John McCain managed to muster 30 or 40-supporters the other night for his wretched, pre-emptive speech trying to undermine Barack Obama. In fairness, McCain often attracts much larger crowds, often hundreds at a time.
Barack Obama held a rally of his own – in Virginia – and all he could draw was a paltry TEN THOUSAND enthusiastic supporters. From the Washington Post:
“In Virginia, Obama delivered his standard stump speech at both campaign stops, but the events were weighted with significance, a reminder of one of his biggest primary wins and his determination to compete in Virginia and other traditional Republican strongholds in November.
The senator from Illinois noted the symbolism of the first African American presidential nominee appealing for support in a former Confederate state.
“This crowd reflects what was done 40 years ago to perfect this union,” Obama told the Nissan crowd, referring to achievements of the civil rights movement. “And now, 40 years later, that same sense of urgency is demanded.”
Die-hard Obama supporters and undecided voters converged on the amphitheater in Prince William County three hours before the candidate was scheduled to take the stage at 6 p.m. State and local transportation officials had braced for a major backup on Interstate 66, but traffic was like that of a normal evening rush.”
Here’s the premise. One of Israeli prime minister
Ehud Olmert’s deputies announces that an Israeli strike on Iran might be “unavoidable” if Tehran continues to pursue its nuclear weapons programme, i.e. nuclear enrichment.
Haven’t we seen this movie before?
Washington kick-started Iran’s ascendancy in the Muslim world by going to war against Iraq. That allowed Iraq to fall under Shiite control, enormously boosting Iran’s influence and prestige. Then Iran bankrolled Hezbollah and Hamas, extending its sphere of influence from the Persian Gulf all the way to the Mediterranean Sea.
Lately Iran has picked up a couple of new patrons – Russia and China. China wants a secure source of oil, an energy “leg up” over India and the U.S. Russia wants to manage the control of Iranian oil and natural gas to help it tighten its control over Europe’s energy supplies. Both want to put a dent in American hegemony over the area. To this end, Russia has supplied Iran with some of its latest surface-to-air missile batteries while China has delivered what may be the most sophisticated and capable anti-ship cruise missiles on the planet.
Who would benefit from airstrikes against Iranian nuclear installations? Here’s a clue – it’s not Israel, it’s not the United States, it’s not the Sunni Arab states. The winner would be – Iran!
The Mullahs and Ayatollahs in Tehran face greater threats from within than from without. Iran’s younger generation clamours for secular and democratic reforms. Yet these very same reformers warn anyone who’ll listen that an attack on their homeland would drive them right behind the Tehran government in support of their country. Attacking Iran, in effect, could unify Iran, bolster solidarity for Tehran throughout the Muslim world and cause the Shia regions to coalesce ever more strongly behind it. That could play proper hell with American forces in a seemingly more tranquil Iraq and could also impact on the war in Afghanistan.
If Israel attacks it’s a fair bet that Iran will retaliate against the West. It could withhold its own oil exports and block most other oil shipments through the Persian Gulf with its anti-ship missiles. That could be enough to collapse many Western economies. It could likewise drive a wedge between the Israeli/American coalition and Europe while simultaneously improving Russia’s and China’s hands in the region and elsewhere.
So, what’s the answer? I don’t know but it certainly isn’t resort to airstrikes. That route is a temporary solution, at best, but fraught with so many downsides as to make it ludicrous. Do we really need Israel doing for Iran the same favour it did for Hezbollah in Lebanon?
The solution might just lie in taking Washington and Israel out of the equation altogether and entrusting the problem to more effective intermediaries, Russia perhaps, while contenting ourselves with sanctions and containment.
I only wish that the United States and Israel weren’t, at this critical moment, saddled with two of their most inept leaders in history.
I never understood Jim
Flaherty.
There was always something about the guy that didn’t add up, that seemed somehow off. He wasn’t what we’ve come to expect in a Finance Minister. He wasn’t that essential bit reserved and considered. Instead he more closely resembled the beer hall brawler on a Saturday night at closing time.
Flaherty exuded a dull and brutish tone, presenting a character that seemed to constantly embrace a simmering belligerence. He always struck me as a tad unhinged. Come to think of it, that could equally well describe Harper’s EnviroMin, John Baird. Maybe there’s something in that flawed character profile that genuinely appeals to our Furious Leader. But I digress.
