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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

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Petraeus says US surge has 'not worked out'
General David Petraeus, the commander of United States forces in Iraq, admitted on Friday that sending 30 000 more troops into the war zone in January had failed to yield the desired results. "It has not worked out as we had hoped," the general said.

All Hat No Cattle

The World

Al-Maliki: Iraqi forces need more time
BAGHDAD - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told lawmakers Monday that Iraqi forces were not ready to take over security from the U.S. military across the country.

Riddle of the Czech body armour found with Iraqi insurgents
HUNDREDS OF Iraqi insurgents killed or captured in battle by American-led coalition forces have been found to be wearing state-of-the-art Czech-manufactured body armour… The real surprise of the Prague investigation, carried out by the Czech organised crime squad, was that the vests had been legally supplied to the Iraqi police at a cost of $2.7million (£1.33m).
That would be the police force built by General David Petraeus.—Caro

Bin Laden benefits from U.S. focus on Iraq
(T)he Bush administration's campaign in Iraq has diverted troops, money and equipment from the hunt for (Osama) bin Laden since late 2001, and Pakistani forces aren't able to operate effectively on their side of the border. Bin Laden has used those advantages to secure safe harbor in the tribal area of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, rebuild al Qaida's inner circle, train a new generation of jihadis and expand ties to Middle Eastern and North African terrorist groups, said U.S., Afghan and Pakistani officials and experts.

Police break up Israeli neo-Nazi ring
JERUSALEM - Police said Sunday they have broken up a cell of young Israeli neo-Nazis accused of a string of brutal racist and anti-Semitic attacks, videos of which were played on television to a stunned national audience.

Al-Qaida criticizes Hamas
CAIRO, Egypt - An al-Qaida commander who escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan appeared in a new videotape Sunday criticizing Hamas and other Islamic groups that he said prioritized nationalism and electoral politics over jihad, or holy war.

Taliban says 'ready for talks' with Afghan govt
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - The Taliban said Monday it was ready for talks with the Afghan government, one day after President Hamid Karzai offered negotiations in a bid to end a bloody insurgency.

Pakistan sends Sharif back into exile
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan sent former premier Nawaz Sharif back to exile in Saudi Arabia on Monday, hours after he returned home vowing to topple President Pervez Musharraf, the man who ousted him eight years ago.

ETA targets government building in failed car bomb
MADRID (AFP) - Spanish security forces defused Monday an ETA car bomb targeting a government building, officials said, the day after the armed Basque separatist group warned it would "keep striking."

Algerian group uses suicide bombers
ALGIERS, Algeria - When Algeria's Islamic militants dubbed themselves Al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa this year, it was more than just a name change: Fresh recruits also have been deployed in suicide bombings, a new tactic in the 15-year insurgency.

Report: Record International Violence Points to Chronic 'Conflict Syndrome'
"There's a striking lesson in all this for policy makers: exclusive attention to any single threat to peace -- such as terrorism -- will likely produce faulty policy that will serve only to prolong a cycle of insecurity," says Joseph Hewitt, a University of Maryland researcher and the report's co-author. "It is this 'conflict syndrome' that poses the greatest danger to world security and stability."

The Nation

Bush advisers favor current war strategy
WASHINGTON - President Bush's top two military and political advisers on Iraq will warn Congress on Monday that making any significant changes to the current war strategy will jeopardize the limited security and political progress made so far, The Associated Press has learned.

Among Top Officials, 'Surge' Has Sparked Dissent, Infighting
Bush benefited from good timing (in Anbar province). As he introduced his new (surge) strategy, Marine commanders had already made common cause with local Sunni tribal leaders who had broken with the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, also called AQI. Why the sheiks turned remains a point of debate, but it seems clear that the tribes resented al-Qaeda's efforts to ban smoking and marry local women to build ties to the region.
And I thought Fred Thompson was just blowing smoke when he said the Iraqis are making friends with us over the ability to smoke.—Caro

Hayden: CIA had fewer than 100 prisoners
NEW YORK - CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden praised the U.S. government's much-criticized program of detaining and interrogating prisoners Friday, crediting it for most of the information in a July intelligence report on the terrorist threat to America… The CIA director said 70 percent of the information contained in the National Intelligence Estimate on the terrorist threat, which was released in July, came from the interrogation of detainees.
Our friend Brent Budowsky said in a telephone conversation on Sunday that he’s amazed at this admission. Those detainees have been held for years. That means that 70% of the NIE is based on old information, which may not even be any good anyway because of the way it was extracted.—Caro

Gitmo panels struggle to assess facts
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - After years of indefinite confinement, many detainees at Guantanamo Bay say they feel they may never receive justice, according to transcripts of hearings obtained by The Associated Press. Fewer than one in five of detainees allowed a hearing last year even bothered to show up for it.

