Informed Comment

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s victory in the recall gubernatorial election campaign over his Democratic Party rival is being read like tea leaves with regard to the national presidential campaign. This argument from the local to the national is always an error, and there are many reasons to believe that the results in Wisconsin tell us very little about the national mood. The telling exit poll is here So here are the reasons otherwise disheartened Democrats might take heart.

1. 51% of voters in the recall support Barack Obama, only 44% support Mitt Romney.

2. Democrat Tom Barrett’s loss and the damage done the labor union movement may scare and therefore mobilize Democratic voters in the fall.

3. While the Democratic Party and labor suffered a defeat, the radical Republican agenda promoted by the Koch brothers through Walker energized crowd politics and made a link between Wisconsin and Egypt’s Tahrir Square protesters, boding well for activism on the left going forward.

4. Too much should not be read into Walker’s victory. About 10% of Wisconsin voters do not believe in recalls. In addition, some 60% of Wisconsin voters said in exit polls that they did not believe a recall should be used against a governor for anything less than criminal misconduct. No one alleged that Walker is corrupt in a criminal way, despite his clear dependence on Koch brother campaign monies. That is, the recall effort, being based on politics rather than corruption, offended the state political culture.

5. 51% of voters in the recall support labor unions in general, but a majority of the voters approved of the end of collective bargaining rights for state employees in particular. The vote wasn’t about labor, but about the relationship of Wisonsins to their government workers, including teachers, etc.

6. Only 35% of the voters in the recall identified themselves as conservatives

7. Walker and co. spent $45.6 million on his campaign by May 21, whereas challenger Tom Barrett and his supporters only spent $17.9 million. And 2/3s of Walker’s money came from outside the state. There won’t be that kind of disparity in campaign financing in the national election.

8. Barrett had already lost big to Walker in 2010, getting only 36% of the vote. He just isn’t that popular on a statewide basis and the Dems were foolish to have him lead the recall effort.

9. It may be that John Lehman won his race for the Wisconsin Senate, in which case the recall election cost the Republicans control of that body, putting an impediment in Walker’s ability to push through any further radical rightwing policies.

10. Walker was forced to face a recall election and may have lost his state senate, which will give other right wing politicians pause in pursuing radical agendas at the instigation of the Koch brothers.

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Justin Elliott writes at ProPublica

In a lengthy front-page story last week exploring President Obama’s use of drone strikes in countries including Pakistan and Yemen, the New York Times reported that the president had “embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in.”

Citing “several administration officials,” the Times reported that this method “in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants … unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.” The Times reported that this standard allowed counterterrorism adviser John Brennan to claim in June 2011 that for nearly a year “there hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities that we’ve been able to develop.”

Human rights groups and others have expressed outrage at the reported counting method. And in the last few days alone, 27 “suspected militants” have been killed in three drone strikes in Pakistan, including the reported No. 2 of al Qaeda.

We wanted to lay out exactly what’s known (not much) about the apparent policy, what’s not (a lot), and what the White House is saying in response to the Times report.

Crucially, the White House has done nothing to knock the story down. I gave the White House a chance to respond, and it declined to comment on the record. But speaking on condition of anonymity, an administration official acknowledged that the administration does not always know the names or identities of everyone in a location marked for a drone strike.

“As a general matter, it [the Times report] is not wrong that if a group of fighting age males are in a home where we know they are constructing explosives or plotting an attack, it’s assumed that all of them are in on that effort,” the official said. “We’re talking about some of the most remote places in the world, and some of the most paranoid organizations on the planet. If you’re there with them, they know you, they trust you, there’s a reason [you're] there.”

When we asked a White House spokesperson about how the U.S. knows even the number of people killed in strikes, they told us to speak the CIA. The CIA did not immediately respond to our request.

Another thing that’s unclear is whether the controversial counting method is a new policy. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., the ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee, told Fox News last week that he was not aware of any change in the policy of how corpses are counted, but that if there had been a change, his committee should be briefed.

Several people in the human rights community told ProPublica that the metric for counting civilians described in the Times report represents a new and troubling standard.

“We have never before heard anything quite like the idea that if you have to be in a certain place and you happen to be of a certain age, that in and of itself can make you targetable,” said Gabor Rona, international legal director at Human Rights First and former legal adviser at the International Committee of the Red Cross.

It’s also not clear whether the policy applies to all covert drone strikes or just ones done by the CIA.

Asked last week about the Times report, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters the president “goes to extraordinary measures” to avoid civilian casualties.

“We have at our disposal tools that make avoidance of civilian casualties much easier, and tools that make precision targeting possible in ways that have never existed in the past,” Carney argued.

But analysts point out strikes can go awry even if a missile hits its programmed target.

