Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.
Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact.
Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.
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Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features New Orleans r&b performer Smiley Lewis. Enjoy!
Smiley Lewis - I Hear You Knockin'
"The concept of military necessity is seductively broad, and
has a dangerous plasticity. Because they invariably have the
visage of overriding importance, there is always a temptation
to invoke security "necessities" to justify an encroachment
upon civil liberties. For that reason, the military-security
argument must be approached with a healthy skepticism."
-- Justice William J. Brennan
News and Opinion
Could U.S. Military Action Turn Syrian Civil War Into a "Widespread Regional War"?
Who Benefits From A War Between The United States And Syria?
Someone wants to get the United States into a war with Syria very, very badly. Cui bono is an old Latin phrase that is still commonly used, and it roughly means "to whose benefit?" The key to figuring out who is really behind the push for war is to look at who will benefit from that war. If a full-blown war erupts between the United States and Syria, it will not be good for the United States, it will not be good for Israel, it will not be good for Syria, it will not be good for Iran and it will not be good for Hezbollah. The party that stands to benefit the most is Saudi Arabia, and they won't even be doing any of the fighting. They have been pouring billions of dollars into the conflict in Syria, but so far they have not been successful in their attempts to overthrow the Assad regime. Now the Saudis are trying to play their trump card - the U.S. military. If the Saudis are successful, they will get to pit the two greatest long-term strategic enemies of Sunni Islam against each other - the U.S. and Israel on one side and Shia Islam on the other. In such a scenario, the more damage that both sides do to each other the happier the Sunnis will be.
There would be other winners from a U.S. war with Syria as well. For example, it is well-known that Qatar wants to run a natural gas pipeline out of the Persian Gulf, through Syria and into Europe. That is why Qatar has also been pouring billions of dollars into the civil war in Syria.
So if it is really Saudi Arabia and Qatar that want to overthrow the Assad regime, why does the United States have to do the fighting?
Syria: Nobel Peace Laureate Tells Her Account of What She Witnessed
Obama seeks Syria support from former foe McCain
President Barack Obama is inviting former foe Sen. John McCain to the White House, hoping one of Congress' most intractable foreign policy hawks will help sell the idea of a U.S. military intervention in Syria to a nation deeply scarred by more than a decade of war.
Having announced over the weekend that he'll seek congressional approval for military strikes against the Assad regime, the Obama administration is now trying to rally support among Americans and their congressman and senators. ...
Among Democrats, Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan said he'd approve Obama's request and predicted it would pass. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland said he was concerned the authorization might be "too broad." Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, the senior Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said the administration still has "work to do with respect to shoring up the facts of what happened."
Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington said she was concerned about what Congress was being asked to approve. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said the war resolution needed tightening.
"I don't think Congress is going to accept it as it is," Sessions said.
Senate Democrats Drafting New Language For Authorization Of Military Force In Syria
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said Sunday that Democratic aides in the Senate are drafting new language for an authorization of military force in Syria, Politico reports.
Speaking after some members of Congress returned early from recess to attend closed-door briefings on the situation in Syria, Leahy said the draft legislation offered by President Barack Obama on Saturday was too broad.
“I know it’s going to be amended in the Senate,” Leahy said, according to Politico.
On Saturday, Obama submitted to Congress a draft resolution authorizing the use of military force in response to Syrian President Bashar Assad's suspected use of chemical weapons on innocent civilians.
The west's threat to attack Syria is an idiotic gesture
The reason a missile attack on Syria is proving so unpopular on both sides of the Atlantic has nothing to do with neoimperial hubris. The reason is that it is a bad idea. "Punishing" a dictator for killing his own people by simply killing more of his own people seems beyond cruel. It seems stupid. It leads nowhere.
Public opinion may be a poor guide to the minutiae of state policy. But that opinion has been saddled with two long wars, both failures. As a result, leaders in London and Washington (and possibly Paris) have been sufficiently nervous to pass decision to their national assemblies. In British the result was a rebuff. In Washington, President Obama has decided to refer Syria to Congress and France's president, François Hollande, may do likewise. ...
In Syria, an attack would be in retaliation for a proven breach of international law on chemical weapons. No one has the will to topple the Assad regime. Action is described as merely punitive and a "deterrent", directed purely at a past incident of a chemical massacre. This is gesture war. It will not punish the guilty, such as members of the Assad regime, who should be arraigned before a war crimes court. It will merely destroy buildings and kill people. It seems peculiarly pointless.
