POSTING SUNDAY EVE FROM BOSTON FOR MONDAY

Singer Isaac Hayes dead at 65.

GEORGIA RUSSIA WAR STILL ON
WHAT THE RUSSIANS AND US ARE SAYING
SPYING ON THE INTERNET

War. War. War.

Russians say as of Monday mornining they do NOT intend to move more deeply into Georgia.

As of Sunday Night, AP was reporting: Russia battled Georgian forces on land and sea, reports said late Sunday, despite a Georgian cease-fire offer and its claim to be withdrawing from South Ossetia, the separatist Georgian province battered by days of intense fighting.”

BBC: RAIDS CONTINUE

The Russians claim they found mercenaries from the Ukraine fighting for Georgia. They also propose an international tribunal for war crimes in South Ossetia

They say known fatalities in the Georgian aggression are at over two thousand.

Russian MP: US Arranged Caucasus War Like Kosovo, Iraqi Ones

BUSH SPEAKS

President Bush told Bob Costas of NBC that he is appealing for a cease fire and told the leaders of Russia that their response has been “disproportionate.” He also says he raised the situation in Darfur and religious freedom issues with the Chinese leadership.

With no one cheering for Bush at home, he went to Beijing to find some adulation. Remember that he is not new to cheerleading….He was a cheerleader at Yale before becoming a cheerleader for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

DID THE US ENCOURAGE THE GEORGIANS TO START THIS WAR?

Read this from today’s NY Times and tell me:

Since the conflict began, Western leaders have worked frantically to broker a cease-fire. But for Georgians — so boisterously pro-American that Tbilisi, the capital, has a George W. Bush Street — diplomacy fell far short of what they expected.

Even in the hinterlands, at kebab stands and in farming villages, people fleeing South Ossetia saw themselves as trapped between great powers. Ossetian refugees heading north to Russia gushed their gratitude to Dmitri A. Medvedev and Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian leaders. Georgians around Gori spoke of America plaintively, uncertainly. They were beginning to feel betrayed.

SAM GARDINER (US AIR FORCE RET) HAS A NEW ASSESSMENT THIS MORNING:

Russian political and military sources have said the operation is winding down. Only item left on the agenda is getting Georgians out of the Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia.

The Russian ambassador to the UN told the U.S. ambassador there that Russia believes Georgian President Saakashvilli should be removed from office. I don’t think the Russians will use force to do that. After the past four days Saakashvilli will be weakened. Democracy will likely take care of him. He was already vulnerable to being seen as being adverse to religious values and the true Georgian identity.

Faulty Assumptions

Georgia certainly seems to have misunderstood the United States. The Georgian President seems to have believed the United States would support his operations to regain control of South Ossetia. The U.S. may have unintentionally misled him over the past few years. The U.S had engaged in training and support arms sales from Israel. Just before the launch of the operation U.S. troops were in Georgia participating in a military exercise inside the country. I can hear the toasts at the banquet for officers at the end, “Here is to the strength of our relationship and to our two democracies that have grown ever closer over the past few years - to the Defense of democracy” President Saakashvilli also seems to have believed that with the United States behind him, the Russians would not enter.

Russia does not seem to have shared the Georgian belief that the United States would not become directly involved. It appears to me as if they came prepared to show their tactical nuclear deterrent. They attacked with a force that was at least 10 times the size of the Georgian force in Ossetia. In addition, the Russians are conducting a major air defense exercise in the area north of Georgia this morning. I read this as their getting themselves ready to deal with U.S. strike aircraft that might attack into Russia. The Russians thought the U.S. might become involved and came prepared to deal with that eventuality.

The United States has not taken Russian statements seriously over the past few years. They have told us what is important to them, and they have conducted exercises to show us how they would deal with a situation in the near abroad.

And

Russia has learned from the United States. The Russian operation could have been planned in one of the U.S. military schools. Combine strategic attack with an operational focus on the main part of the enemy ground forces and combine this with information warfare, attacks on the enemies computer systems and an extensive media campaign.

