us politics

The New Yorker has a very interesting podcast interview with Lawrence Wright, author of the highly reccomended The Looming Tower (review).

In this interview he discusses the US Director of National Intelligence's priorities and reforms. He also tells of how he was monitored whilst writing his book and how an basic error in intelligence gathering resulted in his daughter being listed as an al Qaeda contact.

Although the EU is much maligned in the UK, some MEP's have been doing outstanding work and one of them is Glyn Ford. He has worked for many years on North Korea and has just published a book, North Korea on the Brink, where he lays out his analysis that the Bush presidency's incompetence and dogma has, once again done real harm to conflict resolution.

I'll be seeing him on the 22nd of January and will try to get an interview for you.

And they're off, well, apart from Giuliani who's saving his powder for New Hampshire. The convoluted presidential selection process is underway, boring the pants of most sensible folk for the next year.

The rest of the world is waiting for two things:

1. The departure of Bush into obscurity

2. To see if the US will depart from previous practice and not elect an idiot.

The race is to find a candidate and each one is desperate not to cock things up so we get hours of bland and mediocre soundbites that signify nothing, such as "I want a strong America" ad infinitum. The result is something that is not 'policy-lite' but entirely devoid of policy.

What policies do the candidates advocate? How will they address the massive problems once in office? Silence. Significantly, in the last day oil crept to $100 a barrel. Now there's a problem.

One aspect that we're watching closely is the further decline of the Neo-cons. Unusually this Presidential race has no sitting President, or Vice-President running. I guess even Cheney couldn't work out a plan to get himself elected and that is significant. The best they can do is rally behind Huckabee.

Whatever happens in Iowa, we've got months of this ahead of us.

It has just been discovered that the CIA has quietly destroyed all it's tapes of torture (or enhanced interrogation with water sports if you're on message) including the use of waterboarding.

I'm willing to wager that someone in the organisation has copied a couple for their own private enjoyment. But it is yet another reminder of the moral black hole New Labour has sucked us into.

Meanwhile we're going for 42 days imprisonment without charge. apparently we must do this right away because there may be a case at some point in the future that may require it.

This makes no sense whatsoever. Why not 40? 45? 100?

No, all this has started because Gordon wants to look big and tough after being outed as a dithering wimp with too many people around him grabbing illicit cash from brown paper bags. Thus is terrorism and security policy written.

In the meantime an article, from a Russian dissident on the effect torture has on the practicing institution is worth reading.

After spending a year telling us that Iran was about to build a nuclear bomb and actively preparing for war and large military strikes, a new National Intelligence report comes out and says that Iran gave up it's nuclear weapons plans in 2003.

There is something that has been consistent in the Neo-Con views of the world; They're always wrong. They've been wrong since the start of the Cold War.

Happily their plan to play 'double or quits' with Iran does seem to be crumbling. One can only imagine Cheney's fury as he read this report.

I think we've all come to terms with Tony's utter belief in his decision to go to war in Iraq. He'll probably defend it to his dying breath. However it's still difficult to read or hear any of his pronouncements on his legacy. Remember that? The L word was the driving force behind the last year in office, where he was clinging on by his fingertips.

Various accounts have come out and I think pleading, begging and groveling were a more accurate description of his inner circle. What remains terrifying is how one man could ignore all the advice he was given and push the nation into war.

What's changed?

The Clunking Fist has also shown the same dogmatic tendency, with the briefing against  Lord Malloch Brown, the duffing up of Admiral Lord West on the Prime Ministerial sofa and the happy slapping of the Boy Miliband shows that nothing has changed, nothing has improved.

This is significant, not just for the content, but as a sign that there has been a fundamental shift in power: The Dollar hits a record low after hints that China may switch some of it's reserves into other currencies.

Ten years ago, would a quote like this have had any impact?

Little Georgie Bush, age 8, is mad at you guys:

This week, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that he would reduce British presence in Iraq from 5,500 troops to 4,500 by Christmas. The Guardian reports today that Brown will cut “significantly more than the 1,000 announced yesterday” by next year.