In the Toronto Star, Chantal Hebert ponders what may be, for Flaherty, the end of the road:
“In the week since Bernier’s resignation, Flaherty’s future as finance minister has become the focal point of the upcoming cabinet shuffle. One way or another, his fate will reveal more about Stephen Harper’s mindset in the lead-up to a possible fall election than any other cabinet move.
Earlier this week Flaherty’s cabinet future, rather than Bernier’s romantic past, was the prime topic of speculation at Stéphane Dion’s end-of-session garden party. Almost to a man and a woman, senior Liberals expect the Prime Minister to seize the pretext of an unexpected shuffle to replace Flaherty with the less abrasive Jim Prentice.
With cabinet fever running rampant within Conservative ranks and with at least a half-dozen ministers pining for new assignments, the impetus for a major shuffle has been gaining momentum daily on Parliament Hill.
But the finance minister is a central figure of the cabinet. His role is ultimately more pivotal than that of the foreign affairs minister; to replace Flaherty at this advanced stage in the life of the government would be a delicate operation.
On the other hand, if the Conservatives do want to run as the team best equipped to deal with a flagging economy in the next election, Harper has no interest in going into the campaign with his current finance minister.
Flaherty may not have been the only minister from Ontario to engage in a war of words with Queen’s Park but it was his vocal part in the federal attacks on Dalton McGuinty that seemed to finally gel the province’s public opinion and send Conservative popularity on a downward spin this spring.
With satisfaction with the government declining in tandem with public confidence in the economy, Flaherty’s credentials as a former Mike Harris minister do little to dispel the perception that Harper’s regime is short on sensitivity and compassion.”
But we shouldn’t be too hard on Jim Flaherty. There’s no way he could have gotten away with his bellicosity toward Queens Park except with Stephen Harper’s approval.
Maybe we should pity Flaherty. After all, he’s coming out of this looking a bit like the loser in one of those internet street brawls where the rubbies beat the hell out of each other for a bottle of hooch.
The adage about the futility of trying to drive a square peg into a round hole may serve as a handy metaphor to describe Washington’s bungling throughout the Middle East.
There’s no region on earth where the Bush regime has squandered more American lives, treasure and prestige than the Middle East and no place on earth where it has consistently failed so miserably. But don’t take my word for it.
Look at places like Lebanon, Gaza and Syria. There has been progress made lately in all three hotspots and in each there appears to be one common factor – the United States has been dealt out. From The New York Times:
“In the last few weeks, three long-frozen conflicts in the Middle East have displayed early signs of thawing. Israel and Hamas may be inching toward a cease-fire that would end attacks by both sides and, perhaps, loosen the siege imposed on the impoverished Gaza Strip. The factions in Lebanon, after a long period of institutional paralysis and a near civil war, have reached a tentative political agreement. And eight years after their last negotiations, Israel and Syria have announced the resumption of indirect peace talks.
The Gaza deal is being brokered by Egypt. Qatar mediated the Lebanese accord. Turkey is shepherding the Israeli-Syrian contacts. All three countries are close allies of the United States. Under normal circumstances, they would be loath to act on vital regional matters without America’s consent.
Yet in these cases they seem to have ignored Washington’s preferences. The negotiations either involved parties with whom the United States refuses to talk, initiated a process the United States opposes or produced an outcome harmful to its preferred local allies.
The region is in a mess, and Washington’s allies know it. They privately blame the United States and have given up waiting for the Bush administration to offer them a way out.
By acting as they did, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey gave the true measure of America’s dwindling credibility and leverage after American debacles in Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon. They are willing to take matters into their own hands and overlook American ambivalence about their doing so.
Intent on isolating its foes, the United States has instead ended up marginalizing itself. In one case after another, the Bush administration has wagered on the losing party or on a lost cause.
Israel wants to deal with Hamas because it — not America’s Palestinian partners — possesses what Israel most wants: the ability to end the violence and to release Cpl. Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held by Hamas. Israel has come around to dealing with Syria because Damascus — not America’s so-called moderate Arab allies — holds the crucial cards: Syria has a clear strategy of alliance with Iran; it supports the more powerful forces on the ground in Lebanon; and it provides refuge to opposition and Islamist forces in Palestine.
