When and if Barack Obama takes the oath of office as President of the United States, who most will he owe that high privilege to?

According to Alexandre Adler, one of France’s leading historians, journalists - and according to many - a neocon, that person would be George W. Bush. Read the rest of this entry »

There is angst on North Africa - otherwise known as the Maghreb - over the second-class treatment meted out to the region by the Bush Administration.

And since this is where the Pentagon intends to headquarter its new African Command - and since it hosts a blossoming al-Qaeda presence - this is not an inconsequential matter.

In the latest in a series of articles WORLDMEETS.US has translated that one might call “we can’t get no repect,” Read the rest of this entry »

The more things change the more they stay the same, and that’s downright scary when it comes to Blackwater Worldwide.

If you’re under the impression that this most right-wing of defense contractors has been laying low since its goons mowed down 17 Iraqis last September, you would be wrong.

Despite the outcry, Condoleezza Rice’s State Department dutifully renewed Blackwater’s contract to guard diplomats in the war zone and the North Carolina-based company has been hard at work burnishing its stateside credentials.

Erik Prince, Blackwater’s chairman, former Navy SEAL and messianic right-winger with close White House and Pentagon ties, has been tight lipped about his company’s plans, but they obviously include expanding its already major presence as a trainer of military personnel and private contractors on the U.S.-Mexico border in Southern California.

Blackwater last month received a permit for a training facility for Navy personnel in south San Diego after abandoning its controversial proposal to build a larger one elsewhere in the area. The site will have a shooting range, a simulated Navy ship and classrooms, but the city’s Development Services Department granted the permit without public hearings so the project is on hold.

An argument can be made that firms like Blackwater are needed in this day and age, but as has been the case in so many other areas, the Bush administration has taken the involvement of private contractors in the business of war to extremes.

Blackwater alone has billed taxpayers over $1 billion for its work in Iraq and much of what it does was once and should still be the domain of Military Police units. (Think about all those M*A*S*H episodes when Hawkeye and Trapper were pounced on by MPs.).

The bigger problem with Blackwater is that it’s nefarious. It lies and misleads and when caught out asserts that it is not merely above the law but is a law unto itself. As it is, Blackwater went out of its way to hide its identity in the case of the San Diego facility by filing for a permit under the name of a subcontractor.

Okay, so Blackwater doesn’t rent out pony rides for kids’ birthday parties. A reasonable amount of circumspection and secrecy comes with its territory. But there is a cottage industry of sane people, along with some wingnuts, who believe that Blackwater is in cahoots with Uncle Sam to train local security forces should martial law ever be declared, as well as other nefarious activities.

I’m not buying, but neither am I not buying.

With the drip drip of revelations that the decision to torture enemy combatants and other detainees in the so-called War on Terror began not with commanders and interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq but at the highest levels of the Bush administration, arguments that these insiders should and could be tried as war criminals have become more credible.

Just not tried in the U.S., of course.

As if we needed to be reminded that the White House has worked as hard to prevent these insiders from facing the consequences of their dirty deeds as they worked to rationalize the use of Nazi-like torture techniques, there is a provision in the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that would immunize them against prosecution.

But only in the U.S., of course.

Overseas is another matter, and any Geneva Conventions signatory nation has the right — indeed, the responsibility — to detain someone suspected or accused of violating Article 3 of the conventions.

Indeed, courts in Italy and Germany have issued warrants demanding the arrest of CIA operatives for kidnapping and torturing citizens and residents of their nations, although the warrants have not been executed for diplomatic reasons.

And an effort to prosecute former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld in France for the torture of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, the flagship accommodation in the Rumsfeld Gulag, has foundered because no court was willing to take on this hot potato.

But with every new revelation comes a flurry of articles suggesting that Bush administration big shots, present and former, might want to think twice before jetting off to Europe this summer for some sightseeing.

Please click here to read more at Kiko’s House, and here for an index of torture-related stories and links.

Now it’s Condoleezza Rice’s turn to take a hand in putting up the false front the Bush Administration is trying to construct and pass off as “victory.” She follows President Bush last September, Vice President Cheney and the war’s heir apparent, John McCain, last month in projecting a perception of peace with smoke and mirrors.

