World  - Reuters.com

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A top Russian general on Friday said Poland's deal with the United States to set up parts of a missile defence shield on Polish territory lays it open to a possible military strike, a Russian news agency reported.

Col-General Anatoliy Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the general staff, told Interfax that Russian military doctrine would allow for a possible nuclear strike.

Poland agreed on Thursday to host elements of a U.S. global anti-missile system after Washington agreed to boost Poland's own military air defences.

The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting.(Kundera)

Over 60 insurgents killed in Afghanistan - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Afghan and US-led coalition forces have killed more than 60 militants during several days of fighting in the south of the country this week, the US military and the Afghan Interior Ministry said.

Violence has risen in Afghanistan this year with about 2,500 people, including 1,000 civilians, killed in fighting between Taliban insurgents and foreign and Afghan forces, aid agencies say.

Clashes erupted on Wednesday when several militants attacked a joint Afghan and coalition patrol with machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades, the US military said in a statement.

"ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces) and coalition forces returned fire with small arms and close air support. Multiple vehicles and enemy fighting positions were destroyed," it said.

More than three dozen insurgents were killed, it said.

No soldiers from the Afghan and US forces or any civilians had been killed in the fighting, which was continuing on Saturday, a spokesman for the US military said.

The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting.(Kundera)

BBC NEWS | Europe | Russia signs up to Georgia truce

Russia has followed Georgia in signing a French-brokered peace plan for ending their nine-day-old conflict.

But Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the withdrawal of Russian forces from deep inside Georgia depended on extra security measures being put in place.

He said Russian forces were encountering "problems caused by Georgia", and refused to put a timetable on their departure.

US President George W Bush again demanded Russian forces withdraw.

The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting.(Kundera)

RIA Novosti - World - Russian president signs Georgia peace plan-2

SOCHI, August 16 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed on Saturday a French-brokered plan on resolving conflicts in Georgia, aggravated following Tbilisi's assault on its breakaway South Ossetia on August 8.

"The Georgian-South Ossetian conflict issue was considered during a meeting of the [Russian] Security Council, and the president informed those attending that he had just signed the plan based on the six principles," a presidential press secretary, Natalya Timakova, said.
...
The six-point deal, altered to meet Russia's demands, is widely seen as leaving Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in a far weaker position than before his costly attempt to seize control of South Ossetia through a military offensive, which left at least 1,600 civilians dead, by Russia's estimates.

The plan was signed by Saakashvili on Friday evening and earlier by the leaders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which have been seeking secession from Georgia since the 1990s.

However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday that the document signed by the Georgian president differs from the peace plan worked out by the Russian and French presidents.

"We are somewhat bewildered by the fact that the document signed by Saakashvili differs from the document worked out by the presidents of Russia and France, so the issue is still to be specified via diplomatic channels," Sergei Lavrov said.

He said the document signed by Saakashvili lacks the introductory clause.

The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting.(Kundera)

ISAF News Release #2008-396 - ISAF soldier dies in eastern Afghanistan from IED

KABUL, Afghanistan - An ISAF soldier died August 16 after an IED strike in eastern Afghanistan.

The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting.(Kundera)

Commentary: A sad week for Georgia, America and the world   * Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2008

By Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers

Only someone with a tenuous grasp on reality and a poor knowledge of history and the world could have looked into the flinty eyes of a onetime colonel in the Soviet KGB and "found him very straightforward and trustworthy."

That was newly elected President George W. Bush's pronouncement in June 2001, on his first meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin.

This week President Bush got another look into the eyes and soul of Putin, as did the rest of the world, as Putin sent Russian T-72 tanks and Su-25 fighter-bombers roaring into the independent neighboring state of Georgia.

-skip-

The newly democratic Georgians seemingly forgot that they still live in a very bad neighborhood with some very bad neighbors, not least of them Vlad the Impaler Putin's Russian Republic.

Encouraged by their warm relations with George W. Bush's administration and the weapons and military training the U.S. has provided them in recent years, the Georgians pulled the Russian bear's tail in one of their own breakaway territories, South Ossetia, and promptly got pounded.

That was their bad.

The Russians invaded and expelled Georgian military forces from South Ossetia, and then invaded Georgia itself, rolling up the demoralized Georgian Army and sending it and a horde of frightened refugees falling back on the Georgian capital of Tblisi.

The French thought they'd negotiated a cease-fire agreement, and so did everyone else except the Russians, whose tanks continued to roll and whose aircraft continued to bomb.

-Skip-

The Georgian government made two mistakes -- it took the Bush administration's rhetoric seriously and it ignored the Russians' bluster -- and now both the Georgians and the world had best brace themselves for further Russian military action, economic pressure and diplomatic chicanery.

