Condi Rice's other wake-up call

FMR US SENATOR GARY HART: No. But as one of those fearing a near-term attack, I went out on my own throughout the spring and summer of 2001 saying, 'The terrorists are coming, the terrorists are coming.' One of the speeches I gave was, ironically enough, to the International Air Transportation Association in Montreal. And the Montreal newspapers headlined the story, 'Hart predicts terrorist attacks on America.'

By pre-arrangement I had gotten an appointment with Condi Rice the following day and had gone straight from Montreal to Washington to meet with her. And my brief message to her was, 'Get going on homeland security, you don't have all the time in the world.' This was on Sept. 6, 2001.

SALON: What was her response?

HART: Her response was 'I'll talk to the vice president about it.' And this tracks with Clarke's testimony and writing that even at this late date, nothing was being done inside the White House.

Now Hart is certainly disgruntled. He co-chaired a commission on US national security. They reported in January 2001. Among others things they recommended a homeland security department. The Bush administration rejected that advice until June 2002.

Okay, it's an obscure little piece of bureaucratic history. It's also independent confirmation of the Clarke claims. It's also emblematic of the Bush administration's refusal to give terror any priority until it became electorally advantageous Go read the whole interview. And weep.

A Response to Fallujah

The reality is that during the past month there has been a major increase in casualties, both U.S. and Iraqi, military and civilian, even as a troop rotation has reduced the number of U.S. forces by 20 percent and replaced many regular Army units with reservists. The turning point against Iraqi insurgents that U.S. commanders have been talking about for months simply hasn't happened in Fallujah or elsewhere in the Sunni heartland, and other parts of the country are growing more dangerous. The lack of security is not only blocking economic recovery: As June 30 rapidly approaches, the risk is growing that the end of the occupation period will be followed not by a transition to democratic government but by chaos or civil war.

Acknowledging the problem will help Mr. Bush summon the political will to reexamine the strategy of the Pentagon and the Coalition Provisional Authority and make necessary adjustments. It is critical that U.S. commanders respond forcefully to Fallujah and step up the counteroffensive against the Sunni insurgency. Militias operating elsewhere in the country -- particularly the Shiite Mahdi Army of Moqtada Sadr -- must be disbanded and disarmed before they, too, begin targeting U.S. troops and allied Iraqis. Are there now sufficient forces in Iraq to undertake these missions? Many outside experts believe there are not. They also point to the failure of the occupation authorities to adequately train or equip the Iraqi police who are supposed to maintain order in cities such as Fallujah. Mr. Bush must not hesitate to order more troops, more trainers and more equipment for Iraq, even it means disrupting the Pentagon's rotation plans. He also should renew the effort to recruit allies to share the burden.

The security response needs to be coupled with a more vigorous effort to forge a political consensus on Iraq's future. Administration officials are betting heavily that a single man, U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, will somehow produce a plan for a transitional government in the coming weeks that all sides will accept. But Mr. Brahimi is not a miracle worker, and his effort won't succeed unless more of Iraq's real power brokers, especially in the Shiite clergy, are persuaded to support the process. Sticking to the June 30 transition date will invite disaster if the government that takes power is, like the current Governing Council, seen by most Iraqis as illegitimate or as a U.S. puppet. Then the appalling violence of Fallujah will worsen and spread.

In ways this post follows from my thoughts about the interim constitution. The interim constitution just does not give the transitional government enough power to command any legitimacy, especially when you consider that the US will retain control of the security forces, the purse strings, and those parts of the government controlled by the continuing CPA appointees. The enormous patronage controlled by Ahmed Chalabi though the debaathification and property commissions will make him almost unstoppable except in the face of strong democratic institutions. An appointed executive operating without a parliament, and in control of elections to any future parliament, is a recipe for disaster. As is the cutback in US troop numbers.

Spain is withdrawing 1300 troops from Iraq. They are also sending additional troops to Afghanistan. The US is withdrawing around around 30 000 troops. I am unsure why the Spanish withdrawal is to be condemned but the US withdrawal is not. Time to scratch the 30 June obsession and see about building a new interim constitution that addresses Iraqi, not US, needs.

The latest US effort at retainig effective sovereignty while granting ceremonial concerns the defence ministry

A bigger concern for many Iraqis is how "real" the post June 30 sovereignty will be, particularly with the US making it clear that it will retain control over all security forces, and a current draft law on the table for the Ministry of Defense that seeks to give the US the power to appoint the minister, and hopefully keep him in for a five-year term.

I am unaware of any nation on earth that gives its defence minister a fixed term, or for that matter of any sovereign nation whose defence minister is appointed by another. Constitutional trickiness of this kind is not going to add to the transitional government's legitimacy.

The Dogs That Didn't Bark - Why Colin Powell and George Tenet aren't bashing Richard Clarke

If Clarke is spewing nonsense - if the president and his national security adviser really did consider al-Qaida an urgent matter - Tenet is the man to say so. It's hard to imagine that the White House hasn't tried to recruit him to do so. Yet so far he hasn't.

Tenet is not the only quiet dog. One of the hounds that the White House did unleash - Secretary of State Powel - not only declined to growl, but practically purred like a kitten. Interviewed on Jim Lehrer's NewsHour, Powell said: 'I know Mr. Clarke. I have known him for many, many years. He's a very smart guy. He served his nation very, very well. He's an expert in these matters.' His book 'is not the complete story,' but, Powell added, 'I'm not attributing any bad motives to it.'

Asked if he had been recruited to join the campaign against Clarke, Powell replied, 'I'm not aware of any campaign against Mr. Clarke, and I am not a member.'

His choice of words here is fascinating. Note: He did not say 'There is no campaign,' but rather 'I'm not aware of any campaign.' As has been widely observed, Powell truly is out of the loop in this administration; it's conceivable he is unaware. He then went on to say, '[A]nd I am not a member' - suggesting there might be a campaign, but he's not part of it.

Clarke is not the first Bush administration official to be suddenly flung down from favour. Consider:

• General Eric Shinseki
  
• Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill
  
• Ambassador Joseph Wilson
  

In each case the former official's allegations of fact have not been disputed, Instead we've seen a sustained and puerile assault on their character or motivation. As we speak a similar exercise is developing against the Medicare actuary threatened with the sack if he told the Congress the truth. Today's NYT editorialises that:

When the Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, dared to say publicly that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to occupy Iraq, he was ridiculed by the administration and his career was brought to a close. When Mr. Bush's former Treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, disclosed that planning for an invasion of Iraq was already under way in early 2001, he was denounced as someone who didn't know what he was talking about. And there's hardly a serious person in the country who is unaware of the administration's sliming of Richard Clarke, who said, among other things, that the war in Iraq had undermined the war against terror.

If only the Bush administration was as good at fighting terrorists as it is at shooting the messenger.

Google is disgruntled and probably gay, just like Dick Clarke

Try googling weapons of mass destruction.

It's back: Tassie tiger cloned

Scientists have caused a worldwide sensation after successfully cloning a Tasmanian tiger.

The extinct animal has been resurrected by the geneticists who created Dolly the sheep.

Already the female animal, which has been named Tassie, is being hailed as one of the most significant scientific breakthroughs of the past 100 years.

Using the cutting-edge technology, DNA was extracted from Tasmanian tiger bones to bring the animal back to life.

Tassie has come back from exctinction decades after the last known Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, died in captivity in Hobart in 1936.

Its existence has been kept a closely guarded secret until now.

Okay, you look at the 1 April dateline and move on. The Sydney Morning Herald does a better job with its report that:

Yum cha restaurants in Chinatown will now have to train workers who push food carts to pass a "driving licence" under new regulations from Sydney City Council.

The move comes after a spate of accidents in which novice or careless trolley-pushers have crashed carts, injuring or making a mess of patrons and co-workers.

In one case last year, an elderly customer at a large yum cha restaurant was covered in plates of sticky black bean sauce after a trolley waitress lost her load while she was text messaging on her mobile phone.

The weirdness about the Telegraph's thylacine story is that the Australian Museum (actually the NSW state museum, but I digress) is making a serious attempt to clone the thylacine:

After more than two years of ongoing cloning research, the Australian Museum has overcome a crucial obstacle in its continuing efforts to bring back to life the extinct Tasmanian Tiger.

In May 2002 the Evolutionary Biology Unit at the Australian Museum in Sydney successfully replicated individual Tasmanian Tiger genes using a process known as PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction). These new discoveries and the story of the Museum's ongoing efforts have been exclusively documented by the Discovery Channel in The End of Extinction: Cloning the Tasmanian Tiger, premiering in 155 countries world-wide, including Australia, on July 7 at 7.30pm.

This remarkable journey which hopes to turn science fiction into science fact began in 1999 when the Australian Museum embarked on a never-before-attempted project to bring back an extinct species.

The last known Tasmanian Tiger, or Thylacine, died in captivity in 1936, but a team of biologists believe the animal's extinction may simply be a 70-year hiccup.

Southerly Buster would like a cuddly diprotodon for the back yard, but fears that particular cloning still is a little way off. Southerly Buster also vigorously supports John Quiggin's fair and balanced call for the eating of chocolate bilbies at Easter.

