perhaps that's why it wasn't promoted.

Methinks the DFA staff are all in Austin and we are left to muddle along.

Dang Gerry it'll take me all morning to read this :)

Are you coming to DemFest?

thanks Monica, I was figuring this would move to the front soon and am surprised it didn't - think you're right that the staff is bz bz in Austin.  Hope all there are having a great time.

If anyone is listening to Gore's speech, I'd appreciate a snapshot.

I don't mind the long list, can pick and choose...

::waving:: Denise

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20292.htm

Another war crime in the making

US troops in Afghanistan massed close to the border yesterday for a possible attack on al-Qaeda and Taleban bases in the lawless North Waziristan tribal belt in Pakistan.

Reports from the area said that hundreds of Nato troops were airlifted across the mountains from the village of Lowara Mandi, which has been an important base for cross-border attacks in Afghanistan. Heavy artillery and armoured vehicles were also being moved into position.

The deployment followed a claim by the Afghan Government on Monday that the Pakistani Army and its spy agency had become “the world's biggest producers of terrorism and extremism”. The Pakistani Foreign Ministry accused Kabul of creating an “artificial crisis to satisfy short-term political expediencies”.

President Bush said yesterday that the US would investigate the Afghan claims to “get to the bottom of the allegation”. He said that he was troubled by the movement of extremists from Pakistan into Afghanistan.

“I certainly hope that the [Pakistani] Government understands the dangers of extremists moving in their country,” Mr Bush said.Tensions have been heightened since the deaths of nine soldiers on Sunday when insurgents overran a US base in Kunar province, close to the Pakistani border.

Western commanders say there has been a marked increase in cross-border infiltration in the past few months, fuelling the insurgency in Afghanistan. Nato troops have clashed with Pakistani units along the South Waziristan border.

US Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made an announced visit to Islamabad at the weekend and held a series of meetings with Pakistan's top civil and military leadership.

According to well-placed sources, Admiral Mullen warned Pakistan that the US could take unilateral military action if the cross-border attacks in Afghanistan were not stopped. The US official said that some elements within Pakistani security agencies could be helping the insurgents operate from their bases in the border region.

An influential Pakistani army official said there were strong indications that the US was ready to launch bombing raids against suspected al-Qaeda and Taleban camps inside Pakistan.

The official said that any unilateral American military action could have serious repercussions and create difficulties for Pakistani counter-terrorism efforts.

Washington is concerned by the new Government's move to strike peace deals with militant groups, pacts that American critics say will simply give insurgents time to regroup and gain strength.

Analysts say that the failure of the new coalition Government led by the Pakistan People's Party to formulate a clear counter-insurgency policy has affected the military's efforts to curb cross-border infiltration and the rising influence of militants i

It used to be an accepted principle of government that public entities were organized and given responsibilities which could/would not fail.   This principle was overlooked when the privatization bug took hold.  Nevertheless, we continued to expect that governmental units of all sizes would not fail--the responsibilities they were charged with are too important.  When New York City came close to failure, it was a traumatic event and lots of people pitched in to insure it didn't actually happen.  Then, when that county in California almost went belly-up because of poor investments, that was another wake up call. 

But, what we apparently overlooked was that what was assumed not to happen in the public sector and everyone worked to avoid in the private was actually no longer the norm--that one reason public entities were bring brought to the brink of financial collapse was because private entities had come to consider failure as a norm, something that was, if not a SOP, something that one should expect to happen, sooner or later.  Failure, which used to be an unwelcome and unexpected event, was transformed into what I refer to as "failure by design."  Indeed, if enterprises don't fail on their own, someone steps in to help it along.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080716_obamas_disaster_in_the_making/

Barack Obama calls the Iraq prime minister’s demand for an American troop withdrawal schedule “an enormous opportunity.” He is right, and it must be accepted. This is what the majority of the American public voted for, but didn’t get, from the midterm American election of 2006.

Instead, the Bush government gave Americans the surge. And for George W. Bush, the surge has spawned Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s demand for a phased American withdrawal from Iraq. Bush expected the surge to produce victory, whatever that might mean, and the right to dictate the terms on which the United States would stay in Iraq, not leave.

