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 Rumsfeld’s Crazy Foreign Policy Team

In the January 1975 issue of Commentary, Robert Tucker promoted the radical notion of invading Arab oil fields. It is worth noting that Commentary is a publication of the American Jewish Committee and is edited by Norman Podhoretz, one of the movers and shakers in the neo-conservative movement.

The article was titled “Oil: The Issue of American Intervention”. Last week, a protégé of Richard Perle urged the Pentagon to again consider the military conquest of Gulf oil fields.

The man who made the presentation at the Defense Department was Laurent Murawiecz, a French resident alien and a ’security analyst’ with the Rand Corp. This ‘Middle East expert’ used to do research for LaRouche, a right wing cult figure who believes the queen of England makes her money in the cocaine trade. When Perle’s ‘expert’ urged the Pentagon to add Saudi Arabia to the axis of evil, he was just dusting off an old racist plot to deprive the Arabs of their oil. The ‘new’ idea was ‘leaked’ to the press to make sure that the Saudis got the essential message to worry less about Iraq or the Palestinians and concentrate on retaining their own vital assets. No one needs to remind them that American bases are already firmly planted in the Kingdom to facilitate such a rapid takeover.  [Palestine Chronicle]

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Changing the World Through the Web (Again)

At the recent Extreme Markup Languages conference in Montreal, Jack Park spoke about NexistWiki. His presentation is available online. Park is in the process of building a piece of software that can be used to assist consensus development over written texts on the web, mostly on his own nickel. In the middle of an intense geek bleeding-edge-of-technology conference he said, essentially, “OK, so we do really cool stuff, and here’s how I think we can use it change the world.” [kuro5hin.org]

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Bush is “intellectually backward”, UK politician

Bush blasted by UK politician and Tony Blair can count on little Labour Party support for an Iraq war.  Way to go George, I never thought a U.S. President could be ignorant enough to piss off the Brits, but you’ve managed to do it.  Give you another six months and the U.S. will have no credibility left.

Gerald Kaufman, the former shadow foreign secretary, today became Labour’s highest ranking name to voice his concerns over an attack on Iraq.

Writing in the Spectator, Mr Kaufman warns that any invasion would cause “significant casualties” and Tony Blair would find it difficult having to rely on the Conservatives for the majority of his Commons support.

He writes: “Bush, himself the most intellectually backward American president of my political lifetime, is surrounded by advisers whose bellicosity is exceeded only by their political, military and diplomatic illiteracy. Pity the man who relies on Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice for counsel”.

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Because Bush and friends could get indicted?

Senator asks Justice Department to explain why no Enron individual indictments yet

A senator leading an investigation of Enron asked the Justice Department on Friday to explain why it hasn’t prosecuted executives of the energy company that collapsed in December.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., chairman of the Senate Commerce subcommittee on consumer affairs, asked Attorney General John Ashcroft in a letter “why no action has been taken against those who were responsible for illegal activities at the Enron Corp.”

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Simon had to know about drug trafficer ex-partner’s past
From the L.A. Weekly, showing conclusively that California Republican candidate for Governor Bill Simon must have known about the drug convictions of his ex partner, something Simon has continued to deny. 

While claiming that a Los Angeles jury’s $78 million judgment against William E. Simon & Sons for fraudulently running the Pacific Coin company into the ground will be overturned, Simon struggles with an explanation for why he, a former federal prosecutor, did not know that the company president with whom he was going into business, Paul Edward Hindelang, was in fact a convicted major drug trafficker. The $1 million “due diligence” procedure carried out for Simon by the Deloitte accounting firm as part of his company’s takeover of Pacific Coin was, according to Simon, limited to the 10 years before his firm took control of Pacific Coin in 1998. But that spin is not correct. Deloitte hired the L.A.-based Scherzer & Co. investigative firm to check out Hindelang and received the report of his big-time criminal background. Hindelang went to prison in the early ’80s for his role as one of the nation’s biggest marijuana traffickers.

The Weekly engaged in an amusing e-mail exchange with Russo, who finally refused to answer when asked why Simon was not suing Deloitte for failing to red-flag Hindelang’s criminal past in its report. (italics added)

On KPKF news recently Bill Bradley, the author of the story thought it note-worthy that the business in question, a pay phone business, was a cash business and thus ideal for money-laundering.

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Where, oh where are the Democrats on this issue?
The strongest opposition to an Iraq war is currently coming from conservatives while, apparently, Democrats are snoozing or too timid to speak out.

Bush family advisers at war over Iraq

The Bush family advisers on national security are staging a dramatic face-off on the fate of Saddam Hussein, as the man who advised the former president George Bush warns that an attack on Iraq would jeopardise, if not destroy, the war on terrorism.

Brent Scowcroft, who helped put together the international coalition that went to war against Iraq when it invaded Kuwait, warned that the fallout from a new war with Iraq could be “Armageddon in the Middle East”.

The Scowcroft pitch in The Wall Street Journal followed a BBC interview in which Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser to the current President George Bush, argued there was a powerful moral case for regime change in Iraq because left to his own devices, the “evil man” Hussein would wreak havoc on his people and his neighbours.

Dr Rice’s argument was seen as an attempt by the White House to rally sceptical public opinion in Britain and Europe. But Mr Scowcroft is seen as the linchpin in a loosely organised campaign by influential Republicans to stay the president’s hand.

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Arthur Andersen loses license to practice in Texas
Link

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