Docudharma Times Friday September 12

Sarah Palin Foreign Policy Expert

The Bush Doctrine: Isn’t That The Brush Cutting Operation In Crawford?

9/11 and Iraq: You Can’t Tell Me Saddam Wasn’t Involved After All 19 Of The Hijackers Were from Saudi Arabia

Rule Changes Would Give FBI Agents Extensive New Powers



 By Carrie Johnson

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, September 12, 2008; Page A02    

The Justice Department will unveil changes to FBI ground rules today that would put much more power into the hands of line agents pursuing leads on national security, foreign intelligence and even ordinary criminal cases.

The overhaul, the most substantial revision to FBI operating instructions in years, also would ease some reporting requirements between agents, their supervisors and federal prosecutors in what authorities call a critical effort to improve information gathering and detect terrorist threats.

Ike is rolling in, Texans are rolling out

Thousands of Gulf Coast residents jam highways. Forecasters say the storm could strengthen to a Category 3 — and possibly a Category 4 — before making landfall early Saturday.

 By David Zucchino and P.J. Huffstutter, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

September 12, 2008  

FREEPORT, TEXAS — Thousands of residents of Texas’ vulnerable Gulf Coast clogged highways headed inland Thursday, heeding mandatory evacuation orders as Hurricane Ike churned through warm waters and took aim at southeastern Texas.

Facing a hurricane that Gov. Rick Perry said could have “extraordinary impact,” authorities ordered the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of residents of low-lying coastal areas south and east of Houston. Chemical plants and refineries closed, bracing for high winds and damaging floods.”I can’t overemphasize the danger that is facing us,” Perry told reporters in Austin. Ike is “going to do some substantial damage. It’s going to knock out power and it’s going to cause massive flooding.”

Ike was a Category 2 storm late Thursday, with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. Forecasters predicted the storm would strengthen to a Category 3, with winds of at least 111 mph — and possibly a Category 4 — before making landfall early Saturday.

USA

Palin Links Iraq to Sept. 11 In Talk to Troops in Alaska



  By Anne E. Kornblut

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, September 12, 2008; Page A01  

FORT WAINWRIGHT, Alaska, Sept. 11 — Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would “defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.”

The idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a view once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself. But it is widely agreed that militants allied with al-Qaeda have taken root in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion.

As Options Fade, Lehman Is Said to Seek a Buyer  

This article was reported by Jenny Anderson, Andrew Ross Sorkin and Ben White and written by Mr. White.?

By JENNY ANDERSON, ANDREW ROSS SORKIN and BEN WHITE

Published: September 11, 2008    

A day after Lehman Brothers sought to assure Wall Street that it could survive on its own, the beleaguered investment bank, urged on by federal officials, bowed to mounting pressure on Thursday and put itself up for sale.

As confidence in Lehman continued to drain away on Thursday, the bank, one of the oldest names on Wall Street, reached out to several potential buyers, including Bank of America and Barclays, the big British bank, according to people briefed on the negotiations. Lehman hopes to strike a deal within days.

Asia

Would-Be Protesters Find the Olympics Failed to Expand Free Speech in Beijin  



By EDWARD WONG

Published: September 11, 2008  

BEIJING – Eleven people came here to the capital on Monday, bent on protesting property losses. They were experienced, having been to Beijing before to petition the central government. They were familiar, all coming from the same town and having been locked up in the same jails. They were crafty, flying up on two planes from a third city, rather than taking the train from their own, and lying low for two days before trying anything.But they never had a chance.

Some of the group left their hide-out, an apartment in a northern neighborhood, on Wednesday to carry out a protest outside the main Olympic stadium, called the Bird’s Nest. But there was no protest, and they have not been heard from. Later, another protester, Huang Liuhong, stepped outside with her supporters, only to find some 50 police officers from her hometown. They told her they had been watching her and the others ever since they arrived.

For sale: luxury villa with balcony, pool and Taliban death threat

Residents are fleeing exclusive estate dreamed up by president’s brother

James Palmer in Kandahar

The Guardian,

Friday September 12 2008

The neat rows of new homes in the gated community sit behind freshly painted three-metre-high cement walls and rows of manicured shrubs.

Pavements lined with imported eucalyptus trees border smoothly paved streets that fill at twilight with cyclists and walkers. Further back, another cluster of houses is being built, including an eight-bedroom villa with a pool, wraparound deck and balcony supported by doric columns.

Residents at the Aino Mina housing development also have access to a mosque, two private schools, football fields, playgrounds and private armed guards on duty 24 hours a day. A hospital, supermarket, pizza parlour and golf course are also planned.

Africa

Zimbabwe deal gives power to Tsvangirai



Chris McGreal, Africa correspondent

The Guardian,

Friday September 12 2008

Robert Mugabe yesterday agreed to surrender day-to-day control of the government and much of his power in a historic deal with his opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, to end Zimbabwe’s long political crisis. But the agreement fell short of Tsvangirai’s demand for Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s leader since independence 28 years ago, to become solely a ceremonial president after losing the last credible election six months ago.

