My Space … Friend or Foe? You decide.

Unauthorized History of My Space (Part 1 of 2)

Unauthorized History of My Space (Part 2 of 2)

SECRET - STRICTLY PERSONAL

FROM: DAVID MANNING
DATE: 14 MARCH 2002

CC: JONATHAN POWELL

PRIME MINISTER

YOUR TRIP TO THE US

I had dinner with Condi on Tuesday; and talks and lunch with her and an NSC team on Wednesday (to which Christopher Meyer also came). These were good exchanges, and particularly frank when we were one-on-one at dinner. I attach the records in case you want to glance.

IRAQ

We spent a long time at dinner on IRAQ. It is clear that Bush is grateful for your support and has registered that you are getting flak. I said that you would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very different than anything in the States. And you would not budge either in your insistence that, if we pursued regime change, it must be very carefully done and produce the right result. Failure was not an option.

Condi’s enthusiasm for regime change is undimmed. But there were some signs, since we last spoke, of greater awareness of the practical difficulties and political risks. (See the attached piece by Seymour Hersh which Christopher Meyer says gives a pretty accurate picture of the uncertain state of the debate in Washington.)

From what she said, Bush has yet to find the answers to the big questions:

— how to persuade international opinion that military action against Iraq is necessary and justified;

— what value to put on the exiled Iraqi opposition;

— how to coordinate a US/allied military campaign with internal opposition (assuming there is any);

— what happens on the morning after?

Bush will want to pick your brains. He will also want to hear whether he can expect coalition support. I told Condi that we realised that the Administration could go it alone if it chose. But if it wanted company, it would have to take account of the concerns of its potential coalition partners. In particular:

— the Un dimension. The issue of the weapons inspectors must be handled in a way that would persuade European and wider opinion that the US was conscious of the international framework, and the insistence of many countries on the need for a legal base. Renwed [renewed?] refused [refusal?] by Saddam to accept unfettered inspections would be a powerful argument;

— the paramount importance of tackling Israel/Palestine. Unless we did, we could find ourselves bombing the Iraq and losing the Gulf.

YOUR VISIT TO THE RANCH

No doubt we need to keep a sense of perspective. But my talks with Condi convinced me that Bush wants to hear you [sic] views on Iraq before taking decisions. He also wants your support. He is still smarting from the comments by other European leaders on his Iraq policy.

This gives you real influence: on the public relations strategy; on the UN and weapons inspections; and on US planning for any military campaign. This could be critically important. I think there is a real risk that the Administration underestimates the difficulties. They may agree that failure isn’t an option, but this does not mean that they will avoid it.

Will the Sunni majority really respond to an uprising led by Kurds and Shias? Will Americans really put in enough ground troops to do the job if the Kurdish/Shi’ite stratagem fails? Even if they do will they be willing to take the sort of casualties that the Republican Guard may inflict on them if it turns out to be an urban war, and Iraqi troops don’t conveniently collapse in a heap as Richard Perle and others confidently predict? They need to answer these and other tough questions, in a more convincing way than they have so far before concluding that they can do the business.

The talks at the ranch will also give you the chance to push Bush on the Middle East. The Iraq factor means that there may never be a better opportunity to get this Administration to give sustained attention to reviving the MEPP [Middle East Peace Process].

DAVID MANNING

Surprised?? Stuff our main stream media doesn’t tell us.

Bush ‘plans Iran air strike by August’
By Muhammad Cohen

NEW YORK - The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.

Two key US senators briefed on the attack planned to go public with their opposition to the move, according to the source, but their projected New York Times op-ed piece has yet to appear.

The source, a retired US career diplomat and former assistant secretary of state still active in the foreign affairs community, speaking anonymously, said last week that the US plans an air strike against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The air strike would target the headquarters of the IRGC’s elite Quds force. With an estimated strength of up to 90,000 fighters, the Quds’ stated mission is to spread Iran’s revolution of 1979 throughout the region.

