Violence against women increases in Iraq and Afghanistan

From the AP:

Women under attack in Iraq, Afghanistan

Women are facing increasing violence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia, especially when they speak out publicly to defend women's rights, a senior U.N. official told the U.N. Security Council.

"What UNIFEM is seeing on the ground — in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia — is that public space for women in these situations is shrinking," Heyzer said Thursday. "Women are becoming assassination targets when they dare defend women's rights in public decision-making."

Hillary Clinton (2006): attempts to criminalize flag burning

In 2006, the Republicans tried to relive the culture wars that brought them victories in 2002 and 2004. Among the few pieces of legislation submitted during the shortest session in history, they revived the perennial attempt to criminalize destruction of the flag. Hillary Clinton sponsored legislation to make such acts illegal, but not to amend the constitution.

Senator Clinton and Liberals Split Over Flag Desecration
June 28, 2006

Perhaps even more than her stance on the war in Iraq, it is Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's position on flag desecration that has drawn the scorn of the liberal Democratic base.

When Mrs. Clinton took a stand on the matter last year -- co-sponsoring legislation that would have criminalized the desecration of the American flag even as she opposed a constitutional amendment that sought to achieve the same end -- she was pilloried from the left. Editorial boards criticized her for political maneuvering, the political commentator Arianna Huffington attacked her for "stars, stripes and triangulation" and even some of her supporters quietly wondered why she had gone out on a limb on such a controversial issue.

[This] measure, brought to the floor by Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, failed, 64 to 36, minutes before the proposed amendment fell short of the 67 votes it needed.

The divergent views of her position reflect a broader rift in the Democratic Party over whether the key to electoral success rests in winning over centrists or by drawing clear distinctions with Republicans by staking out unapologetically liberal positions.

"What's politically pragmatic isn't always what's pleasing to the left," said Steve McMahon, a Democratic consultant. "But pragmatism is what wins elections for Democrats."

Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts and a former presidential nominee, voted for the measure, which closely resembled past efforts to pre-empt an amendment to the Constitution. Democrats who voted for the measure in effect bought themselves the right to claim that they had voted against flag desecration, potentially inoculating themselves against possible charges of lacking patriotism in a general election campaign. The broader measure to amend the Constitution failed by a single vote, 66 to 34.

Most of the Senators who voted for amending the Constitution, voted against this measure. Only Russ Feingold voted against both.

Henry Waxman investigates the politicization of science

Science magazine reports on the Congressional investigation into the White House's propaganda campaign against climate science. Once again, we have a case where an industry insider, and lobbyist against global warming science, was allowed to oversee and edit government science reports for political ends.

Waxman and other representatives focused on changes made to drafts of three documents. Beginning in 2001, [the White House's Council on Environmental Quality] officials suggested 113 edits to the Administration's draft Strategic Plan of the Climate Change Science Program that Waxman says played down the role of human activities in global warming. Another 181 changes either exaggerated or emphasized scientific uncertainties, such as changing "will" to "may" in the draft sentence "Warming temperatures will also affect Arctic land areas."

Philip Cooney, a former oil industry lobbyist who was then chief of staff at CEQ, was asked to explain why he had made the changes. He said that many of his suggested revisions were based on a 2001 National Research Council report on climate change and were intended to "align these reports with the Administration's stated policy."

Cooney, now an official with ExxonMobil, made other changes to the 2003 annual report to Congress from the Climate Change Science Program and to a draft of the 2003 State of the Environment report by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). E-mails show that EPA staff objected to the edits as "poorly representing the science," and the agency ultimately decided to omit the climate change section of the report. Waxman said he thought Cooney was "sowing doubt" on climate change.

The oversight committee has posted documents online. Among the edits made:

Original report:

Is the Earth's climate changing?

...suggest that the recent warming is unusual and that the 1990's are likely to have been the warmest decade in the past 1000 years for the Northern Hemisphere (Exhibit 18).

Became:

The Earth's climate has changed dramatically throughout history and will continue to change due to natural variability.

...suggest that the recent warming may be unusual.

While the Americans patrol Sadr City, the Mahdi army moves on other fronts

McClatchy has an excellent, detailed report on the war within the war. The Mahdi army continues to pursue a strategy to purge Sunnis from the capital even as the U.S. military moves into Sadr city.

In Baghdad, Mahdi Army still targets Sunni neighborhoods

[I]nterviews with residents throughout the capital and a review of police reports shows that while violence may be down overall, the Mahdi Army continues its thrust into western Baghdad in what appears to be a drive to cut off Sunni neighborhoods in the west of the capital from Sunni neighborhoods to the south and southwest.

According to statistics that McClatchy Newspapers gathered from police officials, the number of unidentified bodies found in Baghdad has dropped dramatically, from an average of nearly 32 a day in December and early January to 14.25 since Feb. 15.

Nearly all those bodies were found in the neighborhoods of western Baghdad where residents report the Mahdi Army push.

At the end of last year, the Mahdi Army solidified its control in what had been mixed districts in northwest Baghdad, forcing the last 200 Sunni residents _ members of the Batta tribe _ from the Hurriyah neighborhood in early December. Witnesses to that battle say the militiamen burned Sunni homes, sometimes with the men still inside. Video of the final push has played repeatedly on Zawraa TV, a banned Iraqi station affiliated with Sunni insurgents that broadcasts via an Egyptian satellite.

The Mahdi army is apparently particularly targeting Sunnis in the neighborhoods of Amil and Jihad, assaulting mosques and burning homes. Both Sunni and Shiite residents are fleeing the violence.

Putin continues his assault on the press

Via Steve Clemons, Vladimir Putin continues to rebuild the Soviet State:

Putin sparks fear of web crackdown

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has decreed the creation of a new super-agency to regulate the country's media and the internet, sparking fears among journalists that a clampdown on the media could extend to the web, which until now has remained free.

Mr Putin this week signed off on a decree to merge two existing state agencies regulating the media into one super-agency that will issue licences to broadcasters and oversee the content of newspapers and websites.

This story follows the recent assassinations of Putin critics, including several journalists.

"There is going to be so much to hide"

In celebration of the House's recent action, passing 3 open-government bills, during "Sunshine Week"; I thought it would be interesting to see how things were being reported at the start of George Bush's attack on open records laws. Mere weeks after 9/11 the president used the specter of the terrorist threat to push through an executive order sealing presidential records and radically curtailing freedom of information requests. It's amazing to read this Washington Post article and realize that it foreshadowed so many of the scandals that would plague the president in the following 5 years:

Bush Clamping Down On Presidential Papers
Incumbent Could Lock Up Predecessor's Records

Thursday, November 1, 2001

The Bush White House has drafted an executive order that would usher in a new era of secrecy for presidential records and allow an incumbent president to withhold a former president's papers even if the former president wanted to make them public.

The five-page draft would also require members of the public seeking particular documents to show "at least a 'demonstrated, specific need' " for them before they would be considered for release.

Historians and others who have seen the proposed order called it unprecedented and said it would turn the 1978 Presidential Records Act on its head by allowing such materials to be kept secret "in perpetuity."

This may be the first record of the president signing an executive order for an unprecedented restriction on our rights. FOIA is inverted, the default position was that records would be open unless the government showed a specific need to classify them. Now classification is the default position.

Other critics voiced concern about the impact of the order "in the post-September 11 world," with its wartime atmosphere.

"The executive branch is moving heavily into the nether world of dirty tricks, very likely including directed assassinations overseas and other violations of American norms and the U.N. charter," said Vanderbilt University historian Hugh Graham. "There is going to be so much to hide."

Remember this is 2001: Americans still think that torture is a barbaric act done by evil people, habeas corpus is still a central element of our legal system, people who argue in defense of internment are considered racists, and Iraq is not on the minds of anyone other than the president and his cabinet.

