President Barack Obama is continuing to reorient U.S. foreign policy in general, and in the Middle East in particular, along the lines of the internationalist/neo-realist approach pursued in the pre-9/11 years of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.Obama’s televised address marking the end of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq, coupled with his earlier decision to escalate U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan and this week’s start of a new round of U.S.-orchestrated Israeli-Palestinian talks in Washington, fits very much into a familiar pattern – a policy based on the assumption that Washington will continue setting the agenda and determining the policy outcomes in the Broader Middle East (Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel-Palestine).That should not have come as a major surprise to those of us who have been calling for long-term structural changes in American global strategy, starting with the necessary reassessment of the U.S. goal of maintaining a hegemonic position in the Middle East -Leon Hadar/American Conservative

The U.S. Department of Justice is stepping up its investigation into the office of Joe Arpaio, the controversial sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., and a nationally known opponent of illegal immigration.DOJ attorneys filed a complaint today in U.S. District Court in Arizona, alleging that Arpaio and his staff have obstructed their investigation.The department wants to know whether the sheriff’s office is discriminating based on national origin in its police practices and jail operations, according to the 10-page complaint.So far, the department alleges, Arpaio’s staff has responded to the investigation with only a handful of documents. “Despite notice of their obligation to comply in full with the United States’ requests for information, Defendants have refused to do so,” the complaint says.Robert Driscoll, a partner in the Washington office of Alston & Bird who has been representing the sheriff’s office, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The Justice Department’s filing says that the federal government has a right to examine certain documents from the sheriff’s office because the office receives federal grant money -David Ingram/Legal Times

Another offshore oil facility caught fire Thursday morning in the Gulf of Mexico, sending 13 workers into the water to be rescued by boat, and sending enough petroleum into the water to create a mile-long by 100 foot wide sheen, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.The cause of the explosion is not yet known and is under investigation.It comes a little more than four months after BP's Deepwater Horizon rig blowout, which killed 11 workers and resulted in the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.The government and BP are still working on completely sealing that well, which has not leaked since mid-July.In a news conference Thursday afternoon, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said that the oil platform's operator, Mariner Energy reported that all of the site's seven active wells had been "shut in," meaning they were not leaking oil. Though a fire was still burning on the platform, Jindal said the company had told officials that it was being fed by an oil product stored on the platform. "That's a very important point," Jindal said — and one that may differentiate this disaster from the BP fire, which was fed by an uncontrollable gush of oil from the well below.Thursday's incident occurred farther west than the BP blowout, about 102 miles off the Louisiana shore -Richard Fausset & Kim Geiger/LA Times

Wheat prices rose after Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said the country would extend its grain-export ban through at least November 2011, fueling fears about tightening supplies.Mr. Putin's announcement caught traders off guard because Russia, which last year accounted for 14% of world wheat exports, said in August that it would suspend grain exports until the end of this year.A drought devastated Russia's most recent spring wheat crop, which is being harvested now and is delaying planting of next year's winter wheat crop, raising worries about production in 2011.He said the decision to extend the ban would add "predictability" to Russia's domestic market and prevent "unneeded nervousness" among grain producers and sellers. He said they were stockpiling grain in anticipation of the end of the ban on Dec. 31. "Our producers and sellers should work calmly and orient themselves on the internal market," Mr. Putin said.To be sure, Russia is known for being unpredictable and could lift the export ban earlier than expected, if planting for the next crop goes well or domestic prices fall. "The market is skeptical about any announcement from Russia," said James Dunsterville, an analyst at Agrinews in Switzerland. "They may change their mind." Russia's grain-export ban has allowed the U.S., the world's top wheat exporter, and other nations with robust harvests to step in -Tom Polansek & Ira Iosebashvili/Wall Street Journal

The Barack Obama administration's policy of "strategic reassurance" vis-a-vis China appears to be yielding its first fruits - the profoundly unreassuring image of President Hu Jintao clasping Kim Jong-il's hand in Changchun and, very probably, heralding the survival of the sclerotic North Korean regime into its third generation.This denouement should not have been unexpected as a riposte to the joint United States-South Korean strategy of responding to the Cheonan sinking in March with heightened rhetoric, referral of the issue to the United Nations, and a show of military force in Northeast Asian waters - all designed to challenge China's role as acknowledged stakeholder in matters of the peninsula.Even as Kim Jong-il was in China, he was already laying the groundwork for playing off Washington and Seoul against Beijing.The regime released incarcerated US religious activist Aijalon Gomes to former US president Jimmy Carter, thereby signaling its desire for direct diplomatic engagement with the United States.Washington and Seoul can take some consolation from the observation that China is "buying the same horse twice" - once again providing tangible support to the North Korean regime in exchange for promises that are usually honored in the breach or simply ignored.The Chinese announcement of Kim Jong-il's visit was long on accolades for China's economic strengths and included the pointed statement that the people's livelihood must be ensured and economies, in order to grow, cannot avoid "outside cooperation" even when based on the principle of economic self-reliance -Peter Lee/Asia Times

