Office of the Independent Blogger

Rudy Giuliani promised this weekend that we would be prepared in the event of an alien attack.

I just want to know whether or not he’ll be consulting Romney’s lawyers.

Now this is an interesting national-security article.

Pentagon investigators thought they had discovered a major shipment of contraband when they intercepted parts for F-14 Tomcat warplanes headed to Iran, via FedEx, from Southern California. Under U.S. sanctions since its 1979 revolution, Tehran had been trying for years to illegally obtain spare parts for the fighters, which are used only in Iran. But when agents descended on the Orange County, Calif., home of Reza Tabib, the 51-year-old former flight instructor at John Wayne Airport who sent the shipment, they were astonished to discover 13,000 other aircraft parts, worth an estimated $540,000, as well as a list of additional requests by an Iranian military officer and two airplane tickets for Tehran.

Caught red-handed, the Iranian-born American citizen pleaded guilty in May and was sentenced to two years in prison.

The Tabib tale is among a growing array of cases either under investigation or being prosecuted for illegally exporting sensitive military equipment, from missile parts and body armor to nuclear submarine technology, according to the Justice Department. Many are destined for groups or countries that target the United States and its allies, such as night-vision equipment destined for Iran and for Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and components for improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, used against U.S. troops in Iraq.

At least 108 countries have “full-fledged procurement networks that work through front companies, joint ventures, trade delegations and other mechanisms to methodically target our government, our private industries and our universities as sources of this material,” Assistant Attorney General Kenneth L. Wainstein told reporters last week. The Pentagon last year reported a 43 percent increase in suspicious foreign contacts with U.S. defense firms.

The biggest offenders are Iran and China, U.S. law enforcement officials say. Since 2000, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have launched more than 600 investigations into illicit Iranian military procurement efforts and more than 540 investigations into illegal exports of restricted U.S. weapons technology to China. Additional investigations have been launched by other U.S. agencies, with overall cases doubling in recent years.

I can’t believe that man only got two years for his crimes. Isn’t that treason? People go to Gitmo forever because they once talked to someone who visited Pakistan on vacation, and a guy who is selling weapons to Iran and has thousands of parts in his apartment — he gets two years, only? What a justice system!

Pardon me, but I was busy for almost all of the day: copy editing my school newspaper and attending two separate parties. I haven’t forgotten about you, Dear Reader, so don’t think that I have! I could never forget about you or this world, and its injustices, which should be talked about wherever possible: like with this story.

Animal control workers seized dozens of dogs and cats from housing projects in the town of Barceloneta and hurled them from a bridge to their deaths, authorities and witnesses said Friday. Mayor Sol Luis Fontanez blamed a contractor hired to take the animals to a shelter. This is an irresponsible, inhumane and shameful act,” he told The Associated Press.

Fontanez said the city hired Animal Control Solution to clear three housing projects of pets after warning residents about a no-pet policy. He said the city paid $60 for every animal recovered and another $100 for each trip to a shelter in the San Juan suburb of Carolina. Raids were conducted on Monday and Wednesday, and residents told TV reporters they saw the animal control workers inject the animals. When they asked what they were giving them, they said they were told it was a sedative for the drive to the shelter.

“They came as if it were a drug raid,” said Alma Febus, an animal welfare activist. “They took away dogs, cats and whatever animal they could find. Some pets were taken away in front of children.” But instead of being taken to a shelter, the pets and strays were thrown 50 feet from a bridge in the neighboring town of Vega Baja, according to Fontanez, witnesses and activists, apparently before dawn Tuesday.

“Many were already dead when they threw them, but others were alive,” said Jose Manuel Rivera, who lives next to the bridge. “Some of the animals managed to climb to the highway even though they were all battered, but about 50 animals remained there, dead.” Rivera said he alerted officials, who spread lime over the animals’ corpses to control the stench. Animal Control Solution owner Julio Diaz said he went to the bridge when he heard of the allegations, but remains unconvinced that the dead animals are the same ones his company collected.

“We have never thrown animals off any place. We always take them to our local shelter and euthanize them,” he said. “They can’t prove that they are the same dogs that we picked up.”

Fontanez said he would cancel the city’s contract with Animal Control Solution and said city lawyers were considering a lawsuit.

