On talk radio lately, it’s an accepted fact that the Chinese either are currently or are about to start drilling for oil sixty miles off our coastline. If they can do it, outraged talkers ask, why can’t we? This is part of a larger argument that the current energy crisis is entirely the fault of Democrats and environmentalists, and no one should harbor any ill feelings toward the oil industry, or be concerned with conservation.
Yet no one can prove the Chinese are drilling anywhere off Cuba’s shoreline. The China-Cuba connection is “akin to urban legend,” said Sen. Mel Martinez, a Republican from Florida who opposes drilling off the coast of his state but who backs exploration in ANWR.
“China is not drilling in Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico waters, period,” said Jorge Pinon, an energy fellow with the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami and an expert in oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. Martinez cited Pinon’s research when he took to the Senate floor Wednesday to set the record straight.
* * *
China’s Sinopec oil company does have an agreement with the Cuban government, but it’s to develop onshore resources west of Havana, Pinon said. The Chinese have done some seismic testing, he said, but no drilling, and nothing offshore.
Western diplomats in Havana tell McClatchy that to the best of their knowledge, there is no Chinese drilling in or around Cuba.
“I’ve never heard anything about this,” said one diplomat from a country in the hemisphere.
Nonetheless, talk radio callers are very concerned about the Chinese drilling — and, I kid you not, the possibility that the Chinese may use their imaginary drilling rigs as a platform from which to launch nuclear missiles at the U.S.
It’s a wonder that this country functions as well as it does, given that at least a third of our fellow citizens are clinically insane.
… on a related note: drilling in ANWR solves all our energy problems, if you inflate estimated oil production by 7000 percent.
Ms. Rice Speaks Out on the Threat Posed by Saddam’s Terrifying WMD
Here are some statements by Ms. Rice in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq:
“I think he [then Secretary of State Colin Powell] has proved that Iraq has these weapons and is hiding them, and I don’t think many informed people doubted that.” (NPR, Feb. 6, 2003)
“We need to be ready for the possibility that the attack against the U.S. could come in some form against the homeland, not necessarily on the battlefield against our forces. And I think there, too, is an area where the American people need to be better prepared by our leadership. … It’s clear that Iraq poses a major threat. It’s clear that its weapons of mass destruction need to be dealt with forcefully, and that’s the path we’re on. I think the question becomes whether we can keep the diplomatic balls in the air and not drop any, even as we move forward, as we must, on the military side.” (NPR, Dec. 20, 2002)
“I think the United States government has been clear since the first Bush administration about the threat that Iraq and Saddam Hussein poses. The United States policy has been regime change for many, many years, going well back into the Clinton administration. So it’s a question of timing and tactics…We do not necessarily need a further Council resolution before we can enforce this and previous resolutions. (NPR, Nov. 11, 2002)
Of course, this sounds like Condoleezza Rice. But in fact all those quotes are from Susan Rice, Assistant Secretary of State in the Clinton administration and now part of Obama’s newly formed “Senior Working Group on National Security.” The quotes are from an examination of the Working Group done by the Institute for Public Accuracy, here.
I’d long believed that black women named Rice who are willing to be appalling hacks to rise to the top of the foreign policy establishment are a precious national resource. However, I thought we faced serious supply constraints. Apparently I was wrong.
So Barack Obama just recorded a radio ad for Rep. John Barrow (D-GA). Barrow has accused Democrats of wanting to “cut and run” in Iraq, and enthusiastically supports telcom immunity. He needs Obama’s support because he’s being challenged in the primary by State Senator Regina Thomas. Bonus ugliness: Barrow is white, Thomas is an African-American woman. Glenn Greenwald has the details here.
Anyone who can afford it may want to donate to a non-partisan effort to prevent an imminent Congressional sellout on warrantless eavesdropping and and immunity for telcoms who broke the law helping the Bush regime spy on us. (People with blogs can also join the blog arm of the left-right alliance Strange Bedfellows.) Again, Greenwald has the background.
