Nabi Abdullaev on the Georgian-Russian War

From the Moscow Times:

Having forcefully reclaimed South Ossetia for its loyal separatist regime, Moscow has sent the strongest possible signal of how far it is ready to go to retain influence in other former Soviet republics.

The conflict is unlikely to escalate into a war by proxy with the West, however, and the situation will eventually return to the pre-conflict status quo, political analysts said Sunday.

President Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have labeled Georgia's attack on the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, as "genocide" and said Tbilisi has lost the right to ever govern the separatist region.

Major Western powers have strongly urged Moscow to respect Georgia's territorial integrity and to avoid the excessive use of force -- which analysts said suggests that after a lengthy period of gradual military disengagement and negotiations, Georgia will have to accept continued Moscow-backed separatism on its territory.

The South Ossetian conflict was a foreign policy trap for Russia from the start, and the trap slammed shut after the Georgian troops started shelling Tskhinvali late last week and its residents pleaded for Moscow to intervene, said Alexander Khramchikhin, a senior researcher with the Institute of Political and Military Analysis.

"Russia was left with the choice of either becoming a traitor or an aggressor," he said.

This apparently was a tough choice for a country that feels encircled and humiliated as former vassal regimes turn to the West. The fact that Georgia is a close ally of the United States, which strongly backs its bid to join NATO, promises to further complicate the bigger, geopolitical ramifications of the violence in South Ossetia.

Washington and West European governments criticized Russia for its overwhelming use of force but did not place the full blame for the conflict on it.

The main reason for this was probably because Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili attempted to reintegrate South Ossetia by force without first winning approval from the West, said Alexei Malashenko, a Caucasus analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center.

Larisa Alexandrovna on the Georgian-Russian War

From AtLargely.com:

Russia's attack on Georgia is illegal and immoral. On that we can all agree. But, because our voice of reason and diplomacy has long been sold off to military defense contractors, our leaders criticizing Russia is irrelevant and worse, hypocritical because we attacked Iraq, illegally. I have been trying to explain this very problem to the far-right, but it is like trying to explain the basics of math to a flea.

Here is what our beloved leader said:

U.S. President George Bush said he told Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that the violence in the region was "unacceptable," and that Russia's response was "disproportionate."

Guess what Vladamir Putin (no matter who the Russian President is, Putin is the leader) will likely do in response to this stern warning? Putin will do whatever he wants to because the US cannot counter militarily, financially, or in any other way. We have lost the moral high ground through our total disregard for international law, treaties, and the basic decency of honoring human rights. That my friends is the exact problem with playing the "we are the greatest country in the world" game, with no serious understanding of reality.

Consider that Georgia is our ally and we can do nothing for them. That is how much power the US now has thanks to this administration. And consider too, that Putin will not stop at Georgia as he has always pined for the return of the former Soviet Union.

How Bush "restored honor and dignity to the White House..."

During the 2000 Presidential contest, George W. Bush repeatedly promised to "restore honor and dignity to the White House." Here's how he's doing it at the Beijing Olympics, by patting the back of a member of the US Women's Volleyball Team--around the same time Todd Bachman, father-in-law of men's volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon was stabbed to death, and his wife Barbara critically injured in Beijing by a suicide attacker...

Glenn Greenwald Finds More Holes in FBI's Anthrax Case

Salon's Glenn Greenwald is looking at FBI "evidence" somewhat critically...

The fastest one can drive from Frederick, Maryland to Princeton, New Jersey is 3 hours, which would mean that Ivins would have had to have dropped the anthrax letters in the New Jersey mailbox on September 17 by 1 p.m. or -- at the latest -- 2 p.m. in order to be able to attend a 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. meeting back at Ft. Detrick. But had he dropped the letters in the mailbox before 5:00 p.m. on September 17, the letters would have borne a September 17 postmark, rather than the September 18 postmark they bore (letters picked up from that Princeton mailbox before 5 p.m. bear the postmark from that day; letters picked up after 5 p.m. bear the postmark of the next day). That's why the Search Warrant Affidavit (.pdf) released by the FBI on Friday said this (page 8):

If the Post's reporting about Ivins' September 17 activities is accurate -- that he "return[ed to Fort Detrick] for an appointment in the early evening, about 4 or 5 p.m." -- then that would constitute an alibi, not, as the Post breathlessly described it, "a key clue into how he could have pulled off an elaborate crime," since any letter he mailed that way would have a September 17 -- not a September 18 -- postmark. Just compare the FBI's own definition of "window of opportunity" to its September 17 timeline for Ivins to see how glaring that contradiction is.
In theory (and there is no evidence for this at all), Ivins could have left Fort Detrick that night after work and driven to New Jersey, but then the leaked information reported by the Post about Ivins' September 17 morning "administrative leave" would be completely irrelevant, and according to the Post, that isn't what the FBI believes occurred ("Authorities assume that he drove to Princeton immediately after" he took administrative leave in the morning). The FBI's theory as to how and when Ivins traveled to New Jersey on September 17 and mailed the letters is simply impossible, given the statement in their own Probable Cause Affidavit as to "the window of opportunity" the anthrax attacker had to mail the letters in order to have them bear a September 18 postmark. Marcy Wheeler and Larisa Alexandrovna have now noted the same discrepancy. That is a pretty enormous contradiction in the FBI's case.
* * * * *
The FBI's total failure to point to a shred of evidence placing Ivins in New Jersey on either of the two days the anthrax letters were sent is a very conspicuous deficiency in its case. It's possible that Ivins was able to travel to Princeton on two occasions in three weeks without leaving the slightest trace of having done so (not a credit card purchase, ATM withdrawal, unusual gas purchases, nothing), but that relies on a depiction of Ivins as a cunning and extremely foresightful criminal, an image squarely at odds with most of the FBI's circumstantial evidence that suggests Ivins was actually quite careless, even reckless, in how he perpetrated this crime (spending unusual amounts of time in his lab before the attacks despite knowing that there would be a paper trail; taking an "administrative leave" from work to go mail the anthrax letters rather than just doing it on the weekend when no paper trail of his absence would be created; using his own anthrax strain rather than any of the other strains to which he had access at Fort Detrick; keeping that strain in its same molecular form for years rather than altering it, etc.).

