The influential Drudge Report had an article the other day claiming that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was on the top of the short list for Vice President. What are we to make of this? Conservative bloggers have been in an uproar over this idea. Erick Erickson wrote in Redstate:
I don’t know who is hitting the crack rock tonight in the rumor mill, but bull shiitake mushrooms.
Condelizza Rice is pro-abortion. She worked for George Bush for eight years.
Rice’s legacy as a war criminal in the Bush administration will be hard to shake off. A lot of political capital will be spent defending Bush and abortion if Secretary Rice is picked. Conservative activists might be naive though in thinking that Romney wouldn’t pick Rice as a running mate. Presidential elections are less about ideals, and more about winning. Candidates will do what they need to do to win. In theory, the Republican nominee is supposed to unite all Republicans, not just ultraconservative activists.
Establishment Republicans on the other hand seem to like the notion of Rice on the ticket. The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan gushed at the idea:
Consider: A public figure of obvious and nameable accomplishment whose attainments can’t be taken away from her. Washington experience-she wouldn’t be learning on the job. Never run for office but no political novice. An academic, but not ethereal or abstract. A woman in a year when Republicans aren’t supposed to choose a woman because of what is now called the 2008 experience-so the choice would have a certain boldness. A black woman in a campaign that always threatens to take on a painful racial overlay. A foreign-policy professional acquainted with everyone who’s reigned or been rising the past 20 years. I should add here the look on the faces of the people who were applauding. They looked surprised by their own passion
Matt Drudge’s close personal relationship with Mitt Romney suggests that he would not print something false that could hurt his candidate. So if this is true, why would Romney pick Sec. Rice? The simple answer is that Rice is a black woman. Romney is struggling with both of these electoral blocks. But if he thinks that picking a black woman will help, he is even more stupid and condescending than John McCain was. Warmonger McCain though that picking a woman would help steal Clinton votes away from Obama. Obviously this failed miserably. If Romney thinks that women and blacks will vote for him because of his running mate he does not deserve to win.
My feeling on this is mixed. Picking a former Bush official is a pretty stupid tactic. Her involvement in the illegal Iraq war will take the focus off of economy. In fact her involvement in numerous foreign policy blunders will shift the conversation away from the economy. On the other hand Romney has not shied away from surrounding himself with former Bush administration officials. His entire foreign policy team is composed of Buh era war criminals. So picking Rice may not be a big leap for him. And again, why would Drudge print something that would hurt Romney? Team Romney said that they will announce their pick or Vice President in the coming weeks. So we will just have to wait and see.
This years NAACP convention has received a great deal more attention this year. Presidetial candidate Gov. Mitt Romney’s speech before the civil rights organization was not received well. Aside from telling the audience that he would be better for black Americans than our black president, Romney also got booed after saying he would repeal the Affordable Care Act. The governor really missed an opportunity here to broaden his base.
Romney is already struggling to shake off the image that his candidacy is built on rich white men. Support among women is low for the Republican; with minority support even more embarrassing. If Romney wants to win he needs to appeal to a larger audience. His speech has only sowed more discord amongst black voters. The Governor could have at least tried to pander to his audience. He might still have been booed, but at least he could have said he tried. Now he is stuck looking like a rich out of touch white guy. The speech seemed designed more for his white base than for his black audience. Governor Romney wanted to assure the conservative white electorate that he still has their interests at heart. He is terrified of upsetting his base. So terrified he is willing to go before the most prominent civil rights group in America and berate the first black president. It is fair to say that the strategy being used by Team Romney is one based solely on the white vote. It will now be that much harder for Romney to demonstrate he will be a President for all Americans.
Perhaps more interesting was the Presidents absence from the convention. Administration officials claimed that a scheduling problem prevented the President from addressing the NAACP. This is quite a weak reason for not attending the convention. How could President Obama, in an election year, not have marked this day on the calendar? Obama has been criticized by many as taking the black vote for granted. Missing the NAACP reinforces this notion. Perhaps it was a smart political move though. Using Vice President Biden allows for the president to send a message he may not politically get away with. True to form, Biden gave a vociferous speech on the dangers of electing Romney. Listening to him you might think that Romney is the second coming of the Klan. Biden took particular care to mention that a vote for Romney would result in policies that would restrict the voting rights of Black Americans. If the President had made a speech like Biden’s he would undoubtedly be attacked for playing the race card.
