My kids are no longer kids: my son is 13 and my daughter is 10 going on 18. But, as I am driving, it still happens. First, a sharp one-liner, then a squeal, and a quick escalation to a scuffle and “Dad!”. I just keep my eyes on the road, trying not to notice.
Well, President Obama has given his annual set-piece speech, the Washington pundits have pronounced, and already everyone “in the know” are rubbing hands over the forthcoming showdowns between the White House and Congress over domestic issues. And all the while I’m thinking about this speech….
When it comes to the US beyond Capitol Hill and its borders, President Obama just tried to ignore the kids in the backseat.
That’s far from a shocking response. Obama’s immediate road ahead, for his future and that of the US, is the economy and health care. Having bailed out a leaking ship last year, the Administration now has to show progress on employment; otherwise, the Republicans, even though it was their eight years in the White House that set up the debacle and even though they have put forth no alternatives for the way out of recession, can just keep hammering away at White House failure. As for health care, what should be the overriding issue — an expensive, inefficient US system will continue to leave millions of Americans unprotected — is being replaced by the politics of display: the Obama Administration needs a bill, no matter how watered down, just to show that it is not captive to the blows of the Republican minority in Congress.
Not surprising then that the President only devoted eight out of 60+ minutes to affairs beyond the US. What is more significant, of course, is what was in those eight minutes.
Tom Englehardt, writing at TomDispatch, goes beyond the headline “30,000 extra troops” of President Obama’s recent announcement to detail the extent of the US escalation and long-term commitment — despite Obama’s initial declaration of a “beginning to the end” of the military presence in July 2011 — to the intervention in Afghanistan (N.B.: All links in original article):
In his Afghan “surge” speech at West Point last week, President Obama offered Americans some specifics to back up his new “way forward in Afghanistan.” He spoke of the “additional 30,000 U.S. troops” he was sending into that country over the next six months. He brought up the “roughly $30 billion” it would cost us to get them there and support them for a year. And finally, he spoke of beginning to bring them home by July 2011. Those were striking enough numbers, even if larger and, in terms of time, longer than many in the Democratic Party would have cared for. Nonetheless, they don’t faintly cover just how fully the president has committed us to an expanding war and just how wide it is likely to become.
Despite the seeming specificity of the speech, it gave little sense of just how big and how expensive this surge will be. In fact, what is being portrayed in the media as the surge of November 2009 is but a modest part of an ongoing expansion of the U.S. war effort in many areas. Looked at another way, the media’s focus on the president’s speech as the crucial moment of decision, and on those 30,000 new troops as the crucial piece of information, has distorted what’s actually underway. Read the rest of this entry »
Jeremy Scahill, author of the breakthrough book on Blackwater in Iraq, now casts an eye on the possible involvement of the company, renamed Xe, in the US military’s covert operations in Pakistan. He writes in The Nation:
At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, “snatch and grabs” of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help run a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.
The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater’s involvement. He spoke toThe Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so “compartmentalized” that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.
The White House did not return calls or email messages seeking comment for this story. Capt. John Kirby, the spokesperson for Adm. Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Nation, “We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature.” A defense official, on background, specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. “We don’t have any contracts to do that work for us. We don’t contract that kind of work out, period,” the official said. “There has not been, and is not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services.” Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATE 0635 GMT: Ohmygod, this must be totally true because the editorial page of The Washington Post just said so . How do they know? Well, because of thorough investigative reporting which ventured as far as down the street: “The opening of Venezuela’s banks to the Iranians guarantees the continued development of nuclear technology and long-range missiles,” Mr. Morgenthau said in a briefing this week in Washington at the Brookings Institution. “The mysterious manufacturing plants, controlled by Iran deep in the interior of Venezuela, give even greater concern.”
With the groundwork laid years ago, we are entering a period where the fruits of the Iran-Venezuela bond will begin to ripen.
That means two of the world’s most dangerous regimes, the self-described “axis of unity,” will be acting together in our backyard on the development of nuclear and missile technology. And it seems that terrorist groups have found the perfect operating ground for training and planning, and financing their activities through narco-trafficking.
The Iranian nuclear and long-range missile threats, and creeping Iranian influence in the Western Hemisphere, cannot be overlooked.
Now this statement has angered some old Lefties, like a Mr Robert Dreyfuss of the scandal rag The Nation, who is pictured at right because he looks a bit like a Communist:
This is both creepy and conspiratorial, with almost no facts, and full of rhetoric and dark insinuations.
2110 GMT: According to his son, pro-reform journalist Isa Saharkhiz has been seized and taken to an undisclosed location.
2015 GMT:Reports that women’s rights activist Zeynab Peyghambarzadeh was arrested today in the “Mothers of Martyrs” rally in Laleh Park.
2000 GMT: Now This is Interesting. According to Iran Labor News Agency, Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, in a meeting with the families of detainees, has said post-election events had caused “bitterness” while denying there was a power struggle in the Islamic state: “I don’t think that (anybody with a) vigilant conscience is satisfied with the current situation.”
Rafsanjani’s manoeuvre should be seen as an attempt to get as much political leverage as possible while distancing himself from any call for massive change: “I hope with good management and wisdom the issues would be settled in the next days and the situation could improve … We should think about protecting the system’s long-term interests.”
So Iran’s ultimate politician is not going to make any challenge to the Supreme Leader. But here is the unknown from the interview: what does he propose as the fate of President Ahmadinejad? Read the rest of this entry »
2230 GMT: We’re signing off until the morning. Thanks to everyone who sent us information today. To friends in Iran: our thoughts are with you.
2200 GMT: We have now posted the English translation of the letter released by Mir Hossein Mousavi to his supporters this afternoon.l
2145 GMT: In addition to the video of this afternoon’s protests in Tehran, which we posted in this entry, we now have posted footage that the riots have spread this evening to the university in Shiraz and to the city of Mashhad..
Yesterday’s analysis of Iran’s Presidential elections sparked a lively debate on whether the results will be honoured. An initial note is that today is only the first round, with the likely outcome of President Ahmadinejad and former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi as the top two candidates; the crunch question over an “acceptable” vote would come in the following week’s second-round decider.
That said, an article by Robert Dreyfuss of The Nation, one of the better “Western” reporters in Tehran, offered these observations:
There’s worry and anger about cheating and unfair campaigning. Yesterday, the state-run Iranian TV gave Ahmadinejad twenty minutes of free air time for a speech, while offering one minute each to his three rivals. (They turned it down contemptuously.)
Well, it’s been a lot of fun with the Tea Parties this week. The too-blatant manipulation, by certain political groups and media outlets, of a “revolution” was well-suited to parody, even beyond the unfortunate double entendre of the protest’s chosen beverage.
My kids are no longer kids: my son is 13 and my daughter is 10 going on 18. But, as I am driving, it still happens. First, a sharp one-liner, then a squeal, and a quick escalation to a scuffle and “Dad!”. I just keep my eyes on the road, trying not to notice.
Tom Englehardt, 
Jeremy Scahill, author of the breakthrough book on Blackwater in Iraq, now casts an eye on the possible involvement of the company, renamed Xe, in the US military’s covert operations in Pakistan. He 
Now this statement has angered some old Lefties, like a Mr Robert Dreyfuss of the scandal rag The Nation, who is pictured at right because he looks a bit like a Communist:
Well, it’s been a lot of fun with the Tea Parties this week. The too-blatant manipulation, by certain political groups and media outlets, of a “revolution” was well-suited to parody, even beyond the unfortunate double entendre of the protest’s chosen beverage.
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