The art direction at the ministries of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan seemed to come courtesy of an involuntary Salvador Dali; lopsided paintings, dossier-free desks but with a walkie-talkie on, mute telephones, maps in psychedelic prints.Schizophrenia was the rule; the embassy of the Emirate in Islamabad, for instance, had a map of the "Democratic Republic of Afghanistan".Abdul Haiy Mutmain's office was true to form. Ten years ago, Mutmain was the Minister of Information and Culture in Kandahar - the Taliban Central. In the absence of the loquacious, peripatetic Ahmad Wakil - Mullah Omar's official spokesman - Mutmain was the real game in town. "Elections? What elections? They are incompatible with sharia.Thus we reject them." Like the handful of Western correspondents immersed in Talibanistan 10 years ago, a long time before 9/11, I was dying to meet the one-eyed legend Mullah Omar.Fat chance; he was more mysterious than The Shadow, even in Kandahar.He had only been to Kabul twice - and left in a hurry.He had never been photographed, never had met with foreign diplomats (and that is still true to this day).His famous "orders" still came on pieces of wrapping paper or cigarette matches.Beside his working desk, he kept an aluminum trunk full of Afghanis, and another one with US dollars; these constituted the Afghan Federal Reserve.It was easy to feel in Kandahar how the Taliban initial agenda was to restore peace in the country, disarm the population, impose sharia law and defend the country's "Islamic integrity" -Pepe Escobar/Asia Times

NATO said its airstrike on a car in northern Takhar province's normally quiet Rustaq district killed or wounded as many as 12 insurgents, including a Taliban commander and a local head of an allied insurgent group, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, responsible for attacks in Kabul and elsewhere.However Karzai -- who repeatedly warns that civilian casualties undermine anti-insurgency efforts -- said the airstrike had killed 10 campaign workers instead. "The rationale for the airstrike still needs to be fully investigated," the president said at a joint news conference in Kabul with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.Gates said he had not heard about civilian casualties, but said the attack had hit its intended target and promised an investigation. "I am able to confirm that a very senior official of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was the target and was killed," Gates said.Earlier, Takhar Gov. Abdul Jabar Taqwa said the car in which candidate Abdul Wahid Khorasani had been riding was fired on by helicopters following an initial pass by fighter jets.He called the incident an obvious mistake, saying there were no Uzbek militants, foreigners or members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in the convoy. "There aren't even any Taliban in this area," Taqwa said. "They were all working on Mr. Khorasani's campaign."

The US has officially classified Tehreek-e-Taliban – better known as the Pakistani Taliban – as a terrorist organization, a move that will allow it to expand its campaign against the militant group beyond CIA drone strikes, the State Department announced Wednesday.The new designation will enable the State and Justice departments to freeze the group’s financial holdings, criminalizes funding or supporting the group, and bars any known members from entering the US, reports Pakistan's Daily Times.As US causalities in Afghanistan reach record levels, increasing pressure on the group is seen by US officials as a critical step for achieving success with both America’s domestic security aims and foreign policy objectives.The US has long wanted to expand its efforts against Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP), especially after it claimed responsibility for training and equipping the attempted Times Square bomber and its leadership vowed to carry out more strikes against US cities.TTP is an organization consisting of a number of militant groups that coalesced under the banner of TTP in 2007.It is now the 47th group on the US list of foreign terrorist organizations -Tom A. Peter/Christian Science Monitor

Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed Thursday to produce a framework for a permanent peace deal and to hold a second round of direct talks this month, modest achievements reached under U.S. mediation amid deep skepticism about success at their first such session in two years.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet again on Sept. 14 and 15 in the Middle East, likely at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik, with an eye toward forging the outline of a pact.They will also meet roughly every two weeks after that.The United States' special Mideast envoy George Mitchell announced the developments after several hours of talks between Netanyahu and Abbas at the State Department at which the two leaders pledged to work through the region's deeply ingrained mutual hostility and suspicion to resolve the long-running conflict in a year's time.The compromises will involve the thorniest issues that have dogged the parties for decades: the borders of an eventual Palestinian state, the political status of Jerusalem, the fate of Palestinian refugees and security.Mitchell refused to discuss specifics of what the framework agreement would entail but said it would lay out the "fundamental compromises" needed for a final settlement

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opened a day of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations with a Foggy Bottom pep talk — but warned that the U.S. won't "impose a solution" on parties deeply divided over the issues of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land and Hamas attacks on the Jewish state.Clinton didn’t soft-sell the troubles that lie immediately ahead — especially the opening dispute over the lapsing Israeli moratorium on settlers building new homes in the West Bank — but suggested the willingness of Israelis and Palestinians to risk talks amid widespread pessimism was, in itself, a reason for guarded optimism. “To those who criticize this process, who stand on the sidelines and say ‘no,’ I ask you to join us in this effort,” said Clinton, speaking at the kickoff of talks in the State Department's Benjamin Franklin Room, flanked by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.But Abbas quickly outlined the challenges, calling on Israel to “end all settlement activities and end the embargo in the Gaza Strip,” two issues that Palestinian negotiators consider nonnegotiable.An emotional Netanyahu decried the “blood of innocents” shed in a Hamas attack that killed four settlers earlier this week and pleaded for Hamas to stop the attacks that have launched 12,000 rockets on Israel and killed scores of civilians.But he then turned to Abbas, sitting on the same dais. “President Abbas, I’m fully aware [of] and I respect your people’s respect for sovereignty [and] I’m convinced that it’s possible to reconcile that desire [with] Israel’s need for security.” He concluded with a trilingual incantation: “shalom, salaam, peace.” If the opening speeches were sober — and reflected “summit fatigue” after two decades of halting progress toward solving the conflict — the body language among the participants was not -Glenn Thrush & Laura Rozen/Politico