“Any military official will tell you your precision is only as good as your intelligence sources and your intelligence analysis,” said Naureen Shah, associate director of the Counterterrorism and Human Rights Project at Columbia Law School. “How much do we really know about Somalia and Yemen and Pakistan? We have errors in targeting in Afghanistan and we’ve been there for a decade.”

Shah, who is working on a study on civilian harm from covert drone strikes, said she was not surprised by the Obama administration’s reported standard for counting civilians given the extremely low estimates of civilian casualties leaked by administration officials over the years.

The Times story last week, for example, quotes a “senior administration official” claiming that the number of civilians killed by drone strikes under Obama in Pakistan is in the “single digits.”

That’s in stark contrast to outside estimates. Independent organizations analyzing news reports and other sources have put civilian deaths from drone strikes from the high double digits in Pakistan alone to the high triple digits including countries like Yemen and Somalia.

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Mirrored from ProPublica

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Chris Woods writes at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism:

CIA drones are reportedly reviving the use of highly-controversial tactics that target rescuers and funeral-goers.

On Monday US drones attacked rescuers in Waziristan in western Pakistan minutes after an initial strike, killing 16 people in total according to the BBC. On May 28, drones were also reported to have returned to the attack in Khassokhel near Mir Ali.

And on Sunday, a CIA drone strike targeted people gathered for funeral prayers of militant victims killed in an earlier attack. The intended Taliban targets appear to have survived, although up to ten people died. A mosque was also struck last week – possibly accidentally – killing at least three civilian worshippers.

The tactics may not be confined to Pakistan. In the Yemeni city of Jaar on May 15, a possible return US drone strike killed between 8 and 26 civilians, according to a USA Today report.

The deliberate targeting of rescuers and mourners by CIA drones was first exposed by the Bureau in February 2012, in a major joint investigation with the Sunday Times. On more than a dozen occasions between 2009 and June 2011, the CIA attacked rescuers as they tried to retrieve the dead and injured. Although Taliban members were killed on almost every occasion, so too were civilians – many of whom the Bureau’s field investigators were able to name. The investigation also reported that on at least three occasions the CIA had struck funeral-goers.

The UN Special Rapporteur called for an investigation into the Bureau’s findings at the time, with some international lawyers questioning the legality of the tactics.

Deteriorating relations
The last reported attack on rescuers in Pakistan was on July 12 2011. Their cessation coincided with the departure of CIA Director Leon Panetta.

The revival of the tactics – at a time of outspoken public attacks on the US drones campaign by the Pakistan government - appears to indicate a further deterioration of relations between the two countries.

The US had recently eased off on its drone strikes in Pakistan, as the two countries negotiated the possible resumption of NATO supply deliveries to Afghanistan via Pakistan territory.

However, the absence of a deal – and public US anger at a Pakistan court’s imprisonment of Shakil Afridi, a doctor who aided the CIA’s killing of Osama bin Laden – has seen a shift in strategy.

The Bureau’s data shows that since May 23 the US has launched eight CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, which have killed at least 48 people. Civilians have been reported killed in a number of those strikes.

The last occasion on which US strikes were at such an intensity was in June 2011, shortly after the death of bin Laden. At that time the CIA strikes were still thought to be with the tacit approval of Islamabad.

The Islamabad-based think tank the Conflict Monitoring Center has accused the United States of ‘a bid to punish Pakistan for its conviction of Dr. Afridi as well as its reluctance to reopen NATO supply routes.’

Follow chrisjwoods on Twitter

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Mirrored from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

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Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad said Sunday that the 14-month-old attempted revolution in his country is being instigated by outside forces. He defended the bloody crackdown on the rebellion by the regime, saying that when a doctor operates on an eye, we don’t complain about all the blood but rather thank him for saving the victim’s sight (al-Assad was an ophthalmologist). So instead of ‘the Butcher of Damascus’ he is angling for the epithet, “the surgeon of Damascus.”

He went on to blame the protesters and rebels for the killings at the central Syrian town of Houla two Fridays ago, saying it was the work of ‘monsters’.

In contrast, a defecting Air Force officer, Major Jihad Raslan, has told the Western press that he saw Syrian army soldiers give cover to the pro-regime Shabiha thugs who carried much of the massacre in the city, which is a stronghold of opposition to al-Assad. Raslan’s account is corroborated by satellite photos published by the BBC last week.

