The New York Times reported Monday that Russia was causing "international alarm and anger" by "moving tanks and troops through the separatist enclave of South Ossetia and advancing toward the city of Gori in central Georgia, in its first direct assault on a Georgian city with ground forces during three days of heavy fighting."[1]  --  The development "set the stage for an intense diplomatic confrontation with the United States," Anne Barnard, Andrew E. Kramer, and C.J. Chivers said.  --  But Russia has enormous leverage because "the rest of Europe depends heavily on Russia for natural gas and the United States needs Moscow’s cooperation if it hopes to curtail what it believes is a nuclear weapons threat from Iran," they noted.  --  There were signs that a major battle over a Georgian city might be imminent:  "Shota Utiashvili, an official in the Georgian Interior Ministry, said the Russians had moved tanks and troops to within a few kilometers of Gori and were 'trying to cut the country in half.' . . . Sunday evening, artillery and tank fire could be heard from the outskirts of Gori.  During a pause in the fighting, Georgian military personnel appeared to be flowing into the city.  Georgian officials said they would defend it."  --  AFP reported that "The Georgian city of Gori is under 'massive' attack from Russian artillery and planes and ground forces are preparing for an assault, according to the Georgian interior ministry."[2]  --  The Times of London reported that on Monday morning thousands of residents were fleeing Gori in "panic."[3]  --  Early Monday "Russian planes bombed the base of a special forces battalion and an air traffic control center in the suburbs of the Georgian capital," Tony Halpin, Kevin O'Flynn, and James Bone reported.  --  Only at the very end of the article did the the Times of London explain what is really behind the conflict:  Georgian President Saakashvili "said that Russia planned to take over the whole of Georgia because it wanted 'control over energy routes from Central Asia and the Caspian Sea.'  --  The West regards Georgia as a vital conduit for supplies of energy from Central Asia through pipelines that bypass Russia." ...

A columnist for the Financial Times of London said Sunday that if Ron Suskind's allegations in The Way of the World, the new book the Pulitzer-prize winning journalist published last week, prove to be true, "this is — or ought to be — a Watergate-sized scandal."[1] ...

The private intelligence company Stratfor is publishing detailed daily timelines for events in Georgia, available to subscribers.  --  The timeline for Sun., Aug. 10, the third day of the war, is posted below.[1]  --  Times are local (eleven hours ahead of PDT).  --  Highlights:  Fighting continued almost all Sat. night in the vicinity of Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia; by early Sun. morning Russian forces had prevailed, but the city is "nearly destroyed"; later in the morning a Georgian official said it had been "practically effaced from the face of the earth."  --  Several Georgian cities were evacuated on Sunday (Zugdidi, Gori).  --  Around noon a Russian sea blockade of the Georgian Black Sea coast was reported.  --  Georgian troops continued to hold the Kodori Gorge, site of the only highway in Abkhazia that leads over the Caucusus Mountains to Russia, but Abkhazian President Sergei Bagapsh said they would be "pushed out."  --  In the afternoon, Russia said it did not intend to send troops beyond the borders of South Ossetia, but disputed claims that Georgian forces had left South Ossetia.  --  In early evening word came that the U.S. was preparing a U.N. Security Council resolution denouncing Russian actions as "unacceptable to the international community."  --  At 7:48 p.m., AFP reported that a Georgian statement said that Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili had ordered a cease-fire effective 5:00 a.m. local time and notified Russia of his willingness to immediately start negotiations on a truce.  But an unnamed Russian Foreign Ministry official told the Russian news agency Interfax that while such a note was received, Georgian forces had not stopped firing.  --  Later in the evening Russia denied having bombed Tbilisi's civilian airport, which Reuters had reported.  --  French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner was on his way to Tbilisi on Sunday night, and reports were circulating that French President Nicolas Sarkozy would travel to Moscow this week.  --  At 9:03 p.m., AP reported Russian U.N. envoy Vitaly Churkin said Russia was "ready to put an end to the war" and make peace with Georgia, but he also accused the U.N. secretary general's office of siding with Georgia.  --  Twenty-five minutes later, Reuters reported Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili "must go."  --  An hour and a half before midnight a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said that Russia had sunk a Georgian missile boat....