The FBI dumped a large number of uncorroborated conclusions at once on Wednesday, carefully assembled to create the most compelling case they could make, and many people -- as intended -- jumped to proclaim that it was convincing. But the more that case is digested and assessed, the more questions and the more skepticism seem to arise among virtually everyone...

Joshua Foust on the Georgian-Russian War

On Registan.net:

As the fighting in South Ossetia heats up, it’s interesting to see the rush by all the bloggers to do the biggest, grandest roundups. By looking at this, you see those who think they’re clever by either stating the obvious (Russia wants to split Georgia, Abkhazia is getting involved), the conventional wisdom (Russia wants to disrupt the Georgia energy corridor), or the plain old wrong (Russia wants to annex Georgia). The examples are countless, and while not necessarily wrong, none are really saying anything those who are knowledgable of the situation haven’t been saying for months or years. You also notice that the same four or five stories from the New York Times, CNN, or the BBC all get linked and excerpted, as people play arm-chair correspondents and try to track every bombing, explosion, artillery strike, and troop movement.

Basically, ignore all of that. We will not have a useful picture of the minutae of the fighting for at least several days (really? Russia will own Georgian airspace just like that?), until some good correspondents get on the scene and we’re not left hearing only what the various foreign ministries say. If you can read Russian or Georgian, there are many blogs posting pictures and personal accounts that can provide much better data (Yerevan-based reporter Onnik Krikorian is a notable exception and his collections of local blogger-journalism are absolutely necessary reading). Far more interesting than the minutae of the tactical aspects of this fight, at least to me, is the political aspect. Blake Hounshell did an admirable job of rounding up some of these, including the very salient point that Russia has refused a cease-fire.

But even that is just conventional wisdom. Who cares? It’s called conventional wisdom because everyone already knows it. Finding something new or interesting about this conflict is tough, and the blogosphere is being more hurtful than helpful in offering anything of value. There is very little attention being paid, for example, to Russia’s diplomatic moves, which seem curiously centered in Brussels, and not Tskhinvali, Tblisi, or Moscow. Why Brussels? This escalation happened right before Georgia was scheduled for its ascension into NATO, and Russian would love nothing more than to scuttle Georgia’s chances. Pretending that the South Ossetian shadow government makes any of its own decision is about as useful as pretending the shadow government in Abkhazia does. They got violent because Moscow told them to, and it has been that way for a good fifteen years now (the Abkhaz government is a bit more autonomous, but they remain fatally reliant on Russian support).

Memo to Obama: Pick Caroline Kennedy for VP

As the VP selection process enters its final days, someone I know made what seems to me to be a very shrewd suggestion--that Barack Obama pick Carolline Kennedy as his running mate.

This does several important things at once:

1) It takes McCain's absurd celebrity attacks and turns them into an advantage. "You want to run against celebrities? Make my day..."

2) It reinforces Obama's patriotism. No one is more beloved by America than the daughter of our slain ex-President, John F. Kennedy

3) It allows Ted Kennedy to give his own "Win one for the Gipper speech..." from his sickbed, if need be

4) Caroline is obviously a woman, so it demonstrates that Obama is no anti-feminist

5) It brings the Irish-American vote (some 40 million Americans at last estimate) into the Obama camp. Being from Chicago, he must realize the importance of the Irish vote. That helps to neutralize the abortion issue.

6) Caroline is a lawyer from New York, so who needs Hillary?

To those who might argue that it would be inappropriate for someone on the VP selection committee to pick herself--Dick Cheney did exactly that with George W. Bush in 2000, and afterwards the team enjoyed eight years at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue...

Science Magazine: FBI Gagged Anthrax Scientists

The journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science wonders if the FBI's handling of the anthrax case may have harmed scientific research:

The FBI, which had little microbial forensic experience back in 2001, relied on a network of labs--including Ivins's at USAMRIID--to aid its investigation. (The Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Maryland, not only sequenced many anthrax strains but worked on the case before it was integrated into JCVI, says Venter.) The bureau has ordered researchers not to discuss or publish that work. "As a scientist, I hope I'll be able to do that now," says Geisbert, who in his previous job at USAMRIID produced electron micrographs of the spores used in the letters sent to the Senate.

Many believe that the case is bound to have wider ramifications for the biodefense field. Before 2001, such research was largely confined to USAMRIID and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. The anthrax letters, which plunged a nation reeling from 9/11 into further anxiety, helped spur a massive increase in the biodefense budget--now some $5.4 billion a year--and a construction boom in biosafety labs. "The entire rationale for that expansion was fraudulent," says Richard Ebright, a prominent biodefense critic at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, because it assumed a threat from outside the country. The boom has made the country less safe, Ebright maintains: "The spigot needs to be closed."

Others say the threat remains real. "It would be unfortunate if people take away the message that the only individuals we should be concerned about are deranged biodefense scientists," says biosecurity expert Gerald Epstein of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. But he acknowledges that the debate about how much biodefense is enough will likely reignite.

There may be other consequences, says Paul Keim, an expert in microbial fingerprinting at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff who has also been recruited by the FBI. After the anthrax attacks, Congress passed legislation to limit access to bioterror agents to licensed researchers and imposed strict rules on where and how they can be used. Although researchers have decried them as overly cumbersome, the anthrax case may renew pressure to stiffen them further, Keim says. Additional measures could include cameras in virtually every lab, speculates Alan Pearson of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, D.C. "The solution may well be if you work with pathogens like smallpox and anthrax, be prepared to be watched," he says.

