Tanks In Tibet

By Cernig

Reports are coming in of tanks and machine-gun posts on the streets of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, and another city, Xiahe, along with up to 100 dead. Unless, that is, you live in Beijing - in which case you're watching a blank screen when international satellite news reports talk about it.

The disruption comes just months before the Olympic Games, when China's leaders had hoped to display a 'harmonious society'. However, chaos has gripped Xiahe, which is home to a large community that considers itself part of greater Tibet even though it is outside of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

According to Sanjay Tashi of the Free Tibet Campaign, the city centre was filled with tear gas, cars were set on fire, government buildings ransacked and the banned Tibetan flag flew over a school.

Other witnesses said they saw 10 to 20 truckloads of riot police moving into the area. Police have fired tear gas rounds and arrested some protesters. But the crowd stormed the jail and released the prisoners, Tashi said.

In Lhasa, police have locked down the city, patrolling the streets and setting up checkpoints on many roads. Foreign tourists have been ordered to leave the central area, with many flying out of Tibet. Those who stay are restricted, though they say there has been no official curfew.

'The army and police forbid us from walking down the road, so our activity is confined to the hostel,' said one traveller. He said tanks and soldiers were patrolling the streets and guarding junctions. Other witnesses have reported troops setting up machine gun positions and there were unconfirmed reports of shooting.

The authorities blame Tibetan insurgents working on the orders of the Dalai Lama and have vowed to hunt down the perpetrators of what state media called 'sabotage'. Police warned that anyone who did not turn themselves in by Monday faced 'stern punishment by the law'.

...Overseas Tibetan groups say police killed at least 36 Tibetan protesters, including three monks. Free Tibet Campaign reports that 26 demonstrators were shot or blown up while demanding the release of political prisoners in Lhasa's notorious Drapchi prison. Other groups say the death toll could be more than 100.

The UN, US and UK have condemned Chinese repression - but not too loudly. After all, the Chinese hold all America's notes...and there's an Olympics coming. Wouldn't want to deprive the millions of their televised sport.

At long last, a warm welcome in Baghdad

By Libby

Hey the President was finally welcomed into Baghdad with sweets and flowers. Too bad it wasn't our President.

BAGHDAD, March 2 (Reuters) - Pomp and ceremony greeted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his arrival in Iraq on Sunday, the fanfare a stark contrast to the rushed and secretive visits of his bitter rival U.S. President George W. Bush.[...]

His warm reception, in which he was hugged and kissed by Iraqi officials and presented with flowers by children, was Iraq's first full state welcome for any leader since the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Wow, what a concept. An announced state visit and quite a contrast to the way Bush sneaks in for his "surprise" visits. Has Bush even set foot in Baghdad since 2003?

Ahmadinejad's motorcade took Iraq's notoriously dangerous airport road to Talabani's palace at the start of his two-day visit, eschewing the helicopter trip usually taken by other visiting dignitaries as a security measure.

I see this guy is grumbling about why should Ahmadinejad worry? The terrorists love him. But it's the Iraqi government that's showering him with love and kisses. Marc apparently forgot that it was the invasion that made it all possible. I don't recall Saddam rolling out the welcome mat for Iranian heads of state.

Shaun has a photo and asks the $3 trillion dollar question. What does this say about the state of affairs in the Middle East?

What Was Bombed In Syria Matters Less Than Why

By Cernig

It being Super-Tuesday, Sy Hersh's latest article on what exactly the Israelis bombed in the Syrian desert last September is likely to be mostly overlooked. Which is a great pity because it's the most in-depth investigation I've seen of what went on and why. It even has - gasp - named sources. Both Smintheus at DKos and Ken at Bonehead Compendium wrote to flag this one up for me and I heartily recommend giving it a full read.

The short version - reports that the site was a nuclear reactor are almost certainly israeli or neocon spin. It was far more likely to be either a missile factory, a chemical weapons factory or a combination of both. (This was the conclusion I came to some months ago after reading as much as I could grab on the subject, so I'm predisposed to a favorable reading of Hersh on this). But what it actually was no longer matters. Two messages have come out loud and clear from the large amount of speculation surrounding the raid.

The first is that Israel, following its questionable success against Hezboullah, needed to restore a perception of its military competence.

“I hesitate to answer any journalist’s questions about it,” Faruq al-Shara, the Syrian Vice-President, told me. “Israel bombed to restore its credibility, and their objective is for us to keep talking about it. And by answering your questions I serve their objective. Why should I volunteer to do that?” Shara denied that his nation has a nuclear-weapons program. “The volume of articles about the bombing is incredible, and it’s not important that it’s a lie,” he said.

...That notion was echoed by the ambassador of an Israeli ally who is posted in Tel Aviv. “The truth is not important,” the ambassador told me. “Israel was able to restore its credibility as a deterrent. That is the whole thing. No one will know what the real story is.”

The second is that America may be wagging the Israeli tail but it doesn't have complete control over Israel's actions.

Shortly after the bombing, a Chinese envoy and one of the Bush Administration’s senior national-security officials met in Washington. The Chinese envoy had just returned from a visit to Tehran, a person familiar with the discussion told me, and he wanted the White House to know that there were moderates there who were interested in talks. The national-security official rejected that possibility and told the envoy, as the person familiar with the discussion recalled, “‘You are aware of the recent Israeli statements about Syria. The Israelis are extremely serious about Iran and its nuclear program, and I believe that, if the United States government is unsuccessful in its diplomatic dealings with Iran, the Israelis will take it out militarily.’ He then told the envoy that he wanted him to convey this to his government—that the Israelis were serious.

“He was telling the Chinese leadership that they’d better warn Iran that we can’t hold back Israel, and that the Iranians should look at Syria and see what’s coming next if diplomacy fails,” the person familiar with the discussion said. “His message was that the Syrian attack was in part aimed at Iran.”

Which puts Bush's recent pronouncements that America must not be seen as a "paper tiger" in the region into a whole new perspective, especially when his own ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad is freely admitting that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have strengthened Iran's hand in the Middle East. Is Bush more worried about Iran's perception of America's toothlessness, or of Israel's perception of America's value in the region?