The Times of London reported Sunday that U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Sunday that U.S. aircraft have begun to fly Georgian troops home "so that they can deal with the security issues in their country."[1]  --  The Wall Street Journal said that "U.S. officials expect to have all of the Georgians home by midweek."[2]  --  A Newsweek blog said the Georgian troops were "a familiar sight around Baghdad's Green Zone, manning checkpoints."[3]  --  The chief of Georgia's military operations in Baghdad told AFP that "The total withdrawal will take a few days," but "A senior Georgian military official in Iraq said 1,000 troops had already arrived in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia."[4] ...

The Financial Times of London said that Georgia's "appeals for a ceasefire in the widening conflict in the Caucasus failed to halt Russia’s mounting military response."[1]  --  Fighting was extended on Sunday to Abkhazia and the Georgian capital, where Tbilisi's civilian airport was attacked by Russian aircraft, and a Russian naval squadron was deployed off the Abkhasian Black Sea coast.  --  "Nicolas Sarkozy, French president and currently in the chair of the EU, announced an emergency trip to Russia in an bid to negotiate a ceasefire.  Bernard Kouchner, his foreign minister, was flying to Tbilisi last night before heading for the Russian capital," but "Moscow’s overall aims were yet to be made clear."  --  Envoys at the U.N. called the crisis "the most serious world crisis in years," and "[t]he U.N.’s fourth emergency session in three days was marked by a stiff exchange between the Russian and U.S. envoys, reminiscent of the Cold War."  --  The Financial Times emphasized the importance of the region as "a vital supply route for oil from the Caspian Sea and Central Asia to Europe," and provided an inset showing key energy pipelines and ports....

Reuters reported Sunday that Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin complained that "Western countries behaved strangely in the first hours of aggression towards South Ossetia, they were silent," and that "Western media" showed an anti-Russian bias.[1]  --  "Western media is a well-organized machine," he said, "which is showing only those pictures which fit in well with their thoughts.  We find it very difficult to squeeze our opinion in the pages of their newspapers.  Just as it was 20-30 years ago, it remains the same today . . . objectivity is not a typical trait of some Western journalists and television channels."  --  At 9:20 a.m. PDT (9:20 p.m. local time) Reuters reported that Russia acknowledged receipt of a Georgian note saying that it had stopped fighting and was withdrawing from South Ossetia, but that "our information does not confirm the Georgian statement.  There are indications that exchanges of fire are continuing and the Georgian forces have not been fully withdrawn from the conflict zone."[2]  --  Earlier, a U.S. deputy national security adviser had "welcomed news that Georgia was pulling its troops out of South Ossetia and asking for a cease fire," the Wall Street Journal reported.[3]  --  About an hour earlier, AP reported that Georgia had "pulled out of the disputed province of South Ossetia and agreed to a cease-fire Sunday."[4]  --  AP also reported that "Russia expanded its bombing Sunday, attacking the Georgian capital for the first time," and that "NATO secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said Russia had violated Georgia's territorial integrity in South Ossetia and used excessive force."  --  Russia also landed troops in the disputed territory of Abkhazia early Sunday.  --  "Near the [South Ossetian] border, Georgian soldiers were bewildered that they had been pushed out.  Exhausted troops, their faces covered with stubble, said they were angry at the United States and the European Union for not coming to their aid," AP said....

