Stratfor--The Private U.S. Central Intelligence Agency

Wikileaks released more that five million emails from the private U.S. intelligence gathering company Stratfor today:


WikiWorld

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The Global Intelligence Files – more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor.

LONDON—Today, Monday 27 February, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files – more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods, for example :

"[Y]ou have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control... This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase" – CEO George Friedman to Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalla on 6 December 2011, on how to exploit an Israeli intelligence informant providing information on the medical condition of the President of Venezuala, Hugo Chavez.

The material contains privileged information about the US government’s attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor’s own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks. There are more than 4,000 emails mentioning WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. The emails also expose the revolving door that operates in private intelligence companies in the United States. Government and diplomatic sources from around the world give Stratfor advance knowledge of global politics and events in exchange for money. The Global Intelligence Files exposes how Stratfor has recruited a global network of informants who are paid via Swiss banks accounts and pre-paid credit cards. Stratfor has a mix of covert and overt informants, which includes government employees, embassy staff and journalists around the world.

The material shows how a private intelligence agency works, and how they target individuals for their corporate and government clients. For example, Stratfor monitored and analysed the online activities of Bhopal activists, including the "Yes Men", for the US chemical giant Dow Chemical. The activists seek redress for the 1984 Dow Chemical/Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India. The disaster led to thousands of deaths, injuries in more than half a million people, and lasting environmental damage.

Stratfor has realised that its routine use of secret cash bribes to get information from insiders is risky. In August 2011, Stratfor CEO George Friedman confidentially told his employees : "We are retaining a law firm to create a policy for Stratfor on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. I don’t plan to do the perp walk and I don’t want anyone here doing it either."

Stratfor’s use of insiders for intelligence soon turned into a money-making scheme of questionable legality. The emails show that in 2009 then-Goldman Sachs Managing Director Shea Morenz and Stratfor CEO George Friedman hatched an idea to "utilise the intelligence" it was pulling in from its insider network to start up a captive strategic investment fund. CEO George Friedman explained in a confidential August 2011 document, marked DO NOT SHARE OR DISCUSS : "What StratCap will do is use our Stratfor’s intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical instruments, particularly government bonds, currencies and the like". The emails show that in 2011 Goldman Sach’s Morenz invested "substantially" more than $4million and joined Stratfor’s board of directors. Throughout 2011, a complex offshore share structure extending as far as South Africa was erected, designed to make StratCap appear to be legally independent. But, confidentially, Friedman told StratFor staff : "Do not think of StratCap as an outside organisation. It will be integral... It will be useful to you if, for the sake of convenience, you think of it as another aspect of Stratfor and Shea as another executive in Stratfor... we are already working on mock portfolios and trades". StratCap is due to launch in 2012.

The Stratfor emails reveal a company that cultivates close ties with US government agencies and employs former US government staff. It is preparing the 3-year Forecast for the Commandant of the US Marine Corps, and it trains US marines and "other government intelligence agencies" in "becoming government Stratfors". Stratfor’s Vice-President for Intelligence, Fred Burton, was formerly a special agent with the US State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service and was their Deputy Chief of the counterterrorism division. Despite the governmental ties, Stratfor and similar companies operate in complete secrecy with no political oversight or accountability. Stratfor claims that it operates "without ideology, agenda or national bias", yet the emails reveal private intelligence staff who align themselves closely with US government policies and channel tips to the Mossad – including through an information mule in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Yossi Melman, who conspired with Guardian journalist David Leigh to secretly, and in violation of WikiLeaks’ contract with the Guardian, move WikiLeaks US diplomatic cables to Israel.

Ironically, considering the present circumstances, Stratfor was trying to get into what it called the leak-focused "gravy train" that sprung up after WikiLeaks’ Afghanistan disclosures :

"[Is it] possible for us to get some of that ’leak-focused’ gravy train ? This is an obvious fear sale, so that’s a good thing. And we have something to offer that the IT security companies don’t, mainly our focus on counter-intelligence and surveillance that Fred and Stick know better than anyone on the planet... Could we develop some ideas and procedures on the idea of ´leak-focused’ network security that focuses on preventing one’s own employees from leaking sensitive information... In fact, I’m not so sure this is an IT problem that requires an IT solution."

Like WikiLeaks’ diplomatic cables, much of the significance of the emails will be revealed over the coming weeks, as our coalition and the public search through them and discover connections. Readers will find that whereas large numbers of Stratfor’s subscribers and clients work in the US military and intelligence agencies, Stratfor gave a complimentary membership to the controversial Pakistan general Hamid Gul, former head of Pakistan’s ISI intelligence service, who, according to US diplomatic cables, planned an IED attack on international forces in Afghanistan in 2006. Readers will discover Stratfor’s internal email classification system that codes correspondence according to categories such as ’alpha’, ’tactical’ and ’secure’. The correspondence also contains code names for people of particular interest such as ’Hizzies’ (members of Hezbollah), or ’Adogg’ (Mahmoud Ahmedinejad).

Stratfor did secret deals with dozens of media organisations and journalists – from Reuters to the Kiev Post. The list of Stratfor’s "Confederation Partners", whom Stratfor internally referred to as its "Confed Fuck House" are included in the release. While it is acceptable for journalists to swap information or be paid by other media organisations, because Stratfor is a private intelligence organisation that services governments and private clients these relationships are corrupt or corrupting.

WikiLeaks has also obtained Stratfor’s list of informants and, in many cases, records of its payoffs, including $1,200 a month paid to the informant "Geronimo" , handled by Stratfor’s Former State Department agent Fred Burton.

WikiLeaks has built an investigative partnership with more than 25 media organisations and activists to inform the public about this huge body of documents. The organisations were provided access to a sophisticated investigative database developed by WikiLeaks and together with WikiLeaks are conducting journalistic evaluations of these emails. Important revelations discovered using this system will appear in the media in the coming weeks, together with the gradual release of the source documents.

END

[See http://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html for the following information:]
Public partners in the investigation
Comment
Current WikiLeaks status
How to read the data [including glossary]

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Monday's WikiLeaks London press conference

The sound doesn't start until a few minutes in.



Video streaming by Ustream
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WikiLeaks Publishes 5 Million 'Shadow CIA' E-Mails
Published on Monday, February 27, 2012 by Common Dreams

"Admit nothing, deny everything, make counteraccusations”

WikiLeaks announced tonight that it is publishing documents it is calling "The Global Intelligence Files" which includes over 5 million e-mails from the US-based "Global Intelligence" company Stratfor, the Global Intelligence Company described by Barons as the Shadow CIA, according to a statement the organization released Sunday night.

WikiLeaks has partnered with 25 media organizations to publish the documents including the McClatchy newspapers and Rolling Stone.

"The e-mails date between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor's web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods."

WikiLeaks will hold a noon-time press conference in London on Monday to explain the files. The full press release is available here.

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UPDATE: Monday's WikiLeaks London press conference has ended. The New York Times reports:

“The material contains privileged information about the U.S. government’s attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor’s own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks,” the group said. “There are more than 4,000 e-mails mentioning WikiLeaks or Julian Assange.”

At the London news conference, Mr. Assange said the Stratfor statement seemed to confirm the advice offered by a senior figure in the company in one of the exposed e-mails which he quoted a senior Stratfor executive as saying: “admit nothing, deny everything, make counteraccusations.”Mr. Assange appeared Monday at a streamed news conference from the journalists’ Frontline Club in London.

Stratfor said in a statement that some of the e-mails being published “may be forged or altered to include inaccuracies; some may be authentic,” the company said in a statement quoted by Reuters.