While his speech was received with great fanfare, the presidents absence is still a negative. There’s no doubt that President Obama will win the lions share of the black vote; if not the whole vote entirely. The issue is whether the black vote will be as large as it was in 2008. The alienation that many Black Americans feel towards the President is real. So real that it could effect the election. No politician should ever take a voting block for granted. Black Americans are in much more dire economic shape than whites. While they won’t vote for Romney, they may not vote for Obama in the same numbers they did in 2008. The President has made overtures to the Hispanic vote with his executive order of the dream act; his decision to not uphold DOMA has helped him among the gay community. Where is his political gesture to the black vote? Most black voters, if not all, will vote for
Obama. But if black voters stay home it could be the nail in the coffin for President Obama’s reelection.
Thank God for McClatchy. They truly are the one western news outlet that is actually engaged in serious reporting. Their newest investigation has to do with the National Reconnaissance Office’s collection of personal information through polygraph tests. The NRO is in charge of maintaining the United States spy satellites. An exhaustive investigation by McClatchy has revealed that NRO polygraphers have been obtaining “intimate details of the private lives of thousands of job applicants and employees, pushing the ethical and legal boundaries of a program that’s designed instead to catch spies and terrorists.” This desire to catch spy’s is so great within the NRO, that cash bonuses are handed out to polygraphers who ask personal questions, known as Code 55 admissions. This is all illegal. The NRO has no jurisdiction or authority to ask personal questions such as, have you ever used marijuana, has you attempted suicide, do you suffer from depression. Several whistle blowers from with in the NRO have come forward to expose what has been going on. Of course the NRO has denied any wrongdoing with how they conduct polygraph tests. Here are two wonderful gems from the McClatchy article. Both of these examples demonstrate how ridiculous the NRO’s poygraph testing is. They also show how unconcerned they are over real criminal conduct.
Last September, a woman who’d held a clearance for more than 15 years and already had passed a national security polygraph was interrogated for more than four hours over two additional polygraph sessions, said Hinshaw, who said he’d been ordered to do it. Hinshaw’s supervisors launched the aggressive inquiry because they suspected that the woman had smoked pot more than the one time years before that she’d admitted to, records show. In the end, however, the only other information the National Reconnaissance Office extracted from her was that she’d been molested at age 16.
Here is the other more disturbing aspect of the NRO’s polygraph testing:
Despite the agency’s interest in criminal behavior, those who confess to serious offenses aren’t always criminally prosecuted even when child molestation is involved, McClatchy found.
In one case, a contractor who was a former Escondido, Calif., substitute teacher admitted to molesting a third-grade student in 2005 during outside tutoring sessions paid for by the girl’s immigrant parents. In a 2010 polygraph session, the man said that if he were asked, “ ‘Have you ever molested a 9-year-old?’ I’d have to say yes.”
The Escondido Police Department and school district where he’d been employed weren’t notified of the incident. After being contacted by McClatchy, the school district called the Escondido Police Department to file a report.When National Reconnaissance Office polygraphers asked supervisors in a meeting last summer why people weren’t being arrested on the spot after such confessions, they were told that the allegations were referred to the appropriate authorities, Phillips and Hinshaw said.
The agency refused to answer McClatchy’s questions about the molestation confession, saying in a statement only that its polygraph program “is in compliance with the law.”
I would urge everyone to read the full article. The recent purging of whistle blowers, and the current administrations desire for secrecy, must be exposed for what it is.
Charles Ble Goude, head of the ultranationalist Young Patriots, has resurfaced. Ble Goude fled Cote d’Ivore during the recent conflict between the north and south in 2010-2011. As head of the Young Patriots Ble Goude was instrumental in rallying thousands of young Ivorians to fight northern rebels. Ostensibly the Young Patriots were the youth wing of former President Gbagbo’s party. In reality it was a militia that was responsible for the deaths of countless Ivorian’s and foreigners. Ble Goude has been silent for over a year. Sightings of him have been reported in Ghana, Liberia,Togo, Gambia and Angola. In his telephone interview with the AP he never revealed his location; although poor reception on the phone line suggests he is not in a populated area. His interview seemed only to serve as a platform from which to proclaim his innocence.
“Can you show me a single video, or a single audio, where I asked the youth of Ivory Coast to hurt foreigners?”
“I organized a struggle with bare hands in order to oppose the taking of power by the arms. Madam, is this something that should result in me going to the International Criminal Court?”
“I have said it, and I repeat it – If I am asked to go to the ICC, I’m ready to go to the ICC.”
“What you are saying is totally removed from reality. I never asked the young people to put up checkpoints in order to identify the foreigners – that’s not true!”
“The young people they put up checkpoints to see if the people living in their neighborhoods, or in different neighborhoods, are armed or not … I never asked anybody to put up barricades so as to control the foreigners. This isn’t true! It’s your own invention.”
