Friends of Syria meeting planned in Qatar to choose new Syrian rebel representatives

The U.S. and allies plan a conference on Syria in Qatar next week. Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, claims that the Syrian National Council can no longer be considered the leaders of the opposition. The leaders are the fighters inside the country.

The U.S. is withdrawing support for the Syrian National Council and wants to groom a new leadership that will represent those within Syria fighting on the front lines. At the same time, the U.S. worries about extremists whom Clinton accuses of trying to hijack the revolution. There is a conference to be convened in Qatar next week, where no doubt deals will be made to form a new group of leaders to replace Assad once his regime is overthrown.

After the U.S. election, one can expect more western intervention in Syria. The most immediate move may be be to provide the opposition with higher powered weapons so that they can neutralize Assad's vast air superiority. There is little doubt that arms are already being smuggled into the country with the blessing of the U.S. Indeed the U.S. is supposed to be making sure that the weapons do not fall into the hands of the wrong parties, radical Islamists.

In response to a question about U.S. policy in Syria, Clinton was dismissive of attempts by the UN Special Envoy Lakdar Brahimi to broker a ceasefire and negotiations. She sad that the U.S. could not and would not wait for the UN to broker a peaceful solution. In other words the bloody conflict is destined to continue, with the support of the west. The U.S. and allies will use the rebels as proxies to overthrow the Assad regime and install a regime with leaders hand-picked by countries outside Syria.

Clinton noted that the U.S. had "facilitated the smuggling-out of a few representatives of the Syrian internal opposition" who will consequently appear at the meeting of Friends of Syria in Doha, Qatar. At the same time, Clinton treated the Syrian National Council with almost open contempt.

Only last December she had claimed the group as the “leading and legitimate representative of Syrians seeking a peaceful democratic transition." However, now Clinton maintained that the Syrian opposition could not be made up of representatives who had not been inside Syria for decades, some up to 30 or 40 years. The representatives must be “those who are on the front lines, fighting and dying today to obtain their freedom.” Apparently, it is not Syrians, but those outside, who are to say who their representatives are to be.

However, jihadists may receive support and funding from outside as well and will not just disappear because the west chooses a new set of leaders. The Syrian National Council was not happy about this turn of events either.h-obama-picking-their-leaders/ t=_blank]Zuhair Salem, an exiled spokesperson for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, said:“These dictates are not acceptable to the Syrian people anymore,." Zuhair's group is a significant portion of the Syrian National Council.

The U.S. also called the exiles "extremists" threatening the rebellion. This is somewhat odd in that most of the fighters are sectarian Sunnis armed and funded probably by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar, with the blessing of the U.S. The number of terrorist incidents shows that radical jihadists are an important part of the rebel forces. The fighters within Syria, rather than the exiles, are more likely to be extremists.

Former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford is helping to identify and select new representatives who will be in line with U.S. interests. Clinton told a news conference in Zagreb, Croatia:

“We have recommended names and organizations that we believe should be included in any leadership structure. We’ve made it clear that the SNC can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition. They can be part of a larger opposition, but that opposition must include people from inside Syria and others who have a legitimate voice that needs to be heard.”

The U.S. may wish to have various minority groups within Syria represented in the leadership including the Alawite sect that dominates the Assad regime, Shia Muslims, Kurds, and even Christians. However, the fighters on the ground may not accept any such leadership arrangement.

The SNC has rejected the U.S. plan and has even called its own conference in Doha. There have been reports that at least Turkey and Qatar may still support the SNC. In a similar leadership conference last June in Cairo participants ended up fighting with each other literally. Clinton said: “We also need an opposition that will be on record strongly resisting the efforts by extremists to hijack the Syrian revolution." No doubt many in Qatar and elsewhere will not consider Muslim Brotherhoods members as extremists. Compared to Sunni Salafist groups they are moderates and no doubt they are moderates compared to many of the front line fighters against Assad. The SNC has been recognized as the sole legitimate government of Syria by Libya.

Libyan official blames Gaddafi loyalists for Benghazi attack

Libyan Deputy Interior Minister Wanis al_Sharif claims that those attacking the U.S. consulate in Benghazi were Gaddafi loyalists. A number of Libyan security guards were also killed in the attack.

At a news conference the deputy minister accused Gadaffi loyalists as being behind the attack in Benghazi that killed the U.S. Ambassador and 3 staff members of the U.S. consulate there. Al-Sharif said:

"There were RPGs...which shows there were forces exploiting this. They are remnants of the (former) regime."

He was speaking at a news conference broadcast on Al Jazeera television. He also suggested that the attack could be revenge for the recent extradition from Mauritania of Gaddafi's former intelligence chief.

The minister's explanation does not make much sense. The attack comes as a simultaneous attack happened in Egypt reacting to a film made by an American that portrayed the prophet Mohammed in a manner offensive to many Muslims. The attack was in all probability the work of a radical Islamist group,. As U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton put it the attack was the work of a "small and savage group"

Actually eyewitnesses spoke of Ansar al-Sharia as being behind the demonstration. This group is usually associated with Yemen but Al Qaeda type groups in eastern Libya have begun to use this name to refer to themselves.

The attack on the consulate follows upon the call of al Qaeda leader Ayman-al-Zawahiri for revenge attacks following the death of a senior Libyan Al Qaeda leader in June. The group that may have answered this call is named the Omar Abdul Rahman Brigades. The group claimed responsibility for an earlier attack on a Red Cross office in Benghazi and other attacks as well.

Norman Benotman of the Quilliam Foundation told CNN:

"An attack like this would likely have required preparation. This would not seem to be merely a protest which escalated...According to our sources, the attack was the work of roughly 20 militants, prepared for a military assault; it is rare that an RPG7 is present at a peaceful protest."

The area around Derna is home to radical Islamist commanders who have 200 to 300 men under their command. There are also said to be Al Qaeda type training camps in eastern Libya. These groups are being monitored by U.S. drones no doubt to send a message to the militants. The militants are sending a message in return.