“We will not validate either. Nor will we explain the thinking that went into them. Having had our property stolen, we will not be victimized twice by submitting to questioning about them,” the statement said.

At the London news conference, Mr. Assange said the Stratfor statement seemed to confirm the advice offered by a senior figure in the company in one of the exposed e-mails which he quoted a senior Stratfor executive as saying: “admit nothing, deny everything, make counteraccusations.”

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Technorati reports:

Wikileaks has begun publishing 5 million e-mails from Stratfor, the Global Intelligence Company described by Barons as the Shadow CIA.

At 00:01 GMT on 27 February 2011, Wikileaks started publishing the confidential e-mail communications between Stratfor and its informants which includes government employees, government agencies and corporations.

In a press release, the inner workings of Stratfor are described, painting a world where the government, corporations and Stratfor are intertwined.

Anti-Sec, part of Anonymous, proclaimed late in December 2011 that they had hacked into Stratfor and had managed to gain access to subscriber data. In a press release, Anti-Sec stated that the main reason they hacked into Stratfor was not for the subscriber data, but the trove of 5 million e-mail data, which would reveal the inner working of Stratfor and government agencies. It seems that it is these e-mails that are now being leaked by Wikileaks.

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See Also:
Glenn Greenwald
SATURDAY, DEC 24, 2011
The intellectual cowardice of Bradley Manning’s critics

And:

FEBRUARY 5, 2012 2:23PM
An Open Letter about Pfc. Bradley Manning (Updated)

Congress Moves Environmental Protection Back Toward the Stone Age (or at least back to the early 1900's)

A palpable hatred for both predators and other “varmints” is revealed in articles printed in the U.S. Department of Agriculture Year Book for 1920, where classics like “Hunting Down Stock Killers” and “Death To The Rodents” can be found.
See:

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2007
Wolves, Prison Labor, NPR
and
MONDAY, MAY 11, 2009
Wolves Again. . . .
This is a in part a re-post of a blog from December 6, 2007 about wolves and the persecution of predators.
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Wording of the anti-wolf stealth rider placed into budget bill by Montana's Sen. Tester and Idaho's Sen. Simpson:

SEC. 1713. Before the end of the 60-day period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Interior shall reissue the final rule published on April 2, 2009 (74 Fed. Reg. 15123 et seq.) without regard to any other provision of statute or regulation that applies to issuance of such rule. Such reissuance (including this section) shall not be subject to judicial review and shall not abrogate or otherwise have any effect on the order and judgment issued by the United States District Court for the District of Wyoming in Case Numbers 09–CV–118J and 09–CV–138J on November 18, 2010

In other words, congressional passage of the rider reinstates the Interior Department's/US Fish & Wildlife Service, April 2, 2009 anti-wolf final de-listing rule that had been subsequently ruled illegal by the courts. Additionally, the Congress, in passing the budget bill with the rider attached, attempts to remove any review of the action by the Judicial branch of government, even to test its constitutionality. Where are these people taking us when they tell us they can pick and choose what legislation can, or cannot, be reviewed by the courts?

A friend sent out this brief discussion from Legal Planet; the Environmental Law and Policy Blog, and we can expect to be hearing more on the legal issues in the future.

The bigger loser here is the integrity of our environmental laws. This rider, a joint effort of Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), is an exercise in arrogance, cowardice and congressional overreach. Oh, and let’s not forget hypocrisy: both sides of the political aisle have complained incessantly about the evils of policy riders attached to must-pass appropriations bills, yet both sides continue to attach riders left and right. (If you need examples of congressional hypocrisy, just watch any random episode of The Daily Show.) Expect to hear a lot more about harmful environmental riders in the coming budget showdowns.
. . . .
Attaching this rider to the appropriations bill, instead of debating a separate policy bill, is cowardly. Assuming that Congress knows more about the wolves than all of the participants in the litigation is arrogant. For example, this rider is worse than the rejected settlement, in that it lacks any requirement for independent scientific review. But worst of all, whoever wrote the rider seems to believe that Congress stands above judicial review.

Please see:
Of Wolves and Men. APRIL 12, 2011, by Rhead Enion for entire article.
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Federal budget vote splits Oregon delegation

WASHINGTON – A controversial budget to keep the federal government operating for the rest of the fiscal year fractured Oregon's delegation Thursday, with Democrats Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader voting for the measure along with Republican Greg Walden while Reps. Earl Blumenauer and David Wu opposed it.

The jagged fault lines extended to the Senate, where Democrats Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley (Merkley voted for the bill) split their votes. Wyden voted against the bill because it included language that would eliminate a provision in the health care law that allows 300,000 workers to shop for their health insurance on the open market.

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One reaction from N. E. Oregon wolf advocate Wally Sykes

"The Tester/Simpson Rider delisting wolves is a body-blow to the Endangered Species Act, a cynical ploy by the Obama Administration to try and save the seat of Montana Senator John Tester. It's the first legislative delisting in the 38-year history of the ESA, and sets a terrible precedent of using politics instead of science to delist a species. It denies citizens any say in this delisting because it excludes it from judicial review. 1200 scientists have written a letter to Obama protesting this act. Harry Reid promised a budget without riders, and the President himself promised to safeguard environmental policies, and this is how they keep their word?

"The delisting includes the wolves of eastern Oregon, which will now be subject to the Oregon Wolf Plan and protected as a state endangered species, but the biological reserve for our wolves is Idaho, where the population could be cut to 300 from about 800. This is not enough to maintain genetic diversity. Furthermore, the ESA is vital in protecting vast swathes of forest, wetlands, rivers, watersheds and desert. All this is now put at risk by this ill-considered political maneuver."

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From The Center For Biological Diversity

For Immediate Release, April 14, 2011

Contact: Kierán Suckling, (520) 275-5960

Congress Approves Wolf-killing Rider in Budget Act to Aid Montana Democrat’s Re-election

Votes Mark the First Time that Endangered Species Act Protections Have Been Removed by Politicians

WASHINGTON— In part to aid the re-election campaign of Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Congress today approved a budget bill that includes a rider removing wolves in Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Utah from the federal endangered species list and sets the stage for near-term delisting in Wyoming. The votes mark the first time that Congress has bypassed the science-based process of the Endangered Species Act and stripped federal protections from an endangered species.

The rider was submitted by Tester and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) and approved by Democratic leadership in the U.S. Senate. The rider not only eliminates federal protection for wolves but sets a dangerous precedent for other politicians looking to halt recovery of endangered species in their home states.

“This is a dark day for wolves and for all species relying on federal protections for their survival,” said Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Senator Tester included the rider as a ploy to score political points in his 2012 reelection campaign, and now wolves and other species will have to pay the price.”

Delisting removes federal protections from an endangered species and hands management over to state control. The states with the most wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains, Idaho and Montana, intend to kill many of the 1,270 animals last counted in their two states, which include approximately 80 breeding pairs. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is likely to ramp up aerial gunning of wolves and campaigns that destroy pups in their dens.

The rider approved today by the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives bans citizens from challenging the wolf delisting decision, even if wolf numbers plummet toward zero, while preserving anti-wolf litigation brought by the state of Wyoming and other parties.

Since the Endangered Species Act became law in 1973, Congress has never intervened to override the law and remove a plant or animal from federal protection.

“Congressional delisting without the opportunity to restore protections threatens to bring us back to the days when wolves and other wildlife were systematically poisoned on public lands,” said Suckling. “We ask President Obama to veto the federal budget to ensure that an endangered species is not massacred; that the Endangered Species Act is not gutted; and that the science, not politics, determines which species benefit from federal protections.”