Finally, it is obvious the Russians did not get the memo from the U.S. Secretary of Defense Gates that thefuture was to be about “Irregular Warfare.” In addition to a new national security environment, the new administration is going to have to revisit some of the recent force structure decisions that emphasized light ground forces.

‘Bodies Are Lying Everywhere. It’s Hell’

By Mark Franchetti, Moscow

A wave of shock and apprehension gripped the region as survivors asked themselves whether Georgia was about to follow Chechnya into another Caucasian war.

Petraeus: US is flying Georgian troops into battle zone

US aircraft have started to fly some of Georgia’s 2,000 troops in Iraq back home to join the fight in the breakaway province of South Ossetia, General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq said today.

The Pipeline War: Russian Bear Goes for West’s Jugular

By Svetlana Skarbo and Jonathan Petre

The war in Georgia escalated dangerously last night after Russian jets reportedly bombed a vital pipeline that supplies oil to the West.

MCCAIN KNOWS WHAT TO DO

As Mark Ames reports on TheNation.com, John McCain wants to escalate the crisis:

The outbreak of war in Georgia on Friday offers a
disturbing and somewhat surreal taste of what to expect
from John McCain should he become our nation’s Commander
in Chief. As the centuries-old ethnic animosities
between Georgia and Ossetia boiled over into another
armed conflict, drawing in neighboring Russia, McCain
issued a stark-raving statement from Des Moines that is
disturbingly reminiscent of the language used in the
lead-up to NATO’s war against Yugoslavia in 1999, a war
McCain zealously pushed for:

“We should immediately call a meeting of the North
Atlantic Council to assess Georgia’s security and review
measures NATO can take to contribute to stabilizing this
very dangerous situation,” McCain said.

RUSSIA TAKES OVER GOLD MINING SECTOR

WAR IN BEIJING

If you are watching the NBC coverage of the Beijing Olympics, it feels like another war is underway—a war for athletic supremacy and which country will score the most medals. The triumphalism of the coverage—with our own “War President” cheering on American victories made a mockery of the Olympic ideal. (He left Sunday Night-Monday morning reportedly on a “high note”)

A QUESTION

“COSTAS: This past week, you restated America’s fundamental differences with China. But given China’s growing strength, and America’s own problems, realistically, how much leverage does the U.S. have here?

BUSH: “First of all, I don’t see America having problems. I see America as a nation that is a world leader that has got great values.”

Ironically, Bush was criticized more on the right than in the GE media in the pages of the Washington Times by columnist Jeffrey Kuhner:

President Bush’s decision to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing was a disgrace - both to the United States and to China’s long-suffering people. Mr. Bush’s appearance has given political legitimacy and moral credibility to Beijing’s murderous regime. His denunciations of China’s human rights record ring hollow. Mr. Bush has now provided his stamp of approval to the premier international sports competition that is being used by the world’s leading fascist power to bolster its image and prestige.

The Beijing Olympics is not the first time the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has awarded the games to a modern dictatorship. In 1936, the Berlin Olympics were a huge propaganda victory for Adolf Hitler. He was able to showcase his ideals of Aryan supremacy and xenophobic militarism. Although the games are remembered in the United States for sprinter Jesse Owens capturing four gold medals, at the time, they were viewed as the triumph of totalitarianism over the declining democracies. The Germans won 33 gold medals, nine more than the second-place Americans. Benito Mussolini’s Italy finished third, ahead of France and Britain. The message was clear: Nazi Germany and fascist Italy represented the wave of the future, while capitalist democracies like the U.S. - embodied the old, dying order.

The excessive pervasive commercialism and focus on the conquest of gold is now what defines the games. Hooray for our “Redeem Team” pulverizing the Chinese—a squad of multi-millionaire pros alley ooping their way to victory, an extension of the global promotion of the NBA Brand.

