Patrick’s Notebook

As the Bush admin contemplates it, and the U.S. media normalizes it – just like the ‘run up’ to the Iraq War – the Americans must stop the insanity of a military confrontation with Iran.

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

To bomb or not to bomb Iran, that’s the question the Bush Administration appears to be debating these days, once again revealing the extraordinary disconnect between the White House and the American people.

With a catastrophic occupation of Iraq and polls showing the American public so skeptical about the use of military force that only eight percent support military action against Iran, there is nevertheless a clear and present danger that Cheney and the neocons will again prevail and lead this Administration into another disastrous military misadventure.

The parallels between now and the run-up to the Iraq War are troubling. Nobel Peace Prize-winner Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who warned the Bush administration in 2003 about the lack of a nuclear program in Iraq and was subsequently attacked for his position by the Bush machine, the neocons and by many in the mainstream media, has now struck a deal with Iran to improve access for inspectors and answer questions about its nuclear program within a defined timeline. ElBaradei has called for a “double time-out” of all enrichment activities and new sanctions.

Continue reading ‘Bush, the bomb and Iran’ »

Bush could use an obscure Civil War statute to defy the will of Congress and continue waging the war.

By Ryan Grim

When President Bush last went to Congress for funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he raised the specter of U.S. troops going without the reinforcements, equipment, training, fuel and all the other things they need to stay alive over there if Congress didn’t cut him a fat check with “no strings attached.” The newly elected Democrats caved, citing a need to fund the troops, and sent him $124 billion.

The past few weeks on Capitol Hill have been dominated by Iraq, as the GOP has continued to stand with the President and Democrats have been unable to muster the votes to force his hand. Soon, Bush will be asking for more funding — reportedly as much as $200 billion. When he does, he’ll again argue that the timely and “clean” passage of the spending bill is essential to keeping the troops equipped. But that’s not true. Thanks to the Feed and Forage Act, an obscure nineteenth-century statute, Bush could legally continue to prosecute the war without funding from Congress.

Passed in 1861, the law provided a way for Abraham Lincoln to assure funding for the Civil War. Since then, it has been used to secure funding for other wars. On September 21, 2001, the Pentagon said in a press release, “Invoking the Feed and Forage Act… will ensure the Department of Defense can fully support units of the U.S. armed forces involved in military operations and activities resulting from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the aircraft crash in Pennsylvania.”

Continue reading ‘Bush’s safety net for war funding’ »

Appearing at the opening of the 62nd session of the UN General Assembly on the 25th of September, President Bush addressed the members of the United Nations.

Apparently, a marked-up draft of the president’s speech popped up on the U.N.’s website as President Bush delivered his remarks this morning before the General Assembly, USA TODAY’s David Jackson reports. The draft included phonetic spellings of some names and countries, and the cellphone numbers for Bush speechwriters.

Press secretary Dana Perino downplayed the incident, and said phonetic spellings are used to help interpreters. Asked if the president has trouble pronouncing some country’s names, Perino deemed it “an offensive question.”

“There was an error made,” Perino said, noting it was not a final draft.

“It was taken down and there’s nothing more to say about it.”

Another diversion on which to focus. The far greater insult to the UN and everyone listening was the temerity of this president to accuse other nations of abusing human rights. George W. Bush has become the symbol of torture, illegal invasion and occupation, illegal surveillance, illegal detentions, rendition of prisoners to other countries for torture, the suspension of habeas corpus and total disregard for the US Constitution.

That’s what the headlines should have been. The countries Bush befriends and supports are among the cruelest dictatorships in the world, and yet he dares to stand before the UN to condemn those nations who won’t play ball with him..and the big story is his need for assistance when pronouncing words.

By Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007

It took just eight decades but H.L. Mencken’s astute prediction on the future course of American presidential politics and the electorate’s taste in candidates came true:

On July 26, 1920, the acerbic and cranky scribe wrote in The Baltimore Sun: ” . . . all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily (and) adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

My late good buddy Leon Daniel, a wire service legend for 40 years at United Press International, dredged up that Mencken quote several years ago and found that it was a perfect fit for George W. Bush, The Decider. MSNBC’s Keith Olberman highlighted the same quote this week. A tip of the hat to both of them, and to Mencken.

The White House is now so adorned by Mencken’s downright moron, and has been for more than six excruciatingly painful years. It wouldn’t be so bad if the occupant had at least enough common sense to surround himself with smart, competent and honest advisers and listen to them. But he hasn’t.

Continue reading ‘Bush Fulfills H.L. Mencken’s Prophecy’ »

By MICHAEL YODER, Staff
Intelligencer Journal

ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. – The date Aug. 4, 1964 still haunts Daniel Ellsberg, despite the passage of more than 40 years.