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High Country News
The Range Blog
Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf?
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House

. . . .
Conventional arguments become spurious statements when scrutinized in the light of day:

1) Wolves are killing huge numbers of livestock

In Montana, from 1995 to 2007, wolves killed an average 67 livestock animals (cattle, sheep, llamas, goats and horses) per year. Last year, 97 cows/calves were killed, out of 2.5 million head of cattle in the state.

In Idaho, in 2009, wolves killed 90 cows/calves and 344 sheep. The number of sheep seems high, until you consider that sheep producers reported losing 56,000 animals that year for reasons other than predators, such as disease and weather. They also reported losing another 18,800 animals to all predators, mostly coyotes. Eagles were blamed for another 600 sheep deaths. If economics was a real argument, why not target the more destructive hunters--grizzlies, eagles, foxes and coyotes?

Now, I’ve seen a wolf tear out the guts of an animal and it’s not pleasant, but I’ve also seen hamburgers. The loss of a negligent amount of livestock to wolves seems like the price of doing this kind of business. . . . .

Please read entire article for other good info.
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Some interesting statistics about Rocky Mountain Gray Wolves From OPB/Ecotrope:

Number of confirmed Montana sheep killed by wolves: 67

Number sheep producers reported lost from other causes (i.e. disease, weather): 49,000

Number they reported lost to all predators: 17,800

Amount of money the feds spent on Northern Rockies wolf management last year: $4,566,000

Amount the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife spent the last two years: $480,000

Amount paid to Montana ranchers for 369 livestock losses to wolves in 2009: $143,000

Amount cattlemen say they’ll need to start a compensation program in Oregon: $750,000

For the whole list and other good information, see Gray wolves: By the numbers.
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Wallowa Chieftan Article on Wally Sykes (NE Oregon Ecosystems) Wolf Testimony in Salem.

Sykes: Some of my testimony is covered above. The balance is below:
We have 35 million acres of public land, half our state, in vast contiguous tracts. These lands protect our biodiversity, our watersheds, our ancient American connection to wilderness and wildness. The wolf restores much that has been degraded there, an effect clearly shown in Yellowstone and elsewhere. The wolf is good for our land and for our souls.

Successful livestock operations are the norm in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Minnesota, British Columbia, and Alberta – all in wolf country. Management techniques and non-lethal tools minimize conflicts. Compensation plans defray losses. Government, organizational and private contributors provide the hardware, the expertise and the labor to employ non-lethal measures.

In Wallowa County, fladry (flagging hung from an electrified fencing wire), RAG boxes (devices that create noise and visual distraction when triggered by a radio-collared wolf), carcass removal, hazers and range riders have ALL been provided by a combination of these agents.

Last year few of these measures were taken. But this year, 10 miles of fladry are out, and RAG boxes are up where they’ll do the most good. Hazers are on the Zumwalt, radio receivers have been given to ranchers so they’ll know when wolves are near. Wolves have been collared with both GPS and telemetry collars, and stock-growers are constantly updated with wolf locations and movements.

Wolves benefit the northeast Oregon economy. Wildlife watching is a booming industry. Wolf-watchers bring $35 million a year to the area around Yellowstone. Wallowa County saw an influx of tourists last year attracted by our wolves and more will comes this year. New jobs are available – Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife specialist and technicians, hazers, range riders, fladry fencers, even local photographers have seen new work from wolves.

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I want to take a moment and thank the Senators from the 6th smallest state in the "Union," with fewer people than the city of Dallas, Texas, for showing Montana, the state where my father was born, to be the thoughtless, insensitive, mean, greedy, and barbaric state that it apparently has become, not unlike much of the rest of the rural west, for placing the anti-wolf stealth rider in the Budget bill.
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Other Ranching News

Sage Grouse Prevail

Advocates for the West
Date: 04/14/2011

Sage Grouse Prevail - A federal judge has ordered BLM to close to livestock grazing 17 allotments in the Jarbidge Field Office in southwestern Idaho, and has given Simplot Livestock and other permittees about two weeks to remove all livestock from the closed areas. Animating the court's decision was the continuing collapse of sage-grouse populations and habitat. The Court has ordered an evidentiary hearing on Simplot's motion to lift the injunction, and thus this 7 year-old case is just getting started. Stay tuned.

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Louise du Toit - Ode to the Wolves - Wolf Paintings by Vincent A Kennard

Watch on YouTube

Public Lands Grazing Updates; Wolves; Krugman on Moral Divide

In This Edition;

- Public Lands Grazing Updates

----- Another Step Forward for Threatened Steelhead on the Malheur National Forest
----- Hell's Canyon Preservation Council Files Suit Asking Forest Service to Comply With the Law
----- ODFW Wolf Report
----- Krugman--A Tale of Two Moralities
[Edited 1/14-15 & 17/11]
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More time was taken with this post on livestock gazing, compared with others (:-)), simply because this is a subject that has been close to my heart and action for a long while, as is explained to some degree below.

Understanding the effects of livestock grazing is not really fully realized by reading a book--one has to go out over a period of time and look around, experience and get to know grazed and un-grazed environments--sit still, walk slowly, study, and soak up what is happening to living things in both situations. Looking at sometimes subtle (and often not so subtle) differences, such as in plant and animal diversity, the number of breeding birds or fish spawning locations (redds) found, stream morphology measurements such as width and depth, stream bank characteristics (overhanging or bare and laid back), the kinds, quantity and condition of riparian plants present, and much more, helps people understand the effects of livestock grazing on riparian/stream systems. The literature is rich with observations and conclusions, some of which have come from the scientists within the land management agencies (Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, state wildlife agencies, and etc.) themselves.

The effects of livestock grazing are well know to many in addition to university professors, including in particular, the scientists in the federal and state agencies that manage our public lands. Conscientious and courageous agency biologists like Bill Platts, a now retired fisheries biologist in the Forest service pointed out some of the adverse effects many years ago. Most of the agencies own scientists today are well aware of these effects and more, but others in powerful and not so powerful positions, while under enormous political pressure to promote the grazing status quo, may bend to that pressure. Others, including even some with scientific training, eagerly enable bad grazing practices to continue, going so far as to ignore or defend them. Enormous amounts of taxpayer dollars are siphoned off and wasted so as to needlessly defend against lawsuits that properly target indefensible and destructive grazing practices, when taxpayer money should be aimed at monitoring the grazing activity and managing conditions on the ground--the public's ground. (I won't even be touching on the fact that public lands ranchers receive what amounts to a very large subsidy from US taxpayers--beginning with the woefully inadequate $1.35 monthly grazing fee for each cow and calf--so that ranchers can continue to have their way with the public lands.)

Here is one guarded example of many agency statements about the effects of livestock on riparian/stream systems:

Livestock Grazing in Riparian Areas in the Interior Columbia Basin and Portions of the Klamath and Great Basin; September 11, 1995

Within the western U.S., livestock grazing likely will continue as a primary use of much of the land area of the Columbia Basin (Kindschy 1994). Cattle are the principal type of livestock that now graze rangelands of the Columbia Basin. Riparian areas constitute only a small percentage of these rangelands (Bedell ed. 1993), yet livestock (especially cattle) activity is disproportionately concentrated within riparian areas (Marlow and Pogacnik 1986, Kovalchik and Elmore 1991) compared with upland areas of watersheds. Excessive herbage removal and physical damage by trampling are visual effects of improper grazing in riparian areas resulting from this concentration of activity. Less noticeable are effects on water quality.

