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" The Boys Are Back in Town" avers Howard Fineman in Newsweek, by which he means the Wise Men who surround Bush the Father. When Bush the Son came to power, he hooked up with his new friends – the neocons – and put them in positions of power and influence. Now that they’ve left the place a shambles, the Wise Men are back, and they have a job to do. James Baker III, the Old Man’s grand vizier, is heading up what is naturally being called the Baker Commission, charged with coming up with a solution to the Iraqi conundrum, while Robert Gates – head of the CIA in the Bush I administration – takes Rummy’s place at Defense. The neocons are out, the "realists" – sometimes called "pragmatists" – are in, and it’s a New Era in Washington.

Or is it?

This interview with Fritz W. Ermarth, who worked closely with the new secretary of defense for two decades, is not a reason for hope:

"TNI: Please give use your perspective as to what this change of leadership at the Pentagon might mean in terms of U.S. strategy in Iraq and beyond.

"FWE: Well, from everything the president has said, the strategy won’t basically change. Now, I can’t guarantee that sitting here in my study, but the execution you can count on will be very thoughtful and careful. That’s the kind of person Gates is. But until the president signals it, I don’t think you ought to look for a change of strategy.

"TNI: Indeed, it seems from the president’s statements that Gates was chosen not only for his expertise but also for a compliance with a ‘defeat is not an option’ mentality in Iraq. How assertive do you think Gates would be in advocating a redirection of policy in Iraq, and do you think he’s ideologically predisposed to a stay-the-course policy?

"FWE: Well, you’re picking loaded buzzwords for an interview like this. These have become bumper stickers. I think he appreciates, strategically, that for us to just bail out of there and leave it to the Iraqis alone to sort out the problem would be a disaster for all kinds of reasons – terrorism, regional stability and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. If you call that ‘stay the course,’ I’m sure he’s going to support that. I strongly believe that he will examine the situation carefully, and if it calls for a change of tactics or even strategy, he won’t hesitate to recommend that."

"Defeat is not an option" – that’s the operative principle shared by all the major Washington factions, from neocon to realist. Whatever the arguments were for or against the invasion of Iraq, that debate is now water under the bridge, and the question is: what now?

It’s all so self-consciously hardheaded and "realistic" – yet it doesn’t take into consideration the underlying reality of the American occupation: we’ve already lost. Defeat is not optional – it is already in the past. The only question now is how we will engineer an orderly retreat.

This administration and its rapidly shrinking cheering section in the neoconservative media have been babbling on about "victory" without bothering to define what that might mean. The creation of a Jeffersonian republic in Mesopotamia? The end of sectarian killing? A unified nation? The formal surrender of the insurgents followed by the installation of a Starbucks in every town? "Victory" is elusive precisely because it cannot be defined, but defeat – ah, defeat! – we know what that looks like.

As those helicopters pulled away from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon, with people clinging to them for dear life, the American public became intimately acquainted with defeat – and it wasn’t pretty. In the decades since that traumatic event, Americans shied away from foreign adventurism, whether undertaken in the name of "democracy" or a coldly calculated American interest, haunted by the memory of what happened in Vietnam.

There was even a name for this shyness, this reluctance to involve the nation in overseas wars: the Vietnam Syndrome. Would-be crusaders and interventionists champing at the bit referred to this syndrome with disdain , as if it were a disability of some sort, the foreign policy equivalent of agoraphobia or an unnatural fear of heights. The elites were not so afflicted, however, and this was frustrating for them: it was only the people, the great unwashed masses, who flinched from their duty to make the world a better place and insisted on selfishly minding their own business.

During the Clinton years, the White House and its do-gooder liberal friends cautiously but persistently stretched the limits of the Syndrome, launching more "humanitarian" interventions in eight eventful years than had occurred in the previous 50. In Kosovo, they perfected their propagandistic arts and managed to convince the public that it was necessary to bomb some of the oldest cities in Europe – to stop " genocide." Yet not a single American soldier occupied the former Yugoslavia, and those sent to the "liberated" province of Kosovo in the guise of UN " peacekeepers" were soon reduced to an absolute minimum. It was like Bill Clinton’s sexual trysts – quick, easy, and nothing too serious. Although a precedent of sorts had been set, the Syndrome still lurked censoriously in the background, limiting the scope of do-gooding and exerting inexorable pressure on our rulers to rein in their world-saving instincts.

