Look out...! Larisa's on the Bhutto case...!

and when larisa's on the case, the big boy cover-up quickly starts to fall apart...

While President Musharraf initially declined help from the British in investigating the assassination of Mrs. Bhutto, pressure from a distrusting public and a crumbling explanation caused a turnaround this week. An agreement was reached allowing the British to conduct their own investigation, and police from Scotland Yard arrived over the weekend.

US intelligence officials say, however, that very little evidence will be found, especially if investigators are looking for the suspected shooter. Three former US intelligence officials have told Raw Story that not only is the gunman dead, he was likely the actual target of the suicide bomber.

According to a former high ranking US intelligence official, who wishes to remain anonymous due to the delicate nature of the information, the US intelligence community understands the gunman to have been killed in the blast following Mrs. Bhutto's assassination.

"He was killed, probably not knowing that the suicide bomber was there," said this source. "We don't know for sure if the two men arrived together. We do know that the assassin died in the explosion, and was probably meant to."

Several other US intelligence officials concur that the bomber was likely "inserted" to "clean up" evidence of the shooting, including eliminating the gunman.

there's so many nasty little sidelights to the bhutto story, it ain't even funny, but i really do like the way that larisa's pulled 'em all together...

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Iranian nuclear weapons are today's Iraq WMD's

from think progress...

In her first interview since Bush administration officials outed her as a covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame Wilson reveals to Minutes that she was involved in preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon. In the interview to be aired this Sunday, CBS reports that she was “involved in one highly classified mission to deliver fake nuclear weapons blueprints to Tehran.”

and anyone would be in the least bit surprised by this because...? the threat of iran obtaining or manufacturing a nuclear weapon is in precisely the same category as saddam's wmd... our country's movers and shakers are totally committed to a state of endless war, regardless of the country or the area of the world, as long as it provides the opportunity to keep the rivers of cash flowing into the "right" pockets (apologies for the bad pun), to extend their power and global hegemony, and to monopolize the world's resources... iranian nuclear weapons are today's convenient smokescreen, cleverly designed to distract from their real motivations, and to keep the peasantry quivering in our boots, at least when we're not buying lottery tickets and hoping to strike it rich... we are one pathetic bunch of citizens...

[UPDATE]

i would be guilty of a glaring omission if i didn't mention that valerie plame's role with iran was first reported by larisa alexandrovna at raw story on february 13, 2006... larisa has been on top of a number of things, often WAY before the rest of the so-called responsible and serious traditional media... click on over to larisa's weblog, at largely, and show her some love...

congrats, larisa...

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"A 'massive' attack against Iran, requiring little contingency planning and without a ground invasion"

this is the story larisa's been slaving away on to meet deadline...

from raw story...

"Considering a war with Iran: A discussion paper on WMD in the Middle East" [PDF] – written by well-respected British scholar and arms expert Dr. Dan Plesch, Director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, and Martin Butcher, a former Director of the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) and former adviser to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament.

Plesch and Butcher examine "what the military option might involve if it were picked up off the table and put into action" and conclude that based on open source analysis and their own assessments, the US has prepared its military for a "massive" attack against Iran, requiring little contingency planning and without a ground invasion.

The study concludes that the US has made military preparations to destroy Iran’s WMD, nuclear energy, regime, armed forces, state apparatus and economic infrastructure within days if not hours of President George W. Bush giving the order. The US is not publicising the scale of these preparations to deter Iran, tending to make confrontation more likely. The US retains the option of avoiding war, but using its forces as part of an overall strategy of shaping Iran’s actions.

* Any attack is likely to be on a massive multi-front scale but avoiding a ground invasion. Attacks focused on WMD facilities would leave Iran too many retaliatory options, leave President Bush open to the charge of using too little force and leave the regime intact.

* US bombers and long range missiles are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours.

* US ground, air and marine forces already in the Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan can devastate Iranian forces, the regime and the state at short notice.

