The U.S. global military empire just keeps on a' truckin'

the u.s. is going to try to maintain its position as universal lord and master no matter how flimsy the house of cards, how empty the coffers, how hypocritical the posturing, or how bankrupt the system...

today's nyt...

The Obama administration plans to bolster the American military presence in the Persian Gulf after it withdraws the remaining troops from Iraq this year, according to officials and diplomats. That repositioning could include new combat forces in Kuwait able to respond to a collapse of security in Iraq or a military confrontation with Iran.

[...]

In addition to negotiations over maintaining a ground combat presence in Kuwait, the United States is considering sending more naval warships through international waters in the region.

With an eye on the threat of a belligerent Iran, the administration is also seeking to expand military ties with the six nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. While the United States has close bilateral military relationships with each, the administration and the military are trying to foster a new “security architecture” for the Persian Gulf that would integrate air and naval patrols and missile defense.

when i look at what's going on in this world and then read shit like this, it feels like i'm reading something from the historical archives... i can't wait until it really IS in the historical archives...

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Some backstory on Yemen and the latest "terrorist" incident

why does none of this come as any surprise...?

from the yemen post...

Mohammed al-Shaibah, Air Cargo Director for Yemenia Airways said to Yemen Post, "No UPS cargo plane left Yemeni lands over the land 48 hours. These accusations are false and baseless."

He added, "No UPS or DHL cargo packages heading to Chicago through Yemen took place in the last 48 hours as well."

"All packages are checked very carefully in Yemen, and there is no evidence to prove that this package came through Yemen."

from the yemen news agency...

No UPS cargo planes left Yemen to other countries in the last days and there are no direct flights from Yemen to the United Kingdom or the United States, a Yemeni official said, after allegations that British and U.S. officials had found suspicious packages on planes that originated in Yemen.

The official wondered how the media mentioned the name of Yemen reporting that an explosive device was found onboard a cargo plane that landed in London coming from Yemen.

UPS planes never land or take off in Yemen, the official made clear.

The security measures at Yemeni airports are tightened and the authorities search passengers and luggage well, the official said, adding that Yemen has recently installed modern checking systems that can detect dangerous or suspicious materials to the safety of passengers and planes.

We urge the media not to make hasty judgments about sensitive issues and the media should wait until investigations reveal the truth, the official said, as he pointed out that Yemen has launched an investigation into the allegations and planned to coordinate with the United Arab Emirates, Britain and the U.S. over the issue.

but, of course, none of this is being reported by our ever-diligent news media in the u.s...

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Pathetic irony

read this and weep...

A 20-year-old Romanian looking for work hid in the wheel well of a jet in Vienna and survived a 90-minute flight to London, police said Wednesday.

The man told British authorities that he crawled "under the wire" of the Vienna airport's perimeter fence and climbed into the undercarriage of a private Boeing 747 parked near a construction site for a new terminal, Schwechat police chief Leo Lauber said.

Lauber said the jet belonged to a high-ranking sheik from the United Arab Emirates and took off from the Austrian capital Sunday night without any passengers on board.

[...]

Britain has restrictions on the number of Romanians working in the U.K., even though both nations are in the European Union.

think about it... a poor romanian, a guy who's just looking for a job, a romanian the uk won't let in even though both countries are eu nations, stows away in a 747, fercryinoutloud, an unimaginably expensive flying machine, owned by a obscenely rich uae sheik, that then flies to the uk WITHOUT passengers... how sad is that...? at least he survived...

it reminds me when i was working at dulles airport in d.c., an arab sheik's unmarked A-340 would regularly show up at the private aviation terminal... i knew when it was getting ready to leave when i would see all sorts of the sheik's recent purchases being loaded into the cargo bay...

there's evidently no limit to the humiliations the super-rich elites can inflict on the masses...

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Something very interesting out of the UAE

the guys sitting on top of that much money don't just suddenly have their gliders go down in a lake and disappear... there's a really rotten smell coming from this story and i ain't buyin' a word of it...

The United Arab Emirates state news agency says the head of Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund — the world's largest — is missing after his glider crashed in Morocco.

