Antiwar.com Blog

If we peel back the outer “democratic” skin of Ukraine’s much-touted “Orange Revolution,” we find the same old same old: the newly-installed regime of Viktor Yushchenko is pulling the license of independent television station NTN to expand beyond the Kiev area. NTN had previously been given the go-ahead by two government agencies. The station is owned in part by Eduard Prutnik, a former advisor to Viktor Yanukovych — Yushchenko’s opponent during the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election.

Demonstrating the ridiculously easy time Yushchenko has in the “mainstream” media, exhibit “A” is a San Francisco Chronicle story about these shenanigans, with the Orwellian headline: “Yushchenko Vows to Safeguard Media Rights.”

Yeah, if you say so….

Ah yes, George W. Bush’s U.S. government-funded “global democratic revolution” is sweeping the world — ain’t it grand? And remember: you paid for it!

Here it’s been close to a week since Israeli spy and former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin was nabbed by the feds, and still not a peep out of the right-wing of the blogosphere. And these are the same people who want to set up their own news service? Well, I’ve got a catchy slogan for them: All the news that fits our agenda.

Oh sure, Michelle Malkin had a couple of posts up about it, as I noted earlier, but, aside from her, the silence is positively eerie. I mean, all the Usual Suspects haven’t even bothered to denounce the arrest as based on a “sheer fabrication,” as Powerline did when the story first broke. Odd. Or, maybe, not so odd, if Newsweek is right:

“It could easily turn into the new version of ‘Leak-gate’—a confrontation between journalistic ethics and prosecutorial zeal. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Virginia last week charged Larry Franklin, one of the Pentagon’s top Iran experts, with unauthorized disclosure of classified information relating to threats against U.S. forces in Iraq. Court documents omitted the names of the recipients of Franklin’s alleged leaks, but prosecutors claimed that Franklin revealed ‘top secret’ info to two unauthorized people at a lunch in June 2003. Sources identified them as two senior officials of the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, who were dismissed by the organization last month. Court documents allege that Franklin, who worked in the office of Defense Under Secretary Douglas Feith, also may have leaked secrets to a ‘foreign official’—believed to be an Israeli—and to ‘members of the media.’

“As a result, Newsweek has learned, journalists and bloggers may face questioning by FBI agents in the case. Though reporters are not “targets” of the investigation, they could get subpoenas if they refuse to cooperate.”

Journalists — and bloggers? Waaaaay cool! Finally, the puffed-up bloggers are receiving the notice — and equal treatment — that is their due!

Even cooler is the prospect of finding out which bloggers are going to be subpoenaed. Imagine Charles Johnson, the fanatically pro-Israel blogger who once gloated that the whole Franklin affair would “slip off the media radar as quickly as it appeared,” sitting in the hot seat, refusing to give up his sources. Oh boy! Can I watch?

On second thought, it probably isn’t Johnson who’s aroused the interest of the feds. His “blog” consists mostly of cut-and-paste selections from previously published articles, interspersed with brief-but-hateful comments. No wonder Google won’t carry his garbage.

No, it must be somebody more … substantial. Someone who’s been covering the Franklin affair — or, more likely, someone who has been blogging about the alleged threat posed to American troops in Iraq by pro-Iranian groups, like the Dawa party and SCIRI. That, after all, was the subject of the top secret material Franklin was handing over to AIPAC, which acted as a conduit passing stolen secrets on to Israel.

Oh, this is going to be good. Here we have people who hate the ACLU, who denounce their political opponents as “traitors” and “fifth columnists,” and lustily invoke “patriotism” (i.e. state worship) while wrapping themselves in the flag, suddenly in the dock for … aiding and abetting espionage.

There is a God.

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Abu Jaafar pulls out one of the dozens of files piled on his desk and leafs through evidence that a Finance Ministry employee once served in Saddam Hussein’s notorious intelligence agency. Snapping the file shut, he pronounces his verdict: "This man should be fired."