Frankly, we'd support eating Bushies if chocolate ones were available.

Disputes over ownership fuel Iraq tensions

The occupying authorities had intended to resolve property claims through arbitration. Last January Paul Bremer, Iraq's American administrator, ordered the Governing Council to establish the Iraq Property Claims Commission, and three months later coalition officials say the commission is two weeks away from starting to process claims. But Hisham Shibli, Iraq's justice minister, says that though commissions will be independent, they will not tackle expropriation by senior officials.

Many exile groups that make up Iraq's US-backed former opposition are descendants of the pre-1958 revolution gentry that was overthrown that year along with King Faisal II. The property question is seen by many as an attempt at the restoration of these old aristocratic families to their former places of prominence.

Mr Chalabi, the scion of a pre-1958 revolution aristocratic family, has used his militia to reclaim a defunct flour mill in a Baghdad district that used to belong to the Chalabis, along with what he says is his sister's home used by the Ba'ath party intelligence service.

In late February, the Council's de-Ba'athification Committee, which Mr Chalabi heads, ordered the confiscation of all property belonging to the senior 1,500 cadres of the former Ba'athist regimes and their relatives. The inventory is still under preparation.

Meanwhile, property prices in the Shia Muslim holy cities of Najaf and Karbala are said to have risen twice as fast as in Baghdad, as tens of thousands of refugees from Iran tentatively replant their roots.

Disputes over property ownership have fed an already tense political situation throughout Iraq. In an attempt to defuse the property dispute, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's highest-ranking Shia cleric, ruled that property confiscated by Ba'athists and still in public hands should be returned to its original owners.

The dispossession policy is really just a replay of the extraordinarily foolish decision to disband the old Iraqi army. The difference is that this one effectively questions every land title in the country and transfers its disposition to the least popular member of the IGC. That does not read to me as a policy that is likely to contribute to reconciliation or tranquillity in Iraq, especially when it is realised that the handover of sovereignty will leave this process beyond the control of the transitional government.

Stuffing the briefs

After listening to today's set piece in parliament I have to wonder why no-one wants to ask the basic question. It is now common ground that Iron Mark was briefed. The dispute is about the content of the briefing by the deputy secretary of the department of foreign affairs and others.

Howard contends the briefings did not cover Iraq and Afghanistan. latham contends they did.

Let us, for the sake of argument, assume Howard is being truthful. In that case it is a major scandal that the government is providing inadequate and misleading information to the alternative prime minister.

No doubt someone will ask it at some stage and no doubt the prime minister's staff will draft the customary denials for the customary signatures by various officials with high-sounding designations. This is a shadow play and a disgrace that exposes Howard as the constitutional radical he is.

The form of government the Man of Steel is creating is a Stalinate© in which the prime minister (in addition to his legitimate functions) serves as the effective head of state by appearing as the central figure at all national occasions and also replaces the bureaucracy by having various independent officials sign statements actually drafted by the prime ministerial staff.

Stuffing the briefings to the alternative prime minister for political advantage is really only par for the course.

Ethnic cleansing by the book

The Iraqi Interim Constitution's Article 58 provides:

(A) The Iraqi Transitional Government, and especially the Iraqi Property Claims Commission and other relevant bodies, shall act expeditiously to take measures to remedy the injustice caused by the previous regime's practices in altering the demographic character of certain regions, including Kirkuk, by deporting and expelling individuals from their places of residence, forcing migration in and out of the region, settling individuals alien to the region, depriving the inhabitants of work, and correcting nationality. To remedy this injustice, the Iraqi Transitional Government shall take the following steps:

(1) With regard to residents who were deported, expelled, or who emigrated; it shall, in accordance with the statute of the Iraqi Property Claims Commission and other measures within the law, within a reasonable period of time, restore the residents to their homes and property, or, where this is unfeasible, shall provide just compensation.

(2) With regard to the individuals newly introduced to specific regions and territories, it shall act in accordance with Article 10 of the Iraqi Property Claims Commission statute to ensure that such individuals may be resettled, may receive compensation from the state, may receive new land from the state near their residence in the governorate from which they came, or may receive compensation for the cost of moving to such areas.

(3) With regard to persons deprived of employment or other means of support in order to force migration out of their regions and territories, it shall promote new employment opportunities in the regions and territories.

(4) With regard to nationality correction, it shall repeal all relevant decrees and shall permit affected persons the right to determine their own national identity and ethnic affiliation free from coercion and duress.

(B) The previous regime also manipulated and changed administrative boundaries for political ends. The Presidency Council of the Iraqi Transitional Government shall make recommendations to the National Assembly on remedying these unjust changes in the permanent constitution. In the event the Presidency Council is unable to agree unanimously on a set of recommendations, it shall unanimously appoint a neutral arbitrator to examine the issue and make recommendations. In the event the Presidency Council is unable to agree on an arbitrator, it shall request the Secretary General of the United Nations to appoint a distinguished international person to be the arbitrator.

(C) The permanent resolution of disputed territories, including Kirkuk, shall be deferred until after these measures are completed, a fair and transparent census has been conducted and the permanent constitution has been ratified This resolution shall be consistent with the principle of justice, taking into account the will of the people of those territories.

This is, essentially, a charter for ethnic cleansing. The exchange of populations is to be effected by the Iraqi Property Claims Commission, one of those CPA organs continued by the TAL's Article 49. It is presently controlled by Ahmed Chalabi.

Trying to undo Saddam's Arabisation policies in Kirkuk governorate by population exchanges and returning Iraqis to other governorates after a generation of living in Kirkuk is, quite simply, insane. It is what happens when you invade a country with insufficient troops to effect proper levels of security. You end up negotiating with anyone who will talk to you just so that you can announce successes.

The interim constitution may be a PR success, but in terms of what it provides and what it omits, it is a bungled mishmash of bad laws and worse intentions.

A number of people have emailed asking for all these constitutional posts to be assembled in one document. I'm thinking about it.

The height gap

Holland's growth spurt began only in the mid-eighteen-hundreds, Drukker found, when its first liberal democracy was established. Before 1850, the country grew rich off its colonies, but the wealth stayed in the hands of the wealthy, and the average citizen shrank. After 1850, height and income suddenly fell into lockstep: when incomes went up, heights went up (after a predictable lag time), and always to the same degree. "I thought I must have made an error," Drukker said. "I must have correlated one of the variables with itself." He hadn;t. Holland, like the rest of Northern Europe, had simply managed to spread its prosperity around. These days, Dutch heights no longer keep pace with the economy. ("We can't grow to four metres just because our income quadruples," Drukker says.) But the essential equation is the same: when the G.N.P. grows, everyone grows.

As America's rich and poor drift further apart, its growth curve may be headed in the opposite direction, Komlos and others say. The eight million Americans without a job, the forty million without health insurance, the thirty-five million who live below the poverty line are surely having trouble measuring up. And they're not alone. As more and more Americans turn to a fast-food diet, its effects may be creeping up the social ladder, so that even the wealthy are growing wider rather than taller. "I've seen a similar thing in Guatemala," Bogin says. "The rich kids are taken care of by poor maids, so they catch the same diseases. When they go out on the street, they eat the same street food. They may get antibiotics, but they're still going to get exposed.

For the record, the average male Netherlander is 187 cm. The average male Australian passed that in 2000 and should reach 193 by 2060. Apparently the US uses average height as a measure of public health so their average height of 176.5 is an alarming stat. The stats are adjusted for immigration. We must be doing something right.

While I am on the subject of anthropometrics, I advise you not to look at this vulgar and offensive link under any circumstances.

African waterwheel

It's thought that nearly a billion and a half people around the world don't have access to safe drinking water. People often walk for miles every day to find it, which can take hours. That's why the task of getting water has been considered a difficult, tiresome job.

But that's changing in South Africa. The World's Amy Costello visited a place where getting water has actually become fun.

Kids run in a circle and push a merry-go-round faster and faster. Those who are seated on the ride, get dizzy from the speed...laughing and giddy from the force of gravity.

These kids are having so much fun, they don't seem to realize they're working. Then again, that's the idea behind the Play-Pump - a merry-go-round with a mission.

The children push the merry-go-round again and again. As they run, a device in the ground beneath them begins to turn. With every rotation of the merry-go-round, water is pumped out of a well, up through a pipe, and into a tank high above the playground.

A few feet away from all the fun, students in uniform turn on a tap. Clean, cold drinking water pours out. This is Motshegofadiwa Primary School, 15 miles north of Pretoria. It%u2019s in a town called Stinkwater; locals say there%u2019s a good reason for that name. The water around here used to smell. School Principal Peter Banyana says the water supply was also erratic before the Play-Pump arrived.

Almost too wonderful to be true...

Tip from Respectful of Otters by way of The Three-Toed Sloth.

Vermont probes man with 70 goats in house

State officials are investigating a man whose goats and his religious convictions against killing them have collided in a possibly inhumane and definitely stinky way.

I am entirely unsure why, if Vermont was determined to use 70 goats as a probe, they chose to do it inside a house. Surely outside would have been more convenient? Do Vermont goats make especially good probes?

