Dan Feidt's log on Minnesota, Information Operations, spinstorms and latent contradictions.
Some stuff happened. Well, a final semester at Macalester. Thanks to Peter "I really am a reporter in Wyoming right now" Gartrell, he and I started working at Politics in Minnesota, as the new edition of the state directory of legislators and politicos got put together.
Along the way I ran into Al Franken at the Capitol, after he talked to DFLers in caucus (Matt Entenza took the photo!). So Peter and I each interviewed about 1/3 of the state legislature, which I think adjusted my perceptions of why people get into office, and what sorts of folks they actually are. Overall it was quite a stunning experience.
In my time there, I uncovered an old document, "Minnesota's Non-Party Legislature" by Senator Daniel S. Feidt, written by my grandfather in 1957. A sort of paean to a lost legislative system, the nonpartisan arrangement that he served under for many years.
Hunter Thompson shot himself, which was pretty brutal, but an understandable exit for an old man in increasing, terminal pain. Towards the end he was as surprised as everyone else to still be alive. He shot himself in front of the typewriter, with one word inscribed: 'counselor.' A Raw Story contributor noted its meaning:
I picked up the Bible and quickly scanned the Gospel of John. There it was in the 14th chapter:
“16 And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.”
......
For following your Counselor often means discovering things that aren’t fit for polite company. It’s never pleasant to find evil growing among the peonies. Or in the hearts of your elected officials. Better to be “vaguely happy” than uncomfortable. Thompson, though, never fell for that devil’s lie. He knew that even though the truth often cuts like a razor, it also serves as a “Comforter” when the jackals begin circling. Because as Thompson recognized, the jackals don’t really give a damn whether you speak the truth or not. They are coming after us all one day. But facing the bastards down is a whole lot easier when you’ve got the truth by your side.
Nick Petersen and I did a tribute radio show on WMCN on Fri.,Feb 25th. I still have the recording of this session, and I'm going to get it out here pretty soon. The show had a real good feel to it, and strange things happened that day.
Nick and I randomly ran into Flan for what would be our final time. Matt Norman lit a shot of Wild Turkey on fire and spilled it on a desk, spreading a large fire that I quickly blew out. I purchased two red stoplights from Ax-Man.
The Alfalfa Males performed at the Peters' house on Dayton & Fry, which was awesome.
So then, it seems a strange and bittersweet day now, but still, it was a worthwhile venture.
In terms of academics, I was glad that I took a difficult class on the Holocaust from Dr. Frank Adler in my final year. The basic historical lessons of the Holocaust are incredibly valuable today; the many connections between the Shoah and the War on Terroah's murderous political atmosphere these days disturb and alarm me. It has taught me that only by first making fellow humans into two-dimensional characters (filthy Jew / terrorist rat nest) and merging perceived negative identities (Judeobolshevik / Islamofascist) can a rationalized, industrialized process of annihilation take hold, and drive a war ever further.
Graduation was momentous, etc. etc. It was profoundly weird, since I'd been arrested the prior Wednesday at an unexpectedly aggressive police raid against a cottage that had only contained a party for about five minutes. I took pictures of police action (as I have in the past, successfully) and they didn't appreciate that, and slapped the camera of out my hand and arrested me. This began seven months of repeated hearings and delays, and shifts to three different judges at Ramsey County courthouse. The city refused to cough up the memory card. When I finally got to tell the judge my side, she was upset that the photo evidence had not been presented, and my charges were summarily dismissed. A tiny victory added to the sediment of legal affairs...
This summer I moved in with Colin Kennedy, with Matt and Eric next door, sharing a massive front porch overlooking Selby and Fry. Good times were had by all. I was employed part-time by Politics in Minnesota and Computer Zone Consulting, which was not really quite enough income, but still somewhat interesting. I knew that I needed to find a full time job, but the case of the Macalester raid was still hanging over me and I feared (somewhat irrationally) that background checks would backfire terribly.
We had a good time hanging out with the Jane Cat, debating anarchy and the waxing and waning of empires. I read quite a few political books from differing perspectives...
The CIA hits Hongpong.com again. In late July I determined that the Central Intelligence Agency had visited this fine site on July 7 looking for 'text messaging IED' on Google. Also for some reason they came looking for 'bloomington lrt condo' in March. This was not as cool as the CIA hit from 'goss punish cia analysts cold war 2004' back in November 10, 2004, as CIA employees were surely considering the blowback from the election in their agency. There have been a lot of other government hits this year, from the Defense and State Departments, the Australian Defense ministry, etc. etc.
Indeed, I feel very strongly that intelligence analysts in the CIA, DIA, State Department and other institutions should be free to give their unvarnished views of the facts as they see them. I fear that the neo-conservatives and other National Security Nasties like Porter Goss are threatening analysts who vary from the preferred political standpoint. For example, it would have been a bad career move for an analyst to say that 'I don't think there are real WMDs in Iraq' before the war (the NSA's Kenneth Ford may be such a case - perhaps). Are Goss and others crushing all factual dissent, pursuing an empire of suppressing analyzed reality in the American intelligence community, in favor of synthetic neo-con paranoid bullshit, designed to scare America into compliance and endless wars?
There was a Times story that John Bolton at the State Dept. used NSA intercepts that monitored conversations between American officials -- as a way to try to outmaneuver his rivals (like probably Armitage, for example). This is individual information warfare inside the government at its most dangerous -- especially since the neo-cons are fuckwits who don't deserve to keep their jobs at all. They are better at backstabbing then 'delivering the goods' we need to solve our multiplying problems. As a source said to Laura Rozen:
Bolton was running his own counterintelligence operation, was using the intelligence to figure out how he can get back at people.
The point is this: My perspective on this site is very wary of the deepening dominance of political appointees in places like State and CIA, and with it, increasing surveillance and political pressure against the 'career professionals' of our government.
We have intelligence agencies to attempt to sift fact from fiction, prevent foreign manipulation, and present the political leadership with options. The WMD stories about Iraq, propagated by the INC and Chalabi, supported by Cheney, his hawks and journalists like Judith Miller, should have been stopped cold by personnel in the intelligence agencies, since as it turned out, much of Chalabi's stuff was made up by Iranians who wished to get the US to topple Saddam. I think that the war in Iraq couldn't have happened without browbeating the rank-and-file at the CIA, who didn't trust Chalabi or the WMD yarns. Political appointees made it impossible for the rest of the intelligence community to speak out against the war.
Libby was a Fixer of Intelligence around the Policy: The big, weird political story of the year was Libby's indictment. but what was his motive for defending the Yellowcake story and trying to discredit Rove? That is pretty much the kernel of the story, not the contested chronology of reporter conversations. If the Iraq war started because of purely 'altruistic' intelligence mistakes about WMD, then why would Libby try to enforce the silence of the intelligence community by suddenly burning a top agent, Valerie Plame?
On the other hand, if the war started because of wholly fabricated stories, if the Office of Special Plans and Michael Ledeen, among others, were systematically spoofing the 'threat perception' of Iraq while suppressing the realistic views of the general intelligence community, then suddenly we see that Libby attacked the CIA in order to intimidate the rank-and-file to shut them up about all the gaps in the fake war rationales.
I have tried to be alert for information that indicates this kind of deception, stuff offering some insight into the complex of fear and disinformation that has settled over this country. I think that HongPong.com, on the whole, provided a useful core of information to begin teasing apart the big picture. I have a great respect for the many in the government who struggle with this stuff. The conflict will continue, and I'll try to help illuminate what I can. (each one of us can be the eye in the pyramid sometimes, right? :-)
On September 1, I found myself very underemployed and with little money. I was forced to move back into Hudson, WI, with the folks, as I worked on some projects and slept in the family room upstairs. However along the way I met Russ Feingold at a fundraiser at a Wisconsin farm. Good times. He called for a firm deadline for withdrawal, continued scrutiny of the Patriot Act, and other sound yet gutsy political positions that have the added benefit of actually defending freedom and our national interests. He's lining up to be the Progressive Dem presidential candidate for '08, and it seems basically impossible, but it would be great to get his perspective in the mix.
Peace efforts in the fall continued to raise some consciousness, as a kind of war fatigue set in, causing Bush's poll numbers to plunge. I took photos at a peace vigil on the Lake Street bridge — as the White House refused to release documents that should have been released to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 — documents that would surely have influenced their conclusions about how bad the spoofed intel was, helpting to blame it on the CIA.
