July 2007
Monthly Archive
July 29, 2007
A lot of what has gone wrong with the Bush presidency lies with they way it has been warped by his veep, Dick Cheney. Carter-administration veep, Walter Mondale, says Cheney’s manipulations have been “alarming”. From the Washington Post:
…it wasn’t until Jimmy Carter assumed the presidency that the vice presidency took on a substantive role. Carter saw the office as an underused asset and set out to make the most of it. He gave me an office in the West Wing, unimpeded access to him and to the flow of information, and specific assignments at home and abroad. He asked me, as the only other nationally elected official, to be his adviser and partner on a range of issues.
Our relationship depended on trust, mutual respect and an acknowledgement that there was only one agenda to be served — the president’s.
Subsequent administrations followed this pattern. George H.W. Bush, Dan Quayle and Al Gore built their vice presidencies after this model, allowing for their different interests, experiences and capabilities as well as the needs of the presidents they served.
This all changed in 2001, and especially after Sept. 11, when Cheney set out to create a largely independent power center in the office of the vice president. His was an unprecedented attempt not only to shape administration policy but, alarmingly, to limit the policy options sent to the president.
Through his vast government experience, through the friends he had been able to place in key positions and through his considerable political skills, he has been increasingly able to determine the answers to questions put to the president — because he has been able to determine the questions.
Whatever authority a vice president has is derived from the president under whom he serves. There are no powers inherent in the office; they must be delegated by the president. Somehow, not only has Cheney been given vast authority by President Bush — including, apparently, the entire intelligence portfolio — but he also pursues his own agenda. The real question is why the president allows this to happen.
Three decades ago we lived through another painful example of a White House exceeding its authority, lying to the American people, breaking the law and shrouding everything it did in secrecy. Watergate wrenched the country, and our constitutional system, like nothing before. We spent years trying to identify and absorb the lessons of this great excess. But here we are again.
July 29, 2007
In global terms, the United States has always been a mix of reality and perception. What other nation could fuel its economy for decades on debt and deficits underwritten by foreign investors? What other nation would dare field something as globally obnoxious as the “Bush Doctrine”?
America’s success has always been built on the goodwill of others and their faith and reliance on Washington. To keep that going America has had to preserve its credibility. But, thanks to George w. Bush and his influential Dick, America’s credibility has taken a pummeling as the balance shifts away from perception and steadily toward reality.
The upcoming Middle East voyage of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates is expected to show just how frail has become America’s coercive grip. The duo will attempt to to persuade Iraq’s neighbors to do more to help stabilize the country, to counter Iran’s growing ambitions and to try to get real movement on peace between Israel and the Palestinians. According to the McClatchey Newspapers service, they face an uphill battle:
America’s credibility in the region has plummeted. The U.S. has failed to stabilize Iraq, destroy al Qaida, pacify Lebanon, isolate Syria or bolster moderate Palestinians. Instead, its policies have fueled Sunni Muslim extremism and emboldened Shiite Iran, which America’s moderate Arab allies consider the two greatest threats to their rule.
So far, its support for Israel’s ill-fated war in Lebanon and its efforts to undermine popular radical groups such as Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon have borne little fruit. Along with its support for autocrats such as Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, such actions have undercut American claims that it’s championing Muslim democracy.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on the Bush administration’s time in office. Leaders of friendly Arab states have lost confidence in President Bush’s ability to deliver on his promises and are wary of sticking their necks out too far to cooperate, according to diplomats and some U.S. officials.
“Our credibility is in tatters. They are not going to commit because they don’t trust us. That doesn’t mean they are not concerned about Iran. It just means they just don’t know what we are going to do,” said one senior State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to reporters.
On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other U.S. allies in the region want the United States to reach out to Hamas, which now controls Gaza. But Rice has repeatedly ruled out dealing with the group, which is on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations.
“The strategy is based on the assumption that you could isolate, weaken … Hamas,” while strengthening Abbas and his Fatah faction, said Shibley Telhami, a Middle East expert at the University of Maryland. “It cannot succeed. … Everybody agrees that you can’t simply isolate Hamas.”
Can America recover its former prestige and clout abroad? That will be a question answered by the next administration and how quickly and successfully it can extract the United States from Iraq. With another year and a half left of the hopelessly inept Bush/Cheney administration, time is not on America’s side. If Bush’s successor keeps trying to force feed America’s ideology to the world, the American century may be over.
July 29, 2007
There are two types of places in the world – those that get too much and those that don’t.
