NEW PULSE POSTED
At:
http://www.ornl.gov/news/pulse/pulse_v240_07.htm
That’s the url to the July 30, 2007, issue of DOE Pulse. Pulse is a newsletter about accomplishments at the Department of Energy’s national laboratories. Here is some of what you’ll find in this issue:
* SLAC: Testing Blackbox
* Sandia: Filtering out arsenic
* Oak Ridge: Fuel-cell collaboration
* Savannah River: Glass melter
Feature: Berkeley, Livermore, Sandia team on bioenergy center
Researcher profile: Brookhaven’s Wynne K. Schiffer
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MSNBC graphic, report conflated “Al Qaeda” and “Al Qaeda in Iraq”
On the July 29 edition of MSNBC Live, during a report on the “tensions” between Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S.-led forces in Iraq, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, an on-screen graphic read: “Iraq: Fighting Al Qaeda.” During the segment, NBC News correspondent Jane Arraf further reported that Petraeus “is saying that the U.S. has made significant gains against Al Qaeda,” adding: “[H]e says that in key areas where they have declared the states — capitols of their Islamic state, they have managed to get rid of key leaders, but he warns that there is still a significant threat, and they are able to carry out significant attacks.” However, in asserting that the U.S. military in Iraq is fighting Al Qaeda and uncritically quoting Petreaus making the same claim, MSNBC conflated the Sunni insurgent group “Al Qaeda in Iraq” with the group responsible for the 9-11 attacks, as the Bush administration has repeatedly done. Moreover, Arraf’s paraphrasing of Petraeus’ comments left the impression that he said “the U.S. has made significant gains against Al Qaeda” worldwide — an assertion contradicted by the most recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which assessed that “the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability” and established a “safehaven” in Pakistan.
Read more
http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707290004?src=other
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The Cost of ‘Enduring’ in Iraq
July 30 2007
Congress approved $1.7 billion for military construction in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007, according to CRS, but offered no breakdown of how the money was spent. The House report says the Pentagon “intends to continue the buildup of infrastructure in Persian Gulf nations, while establishing ‘enduring’ locations for U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Djibouti” — whatever “enduring” means. But no Iraq construction is detailed. And a CRS report this month lists a total of $2 billion approved for Iraq and Afghanistan military construction in the fiscal 2004, 2005 and 2006 budgets — but again no details.
At:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/29/AR2007072901219.html
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Cutting Costs, Bending Rules, And a Trail of Broken Lives –Ambush in Iraq Last November Left Four Americans Missing and a String of Questions About the Firm They Worked For
July 29 2007
…The attackers seized four Americans and an Austrian employed by Crescent Security Group, a small private security firm. Then they fled. None of the hostages has been found, eight months after one of the largest and most brazen kidnappings of Americans since the March 2003 invasion… An investigation by The Washington Post found that Crescent violated U.S. military regulations while being paid millions of dollars to support the U.S.-led ‘mission’ in Iraq. The company routinely sacrificed safety to cut costs.
At:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/28/AR2007072801407.html
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The House crime subcommittee voted Tuesday to make excessive overcharging in Iraq and Afghanistan contracts a specific “war profiteering” crime.
Without debate, the House Judiciary Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee approved the bill (H.R. 400) on a voice vote and sent it to the parent committee for action. The Justice Department opposes the bill in its present construction, fearing it could hinder some prosecutions.
The legislation would make it a crime to overcharge taxpayers on contracts during a war or reconstruction. The felony would carry penalties up to 20 years in prison and fines up to $1 million or twice the amount of illegal profits, whichever is higher.
Full story:
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=37565&dcn=e_gvet
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Today’s Quote:
“The unprecedented involvement of private corporations in the Iraq War has been well documented. Private soldiers working for Blackwater USA, Triple Canopy and others provide security services against military-level threats, and they regularly engage in combat. But what is not generally known is that the secret side of the Iraq War and the larger “war on terror” is also conducted by private corporations, fielding private spies. The reach of these corporations has extended into the Oval Office. Corporations are heavily involved in creating the analytical products that underlie the nation’s most important and most sensitive national security document, the President’s Daily Brief (PDB). “
- RJ Hillhouse, Outsourcing Intelligence
Full story:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070730/hillhouse
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U.S. Bases in Iraq: The Meaning of “Permanent”
AP is reporting: “The House voted 399-24 on Wednesday to pass a bill proposed by [Rep. Barbara] Lee that would ban permanent bases in Iraq.”