Aljazeera English has a video report:

Refreshingly, an independent Russian observer, Dr. Aleksandr Shumilin, told a Moscow radio station that al-Assad’s speech, most of which took place in fantasy-land of his creation, is a very bad sign. It is so unrealistic that it may presage an intensification of the conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin is blocking a UNSC resolution permitting outside intervention in Syria, but some of his own Middle East experts see al-Assad as detached from reality and as provoking the violence (translation courtesy the USG Open Source Center):

‘ Syrian leader’s speech bring military conflict closer – Ruatssian pundit
Ekho Moskvy Radio
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Document Type: OSC Translated Excerpt…

Excerpt from report by Gazprom-owned, editorially independent Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy on 3 June

(Presenter) Syrian President Bashar al-Asad has blamed foreign forces for the armed conflict in the country. Addressing the new parliament, he said that Syria was being pushed towards war. (Passage omitted: excerpt from al-Asad’s speech)

By his speech in parliament, al-Asad spelt the end of political process of settlement of the internal Syrian conflict, director of the Centre for the Analysis of Middle East Conflicts Aleksandr Shumilin believes.

(Shumilin, voice recording) It is clear that this sort of unreasonable assessment of the events will only aggravate the situation, and will, incidentally, serve to justify the opposition’s move to tougher measures, military measures of putting pressure on the regime. They may now start to unite and move towards military plans of in effect ousting the regime. In these efforts, they may well get the support of the Arab countries – not only of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which are currently at the forefront of putting pressure on Syria, but also the majority of member states of the Arab League.

(Presenter) Let me remind you that the armed confrontation between government forces and the opponents of al-Asad’s regime has been ongoing for over a year now. According to human rights campaigners, 13,000 people have already lost their lives in the conflict.’

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Bill McKibben writes at Tomdispatch.com:

A hard-hitting campaign from a new group called Forecast the Facts persuaded many of the corporations backing Heartland to withdraw $825,000 in funding; an entire wing of the Institute, devoted to helping the insurance industry, calved off to form its own nonprofit. Normally friendly politicians like Wisconsin Republican Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner announced that they would boycott the group’s annual conference unless the billboard campaign was ended.

Which it was, before the billboards with Charles Manson and Osama bin Laden could be unveiled, but not before the damage was done: Sensenbrenner spoke at last month’s conclave, but attendance was way down at the annual gathering, and Heartland leaders announced that there were no plans for another of the yearly fests. Heartland’s head, Joe Bast, complained that his side had been subjected to the most “uncivil name-calling and disparagement you can possibly imagine from climate alarmists,” which was both a little rich — after all, he was the guy with the mass-murderer billboards — but also a little pathetic.  A whimper had replaced the characteristically confident snarl of the American right.

That pugnaciousness may return: Mr. Bast said last week that he was finding new corporate sponsors, that he was building a new small-donor base that was “Greenpeace-proof,” and that in any event the billboard had been a fine idea anyway because it had “generated more than $5 million in earned media so far.” (That’s a bit like saying that for a successful White House bid John Edwards should have had more mistresses and babies because look at all the publicity!) Whatever the final outcome, it’s worth noting that, in a larger sense, Bast is correct: this tiny collection of deniers has actually been incredibly effective over the past years.

The best of them — and that would be Marc Morano, proprietor of the website Climate Depot, and Anthony Watts, of the website Watts Up With That — have fought with remarkable tenacity to stall and delay the inevitable recognition that we’re in serious trouble. They’ve never had much to work with.  Only one even remotely serious scientist remains in the denialist camp.  That’s MIT’s Richard Lindzen, who has been arguing for years that while global warming is real it won’t be as severe as almost all his colleagues believe. But as a long article in the New York Times detailed last month, the credibility of that sole dissenter is basically shot.  Even the peer reviewers he approved for his last paper told the National Academy of Sciences that it didn’t merit publication. (It ended up in a “little-known Korean journal.”)

Deprived of actual publishing scientists to work with, they’ve relied on a small troupe of vaudeville performers, featuring them endlessly on their websites. Lord Christopher Monckton, for instance, an English peer (who has been officially warned by the House of Lords to stop saying he’s a member) began his speech at Heartland’s annual conference by boasting that he had “no scientific qualification” to challenge the science of climate change.

He’s proved the truth of that claim many times, beginning in his pre-climate-change career when he explained to readers of the American Spectator that “there is only one way to stop AIDS. That is to screen the entire population regularly and to quarantine all carriers of the disease for life.” His personal contribution to the genre of climate-change mass-murderer analogies has been to explain that a group of young climate-change activists who tried to take over a stage where he was speaking were “Hitler Youth.”

Or consider Lubos Motl, a Czech theoretical physicist who has never published on climate change but nonetheless keeps up a steady stream of web assaults on scientists he calls “fringe kibitzers who want to become universal dictators” who should “be thinking how to undo your inexcusable behavior so that you will spend as little time in prison as possible.” On the crazed killer front, Motl said that, while he supported many of Norwegian gunman Anders Breivik’s ideas, it was hard to justify gunning down all those children — still, it did demonstrate that “right-wing people… may even be more efficient while killing — and the probable reason is that Breivik may have a higher IQ than your garden variety left-wing or Islamic terrorist.”

Keep reading Heartland Climate Scam Sinking, but so is Planet (McKibben)

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