In a surprise trip last weekend, the Secretary of State was cheerleading “a coalescing of a center in Iraqi politics in which the Sunni leadership, the Kurdish leadership, and elements of the Shiite leadership that are not associated with these special groups have been working together better than at any time before.”

The “special groups” are militias of the Mahdi Army. If the central government continues to attack them, as it did ineptly in Basra this month only to be bailed out by US forces, al-Sadr is threatening “all-out war.”

While Rice hailed the coalescing, there were three rocket attacks–the first as she was meeting with Maliki at his office, another while returning to the Green Zone from a meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talibani, a third that delayed a ceremony at which she unveiled a plaque commemorating civilian deaths in the Green Zone.

Read the rest of this entry.

During a time when calm and diplomacy may have never been more important in the war torn country of Iraq, when the window of political opportunity provided by the surge is closing, Secretary of State Condi Rice made some rather remarkable comments about Muqtada al-Sadr. In fact, she came close to calling him a coward.

“I know he’s sitting in Iran,” Rice said dismissively, when asked about al-Sadr’s latest threat to lift a self-imposed cease-fire with government and U.S. forces. “I guess it’s all-out war for anybody but him,” Rice said. “I guess that’s the message; his followers can go too [sic] their deaths and he’s in Iran.”

I’ll need to check my references here, but did Secretary Rice just call al-Sadr a chickenhawk?

Over at Middle Earth Journal, Ron Beasely has a few questions, to put it mildly.

Now the American and British air strikes may have driven the Mehdi army underground but only to fight another day. The always stupid and incompetent Rice has just poured gasoline on embers which will flare up even sooner resulting in the deaths of both Iraqis and Americans. This administration is criminally stupid and incompetent.

Many pundits are already comparing this to the now infamous “Bring it on!” comment by George W. Bush to the world’s terrorists. Some supporters of current policy will likely point out that an aggressive approach to those hostile to our interests is required in an increasingly dangerous and violent world. Only history will be able to judge which mixture of diplomacy and taunting works best.

It is now well known that when the White House needed justification for its endorsement of Nazi-like torture techniques, it turned to John Yoo.

The young attorney in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel wrote a series of memos that he believed gave the Bush administration the legal fig leaf it needed to use torture and deny enemy combatants protection under the Geneva Conventions.

Yoo was a foot soldier in a national tragedy starring Vice President Cheney, Attorney General John Ashcroft and his successor, Alberto Gonzalez, Secretary of State Colin Powell and his successor, Condoleeza Rice, and CIA Director George Tenet. And, of course, The Decider himself.

The administration’s embrace of torture is the most atrocious aspect of a presidency that has determinedly turned the separation of powers, due process and the Rule of Law on its collective ear.

All in service of the specious claim that the president should have unlimited powers in the post-9/11 world even if it means defecating on the very constitutionally enshrined rights that we are fighting the so-called Global War on Terror to protect.

Public reaction to this dark interlude has been underwhelming.

This is because news coverage has sucked — and can you imagine it being any other way considering the spectacle of last night’s presidential “debate”? I also suspect that many people are okay with torture so long as it isn’t their son or daughter who is being waterboarded.

Meanwhile, there has been loud flailing by those who want to punish Yoo now.

Read the rest of this entry »

See, it’s not all about John Yoo. The U.S. didn’t just start torturing its detainees because a government lawyer said it was okay, or because some executive-branch extremist like David Addington determined that anything and everything was permissible in a time of war, or because some dim-witted troops at Abu Ghraib just didn’t know any better. At some point, early on, a decision to allow torture, to enable it, must have been made — and it must have been made at the highest levels of government. To put it another way, the decision to turn America into a nation that tortures must have been made at the top. The so-called “principals” must have signed off on it and Bush himself must have signed off on it.

And, it seems, they did just that. Here’s ABC News:

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.

The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of “combined” interrogation techniques — using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time — on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.

*****

The advisers were members of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies.

That’s right — not underlings like Yoo, not lawyers and academics, not bureaucrats and soldiers, but the very top officials in the U.S. government: Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Tenet, and Ashcroft. They signed off on it. They were the enablers of torture. They were the ones who turned America into a nation that tortures.

