Craig Murray on Lockerbie affair

Lockerbie:

From late 1989 to 1992 I [Craig Murray] was the Head of the Maritime Section of the FCO and No 2 in the Aviation and Maritime Department (for those into FCO arcana, the Maritime Section was headed by a Grade 5 First Secretary and the Aviation Section by a Grade 6 First Secretary). This was the period of the invasion of Kuwait and first Gulf War, in which the Maritime Section, including me, mostly got picked up and deposited in an underground bunker as the FCO part of the Embargo Surveillance Centre. We did intelligence analysis on Iraqi attempts at weapons procurement and organised interdiction worldwide.

In this period I mostly lived in my underground bunker, quite literally, and didn't get back to the FCO much to keep an eye on the rest of my section. On one occasion when I did, I was told something remarkable by a colleague in Aviation section.

At this time we suddenly switched from blaming Iran and Syria for the Lockerbie bombing to blaming Libya. This was part of a diplomatic drive to isolate Iraq from its neighbours in the run-up to the invasion. Aviation section were seeing all the intelligence on Lockerbie, for obvious reasons. A colleague there told me, in a deeply worried way, that he/she had the most extraordinary intelligence report which showed conclusively that it was really Syria, not Libya, that bombed the Pan Am jet, and that the switch was pure expediency.

I asked if I could see the report, and my colleague declined, saying this was too sensitive and dangerous; the report was marked for named eyes only. That in itself was extremely unusual - normally we would pass intelligence reports freely to each other, signing the register for them.

Craig has some good commenters:

There are some such 'Affairs' that quite simply override any considerations of truth, honesty and justice for a mere individual. Seems to me that ME policy, ruled by the absolute Western Alliance imperative of maintaining a measure of control over what remains of the planets oil endowment, is the daddy of them all.

I do not know where the truth lies but the shannigans surrounding that Lockerbie conviction certainly render it suspect. It is refreshing that a tainted Scottish legal system has conceded as much and that the evidence will be re-aired; but I won't hold my breath on a different outcome if it requires light to be shed on those dark recesses. My guess is that TPTB will move heaven and earth to have that conviction upheld. In their world certain ends justify any means; the truth is what you (or rather 'they') make it and the public are simply lied to. It is one of the reasons why, at Privy Council level, the term 'Honest Politician' is an oxymoron.

When I saw the news item about the Lockerbie appeal my first thought was: I expect they will take the opportunity to pin it on Iran now, since there is obviously a major campaign to throw everything that has even half a chance of leaving a mark, let alone sticking, at Iran as part of the standard pre-attack demonisation.

Syria, I would have thought, is less likely to be officially implicated, because so far as I can tell, it doesn't seem any longer to be directly in the cross-hairs. I may be wrong on that, obviously, and certainly Syria is still a major target for those who most strongly influence US foreign policy. If they can't find any way to stick it on Iran, they will be happy to throw it at Syria.

It was touch and go a couple of years ago whether Syria or Iran would get hit first, imo. Most probably it is only the surprisingly strong resistance of Iraq to pacification that has saved both Syria and Iran from attack so far....

Personally, I'm sceptical enough about our capacity to convict the right person in the majority of ordinary criminal trials - anything that involves "security" is more likely a wrongful detention or conviction than not, imo, given the kind of "evidence" that gets used and the instinctive deference to authority of ordinary people (jurors, judges) in such situations.

This is something that people need to understand and bear in mind in debates on the death penalty, as well as government powers of detention. The state is both malign and incompetent, in general.

Also worth bearing in mind that the vast majority of those suffering Abu Ghraib-like treatment in Iraq and around the US' global archipelago of detention sites are just ordinary people unlucky enough to be picked up by the US state machinery, and not "terrorists" at all - at least, before they go in.

Only a fool would believe the unsupported word of the proven liars in the US and UK governments on anything regarding the ME, and most especially when it's bad-mouthing an "axis of evil" member.

I keep an open mind on the Lockerbie perpetrator's identity.

The only thing that is reasonably safe to assume at the moment, though, is that this is being reopened now in order to facilitate a desired attack on Iran by contributing to the ongoing demonisation campaign.

Lockerbie:

From late 1989 to 1992 I [Craig Murray] was the Head of the Maritime Section of the FCO and No 2 in the Aviation and Maritime Department (for those into FCO arcana, the Maritime Section was headed by a Grade 5 First Secretary and the Aviation Section by a Grade 6 First Secretary). This was the period of the invasion of Kuwait and first Gulf War, in which the Maritime Section, including me, mostly got picked up and deposited in an underground bunker as the FCO part of the Embargo Surveillance Centre. We did intelligence analysis on Iraqi attempts at weapons procurement and organised interdiction worldwide.

In this period I mostly lived in my underground bunker, quite literally, and didn't get back to the FCO much to keep an eye on the rest of my section. On one occasion when I did, I was told something remarkable by a colleague in Aviation section.

At this time we suddenly switched from blaming Iran and Syria for the Lockerbie bombing to blaming Libya. This was part of a diplomatic drive to isolate Iraq from its neighbours in the run-up to the invasion. Aviation section were seeing all the intelligence on Lockerbie, for obvious reasons. A colleague there told me, in a deeply worried way, that he/she had the most extraordinary intelligence report which showed conclusively that it was really Syria, not Libya, that bombed the Pan Am jet, and that the switch was pure expediency.

I asked if I could see the report, and my colleague declined, saying this was too sensitive and dangerous; the report was marked for named eyes only. That in itself was extremely unusual - normally we would pass intelligence reports freely to each other, signing the register for them.

Craig has some good commenters:

There are some such 'Affairs' that quite simply override any considerations of truth, honesty and justice for a mere individual. Seems to me that ME policy, ruled by the absolute Western Alliance imperative of maintaining a measure of control over what remains of the planets oil endowment, is the daddy of them all.

I do not know where the truth lies but the shannigans surrounding that Lockerbie conviction certainly render it suspect. It is refreshing that a tainted Scottish legal system has conceded as much and that the evidence will be re-aired; but I won't hold my breath on a different outcome if it requires light to be shed on those dark recesses. My guess is that TPTB will move heaven and earth to have that conviction upheld. In their world certain ends justify any means; the truth is what you (or rather 'they') make it and the public are simply lied to. It is one of the reasons why, at Privy Council level, the term 'Honest Politician' is an oxymoron.

When I saw the news item about the Lockerbie appeal my first thought was: I expect they will take the opportunity to pin it on Iran now, since there is obviously a major campaign to throw everything that has even half a chance of leaving a mark, let alone sticking, at Iran as part of the standard pre-attack demonisation.

Syria, I would have thought, is less likely to be officially implicated, because so far as I can tell, it doesn't seem any longer to be directly in the cross-hairs. I may be wrong on that, obviously, and certainly Syria is still a major target for those who most strongly influence US foreign policy. If they can't find any way to stick it on Iran, they will be happy to throw it at Syria.

It was touch and go a couple of years ago whether Syria or Iran would get hit first, imo. Most probably it is only the surprisingly strong resistance of Iraq to pacification that has saved both Syria and Iran from attack so far....

Personally, I'm sceptical enough about our capacity to convict the right person in the majority of ordinary criminal trials - anything that involves "security" is more likely a wrongful detention or conviction than not, imo, given the kind of "evidence" that gets used and the instinctive deference to authority of ordinary people (jurors, judges) in such situations.

This is something that people need to understand and bear in mind in debates on the death penalty, as well as government powers of detention. The state is both malign and incompetent, in general.

Also worth bearing in mind that the vast majority of those suffering Abu Ghraib-like treatment in Iraq and around the US' global archipelago of detention sites are just ordinary people unlucky enough to be picked up by the US state machinery, and not "terrorists" at all - at least, before they go in.

Only a fool would believe the unsupported word of the proven liars in the US and UK governments on anything regarding the ME, and most especially when it's bad-mouthing an "axis of evil" member.

I keep an open mind on the Lockerbie perpetrator's identity.

The only thing that is reasonably safe to assume at the moment, though, is that this is being reopened now in order to facilitate a desired attack on Iran by contributing to the ongoing demonisation campaign.

Craig Murray on Lockerbie affair

Liberal and Labor, make a call: how much heat can you stand?

The Age:

More than anything else, there is one number that really counts. It is the first step on the ladder of climate-change policy — and it is the one to which neither Labor nor the Coalition is willing to give an answer.

Given the science and likely impacts, how hot are we willing to let the planet get? Two degrees, three degrees, four degrees hotter?

And what risk will we accept of exceeding this target?

Temperatures have, already, risen 0.74 degrees above pre-industrial levels and, even if human activity added no more to current greenhouse gas levels, the planet will continue to warm about 1.4 degrees due to lags in the climate system.

The CSIRO last year predicted that, if we exceed a two-degree rise, 97 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef will be bleached annually and an 80 per cent loss of Kakadu's freshwater wetlands is likely. At just under three degrees, there's a 99 per cent risk of Greenland irreversibly melting, with an eventual global sea level rise of five to seven metres.

In the two to three-degree range, we can conservatively pencil in about 20 per cent of the planet's species becoming extinct and a one in five chance of the oceanic currents that regulate the planet's temperature simply shutting down.

A three-degree rise is simply way outside human experience. The last time it was that hot, in the Pliocene, 3 million years ago, beech trees grew in the Transantarctic mountains and seas were 25 metres higher.

If we can limit warming to less than two degrees, knowing about 1.4 degrees is already locked in, the consequences will still be severe, but the risk of triggering runaway climate-change events (where we lose the capacity to control the consequences) lessens significantly.

Such figures as quoted suggest both the seriousness and the immediacy of the problem. Stern stated that we had a narrow window of 10-15 years to address the problem. But both major parties are still playing politics with the issue and are fundamentally unserious about tackling it, especially the Liberals.

A CSIRO submission to the Prime Minister's emissions taskforce that says a 60 to 90 per cent cut to industrialised countries' emissions is needed to stabilise climate change.

But Australia, as one of the worst emitters among the industrialised countries, requires a cut at the higher end of this range.

The CSIRO research and other research makes it clear that the "temperature stabilisation" associated with a 60 per cent cut is considered by many as too risky, giving us a massive 80 to 85 per cent chance of overshooting a two-degree target. Labor's policy for Australia of a 60 per cent cut by 2050 is therefore more about hope than science.

Caught between the science and the politics, Labor's Peter Garrett talks vaguely in the two to three-degree range, never being specific, never committing Labor to putting even one foot on the first rung of the climate change policy ladder — an unambiguous target.

And Labor does not have a short-term target — in many ways much more important than targets five decades away.

The Greens policy is to achieve emissions cuts of 30 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050. This would give us an 80 per cent chance of keeping the temperature rise below two degrees. To maximise the chance of staying below two degrees, we must make big cuts early. For John Howard, a climate-change sceptic, this is more about smoothing over a political problem than real action. But Labor, too, falls short of the mark — they do not even set a temperature target.

Professor Tim Flannery, the Australian of the Year environmentalist, said recently his greatest wish was that political parties would state their "temperature limits" as to how hot the planet should get. The Greens recently moved a motion in the Senate to have a two-degree limit endorsed as Australia's target. The ALP joined with the Coalition to defeat the motion.

The Age:

More than anything else, there is one number that really counts. It is the first step on the ladder of climate-change policy — and it is the one to which neither Labor nor the Coalition is willing to give an answer.

Given the science and likely impacts, how hot are we willing to let the planet get? Two degrees, three degrees, four degrees hotter?

And what risk will we accept of exceeding this target?

Temperatures have, already, risen 0.74 degrees above pre-industrial levels and, even if human activity added no more to current greenhouse gas levels, the planet will continue to warm about 1.4 degrees due to lags in the climate system.

The CSIRO last year predicted that, if we exceed a two-degree rise, 97 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef will be bleached annually and an 80 per cent loss of Kakadu's freshwater wetlands is likely. At just under three degrees, there's a 99 per cent risk of Greenland irreversibly melting, with an eventual global sea level rise of five to seven metres.

In the two to three-degree range, we can conservatively pencil in about 20 per cent of the planet's species becoming extinct and a one in five chance of the oceanic currents that regulate the planet's temperature simply shutting down.

A three-degree rise is simply way outside human experience. The last time it was that hot, in the Pliocene, 3 million years ago, beech trees grew in the Transantarctic mountains and seas were 25 metres higher.

If we can limit warming to less than two degrees, knowing about 1.4 degrees is already locked in, the consequences will still be severe, but the risk of triggering runaway climate-change events (where we lose the capacity to control the consequences) lessens significantly.

Such figures as quoted suggest both the seriousness and the immediacy of the problem. Stern stated that we had a narrow window of 10-15 years to address the problem. But both major parties are still playing politics with the issue and are fundamentally unserious about tackling it, especially the Liberals.

A CSIRO submission to the Prime Minister's emissions taskforce that says a 60 to 90 per cent cut to industrialised countries' emissions is needed to stabilise climate change.

But Australia, as one of the worst emitters among the industrialised countries, requires a cut at the higher end of this range.

The CSIRO research and other research makes it clear that the "temperature stabilisation" associated with a 60 per cent cut is considered by many as too risky, giving us a massive 80 to 85 per cent chance of overshooting a two-degree target. Labor's policy for Australia of a 60 per cent cut by 2050 is therefore more about hope than science.

Caught between the science and the politics, Labor's Peter Garrett talks vaguely in the two to three-degree range, never being specific, never committing Labor to putting even one foot on the first rung of the climate change policy ladder — an unambiguous target.

And Labor does not have a short-term target — in many ways much more important than targets five decades away.