9/11 supposedly changed all that, at least for a while: it gave the War Party a free hand, albeit a temporary one, to indulge its wildest fantasies. The laptop bombardiers were unleashed upon an unsuspecting world, and the results are what Jim Baker and Robert Gates are tasked with cleaning up.

Now the Syndrome is back with a vengeance, with major symptoms manifesting themselves in the 2006 congressional elections. Baker and Gates are faced with the job of masking our continued presence in Iraq, and the wider Middle East, in the guise of a "withdrawal," or, at least, a drawing-down. Diverted by the possibility of light at the end of the tunnel, the American people may just be willing to endure a long trek through the dark and the dank – or so the Wise Men hope.

The problem is that, for all their alleged wisdom, these miracle-making realists have failed to recognize reality – even though they are staring it in the face. They can’t undo what the invasion has done: broken the Iraqi nation into its constituent parts and handed the biggest piece over to neighboring Iran. That was accomplished the moment the Ba’athist regime cracked, and all of Bush’s Wise Men can’t put it back together again.

Eddie Haskell and his friends sure made a mess of things: the Iranians were quick to fill the power vacuum created by the Americans, and their proxy parties now constitute the ruling coalition, with the Iraqi federal "government" a de facto extension of the Iranian mullahocracy. The invasion created a Shi’ite super-state, alarming everyone in the region, and neatly setting us up for the next conflict, with Tehran fixed firmly in the War Party’s sights.

The Wise Men can’t do much about Iraq: that one is already lost. They can, however, avoid a confrontation with Iran, and some of their ideas are outlined here (you’ll note Robert Gates is a co-author). Yet the problem with the conciliatory proposals contained therein is that the authors reject a "grand bargain" with Tehran, and instead advance an agenda of cautious, incremental negotiations that would draw out the process – and give the War Party plenty of time and opportunity to throw a monkey-wrench in the works.

These " realists" harbor a temperamental horror of boldness, but boldness is precisely what’s required in dealing with the volatile situation created by the Iraq disaster. Because there isn’t much time. While American policy wonks argue over whether Iraq has reached a state that can properly be defined as a civil war, the killings mount and the country descends into sectarian chaos. In this condition, borders dissolve along with national cohesion and long-standing social and commercial ties; as it stands now, we are a border incident or two away from a regional conflagration in the Middle East.

Add to this several X-factors – the Israelis, the Kurds, the Mahdi Army – any one of which could spark a wider conflict, and the realization dawns: it’s only a matter of time, and not much at that, before the whole joint goes up. Can the Wise Men, with their inherent caution, their unwillingness to withdraw from the region, and their internationalist mindset, prevent the near-inevitable?

It isn’t just the Iranians, the Syrians, the Saudis, the Israelis, the Kurds, and the Lebanese factions that the Wise Men have to deal with. There are also domestic roadblocks to a comprehensive – or incremental – settlement of the Middle Eastern question, notably what John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt call "the Lobby" in their seminal study of Israel’s lobby in the U.S. It was the Lobby that, in large part, lured us into the Iraqi quagmire, and this same concatenation of forces stands in the way of an orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces.

The Lobby opposes a Middle East settlement: they stand for expanding Israeli interests, at the expense of the Arabs and the Persians, and their goal [.pdf] – the atomization of existing Middle Eastern states down to a more manageable stature – is being rapidly accomplished in Iraq. Their goal is to duplicate the process throughout the region, and this means more "regime change" – in Lebanon, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, as well as Iran.

In any contest pitting the Baker Commission against the Lobby, the outcome is going to be problematic – but I’d put my money on the latter. Especially as the neocons ditch their old Republican allies and attach themselves to a new host – the Democratic Party – it is hard to see how the War Party is going to be stopped. Unless, of course, the American people wake up in time – there’s always that possibility. The recent election is proof that they haven’t fallen permanently asleep: they can be roused, if only there’s the right stimulus.

