peperangan IRAQ - satu penipuan.

Blair and Bush planned Iraq war without second UN vote, letter shows

Five months before invasion, pair agreed to go ahead if weapons breach was revealed, according to newly released letter

Britain and the US were planning to take action against Saddam Hussein without a second UN resolution five months before the invasion of Iraq, a newly released letter from Tony Blair's office shows.

A letter from Blair's private secretary reveals that "we and the US would take action" without a new resolution by the UN security council if UN weapons inspectors showed Saddam had clearly breached an earlier resolution. In that case, he "would not have a second chance".

That was the only way Britain could persuade the Bush administration to agree to a role for the UN and continuing work by UN weapons inspectors, the letter says.

Dated 17 October 2002, it was written by Matthew Rycroft to Mark Sedwill, private secretary to the foreign secretary, Jack Straw. "This letter is sensitive," Rycroft underlined. "It must be seen only by those with a real need to know its contents, and must not be copied further."

He sent it to a number of other senior officials, including Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's ambassador to the UN. There is no indication that it was seen by Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, who at the time was advising that invading Iraq without a fresh UN resolution would be illegal.

Rycroft's letter referred to a Downing Street meeting on the Iraqi crisis attended by Straw, the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, and the chief of the defence staff, Admiral Sir Mike Boyce. Also present were Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell; his director of government relations, Sally Morgan; his director of communications, Alastair Campbell; and his chiefforeign policy adviser, David Manning.

The meeting concluded, wrote Rycroft, that "the only way to keep the US on the UN route was for there to be a clear understanding that if [chief UN weapons inspector Hans] Blix reported an Iraqi breach of the first resolution, then Saddam would not have a second chance".

In a devastating passage, Rycroft added: "In other words, if for some reason [such as a French or Russian veto] there were no second resolution agreed … we and the US would take action."

The Downing Street letter is particularly significant considering the government's repeated emphasis in public at the time on the need for UN approval before any invasion of Iraq.

The first resolution referred to in Rycroft's letter was number 1441, passed unanimously in November 2002. Goldsmith and most of the government's legal advisers insisted a second UN resolution was needed before military action could lawfully take place.

Blair was put in an even more difficult position with Washington as, in the event, Blix never reported an unconditional breach of the first resolution.

The Rycroft letter also appears to conflict with Straw's actions at the time. A statement recently released by the Chilcot inquiry revealed that in October 2002 Straw told his French counterpart, Dominique de Villepin, that US acceptance of the wording of the first UN resolution "implied" a further one was required.

The statement was written by Sir Michael Wood, the Foreign Office's top legal adviser, who also opposed the invasion. It also disclosed that Greenstock had told his US counterpart that Britain would state publicly after the resolution was passed "that there needed to be a second resolution".

The issue is at the heart of the deep and continuing arguments over the legality of the invasion. Goldsmith originally advised Blair and Straw that the first UN resolution did not provide sufficient legal cover for war.

Goldsmith said he changed his mind in February 2003 after Bush's legal advisers told him on a US visit that they had agreed to the wording of 1441 only because it had not crossed their "red line" – the clear message was that, as far as the US was concerned, no new resolution was needed.

Philippe Sands, professor of international law at University College London, said: "The letter of 17 October 2002 is consistent with the conclusion that the prime minister wanted to proceed to action with the US on the basis of a single security council resolution, irrespective of what the law required, and ignoring the views at the time of the Foreign Office legal adviser and the attorney general."

According to Wood's statement to the Chilcot inquiry, Straw told the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, "that we needed a second resolution and that it was extremely unlikely we could find a legal basis without it".

Sands said: "It reflects the widespread view that what became UNSCR 1441 would not authorise military action without a second resolution. His latest statement shoots a very big hole in the arguments of Messrs Goldsmith and Straw, and one wonders why they ultimately failed to reflect its contents in their words and actions."

Blair and Bush planned Iraq war without second UN vote ...

www.theguardian.com

Ukraine prepares for war

(CNN) -- When Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu stated that the Russian troops along Ukraine's borders were only conducting "training exercises" and have no "intention to cross Ukraine's borders or to engage in any aggressive actions," Ukrainians rolled their eyes.

And when President Vladimir Putin told Ukrainians "Don't believe those who terrify you with Russia, who shout that other regions will follow Crimea. We do not want Ukraine's division. ... We want Ukraine to be a strong, sovereign, and self-sufficient state," Ukrainians shrugged.

The problem is, even if Putin and Shoigu were being sincere, Moscow has lost all credibility among most Ukrainians and the international community. After three weeks of aggressive Russian behavior and the possibility of existential annihilation, Ukrainians, like Israelis, prefer to think in terms of worst-case scenarios. After all, they blithely assumed Russia would never attack -- and then Russia seized Crimea.

Ukraine prepares for war

CNN

Pakistan on the flight path of American power

Bush’s War Widens Dangerously

Tariq Ali

The decision to make public a presidential order of last July authorizing American strikes inside Pakistan without seeking the approval of the Pakistani government ends a long debate within, and on the periphery of, the Bush administration. Senator Barack Obama, aware of this ongoing debate during his own long battle with Hillary Clinton, tried to outflank her by supporting a policy of U.S. strikes into Pakistan. Senator John McCain and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin have now echoed this view and so it has become, by consensus, official U.S. policy. Its effects on Pakistan could be catastrophic, creating a severe crisis within the army and in the country at large. The overwhelming majority of Pakistanis are opposed to the U.S. presence in the region, viewing it as the most serious threat to peace.

Why, then, has the U.S. decided to destabilize a crucial ally? Within Pakistan, some analysts argue that this is a carefully coordinated move to weaken the Pakistani state yet further by creating a crisis that extends way beyond the badlands on the frontier with Afghanistan. Its ultimate aim, they claim, would be the extraction of the Pakistani military’s nuclear fangs. If this were the case, it would imply that Washington was indeed determined to break up the Pakistani state, since the country would very simply not survive a disaster on that scale. In my view, however, the expansion of the war relates far more to the Bush administration’s disastrous occupation in Afghanistan. It is hardly a secret that the regime of President Hamid Karzai is becoming more isolated with each passing day, as Taliban guerrillas move ever closer to Kabul.

When in doubt, escalate the war is an old imperial motto. The strikes against Pakistan represent — like the decisions of President Richard Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger to bomb and then invade Cambodia (acts that, in the end, empowered Pol Pot and his monsters) — a desperate bid to salvage a war that was never good, but has now gone badly wrong.