The Greens policy is to achieve emissions cuts of 30 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050. This would give us an 80 per cent chance of keeping the temperature rise below two degrees. To maximise the chance of staying below two degrees, we must make big cuts early. For John Howard, a climate-change sceptic, this is more about smoothing over a political problem than real action. But Labor, too, falls short of the mark — they do not even set a temperature target.

Professor Tim Flannery, the Australian of the Year environmentalist, said recently his greatest wish was that political parties would state their "temperature limits" as to how hot the planet should get. The Greens recently moved a motion in the Senate to have a two-degree limit endorsed as Australia's target. The ALP joined with the Coalition to defeat the motion.

Liberal and Labor, make a call: how much heat can you stand?

Jonathan Alter: Best Ideas for Fixing America? Listen to Gore, Bradley

Jonathan Alter: Best Ideas for Fixing America? Listen to Gore, Bradley: "There's another way to cut emissions that might be more politically palatable than a steep gas tax, which has long been a nonstarter. It's an even bigger idea--a 'sky trust,' as described briefly in the book 'Capitalism 3.0' by Peter Barnes, who argues that the atmosphere is a 'commons' that belongs to everyone. A sky trust would be modeled on the way Alaska handles oil revenue or how a waste-management company would operate if it owned dumping rights to the sky. Instead of the proceeds of a steep carbon tax going to the government, where it might be wasted, the 'assessments' would go into a huge trust, then sent back to all stakeholders (the public) in the form of a dividend check at the end of the year, the same amount for each person. Those who drive more and are thus assessed more also usually live in parts of the country where the cost of living is lower and the rebate check would go further. And people who cut their carbon footprints would likely end up ahead of the game."

This is similar to Jeff Smith's longheld idea of the Citizen's Dividend. It has the twin advantage that it is both just and efficient to declare the atmosphere a commons and to impose taxation on polluters in proportion to pollution. The cost of such a scheme would only be felt indirectly in terms of increased prices for carbon-heavy products, but the benefit would be directly appreciated in terms of the cheque to every citizen, thus maximising its chance of political acceptance.

Of course, there are other good claims on revenue so raised, for example that it should be invested in renewable energy or in public transport or other essential infrastructure. Perhaps an allocation in some proportion could be made, eg 50% dividend, 50% infrastructure. But some scheme of revenue hypothecation increasingly deserves serious consideration.

Jonathan Alter: Best Ideas for Fixing America? Listen to Gore, Bradley: "There's another way to cut emissions that might be more politically palatable than a steep gas tax, which has long been a nonstarter. It's an even bigger idea--a 'sky trust,' as described briefly in the book 'Capitalism 3.0' by Peter Barnes, who argues that the atmosphere is a 'commons' that belongs to everyone. A sky trust would be modeled on the way Alaska handles oil revenue or how a waste-management company would operate if it owned dumping rights to the sky. Instead of the proceeds of a steep carbon tax going to the government, where it might be wasted, the 'assessments' would go into a huge trust, then sent back to all stakeholders (the public) in the form of a dividend check at the end of the year, the same amount for each person. Those who drive more and are thus assessed more also usually live in parts of the country where the cost of living is lower and the rebate check would go further. And people who cut their carbon footprints would likely end up ahead of the game."

This is similar to Jeff Smith's longheld idea of the Citizen's Dividend. It has the twin advantage that it is both just and efficient to declare the atmosphere a commons and to impose taxation on polluters in proportion to pollution. The cost of such a scheme would only be felt indirectly in terms of increased prices for carbon-heavy products, but the benefit would be directly appreciated in terms of the cheque to every citizen, thus maximising its chance of political acceptance.

Of course, there are other good claims on revenue so raised, for example that it should be invested in renewable energy or in public transport or other essential infrastructure. Perhaps an allocation in some proportion could be made, eg 50% dividend, 50% infrastructure. But some scheme of revenue hypothecation increasingly deserves serious consideration.

Jonathan Alter: Best Ideas for Fixing America? Listen to Gore, Bradley

Henderson: Unseen faces on the ABC 'board'

Henderson on the ABC 'board': "Bob Hawke's Labor government clashed with the ABC over its lack of balance in covering the first Gulf War. Hawke maintained that the ABC was criticising his government from the left."

'Critising the government from the left' could serve as a useful definition of the very purpose of genuine journalism.

If its not doing this, then journalism is 'stenographing' government lies and propaganda, or worse, 'criticising it from the right', as in Michael Ledeen's infamous 'Faster, Please' demand for more war, death, chaos and destruction in the Middle East.

Henderson on the ABC 'board': "Bob Hawke's Labor government clashed with the ABC over its lack of balance in covering the first Gulf War. Hawke maintained that the ABC was criticising his government from the left."

'Critising the government from the left' could serve as a useful definition of the very purpose of genuine journalism.

If its not doing this, then journalism is 'stenographing' government lies and propaganda, or worse, 'criticising it from the right', as in Michael Ledeen's infamous 'Faster, Please' demand for more war, death, chaos and destruction in the Middle East.

Henderson: Unseen faces on the ABC 'board'

Al-Qaeda No.3 Threatens America

Ranting and railing, fingerpointing and threatening, Al-Qaeda No.3 Adam Yehiye Gadahn aka Azzam al-Amriki aka Adam the American launches a tirade (in English) against Bush and the 'Crusader Coalition.' Bombastic demands and threats are issued in more or less equal measure. Bush is attacked as a 'babykiller and war criminal' who sent the US on a 'death march to breakdown and disintegration.' Bush leads an 'empire of evil' and his crusade is a 'colossal failure'. He is 'losing on all fronts, and losing big time.' He 'lives in a cocoon of his own making, and prefers to remain ignorant.'

Australia gets an indirect mention as a 'loyal but stoopid ally'.

Well, if the US wants peace the terms have been pretty much laid down, according to Al-Qaeda. All they have to do is close their empire and withdraw from Muslim lands, 'from Afghanistan to Zanzibar'; stop aid for 'the bastard state of Israel', leave Islamic countries alone; end propaganda to Islam; release all Muslim prisoners etc. And the big news is, the US doesnt even have to give up its freedoms! All in all, not a bad deal for Americans, but of course totally uninteresting for the ruling corporate/political elite.

Ranting and railing, fingerpointing and threatening, Al-Qaeda No.3 Adam Yehiye Gadahn aka Azzam al-Amriki aka Adam the American launches a tirade (in English) against Bush and the 'Crusader Coalition.' Bombastic demands and threats are issued in more or less equal measure. Bush is attacked as a 'babykiller and war criminal' who sent the US on a 'death march to breakdown and disintegration.' Bush leads an 'empire of evil' and his crusade is a 'colossal failure'. He is 'losing on all fronts, and losing big time.' He 'lives in a cocoon of his own making, and prefers to remain ignorant.'

Australia gets an indirect mention as a 'loyal but stoopid ally'.

Well, if the US wants peace the terms have been pretty much laid down, according to Al-Qaeda. All they have to do is close their empire and withdraw from Muslim lands, 'from Afghanistan to Zanzibar'; stop aid for 'the bastard state of Israel', leave Islamic countries alone; end propaganda to Islam; release all Muslim prisoners etc. And the big news is, the US doesnt even have to give up its freedoms! All in all, not a bad deal for Americans, but of course totally uninteresting for the ruling corporate/political elite.

Al-Qaeda No.3 Threatens America

Noam Chomsky interviewed by Michael Shank

Chomsky Takes on the World (Bank), Noam Chomsky interviewed by Michael Shank:

Michael Shank: Given that the U.S. Congress is no longer calling for binding timelines for troop withdrawal, how is this indicative of a broader struggle between the executive and legislative branches?

Noam Chomsky: There are a number of issues. One is the unitary executive conception. The Republican Party happens to be right now in the hands of a very extreme fringe. That goes from the legal system and the Federalist Society to the executive and so on. What they basically want, to put it simply, is a kind of an elective dictatorship. The chief executive should have total control over the executive branch. And the executive branch should dominate the other branches. That’s an effective mode of authoritarian control, natural for those whose dislike of democracy goes beyond the norm.

There’s a real fascist streak there, definitely. And Congress, to some extent, is trying to recreate more of a balance between the executive and legislative branch. So that’s part of the struggle. Part of it is just that neither party is willing to face the consequences of a withdrawal from Iraq. It’s not a trivial matter. First of all, there’s almost no public discussion of the issues involved in the war. Why did we invade? Why don’t we want to get out?

I was listening to the National Public Radio tribute to David Halberstam the other day, and they had on Neil Sheehan, David Greenway, and others. They were talking correctly about these young reporters in Vietnam who with great courage stood up against power and told truth to power. Which is correct, but what truth did they tell to power? The truth they told to power was: "you’re not winning the war." I listened through the hour and there were never any questions like: should you be fighting the war or should you be invading another country? The answer to that is not the kind of truth you tell to power.

In fact, it’s rather similar to what critical journalists in the Soviet Union were saying in the 1980s. They were saying, “Yeah we’re not winning the war in Afghanistan.” From my point of view, that’s not telling truth to power. Truth to power would be: why are you invading Afghanistan, what right do you have to commit crimes against peace and against humanity? But that question never came up. And the same is true in the discussion of Iraq. The question of whether it’s legitimate to have a victory doesn’t even arise. In fact, the current debate about Iraq reminds me very much of the dove/hawk debate over Vietnam.

Take, for example, Arthur Schlesinger, leading historian, Kennedy advisor, and so on. He was originally a strong supporter of the war during the Kennedy years. But by the mid-1960s, there was a mood spreading in the country generally, but also among the elites, that the war is not wise, it’s harming us. Then he had a book that came out in 1966 called Bitter Heritage, which is very much like what’s happening today. He was one of the extreme liberal critics of the war by then. He said, “We all pray that the hawks will be correct in thinking that sending more troops will bring us victory. And if they are, we’ll be praising the wisdom and statesmanship of the American government in winning a victory in a land that they’ve left in wreck and ruin. But it doesn’t look like it’s going to work.”

You can translate that almost verbatim into the liberal dove critique of the war today. There’s no question about whether we are justified in invading another country. The only question is: is this tactic going to work, or is some other tactic going to work, or maybe no tactic and it’s costing us too much. And those are the limits of the presidential debates, the congressional discussion, and the media discussion.

Invading Iraq was the kind of crime for which Nazi war criminals were hanged at Nuremberg. They were hanged, primarily, for crimes against peace, i.e. aggression, the supreme international crime. Von Ribbentrop, foreign minister, was hanged. One of the main charges was that he supported a preemptive war against Norway. It’s kind of striking that at the end of the Nuremberg tribunal, the chief counsel for the prosecution Justice Robert Jackson, an American justice, made some pretty eloquent speeches about the nature of the tribunal. After the sentencing, he said, “We’re handing the defendants a poisoned chalice and if we sip from it we must be subject to the same charges and sentencing or else we’re just showing that the proceedings are a farce.” So if they mean anything the principles have to apply to us.

Try to find a discussion of that anywhere, either in the case of Vietnam or in the case of Iraq, or any other aggression.

This is what I call the Chomskyan Revolution: That the standards of criticism and condemnation that we apply to the crimes and atrocities of other powers should also be applied to ourselves, our friends and our allies. Prior to this revolution, it has not occured to most people that this should be done. It is almost subconsciously assumed that we are 'good' and they are 'evil'. But subsequent to Chomsky, people will be ashamed to be caught denouncing the crimes of Hitler or Genghis Khan or other enemies without having on record even more prominent condemnations of crimes for which we are responsible right now, and could stop - if we exercised our citizen's power.

Chomsky goes on in this interview to discuss Wolfowitz and the World Bank.

Chomsky Takes on the World (Bank), Noam Chomsky interviewed by Michael Shank:

Michael Shank: Given that the U.S. Congress is no longer calling for binding timelines for troop withdrawal, how is this indicative of a broader struggle between the executive and legislative branches?

Noam Chomsky: There are a number of issues. One is the unitary executive conception. The Republican Party happens to be right now in the hands of a very extreme fringe. That goes from the legal system and the Federalist Society to the executive and so on. What they basically want, to put it simply, is a kind of an elective dictatorship. The chief executive should have total control over the executive branch. And the executive branch should dominate the other branches. That’s an effective mode of authoritarian control, natural for those whose dislike of democracy goes beyond the norm.

There’s a real fascist streak there, definitely. And Congress, to some extent, is trying to recreate more of a balance between the executive and legislative branch. So that’s part of the struggle. Part of it is just that neither party is willing to face the consequences of a withdrawal from Iraq. It’s not a trivial matter. First of all, there’s almost no public discussion of the issues involved in the war. Why did we invade? Why don’t we want to get out?

I was listening to the National Public Radio tribute to David Halberstam the other day, and they had on Neil Sheehan, David Greenway, and others. They were talking correctly about these young reporters in Vietnam who with great courage stood up against power and told truth to power. Which is correct, but what truth did they tell to power? The truth they told to power was: "you’re not winning the war." I listened through the hour and there were never any questions like: should you be fighting the war or should you be invading another country? The answer to that is not the kind of truth you tell to power.

In fact, it’s rather similar to what critical journalists in the Soviet Union were saying in the 1980s. They were saying, “Yeah we’re not winning the war in Afghanistan.” From my point of view, that’s not telling truth to power. Truth to power would be: why are you invading Afghanistan, what right do you have to commit crimes against peace and against humanity? But that question never came up. And the same is true in the discussion of Iraq. The question of whether it’s legitimate to have a victory doesn’t even arise. In fact, the current debate about Iraq reminds me very much of the dove/hawk debate over Vietnam.