Bush is expected to sign the order shortly. A White House aide said the Supreme Court held in 1977 that former presidents can continue to assert various privileges for their records and the order will simply establish "a procedure by which they can protect their rights." The aide said "great deference" will be paid to their wishes.

The government now works to protect the powerful. The presumption that our leaders are accountable to us is no longer in effect.

The proposed order, dated Oct. 29, grew out of a decision by the Bush administration early this year to block the release of 68,000 pages of confidential communications between President Ronald Reagan and his advisers that officials at the National Archives, including the Reagan library, had wanted to make public.

Proving that this law had nothing to do with national security, and that even the wishes of a Republican hero were unimportant. George Bush is the sole decider.

Relying on an obscure executive order that Reagan issued just before leaving office, White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales prescribed a series of delays so that Bush could decide whether to invoke "a constitutionally based privilege or take other appropriate action."

Obscure executive orders, Alberto Gonzales devising delaying tactics, and the idea of presidential privilege all wrapped up in a single sentence.

The papers in question, some dealing with Reagan-era officials who now have high posts in the Bush administration, were to have been disclosed last January under the 1978 law, which said that the documents could be restricted at the most for 12 years after Reagan left office.

Hmmm, a conflict of interest here. Certainly, the president wouldn't pass such an act simply to avoid a little embarrassment. The man's at over 80% in the polls!

The new executive order would replace the 1989 Reagan decree and cover not only confidential communications between a president and his advisers but, as Graham put it, "almost anything in the White House files."

How did that "almost" get in there. Better call Alberto back.

For 12-year-old documents that are not covered by "constitutionally based privileges" but are subject to requests under the Freedom of Information Act, the order states that the archivist "must withhold" them if possible.

Must withhold anything despite the fact that FOIA declares these records are open and shall be made available to the public upon request - these are unclassified documents being discussed here.

For records that might be privileged as state secrets, confidential communications, attorney-client communications, or "deliberative process" materials, a requester must establish "specific need" for them "as a threshold matter."

There are the classified documents. I wonder if we could retroactively classify documents that are already public?

A former president would then review them and tell the archivist whether they should be withheld or made public. The incumbent president or a designee would then look at them to see if he or she agrees with the ex-president's decision. Unless both agree they should be made public, the records will remain secret unless "a final court order" should require disclosure.

George Bush sets some goals in Iraq

Iraqis’ Progress Lags Behind Pace Set by Bush Plan

In interviews this week, administration officials said that the military buildup intended to stabilize Baghdad and create the conditions for achieving the objectives would not be fully in place until June and that all of the objectives would not be fulfilled until the year’s end.

Four of the significant objectives are final approval of an oil law regulating distribution of oil revenues and foreign investment in the oil industry; reversal of the de-Baathification laws that are widely blamed for alienating Sunnis by driving them out of government ministries; the holding of local elections; and reform of Iraq's Constitution.

On the up side, this is one of the few times that the Bush administration has set down goals to be met in Iraq. The goals are pushed back from June to December, but at least it gives Americans some standard against which to measure progress.

On the down side, these are all goals to be met by the Iraqis. They are all goals that could have been met by the Americans before declaring Iraq a sovereign nation. And 2 of them (de-de-Baathification and reform of the Constitution) are reversals our original policies.

h/t TMV

Bill Richardson calls for an end to the ban on gays in the military

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson Calls for Repeal of US Military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Policy

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson today called on Congress to repeal the US Military's policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" regarding homosexuality.

"I do not believe that homosexuality is immoral, and I believe Congress should repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' I voted against it when I served in Congress. People should not be judged based on their sexual orientation. Throughout my entire career I have fought for equal rights and against discrimination of any kind.

This really does sum up the entire rationale behind Rudy Giuliani's candidacy

And it would make a pretty catchy bumper sticker:

When Giuliani Is President, Every Day Will Be 9/11

Isn't it unfair, though, to judge a man on how he behaved on 22,930 days of his life instead of the day he was at his best? Besides, Giuliani is not running on these other 22,930 days of his life, he's running on just this one day, and when Giuliani is President, every day will be 9/11.

Death squad murders drop as U.S. troops sweep through Sadr City

For U.S. and Sadr, Wary Cooperation

BAGHDAD -- U.S. troops are conducting security sweeps in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City for the first time in three years, part of a revamped plan to pacify the capital. Yet the Mahdi Army militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has not risen up to fight them, despite U.S. raids on militia members' homes and growing Sunni attacks on Shiites.

The absence of full-blown resistance against U.S. troops and the recent decline in the number of bodies found in the capital with signs of torture, usually attributed to the Mahdi Army, suggest that Sadr still controls the bulk of his forces, even as U.S. intelligence officials assert that his grip over the Mahdi Army is slipping.

Such murders have dropped by a third during the first month of the security plan, Fil said.

Sadr has other motives for allowing U.S. soldiers into Sadr City, U.S. military officials said. In recent months he has become increasingly concerned about his political and religious image, because the Mahdi Army has been linked to torture and other crimes. He has purged militiamen from his fold and threatened to excommunicate others.

U.S. intelligence officials say he is competing for authority with extremist figures inside the Mahdi Army who oppose his decision to join mainstream politics. By allowing U.S. forces to enter his stronghold and arrest his militiamen, Sadr appears to be ridding his army of rogue fighters. In the past six months, nearly 700 of the "real extremist elements" of the Mahdi Army have been taken into custody and detained, including those who have committed death squad killings, Caldwell said.

Remember this next time someone tells you to take Bush's word "in good faith"

In March 2006, at the request of the Bush administration, Arlen Specter included a "little known rider" to the Patriot Act renewal legislation. It allowed the President to name U.S. attorneys without Senate approval. Alberto Gonzales assured the Senate that, despite requesting this power, the Bush administration would never actually use it for political purposes.

In testimony on Jan. 18, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Justice Department had no intention of avoiding Senate input on the hiring of U.S. attorneys.

Just a month earlier, D. Kyle Sampson, who was then Gonzales's chief of staff, laid out a plan to do just that. In an e-mail, he detailed a strategy for evading Arkansas Democrats in installing Tim Griffin, a former GOP operative and protege of presidential adviser Karl Rove, as the U.S. attorney in Little Rock.

"We should gum this to death," Sampson wrote to a White House aide on Dec. 19. "[A]sk the senators to give Tim a chance . . . then we can tell them we'll look for other candidates, ask them for recommendations, evaluate the recommendations, interview their candidates, and otherwise run out the clock. All of this should be done in 'good faith,' of course."

The fundamental point is this:

The president fired US attorneys who were Senate approved,

so that he could replace them with ones who weren’t.

That “little known line” in the Patriot Act didn’t get there by accident.


(The emails are online at the judiciary committee site and cross-posted at the NYT.)

Warner and Nelson embrace Lieberman's "6-months of silence" plan

When I first read it, I didn't see how this proposal was any different from Pelosi's resolution to start drawing down troops in October if progress wasn't being made.

But of course, it's completely different. Warner and Nelson don't want to even begin thinking about the war until another 6 months have passed. Then they'll ask Bush to reconsider his surge strategy.

Warner-Nelson Proposal Gives ‘Surge’ a Chance

Under a draft Iraq resolution by Sens. John Warner (R-Va.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), the Senate would ask President Bush to revise his plans for the war and consider a phased redeployment of U.S. troops — but only after giving the White House until at least September to prove the current “surge” strategy has worked, according to a draft obtained by Roll Call.

By September, another 20,000 Iraqis will have died in this war. Congress cannot sit on the sidelines while this disaster continues to unfold. Giving George Bush another 6 months to get it right, just plays into the his strategy of running out the clock on his term and leaving the mess for the next President.

These Senators also seem to be blind to the fact that if the situation continues to worsen, America could be forced out by the chaos, instead of leaving on our own terms.

Ron Paul blames the Walter Reed scandal on a reckless foreign policy

The scandal at Walter Reed is not an isolated incident. It is directly related to our foreign policy of interventionism.