In response to the withdrawal announcement, the White House has decided to slander Britain. The London Telegraph reports today that a senior White House official has revoked Britain’s status of being “the closest Bush ally“:

“There’s concern about Brown,” a senior White House foreign policy official told The Daily Telegraph. “But this is compensated by the fact that Paris and Berlin are much less of a headache. The need to hinge everything on London as the guarantor of European security has gone.”

The White House official added that Britain would always be “the cornerstone” of US policy towards Europe but there was “a lot of unhappiness” about how British forces had performed in Basra and an acceptance that Mr Brown would pull the remaining 4,500 troops out of Iraq next year.

“Operationally, British forces have performed poorly in Basra,” said the official. “Maybe it’s best that they leave. Now we will have a clear field in southern Iraq.”

Isn't it great?  Doesn't this make you want to leap up off the couch and help us invade Iran?

Remember, nobody fucks with the Bush family.

One of the problems we have over here in 'Murrica is Republican politicians regulating our sex lives.  They're obsessed with gays, presidential blowjobs, and Blastocyst-Americans.  That's why we Foul-Mouthed Bloggers of the Left rejoice when a deeply hypocritical or deeply closeted (or both) politician gets caught with his pants down.  It's better than garden-variety corruption because, as this country was started by religious nutjobs that you rightly kicked out of your country, sex scandals send our God-fearin' populus into a tailspin.

Many of you may have heard of Senator David Vitter, a married Louisiana Republican firebrand who ran and won on a family-values platform in 2004.  He even used his kids in his campaign ads.  Predictably, his phone number was found in the phone records of the D.C. Madame - Vitter had been dogged by rumors of his fondness for hookers for years.  He admitted to a "serious sin" in his past, but limited his mea culpa to D.C. - said he'd never banged any hookers in New Orleans. 

Of course, Larry Flynt produced a New Orleans hooker a couple weeks later, Wendy Cortez, who said she and Vitter did "his business" quite a few times - a fact which probably didn't please Wendy Vitter, the senator's wife, who once compared herself to Lorena Bobbitt.  You can compare the Wendys here.  The wingnuts aren't calling for Vitter's head though, mostly because Louisiana's governor is a Democrat who would naturally replace Vitter with one.

Not so lucky is Larry Craig, a Republican senator from Idaho.  Craig was caught soliciting sex in a Minneapolis airport bathroom.  Gay sex.  Just what the people of Idaho expect from their fag-bashing, Bush-enabling, family values senator.  Craig pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and hoped it would go away.

But it didn't go away.  Not so much because he was looking for hot gay sex, but because Idaho's governor would replace him with another Bush-enabling Republican.  Thus the GOP could safely call for Craig's head on a platter without fear of losing a Senate seat.

At first, Craig said he wouldn't go.  Then he changed his mind and gave a press conference to tell the world: "I am not gay."  Then he decided to challenge his guilty plea (a fool’s errand).  Now he’s decided to stay … for a while.  Maybe.

A few days ago I blogged on Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, another deeply-closeted Republican.  Of course, he regularly stands up in the House and yammers about family values and how bad teh gayz are.  So naturally, we unhinged lefty bloggers are looking to take him down.  Plus, McHenry may be involved in a GOP gay murder-suicide.  How much fun is that?!  Stay tuned!

A good set of comments on yesterday's Sy Hersh thread lead me to write a comment of my own, which rather grew, so it's a post.

