QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Cowardice asks the question, ”Is it safe? Epediency asks the question, “Is it politics?” Vanity asks the question, “Is it Popular?” But, conscience asks the question, “Is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, not politic, nor popular but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one that it is right.”

Martin Luther King Jr. (On the wall at KPFK-Los Angeles)

WHY DID RUMMY RESIGN?
WHAT HAPPENS IN VIRGINIA?
OFF TO SAN FRANCISCO

Did Rummy resign or was he pushed, fed to the Donkeys to rob the Dems of one of their key talking points? Now the Admin says see, look how reasonable we are, reverting Robert Gates. a Bush 41 operative to head the Pentagon, even if our new Defense czar was involved in Iran Contra and is an ex top CIA spook.

The signal here is that policy will now be more rational and that the Dems should give the new guy a “chance”–a clever way of buying time, and diverting a debate.

Bob Parry offers background on Gates:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/lost2.html

More on Bob gates and his connections to Iraq and Iran…

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/gates/1.html

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_16.htm

His connection to the 9/11 cover-up…

http://www.etherzone.com/2005/nath062005.shtml

Rummy’s fall follows Saddam’s conviction. Isn’t politricks wonderful?

JOE DUNPHY’S TAKE

Our military affairs monitor Joe Dunphy writes:

The commercial press has done an amazingly negligent job of conveying the “why” behind the forced resignation of SecDef Donald Rumsfeld. It is clear to all citizens that the election’s sweeping rejection of the Bush agenda on the Iraq war forced an reluctant executive branch–one that could rival P.W. Botha’s of South Africa Afrikanner fame for stubbornness–to acknowledge that there was no room left for executive discretion. An angry citizenry finally imposed someconstraints on an arrogant executive.

The press made it seem like a Beltway story. It is not. Late last month, the Eisenhower task force stood off the Straits of Hormuz, with undisclosed orders, rattling its sabers toward Iran. And Iran responded with a full-scale alert, with Iran Daily reporting some 10 Iranian brigades (about 3 1/3 divisions), and test firing missles with ranges from 1,000-2,000 Km. Thus, days before the election, it seemed that Rumsfeld was willing to risk a missile hit on a US ship, which, if the Iranians succeeded, would be more deadly an incident than the USS Cole or, to be even-handed, the sinking of the USS Liberty electronic picket ship. To the Iranians, this was their equivalent of the “Cuban Blockade” of JFK and Nikita Kruschev of the Soviet Union. It was not Iran’s president who blinked.

The Eisenhower mission was launched, despite strategic failures on three flankscritical to any planned invasion of Iran:

1) The failed IDF invasion of Lebanon. Strategically, a successful clearing operation would have drawn forces from northern Syria down south, to defend its borders, potentially eliminating or neutralizing a hostile area behind the sea-lane potential secondary supply lines to US troops in Iraq, if needed. The IDF quickly lost the initiative, and had to negotiate a withdrawal inside a month–all the while greatly inflaming the Palestinian-Israeli hostilities.

2) The stalled movement of 250,000 Turkish troops, on the border of Iraq. The perpetual tug-of-war over whether Turkey will be admitted to the EU is part of the calculation, yet there seems to be no diplomatic progress on this front. The troops, meanwhile, seem to loose sight of NATO support missions in favor of traditional border disputes with the Kurds in Iraq, thus allowing border incidents to continue to threaten peace in the one major part of Iraq where a semblance of peace seems possible.

3) The resurgence of the drug problem in Afghanistan. This is creating tension in the former Soviet states bordering Afghanistan–from West to East–Turnkenistan (just North of Iran), Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, and Kyrgistan. They are cooperating more to help cut down the crime and corruption it brings to their own societies. And China is taking an interest in the problem, as energy-hungry China wants to see the oil fields in Kazakstan get developed more. Crime and corruption interferes with that development.

The previous US-backed overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan, of course, removed the religious zealots also from their poppy eradication program–for religious reasons. But with the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, it renews a potential threat against US forces, plus a threat to the criminal class that thrives on the trade in opium, arms, cash and assorted black market items.

There is now also recently a very diplomatic angle to the resurgence of the Taliban. Although the US only recognizes the Karzai government in Kabul, the Taliban does have some diplomatic relations, and has recognized the independence movement in Chechnya (mostly Muslim) to the great annoyance of the government of Russia and ex-KGB head Vladimir Putin. Russian/Chechnia troop losses number about 16,500 in two major conflicts, and the civilian death toll is on the order of 70,000. The oil piece of this is that Chechnya is a major oil choke point between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, basically the northernmost of the three rival pipeline proposals. While there is a vigorous debate in Russia and Russian Georgia in favor of pulling its troops mostly back from Chechnya, it is unlikely that the Soviet states would willingly give up a strategic foothold on the oil.

So now we come to the back-story behind the Oct. 31, 2006, Associated Press (AP) report on the bombing of 80 young people at a madrassa school in Chingai, Pakistan–two miles from the Afghan border. The AP version is that the school allegedly harbored al Quaeda trainees. The incident triggered protests internationally in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. But the incident aroused local sympathy for the Taliban as well, and it is not inconceivable that some bombings or combat actions are really designed to thwart a Taliban government from taking power, and officially recognizing an independent Chechnya. The suspicion among human rights groups is that the U.S. may be doing Russia a favor by trying to undermine the Taliban, preventing diplomatic recognition of a rebel Chechyn government, in return for favors unknown, while the US turns a blind eye to Russian inspired human rights abuses in Chechnya.

The tale gets more depressing, as there is an EU dimension to this. Some of the Chechyn oil is destined to go by pipeline to Roumania, which is expected to receive EU recognition in 2007. Roumania and Bulgaria are reportedly experiencing crime and corruption problems, plus immigrant worker problems.

The strategic failure, thus, is leaving unsolved the twin problems of the opium problem, and the Taliban. That leaves the possible eastern supply routes into Iran highly unstable. Modern warfare depends greatly on a secure supply train. Under Rumsfeld, three flanks remained highly unstable. Asymmetric warfare, indeed.

Wow, how’s that for a geo political global briefing?

NO PAPER TRAIL IN VA

This came in since I wrote the comments below:

Democrats win control of the Senate from Republicans with a victory in Virginia, AP and Reuters report. CNN working to confirm

I was listenting to my old pal “Sluggo,” aka Harvey Wasserman on KPFK radio suggestion that it was the work of the election integrity activists that raised awareness about the threats to voting in America. He credited their activism and advocacy which was largely ignored in the media until Lou Dobbs and a few others expressed concerns about electronic voting machines and other voter suppression tactics.

It is a timely observation, given the fact that the fate of the Senate rests with the outcome in Virginia which uses those machines with no paper trails. So how can there be a credible recount? Harvey and his colleagues have been writing about the theft of the Oho election in 2004 with many of the wisemen and pundits dismissing their claims as hysterical and unproven.

Yet look what happened in the Ohio gubernatorial race where the electorate dispatched the former GOP Secretary of State Mr. Blackwell whose conniving and cockiness was largely responsible. He has now overreached hopefully for the last time.

Stay tuned for more.

Word of the day credit goes to W for “TWUMPED”

Mark Fiore comments with a new animation:

http://www.markfiore.com/animation/botched.html

OFF TO SF

Had a packed screening in LA for In Debt We Trust. The film opens Friday at 7 at the Roxie in SF’s Mission District. I will be speaking, and yes, the Roxie is very much part of the New College. Sorry for the typo, one of many alas.

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