From The Asia Times
By Gareth Porter

Pervez Musharraf’s resignation as Pakistan’s president on Monday brings to an end an extraordinarily close relationship between Musharraf and the George W Bush administration, in which Musharraf was lavished with political and economic benefits from the United States despite policies that were in sharp conflict with US security interests.

It is well known that Bush repeatedly praised Musharraf as the most loyal ally of the United States against terrorism, even though the Pakistani military was deeply compromised by its relationship with the Taliban and Pakistani Islamic militants.

What has not been reported is that the Bush administration covered up the Musharraf regime’s involvement in the activities of the Abdul Qadeer Khan nuclear technology export program and its deals with al-Qaeda’s Pakistani tribal allies.

The problem faced by the Bush administration when it came into office was that the Pakistani military, over which Musharraf presided, was the real terrorist nexus with the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

As Bruce Riedel, National Security Council (NSC) senior director for South Asia in the Bill Clinton administration, who stayed on the NSC staff under the Bush administration, observed in an interview with this writer last September, al-Qaeda “was a creation of the jihadist culture of the Pakistani army”.

Read more al-Qaeda Links

From The S.F. Chronicle
By Robert Scheer

The world according to John McCain is one in which America is triumphant at home and abroad thanks to the Bush legacy, rolling to victory internationally and mastering its domestic economic problems. If daily news, like the 10 French soldiers killed by a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan and the imminent government nationalization of much of the U.S. mortgage-lending industry, would seem to deny such a rosy scenario, then that only shows skeptics lack the courage that sustained McCain as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

There you have it - in a capsule, the McCain campaign for president, an irrational mélange of patriotic swagger and blindness to reality that is proving disturbingly successful with uninformed voters. How else to explain the many millions of Americans who tell pollsters they prefer a continuation of Republican rule when so many of them are losing their homes to foreclosure and the nation is bankrupted by out-of-control military spending?

The economy is in a downward spiral, the national debt is at an all-time high, the dollar is an international disgrace, and inflation in July had the steepest rise in 27 years, driven by oil prices fivefold higher than when President Bush invaded the nation with the world’s second-largest petroleum reserves.

While Mideast oil-rich nations we protect refuse to fully open the oil spigots as payback for our military efforts, McCain celebrates Gen. David Petraeus as his No. 1 hero for “victory” in Iraq. Aside from the reality that victory there is now defined as returning to the level of stability provided by Saddam Hussein, whom the Bush administration admits had nothing to do with the bin Laden-led terrorists, even that goal requires the cooperation of our former sworn enemies, Iran’s ayatollahs.

Presumably McCain envisions a more favorable outcome for Georgia, to whom he has committed the unqualified support of the United States with his outrageously overreaching statement that “we are all Georgians.” If Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama had been in contact with the leader of a nation before and after that nation provoked a war, his campaign would be in a shambles. Not so McCain, who is acting as if he is already the elected commander in chief of a reconstituted neoconservative-dominated White House. By contrast, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been reduced to a blustering bystander.

Read more Old Soldier

From The Washington Post
By David Ignatius

It was February 2006 in Munich, and John McCain’s eyes were flashing with the mischievous spark that comes when he’s about to fire a verbal rocket. “I’ve got a zinger coming,” he told me, referring to a speech on Russia he would give a few hours later at the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy.

And McCain did indeed deliver a zinger. He blasted Vladimir Putin for “the pursuit of autocracy at home and abroad” — and then urged that Russia be excluded from the G-8 summit of industrialized nations. For good measure, he included a call for Georgia, already a thorn in Russia’s side, to join NATO.

McCain’s 2006 speech made news, as he knew it would. So did an address in Munich the night before from Georgia’s emotional president, Mikheil Saakashvili. He recalled how he had cried the night the Berlin Wall fell — and then pleaded for Western support for Georgia’s efforts to recover the renegade province of South Ossetia and end what he called the “cancer of separatism.”

Now that Russia has invaded Georgia, McCain can point to that speech and argue, “I told you so.” And it’s true enough that the Arizona Republican was early to warn that Putin’s Russia was heading in a dangerous direction and that the West should be vigilant. But what sticks in my memory of that day in Munich was the flash in McCain’s eyes before he made his provocative speech.

McCain likes zingers. We’ve all seen that mischievous look — just before he shot a quip or sarcastic one-liner at GOP rivals such as former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. It’s one of his appealing qualities, but in this case it worries me. Zingers don’t make good foreign policy. They embolden friends and provoke adversaries — and in the Georgia crisis, that has proved to be a deadly combination.

Read more Zingers

From The NY Times
By Maureen Dowd

In the dead of night in a small hideaway office in the deserted Capitol, a clandestine meeting takes place between two senators with one goal.

They grin at each other as they lift their celebratory shots of brutally cold Stolichnaya.

