Mustafa's Musings

Lonliness

2010-03-30T11:05:00.002+05:00

I'm in a Roanoke thrift shop,accompanying my lady in her eternal quest for the perfect pair of brown shoes(either Gucci makes them outta crocodile or some dude in the bazaars of Mumbai), and I find something that excites me. "Honey,LOOK! I found an old George Mgrdichain tape!" Then I realize that no one within a hundred miles knows what the fuck I'm talking about.

To this guy its no hoax

2009-12-15T00:41:00.004+05:00

This man is a climate refugee. The island he lived and farmed on is gone. It was in the bay of Bengal in Bangladesh and it and other islands in the Sunderbans are gone due to rising sea levels. Of course the American right doesn't believe that climate change is real. As long as pollution puts money in their wallets it's going to be just a hoax. Besides, this guy is a Muslim, so who cares. Of course Hurricane Katrina was a climate change event too, right here in the good ole US of A, People lost their homes, oh yeah they were black, so who cares. The pasty faced white guys are probably buying up lots of water(gonna be a big shortage when the glaciers go) and all the high ground they can get their greedy pudgy hands on. Already they are disenfranchising poor whites (social parasites, with no ambition to make any money), but then these poor whites are their base. What happens then? Who cares, government and elections are a charade anyway. The fat cats call the shots.

Change you can believe in You Betcha!

2009-12-12T03:31:00.002+05:00

I voted for an supported Barak Obama because I believed he knew what was wrong with America. He appeared a visionary, and if in fact he is, he must be very frustrated. His own party won't give up the squabbles and he won't engage in Bush style rule by decree. In fact the health care bill being debated currently will have no public provision, it will have insurance cap limits(very bad for people with cancer. It has been called a gift to big insurance. Today they passed a bank regulation bill, supposedly to eliminate any chance for another big crash. During the debate a proposal to give bankruptcy judges to lower someones mortgage to prevent foreclosure was voted down.... and not completely on party lines. What the hell is going on?We're getting screwed in every hole. It seems big business gets what it wants from either side. Maybe the whole thing is a big charade. Someone once said America ceased being a democracy, but the people don.t know it yet. All the division, all the noise is just to distract people while the pasty faced white guys rape us.
Even the military industrial complex( Dick Cheney, halliburton, Bush etc) get to keep their money making war. After all killing is good business.
I cry for America

Somethings never change

2009-11-30T04:26:00.002+05:00

In the mid 14th century, the Black Death ravaged Europe taking, perhaps half the population. The hundred years war came to a halt. But it didn't take but a few years for the French and English to start killing each other again. The church grew rich on property seized and the bishops diverted the large monies set aside for the poor to their own needs, as they claimed the poor were now all dead.To finance the continuing 100 years war, France imposed a war tax, as follows: 4% from the rich,5% from the middle classes and 10% from the poor. Perhaps we have not yet left the middle ages.
What amazes me about America is not the greed and hate of the right, or the misplaced idealism and internecine strife of the left, its the stupidity of the American people to believe the lies that thrown at them from both direction. Neither side, neither party is at all interested in the welfare of the common man, they want their 10%, thats all.

Abrahamic religions... the demise of the Mother Goddess

2009-11-28T17:21:00.003+05:00

Although humanity's first deity might have been the bear cult(Neanderthal circa 100,000BC), our immediate forebearers(Cro Magnon man 40,000) are associated with a female Mother. Represented in paleolithic art by the numerous cave venuses found in Europe and Central Asia, it echoes the mystery of birth and creation. Caves become wombs and the creative aspects are foremost. Then we learn to study the skies and find our relationships with the music of the cosmos.( moon and menstrual cycles, snakes shedding skins and rebirth etc.) Our mythology becomes Goddess centered. Along comes Abraham and his elevated storm god(Yahweh) This changes everthing. The story of the end of Goddess worship is in Genesis. Eve consorts with the snake(common symbolic association of mothers and rebirth). She eats of the tree of knowledge and God expells her and Adam before they eat of the second tree(immortality) The snake and therefore nature become corrupt, woman cursed and demoted to second class citizenry and mankind inherits an original sin which Christ must be sacrificed for. Of the three Abrahamic faiths(Judaism,Christianity and Islam) Christianity retains more of the pagan incorporating much pagan symbolism. As nature is now corrupt, we have created evil, dualism. we have removed God to heaven. Enlightenment is the return to non duality.