What about Khalilzhad? It seems to me that he might finally have parted company with the pro-Israel lobby within the neocon circles he has always been a part of. But from Cheney on down they must be aware that he knows where all the bodies are buried - he was integral, for instance, in the Taliban's original lionising as heroes against Russia (even inviting Taliban leaders to dinner in Texas) and was intimate of the process whereby they and Al Qaeda became enemy number one after getting US aid for so long. They'll be wary of alienating him to the point where his resignation is followed by a tell-all memoir.

Kenya Still Burning Despite Political Agreement

By Cernig

Kenya's troubles continue, despite an agreement between feuding politicians to end weeks of bloodshed.

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan brokered a deal between Kenya's rival parties on Friday to take immediate steps to end post-election violence which has killed nearly 900 people and displaced more than a quarter of a million.

But the ethnic tensions in Kenya have taken on a momentum of their own, going beyond a standoff over President Mwai Kibaki's disputed December 27 re-election, and despite the politicians' pledges, the violence continued.

Flames soared over slum dwellings belonging to members of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe in the Rift Valley town of Kericho -- around 250 km (155 miles) northwest of the capital Nairobi -- where at least four people have died in fighting in recent days.

Residents dragged out mattresses, cupboards, suitcases and pots and pans, piling them onto carts.

"Let Annan do his bit but there's going to be no resolution. The clashes will continue," said one youth who gave his name as Lefty, manning a roadblock near Kericho where police opened fire to disperse protesters on Friday.

...Pressure on the two sides to reach a deal is intense, both from within Kenya and from the international community.

"Both parties now face a historic responsibility: choose dialogue or bear responsibility for a political and human catastrophe," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said.

Hmmm, national politicians from different sides willing to talk, even deal, but grassroots faction fighting having taken on a life of its own to the point where nothing the politicians say makes a difference. Now where have I heard that before?

If Kenya is really unlucky, by the time the violent militias start to run out of steam, divisions created by bloodshed will be so entrenched that the politicians will refuse to reconcile after all. I hope some breakthrough can be made before that occurs, for their sakes.

United States Of Africa - But Everyone Wants To Be D.C.

By Cernig

The Guardian today has a tongue-in-cheek look at a movement which will still take decades to come to fruition but which has the backing of over 40 member states...the idea of a unified government for Africa.

The United States of Africa. It's one of few concrete plans African leaders agreed on as they struggled with issues of peacekeeping and political disputes at this week's continental summit.

One problem is, so many countries want to be Washington, D.C.

African leaders have been pushing for a continental government for years. And the plan continued to garner widespread support from the 40-odd delegations at the African Union summit that ended Saturday in Ethiopia's capital.

Yet even countries facing disputed elections and conflict at home were loath to suggest they would be anything but a leader of the group - even given the lighthearted question of what U.S. state they most resemble. Their responses highlight pecking order positioning that could keep a federally unified continent from ever becoming a reality.

``Sudan is something like Washington, D.C.,'' said Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem, Sudan's ambassador to the United Nations. ``Sudan is always a leader. So we want to have the White House of Africa, the Pentagon of Africa.''

Not so fast, Sudan.

Bamanga Tukur, a native of Nigeria and chairman of the AU's New Partnership for African Development, gave the honor to Ethiopia, the only African nation to have never been colonized.

``Ethiopia can be Washington,'' he said. As for his own, oil-rich nation, Tukur said: ``Nigeria can be Texas. Isn't that nice?''

But, Asked if Addis Ababa - the headquarters of the African Union - might someday become the African Beltway, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was similarly cagey.

``That's in the future,'' he said.

Any such future is far away. Everyone agrees that a unified African government could take decades, and would require many nations to make drastic improvements to governance, infrastructure, poverty and education.

But the stickiest issue is power, so most leaders advocate a slow approach that will let them cement their regional ties and position, analysts say. Others - notably, formerly isolationist Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade - have called for quicker integration, which might favor their more established governments.

``Obviously, power politics are taking place throughout the continent,'' said Kenneth Mpyisi, director of the Institute for Security Studies, a think tank in Addis Ababa. ``We have various regional powers in different parts of the continent. ... They would obviously want to retain a certain amount of power in their sphere of influence.''

Personally, I think what's more likely to emerge is a supra-antional, rather than supernational, organisation. Think European Community style rather than U.S.A. style. But still, the very fact that this idea has momentum behind it despite the various powerplays and national differences means a lot for the African continent. It's a hope for the future at a time when much of Africa seems to need hope very much indeed.

It will be interesting to see which major powers back this coming transition wholeheartedly, which try to play it to their own advantage and which try to stop it dead in its tracks.

The new world order

By Libby

Here's some Sunday reading for the wonks in the audience. It's a long piece and not easily excerpted but the author offers up plausible scenario for ten years down the line that sums up the theme of the article.

It is 2016, and the Hillary Clinton or John McCain or Barack Obama administration is nearing the end of its second term. America has pulled out of Iraq but has about 20,000 troops in the independent state of Kurdistan, as well as warships anchored at Bahrain and an Air Force presence in Qatar. Afghanistan is stable; Iran is nuclear. China has absorbed Taiwan and is steadily increasing its naval presence around the Pacific Rim and, from the Pakistani port of Gwadar, on the Arabian Sea. The European Union has expanded to well over 30 members and has secure oil and gas flows from North Africa, Russia and the Caspian Sea, as well as substantial nuclear energy. America’s standing in the world remains in steady decline.

In other words, thanks to the Bush doctrine we're not number one anymore and the chances are rather good that we never will be again. In fact, if we don't get rid of the influence of the greed obsessed neo-cons and the science-averse theocons in our government, we'll be lucky to hold onto a number three slot. [via]

An Unhelpful Double Standard

By Cernig

Just a couple of weeks ago, the general in charge of the Bush adminsitration's missile shield program was in Europe telling Czechs that Iran's ballistic missile testing program proved they were a threat to world stability. It was mostly hype. This week Pakistan tested a ballistic missile able to carry one of the nuclear warheads that nation is known - not suspected - to possess. The Bush administration's reaction showed their double standards - demonizing Iran while giving several free passes to other nations with provably worse records on proliferation and secret nuke building who just happen to be allies.

The United States has said that there’s nothing alarming about Pakistan’s latest missile test but urged all countries in the region to observe their international obligations.

“We’ve seen those reports that the Pakistanis have tested a missile. This I understand is a system as reported that has been tested previously,” State Department Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey said.

“Certainly, again, we want all countries to comply with their international obligations and would not want to see anything done that would destabilise the region,” he said.