The private intelligence company Stratfor is publishing detailed daily timelines for events in Georgia, available to subscribers.  --  The timeline for Aug. 9, the second day of the conflict, is posted below.[2]  --  Times are local (twelve hours ahead of PDT).  --  Highlights:  As Russian forces moved into South Ossetia and the bombing of the Black Sea port Poti was reported in the early morning hours of Aug. 9, the Georgian government moving its offices to undisclosed locations; the U.S. government began to prepare for the evacuation of some 2,000 U.S. citizens in Georgia.  --  Shortly after dawn the Russian news agency Interfax reported that the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali had been retaken by Russian forces.  --  In midmorning Russian forces struck military sites in Georgia, which said that the two nations were at war; Russia's president called it a "peace enforcement operation."  --  Early in the evening, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe chair Alexander Stubb told reporters that Russian-Georgian conflict should be considered a war and that the outlook for a quick cessation to the fighting was grim.  --  Half an hour later, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland issued a statement calling Russia's actions "imperialist and revisionist."  --  As night fell, the Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported Georgia had launched a new infantry offensive in Tskhinvali.  --  Georgia claimed it was making cease-fire proposals to Russia, which denied receiving them.  --  Around 10:00 p.m. Reuters reported that Azerbaijan had halted oil exports from Georgian ports.  --  Reuters reported at 10:38 p.m. that an unnamed U.S. official accused Russia of a "disproportionate" response....

The private intelligence company Stratfor posted the following timeline of events for the 26-hour period in which hostilities escalated into war in South Ossetia.[1]  --  (Stratfor is providing a daily timeline, but this is available only to subscribers.)  --  The crisis began when, according to Georgia, South Ossetian "separatists opened fire" on two Georgian villages at 10:30 p.m. on Thurs., Aug. 7 (about 10:30 a.m. PDT).  --  Georgia decided at midnight to start a campaign to "restore constitutional order to the entire region" of South Ossetia, and began an attack on the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali.  --  Before 2:00 a.m. on Aug. 8 there were reports of Russian forces on the move into South Ossetia; at 2:03 a.m. the U.S. called on Russia to press South Ossetia to cease fire.  --  Russian air attacks in the conflict zone began before 3:00 a.m.  --  Vladimir Putin spoke about the crisis, at 4:06 a.m., and Russia called for a U.N. Security Council meeting a few minutes later.  --  By midmorning reports indicated Georgian troops were taking control not only of Tskhinvali but of all the southern part of South Ossetia, but Russian planes began hitting targets inside Georgia, including the city of Gori.  --  In early afternoon, Russia began accusing the U.S. of being behind the Georgia's attacks.  --  NATO calls for a cease-fire began in early afternoon.  --  In mid-afternoon, Putin and George W. Bush spoke together in Beijing.  --  Russian troops, armored personnel carriers, and tanks engaged Georgian troops in the South Ossetian capital by late afternoon.  --  At 4:35 p.m. Georgia's president, Mikhail Saakashvili, gave a CNN interview in which he accused Russia of "blunt aggression" and comparing Georgia to Poland in 1939.  --  At the same time, Russia's NATO envoy was accusing Georgia of "aggression" to NATO members....

On Sunday, the Times of London reported that a Georgian colonel in Iraq said that "The U.S. will provide us with the transportation" to move back to Georgia the country's 2,000 troops currently serving in Iraq.[1]  --  "The U.S. military said that all transportation options were being explored, without confirming that it would provide the aircraft," Deborah Haynes added.  --  AFP also cited the Georgian colonel, who is chief of Georgia's military operations in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, as saying that "[t]he U.S. military has agreed to help with the logistics of the Georgian redeployment."[2]  --  ABC News reported that "The Bush administration is balancing, on the one hand, its delicate relationship with Russia, and on the other, its relationship with Georgia, an ally that sent troops to Iraq."[3]  --  The Los Angeles Times reported that a U.S. military spokesman, Army Maj. John C. Hall, said "all transportation options" for returning the troops to Georgia were being considered.[4]  --  In an analysis, Deutsche Welle said that "Russia can destroy [Georgia's military], but it will be neither quick nor easy, regional observers say."[5]  --  Thanks to U.S. training and equipment, "The infantry force the Georgians have fielded in Ossetia, as a result, is by most accounts at least as competent as Russian army elements opposing it, and by some standards (combat experience and field training) possibly even superior, observers said."  --  However, reports from Georgia midday Sunday (local time) indicated that Georgian troops were withdrawing from South Ossetia.[6] ...

