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High Times. Posted September 1, 2007.
Prohibition has failed to control the use and domestic production of marijuana — it’s time everyone faced this and the rest of the compelling arguments for legalizing it.
Editor’s note: There are millions of regular pot smokers in America and millions more infrequent smokers. Smoking pot clearly has far fewer dangerous and hazardous effects on society than legal drugs such as alcohol. Here is High Times’s top 10 reasons to marijuana should be legal, part of its 420 Campaign legalization strategy.
10. Prohibition has failed to control the use and domestic production of marijuana. The government has tried to use criminal penalties to prevent marijuana use for over 75 years and yet: marijuana is now used by over 25 million people annually, cannabis is currently the largest cash crop in the United States, and marijuana is grown all over the planet. Claims that marijuana prohibition is a successful policy are ludicrous and unsupported by the facts, and the idea that marijuana will soon be eliminated from America and the rest of the world is a ridiculous fantasy.
9. Arrests for marijuana possession disproportionately affect blacks and Hispanics and reinforce the perception that law enforcement is biased and prejudiced against minorities. African-Americans account for approximately 13% of the population of the United States and about 13.5% of annual marijuana users, however, blacks also account for 26% of all marijuana arrests. Recent studies have demonstrated that blacks and Hispanics account for the majority of marijuana possession arrests in New York City, primarily for smoking marijuana in public view. Law enforcement has failed to demonstrate that marijuana laws can be enforced fairly without regard to race; far too often minorities are arrested for marijuana use while white/non-Hispanic Americans face a much lower risk of arrest.
8. A regulated, legal market in marijuana would reduce marijuana sales and use among teenagers, as well as reduce their exposure to other drugs in the illegal market. The illegality of marijuana makes it more valuable than if it were legal, providing opportunities for teenagers to make easy money selling it to their friends. If the excessive profits for marijuana sales were ended through legalization there would be less incentive for teens to sell it to one another. Teenage use of alcohol and tobacco remain serious public health problems even though those drugs are legal for adults, however, the availability of alcohol and tobacco is not made even more widespread by providing kids with economic incentives to sell either one to their friends and peers.
7. Legalized marijuana would reduce the flow of money from the American economy to international criminal gangs. Marijuana’s illegality makes foreign cultivation and smuggling to the United States extremely profitable, sending billions of dollars overseas in an underground economy while diverting funds from productive economic development.
6. Marijuana’s legalization would simplify the development of hemp as a valuable and diverse agricultural crop in the United States, including its development as a new bio-fuel to reduce carbon emissions. Canada and European countries have managed to support legal hemp cultivation without legalizing marijuana, but in the United States opposition to legal marijuana remains the biggest obstacle to development of industrial hemp as a valuable agricultural commodity. As US energy policy continues to embrace and promote the development of bio-fuels as an alternative to oil dependency and a way to reduce carbon emissions, it is all the more important to develop industrial hemp as a bio-fuel source - especially since use of hemp stalks as a fuel source will not increase demand and prices for food, such as corn. Legalization of marijuana will greatly simplify the regulatory burden on prospective hemp cultivation in the United States.
5. Prohibition is based on lies and disinformation. Justification of marijuana’s illegality increasingly requires distortions and selective uses of the scientific record, causing harm to the credibility of teachers, law enforcement officials, and scientists throughout the country. The dangers of marijuana use have been exaggerated for almost a century and the modern scientific record does not support the reefer madness predictions of the past and present. Many claims of marijuana’s danger are based on old 20th century prejudices that originated in a time when science was uncertain how marijuana produced its characteristic effects. Since the cannabinoid receptor system was discovered in the late 1980s these hysterical concerns about marijuana’s dangerousness have not been confirmed with modern research. Everyone agrees that marijuana, or any other drug use such as alcohol or tobacco use, is not for children. Nonetheless, adults have demonstrated over the last several decades that marijuana can be used moderately without harmful impacts to the individual or society.
(Click on the source link below to read the entire article)
Source: AlterNet: DrugReporter: The Top Ten Reasons Marijuana Should Be Legal
Ben Franklin on liberty & security…
“Any society that will give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
Submitted by davidswanson on Sat, 2007-09-01 00:50. People
Source: It’s the War, Stupid | AfterDowningStreet.org
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Fri, 08/31/2007 - 10:04am. Kirk Anderson
Source: Stability — Editorial Cartoon by Kirk Anderson | BuzzFlash.org
Some say impeach Cheney first. He has had the heaviest hand into pushing us into the debacle in Iraq, and is still angling for an even wider disaster with an unprovoked and unjustified attack on Iran. It is coming to light that Bin Laden’s plan all along was to provoke the neocons into doing something that strategically stupid. Cheney not only suckered America into doing just that, he is pressing to compound the same geopolitical error in Iran. 54% of the American people now believe Cheney should be impeached based just on what we already know, including his central role in the treasonous outing of Valerie Plame.
Some say impeach Bush first, for lying about absolutely everything, for dereliction of duty on 9/11, on Katrina, for shredding the Constitution in every possible way with the warrantless wiretaps, the torture and abuse of prisoners, and likely conspiracy to commit the theft to two presidential elections. His defiance of all Congressional inquiries and subpoenas, and his orders to former and current administration official not to cooperate, including his orders to the Justice Department not to prosecute contempt actions against the others, is at least an impeachable obstruction of justice.Some say do them both at the same time.
(Click on the source link below to vote on who should be impeached first [or both] and send your personal message to all your government representatives)
Source: Who Should Be Impeached First?
Ed Pilkington in New York
Wednesday August 29, 2007
The Guardian
George Bush yesterday ramped up the war of words between the US and Iran, accusing Tehran of threatening to place the Middle East under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust and revealing that he had authorised US military commanders in Iraq to “confront Tehran’s murderous activities”.