PM plans new anti-terror laws

Tough new anti-terrorism laws approved by cabinet would allow police to question suspects for up to 24 hours.

The government also plans to enlarge the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), with the spy agency recruiting an extra 150 staff.

Prime Minister John Howard said the new anti-terror laws would double the length of time police could question anyone suspected of committing a terrorist offence.

The laws would ban anyone from training with listed terrorist groups and organisations such as the Taliban, or from joining groups which were not banned but could be proved to be terrorist organisations.

It would also become unlawful for people to make money out of selling books or memoirs about any time they spent training with terrorist organisations.

Parliament has given the government pretty much whatever it wants on laws against terror. This will be the third or fourth basket of terror laws since 911. At some point the government needs to think this thing through instead of coming up with new legislation every couple of months. It is beginning to look suspiciously like the manipulation of threat levels in the US.

These proposals, subject to how they're actually drafted, do not sound unreasonable. The discovery of alleged new loopholes every few months does.

Secret plans to evacuate London

London Resilience, senior sources say, recommended to ministers that they should put up signs marking the evacuation routes but they have refused to do so, risking chaos in an emergency.

The sources say ministers feared 'raising public alarm'. But Patrick Cunningham, the chairman of the Emergency Planning Society believes ministers' repeated warnings of an attack are much more alarming. 'It is much more scary to be told an attack is inevitable than to be told what to do if there is one,' he said.

The Emergency Planning Society is preparing to hit back against an attack from Mr Blunkett when the Home Secretary said: 'If an emergency planner believes that something is inadequate ... why not do something about it? Has any of these officers written to me? Has any of them written to the Minister for the Cabinet Office, who is responsible for civil contingencies? How many officers have raised their concerns?

'We know of those concerns because we read them in the papers yesterday... we will happily take them seriously when they propose their own plan and suggestions for improvement.'

Ian Hoult, the society's chairman for southern England, described Mr Blunkett's reaction as 'incredible'. He added: 'I don't know what planet he is on.' He said the society had been constantly warning ministers and MPs of Britain's lack of preparedness 'with increasing desperation over the years'. It is now drawing up a detailed dossier of its representations to give to Mr Blunkett.

Evidently the 45-minute claim was not designed to raise public alarm. Either that or there are legitimate and illegitimate public alarms. The class of legitimate public alarms apparently comprises those which enhance the public standing of the Blair government.

Methane find on Mars may be sign of life

A strong signal of life on Mars has been detected by scientists at the US National Aeronautics and Space Admin- istration (Nasa) and the European Space Agency.

Each group has independently discovered tantalising evidence of methane in the Martian atmosphere. Methane, a waste product of living organisms on Earth, could also be a by-product of alien microbes living under the surface of the Red Planet.

The detection of methane has been the holy grail of scientists studying the Martian atmosphere, as its presence could provide unequivocal proof that there is life beyond Earth.

Neither Nasa nor the European Space Agency (ESA) has publicly announced the findings, but specialists who have seen the data believe the discovery is genuine - although they are unsure what it means in terms of confirming the presence of life.

The discovery comes weeks after Nasa and ESA announced new findings relating to the presence of huge bodies of water on Mars which could have supported life.

Finding even remnant life on Mars means life is probably common throughout the universe. Whether anything more complex than single cells are hanging around out there is still to be answered, although Ockham would prolly slash great big holes in the proposition that Terra is unique enough to be the only site of complex evolution.

signposts | The Myth of the Domination System

About the best (if least intended) comment I've seen yet on a certain movie.

Exceptional Ahmad

Chapter 7 of the Iraqi interim constitution needs to be read in the light of a couple of recent news reports.

CHAPTER SEVEN - THE SPECIAL TRIBUNAL AND NATIONAL COMMISSIONS

Article 48

(A) The statute establishing the Iraqi Special Tribunal issued on 10 December 2003 is confirmed. That statute exclusively defines its jurisdiction and procedures, notwithstanding the provisions of this Law.

(B) No other court shall have jurisdiction to examine cases within the competence of the Iraqi Special Tribunal, except to the extent provided by its founding statute.

(C) The judges of the Iraqi Special Tribunal shall be appointed in accordance with the provisions of its founding statute.

Article 49

(A) The establishment of national commissions such as the Commission on Public Integrity, the Iraqi Property Claims Commission, and the Higher National De-Ba'athification Commission is confirmed, as is the establishment of commissions formed after this Law has gone into effect. The members of these national commissions shall continue to serve after this Law has gone into effect, taking into account the contents of Article 51, below.

(B) The method of appointment to the national commissions shall be in accordance with law.

Article 50

The Iraqi Transitional Government shall establish a National Commission for Human Rights for the purpose of executing the commitments relative to the rights set forth in this Law and to examine complaints pertaining to violations of human rights. The Commission shall be established in accordance with the Paris Principles issued by the United Nations on the responsibilities of national institutions. This Commission shall include an Office of the Ombudsman to inquire into complaints. This office shall have the power to investigate, on its own initiative or on the basis of a complaint submitted to it, any allegation that the conduct of the governmental authorities is arbitrary or contrary to law.

Article 51

No member of the Iraqi Special Tribunal or of any commission established by the federal government may be employed in any other capacity in or out of government. This prohibition is valid without limitation, whether it be within the executive, legislative, or judicial authority of the Iraqi Transitional Government. Members of the Special Tribunal may, however, suspend their employment in other agencies while they serve on the aforementioned Tribunal.

The powers of these commissions are defined by CPA orders and cannot be amended, not can their members be removed, without a decision of the National Assembly and a unanimous decision of the State Presidency. That would be bad, but the frequent repetition of ethics clauses in the constitution (Articles 31(B)(1) through (8), and 36(B) implies that the commissions can debar candidates. Whoever controls the debaathification commission controls candidacy to the National Assembly. Whoever controls the still to be formed integrity commission can initiate dismissal of members of the State Presidency.

The debaathification commission effectively has the vast resources of the Baath party to dispense in the form of patronage.

So the Iraqi Transitional Government's sovereignty is to be subject to Article 59 which gives the US control of Iraq's military, Article 48 which continues the power of independent commissions, and any appointments or legislative instruments issued by the CPA from the time of its formation until the alleged transition. Who, I wonder, might take advantage of the independent agencies to erect a parallel government?

In MSNBC - The Master Operator Newsweek reports, that despite being the least popular and least trusted IGC member:

Chalabi's other major source of strength is the De-Baathification Commission, which he heads. Its mandate - to work against former members of Saddam's regime and his Baath Party - is so wide-ranging that even one of Chalabi's aides calls it 'a government within the government.' It's empowered to oversee educational reform, track down Saddam's funds, purge senior Baathists from government jobs and occasionally reinstate those who can convince the commission they weren't complicit in Saddam's crimes. The backbone of the operation is a vast collection of secret documents seized from Saddam's files. To process them, according to one Chalabi aide, the De-Baathification Commission has 50 document scanners. There are only 20 other scanners in all the rest of the government.

That control can be maintained, despite Article 51, by the use of nephews and proxies as Chlabi is already doing with the Iraqi Special Tribunal. Note, BTW, that the TAL bill of rights does not apply to the tribunal under Article 48(A).

Lastly, from yesterdays' Guardian, we learn:

The United States will transfer power in Iraq to a hand-picked prime minister, abandoning plans for an expansion of the current 25-member governing council, according to coalition officials in Baghdad.

With fewer than 100 days before the US occupation authorities are due to transfer sovereignty, fear of wrangling among Iraqi politicians has forced Washington to make its third switch of strategy in six months.

The search is now on for an Iraqi to serve as chief executive. He will almost certainly be from the Shia Muslim majority, and probably a secular technocrat.

"There will be no [Paul] Bremer and there will be a prime minister," a coalition official told the Guardian yesterday. "That will be the biggest change with the transfer of sovereignty."

Mr Bremer is the US head of the coalition's provisional authority whose term expires on June 30 when the occupation formally ends.

Let's leave aside the fact that the TAL itself requires extensive deliberations and consultations, a process apparently being ignored. I wonder who that handpicked Shia technocrat might prove to be?

Voting Form | 2004 TV Fugly Awards

If you are a dedicated yet somewhat disgruntled television viewer, please take the opportunity to have your opinion heard by completing the online voting form below.

Just think about what has appeared on our screens over the 12 months and if you feel a paticular Australian televison show and/or TV personality deserves a Fugly, give them a vote. It's that easy!

Look, I know NSW is holding statewide elections for local councils, but that's a fugly process at best so you might as well vote for the real thing.

PS: Southerly Buster does not believe, gentle reader, that 'freakin' is the first element of 'fugly'.

Polish PM under pressure to quit

High unemployment, a malfunctioning health care system and a string of high profile corruption scandals are seen as the main causes of his unpopularity.

Budget cuts introduced ahead of the country's EU membership, aimed at bringing its economy into line with EU requirements, have contributed to the problems.

Mr Miller, who stepped down as the leader of his party last month, made it clear that he would like to stay on until after Poland joins the EU on 1 May.