Chomsky - Syria Strike Without UN Approval a War Crime
A U.S.-led attack on Syria without United Nations support would be a war crime regardless of congressional approval, Noam Chomsky, the antiwar activist and author, said in response to President Barack Obama's announcement that he would seek Hill approval.
"As international support for Obama’s decision to attack Syria has collapsed, along with the credibility of government claims, the administration has fallen back on a standard pretext for war crimes when all else fails: the credibility of the threats of the self-designated policeman of the world," Chomsky told HuffPost in an email.
German intel has 'evidence' to back US war push in Syria
Obama’s and Kerry’s Big Lie
The document released on the White House web site to “prove” to the American people that the Syrian government had used poison gas — allegedly the neurotoxin Sarin — to kill hundreds of civilians, is so flawed and lacking in real proof that if it were being used to make a case against a terrorist group it would be too weak to justify an indictment.
For starters, there is no documentary proof offered. Only assertions about evidence which is never actually shown. No maps. No satellite or aerial spy-plane or drone surveillance photos. No identified witnesses with verifiable expertise. All there is in this document is a narrative with assertions like: “The United States Government assesses with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs on August 21, 2013.”
There are coy explanations for the lack of any hard evidence, like: “To protect sources and methods, we cannot publicly release all available intelligence – but what follows is an unclassified summary of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s analysis.”
Remember, we’re talking about a debate over whether to have the US launch a war of aggression against a sovereign nation that poses absolutely no risk either to the US or even to its allies directly abutting Syria. The reality is that this is about launching a war against a country wracked by civil war, not a country that is threatening its neighbors, or US interests and citizens. ... {A]fter a closed session Sunday in which the White House made its case for war, members reportedly exited the room with some saying the case had not been made and that the evidence presented was sketchy. As Rep. Bennie Thompson, top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee put it, “”In terms of whether not a lot of questions were really answered today? I’d say no.”
Something smells here. If this is the best the White House can come up with to make a case for starting a war with a country that poses no threat to the US, at a time when a majority of Americans opposes starting yet another war in the Middle East, and when most of the world, including America’s closest allies, are backing away from support for an attack, the conclusion has to be that there is no real case against Syria.
As Obama pushes to punish Syria, lawmakers fear deep U.S. involvement
President Barack Obama's efforts to convince Congress to back his plan to attack Syria met with skepticism on Monday from lawmakers in his own Democratic Party who expressed concern the United States would be dragged into a new Middle East conflict. ...
Representative James McGovern, a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, said he was skeptical that Obama's plan for military strikes could help end the war in Syria. If the vote were taken today, he would vote no.
"People are horrified by the pictures of people suffering and they genuinely want to help. But people have become, it's more than just war-weary, they've become skeptical of the effectiveness of these military involvements," he said.
'I didn't join Navy to fight for Al-Qaeda': US servicemen against Syria strike
Iraqi Government Rejects US Strike on Syria, Fears Civil War
In his speech on Saturday on the Syria crisis, President Obama instanced Iraq among the countries that might suffer if the Baath regime were allowed to get away with using chemical weapons.
The elected government of Iraq, however, says thanks but no thanks. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki categorically rejects a Western strike on Syria. Sectarian struggles lie behind this reaction.
The Iraqi government has announced that it won’t permit the US to fly over Iraqi territory in the course of any operation against Syria.
USS Nimitz aircraft carrier group rerouted to help US strike on Syria, if needed
The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz along with four destroyers and a cruiser have been ordered to move west in the Arabian Sea toward the Red Sea, so that it can help support a US strike on Syria if requested, a US official told Reuters.
“It's about leveraging the assets to have them in place should the capabilities of the carrier strike group and the presence be needed,” the official told Reuters, adding that it was not clear when the ships would enter the Red Sea.
“It's about leveraging the assets to have them in place should the capabilities of the carrier strike group and the presence be needed,” the official told Reuters, adding that it was not clear when the ships would enter the Red Sea.
According to a US defense official, the USS Nimitz entered the Red Sea around 6 am EDT. The strike group has not received any orders to move into the Mediterranean, the official said.