And they must be held accountable.

(Reality check: They won’t be. First, there’s the national security barrier — the details won’t get out. Second, Congress isn’t about to do anything — consider the do-nothingness of the post-2006 Democratic Congress. Third, while a Justice Department staffed with Obama or Clinton appointees could launch an aggressive investigation, it is unlikely that such a seemingly partisan political investigation, however legitimate in reality, would get very far.)

There isn’t much to it, but it isn’t going away. I wrote about it a couple of weeks ago, thinking that that would, for the time being, be that, but, well, that wasn’t that.

Here’s what we know: Condi went to Grover Norquist’s weekly morning gathering for right-wing crackpots and wowed the head crackpot himself. Over the weekend, pro-Condi flack-hack Dan Senor told George Stephanopoulos that “Rice has been actively, actually in recent weeks, campaigning for this,” a campaign that has included cozying up to the Norquist crowd. In response to Senor, Foggy Bottom mouthpiece Sean McCormack said that “if she’s actively seeking the vice presidency, then she’s the last one to know about it,” a too-cute evasion by far.

For his part, Norquist seems now to be pro-Condi himself: “If her goal was to convince everyone she would be a good president and, therefore, a good vice president — she hit it out of the ballpark,” he told WaPo’s Sleuth. “Is she campaigning for it? I don’t know. But if she is, she’s doing it the right way.” Not quite a full-out endorsement, as the misleading headline suggests, but not too shabby.

And what does Condi think: “Let me just say, first of all, that Senator McCain is an extraordinary American, a really outstanding leader, and obviously a great patriot. That said, I’m going back to Stanford or back to California, west of the Mississippi. I very much look forward to watching this campaign and voting as a voter.”

Uh-huh. Sure. That’s what they all say. Sounds to me like she wants the job.
Read the rest of this entry »

There was a good bit of chatter over the weekend concerning rumors that Secretary of State Condi Rice might be actively seeking the VP slot on John McCain’s presidential ticket. This is certainly not a new idea. If you traveled the blogs in the Right side of the sphere last year you probably saw numerous “Draft Condi!” buttons exhorting her fans to push the Secretary into a run for president. But how receptive would the movers and shakers of the Republican party be to the idea of Vice President Condi under President McCain? We can get a pretty good feel for this from The Weekly Standard’s Richelieu.

He is clearly dubious about the prospect, citing several reasons why Ms. Rice would not be a wise choice for the Arizona Senator’s ticket. These include (correctly, in my opinion) Condi’s background as more of a policy wonk than a politician, her inability to pull any swing states, (she’s from California which is not in play) and the fact that she would remind voters of shortcomings in the Bush administration’s early Iraq strategy. However, he also lists this telling complaint.

She would pull exactly 14 black votes away from Barack Obama.

I’m not sure if Richilieu has a specific list of 14 people or if that’s just a generalization, but it certainly has the ring of truth. In the modern era the popularity of the GOP among black Americans has been spotty, to put it generously. I’ve spoken to a number of Republican pundits who worry over this and sincerely wish that they could build a bigger tent for their party, but inroads seem hard to come by. Why is this?

First, let’s take a look at the list of currently seated black Republicans in Congress.

(Insert here the sound of crickets chirping softly in the evening.)

Ok… now that we’re done with that, perhaps we can move on to who is getting nominated for President. (Take a peek at this photograph of the ten candidates who started this race to refresh your memory.) This is a classic shot - as one Democratic friend of mine likes to say - of a stable of ROWGs. (She pronounces it “rogues” but it stands for Rich Old White Guys.) In contrast, a look at the Democratic slate tells much of this story.
Read the rest of this entry »

What’s Europe’s perception of President Bush, now that he’s appearing at his last NATO Summit? From Le Figaro, France’s largest and most pro-American newspaper, comes this editorial. Written by Pierre Rousselin, the judgment of Bush’s legacy is a harsh one. Rousselin writes, “If the American president would take a sincere accounting of his actions, he would observe that he leaves a weakened Atlantic Alliance in military difficulty in Afghanistan, politically divided in the face of a more aggressive Russia, and ever-hesitant about its missions, its scope of activity and its raison d’être in the 21st century.”