The involvement of a U.S. scientist would also give new ammunition to local groups that have tried to stop construction of new biosafety labs. At BU, now a major academic biodefense hub, "we have had a lot of opposition--and this is not going to help," Geisbert says.

Walter Russell Mead: Why Americans Support Israel

I had been meaning to post something about Walter Russell Mead's essay in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs for some time. It is well worth reading in its entirety. Mead's history lesson reminded me of Barbara Tuchman's Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour. which is about Britain's long historical involvement vis-a-vis Israel. Likewise, Mead provides valuable historical context that helps to discredit crackpot conspiracy theories presented by the likes of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer.

An excerpt:

In the United States, a pro-Israel foreign policy does not represent the triumph of a small lobby over the public will. It represents the power of public opinion to shape foreign policy in the face of concerns by foreign policy professionals. Like the war on drugs and the fence along the Mexican border, support for Israel is a U.S. foreign policy that makes some experts and specialists uneasy but commands broad public support. This does not mean that an "Israel lobby" does not exist or does not help shape U.S. policy in the Middle East. Nor does it mean that Americans ought to feel as they do. (It remains my view that everyone, Americans and Israelis included, would benefit if Americans developed a more sympathetic and comprehensive understanding of the wants and needs of the Palestinians.) But it does mean that the ultimate sources of the United States' Middle East policy lie outside the Beltway and outside the Jewish community. To understand why U.S. policy is pro-Israel rather than neutral or pro-Palestinian, one must study the sources of nonelite, non-Jewish support for the Jewish state.

THE CHILDREN OF DAVID

The story of U.S. support for a Jewish state in the Middle East begins early. John Adams could not have been more explicit. "I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation," he said, after his presidency. From the early nineteenth century on, gentile Zionists fell into two main camps in the United States. Prophetic Zionists saw the return of the Jews to the Promised Land as the realization of a literal interpretation of biblical prophecy, often connected to the return of Christ and the end of the world. Based on his interpretation of Chapter 18 of the prophecies of Isaiah, for example, the Albany Presbyterian pastor John McDonald predicted in 1814 that Americans would assist the Jews in restoring their ancient state. Mormon voices shared this view; the return of the Jews to the Holy Land was under way, said Elder Orson Hyde in 1841: "The great wheel is unquestionably in motion, and the word of the Almighty has declared that it shall roll."

Other, less literal and less prophetic Christians developed a progressive Zionism that would resonate down through the decades among both religious and secular gentiles. In the nineteenth century, liberal Christians often believed that God was building a better world through human progress. They saw the democratic and (relatively) egalitarian United States as both an example of the new world God was making and a powerful instrument to further his grand design. Some American Protestants believed that God was moving to restore what they considered the degraded and oppressed Jews of the world to the Promised Land, just as God was uplifting and improving the lives of other ignorant and unbelieving people through the advance of Protestant and liberal principles. They wanted the Jews to establish their own state because they believed that this would both shelter the Jews from persecution and, through the redemptive powers of liberty and honest agricultural labor, uplift and improve what they perceived to be the squalid morals and deplorable hygiene of contemporary Ottoman and eastern European Jews. As Adams put it, "Once restored to an independent government and no longer persecuted they would soon wear away some of the asperities and peculiarities of their character and possibly in time become liberal Unitarian Christians." For such Christians, American Zionism was part of a broader program of transforming the world by promoting the ideals of the United States.

Not all progressive Zionists couched their arguments in religious terms. As early as 1816, Niles' Weekly Register, the leading American news and opinion periodical through much of the first half of the nineteenth century, predicted and welcomed the impending return of the Jews to an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital. The magazine projected that the restoration of the Jews would further enlightenment and progress -- and this, clearly, would be good for the United States as well as for the Jews.

Prophetic Zionists, for their part, became more numerous after the American Civil War, and their views of the role a restored Jewish state might play in the events leading up to the apocalypse became more highly developed. Books and pamphlets highlighting the predicted restoration of the Jews and speculating on the identity and the return of the "lost tribes" of the ancient Hebrews were perennial bestsellers, and the association between Dwight Moody, the country's leading evangelist, and Cyrus Scofield, the important Bible scholar, put the future history of Israel firmly at the center of the imagination of conservative American Protestantism.

These groups of gentile Zionists found new, if sometimes unsavory, allies after 1880, when a mass immigration of Russian Jews to the United States began. Some of them and some assimilated German American Jews hoped that Palestine would replace the United States as the future home of what was an unusually unpopular group of immigrants at the time. For anti-Semites, the establishment of a Jewish state might or might not "cure" Jews of the characteristics many gentiles attributed to them, but in any case the establishment of such a state would reduce Jewish immigration to the United States.

In 1891, these strands of gentile Zionists came together. The Methodist lay leader William Blackstone presented a petition to President Benjamin Harrison calling on the United States to use its good offices to convene a congress of European powers so that they could induce the Ottoman Empire to turn Palestine over to the Jews. The 400 signatories were overwhelmingly non-Jewish and included the chief justice of the Supreme Court; the Speaker of the House of Representatives; the chairs of the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee; the future president William McKinley; the mayors of Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington; the editors or proprietors of the leading East Coast and Chicago newspapers; and an impressive array of Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic clergy. Business leaders who signed the petition included Cyrus McCormick, John Rockefeller, and J. P. Morgan. At a time when the American Jewish community was neither large nor powerful, and no such thing as an Israel lobby existed, the pillars of the American gentile establishment went on record supporting a U.S. diplomatic effort to create a Jewish state in the lands of the Bible.

SHARED COMMANDMENTS

Any discussion of U.S. attitudes toward Israel must begin with the Bible...

