al-Queda: The sweet smell of propaganda

Scott Horton over at Harpers in his article DOD Claim of Capture of “Senior Al-Qaeda Figure” Draws Questions raises some ummm... important questions.

As I read though my list of daily news feeds what I found surprising was the sheer number of stories in the last 24hrs relating to the capture of this al-Qaeda figure or that al-Qaeda group which I thought interesting and no doubt Scott at Harpers thought so too.

As Scott points out, the story regarding the apprehension of Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi,"one of al-Qaeda's highest-ranking and experienced senior operatives" happened five months ago?!

These and other related al-Qaeda stories smacks of the Whitehouse attempting to spin the perception of success in an otherwise sea of failure stories circling around it's beseiged administration.

Media: When watchdogs become lapdogs

Rupert Murdoch feels that he and the Washington Post are the embattled ones in the quest to deliver us from the propaganda of lies and hate.

In a speech yesterday at the Milken event he complained about the monolithic attacks on George Bush every day of the year claiming that "the atmosphere is absolutely toxic."

He went on to say that "alleged climate changes" and other problems are far more manageable than is the threat of Islamic terror, which will worsen significantly if Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

The mantra "Iran must not get nuclear weapons" has been repeated so often now that most people have come to believe that Iran has them, or is getting them. This implication is completely unproven. The tragedy would be that in the end the Bush Administration may goad Iran into a real nuclear-weapons program ably assisted by modern day media Goebels like Murdoch et al.

Rupert also "lamented the difficulties he has had in doing business with China, where, "the fact is, media is pretty much closed." I imagine the Chinese have similar concerns that Chavez had in Venezuela where he canceled Radio Caracas Television's license because of their failure to report accurately on the events of the two-day coup in 2002.

Perhaps the lesson for Rupert is that wearing your politics on your sleeve is not always good for business.

Case study: Selling your photos on-line

A lot of people take photos. No, seriously. A lot of people. But the number of people who actually do something with their photographs are an absolute minority. I decided to catch up with a friend of mine - Jason - to see how he turned his hobby into a multi-million, global sales success. Okay, [...]

Withdrawal timeline = national reconciliation = Iraq solution

Both General Pettraus in his closed session address to congress today and former Iraq interim Prime Minister has said in Doha this week that the solution in Iraq is a political solution.

The keys to this political solution according to Iyad Allawi and many who follow the Iraq issue lies in national reconciliation but it is the very lack of a withdrawal time line that has seen every effort to gain real consensus and commitment to National Reconciliation fail. More pointedly the lack of a withdrawal time line was the primary cause for the departure of the Sadrist block from government and a still looming threat of Sunni members to abandon government also.

It's time for George and Cheney to abandon the tired message discipline of "stay the course" and demonstrate they have a genuine interest in the welfare of their own troops and that of Iraqi's in general and announce a withdrawal time line.

Iraq: Deja vu all over again

I think if we want a crystal ball into US/Iraq troubles we should be looking a the Soviet/Afghanistan experience before, during and after the Soviet invasion--the parallels are disturbing.

Svetlana Savranskaya detailed the Soviet experience in Afghanistan over at the National Security Archives in 2001. In the following quotations you can just swap the words 'Afghanistan' for 'Iraq' and 'Soviet' for 'U.S.' and strangely you feel you're reading about the U.S. troubles in Iraq. She noted:

"Afghanistan did not fit into the mental maps and ideological constructs of the Soviet leaders. Their analysis of internal social processes in Afghanistan was done through the conceptual lens of [of their own political doctrine], which blinded the leadership to the realities of traditional tribal society. Believing that there was no single country in the world, which was not ripe for socialism"

In much the same way that Wolfowitz et al believed that the Iraqi's were ripe for democracy and discounting the "realities of traditional tribal society" lying below the surface just waiting to be unleashed under the right conditions.

She goes on to describe how the Afghan communist government was never a unified party and that

"...it was split along ethnic and tribal lines. The infighting between the 'Khalq' and the 'Parcham' factions made the tasks of controlling the situation much more challenging for Moscow... [including] ...underestimation of ethnic tensions within Afghan society was one of the reasons of the unsuccessful policy of national reconciliation."

As we have seen over recent weeks the crumbling of National Reconciliation in Iraq with the departure of the Sadrist's from government and the threat of of the Sunni block to also leave due to their long term concerns about the absence of a withdrawal time line.

Svetlana goes on to say:

"The Soviet Army also quickly realized the inadequacy of its preparation and planning for the mission in Afghanistan. The initial mission—to guard cities and installations—was soon expanded to combat, and kept growing over time. [and] While the formal mission of the troops was to protect the civilians from the anti-government forces, in reality, Soviet soldiers often found themselves fighting against the civilians they intended to protect, which sometimes led to indiscriminate killing of local people. ...while the regular Afghan army was often unreliable because of the desertions and lack of discipline."

Again one of the things noted is the constantly evolving mission creep for troops who I imagine have no clear understanding of what the mission is from one month to the next as well as the same complaints regarding Iraqi army unreliability due to desertions and lack of discipline .

What is more telling is that the Soviets knew there was no military solution six years before they pulled out of Afghanistan. Some thirty years after the Soviet invasion Afghanistan is still racked by symptoms of a civil war and is considered by many to be a failed state. More pointedly the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan is seen as playing a central role in the rapid rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Central Asian republics and the delegitimization of Communist Party rule ultimately leading to its collapse.