Mr Casey maintained that the missile test was “not unique and has, in fact, happened before”.

While the US continues to fail to hold itself and its allies - especially those with highly questionable histories - to a different standard on issues like proliferation, democracy, human rights, backing for terrorism and foreign meddling - it cannot hold any high ground in the world forum. That's an utterly counterproductive obstruction to successful foreign policy and must change.

Sarko's Nuclear And Arms Selling Jaunt Continues To India

By Cernig

Nicholas Sarkozy, president of France, seems to be following George W's example and has transformed the office of President into the primary sales office for weaponry and nuclear technology produced by his country. Following on his success selling nuclear know-how and a military base to the UAE, Sarkozy is in India trailed by 60 Captains of Industry, drumming up business:

India and France said they would push their military ties beyond weapons sales and open up nuclear power cooperation as soon as New Delhi is able to enter the global atomic energy market.

...The visit has seen defence ties high on the agenda, with France lobbying hard in a country ranked as the biggest weapons buyer among emerging nations and expected to spend an estimated 30 billion dollars on arms over the next five years.

French-Indian defence ties took a blow last month when New Delhi cancelled a Eurocopter bid for a 600-million-dollar (410-million-euro) helicopter contract due to alleged irregularities. The alleged payment of bribes in a submarine deal is also being probed.

France was the second largest arms supplier to India after Russia but has now been overtaken by Israel. The United States is also pushing for a place in the Indian market.

However, French firms are expected to be invited to upgrade India's fleet of Mirage fighters in a contract worth up to 1.5 billion euros -- and they are set to compete in a tender for 126 war planes.

Sarkozy also announced progress on a nuclear cooperation agreement that has been in the works for years to allow France to supply equipment and fuel to India once it has cleared hurdles with the UN's nuclear watchdog.

A joint statement said "this agreement will form the basis of wide-ranging bilateral cooperation from basic and applied research to full civil nuclear cooperation including reactors, fuel supply and management."

India is currently banned from buying fuel for atomic reactors and related equipment because of nuclear weapons tests in 1974 and 1988.

The French deal hinges on the outcome of negotiations between India and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and with the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, which controls the global nuclear trade.

Sarkozy said he was confident that meetings allowing nuclear trade with India, a non-NPT signatory, would go well. Meanwhile, one of his captains of industry offered the Indians a sweetener on all the deals - transfer of technology to enable them to build Rafale advanced fighters under license along with 40 of the aircraft at a bargain price right now.

The offer was made by Charles Edelstennie, scion of the Dassult family, the makers of the Rafale and Mirage fighters. "We know the Indian Air Force, with which we have a decade-long close association, is facing force depletion. So we are ready to supply 40 Rafales, the world's first omni-role fighters to India, in a short span of time", the chairman and chief executive of Dassult, a multi-billion French military and civil aerospace company, told PTI.

Edelastennie said Rafale fighters could be an interim sale to India as New Delhi finalises preparations to acquire 126 Multi Role Combat Aircraft at an estimated cost of $10 billion ... Terming the Rafale fighter supply as a "friendly gesture to help close friend India," Edelstennie said his company was a strong bidder for India's MCRA contract.

Rubbishing notions that Rafale came with a heavy price tag, the Dassult CEO said "the fighters' cost to efficiency was not high. New Delhi would get a cheaper price tag as the fighters' assembly in India under technology transfer would not be high".

The Dassault boss also told reporters that French arms sales came without strings attached, unlike sales from other nations like the US and Russia.

I'm beginning to wonder what's on Sarko's mind. This might all be just friendly competition and he may even have discussed his tour and the deals he's making with his pal Bush. But then again it is beginning to look like the early days of a deliberate French attempt to steal some of the US' superpower status. That's only possible, if so, because Bush has so weakened American prestige and power with his adventure in Iraq and a string of diplomatic idiocies. That weakening may have left enough of a power vacuum that nations like the Russians and French are looking to fill that vacuum to their own benefits. Wouldn't it be ironic if George Bush, the president who has used America's lone-power status in a bid for hegemony, instead has ushered in a new multi-polar period of instability as lesser powers compete (and quite possibly clash) for the gap his policies have created?

Update Swaraaj Chauhan, an Indian professor of journalism who blogs at The Moderate Voice, has noticed recent arms deals too and rightly points out that the Indian military's bugbear is always Pakistan (and vice versa). He reminds me that I wrote a post back in 2005 exploring how arms deals to the region, especially some key deals from the US, have helped make it potentially the most dangerous place on Earth.

Canada Bows To US, Israel Pressure On Torture Warning

By Cernig

Remember the news the other day that the Canadian government had placed both the U.S. and Israel on an internal list for diplomats of nations that torture while speaking from the other side of its mouth publicly?

Well, they've now brought public and private claims into harmony - by removing both nations from the private document. (H/T Moderate Voice)

Canada’s foreign ministry, responding to pressure from close allies, said on Saturday it would remove the United States and Israel from a watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured.

Both nations expressed unhappiness after it emerged that they had been listed in a document that formed part of a training course manual on torture awareness given to Canadian diplomats.

Over at TMV, Jill Miller Zimon points out the glaringly obvious:

Of course, the factual questions still remain: what methods of interrogation are used and do they or don’t they constitute torture or abuse?

Well, let's put it this way - any other nation using the methods known to be used by the U.S. and Israel is also on the list and will stay on the list.

What a spineless move by Canada's conservative government.

Who Doesn't Love Nuclear Disarmament?

By Cernig

Who doesn't love the idea of ridding the world of nuclear weapons? It used to be that the VSP's didn't, but now only the Bush administration and the current crop of Republican frontrunners - oh, and Hillary - aren't on board with elimination, an article by Joseph Cirincione reveals.

It may take a while to get there, they say, but seven former secretaries of state, seven former national security advisors, and five former secretaries of defense have endorsed freeing the world of nuclear weapons, as well as progressive steps to realize this vision. They represent almost 70 percent of the men and women still living who have served in these top posts and are not currently serving in the administration.

...The growing list of supporters for a nuclear-free world includes 17 former cabinet members, as well as former generals, senior officials, non-proliferation scholars and politicians such as California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R). "You have a big vision, a vision as big as humanity--to free the world of nuclear weapons," he told the group at their October conference at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University, "Let me know how I can use my power and influence as governor to further your vision." Nancy Reagan also sent a letter of support.