There is a pressing need to reassess our now widely accepted role as the world’s lone superpower. If we don’t, we are destined to reduce our nation to something far less powerful.

It has always been politically popular for politicians to promise they will keep us out of foreign wars, especially before World War I. That hasn’t changed, even though many in Washington today don’t understand it.

Likewise it has been popular to advocate ending prolonged and painful conflicts like the wars in Korea and Vietnam, and now Iraq.

In 2000, it was quite popular to condemn nation building and reject the policy of policing the world, in the wake of our involvement in Kosovo and Somalia. We were promised a more humble foreign policy.

Nobody wins elections by promising to take us to war. But once elected, many politicians greatly exaggerate the threat posed by a potential enemy-- and the people too often carelessly accept the dubious reasons given to justify wars. Opposition arises only when the true costs are felt here at home.

A foreign policy of interventionism costs so much money that we’re forced to close military bases in the U.S., even as we’re building them overseas. Interventionism is never good fiscal policy.

Interventionism symbolizes an attitude of looking outward, toward empire, while diminishing the importance of maintaining a constitutional republic.

Our policies naturally lead to resentment, which in turn leads to prolonged wars and increased casualties. We spend billions in Iraq, while bases like Walter Reed fall into disrepair. This undermines our ability to care for the thousands of wounded soldiers we should have anticipated, despite the rosy predictions that we would be greeted as liberators in Iraq.

This policy of interventionism is folly, and it cannot continue forever. It will end, either because we wake up or because we go broke.

President Bush attacks open records laws

E&P reports on the battle over government secrecy. The House overwhelmingly passed 3 bills which would open government records and protect whistleblowers from retribution. The Senate is following suit:

The measures, highlighting the media-led Sunshine Week, would force government to be more responsive to Freedom of Information Act requests, make contributions to presidential libraries public and overturn a 2001 presidential directive giving the president authority to keep his records from public view.

The White House issued a veto threat on the presidential records bill and voiced opposition to the FOIA legislation. It also said the president would veto a fourth bill the House is to debate later Wednesday on whistleblower protections. Democrats say the bills, several of which were also taken up in past Republican-led Congresses, were needed to shine light on what they say has been one of the most secretive administrations in decades.

Republicans hate taxes, but they love tolls

"No new taxes" is a mantra with Republicans, who believe that cutting taxes dramatically would create an economic miracle. In Texas this is particularly true; taxes to fund schools on a state-wide level are referred to as "Robin Hood" laws (and Robin Hood isn't a hero in Texas). Property taxes are reviled and the very idea of creating a state income tax is political suicide.

Roads and other services have to be paid for, however, and that means fees. Republicans love fees, and their latest pet idea is toll roads.

Should Texans have to pay to drive?

By 2030 the state's population is projected to rise by at least 40%, with most growth occurring in the big cities.

Toll roads are the answer, the state has decreed. In the past few months drivers have begun paying to use roads north of Austin. More will open later this year. Other free highways in central Texas could also be converted to tollways, including a popular route to the airport in Austin.

From someone who's lived in states with tolls; believe me, it's better to just pay the taxes up front. People are always fighting to keep taxes low.

Tolls are forever.

Britain plans to cut CO2 emissions by 60%

From The Independent:

The Government has become the first in the world to commit itself to legally binding reductions in carbon dioxide emissions but will come under strong pressure to agree to bigger cuts when its landmark Climate Change Bill goes though Parliament.

In a draft Bill published yesterday, ministers promised to enshrine into law their commitment to cut emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. Opposition parties and Labour MPs joined forces in calling for an 80 per cent reduction.

The Bill also sets an interim target of reducing emissions by between 26 per cent and 32 per cent by 2020. Legally binding five-year "carbon budgets" will be fixed 15 years ahead to keep it on course.

Critics of the bill argued that Britain should not make commitments until other nations agree to do the same, arguing the emerging economies in India and China will more than make up for the reductions of the UK.

Barack Obama's pastor doubts America is ready for a black president

The German magazine Spiegel International interviewed Barack Obama's minister, asking about how religion frames Barack's political views. In the end, though, he still believes America isn't ready to elect an African American.

SPIEGEL: Do you think he will be President in two years?

Wright: No. Unless Barak pulls off nationally what he was able to pull off locally, and wins the hearts and minds of people who have been perennially anti-black. Racism is so deeply ingrained in this country that he could be flawless in terms of his policies. But he's still a black man in this country, which has a sorry history in terms of how it sees African-American males. That's my 65-year-old, jaded perception of where this country is. I was pleasantly surprised in the Senate election. I would like to be as pleasantly surprised in the presidential election.

Ron Paul (R - Texas) declares his candidacy for President

Ron Paul officially declared his candidacy on C-SPAN today, arguing that the Republican party has gone in the wrong direction, becoming the party of big government.

Explaining that he initially got into politics to combat excessive spending and debt, he has lately become more involved in foreign policy. Having opposed the original vote for the war against Iraq, he now wants to cut funding and end the war, immediately, and also strongly opposes attacking Iran.

From his C-SPAN interview:

"In recent years I have become much more interested in foreign policy, for obvious reasons. I have always advocated a non-interventionist foreign policy, which is the traditional conservative, Republican, American position. We ought to mind our own business and take care of ourselves and provide for our national defense. Take the advice of the founders, that we shouldn't be involved in nation-building. Even our president, campaigned in the year 2000 on a humble foreign policy, no nation building, don't police the world, I really believed in that. And yet it's lost. All of a sudden we have one episode, one incident, and the American people are frightened by our leaders."

From MySanAntonio.com:

He also criticized federal efforts following Hurricane Katrina.

Paul derided the federal government handouts after the devastating storm and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's handling of the cleanup and aftermath.

A medical doctor, Paul has delivered more than 4,000 babies and is a pro-life candidate. He also supports medicinal marijuana and has argued for a repeal of America's drug war laws.

He opposes federal funding of entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, and argues for a return to the gold standard.

Dick Cheney tells his critics to just shut up

Following in the footsteps of his fellow Iraq war architects Bill Kristol and Joe Lieberman; Dick Cheney accuses his critics of aiding our enemies, while simultaneously demanding a blank check for $100 billion.

But unlike Kristol and Lieberman, who are only asking us to shut up for the next 6-9 months, Cheney tells us to just shut-up, period.

Air pollution can create water shortages

Most Americans are now familiar with the idea that human activity is causing global warming. Nature reports that we may be impacting rainfall as well:

Pollution decreases rainfall

Air pollution is severely diminishing rainfall in Chinese mountains, researchers have found. The same effect is probably causing water shortages in many other highly polluted areas that depend on the nearby hills for their water.

Meteorologists have long assumed that pollution can suppress or delay this precipitation. Small particles known as aerosols are known to alter the size and properties of the water droplets that form in clouds, and can affect the weather in several ways. In some mountain ranges in the western United States, rainfall has decreased by 10-25% over the past 50 years. Tiny particles in air pollution are suspected to be the main cause, but a lack of data has hindered any robust testing of this notion.

Now, scientists have gathered enough data to quantify the effect. Daniel Rosenfeld, a meteorologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and his team used a 50-year record of continuous measurements made on top of Mt. Hua Shan, near Xi'an in central China, to show that orographic precipitation decreased by 30-50% when conditions were hazy. Overall, annual precipitation at Mt. Hua Shan decreased by around a third between 1970 and 2005, as pollution rose.

Barack Obama (2004): wins the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate

A short bio of Barack Obama, published in the New York Times after his surprise win of the Democratic nomination for Senator from Illinois:

As Quickly as Overnight, a Democratic Star Is Born

Overnight, Mr. Obama, a former civil rights lawyer, has become a treasured commodity in the Democratic Party nationally, in part because Democrats see the Illinois seat as one they may easily snatch back from Republicans in November, and in part because Mr. Obama would be the only black member of the Senate.