* Some form of low level US and possibly UK military action as well as armed popular resistance appear underway inside the Iranian provinces or ethnic areas of the Azeri, Balujistan, Kurdistan and Khuzestan. Iran was unable to prevent sabotage of its offshore-to-shore crude oil pipelines in 2005.

* Nuclear weapons are ready, but most unlikely, to be used by the US, the UK and Israel. The human, political and environmental effects would be devastating, while their military value is limited.

* Israel is determined to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons yet has the conventional military capability only to wound Iran’s WMD programmes.

* The attitude of the UK is uncertain, with the Brown government and public opinion opposed psychologically to more war, yet, were Brown to support an attack he would probably carry a vote in Parliament. The UK is adamant that Iran must not acquire the bomb.

* The US is not publicising the scale of these preparations to deter Iran, tending to make confrontation more likely. The US retains the option of avoiding war, but using its forces as part of an overall strategy of shaping Iran’s actions.

When asked why the paper seems to indicate a certainty of Iranian WMD, Plesch made clear that "our paper is not, repeat not, about what Iran actually has or not." Yet, he added that "Iran certainly has missiles and probably some chemical capability."

Most significantly, Plesch and Butcher dispute conventional wisdom that any US attack on Iran would be confined to its nuclear sites. Instead, they foresee a "full-spectrum approach," designed to either instigate an overthrow of the government or reduce Iran to the status of "a weak or failed state."

nothing surprising here, really, but a great deal more detail, unfortunately...

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The Global Peace Index

thanks to larisa...

The [GPI is the] first study to rank countries around the world according to their peacefulness and the drivers that create and sustain their peace...

[...]

The Economist Intelligence Unit measured countries' peacefulness based on wide range of indicators - 24 in all - including ease of access to "weapons of minor destruction" (guns, small explosives), military expenditure, local corruption, and the level of respect for human rights.

After compiling the Index, the researchers examined it for patterns in order to identify the "drivers" that make for peaceful societies. They found that peaceful countries often shared high levels of democracy and transparency of government, education and material well-being. While the U.S. possesses many of these characteristics, its ranking was brought down by its engagement in warfare and external conflict, as well as high levels of incarceration and homicide. The U.S.'s rank also suffered due to the large share of military expenditure from its GDP, attributed to its status as one of the world's military-diplomatic powers.

The main findings of the Global Peace Index are:

-- Peace is correlated to indicators such as income, schooling and the level of regional integration
-- Peaceful countries often shared high levels of transparency of government and low corruption
-- Small, stable countries which are part of regional blocs are most likely to get a higher ranking

121 GPI rankings

keep scrolling, down, down, down...