Targets could include IRGC garrisons in southern and southwestern Iran, near the border with Iraq. US officials have repeatedly claimed Iran is aiding Iraqi insurgents. In January 2007, US forces raided the Iranian consulate general in Erbil, Iraq, arresting five staff members, including two Iranian diplomats it held until November. Last September, the US Senate approved a resolution by a vote of 76-22 urging President George W Bush to declare the IRGC a terrorist organization. Following this non-binding “sense of the senate” resolution, the White House declared sanctions against the Quds Force as a terrorist group in October. The Bush administration has also accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons program, though most intelligence analysts say the program has been abandoned.

Rockin’ and a-reelin’
Senators and the Bush administration denied the resolution and terrorist declaration were preludes to an attack on Iran. However, attacking Iran rarely seems far from some American leaders’ minds. Arizona senator and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain recast the classic Beach Boys tune Barbara Ann as “Bomb Iran”. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton promised “total obliteration” for Iran if it attacked Israel.

The US and Iran have a long and troubled history, even without the proposed air strike. US and British intelligence were behind attempts to unseat prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq, who nationalized Britain’s Anglo-Iranian Petroleum Company, and returned Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power in 1953. President Jimmy Carter’s pressure on the Shah to improve his dismal human-rights record and loosen political control helped the 1979 Islamic revolution unseat the Shah.

But the new government under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini condemned the US as “the Great Satan” for its decades of support for the Shah and its reluctant admission into the US of the fallen monarch for cancer treatment. Students occupied the US Embassy in Teheran, holding 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days. Eight American commandos died in a failed rescue mission in 1980. The US broke diplomatic relations with Iran during the hostage holding and has yet to restore them. Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric often sounds lifted from the Khomeini era.
The source said the White House views the proposed air strike as a limited action to punish Iran for its involvement in Iraq. The source, an ambassador during the administration of president H W Bush, did not provide details on the types of weapons to be used in the attack, nor on the precise stage of planning at this time. It is not known whether the White House has already consulted with allies about the air strike, or if it plans to do so.

Sense in the senate
Details provided by the administration raised alarm bells on Capitol Hill, the source said. After receiving secret briefings on the planned air strike, Senator Diane Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, said they would write a New York Times op-ed piece “within days”, the source said last week, to express their opposition. Feinstein is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Lugar is the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.

In a statement received by Asia Times Online from Feinstein’s office, the senator said she “has not received any briefing, classified or unclassified, from the administration involving any plans to strike Iran”.

Given their obligations to uphold the secrecy of classified information, it is unlikely the senators would reveal the Bush administration’s plan or their knowledge of it. However, going public on the issue, even without specifics, would likely create a public groundswell of criticism that could induce the Bush administration reconsider its plan.

The proposed air strike on Iran would have huge implications for geopolitics and for the ongoing US presidential campaign. The biggest question, of course, is how would Iran respond?

Iran’s options
Iran could flex its muscles in any number of ways. It could step up support for insurgents in Iraq and for its allies throughout the Middle East. Iran aids both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Israel’s Occupied Territories. It is also widely suspected of assisting Taliban rebels in Afghanistan.

Iran could also choose direct confrontation with the US in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, with which Iran shares a long, porous border. Iran has a fighting force of more than 500,000. Iran is also believed to have missiles capable of reaching US allies in the Gulf region.

Iran could also declare a complete or selective oil embargo on US allies. Iran is the second-largest oil exporter in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and fourth-largest overall. About 70% of its oil exports go to Asia. The US has barred oil imports from Iran since 1995 and restricts US companies from investing there.

China is Iran’s biggest customer for oil, and Iran buys weapons from China. Trade between the two countries hit US$20 billion last year and continues to expand. China’s reaction to an attack on Iran is also a troubling unknown for the US.

Three for the money
The Islamic world could also react strongly against a US attack against a third predominantly Muslim nation. Pakistan, which also shares a border with Iran, could face additional pressure from Islamic parties to end its cooperation with the US to fight al-Qaeda and hunt for Osama bin Laden. Turkey, another key ally, could be pushed further off its secular base. American companies, diplomatic installations and other US interests could face retaliation from governments or mobs in Muslim-majority states from Indonesia to Morocco.

A US air strike on Iran would have seismic impact on the presidential race at home, but it’s difficult to determine where the pieces would fall.

