BottleOfBlog

Our Allies In Defense Of Freedom

Another deal with our good friends the Pakistanis:

Thousands of U.S. troops will be deployed in a tribal area of northwest Pakistan in return for Washington's support of President Pervez Musharraf's pardon of the Pakistani scientist who this month admitted leaking nuclear arms secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh wrote in the issue that goes on sale on Monday.

Full disclosure of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's activities would have exposed him as "the worst nuclear-arms proliferator in the world," an intelligence official is quoted as saying.

"It's a quid pro quo," according to a former senior intelligence official. "We're going to get our troops inside Pakistan in return for not forcing Musharraf to deal with Khan."

Musharraf has also offered other help in the hunt for bin Laden, accused of masterminding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, according to the article.

"Musharraf told us, 'We've got guys inside. The people who provide fresh fruits and vegetables and herd the goats' for bin Laden and his al Qaeda followers," the intelligence official added.

One can only imagine what we offered as our part of the bargain. The last time a Republican president made a deal with Pakistan, we allowed them to make the Islam Bomb. And since they got it, we now know they are the number one nuclear proliferator in the world.

It's also interesting that Musharraf told our intelligence that he has people on the inside, providing material assistance to al Qaeda. How long has that been going on? Why hasn't bin Laden been arrested already? Why hasn't the U.S. been allowed to hunt bin Laden in Pakistan until this election year?

To understand what a dirty bit of business this is, you have to understand that not only did the United States turn a blind eye to Pakistan building the Islam bomb, but we provided them with the financial assistance without which they would not have been able to afford to. Not only that, but if Pakistan ever needs to deliver the Islam bomb, they'll be doing so in their F-16s, which, last time I checked, you can't get anywhere but right here in the United States.

The United States military and intelligence has had a long, cozy relationship with Pakistan. And Pakistan has had a long, cozy relationship with Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan. Since the Russians were living in Kabul.

If the Pakistanis wanted to, and if the United States put the screws to them, they could have turned bin Laden over the day after al Qaeda fled the Tora Bora caves.

Why the wait? Why the delay? I won't even ask why the Delta operators and the 101st Airborne, who were begging to go into Tora Bora back in 2001, were held back in favor of using local warlords(I'm lying. Was it because the White House had already decided to go into Iraq and, therefore, insisted on an almost bloodless campaign in Afghanistan? One that would not dampen the American people's willingness to fight another war?). Why weren't Tenet and Rumsfeld in Pakistan in 2001, like they both recently were, turning the screws?

Did the White House not care? Or did they know that they could get bin Laden any time they wanted? Did they already have bin Laden? Did someone decide that nothing could top the Iranian hostage October surprise except for bringing bin Laden to the United States in chains during an election year?

I mean, why waste that kind of political capital in 2001 or 2002 when you're already polling in the 90 percent approval ratings?

Why not just keep him in your back pocket?

The capture of bin Laden is certain, if it hasn't already occurred. And I think this will be devestating to whoever is the Democratic candidate. If bin Laden has not already been captured, the Bush people will surely see the kind of approval surge Bush saw when Saddam was captured. And very few people will ask how this was accomplished or why it was delayed.

And even if it can be shown that bin Laden had been captured long ago, or could have been, the Bush administration will simply say that they either did not reveal his capture earlier or did not try to capture him earlier because such action would have interferred with ongoing investigations into al Qaeda. Bush may even try to portray himself as willing to suffer politically, keeping a secret of his success, taking potshots from Democrats, in order to further the interests of America.

Bush, himself, may even show up again on Meet the Press, revealing how hard it was for him to be accused of not pursuing bin Laden, how it hurt him personally, how difficult it was to not reveal, in the face of these unfair attacks, that bin Laden was already in captivity. But he, selfless George W., was willing to take these slings and arrows, if it meant America would be safer.

Cynical? Skeptical? Conspiracist? Maybe.

But why did bin Laden drop out of every speech given by the Preznit since 2002? Why, with such a politically damaging issue, was so little attention paid to Afghanistan? Why wasn't Tenet or Rumsfeld in Pakistan any earlier? Why were we continually told that the capture of bin Laden wasn't that important?