Ramifications of excessive herbage removal and physical damage can include reduced dissipation of stream energy, increased bare soil and soil loss through accelerated erosion, stream channel degradation resulting in reduced floodplain recharge and/or lowered water table and subsequently reduced riparian community size. Erosion and stream channel degradation also affect water quality by increasing suspended sediments and, in conjunction with absence of vegetation shading, water temperature. Simplification of structural layering of vegetation, and presence of early successional stages result in less diverse and often less productive floral and faunal assemblages. Direct influences of livestock concentrations in riparian areas on water quality also include bacterial and protozoal parasite contamination and nutrient enrichment from fecal material in and near surface waters (Larsen in press).

To put that more simply, in lay people's terms: Poorly managed livestock grazing can easily trash riparian/stream systems (not to mention the uplands) on public lands, which are a natural heritage belonging to all the people of our sometimes United States.

For other environmental sources see:

Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West and Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West by George Wuerthner & Mollie Matteson.

Sacred cows at the public trough and Amazon

Effects of livestock grazing and trampling on aquatic and riparian habitats in the western United States
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Another Step forward for Threatened Steelhead on the Malheur National Forest

On December 29, 2010, threatened native steelhead in the John Day River basin of Grant County received a New Year's gift from U.S. District Judge Ancer L. Haggerty and the steelhead's friends in the Oregon Natural Desert Association, the Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds, and Advocates for the West.

Examples of grazing's effects on riparian/stream systems used by endangered fish like steelhead or bull trout.

Summit Creek Exclosure--
Summit Creek on the Sagehen unit, Prairie City Ranger District. Photo shows example of healthy riparian and good fish habitat inside the exclosure. Note deep and narrow stream channel with ample bank stabilizing vegetation. The exclosure excludes cattle but not other native herbivores. I have personally witnessed elk jumping over the west fence into the exclosure to feed. The graminoids along the greenline were about 12 to 14 inches when this photo was taken on 10/08/06.


Summit Creek, just a hundred feet or so outside exclosure. Contrast this photo of this grazed portion of the creek with the previous photo showing conditions just upstream where cattle are excluded. ONDA folks listening to Tim Burton at Multiple Indicator Monitoring (MIM) field trip are Ken Stolz (rt.), Jefferson Jacobs (crouched, 2nd from end) and Mike Ogle (this side of Jefferson).

Note wide, shallower, unshaded stream, little bank stabilizing vegetation, and accelerated erosion from cattle shearing the overhanging bank on the right in photo above. Ex-Forest Service employee, now "consultant," Tim Burton (in the creek), who was conducting the seminar, had little to say about the cattle damage to the overhanging bank on the right. Of course it is hard to know exactly what the instructors said, as they told me to turn my video camera off before their educational program even got started. I was happy to help them find or identify some of the plants along this creek, as I have become quite familiar with this area over the years.
Malheur NF, Grant Co. OR, July 15, 2009

Tim Burton-Erv Cowley Shut Down Filming of their Malheur National Forest MIM Field Trip

Tim Burton, career retired government employee and fisheries biologist for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and Erv Cowley, retired career employee at the BLM, shut down filming of the field trip where they try explain their idea of Multiple Indicator Monitoring (MIM) to Malheur National Forest Service employees, ranchers, and other interested parties who are responsible for protecting streams from cattle grazing.

I guess they didn't want their methodologies under scrutiny, as Tim Burton was at the time helping the Forest Service defend themselves against a law suit by environmental groups who were trying to improve grazing management on the Malheur National Forest. Both Mr. Burton, and Mr. Cowley took their many years experience in the land management agencies, the kind of careers during which some employees get in bed with the ranchers, or at a minimum become totally inured to the damaging effects of livestock grazing, to propel themselves into their new job as monitoring "consultants."

While MIM monitoring is certainly a big step forward from what has been near total neglect, because the agencies will be unable to afford its implementation, it really just ends up providing a very thin veneer of professionalism and science over a failed grazing program.

Mr. Burton is leaning against the tailgate of the pick-up and Mr. Cowley is the one who came over to tell me to stop filming. Another individual in black cap and blue denim jeans, probably from the Forest service, came over to say something to them just before Cowley delivered his message to me. Here's your video Tim and Irv. You can watch it anytime you want on YouTube!
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The victory for steelhead.

Here is the press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

For Immediate Release, December 30, 2010

Contact:

Brent Fenty, ONDA, (541) 330-2638
Noah Greenwald, Center for Biological Diversity, (503) 484-7495
Jon Marvel, Western Watersheds Project, (208) 788-2290

Grazing Halted to Protect Steelhead Trout on a
Quarter-million Acres of Malheur National Forest

PORTLAND, Ore.— A federal judge today barred livestock grazing harmful to endangered steelhead trout on more than a quarter-million acres of public land on the Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon. District Judge Ancer Haggerty ordered the U.S. Forest Service and National Marine Fisheries Service to reconsider the effects of the federal agencies’ grazing plan on native steelhead streams before grazing can resume.

According to Judge Haggerty, grazing has harmed steelhead by damaging the streams they depend on. The court’s order prohibits the Forest Service from allowing grazing on a vast area, including nearly 200 miles of critical steelhead habitat, until the agency complies with the Endangered Species Act. Along another 100 miles of steelhead streams, the court ordered the Forest Service to continue to carry out protective measures it approved during the last two years. The judge also ordered the Forest Service to comply with its steelhead habitat monitoring obligations under the National Forest Management Act and the Malheur Forest Plan before resuming grazing.

Today’s court order is the result of long-running challenges to Forest Service grazing by the Oregon Natural Desert Association, Center for Biological Diversity and Western Watersheds Project that began in 2003. It follows Judge Haggerty’s June 2010 ruling that the Forest Service’s grazing plan violated the Endangered Species Act and National Forest Management Act along more than 300 miles of steelhead streams in the John Day River Basin.

“Today’s decision puts the responsibility for protecting steelhead squarely on the agencies,” said Brent Fenty, ONDA’s executive director. “The court makes clear that the agencies have to make steelhead protection their highest priority, and that they cannot let riparian grazing continue until the agencies create a plan that complies with the law.”

In his ruling earlier this year, Judge Haggerty noted evidence that streamside grazing failed to meet ecological standards designed to conserve steelhead. The standards, established by the Forest Service and Fisheries Service, are meant to protect the key elements of healthy fish streams: stable stream banks and overhanging vegetation that keep streams clear and cold. The Forest Service’s grazing program has damaged stream banks much more severely than is allowed under federal standards.

“This decision insures that the Forest Service must give up its business-as-usual grazing management,” said Jon Marvel, executive director of Western Watersheds Project. “There will be no grazing on hundreds of miles of important fish streams until the Forest Service and NMFS can guarantee that grazing will not harm steelhead.”

Judge Haggerty’s order is the latest in a series of decisions that have resulted in significant protections for threatened steelhead. The judge issued a preliminary ruling in 2008 barring grazing on two allotments, which protected more than 90 miles of steelhead streams. In 2009, the court imposed strong conditions to restrict grazing and limit damage to streams. In the places where the court’s orders have prevented grazing during the past two years, even a single year of rest has allowed for significant initial recovery of riparian plant communities, stream channels and fish habitat.

“Suspending grazing on more than 200 miles of stream on the Malheur National Forest will not just benefit endangered steelhead, but numerous other wildlife species dependent on healthy rivers for their survival,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It will also benefit the public by improving water quality and recreational opportunities, such as fishing, bird-watching and boating. Numerous studies have conclusively demonstrated that there is no compatible use of riparian areas by livestock.”