Countries most at peace ranked first

Rank Country Score
1 Norway 1.357
2 New Zealand 1.363
3 Denmark 1.377
4 Ireland 1.396
5 Japan 1.413
6 Finland 1.447
7 Sweden 1.478
8 Canada 1.481
9 Portugal 1.481
10 Austria 1.483
11 Belgium 1.498
12 Germany 1.523
13 Czech Republic 1.524
14 Switzerland 1.526
15 Slovenia 1.539
16 Chile 1.568
17 Slovakia 1.571
18 Hungary 1.575
19 Bhutan 1.611
20 Netherlands 1.620
21 Spain 1.633
22 Oman 1.641
23 Hong Kong 1.657
24 Uruguay 1.661
25 Australia 1.664
26 Romania 1.682
27 Poland 1.683
28 Estonia 1.684
29 Singapore 1.692
30 Qatar 1.702
31 Costa Rica 1.702
32 South Korea 1.719
33 Italy 1.724
34 France 1.729
35 Vietnam 1.729
36 Taiwan 1.731
37 Malaysia 1.744
38 United Arab
Emirates 1.747
39 Tunisia 1.762
40 Ghana 1.765
41 Madagascar 1.766
42 Botswana 1.786
43 Lithuania 1.788
44 Greece 1.791
45 Panama 1.798
46 Kuwait 1.818
47 Latvia 1.848
48 Morocco 1.893
49 United Kingdom 1.898
50 Mozambique 1.909
51 Cyprus 1.915
52 Argentina 1.923
53 Zambia 1.930
54 Bulgaria 1.936
55 Paraguay 1.946
56 Gabon 1.952
57 Tanzania 1.966
58 Libya 1.967
59 Cuba 1.968
60 China 1.980
61 Kazakhstan 1.995
62 Bahrain 1.995
63 Jordan 1.997
64 Namibia 2.003
65 Senegal 2.017
66 Nicaragua 2.020
67 Croatia 2.030
68 Malawi 2.038
69 Bolivia 2.052
70 Peru 2.056
71 Equatorial
Guinea 2.059
72 Moldova 2.059
73 Egypt 2.068
74 Dominican
Republic 2.071
75 Bosnia and
Herzegovina 2.089
76 Cameroon 2.093
77 Syria 2.106
78 Indonesia 2.111
79 Mexico 2.125
80 Ukraine 2.150
81 Jamaica 2.164
82 Macedonia 2.170
83 Brazil 2.173
84 Serbia 2.181
85 Cambodia 2.197
86 Bangladesh 2.219
87 Ecuador 2.219
88 Papua New
Guinea 2.223
89 El Salvador 2.244
90 Saudi Arabia 2.246
91 Kenya 2.258
92 Turkey 2.272
93 Guatemala 2.285
94 Trinidad and
Tobago 2.286
95 Yemen 2.309
96 United States of America 2.317
97 Iran 2.320
98 Honduras 2.390
99 South Africa 2.399
100 Philippines 2.428
101 Azerbaijan 2.448
102 Venezuela 2.453
103 Ethiopia 2.479
104 Uganda 2.489
105 Thailand 2.491
106 Zimbabwe 2.495
107 Algeria 2.503
108 Myanmar 2.524
109 India 2.530
110 Uzbekistan 2.542
111 Sri Lanka 2.575
112 Angola 2.587
113 Cote d'Ivoire 2.638
114 Lebanon 2.662
115 Pakistan 2.697
116 Colombia 2.770
117 Nigeria 2.898
118 Russia 2.903
119 Israel 3.033
120 Sudan 3.182
121 Iraq 3.437

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The upper crust of neocon conservatism takes a shipboard holiday

i'm not even going to attempt to excerpt or summarize this incredible article from the uk independent except to say that it's an eye-opener of the first magnitude...

here's the teaser...

The Iraq war has been an amazing success, global warming is just a myth – and as for Guantanamo Bay, it's practically a holiday camp... The annual cruise organised by the 'National Review', mouthpiece of right-wing America, is a parallel universe populated by straight-talking, gun-toting, God-fearing Republicans.

(thanks to larisa...)

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Larisa is alarmed, and even more alarmed that John Dean is alarmed

i've been alarmed for quite some time, but with the refusal of harriet miers to appear, my alarm has deepened significantly... i'm not alone...

larisa alexandrovna...

The formidable Mr. Dean raises some very disturbing questions in his latest article at FindLaw, I will skip to the disturbing parts, but I suggest you real the whole piece (emphasis mine):

"By not responding to the subpoena, the President and Ms. Miers all but invited the House Judiciary Committee and, in turn, the House of Representatives to vote to deem her in contempt of Congress. It was a defiant, in-your-face insult to Congress. No president would do this unless he was quite confident of the outcome. Clearly, Bush's White House and Justice Department lawyers believe that the solidly conservative federal judiciary will grant them a favorable ruling, and that, in the process, they will greatly weaken congressional oversight powers, to the advantage of the White House.

[...]

The Justice Department, then, must be assuring the White House that it will make this, in effect, the law, by refusing to prosecute such defiant officials under the criminal contempt statute if Congress refers the matter to them.

