A review on Wednesday in the Financial Times of the leadership of Nicolas Sarkozy in the first hours of France's presidency of the European Union makes the case that "there remains the possibility that this one-man political oxymoron may yet unscramble France and help the E.U. unscramble itself too."[1]  --  John Thornhill, the editor of the Financial Times's European edition, described Sarkozy's ambition to "transform France’s value system.  Mr. Sarkozy’s dominant theme is that the French people must assume more responsibility themselves, take greater risks and work harder.  'What is lacking in French society is the possibility to choose, the liberty to choose,' he says.  --  Mr. Sarkozy’s mission has been to create that room for choice and reward action.  There are signs that people are responding. . . . Moreover, France is shedding some of its corporatist and statist skins."  --  COMMENT:  John Thornhill calls Sarkozy a "one-man political oxymoron," but in fact he is proving to be a rather consistent "market state" leader, to borrow a term from Philip Bobbitt's two tomes.  --  Bobbitt, presently on the faculty of Columbia Law School, is the author of two lengthy works arguing that Western society (which now includes Australia, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, South Africa, and India, in Bobbitt's view) is now undergoing a world-historical transformation of the State.  --  UFPPC's Monday evening book discussion group, Digging Deeper, is currently examining the more recent volume, Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008).  --  (The earlier volume, also published by Knopf in 2002, is The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History.)  --  Both of Bobbitt's books lay out the argument that under the pressure of the revolutionary forces of globalization, computing, nuclear proliferation, and telecommunications, the principle of state legitimation that characterized the 20th-century nation state ("The State will better the welfare of the nation") is morphing into that of the 21st-century market state ("The State will maximize the opportunity of its citizens") (The Shield of Achilles, p. 347; Terror and Consent, p. 191).  --  In Bobbitt's view, this transition is ushering in a "new constitutional order" with far-reaching effects, especially on law and strategy....

In Tehran on Wednesday, 2003 Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi and about seventy other human rights advocates, intellectuals, academics, acitivists, and dissidents launched the National Peace Council (translated elsewhere as "National Council of Peace"), Agence France-Presse reported.[1]  --  "We not only are against military action on Iran but are also against economic sanctions," she said in a speech.  --  Among the National Peace Council membership are Ebrahim Yazdi, who leads the Freedom Movement, dissident Hashem Aghajari, film director Jafar Panahi, and Iran's leading female film-maker, Rakhshan Bani Etemad.  --  The Associated Press said that Ebadi "also stressed that the issue should not be left to only politicians.  --  'Decision-making about peace and war is not a restricted right of governments anymore.  People also have the right to discuss it,' Ebadi said at the meeting of activists in northern Tehran."[2]  --  In a Jun. 20 interview with Inter Press Service, Ebadi called on Iran to stop enriching uranium and stressed that the only "rational" approach to the U.S.-Iran standoff is dialogue and compromise on both sides, and she stressed the mutual interest both sides have in a peaceful solution:  "About two million Iranians live in the U.S.  They are good citizens for the U.S. and in their trade, commerce, and education, they comprise a successful minority group in the U.S.  If each one of these people has five relatives in Iran, you can easily estimate the number of people interested in normalized relations between Iran and the U.S.  The relationship between the two nations has always been peaceful.  We can forget our governments and continue our friendship."[3]  --  On the web site Iran Nuclear Watch, Carol Ong posted a statement from the Nobel Women's Initiative supporting the council; the statement said that "military action will not resolve any of the outstanding and far-reaching issues between the U.S. and Iran" and affirmed, against "the Bush administration's posturing towards Iran," that "[m]ilitary action against Iran will only exacerbate the situation, bringing further chaos to the region and worsening the situation for human rights and democracy."[4] ...

According to Gareth Porter writing for Inter Press Service, "[a] senior Iranian official reportedly told members of the Iranian parliament Monday that Iran has agreed to freeze its enrichment program for six weeks and begin negotiations with the P5+1 group of states as early as next week, according to reports of that decision by the Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) and by a Farsi-language website in Iran."[1] ...

In another sign of concerted opposition within the Pentagon to any attack on Iran, the Financial Times of London said Thursday that "The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff warned on Wednesday that an Israeli strike on Iran could open up a 'third front' for the U.S. in addition to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, calling instead for dialogue with Tehran."[1]  --  In remarks that suggest a loss of confidence in the civilian leadership, Admiral Michael Mullen, who is the senior U.S. military commander, spoke of "a need for better clarity, even dialogue at some level."  --  He also said he was “deeply troubled” by what he said was the increasing effectiveness of the Taliban in Afghanistan," the Financial Times reported, but forgot to mention that Adm. Mullen was just back from a weekend trip to Israel.  --  Australia's ABC News highlighted the trip, however, and noted that Adm. Mullen said:  "I won't discuss the details of the concerns they expressed nor will I comment one way or another about the speculation surrounding Israeli intentions."[2]  --  The Chicago Tribune called Mullen's remarks "notable for their blunt pragmatism."[3]  --  Aamer Madhani added that "In a separate development, Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, commander of the Navy's 5th Fleet, warned Iran on Wednesday that the U.S. would take action if Tehran tried to cut the sea lane through the Strait of Hormuz, a choke point in the flow of much of the world's oil supply.  Cosgriff's comments were in response to Iranian officials' threats against Hormuz if there is a Western attack on Iran."  --  In Israel, meanwhile, a columnist speculated that "In November, after Senator Barack Obama becomes the president-elect of the United States, outgoing President George W. Bush will launch a strike at Iran."[4]  --  "There is a genuine possibility that Bush will end his miserable presidency not with a whimper, but with a bang," Ari Shavit wrote in Haaretz Wednesday morning.  --  "The scenario is a wild one," Shavit acknowledged, but went on, alarmingly, to claim that it would be "good for Israel" and "good for the United States." ...