He was a 33-year-old on his first day at the Pentagon as special assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton. It also was the day the North Vietnamese navy allegedly fired 21 torpedoes at U.S. naval vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin.

Ellsberg was one of 100 people who saw top secret transmissions later in the day saying the attack never happened, yet President Lyndon Johnson used the alleged incident to drive the U.S. into full-scale war in Vietnam.

“I knew Congress was being deceived into a declaration of war and that the public was being totally deceived into a landslide victory for a man who was about to plunge them into a big war,” Ellsberg told a crowd of more than 200 people Thursday evening at the inaugural Ware Seminar on Global Citizenship at Elizabethtown College’s Center for Global Citizenship.

The 76-year-old activist gained notoriety during the Vietnam War when he released the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and other newspapers, detailing internal U.S. policy decisions regarding the war and its escalation.

Continue reading ‘Ellsberg: Prevent War With Iran’ »

Politicians are once again debating the legality of the controversial “Protect America Act,” which amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to allow for warrantless wiretapping. The law’s Feb. 1, 2008 expiration date is approaching. President George Bush and his supporters are pushing to make the law permanent. Meanwhile, opponents are raising familiar concerns about the protection of civil liberties.

“The threat from Al-Qaeda is not going to expire in 135 days,” Bush warned during a visit to the National Security Agency (NSA) in Fort Meade, Md.

Democrats also expressed that they want to give the administration the necessary tools to monitor foreign targets, they also want to ensure that checks and balances are maintained, reports the Congressional Quarterly. They also expressed particular concern about the portion of the law that allows for electronic surveillance of foreign terror suspects that results in warrantless wiretapping of US citizens within the country.

Federal Agent Indicted For Cyber-Stalking with DHS Database
By Lindsay Beyerstein, freelance journalist.

A federal agent with the Department of Commerce was indicted by a federal grand jury in California on 19 September for using a Department of Homeland Security database to cyber-stalk his former girlfriend:

Continue reading ‘Who Wants Permanent Warrantless Wiretap Law’ »

From July 17, 1979, when Saddam Hussein first came to power in Iraq, until just prior to the beginning of Operation Desert Storm in January 1991, the US had full diplomatic relations with Saddam Hussein’s government. On January 12, 1991, four days before Operation Desert Storm, the US closed its embassy doors in Baghdad. At the time of its closing, the US Embassy in Baghdad maintained a staff of approximately 50 and an annual budget of $3.5 million. From 1991 until 2004, the US did not have diplomatic relations with Iraq.

With Saddam Hussein removed from power and the US and its partners militarily occupying the country, the Bush Administration handed over government self-rule to the Iraqis on June 28, 2004. Part of the transition toward self-rule for Iraq is also a transition for the US from being a military occupier to reestablishing normal diplomatic ties with an independent Iraq.

The new US Embassy in Baghdad is among the largest American embassies in both staff size and budget. According to the State Department, the US Mission in Baghdad is now staffed with about 1,000 Americans representing various US government agencies and between 200 and 300 direct hires and locally engaged staff (LES, formerly referred to as foreign service nationals, or FSN).

Cost
Congress authorized $592 million dollars for the construction of the new embassy compound (NEC) with another $20 million authorization for housing and other expenses incurred prior to the construction of the NEC on the 104-acre site, and it is on track to being completed on time by the end of summer, 2007. In addition congress approved a $750 million supplemental appropriation for the 2007 fiscal year which ends September 30, and now the Bush administration is asking for $65 million for regular funding for fiscal year 2008 and has asked for another $1.9 billion in emergency appropriations. If Congress were to approve, it would provide a total of about $2.8 billion for US State Department operations in Iraq within a year.

Continue reading ‘US Embassy in Iraq: Diplomatic Mission, or Occupation’ »

“I’m saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil.”
Alan Greenspan

According to the Bush Administration, the notion that the occupation of Iraq was a means to gain control over that country’s vast oil reserves is “nonsense” and “a myth.” However, in February, 2007, the proposed draft of a new law to structure Iraq’s oil industry was leaked, and it is now being considered by the Iraqi parliament. Several key features of the law would:

Allow two-thirds of Iraq’s oil fields to be developed by private oil corporations. In contrast, the oil industry has been nationalized in every other major Middle Eastern producer for over 30 years.

Place governing decisions over oil in a new body known as the Iraqi Federal Oil and Gas Council, which may include foreign oil companies.

Open the door for foreign oil companies to lock up decades-long deals now, when the Iraqi government is at its weakest.