Schlozman Admits Touting GOP Qualifications of Prospective Prosecutors
In written answers to questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, Bradley Schlozman, the former Justice Department official and U.S. attorney who's been at the center of the firings controversy, admitted that he'd once urged hiring certain prosecutors for his office based on their political affiliation. It's against civil service laws to do so… He'd "heard rumors," he writes," that (DOJ’s White House liaison Monica) Goodling considered political affiliation in approving hiring decisions for career positions." Goodling, of course, admitted in testimony to Congress that she'd made sure that only Republicans were hired for certain non-political positions.

Bush Expected to Nominate Attorney General Next Week
President Bush is expected to choose a replacement for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales by the middle of next week, and former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson has emerged as one of the leading contenders for the job, according to sources inside and outside the government who are familiar with White House deliberations.
Let us never forget Ted Olson’s part in the Clinton persecutions through the Richard Mellon Scaife funded Arkansas Project, nor his role in convincing the Supreme Court to install George W. Bush as president of the United States, against the votes and the wishes of the American public. Apparently, Judge Laurence Silberman is on the list, too. Nicole Belle has the goods on him.—Caro

Attorney seeks probe of electoral vote plan
SACRAMENTO -- A Lafayette attorney who specializes in election law is seeking a Congressional investigation into whether the White House was involved in pushing a California ballot initiative to change the way the state allocates its electoral votes.

First lady has surgery for pinched nerve
WASHINGTON - First lady Laura Bush underwent surgery Saturday to relieve pain from pinched nerves in her neck. The White House said the procedure was successful.
Now, if she could just get rid of that pain in her BUTT.—Caro

"It’s Monetary Policy, Not a Morality Play"
It's interesting how many libertarians and conservatives support active government intervention into the economy to manage short-run fluctuations in output and employment in this particular case (the subprime mortgage crisis). Welcome aboard, and I hope this thinking will extend beyond the financial sector to all sectors of the economy, beyond monetary policy to include fiscal and other policy tools, and extend to individuals who are also subject to shocks that can affect their economic well-being. With all the talk about how bailouts cause moral hazard, I hope we will remember that "policy is not always or even usually about moral issues" and give people the help they need when they lose a job, have a costly health problem, or their are other events that cause them economic difficulties.

Paul Krugman: Where’s My Trickle?
The absence of any gains for workers in the years since the 2003 tax cut is a pretty convincing refutation of trickle-down theory. So is the fact that the economy had a much more convincing boom after Bill Clinton raised taxes on top brackets. It turns out that when you cut taxes on the rich, the rich pay less taxes; when you raise taxes on the rich, they pay more taxes — end of story.

Media

Permanent link to MTA daily media news

Democrats Newly Willing to Compromise on Iraq
Another dubious analysis from the Times' (Carl) Hulse reports that “senior Democrats now say they are willing to rethink their push to establish a withdrawal deadline of next spring if doing so will attract the 60 Senate votes needed to prevail.” One more time: the Democrats do not need 60 votes to make the U.S. withdraw from Iraq. They just need to refrain from passing a bill that gives more money for the war without a legally binding date for withdrawal. This does not require 60 senators, it requires 41 senators--enough to maintain, not cut off, a filibuster. Sixty, 41—can the Times see the difference?

Myths and falsehoods about progress in Iraq
Media Matters for America has compiled some of the most pervasive myths and falsehoods that many in the media have been complicit in perpetuating.

Petraeus Gives Exclusive One Hour Interview To Fox
Tomorrow night, after spending the day telling Congress that President Bush’s Iraq escalation should continue, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will take their PR campaign to a more comfortable setting: Fox News.

Kristol: Sober, Serious Democrats Know U.S. Will Have 100K Troops In Iraq When Bush Leaves Office
On this (week’s) Fox News Sunday, William “The Bloody” Kristol informs us (since we all know that he is directing Iraq policy) that not only are we winning, but sober people understand the U.S. will have 100,000 troops in Iraq when President Bush leaves office in 2009, presumably implying that the large majority of Americans who favor pulling out are crazy. Further he claims that the next president will continue the fight against AQI when they take office - and all serious Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, know this to be the truth. The reality that AQI comprises less than 10% of the violence and he has yet to define what “winning” means goes unchallenged.

Back to the 'law enforcement' talking point
On its face, it's rather mystifying that "Meet the Press" has made David Brody a regular contributor… Brody believes Dems are going to lose support on national security because they believe intelligence gathering and law-enforcement efforts are the keys to effective counter-terrorism. But isn't it fairly obvious by now that Dems are right about this? Indeed, just last week, German officials disrupted a dangerous terrorist plot, not by sending in an army, but through months of intelligence gathering and law-enforcement legwork.