Rousselin goes on to say, “Beyond the press releases glorifying painstaking compromise, the summit, which is to be followed on Friday by an unprecedented dialog with Vladimir Putin, highlights the lack of American “leadership” in the world at the end of a period marked by the Iraq War and the transatlantic crisis that it has unleashed. It is a sad result for a presidency that at its inception placed itself under the rubric of putting the use of force at the service of a conquering ideology.”

Editorial By Pierre Rousselin

Translated By Sandrine Ageorges

April 3, 2008

France - Le Figaro - Original Article (France)

The NATO summit in Bucharest is the final farewell of the allies to George W. Bush. If the American president would take a sincere accounting of his actions, he would observe that he leaves a weakened Atlantic Alliance in military difficulty in Afghanistan, politically divided in the face of a more aggressive Russia, and ever-hesitant about its missions, its scope of activity and its raison d’être in the 21st century.
Read the rest of this entry »

Has President Bush decided to send weapons to the newly-independent nation of Kosovo to keep NATO’s hands clean, as Albanians in the former Serbian province ‘cleanse’ Kosovo of Serbs? Tamara Zamyatina of Russia’s Novosti writes, ‘Arming the Kosovars is a kind of legalization of future action by the Albanian side to oust the Serb minority … In other words, to give the Kosovars a chance to complete what NATO started: To clear the non-Albanian population out of the province, but to have the job done by Albanians, so as not to cast a shadow on the NATO peacekeepers of KFOR - not to mention the United States.’

By Global Affairs Commentator Tamara Zamyatina

Translated By Igor Medvedev

March 25, 2008

Russia - Novosti - Original Article (Russian)

MOSCOW: Things the experts warned about even before Kosovo’s illegal declaration of independence are coming true - the territory seized from Serbia is gradually accruing all the attributes of a giant military base of NATO and the United States.

As far as the “basic accessories” required for the task, George W. Bush has ordered the flow of arms shipments to Kosovo to begin - something that Moscow is sure to focus on at an emergency session of the NATO-Russia Council - to be held in Brussels on March 28.

Incidentally, Bush issued this order two days after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Moscow to urge the Kremlin to strengthen cooperation, expand consultation and generally display more openness.

The haste with which the Pentagon is seeking to take the fledgling Kosovo under its wing says only one thing - that there is uncertainty in the West that peace will come to the Balkans after Kosovo’s cessation. But it was precisely this rhetoric - that there is an urgent need to end the Yugoslav crisis - that the West used to justify its support for the Kosovo separatists. As far as peace is concerned, there can be none when one side is being armed against the other. This is like taking a raging fire and pouring more fuel on top …

The Serbs have already gotten the message. In the town of Kosovska Mitrovica (in northern Kosovo), they began a doomed rush to defend their last refuge - the courthouse - where Serbian justice once ruled but which now is occupied by international lawyers planning to turn it over to their Albanian colleagues [Kosovo is largely Albanian]. Blood was spilled there during clashes with [NATO] peacekeepers - and Belgrade [capital of Serbia] continues to seethe with rallies in support of Kosovo’s Serbian minority.

The city [Kosovska Mitrovica], divided by the Ibar River into Albanian and Serbian halves, will long be a bone of contention between the two sided. Belgrade has already officially appealled to the U.N. demanding that Kosovo’s northern region adjacent to Kosovska Mitrovica, which contains a Serbian population of 100,000, be returned to Serbia. These people require basic physical protection, but this is unlikely to move advocates of Kosovo’s independence at the United Nations.

In the first half of the 1990s, Western countries closed their eyes to the expulsion of 300,000 Serbs from Croatia, so they’re unlikely to bother over a mere hundred thousand today. “If 300,000 birds suddenly leave a place, the world would be alarmed, but the tragedy of the Serbs, mankind hardly notices” - so they say in Belgrade.

America’s intention to begin arms shipments to Kosovo is not only due to a desire to hold on to Kosovska Mitrovica - this strategically important but recalcitrant Serbian city. There is a more important reason - to give the Kosovars carte-blanche to suppress the protest in Serb enclaves throughout the province [actually - it’s now a nation]. So says Yelena Guskova, director of the Balkans Crisis Center at the Russian Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences.