What is that saying? Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it :)

Iraq: Boots on the ground fail to tell whole story

I won't pretend to say that I understand the reasons why Donald Rumsfeld failed to provide sufficient troop numbers to secure and stabilize Iraq. I won't pretend that I understand why his office made sure that Iraq Command requests for more troops during the early stages of Phase IV (stabilization and recovery) of the invasion never arrived at Rumsfeld's desk. Media Matters reported

As we all know Rumsfeld resigned in the face of mounting criticism but to date the required number of troops to secure and maintain order have never been provided.

America doesn't need 20,000 extra troops on the ground, they need 100,000 extra troops which in combination with Iraqi military and police would bring total peace-keeping forces to 450,000 which is the number identified as required in order to maintain order.

Bolton & Bremmer: kings of callous indifference

I don't suppose anyone ever expected the likes of Paul Bremmer or John Bolton to be Iraq Invasion apologists but it is telling to hear their views when questioned on some of the crucial failures surrounding America's involvement in Iraq.

When Paul Bremer, former U.S. Administrator of Iraq was asked at the close of a paid speech at Clark University in 2005 on his opinion of the $9 billion missing from the funds to rebuild Iraq he replied:

"I suggest you not worry, as that $9 billion was Iraqi money, not US money."

Disturbingly, this cavalier indifference reflects the callousness and contempt of one of the principle architects and catalysts or Iraq's ongoing failure.

More recently former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton was interviewed by the BBC's Jeremy Paxman in Iraq 4 years on where John Bolton said:

"I don't think there is an American interest in what kind of Iraq emerges from the present circumstances. I think the American strategic interest is that no part of Iraq be used as a terrorist base against us."

Jeremy Paxman then details the contradiction in this by quoting a statement previously made by former U.N. Ambassador Bolton:

"So when you said the United States remained committed to a democratic, unified and prosperous Iraq you were just spouting the party line were you?"

Incredibly, a red faced Bolton admits to Paxman that he was simply following White House policy when he made that statement. A somewhat exasperated Paxman continued:

"What do you say to people who say Ok, Saddam Hussein was a Dictator but [Iraq] wasn't then a failed state and it wasn't a haven for terrorists and that's precisely what you've created in Iraq"

John Bolton then proceeds to tell Paxman about how he would rather live in a failed state than a dictatorship.

John Bolton should be careful what he wishes for. The problem with human indifference is that it makes everything it touches meaningless.

Middle East has all the ingredients for regional conflict

I have noticed the recent attempts by the UN Refugee Agency (UNCHR) to get camps going again for refugees. This is a very bad sign as it indicates a worsening situation. Additionally, as previous history has shown both in Lebanon, Afghanistan and Pakistan these refugee warehouses act like fast breeder reactors for terrorists.

Saudi Arabia has already committed 7 billion dollars to building a containment fence along its entire border with Iraq to keep refugees out. One member of Saudi government has intimated that they will intervene massively to prevent a Sunni bloodshed.

Kurdistan is already talking about annexing Kirkuk and a refugee crisis for them is likely to spark tensions and more calls for independence. This will upset the Turks and the Iranians both of whom have been running limited military forays into Iraq in recent months with Turkey threatening a hardened military response against the PKK.

Jordan and Syria have seen their populations increase by 10-12% respectively through the influx of refugees. For perspective imagine Australia taking on 2 million refugees in one hit and imagine how we'd cope. It has nearly doubled their inflation. These refugees have been largely middle class and have paid their way but it still has a significant affect on religious and economic demographics which in itself can give birth to domestic militancy.

European countries are having their own problems with Sweden taking some 2000 Iraqis and Germany expelling many political refugees from Saddam's era.

Troop numbers alone to administer the camps are estimated at 70,000. Without appropriate security the spillover affects are almost guaranteed to create further conflict as insurgents use the camps as bases, training areas etc. to run cross border raids which ultimately promotes a state response which can anger another country which gets involved as today's media reports below illustrate.

Turkey Turns up the Heat in Northern Iraq threatening air strikes against PKK terrorist camps located in Iraq which it says the U.S has done nothing to clean out since it's invasion of Iraq 3 years ago.

In response Iraq president Talabani warns Turkey and Iran "expressed his anger over neighbors Iran and Turkey for interfering in Iraq's domestic affairs, warning Baghdad could reciprocate."

All the ingredients for a regional conflict are now on the table.

Republican's export Cuban refugees to Australia

In an artful display of political sleight of hand, both the Republican Administration of the United States and The Government of Australia have ingeniously decided to "resettle up to 200 refugees processed in the other country every year."

The Mutual Assistance Arrangement reported by news.com.au quoting Australian Minister for Immigration Kevin Andrews states:

"Under this arrangement, the US will consider people who arrive in excised offshore places and have been taken to Nauru for further processing..."

Methinks someone's too clever for their own good.

To explain from the U.S perspective, there has been a record of complaints levied by some South American refugee groups including Haiti that the United states was employing a two tiered refugee process that was biased in favour of Cubans. In response to this, the then Clinton Administration implemented a policy of repatriating Cuban refugees who had not landed on U.S. soil back to Cuba.