Britomartis

2009-11-28T06:33:00.001+05:00

Searching around eternity for my 72 Gothic schoolgirl virgins that tempt me on my search for unity I came across this goddess. She's 3500 years old( and still a virgin???WTF), comes from Crete, associated with mother goddess chores. Her name is Britomartis (sweet virgin). Hmm Brett n Brit, fits well. The snakes, wierd hair, sort of plaid skirt and for me the du rigeur exposed breast. Mythworld! You create your own, you populate it and you live it. A world without time and decay, it becomes a metaphor for the "real world". Slowly we see man's greatest error, man forgets god is in himself and of himself and of all,partners, siblings,communion. Man removes god to another place, usually hard to get to, say heaven,valhalla,nirvana etc. Sometimes we split the god into a duality of good and evil, thus seperating what once was one. Perhaps man obtained his powers from is first contact with understanding,say 40,000 yrs ago. Art arrives, full blown, tools,once good for a million years begin to resemble Detroit with brand new model years, a 3500 bc Ford hand axe model b 123. The' secret' is simply that god exists in us and in all in unity of being. One organism. We are cells doing our job, or perhaps we are cancer or some loathsome parasite. Just a minute part. And we forgot, and removed god, put him up in some holy attic to take down Xmas,hannukah, eid al adha ( Eid Mubarak!- it's today) How can we understand unity, humanity being so obsessed with division. Anyway back on the road to nirvana, I encounter Britomartis and Tara...........Sexy mythworld

A letter to K

2009-11-24T21:41:00.003+05:00

While Muslims are preparing for the Hajj which starts on Wednesday, and Christians and Jews begin preparations for Christmas and Hannukah, while catholic bishops ban a Kennedy from communion(abortion issue) and wingnuts right and left decry the Hadron collider's search for even smaller particles of matter, I wonder why religion no longer works. Putting it simply, religion is founded on a view of the cosmos. that view constantly changes. In the 1500's Copernicus and Galileo faced heresy charges for suggesting that the earth revolved around the sun rather than the other way around. Our Judeo-Christian-Islamic cosmic model dates from about 1500 BC when the book we call the bible was being put together. It postulated a Bronze age cosmos, a flat earth, an earth centered universe, to just name a few. Christianity and islam added their own myths. Laws set down in the Mosaic books of the Bible, the New Testament and the Quran reflect that world view of Bronze age 1500BC. Well it served its purpose , although Greek thinkers circa 400 BC, Islamic scholars circa 1000AD and the European renaissance began to point out its flaws. Darwin created panic in 1860 that's still being debated. The fact of the matter our view, our mythology doesn't work anymore. Its 4500 years behind the times. And as fundamentalists Christian, Muslim and Jewish are faced with this, they panic. They panic into fear. The very life of their God is at stake, their souls at risk. Hence all the hullabaloo about literal interpretation of the holy books. The holy books are not wrong, they are outdated. Religion creates dogma and dogma can't change.
Our understanding of the cosmos grows daily, it always will. It will always approach God, but never get to him, because God as i understand him is not understandable. We will never understand the whole of god, because the whole of god is always in motion. It brings to mind a Lakota(Sioux) phrase for god, Skan Taku Skan Skan. Something in motion always in motion. Sceince does not not shatter my faith in god, it only increases the awe I have for this ever expanding, ever changing cosmos we call God. Holy men come and go, religions change, but they never "get it' and probably never will. Even if we invent anew religion, write a new holy book, it will be obsolete before its printed.
I have always been interested in man's evolution. The concept given to me in the 50's is no longer a working model. Discoveries like Lucy(australopithecus afarensis) and Ardi(ardipithecus ramidus) have given new direction to our past. As a child I corresponded with Louis Leakey( the premier paleontologist of the 50's) He was right about a few things and wrong about somethings. I still admire him. He was a seeker.His explanation of human evolution fit the 1950's, based on the knowledge we had. Leakey accepted new discoveries and was comfortable with the progress, even though some of his calls were off. Religion must take the stand of Louis Leakey and be thankful when discoveries are made to increase our knowledge and closeness to god.
Grace Slick said in Go Ask Alice, "Feed your head"
Have a great Thanksgiving with your family and friends, but remember Thanksgiving day should be every day.

