There’s no questioning that everyone from the President to the ex-Secretary of Defense and his underlings should be held accountable for their actions, but the chances of that happening are highly unlikely. The Bush Administration politicized the CIA, now those commonly thrown under the bus are doing their best to make sure that doesn’t happen…

“Senior intelligence officers are lobbying the outgoing president to look after the men and women who could face charges for following his orders in the war on terrorism.

Many fear that Barack Obama, who has pledged to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and put an end to the policy of extraordinary rendition, could launch a legal witch hunt against those who oversaw the policies after he is sworn in on Jan 20.

Most vulnerable are US intelligence officers who took part in intensive interrogations against terrorist suspects, using techniques including water boarding, which many believe crossed the line into torture.

A former CIA officer familiar with the backstage lobbying for pardons, said: “These are the people President Bush asked to fight the war on terror for him. He gave them the green light to fight tough. The view of many in the intelligence community is that he should not leave them vulnerable to legal censure when he leaves.

“An effort is under way to get pre-emptive pardons. The White House has indicated that the matter is under consideration.”

In addition to frontline CIA and military officers, others at risk could include David Addington, Dick Cheney’s former counsel, and William Haynes, the former Pentagon general counsel who helped draw up the regulations governing enhanced interrogations.”

Leonard Pitts Jr. of the Miami Herald had something rather profound published in yesterday’s edition. He went on a bent about some memos, waterboarding, the CIA, the Bush Administration, the fact that no one really noticed – you know, the usual…

“You remember the War on Terror, don’t you? It was in all the papers. Back before presidential politics sucked the air from the room and your 401(k) shrank till it was worth maybe dinner and a movie, it was considered quite the important news story. Abu Ghraib? Extraordinary renditions? Fight ‘em over there so we don’t have to fight ‘em over here? Surely you recall.

I only ask because of a news story that broke last week to a yawn of media disinterest. The Washington Post reported on two secret White House memos explicitly endorsing the use of waterboarding — simulated drowning — on so-called high-value terrorism suspects. This is, says The Post, the first time the still-classified memos have been disclosed. They were written in response to requests from then-CIA Director George Tenet, who worried his agents might be hung out to dry if the practice were discovered and the people or their representatives demanded someone’s head.

According to The Post, the White House issued written authorizations in 2003 and 2004. Yet in 2006, President Bush told the nation, “The United States does not torture. It’s against our laws, and it’s against our values. I have not authorized it — and I will not authorize it.”

Which was, of course, a lie.

You’d think the latest proof of that lie — yet another smoking gun to stack with all the others — would merit attention. But a computer search Thursday turned up only seven newspaper stories mentioning the memos. Searches of the CNN and FOX news websites also came up dry, though the story did appear on MSNBC’s site.

If you think my point is that the media missed an important story, it isn’t. No, the point is that normal is not where we thought it would be.

You remember how it was just after Sept. 11, 2001, right? Some of us vowed we would never enter a skyscraper again. Some of us didn’t want to leave our houses again. The minutiae of popular culture became staggeringly unimportant. Humorists like David Letterman and my colleague, Dave Barry, wondered if they could ever return to the business of laughter.

We were scared dry. And some of us said: Get used to it. This was the new normal.

But skyscrapers did not close from lack of use. We did not become a nation of agoraphobics. We did not lose our interest in singers and movie stars. Letterman and Barry went back to work.

Fear, which had cut through us like a hot poker, became instead a low-grade fever, ambient noise, wallpaper, something you feel without feeling, hear without hearing, see without seeing.

Then you look up one day and realize how profoundly that fear has changed your world. People are imprisoned without charges or access to attorneys, and it’s routine. People are surveilled, their reading habits studied, their telephone usage logged, and it’s commonplace. People, including children, end up on a secret list of those who are not allowed to fly, nobody will tell you why, there is no appeal, and it’s ordinary. We swallow lies like candy, nod sagely at babblespeak, and it’s unexceptional.

Torture is inflicted with White House approval, the president lies about it and it’s just another Tuesday.

Once upon a time, Americans were fond of looking upon backward nations, upon places where law was whatever the king said it was, and noting with pride that we do things differently in our country. But that was a day long ago and a country long gone.”

Congress will vote tomorrow whether to back a Senate revision to the proposed $700 billion dollar economic bailout package. The President, as always, continues to play the fear card, claiming that it is an issue that goes beyond Wall Street and that the House Of Representatives has a responsibility to average Americans to support the deal and thus instill a sense of stability. Of course, the House’s rejection of the initial bailout plan was very much aligned with public sentiment, something that the White House continues to overlook.