Pakistan agrees to reopen NATO supply routes

     The routes have been closed since last November when a U.S. raid killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Among the conditions for reopening the routes was an apology for this event. Hilary Clinton is reported to have apologized in a telephone conversation with Hina Khat the Pakistani Foreign Minister. '
   Clinton said:. "We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military. We are committed to working closely with Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent this from ever happening again." Sherry Rehman the Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. said:. "We appreciate Secretary Clinton's statement, and hope that bilateral ties can move to a better place from here. I am confident that both countries can agree on many critical issues, especially on bringing peace to the region,"
    There is no mention of any cessation of drone attacks. Obviously the Pakistani side had not intention of making their cessation a real condition  for reopening the routes. Apparently NATO also rejected a huge hike in fees for transport. However, there will be the release of about a billion in military aid as part of the payment for Pakistani operations against militants. No payment has been made since 2010 and Pakistan puts the bill at over 3 billion. The Pakistani Taliban will attack the convoys one they begin again. For more see this article.
   Even with losses from attacks the Pakistani routes are much cheaper than alternative routes through the north.

Obama Advisers split by Afghan troop request.

This is a typical New York Times piece that often reflects quite well what the administration is thinking. The idea that the Afghan war might come to define in part Obama's tenure is a bit ingenuous since during the campaign Obama stressed that he would make the Afghan war a priority and was going to devote more resources to it. His Afghan policy has been Bush on steroids making his anti-war supporters look foolish! Now he faces a large majority of Democrats who do not support further troop deployment in Afghanistan and a majority of Republicans who do. But overall US citizens no longer support the war period!
Within the administration Obama is clearly having second thoughts and Biden represents an alternative to a surge while Clinton and Holbrooke, the guy who thought the Afghan election was hunky dory, represent the continuing hawkish stance which until now was the trademark of Obama himself!

By Peter Baker and Elisabether Bumiller
Afghanistan Troop Request Splits Advisers to Obama

September 26, 2009
WASHINGTON — As President Obama weighs sending more troops to Afghanistan, one of the most consequential decisions of his presidency, he has discovered that the military is not monolithic in support of the plan and that some of the civilian advisers he respects most have deep reservations.
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s troop request, which was submitted to the Pentagon on Friday, has reignited a longstanding debate within the military about the virtues of the counterinsurgency strategy popularized by Gen. David H. Petraeus in Iraq and now embraced by General McChrystal, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan.
General McChrystal is expected to ask for as many as 40,000 additional troops for the eight-year-old war, a number that has generated concern among top officers like Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, who worry about the capacity to provide more soldiers at a time of stress on the force, officials said.
The competing advice and concerns fuel a pivotal struggle to shape the president’s thinking about a war that he inherited but may come to define his tenure. Among the most important outside voices has been that of former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, a retired four-star Army general, who visited Mr. Obama in the Oval Office this month and expressed skepticism that more troops would guarantee success. According to people briefed on the discussion, Mr. Powell reminded the president of his longstanding view that military missions should be clearly defined.
Mr. Powell is one of the three people outside the administration, along with Senator John F. Kerry and Senator Jack Reed, considered by White House aides to be most influential in this current debate. All have expressed varying degrees of doubt about the wisdom of sending more forces to Afghanistan.
Mr. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has warned of repeating the mistakes of Vietnam, where he served, and has floated the idea of a more limited counterterrorist mission. Mr. Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and an Army veteran, has not ruled out supporting more troops but said “the burden of proof” was on commanders to justify it.
In the West Wing, beyond Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has advocated an alternative strategy to the troop buildup, other presidential advisers sound dubious about more troops, including Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff, and Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, according to people who have spoken with them. At the same time, Mr. Obama is also hearing from more hawkish figures, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Richard Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
General McChrystal’s troop request, which has not been made public, was given to Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by the general in a meeting in Germany on Friday. Admiral Mullen arrived back in Washington on Friday night with one paper copy for himself and one for Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
Mr. Gates has not endorsed General McChrystal’s request yet, viewing the situation as “complicated,” said one person who has spoken with him. But Mr. Gates, who will be an influential voice in Mr. Obama’s decision, has also left open the door for more troops and warned of the consequences of failure in Afghanistan.
Although Mr. Obama has called Afghanistan a war of necessity, he has left members of both parties uncertain about the degree of his commitment to a large and sustained military presence. Even some advisers said they thought Mr. Obama’s support for the war as a senator and presidential candidate was at least partly a way of contrasting it with what he saw as a reckless war in Iraq.
His decision to send 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan early this year, which will bring the number of American troops there to 68,000 this fall, was made hurriedly within weeks of coming into office to stanch the tactical erosion on the ground and provide security during Afghan elections.
But with those elections now marred by fraud allegations, the latest troop request is forcing Mr. Obama to decide whether he wants to fully engage in Afghanistan for the rest of his term or make a drastic change of course. Some advisers said the varying views reflected the complicated nature of a debate. The troop request follows the strategy unveiled by Mr. Obama in March to focus more on protecting the Afghan population, building infrastructure and improving governance, rather than just hunting the Taliban. On Friday, a United Nations report said that from January to August, 1,500 civilians were killed, about two-thirds of them by militants.
Admiral Mullen has endorsed the idea of more troops and will be at the table representing the military. General McChrystal and ambassadors from the region will get a chance to participate in meetings with the president through a secure video hookup.
Other officers, who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and say they admire General McChrystal nonetheless, have privately expressed doubt that additional troops will make a difference. Others question the broader impact of such a buildup on the overall armed forces.
“If a request for more forces comes to the Army, we’ll have to assess what that will do in terms of stress on the force,” said an Army official, who asked not to be identified because General McChrystal’s troop request had not been made public.
General Casey, whose institutional role as Army chief is to protect his force, has a goal to increase by 2012 a soldier’s time at home, to two years at home for every year served, from the current one year for every year of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Advisers who have Mr. Obama’s ear have raised other questions. Mr. Powell spoke with Mr. Obama about a variety of topics, but his remarks on Afghanistan resonated in the White House. “The question the president has to answer is, ‘What will more troops do?’ ” Mr. Powell told reporters before a speech in California last week. “You have to not just add troops. You need a clear definition of your mission and then you can determine whether you need more troops or other resources.”
In an interview, Senator Kerry, who met with Admiral Mullen last week, said that he had not made up his mind about the troop buildup, but that in Vietnam, “the underlying assumptions were flawed, and the number of troops weren’t going to make a difference.”
Senator Reed, who met with Mr. Biden, was more measured, but said the president needed to look at the capacity of Afghan forces and the prospects of reconciliation with moderate Taliban members. “You want to make sure you have the best operational plan to carry out the strategy,” he said.

