...and as Media Bloodhound outlines, the US media completely ignores the US role in his murderous reign:

Consider the Associated Press 1,441-word article on Suharto's burial, the main story on the subject currently running on the websites of The New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC and CNN, in which one sentence - just 31 words, 30 paragraphs into the report - is allocated to this relationship:

During the Cold War, Suharto was considered a reliable friend of Washington, which did not oppose his violent occupation of Papua in 1969 and the bloody 1974 invasion of East Timor.

ABC News' website is currently running a 736-word Reuters dispatch on the burial, in which no mention exists whatsoever of U.S. complicity in Suharto's bloody rule.

Spoon-fed such revisionist history, in which our government's murderous alliances are ignored or glossed over with clipped and blunted allusions, it's no wonder so many otherwise well-meaning American citizens are unaware of past and present implications of U.S. foreign policy.

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At risk of being accused of being a fear-mongerer, I've made several posts recently pointing to very ominous signs on the direction US markets appear to be going. At least I haven't invoked the Four Horsemen...yet. I'm not the only one who is being a Nervous Nellie about it either. Today, though US markets are closed in honor of MLK, global markets are tanking in anticipation of a US recession:

Asian stock markets plunged Monday following declines on Wall Street last week amid investor pessimism over the U.S. government's stimulus plan to prevent a recession.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index slid 3.9 percent to close at 13,325.94 points, the lowest in more than 2 years. China's Shanghai Composite index plunged 5.1 percent, the biggest percentage drop since July 5, to 4,914.44.

India's benchmark Sensex stock index fell as much as 10.9 percent before closing down 7.4 percent. Hong Kong's blue chip Hang Seng index, meanwhile, plummeted 5.5 percent to 23,818.86, its biggest percentage drop since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Investors dumped shares because they were skeptical about an economic stimulus plan President Bush announced Friday. The plan, which requires approval by Congress, calls for about $145 billion worth of tax relief to encourage consumer spending.[..]

Markets in South Korea, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan and the Philippines also sank.

But on FOX Business Channel, things will be just fine if no one panics, because the global markets are tanking not because of US market issues, but because of the valuations in their own markets were over-inflated. Uh huh.

(Bush Countdown Clock found on Facebook)

The Independent (UK): Just one more year! Good riddance to George W. Bush.

McClatchy via Yahoo:

An exit poll carried out on behalf of a U.S. government-backed foundation indicated that Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki suffered a resounding defeat in last month's disputed election, according to officials with knowledge of the document.

The poll by the Washington -based International Republican Institute — not yet publicly released— further undermines Kibaki's claims of a narrow re-election victory. The outcome has sparked protests and ethnically driven clashes nationwide, killing hundreds.

It wasn't clear why the International Republican Institute — which has conducted opinion polls and observed elections in Kenya since 1992— isn't releasing its data. A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Kenya confirmed that a poll was conducted but referred questions to the institute, where officials couldn't be reached for comment.

Kenyan activists called on U.S. officials to release any data that would shed light on election fraud. Read on...

Upon further review, it turns out that GOP presidential candidate John McCain is on the board of directors for this non-partisan Republican group. He wants to be our president and engaged in the voting process, I think he should come forward and explain why his group hasn't made the polling data available to the public. Other names of interest on the board of directors are L. Paul Bremer and Lawrence Eagleburger. These people are just fine with fair and honest elections -- just as long as they're outside the United States.

How can an anyone write something so mind numbingly insipid---devoid of facts--about Iran and still be called a pundit? Apparently Kenneth Pollack is one of "those" people.

On 60 Minutes Sunday Lara Logan interviewed Pakistan's President dictator Pervez Musharraf about accusations that he may be to blame for the assassination of his chief political rival, Benazir Bhutto, and what exactly he is doing to combat the resurgence of the Taliban and al Qaeda, whom his government claims was behind her killing, and whether his government is even trying to find Osama bin Laden.

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On all counts, Musharraf's answers were lacking. He repeatedly denies that he was to blame for anything at all and points fingers elsewhere, callously blaming Bhutto for her own death by saying that "it was she to blame alone. Nobody else. Responsibility is hers." Apparently, in his mind, the man who climbed up on the back of the car and shot her in the back of the head and the suicide bomber who blew himself up and everyone else around had nothing to do with it.

Now I don't know whether or not all of the rumors are true that Musharraf or his government actually had a part in Bhutto's death or whether he should be held accountable for denying her repeated requests for more security, but he certainly did himself no favors in this interview to convince anyone otherwise. It's simply ridiculous to blame her "alone" for her death, and his refusal to accept blame for anything, his claims of successes in combating extremists in his country despite all the evidence to the contrary and his apathy towards whether or not his government is even looking for Osama bin Laden was - well - eerily Bush-like.

UPDATE: (Nicole) Some scary drumbeats being heard as far as Pakistan. According to the NY Times, the US is considering covert push in Pakistan (how covert it can be when it's in the NYT is another story), which Tom Hayden at HuffPo also weighs in on as well with a warning to Barack Obama to ratchet back the rhetoric. Moreover, given the news coming out in international circles (because you'll never hear about it in the US media) from Sibel Edmonds about our own actions in allowing Pakistan to develop their nuclear program, can we afford to take such an aggressive stance against Pakistan without risking any lingering goodwill we still hold on the global stage?