In a speech designed to shore up US public opinion behind his unpopular strategy in Iraq, the president reserved his strongest words for the regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which he accused of openly supporting violent forces within Iraq. Iran, he said, was responsible for training extremist Shia factions in Iraq, supplying them with weapons, including sophisticated roadside bombs. Iran has denied all these accusations.
By Scott Thill, AlterNet. Posted August 29, 2007.
Under Bush, terror has become a justification for any and every abuse of power.
Last time we checked in on the bizarro nexus between cannabis and terrorism, it was none other than actor/director Tommy Chong who was feeling the Bush administration’s post-9/11 wrath. In fact, the stoner icon, whose fabled act was concurrently resuscitated for Fox’s drugged and confused comedy hit That 70s Show, was being slapped by John Ashcroft with a nine-month prison bid, a $20,000 fine and over $100,000 in seized assets for selling bongs. The terrorism connection? He was sentenced on Sept. 11, 2003. And if you think that’s a specious connection, it’s only gotten worse since. In fact, over the last few years, “terrorist” has become an epithet for all seasons.
(Continue reading this article by clicking here, or by clicking on the source link below)
Also in DrugReporter
Smoking Pot Won’t Make You Crazy, But Dealing with the Lies about It Will
Paul Armentano, Mitch EarlywineShowTime’s Weeds: Suburbia, Drugs and Mary-Louise Parker’s Ass
Sheerly AvniGetting Busted for Pot Can Cost Your Right to Vote
Silja J.A. TalviNo Prison for Gore III?
Margaret DooleyNew Studies Expose Government Lies About Medical Pot
Paul Armentano
Source: AlterNet: DrugReporter: Pot Growers Are New Target in “War on Terror”
Democrats are trying to find a way to end the occupation of Iraq, but George Bush is once again running a propaganda campaign to brainwash Americans into keeping the occupation going… forever.
That’s why it’s essential for all of us to see No End in Sight, a remarkable and powerful film that will give you the facts you need to demolish Bush’s latest lies.
Watch the trailer, read the reviews, and find a theater near you.
Link to No End In Sight | Charles Ferguson | Representational Pictures
Technorati tags: No End in Sight, Iraq, Iraq war, government, media, politics, opinion
by: Susan H
Sun Aug 26, 2007 at 16:48:16 PM EDT
Hat tip to Firedoglake.com for highlighting this article about Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.)recent trip to Iraq.
A co-founder of the House Out of Iraq Caucus, Schakowsky saw only fleeting glimpses of Iraqis’ day-to-day life during her one-day trip. The few times she ventured out of the Green Zone, she was in a helicopter or a speeding convoy, soldiers hanging out of the windows with machine guns, obscuring the view. She heard about dire power and water shortages, yet saw nothing firsthand.But the military presentations left her stunned. Schakowsky said she jotted down Petraeus’s words in a small white notebook she had brought along to record her impressions. Her neat, looping handwriting filled page after page, and she flipped through to find the Petraeus section. ” ‘We will be in Iraq in some way for nine to 10 years,’ ” Schakowsky read carefully. She had added her own translation: “Keep the train running for a few months, and then stretch it out. Just enough progress to justify more time.”
“I felt that was a stretch and really part of a PR strategy — just like the PR strategy that initially led up to the war in the first place,” Schakowsky said. Petraeus, she said, “acknowledged that if the policymakers decide that we need to withdraw, that, you know, that’s what he would have to do. But he felt that in order to win, we’d have to be there nine or 10 years.”
Next time you find yourself in a discussion about Iraq and “the surge” promise to send them the Jan Schakowsky link concerning her fact finding mission.
Susan H :: Is the American public prepared to be in Iraq for 9, 10 more years?
Source: Below Boston:: Is the American public prepared to be in Iraq for 9, 10 more years?
Sat Aug 25, 12:39 PM ET
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces have rebranded one of the main insurgent groups in Iraq and now use the term “concerned local nationals” to refer to a group that once claimed responsibility for killing scores of Americans.
The updated vocabulary for referring to the 1920 Revolution Brigade, described by a U.S. commander on Saturday, is a sign of the abrupt change in tactics that has seen U.S. forces cooperate with former Sunni Arab enemies.
The 1920 Revolution Brigade was one of the main anti-American Sunni Arab insurgent groups in Iraq in the years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and has claimed responsibility for killing scores of U.S. troops in ambushes and bomb attacks.
But for the past several months its members have cooperated with U.S. forces to help drive the strict al Qaeda Islamists out of Sunni Arab areas, part of a new U.S. tactic of cooperating with former Sunni Arab foes against al Qaeda.
Colonel David Sutherland, the U.S. commander in Diyala Province, said his men prefer not to call the group by its name.
“The 1920s as they’re called, we call them ‘the Baquba Guardians’, we call them the ‘concerned local nationals’,” he said. Baquba is the provincial capital.
“These are patriots who have come forward and have joined the security process. They are working with my soldiers and they are working with the Iraqi security forces,” he said.
Al Qaeda’s adherence to a hardline form of Sunni Islam and indiscriminate attacks has isolated it from Sunni Arabs and nationalist insurgent groups.
Sutherland said the 1920 Revolution Brigade name was now being used widely to refer to local pro-government militia and not anti-American insurgents. Some Shi’ite elders were asking if they too could recruit “1920s,” he said, a sign the Sunni Arab group’s name was no longer seen as sectarian.
“It has become a name, a catch-all phrase for these concerned local nationals throughout the province,” he told a news conference by video link to Baghdad.