I'm still not convinced that Brown's going to back an attack on Iran:

 * Brown the Atlanticist - he's much more of an Atlanticist than Blair ever was - Blair's meeting of minds with Bush had nothing to do with admiration for the American Way Of Life, since Bush has shown complete disregard for that, merely using the US for its power and wealth to meet his own ends (which are varied, but seem to boil down to both cheap oil , enriching cronies and imperial ambition at home and abroad).  I'm using 'Bush' here as neat shorthand for the whole AEI/AIPAC/Cheney nexus that seems to be at the bottom of what's been fucking things up, no one can argue that Bush came up with them himself, after all.  Brown strikes me as more of a classic conservative Republican - the morality is the ice-cold what's-good-enough-for-my-father-is-good-enough-for-me Presbyterian, not the hot-blooded blood-and-thunder Baptist.  Conservative v. Year Zero radical, in fact.  People like Brown grew up admiring an America that's ceased to exist post-Reagan, that legitimised the chase after wealth and power by means of religion.  Post-1980 the chase become all that mattered.

 * the Daily Mail.  Most read anti-war newspaper, publicised Craig Murray's pure-bred filleting of the Iranian hostage claims (which would themselves make using it as a casus belli trickier), editor great mates with Brown.  Brown's election strategy is definitely to appeal to Daily Mail Reading Woman, rather than Sun Reading Man, who isn't going to be tempted by Cameron and doesn't live in middle England marginals anyway.  If the Mail approves of Our Boys marching on Tehran I'll eat a copy.  No, make that two copies.  Of the Sunday edition.  The Sun and Times have started being openly hostile, which suggest that Murdoch doesn't feel Gordon is 'on board' to his satisfaction.

 * Economic rewards - as the NYT reports, the part of the US business community (who are indeed friends with Gordon) who backed the war for cheap oil, a quick win and new markets are now backing away.  Tom Friedman is their spokesman, and he's run out of his famous Friedman Units ('it'll get better in six months').  The Iraq War supporters shrink ever closer to the rabid triumph-of-the-will dead-enders.  So Gordon can't rationalise support as good for the economy - the Iraq experience suggests the complete opposite

  * Political rewards - 'hey, I've stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the worst-ever US President, a man deeply unpopular with all our other allies, a year before he leaves office with his bloody legacy plain to see and his movement decimated'.  What's in it for Gordon?

Indeed 'what's in it for Gordon' should be the question we all ask when we see claims that Gordon is backing Bush/is backing a new multipolar foreign policy/is backing whatever.  In the case of Blair and Iraq the Bliar got to suck up to George Bush at the height of his power, have the huge ego boost of ordering men into battle and satisfied his own warped sense of liberal values by persuading himself he was doing good.  None of those quite seem to fit the bill if Gordon goes for war - there's not enough Army to order into battle, Bush looks and smells like a dead duck and he doesn't have any pretend liberal values anyway, only genuine conservative ones.

Question for all of us - who would Brown like to deal with in the White House from January 2009?  Tricky one.  I say Hillary Clinton - she'll bring Bill, who the Labour Party always got on with, but she isn't going to embarrass Gordon by being more left-wing that him.

Other bloggage (British reaction to Hersh has been fairly sparse, perhaps like me it's taken a while to read all six pages):

Lenin's Tomb
Blood & Treasure (who understands very well what Mr. Brown is and isn't)
Booman Tribute on Hillary and Iran
D-Notice pointing out that even Blair didn't manage to get creationist ideology into science curriculums
Crooks and Liars on the US Iran War propaganda campaign - would it work here?
Sic Semper Tyrannis on Hillary and Iran
Think Progress with a couple of links to UK papers, including the Guardian on John 'Bombs Away' Bolton at the Tory Party conference, which is a good guide for you as to where the maddest neo-con around goes for support when in the UK these days.  He got interviewed on Sky, too.
The Green Ribbon making the point about the timing of the UK election and Gordon's support for war or otherwise

One of the problems we have over here in 'Murrica is Republican politicians that try to regulate our sex lives.  They're obsessed with gays, presidential blowjobs, and Blastocyst-Americans.  That's why we Foul-Mouthed Bloggers of the Left rejoice when a deeply hypocritical or deeply closeted (or both) politician gets caught with his pants down.  It's better than garden-variety corruption because, as this country was started by religious nutjobs that you rightly kicked out of your country, sex scandals send our God-fearin' populus into a tailspin.