Mr. Obama grew up in Hawaii, raised mainly by his mother and his grandparents. He graduated from Columbia and Harvard Law, and was the first African-American president of The Harvard Law Review.

As a young adult, he moved to Chicago, where he worked as a community organizer in struggling neighborhoods, then as a civil rights lawyer in cases involving voting rights and employment discrimination. He and his wife, Michelle, have two young girls and live in Hyde Park, a South Side neighborhood. He lectures at the University of Chicago Law School.

In the State Senate, Mr. Obama has pressed to overhaul the Illinois death penalty system, to add more health care services for the poor, to expand early childhood education programs, to improve the state's system of juvenile justice and to create a state earned-income tax credit.

In 2000, Mr. Obama ran for the United States House, facing a Democratic incumbent, Representative Bobby L. Rush. Mr. Rush won the primary, and in this year's race supported Mr. Hull -- a sign, some here thought, that there would be a rift among black leadership in Chicago.

Few in the military approve of Bush's handling of the war in Iraq

From the Army Times:

An annual survey from the independent Military Times released earlier this year showed for the first time since the conflict began, a majority of troops disapprove of Bush’s handling of the war. The number of troops who believe the U.S. should have gone to war has dropped from 65 percent in 2003 to 41 percent today.

Just 35 percent of the military members polled approve of the way Bush has handled the war.

Most active-duty troops seem to know better than to publicly offer any personal assessments of the war without a shield of anonymity. Instead, they toe the company line with generic takes on the conflict and how the White House has handled it.

h/t ThinkProgress

Bill Richardson (1995): mediator in the case of Aung San Suu Kyi

From the archives of the New York Times, comes this story on Representative Richardson:

American Doubtful On Burmese Thaw

May 30, 1995

The American congressman who has become a key mediator in negotiating the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the dissident leader and Nobel Prize laureate, warned today there had been "major retrenchment on human rights and democratic initiatives" by the junta that runs Myanmar, formerly Burma.

The congressman, Representative Bill Richardson, Democrat of New Mexico, said he believed that the Burmese junta would continue to hold Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi after her detention order expires on July 11, more than six years after she was placed under house arrest in a crackdown on the democratic movement here.

"My meeting here could not have been more negative," Mr. Richardson said after a meeting with junta leaders. "My conclusion is that they will not release her."

In February 1994, Mr. Richardson and a group of American officials and a reporter became the first foreigners outside her family to meet with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi since she was placed under house arrest. On his return to Myanmar this week, his request to meet her again was denied.

Aung San Suu Kyi is a democratic activist who opposed the military junta in Burma (Myanmar). Placed under house arrest in 1989, her party won the popular vote overwhelmingly in 1990. The military rulers refused to accept the results and she has been under varying degrees of house arrest ever since.

Hillary Clinton outlines her vision in Selma speech

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had competing speeches on the anniversary of the historic civil rights march in Selma Alabama.

CIVIL RIGHTS: On the 42nd Anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma
March 4, 2007

How can we rest while poverty and inequality continue to rise? How can we sleep, while 46 million of our fellow Americans do not have health insurance? How can we be satisfied, when the current economy brings too few jobs and too few wage increases and too much debt? How can we shrug our shoulders and say this is not about me, when too many of our children are ill-prepared in school for college and unable to afford it, if they wish to attend?

How can we say everything is fine when we have an energy policy whose prices are too high, who make us dependent on foreign governments that do not wish us well, and when we face the real threat of climate change, which is tinkering with God's creation?

How do we refuse to march when we have our young men and women in uniform in harm's way, and whether they come back, their government does not take care of them the way they deserve?

And how do we say that everything is fine, Bloody Sunday is for the history books, when over 96,000 of our citizens, the victims of Hurricane Katrina, are still living in trailers and mobile homes, which is a national disgrace to everything we stand for in America?

Hillary wouldn't win against Barack in a competition over speaking style, but that's a small part of being president. It is important to see these candidates start defining their vision of the future. She'll need to elaborate on exactly how she will address each of these problems if she hopes to keep ahead of Obama over the long run.

Of course, there is one Clinton who is known for his oratorical skill. Hillary will be following in the footsteps of Al Gore if she doesn't unleash that asset.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

From the news pages of Nature, we discover that Hollywood is barely keeping ahead of the latest breakthrough in science.

Wipe out a single memory

A single, specific memory has been wiped from the brains of rats, leaving other recollections intact.

LeDoux's team also confirms the idea that a part of the brain called the amygdala is central to this process - communication between neurons in this part of the brain usually increases when a fearful memory forms, but it decreases in the treated rats. This shows that the fearful memory is actually deleted, rather than simply breaking the link between the memory and a fearful response.

George Bush continues his adolescent diplomatic style

Following his usual practice, Bush refused to utter Chavez' name during a news conference with the president of Uruguay - or even explain why he wouldn't. The meeting and appearance before reporters with President Tabare Vazquez was held just across a river from a huge anti-Bush rally hosted Friday night by Chavez, who is answering the president's trek through Latin America with jeers of "Gringo go home" and other harsh comments.

Apparently, our president believes he can make his adversaries disappear by pretending they don't exist.

Rudy Giuliani (2001): arresting firefighters at ground zero

I'd forgotten about the cause of this dispute; Rudy Giuliani had grieving firefighters arrested at ground zero less than a 2 months after 9/11, during a fight over whether to continue looking for the remains of the fallen.

The firefighter's union had supported Rudy during both of his campaigns for Mayor.

From the NYT archives:

A NATION CHALLENGED: THE FIREFIGHTERS; Second Union Leader Is Charged With Trespassing in Demonstration at Ground Zero

November 5, 2001

The president of the union representing New York City's fire officers was charged with criminal trespass yesterday, a day after the leader of the city firefighters' union was arrested on the same charge. The police said both allegations stemmed from their roles in a firefighters' protest rally at the World Trade Center disaster site on Friday.

[T]he two labor officials insisted that they had broken no laws in leading the rally. They denounced their arrests as politically motivated tactics dictated by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani in an increasingly bitter dispute over scaling back the number of recovery workers at ground zero.

Kevin E. Gallagher, president of the 9,000-member Uniformed Firefighters Association, also blamed the mayor after his arrest Saturday night. "The message the city is sending is that if you don't agree with what a union says, you simply arrest its president," Tom Butler, Mr. Gallagher's spokesman, said.

The arrest of two municipal union leaders was extraordinary. Union leaders have been arrested before -- notably Michael J. Quill, head of the transport workers, for calling an illegal transit strike in 1966. But criminal or civil actions against city union officials have nearly always arisen in the context of corruption or major labor confrontations.

The weekend arrests, however, came in a dispute over the size of the work force at ground zero, and after Friday's emotional protest by firefighters who contend that the cutbacks would turn the recovery of comrades' remains into a "scoop and dump" operation.

During Friday's demonstration, 12 firefighters were arrested on felony and misdemeanor charges, and five police officers were slightly injured in a brief scuffle. The charges were dropped or reduced on Saturday, and while anger lingered in firehouses, tempers seemed to cool as union leaders voiced regret over the scuffling.

"The mayor fails to realize that New York City is not a dictatorship, where if you don't like what a union is doing you can just go and lock up a union's president," the firefighters' union said. "The message being sent from City Hall is that if you don't agree with this administration, we will get you."

Captain Gorman, a firefighter for 28 years, called his arrest an outrage. "They're putting me through the system like I'm a thug," he said. He called the mayor a "fascist" and referred to Mr. Kerik and Mr. Von Essen as "Giuliani's goons."

Steven Rabinowitz, a lawyer for the fire officers association, said that Mr. Gorman had been ordered to report to a station house in Lower Manhattan or face arrest by detectives who would "hunt him down like a fugitive." He said there was no basis for the criminal trespass charge.