Israel claims joint US missile launch in Mediterranean for 'target practice'
Israel says it carried out a “joint” US missile launch in the Mediterranean, having earlier claimed ignorance. Russian radars detected two ballistic rockets fired in the region on Tuesday, sparking widespread speculation over who was behind the launch.
A spokesperson for the Israeli army confirmed that a launch of a missile had been carried out 9:15am local time (06:15 GMT), adding that US forces in the Mediterranean had been given prior warning of the drill.
A fighter jet launched the ‘anchor’ missile as part of a drill to test a missile defense system. However, earlier, when the Russian government announced it had detected the firing of two ballistic objects in the area, Israel insisted it had no “information on this issue yet.”
Despite Israeli claims of a “joint US” missile launch, the American Navy maintained that no rockets were launched by US forces in the region. ...
Other members of the international community were quick to follow suit with France, UK and Italy denying any knowledge of the test launch. NATO says it is currently investigating the incident.
WikiLeaks Launches Criminal Investigation ahead of Wednesday’s Obama Visit to Sweden
Tomorrow morning, 3 September 2013, WikiLeaks will file a criminal complaint in Sweden, ahead of the arrival of the US delegation. The complaint concerns the likely unlawful seizure of WikiLeaks property on 27 September 2010, following its publication of thousands of classified US intelligence documents on the war in Afghanistan. WikiLeaks’ publisher Julian Assange said: "Swedish authorities have the opportunity to demonstrate that no one, including state officials, is above the law." ...
The complaint, to be filed with Swedish police at 10 am tomorrow morning, details a number of matters not previously made public and which WikiLeaks decided to withhold until the conclusion of the court martial of PFC Chelsea Manning.
The property seized included evidence of a war crime perpetrated by US forces in Afganistan in which more than sixty women and children were killed, known as the Garani massacre. The filing follows the revelation of unlawful FBI and US intelligence activities against WikiLeaks in Europe that have been forced onto the public record through a Parliamentary inquiry in Iceland and the Manning court martial.
The 186-page affidavit now made public details ongoing and illegal attempts by US authorities to interfere with WikiLeaks’ publishing and journalistic activities. Attacks such as those that WikiLeaks has endured have become a concerning trend, as exemplified by the recent abuse of the UK Terrorism Act to seize electronic devices and other materials belonging to those working on the Edward Snowden US mass surveillance revelations.
Brazilian president wants to cancel operating licenses of companies that cooperate with American espionage
[translation by google]
President Dilma Rousseff wants to include in Brazilian law that allows a device to suspend the operation of companies that cooperate with international espionage schemes . The president also ordered the strengthening of the internal government communications , because today many of his aides use vulnerable services such as e- mail service from Google, Gmail.
The two measures were discussed on Monday during a meeting with Rousseff's ministers directly involved in the case of suspected U.S. spy." It may be the bank, phone company," said Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo , the newspaper O Estado de S. Paul, on the suspension of operations of companies." If you cooperate with these schemes, have the license to operate canceled here in Brazil." ...
Besides the possibility of punishment to companies, it wants to force foreign sites like Facebook and others to store Brazilians' data in Brazil . Today, they are stored in the U.S.
In Secret AT&T Deal, U.S. Drug Agents Given Access to 26 Years of Americans' Phone Records
Taxpayers Pad Military Contractor CEO Pockets
The Institute for Policy Studies recently released a report examining the performance of the corporate chief executives who have ranked among America’s 25 highest-paid CEOs in one or more of the past 20 years. CEOs from leading government contractors comprise more than 12 percent of the top-paid chief executives in the Institute’s report. In the same years that these CEOs received some of corporate America’s fattest paychecks, their firms snagged $255 billion in taxpayer-funded federal contracts.
Five of the companies with the highest-paid CEOs made the top 100 U.S. government contractors list every year over the past 20 years. These firms include two big military contractors — Lockheed Martin and United Technologies — along with IBM, General Electric, and Honeywell. These five companies have received $671 billion in federal contracts over the past 20 years. ...
A massive chunk of these public funds has wound up in the pockets of the company’s executives. Five times over the past 20 years Lockheed CEOs ranked among America’s top 25 highest-paid chief executives, earning sums that dwarf the pay levels of any U.S. military general or, for that matter, the commander in chief.
