Year: 2007

Poll: Disapproval of War May Have Hit Tipping Point

Jon Ponder

Your fellow Americans are slowly awakening to the horror Bush has inflicted on the nation:

Sixty-four percent now say the war in Iraq was not worth fighting, up six points from last month to a new numerical high.

A record number of Americans disapprove of the war in Iraq, and a clear majority now favors the eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces, even if civil order has not been restored there — potentially a tipping point in public attitudes on the war.

While solutions remain vexing, for the first time ABC News/Washington Post polls show a narrow majority of Americans support setting a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Two-thirds oppose George W. Bush’s troop surge; most oppose it strongly.

It all makes for a continued hard slog for the president: Just 36 percent approve of his job performance overall, very near his career low of 33 percent last month. Bush hasn’t seen majority approval in more than two years — the longest run without majority support for any president since Harry Truman from 1950-53…

Bush is paying the continued price of an unpopular war. Sixty-four percent now say the war in Iraq was not worth fighting, up six points from last month to a new numerical high. (It was 63 percent in October.) A majority hasn’t said the war was worth fighting since April 2004, and it’s been even longer since a majority has approved of how Bush is handling it. Sixty-seven percent now disapprove; 55 percent disapprove strongly.

Did Cheney Use Iran-Contra ‘Lessons Learned’ to Keep Iran War Plans Secret?

Jon Ponder

One revelation in Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker article about Vice Pres. Cheney’s not-so-secret plan to attack Iran bears more scrutiny. It involves Elliott Abrams — a Reagan Administration official who got caught in the Iran-Contra scandal, pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress and was later pardoned by the first Pres. George Bush.

“One, you can’t trust our friends. Two, the C.I.A. has got to be totally out of it. Three, you can’t trust the uniformed military, and four, it’s got to be run out of the Vice-President’s office.”

With a record like that, it should be no surprise that the current Pres. Bush has every confidence in Abrams, who currently serves as his Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy. Hersh suggests that Abrams has been helpful, at least indirectly, in providing Cheney and his team with a primer on how to operate secret government operations, as he, Oliver North, John Poindexter and then-Sec. of Defense Caspar Weinberger did during Iran-Contra — but, unlike them, without getting caught:

Iran-Contra was the subject of an informal “lessons learned” discussion two years ago among veterans of the scandal. Abrams led the discussion. One conclusion was that even though the program was eventually exposed, it had been possible to execute it without telling Congress. As to what the experience taught them, in terms of future covert operations, the participants found: “One, you can’t trust our friends. Two, the C.I.A. has got to be totally out of it. Three, you can’t trust the uniformed military, and four, it’s got to be run out of the Vice-President’s office” — a reference to Cheney’s role, the former senior intelligence official said…

[A] Pentagon consultant added that one difficulty, in terms of oversight [over Cheney’s operations], was accounting for covert funds. “There are many, many pots of black money, scattered in many places and used all over the world on a variety of missions,” he said. The budgetary chaos in Iraq, where billions of dollars are unaccounted for, has made it a vehicle for such transactions, according to the former senior intelligence official and the retired four-star general.

“This goes back to Iran-Contra,” a former National Security Council aide told me. “And much of what they’re doing is to keep the agency out of it.” He said that Congress was not being briefed on the full extent of the U.S.-Saudi operations. And, he said, “The C.I.A. is asking, ‘What’s going on?’ They’re concerned, because they think it’s amateur hour.”

As is all too obvious, since we know about the secret plan, either Cheney’s war planners did not follow Abrams’ advice, or they consciously chose to leak their plans in order to unnerve their counterparts in Iran.

In any case, it’s worth noting that Our Liberal Media is completely untroubled by the fact that the U.S. government is set to foment a full-scale sectarian war in the Middle East between between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.

“Lessons learned,” indeed.

Cheney Unhurt in Taliban Bomb Attack

Jon Ponder

The Taliban in Afghanistan have claimed credit for a suicide bomb attack on a military base during a visit by Vice Pres. Dick Cheney that killed more than a dozen people. However, Cheney was unharmed:

There were conflicting reports on the death toll. Provincial Gov. Abdul Jabar Taqwa said 20 people were killed, while NATO said initial reports indicated three fatalities, including a U.S. soldier, a South Korean coalition soldier and a U.S. government contractor whose nationality wasn’t immediately known. NATO said 27 people also were wounded.

It was unclear why there was such a large discrepancy in the reports.

Didn’t we vanquish the Taliban before we went in Iraq? Oh, I guess not.

Hersh: Cheney Has Secret Plan to Start War with Iran

Jon Ponder

Iran-Contra redux: New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh has learned that Vice Pres. Cheney has a secret plan to set up an “open confrontation” with Iran. As part of the plan, the Pentagon is now ready to start bombing within 24 hours of a signal from the White House.

