After more than an hour of fierce and emotional debate, the senators Wednesday rejected exceptions for incest or rape or for the health of a mother and voted, 23-12, to outlaw all abortions, except those to save a mother’s life.

more…

(Via Warren Ellis and his Grim Meathook Future.)

Two Labour MPs have defied the Official Secrets Act by passing on the contents of a secret British document revealing how President George Bush wanted to bomb the Arabic TV station, al-Jazeera.

The document, a transcript of a meeting between Mr Bush and Tony Blair in April 2004 when the prime minister expressed concern about US military tactics in Iraq, is already the subject of an unprecedented official secrets prosecution in Britain, against an aide to one of the MPs and another man.

read the rest…

(There’s still a bunch of us willing to publish (a la Craig Murray’s telegrams) if anybody out there has a copy of the memo they want to pass on.)

The Guardian: US troops seize award-winning Iraqi journalist
American troops in Baghdad yesterday blasted their way into the home of an Iraqi journalist working for the Guardian and Channel 4, firing bullets into the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife and children.

WASHINGTON - When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief.

After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a ‘’signing statement” — an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law — declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said.

more…

George likes to keep his friends close but his torturing friends even closer.

As does Donald, bless him.

Lenin has more.

The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA’s unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA’s covert actions.

read the rest

On the day of the London bombings, President Bush proclaimed: “The war on terror goes on.” Through the 2004 campaign, his winning theme was terror. He achieved the logic of a unified field theory connecting Iraq to Afghanistan by threading terror through both, despite the absence of evidence. He insisted that if we didn’t fight the terrorists there, we would be fighting them at home. In January, the CIA’s thinktank, the National Intelligence Council, issued a report describing Iraq as the magnet and training and recruiting ground for terrorism. The false rationale for the invasion had become a self-fulfilling prophecy. With his popularity flagging, Bush returned to the formulations that succeeded in his campaign.

read the rest…

The cruel, evil jerks who blew up the London subway last week, despite appropriating al-Qaeda’s name for their website and T-shirts, have about as much to do with al-Qaeda as a Beatles tribute band has to do with the Fab Four.

read the rest…

(I have a lot of time for Palast but he’s a better investigative reporter than polemicist. I imagine this piece was meant more for an American than UK audience but I can’t help feeling it was spectacularly misjudged.)

It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. “Subject: Rove/P&C,” (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. “Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation …” Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, “please don’t source this to rove or even WH [White House]” and suggested another reporter check with the CIA.

read the rest

Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to federal court, presumably revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant on the name of that source, and what might happen to him or her. Tonight, on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show, Lawrence O’Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, claimed to know that name–and it is, according to him, top White House mastermind Karl Rove.

read the rest

Ex-CIA agent Phil Agee is interviewed and gives insight into the USA’s current strategies for pursuing it’s interests, namely “the unfettered access to natural resources, to labor, and to the markets of foreign countries”…

read the rest…

Ostensibly, the pressure should be on the Bush administration itself, which deliberately – and illegally – leaked the identity of a CIA field operative, apparently as a form of revenge against her husband, the diplomat Joseph Wilson, who conducted an investigation and wrote a report undermining the administration’s case for war against Iraq. Instead, however, the special prosecutor’s attempt to pinpoint the identity of the leaker or leakers has focused on two reporters told about the CIA operative in 2002. Both Mr Cooper of Time and Judith Miller of The New York Times have come under relentless pressure to give up the names of their sources, although neither was the first to identify the CIA operative as Mr Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame.

read the rest

Tony Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, told Britain’s incoming ambassador to the US to “get up the arse of the White House and stay there,” according to the now-retired ambassador, Sir Christopher Meyer’s forthcoming memoirs.

read the rest

In Washington Iraq remains close to the centre of politics while in Britain it has all but vanished. So the big news on Capitol Hill is the Democrats’ refusal to confirm John Bolton, the man Bush wants to serve as US ambassador to the UN, in part because of suspicions arising from the lead-up to war. Meanwhile, RAF planes were involved last weekend in bombing raids in north-west Iraq - a marked escalation of their role - and British politics barely stirs. America has woken up; we are aslumber.

read the rest

Despite persistent rumours of injuries among Iraqis consistent with the use of incendiary weapons such as napalm, Adam Ingram, the Defence minister, assured Labour MPs in January that US forces had not used a new generation of incendiary weapons, codenamed MK77, in Iraq.