Reuters reported at 1:24 p.m PDT (1:24 a.m. on Sun., Aug. 10, in Tbilisi and Moscow) that "a senior U.S. official," not authorized to speak for the Bush administration, said that "The response has been far disproportionate from whatever threat Russia was citing" and that the U.S. is "calling for an immediate cease-fire and a stand down of all troops."[1]  --  The official said that "Russia was using a giant strategic bomber capable of carrying 54,000 pounds (24,500 kg) of bombs and had launched ballistic missile attacks on Georgian territory."  --  The official said that Russia's refusal of a cease-fire and international mediation was "not acceptable."  --  The Kremlin denied it had received any cease-fire proposal from Tbilisi.  --  A Russian deputy foreign minister said Russia has two conditions for discussion of the situation, including discussion of a cease-fire:  "One is the withdrawal of all Georgian forces from the conflict zone.  And the second is an immediate signing of a binding agreement on the non-use of force. . . . After that we could discuss all further issues."  --  The Times of London reported early Sunday that "Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, flew into the area from the Beijing Olympics as his forces seemed to be gaining the upper hand. . . . 'Georgia’s aspiration to join NATO . . . is driven by its attempt to drag other nations and peoples into its bloody adventures,' Putin said during a meeting in Vladikavkaz, the North Ossetian capital."[2]  --  Russian planes bombed the Georgian city of Gori, the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, where Western journalists "saw apartment blocks in ruins, some still on fire.  One reported scores of bodies and bloodied civilians.  Elderly people, women, and children were among the victims."  --  The New York Times reported around the same time that "The conflict between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia moved toward all-out war on Saturday as Russia prepared to land ground troops on Georgia’s coast and broadened its bombing campaign both within Georgia and in the disputed territory of Abkhazia."[3]  --  "Miles" of Russian armored vehicles are "streaming" into South Ossetia.  --  Each side claims it is acting in self-defense.  --  "Georgian officials said that Russian warplanes had attacked the major Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, operated by British Petroleum, that carries oil to the West from Asia, but that the pipeline had not been struck," Michael Schwirtz, Anne Barnard, and C.J. Chivers reported.  --  The Times quoted an unidentified "senior Western official" who said:  "The record is crystal clear.  Russia has launched a full-scale military operation, on air, land, and sea.  We have entered a totally new realm — politically, legally and diplomatically.” ...