His forces “do not deal with terrorists, and if we have information on individuals then we will act accordingly,” Sutherland said. “The individuals we are working with…. I have confidence in them and I have confidence in their leadership.”
Source: What’s in a name? U.S. rebrands Iraq ex-insurgents - Yahoo! News
He’s still out there. The hunt for bin Laden.
By Evan Thomas
Newsweek
Sept. 3, 2007 issue - The Americans were getting close. It was early in the winter of 2004-05, and Osama bin Laden and his entourage were holed up in a mountain hideaway along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Suddenly, a sentry, posted several kilometers away, spotted a patrol of U.S. soldiers who seemed to be heading straight for bin Laden’s redoubt. The sentry radioed an alert, and word quickly passed among the Qaeda leader’s 40-odd bodyguards to prepare to remove “the Sheik,” as bin Laden is known to his followers, to a fallback position. As Sheik Said, a senior Egyptian Qaeda operative, later told the story, the anxiety level was so high that the bodyguards were close to using the code word to kill bin Laden and commit suicide. According to Said, bin Laden had decreed that he would never be captured. “If there’s a 99 percent risk of the Sheik’s being captured, he told his men that they should all die and martyr him as well,” Said told Omar Farooqi, a Taliban liaison officer to Al Qaeda who spoke to a NEWSWEEK reporter in Afghanistan.
(Click on source link below to read the entire article)
Special Report
The Ongoing Hunt for Osama bin Laden
Tora Bora: Fighting Rages Where Osama Once Hid
Bin Laden’s Ex-Bodyguard Speaks
Live Talk: The Hunt for Osama bin Laden
Join NEWSWEEK’s Mark Hosenball on Thursday, Aug. 30 at noon ET, to discuss why the United States has failed to capture Osama bin Laden.
Source: The Ongoing Hunt for Osama bin Laden - Newsweek: World News - MSNBC.com
By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer Sat Au 25, 7:26 PM ET
BAGHDAD - This year’s U.S. troop buildup has succeeded in bringing violence in Baghdad down from peak levels, but the death toll from sectarian attacks around the country is running nearly double the pace from a year ago.
Some of the recent bloodshed appears the result of militant fighters drifting into parts of northern Iraq, where they have fled after U.S.-led offensives. Baghdad, however, still accounts for slightly more than half of all war-related killings — the same percentage as a year ago, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.
The tallies and trends offer a sobering snapshot after an additional 30,000 U.S. troops began campaigns in February to regain control of the Baghdad area. It also highlights one of the major themes expected in next month’s Iraq progress report to Congress: some military headway, but extremist factions are far from broken.
In street-level terms, it means life for average Iraqis appears to be even more perilous and unpredictable.
The AP tracking includes Iraqi civilians, government officials, police and security forces killed in attacks such as gunfights and bombings, which are frequently blamed on Sunni suicide strikes. It also includes execution-style killings — largely the work of Shiite death squads.
The figures are considered a minimum based on AP reporting. The actual numbers are likely higher, as many killings go unreported or uncounted. Insurgent deaths are not a part of the Iraqi count.
The findings include:
• Iraq is suffering about double the number of war-related deaths throughout the country compared with last year — an average daily toll of 33 in 2006, and 62 so far this year.
• Nearly 1,000 more people have been killed in violence across Iraq in the first eight months of this year than in all of 2006. So far this year, about 14,800 people have died in war-related attacks and sectarian murders. AP reporting accounted for 13,811 deaths in 2006. The United Nations and other sources placed the 2006 toll far higher.
• Baghdad has gone from representing 76 percent of all civilian and police war-related deaths in Iraq in January to 52 percent in July, bringing it back to the same spot it was roughly a year ago.
_According to the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, the number of displaced Iraqis has more than doubled since the start of the year, from 447,337 on Jan. 1 to 1.14 million on July 31.
However, Brig. Gen. Richard Sherlock, deputy director for operational planning for the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said violence in Iraq “has continued to decline and is at the lowest level since June 2006.”
He offered no statistics to back his claim, but in a briefing with reporters at the Pentagon on Friday he warned insurgents might try intensify attacks in Iraq to coincide with three milestones: the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S., the beginning of Ramadan and the report to Congress.
The U.S. military did not get all the additional American forces into Iraq until June 15, so it would be premature to draw a final statistical picture of the effect of the added troops.
But initial calculations validate fears that the Baghdad crackdown would push militants into districts north of the capital, including Diyala province where U.S. force and Iraqi soldiers have conducted major operation to clear its main city, Baqouba, of al-Qaida in Iraq fighters.
In July, the AP figures show 35 percent of all war-related killings occurred in northern provinces. The figure one year ago was 22 percent.
The final death count for August also will likely be further oriented to the north after the savage Aug. 14 attack by suspected al-Qaida truck bombers near the Syrian border in Ninevah province. At least 500 villagers from the Yazidi sect were killed in the deadliest civilian attack of the war.
In the first months of this year, many extremists fled to Baghdad and regions to the north after Sunni tribesmen in Anbar, the sprawling desert province west of the capital, turned on their erstwhile al-Qaida allies.
Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said many militants are trying to hang onto footholds in central Iraq.
“Most of the force shifts are still in the Baghdad ring and Diyala,” he said in a recent interview, predicting more spectacular attacks in the days leading to next month’s report to Congress by U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
“Will it lead to more bloody attacks as they try to exploit the American political debate? Yes.”
Nora Bensahel, a military analyst at the Rand Corp., said that northern Iraq had become increasingly destabilized over the past few months.
The insurgents have made a “concerted effort to concentrate attacks in other parts of the country,” Bensahel said, in part to escape the increased U.S. troop presence in Baghdad and in part to give the impression that no place in Iraq is safe.