Mayor Giuliani was in Phoenix for the World Series.

Both Giuliani and Bernie Kerik took a hardline stance against the firemen, until public pressure forced them to back down.

And on Thursday, the mayor had again lashed out at the firefighters, calling union officials ''sinful'' for questioning the city's motives in making the staffing reductions at ground zero. The officials, who are still unhappy with the number of fire personnel at the site, have said that the change was an attempt to transform an effort to retrieve colleagues who had sacrificed their lives into a ''scoop and dump'' operation.

The union remains outraged at Giuliani, today.

Germany increases its commitment to the fight in Afghanistan

NATO has been calling for more forces to support the mission in Afghanistan as the Taliban become resurgent and rumors of a spring offensive are in the air.

German Parliament Approves Planes for Afghanistan

As expected, Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, voted on Friday to send six to eight Tornado reconnaissance jets to support NATO troops in Afghanistan.

The planes will be stationed at the German base at Masar-i-Scharif in northern Afghanistan. Germany will also be sending an additional 500 support personnel in a mission that has been authorized until the next time the Afghanistan mission comes up for review on October 13, 2007.

Germany currently has around 3,000 soldiers stationed with the NATO mission in Afghanistan -- known as ISAF -- but they are confined to the relatively peaceful region of northern Afghanistan. Germany has led the Provincial Reconstruction Teams in the north, and has been very successful in building up infrastructure, schools and other municipal institutions.

Nevertheless, Germany has in the past come under fire from NATO officials for not helping out in the increasingly bloody fight in southern Afghanistan. Given the expected Taliban "spring offensive," the Tornados are a much-needed support for the US, Canadian, Dutch and other soldiers fighting in the south.

Although harshly attacked by Republicans for not backing the war in Iraq; countries like Germany, France and Canada have had troops in Afghanistan since the start of the conflict in 2001.

Reluctant diplomats forced to sit together

Will they shake hands?
By Zvi Bar'el

James Baker and Lee Hamilton can finally permit themselves to enjoy a small smile of satisfaction. Three months after President George W. Bush sourly praised the report they wrote, but rejected their recommendation to have Iran and Syria participate in the diplomatic process in Iraq, he has been forced to swallow some of this bitter medicine. This is also a big day for Colin Powell, Bush's former secretary of state, who pushed for a direct dialogue with Iran, but was rejected by the White House conservatives. Today, when all the rivals meet in Baghdad, the cameras will probably not focus on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki, but on U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian foreign minister.

Although the purpose of this conference is to deal with Iraq, the interesting and perhaps more important part will concern the relations between Iran and the United States. "Speaking with the enemy is part of world policy now, and I believe that normalization of relations with the U.S. can be useful," explained Ali Larijani, the chair of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, in a recent speech.

It would be ironic if the disaster in Iraq was the catalyst for an end to nearly 30 years of hostility between America and Iran. I'm not sure George Bush will want to take credit for that outcome, though.

How the world works

More cool science, from Nature:

Earth's magnetic field reversals mimicked in the lab

Every few hundred thousand years or so, the Earth's north and south magnetic poles switch places. No one knows what triggers these geomagnetic field reversals, but a team in France has now reproduced them in the lab.

When the disks were spun at equal but opposite rates, this field stayed constant. But if the rotation rates were different, the behaviour was more complex, says Stéphan Fauve, group leader at the École Normale Supérieure. "This means that there is overall rotation of the entire contents," he says, "which mimics the spinning of the Earth".

Under these conditions the magnetic field switches polarity apparently at random, typically every minute or so. It happens just as it happens to the Earth, with the field declining slowly to zero and then reappearing quickly in the opposite orientation.

John Edwards calls for an end to the ban on gays in the military

"It is long past time to end the military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy and to allow openly gay men and women to serve in the military. It is critical to our national security that we have the best people in our military. Gay men and women have continually served our country with honor and bravery, and we should honor their commitment and never turn away anyone who is willing to serve their country because of their sexual orientation."

Fixing the ozone layer also slowed global warming

From the pages of Science: The Montreal Protocol, designed to save the ozone layer from the harmful effects of CFC's, has had the unexpected benefit of preventing billions of tons of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere.

Dodging a Warming Bullet

What's good for the ozone layer has been even better for Earth's climate. According to a new study, a 20-year-old ban on ozone-depleting chemicals has been extremely effective at curbing greenhouse gases as well. In fact, it has already had more impact than a fully implemented Kyoto Protocol would have accomplished, even though the protocol was specifically designed to target atmospheric warming. The findings, say the authors, emphasize the importance of ridding the planet of these powerful greenhouse substances.

Policymakers, however, initially targeted these compounds not for their role in global warming but rather for their damage to the ozone layer

The rise in atmospheric concentrations of CFCs has been arrested, and the ozone layer has begun to show signs of recovery, to the point where scientists predict it will heal completely sometime after 2050.

Velders and colleagues calculate that since 1987, gradually shutting down CFC emissions has removed the equivalent of about 11 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. By comparison, even if the Kyoto Protocol had been fully ratified it would have removed only about 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide thus far.

It's pretty well agreed that by pumping increasing amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we're forcing rapid climate change. We likely don't know all the secondary effects that's causing. Solving one crisis helps solve the others. Instead of getting used to it, we need to act to stop it.

Wars are easiest at a distance

How to shorten wars
By Yossi Sarid

Bush, who has sent 150,000 soldiers to Iraq and about another 30,000 to Afghanistan, does not know a single one of them. His own family, his relatives and his acquaintances do not send candidates to the U.S. Armed Forces during its wars. Their children "kill themselves in the tents of Torah" in the most prestigious colleges. Although it is known that leaders all over the world love all the boys and girls, they love their own offspring even more, and that's natural. If they knew the names given to these children by their mothers and fathers they would be less wasteful and more thrifty in using their blood.

Mitt Romney (1994): Candidate for Senator from Massachusetts

October 19, 1994

Mitt Romney, the Republicans' hope for their biggest single victory of the fall, uses television to portray the 62-year-old incumbent as fat and feeble, an irrelevant symbol of the 1960's who stands in the way of welfare reform, the death penalty and a smaller government that, the challenger says, would let the economy boom.

This week Mr. Kennedy replied, confronting the season's anti-government mood at a rally on Sunday at historic Faneuil Hall. "I stand for the idea that public service can make a difference in the lives of people," he said. "I reject the laissez-faire notion that all government has to do is get out of the way, and kind, caring, generous, unselfish, wealthy private interests and power will see to it that prosperity trickles down to ordinary people."

The messages of the two candidates differ as night does from day. On Saturday, for instance, Mr. Romney walked the tidy streets of South Boston, where anger against Mr. Kennedy over school busing that began in 1974 still simmers. "The 1960's liberal agenda hasn't worked," he told people as he shook hands. "It is time to reform the reforms."

To those opponents, Mr. Kennedy's weight and lined face reflect years of hard living. Mr. Romney's ads, showing a grainy, overweight Senator lumbering about, reinforce the point. In one, Mr. Kennedy, who broke his back in an airplane crash in 1964 and has worn a brace ever since, is shown painfully lowering himself onto a bench while the voice-over accuses the incumbent of "stooping" to attack Mr. Romney.

October 25, 1994

Mr. Romney has cast himself as a moderate Republican, socially liberal and fiscally conservative.

Mr. Romney says he supports a woman's right to abortion but opposes forcing states to help pay for the procedures, except in cases of rape, incest or threat to the mother's health. He supports Federal legislation that would prohibit discrimination in the workplace against homosexuals but opposes legalizing gay marriages. He favors the death penalty, which Massachusetts does not have, and would require welfare recipients to work and to be regularly tested for drugs.