Saying "I can't see it, touch it, or feel it, but I can sell it, so I'm going to palm it off to the highest bidder," a 24-year-old New Zealand man is auctioning a framed deed of "soul ownership" on the web site TradeMe, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.[1]  --  Walter Scott said his soul "is 'a merry old soul' rather than a 'funk soul brother' but that he would 'would like to think there is a bit of funk in there somewhere.'"  --  "In 2001, 20-year-old U.S. university student Adam Burtle tried unsuccessfully to sell his soul on auction Web site eBay.  --  Bidding had reached $400 before the auction was pulled from the site, with the company ruling something tangible needed to swap hands." ...

On Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that "The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs, or other racial and ethnic groups."  --  "[T]he guidelines do not require congressional approval," Lara Jakes Jordan reported.  --  "The FBI will be allowed to begin investigations simply 'by assuming that everyone's a suspect, and then you weed out the innocent,' said Caroline Fredrickson of the American Civil Liberties Union."  --  Though details were hard to come by, that "The guidelines focus on the FBI's domestic operations and run about 40 pages long, several officials said.  They do not specifically spell out what traits the FBI should use in building profiles."  --  Attorney General Michael Mukasey told reporters that "It's necessary to put in place regulations that will allow the FBI to transform itself . . . into an intelligence-gathering organization in addition to just a crime-solving organization." ...

An unanticipated fall in U.S. crude oil stockpiles pushed oil prices to new highs on Wednesday.  --  "NYMEX August West Texas Intermediate added $2.60 to close at $143.57 a barrel," the Financial Times of London reported.  --  "ICE August Brent rose $3.59 on the day to settle at $144.26 a barrel."  --  Gasoline supplies rose slightly, however, "suggesting consumer demand was weakening," Robert Cookson said.  --  Increasingly belligerent rhetoric in Israel and Iran and news of covert warfare waged by the U.S. against the Islamic Republic are also factors.  --  Combined with fears that General Motors may succumb to bankruptcy, the continued rise of oil prices pushed U.S. stock markets into "bear territory," more than 20% below their October highs, AP reported.[2]  --  GM "closed below the $10 mark for the first time since September 1954 when Dwight Eisenhower was president," Tim Paradis said.  --  With gasoline at a record U.S. high of $4.092 nationally, "Wall Street is worried that rising energy prices are causing consumers to pare their spending in other areas."  --  In another sign of pessimism, "Blockbuster Inc. said it is withdrawing its proposal to buy Circuit City Stores Inc.  Blockbuster said the proposed deal, at a price of more than $1 billion, didn't make sense because of market conditions."  --  Similar situations can be seen in equity markets around the world, Sarah O'Connor of the Financial Times noted:  "In Asia, Europe, and the U.K. the combination of commodity-led inflation and slowing growth took its toll yet again.  The Nikkei 225 fell for the 10th day in a row — its longest losing streak in 43 years — while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 shed 0.7 per cent and the FTSE 100 lost 1 per cent."[3] ...

The persistent rejection of reforms empowering the European Union "does not result from citizens' poor comprehension of what European construction is; it expresses a fundamental disagreement with respect to the positions Europe has taken," according to Arnaud Parienty, a French secondary-school teacher writing on Monday in Alternatives Économiques in article translated by Leslie Thatcher on the Truthout web site.[1]  --  "[I]t's out of a concern to safeguard various unique national characteristics that they more or less legitimately consider to be threatened, but also and above all because Europe seems dangerous to them:  far from protecting against the shock of globalization and assuring stability and prosperity, Europe seems to be against those objectives."  --  "The tragic mistake of the high officials and elected officials who govern Europe is to choose not to take that disagreement into account." ...

On Wednesday, the Financial Times said that diplomats are increasingly concerned that "Israel is preparing to [attack Iran] itself, possibly even before the U.S. presidential elections in November."[1]  --  Three reporters based in London, Washington, and Jerusalem reported that "Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, flew to Israel over the weekend for meetings with defense officials."  --  "[I]t is clear that the [Iranian] regime is taking the risk of an offensive seriously," wrote Roula Khalaf, Daniel Dombey, and Tobias Buck.  --  But "one of the main questions occupying U.S. policy analysts is whether Washington would give a 'green' light to Israel."  --  "[S]ome Israeli experts worry that the U.S. and Israel are engaging in a dangerous game.  --  Alex Fishman, an Israeli analyst, says the U.S. administration — which first leaked news of the Israeli military maneuvers [in early June] — has been using the threat of an Israeli attack to intimidate Iran.  --  'Israel’s strategic military force is serving as a pawn in the hands of the administration to bring this crisis to a situation of near-explosion until someone blinks first,' he wrote on Wednesday in Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli newspaper.  --  'The problem is that threats of this type have a dynamic of their own, and they may yet be self-fulfilling.  What will happen if the Iranians don’t blink?'” ...

