McCain Unhinged

In one fascinating display, you get McCain's temper, McCain's incompetent surrogates rushing to his defense, McCain's mock humility about "not wanting to talk about his time as a POW" and then McCain talking about his time as a POW.

McCain bristled at the comments on "Face the Nation" last weekend by an Obama supporter, retired general Wesley Clark, who belittled the relevance of McCain’s wartime experience as a qualification for the Presidency.

"I think it’s up to Sen. Obama now not only to repudiate him but to cut him loose," McCain said.

McCain became visibly angry when I asked him to explain how his Vietnam experience prepared him for the Presidency.

"Please," he said, recoiling back in his seat in distaste at the very question.

McCain allies Sen. Lindsey Graham stepped in to rescue him. Graham expressed admiration for McCain’s stance on the treatment of detainees in US custody.

"That to me is a classic example of how his military experience helped him shape public policy in a way no other senator could have done,’’ Graham said.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, also traveling on the trip, expressed admiration for McCain’s wartime service as well.

McCain then collected himself and apologized for his initial reaction.

"I kind of reacted the way I did because I have a reluctance to talk about my experiences," he said, noting that he has huge admiration for the "heroes" who served with him in the POW camp and said the experience taught him to love the U.S. because he missed it so much.

"I am always reluctant to talk about these things," McCain said.

Asked about one of his former jailors from the notorious Hanoi Hilton who has now endorsed his candidacy for President, McCain chuckled.

"Yeah, I saw that," he said. "He also said that he and I used to have these nice, long philosophical chats. The ones that I recall is, confess or else."

It's a wonder he didn't grab the reporter and have Huckleberry and Holy Joe sit on him.

But Cochran said he observed McCain engage in a physical confrontation with a Sandinista while participating in a diplomatic mission led by Sen. Bob Dole and others in the fall of 1987. Cochran, McCain - who had won election to the Senate that year - and other members of a bipartisan committee of lawmakers called the Central American Negotiations Observer Group - met with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, head of the left-wing political party known as Sandinistas, about tensions in the region..."McCain was down at the end of the table and we were talking to the head of the guerrilla group here at this end of the table and I don't know what attracted my attention," Cochran said. "But I saw some kind of quick movement at the bottom of the table and I looked down there and John had reached over and grabbed this guy by the shirt collar and had snatched him up like he was throwing him up out of the chair to tell him what he thought about him or whatever. I don't know what he was telling him but I thought, good grief, everybody around here has got guns and we were there on a diplomatic mission. I don't know what had happened to provoke John but he obviously got mad at the guy and he just reached over there and snatched him."

And for Graham to bring up McCain's stance on the treatment of detainees is to invite ridicule--McCain was for giving the detainees a trial before he was against it, he was against waterboarding before he decided he needed to sell out his principles and run to the right so he could appeal to the craven wingnuts in order to win the nomination. I wish Graham could speak for McCain all day and every day--it's like a gift to the Democratic Party.

--WS

Thad Cochran Throws McCain Under the Bus

This time, with specifics...

Notably mild-mannered Republican Sen. Thad Cochran shocked many earlier this year with comments about John McCain's volatile temper, but has since mended fences with the GOP presidential nominee.

But Cochran told the Sun Herald this week that he witnessed a confrontation between McCain and a Sandinista rebel decades ago that shocked him when McCain "got mad at the guy and he just reached over there and snatched him."

Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1972 and then to the U.S. Senate in 1978, Cochran, a consummate gentleman, measures his words and his actions carefully, a necessity for political staying power. But he said something that surprised many in a Boston Globe article this past January about his longtime Senate colleague McCain.

"The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine," Cochran told the Globe. "He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."

I had heard the Cochran quote--I had never heard the specifics of the story, and the details about grabbing the Sandinista rebel are shocking. This is a guy in his own party doing this. This is amazing--the message discipline of the Republican Party has collapsed.

Why now? Why is this story emerging now?

Let's see--Wes Clark hammered him on Sunday, and it's the Tuesday before a long holiday weekend. Someone is managing this news cycle just...perfectly. The American people are entering the middle stretch of their summer and they're getting an earful of what Senator McCain is like.

None of this is by accident.

--WS

Pentagon Begins Assessing Impact of Rising Food Prices

In light of growing unrest around the world over rising food prices, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is asking for a closer look at the crisis and its security implications, a U.S. military official said Monday.

Adm. Michael Mullen has instructed his staff to investigate the matter so his office can be prepared in the event the crisis becomes a defense issue, the source said.

It's the first time the highest levels of the U.S. military have become involved in the issue.

The crisis first gained international attention when riots broke out several weeks ago in Haiti and Egypt over the high cost of food.