I don't know. I don't think bin Laden was captured. I just think that he was in a place where he could always be captured. I think he was or is either under constant surveilance or house arrest in Pakistan and the considerations of the families of 9/11 and the open wounds of our American psyche take a second place to political considerations with this administration.

The People Get Heard!

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your message.

You may have a point that the headline could have been worded better.

Sincerely,
Arthur Bovino
Office of the Public Editor
The New York Times

At 08:02 PM 1/23/2004, you wrote:

Good Lord, the investigation seems to be revealing a systematic and widespread hacking of Democratic congressmen's computers and the New York Times, the paper of record, characterizes this as "memos gone astray"???

Right, that's why, in an effort to return those memos to their rightful owners and alert the Democrats that their memos were going astray, the Republicans immediately leaked them to Bob Novak for publication and comment.

The New York Times is sinking further and further in the public's trust and estimation of it's journalistic integrity. Someone should really clue the writers and editors in on this. Perhaps send a memo around, hoping it doesn't go astray, requesting that the news be reported, as is, and not put "contextualized" to fit, hmmm, I don't know, someone's agenda.

This was a ridiculous headline.

Arthur Bovino
Office of the Public Editor
The New York Times
(212)556-7652

Though, CNN never writes me back. Not after what I wrote about that idiot Rudi Bakhtiar.

Bush, Schwartenegger Share Private Joke

"I don't know what the fuck I'm doing either!"

Confederacy Of Dunces

Defeating tyrany with typos:

Writers often grumble about the criminal things editors do to their prose. The federal government has recently weighed in on the same issue — literally.

It has warned publishers they may face grave legal consequences for editing manuscripts from Iran and other disfavored nations, on the ground that such tinkering amounts to trading with the enemy.

Anyone who publishes material from a country under a trade embargo is forbidden to reorder paragraphs or sentences, correct syntax or grammar, or replace "inappropriate words," according to several advisory letters from the Treasury Department in recent months.

Adding illustrations is prohibited, too. To the baffled dismay of publishers, editors and translators who have been briefed about the policy, only publication of "camera-ready copies of manuscripts" is allowed.

...

"It is against the principles of scholarship and freedom of expression, as well as the interests of science, to require publishers to get U.S. government permission to publish the works of scholars and researchers who happen to live in countries with oppressive regimes," said Eric A. Swanson, a senior vice president at John Wiley & Sons, which publishes scientific, technical and medical books and journals.

I, for one, can not fully express my relief. I will never forget the horror I experienced watching those corrected manuscripts crash into the Trade Towers.

Though, Halliburton's wholly owned offshore subsidiaries will probably figure out a way to get a piece of the action. After all, they've already got the experience trading with terrorist nations.

GOP Attempts To Portray Kerry As Radical, History Refuses To Cooperate

Republicans outraged as world, again, refuses to conform to their expectations:

Mr. Kerry was so concerned that the April 1971 protest in Washington be nonviolent and legal that he faced criticism from fellow members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, who were growing more radical. He opposed the group's plan to sue President Richard M. Nixon to end the war, and in November 1971, he left it, citing "personality conflicts and differences in political philosophy."

...

Later in 1972, when protesters from the group including Ron Kovic, the disabled veteran later played by Tom Cruise in "Born on the Fourth of July," disrupted the Republican Convention, Mr. Kerry watched them on television.

"There was a lot of resentment against John because he wasn't more radical," recalled Bobby Muller, a friend from those days who now heads the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, recalled.

Mr. Muller, a paraplegic from a bullet wound that severed his spinal cord, added: "Most of the guys in V.V.A.W., quite frankly, were former enlisted guys, and represented, visually, a counterculture presentation. Kerry would wear a coat and tie."

...

The Detroit meeting had drawn relatively little press notice, Mr. Brinkley said, and Mr. Kerry and other organizers of the march on Washington were determined to draw attention to their cause. The idea of American soldiers engaged in brutal acts was much in the news; Lt. William L. Calley Jr. had just been convicted of the murder of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai.

But Gary Solis, a former Marine lieutenant colonel, Vietnam veteran and expert on war crimes who is an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center here, said Mr. Kerry had made a grave error.

"Sure it's true," Mr. Solis said. "Sure there were people raped, ears cut off and so on. Each one of the things that he mentioned happened, in some cases I know, and in others I'm confident..."