© The New York Times 2009

Millenium Challenge Corp. still sending aid to Honduras.

This is from this site. The Millenium Challenge Corp. is chaired by Hilary Clinton. The U.S. has still not been able to determine whether the coup was a military coup--a decision that would legally require even more aid to be cut off. This article shows how the Obama administration through this Corp. is still funding projects since the coup govt. took control.


The board of directors of the Millennium Challenge Corp., a U.S. aid agency funded by taxpayers and chaired by Secretary of State Clinton, on Sept. 9 issued a press release indicating that it had voted to terminate $11 million in funding for Honduras related to two transportation projects and also to "put on hold" another $4 million in assistance pegged for yet another road project.
The road-improvement funding is part of a five-year (2005-2010), $215 million aid compact between MCC and the government of Honduras.
“Good governance and accountability are at the heart of our poverty reduction programs, and governments that are inconsistent in these areas jeopardize not only MCC funding, but also the long-term impact that good policies can have on growth in their local economies,” MCC’s Acting CEO, Darius Mans, said in a prepared statement announcing the Honduran aid cut.
But was it really an aid cut?
MCC spokesperson Sarah Stevenson told Narco News last week that as part of her agency’s $215 million compact with Honduras, as of Aug. 31, MCC had “committed approximately $191 million to contracts; approximately $91 million has been disbursed” — actually sent to Honduras.
She added that the $11 million in funding terminated at the Sept. 9 board meeting involved money not yet committed under contract. Although she failed to address the $4 million put on hold, the MCC press release makes clear that money also is linked to funds that have not been “contractually obligated.”
A simple math computation tells us, then, that MCC still has some $100 million in contractually committed funding to deliver to the putsch regime in Honduras between now and the end of 2010.
In fact, according to recent reports released by the Honduran Central Bank, MCC has delivered $10.7 million to Honduras since the June 28 coup — including $3.8 million in late August, a little more than a week prior to MCC’s funding-termination media show. And the balance of the MCC funding can be expected to continue to flow into Honduras, to the benefit of the putsch regime, to the tune of an additional $100 million, in the weeks and months to come.
U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens has previously stated that terminating the remaining $100 million in contractually committed MCC funding in Honduras would create major legal liabilities for the U.S. government. But that assessment seems to be a dodge, if not an outright fabrication.
The MCC aid funds are distributed to Honduras through an independent government agency, called MCA-Honduras, set up in Honduras under that nation’s laws and whose board is dominated by members of the putsch regime. In addition, MCC’s own compact language makes clear that “MCC is not a party” to the contracts inked by MCA-Honduras with vendors.
From MCC’s Web site:
These [contract] procurements are awarded and administered by the country [Honduras] through an “accountable entity” (also known as an “MCA Entity”) … established by the country to manage the programs identified in their Compact. MCC is not a party to these contracts.
So, it would appear, based on the structure of its funding program, if MCC chose to cut off the remaining $100 million in contractually committed aid under the Honduran compact, it would be the Honduran putsch regime that would be on the hook legally and economically for making good on the contracts
— and not the U.S. government.

Hilary Clinton chairs Corporation that continues to provide funds to Honduras since coup.

This reveals the close connections between Honduras and the Obama administration. It also shows that although some aid has been terminated other aid is still getting through. Some of these funds are actually going to a firm headed by the Liberal Party's presidential candidate in the upcoming election. While funding the coup in Honduras the corporation has cut off aid to Madagascar because of a coup there and also cut of some funds to Nicaragua because of concerns about municipal elections. Of course the real concerns have to do with Nicragua's turning to the left and not kowtowing to the U.S.


US Secretary of State Clinton’s Micro-Management of the Corporation that Funds the Honduras Coup Regime
Records Demonstrate that the Secretary Has Hands-On Control of the Fund that Gave $6.5 Million to the Regime After the June 28 Coup
By Bill Conroy and Al GiordanoSpecial to The Narco News Bulletin
August 11, 2009
In recent days, Narco News has reported that, in the three months prior to the June 28 coup d’etat in Honduras, the US-funded Millennium Change Corporation (MCC) gave at least $11 million US dollars to private-sector contractors in Honduras and also that since the coup it has doled out another $6.5 million.
The latter revelation – that the money spigot has been left on even after the coup – comes in spite of claims by the State Department that it has placed non-humanitarian funding “on pause” pending a yet-unfinished review.
Narco News has further learned – based on a review documents available on the websites of the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the US State Department – that Secretary Clinton, as chairman of the MCC board, is not just a figurehead in name only. She has played an extremely active role in governing and promoting the fund and its decisions.
An August 6 statement by MCC acting chief executive officer Darius Mans praises Clinton and President Obama for their balls-out support of MCC:
Now, well into a new administration and era, I am encouraged by the level of support MCC has been given by Congress and senior government leaders. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, chair of MCC’s board, confirms, “President Obama supports the MCC, and the principle of greater accountability in our foreign assistance programs.” The Secretary herself has referred to Millennium Challenge grants as a “very important part of our foreign policy. It is a new approach, and it’s an approach that we think deserves support.” Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew has said, “MCC is getting off the ground and making real progress.
Secretary Clinton’s official “blog” at the State Department reveals that the June 10 meeting of MCC’s board – just 18 days before the Honduras coup – was on the Secretary’s schedule:
Here’s what Hillary has on her plate for today, June 10th:
10:00 a.m. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Board Meeting and Luncheon.

