September 12, 2008, 9:50 JTP COMMENT 29Nov08: BEFORE BUSH LEAVES OFFICE?
US to invade Iran any day now?
A few weeks ago the Russian newspaper Izvestia, a well-known and authoritive daily published nationwide and abroad, came forward with something that would have been looked upon as a conspiracy theory if published by a tabloid.

The paper suggested that by attacking South Ossetia, the Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili had badly damaged a planned U.S. military operation against Iran. In the newspaper's opinion Georgia was supposed to play the role of another "unsinkable aircraft carrier" for the U.S., i.e. an operational and tactical base for U.S.
aircraft that would be making bombing raids into Iran. Something akin to what Thailand was in the Vietnam war.

Thailand certainly benefited from the arrangement, and Georgia would have too, insists the paper, if its President hadn't put his ambitions above the US national interest and ended up beaten, disarmed, chewing on his neckties and totally incapable of providing whatever the U.S. needs from him.

That's why, according to Izvestia in yet another article on the matter, the U.S. response to the Russian retaliation was harsh in words but very mild in action. The latest on the issue suggests that Mikhail Saakashvili may be replaced any day now by direct order from Washington.

Having read the story in Izvestia I decided to try to figure out the extent of improbability and impossibility of the assumptions. As I was doing that, I remembered that early in August CNN had started showing U.S. generals who cried for more troops and hardware for Afghanistan which, in their opinion, was rapidly becoming a more intensive conflict than Iraq.

Shortly after that, a phone call came from a college friend who had just come back from Kandahar in Afghanistan, where he had seen American battle tanks being unloaded from a Ukrainian-registered Antonov-124 "Ruslan", the heaviest and largest cargo airplane in the world. The friend asked if I had any idea what tanks would be good for in Afghanistan, and I said I didn't. It's an established fact from the Soviet war in Afghanistan that tanks are no good for most of the country's mountainous territory. They are good for flatlands, and the main body of flat land in the region is right across the border in Iran.

Later in August there was another bit of unofficial information from a Russian military source: more than a thousand American tanks and armored vehicles had been shipped to Eastern Afghanistan by Ukrainian "Ruslans" flying in three to five shipments a day, and more flights were expected.

Somehow all this, together with the series of articles in Izvestia, the information that all U.S. troops in Afghanistan are going to be reassigned and regrouped under unified command, the arrival of NATO naval ships in the Black Sea, the appointment of a man used to command troops in a combat environment as the new commander of the US Central Command and other bits and pieces. To my total astonishment, when they all fell together the Izvestia story started looking slightly more credible than before.

Today the U.S. media reported that there had been a leak from the Pentagon about a secret Presidential order in which President Bush authorized his military (most of which is currently on Afghan soil) to conduct operations in Pakistan without the necessity for informing the Pakistani government. The U.S. military in Afghanistan - or shall we say in the whole region neighboring Iran - is getting a freer hand by the day. And it is getting more and more hardware to play with.

Of course it's quite clear now that Georgia has lost its immediate potential as a nearby airfield, but after all, the aircraft carriers in the Gulf are not so far away.

Believe me I'm not saying that the U.S. is going to start an all-out war against Iran tomorrow. But aren't there indications that it may happen the day after tomorrow, a month from now, or on any date before the official handover of Presidency in the U.S.? Or, as some suggest, before the election?

I'm just asking the questions. But there are some people, like those working for Izvestia, for instance, who answer them with a "yes".

Evgeny Belenkiy, RT.

Bush and his big oil cabal would like for Americans to think that Hugo Chavez is a left wing, south American dictator. That lie couldn't be further from the truth. The people of Venezuela love him and every election they prove it. Spread this word to the people who believe everything this corrupted government tells us. They just want to demonize Chavez so we can go down there and steal his oil just like we want Bolivia's and Iran's and Iraq's oil. We want it all and those in power here in the U.S. don't care how many U.S. lives are spent enriching their corporate interests. They really couldn't care less how many American lives are spent in their quest for world domination of territory and resources. Shelley.

CARACAS, Venezuela — Opponents of President Hugo Chavez captured enough political terrain in Sunday's state and local elections to slow but not stop his grand ambitions to yank Venezuela and Latin America to the left, analysts said on Monday.