The official Emirates News Agency said that Ahmed bin Zayed Al Nahyan's glider went down in a lake in Morocco on Friday. The pilot of the aircraft was rescued in good condition, but authorities continued the search for Al Nahyan.

Al Nahyan is the managing director of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. He is also the younger brother of Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the leader of the United Arab Emirates.

if abu dhabi, dubai and the uae hadn't recently taken such a giant financial drubbing, a story like this would still raise significant doubts but, given recent developments, the odor is overpowering...

and you gotta believe ahmed's disappearance has some connection to the drama that's being played out between dubai and abu dhabi...

Dubai said on Thursday it would recapitalize Dubai World DBWLD.UL and repay property unit Nakheel's bonds in full, with $9.5 billion of aid in a debt offer that would promise creditors all their money back in up to eight years.

The Dubai government said $5.7 billion in funds from a previous loan made by Abu Dhabi would provide the lion's share of the funding, and that Dubai would add around $4 billion of its own resources.

Analysts had expected Abu Dhabi to step in with more cash.

[...]

Abu Dhabi gave Dubai $10 billion late last year in a two-part bailout made up of $5 billion from Abu Dhabi-linked banks in November and another $5 billion from the government.

[...]

British historian Christopher Davidson said Dubai's indebtedness to Abu Dhabi may dent its political clout in the UAE. The constitution divides power between the two emirates equally, with decisions on substantive issues requiring the support of both. The smaller emirates have less sway.

[...]

"One concern is that is nobody knows the full extent of the debt of Dubai," Davidson said. "Abu Dhabi can't sign a blank cheque, it doesn't have unlimited resources itself. It can't underwrite Dubai completely."

these people don't play nice and a great deal goes on that's shrouded in family secrecy... there have been a lot of enemies made, most of whom were either bought off or summarily disposed of...

i posted on this back in april of last year...

A video tape smuggled out of the United Arab Emirates shows a member of the country's royal family mercilessly torturing a man with whips, electric cattle prods and wooden planks with protruding nails.

A man in a UAE police uniform is seen on the tape tying the victim's arms and legs, and later holding him down as the Sheikh pours salt on the man's wounds and then drives over him with his Mercedes SUV.

In a statement to ABC News, the UAE Ministry of the Interior said it had reviewed the tape and acknowledged the involvement of Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, brother of the country's crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed.

"The incidents depicted in the video tapes were not part of a pattern of behavior," the Interior Ministry's statement declared.

but hey...! it's all in the family, right...?

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Do you suppose Mossad might actually be called to account...? [UPDATE]

[UPDATE and BUMPED]

i had a feeling this story would grow legs...

West turns diplomatic screw – but Israel refuses to crack

'We know nothing', say ambassadors called for talks over how assassins who killed Hamas leader were holding foreign passports

Dubai yesterday explicitly accused Mossad of assassinating Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh on its soil, as David Miliband declared the use of British passports in the plot "an outrage" and demanded "full co-operation" from Israel in finding out what had happened.

The Foreign Secretary's comments came after an apparently fruitless meeting in London between the Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor and Sir Peter Ricketts, the permanent secretary who heads Britain's diplomatic service, which lasted just 14 minutes with no sign of any intelligence being shared. As the Israeli envoy left Whitehall, he said: "I was unable to add any information. I could not shed new light on the said matters".

There was a similar outcome in Dublin where the Israeli ambassador, Zion Evrony, had an hour's meeting with a senior Irish diplomat over how three Eire passports were used in the assassination. "I told him I know nothing about the event," Mr Evrony said afterwards.

oh, please... don't tell me israel knows nothing... what a bunch o'crap...

-------------------------

hey... dubai and the uae are no shining lights where shady police state tactics are concerned, but let's face it, israel is long overdue for some public accounting about its policy of wholesale assassinations... this is going to get a lot more interesting before it's over...

Dubai police directly accused Israel's Mossad spy agency of orchestrating the hit squad slaying of a Hamas commander as the number of suspects rose Thursday to 18.

Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim was quoted as saying he was "99 percent, if not 100 percent" certain that Mossad was behind last month's slaying of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a luxury hotel room in Dubai.

The comments — which appeared on a newspaper Web Site — came as international pressure mounted for Israel to answer questions about possible links to the Jan. 19 killing.