Pakistan's War on Afghanistan

Fraser Nelson explains the conflict in The Spectator (UK):

At a recent dinner party in the British embassy in Kabul, one of the guests referred to ‘the Afghan-Pakistan war’. The rest of the table fell silent. This is the truth that dare not speak its name. Even mentioning it in private in the Afghan capital’s green zone is enough to solicit murmurs of disapproval. Few want to accept that the war is widening; that it now involves Pakistan, a country with an unstable government and nuclear weapons.

But in fact the military commanders know that they are dealing with far more than just a domestic insurgency. Weapons, men and suicide bombers are flooding in from Pakistan every day. Like it or not, war is being waged on Afghanistan from Pakistan.

Consider the evidence: British forces in Helmand have achieved striking success in repelling the Taleban, but they can never eliminate the enemy entirely because of the constant stream of new recruits flowing over the border from the Pakistani town of Quetta. To Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, head of Taskforce Helmand, it is a source of deep frustration. ‘When pushed out of Helmand, the opportunities are there for the Taleban to recruit, equip and retrain on the other side of the border,’ he told me when I visited two months ago.

In theory, the Pakistani government has signed up to the war on terror and is trying as best it can to help us. But in practice, it is playing a dangerous double game. The Pakistani government, army and intelligence services all have their own distinct reasons for keeping the Taleban in business. The Pakistan army effectively ceded Quetta to the Taleban six years ago, for example, hoping their brutal methods would deal with local Baluchistan separatists...

An Enemy of the People

Last night someone I know and I watched a 1971 production of Henrik Ibsen's drama, An Enemy of the People, now on Netflix. It was pretty good, despite being rated 2.6 stars. I'd give it 4-5 stars, myself. It seemed especially relevant today, when there seems to be a lynch mob mentality abroad in the land on all sides of the political spectrum. Ibsen's play defends an individualist--Dr. Stockman (Robert Urqhart)--who confronts a town about its poisoned spa waters. The entire town turns against him, but he stands firm. His business and family are destroyed. He is persecuted by his own brother. In the BBC version, the location has been moved to Scotland, and there are digs at the 70s-era Labour party as well as the Tories. The hero looks and acts like a member of the Social Democrats, today called Liberal Democrats--traditionally the party of Britain's Chattering Classes. Anyhow, it is an interesting adaptation, especially given the tremendous pressures for everyone to fall into party lines in America these days...

Watching the show reminded me how I had been surprised not long ago, along these lines, while teaching a class about films of the 1950s, when my students overwhelmingly declared they thought Gary Cooper was "stupid" to oppose the mob in Fred Zinneman's classic Western, High Noon. I suppose it may be a result of all the "team-building" and "critical thinking" that American youth have been exposed to, but it made me wonder: What ever happened to American individualism?

Ibsen's play shows that Norwegians faced similar problems a century ago--and Ibsen understood the Quisling mentality well before Quisling.

One other thought, I was lucky to study under producer/director George Schaefer at UCLA film school. He also produced and directed an outstanding 1978 production of An Enemy of the People, starring Steve McQueen. More about that version of the play can be found on The Stop Button.

Glenn Greenwald on the FBI's Anthrax Case

He's not very impressed by the "evidence" released today:

What happened today with this selective document release is akin to a criminal trial where only the Prosecutor is allowed to see the relevant evidence, only the Prosecutor is allowed to select which evidence is presented, and only the Prosecutor speaks. Such a distorted, one-sided process doesn't even happen at Guantanamo, which should, by itself, indicate how much skepticism is warranted here until the FBI makes the actual evidence available so that its claims can be subjected to critical scrutiny.

Meanwhile, Ft. Detrick scientists paid tribute to Bruce Ivins at a memorial service:

"I don’t understand how 250 scientists and soldiers, including the base commander and the commanding general, could be here eulogizing Bruce and the FBI seriously consider him a suspect," Paul Kemp, the suspect's lawyer, says in an e-mail following the service. "In the words of his commander, he was open, sharing, funny and scientifically brilliant."

This is beginning to remind me of the Army-McCarthy hearings. I can just imagine someone like Joseph Welch asking the FBI on national television: "Have you no decency?"

My New Facebook Friend's Book Party

I received this email from Eleanor Herman, a new Facebook Friend:

Hi Everybody!

I wanted to remind you of my DC-area book debut on Tuesday, August 26, at 6:30 pm [at the National Press Club]...

For hundreds of years, the Catholic Church has excluded women from leadership positions . . .

. . . now Eleanor Herman debunks the very core of the Church’s justifications

Mistress of the Vatican
The True Story of Olimpia Maidalchini: The Secret Female Pope
by Eleanor Herman

For a decade in the seventeenth century, a woman ran the Catholic Church. For almost four centuries, this astonishing story of a woman’s rise to absolute power over the Vatican has been successfully covered up - until now.

Her name was Olimpia Maidalchini, and through her brother-in-law --and reputed lover-- Pope Innocent X (reigned 1644-1655) she governed the most powerful institution on the face of the Earth. Cardinals and royalty bowed down to her as she made international policy, waged war, patronized Rome’s greatest baroque artists, and stuffed her pockets with Vatican gold.

History at its most exciting, MISTRESS OF THE VATICAN is full of eccentric characters, outrageous situations, and the magnificence and brutality of a bygone age. It brings to life shocking Church traditions – nepotism; corruption; conclaves that leaked like sieves; and servants who routinely plundered the rooms of a dying pontiff, sometimes leaving him naked and decomposing on the floor.

Eleanor Herman – the bestselling author of Sex With the Queen and Sex With Kings - is an engaging, entertaining, and authoritative writer who has hosted shows for The History Channel and National Geographic. To research MISTRESS OF THE VATICAN, she delved into Italian archives for original letters and diplomatic dispatches, discovered Olimpia’s birthplace, and visited her numerous palaces.