Arming the Kosovars - is a kind of legalization of future action by the Albanian side to oust the Serb minority from the province. In other words, to give the Kosovars a chance to complete what NATO started: To clear the non-Albanian population out of the province, but to have the job done by Albanians, so as not to cast a shadow on the NATO peacekeepers of KFOR - not to mention the United States.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the United States.

Is there any hope that the United States and Russia will be able to resolve at least some of their differences before President Bush leaves office? Fedor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of the magazine Russia in Global Affairs writes for Kommersant, ‘The Bush Administration is one of the biggest lame ducks in history. Even if it wanted a historic achievement to crown its term with, it doesn’t have the political wherewithal: the world is openly preparing for the change of power in Washington.’ As far as the Russian side’s willingness to compromise, Lukyanov seems to hint at President-elect Medvedev’s lack of an electoral mandate by writing, “In terms of foreign policy, actions will be cautious, since the delicate balance between continuity and innovation must be kept. Both Russian leaders [Putin and Medvedev] will be looking to keep the other in mind as they confront the many domestic and foreign challenges.”

By Fedor Lukyanov*

Translated By Igor Medvedev

March 18, 2008

Kommersant - Russia - Original Article (Russian)

U.S.-Russian “two plus two” negotiations are always remarkable events. That’s no surprise, since it’s not every day that the ministers [and secretaries] responsible for both political and military strategy for the two nuclear superpowers get together. An awareness of the significance of these events generates high expectations, which then lead to disappointment. So it would be better for us now to identify the limits of the possible.

Can Russia and the United States make a breakthrough and resolve their differences? No they can’t, mainly because of the political situations in both countries.

The Bush Administration is one of the biggest lame ducks in history. Even if it wanted a historic achievement to crown its term with, it doesn’t have the political wherewithal: the world is openly preparing for the change of power in Washington. The ability of the United States to contribute to the stabilization of global currency and financial markets is very much in doubt.

In Moscow, there has been a de facto change in the system of power, and now the difficult process of configuring new mechanisms must begin. In terms of foreign policy, actions will be cautious, since the delicate balance between continuity and innovation must be kept. Both Russian leaders [Putin and Medvedev] will be looking to keep the other in mind as they confront the many domestic and foreign challenges. This is not conducive to revolutionary steps - and it will raise the suspicions of Russia’s partners.

The greatest challenge over the coming months will be to avoid open conflict, especially given the unfavorable situation that is now unfolding. The situation in and around Kosovo , the agenda for the upcoming NATO Summit in Bucharest , the construction of an anti-ballistic missile system in the post-Soviet countries and even in part, the situation in China in light of the tensions in Tibet – all could drastically worsen the atmosphere. As a result, new leaders “are tied” to the legacy of the previous period.

There are many disagreements between Moscow and Washington. But that’s not the main problem. In terms of generalities, no one disputes the fact that we live in a globalized world wherein all processes are interrelated, and all countries are mutually dependent. But as soon things get wrapped up in bilateral relations, globalization is forgotten and people behave as if this underlying reality no longer exists and mutual accusation becomes a goal in and of itself.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the United States.

As of this morning, it appears that it’s not only Barack Obama’s passport file that has been poked through but also those of Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

So much for privacy rights etc….

A reader responding to my post on what a Democratic president and Congress should do about the Bush administration’s many scandals had a pretty good idea, albeit tongue in check: Send The Decider, Cheney, Gonzo, Rummy and Company to the Navy brig at Guantánamo Bay where they would be held without rights and waterboarded to see if they would yield any good intelligence.

The idea in fact has great appeal in the wake of a startling development:

Colonel Morris D. Davis, the former chief prosecutor at Guantánamo and an outspoken champion of the administration’s extralegal military commission system, has agreed to testify at Gitmo on behalf of detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a driver for Osama bin Laden.

Davis acknowledges that Hamdan is guilty as sin, but the commission system itself needs to be put on trail because of its inherent unfairness, including the potential for rigged outcomes.