Whilst this policy has gone some way to ameliorating concerns by other ethnic refugee groups it angered the large Cuban ex-pat constituency based in Florida as exampled during the 2004 U.S. elections and discussed in The CarpetBagger Report: Republicans, the 2004 Election, and the Cuban-American vote

"Cuban Americans have always opposed the policy and hoped Bush would back them on refusing to return these 12 would-be immigrants to Castro for punishment. At a minimum, they argued, the 12 should be sent to a third country."

I can only assume that in response to this Cuban constituency backlash that the U.S has artfully come upon the idea of simply sending these Cuban refugees to Australia as a means of meeting the concerns of all refugee groups--Cubans included.

Am I being cynical? I think not. To explain if it was not about this then why isolate just Cubans for the exchange program with Australia?

Iraq: when success is not an option

For the second time since the 2003 Iraq invasion, United Nations refugee agencies are preparing for the worst. An ABC News poll conducted in February and March 2007 found that:

"More than half of Iraqis, 53 percent, have a close friend or relative who’s been hurt or killed in the current violence. Eighty-six percent worry about a loved one being hurt... [and] 70 percent report multiple signs of traumatic stress."

More worrying is that the number of Iraqi's who hold expectation of things getting better have fallen to as low as 30 percent.

With the spillover effects of nearly 1 million mainly middle class refugees already rumored to be impacting the Jordanian economy, impacting heir population by 10 percent and increasing interest rates, refugee backlash is likely to follow and sooner rather than later.

As with recent history refugee crises have proven a ready catalyst for regional conflicts to emerge as insurgents and militias use he convenience and safety of refugee camps as in Lebanon, Pakistan and Burma as recruiting grounds and base camps to launch operations.


with recent reports circulating such as the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy's Things fall apart: containing the Spillover from and Iraq Civil War and the Center for Strategic and International Studies' report titled Iraq’s Troubled Future: The Uncertain Way Ahead both detail that the road ahead is going to get worse--lots worse.

Not just for Iraq either. THe Saban Report mnakes it clear that the effects as currently unfolding are just the tip of the iceberg and how teh U.S. chooses to handle matters from here on in may spell the difference between


humanitarian and regional stability spillover effects of Iraq civil war

affects of spill-over into Iran.


American domestic politics.



Earlier this year the UNHCR Commission met to detail teh way foraward

Insurgent bridge bombings fail the smell test

The recent bridge bombings in Iraq attributed to insurgents fail the smell test for two reasons. Firstly, none of the insurgent groups have owned-up to the bombings and secondly their targets have always been to exploit the psychological effects of targeting soft targets not infrastructure.

I see no strategic advantage to the insurgents for blowing these bridges. On the contrary, I see it as fulfilling part of the Petraeus containment strategy currently being employed by U.S forces in Baghdad.

To explain, my theory is that along with troop shortfalls and the recent announcement of Petraeus' new gated community strategy that the U.S. have been keen to minimise the number of points along the Tigress that they have to secure.

An American Inquisition?

Excellent article titled Torture, Secrecy and the Bush Administration by Scott Horton over at Harpers where amongst other things he describes how John Lilburne in 1649 challenged the Star Chamber of the English Courts and also provides insight into the deal making that may have gone into Hicks plea bargain and gag order.

Freeborn John as he was known then included the following statement in the opening of his defence in 1649:

"...no man whatsoever ought to be tried in holes or corners, or in any place where the gates are shut and barred."

Scott's article goes on to detail how the majority of redactions from evidence of Guantanamo detainees are those detailing torture.

Will this time be remembered as the American Inquisition I wonder?

U.S. backed terrorists arrested

In a major set-back to U.S. efforts to undermine the Iranian government Iran Press TV reports the arrest of 90 members of the terrorist group Jundallah a terrorist group who has committed car bombings, abductions and executions of citizens in both Iran and Israel.

In a recent ABC News Exclusive: The Secret War Against Iran U.S. officials, in an act of unprecedented ass covering were reported as saying that

"...the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as congressional oversight."

However, Doug Lorimer's article CIA funds terrorist operations against Iran quotes former US State Department counter-terrorism agent Fred Burton as saying:

"The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran’s ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime."

Earlier this month, Voice of America radio gave an interview with Iranian branch leader Abd el Malik Regi during which he admitted to having personally executed Iranian hostages abducted by Jundallah.

In 2005, Abu Abdallah al-Khattab, identified as the spokesman for Jundallah in Gaza as originally reported in the Jerusalem Post and quoted by scotsman.com stated:

"Our people will not remain idle in the face of American crimes in Muslim countries."

By having a "relationship with Jundullah" the United States government is, by any sane definition legitimizing terrorism and stands as the very antithesis to a "war on terror." By extension it stands as a betrayal of the American people and their trust that their government is acting in good faith.

For some I imagine, the knowledge that their government is admittedly supporting an identified enemy of the American people is an act of betrayal bordering on treason.

If 9/11 proved anything it was that there is a price for everything and in light of that sacrifice the American people have a right to know what their government is buying them into.

School's out for Cybersecurity

GovEXEC.com reports in an article titled Agencies' cybersecurity scores on the rise.

Grades are in, read 'em and weep as apparently:

"The Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Interior, State and Treasury departments, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, flunked."

I imagine that in the wake of the 5 million lost emails fiasco that the white House see this as more of a success delayed event rather than an outright failure.

Thank God there's some good news however, apparently the brainiacs at Homeland Security received a 'D', up from an 'F' last year and even Veterans Affairs graced the oversight committee with a compliance report this year.

