Meet the New Dr. Strangelove

by Tom Hayden

In the depths of the Cold War, Stanley Kubrick created a notoriously-mad scientist character, Dr. Strangelove, whose passion was for dropping atomic bombs. Now there is a rising media and Beltway fascination with a new Dr. Strangelove, whose passion is imposing a mad science of counterinsurgency on Iraq.

His name is David Kilcullen, an Australian academic and military veteran whom the Washington Post’s Thomas Ricks once described as Gen. David Petraeus’ “chief adviser” on the counterinsurgency doctrine underlying the surge in Iraq.

Kilcullen advocated a “global Phoenix program” in an obscure military journal, Small Wars, in 2004. For the ahistorical or uninitiated, Phoenix was a largely off-the-books detention, torture and assassination program aimed at tens of thousands of South Vietnamese who were identified by informants as the Vietcong’s “civilian infrastructure.” The venture was so discredited that the US Congress denounced and disbanded it after hearings in the 1970s.

Former AG Accused of Playing Politics with Justice

Exclusive: Critic of Torture Policy Assured Job as US Attorney

By JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG and ARIANE DE VOGUE
June 19, 2008

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, now under investigation for allegedly politicizing the Justice Department, ousted a top lawyer for failing to adopt the administration's position on torture and then promised him a position as a U.S. attorney to placate him, highly placed sources tell ABC News.

Gonzales, who was just taking over as attorney general, asked Justice Department lawyer Daniel Levin to leave in early 2005, shortly after Levin wrote a legal opinion that declared "torture is abhorrent" and limited the administration's use of harsh interrogation techniques.

Glenn Greenwald: George Bush's latest powers, courtesy of the Democratic Congress

CQ reports (sub. req.) that "a final deal has been reached" on FISA and telecom amnesty and "the House is likely to take up the legislation Friday." I've now just read a copy of the final "compromise" bill. It's even worse than expected. When you read it, it's actually hard to believe that the Congress is about to make this into our law. Then again, this is the same Congress that abolished habeas corpus with the Military Commissions Act, and legalized George Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program with the "Protect America Act," so it shouldn't be hard to believe at all. Seeing the words in print, though, adds a new dimension to appreciating just how corrupt and repugnant this is:

The provision granting amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, Title VIII, has the exact Orwellian title it should have: "Protection of Persons Assisting the Government." Section 802(a)

Jeb Bush And His Cronies Have Big Plans for Govt.-Funded Religious Schools in Florida

By Joseph L. Conn, Church & State Magazine
Posted on June 21, 2008, Printed on June 21, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/88949/

Dade County, Fla., is home to almost 200 religious schools.

According to the Florida Department of Education’s data from the 2006-2007 school year, an array of denominations and faith perspectives is represented. Forty-five schools are affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, but many other spiritual traditions answered the state roll call.

All Angels Academy is Episcopalian, Christ Fellowship Academy is Baptist, Clara Mohammed School of Miami is Islamic, Greater Miami Hebrew Academy is Jewish, World Mission of Jesus Christ Christian is non-denominational, New Testament Church of Transfiguration School is Pentecostal and Glory of God Christian School is affiliated with the Assemblies of God.

Democrats Have Legalized Bush's War Crimes

By Robert Parry, Media Consortium
Posted on June 21, 2008, Printed on June 21, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/88950/

Editor's note: You can read more about Obama backing a FISA "compromise" here.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims that a key positive feature of the new wiretap "compromise" is that the bill reaffirms that the President must follow the law, even though the same bill virtually assures that no one will be held accountable for George W. Bush's violation of the earlier spying law. Share this article

In other words, in the guise of rejecting Bush's theories of an all-powerful presidency that is above the law, the Democratic leadership cleared the way for the President and his collaborators to evade punishment for defying the law.

The murder of US manufacturing

By Martin Hutchinson

GE's announcement a week ago that it would accept offers for its appliances business marked the death-knell of yet another US manufacturing business, one among so many in US manufacturing's long and seemingly unstoppable downtrend since 1980.

That decline may seem an inevitable historical trend, and Wall Street's analysts would claim that the US economy can prosper just fine without it. Yet impartial analysts of the putrefying corpse of US manufacturing capability are forced into an inescapable question: did it die of natural causes or was it murdered?

Guns blight US energy choices

By Jonathan Rynn

When New York City wanted to make the biggest purchase of subway cars in US history in the late 1990s, more than US$3 billion worth, the only companies that were able to bid on the contract were foreign. The same problem applies to high-speed rail today: only European or Japanese companies could build any of the proposed rail networks in the United States.

