Infinite Unknown

The White House, announcing the meeting with Mr Olmert, gave little indication that Tehran’s nuclear ambitions would be at the top of the agenda

President Bush is to hold White House talks with the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday after publication of a nuclear watchdog’s report this week showing that Iran may have stockpiled enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb.

The International Atomic Energy Agency believes that Iran has amassed 630kg of low enriched (=useless) uranium, up from 480kg in late August. Some experts believe this is enough to produce the weapons-grade material needed for a crude nuclear device similar in size to that which America used to destroy the city of Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War.

Sean McCormack, the US State Department spokesman, said: “It’s concerning. This is a matter that will be taken up next week at the IAEA Board of Governors meeting.” Asked if Tehran now had sufficient material to build a bomb, he suggested that there were different opinions. “Some said it was enough; others said it was not enough, but close,” said Mr McCormack. “In any case, you don’t want Iran to get close.”

In its report, the IAEA said that Iran was working hard roughly to double its number of operating centrifuges. European diplomats say that Iran might have 6,000 centrifuges enriching uranium by the end of the year - and plans to install another 3,000 early next year.

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Tags: Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, Ehud Olmert, George Bush, IAEA, Iran, Israel, Middle East, nuclear bombs, Nuclear weapons, Politics, Robert Gates, U.S., uranium

Animals and plants in danger of extinction could lose the protection of government experts who make sure that infrastructure projects don’t pose a threat, under regulations outgoing US president George W Bush is set to put in place before he leaves office.

Geogre Bush: opponents claim he will introduce a number of ‘midnight regulations’ before leaving office Photo: AP

The rules must be published on Friday to take effect before President-Elect Barack Obama is sworn in Jan 20.

The proposed change would eliminate the input of federal wildlife scientists in some endangered species cases, allowing the federal agency in charge of building, authorising or funding a project to determine for itself if it is likely to harm endangered wildlife and plants.

Current regulations require independent wildlife biologists to sign off on these decisions before a project can go forward, at times modifying the design to better protect species.

It is among several rule changes that environmentalists say Mr Bush has or will introduce in what are known as “midnight regulations”.

Though he would not be the first president to follow the practice, environmental campaigners fear he will sneak through as many changes as possible on energy, climate change and the environment, having been unable to pass full legislation through the Democrat-controlled Congress.

He has already opened up 800,000 hectares of land in Rocky Mountain states for the development of oil shale, and is reportedly considering allowing industrial-size pig, cow and chicken farms to disregard the Clean Water Act and air pollution controls.

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Tags: animals, Bush administration, climate change, Congress, Environment, George Bush, Government, Nature, Oil, Politics, pollution, wildlife

By Bob Moriarty:

I’m pleased to see Barack Obama hit the ground running after his election on the 4th. The US needs change.

I’d like to see him announce the death of Osama bin Laden as one of his first official duties. Bin Laden often better known as bin Forgotten died in December of 2001. There is nothing I am saying that is news to anyone who has actually spent any time thinking.

Osama bin Laden had serous kidney disease that required him to have dialysis treatment twice a week. There aren’t any dialysis machines floating around in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan. A few months back a reporter finally asked the question that should have been asked years ago at a White House press conference.

How is it that a guy who was seriously ill seven years ago is getting treatment for end-stage renal disease in some cave in Afghanistan? The woman conducting the press conference panicked at the thought of answering that most basic question and immediately canceled the rest of the briefing.

The United States does not need a boogieman living in a cave in Asia. Osama bin Laden is dead. Barack Obama should be honest enough with the American people to declare him dead.

Here are the facts.

1. The last intelligence intercept of Osama bin Laden was on December 14 of 2001. He has not been heard from since.
2. President Bush and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld hinted in late December of 2001 that they knew Osama bin Laden was dead.
3. President Musharraf of Pakistan announced in January of 2002 that Osama bin Laden was probably dead of kidney disease.
4. President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan was quoted in October of 2002 as saying, “The more we don’t hear of him, and the more time passes, there is the likelihood that he probably is either dead or seriously wounded somewhere.”
5. But the actions of the US Military are the most telling. There isn’t a single soldier, sailor or Marine tasked with chasing down Osama bin Laden, dead or alive. Because we know exactly where he is. He’s dead. So the US military is either totally or absolutely incompetent or Osama bin Laden died years ago and we’ve been fighting the boogieman.
6. As early as July of 2002, even the FBI’s counterterrorism chief was quoted as saying; Osama bin Laden is “probably” dead.

The US does not need a boogieman; we have real challenges ahead of us. We need a President who will not lie to us on a constant basis.

While you are at it Mr President Elect, you may want to mention that Iran never threatened to wipe Israel off the map and 16 US Intelligence agencies all agree [pdf] Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. But you knew that, didn’t you? Iran is neither the enemy of the United States nor Israel. Continue reading »

Tags: Barack Obama, Donald Rumsfeld, FBI, George Bush, Iran, Israel, Military, Osama Bin Laden, Politics, terrorism, terrorists, U.S., War

N.Y. Times: U.S. targeted al-Qaida fighters in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military has conducted nearly a dozen secret operations against al-Qaida and other terrorist groups in Syria, Pakistan and other countries since 2004, The New York Times reported in Monday editions.