Mostly, she said, the insurgents have shifted their focus to the Baghdad suburbs, but they are particularly keen to undermine the notion that northern Iraq is a “success story” for Washington and its key Iraqi partners — including the Kurds who have maintained a near-autonomous state in the north since the early 1990s.
Staging attacks in the north “has a symbolic effect,” she said.
And beyond that, Bensahel said the tactic puts the United States in a difficult situation.
“There isn’t an ability to move north in any significant numbers without abandoning Baghdad” — a change in strategy that Washington is not prepared to make, she said.
But a huge problem also looms in the south, the center of Shiite political and spiritual influence and the site of Iraq’s main oil fields.
There are daily gunbattles between the Mahdi Army militia — loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr — and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the powerhouse Shiite political party that controls most of the bureaucracy and police forces in southern Iraq.
This month, the governors of two southern provinces loyal to the Supreme Islamic Council were killed in roadside bombings.
The clashes are expected to grow more intense as Britain draws downs its forces in southern Iraq over the coming months. The effect of the shrinking British presence is already being felt, said Cordesman in an assessment released Aug. 22.
“The end result was to turn the four provinces in southeastern Iraq over to feuding Shiite factions whose actions were mixed with corruption, extortion and links to criminal activities,” he wrote.
And there are increasing signs that whole regions of the south are inclined to seek increased autonomy from the center — moves that many Iraqis fear could lead to partition of the country.
In Najaf — the spiritual heart for Shiites around the world — the provincial spokesman, Ahmed Deibel, told AP early this month that the gas turbine generator there had been removed from the national electricity grid. The unilateral action has contributed to several nationwide power blackouts.
He said the provincial plant produced 50 megawatts, while the province needed at least 200 megawatts.
“What we produce is not enough even for us. We disconnected it from the national grid (Aug. 1) because the people in Baghdad were getting too much, leaving little electricity for Najaf,” he said.
The No. 2 U.S. commander, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, has also expressed fears of a big insurgent attack in the final days before the report to Congress, but also claimed the offensives have shaken militant fighters in Baghdad and environs.
“Due to the constant pressure and depletion of their leadership, extremists have been pushed out of many population centers and are on the move, seeking other places to operate within the country,” Odierno said last week.
“As a result, we are now in pursuit of al-Qaida and other extremist elements, and we’ll continue to aggressively target their shrinking areas of influence,” he said.
“Over the coming weeks, we plan to conduct quick-strike raids against remaining extremist sanctuaries and staging areas,” Odierno said.
Source: Iraq body count running at double pace - Yahoo! News
By Charlie Savage
The Boston Globe
Saturday 25 August 2007
New Bush rules on detainees stir concern.
Washington - Top military lawyers have told senators that President Bush’s new rules for CIA interrogations of suspected terrorists could allow abuses that violate the Geneva Conventions, according to Senate and military officials.
The Judge Advocates General of all branches of the military told the senators that a July 20 executive order establishing rules for the treatment of CIA prisoners appeared to be carefully worded to allow humiliating or degrading interrogation techniques when the interrogators’ objective is to protect national security rather than to satisfy sadistic impulses.
The JAGs expressed their concerns at a meeting late last month with Senators John Warner of Virginia, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and an aide representing John McCain of Arizona, who could not attend because he was campaigning for president. All three senators are Republicans who have been key proponents of laws banning the abuse of detainees, and have vowed to monitor the Bush administration’s treatment of prisoners.
The top JAG for the US Army, Major General Scott C. Black, followed up on the meeting this month by sending a memo to lower-ranking soldiers reminding them that Bush’s executive order applies only to the CIA, not to military interrogations. Black told soldiers they must follow Army regulations, which “make clear that [the Geneva Conventions are] the minimum humane treatment standard” for prisoners.
”This Executive Order does not change the standard for the Army…. I want to ensure that there is no confusion concerning the Executive Order’s lack of applicability to the Army,” Black wrote in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by the Globe. “As a Corps, we must be diligent to ensure that all interrogation and detention operations comply with the Army standard.”
In an e-mail yesterday, a Justice Department spokesman defended Bush’s order as “consistent” with the minimum standards of humane treatment required by the Geneva Conventions.
But the JAGs told the senators that a key part of the order opens the door to violations of the section of the Geneva Conventions that outlaws “cruel treatment and torture” and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment,” officials familiar with the discussion said.
The JAGs cited language in the executive order in which Bush said CIA interrogators may not use “willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual.” As an example, it lists “sexual or sexually indecent acts undertaken for the purpose of humiliation.”
(click on the source link below to read the rest of this article)
Source: Military Warns of Potential CIA Abuses
Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 @ 16:00 UTC
by Hamid Tehrani
Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based freelance journalist, author and blogger. He is currently writing a book on “Democracy and Blogging” and recently traveled to Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and China to meet with bloggers. Q: Would you introduce yourself and your new book project?
As a journalist and author in Australia, I have long been interested in the ways in which blogging challenges the long-held arrogance of the mainstream media. Why should self-described “experts” be any more respected than average citizens? Over the years, I’ve seen far too many journalistic insiders who see their role as little more than promoting the current power elite, rather than doing their job, which is challenging the status-quo. Blogs can achieve this.
My last book was about Israel and Palestine, My Israel Question, and I became fascinated in voices in various nations around the world, often in countries where state-media has traditionally been the only authority. Frankly, writing about Israel/Palestine is also physically and emotionally draining - hate mail and death threats are not uncommon - and the chance to embrace a different subject appealed greatly.