Last March, the previous MCC acting executive director Rodney Bent wrote:
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton chaired her first MCC Board meeting this week. I was pleased to be part of this historic transition, and I welcomed Secretary Clinton’s active participation at the meeting. Her presence and the presence of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other public and private sector Board members signal the importance of MCC’s ongoing commitment to delivering change in the lives of the world’s poor.
A recent move by the Clinton-led MCC board documents that the US-funded corporation has already discussed the cutting of funds to another Central American country, Nicaragua, based on criticism of its government, and that this was the topic of MCC’s June 10 session, chaired by Secretary Clinton. The Christian Science Monitor reported:
LEÓN, NICARAGUA - US concerns over last year’s questionable municipal elections in Nicaragua could be strong enough to cause leftist President Daniel Ortega, a cold-war nemesis of the US, to lose $64 million in development aid.
In a Wednesday meeting with the board of directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), an international development initiative started during the Bush administration, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will discuss whether to cancel the remaining portion of a $175 million compact awarded in 2006.
In December, the US government froze new aid after expressing serious concern about “the government of Nicaragua’s manipulation of municipal elections and a broader pattern of actions inconsistent with the MCC eligibility criteria.”
At the June 10 meeting, the MCC board approved partially terminating the agency’s foreign-aid compact with Nicaragua — resulting in some $62 million in U.S. foreign aid being withheld from that nation, which shares a border with Honduras. And in May o f this year, the Clinton-led MCC board approved the termination of the agency’s compact with Madagascar in the wake of a coup in that nation. However, no such action has been taken by the MCC board, to date, in the wake of the Honduran coup.
In the context of President Obama’s statement last weekend that those who urge the US to take stronger action against the Honduras coup regime “think that it’s appropriate for us to suddenly act in ways that in every other context they consider inappropriate,” calling it “hypocrisy.” The revelation that Clinton and MCC have already sanctioned the elected government of Nicaragua and its private sector in ways that it so far refuses to sanction the illegal coup regime of Honduras and its private backers has revealed one important fact: That Washington has already determined that “it’s appropriate” to deny MCC funds to a country for lighter and more transient reasons than those that exist to sanction a coup regime in another.
Didn’t a certain US President, last weekend, speak the word “hypocrisy” in the context of the US and the Honduras coup?
If “it’s appropriate” to sanction Nicaragua for lesser reasons, why not apply the sanction of denying MCC funds to a criminal coup regime in Honduras that Washington claims it has “paused” giving money, but that it continues to fund?

This is from an American blogger in Caracas. After the dramatic standoff at the Tegucigalpa airport mainstream media has lost interest as usual. It is rather ironic that the military should stop Zelaya from landing when they insist that they want to arrest him. How will they arrest him if they refuse to let him in the country. Perhaps they hire some private contractor to do it for them!

This is from Chavezcode.

President Zelaya has arrived safely to San Salvador, reuniting with the heads of state from Argentina, Ecuador and Paraguay, and OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza. They are expected to meet tonight and discuss alternatives to President Zelaya's return to Honduras, after his first attempt was thwarted by the coup forces that impeded his landing in the Tegucigalpa airport by placing army vehicles and personnel on the runway. A confirmed meeting is taking place tomorrow in Washington, D.C., between President Zelaya and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Zelaya is expected to fly early tomorrow to the US capital. Clinton will most likely seek to negotiate some kind of agreement between the coup forces and President Zelaya in order to ensure his safe return and reinstate constitutional order.Nevertheless, there are many concerns that Washington is looking to support its allies in Honduras, primarily those in the business and military sector who have been heavily involved in this coup, while trying to "save face" and project a "positive" non-interventionist image of Obama in Latin America. However, many question the late response by the Obama administration to the military coup, now a week in the making, and the outright lack of condemnation by Obama and Clinton regarding human rights violations committed by the coup government and repression of press freedoms. No comment has been made by Washington regarding the forced national curfew imposed by the coup government, which is now from 6pm through 6am, the suspension of constitutional rights, the censoring of media outlets not favorable to the coup, the detaining and persecution of journalists and members of Zelaya's cabinet and family, and the dead and wounded at the hands of the coup military forces. There are also questions regarding Washington's ambiguity to the coup, refusing to initially classify the events as a coup d'etat under US law, which would require immediate suspension of economic and military aid to Honduras.No deal should be cut with the coup forces in Honduras, and by no means should Zelaya or the people of Honduras permit "early elections", which is one of the "ways out" that Clinton may push for tomorrow.

Clinton: "No Exceptions" to Israel Settlement Freeze

This is from antiwar.com.

This sets the stage for a confrontation between US and Israel. The Israel lobby will bring out the troops to argue the Israeli case. It remains to be seen what the US will do if anything about the fact that Israel is going ahead regardless of US opposition. There is also the issue of a two state solution. Israel refuses so far to admit this as a goal as well. Just as Bush was stymied in trying to obtain a solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict it seems that Obama is even less likely to be successful unless the situation changes drastically.


Clinton: ‘No Exceptions’ to Israel Settlement Freeze
Secretary of State Says Obama was "Very Clear" With Netanyahu
by Jason Ditz, May 27, 2009
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says that President Obama was “very clear” in last week’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States wants Israel to halt all expansion to its West Bank settlements, and would make no exceptions for “natural growth.”
The statement sets the stage for a battle with the Israeli government over the question, as Netanyahu has insisted that his government will continue to expand the current settlements, citing “natural growth.”The Israeli government had offered a “compromise” yesterday, in which they would agree to continue dismantling the illegal outposts in the West Bank (which they had been doing to begin with) in return for a US promise to stop objecting publicly to the expansion of the other settlements.
The expansion of the settlements would be problematic for the Obama Administration as it presses for an “independent, democratic and contiguous Palestinian state.” The plan would involve territory swaps with the Israeli settlements, though Netanyahu has already rejected a cornerstone of the proposal: returning East Jerusalem to Palestinian control.

