January 20th, 2012 - 2:36 pm
The Cable at Foreign Policy quotes a letter by Senators Kirk and Menendez, who drafted the Kirk-Menendez amendment, warning the Obama administration against watering down sanctions on Iran. The text of the letter is here.
“We understand that the administration is drafting rules to guide the implementation of the law and we hereby seek to convey the legislative intent underlying certain terms and phrases in the amendment and to ensure that the positive developments that have occurred as a result of the amendment are buttressed by the administrative rules,” wrote Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) in a letter today to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who traveled personally to Japan and China this month to discuss the issue …
The Menendez-Kirk letter list several concerns about the forthcoming rules, which could be unveiled as early as next week. Their two main worries are that the administration will allow countries to avoid being penalized by saying they have achieved “significant reductions” in their dealing with Iran, and that Obama will postpone implementation of the sanctions on national security grounds.
The problem with the proposed sanctions is that that it will tread on many toes. What the State Department is trying to figure out is how to make it appear that tough sanctions have been imposed on Iran without it actually hurting anyone. The problem is also preoccupying others as “European Union envoys failed to agree details of a planned embargo on Iranian crude on Thursday, but diplomats said governments still sought to finalize the ban at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday”, a report from Reuters said. “But they remain divided over several issues, primarily the length of a planned grace period that would allow states heavily dependent on Iranian oil to fulfill existing contracts for a period after the ban went into place.”
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January 20th, 2012 - 9:35 am
Russia has scheduled war games with Iran while the Pentagon is ‘pushing back’ on rumors that US-Israeli maneuvers were postponed at the behest of the administration to prevent ratcheting up tensions. The Christian Science Monitor says Russia “is signaling that it will use all its diplomatic influence to oppose war … will block any further sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council” — and will hold war games in the Caucasus.
The independent Moscow daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported Monday that this year’s annual military exercises in Russia’s south, Kavkaz 2012, will be much larger than usual and organized around the premise of a war that begins with an attack on Iran but spreads to neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan, and draws Russia into a regional maelstrom. The newspaper said the war games, which are usually confined to Russian territory, might this year include maneuvers in the breakaway Georgian statelets of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and perhaps also in Russian-allied Armenia.
Meanwhile, Yahoo reports that “the Pentagon is pushing back on media reports suggesting that a major U.S.-Israel war game was postponed at the direction of the United States”. The Pentagon, in turn, said that it was Israel which requeted the delay.
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January 19th, 2012 - 4:05 pm
Here’s another item from the Strategy Page: “Hamas Feels The Wrath Of Iran”. The basic story goes like this, while Israel is being exhorted to “end the cycle of violence”, Hamas has been going after Shi’ites after Iran stopped paying them money. That money bought Shi’ites protection from Sunni Islamic radical groups, who were willing to leave their sectarian rivals alone “in return for cash and weapons”.
But now that the money has dried up, so has the affection between the two groups. The Telegraph explains how it works: no money, no lovey-dovey.
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January 19th, 2012 - 9:21 am
The New York Times touts the “changed way of war” by setting up this dramatic narrative. An American infantry unit is in an Afghan canyon in the probable presence of the enemy. The call goes out for air support, resulting in the launch of 3 F/A-18s. Here’s what happens next.
Now a ground controller wanted the three strike fighters circling overhead to send a sign — both to the grunts and to any Taliban fighters shadowing them as they walked.
Commander McDowell banked and aligned his jet’s nose with the canyon’s northeastern end. Then he followed his wingmen’s lead. He dived, pulled level at 5,000 feet and accelerated down the canyon’s axis at 620 miles per hour, broadcasting his proximity with an extended engine roar.
In the lexicon of close air support, his maneuver was a “show of presence” — a mid-altitude, nonlethal display intended to reassure ground troops and signal to the Taliban that the soldiers were not alone. It reflected a sharp shift in the application of American air power, de-emphasizing overpowering violence in favor of sorties that often end without munitions being dropped.
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January 18th, 2012 - 12:29 pm
Iran says President Obama sent them a “secret letter” asking for direct talks. The Associated Press quoted the semiofficial Fars News Agency as saying Wednesday: “The letter also said that closing the Strait of Hormuz is (Washington’s) red line. … The first part of the letter contains threats and the second part contains an offer for dialogue.” The AP says “Obama administration officials denied there was such a letter.”
But Fox News says “Obama administration officials would not confirm whether President Obama called for direct talks with Iran, after an Iranian lawmaker claimed Wednesday that the president floated the proposal in a secret letter to the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader.” It cryptically added, “The White House acknowledged the letter and reiterated that the door remains open for Iran to return to international talks over its nuclear program.”
Whether or not the letter was actually sent, officials said that the diplomatic door remained open to Iran. But it is significant that Iran chose to allege the existence of the letter while the Obama administration was at pains to downplay it. The message that Teheran seeks to send is that the administration is crawling on its belly to the ayatollahs. The question is whether it is.