The Sarah Palin Phenomenon

2009-11-18T20:22:00.002+05:00

"Going Rogue",Palin's autobiography is out now in print. I'm certainly not going to spend, even the $4.95 that some conservative sites are offering. Actually, I would have prefered the book be entitled "Going Away". But Sarah doesn't seem to be going away. I've read the reviews, most say she whines, complains,lies and takes pot shots at those who've pissed her off. One reviewer, filmaker John Ziegler says," I was simply blown away by Going Rogue on almost every level. For many reasons, this is by far the best book and greatest literary achievement by a political figure in my lifetime." At every level?? It has levels? Will this book stand side by side with JFK's book, with the writing of Thomas Jefferson and Abe Lincoln? Or has Mr. Ziegler got his hands on some new strain of cannabis that truly clouds the mind.
Sarah's not going away yet, that's for sure. Why is she so popular. Well, this is America so it must have something to do with the rich getting richer. She's in the news because she sells soap. Either you love her or loathe her, enough to click on every story CNN.com has out there and thus increasing her exposure. No one wants to read about Uyghur separatists or people starving in Africa. I believe the main reason Palin is so popular is that a lot of white Americans identify with her. White Americans who are under educated, white Americans who have a problem with an African American president, white Americans who can't think for themselves and let Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh do their thinking. Christian conservatives who find, with each new scientific advance, their world crumbles. Its very similar to the fundamentalist Islamic view of an antiquated belief system. Many Americans find this, coupled with fears of terrorism,oil shortages, Hispanic and Asian migration, global pollution,the electronics explosion,in fact the rapidly changing world, scares the crap out of them. Conservatives, using the politics of division and hate, prey on these lost souls. If all you listen to is Fox news and Rush Limbaugh, your'e going to have a very different outlook on world affairs than someone who investigates and takes in all sides to make an educated choice.
These poor souls are terrified that all they have been taught to believe is going to collapse. The great Anglo Saxon race will be diluted by Hispanics, Asians and Blacks. Jesus isn't going to come again to restore the Anglos to their throne of domination. This is a back lash and they usually don't last long. These people are light years behind whats happening on the planet, but they vote. Even though the phenomenon is going to be short lived, look at the mess Hitler created in just 12 years. Be afraid, America, be very afraid

Did I hype it up too much?

2009-11-13T02:54:00.003+05:00

I was a rather vocal and enthusiastic Obama supporter during the campaign. I saw the country become something very ugly in the Bush years, I feared for my income during the crash of 2008,I worried about the planets revenge for what have wrought here and and wondered all about declining oil supplies and agresstion in the Middle East. Obama seemed to understand. He said what I wanted to hear,ie: Change. Maybe back to the government of the people rather a government for sale to highest bidder. Hell, Halliburton sucked us dry, thanks, Dick! Obama has vision, I'll give him that. He knows whats needed. But he can't pull it quite off. His opposition, Republicans and big biz, are throwing massive amounts of dollars to buy their way. Health care is troubled because many legislators have been bought and paid for by the insurance lobby. The opposition continues to use fear and race to gain support of what I call the undereducated classes. So Obama's stymied.
Although he has vision, he may a problem either in choosing competancy or delegating authority. The performance of his cabinet has been lackluster. What's up in the west wing? Maybe nothing. Maybe I heard too much or not enough in the campaign, maybe after I heard what I wanted I stopped listening. Suffice it to say I am a bit disappointed. Is the Rovian fascist propaganda creeping into my brain? Or am I just greedy and want too much?
Granted, the whole national system is rotten,dilapidated,ineffective,bought and greedy. It's like a house that looks OK outside but is ridden with termite damage and ready to collapse. The financial crisis proved that. You'd have to build a completely new house, like Roosevelt. It's not that Obama ain't Roosevelt, it's congress and business that's different. Roosevelt was the closest thing to dictator we have ever had. Obama can't use that tactic as the Rovians have already painted him as a meglomaniacal anti christ.
Its a tough row to hoe, I wish him luck.