The deal is also expected to result in a de facto amnesty for the military and Zanu-PF party leaders responsible for the bloody campaign against opposition supporters and activists over recent months. Their attempt to overturn Tsvangirai’s election victory in March left hundreds dead and thousands badly injured.

Barack Obama’s fame affects African relatives

 

From The Times

September 12, 2008

Rob Crilly in Nairobi

Kenyan police are stepping up security for Barack Obama’s family after thieves tried to break into the village home of his step-grandmother.

Sarah Hussein Onyango, 86, said that she woke to find her front door had been kicked down and someone had tampered with her solar panel, installed so that she can watch the US presidential race on television.

“These are just people who think that Obama has been sending me a lot of money,” said the woman known to the Democratic nominee as Granny Sarah.

Officers say that they may install a small police post in the village of Kogelo, in remote western Kenya, where Mr Obama’s father grew up herding goats.

Europe

Jail threat for comic who said Pope is going to hell  

 

  By Phil Stewart in Rome

Friday, 12 September 2008  

An Italian comic who said Pope Benedict would be punished in hell for the Church’s treatment of homosexuals could be tried for dishonouring him – a jailable crime under a 1929 treaty with the Vatican.

Sabina Guzzanti, one of Italy’s most pungent political satirists, made the remarks in July before a cheering crowd of thousands at Rome’s Piazza Navona. Her comments were widely published and posted on the internet.

The Church, at the time, expressed its “profound displeasure with the offensive words”, but a prosecutor in Rome has decided the comments may go beyond satire and break a law protecting the honour and dignity of the leader of 1.1 billion Roman Catholics. The law was agreed with the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

Russian leaders talk big, but army and economy are weak   >

 

By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers  

 MOSCOW – Russia’s military is riddled with weakness. Its equipment is outdated. Its technology is decades behind the West. And its capacity for battlefield communications and intelligence gathering is terrible.

In short, Russia has a mid- to late-20th century military in a 21st century world.

That and more was revealed during Russia’s war with U.S.-backed Georgia last month, when its troops routed the small Georgian army but looked woefully short of the fighting power of nations like the United States.

And to top things off, Russia’s economy has recently been slammed by the double whammy of a plummeting stock market and falling currency as the effects of the global economic crunch were compounded by worried Western investors withdrawing billions of dollars in the aftermath of the Georgian war.

Middle East  

Lebanese sects aim to end clashes  

Fights between Sunnis and Alawites highlight challenges facing a sectarian-reconciliation deal signed this week.

By Nicholas Blanford  | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the September 12, 2008 edition  

Sheikhlar, Lebanon –  The dispute began over a tiny single-room mosque. The local Alawites controlled it, but the village’s Sunnis claimed it as their own. Late last month, the struggle turned violent, pitting neighbor against neighbor and leaving a religious cleric dead. Order was only restored after the forceful intervention of Lebanese troops.

The recent violence and continuing friction in this remote village beside Lebanon’s northern border with Syria underline the challenges facing a widely hailed reconciliation deal reached this week by feuding political leaders that is supposed to ease sectarian tensions between rival factions in northern Lebanon.

“This reconciliation effort will go nowhere because pressure has been building in the north for months,” says Walid Abbas, a resident of Sheikhlar.  

Egyptian Policy Imperils Refugees, Migrants at Israel’s Door



 By Ellen Knickmeyer

Washington Post Foreign Service

Friday, September 12, 2008; Page A08

CAIRO — Egyptian security forces are killing an increasing number of Darfurian refugees and other African migrants attempting to cross from Egypt’s Sinai desert into Israel in pursuit of jobs and a better life, according to refugees, human rights groups and the Egyptian government.  Since the first recorded border killing in the summer of 2007, when Egyptian authorities announced a live-fire policy on the Sinai border, Egyptian security forces have shot dead at least 28 migrants as they left Egypt for Israel, the rights group Amnesty International said Thursday. Of those, the group said, 23 have been killed since January.

Latin America

Cold war echo: Russian military maneuvers with Venezuela

Russia sent two long-range bombers to Venezuela Wednesday and will send warships and soldiers for joint exercises in November.

By José Orozco  | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

and Sara Miller Llana | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the September 12, 2008 edition  

Caracas, Venezuela; and Mexico City – The last time a Russian Navy ship plied the azure waters of the Caribbean for major joint maneuvers with an anti-US country was during the cold war.

But in a move out of Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s historical playbook, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez announced this week that his nation will host four Russian warships and 1,000 troops in November for joint military exercises.

That was followed Wednesday by the arrival in Venezuela of two Russian long-range bombers.

Although Latin American leaders so far have shrugged off the moves as another act of bravado in Mr. Chávez’s push against what he calls “Yankee hegemony,” some diplomats and US officials see the potential for real trouble.

The US typically ignores the leftist leader’s angry tirades, and is playing down the news.