Instead of the 20,000 decline in U.S. jobs in June expected by economists, "[n]on-farm private sector employment fell by 79,000 in the month" according to the monthly ADP survey — a decline that included a drop of 3,000 in service sector employment, which is seen as "the powerhouse behind U.S. employment," the Financial Times of London reported Wednesday.[1]  --  A PDF file of the complete five-page report can be read here.  --  "[T]he ADP report could signal a precipitous drop of around 200,000 jobs in the official payroll numbers, far deeper than 60,000 previously expected, deepening concerns about the state of the U.S. economy," Daniel Pimlott reported.  --  The New York Times said that "Plummeting home prices have in recent months eliminated jobs for hundreds of thousands of people, from bankers and real estate agents to construction workers and furniture manufacturers.  Tighter lending standards imposed by banks in the wake of huge mortgage losses have made it hard for many Americans to secure credit — the lifeblood of expansion in recent years — crimping the appetite of consumers, whose spending amounts to 70 percent of the economy."[2]  --  Peter S. Goodman reported that declining auto sales mean "mass layoffs" may be ahead.  --  "Joblessness has accelerated, and employers have slashed working hours even for those on their payrolls, shrinking the size of paychecks just as workers need them the most." ...

On Jun. 13, 2008, one of the biggest jail breaks in modern times was successfully staged by Taliban insurgents in Kandahar, Afghanistan, freeing at least 800 prisoners, including hundreds of Taliban fighters.  --  On Wednesday, Canada's Globe and Mail reported on how it happened in a long investigative piece.[1]  --  Graeme Smith said that the escape from the jail was "not just a successful Taliban operation.  It was a failure of the institutions that protect Kandahar city, despite the Canadian money and lives expended to build a zone of security here in the past two years."  --  "An insurgent who escaped, a 28-year-old father of two children who didn't want his name published, said the Taliban planners were helped by jail officials." ...

On Monday, the Pentagon announced the withdrawal of the final "surge" brigade in Iraq (from a location kept secret for security reasons) but also announced plans to send 33,000 more troops to Iraq, and there was talk of sending 7,000 more troops to Afghanistan.  --  By the end of July the number of U.S. combat brigade teams in Iraq will return to fifteen, the level at the beginning of the so-called "surge," Reuters reported Tuesday.[1]  --  "[A]bout 140,000" U.S. troops will then be in Iraq, down from "160,000-170,000" at the peak of the "surge," in 2007.  --  The military spokesperson making the announcement "declined to identify the brigade or give its location for security reasons."  --  The Pentagon also announced Monday that "The United States will send six additional combat units, totalling around 33,000 soldiers and marines, to Iraq in early 2009."[2]  --  The Washington Post, meanwhile, reported that "June was the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the war there began in late 2001."[3]  --  "Taliban units and other insurgent fighters have reconstituted in the country's south and east," and "[v]iolence in rural areas controlled by the Taliban and in eastern provinces along the Pakistan border has surged in recent weeks as insurgents have begun using more improvised bombs . . . The 28 U.S. troops were killed by improvised roadside bombs, small arms fire, rocket attacks, and in unspecified 'combat operations.'  The total nearly equaled the 29 announced troop deaths last month in Iraq . . . There have been 533 combat deaths to date in Afghanistan, where 32,000 U.S. troops are stationed along with about 30,000 from other countries."  --  "Among the American-led forces in the two countries, 46 service members were killed in Afghanistan, compared with 31 in Iraq, the second straight month in which combat deaths in Afghanistan exceeded those in Iraq," the New York Times noted.[4]  --  "The Pentagon is now considering sending an additional 7,000 troops to help tamp down the worsening violence," Mark Mazzetti said.  --  A new Pentagon report speaks of "the potential for 'two distinct insurgencies in Afghanistan':  a Taliban-led insurgency based in the southern city of Kandahar, and a confederation of militant groups in eastern Afghanistan that occasionally find refuge in Pakistan’s tribal areas."  --  According to U.S. budgetary accounting methods, the cost of the war in Afghanistan from fiscal year 2001 to 2007 has been $126.8bn, and the cost of the Iraq war from fiscal year 2003 through 2007 has been $448.6bn.[5]  --  In fact, these figures radically underestimate the cost of the conflicts, in particular because the Dept. of Defense uses faulty "cash" rather than "accrual" accounting methods in order to disguise the true costs of combat, as Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and co-author and government finance and budgeting expert Linda J. Bilmes demonstrated in their March 2008 book, The Three Trillion Dollar War.  --  A detailed synopsis of that volume appears below.[6] ...