The U.S. military's Central Command has proposed pumping as much as $1.2 billion over five years into building up Yemen's security forces, a major investment in a shaky government, in a sign of Washington's fears of al Qaeda's growing foothold on the Arabian Peninsula.The timing and the final funding amount will depend on how supporters of the effort overcome resistance from some officials at the State Department and the Pentagon, who have doubts about Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the ability of his government, seen by many as corrupt, to effectively use a flood of American-taxpayer money.The threat to the U.S. from al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen has become a priority concern for the Obama administration, fueling a robust internal debate over how to calibrate assistance to address what many officials see as the biggest counterterrorism challenge outside Afghanistan and Pakistan.Central Command, which oversees military operations across the Mideast and South Asia, argues a large infusion of cash is necessary to stanch al Qaeda gains and enable Yemen's security forces to conduct more effective counterterrorism operations, U.S. military officials and diplomats say. The money would be used primarily for training and equipment.U.S. Special Operations teams in Yemen, birthplace of Osama bin Laden's father, already play an expansive role in the country -Wall Street Journal

Mortgage rates dropped again this week due to modest inflation expectations, Freddie Mac's deputy chief economist said on Thursday.Rates on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.32% for the week ending Sept. 2, down from 4.36% last week and 5.08% a year ago, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey of conforming mortgage rates.The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.83% this week, down from 3.86% last week and 4.54% a year ago.Both the 30-year and 15-year fixed-rate mortgages hit record lows. Freddie Mac began tracking the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage in 1971; it started tracking the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage in 1991.The 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage averaged 3.54% in this week's survey, also a record since Freddie Mac began tracking it in 2005.The ARM averaged 3.56% last week and 4.59% a year ago.And the 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 3.5% this week, down from 3.52% last week and 4.62% a year ago.To obtain the rates, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and the 1-year ARM required payment of an average 0.7 point, while the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage and the 5-year ARM required payment of an average 0.6 point.A point is 1% of the mortgage amount, charged as prepaid interest -Amy Hoak/MarketWatch

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday that he always thought a failure of Lehman Brothers Holdings would severely damage the U.S. economy. "I believed deeply that if Lehman was allowed to fail, or did fail, that the consequences for the U.S. financial system and the U.S. economy would be catastrophic," Bernanke told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, saying his research on the Great Depression had made this point obvious.In his most extensive comments on this pivotal period, Bernanke said he was willing to do anything to prevent the failure of the firm. "If I could have done anything to save it, I would have saved it," Bernanke said, adding he never waivered from this view.But after a weekend of crisis-level discussions, a classic run on Lehman was taking shape and government experts told him that if the government had poured money into Lehman, it would have just leaked out.As a result, any attempt to lend would have been "futile" and would have resulted in enormous taxpayer losses. "It was with great reluctance and sadness that I conceded there was no other option," Bernanke said. There was simply "no way" to save the firm, the Fed chairman added -Greg Robb/MarketWatch

As per the August 31 DTS statement, the US ended the month with a new all time record of $13.45 trillion in debt, and increase of $210 billion from the beginning of the month (or $225 billion in public debt, net of intragovernmental holdings).With just 30 days left in fiscal year 2010, the US has added $1.54 trillion in the eleven months ended August 31, a monthly average increase of $140 billion.As a point of reference, the US has received $1.53 trillion in withheld income tax over the same period, confirming that the US continues to issue more than one dollar in debt for every dollar it receives via income tax revenue.This balance will likely be tipped soon courtesy of changes to the tax law, which will adversely impact the withheld tax line, implying even more funding has to come in the form of debt.Additionally, the US rolled another $513 billion in short-term debt: a number which continues to be persistently high.For the 11 months ending August 30, the US has paid $180 billion in interest expense in a time of record low interest rates.At the current rate, we expect that the statutory, and completely irrelevant, debt limit of $14.3 trillion will be breached in the first two months of 2011 -Tyler Durden/ZeroHedge.com

Word on the street is that the Fed is now “out of bullets.” Many economists fear that in its efforts to spur recovery, the Fed may have already exhausted its array of monetary ammunition and that it has nothing left of significance to fire at the steadily advancing recession.They believe that since interest rates are already near zero and Fed policies have failed to inspire banks to expand commercial and consumer lending (despite ample bank reserves), the tools traditionally employed by the Fed have been rendered impotent.To their credit, these commentators are 100% correct in asserting that the Fed can’t help the economy by printing more money.But it’s not because the Fed policy is without consequence, but because the Fed has always been incapable of creating real growthAll it can do is manipulate the purchasing power of money. By keeping prices from falling more that they would have naturally, Fed intervention has created a burden.Lower prices would have cushioned the effects of the recession for many people.But the Fed is never… ever… ever… out of ammo.In fact, according to Mr. Bernanke himself, the central bank may be about to unleash the heavy artillery -Michael Pento/Euro Pacific Capital