Likewise, America’s Lebanese friends had to give in to Hezbollah’s demands once it became clear that the support of the United States could not undo their country’s balance of power. Meanwhile, the process President Bush seems to care about most — that elusive Israeli-Palestinian track — is also the least likely to go anywhere.
The United States has cut itself off from the region on the dubious assumption that it can somehow maximize pressure on its foes by withholding contact, choosing to flaunt its might in the most primitive and costly of ways. It has pushed its local allies toward civil wars — arming Fatah against Hamas; financing some Lebanese forces against Hezbollah — they could not and did not win. And it has failed to understand that its partners could achieve more in alliance than in conflict with their opposition.”
American efforts in all three cases have also fallen flat because Washington keeps trying to add one additional, vexing layer to them – Iran. The U.S. sees Iran’s evil hand as the culprit behind each crisis instead of understanding that Iran is mainly supporting Hezbollah, Hamas and Syria just as the U.S. has been supporting the other players in each conflict. Trying to somehow undo Iran on the backs of the crises in Palestine, Lebanon and the Golan Heights is beyond America’s or anyone’s power.
Once the Egyptians, the Qataris and the Turks engage the principles without the hurdles poised by the Washington-Iran conflict, progress is suddenly possible.
Is this blunt enough for you? From Asia Times Online:
“Chinese military experts believe a confrontation in space, probably with the United States, is inevitable. What they haven’t said is whether they expect to win.”
China is concerned because of Bush’s space doctrine that reserves to the United States the unilateral authority to decide which nations will be allowed to use space and, more importantly, the right to prevent others from placing satellites or other space craft into orbit. Sound a tad arrogant, belligerent even? It is and the Chinese know the nation that Bush is referring to but won’t mention is theirs.
So the Chinese, it appears, will be gearing up to muscle their way into a region which, in reality, belongs to no one.
“…since they successfully shot down an obsolete weather satellite with a missile in an outer orbit in January 2007, the Chinese armed forces have been operating from a position of relative strength.
So powerful was the impact from the four-stage rocket, which was traveling at nearly 29,000 kilometers an hour when it struck the satellite, that it scattered debris halfway around the globe. A definite footprint of strategic intent.
No surprise then, that the Pentagon responded in February this year by shooting down one of its own wayward satellites over the Pacific Ocean with a rocket, thus shattering a 1980s undertaking not to conduct antisatellite (ASAT) tests.
Thirty-two countries are known to have a missile capability, including Asian foes India and Pakistan, South and North Korea, Israel, Syria, Taiwan, Iran, Vietnam, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as Russia, China and the US. Any could technically wage a military campaign in space, even if it were limited to ground-to-air strikes.
Most of these countries are signatories to the Outer Space Treaty, an agreement approved by the United Nations in 1967 after tortuous negotiations between the US and the Soviet Union – though China is one of the few nations to fully accede to its provisions.
Core commitments are that signatories will not place “nuclear or any other weapons of mass destruction”, military installations or fortifications in orbit around the Earth or on any celestial body, undertake testing of weapons there or conduct military maneuvers.
Conventional weapons based in space are totally legal. And there is no prohibition on the firing of ground-based missiles into space, as both the US and Soviet Union were developing intercontinental missiles and peaceful space programs when the treaty was signed.
Similarly, there is wide scope for interpreting “weapons of mass destruction”; as US defense officials have pointed out, practically anything that could be propelled into space could be used to ram a satellite without violating the treaty.”
China has succeeded in getting American right-wingers apoplectic and suspicious to the point of paranoia.
Heritage Foundation vice president for foreign policy and defense studies, Larry M Wortzel, railed in a commentary, “China’s strategy here is to blunt American military superiority by limiting and ultimately neutralizing its existing space-based defense assets, and to forestall deployment of new technology that many experts believe would provide the best protection from ballistic missile attack.”
The Chinese are also in development of a new generation of stealthy, small, satellite killers:
“The Technology Research Academy has been working on an advanced ASAT weapon called a “piggyback satellite” that would attach itself to an enemy satellite, space station or space-based laser and jam communications or blow up the target.
A generation of mini satellites is being developed that would be so small they would be difficult to detect from the ground. They are said to be defensive, but would still be capable of surveillance, reconnaissance, communications and – theoretically – the destruction of other satellites.”