The growing kleptocracy

2009-11-10T23:41:00.003+05:00

The more I read about such places as Azerbaijan,Romania,,Saddam's Iraq and various Central Asian Republics, the more I am beginning to understand what a kleptocracy is. Its what's beginning to happen to America. In Azerbaijan, you had to pay off the Aliyev family to do business. Haidar Aliyev auctioned off nation assets to make money. Thats just what the privatization means for our neocon friends. And what they sell off goes to 'family";Ie Halliburton/Cheney kinds of deals. That's why they're so afraid of government controls. They'll lose money. Halliburton et al, is rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure poorly and cheaply while making billions and the American infrastructure is rotting. You make more money on an government no bid contract and even more by using the cheapest materials. More money than you'd make, say, by rebuilding the World Trade Center in NY or New Orleans. They use American tax dollars as a means of making obscene profits rather than using it to help the people that pay the money. Enough money to buy legislators and still make obscene profits.
That,my friends, is a kleptocracy and it is so well developed that even the President of the US can't find a away around it. Congress and the executive branch are owned by lobbies who bribe them with gifts, cash and make campaign contributions. You can't get elected to national office without a lot of money and the lobbies have it.
It will only get worse as will the divide between rich and poor. That's what the American conservative middle class doesn't understand, that they are on the losing side of the divide. If the neocons won't pump money into their own country, if they want to end entitlements like social security,if they won't vote for extending unemployment benefits is a recession, etc, they don't give a damned about America. They're already planning to move to Dubai.

An American apocalypse

2009-11-08T23:32:00.002+05:00

Even with Barak Obama as president and a democratic congress, my local VA hospital does not yet have H1N1 vaccine, yet Walgreen's happily has it for SALE. The capitalist greed wins even during a liberal administration. Health care and environmental issues that will be passed will be so watered down as to be ineffective. The dems will settle for a healthcare bill that cares for no ones health. Insurance companies have spent millions to stop it. The system has broken. It no longer represents the will of the people, it represents, no matter what party, the will of corporate America.
Corporate America has already shown its utter irresponsibility and greed by precipitating what is now being called the "Great Recession" Jobs lost, savings lost,fat cats bailed out. American government in action. Rebuild Iraq(with shoddy materials) and ignore New Orleans. The military shares its bailiwick with Blackwater, Halliburton(or a subsidiary) gets most no bid contracts. Obama can't impliment his vision. Our America is gone. Sold,bought and paid for. Religion has degenerated into hate, salvation forgotten. Jesus' love and peace has morphed into a Neo Aryan creed of supremacy. And those supremacists know if they don,t get total control soon, birthrates will deprive them of a nation.
What's going to happen? Since the fat cats can't control their greed, they'll bleed us dry. Already infrastructures are crumbling and why rebuild them? They'll just use the same shoddy materials their using in Iraq. The working poor will lose more jobs to India or Malaysia and as government reigns in entitlements like social security, they will starve. Who cares, they are disposible, non contributors,parasites. Parasites we create more of everyday. Formerly America's proud and strong working class, they are reduced to discontented haters of everything, thanks to the twists that been added to Christianity in America. Hate is preached from the pulpit. Corporate America is concerned with oil, not this nation. Without oil, they collapse and no one seems to be inventing a new energy too quick.
The image I get of America in 10 or 15 years, is beginning to resemble the sates and satellites of the former Soviet Union in the late 80's and early 90's. Perhaps America's strength will cause it to survive,perhaps the working poor will abandon their slavish pursuit of republican ideals, perhaps a leader will emerge to save America from a third world scrape heap. Of course, he'll have to be a dictator.