Former foreign minister Ali-Akbar Velayati, who advises Iran's supreme leader, said Tuesday that a recent international offer to resolve the controversy over Iran's nuclear program was acceptable "in principle," the Financial Times of London reported Wednesday.[1]  --  But "Iran has not officially responded to the offer from world powers and it is not clear to what extent Mr. Velayati was expressing the leader’s position," Najmeh Bozorgmehr and James Blitz said.  --  But "analysts usually take Mr. Velayati’s statements on international issues as being close to Ayatollah Khamenei’s position," they said.  --  "Diplomats said his statements showed that the regime was reflecting seriously on the package." ...

The London Guardian reported Tuesday that the British Foreign office argued to the House of Lords that Chagossians who were expelled from their homeland in the 1960s have no right to return, and that any such return would be "precarious and costly" and would pose an "unacceptable risk" to the U.S. base in Diego Garcia, the establishment of which was the reason for their expulsion.[1]  --  A "divisional court and the court of appeal have already found in favor of the Chagossians," Duncan Campbell said, but in 2004 the government "issue[d] orders in council forbidding the return of the islanders."  --  BACKGROUND:  "Orders in council" is a phrase meaning government by fiat:  "the use of a royal decree by politicians who want to get away with something undemocratically," as John Pilger has written.  --  "Most British people have never heard of it.  British prime ministers use it to take the nation into unpopular wars, such as the invasions of Egypt in 1956 and Iraq in 2003.  Dictators do the same, but without the quaint ritual."  --  For these words and more on this case, see the Pilger's Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire (2007), whose first chapter tells how two thousand people who lived on the Chagos archipelago, principally on Diego Garcia, were evicted after a secret decision was made in 1961-1964 by the U.S. & the U.K. to establish an Indian Ocean base there.  --  "It was not until 1975, following an exposé in the Washington Post, that the U.S. Senate revealed that the British government had been secretly 'compensated' for the Chagos with a discount of $14 million off the price of a Polaris nuclear submarine.  This was illegal, as it was never submitted to Congress for approval."  --  At present, the U.S. maintains "four thousand service personnel and contractors, two bomber runways, each two and a half miles long, anchorages for a fleet of ships, living conditions the U.S. Navy describes as 'indispensable,' 'outstanding' and 'unbelievable,'" though habitability was one of the ruses used to justify the eviction of the Chagossians (John Pilger, Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire [NY: Nation Books, 2007], ch. 1, "Stealing a Nation," p. 56; see also pp. 20-61).  --  The Chagossians are rarely mentioned in the country whose government is at the root of their misfortune and the latest news of their legal case appeared in no U.S. paper; however, their plight was discussed recently in an article entitled "Evidence Shows America Is an Empire" published on Jun. 21, 2008, in the Bangor (ME) Daily News by a member of Maine Veterans For Peace....

On Sat., Jun. 14, George W. Bush paid his last visit to Paris as president of the United States.  --  Below is a translation of Paris Match's account of two events held at the American embassy.[1]  --  Ironically, Bush dedicated a 12-and-a-half-foot $1,268,400 monumental bronze sculpture in the gardens of the American embassy that was paid for by some of the wealthiest individuals in the world and dubbed "The Flame of Liberty."  --  This burlesque event left not a trace in U.S. media, though it offers such a nice figure of how in neo-Orwellian fashion two formerly revolutionary nations celebrate their hubris....