The Malheur National Forest is located in eastern Oregon’s Blue Mountains. It includes portions of the Upper John Day, Middle Fork John Day, North Fork John Day and Malheur rivers. The 281-mile long John Day River is the second longest undammed river in the continental United States. The river and its hundreds of miles of tributary streams on the Malheur National Forest provide spawning, rearing and migratory habitat for the largest naturally spawning, native stock of wild steelhead remaining in the Columbia River basin.

The opinion can be found at: http://onda.org/enforcing-conservation-laws/legal-actions/cases-1/pdf/07-1871%20Opinion%20and%20Order%20on%20Remedy%20%2812-30-10%29.pdf

Rumor has it that the defendants may have filed for a "Reconsideration" of Judge Haggerty"s opinion in this case.
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Beaver Dam Creek in 2007--Grazed condition
Murderer's Creek Allotment, Dan's Creek unit, Beaver Dam Creek and wet meadow. Photo shows low stubble and massive bank alteration. Cows had been on the unit for a while. Photo was taken on September 28, 2007.

Beaver Dam Creek in 2008--Essentially ungrazed condition
Murderer's Creek Allotment, Dan's Creek unit, Beaver Dam Creek and wet meadow. Photo shows high grass and sedge with little in the way of bank alteration. Cows were allegedly not here this year--just wild ungulates and feral horses. Photo was taken in September, 2008.
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This case began in 2007, and was filed by the Oregon Natural Desert Association (ONDA), and their lawyers, Peter M. (Mac) Lacy (ONDA), Stephanie Parent (Pacific Environmental Advocacy Center, now also in private practice), and Kristin Ruether (Advocates for the West). It was subsequently led by David Becker (davebeckerlaw@gmail.com) who really brought success through his arduous effort which was well beyond the call of duty.

The progress in this case is documented at ONDA v. Kimbell et al., 07-1871-KI (Malheur National Forest grazing decisions).

Earlier attempts to improve grazing practices on the Malheur National Forest began under the direction of one of ONDA's founders and leading lights, Bill Marlett (along with Don Tryon and Alice Elshoff & others), when ONDA filed their first grazing lawsuit on the Malheur N.F. in the John Day/Camp Creek case back in 1994. Denzel and Nancy Ferguson were also early supporters, see: Sacred cows at the public trough and Amazon.

My own involvement in documenting livestock grazing damage on the Malheur began with feeble photographic attempts in 1999, when I first moved to Oregon. I had grown up in an area where the portions of the national forests I visited were not impacted by public lands livestock grazing. The streams that my father took me to for fishing and hiking were as natural as could be expected, with plenty of stream-shading shrubs to deal with, overhanging banks, and numerous pools where I could find some nice fish for dinner. Beginning in the early 1980's, during my jaunts to Utah, I began to notice that the streams, lakesides, and springs were being trashed by livestock grazing, with some areas taking on characteristics that resembled a stockyard. It was obvious that "Ecosystem management" had not yet become popular buzzwords within the land management agencies. In the mid-1980s western ecosystems and native plants became an interest, so I completed a field botany course in 1989, and began identifying and photographing native plants. Since the late 1980s I have observed and been deeply concerned about the destruction, including in some cases the permanent impairment and alteration, of western public ecosystems by livestock grazing.

I was, at least I like to think, a thorn in the side of the Forest Service and BLM, concerning their grazing practices, from the late 1980's on. The victories were almost non-existant, given that I had no lawyer and the BLM (Originally called the "Grazing Service" and "General Land Office"), as well as the Forest Service at that time, were actually at the beck and call of local ranching communities. In the rural ranching areas, both agencies did for all intents and purposes, function as a grazing service, protecting some ranchers' privileges to expropriate public land for use as an over-stocked private cow pasture. I used to go into the BLM district office in Fillmore, Utah, and find that the assistant district manager had articles from Range magazine on her office wall. The district manager was responsible for one allotment that was named for a relative, who bore his own last name. Similar agency kowtowing (or is that cowtowing?) and deplorable conditions were observed in California, Nevada and Arizona. Portions of the public lands in many areas of the rural west had clearly taken on the character of a stockyard.

Stockyard? Bluebucket Allotment/Lake Camp Unit, Malheur National Forest. UTM 11T 0376580E 4883943N Black Canyon at end of trail from 460 road leading to spring & exclosure.
Photo shows bare ground and erosion created by cattle trails and heavy use in the canyon around the exclosure. Sediments from sources like these will easily find their way downstream to seasonally used, threatened bull trout habitat, on the main stem of the Malheur River. Photo was taken on October 8, 2006.

Given my experiences, it was natural therefore to notice similar conditions on the Malheur National Forest when I moved to Prairie City, Oregon in 1999. My interest in monitoring public land grazing activities was well developed prior to my moving to Grant County in 1999, and so I immediately involved myself in continuing that activity. I attended agency-organized field tours, when allowed (they didn't always allow me to attend their "tours."), and reported incidents of cattle trespassing, violation of grazing standards, and areas of chronic damage caused by cattle grazing to the Forest Service. I also donated fencing material to the Prairie City district of the Malheur National Forest to help protect declining aspen stands from cattle grazing.

In 2000-2001, I teamed up with the Oregon Natural Desert Association, who had taken an interest in grazing activities on the Malheur not long after their founding in 1987. Jon Rhodes, Hydrologist at Planeto Azul Hydrology had already been on the case for some years, and soon, Dr. Bob Beschta, Professor Emeritus at Oregon State Universuity, who Jon has described as "perhaps the world's greatest living wildland hydrologist," along with renowned riparian ecologist, Dr. Boone Kauffman, and Grant County residents whose identity I should probably protect (unless given permission), were on the case. With that expertise, ONDA's lawyers, and my monitoring, we began an association aimed at getting the Malheur National Forest and their public land grazing permittees to begin following the law and to show the land a little respect in the John Day and Malheur River basins.

The first of a series of ONDA lawsuits that I was a party to began in 2003, with the most recent being the one that Judge Haggerty just rendered a decision in (2007). ONDA's legal efforts, along with court action, are beginning to improve livestock grazing management in both of these river systems. ONDA's actions, with the tremendous help of The Center For Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds, and Advocates For The West, have begun to see results, despite the enormous financial power arrayed against them, in protecting riparian corridors along the rivers and streams of these systems. As these riparian corridors begin to heal, the critters that inhabit them, including steelhead and breeding birds, among others, should begin to flourish and increase their numbers to a healthy sustainable level.

Much remains to be done by younger volunteers, both on the Malheur National Forest, and elsewhere. To help, please contact Oregon Natural Desert Association, the Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds, and Advocates for the West.

Grazed Condition in 2007
Murderer's Creek Allotment/John Young Meadows Unit; S. Fk. Murderers Creek as it flows through John Young Meadows. Photo shows more massive trampling and mowed-down graminoids as poor conditions continue upstream from transectt south end of transect toward the horse pasture/exclosure and cow camp. Photo was taken on October 22, 2007.

Un-grazed Condition in 2008
Murderer's Creek Allotment/John Young Meadows Unit; S. Fk. Murderers Creek as it flows through John Young Meadows. Photo shows the effects of no cattle grazing, although feral horses and elk used the area. Bank alteration on transect measured was essentially non existant. Grazing permittee and ODFW employee are watching and photographing me from the road in upper right. Photo was taken in late October, 2008.
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Hell's Canyon Preservation Council Files Suit Asking Forest Service to Comply With the Law
USFS Feedlot-Juniper Flat, Juniper Flat pasture, Alder Springs allotment on the Whitman Ranger District, Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, Baker County, OR, (this allotment was among those categorically excluded from thorough environmental review and challenged in the lawsuit described in press release below). Photo by Christopher Christie, October 9, 2008

Lawsuit Seeks to Protect Thousands of Acres of Public Lands and Waters from Forest Service's Inadequate Environmental Review of Livestock Grazing

The Hells Canyon Preservation Council and the Oregon Natural Desert Association filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging several Forest Service livestock grazing permit renewals on three National Forests in eastern Oregon. The Wallowa-Whitman, Umatilla and Malheur National Forests have together reauthorized livestock grazing on well over a quarter million acres of our public lands without thoroughly assessing or disclosing to the public the impacts of these actions on the region's natural resources.