What she discovered was fascinating. The widowed sister-in-law of the indecisive Pope Innocent X Olimpia was presumed to be the pope’s mistress. Regardless of whether or not this was true, she certainly was mistress of the Vatican, appointing cardinals, negotiating with foreign powers, and raking in immense sums from the papal treasury. In a church that firmly excludes women from officiating as priests, and even from marrying priests, Olimpia’s story is clearly an uncomfortable one for the Vatican.

Most historical sources disliked Olimpia’s interference in Vatican affairs – she was far smarter than almost all the men in her environment, and it hurt. But some fair-minded ambassadors praised her for her intelligence, dignity, and financial acumen. The French ambassador Bali de Valençais admired Olimpia, informing Louis XIV that she was, without doubt, a “great lady.” Even Cardinal Pallavicino, who despised Olimpia, gave her grudging approval for her “intellect of great worth in economic government” and her “capacity for the highest affairs.”

Envied, admired, and despised, Olimpia was a baroque rock star, belting out her song loudly on a stage of epic exaggeration. But by the end of the seventeenth century, with new popes and new hopes, the scandal of Olimpia, which had gripped all Europe, faded and disappeared. Long forgotten now is her bittersweet tale of power, greed, and the glory of God.

About the author:

Author Eleanor Herman is related to most of the royal houses of Europe. With the blood of kings flowing in her veins, she has spent most of her free time since childhood studying their lives and traveling to their palaces. Herman graduated with a degree in Journalism from Towson State University in Baltimore in 1981. After studying languages in Europe and writing for numerous publications, she worked for German-based Monch Publishing as Associate Publisher of Nato’s Nations and Partners for Peace from 1989-2002. She has interviewed numerous foreign leaders and spoken at NATO Headquarters in Brussels. A member of the National Press Club’s Book and Author Committee, currently her full-time job is researching and writing women’s history.

Mistress of the Vatican:
The True Story of Olimpia Maidalchini: The Secret Female Pope
by Eleanor Herman
William Morrow / On Sale August 12, 2008
$25.95 / Hardcover / ISBN: 978-0-06-124555-8
Contact: Adam Rochkind / 212-207-7034 / adam.rochkind@harpercollins.com

Ali Alyami: Ban Saudi Arabia From Olympics

Ali Alyami wants the Saudi team banned from the Beijing Olympics, for violation of the Olympic spirit:

The Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia condemns the Saudi government's decision to deny the Saudi women the right to be full citizens at home and full members of the international community. The Saudi government is practicing an Apartheid-like system for which South Africa was barred form global events, boycotted, and declared a pariah government. The international community, especially Western democracies, should treat the Saudi government as they treated the segregationist Apartheid government in South Africa.

Paris Hilton's Answer to John McCain

Before seeing this video (ht Drudge), I had no idea Paris Hilton was such a serious person...

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Did FBI Torture Ft. Detrick Anthrax Researcher to Death?

If news accounts are true, then based on definitions found on a memorandum at the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel Website, I think one could reasonably conclude that allegations of FBI harrassment of Bruce Ivins and his family fit the legal definition of "torture":

Section 2340A provides that "[w]hoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life." (9) Section 2340(1) defines "torture" as "an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control."(10)

Driving a suspect to commit suicide through the infliction of mental pain and suffering in no way promotes equal justice or rule of law.

Instead of arranging a photo-op with anthrax victims' families (actually families of innocent bystanders, since the intended victims were people like Tom Brokaw, Senator Daschle, and Senator Leahy), perhaps Attorney General Mukasey might begin a torture investigation of the FBI agents involved in this fiasco...and if there is evidence of torture, prosecute the FBI agents involved to the full extent of the law.

IMHO, the death of Bruce Ivins--guilty or not--before he had a chance to face his accusers in a courtroom, makes a mockery of American claims to fight human rights abuses around the world--and of Mukasey's oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. (BTW, where is the Human Rights Watch press release on this case?)

More updates from Glenn Greenwald on Salon.com, at Meryl Nass's blog and Larisa Alexandrovna's blog..

WSJ: Bruce Ivins Not Anthrax Killer

Richard Spertzel explains his skepticism over recent FBI reports in today's Wall Street Journal:

In short, the potential lethality of anthrax in this case far exceeds that of any powdered product found in the now extinct U.S. Biological Warfare Program. In meetings held on the cleanup of the anthrax spores in Washington, the product was described by an official at the Department of Homeland Security as "according to the Russian recipes" -- apparently referring to the use of the weak electric charge.

The latest line of speculation asserts that the anthrax's DNA, obtained from some of the victims, initially led investigators to the laboratory where Ivins worked. But the FBI stated a few years ago that a complete DNA analysis was not helpful in identifying what laboratory might have made the product.

Furthermore, the anthrax in this case, the "Ames strain," is one of the most common strains in the world. Early in the investigations, the FBI said it was similar to strains found in Haiti and Sri Lanka. The strain at the institute was isolated originally from an animal in west Texas and can be found from Texas to Montana following the old cattle trails. Samples of the strain were also supplied to at least eight laboratories including three foreign laboratories. Four French government laboratories reported on studies with the Ames strain, citing the Pasteur Institute in Paris as the source of the strain they used. Organism DNA is not a very reliable way to make a case against a scientist.

The FBI has not officially released information on why it focused on Ivins, and whether he was about to be charged or arrested. And when the FBI does release this information, we should all remember that the case needs to be firmly based on solid information that would conclusively prove that a lone scientist could make such a sophisticated product.

From what we know so far, Bruce Ivins, although potentially a brilliant scientist, was not that man. The multiple disciplines and technologies required to make the anthrax in this case do not exist at Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Inhalation studies are conducted at the institute, but they are done using liquid preparations, not powdered products.