Many of you have heard of Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican firebrand who ran and won on a family-values platform in 2004.  He even used his kids in his campaign ads.  Predictably, his phone number was found in the phone records of the D.C. Madame - Vitter had been dogged by rumors of his fondness for hookers for years.  He admitted to a "serious sin" in his past, but limited his mea culpa do D.C. - said he'd never banged any hookers in New Orleans. 

Of course, Larry Flynt produced a New Orleans hooker a couple weeks later, Wendy Cortez, who said she and Vitter did "his business" quite a few times - a fact which probably didn't please Wendy Vitter, the senator's wife, who once likened herself to Lorena Bobbitt.  You can compare the Wendys here.  The wingnuts aren't calling for Vitter's head though, mostly because Louisiana's governor is a Democrat who would naturally replace Vitter with one.

Not so lucky is Larry Craig, a Republican senator from Idaho.  Craig was caught soliciting sex by a cop in a Minneapolis bathroom.  Gay sex.  Just what the people of Idaho expect from their fag-bashing, Bush-enabling, family values senator.  Craig pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and hoped it would go away.

But it didn't go away.  Not so much because he was looking for hot gay sex, but because Idaho's governor would replace him with another Bush-enabling Republican.  Thus, the GOP could safely call for Craig's head on a platter without fear of losing a seat.

At first, Craig said he wouldn't go.  Then he changed his mind and gave a press conference to tell the world: "I am not gay."  Then he decided to challenge his guilty plea (a fool’s errand).  Now he’s decided to stay … for a while.  Maybe.

A few days ago I blogged on Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, another deeply-closeted Republican.  Of course, he regularly stands up in the House and yammers about family values and how bad teh gayz are.  So naturally, we unhinged lefty bloggers are looking to take him down.  Plus, McHenry may be involved in a GOP gay murder-suicide.  Stay tuned!

One of the problems we have over here in 'Murrica is Republican politicians that try to regulate our sex lives.  They're obsessed with gays, presidential blowjobs, and Blastocyst-Americans.  That's why we Foul-Mouthed Bloggers of the Left rejoice when a deeply hypocritical or deeply closeted (or both) politician gets caught with their pants down.  It's better than garden-variety corruption because, as this country was started by religious nutjobs that you rightly kicked out of your country, sex scandals send our God-fearin' populus into a tailspin.

Many of you may have heard of Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican firebrand who ran and won on a family-values platform in 2004.  He even used his kids in his campaign ads.  Predictably, his phone number was found in the phone records of the D.C. Madame - Vitter had been dogged by rumors of his fondness for hookers for years.  He admitted to a "serious sin" in his past, but limited his mea culpa do D.C. - said he'd never banged any hookers in New Orleans. 

Of course, Larry Flynt produced a New Orleans hooker a couple weeks later, Wendy Cortez, who said she and Vitter did "his business" quite a few times - a fact which probably didn't please Wendy Vitter, the senator's wife, who once compared herself to Lorena Bobbitt.  You can compare the Wendys here.  The wingnuts aren't calling for Vitter's head though, mostly because Louisiana's governor is a Democrat who would naturally replace Vitter with one.

Not so lucky is Larry Craig, a Republican senator from Idaho.  Craig was caught soliciting sex by a cop in a Minneapolis bathroom.  Gay sex.  Just what the people of Idaho expect from their fag-bashing, Bush-enabling, family values senator.  Craig pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and hope it would go away.

But it didn't go away.  Not so much because he was looking for hot gay sex, but because Idaho's governor would replace him with another Bush-enabling Republican.  Thus the GOP could safely call for Craig's head on a platter without fear of losing a seat.

At first, Craig said he wouldn't go.  Then he changed his mind and gave a press conference to tell the world: "I am not gay."  Then he decided to challenge his guilty plea (a fool’s errand).  Now he’s decided to stay … for a while.  Maybe.