But his announcement that he would hold a joint news conference with President Aleksander Kwasniewski on Friday evening renewed speculation he might be about to resign.

His resignation could trigger early parliamentary elections.

However, analysts say the government could probably muster enough votes in parliament to avoid this.

The war is not mentioned as an issue, but you have to wonder what effect an early parliamentary election in Poland might have on the coalition of the wilting. Are we to look forward to the Foreign Minister of Kleenex delivering a new encomium titled 'The things that shatter'?

Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961

Article 41, Section1. Without prejudice to their privileges and immunities, it is the duty of all persons enjoying such privileges and immunities to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State. They also have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State.

Someone send a copy to the US embassy.

Draining the Language out of Color

In the mid-1960s Berlin and Kay ended up at Berkeley. They had their graduate students scour the Bay Area for native speakers of foreign languages, quizzing them with standard color chips, not unlike those used as samples for paint. Their object was to establish the meanings of basic color terms--that is, those that could not be analyzed into simpler terms (such as 'blue-green') and were not defined as characteristic of a given object (such as 'salmon'). Later Berlin and Kay collaborated with other researchers to expand their sample to 110 languages.

Color lexicons vary, first of all, in sheer size: English has 11 basic terms, Russian and Hungarian have 12, yet the New Guinean language Dani has just two. One of the two encompasses black, green, blue and other 'cool' colors; the other encompasses white, red, yellow and other 'warm' colors. Those languages with only three terms almost always have 'black-cool,' 'white-light' and 'red-yellow-warm.' Those having a fourth usually carve out 'grue' from the 'black-cool' term.

The tree of possibilities turned out to have branching points, some of them rather rare. Still, the manner in which languages can build up their color words is tightly constrained, suggesting the existence of universal constraints on semantic variation.

I've always been a sucker for Spair-Whorf, relatively speaking.

The al-Zawahiri fiasco

It featured all the trappings of a glorified video game. Thousands of Pakistani army and paramilitary troops played the hammer. Hundreds of US troops and Special Forces, plus the elite commando 121, were ready to play the anvil across the border in Afghanistan. What was supposed to be smashed in between was 'high-value target' Ayman al-Zawahiri, as Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf enthusiastically bragged - with no hard evidence - to an eager CNN last Thursday. But what happened to this gigantic piece of psy-ops? Nothing. And for a very simple reason: al-Qaeda's brain and Osama bin Laden's deputy was never there in the first place. And even if he was, as Taliban-connected sources in Peshawar told Asia Times Online, he would choose to die as a martyr rather than be captured and paraded as a US trophy.

It now appears that world public opinion fell victim to a Musharraf-inspired web of disinformation. In the early stages of the battle west of Wana in South Waziristan, Taliban spokesman Abdul Samad, speaking by satellite telephone from Kandahar province in Afghanistan, was quick to say that talk of al-Zawahiri being cornered was 'just propaganda by the US coalition and by the Pakistani army to weaken Taliban morale'. Subsequently, Peshawar sources were quoting al-Qaeda operatives from inside Saudi Arabia as saying that both bin Laden and al-Zawahiri had left this part of the tribal areas as early as January.

On the Afghan side, General Atiquallah Ludin at the Defense Ministry in Kabul was saying that 'al-Qaeda cannot escape or enter Afghan soil'. But by this time the majority of the mujahideen previously based in South Waziristan had already managed to cross back to Paktika province in Afghanistan - mostly to areas around Urgun, Barmal and Gayan. This rugged, mountainous territory is quintessentially Taliban. Many local Pashtun tribals don't even know who (Afghan president) Hamid Karzai is.

The Taliban was once a wholly-owned and -operated subsidiary of Pakistan's ISI. The agency still contains a number of Taliban allies. Is it really any surprise that Pakistan's army 1. launched this operation on the splendidly propitious occasion of their promotion to the same alliance status as Australia and 2. the birds seem to have flown long before a single soldier set foot in South Waziristan?

Censure Debate 22 March

[Federal Opposition Leader] Mr LATHAM All the rhetoric about the axis of evil was their big neoconservative contribution to the war against terror, and now they cannot stomach the truth. They cannot stomach the truth of their policy failings. Having committed Australia for a core purpose that was not realised - a core purpose that was not true in Iraq - they now cannot stomach the truth when it comes from the mouth of the Australian Federal Police Commissioner.

The real truth, Prime Minister, is this: the war against terror is primarily an intelligence war. It is not a war primarily against nation states. We have to target the terrorists. In fact, the conflict in Iraq diverted resources away from that process of targeting the terrorists - al-Qaeda and bin Laden. The capacity of intelligence to track them down and do something about them is the key to winning the war against terror. It is not the folly of Iraq; it is not the errors that this government made in committing Australia to that conflict. Now the government should simply accept the truth of what Commissioner Keelty has been saying - the truth that, sure, Australia was a target at the time of September 11 but the conflict and policy making for Iraq has made the situation even worse.

This is the thing that we need to appreciate. This is the reason why the Prime Minister should be censured by the House. You cannot trust the Howard government with Australia's national security. It is always playing politics, instead of putting the national interest first. The Prime Minister's actions have disgraced the high office that he holds. He should not put narrow political interest ahead of the national interest - never. That is never in the best interests of our great country, and he should be censured by this parliament accordingly.

The censure was (of course) rejected on party lines, but this is a powerful critique. Today's Newspoll confirms it as a critique Australians accept by a majority of 2/3. Tim is blogging up a storm on the Clarke allegations while Obsidian Wings has interesting stuff confirming those allegations.More on the issues side of the Newspoll later.

No torture please, we're Australian

The Joint Committee on Treaties has recommended the government not ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

The protocol sets up an inspection mechanism and requires signatory states to maintain preventive mechanisms against torture. Australia has already signed the Convention, so it cannot be any problem with the definition of torture in the convention.

I'll read the report, which might take a while, and see what it has to say. At first glance it looks suspiciously like this is just the usual stuff about the evils of the UN human rights machinery. I agree that machinery is gravely deficient.

The necessary reforms are to ensure that nations which do not comply with the 'International Bill of Rights' do not get seats on the UN Human Rights Commission. Weakening the machinery of compliance does not assist those reforms. Its just another case of the Howard government saying they'll decide who monitors our human rights performance and under what conditions.

In nations where (unlike Australia) there are regular and gross violations of human rights, we just made it a lot easier to argue against inspections by invoking the shibboleth of national sovereignty.

Iraq's Sistani Warns UN Not to Back Constitution

'We warn that any such step will not be acceptable to the majority of Iraqis and will have dangerous consequences,' said the 73-year cleric, who has been assuming a larger role in politics although he does not favor a theocracy in Iraq.

Annan said last week he would send a team to Iraq as soon as possible to help form an interim government in response to an invitation from the U.S.-installed Iraqi Governing Council.

Sistani had criticized Brahimi and Annan for a report they wrote, which agreed with U.S. authorities that general elections needed months of preparation and were not feasible considering a lack of security.

The Shi'ites wanted elections before June 30, the date Washington set to hand back sovereignty to an unelected Iraqi government.

The report angered Sistani and millions of his followers eager to take power after political dominance over Iraq by Sunni Arabs, a minority concentrated in central Iraq.

Under the interim constitution, which was passed earlier this month, elections are due by 2005.

Sistani said the interim constitution was unworkable because it establishes a three-person presidential council composed of a Sunni Muslim, a Kurd and a Shi'ite Muslim who would be required to take unanimous decisions.

'This builds a basis for sectarianism. Consensus would not be reached unless there is pressure from a foreign power, or a deadlock would be reached that destabilizes the country and could lead to break-up,' Sistani said.

My biggest problem with the interim constitution is Chapter 7. I'll put up my piece on that in the next day or so.

I guess the most important question about the constitution's paralytocracy is raised by al-Sistani. If the system only works in the presence of a foreign power, who is that likely to be? We already have Gen Abizaid saying he will resolve any disputes and we have Article 59 allowing him to do that.

Godzilla to trample landmarks

Giant lizard monster Godzilla is set to crush the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge in his 28th and final film.

Final Wars will feature Godzilla fighting 10 other monsters in several well-known locations around the world, including New York, Shanghai and Paris.

I'm not completely sure what it means for the state of the world that a city gains face when a man dressed in rubber demolishes its most prominent landmarks. I'm not even sure I want to think about it.

The Bush doctrine has been turned on its head

What seems to have happened is more insidious.

The notion of a bin Laden chain of command has been superseded by a sort of McDonald's of terrorism, franchise cells and groups that want to be like al-Qaeda, carrying a torch for the man in the cave without ever receiving direct orders. The word simply goes out in the Arab media and it is absorbed - war against the US. And when they strike, they pack the punch by claiming that it was done in the name of al-Qaeda.

The CIA director, George Tenet, told the US Senate as much this month when he said: 'A serious threat will remain for the foreseeable future, with or without al-Qaeda in the picture.'

And Blair's special representative for Iraq, Jeremy Greenstock, almost as though he was surprised by the outcome, applied the Tenet dictum to Iraq when he warned of the damage to the country and its people from terrorism. 'Something new has grown in this area. It has happened in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Colombia, in the Middle East peace process and now it's threatening Western Europe - it's already happened in Madrid.