The investigation also widened to the United States. Emirates authorities said the alleged killers used fraudulent passports to open credit cards accounts through U.S.-based banks, an official said.

"Our investigations reveal that Mossad is involved in the murder of al-Mabhouh," Tamim was quoted as saying by The National newspaper, which is owned by the government of Abu Dhabi.

He told another local paper, Dubai-based Gulf News, that: "All elements strongly indicate the involvement of the Mossad."

actually, i'm glad to see this... israel has operated with almost complete impunity for a long, long time... way TOO long, in fact...

p.s. interestingly enough, the hotel where the guy was popped, the al bustan rotana in dubai, was the hotel where i stayed for a night last year...

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When anxiety strikes, go for the status quo - sell more weapons and ditch accountability for the guilty

an addict's first response to anxiety is to turn to the substance(s) of choice... in the case of the leaders of our dear country, the substances high up on the preferred list have always been 1) selling more arms and defense systems to ensure that the bottomless cravings of the super-rich elites who profit from our policy of endless war continue to be fed and 2) that those who supported those elites by aiding and abetting criminal and unconstitutional actions remain unaccountable...

so, on this sunday morning, the last day of the first month of the year 2010, i wake to find a two-fer...

U.S. steps up arms sales to Persian Gulf allies

The Obama administration is quietly working with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies to speed up arms sales and rapidly upgrade defenses for oil terminals and other key infrastructure in a bid to thwart future military attacks by Iran, according to former and current U.S. and Middle Eastern government officials.

The initiatives, including a U.S.-backed plan to triple the size of a 10,000-man protection force in Saudi Arabia, are part of a broader push that includes unprecedented coordination of air defenses and expanded joint exercises between the U.S. and Arab militaries, the officials said. All appear to be aimed at increasing pressure on Tehran.

The efforts build on commitments by the George W. Bush administration to sell warplanes and antimissile systems to friendly Arab states to counter Iran's growing conventional arsenal. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are leading a regionwide military buildup that has resulted in more than $25 billion in U.S. arms purchases in the past two years alone.

cool, eh...? now, let's have the double shot...

No sanctions for Bush lawyers who approved waterboarding, report will say

Bush administration lawyers who paved the way for sleep deprivation and waterboarding of terrorism suspects exercised poor judgment but will not be referred to authorities for possible sanctions, according to a forthcoming ethics report, a legal source confirmed.

The work of John C. Yoo and Jay S. Bybee, officials in the Bush Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, provided the basis for controversial interrogation strategies that critics likened to torture in the years after al-Qaeda's 2001 terrorist strikes on American soil. The men and their OLC colleague, Steven G. Bradbury, became focal points of anger from Senate Democrats and civil liberties groups because their memos essentially insulated CIA interrogators and contractors from legal consequences for their roles in harsh questioning.

The reasoning, set out in a series of secret memos only months after Sept. 11, 2001, prompted a multi-year investigation by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility, which reviews the ethics of Justice lawyers. The legal source was not authorized to discuss the report's conclusions and described them on the condition of anonymity.

ya know, sometimes i just hate reading the news...

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Dubai ushers in the New Year with massive fireworks display (using more money they don't have)

from itn courtesy of juan cole...

The new decade makes it's entrance in the Middle East - the United Arab Emirates welcomes it with fireworks over the Burj Al Arab building.

once you're accustomed to obscene, over-the-top, insanely ostentatious displays, it's hard to give 'em up...

HAPPY NEW YEAR...!!

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Abu Dhabi caves on its gambling-addicted neighbor, Dubai

in twelve-step language, this is called enabling... abu dhabi is enabling dubai, its whited sepulchre neighbor and fellow emirate, to continue to pursue the same raw, naked greed that got it into trouble in the first place, exactly the same strategy followed by the u.s. and europe in bailing out its too-big-to-fail banksters...

Oil-rich Abu Dhabi on Monday provided $10 billion to help pay off some of the debts of an ailing property company owned by the government of neighboring Dubai, at least temporarily averting a crisis over the finances of the high-flying desert sheikhdom.

and dubai may not be the only sovereign state facing difficulties...

Dubai "could well be the tip of the iceberg in terms of over-leveraged nations," analysts at India's HDFC Bank wrote in a report, as indicated by recent fears about a possible Greek default.