But Mr Ingram admitted to the Labour MP Harry Cohen in a private letter obtained by The Independent that he had inadvertently misled Parliament because he had been misinformed by the US. “The US confirmed to my officials that they had not used MK77s in Iraq at any time and this was the basis of my response to you,” he told Mr Cohen. “I regret to say that I have since discovered that this is not the case and must now correct the position.”

read the rest

George Bush: “See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”

(via Crooks and Liars)

There’s been some concern expressed by the Bush Administration of late about some of Venezuala’s overseas purchases. To wit: they’re a bit on the naughty side:

Indianapolis Star: Venezuela’s AK-47 deal concerns Rumsfeld

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday criticized Venezuela’s reported efforts to purchase 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles from Russia, suggesting that Venezuela’s possession of so many weapons would threaten the hemisphere.

“I can’t understand why Venezuela needs 100,000 AK-47s. I personally hope it doesn’t happen. I can’t imagine if it did happen it would be good for the hemisphere,” the defense secretary said.

Scoop: Having it both Ways – US On Arms Sale to Venezuela

On March 29, Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez announced that a $1.7 billion (€1.3 billion) sale of vessels and airplanes is currently being negotiated. This deal, which will involve coast guard boats, frigates and aircraft, had officials in Washington muttering under their breath.

Chaves has also signed a deal to buy ten Russian military helicopters for $120m.

Which is why page 210-211 of the Foreign Office’s fourth quarterly Strategic Export Controls Report for 2004, released yesterday, should make for interesting reading at the Pentagon.

Among the items the FCO granted companies permission to export to Venezuela under Open individual Export Licences last year were:

components for naval electronic warfare equipment, components for naval mines, components for torpedoes, components for submarines, components for aircraft carriers, components for combat aircraft, components for combat helicopters, components for heavy machine guns, components for surface to air missile launching equipment, components for guided missile decoying equipment, components for weapon control systems, components for naval light guns, components for anti-ship missiles, components for surface to air missiles, components for anti-submarine rocket launching equipment, components for depth charges, components for heavy machine guns

What are Donald and Condie going to say when they see that little lot? Here’s another taste of what Rice has had to say about Hugo Chavez, this time speaking to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in October 2004:

We haven’t yet gotten to the discussions of political liberalization in Libya, but in international politics it’s always important to say, “Is the trend positive or is the trend negative.” Here I think the trend is probably positive.

In Venezuela, I can’t make that argument. I think President Hugo Chavez is a real problem. I think he will continue to find ways to subvert democracy in his own country. He will continue to find ways to make his neighbors miserable. He will continue his contacts with Fidel Castro, maybe giving Castro one last fling to try to affect the politics of Latin America, which is not a good thing. He’s involved in ways in Colombia with the FARC (Marxist rebels) that are unhelpful.

The key there is to mobilize the region to both watch him and be vigilant about him and to pressure him when he makes moves in one direction or another. We can’t do it alone. This is a region where if we try to do it alone, we actually probably strengthen him. But the OAS (Organization of American States) can do a lot. We’re hopeful that the recognition that he’s not following a democratic course will help mobilize the OAS to do that. They have done it before — with Peru they did it. Watching his activities and making it costly at least politically for Chavez to carry out anti-democratic activities either at home or in the region is really about where we are.

This Chavez guy sounds pretty dangerous. And he’s sitting on a sea of oil. He’s clearly planning for acts of external agression. The argument that he might by shoring up his defences in the face of US sabre-rattling is ludicrous*. Why are we selling him weapons components?

The Foreign Office’s Strategic Export Controls Report for 2004(PDF, 685KB) as a whole makes for gripping reading - some of you won’t be surprised to hear that we sell all kinds of unpleasant items to all kinds of unpleasant people.

Consider this the first in an occasional series.

*I’m being sarcastic.

