Feelin' Cranky.

Conditions: Raining More Than Ever. Wish I Had An Umbrella... Ella... Ella...


Obama Takes A Tour.

So, what do you do when your running for president, have huge popularity overseas, but your countrymen worry you're not as experienced in worldly affairs as your opponent? Why you take a quick tour of the world, of course. And by world, I mean Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Israel, which basically encompasses the world to today's political American. But this was no tour through the various tourist traps of olde Arabia, oh no.

Jerusalem - Senator Barack Obama opened a day of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Wednesday, sharing breakfast with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak before traveling to the West Bank to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
[...]

Mr. Obama later met with Mr. Abbas and the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, for one hour - 15 minutes longer than scheduled - at the Mukata, the Palestinian president's compound in Ramallah.

Mr. Obama traveled there by car - crossing two checkpoints - before arriving. Mr. Obama and Mr. Abbas sat down, with a Palestinian flag between them and photographs of the late Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and of Mr. Abbas himself on the wall behind them. The two men spoke softly for a few moments, while cameras captured the image, before starting their closed-door discussion.

The brief ceremony at Yad Vashem was intended to convey symbolic images of Mr. Obama's commitment to Israel as he listens to leaders on both sides of the Middle East peace process.

Er, did he get elected already? Because this seems awfully presumptive.

As Mr. Obama headed to his private meetings, including one later with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, his aides were sensitive to any perceptions that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee was getting ahead of himself. They stressed that he was here to listen, not legislate.

"The United States of America has one president at a time - that president is George W. Bush," Susan Rice, a senior foreign policy adviser to the campaign, said Wednesday. "Senator Obama will not be engaged in any way, shape or form policy-making."

- truthout.org

Well, yeah, but when you have a nominee for the American election making official visits to foreign countries, viewing their cities and talking to their leaders, sorry, *listening* to their leaders, there's a pretty strong impression there of the successor getting familiar with the ropes. After all, while he was in Iraq:

Senator Obama met Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, in Baghdad yesterday during his visit, which had become overshadowed by a row over the proposed pullout. Mr. Obama did not raise his plan for withdrawal of US forces, the government said. But Mr. Maliki's spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said his government was "hoping that in 2010 combat troops will withdraw from Iraq." This time frame is similar to Mr Obama's.

The White House was clearly dismayed and embarrassed by an interview given by Mr. Maliki to the German news magazine Der Spiegel in which he appeared to express agreement with Mr. Obama's withdrawal plans. Mr. Dabbagh later said in a statement distributed by the American military that Mr. Maliki's words had been "misunderstood and mistranslated".
Der Spiegel stood by its version of what Mr. Maliki said and said the translator for the interview was provided by Mr. Maliki's own office and not by the magazine. In reality, Mr. Maliki did say Mr. Obama's 16-month plan "could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq".
[...]

The Republican candidate, Senator John McCain, has argued that US forces should stay in Iraq until it has won a victory, although it is not clear what this victory would entail. He successfully relaunched his campaign to become the Republican nominee last year by claiming that the US was succeeding militarily.

But it will be difficult for Mr. McCain to denounce Mr. Obama's plan as it is very similar to what the Iraqi government is demanding. Mr. McCain said: "I'm glad that Senator Obama is going to get a chance for the first time to sit down with General David Petraeus and understand what the surge was all about and why it succeeded and why we are winning the war. I hope he will have a chance to admit that he badly misjudged the situation and he was wrong."

The weakness of Mr. McCain's policy is that the fall in violence is attributable not only to the surge -- the sending of US reinforcements -- but to the Mehdi Army militia's truce ordered by its leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, and to Iranian support for Mr. Maliki. This makes the political situation in Iraq very unstable.

- alternet.org

So while officially Obama is making himself look to the American voters to be someone who knows who the leaders of these countries are, and what they want, in reality it seems that Obama is laying the groundwork for what his administration is going to be focused on when he wins the upcoming election. Pretty slick, but the danger there is in coming across as arrogant to the voters. McCain's people are already trying to paint Obama as elitist, it's a short trip from that to arrogance and presumptiveness.

More: Obama wows 'em in Berlin



Karadzic Found.

Radovan Karadzic, leader of a breakaway separatist ethnic Serb state in Bosnia in the nineties, credited with running an ethnic crusade said to have claimed 100,000 lives, wanted by the International Criminal Court since 1996, has finally been found and arrested. The trial should be interesting, considering that:

For three more bloody years, although the atrocities Karadzic is accused of ordering were reported across the world and the siege of Sarajevo played out on television almost nightly, Karadzic's hand was eagerly clasped by the world's diplomatic leaders beneath the chandeliers of London, Paris, Geneva and elsewhere. And this is what will make the Karadzic trial so compelling, among many other things: that he is dangerous in the dock to those who dealt with him, and can tell the world what the world told him, and guaranteed him, over those three years.
[...]