Instead, the Forest Service has elected to forego any thorough environmental assessments or meaningful public participation, issuing numerous "categorical exclusions" across eastern Oregon and throughout the entire American West. An appropriations “rider” passed by Congress in 2005 and extended in 2008, allowed the Forest Service to categorically exclude grazing reauthorizations in fiscal years 2005 through 2008 from documentation under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), if the agency was able to demonstrate with monitoring data that current grazing management is meeting resource standards (standards designed to ensure ecosystem health, protect native species, and prevent overgrazing). Categorical exclusions are also disallowed if grazing might negatively affect certain special resources like threatened and endangered species; flood plains, wetlands, or municipal watersheds; congressionally designated areas, such as wilderness or national recreation areas; and cultural or archeological sites.

The Forest Service has repeatedly misapplied this grazing rider across these three forests. Although grazing has occurred on these public lands allotments for decades, in most cases the Forest Service has never prepared any environmental analyses under NEPA, despite the presence of imperiled plants, threatened salmon and steelhead, degraded streams, sensitive and unique habitats, cultural and archeological sites, and areas designated by Congress for special resource protection, such as the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area and the Imnaha and John Day Wild & Scenic Rivers. Because the agency has failed to adequately monitor these areas and the resources they contain, it cannot show that protective standards are being met and that grazing does not pose any serious threats.

When inappropriately managed, livestock grazing adversely impacts ecological communities, particularly sensitive streamside areas, meadows, sagebrush ecosystems, aspen stands, and native grasses and forbs, all of which are critically important habitat for fish and wildlife. Livestock can trample and eat vegetation, spread noxious weeds, compact soils, erode streambanks and impair water quality. When livestock are allowed to degrade this habitat, it threatens the ecological functioning or survival of many fish, wildlife and plant species.

This action aims to ensure the Forest Service takes a hard look at the impacts of grazing on thousands of acres of public lands and waters, imperiled species, and countless other natural resources of eastern Oregon and gives the public a meaningful opportunity to participate in the decisions affecting our natural heritage.

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ODFW Wolf Report from Michelle Dennehy

Imnaha Pack:
- at least 16 wolves

Imnaha Wolf Pack, December 30, 2010

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Krugman--A Tale of Two Moralities

(A friend sent me this.)

A Tale of Two Moralities
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: January 13, 2011

On Wednesday, President Obama called on Americans to “expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together.” Those were beautiful words; they spoke to our desire for reconciliation.

But the truth is that we are a deeply divided nation and are likely to remain one for a long time.
. . . .
What are the differences I’m talking about?

One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state — a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net — morally superior to the capitalism red in tooth and claw we had before the New Deal. It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate.

The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft.

That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty.

There’s no middle ground between these views. One side saw health reform, with its subsidized extension of coverage to the uninsured, as fulfilling a moral imperative: wealthy nations, it believed, have an obligation to provide all their citizens with essential care. The other side saw the same reform as a moral outrage, an assault on the right of Americans to spend their money as they choose. . . . .

It’s not enough to appeal to the better angels of our nature. We need to have leaders of both parties — or Mr. Obama alone if necessary — declare that both violence and any language hinting at the acceptability of violence are out of bounds. We all want reconciliation, but the road to that goal begins with an agreement that our differences will be settled by the rule of law.

My Edited Response:

The so-called "conservatives" (certainly not my conservative side) think their breaks in life make them superior, and entitle them to be actually haughty and vicious--to rationalize that the needy are simply "bad" people. It appears that they have no understanding of a simple truth: "There but for fortune go you and I."

As far as empathy, violence, the rule of law, and reconciliation goes, perhaps the first step is for America (and Obama) to set an example, by ending the state terrorism we afflict on others in illegal, useless, wasteful, counter-productive and destructive wars, and, most importantly, the infliction of tragic violence and murder on innocent people around the globe. All talk about violence being inappropriate seems a little hypocritical and inconsistent in the face of our own country's very violent ways.

[See next post:
MONDAY, JANUARY 17, 2011]
A Day To Remember Martin Luther King Jr.

Chris

The More Things “Change” . . .

After reading about Obama’s choice for Chief of Staff, and possible choices for Treasury Secretary, I couldn’t help but drag out the old cliché; “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” The Democrats have snookered well-meaning, peace-loving and nominally progressive Americans again. In our two-party, good cop-bad cop political system, they have mastered the ability to produce eloquent charlatans selling hope and change just in time to ensure we get very little of either.

I must admit that I voted for Obama too, but I did not otherwise support him. My vote went to him because Nader didn’t stand a chance and because the outrageously dishonest McCain/Palin campaign freaked me out. Like Michael Moore though, I did nurture a hope that his progressive side might win out once elected. If it didn't, four years of empty promises under Obama’s Wall Street/Zionist occupied administration seemed preferable to four years under an even more Fascist McCain and the possibility of Palin ascending to the throne. What little money I could part with went to Ralph Nader, the only true progressive left in the race. Obama surely didn’t need it, what with the obscene amounts of special interest Wall-Street, insurance industry, and AIPAC money in his coffers.

It was clear from the start that Obama had no intention of living up to his lofty rhetoric of hope and change, but what really surprised me was the speed at which he paid off his Zionist supporters by installing a former Israeli citizen in the second most powerful position in the White House. It is getting increasingly difficult to dismiss the claims by many courageous and thoughtful people that our Middle East policy does not serve the interests of Americans, but those of Tel Aviv, because Washington has become Israeli occupied territory, manipulated by AIPAC money and the disproportionate power of Jewish supporters of Israel.

The choice of Rahm Israel Emanuel, Wall Street insider, foul-mouthed clone of Machiavelli, and son of an arms supplier for Irgun terrorists in Palestine during the 40’s, is a clear signal to the Middle East as well as Jews, Muslims and Christians the world over, that peace will not be coming to Palestine anytime soon.

The articles below help to illuminate what our Middle East foreign policy will be like under the Obama administration, as well as the power of Zionists in Washington. To help illustrate the latter, at least one of the articles reveals that former Israeli citizen Emanuel made an interesting choice back during the 1st Gulf War—instead of volunteering to support the American effort to dislodge Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, he went to Israel to help shore-up their defenses against any possible military fallout. Can you imagine the reaction if Obama had appointed a Muslim who had been a Syrian, Lebanese, or Saudi citizen, to be his Chief of Staff, especially one who went to serve one of those countries during that war? How is it that in an allegedly pluralistic and democratic country such as ours, where Jews and Muslims each make up about 2% of the population, that Jews make up 11% of the U.S. Senate (108th Congress) and Muslim constitute 0%? There is only one Muslim member of Congress (Representative Ellison from Minnesota), and he is the first, having been elected in 2006. What’s wrong with this picture?