Overall, the law would secure the agenda of ExxonMobil, Chevon, and the other majors, robbing the Iraqi people of their most basic source of wealth. Much is at stake. With 115 billion barrels of proven reserves ($7 trillion worth at $64 per barrel) and another 215 billion possible or likely ($14 trillion), there’s nearly a million dollars of oil for every Iraqi citizen. It’s a vast and precious national resource—but only if Iraqis are allowed to control it themselves.

One week ago every news outlet; newspaper, tv, radio, was covering the story of Alan Greenspan’s remarks that ‘the Iraq war is largely about oil’. Although this was a sentiment privately held by many, the idea that the US invasion of Iraq was motivated by oil or even by economic considerations was continually marginalized and ascribed to the lunatic fringe and conspiracy theorists. After-all Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. He had aluminum tubes and mobile labs. And, somehow that was never fully explained, Hussein and the Iraqi regime were in many ways responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

But then Greenspan comes out and says he’s ‘saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows‘ – and thats where the story ended. Come on, this is Alan Greenspan, the man who as head of the federal reserve junta could alter the economic tidal flows with a single comment, prediction, or policy edict. The very nuance of his observations; was it a froth, or a bubble; could mean the difference between a market rally or a sell-off. But the story just ended.

If what he was saying was true it would mean that tens of thousands of innocent lives and billions of US tax dollars were squandered for the aggrandizement of the corporate plutocracy, and not just oil, but also defense contractors, the intelligence industry and support services like Haliburton. If what he was saying was true the very top level of the administration: Bush, Cheney, Rice, stood the most to gain financially as their fortunes are closely tied to those industries. But the story just ended.

No congressional investigations? How can this be? Even the Michael Vick case got a congressional hearing. And that guy was only fighting dogs. How is it that the potential fraud and deceit at the highest levels of the US administration does not pique the interest of anyone? Britney Spears, OJ and the Blackwater murderers got more air-play then the war-for-oil story. How can this be, unless it’s absolutely true?

Six days ago, at least 28 civilians died in a shooting incident involving the US security company Blackwater. But what actually happened? Kim Sengupta reports from the scene of the massacre

Independent News and Media Limited
The eruption of gunfire was sudden and ferocious, round after round mowing down terrified men women and children, slamming into cars as they collided and overturned with drivers frantically trying to escape. Some vehicles were set alight by exploding petrol tanks. A mother and her infant child died in one of them, trapped in the flames.

The shooting on Sunday, by the guards of the American private security company Blackwater, has sparked one of the most bitter and public disputes between the Iraqi government and its American patrons, and brings into sharp focus the often violent conduct of the Western private armies operating in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, immune from scrutiny or prosecution.

Blackwater’s security men are accused of going on an unprovoked killing spree. Hassan Jabar Salman, a lawyer, was shot four times in the back, his car riddled with eight more bullets, as he attempted to get away from their convoy. Yesterday, sitting swathed in bandages at Baghdad’s Yarmukh Hospital, he recalled scenes of horror. “I saw women and children jump out of their cars and start to crawl on the road to escape being shot,” said Mr Salman. “But still the firing kept coming and many of them were killed. I saw a boy of about 10 leaping in fear from a minibus, he was shot in the head. His mother was crying out for him, she jumped out after him, and she was killed. People were afraid.”

Continue reading ‘Baghdad’s Bloody Sunday’ »

Once again the pretentious notion that “if we don’t defeat them there, they will follow us home” is being used to justify the misadventures and excesses of the Bush administration and the cabal coalition of the willing to move forward their Middle East agenda.

Throughout the Afghan/Iraq debacle various ploys have been used by the propaganda machine to distract attention from the death, destruction and horrors of war and to garner further support for the misappropriation of lives and money and ‘manufacture consent’ for administration policies. Early on the homeland security semaphore of fear with its color coded threat levels failed to sufficiently persuade an ever increasingly skeptical public of the impending doom that would result if a continued escalation of the war-of-terror was not followed. The pavlovian public barely winced as the lights grew hotter to provoke concern over some contrived intelligence event. That prop has since been packed away in a backstage junk box.

So once more the Bush administration turned to its public relations posse who came up with a hook that was sure to catch. Just like the “Support Our Troops” slogan that adorned the backs of pick-ups and SUVs, the Cochranesque rap “If we retreat, they’ll be in our streets” is a sure winner. As Chomsky explains:

The point of public relations slogans like “Support our troops” is that they don’t mean anything. Of course, there was an issue. The issue was, Do you support our policy? But you don’t want people to think about the issue. That’s the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody’s going to be against, and everybody’s going to be for, because nobody knows what it means, because it doesn’t mean anything, but its crucial value is that it diverts your attention…

Continue reading ‘“If we retreat, they’ll be in our streets”’ »

The recent unproductive and vitriolic rhetoric towards Iran underscores the readiness of the Bush administration to chastise and vilify their declared enemies while at the same time holding themselves utterly unaccountable to the same principles of conduct they judge others by.