A 16-page Congressional Research Service report on Iran's nuclear program is available on the web site of the Federation of American Scientists, Steven Aftergood noted Tuesday in his newsletter, Secrecy News.[1]  --  "Iran's Nuclear Program: Status" supports the view, widely held among expert observers, that Iran has decided to develop the knowledge needed to build nuclear weapons in the future, but is not now pursuing the development of nuclear weapons themselves.  --  The report thus contradicts the subtext of most mainstream reporting on the U.S.-Iran standoff.  --  Written by Paul K. Kerr, analyst in nonproliferation at CRS's Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division, the report says claims Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons are based only on "suspicions."  --  It notes that "Iranian officials have repeatedly asserted that the country's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes.  For example, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i declared during a June 3, 2008, speech that Iran is opposed to nuclear weapons 'based on religious and Islamic beliefs as well as based on logic and wisdom.'  He added, 'Nuclear weapons have no benefit but high costs to manufacture and keep them.  Nuclear weapons do not bring power to a nation because they are not applicable.  Nuclear weapons cannot be used'" (pp. 1-2).  --  "The main source of proliferation concern is Tehran's construction of a gas-centrifuge-based uranium enrichment facility," Kerr writes (p. 2).  --  "A heavy-water reactor, which Iran is construction at Arak, has also been a source of concern" (ibid.).  --  "In addition to the dual-use nature of the nuclear programs described above, Tehran's interactions with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have contributed to suspicions that Tehran has a nuclear weapons program.  In the past, Iran has taken several actions that interfered with the agency's investigation of its nuclear program, including concealing nuclear activities and providing misleading statements" (p. 3).  --  But "ElBaradei's May [2008] report points out that the IAEA, with the exception of the document related to uranium metal [for whose existence Iran has presented an adequate explanation], has 'no information . . . on the actual design or manufacture by Iran' of components (nuclear or otherwise) for nuclear weapons" (p. 7).  --  "The IAEA has been able to verify that Iran's declared nuclear facilities and materials have not been diverted for military purposes" (ibid.).  --  As for the claim in the December 2007 NIE shows at least that Iran was once pursuing nuclear weapons, the CRS report notes (pp. 13-14) that that document "defines 'nuclear weapons program' as 'Iran's nuclear weapon design and weaponization work and covert uranium conversion-related and uranium enrichment-related work" — but as noted above, there is no evidence of any "nuclear weapon design and weaponization work," only of uranium conversion and enrichment.  --  Thus the oft-asserted claim in Western media that the NIE supports the view that up to 2003 Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons does not hold water, either.  --  Kerr also writes:  "In addition to the new intelligence, other factors suggest that Iran may not have an active nuclear weapons program.  First, the IAEA has resolved several of the outstanding issues described in the August 2007 Iran-IAEA work plan and has apparently not found additional evidence of a nuclear weapons program.  Indeed, the agency has not discovered significant undeclared Iranian nuclear activities for several years (although, as noted above, the IAEA's ability to monitor Iran's nuclear facilities has decreased).  Furthermore, Tehran, beginnin in 2003, has been willing to disclose previously undeclared nuclear activities to the IAEA (though, as previously discussed, Iran has not been fully cooperating with the agency).  In addition, Iran made significant changes to the administration of its nuclear program in fall 2003 — changes that produced greater openness with the IAEA and may have indicated a decision to stop a nuclear weapons program.  Finally, as noted above, Iranian officials have stated numerous times that Tehran is not seeking nuclear weapon, partly for religious reasons.  A change in this stance could arguably damage religious leaders' credibility" (p. 15).  --  But the CRS report has significant flaws.  --  It falsely asserts that "Iran resumed uranium conversion in August 2005 under the leadership of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had been elected two months earlier" (p. 4).  --  In fact, this decision was made and executed before Ahmadinejad took power, as Anne Penketh reported at the time ("Iran in Showdown with EU over Its Nuclear Ambitions," Independent [London], Aug. 1, 2005), "Diplomats believe the Iranian authorities want to decide on the future of their talks with the Europeans before Mr. Ahmadinejad is sworn in next Saturday [i.e. on Aug. 6], so that any radical policy change would be seen as having been approved by the outgoing president, Mohammed Khatami."  --  Moreover, the CRS report omits the fact that authority over Iran's nuclear program is not in the Iranian president's power; policy is, rather, determined by the Supreme National Security Council, which reports directly to the Supreme Leader.  --  The report also ignores (except for a reference in a footnote Iran's defense that it has complied with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which it is (unlike Israel) a signatory....

On Tuesday, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released a Medium-Term Oil Market Report at a meeting of the World Petroleum Congress in Madrid.  --  The IEA, "the Western countries' energy watchdog," predicted that "annual non-OPEC [oil production] growth [will] slow to 0.5 per cent between 2008 and 2013, against demand growth of 1.6 per cent per year," Carola Hoyos and Javier Blas of the Financial Times of London reported.[1]  --  "The mismatch means the world economy would be more reliant on OPEC, the oil cartel, and oil prices are likely to remain at record levels, analysts said.  --  'Structural demand growth in developing countries and ongoing supply constraints continue to paint a tight market picture over the medium-term,' the IEA said."  --  "[N]on-OPEC countries will in the next five years have to rely on biofuels, such as corn-based ethanol, for 50 per cent of their growth in overall fuels."  --  "The fast decline of fields — especially in the North Sea and Mexico where production is shrinking by more than 20 per cent each year — means that 14.8m of the 16m barrels of new supply from non-OPEC countries over the next five years will go to making up for losses from old fields producing less and less each year.  --  But OPEC is also struggling, with project delays impacting its ability to add new capacity.  The IEA substantially downgraded its expectations for OPEC crude capacity from 2008-2013, cutting earlier forecasts by 1.2m b/d."  --  In particular, "[t]he IEA said it believed Saudi Arabia was having bigger problems than the kingdom, the world’s largest exporter, was willing to admit to."  --  Citing continued low reserve stocks, the IEA denied speculators are causing high oil prices:  “Like alchemists looking for a way to turn basic elements into gold, everyone wants a simplistic explanation for high prices," it said.  "Often it is a case of political expediency to find a scapegoat for higher prices rather than undertake serious analysis or perhaps confront difficult decisions.”  --  A paper copy of the IEA report can be ordered for 500 euros ($787); the PDF file costs 400 euros ($630).  --  Thirty-eight slides used at a speech presenting the report in Madrid can be reviewed here....