In today’s Guardian, historian Howard Zinn provides commentary with regards to the crisis which is noteworthy…

“This current financial crisis is a major way-station on the way to the collapse of the American empire. The first important sign was 9/11, with the most heavily-armed nation in the world shown to be vulnerable to a handful of hijackers.

And now, another sign: both major parties rushing to get an agreement to spend $700bn of taxpayers’ money to pour down the drain of huge financial institutions which are notable for two characteristics: incompetence and greed.

There is a much better solution to the current financial crisis. But it requires discarding what has been conventional “wisdom” for too long: that government intervention in the economy (”big government”) must be avoided like the plague, because the “free market” will guide the economy towards growth and justice.

Let’s face a historical truth: we have never had a “free market”, we have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry. They had no quarrel with “big government” when it served their needs.

It started way back, when the founding fathers met in Philadelphia in 1787 to draft the constitution. The first big bail-out was the decision of the new government to redeem for full value the almost worthless bonds held by speculators. And this role of big government, supporting the interests of the business classes, continued all through the nation’s history.

The rationale for taking $700bn from the taxpayers to subsidise huge financial institutions is that somehow that wealth will trickle down to the people who need it. This has never worked.

The alternative is simple and powerful. Take that huge sum of money and give it directly to the people who need it. Let the government declare a moratorium on foreclosures and give aid to homeowners to help them pay off their mortgages. Create a federal jobs programme to guarantee work to people who want and need jobs and for whom “the free market” has not come through.

We have a historic and successful precedent. Roosevelt’s New Deal put millions of people to work, rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, and, defying the cries of “socialism”, established social security. That can be carried further, with “health security” – free health care – for all.

All that will take more than $700bn. But the money is there. In the $600bn for the military budget, once we decide we will no longer be a war-making nation. And in the swollen bank accounts of the super-rich, by taxing vigorously both their income and their wealth.

When the cry goes up, whether from Republicans or Democrats, that this must not be done because it is “big government”, the citizenry should just laugh. And then agitate and organise on behalf of what the Declaration of Independence promised: that it is the responsibility of government to ensure the equal right of all to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

Only such a bold approach can save the nation – not as an empire, but as a democracy.”

It’s happened twice in recent days – two US incursions into the Pakistani Province of Waziristan, both denied by the United States. The first involved two US helicopters that were, according to Pakistani sources, fired upon, and which returned to Afghan airspace without returning fire. The second incident involved a US drone that reportedly crashed in Southern Waziristan yesterday according to the Pakistani media.

Despite the recent attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, the Pakistani government’s position regarding the sanctity of its sovereignty remains unaltered – Pakistani forces will use force to repel operations by foreign militaries emanating from Afghanistan. While the attentions of many in the United States, and elsewhere, are focused on the current economic crisis, the potentially catastrophic game that is being played by the Bush Administration has been flying under the radar.

As Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer, pointed out in a recently article for Time…

“As Wall Street collapsed with a bang, almost no one noticed that we’re on the brink of war with Pakistan. And, unfortunately, that’s not too much of an exaggeration. On Tuesday, the Pakistan’s military ordered its forces along the Afghan border to repulse all future American military incursions into Pakistan. The story has been subsequently downplayed, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Mike Mullen, flew to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, to try to ease tensions. But the fact remains that American forces have and are violating Pakistani sovereignty.

You have to wonder whether the Bush administration understands what it is getting into. In case anyone has forgotten, Pakistan has a hundred plus nuclear weapons. It’s a country on the edge of civil war. Its political leadership is bitterly divided. In other words, it’s the perfect recipe for a catastrophe.”

[…]

“U.S. forces have been entering Pakistan for the last six years. But it was always very quietly, usually no more than a hundred yards in, and usually to meet a friendly tribal chieftain. Pakistan knew about these crossings, but it turned a blind eye because it was never splashed across the front page of the country’s newspapers. This has all changed in the last month, as the Administration stepped up Predator missile attacks. And then, after the New York Times ran an article that U.S. forces were officially given the go-ahead to enter Pakistan without prior Pakistani permission, Pakistan had no choice but to react.

On another level the Bush Administration’s decision to step up attacks in Pakistan is fatally reckless, because the cross-border operations’ chances of capturing or killing al Qaeda’s leadership are slim. American intelligence isn’t good enough for precision raids like this. Pakistan’s tribal regions are a black hole that even Pakistani operatives can’t enter and come back alive. Overhead surveillance and intercepts do little good in tracking down people in a backward, rural part of the world like this.