Overall cybersecurity scores have improved from a shocking D+ in 2005 to ....C- in 2006.

Nice to see the government taking security seriously.

Iraq: another brick in the wall

Is the quest for hearts and minds over before it even begins? Reports are in from The Independent and news.com.au that General David Petraeus has made the decisions several months previous in consultations with senior U.S. and Israeli military commanders to introduce gated communities.

The prospect of this has been met with equal measures of hope and concern. The problem as outlined by many is that this gated community approach has in the past has had a success rate arguably less than 10%.

Let's hope they don't resort to importing blast walls at a thousand bucks a piece as Bremmer did in 2003-2004 instead of having local concrete plants do it for a tenth of the cost.

Wolfowitz: a pre-emptive demise?

First it was David Safavian and the Jack Abramoff debacle then it was Libby and the Plame Affair, Rove and the Attorneys fiasco and now shy and retiring first strike evangelist Paul Wolfowitz's career is coming undone. Facing mounting pressure to resign over his admission that he helped his girlfriend by:

"seconding" her to the US State Department that ...helped up her salary to levels that clearly violate World Bank rules (i.e. nearly double her salary).

Rumours are now circulating at The Washington Note that Wolfowitz may pre-empt his own dismissal by announcing his resignation as early as tomorrow.

I wonder can we make him ambassador to Iraq? Or perhaps he could be Bush's new war patsy Czar :)

Andrew Bolt's Inconvenient Truth

Journalist, blogger and self styled media watch pundit Andrew Bolt in his recent post titled Media conscript thousands to anti-American protest in Iraq over at the Herald Sun accuses both the Associated Press and the New York Times of lying about the number of protesters present at the recent Al Sadr Anti-US-occupation protest in Najaf. He writes:

"Both the Associated Press and New York Times reported that 'tens of thousands' attended the protest. [and that] This picture of the small Najaf protest confirms that once again the bad news from Iraq is never bad enough for the media:"

As I helpfully pointed out to Andrew in a comment he never posted, the cropped photo fails to show the true numbers of protesters as detailed in ThinkProgress' article titled Right Wing Uses Cropped Photo To Downplay Size Of Iraq Protest where they accurately report:

Conservatives are denying reality. Protesters were not restricted to the square seen in the military’s photo; in fact, they choked the 7-kilometer road between Najaf and neighboring Kufa and clogged streets leading to Sadrein Square, the main rallying point.”

Frankly Andrew, as a journalist you're starting to give blogging a bad name.

The dog ate my homework?!

We'll that's close to the White house's excuse when asked about the loss of an undetermined number of e-mails concerning official White House business. The Washington Post reports:

The White House acknowledged yesterday that e-mails dealing with official government business, possibly including missives related to the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, may have been lost because they were improperly sent through private accounts intended to be used for political activities.

I find myself asking how does this implicate the Presidential Records Act or Waxman’s earlier direction to not delete any emails or other electronic correspondence?

UsaToday reports that the White House has promised to review its staffers' e-mails

...for anything relevant to the prosecutors' dismissal... [and that] ...it would provide documents to the Senate and House Judiciary committees as long as they are not internal communications, but exchanges with people outside the White House.

My question is why not "internal communications" bearing in mind that Rove and several of his deputies were said to have these RNC email accounts and I imagine it would be reasonable to assume would have communicated between each other using them?

I imagine some very pointed questions will be asked about why Rove who allegedly uses his Blackberry to conduct most of his e-mailing still has a security clearance bearing in mind that Blackjacking has already been demonstrated to bypass enterprise security defenses?

National security? What National Security?

America spits on the graves of 9/11 victims

Terrorist's world wide are rejoicing today in the wake of America's release of convicted terrorist and boastful plane bomber Luis Posada Carriles.

When not bombing civilian airliners Luis likes to relax by bombing tourist destinations, conducting assassination, and running illegal para-military operations on behalf of the American government.

As late as 1997 Posada was known by U.S. officials to be coordinating bombing attacks of tourists in Cuba from inside the United States, including evidence that Posada had reminded the bombers by Fax that:

“If there is no publicity, the job is useless... The American newspapers will publish nothing that has not been confirmed. ... If there is no publicity, there is no payment."

So, armed with this evidence does the FBI get the chance to charge Posada with terrorism charges? No. In an act of administrative cretinism the charges are instead levied as an immigration misdemeanor.

This is not an isolated incident either. In 1990 then president George H.W. Bush pardoned Orlando Bosch, a convicted terrorist and Posada's plane bombing co-hort, at the request of George Snr's son, Jeb, Governor of Florida.

In my mind then these acts by America are like spitting on the graves and memories of their brothers and sisters who died as a result of 9/11, every soldier who has died fighting terrorism around the world as well as spitting on the victims of every terrorist action worldwide.

America's actions on this issue are sickening if unsurprising.

Bush: Who will help Caesar?

According to ThinkProgress Bush has invited Congress to the White House for non-negotiations and the Washington Post reports that Bush has criticized Democrats for the Delay in Iraq Spending Bill. The POTUS is said to have retorted

"They need to do it quickly and get it to my desk so I can veto it, and then Congress can get down to the business of funding our troops without strings and without further delay."

Frankly I don't see what the rush is as the POTUS waited until June 16 to sign the supplemental last year. In the same article the Washington Post continued reporting President Bush as saying

...that the Pentagon would soon have to transfer $1.6 billion from other military accounts 'to cover the shortfall' caused by the lack of a bill.