War has broken out between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia.  --  The Financial Times reported early Saturday that the U.N. Security Council has met twice in the past 24 hours, and that each side was leveling charges of ethnic cleansing.[1]  --  Charles Clover and Harvey Morris said that "Irakli Alasania, Georgian envoy to the U.N., said Russian air attacks had extended to Abkhazia, another breakaway territory in Georgia."  --  U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, in Beijing for the opening of the 2008 Olympic Games, "discussed the situation" while U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Russia to "withdraw its ground combat forces from Georgian soil.”  --  A separate Financial Times reported failure of diplomacy to quell fighting as the Georgian government announced that "Russia completely devastated the port of Poti on the Black Sea, which is a key port for the transportation of energy sources from the Caspian Sea and is close to the Baku-Supsa pipeline and the Supsa oil terminal."[2]  --  In an editorial, the Financial Times, perhaps inevitably, took the side of Georgia, calling Russian actions "nonsense":  "Mr. Putin (and Dmitry Medvedev, his anointed successor) seem to want to prove two things: that Georgia is far too unstable to join NATO, and that they alone can determine the future of the former Soviet space.  They are right that neither the U.S. alone, nor the NATO allies, would dream of intervening in a military confrontation.  But Georgia is only unstable because of Russian policies.  Encouraging secessionists sends a terrible signal to others inside Russia, especially in the rebellious north Caucasus.  Moscow’s policy may be macho, but in the long run it will be utterly self-defeating."[3]  --  But the Financial Times editorial was utterly vague about what can be expected in the short term.  --  Another piece reviewed the history of the conflict, and concluded by quoting a Carnegie Moscow Center analyst, who said:  "I am afraid this is just the beginning of a much, much bigger problem.”[4]  --  In the latest news available late Friday night Pacific time (about 08:30 UTC Saturday, or about 12:30 p.m. in Tbilisi, Voice of America reported intensifying fighting, with South Ossetian separatist leader Eduard Kokoity saying that "about 1,400 people have been killed."[5]  --  Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said he has ordered "an all-out offensive to regain control of South Ossetia," accusing Russia of waging war on Georgia, while "Russia said its troops were responding to a Georgian assault to retake South Ossetia."  --  BACKGROUND:  In a recent book, Michael T. Klare gives some useful background on this geopolitical struggle:  "Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, substantial Russian troop detachments have been stationed in the Republic of Georgia, a pro-Western nation that enjoys warm ties with Washington and would prefer to see all the Russians depart.  Two of the four Russian contingents are stationed in rebellious, breakaway regions of Georgia, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia.  They are supposedly serving in a 'peacekeeping' capacity, officially monitoring a cease-fire between separatists forces and Georgian government troops.  However, Moscow can hardly claim to be netural in these disputes:  In November 2006, its officials gave tacit approval to declarations by Abkhazian and South Ossetian leaders of their intent to sever all ties with Georgia and amalgamate with Russia [Note 65: Vladimir Socor, 'Moscow Hosts Three Secessionist Leaders,' Eurasia Daily Monitor, November 20, 2006, electronic document accessed at www.jamestown.org on November 20, 2006].  (Moscow reiterated its threat to amalgamate these territories in February 2008, as potential retaliation for the West's recognition of an independent Kosovo.  As for the other two detachments, they are at former Soviet bases that have never been abandoned, despite numerous promises.  Moscow agreed in May 2005 to redeploy the two garrisons to Russia as part of a political accommodation with Tbilisi, but then suspended the move in September 2006 after Georgia arrested five Russian military officers as alleged spies[Note 66: David Holley, 'Russia Puts Base Closures on Ice,' Los Angeles Times, October 1, 2006.].  --  While these militarized maneuverings can be read as part of an ongoing effort to force Georgia's pro-Western leadership to pay greater deference to Moscow, they must also be viewed in light of Russia's larger geopolitical struggle with the United States over the flow of Caspian basin energy.  Three of the four Russian contingents are located with in a relatively short distance of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, the 1,100-mile conduit built with considerable American backing to transport Azerbaijani (and possibly Kazakh) oil from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean.  As part of the $1 billion U.S. aid program for Georgia, the Department of Defense has deployed over 100 military instructors in Tbilisi to train Georgian troops in basic combat skills and help prepare them to assume responsibility for protecting the pipeline [Note 67: DoS, 'U.S. Assistance to Georgia -- Fiscal Year 2005,' July 29, 2005, electronic document accessed at www.state.gov on December 21, 2006.  See also 'Azerbaijan, Georgia Address Security Threats to BTC Pipeline,' Oil and Gas Journal Online, January 23, 2003, electronic document accessed at www.ogi.pennet.com on January 24, 2003.]. . . . on all sides, the stakes are already sky-high.  Neither Moscow nor Washington will voluntarily give ground on the basing issue in the Caspian Sea region, so American and Russian troop contingents are likely to remain in relatively close proximity in the political equivalent of an active earthquake zone.  One great peril is that these contingents may find themselves on opposite sides of a developing civil war or ethnic conflict from which easy extrication proves impossible.  It is in precisely such unpredictable circumstances that a process of unintended escalation can be triggered" (Michael T. Klare, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy [New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt, 2008], pp. 225-27)....

