Obama Orders Closure of CIA’s Secret Prisons
January 23rd, 2009When I read Obama’s executive order to close the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, I just laughed the thing off as window dressing on a network of an unknown number of secret CIA prisons and torture facilities. In short, I felt that it was so ridiculous that I didn’t even bother mentioning it.
Now, however, we have another executive order, ENSURING LAWFUL INTERROGATIONS, which includes the following:
Sec. 4. Prohibition of Certain Detention Facilities, and Red Cross Access to Detained Individuals.
(a) CIA Detention. The CIA shall close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities that it currently operates and shall not operate any such detention facility in the future.
(b) International Committee of the Red Cross Access to Detained Individuals. All departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall provide the International Committee of the Red Cross with notification of, and timely access to, any individual detained in any armed conflict in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government or detained within a facility owned, operated, or controlled by a department or agency of the United States Government, consistent with Department of Defense regulations and policies.
Don’t get me wrong, don’t put words in my mouth, don’t get too happy, BUT, this is a very big deal. This is a substantive, positive development.
Now, the tendency of people in desperate situations is to think that any positive development means that the crisis is over, nothing more to see here, let’s go buy a new iPod, etc. This is what the Obama Cult is doing now. Obviously, that’s dumb. I must, however, acknowledge substantive positive developments when they occur. Since I expected no substantially positive developments out of the Obama regime at all, this is a welcome development, and after just a couple of days.
Of course, Obama’s spy choice won’t call waterboarding torture, but… look, at a minimum the latest executive order is something I definitely wasn’t expecting.
Like trading, however, one countertrend crank doesn’t mean a reversal of the larger trend. Maybe the Obama regime will require much more sophisticated analysis and discernment than the familiar one-way, race-to-the-bottom paradigm of the Bush era (which covers the years from 1981 to the first couple of weeks of 2009, in my opinion). This will make my work much more interesting, which I welcome.
The fact that even I see this as a noteworthy positive development should be an indication of just how far off the rails the U.S. has gone. WooHoo! The U.S. is closing its secret torture facilities! WooHoo! Yes, it’s good news. But the much more disturbing issue remains the fact that it was allowed to happen in the first place, when it was obviously the work of Machiavellian people who were mostly despised. If no resistance was offered under those circumstances, what would the new regime be able to accomplish for the dark side with Obama’s cult of personality status and the sycophantic Hollywood myth makers practically experiencing glossolalia over the prospect of serving it???
Holy shit. I don’t want to think about it.
Tijuana Off-Limits to U.S. Marines
January 22nd, 2009Via: USA Today:
For tens of thousands of U.S. Marines in Southern California, new orders from the brass amount to: Baghdad si, Tijuana no.
Citing a wave of violence and murder in Mexico, the commanding officer of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Pendleton has made the popular military “R&R” destinations of Tijuana and nearby beaches effectively off-limits for his Marines.
The order by Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland restricts travel into Mexico by the 44,000 members of the unit, many of whom have had multiple tours of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and other combat zones under their belts — or are there now.
The limits were first put in place for the Christmas holiday. Last week the commander extended the order indefinitely, said Mike Alvarez, civilian public information officer for the unit at Camp Pendleton.
Whistleblower: NSA Spied on Everyone, Targeted Journalists
January 22nd, 2009Via: Rawstory:
Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice, who helped expose the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, has now come forward with even more startling allegations. Tice told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Wednesday that the programs that spied on Americans were not only much broader than previously acknowledged but specifically targeted journalists.
“The National Security Agency had access to all Americans’ communications — faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications,” Tice claimed. “It didn’t matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications.”
Tice further explained that “even for the NSA it’s impossible to literally collect all communications. … What was done was sort of an ability to look at the metadata … and ferret that information to determine what communications would ultimately be collected.”
According to Tice, in addition to this “low-tech, dragnet” approach, the NSA also had the ability to hone in on specific groups, and that was the aspect he himself was involved with. However, even within the NSA there was a cover story meant to prevent people like Tice from realizing what they were doing.
“In one of the operations that I was in, we looked at organizations, just supposedly so that we would not target them,” Tice told Olbermann. “What I was finding out, though, is that the collection on those organizations was 24/7 and 365 days a year — and it made no sense. … I started to investigate that. That’s about the time when they came after me to fire me.”
