IRAN IN THE SNIPER SCOPE
FED CLOSES BARN DOOR AFTER HORSES GONE
POLEMICIZING

Left Dubai 1 2 AM. Arrived New York at 7:30. A day seems to have disappeared. I was at the Documentary Voices event with a number of impressive Iranian filmmakers but had a sense of dread about what future may be facing if There is a war against Iran.

When I left, local papers in The United Arab Emerates were reporting that their stock market in Dubai dropped because of anxieties with all the war talk. Also yesterday or whatever day it was, the UAE forgave Iraq’s 7 BILLION debt. This was followed, maybe coincidentally by Iraqi government demands that the US produce a withdrawal plan, and and new attacks by the resistance.

Ironically, when I boarded the Air Train at JFK, I saw a young man with a large sign that read AIPAC. He was probably greeting visitors at the airport for the Israeli Lobby. I asked him if, in the event of war, he and the other machers at AIPAC are willing to fight or do they just want others to do it for them.

He smiled nervously and said that AIPAC wants strong sanctions. He had no response when I told him that the sanctions they want will will lead to war.

When I got home, I saw this:

The U.S. Navy said on Monday it was carrying out an exercise in the Gulf, days after vowing that Iran will not be allowed to block the waterway which carries crude from the world’s largest oil-exporting region.

“The aim of Exercise Stake Net is to practice the tactics and procedures of protecting maritime infrastructure such as gas and oil installations,” Commodore Peter Hudson said in a U.S. Fifth Fleet statement.

The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said in remarks published late last month that Tehran would impose controls on shipping in the Gulf and the strategic Strait of Hormuz if it was attacked.
Speculation about a possible attack on Iran because of its nuclear program has risen since a report last month said Israel had practiced such a strike.

Vice-Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, the commander of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, said last week the United States would not allow Iran to block the Gulf.

Fear of an escalation in the standoff between the West and Iran, the world’s fourth largest oil producer, has helped propel oil prices over $140 a barrel.

ALSO IN THE UAE: A bill to encourage press freedom

The legislative committee of the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) approved a new bill which, if passed by the parliament, will make it illegal to sentence journalists to prison. Although the new initiative would protect journalists from imprisonment, it would allow the government to fine journalists up to USD 27,000 (EUR 17,235) for what it considers a violation of the law. The new bill will become law if passed by the UAE parliament and signed by the president, Jordanian newspaper al-Ghad reported. (International Journalists Network)

ANOTHER REPORT: THE MEDIA LINE: Iran, U.S. Flex Muscles with Gulf Drills

The Media Line/Rachelle Kliger

Iran and the United States are both conducting military exercises in the Gulf area, prompting speculation that they are preparing for a military showdown.

The U.S. is carrying out drills in the Gulf, which began last week and end on Monday.

The U.S. vowed this week it would not let Iran block the strategic waterways, which are used to transport significant parts of the Gulf’s oil to the rest of the world.

The exercises include vessels from the U.S., the United Kingdom and Bahrain, operating as part of Combined Task Force (CTF) 152.

“The aim of the exercise is to protect the maritime infrastructure such as gas and oil terminals which are vital to the world’s economy and gets out through the Strait of Hurmuz,“ Lt. Nathan Christensen, spokesman for the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain told The Media Line.

The Fifth Fleet said the current exercise was planned a long time in advance and like many other exercises, aims to maintain coalition proficiency.

Analysts say this heightened military activity in the Gulf area could be the precursor to a military standoff between the U.S. and Iran.

BIG BEN TO THE RESCUE

Once back in the saddle. The economic crisis appeared to be dominating the news.

First, a report that the Federal Reserve Bank has finally decided to protect homeowners—only after 3 and a ½ million families faced foreclosures. Swift work, guys:

WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve will issue new rules next week aimed at protecting future homebuyers from dubious lending practices, its most sweeping response to a housing crisis that has propelled foreclosures to record highs.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke of the much-awaited rules in a broader speech Tuesday about the challenges confronting policymakers in trying to stabilize a shaky U.S. financial system. To that end, Bernanke said the Fed may give squeezed Wall Street firms more time to tap the central bank’s emergency loan program./blockquote>

OTHER NEWS OF THE DECLINE

FT: G8 leaders play down hopes over oil price

Members of the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations on Monday night sought to damp down expectations that they could rescue the global economy from the impact of high oil prices.

CNN: Stocks slipped Monday, with the S&P 500 ending just a hair above the bear market levels that the Nasdaq and Dow industrials already sit in, as investors abandoned a late-day recovery attempt amid more financial market woes.

RGA: The world may realize that it’s no longer reasonable for dollar to be the anchor currency. If Fed refrains from hiking rates and several dollar-pegged currencies are revalued, we could see some panic selling in USD (BMO)

THE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN 1929 AND 2008 ARE TERRIFYING

KUNSTLER: A DESPERATE REALITY IS OVERTAKING THE NATION

“As the black hole of derivatives sucks away these “new clothes,” America will stand naked against the elements of fate.”