These taxpayer dollars haven’t inspired superior CEO performance. Lockheed Martin stands responsible for one of the most wasteful military projects of all time, the F-22 Raptor. At a cost of $339 million each, this plane became the most expensive fighter jet ever built— and never saw action in actual fighting.
Lockheed Martin has now turned its attention to a new fighter jet program: the F-35. Plagued by serious defects, the F-35 project is seven years behind schedule and 70 percent over its initial cost estimate.
The Evening Greens
Will Enbridge be allowed to put the Great Lakes at risk?
Compared to oceans, the Great Lakes are a confined system — they lack the ability to filter and disperse an oil spill, small or large. They contain 21 percent of the world’s fresh water supply and 84 percent of North America’s, providing drinking water to 30 million people. ...
The unique geography of the Straits of Mackinac make it a very dangerous place for a pipeline of any kind, especially a mostly unsupported 60 year-old one that is destined to fail at some point. The question is not one of “if”, but rather “when”. Line 5 traverses a quarter-mile wide ancient river channel canyon that plummets 300 feet below the surface. Concerns about the tension on the aging twin lines is paramount. ...
While Enbridge offers an optimistic “worst case” scenario [in light of the 17 hours it took them to respond to the Kalamazoo River spill] for a Mackinac pipeline breach to be isolated and stopped in a neck-snappingly-impossible eight minutes (yes, that’s their projection) – even that would dump 1.5 million gallons in the Great Lakes. Using those Enbridge’s calculations, the NWF found that Mackinac City and Mackinac Island would be impacted within three hours. Wilderness State Park by six hours, and Cheboygan, Charlevoix, Rogers City and Beaver Island shortly thereafter — and that’s with their rosy eight minute response prediction.
Campaign for Local Power
Out-Dated Dam Killing Thousands Of Fish Near Tacoma
Right now there are tens of thousands of salmon - including endangered species - dying at the base of an out-dated dam on the White River east of Tacoma. The Buckley Diversion Dam is blocking their homeward journey to spawn in the Mt. Rainier watershed. Local tribes say the federal government is failing in its responsibility to transport the fish around the dams on this river.
If you follow the Puyallup river inland from Commencement Bay and hang a left up the White River you will eventually come to the Buckley diversion dam. It’s a small dam, only about 15 feet high, but it’s very old and very dangerous for fish. Russ Ladley stands in the shallows below the dam with a haunted look in his eye. He’s a fisheries biologist with the Puyallup Indian Tribe. Pink salmon carcasses litter the rocks around his feet. ... The silty waters writhe with fish, still fighting. Some of them are visibly battered and lethargic. Others continue to heave themselves onto the lower section of the dam – their bodies scraping over old exposed nails. ...
Ladley estimates that up to 200,000 fish will die here in the next month, during the height of the pink salmon run. ... The Army Corps traps fish here and then loads them into trucks and drives them around a much larger dam six miles upriver. That dam was built in the early 1940s for flood protection, without any way for fish to get around it. The recovery of salmon in this river depends on their ability to get above these dams to spawn. But the Buckley dam hasn’t been updated since the 40s and the fish kills have gotten worse in the last decade as pink salmon have started coming up the White River by the hundreds of thousands.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
The Responsibility to Protect - Chomsky
"I have never met a transgender detainee who hasn't experienced some kind of sexual harassment"
A Little Night Music
Smiley Lewis - Bumpity Bump
Smiley Lewis - Shame Shame Shame
Smiley Lewis - Tee Nah Nah
Smiley Lewis - Big Mamou
Smiley Lewis - Ooh la La
Smiley Lewis - Tore Up
Smiley Lewis - Blue Monday
Smiley Lewis - One Night
Smiley Lewis - Lillie Mae
Smiley Lewis - Last Night
Smiley Lewis - She's Got Me Hook, Line & Sinker
Smiley Lewis - Play Girl
Smiley Lewis - Bee's Boogie
It's National Pie Day!
The election is over, it's a new year and it's time to work on real change in new ways... and it's National Pie Day. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to tell you a little more about our new site and to start getting people signed up.
Come on over and sign up so that we can send you announcements about the site, the launch, and information about participating in our public beta testing.
Why is National Pie Day the perfect opportunity to tell you more about us? Well you'll see why very soon. So what are you waiting for?! Head on over now and be one of the first!
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