We heard about the American swimmer taken out of High School for around the clock training, just another investment in creating a class of super athletes. No wonder the French wanted to “smash” the arrogance of the American team but they were up against a superior team moulded for years with corporate support and a major investment in training and cultivation of a kind that most of the nations that took part could not afford.

As for Phelps, The NY Times reports about the real gold he is seeking:

Phelps is the reason NBC strong-armed the hosts into having swimming finals at the bizarre hour of 10 a.m. local time, to satisfy the prime-time audiences in the United States.

There is also the matter of the $1 million bonus offered by Phelps’s sponsor, Speedo, for matching Spitz’ record. Phelps doesn’t talk about that, either. His three teammates said they did not think about his bonus, or for that matter, his chance to win eight golds.

Go Team USA–but also please show a bit more humility. It was sickening to watch an American swimmer being grilled by an NBC reporter to account for his loss when his race came up a few mili-seconds short…as if he had to confesss for his sins…..Talk about the “self-criticism” of of the Cultural Revolution. This was humiliation on a global stage.

The Olympics is about BRANDS, not Sports, explains the Financial Times:

In preparing to host the Olympic Games, the Chinese have had to embrace western standards to meet the promises made to the International Olympic Committee. Many factories have now been shuttered, to reduce pollution and improve air quality in Beijing. Legions of Chinese soldiers have cleared infestations of algae from the coastal locations of yachting races. Beijing taxi drivers have been ordered not to spit, in deference to visiting tourists.

The deadline of the Games gave government officials an action-forcing event to accelerate the modernisation of Chinese society. World-class architectural design and construction standards have guided the building of Olympic venues. Airports, highways and other infrastructure have been upgraded, not only in Beijing but in all the cities where Olympic events will be held. The Olympics have long been seen as China’s global coming-out party. Chinese pride and ambition demand that they be the best ever, no matter what the cost, and that Chinese athletes win more medals than those from any other country.

Three months ago, China’s investment looked to be at risk. The litany of criticisms and pratfalls seemed endless: Chinese government policy toward Tibet and Darfur; human rights concerns, from restrictions on journalists to arbitrary land expropriations; lead paint in Mattel toys; and rampant corruption despite the occasional execution. The word “boycott” was in the air, and the Olympic torch was attacked repeatedly, from Paris to San Francisco, on its progress around the globe.

All that is now a distant memory, as it should be. The IOC remained stalwart. The sponsors, from Coca-Cola (above) to Adidas, hung tough. And, once the torch arrived in China, there was no more nonsense. Because it is and should be all about the athletes. So what if the Chinese government wants to show off how far the country has come in 30 years? It is, to say the least, one of the greatest economic turnrounds in human history.

But when the athletes have gone home, and the polluting power plants come back on line, what will remain beyond the memories and good impressions?

The answer is: brands. The year 2008 will not merely be the year of the Olympics. It will be the year of brands. Not only “Brand China” is being promoted on the world stage, but the commercial brands that are Olympic sponsors are driving home their advantage in the domestic Chinese market.

CAN YOU BELIEVE YOU MAY HAVE BEEN DECEIVED? (FROM 4th Place Medal, A Sports Blog)

London’s Telegraph newspaper reports that some of the fireworks which appeared over Beijing during the television broadcast of the Olympic Opening Ceremony were actually computer generated. But — hold on — it’s not necessarily as bad as you think.

The faked fireworks were actually set-off at the stadium, but because of potential dangers in filming the display live from a helicopter, viewers at home were shown a pre-recorded, computer-generated shot. It sounds dishonest, but I’m not sure it’s such a terrible thing.

THIS IS REAL!

Today’s FT reports that the Olympics also are taking place as US economic power declines:

China is set to overtake the US next year as the world’s largest producer of manufactured goods, four years earlier than expected, as a result of the rapidly weakening US economy. The great leap is revealed in forecasts for the Financial Times by Global Insight, a US economics consultancy. According to the estimates, next year China will account for 17 per cent of manufacturing value-added output of $11,783bn and the US will make 16 per cent.