When Olbermann pressed him for specifics, Tice offered, “An organization that was collected on were US news organizations and reporters and journalists.”
“To what purpose?” Olbermann asked. “I mean, is there a file somewhere full of every email sent by all the reporters at the New York Times? Is there a recording somewhere of every conversation I had with my little nephew in upstate New York?”
Tice did not answer directly, but simply stated, “If it was involved in this specific avenue of collection, it would be everything.” He added, however, that he had no idea what was ultimately done with the information, except that he was sure it “was digitized and put on databases somewhere.”
Tice first began alleging that there were illegal activities going on at both the NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency in December 2005, several months after being fired by the NSA. He also served at that time as a source for the New York Times story which revealed the existence of the NSA’s wireless wiretapping program.
Over the next several months, however, Tice was frustrated in his attempts to testify before Congress, had his credibility attacked by Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, and was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in an apparent attempt at intimidation.
Tice is now coming forward again now because George Bush is finally out of office. He told Olbermann that the Obama administration has not been in touch with him about his latest revelations, but, “I did send a letter to, I think it’s [Obama intelligence adviser John] Brennan — a handwritten letter, because I knew all my communications were tapped, my phones, my computer, and I’ve had the FBI on me like flies on you-know-what … and I’m assuming that he gave the note to our current president — that I intended to say a little bit more than I had in the past.”
Japan Exports Plummet Record 35%, Signaling Job Cuts
January 22nd, 2009Via: Bloomberg:
Japan’s exports plunged by a record in December, signaling companies will be forced to shut factory lines and fire more workers, driving the economy deeper into recession.
Exports plummeted 35 percent from a year earlier, the sharpest decline since 1980, the earliest year for which there is comparable data, the Finance Ministry said today in Tokyo. The December drop eclipsed a record 26.7 percent decline set the previous month. Economists predicted a 30.3 percent contraction.
Shipments to the U.S., China and Europe fell by the most ever, as the global recession dried up demand for Japanese cars and electronics. Toyota Motor Corp., Sony Corp. and Honda Motor Co. are shedding thousands of workers and closing production lines as profits and sales dwindle.
“This recession will be deep and widespread,” said Kyohei Morita, chief Japan economist at Barclays Capital in Tokyo. “Given today’s numbers, households should prepare for more job and wage cuts.”
Growing Stocks of Unsold Cars Around the World (13 Pictures)
January 22nd, 2009Man oh man, this is chilling.
Foreign Workers Abandoning Vehicles by the Thousands at Dubai Airport as They Flee the Country
January 22nd, 2009Via: Daijiworld.com:
It’s the great escape by Indians who’ve hit the dead-end in Dubai.
Local police have found at least 3,000 automobiles — sedans, SUVs, regulars — abandoned outside Dubai International Airport in the last four months. Police say most of the vehicles had keys in the ignition, a clear sign they were left behind by owners in a hurry to take flight.
The global economic crisis has brought Dubai’s economic progress, mirrored by its soaring towers and luxurious resorts, to a stuttering halt. Several people have been laid off in the past months after the realty boom started unraveling.
On the night of December 31, 2008 alone more than 80 vehicles were found at the airport. “Sixty cars were seized on the first day of this year,” director general of Airport Security, Mohammed Bin Thani, told DNA over the phone. On the same day, deputy director of traffic, colonel Saif Mohair Al Mazroui, said they seized 22 cars abandoned at a prohibited area in the airport.
Faced with a cash crunch and a bleak future ahead, there were no goodbyes for the migrants — overwhelmingly South Asians, mostly Indians – just a quiet abandoning of the family car at the airport and other places.
While 2,500 vehicles have been found dumped in the past four months outside Terminal III, which caters to all global airlines, Terminal II, which is only used by Emirates Airlines, had 160 cars during the same period.
Microsoft Laying Off 5000 Employees
January 22nd, 2009Via: Seattle PI:
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent an e-mail to all Microsoft employees this morning at 6:07 am, explaining the company’s cost cutting measures, including the slashing of 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months.