Take, for example, Arthur Schlesinger, leading historian, Kennedy advisor, and so on. He was originally a strong supporter of the war during the Kennedy years. But by the mid-1960s, there was a mood spreading in the country generally, but also among the elites, that the war is not wise, it’s harming us. Then he had a book that came out in 1966 called Bitter Heritage, which is very much like what’s happening today. He was one of the extreme liberal critics of the war by then. He said, “We all pray that the hawks will be correct in thinking that sending more troops will bring us victory. And if they are, we’ll be praising the wisdom and statesmanship of the American government in winning a victory in a land that they’ve left in wreck and ruin. But it doesn’t look like it’s going to work.”

You can translate that almost verbatim into the liberal dove critique of the war today. There’s no question about whether we are justified in invading another country. The only question is: is this tactic going to work, or is some other tactic going to work, or maybe no tactic and it’s costing us too much. And those are the limits of the presidential debates, the congressional discussion, and the media discussion.

Invading Iraq was the kind of crime for which Nazi war criminals were hanged at Nuremberg. They were hanged, primarily, for crimes against peace, i.e. aggression, the supreme international crime. Von Ribbentrop, foreign minister, was hanged. One of the main charges was that he supported a preemptive war against Norway. It’s kind of striking that at the end of the Nuremberg tribunal, the chief counsel for the prosecution Justice Robert Jackson, an American justice, made some pretty eloquent speeches about the nature of the tribunal. After the sentencing, he said, “We’re handing the defendants a poisoned chalice and if we sip from it we must be subject to the same charges and sentencing or else we’re just showing that the proceedings are a farce.” So if they mean anything the principles have to apply to us.

Try to find a discussion of that anywhere, either in the case of Vietnam or in the case of Iraq, or any other aggression.

This is what I call the Chomskyan Revolution: That the standards of criticism and condemnation that we apply to the crimes and atrocities of other powers should also be applied to ourselves, our friends and our allies. Prior to this revolution, it has not occured to most people that this should be done. It is almost subconsciously assumed that we are 'good' and they are 'evil'. But subsequent to Chomsky, people will be ashamed to be caught denouncing the crimes of Hitler or Genghis Khan or other enemies without having on record even more prominent condemnations of crimes for which we are responsible right now, and could stop - if we exercised our citizen's power.

Chomsky goes on in this interview to discuss Wolfowitz and the World Bank.

Noam Chomsky interviewed by Michael Shank

Review of A.Cockburn's Rumsfeld bio

Socialist Review: "What emerges is a transfixing portrait of a man whose vanity and venality are matched only by his ruthless careerism and serial incompetence."

"Rumsfeld's creepy obsession with disappearing off to take part in nuclear war simulation games for the Pentagon is also revealed. Cockburn quotes an official involved with organising these games: "Rumsfeld always wanted to move to retaliation as quickly as possible. He was one who always went for the extreme option."

"The sections on Iraq and the "war on terror" are full of extraordinary revelations. Cockburn provides detailed evidence about how Rumsfeld not only authorised torture in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib - he personally micromanaged it, issuing instructions from his Pentagon office as to how particular prisoners should be treated.

"But the most striking aspect of Cockburn's account of Rumsfeld is the portrait it paints of a US elite composed of thoroughly corrupt individuals who absolutely loathe each other. Marx famously described the ruling class as a "band of warring brothers". The levels of venom that the super-rich Republican hawks sling at each other are truly eye-popping."

Socialist Review: "What emerges is a transfixing portrait of a man whose vanity and venality are matched only by his ruthless careerism and serial incompetence."

"Rumsfeld's creepy obsession with disappearing off to take part in nuclear war simulation games for the Pentagon is also revealed. Cockburn quotes an official involved with organising these games: "Rumsfeld always wanted to move to retaliation as quickly as possible. He was one who always went for the extreme option."

"The sections on Iraq and the "war on terror" are full of extraordinary revelations. Cockburn provides detailed evidence about how Rumsfeld not only authorised torture in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib - he personally micromanaged it, issuing instructions from his Pentagon office as to how particular prisoners should be treated.

"But the most striking aspect of Cockburn's account of Rumsfeld is the portrait it paints of a US elite composed of thoroughly corrupt individuals who absolutely loathe each other. Marx famously described the ruling class as a "band of warring brothers". The levels of venom that the super-rich Republican hawks sling at each other are truly eye-popping."

Review of A.Cockburn's Rumsfeld bio

Israel: Mythologizing a 20th Century Accident - by Gabriel Kolko

Israel: Mythologizing a 20th Century Accident - by Gabriel Kolko: "A state based on religion rather than the will of all of its inhabitants was at the end of the 19th century not only a medieval notion but also a very eccentric idea"

You can say that again. It would be hard to imagine anything more bizarre or sillier than this Zionist idea.

It was also full of countless contradictions, based not merely on the conflicts between theological dogmas and democracy but also vast cultural differences among Jews, all of which were to appear later. Europe's Jews have precious little in common, and their mores and languages are very distinct. But the gap between Jews from Europe and those from the Arab world was far, far greater. Moreover, there were many radically different kinds of Zionism within a small movement, ranging from the religiously motivated to Marxists who wanted to cease being Jews altogether and, as Ber Borochov would have it, become "normal." In the end, all that was to unite Israel was a military ethic premised on a hatred of those "others" around them – and it was to become a warrior-state, a virtual Sparta dominated by its army....

In 1913 British Intelligence estimated that perhaps one percent of the Jews had Zionist affiliations, a figure that rose in the Russian Pale – which contained about six million Jews – as the war became longer.

It was scarcely an accident that in November 1917 Lord Arthur Balfour was to make Britain's historic endorsement of a Jewish homeland in their newly mandated territory of Palestine in a letter to Rothschild. Some of these Englishmen also shared the Biblical view that it was the destiny of Jews to return to their ancient soil. Others thought that this gesture would help keep Russia in the war, and that nefarious Jews had the influence to do so. Most saw a Jewish state as a means of consolidating British power in the vast Islamic region....

It is a Zionist myth that there were many Jews who wished to go to a primitive, hot, dusty place and did so. They did not – and all of the available numbers prove this conclusively.... For every Jew who went to Palestine from 1890 to 1924, at least 27 went to the Western Hemisphere alone....

Hitler's importance must always be set in a larger context. Without him there never would have been a flow of Jews out of Germany, and very probably no state of Israel, but also crucial was the U.S. 1924 Immigration Act. Migrants went to Palestine out of necessity, in the vast majority of cases, not choice. Both of these factors were crucial, and to determine their relative importance is an abstract, futile enterprise. But without either the Zionist project of creating a Jewish state in Palestine would have remained another exotic Viennese concoction, never to be realized, because while the Jews in the Diaspora were in favor of a Jewish state, virtually none living in safe nations were ever to uproot themselves and embark on Aliyah – the return to the ancient homeland. They had no reason to do so.

Israel: Mythologizing a 20th Century Accident - by Gabriel Kolko: "A state based on religion rather than the will of all of its inhabitants was at the end of the 19th century not only a medieval notion but also a very eccentric idea"

You can say that again. It would be hard to imagine anything more bizarre or sillier than this Zionist idea.

It was also full of countless contradictions, based not merely on the conflicts between theological dogmas and democracy but also vast cultural differences among Jews, all of which were to appear later. Europe's Jews have precious little in common, and their mores and languages are very distinct. But the gap between Jews from Europe and those from the Arab world was far, far greater. Moreover, there were many radically different kinds of Zionism within a small movement, ranging from the religiously motivated to Marxists who wanted to cease being Jews altogether and, as Ber Borochov would have it, become "normal." In the end, all that was to unite Israel was a military ethic premised on a hatred of those "others" around them – and it was to become a warrior-state, a virtual Sparta dominated by its army....

In 1913 British Intelligence estimated that perhaps one percent of the Jews had Zionist affiliations, a figure that rose in the Russian Pale – which contained about six million Jews – as the war became longer.

It was scarcely an accident that in November 1917 Lord Arthur Balfour was to make Britain's historic endorsement of a Jewish homeland in their newly mandated territory of Palestine in a letter to Rothschild. Some of these Englishmen also shared the Biblical view that it was the destiny of Jews to return to their ancient soil. Others thought that this gesture would help keep Russia in the war, and that nefarious Jews had the influence to do so. Most saw a Jewish state as a means of consolidating British power in the vast Islamic region....

It is a Zionist myth that there were many Jews who wished to go to a primitive, hot, dusty place and did so. They did not – and all of the available numbers prove this conclusively.... For every Jew who went to Palestine from 1890 to 1924, at least 27 went to the Western Hemisphere alone....

Hitler's importance must always be set in a larger context. Without him there never would have been a flow of Jews out of Germany, and very probably no state of Israel, but also crucial was the U.S. 1924 Immigration Act. Migrants went to Palestine out of necessity, in the vast majority of cases, not choice. Both of these factors were crucial, and to determine their relative importance is an abstract, futile enterprise. But without either the Zionist project of creating a Jewish state in Palestine would have remained another exotic Viennese concoction, never to be realized, because while the Jews in the Diaspora were in favor of a Jewish state, virtually none living in safe nations were ever to uproot themselves and embark on Aliyah – the return to the ancient homeland. They had no reason to do so.

Israel: Mythologizing a 20th Century Accident - by Gabriel Kolko

Helioleftism: Conservative bloggers denounce Heliocentrism as leftist/liberal plot

Blogs 4 Brownback: In the Republican candidate presidential debates not long ago, 3 out of 10 candidates, including Senator Sam Brownback, put up their hands and said they did not believe in evolution. More than 50% of Americans also do not believe. It's amazing how backward, ignorant and superstitious that country is. Of course it is in the interests of the ruling elite to keep them ignorant, and keep getting them out to vote for right-wing candidates that are drifting towards pseudo-fascism. Get a load of these comments:

What’s truly astounding is the ridiculous self-contradictory nonsense that NASA tries to foist on a gullible public. They say that space is a vacuum, and that they’ve actually been to outer space, but everybody knows that people explode when they’re placed in a vacuum.

So where are the exploding astronauts? Huh? Where are they?

Jesus does not look kindly upon fibbers, and those NASA people are going to have some explaining to do when the rapture comes....

The Helioleftists are so blinded by their own hatred of Jesus and America that it is impossible to reason with them. Just try casually mentioning the possibility that the earth may be stationary and the heathens will start calling you all sorts of nasty names - anything to distract from the fact that their argument is not based on logic or reasoning, but instead the result of blind faith from the brainwashing they received in our communist public school system.

Someone valiantly tries to refute these ideas but somehow I suspect the effort could be futile:

You are all so stupid that I’m losing faith in humanity as we speak.

The Earth is not flat. In fact, if you had a clue, you’d realize the Flat Earth Society is a JOKE website. The Earth is round. Believe me I take pictures of it with the satellite I’m paid to monitor every single day. Yes, a real satellite that is actually IN space. Believe it you tin-foil hat wearing retards.

The Earth does revolve around the sun. Copernicus was right. You are a moron. Just because you can’t possibly comprehend how to scientifically use your brains to uncover facts about our universe that are previously unknown doesn’t mean you should dog on the guy that put in all the hard work to figure it out.

Astronauts don’t explode in space because of a little thing called PRESSURIZED ENVIRONMENTS. A pressurized environment mimics the AIR PRESSURE that we experience down on Earth. If you paid attention in 7th grade science class and were not living in la-la land, you would know this.

I’m a Christian, and I’m pretty sure Jesus loves everyone, even you. You’re lucky in this regard, because you’re pretty much pissing everyone off who God blessed with a completely functional brain. I’m sorry about your lack of intellect and your amazing ability to get wrapped up in anything that anyone posts online says, but you should all consider martyrdom for the sake of the herd to become stronger. Just look at those fun people at the Heaven’s Gate, they really helped out society, just as I have faith that you will too.

Brownback supporters fight back with what I have to admit is one of the more innovative arguments against global warming:

Once you start tugging, the whole rotten edifice of “science” comes crashing down. The periodic table, for example, is obviously satanist.

And if there’s no globe, there’s no global warming!

Evil is simply self-serving lies, to justify violence, crimes and injustice; and to persuade or dull people into submission. In the war of ideas, the fight for truth and justice, I believe firmly that all citizens must engage, including scientists, and relentlessly refute the lies and make the argument for truth, with patience, logic and evidence. As Chomsky said, the responsibility of intellectuals (and citizens) is clear: to speak the truth and to expose lies. Thus the following is a kind of modern day hero. But even Chomsky would have got fed up with this, decades ago:

You have doubts because you are ignorant. That is not an insult; I am not calling you dumb, just very poorly educated. The “logical arguments” that you use to develop your model of the universe are flawed.

For example: you posted that if the earth is round then things will slide off the top of it. The problem with that is that if the earth is round there is no top! In fact the sand falling off a beach ball can be used to prove that there is gravity, and that it does indeed point towards the mass center of a round earth. You can do the experiment yourself, if you don’t trust anyone else. Just record very accurately which way sand falls, move a few hundred miles in any direction and test it again. Repeat as often as you want. You will see that the direction that the sand falls at each location is directly toward a point, locating the mass center of the earth. If the earth was flat the results of the test would result in the problems for a flat earth that you state for a round earth! As you moved farther away from the direction that the sand falls you would be pulled at steeper and steeper angles relative to the surface of a flat earth. But for a round earth you are simple pulled toward the center, and the surface is on average perpendicular to the lines through the center, making standing straight up, mean standing straight away from the center. Up is out.

Science is a very simple thing, which allows mere mortals as you and I to find the truth. You don’t have to philosophize, guess, or believe in mythologies. You can know the answers for many questions, and prove them repeatable entirely yourself, with no need for liars (be they scientists or preachers, anyone can lie) to be involved. Simply pose a possible answer to your question, determine a way to test the answer and perform the test. That is all science is: A test to determine the truth of a possible answer to a question. I don’t think that a method for finding the truth should be considered evil by anyone.