[...]

"We are in completely uncharted territory" that could redefine the relationship between Western investors and the government-backed companies often set up to develop projects here and in other emerging markets, said Chavan Bhogaita, head of credit research at the National Bank of Abu Dhabi.

[...]

These are nations where the distinctions between government, ruling family and government-owned entities are often difficult to discern, where clan ties can help acquire virtually open-ended credit, and where bankruptcy and finance laws are not well tested.

In Dubai's case, "one could in fact argue that the state is its corporations," Woertz wrote.

meanwhile back in dubai...

Housing prices have fallen nearly 50 percent so far this year, putting Dubai below Estonia for the biggest decline, according to a recent report by the London-based Knight Frank real estate group.

you might be tempted to think that this would be a wake-up call for dubai just as i was tempted to think that the on-going financial collapse in the u.s. would be a wake-up call for us... sadly, the small store of wisdom i've gained over the years tells me otherwise... when you're hopelessly addicted to power and money, it's really hard to give it up... there's no nicotine patches for those two drugs...

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Dubai finally admits a bit of the truth

i love how the 2d paragraph starts - "the fallout came swiftly"... 'scuse me, but what a pile of bullshit... it may have SEEMED swift but only for those who haven't been paying attention...

hardly a secret, dubai's bailout request to abu dhabi (see below) made dubai the butt of jokes as the whimpering plea of a compulsive gambler... there were rumblings last january when i posted about those jumping ship (here) and have devoted a number of other posts (here) to my impressions of that supremely soulless place that harbors the all-too-common delusion that money can buy not just anything, but EVERYTHING...

perhaps the biggest reason the dubai debt crisis took the world by surprise is the intense repression of news exercised by obscenely bloated, super rich sheiks that call the shots in the uae... the fact that it's hitting the news at all suggests to me that the problem is massively more serious than they're letting on...

Just a year after the global downturn derailed Dubai's explosive growth, the city is now so swamped in debt that it's asking for a six-month reprieve on paying its bills — causing a drop on world markets Thursday and raising questions about Dubai's reputation as a magnet for international investment.

The fallout came swiftly and was felt globally after Wednesday statement that Dubai's main development engine, Dubai World, would ask creditors for a "standstill" on paying back its $60 billion debt until at least May. The company's real estate arm, Nakheel — whose projects include the palm-shaped island in the Gulf — shoulders the bulk of money due to banks, investment houses and outside development contractors.

In total, the state-backed networks nicknamed Dubai Inc. are $80 billion in the red and the emirate needed a bailout earlier this year from its oil-rich neighbor Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

boo-freakin'-hoo...

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The BIG fear - when food is unavailable at any price

so, if you've got money - lots of it - whaddaya gonna do...? why, buy up farm land from poor people and impoverished countries, folks so desperate for money they're practically willing to give it away, and lock it up for yourself... lovely, eh...?

A variety of factors — some transitory, like the spike in food prices, and others intractable, like global population growth and water scarcity — have created a market for farmland, as rich but resource-deprived nations in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere seek to outsource their food production to places where fields are cheap and abundant.

[...]

Foreign investors — some of them representing governments, some of them private interests — are promising to construct infrastructure, bring new technologies, create jobs and boost the productivity of underused land so that it not only feeds overseas markets but also feeds more Africans. (More than a third of the continent’s population is malnourished.) They’ve found that impoverished governments are often only too welcoming, offering land at giveaway prices. A few transactions have received significant publicity, like Kenya’s deal to lease nearly 100,000 acres to the Qatari government in return for financing a new port, or South Korea’s agreement to develop almost 400 square miles in Tanzania. But many other land deals, of near-unprecedented size, have been sealed with little fanfare.

Investors who are taking part in the land rush say they are confronting a primal fear, a situation in which food is unavailable at any price.

it's simple... when you've got more money than god, you just buy the means of production...

“When some governments stop exporting rice or wheat, it becomes a real, serious problem for people that don’t have full self-sufficiency,” said Al Arabi Mohammed Hamdi, an economic adviser to the Arab Authority for Agricultural Investment and Development. Sitting in his office in Dubai, overlooking the cargo-laden wooden boats moored along the city’s creek, Hamdi told me his view, that the only way to assure food security is to control the means of production.