The manual, Foreign Internal Defense Tactics Techniques and Procedures for Special Forces (1994, 2004), may be critically described as “what we learned about running death squads and propping up corrupt government in Latin America and how to apply it to other places”. Its contents are both history defining for Latin America and, given the continued role of US Special Forces in the suppression of insurgencies and guerilla movements world wide, history making.
The document, which has been verified, is official US Special Forces doctrine. It directly advocates training paramilitaries, pervasive surveillance, censorship, press control and restrictions on labor unions & political parties. It directly advocates warrantless searches, detainment without charge and the suspension of habeas corpus. It directly advocates bribery, employing terrorists, false flag operations and concealing human rights abuses from journalists. And it directly advocates the extensive use of “psychological operations” (propaganda) to make these and other “population & resource control” measures more palatable.
The document has been particularly informed by the long United States involvement in the El Salvador…
I have no way of judging whether the document is legitimate, but it certainly reads like it is.
Recall that in 2005 the Defense Department decided on what it called “The Salvador Option” for Iraq, with James Steele, a veteran of counterinsurgency in El Salvador during the eighties, training Iraq’s Special Police Commandos.
A reader forwards a gallery of devastation, here, noting, “These cities (C.R. and Iowa City the most, I think) will be picking up the pieces of this for quite a long time because - just like in N.O. - this wasn’t just water, but heavy chemical and petroleum based pollutants mixing in with the water. And now that stuff is in every building in the flooded area, which for C.R. at least, is basically a very large radius from the center of the city.”
But Akhtiar was no terrorist. American troops had dragged him out of his Afghanistan home in 2003 and held him in Guantanamo for three years in the belief that he was an insurgent involved in rocket attacks on U.S. forces. The Islamic radicals in Guantanamo’s Camp Four who hissed “infidel” and spat at Akhtiar, however, knew something his captors didn’t: The U.S. government had the wrong guy.
“He was not an enemy of the government, he was a friend of the government,” a senior Afghan intelligence officer told McClatchy. Akhtiar was imprisoned at Guantanamo on the basis of false information that local anti-government insurgents fed to U.S. troops, he said.
An eight-month McClatchy investigation in 11 countries on three continents has found that Akhtiar was one of dozens of men — and, according to several officials, perhaps hundreds — whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments.
McClatchy interviewed 66 released detainees, more than a dozen local officials — primarily in Afghanistan — and U.S. officials with intimate knowledge of the detention program. The investigation also reviewed thousands of pages of U.S. military tribunal documents and other records.
This unprecedented compilation shows that most of the 66 were low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals. At least seven had been working for the U.S.-backed Afghan government and had no ties to militants, according to Afghan local officials. In effect, many of the detainees posed no danger to the United States or its allies.
The investigation also found that despite the uncertainty about whom they were holding, U.S. soldiers beat and abused many prisoners.
Prisoner mistreatment became a regular feature in cellblocks and interrogation rooms at Bagram and Kandahar air bases, the two main way stations in Afghanistan en route to Guantanamo.
While he was held at Afghanistan’s Bagram Air Base, Akhtiar said, “When I had a dispute with the interrogator, when I asked, ‘What is my crime?’ the soldiers who took me back to my cell would throw me down the stairs.”
is taking a hell of a hit, and they’re not even getting the worst of it. The Red Cross expects to spend millions helping people with emergency food and shelter; I’m sure they could use some donations right about now.
The volunteer effort was really something to behold. We had Mennonites from the surrounding area filling bags held by local hippies who handed off to sorority girls tying off the bags who passed off into bag lines with college hipsters, Iowa City families, U Iowa football players, and international students shuttling bags into place. The fellow on the radio even said he saw inmates over from the Johnson county jail in orange jump suits volunteering. I feel that the university and the city have done a great job organizing the efforts. The university is now directing volunteers to the city. Today my wife and I went and volunteered with the city instead of the university. Currently there is a surplus of filled bags down in front of the Lindquist Center that will certainly be shuttled to where ever they’re needed tomorrow.