The FBI spent between 12 and 18 months trying "to reverse engineer" (make a replica of) the anthrax in the letters sent to Messrs. Daschle and Leahy without success, according to FBI news releases. So why should federal investigators or the news media or the American public believe that a lone scientist would be able to do so?

Wolf Blitzer Questions America's Top Propagandist

From a transcript of Sunday's CNN Late Edition interview of Jim Glassman (author of Dow 36,000) with Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: There is little doubt right now that the image of the United States has taken a serious hit around the world in recent years. But are there inroads in the effort to try to win the hearts and minds of people around the world, especially in the Middle East?

BLITZER: Let's discuss with the man in charge of this mission, Jim Glassman is the U.S. undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. Ambassador, thanks very much for coming in.

GLASSMAN: Great to be here.

BLITZER: You've got a tough assignment, as we know. Karen Hughes used to do what you're doing. She had a tough assignment. The Pew Research Center poll that came out earlier in the year said that the favorable opinion in the United States in friendly countries in the Muslim world like Pakistan, only 19 percent. Jordan, only 19 percent. Egypt, only 22 percent. Not very high given U.S. support for those countries over the years.

GLASSMAN: It's true. But things are looking up.

BLITZER: What do you base that on?

GLASSMAN: Well, I base it on the latest Pew Research Poll in June where they looked at 21 countries in '07 and '08 and our ratings increased in 16 of them. But also, this is a very complicated issue. And to reduce it down to a few numbers, I don't think really does anybody --

BLITZER: All right, so let's talk about some of the problems that have impacted negatively on the U.S. image, especially, in the Muslim and Arab world. Senator McCain said this on June 20th and I'll get your reaction, because he's very worried about this. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: It happens that I also regard the prison at Guantanamo as a liability in the cause against violent radical extremism. And as president of the United States, I would close it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: How much does an issue like that, the prison at Guantanamo Bay affect the negative U.S. image in the Muslim world?

GLASSMAN: There's no doubt that Guantanamo has hurt our image. The president, though, two years ago said he would close Guantanamo. Of the 750 people that have gone through Guantanamo, 500 of them have been released. The big problem right now, we care about what happens to the 260 or so people who are there now who we would like to release. The question is, what will happen when they get back to their home countries? Will they be properly treated there? So we're working on this question. There's no doubt that that's important. But I think when we talk about the popularity of the United States, let's put it in the right perspective. Our objective in foreign policy is to reduce the threat to the United States and the promote freedom. It is not to win some kind of "American Idol" contest.

BLITZER: Because you've written extensively about the so-called war of ideas that is unfolding right now in this battle, if you will, for the hearts and minds of these young, largely men in the Muslim and Arab world, who potentially represent a significant threat. Is that what you're talking about?

GLASSMAN: Exactly, Wolf. And no matter what people feel about particular policies that the United States has, what we found is that in the Middle East, and in Europe, we've had tremendous cooperation from governments and from individuals in doing in the war of ideas. Really, there are two things we're doing. One is pushing back against the ideology of the terrorists and the second is diverting young people from taking a path that leads to violence extremism.

BLITZER: Because if they're unemployed, they have nothing to do, a lot of idle time. That sort of creates an opening. But let me read to you what Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist wrote on this issue back on June 11th. "It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Democrats' nomination of Barack Obama as their candidate for president has done more to improve America's image abroad, an image dented by the Iraq war, President Bush's invocation of a post-9/11 'crusade,' Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and the xenophobic opposition to Dubai Ports World managing U.S. harbors -- than the entire Bush public diplomacy effort for seven years."

GLASSMAN: Well, there's no doubt that there's a lot of excitement in the world about the election that's coming up, and it's not just Barack Obama. And that's very important to people. You know, first African-American. Also, we almost had a woman nominated. We've got John McCain, who is a true war hero, spent five and a half years in a prison in Vietnam.

So the world is very excited about the American election. We're doing a lot, actually, to bring people to the United States to have them observe this election. But it's a lot more than that. It is the success that we've had in Al Anbar. It is the fact that al Qaeda has shown itself to be a bunch of wanton, violent extremists. The world is turning against al Qaeda and that kind of extremism. You talk about polls about the United States.

What's important to us, in fact, is the fact that support for suicide bombing, for example, in Jordan, in Morocco, throughout the Middle East that be dropping. Support for Osama bin Laden has been dropping. Support for al Qaeda has been dropping. Now, we're not out of the woods. Terrorism is a serious, serious problem, was we've done a lot of things in public diplomacy that has ameliorated the situation.

BLITZER: Here's what Robert Gates, the defense secretary said on July 15th. "The solution is not to be found in some slick PR campaign or by trying to out-propagandize al Qaeda, but through the steady accumulation of actions and results that built trust and credibility over a time."

GLASSMAN: He is absolutely right and I think the American people should understand that, for example, this year, we are bringing 50,000 exchange people to the United States. Students, experts in many --

BLITZER: Who pays for that?

GLASSMAN: The American taxpayers pay for it and it's a terrific investment. For example, in Iran, we are now -- we've brought 200 people on exchanges to the United States --

BLITZER: Iranians?

GLASSMAN: Iranians, from Iran. We just had the Iranian basketball team here playing in Utah. And it was a fantastic thing. The Iranian basketball team are throwing roses --

BLITZER: So do you think this is going to lead to an improvement in U.S./Iranian relationship?

GLASSMAN: U.S./Iranian relations, as far as individuals, as far as Iranians and Americans are quite good and we would like to improve them. The problem we have is with the regime.

BLITZER: Let me ask you to explain something that you wrote on July 15th. And because it sort of raises some questions in my mind. "Whether Osama bin Laden himself is killed or captured, I think is not of great consequence. It would have some importance in the war of ideas, but I think if he were killed or if his number two Ayman al- Zawahiri were killed, the ideology would certainly continue to survive."