I think it is very important that humans stop basing our actions on beliefs. Creatures like us that have very powerful tools can do too much damage that way. If you have a gun, and you believe a bad guy is in your house and you shoot, there is a chance of killing your friend. You can not afford to base that action on what you believe, you must absolutely know before you shoot.

If you are the commander in chief of a nation that has incredibly powerful military capabilities, including nuclear weapons, you can not “shoot” based on what you believe. You can do too much damage that way. You need to know.

If a guy like you doesn’t know, then he should not be trying to telling others about science… you can do too much damage that way. And trust me, based on the statements that you make I can KNOW that you do not know.

Naturally, many of these right-wingers are angered by what they call the 'liberal bias' which they see everwhere, such as in Wikipedia. So they create their own:

Conservapedia is just like Wikipedia, except that its 11,000 entries read like they were personally vetted by Pat Robertson and the 700 Club. Fed up with Wikipedia's purported liberal bias, Conservapedia's founder, Andrew Schlafly, son of conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, has created "an encyclopedia you can trust."

And you can trust them, to give you some pretty loopy definitions. Their entry on kangaroos, for instance, says that, "like all modern animals . . . kangaroos are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood."

You may not recognize the word "baramin." It's a 20th-century creationist neologism that refers to the species God placed on earth during Creation Week. Special for kids: I wouldn't use that word on the biology final. Although maybe your parents could sue the local school board for failing to teach the Book of Genesis in science class.

More on Conserva-kangaroos: "After the Flood, these kangaroos bred from the Ark passengers migrated to Australia. There is debate whether this migration happened over land with lower sea levels during the post-flood ice age, or before the supercontinent of Pangea broke apart, or if they rafted on mats of vegetation torn up by the receding flood waters."

What I would give right now for an image of several kangaroos on a vegetation mat raft paddling all the way from Mt Ararat to Australia.

Blogs 4 Brownback: In the Republican candidate presidential debates not long ago, 3 out of 10 candidates, including Senator Sam Brownback, put up their hands and said they did not believe in evolution. More than 50% of Americans also do not believe. It's amazing how backward, ignorant and superstitious that country is. Of course it is in the interests of the ruling elite to keep them ignorant, and keep getting them out to vote for right-wing candidates that are drifting towards pseudo-fascism. Get a load of these comments:

What’s truly astounding is the ridiculous self-contradictory nonsense that NASA tries to foist on a gullible public. They say that space is a vacuum, and that they’ve actually been to outer space, but everybody knows that people explode when they’re placed in a vacuum.

So where are the exploding astronauts? Huh? Where are they?

Jesus does not look kindly upon fibbers, and those NASA people are going to have some explaining to do when the rapture comes....

The Helioleftists are so blinded by their own hatred of Jesus and America that it is impossible to reason with them. Just try casually mentioning the possibility that the earth may be stationary and the heathens will start calling you all sorts of nasty names - anything to distract from the fact that their argument is not based on logic or reasoning, but instead the result of blind faith from the brainwashing they received in our communist public school system.

Someone valiantly tries to refute these ideas but somehow I suspect the effort could be futile:

You are all so stupid that I’m losing faith in humanity as we speak.

The Earth is not flat. In fact, if you had a clue, you’d realize the Flat Earth Society is a JOKE website. The Earth is round. Believe me I take pictures of it with the satellite I’m paid to monitor every single day. Yes, a real satellite that is actually IN space. Believe it you tin-foil hat wearing retards.

The Earth does revolve around the sun. Copernicus was right. You are a moron. Just because you can’t possibly comprehend how to scientifically use your brains to uncover facts about our universe that are previously unknown doesn’t mean you should dog on the guy that put in all the hard work to figure it out.

Astronauts don’t explode in space because of a little thing called PRESSURIZED ENVIRONMENTS. A pressurized environment mimics the AIR PRESSURE that we experience down on Earth. If you paid attention in 7th grade science class and were not living in la-la land, you would know this.

I’m a Christian, and I’m pretty sure Jesus loves everyone, even you. You’re lucky in this regard, because you’re pretty much pissing everyone off who God blessed with a completely functional brain. I’m sorry about your lack of intellect and your amazing ability to get wrapped up in anything that anyone posts online says, but you should all consider martyrdom for the sake of the herd to become stronger. Just look at those fun people at the Heaven’s Gate, they really helped out society, just as I have faith that you will too.

Brownback supporters fight back with what I have to admit is one of the more innovative arguments against global warming:

Once you start tugging, the whole rotten edifice of “science” comes crashing down. The periodic table, for example, is obviously satanist.

And if there’s no globe, there’s no global warming!

Evil is simply self-serving lies, to justify violence, crimes and injustice; and to persuade or dull people into submission. In the war of ideas, the fight for truth and justice, I believe firmly that all citizens must engage, including scientists, and relentlessly refute the lies and make the argument for truth, with patience, logic and evidence. As Chomsky said, the responsibility of intellectuals (and citizens) is clear: to speak the truth and to expose lies. Thus the following is a kind of modern day hero. But even Chomsky would have got fed up with this, decades ago:

You have doubts because you are ignorant. That is not an insult; I am not calling you dumb, just very poorly educated. The “logical arguments” that you use to develop your model of the universe are flawed.

For example: you posted that if the earth is round then things will slide off the top of it. The problem with that is that if the earth is round there is no top! In fact the sand falling off a beach ball can be used to prove that there is gravity, and that it does indeed point towards the mass center of a round earth. You can do the experiment yourself, if you don’t trust anyone else. Just record very accurately which way sand falls, move a few hundred miles in any direction and test it again. Repeat as often as you want. You will see that the direction that the sand falls at each location is directly toward a point, locating the mass center of the earth. If the earth was flat the results of the test would result in the problems for a flat earth that you state for a round earth! As you moved farther away from the direction that the sand falls you would be pulled at steeper and steeper angles relative to the surface of a flat earth. But for a round earth you are simple pulled toward the center, and the surface is on average perpendicular to the lines through the center, making standing straight up, mean standing straight away from the center. Up is out.

Science is a very simple thing, which allows mere mortals as you and I to find the truth. You don’t have to philosophize, guess, or believe in mythologies. You can know the answers for many questions, and prove them repeatable entirely yourself, with no need for liars (be they scientists or preachers, anyone can lie) to be involved. Simply pose a possible answer to your question, determine a way to test the answer and perform the test. That is all science is: A test to determine the truth of a possible answer to a question. I don’t think that a method for finding the truth should be considered evil by anyone.

I think it is very important that humans stop basing our actions on beliefs. Creatures like us that have very powerful tools can do too much damage that way. If you have a gun, and you believe a bad guy is in your house and you shoot, there is a chance of killing your friend. You can not afford to base that action on what you believe, you must absolutely know before you shoot.

If you are the commander in chief of a nation that has incredibly powerful military capabilities, including nuclear weapons, you can not “shoot” based on what you believe. You can do too much damage that way. You need to know.

If a guy like you doesn’t know, then he should not be trying to telling others about science… you can do too much damage that way. And trust me, based on the statements that you make I can KNOW that you do not know.

Naturally, many of these right-wingers are angered by what they call the 'liberal bias' which they see everwhere, such as in Wikipedia. So they create their own:

Conservapedia is just like Wikipedia, except that its 11,000 entries read like they were personally vetted by Pat Robertson and the 700 Club. Fed up with Wikipedia's purported liberal bias, Conservapedia's founder, Andrew Schlafly, son of conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, has created "an encyclopedia you can trust."

And you can trust them, to give you some pretty loopy definitions. Their entry on kangaroos, for instance, says that, "like all modern animals . . . kangaroos are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood."

You may not recognize the word "baramin." It's a 20th-century creationist neologism that refers to the species God placed on earth during Creation Week. Special for kids: I wouldn't use that word on the biology final. Although maybe your parents could sue the local school board for failing to teach the Book of Genesis in science class.

More on Conserva-kangaroos: "After the Flood, these kangaroos bred from the Ark passengers migrated to Australia. There is debate whether this migration happened over land with lower sea levels during the post-flood ice age, or before the supercontinent of Pangea broke apart, or if they rafted on mats of vegetation torn up by the receding flood waters."

What I would give right now for an image of several kangaroos on a vegetation mat raft paddling all the way from Mt Ararat to Australia.

Helioleftism: Conservative bloggers denounce Heliocentrism as leftist/liberal plot

Latest Scary Airport Terrorist Plot Probably a Fraud Just Like the Rest of Them

I don’t believe ‘em for a second: "There’s no al Qaeda in America. As always, the biggest threat to our lives and liberties is the national government of the United States. Now you know how the rest of the world feels.

"Partial list of bogus domestic terrorism plots “busted” by the Federal Cops since 9/11 (all the false warnings are too numerous to mention.)"

See the article for the list. Government loves terror plots in the same way it loves war: the best excuse to increase power, diminish liberty and justify its existence. 'War is the health of the State.'

I don’t believe ‘em for a second: "There’s no al Qaeda in America. As always, the biggest threat to our lives and liberties is the national government of the United States. Now you know how the rest of the world feels.

"Partial list of bogus domestic terrorism plots “busted” by the Federal Cops since 9/11 (all the false warnings are too numerous to mention.)"

See the article for the list. Government loves terror plots in the same way it loves war: the best excuse to increase power, diminish liberty and justify its existence. 'War is the health of the State.'

Latest Scary Airport Terrorist Plot Probably a Fraud Just Like the Rest of Them

The Real Ugliness of Religious Fundamentalism

Eliyahu advocates carpet bombing Gaza: "'If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand,' said Shmuel Eliyahu. 'And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop.'"

As Chris Floyd says, why not six million? But there are only about one million Palestinians in the Gaza strip so one million would be a virtual genocide.

Don't make peace with the Palestinians, say, along the lines of the Arab League offer. Instead, murder them - all of them. Read the article again - the Rabbi said this, wrote to the Prime Minister in fact. How can such a person have any position in Israel or anywhere else for that matter? This sort of thing brings down lethal disgrace and discredit for Israel, Zionism and the 'Jewish State.'

Year ago a big fuss and a bunch of denials were made when Israel Shahak alleged that a Rabbi taught that you need not help an Arab in distress on the Sabbath. Now look at the genocidal, murderous filth coming from a 'religious leader'.

When a position is indefensible logically or morally, when it is mere militarism, authoritarianism, imperialism and land hunger, religious fanaticism may be invoked. Perhaps this explains the rise of fundamentalism in the US, Israel and Al-Qaeda. Naturally it is a perversion of religion which brings it into the deepest disrepute.

Eliyahu advocates carpet bombing Gaza: "'If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand,' said Shmuel Eliyahu. 'And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop.'"

As Chris Floyd says, why not six million? But there are only about one million Palestinians in the Gaza strip so one million would be a virtual genocide.

Don't make peace with the Palestinians, say, along the lines of the Arab League offer. Instead, murder them - all of them. Read the article again - the Rabbi said this, wrote to the Prime Minister in fact. How can such a person have any position in Israel or anywhere else for that matter? This sort of thing brings down lethal disgrace and discredit for Israel, Zionism and the 'Jewish State.'

Year ago a big fuss and a bunch of denials were made when Israel Shahak alleged that a Rabbi taught that you need not help an Arab in distress on the Sabbath. Now look at the genocidal, murderous filth coming from a 'religious leader'.

When a position is indefensible logically or morally, when it is mere militarism, authoritarianism, imperialism and land hunger, religious fanaticism may be invoked. Perhaps this explains the rise of fundamentalism in the US, Israel and Al-Qaeda. Naturally it is a perversion of religion which brings it into the deepest disrepute.

The Real Ugliness of Religious Fundamentalism

AEI favours carbon tax over cap & trade

Even the American Enterprise Institute is critiquing the 'cap and trade' proposal: This is one of the better articles (with argument and figures) explaining and advocating the carbon tax.

Establishing allowances and accounting systems for GHG emissions across industries is going to be vastly more difficult and highly politicized. The forest products industry, for example, will reasonably want credits for creating carbon sinks in the trees it plants and harvests, but the manufacturing sector that uses these wood products as a raw material will want credit for sequestering carbon. The difference will have to be split in some arbitrary manner that will surely introduce economic distortions in the marketplace. The auto industry will want credits for GHG innovations, while industries and businesses of all kinds will lobby for credits for reducing mobile source emissions from changes to their auto and truck fleets. There are going to be winners and losers in this allocation process. Multiply this problem across sectors and industries and it becomes evident that a GHG emissions-trading system is going to be highly complex and unwieldy, and too susceptible to rent-seeking influence in Washington. The problem of politically adjusting competing interests will be compounded on the international scale. The long-running diplomatic conflicts that can be observed over purported subsidies for aircraft (i.e., Boeing versus Airbus) and the European Union's agricultural subsidies and trade barriers are examples of the kinds of conflicts that will be endemic to any international emissions-trading scheme.

The favored solution to these problems is to over-allocate the number of initial permits both to ease the cost and to encourage the rapid start-up of a market for trades. This was the course the European Union took with its Emissions Trading System (ETS), and it has very nearly led to the collapse of the system. Because emissions permits were over-allocated, the price of emissions permits plummeted, and little--if any--emissions reductions have taken place because of the ETS. The over-allocation of initial permits merely postpones both emissions cuts and the economic pain involved.

In addition to that, if permits are granted without charge it is a vast handover of a now-valuable public resource (the atmosphere) to the polluting parties themselves with no compensation to the public which must suffer. In other words it is a vast privatisation or enclosure of the commons, and it seems to me that this factor is what drives its 'popularity' ahead of a better solution, the carbon tax.