Richard Fuld, former chief executive officer of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., said regulators relied on “flawed information” in denying his company aid that was extended to competitors. “Other firms were hurt by their plummeting stock prices,” Fuld, 64, told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission at a hearing in Washington Wednesday. “Lehman was the only firm that was mandated by government regulators to file for bankruptcy.The government was then forced to intervene to protect those other firms and the entire financial system.” Lehman, the biggest underwriter of mortgage-backed securities at the top of the U.S. real estate market, filed the largest bankruptcy in the country’s history in September 2008, with $639 billion in assets, roiling markets and exacerbating the credit crisis.The securities firm succumbed to the subprime mortgage crisis it helped create after surviving railroad failures of the 1800s and the Great Depression in the 1930s. “Lehman was forced into bankruptcy not because it neglected to act responsibly or seek solutions to the crisis, but because of a decision, based on flawed information, not to provide Lehman with the support given to each of its competitors and other nonfinancial firms in the ensuing days,” Fuld said.The collapse of New York-based Lehman and the bailout the same week of insurer American International Group Inc. contributed to the biggest rewrite of financial rules since the Depression as lawmakers sought to limit risk and create a process to unwind risky firms -Joshua Gallu & Lorraine Woellert/Bloomberg

President Obama's top economist, in her valedictory speech before stepping down Friday, urged Congress to "find the will and wisdom" to spend more money to create jobs - challenging the waning appetite for stimulus spending on Capitol Hill ahead of November's elections.Describing the recession as "terrifying and so difficult to cure," Christina Romer, head of the Council of Economic Advisers, said the economy needs more government stimulus spending to tackle a stubbornly high unemployment rate.She told a National Press Club audience that she does worry about the nation's long-term debt, which stood Tuesday at $13.45 trillion, but said that shouldn't preclude additional short-term spending. "Concern about the deficit cannot be an excuse for leaving unemployed workers to suffer," she said. "We have tools that would bring unemployment down without worsening our long-run fiscal outlook, if we can only find the will and the wisdom to use them." The administration says the spending and tax cuts are sustaining more than 3 million jobs, but polls show voters aren't convincedThe public also is souring on spending.A Pew Research/National Journal poll in July found 51 percent said they wanted the government to reduce the deficit, while 40 percent backed additional spending to boost jobs -Kara Rowland/Washington Times

An apparent eco-terrorist stormed Discovery Channel network's headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., Wednesday afternoon, taking three hostages at gunpoint and sparking a nationally televised standoff that ended when police fatally shot him several hours later.The three hostages escaped without injury.The emerging portrait of the gunman - identified by authorities as 43-year-old James L. Lee - is one of an extreme environmentalist who was obsessed with the Discovery Channel and wanted to force the network to air programs that sought solutions for global warming, posited the view that humans should stop reproducing and generally saving nonhuman forms of life.The standoff began about 1 p.m. when Lee burst into the building with canisters strapped to his body and waving a gun.He said he was inspired by "Ishmael," a novel by environmentalist Daniel Quinn and by former Vice President Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." The manifesto, posted on a website registered to Lee, blasted the Discovery Channel for television programs glorifying the technology used in war and the site also advocated the dismantling of the U.S. economy, but most of its vitriol was aimed at the human race, in general, and reproduction, in particular -Ben Conery/Washington Times

A federal judge on Wednesday denied a motion by the Obama administration to dismiss a lawsuit that aims to block a government-imposed moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.A six-month moratorium was first issued by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in May after the April 20 explosion of the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon that killed 11 people and triggered one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.A group of companies that provide boats and equipment to the offshore drilling industry filed a lawsuit claiming the government has no evidence that existing operations pose a threat to the Gulf and asked the court to declare the moratorium invalid and unenforceable.U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman agreed and overturned the ban in June.Feldman's ruling was upheld on appeal.A second drilling ban -- set to expire in November -- was issued in July after the injunction was issued.In Wednesday's ruling, Feldman -- the same judge in New Orleans, Louisiana -- agreed (with plaintiffs), writing, "In reality, the new moratorium covers precisely the same rigs and precisely the same deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico as did the first moratorium." -CNN

A civilian defense attorney hired recently by alleged WikiLeaks leaker Bradley Manning says the Army was so concerned about his client’s mental health prior to the alleged leaks that supervisors removed the bolt from his military weapon, disabling it.Attorney David Coombs told CNN, however, that other than sending Manning to a chaplain for counseling, the Army did little to address its concerns about him. “The unit has in fact documented a history, if you will, from as early as December of 2009 to May of 2010 of behavior that they were concerned about,” Coombs said, adding that Manning’s immediate supervisor “did document prolonged periods of disassociated behavior, quite a bit of nonresponsiveness from Pfc. Manning.And, again, that progressed from the very beginning of the deployment and deteriorated somewhat toward the end.” Manning is due to be examined by a panel of three mental-health experts to determine what problems he’s suffering from now and may have been suffering from at the time of the alleged leaks.Coombs also said that he has currently seen nothing that indicates “there’s any evidence” tying his client to the leaks.Manning isn’t the only one facing legal trouble, however.Swedish authorities announced on Wednesday that they were re-opening a rape case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange -Kim Zetter/Wired