Please take the time to read the following articles about Obama’s choice for Chief of Staff:

Nov. 7, 2008
CounterPunch Diary
Hail to the Chief of Staff
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

The first trumpet blast of change ushers in Rahm Emanuel as Obama's chief of staff and gate keeper. This is the man who arranges his schedule, staffs out the agenda, includes, excludes. It's certainly as sinister an appointment as, say, Carter's installation of arch cold-warrior Zbigniev Brzezinski as his National Security Advisor at the dawn of his "change is here" administration in 1977.

Emanuel, as Ralph Nader points out in my interview with him below, represents the worst of the Clinton years. His profile as regards Israel is explored well on this site by lawyer John Whitbeck. He's a former Israeli citizen, who volunteered to serve in Israel in 1991 and who made brisk millions in Wall Street. He is a super-Likudnik hawk, whose father was in the fascist Irgun in the late Forties, responsible for cold-blooded massacres of Palestinians. Dad's unreconstructed ethnic outlook has been memorably embodied in his recent remark to the Ma'ariv newspaper that "Obviously he [Rahm] will influence the president to be pro-Israel... Why wouldn't he be [influential]? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House."

Working in the Clinton White House, Emanuel helped push through NAFTA, the crime bill, the balanced budget and welfare reform. He favored the war in Iraq, and when he was chairing the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006 he made great efforts to knock out antiwar Democratic candidates. On this site in October and November, 2006, John Walsh documented both the efforts and Emanuel's role in losing the Democrats seats they would otherwise have won.
In 2006 Emanuel had just published a book with Bruce Reed called The Plan: Big Ideas for America, with one section focused on "the war on terror". Emanuel and Reed wrote, "We need to fortify the military's 'thin green line 'around the world by adding to the U.S. Special Forces and the Marines, and by expanding the U.S. army by 100,000 more troops. ...Finally we must protect our homeland and civil liberties by creating a new domestic counterterrorism force like Britain's MI5." Recall that Obama has been calling throughout his recent campaign for an addition of 92,000 to the US Army and US Marine Corps. . . . .

Check out the rest, including a scathing interview with Ralph Nader here: http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11072008.html

______________________________


The Promised Land?
Obama, Emanuel and Israel

By JOHN V. WHITBECK

November 07, 2008 "Counterpunch" -- --

In the first major appointment of his administration, President-elect Barack Obama has named as his chief of staff Congressman Rahm Emanuel, an Israeli citizen and Israeli army veteran whose father, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, was a member of Menachem Begin's Irgun forces during the Nakba and named his son after "a Lehi combatant who was killed" -- i.e., a member of Yitzhak Shamir's terrorist Stern Gang, responsible for, in addition to other atrocities against Palestinians, the more famous bombing of the King David Hotel and assassination of the UN peace envoy Count Folke Bernadotte.



In rapid response to this news, the editorial in the next day's Arab News (Jeddah) was entitled "Don't pin much hope on Obama -- Emanuel is his chief of staff and that sends a message". This editorial referred to the Irgun as a "terror organization" (a judgment call) and concluded: "Far from challenging Israel, the new team may turn out to be as pro-Israel as the one it is replacing."



That was always likely. Obama repeatedly pledged unconditional allegiance to Israel during his campaign, most memorably in an address to the AIPAC national convention which Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery characterized as "a speech that broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning", and America's electing a black president has always been more easily imagined than any American president's declaring his country's independence from Israeli domination.

More, see:
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitbeck11072008.html
_____________________________________________


This next article was forwarded by a Canadian onlooker with a preface provided by the sender:

While I am delighted that John McCain lost the elections and that an African American is now President in a symbolic and historic step for the United States, I learned over the years to curb my happiness and not let it take me into the fantasy world of irrational optimism, anticipating real change. People expected that Obama’s rhetoric matching McCain/Bush’s regarding war and empire, was just a ruse, a necessary technicality to help him get to the office. That once he’s there he will remove the campaign rhetoric mask and the real Obama, one who really cares about peace and the plight of the average man, would emerge. Perhaps in a portent of disappointments to come, Mr Change has approached, within mere hours of his election, an aggressive neocon Congressman to be his Chief of Staff (who has just accepted the offer). Rahm Emanuel also served in the Israeli army and went berserk when US puppet Maliki labeled Israel’s aggression and wanton destruction of Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure, as “aggression”. Below is a two-years-old article I dug up that burrows a little into Emanuel’s resume. It is ironic that voting for the lesser of two evils is considered a good idea while voting for someone/a party that matches one's ideals is considered "wasting one's vote."
………………………………………………………….
Emanuel's War Plan for Democrats
The Book of Rahm
By JOHN WALSH, October 24, 2006
Last week in CounterPunch (1), I wrote that the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Congressman Rahm Emanuel, had worked hard to guarantee that Democratic candidates in key toss-up House races were pro-war. In this he was largely successful, because of the money he commands and the celebrity politicians who reliably respond to his call, ensuring that 20 of the 22 Democratic candidates in these districts are pro-war. So the fix is in for the coming elections.

In 2006, no matter which party controls the House, a majority will be committed to pursuing the war on Iraq--despite the fact that the Democratic rank and file and the general voting public oppose the war by large margins. (I hasten to add that this state of affairs can be reversed even after the sham election between the two War Parties.)

What are Emanuel's views on war and peace? Emanuel has just supplied the answer in the form of a scrawny book co-authored with Bruce Reed, modestly entitled: The Plan: Big Ideas for America. The authors obligingly boil each of the eight parts of "The Plan" down to a single paragraph. The section which embraces all of foreign policy is entitled "A New Strategy to End the War on Terror," a heading revealing in itself since "war on terror" is the way the neocons and the Israeli Lobby currently like to frame the discussion of foreign policy. Here is the book's summary paragraph with my comments in parentheses:
"A New Strategy to Win the War on Terror" 
("War on Terror," as George Soros points out, is a false metaphor used by those who would drag us into military adventures not in our interest or that of humanity.)

"We need to use all the roots of American power to make our country safe. (He begins by playing on fear.) America must lead the world's fight against the spread of evil and totalitarianism, but we must stop trying to win that battle on our own. (Messianic imperialism.) We should reform and strengthen multilateral institutions for the twenty-first century, not walk away from them. We need to fortify the military's "thin green line" around the world by adding to the U.S. Special Forces and the Marines, and by expanding the U.S. army by 100,000 more troops. (An even bigger military for the world's most powerful armed forces, a very militaristic view of the way to handle the conflicts among nations. What uses does Emanuel have in mind for those troops?) We should give our troops a new GI Bill to come home to. (More material incentives to induce the financially strapped to sign up as cannon fodder.) Finally we must protect our homeland and civil liberties by creating a new domestic counterterrorism force like Britain's MI5. (A new domestic spying operation is an obvious threat to our civil liberties; MI5 holds secret files on one in 160 adults in Britain along with files on 53,000 organizations.)