The opportunity to punish the Georgians is simply too tempting for Russia to ignore, so Putin will drag them back into Moscow's orbit, if not Moscow's ownership, and thus fire a warning shot across the bow of other breakaway republics that are considering membership in NATO or otherwise thumbing their noses at Putin.

-skip-

If there's any silver lining to these dark clouds, it might be that Bush and Cheney will be so preoccupied grumbling at Bush's buddy Vladimir and issuing empty threats that they won't have time to issue other threats or take some irrational action against the Iranians.

Things have truly come to a sorry pass when both our military and our diplomatic threats are as empty as our national treasury, and the Russians of all people can afford to laugh them off.

Bush and Cheney seven and a half years ago inherited control of the world's only reigning superpower, and in that short time they've squandered our military power, our international good name and our national treasury.

The only sadder sight in a week full of sad sights was a John McCain op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal with the headline: "We Are All Georgians."

Not really, senator. As campaign slogans go, "Ich bin ein Georgian" just doesn't cut it.

Some will take issue with "Vlad the Impailer," but he does place responsibility at the feet of the authors of this debacle.  I hope all McClatchy papers carried the commentary.


If sanity be culturally normative, then by the norms of this culture I claim insanity.

Difficult Road Ahead for New Paraguay Leader - NYTimes.com

About 1 percent of Paraguay's population owns 77 percent of the country's land, Frank O. Mora, a professor of national security strategy at the National War College, said this week at a conference in Washington.

The country has struggled to shed its reputation as one of the most corrupt in Latin America. It is also one of the poorest. Some 33 percent of Paraguayans live below the poverty line, and about a million live abroad.

Mr. Lugo won in April amid growing impatience with corruption and the public perception -- especially amid rising unemployment in Paraguay's cities -- that the Colorados helped themselves to the country's wealth to the exclusion of average Paraguayans.

For a time, it was not clear that Mr. Lugo would be allowed to make the transition from priest to politician. The Paraguayan Constitution prohibits church officials of any denomination from being elected president, so Mr. Lugo resigned his position as bishop in December 2006. The Vatican initially refused to accept his resignation and considered him only suspended.

Last month Pope Benedict XVI gave him permission to resign as bishop.

so are you auto-fran today, colman?

baby-wrangling, lol! yee hah

Peace is not the absence of war -- peace is the absence of fear. Ursula Franklin

Op-Ed Columnist - Malcontents Need Not Apply - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

To put a smiley face on its image during the Olympics, the Chinese government set aside three "protest zones" in Beijing. Officials explained that so long as protesters obtained approval in advance, demonstrations would be allowed.

So I decided to test the system.

Following government instructions, I showed up at an office of the Beijing Public Security Bureau, found Window 12 and declared to the officer, "I'm here to apply to hold a protest."

What I didn't realize is that Public Security has arrested at least a half-dozen people who have shown up to apply for protest permits. Public Security is pretty shrewd. In the old days it had to go out and catch protesters in the act. Now it saves itself the bother: would-be protesters show up at Public Security offices to apply for permits and are promptly detained. That's cost-effective law enforcement for you.

Fortunately, the official at Window 12 didn't peg me as a counterrevolutionary. He looked at me worriedly and asked for my passport and other ID papers. Discovering that I was a journalist, he asked hopefully, "Wouldn't you rather conduct an interview about demonstrations?"

"No. I want to apply to hold one."

Cynicism is intellectual treason.

FT.com / Arts & weekend / Magazine - The face of 9/11

"I knew he wouldn't look like the guy in the T-shirt, but I didn't think he would look like the guy in the T-shirt's grandfather," said Carol Rosenberg, a Miami Herald reporter who likes to joke that she has spent more time at Guantánamo than anyone except the detainees. "I have been sitting through hundreds of hours of tribunal hearings and military commissions, and this was the first time we actually saw someone accused of a 9/11 crime," she said.

There was no denying that Mohammed looked much older than his 43 years, as if decades had elapsed since the infamous picture of him taken before he disappeared into the netherworld of the CIA's so-called "black sites".

<...>

Al-Baluchi was next in line. The best English speaker of the five, he touted the same lines - "I am here after five years of torture" - before dismissing his lawyers, with whom he had clearly established a rapport. He looked across at his counsel and said, apologetically: "No offence, lawyers."

[Mohammed's nephew, accused of sending money to the hijackers in the US, Ammar] al-Baluchi provoked more laughter when he responded to Kohlmann's question about his education by stating that he was a "Microsoft-certified computer engineer". He, too, proved well able to use the occasion to his advantage. "This government ... tortured me free of charge for all these years ... If the government had given me a lawyer on the first day I was arrested, I would have appreciated that."