And the support is bipartisan: 53 percent of the cabinet-level endorsers are Republicans and 47 percent are Democrats. Eighty-eight percent of all the living former secretaries of state have given their general support for the project, as have 70 percent of all former national security advisors and 62 percent of all former secretaries of defense. The only former secretary of state not endorsing is Alexander Haig; the only defense secretary hold-outs are James Schlesinger, Harold Brown and Donald Rumsfeld; and the only former national security advisors not signing up are Brent Scowcroft, William P. Clark and John Poindexter. (Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice are currently in office and are not counted.)

The effect on the presidential campaigns is already apparent. While Republican candidates, campaigning for the support of the party's right-wing, have not yet moved beyond current policies, former Senator John Edwards (D.-NC), Governor Bill Richardson (D.-NM) and Senator Barack Obama (D.-IL) all promised to lead efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons...Senator Hillary Clinton (D.-NY) promised similar presidential attention to preventing nuclear terror and shrinking global arsenals but stops short of endorsing their elimination.

The remarkable constellation of foreign policy A-listers who have backed elimination of nukes has been put together by Secretary of State George Shultz, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and former Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn. Last year they published their groundbreaking "A World Free of Nuclear Weapons" and now they've followed up with a new piece at the WSJ entitled "Toward a Nuclear-Free World" They write:

The accelerating spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear know-how and nuclear material has brought us to a nuclear tipping point. We face a very real possibility that the deadliest weapons ever invented could fall into dangerous hands.

The steps we are taking now to address these threats are not adequate to the danger. With nuclear weapons more widely available, deterrence is decreasingly effective and increasingly hazardous.

One year ago, in an essay in this paper, we called for a global effort to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons, to prevent their spread into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately to end them as a threat to the world. The interest, momentum and growing political space that has been created to address these issues over the past year has been extraordinary, with strong positive responses from people all over the world.

Mikhail Gorbachev wrote in January 2007 that, as someone who signed the first treaties on real reductions in nuclear weapons, he thought it his duty to support our call for urgent action: "It is becoming clearer that nuclear weapons are no longer a means of achieving security; in fact, with every passing year they make our security more precarious."

Building on their momentum, they also set out clear and definite steps that the U.S. and other nations could take to hasten the world down the path towards elimination. As someone who argued for complete elimination recently during Cheryl Rofer's "blog-tank" on nuclear policy, I can only urge the prospective future leaders of the U.S. to listen and plan their policy platforms accordingly.

Suppression of dissent

By Libby

This is really horrible. A blogger in China was beaten to death by the local authorities for filming the police response to a citizen protest. The chatrooms in China are filled with outrage and expressions of concern abound.

The incident has also alarmed advocates of press freedom, who say municipal authorities had no right to attack a man for simply filming them.

They're surely right about that. Good thing we live in a free country where such outrageous suppression of civil rights never occurs. Oh, wait.....

And people wonder why I speculate on the coming police state of America?

Bhutto's Teen Son Is New Party Leader

By Cernig

The very fact that Bhutto's will names her 19 year old son Bilawal as her "heir" as leader of the PPP and hands the co-chairmanship to her astonishigly corrupt husband speaks volumes about Bhutto's own preference for oligarchy over democracy. It speaks volumes for the PPP that it rubber-stamped her wishes.

Bilawal Bhutto may not have finished his academic studies at Oxford yet, but he's been groomed well by his family for his new-found power. "Democracy is the best revenge," he told reporters with a straight face. His party will now contest the elections, forcing other frontrunner Nawaz Sharif to reconsider his boycott announced after Bhutto's assassination. There's no doubt in my mind that Bhutto's PPP aren't the best hope for Pakistan - they're simply the most electable. In that, they hold something very much in common with America's Democrats and Republicans, who are also enamoured of rich oligarchies.

But as Bhutto's supporters clash with security troops (what else do you call a paramilitary with a Kalashnikov? A policeman?) and Pakistan comes to a standstill; it seems that the elections will be used to paper over massive cracks in Pakistani society and that the various oligarchical factions will go on as normal in their aftermath. I smell a "soft totalitarian" quid pro quo.

Update The Bush administration, according to the WaPo today, has no Plan B for Pakistan and will stay the course(TM) with pushing Musharraf as the leader of a "moderate space" in Pakistani politics - a notion so wrong-headed and so inspired by a perfect snowstorm of Pakistani spin that it would be hilarious if it wasn't deathly depressing.

Bhutto Avalanche Round-Up & Us

by shamanic

So much information and analysis this morning, so I'll see if I can't summarize the best of what's out there.

First, you should read the entirety of the Washington Post's piece on how (and why) the US brokered Bhutto's return to Pakistan. Choice cuts:

As President Pervez Musharraf's political future began to unravel this year, Bhutto became the only politician who might help keep him in power.

"The U.S. came to understand that Bhutto was not a threat to stability, but was instead the only possible way that we could guarantee stability and keep the presidency of Musharraf intact," said Mark Siegel, who lobbied for Bhutto in Washington and witnessed much of the behind-the-scenes diplomacy.

Another expert, somewhat prematurely I think, says:

Bhutto's assassination leaves Pakistan's future -- and Musharraf's -- in doubt, some experts said. "U.S. policy is in tatters. The administration was relying on Benazir Bhutto's participation in elections to legitimate Musharraf's continued power as president," said Barnett R. Rubin of New York University. "Now Musharraf is finished."

Musharraf is certainly a guy with nine lives, and I'm not sure he doesn't have a couple left. But certainly his time seems much more limited than it was before. Pakistanis are clearly finished with his dictatorship, and the swirling emotions of an election hot on the heels of a political assassination make the situation there unpredictable at best.

Scarecrow at Firedoglake drops the hammer on the US policy in the region, saying in effect that we sacrificed Benazir Bhutto to save Pervez Musharraf. That's certainly one interpretation of events, and it is worth noting that this is an administration that constantly makes big gambles, often losing spectacularly. Had the election happened and Bhutto's party won a landslide, perhaps Pakistan could have transitioned away from military rule. But, you know, the moderate choice for democracy could also be shot a few times and then blown to bits by the very radicals we're trying to contain. (Or whoever. As demonstrated in the multiple-update thread, a lot of groups stand to gain from her death, including the Pakistani military, the security service, and Pervez Musharraf himself, not to mention the many extremist groups that call Pakistan home.)

