Bomb Strike This Summer,Taking a Wikileak

Bob Herbert
Dexter Filkins
Glenn Greenwald

Colorado Politics
Dana Milbank
John Andrews

"The U.S. doesn’t win wars anymore. We just funnel the stressed and underpaid troops in and out of the combat zones, while all the while showering taxpayer billions on the contractors and giant corporations that view the horrors of war as a heaven-sent bonanza" - Bob Herbert

"Corruption and dishonesty are among the Washington vices which receive substantial attention, but cowardice is often overlooked, despite how pervasive it is." - Glenn Greenwald

I've been mulling it over, looking at different scenarios for the Presidential election in 2012. It's a given that Barack Obama will seek re-election. If he doesn't, then we may see a slate of Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi running together. One of the reasons that Republicans slam Nancy is because she is very organized; she hasn't lost one vote since she has been Speaker of the House. On the Republican side, I just don't see any males winning unanimous support. It depends on how well Mit Romney does once he comes out of the shadows. But Sarah Palin's support hasn't waned since she quit office to go out among the people and candidates, so I actually see her running on the Republican ticket. She won't try to declare herself an Independent and run, she would rather try to bring the tea party element into the Republican fold and then use them. So, Either Obama or Clinton running against Palin would be a dream match for a blogger like me...

I predicted that this Summer was going to be intense, and I see nothing developing to deter away from an Iran - Israeli flareup. After the UN sanctions passed, Russia said it would further delay in sending the bunch of S-300 missiles that Iran had bought and paid for. The US is rerouting and sending Navy ships to the Persian Gulf, while the Israelis have sent three nuclear submarines into the Arabian Gulf. Now, mysterious intelligence officials have leaked that the Saudis will allow Israeli jets to fly over their airspace if there is to be a strike on Iran: "The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way," a US defence source in the area was quoted as saying. "They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren't scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the [US] state department."


Israel, which regards Iran as its principal threat, has refused to rule out using military action to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The Times said Riyadh, which views Iran as a regional threat, had agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance in the event of any bombing raid on Iran. A source in Saudi Arabia was quoted by the newspaper as saying that the arrangement was common knowledge within defence circles in the kingdom. "We all know this. We will let them (the Israelis) through and see nothing," he said."




Haaretz asked a member of the Saudi Royal Family, who denied everything with a Mr Spock-like response: "Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf, speaking to the London-based Arab daily Al-Shark El-Awast, refuted that report, saying such a move "would be against the policy adopted and followed by the Kingdom."


According to Al-Shark El-Awast report, bin Nawaf reiterated the Saudi Arabia's rejection of any violation of its territories or airspace, adding that it would be "illogical to allow the Israeli occupying force, with whom Saudi Arabia has no relations whatsoever, to use its land and airspace."


Iran greeted the news by announcing they were going ahead with plans to build 10 nuclear enrichment plants, so go ahead baby, we'll put the green movement up on the front lines, chain them to our existing reactors, and invite you in for a regime change, babyyyyyy... After all, there isn't any internal strife here, and we may never hold another election, just like our Shiite brother state of Iraq.

going after the whiz kids...

There is something squirrelly going on at the Justice Department and White House. That weird shit goes on at the Pentagon is a given, but I was hoping that Eric Holder had big enough cojones to turn things around, a little more transparency and honesty towards the public. But, something changes our starry-eyed public servants once they've become exposed to secrets that affect our National Security. Guantanamo is still open, there are more prisons that hold people without charges than ever before, we are using more mercenaries in Afghanistan and Pakistan than ever before, and Barack Obama seems enamored with CIA covert operations, so much that he has come up with a friggin' assassination list. I wonder if Osama is actually on the thing, or did they pencil his name in at the last minute? All this talk about Bushites trampling our freedoms, and here the young Obamasans were drooling and straining at the leash...

Instead of making it safer for people to turn in evidence of wrongdoing, we are now going after those who take leaks :-) and those who are leakers: "In 17 months in office, President Obama has already outdone every previous president in pursuing leak prosecutions. His administration has taken actions that might have provoked sharp political criticism for his predecessor, George W. Bush, who was often in public fights with the press."

Not only are they after people whom the Bush administration were after, but the Pentagon is in a manhunt to find the founder of the Wikileaks website: "Pentagon investigators are trying to determine the whereabouts of the Australian-born founder of the secretive website Wikileaks for fear that he may be about to publish a huge cache of classified State Department cables that, if made public, could do serious damage to national security... The officials acknowledge that even if they found the website founder, Julian Assange, it is not clear what they could do to block publication of the cables on Wikileaks, which is nominally based on a server in Sweden and bills itself as a champion of whistleblowers. “We’d like to know where he is; we’d like his cooperation in this,” one U.S. official said of Assange.

American officials said Pentagon investigators are convinced that Assange is in possession of at least some classified State Department cables leaked by a 22-year-old Army intelligence specialist, Bradley Manning of Potomac, Maryland, who is now in custody in Kuwait... The cables, which date back over several years, went out over interagency computer networks available to the Army and contained information related to American diplomatic and intelligence efforts in the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, the diplomat said."


Link to Wikileaks Organization, see what all the fuss is about...

The US officials don't want the cables released because there is information that criticizes other governments who are our allies, and it would piss them off to know what our people thought of them. All secrets that are labeled top secret, or for National Security, aren't really secrets; that's all bs made up to impress others who have the clearance to read them. They do contain embarrassing information that lists our intelligence failures and assessments of individuals as being idiots, and we don't want to hurt their vain, arrogant feelings because we still need them to cooperate with us. We also would look like fools who throw money away if our failures became public knowledge, much like paying $200 for a toilet seat - the company who sold it to you on a no-bid contract looks like a crook, and the people who OK'd buying the seat look like dumb bureaucrats or people looking for a kickback.

 It's the same reasoning the Pentagon has a $59 billion black budget, all for projects you don't have a need to know about. The projects include a lot of really dumb ideas for planes, tanks, and weapons as well as missions like the one that is in Iran right now, illegally looking for Osama bin Laden. If we screw it up, we don't want you to know. If we are successful, we still don't want you to know, just those who hold the purse strings for next year. Then, they feel extra-special knowing those stories that they can't share with you because it would be a violation of National Security, and are more inclined to be generous when budget time comes around. Right, Diane Feinstein?

Anyway, time to put the comic books and action DVD's away and start acting like a rational adult, Mr Holder, or else you might be pointed at, as the one that is bringing Fascism to the White House. Then, I will have to listen to Glenn Beck say I-told-you-so for over a week, while dressed as a Nazi, one of his favorite costumes...

There's a man who lives a life of danger

For everyone he meets, he stays a stranger

with every move he makes and every chance he takes

Odds are you won't live to see tomorrow

Secret agent man, secret agent man

They're giving you a number

and they take away your name

Beware of those pretty faces you find

'cause a pretty face can hide an evil mind

Be careful what you say

'cause you could give yourself away

Odds are you won't live to see tomorrow

Secret agent man, secret agent man

They're giving you a number

and they take away your name

Secret agent man, secret agent man

They're giving you a number

and they take away your name

Chilling on the Riviera one day

Lying on the Bombay alley the next day

Don't let the wrong word slip

while kissing persuasive lips

Odds are you won't live to see tomorrow

Secret agent man, secret agent man

They're giving you a number

and they take away your name