<...>

Afterwards, Rosenberg claimed that "It was just sort of political, legal, military theatre we had never seen before." Maybe so, but the drama had one final act to go. Before Kohlmann closed the proceedings, [Saudi-born Yemeni national charged with training 9/11 hijackers at a camp in Afghanistan Walid] Bin'Attash - now acting as his own counsel - had a procedural question to address to the court via his interpreter.

"Will [we] be buried in Guantánamo," he asked, "or will our bodies be sent back to our countries?"

Cynicism is intellectual treason.

deredactie.be - English - Soldiers get final resting place

Sat 16/08/08 17:48 (UPDATE video) - Twenty-five Belgian soldiers killed during hostilities at the beginning of World War I have been given a final resting place ninety-four years after their deaths.

On 15 August 1914, German shells hit Fort Loncin, killing 350 of the 550 Belgian soldiers that were stationed there.

The remains of most of those killed remained buried under what was left of the fort.

However, an operation to clear the Fort Loncin site of munitions at the end of last year also recovered the remains of 25 soldiers killed when the fort was shelled.

Four of the dead soldiers found were able to be identified.

All of those found were laid to rest in the crypt that has contained the remains of 43 of their former comrades since 1921.

The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting.(Kundera)

Head of World Congress of Russian Jewry accuses Georgia of genocide - Haaretz - Israel News

Russian-speaking Israeli figures have expressed dismay at a statement made by the chairman of the World Congress of Russian Jewry, Russian Senator Boris Spiegel, calling for the establishment of a tribunal that would investigate Georgia's "war crimes" during the past week's round of fighting.

Spiegel, a prominent Jewish oligarch boasting close ties with the Kremlin, accused Georgia of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

"We, as historic victims of genocide, cannot stand aloof," the statement said on behalf of the umbrella organization of the worldwide Russian-speaking Jewish community.

The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting.(Kundera)

War is absurd, says Russian pilot shot down over Georgia - Europe, World - The Independent

Major Markovich, who suffered burns to his arms and a spinal injury, had nothing but praise for his captors, who had treated him excellently from the outset.

"This is an absurd situation," he said. "For thousands of years Russians and Georgians have been living together and now we have war and innocent people are dying. It was all started by politicians and I don't understand why."

The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting.(Kundera)

Phelps's Epic Journey Ends in Perfection - NYTimes.com

On Sunday morning, Phelps was on the United States' 4x100-meter medley relay that held off Australia for the victory, giving Phelps his eighth gold medal of these Games and his 14th over all. Winning in 3 minutes 29.34 seconds, the Americans set a world record, Phelps's seventh of the Games.

Spitz's record lasted 36 years, and it figures to be even longer before the world sees Phelps's successor. In 1972, Spitz swam two strokes, the freestyle and the butterfly, and none of his swims covered more than 200 meters. Phelps swam all four strokes, at distances ranging from 100 to 400 meters, and was faced with three swims in each individual event, one more than Spitz had.

"It's mind-boggling," said Keith Beavers of Canada, who finished seventh in one of Phelps's events, the 200 individual medley. "The depth of the fields and how long this meet is, the things he's doing are astounding, to say the least."

Cynicism is intellectual treason.

Truth emerges too late for Kim Soo - im - NYTimes.com

Kim Soo-im and her love triangle are gone, buried in separate corners of a turbulent past. But in yellowing U.S. military files stamped ''SECRET,'' hibernating through a long winter of Cold War, the truth survived. Now it has emerged, a half-century too late to save her.

The record of a confidential 1950 U.S. inquiry and other declassified files, obtained by The Associated Press at the U.S. National Archives, tell a different Kim Soo-im story:

Col. John E. Baird had no access to the supposed sensitive information. Kim had no secrets to pass on. And her Korean lover, Lee Gang-kook, later executed by North Korea, may actually have been an American agent.

The petite woman smiling out from faded photographs, in silken ''hanbuk'' gown, may have been guilty of indiscretions. But the espionage case against her looks in retrospect -- from what can be pieced together today -- like little more than a frame-up.

<...>

[Seoul movie director] Cho [Myung-hwa, who plans a feature film to tell the ''human story'' of Kim Soo-im] pointed out a little-known fact: In 1946, a year after the U.S. Army occupied southern Korea at World War II's end, a U.S. Embassy poll found that 77 percent of southerners wanted a socialist or communist future.

Instead, the U.S. military government kept many of Japan's right-wing Korean collaborators in power, and the U.S. commander, Lt. Gen. John R. Hodge, vowed to ''stamp out'' the communists.

<...>

Col. William H.S. Wright, head of the Korea advisory group, had testified that her confession was probably forced through ''out and out torture,'' probably near-drowning, or waterboarding, as it's now known.

''The water cure is a very common method,'' Wright said. ''Electric shock and the use of pliers is frequent.''