On top of it, is al-Qaeda worth the candle? Yes, some deadender in New York or London could blow himself up in the subway and leave behind a video claiming the attack in the name of al-Qaeda. But our going into Pakistan, risking a full-fledged war with a nuclear power, isn’t going to stop him.”

What has shocked me more than anything is the fact that reports of a three-phase plan, approved at the highest level of government, have gone completely overlooked. According to an article published by NPR on the 13th of this month, President Bush himself gave the green light to the plan, which includes the use of Predator Drones and US Special Operations Forces to strike targets within Pakistan. One of the first actions taken under this new strategy was a raid by US Navy Seals in which civilians were killed. Further, it has been reported that CIA personnel from various parts of the world are being deployed along the Afghan-Pakistan frontier in an attempt to produce an ‘intelligence surge’ to aid in the selection of cross-border targets.

In the end, the reality, as Baer pointed out, is that the United States is willfully ignoring the sovereignty of Pakistan. Given that, it is empowering both the Pakistani military and local militants to support an aligned cause – the repulsion of foreign military incursions.

Given that President Bush has mere months left in office, the risk of sparking something disastrous is only bolstered by his administration’s repeatedly proven track record of outright stupidity. And while the condemnation of Iran continues to attract more international attention, the fact that the United States is goading a nuclear power is certainly something that should not be excused as Republican political necessity with regards to making an 11th hour attempt to kill or capture high level al-Qaeda figures to feebly justify the administration’s mistakes.

As the folks over at Crooks And Liars have been pointing out, Chris Matthews, like him or dislike him, has been rightly admonishing Republicans supporting Mr. McCain for distancing themselves from the responsibilities of the current administration, and the Republican party itself, regarding the current economic crisis. In a recent interview with Congressman Eric Cantor, Matthews said…

“The way we keep score in American politics is the party that’s in power for eight years and runs the White House — and 3/4 of the time runs the Congress and the White House — takes the heat when things go bad. Congressman Cantor, you’re trying to change the rules now and saying, ‘oh, if we take off our uniforms and don’t say we’re Republicans this week, the people will be fooled.’ I’ve never heard of that happening in politics.”

Matthews did the same thing in another recent interview with McCain Senior Policy Advisor Nancy Pfotenhauer…

“Matthews: But I don’t understand - John McCain is the nominee of the Republican Party.

Pfotenhauer: Yes.

Matthews: He’s going to stand in that debate next Friday night on the 26th, because he is the nominee of the Republican Party. That’s why he has a 50/50 chance of winning this election. Because he is the nominee of the Republican Party and the other guy is the nominee-Barack Obama-of the Democratic Party. How can you run away from the party whose platform you’re running on? I don’t understand how you can deny that you’re the in party, you’re the incumbent party.”

Since the beginning of the Mr. Bush’s Surge in Iraq, 1,000 US soldiers have died, almost a quarter of all US fatalities. As has been revealed of late, there was considerable opposition to the Surge among prominent US military leaders. While the President has routinely claimed that he ‘listens to the commanders on the ground’, the Surge was anything but a military request. It was a White House driven directive that did not take into consideration the opinions of the Joint Chiefs, nor commanders in Iraq itself. It was a politically motivated move aimed at altering domestic perceptions of the war.

In the year that has followed, many in the media, and the White House, have claimed the Surge a success. Even the outgoing commander of all US forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus, testified before Congress that the Surge had achieved many of its goals. But while overall violence is down in Iraq, the Surge cannot realistically take credit for it.

Despite claims that support the Surge’s success, it is first important to remember that the Sunni insurgency against occupational forces was diminished not by US efforts, but by the growing strength and influence of Shia militias. Secondly, it is important to remember that Sunnis only constitute 20% of Iraq’s population that the Iraqi government, and a variety of its ministries, are predominantly controlled by Shi’ites and, in some cases, are highly influenced or have been infiltrated by Shia militias. This is the primary reason why the Sunni Awakening occurred and why its leaders allied themselves directly with the US rather than the Iraqi government. As an aside, the Awakening was also a move on the part of tribal leaders, former nationalists and Ba’athists, to diminish the influence that ‘al-Qaeda in Iraq’ had gained in some Sunni communities. In truth, the Sunni Awakening did little more than take advantage of US financial support so that the afore mentioned tribal leaders could consolidate power and work to regain the influence that they had lost.