It is true that those resisting the NATO occupation cross the Pakistan-Afghan border with ease. However, the U.S. has often engaged in quiet negotiations with them. Several feelers have been put out to the Taliban in Pakistan, while U.S. intelligence experts regularly check into the Serena Hotel in Swat to discuss possibilities with Mullah Fazlullah, a local pro-Taliban leader. The same is true inside Afghanistan. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, a whole layer of the Taliban’s middle-level leadership crossed the border into Pakistan to regroup and plan for what lay ahead. By 2003, their guerrilla factions were starting to harass the occupying forces in Afghanistan and, during 2004, they began to be joined by a new generation of local recruits, by no means all jihadists, who were being radicalized by the occupation itself.

Though, in the world of the Western media, the Taliban has been entirely conflated with al-Qaeda, most of their supporters are, in fact, driven by quite local concerns. If NATO and the U.S. were to leave Afghanistan, their political evolution would most likely parallel that of Pakistan’s domesticated Islamists.

The neo-Taliban now control at least twenty Afghan districts in Kandahar, Helmand, and Uruzgan provinces. It is hardly a secret that many officials in these zones are closet supporters of the guerrilla fighters. Though often characterized as a rural jacquerie they have won significant support in southern towns and they even led a Tet-style offensive in Kandahar in 2006. Elsewhere, mullahs who had initially supported President Karzai’s allies are now railing against the foreigners and the government in Kabul. For the first time, calls for jihad against the occupation are even being heard in the non-Pashtun northeast border provinces of Takhar and Badakhshan.

The neo-Taliban have said that they will not join any government until "the foreigners" have left their country, which raises the question of the strategic aims of the United States. Is it the case, as NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer suggested to an audience at the Brookings Institution earlier this year, that the war in Afghanistan has little to do with spreading good governance in Afghanistan or even destroying the remnants of al-Qaeda? Is it part of a master plan, as outlined by a strategist in NATO Review in the Winter of 2005, to expand the focus of NATO from the Euro-Atlantic zone, because "in the 21st century NATO must become an alliance… designed to project systemic stability beyond its borders"?

As that strategist went on to write: "The centre of gravity of power on this planet is moving inexorably eastward. As it does, the nature of power itself is changing. The Asia-Pacific region brings much that is dynamic and positive to this world, but as yet the rapid change therein is neither stable nor embedded in stable institutions. Until this is achieved, it is the strategic responsibility of Europeans and North Americans, and the institutions they have built, to lead the way… [S]ecurity effectiveness in such a world is impossible without both legitimacy and capability." Such a strategy implies a permanent military presence on the borders of both China and Iran. Given that this is unacceptable to most Pakistanis and Afghans, it will only create a state of permanent mayhem in the region, resulting in ever more violence and terror, as well as heightened support for jihadi extremism, which, in turn, will but further stretch an already over-extended empire.

Globalizers often speak as though U.S. hegemony and the spread of capitalism were the same thing. This was certainly the case during the Cold War, but the twin aims of yesteryear now stand in something closer to an inverse relationship. For, in certain ways, it is the very spread of capitalism that is gradually eroding U.S. hegemony in the world. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s triumph in Georgia was a dramatic signal of this fact. The American push into the Greater Middle East in recent years, designed to demonstrate Washington’s primacy over the Eurasian powers, has descended into remarkable chaos, necessitating support from the very powers it was meant to put on notice.

Pakistan’s new, indirectly elected President, Asif Zardari, the husband of the assassinated Benazir Bhutto and a Pakistani "godfather" of the first order, indicated his support for U.S. strategy by inviting Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai to attend his inauguration, the only foreign leader to do so. Twinning himself with a discredited satrap in Kabul may have impressed some in Washington, but it only further decreased support for the widower Bhutto in his own country.

The key in Pakistan, as always, is the army. If the already heightened U.S. raids inside the country continue to escalate, the much-vaunted unity of the military High Command might come under real strain. At a meeting of corps commanders in Rawalpindi on September 12th, Pakistani Chief of Staff General Ashfaq Kayani received unanimous support for his relatively mild public denunciation of the recent U.S. strikes inside Pakistan in which he said the country’s borders and sovereignty would be defended "at all costs".

Saying, however, that the Army will safeguard the country’s sovereignty is different from doing so in practice. This is the heart of the contradiction. Perhaps the attacks will cease on November 4th. Perhaps pigs (with or without lipstick) will fly. What is really required in the region is an American/NATO exit strategy from Afghanistan, which should entail a regional solution involving Pakistan, Iran, India, and Russia. These four states could guarantee a national government and massive social reconstruction in that country. No matter what, NATO and the Americans have failed abysmally.

source: The American War Moves to Pakistan
International Viewpoint, UK

U.S., Allies Contemplating Action Against Russia

CRAWFORD, Texas — The United States on Sunday accused Russia of stalling its military pullback in Georgia, but the Bush administration is not rushing to repudiate Moscow for its actions.

The White House is struggling to figure out the best way to penalize Russia. It doesn't want to deeply damage existing cooperation on many fronts or discourage Moscow from further integrating itself into global economic and political institutions. At the same time, U.S. officials say Russia can't be allowed to get away with invading its neighbor.

Fighting broke out after Georgia launched a massive barrage Aug. 7 to try to take control of the separatist province of South Ossetia, which is heavily influenced by Russia. The Russian army quickly overwhelmed Georgia's forces, then drove deep

into the country, bombed Georgian ports and military installations and tied up an east-west highway through the nation.

The New York Times, citing anonymous U.S. officials who were familiar with intelligence reports, reported Sunday that the Russian military moved missile launchers into South Ossetia on Friday.

The U.S. officials told the Times that Russia deployed several SS-21 missile launchers to positions north of Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital. That would put the missiles within range of Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, the Times reported on its Web site.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who briefed President Bush on the fast-changing crisis over the weekend at his Texas ranch, said, "There's no doubt there will be further consequences" to Russia.

She returned to Washington on Sunday and is flying to Brussels, Belgium, on Monday to talk with NATO allies about what message the West should send to Russia.

Rice is then flying to Warsaw, Poland, where she will sign a formal agreement with Poland for the establishment of a missile interceptor site there. Moscow has protested the U.S. plans for such a base so close to its borders.

Russia can't use "disproportionate force" against Georgia and still be welcomed into the halls of international institutions, Rice said.

"It's not going to happen that way," she said. "Russia will pay a price."

But neither Rice nor Defense Secretary Robert Gates would be specific about what punitive actions the U.S. or the international community might take.

"We're going to take our time and assess what further consequences there should be to the relationship," Rice said.

The United States wants to take a tough stance against Russia, but there is much at stake.

"The facts are that the United States has to work with Russia on Iran, on nuclear problems of proliferation, on a whole raft of trade issues at a time in which the United States has a huge domestic deficit," said Sen. Richard Lugar, the senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

And holding open the prospect of taking steps against Russia gives the United States some leverage in pushing Russia to withdraw from Georgia. But nothing is expected to happen in a hurry, and the United States doesn't want to turn the conflict into a fight between the former Cold War rivals.