Obama and Clinton flip-flops

There are five from each Democratic candidate. Perhaps the Republican candidates never flip-flop!


from washingtonpost.com

Monday, February 25, 2008; A04

Top Obama Flip-Flops

1. Special interests. In January, the Obama campaign described union
contributions to the campaigns of Clinton and John Edwards as "special
interest" money. Obama changed his tune as he began gathering his own
union endorsements. He now refers respectfully to unions as the
representatives of "working people" and says he is "thrilled" by their
support.

2. Public financing. Obama replied "yes" in September 2007 when asked
if he would agree to public financing of the presidential election if
his GOP opponent did the same. Obama has now attached several
conditions to such an agreement, including regulating spending by
outside groups. His spokesman says the candidate never committed
himself on the matter.

3. The Cuba embargo. In January 2004, Obama said it was time "to end
the embargo with Cuba" because it had "utterly failed in the effort to
overthrow Castro." Speaking to a Cuban American audience in Miami in
August 2007, he said he would not "take off the embargo" as president
because it is "an important inducement for change."

4. Illegal immigration. In a March 2004 questionnaire, Obama was asked
if the government should "crack down on businesses that hire illegal
immigrants." He replied "Oppose." In a Jan. 31, 2008, televised
debate, he said that "we do have to crack down on those employers that
are taking advantage of the situation."

5. Decriminalization of marijuana. While running for the U.S. Senate
in January 2004, Obama told Illinois college students that he
supported eliminating criminal penalties for marijuana use. In the
Oct. 30, 2007, presidential debate, he joined other Democratic
candidates in opposing the decriminalization of marijuana.

Top Clinton Flip-Flops

1. NAFTA. In a January 2004 news conference, Clinton said she thought
that "on balance [NAFTA] has been good for New York and good for
America." She now says she has "long been a critic of the shortcomings
of NAFTA" and advocates a "time out" from similar trade agreements.

2. No Child Left Behind. Clinton voted in favor of the 2002 education
bill that focused on raising student achievement levels, hailing the
measure as "a major step forward." She now attacks the law at campaign
rallies and meetings with teachers, describing it as a "test, test,
test" approach.

3. Ending the war in Iraq. In June 2006, Clinton restated her
long-standing opposition to establishing timetables for withdrawing
U.S. forces in Iraq. In a Jan. 15, 2008, Democratic debate in Las
Vegas, she proposed to "start withdrawing" troops within 60 days of
her inauguration, to bring out "one or two brigades a month" and to
have "nearly all of the troops out" by the end of 2009.

4 . Driver's licenses for illegal immigrants. In a campaign statement
on Oct. 31, 2007, Clinton expressed support for a plan by New York
Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer (D) to offer limited driver's licenses to
illegal immigrants, after going back and forth on the matter in a
televised debate. In a Nov. 15, 2007, televised debate from Nevada,
she replied with a simple "no" when asked if she approved the driver's
license idea in the absence of comprehensive immigration changes.

5. Florida and Michigan delegates. In September 2007, the Clinton
campaign formally pledged not to participate in primary or caucus
elections staged before Feb. 5, 2008, in defiance of Democratic
National Committee rules. She now says delegates from Florida and
Michigan should be seated at the Democratic National Convention,
despite their flouting of rules that all the major Democratic
candidates endorsed.

(c) 2008 The Washington Post Company

Clinton's right-wing media romans sours..

It seems that the right-wing media considers the market more important than ideology and will give media coverage to a front-runner. What is more important than being Liberal or Democrat, liberal or conservative, is being a winner. Of course some grass-roots Conservatives might beg to differ!

