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 Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Notes from Hersh. Brad DeLong runs Rick Pearlstein's notes from a talk given by Seymour Hersh. You will find no comfort in Hersh's comments. E.g, He said that after he broke Abu Ghraib people are coming out of the woodwork to tell him this stuff. He said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, "You haven't begun to see evil..." then trailed off. He said, "horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run."... [Joho the Blog]
You know these will come out sometime. The longer the Administration stone walls the worse it will be. They created the crucible in which these acts could be accomplished. They need to be held responsible.
What is more chilling is the complete disregard of this Administration for the truth and its huge disrespect for anything or anyone that is not OF the Administration. 9:58:47 AM 
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NPR publishes Ashcroft memo. You know that memo that Ashcroft refuses to release, without invoking executive privilege or any other legal justification? (As Jon Stewart said in commenting on this, "Dude, you have to invoke something!") NPR has published it as a 2.7MB PDF file.... [Joho the Blog]
Wonder who leaked this memo? Wonder why Ashcroft tried to hide it? Wonder when he will get a clue? He does not seem to be helping here. 9:56:15 AM
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More Expansion of Military Spying Power...on U.S. Citizens!. From Newsweek: "Without any public hearing or debate, NEWSWEEK has learned, Defense officials recently slipped a provision into a bill... [The Leiter Reports: Editorials, News, Updates]
This is how the State Police come into existence. Combine the ability to spy on any citizen for any reason with the ability of the executive branch to declare any citizen an enemy combatant, ready to be disappeared from all Constitutional protection, and you have a fascist state ruled by fear. How much longer before Gito is turned into a Gulag for our own citizens? 9:37:41 AM
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Worst AG Ever. I'm not familiar enough with AGs past to know, but it's hard to imagine that one could get much worse. Ashcroft is corrupt. He's stupid. He's incompetent. He loves the spotlight. He believes laws don't apply to Republicans. He's obsessed with porn, pot, and prostitution.
When he did his latest "WE'VE ARRESTED A TERRORIST!!!!!" news conference yesterday I thought that finally there was a bit of skepticism on the part of the press. Maybe I was just projecting, but I sensed a bit of subliminal eyerolling coming from the CNN anchordesk.
Krugman has more. [Eschaton]
Everytime something embarassing for Ashcroft comes up, they areest another terrorist! And, not too surprisingly, it is only later determined that the 'terrorist' is nothig of the kind. But it helps distract from Ashcroft's many problems. 9:31:09 AM
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Powell includes and interesting sentence in his explanation for errors in the terrorism report that signficantly understated actual activity in 2003:
"It's not a political judgment that said, 'Let's see if we can cook the books.' We can't get away with that now. Nobody was out to cook the books. Errors crept in."
As one former insider commented: the people at TTIC can't add. They aren't able to do the basic math expected of a third grader. [John Robb's Weblog]
Nice to see someone in this Administration admit that they can not get away with lying now, implying that they could get away with it earlier. At least one person seems to have a small grasp of reality, although he then ruins this by stating that this was simply errors creeping in. Looks like the explanations and corrections for these errors will reach 8 pages. I look forward to all the Administration members who trumpeted this report for political reasons to now come forward and hold a press coference saying they were wrong and that the Bush administration is actually doing a poor job fighting terror. Only happen in Bizarro world. 8:43:29 AM
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Reuters. The US trade deficit hits a record monthly figure: $48.3 b. [John Robb's Weblog]
I am sure someone has this all rationalized, just like the 'budget deficits do not really matter.' But it seems to me that money we do not really have is going to other countries, leaving us with even less money we do not have. 8:39:24 AM
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Cracks in the magic kingdom. ARAMCO is thinking of turning to private military companies (PMCs) for protection:
Two intercompany e-mails, which were obtained by United Press International, were exchanged among three Aramco executives on June 3 and June 8 under the heading: "Security Concerns and Suggestions." Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company, holds the world's largest oil reserves and bills itself "the world leader in crude oil production." The e-mails speak of "a new level and type of threat to the kingdom and to expatriate employees" and say "oil industry workers and non-Muslims in the Eastern province" are the targets. The e-mails also say, "Aramco and Saudi Arabian [security] forces are completely inadequate in terms of training, capability and motivation" to deal with the threat.
"Retention of existing expatriates and attraction of new expatriates is a critical success factor for the company and the kingdom," continues one e-mail. It warns that failing to "retain and attract the non-Saudi knowledge and experience will cause significant risk to staying a reliable oil supplier for the world." Among those leaving are employees with many years of experience and those with young children. "We (will) lose our experience and our most energetic in one sweep," the executive lamented.
As our conflict with stateless global guerrillas widens and deepens, companies will increasingly turn to private military companies (the corporate equivalent of global guerrillas) for the protection they cannot get from state run security. Welcome to the first year of the market wars of the 21st century. [John Robb's Weblog]
Great. So now private companies can develop their own private armies whose behavior will be controlled by ... what? The Administration is trying to get immunity for the actions of any private contractors in Iraq. What a nice position to be in! All the power with none of the responsibility. By any other name these would be mercenaries, another sign that we can no longer provide security in the areas we invade, requiring private police forces to be hired. 8:34:28 AM
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