Those people should go to prison for a long time. Lots of people should. I don’t feel comfort in saying that, by the way. I don’t want you to believe me some fascist with an enslavement agenda — I just believe in truth and consequences, and I think that people who massacre pets, people or the environment deserve some punishment. How radical of me!

Congratulations, Al Gore. Now do us all a favor and run for President.

The Burmese government met with an American ambassador today and is ready to talk to democratic protesters — provided they stop asking for international sanctions against Burma, which is also why they’re meeting with America, as they want to keep their bountiful resources on the market. I say, No deal. Become democratic or lose American recognition and dollars.

And with regard to money: the IRS says the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer.

What’s new?

Barack Obama is done being a nice guy. He is now intent on nuking Hillary Clinton.

Get it? Haw haw haw.

I really don’t look forward to their smear campaign, even though it’ll make Hillary happy because more men will be talking about her.

In other news, Hillary Clinton says she’ll negotiate with Iran, after deriding Obama for saying he would. It’s a clear decision, in my opinion, as we must sit at the table with Iran to figure out the future, but it’s nice to hear that she won’t be bashing him for that statement, politically, as that could do damage to our foreign policy and would be hypocritical.

The Nation, on Yahoo!, is running an article today about the Draft Gore movement. I have long been a member and have long believed Gore the best Democratic candidate available, and so it warms my heart to believe that he may still run, although I doubt it. Wouldn’t it be something if he won the Peace Prize on Friday and then announced a run for President? Might be wishful thinking, but I am a dreamer.

In much less inspiring, hopeful news, tragedy has taken a greater hold in Burma, as an activist was tortured to death during interrogation. Oh, they don’t put it that way — he merely “died” during interrogation, he wasn’t killed, no no, but we all know the truth, and it is a truth which bludgeons humanity with its evil. I actually believe that the monks of the world, specifically in Burma but everywhere who face opression (like in China, where they banned reincarnation, as I commented on here) would deserve the Peace Prize just as much as Al Gore or anyone else would.

Now, on a slightly related but mainly unrelated note — let me say, It’ll be a nightmare for Mitt Romney to be elected President of the United States. Not just because he’s a cruel, sick man but because his response, when asked what he would do in a crisis with Iran, was ask the Lawyers.

Bravo, Governor Boston the third — you’re almost as dumb as John Kerry and Michael Dukakis before you, and that counts for something, right?

There’s an intense, controversial story out today in the Washington Post and New York Sun about the Osama bin Laden tape and an intelligence “failure” that has occurred as a result.

A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.

Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company’s Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.

The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group’s communications network.

“Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless,” said Rita Katz, the firm’s 44-year-old founder, who has garnered wide attention by publicizing statements and videos from extremist chat rooms and Web sites, while attracting controversy over the secrecy of SITE’s methodology. Her firm provides intelligence about terrorist groups to a wide range of paying clients, including private firms and military and intelligence agencies from the United States and several other countries.

The precise source of the leak remains unknown. Government officials declined to be interviewed about the circumstances on the record, but they did not challenge Katz’s version of events. They also said the incident had no effect on U.S. intelligence-gathering efforts and did not diminish the government’s ability to anticipate attacks.

The last line in the excerpt stands out to me. I believe it, just because I imagine the American government fully capable of tracking al-Qaeda, still, and because of the points raised in this account of the incident.

I know what the NY Sun and Washington Post are saying about a major source of intel being burned by a leak, but it just isn’t so. Rita Katz and the SITE Institute do a great job, but attributing the interception of this video to them is just false. Sure, they intercepted the video–as did Laura Mansfield and other groups that do similar work as SITE, but let’s check the claim out.

WaPo:

at 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, [SITE] notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition.
And in the Sun article:
Rita Katz, said she personally provided the video on September 7 to the deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter.
So, SITE claims they are the source of the video given to the White House. Rita claims she personally gave the video to authorities on September 7th. But let’s take a quick look at the very bottom of the translation of the video leaked by ABC’s Blotter:

That means that the White House had a translation of the video a full 24 hours before SITE intercepted it. Apparently, our intel guys are better than we thought.

Sure, the fools over at al Ekhlaas have closed down their back room, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other back rooms.