Those terms were made known earlier this year: total American exemption from Iraqi law (meaning extraterritorial legal status), veto over Iraqi government decisions, control over Iraqi military and police operations, authority to arrest and imprison Iraqi citizens and foreigners, immunity for American contractors from Iraqi law, and control of Iraq’s airspace.

The surge did the opposite. It created the conditions for Maliki’s demand that the U.S. and its allies leave. Gen. David Petraeus built cement walls in cities to separate Sunnis from Shiites. This meant reciprocal ethnic cleansing in sensitive areas, to suppress conflict.

American and Iraqi officials have now abandoned negotiations on anything except a limited “bridge” document that would allow American presence and operations after the existing U.N. mandate runs out in December, leaving it to a new American president to take up the matter.

Barack Obama, if elected, would do well to go, leaving no U.S. forces behind that could pull Americans back into Iraq. Give the Iraq government what it wants and leave the disaster of the past six years totally on the account of George Bush and Dick Cheney.

However, Obama has announced his intention to commit himself to another disaster in the making. As president, he would dispatch reinforcements “to fight al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

During the campaign, he has repeatedly attacked George Bush for going to war against the wrong enemy, Iraq, in the guise of fighting al-Qaida. Now he will reinforce the fight against the Taliban in the guise of fighting al-Qaida. The Taliban is not al-Qaida, any more than the Iraqis were.

At various times the Taliban has been supported or manipulated by Pakistan military intelligence in connection with purely Pakistani or regional matters. The vast majority of Taliban members, other than those currently being bombed by the U.S. in Afghanistan or Pakistan, undoubtedly are totally ignorant even of the existence of the United States of America.

At one point in their tangled history, they afforded hospitality to their fellow-traditionalist Muslim, the Saudi Arabian Osama bin Laden. That was their big mistake. The Bush administration made the bigger mistake of becoming entangled with them, for which the United States will eventually be sorry. Barack Obama should think again.

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/carpenter/129

Johnnie, we hardly knew ye before George viciously trampled you underfoot in that rather humiliating pas de deux of 2000.

Since then, with George as your Father Superior, issuing party dicta from ahigh, you've mostly managed to behave yourself as the obedient altar boy. Sure, you had your incorrigible moments early on, such as when you protested his insanely otherworldly, deficit-defying tax cuts, but you returned to the fold soon enough.

There was always 2008, and you needed his sheep. Best to lie low -- or bend over -- and go with the political Zeitgeist. But oh how that strategy has failed you.

You never dreamed the party faithful and other hangers on would become this disaffected with George's reactionary liturgy, or that Hillary wouldn't be here to so easily kick around anymore, or that a gleaming Pied Piper of Change would come along to lure the masses and stomp the bloody hell out of all that preceded him.

McCain and his advisers' near blindness to all that is swirling about them is truly exceptional. This team of message misfits not only landed on the one issue that virtually no one outside the ideologically reactionary Inner Sanctum cares about -- which may be sad, but factual -- but also managed to pick the one issue that the Inner Sanctum actually cares feverishly about -- in opposition, of course.

And that's the species of tunnel vision that has helped put John McCain behind the eight ball. It's not all a matter of Obama's dominance; it's unquestionably a matter, as well, of McCain's incompetence.

That image and the numbers that follow it are beginning to solidify rather unappetizingly for McCain, and this is damn early in a general campaign for any such solidification. Yet ...

"Overall," according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, "the Democrat has a lead of 50 percent to 42 percent over Republican Sen. John McCain among registered voters nationwide, lifted by a big edge among women [thank you, Hillary], and he has also regained an edge among political independents [thank you, FISA and OPEC]."

has been explained as the consequence of a lack of planning.  That is a lie.  The invasion of Iraq was planned for a decade.  The resistance was not anticipated (God only knows why), but that's another matter.  Republicans are good at planning.  What's suspect is the sudden exodus of all the other candidates.

There's no reason to think that because Rove and Norquist and Gramm and Delay aren't constantly in the news they aren't planning, planning, planning.  What?  How to hang on to power, of course.