It remains to be seen what the Wise Men are up to, but I wouldn’t put much store in it: whatever it is, it’s likely to proceed at a snail’s pace, and, for the reasons given above, the clock is ticking…

The plaintiffs in the case include 11 Iraqis who were prisoners at Abu Ghraib, as well as Mohammad al-Qahtani, a Saudi held at Guantanamo, whom the U.S. has identified as the so-called "20th hijacker" and a would-be participant in the 9/11 hijackings. As TIME first reported in June 2005, Qahtani underwent a "special interrogation plan," personally approved by Rumsfeld, which the U.S. says produced valuable intelligence. But to obtain it, according to the log of his interrogation and government reports, Qahtani was subjected to forced nudity, sexual humiliation, religious humiliation, prolonged stress positions, sleep deprivation and other controversial interrogation techniques.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs say that one of the witnesses who will testify on their behalf is former Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the one-time commander of all U.S. military prisons in Iraq. Karpinski, who the lawyers say will be in Germany next week to publicly address her accusations in the case, ­ has issued a written statement to accompany the legal filing, which says, in part: "It was clear the knowledge and responsibility [for what happened at Abu Ghraib] goes all the way to the top of the chain of command to the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ."

A spokesperson for the Pentagon told TIME there would be no comment since the case has not yet been filed.

Along with Rumsfeld, Gonzales and Tenet, the other defendants in the case are Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone; former assistant attorney general Jay Bybee; former deputy assisant attorney general John Yoo; General Counsel for the Department of Defense William James Haynes II; and David S. Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. Senior military officers named in the filing are General Ricardo Sanchez, the former top Army official in Iraq; Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander of Guantanamo; senior Iraq commander, Major General Walter Wojdakowski; and Col. Thomas Pappas, the one-time head of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib.

Germany was chosen for the court filing because German law provides "universal jurisdiction" allowing for the prosecution of war crimes and related offenses that take place anywhere in the world. Indeed, a similar, but narrower, legal action was brought in Germany in 2004, which also sought the prosecution of Rumsfeld. The case provoked an angry response from Pentagon, and Rumsfeld himself was reportedly upset. Rumsfeld’s spokesman at the time, Lawrence DiRita, called the case a "a big, big problem." U.S. officials made clear the case could adversely impact U.S.-Germany relations, and Rumsfeld indicated he would not attend a major security conference in Munich, where he was scheduled to be the keynote speaker, unless Germany disposed of the case. The day before the conference, a German prosecutor announced he would not pursue the matter, saying there was no indication that U.S. authorities and courts would not deal with allegations in the complaint.

In bringing the new case, however, the plaintiffs argue that circumstances have changed in two important ways. Rumsfeld’s resignation, they say, means that the former Defense Secretary will lose the legal immunity usually accorded high government officials. Moreover, the plaintiffs argue that the German prosecutor’s reasoning for rejecting the previous case ­ that U.S. authorities were dealing with the issue ­ has been proven wrong.

"The utter and complete failure of U.S. authorities to take any action to investigate high-level involvement in the torture program could not be clearer," says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a U.S.-based non-profit helping to bring the legal action in Germany. He also notes that the Military Commissions Act, a law passed by Congress earlier this year, effectively blocks prosecution in the U.S. of those involved in detention and interrogation abuses of foreigners held abroad in American custody going to back to Sept. 11, 2001. As a result, Ratner contends, the legal arguments underlying the German prosecutor’s previous inaction no longer hold up.

Whatever the legal merits of the case, it is the latest example of efforts in Western Europe by critics of U.S. tactics in the war on terror to call those involved to account in court. In Germany, investigations are underway in parliament concerning cooperation between the CIA and German intelligence on rendition ­ the kidnapping of suspected terrorists and their removal to third countries for interrogation. Other legal inquiries involving rendition are underway in both Italy and Spain.