A disposable population

2009-10-29T18:29:00.004+05:00

Now i know why I'm not an increase in my social security check this year! Even though there is an economic problem and i am retired senior citizen and Vietnam veteran, my government has a better way to spend my money. Cash awards will be given to Taliban fighters who desert their cause! Now an old Afghani saying goes," You can rent an Afghan, but you can't buy one." Does our stupid government believe these people will change their belief systems for a little of my cash? Oh they'll take the money, buy some more AK-47's or semex for IED's and continue as usual. Perhaps, in order to make ends meet, I should don a turban and carry an AK and head for the nearest federal building to get my cash. Of course, they'll lock me up and throw the key way and invent some heinous plot I was involved it to blow up the local Mickey D's. On top of that insult, the Veterans Administration, suffering from a severe shortage of H1N1 vaccine, has told me i am not a priority patient. i am 64 years old with a heart condition, and am a wounded combat veteran, but appartently the criteria for getting the vaccine seems to be that you have to be young, between 5 and 18. Not that I see a whole lot of 5 year old veterans at my local VA.
I voted for Obama, and any of you who read this blog know I supported his candidacy. Now, i am beginning to think its all talk and no action. Either the military industrail complex owns so much of the American government, that it is impossible to get around their politician buying power, or Obama, while a brilliant man with a vision is, perhaps, unable to choose the right people for the job. So we get a very watered down environmental bill and probably a health care bill that does little besides write heath care on a piece of paper.
Look at New Orleans, still a disaster area. No one wants to spend money on people who aren't rich and influencial. Big corporations want the lower 9th ward for high priced industrial areas. So, insurance opts out of paying them and big corporations steal their land at bargain basement prices. Business as usual, no matter what the party.
I am just a member of a disposable class of people my government doesn't give a shit about anymore. Sad.

Obama's Nobel Prize

2009-10-09T18:50:00.003+05:00

Congratulations to Pres. Obama on his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize! Even if half of America is going to be whining about this, the world shows recognition to a man who may well go down as one of the greats of the 21st century. Of course the American right is going to jump on this, they'll have all manner of reasons of why this man doesn't deserve the prize. Rather than being flushed with pride that this AMERICAN has won, they'll dissolve into the usual racist rhetoric that has been the standard of these "patriots" Patriots , like the ones in Brasil wuld be proud if their nation won an Olympic host, the right celebrated that we did not win it. The cause of the nation has become subservient to the cause of making Obama's presidency a failure. However Obama seems to overcome this criticism well. Perhaps the honor and the humility of this prize will further his desires for peace, especially in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Perhaps world leader will look upon his words with more gravity and action. And perhaps Osama bin Laden and Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck will once again find themselves in agreement.

Prediction: Israel will bomb Iran's nuke sites

2009-09-25T20:22:00.006+05:00

It has been quite a week for rhetoric at both the UN and the G20. Netanyahu was more bombastic than Qaddafi,Ahmadinejad or Chavez. At G20 America, Britain and France united to condemn Iran in the strongest terms. Seems to me that is tacit permission for Netanyahu to unleash his jets. Once again Iran is the axis of evil. Both Qaddafi and Chavez actually made some sense(if you listened) So did Ahmadinejad(a little) The third world is fed up with western imperialism and exploitation. The third world is fed up with letting some nations possess nukes and not others. Holding the nukes guarantees world domination. Why not everyone get rid of them.
Regarding Ahmadinejad's ridiculous denial of the Holocaust, Chavez brought up Western civilizations denial of the Native American holocaust. Good point Hugo, and what of slavery?
Obama clearly sees what needs to change in America, but many Americans don't agree with change. Conservatism spells stagnation, always has, always will. Global warming will happen, oil will run out, capitalism will succumb to greed and like many times in history(1815,1914,1945 come to mind) a new world order will emerge. Somehow I doubt if the new world order will be any different from any of the others.
Only Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama stand above all this rhetoric