The U.S. military official emphasized that there is "no military planning" and no intention of getting U.S. troops involved in the crisis.

The source acknowledged there is little the U.S. military can do, but said, "This is an area that has certainly got our attention now."

Even as they look into the matter, Mullen's staffers are not expected to come up with any formal recommendations to the chairman.

The rising cost of bread in Egypt has led to government crackdowns

Police clashed with protesters in the Nile Delta city of Mahalla on Sunday, firing tear gas and arresting dozens after angry residents demanding an end to price hikes and soaring inflation set two schools ablaze and burnt tyres along the city's railway.

Egypt is the world's biggest consumer of bread, with each Egyptian eating 400 grams of bread a day. That compares with France - the land of the baguette - where the figure is only 130g per day.

The shortages have forced bakers and consumers on to the black market. According to the state-owned daily Al-Ahram, 12,000 people have been detained in raids across the country in recent days and they are all to face justice over selling flour on the black market.

A 100 kilogram sack of subsidised flour is worth about $3.14. The same sack costs $377 on the black market.

The government is desperately scrambling to contain the crisis.

On Friday the authorities announced plans to suspend rice exports for six months from April and the commerce ministry said cement exports will also be frozen over the same period in an attempt to combat price rises.

The Pentagon views what is happening in Egypt as a crisis:

Egypt could be one area of concern for the Pentagon because unrest there has continued sporadically over food prices, two senior U.S. military officials have said.

Cairo is a major ally of Washington in the global war on terror, and the United States does not want the unrest there to grow, possibly risking the regime of President Hosni Mubarak.

Other countries throughout the developing world have been hit hard by the rise of food prices:

There also have been riots over high food costs in Haiti, sparking concern about another wave of illegal immigration to the United States.

The rising costs and chaotic riots have prompted several countries to stop exporting wheat and rice, and the U.N. World Food Program has cut food rations to millions of displaced people in Sudan's Darfur region because so many food convoys have been hijacked.

In other areas of the Middle East, bread is a symbolic basic staple of life, and as prices rise, resentment of wasteful government spending begins to grow:

In Yemen, where food riots broke out in recent months, the answer to nearly every question we asked about food elicited emotions ranging from fear of malnutrition to anger over the exorbitant rise in prices.

The cost of one round of traditional flat bread, roughly two slices of bread in the United States, has risen sharply, from about 10 Yemeni rials (about 2.5 cents) to 20 rials in the local bakeries. This may not sound like much to an American who’s used to paying $3.50 or more for a loaf of bread, but it is to a Yemeni – and to many others in the developing world for whom food expenditures can represent 60 to 80 percent of a family’s spending.

Few of the Yemenis we met, if any, understand why food prices have risen so sharply. Even Americans awash in information are as confused and confounded as Yemenis. More than one person made a connection between higher food prices and the ongoing construction of what they call the “President’s Mosque” – a mosque named after the country’s leader and reported to cost $65 million. (They had no proof, which, of course, seems an unnecessary part of any discussion about supposed government excess.)

In Yemen, when the price of bread rises, so does anger and resentment of the government. Elsewhere, because of government subsidies, the price of bread is stable, contributing to different kinds of headaches.

In Iran, inflation is now up to an annual rate of 18 percent; earlier this month, that cost the economic minister his job. The bakers get government flour and are allowed to charge only a certain low rate for the bread they sell.

[SNIP]

The menu that people hit by this immediate crisis are using is fairly simple: flour and rice, even as these staples double or quadruple in price; cakes in Haiti made largely of mud, choked down in a desperate attempt to fill one’s belly; bread baked by the military in Egypt. But from our travels, it seems that the menu items that helped create the current crisis are more complex, processed and partially hydrogenated than these modest items.

Food corporations have learned how to enter the developing world. Few of the families we met could afford a week’s worth of a processed food item at one time, so the global food companies make their wares more affordable by offering them in single-serving packets. In Manila, individual portions of “foods” such as imitation-cheese spreads, chips and spiced rice dishes are much like the convenience packs sold in the United States. Highly processed foods are making inroads into the diets of the developing world, and with that comes dependence.

In fact, there are many organizations throughout the world who are expressing concern about the rise in food prices:

UN staff in Jordan also went on strike for a day this week to demand a pay rise in the face of a 50% hike in prices, while Asian countries such as Cambodia, China, Vietnam, India and Pakistan have curbed rice exports to ensure supplies for their own residents.