Complaints by three Iraqis and a Jordanian were filed in federal court in Seattle, Greenbelt, MD, and Columbus, OH, on Monday against employees of CACI International Inc. of Arlington, Va., and New York-based L-3 Communications Corp., formerly Titan Corp., alleging they were responsible at Abu Ghraib in 2003 and 2004 for "subject[ing plaintiffs] to forced nudity, electrical shocks, mock executions, and other inhumane treatment.  They seek unspecified payments high enough to compensate the detainees for their injuries, and to deter contractors from such conduct in the future," AP's David Dishneau reported Tuesday.[1]  --  If they go forward, the lawsuits will break new ground; no private contractors have yet been held responsible for abuse at Abu Ghraib.   --  Dishneau mentioned that plaintiffs are represented by the Philadelphia law firm Burke O'Neil, but neglected to name the Center for Constitutional Rights, founded by William Kunstler in 1966 and currently led by Michael Ratner, which is also involved.  --  "Three of the lawsuits name individual employees of those companies as defendants.  They are Adel L. Nakhla, a former L-3 translator, of Montgomery Village; Daniel 'DJ' Johnson of Renton, Wash., who worked as a CACI interrogator, and Timothy L. Dugan of Pataskala, Ohio, who also worked as a CACI interrogator, according to the complaints."  --  Reporter David Dishneau's efforts to contact those charged failed:  "Nakhla's wife, Nadine, told an Associated Press reporter on her doorstep that her husband wasn't home.  She declined to say how he could be reached.  --  Johnson's lawyer, Patrick O'Donnell, said in an e-mail the allegations against his client are false.  'Daniel Johnson went to Iraq as a 21-year-old, fresh out of the Army, in order to serve his country, which he did honorably,' O'Donnell wrote.  --  Johnson didn't leave a forwarding address after he moved about 10 days ago, his landlord in Renton said.  --  A phone listing for Dugan went unanswered Monday.  --  A lawyer for the plaintiffs said that "all four plaintiffs were released from Abu Ghraib without charges after they were held for as long as four years and four months in the case of Dugan's accuser, Suhail Najim Abdullah Al Shimari, an Iraqi farmer."  --  "All five cases stem from a District of Columbia federal judge's refusal to grant class-action certification to a 2004 lawsuit brought by the same attorneys and 237 plaintiffs," Dishneau said.  "That complaint, which is still pending, consolidated two cases that originally named Stefanowicz, Nakhla, Dugan, and Johnson.  They were dismissed as defendants in the original cases for lack of jurisdiction.  --  [Lead attorney Susan L.] Burke said more workers may be sued, and more plaintiffs may be added to the existing lawsuits."  --  An article in the Columbus Dispatch quoted a spokesperson for CACI International claiming the company was the victim of "an ongoing 'big lie' propaganda campaign."[2]  --  (Big lie indeed:  an article in the American Conservative reported in 2005 that CACI International also "failed to keep records on hours of work that it was billing for and of routinely upgrading employee job descriptions so that more could be charged per employee per hour."  --  As an article in NewStandard explained in 2004, researchers have worked for years to "fit former detainees' descriptions of assailants and prison release papers with names and photographs of Titan and CACI employees contracted to the prisons."  --  Thus the lawsuits in question are the fruit of an extraordinary campaign to hold individuals personally responsible for heinous acts.  --  A photograph of Timothy Dugan at Abuh Ghraib has been posted online by AP; in part, it was from photographs like these that CCR and the other attorneys have built their cases against the contractors....

Members of People for Peace, Justice, and Healing, United for Peace of Pierce County, and Veterans For Peace plan to maintain an antiwar vigil in North Tacoma's Old Town district at the corner of McCarver and N. 30th St. on Independence Day, July 4, 2008, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., across from The Spar.[1]  --  Signs against any war in Iran are also most welcome, as are pro-impeachment signs....

That the U.S. is contemplating attacking Iran is an indication the country has "lost its capacity to think clearly," Thomas Powers, the author of Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to al-Qaeda, wrote in the Jul. 17 number of the New York Review of Books.[1]  --  On the one hand, it is evident that to attack Iran is to court disaster.  --  On the other, "the dangers posed by Iran with a bomb have been barely discussed."  --  "Official reluctance to spell out why Tehran more than other nations cannot be trusted with a bomb has been matched by reluctance to consider why Tehran might want one in the first place."  --  "What U.S. officials say, when they say anything at all, is that Tehran wants a bomb in order to dominate the Persian Gulf region and to threaten its neighbors, especially Israel.  This is a misreading of how other nuclear powers have made use of their weapons.  As tools of coercive diplomacy nuclear weapons are almost entirely useless, but they are extremely effective in blocking large-scale or regime-threatening attack.  There is no evidence that Iran has a different motive, and plenty of reason for Iran to fear that attack is a real possibility."  --  Moveover, "[t]he seriousness of American threats is confirmed by the fact that no significant national leader in the United States has ever disowned or objected to them in clear, vigorous, principled language.  It is as if the whole country listens to the administration's threats with breath held, wondering if Bush and Cheney really mean to do as they say, and in effect leaving the decision entirely to them."  --  "[W]hy would leaders in Tehran, responsible for the lives of 70 million citizens, want to depend on President Bush's restraint for their survival and safety?  Bush has a history.  On his own authority, without the sanction of any international body, he attacked Iraq five years ago and precipitated a bloody chain of events that shows no sign of ending.  It would be natural, indeed inevitable, for any government in Tehran, seeing what has happened next door, to ask what could save Iran from a similar fate.  An answer is not far to seek:  nuclear weapons with a reliable delivery system could do that."  --  Powers also discussed the possibility that the White House, which wants war with Iran, and the Pentagon, which does not, are engaged in a "showdown."  --  It seems obvious, he concluded, that it is "too late" for the Bush administration to execute its plan to attack Iran.  And yet, and yet . . . writing on Jun. 19, ten days before Seymour Hersh revealed in a New Yorker article that six months ago Bush began spending $400 million on covert action inside Iran, Powers concluded:  "We're not free of this danger yet." ...