Venezuela Analysis: Chavez and Foreign Minister Say US-Venezuela Relations Can Improve

Caracas, Venezuela, March 18, 2005—Yesterday Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez took the first step towards thawing tensions between the United States and Venezuela by announcing that Venezuela wants to improve relations between the two countries. “We want to continue to send 1.5 million barrels of oil to the United States on a daily basis and to continue doing business… and together contribute to development and peace in the entire world,” Chávez affirmed to journalists in the state of Lara.

First he nominates a self-confessed UN-hater to be the US’s ambassador to the United Nations and now Bush nominates one of America’s leading Straussians, current Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, to be the next head of the World Bank. Not a bad move for Wolfowitz considering he has no discernible economic background.

You don’t need to know what a Straussian is to know that this is yet another middle finger to the world community. Bush, with a straight face, even went as far as to describe Wolfowitz, one of the main architects of the Iraq misadventure, as a “compassionate, decent man”. Having said that, Bush also once described Ariel Sharon, the man who stood by and allowed the massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps to take place in 1982, as a man of peace, so I suppose he has previous for provocative non sequiturs.

Wolfowitz, lest we forget, betrayed his Straussian philosophy - that dictates that if you don’t have a good reason for doing something you are justified in manufacturing that reason - when he uttered the immortal words in trying to justify war with Iraq: “For reasons that have a lot to do with the US government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on: weapons of mass destruction.” And: “Let’s look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil”.

(And, as Michael Moore showed us in Fahrenheit 9/11, Wolfowitz licks his comb to keep his quiff in place.)

According to its website. the World Bank’s “mission is to fight poverty and improve the living standards of people in the developing world.“. But the bank’s crimes are numerous. Investigative journalist Greg Palast’s book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, should be the first port of call for the unitiated, folowed by Globalization and Its Discontents by former senior vice president of the World Bank, Joseph E. Stiglitz.

Palast described World Bank polices - see the impoverishment of Argentina and Ecuador for starters - as “designed for you schmucks on lesser continents”. He has a maxim when investigating this shenanigan or that: “follow the money” - meaning the money trail will lead you to all kinds of interesting places.

I have another one that admittedly doesn’t take as much digging - I don’t have Palast’s time, resources or access to whistleblowers - it runs like this: in whose interests do this shenanigan or that serve? Remember, the World Bank’s “mission is to fight poverty and improve the living standards of people in the developing world”. At an even cursory glance, current US policy - with its cluster bombs, insistence on abstinence programmes and other aid-with-strings-attached initiatives - hasn’t gone a long way to improving the standards of people in the developing world.

“Exporting democracy” US-style, when not through the barrel of a gun, has involved, via the auspices of the World Bank and the IMF, such euphemisms as “flexible job markets” (meaning poorer working conditions), “opening of markets to foreign capital” and “deregulation” (meaning capitalism at its reddest in tooth and claw), regardless of the cost in lives and living standards.

So clearly, from the Bush Administration’s perspective, having Wolfowitz in the driving seat at the World Bank ensure continuity but is also another piece in the neo-con jigsaw.

He could have been grown in a test tube for the job.

UPDATE: He’s on a roll:

The Guardian: Bush ally to head US media watchdog

US broadcasters were today bracing themselves for the opening of a new front in the war against TV indecency after Kevin Martin, a republican with close ties to George Bush and a staunch advocate of family values, was named head of America’s media watchdog.

Would you let this man tell you what to watch? He looks barely old enough to shave.

The nominee to be John Bolton’s successor as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security is Robert Joseph, formerly Senior Director for Proliferation Strategy, Counterproliferation and Homeland Defense on the National Security Council staff.

Joseph has a chequered hsitory and is a classic Bush appointment, as this article shows:

“In January Joseph faxed a paragraph to CIA official Alan Foley and then hammered out by telephone the now infamous line in the State of the Union address about Iraq trying to acquire uranium from Africa.”

“He was deeply involved in making sure the current Administration withdrew from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 with Russia.” (see also John Bolton).

It’ll be interesting to see what developments are made on Joseph’s watch. It’s been little secret that “bunker busters” with low-yield nuclear warheads have been on the agenda for some while now.

And who knows, there might be a chance to test them in the field.