Al-Qaeda is trying to claim responsibility for the attack, but it's apparently not a very credible claim, at least at this point. My strictly uneducated guess is that the attack included help from several quarters, including extremist sympathizers in the military.

So where does this leave Musharraf? And where does this leave US policy in the region, and the Great & Glorious Generational Struggle/War Against Terror and Violent Jihad? Your guess is as good as mine. Here's what I know: Americans continue to be saddled with abysmally bad leadership that can't make a decent policy decision to save anybody's life. That situation will continue for another year yet, and in the meantime, the world will continue going to hell in the absence of that leadership. Perhaps I overstate our influence. But Pakistan now appears on the brink of rapid, jarring change in a region where that rarely plays out well, Afghanistan (next door) isn't exactly the paradise I had hoped for in 2002, Iran (next door) isn't exactly the WOT ally it was attempting to be in 2003, and Iraq (next door to Iran) continues to be a quagmire from which we cannot extricate the great bulk of America's combat-ready troops.

All in all, it sure seems like something just slammed hard into a fan somewhere.

Breaking News in Pakistan (Update - 9)

CNN is reporting that Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated in a complex attack including gunfire and a suicide bomber against her and her entourage. Political violence has been a constant in Pakistan, including the massive suicide bomber attack against a Bhutto rally in October; also today political violence occurred in the capital:

The attack came just hours after four supporters of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif died when members of another political party opened fire on them at a rally near the Islamabad airport Thursday, Pakistan police said.

I am not a Pakistani political expert, I'll pass commentary off to more knowledgable people other than saying that this is not good.

Update by shamanic: This story is likely to be the most pressing news today, and we'll be updating this post as more information becomes available.

The Washington Post is reporting that another attack in Rawalpindi preceded the Bhutto assassination:

Also Thursday, a rooftop sniper opened fire on supporters of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif at a different pre-election rally in Rawalpindi, leaving four dead and at least five injured.

If these were coordinated attacks, this is an extremely muscular terrorist attack.

Update 2 Pakistani Spectator is reporting rioting is occuring by the PPP supporters

In Rawalpindi, right in front of Rawalpindi General Hospital where Late Benazir Bhutto died and her dead body is present right now, workers of People's Party are sitting and weeping loudly. In other areas of Rawalpindi like Faizabad, Saddar and Murree Road, angry crowd is burning shops and vehicles and shouting slogans against the terorists.

On Dusht Road, Peshawar, angry crowd has blocked the main road.

All the roads leading to capital Islamabad have been barricaded and blocked and there are reports of collision of police with protesters.

Update 3 By Cernig This is going to be the main story of the day so we'll be updateing this post and bumping it to the top of the page regularly.

Memeorandum has a lot of reaction to the news right now and a lot of speculation. In comments here, "the BHC" is stating the obvious - there has to be a lot of suspicion about possible Musharraf complicity or even direction in this attack. Tas explains why - Rawalpindi is the most militarized town in Pakistan.

Being located less than ten miles to the south of Islamabad, the city is home to a Pakistan Army corps that can hold sway in any potential coup, so leaders of Pakistan always appoint a general they can trust to run the Rawalpindi Corps (also known as "10 Corps" and "X Corps"). Case in point, one of the last commanders of the Rawalpindi Corps was General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani –- the man President Musharraf just picked to replace himself as the Chief of Staff for Pakistan's Army.

Many observers will note, as they did when two spectactularly failed attempts on Musharraf's life occurred in Rawalpindi which gave him an excuse to round up some dissenters, that this act could not have been launched, nevermind come close to being successful, without help from members of Pakistan's military and intelligence apparatuses. As Ali Eteraz notes: "Its very important to see what Musharraf does. If he does not arrest any terrorist sympathizers in the military, that’s a problem."

Steve Benen notes:

Widespread unrest in Pakistan is practically inevitable, and Bhutto supporters outside the hospital where she was treated began chanting “Dog, Musharraf, dog,” in reference to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

Musharraf, of course, had promised free parliamentary elections next month, coinciding with the end of his “emergency rule,” though, given Bhutto’s reported assassination, the country may be poised to endure additional turmoil.

And quotes Spencer Ackerman in conversations with analyst Barnett Rubin:

Bhutto's assassination presents an opportunity for Musharraf. "It's very possible Musharraf will declare [another] state of emergency and postpone the elections," Rubin continues. "That will confirm in many people's minds the idea that the military is behind" the assassination. For it's part, the U.S. will likely "be scrambling to say the election either needs to be held as planned or postponed rather than canceled, but Musharraf is in a position to preempt that."

As a result, Rubin says, U.S. strategy is "in tatters."

However (via Hot Air), AKI news service says Al Qaeda is claiming responsibility.

A spokesperson for the al-Qaeda terrorist network has claimed responsibility for the death on Thursday of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

“We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen,” Al-Qaeda’s commander and main spokesperson Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid told Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone call from an unknown location, speaking in faltering English. Al-Yazid is the main al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan.

However, given that the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, is alleged to have consistently sheltered and directed both Al Qaeda and the Taliban as proxies in much the same way as the Iranian Quods Force is reputed to have done with Iraqi Shiite groups and Hizboullah, that claim of responsibility may just be the first link in a chain.

Update 4 By Cernig The Times of India reports that all the heightened security was in Islamabad after a warning from the Pakistani Interior Ministry that assassination attempts would be made there. Significant? Quite possibly. The Guardian's Jason Burke runs through the various suspects - including AQ, the Taliban and Kashmiri extremists, but notes:

Bhutto herself, talking to me two weeks ago, spoke of the hardcore of senior military officers, spies, retired generals and others who she believed ran a shadow state in Pakistan with strong Islamic militant sympathies and who wanted to destroy her. She constantly made such claims that were often exaggerated, but they did contain a kernel of truth.

There are many within the Pakistani establishment who would have wanted her dead. Is President Musharaf among them? I think not. He is a soldier, a nationalist, a pragmatic and far from a convinced democrat, but I do not think he is a closet Islamist. He does not benefit from her murder as it undermines his sole justification for being in power: that he is the only person around capable of maintaining order - with the army as well. Yet there are others within the military, and especially the sprawling intelligence services, who do not necessarily follow his orders.