"There is no need to rush into everything," Gates said. "We don't want to do it unilaterally.

"I think there needs to be a strong, unified response to Russia to send the message that this kind of behavior, characteristic of the Soviet period, has no place in the 21st century," he said.

Asked whether Russia should be kicked out of the Group of Eight major industrialized states, or whether it should be kept from joining the World Trade Organization, Gates replied vaguely, saying the U.S. and its allies can choose from a broad menu of possible punitive steps. Russia already is feeling repercussions, he said.

"The whole world is looking at Russia through a different set of lenses than just a week and a half or two weeks ago, so there are already consequences," Gates said. "I think they may not appreciate the magnitude of those consequences yet. The longer they take to get out and to observe the cease-fire that's been declared and the arrangements that have been worked out, I think the greater those consequences will be."

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Russian troops will begin leaving Monday, but made no mention of leaving the separatist province at the heart of the conflict between the countries.

The Bush administration is hopeful yet skeptical that Russia will honor its pledge to withdraw troops quickly from Georgia under terms of a cease-fire it signed Saturday.

"My own view is that the Russians will probably stall and perhaps take more time than anybody would like," Gates said. "I think we just need to keep the pressure and ensure that they abide by the agreement that they've signed and do so in a timely way."

The Russians say they're going to take their time in leaving the South Carolina-sized democracy that declared its independence in 1991.

Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Russian parliament's foreign affairs committee, said Russian forces will be out of Georgia "sooner or later," but how much time it takes depends on how Georgia behaves.

Echoing Bush's call to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq depending on conditions on the ground, Kosachev said: "If I would ask you ... `How fast the American forces can leave Iraq?' ... the answer would be, as soon as we have guarantees for peace and security there.

"The same answer would be toward this situation: as soon as we are assured that Georgians will not continue to use military force against South Ossetians and against Abkhazians" — residents of two separatist areas of Georgia now overrun with Russian troops and abandoned by Georgian soldiers.

Rice and Gates pressed the administration's case during appearances on five Sunday talks shows — Rice on "Fox News Sunday," CBS' "Face the Nation" and NBC's "Meet the Press," and Gates on ABC's "This Week" and "Late Edition" on CNN. Kosachev and Lugar also appeared on CNN.

click here: US, Allies Contemplating Action Against Russia
FOXNews -

Where in the World is Georgia?

It seems now that what you say about the Russian invasion of Georgia depends on where you think "there" is. U.S. President George W. Bush would have it be in Europe, in order to make the crisis to appear more historically momentous, and to make his call for its NATO membership to sound more strategically convincing.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would rather follow in the footsteps of the czars, who since the day of Peter the Great have eyed that mountain nation as part of their natural southern border, and think of Georgia as being in Russia's "near abroad," with the implied warning to others -- Stay out!

Students with a long view of history point out that Georgia is properly in the Caucasus – that hopeless checkerboard of cross-purposed nationalities, the triumphant ones with newly recognized countries of their own, and the still vanquished ones currently without, yet ever hopeful of even further ethnic subdivision. Not for nothing did the early Arab geographers call the Caucasus "jebel al-lisan," or "the mountain of languages."

Israelis might have the most succinct label for it -- "a bad neighborhood" -- yet it goes unsaid just how much responsibility the Israelis themselves have for making their own neighborhood so.

Bush and Putin both have a lot to lose if they don't get it geographically their way. If Georgia is in fact part of Asia, closer to Baghdad than to Brussels, then Bush's tough talk of Russia's unacceptable policy of regime change, military invasion, and the targeting of civilians gets uncomfortably close to U.S.-approved invasions of Iraq, Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, etc.

Conceding Georgia as being in the Caucasus leads to the equally hypocritical parallel of Armenia's occupation of the Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which for 18 years has been tacitly approved in Washington because of much muscle flexing by the Armenian-American lobby.

If, on the other hand, Georgia is considered to be squarely part of Europe, then Putin will be seen as spearheading yet another Prague '68, Hungary '56, or Sudetenland '38 -- just as American neocons are now calling it in their effort to get key European allies to buy into their rhetoric. Sarko l'Américain already has. Yet what might a loyal NATO ally like Turkey, whose territory is all to the west of Georgia, have to say about this -- especially when told by many that they are not sufficiently "Western" to qualify for EU membership?

Isn't there a better place for Georgia -- in neither Europe nor Asia? From now on, why not think of the Black Sea as the Russian Caribbean, and let Georgia be renamed the Cuba of the Caucasus? Turn it into a fully fledged U.S.-allied junior NATO member and give it a few rusty missiles pointed north. U.S. military advisors are conveniently already in residence there.

Just as Soviet advisors in Havana learned to love Cuban rum and say no to Russian vodka, U.S. soldiers stationed in Tiblisi these days are said to much prefer Georgian wine over American beer.

Elect a Georgian nationalist version of Fidel Castro -- in fact, current President Mikhail Saakashvili will do fine -- to shake his fist at Moscow in every speech and then rattle his tin cup for Western aid.

Cede Abkhazia and South Ossetia outright to Tiblisi, and let their refugees flood into nearby Sochi, already a palm-planted resort town much like Miami, which will then become a hotbed of cross-border conspiracy, nostalgia, and irredentism -- and a serious political headache for Moscow if the day ever dawns when Russia and Georgia decide to make peace.

The parallels between Georgia and Cuba are already striking. Both are rentier states, dependent on fees collected for leasing out their real estate to others -- Georgia as a pass-through along Big Oil's Baku-to-Ceyhan pipeline, and Cuba as a vacation spot formerly for Soviet-era commissars in guns-for-sugar swaps, and more recently for hard currency-carrying sex tourists from Europe.

Georgia curried favor with its American client by sending its troops to Iraq and Afghanistan to help spread democracy at gun point, just as Cuban soldiers and fighter pilots aided the Soviets in their efforts to hurry up the inevitability of communism in Africa.

Yet this current crisis in Georgia can only bring to mind the Cuban missile crisis of yesteryear, which now has the bluffing, blustering, and eventually backing down Bush playing the part of the United Nations. Security Council shoe banging Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who allowed himself to be outplayed and outsmarted by the virile John Kennedy.

Like Putin and unlike Bush this time round, Kennedy before he came to office did truly have experience of the real world, where the personal consequences of one's own decisions in war are sometimes bloody and sometimes lethal. President Bush in a newly tailored, never before worn flight suit, permitting photo-ops on the deck of an aircraft carrier off the Pacific coast of San Diego, will never understand this.

click here: Where in the World is Georgia?
Middle East Times, Egypt

US has few economic levers against Russia

WASHINGTON: The United States has few economic levers it can pull to persuade Russia to pull its troops out of areas of Georgia as relations between the two big powers sour, analysts said on Friday.