Depressingly, this year it was confirmed that the US deployed 'White Phosphorus' weapons as chemical weapons in the vicinity of Fallujah, and possibly elsewhere. How grimly ironic that we invaded the cradle of civilization in illusory pursuit of some moldering VX and mustard gas shells, only to find ourselves so hated by the occupied that we chose to apply to combat a chemical that essentially melts flesh?
The Pentagon initially claimed that these were 'incendiary' not 'chemical' weapons, and indeed, WP can be used to light up or torch a sizable area. However, it can also be deployed as a 'shake and bake' chemical assault, as an Army publication termed it. This shows that we still haven't nuked anyone, but we're getting there. Although, arguably, Depleted Uranium is a form of chemical warfare as well.
Nonetheless, as the polls inexorably shifted against Bush and confidence in his war conduct, it seemed that reality would finally snap back against their utopian fantasies and sordid machinations. The Downing Street Memo and the abrupt secret Senate session to demand intel investigations finally shifted the ball in the 'fake intelligence' conflict, and a majority of Americans now seem to believe that Bush misled them. These were no small feats.
I also went along a march and rally at the U of M, which culminated in a protest in front of the recruiter's office near the University. The protests showed the strain of this costly and destabilizing war on the students. I mean, simply put, how much more could we put into our dilapidated schools and anxious students, if not for the Mesopotamian Follies?
In October, Colin unearthed a sweet apartment in downtown Minneapolis, and I decided it was worth swooping on. We've had a number of good parties, which has made it all worthwhile. Life at Politics in Minnesota has picked up a bit, and seems worth sticking with for a while.
A final twist: Dan sets a bit of the agenda on a Clear Channel transmission: As it turned out, one of my two superiors at Politics in Minnesota, the shadowy Republican lobbyist/analyst Sarah Janecek, somehow landed a major radio hosting gig on a new Clear Channel station in the Twin Cities, KTLK. From 4 to 7 on weekdays, she and Brian Lambert (formerly of the Pioneer Press) will host a radio show. They had a warm-up show on KFAN on Friday, and I provided some material - mainly of 'Top 10 of 2005' style lists from the Internet. It added a few parts to the show, so that was good.
Much as at the beginning of this year, I never thought I'd be involved with something like the Politics in Minnesota directory, and yet, there I was. Now I find myself nearby the genesis of something almost mythically shady, a new Clear Channel station. Time to see what is happening in there....
This year has been one strange episode after another. I got arrested but won the legal case, met the Legislature, got checked by the CIA, worked for a Republican operative, moved to downtown Minneapolis, and oh yah, graduated from college.
We've got hazy but ambitious plans here. It's a short 11 months to the next election. Congress is on the table, the stage is set, the dance will continue, Bush will skate the edge of the Eschaton and I'll stick to my operations. With Katrina, the Tsunami, and the obliteration of a Great American City, nothing can be taken for granted. With the expanding Information Wars, nothing can be trusted.
Like I said before, the operative principle here for 2006 is "Nothing is True. Everything is Permitted." Call this strange year cashed.
Palestinian militants say truce ends at midnight
By Arnon Regular and Nir Hasson, Haaretz Correspondents, Haaretz Service and News Agencies
Militant Palestinian factions said on Saturday that as of New Year's Day they would no longer be bound by a truce that has brought the most peaceful spell since the start of the five-year-old uprising.
Meanwhile, Israel Air Force fire killed two Palestinians in the no-go area of the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday night, according to Palestinian security sources.
Haaretz: A waiting game
By Amir Oren
According to his strategic adviser, Eival Giladi, Sharon's time frame for a permanent settlement is approximately 2025: only 19 years from Sunday. The new year, 2006, is already shaping up as a wasted one, a year of treading water, unless a different Palestinian leadership arises, replacing Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) or displacing him. Absent such a leadership, the terrorism will continue, including the launching of Qassams. And if no new leadership emerges, a generation will pass before new leaders appear.
The cruel choice that is becoming constantly clearer is between Hamas and Marwan Barghouti. Anyone who does not want to see Hamas in power will have to accept Barghouti as the prime minister of a Palestinian government until the end of the Abbas presidency, and accept him as president afterward.
........
At the beginning of the month, a senior General Staff officer was invited to represent Israel in a joint course of about 30 generals from the Western armies that are mired in Iraq and Afghanistan. The topic under discussion was urban combat against insurgents and terrorist and guerrilla elements. At the meeting in which lessons were drawn, the IDF representative agreed with the accepted view that dealt with the importance of intelligence and command-and-control systems, but in his view the true challenge facing the governments, armies and intelligence agencies of the advanced countries is more conceptual than operational or technological. The gist of the challenge involves shattering the regular format of military behavior, to the point where terrorist groups will be unable to predict the behavior of the state system they are facing.
.......
The officers and Shin Bet personnel who always aspire "to close a circle" - to see, identify and shoot before the target disappears - know that the substantive difficulty does not lie in their sphere. With the Palestinians - and with the Lebanese, too, until the Syrian and Iranian influence on them is annulled - there is no way to close a political circle of give-and-take, agreement, upholding and domestic enforcement.
Meanwhile In Iraq... the Kurds seem to be preparing to make a move in 2006.... We were told that Ambassador Negroponte would bring some of that 'Salvadoran Option' death squad tactics to Iraq. And indeed, he did with his practiced, masterful skill from the salad days in Honduras. Fortunately, many of the new Death squads / 'freedom fighters of free Iraq' were trained (and are still paid) from Iran, lending a certain Persian texture for those now chafing under the Badr Corps and other various militia.
Turning (much of) Iraq into something of an Iranian satellite state was an obvious effect of an invasion that anyone could see coming. Why the hell was that in vital American interests? Tell me, you hawks, what does that get us?
US-Shiite Struggle Could Spin out of Control
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON, Dec 26 (IPS) - The George W. Bush administration has embarked on a new effort to pressure Iraq's militant Shiite party leaders to give up their control over internal security affairs that could lead the Shiites to reconsider their reliance on U.S. troops.
.....
For Shiite party leaders, U.S. pressure to share state power with secular or Sunni representatives -- especially on internal security -- touches a raw nerve. They regard control over the organs of state repression as the key to maintaining a Shiite regime in power.
If Abdul Aziz al-Hakin and other SCIRI leaders feel they have to choose between relying on U.S. military protection and the security of their regime, they are likely to choose the latter. They could counter U.S. pressures by warning they will demand a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops if the United States continues to interfere in such politically sensitive matters.
That would not be an entirely idle threat. Last October, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani was reported by associates to be considering such a demand. The implication of calling for a relatively rapid U.S. withdrawal would be that the Shiite leaders would turn to Iran for overt financial and even military assistance, in line with their fundamental foreign policy orientation.
The Bush administration's strategy of pressure on Shiite leaders over the issue of control over state security organs thus has the potential to spin out of control and cause another policy disaster in Iraq and the entire Middle East.
Kurds in Iraqi army proclaim loyalty to militia
By Tom Lasseter
Knight Ridder Newspapers
KIRKUK, Iraq - Kurdish leaders have inserted more than 10,000 of their militia members into Iraqi army divisions in northern Iraq to lay the groundwork to swarm south, seize the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and possibly half of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, and secure the borders of an independent Kurdistan.
Five days of interviews with Kurdish leaders and troops in the region suggest that U.S. plans to bring unity to Iraq before withdrawing American troops by training and equipping a national army aren't gaining traction. Instead, some troops that are formally under U.S. and Iraqi national command are preparing to protect territory and ethnic and religious interests in the event of Iraq's fragmentation, which many of them think is inevitable.
CSM:Iraq's micro parties could play key role
Shiites and Kurds look to be big winners of this month's vote, but tiny parties could emerge as power brokers.
NY Times: G.I.'s to increase U.S. Supervision of Iraqi Police
The increase is seen as a way to exert firmer control over the commando units, which are suspected of carrying out widespread atrocities against civilians in Sunni Arab neighborhoods. Human rights groups here say the units may be guilty of murdering and torturing hundreds, and possibly thousands, of Sunni Arab men of military age.
........
American officials say it is unclear whom the units are taking orders from, the ministry or militia commanders. The minister of the interior, Bayan Jabr, is a senior member of the Badr Brigade.