PHYLLIS BENNIS, pbennis@ips-dc.org, http://www.ips-dc.org
Director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, Bennis said today: “The bill states an important principle opposing the ‘establishment’ of new bases in Iraq and ‘not to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq.’ But it is limited in several ways. It prohibits only those bases which are acknowledged to be for the purpose of permanently stationing U.S. troops in Iraq; therefore any base constructed for temporarily stationing troops, or rotating troops, or anything less than an officially permanent deployment, would still be accepted. Further, the bill says nothing about the need to decommission the existing U.S. bases already built in Iraq; it only prohibits ‘establishing’ military installations, implying only new ones would be prohibited.
“From its origins, the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq had two major goals: control of oil and expansion of U.S. military power. Creation of a network of at least 14 military bases throughout the country, including four huge ‘enduring’ bases, lies at the heart of this goal. It is interesting that the U.S. military bases in Iraq, Afghanistan, Qatar, Oman and elsewhere in the Middle East are NOT included in the Pentagon’s own list of overseas bases. And the Iraqi bases are only a small part of the 750-plus overseas U.S. military bases that constitute the infrastructure of this 21st century version of empire.”
Bennis is author of “Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy U.S. Power.”
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
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WHY THE WHITE HOUSE KEEPS HIDING BEHIND GENERAL PETRAEUS
By Frank Rich, The New York Times
The White House has done everything possible to create the appearance that Gen. David Petraeus has all the responsibility for the occupation of Iraq — but it’s really an attempt to shield Bush from the failure in Iraq.
At:
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/58246/
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Borowitz Report – Sarcastic Headline Shocker
McCain Puts Straight Talk Express on eBay
Bus Was Target of Sarcastic Headlines
In what some political observers are calling an ominous sign for his cash-starved White House bid, Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) today posted his campaign bus, The Straight Talk Express, on the Internet auction site eBay.
Mr. McCain’s denied that the move stemmed from money problems, stressing instead that he had decided to sell the bus so that it would no longer provide fodder for sarcastic headlines such as “Wheels Come Off Straight Talk Express” or “Straight Talk Express: Out of Gas?”
“The Straight Talk Express was giving headline writers too much to work with,” Sen. McCain told reporters. “They won’t be able to do that anymore, now that I’m getting around from town to town on a Segway.”
Davis Logsdon, dean of the journalism school at the University of Minnesota, said that the number of sarcastic headlines riffing on the name of Mr. McCain’s campaign bus had swelled to as many as 7,000 in the last two weeks alone.
“Every morning, newspapers were running headlines like ‘Straight Talk Express Runs into a Ditch’ or ‘Straight Talk Express Has a Flat Tire,’” Professor Logsdon said. “There was even one that said ‘Straight Talk Express Low on Windshield Wiper Fluid,’ whatever that means.”
But even as Mr. McCain swapped his campaign bus for a Segway scooter, there were signs that his efforts to avoid sarcastic headlines about his mode of transportation had not been successful, as the Toledo Blade ran a story entitled, “McCain Campaign: Segway to Defeat?”
Elsewhere, President Bush said that his successful colonoscopy was “proof that invasions work.”
http://www.borowitzreport.com/
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three thousand more words
Mikhaela Reid: American Health Care, Envy of the World!
http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoons/ReidM/2007/ReidM20070727_low.jpg
RJ Matson: TO INFINITY AND BEYOND
http://www.rjmatson.com/images/cartoons/RC1131.jpg
Meyer’s Take(Tom Meyer): at least we got it to eat more fruits and vegetables
http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2007/07/30/meyer30-600×493-cartoon.gif