Most economists believe a carbon tax (a tax on the quantity of CO2 emitted when using energy) would be a superior policy alternative to an emissions-trading regime. In fact, the irony is that there is a broad consensus in favor of a carbon tax everywhere except on Capitol Hill, where the "T word" is anathema....

There are many reasons for preferring a revenue-neutral carbon tax regime (in which taxes are placed on the carbon emissions of fuel use, with revenues used to reduce other taxes) to emissions trading. Among them are:

* Effectiveness and Efficiency. A revenue-neutral carbon tax shift is almost certain to reduce GHG emissions efficiently. As economist William Pizer observes, "Specifically, a carbon tax equal to the damage per ton of CO2 will lead to exactly the right balance between the cost of reducing emissions and the resulting benefits of less global warming."[10] Despite the popular assumption that a cap-and-trade regime is more certain because it is a quantity control rather than a price control, such a scheme only works in very limited circumstances that do not apply to GHG control. The great potential for fraud attendant on such a system creates significant doubt about its effectiveness, as experience has shown in both theory and practice in the gyrations of the European ETS.

The likelihood of effectiveness also cannot be said for regulations such as increased vehicle fuel economy standards....

* Incentive Creation. [otherwise known as Incentive Taxation] Putting a price on the carbon emissions attendant on fuel use would create numerous incentives to reduce the use of carbon-intensive energy. The increased costs of energy would flow through the economy, ultimately giving consumers incentives to reduce their use of electricity, transportation fuels, home heating oil, and so forth. Consumers, motivated by the tax, would have incentives to buy more efficient appliances, to buy and drive more efficient cars, and to better insulate their homes or construct them with more attention to energy conservation. A carbon tax would also create incentives for consumers to demand lower-carbon power sources from their local utilities. A carbon tax, as its cost flowed down the chains of production into consumer products, would lead manufacturers to become more efficient and consumers to economize in consumption. At all levels in the economy, a carbon tax would create a profit niche for environmental entrepreneurs to find ways to deliver lower-carbon energy at competitive prices. Finally, a carbon tax would also serve to level (somewhat) the playing field among solar power, wind power, nuclear power, and carbon-based fuels by internalizing the cost of carbon emission into the price of the various forms of energy.

* Less Corruption. Unlike carbon cap-and-trade initiatives, a carbon tax would create little incentive or opportunity for rent-seeking or cheating.

The article continues, describing a number of other advantages such as Elimination of superfluous regulations, price stabilization, adjustability and certainty, Preexisting Collection Mechanisms, Keeping Revenue In-Country, Mitigation of General Economic Damages. One benefit that is not mentioned is the mere fact of revenue raised, which could be advantageously expended in the form of public transport, research and education, or other essential infrastructure. Instead, in keeping with the overriding dogma that all taxes are bad (which is completely refuted by this whole argument in favour of carbon taxes), the article insists that any carbon tax must be revenue neutral.

The article then gives some useful projection on the impacts of an initial imposition of a carbon tax.

It seems clear enough that the case for the carbon tax has been made, it is only politics in the negative and damaging sense of the word that is preventing this necessary policy from coming forward sooner rather than later. One way of overcoming this political resistance could be to insist that an across the board carbon tax with no exemptions be introduced as soon as possible, but the that rate of the tax initially imposed could be responsive to political pressure.

Even the American Enterprise Institute is critiquing the 'cap and trade' proposal: This is one of the better articles (with argument and figures) explaining and advocating the carbon tax.

Establishing allowances and accounting systems for GHG emissions across industries is going to be vastly more difficult and highly politicized. The forest products industry, for example, will reasonably want credits for creating carbon sinks in the trees it plants and harvests, but the manufacturing sector that uses these wood products as a raw material will want credit for sequestering carbon. The difference will have to be split in some arbitrary manner that will surely introduce economic distortions in the marketplace. The auto industry will want credits for GHG innovations, while industries and businesses of all kinds will lobby for credits for reducing mobile source emissions from changes to their auto and truck fleets. There are going to be winners and losers in this allocation process. Multiply this problem across sectors and industries and it becomes evident that a GHG emissions-trading system is going to be highly complex and unwieldy, and too susceptible to rent-seeking influence in Washington. The problem of politically adjusting competing interests will be compounded on the international scale. The long-running diplomatic conflicts that can be observed over purported subsidies for aircraft (i.e., Boeing versus Airbus) and the European Union's agricultural subsidies and trade barriers are examples of the kinds of conflicts that will be endemic to any international emissions-trading scheme.

The favored solution to these problems is to over-allocate the number of initial permits both to ease the cost and to encourage the rapid start-up of a market for trades. This was the course the European Union took with its Emissions Trading System (ETS), and it has very nearly led to the collapse of the system. Because emissions permits were over-allocated, the price of emissions permits plummeted, and little--if any--emissions reductions have taken place because of the ETS. The over-allocation of initial permits merely postpones both emissions cuts and the economic pain involved.

In addition to that, if permits are granted without charge it is a vast handover of a now-valuable public resource (the atmosphere) to the polluting parties themselves with no compensation to the public which must suffer. In other words it is a vast privatisation or enclosure of the commons, and it seems to me that this factor is what drives its 'popularity' ahead of a better solution, the carbon tax.

Most economists believe a carbon tax (a tax on the quantity of CO2 emitted when using energy) would be a superior policy alternative to an emissions-trading regime. In fact, the irony is that there is a broad consensus in favor of a carbon tax everywhere except on Capitol Hill, where the "T word" is anathema....

There are many reasons for preferring a revenue-neutral carbon tax regime (in which taxes are placed on the carbon emissions of fuel use, with revenues used to reduce other taxes) to emissions trading. Among them are:

* Effectiveness and Efficiency. A revenue-neutral carbon tax shift is almost certain to reduce GHG emissions efficiently. As economist William Pizer observes, "Specifically, a carbon tax equal to the damage per ton of CO2 will lead to exactly the right balance between the cost of reducing emissions and the resulting benefits of less global warming."[10] Despite the popular assumption that a cap-and-trade regime is more certain because it is a quantity control rather than a price control, such a scheme only works in very limited circumstances that do not apply to GHG control. The great potential for fraud attendant on such a system creates significant doubt about its effectiveness, as experience has shown in both theory and practice in the gyrations of the European ETS.

The likelihood of effectiveness also cannot be said for regulations such as increased vehicle fuel economy standards....

* Incentive Creation. [otherwise known as Incentive Taxation] Putting a price on the carbon emissions attendant on fuel use would create numerous incentives to reduce the use of carbon-intensive energy. The increased costs of energy would flow through the economy, ultimately giving consumers incentives to reduce their use of electricity, transportation fuels, home heating oil, and so forth. Consumers, motivated by the tax, would have incentives to buy more efficient appliances, to buy and drive more efficient cars, and to better insulate their homes or construct them with more attention to energy conservation. A carbon tax would also create incentives for consumers to demand lower-carbon power sources from their local utilities. A carbon tax, as its cost flowed down the chains of production into consumer products, would lead manufacturers to become more efficient and consumers to economize in consumption. At all levels in the economy, a carbon tax would create a profit niche for environmental entrepreneurs to find ways to deliver lower-carbon energy at competitive prices. Finally, a carbon tax would also serve to level (somewhat) the playing field among solar power, wind power, nuclear power, and carbon-based fuels by internalizing the cost of carbon emission into the price of the various forms of energy.

* Less Corruption. Unlike carbon cap-and-trade initiatives, a carbon tax would create little incentive or opportunity for rent-seeking or cheating.

The article continues, describing a number of other advantages such as Elimination of superfluous regulations, price stabilization, adjustability and certainty, Preexisting Collection Mechanisms, Keeping Revenue In-Country, Mitigation of General Economic Damages. One benefit that is not mentioned is the mere fact of revenue raised, which could be advantageously expended in the form of public transport, research and education, or other essential infrastructure. Instead, in keeping with the overriding dogma that all taxes are bad (which is completely refuted by this whole argument in favour of carbon taxes), the article insists that any carbon tax must be revenue neutral.

The article then gives some useful projection on the impacts of an initial imposition of a carbon tax.

It seems clear enough that the case for the carbon tax has been made, it is only politics in the negative and damaging sense of the word that is preventing this necessary policy from coming forward sooner rather than later. One way of overcoming this political resistance could be to insist that an across the board carbon tax with no exemptions be introduced as soon as possible, but the that rate of the tax initially imposed could be responsive to political pressure.

AEI favours carbon tax over cap & trade

The Trillion-Dollar Defense Budget Is Already Here

Robert Higgs tries to assess the 'true' size of the US military budget. The argument is summarised in a chart with a breakdown of estimates.

Robert Higgs tries to assess the 'true' size of the US military budget. The argument is summarised in a chart with a breakdown of estimates.

The Trillion-Dollar Defense Budget Is Already Here

Financing the War

Henry George on financing the US civil war:

[08] As I have before said, the wealth expended in carrying on the war did not come from abroad or from the future, but from the existing wealth in the States under the national flag, and if, when we called on men to die for their country, we had not shrunk from taking, if necessary, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand dollars from every millionaire, we need not have created any debt. But instead of that, what taxation we did impose was so levied as to fall on the poor more heavily than on the rich, and incidentally to establish monopolies by which the rich could profit at the expense of the poor. And then, when more wealth still was needed, instead of taking it from those who had it, we told the rich that if they would voluntarily let the nation use some of their wealth we would make it profitable to them by guaranteeing the use of the taxing power to pay them back, principal and interest. And we did make it profitable with a vengeance. Not only did we, by the institution of the national banking system, give them back nine-tenths of much of the money thus borrowed while continuing to pay interest on the whole amount, but even where it was required neither by the letter of the bond nor the equity of the circumstances we made debt incurred in depreciated greenbacks payable on its face in gold. The consequence of this method of carrying on the war was to make the rich richer instead of poorer. The era of monstrous fortunes in the United States dates from the war.

Michael Hudson wrote a very interesting book about this subject which I hope people are familiar with: Super Imperialism.

It can be obtained from amazon or the full text is available from Hudson's website at:

http://michael-hudson.com/books/superimperialism.pdf

There is also an interesting email discussion with Hudson archived at:

http://michael-hudson.com/books/super_imperialism_alist_discussion.html

Hudson argues that it basically works like this:

* the US imports goods from China and other places but doesn't export anything much in return.

* the US pays for its imports with US dollars.

* China and other countries send the US dollars back to the US in exchange for US treasury notes, ie US debt or promises to pay later (with interest).

* Foreign purchases of US bonds plug the federal budget deficit.

* Going off the global dollar standard is not allowed as this means war with the US.

* this goes on forever. Or does it? Eventually the system has to go bust, basically with huge devaluations of the dollar. This means US treasury notes could be worth half or less of what they were when the Chinese bought them. With a devaluation of the dollar, the US will essentially renege on its promise to pay. In other words, 'we imported all your manufactures, but we aint giving much in return. Sorry.'

Of course, at this point the empire is bust and the global economic system that depends on it.

In recent years there have been fears of an almighty dollar crash. This hasn't happened, instead there has been a steady decline, which is probably safer.

Hudson is arguing that the US is absorbing the economic surpluses of China (and the world) and giving nothing but paper in return. And of course, what the US does with its money and surpluses is invest it in its bloated military (bigger than the rest of the world combined) to maintain the empire including these advantageous financial arrangements.

NB. The official military budget of the US does not include "many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance and production (which is in the Department of Energy budget), Veterans Affairs or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which are largely funded through extra-budgetary supplements, e.g. $120Bi in 2007)." One would think that this is a rather odd way of counting military spending. Perhaps the US is trying to convince itself and the world that it is not spending that much money on war, really. According to Chalmers Johnson, the real military budget of the US is nearly one trillion dollars per annum.

So yes, as George argues, it is real wealth that is being taken and consumed through debt, but in this case its not the wealth of the US, its the wealth of China and others. They are paying and supporting the US empire.


George's comments on English national debt might just as well apply to the gigantic US national debt of today:

[10] In paying interest upon their enormous national debt, what is it that the people of England are paying? They are paying interest upon sums thrown or given away by profligate tyrants and corrupt oligarchies in generations past -- upon grants made to courtezans, and panders, and sycophants, and traitors to the liberties of their country; upon sums borrowed to corrupt their own legislatures and wage wars against both their own liberties and the liberties of other peoples. For the Hessians hired and the Indians armed and the fleets and armies sent to crush the American colonies into submission, with the effect of splitting into two what might but for that have perhaps yet been one great confederated nation; for the cost of treading down the Irish people and inflicting wounds that yet rankle; for the enormous sums spent in the endeavor to maintain on the continent of Europe the blasphemy of divine right; for expenditures made to carry rapine among unoffending peoples in the four quarters of the globe, Englishmen of to~day are taxed. It is not the case of asking a man to pay a debt contracted by his great-grandfather; it is asking him to pay for the rope with which his great-grandfather was hanged, or the fagots with which he was burned.

In Fiscal Year 2006, the U. S. Government spent $406 Billion on interest payments to the holders of the National Debt. The interest expense paid on the National Debt is the third largest expense in the federal budget. Only Defense and income redistribution are higher.

When the interest on the debt gets to be nearly as big as the official defence spending itself, we're sort of running to stand still, aren't we? I know! Let's run a $500b budget deficit and borrow more money! That squares the circle nicely, and after all, as Dick 'Deficits dont Matter' Cheney said, Deficits Dont Matter. I'll bet you he thinks Defeats Dont Matter either.