Republican presidential hopeful, Senator John McCain, has called for tough action against Russia after its troops occupied separatist regions of US-ally Georgia and pushed into Georgian territory in the past week.

US President George W. Bush earlier Friday called on Russia to honor its pledge that it would withdraw its forces from Georgia amid frenzied diplomatic activity.

Russian troops and tanks poured into Georgia a week ago after the Georgian army launched an offensive to regain control of South Ossetia, the Moscow-backed region which broke away from Tbilisi in the early 1990s.

Analysts said, however, that it was unlikely that Washington will use its economic might to pressure Russia to withdraw its forces from Georgian territory.

"It's unlikely that the United States will impose any of the usual sanctions that are sometimes brought to bear on international miscreants," said Stephen Sestanovich, a Russian expert at the US Council on Foreign Relations.

Even if Bush wanted to apply economic sanctions against Moscow, it would be a complicated task with many hurdles, according to Blake Marshall, a senior vice president of The PBN Company, a business consultancy focused on Russia and the former Soviet republics.

"In a globalized economy you have to have uniform agreement across the globe in order for the sanctions to really reach their purpose. That's very difficult to achieve," Marshall said.

"Experience has shown the unilateral sanctions not only don't work, but they rather tend to punish the American companies," he underlined.

Any potential sanctions would also be complicated by the business and trade links between the world's largest economy and its 11th largest economy, and could affect Russia's vast energy exports to the West and the United States.

"The Russian economy overall is about oil. We have been trying to cut our oil-addiction in this country but we are not able to do it, and we could not effectively cut our imports of Russian oil," said Nina Hachigian, an analyst at the Center for American Progress think tank and a former National Security Council staffer.

Russia was the 20th biggest exporter to the United States and the 30th largest importer of US-made goods in 2007. It held around 1.4 per cent of all US foreign trade in June of this year, compared with China which holds 11.2 per cent and the European Union which commands 23.1 per cent.

"Sanctions are really the wrong way to approach the issue, because I don't think we could imagine to have all our European allies to agree those sanctions when they are more reliant on Russian oil and gas than we are," Hachigian said.

She suggested that it could be more effective to target sanctions at individual political leaders as Washington has done with respect to government leaders in North Korea and Sudan.

Garry Kasparov, a former Russian world chess champion, also raised the possibility of targeted sanctions in a Wall Street Journal editorial Friday. "The Kremlin's ruling clique has vital interests, i.e. assets, abroad and those interests are vulnerable," Kasparov wrote.

While economic sanctions are viewed as unlikely, the United States has sought to exert pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions, and implemented sanctions against Iranian companies and groups affiliated with the country's military.

Superpower oil war

The war in the Georgian province of South Ossetia is a classic superpower proxy war, pitting an aggressively US-backed regime, a member of NATO’s regional GUUAM (Georgia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldava) military alliance, against Russia. It is being waged over control of the Caspian Sea, the region in which the third largest oil reserves can be found. The control over this region holds one of the most important keys to world power.

The pipelines

While incendiary propaganda, coded rhetoric (claims over South Ossetia, genocide, “democracy,” etc.) fly back and forth, the actual geostrategic agenda, the energy stakes over which the world powers have engaged in mortal superpower combat (as usual, with millions of innocent civilians used as cannon fodder) remain largely unreported and unaddressed.

A look at the map tells the story. It is taking place in the resource-rich and strategically critical Caucasus/Black Sea region, the same region of the 1990s US/NATO war on the Balkans, led by the Clinton administration.

The stakes involved with the current conflict are identical to those of the previous war: control over the oil of the Caspian Sea/Black Sea/Caucasus basin, and the control of multiple key oil pipelines criss-crossing the region, including the Baku-Supsa and Baku-Ceyhan-Tblisi routes through Georgia, the Baku-Novorossiyk pipeline (through Chechnya and Dagestan), and others.

The most critical pipeline, the infamous Baku-Ceyhan pipeline supported by the US government and a consortium of US-allied transnational oil interests (including Royal Dutch Shell, Unocal, and BP) takes oil from the Caspian Sea across Azerbaijan (another US-supported regime), whereby it crosses Georgia (bypassing Iran and Russia), then on to the Black Sea, where the oil is carried to Western Europe, and the rest of the world.

The Baku-Ceyhan pipeline has been viewed by the Bush/Cheney administration as one of its brightest geostrategic successes. All of the Anglo-American empire’s pipelines and oil facilities, including Baku-Ceyhan, are threatened, if the conflict escalates.

Anglo-American machinations around the Caspian Sea

As pointed out by Michel Chossudovsky in his book America’s ‘War on Terrorism,’ (which details the continuum of Anglo-American war policy from the 1990s Balkans/Kosovo/Yugoslavia conflict, to 9/11, to the present), GUUAM, formed in 1999, has been “dominated by Anglo-American oil interests, ultimately purports to exclude Russia from oil and gas deposits in the Caspian area, as well as isolating Moscow politically.”

Concurrent with the formation of GUUAM, as pointed out by Chossudovsky, Washington began its Silk Road Strategy foreign policy, or SRS, designed specifically to promote the “independence” of “breakaway” republics in Central Asia, and undermine and destabilize its competitors in the oil business, including Russia, Iran and China.

As pointed out in the classic 1999 analysis of the Balkans conflict by the late Karen Talbot, “Backing Up Globalization with Military Might,” the New World Order’s onslaught was “related to the drive to extend and protect the investments of transnational corporations in the Caspian Sea region, especially the oil corporations,” while thwarting Russian and Chinese designs on the same energy wealth.

SRS and GUUAM, embraced by both neoliberal and neocon factions in Washington, led directly to 9/11, the “war on terrorism,” and the conquests of Afghanistan and Iraq, under the Bush/Cheney administration.

Georgia: US-created, US-backed proxy

On a more local basis, Anglo-American machinations across the GUUAM corridor have taken place for years under Bush/Cheney, from militarization, covert operations and destabilizations leading to regime changes (CIA-supported “color-coded revolutions,” manipulated elections), to the literal bottom-up construction of pro-US/transnational corporation-friendly “democracy” puppet governments, such as the Saakashvili regime.

As pointed out in the New York Times, “the United States did not merely encourage Georgia’s young democracy, it helped militarize the weak Georgian state . . . At senior levels, the United States helped rewrite the Georgian military doctrine and train its commanders and staff officers. Georgia, meanwhile, began re-equipping its forces -- with Israeli and U.S. firearms, reconnaissance drones, communications and battlefield-management equipment, new convoys of vehicles and stockpiles of ammunition . . . The public goal was to nudge Georgia toward NATO military standards.” Georgia’s leader, Mikhail Saakashvili, came to power in 2004, as a result of US covert operations.