"[I]t is increasingly clear that the Bush administration will leave office with Al Qaeda having successfully relocated its base from Afghanistan to Pakistan’s tribal areas, where it has rebuilt much of its ability to attack from the region and broadcast its messages to militants across the world," the *New York Times* said in its lead story Monday.[1]  --  "Just as it had on the day before 9/11, Al Qaeda now has a band of terrorist camps from which to plan and train for attacks against Western targets, including the United States," Mark Mazzetti and David Rhode reported.  "Officials say the new camps are smaller than the ones the group used prior to 2001.  However, despite dozens of American missile strikes in Pakistan since 2002, one retired C.I.A. officer estimated that the makeshift training compounds now have as many as 2,000 local and foreign militants, up from several hundred three years ago."  --  The long investigative report cited "missteps in Washington and the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, sharp policy disagreements, and turf battles between American counterterrorism agencies" for "a threat from Al Qaeda today that is comparable to what it faced on Sept. 11, 2001,” according to Seth Jones, a Pentagon consultant and a terrorism expert at the RAND Corporation.  --  However, some "question whether Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s top two leaders, are really still able to orchestrate large-scale attacks," Mazzetti and Rhode said....

On Sunday, U.S Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker denied that the U.S. is conducting crossborder operations in Iran, as alleged by Seymour Hersh in a 6,300-word article posted the same day on the web site of the New Yorker, but Hersh said it was unlikely the ambassador would be informed about such operations.[1]  --  A Los Angeles Times blog said the article was major news in Tehran on Monday, where "for both supporters and opponents of the Iranian government one thing stood out in the report above all else:  the price tag.  --  Hersh alleges that the U.S. Congress secretly OKd up to $400 million to fund such activities.  --  To Iranians, that’s a lot of cash that you can throw around at a lot of people to do a lot of things.  --  Television news shows went bonkers with the report.  'Sabotage of the U.S. in Iran and a new wave of psychological warfare,' was the title of one televised roundtable discussion."[2]  --  The article promises to bring reformist groups under even greater suspicion inside Iran, commentators agreed; the article was rejected by some as "psychological warfare" against Iran, however.  --  Dan Froomkin reported extensively on the article and on reaction to it on his White House Watch blog on the web site of the Washington Post.[3] ...

On Thursday, the winner of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Price for Journalism was "strip-searched at gunpoint, assaulted and abused by Israeli security officials at the Allenby border crossing between Jordan and the West Bank on Thursday as he tried to return home to Gaza," Inter Press Service reported Saturday.[1]  --  Mohammed Omer, who is IPS's correspondent in Gaza, "was returning from London where he had just collected his Gellhorn Prize, and from several European capitals where he had speaking engagements, including a meeting with Greek parliamentarians," Mel Frykberg reported.  --  "Omer's trip was sponsored by the Washington Report, and the Dutch embassy in Tel Aviv was responsible for coordinating Omer's travel plans and his security permit to leave Gaza with Israeli officials."  --  Omer was isolated by Israel's domestic intelligence agency the Shin Bet and insulted:  "Eventually I was asked whether I had a knife or gun on me even though I had already passed through the X-ray machine, had my luggage searched, and was in the company of Dutch diplomats," he said.  --  "His luggage was again searched, and security then proceeded to go through every document and paper he had on him, taking down the names and numbers of the European parliamentary officials he had met.  --  The Shin Bet officials then started to make fun of the European parliamentarians, and mocked Omer for being 'the prize-winning journalist.'"  --  He was then strip-searched and "[e]very cavity of his body was searched as one of the investigators pinned him down on the floor, placing his boot on Omer's neck.  Omer began vomiting, and fainted," and awoke in a hospital.  --  "The Dutch Foreign Ministry . . . demanded an explanation. . . . Ahmed Dadou, spokesman from the Dutch Foreign Ministry at the Hague told IPS, "We are taking this whole incident very seriously as we don't believe the behavior of the Israeli officials is in accordance with a modern democracy." ...