Henry George on financing the US civil war:

[08] As I have before said, the wealth expended in carrying on the war did not come from abroad or from the future, but from the existing wealth in the States under the national flag, and if, when we called on men to die for their country, we had not shrunk from taking, if necessary, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand dollars from every millionaire, we need not have created any debt. But instead of that, what taxation we did impose was so levied as to fall on the poor more heavily than on the rich, and incidentally to establish monopolies by which the rich could profit at the expense of the poor. And then, when more wealth still was needed, instead of taking it from those who had it, we told the rich that if they would voluntarily let the nation use some of their wealth we would make it profitable to them by guaranteeing the use of the taxing power to pay them back, principal and interest. And we did make it profitable with a vengeance. Not only did we, by the institution of the national banking system, give them back nine-tenths of much of the money thus borrowed while continuing to pay interest on the whole amount, but even where it was required neither by the letter of the bond nor the equity of the circumstances we made debt incurred in depreciated greenbacks payable on its face in gold. The consequence of this method of carrying on the war was to make the rich richer instead of poorer. The era of monstrous fortunes in the United States dates from the war.

Michael Hudson wrote a very interesting book about this subject which I hope people are familiar with: Super Imperialism.

It can be obtained from amazon or the full text is available from Hudson's website at:

http://michael-hudson.com/books/superimperialism.pdf

There is also an interesting email discussion with Hudson archived at:

http://michael-hudson.com/books/super_imperialism_alist_discussion.html

Hudson argues that it basically works like this:

* the US imports goods from China and other places but doesn't export anything much in return.

* the US pays for its imports with US dollars.

* China and other countries send the US dollars back to the US in exchange for US treasury notes, ie US debt or promises to pay later (with interest).

* Foreign purchases of US bonds plug the federal budget deficit.

* Going off the global dollar standard is not allowed as this means war with the US.

* this goes on forever. Or does it? Eventually the system has to go bust, basically with huge devaluations of the dollar. This means US treasury notes could be worth half or less of what they were when the Chinese bought them. With a devaluation of the dollar, the US will essentially renege on its promise to pay. In other words, 'we imported all your manufactures, but we aint giving much in return. Sorry.'

Of course, at this point the empire is bust and the global economic system that depends on it.

In recent years there have been fears of an almighty dollar crash. This hasn't happened, instead there has been a steady decline, which is probably safer.

Hudson is arguing that the US is absorbing the economic surpluses of China (and the world) and giving nothing but paper in return. And of course, what the US does with its money and surpluses is invest it in its bloated military (bigger than the rest of the world combined) to maintain the empire including these advantageous financial arrangements.

NB. The official military budget of the US does not include "many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance and production (which is in the Department of Energy budget), Veterans Affairs or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which are largely funded through extra-budgetary supplements, e.g. $120Bi in 2007)." One would think that this is a rather odd way of counting military spending. Perhaps the US is trying to convince itself and the world that it is not spending that much money on war, really. According to Chalmers Johnson, the real military budget of the US is nearly one trillion dollars per annum.

So yes, as George argues, it is real wealth that is being taken and consumed through debt, but in this case its not the wealth of the US, its the wealth of China and others. They are paying and supporting the US empire.


George's comments on English national debt might just as well apply to the gigantic US national debt of today:

[10] In paying interest upon their enormous national debt, what is it that the people of England are paying? They are paying interest upon sums thrown or given away by profligate tyrants and corrupt oligarchies in generations past -- upon grants made to courtezans, and panders, and sycophants, and traitors to the liberties of their country; upon sums borrowed to corrupt their own legislatures and wage wars against both their own liberties and the liberties of other peoples. For the Hessians hired and the Indians armed and the fleets and armies sent to crush the American colonies into submission, with the effect of splitting into two what might but for that have perhaps yet been one great confederated nation; for the cost of treading down the Irish people and inflicting wounds that yet rankle; for the enormous sums spent in the endeavor to maintain on the continent of Europe the blasphemy of divine right; for expenditures made to carry rapine among unoffending peoples in the four quarters of the globe, Englishmen of to~day are taxed. It is not the case of asking a man to pay a debt contracted by his great-grandfather; it is asking him to pay for the rope with which his great-grandfather was hanged, or the fagots with which he was burned.

In Fiscal Year 2006, the U. S. Government spent $406 Billion on interest payments to the holders of the National Debt. The interest expense paid on the National Debt is the third largest expense in the federal budget. Only Defense and income redistribution are higher.

When the interest on the debt gets to be nearly as big as the official defence spending itself, we're sort of running to stand still, aren't we? I know! Let's run a $500b budget deficit and borrow more money! That squares the circle nicely, and after all, as Dick 'Deficits dont Matter' Cheney said, Deficits Dont Matter. I'll bet you he thinks Defeats Dont Matter either.

Financing the War

A Different Kind of Courage - The New York Review of Books

Charles Taylor: A Different Kind of Courage:

Jonathan Lear takes as the main subject of his study the Crow tribe of the western US, who were more or less pressured to give up their hunting way of life and enter a reservation near the end of the nineteenth century. The issue is not genocide.

Then what would it be, pray tell? Steal their lands and resources, and extinguish their culture (not to mention their population).

Plenty Coups, describing the transition many years after in the late 1920s, near the end of his life: "When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground, and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened."

Add this to the list of statements of persons who have witnessed the genocide of their people in their own lifetimes.

Sometimes it seems to me that there is nothing more moving in the world than the testimony of the annihilated American Indian tribes.

Charles Taylor: A Different Kind of Courage:

Jonathan Lear takes as the main subject of his study the Crow tribe of the western US, who were more or less pressured to give up their hunting way of life and enter a reservation near the end of the nineteenth century. The issue is not genocide.

Then what would it be, pray tell? Steal their lands and resources, and extinguish their culture (not to mention their population).

Plenty Coups, describing the transition many years after in the late 1920s, near the end of his life: "When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground, and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened."

Add this to the list of statements of persons who have witnessed the genocide of their people in their own lifetimes.

Sometimes it seems to me that there is nothing more moving in the world than the testimony of the annihilated American Indian tribes.

A Different Kind of Courage - The New York Review of Books

Will Cheney Attack Iran?

Neverending game of speculation:

There is a race currently underway between different flanks of the administration to determine the future course of US-Iran policy.

On one flank are the diplomats, and on the other is Vice President Cheney's team and acolytes -- who populate quite a wide swath throughout the American national security bureaucracy.

The Pentagon and the intelligence establishment are providing support to add muscle and nuance to the diplomatic effort led by Condi Rice, her deputy John Negroponte, Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, and Legal Adviser John Bellinger. The support that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and CIA Director Michael Hayden are providing Rice's efforts are a complete, 180 degree contrast to the dysfunction that characterized relations between these institutions before the recent reshuffle of top personnel....

This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an "end run strategy" around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument.

The thinking on Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).

Militarism in Israel is practically out of control, as it is in the US, but, especially after the Lebanon debacle, one has to wonder whether even the Israelis would be up for this craziness.

This strategy would sidestep controversies over bomber aircraft and overflight rights over other Middle East nations and could be expected to trigger a sufficient Iranian counter-strike against US forces in the Gulf -- which just became significantly larger -- as to compel Bush to forgo the diplomatic track that the administration realists are advocating and engage in another war.

Commenters chip in:

I'm not sure what to think. I've believed Cheney & Co. were determined to attack Iran for a long time. I expected it last October, and again this spring. They probably still do want to attack Iran, but the forces arrayed against them are organised and growing.

First, China has demonstrated that it could knock out all our military navigation and communication satellites in a number of hours. Ever since January you might have noticed that admirals and generals are a lot less keen on a war. Our ships would be blind sitting ducks. Our most advanced weapons systems would be useless.

Second, Saudi Arabia has got all stroppy and started cutting deals behind our backs in the Middle East, with China, with India and with Europe. Bush's buddies in Saudi now say that their marriage to America is Catholic - so no divorce - but because they are Muslim they can take another, younger wife - China. 75 percent of Gulf oil exports go to Asia.

Third, Europe has gotten real confusing for Bush. He doesn't know any of the new players. He hates what he does know about Gordon Brown, who will replace Blair within weeks. He can't count on anyone white to give him cover of legitmacy this time around.

Fourth, Russia is much more powerful and agile now than it was five years ago. Five years ago Russia watched us storm into Iraq and did nothing. Russia will allow us to storm into Iran, and then they will do to us what we did to them in Afghanistan. Now that they know it was Robert Gates who suckered them into the briar patch and then financed and armed Al Qaeda to destroy the Soviet military, they will be keen to return the favour.

Fifth, Iran has been more reasonable and very effective at diplomacy in the region and in Asia and Europe lately. That and it has the best value-for-money military on the planet (about $91 per capita), having prepared for defensive operations ever since we instigated Saddam's invasion of Khuzestan (90 percent of Iran's oil reserves). The proxy war in Lebanon last year was meant to prove the model for massive attacks on civilian infrastructure to destabilise response, and then combined air superiority with limited ground occupation to hold Khuzestan. It failed there and will fail in Iran. We won't hold Khuzestan long enough or peacefully enough to get any oil out, no matter how many millions of cluster bombs we drop on the surrounding mountains.

If the USA attacks Iran it will not only be the end of US hegemony in the world, it will probably be the end of the US as free and wealthy nation. I would expect economic collapse, dictatorship and civil war within 10 years. With the Bushies thrown off their game plan of one party rule by rigged voting machines, a politicised Justice Department and crony courts, few Republicans have the stomach for the aggressive march toward dictatorship that an open grab for power requires. Most GOP officials are inclined to skulk in the darkness and start plotting again rather than press ahead with the full PNAC plan for global domination.

There's a rumour going around Washington that Cheney has been a client of the notorious DC Madam:

"Apparently, there are rumors coming out of Washington that Vice President Dick Cheney, when he was the CEO of Halliburton, used to go visit prostitutes. This could explain why one girl was paid two billion dollars. I mean, I was thinking about this and Cheney ... I mean, going to a prostitute, that's ... I mean, I can't believe a good-looking guy like that would ever have to pay for sex, you know what I'm saying?"

Wonkette explained why its staffers were "underwhelmed by this rumor."

"Because even if it’s a fact, which it probably is, there’s no way it would have any impact on Cheney’s 'career,'" Wonkette continued. "This is a draft-dodging half-human war criminal [whose ratings are in the toilet where they started from] with a pregnant lesbian daughter who tells senators to fuck themselves and shoots his own friends in the face. Ordering an outcall hooker is positively innocent compared to the well-known things Cheney does every day."

Again:

"The White House must either shut Cheney and his team down . . . or expect some to begin to think that Bush has no control over his Vice President."

Gee, what would give them THAT idea?

Fortunately, while Bush doesn't control Cheney, Cheney doesn't control the Pentagon any more through his fellow Sith Lord, Donald Rumfeld.

If Gates is on board with the realist strategy -- and he practicaly defines the type -- then Cheney would appear to be checkmated. The Vice President's office has no constitutional authority whatsoever over any of the cabinet departments. Sure, he can continue to plot with the AEI and tie the NSC up in knots. But he can't start a war, not without the Dauphin's signature. And, with luck, Condi and company are in a position to keep that from happening.

The fatuous and sycophantic Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer chips into the debate with the following:

the Prime Minister of Australia's decision on American soil immediately after September 11th ... invoked our defense alliance with the United States in effect to declare war on the terrorists that had attacked our friend and our ally.

So we invaded Iraq? It was Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda that attacked America on 9/11, not Saddam Hussein and Iraq. It's hard to find the words to express enough contempt for policy and public statements that are such transparent lies and manipulations. It's a time of lying, and a time of crimes, open and in your face, grinding on and on until these people are finally called to account. Downer again:

We believe that purposeful, determined, committed American leadership is equally indispensable to the peace and prosperity of the entire world. For us in Australia, these judgments are clear. There is a moral clarity about them. We fundamentally believe that the United States is a force for good in the world.

The attack on Iraq was an unprovoked act of aggression ('the supreme crime of aggressive war') accompanied by 'state-sponsored lies reminiscent of the worst regimes of the 20th Century'. It has destroyed the country in an incredible way, killing 650,000 people (heading towards one million) and creating four million refugees. And this is called 'good'.

But imperialism aint what it used to be. Last time we invaded a Muslim middle east nation 8,000 Australians were killed in the space of a few months, when the population was much smaller than it is now. Howard and Downer know that the public wouldn't stand for anything like such casualties today. In fact, the 'troops' are protected from harm, suffering virtually nil casualties, and are nothing more than a photo opportunity and political prop for a Prime Minister and a Government that loves the idea of a 'war leader'. A war hero without the deaths and casualties - you have to admit the 'tricky' John 'W' Howard has got one over Bush and Blair here.

Neverending game of speculation:

There is a race currently underway between different flanks of the administration to determine the future course of US-Iran policy.

On one flank are the diplomats, and on the other is Vice President Cheney's team and acolytes -- who populate quite a wide swath throughout the American national security bureaucracy.

The Pentagon and the intelligence establishment are providing support to add muscle and nuance to the diplomatic effort led by Condi Rice, her deputy John Negroponte, Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, and Legal Adviser John Bellinger. The support that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and CIA Director Michael Hayden are providing Rice's efforts are a complete, 180 degree contrast to the dysfunction that characterized relations between these institutions before the recent reshuffle of top personnel....

This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an "end run strategy" around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument.

The thinking on Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).

Militarism in Israel is practically out of control, as it is in the US, but, especially after the Lebanon debacle, one has to wonder whether even the Israelis would be up for this craziness.

This strategy would sidestep controversies over bomber aircraft and overflight rights over other Middle East nations and could be expected to trigger a sufficient Iranian counter-strike against US forces in the Gulf -- which just became significantly larger -- as to compel Bush to forgo the diplomatic track that the administration realists are advocating and engage in another war.

