Month: November 2010

The early releases of the massive WikiLeaks document release have been a lot to cover, but they are barely the tip of the iceberg for those waiting for the “7x the size of Iraq” document dump. It is a trickle, not a torrent, and indeed not a bittorrent (at least yet).

The Guardian broke first with its own, as usual stellar, coverage. But the site’s flash app search feature covers only a few score documents, not the hundreds of thousands they received. A Google App they put up to help organize the data was likewise struggling, intermittently down, apparently due to overwhelming interest.

But the Guardian reports that it cannot put all of the documents up because of some vagaries of British law, and WikiLeaks itself is under an intense attack that has brought their site to a standstill, keeping them from releasing a full document dump as has been their wont in the past.

The New York Times, likewise, has only a few of the cables available on their site, and interesting though they may be, they are far short of the full on document dump and leave us wondering what else might be in there.

It seems the trickle of releases will likely pick up as time goes on but WikiLeaks is suggesting that the documents will be released over the course of the new few month, meaning the story will be a continuing one through the end of the year at least.

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for November 26th, 2010:

Jerusalem Post: The right-wing English language Israeli daily has a piece by columnist Michael Freund, who revives the push that U.S. President Barack Obama can save his presidency by attacking Iran. “There is one dramatic step that Obama can take that would have a transformative effect, not only on his standing in public opinion but on the world itself: Take aggressive action to stop Iran’s nuclear program,” he writes, thus resurrecting a meme started by Daniel Pipes and adopted by Elliott Abrams, among others. “The thought of the would-be Hitler of Persia getting his hands on a nuclear weapon is one that should send shivers down the spine of every Israeli and every Westerner,” writes Freund. “Imposing punishing sanctions and using military force if necessary to stop the Iranian nuclear program would rally the American public behind his administration and underscore the fact that US deterrence is alive and well.”

Foreign Policy: On FP’s Shadow Government blog, Washington Institute for Near East Policy visiting fellow Michael Singh compares Iran’s diplomatic outreach to Africa with its alleged “shadowy network of arms smuggling, support for terrorism, and subversive activities.” Singh, a former George W. Bush National Security Council official, produces a long list of transgressions, some of them mere allegations. “These activities, taken together with Tehran’s refusal to cooperate with the IAEA on its nuclear activities and callous violations of its own people’s human rights, paint a picture of a regime which pursues its own security by flouting international rules and norms of acceptable behavior,” he writes. He calls for sanctions to be “vigorously enforced” and says Iran’s activities should be a lesson that “even a resolution of the nuclear issue would only begin to address the far broader concerns about the regime and its activities.”

Wall Street Journal: In his Capital Journal column, Gerald Seib writes, “The goal of the U.S. and its allies right now is to make sure Iran has to make hard choices.” With Iran denying they are seeking nuclear weapons while pointing to Israel’s arsenal, ” Seib notes this gives a sense of the “gulf” between Iran and the United States. He says “the best the U.S. and its allies can hope for right now is to slow down the Iranian program on the one hand, while increasing the cost of continuing it on the other.” Carnegie Endowment Iran expert Karim Sadjadpour told Seib: “Negotiations likely won’t resolve our dispute with Iran. But they can help contain our dispute with Iran and prevent it from escalating.”

The Nation has been a true and trusted friend of mine for years. I know the editors and many of the writers and have nothing but respect for their work. Most importantly, I have great respect for their consistent adherence to the highest journalistic standards.

Yesterday, however, The Nation ran a piece that is nothing short of character assassination, serving no newsworthy purpose, and rightfully criticized by others as a barely disguised political hit-piece.

The article, entitled "TSAstroturf: The Washington Lobbyists and Koch-Funded Libertarians Behind the TSA Scandal" by Mark Ames and Yasha Levine essentially implies that the entire libertarian movement is nothing more than a front for the billionaire Koch brothers and their corporatist allies – and by extension that libertarian protesters and groping victims are all hired pawns representing these interests. But do Ames and Levine implicate the American Civil Liberties Union in this project as well? After all, the David and Charles Koch each donated $10 million to the ACLU, an organization which is also opposing the TSA's nude scanners and full body frisks.

This article offers nothing in the way of proof for its allegations, but provides plenty of speculation and bizarre claims of guilt-by-association, beginning with the very first paragraph:

Does anyone else sense something strange is going on with the apparently spontaneous revolt against the TSA? This past week, the media turned an "ordinary guy," 31-year-old Californian John Tyner, who blogs under the pseudonym "Johnny Edge," into a national hero after he posted a cell phone video of himself defending his liberty against the evil government oppressors in charge of airport security.

The writers fail to grasp something basic about society it seems. When people are outraged, they tend to be galvanized very quickly. Many people who respects individual rights, regardless of political leanings, oppose the TSA's new and extremely invasive security policies.

Continue reading “Journalism Interrupted: The Nation Fail”

Scott Horton was on the BBC World Service today, addressing the situation in Korea.

It was a multi-person discussion, and Scott is on at about the half-hour mark.

Check it out.

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for November 23rd, 2010:

The Wall Street Journal: The WSJ’s Jay Solomon writes on North Korea’s reported upgrades to its nuclear-fuel production capabilities and the increasing fears among lawmakers that Pyongyang may provide Iran with assistance in its nuclear program. “One has to assume that Iran either has the P-2 centrifuge from North Korea, or could get it very easily,” said Simon Henderson, a proliferation expert at the hawkish Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). Solomon ends his article with the acknowledgement that it is unclear which country is actually more advanced in its nuclear program: “Nuclear experts also noted that North Korea could be facing similar technical difficulties as Iran in operating the equipment.”

Los Angeles Times: Former UN ambassador and American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Senior Fellow John Bolton opines on North Korea’s new enrichment plant. “There is substantial reason for concern that Tehran’s capabilities and its penchant for cooperating with the North exceed U.S. intelligence estimates,” Bolton warns. “The spinning of North Korea-related intelligence in recent years bears an uneasy similarity to the famously distorted 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear weapons program,” he adds, calling on the new Congress to investigate “such politicization of intelligence.”

Pajamas Media: Foundation for Defense of Democracies scholar Michael Ledeen scribbles on his “Faster, Please!” blog, in a typically scatter-shot post, that the regime in Iran is on the verge of collapse. “The Iranian dissidents have demonstrated remarkable courage and tenacity, and the Green strategy of maintaining pressure on the regime, hoping to eventually provoke its implosion, may succeed,” writes Ledeen. He comments on the government’s stalled efforts to cut off gas subsidies and on a recent pronouncement by opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi about non-violent protests scheduled to take place on the upcoming Student’s Day in Iran. Ledeen’s message of solidarity with — and call for overt support of — Iran’s Green Movement belies the diversity of the opposition. This is particularly noticeable in his praise of Mousavi, who has emerged as a clear reformer, not a regime opponent. Ledeen veers into wild conspiratorial accusations of an Iranian arms shipment through Nigeria/Gambia to Afghanistan, which does not jibe with a simple glance at a map.