost among the victims of the purges is her old Yale Law School buddy Greg Craig, a man who more than anyone led the rescue of his presidency starting the very night Kenneth Starr's lurid report into the squalid details of the former president's sex scandal with Monica Lewinsky were published on the internet in 1998. Despite his long and loyal friendship with the Clintons, Mr Craig threw his lot in with Mr Obama at an early stage in the presidential election campaign. As if that betrayal to the cause of the Clinton restoration was not enough, Mr Craig did more to undermine Mrs Clinton's claims to be a foreign policy expert than anyone else in the some of the ugliest exchanges of the battle for the Democratic nomination.

 

Until this week he was poised to be the eminence grise of the State Department, organising as total revamp of America's troubled foreign policies on Mr Obama's behalf. Its turns out that Mrs Clinton's delay in accepting the president elect's offer to be his top foreign policy adviser had much to do with her negotiating the terms of the job and insisting on the right to choose her own state department staff and possibly even some of the plumb Ambassador postings. She wanted guarantees of direct access to the president – without having to go through his national security adviser. Above all she did not want to end up like Colin Powell who was completely out-manoeuvred by the hawkish Vice President Dick Cheney who imposed neo-conservative friends like John Bolton on the State Department and steered the US towards a policy of using torture to achieve its aims.

 

Mr Craig's crime was not so much that he enthusiastically backed Mr Obama for President and helped run his foreign policy advisory panel, it was his lacerating attacks on the putative Secretary of State's claims that she passed the ‘Commander-in-Chief test’ as a foreign policy expert in the Clinton Administration. In a devastating memo of 11 March last, which he addressed ‘to interested parties,’ Mr Craig said: ‘There is no reason to believe, however, that she was a key player in foreign policy at any time during the Clinton Administration. She did not sit in on National Security Council meetings. She did not have a security clearance. She did not attend meetings in the Situation Room. She did not manage any part of the national security bureaucracy, nor did she have her own national security staff.’

 

‘She did not do any heavy-lifting with foreign governments, whether they were friendly or not. She never managed a foreign policy crisis, and there is no evidence to suggest that she participated in the decision-making that occurred in connection with any such crisis.’

 

The memo went on to say that Mrs Clinton ‘never answered the phone either to make a decision on any pressing national security issue – not at 3 AM or at any other time of day.’ Earlier this week Mr Craig was tapped to become White House counsel, a totally anonymous position, and shunted him out of the line of fire from the Secretary of State.”

 

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Some in Arab World Wary of Clinton

 

 

 

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INTERVIEW/ Iranians to Washington: Please Let Us Be

 

Scott Horton of AntiWar Radio interviews Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich, an independent researcher on U.S. foreign policy in Iran. Soraya discusses:

·       the worldwide goodwill Obama has already squandered with his hawkish appointments,

·       the U.S.’s double standard when it comes to nuclear non-proliferation,

·       ordinary Iranians’ desire to be left alone to form their own government, and

·       how neocons like Max Boot support fomenting factional conflicts to provoke an Iranian overreaction.

 

 

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Bush Effigy Placed Where Saddam Statue Was Toppled in 2003, Then Burned in Anti-US Protest

 

Wiredispatch reports: “Followers of a Shiite cleric on Friday stomped on and burned an effigy of President George W. Bush in the same central Baghdad square where Iraqis beat a toppled statue of Saddam Hussein with their sandals five years earlier. … Before it fell, the effigy held a sign that said: ‘The security agreement ... shame and humiliation.’"

 

 

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Mahdi: New Insurgency if US Stays Until 2011

 

 

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Stuff Happens

The Pentagon's Argument of Last Resort on Iraq
By Tom Engelhardt

Tomdispatch.com

 

It's the ultimate argument, the final bastion against withdrawal, and over these last years, the Bush administration has made sure it would have plenty of heft. Ironically, its strength lies in the fact that it has nothing to do with the vicissitudes of Iraqi politics, the relative power of Shiites or Sunnis, the influence of Iran, or even the riptides of war. It really doesn't matter what Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki or oppositional cleric Muqtada al-Sadr think about it. In fact, it's an argument that has nothing to do with Iraq and everything to do with us, with the American way of war (and life), which makes it almost unassailable.