The core of the problem is an unintended consequence of another failed Cheney gambit, the invasion of Iraq.

While Pres. Bush is undoutedly aware of Cheney’s plan, which is referred to internally as a “redirection,” according to Hersh, Cheney is firmly in charge:

The key players behind the redirection are Vice-President Dick Cheney, the deputy national-security adviser Elliott Abrams, the departing Ambassador to Iraq (and nominee for United Nations Ambassador), Zalmay Khalilzad, and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national-security adviser. While Rice has been deeply involved in shaping the public policy, former and current officials said that the clandestine side has been guided by Cheney…

The fact that Cheney’s activities are being kept secret from the Congress is eerily similar to the Reagan administration’s secret dealings in the Iran-Contra scandal — a fact which may have prompted the recent resignation of John Negroponte, a player in the Contra affair, as National Intelligence Director.

The core of the problem is an unintended consequence of another failed Cheney gambit, the invasion of Iraq. Under Saddam, the Sunni minority controlled Iraq, which made it a stable, if totalitarian, bastion between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran. Democratic elections in Iraq turned control of Iraq over to the Shiite majority, leading to the unintended consequence of an ongoing regional power shift toward Teheran.

This power struggle is being played in the Iraq civil war, where both Shiite and Sunni insurgents are being funded by their respective co-sectarianists in Iran and Saudi Arabia, respectively. The Saudis, with their huge oil reserves, are famously risk-averse however, and they are demanding that Cheney fix what he broke.

As a result, Cheney’s team is rattling its sabers at Shiite-controlled Iran, even though the insurgents killing and wounding U.S. troops in Iraq are primarily Sunnis allied with the Saudis:

“This is all part of the campaign of provocative steps to increase the pressure on Iran. The idea is that at some point the Iranians will respond and then the Administration will have an open door to strike at them.”
— Flynt Leverett, former Bush administration National Security Council official

Flynt Leverett, a former Bush Administration National Security Council official, told me that “there is nothing coincidental or ironic” about the new strategy with regard to Iraq. “The Administration is trying to make a case that Iran is more dangerous and more provocative than the Sunni insurgents to American interests in Iraq, when — if you look at the actual casualty numbers — the punishment inflicted on America by the Sunnis is greater by an order of magnitude,” Leverett said. “This is all part of the campaign of provocative steps to increase the pressure on Iran. The idea is that at some point the Iranians will respond and then the Administration will have an open door to strike at them.”

In the Iran-Contra matter 20 years ago, Congress was kept in the dark about Reagan’s efforts to send weapons and supplies to the Contras. Secrecy was required because Congress had expressly forbidden the administration from dealing with the Contras.

In 2005, a group of Iran-Contra veterans got together in Washington to review “lessons learned.” Elliot Abrams, who was tried, convicted and then pardoned for his role in Iran-Contra, led a session that reached four conclusions about how to run secret government operations without getting caught:

“One, you can’t trust our friends. Two, the C.I.A. has got to be totally out of it. Three, you can’t trust the uniformed military, and four, it’s got to be run out of the Vice-President’s office” — a reference to Cheney’s role, the former senior intelligence official said.

But at least one Iran-Contra figure is opting out, according to Hersh:

I was subsequently told by the two government consultants and the former senior intelligence official that the echoes of Iran-Contra were a factor in Negroponte’s decision to resign from the National Intelligence directorship and accept a sub-Cabinet position of Deputy Secretary of State. (Negroponte declined to comment.)

The former senior intelligence official also told me that Negroponte did not want a repeat of his experience in the Reagan Administration, when he served as Ambassador to Honduras. “Negroponte said, ‘No way. I’m not going down that road again, with the N.S.C. running operations off the books, with no finding.’ ” (In the case of covert C.I.A. operations, the President must issue a written finding and inform Congress.) Negroponte stayed on as Deputy Secretary of State, he added, because “he believes he can influence the government in a positive way.”

Last Sunday, the Times of London reported that a handful of top U.S. military brass had threatened to resign if the U.S. attacked Iran. It is possible their threats were prompted by learning about Cheney’s plan — which, see number three above, is apparently not so secret anymore.

Assuming Seymour Hersh’s reporting is correct, and his track record is among the best — and based on the record of Cheney and Bush from 2002, we have to assume they will start a war in Irans sometime very soon — even though it is hard to fathom, then as now, why they are hellbent on igniting the cataclysm.

Juror Out in Libby Trial But Deliberations to Continue

Jon Ponder

Reuters:

One juror in the perjury trial of former vice presidential aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby was dismissed on Monday after she told the judge she had been exposed to information about the case outside of court.