A commentary posted Thursday on the web site Dissident Voice said:  "In the upcoming election, voters will have the opportunity to change the course of history.  Across the country, the office of state attorneys general will be more important during this election than at any time in the past.  County prosecutors and district attorneys will also have a significant role to play.  The time for war crimes trials has finally come.  We can stop holding our collective breath.  The second shoe is about to drop."[1]  --  Rosemary Jackowski of Vermont concluded:  "Get the facts which are clearly laid out in The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.  Find a candidate who supports your view.  Pull the correct lever.  Get the popcorn ready.  The war crimes trials will be televised."  --  It appears that Vincent Bugliosi's new book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, a surprise bestseller, has awakened a thirst for justice in the land.  --  NOTE:  UFPPC's Monday-evening book discussion group, Digging Deeper, will discuss Bugliosi's book from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Mon., Aug. 18, at the Mandolin Cafe (3923 S. 12th St., Tacoma, WA 98405)....

Pulitzer Prize-winning nvestigative journalist and author Ron Suskind said Tuesday on the Huffington Post web site that the U.S. had access to reports from Iraqi Intelligence Chief Tahir Jalil Habbush before the March 2003 invasion and heard from him that Saddam Hussein had no WMDs, but the U.S. "deep-sixed the intelligence report in February, 'resettled' Habbush to a safe house in Jordan during the invasion and then paid him $5 million in what could only be considered hush money."[1]  --  Later, the U.S. used Habbush to forge a letter allegedly written in July 2002 "saying that Atta trained in Iraq before the attacks and that Saddam was buying yellow cake for Niger with help from a 'small team from the al Qaeda organization,'" and the CIA then successfully used the letter in an illegal disinformation campaign.  --  Raw Story gave more details, and posted video of Suskind's appearances on NBC and CBS on Tuesday, the day Suskind's new book making the charges, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism, was published.[2]  --  The New York Times is ignoring this story; the Washington Post reported the story on page 2, emphasizing denials and doubts about sources.[3]  --  A reader commenting on the Washington Post wrote:  "Very good interview of Suskind on NPR today.  He says he has tapes of the CIA agents discussing the letter and the order the CIA received, which was carried to the CIA by Tenet himself from the White House, ordering the production of the forgery.  The White House can call the allegations 'absurd,' but as Suskind points out, that's not the same as saying 'Absolutely NOT, we did NOT order anyone to forge a letter.'  It may come down to Tenet having to fall on his well-used sword again, if this matter ever is properly investigated and the principals questioned under oath."  --  Scarcely a single reader of the Washington Post disbelieves Suskind, if readers' responses are any guide.  --  That Democrats in Congress are unwilling to consider impeachment in these circumstances beggars belief....

On Jul. 1, Richard Trumka spoke to the United Steelworkers' convention and spoke passionately against racism.  --  An excerpt of his speech endorsing Barack Obama has been posted on YouTube.[1]  --  BACKGROUND: Richard Trumka, 59, is a third-generation mine worker from Pennsylvania who started to work in the mines at the age of 19.  --  He later graduated from Penn State and has a law degree from Villanova University, and served as president of the United Mine Workers from 1982 to 1995....