There it is straight from the horse's mouth.(2)

How does Emanuel, the man who has screened and chosen the 2006 Democratic candidates for Congress, feel specifically about the war on Iraq, the number one issue on voters' minds. Emanuel and Reed do not so much as mention Iraq in their book except in terms of the "war on terror." Nor does Emanuel mention Iraq on his web site as among the important issues facing us, quite amazing omission and one shared by Chuck Schumer who is his equivalent of the Senate side, chairing the DSCC (Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee). However a very recent profile in Fortune (9/25/2006), "Rahm Emanuel, Pitbull Politician," by Washington Bureau chief Nina Easton notes: "On Iraq, Emanuel has steered clear of the withdraw-now crowd, preferring to criticize Bush for military failures since the 2003 invasion. 'The war never had to turn out this way,' he told me at one of his campaign stops. In January 2005, when asked by Meet the Press's Tim Russert whether he would have voted to authorize the war-'knowing that there are no weapons of mass destruction'-Emanuel answered yes. (He didn't take office until after the vote.) 'I still believe that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do, okay?' he added."(3)

When Jack Murtha made his proposal for withdrawal from Iraq, Emanuel quickly declared that "Jack Murtha went out and spoke for Jack Murtha." As for Iraq policy, Emanuel added: "At the right time, we will have a position." That was November, 2005. In June, 2006, it was obviously time, and Emanuel finally revealed his policy in a statement on the floor of the House during debate over Iraq, thus: "The debate today is about whether the American people want to stay the course with an administration and a Congress that has walked away from its obligations or pursue a real strategy for success in the war on terror. We cannot achieve the end of victory and continue to sit and watch, stand pat, stay put, status quo and that is the Republican policy. Democrats are determined to take the fight to the enemy." The refrain is familiar; more troops are the means and victory in Iraq is the goal.

The war on Iraq benefited Israel by laying waste a country seen to be one of its major adversaries. Emanuel's commitment to Israel (4) and his Congressional service to it are not in doubt.

More: http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh10242006.html

____________________________________________

Obama picks pro-Israel hardliner for top post

Ali Abunimah

The Electronic Intifada
5 November 2008

During the United States election campaign, racists and
pro-Israel hardliners tried to make an issue out of
President-Elect Barack Obama's middle name, Hussein. Such
people might take comfort in another middle name, that of
Obama's pick for White House Chief of Staff: Rahm Israel
Emanuel.

Emanuel is Obama's first high-level appointment and it's
one likely to disappointment those who hoped the
president-elect would break with the George W. Bush
Administration's pro-Israel policies. White House Chief of
Staff is often considered the most powerful office in the
executive branch, next to the president. Obama has offered
Emanuel the position according to Democratic party sources
cited by media sources including Reuters and The New York
Times. While Emanuel is expected to accept the post, that
had not been confirmed by Wednesday evening the day after
the election.

Rahm Emanuel was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1959, the
son of Benjamin Emanuel, a pediatrician who helped smuggle
weapons to the Irgun, the Zionist militia of former
Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, in the 1940s. The
Irgun carried out numerous terrorist attacks on
Palestinian civilians including the bombing of Jerusalem's
King David Hotel in 1946.

Emanuel continued his father's tradition of active support
for Israel; during the 1991 Gulf War he volunteered to
help maintain Israeli army vehicles near the Lebanon
border when southern Lebanon was still occupied by Israeli
forces.

As White House political director in the first Clinton
administration, Emanuel orchestrated the famous 1993
signing ceremony of the "Declaration of Principles"
between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime
minister Yitzhak Rabin. Emanuel was elected to Congress
representing a north Chicago district in 2002 and he is
credited with a key role in delivering a Democratic
majority in the 2006 mid-term elections. He has been a
prominent supporter of neoliberal economic policies on
free trade and welfare reform.

One of the most influential politicians and fundraisers in
his party, Emanuel accompanied Obama to a meeting of
AIPAC's executive board just after the Illinois senator
had addressed the pro-Israel lobby's conference last June.

In Congress, Emanuel has been a consistent and vocal
pro-Israel hardliner, sometimes more so than President
Bush. In June 2003, for example, he signed a letter
criticizing Bush for being insufficiently supportive of
Israel. "We were deeply dismayed to hear your criticism of
Israel for fighting acts of terror," Emanuel, along with
33 other Democrats wrote to Bush. The letter said that
Israel's policy of assassinating Palestinian political
leaders "was clearly justified as an application of
Israel's right to self-defense."

More: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9939.shtml

SENATOR FERRIOLI PROMOTED AS CHAMPION OF GOVERNMENT ETHICS WHILE ATTEMPTING TO PERMANENTLY STRANGLE THE G.S.P.C.

Sen. Ted Ferrioli
900 Court St. NE, S-223
Salem, OR 97301
Phone:
503-986-1950


In Thursday’s (3/22/07) Baker City Herald, a smiling State Senator and logging lobbyist, Ted Ferrioli, was featured on the front page as the poster child for ethical leadership. In an amendment to budget legislation (SB 10), the Senator’s would create a $14.5 million endowment to provide “permanent” funding for the Government Standards and Practices Commission (G.S.P.C.), the State’s defanged ethics watchdog. Actually, the paper was just doing a favorable public relations piece for the Senator by repeating deceptive quotes he made in his press release. There was no attempt to inform Baker County readers of what the real effect of his amendment would be. The article crowed about Ferrioli’s amendment providing a $600,000 annual budget in “perpetuity” and gave prominent space to his statement that “Oregon is ready for leaders who are above reproach.” Ferrioli is also quoted as saying that “An independent watchdog is critical to keeping the legislature accountable.” The paper also quoted another Republican, Senator David Nelson, saying “Giving our ethical watchdogs permanent, stable funding will take the politics out of our ethics oversight” and that “This is about the public trust.”

Well, yes, it is about the public trust alright. The press release and article clearly show why the public shouldn’t trust Ferrioli, Nelson, or the Baker City Herald.

If the Herald had looked into it and given an objective report instead of passing on the Senator’s propaganda, they would have known that the Commission is seriously under-funded. They wouldn't be able to achieve their most important goals or carry out their increasing responsibilities with a $600,000 budget. After all, they can’t even achieve their mandate with their current budget of over $650,000. Their budget has shrunk from around a million dollars since 1999 and they think they need at least $1.2 million to function at even a moderately effective level. They have only one investigator who is charged with covering the entire state and they don’t have the funds to increase web access to ethics education materials and ethics related documents for either public officials or the general public. Additionally, the “permanent, stable funding” isn’t necessarily either. The legislature could steal from the endowment anytime they saw fit.

Another option that has been put forward, and that the Herald did not bother to report on, would be to have government entities pay an assessment of approximately $7.50 per government employee to go towards funding the Commission. That money would be transferred from the liquor fund to be applied to the Commission’s annual budget. Each year they could proceed in a rational manner to seek the amount of money that was needed to accomplish their goals and the reforms that have been brought forward by the legislature. They don’t need to be hamstrung in their efforts to ensure ethical government by permanent under-funding from an arbitrarily set budget.

Crippling the watchdog by under funding the Commission in “perpetuity” is hardly going to improve government ethics and accountability. Financially starving and destroying the effectiveness of our regulatory and management agencies is an old Republican strategy for undermining accountability. The cruelly deceptive and thoroughly dishonest grand standing by Ferrioli is disgusting to say the least, and you’ve got to wonder why the Herald would want to have any part in promoting it.

Chris
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Quotes:

"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." -- St. Thomas Aquinas

Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can. -- Thomas Carlyle

He who allows oppression, shares the crime. -- Erasmus Darwin

Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. -- Paulo Freire

In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade-unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade-unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up. -- attributed to Rev. Martin Niemoller

STRAIGHT TALK:

A Time For Anger, A Call To Action

By Bill Moyers

When Woodrow Wilson spoke of democracy releasing the energies of every human being, he was declaring that we cannot leave our destiny to politicians, elites, and experts; either we take democracy into our own hands, or others will take democracy from us.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17394.htm

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Punishing A People For Enduring A Dictator

An interview with Fmr. UN Iraq Mission Chief Hans Von Sponeck

Hans Von Sponeck has been a fierce critic of the war. In the late 1990s, he was the coordinator of the United Nations Humanitarian Mission in Iraq. He resigned in protest over the UN sanctions regime. He is also a former Assistant Secretary General of the UN. Audio and transcript
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17391.htm