When Iran stated on Wednesday that “we would use all our means to defend ourselves because territorial integrity is a key issue for every country,” a White House spokesperson said “I believe that that sort of comment as reported out of Iran is unhelpful. It is not constructive and it almost seems provocative.” Far from being provocative, the statement from Iran expresses a policy position adhered to by every sovereign nation on the planet capable of defending itself. To the contrary, when Bush uttered his infamous diatribes about bin Laden being “wanted dead or alive” and his arrogant “Bring ‘em on” over Iraqis attacking US troops, and when specifically speaking of action towards Iran he said “all options are on the table,” these are by far more harsh and inflammatory then Iran’s benign statement about self-defense.

Also reported on Wednesday, was that a request by aides to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Iranian leader be allowed to visit Ground Zero next week when he attends the United Nations’ General Assembly meeting was rejected. The reason, according to a White House spokesman “ground zero would be an odd place for the president of a country that is a state sponsor of terror to visit,” and it was also noted that the request was met with outraged from politicians and officials who consider Iran a potential nuclear threat and that they harbor terrorists.

First, the nuclear threat. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and as such the production of energy from nuclear technology is permitted under the treaty, and nuclear nations are obligated to share nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Iran admittedly is engaged in such an acceptable program. At the same time they dismiss the notions that they’re moving towards creating weapons or weapon grade material and IAEA director El-Baradei confirms those claims by stating that there is no apparent effort underway in Iran towards the production of nuclear weapons. Well known however, is that the US uses the false threat of nuclear proliferation as a justification for their shoot first ask questions later pre-emptive invasion policy, while at the same time the US itself, stands in violation of the NPT.

Continue reading ‘Bush: Nuclear Proliferation and the Harboring of Terrorists’ »

Sunday, it was reported that Blackwater employees escorting US State Department officials said they came under attack, and in the crossfire, at least 11, perhaps as many as 20 Iraqi civilians were killed and more than a dozen wounded when the security company’s employees opened fire on civilians in a Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has reportedly revoked the security company’s license and vowed to punish those responsible. However, on Tuesday after intervention from the US State Department, The Iraqi government said that a ban on Blackwater USA was not permanent but warned it planned to review the immunity enjoyed by some private security companies.

CPA Order Number 17, which deals with the status of coalition personnel and subcontractors, appears to entitle them to status above the law.

According to section 2 of that document, subheading number four, “All Coalition personnel shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of their Parent States and, they shall be immune from local criminal, civil, and administrative jurisdiction and from any form of arrest or detention.”

Wow! Immunity from murder. This is the type of freedom and democracy the US is trying to promote in the Middle East? When justice and the rule of law are applied on a case by case basis, one can better understand why there is so little progress towards the cessation of war, violence and civil disorder in that country.

By Geoffrey Lean
Published: 16 September 2007

Europe’s top environmental watchdog is calling for immediate action to reduce exposure to radiation from Wi-Fi, mobile phones and their masts. It suggests that delay could lead to a health crisis similar to those caused by asbestos, smoking and lead in petrol.

The warning, from the EU’s European Environment Agency (EEA) follows an international scientific review which concluded that safety limits set for the radiation are “thousands of times too lenient”, and an official British report last week which concluded that it could not rule out the development of cancers from using mobile phones.

Professor Jacqueline McGlade, the EEA’s executive director, said yesterday: “Recent research and reviews on the long-term effects of radiations from mobile telecommunications suggest that it would be prudent for health authorities to recommend actions to reduce exposures, especially to vulnerable groups, such as children.”

Read the full article HERE

On Friday, September 14 the report of a scientific survey by the British polling organization ORB, showed that an estimated 1.2 million violent deaths have occurred in Iraq since the US invasion.

This staggering figure demonstrates two political facts:
1) the American war in Iraq has produced a humanitarian catastrophe of historic proportions, with a death toll already higher than that in Rwanda in 1994;

2) those arguing against a US withdrawal on the grounds that this would lead to civil war, even genocide, are deliberately concealing the fact that such a bloodbath is already taking place, with the US military in control.

Opinion Research Business (ORB), founded by the former head of British operations for the Gallup polling organization, is a well-established commercial polling firm. It gave a detailed technical description of the methods used to make the scientific random sample. There is no serious challenge to the validity of the study’s findings.

Read the full report HERE