Meantime, Pakistan’s president said he expects U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to re-evaluate American military strikes on al-Qaida and Taliban targets on its side of the Afghan border.

Citing anonymous U.S. officials, the Times story said the operations were authorized by a broad classified order that then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed and President Bush approved in spring 2004. The order gave the military authority to attack al-Qaida anywhere in the world and to conduct operations in countries that were not at war with the United States.

One such operation was the Oct. 26 raid inside Syria, the Times reported. Washington hasn’t formally acknowledged the raid, but U.S. officials have said the target was a top al-Qaida in Iraq figure. Syria has asked for proof and said eight civilians were killed in the attack.

In another mission, in 2006, Navy SEALs raided a suspected terrorist compound in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

The raids have typically been conducted by U.S. Special Forces, often in conjunction with the Central Intelligence Agency, the newspaper said. Even though the process has been streamlined, specific missions have to be approved by the defense secretary or, in the cases of Syria and Pakistan, by the president.

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Tags: Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Asif Ali Zardari, CIA, civilians, David Petraeus, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush, Iraq, Military, Pakistan, Politics, Syria, Taliban, terrorism, U.S., War

Sunny Yang, left, a masters degree student from Shanghai and employed banker in New York City, speaks with World Bank representative Roberto Amorosino about opportunities for unemployed friends of his during a career fair at Columbia Univeristy Friday, Nov. 7, 2008 in New York. The U.S. unemployment rate bolted to a 14-year high of 6.5 percent in October as another 240,000 jobs were cut, far worse than economists expected and stark proof the economy is deteriorating at an alarmingly rapid pace. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s jobless ranks zoomed past 10 million last month, the most in a quarter-century, as piles of pink slips shut factory gates and office doors to 240,000 more Americans with the holidays nearing. Politicians and economists agreed on a painful bottom line: It’s only going to get worse.

The unemployment rate soared to a 14-year high of 6.5 percent, the government said Friday, up from 6.1 percent just a month earlier. And there was more grim news from U.S. automakers: Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp., American giants struggling to survive, each reported big losses and figured to be announcing even more job cuts before long.

Regulators, meanwhile, shut down Houston-based Franklin Bank and Security Pacific Bank in Los Angeles on Friday, bringing the number of failures of federally insured banks this year to 19.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of Franklin Bank, which had $5.1 billion in assets and $3.7 billion in deposits as of Sept. 30, and of Security Pacific Bank, with $561.1 million in assets and $450.1 million in deposits as of Oct. 17.

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Tags: bank failure, Banks, Barack Obama, Credit Crisis, credit crunch, Economy, FDIC, Ford, Foreclosures, General Motors, George Bush, GM, Government, housing market, Labor Department, mortgage crisis, Mortgages, Politics, Recession, Stock Market, U.S., Unemployment, Wall Street

The US bail-out amounts to a strings-free, public-funded windfall for big business. Welcome to no-risk capitalism

In the final days of the election many Republicans seem to have given up the fight for power. But don’t be fooled: that doesn’t mean they are relaxing. If you want to see real Republican elbow grease, check out the energy going into chucking great chunks of the $700bn bail-out out the door. At a recent Senate banking committee hearing, the Republican Bob Corker was fixated on this task, and with a clear deadline in mind: inauguration. “How much of it do you think may be actually spent by January 20 or so?” Corker asked Neel Kashkari, the 35-year-old former banker in charge of the bail-out.

When European colonialists realised that they had no choice but to hand over power to the indigenous citizens, they would often turn their attention to stripping the local treasury of its gold and grabbing valuable livestock. If they were really nasty, like the Portuguese in Mozambique in the mid-1970s, they poured concrete down the elevator shafts.

Nothing so barbaric for the Bush gang. Rather than open plunder, it prefers bureaucratic instruments, such as “distressed asset” auctions and the “equity purchase program”. But make no mistake: the goal is the same as it was for the defeated Portuguese - a final, frantic looting of the public wealth before they hand over the keys to the safe.

How else to make sense of the bizarre decisions that have governed the allocation of the bail-out money? When the Bush administration announced it would be injecting $250bn into US banks in exchange for equity, the plan was widely referred to as “partial nationalisation” - a radical measure required to get banks lending again. Henry Paulson, the treasury secretary, had seen the light, we were told, and was following the lead of Gordon Brown.

In fact, there has been no nationalisation, partial or otherwise. American taxpayers have gained no meaningful control over the banks, which is why the banks are free to spend the new money as they wish. At Morgan Stanley, it looks as if much of the windfall will cover this year’s bonuses. Citigroup has been hinting it will use its $25bn buying other banks, while John Thain, the chief executive of Merrill Lynch, told analysts: “At least for the next quarter, it’s just going to be a cushion.” The US government, meanwhile, is reduced to pleading with the banks that they at least spend a portion of the taxpayer windfall for loans - officially, the reason for the entire programme.