The Air Force colonel is not the first career military lawyer to part ways with the Bush administration over its perverse compunction to turn the Rule of Law on its ear in order to railroad terror suspects, but he is certainly is the most promiment to put his career on the line.

Davis’ change of heart is somewhat mitigated by his reputation as a hot dog and the fact that he is nearing retirement, but it nevertheless is a salutatory act of conscience and would be deeply embarrassing to the White House if it had a conscience.

Almost a year ago, the Crystal Ball took a first crack at listing the vice presidential possibilities in both parties (LINK). The list has held up surprisingly well. But the justifications for various candidacies have changed, and now that we know John McCain will make the choice, it’s time for reconsideration. (We’ll await the unofficial crowning of the Democratic nominee to play this game on the Democratic side, unless Democrats keep the game tied through the spring. Our discipline can only last so long.)

Let’s start by revising and extending our earlier remarks, and asking the most important question. Ideally, what does a presidential candidate need in a VP ticket-mate? Here are the most important elements, and a second-banana nominee ought to meet most of these criteria:

For the Russians, U.S. recognition of Kosovo’s independence was tantamount to an international crime, and the burning of the United States Embassy in Belgrade by angry Serbs could hardly have been avoided. The New York Bureau Chief of Russia’s Novosti News Service, Dmitry Gornostayev writes, ‘It was somewhat ridiculous to hear the appeal by Deputy Secretary of State Nicholas Burns to the Serbs to respect international law. What is he talking about? He and his colleagues violated it themselves last Monday by recognizing Kosovo’s independence!’ In regard to the past two U.S. presidents and the larger issues of Yugoslavia and Iraq, he writes with a burning sarcasm, ‘If reduced to the terms of criminal law, these global actions at least qualify as robbery and murder. According to the laws of Arkansas and Texas - the home states of the past two U.S. Presidents - the crimes of launching illegal wars in Yugoslavia and Iraq would be punishable by the death penalty. But at the homes of these U.S. presidents no one behaves that way - they are decent gentlemen: they play the saxophone, ride bicycles, keep mistresses under the desk and at the very worst, they drop their bagels and ice cream on the couch. All with perfect decency. But once they go outside, you had better get out of the way.’

By Dmitry Gornostayev, Novosti’s New York Bureau Chief

Translated By Igor Medvedev

February 22, 2008

Russia - Novosti - Original Article (Russian)

When the burning of the American Embassy in Belgrade appeared on television along with armored personnel carriers (filled with Serb policemen bereft of any desire to disperse fellow Serbs with Molotov cocktails), I thought to myself: How long will it be until the Americans recall international law and the Vienna Conventions? [which safeguard the immunity of diplomats and embassies] … They remembered very quickly.

It was somewhat ridiculous to hear the appeal by Deputy Secretary of State Nicholas Burns to the Serbs to respect international law. What is he talking about? He and his colleagues violated it themselves last Monday by recognizing Kosovo’s independence!
Read the rest of this entry »

While Ms Condoleezza Rice, US Secretary of State, interacted with the Chinese leaders about the nuclear disarmament in North Korea, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra held a historic concert in the heart of North Korea — a nation still considered as an enemy by the US. The East Pyongyang Grand Theatre echoed with the strains of North Korean national anthem ‘Patriotic Song’, and followed by America’s ‘Star Spangled Banner” The concert was beamed live on the North Korean television.

The visit entailed the largest US presence in the reclusive state since the end of the Korean war, says the BBC. “The audience - made up of North Korea’s elite, as well as musicians and foreign guests - stood throughout both anthems, while the countries’ flags were displayed on the stage.

“Conductor Lorin Maazel said he and his colleagues were ‘pleased to play in this fine hall’ and told the audience in Korean to ‘have a good time’. The orchestra then played an opera prelude by Wagner followed by Dvorak’s Symphony Number Nine - known as the New World Symphony - and George Gershwin’s An American in Paris. The orchestra finished by playing the much-loved Korean folk song Arirang, and received a lengthy standing ovation.