South Ossetia, one of the so-called “breakaway” republics, is claimed by US puppet, Georgia, but has resisted Georgian rule. The Saakashvili government has attempted to seize South Ossetia for some time. In a pattern similar to that set during the 1990s Balkans conflict, each side accuses the other of genocide, atrocities and violations of international law.

What we are witnessing now is an overt and blunt Russian military response to years of Anglo-American encroachment in the region, and the prospect of a US/NATO-supported military force in South Ossetia, giving the West more control of the Caspian Sea/Black Sea oil.

US versus Russia and China, all over the world

Many wonder if this conflict marks the beginning of World War Three. The question itself is flawed. World war -- world resource warfare -- between the Anglo-American empire and its allies, and its main superpower adversaries, Russia and China, and its allies, has been continuous for decades.

This war of empire -- one war, the same war -- has been waged on multiple levels, but it has been fought in absolute earnest during Bush/Cheney, as energy scarcity, or Peak Oil and Gas, has manifested itself in nightmarish fashion, overtly and tangibly. Every geostrategic event since World War II has focused squarely around this paradigm. Analysis by Michael Klare, author of Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict, and many others, has clearly spelled this out.

Zbigniew Brzezinski’s imperial war playbook, The Grand Chessboard, and the agendas of PNAC and other neocon groups, have been even more blatant: control the Eurasian sub-continent, the entire geography containing the majority of the world’s known oil reserves, while encircling, blocking and destabilizing Russia and China, and their allies.

The Anglo-American empire’s wars since the 1990s have been sequential and overtly about oil and gas. The 1999 NATO war in the Balkans was fought over the Caspian Sea basin, the location of the third-largest oil reserves. The pipeline politics connected to the control and transport of Caspian Sea oil led directly to the 9/11 event, and the resulting “war on terrorism” into Afghanistan. The attempt to seize and control the second-largest oil reserves led directly to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and a permanent military foothold in the Middle East.

Conflict (economic, political and military) has broken out over every piece of geography containing, or purporting to contain, oil, or involving oil and energy: Nigeria, Iran, Sudan, the South China Sea, Algeria, Darfur, Somalia, Chechnya, and even Canada. In all cases, the Anglo-American empire has faced off against Chinese and Russian interests.

Nightmare scenarios

What is significant about the Georgian conflict is that for, arguably, the first time since the so-called end of the Cold War, it is not the Anglo-American empire unilaterally bombing, invading or occupying a politically weak nation with a primitive military, such as Afghanistan or Iraq. Russian military might is being unleashed directly on a US surrogate.

Russia is daring the Anglo-American empire to do something about it.

It is currently unclear, in the face of complexities (clouded by the violence, and the incendiary and escalating rhetoric from all sides) what scenario will unfold. What is clear is that it is beyond a nightmare scenario already.

See War in the Caucasus: Towards a Broader Russia-US Military Confrontation? and the blog by Mike Ruppert.

Is this a war that Moscow wanted to start, and finish, at a key moment at which the Anglo-American empire, as a result of its own political and economic self-destruction under the criminal Bush/Cheney agenda, is in the midst of real death throes? Is this Bush/Cheney’s “chickens come home to roost” -- Russia calling the administration’s bluff?

What, if anything, has been China’s role behind the scenes?

Is this a war that the neocons, led by Bush/Cheney, via Georgia, provoked, in order to give themselves a new justification to unleash the “unthinkable” open nuclear war that they have insisted on waging “endlessly”? If Bush/Cheney were genuinely caught off guard, will they now, in neocon panic, pull out the stops, and “blow it all up”?

Would such a war trump all other events, including the upcoming presidential election? Is this war connected in any way to political factions backing John McCain?

With the world economy teetering on the brink of petro-dollar collapse, the US close to a depression, and with the US Federal Reserve and Wall Street engaging in ever more desperate actions to save the empire, is there significance in the timing of this war? Any disruption to the oil supply, in one blow, wipes out the economy, the stock markets, raises oil and gas prices to shocking new highs, and flattens an already discredited Bush/Cheney administration.

The spectacle of the Bush family, Henry Kissinger, Putin, etc., entertaining themselves at the Bejing Olympic Games, while South Ossetia burned, and neocons Dick Cheney and UN Ambassador (and CIA man) Zalmay Khalilzad manning the nuclear button in Washington (warning that “Russian aggression will not go unanswered”), should not only turn stomachs, but raise alarms like nothing since 9/11. Even more stomach-turning, but expected, is the near-total inattention to this gigantic war explosion. The eyes of the hopelessly ignorant and acquiescent public are transfixed on Beijing Olympics fun, and secondarily on the sexual misadventures of John Edwards. Again, the timing of all of this raises questions in and of itself.

Who knew what, and when? Who is in control? Who benefits? What horrific nuclear war scenarios are getting operational green lights?

If Bush/Cheney’s false flag event on 9/11, six horrific years of open criminality, its conquest and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the “war on terrorism,” have not already made painfully clear, this moment in history should serve as a wake-up call.

There has never been a more critical time to look past the billowing propaganda smoke.

This really is it.

Russia may change Iran position due to U.S. support for Georgia

Russia may change its position on the U.S.-led effort to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb because of American military support for Georgia, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said.

"We'll think twice" about Iran, Ivanov said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Moscow today. "We'll keep in mind how our partners acted in this period of crisis which Russia faced," he said. "So far we haven't vetoed UN resolutions" on Iran.

Russian and Georgian forces fought for five days in and around the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia before agreeing to a truce on Aug. 12. The U.S., which had more than 100 military advisers in Georgia before hostilities began, flew Georgian soldiers back from Iraq during the coflict, a move Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin criticized as "interference."

"Thousands of Russians were killed," said Ivanov, a longtime Putin ally who served with him in the KGB. "They were killed by the Georgian army with American weapons, American ammunition and American instructors preparing for this war. I want to make this loud and clear."

Georgia's U.S.-educated president, Mikheil Saakashvili, said Russia executed "a well-planned invasion," while his counterpart Dmitry Medvedev said action was needed to defend peacekeepers and citizens in South Ossetia, where most residents hold Russian passports. Both sides have accused the other of genocide.

Cyberspace Barrage Preceded Russian Invasion of Georgia

Weeks before physical bombs started falling on Georgia, a security researcher in suburban Massachusetts was watching an attack against the country in cyberspace.

Jose Nazario of Arbor Networks in Lexington noticed a stream of data directed at Georgian government sites containing the message: win+love+in+Rusia.

Other Internet experts in the United States said the attacks against Georgia’s Internet infrastructure began as early as July 20, with coordinated barrages of millions of requests — known as distributed denial of service, or D.D.O.S., attacks — that overloaded certain Georgian servers.