'Iraq is a now a theatre where they're trying to maximise this damage.'

Between them, it is an admission that the war in Iraq has helped al-Qaeda and its followers.

Ah, but what about all that progress in resolving the Palestinian question, and the spread of democracy across the Middle East, and the flowers, and the rose water, and the occupation that would pay for itself, and take no more troops than the invasion, and the end of combat operations last May?

Iraq reprisal: US envoy at odds with PM

The Madrid train bombings were probably carried out in reprisal for Spain's support of the Iraq war, says the US ambassador to Australia, Tom Schieffer.

Mr Schieffer also suggested that the attack was part of an al-Qaeda attempt to split the nations of the West and undermine commitment to the war on terrorism.

The concession that the attack could have been a reprisal over Iraq puts the ambassador at odds with the Prime Minister, John Howard, by echoing comments a week ago by the Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty.

Senior government ministers savagely rebuked Mr Keelty for suggesting a link between Iraq and the targeting of Madrid.

While Mr Schieffer supported the Federal Government's argument that Islamic fundamentalist terrorists hate us 'for what we are, not for what we've done', he also suggested that they had a strategy of trying to pick off allies in the war on terrorism.

Mr Ambassador? I have the prime minister's chief of staff on line 1...

How can Spain have suffered reprisals if terrorist groups attack because of who we are, not what we have done?

If they hate the democracies for merely existing why do we keep hearing that they hate Australia for East Timor?

Both propositions cannot be true.

Toe the line on Iraq or the boot goes in

The Howard Government has hotly denied both the connection between these bombings and Iraq, and their significance for Australia. According to the Prime Minister, Australia has been an al-Qaeda target since our role in the liberation of East Timor from Indonesian rule. We are targeted, he continued, not for what we have done but for who we are - a Western democracy. While al-Qaeda might be genuinely interested in Afghanistan because of its links with the Taliban, it was only pretending, for propaganda purposes, to be interested in Iraq.

Every Howard argument is unconvincing. If we were first targeted as a result of East Timor, how can it simultaneously be argued that we are a target not because of what we have done but who we are? If East Timor is important to al-Qaeda, how can it be argued that Iraq is irrelevant? East Timor is, at most, at the periphery of the Muslim world. Iraq is near its heart. Most importantly, the argument that while al-Qaeda is genuinely concerned about Afghanistan it is pretending to be concerned about Iraq, suggests an astonishing ignorance of the ideological world-view of bin Laden.

I have a different explanation. The Man of Steel has nailed his colours to George Bush. His arguments therefore have to match Bush's, no matter how illogical those might be. That's going to make for an interesting election campaign when it is called. My guess is that Howard will go to the country well before Bush has to face his own electorate.

Chess! What is it good for?

The board game Go, known in China as weiqi, is a game of territory and encirclement, and has long been linked with warfare. Some of the earliest military references appear during the Dong Han dynasty, from AD25 to AD220. They describe weiqi as a game of war, and some modern scholars infer that the Chinese might at that time have been using it to model military strategies. Mao Zedong reportedly insisted his generals study weiqi - and there are rumours that today senior members of the Chinese military must be proficient at the game to progress through the highest ranks, says Jason Scholz of Australia's defence science and technology organisation.

The Persian game of Shatranj is believed to be adapted from the Indian chess-precursor Chaturanga (although there are some scholars who argue that Shatranj came first). Like the Indian version, the Persian game includes elephant pieces and horses, and Persian nobles were taught Shatranj as part of training in military strategy. It has even been suggested that pawns' ability to move two squares in their opening move in modern chess is a Persian modification, to better model a strategy in which foot soldiers with spears rushed ahead of the rest of the attacking army - but the true origins of military influences on chess, and the game itself, remain murky.

The build-up to the war in Iraq coincided with the first results from the chess simulations run by Jason Scholz and his team. 'We watched with great interest the dialogue between General [Tommy} Franks, who wanted to use more materiel, and Donald Rumsfeld who wanted a fast tempo and lighter units,' Scholz says. Based on the chess results, which favoured a fast, decisive attack strategy, Scholz says his advice would have been to go along with the US defence secretary's ideas. 'In the end, there was a compromise,' he says. 'But a relatively fast tempo did really gain a very decisive, rapid advantage in Iraq.' However, trying to win a battle as quickly as possible might not always be the best strategy, he adds: 'You can win a battle quickly but hearts and minds are not so easily won - and of course we do have continuing trouble in Iraq.'

The Younger Avesta claims that Zoroaster invented chess to explain the meaning of things to King Vishtaspa. It's a nice tale that deserves to be true, but probably is not.

I used to play large and complex boardgames with actual people. We were all close friends and fairly social. Sadly, Civilisation was released and we all retired to our solitary and antisocial keyboards.

Did Bush Press For Iraq-9/11 Link?

'Frankly,' he said, 'I find it outrageous that the President is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We'll never know.'

Clarke went on to say, 'I think he's done a terrible job on the war against terrorism.'

The No. 2 man on the president's National Security Council, Stephen Hadley, vehemently disagrees. He says Mr. Bush has taken the fight to the terrorists, and is making the U.S. homeland safer.

Clarke says that as early as the day after the attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was pushing for retaliatory strikes on Iraq, even though al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan.

Clarke suggests the idea took him so aback, he initally thought Rumsfeld was joking.

More later when the full transcript is available.

Canada Got it Right on Iraq

What lessons should Canada learn from the Iraq experience? First and foremost, that values matter in foreign policy. Reduced to its basics, participation in the Iraq war would have meant sending young Canadians to kill, and be killed by, young Iraqis for the sake of maintaining friendly relations with Washington.

Second, going along to get along has never made good public policy, or good politics, either. The Canadian government looked at the evidence Washington presented and voted its conscience. Another government, the Spanish, looked at the same evidence, and voted its interests, specifically its interests with Washington. One is in office and the other is not.

Third, the Iraq war demonstrates the limits of intelligence. The U.S. administration and others made intelligence pivotal to their decision-making. The Canadian government used it as one input among many. One government is embarrassed and the other is not. Time, and enquiries, will tell whether the intelligence in the United States and Britain was just catastrophically bad, politically manipulated or both. The Canadian analysis was better.

Fourth, Canada does not have to choose between the UN and the United States. To be respected in Washington, we need to be effective in the world, including at the UN. The converse is also true; effectiveness in New York depends on visible influence in Washington.

Finally, we should not shrink from disagreeing with U.S. administrations when they are wrong any more than we should shrink from agreeing with them when they are right. We should call them as we see them. We did so on Iraq, and we have been vindicated.

Really, this is a Canadian version of the Powell doctrine Australia should have followed it a year ago. We should follow it in the future.

Building a better paralytocracy

The Iraqi interim constitution requires a two-thirds vote:

• in the National Assembly
  
  
  
  • Article 36(A) to elect the Presidency Council
    
  • Article 36(A) to elect a replacement to a vacancy in the Presidency Council
    
  • Article 37 to pass a bill vetoed by the Presidency Council
    
  • Article 38(B) to nominate a prime minister if the Presidency Council cannot agree on one
    
  
  
• in the Supreme Court
  
  
  
  • Article 44(B0(1) and (D) to rule on disputes between different levels of government
    
  
  
  
• in the electorate
  
  
  
  • to be one of 3 provinces rejecting the permanent constitution
    
  
  

Article 36(C) of the interim constitution requires a unanimous vote in the Presidency Council to make any decision.

Article 3 of the interim constitution requires a three-quarters vote in the National Assembly and a unanimous vote in the Presidency Council to amend the constitution itself or the not yet written Annex.

Suermajorities are not unusual. However a unanimity rule for the executive is, especially when that carries a veto on constitutional amendments. There's an old joke that the Australian constitution was written to punish New South Wales, the largest state. This constitution not only punishes the Shi'ites, it deprives the whole system of any real chance of working. Iraq has no tradition of liberal democracy, or even familiarity with the kinds of parliamentary compromises that are necessary to keep constitutional structure working.

Weirdly enough, the constitution abandons the supermajority principle when it comes to electing the Assembly president:

The president of the National Assembly shall be the individual who receives the greatest number of votes for that office; the first deputy president the next highest; and the second deputy president the next.

That system was used until 1800 to elect US presidents. It is an unpredictable and unaccountable system that tends to produce splits and disputes. See the Jefferson/Burr election. Depending on the number of Shi'ite candidates for the presidency it could feasibly produce an Assembly Speaker diametrically opposed to the Presidency Council and the Prime Minister. Equally (and the system's impact is unpredictable) it could produce an Assembly President tightly tied to those groups. We are not even told whether each deputy gets one vote or 3 in electing the Assembly Presidency or what the relationship is between the Assembly's president, first deputy president and second deputy president.

Finally, nowhere are we told (in clear terms) whether a two-thirds vote means 2/3 of all deputies or 2/3 of those present and voting, although that might be clearer in the Arabic original.