Why? Bearing in mind that the Congressional Research Service reported to Congress last year that with funds already appropriated they won't run out of funding until July 2007.

So, what's all the hulla balaoo about? The sticking point as everyone knows by now is the controversy of announcing a withdrawal date. Honestly, setting in place a plan for staging a withdrawal has never had to be set in concrete it just needs to be an aiming point. Additionally, far from being a catalyst for more violence it actually stands to neutralize a primary propaganda weapon of nationalist insurgents which is that the U.S. are in Iraq for good.

I say, announce a date and see what happens. You don't physically have to do anything and you can observe what transpires and if violence increases then the POTUS can take the date away. I think it makes for an excellent stick and carrot approach that will motivate everyone with a genuine interest in seeing a stable Iraq to be pulling in the same direction to achieve it.

Unfortunately I'm of the growing opinion that the POTUS has slowly but surely dug himself a hole as "the Decider" that his brains trust have so far not been able to help him out of.

They need to work much harder!

Iraq Withdrawal: A Feith saving exercise?

In today's Whitehouse press briefing Dana Perino tried to justify President Bush’s escalation in Iraq by stating,

“The terrorists that are seeking a safe haven in Iraq, if we were to leave, would find one, just like they had one in Afghanistan.”

Yes Dana, that's the foothold they grabbed whilst he U.S. was too busy establishing a "beachhead" in Iraq to tackle Iran!?

I'm just wondering what part of the recent Senate Intelligence Committee findings regarding Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Dana Perino missed?

Are we being asked to have Feith or save Feith?

Is Pakistan at risk of imploding?

Forget poor Bob Wolmer. I wouldn't want to be the Pakistani Tourism Minister. Sadaqat Jan of Associated Press reports

"...Islamic clerics at a radical mosque in Pakistan's capital have demanded the tourism minister be fired for hugging a foreign man, saying she committed a 'great sin'."

Fresh from a charity parachute jump in France last month to raise money for victims of the devastating October, 2005 earthquake in Pakistan the Minister made the gaff of hugging her tandem instructor after the jump. Well half hug half pat really but completely unforgivable--apparently.

The Mullah's were so concerned they established their own court, declared a fatwa and have threatened to stage suicide attacks if authorities try to raid the mosque. They are devoted.

Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz have indicated they will take strict measures to enforce the law but I find myself wondering how? Previous attempts a few months back to crack down on hard line extremists and unlawful mosques resulted in a riot of Kalashnikov waving students and an immediate back down including a commitment by Musharraf to rebuild any damaged illegal mosques. Musharraf laid one of the foundation stones by himself according to Pervez Hoodbhoy a teacher at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad.

Although Musharraf is busy thinning out the ranks of the military of hard line Islamists according to Pervez one wonders whether the ongoing Iraq crisis combined with the Iran pressures and the Taliban crack-down have brought Pakistani militant Islamism to the boil.

Of course all of this pales into insignificance to the impending military judicial showdown over the sacking of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court on his decision regarding the privatization of a government steel mill as well as the arrests and disappearances of over 150 people attributed to the Musharraf government.

This might all come to a head on April 13 when the sacked Chief Justice appears before the Supreme Judicial Council. Some are intimating it might unravel the entire Musharraf government with both lawyers, currently boycotting the judicial system, as well as political parties expected to protest on mass.

Perhaps now might be a good time for Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov to postpone his 3 day visit to Pakistan.

India 123 Agreement: Stupid is stupid does

Indian protestations from some quarters that under the new nuclear technology sharing agreement with the United States that they only have to abide by the 123 agreement and not the Hyde Act enacted by both Congress and the U.S. Senate is wishful thinking and at complete odds with developing rhetoric.

Specifically, I refer to how quickly both parties to the agreement have engaged in public hyperbole in their own circles downplaying the extent of obligation that each has under the agreement and followed more recently by U.S. claims that India was not meeting its obligations fast enough. I can only surmise that an impending IAEA meeting on Iran must be close at hand. :)

I am of course alluding to both the 123 Agreement and the specific clauses in the U.S legislation that demands

"India’s full and active participation in United States efforts to dissuade, isolate, and, if necessary, sanction and contain Iran for its efforts to ...enrich uranium"

in direct contravention of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Specifically, the NPT precludes "hampering the economic development of the Parties" and protects the

"inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes."

I know what you're going to say: "India is not a member of the NPT" and you'd be correct. Except that both the United States and Iran are. In this sense the 123 Agreement has allowed the U.S. to leverage sanctions against the Iranians by Indian proxy. Something, that they were expressly prohibited from doing under the NPT.

The U.S. gets to have a double laugh at India because it's partnership has been responsible for Iran raising the price of gas in retaliation under the joint India-Pakistan-Iran pipeline agreement to the point of being uneconomical. In that sense then, India has also offended and lost a key containment ally of India against Pakistan.

Oh.. and I hear that America says thanks for the heavy water shipments too.

Actually India, can you remind me again what exactly did you get out of this?

Debka Iran Rhetoric

Caught-up on a "Special Report" titled Tehran’s Provocations top US Military Build-up to Ratchet up War Tensions over at DEBKA and had to chuckle for two reasons.