The Georgian government blamed Russia for the attacks, but the Russian government said it was not involved.

Researchers at Shadowserver, a volunteer group that tracks malicious network activity, reported that the Web site of the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, had been rendered inoperable for 24 hours by multiple D.D.O.S. attacks. The researchers said the command and control server that directed the attack, which was based in the United States, had come online several weeks before it began the assault.

As it turns out, the July attack may have been a dress rehearsal for an all-out cyberwar once the shooting started between Georgia and Russia.

According to Internet technical experts, it was the first time a cyberattack had coincided with a shooting war. But it will likely not be the last, said Bill Woodcock, the research director of the Packet Clearing House, a nonprofit that tracks Internet traffic. He said cyberattacks are so inexpensive and easy to mount, with few fingerprints, that they will almost certainly remain a feature of modern warfare.

“It costs about 4 cents per machine,” Mr. Woodsock said. “You could fund an entire cyberwarfare campaign for the cost of replacing a tank tread, so you would be foolish not to.”

Shadowserver saw the attack against Georgia spread to computers throughout the government after Russian troops invaded the Georgian province of South Ossetia on Sunday.

Georgina media, communications and transportation companies were also targeted, according to security researchers.

“Could this somehow be indirect Russian action? Yes, but considering Russia is past playing nice and uses real bombs, they could have attacked more strategic targets or eliminated the infrastructure kinetically,” said Gadi Evron, an Israeli network security expert who assisted in pushing back a cyber attack on Estonia’s Internet infrastructure last May. “The nature of what’s going on isn’t clear.”

A Russian government spokesman said that the government was not involved, but that it was possible that individuals in Russia or elsewhere had taken it upon themselves to start the attacks.

“I cannot exclude this possibility,” Yevgeniy Khorishko, a spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Washington. “There are people who don’t agree with something and they try to express thesmelves. You have people like this in your country.”

Mr. Nazario said the attacks appeared to be politically motivated. They were continuing on Monday against Georgian news sites, according to Mr. Nazario. “I’m watching attacks against apsny.ge and news.ge right now,” he said.

The attacks were controlled from a server based at a telecommunications firm in Moscow, he said. In contrast, the attacks last month came from a control computer that was based in the United States. That system was later disabled.

Denial of service attacks, aimed at making a Web site unreachable, began in 2001 and have been refined in terms of power and sophistication since then. They are usually performed by hundreds or thousands of commandeered personal computers, making it difficult or impossible to determine who is behind a particular attack.

The Web site of the president of Georgia was moved to an Internet operation in the United States run by a Georgian native over the weekend. The company, Tulip Systems Inc., based in Atlanta, is run by Nino Doijashvili, who was in Georgia at the time of the attack. Two Web sites, president.gov.ge and rustavi2.com, the Web site of a prominent Georgian TV station, were moved to Atlanta. Computer security executives said the new sites had also come under attack.

On Monday, Renesys executives said that most Georgian networks were unaffected, although individual Web sites might be under attack. Networks appeared and disappeared as power was cut off and restored as a result of the war, they said

A company researcher noted that Georgia was dependent on both Russia and Turkey for connections to the Internet. As a result of the interference the Georgian government began posting news dispatches to a Google-run blogging Web site, georgiamfa.blogspot.com. Separately, there were reports that Estonia was sending technical assistance to the Georgian government.

There were indications that both sides in the conflict — or sympathizers — were engaged in attacks aimed at blocking access to Web sites. On Friday, the Russian language Web site Lenta.ru reported that there had been D.D.O.S. attacks targeted at the official Web site of the government of South Ossetia as well as attacks against the RIA Novosti, a Russian news agency.

Internet researchers at Sophos, a computer security firm based in Britain, said that the National Bank of Georgia’s Web site was defaced at one point. Images of 20th century dictators as well as an image of Georgia’s president Mr. Saakashvili, were placed on the site.

Internet technical experts said that the Georgian Internet presence was relatively small compared with other former Soviet states. The country has about a quarter the number of Internet addresses as Estonia or Latvia, according to Mr. Woodcock, the research director of the Packet Clearing House.

With support from the United States, Georgia is in the process of completing a 1, 400-kilometer fiber optic network link under the Black Sea connecting its port city of Poti to Varna, Bulgaria. That connection is scheduled for completion in September. The link will give the country added redundancy and make it less reliant on Russian companies for its data communication needs.

click:Cyberspace Barrage Preceded Russian Invasion of Georgia New York Times

Oil up as Georgia conflict disrupts shipments

* Oil rises on fighting between Georgia and Russia

* Some oil shipments suspended from Caspian producers

* Repair at BTC pipeline may take 1-2 weeks or longer

(Updates prices, adds comment)

By Alastair Sharp

LONDON, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Oil edged above $116 on Monday, after fighting between Russia and Georgia disrupted exports from the Caspian region, helping to stem a steep selloff on the crude market.

U.S. light crude for September delivery was up $1 at $116.21 a barrel by 11061 GMT, off highs of $116.90. London Brent crude rose 90 cents to $114.23.

Oil had fallen more than $5 on Friday, when it largely ignored the outbreak of hostilities in the Caucasus region, a key transit route for oil and gas from the Caspian, to focus on concerns about global economic growth.

"Even with what is a serious situation in Georgia, with pipelines threatened perhaps, we haven't had much of a bounce back," said Simon Wardell, an analyst at Global Insight.

"All it seems to have done is halted the speed of the fall."

Oil has shed about $31, or 21 percent, from its peak of over $147.27 struck on July 11 on concerns of a slowdown in demand.

Analysts said oil's gain was also tempered by the rising U.S. dollar, which vaulted to a six-month high against a basket of currencies on Monday.

Georgia's oil ports of Supsa and Batumi, used to export Azeri crude oil, are operating only partially, while the Georgian port of Poti is not operating, a shipping agent said on Monday. Kazakhstan also stopped shipments of its crude from Georgia's Batumi port. Both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan also use crude pipelines for export.

A major oil pipeline exporting Azeri crude passes through Georgia but was disabled last week on Turkish territory before the conflict erupted.

A fire in eastern Turkey on the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline halted loadings of Azeri Light crude shipped to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

The blaze was extinguished on Monday and repairs may take one to two weeks or longer, a source at the pipeline consortium said.

BP has also cut output by at least 400,000 barrels a day at the Azeri-Chirag Gunashli oilfields because of the fire.

Russian warships have been dispatched to Georgia's Black Sea coast, but Russia has denied targeting oil pipelines.

Analysts said investors were refocusing on supply and demand fundamentals, with OPEC's next move and U.S. inventory levels eyed in the months ahead.