The Israeli and Palestinian leaders were to open direct peace negotiations Thursday after committing to work to end the conflict that has endured for six decades.The talks are to be held at the State Department, where they will take place under the eye of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.The negotiations follow a remarkable tableau at the White House Wednesday night, where Mr. Obama, flanked by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, vowed to do everything within his power in the next year to achieve the comprehensive agreement that has eluded negotiators since Israel was established.The East Room gathering was a rare moment of diplomatic theater, endorsed by the attendance of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah II of Jordan, and orchestrated by Mr. Obama as part of an effort to invest the process with his own personal stature -Helene Cooper & Mark Landler/NY Times

Abraham Lincoln referred to the "terrible arithmetic" of war, meaning that sometimes a general or statesman would have to accept large numbers of casualties in fighting that would bring the conflict to an end and thereby save even more lives.Whether Lincoln’s war really needed to be fought at all is debatable, but most Americans would accept that war has sometimes been necessary throughout history for a nation to survive when confronted by enemies.When a war must be fought, the key objective should be to end it as quickly as possible and with a minimum loss of life.We Americans of the twenty-first century are now experiencing our own "terrible arithmetic," but an arithmetic that goes on and on without end.Worse, we are engaged in several conflicts that have nothing to do with national survival and did not have to be fought.At least Lincoln hoped that his bloody battles would lead to an end to killing.Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama appear to have had no such expectations and instead have been and are accepting of permanent American engagement in the Middle East and Central Asia.Both have contrived the necessity of fighting a long war against an enemy they can hardly identify and repeatedly have failed to understand.Americans should realize that they have come 180 degrees from the views of the Founding Fathers about the dangers of a standing army -Philip Giraldi/Antiwar.com

The continuing ferocious violence in Iraq, where most days more people die by bomb and bullet than in Afghanistan, is leading to questions about its stability once US forces finally withdraw by the end of next year.American politicians, soldiers and think tankers blithely recommend American troops staying longer, though at their most numerous US troops signally failed to stop the bombers.The unfortunate truth may be that Iraq has already achieved a grisly form of stability, though it comes with a persistently high level of violence and a semi-dysfunctional state.Bad though the present situation is in the country, there may not be sufficient reasons for it to change.Politically, Iraq may look increasingly like Lebanon with each ethnic or sectarian community vying for a share of power and resources.But if Iraq is becoming like Lebanon, it is a Lebanon with money.Dysfunctional the state machine may be, but it still has $60bn in annual oil revenues to spend, mostly on the salaries of the security forces and the civilian bureaucracy.One former Iraqi minister says that the one time he had seen the new Iraqi political elite "in a state of real panic was when the price of oil fell below $50 a barrel a couple of years ago" -Patrick Cockburn/CounterPunch

Have economists made themselves irrelevant? If you have any doubts, have a look at the current issue of themagazine, International Economy, a slick publication endorsed by former Federal Reserve chairmen Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan, by Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, by former Secretary of State George Shultz, and by the New York Times and Washington Post, both of which declare the magazine to be “ahead of the curve.” The main feature of the current issue is “The Great Stimulus Debate.” Is the Obama fiscal stimulus helping the economy or hindering it? When the jobs have been shipped overseas, fiscal stimulus does not call workers back to work in order to meet the rising consumer demand.If fiscal stimulus has any effect, it stimulates employment in China and India.What we have in front of us is an unaware economics profession.Don’t look for an answer from either side of The Great Stimulus Debate.They haven’t a clue despite the fact that the answer is obvious -Paul Craig Roberts/CounterPunch

Congressman Ron Paul today released the following statement on President Obama's speech from the Oval Office last night: "The President's announcement that all U.S. combat troops have left Iraq is no more believable than the 'Mission Accomplished' declaration was in 2003.Once again, we are being told the mission has been accomplished and our brave men and women are coming back home.Though the people are hopeful they remain skeptical, and rightfully so.The biggest problem is that success in Iraq is undefinable since the mission was never defined.The reasons given for the invasion were based on misinformation.Now, the war has cost us hundreds of billions of dollars and this has contributed significantly to our economic woes.Forty-four hundred Americans are dead, thirty thousand severely wounded, and more than a hundred thousand are suffering from serious health problems related to Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.This alone should tell us that it was not worth the investment and the needless sacrifice of our young people and the taxpayers.It is deceitful to imply we will avoid hostilities with this new policy." -Business Wire

President Obama declared an end to the combat mission in Iraq Tuesday night in the second Oval Office address of his presidency.Although tens of thousands of US troops, special operations forces and private contractors remain in Iraq, Obama announced that Operation Iraqi Freedom is now officially over.In doing so, he said he was fulfilling his campaign promise to end the war.Vice President Joe Biden is meeting with Iraqi officials in Baghdad today to preside over a formal change-of-command ceremony to mark the start of what’s being called "Operation New Dawn." But not all Iraqis see the drawdown of US troops as a new beginning or much of a change at all.For more, I’m joined on the line from Baghdad by independent journalist Nir Rosen.He’s been covering the Iraq war since 2003.He’s now a fellow at the NYU Center on Law and Security.His forthcoming book is called Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America’s Wars in the Muslim World -Democracy Now