So, my new book project (due for release in late 2008) is about the internet in repressive regimes, the ways in which the web has changed debate around the world, how Western multinationals are now assisting governments in filtering the net and how Western stereotypes about the non-Western world are finally being challenged. I’ve recently travelled to Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and China and spoken to various writers, bloggers, online trouble-makers, politicians and dissidents.
The most demonised nation on the planet
Q: You have been in Iran and you talked with bloggers. Did you learn something that you did not know before? Any surprises?
Iran is probably the most demonised nation on the planet at the moment. Before I arrived, I expected a scared population, people afraid to express their true opinions. Although I discovered this in part, I also sensed speaking to bloggers that many were actively fighting against the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his increasingly unhinged social policies. Of course, such individuals may only be a vocal minority, but much of the Western media rarely even portrays Iranians as more than religious fundamentalists.
I met many bloggers who were Westernised, urbane, sophisticated, atheist, internet junkies, drinkers, hip-hoppers, smokers and liberal. Again, many Iranians are the complete opposite of these attributes - indeed, I was told that the mullahs are now actively grooming conservative bloggers in Qom to serve their agenda - but Iranian society was far more complex than I perhaps expected.
Internet filtering is rampant in Iran and getting worse ( my Guardian article expands on this issue.) Most bloggers I met saw these developments as challenges, but when, for example, numerous keywords are routinely blocked - from ‘teen’ to ‘cock’, ‘Asian’ to ‘woman’ - it’s clear that the internet is challenging authoritarian rule like no other technology in history.
An essential source of expression
Q: How do you evaluate the Iranian blogosphere’s influence in society?
It’s very hard to say. There is no question that internet usage in Iran is massive and there are an estimated one million Iranian blogs in existence, but do they really affect society? I believe that they do. I saw some of the major papers talking about blog posts, even quoting from them (including the most conservative of publications.) The mullahs have recognised that blogging isn’t just a fad, it’s here to stay. For some Iranian women I met, it was their only way to express dissatisfaction with the government’s crackdown on their freedoms, including dress-code, public behaviour etc.
Blogs aren’t going to start a revolution, but they’ve already lit a powerful fire within the country. For a young population desperate to engage with the world, and a state-media that blames the US, Israel and Jews for every conceivable problem, blogs will continue to be an essential source of expression.
Q: You have been in Saudi Arabia, too. Would you tell me about their blogsphere? Is there any basis for comparaison between the Saudi blogosphere and the Iranian one?
In many ways, Saudi Arabia makes Iran seem very liberal. The Kingdom is a far more conservative place. Women can’t drive, work in shops, or drive. As a Westerner, it was virtually impossible for me to speak to Saudi women. But when it comes to the internet, the Saudis don’t imprison bloggers and censor lightly compared to the Islamic republic ( my Guardian article expands on these points further.)
I met a number of Saudi bloggers, including Saudi Jeans, who told me about the frustration of seeing their society moving so slowly towards political reform. The Iranian blogging scene is far more advanced than Saudi Arabia, and is far more integrated into society (though not in government bureaucracy, where the wheels move very slowly, indeed.)
Democracy is under threat
Q: Can democray be served by blogs?
Democracy is unquestionably under threat across the world, in both the Western and non-Western world. In countries like Britain, the US and Australia, governments went to war in Iraq against the will of the people, continue to maintain troops there against the wishes of the people and would probably fight another war - perhaps against Iran in the next years - against the desires of the population. This isn’t democracy; it’s deluded authoritarianism dressed up as tough foreign policy.
Blogs have certainly democratised the political process, and allowed “average” citizens the chance to engage. In my country, Australia, the internet is being actively used by all major political parties in the run-up to the forthcoming federal election.
In countries like Iran, China and Egypt, the internet is threatening the rule of undemocratic governments, and bloggers are often paying a very high price for simply challenging, say, police brutality. Blogs can’t bring democracy on their own, but they can certainly allow a far greater number of people into the process. This is only a bad thing for those not wanting to give up the levers of power.
Q: Do you have any ideas for how Global Voices could become more efficient in creating a bridge between different communities?
Global Voices is already doing a wonderful job in revealing the world. To read about bloggers in countries like Palestine, Fiji and Iraq, to name just a few, makes us all more understanding people. I’d love GV to further assist citizens in poor countries to get access to the web and have a voice. This is the duty of all of us who are privileged enough to use technology every day.
Photo by: Antony Lowenstein, of the wall of the US Embassy in Tehran.
Source: Global Voices Online » Blogging for democracy around the world
By Ray McGovern, AlterNet. Posted August 23, 2007.
A former CIA analyst estimates the chances of an attack on Iran and shows that the mainstream media is already cheering it on.
A shorter version of this article first appeared on Consortiumnews.com.
It is as though I’m back as an analyst at the CIA, trying to estimate the chances of an attack on Iran. The putative attacker, though, happens to be our own president.
It is precisely the kind of work we analysts used to do. And, while it is still a bit jarring to be turning our analytical tools on the U.S. leadership, it is by no means entirely new. For, of necessity, we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) have been doing that for almost six years now — ever since 9/11, when “everything changed.”
Of necessity? Yes, because, with very few exceptions, American journalists put their jobs at grave risk if they expose things like fraudulent wars.
The craft of CIA analysis was designed to be an all-source operation, meaning that we analysts were responsible — and held accountable — for assimilating information from all sources and coming to judgments on what it all meant. We used data of various kinds, from the most sophisticated technical collection platforms, to spies, to — not least — open media.
Here I must reveal a trade secret and risk puncturing the mystique of intelligence analysis. Generally speaking, 80 percent of the information one needs to form judgments on key intelligence targets or issues is available in open media. It helps to have been trained — as my contemporaries and I had the good fortune to be trained — by past masters of the discipline of media analysis, which began in a structured way in targeting Japanese and German media in the 1940s. But, truth be told, anyone with a high school education can do it. It is not rocket science.