[...]

“There is no problem about money,” Hamdi said. “It’s about where and how.”

the problem with the super-rich elites, particularly those from the gulf states and saudi arabia, is that they honestly believe that money is the answer to everything... unfortunately, so far, they're proving they're right... meanwhile, the rest of us are left to suck hind tit...

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The nightmare that is Dubai

i've now passed through dubai almost a dozen times over the past year and probably spent half that many nights in dubai hotels... in no way do i claim that makes me an expert on dubai... at best, i'm a casual, but still a reasonably intelligent and perceptive observer... however, i've found that the article that is very briefly excerpted below to be an accurate reflection of my own assessment...

i strongly recommend reading the whole thing here...

[Dubai] is a city built from nothing in just a few wild decades on credit and ecocide, suppression and slavery. Dubai is a living metal metaphor for the neo-liberal globalised world that may be crashing -- at last -- into history.

my own snarky description of dubai has always been "las vegas without a sense of humor," and then i heard jon stewart's description: "dubai is the bastard child of las vegas and saudi arabia"... i think jon and i are on the same wavelength...

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On the road (again) plus a few Dubai insights...

i flew from kabul here to dubai yesterday... the flight departure from kabul was delayed and the aircraft we were to have departed on was finally switched after we stood on the ramp in a cold wind waiting to board for nearly an hour, freezing our respective tushies off... when we arrived in dubai, the temp was just over 90 with a sandstorm in progress...

i should add that, flying over afghanistan's central mountains, i was stunned by the amount of snow... those mountains are extremely rugged and barren, but the current snow levels are so high that all the harsh edges are now soft and rounded and the entire landscape looks like a big, soft, fluffy, slightly rumpled, startlingly white bed comforter, not unlike the one i'm looking at right now on my hotel room bed...

i should also point out that "sandstorm" doesn't necessarily mean blowing sand, although that's what's behind it... it also means fine, sandy, brown dust kicked up by wind blowing sand somewhere else that blows over huge regions, reduces visibility, and is generally quite unpleasant to look at... dubai is vulnerable to such from two different directions, iran and saudi arabia, depending on which way the wind is blowing...

yesterday afternoon, a colleague of mine and i visited with an egyptian general manager who is here running four processing plants for a local investor and he filled us in on the current economic situation in dubai and the gulf states in general... nothing disastrous yet but people are starting to stretch out the time it takes them to pay their bills... we asked him if he was worried about people starting to not pay at all and, in response, were treated to a detailed run-down on how the government protects business people... in short, if someone doesn't pay within a reasonable period, you can call the cops who show up asap, give the guy one month to fork over and, if he doesn't, it's off to jail, no passing go, no collecting $200... he also said that a number of privately-financed construction projects are on hold and that government-financed projects are moving ahead but more slowly... then he dispensed another another fascinating bit of insight...

the rule of law here is strictly enforced and apparently no one is above it... a high-level government official, someone very close to their majesties, got caught in a shady deal in lebanon... he's now cooling his heels in prison for fifteen years... what i found particularly interesting is that the government also seized all of his assets and put them in a trust out of which they are insuring his family is completely taken care of, housing, food, education, everything and what the assets don't cover, the government makes up the difference... yeah, things are done a bit differently here... the good news is that no one operates with impunity, completely unlike afghanistan and even my own home country (whose name i will not mention here)...

today, i fly on to amman and then to aqaba tomorrow morning to work through the middle of the month before returning to kabul where i will remain until the end of april... as much as afghanistan has come to occupy a spot in my heart, it's still a hard place to be and i'm glad to have a short respite before the six-week stint to come...

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Dubai ain't immune to the global financial meltdown

from daijiworld via juan cole...

Local police have found at least 3,000 automobiles -- sedans, SUVs, regulars -- abandoned outside Dubai International Airport in the last four months. Police say most of the vehicles had keys in the ignition, a clear sign they were left behind by owners in a hurry to take flight.

The global economic crisis has brought Dubai's economic progress, mirrored by its soaring towers and luxurious resorts, to a stuttering halt. Several people have been laid off in the past months after the realty boom started unraveling.