With both sides claiming victory, the results seem likely to set up another titanic battle in Venezuela. Chavez, 54, is expected to seek a national plebiscite early next year that would allow him to campaign for an additional six-year presidential term in 2012. Otherwise, Chavez would have to step down in early 2013 after 14 years in power.

"He wants to change the constitution to run again," said pollster Luis Vicente Leon. "There's no doubt about that."

Opposition party candidates on Monday celebrated winning the country's three most populous states, two smaller ones and the city of Caracas — in their best electoral showing in eight years.

Chavez, however, remains the country's dominant political figure. His candidates won about 58 percent of the overall vote in the governor's races, including 17 of the 22 contests. Chavez said his candidates won 80 percent of the mayoral races.

Chavez's older brother, Adan, was elected governor of Barinas by defeating a onetime Chavez supporter. The president's ex-wife, Marisabel Rodriguez, badly lost her race to be mayor of Barquisimeto on an anti-Chavez platform.

Following the elections, Chavez still exercises near-absolute control over the country's Congress. His appointees run the central bank, oversee the judicial system and manage state companies that his government has nationalized.

Chavez's government also runs programs highly popular in poor neighborhoods that give free health care delivered by Cuban doctors and that allow adults to return to school for no cost to get primary school, high school or university degrees.

Orlando Goncalves, a Caracas-based political consultant, said Chavez has the advantage in any upcoming referendum. "The president has a plan, and he knows what he wants," Goncalves said. "The opposition doesn't have a clear plan and remains divided."

Leon noted that the failure of opposition parties to settle on a single candidate in the winner-takes-all elections on Sunday likely cost them two governor's races.

In a nationwide televised address from the presidential palace Monday night, Chavez said opposition politicians are too busy knifing each other in the back to defeat him.

Chavez said the election results strengthened democracy in Venezuela.

So many Venezuelans voted on Sunday — turnout was 65 percent — that some didn't get to make their selections on the touch screen machines until six hours after polling stations had officially closed.

Goncalves said that in Sunday's elections, Chavez's candidates won 1.8 million votes more than Chavez did a year ago when Venezuelans rejected his proposal to abolish term limits and centralize the economy even further. Opposition candidates on Sunday won 300,000 votes less than they did a year ago.

"We won a tremendous victory," Chavez said in his nationwide talk, which lasted more than two hours. Chavez read the election results state by state to make his point that his side — or "21st Century Socialism" as he calls it — was the real victor.

Still, the opposition could take heart. Opposition parties will now hold five governor's offices, up from two, including the powerhouse states of Zulia, Miranda and Carabobo. Antonio Ledezma defeated a Chavez collaborator to be elected mayor of Caracas, the capital.

"We have to get to work to clean up Caracas," Ledezma said on Monday, noting that the city has perhaps the highest homicide rate in the world.

Carlos Ocariz, another opposition candidate, is the new mayor of Sucre, a sprawling slum district in eastern Caracas that had been a Chavez stronghold but is now beset by crime.

Manuel Rosales, who lost the 2006 presidential campaign to Chavez, was elected as mayor of Maracaibo, Zulia's capital.

"Chavez has to understand now that he has to negotiate, although I don't know if he's capable of doing that," said Alejandro Plaz, who is organizing an opposition civic group. "Chavez has just given orders to his governors, like they were his soldiers. He can't do that any more."

Plaz said Sunday's elections also likely signal problems for Chavez in congressional elections scheduled for 2010.

Plaz noted that analysts project a coming slowdown for Venezuela's oil-based economy with the sharp drop in oil prices.

"He'll have less money to spend," Plaz said.

To All: I started with this basic message and then was helped by Navy Retired Commander, a personal friend of mine, who has a vast back ground in these maters and a great capability to put into words the information in support of seeing the problem clearly and objectively. It was a joint effort.