The US has also ceded the high ground to Europe and Japan in a broad range of other sustainable technologies. For instance, 11 companies produce 96% of medium to large wind turbines; only one, GE, is based in the United States, with a 16% share of the global market. The differences in market penetration come down to two factors: European and Japanese companies have become more competent producers for these markets, and their governments have helped them to develop both this competence and the markets themselves.

Democrats Cave on Telecom Immunity

By Mike Lillis 06/20/2008

In February, as the law authorizing the Bush administration's controversial warrantless wiretapping program was set to lapse, House Democrats brushed aside GOP threats and let the clock run out. Politically, the move was a gamble: White House officials had claimed the law -- including retroactive legal immunity for the phone companies that participated -- was necessary to protect the country from terrorist attacks. The administration pushed its message relentlessly.

[...]

Four months later, a very different scenario is playing out on Capitol Hill, where congressional leaders on Thursday unveiled a new agreement to expand the administration's domestic wiretapping capabilities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. The bill would effectively lead to the dismissal of the roughly 40 civil suits currently pending against the telecom companies for allegedly violating the civil liberties of their customers.

Trading Away America

THE POLITICS

Today, Sen. John McCain will travel to Canada to celebrate the North American Free Trade Agreement and pledge to pursue more of the same corporate trade agreements. He will criticize Sen. Barack Obama for calling for renegotiating NAFTA and similar agreements. This echoes the position of President Bush and most Republicans in Congress.

Americans, however, overwhelmingly believe that current trade policies have "subjected American companies and employees to unfair competition and cheap labor" [Rasmussen Reports; NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll]. They are looking for a different course. This is a golden opportunity for progressives to speak out against the unfair trade policies of Bush, McCain and their congressional enablers, and to lay out a progressive trade strategy that works for working people.

THE FACTS

America has lost millions of jobs due to trade policies designed for multinationals, not for the nation.

Author: Rove 'helped arrange' Swiftboat attacks on Kerry

Karl Rove may have left the Bush administration last summer, but he is never very far from the political spotlight, especially with former press secretary Scott McClellan due to testify today on Rove's role in the outing of Valerie Plame.

MSNBC's Morning Joe welcomed Paul Alexander, the author of Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove, to dig through Rove's legacy of scandal.

Paul Krugman: Driller Instinct

Blaming environmentalists for high energy prices, never mind the evidence, has been a hallmark of the Bush administration.

Thus, in 2001 Dick Cheney attributed the California electricity crisis to environmental regulations that, he claimed, were blocking power-plant construction. He completely missed the real story, which was that energy companies — probably some of the same companies that participated in his secret task force, which was supposed to be drawing up a national energy strategy — were driving up prices by deliberately withholding electricity from the market.

Global quandary: How to feed a growing planet

By Jack Chang | McClatchy Newspapers

In the lakeside capital of the central African country of Burundi, 40-year-old Lucie Nahimana on Thursday fed her family of six "black flour," a low-quality cassava root that many here have resorted to eating because they can't afford anything else.

Thousands of miles away, in the port city of Tianjin, China, physician Ning Aimin scanned the shelves of her supermarket for yogurt, a food that was practically unheard-of here a decade ago but has become a favorite of many of China's newly affluent.

New report available on ecosystems and climate change

(Washington, D.C. – June 20, 2008) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released a report that can help reduce the potential impact of climate change on estuaries, forests, wetlands, coral reefs, and other sensitive ecosystems. The report, entitled Preliminary Review of Adaptation Options for Climate-Sensitive Ecosystems and Resources, identifies strategies to protect the environment as these changes occur.

"People always say 'Don't just tell us what will happen – tell us what we can do about it,'" said Dr. George Gray, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Research and Development. "By using the strategies outlined in this document, we can help managers protect our parks, rivers, and forests from possible future impacts of a changing climate."

Here're the savings from Arctic drilling — 75 cents a barrel

By Erika Bolstad | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — If Congress were to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, crude oil prices would probably drop by an average of only 75 cents a barrel, according to Department of Energy projections issued Thursday.

The report, which was requested in December by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, found that oil production in the refuge "is not projected to have a large impact on world oil prices."

Anatomy of a Price Surge

By Michael T. Klare

As the pain induced by higher oil prices spreads to an ever growing share of the American (and world) population, pundits and politicians have been quick to blame assorted villains--greedy oil companies, heartless commodity speculators and OPEC. It's true that each of these parties has contributed to and benefited from the steep run-up. But the sharp growth in petroleum costs is due far more to a combination of soaring international demand and slackening supply--compounded by the ruinous policies of the Bush Administration--than to the behavior of those other actors.