Opposition groups are already warning of civil war:

Riaz Malik of the opposition party Pakistan Movement for Justice (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) warned: "The impact will be that Pakistan is in more turmoil - it will be the start of civil war in Pakistan. There is a very real danger of civil war in Pakistan."
He said while suspicion was likely to fall on insurgent groups based in the northern tribal areas near the Afghan border, the killing was bound to increase dissatisfaction with the regime of the president, Pervez Musharraf.

"There will be a lot of fingers pointed at the government," he said.

Former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif sat with Bhutto's body at the hospital before describing the death as "a tragedy for the entire nation".

He told the BBC's News 24: "There has been a serious lapse in security. The government should have ensured the protection of Benazir Bhutto."

...Hamid Khan, a spokesman from the Pakistan embassy, said it was too early to comment on whether there was a need to impose a state of emergency or reschedule the election to protect the public.

"It is too early to make any assumptions, but obviously this is a major development and the president and the government will be looking at every dimension," he said.

The London Times speculates that if the elections go ahead, the PPP will coalesce around another leader - probably Ameen Fahim, the party vice-president who ran the party during Bhutto's years of exile - and go on to a landslide victory.

Update 5 by shamanic

There seems to be a lot of feeling that Musharaf himself would be the primary beneficiary of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, but I think that's false. His country stands a real chance of falling apart today, a not-unpredictable outcome from this, and the key beneficiaries would be the tribal zones and their Taliban and AQ inhabitants. Bhutto, meaningfully or not, had announced a hard line policy approach to these regions.

That this may have included Islamist elements within the military is a straightforward enough assertion, and may well be true. That those groups are tied to Musharaf or his coterie of generals is -- at least based on my limited understanding of Pakistan's internal workings -- unlikely. These are the groups that Musharaf is warring against internally, and the groups his generals most fear. The generals will be the first to lose their heads if the Islamist elements beneath them take over.

Update 6 By Cernig I'm going to disagree with Shamanic on this one. Musharraf has already proven he and his military could hold the line against massive civil unrest in the areas he controls. As for the area he doesn't control - well, no-one does. He has everything to gain from having a proxy group bump off bhutto. TPM reports:

After an October attack on Bhutto's life in Karachi, the ex-prime minister warned "certain individuals in the security establishment [about the threat] and nothing was done," says Husain Haqqani, a confidante of Bhutto's for decades. "There is only one possibility: the security establishment and Musharraf are complicit, either by negligence or design. That is the most important thing. She's not the first political leader killed, since Musharraf took power, by the security forces."

Haqqani notes that Bhutto died of a gunshot wound to the neck. "It's like a hit, not a regular suicide bombing," he says. "It's quite clear that someone who considers himself Pakistan's Godfather has a very different attitude toward human life than you and I do."

As for what comes next: Haqqani doubts that Musharraf will go forward with scheduled elections. "The greatest likelihood is that this was aimed not just aimed at Benazir Bhutto but at weakening Pakistan's push for democracy," he says.

It may well be that some Islamist extremist group will eventually get the blame for assassinating Bhutto, but no Islamist group in Pakistan is free of the Pakistani intelligence agency's influence. All, from AQ and the Taliban on down, have been used as proxies by the ISI. According to some reports, British intelligence even gave the US Mullah Omar's telephone number - at his ISI safe house in Quetta, Pakistan. The current head of the Pakistani military, a long-time Musharraf loyalist, was promoted to that post from his previous position as head of the ISI. Politically, the main islamist party backs Musharraf in the Pakistani parliament. The notion that Musharraf is battling or fears his own supporters or proxies is simply spin promulgated by Musharraf and his ISI themselves.

Update 7 by shamanic

While Musharaf is certainly an extremely powerful figure in Pakistan, I don't think he's the master player you give him credit for being. He has stumbled badly from time to time, and several times this year. Western diplomats reported that he was shocked by the intensity of western disapproval of the state of emergency, and he was likely pretty panicked when western papers began to focus on strategies for a post-Musharaf Pakistan.

Also worth noting, Musharaf has also been the target of several assassination attempts by some of the groups you refer to as "his own supporters or proxies." The situation is obviously more complicated than every group in Pakistan being pawns or proxies for Musharaf or an unfailingly loyal (a highly suspect proposition) ISI.

None of this is to say that Musharaf couldn't have been involved, but I was surprised by comments here and elsewhere issuing very black-and-white, knee jerk reactions about Musharaf's windfall in this situation. If anything, his future becomes less certain as a result.

Update 8 By Cernig Sha should have written "Musharaf has also been the target of several spectacularily unsuccessful and cack-handed assassination attempts" - as when two "assassins" went to the trouble of hauling a heavy machinegun and it's anti-aircraft mount up a few flights of stairs before shooting at Musharraf's helicopter with an AK-47, then running away leaving the machinegun behind as evidence of "seriousness' and escaping through the heavy security cordon set up for Musharraf's visit that day. It's also difficult to imagine that the ISI could have an agent who acted as a key link with al-Qaeda leaders, including escorting Osama Bin Laden, without the dictator's knowledge.

Bhutto's own words from her CNN op-ed in November look increasingly prescient to me:

I have long claimed that the rise of extremism and militancy in Pakistan could not happen without support from elements within the current administration. My return to my country poses a threat to the forces of extremism that have thrived under a dictatorship. They want to stop the restoration of democracy at any price. They have exploited a poor, desperate, and powerless people and allowed extremists the right environment in which to flourish.

The ruling party is an artificial, political party created in the headquarters of the Inter-Services Intelligence (Pakistan's equivalent of the CIA) during the General Elections of 2002. Its core support comes from the political partners of the military dictator of the '80s, General Zia al-Haq, who empowered the most radical elements within the Afghan Mujahedeen who went on to morph into al-Qaeda, Taliban and the Pakistani militants of today.

Bhutto went on to say that nothing in the October attack on her proved Musharraf's involvement, but hinted that his state apparatus and political proxies moving so swiftly to capitalise on it was certainly suspicious.

Update Too Many by shamanic

Okay, color me bored. Could Musharaf have orchestrated the assassination of his political rival? Absolutely. Could his state security apparatus have acted on its own to assassinate Bhutto? Sho nuf. Could a rogue element of the military have killed Benazir Bhutto? Yup. Could any of dozens of big or little extremist groups, including al Qaeda, have coordinated this attack? Indeedly-do.

