Olmert Plays Pawns Bush, Rice: Israel Dictating US Foreign Policy

For years, many have said that U.S. foreign policy, especially in the middle east, is basically run by Israel. Under Bush II, this rumor has been engraved in granite. In fact, W has seen fit to let Israel basically run wild with whatever right-wing schemes it could come up with. And these schemes tend to run to the bloody, overkill side. But now Olmert is up front and center about it. Or should I say, he's bragging about how he called Bush up in the middle of the night, told him to get Condi to last-minute reneg on her planned support for a cease-fire agreement on the Gaza massacre, so, of course, ol' George cain't say no, and made poor Condi back out in an embarrassing breach of promise.

But then, there is no such thing as a promise from the US to anyone other than Israel, or so it seems. In his own bravado:

Olmert: "It transpired all of a sudden that a vote would be held in 10 minutes' time. I tried to find President Bush, and I was told he was attending an event in Philadelphia. I know that if somebody tried to find me on the phone right now, it would have to be something unusual and extraordinary for them to say: Leave it all and go to some room to talk to me. In this case, I said: I don't care, I have to talk to him right now. He was taken off the podium and brought to a side room.

I spoke with him; I told him: You can't vote for this proposal. He said: Listen, I don't know, I didn't see, don't know what it says. I told him: I know, and you can't vote for it! He then instructed the secretary of state, and she did not vote for it.
It was a proposal she had put together, one she formulated, one she organized, one she maneuvered. It left her rather embarrassed, abstaining in the vote on a proposal she herself had put together. That was why the French and the Brits said she had pulled a fast one on them, she having been the one to spur them to submit the proposals."

The NYT indicates Rice & the State Dept deny any such influence, stating this was their plan all along.

After the vote, Ms. Rice said the United States “fully supports” the resolution, which called for “an immediate, durable and fully respected cease-fire leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza,” but opted to abstain to see the outcome of an Egyptian-French peace initiative.

Well, WAS the call in the middle of a speaking engagement by Bush made by Olmert the reason Rice backtracked on the cease-fire plan she allegedly drafted herself? And was she really embarrassed?

About "embarrassed", I have my doubts. It didn't embarass her when Israel destroyed Lebanon's airport and infrastructure and many civilians were slaughtered because of two kidnapped Israeli soldiers. It didn't embarrass her when Israel invaded Gaza, a civilian population with none but the most rudimentary self-defense. Why would this embarrass her? Ah, according to Olmert, it's her ego that was wounded.

So Olmert's getting bored with killing civilians and destroying lives of millions for political gain. So now he wants to mess with superpower egos.

Let's hope this whole thing backfires. Do tyrants and criminals ever pay a price? After 8 years of Bush and right-wing Israelis, one sincerely wonders. Now Obama's coming, so maybe Israeli neocons are having their bloodthirsty last stand. But will there be a similar sea change inside the borders of Israel itself, a shift to the left?

When the slaughter of innocents becomes how you impress an Israeli citizenry, it seems the opposite is true. Will Obama join the legacy of Bush and others to applaud massacres by standing on the sidelines blaming Hamas? Or will there be hope for the future? We are waiting...and hoping...and hoping...

The Shoes Heard & Seen 'Round the World

Virtually everyone has seen this "send-off" for Bush's "Victory Tour". Now the shoe-thrower's become a folk hero to much of the Middle East, and no doubt elsewhere, although he faces possible criminal prosecution. He's got the best defense in the country, apparently, though - lawyers were lining up to get the job. And the likely charge would be defaming a public figure, the punishment of which could set him back what's described as a "small fine". Small price for such a big impression...