Mr. Jabr is fighting the American plan to place more advisers in the Iraqi commando units, according to the senior American commander. "We'd know exactly what they are doing, and we'd have some more control," the commander said.
Momentarily, a summing of the year 2005, such as it was.
Some scientists determined that apparently, across the scale from bacteria to whale, the basic unit of life is energy and metabolism -- not time. A Master Equation for All Life Processes? Check out the 10 little-known sweet science stories. A Swedish bio-gas (cow poo) train, pillows are laden with fungi, French scientists figured out how to slow down & speed up light, (!!!) leading the way to future all-optical data routers (!!!!!), a robot with square wheels, and of course they are training honey bees to find land mines! (also 50 greatest robots ever - via GM)
The Eagle faces the olive branch: Dear Leader recently addressed the nation about that war thing, and someone told me that it was interesting how the olive branch on the Great Seal of the United States is hidden.
(Bush has also been pressuring newspaper editors a lot lately, including trying to prevent the CIA European prison stories in the WaPo, and the Times NSA story, by summoning the editors to the Oval Office in a vain effort to intoxicate with the fearful trappings of power)
I found out that on the Presidential Seal, the eagle used to face the arrows until 1945:
This one-time change has given rise to the myth that the eagle's head changes position to indicate wartime or peacetime, but that is obviously not true. The eagle faced right from 1880 to 1945, and has faced left ever since. It is nevertheless true that, when the change was made in 1945, the announcement referred to the symbolism of the eagle facing peace instead of war, and this symbolism has been alluded to many times since, although it was not the motivation for the change.
Make no mistake; when the Duke makes a televised address, every visual detail is carefully managed. The fascinating Brian Springer film "Spin", which was made primarily with intercepted satellite signals — open video feeds from the White House and other political and media operations. There's one funny part when they remove a photo from behind Poppa Bush's seat, because it is thought to resemble a recent photo of when he passed out in Japan.
So make no mistake, the selection of the arrows was 100% intentional, in a White House as image-conscious as this one.
(evil witch Peggy Noonan observed Bush talking about the way the eagle faces pre-9/11)
Windy: Energy issues in MN. Apparently the vast majority of windmills around Buffalo Ridge are not owned locally according to an interesting Strib article. Let's think about the means of production here people!
They don't like the vote: Guardian: Religious parties deal blow to US hopes for Iraq. Apparently an official level of 5% vote fraud in Iraq has been accepted, Juan Cole says:
The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq admitted on Sunday that voting fraud occurred in approximately 5 percent of the ballots cast, but said that this level of fraud would not affect the over-all outcome. Still, the IECI announcement will certainly fuel Sunni Arab anger and conviction that the election was stolen.
Bizarre. The Sunnis think that Shiites ganked their votes, and there have been mass protests in Fallujah. KR: "Iran now enemy No. 1, Sunnis say". Violence resumes apace as Sunni Arab student leader killed in Mosul after protesting vote -- Shiite militias and Kurds accused of killing him.
AP reports that US airstrikes are escalating, although of course it is hard to tell how many civilian casualties this generates, or whether they are the 'right targets,' or whether it is strategically useful at all. Such urban bombardments have not been seen in years, but due to 'perception management' techniques, the US public is blissfully unaware. A Steel Curtain for their bodies and our eyes, indeed.
RJ Eskow: Voting Confirms: Iraq Is a Red state. We have generated a fundamentalist theocracy, aligned against Israel, towards Iran, while 45% of the country supports attacking US troops. Why was this such a brilliant fucking idea again? Robert Scheer cackles: Iran's victory revealed in Iraq election.
Ethnic/sect structure of iraqi forces is doomed, man: One of the measuring sticks of how propagandizing a perspective on the Iraq war is how the difference between Sunni & Shiite groups is framed. When Sunnis are "rat's nest terrorists" while the Shiites are "Free Iraqis come to Battle for Freedom" in the northwest of the country, you are looking at some obfuscation.
Consider this first: SF Chronicle: Various private armies still exist, threatening Iraq's national security:
Residents of Samarra, the scene of bloody clashes between U.S. soldiers and insurgents, said they feared a Shiite militia being unleashed on the city. Interviewed in their homes this week, they said they were unaware of a Mahdi Army presence, but claimed they had already suffered when commandos affiliated with al-Sadr's militia were dispatched to the city earlier this year.
Ibrahim Farraj, who lives in the Sikek district, said, "The Interior Ministry forces are very strong. The insurgents are afraid of them, but they are corrupt and we cannot trust them. The last time the Interior Ministry was here, they were al-Sadr -- people are scared of them and the Mahdi Army."
U.S. Army Capt. Ryan Wylie, of the 3rd Infantry Division serving in Samarra, said he had heard rumors that the Interior Ministry was conducting a private war, but had seen no evidence.
These bloggers that have been embedded with US troops in the northwest Euphrates river valley are all about exaggerating this difference. In particular, Bill Roggio at Threatswatch (where the map above came from) explains how Rats Nests are obliterated in Steel Curtain Unmasked, and other interesting dehumanizing euphemisms. See if you can find the subtle twist of meaning here:
Throughout the operation, the 1/1/1 of the Iraqi Army and the Desert Protection Force worked in conjunction with the U.S. Forces, and proved to be an instrumental part of the operation. The Iraqi Army battalion participated in combat operations, and they and Desert Protectors were able to identify foreign fighters and local insurgents.
I wonder if Roggio can wrap his head around the concept that 'identifying' is not a neutral act of observation, but a conscious change of political identity (by Shiite militia, no less) leading straight to violence.
Roggio is not happy about a Washington Post article that characterized his role in Iraq as a military-supported Information Operation. He says that all the cash to get him there was raised independently, and that the military has not 'influenced' his writing. But his main sources are military personnel, and his perspective is deeply enmeshed with the same terminology and concepts that Pentagon spokespeople attempt to beat into our heads. Here's his core point:
Equating military information operations with al-Qaeda propaganda efforts is a form of moral equivalence of the worst sort. The U.S. military is conducting an influence campaign to draw attention to the news which is missed by the media on a daily basis. Their belief (and one that I share) is the portrayal of events in Iraq do not reflect the actual situation on the ground. While the articles may be viewed as “favorable” to the Coalition, the question is, are they accurate and factual? The Washington Post does not address this issue, nor does it provide evidence that the military is running a disinformation campaign.
Misrepresenting the source (such as the placed Iraqi newspaper stories) is a form of disinformation because it manipulates the perception of where it's coming from. The military's justification is that there is a metaphysical or ontological gap between (all?) portrayals and reality, according to him. Well isn't there always? How far can this go? Also consider this ironic statement:
al-Qaeda is running a sheer disinformation campaign which uses human beings as props in events such as beheadings and execution styled killings. It manufactures events, such as the faux uprising in Ramadi in the beginning of December. The truth is not relevant to al-Qaeda’s propaganda operations, only results matter.
The administration has 'manufactured' all sorts of symbolic events and concepts, such as the Statue Toppling, the mysteriously Satanic Terrorist Singularity in Fallujah that needed to be nuked after the 2004 Presidential election, etc. There have been plenty of symbolic constructions. Look at how Pat Tillman died -- that event was manufactured beyond the truth (it was a friendly fire fatality) to burnish the war narrative. Oh by the way, here's what Tillman's dad said:
"They purposely interfered with the investigation, they covered it up," Patrick Tillman said. "I think they thought they could control it and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to hell in a hand basket if the truth about his death got out."
Al Qaeda is not the only force at hand here seeking to 'sharpen the contradictions' through symbolic action. What is Shock and Awe, if not a symbolic gesture? (Roggio also said that lots of Sunnis voted for Allawi in Anbar. That's fucking ridiculous!)
But what can I say about a worldview with ideas like "Samarra, a city once ripe for a Tal Afar styled assault."
By the way, here's a by-the-numbers orthodox propaganda tale about the Terrorists in Mosul. Of course it comes from the American Forces Press Service, part of the 'American Forces Information Service.' Use this to set your propaganda index, I guess.
Sadr City has a good deal of reconstruction, after decades of neglect. A story in the rightwing UK Telegraph claims that Tal Afar is totally ballin' these days:
Their commander, Col H R McMaster, is a counter-insurgency specialist who wrote a book about the Vietnam War, in which he criticised the US military's failure to understand the enemy's culture.