Firstly, due to their erroneous claims of inside intelligence which miraculously are unsupported by actual circumstances and secondly, because of the following piece of DEBKA propaganda:

"...Iran is expanding its enrichment program at a pace much faster than U.S. intelligence experts had predicted [and] ... may indeed have a bomb by 2009."

Well I guess someone should rush and tell the IAEA which have been maintaining inspections at all Iranian Nuclear facilities including the new centrifuge plant at Natanz. In fact they are due to make their report public any day now.

For the record again only one centrifuge out of thousands has been found to contain the presence of HEU at around 36% and Iran has given a full explanation to the IAEA. ALL of the other components have had average readings under 5%.

How about letting the IAEA in at Dimona? Thought not :)

Iran ready for nuclear talks

Glad to see Iran's good news that they are ready to talk. More interesting to see that they have their enrichment cycle complete--yeah right. Production ready is another issue.

However, the negotiations should be interesting with Iran as I'm aware that other Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) members are keen to see the implementation of a central agency to provide fuel rods to countries seeking nuclear power instead of them deciding to enrich their own. In all truth I understand their concerns.

However, I see this as a potential problem for countries as this speaks directly to their sovereignty and their ability to have the final say over the lifeblood of their utilities--namely electricity. Having to rely on some outside agency affords that agency or its proxies veto power over the country i.e. "Do what we want or no fuel rods--no fuel rods equals no electricity." Effectively a country can then be held to ransom.

For many countries they'll have no choice but to purchase their rods and for most it makes common sense. However, for a country like Iran that has the ability to sustain the entire enrichment cycle from mining the yellow-cake all the way to fuel rods. It would be deliberately putting itself in a vulnerable position and I can't see it doing this without a security guarantee from the U.S. Perhaps this is the good news?

Personally, I had always hoped that other NPT members and the IAEA would instead seek to amend the NPT itself rather than try to leverage Iran into these type of external agreements all the time. I'm not talking about the standard conformance agreements here but ones that fundamentally alter the terms of the NPT and it provisions. It has always been Iran's contention that it was willing to negotiate but only within the boundaries of the NPT itself.

This has been a central sticking point regarding the issue of video monitoring of its enrichment facilities on the grounds that this is an onerous requirement not placed on other NPT members. Now apparently they are willing to negotiate this. Again is there a security guarantee on the table and if so where does this leave the POTUS' regime change plans?

Joe Klein drops a clanger at Time

Man! When are journalists going to learn to read! Seriously, I'm sick and tired of every Tom Dick and now Joe writing about the Baker Hamilton report without ever having read the bloody thing.

Joe writes in his article An Administration's Epic Collapse:

"...never was Bush's adolescent petulance more obvious than in his decision to ignore the Baker-Hamilton report and move in the exact opposite direction: adding troops..."

Joe, the Baker-Hamilton report reports states:

"...a short-term ...surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad ...if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective."

Whilst he may not have made a song and dance about it, The POTUS has actually implemented a raft of the BHR recommendations and you can read what I wrote about this months ago in my post Bush may have been listening after-all.

The Iranians have done it!

Hotair at Hotair.com. Well they got that right! Talk about hysterical it's embarrassing. Bryan dribbles the following in his post Iran: 3,000 centrifuges installed:

"I guess what I’m saying is that the international community is a giant waste of time, and will soon be a ginormous waste of life. And the international community is very likely to blame it all on us when the mushroom cloud lights the sky ...bah blah blah"

Here are the facts Bryan:

Iran has had the 3000 centrifuge farm under construction for over 12 months. The IAEA has known about it all this time. Only one centrifuge has ever been found to have a level of enrichment beyond 5% and the Iranians made full explanation that they purchased it off of Dr. Khan in Pakistan as did the Libyans a decade ago.

The IAEA admits in their reports that there is NO EVIDENCE of Iranians engaging in enrichment for weapons purposes. The IAEA's major concern is and has always been about the safety of the facilities for undertaking that enrichment.

Here are some facts from the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

"The safeguards required by this Article shall be implemented in a manner designed to comply with Article IV of this Treaty, and to avoid hampering the economic development of the Parties"

"IV.1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty."

The State Department is on record saying:

"The United States believes noncompliance judgments ...should be made on the basis of the facts, not based upon political calculation or the mere use (or avoidance) of specific trigger words."

So, let's just stick with the facts Bryan before gratuitously wetting our pants over nothing in public.

Lying for Queen & Country

The Iranians manufactured a great deal of positive PR out of this exercise. I don't mean for the detention of the British sailors and Marines but for their treatment of them. The whole exercise of photos, video footage etc was all done to capitalize on a captive public convinced from previous U.S. rhetoric that the Iranians would behave like monsters they were portrayed to be. But instead of waterboarding their captives the worst thing they made one member do was wear a scarf. There's nothing quite like the humiliation of being treated well to dispel the myth of Persian evil.

In a sense then, the Iranian treatment of the British Sailors and Marines achieved two primary propaganda objectives. First, it portrayed a marked contrast between their treatment of detainees and the U.S treatment of detainees. This demonstrated that far from being the abject monsters portrayed by the COW centric media the public instead saw British Marines and Sailors talking candidly about the circumstances of their detention--a situation never before seen. One could almost hear the cries of neo-cons in their lounge rooms lamenting "why didn't you fight back!?" which really translates to "why couldn't you have just died in a firefight?" The media reports of U.S. frustration were palpable.