Judge Reggie Walton said the jury would continue to deliberate with 11 members.

“It’s imperative that you not have any contact with any information regarding this case from any source outside this courtroom,” Walton told the 11 remaining jurors.

Had an alternate been called to replace the dismissed juror, the jury would have had to begin its deliberations anew. The jury, which consisted of eight women and four men, has been deliberating since last Wednesday.

‘Titanic’ Director’s New Film Claims to Have Found Coffins of Jesus, His Wife and Son

Jon Ponder

At a news conference today, filmmakers will announce the release of a new documentary “The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” which claims to have found ossuaries belonging to Jesus, his wife, Mary Magdalene; their son, his mother and other family members:

Scientific analysis of limestone ossuaries (bone boxes) and physical evidence found in a 2,000-year- old tomb in Talpiot, Jerusalem, provide credible new information that the tomb once may have held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and his family. [The documentary] from executive producer James Cameron [who won an Oscar for “Titanic”] and director Simcha Jacobovici, exclusively reveals what might be the greatest archaeological find in history.

The film presents the latest evidence from world-renowned experts in Aramaic script, ancient DNA analysis, forensics, archaeology and statistics. Among the major discoveries chronicled in the program is new evidence that Jesus and Mary Magdalene, also known as “Mariamene e Mara,” may have had a son named Judah.

This could be a major breakthrough in our understanding of the origins of Christianity, but what may prove to be even more interesting and instructive is seeing how the Christian establishment reacts to this revelation.

Over the past two millenia Christian belief has been structured to remain isolated and unaffected by scientific fact, so even if this new finding were to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, hardcore Christians would find a way to reconcile it with their faith-based view of the world — as they have done with intelligent design as an alternative to evolution theory and the pray-away-the-gay movement as an alternative to psychology (and, what the heck, human nature).

This is understandable because without the fantastical embellishments that were added a generation or two after Jesus’ life by the writers of the Gospels — that his mother was a virgin impregnated by God and, especially, that he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven — the church would lose its mystical sway over its followers.

Actions Show U.S. Doesn’t Believe Its Iran Lies Either

Trish

Think about it: if the United States really believed Iran had nuclear defense capability, would we be so belligerent and overbearing toward it? Or, as with North Korea, would we call upon others to help us take the diplomatic route? Our behavior tells me we’re lying.

A story in the L.A. Times reports that with regard to Iran, everyone else thinks we’re lying too.

IAEA officials remain suspicious of the information in part because most of the papers are in English rather than Persian, the Iranian language

“Since 2002, pretty much all the intelligence that’s come to us has proved to be wrong,” a senior diplomat at the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] said. Another official here described the agency’s intelligence stream as “very cold now” because “so little panned out.”

…American officials privately acknowledge that much of their evidence on Iran’s nuclear plans and programs remains ambiguous, fragmented and difficult to prove.

The IAEA has its own concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, although agency officials say they have found no proof that nuclear material has been diverted to a weapons program.

Another way of stating that last sentence is, “The objective international agency that has been investigating Iran for five years has never found a single thing to indicate the country is building nukes.”

On the other hand, there’s plenty of evidence the United States is making crap up again.

Diplomats here were less convinced by documents recovered by U.S. intelligence from a laptop computer apparently stolen from Iran. American analysts first briefed senior IAEA officials on the contents of the hard drive at the U.S. mission here in mid-2005.

The documents included detailed designs to upgrade ballistic missiles to carry nuclear warheads, drawings for subterranean testing of high explosives, and two pages describing research on uranium tetrafluoride, known as “green salt,” which is used during uranium enrichment. IAEA officials remain suspicious of the information in part because most of the papers are in English rather than Persian, the Iranian language.

Oh please! They were written in English? Does that not have the mark of Rover and Dirty Dick all over it?

Iran’s representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, dismissed the laptop documents as “fabricated information.” Iran, he said, has produced 170 tons of “green salt” at a uranium conversion facility in Esfahan that is monitored by the IAEA.

“We are not hiding it,” he said in an interview. “We make tons of it. These documents are all nonsense.”

All anyone can prove the Iranians guilty of is the same thing Hussein actually did — scoffing at inspectors and resisting cooperation with what they view as coercion. And while I wish no one had nuclear weapons — including us, Russia, China, Israel, and North Korea — I can’t follow our reasoning about who can and who can’t.

Where is this all going, anyway? The countries that do not today have nuclear weapons can easily have them tomorrow. The only way we’ll ever be safe is if we focus on moving the world away from conflict, not on stacking the deck so we can always win the wars we keep starting. That strategy hasn’t worked in Iraq or Afghanistan and it’s doubtful it will work in Iran. It’s time to try something else.