<http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8549.html>Clinton's right-wing media romance soursBy: Ben SmithFebruary 16, 2008 10:27 AM ESTOver the course of her six years as a New York senator and in the early days of her presidential campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton cultivated an unlikely set of allies: the conservative media. From Rupert Murdoch to David Brooks to Matt Drudge, her campaign courted them with every instrument at its disposal, including targeted leaks and Bill Clinton's legendary personal charm.But when Sen. Clinton's campaign started to stumble, those hard-won friends were the first to go. Murdoch's pet tabloid, the New York Post, repudiated her and endorsed Sen. Barack Obama. The Drudge Report rode her decline as gleefully as it watched her rise. And the pundit class moved from its grudging respect for Clinton into an infatuation with Obama.The forces at work in that collapse are varied: individual decisions, relationships gone sour and Clinton's own leftward shift as the campaign grew more competitive. But as much as anything else, Clinton's courtship of the right collapsed under the weight of a force conservatives can appreciate: the market.Whatever the views of pundits and opinion-makers, the conservative audience still makes up a voracious market for bad news about the Clintons. And the bad Clinton news has just been too good to pass up."Hillary's a lot easier to hate," said Ryan Sager, a columnist for the New York Post."Readers of Drudge, watchers of Fox News, they truly hate her. That's simply not true of Obama."Clinton's successful outreach to the right had three pillars: the conservative columnists who had begun to see her as the tough-minded centrist of the Democratic field; the media baron Rupert Murdoch; and the most powerful man in American political media, Matt Drudge, whose Drudge Report often sets the agenda for television coverage and broader political perceptions.And if the conservative base hated her, many members of the conservative elite did not.When the campaign got underway in the beginning of 2007, Clinton was under pressure to apologize for her vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq. To liberals, her refusal was her Achilles' heel. To conservatives, it was an unexpected sign of a backbone."The conservative respect for her has 97 percent to do with her refusal to renege on her vote on Iraq," said John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary magazine. "That is the sole sum and substance of the entire business."The position won her influential, and unexpected, defenders on the right."Clinton's biggest breach with the liberal wing actually opened up later, in the fall of 2003. Most liberals went into full opposition, wanting to see Bush disgraced. Clinton — while an early critic of the troop levels, the postwar plans and all the rest — tried to stay constructive," David Brooks wrote in The New York Times last February."She wanted to see America and Iraq succeed, even if Bush was not disgraced," he wrote, reflecting a broader respect for Clinton as a principled centrist, a hawk — a president with whom, perhaps, conservatives could do business.But as the race heated up, Clinton and Obama — pressed from their left by former Sen. John Edwards — began calling more urgently for withdrawing troops from Iraq. She still hasn't apologized for her vote, but she has promised to begin withdrawing troops within 30 days of her election. And she, like Obama, abandoned an initial resistance to the notion of setting a timeline for withdrawal."She certainly ran a more centrist campaign when she thought it was going to be a coronation," said conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer who, unlike Brooks, never credited Clinton with any principles. "She was more circumspect about withdrawal..Then Obama rises — she's really under threat — she has to go back to the base because he's taking it away from her."When she had to tack back left, obviously the right was less sympathetic to her," he said in an interview.And into that gap came another conservative flirtation: one with Obama."Many Republicans are rooting for him to knock off Clinton. If that makes it more difficult to keep the White House, so be it," Fred Barnes wrote in the Weekly Standard this week.Ideology is one thing. Murdoch, the chairman of News Corp., which owns the Fox News Channel, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, was another matter. More businessman than ideologue, Murdoch has a storied history of putting his media resources to the service of politicians ranging from Ed Koch to Tony Blair, and extracting a price for his support.His New York Post had done its best to derail Clinton's 2000 Senate bid, but after she was elected, and particularly after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, he — and his paper — turned a kinder eye toward her.Murdoch and Sen. Clinton lunched together in News Corp.'s private dining room in 2002, and courting him soon became a special project of Bill Clinton's.The courtship became public when the former president visited the New York Post's newsroom in January 2003, after which insulting caricatures of the former president largely disappeared from its pages. Later, Murdoch appeared at his annual conference, the Clinton Global Initiative, and Clinton spoke at a News Corp. gathering in Pebble Beach, Calif. They began speaking regularly on the telephone, people familiar with the conversations say. The Clinton Foundation even employed Murdoch's daughter-in-law as a consultant.Fox News began treating Clinton with, if not consistent respect, something short of the loathing it had shown in the 1990s. Murdoch even hosted a fundraiser for Clinton's reelection campaign. And the alliance seemed to have been consummated when the conservative Post endorsed Clinton for reelection to the Senate, a move that would have been unthinkable years earlier."We think she's done such a good job these last six years that she'd do well to serve six more," the paper wrote, cheekily but not without sincerity.The relationship seemed to be intact last year. Murdoch contributed the maximum, $2,300, to Clinton's White House bid. Clinton was the only one of the leading Democratic candidates not to attack Fox amid outrage that the right-leaning network would host a Democratic debate. (She did not, however, actually defend Fox.)Meanwhile, her campaign thought the Fox News Channel treated Clinton relatively fairly — compared to MSNBC, with which it is now openly at war.So the media establishment in Clinton's home state was stunned when the Post, on Jan. 30, backed Obama. And amid some very tepid praise for the Illinois senator, the editorial scalded Sen. Clinton and her husband.Ironically, it was Bill Clinton — who had worked so hard to woo Murdoch — who ultimately lost his endorsement."Bill Clinton's thuggishly self-centered campaign antics conjure so many bad, sad memories that it's hard to know where to begin. Suffice it to say that his Peck's-Bad-Boy smirk — the Clinton trademark — wore thin a very long time ago," the paper wrote.And there was no doubt as to whether Murdoch had approved the endorsement."The Post is Murdoch's authentic voice," said the former editor of one Murdoch paper.People close to the decision said the editorial represented Murdoch's genuine disgust at the former president's return to political combat. Murdoch's political aide, Gary Ginsberg, declined to comment on the move.Others suspected that some unknown factor had soured the relationship."I don't know what happened between them — that I can't tell you — but clearly something did," said former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who has credited the Post's endorsement with winning him that job, and who subsequently looked kindly on Murdoch's business interests as mayor.Before the autumn, back when she was still the conservative pundits' favorite Democrat, and when News Corp. seemed like an unlikely ally, Clinton worked on a third front: Drudge.The online pioneer became the recipient of choice campaign leaks. Last April 1, her much-anticipated quarterly numbers went first to Drudge, setting a pattern of such leaks for the year. And he reported prominently on her campaign's successes, leading Obama aides to complain that he was channeling her campaign's message and that he was an ally.The impression intensified when New York magazine quoted Drudge saying, on his radio show:"I need Hillary Clinton. You don't get it. I need to be part of her world. That's my bank. Like Leo DiCaprio has the environment and Al Gore has the environment and Jimmy Carter has anti-Americanism. I have Hillary."Drudge "seems obsessed with making Hillary Clinton our next president," the magazine observed.Some in Clinton's circle date the change in the tone of the Drudge Report to Oct. 22, when The New York Times published its own front- page look at the campaign's courtship of the website. The piece further elevated Drudge's stature. It also turned his professed affection for Clinton into conventional wisdom.The Drudge Report soon shattered that conventional wisdom.On Nov. 25, Drudge floated the rumor she was having a lesbian affair with an aide over the teasing headline, "Don't Go There."On Dec. 17, as doubts about her ability to win Iowa grew, he led the site with an unflattering but attention-grabbing photo of Clinton looking tired and haggard.The headline: "The Toll of a Campaign."Now each day features stories of Clinton campaign turmoil competing with those of Obama's surging popularity."ADIÓS: HILLARY'S TOP LATINA SIDELINED..." was the Feb. 11 headline, when Clinton's campaign manager left her post."OBAMA WINS NEBRASKA; WASHINGTON; LOUISIANA; MAINE...EVEN WINS ... A GRAMMY!Ties Clinton to Past...read items below."The next day, the site led with the tearstained visage of an Obama supporter. The headline: "Screams and tears of delight."Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson, declined to comment on the Drudge Report, as did the consultant who serves as Clinton's liaison to Drudge, Tracy Sefl.But while speculation in the Clinton campaign runs to mind-reading — had Drudge gotten self-conscious? had Obama aides wooed him? what was his true agenda? — other close watchers saw it as classic Drudge."Matt is not a player of favorites," said Podhoretz. "They fed him and he took what they had to give him."And when it came time to choose the news, he was both driving and riding two of the great developing storylines of the moment: Clinton's fall and Obama's rise.It was a story that appears everywhere. Clinton has hardly won a news cycle since the fall, and Obama has hardly lost one. There are no tidbits of turmoil inside Obama's campaign, no destructive leaks on which to harp. The role of Drudge — and Clinton's other former allies in the media — has been to amplify the signs of her weakness, not to create them.As for the broader collapse of Clinton's romance with the conservative media, Podhoretz and many others offered similar explanations."When people thought she was a winner, then they were inclined to feel more warmly toward her, and when they suspect that she's a loser, they decide — like all Americans toward all losers — that she must be humiliated and crushed," he said.