So, just because SITE’s intel source got burned, doesn’t mean that we’ve lost capability of tracking al Qaeda online. In fact, SITE was not the only one that had the “new” bin Laden 9/11 video before it was supposed to be released, as these two articles suggest.

Both Intel Center and Laura Mansfield also had the video. Hell, I had the video.

So, sorry to hear that SITE has lost its edge. And it really sucks that it was someone at The White House who leaked the video.

But why would you give the video to the White House and not to the FBI or CIA? The White House leaks like a sieve. That’s just the way the White House works.

I’m also sorry to hear that this scared al Qaeda into being more cautious. In fact, that same day al Ekhlaas and a few other jihadi forums went down. There was a lot of speculation as to why. Some at the time claimed that the online Zionist conspiracy had hacked al Ekhlaas. But now we know why they went down: to upgrade their security measures.

But no matter how hard they try, they will never be as good as we are.

If there is further to this, I will update you, Dear Reader, but as it stands, I don’t imagine our counter-terror capabilities damaged but who knows.

The Congo conflict, which I mentioned in the previous post, has a new dimension to it this morning:

Rebels have seized an area in eastern Congo that serves as a wildlife habitat for endangered mountain gorillas, threatening one of the last known populations of the animals, conservationists said Sunday. Shelling and heavy gunfire could be heard from the headquarters of the Virunga National Park, and rangers were forced to flee over the weekend, said the international conservation group WildlifeDirect.

Only 700 mountain gorillas exist in the world, of which more than half live in the Virunga conservation area, a huge swath of territory at the intersection of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. Rebels loyal to warlord Laurent Nkunda have frequently battled over the park in their clashes with the army. Caught in the crossfire are the rare gorillas, 10 of which have been killed this year. “This is a human conflict that is involving the mountain gorillas. They are not a target, but can so easily get caught in crossfire and shelling,” said Emmanuel de Merode, the director of the international conservation group WildlifeDirect.

“We still cannot protect our gorillas. This conflict has no place in the park, least of all in the habitat of these animals. We hope they will be unharmed,” said Norbert Mushenzi, director of the southern section of the park for the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature.

It always blows my mind to read about the things men do in war, from the abhorrent rapes that occur in all conflict to the pillaging of towns to the abuse of animal life. Worst of all is that many of these men will escape the conflict with their lives, assuming this ends in their lifetime, and resume a normal life. I ask, How can you live a normal life when you’ve raped a three year old girl? How can you live a normal life after you’ve destroyed a village, or held a zoo hostage? How can you live a normal life after you’ve committed atrocities like these?

It just baffles me that most foot soldiers in combat who do all the destruction can 1. live with themselves, 2. live with others, 3. be allowed to re-enter society as if their actions can and should be forgotten, whether that be by themselves or by society.

This article is the worst I’ve read in a long time. I won’t do it the injustice of excerpting it, as you should read it. Basically, a mass, violent rape is going on in East Congo, which is terrible after they spent five hundred million dollars democratizing that country. A few thoughts:

1. The scope of these crimes is astounding.
2. 500 million dollars? For an election? Are you kidding me? That’s about what our Presidential election costs. That’s ourtrageous by our standards — and completely baffling by theirs. What, did they blow all that cash on private planes? Attack ads for the televisions that people don’t generally have on airwaves that don’t generally cost you millions to advertise on?

In The Price of Loyalty, Paul O’Neill talks about building a well for an African country — I believe Ugana — and how a private business had told them, “You will have to pay 30 million,” or some outrageous number, and O’Neill looked everything over and said, “This is two, tops.” Point: someone got really rich off of their elections, and it’s a disgrace.

3. How long can this go on? At this rate? When the Darfur genocides began, I said to myself, “How long can this go on? I mean, they can’t kill people forever, can they?” but they have. And I find that incredible, that the Darfur situation hasn’t at least gotten better, if only marginally. How long will this brutality go on before anybody steps in? And why isn’t it talked about as much as the conventional, non-sexual violence in the Congo from awhile back?

Myanmar is in trouble: the country is facing a new crackdown from its military junta. The people are trying to fight back, but without external support, internal groups can’t win over the short-term. Now the US is saying we might introduce sanctions and the British say, We should.