Meanwhile U.S. sources revealed today that China is poised to beat the Americans to the moon. The US landing is scheduled for 2020 but the Chinese are expected to make it there by 2017 or earlier.
By the way, if the Chinese and Americans ever do get into a battle in space, prepare to return to the 1950’s. Everything from cell phones to aerial navigation will go down if – make that when – the cascade of debris begins, rapidly taking down satellites until all that’s left is debris. And, when that happens, don’t count on anyone fixing the problem anytime soon. We’ll just have to sit and wait about two generations before all that space debris falls back to earth before it’ll be safe enough to put anything back up there again.
George w. Bush may have just handed victory to Barack Obama and a crushing defeat to John McCain.
The British newspaper The Independent reports it has obtained leaked details of the impending security agreement soon to be inked by the Maliki government in Baghdad:
“A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.
Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq’s position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.
But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.
America currently has 151,000 troops in Iraq and, even after projected withdrawals next month, troop levels will stand at more than 142,000 – 10 000 more than when the military “surge” began in January 2007. Under the terms of the new treaty, the Americans would retain the long-term use of more than 50 bases in Iraq. American negotiators are also demanding immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting the Baghdad government.
The precise nature of the American demands has been kept secret until now. The leaks are certain to generate an angry backlash in Iraq. “It is a terrible breach of our sovereignty,” said one Iraqi politician, adding that if the security deal was signed it would delegitimise the government in Baghdad which will be seen as an American pawn.
The US has repeatedly denied it wants permanent bases in Iraq but one Iraqi source said: “This is just a tactical subterfuge.” Washington also wants control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000ft and the right to pursue its “war on terror” in Iraq, giving it the authority to arrest anybody it wants and to launch military campaigns without consultation.
Mr Bush is determined to force the Iraqi government to sign the so-called “strategic alliance” without modifications, by the end of next month. But it is already being condemned by the Iranians and many Arabs as a continuing American attempt to dominate the region. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful and usually moderate Iranian leader, said yesterday that such a deal would create “a permanent occupation”. He added: “The essence of this agreement is to turn the Iraqis into slaves of the Americans.”
The newspaper reports that al-Maliki also doesn’t like the agreement but feels he must sign it because his government cannot survive without American support.
John McCain’s position that the war in Iraq needs to continue is based on his claim that the surge is working, that violence is waning in Iraq and al-Qaeda is on the run. This “status of forces” treaty, due to be inked next month, is bound to spark unrest – the sort of violence McCain claims is dying out. It will vindicate al Sadr’s claim that Iraq is facing permanent occupation and it will cast Maliki’s government as eerily similar to Petain’s Vichy rule under Nazi occupation.
What Bush doesn’t appear to have considered is how his successor is to come up with the forces necessary to keep this farce going. With some poor saps already on their fourth and fifth combat tours in the War Without End on Terror, a ground force that’s nearly broken, a recruiting machine that is so desperate it’s scraping the barrel and still coming up short, and a population at home simply fed up with Iraq – the only way they’re going to be able to staff those 50-permanent bases is with fresh blood and that, in turn, means bringing back the draft.
Another little point. Who’s going to pick up the tab for this infinite adventure? I don’t think American voters, when presented with the cost they’ve already incurred in the form of government borrowing and the additional fortune it would cost to maintain the American legions in Mesopotamia, will accept that when they go to the polls in November.
Once this comes out in the open it can only reinforce al Sadr’s demand for a referendum to let the Iraqi people decide whether American troops should go or stay.
I think this plan is an enormous blunder, even by the standards of the man whose entire administration has been a succession of blunders.
The US Senate Intelligence Committee has finally said it – George w. Bush and Dick Cheney deliberately made public statements to promote an invasion of Iraq that they knew at the time were not supported by available intelligence.
There’s the verdict. They weren’t mistaken. They weren’t misled by faulty intelligence. It wasn’t just an honest mistake. THEY LIED!
Yes Messrs. Bush and Cheney lied their assess off to deceive Congress and the American people into supporting their war of whim in Iraq. From McClatchey Newspapers’ Washington Bureau:
“Before taking the country to war, this administration owed it to the American people to give them a 100 percent accurate picture of the threat we faced. Unfortunately, our Committee has concluded that the administration made significant claims that were not supported by the intelligence,” said committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV, D- W. Va.