Lie Patrol: 'Gutting our military'
Of all of Bush's misstatements from the 2000 presidential election, one of the most obviously-false attacks was on military readiness. Indeed, then-Gov. Bush blamed Clinton and Gore directly for "hollowing out" the military. "If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report, 'Not ready for duty, sir.'" BC00 campaign aides later acknowledged it was a bogus charge, but that didn't stop Bush from repeating it. A lot. And now, seven years later, the next batch of Republican presidential hopefuls are doing the same thing.
These lies will never, ever die. But they could be overcome and drowned out, if progressives ever decided to get serious about developing a comprehensive, long-term media strategy.—Caro

CNN: In His New Tape, Bin Laden ‘Comes Off Like An Angry Blogger’
On Friday, 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden issued a new videotape in which he said, among other statements, that he will “escalate the killing and fighting against” Americans. Yesterday, CNN Justice Correspondent Kelli Arena compared bin Laden’s tape to the writings of an “angry blogger”… New York Times columnist David Brooks (Friday) said that in the newest tape, bin Laden sounds like he has been “reading lefty blogs.”… E-mail CNN and request that the network stop equating progressive bloggers with bin Laden.
My message to CNN: It is by all measures to Osama bin Laden's advantage that America's right wing continue its failed Middle East policies. Those policies are his best recruiting tool. Therefore, sounding like those of us who are sane is a way of helping right wingers maintain power. Look up the word "Byzantine", and then see if you notice how it relates to the part of the world that bin Laden comes from. Please hire smarter reporters who can figure these things out. (McClatchy did figure it out, without saying so.)—Caro

'MOVEON' OSAMA (a New York Post editorial)
September 8, 2007 -- If Osama bin Laden ever gets tired of waging global jihad, perhaps he should interview for a job with MoveOn.org. He'd get one, judging from his latest videotape to the American people.

Technology & Science

In-Flight Ills Tied to Skin Oil
Don't blame the airplane's ventilation system the next time you experience dry eyes and headaches while flying. It's the interaction between your oily body and ozone in the upper atmosphere that is the real culprit, a new study suggests.

Cancer fears raised over chip implants
Studies suggesting a link between radio frequency identification chips and malignant tumors have some researchers worried.

Saturated Fat: Even a Little Splurge May Be Too Much
Fatty meal has immediate, negative effect on heart health, research shows.

Study Finds Evidence of Genetic Response to Diet
It is becoming clear that the human genome responds to changes in diet, even though it takes many generations to do so.

Depression May Be World's Most Disabling Disease
Global study finds it takes bigger toll than other chronic conditions

Behavioral Science Turns to Dogs for Answers
For serious scientists, Lassie and her friends were deemed little more than dumbed-down ancestors of the wolf, degenerated into panting morons by millennia of breeding. But a younger generation of researchers has set out to restore the reputations of our beloved pets. "Dogs can do things that we long believed only humans had mastered," says Juliane Kaminski of the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Evolutionary Anthropology

Bog Mummies Yield Secrets
Human remains yield secrets. Researchers, including Dr. Heather Gill-Robinson, assistant professor of anthropology at North Dakota State University, are now probing the secrets of 'bog mummies' some dating back 2000 years, preserved from the Iron Age with amazing detail in peat bogs of Europe.

Hubble Telescope: Solved and Unsolved Mysteries
Beyond snapping extraordinary pictures of faraway nebulas, the revolutionary Hubble Space Telescope has completely transformed our view of the universe since it was launched in 1990. By capturing the clearest, deepest images of the cosmos ever, Hubble has shed light on some long-standing mysteries perplexing scientists-while uncovering far deeper ones that have yet to be solved.

Environment

Global Warming Good News: No More Ice Ages
Most research into the effects of the carbon dioxide accumulating in our atmosphere has looked ahead only to the next century or two. But the emitted carbon dioxide isn't just going to disappear after that—research has shown that some of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now will hang around for quite awhile, probably tens or even hundreds of thousands of years. So the effects of burning fossil fuels today will extend long beyond the next couple hundred years, possibly delaying the onset of Earth's next ice age.

APEC aims at future climate change talks
SYDNEY, Australia - The bargaining that produced a climate change agreement is only the beginning for Pacific Rim leaders if they want to stick to their declaration to chart a new international course on global warming.

Species Act May Help Fight Global Warming
A recent deal to protect the habitat of endangered coral may offer U.S. environmentalists new leverage. A government agency agreed to protect a "critical habitat," recognizing that the species was threatened by global warming.

As Brazil's rain forest burns down, planet heats up
As vast tracts of rain forest are cleared, Brazil has become the world’s fourth-largest producer of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, after the United States, China and Indonesia, according to the most recent data from the U.S.-based World Resources Institute. And while about three-quarters of the greenhouse gases emitted around the world come from power plants, transportation and industrial activity, more than 70 percent of Brazil’s emissions comes from deforestation.

Wildlife disappearing from famed Nairobi park: study
NAIROBI (AFP) - Wild animals are vanishing Kenya's oldest game reserve which borders the airport at Nairobi, the Kenya Wildlife Service warned in a report unveiled on Friday.

Warming Is Seen as Wiping Out Most Polar Bears
WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 — Two-thirds of the world’s polar bears will disappear by 2050, even under moderate projections for shrinking summer sea ice caused by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, government scientists reported on Friday.

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Caro