Last year the US was still easily in the top slot and accounted for a fifth of the total. China was second with 13.2 per cent. John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, a Washington-based trade group, played down the effect of the projections. It was “inevitable” that China would take over on account of its size, he said. “This should be a wholesome development for the US, for it promises both political stability for the world’s largest country and continuing opportunities for the US to export to, and invest in, the world’s fastest-growing economy.” As recently as last year, Global Insight economists predicted that the US would retain the top position until 2013, but a large downward revision in likely output this year and next is expected to cause the US to slip more quickly than had been expected.

WATCH: TRAILER FOR FILM IOUSA

POLITRICKS

Hillary Gets A Night Of Her Own At The Democratic Election

The Obama Clinton Calculation

ELECTION PROTECTION

The Obama campaign has announced plans to expand their election protection program by mobilizing more lawyers to monitor polling. But the folks in the election integrity movement say this doesn’t go far enough because the problem is that there are unreliable machines and shady software.

Andy Novick a lawyer in New York State, is bringing suit to try to guarantee fair elections and is running into resistence from Democratic politicians

To the dems this is one of those issues no one wants to touch….it’s rather extraordinary when you’re close to an
issue to watch them back away like you’ve got a highly contagious plague…voting on software is secret vote counting….voting on software is a corrupt system- opens the door to undetectable tampering It’s the antithesis of a democratic electoral system
…that’s why I’m working so hard to try to bring this lawsuit but I can’t do it alone. here’s what I just published

Overview: Why New York’s Legislature’s Plan to Computerize Our Electoral System Is Unconstitutional_

She also has a blog worth consulting and supporting.

HOW BAD IS THE MORTGAGE CRISIS? VERY BAD SAYS UPI’s MARTIN WALKER (via Bill Bowles)

Put it this way: Anybody who thought the news from the U.S. mortgage front was terrible ain’t seen nothing yet. The ratings agencies are downgrading at an ever-increasing pace. They downgraded $85 billion in mortgage securities in the third quarter of 2007, $237 billion in the fourth quarter, $739 billion in the first quarter of this year and $841 billion in the second. The next two quarters could be worse, given the falling U.S. employment numbers. (The official unemployment figures, it should be noted, severely underestimate the true jobless figure. It excludes those who have stopped looking for work and also those 150,000 youngsters who arrive onto the labor market each month who have yet to be employed.)”

Ellen Brown: ANOTHER VIEW ON FANNIE AND FREDDIE AS CRISIS DEEPENS

ECONOMIC PARASITES

V.Z. Nuri wrotes to tell us about a paper he has written about “fractional reserve banking as economic parasitism”

CONNECTICUT SUES COUNTRYWIDE

REMEMBERING DARWISH

The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) expressed its profound sorrow at the passing of Mahmoud Darwish, one of the leading Palestinian and Arab poets of his generation. Darwish died in Houston, Texas, at age 67 due to complications following heart surgery. Darwish published more than 20 volumes of poetry, beginning with “Leaves of Olives,” which was published in 1964 when the author was 22 years old.

Darwish’s work was translated into many languages and was celebrated around the world. He was awarded the Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom in 2001, and was a commander of the French Order of Arts and Letters. Darwish was politically active for all of his adult life, serving for many years on the Executive Committee of the PLO and in many other significant roles including director of the Palestinian Research Center and editor of several important journals.