Readers should feel free to stick any other possible scenarios in comments. Surely there's no end to the sources of potential assassins, so jump on in! Bonus points for indicting George Bush for supporting Pervez Musharaf who promoted the general who instituted the policy that caused the assassin to be hired/recruited/manipulated into shooting a woman and then detonating himself with explosives! C'mon, everybody play!

Not About US (Pt. 2)

Paul Krugman is righteously beating one of my favorite hobby horses -- the immediate bi-partisan US-centric view that all foreign actions are heavily formulated to take into account domestic US political circumstances:

To all the presidential campaigns trying to claim that the atrocity in Pakistan somehow proves that they have the right candidate — please stop.
This isn’t about you; in fact, as far as I can tell, it isn’t about America. It’s about the fact that Pakistan is a very messed-up place. This has very bad consequences for us, but it’s hard to see what, if anything, it says about US policy.
If you’re a tough guy (or gal) who believes in exerting US power — never mind, there are just too many heavily armed people in Pakistan for anyone but Norman Podhoretz to believe that we could throw our weight around. If you believe you can bring new understanding to the world through your enlightened outlook — sorry, there are too many people in Pakistan who don’t want to be enlightened. If you believe that we’d have more influence in the world if we hadn’t squandered our resources and good will in Iraq (which I do) — well, sorry, that influence wouldn’t extend to being able to bring peace and light to Pakistan.

Josh Marshall provides a good snark on the same subject: The leading Dem candidates for president appear to be in a pitched battle to make the most craven and insipid uses of the Bhutto assassination for immediate political advantage. A true horse race.

It seldom is all about the US as I noted in November:

Actions in foreign countries are not always - hell seldom are - primarily driven by, for or against the interests of the United States. This applies in Australia where an anti-Bush prime minister and governing coalition got voted into office due to overwhelmingly domestic issues, and the Australian foreign policy intersect and disunion sets with US policy was a tertiary issue for most voters. This applies in Venezuala where Chavez has overwhelmingly been playing to an economically populist crowd.....

Yes, foreign policy does interact with domestic policy, but policy and political debates in other countries often have highly salient dimensions that are not about the United States, and foreign influences

What would Jesus buy?

By Libby

The numbers are in and bear out the anecdotal evidence that retailers suffered a dismal season. Despite the usual suspects' insistence that small gains in the final week signal a healthy economy, the fact remains that those sales were driven by loss leaders and when it comes down to figuring out the profits, one expects most of the major retailers won't be wearing smiley faces.

Who did well? Luxury good purveyors, who capitalized on the 'have mores' who benefited from the Bushenomic house of cards and sellers of items targeted to the born again Christians. The Denver Post in a piece aptly titled, Jesus may save, but Christians spend, runs the numbers.

The Christian market, however, with almost 70 million American adults and $2.1 trillion, or 28 percent of the national annual income in 2006, is the main event. [...]

This Christmas there are evangelical Christian toys, DVDs, candies, wines, alarm clocks and books. The creator of G.I. Joe action figures, Don Levine, is offering a line called Almighty Heroes, featuring Moses, Samson and other Bible characters. Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, is carrying Christian action figures from One2believe in 425 of its stores. [...]

But the most interesting success story in the evangelical marketplace is this product line.

California-based Fishermen Inc. has an "I Am" line of Jesus figurines depicting Jesus, wearing a crown of thorns, engaged in activities such as bull riding, surfing, panhandling and soccer.

Some of the figures have triggered controversy, particularly the one called "I Am Peace," in which a camouflage-wearing Jesus has a combat rifle slung over his shoulder and holds a dove.

Jesus wore combat boots? Brings a whole new meaning to Christian soldier.

Meanwhile, the Christian holiday is alive and well in the little economic powerhouse of Dubai. Funny, in a country where only about 3% of the total population is categorized as "Western" and quarter of the population traces their origins to Iran, even the Muslims are defecting in the so-called War on Christmas. [h/t Jules Siegel]

Christmas in Tehran

By Libby

William Wedin started a new website to push back against the neo-con propaganda program to build public support for bombing Iran. Geared towards building a new meme in the public eye, Photo Activists for Peace are colloborating to assemble a visual record of the real Iran to counter the false 'axis of evil' picture being painted by the White House. He describes his vision at Lew Rockwell.

And what my eyes tell me is that it looks like there are lots of Christians now living in Iran (as they have for many centuries). And these Christians feel free to shop for Christmas trees on the street and for Christmas cards in the stores; and take photos of their kids with Santa; and attend Christmas services in posh new churches. And what my eyes tell me too is that all of these Christians are unafraid. And I am sure that your eyes tell you the exact same thing. [...]

From the way these people sit and stand and hold their heads and use their hands, our eyes and optic nerves and related brain areas all reach the same conclusion in a nanosecond. And that is that these Iranian Christians are able to pray and shop and get goodies from Santa and walk home through the streets of Tehran with gifts for their grandkids without any fear. Be it from saber-toothed tigers or "Muslim maniacs." And our visual processing programs are also able to determine that these Christians are not being brave in the face of danger. Their bodies are really relaxed and unguarded – just like those of Christians in Boulder.

We can also deduce from such things as Christmas trees being sold on Tehran sidewalks and big Merry Christmas signs hanging in Tehran stores that while American aggression in Iraq may have had the tragic "blowback" effect of driving out 90% of all Christians who once lived there, Muslim tolerance towards Christians is still alive and well in Iran. And this tolerance on the part of Iran’s supposedly "mad mullahs" starts at the top with Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, and permeates all the way down – even when it comes to such things as the depiction of angels in paintings and sculptures: which is forbidden in Muslim mosques, yet allowed in Christian churches. Take a closer look at the church shown above and you’ll see.

In fact take a closer look at the entire Christmas gallery and while you're at it, check out the women of Iran. Neither Christians nor women look frightened or oppressed to me. A bitter contrast to the plight of both groups in the country Bush 'liberated' from tyranny, namely Iraq, where women and Christians fear to walk openly on the street.

Italian court changes child's name

By Libby

Remembering the brouhaha that ensued when it was rumored that Hugo Chavez was going to mandate a list of acceptable names for children, it's surprising that this Italian edict received almost no attention.

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian court has ruled that a couple could not name their son "Friday" and ordered that he instead be called Gregory after the saint whose feast day he was born on.

Friday/Gregory Germano was born in Genoa 15 months ago. The parents registered him as Friday in the city hall and a priest even baptised him as Friday -- unusual in Italy since many priests insist that first names be of Christian origin. [...]