Venezuela Analysis: US State Dept.’s Roger Noriega Says Venezuela Could Soon be “Hopeless”

Noriega went on to say that the U.S. government “will support democratic elements in Venezuela so they can fill the political space to which they are entitled.” He did not specify what form this support would take, but recent investigations have shown that the U.S. Congress, via the National Endowment for Democracy and the US Agency for International Development is spending an average of $5 million per year to support opposition groups in Venezuela.

Following fast on the heels of the news that John Negroponte is to tbe US’s director of national intelligence, comes the word that John Bolton has been nominated by Bush as Ambassador to the UN.

For those unfamiliar, Bolton was until recently undersecretary of state for arms control and international security. A neo-con of the Wolfowitz school with ties to the Project for the New American Century, Bolton has been one of the administration’s leading hawks.

During the disputed Florida count of the Gore/Bush debacle in 2000, Bolton reportedly arrived in the state in a then legal capacity and announced: “I’m with the Bush-Cheney team, and I’m here to stop the count.”

Elevation to the administration did little to soften him. Notoriously, North Korea refused to deal with him in arms talks after he publicly referred to King Jong Il as a “tyrannical dictator” and a leader of an “evil regime”.

Bolton was also instrumental in the resignation of Jose Bustani, director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) after Bustani led initiatives to have countries such as Iraq and North Korea sign up to the Chemical Weapons Convention thus making them accountable, at least on paper, to international inspection bodies. Bustani had been unanimously re-elected to his post the previous year.

On his watch, the US also withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia and refused to ratify the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. He also effectively torpedoed the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention by undermining attempts to enforce the agreement. And this after the anthrax used in the attacks in the US in 2001 was sourced back to American laboratories.

Bolton, without any evidence, also accused Cuba of having a biological weapons programme.

So Bolton’s putative appointment leaves Bush’s recent pronouncements on “a new era of trans-Atlantic unity” sounding very hollow indeed. Just listen to what Bolton himself had to say about the UN in 1994:

“There is no such thing as the United Nations” and “if the U.N. Secretariat building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

“So much for incipient totalitarianism.“

Vheadline.com - US Military: Post-Chavez Venezuela 2002 to pour oil on troubled waters

In an article published on a US military website significantly on April 12, 2002, the Pentagon analysts wrote: The oil markets — reacting to OPEC’s supply curtailments, threats of war, rising violence in the Middle East and political instability in Venezuela — have been on a roller coaster ride over the last month.

In reality, only the Venezuelan situation truly threatened to undermine market stability. With former President Hugo Chavez now removed from power, increased Venezuelan production should bring more stability to oil prices.

Jamaica Observer: Zoellick says Chavez must be stopped

A senior US official said yesterday Latin American nations must join together to protect democracy against a “creeping authoritarianism” now taking root in the region.

Robert Zoellick, designated by President George W Bush for the State Department’s No 2 position, cited in particular the actions of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whom he accused of doing “terrible things”.

Agentina Indymedia - Venezuela: Chavez como Allende?

Canadian Democratic Movement: Russian And Brazilian Arms Sales To Venezuela Could Prove Explosive

Among the most audacious, and perhaps the most ominous, moves made by Chávez in recent days has been his substantial and widely-publicized purchases of arms both from Russia, which has sold Caracas 40 helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikovs, and from Brazil, whose President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva added a surprise twist to the long-awaited summit with Chavez by agreeing to sell Venezuela approximately two dozen Super Tucano light attack aircraft.

BBC News: Uribe and Chavez ‘clear up row’

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe have “decided to turn the page” after weeks of tension over a diplomatic row.

BBC News: Bush names new intelligence head
President George W Bush has appointed John Negroponte as the first US director of national intelligence.

No surprise that this job has gone to a veteran headkicker/political appointee.

If you’re like me and your worldview and political outlook was informed early on by reading about the CIA-sponsored atrocities in Central and South America during the 1970s and 80s, you’ll be familiar with the name John Negroponte.

Google him for the choicer highlights of his auspicous career.

VOA: US Seeks Latin American Initiative on Venezuela

A top State Department official says the United States wants to mobilize Latin American countries to deal with what the Bush administration considers to be Venezuela’s threat to regional stability.