Because most Americans, they say, it's very important to catch these two guys, to bring them to justice, or to kill them.

GLASSMAN: I think it is important to bring them to justice or to kill them. What I'm saying is that this is a powerful ideology. We're coming up on the 10th anniversary of the bombings by al Qaeda at our embassies in of Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. Al Qaeda is killing Muslims. Al Qaeda has longevity, they have perseverance, they're tough, their ideology is the base of what they're doing. And we need to fight back against that ideology, and that's what we're trying to do right now in the war of ideas.

BLITZER: Good luck. Jim Glassman, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. Thanks for coming in.

GLASSMAN: Thank you, Wolf.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 89

The Moscow Times has published a very interesting obituary of the great Russian novelist by Alexander Osipovich:

After the 2000 election of President Vladimir Putin - a former KGB agent - the two men had a three-hour meeting at Solzhenitsyn's residence. The writer praised Putin afterward. Solzhenitsyn generally supported Putin's efforts to strengthen the Russian state, although he broke with him on several issues. For instance, he fiercely criticized the revival of the old Soviet anthem in late 2000.

In early 2006, Rossia television aired a 10-part miniseries based on "The First Circle." Despite his previous disparaging of television, Solzhenitsyn helped write the script and even narrated parts of the voice-over. The miniseries starred the popular young actor Yevgeny Mironov and earned respectable ratings.

Solzhenitsyn was lauded at the highest levels of the state in his final years. Putin quoted him in his 2006 state-of-the-nation address, and on June 12, 2007, the president visited his home to give him Russia's highest award, the State Prize.

The old enemy of the state had come full circle.

I hope that we might see that Russian television adaptation of The First Circle on Masterpiece Theatre someday soon...

Glenn Greenwald on the Latest Anthrax Death

Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald is tracking the strange death of Ft. Detrick anthrax scientist Bruce Ivins while under survelliance by the FBI on his blog. It makes for interesting reading:

It's perfectly possible that Bruce Ivins really is the anthrax attacker -- that he perpetrated the attacks and did so alone. Perhaps the FBI is in possession of mountains of conclusive evidence that, once revealed, will leave no doubt that Ivins is the guilty party. But no rational person could possibly assume that to be the case given the paltry amount of facts -- many of which contradict one another -- that are now known....

...So much of the public reporting about Ivins has been devoted to depicting him as a highly unstable psychotic who had been issuing extremely violent threats and who had a violent past. But that depiction has been based almost exclusively on the uncorroborated claims of Jean Carol Duley, a social worker (not a psychiatrist or psychologist) who, as recently as last year, was apparently still in college at Hood's College in Frederick, Maryland. Duley's scrawled handwritten complaint against Ivins, seeking a Protective Order, has served as the basis for much of the reporting regarding Ivins' mental state, yet it is hardly the model of a competent or authoritative professional. Quite the opposite.

Duley herself has a history that, at the very least, raises questions about her credibility. She has a rather lengthy involvement with the courts in Frederick, including two very recent convictions for driving under the influence -- one from 2007 and one from 2006 -- as well as a complaint filed against her for battery by her ex-husband. Here is Duley's record from the Maryland Judicial data base...Just three months ago, Duley pled guilty and was sentenced to probation (and fined $1,000), as a result of having been stopped in December, while driving at 1:35 a.m., and charged with driving under the influence...

On April 21, 2006, Duley was also charged with "driving a vehicle while impaired by alcohol," driving "while impaired by drugs or alcohol," and reckless driving, and on October 13, 2006, she pled guilty to the charge of reckless driving and was fined $580. Back in 1992, Duley was criminally charged with battery against what appeared to be her now-ex-husband (and she filed a complaint against him as well). Later that same year, she was criminally charged with possession of drug paraphenalia with intent to use, charges which appear to have been ultimately dismissed.

Prior to the restraining order against Ivins which Duley obtained two weeks ago, Ivins had no criminal record at all, at least not in Frederick. A story in today's Frederick News-Post quotes Duley's fiancee as claiming: "She had to quit her job and is now unable to work, and we have spent our savings on attorneys." But she doesn't appear to have used an attorney for her complaint against Ivins. If anything, her savings were likely depleted from attorneys' fees, court costs, and fines and probation for her various criminal proceedings (Larisa Alexandrovna has more details on Duley).

None of this is to defend Ivins, nor is to suggest that this constitutes evidence that Duley is lying or is otherwise inaccurate in her claims. As I said, it's perfectly possible that Ivins is guilty of being the anthrax attacker. I have no opinion on whether he is. The point is that nobody should have any opinion on that question -- one way or the other -- until they see the FBI's evidence.

What is certain is that Jean Carol Duley is hardly some upstanding, authoritative source on Bruce Ivins' psychological state or his guilt, nor is she some accomplished and highly credible psychological professional, notwithstanding the fact that most media depictions of Ivins are based on uncritical recitations of her accusations. The fact that her depiction contradicts not only the claims of virtually everyone else who knew Ivins but also numerous facts about how Ivins was treated even by the FBI (see below), suggests that a large amount of skepticism is warranted...

Someone I know pointed out that in Duley's handwritten complaint, she spelled the word therapist as "T-H-E-R-I-P-I-S-T." No qualified therapist would make such a spelling mistake.

Further, it is incumbent upon a professional therapist to protect a patient first--before themselves. If Duley truly believed that Ivins were a danger to himself or others, she had an obligation to seek his involuntary commitment to a psychiatric institution. Especially since he had recently been released from Sheppard Pratt psychiatric hospital (established by Quakers for the humane treatment of the mentally ill, and once home to Zelda Fitzgerald.) And, if her citation of Dr. David Irwin's alleged diagnosis were true, there may be grounds for a medical malpractice lawwsuit on behalf of surviving family members against both Dr. Irwin and Ms. Duley--for failing to seek involuntary commitment when they believed Irwin posed a real danger to both himself and the community.