Your October Surprise

TEHRAN, Iran -- U.S. and Pakistani officials are denying a report from Iran's state radio that Osama bin Laden was captured "a long time ago."

Iranian radio reported Saturday that bin Laden was taken into custody in Pakistan a while ago and that President George W. Bush was intending to use his arrest for "propaganda maneuvering in the presidential election."

The report also said that U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's visit to the region this week was in connection with the arrest.

Iranian radio says it has two sources for the report of bin Laden's capture. One of those alleged sources, the editor of an English language Pakistani newspaper, tells The Associated Press he "never said this."

The newspaper editor, Shamim Shahed, however, does say bin Laden is within the Americans reach and "they can declare him arrested any time."

Civlization Will End Long Before Iraqis Ready For Democracy, Exporting Oil

Feb. 11— "Civilization as we know it will come to an end sometime in this century unless we can find a way to live without fossil fuels."

That's the way David Goodstein begins his book. And that's the way he ends it.

Goodstein is not an environmental extremist, or a doomsayer, or a political hack trying to make points with his constituency. He is a professor of physics and vice provost of the California Institute of Technology, one of the nation's headiest institutions.

In his just-released book, Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil, published by W. W. Norton & Company, Goodstein argues forcefully that the worldwide production of oil will peak soon, possibly within this decade. That will be followed by declining availability of fossil fuels that could plunge the world into global conflicts as nations struggle to capture their piece of a shrinking pie.

When questioned about Goodstein's book, senior Bush administrations officials responded, "I'm sorry, that's all the time we have for questions. Ever."

Black Ops

CARACAS, Venezuela (CNN) -- National Guard troops clashed Friday with tens of thousands of antigovernment demonstrators trying to reach the site of a summit of developing nations in downtown Caracas.

Opposed to the rule of President Hugo Chavez, the demonstrators were protesting Tuesday's decision by the National Electoral Council ordering that 1.4 million signatures on a recall petition be scrutinized for possible fraud.

...

The opposition blames Chavez for the country's economic woes.

Chavez's removal was the focus of a general strike in 2002 that had crippled the economy and sparked huge, sometimes violent demonstrations. The strike forced Venezuela -- the world's fifth-largest oil producer -- to buy gasoline from Brazil and Trinidad.

Chavez still enjoys support among the nation's poor, who were planning to hold a pro-government rally Sunday.

Hugo Chavez. Who knows what he is? I'm not in Venezuela. I do know he was elected by the incredible masses of the poor, and that he opposes free trade agreements, which basically reduce his country to a colony of the United States and Europe.

I also know that Venezuela has huge oil reserves and has always been the American safety chute for when OPEC cuts back on production. OPEC cuts back, and Venezuela turns it up. It's always given us some leverage in dealing with the Saudis.

Odd that when Chavez came to power, American empire turned toward conquering another country with massive oil reserves? I don't know.

Odd that this article talks about the general strike in 2002 and makes no mention of the failed coup d'etat? The one that American papers announced as popularly backed and successful even as the people of Venezuala rose up and thwarted the coup?

At the time, Venezuelan TV, controlled by the plotters, showed pictures of massive demonstrations of thousands, sometimes being fired on by Chavez's goons. It was all dutifully reported in American papers. Though, afterwards, it appears that the footage was staged, and altered, and millions of Chavez supporters who were descending on the capital were never shown.

Iraq is a disaster. It will not be our OPEC busting pipeline. Funny how Venezuela is now again in turmoil?

I could be wrong. I don't know anything about it. I'm not there. But Chavez is looking a lot like Allende.

But I'm sure our "liberal" media will sort the whole thing out for us.

House Speaker Gives In To Laughter, Muffled Coughs of "Bullshit"

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After intense pressure from lawmakers and family members of victims, House Speaker Dennis Hastert reversed his position Friday and said he would not oppose granting a 60-day extension to the commission investigating the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

...

Hastert's letter emphasized that the commission must still dismantle as planned July 26 and may not request an extension beyond that date. He called his offer "a compromise."

Because, when it comes to protecting American lives, there's only so much Republicans are willing to do.

Miller Gets One Half-hearted Smile, CNBC Renews Contract, Gives Raise

Former commedian Miller, pictured above, getting one half-hearted smile.