The New York Times reported Wednesday that "anti-immigrant bloggers and conservative commentators have . . . berated Tyson, urging a boycott," for having negotiated a contract that "substitutes a Muslim holiday for Labor Day as one of the eight paid holidays" at a plant in Shelbyville, TN.[1]  --  The contract was signed in November, but "the holiday provision largely escaped public notice until a local newspaper published an article about it last week," Steven Greenhouse said.  --  An example of the reaction of bigots is posted below:  a Christian Newswire piece proclaiming that "Our Founding Fathers were Christians and celebrating a Muslim Holiday in place of an American holiday was never intended to happen in America."[2]  --  BACKGROUND: The question of the religious character of the U.S. has been much explored of late by historians.  --  A recent well-researched volume on religion and the founding of the Republic by a Harvard-trained church historian sums things up in this way:  "From the moment the new government opened for business, the question of whether the young country should take on the cultural trappings of its English past or fashion itself on the French Enlightenment model spurred heated debate.  Initial discussions exploded into fierce animosities, pitching absolutists on both sides into a war of conflicting ideals that threatened to tear the country in two.  At the presidential level, these contests took on the character of religious crusades.  The apostles of divine order were victorious first, then the champions of sacred liberty.  Competing claims by today's secular humanists on the left and Christian activists on the right that the U.S. government was erected on a secular or Christian foundation are, in a sense, both correct.  John Adams presided over a Christian federal authority, Jefferson over a secular one.  From the first contested national election onward, avatars of sacred liberty and defenders of divine order hurled imprecations at each other that would make a modern talk-show host blush.  The religious political divide came perilously close to sundering the nation during the War of 1812.  But then something remarkable happened.  In 1817, with the inauguration of President Monroe, followed shortly thereafter by the disestablishment of the state church of Connecticut, an armistice was struck. . . . After decades of religious-political turbulence, the ship of state steadied, liberty protected, religion fostered, and order served" (Forrest Church, So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle over Church and State [Harcourt, 2007], p. 6)....

On the 63rd anniversary of the momentous day when for the first time an atomic bomb was detonated over a city, the mayor of Hiroshima called on the next U.S. president to destroy nuclear weapons, AFP reported.[1]  --  "Delivering a speech at the memorial, Hiroshima mayor Tadatoshi Akiba noted the United States was one of only three countries which oppose a U.N. resolution submitted by Japan calling for the abolition of nuclear arms."  --  Every year the city of Hiroshima invites representatives of the world's eight declared nuclear powers to the event commemorating the attack, but the U.S. has never accepted the invitation to attend.  --  The anniversary of the destruction of Hiroshima is also being observed in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, "the once secret city that fueled that first nuclear weapon used in war," the Associated Press reported, in a ceremony "near the high-security gates of the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant, which supplied highly enriched uranium for the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945."[2]  --  In a more substantive meditation on the significance of Hiroshima, John Pilger wrote in Wednesday's Guardian that the decision to drop the bomb and the need to justify it later has left a legacy of lying that continues to fester in today's political culture.  --  "In the immediate aftermath of the bomb," Pilger recalled, "the Allied occupation authorities banned all mention of radiation poisoning and insisted that people had been killed or injured only by the bomb's blast.  It was the first big lie.  'No radioactivity in Hiroshima ruin' said the front page of the New York Times, a classic of disinformation and journalistic abdication."[3]  --  But "[t]he most enduring lie is that the atomic bomb was dropped to end the war in the Pacific and save lives."  --  REMINDER:  This year, a special peace vigil in Tacoma marks Hiroshima Day and expresses solidarity with Father Bill Bichsel, who once again faces trial for his heroic anti-nuclear activism.  --  Come any time between 12:00 noon to 3:00 p.m. and stand in witness outside the Federal Courthouse in Tacoma on Pacific Avenue....

Bioterror weapons expert Richard Spertzel, who was head of the biological-weapons section of Unscom from 1994-99 and a member of the Iraq Survey Group, wrote Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal that Bruce Ivins was probably not responsible for the anthrax deaths that terrorized the nation in 2001.  --  "The spores could not have been produced at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, where Ivins worked, without many other people being aware of it," Spertzel said.  --  "Furthermore, the equipment to make such a product does not exist at the institute." ...