"(U.S.) inventories are indicating that the market is a little bit tighter than people think, and that it isn't a one-way bet," said Michael Lewis, global head of commodities research at Deutsche Bank.

"The forward curve is quite a good barometer of fundamentals in the market, obviously barring these geopolitical events," he said.

The crude forward curve has been in contango -- when prices are higher further out -- for most of the last two years, but briefly dipped into backwardation last week.

OPEC President Chakib Khelil, speaking on a visit to Iran, urged members of the oil exporters' group to stick to agreed targets on output.

OPEC is overshooting its informal output target, with Saudi Arabia leading the way after the kingdom pledged to meet rising demand and help tame runaway oil prices. OPEC meets on Sep. 9. (Additional reporting by Santosh Menon in London, Fayen Wong in Perth; Editing by William Hardy)

click here: Oil up as Georgia conflict disrupts shipments Reuters South Africa, South Africa

Can America confront Russia on Georgia?

Russia is determined to reclaim its lost ground at the end of the cold war. Russia is also determined to use oil as the spearhead of a new and stubborn superpower. The conflict in Georgia is symbolic and a direct challenge to America and in particular to Bush Administration including Dick Cheney.

It was interesting to see Putin and Bush sitting next to each in Beijing Olympics and chatting with each other as Georgian militia battled powerful Russian Army and Air Force. Russian Military action is not against Georgia. It is against United States of America as Georgia is the new obedient political and strategic satellite of America.

Georgia declared a state of war Saturday as fierce battles with Russia military over the breakaway region of South Ossetia entered their second day.

Russia has launched a full-scale military invasion of Georgia, President Mikhail Saakashvili said during a brief news conference Saturday afternoon.

"We are dealing with absolutely criminal and crazy acts of irresponsible and reckless decision makers, which is on the ground producing dramatic and tragic consequences," Saakashvili said.

The million dollar question for the international think tanks is that can America intervene and finally fight a war with an adversary of any real size? Fighting gainst Iraqis and Taliban was equivalent to Elephant finghtingt ants. But can United States really side with Georgia to challenge Russia in its own backyard?

Putin wants American money. Madvadev wants AMerica to understand that Russian territories is not Iraq or Afghanistan. Instigating former Soviet Republics will create chaos and war. At the same time, US should not have expecred a cake walk like Iraq and Afghanistan in meddling with powerbase of a formere superpower rich in oil, gas and minerals.

Does America have the will and resource to fight a real powerful enemy? Georgia needs American military to defend itself agaisnt Russia. Russia perhaps wants AMerica to intervene so that thet can teach Americans a lesson in their own backyard.

George Bush seemed anxious in the olympic opening ceremoney looking at his watch constantly and trying to whisper to Putin. America is overstreched in Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of military resource and busget deficit. George Bush confronts his life’s biggest challenge – can America defend Georgia?

click here: Can America confront Russia on Georgia? India Daily, NJ

Further readings:

Emerging Markets-Selloff on Georgia conflict, Argentina fears
Georgia says Russian aircraft bombed its air bases
Russian troops raid Georgian town; scores dead
European govt bonds supported by Fannie Mae results, Russia ...
Georgia warns of war if Russia enters rebel region: official
Can Georgia Win?
Georgia ceasefire fails to halt Russian attack
US faults Russia for rising violence in Georgia
War Alert! by Edgar J Steele

Combating An Ideology

On Friday at the New America Foundation, the Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, James Glassman, spoke about America’s strategy in the so called ‘war of ideas’. The speech outlined a process of gentle encouragement and openness. As Glassman was keen to note, when it comes to radical fundamentalism based on Islam, “we [Americans] are not the credible voices”. Instead, Glassman says that the battle against radicalism must be conducted by those who are well respected within the Muslim world.

Glassman’s vision for US public diplomacy in the current era is “focused not on making people like us more, but rather on defeating an ideology.” We are attempting to influence the outcome of a battle for power within Muslim society, and the only way that Glassman sees us being effective is by taking on an enabling role. For the Undersecretary, the objective is to make sure that the many voices of reason within the Islamic world get heard.

Glassman’s speech took on an amused tone when he mentioned that he himself disliked the name ‘war of ideas’, despite his unofficial title as its ‘commander in chief’. He insisted that the name has connotations that imply a simple, two sided ‘us vs. them’ struggle. Instead, Glassman was adamant that the objective is not to get anyone to accept our own ideologies, but rather simply to have them reject ideologies that promote unprovoked violence.

All in all, Glassman’s speech was a breath of fresh air in a climate where enemies, friends, and bystanders are often confused with one another. Terrorism cannot be stopped by force of arms. The ‘war of ideas’ is perhaps the most crucial initiative to our longterm security, and it’s nice to see that the man in charge recognizes the complexities and understands the indirect approach that we must adopt.

Combating An Ideology

by Jeffrey Asjes | July 27th, 2008

war: He escaped Vietnam, but not his demons

Arthur Torgesen "had been in pain for years"

By PAUL LEVY, Star Tribune

Last update: July 27, 2008 - 9:10 PM

Stationed in Vietnam in an area known as "The Devil's Back Yard," Arthur Torgesen twice eluded death while nearly everyone else in his unit perished. People close to him say Torgesen was awarded two Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star. But for all his great escapes, he could not outrun his demons.

Torgesen fled a bunker in Cu Chi before explosives wiped out more than two dozen other members of the 25th Infantry Division, said Dennis Olson, a fellow Vietnam veteran. But when Torgesen talked about cheating death before an ambush that killed 150 others, he told Olson he felt guilty and wondered if he could have "prevented the whole thing" by firing a warning shot.

"My father suffers from a rare post-traumatic stress," Michael Torgesen said last week while his father sat in the Anoka County jail, charged with second-degree murder after allegedly stabbing his wife to death and setting their Columbia Heights house on fire.

"He was in a lot of pain," Michael Torgesen said of his dad, "and had been in pain for years."

Artie Torgesen, 63, was recently diagnosed with cancer, his son said. He carried a limp and a cane to go with his memories of being shot in Vietnam. He had chronic pain in his arms and his hands, possibly from a fall in which he broke his collarbone after losing a wrestling match with a bottle of vodka, Olson and Torgesen's son said.

"The vodka took the edge off," Michael Torgesen said.

Cell phone message

But it was Artie's bride, Sherrill Harnden, 59, who gave him reason to go on. Just two days before Torgesen allegedly kissed his sleeping wife and then stabbed her repeatedly with a kitchen knife with a 6 1/2-inch blade, Harnden left a message for her husband on his cell phone:

"Thanks for being the greatest husband you've been."

"They loved each other," said Michael Torgesen, 30. "There's no doubt about that."