The office in charge of removing senior members of Saddam’s Baath party from state institutions has kicked back into gear under the new government made up largely of Shiite Arabs and Kurds, who were savagely repressed by the former regime.

Should you be wondering what “files” Abu Jaafar is leafing through, I have an idea.  Jon Lee Anderson wrote in the New Yorker, 11-15-2004:

This summer, I visited the Supreme National
Commission for De-Baathification, which occupied two floors of a
concrete office block inside the Green Zone. A poster on one wall bore
the simple message “Baathists=Nazis.” The director of the commission,
Mithal al-Alusi, is a tall, lanky man of fifty-three who speaks English
with a syrupy drawl and, even in the office, wears a pistol tucked into
his belt.

Alusi is a protégé of Ahmad Chalabi, the
leader of the Iraqi National Congress, the exile group favored by the
Pentagon before the war. Chalabi had been appointed chairman of the
commission in September, 2003. Since then, he had lost much of his
influence, in part because intelligence concerning Iraq’s weapons of
mass destruction, which he promoted, had proved useless. In June, when
sovereignty was transferred to Iyad Allawi, a rival of Chalabi’s with
ties to the C.I.A., not a single member of the I.N.C. was given a post
in the new government. But Chalabi’s access to the de-Baathification
commission—and to the files of thousands of Baathists—gave him
continued leverage. (When I saw Chalabi in Iraq this summer, he pulled
out the intelligence dossier of a senior member of Allawi’s government
and translated what he claimed was damaging information about him.)

And, you may remember Chalabi’s fall from favor with the neocons.  Elizabeth Sullivan reported in the Cleveland Plain Dealer May 23, 2004: 

Last week’s raid of Chalabi’s ornate dwellings once the property of Saddam Hussein’s feared Mukhabarat intelligence agency was the latest sign that America called it wrong on virtually every aspect of its Iraq adventure. And it did so thanks in no small part to the White House’s stubborn belief in the pampered, prickly Chalabi, an Iraqi exile since age 13.

Why else would the Pentagon have flown the former London banker and his hand-picked (and U.S. taxpayer-supported) army of 900 loyalists into Nasiriyah
before the smoke had even cleared on last year’s Iraq invasion? Chalabi’s armed gang was being given the green light to expand its reach and power.

Why else would Chalabi loyalists have been allowed to seize truckloads of secret Mukhabarat files in the early days after Saddam’s fall, and then demand
$350,000 a month from the Pentagon for the privilege of access to documents that weren’t theirs to begin with? Chalabi reportedly has used some of the files to try to blackmail former Baath Party members.

Why else would Chalabi be named head of the coalition’s "de-Baathification" efforts, giving him tremendous power to name winners and losers in the new Iraq? His virulent anti-Baathist feelings help explain some of the coalition’s most misguided early moves, including the disbanding of the Iraqi army.

Those files were the otherwise-objectionable Chalabi’s ticket to acceptance  by Jafaari’s ruling Shiite coalition, and probably largely why they tolerated him. 

Thanks to James Wolcott, over at Vanity Fair, for the plug about our fundraiser — I have a taste for the kind of acerbic wit on display at his blog and I check it out daily. Also, thanks to Wally Conger over at Out of Step (a great name, btw): I didn’t know we had those cool coffee mugs!

While I’m on the subject: thanks again to all you people out there for making our Spring 2005 fundraiser a success. I’m grateful, amazed, and indeed overwhelmed. We’re building a grassroots movement against the Madness.

President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia on the Yalta agreement, as recently repudiated by George W. Bush:

“Keeping small nations enslaved because of the deals between the great nations or because of any pragmatic considerations that might have been there are totally inacceptable,” Saakashvili told CNN’s “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.”

I have one word to say to President Saakashvili, even as he basks in the reflected glory of a visit from Bush: Abkhazia!

UPDATE: Oh yeah, and here’s another two words: South Ossetia.

He sneers at peaceful free enterprise (or the study thereof) while bellowing about the glories of the state – especially those segments of it most prone to snapping bones and spilling blood.