Here is a video, with a cheery soundtrack, promoting
Blackwater’s extensive aviation assets in Iraq.
** RUMSFELD’S STANFORD APPOINTMENT ATTRACTS BIG PROTEST. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s appointment as a visiting fellow of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution has, quite predictably, caused a big protest. More than 2500 students and faculty have signed a petition against it, and the number is bound to grow.
Hoover has a somewhat anomalous role at Stanford, in most respects being much more conservative than the university as a whole, not unlike an American Enterprise Institute West. It’s also semi-autonomous, with a fellowship appointment like that of Rumsfeld — architect of the Iraq War — not needing to be approved by the university administration.
** BARRY BONDS WON’T BE BACK AS A GIANT. San Francisco Giants slugger barry Bonds, the all-time home run hitter whose late career is shadowed by steroids, just announced on his web site that this is his last season with the Giants. The team, he says, has decided not to bring him back next year. There’s a press conference scheduled for 5 PM.
Bonds is 43 and the Giants are mired in last place in the National League West. He’s hitting .279 this season with 28 homers — and leads the league in on-base average because so many pitchers still walk him, making the National League All-Stars again this season — but he doesn’t move nearly as well as he used to, needs more rest, and made over $15 million this season.
Bonds has 762 home runs for his career. He broke Hank Aaron’s career record on August 7th, as you watched here on NWN. The seven-time league MVP says he had hoped to end his career in San Francisco, where his father Bobby also starred and where his godfather, Willie May, was the superstar of his childhood. Now he aims to play elsewhere next season, probably as a designated hitter.
** DRAFT U.S. REPORT CRITICIZING MALIKI MYSTERIOUSLY LEAKS AMIDST BLACKWATER ROW. By one of those odd coincidences of politics, a draft report from the US Embassy critical of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for lack of progress on corruption within the Iraqi government was leaked to the iragslogger.com web site. The move comes in the midst of efforts to keep the controversial Blackwater private military firm functioning fully in Iraq in the wake of last weekend’s lethal incident on the streets of Baghdad. Maliki says Blackwater acted in “criminal” fashion and the Iraqi government suspended Blackwater’s license to operate in the country.
The US State Department, which of course runs the US Embassy in Baghdad, has become almost completely dependent upon Blackwater for the security of its personnel in Baghdad. So much for the traditional US Marine Corps detachments.
** HILLARY CLINTON’S BLOCK PARTY IN OAKLAND. Incidentally, I’m reminded that Hillary Clinton’s big event in downtown Oakland Sunday afternoon is not a rally per se, it’s a block party, an outing for the family with all that block party kind of stuff. It will still be interesting to compare the size and enthusiasm of her crowd with that of Barack Obama, who did a huge rally in downtown Oakland several months ago.
** AFL-CIO VOWS TO SPEND $200 MILLION ON 2008 NATIONAL ELECTIONS. America’s leading labor federation, the AFL-CIO, today announced that it will spend $200 million on next year’s national elections, primarily for the presidency but including the U.S. Senate and House. That’s a $50 million increase over its effort in 2004. It also plans to mobilized 200,000 volunteers.
That’s all for the general election. The AFL-CIO is neutral in the presidential primaries, although individual unions are free to choose their own candidates.
** CALIFORNIA GETS MITT ROMNEY FOR FIVE DAYS. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has ridden a wave of mostly unanswered early advertising to leads in Iowa and New Hampshire among Republicans, but has lagged in California and national polls. Now the new poll discussed in this morning’s column shows him tied for second, running just six points behind Rudy Giuliani.
And by coincidence, Romney, credited with saving the Winter Olympic Games in Utah early in the decade, is about to arrive in California for five days of campaigning. He’ll do a lot of fundraising, naturally, but he’s also going to do a fair amount of public campaigning, including several “Ask Mitt Anything” town halls. We’ll see how that last goes.
Unfortunately, his schedule is “for planning purposes only,” so I can’t tell you now what he’s going to do. But he will be campaigning in Southern California, Northern California, the Central Valley, and the state capital.
** HILLARY IN CALIFORNIA. Hillary Clinton returns to California — her husband was here a few days ago, for a private Hollywood fundraiser and an appearance with Arnold Schwarzenegger promoting their children’s healthy lifestyles project — for some, you guessed it, fundraising. And for a big rally. It’s Sunday afternoon in downtown Oakland. Barack Obama had a huge rally in downtown Oakland several months ago. It will be interesting to compare the two. Right now, she has a big lead on Obama in California, as seen in the poll discussed in this morning’s column.
** BLACKWATER BACK ON BAGHDAD STREETS, REQUIRING IRAQI APPROVAL FOR MOVEMENTS. Highly controversial Blackwater security operators are back on the streets of Baghdad today, in a limited capacity, accompanying State Department personnel who, in Iraq’s capital city, cannot protect themselves without their private security minders.
But their movements are limited and require Iraqi approval. Blackwater’s license to operate in Iraq has been suspended and the US and Iraq have formed a joint commission to determine any wrongdoing in an incident last weekend in which personnel guarding a State Department motorcade are said to have killed a number of civilians.
The Iraqi Interior Ministry issued a report that concluded that Blackwater operators in Baghdad’s Nisour Square started shooting after two mortar rounds landed nearby.
“They started shooting randomly from four positions in the square, killing 11 civilians and injuring 12 other,” Major General Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the interior ministry spokesman. “The first one who was killed was a driver who failed to stop and then his wife,” Khalaf said.
The report also calls for the lifting of legal immunity for foreign security companies operating in Iraq, which was an early edict of the US provisional authority before Iraq got its own government up and running.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki calls the shootings last weekend a “criminal act” by Blackwater.
Blackwater is responsible for security for US embassy and CIA station personnel in Iraq. But they play a more expansive role than that.
From the Blackwater mission statement: We are not simply a “private security company.” We are a professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations firm who provides turnkey solutions. We assist with the development of national and global security policies and military transformation plans. We can train, equip and deploy public safety and military professionals, build live-fire indoor/outdoor ranges, MOUT facilities and shoot houses, create ground and aviation operations and logistics support packages, develop and execute canine solutions for patrol and explosive detection, and can design and build facilities both domestically and in austere environments abroad.
Blackwater lives its core values of excellence, efficiency, execution, and teamwork. In doing this, we have become the most responsive, cost-effective means of affecting the strategic balance in support of security and peace, and freedom and democracy everywhere.
Note: MOUT is the acronym for Military Operations on Urban Terrain.
** RECORD OIL PRICE, AGAIN. Oil continued its surge yesterday, boosted by bullish geopolitical uncertainties around Iraq and Iran and the evacuation of crews from oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico threatened by heavy weather.
Crude oil reached yet another new record high of $84.10 during the day, settling at a record $83.32 upon the close of trading.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 129th day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US high command in Baghdad has revealed that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Most crude oil prices remain in record territory, in the $81 to $84 per barrel range.
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Oh, boy, I can go read all the Maureen Dowd columns I’ve missed. Joy.