To the private hilarity of the Serbs, western diplomats accepted Karadzic's endless, empty guarantees and his posturing and fleeting "ceasefires". They agreed to turn back aid to the desperate "safe areas" declared but betrayed by the UN. They connived in maps and "peace plans" that gave Karadzic everything he had won by violence and tolerated the siege of Sarajevo, which he is accused of personally overseeing.

In 1996 Karadzic was indicted by the Hague, but for thirteen years remained a fugitive at large. A fugitive who, to start with, lived openly, and moved around the country in his personalized car.

After 1999, the effort got more serious, with raids on Karadzic's family and sanctions against their finances, and Karadzic disappeared. There were sightings in Belgrade and at monasteries of the Serbian Orthodox church to which Karadzic was so generous during his presidency. A dramatic raid by ninja-clad special forces on the remote village of Celebici near his childhood home missed him by 2km, and another sighting by the Hague tracking team near Visegrad was not followed up. In the event, it was Serbian political strategy, not an international manhunt, that delivered him.

- guardian.co.uk

And when he was finally found out, he was working as a writer on topics relating to spiritual healing.

In October he gave a lecture comparing the silent contemplation of Orthodox monks to oriental forms of meditation. Then as recently as May 23, Healthy Living's third annual festival in Belgrade advertised a presentation by David Dabic on "nurturing your inner energies".

The homespun nature of Karadzic's disguise, relying on a big beard rather than plastic surgery suggests that he was not under the protection of a friendly intelligence service, as many had speculated.

Ljajic said his men had actually been pursuing Karadzic's former military commander and co-accused, Ratko Mladic, but the people they believed were helping Mladic led them instead to Karadzic.

Such basic police work could have been performed long ago, but it is only recently that there has been the political will in Belgrade to wholeheartedly pursue the war criminals. Behind the scenes, the new government, after a fortnight in office, is said to have launched a purge of the security services, which were long suspected of protecting war crimes suspects.

Only last weekend Sasa Vukadinovic, a respected career investigator with a pedigree in smashing prominent Belgrade mafia structures, was appointed the new head of the security service, replacing Rade Bulatovic who was close to the former nationalist prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica. A western investigator with long involvement in Balkan manhunts told the Guardian that only a few months ago, it was not known where Karadzic was and also ascribed Monday's events to the formation of a new government.

- guardian.co.uk

So. Changes in the political circles eventually meant Karadzic's old allies couldn't help him anymore, and quite quickly he was found out and brought to justice. Much like Saddam Hussein. There's a lesson in this for Bin Laden, and George W. Bush. Allies change, alliances crumble and re-shape, and eventually everyone become accountable for their deeds.



The Trust Is Gone.

The Americans constant claims that they do not torture, despite clear evidence to the contrary (i.e: 'The Hills'), have finally ticked off the Brits, who look down on That Sort Of Thing, Old Boy.

In a damning criticism of US integrity, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said ministers should no longer take at face value statements from senior politicians, including George Bush, that America does not resort to torture in the light of the CIA admitting it used 'waterboarding'. The interrogation technique was unreservedly condemned by Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who said it amounted to torture.

A change in approach would have implications for extradition of prisoners to the US, especially in terror or security cases, as the UK has signed the UN convention which bars sending individuals to nations where they are at risk of being tortured. During waterboarding, a person is tied to a board with their feet raised and cellophane wrapped around the head. Water is then poured on to the face, causing the victim to start to drown.

Today's committee report said there were 'serious implications' of the striking inconsistencies between British ministers continuing to believe the Bush administration when it denies using torture. 'The UK can no longer rely on US assurances that it does not use torture, and we recommend that the government does not rely on such assurances in the future,' said the committee. 'We also recommend that the government should immediately carry out an exhaustive analysis of current US interrogation techniques on the basis of such information as is publicly available or which can be supplied by the US.'

- truthout.org

It's not much, so far. But at least the constant state of denial America finds itself in is finally starting to tick off some of it's important allies. So, huzzah.




Going: Get's Tough. Tough: Quit

Blackwater, the American company well known for providing all types of mercenaries for all your mercenary needs in the chaotic back streets and highways of Iraq, is getting out of the security business. I wonder why?

Company executives said they are moving away from security work in the wake of close media scrutiny of private contractors' behaviour in Iraq, particularly a Baghdad shooting involving Blackwater employees that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead. The incident is under investigation by American law enforcement.