Ex-K.G.B. Agent Buying London Tabloid
January 22nd, 2009HA. Oh well, what’s better? The CIA bribing American “journalists” to constantly look the other way, or a former Soviet spook simply owning the paper?
Via: New York Times:
Yet the fact that Moscow-based Mr. Lebedev is presumably the first former Soviet spy to own a major British daily “adds a different dimension,” said Roy Greenslade, who writes a column on the media in The Standard and a blog about it on the Web site of The Guardian. “What you always have to ask yourself is, ‘Why is this person buying the paper?’ ” Mr. Greenslade said in a telephone interview.
“There are five reasons for owning newspapers, and all begin with a P: profit, propaganda, political influence, prestige and public service. There’s no profit in The Standard, so you’ve got to look at the other things.”
In Moscow, Mr. Lebedev is the major shareholder, along with the former Soviet president Mikhail S. Gorbachev, in Novaya Gazeta, a newspaper that has a reputation for being pro-democracy and independent and whose journalists included Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed in Moscow in October 2006. A freelance journalist for the paper, Anastasia Baburova, was killed on Monday in Moscow.
Mr. Lebedev, a political gadfly, has built a reputation for opposing corruption and seeking stronger democratic institutions, even though, like Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, his roots go back to the cold war K.G.B.
In a statement on Wednesday, Mr. Lebedev promised to guarantee The Standard’s editorial independence. “We are strong supporters of a free and independent press and we greatly admire The Evening Standard as an iconic publication with its pedigree of fine journalism and commentary,” the statement said.
Mr. Lebedev, 49, is to be the chairman of a new company that will own the paper. His London-based son, Evgeny Lebedev, 28, will be senior executive director.
UK Cabinet Minister: ‘The banks are fucked, we’re fucked, the country’s fucked.’
January 22nd, 2009Via: Guardian:
As the Treasury last night finalised its second sweeping banking revival package in three months, Downing Street was preparing to go on the offensive, justifying the package not as a bail-out for the banks, but an attempt to protect companies and families trying to secure a mortgage. The £200bn insurance scheme is not for the culpable banks, but for their innocent customers, ministers will say.
The tone towards the banks is becoming more aggressive. Gordon Brown and a phalanx of ministers will say they share the frustration of the public at the irresponsibility of past lending practices, the slowness with which they have revealed their debts and their stubborn refusal in the past few months to release credit.
The tactics, however, betray a nervousness in Labour circles that the public will simply not understand why there is a second tranche of help going to Britain’s bankers, who have already received billions of pounds of loans, guarantees and capital. There is also a worry that Brown’s inadvertent title as saviour of the world might be slipping.
Opinion polls show government popularity falling in the new year. David Cameron may be internationally isolated in his opposition to a fiscal stimulus, but it does not seem to be hurting him. A YouGov poll in the Sunday Times showed Cameron’s Tories rising four points to take a 13-point lead.
Privately, something close to desperation is starting to develop inside government. After watching the slide in bank shares on Friday, one cabinet minister did not altogether joke when he said: “The banks are fucked, we’re fucked, the country’s fucked.”
Oil Is Steady as Demand May Climb on Obama Bank-Rescue Plan
January 22nd, 2009Another factor which could lead to higher oil prices is Obama’s upcoming trillion dollar clusterf*ck orgy of government spending on “recovery.” I don’t know what that’s going to entail, but it will, by definition, require a hell of a lot of oil.
—Oil
Via: Bloomberg:
Crude oil was little changed after rising on speculation a bank-rescue plan by President Barack Obama will help boost economic growth and increase fuel demand.
Oil climbed 6.6 percent yesterday as stocks rallied on the new U.S. president’s plans to complete an assistance program that can be paired with the $825 billion stimulus package. U.S. crude-oil inventories probably rose last week as refineries cut operating rates, a Bloomberg News survey showed.
“The expectation for further investment was one of the influences behind the oil price,” said Gerard Burg, a minerals and energy economist with National Australia Bank Ltd. in Melbourne. “The Obama inauguration was seen as a positive since it brings some certainty with the new government in place.”
Crude oil for March delivery was at $43.54 a barrel, down 1 cent, at 12:49 p.m. Singapore time after rising as much as 68 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $44.23 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil has fallen 2.4 percent since the end of December and is 52 percent lower than a year ago.