Under this arrangement, the most obvious solution is a deal with the Kurds. That would give the Shi'ites working control of the Presidency Council and the National Assembly. The Sunni will feel as isolated as they do now. Are they likely to argue for amendments to the terms of the constitution, or simply to call in question the thing's dubious legitimacy?

Can Iraq embrace democracy?

The man most likely to be Iraq's first Shiite president, the bespectacled and scholarly looking Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, has taken over the riverfront mansion that was home to Tariq Aziz, the man who was Saddam's deputy and who now languishes in a US-run prison. One of his key advisers is Dr Hamid al-Bayati, a recently returned exile. In an interview, he offers a little more meat for the bones of an Iraqi democracy: 'We have to take Iraqi reality into account - we can't copy any one democratic system in the world and apply it here.'

But, unlike some here, he is not shy about stating what to Shiites is obvious: 'I have to be frank and say that all the Iraqi minorities are worried about the Shiites having a majority - especially the Sunnis. But this is the reality and we can't change the make-up of the Iraqi people.

'It's obvious that the Shiite majority of the people will elect a Shiite majority in the assembly. They have tried to provoke us with the attack that killed our former leader and then with the attacks on our most emotional holy day (which killed close to 200 Shiite worshippers at mosques in Baghdad and Karbala on March 2). But so far we have not responded - we realise there is a conspiracy to provoke a civil war between us and the Sunnis. But it's not just up to the Shiites. It's up to all in the community to stop the push for war.'

However, despite all the Shiites' public anxiety about the draft constitution, Bayati claims that even if the Shiites fail to have it rewritten, they will accept the interim charter as it is written.

Many Iraqi leadership figures think 'tribe' and 'mosque' before thinking 'nation' of the land that lies within borders that Britain carved out in the time of Lawrence of Arabia.

Since occupying Iraq, the US has been reluctant to harness either of these dominant power structures to its own ends. Instead, it has attempted to thwart what seems like an inevitable majority Shiite rise to power and to sidestep the tribes, despite the fact that no regime, Saddam's included, has survived without their support.

The occupation of Iraq is not an especially new phenomenon. McGeough cites Panama and Grenada as the only democratic outcomes for 16 US military interventions this century. The present chaos in Haiti is at least in part the outcome of a US intervention.

We were always told Iraq would be different, but thus far the only difference has been the extraordinary reluctance of its promoters to accept responsibility for anything from the original casus belli to the present state of the country. The new constitution merely sets up a paralytocracy which will not even command its own forces or territory.

Para-States - Liberation Movements, Terrorist Organizations and Others

This directory of para-states is not a list of terrorist organizations, and is not constructed to supplement or complement the list of terrorist organizations of the US Department of State. The guide intentionally casts a wide net, and includes both the nasty and nice.

Worth glancing over, despite their inclusion of groups like al-Qa'ida, CNRT and the Free Papua Movement in the same list.

Although somewhat out-of-date the list is valuable because it really makes you ask (again) why Bush chose to prosecute a war on parastates by attacking the state of Iraq. The Afghan situation is different because al-Qa'ida and the Taliban had become so close that they were effectively operating as a single entity. That is why so few opposed Afghanistan and so many opposed Iraq.

Equally important, the list establishes that there is not one, but a whole constellation of jihadi parastates. Destroying al-Qa'ida would be an excellent thing. It would not necessarily prevent attacks by other parastates like JI or Salafiya Jihadiya.

Telling a tale with too many words

Studies conducted in the past decade found a high proportion of depressive poets, novelists, composers and visual artists when compared to people in non-creative professions. So, is a certain degree of mental instability, a glitch in the brain, necessary to be an artist? Perhaps not. After all, countless mentally and emotionally healthy artists tell us otherwise. Yet many creative people believe their mood or brain disorders facilitate their work. As the writer Robert Burton said: 'All poets are mad.'

Lesions on the temporal lobe cause TLE. Although it tends to run in the family, there is no known cause of manic depression. In both instances, however, the hypergraphic writer generally does not wish to be cured. In fact, many hypergraphics are quite content with their condition. Unlike writer's block, it isn't painful.

'It felt like a disease: I could not stop,' Flaherty writes. 'It also felt like one of the best things that has ever happened to me. It still does.'

On the off chance this disorder is contagious, any hypergraphics willing to exchange their precious bodily fluids should contact me as soon as possible.

UFO streaks through Martian sky

The US Spirit rover on Mars has seen a UFO streak across the Red Planet sky.

Astronomers say it could be the first meteor seen from the surface of another world, or a redundant orbiting spacecraft sent to Mars 30 years ago.

'We may never know, but we are still looking for clues,' said Dr Mark Lemmon, from Texas A&M University.

Whatever it was, Spirit was lucky to catch sight of the UFO as the rover's main mission is to look downwards to study rocks and soil on the planet.

I can almost read the argument now about UFOs existing on every planet where we've been. Sadly there are more prosaic explanations. Prosaic explanations are not nearly as much fun.

Spain's response to terror

Independent polls carried out on Wednesday, the day before the bombings, showed the Socialists ahead with a slight majority.

A poll carried out by Noxa Consulting on Wednesday gave the Socialists less than a 2 percent margin, putting them, nevertheless, in the lead. A similar poll conducted Friday -- a day after the attacks, gave the Socialists an even greater lead. The big difference -- and the clear reason of the Socialist victory -- was the nearly 3 million votes the Socialists added while Aznar's now not so Popular Party lost about 690,000 votes.

It follows that the bombing and it's aftermath merely strengthened a swing that had already occurred. No doubt bloggers on the right who have comprehensively sprayed the Spanish people for exercising their sovereign right to be masters of their own house will all rush to apologise.

Link via Center for American Progress

Time will heal Iraq wounds: Armitage

KERRY O'BRIEN: In terms of the support that you've received from your allies in Iraq, you must be worried at the implications of Spain's threat - apparent determination - to withdraw its troops from Iraq, at the spectacle for that matter of an ally like Spain describing the occupation of Iraq as a fiasco?

[US Deputy Secretary of State] RICHARD ARMITAGE: Well, we've had conversations with Mr Zapatero.

My own view is a little different from yours.

I saw several million Spaniards holding their hands up the other day in the wake of the terrible Madrid bombing and what I saw was not people holding their hands up in surrender, but holding their hands up against terrorism.

I think in the long run, terrorists have awakened what's going to turn out to be a virulent enemy for them in Spain.

We'll see as we move forward.

It's the Prime Minister's right to remove his troops.

I notice that he did say that he would remove the troops if there were not some sort of unspecified UN mandate.

I think we've got a while to go and we'll see how it plays out.

I'm glad the Bush administration agrees that the Spanish election was about how, not if, terror should be fought.

Poland 'Misled' on Iraq, President Says

President Aleksander Kwasniewski, a key Washington ally, said Thursday he may withdraw troops early from Iraq and that Poland was 'misled' about the threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

His remarks to a small group of European reporters were his first hint of criticism about war in Iraq, where Poland currently has 2,400 troops and with the United States and Britain commands one of three sectors of the U.S.-led occupation.

'Naturally, one may protest the reasons for the war action in Iraq. I personally think that today, Iraq without Saddam Hussein is a truly better Iraq than with Saddam Hussein,' Kwasniewski told the European reporters.

'But naturally I also feel uncomfortable due to the fact that we were misled with the information on weapons of mass destruction,' he said, according to a transcript released by the presidential press office.

Earlier in the day, Kwasniewski said Poland may start withdrawing its troops from Iraq early next year, months earlier than the previously stated date of mid-2005.

'Everything suggests that pullout from Iraq may be possible after the stabilization mission is crowned with success and, in my assessment soon, it may be the start of 2005,' Kwasniewski told RMF-FM radio.

We do not yet know if the Spanish election is a one-off or the beginning of a trend. This statement tend to support the idea that we are seeing a trend. What we are certainly seeing is that the Rumsfeld distinction between old and new Europe seems not to have a lot of meaning for Europeans.

According to the Christian Science Monitor:

In Warsaw, the supposed capital of new Europe, there are signs of opposition to the policy. Opinion polls at the outbreak of hostilities in Iraq showed two-thirds of Poles opposed the war, and even after the fall of Baghdad that figure remains at more than 55 percent.

Le Nouvel Observateur reports that similar doubts are being expressed in Ukraine and Azerbaijan. They mention l'Homme d'Acier as well.

The Polish people were also less supportive of the Iraq enterprise than their government. It looks like coalition governments are beginning to look over their shoulders. This does not mean abandoning the fight against terror. It may mean adopting better ways of fighting it. The European interior and security ministers meet on Friday and that should produce some interesting news. Certainly you'd have to agree that if Iraq is in fact the central front of the war on terror, it is doing little to prevent terrorist attacks in coalition countries or elsewhere.

That was the intelligence before the war. It is proving true.

For US hawks, Madrid 2004 = Munich 1938

But aside from this rather fundamental disagreement over whether Iraq is or is not part of the 'war against terrorism', the eagerness with which the hawks have taken to comparing the Spanish electorate's verdict to the 1938 Munich agreement also betrays a basic distrust of democracy, about which the neo-cons have long been ambivalent.

