The Nation | Blog | The Daily Outrage | Outrageous Outtakes | Ari Berman: "There are certain lists you don't want to be on. For example, Parade Magazine's annual round-up the world's ten worst dictators. This year, Sudan's Omar al-Bashir tops the list, followed by North Korea's Kim Jong Il and Myanmar's Than Shwe, none of whom can be called friends of the US. But dictators four through eight (Hu Jintao-China, Crown Prince Abdullah-Saudi Arabia, Muammar al-Qaddafi-Libya, Pervez Musharraf-Pakistan, Saparmurat Niyazov-Turkmenistan) are allies in the US war on terror. Moreover, US oil companies have done $5 billion worth of business with Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema, tyrant number ten."

(Via The Nation Weblogs.)

Defense Tech: ALIENS GET ANKLE MONITORS: "There's a new Homeland Security Department push underway, to require immigrants in eight cities to wear Sopranos-style electronic ankle bracelets.

'But the government's pilot project is putting monitors on aliens who have never been accused of a crime,' NPR reports."

(Via a DefenseTech.)

The New York Times > Bush Says $2 Billion Went to Religious Charities in '04: "WASHINGTON, March 1 - President Bush said on Tuesday that his administration awarded $2 billion in grants last year to social programs operated by churches, synagogues and mosques.

A White House official said that was probably the most money the federal government had given in one year to religious charities."

From dict.org:

kickback (n) : a commercial bribe paid by a seller to a purchasing agent in order to induce the agent to enter into the transaction

(Via NY Times.)

Mar 4, 2005: Support the Voting Rights Act: "Monday, March 7, 2005 is the 40th anniversary of the march on Selma, Alabama, an event that paved the way for the final passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. We've set up a petition so that you can ask President Bush and Washington Republicans to publicly support reauthorization of the VRA, as well as demand that they support meaningful election reform to ensure that the problems of 2000 and 2004 do not happen again.

To sign this petition and stand with those who gave so much to make the VRA possible, and to stand with the hundreds of thousands of people had problems voting or couldn’t vote at all, click here."

(Via DNC: Kicking Ass.)

The Online Beat: "Even his own allies, such as House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., are warning the president that he cannot force the American people to accept the radical reworking of Social Security that Bush's allies in the financial services industry want.

In fact, the only hope the president has left is outright distortion of the facts - by the White House and by its amen corner in the media.

The Fox News Channel, which has a long history of being more loyal to the Bush administration than it is to the truth, is currently peddling the biggest of the big lies."

(Via The Nation Weblogs.)

Afghanistan About to Become a "Narcotics State": "Here. A few shocking stats and observations, and then some irony: The Afghan narcotics situation, ‘represents an enormous threat to world stability, said the report, issued Friday. Ah, I'm now enlightened. Afghan poppies are the problem, not a foreign policy"

(Via LewRockwell.com Blog.)

The New York Times > Italian Hostage, Released in Iraq, Is Shot by G.I.'s: "Saturday, March 5 - American soldiers guarding a checkpoint here fired Friday night on an approaching car carrying a kidnapped Italian journalist who had just been released, wounding the journalist and killing an Italian intelligence agent, according to American and Italian officials."

...

"The military did not know that the hostage was in the car, a State Department official in Washington said.

According to a statement released by the United States Army's Third Infantry Division in Baghdad, the soldiers tried to warn the driver to stop before firing at the speeding vehicle's engine block."

(Via NY Times.)

Salon.com News | Anger against Iraqi insurgents grows: "March 4, 2005  |  Baghdad, Iraq -- As more people lose loved ones to the relentless violence, Iraqis are becoming increasingly angry at insurgents, even staging public demonstrations condemning militants.

While it is impossible to precisely gauge public opinion, it is clear many Iraqis have grown tired of two years of insecurity, and some are directing their wrath at those behind the bombings and attacks.

'I demand that they be put in the zoo along with the other scavengers, because that is where they belong,' said Bassam Yassin, who lost his brother to an insurgent attack in Mosul. He spoke Wednesday after relatives of victims protested outside a police station in that northern city."

(Via Salon.)

Back to Iraq 3.0: Background on Lebanon: "Juan Cole has an excellent summary of the background on Lebanon with this column. I sometimes take issue with his take in Iraq — more from his tone than anything else, really — but Juan knows his stuff on Lebanon having lived there through some of the 1975-1990 civil war(s). He argues, convincingly, that Bush’s influence in Lebanon is marginal, at best, which jives with my sources who say Bush is not to be thanked for this. (I’m reminded of the credit his father received for ending the Cold War. History, it seems, can be made just by showing up on time.)"