U.S. officials have long feared that legal proceedings against "war criminals" could be used to settle political scores. In 1998, for example, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet ­ whose military coup was supported by the Nixon administration ­ was arrested in the U.K. and held for 16 months in an extradition battle led by a Spanish magistrate seeking to charge him with war crimes. He was ultimately released and returned to Chile. More recently, a Belgian court tried to bring charges against then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for alleged crimes against Palestinians.

For its part, the Bush administration has rejected adherence to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on grounds that it could be used to unjustly prosecute U.S. officials. The ICC is the first permanent tribunal established to prosecute war crimes, genocide and other crimes against humanity.

The advent of smart metering was the most significant technology impact in the National Electricity Market (NEM) at present, the National Electricity Market Management Company (NEMMCO) said in its 2006 annual report on metering and retail market development.

All states investigating impact and benefits: NEMMCO said there was no national program in Australia but all state jurisdictions were investigating the impact and potential benefits of smart metering.

COAG encourages their use: A statement from the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) encouraged the use of smart meters to improve supply efficiency through effective price signals to customers.

No formally accepted definition in Australia: While there was no formally accepted definition of the term “smart meter”, a general definition of a “smart meter” was an advanced meter that identified electricity consumption in more detail than a conventional basic (accumulation) meter of the type now used in domestic situations.

More than 4000 readings in a quarter: While a “basic meter” accumulated the measurement of electricity consumption until it was read, providing the total energy volume for the period between reads, a “smart meter” would, typically, provide consumption data in half-hourly intervals (e.g. providing more than 4000 readings in a three-month period).

Readings can be delivered over communications network: A “smart meter” was therefore also referred to as an “interval meter”. The “smart meter” might also deliver the readings over a communications network to a remote location for monitoring and billing purposes, and provides other specialised functions.

Advanced metering infrastructure: This end-to-end arrangement of smart meters and data communications was referred to as AMI (advanced metering infrastructure).

Reference: 2006 annual report by National Electricity Market and Management Company (NEMMCO) on metering and retail market development. 26 October. Address: Level 12, 15 William Street, Melbourne. Vic. 3000. Phone: (03) 9648 8777. Fax: (03) 9648 8778.
http://www.nemmco.com.au

Erisk Net, 13/11/2006

By Mike Whitney

DONALD Rumsfeld never really understood the war he was fighting in Iraq. That’s why the results have been so terrible. He liked to say that “the war in Iraq is a test of wills”, but that just shows that he had no idea what he was doing and was in way over his head.

War shouldn’t be personalized; that just makes it a battle of egos which inevitably clouds one’s judgment. War is a means of using organized violence to achieve political objectives. Period. Rumsfeld never really grasped that point, so it was impossible for him to prevail. His statement just shows the shortsightedness of a man who is incapable of thinking politically and therefore wasn’t able to appreciate the larger strategic goals.

For people like Rumsfeld, violence and deception are the natural corollaries of their distorted views; they become an end in themselves. That is not only tragic, but it also ensures failure. According to the recently released Lancet report, over 650,000 Iraqis have been killed in the conflict so far. This proves that Rumsfeld didn’t know what he was doing so he simply ratcheted up the violence to conceal his ignorance. He had no plan for occupation, reconstruction, security, or victory. The whole thing was a sham predicated on his unflagging belief in over-whelming force. The outcome was not only predictable; it was predicted! Now, the country in a shambles, the society is irretrievably ripped apart, and the entire project is in ruins.

In his parting statement, Rumsfeld reiterated his belief that we are facing a “new kind of enemy” in a “new kind of war”. But this is just more buck-passing from a guy who wouldn’t listen to his subordinates and was thoroughly convinced of his own genius. Anyone who has seen the pictures from Abu Ghraib and Falluja are already familiar with Rumsfeld’s genius and his insatiable appetite for violence. They also know that, to great extent, he is fully responsible for the unspeakable tragedy that is currently unfolding in Iraq.

Besides, Rumsfeld is mistaken; we are not fighting a “new kind of enemy or a new kind of war”. The fundamentals of 4-G guerilla warfare are well known as are the strategies for combating them. Rumsfeld’s problem is that, rather than follow the advice of his generals who understand the nature of asymmetrical warfare; he chose to implement his own untested theories which consistently ended in disaster.