The Consequences of Bush's "Outlaw Administration"

If you're sick that Bush and Co. are getting away with human rights abuse, lying their way into a War Without End Amen, torture, ruining the environment, and everything else, NOW READ THIS - it's entitled "Justice After Bush: Prosecuting an outlaw administration"and basically summarizes a superb article by Scott Horton at Harper's (needs subscription, though, so thanks for the summary!)where Horton says:

This administration did more than commit crimes. It waged war against the law itself. It transformed the Justice Department into a vehicle for voter suppression, and it also summarily dismissed the U.S. attorneys who attempted to investigate its wrongdoing. It issued wartime contracts to substandard vendors with inside connections, and it also defunded efforts to police their performance. It spied on church groups and political protesters, and it also introduced a sweeping surveillance program that was so clearly illegal that virtually the entire senior echelon of the Justice Department threatened to (but did not in fact) tender their resignations over it. It waged an illegal and disastrous war, and it did so by falsely representing to Congress and to the American public nearly every piece of intelligence it had on Iraq. And through it all, as if to underscore its contempt for any authority but its own, the administration issued more than a hundred carefully crafted "signing statements" that raised pervasive doubt about whether the president would even accede to bills that he himself had signed into law.

So Compound F (blogger at Docudharma who provided this summary) says we then face the harder issue of how to prosecute this disaster? How can we hold these criminals accountable to such a pervasive and insidious swath of crime?

What are we going to do? Prosecute our entire political class on all of the myriad crimes they have collectively committed? Obama is going to have his hands full just with the issue of Bush signing statements, not to mention achieving bi-partisan consensus on the ongoing crises of the economy, environment, and failed wars.

Horton gets pragmatic: Bust the Big Fish on Torture.

There can be no doubt that torture is illegal. There is no wartime exception for torture, nor is there an exception for prisoners or "enemy combatants," nor is there an exception for "enhanced" methods. The authors of the Constitution forbade "cruel and unusual punishment," the details of that prohibition were made explicit in the Geneva Conventions ("No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on of any kind whatever"), and that definition has in turn become subject to U.S. enforcement through the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the U.S. Criminal Code, and several acts of Congress. Nor can there be any doubt that this administration conspired to commit torture: Waterboarding. Hypothermia. Psychotropic drugs. Sexual humiliation. Secretly transporting prisoners to other countries that use even more brutal techniques. The administration has carefully documented these actions and, in many cases, proudly
proclaimed them. The written guidelines for interrogations at Guantánamo Bay, for instance, describe several techniques for degrading and physically debilitating prisoners, including the "forceful removal of detainees' clothing" and the use of "stress positions." And in a 2006 radio interview, Dick Cheney said simply that the use of waterboarding to obtain intelligence was a "no-brainer."2

And since banning torture is something President-elect Obama promised to do on 60 minutes as well as other occasions, our next step is prosecuting the jerks.

Horton also recounts how the administration was aware of the potential criminality early on in the process as they wrote various memos attempting to redefine torture (enhanced interrogation) and prisoner of war status (enemy combatants), and the very meaning of war (war on terror is non-conventional, making the Geneva Conventions "quaint"). Thus, there is evidence of "guilty minds," and guilty intentions. Cheney, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, Tenet, and Ashcroft met early on (2002) to discuss specific methods, when Ashcroft famously asked:

"Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."
He also recounts a conversation with Jane Mayer (author of Journey to the Dark Side) in which she quotes a CIA officer on the topic, who said:

"Laws? Like who the fuck cares?"

Which are the very things the President & Co. are sworn to uphold.

Law and order are wonderful, fragile things. Even should Obama simply end torture and shut GITMO, the knowledge and acceptance that our leaders can and have gotten away with torturing humans will not cease being a crisis of law and order.

Which makes Horton's conclusion less than satisfying. Among many possible venues for prosecution of these crimes, he believes the best is Commission of Inquiry ("Truth & Reconciliation"), something on the order of the Warren Commission, where we would try to get to the truth in exchange for immunity.

I think his prescription for Nuremberg-like trials is more appropriate in this case. We desperately need both accountability, and a deterrent for future governments.

Will Bush Exploit Crisis to Impose Martial Law?