THE SUBPRIME TRUMP CARD–STANDING UP TO THE BANKS

THE CREDIT CRISIS IS GOING TO GET WORSE

Fannie Mae needs to raise an extra $46 billion in capital and Freddie Mac $29 billion?

Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae Plunge

MEANWHILE, IRAN IS STILL BUYING US GOODS

IS NEO-LIBERALISM DEAD?

NAKED CAPITALISM: Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz tells us that neo-liberalism, witch is a catch phrase for policies that favor domestic deregulation and dismantling trade barriers internationally, has failed.

The problem that Stiglitz fails to acknowledge is that despite the questionable record of these practices, they still hold considerable sway in the media and in the popular imagination. Twenty-five years of repetition have created an almost Pavlovian reflex that equates “free markets” with “good” Willem Buiter might call it “cognitive capture.” I think of it as closer to brainwashing. And the romantic appeal of the neo-liberal model has impeded moving beyond it.

The evidence, at least in the US, is despite growing public anger about regulatory lapses and policies that favored the top echelon at the expense of everyone else, is that politicians still seem loath to impose more regulation even in the area where lapses have been considerable. There is still too much respect for the palaver of “not impeding financial innovation.” In an environment of shrinking capital bases at banks and brokerage firms, increasing interest rates (certainly on the long end) and high volatility, there will be just about nada appetite for fancy financial footwork. This is the perfect environment to road test some new rules and hire experienced people as Wall Street hemmorrhages employees, provided changes are in a thoughtful, integrated fashion and include mechanisms to allow for tweaking and adaptation as regulators gain courage and experience.

PAKISTAN DAILY: FEAR A US –ISRAEL KIDNAP PLOT

Israeli and American Operation To Kidnap Nuclear Scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan in Pakistan

The credit for two best known cases of smuggling a nuclear scientist out from another country goes to Israel’s Mossad and Pakistan’s ISI. Pakistanis understand the game that targets them today.

Dr. A. Q. Khan, Pakistan’s notorious nuclear scientist, is under threat of being kidnapped and bundled out of the country in a joint Israeli-American operation that could take the lid off Pakistan’s massive nuclear and strategic arsenal.

Pakistani security officials went on red alert in the last week of June 2008 after receiving information that Israel’s Mossad, possibly in a joint operation with some elements from CIA, is planning to kidnap Dr. Khan, who lives in a house in an Islamabad suburb, and take him out of the country. The officials are tightlipped about the source of the information.

THE MEMORYHOLE.ORG IS BACK

The Memory Hole 2.0 Is Here

By Russ Kick at 1 July, 2008, 3:43 am

After an extended hiatus, The Memory Hole is back and ready to post more documents, usually of a sensitive, governmental type nature.

To jog your memory - it has been a while - the site is best known for obtaining and releasing 288 photos of flag-covered coffins containing the remains of troops from Iraq, digitally uncensoring a Justice Dept report, and obtaining and posting the uncut 5-minute footage of George W. Bush doing nothing as the 9/11 attacks raged (this video had already been downloaded well over 200,000 times by the time Michael Moore used it in Farenheit 9/11 exactly one year later).

There’s been a lot of other nifty material here: all 21 CDs of the FDNY’s dispatch tapes from 9/11, the ultra-rare Kerry hearings into narco-corruption, a massive guide to unseen NSA publications, the National Archives’ investigation into the missing papers of Chief Justice John Roberts, US Army Chemical Corps reports, the previously unreleased reports from the Future of Iraq Project, photos of the Iranian hostage crisis that had never been seen outside of Iran (which were then prominently used, with credit, by Black Hawk Down author Mark Bowden in Guests of the Ayatollah), 19 politically inconvenient reports that were yanked from the Civil Rights Commisssion’s website … well, there’s a whole lot more.

CHINESE TORTURE TACTICS USED AT GITMO

U.S. Seeks Data Exchange

The United States is negotiating deals with European countries to exchange fingerprint and DNA data in criminal and terrorist cases, and in some circumstances to transfer data on race or ethnic origin, political and religious beliefs, or sexual orientation.
(By Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post)

LETTER FROM DA’UD X MOHAMMED

Russia ‘backed Litvinenko murder’
BBC News

“The murder of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko was carried out with the backing of the Russian state, Whitehall sources have told the BBC.”

So what about Anna Politkovskaya, shot to death in her apartment building? Was that too a death that linked-to the Russian government - as somehow “officially” sanctioned? If the Litvinenko allegations are true, odds lean toward, yeah, they (the Cheka) did it.

Which reminds me, how did Gary Webb manage to commit suicide by shooting two bullets into the back of his head? Never mind. “

Still on the move. Off to Washington for a press conference. Just wanted to share some news of note. That’s what I don’t get paid to do. Smile.

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