There is no doubt that northern rebels, aided by France and the UN, committed horrible war crimes. Nonetheless Ble Goude has a lot of blood on his hands. After one such speech, in which Ble Goude urged Young Patriots to man road blocks, an estimated 32 foreign immigrants were killed according to Human Rights Watch. HRW reported that 14 of the victims were brutally killed; with some being set in fire.
Shadi Hamid, the Director of Reashearch at Brooking Doha Center Center, has become a cheerleader for Western intervention. If you follow Middle Eastern politics at all than you will be very familiar with Shadi Hamid. Latley Hamid has become a cheerleader for Western intervention in the Middle East. He pushed hard for the West to get involved in Libya, and has been urging world powers to set up “safe zones” in Syria. It is very troubling that a man as smart as Hamid would be so cavalier about getting involved in another civil conflict in an Arab nation. This morning me and him got into a little bit of a Twitter fight.
I asked him if he could provide me with links that would back up his claim that less people died. He did not provide me with any links. Hamid did not comment on the blow back in Mali, the ethnic violence between Arab’s and Tubu’s, or on the fact that the country is in chaos. Hamid said nothing of the fact that now the Malian people may not get the right to vote in their elections. Hamid latter tweeted…
By that idiotic reasoning, the American led war in Iraq was totally fine. They got to vote and dip their index fingers in purple ink. Who cares that its unstable and violent and as repressive now as it was under Saddam. Perhaps we should intervene in every Arab country. As long as they get to vote does it really matter what the consequences are. Shadi Hamid later re-tweeted warmonger John McCain talking about shwarma. That about sums up how repulsive Shadi Hamid is.
The Palestinian Authority in recent months have reached new heights of authoritarianism in the West Bank. Over the weekend scores of protesters were attacked and beaten by uniformed and plain clothes PA security forces. The protesters were marching towards the PA headquarters in Ramallah, to protest against President Abbas’ planned meeting with Israeli Vice Premier Shaul Mofaz and to call an end to negotiations with Israel, before being stopped by security forces. In the past few weeks around 200 people have been detained by the PA in their campaign to cut down on the illegal arms trade in the West Bank. Time is running out for the PA. Many Palestinians are beginning to view them as nothing more than Israeli puppets. While they are essentially in control of certain parts of the West Bank, the PA’s real power is derived from Israel. The Israelis are the ones allowing for the PA to operate. Abu Mazen is beholden to the Israeli government. And for all his rhetoric bashing Israel, he still caries out their orders with regards to security in the West Bank. The PA’s claims about economic prosperity have also not swayed the population into supporting them with out question. More and more Palestinians view the economic prosperity as only benefiting the corrupt PA’s cronies. If the Arab Spring ever hits the West Bank there is no telling what the ramifications could be. But if there is a country that is ripe for the Arab Spring it is Palestine. With the Israeli occupation bordering on ethnic cleansing, and the PA tightening its grip on society, the Palestinian people are reaching their breaking point.
Dr. Eyad Jamil al-Jawhari was arrested by the Shin Bet on June 29. Dr. al-Jawhari an Israeli citizen who lives in the occupied Golan Heights. He was currently finishing up a degree in Syria, and has for some time been going back and fourth between Syria and Golan. This story has not been reported in the Israeli media due to a gag order by the Shin Bet. Israel frequently uses these gag orders to prevent the media from reporting on story’s that might make Israel look bad. The gag also ensures that the Shin Bet don’t have to explain anything about why Dr. al-Jawhari was arrested.
As a result of the gag order we are only left with to speculate as to why the Shin Bet picked up al-Jawhari. The most plausible reason is that the Shin Bet wants to get anything and everything it can on the civil war in Syria. Shin Bet either wants to interrogate him about anything he may know, or wants to try and use him as an intelligence source inside Syria.
The fact remains though that al-Jawhari hold an Israeli ID, which in theory allows him the same rights as any citizen in Israel. It will be a cold day in hell before you see the Shin Bet arrest an Israeli citizen and hold them incommunicado. While the Israeli public may be able to justify these sorts of actions, the fact remains that this is not how a democratic state operates. The Shin Bet have a long history of torturing prisoners while in custody. There is no telling what al-Jawhari faces while in the control of the Shin Bet. Due to the heinous laws in Israel dealing with imprisonment of enemies of the state, Dr. al-Jawhari could face a life time in prison. These sorts of incidents must be reported on in Israel. If they are not, then a cycle of human rights violations and impunity for those committing them will never come to an end.
To keep up to date on this story please check out Richard Silverstein’s website Tikun Olam.