But with two weeks left in the campaign, a frequent complaint about Mr. Romney continues to be heard: that after he is finished attacking his opponent his message grows vague. "Romney to this day is defining himself as not Ted Kennedy," Mr. Chervinsky said. "His problem ultimately is that he's a little bit too slick and a little bit too light."

Mr. Romney made his millions as founder and chief executive of Bain Capital, a Boston concern that has backed such ventures as Staples, the retail office supply chain, and Domain, a furniture company. In 1992 and 1993, he earned $11 million. Since then he has poured $2 million of his own money into the Senate race.

October 26, 1994

A political neophyte, Mr. Romney had scored earlier in the campaign mainly by attacking Senator Kennedy and arguing that it was time for a change. Like many other challengers in this year of anti-incumbent fervor, Mr. Romney had spent little time defining a program of his own.

October 26, 1994

A conservative political action committee withdrew its support for Mr. Romney on today, saying his performance in a debate with Senator Kennedy proved he was an "anti-family social liberal."

L. Brent Bozell 3d, director of the Conservative Victory Committee in Alexandria, Va., said the organization had urged its members to donate money to help Mr. Romney defeat Mr. Kennedy.

But he said he changed his mind after seeing the debate on Tuesday night. "Mitt Romney Republicans are no different than Ted Kennedy Democrats when it comes to cultural issues," Mr. Bozell said.

October 28, 1994

Mr. Romney also sought to emphasize his independence from other Republicans. Questioned by a college student, he disavowed plans in House Republican candidates' "Contract With America" that would cut money available for student loans. "I'm not going to Washington to toe the line" and back all Republican positions, he said.

In a demonstration of that independence, Mr. Romney shifted on one issue tonight, saying he now opposed longstanding Republican proposals to reduce the Federal tax on capital gains.

Kennedy defeated Romney in the election 58-41

Barack Obama (1990): elected president of the Harvard Law Review

From the New York Times archives, in their first article about Barack Obama:

First Black Elected to Head Harvard's Law Review
February 6, 1990

The Harvard Law Review, generally considered the most prestigious in the country, elected the first black president in its 104-year history today. The job is considered the highest student position at Harvard Law School.

The new president of the Review is Barack Obama, a 28-year-old graduate of Columbia University who spent four years heading a community development program for poor blacks on Chicago's South Side before enrolling in law school. His late father, Barack Obama, was a finance minister in Kenya and his mother, Ann Dunham, is an American anthropologist now doing fieldwork in Indonesia. Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii.

On his goals in his new post, Mr. Obama said: ''I personally am interested in pushing a strong minority perspective. I'm fairly opinionated about this. But as president of the law review, I have a limited role as only first among equals.''

Mr. Obama said he planned to spend two or three years in private law practice and then return to Chicago to re-enter community work, either in politics or in local organizing.

Mr. Obama succeeds Peter Yu, a first-generation Chinese-American, as president of The Law Review.

Mr. Yu said Mr. Obama's election "was a choice on the merits, but others may read something into it."

The surge becomes an escalation

Buildup in Iraq Needed Into ’08, U.S. General Says

WASHINGTON, March 7 — The day-to-day commander of American forces in Iraq has recommended that the heightened American troop levels there be maintained through February 2008, military officials said Wednesday.

The White House has never said exactly how long it intends the troop buildup to last, but military officials say the increased American force level will begin declining in August unless additional units are sent or more units are held over.

Obama: this isn't a winning argument

Highlighted on Barack Obama's official site is this article:

The presidency - no experience needed?

Those who chide Democratic Sen. Barack Obama for the slenderness of his curriculum vitae should heed the historical record, which shows that vast prior experience is no guarantee of a successful presidency and limited previous experience does not portend failure. The record also suggests that there is no particular connection between prior experience and performance in the White House.

Given that our current president is a poster child for the perils of inexperience, is this really the case Obama's team wants make?

The article goes on to describe extremely experienced candidates (James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson) who failed once in the office, contrasted with inexperienced candidates who are now seen as great historical figures (Woodrow Wilson). He also attempts to make the case that FDR, Lincoln and Washington had thin resume's:

FDR served two years in the New York state senate, seven years as assistant secretary of the Navy and four years as governor of New York.

That's thin? A background in legislative, executive and foreign policy experience. That's the definition of experience for the job.

As for Washington, he's dismissed as "a professional soldier" who attended the first and second Congressional Congresses. Of course, on top of his military experience:

Washington was elected as a representative to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1758 from Frederick County. From 1760 to 1774 he served as a justice of Fairfax County.His experience on the county court and in the colonial legislature molded his views on Parliamentary taxation of the Colonies after 1763. He opposed the Stamp Act in 1765, arguing that Parliament "hath no more right to put their hands into my pocket, without my consent, than I have to put my hands into yours for money." As a member of the colonial legislature, he backed non-importation as a means of reversing British policy in the 1760s, and in 1774 he attended the rump session of the dissolved Assembly, which called for a Continental Congress to take united colonial action against the Boston Port Bill and other "Intolerable Acts" directed against Massachusetts.

In July 1774 Washington presided at the county meeting which adopted the Fairfax Resolves, which he had helped write. These resolves influenced the adoption of the Continental Association, the plan devised by the First Continental Congress for enforcing non-importation of British goods. They also proposed the creation in each county of a militia company independent of the royal governor's control, the idea from which the Continental Army developed. By May 1775 Washington, who headed the Fairfax militia company, had been chosen to command the companies of six other counties. The only man in uniform when the Second Continental Congress met after the battles of Lexington and Concord, he was elected unanimously as commander in chief of all Continental Army forces. From June 15, 1775, until Dec. 23, 1783, he commanded the Continental Army and, after the French alliance of 1778, the combined forces of the United States and France in the War of Independence against Great Britain.

Barack Obama needs to make the case that (like Lincoln) his years in the Illinois legislature, his open opposition to the Iraq war and his years in the Senate are experience. Not that experience is overrated.

Psychological torture

From Nature:

The long-term mental anguish caused by psychological torture and humiliating treatment is comparable to that caused by physical torture, a new study indicates. The results, say the study's authors, support the prohibition of psychological torture by international law.

The findings are particularly important given recent debate over how the United States defines torture. The United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment defines it as "severe suffering, whether physical or mental".

But the US Department of Defense has argued for a definition of torture that does not include many acts of psychological abuse, including humiliating treatment, isolation, or deprivation of sleep, food, or medical care. The implication is that these psychological acts aren't as serious, says Metin Basoglu of King's College University in London, lead author of the new study.

Basoglu and his colleagues studied the effects of psychological abuse in 279 survivors of torture during the war in former Yugoslavia. Nearly all of the participants had been beaten, humiliated and threatened with death. Participants were asked to rank the distress caused by different assaults on a scale of zero to four.

The results, published this week in Archives of General Psychiatry, showed that many forms of psychological abuse ranked as high as physical torture. Fondling of genitals or witnessing a sham execution, for example, scored an average 3.7 out of 4, higher than forced extraction of teeth (3.6) and stretching of the body (3.5), and nearly as high as the most distressing assault: rape, which was rated at 3.9.

Clinicians in torture rehabilitation centres have noted this anecdotally for decades, says David Eisenman, a doctor of internal medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. "People who have the greatest mental distress are not necessarily the people who are physically injured by the event," says Eisenman. "I've seen many patients where a sham execution was the sole event that destroyed them psychologically."

The United States government has argued, for example, that classifying an interrogation technique as a cause of "severe mental pain or suffering" requires proof that it triggers post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a complex anxiety condition that sometimes arises after a traumatic event. Their argument is based in part on a previous analysis from Basoglu showing that torture survivors have higher rates of PTSD.