Reporting from informants
The above is in no way intended to minimize the value of intelligence collection by CIA case officers recruiting and running clandestine agents. For, though small in percentage of the whole nine yards available to be analyzed, information from such sources can often make a crucial contribution. Consider, for example, the daring recruitment in mid-2002 of Saddam Hussein’s foreign minister, Naji Sabri, who was successfully “turned” into working for the CIA and quickly established his credibility. Sabri told us there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
My former colleagues, perhaps a bit naively, were quite sure this would come as a welcome relief to President George W. Bush and his advisers. Instead, they were told that the White House had no further interest in reporting from Sabri; rather, that the issue was not really WMD, it was “regime change.” (Don’t feel embarrassed if you did not know this; although it is publicly available, our corporate-owned, war profiteering media has largely suppressed this key story.)
One former colleague, operations officer-par-excellence Robert Baer, now reports (in this week’s Time) that, according to his sources, the Bush/Cheney administration is winding up for a strike on Iran; that the administration’s plan to put Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the terrorism list points in the direction of such a strike; and that the delusional “neoconservative” thinking that still guides White House policy concludes that such an attack would lead to the fall of the clerics and the rise of a more friendly Iran.
Hold on, it gets even worse: Baer’s sources tell him that administration officials are thinking that “as long as we have bombers and missiles in the air, we will hit Iran’s nuclear facilities.”
Rove and Snow: Going wobbly?
Our VIPS colleague Phil Geraldi, writing in The American Conservative, earlier noted that in the past Karl Rove has served as a counterweight to Vice President Dick Cheney, and may have tried to put the brakes on Cheney’s death wish to expand the Middle East quagmire to Iran. And former Pentagon officer, retired Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who worked shoulder to shoulder with some of the most devoted neocons just before the attack on Iraq, has put into words (on LewRockwell.com) speculation several of us have been indulging in with respect to Rove’s departure.
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Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
Source: AlterNet: MediaCulture: Are Bush & Co. Gearing Up to Attack Iran?
By Scott Ritter, Truthdig.
The vice president is the single greatest threat to American and international security in the world today.
Karl Rove, interchangeably known as “Boy Genius” or “Turd Blossom,” has left the White House. The press conference announcing his decision to resign has been given front-page treatment by most major media outlets, but the fact of the matter is the buzz surrounding Rove’s departure is much ado about nothing, especially in terms of coming to grips with the remaining 16 months of the worst presidency in the history of the United States.
Rove is a domestic political marauder, the personification of a conservative movement which lacks a moral compass and has a complete disregard for facts. The master of exploiting mainstream America’s predilection for news-as-entertainment, under which the likes of Rupert Murdoch can manufacture headlines out of thin air, Rove helped turn “fair and balanced” into a national joke which everyone laughs at but few actually comprehend.
Rove served as the maestro of a political-smear orchestra composed of such intellectually challenged muckrakers as Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, manipulating the NASCAR/professional wrestling crowd’s addiction to seedy gossip in an effort to maintain the all-important 51 percent majority needed to win elections.
Perhaps if the Democratic Party had possessed a semblance of organization and cohesion (not to mention a post-Clinton message that could be sold to a majority of America), then Rove would be but a footnote in history, known simply as the man who helped the worst governor in the history of Texas get elected. Even the self-destructive campaign run by Al Gore in 2000, in which he distanced himself from a sitting president who, despite all of his faults, would have defeated Bush in a landslide if the Constitution permitted a third term, was enough to deny Rove his beloved 51 percent — it was Gore, not Bush, who won the majority of votes in that contest. It took a Republican governor of Florida, backed by a compliant Supreme Court, to put George W. Bush into the White House, not any genius on the part of Rove.
“Bush’s Brain” may claim that it was his careful manipulation of fiction over fact that carried the 2004 election, in which the term “Swift-boating” became synonymous with political character assassination, but it was the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and the war in Iraq which sank the Democratic Party and its candidate for president, John Kerry.
It is very difficult to unseat a president in a time of war, especially when so many Democrats voted in favor of the concept, first by buying into every post-9/11 policy put forward by the Bush administration (find me one Democrat who actually read the Patriot Act in its entirety before it was voted into law) and second by rubber-stamping the lies that led to Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in March 2003. Remember, it was Kerry’s inarticulate defense of his decision to vote in favor of granting war powers to the president that sank his election hopes, not his Vietnam War record.
Certainly, Karl Rove played a significant behind-the-scenes role in supporting Bush’s war policies. The perjury trial of “Scooter” Libby forced the collective of deaf, dumb and blind pseudo-journalists who populate what is known as the mainstream media in America to recognize how pathetically duplicitous and petty the Bush administration could get when it came to defending the policies propping up the so-called Global War on Terror and the awful tragedy of Iraq. Rove’s fingerprints were all over the decision by Vice President Dick Cheney to leak CIA officer Valerie Plame’s name to the media in an effort to thwart the truth-telling of her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson.
Scott Ritter served as chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 until his resignation in 1998. He is the author of many books, including, Waging Peace: The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement.
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Source: AlterNet: Dick Cheney Really Is That Bad
By Julian E. Barnes and Peter Spiegel
The Los Angeles Times
Friday 24 August 2007
Advice by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs poses a potential clash with supporters of the buildup.Washington - The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is expected to advise President Bush to reduce the U.S. force in Iraq next year by almost half, potentially creating a rift with top White House officials and other military commanders over the course of the war.
Administration and military officials say Marine Gen. Peter Pace is likely to convey concerns by the Joint Chiefs that keeping well in excess of 100,000 troops in Iraq through 2008 will severely strain the military. This assessment could collide with one being prepared by the U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, calling for the U.S. to maintain higher troop levels for 2008 and beyond.