The US and Israel have condemned UNESCO for declaring the Church of the Nativity a world heritage site. They complain that the Palestinians use of “imminent threat” to the church was nothing more than a political move. When asked about the UNESCO decision Prime Minister Netanyahu said the Palestinians are “engaging in unilateral actions that only distance peace.” US ambassador to UNESCO, David Killion, also expressed regret saying that he was “profoundly disappointed” by the vote. Both Israel and the United States claim that the Palestinians use of “imminent threat” is unfounded and misleading. Bethlehem is under the control of the PA and thus is not in any danger from Israel, as the Palestinians are claiming. But, and this is a very big but, the city of Bethlehem is surrounded on three sides by the Israeli separation wall. Ostensibly the separation wall was built to keep Palestinian militants out of Israel. In reality the separation wall is part of Israeli’s attempt to grab and annex as much Palestinian land as possible. For Palestinians living in Bethlehem every year they see more and more of their land disappear. Israel’s insistence of settlement building has also not stopped. And while there are no new settlements being built in Bethlehem right now, the same basic principle remains, and that is the persistent and illegal annexation of Palestinian land. The Church of the Nativity may not be in immediate danger right now but the very fabric of the Palestinian people is. Netanyahu’s claim that this is a political move is right though. Of course this is a political move. Politicians be they Palestinian or Israeli make political moves. It is no more a political move though then Israel’s brainwashing of Evangelical conservatives to support Israel is a political move. The idea alone that this is a detriment to peace is enough to make your stomach turn. If the South African’s had tried to designate an ancient site during apartheid would we have told them not to because it might effect gaining their freedom from whit minority rule? Palestinians are playing the hand they were dealt. They are not content to sit passively sit at home and watch their land and people disappear. After decades of occupation they are tired of waiting for Israel and the United States to act.
Yemen’s army has claimed to be fighting of an onslaught of Al Qaeda militants in its southern region. Fighting in and around Aden has been raging for months following Ali Abdullah Saleh’s transfer of power. Yemen has falsely been using this narrative to suppress secessionist protesters in the south of the country.
Until 1990 Yemen was divided into two separate nations, with the south being ruled as a quasi-Marxist state. Ever since the consolidation of the two entities those in the south have long complained of being neglected by the central government in Sana. Saleh showered his tribe, predominately locates in the north, with money and services. Those in the south suffered from underdevelopment and massive poverty and unemployment. Many in the south have in fact complained about the influence that Al Qaeda and Ansar al Sharia have had in the region. Yet this is the direct result of Saleh’s policy of divide and conquer. Saleh allowed for militants and Al Qaeda to flourish in the south to pressure the United States to provide him with aid to fight “terrorism.” Letting the militants run wild also insured that those shouting for secession would be divided and more concerned with protecting themselves rather than gaining independence. In reality it was mainly local tribes that have been responsible for pushing Al Qaeda elements out or their southern strongholds. Yemen’s military on the other hand has been going after the persistent protesters calling for freedom from Sana. The military has implemented a “shoot on sight” policy in the south, with the neighborhood of Mansoura receiving the brunt of this repression. Fighting has become so bad that most of its residents have left the area entirely.
Compounding this stupidity is the United States acquiescence to Yemen’s military operations. Those fighting for freedom in the south are not fundamentalist militants. They are by and large nationalists whose allegiances are to their tribes not Al Qaeda. This could make them stable and reliable allies of the US in their fight against Islamic militants. America’s support for the militaries operations in the south are instead further stoking a growing anti-American sentiment.
If this policy continues the secessionist tribes could align themselves with some of the local Islamic militant factions. This was the strategy used by the secular Tuareg separatist group the MNLA in Mali, which led to the entire north of the country coming under control of Tuareg fighters. Now in Mali the MNLA and Islamic militants, some of whom have ties to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, have begun fighting amongst themselves for power and dominance. Northern Mali now has been made into a safe heaven for Islamic militants. Yemen is close to succumbing to a similar scenario. The end result of this would be incredibly destabilizing to Yemen and the region at large. The threat to the American homeland will only increase under the current trajectory. Worse still, it would lead to countless deaths of the poorest or the poor in Yemen.
The above video was produced by the security apparatus of the Defenses Intelligence Agency (DIA) as a training video on the dangers of espionage. The short video was made after Jonathan Pollard was convicted of spying for Israel in 1987. Pollard stole and transferred one million classified intelligence documents to the Israeli government. Grant Smith of the Institute of Research: Middle East Policy obtained the video under a Freed of Information Act (FOIA) request. The video is hokey and very 80’s, but it shows just how serious DIA took this incident. Smith believes that President Obama may be close to pardoning Pollard from prison. A pardon for Pollard would show just how willing the US is to please Israel, and represent how Israel is totally above the law when it comes to spying on their closet ally.
Porkins Policy Review 