Iraq remains the world’s most dangerous country. One in every six Iraqis is a refugee – that’s approximately 4.7 million people. Some have fled to other countries, some have fled to less dangerous parts of Iraq. Today, a suicide bomber blew herself up at a police gathering in Balad Ruz, killing 22 people and wounding 32 more. In Baghdad, two car bombs also exploded killing 12.

There are two fundamental lessons that the West has been gifted over the last 60 years, though has still failed to learn. The first is that ‘winning hearts and minds’ is nothing more than a catch phrase. The second is that throwing conventional force into an asymmetric fire does not produce results.

Today is the 15th of September, which means two things. First, it’s my little brother’s 36th birthday. Second, George Walker Bush has 126 days left in office to wreak as much havoc as possible.

The White House’s primary focus will be on the Waziristan region of Pakistan, where US Special Forces and the US Air Force have been given a green light to unilaterally strike targets of opportunity in a three stage operation that also involves pulling CIA assets from around the world into the region…

“NPR has learned that the raid by helicopter-borne U.S. Special Operations forces in Pakistan last week was not an isolated incident but part of a three-phase plan, approved by President Bush, to strike at Osama bin Laden and top al-Qaida leadership.

The plan calls for a much more aggressive military campaign, said one source, familiar with the presidential order, which gives the green light for the military to take part in the operations. The plan represents an 11th-hour effort to hammer al-Qaida until the Bush administration leaves office, two government officials told NPR.

“Definitely, the gloves have come off,” said a source who has been briefed on the plan. “This was only Phase 1 of three phases.”

Pentagon and White House officials have declined to discuss the new plan.

The intelligence community already had approval from the president to carry out operations inside Pakistan, which included attacks by Predator drones, which can carry 100-pound Hellfire missiles.

Additional authority came from the president just recently that allowed incursions by U.S. Special Operations forces, the source said.”

The government of Pakistan, along with its military leadership, has warned the United States that it will employ force against US forces that enter the country to conduct military operations. This morning there have been unconfirmed reports that US helicopters were fired on by elements of the Pakistani military and armed tribesmen near Angor Adda.

There seems to be little doubt that the United States is going to ignore Pakistani sovereignty and conduct cross-border military operations on militants in Waziristan despite warnings from the US intelligence community. In response, NATO leadership in Afghanistan has released a statement reiterating that its mandate ends at the Afghan border and that NATO forces in Afghanistan will not participate in US-led ground or air incursions across the border.

Meanwhile, in response to unauthorized foreign military incursions into Pakistan, the Pakistani military has been ordered to retaliate against any action taken by foreign forces inside the country, a directive issued directly from Pakistan’s top military echelon.

There is little question that US cross-border operations are being undertaken primarily for domestic political purposes. Given the stagnant state of affairs in Afghanistan, a show of US military ‘progress’ is vital this election season, which has most likely prompted the White House to authorize an increase in cross-border operations without the consent of the Pakistani government. The question now becomes whether Pakistani forces will find themselves engaging US forces that have crossed the frontier before November 4th and the ramifications that such an incident would have.

As it stands now, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, General Kayani, has announced that foreign military incursions into Pakistan will not be tolerated, a position that is currently being supported by Prime Minister Raza Gilani.

For the sake of political gravitas at home, the United States is playing a very dangerous game that could very well result in alienating the Pakistanis completely.

There is absolutely no questioning the fact that Waziristan is a region rife with support networks and training grounds for guerrillas that ultimately operate against foreign forces along the Afghan frontier. It is also certainly not a stretch to say that elements within the Pakistani military infrastructure don’t merely ‘tolerate’ them but aid them. The ISI, for example, has a significant history of aiding the Taliban.

That said; the BBC has learned that President Bush has, within the last two months, personally authorized US military incursions into Pakistan to confront guerrillas without first obtaining the approval of the Pakistani government. While the attacks have been primarily carried out by air, ten days ago US troops crossed the Pakistani frontier to carry out a ground assault in violation of Pakistani sovereignty.

While some might cheer such bravado, Bush’s failure to obtain the approval of Islamabad was, in truth, a mistake. The US ambassador to Pakistan may have been summoned after news of the ground assault reached the capital and politically admonished for it, but the reality remains that the Pakistani government isn’t actually in control of the country, and that is something that Washington is aware of.

Unfortunately, to believe Pakistan’s ‘ghost government’ stupid enough not to realize that the US has worked diligently to split their attentions by stirring things up in Kashmir and aiding in India’s nuclear development, is a stretch. Such actions are precisely why the likes of the ISI continue to allow militants in Waziristan to operate freely, because they represent both a deterrent against their own destabilization and a proxy force used to ensure Pakistani influence in the region. In fact, even the now sainted Benazir Bhutto used the Taliban for the latter.