When the boy was about five months old, a city hall clerk brought the odd name to the attention of a tribunal, which informed the couple of an administrative norm which bars parents from giving "ridiculous or shameful" first names to children. The tribunal said it was protecting the child from being the butt of jokes and added that it believed the name would hinder him from developing "serene interpersonal relationships".

Worse yet, it seems to be a case of selective enforcement.

"I really doubt this would have happened to the child of parents who are rich and famous," the boy's mother told Reuters, recalling that some famous Italians had given their children unorthodox names such as "Ocean" or "Chanel".

They say money can't buy love, and it can't buy happiness, but I guess it can buy 'justice' anywhere. [h/t Terry D]

Bottlenecks and seccessions

The American South in 1861 thought that it was the swing producer of a key industrial commodity and through this economic bottleneck it could squeeze foreign support and recognition in its rebellion against the North. Cotton diplomacy and the belief that major power economies would fail if cotton was withheld or made too expensive was one of the impetuous for the Southern belief that they only needed to be able to fight a short war as that was the only war that they had a chance of winning.

Instead the combination of large strategic cotton reserves from the bumper crop of 1860, European fear of a general war with the Federal United States (probably due to still fresh memories of US successes as commerce raiders in 1812 as well as a potential fracturing of the Concert of Vienna), and fairly rapid substitution of cotton supplies from Mexico, Egypt and India dramatically reduced the value and credibility of Confederate cotton diplomacy.

In my post on Bolivian natural gas rent seeking a couple of days ago, I had pointed out a few other examples of local sub-national groups seeking to use at least the perception of a key commodity bottleneck to overleverage their bids for greater de facto or de jure autonomy in southern Iraq and Nigeria. The Sunni Arab insurgencies pounding of the northern Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline system has been a counterbid to reduce the leverage of Iraqi Kurds to do the same thing.

I am speculating, and would love to be corrected, if bottleneck intensification and rent seeking behavior is more common at the dawn of change in economic systems as the bottlenecks that can be manipulated to apply the most pressure on major power economies are narrowest when they have become the most exploited and that substitution is near, but not quite available just yet.

The US Civil War was at the dawn of the transition from internal water power to coal and steam power and now we seem to be at a transitional stage where the marginal increases in energy expenditures are electrical and non-petroleum derived. Yet we are still at least a few years off from this change-over and the value of the chokepoint commodity is very high and anyone with more than three wells can credibly claim to be a swing producer at this time....

The other side of Chavez

By Libby

The good citizens of Venezuela are going to the polls today to decide whether the proposed changes to their constitution should be made. According to Daniel at this blog, who which appears to side with the opposition is anti-Chavez, turnout appears to be low.

I have no idea how that will impact the tally and to forestall the usual storm of criticism whenever I so much as mention Hugo's name, I'm not taking a position either way on the outcome. My main interest is in how the media coverage of this story had unfolded. My inbox has been filling up with alternative analysis on the situation and I'm merely going to pass them on, unremarked, in the interests of giving the opposing view a fair hearing.

Gregory Wilpert at venezuelanalysis.com has a good piece that includes this observation.

While there are negative or not-so-good aspects of the reform, which for the most part involve giving the president some more powers, the Venezuelan president, even after the reform, is still does not have as much institutional power as the U.S. president. On the other hand, in the process of focusing on the centralizing aspects of the reform, most observers willfully miss the ways in which the positive aspects of the upcoming reform have the potential to make Venezuelan political life more in tune with the interests of the country's mostly poor majority.

Dan Feder, whom I know personally and trust to be a fair observer, busts the myths perpetrated by the main stream media including links to the legacy media he critiques.

Hugh O'Shaughnessy at the New Statesman notes the UN Economic Commission for Latin America issued a report that states in part: "Thanks to rapid GDP growth and the ongoing implementation of broad social programmes, in 2006 alone the poverty rate was lowered from 37.1% to 30.2% and the indigence [extreme poverty] rate from 15.9% to 9.9%." Venezuela was, the UN said, well on the way to reaching its first Millennium Development Goal."

Michael Fox at Venezuelanalysis.com looks at the tactics of the opposition and finds a two page anti-Chavez spread in the local media "was actually placed by the Cámara de Industriales del estado Carabobo (The Carabobo State Chamber of Industry). "

The CIEC is a 71 year-old organization, headquartered in the Carabobo state capital of Valencia, which groups together more than 250 businesses in the region. Among those are dozens of subsidiaries which compose literally a who's who list of some of the largest and most powerful US corporations, including (among others): Ford, General Motors, DaimlerChrysler, Bridgestone Firestone, Goodyear, Alcoa, Shell, Pfizer, Dupont, Cargill, Coca-Cola, Kraft, Novartis, Unilever, Heinz, Johnson & Johnson, Citibank, Colgate Palmolive, DHL and Owens Illinois.

Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. writes in the New Statesman.

There are other amendments that are more controversial, most of them added not by Chavez but by the National Assembly (Chavez cannot veto amendments added by the Assembly; these have to go to the voters). [...]

In any case, the voters will decide, with a far stronger opposition media than exists in the United States proselytising against the government. Venezuelans have not lost civil liberties the way people in the U.S. (or even the UK) have in recent years, and ordinary citizens continue to have more say in their government, and share more in its oil wealth, than ever before. It is doubtful that the referendum will reverse these changes, regardless of the outcome.

And finally, I would send you to Charles Hardy, a former Catholic missionary who has lived in Venezuela for decades and whom I also know personally. I can't speak for the quality of his analysis, but I can tell you unequivocally that he's an extraordinarily honest man.

As I said in a previous post, I have not been following Venezuelan politics closely for some time now. I have no interest in either defending or demonizing Chavez. But I don't think the full story has been told in the US by a long shot. As Weisbrot put it.

That's because the mainstream media generally abandons quaint notions of balance and objectivity when reporting on Venezuela. Curiously, this often extends to left-of-centre newspapers not known to slavishly follow the Bush administration's lead when reporting on other oil states where regime change is either sought, Iran, or in process, Iraq.

I share his bemusement. I'm also puzzled by how many progressive thinkers I know that accept the mainstream narrative with so little skepticism. All I know for certain myself, is that I trust Charles and Dan's objectivity a whole lot more than the word of a partisan hack like Juan Forero, who makes his living dining at the trough of the oligarchs.