This is a very aggressive position. While it does not reflect the current state of the law, given the pro-presidential bias among so many of the conservative jurists who now dominate the federal judiciary, and particularly the Supreme Court, Bush may well succeed in defending this position if this matter goes to court

i am at a loss to explain why neither larisa nor john dean touched on the congressional power to declare harriet miers in inherent contempt (see here, here, and here...) it's been bandied about extensively, at least where i hang out in the blogosphere, and seems to me to be about the only option left to congress short of initiating impeachment proceedings...

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Dan Froomkin supports Larisa's perspective of a trapped White House

i posted yesterday on larisa's perspective that the white claim of executive privilege on attorneygate has left them without a constitutional argument to thwart the subpoenas for information on domestic spying issued wednesday... it appears that froomkin agrees...

"The doctrine of executive privilege exists, at least in part, to protect such communications from compelled disclosure to Congress, especially where, as here, the president's interests in maintaining confidentiality far outweigh Congress's interests in obtaining deliberative White House communications," [White House Counsel Fred Fielding] wrote.

Making that latter argument in response to yesterday's warrantless wiretapping subpoenas will be vastly harder.

There is no way that yesterday's request can be dismissed as a partisan fishing expedition. The subpoenas were approved by members of both parties. They call for basic information about the legal reasoning behind an important government program that appears to violate federal law. They request information that is necessary for the committee to assess the administration's requests to rewrite the applicable laws. And they properly ask for some explanation of why the president blocked an inquiry by the Justice Department's own ethics office.

For six years, the White House has simply waved off pesky questions from the media and Congress. And it is the wiretapping subpoenas, more even than the U.S. attorney subpoenas, that may bring that period to an end.

let's see what happens...

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Larisa's take on today's goings-on

golly, i sure hope she's right...

I would like to officially welcome you to Watergate. Please buckle up for the festivities of executive abuses and prepare to watch as Rove, in panic mode, begins to throw people under the bus - who in turn, along with so many other enemies made already, will reveal much more than anyone thought to even look at.

As a chess player, who once had a more than average ranking (if I do say so myself), this was exactly the move that Congress wanted and why it waited until it became undeniably clear that the White House was not remotely interested in protecting the integrity of private council, but rather, protecting its own hide and covering possible crimes. The White House taking this position on attorney-gate is the trap. It is one thing to claim EP [executive privilege] when talking about national security documents, but with attorney-gate, their position has rendered them with no legal or arguably Constitutional leg to stand on.

It would have been far easier to throw Rove and Miers to the curb. Such a move would have been seen as a major effort on the part of the White House to work with Congress. By bringing out the big argument, the only argument, that the White House has in defense of these two - Rove and Miers - they have lost the center of the board - or in non-chess terms, they have lost the advantage and likely, they will lose the game.

Karl Rove, however, will not remain loyal if his own ass is on the line - which it is. Mark my words, protecting Rove and Miers by bringing out the only argument the administration can make (instead of holding it for issues such as the wiretapping program) is not only a bad move, it is a mistake of serious and likely game-ending proportions.

larisa is one of the more astute observers on the scene besides being a crack investigative reporter... i wouldn't dismiss anything she has to say out of hand...

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"When you've robbed a man of everything he's no longer in your power"

larisa offers a very sobering perspective on just exactly where we stand today in the united states of america...

When the ABA found out about the signing statements, ... they called a meeting to review the legality and Constitutionality of the President's pretend-play at being fully the decider. After they found that most of the signing statements were in direct violation to the separation of powers, they issued a memo.

I wonder what would have happened if legal minds, practicing attorneys, and DOJ officials stood in peaceful protest to any number of extra-legal activities of this administration? It would be a wonder to behold. In Pakistan, that is what the attorneys did [protesting the removal of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry by President Pervez Musharraf], still in their best court room apparel, when they were attacked by the police. The violence now is in reaction to the government violence and it will beget more violence - such is the cycle.