Before deployment, his men were given extensive Arabic classes and intensive lessons on Iraqi history, customs and religion. Proper efforts were made to woo local tribal sheiks with banquets in which goats were slaughtered and concerns listened to.
"The enemy is really good at disinformation and propaganda. We have to win the battleground of perception," he said.
Big Brother & Crying Wolf: People are more willing to believe the right yarn at the right time these days. A student at Dartmouth claimed that Homeland Security questioned him after he got Mao's Little Red Book through inter-library loan. But apparently it was a hoax. This story shows that people are expecting to hear these kinds of things... so stay sharp, we can hit spin real fast here.
Scratch the Checks and/or Balances: How sad is it that Sen. Rockefeller gets to jot secret handwritten notes of concern to the White House like a high school sweetheart, and that is supposed to be his total constitutional role? WTF?
AIPAC says Jump! WaPo: "Pro-Israel Group Criticizes White House Policy on Iran:"
AIPAC, which describes itself as nonpartisan, has criticized nearly every administration's Middle East policies, often speaking out when Israeli government officials express private frustration with U.S. policies.
But the news releases mark the first major criticism of the Bush White House and come as the administration is focused on problems in Iraq and has no clear path on Iran.
[.....]
Ross said the criticisms, though serious, are unlikely to lead to an all-out rift between AIPAC and the administration. "At the end of the day, every administration does what it needs to do, but obviously they will have to pay attention to this," he said.
Which again suggests that AIPAC should be registered as an agent of a foreign power. Well, that, and some of their (former) personnel have been indicted on espionage charges (more info here via the New Yorker).
Biochemical roots of the Munchies: Cannabinoid receptors around the hypothalamus.
In their studies, the researchers concentrated on the lateral hypothalamus (LH) of the brain, known to be a center of control of food intake. Their studies involved detailed electrophysiological measurements of the effects of specific neurons that they had identified in previous studies as being important in endocannabinoid signaling.
Their studies revealed that activation of CB1 receptors, as by endocannabinoid molecules, induced these neurons to be rendered more excitable by a mechanism called "depolarization-induced suppression of inhibition" (DSI).
What's more, they found that leptin inhibits DSI. However, they found that leptin did not interfere with the CB1 receptors themselves. Rather, leptin "short-circuits" the endocannabinoid effects by inhibiting pore-like channels in the neurons that regulate the flow of calcium into the neurons. Such calcium is necessary for the synthesis of endocannabinoids.
Call the Cave of Shadows the Cave already! As we find ourselves hip-deep in propaganda, it's hard to know where to turn. Such strange web conspiracy theories as the Chappelle Theory briefly amuse us, but these are just the zeitgeist products of an insane time. The Cosby Theory, a follow-on satire of Chappelle Theory, explains the terrible conspiracy of the Cosby Sweaters. (the guys who dreamed up the Chappelle Theory were advised by their lawyers to let everyone know it's totally fake).
Some guy mocked me in the comments, implying I believed that the Chappelle Theory was real. I said that "The site looks good, it tells an exciting tale. In other words it's another well-marketed conspiracy theory thing," and I picked out a quote of Oprah ranting about her infinite power like a Bond villain. I thought it was a well-crafted example of that sort of site, but at no point did I claim it was real, although it prompted me to reflect that Chappelle might have been threatened somewhere along the way, and some of the 'Dark Crusaders' may have negatively reacted to Chappelle. (It was indeed well-marketed. They are now selling Dark Crusaders t-shirts.)
These days, there is a pretty thick distance between what we're presented with, and the Objective Truth that I still suspect exists somewhere. This site has been unafraid to link to raving lunatics, angry Iraqis, neoconservative screeds and gibbering Freemason spotters. I'm not looking over their shoulder, so how can I trust them any differently than, say, Scott McClellan or the Associated Press?
As we learned from such works as The Illuminatus! Trilogy, a conspiracy theory can offer a direct conjecture about a certain set of facts or circumstances, but it can also show an alternate style of linking events and people together.
A goofy conspiracy theory centered on pop culture is a kind of prism that reflects the basic weirdness of our times. When it's executed with style, I'll mention it because its logical form — apart from its literal content — can help induce a bit of a mindfuck, a unit of guerilla ontology to the everyday grind, imploding assumptions.
For example, when I mentioned to my family this crazy Chappelle Theory, they immediately leapt to Oprah's defense. How would Oprah ever threaten anyone?! She's a paragon of sassy afternoon virtue!!"
Aha!" said I, tanked on a bit of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. "Why do you leap to praise her automatically? She's just some billionaire! This silly theory reveals that you have all sorts of biased, programmed instincts to defend the wealthy & powerful, etc etc..."
The point is that we live in an Disinformation Age, and a wobbly conspiracy theory can help show you why Conventional Wisdom is just as shaky. As I have detailed here, we invaded Iraq partly because Iranian intelligence agents fed lurid stories about nuclear weapons through Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress into the Pentagon and the Vice President's office. That's part of the history of our times, and it's pretty damned conspiratorial. It sets the bar for intrigue, I think it's fair to say.
The sources of supposedly 'clean & authoritative information' in our information economy utterly failed to figure this out in time, and they still haven't come clean about it.
I long ago decided that only by monitoring the widest possible spectrum of rhetoric and information can a rough sense or useful 'heuristic' of any given political theater be reached. So I can't be afraid to reflect on what anyone from Charles Krauthammer to Wayne Madsen to DEBKAfile to Hezbollah's Al Manar is talking about. You can't achieve more intellectual accuracy by boycotting Mother Jones.
When yet another slickly executed Conspiracy Theory tale comes along, as they always do, I'll often toss it up here because it shows that the Dominant Narrative and Tacit Assumptions are often just as ridiculous. The battle for perceptions runs deep these days; the war is between your ears and behind your eyes.
The issue of Information Warfare is going to be a hot one next year, but we ought to take it all with a sense of good humor and a strong drug regimen to keep our minds limber, as the Dude put it.
To some extent, all political rhetoric rests on gestures toward phantasmic workings, a secret esoteric logic — either hidden actors, or Principles such as Freedom arranged by that mysterious Other 'Calling from beyond the Stars' for Dear Leader. As Ariel Sharon put it recently, "You see things from here [as PM] that you don't see from there [an outsider]." This is the 'appeal to authority' argument, and the Authorities cash out the fallacy as far as they can.
Plato spelled out this basic political principle for us in the Allegory of the Caves, when he said that only the select can reach the World of True Forms, while the rest would just watch projections. He meant that a good leader better be able to dream up some fine-sounding esoteric Forms to tell the tribe at the campfire. An objectively false 'conspiracy' can still illustrate how these grand Authoritative and Legitimate Sources are just a couple notches up from the tribal shaman.
Botox is the new charmed skull on a stick, the Brookings Institution is nothing but the 21st century's beard-stroking witch doctor.
Of course, as an atheist I must consider all spiritual appeals as possibly having this basic political purpose at their core, even if part of the intention is self-deception, rather than purely manipulating the audience.
Again we must return to the words of Hasan i Sabah, the leader of the Assassins. "Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted." Surely, Karl Rove is his truest disciple, and I'll set the ideological filters for my site's content accordingly.
(The Dead Letter Formerly Known As) Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
TDLFKAA4. It made it a fairly long time.
NY Times: F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show
The documents indicate that in some cases, the F.B.I. has used employees, interns and other confidential informants within groups like PETA and Greenpeace to develop leads on potential criminal activity and has downloaded material from the groups' Web sites, in addition to monitoring their protests.
In the case of Greenpeace, which is known for highly publicized acts of civil disobedience like the boarding of cargo ships to unfurl protest banners, the files indicate that the F.B.I. investigated possible financial ties between its members and militant groups like the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front.
A weird and sinister cast to these holidays. Not just because I'm trying to recalibrate my worldview to a dead friend, but hey, it pretty much looks like everyone is the Enemy at Home these days. As Sean-Paul put it,
I just don't feel . . . like there is much point to blogging or doing much of anything right now. Our president clearly broke the law and no one gives a shit. The DC press corps thinks it's a joke. ... Color me depressed and deeply saddened. Merry Christmas America.