Officials in the Philippines have warned that people hoarding rice could face economic sabotage charges. A moratorium is being considered on converting agricultural land for housing or golf courses, while fast-food outlets are being pressed to offer half-portions of rice.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation says rice production should rise by 12m tonnes, or 1.8%, this year, which would help ease the pressure. It expects "sizable" increases in all the major Asian rice producing countries, especially Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Burma, the Philippines and Thailand.

Holmes is the latest senior figure to warn the world is facing a worsening food crisis. Josette Sheeran, director of the UN World Food Programme, said last month: "We are seeing a new face of hunger. We are seeing more urban hunger than ever before. We are seeing food on the shelves but people being unable to afford it."

The programme has launched an appeal to boost its aid budget from $2.9bn to $3.4bn (£1.5bn to £1.7bn) to meet higher prices, which officials say are jeopardising the programme's ability to continue feeding 73 million people worldwide.

Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, said "many more people will suffer and starve" unless the US, Europe, Japan and other rich countries provide funds. He said prices of all staple food had risen 80% in three years, and that 33 countries faced unrest because of the price rises.

In the UK, Professor John Beddington, the new chief scientific adviser to the government, used his first speech last month to warn the effects of the food crisis would bite more quickly than climate change. He said the agriculture industry needed to double its food production, using less water than today.

He said the prospect of food shortages over the next 20 years was so acute it had to be tackled immediately: "Climate change is a real issue and is rightly being dealt with by major global investment. However, I am concerned there is another major issue along a similar time-scale - that of food and energy security."

The possibility that the Pentagon might need to deploy US troops to prop up various "friendly" regimes throughout the world hinges on whether such a move would be feasible. The strain on US troops because of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have left the Pentagon less likely to resort to full scale invasions.

Any plan to invade a country or countries due to instability would likely resemble the plans revealed by General Wesley Clark:

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: I knew why, because I had been through the Pentagon right after 9/11. About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, "Sir, you've got to come in and talk to me a second." I said, "Well, you're too busy." He said, "No, no." He says, "We've made the decision we're going to war with Iraq." This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, "We're going to war with Iraq? Why?" He said, "I don't know." He said, "I guess they don't know what else to do." So I said, "Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?" He said, "No, no." He says, "There's nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq." He said, "I guess it's like we don't know what to do about terrorists, but we've got a good military and we can take down governments." And he said, "I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail."

So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, "Are we still going to war with Iraq?" And he said, "Oh, it's worse than that." He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, "I just got this down from upstairs" -- meaning the Secretary of Defense's office -- "today." And he said, "This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran." I said, "Is it classified?" He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me." And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, "You remember that?" He said, "Sir, I didn't show you that memo! I didn't show it to you!"

The Pentagon has long maintained plans to invade virtually any and all countries in the world:

It sounds like a joke but it's not. War Plan Red is real. It was drawn up and approved by the War Department in 1930, then updated in 1934 and 1935. It was declassified in 1974 and the word "SECRET" crossed out with a heavy pencil. Now it sits in a little gray box in the National Archives in College Park, available to anybody, even Canadian spies. They can photocopy it for 15 cents a page.

War Plan Red was actually designed for a war with England. In the late 1920s, American military strategists developed plans for a war with Japan (code name Orange), Germany (Black), Mexico (Green) and England (Red). The Americans imagined a conflict between the United States (Blue) and England over international trade: "The war aim of RED in a war with BLUE is conceived to be the definite elimination of BLUE as an important economic and commercial rival."

In the event of war, the American planners figured that England would use Canada (Crimson) -- then a quasi-pseudo-semi-independent British dominion -- as a launching pad for "a direct invasion of BLUE territory." That invasion might come overland, with British and Canadian troops attacking Buffalo, Detroit and Albany. Or it might come by sea, with amphibious landings on various American beaches -- including Rehoboth and Ocean City, both of which were identified by the planners as "excellent" sites for a Brit beachhead.

Democracy Now! Amy Goodman Interviews Wesley Clark

Wow. This interview blew my hair back. I liked him in 2004. I was enchanted by his convention speech - I'm such a political wonk that I still have it on tape and watched it a couple of weeks ago.

I strongly encourage everyone to go to Democracy Now! and listen to the interview, but for those who can't or don't have the time, here are some of the highlights from the interview:

On the threat of a war with Iran and the rush to war with Iraq

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, in a way. But, you know, history doesn’t repeat itself exactly twice. What I did warn about when I testified in front of Congress in 2002, I said if you want to worry about a state, it shouldn’t be Iraq, it should be Iran. But this government, our administration, wanted to worry about Iraq, not Iran.

I knew why, because I had been through the Pentagon right after 9/11. About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.” I said, “Well, you’re too busy.” He said, “No, no.” He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?” He said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I guess they don’t know what else to do.” So I said, “Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?” He said, “No, no.” He says, “There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.” He said, “I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.” And he said, “I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.”