This article explores the possibility. It's chilling. Sometimes, just bringing out the possibility helps deflate it. The points made here are worth thinking about.

US Plans to Occupy Iraq, Grab Its Resources

In Maya Schenwar's article, "Managing Iraq's Econoccupation", she discusses how negotiations between the Bush administration and the US-backed Maliki government have forged ahead relentlessly to basically "occupy" Iraq economically, especially to maintain that all-important stranglehold on Iraq's impressive oil supply.

On the one hand, Iraq is being torn apart by violence, largely inspired by the US invasion and occupation of that country. On the other hand, the real "message" of that invasion and occupation, the oil-grab and strategic base-grab is being strongarmed into place by aggressive "diplomatic" talks. Talks, of course, that are made forceful by that megaladon US military presence. According to Ms. Schenwar's article in truthout:

In a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last month, State Department
Iraq Coordinator David Satterfield revealed the Declaration of Principles
proposals have now been divided into a binding Status of Forces Agreement (on
military involvement) and a nonbinding Strategic Framework Agreement (on
economic and diplomatic relations). Neither would be submitted for the consent
of Congress.

Some of the details being worked out in the Strategic Framework Agreement are detailed here:

Thanks to Bremer's alterations of Iraqi law during the first year of the US
occupation, American companies are now allowed to buy out 100 percent of Iraqi businesses, instead of partnering with them. Bremer's orders also eliminated Iraq's high taxes on corporations, exchanging them for a 15 percent "flat tax." They abolished the practice of giving preference to Iraqi companies - in contracting out reconstruction work, for example - and erased a requirement to hire Iraqi workers.
Previously, Iraqi banks were closed to foreign ownership. Now, not only can foreign banks operate in Iraq, they can take over private Iraqi banks as well.
Bremer reworked Iraq's trademark and copyright laws, eliminated trade barriers and afforded foreign businesses the option of circumventing Iraq's legal system and taking any disputes to international tribunals.

This is your blueprint for occupation. Iraq will cease to have any effective sovereignty, the U.S. having essentially "taken over" the country and its resources. So much for the blatant lies and propaganda fed to US protoplasm, calling it a "liberation". What a callous, calculated con job! In a very telling example of the propaganda lie vs. the on-the-ground truth:

The November version of the Bush-Maliki agreement suggested a commitment to
"facilitating and encouraging the flow of foreign investments to Iraq,
especially American investments, to contribute to the reconstruction and
rebuilding of Iraq."
According to James A. Paul, executive director of the Global Policy Forum, the "flow of foreign investments to Iraq" wouldn't manifest as generously as it sounds: The deal would primarily translate into "US/UK oil company control."
Last week's assault on Basra was "part of an effort to defeat the 'nationalists' in Iraq and consolidate a pro-US political regime that will go ahead with the oil deals," Paul told Truthout.

Just before fighting erupted in Basra, the Iraqi presidential council approved the "provincial law," which clears the way for elections - potentially allowing nationalist leaders who oppose US oil interests to come to power. Maliki's Basra attack, says Paul, represents a failed attempt to quash that possibility..

Wow... this means that our soldiers are fighting to keep Iraq as a US "possession", not a sovereign nation. Our enemies are no longer called "terrorists". Now that the deed is done, or almost done, we can call them what they really are: "nationalists". We are fighting to keep control of Iraq, especially its oil. And according to the article, this is not the idea of Big Oil corporations, but Bush/Cheney's idea. Of course, Big Oil stands to profit, but Bush's idea was to keep America richer, on oil, maintain the status quo.

The Iraqis, however, have quite a different agenda, and with what little rudiments of democracy they have now in place, they are fighting the US oil-grab with all they've got.

According to James A. Paul, executive director of the Global Policy Forum,

"The Parliament has remained steadfastly opposed and, in spite of periodic
predictions that parliamentary agreement is 'near,' they have not acted," he
said. "There have even been rumors that the companies have offered $5 million to
each parliamentarian who votes 'yes,' a rumor that seems to me to be probably
based in reality, yet even with such blandishments the Parliament has not
acted."