On the night of December 31, 2008 alone more than 80 vehicles were found at the airport. "Sixty cars were seized on the first day of this year," director general of Airport Security, Mohammed Bin Thani, told DNA over the phone. On the same day, deputy director of traffic, colonel Saif Mohair Al Mazroui, said they seized 22 cars abandoned at a prohibited area in the airport.

Faced with a cash crunch and a bleak future ahead, there were no goodbyes for the migrants -- overwhelmingly South Asians, mostly Indians - just a quiet abandoning of the family car at the airport and other places.

While 2,500 vehicles have been found dumped in the past four months outside Terminal III, which caters to all global airlines, Terminal II, which is only used by Emirates Airlines, had 160 cars during the same period.

i've been through dubai several times... wherever i am, i always make it a point to talk to taxi drivers... i like to hear their thoughts on things because they usually have their fingers on the pulse of what's going on locally... every single taxi driver i've spoken with in dubai has been either from india or pakistan, most having been recruited by the government, most there without their families, most there trying to earn some money to send home, and most not caring much for dubai, the locals or how they're treated... they come on two-year, renewable contracts with a one-month paid home leave at the end of the first year... some had already renewed, some were thinking about it, and some said "no way"... it's interesting to know that, now that dubai has at long last fallen on hard times, many are simply saying "to hell with it"... can't say as i blame them...


Dubai from the east bank of Deira Creek
29 November 2008

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Oil, money and obscenity

OPEC Says Members Won't Pump More Oil
As Crude Price Sets Record, Cartel's Intent Is Questioned

Though OPEC's production decision was widely expected, Naimi's comments and the wording of the group's communique added to concern that OPEC is more worried about pumping too much oil for weakening economies than it is about the possible harm that high oil prices might do to those economies.

In its statement after the meeting in Vienna, OPEC pointed to "the economic slowdown in the U.S.A., which, together with the deepening credit crisis in financial markets, is increasing the downside risks for world economic growth and, consequently, demand for crude oil."

yeah, they're worried about declining revenue... gosh, i would be too if it meant i'd have to forego goodies like this...


Make and Model: Bugatti Veyron
Owner: Sheikh Mohammad's Son, Sheikh Rashid Bin Mohammed Al Maktoum
Cost: $GBP5M/$USD10M
Location, Dubai, UAE
Engine: V16 engine, 1000bhp, 10 radiators
Top speed: 407km/hr

taking obscenity to undreamed-of heights...

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Tony Blair, middle east peace emissary

remember when that was such a big deal back in july...?

The United Arab Emirates said on Wednesday it was high time for serious efforts toward Middle East peace, as former British prime minister Tony Blair arrived in the Gulf state on his first visit to the region as an emissary for the Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators.

"It is high time to find real mechanism to achieve peace...all efforts should be exerted towards just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East so that the Palestinian people achieve their legitimate rights," UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan told Blair.

and now...?

< crickets chirping >

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When the possibility of war looms, the jargon flies and the weird turn pro

shamelessly borrowing from my hero, hunter s. thompson: "when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro..."

more war preparations...

The American air force is working with military leaders from the Gulf to train and prepare Arab air forces for a possible war with Iran, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

An air warfare conference in Washington last week was told how American air chiefs have helped to co-ordinate intelligence-sharing with Gulf Arab nations and organise combined exercises designed to make it easier to fight together.

Gen Michael Mosley, the US Air Force chief of staff, used the conference to seek closer links with allies whose support America might need if President George W Bush chooses to bomb Iran.

Pentagon air chiefs have helped set up an air warfare centre in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where Gulf nations are training their fighter pilots and America has big bases. It is modelled on the US Air Force warfare centre at Nellis air force base in Nevada.

Jordan and the UAE have both taken part in combined exercises designed to make sure their air forces can fly, and fight, together and with American jets.

naturally, the jargon was flying thick and fast...

Bruce Lemkin, the American air force deputy under-secretary for international affairs, said: "We need friends and partners with the capabilities to take care of their own security and stability in their regions and, through the relationship, the inter-operability and the will to join us in coalitions when appropriate…

'scuse ME, but WTF did you just say...?