His most recent book was hailed by the New York Times;

“As the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish has observed, Palestine is a metaphor for the loss of Eden, for the sorrows of dispossession and exile, for the declining power of the Arab world in its dealings with the West. Mr. Darwish, who is widely considered the Palestinian national poet, has developed this metaphor to richly lyrical effect . . . . Like Yehuda Amichai, the Israeli poet he read in Hebrew as a young man, Mr. Darwish has given expression to his people’s ordinary longings and desires.”—Adam Shatz, New York Times

ANOTHER VIEW:

NEWS DISSECTOR ON THE AIR

ON THE MEDIA…I have been busy with a round of recent media appearances. I was on PFW, the Pacifica outlet in Washington on Friday, on Iran’s Press TV and on with former CNN colleague and radio legend Gary Baumgarten who holds forth on the innovative PALTalk.com

He posted our conversation:

Media Critic Says Americans Shouldn’t Be Sanctimonious About China

Media critic Danny Schechter says Americans who wag their finger at the Chinese for trying to control the media during the Olympics should at least recognize that the United States government tries to control the flow of information as …

THIS MORNING: I WILL BE ON THE GLOBAL RESEARCH NEWS HOUR

WHO IS WATCHING US ON THE INTERNET?

BBC Pentagon correspondent

A newly declassified document called “Information Operations Roadmap” 2003 signed by Donald Rumsfeld, gives a glimpse into the US military’s plans for “information operations” - from psychological operations, to attacks on hostile computer networks.
Bloggers beware….

UPI: Analysis: U.S. military to patrol Internet OMG!

LETTER

“Ness” writes from Costa Rica:

Danny I depend on you and Tom Feeley (Information Clearing House) for truth! I am astonished this morning reading of the threats. A friend of mine down here has asked for the past 8 years why people up north don’t shout to the roof tops about the runaway government (that was put nicely) and I’ve often said it’s due to the threats of death that they would get. Now I have nondoubt about it. Going to the FBI sounds a bit like a waste of time as feel they are part of the problem since the murder of Kennedy.

And Bush has the nerve to tout US ‘free speech”??? I will pray for Tom because prayer is all I can do from here but also hope and pray that the evil ones that have run the US into the ground get their just desserts and soon.

VIVA CINDY

Linda Milazzo, normally based in LA, wrote to tell me that the anti-war activist got on the ballot to go head to head with Nancy Pelosi. She had the first interview with Cindy:

This is great news!! I’m trying to mobilize as many people as possible to get behind Cindy for this campaign. The good news is the Huffpost has it featured on the political page. I was afraid it would get buried.

SORRY

Mark Crispin Miller sent around a comment on the shrink who challenged bio-war scientist Bruce Ivins. I posted it. Now Mark says he was wrong to send it around. I agree.

Chris Beha has correctly noted certain facts in the Ivins case: specifically, the circumstances of the statements made about the latter by therapist Jean Duley–whose behavior was not improper after all.

(Apologies for sending on that email criticizing her.)

“[Duley] privately approached authorities (and Ivins’s lawyers), when a session with Ivins led her to believe that he posed a plausible and specific threat to his coworkers. She was subsequently called under oath to testify about Ivins, which she was required both by law and professional responsibility to do, provided she believed the threat was serious. (It’s important to note that all of this happened before Ivins took his own life, since of course a dead man can’t cause such a threat, and I fully agree that there is almost no conceivable justification for breaking privilege in the case of a dead patient.) It is from this testimony that the media has taken Duley’s quotes; she has not been speaking to the press about her client, and there is certainly no cause to call this woman a ‘publicity seeker.’”

GET THE FCC OUT OF INDECENCY ENFORCEMENT—Broadasting & Cable Reports:

Minow, Fowler: Strip FCC of Indecency-Enforcement Authority

A trio of former Federal Communications Commission chairmen, including the most iconic critic of TV content and a symbol of deregulation, joined to ask the Supreme Court to strip the FCC of its power to regulate indecency entirely, saying that it is on a “Victorian crusade” that hurts broadcasters, viewers and the Constitution.

FOREIGN POLICY: WORLD’S MOST WANTED WAR CRIMINALS

Scroll down to the blog posted on Sunday to deal with some of the background to the war in the Caucuses.

More to Come.

Comments welcome. Write dissector@mediachannel.org