A Korean source backs this up. In a 2005 Seoul TV report on Kim Soo-im, longtime government propagandist Oh Jae-ho, a staunch anticommunist, said he learned from a police official that the defendant had to be carried into the courtroom to confess on the final day.

''It was truly an emotional moment for me to hear him say it,'' recalled Wonil Kim. The son believes Kim Soo-im gave in because otherwise ''they would send her right back to the torture chamber.''

<...>

Completing its 1950 investigation, the Army inspector general's office recommended that Baird be court-martialed for bringing discredit on the Army through his scandalous liaison with a Korean mistress. But within a month the file was stamped ''Case closed.'' The facts on Kim Soo-im were locked away for a half-century. Who blocked a trial and why?

Cynicism is intellectual treason.

FT.com / Markets - Surge for the dollar as global fears rise

The dollar surged to a two-year high against the pound and a six-month peak against the euro on Friday, as fears about spreading economic gloom triggered a sell-off in commodities.

Against sterling, the US currency notched up its 11th consecutive day of gains - its longest uninterrupted rise in more than 35 years - as markets became increasingly convinced that the US was best-placed to weather the global downturn.

<...>

The long-running surge in commodities and resulting inflationary pressures had been a main factor in slowing global economic activity - playing a bigger role than global financial turmoil, for instance, in the eurozone. The eurozone economy shrank in the second quarter for the first time since the launch of the euro in 1999, while Japan's economy contracted 0.6 per cent, its worst performance for seven years. The US staged at least a modest recovery in the same period.

Cynicism is intellectual treason.

Bolt is lightning-fast in 100 - The Boston Globe

... Bolt started his celebration 20 meters before the finish. He looked left and right to gauge his lead, which was sizable. Then he extended his arms to the side, the kind of gesture usually seen only after sprinters cross the line.

Approaching the finish, Bolt pounded his heart. He wanted to enjoy his win rather than obliterate the world record he set May 31. His victory lap included dancing and blowing kisses to a stunned crowd of 90,000 at the National Stadium.

"I didn't even know I got the world record until after I finished my victory lap, actually," said Bolt, the first Jamaican to win a gold medal in the men's 100. "One aim was just to come here and be Olympic champion. I did just that, so I was happy with myself. It means a lot to my country and it means a lot to me."

With his record-setting time and celebratory display, Bolt left seven shocked competitors in his wake. His victory looks even more impressive considering this was the first Olympic final with six sprinters who had run under 10 seconds.

<...>

When asked how to deal with the dominance of the 6-foot-5-inch Bolt, [American finalist Darvis] Patton said, "How do you deal with Jordan? How do you deal with LeBron? He's a freak of nature. You guys saw it for yourselves. I just happened to have a front-row seat."

That makes two 'freaks of nature': Phelps and Bolt.  And probably plenty more in these Olympics.

Cynicism is intellectual treason.

That was something of an emergency posting, in between cooking dinner and baby wrangling.

We're brunh-your-own-news at the moment since Fran is on a break.

I noticed a discussion about which non-entity gets the nod as Obama's VP. Yet I couldn't help wondering why it mattered. More than any other candidate in recent memory, Obama hasn't any weakness to need shoring up; apart form a perceived military weakness which only matters in an insanely militarised country but doesn't he pay people to know that stuff for him ?

Anyway. He doens't need a VP so just get the most harmless person knocking around and be done with it.

keep to the Fen Causeway

It is truly a sad day.

Thirty years ago (good God, three entire decades) I was in graduate school at UC Davis (northern CA) working on a solar energy project for my thesis.  American society had dethrowned Nixon, ended the Viet Nam assholeyness, and we had a sane intelligent Prez named Jimmy Carter.  The US was heading in the right direction psychologically and I was optimistic.

Now I hear a little of this morning's Washington Journal (CSPAN) and the intro call-in section is all about the Obama/McCain get together with Pastor What's-His-Face and all of these God-freaks are calling in.  I can't believe how much the US has DIGRESSED psychologically in 30 years.  If we keep this up, next step down the psychological evolutionary ladder, we'll be lauding street thug types like Cheney and Putin and we'll have mothers being interviewed on TV saying, "Why of course I want Sally to grow up to be a successful criminal.  Look how well she lives.  And NO ONE screws with her or me.  We're winners.

Keep digressing humans.  Before you know it you'll be climbing back into the trees.

Welcome to ET, Paul Krugman

A final thought.  Have you noticed the current Red/Blue Rep/Dem maps of the US in terms of voting preferences for Prez.?  It seems to map the Low Education/Low Information/Take the little Special Ed. bus to school, folks in RED very well.  From Texas to Florida ... all 'tards.  What a country.

Welcome to ET, Paul Krugman