Eric Edelman criticizes Hilary Clinton

This is from Juan Cole. You would think that it makes perfectly good sense to have contingency plans for withdrawal from Iraq. If Edelman has a problem with Clinton's request you would think that he would say simply that it is not in the interests of national security to discuss these plans in public. It is interesting to see that there are still neo-cons doing their thing in the Pentagon.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

The Last Neocon Attacks Hillary


You might gather from a cursory examination of the wire services that "the Pentagon" has attacked Senator Hillary Clinton for requesting a briefing for her committee from the Department of Defense on contingency plans for withdrawal from Iraq.

But as Fred Kaplan of Slate pointed out, it was a specific bureaucrat who criticized her, undersecretary of defense for planning Eric Edelman. Edelman wrote to Senator Clinton (text at Talkingpointsmemo):


' Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia. … Such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risk in order to achieve compromises of national reconciliation. '



Edelman moved into government in the Reagan era, as RightWeb explains. He was close to Richard Perle, among the inventors of the warmongering Neoconservative ideology. In 1992 he was part of the Neoconservative team (which included Paul Wolfowitz) that co-authored a security doctrine for the United States that aimed at perpetual hegemony and implied perpetual aggression to prevent the emergence of "peer" powers.

He served as Dick Cheney's national security adviser in the early zeroes and, along with convicted felon Irv Lewis Libby, was heavily involved in getting up the fraudulent and illegal Iraq War.

He was then sent as ambassador to Turkey to shore up that front in the war effort, after the Turkish parliament denied the US military permission to march through Anatolia into neighboring Iraq. He was denounced by Turkish commentators for behaving in Ankara like a colonial viceroy rather than like an ambassador. And then when arch-Neocon and then deputy secretary of defense Doug Feith was forced out under a cloud after one of his subordinates was caught spying for Israel, Edelman was installed as his successor. In other words, Cheney arranged for one Neoconservative to replace another.

Lest anyone doubt Edelman's conversion to the Neoconservative cause, it should be remembered that when the Government Accounting Office lambasted Feith's open interference in intelligence analysis and his practice of actually briefing his superiors on intelligence (which is forbidden to and probably illegal for defense department bureaucrats), Edelman wrote a long defense of Feith's corrupt practices and forced the GAO to drop actual policy recommendations for ensuring they did not recur.

In my view, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates should have fired Edelman on the spot, since his subordinate was basically announcing his commitment to the kind of shady and illegitimate practices that Feith (whom then Secretary of State Colin Powell called 'a card-carrying member of the [Israeli] Likud [Party]') and his allies such as Cheney used to drag the United States into an Iraq War.

So, Hillary was not criticized by a military officer. No evidence Edelman knows one end of an M-16 from another. She was not criticized by a Defense Department veteran. Edelman is just a recently installed understudy to Feith.

Who was she criticized by? Just one of the last Neoconservatives who hasn't yet been forced out of office because he abused the public trust or who hasn't yet slid into a criminality fostered by sublime arrogance.

By implying that Clinton is a traitor, Edelman inserted himself into a presidential campaign on the Republican side. That is not a legitimate role for the third man in charge of the Pentagon.

Edelman knows the score and knew exactly what he was doing. Gates now has a second opportunity to do the right thing and fire Edelman. Otherwise, his already difficult task of restoring morale to the Pentagon will be complicated by the realization on the part of many DoD employees and military personnel that the Pentagon is once again being deployed for petty partisan purposes that leech out the meaning and morale of their institution.

As a civil servant, Edelman is supposed to be working for you and me. We pay his salary. Instead, he is working for some narrow partisan interest. He has forfeited his right to his taxpayer-supported office.
Labels: Hillary Clinton

Hilary's Union Problem

This is hardly surprising. Union leaders themselves are often involved in selling out their workers and helping companies downsize --or at least this is often characteristic of so-called responsible unions who co-operate in adjusting to competition that often continually erodes any gains unions may have made. NO doubt there is some conflict involved here but it may not be that acute. After all if he can advise Tony Blair a Labor Prime Minister he should be acceptable to a US labor movement that is probably more conservative than that in the UK.

Hillary's union problem

Hillary Clinton's top adviser is also the CEO of a company that
advises corporations on how to bust unions. Organised labour, anyone
home?

Mark Schmitt

May 15, 2007 7:00 PM [Guardian, UK]

An American presidential election has many layers. At the top, of
course, is the question of whether a Democrat or a Republican will win
the office in 2008. One layer below is the question of who will be the
nominee of each party - a question that is genuinely open in both
parties for the first time since the 1950s.

But below that rests one more crucial layer that is often unnoticed
but of great consequence: the battles for influence among advisors
within the individual campaigns.

In this campaign, a battle is starting to brew over the role of a man
said to be the de facto campaign manager for Senator Hillary Clinton,
and labeled by some "the most important man in Washington you've never
heard of": Mark Penn, a pollster who since getting into the business
as a Harvard undergraduate in 1975 has advised Bill Clinton, Tony
Blair, former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Italy's Silvio
Berlusconi. Penn is known for a particular approach to political
polling, identifying certain demographic groups as "swing voters," and
urging candidates to focus their attention exclusively on those
groups, usually middle-class suburbanites.