The European Union is keen to strike a pact with Muammar Gaddafi to stem the flow of immigrants across the Mediterranean, officials said today, after the Libyan leader put a price tag of €5bn (£4.1bn) a year on the deal. "There is great scope to develop cooperation with Libya on migration," said Matthew Newman, a commission spokesman. Other officials said three negotiating sessions were expected by the end of the year between Brussels and Tripoli as well as the staging of a summit of EU and African leaders in Libya in November.In a highly theatrical visit to Italy this week, Gaddafi warned that Europe would turn "black" unless it was more rigorous in turning back immigrants. Libya is a key transit point for illegal migration from Africa to Europe.The Libyan leader said the bill for sealing the crossing routes would be at least €5bn a year.While the commission in Brussels said that much could be achieved with Libya "for lesser amounts than that named by Colonel Gaddafi", Franco Frattini, the Italian foreign minister, supported the Libyan leader.He said European government chiefs would discuss the proposed migration pact at the Tripoli summit.Frattini went to Libya today to chair a meeting of Mediterranean-rim countries, five from the EU and five in the Maghreb -Ian Traynor/Guardian UK

JULIA Gillard has agreed to a historic pact with the Australian Greens in a bid to end the nation's parliamentary deadlock, promising action on climate change in return for guaranteed support to govern.The deal includes the establishment of a climate change committee to consider a price on carbon, big changes to the rules on political donations and a major parliamentary debate on the war in Afghanistan.The Greens will, in effect, have more power than Labor backbenchers, with a promise of regular briefings from the Treasurer and the Finance Minister and the secretaries of their departments as part of the budget process.When parliament is sitting, the Prime Minister will meet Greens leader Bob Brown and lower house MP Adam Bandt each week to work on the legislative agenda.The alliance has sparked opposition condemnation, with Tony Abbott describing it as the product of a secret deal reached before the August 21 election.As the four independent MPs with the power to anoint the next government were briefed by Treasury officials on the cost of the election promises of the major parties, the Prime Minister said she had agreed to create a multi-party parliamentary committee to chart the path to putting a price on carbon -Matthew Franklin & Patricia Karvelas/The Australian AU

A delegation of Pakistani military officers has abandoned a trip to the US after being mistaken for terrorists and ordered off an airliner.The eight officers, led by a two-star Navy rear admiral, were on their way to a meeting at US Central Command.They had boarded a United Airlines Flight from Washington to Tampa on Monday but were taken off the aircraft because of comments made by one of the men, according to an airline spokesman.Pakistani officials said the officer, weary from the journey to the US, had said, "I hope this is the final plane to the destination" causing a female passenger, who believed he was threatening the aircraft, to panic.Major General Athar Abbas, a spokesman for the Pakistan military, said the officers had been cleared by subsequent security inspections. "However, as a result of these checks, military authorities in Pakistan decided to cancel the visit and called the delegation back," the army said in a statement.The dispute appeared to be a sign of the mistrust between the US and Pakistani military, which claimed the delegation had been subjected to "unwarranted checks" -Rob Crilly/Telegraph UK

Three bomb blasts tore through a Shiite Muslim procession Wednesday in Pakistan's second-largest city, Lahore, killing at least 25 people and wounding 170 others, authorities said.The attacks occurred as thousands of Shiites marched through Lahore's streets in a traditional mourning procession for Yaum-i-Ali, one of Shiite Islam's most revered holy figures.No one claimed responsibility for the blasts, but Sunni Muslim militant groups have frequently targeted Pakistan's Shiite minority in the past.Lahore's top administrative official, Khusro Pervez, called the attacks "very well planned" and carried out at a time when Pakistani authorities have been preoccupied with massive floods that ravaged large sections of the country this summer.The blasts began just after Iftar, the early evening period when Muslims break their daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan.The first explosion was a low-intensity blast that struck marchers as they neared the procession's endpoint.A television camera showed frantic marchers crawling from the site amid a cloud of black smoke.Minutes later, two other explosions that authorities said were suicide bombings occurred at a gate about 300 yards from the first blast. Those explosions resulted in most of the deaths and injuries.Akhtar Ali, an official with the Edhi rescue service, said the death toll stood at 25 as of late Wednesday evening, but he added several of the injured were in critical condition and said the death toll likely could rise -Alex Rodriguez/LA Times

Dear reader: let's sit back, relax, and take a trip down memory lane to prehistoric times - the pre-9/11, pre-YouTube, pre-Facebook world.Ten years ago, Taliban Afghanistan - Talibanistan - was under a social, cultural, political and economic nightmare.Arguably, not much has changed.Or has it? Ten years ago, New York-based photographer Jason Florio and myself slowly crossed Talibanistan overland from east to west, from the Pakistani border at Landi Kotal to the Iranian border at Islam Qillah.As Afghan aid workers acknowledged, we were the first Westerners to pull this off in quite a while.Those were the days.Bill Clinton was enjoying his last stretch at the White House.Osama bin Laden was a discreet guest of Mullah Omar - hitting the front pages only occasionally.There was no hint of 9/11, or of the invasion of Iraq, or of the "war on terror", or of the rebranding of the AfPak war, or of a global financial crisis.Globalization ruled, and the United States was the undisputed global top dog.The Clinton administration and the Taliban were deep into Pipelineistan territory - arguing over the tortuous, proposed Trans-Afghan gas pipeline -Pepe Escobar/Asia Times