That last link is the Daou Report. Says it all pretty much, but I feel like side-stepping my proscribed part (italic) today:
The Dynamic of a Bush Scandal: How the Spying Story Will Unfold (and Fade) - The third button on the Daou Report's navigation bar links to the U.S. Constitution, a Constitution many Americans believe is on life support - if not already dead. The cause of its demise is the corrosive interplay between the Bush administration, a bevy of blind apologists, a politically apathetic public, a well-oiled rightwing message machine, lapdog reporters, and a disorganized opposition. The domestic spying case perfectly illuminates the workings of that system. And the unfolding of this story augurs poorly for those who expect it to yield different results from other administration scandals.
Here's why: the dynamic of a typical Bush scandal follows familiar contours...
1. POTUS circumvents the law - an impeachable offense.
2. The story breaks (in this case after having been concealed by a news organization until well after Election 2004).
3. The Bush crew floats a number of pushback strategies, settling on one that becomes the mantra of virtually every Republican surrogate. These Republicans face down poorly prepped Dem surrogates and shred them on cable news shows.
4. Rightwing attack dogs on talk radio, blogs, cable nets, and conservative editorial pages maul Bush's critics as traitors for questioning the CIC.
5. The Republican leadership plays defense for Bush, no matter how flagrant the Bush over-reach, no matter how damaging the administration's actions to America's reputation and to the Constitution. A few 'mavericks' like Hagel or Specter risk the inevitable rightwing backlash and meekly suggest that the president should obey the law. John McCain, always the Bush apologist when it really comes down to it, minimizes the scandal.
6. Left-leaning bloggers and online activists go ballistic, expressing their all-too-familiar combination of outrage at Bush and frustration that nothing ever seems to happen with these scandals. Several newspaper editorials echo these sentiments but quickly move on to other issues.
7. A few reliable Dems, Conyers, Boxer, et al, take a stand on principle, giving momentary hope to the progressive grassroots/netroots community. The rest of the Dem leadership is temporarily outraged (adding to that hope), but is chronically incapable of maintaining the sense of high indignation and focus required to reach critical mass and create a wholesale shift in public opinion. For example, just as this mother of all scandals hits Washington, Democrats are still putting out press releases on Iraq, ANWR and a range of other topics, diluting the story and signaling that they have little intention of following through. This allows Bush to use his three favorite weapons: time, America's political apathy, and make-believe 'journalists' who yuck it up with him and ask fluff questions at his frat-boy pressers.
8. Reporters and media outlets obfuscate and equivocate, pretending to ask tough questions but essentially pushing the same narratives they've developed and perfected over the past five years, namely, some variation of "Bush firm, Dems soft." A range of Bush-protecting tactics are put into play, one being to ask ridiculously misleading questions such as "Should Bush have the right to protect Americans or should he cave in to Democratic political pressure?" All the while, the right assaults the "liberal" media for daring to tell anything resembling the truth.
9. Polls will emerge with 'proof' that half the public agrees that Bush should have the right to "protect Americans against terrorists." Again, the issue will be framed to mask the true nature of the malfeasance. The media will use these polls to create a self-fulfilling loop and convince the public that it isn't that bad after all. The president breaks the law. Life goes on.
10. The story starts blending into a long string of administration scandals, and through skillful use of scandal fatigue, Bush weathers the storm and moves on, further demoralizing his opponents and cementing the press narrative about his 'resolve' and toughness. Congressional hearings might revive the issue momentarily, and bloggers will hammer away at it, but the initial hype is all the Democratic leadership and the media can muster, and anyway, it's never as juicy the second time around...
Rinse and repeat.
It's a battle of attrition that Bush and his team have mastered. Short of a major Dem initiative to alter the cycle, to throw a wrench into the system, to go after the media institutionally, this cycle will continue for the foreseeable future.
The big wheel keeps on turning.
Siskel: Stop the WASPS: There's an old video of Siskel and Ebert bitching at each other, and subsequently Siskel plots to have the Jews and Catholics take all the wealth that the WASPs have seized for themselves in this country. Really.
There is an information war going out there. But propagandizing everyone can be funny too.
It's been a terrible week, although time with the Fam was all right. I will make some real posts tomorrow. There's a ton of links I've piled up, all across that Info War we've heard so much about. I have to give my roommate a ride to work early tomorrow morning because his car keys got stolen at 2 AM on Christmas Eve Eve, and then his car was towed. What the hell?
'PWNED,' by the way, is a funny google image search. See here for ridiculous internet argument about definition of 'pwned'. I always thought it meant between Owned and 'Pawned', in other words, in a shooting game you got turned into a dead pawn.
Peter Gartrell at his newspaper in Wyoming asked me to post this story around the internet, because they aren't publishing on Christmas. it's not a very political story, but it's a sordid tale of murder and mayhem:
Christopher Robert Hicks and Jacob Paul Martinez, both 19 and of Gillette, Wyo., stand accused of murdering 16-year-old Bryce Chavers on the orders of Kent Alan Proffit, who Chavers was supposed to testify against in a third-degree sexual assault trial. Proffit allegedly asked the men to kill Chavers in return for helping them get out of trouble with a drug dealer. Saturday deputies charged all three men with killing 19-year-old Jeremy Forquer, who they were worried would "snitch" on them about unknown activities. They also charged 15-year-old Michael Frank Seiser with accessory after the fact and with Chavers' murder. Hicks, Martinez and Proffit could all face the death penalty.
Emailed out to people:
It's been a strange turn of events this week. We lost a good friend from St Paul & my high school, Mike Flanagan, who passed away unexpectedly on Sunday. Mike was an excellent man, he was friendly to everyone and free of malice. He's the first friend my age to pass away, and it doesn't seem real. The service will be at 1 PM today (Weds).
I am sincerely sorry to let people know this through email. He was my friend for many years, and added a lot to our lives. I just want to wish everyone and their families and friends a much more safe and sane new year,
--dan
http://www.legacy.com/twincities/LegacySubPage2.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=16047997
Flanagan, Michael T. Age 22
Beloved Son, Brother, Friend Died unexpectedly December 18. Beloved son of Don and Sarah, dear brother of Patrick, he will be greatly missed. From the quiet streets of Saint Paul to the hills of Northern California, Michael enriched the lives of family, friends, strangers, and fellow travelers with his puckish grin, generous spirit, and wonderfully original talent for language. His love of life, expressed in devoted concert-going and excited recommendations for where to find the best béarnaise sauce in the Twin Cities, allowed him to befriend almost anyone, regardless of background or social status. His loss is immense, but those he leaves behind take comfort simply in having known such a unique and joyful person. A memorial service will be held at O'Halloran and Murphy, 575 S. Snelling Ave, St. Paul, MN 55116. 651-698-0796 at 1:00 P.M. Wednesday December 21. Visitation from 11:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M Wednesday. In lieu of flowers, memorials are preferred to the Minnesota Humane Society or the Minnesota Literacy Council.
The Pioneer Press site has a 'guest book' to leave a note at:
http://www.legacy.com/twincities/Guestbook.asp?Page=Guestbook&PersonID=16047997
Nick Petersen and Adam Gerber are getting in town Tuesday afternoon. Nick & I decided to pull people together for a memorial party for the man. Nick has generated an Event on Facebook about it:
Dan is hosting an event Tuesday, December 20th at his apartment in downtown Minneapolis as a gathering to remember Mike Flanagan, who passed away on the 18th. Anyone who would like to may come.
Directions:
basic directions from 94: Get off Hennepin North exit. Drive up hennepin Ave going into downtown. the road curves right near the Basilica. You go just past the MCTC (mpls cmty/tech college) skyway, and take a right onto Spruce Place. Dan's apartment is in the Haverhill apartments right at the first corner, at Harmon & Spruce. (If you get to the Subway shop you've gone too far on Hennepin)
I will add that here is a map to my house via Google Maps. I will have the red stoplight in the window pointing towards Hennepin to mark the spot.
If you have any photos or other things about Mike, those would be good to bring.
An interesting site popped up, offering a strange conspiracy tale surrounding Dave Chappelle and leading members of the American black community. The site, chappelletheory.com, offers a strange tale of threats, phone calls and the dangerous members of the Oprah mafia/militia.
Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, Bill Cosby, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey and Robert Johnson (the founder of BET) are all purported to have been quickly offended by the Chappelle Show, and have conspired to get Chappelle Show cancelled.