Artie Torgesen's plan was to die together with his wife, according to court records. The gasoline and lacquer that he told detectives that he poured on his wife as she lay in their bedroom July 18, he also poured on himself -- and he had burns on his chest, arms and, most severe, on his back to prove it.

Ultimately, though, he said he didn't have the nerve. He left the room, naked, and went to the living room.

Things had gotten too hot.

A history of problems

He began to feel the heat the day he returned home from Vietnam four decades ago. A tough Long Islander who never lost his New York accent, Torgesen had just gotten off the plane when a guy spit at him, Olson said. Torgesen broke the man's jaw.

"His first night home and he spent it in jail," his son said.

There were other incidents -- like the time New York-area authorities questioned Torgesen about possible mob connections. Years later, Torgesen told Olson that he was beaten so badly by police officers that his parents hardly recognized him.

Torgesen married a woman from Minnesota, moved to his bride's home state, and started a flooring company in downtown Minneapolis in the late 1970s. But alcohol took its toll on a marriage that produced one son -- Michael -- before ending in divorce.

Twenty-five years ago, Sherry Harnden entered Artie's life. He told Olson he met her at a party. The man who Olson says won a Silver Star by jumping into a bunker in the jungle with an M-16 and firing away found somebody with whom he could exchange love letters. A box of them was kept 'til the end, Michael Torgesen said.

"Sherry was like my second mom for 25 years," he said. "My dad had such a rough past. He was a grunt in Vietnam. She was someone who could take him off the front line."

Simply 'the best'

Their Columbia Heights neighbors admit they knew little about Torgesen and Harnden -- other than that police occasionally visited their home and he was heard screaming at her during his binges. Torgesen was arrested at least 13 times for driving under the influence, according to the Anoka County Sheriff's Office.

But Olson knew the couple differently. Artie adored Sherry, who went to the health club, worried about her weight, and cared about her looks, said Olson. As he once said to Olson after Olson's wife, Scharline, dropped by, "Our old ladies are the best."

"She was just a very caring, warm person," said Ann Harnden, Sherry's heartbroken mother. "She loved her family, Artie and Michael. If you were her friend, you were her friend forever."

Dennis Olson, 57, who lives in the village of St. Anthony, said he first met Torgesen about 15 years ago when Torgesen noticed a POW-MIA flag in Olson's garage. Torgesen introduced himself and the two exchanged Vietnam stories.

Talk occasionally led to Torgesen's medals. The Star Tribune could not verify those medals, but Michael Torgesen said he saw them while he was growing up and Ann Harnden said she, too, knew of them.

Torgesen had been drinking vodka the day he and Olson first met, Olson recalled. But his stories often had to do with morphine and the pain he felt in his knee, which had to be reconstructed after his discharge.

Last calls

It wasn't until around the time that Torgesen learned he had cancer, several months ago, that he and Harnden finally married. In February, Torgesen had cancer between his heart and lungs surgically removed, Olson said. But the cancer returned.

So did the financial woes and depression that plagued Torgesen for decades.

On Wednesday, July 16 -- the day Harnden left her verbal love letter on Torgesen's voice mail -- Torgesen called Olson. Olson's son, Zak, 15, died of leukemia four years ago, and now Torgesen was telling Olson "that he wanted to visit Zak."

"He said he was sick and tired of living with cancer, couldn't live this way anymore," Olson said. "He's talked this stuff to me in the past.

"He was a Vietnam war hero. He wasn't the type of person to kick back and die of old age."

On Friday morning, July 18, Torgesen called his son, Michael, leaving this message: "Everything is over for me." He called Harnden's mother to tell her Sherry loved her. And he called the Olsons.

"He was living with a lot of demons from Vietnam and drowning them out with vodka," Olson recalled Torgesen once saying. "He'd been off the bottle for a while and got into the vodka again at the tail end of his radiation regimen. He said it wasn't any fun anymore.

"He had to do something to stop it all."

Paul Levy • 612-673-4419

The new Cold War

Is the "tired of the life, spy in semi-retirement dragged out for one more mission" genre, well, tired? Judging by Daniel Silva's latest entry into the life of Israeli superspy Gabriel Allon, his eighth in this particular series, the answer according to at least one author is no. Not surprisingly perhaps given that the post-September 11 era has revitalized the genre; instead of the Soviet Bloc, the west's undercover heroes can grapple enemies from other of the globe's hotspots.

Except that Moscow Rules brings us back to the future with a villain no stranger to those who grew up with Cold War era spy novels. Allon's mission, which he has little choice but to accept, is to investigate Ivan Kharkov, a former KGB colonel who has built a fortune thanks to his connections. While Kharkov's public face is that of a billionaire built on crafty, if somewhat shady, investments, those in the know are aware that much of that fortune is actually the result of selling weapons to whoever is willing to pay.

Kharkov's latest venture is what has prompted the un-retirement of the newly married Allon. Dragged from an Italian estate where he was restoring art for the Vatican, Allon is told that the Russian plans to sell a sophisticated weapons system – codenamed Igla, Russian for "needle" – to al-Qaida. He must determine when and where the deal will take place in order to foil what will be future global attacks even more deadly than what took place on September 11, 2001.

With the stakes as high as they are, it's not surprise that Kharkov's network will do whatever it takes to protect the deal. Journalists who discover the truth are murdered and Allon himself finds out that elements of the Russian establishment are willing to do what it takes to protect one of their own, which includes a stay in the Lubyanka prison. Fortunately, Allon discovers a way to penetrate Kharkov's circle, through his art-collecting wife Elena.

From there the story rarely lets off the throttle. Aided not only by the Israeli secret service, but also those of the U.S., Britain and France, Allon travels across Europe in his effort to discover the details of the weapons deal. With money no object and abilities that, thanks to friends in the Russian government and intelligence services, are nearly as formidable as the ones Allon's allies bring to bear, the Russian mafia and Kharkov stop at nothing in their attempts to end his mission.

While Moscow Rules is engaging, it is somewhat hobbled by a deus ex machina twist in the later third of the book that stretches the credibility of even the spy genre. While it doesn't take the reader completely out of the story – at least not for long – it is an event which isn't foreshadowed before it occurs and only seems to do so in order to rescue Allon from the predicament he finds himself in. It is a plot twist, though relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, which detracts from what Silva was able to create with his latest effort.

That said, Moscow Rules is an imminently engaging read which is firmly grounded in today's political events. Though it is escapist fiction, it will also hopefully inform the reader about the reality of the flow of arms and expertise from Russia to the Middle East. Perceived American weakness and a torrent of oil money have revitalized a Russia apparently determined to revisit its past and while Moscow Rules is the latest in the series of spies coming out of retirement, it is hardly a tired or irrelevant effort.

Steven Martinovich is a freelance writer in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

By Steven Martinovich
web posted July 28, 2008