At least for now, which is fine.

Whether it's Bush or Obama, the notion that the US can invade the sovereign territory of another Nation (Pakistan in this case) is barbaric, no matter what the motives. Reading between the lines, the Pakistanis seem divided on the issue, at least at the government level. Popular resentment of US incursions is intense and pervasive, and will eventuall lead to resistance by Pakistani troops, who are no patsies.

...trying to get caught up on all the morning news.

Good news about Barack's 52 mil in June but, unfortunately, rethugs are right on his financial bumper, not McIdiot but his counterparts.

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//080717/480/723b079f9a5c43fca1d569bfbefb9d68/

Democratic National Committee Howard Dean greets visitors in Crawford, Texas, Thursday, July 17, 2008, as he makes stops in Texas campaining for Presidental candidate Barack Obama and urging voters to register.<cite id="captionCite">(AP Photo/ Waco Tribune Herald, Jerry Larson)</cite>

+++

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/laurinmanning/gGxPby/commentary#comments

...

Howdy, y'all!  Live-blogging from Austin, Texas, where several of us from the campaign's new media team are taking part in Netroots Nation, a gathering of progressive online activists from across the country.

Online Organizers Chris Hughes and Judith Freeman are leading a seminar right now on how the campaign uses social networking tools to spread Barack's message of change and to bolster our field program on the local level.

Chris and Judith talked about the utility of my.barackobama.com and its capacity for spreading information and connecting with voters.  They also discussed how the campaign has used external social networks such as MySpace, Facebook, and BlackPlanet and organize in neighborhoods across the country by communicating through Facebook groups, etc.

More updates to come.  We'll be live-blogging from the Register for Change event featuring DNC Chair Howard Dean at 12:00 PM CST.  Stay tuned! 

...

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts07162008.html

Now an International Criminal Court prosecutor wants to bring charges against Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

I have no sympathy for people who make others suffer.  Nevertheless, I wonder at the International Criminal Court’s pick from the assortment of war criminals?  Why al-Bashir?

Is it because Sudan is a powerless state, and the International Criminal Court hasn’t the courage to name George W. Bush and Tony Blair as war criminals?

Bush and Blair’s crimes against humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan dwarf, at least in the number of deaths and displaced persons, the terrible situation  in Darfur.  The highest estimate of Darfur casualties is 400,000, one-third the number of Iraqis who have died as a result of Bush’s invasion. Moreover, the conflict in the Sudan is an internal one, whereas Bush illegally invaded two foreign countries, war crimes under the Nuremberg Standard. Bush’s war crimes were enabled by the political leaders of the UK, Spain, Canada, and Australia.  The leaders of every member of the “coalition of the willing to commit war crimes” are candidates for the dock.

But of course the Great Moral West does not commit war crimes.  War crimes are charges fobbed off on people demonized by the Western media, such as the Serbian Milosovic and the Sudanese al-Bashir

I tried to rec this diary but I get 'access denied.'

The article I picked up was on the G8 Summit in Genoa in 2001.  Some pretty terrifying things were happening to the peaceful protesters and journalists.  Suggests a fascist element at work.  I wonder of The Family are fascists?

Also- Barenboim's East-West orchestra -- this is an extremely admirable effort on his part to get Palestinian and Israeli young playing music together -Barenboim is an Israeli - I have their Beethoven's 9th which is I must say pretty forgettable except for the Excellent :~) No World's Best :~) bass soloist.  I don't really blame the orchestra however-- I'm not a big Barenboim fan.

I love your posts about music, anni, always nice to hear from an expert.  always a good idea to get young people together and music is universal.  I'll have to check out their 9th  :-)  Have only seen Barenboim a couple times, early 70's when he guest conducted Beeethoven's 5th w/ CSO and once years later (and years ago) when he was with them - cannot recall the concert, lol.  Did bump into him at O'Hare once, he was most gracious.

Click here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080719/ap_on_re_us/library_privacy and here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080719/ap_on_go_su_co/guns_legal_challenges  to see the wind blowing...