A letter to K

2009-09-04T04:49:00.002+05:00

K.Well ya know i was at woodstock back in '69 Honeymoon camping across the country. We never planned to go, just heard about it on the radio and swept down from Ontario. Figured it was gonna be be an Event. And so it was. I was watching the Michael Wadleigh 1970 documentary and was over whelmed. One of the guys i am doing EMT with was there too and we've swapped tales. Is 40 yrs ago and been on mind. What an explosive time, time of awareness, spirituality and love. Great music, some of the best ever where music carried the revolution. There was the war and a country fed up with it, there was civil rights, a war on poverty, anew direction in spirituality, which Amerika lacked. Political,social, spiritual awareness floating on love.
What happened?Today I see hatred, racism, religious demagogery, and above all greed. Theres are war, no one gives a fuck. They don't even want to give people health care, hordes live in the streets and the only music I hear is the cash register.
We captured something in 69...... and lost it. We lost it to greed. Corporate amerika bought hip america and sold it. Back to us. Musicians, pop culturalists,and just plain stoned out heads made lots of money and the ideals went out as the cash came in.
I wanna say, what about your generation??? Where the fuck are you all at??
But is it perspective? Maybe these times are just as exciting for you as for me back in 69. Maybe its not the era but the age. maybe all we did is experience youth. Maybe every generation has its woodstock and vietnam. maybe some artist I don't know addresses injustice in song like Ritchie Havens. maybe it just youth, but whatever it was great!
Namaste

Conservative blueprint for America

2009-09-01T19:13:00.003+05:00

While Obama struggles to get Americans basic health care and do his part to slow down global warming, conservatives spew forth hate that motivates America's under educated pop culture drunk populace. They might wish for the following scenario.
2012.... Rush Limbaugh is elected President, Sean Hannity as VP . Ann Coulter becomes secratary of defense, Pat Robertson enters the new office of secretary of Christian Morality. Legislation is passed to severely limit the congress and supreme court and laws come forth to regulate America.
All restrictions on carbon emissions are suspended as global warming is ruled a hoax.(Pres. Limbaugh now rides around in an armored Hummer) Coal is king and burnt without cleansing. Non Christians are deported to "religious education camps" Blacks are relegated to second class citzens with travel and work restrictions. All Hispanics are deported to the nation of familial origin. Mexico is invaded and subdued and managed to provide slave labor to boost American production. Islam is declared The Enemy and nuclear technology is used to blow Afghanistan and Pakistan off the map. Saudi Arabia is invaded and the oil industry nationized and run by Halliburton, with Dick Cheney acting as energy czar. While Middle America basks in the joys of Christian patriotism and cheap energy, China calls in her debts leading to another nuclear war intended to wipe China(and Russia) off the map.
Of course we know how this senario will end, Rush will commit suicide in the Fuhrer bunker located beneath the White House.
Go ahead, America, believe the conservative lies, you want to anyway return to 1956 but when its over America will rank below Burkina Faso in GNP.

Rub al Khali Saudi Arabia

2009-08-31T07:58:00.002+05:00

A Saudi government functionary was trying to convince a Shaikh of the al Murrah tribe, of the Empty Quarter, to settle his pastoral camel herders in a newly built town. He told the Shaikh that the well was dug deep, electrified and guaranteed to last 100 years! The Shaikh answered,"The wells in the desert have been used by us 1000 years, why would we want only a 100 year well"

Eagles wisdom

2009-08-27T07:22:00.002+05:00

" so often times it happens that we live our life alone,
and we never even knew we had the key..................thats right"

The Eagles

Lennox!

2009-08-27T07:18:00.001+05:00

"I'm a star in my own living room"

Annie Lennox

Mercenaries

2009-08-21T19:27:00.002+05:00

Historically it has always been a sign of the decay and ultimate fall of empires and nations when they start to hire mercenaries to fight their wars. It surely was the Western Roman Empire's downfall. America uses mercenaries more and more these days. Northern Alliance troops in Afghanistan, Sunni militias in Iraq, Montagnards in Vietnam, the list goes on. But those are feodorati, to use the roman term for hiring tribal armies enmass. Now the stakes have been raised and another sign of the decay of America has been seen. read this article fron CNN.com:

urity firm Blackwater USA in 2004 to work on a covert program aimed at targeting and potentially killing top al Qaeda leaders, according to a source familiar with the program.