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January 18th, 2012 - 6:43 am
A number of websites have “gone dark” in order to call attention to the SOPA/PIPA bill. It’s been called an Internet strike to protest a measure which allegedly promotes censorshhip. Bill Reader examines both bills and concludes that under the color of protecting intellectual property “the potential for censorship is strong”. It’s like a gun that could be fired. The argument will be that it isn’t going to be turned on the average guy, but that depends on who does the pointing. Reader says, “it could also reasonably be argued this will have little effect on the experience of the average American. It would depend largely on how restrictive the government chose to be.”
“How far will the government push things?” While that answer is not readily forthcoming, the dozen or so pages where the rules are laid out for how service providers, search engines, payment networks, and advertizing services will be required to deal with foreign infringing sites are not encouraging …
What if I do not believe my site is used for illegal activities? Or I believe it could be used for illegal activities, but the probability of it happening is low? Answer: according to this section, I am automatically considered to be stealing. You don’t need to be a lawyer to see an obvious catch-22. This section happens to restrict suits to copyright holders, but it’s a small consolation when crony capitalism is rife: if the government wanted to exploit this power, it certainly could.
There is a lot of money and power to made by shaping the Internet to favor specific interests. Reader believes that the government is going to force this through one way or the other, either openly or covertly, in one piece or by sections, now or later. There are just too many ‘problems’ — er, opportunities — waiting to be ‘fixed’ — that is, exploited, for the bees to stay away from the honey for any length of time. He writes:
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January 17th, 2012 - 12:34 pm
Recently, an hacker organization called Antisec/Anonymous broke into the STRATFOR computer system and downloaded the consulting company’s client emails and their credit card numbers. When STRATFOR came back online and proprietor George Friedman declared that he knew who his attackers were, it was suggested the hackers would have their revenge: they would destroy STRATFOR completely. “In indirect response, Barret Brown, the Anonymous movement’s de facto biographer, announced that any chance of redaction of the Stratfor emails has now vanished, and that the entire cache will be published.”
But it’s not just small consulting companies that are beleaguered. The general in charge of defending US military networks says that system is so patchwork that it cannot be feasibly defended. “The Defense Department’s networks, as currently configured, are “not defensible,” according to the general in charge of protecting those networks. And if there’s a major electronic attack on this country, there may not be much he and his men can legally do to stop it in advance.”
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January 16th, 2012 - 8:59 am
A form of tuberculosis that cannot be treated has been identified in India. According to Nature “physicians in India have identified a form of incurable tuberculosis there, raising further concerns over increasing drug resistance to the disease.”
“The cases are a story of mismanagement,” says Migliori. “Resistance is man-made, caused by exposure to the wrong treatment, the wrong regimen, the wrong treatment duration.” …
The fact that no new first-line TB drugs have been developed for half a century has probably contributed to the emergence of strains that are unresponsive to treatment, says Mitnick. “If you keep using the same drugs for that long, resistance is inevitable.”
Tuberculosis trails behind only HIV as the world’s leading cause of death from infectious disease. But in spite of its impact on human health and economic growth, it has not ranked among the pharmaceutical industry’s priorities.
The disease has so far afflicted only the poorest people in India’s slums, according to the Daily Mail, and only a dozen of them. But the idea of an infectious disease totally resistant existing drugs is a a worrying idea. Part of the problem, according to the New Scientist, is that the regulators have made it prohibitively difficult and expensive to develop new antibiotics.
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January 14th, 2012 - 12:06 pm
Steven Mufson, writing in the Washington Post, noted that long before the Solyndra debacle, Washington had been in the habit of playing venture capitalist in the energy industry. It had failed in nearly every case. He cites the Clinch River Breeder reactor, synthetic fuel corporations, the hydrogen-powered car and clean coal — projects spanning both Republican and Democratic administrations. “Not a single one of these much-ballyhooed initiatives is producing or saving a drop or a watt or a whiff of energy, but they have managed to burn through far more more taxpayer money than the ill-fated Solyndra.”
Mufson may have spoken too soon. The Sons of Solyndra are still catching up. CBS News reports that there may be 11 more Solyndra-like catastrophes out there — ‘Green Energy’ projects sponsored by the Obama administration. Five have already filed for bankruptcy.
But the most important news is buried in the lede. It isn’t that there are deadly contact mines in the water. The real headlines are that the President is still saying, “damn the Solyndras, full speed ahead!” Why? Because everybody knows that Green Energy is good and therefore if one persists for long enough, even failures can become successes.
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January 13th, 2012 - 9:46 am
It’s a little known fact that the US population is growing at twice the rate of China’s: that is to say 0.91% to 0.47%. That made it doubly surprising to learn that the US work force has shrunk by over a million workers. Investor’s Business Daily writes:
In the 30 months since the recession officially ended, nearly 1 million people have dropped out of the labor force — they aren’t working, and they aren’t looking — according to data from Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the past two months, the labor force shrank by 170,000.
This is virtually unprecedented in past economic recoveries, at least since the BLS has kept detailed records. In the past nine recoveries, the labor force had climbed an average 3.5 million by this point, according to an IBD analysis of the BLS data.
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