I haven’t really seen anyone on Kos saying this but I’ve seen people in other places online making comparisons with Katrina. I’ve seen wingnuts, for example, try to excuse FEMA’s horrible Katrina response by pointing to local efforts in Cedar Rapids and other parts of Iowa as if the local governments should be able to handle things themselves. I even saw a despicable comment (again, not here) to the effect that white people in Iowa know how to take care of themselves unlike the residents of New Orleans. Such bullshit. As devastating as the images out of Cedar Rapids are, it’s not even really close to the scale of Katrina. In Katrina an entire radius was wiped out by a hurricane. When I lived in Cedar Rapids I frequently walked from the campus of Coe College, which is on high ground and totally unaffected, down to the riverfront. All that downtown area you see flooded on tv is like a 15 minute walk from being high and dry. The magnitude is just entirely different and the ability to stage relief efforts is a lot better here. There can be absolutely no comparison.
How Tim Russert Helped Plant the Seeds for Iraq War
December 19, 1999: With Al Gore as guest, Tim Russert says on Meet the Press: “One year ago Saddam Hussein threw out all the inspectors who could find his chemical or nuclear capability.” Russert asks Gore what he’s going to do about this.
Soon afterward: Sam Husseini leaves a message on Russert’s answering machine, and speaks to two of his assistants, telling them the inspectors were withdrawn by the UN at the request of the United States.
January 2, 2000: With Madeleine Albright as guest, Tim Russert repeats the error on Meet the Press: “One year ago, the inspectors were told, ‘Get out,’ by Saddam Hussein.” Russert asks Albright what she’s going to do about this.
January 21, 2000: Sam Husseini writes a letter to Russert, again laying out the facts, and requests a correction.
January 22, 2000-March 19, 2003: Russert never corrects his error.
March 19, 2003-present: Hundreds of thousands of people die in Iraq War. Russert dies, not in Iraq War. Official Washington weeps copious tears for Russert and his Extraordinary Journalistic Standards.
Recently Barack Obama promised “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” We’ll see if that pans out, but his online supporters certainly aren’t shy. In response to recent reports that conservatives are planning to bash Michelle Obama into the ground, 23/6 has a new campaign :
So as a public service, from now until the second Tuesday in November, every time Michelle Obama is unfairly attacked or portrayedby the media or a Republican-backed 527 group, 23/6 will remind you of this terrifying and true fact about Cindy McCain.
Hard to make this any more marvelous — the judge in a big L.A. porn case turns out to have his own unusual peccadillos:
In an interview Tuesday with The Times, Kozinski acknowledged posting sexual content on his website. Among the images on the site were a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal. He defended some of the adult content as “funny” but conceded that other postings were inappropriate.
[snip]
Kozinski is one of the nation’s highest-ranking judges and has been mentioned as a possible candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court. He was named chief judge of the 9th Circuit last year and is considered a judicial conservative on most issues. He was appointed to the federal bench by President Reagan in 1985.
Mentioned for the Supreme Court? By whom — the United Dairy Farmers?
UPDATE: Then again, dude might be getting treated unfairly. Or not.
Seems to swing on whether he was responsible for material on his own publicly accessible server. Which may be a bit like the online equivalent of being responsible for what people can see through your window if they look in from the street. The argument now seems to be over whether the weirdness was deep inside, and you had to squint, or pressed up close enough to the window that anyone would assume it to be visible.
So even a judge caught with cow porn while doing an obscenity case is still in an ethical gray area. Holy crap. That’s almost more fun to get your head around about than the story itself.
Of course, the Democratic leadership will never allow impeachment to go forward, since that would require political courage in an election year.
Besides, Kucinich has a nasal speaking voice, and he looks weird. So never mind that he has been right about the war, right about the Patriot Act, and right about a ton of other issues all along. He looks funny on TV, so nothing he says matters, obviously.
Still, you might be remotely curious what Bush’s dossier looks like at this point, seven-plus years into what more than 60% of historians recently chose as the worst administration in history. You might wonder if any of the 35 counts against Bush are at least as worthy of impeachment as lying about a BJ from an intern.