And this week Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen -- the man President-elect Obama plans to call into the Oval Office as soon as he arrives -- wheeled it into place and launched it like a missile aimed at the heart of Obama's 16-month withdrawal plan for U.S. combat troops in Iraq. It may not sound like much, but believe me, it is. The Chairman simply said, "We have 150,000 troops in Iraq right now. We have lots of bases. We have an awful lot of equipment that's there. And so we would have to look at all of that tied to, obviously, the conditions that are there, literally the security conditions Clearly, we'd want to be able to do it safely." Getting it all out safely, he estimated, would take at least "two to three years."

For those who needed further clarification, the Wall Street Journal's Yochi J. Dreazen spelled it out: "In recent interviews, two high-ranking officers stated flatly that it would be logistically impossible to dismantle dozens of large U.S. bases there and withdraw the 150,000 troops now in Iraq so quickly. The officers said it would take close to three years for a full withdrawal and could take longer if the fighting resumed as American forces left the country."

 

 

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Once More Fear Stalks the Streets of Kandahar

 

Robert Fisk, The Independent (London): "Obama wants to send 7,000 more American troops to this disaster zone. Does he have the slightest idea what is going on in Afghanistan? For if he did, he would send 7,000 doctors."

 

 

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Washington Eyes 'Surge' of Over 20,000 for Afghanistan

 

David Morgan reports from Cornwallis, Nova Scotia for Reuters: “The Pentagon is considering a plan to send more than 20,000 troops to Afghanistan over the next 12 to 18 months to help safeguard elections and quell rising Taliban violence, officials said Friday.

 

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he and top commanders had discussed sending five brigades to Afghanistan, including four brigades of combat ground forces as well as an aviation brigade, which a defense official said would consist mainly of support troops. An Army combat brigade has about 3,500 soldiers.

Gates said much of the infusion could take place before Afghanistan holds elections by next autumn.”

 

 

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Guns vs. Butter: Gates Says U.S./Global Financial Woes "No Excuse" in Funding Afghan War

 

Anne Gearan for AP: “Even in a global financial crisis, the world cannot afford to skimp on its obligations to Afghanistan, which wants to double the size of its army but will never be able to pay for it, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says.”

 

 

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Tariq Ali, Flight Path to Disaster in Afghanistan

One of the eerier reports on the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan appeared recently in the New York Times. Journalist John Burns visited the Russian ambassador in Kabul, Zamir N. Kabulov, who, back in the 1980s, when the Russians were the Americans in Afghanistan, and the Americans were launching the jihad that would eventually wend its way to the 9/11 attacks well, you get the idea

 

In any case, Kabulov was, in the years of the Soviet occupation, a KGB agent in the same city and, in the 1990s, an adviser to a U.N. peacekeeping envoy during the Afghan civil war that followed. "They've already repeated all of our mistakes," he told Burns, speaking of the American/NATO effort in the country. "Now," he added, "they're making mistakes of their own, ones for which we do not own the copyright." His list of Soviet-style American mistakes included: underestimating "the resistance," an over-reliance on air power, a failure to understand the Afghan "irritative allergy" to foreign occupation, "and thinking that because they swept into Kabul easily, the occupation would be untroubled." Of present occupiers who have stopped by to catch his sorry tale, Kabulov concludes world-wearily, "They listen, but they do not hear."

 

 

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Ringed by Foes, Pakistanis Fear Washington, Too

 

Jane Perlez  reports from Islamabad, Pakistan for the New York Times: “A redrawn map of South Asia has been making the rounds among Pakistani elites. It shows their country truncated, reduced to an elongated sliver of land with the big bulk of India to the east, and an enlarged Afghanistan to the west. That the map was first circulated as a theoretical exercise in some American neoconservative circles matters little here. It has fueled a belief among Pakistanis, including members of the armed forces, that what the United States really wants is the breakup of Pakistan, the only Muslim country with nuclear arms.”

 

 

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Washington’s Drone Strike Kills Five in North Waziristan

 

Jason Ditz reports for Antiwar.com: In a sign of just how seriously the United States took this week’s formal protest from the Pakistani government over its recent spate of air strikes, US drones have struck again, this time hitting a house in North Waziristan, killing five and injuring at least six others. The attack consisted of two or three missiles and struck in a small village called Ali Khel. Among those reportedly killed was a dual British/Pakistani citizen named Rashid Rauf, who was arrested in Pakistan in 2006 in connection with the infamous “liquid explosives” plot in Britain. Saudi militant Abu Zubair al-Masri was also apparently among those killed, though local Taliban spokesmen insist only local civilians died in the attack.”