Petraeus is expected to support a White House view that the absence of widespread political progress in Iraq requires several more months of the U.S. troop buildup before force levels are decreased to their pre-buildup numbers sometime next year.
Pace’s recommendations reflect the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who initially expressed private skepticism about the strategy ordered by Bush and directed by Petraeus, before publicly backing it.
According to administration and military officials, the Joint Chiefs believe it is of crucial strategic importance to reduce the size of the U.S. force in Iraq in order to bolster the military’s ability to respond to other threats, a view that is shared by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
Pace is expected to offer his advice privately instead of issuing a formal report. Still, the position of Pace and the Joint Chiefs could add weight to that of Bush administration critics, including Democratic presidential candidates, that the U.S. force should be reduced.
Those critics include Republican Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia, who on Thursday called on Bush to begin withdrawing troops in September to pressure the Iraqi government to move toward political compromise.
Any discord among the top U.S. generals could be awkward for Bush, who professes to rely heavily on advice from military leaders. But there also is tremendous pressure for military officers to speak with one voice and defer to Petraeus and other field commanders. It remains possible that the Joint Chiefs may opt to weaken their stance before approaching Bush.
According to a senior administration official, the Joint Chiefs in recent weeks have pressed concerns that the Iraq war has degraded the U.S. military’s ability to respond, if needed, to other threats, such as Iran.
The chiefs are pushing for a significant decrease in troop levels once the current buildup comes to an end - perhaps to about half of the 20 combat brigades now in Iraq. Along with support units, that would lower the U.S. presence to fewer than 100,000 troops from the current 162,000.
But military leaders in Iraq, as well as senior officials in the White House, are pushing for troop levels to return to the prior level of about 15 brigades, or about 134,000 troops, once the current buildup is over.
Despite signs of progress in some locales, the Iraqi government has failed at national reconciliation, a new National Intelligence Estimate reported Thursday. White House policymakers argue that such weakness means they cannot dramatically reduce U.S. troop levels, at least through the end of the Bush presidency.
Bush has said publicly he hopes to move toward troop levels recommended by the blue-ribbon Iraq Study Group, which had called for drastic reductions in combat power to focus on training and counter-terrorism missions. Such a shift would lead to a force of 20,000 to 50,000 soldiers. That now appears unlikely.
Planning within the White House has shifted in recent weeks to focus on how large a presence can be maintained in Iraq through the end of 2008.
”If it’s going to take time, and if we can’t afford to just walk away from this, then . . . we better get ourselves structured for the long haul,” said the senior administration official, explaining the White House position.
Administration and defense officials spoke on condition of anonymity because neither the White House nor Pentagon has made any final decisions on Iraq policy.
As the top American combat general, Petraeus wields wide authority and commands considerable attention in Washington. But U.S. law gives the Joint Chiefs responsibility to ensure the long-term well-being of the military and makes their chairman the president’s principal military advisor.
”Petraeus and [Ambassador to Iraq Ryan] Crocker are coming to testify, but this is the president’s decision,” said a senior military official in the Pentagon. “As the chairman, Gen. Pace, by law, has a big role in that and he will provide his advice to the president.”
Pace was not nominated by Bush for a second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs and will leave the post at the end of September. He is being succeeded by Adm. Michael G. Mullen, the current Navy chief, who has been even more vocal in his concerns about the stresses on the Army.
Although the role of Defense Department civilian leaders has been highly controversial since the start of the Iraq war, strains between ground commanders and the Pentagon’s military brass have been comparatively rare. Previous U.S. commanders in Iraq, such as Petraeus’ predecessor, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., emphasized low force levels, in part to ensure the overall health of the Army.
Pace has gained a reputation as a consensus builder who is loath to confront civilian leaders on war strategy. With his term nearly up, he is facing his last opportunity to affect the war effort and is stepping up the involvement of the Joint Chiefs in planning for Iraq.
Pace has assigned a handpicked group of high-ranking Iraq combat veterans, known as his “council of colonels,” to help formulate the Pentagon military leadership’s assessment of current strategy, according to military officials.
Pace created the council last year. Although the chiefs’ specific recommendations to Bush were pushed aside then in favor of the troop buildup ordered in January, Pace has asked the council to look at various military problems since then. The process has been credited with reinvigorating the relevance of the Joint Chiefs.
Membership on the council has shifted since last year, and Pentagon officials say Pace now has a fresh group, convened this summer, examining potential changes to Iraq strategy. Past council members have included Army Col. Peter R. Mansoor, who is now Petraeus’ executive officer in Baghdad. Officials would not identify the officers now on Pace’s panel.
Senior military officers in Washington believe that by next year, the Iraqi military will be able to shoulder more of the burden now carried by U.S. forces, according to defense officials.
Before the 2006 Samarra mosque bombing touched off cycles of sectarian violence, military officials believed they were on the path to reducing U.S. forces in Iraq to 10 brigades. Officers in the Pentagon now believe advances in the Iraqi army mean that U.S. and coalition forces may be once again on that path.
”The 25-cent question is, ‘What is the size of the force?’ To say there will be a smaller force is not accurate. There will be a smaller coalition force, but not necessarily a smaller overall force,” said a senior military officer. “The Iraqi security forces are making progress.”
The Joint Chiefs have become increasingly vocal about the need to keep Army and Marine forces at home longer between deployments so the military can train for other challenges besides the counterinsurgency fight in Iraq.
”Today’s Army is out of balance,” Casey said last week in a speech at the National Press Club. “We’re consumed with meeting the current demands, and we’re unable to provide ready forces as rapidly as we would like for other contingencies.”