Why I Think it Could Possibly be WORSE Now than in the 1929 Crash (As I see it)

There were actually many things in our favor when FDR took office. Looking back, there was the CCC he would establish, although something like that, but more ambitious, could be established by Pres. Obama. The total national debt was only $19 billion $487 million on June 30, 1932. Debt service on the National debt was handleable. There were no Social Security or Medicare payments. There were no wars draining our treasury. Our military was mainly at home. People expected to be taxed as required to pay for what the Government was asked to do for all of us. Many attribute the final success of coming fully out of the depression to WWII and all the expenditures to build up our military hardware inventory and the preceding "Arsenal for Democracy" to help our soon-to-be allies.


At the present time, we have a $10.6 trillion debt that costs $424 billion a year just in interest at 4%, if we are lucky to get it or keep it that low. We have two wars going on at a cost of at least $10 billion a month. There is not a dime left in our Treasury. We have to borrow from those nations that are willing to buy US Treasury Bonds, many of them deep down unfriendly to the USA. How long we can keep that up is questionable. Our baby boomers are coming into Social Security and Medicare age. A total of $4.8 trillion, of which $2.4 trillion is owed to Social Security alone, is owed by Congress, in the form of US Treasury Bonds. Baby boomers are already coming on board. As people get laid off by the thousands each month, less is going into these trust funds as withholding taxes, as well as less into the Treasury in the form of income taxes. Any money we loan to financial institutions or manufacturing companies also has to be borrowed (beyond our means) from foreign sources.... basically Communist China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and other oil rich countries. We Americans just don't have the Treasure any more. It's all been spent. Again, how long will they continue to buy our Bonds, particularly when they fully realize these two facts:

Fact One: FY 2008 saw a budget of $3 trillion, with a short fall of an over one trillion dollar deficit. That simply means our government spent 50% more than we had coming in.

Fact Two: In the first 50 days of FY 2009, we already have a deficit of over $627 billion... already more than half of last full year's woeful deficit!


The government or powers to be can raise the FDIC insurance limits just as high as they want. That is purely a Good Feeling event. It would be absolutely worthless in a serious depression. The FDIC is already short of money. They are now borrowing from foreign sources to cover these losses. There is an ominous and impending limit to our borrowing ability or even debt extension capability. And to print money with no backing would further devalue the American dollar, which would be very bad (although it might help exports, of course, if anybody out there is in a position to buy anything from us.)

Again, money coming in will continue to be less available for Social Security and Medicare as more people become eligible and less people are paying into these funds due to being laid off work. Also, because of these lay offs, less money goes into the Treasury as Income Tax. It sure looks to me like it could be a never ending spiral down into the abyss unless highly creative minds and policies come very quickly to the rescue and Republicans in the Congress can free themselves from the short slogans that have prevented intelligent action in the recent past. (Just imagine if the Bush Administration had the responsibility to handle this onrushing genuine crisis on which the whole future of our Nation depends, even for a couple of additional months, or if the G.O.P. had picked up additional "NO, NEVER" seats on the Senate. We are VERY lucky as a Nation that Inauguration day was moved up to January from where it had been!)

Oh, to have it as good as FDR had it in 1932 compared to the mess left to him that Obama now has to face after eight years of ignorance, lack of observation, perception, even care, and ever present overhanging susceptibility to freezing in the headlights when prompt intelligent steps were called for. This will take some really smart maneuvering, adequate paths toward sufficient effective solutions for which are not yet obvious to me.

Oh, how I do hope I am wrong..... very, very wrong.


Colin

Sunday, November 16, 2008
Bringing Bush to Justice
The current (December 2008) issue of Harper’s Magazine contains an article by Scott Horton (“Justice After Bush: Prosecuting an Outlaw Administration”) that meticulously identifies and assesses the legal and political difficulties in the way of settling accounts with the Bush administration’s violations of American and international law. Horton’s article includes proposals for steering through the obstacles; a plan that, if implemented, would actually do much of what needs to be done. But, of course, nothing will happen unless Congress and the Obama administration are forced to do the right and necessary thing. That’s why the task now is to make it politically impossible for the Party of Pusillanimity to follow its usual inclinations.

Left to their own devices, Obama and the others will want to “move on.” But the stakes are too high for them to get their way. Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and the rest must be brought to justice.