The theory places such sketches as 'Dave marries Oprah' in an entirely different context -- supposedly that one was Dave's gesture of defiance against Oprah.
The site claims to have been written by a former PR executive disgusted with what happened. The site looks good, it tells an exciting tale. In other words it's another well-marketed conspiracy theory thing. We can't be too surprised that this kind of stuff pops up, considering how the Chappelle Show's abrupt demise was kind of mysterious. This segment, March 2004, was quite dramatic:
The next day a friend recounted a frantic phone call from Chappelle at 2pm. Dave described the following story of the previous night, which his friend assumed, at the time, to be a dream: (paraphrased)
I was in bed next to my wife when I got woken up by a heavy pressure on my chest.
I opened my eyes to find one of the three men — that appeared in my bathroom days before — perched on top of my stomach, wielding a Colt 45 handgun with an enormous silencer. The other two men were holding me down. It seemed like my wife had been drugged, as she laid motionless but breathing next to me.
Oprah Winfrey leaned forward and whispered in my ear "you better watch your step — we're representing interests more powerful than you can imagine. You do remember that Farrakhan killed Malcom, and that Cosby, Johnson and I have more money than God — we can keep this harassment up forever. Is this what you want your life to be like Dave?"
The last thing I remember, someone knocked me out.
I woke up with my wife the next morning and I thought it might have been a dream, but I still have a bruise on my head and I really think this all happened, despite the fact that my wife shows no signs of anything having ever happened.
Chappelle then said he was afraid to tell his wife this story because he was nervous that she would call the ambulance again. He told his agent that he felt he needed body guards — but his agent advised against it for fear that it would make him look too paranoid and jeopordize his career. Since it seemed like he could get no outside help, he decided to take matters into his own hands.
March 24, 2004
On the next show Chappelle decided to attack Oprah directly, as he now knows she is behind all of the harassment.
The skit, called "Dave Gets Oprah Pregnant" centered around Dave getting a call from Oprah informing him that she is going to have his baby. After hearing the news, Dave quits his job and moves in with Oprah, spending her money like its going out of style. Chappelle felt that he had the leverage to get away with this, as Winfrey wouldn't want her involvement to unseat Chappelle made public. He soon realized his leverage wasn't as strong as he thought.
So is it real? Of course I cannot say. I would not be surprised that Oprah, Cosby, Farrakhan and Sharpton would have been deeply offended by the Chappelle Show, and taken some kind of reactive action. Maybe Dave will explain if he was ever threatened, or if this is just another exciting Internet yarn...
Terrible, shocking news today that our high school classmate and dear friend Mike Flanagan tragically met his end last night.
I have not really absorbed the reality of this. Those of us in the Twin Cities have been calling the far flung members of the MPA class of 2001 about it.
Mike was awesome in his own way. He was certainly brave and daring. He was smart as hell and always had something clever to tell you, some cynical observation or moral principle or something.
Mike travelled on his own strange path, his own weird and savage journey to the heart of the American dream. He really wanted to get a spot somewhere quiet, somewhere 'off the grid' as he put it. He was always chasing that kind of freedom.
We are going down to the Groveland Tap right now. It seems like the right place to be.
We'll make sure that everyone knows what is happening with the services that will happen this week. Send me an email or call 651-338-7661. More info as things happen.
<Chairman Mao has a holiday report from the field for us. He is out in Colorado where his employer periodically accuses him of stealing (then find the cash in the office). We will have some other folks checking in soon as well.--Dan>
The season of seasons is here. Wintertime holidays. Thousands of people, who stay dormant within their houses for most of the year, flood the streets and shopping malls. Causing far more crime and mayhem than they're worth. Who are these people, you ask? They are your weird neighbors who never say hello and watch you from their windows. Or more often they are the millions of MTV drones who occupy what we conscious people call the 'Dead Zones.'
Little pockets of dense, stupid thought spread like a plague across the United States. Usually found around high schools and colleges. The people stuck in these daily routines of refusing to think wind up doing nothing more than sitting around watching tv, and maybe getting high, snorting Vicodin.
They see commercials advertising Christmas, making fun of Channukah, whatever. Sooner or later they will dare to set a foot outside to see what the fuss is all about. Inevitably making it no further than a few blocks before they collide with something at sixty miles an hour and blame it on 'black ice.'
However, despite the odds, some of these terrors on culture actually manage to make it to their destination, somehow... This is when the real problems start. If you have ever worked in retail you can probably identify the incompetent without even blinking. They wander around aimlessly and touch everything, refusing to read signs and accidently stealing merchandise. Oh well, happy holidays...
The One Laptop Per Child nonprofit organization is supporting the distribution of a Linux-based $100 laptop, which will soon go out to children in Brazil, Thailand, Egypt and Nigeria. It also has a hand-cranked power generator, which is a brilliant idea.
Forbes: Intel's Barrett Dismisses $100 Laptop As 'Gadget'
LONDON - It's a crank. Intel Chairman Craig Barrett has dismissed a WiFi-enabled, Linux-based, full-color, full-screen laptop aimed at bringing computers to developing economies as a "$100 gadget". The lime-green devices run on electromotive energy from a wind-up mechanism--thus allowing the machines to be used in areas lacking a regular power supply.
Bit of a jackass, then. See also PCWorld.com - Kids' Laptop Hits World Spotlight. Pic source from the oddly negative article carried in Vermont Guardian.
By 2007, five to ten million of these laptops will have been shipped to developing countries. By the year after that, the number is expected to have grown ten-fold. What is not known is whether this project will mark a new phase in the spread of knowledge, or whether hundreds of millions of children will become slaves to their little green boxes instead of playing in the backyard.
The Man was Here: WaPo: "CIA scours blogs for useful intelligence: Some `secrets' can be found in plain view." Well at least I know the CIA has already been here a couple times. So it's not breaking news.
Ten stoner ideas for peace in Iraq: Brilliant. Air conditioners, kind bud, Xbox 360s with extra controllers, Madden 2006, Marshmallows, kegs of Budweiser, acoustic guitars and whores. Shrewd strategy. "I guarantee this much: Give a 16-year-old Sunni the choice between killing himself and spending his life playing videogame football, and he’ll make the right choice every time." BSnews.org also features the "Bush War Plan Clearly Written In Crayon."
DeLay is hurting Republicans in vulnerable districts. Ouch. Sweet.
The blogosphere may be unreasonably carried away with Paul Hackett's chances in the Ohio senate race, given his low name ID. Rep. Sherrod Brown seems to be leading in polls.
Polls in Iraq seem oddly positive. I doubt their scientific value. "'Failure' Most Popular Term Sending Traffic From Google To US White House Site".
Bite the patting hand: Rightwingers are angry when the NY Times Magazine carried a story titled "Conservative Blogs are more Effective." Weird.
Elections in wars may not work: Haaretz/Reuters: Gaza gunmen fire on PA security compound, storm election HQ. "The Wall of Hate" is a film about the West Bank partition wall that Israel is constructing.
Iraq blogstorm and the 'Iranian occupation': Check out Iraq Blog Count for an index. A friend of mine was saying that all these blogs and Internet things complicate the situation, but I strongly disagree because I think we get a real good sense of the mentality and the situation of Iraqis, just by looking through a few of them. Baghdad Burning by Riverbend is of course well-known now, and excellent. The Iranian Occupation bit is interesting:
The agony of the long war with Iran is what makes the current situation in Iraq so difficult to bear- especially this last year. The occupation has ceased to be American. It is American in face, and militarily, but in essence it has metamorphosed slowly but surely into an Iranian one.
It began, of course, with Badir’s Brigade and the several Iran-based political parties which followed behind the American tanks in April 2003. It continues today with a skewed referendum, and a constitution that will guarantee a southern Iraqi state modeled on the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Of course all this talk about the US dropping chemical weapons makes it more 'complicated.' Would the Baghdad Burning book -- now on its way -- seem more credible somehow? Truth-about-iraqis.blogspot.com has a anguished rant whose tone rings very true. And this one too:
This is not Iraq. The only Iraq I can identify with is the Iraq that rages in the hearts of those who defend its honor, who die defending its honor, those who fight the Iranian horde, the US oppressor.
.....In any case, everything is coming tumbling down. The war lies, the GOP, right wing radio, the illusionists, the nazis and their WASP allies, the zionist war machine, and the racist white-hood wearing commentators.