In his first piece since September 2007 on the U.S. national security state's undeclared war against Iran, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh said in an article entitled "Preparing the Battlefield," posted early Sunday on the web site of the New Yorker, that "United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year," following a secret "finding" issued by U.S. President George W. Bush.  --  According to Hersh, the Bush administration is evading requirements to report to Congress.  --  Other significant assertions in Hersh's article:  (1) "[Former CENTCOM Commander] Fallon’s early retirement [in March 2008] . . . appears to have been provoked [in part] by his strong belief in the chain of command and his insistence on being informed about Special Operations in his area of responsibility."  --  (2) The Bush administration is not respecting the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act:  [T]he Bush Administration, as part of its global war on terror, instituted new policies that undercut regional commanders-in-chief; for example, it gave Special Operations teams, at military commands around the world, the highest priority in terms of securing support and equipment."  --  (3) "In recent months, according to the Iranian media, there has been a surge in violence in Iran," which seems likely to be due to the fact that the U.S. is actively funding anti-Iranian terrorist groups — in particular, Jundallah, the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), and the Kurdish separatist group the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK.  --  (4) Such tactics, which may be well adapted to the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan, and Waziristan, are likely to backfire in Iran, many believe; a Pentagon consultant told Hersh that "There is huge opposition inside the intelligence community to the idea of waging a covert war inside Iran, and using Baluchis and Ahwazis as surrogates."  --  (5) In January 2008, "a meeting took place in the Vice-President’s office.  'The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,' [a former senior intelligence official] said.  --  COMMENT:  While important, "Preparing the Battlefield" does not live up to the standard set by a journalist who is, at 71, probably the most celebrated investigative reporter in the history of the U.S.  --  Hersh is vague on a number of key points, and obfuscatory on others.  --  He does not, for example, state exactly when or how "Congress agreed to a request from President Bush," saying vaguely that this occurred "[l]ate last year."  --  (Andrew Cockburn, in a piece published by CounterPunch on May 2, said the finding was issued in March 2008, not December 2007; Hersh does not address the discrepancy.)  --  Hersh repeats Adm. William Fallon's misstatement of the population of Iran as 80m without correction (the CIA Factbook puts this figure at 66m; other sources say 70m.)  --  Never the most elegant of writers, Hersh's style here is more awkward than usual ("Many of the activities may be being carried out . . ."), and he is parochial in referring to his former employer, the New York Times, as "the Times," since the Times of London has also been an important source of information on the U.S.-Iran imbroglio — in particular, on the matter of Israeli invovlement, which is altogether omitted from Hersh's article, though Sen. Barack Obama's visit to the AIPAC conference in early June is mentioned in its final paragraph.  --  Leaving Israel completely out of a 6,300-word article on the U.S.-Iran standoff is something of a feat, and sometimes requires contorsions, as when Hersh cites Joschka Fischer's recent syndicated column warning of the danger of conflict in Iran and interviews the former German foreign minister, but omits Fischer's view that an Israeli attack on Iran is likely, which was the thesis of his May 30 column.  --  Since 1985, of course, the New Yorker has been owned by Advance Publications in 1985, the media company owned by Samuel Irving Newhouse, Jr., a billionaire with an estimated net worth of $8.5 billion ranked in 2007 the 37th richest American by Forbes Magazine.  --  (Advance Publications also owns more than two dozen U.S. newspapers, local business weeklies in more than three dozen U.S. cities, and more than three dozen magazines.  For more on S.I. Newhouse Jr.'s politics, see Carol Felsenthal's Citizen Newhouse: Portrait of a Media Merchant [1999], which describes him as Newhouse and his late father as among the most powerful and secretive men in America, members of a family that has long been involved in American politics.)  --  SOURCES:  Hersh cites seven unnamed sources in his article:  "a person familiar with [the Finding's] contents," "a Democratic senator," "a Pentagon consultant who is involved in the war on terror," "a former senior intelligence official," an "aide to one member of the Democratic leadership," a "member of the House Appropriations Committee," and "one of [Adm. Fallon's] military colleagues."  --  He also quotes seven named sources: U.S. Adm. William Fallon, former head of CENTCOM (March 2007-March 2008), Rep. David Obey (D-WI 7th), chair of the House Appropriations Committee, retired Marine General John J. (Jack) Sheehan, former commander-in-chief of the U.S. Atlantic Command, U.S. Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner, "who has taught strategy at the National War College and now conducts war games centered on Iran," Vali Nasr, "who teaches international politics at Tufts University and is also a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations," Robert Baer, "a former C.I.A. clandestine officer who worked for nearly two decades in South Asia and the Middle East," and Joschka Fischer, the former German Foreign Minister....

Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander in chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, told the newspaper Jam-e Jam on Saturday that "Iran will definitely act to impose control on the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz" in the event of an attack, and "warned regional states of reprisals if they took part," Reuters reported.[1]  --  "Naturally every country under attack by an enemy uses all its capacity and opportunities to confront the enemy," Jafari said.  --  "If there is a confrontation between us and the enemy from outside the region, definitely the scope (of the confrontation) will reach the oil issue."  --  "[A]bout two fifths of all globally traded oil passes" through the Strait of Hormuz, Reuters noted.  --  Meanwhile, Shabtai Shavit, an influential former Israeli intelligence official, told the Sunday Telegraph (London) that Israel has only one year to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.[2]  --  Shavit said he saw Barack Obama as unlikely to support the use of military force against Iran.  --  Israeli officials "have been pressing President Bush to launch air strikes before he leaves office on January 20 next year," Carolynne Wheeler (Tel Aviv) and Tim Shipman said.  --  Reuters reported Sunday that American covert actions against Iran have been escalating, according to the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh:  "U.S. Special Operations Forces have been conducting crossborder operations from southern Iraq since last year," but these have now been "significantly expanded . . . seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of 'high-value targets' in Bush's war on terrorism, who may be captured or killed."[3]  --  The U.S. is providing support for Jundallah, "also known as the Iranian People's Resistance Movement, according to former CIA officer Robert Baer.  Council on Foreign Relations analyst Vali Nasr described it to Hersh as a vicious organization suspected of links to al Qaeda." ...