(Via Back to Iraq 3.0.)

Defense Tech: SHAYS: SECRECY HURTS SECURITY: "Yesterday, Shays, who heads the Goverment Reform Committee's national security panel, gave one of the best speeches yet about the dangers of overclassification, just before lanuching into a hearing on the subject.

'The Cold War cult of secrecy remains largely impervious to the new security imperatives of the post-9/11 world. Overclassification is a direct threat to national security.'"

(Via DefenseTech.)

The Nation | Blog | The Daily Outrage | The Real Story of the Insurgency | Ari Berman: "At a testy hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 16, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to say how many insurgents are operating in Iraq. 'I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my job to do intelligent (sic) work,' Rumsfeld replied."

...

"General Richard Myers sounded triumphant almost two years into the war. "I'd say the insurgents' future is absolutely bleak," Myers said at the same February 16 hearing. He then reversed course a week later, admitting that the insurgency could last anywhere from seven to twelve years."

...

"A "pocket of dead-enders" has turned into a mix of former Baathists, Sunni nationalists, Shiite radicals and foreign terrorists numbering as many as 40,000 core fighters and 200,000 sympathizers, according to Iraq's own intelligence chief."

(Via The Nation Weblogs.)

The Nation | Blog | The Daily Outrage | The Real Story of the Insurgency | Ari Berman: "At a testy hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 16, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to say how many insurgents are operating in Iraq. 'I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my job to do intelligent (sic) work,' Rumsfeld replied."

...

"General Richard Myers sounded triumphant almost two years into the war. "I'd say the insurgents' future is absolutely bleak," Myers said at the same February 16 hearing. He then reversed course a week later, admitting that the insurgency could last anywhere from seven to twelve years."

...

"A "pocket of dead-enders" has turned into a mix of former Baathists, Sunni nationalists, Shiite radicals and foreign terrorists numbering as many as 40,000 core fighters and 200,000 sympathizers, according to Iraq's own intelligence chief."

(Via The Nation Weblogs.)

Archive Director Testifies Before Congressional Hearing on "Overclassification and Pseudo-classification": "I have reviewed in detail the record of your hearing on August 24, 2004, to which my own organization, the National Security Archive, contributed a reader of declassified documents entitled 'Dubious Secrets,' featuring General Pinochet's drink preferences (scotch and pisco sours) and a joke terrorist attack on Santa Claus (the secret was that the CIA occasionally has a sense of humor). Mr. Chairman, you asked the question whether overclassification was a 10% problem or a 90% problem, and your witnesses provided some remarkable yardsticks. The deputy undersecretary of defense for counterintelligence and security confessed that 50% of the Pentagon's information was overclassified. The head of the Information Security Oversight Office said it was even worse, 'even beyond 50%.' The former official who participated in the Markle Foundation study cited by the 9/11 Commission on information sharing stated that 80-90% (at least in the area of intelligence and technology) was appropriately classified at first, but over time that dwindled down to the 10-20% range."

...

"What's most alarming is that the new forms of secrecy, the "pseudoclassifications" like Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU) or Sensitive Security Information (SSI) or Sensitive Homeland Security Information (SHSI), have no such checks and balances. Where is the audit agency, tracking the basic data on the number and extent of new restrictions? Where is the appeals panel, overriding the reflexive instincts of agencies? Where is the cost reporting, or do the agencies lack any clue as to how much the secrecy costs them? Where is the cost-benefit analysis inside agencies, or do they not see the double-edged sword inherent in secrecy? Where are the bureaucratic centers of countervailing power, pressing for declassification? Where are the court cases, or will judges continue blind deference to executive judgments? Where is the Congress, when the President's lawyers assert unilateral authority over secrecy, detentions, interrogations, and energy policy, among many other topics?"

(Via The National Security Archives.)

LewRockwell.com Blog: The Bright Side of Having Your Arms and Legs Blown Off: "In other words, military contractors are hiring maimed and disfigured veterans so that the war -- and the occupation -- can continue indefinitely. This will lead to even more maimed and mangled bodies of young Americans, who will also be hired up by military contractors to assure that the war and occupation last even longer yet, which will in turn cause more maiming and disfiguring, and the cycle is repeated with no end in sight.

Finally, a clear defninition [sic] of what Billy Kristol means by 'national greatness conservativism.'"

(Via LewRockwell.com Blog.)

BBC NEWS | England | Beds/Bucks/Herts | Schoolgirl wins Muslim gown case: "A girl was unlawfully excluded from school for wearing a traditional Muslim gown, Appeal Court judges have ruled.