Don't get me wrong, we've seen captured troops before making confessions during the first gulf war but lets make no mistake that those videos were made under duress and obvious to all and sundry--different objectives. Seen in this light, harming the British Sailors and Marines then would have constituted a PR disaster for the Iranians and delivered a PR windfall to the the U.S. only too ready to lob a few cruise missiles into the pot. In other words, any poor treatment of the captives by the Iranians would have catalyzed public opinion firmly against them. It would have been the opportunity the U.S. were waiting for to be able to say "See! We told you they were cruel and inhuman."

The second propaganda objective as I see it was that it let the world know that the Iranians were not going to stand by and let their sovereignty be walked over by arrogant boarding parties from a far flung foreign country. This was Iran's way of saying we're not going to put up with your sh*t right on our doorstep.

Did it work? Well, taking in to account the number of comedian and talk show hosts who made the obligatory scarf and hot dinner jokes, the first objective was met. Also the reports of the British reviewing their boarding operation procedures in the disputed Shatt, the second objective was also met.

Subsequently, the British Government is in damage control attempting to apply counter spin to the Iranian PR coup by attempting to turn the Iranians back into the monsters they told everyone they were by permitting for the first time ever for active duty personnel to sell their stories of "torture" to the highest bidder.

I can't help but wonder, why the sweetener? What happened to lying for Queen and Country?

Yvonne Ridley: Believe it or not

I Listened to Islamic fundamentalist Yvonne Ridley's interview by Jane Cowan on Radio ABC this morning where Jane's dogged questioning of "...do you or do you not support suicide bombing?" finally achieved a terse and exasperated "Of course I don't" response from Yvonne.

At first I thought that this was just another case of Muslim baiting so I decided to investigate further by visiting Yvonne's website, specifically her Speech at the 2006 Global Peace & Unity Conference where she said:

"Our greatest shame has been our silence while martyrdom operations ...have been condemned as acts of terror as witnessed in 9/11..."

In truth I think these words speak more to the mind of Yvonne Ridley than her public effacing reply to Jane in her radio interview. That's not to say of course that the question wasn't loaded to some extent.

To explain, dead civilians are dead civilians whether the delivery platform is an Israeli M16, a U.S. cluster bomb or a Palestinian freedom fighter with a bomb strapped to his chest. I don't imagine civilians have an opinion about how they are killed except to say that they would in the main prefer not to be. Governments have armies to protect the civilian population against attack from others but these same armies are also well placed to conduct acts of oppression on their government's behalf including the careful filtering of media access to the results of those activities. The oppressed on the other hand are usually poorly resourced and are, for the most part doomed to failure when confronting a well trained and resourced military in a conventional sense.

Subsequently, the oppressed have little choice but to visit their pain and suffering upon the oppressor's civilian population with the aim of subjecting them to the same sense of fear and hopelessness that left unchecked will ultimately catalyse them also to rise up.

Faced with terrorism then, all governments will face the choice of escalating their response to counter any groundswell of public fear and unrest a la Saddam Hussein or choose negotiation with their terrorist opponents as in the case of the Provisional IRA.

Neither solution is palatable to some but accept it or not the oppressed are never going to give up--they have nothing to go back to.

Scott Ritter, WMD's and selective memory

Caught Scott Ritter telling a porky in Conversation With Robert Scheer over at TruthDig the other day where he said:

"as a weapons inspector we were reporting these facts [that Iraq was disarmed] ...in the fall of 1993"

Actually, a little digging revealed quite the opposite as his interview with Elizabeth Farnsworth at PBS in August 1998 shows. Scott said then:

"Iraq still has prescribed weapons capability. There needs to be a careful distinction here. Iraq today is challenging the special commission to come up with a weapon and say where is the weapon in Iraq, and yet part of their efforts to conceal their capabilities, I believe, have been to disassemble weapons into various components and to hide these components throughout Iraq."

and on the need for a military deterrent against Iraq he continued:

"… without the real and credible threat of military force. ...You can’t expect to enforce the law unless you have the means to carry out the enforcement."

Hmmmmmm....

What's wrong with competitive analysis of intelligence?

Remember Team B? They were the cabal approved under President Reagan to undertake competitive analysis of intelligence on the then Soviet threat. Historically, their results have been variously described as being everything from "completely wrong" to "fantasy". Even CIA Director, George H. W. Bush finally concluded that the Team B approach set "in motion a process that lends itself to manipulation for purposes other than estimative accuracy." Team B was shut-down.

So, fast forward to 2002 and the formation of the Office of Special Plans whose task was ...you guessed it "competitive analysis of intelligence". These are the guys who said Saddam had WMD's, was buying Uranium from Niger and had links with al Qaeda. All of these assertions as with their Team B forebears have been proven through courts and various senate and congressional committees to be anywhere from simply "misleading" to complete fabrications. The OSP was also shut-down amidst the Valerie Plame Affair and with one of its former members, Lawrence Franklin jailed for passing classified intelligence to foreign officials.

So here we are today and Bush Jnr. has assembled much of the same crew yet again for his Iranian Directorate whose role is rumored to be ...yep "competitive analysis of intelligence". Remember the fake Iranian IED photographs from a few months back? No, these guys are not stupid, but they are persistent.

In my mind, the Bush administration, sees intelligence analysis as a drunkard views a lamppost--as a means of support rather than illumination--nothing surprising there. The question then is what is a country to do when its most senior members of democratic government are actively involved in undermining their own country's national security by subverting intelligence to achieve the private objectives of God only knows who?