It’s long been known that the administration’s claims in the runup to the Iraq war, from Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties to al Qaida to whether Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program, were incorrect, and White House spokeswoman Dana Perino suggested the problems were faulty intelligence.
“We had the intelligence that we had fully vetted, but it was wrong,” she said. “We certainly regret that and we’ve taken measures to fix it.”
But the Senate report, the first official examination of whether the president and vice president knew that their claims were incorrect at the time that they made them, reached a different conclusion.
“There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence. But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate,” Rockefeller said in a statement.
‘Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information,” the report concluded.
Among the reports conclusions:
Claims by President Bush that Iraq and al Qaida had a partnership “were not substantiated by the intelligence.”
The president and vice president misrepresented what was known about Iraq’s chemical weapons capabiliies.
Rumsfeld misrepresented what the intelligence community knew when he said Iraq’s weapons productions facilities were buried deeply underground.
Cheney’s claim that the intelligence community had confirmed that lead Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 was not true.”
Looking for the High Crimes and Misdemeanours department? Look no further than the White House and its denizens. The committee report reads like an indictment for crimes that have directly taken the lives of tens, probably hundreds of thousands of innocents. Finally official Washington has said what a lot of us have known all along, this criminal regime deliberately and methodically betrayed its nation and lied the country into a war that has brought little but devastation and rebuke. If ever an executive belonged behind bars and high walls, this is it.
I wonder if Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and all the other uber-right loudmouths at Fox are getting their knickers in a twist at the prospect of a new broom arriving to clean out the filth at the White House? After all, like cockroaches everywhere, they’ve feasted royally on that very filth these past eight years and the idea of being sent scurrying in search of another dark, dirty hiding place must be daunting.
It certain seems to have gotten to O’Reilly who recently accused McClellan of holding Bush down while the left wing media ass raped George w. Bush. That’s the sort of imagery that runs through a tortured mind like O’Reilly’s. Then again, maybe Bill’s just jealous.
The most important, and critical, reason for impeachment of Bush and Cheney was to defend the Constitution against their excesses, their abuses and restore America’s system of checks and balances. America will not long sustain a government “of the people, by the people and for the people” unless balance is restored which requires, in essence, removing powers wrongfully usurped by the executive and restoring to Congress its rightful powers.
There is a solid case for impeachment of the president and vice-president for “high crimes and misdemeanours” but, so far, it’s been reduced to a plaything for constitutional scholars. Unfortunately, the American public has poorly understood the nature of the case and what’s at stake if nothing is done. House and senate Republicans would have fought it out of fear of the damage it could cause their party in future elections. Democratic congressional leaders Reid and Pelosi likewise showed little stomach for a fight which surely must rank right up there as one of the most serious derelictions of duty by senior American congressional leaders since Bush was first appointed president.
Without impeachment, America’s next best hope is for the incoming president to do the right thing and disavow the abuses of the Bush regime. Right now the prospects of that aren’t great.
Republican nominee John McCain (yes, I know, he’s the “presumptive” nominee) has already indicated that he’ll retain the full powers of a “wartime president”, basically embracing the abusive precedents set by George w. Bush and his henchman Cheney. Now McCain is quick to claim that no American president is above the law but he also maintains that the constitutional powers of a wartime president override laws such as the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
It sure sounds as though John McCain will be happy accepting the basketful of purloined powers filched by the Cheney administration these past eight years. More one-man rule.
Maybe Congress needs to address this forcefully. One way might require any president seeking to circumvent the Constitution and Bill of Rights to make a public declaration of a State of Emergency capped at, say, four to six months after which that president would be required to make a fresh declaration of a State of Emergency. Let the people clearly know and force the president to regularly remind them that he’s placed every one of them and their constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms in suspension and then let them judge whether they’re content with that.
I think that would put an end to this nonsense in short order. With congressional elections every two years, the American people would be able to respond forcefully to hand an abuser his hat at the polls and punish the president and his party by stripping them of their seats. In essence, it would be a popular call or endorsement for impeachment.
America has allowed its president and viceroy to get too comfortable atop their thrones these past few years. It’s time that was put to an end.
The Mound of Sound 