As Dexter Filkins wrote not too long ago in New York Times Magazine…

“So here was Namdar — Taliban chieftain, enforcer of Islamic law, usurper of the Pakistani government and trainer and facilitator of suicide bombers in Afghanistan — sitting at home, not three miles from Peshawar, untouched by the Pakistani military operation that was supposedly unfolding around us.

What’s going on? I asked the warlord. Why aren’t they coming for you?

“I cannot lie to you,” Namdar said, smiling at last. “The army comes in, and they fire at empty buildings. It is a drama — it is just to entertain.”

Entertain whom? I asked.

“America,” he said.”

Pakistan is not Iraq. Not only is it a nuclear power, but a nation with considerable covert and overt military experience. That said, it is important to remember that Mr. Bush will be leaving office this winter. Therefore, the likely blowback that the provocation of the Pakistani military establishment will produce will not be his problem, and that is a very dangerous reality given the fact that he still has over three months left in White House.

There once was a time when the gentlemen on the other side of the Potomac were the ones commonly muttering in secret and prodding government to act in variety of situations that they felt were in the nation’s interests, be it overtly or covertly. Then came the Bush Doctrine, the politicization of the CIA and the military, and a bizarre role reversal. Given the nefarious history of the US military and intelligence infrastructure, one would think that both would have reveled in the hard line foreign policy doctrine that was ushered in following September 11th. Ironically, it’s had the opposite affect. Where the suits at Langley and the sacred cows at the Pentagon once reigned, now the White House holds court, and they’re not particularly interested in the opinions of others. Unless, that is, they happen to be their opinions.

From Bob Woodward in today’s Washington Post…

“At the Joint Chiefs of Staff in late November 2006, Gen. Peter Pace was facing every chairman’s nightmare: a potential revolt of the other chiefs. Two months earlier, the JCS had convened a special team of colonels to recommend options for reversing the deteriorating situation in Iraq. Now, it appeared that the chiefs’ and colonels’ advice was being marginalized, if not ignored, by the White House.

During a JCS meeting with the colonels Nov. 20, Chairman Pace dropped a bomb: The White House was considering a “surge” of additional troops to quell the violence in Iraq. “Would it be a good idea?” Pace asked the group. “If so, what would you do with five more brigades?” That amounted to 20,000 to 30,000 more troops, depending on the number of support personnel.

Pace’s question caught the chiefs and colonels off guard. The JCS hadn’t recommended a surge, and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Iraq commander, was opposed to one of that magnitude. Where had this come from? Was it a serious option? Was it already a done deal?

Pace said he had another White House meeting in two days. “I want to be able to give the president a recommendation on what’s doable,” he said.

A rift had been growing between the country’s military and civilian leadership, and in several JCS meetings that November, the chiefs’ frustrations burst into the open. They had all but dismissed the surge option, worried that the armed forces were already stretched to the breaking point. They favored a renewed effort to train and build up the Iraqi security forces so that U.S. troops could begin to leave.

“Why isn’t this getting any traction over there, Pete?” Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief, asked at one session inside the “tank,” the military’s secure conference room for candid and secret debates. Was the president being briefed?

“I can only get part of it before him,” Pace said, “and I’m not getting any feedback.”

Pace, Schoomaker and Casey found themselves badly out of sync with the White House in the fall of 2006, finally losing control of the war strategy altogether after the midterm elections. Schoomaker was outraged when he saw news coverage that retired Gen. Jack Keane, the former Army vice chief of staff, had briefed the president Dec. 11 about a new Iraq strategy being proposed by the American Enterprise Institute, the conservative think tank.

“When does AEI start trumping the Joint Chiefs of Staff on this stuff?” Schoomaker asked at the next chiefs’ meeting.

Pace, normally given to concealing his opinions, let down the veil slightly and gave a little sigh. But he didn’t answer. Schoomaker thought Pace was too much of a gentleman to be effective in a business where forcefulness and a willingness to get in people’s faces were survival skills. “They weren’t listening to what Pete [Pace] was saying,” Schoomaker said later in private. “Or Pete wasn’t carrying the mail, or he was carrying it incompletely.”

In several tank meetings, Adm. Michael Mullen, chief of naval operations, voiced concern that the politicians were going to find a way to place the blame for Iraq on the military. “They’re orchestrating this to dump in our laps,” Mullen said. He raised the point so many times that Schoomaker thought the Navy leader sounded “almost paranoid.”