The Iraq lie is simply too heavy a burden.
Sow it buddy, then drink the rotten milk of human waste.
Nefarious is as nefarious will do.
I think it makes a major, positive, difference -- although the terrible experience of Khaled Jarrar when he was captured by the Interior Ministry, and his additional troubles because they found out about his blog, were an example of how it can hurt the writers. But we wouldn't know about what it's really like inside the New Security Organs of Iraq without people like him.
For more, consider Aunt Najma's A Star from Mosul (with many relatives blogging too), Treasure of Baghdad, Free Iraq ("The US's pre-emptive occupation of Iraq will see to it that the Lion of Babylon rises again" sweet) and Iraqi Rebel.
David Ignatius likes the eschatological-conspiracy angle in "Breaking the Assassins." Thanks for obfuscating reality with a bunch of grand gibberish. Can Rummy defeat the Cult of the Assassins? Sure!
Ethnically pure militias: Bloomberg service: Bush's Strategy, Iraq's New Army Challenged by Ethnic Militias
The Defense Department's intelligence agency says there are dozens of loosely organized Shiite armies in southern Iraq, Kurdish militias in the north that function like a regular army, and as many as 20,000 Sunni fighters who are part of the violent insurgency in Iraq's four central provinces.
..... ``The situation continues to deteriorate,'' said Anthony Cordesman of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. ``It's a matter of the militias, new political organizations, Shiite groups'' and Iraqi security forces becoming ``forces for revenge or reprisal.''
....Leslie Gelb, former assistant secretary of state and former president of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, said most of the militias pay first allegiance to their ethnic or tribal group. ``It's not an Iraqi army,'' said Gelb, who visited Iraq for 10 days earlier this year. Kurds are loyal to Kurds, Shiite militias resembling ``mafia operations'' run the south, ``the central region has the insurgency, and Baghdad is all mixed up,'' he said.
Patrick Lang, former chief analyst for the Middle East at the Defense Intelligence Agency, said Iraq's different ethnic groups ``will not serve together'' in national army units. ``They tried it and it didn't work, and now they're going back to ethnically pure units,'' he said, citing Defense Department officials he declined to identify. Lang, a retired colonel in the Army's Green Berets, is now president of Global Resources Group, a Washington-based consulting firm.
"Islamic leaders unveil action plan to rescue a 'nation in crisis'." Baghdad Press Club investigated as a central node of paid military propaganda.
Cheney visits Auschwitz and secret CIA Poland camp on same trip? Oy vey. FT: Allegations of secret US jails in Europe are 'credible'. Guardian: Investigator links Europe's spy agencies to CIA flights. Ireland On-Line 'Signs suggest US illegally held detainees in Europe' especially Poland and Romania. Take it with a grain of salt, but Wayne Madsen's report on Cheney visiting secret camps in Poland (Dec. 13) around his visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi extermination camp last January. Not sure if it's a true report, but if it is true, a very dark irony.
Iran talks a big game: But this Haaretz article makes it all too clear that their economic situation is excellent, and they can count on Russia and China to help them in the UN if things get hairy. Ahmadinejad can continue to smile while the world argues. True.
The Horatio Alger NAMBLA chapter: Larry Beinhart's "Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin" looks interesting. In particular, for example, he establishes that Horatio Alger was a pedophile, and was a pedophilic minister before he got chased out of Brewster, Massachusetts, and admitted to it. That's established, then the spin dissection starts. Weird. And maybe that's more widely known, but I never heard of it. Also claims that the NYC chapter of NAMBLA is the Horatio Alger chapter. Creepy.
Vote Spoofing: The War at Home: Diebold chief executive Wally O'Dell resigns, as more questions about company conduct and illegal trading have come up. There are lawsuits happening as people claim that Diebold failed to get its modified voting machine software correctly certified on some occasions. In North Caroline, the EFF has filed a lawsuit. O'Dell was the guy who claimed he would help 'deliver' Ohio's electoral votes to Bush.
1UP for Russ: Russ Feingold is chilling around the Internet while fighting the renewed Patriot Act. Now that's class. Also he speaks in favor of withdrawing from Iraq. So Quadruple Infinity Bonus Points -- he's trying to kill Bowser and save the Princess. The Odds are Slim but entirely worth it.
While Iraq prepares for another round of 'something', (and election irregularities around Mosul are apparently expected) a memo (PDF) from the Department of Justice indicated that career Justice lawyers believed that redistricting Texas would illegally marginalize minorities. Meanwhile a Crips co-founder is going to get injected. And who says minorities are oppressed in this free country?
(fortunately the DOJ's new policy has "barred staff attorneys from offering recommendations in major Voting Rights Act cases, marking a significant change in the procedures meant to insulate such decisions from politics." - thx Marshall.)
Charting sleaze: This big ass Abramoff chart is almost big enough to encompass the mega-scandal. Marshall on this as well. There are quite a few Democrats on there. Where are the House ethics complaints anyway? Polls show that corruption is a leading concern in America nowadays.
Secret laws? The Bush Administration apparently claims that secret regulations require people to present IDs at the airport. Why secret? Secret courts, secret evidence, secret prisons. Laws too? And they call us on the Internet obsessed with conspiracies! :-D (via Kevin Drum)
It's a really big information war: I don't feel like putting a lot more words in. But this NY Times article, "Military's Information War is Vast and Often Secretive," reaches into great detail about psychological operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Although really, I have to think that most of the locals see right through this stuff and scoff at it. Even if it's supposedly hidden through private contractors, I suspect they aren't really taken in that easily.
It also makes me wonder about psy ops dimensions to such things as "Shootout! Battlecry Iraq: Ramadi" coming Dec. 14 to the History Channel.
Meanwhile dead US soldiers apparently back come as commercial freight. So much for honoring the heroes. If it were my kin, I would be crushed.
Juan Cole reflects on Iraq in our Strib. Background on activities of the Badr Corps, now the de facto Inner Militia of the Interior Ministry. Tactics seem to escalate in Afghanistan, no matter how many radio stations we control. Damn. Juan Cole's site will be a good spot to follow the election results, and i think this bit pretty much sums up the evolving problem:
Al-Zaman/ AFP: Muntadhar al-Samarra'i, the former commander of the Iraqi special forces, said Sunday that the Minister of Interior, Bayan Jabr Sulagh, appointed 17,000 fighters from the Badr Militia as police officers in his ministry at a time when they still receive their salaries from Iran. Al-Samarra'i accused the Badr Corps [the paramilitary of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq] of employing torture on detainees in prison. He showed AFP a film he himself had shot of torture in Iraqi prisons. He said all of the high officials in the Ministry of the Interior are from the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Dawa (Shiite parties), whereas the detainees are Sunni Arabs. Al-Samarra'i also said that the special police speak Persian with one another (the Badr Corps fighters had been expatriates in Iran). He spoke of several secret prisons, some with as many as 600 inmates, and said there were also jails for women.
An interview with Sy Hersh, if you want more gory details. He puts in this fun bit about rigging the last Iraqi election:
...the three provinces that – according to the actual rules, the three provinces voted against the constitution – you had to have a two-thirds majority against it – it was defeated, and there is no question that in two of them this happened, and the third, Mosul province, the amount of fraud and jiggering of election ballots and manipulation was just outlandish. I do know, at least I have been told that, before the… if you remember the election day, I think it was initially supposed to be August 15th. The election day…
Horton: October 15th, I think, right?
Hersh: Right, right, October 15th. It was extremely quiet, and it's my understanding that the resistance actually had been talking to the UN – the UN had an advisory role in the election process, which it still has – and they had made it quiet not because intimidation of coalition forces and the American government but because they decided, they said, "The UN will do it straight. Because if it's a straight, honorable election, you won't get your constitution through. We'll defeat you in three provinces." There was a great, a great deal of agitation among the Sunni resistance about the fraud that was involved. I don't know what's going to happen. Nobody knows. I think the Sunnis… I think the election will take place. That won't be spoiled by rioting and distress and disturbances, but I think afterwards – I think the Ba'athists are sort of curious, the Sunnis, to see what happens – but afterwards, I think we could even see a significant escalation, already, of the kind of damage we're having.