In their view, it was liberal democracies that appeased Hitler in the 1930s and so paved the way to World War II and the Nazi Holocaust. Indeed, the perception that 'liberals' failed to fight for their principles in the 1960s is what first alienated neo-conservatives from the Democratic Party.

The neo-cons' perception that Spaniards voted for the Socialists out of fear of al-Qaeda's wrath confirms to them that democracy, particularly of the European variety, is weak.

In actuality Chamberlain was a realpolitik conservative and Daladier was a centrist. Neither could remotely be called liberals. They acted over Poland, not Czechosolvakia, because their electorates demanded it. Even after Poland Chamberlain continued to advocate a negotiated settlement with Germany.

For such deep thinkers, the neocons have a surprisingly weak grasp of history.

Shock and Awe, from Mesopotamia toMadrid

Asia Times Online also learned from Spanish sources of the crucial democratic role played by King Juan Carlos of Spain. On March 11, the day of the bombings, the king told the Aznar government to admit the Islamist connection publicly. Angel Acebes, the interior minister, was forced to call an impromptu press conference that evening to announce the finding of the van with the Koran tape and the detonators - which happened, according to the Spanish press, at 11am. Only 10 minutes after the press conference, the king went on national television to express his sorrow. And he never mentioned the word 'ETA'.

March 11 changed Europe - and the world - and that's why there was such thundering silence from Washington, now replaced with the infantile hysteria of blaming Spanish voters. It's unbearable for the neo-cons to see there's now a totally different dynamic in the trans-Atlantic relationship. The Blair-Berlusconi-Aznar pro-Washington axis has been reduced to ashes.

The new Spanish prime minister-elect, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, with his name still mispronounced by misinformed White House and State Department officials, has declared that 'the war in Iraq is a disaster, and the occupation continues to be a disaster'. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin added that 'we cannot but see that today there are two focuses nourishing terrorism in the world: the first is the crisis in the Middle East, and the second is Iraq'.

The perception among most European politicians, intellectuals and the overwhelming majority of public opinion is that Washington does not care about what happens in Iraq: the only thing that matters is to repatriate US troops as soon as possible for the electoral benefit of Bush next November. Secretary of State Colin Powell is very much aware of the Franco-German-Russian - and now also Spanish - position on foreign troops in Iraq: a fully sovereign Iraqi government has to request them, and the United Nations Security Council has to approve it.

As well as Tony Blair, Italian premier and 'amico di Bush' Silvio Berlusconi, whose credibility is near zero inside the European Union, is now even more isolated. In an interview to the Italian daily Il Foglio - whose owner is Silvio's wife - the premier proposed 'a pact' to 'exclude terrorism from political debate in Italian democracy'. Meanwhile, EU governments are meeting this Friday to discuss exactly how to fight terrorism. Nobody paid the slightest attention to Silvio's 'pact'.

The report of the king's intervention is new. It would explain a lot about the conduct of the Spanish government in the 48 hours preceding the election. Really, is the best the war party can produce an attempt to exclude terrorism from political debate, and therefore from accountability? Did George Bush feel an urge not to speak about terrorism during the congressional campaign in 2002 when he criss-crossed the US speaking about the Iraqi threat?

A modest proposal

The Howard government's next budget will increase spending on the security services by $400 million. Southerly Buster is always concerned about wasteful public expenditure. Along with a number of much more illustrious blogs on the left side of Ozplogistan, Southerly Buster has a better record of prediction on the Iraq war than the security services.

The Howard government can thus save a great deal of money by diverting the millions from the fat and bloated public sector of the intelligence community to the thin and ferret-like private sector. They should reduce the spending increase by a factor of 400 and give us the rest. We will provide the government, as we have in the past, with much better guesswork about likely outcomes. And we'll do it a lot faster as well. Think of us as Team B Plus.

The blogosphere would certainly have noticed the caveats and exceptions which the government overlooked, such as the JIC finding that the Iraq war would increase the level of the terrorist threat. We did not predict a cakewalk, or a self-funding war, or a punitive expedition without any blowback at all. We picked up the importance of the Shi'a leadership a lot earlier than the bureaucrats. We even expressed a degree of scepticism about the nonexistent WMDs.

We're self-correcting as my recent blooper of 70 million demonstrators in a nation of 40,077,100 shows. I know how I wrote that, the fingers flew faster than the brain, but discovery of the blooper did not alter the main point, that marching against terror in massive numbers in the face of a recent bombing in a public place, is a brave thing to do. I am sure there is a first assistant secretary somewhere in the prime minister's department who would have picked up the numerical error and noted it did not vitiate the argument.

Besides, every nation should have a chief of intelligence who looks like Quiggers.

Dateline | Gunaratna on threat

MARK DAVIS: Well, you've raised one regional issue, that was Australia's involvement in Iraq, increasing the threat of a terror attack in Australia. Did you discuss this issue with the head of the AFP, Mick Keelty?

DR ROHAN GUNARATNA: Certainly at the conference, the issue of Iraq was discussed and of course I've made my opinion public and to reiterate, I believe that the US invasion of Iraq has increased the threat of terrorism worldwide. It is because the invasion of Iraq has angered the Muslims and there's tremendous resentment and unhappiness, even on the part of the moderate Muslims. And the terrorist groups and the extremist organisations are exploiting that resentment, that anger and generating support and recruiting more people as sympathisers, supporters and members. Iraq has become the new land of jihad. The Islamists desperately needed a theatre after the loss of Afghanistan for them to physically and psychologically water in. Iraq has created that opportunity.

MARK DAVIS: But is this a problem in Australia? This is the core question.

DR ROHAN GUNARATNA: I believe that there's overall increase of threat as a result of US invasion of Iraq and certainly it will have a bearing on Australia.

MARK DAVIS: Do you agree with Mr Keelty's original analysis rather than Mr Howard's?

DR ROHAN GUNARATNA: Yes, I think the AFP Commissioner in this case, he was right.

There's a delicious irony in the Man of Steel suddenly falling afoul of the security politics he's made his trademark. After 2 years of telling us we must save the nation by supporting him suddenly he's telling us that there really is not such a great big threat after all, and if there it's certainly not his fault. This 180 degree reversal is going to make scare tactics a lot harder when the election campaign starts.

I think the war in Iraq was wrong. That judgment does not turn on whether it raised the threat of a terrorist attack on Australia.

I also think the khaki election campaign of 2001 was wrong. My criticism of the Howard government' effort against terrorism is that they should have built on real successes like the Bali criminal work instead of getting caught up in the Bush administration's war of imagery.

Fighting terror is too serious to be left to the spindoctors.

Three-Toed Sloth | Mars used to have an atmosphere, but they didn't listen

Ages ago Notebooks was one of my favourite sites. Naturally it has now reincarnated as a blog.

Spain Campaigned to Pin Blame on ETA

Immediately after Thursday's bombings, Foreign Minister Ana Palacio telephoned her British counterpart, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, to say that it was ETA, according to a British official, who added, 'We had no independent evidence of our own that the Spanish were wrong.' Less than two hours later, Straw was on television saying, 'It looks to be an ETA terrorist outrage, and that is the information we've received from Madrid.'

At the same time, the Spanish Foreign Ministry was sending instructions to its embassies, saying diplomats 'should use any opportunity to confirm ETA's responsibility for these brutal attacks,' according to a copy of the letter published in the Spanish daily El Pais. Spanish officials have confirmed that the instructions went out, but said they were only for 'guidance.'

Meanwhile, Arnaldo Otegi, head of the banned Batasuna party, which Aznar's government alleges to be ETA's political wing, condemned the attack, which experts on the Basque situation said was unusual. Otegi's condemnation was given wide coverage on radio stations outside Madrid. Between noon and 2 p.m. Thursday, Catalan radio was airing discussion programs exploring the possibility of al Qaeda involvement. On one Catalan station, 91.0 FM, Otegi said in an interview that the attacks were carried out by 'the Arab resistance, possibly in retaliation for the Spanish presence in Iraq.'

Just more evidence of the extent to which the Aznar government went in trying to spin M-11 into an electoral plus for themselves. It's also interesting the UN and other coalition governments went along without questioning the Spanish claims at all. Rather the way the same governments treated the Bush administration's claims about Iraq.




But in Madrid, radio stations were referring to 'the ETA attacks' and carried none of the discussion about whether others might have been involved."

Terror risk linked to Iraq: ASIO chief

ASIO chief Dennis Richardson says Australia is a terrorist target partly because of its role in the US-led war against terrorism.

But Mr Richardson's comments have not worried the Government, which has moved to end a rift with Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty over the issue.

Commissioner Keelty won praise from the Government after distancing himself from remarks linking the Madrid bombings to Spain's support for the Iraq war.

Mr Richardson says while Australia would have been a terrorist target regardless of its involvement in Iraq, recent events have had an influence.

"We are a target because we are seen to be part of the 'Zionist Christian conspiracy'," Mr Richardson said. "In other words, because we are who we are.

"The fact that we are in close alliance with the United States and the fact that we were early and actively involved in the war on terrorism does contribute to our being a target."

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer is untroubled by the spy chief's comments, saying that "what Dennis Richardson says is exactly what I say - we were a target long before the Iraq war".

Mr Downer says terrorists have focused on Australia because it is a Western democratic country.

Traditionally the armed forces and the police stayed out of politics. I doubt Keelty thought he was saying anything especially political until he got the call from Sinodinos, the prime minister's chief of staff. In fact, if you look at his comment he was not. It's also a disgrace that the Man of Steel chose to carpet Keelty by having an unelected political adviser sink the boot.

When Cosgrove entered the debate it was already a topic of partisan controversy and his contribution, as on other occasions, supported the government's position.

That does not detract from the respect earned Cosgrove earned as Interfet's commander. It does suggest he's a better general than politician and that's the way it should be.

The guts of the issue is the government's willingness to politicise intelligence by quoting it selectively. The parliamentary committee noted that before the war the government published intelligence that supported it's position and withheld the qualifications and exceptions that intelligence included. Paras 5.22, 5.23

One deleted qualification was the JIC finding that an Iraq war would increase the level of terrorism. Para 4.29 This current dispute is just a subset of that whole argument. The problem is not Cosgrove commenting or Keelty commenting, the problem is the government's drive to present a partisan opinion as the unanimous conclusion of all intelligence agencies, a process also noted by the parliamentary committee.

It would be better to go back to the old convention that ministers, not officials, speak on government policy, and to set up a system of opposition and third party security briefings (as happens in London) to ensure ministers distinguish between speaking on first principles and quoting official advice.

Keelty retreats on terrorism remarks

Earlier today, Mr Downer told reporters: 'I think (Mr Keelty) is just expressing ... a view which reflects a lot of the propaganda we're getting from al-Qaeda.'

The AFP chief has been at odds with Prime Minister John Howard who insists that Australian involvement in the war has not heightened the risk of a terror attack.

Late today the commissioner moved to douse the political fire by saying his comments had been taken out of context.

Mr Downer tonight said Mr Keelty was doing a wonderful job in the fight against terrorism.

'He is an outstanding Australian, he will go down in history as one of the great police commissioners,' he said.

'I certainly have no intention of reflecting on him and his professionalism.'

Bad enough that the Howard government seems to have no sense of shame. Now they even seem to lack a sense of the ridiculous. Downer's propaganda allegation is unambiguous. He should withdraw it.

Clean and austere: Mexico's next president?

Even as a political scandal consumes members of his party, the mayor's management of the capital has him pegged in most opinion polls as the front-runner to succeed President Vicente Fox when his term ends in 2006.

Mr. Fox is heralded for breaking the 71-year grip on power held by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). But he has shown little progress since taking office in 2000. The economy remains sluggish, unemployment is up, and major reforms are stalled in Congress.

'Mexico is a classic new democracy, and voters are looking for leaders that are both honest and competent. And Mr. L�pez Obrador is all that,' says political scientist Federico Es�vez of the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico, a leading university.

The mayor's leftist, anti-US politics sit well with the vast number of marginalized Mexicans, who denounce market policies that skimp on social programs.

L�pez Obrador rejects many of the ideas that Fox supports, such as selling off the state-owned oil monopoly to foreign interests. He questions the benefits of the North America Free Trade Agreement, saying that Mexican farmers have received 'absolutely nothing' from it.

The mayor's harshest critics say he is a quixotic populist, like Venezuela's leader, Hugo Ch�vez, who has sent the once oil-rich economy sinking. Others call him 'Mexico's Lula,' referring to Brazil's President Luiz In�cio Lula da Silva, who softened his radical politics to appeal to both leftists and capitalists.

One Spanish swallow is not a summer, and President Fox's term does not end until 2006, but it seems at least the Iberoamerican world is turning up an interesting set of 'Fourth Way' politicians. That is not good news for the Washington dissensus.

Howard won't face the music on Iraq

Here in Australia John Howard's Government is eight years old, too. Nice coincidence. But what happened on Sunday morning had nothing to do with coincidence when the head of the Prime Minister's personal staff, Arthur Sinodinos, phoned 'to have a word' with the head of Australia's Federal Police, Commissioner Mick Keelty, at the Nine Network's Sydney headquarters.

Keelty had just told the Sunday program: 'The reality is, if this turns out to be Islamic extremists responsible for this bombing in Spain, it's more likely to be linked to the position Spain and other allies took on issues such as Iraq. And I don't think anyone's been hiding the fact we do believe that, ultimately, one day, whether it be in one month's time, one year's time, or 10 years' time, something will happen.'

Bad move, Commissioner. Honest, but utterly unwanted when your Prime Minister is saying the opposite.

The Australian's Steve Lewis broke the story yesterday of the Sinodinos call. Lewis said Sinodinos had 'rebuked' Keelty. When I asked the Prime Minister's chief spokesman, Tony O'Leary, to comment, he confirmed Sinodinos had phoned Keelty about a 'potential media problem'.

No, not a problem for the Government, insisted O'Leary - for Keelty! What O'Leary called 'a media handling problem' for the commissioner. Wonderful, don't you think? Oh, yes, and one more thing. Sinodinos rang Keelty only 'after a conversation with the Prime Minister'. O'Leary did not have any detail. That is left to our imagination.

Yesterday, according to a Canberra source, Keelty got another call from the Prime Minister's 'office'. This time he was 'asked' not to make any further media appearances for the time being. In other words, please keep his mouth shut, thank you. The pain in Spain is secret Prime Minister's business.

The Man of Steel appeared on 7:30 Report last night:

KERRY O'BRIEN: John Howard, you've said today, quite unequivocally, that there is no link between the Madrid bombings and Australia.

How can you say that, knowing that, like Australia, Spain is a close ally of the United States in Iraq and that Al Qaeda is a strong suspect in the attack?

JOHN HOWARD, PRIME MINISTER: Well, for a couple of reasons, Kerry.

The first and the most obvious one is that because an attack occurs in another country, unless there is evidence of some direct implication for Australia, which there isn't, then I can make that statement.

The second reason why I make the statement is that it's my view that Iraq is really irrelevant to the intent and the purposes of Al Qaeda.

It may be something that is used for propaganda and recruitment purposes, and this is not only my view but it's also the view of the Director General of ASIO Dennis Richardson.

He gave voice to this view in a major speech he gave last year.

I think people have got to remember that Australia was identified as a potential Al Qaeda target before 11 September, and that the first time Al Qaeda mentioned Australia in a negative way was in relation to our involvement in East Timor.

That strikes me as a dramatic shift from, for instance 26 February when the line was:

MITCHELL: We'll talk about superannuation in a moment, there's a lot of detail to go through there. But terrorism first, the CIA Director is predicting more terrorism this year, thinks it is inevitable - do you agree?

PRIME MINISTER: Sadly, yes. I hope it doesn't come here but there will be further terrorist attacks somewhere in the world this year. I suppose, people might say given the past couple of years that's a fairly easy call to make. There has been progress made but we're going to have to live with this issue for a lot of years into the future. I know people are developing a bit of weariness with the subject and wonder why we have to keep talking about it - I wish I didn't have to, but it would not be responsible to pretend that the threat has gone away. I can only hope that it doesn't come to Australia and we'll do all we can to prevent it coming to Australia.

Evidently, 18 days can be a long time in politics. Perhaps Madrid makes campaigning on security politics rather less effective.

Taming the prerogative

The Report concludes that a different approach is needed, and that comprehensive legislation should be drawn up which would require government within six months to list the prerogative powers exercised by Ministers. The list would then be considered by a parliamentary committee and appropriate legislation would be framed to put in place statutory safeguards where necessary. A paper and draft Bill appended to the Report, prepared by Professor Rodney Brazier, the specialist adviser to the inquiry, contain these provisions as well as proposals for early legislative action in the case of three of the most important specific areas covered by prerogative powers: decisions on armed conflict, treaties and passports. The Report recommends that the Government should, before the end of the current session, initiate a public consultation exercise on the prerogative powers of Ministers.

The House of Commons public administration committee has written a draft bill which among other things, requires parliamentary approval before going to war or ratifying certain treaties.

The bill would require the consent of both houses before:

• 5(1)(a)��"armed conflict" means any use of force which gives rise, or may give rise, to a situation of armed conflict to which the Geneva Conventions of 1949 or the Additional Protocols of 1977 apply;
  
  
• 6��Declaration of war
  
  
• 7(1)��Any use of Her Majesty's armed forces in support of the police
  
  

That's already required by the US constitution and could be achieved by statute in Australia. The Australian Democrats have proposed changes to the Defence Act in the past without success. Our constitution is silent on the war power because it was written for a self-governing colony within an empire that no longer exists. The Commons committee makes the point that the exercise of the royal prerogative by ministers was never voted by parliament, it just evolved with the disappearance of the Crown's political powers. Rather than being abolished or democratised the royal prerogative was simply shifted to the prime minister.

The Man of Steel sought consent for the Iraq war from both houses. The Senate refused its consent and was ignored. There is no higher decision than going to war and it's an outrage that it remains a thing the prime minister, acting alone, can decide without appeal.