Today I blogged on Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, another deeply-closeted Republican.  Of course, he regularly stands up in the House and yammers about family values and how bad teh gayz are.  So naturally, we unhinged lefty bloggers are looking to take him down.  Plus, McHenry may be involved in a GOP gay murder-suicide.  Stay tuned!

One of the problems we have over here in 'Murrica is Republican politicians that regulate our sex lives.  As you probably know, they're obsessed with gays, presidential blowjobs, and Blastocyst-Americans.  That's why we Foul-Mouthed Bloggers of the Left rejoice when a deeply hypocritical or deeply closeted (or both) politician gets caught with his pants down.  It's better than garden-variety corruption because, as this country was started by religious nutjobs that you rightly kicked out of your country, sex scandals send our God-fearin' populus into a tailspin.

Many of you may have heard of Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican firebrand who ran and won on a family-values platform in 2004.  He even used his kids in campaign ads.  Predictably, his phone number was found in the phone records of the D.C. Madam - Vitter had been dogged by rumors of his fondness for hookers for years.  He admitted to a "serious sin" in his past, but limited his mea culpa to D.C. - said he'd never banged any hookers in New Orleans. 

Of course, Larry Flynt produced a New Orleans hooker a couple weeks later, Wendy Cortez, who said she and Vitter did "his business" quite a few times - a fact which probably didn't please Wendy Vitter, the senator's wife, who once compared herself to Lorena Bobbitt.  You can compare the Wendys here.  The wingnuts aren't calling for Vitter's head though, mostly because Louisiana's governor is a Democrat who would naturally replace Vitter with one.

Not so lucky is Larry Craig, a Republican senator from Idaho.  A cop caught Craig soliciting sex by a in a Minneapolis bathroom.  Gay sex.  Just what the people of Idaho expect from their fag-bashing, Bush-enabling, family values senator.  Craig pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and hoped it would go away.

But it didn't go away - someone unearthed the plea.  And Republicans are throwing Craig under the bus not so much because he was looking for hot gay sex, but because Idaho's governor would replace him with another Bush-enabling Republican.  Thus the GOP could safely call for Craig's head without fear of losing a seat.

At first, Craig said he wouldn't go.  Then he changed his mind and gave a press conference to tell the world: "I am not gay."  Then he decided to challenge his guilty plea (a fool’s errand).  Now he’s decided to stay in the Senate … for a while.  Maybe.

Today I blogged on Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, another deeply-closeted Republican.  Of course, he regularly stands up in the House and yammers about family values and how bad teh gayz are - an utter hypocrite.  So naturally, we unhinged lefty bloggers are looking to take him down.  Plus, McHenry may be involved in a GOP gay murder-suicide.  Stay tuned!

A war with Iran; Will he or won't he? This question has been occupying analysts minds for some time and we'll soon find out the answer. There are two strands of opinion; Cheney says that a major strike on Iran, including nuclear weapons, has to happen before Bush leaves the White House. The State department are more cautious, fearing the inevitable consequences and hoping for diplomacy to triumph.

Will bush play double or quits with the Middle East? The signs are confusing, certainly plans have been drawn up and material is being put in the theatre in preparation, but so far, nobody knows and it is believed that no decision has been made. Part of the preparation is in persuading people that they've got it right this time and Iran is a real threat, hence the breathless warnings about Iran's meddling in Iraq.

Although the US is prepared to go it alone, there are other factors that may provide signals of US intentions. The positions of China and, to a lesser extent, Russia could affect the decision, but we have out own clue to watch. The US is asking Brown to move British forces to the Iranian border. Will he do it? Has he got the stomach to turn down the US? Will he do a Blair or a Wilson?

Alan Greenspan has been causing problems for the Bush administration recently. His recent comments that the 'US economy looks like it did in 1987' was a warning of a possible repeat of the famous stock market crash, especially when the banks are trying to hide the depth of the sub-prime black hole. Many analysts agree with his comments, but are keeping quiet.

In an interview to be published on Monday in the Daily Telegraph his criticisms are blunt and include this gem: