Category: World at Large

Cronyism > Competition.

Where does the GOP’s commitment to free market fundamentalism reach its limit? Where there’s money to be made, of course. The Post looks into the rise of no-bid contracts under Dubya. “A recent congressional report estimated that federal spending on contracts awarded without ‘full and open’ competition has tripled, to $207 billion, since 2000, with a $60 billion increase last year alone.”

The Terrorists of Tehran.

Ratcheting up the sabre-rattling, the Dubya administration adds Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to its official list of terrorist organizations. “The Revolutionary Guard would be the first national military branch included on the list, U.S. officials said — a highly unusual move because it is part of a government, rather than a typical non-state terrorist organization.” Hmm. This ought to go over like gangbusters. “‘It would greatly complicate our efforts to solve the nuclear issue,’ said Joseph Cirincione, a nuclear proliferation expert at the Center for American Progress…All of us want to back Iran into a corner, but we want to give them a way out, too. [The designation] will convince many in Iran’s elite that there’s no point in talking with us and that the only thing that will satisfy us is regime change.”

Basra to the Spoils.

“‘The British have basically been defeated in the south,’ a senior U.S. intelligence official said recently in Baghdad. They are abandoning their former headquarters at Basra Palace, where a recent official visitor from London described them as ‘surrounded like cowboys and Indians’ by militia fighters.” More bad news in Iraq: Once considered a comparative success story of sorts, the formerly British-held city of Basra now seems to be deteriorating as quickly as the rest of Iraq (except that, rather than experiencing sectarian conflict between Shiites and Sunnis, the more homogenous Basra is witnessing Shiite militias struggling amongst themselves.) “Much of Basra’s violence is ‘over who gets what cut from Iraq’s economic resources,’ a U.S. Army strategist in Iraq said.”

Unamid to the rescue?

“The resolution allows the use of force in self-defense, to ensure freedom of movement for humanitarian workers and to protect civilians under attack.” In a unanimous vote, the UN Security Council agrees to send 26,000 peace-keeping troops and police — a UN-AU hybrid force known as Unamid — to Darfur. “Ban Ki-moon , the UN Secretary-General, called the move a ‘historic and unprecedented operation’ that will send ‘a clear and powerful signal’ of help to the people of Darfur.” That being said, many observers — among them Sen. Russ Feingold — feel this version of the resolution has been excessively watered down to appease the Sudanese government: “If this UN resolution is passed as it currently stands, we can expect the Sudanese government to try to evade its requirements and agreements without a single consequence. Should that happen, the toll of the genocide in Darfur will continue to mount — in lives lost, in persons displaced, and in fundamental human values that the international community has failed to uphold.“

When Dubya met Gordie.

“Call it the ‘special relationship’; call it, as Churchill did, the ‘joint inheritance’; call it, when we meet, as a form of homecoming, as President Reagan did. The strength of this relationship…is not just built on the shared problems that we have to deal with together or on the shared history, but is built…on shared values.” Wanna know who (is Mr Brown)? So does Dubya…The new British prime minister and Bush held their first joint press conference yesterday (transcript), and — so far — it’s all smiles. Still, “[t]he British leader did not hide his differences with the president, describing Afghanistan as ‘the front line against terrorism.’…[He also] avoided using the phrase “war on terror” in describing the effort to hunt down and defeat Islamic radicals. He referred to terrorism ‘as a crime’ and ‘not a cause,’ though he went on to say that ‘there should be no safe haven and no hiding place for those who practice terrorist violence or preach terrorist extremism.’“

Now will we will touch the bottom of this swamp.

“With respect to the U.S. Attorneys, there has been, I think, a bit of a witch hunt on Capitol Hill as they keep rolling over rocks hoping they can find something,” In an interview with Larry King, Cheney calls the persecuted prosecutor probe a “witch hunt,” and defends loyal capo Alberto Gonzales as “a good man, a good friend, on a difficult assignment.” (In another interview yesterday, he also claimed the Libby jury was wrong.) I doubt anyone really needs a credibility check at this point, but just in case: Cheney is also the guy who told us “we’d be greeted as liberators,” the Iraq insurgency “is in the last throes,” that “there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction” and is amassing them to use against” us, that the administration is learning “more and more“ about pre-9/11 connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and that the evidence of said connections is “overwhelming.” Simply put, Dick Cheney is an inveterate teller of untruths, and I wouldn’t trust him to walk Berkeley at this point, much less run the country. Impeach him already. (Cheney pic via this post.)

Adieu Adu.

For MLS, it’s Enter Beckham, Exit Freddy Adu. The young soccer phenom, who signed with MLS in 2003, has decided to play for the Portuguese club Benfica. “‘Freddy, when we signed him, was one of most talented young players in the world. I think, today, he still is one of most young talented players in the world,’ [Deputy MLS Commissioner] Gazidis said. ‘What we’ve struggled with is the expectations, not that we’ve placed on him, but that the media has placed on him.‘”

House: Remember the Comfort Women.

“‘Inhumane deeds should be fully acknowledged,’ said Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee…’The world awaits a full reckoning of history from the Japanese government.‘” The House passes a resolution calling for Japan to apologize for its WWII “comfort women” program. [Text.] “Lawmakers want an apology similar to the one the U.S. government gave to Japanese-Americans forced into internment camps during World War II. That apology was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Reagan in 1988.” Well, I’m all for offically recognizing historical sins in the past — *cough* slavery *cough* — but, unfortunately, no mention was made in this bill of our own possible complicity in Imperial Japan’s ugly system of forced prostitution. The resolution might carry more rhetorical force if it did.

Through a Lens Darkly.


“I shall remember this hour of peace: the strawberries, the bowl of milk, your faces in the dusk. Mikael asleep, Jof with his lute. I shall remember our words, and shall bear this memory between my hands as carefully as a bowl of fresh milk. And this will be a sign, and a great content.” Ingmar Bergman, 1918-2007.