Too much, this summer at least, means floods or droughts. Britain along with Texas, large parts of China and South Asia have been inundated by floodwaters. Southeast and Southwest United States, Australia, Africa and Southeast Europe have all been hit by heatwaves and drought.
In Bangladesh the flooding has turned bad enough that the country is now cut in two. Half of Bangladesh is now submerged. Flooding has also hit Pakistan, India and Nepal. Throughout the subcontinent millions are reported taking to the high ground whether that be on rooftops or in refugee camps where they await government relief.
Is this the New World Order? Climate change scientists have long predicted that global warming will bring extreme conditions – droughts and floods – as temperatures rise and alter precipitation levels and distribution worldwide. Gee, that seems to fit the bill!
July 29, 2007
It’s going to take more than a handful of light icebreakers to fight, much less win this one.
British and American submarines have now taken up permanent station under the Arctic ocean in preparation to confront their old adversary, the Russian navy. Russia, for its part, is building one new submarine and has ordered three more, as it brings its badly neglected navy back online.
Everyone’s eyes are on what is believed to be the vast, untapped oil wealth beneath the Arctic waters. With the ascendancy of the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) an enormous demand for oil is developing. These same Arctic waters, soon to be ice-free for much of the year, are also believed to have rich fish populations and enormous, sub-surface mineral wealth.
Russia is now using a mini-sub to try to establish that the Lomonosov Ridge is an extension of the Siberian continental shelf and, therefore, Russian territory. This would allow Russia to claim an area of the Arctic equal in size to Western Europe.
Both Canada and Denmark claim the Lomonosov Ridge is attached to their own undersea shelves and therefore belongs to them. Claiming it and enforcing those claims are two distinct matters and neither of these minor countries would be wise to count on much support from Britain or the US. (If you don’t think we’re a “minor” country in this thing, think again).
Many scientists believe the Arctic ecology too fragile to sustain economic exploitation. They’re probably right but there’s far too much potential wealth involved to stop what has already well begun.
July 29, 2007
Frank Rich, writing in today’s New York Times, details the surprising rise to political power of General David Petraeus, America’s last hope in Iraq. Rich claims Bush has all but ceded the Iraq problem to his top general:
And so another constitutional principle can be added to the long list of those junked by this administration: the quaint notion that our uniformed officers are supposed to report to civilian leadership. In a de facto military coup, the commander in chief is now reporting to the commander in Iraq. We must “wait to see what David has to say” Mr. Bush says.
Actually, we don’t have to wait. We already know what David will say. He gave it away to the Times of London last month when he said that September “is a deadline for a report, not a deadline for a change in policy.” In other words: Damn the report (and that irrelevant Congress that will read it) — full speed ahead. There will be no change in policy.
Rich goes on to dismantle the Petraeus image as just that – image:
It has been three Julys since he posed for the cover of Newsweek under the headline “Can This Man Save Iraq?” The magazine noted that the general’s pacification of Mosul was “a textbook case of doing counterinsurgency the right way.” Four months later, the police chief installed by General Petraeus defected to the insurgents, along with most of the Sunni members of the police force. Mosul, population 1.7 million, is now an insurgent stronghold, according to the Pentagon’s own report.
By the time reality ambushed his textbook victory, the general had moved on to the mission of making Iraqi troops stand up so American troops could stand down. “Training is on track and increasing in capacity,” he wrote in the Washington Post in late September 2004, during the endgame of the American presidential election. He extolled the increased prowess of the Iraqi fighting forces and the rebuilding of their infrastructure.
The rest is tragic history. Were the Iraqi forces on the trajectory that General Petraeus asserted in his election-year pep talk, no “surge” would have been needed more than two years later. We would not be learning at this late date, as we did only when General Peter Pace was pressed in a Pentagon briefing this month, that the number of Iraqi battalions operating independently is in fact falling — now standing at a mere six, down from 10 in March.
In Rich’s analysis, Petraeus’ main role has now become anchoring an increasingly delusional president – a political, not a military role.
July 29, 2007
Japan’s days of far right government may be drawing to a close. Prime minister Shinzo Abe’s conservative LDP suffered a sharp defeat in the country’s upper house elections, losing its majority to the moderate Democrats.
The LDP still holds a large majority in the lower house which Abe says he’ll use to stay on as prime minister, a move his own party may resist.
With the upper house in the hands of the populist opposition, it could lead to a legislative deadlock that would trigger dissolution in the lower house and early elections the LDP does not want to face. Japanese voters have turned against the right due to a series of scandals and blunders.