Commenters chip in:

I'm not sure what to think. I've believed Cheney & Co. were determined to attack Iran for a long time. I expected it last October, and again this spring. They probably still do want to attack Iran, but the forces arrayed against them are organised and growing.

First, China has demonstrated that it could knock out all our military navigation and communication satellites in a number of hours. Ever since January you might have noticed that admirals and generals are a lot less keen on a war. Our ships would be blind sitting ducks. Our most advanced weapons systems would be useless.

Second, Saudi Arabia has got all stroppy and started cutting deals behind our backs in the Middle East, with China, with India and with Europe. Bush's buddies in Saudi now say that their marriage to America is Catholic - so no divorce - but because they are Muslim they can take another, younger wife - China. 75 percent of Gulf oil exports go to Asia.

Third, Europe has gotten real confusing for Bush. He doesn't know any of the new players. He hates what he does know about Gordon Brown, who will replace Blair within weeks. He can't count on anyone white to give him cover of legitmacy this time around.

Fourth, Russia is much more powerful and agile now than it was five years ago. Five years ago Russia watched us storm into Iraq and did nothing. Russia will allow us to storm into Iran, and then they will do to us what we did to them in Afghanistan. Now that they know it was Robert Gates who suckered them into the briar patch and then financed and armed Al Qaeda to destroy the Soviet military, they will be keen to return the favour.

Fifth, Iran has been more reasonable and very effective at diplomacy in the region and in Asia and Europe lately. That and it has the best value-for-money military on the planet (about $91 per capita), having prepared for defensive operations ever since we instigated Saddam's invasion of Khuzestan (90 percent of Iran's oil reserves). The proxy war in Lebanon last year was meant to prove the model for massive attacks on civilian infrastructure to destabilise response, and then combined air superiority with limited ground occupation to hold Khuzestan. It failed there and will fail in Iran. We won't hold Khuzestan long enough or peacefully enough to get any oil out, no matter how many millions of cluster bombs we drop on the surrounding mountains.

If the USA attacks Iran it will not only be the end of US hegemony in the world, it will probably be the end of the US as free and wealthy nation. I would expect economic collapse, dictatorship and civil war within 10 years. With the Bushies thrown off their game plan of one party rule by rigged voting machines, a politicised Justice Department and crony courts, few Republicans have the stomach for the aggressive march toward dictatorship that an open grab for power requires. Most GOP officials are inclined to skulk in the darkness and start plotting again rather than press ahead with the full PNAC plan for global domination.

There's a rumour going around Washington that Cheney has been a client of the notorious DC Madam:

"Apparently, there are rumors coming out of Washington that Vice President Dick Cheney, when he was the CEO of Halliburton, used to go visit prostitutes. This could explain why one girl was paid two billion dollars. I mean, I was thinking about this and Cheney ... I mean, going to a prostitute, that's ... I mean, I can't believe a good-looking guy like that would ever have to pay for sex, you know what I'm saying?"

Wonkette explained why its staffers were "underwhelmed by this rumor."

"Because even if it’s a fact, which it probably is, there’s no way it would have any impact on Cheney’s 'career,'" Wonkette continued. "This is a draft-dodging half-human war criminal [whose ratings are in the toilet where they started from] with a pregnant lesbian daughter who tells senators to fuck themselves and shoots his own friends in the face. Ordering an outcall hooker is positively innocent compared to the well-known things Cheney does every day."

Again:

"The White House must either shut Cheney and his team down . . . or expect some to begin to think that Bush has no control over his Vice President."

Gee, what would give them THAT idea?

Fortunately, while Bush doesn't control Cheney, Cheney doesn't control the Pentagon any more through his fellow Sith Lord, Donald Rumfeld.

If Gates is on board with the realist strategy -- and he practicaly defines the type -- then Cheney would appear to be checkmated. The Vice President's office has no constitutional authority whatsoever over any of the cabinet departments. Sure, he can continue to plot with the AEI and tie the NSC up in knots. But he can't start a war, not without the Dauphin's signature. And, with luck, Condi and company are in a position to keep that from happening.

The fatuous and sycophantic Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer chips into the debate with the following:

the Prime Minister of Australia's decision on American soil immediately after September 11th ... invoked our defense alliance with the United States in effect to declare war on the terrorists that had attacked our friend and our ally.

So we invaded Iraq? It was Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda that attacked America on 9/11, not Saddam Hussein and Iraq. It's hard to find the words to express enough contempt for policy and public statements that are such transparent lies and manipulations. It's a time of lying, and a time of crimes, open and in your face, grinding on and on until these people are finally called to account. Downer again:

We believe that purposeful, determined, committed American leadership is equally indispensable to the peace and prosperity of the entire world. For us in Australia, these judgments are clear. There is a moral clarity about them. We fundamentally believe that the United States is a force for good in the world.

The attack on Iraq was an unprovoked act of aggression ('the supreme crime of aggressive war') accompanied by 'state-sponsored lies reminiscent of the worst regimes of the 20th Century'. It has destroyed the country in an incredible way, killing 650,000 people (heading towards one million) and creating four million refugees. And this is called 'good'.

But imperialism aint what it used to be. Last time we invaded a Muslim middle east nation 8,000 Australians were killed in the space of a few months, when the population was much smaller than it is now. Howard and Downer know that the public wouldn't stand for anything like such casualties today. In fact, the 'troops' are protected from harm, suffering virtually nil casualties, and are nothing more than a photo opportunity and political prop for a Prime Minister and a Government that loves the idea of a 'war leader'. A war hero without the deaths and casualties - you have to admit the 'tricky' John 'W' Howard has got one over Bush and Blair here.

Will Cheney Attack Iran?

Blair's legacy lies in the Baghdad morgue

Johann Hari: Blair's legacy lies in the Baghdad morgue:

Blair knew suprisingly little about American power and its purposes. In a conversation with John Snow, he revealed he had never heard of Mohammed Mossadeq, the democratic leader of Iran who was toppled by the CIA in 1953 because he wanted to control his own country's oil supplies. As recently as 2005, he had never even heard of the Project for a New American Century.

Good god almighty, how can such a downright ignorant, persistently ignorant, man get and hold the highest office, and take his country to war in a critical region of the world?

Previously I had regarded Blair as an actor, a liar, a kind of high-class conman. We all know that Reagan and 'Dubya' Bush are completely ignorant, ignorant by design. Perhaps Blair is in the same category.

One friend of Blair's recently told me she was shocked in 1997 when she saw Blair welcoming Henry Kissinger into Downing Street and lauding him as a great statesman and friend of democracy. She challenged him over it, but discovered "he just doesn't know about this history - how the Americans toppled democratic governments in Latin America and the Middle East. He really didn't know anything about it. It was shocking."

Shocking it is indeed, and virtually unbelievable. Could Blair truly be that ignorant? This is a major story, unless I've been duped. I always regarded Blair as somewhat more intelligent and eloquent than Bush, at least.

If for no other reason than cynical realpolitik, someone should know something about fact, history and reality. Is the Reagan model of democratic government the universal future? An empty headed actor/conman who reads the lines he is fed, and makes decisions concerning things he knows nothing about?

Johann Hari: Blair's legacy lies in the Baghdad morgue:

Blair knew suprisingly little about American power and its purposes. In a conversation with John Snow, he revealed he had never heard of Mohammed Mossadeq, the democratic leader of Iran who was toppled by the CIA in 1953 because he wanted to control his own country's oil supplies. As recently as 2005, he had never even heard of the Project for a New American Century.

Good god almighty, how can such a downright ignorant, persistently ignorant, man get and hold the highest office, and take his country to war in a critical region of the world?

Previously I had regarded Blair as an actor, a liar, a kind of high-class conman. We all know that Reagan and 'Dubya' Bush are completely ignorant, ignorant by design. Perhaps Blair is in the same category.

One friend of Blair's recently told me she was shocked in 1997 when she saw Blair welcoming Henry Kissinger into Downing Street and lauding him as a great statesman and friend of democracy. She challenged him over it, but discovered "he just doesn't know about this history - how the Americans toppled democratic governments in Latin America and the Middle East. He really didn't know anything about it. It was shocking."

Shocking it is indeed, and virtually unbelievable. Could Blair truly be that ignorant? This is a major story, unless I've been duped. I always regarded Blair as somewhat more intelligent and eloquent than Bush, at least.

If for no other reason than cynical realpolitik, someone should know something about fact, history and reality. Is the Reagan model of democratic government the universal future? An empty headed actor/conman who reads the lines he is fed, and makes decisions concerning things he knows nothing about?

Blair's legacy lies in the Baghdad morgue

American Taliban leader Jerry Falwell Dead

Hitchens has some fun:

COOPER: Author and outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens is about as far from Jerry Falwell in his beliefs as one could get. Christian fundamentalists are a major target of his new book, "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." He joins me now from Raleigh, North Carolina.

Christopher, I'm not sure if you believe in heaven, but, if you do, do you think Jerry Falwell is in it?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, "VANITY FAIR": No. And I think it's a pity there isn't a hell for him to go to.

COOPER: What is it about him that brings up such vitriol?

HITCHENS: The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing, that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you will just get yourself called reverend. Who would, even at your network, have invited on such a little toad to tell us that the attacks of September the 11th were the result of our sinfulness and were God's punishment if they hadn't got some kind of clerical qualification?

People like that should be out in the street, shouting and hollering with a cardboard sign and selling pencils from a cup. The whole consideration of this -- of this horrible little person is offensive to very, very many of us who have some regard for truth and for morality, and who think that ethics do not require that lies be told to children by evil old men, that we're -- we're not told that people who believe like Falwell will be snatched up into heaven, where I'm glad to see he skipped the rapture, just found on the floor of his office, while the rest of us go to hell.

How dare they talk to children like this? How dare they raise money from credulous people on their huckster-like (INAUDIBLE) radio stations, and fly around in private jets, as he did, giggling and sniggering all the time at what he was getting away with?

Do you get an idea now of what I mean to say?

COOPER: Yes, no, I think -- I think you're making yourself very clear.

I mean, I...

(CROSSTALK)

HITCHENS: How dare he say, for example, that the Antichrist is already present among us and is an adult male Jew, while, all the time, fawning on the worst elements in Israel, with his other hand pumping anti-Semitic innuendoes into American politics, along with his friends Robertson and Graham?

COOPER: And, yet, there are...

(CROSSTALK)

HITCHENS: ... encouraging -- encouraging -- encouraging the most extreme theocratic fanatics and maniacs on the West Bank and in Gaza not to give an inch of what he thought of was holy land to the people who already live there, undercutting and ruining every democratic and secularist in the Jewish state in the name of God?

(CROSSTALK)

HITCHENS: This is -- this is -- he's done us an enormous, enormous disservice by this sort of demagogy.

COOPER: What do you think it says about America that -- and politics in America, that he was so successful in mobilizing huge swathes of the country to come out and vote?

HITCHENS: I'm not certain at all that he did deserve this reputation. And I... COOPER: You don't think he does?

HITCHENS: Well, I'm not certain that he was a mobilizer. He certainly hoped to be one.

Well, the fact is that the country suffers, to a considerable extent, from paying too much, by way of compliment, to anyone who can describe themselves as a person of faith, Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard, Chaucerian frauds, people who are simply pickpockets, who -- and frauds -- who prey on the gullible and...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Do you believe he believed what he spoke?

HITCHENS: Of course not. He woke up every morning, as I say, pinching his chubby little flanks and thinking, I have got away with it again.

COOPER: You think he was a complete fraud, really?

HITCHENS: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: You don't believe that, I mean, in his reading of the Bible, you don't think he was sincere in his -- whether you agree or not with his reading of the Bible, you don't think he was sincere in what he spoke?

HITCHENS: No. I think he was a conscious charlatan and bully and fraud.

And I think, if he read the Bible at all -- and I would doubt that he could actually read any long book of -- at all -- that he did so only in the most hucksterish, as we say, Bible-pounding way.

I'm going to repeat what I said before about the Israeli question. It's very important. Jerry Falwell kept saying to his own crowd, yes, you have got to like the Jews, because they can make more money in 10 minutes than you can make in a lifetime. He was always full, as his friends Robertson and Graham are and were, of anti- Semitic innuendo.

Yet, in the most base and hypocritical way, he encouraged the worst elements among Jewry. He got Menachem Begin to give him the Jabotinsky Medal, celebrating an alliance between Christian fundamentalism and Jewish fanaticism that has ruined the chances for peace in the Middle East.

Lots of people are going to die and are already leading miserable lives because of the nonsense preached by this man, and because of the absurd way that we credit anyone who can say they're a person of faith.

Look, the president endangers us this way. He meets a KGB thug like Vladimir Putin, and, because he is wearing a crucifix around his neck, says, I'm dealing with a man of faith. He's a man of goodwill.

Look what Putin has done to American and European interests lately. What has the president said to take back this absurd remark? It's time to stop saying that, because someone preaches credulity and credulousness, and claims it as a matter of faith, that we should respect them.

The whole life of Falwell shows this is an actual danger to democracy, to culture, to civilization. That's what my book is all about.

It seems to me that if you read carefully it is clear enough that the Antichrist is a false preacher, a wolf in sheep's clothing, like Falwell or Oral Robertson, who publicly called for murder on national television (the murder of Chavez). Just as it is clear that The Beast is none other than the Emperor himself - Nero back in the day but Bush is the man in our time. At any rate these people have certainly got nothing to do with the teaching of Jesus as might be found in the Gospels.

These false preachers betray the true message of Jesus and give over religion, morality and Christ himself to the service of the Beast. Its no accident they support and gather support for imperialism, militarism, colonialism, racism, fascism, injustice and inequality. That's the whole point.