Mitt Romney (2006): Governor of Massachusetts

Romney bars state security for Iranian's Harvard visit Cites unacceptable use of funds on `a terrorist'

(September 6, 2006)

Governor Mitt Romney declared he would not allow any state resources to be used to protect a former Iranian president during his visit to the Boston area this weekend, and he sharply criticized Harvard University for inviting Mohammed Khatami to speak on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"There are people in this state who have suffered from terrorism, and taking even a dollar of their money to support a terrorist is unacceptable"

Romney said that he expected the State Department at a meeting scheduled for today to request a State Police escort and other traffic services, but that he had called yesterday to inform them that no such services would be provided.

But after Romney issued a statement yesterday outlining his position -- in which he called Harvard's invitation "a disgrace to the memory of all Americans who have lost their lives at the hands of extremists" -- the Boston Police Department said it would step in.

"We were asked by the State Department to assist in protecting a guest of the United States, and the Police Department plans to oblige," spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said.

As president of Iran from 1997-2005, Khatami was originally seen as a reformer who opened up ties to the West and allowed more freedom of expression in Iran. But he remained in office during a major crackdown on student protest, in which thousands were arrested, including some who are still in prison. He was replaced by hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has defied international demands to curb Iran's nuclear program and has called for Israel to be "wiped off" the map.

"The shock of the commemoration of a great tragedy coinciding with the visit of a terrorist to our state was too great to go unnoticed," Romney said. "For that reason, I have directed state resources not to be used to ease or encourage his visit."

US officials say Iran played no part in the Sept. 11 attacks, but they still consider it one of the world's leading state sponsors of terrorism because of its funding of the militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas .

Romney said some figures should not be granted an audience. "There are some people who we can all imagine who by virtue of their acts would not be welcome at a campus, and this is one of them".

"The development of nuclear technology, the jailing of students, and religious oppression . . . suggest that his lecture on tolerance would be a farce."

Romney said that if the State Department was worried about Khatami's security in Massachusetts, "they could consider canceling his visit."

That would be this Mohammad Khatami:

After the shah's fall (1979), he returned to Iran and was elected to the national assembly, becoming minister of culture and Islamic guidance (1982–92). Considered a moderate, he eased restrictions on publications, films, art, and music and was ultimately forced to resign after being charged with permissiveness.

Pledging to deal with runaway inflation and high unemployment, he was overwhelmingly elected Iran's president in 1997 with strong support from political moderates, intellectuals, students, and women. As president, he appointed a relatively liberal cabinet and called for political democratization and the advancement of women. He also advocated rapprochement between Iran and Arab states as well as improved relations with the West, including the United States. Many of his reform efforts were opposed by hard-line conservatives in the clergy, judiciary, and military, and his first administration was unable to produce significant economic improvement. Nonetheless, he reluctantly ran and was reelected with more than three fourths of the vote in 2001, as Iranians continued to support greater democracy and social freedom. His second term was little different from the first, as he generally avoided confrontation with the hard-liners and the unelected Guardian Council, even when the latter disqualified many legitimate reformist candidates for the 2004 parliamentary elections. Khatami is the author of Fear of the Wave (1993), an essay collection, and From the World of the City to the City of the World (1994), a study of Western philosophical and political thought.

Barack Obama (2004, 2007): all options "on the table" against Iran

Obama would consider missile strikes on Iran

September 25, 2004

U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama suggested Friday that the United States one day might have to launch surgical missile strikes into Iran and Pakistan to keep extremists from getting control of nuclear bombs.

Obama said the United States must first address Iran's attempt to gain nuclear capabilities by going before the United Nations Security Council and lobbying the international community to apply more pressure on Iran to cease nuclear activities. That pressure should come in the form of economic sanctions, he said.

But if those measures fall short, the United States should not rule out military strikes to destroy nuclear production sites in Iran, Obama said.

As for Pakistan, Obama said that if President Pervez Musharraf were to lose power in a coup, the United States similarly might have to consider military action in that country to destroy nuclear weapons it already possesses.

"With the Soviet Union, you did get the sense that they were operating on a model that we could comprehend in terms of, they don't want to be blown up, we don't want to be blown up, so you do game theory and calculate ways to contain," Obama said. "I think there are certain elements within the Islamic world right now that don't make those same calculations."

Obama's willingness to consider additional military action in the Middle East comes despite his early and vocal opposition to the Iraq war. Obama, however, also has stressed that he is not averse to using military action as a last resort, although he believes that President Bush did not make that case for the Iraq invasion.

Views on gay marriage

Obama said he would not let his religious beliefs dictate the way he approaches public policy. He said he would support civil unions between gay and lesbian couples, as well as letting individual states determine if marriage between gay and lesbian couples should be legalized.

"Giving them a set of basic rights would allow them to experience their relationship and live their lives in a way that doesn't cause discrimination," Obama said. "I think it is the right balance to strike in this society."

March 2, 2007: In a speech before AIPAC, he reiterated his opposition to Iranian nuclear weapons, fearing a Mideast arms race and would keep all options on the table. He also defended Israel's attacks against Lebanon last summer.

It is far too dangerous to have nuclear weapons in the hands of a radical theocracy. And while we should take no option, including military action, off the table, sustained and aggressive diplomacy combined with tough sanctions should be our primary means to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons.

Iranian nuclear weapons would destabilize the region and could set off a new arms race. Some nations in the region, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, could fall away from restraint and rush into a nuclear contest that could fuel greater instability in the region—that’s not just bad for the Middle East, but bad for the world, making it a vastly more dangerous and unpredictable place. Other nations would feel great pressure to accommodate Iranian demands. Terrorist groups with Iran’s backing would feel emboldened to act even more brazenly under an Iranian nuclear umbrella. And as the A.Q. Kahn network in Pakistan demonstrated, Iran could spread this technology around the world.

To prevent this worst-case scenario, we need the United States to lead tough-minded diplomacy.

This includes direct engagement with Iran similar to the meetings we conducted with the Soviets at the height of the Cold War, laying out in clear terms our principles and interests. Tough-minded diplomacy would include real leverage through stronger sanctions. It would mean more determined U.S diplomacy at the United Nations. It would mean harnessing the collective power of our friends in Europe who are Iran’s major trading partners. It would mean a cooperative strategy with Gulf States who supply Iran with much of the energy resources it needs. It would mean unifying those states to recognize the threat of Iran and increase pressure on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment. It would mean full implementation of U.S. sanctions laws. And over the long term, it would mean a focused approach from us to finally end the tyranny of oil, and develop our own alternative sources of energy to drive the price of oil down.

At the same time, we must preserve our total commitment to our unique defense relationship with Israel by fully funding military assistance and continuing work on the Arrow and related missile defense programs. This would help Israel maintain its military edge and deter and repel attacks from as far as Tehran and as close as Gaza.

And when Israel is attacked, we must stand up for Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself. Last summer, Hezbollah attacked Israel. By using Lebanon as an outpost for terrorism, and innocent people as shields, Hezbollah has also engulfed that entire nation in violence and conflict, and threatened the fledgling movement for democracy there. That’s why we have to press for enforcement of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which demands the cessation of arms shipments to Hezbollah, a resolution which Syria and Iran continue to disregard. Their support and shipment of weapons to Hezbollah and Hamas, which threatens the peace and security in the region, must end.

Why have a backup plan if you don't have any worries?

The Bush camp continues to run the Iraq war as a P.R. problem. Look confident and no-one will blame you for the ensuing chaos.

Bush Iraq Strategy Has No Option for Failure

Eager to appear resolute and reluctant to provide fodder for skeptics, U.S. officials rebuff questions about failure with a mix of optimism and evasion.

Over the years of U.S. involvement in Iraq, new plans have been launched with assurances of success -- the return of sovereignty to a handpicked Iraqi administration in the summer of 2004; a democratically elected government in January 2005; "Plan Baghdad," designed to retake the capital from insurgents and militias, in the summer of 2006. The current Plan A is arguably already Plan D or beyond.

Since last summer, public opinion has turned against Bush's handling of the war and favors withdrawing, rather than increasing, troops. Although the administration has said the new strategy should show progress within months, many officials privately say it could be years, if ever, and the Democratic majority in Congress has shown little inclination to wait patiently.

