Monthly Archives: August 2008

Biden, Iraq, and Obama's Betrayal

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Incipient Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s selection of Joseph Biden as his running mate constitutes a stunning betrayal of the anti-war constituency who made possible his hard-fought victory in the Democratic primaries and caucuses.

The veteran Delaware senator has been one the leading congressional supporters of U.S. militarization of the Middle East and Eastern Europe, of strict economic sanctions against Cuba, and of Israeli occupation policies.

Most significantly, however, Biden, who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the lead-up to the Iraq War during the latter half of 2002, was perhaps the single most important congressional backer of the Bush administration’s decision to invade that oil-rich country.

Shrinking Gap Between Candidates

One of the most important differences between Obama and the soon-to-be Republican presidential nominee John McCain is that Obama had the wisdom and courage to oppose the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Obama and his supporters had been arguing correctly that judgment in foreign policy is far more important than experience; this was a key and likely decisive argument in the Illinois senator’s campaign against Senator Hillary Clinton, who had joined McCain in backing the Iraq war resolution.

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Fading superpower, rising rivals

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At the Beijing Olympics, China trounced the United States in the contest for gold medals. In the Caucasus, Russia inflicted a humiliating military defeat on Georgia, America’s closest ally in the region. At home, the US economy is in deep trouble. The misery index, a combination of the rates of inflation and unemployment, stands at its highest in 16 years (11.3 percent in July) and there are forecasts of worse to come.

The Olympics marked China’s status as a world power and the first time since 1996 that Americans did not win most gold medals. In the Caucasus, Russia showed that it can do as it sees fit in its own backyard, no matter how loudly Washington protests. That includes recognising as independent states the two breakaway provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, that Georgia claims as its own.

In the Great Power game in the region, the score so far is Russia 1, US nil. Does all this mean that the oft-predicted end of America’s role as the world’s only superpower is near? Depends on the definition of “near”. Political power grows from the barrel of a gun, as China’s Mao Tse Tung observed, and the United States spends more on its armed forces than the rest of the world combined. There are more than 700 US military bases in some 130 countries.

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Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S.

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“Suppose the Internet was entirely confined to the U.S., which it once was? That wasn’t helpful,” said Vint Cerf of Google.

Invented by American computer scientists during the 1970s, the Internet has been embraced around the globe. During the network’s first three decades, most Internet traffic flowed through the United States. In many cases, data sent between two locations within a given country also passed through the United States.

Engineers who help run the Internet said that it would have been impossible for the United States to maintain its hegemony over the long run because of the very nature of the Internet; it has no central point of control.

And now, the balance of power is shifting. Data is increasingly flowing around the United States, which may have intelligence – and conceivably military – consequences.

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Russia threatens to supply Iran with top new missile system as 'cold war' escalates

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Dmitry Medvedev [right] speaks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during their bilateral meeting in Dushanbe on August 28, 2008

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev [right] speaks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during their bilateral meeting in Dushanbe on August 28, 2008 Photo: AFP/GETTY

US intelligence fears the Kremlin will supply the sophisticated S-300 system to Tehran if Washington pushes through Nato membership for its pro-Western neighbours Georgia and Ukraine.

The proposed deal is causing huge alarm in the US and Israel as the S-300 can track 100 targets at once and fire on planes up to 75 miles away.

That would make it a “game-changer”, greatly improving Iranian defences against any air strike on its nuclear sites, according to Pentagon adviser Dan Goure. “This is a system that scares every Western air force,” he said.

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China quake kills 27, destroys 180,000 homes

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Chinese rescue teams carrying tents, quilts and sacks of rice rushed Sunday to reach survivors of an earthquake that killed at least 27 people, turned tens of thousands of homes into rubble and cracked reservoirs.

The 6.1-magnitude quake struck Sichuan province on Saturday along the same fault line as the May 12 earthquake that killed nearly 70,000.

Dozens of evacuees were assembled on a primary school field in Panzhihua, footage from state broadcaster China Central Television showed. Wrapped in quilts, the evacuees, including children and the elderly, lay on plastic sheets and mats on the ground.

Saturday’s quake killed 22 people in Sichuan and five in the neighboring province of Yunnan, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The quake damaged major bridges and cracked three reservoirs, the agency said.

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Integrity Bank Becomes 10th U.S. Failure This Year

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By Alison Vekshin and Ari Levy

Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) — Integrity Bank of Alpharetta, Georgia, was closed by U.S. regulators today, the 10th bank to collapse this year amid a surge in soured real-estate loans stemming from the worst housing slump since the Great Depression.

Integrity Bank, with $1.1 billion in assets and $974 million in deposits, was shuttered by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Regions Financial Corp., Alabama’s biggest bank, will assume all deposits from Integrity, which was run by Integrity Bancshares Inc. The failed bank’s five offices will open on Sept. 2 as branches of Regions, the FDIC said.

“Depositors will continue to be insured with Regions Bank so there is no need for customers to change their banking relationship to retain their deposit insurance,” the FDIC said.

Banks are being closed at the fastest pace in 14 years as financial companies report more than $505 billion in writedowns and credit losses since 2007. California lender IndyMac Bancorp Inc., which had $32 billion in assets, was closed July 11 in the third-largest bank seizure, contributing to a 14 percent drop in the U.S. deposit insurance fund that had $45.2 billion at the end of the in the second quarter.

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Four homes – $43,000 lost in four months

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Four properties, four months and $43,000 lost.

That’s how much the weakening property market has slashed house prices in a Sunday Star-Times valuation investigation.

We tracked four case-study houses in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch, and asked Quotable Value to give us “before and after” estimates of their worth over a four-month period. The value of one property plummeted $22,000, while the best off lost just $5000 in the same period.

Quotable Value spokesman Mark Dow says the changing prices what the house would be most likely to get if it went on the market tomorrow emphasised the importance of buyers and sellers getting up-to-date information.

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The 2008 Crisis in the Caucasus: A Unified Timeline, August 7-16.

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To reveal and analyze what actually happened, it is essential to have a unified version of key events.

To achieve this objective, I have examined the detailed timelines provided on the web sites of the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Russia Today news service, integrating these with various Georgian, Russian, and international press reports.

There are surprisingly few discrepancies about the actual sequence of events.

Those that exceed two hours are noted by ***italics.

For convenience, all times have been standardized to GMT (UTC). My notes, in CAPS, highlight certain details that emerge, though the timeline certainly raises as many questions as it answers.

[Local Time in Tblisi is  GMT + 3].

After six days of sniper and machine-gunfire exchanges between Georgian troops and Ossetian militia, the conflict intensifies on August 7. The separatists claim the Georgians are seeking to occupy the surrounding hill. Georgia denies this but sends reinforcements to the border.

August 7 — Georgia attacks

[Note 15.10 GMT is 18.10 local time. The first reports of shelling were late at night at 23.53 local time]

15:10 — In a televised address Georgian President Saakasshvili announces a unilateral ceasefire.
18:00 — Tbilisi informs Marat Kulakhmetov, commander of peacekeepers, that the cease fire has been cancelled.
19:05 — Mamuka Kurashvili, chief of Georgian peacekeeping operations, announces on television that Georgian troops are engaged in an operation to “restore constitutional order throughout the region.”
***19:30 — Tbilisi says 100 Russian vehicles have crossed through the Roki tunnel into Georgia, and so begins shelling it. Later, however, it reports that “first Russian troops enter through Roki Tunnel” six hours later, at 01:30 on August 8.
20:53 — First reports of shelling of Tskhinvali.
22:45 — Georgia says it has occupied three villages in Southern Ossetia

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