What, then, is the real purpose of the bail-out? My fear is this rush of dealmaking is something much more ambitious than a one-off gift to big business: that the Bush version of “partial nationalisation” is rigged to turn the US treasury into a bottomless cash machine for the banks for years to come. Remember, the main concern among the big market players, particularly banks, is not the lack of credit but their battered share prices. Investors have lost confidence in the honesty of the big financial players, and with good reason.

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Tags: bailout, Banks, Bush administration, Economy, George Bush, Government, Henry Paulson, Politics, Stock Market, taxpayers, Treasury, U.S., Wall Street

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
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The Defanging of America:  Reality-Based Community Overthrows History’s Actors

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” Bush White House aide explaining the New Reality

The New American Century lasted a decade. Financial crisis and defeated objectives in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Georgia brought the neoconservative project for American world hegemony crashing to a close in the autumn of 2008.

The American neoconservatives are the heirs of Leon Trotsky. Their dream of American “Full Spectrum Dominance”–US military and economic superiority over any possible combination of states–is matched in ambition only by the early 20th century Trotskyite dream of world Communist revolution.

The neocons used September 11, 2001, as a “new Pearl Harbor” to give power precedence over law domestically and internationally. The executive branch no longer had to obey federal statutes, such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or honor international treaties, such as the Geneva Conventions. An asserted “terrorist threat” to national security became the cloak which hid US imperial interests as the Bush Regime set about dismantling US civil liberties and the existing order of international law constructed by previous governments during the post-war era.

Perhaps the neoconservative project for world hegemony would have lasted a bit longer had the neocons possessed intellectual competence.

On the war front, the incompetent neocons predicted that the Iraq war would be a six-week cakewalk, whose $70 billion cost would be paid out of Iraqi oil revenues. President Bush fired White House economist Larry Lindsey for estimating that the war would cost $200 billion. The current estimate by experts is that the Iraq war has cost American taxpayers between two and three trillion dollars. And the six-week war is now the six-year war.

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Tags: 9/11, Afghanistan, Bush administration, civil liberties, civil rights, Economy, financial crisis, Geneva Conventions, George Bush, Georgia, Government, Iran, Iraq, Israel, law, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Military, NATO, Neoconservatives, New World Order, Politics, Russia, South Ossetia, Surveillance, Taliban, taxpayers, U.S., War

Syrian men carry the body of a relative killed in the raid on Sukkariya yesterday

Senior US officials claimed last night that the head of a Syrian network responsible for smuggling foreign fighters, weapons and cash into Iraq had been killed in Syria during a raid by US special forces that sparked strong condemnation from Damascus.

The Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moualem said the raid had killed eight civilians and was an act of “criminal and terrorist aggression.” Speaking at a news conference in London, he warned that Damascus would defend itself against any such future attack.

Sunday’s raid, 10km from the Iraqi border, took place in daylight and therefore was “not a mistake,” he said.

The rare attack into Syria marks an unexpected expansion of the war in Iraq and comes as the level of fighting drops to its lowest level for four years.

“We are taking matters into our own hands,” said a US officer in Washington, confirming that American commandos had entered Syria on Sunday evening to attack a network of guerrillas linked to al-Qa’ida.

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Tags: Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, George Bush, Government, Iran, Iraq, Military, Pakistan, Politics, Syria, terrorism, U.S., War

American military chiefs are to send up to 9,000 troops to Helmand next year, potentially sidelining the UK’s 5,000-strong force in the southern Afghanistan province. The first of three US brigade combat teams is expected to be operational by the spring. Their main base is under construction alongside the British headquarters at Camp Bastion.

The move comes amid US frustration that the British have insufficient soldiers and helicopters to maintain security and reconstruct Helmand, with the Taliban acting freely in large tracts of the province.

President George W Bush is expected to announce a surge of US troops into southern Afghanistan after next month’s White House election.

General David McKiernan, the US commander of all allied forces in Afghanistan, has asked for at least four brigade combat teams for Afghanistan, but most will go into Helmand.

British sources said the revelation that the bulk of the troops were to be sent to Helmand made it doubtful the British could stay in charge.

There are also likely to be differences over tactics. US commanders are more inclined than the British to call in close air support, which heightens the risk of civilian deaths.

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Tags: Afghanistan, George Bush, Government, Iraq, Military, Taliban, U.K., U.S., War

Added: October 25, 2008

Source: YouTube

Tags: bankruptcy, Ben Bernanke, Credit Crisis, credit crunch, Depression, Dollar, Economy, George Bush, Gold, Government, Great Depression, hyperinflation, Inflation, Japan, Jim Rogers, mortgage crisis, Mortgages, Politics, Recession, Silver, Stock Market, U.S., Unemployment, Wall Street