Of course, the Republican party and ruling corporate elite couldn't care less about either religion or truth and laugh behind the back of these fanatics, fundamentalists and half-witted evolution-deniers. The only role these preachers have is to herd the rubes into the voting booth to vote Bush or whatever other puppet it put up. Good job Jerry, and here's all your money, more than even the goddam jews make.

Its nothing different from all history. The purpose of teachers and prophets is to critique the system and enlighten the oppressed. The purpose of organised religion is to traduce the message and induce the masses to vote for their own chains.

Hitchens has some fun:

COOPER: Author and outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens is about as far from Jerry Falwell in his beliefs as one could get. Christian fundamentalists are a major target of his new book, "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." He joins me now from Raleigh, North Carolina.

Christopher, I'm not sure if you believe in heaven, but, if you do, do you think Jerry Falwell is in it?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, "VANITY FAIR": No. And I think it's a pity there isn't a hell for him to go to.

COOPER: What is it about him that brings up such vitriol?

HITCHENS: The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing, that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you will just get yourself called reverend. Who would, even at your network, have invited on such a little toad to tell us that the attacks of September the 11th were the result of our sinfulness and were God's punishment if they hadn't got some kind of clerical qualification?

People like that should be out in the street, shouting and hollering with a cardboard sign and selling pencils from a cup. The whole consideration of this -- of this horrible little person is offensive to very, very many of us who have some regard for truth and for morality, and who think that ethics do not require that lies be told to children by evil old men, that we're -- we're not told that people who believe like Falwell will be snatched up into heaven, where I'm glad to see he skipped the rapture, just found on the floor of his office, while the rest of us go to hell.

How dare they talk to children like this? How dare they raise money from credulous people on their huckster-like (INAUDIBLE) radio stations, and fly around in private jets, as he did, giggling and sniggering all the time at what he was getting away with?

Do you get an idea now of what I mean to say?

COOPER: Yes, no, I think -- I think you're making yourself very clear.

I mean, I...

(CROSSTALK)

HITCHENS: How dare he say, for example, that the Antichrist is already present among us and is an adult male Jew, while, all the time, fawning on the worst elements in Israel, with his other hand pumping anti-Semitic innuendoes into American politics, along with his friends Robertson and Graham?

COOPER: And, yet, there are...

(CROSSTALK)

HITCHENS: ... encouraging -- encouraging -- encouraging the most extreme theocratic fanatics and maniacs on the West Bank and in Gaza not to give an inch of what he thought of was holy land to the people who already live there, undercutting and ruining every democratic and secularist in the Jewish state in the name of God?

(CROSSTALK)

HITCHENS: This is -- this is -- he's done us an enormous, enormous disservice by this sort of demagogy.

COOPER: What do you think it says about America that -- and politics in America, that he was so successful in mobilizing huge swathes of the country to come out and vote?

HITCHENS: I'm not certain at all that he did deserve this reputation. And I... COOPER: You don't think he does?

HITCHENS: Well, I'm not certain that he was a mobilizer. He certainly hoped to be one.

Well, the fact is that the country suffers, to a considerable extent, from paying too much, by way of compliment, to anyone who can describe themselves as a person of faith, Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard, Chaucerian frauds, people who are simply pickpockets, who -- and frauds -- who prey on the gullible and...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Do you believe he believed what he spoke?

HITCHENS: Of course not. He woke up every morning, as I say, pinching his chubby little flanks and thinking, I have got away with it again.

COOPER: You think he was a complete fraud, really?

HITCHENS: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: You don't believe that, I mean, in his reading of the Bible, you don't think he was sincere in his -- whether you agree or not with his reading of the Bible, you don't think he was sincere in what he spoke?

HITCHENS: No. I think he was a conscious charlatan and bully and fraud.

And I think, if he read the Bible at all -- and I would doubt that he could actually read any long book of -- at all -- that he did so only in the most hucksterish, as we say, Bible-pounding way.

I'm going to repeat what I said before about the Israeli question. It's very important. Jerry Falwell kept saying to his own crowd, yes, you have got to like the Jews, because they can make more money in 10 minutes than you can make in a lifetime. He was always full, as his friends Robertson and Graham are and were, of anti- Semitic innuendo.

Yet, in the most base and hypocritical way, he encouraged the worst elements among Jewry. He got Menachem Begin to give him the Jabotinsky Medal, celebrating an alliance between Christian fundamentalism and Jewish fanaticism that has ruined the chances for peace in the Middle East.

Lots of people are going to die and are already leading miserable lives because of the nonsense preached by this man, and because of the absurd way that we credit anyone who can say they're a person of faith.

Look, the president endangers us this way. He meets a KGB thug like Vladimir Putin, and, because he is wearing a crucifix around his neck, says, I'm dealing with a man of faith. He's a man of goodwill.

Look what Putin has done to American and European interests lately. What has the president said to take back this absurd remark? It's time to stop saying that, because someone preaches credulity and credulousness, and claims it as a matter of faith, that we should respect them.

The whole life of Falwell shows this is an actual danger to democracy, to culture, to civilization. That's what my book is all about.

It seems to me that if you read carefully it is clear enough that the Antichrist is a false preacher, a wolf in sheep's clothing, like Falwell or Oral Robertson, who publicly called for murder on national television (the murder of Chavez). Just as it is clear that The Beast is none other than the Emperor himself - Nero back in the day but Bush is the man in our time. At any rate these people have certainly got nothing to do with the teaching of Jesus as might be found in the Gospels.

These false preachers betray the true message of Jesus and give over religion, morality and Christ himself to the service of the Beast. Its no accident they support and gather support for imperialism, militarism, colonialism, racism, fascism, injustice and inequality. That's the whole point.

Of course, the Republican party and ruling corporate elite couldn't care less about either religion or truth and laugh behind the back of these fanatics, fundamentalists and half-witted evolution-deniers. The only role these preachers have is to herd the rubes into the voting booth to vote Bush or whatever other puppet it put up. Good job Jerry, and here's all your money, more than even the goddam jews make.

Its nothing different from all history. The purpose of teachers and prophets is to critique the system and enlighten the oppressed. The purpose of organised religion is to traduce the message and induce the masses to vote for their own chains.

American Taliban leader Jerry Falwell Dead

Hoon: Its All About Cheney

Hoon admits fatal errors in planning for postwar Iraq | Iraq | Guardian Unlimited: You might have to take Hoon's remarks with a certain piece of salt, but they do make classic entry in Ron Beasley's series "Its All About Cheney"

Geoff Hoon reveals that Britain disagreed with the US administration over two key decisions in May 2003, two months after the invasion - to disband Iraq's army and 'de-Ba'athify' its civil service. Mr Hoon also said he and other senior ministers completely underestimated the role and influence of the vice-president, Dick Cheney.

'Sometimes ... Tony had made his point with the president, and I'd made my point with Don [Rumsfeld] and Jack [Straw] had made his point with Colin [Powell] and the decision actually came out of a completely different place. And you think: what did we miss? I think we missed Cheney.'..."

Of the summary dismissal of Iraq's 350,000-strong army and police forces, Mr Hoon said the Americans were uncompomising: "We certainly argued against [the US]. I recall having discussions with Donald Rumsfeld, but I recognised that it was one of those judgment calls. I would have called it the other way. His argument was that the Iraqi army was so heavily politicised that we couldn't be sure that we would not retain within it large elements of Saddam's people.... "

The dismantling of several ministries and removal from office of all state employees with Ba'ath party membership was also an error, Mr Hoon says.

Hoon admits fatal errors in planning for postwar Iraq | Iraq | Guardian Unlimited: You might have to take Hoon's remarks with a certain piece of salt, but they do make classic entry in Ron Beasley's series "Its All About Cheney"

Geoff Hoon reveals that Britain disagreed with the US administration over two key decisions in May 2003, two months after the invasion - to disband Iraq's army and 'de-Ba'athify' its civil service. Mr Hoon also said he and other senior ministers completely underestimated the role and influence of the vice-president, Dick Cheney.

'Sometimes ... Tony had made his point with the president, and I'd made my point with Don [Rumsfeld] and Jack [Straw] had made his point with Colin [Powell] and the decision actually came out of a completely different place. And you think: what did we miss? I think we missed Cheney.'..."

Of the summary dismissal of Iraq's 350,000-strong army and police forces, Mr Hoon said the Americans were uncompomising: "We certainly argued against [the US]. I recall having discussions with Donald Rumsfeld, but I recognised that it was one of those judgment calls. I would have called it the other way. His argument was that the Iraqi army was so heavily politicised that we couldn't be sure that we would not retain within it large elements of Saddam's people.... "

The dismantling of several ministries and removal from office of all state employees with Ba'ath party membership was also an error, Mr Hoon says.

Hoon: Its All About Cheney

Patrick Cockburn Reviews the Iraq Disaster

TomDispatch - Tomgram: Patrick Cockburn, Iraq Dismantled:

There was a central lesson of four years of war which Bush and Tony Blair never seemed to take on board, though it was obvious to anybody living in Iraq: the occupation was unpopular and becoming more so by the day....

It is this lack of political support that has so far doomed all U.S. political and military actions in Iraq. It makes the country very different from Afghanistan where foreign troops are far more welcome. Opinion polls consistently show this trend. A comprehensive Iraqi survey has been conducted by ABC News, USAToday, the BBC, and ARD annually over the last three years. Its findings illuminate the most important trends in Iraqi politics. They show that, by March 2007, no less than 78% of Iraqis opposed the presence of U.S. forces, compared to 65% in November 2005 and 51% in February 2004. In the latter year, only 17% of the population thought that violence against U.S. forces was acceptable, while by 2007 the figure had risen to 51%. This pool of people sympathetic to Sunni insurgents and Shia militias was so large as to make it difficult to control and impossible to eliminate them....

Again and again, assassinations and bombs showed that the Iraqi army and police were thoroughly infiltrated by militants from all sides.... Some American soldiers see that the problem is not about a few infiltrators. "Any Iraqi officer who hasn't been assassinated or targeted for assassination is giving information or support to the insurgents," one US marine was quoted as saying. "Any Iraqi officer who isn't in bed with the insurgents is already dead."

Time to give up, Cheney. Your attempt to seize by force Middle East oil reserves has failed.

The nightmare for Washington was to find that it had conquered Iraq only to install black-turbaned clerics in power in Baghdad, as they already were in Tehran. At first, the U.S. tried to postpone elections, claiming that a census had to be held. It was only on the insistence of the Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani that two elections were held in 2005, in which the Shia religious parties triumphed.

A point often overlooked: the great proponent of 'democracy' held elections in Iraq only when forced to by indigenous clerical forces.

The poll cited above showed that by Spring 2007 only 34% of Iraqis thought their country was being run by their own government; 59% believed the U.S. was in control. The Iraqi government had been robbed of legitimacy in the eyes of its own people.

Good god now, we're not really serious about democracy. As Chomsky has said, its hard to understand "how anybody can talk about democracy promotion by the United States with a straight face." That's the power of propaganda. 'Democracy' is ritually incanted to such an extent that for the unwary it is literally a form of brainwashing, and so it can come as a surprise that the promotion of democracy in reality is not actually done, rather the opposite.

TomDispatch - Tomgram: Patrick Cockburn, Iraq Dismantled:

There was a central lesson of four years of war which Bush and Tony Blair never seemed to take on board, though it was obvious to anybody living in Iraq: the occupation was unpopular and becoming more so by the day....

It is this lack of political support that has so far doomed all U.S. political and military actions in Iraq. It makes the country very different from Afghanistan where foreign troops are far more welcome. Opinion polls consistently show this trend. A comprehensive Iraqi survey has been conducted by ABC News, USAToday, the BBC, and ARD annually over the last three years. Its findings illuminate the most important trends in Iraqi politics. They show that, by March 2007, no less than 78% of Iraqis opposed the presence of U.S. forces, compared to 65% in November 2005 and 51% in February 2004. In the latter year, only 17% of the population thought that violence against U.S. forces was acceptable, while by 2007 the figure had risen to 51%. This pool of people sympathetic to Sunni insurgents and Shia militias was so large as to make it difficult to control and impossible to eliminate them....

Again and again, assassinations and bombs showed that the Iraqi army and police were thoroughly infiltrated by militants from all sides.... Some American soldiers see that the problem is not about a few infiltrators. "Any Iraqi officer who hasn't been assassinated or targeted for assassination is giving information or support to the insurgents," one US marine was quoted as saying. "Any Iraqi officer who isn't in bed with the insurgents is already dead."

Time to give up, Cheney. Your attempt to seize by force Middle East oil reserves has failed.

The nightmare for Washington was to find that it had conquered Iraq only to install black-turbaned clerics in power in Baghdad, as they already were in Tehran. At first, the U.S. tried to postpone elections, claiming that a census had to be held. It was only on the insistence of the Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani that two elections were held in 2005, in which the Shia religious parties triumphed.

A point often overlooked: the great proponent of 'democracy' held elections in Iraq only when forced to by indigenous clerical forces.

The poll cited above showed that by Spring 2007 only 34% of Iraqis thought their country was being run by their own government; 59% believed the U.S. was in control. The Iraqi government had been robbed of legitimacy in the eyes of its own people.

Good god now, we're not really serious about democracy. As Chomsky has said, its hard to understand "how anybody can talk about democracy promotion by the United States with a straight face." That's the power of propaganda. 'Democracy' is ritually incanted to such an extent that for the unwary it is literally a form of brainwashing, and so it can come as a surprise that the promotion of democracy in reality is not actually done, rather the opposite.

Patrick Cockburn Reviews the Iraq Disaster