Source: Top General to Urge Iraq Troop Cut
WASHINGTON — A new assessment of Iraq by U.S. intelligence agencies provides little evidence that the American troop “surge” has accomplished its goals and predicts that the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will become “more precarious” in the months ahead.
A declassified summary of the report released Thursday said that violence remains high, warns that U.S. alliances with former Sunni Muslim insurgents could undercut the central government and says that political compromises are “unlikely to emerge” in the next 12 months.
Perhaps most strikingly, U.S. intelligence analysts concluded that factions and political players in and outside Iraq already are maneuvering in expectation of a drawdown of U.S. troops — moves that could later heighten sectarian bloodshed.
“The national intelligence assessment confirms what we feared the most: The U.S. has become deeply embroiled in Iraq’s civil war,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee.
A White House spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, said the report, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, showed that President Bush’s decision to send an additional 28,000 troops to Iraq is beginning to have an effect.
While it said that the surge has brought “measurable, but uneven improvements in security,” the report didn’t repeat recent military assertions that civilian deaths have decreased by 50 percent. Instead, it said, “the level of overall violence, including attacks on and casualties among civilians, remains high.”
It also suggested that while violence is no longer increasing, any progress might be temporary. “The steep escalation of violence has been checked for now,” the report said, noting, “Overall attack levels across Iraq have fallen during seven of the last nine weeks.” It provided no specific statistics.
The report also said that al-Qaida in Iraq “retains the ability to conduct high-profile attacks,” and it warned that the current U.S. tactic of recruiting former Sunni Muslim insurgents to defeat al-Qaida in Iraq — one of the pillars of efforts by Army Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq — could backfire.
Nor has the surge brought about Sunni reconciliation with al-Maliki’s government, the report said. Worse, it said, such “bottom-up” security initiatives could pose risks to the al-Maliki government by undermining central authority and reinvigorating armed opposition to the government in Baghdad.
U.S. military spokesmen in Baghdad weren’t available for comment.
The report’s main conclusions, known as “key judgments,” were declassified 2 { weeks before Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are to testify to Congress on Iraq’s performance on 18 political, economic and security benchmarks.
The report didn’t address each of those points directly, but it concluded that the “broadly accepted political compromises required for sustained security, long-term political progress and economic development are unlikely to emerge unless there is a fundamental shift in the factors driving Iraqi political and security developments.”
“To date, Iraqi political leaders remain unable to govern effectively,” it said.
In recent days, several U.S. lawmakers have suggested that al-Maliki should step down, and Bush on Tuesday gave the Iraqi leader a less-than-ringing endorsement.
The intelligence estimate says that al-Maliki, while increasingly hemmed in by his opponents, is likely to remain in power — if only because other Shiite Muslim leaders realize that trying to replace him could paralyze the government.
“It’s difficult to see an obvious replacement that would garner the majority support you would need,” said a senior U.S. intelligence official, one of three who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the estimate frankly.
An Iraqi official close to al-Maliki said the embattled Shiite prime minister has become more isolated from his Shiite and Kurdish allies. Al-Maliki, who’s from the Dawa party, the smallest and least powerful in the Shiite alliance, depended on those allies to win his position.
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst now with the Brookings Institution, a center-left Washington policy organization, said that with summer ending and little real progress in Iraq, Bush has to blame someone.
“The president promised that people will see political progress by the end of the summer, it’s here, and the only progress is the Sunnis turning on al-Qaida. Maliki’s government is not likely to embrace these Sunnis because the Sunnis are not interested in embracing a Shiite government,” Riedel said.
Briefing reporters on the report, a second senior U.S. intelligence official said that when U.S. troops leave Iraq, some Sunni groups “could turn on one another to encourage a greater degree of intra-sectarian conflict.”
A similar dynamic is now being seen among Shiite militias in southern Iraq as British troops reduce their presence there.
On other topics, the declassified judgments found that:
_Iraqi Security Forces, while more competent than before, haven’t improved enough to conduct major operations independent of U.S. and allied troops.
_Iran “will continue to provide funding, weaponry and training to Iraqi Shia militants” despite U.S. protests.
_Syria has cracked down on Sunni extremist groups trying to infiltrate fighters into Iraq because they threaten Syria’s stability, but is providing support to other groups inside Iraq to try to increase its influence there.
A PDF file of the full declassified report can be read online at National Intelligence Estimate of August 2007
McClatchy Newspapers 2007
Source: McClatchy Washington Bureau | 08/23/2007 | A new intelligence report paints a bleak picture of Iraq
Warner: Bush Should Bring Troops Home
The Associated PressFriday 24 August 2007
Washington - President Bush should start bringing home some troops by Christmas to show the Baghdad government that the U.S. commitment in Iraq is not open-ended, a prominent Republican senator said Thursday.
The move puts John Warner, a former Navy secretary and one-time chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, at odds with the president, who says conditions on the ground should dictate deployments.
Warner, R-Va., said the troop withdrawals are needed because Iraqi leaders have failed to make substantial political progress, despite an influx of U.S. troops initiated by Bush this year.
The departure of even a small number of U.S. service members - perhaps 5,000 of the 160,000 troops in Iraq - would send a powerful message throughout the region that time was running out, Warner said.
”We simply cannot as a nation stand and continue to put our troops at continuous risk of loss of life and limb without beginning to take some decisive action,” he told reporters after a White House meeting with Bush’s top aides.
Warner’s new position is a sharp challenge to a wartime president that will undoubtedly color the upcoming Iraq debate on Capitol Hill. Next month, Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker are expected to brief members on the war’s progress.
Source: Warner: Bush Should Start Bringing Troops Home