18 months after cutting back on air strikes, NATO is all-but-bragging about killing insurgents from the skies. In a stream of press releases, the military alliance in Afghanistan is boasting about the air-induced demise to 12 insurgents in the past 10 days.It’s the latest move in a spin war with the Taliban about civilian casualties, one that contrasts the air strikes’ “precision” with the insurgents’ “barbarism.” Reporters woke up this morning to an emailed report from the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command (yeah, those guys) about a “successful” air strike in Kandahar.The strike occurred Monday in an “open, unpopulated field” following an intelligence operation to track a supposed Taliban commander named Zulmai. “After careful planning to ensure no civilians were present, coalition aircraft engaged the insurgents, killing Zulmai and another insurgent, and wounded the other,” the press release reads.Zulmai has company.The day before, in Helmand Province, Qari Hazrat, whom NATO identifies as a local insurgent commander, died with three colleagues in an air strike “while they were driving down an isolated road.” And the day before that, NATO aircraft followed a motorcycle driven by a man believed to be a leader of the Taliban-aligned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in Kunduz Province and took him out -Spencer Ackerman/Wired

Beset by mounting casualties on the battlefield and deepening disquiet at home over the United States' longest war, President Obama's Afghan policy now faces another big headache: the unraveling of central authority in Kyrgyzstan, a Central Asian nation that hosts a U.S. air base critical to the battle against the Taliban.Just a month after agreeing to extend for a year a $60 million lease on a U.S. air base here, Kyrgyzstan's generally pro-Western but increasingly impotent president, Roza Otunbayeva, has retreated from U.S.-backed security programs that Washington hoped would help fortify a fragile Kyrgyz government.These include a counterterrorism and anti-narcotics training center and an international police mission.The government's paralysis, most notable in its inability to control truculent Kyrgyz nationalists in the south of this former Soviet republic, does not pose any immediate physical threat to the U.S. air base, which is about 20 miles from the capital, Bishkek, in the north.But it does raise the prospect of prolonged and possibly bloody clashes ahead and strengthens forces inimical to Washington's interests in the region -Washington Post

China is in the midst of a sales pitch. It is pushing for the resumption of six-party talks, the process concocted seven years ago to end a North Korean nuclear program that has not yet ended.This time, Beijing says North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is onboard.And in recent days, China has sent its nuclear envoy to South Korea and Japan, touting the six-party idea to Washington's closest Asian allies.According to officials in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo, China has emerged as the driving force pushing to restart the talks, which Beijing sees as the best way to maintain security and status quo on the Korean Peninsula.China has proposed a three-step process that calls first for bilateral talks between North Korea and the United States, perhaps in Beijing, Pyongyang or New York.That would be followed by a meeting of nuclear delegation leaders representing the six participating nations: Russia, Japan, South Korea, the United States, China and North Korea.Last, barring provocations from Pyongyang, the six countries would resume full-fledged talks for the first time since 2008.But even as the Obama administration seeks palatable alternatives to its pressure-and-punishment stance toward North Korea, the six-party process seems, at best, months away -Chico Harlan/Washington Post

Defying a warning from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that anybody trying to stage unsanctioned political rally would be "beaten on the head" by police, hundreds of mainly youthful protesters showed up Tuesday night at Moscow's fenced-off and police-barricaded Triumph Square to demand that Russian authorities honor their constitutional right of free assembly. "If you get [permission], then go out and demonstrate," Mr. Putin said in a newspaper interview Monday. "If not, you do not have the right.If you go out without having the right – you are going to get beaten with a club.It’s as simple as that." Nearly 1,000 riot police who were on hand mostly kept their truncheons sheathed.Wedges of armored-and-helmeted police charged repeatedly into the crowd, arresting at least 70 people, including top leaders of the "Strategy 31" movement, named after Article 31 of Russia's 1993 Constitution, which guarantees civic freedoms.Among those seized were former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov, leader of the banned National Bolshevik Party Eduard Limonov and head of the Left Front Konstantin Kosyakin.One new factor appears to be the large number of young people among the protesters, who visibly behave far more fearlessly than their Soviet-era elders -Fred Weir/Christian Science Monitor

Military auditors failed to complete an audit of the business systems of an Ohio- based company - Mission Essential Personnel - even though it had billed for one billion dollars worth of work largely in Afghanistan over the last four years.In September 2007 the U.S. Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) awarded Mission Essential Personnel (MEP) a five-year-contract worth up to 414 million dollars to provide 1,691 translators in Afghanistan.MEP was a start-up company created by three men, including Chad Monnin, a U.S. Army Special Forces reservist who was injured in a parachute accident.Procurement rules give preference to companies owned by injured veterans, even if they have no prior experience.When the Obama administration decided to expand the war in Afghanistan last year, MEP quickly hit the ceiling of what it could bill.On May 10, INSCOM gave MEP a 679 million dollar extension without bothering to put it up for competitive bid.MEP will also get a share of the Intelligence Support Services Omnibus III contract, a five-year contract, with a ceiling of 492 million dollars, announced on Aug. 10, 2010.The only two other contractors that have held multi-billion dollar contracts to supply translators to soldiers and diplomats in the Global War on Terror have both been investigated for alleged overcharging, suggesting that this type of work falls in the high risk category of government spending.Yet the Defence Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) failed to conduct a full business systems audit for MEP -Pratap Chatterjee/IPS