So Talabani will probably play the Katherine Harris role in the coming production. All right. Hersh also has lots of info about the insanity of the air war ramping up -- as airstrikes replace American soldiers, and no one's around to film all the civilian casualties.
You are looking, if you break it down, to, oh, roughly 100 bombs being dropped an hour. Twenty four hours a day for the last 15, 16 months. That's a hell of a lot of bombs.
Indeed. And that's only estimated from one section of the airborne military forces. And also this: after the election,
we could end up with Iranian operatives helping to guide and direct American bombs against targets that are against our interests. This is all in the realm of possibility. Yes.
Oh yah, also this:
The Israelis are investing in their good partners the Kurds, they support an independent Kurdistan, or at least a strong Kurdistan. And for sure, there are operations going on, Israeli-led operations are going on inside Kurdistan into Iran, Syria, absolutely. The Israelis have a platform there.
Not terribly shocking. But I'm sure it will work itself out. A final bit, on dear Michael Ledeen and the Niger forgeries:
The one thing that makes me a little skeptical is Michael Ledeen is certainly, really smart, I disagree with everything, you know, he and I are on the other ends of the world, but it is such a bad forgery, I mean, it is such a bad forgery.
Well that's true. We ought to expect more finesse from him. Anyhow, lots of quotes, but Hersh is still the Dude on these matters.
Syria talks tough: I missed this one. About a month ago Assad said that Syrians had to stick together and fight, as the US has a plan to crush the Arab nations. It was basically a pretty hard statement from a country that the US has been openly belligerent towards for years now. But it suggests that Assad is not going to fold... With a little luck the neo-cons will fall in Washington before they can generate a Tonkin Gulf incident in the Syrian desert, as Raimondo put it. Syria accuses US of launching lethal raids over its borders.
The National Security Agency reflects on Tonkin Gulf: they put together a nice website with lots of original documents on the incident that got spun up to spark the Vietnam war, in an attempt to provide clarity. Good for them.
Venezuela and USAID operations against Chavez: This bit by Tom Barry from the International Relations Center talks about USAID and its various means of influencing politics in Venezuela. Part of the shadow boxing between Chavez and Washington. Also the ever-altruistic National Endowment for Democracy pops up as supporting 'democratic organizations.' Mysterious.
Former CBS producer stands by Texas National Guard documents: Right wing bloggers rode Dan Rather's battered remains to glory last year, but it might turn out that (surprise!) they're full of it. Mary Mapes, the producer supposedly responsible for acting as a Kerry henchwoman, has returned to tell the tale of the National Guard documents. Lo and behold she found that many Guard docs have the same features that everyone said made Bush's docs forgeries. She wrote a book "Truth and Duty" about it. There was a good interview with her on DailyKos exploring all this stuff. Here's the documents she dug up.
Florida logic: Robert Novak says that Florida Republicans are trying to get Katherine Harris to duck out of the Senate race. Also interesting stuff about how in Florida the Dems are starting over from scratch, all over.
To Live and Die in CA: They say that the man from the Crips, Stanley 'Tookie' Williams, is getting executed about now. I oppose the death penalty for anyone (including hapless Iraqi soldiers), and in this particular case, it strikes me as especially harmful to kill a figure who has managed to find a peaceful political strategy to defuse violent gang conflicts. (Possibilities of rioting. Only a massive LA riot could round out this ridiculous year.)
When steroid-sodden leaders, with quite soft support of their own, need to shore up that sense of solidarity among the Base, well why not get rid of a 'lead gangster'? Perhaps that's not fair because clemency ought to rest on the case itself. But I heard the same tone when a radio talk show host on CNN suggested that even if more than a hundred innocent people have been let off death row, it's still better to kill because they are plotting to kill more people in prison. Why not just shoot everyone? Horrible.
Drunk Trashy White Power, Mate: Elsewhere, in Australia there's been riots after some Lebanese immigrants were accused of assaulting a lifeguard. Naturally the Australian far-right has apparently latched onto the situation as an opportunity to demonize immigrants. Mean right wing lady Lucianne Goldberg said "Finally, a WASP riot as beer soaked beefy Aussies bash Muslims at beach" (via nomoremisterniceblog). Something to be proud of when neo-Nazis are circulating videos about 'the Battle for Cronulla'. Even more horrible. 12thharmonic is following this. Radio host Alan Jones is whipping things along:
The riot was still three days away and Sydney’s highest-rating breakfast radio host had a heap of anonymous emails to whip his 2GB listeners along.
"Alan, it’s not just a few Middle Eastern bastards at the weekend, it’s thousands. Cronulla is a very long beach and it’s been taken over by this scum. It’s not a few causing trouble. It’s all of them."
Froomkin's getting Posted: I think everyone knows how lame the Washington Post usually is these days. Somehow they seem to be getting upset about how all over the Internet people spit at them. Now one of their better writers, Dan Froomkin, is getting a bunch of crap from the WaPo editors because his column, the "White House Briefing", is perceived as too liberal, and by too liberal, they mean it is not always buried in the torrent of spin and propaganda masquerading as 'balance'.
Political Editor John Harris is a jackass here. Marshall and Firedoglake with more on it. Since Froomkin might go down over this, lets give him a couple paragraphs to explain himself:
Regular readers know that my column is first and foremost a daily anthology of works by other journalists and bloggers. When my voice emerges, it is often to provide context for those writings and spot emerging themes. Sometimes I do some original reporting, and sometimes I share my insights. The omnipresent links make it easy for readers to assess my credibility.
There is undeniably a certain irreverence to the column. But I do not advocate policy, liberal or otherwise. My agenda, such as it is, is accountability and transparency. I believe that the president of the United States, no matter what his party, should be subject to the most intense journalistic scrutiny imaginable. And he should be able to easily withstand that scrutiny. I was prepared to take the same approach with John Kerry, had he become president.
This column’s advocacy is in defense of the public’s right to know what its leader is doing and why. To that end, it calls attention to times when reasonable, important questions are ducked; when disingenuous talking points are substituted for honest explanations; and when the president won’t confront his critics -- or their criticisms -- head on.
The journalists who cover Washington and the White House should be holding the president accountable. When they do, I bear witness to their work. And the answer is for more of them to do so -- not for me to be dismissed as highly opinionated and liberal because I do.
Cheers dude, cheers. How the hell did you ever get that column anyway? Perhaps I'm not being totally fair with the Post. They did hook us up with the Abramoff chart and DeLay memo above. But why are they still such punks?
Viveca Novak twist in the Plame scandal: Weird. Digby if you want the ugly details. NextHurrah, E&P, Atrios, needlenose, Talkleft, & the firedoglake again for more. Apparently VandeHei suddenly said that Hadley was Rove's source on Hardball (a slight bombshell) and no one even noticed, probably because they have all gotten aneurisms by now. She tries to explain herself but its shady. Eccch whatever.
Hong Kong activists ask for quiet at WTO: According to the Guardian, the stalwart crew of rebels against the Communist order in those parts distributed notices:
In what passes for Hong Kong's alternative press, a cut-out-and-keep rioters' guide to Hong Kong was hardly a call to arms. Under R for Rioters, it said: "This is a peaceful place and your shenanigans will only make it harder for us once you leave, so leave the rocks at home." G for Globalisation noted: "While we are on the topic, what is your beef anyway?"
Could be some of that neo-Communist Propaganda though.
Wikipedia hoaxer apologises. The guy says it was a workplace prank. Old story about a Mac SE 30 made into a bong. The worst video game art ever. Hilarious.
Clinton messed with Bush at the global warming thing in Montreal. It is actually really good Clinton is wielding his residual 'soft power' to pressure the US on global warming, while saving a tiny bit of dignity for Sane America with the rest of the world.
Wake Up Neo, the screensaver. When you are listening to Massive Attack's Dissolved Girl and your mescaline-toting hipster friends show up for warez, you know you need to follow the white rabbit.
Star and stripe resign: A spoof. Rove's on the case. The little dog is a nice touch.
Al Qaeda Santa Connection - via elf torture: Sam Seder and Bob Knight from Air America's Majority Report point out the value of a war on Christmas (video here):
SEDER: Listen, as far as the war on Christmas goes, I feel like we should be waging a war on Christmas. I mean, I believe that Christmas, it's almost proven that Christmas has nuclear weapons, can be an imminent threat to this country, that they have operative ties with terrorists and I believe that we should sacrifice thousa