Needless to say, in this instance, real justice can hardly even be approximated; there is no way any punishment could fit the enormity of the crimes for which Bush and the others could be charged. But that is no reason to accede to calls for “bipartisanship” and consensus (within the political class). If Democrats are reluctant to proceed, the first order of business must be to make it clear to them that they will pay electorally for their “reasonableness” (cowardice). It must be impressed upon them, in no uncertain terms, that justice must be done. But not just for justice’s sake.

The more urgent need is to change the political constraints under which Democrats (and Republicans) operate -- as deeply and for as long as possible, the better to deter future criminality, but also, more importantly, to remove the temptation. If anything good can emerge from the Bush Wars, it will be an Iraq (or Iraq plus Afghanistan) Syndrome more disabling than the (short-lived) Vietnam Syndrome was. As American world domination becomes increasingly untenable – at a time when capitalism itself is falling increasingly into crisis – there is no other way for the American people, and the peoples of the world, to avoid a potentially catastrophic, near term hard landing. One change we really do need that lies within the horizons of what is possible in the short run are policies aimed at making the inevitable landing as soft as possible – while the United States makes the transition from a rogue superpower to one of several world powers in more or less permanent crisis.

But, again, for that to happen we must change the constraints under which Obama and his Clintonite colleagues and advisors operate. It is becoming increasingly clear, with each passing day, that Obama won’t do anything of the kind on his own initiative; if he does it at all, it will be because he is compelled. That won’t be easy. But we can make it happen.
Posted by Andrew Levine at 10:59 AM

Dear Newt,

I recently had the displeasure of watching you bash the protestors of the Prop 8 marriage ban to Bill O'Reilly on FOX News. I must say, after years of watching you build your career by stirring up the fears and prejudices of the far right, I feel compelled to use the words of your idol, Ronald Reagan, "There you go, again."

However, I realize that you may have been a little preoccupied lately with planning your resurrection as the savior of your party, so I thought I would fill you in on a few important developments you might have overlooked.

The truth is that you're living in a world that no longer exists. I, along with millions of Americans, clearly see the world the way it as -- and we embrace what it can be. You, on the other hand, seem incapable of looking for new ideas or moving beyond what worked in the past.

Welcome to the 21st century, big bro. I can understand why you're so afraid of the energy that has been unleashed after gay and lesbian couples had their rights stripped away from them by a hateful campaign. I can see why you're sounding the alarm against the activists who use all the latest tech tools to build these rallies from the ground up in cities across the country.

This unstoppable progress has at its core a group we at HRC call Generation Equality. They are the most supportive of full LGBT equality than any American generation ever -- and when it comes to the politics of division, well, they don't roll that way. 18-24 year olds voted overwhelmingly against Prop 8 and overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. And the numbers of young progressive voters will only continue to grow. According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning, about 23 million 18-29 year olds voted on Nov. 4, 2008 -- the most young voters ever to cast a ballot in a presidential election. That's an increase of 3 million more voters compared to 2004.

These are the same people who helped elect Barack Obama and sent a decisive message to your party. These young people are the future and their energy will continue to drive our country forward. Even older Americans are turning their backs on the politics of fear and demagoguery that you and your cronies have perfected over the years.

This is a movement of the people that you most fear. It's a movement of progress -- and your words on FOX News only show how truly desperate you are to maintain control of a world that is changing before your very eyes.

Then again, we've seen these tactics before. We know how much the right likes to play political and cultural hardball, and then turn around and accuse us of lashing out first. You give a pass to a religious group -- one that looks down upon minorities and women -- when they use their money and membership roles to roll back the rights of others, and then you label us "fascists" when we fight back. You belittle the relationships of gay and lesbian couples, and yet somehow neglect to explain who anointed you the protector of "traditional" marriage. And, of course, you've also mastered taking the foolish actions of a few people and then indicting an entire population based on those mistakes. I fail to see how any of these patterns coincide with the values of "historic Christianity" you claim to champion.

Again, nothing new here. This is just more of the blatant hypocrisy we're used to hearing.

What really worries me is that you are always willing to use LGBT Americans as political weapons to further your ambitions. That's really so '90s, Newt. In this day and age, it's embarrassing to watch you talk like that. You should be more afraid of the new political climate in America, because, there is no place for you in it.

In other words, stop being a hater, big bro.