 

 

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British lawmakers demand clarity over Washington’s  attack killing plane bombing suspect in Pakistan

 

 

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Washington Goes Begging: US seeks $300B from Gulf states...

 

AFP reports: The United States has asked four oil-rich Gulf states for close to 300 billion dollars to help it curb the global financial meltdown, Kuwait's daily Al-Seyassah reported Thursday.Quoting ‘highly informed’ sources, the daily said Washington has asked Saudi Arabia for 120 billion dollars, the United Arab Emirates for 70 billion dollars, Qatar for 60 billion dollars and was seeking 40 billion dollars from Kuwait.

 

 

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U.S. power to dim by 2025, analysts say

 

A new assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies predicts that U.S. influence in the world will decline over the next two decades, as surging powers such as China and India, as well as independent entities including tribes and criminal networks, gain international clout.

 

The report, released Thursday and meant to serve as a guidepost for the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama, offers a vision of a global future in which the United States, while the most powerful, is just “one of a number” of important players on the world stage.

 

Describing the findings, Tom Fingar, the deputy director of National Intelligence for analysis, said there would be a “diminished gap between the United States and everybody else. … The unipolar moment is over.”

 

"In terms of size, speed, and directional flow, the transfer of global wealth and economic power now under way -- roughly from West to East -- is without precedent in modern history," according to a NIC report entitled "Global Trends 2025."

 

"Growth projections for Brazil, Russia, India, and China indicate they will collectively match the original G7's share of global GDP by 2040-2050 ... If current trends persist, by 2025 China will have the world's second largest economy and will be a leading military power."

 

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Video/Bush Shunned at G20 Meeting

 

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Video/Did You Know?

 

 

 

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New friendly fire coverup: Army shreds files on dead soldiers

 

Salon Editor's note: “Hours after Salon revealed evidence that two Americans were killed by a U.S. tank, not enemy fire, military officials destroyed papers on the men. On Oct. 14, 2008, Salon published an article about the deaths of Army Pfc. Albert Nelson and Pfc. Roger Suarez. The Army attributed their deaths in Iraq in 2006 to enemy action; Salon's investigation, which included graphic battle video and eyewitness testimony, indicated that their deaths were likely due to friendly fire.”

 

 

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Commentary: Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue

Joseph L. Galloway

November 18, 2008

McClatchy Newspapers

 

With two months still to go before his inauguration as the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama and his transition team are already getting off on the wrong foot, signaling that they have no intention of investigating anyone in the Bush administration for possible war crimes.

 

What we're talking about here is the torture of detained terrorist suspects in American custody in a grotesque violation of both our treaty obligations under the Geneva Conventions and our historic principles as a democratic nation.

 

By their own machinations and attempts to redefine and pervert both treaties and our own laws, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales, Cheney's chief of staff David Addington and any number of lesser suspects sought to shield themselves from, or put themselves above, justice.

 

They did so knowing full well that what they were doing — clearing the way for interrogators at Guantanamo and in the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret dungeons around the world to do anything it took, short of murder, to extract information from terror suspects.

 

The "harsh interrogation methods" included water-boarding, stripping and humiliating prisoners, subjecting them to extremes of temperature, putting them into stressful physical positions for hours, the use of psychotropic drugs and doubtless other equally uncivilized practices.

 

Water boarding has always been treated as a criminal act in this country. Military officers were court-martialed at the turn of the last century for water boarding Filipino guerrillas. More recently, an East Texas sheriff was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for water boarding a suspect and extracting a confession from him.

 

 

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Hebron Settler Mob Caught on Video Clashing With Israeli Troops

 

 

Video / Prof. Avi Shlaim: Settlements turned Israel into apartheid state

 

 

Video/"Al Nakba"--The Palestinian Catastrophe of 1948

 

 

Candidate for Washington’s Security Adviser Wants NATO Force in West Bank

 

 

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Bits & Pieces

 

 

 

 

 

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A classic and extremely trenchant TV comment by General Norman Schwarzkopf and Robert Gates - Deputy National Security Advisor to Bush Presidents Jr. and Sr.

 

Why Invading Iraq Was An Incredibly Stupid Idea

 

 

(Click on blinking dot above for video)

 

 

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