CIA Director Leon Panetta canceled the covert program this year when he learned of its full scope.

The existence of the program, which began in 2001, came to light earlier this year when CIA Director Leon Panetta canceled the effort, but it is only now that Blackwater's involvement has become known.

That development was first reported Thursday in The New York Times.

The program was part of a broader effort inside the CIA to develop the capacity to conduct training, surveillance and possible covert operations overseas, according to the source. The program was outsourced to contractors to "put some distance" between the effort and the U.S. government.

By mid-2006, Blackwater's involvement in the program had ended, according to a U.S. official. Other contractors were brought in for other parts of the program, another source said.

The total program cost "millions," a U.S. official said. It is not known how much Blackwater was paid. The company -- now known as Xe -- did not return CNN's calls seeking comment.

"The program ebbed and flowed. There were different phases to it. There may have been different folks involved," the source said.

Don't Miss

Congresswoman: U.S. ties with Xe must end

U.S. officials have previously acknowledged that Panetta canceled the entire program this year when he learned of its full scope. At the time of the cancellation, officials said, renewal of the program was being considered. At that point, it had been brought to the new CIA director's attention.

Panetta canceled the effort in part because Congress had not been notified about it, officials said. Also, some in the intelligence community were worried there could be a diplomatic disaster if contractors were caught performing such work in foreign countries.

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden, who ran the agency from 2006 to 2009, downplayed the program during a speaking engagement in Washington.

"This was not a very prominent thing during my time as director," Hayden said. "What you had were three separate efforts under three different directors to deal with an issue that everyone understood was a problem in a capacity that everyone agreed we should have."

A spokesman for the CIA would not comment on the details of the still-classified program.

"Director Panetta thought this effort should be briefed to Congress, and he did so," spokesman George Little said. "He also knew it hadn't been successful, so he ended it. Neither decision was difficult. This was clear and straightforward.

"Director Panetta did not tell the committees that the agency had misled the Congress or had broken the law. He decided that the time had come to brief Congress on a counterterrorism effort."

Blackwater's extensive involvement in U.S. operations overseas, particularly in Iraq, has been controversial. The Iraqi government says that in a shooting in September 2007, Blackwater security guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians. Blackwater says its employees were returning fire after they were attacked by armed insurgents, but an Iraqi investigation concluded that the guards randomly fired at civilians without provocation.

The incident led to the Iraqi government's refusal to renew the firm's operating license in the country when it expired in May.

Although it lost the Iraq contract, the company, which changed its name to Xe earlier this year, continued to get multimillion-dollar contracts from the U.S. government for work in Afghanistan.

Halliburton(KBR) again

2009-08-08T17:45:00.002+05:00

Back in 2005 the Army agreed to pay Halliburton's subsidiary KBR $2 billion for work that nobody could prove was done. Now KBR has been let off the hook for shoddy construction practices in Iraq that were responsible for the electrocution of a Special Forces staff sergeant. The water pump wasn't grounded, but it was found that KBR was not liable for this. In today's world of uncompromised greed this is not a crime. If we can deny people health care, bail out giant financial firms but ignore retired seniors whose pensions were wiped out, then the death of a mere staff sergeant is in consequential. Now,perhaps if he were an officer and a republican???????