"On its most basic level, it's about flying together, operating together and training together so, if we have to, we can fight together."

oh... ok, then...

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Dick Cheney, Man of War

something to haunt your dreams...

Vice President Dick Cheney fired a new warning shot across the bow of the nation of Iran Friday, saying the United States would prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons.

Speaking aboard an aircraft carrier some four years after President Bush declared victory in "major" Iraq combat operations, Cheney declared, "we want to complete the mission, get it done right and return with honor."

[...]

Cheney spoke as five warplanes stood arrayed behind him. The carrier was some 20 miles off the coast of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, with Iran 150 miles to the East.

"Cheney's visit comes just two days before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was to visit Abu Dhabi," according to AP.

and he had the unmitigated GALL to say this...

Fox New’s Bret Baier told Dick Cheney, “You are portrayed by your opponents and some in the media as this sinister figure, as this cold-blooded warmonger who doesn’t care about the number of body bags going back.” Cheney said that he regrets the casualties, but added, “Obviously, the President bears the major part of the burden. He’s the man with the authority to commit the force.”

dick, m'boy, YOU are the cold-blooded son-of-a-bitch... george is just a cardboard cut-out... you ain't foolin' nobody...

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The REAL purpose of Darth's middle east trip

Scheduled stops include Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

shoulda figgered something was up besides following in condi's footsteps trying to undo whatever she'd managed to do (or to do whatever she hadn't managed to do)...

The governments of Saudi Arabia and the United States are working with other states in the Middle East region to sponsor covert action against Iran, according to a report in this month's edition of The Atlantic [subscribers only]. The report also suggests that covert attacks may occur against Iran's oil sector.

David Samuels, in a lengthy article on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic initiatives in the Middle East, reports that the US is promoting a campaign against Iran that includes covert action.

a reminder from last night's post quoting jeffrey feldman...

Dick Cheney's visit to the Middle East will do to that region what saltwater does to an open wound, what gasoline does to an open flame. Cheney's visit will bring more pain, more flames, more bombs, more lost limbs, more piles of corpses, more puddles of blood, more destroyed Iraqi hopes, more destroyed U.S. military families.

Cheney's visit will send diplomatic efforts backwards, not forwards. It will destroy alliances, not build them.

there's little doubt in my mind that the two most evil men on the planet are dick cheney and karl rove...

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Halliburton's move (cont'd)

(Karen Tumulty posting on Time's Swampland blog...)

Is this about tax breaks? Getting beyond the reach of congressional subpoenas? And what about all that sensitive information that Halliburton has had access to? At a minimum, reincorporating in Dubai would mean that Halliburton will be paying less taxes to the U.S. Treasury, even as it collects billions from government contracts.

[...]

UPDATE: Henry Waxman is already planning to hold a hearing on this, an aide tells me.

like i said earlier...

there are implications here that i'm not sure i can make sense out of, but, my guess is, they're HUGE...

(thanks to think progress...)

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What are we to make of Halliburton moving its HQ to Dubai?

indeed... what ARE we to make of it...? they are forsaking their houston digs and moving right out of the u.s... how very interesting...

Halliburton to Move Headquarters To Dubai, Keeping Office in Houston

DUBAI -- U.S. oil services giant Halliburton Co. will shift its corporate headquarters from Houston to Dubai, Chief Executive Dave Lesar said Sunday.

Halliburton will maintain a corporate office in Houston, but the company will be controlled from its office in the United Arab Emirates, company spokeswoman Cathy Mann explained.

"Halliburton is opening its corporate headquarters in Dubai while maintaining a corporate office in Houston," Ms. Mann said in an email to the Associated Press. "The chairman, president and CEO will office from and be based in Dubai to run the company from the UAE." She clarified "he will work from and his office will be in Dubai."

jerome a paris, posting at daily kos, speculates...

For a company that gets such a significant portion of its income from the US government, this is quite a stunning move, to say the least. Unless it means that they expect that this revenue stream will end soon - or that there is so little oil left in the USA that this is no longer where business will be? Or that it is suddenly becoming safer to stay away from US law enforcement authorities?

yes, i agree... it is stunning news... there are implications here that i'm not sure i can make sense out of, but, my guess is, they're HUGE...

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