(full transcript after the jump)

Continue reading »

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Tuesday on The Situation Room, Wolf Blitzer spoke with CNN's Brian Todd about a secret file that Benazir Bhutto was to hand over to Rep. Patrick Kennedy and Senator Arlen Specter before her assassination, which allegedly contained information showing Pakistani intelligence agencies were conspiring to rig the upcoming election. More from McClatchy: (h/t Nate)

Safraz Khan Lashari, a member of the Pakistan People's Party election monitoring unit, said the report was "very sensitive" and that the party wanted to initially share it with trusted American politicians rather than the Bush administration, which is seen here as strongly backing Musharraf.

"It was compiled from sources within the (intelligence) services who were working directly with Benazir Bhutto," Lashari said, speaking Monday at Bhutto's house in her ancestral village of Naudero, where her husband and children continued to mourn her death. Read on...

Via CNN:

Pakistan's Interior Ministry backtracked Tuesday on its statement that Benazir Bhutto died because she hit her head on a sunroof latch during a shooting and bomb attack.

The government also published a reward offer in several national newspapers to anyone who could identify two suspects from the killing.

Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema told CNN the ministry will wait for the findings from forensic investigators before making a conclusion about her cause of death.

Cheema said he based his statement Friday about the sunroof latch "on the initial investigations and the reports by the medical doctors" who treated her at Rawalpindi General Hospital. Read on...

I won't begin to offer a theory or explanation, but it is significant that the Pakistani government has made this move. The release of the latest video of Bhutto's assassination has raised many more questions and it appears that pressure from the international community and media, as well as from Bhutto supporters has put the Pakistani Interior Ministry back on its heels.

Remember Karen Hughes, a devoted Bushie from Texas who was sent to the Middle East to tell women how lucky they were that we invaded and occupied Iraq, because it brought them freedom? Karen has gone home to Texas again, but the Bush administration still needs a snake oil salesman undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs to tell everyone that things are really going great. Guess who they picked?

(T)he AP has learned that the Bush administration has named her replacement: James Glassman.

So who is James Glassman? Read on, dear reader, read on.

It's the fall of 1999. The dot-com boom is going strong, and Glassman, formerly an honest business journalist and managing editor of Roll Call, co-authors Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting From the Coming Rise in the Stock Market, which argues "Stock prices could double, triple, or even quadruple tomorrow and still not be too high." He had been a mere talk show host and financial columnist syndicated by the Washington Post. Now he was a superstar--for telling the Masters of the Universe exactly what fantasies they wanted to hear. [..]

Glassman catapulted his berth on the best-seller lists into a for-profit web site, Tech Central Station, "a cross between a journal of Internet opinion and cyber think tank open to the public," proffering "a high-tech agenda of freedom and opportunity."The Dow then began its two-year long shedding of 30 percent of its value. All the while, Glassman pulled down over 100 lecture gigs a year trumpeting, "We are on the verge of a tremendous wealth explosion, the likes of which has never been seen."[..]

TCS mysteriously thrived where other Internet startups hemorrhaged cash. How? Why? In an extremely important 2003 Washington Monthly article by Nick Confessore(from which I draw the above narrative), Glassman pioneered a bold new brand of pay-for-play "journalism."

Wrote Confessore:

"As a writer and public figure, Glassman has, over time, aligned his views with those of the business interests that dominate K Street and support hte Republican Party; he has also increasingly taken aggressive positions on one side or another of intra-industra debates....

But TCS doesn't just act like a lobbying shop. It's actually published by one-the DCI Group, a prominent Washington "public affairs" firm specializing in P.R., lobbying, and so-called "Astroturf" organizing, generally on behalf of corporations, GOP politicians, and the occasional Third-World despot. The two organizations share most of the same owners, some staff, and even the same suite of offices in downtown Washington.... read on

Yup, this is the perfect guy to sell America to the Middle East, doncha think?

At his presser today President Bush was asked by CNN's Ed Henry whether he had mentioned the Saudi rape case at all during conversations with King Abdullah in the past few weeks.

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Bush begins his answer with a supposedly heartfelt 'what if it was my daughter' explanation but then when pressed further says that he doesn't remember whether he ever brought the subject up or not but insists the Saudi King “knows our position loud and clear.”

Henry: On another issue of credibility in the Mid East -- At the Annapolis Summit you used your influence to get Saudi Arabia to the table but I wonder whether now you will use you influence to do something about the Saudi rape case that has gotten so much international attention? What goes through your mind when you hear about a 19 year old Saudi woman getting gang raped by seven men and basically a Saudi court blames the victim and sentences her to 200 lashes? You spoke to King Abdullah by telephone in the last couple of weeks. Did you press him on this case? If so what did you say and if not, are you giving him a pass?"

Bush: My first thoughts were these. What happens if this happened to my daughter? How would I react? And I would have been -- I would have been very emotional, of course. I’d have been angry at those who committed the crime, and I would be angry at the state that didn’t support the victim, and our opinions were expressed by Dana Perino from the podium.

Henry: Did you press King Abdullah about it personally?

Bush: I talked to King Abdullah about the Middle eastern peace. I don't remember if that subject came up.

Henry: If it was that important to you why wouldn't you at that level bring it directly up to King Abdullah?

Bush: There's plenty of time. He knows our position loud and clear.

Even after considering 'what if' the victim was his own daughter, apparently Bush decided it really wasn't important enough to even bring up after all.