They’re right.

Let’s take a quick look at Iran/America/Seymor Hersh/Democrats/War one more time:

When George Bush and Dick Cheney talk about their plans to bomb Iran, they are told “You can’t do it, because every Republican is going to be defeated”–that’s what a Republican former intelligence official told legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. “But,” the former official went on, “Cheney doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Republican worries, and neither does the President.”

I recently spoke with Hersh, whose new piece, “Target Iran,” is featured in The New Yorker this week.

When I asked Hersh who wants to bomb Iran, he said, “Ironically there is a lot of pressure coming from Democrats. Hillary Clinton, Obama, and Edwards have all said we cannot have a nuclear-armed Iran. Clearly the pressure from Democrats is a reflection of - we might as well say it - Israeli and Jewish input.” He added the obvious: “a lot of money comes to the Democratic campaigns” from Jewish contributors.

But while Democrats argue that we must “do something” about an Iranian nuclear threat, Hersh says the White House has concluded their own effort to convince Americans that Iran poses an imminent threat has “failed.” Apparently the public that bought the story of WMD in Iraq is now singing the classic Who song, “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

Moreover, Hersh reports, “the general consensus of the American intelligence community is that Iran is at least five years away from obtaining a bomb” - so the public is right to be skeptical.

As a result, according to Hersh, the focus of the plans to bomb Iran has shifted from an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities to an emphasis on the famed “surgical strikes” on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere. The White House hopes it can win public support for this kind of campaign by arguing that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is responsible for the deaths of Americans in Iraq.

Why don’t Bush and Cheney “give a rat’s ass” about getting Republicans reelected to the Senate and the House in 2008? “Of course that was hyperbole to make a point,” Hersh said. “When it comes to choice between bombing Iran and taking some political heat, the president will do what he wants. Look, no decision has been made, no order has been given, I’ve never said it’s going to happen. But I had breakfast this morning in Washington with somebody who’s close to a lot of military people, and there’s a sense among them that the president is essentially messianic about this. He sees this as his mission. It could be because God is telling him to do it. It could be because his daddy didn’t do it. It could be because it’s step 13 in a 12-step program he was in. I just don’t know.”

First point I’d make: the President shouldn’t give a “rat’s ass” about the electoral consequences of his foreign policy. Every President’s job is to do what he and his men think is right. Hopefully it is right. But “the public’s reaction!” should be a much, much lesser consideration than “the national interest.” Second point I’d make: it’s good that the American public isn’t buying a war in Iran — neither am I, because (third point): the President hasn’t made a decision and my guess is that we won’t do anything beyond a surgical strike, which I don’t think would be as bad as some would make it seem, especially if it destroyed or essentially destroyed their atomic bomb making capability for the next hundred years!

Ciara Durkin, if you didn’t already know, is an American soldier who, it is claimed, had “discovered things” and was subsequently killed in the military. I couldn’t be more uncomfortable with this story if I wanted to be, as the idea that the military would kill an American is bad enough but that this woman came to America as a young Irish immigrant only to be killed by the government she swore to protect and uphold — by that government implicitly and explicitly devoted to her protection and welfare kills her, that’s terrible. Not that I know for sure that she was killed but it definitely looks like it. Even if she wasn’t, her death is still tragic as can be, in my book, because women like Ciara Durkin are America, more American than a Presidential candidate who steals his ideas from his opponents or an American President who vetoed Children’s Health Insurance.

Clarence Thomas has written a book; Anita Hill has responded to his renewed attack on her character. I, of course, believe Anita Hill like I believe Kathleen Willey like I believe many of the women who make sexual harassment allegations, especially in cases where it’s become a trend. But aside from the actual act of sexual violence, I think I’m most troubled by the reaction people have when someone that they know or a politician that votes “the right way” is accused of such a thing. We have a long way to go since we still live in a world that turns Juanita Broderick into someone to be ignored and Anita Hill has to defend herself again.

Vladimir Putin will be Russia’s next Prime Minister, if he has his way and has already announced.

You know, in America — people leave their second term as President exhausted and are almost always happy to leave the responsibility up to someone else. In Russia? Exhaustion watches you.