“Our toast to The One,” they say in unison, “is that he’s toast.”

“Obama should have picked you, Hillary,” John McCain tells her. “It isn’t fair, my friend. But it just makes it easier for me to whup him.”

“Don’t worry, John, I’ve put it behind me,” Hillary replies. “I’m looking toward the future now, a future that looks very bright, once we send Twig Legs back to the back bench.”

They chortle with delight.

“He’s a bright young man, but he got ahead of himself,” McCain says. “He needs to be taught a lesson, and we’re the ones to do it. Have you seen the new Bloomberg poll? Obama’s dropped and we’re even again. The Bullet’s getting all the credit, but you and I know, Hillary, that it’s these top-secret counseling sessions we’re having. And thanks again for BlackBerrying me the Rick Warren questions while I was in the so-called cone of silence.”

“Oh, John, you know I love you and I’m happy to help,” Hillary says. “The themes you took from me are working great — painting Obama as an elitist and out-of-touch celebrity, when we’re rich celebrities, too. Turning his big rallies and pretty words into character flaws, charging him with playing the race card — that one always cracks me up. And accusing the media, especially NBC, of playing favorites. It’s easy to get the stupid press to navel-gaze; they’re so insecure.”

Read more Two vs. One

From Salon
By Katharine Mieszkowski

In the excitement of the Olympics, the run-up to the presidential conventions and the flurry of late summer vacations, it was easy to miss the Bush administration’s stealth attack on the Endangered Species Act last week. A proposed regulation would simply eliminate independent scientific reviews that have been required for over 30 years.

“I have been working on the Endangered Species Act for 15 years and have never seen such a sneaky attack,” declared John Kostyack, executive director of wildlife conservation and global warming at the National Wildlife Federation.

In a proposal, first reported by the Associated Press, biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service would no longer have input into the actions of many other federal agencies in evaluating projects that could impact endangered species.

Essentially it would be up to officials at agencies like the Forest Service, the Minerals Management Service and the Department of Transportation to decide for themselves if a new timber allotment, mining project or road would harm endangered animals and plants, without consulting third-party biologists from Fish and Wildlife.

Read more Sneak-Attack

From AlterNet
By Kathleen Connell

Bad news continues to batter the American consumer, from negative home equity to weak retail sales and rising claims for unemployment benefits.

One in 3 homeowners who purchased homes since 2003 now owe more than what the property is worth, according to Zillow.com, an Internet service that values more than 80 million homes. The numbers are even more dismal for those who bought in 2006, with 45 percent now experiencing negative home equity.

Equity holdings by households offer no cushion, falling a stunning 41 percent in value for the first quarter of 2008, according to the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds Report.

Announcements of Wall Street layoffs, bankruptcies of major US retail outlets, and even the decision by Starbucks to close 600 outlets has agitated Americans regarding their future employment.

Reflecting the collapse in housing and equity values, household net worth has dropped for two consecutive quarters, as consumers increasingly depend on credit cards and consumer loans to maintain their lifestyles.

Growing numbers of economists believe that America is now in a transformational economy, where consumer spending may play a lesser role, as households belatedly recognize the need to “right size” their lifestyles. For many families, comparison shopping has become an essential practice.

Read more Battered Consumer

From The Boston Globe
Editorial

The record is mixed on whether documentary films can provoke political action. Just ask Michael Moore, whose Oscar-winning “Bowling for Columbine” had little real effect on the nation’s gun control laws. Still, the producers of “I.O.U.S.A,” which opens in selected theaters tomorrow, are hoping to muscle in with an even more difficult policy issue - the nation’s $9.5 trillion (and growing!) debt.

Based on the book “Empire of Debt” by Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggins, the film is a nonpartisan red alert, with cameo appearances from national scolds as ideologically diverse as Ron Paul and Warren Buffett. It aims to demystify a dense topic by breaking it down into four deficits plaguing the country: in savings, budget, trade, and - worst of all - in leadership.

Contributions to the debt are bipartisan as well: John McCain’s proposals - $100 billion in additional tax cuts for corporations, another $65 billion for individuals, and a continuation of the $11 billion-a month war in Iraq - will flood America with red ink. But Barack Obama is doing his part, with $80 billion in tax cuts for working families, an immediate $50 billion stimulus package, and a $65 billion healthcare expansion.

The film’s improbable star is David Walker, former US comptroller general, a mild-mannered accountant who travels the country interviewing clueless Americans about the four deficits. Walker is the independent-minded former head of the Government Accountability Office, who sued Vice President Dick Cheney over his refusal to disclose who met with his energy task force. Now he’s blowing the whistle on the economy. “We suffer from a fiscal cancer,” he says in the film - a line that may not rival “Make my day,” but an ominous mantra nonetheless.