Let’s get the good news out of the way first, in President Obama’s Iraq speech last night.Here it is: he said that the U.S. combat role in Iraq has ended and that Iraqis have “responsibility for the security of their own country.” He said that “all U.S. troops will leave by the end of next year.” And he promised, once again, that U.S. troops will begin to leave Afghanistan, too, next July.That’s about it.Now the bad news.Most distressingly, Obama treated the war in Iraq as if it were a minor, tactical disagreement, rather than a fundamental, black and white difference between two irreconcilable views. “I am mindful that the Iraq war has been a contentious issue at home,” he said. “It is time to turn the page.” Needless to say, the unprovoked invasion of Iraq by the United States in 2003 was a clear-cut, criminal war of aggression, making it far more than a merely “contentious” issue.Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died for no good reason, and many thousands more are likely to perish as Iraq’s bitterly divided body politic settles its differences with guns and bombs over the next five or ten years. Millions of Iraqi children have been traumatized beyond repair.By going into Iraq, the United States alienated its friends, weakened its alliances, emboldened its adversaries, blackened its reputation, squandered a trillion dollars, suffered tens of thousands of dead and wounded, utterly failed to spread democracy and freedom in the region, vastly strengthened Iran’s strategic position in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, and devastated a nation by shattering its economy, its state institutions, and its very social fabric in a manner that will take at least two generations to repair -Robert Dreyfuss/The Nation

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had a packed schedule Tuesday as she lay the groundwork for peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, set to begin Thursday.First she met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, then with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, followed by Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit. Later she saw former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and finally, as everyone was anxious to wrap up for dinner, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.But not half-way through her schedule, news came in that four Israeli Jews had been shot and killed in the West Bank, near the city of Hebron -- two men and two women, one of them pregnant.Hamas claimed responsibility, reminding everyone that even if President Abbas and Fatah were at the table, they were not.Not to mention reminding everyone that sabotage of these fragile, still inchoate, talks is all too easy.That ominous act cast a pall on the late August quiet in Washington, as the leaders of Israel and Palestine arrived, separately, willing, if not exactly ready, to begin direct peace negotiations for the first time in 20 months -Sarah Wildman/Politics Daily

Backed by the Tea Party Express and Sarah Palin, a little-known conservative lawyer from Alaska became the latest newcomer to the national political stage to take down an incumbent in 2010.In arguably the biggest political upset of the year, Joe Miller claimed the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate when incumbent GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski conceded Tuesday evening.Miller’s win was a major victory for the tea party movement and marked the first time it had defeated a sitting senator in a primary.Tea partiers had knocked off Utah Sen. Bob Bennett at a state convention in May, and emboldened organizers now have their sights set on Delaware, where they are backing Christine O’Donnell against the more moderate Rep. Mike Castle in the GOP Senate primary.Miller, 43, told The Associated Press by phone late Tuesday that he’ll campaign this fall on transferring power and control over resources from the federal government to Alaska and the other 49 states.The state has long been heavily reliant on federal money to run · a legacy largely carved out by former Sen. Ted Stevens before his death in an August plane crash.But the government’s impending financial crisis will eventually force a reduction in funding to the state, Miller said by phone from Fairbanks

The federal government is refusing to confirm it wants to create new "Retirement Bonds" to be purchased – mandatorily – with the assets in private Individual Retirement Account and 401(k) programs, but it appears to be moving that direction.Treasury officials declined to rule out the possibility of creating R-Bonds as they confirmed a joint hearing scheduled with Treasury Department and Department of Labor officials in September will explore the "lifetime income option" for Americans using their retirement accounts.Treasury and Labor appear to be pursuing an investment theory that because government bonds carry a sovereign guarantee against default, any IRA or 401(k) funds placed in a Treasury R-Bond would constitute, in effect, a government annuity that would pay the retiree a lifetime income, regardless how stock and bond markets might independently perform.Still, a sovereign guarantee is only valid as long as the government does not default on bond payments, or otherwise debase the currency, for instance, by printing money and "monetizing" the nation's debt, so that dollar benefits ultimately paid out in R-Bonds might be in devalued dollars with considerably less purchasing power than the dollars used to buy the R-Bonds in the first place -Jerome R. Corsi/WorldNetDaily

A federal judge dismissed the second of six suits filed against Arizona’s strict new immigration law, ruling that a Tucson police officer did not have standing to challenge SB1070.U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton on Aug. 31 granted Gov. Jan Brewer’s motion to dismiss the suit filed by Officer Martin Escobar.The suit was the first of six filed to seek to overturn SB1070, and the second dismissed by Bolton in the past week. “I strongly believe that Arizona will ultimately prevail in all of these legal challenges.My defense of the rule of law will continue,” Brewer said in a press statement.The lawsuit, filed in late April, argued that SB1070 would force Escobar, an officer with the Tucson Police Department, to violate Latinos’ civil rights, while subjecting him to disciplinary action if he failed to enforce the law and legal action if he did.But Bolton said Escobar did not have standing, meaning he did not have the right under the law to challenge SB1070. She wrote in her ruling that Escobar did not sufficiently show that he would suffer harm as a direct result of the law.His arguments that he would be forced to violate other people’s rights were too speculative, Bolton wrote, and standing can only be based on the rights of the plaintiff, not a third party.Bolton noted that SB1070 holds agencies and governments liable for failure to enforce the law, but does not include similar penalties for individual officers -Jeremy Duda/Arizona Capitol Times