And a recent poll shows 63 percent of the Iraqi people want Iraqi companies to keep control of their country's oil.

Antonia Juhasz, a fellow at Oil Change International, isn't convinced that US policy will change with the November elections either.

"I hope things would change under a Democratic administration. But the
fact that neither Clinton nor Obama has put forward an immediate withdrawal plan
is worrisome. It doesn't give me confidence that they would abandon the oil
policies the Bush administration has pursued."

Obama's going to have to address the hard stuff: either we're for democracy, and have to listen to the will of the Iraqi people, or we're for aggression and empire, and have to listen to the warmongers, oil interests, and neocons.

Gitmo Trials Rigged! I mean really, really rigged!

This just in from the Nation:

"Now, as the murky, quasi-legal staging of the Bush Administration's military commissions unfolds, a key official has told The Nation that the trials have been rigged from the start. According to Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for Guantánamo's military commissions, the process has been manipulated by Administration appointees to foreclose the possibility of acquittal. "

Read more...

Bush-Petraeus Spin Job Undercuts Admiral Fallon's Command

Not to mention the consensus of many other officers and military people on the ground in Iraq, and overseeing the whole War Operation, the global empire military enterprise dubbed "Global War on Terror", which is turning into "Global Terror Farming Operation".

If you're gonna have a war, at least let it be run by warriors, or military people. That's one more thing the Bush administration did NOT do, which has led to the total Disaster called the Iraq War. The latest in a long line of fiascos is Gen. Patraeus and the Surge Spinsters. No, they're not spin doctors, which would imply a certain level of expertise, not to mention human concern. Spinsters. They're on their own, they can't have children, and nobody wants to hook up with them. Welcome to Club Surge.

Here in this Club you have to say "My War, Right or Wrong". Now that's a new spin on patriotism. Now we have Admiral Fallon, the top dog on the ground in Iraq, in other words, Commander of CENTCOM, the superior, I repeat, superior officer over Gen Patraeus, saying the surge is a failure, it was wrong to begin with, and Patraeus is... well, let's hear it from the man in charge himself:

In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.

Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.

That extraordinarily contentious start of Fallon's mission to Baghdad led to more meetings marked by acute tension between the two commanders. Fallon went on develop his own alternative to Petraeus's recommendation for continued high levels of U.S. troops in Iraq during the summer.

The enmity between the two commanders became public knowledge when the Washington Post reported Sep. 9 on intense conflict within the administration over Iraq. The story quoted a senior official as saying that referring to "bad relations" between them is "the understatement of the century".

Fallon's derision toward Petraeus reflected both the CENTCOM commander's personal distaste for Petraeus's style of operating and their fundamental policy differences over Iraq, according to the sources. The policy context of Fallon's extraordinarily abrasive treatment of his subordinate was Petraeus's agreement in February to serve as front man for the George W. Bush administration's effort to sell its policy of increasing U.S. troop strength in Iraq to Congress.

If you have the two top leaders in a war at complete odds with one another, and the one whose decision is taken is the underling, then you've got trouble. Real, bad trouble. Again, this means the Commander in Chief is basically using an officer lower in the command chain to circumvent his superior in order to spin out his own pet policy. It's not what Petraeus thinks is right. It's what Petraeus thinks is expedient to his own enhancement. It's called "ass-kissing." That is, Patraeus' spin job. But what Bush did is called "subordination", I believe.

Military guys, give me a clue. What do you call this messing with the chain of command? Is it the job of the Commander in Chief to not only set goals, but to set how those goals are to be achieved even though the consensus on the ground says otherwise? That's what military dictators do with their armies.

I used to think we were different.
"A Republic, if you can keep it." (Ben Franklin.)
Not with Bush and his like-minded "ass-kissers" in power.

Stop! In the Name of Rove...

"Before you break my dart..."