"The experience we've had would certainly be a disincentive to any other companies that want to step in and put their entire business at risk,'' Blackwater founder and chief executive Erik Prince told an Associated Press reporter who was given a daylong tour of the company's headquarters.
[...]

Blackwater has made hundreds of millions of dollars off of contracts to guard US state department officials. Its seemingly ubiquitous presence, combined with the larger-than-life personality of the conservative Prince, turned Blackwater into an emblem for the privatised military that the Bush administration relied upon to help wage the Iraq war.

The company also operated under broad legal immunity from criminal prosecution in Iraq, attracting criticism from government officials in Washington as well as Baghdad. The US Congress ultimately passed legislation bringing contracting firms under the American military code of justice. Blackwater's now plans to focus attention on its expansive rural training facilities. Its North Carolina home attracts swarms of US military, law enforcement and local officials each year.

- truthout.org

So it seems, thanks to a blossoming of justice and accountability that is slowly, slowly taking root in Iraq, Blackwater has decided to cease it's ground operations. One might almost ponder whether there is a link between increased accountability in the region and the number one security firm decided to not provide any more 'contractors' for various 'jobs'. This could also be a reaction to recent moves by the Bush administration towards discussing withdrawal timetables, finally. Frankly, none of this reflects well on Blackwater themselves, or the U.S administration who allowed them to operate in the country. Surely if everything was above board they wouldn't have to pull up their camp and withdraw once the blanket immunity gets yanked. Scuttle on, cockaroaches!




The Value Of Tortured Confessions.

In another defeat for the technique of beating a confession out of somebody, the guy who was apparently Bin Laden's driver is currently at trial in Cuba. And apparently the court has agreed to bar some evidence against him because that evidence was obtained "in "highly coercive environments and conditions." And I don't think they mean the interrogators shined a bright light in his face.

The exclusion of evidence Allred considered coerced could set a standard for admissibility in other war crimes cases due before the tribunal in the coming months, including that of the self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind.

"The interests of justice are not served by admitting these statements because of the highly coercive environments and conditions under which they were made," Allred said of statements Hamdan made while held by U.S. forces in the Afghan outposts of Panjshir and Bagram.

During his imprisonment at Bagram, Hamdan was reportedly beaten, deprived of sleep and informed by other prisoners and guards that at least one suspect had been beaten so badly that he died.

Allred's ruling to suppress coerced testimony could make it difficult for other tribunal judges to ignore similar claims, such as in the case against confessed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four others who face the death penalty.

Mohammed is one of two Guantanamo prisoners known to have been waterboarded while in CIA custody abroad. The technique, which creates the sensation of drowning, has been deemed tantamount to torture by many U.S. allies, legal scholars and human rights advocates.
[...]

Aside from withholding judgment on the May 2003 interrogation pending the defense review, the judge said interrogation results would be allowed into evidence only if the interrogators who conducted the sessions were available for cross-examination. Much of the evidence the government wanted to introduce was drawn from interrogations in which the notes and records of those involved were destroyed.

- truthout.org

Well, how 'bout that. I mean, to be fair, the interrogators should be asked questions while being held under water, but at least they're making a first step. So, is there a possibility the justice system, the creaky, old-fashioned justice system, may balk at considering evidence obtained through torture? Is there hope that the idiocy and the injustices may get dragged out into the light? Yeah, fat chance. But it's something though.



To The Bitter End.



Mr Cranky, infamous bitter-hearted movie reviewer, and a particular favourite of yours truly, has decided to retire. Statement here. In memoriam, I shall look unfavorably upon the next film unlucky enough to cross my path. Fare thee well, Cranky.



Cell Phone Death Watch.

Aha! I'm telling you, slowly but surely, people are starting to wake up and hear the danger.

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) -- The head of a prominent cancer research institute issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff Wednesday: Limit cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer.
The issue that concerns some scientists -- though nowhere near a consensus -- is electromagnetic radiation.

The issue that concerns some scientists -- though nowhere near a consensus -- is electromagnetic radiation.

The warning from Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is contrary to numerous studies that don't find a link between cancer and cell phone use, and a public lack of worry by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Herberman is basing his alarm on early unpublished data. He says it takes too long to get answers from science, and he believes that people should take action now, especially when it comes to children.

"Really at the heart of my concern is that we shouldn't wait for a definitive study to come out but err on the side of being safe rather than sorry later," Herberman said.

- edition.cnn.com

How cute does that iPhone look now, Jack?



Hostile Takeovers On Jupiter.

Proving the old adage about the big consuming the small, regardless of location, the Hubble telescope has captured a smaller storm on Jupiter being caught up and torn apart by the bigger, famous one. Ain't that something?




nytimes.com





- Peace out