Lord Justice Brooke said Denbigh High School in Luton, Beds, denied Shabina Begum, 16 - now at another school - the right to manifest her religion."

(Via BBC News.)

Defense Tech: DRONES WRONG FOR BORDER WATCH?: "The Homeland Security Department has been using pilotless spy planes to patrol the Mexican border for nearly a year. Vigilante groups have been putting unmanned eyes in the sky for even longer. But a new report from the Congressional Research Service is warning that there could be some pretty major drawbacks to using robotic border guards."

...

"There are concerns regarding UAVs high accident rate. Currently, the UAV accident rate is 100 times higher than that of manned aircraft."

(Via a DefenseTech.)

LewRockwell.com Blog: Where's the "Conservative Case Against Lockheed?": .. if I try to quote it, I'll just be posting the entire thing.. :-)

(Via LewRockwell.com Blog.)

Salon.com News | Racial holy war?: "A U.S. federal judge returned home on Monday night to find her mother and husband murdered less than a year after a white supremacist was convicted for attempting to have her killed."

...

"Chicago police warned against rushing to conclusions about the motive for the murders or identity of the killer, but attention inevitably focused on the white supremacist movement. Within the past two weeks, federal agents in Chicago received a bulletin saying the Aryan Brotherhood might be planning to harm "law enforcement and their families." Monday was the 12th anniversary of the raid on the cult compound in Waco, Texas, which has become a rallying point for right-wing militia groups, and the Lefkows have long been targets."

(Via Salon.)

America's trade deficit rises to $618bn- The Times of India: "The American trade deficit broke the $600-billion barrier in 2004, soaring to $617.7 billion, the commerce department reported on Thursday, but gap narrowed in December in part because lower oil prices cut cost of energy imports.

The deficit now accounts for more than 5 per cent of American economy, a level that adds further pressure to forces pushing down value of dollar and increases amount of debt held overseas."

(Via The Times of India.)

Condoleezza Rice's Commanding Clothes (washingtonpost.com): "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived at the Wiesbaden Army Airfield on Wednesday dressed all in black. She was wearing a black skirt that hit just above the knee, and it was topped with a black coat that fell to mid-calf. The coat, with its seven gold buttons running down the front and its band collar, called to mind a Marine's dress uniform or the 'save humanity' ensemble worn by Keanu Reeves in 'The Matrix.'"

(Via (indirectly) ArmsControlWonk.com.)

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | Web Log: Iranian fuel deal irks some: "Not surprisingly, some U.S. politicians were upset to learn that Russia and Iran signed a nuclear fuel deal over the weekend. The deal allows Iran to receive Russian nuclear fuel for the Russian-built Bushehr reactor on the condition that Tehran sends all of the reactor’s spent fuel back to Russia. In response, Sen. John McCain said that Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, should be punished. ‘I think this latest step of the Russians vis-a-vis the agreement with the Iranians calls for sterner measures to be taken between ourselves and Russia. It has got to, at some point, begin to harm our relations, because we can't stand by and allow Russia to continue to behave--it's almost aberrational,’ McCain told Fox News Sunday. (McCain and other senators have been after a Russian suspension from the G-8 since 2003.)"

(Via Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | Web Log.)

PENTAGON BUDGET BLACKMAIL: "Give us more money, or soldiers aren't going to get paid. That's the cynical game the Pentagon's leadership has been playing with the Army's budget in recent months. And now, it's crunch time. Since the fall, Rumsfeld & Co. have been dipping into the Army's day-to-day funds -- like money for soldiers' paychecks -- and then daring Congress not to make up the difference with a second, 'supplemental' pile of cash. The tab comes due this Spring, Defense Daily reports."

(Via Defense Tech.)

CIA DRONES FLYING OVER IRAN: "Usually, hunting for missiles and reactors from the sky would be a job for the Air Force. But those spy drones that are flying over Iran, looking for nukes -- they belong to the CIA, according to Aviation Week. 'They are using the I-Gnat and Predator [drones that the CIA] used early in the Afghanistan war... They focus on small areas, and that's what they need to find those dispersed [nuclear weapons development] sites,' a senior Air Force official says."

(Via Defense Tech.)

Patriot Performance in Iraq: "The report focuses on three fratricide incidents—including the death of Lieutenant Nathan White of Abilene, Texas, which was the subject of some investigative reporting (also) by the Boston Globe.

The Defense Science Board Task Force found that the problem which led to the ‘friendly fire’ incidents was ‘not exactly a surprise’ and stated that it ‘remains puzzled as to why this deficiency never garners enough resolve and support to result in a robust fix.’"

(Via ArmsControlWonk.com.)