Any substantive administration planning for other contingencies is occurring at the margins of policy, far from key decision-makers. "Planners plan, but I don't think anyone is saying, 'Let's do the partition,' or 'Let's pull back and let Baghdad burn,' " one Pentagon official said. "That would be a tectonic shift. That would be catastrophic failure."

One military officer and another defense expert said they believe that retired Army Col. James Kurtz, a specialist in strategic planning, has been asked by the Pentagon to begin studying alternative strategies at the Institute for Defense Analyses, a government-run think tank.

Bush has warned that the U.S. commitment to Iraq is not open-ended and will require increased effort from Iraqis. Pressed to specify U.S. limits, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice promised the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that there would be ample opportunity "to see whether or not in fact the Iraqis are living up to the assurances they gave us."

"And what if they don't?" Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) asked.

"I don't think you go to Plan B," Rice replied. "You work with Plan A."

The Taliban is encouraged by failures in Iraq

According to a report in Der Spiegel, the Taliban are encouraged by American setbacks in Iraq, and believe that NATO is divided and demoralized and can be expelled from Afghanistan.

TALIBAN LEADER MULLAH DADULLAH

The Taliban are gearing up for their "spring offensive" in Afghanistan.

Bloodthirsty propaganda is everywhere in northern Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan. Virtually every CD salesman in Peshawar is selling the latest films released by the Taliban leader. "Oh, you want the Dadullah tapes," says one. "They're very popular right now." ... He says Pakistani police already causes him enough trouble when they find terror DVDs in the suitcases of journalists at the airport.

The films herald a bloody spring in Afghanistan, one in which Western troops will face a newly strengthened Taliban army under a re-organized leadership. Well armed and better logistically organized than ever before, the Taliban are preparing for their fight against the hated NATO troops, whose alliance has recently shown signs of internal division.

Western intelligence agencies believe the Taliban have used the winter to thoroughly tighten their organizational structure.

Almost all the DVDs feature footage of the brutal execution of alleged CIA spies. The "helpers of the infidels" have their heads removed while still alive. About 250 such murders have occurred in recent months.

Mullah Abdullah has been a genuine nightmare for the foreign troops and intelligence agencies in Afghanistan for quite some time. The videos are analyzed with a meticulousness that matches their menacing character. "We know from experience that many of his pronouncements are not propaganda," says one Western anti-terrorism agent. "He's carried out most of his threats." Dadullah already threatened a wave of suicide attacks in 2006. No one took him seriously at first. By the end of 2006, the CIA's statisticians counted about 139 such attacks throughout the country -- five times more than in 2005. 2007 could be even bloodier.

NATO expects a rough year

Experts on the conflict believe the new Taliban tactic will cause serious difficulties for NATO. "If suicide attacks are carried out all over the country, it becomes difficult to decide on how to allocate troops," Pakistani Taliban expert Ahmed Rashid points out. NATO could quickly be demoralized, like the United States in Iraq, since it is already internally divided and disposes of no military reserves, much less a rapid reaction force. "2007 will be a very serious year," Rashid predicts.

Cheney and Bush continue to be led by the nose by bin Laden's declaration that Iraq is the central front in the war:

Some Politicians See Iraq As A Diversion From The War On Terror – But Osama Bin Laden Has Proclaimed That The "Third World War … Is Raging" In Iraq. Ayman al Zawahiri has called the struggle in Iraq "the place for the greatest battle," and terrorists from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, and elsewhere have come to Iraq to fight democracy.

Are they falling for a sucker's bet? Will America have troops ready to respond if the threatened summer offensive occurs? Or will they have been spent on the surge in Iraq?

News of the Surge: troops moving into Sadr City, militants remain in hiding

Hundreds of troops enter Sadr City

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Hundreds of U.S. soldiers entered the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City on Sunday in the first major push into the area since an American-led security sweep began last month around Baghdad.

Soldiers conducted house-to-house searches through the densely populated grid of squat two- and three-story buildings, but met no resistance in a district firmly in the hands of the Mahdi Army militia led by the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said Lt. Col. David Oclander.

“The indication that we are getting is a lot of the really bad folks have gone into hiding,”

The Mahdi Army’s cooperation is essential to keep the plan from derailing, but al-Sadr has complained about the heavy U.S. role in the raids and its inability to stop car bombs and other attacks blamed on Sunni insurgent groups.

Separately, U.S. troops raided a mosque in Baghdad and captured three suspected insurgents hiding inside. The detainees included a man believed to be responsible for distributing weapons to build bombs for attacks on American and Iraqi forces, the military said.

U.S. rules of engagement allow troops to enter mosques only in rare cases.

New Frontiers: searching for our ancestors beneath the sea

Science magazine has news on this intriguing expedition:

Submarine to Search for Early Americans

When humans first trekked from Asia to North America, perhaps as long as 25,000 years ago, the continent was gripped by ice sheets and glaciers. Those hardy immigrants probably traveled by boat or along the shore, where finding food and shelter would have been easier. The trouble for archaeologists is that as the ice melted, the seas rose and covered any traces of this early migration. Now marine geologists and archaeologists are hunting for underwater clues in the Gulf of Mexico.

The submarine and ROV will survey the bottom of the reef, 120 meters deep, which is thought to have been the location of the shoreline some 20,000 years ago. The reef is built atop large reserves of salt, and Ballard says it's possible that Native Americans would have mined it from caves or tunnels. "We're confident something is out there; we just need to see if we can find it," Ballard said at a press conference yesterday. The research isn't all archaeology; scuba divers from one of the research vessels will also observe conch, parrotfish, and manta rays on the shallow reefs.

It's not about George Bush

Marc Schulman at TMV links approvingly to a Times of London editorial, castigating the hordes of Bush loathers and America bashers in the world: reinforcing a favorite theme of rightwing partisans who want to attack war critics without actually debating the war.

It’s not about George Bush. Too many politicos and pundits obsess over George Bush's legacy.

It’s about our people getting shot at while babysitting a civil war that’s going badly. It’s about 100 Iraqis dying every day. It’s about the resurgence of the Taliban and al Qaeda. It's about throwing another $250 billion at a policy most Americans think is doomed to failure. And most importantly, it's about the American people's demand for a voice in this conflict.

Every defense of his policies revolves around this idea of Bush's ego. So we get the Baker commission delaying the release of their Iraq Study Group report to keep from embarrassing him before the midterm elections. We get the previous Republican Congress refusing any oversight and allowing Iraq to slip into chaos. We get Lindsay Graham stripping habeas corpus protections from prisoners at Guantanamo, lest we discover they've been abused or wrongly arrested (under the guise of anti-torture legislation) . We get the current Republican minority filibustering any debate on how we should conduct the war.

Criticism of this war is neither Bush hatred nor America bashing. Nearly 70% of Americans think this war is being waged badly. A lot of those people voted for the man, twice.

Bush's defenders need to stop pretending that the president has sole authority, here. This government was designed to be idiot-proof, but that assumes each branch will step in when the others falter. Lately we’ve had a Congress and court system that refuses to check the president, even when he’s demonstrably out of his league.

Republicans have treated the war as though it’s a P.R. problem. They continue to avoid debate, even about the purpose of this fight in Iraq. If they’d stepped in when things began falling apart, they could’ve defined the mission, focused resources on security early on and prevented the chaos we see today. After the election, when Bush threw the ISG report in the trash, they should have taken him aside and demanded he start listening to people outside of the bubble of advisors who got us into this mess in the first place.

As for the Democrats, now that they are in charge, they have to stop pretending that this is Bush’s war or that they can just complain about it for the next 2 years. They were elected to fix the problem. If George Bush wants another quarter-trillion dollars to fund it, and they refuse to deny him, then they need to tack on a quarter-trillion dollar war tax to fund it.