He's also brought those insights to many corporate clients, including
McDonald's and Ford Motor Company, and that is one of the things that
is beginning to draw him unwanted notice. There's nothing unusual
about a political pollster conducting consumer polls for corporate
clients, but for most it is a sideline. Penn's immersion in the
corporate world is so complete that after selling his polling firm to
public relations giant Burson-Marsteller, he became "world-wide
president and CEO" of the parent firm, the fifth-largest PR firm in
the universe,in 2005.

In this capacity Penn runs numerous corporate lobbying subsidiaries
that ought to give key Democratic constituencies pause: among his
underlings are a former chair of the Republican National Committee, a
former House Republican leader, and several other top Republican
lobbyists. Burson-Marsteller also has advertised its expertise in
"Labour Relations," making clear on its web site that labour relations
means keeping unions out.

"Companies cannot be caught unprepared by Organized Labour's
coordinated campaigns," the company said, advertising its close
relationship with a right-wing academic who has written about the
nefarious leftwing campaign against American companies, and a group of
operatives with Republican credentials. (The website was changed after
I called attention to it in The American Prospect.)

Organized labour is a central constituency of the Democratic Party,
and Senator Clinton certainly expects the support of some if not all
of the major labour unions. But why should they support someone who's
top campaign strategist also holds a full-time job at a company with a
union-busting operation? Shouldn't labour leaders be speaking out
about Penn's role in the Clinton campaign? Will they?

As more detail's about Penn and his firm's role begin to emerge - last
week, The Nation's Ari Berman revealed Burson-Marsteller's role in
blocking a major union organizing drive at the industrial laundry and
uniform firm Cintas - union leaders have said nothing publicly.

Perhaps they assume that Clinton is likely to be the next president,
and they don't want to alienate her by criticizing an advisor to whom
she is said to be personally very close. Perhaps they assume that if
they can get Clinton to endorse their specific policy positions in
exchange for their endorsement, her advisors don't matter. Or perhaps
labour is reassured by the presence of others they trust in Clinton's
circle, such as former President Bill Clinton or labour lawyer Harold
Ickes. But if labor ignores Penn's influence, they will have no
standing to complain when working Americans are ignored in the general
election or if Clinton becomes president. Let's hope that labor
leaders such as Andy Stern of the Service Employees International
Union and Bruce Raynor of the union that tried to organize Cintas are
calling Ickes and others and quietly pointing out that unless Penn's
role is visibly reduced, Senator Clinton should not expect labor
endorsements for 2008.

Even if there were no issues of conflict of interest raised by
simultaneously running Burson-Marsteller and the Clinton campaign,
labour and progressive Democrats should be worried about the brand of
politics Penn markets. It is a politics in which Democrats mouth
semi-populist slogans until they win the party's nomination, and then
retreat to safe appeals to affluent swing voters to win the general
election. Such a politics is uninspiring, conservative, and
inappropriate to an era when Americans are more deeply engaged in
politics than before and concern about economic inequality and
corporate power is growing. It is a politics that seems better suited
to the concerns of Burson-Marsteller's clients than to the moment.

Bush and Hillary Two Sides of the Same Coin?

from the ICH blog. It seems that the two parties are two sides of the same coin in the US. The Democrats may be a bit more progressive on domestic programs but that is about it.


W and Hillary: Two Sides of the Same Coin

User Rating: / 13
PoorBest
Sunday, 04 February 2007
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

Speaking at the Democratic National Convention’s winter meeting, Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton declared that once she becomes president, she would end the war in Iraq and restore the basic promise of America. Mrs. Clinton, who voted for the illegal invasion of sovereign Iraq, knows she must end the Iraq war in order to launch another – a war on sovereign Iran.


02/04/07 "ICHBlog" -- -- This clever and yet unimaginative woman has failed to come up with her own rhetoric. Borrowing from W. she shamelessly echoes him: "In dealing with this threat ... no option can be taken off the table." And so she intends to restore the basic promise of America by engaging the country in a far more violent conflict. The road to the White House is no longer through Iraq, but through the ruins of Iran. What an irony that the self-acclaimed civilized Western world deems it necessary to destroy the cradle of civilization as if the reflections of the past are a threat to its bogus and fragile ‘civilization’.

American policy makers distract world opinion by misrepresenting Ahmadinejad’s remarks, exaggerating the gravity of the “myth” remark so that by contrast and through distraction, they can exonerate themselves of the responsibility of the death toll in Iraq and the ruin of a nation which was brought about as a result of their ineptness. Accusations of bigotry are all the more cynical because the very country that is pointing the finger recently witnessed a Moslem Congressman be shunned by a fellow Jewish Congressman with these words:

“Congressman Keith Ellison should not be allowed to do so - not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization,' Prager argued. “Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible.”

It is worthwhile reminding ourselves that Iran’s parliament has enjoyed a diversity of minorities including the Jews whom Mrs. Clinton would have the Americans believe the Iranian government wants to annihilate. While it is contemptible of Ahmadinejad to question the Holocaust in spite of all the evidence, the realities and horrors of what is taking place in Iraq today as a result of US actions can hardly match up to the idiotic remarks of the Iranian president. His words have only served to further isolate the Iranian nation and play into the hands of warmongers, not cost hundreds of thousands of lives - although some would like to misinterpret the words in to deeds as justification for their own barbaric behavior.

In the same vein as W. and other neo-cons, Hillary insists on repeating Ahmadinejad’s speech purposefully incorrectly translated by MEMRI and propagated to the general public by the mainstream media to arm the neo-cons. The next war she is planning in order to return to the White House as its Commander-in-Chief would cost America dearly. Who knows if there would be enough body bags to bring home our true defenders of the flag, much less mend the fabric of our morality and dignity.

If Hillary wants to restore the basic promise of America as she claims she does, she would do well to recall George Washington’s farewell address as a guide to patriotism.

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich has lived and studied in Iran, the UK, France, and the US. She obtained her Bachelors Degree in International Relations from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She is currently pursuing her education in Middle East studies and Public Diplomacy. Soraya has done extensive research on US foreign policy towards Iran and Iran’s nuclear program. She can be reached at sorayau@earthlink.net