On Jul. 30, a few days after he finished a visit to NATO Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe Headquarters near Mons, Belgium, and NATO forces in Afghanistan, U.S. Army (ret.) Gen. Barry McCaffrey addressed an unvetted seven-page memo to department heads at West Point.  --  Small Wars Journal, a non-government and unofficial site founded by Marine Corps veterans “for the benefit of the Small Wars community of interest,” posted on its web site a link to the report and a set of excerpts from the memo that are reproduced below.[1]  --  Gen. McCaffrey represented Afghanistan as “in misery,” with the majority of the population rejecting the Taliban movement but the Afghan government a “narco-state,” ineffectual and corrupt.  --  He portrayed 2009 as “the year of decision” for the West in Afghanistan, with increased NATO participation essential to “a 25-year campaign” in which what is needed is “a five-battalion U.S. Army engineer brigade with attached Stryker security elements to lead a five-year road-building effort employing Afghan contractors and training and mentoring Afghan engineers.”  --  “Afghanistan will not be solved by the addition of two or three more U.S. combat brigades from our rapidly unraveling Army,” McCaffrey wrote.  --  “The war theater,” he wrote, “is principally for the Afghan-Pakistan frontier regions and the control of the four approaches to Kabul (although 29 of 34 provinces had clashes and bombings).”  --  “The battle will be won in Afghanistan,” McCaffrey said, “when there is an operational Afghan police presence in the nation’s 34 provinces and 398 Districts.”  --  McCaffrey warned against U.S. intervention in Pakistan, saying that “A major U.S. intervention across the Pakistan border to conduct spoiling attacks on Pashtun and criminal syndicate base areas would be a political disaster.”  --  As for U.S. forces, on which McCaffrey heaped praise, he said that “Many of these troops and their leaders through general officer level are on their 4th or more combat deployments since ‘911.’  We have suffered 36,000 U.S. killed and wounded.  Their families are getting tired.  The country is not at war.  The Armed Forces and the CIA are at war.  We are at the point of breaking faith with our troops.”  --  But:  “Much of our ground and air equipment is falling apart.  The anemic U.S. Air Force and Naval modernization programs will place us in great risk in the Pacific in the coming decades.  The Armed Forces are under-resourced and inadequately sized for the national security strategy we have pursued.  --  There is a serious mismatch between ends and means.  We are going to wreck the U.S. Armed Forces unless Congress and the next Administration address this situation of great strategic peril.”  --  Gen. McCaffrey concluded by asserting the need for still greater military expenditures by the U.S., warning that “We cannot allow ourselves to fail in Afghanistan” because “the vital national security interests of the United States and our key allies” require the prevention of “a lawless extremist region.”  --  COMMENT:  There is not a word about U.S. economic interests in the region, though examination of the full report shows that McCaffrey met with World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick in Afghanistan on “the Afghan economic situation.”  --  Zoellick, it will be recalled, was one of the signers of the Jan. 26, 1998, letter to President Bill Clinton from the Project for a New American Century advocating war against Iraq.  --  In a recent book, Prof. Michael T. Klare wrote:  “Both New Delhi and Islamabad would like to tap into the natural gas reserves of nearby Turkmenistan by constructing a pipeline across Afghanistan to Pakistan and then onward to India — an endeavor long precluded by unending civil war and ethnic strife in Afghanistan as well as the historic animosity between the two great powers of South Asia.  However, with the 2001 ouster of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the establishment of friendlier relations between India and Pakistan, negotiations have commenced among all interested parties over the route and financing of the proposed conduit — though until Afghanistan is less convulsed with violence, this remains but a dream of a project” (Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy [New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt, 2008], p. 141)....

This sharp-eyed account posted Monday on Salon.com about a visit to Baghdad’s Green Zone by famed Dutch novelist Arnon Grünberg calls the Green Zone a “post-decadent stronghold.”[1]  --  Grünberg holds forth on private protection by Peruvians, prostitutes, proxy war, power, poetry, and doughnuts....

Oil prices dipped below $120 a barrel for the first time this summer as “selling pressure swept across commodity markets on Monday,” with gold dropping below $900 an ounce, the Financial Times reported.[1]  --  Experts noted, however, that “crude prices have corrected by 20 per cent on 12 occasions since 1999,” Chris Flood said....