I’ve long held the belief that man should be anti-war in general principle and pro-war only in specific cases, which is rooted in a view of the world that says “Killing is wrong but sometimes you have to kill,” so when I claim to be “pro-war” in Iraq or anywhere it is with the ideal, “wish it would end soon, with peace and good for all” in my heart and “leaving would be disastrous for everyone” in my head as I do feel the pain of those whose lives have been forever changed by the war but I also think of the genocide which would occur in our absence. Since I can remember, I’ve made every effort to understand the world in which we live and the events which occur everyday with an eye toward the situation as a whole, and that need to inspect the world’s complications with a fine-tooth comb in an effort to feel the complications has caused me significant grief over the years, external and internal, from people who believe that I should be more militant about political and economic affairs and from my own conscience which makes me question whether those with harsher assessments of the world than I are right. I don’t think that they are as I do have convictions that I fight for and defend, but I reason my goal as getting at the truth and an open mind is integral to that. As a result, I converse with everyone about everything. I read The Nation and National Review. I don’t get upset when opposing views are presented to me, unless they are presented without class or preamble. That’s how I justify being in Students for a Democratic Society, being pro-War and spending the weekend in Washington D.C. joining the march on Washington, which was a delightful experience, and while I didn’t make a huge secret of my tempered support of the war in Iraq, I only received sharp words from one person, and that was perfectly fine. I didn’t badger anyone else, either.

We rode the bus from Chicago to Washington D.C., joining up with people from Minnesota, and we gathered in front of the capitol at eleven thirty, listening to the speeches of activists, which was a rather interesting experience in and of itself. One woman went up there and used the word mothafucka about forty times in three minutes in an effort to rally the crowd against Washington’s politicians. Another person went up there and spoke with tender affection for Robert Mugabe, who is one of the world’s great tyrants and if George W. Bush did half the things he’s done the crowd at the demonstration would lose their minds. Someone I spoke to for awhile began to talk to me about the Korean War and how America had caused it by invading North Korea — something that is inaccurate by any analysis. She went on to tell me that we were responsible for what’s happening in the Sudan, not because we didn’t intervene and end the conflict but because we caused it with our capitalism. That is not a subjective statement: it is unequivocally false. If any foreign power is to be blamed, it should be the French and the other western European countries which were right there when it all began, encouraged it and then did absolutely nothing to stop it and help the people of Darfur. Of course, there were also “9/11 Truth” shirts and banners, everybody was wild over the “JENA 6!” and Marx’ ghost ruled the day, and while I felt out of place at significant points in the weekend I didn’t feel any great shame. I enjoyed myself.

Last night, I spoke with my friend Rob about the weekend and he said, “So you were with the Hate-America-First Crowd?” and I said to him, “No, not really. I mean, yes, there were a few Blame America First! people but overall, it was people who don’t believe in War and are begging for social justice, with different meaning for different people there.” I stand by that, even though I was appalled by those who idolized Kim Il-Sung and Robert Mugabe, because I spent the weekend being gregarious and investigative. I must’ve had good conversations with at least thirty different people and smaller-but-still-good conversations with a couple dozen more. The rally itself was interesting as well. I was fortunate enough to be allowed to lead a portion of the march in chants at various parts of the demonstration, and I enjoyed the chants, although there were some I simply wouldn’t join out of principle (Who is the terrorist? Bush is the terrorist!). My favorite was, “Tell me what democracy looks like!/This is what democracy looks like!” (but I went and ruined it by telling my friend, “I like this chant, but it isn’t entirely true — it’s definitely a part, but not the only one.)

I’ve been considering this writing since yesterday morning and decided that beyond my thoughts on the people I meant, I should write about the implications of the protest and general activism. With no desire to hurt anyone, I’d like to say that I don’t think this protest has many implications for the future. The war will rage on whether democrats or republicans are in power and even I generally believe that we should stick it out. That isn’t the point of the protest, or of joining it, or of enjoying it, however. Or at least it isn’t for me. For me, it is about appreciating those who take their convictions to the streets and work to remedy what they believe to be great ills. It is about a people’s passion for the world and their desire to witness change, and that is something that I applaud even when I disagree with their actions as that is what democracy looks like and I was honored to participate in their protest.