To his credit, he had a fairly decent plan for controlling the flow of information coming from the front (“embedded” journalists) and for quashing unflattering news-coverage. In fact, the DOD’s media-management strategy has been the most successful part of the war-effort. The American people have been effectively blocked from seeing the same kind of bloody-footage that flooded their TV screens a generation earlier during the Vietnam War. We haven’t seen the carnage, the body-bags, the flag-draped coffins; the wounded, maimed or killed civilians who are, of course, the greatest victims of the present policy.

In other words, the Iraq War has been a huge triumph for perception-management and censorship.

Score 1 for Rummy.

The media has played no role in undermining support for the war. Rather it has been the steady deterioration of the security situation, the up-tick in sectarian violence, and the absence of any tangible “benchmarks” for progress which left the American people believing that we were hopelessly trapped in another quagmire. At this point, no amount of media cheerleading will convince the public that the war is anything more than a dead-loss.

Rumsfeld saw himself as a master technician, singularly capable of tip-toeing through the abstruse details of his “new type of war” while developing entirely original tactics. Naturally, he favored blitzkrieg-type military maneuvers and massive, destabilizing counterinsurgency operations, both of which have had a catastrophic effect on Iraqi society thrusting the country into “ungovernable” anarchy.

Was that the point?

Rumsfeld seemed to believe that if he spread chaos throughout Iraq (“creative destruction”) US occupation forces would eventually come out on top. The policy is a reworking of the covert operations (The Contras) which were used in Central America during the Reagan administration. The basic concept is to use extreme violence (El Salvador option) against enemy suspects in a way that discourages others from joining the fight. That’s shorthand for “terrorism” which, of course, the US does not officially support.

Some critics suggested that the strategies which worked in Central America would not succeed in Iraq for various cultural and historic reasons. They turned out to be right; "one size does not fit all". The Iraqis are fiercely independent, proud, nationalistic, and hostile to all manifestations of imperial rule. Although Iraqi society has begun to splinter, the violence has only intensified as more and more people find refuge in tribal groups and well-armed militias. This has caused a steady rise in the number of attacks on American forces. It has also made the country completely unmanageable. Iraqis are not cowed by imperial violence. They are not the submissive, compliant sheeple that Rumsfeld imagined. This is another tragic misreading of history.

There is no antidote for the continuing crisis in Iraq. The inevitable American withdrawal will only hasten the looming battle between the competing political forces. It’s better to get out now and allow that process to begin.

Political pundits and historians will undoubtedly be harsh on Rumsfeld for his iron-fisted methods of trying to establish order, but occupying Iraq would have been difficult, if not impossible, under the best of circumstances. Rumsfeld’s poor decision-making sped up the process but, ultimately, the project was doomed from the beginning.

Ironically, Rumsfeld still refuses to accept any responsibility for the hundreds of thousands of casualties or the complete breakdown of Iraqi society. Instead, he has brushed aside any blame saying that Iraq is too “complicated” for normal people to understand.

Even after being forced to resign in utter disgrace, he still shows no sign of doubting his abilities as a military genius. His ego remains as impervious to criticism as tempered steel.

But the facts don’t lie. Rumsfeld was given the best-equipped, best-trained, high-tech, military machine the world has ever seen. He was given unlimited political and financial support and a ringing endorsement by the American media. All that was expected of him was to establish security and execute the smooth transferal of power from a "widely-despised" tyrant to a provisional government. At the same time, he was supposed to put down an “insurgency”, which (by the Pentagon’s own estimates) included no more than 5 or 6,000 “Islamic extremists and dead-enders”.

He failed completely.

Towards the end of his tenure, he became so desperate that he began to blame leftist web sites and “bloggers” for the escalating violence in Iraq.

If there is an “up-side” to the Rumsfeld saga, it is this. If it wasn’t for Rumsfeld’s sheer incompetence in every area of supervising the occupation, the Bush administration would have pressed on with their plans for toppling the regimes in Tehran and Damascus.

Rumsfeld’s ineptitude, along with the tenacity and steadfastness of the Iraqi resistance, has made that prospect seem far less likely.

Source: Information Clearing House