He of the Assembly

2009-08-05T02:04:00.003+05:00

"He salutes all parts of the sky and the earth where it is bright. He thinks the color of the amethysts of Aguelmous will be dark if it has rained in the valley of Zerekten. The eye wants to sleep,he says, but the head is no mattress. When it rained for three days and water covered the flatlands outside the ramparts, he slept by the bamboo fence at the Cafe' of the Two Bridges"

"This night is going to be a jewel in my crown"

Paul Bowles, A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard

The Brits .....again

2009-07-27T03:14:00.002+05:00

It seems everywhere there is trouble, we find the wreckage of British imperial politics. The Arab Israeli conflict is a case of the Brits promising the same piece of land to 2 different groups. It promised the Sharif of Mecca(Hashimites) an independent kingdom of all the Arab nations in order to gain their support against the Turks in WW I. It promised to create a national home for the Jews in order to gain access to Jewish monies to fight their war. They renigged on both parties and left Palestine to battle it out. They created Iraq out of three separate ethnoreligious areas to forge a state destined never to get along. They partitioned India in 1947 between Muslims and Hindus causing permanent unrest in those peoples.
During the 19th century,Britain and Russia engaged in The Great Game, attempting to peddle their influence in Afghanistan. Of course the Afghanis would have none of it and three British Afghan wars were fought over that land. in 1893 the Brits and Russians drew the lines of the Afghani borders. In doing so they cut off a huge chunk of Pathan tribal land and annexed it to India, later to become Pakistan. It is these Pathan territories that make up the northwestern part of Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden and the Taliban are hiding. if Britain had left well enough alone, the Taliban would not have had an area of ethnic support to flee to and hide.
We are still suffering from British mistakes in diplomacy over a hundred years later. Of course, America lets their cousins off the hook and takes on the responsibilty of screwing up the Middle East and South Asia. Doesn't anyone read history?

Dealing with Christians

2009-07-24T20:43:00.002+05:00

The other day I attended a community affair in the little Appalachian mountain town where i have chosen, momentarily to hang my hat. Although this was neither a political or religious event, views came thru in the conversations I had. A local pastor put in a plug for creationism and there was praise for Governor Palin and abuse for President Obama. OK, politically this the white south, so I know this all about race. During the election, I received numerous "funny" e mails about Obama and race. Its not about the recession, health care, or the war on terror, out here its all about race.
I was surprised to see the number of people who agreed with the pastors literal interpertation of the Bible as both history and natural science. Its been almost 100 years since the Scopes trial,over 15 since Darwin, and yet these folks,some college educated,deny the facts of evolution. They are also the same crowd that denies global warming or climate change. They seem to be waiting fro Christ's second coming, as I was told that the signs are in place for this event.
I try to be tolerant of other beliefs, I understand that God is so undefinable and even comprehensible by our limited awareness, that it renders discussion of these thing irrelevant.
But I think of Imperial China and the Ottoman Empire as great societies, who, unable to process modern thought and technology, had their empires crumble and fall. A miror on the wall for America?

The decline and fall

2009-07-23T17:50:00.002+05:00

We have all heard it before, America has reached the end of her period of empire. Looking at histories of previous world leaders, some things become evident. The government envisioned by the founders has declined into something different. There is rise in greed and money becomes the most important political currency.People are fed lies and are governed thru manipulation of their fears and religious beliefs. Economy becomes unstable due mostly to the greed and the lack of law enforcement on the greedy. A decline in the motivation of the military and an effort, by the state, to use that military in an aggressive fashion. Continued defeat by lesser powers in battle. I could go on. You certainly can see America in some,if not all of those things listed. But empires don't fall overnight,unless by a war of total destruction( and they are usually short lived states like those of Napoleon or Hitler) Leaders come, from time to time, to pull an empire or nation out of decline, but once the decline sets in, its like cancer and eventually kills the patient.
America is ill, thats a given. The fact that we cannot pass legislation to improve the qualities of life or the environment, without watering down the vision to appease those that make millions is pathetic. It is a sign of decline. And remember, those appeased money makers will go quickly elsewhere if the nation falters. There is no patriotism in free market capitalism.
Free market capitalism is one end of the spectrum, communism the other. Neither will work effectively. What is needed in the 21st century is some kind of balance.
It makes me think of the Ottoman Empire. once strong, socially stable, tolerant and vibrant, it became in the 19th century "the sick man of Europe". Is this destined to be the fate of America?