It would really be a something to see our legal scholars, practicing attorneys, DOJ officials standing together, and dressed for court and we the people watching from the national jury pool. Not even when habeas corpus was suspended and left up to the interpretation of the President (The Military Commissions Act) did our legal minds leave their offices to stand together on the sidewalks.

Perhaps the difference between the two countries is best summarized by a quote from one of my favorite writers,  Alexander Solzhenitsyn:

"You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything he's no longer in your power -- he's free again."

We have not yet lost enough it seems, but do we want to get to that point?  I don't. Do you?

i push this same theme so frequently that i sometimes just want to throw up my hands in frustration... the current criminal occupants of the white house have been amazingly successful in their ceaseless campaign to destroy the very things that the united states was founded on and, yes, the bush administration is under siege but not nearly to the degree that it SHOULD be and so richly DESERVES to be...

i spent friday evening and all day yesterday standing in front of a room of graduate students, all of them close to finishing their mba degrees... it was a good class, solid people, salt-of-the-earth people, smart people, and we not only learned a lot together, we discussed important topics, topics like dignity, equity and integrity... we also had a good time... moreover, during the long, 600-mile round trip drive, i enjoyed the stark, often dramatic scenery of the great basin... it was easy to slip into a sense of ease, a sense that all is as it should be, that the world continues to turn, and that the sunsets are always beautiful... and, yes, all of that is true... but...

how much better things could be if we could just get our country on the right track... think of the possibilities... i gazed out over the amazing beauty of the vast and empty high desert and speculated about how much better it would be if we could speed from place to place WITHOUT leaving a trail of hydrocarbons in our wake, how much better it would be if we had all of our needs met WITHOUT leaving mining scars scattered across the rugged, sage-covered ridges, how much better it would be to be able to travel our highways WITHOUT being part the endless parade of giant trucks ceaselessly shuttling largely unnecessary consumer items from coast to coast, how much better things would be if we could bring our necessities home WITHOUT seeing the plastic shopping bags we carried them home in pinned to tumbleweeds and barbed wire fences...

i know this much... as long as power and money-addicted people are running our country and the governments of virtually all of the other countries of the world, we are never going to get there... we simply HAVE to toss these bastards out... if we are ever going to get to where we all so desperately want to be, and, yes, NEED to be, they have to go...

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Pretending to vote, pretending to live in a democracy

late on a sunday afternoon, following a high-desert "spring" day of rain, snow, sleet, wind, and the occasional cameo appearance of the sun, larisa's mood matches my own...

If only we had a Congress or an FBI or some body to do their duty and honor their oath of office. If only we had a fully functional fourth estate to cover this story with the same obsessive focus as when they covered Ann Nicole Smith's death. If only we could make a citizen's arrest without being put on the no fly list. Oh well, we can pretend to vote, just like we can pretend we live in a democracy.

< sigh > if only...

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Big Tent Democrat is pissed off with Obama

i have to agree...

Look at what one of his key advisors Samantha Power said:

I got to talk a little bit about it with Samantha Power, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author on the subject of genocide and an informal advisor to Mr. Obama's campaign who is helping to write the speech. "We're going to hear something very unusual on the left, which is a genuine pride in what America can be again," she told me.

That is outrageous! This is Obama and his campaign in a nutshell - 'look how great I am, I am not like those other Dems who hate America, religion and Republicans.'

yes, that IS outrageous...

i was just now commenting on larisa's blog... she's traveling in a 3d world country and experiencing a fair amount of anti-american sentiment, and i was reflecting that i get the same here in argentina... however, as always, when i show warmth and goodwill and a willingness to accept people as they are, people almost never fail to reciprocate... folks are still very warm to the american PEOPLE, they just don't care for our government, and who can blame them...

i happen to care very much for my country and hate to see what a relatively small group of criminals is doing to it... i don't spend most of my waking hours blogging because i hate the u.s...

obama had better get a goddam clue... he's already lost me...

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