Read more Spendthrift

From Information Clearing House
By Mike Whitney

In a matter of weeks, the euro has been pounded into ground-chuck while the dollar has regained much of its former glory. What gives? The mighty greenback has surged 6% in the last month alone. Apparently, the early reports of the dollar’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. The euro is caught in the same recessionary downdraft that is buffeting a number of currencies, all of which are unwinding at the same time although unevenly. Currency markets don’t move in straight lines. But, don’t be fooled, most paper money is steadily losing value due to the wild expansion of credit which started at the Federal Reserve. Investors are moving to cash and hunkering down. Who can blame them? As the massive equity bubble loses gas, balance sheets will have to be mended and lending will slow to a crawl. At present, Germany’s slowdown and Spain’s housing crash are drawing most of the attention but, just wait, the spotlight is shifting fast. Next week it could be shining down on the America’s failing banking system or poor corporate-earnings reports in the US. Then it will be the dollar marching off to the gallows.

Europe’s troubles have put to rest to idea that other countries can “decouple” from the US and thrive without help from the US consumer. That might be true in the long-term, but falling demand is already visible everywhere. Retail and auto sales are really taking a thumping and 2009 is shaping up to be even tougher. It’s looking more and more like the Europeon Central Bank was faked-out by the early signs of inflation and missed the deflationary sledgehammer that was about to come crashing down. It was a rookie error by European Central Bank (ECB) chief Jean Claude Trichet and it should cost him his job. Raising interest rates while sliding into the jaws of recession is madness. Now all of Europe is headed for a hard landing and there’s no way to soften the blow. The ECB doesn’t have the same tools as the Fed; Trichet can’t simply backstop the whole system with green paper and T-Bills like Bernanke. He can either slash rates or take a bleacher-seat and hope for the best.

The UK Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, sums up Europe’s woes in last week’s article “ECB Slammed as Europe Crumbles”:

“The economies of Germany, France and Italy all contracted in the first quarter and may now be in full recession, shattering assumptions that Europe would prove able to shrug off the effects of the credit crunch….The picture is darkening so fast in Spain that Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero canceled holidays and called his cabinet back to Madrid yesterday for the first emergency session of its kind since the Franco dictatorship.

Read more Greenback Blues

From The NY Times
Editorial

A year into the financial crisis, the news is grim and there are signs of even worse troubles ahead. The mortgage bust continues and has begun to spread to loans for construction and commercial property, as well as credit cards and auto loans.

There may soon be more bank failures and a spate of corporate bankruptcies. That means that unemployment will almost certainly rise — employers have shed nearly half a million jobs this year — and those who keep their jobs will have to cope with fewer hours, measlier raises and evaporating bonuses.

In an election year, sound policy making is almost always trumped by political posturing, making the situation even bleaker. A case in point is the new foreclosure-prevention law. President Bush threatened for months to veto it, before signing it in July. The law’s main feature — allowing the government to guarantee hundreds of billions of dollars in new mortgages to troubled borrowers — won’t take effect until Oct. 1.

The law’s other important feature — a contingency plan for a government bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the nation’s biggest mortgage companies — was a last-minute, crisis-driven addition, the opposite of the ahead-of-the-curve action that is now needed.

The country cannot afford more delay and more posturing. Before the crisis gets any worse, Congress must take several steps.

Read more Economy

From The Baltimore Sun
By Jennifer Moses

My husband, three children, dog and I recently moved — from Baton Rouge, La., where we lived for 13 years, to Montclair, N.J. I thought I was a fairly meticulous housekeeper, the type who cleans out closets and attics regularly. But it turns out we accumulated more stuff than currently exists in, say, Haiti.

So we had a great purge. Then we moved, and started unpacking the stuff we hadn’t gotten rid of, things so numerous that, if listed, they would fill up a piece of paper as long as the New Jersey Turnpike. enough is enough? Is there a line, or merely our own individual ethical and material comfort zones?

In the middle of our Baton Rouge purge, a friend mentioned something called “the 100 club.” The idea is that in order to live in some sort of balance, we’d do well to limit our material possessions to 100 objects.

The trick, of course, is how you count. I could either count 21 sweaters, two dozen pairs of shoes, 18 dresses, 31 T-shirts, four pairs of jeans, and so forth, or I could count “wardrobe” as one item. Not that I’m on the verge of actually doing anything remotely related to paring down my material existence to a few basic essentials. But the idea is tantalizing nonetheless.

Especially as I now live in a place of such abundance that peopleput perfectly good furniture out on the sidewalk on trash collection day.

True, most of it seems to be of the fairly beat-up and worn-out variety, but still: What kind of person just plops things as lovely as Bentwood rockers, double strollers, painted bureaus, matching bookcases and working electric fans out on the sidewalk next to the garbage cans?

Read more Abundance