At first glance, a military attack against Iran would seem to favor McCain. The Arizona senator says the US is locked in battle across the globe with radical Islamic extremists, and he believes Iran is one of biggest instigators and supporters of the extremist tide. A strike on Iran could rally American voters to back the war effort and vote for McCain.

On the other hand, an air strike on Iran could heighten public disenchantment with Bush administration policy in the Middle East, leading to support for the Democratic candidate, whoever it is.

But an air strike will provoke reactions far beyond US voting booths. That would explain why two veteran senators, one Republican and one Democrat, were reportedly so horrified at the prospect.

Thursday 05 June 2008
by: Jake Tapper, ABC News

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the self-described “Independent Democrat” who caucuses with the Democratic party in the Senate even though he has endorsed Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, got some tough talk from Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, yesterday about his advocacy for the presumptive Republican presidential candidate and the general tone of the campaign, Democratic sources tell ABC News. Returning to the Senate after his securing the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama and Lieberman greeted each on the Senate floor in the Well as they were voting on the budget resolution.

They shook hands. But Obama didn’t let go, leading Lieberman - cordially - by the hand across the room into a corner on the Democratic side, where Democratic sources tell ABC News he delivered some tough words for the junior senator from Connecticut, who had just minutes before hammered Obama’s speech before the pro-Israel group AIPAC in a conference call arranged by the McCain campaign.

    The two spoke intensely for approximately five minutes, with no one able to hear their conversation. Reporters watched as Obama leaned closely in to Lieberman, whose back was literally up against the wall.

  Neither party is officially talking. But while Lieberman spokesman Marshall Whitman says the conversation was “a cordial and friendly discussion” and Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton says it was “private and friendly,” Democratic sources tell ABC News that the conversation was a stern rebuke to Lieberman for his criticism of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee on the conference call, as well as a discussion about how far Lieberman is willing to go in his advocacy of McCain, and the tone of the campaign.

    ”It’s one thing to support McCain,” said one Democratic source, “but many think Uncle Joe has gone too far.”

    Obama campaigned for Lieberman in 2006 when he was challenged (and ultimately defeated) in his primary race for his Senate seat. When Lieberman opted to run as an independent, Obama wrote a supportive email endorsing Democratic nominee Ned Lamont, but he did not appear in person for him, unlike other Democrats, such as Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.

    On the McCain conference call yesterday, Lieberman congratulated Obama “in securing the Democratic nomination and to express my own hope as a supporter of John McCain that this will be a civil and constructive campaign debate from here to November.”

    The only Orthodox Jew in the U.S. Senate then criticized the White House hopeful’s speech to the Jewish pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, saying, “I would say respectfully that I thought in this speech that there was a disconnect between things Senator Obama said today in particularly with regards to Iran and things that he has said or done earlier either in the campaign and senate. To be specific, I was troubled earlier in the year during the campaign season when Senator Obama referred to, I guess compared Iran and other rogue and terrorists states to the Soviet Union and minimized the threat represented by Iran. I think that is wrong.”

    Lieberman also criticized Obama for voting against an amendment he offered with Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., that designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group, and included other language that Obama said linked the war in Iraq to Iran in a way that troubled him. “Senator Obama opposed it saying it was saber rattling and referring to the possible threat of military force,” Lieberman said. “But if you look at the Kyl-Liebermann Amendment as it was passed, it has none of that in it, regarding military action. I was hoping and I still hope that he will say that that vote was a mistake, and that he would support that resolution.”

“Obama today argued that American foreign policy in recent years has essentially sort of strengthened Iran,” Lieberman continued. “At one point, he almost seems to suggest that it helped to elect us Ahmadinejad, and has made Israel safe. I just disagree with that. Iran elected Ahmadinejad for their own reasons. If Israel is in danger today, it’s not because of American foreign policy which has been strongly supportive of Israel in every way, it is not because what we have done in Iraq, it is because Iran is a fanatical terrorist, expansionist state and has a leader and a leadership that constantly threatens to extinguish the state of Israel.”

