Instahoglets 2nd May 06

Damn there's a lot going on. Every single one of these really deserves its own post but time has pressed me hard today.

The most interesting possibility of the day is explained by Ken at Anything They Say. As the mainstream media today reports that Plame was involved in intelligence gathering on Iran's possible WMD program, Ken points out that she was actually tracking a network of proliferation involving not just Iran but also but Pakistan, Dubai, Spain, South Africa and TURKEY.

He connects the dots between Turkish attempts to smuggle in nuclear equipment, Bush administration visits asking for Turkey's help in attacking Iran and reports that the CIA were investigating Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, back when he was Ambassador to Turkey, for possible involvement in the network of proliferators Plame was tracking.

His conclusion? That Plame's outing had a twofold purpose and the revenge attack against Joe Wilson concealed the bigger story - the Bush administration's complicity in breaking the NPT by "covertly or passively arming Turkey with nuclear weapons while providing diplomatic cover as an incentive to join with the US in support of the nascent efforts against Iran"!

Meanwhile, right now Raw Story is reporting that "U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) today called on CIA Director Porter Goss to provide an assessment of the damage to national security" from Plame's outing.

France is embroilled in its own Watergate as rightwing President Chiraq and Prime Minister De Villepin are accused of ordering French intelligence to try to frame extreme-right anti-immigration minister Sarkozy in a bogus corruption scandal. Now a former General in intelligence has made a sworn statement saying De Villepin ordered him to dig up dirt on Sarkozy. It may yet lead to De Villepin's resignation in disgrace.

Much though the American Right would like it otherwise, the government of France has been a battle between common-or-garden and extreme conservatives for decades now. It is NOT a socialist country. This is yet another example of how, in any country, when they have no-one else to fight the dirty tricks brigades of the Right turn on each other.

Scott McLellan is saying now that the Secret Service may not have a complete record of Jack Abramoff's visits to George Bush the White House. Steve Soto asks the obvious questions. Is McLellan saying the Secret Service are being lax in their post-9/11 duty? Or is he saying the White House is going back on an agreement made before a judge?

Shelby Steele argues in a WSJ Opinion Journal piece today that what is needed for America to win the war on terror is to lose the "white guilt" that stops it from waging total war. It's a strawman and Shelby gives it away immediately "it is now unimaginable that we would use anything approaching the full measure of our military power (the nuclear option aside) in the wars we fight." As if a nuclear bomb was somehow more horrible than the systematic firebombing of a city or would cause more deaths. It isn't and doesn't - ask Dresden. The bloodthirsty sociopaths of the Right love this article - especially since it was written by a black person - it gives them license to loose every horror of war on brown people abroad AND stop hiding their racism under a bushel at home.

For some idea of how ridiculous Steele's argument is, read the article and imagine as you do the howls of outrage that would ensue in every corner of America - right to left - if a parallel argument appeared in Der Spiegel saying Germans should lose their "Holocaust guilt" and free themselves to practise war crimes, the Nazi way, against any nation they saw as a threat again.

It isn't "white guilt" you morons - it is morality!

Glenn Greenwald has a great skewering of the Steele article as well as some of the more demented bloggie vampires of the rightwing. The Booman Tribune weighs in with a long post on why the Right just don't get the difference between "white guilt" and ethical behaviour.

My good blogging friend Fester at Comments From Left Field says Iraq needs more corners as he sets out why Bush and his cheerleaders are still deluded over Iraqi progress.

Last year, the FBI issued more than 9,200 "national security letters," or NSLs, seeking detailed information about more than 3,500 U.S. citizens or legal residents in 2005. Investigations without warrants, every single one. The total number of NSL's could exceed 30,000 in 2005. The Justice Department report also outlined a continued increase in the use of secret warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. The secret court that oversees the law approved a record 2,072 orders for clandestine searches or surveillance in 2005 -- an 18 percent increase from the year before.

Personally I simply don't believe all of that warrantless snooping was simply to save us from terrorists. Do you? Over 30,000 terrorists in America? Really?

Raw Story - The former inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security says he was pressured to tone down criticism of security failures in the months before the 2004 Presidential election...Clark Kent Ervin says he was confronted personally by then Secretary Tom Ridge “to intimidate me, to stare me down, to force me to back off, to not look into these areas that would be controversial, not to issue critical reports.

The Arizona Examiner guts John McCain, saying he has become the new definition of political arrogance and most of the rightwing bloggers have jumped on the story to agree. I'm not so sure. Surely sacrificing the First Amendment AND clean government without ever coming clean aabout it would be far more arrogant - and that's what Bush has been doing for his entire reign. Still, at least this fracas pretty much guarantees that "Two-faces" McCain won't make it to the White House, which is good news.

Let us fervently hope that the American populace aren't taken in by Joe Biden either. He is one I wouldn't trust as far as I could spit with the power George Bush has garnered to the Oval Office. His latest wizard idea is to partition Iraq into three nations.

Heh, that way we can have three wars - one with the Sunnis we occupy, one with the Shias when we invade Iran and one with the Kurds when their terror attacks in Turkey finally goad that nation into asking for NATO assistance.

I have a request. Every time you see a warmongering blogpost that calls President Ahmedinajad of Iran a "dictator", educate them by posting a link in comments to this article from Time and just ask "What dictator?"

As the Bush administration consistently points out, Iran is ultimately run by unelected, clerical leaders, and Ahmadinejad is not one of them. President Bush's opposite number in Iraq is really the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini. Khameini makes the final decision on all matters of security and foreign policy — including and especially the nuclear issue — although he typically abides by the consensus of the National Security Council. The Council is led by Ali Larijani, appointed by and answerable to the Supreme Leader, and a man who also ran for president against Ahmadinejad.

It is Larijani rather than Ahmadinejad who is managing the negotiations over the nuclear program. Ahmadinejad has only one vote — out of around a dozen — on the Security Council. So as much as he rattles his saber at the West, the President is in no position to act on any of this threats.

It's great to see such sober and truthful writing on Iran in an American mainstream publication.

Little Green Footballs isn't quite sure what to make of this one - do they keep up the pretense that every single soldier in Iraq is an angelic warrior with an automatic weapon who would never, ever torture people, shoot prisoners or get involved in corruption - or do they bang on with the racism they love so much? US Gang Graffitti In Iraq.