July 28, 2007
The Taliban are said to have deployed heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles in Afghanistan. The Telegraph reports that an American C-130 Hercules transport was brought under attack on July 22.
It closed in on the large C-130 aircraft, pursuing it as the pilots launched a series of violent evasive manoeuvres and jettisoned flares to confuse the heat sensors in the nose of the missile. Crew members said that they saw what they believe was a missile passing very close to the aircraft. The C-130 was not damaged in the attack.
NATO will neither admit nor deny the attack but a surface-to-air missile alert has been issued to all Western aircraft flying in the southwest region of Afghanistan.
The recent attack was probably with an SA7 shoulder-launched missile, an elderly model of Soviet or Chinese origin. Though relatively primitive they are still a potent weapon, particularly against low-flying helicopters, such as the workhorse Chinook transporters used by British forces in the southern Helmand province.
In April members of the Special Boat Service operating in Nimroz province intercepted several truck loads of weapons coming across the Iranian border, including a working SA7 missile. It was one of a number of recent weapon caches that Western officials claim have been seized on the border with Iran, fuelling allegations by Britain and America that Iran, or elements within the Iranian government, have begun supplying arms to the Taliban.
Hundreds of SA7 missiles disappeared into the black market in Iraq in the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein, where they have since been used to shoot down dozens of helicopters and aircraft, reportedly including a British C-130 in 2005.
July 28, 2007
He’s the US Army’s counterinsurgency guru, General David Petraeus. He’s the guy George w. Bush is counting on to make the “surge” work, to save Bush from the ignomy of defeat. But the very leader Petraeus is supposed to help, Iraqi president Nouri al Maliki, wants the general to go.
The Telegraph reports that Maliki has begged Bush to recall Petraeus:
One Iraqi source said Mr Maliki used a video conference with Mr Bush to call for the general’s signature strategy to be scrapped. “He told Bush that if Petraeus continues, he would arm Shia militias,” said the official. “Bush told Maliki to calm down.”
At another meeting with Gen Petraeus, Mr Maliki said: “I can’t deal with you any more. I will ask for someone else to replace you.”
Gen Petraeus admitted that the relationship was stormy, saying: “We have not pulled punches with each other.”
President Bush’s support for Mr Maliki is deeply controversial within the US government because of the Iraqi’s ties to Shia militias responsible for some of the worst sectarian violence.
July 28, 2007
If there’s one thing the Middle East/South Asia region could really use right now, it would have to be more weapons. Let’s face it, no Carnage Festival worth the name can go on and on and on without an abundant supply of stuff to kill other people with. And when it comes to the Muslim world, George w. Bush’s attitude is full-bore, party time.
This week, Washington made a lot of noise about how the Saudis are becoming a pain in the backside that we sometimes call Iraq. The Saudis, it seems, are busy funneling aid and other goodies to Iraq’s Sunni insurgency which, just coincidentally, likes to spend much of its time attacking American soldiers. So, what to do?
How about offering an arms sale package to the Saudis and their neighbours worth, oh say, $20-billion? Well that naturally didn’t sit too well with Israel so Washington went ahead and upped their weaponry welfare package to $30-billion over the next 10-years. There’s a tidy $50-billion of new killing stuff, all of it heading to what has to be by far the most unstable little corner of the world. Oh, and don’t forget, the new nuclear package America has negotiated with India. That should spur those Pakistanis to get busy, don’t you think?
The Americans say they’re worried about giving the impression they’re fueling an arms race in the Middle East. Not so, they say. They’re only bolstering friendly nations to meet Iran’s growing military capability. Hey… what the hell… that is an arms race!
July 27, 2007
America’s top cross-dressing, Republican presidential candidate has lambasted Democratic nomination hopefuls, Barack Obama and John Edwards, Edwards for proposing tax increases on the wealthy and Obama for saying he would meet with leaders of nations such as Cuba, Iran and Libya without preconditions.
As for Edwards, Rudolph Guiliani, presumably dressing straight if only for the sake of gravitas, said the former senator’s platform that would raise the top tax rates on long-term capital gains “This is a tax on everybody.” That, of course, flies in the face of the Bush Doctrine which says really rich people ought to be spared the indignity of taxation whenever possible.
In response to Obama, whom Guiliani privately finds strangely attractive, the failed former New York mayor said, “Fidel Castro is a dictator and he is a murderer. He should not be visiting with U.S. presidents.”
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