Once Again, Democracy Is Not Freedom by Jacob G. Hornberger: "Pardon me for asking some indelicate questions, but under what moral authority does one nation invade and occupy another nation for the purpose of conducting a national election, especially when the invasion and occupation are likely to result in the deaths and maiming of tens of thousands of people, including American soldiers and Iraqi citizens? Isn't it possible that those U.S. soldiers would have placed a higher value on their lives and health than on a national election in Iraq, especially if they had known prior to the invasion that they were not protecting America from a WMD attack after all? Isn't it possible those dead and maimed Iraqis would have preferred life and health, albeit under tyranny, just as millions of people in Eastern Europe did through the many decades of the Cold War?

Let’s not forget the simple truth that democracy is not freedom. Thus, the mere fact that many of the Iraqi people voted in a national election does not mean that Iraqis are now free or that they’re going to be free in the near future. In fact, given the political and religious beliefs of the Shi’ite group that garnered the most votes, early indications are exactly the opposite."

(Via Lew Rockwell.)

Rumsfeld Sued Over Torture in Iraq and Afghanistan by Jim Lobe: "Two major U.S. human rights groups Tuesday filed a lawsuit in federal court in Chicago against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on behalf of eight named Afghan and Iraqi plaintiffs who say they were tortured and abused while in the custody of the U.S. military.

...

"'Secretary Rumsfeld bears direct and ultimate responsibility for this descent into horror by personally authorizing unlawful interrogation techniques and by abdicating his legal duty to stop torture,' said Lucas Guttentag, lead counsel in the lawsuit and the director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, at a press conference in Washington Tuesday.

'He gives lip service to being responsible but has not been held accountable for his actions. This lawsuit puts the blame where it belongs, on the secretary of defense,'"

(Via Lew Rockwell.)

Capital Games: "John Negroponte, who George W. Bush selected to be the first national directory of intelligence, does have a checkered past that warrants examination. As I and others noted when Bush appointed him UN ambassador in 2001 and then ambassador to Iraq last year, during the time Negroponte was Ronald Reagan's ambassador to Honduras in the early 1980s, he was the boss of the contra operation. Worse, he ignored serious human rights violations and oversaw an embassy that smothered reporting of abuses committed by the Honduran military, an ally of the Reagan administration in the not-that-secret covert war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. (Click here for details.)"

(Via The Nation Weblogs.)

Mar 1, 2005: The sound of a sinking ship: "After last week's nationwide barrage of townhall meetings, local television and radio interviews, and old-fashioned campaigning, Washington Republicans have done their best to change consituents' minds on Bush's disasterous Social Security plan. Well, they failed. Not only did they fail, they fell from having 43 percent support for Bush's plan to just 35 percent support."

(Via DNC: Kicking Ass.)

Salon.com News | White House must charge or free suspect: "'The court finds that the president has no power, neither express nor implied, neither constitutional nor statutory, to hold petitioner as an enemy combatant,' Floyd wrote in a 23-page opinion that was a stern rebuke to the government. Floyd, appointed by Bush in 2003, gave the administration 45 days to take action."

(Via Salon.)

Bushehr - Iran Nuclear Reactor: "The focus of a considerable amount of controversy in the United States, the nuclear facility at Brushehr, Iran is being built under an agreement between the Russian and Iranian governments for $800-million. Although originally intended to be the location of a German-built reactor in the 1970s, the new reactor will be built to Russian designs, though the original reactor buildings exterior appearance will remain essentially the same. There are two reactors at Bushehr, one is in an advanced stage of completion the other has not been worked on for some time and is not currently scheduled to be completed."

(Via GlobalSecurity.org.)

Bloggers "Sitting in Pajamas" Awake! A Judge Balks at the Really Free Press: "Has Judge Sentelle never heard of Peter Zenger, one of the heros of American journalism, the gutsy guy who ran an unofficial, which is to say ‘personal’ little press in New York during the colonial period? He’s the one who was tried for seditious libel. He printed a truth the royal governor didn’t like. Since revolution was already in the air, Zenger was acquitted. The soon-to-be born United States of America was going to have an unmuzzled press, which some of us still cherish. If Zenger were living today, he’d be a blogger.

Benjamin Franklin also churned out newspapers that weren’t always popular with the powers-that-be. In fact, those were the great days of pamphleteering in England, too. Think of Thomas Paine. Think of Addison and Steele and so many others we still read and admire. They were lone wolves, often, and fiercely partisan, but they were often right.

They were the bloggers of their day."

Before anyone things I'm getting self-rightous or something, lspol is not a true blog, more of a lossy repeater out on the Internet, a router sniffing the wire and relaying interesting echoes...

(Via WhirledView.)