What are the potential impacts of foreign policy decisions that bear little or no relationship to actual circumstances? In my mind I see this type or partisan manipulation of intelligence as the single largest threat to any and all countries national securities worldwide.

What do you think?

9/11 - Buck Passing American Style

I just read a September 2006 Interview With the New York Post Editorial Board and Condoleezza Rice, where they asked her if she was calling former President Clinton a liar when he said that the Bush Administration "didn’t even try to go after al-Qaida" prior to 9/11. She responded:

"I would just suggest that you go back and read the 9/11 Commission report on the efforts of the Bush Administration in the eight months, things like working to get an armed Predator that actually turned out to be extraordinarily important..."

I thought what good idea! I'll read the report. Sure enough, The 9/11 Commission Report Executive Summary states:

"The CIA also produced a plan to improve intelligence collection on al Qaeda, including the use of a small, unmanned airplane with a video camera, known as the Predator."

Imagine my surprise then, to read a report of former White House Counter Terrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke's 9/11 Commission testimony specifically the reference to his damning memo to Rice, blasting the CIA for blocking the predator program.

No wonder he resigned. It must be bad enough having to fight assholes who want to terrorize your country while a willfully deaf, dumb and blind Administration remains incomprehensively fixated on it's own selfish and partisan objectives.

As Clarke stated in his testimony:

"...all of the things we recommended back in January were those things on the table in September. They were done ...after September 11th. They were all done. I didn't really understand why they couldn't have been done in February."

Well Richard, that's because Bush & Co. used those eight months to plan Operation Pork-barrel in Iraq.

Zaki Chechub on HAMAS: getting it all wrong!

Zaki Chechub's article on the HAMAS recent political victory in the 2006 Palestinian elections titled No middle ground in the Australian Literary Review dated April 4 is more than a little revisionistic.

He begins by leveraging Condoleezza Rice's public and rhetorical lament "Why was it that nobody saw it coming?" as proof positive that all parties including Bush, Israel's Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were caught unawares.

Zaki, Condi knew it was coming, Bush knew it was coming, the Israelis knew it was coming and so did Abbas. In fact both Abbas and the Israelis had met with Bush et al in Washington well before the elections to raise their concerns about a potential HAMAS victory and Condi had also met with both Abbas, Sharon and Olmert in the Middle East prior to the elections and would have been privy to the same issues and concerns of both parties.

For the record, Israel conceded not to interfere and Abbas agreed to let the elections take place albeit after a short delay to rebuild Fatah's popularity in the electorate. They agreed to this because Bush felt that being an active part of Palestinian government would facilitate an "Ardoganised" HAMAS by shifting their activities from political agitation to the everyday problems of governing.

So, far from being a surprise, the legitimization of HAMAS had been a calculated gamble by George Bush since at least mid 2005 and HAMAS' electoral potential had been widely opined by the likes of Newsweek, Harpers and the Washington Post to name a few.

Condi's public rhetorical sleight of hand then was simply to divert attention regarding any Administration involvement in smoothing the way for HAMAS--a designated terrorist group. Your article is living proof that she succeeded.

Free Propaganda Poster

Sometimes it's hard to find the right mix of words that explains the situation as it really stands but I think this little number I came up says it for everyone; no matter which side of the fence you're on. It's a remixed version of a WWII poster that I appropriated that's out of copyright. So, don't be shy, show your appreciation for George's efforts in the Middle East and grab it while it's hot.

Ok, I got the idea for this from Micah Wright who created the Propaganda Remix Project. But I have to confess that I like my propaganda a little more on the dual-use ambiguous side of things.

Go on, take it. It's yours :)

Iran attack imminent--apparently.

Affectionately known as Operation Bite it frankly is not really the kind of mission name we’re used to from the U.S. Military which would normally be something like Operation Crushing Freedom. Maybe it’s a working title.

Now, I won’t vow for the credibility of sources but apparently a high level Kremlin leak based around Russian satellite intelligence suggests that the U.S is going to spring a surprise attack on the Iranians in the beginning of April.

I don’t want to get too specific but other sources have suggested that it will be a 12 Hour Bombing Run On Iran Scheduled For Good Friday starting 4 AM on April 6. The story’s been floating the blogs for about 3 days now but has yet to head in to mainstream media?

Anyone heard anything concrete? I’ll try and find out more.

The 'surge' may be working and someone will have to give.

We'll the first "surge" statistics are in and according to ABC News International it's been the first month in the Iraq conflict where US troop casualties have exceeded those of Iraqi troops. The good news is that the civilian death toll is reported to be down significantly on December so perhaps the Petraeus strategy is working but the question remains will it work fast enough.

As I've mentioned in the past, the new model will mean that U.S. troops are far more exposed due to their being embedded with the population and that kind of stress is going to take it's toll PDQ as the troops will have to be switched on 24/7.

I pray that this continues to work--obviously without anymore US casualties.

Politically, this puts Congress between a rock and a hard place because if the plan is actually reducing civilian deaths but increasing troop exposure in the process then Bush is in a position to strengthen his argument that the plan is working and that Congress should just hand over the money-sans strings.

I wish they could find some middle ground but now with these figures coming in it doesn't look like Bush will be backing down in which case Congress is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Someone will have to give.