Most, if not all, the damage was avoidable. Shortly after taking office, George W. Bush undertook a sweeping review of US energy policy aimed at expanding the nation's supply of vital fuels. The "reality is the nation has got a real problem when it comes to energy," he declared on March 14, 2001. "We need more sources of energy." At that time many of the problems evident today were already visible. Energy demand in mature industrial nations was continuing to grow as the rising economic dynamos of Asia, especially China, were beginning to make an impact. By 2002 the Energy Department was predicting that China would soon overtake Japan, becoming the world's second-largest petroleum consumer, and that developing Asia as a whole would account for about one-fourth of global consumption by 2020. Also evident was an unmistakable slowdown in the growth of world production, the telltale sign of an imminent "peaking" in global output [see Klare, "Beyond the Age of Petroleum," November 12, 2007].

Katha Pollitt: Feminists for McCain? Not So Much

Are there feminist Hillary supporters who hate Obama so much they'll vote for McCain just to show the Democratic Party how ticked off they are? Yes, and I get e-mails from all five of them. Seriously, I'm sure there are female Hillary Clinton voters who will go for John McCain in the general election, but I don't think too many of them will be feminists. Because to vote for McCain, a feminist would have to be insane. Let me rephrase that: she would have to believe that the chief--indeed the only--goal of the women's movement is to elect Clinton, not to promote women's rights. A vote for McCain would be the ultimate face-spiting nose-cutoff. Take that, women's equality!

Not that the media will help women get it. As Eric Alterman and George Zornick exhaustively document elsewhere in this issue, the mainstream press is doing its best to persuade us that McCain is a moderate--barely distinguishable from Barack Obama--even on abortion rights, one of the brighter dividing lines between the parties.

Is Congress the Problem with Health Care?

By Ezra Klein, The American Prospect
Posted on June 20, 2008, Printed on June 21, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/88374/

The first thing you notice when you sit down with Tom Daschle is that he's got some really funky glasses. Like, surprisingly funky. Fire-engine red with odd edges and varied trim, the sort of eyeglasses you'd see perched on the nose of an art dealer, not a former Senate majority leader.

But despite the incongruent accessorizing, Daschle is a former Senate majority leader, through and through. After losing his South Dakota Senate seat to John Thune in 2004, he halfheartedly attempted to return to private life, joining a law firm and taking some teaching gigs. But soon enough, he was pulled back into public policy by the Center for American Progress, which convinced him to become a senior fellow. Soon after that, he began working with well-regarded health-policy researchers Scott Greenberger and Jeanne Lambrew on a book about the health-care system.

What Happens When a School Board of Religious Zealots Will 'Lie for Jesus'?

By Onnesha Roychoudhuri, AlterNet
Posted on June 20, 2008, Printed on June 21, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/87876/

The intelligent design case in Dover, Penn., was the stuff of tabloid dreams: a community divided when a school board led by religious fundamentalists tried to bring creationism into the local biology curriculum. But look beneath the surface, and it was hardly the two-dimensional "science versus religion" narrative favored by the press. As Lauri Lebo, a local reporter who covered the trial, writes, the "'Darwinism'-spouting teachers were preachers' kids; the 'atheist' plaintiffs taught Sunday school; the 'activist' judge was a Bush-appointed Republican; and the journalists labeled 'liars' were willing to go to jail for the truth."

Sarcasm Seen as Evolutionary Survival Skill

Meredith F. Small
Fri Jun 20, 9:45 AM ET

Humans are fundamentally social animals. Our social nature means that we interact with each other in positive, friendly ways, and it also means we know how to manipulate others in a very negative way.

Neurophysiologist Katherine Rankin at the University of California, San Francisco, has also recently discovered that sarcasm, which is both positively funny and negatively nasty, plays an important part in human social interaction.

Why Iraq won't be South Korea

By Pepe Escobar

The United States invasion of Iraq then takes on an even broader meaning. Not only does it constitute an attempt to control the global oil spigot and hence the global economy though domination over the Middle East. It also constitutes a powerful US military bridgehead on the Eurasian land mass which ... yields it a powerful geostrategic position in Eurasia with at least the potentiality to disrupt any consolidation of an Eurasian power that could indeed be the next step in that endless accumulation of political power that must always accompany the equally endless accumulation of capital.
- David Harvey, The New Imperialism, 2003

WASHINGTON - Everyone remembers the George W Bush "Mission Accomplished" victory speech on board of an aircraft carrier off the San Diego coast in the spring of 2003. Over five years - and a trillion dollars - later, Bush's last stand is to force a neo-colonial Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) under Iraqi throats by the end of July, acquire the right to go on "war on terror" mode in Iraq forever, declare victory and thus win - finally - his war, now opposed by a striking majority of Americans.

Call it "occupation forever". But there's one glitch: Iraqis are not falling for it.