The Frederick News-Post has found at least one authority on medical ethics who believes that something appears seriously wrong with Duley's behavior towards her patient, Dr Arthur O. Anderson:

As a health care professional and bioethicist -- he heads USAMRIID's Office of Human Use and Ethics -- Anderson said he takes issue with what he views as Duley's professional betrayal of Ivins.

"I can tell you very clearly that the minute a conflict of interest occurs in the caregiver-client relationship É she has to withdraw as the caregiver," he said. "She can't ethically continue to gather information or share information -- betray that trust -- without disclosing to her client that she is sharing what he believes is confidential, privileged information."

Anderson said that if he was to betray a patient's trust in such a manner, he would be subject to medical disciplinary procedures.

In commenting about remarks made by Duley when she applied to the District Court of Maryland for a Peace Order, Anderson said he was amazed that a judge would allow hearsay to be entered on the record.

Duley referred to comments allegedly made by Ivins' psychiatrist about Ivins' homicidal and sociopathic tendencies, without confirmation to the court that the doctor actually made the comments.

"The remaining allegations about murderous ideas and plans sound so foreign to me that in the absence of contemporaneously documented evidence I would have to consider them items of Ms. Duley's vivid imagination or information fed to her by the people she communicated with outside the therapeutic environment," Anderson wrote in an e-mail to the News-Post. "It is not at all surprising to me that a patient whose therapist is serving as a double agent 'therapist' and 'accuser' would become very angry with the therapist and might make some rather dramatic expressions of that anger."

The doctor and scientist paused briefly after being asked if he believes Ivins committed suicide.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "I think all of the circumstances put him in a place where he felt he had no place to go."

Anderson said he became aware in June that the FBI had taken items out of Ivins' lab.

"The FBI took all of the stored things in his lab freezer," Anderson said. "They basically destroyed his life's work. I think that's what upset him the most."

Anderson said it is "highly incomprehensible" to him that Ivins would be regarded as the perpetrator in this case simply because he had access to anthrax.

He said he last saw Ivins around July 6. Ivins told him the FBI was stalking him, following him everywhere, Anderson said.

"He was animated and appropriately concerned, but certainly not out of control."

Anderson does not believe Ivins is responsible for the 2001 anthrax deaths.

"Now that he can't defend himself against the allegations, this will play out the way it will play out," he said.

But he firmly believes it wasn't guilt that killed his colleague and friend.

"I think it was the sense of betrayal and complete abandonment by those around him," Anderson said. "He cared so much and had so much pride in the work he did -- I don't think he could handle that sense of abandonment."

Curiously, The Wall Street Journal has published the only halfway decent editorial on this case that I can find today:

The FBI has invested its credibility in proving its mad scientist theory of the case, only to be wrong about Mr. Hatfill. Perhaps the sudden turn toward Ivins has solved it, but FBI Director Robert Mueller needs to reassure Americans that his agents didn't target another innocent man because he fit their psychological profile. Justice should make its evidence about Ivins public for anthrax experts and the media to inspect. Congress should also hold hearings that explore how the FBI pursued the case from the beginning and why it went awry. The FBI cannot be allowed to close the case and declare victory.

More at Meryl Nass's blog and Larisa Alexandrovna's blog.

J. Murdoch Ritchie, 83

Benbo Ritchie was a psychopharmacologist and friend of my father at Albert Einstein Medical College, so I was interested to see his obituary in the New York Times so shortly after my father's death:

In 1975, while a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was reviewing the C.I.A.’s “operational use” of poisons, Dr. Ritchie asked for access to the agency’s store of saxitoxin, a rare and highly effective neurotoxin made by clams.

The request raised eyebrows in Congress because the substance, which kills by causing respiratory failure, was not even supposed to exist; President Richard M. Nixon had ordered the government to destroy all of its bacteriological weapons in 1969. To the committee’s dismay, the C.I.A. did not turn over its saxitoxin supply, which the agency said was used to prepare suicide pills for spies in case of capture.

In the early 1970s, Dr. Ritchie, who was known as Murdoch, used saxitoxin for a nonlethal purpose, in studies of electrical conduction within nerve cells. It was already known that the nervous system used shifts in levels of sodium and potassium to transfer electrical signals and that saxitoxin could be employed to block the movement of sodium.

Dr. Ritchie, Richard D. Keynes, Gary R. Strichartz and others labeled molecules of the toxin with radioactive tags and introduced them into the living tissue of rabbits, fish and lobsters. They then read the radioactive markers to count the number of sodium entry sites, called channels.

This work, which helped explain fundamental questions about the nervous system, was based on earlier observations made by Dr. Ritchie and Paul Greengard, who studied the action and effects of lidocaine, dibucaine and other local anesthetics on the nerve cells. Like saxitoxin, dibucaine and lidocaine act by blocking the flow of sodium, dulling the sensation of pain.

In a development that surprised Dr. Ritchie, the government decided not to incinerate the saxitoxin and actually offered it to him. But he soon realized how much responsibility for safeguarding it would be involved, and he recommended that the remaining store be donated to the National Institutes of Health instead. Although Dr. Ritchie was not successful in finding an antidote to saxitoxin, which was his original goal, his research shed light on how nerve cells can lose their protective sheaths of myelin, ultimately interrupting the nervous system’s signals and leading to multiple sclerosis.

Working with Robert Byck, a colleague at Yale, [NOTE: Also a friend of my father's] Dr. Ritchie investigated the physiological effects of smoking marijuana. In tests on nerve fibers, they found that the drug’s active component, THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, had a more pronounced influence than previously thought.