So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” -- meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office -- “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.” And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, “You remember that?” He said, “Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!”

On congress' ability and responsibility to influence Iraq policy

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, you start with a non-binding resolution in the United States Congress, and you build your momentum from there. And you keep hammering it. The Congress has three principal powers. It has the power to appoint, power to investigate, power to fund. And you go after all three. On all three fronts, you find out what the President needs, until he takes it seriously. I think it's a difficult maneuver to use a scalpel and say, “Well, we're going to support funding, but we’re not going to support funding for the surge,” because that's requiring a degree of micro-management that Congress can't do.

But you can certainly put enough squeeze on the President that he finally calls in the leaders of the Congress and says, “OK, OK, what's it going to take? I’ve got to get my White House budget passed. I’ve got to get thirty judges, federal judges, confirmed. I’ve got to get these federal prosecutors -- you know, the ones that I caused to resign so I could handle it -- they've got to get replacements in place. What do I have to do to get some support here?” I mean, it could be done. It's hard bare-knuckle government.

On torture ensconced as policy and indefinite detentions

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think the first thing Congress should do is repeal the Military Commissions Act. I’m very disturbed that a number of people who are looking at the highest office in the land have supported an act which advertently or inadvertently authorizes the admission into evidence of information gained through torture. That's not the America that I believe in. And the America that I believe in doesn't detain people indefinitely without charges. So I’d start with the Military Commissions Act.

Then I’d get our NATO allies into the act. They've said they don't like Guantanamo either. So I’d like to create an international tribunal, not a kangaroo court of military commissions. And let's go back through the evidence. And let's lay it out. Who are these people that have been held down there? And what have they been held for? And which ones can be released? And which ones should be tried in court and convicted?

You see, essentially, you cannot win the war on terror by military force. It is first and foremost a battle of ideas. It is secondly a law enforcement effort and a cooperative effort among nations. And only as a last resort do you use military force. This president has distorted the capabilities of the United States Armed Forces. He's used our men and women in uniform improperly in Guantanamo and engaged in actions that I think are totally against the Uniform Code of Military Justice and against what we stand for as the American people.

On impeachment

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think we ought to do first thing's first, which is, we really need to understand and finish the job that Congress started with respect to the Iraq war investigation. Do you remember that there was going to be a study released by the Senate, that the senator from Iowa or from Kansas who was the Republican head of the Senate Intelligence Committee was going to do this study to determine whether the administration had, in fact, misused the intelligence information to mislead us into the war with Iraq? Well, I’ve never seen that study. I’d like to know where that study is. I’d like to know why we’ve spent three years investigating Scooter Libby, when we should have been investigating why this country went to war in Iraq.

On Rumsfeld facing War Crimes charges in Germany

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, I’d like to see what the evidence is against Rumsfeld. I do know this, that there was a lot of pressure put on the men and women in uniform to come up with intelligence. I remember -- I think it was either General Sanchez or General Abizaid, who stated that we don't need more troops -- this is the fall of 2003 -- we just need better information. Well, to me, that was immediate code words that we were really trying to soak these people for information.

And it's only a short step from there to all the kinds of mistreatment that occur at places like Abu Ghraib. So we know that Al Gonzales wrote a couple of really -- or authored, or his people authored and he approved, a couple of outrageous memos that attempted to define torture as deliberately inflicted pain, the equivalent of the loss of a major bodily organ or limb, which is -- it's not an adequate definition of torture. And we know that he authorized, to some degree, some coercive methods, which we have -- and we know President Bush himself accepted implicitly in a signing statement to a 2005 act on military detainees that he would use whatever methods were appropriate or necessary. So there's been some official condoning of these actions.

I think it's a violation of international law and a violation of American law and a violation of the principles of good government in America. There have always been evidences of mistreatment of prisoners. Every army has probably done it in history. But our country hasn't ever done it as a matter of deliberate policy. George Washington told his soldiers, when they captured the Hessians and the men wanted to run them through, because the Hessians were brutal and ruthless, he said, “No, treat them well.” He said, “They'll join our side.” And many of them did. It was a smart policy, not only the right thing to do, but a smart policy to treat the enemy well. We’ve made countless enemies in that part of the world by the way we've treated people and disregarded them. It's bad, bad policy.

There is much, much more. Go to the link and listen, or read the entire transcript. Amy Goodman is perhaps the best interviewer working today - the policy wonk's Terry Gross - and Clark is an eloquent, able, intelligent and informed spokesman. Ten minutes into the interview, I was archiving it into downloads. It's a keeper, and Clark deserves another look.