“Mr Maazel told the audience that there might one day be a piece called An American in Pyongyang…”

Ms Rice, herself a classical pianist, struck a discordant note in China: “I don’t think we should get carried away with what listening to Dvorak is going to do in North Korea.” Well, if music diplomacy is not your cuppa tea then the other option is to start cleaning your guns!!! In any case the invitation to the New York Philharmonic Orchestra was extended by North Korea…and that certainly is a diplomatic triumph for a nation steeped in poverty and remains a closed society.

While the US administration’s priority in Pakistan seems to be to safeguard the position of President Pervez Musharraf (unmindful of the fact that the ex-military dictator has been humiliated in the recent polls), it delivers a homily to a country in its backyard (with whom it has been at the ‘original’ unending ‘war’ for the past 50 years) about the virtues of democracy. There has to be some limit to blatant hypocrisy.

The deadly/strange antics of President Bush & Co have been eclipsed in the American media/blogosphere by the frenzy created over the electoral battle by other dramatis personae — Obama/Clinton/McCain/et al . As if the media has absolved itself of its duty to scrutinize the acts of omission and commission of their president.

Where is the great American tradition of responsible journalism? Is the media/blogosphere scared of presenting the facts? Who will harm them if they do? What happened to the famous tradition of investigative journalism? What else could be the reason? An interesting subject for research.

Here is The Times of London report: “As Fidel Castro’s 49-year-rule ended formally, the Bush Administration urged Cuba to move towards ‘peaceful, democratic change’ and let its 11 million citizens become ‘masters of their own lives’. ‘We urge the Cuban Government to begin a process of peaceful, democratic change by releasing all political prisoners, respecting human rights and creating a clear pathway toward free and fair elections,’ Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, said in a statement shortly before Raúl’s accession.

“Raúl Castro, Fidel Castro’s younger brother, was last night named Cuba’s first new President in nearly 50 years and quickly dampened hopes of any swift or big change in the western hemisphere’s only Communist state. Raúl, 76, acknowledged in his acceptance speech that Cuba faced problems and he spoke of the need for economic reform, the streamlining of bureaucracy and greater public consultation.

“Raúl also warned the United States against meddling in Cuba’s affairs and told the assembly that he would consult his ailing 81-year-old brother on all important decisions.”

More here… And here…

The past record of the present US administration’s policies and actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan does not inspire confidence that the motive was to allow democracy to flourish in those countries.

Please remember that, for the world, President George W. Bush and Ms Condoleezza Rice speak on behalf of the American nation/people. Those, including the media/journalists, who maintain a silence and overlook their remarks, would appear to be in agreement with what their leaders have been saying/doing. God Save America!

Having been eligible for the draft and an all-expenses-paid trip to Vietnam since I was 18, 1968 was the year that I turned 21 and finally was old enough to drink and vote, which I did in that order and with great enthusiasm.

I had a front-row seat for this year of great change — including antiwar protests, the King and Kennedy assassinations, and the coming of age of the civil rights and women’s movements — but nowhere were those changes manifested so powerfully than in the presidential race that year.

This presidential election year also is shaping up to be one of potentially great change, which begs the question:

Were the changes of 1968 more important than the changes of 2008 could be?

That is a difficult question because America and the world have changed (there’s that word again) in myriad ways over the last four decades, so for the purpose of trying to tease out an answer, I’ll reframe the question thusly:

Were Americans individually and the nation generally better off in 1968 than in 2008?

Thus framed, the answer to that question is a big fat “yes,” and so the answer to my initial question is that the changes of 2008 — at the very least the much anticipated end of the Age of Bush — may indeed be more important.

Since we’re looking at year versus year through the prism of presidential politics, it should be noted that there is an obvious similarity and two obvious differences.

The similarity is the looming presence of costly and unpopular wars in both 1968 and 2008.

The first difference is that unlike 1968, the U.S. today is the sole superpower, has an unprecedented global reach and is the subject of profound loathing abroad, notably among the people whose most radical elements can do the American homeland harm.

The second difference is that in 1968 most of the opposition President Johnson faced was from within his own party over his stewardship of the Vietnam War, which prompted him to opt out of running for reelection, while in 2008 President Bush has gotten a free pass from most of his prospective heirs apparent, who dutifully worship at his altar although he is extraordinarily unpopular and is the chief reason the Republican hegemony in Washington is coming to such an unceremonious end.

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