    ”Its a difficult situation,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, the Senate Democrats’ Assistant Majority Leader and a major Obama backer, told reporters Wednesday, according to Roll Call. “Joe is my friend … but I hope he doesn’t become the lead attack dog. Of course it’s a concern when someone in your Caucus is supporting the other party’s candidate. Let’s not try and sugarcoat it.”

    Lieberman agreed to caucus with the Democrats, who need his vote in the narrowly-divided Senate, in order to maintain power. But the Nutmeg stater is testing the patience of Democratic leaders by endorsing McCain and agreeing to speak at the Republican National Convention in September. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told MSNBC they would “watch very closely” how far Lieberman takes his advocacy.

    But Obama may feel Lieberman has already taken it too far.

IYFR: Thanks you guys … you made our day!

IYFR: No one loves his country more or is more of a patriot then the host of Thursday night’s 9/11 Revealed - MIKE BONO!! We love ya Mikey. Keep giving them HELL!

A new generation of squatters emboldened by America’s housing foreclosure crisis.

For squatters, foreclosed homes like this are like a camp-ground with free camping,” says real-estate broker Marc Charney, a foreclosure specialist, as he enters the home in Brockton, Massachusetts, and shines a flash-light at a mattress where homeless people have been sleeping each night.

Squatting is on the rise across the United States as foreclosures surge, eviction notices mount and homes go unsold for months, complicating the worst U.S. housing slump in a quarter century and forcing real-estate brokers to enlist the help of law enforcement and courts to sell empty houses.

IYFR: Back in 2000, when George Bush stole the White House, we said this will be the worst Presidency in history. Our off the cuff, on air, comments included a potential disaster in housing, a possible war, rising gas prices. We even joked about food and water shortages.

In retrospect, we’re sorry to the American people for putting that out there.  While little consolation, at least we didn’t vote for this clown … twice.   

By Jill Kuraitis, 4-30-08

 The U.S. Army is shipping 6,700 tons of contaminated sand to Idaho from Kuwait.  It will arrive at American Ecology in Grandview, Idaho, sometime in May. 

Grandview, population 470, is 42 miles south of Boise in Owyhee County.

The sand is from Camp Doha in Kuwait, a former Army warehouse complex used by Army Forces Central Command.  The sand absorbed depleted uranium when some spent ammunition was caught in a fire (addition May 1:during the first Gulf War.)

It’s also contaminated with hazardous levels of lead, according to the two military guys who told me the story, whose branch and names won’t be used for obvious reasons. However, it’s no secret, since the story had already been written by Erik Olson in the Longview, Washington Daily News.

Chad Hyslop, spokesperson for American Ecology, did not return New West’s phone calls, but he told Olson that all the sand will be at the disposal site in Grandview sometime in May. 

It will take 76 rail cars to run half the sand to Idaho, and then a second trip will be required for the rest.  152 of the smallest size rail cars would build a four-story structure about the size of half a football field.

Andrea Shipley, the executive director of the Snake River Alliance, an Idaho-based grassroots group with a mission to watchdog the energy industry and energy-related government departments, doesn’t like the idea of the sand coming to Idaho.  She told New West that “this is a major concern. Depleted uranium is both a toxic heavy metal and a radioactive substance creating health risks that may be far more varied than is recognized in federal regulations today.  Safe and responsible clean-up is critical to safeguard the health of Idahoans and our environment.”

The lead contamination, which the Army discovered before the ship carrying the sand to the Port of Longview arrived there, was nearly four times higher than the EPA standard for designating it “hazardous.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control, even very low levels of exposure to lead in children can cause learning disabilities, and may increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, strokes or heart attacks.  Lead is also associated with impaired visual and motor function, growth abnormality, neurological and organ damage, hearing loss, hypertension and reproductive complications.

Whether or not humans might be exposed to the contaminated sand, either during transport, unloading, or processing at American Ecology’s Grandview landfill is not clear.  No Army official returned calls. Follow-ups to this story will be posted.

Addition May 1:  The full post about depleted uranium on Wikipedia can be found here, but here are two relevant paragraphs.

Depleted uranium (DU) is uranium primarily composed of the isotope uranium-238 (U-238). Natural uranium is about 99.27 percent U-238, 0.72 percent U-235, and 0.0055 percent U-234. Because U-235 is used for fission in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons, natural uranium is enriched in U-235 by separating the isotopes by mass. The byproduct of enrichment, called depleted uranium or DU, contains less than one third as much U-235 and U-234 as natural uranium, making it less radioactive due to the longer 4.5 billion year half-life of U-238. The external radiation dose from DU is about 60 percent of that from the same mass of natural uranium.

Depleted uranium munitions are controversial because of numerous unanswered questions about the long-term health effects. DU is less toxic than other heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury, and is only very weakly radioactive because of its long half life.  While any radiation exposure has risks, no conclusive epidemiological data have correlated DU exposure to specific human health effects such as cancer. However, the UK government has attributed birth defect claims from a 1991 Gulf War combat veteran to DU poisoning, and studies using cultured cells and laboratory rodents continue to suggest the possibility of leukemogenic, genetic, reproductive, and neurological effects from chronic exposure. Until such issues are resolved with further research, the use of DU by the military will continue to be controversial.

Updates to this story will continue to be posted.

Update May 1:  NewWest blogger Irwin Horowitz of 6degrees - named because of his six college degrees including a B.S. from MIT in physics, an M.S. in astronomy and another M.S. in electrical engineering, has a strong interest in nuclear issues and follows them regularly.  He told New West that the primary issue with the sand from Kuwait is the heavy-metal toxicity more than the U-238, and the radiation, in the form of alpha particles, doesn’t penetrate skin. Lead, said Horowitz, gets into the soft tissues of the body.  “Depleted uranium could enter the body from ingesting it, breathing it in, or through surface skin cuts, so you’d almost have to play in the sand.”

More calls to American Ecology have not been returned.

“Veterans Against The War” … A documentary produced and directed by Katherine Niemczyk about soldiers speaking out about past and present war experiences. Look for the completed documentary at the end of 2008!

HIT PLAY

At the request of the White House, General Services Administration chief Lurita Alexis Doan resigned last night as head of the government’s premier contracting agency, ending a tumultuous tenure in which she was accused of trying to award work to a friend and misusing her authority for political ends.

San Diego officials will challenge Blackwater Worldwide’s permit for an indoor military training facility in South County, saying the public didn’t know about the plan.”Residents deserve to know when a facility like this is approved - before it is approved,” San Diego City Council President Scott Peters said.

The North Carolina company received a permit in March for a training site in Otay Mesa, an industrial section of south San Diego, shortly after abandoning its controversial proposal to build a larger facility in Potrero in East County.

The city Development Services Department granted the permit without public hearings. The site was already permitted for a vocational school, and city staff members decided Blackwater’s training of Navy personnel qualified. The facility will have a shooting range, a simulated Navy ship and classrooms.

Brian Bonfiglio, a Blackwater vice president, said the opposition seems to originate from anti-war sentiment, not animosity toward the facility itself.

Bonfiglio said the company has been conducting military training for five years at several facilities in San Diego County, including the American Shooting Center on Ruffin Road in Kearny Mesa.

“If they go after our range, they are getting ready to take on every other firearms business in the county,” he said. “They’re asking something of us that they are not asking of any other business, and quite frankly it’s inappropriate.”

Yesterday, Peters, San Diego Councilman Ben Hueso and Rep. Bob Filner, D-San Diego, held a rally in Otay Mesa to oppose the permit. They were joined by about 30 community activists.

Mary Ussery of Coronado wore a “Stop Blackwater” T-shirt. She said military activity belongs on military bases, not private property.

“Although it’s not my backyard, it’s close enough,” Ussery said. “It’s still my country.”

Peters said Blackwater wasn’t upfront about its plans to operate out of a 61,600-square-foot building owned by Los Angeles company Hometex in a business park on Siempre Viva Road, just south of Brown Field.

“They filed for a permit under the name of a subcontractor as a deliberate dodge to keep our city and community in the dark,” Peters said. 

IYFR: Courage Campaign in California has a web site ‘BlockBlackwater’ up to fight Blackwater’s domestic mercenary base.  Ultimately, this company needs to stop getting Federal contracts.