Livin' In the Future

Audio-Political Experimentation

Fear
A letter come blowin' in on an ill wind
Somethin' 'bout me and you
Never seein' one another again

This morning on Fox News Sunday, New York Times columnist Bill Kristol recommended that Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) employ the “politics of fear” to attack Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL):

KRISTOL: [Obama’s] riding a wave of euphoria. She [Clinton] needs to puncture it. The way you puncture euphoria is reality, or to be more blunt, fear. I recommend to Senator Clinton the politics of fear.

Kristol explained that his fear-mongering political strategy would focus on Iran. He recommended that Clinton say the following about Obama: “He wants to negotiate on January 21st with Ahmadinejad. Here’s what Ahmadinejad has said about blowing up Israel.”

Source: Think Progress

Romania
Yeah, well I knew it'd come
Still I was struck deaf and dumb
Like when we kissed, that taste of blood on your tongue

It always happened at 1 a.m. In a secluded corner of this heavily guarded airfield, two snipers would creep across a rooftop and take their positions. Moments later, just below, a black minibus would arrive and wait.

Three times in 2004, and twice more in 2005, a jet landed and the black bus drove out to meet it. Large, mysterious parcels were exchanged that, according to a Romanian official who says he witnessed it, looked like bundled-up terror suspects.

The official, a high-ranking veteran with inside knowledge of operations at the base, said the planes then left for North Africa with their cargo and two CIA handlers aboard.

...

Beyond the midnight flights and the bus, the base official who spoke with the AP said he had questions about what went on aboard larger aircraft from Iraq that arrived at the base and then parked for several days, supposedly awaiting repairs.

...

Talpes, the former presidential security adviser, said Romanian authorities did not intrude on the U.S. "respected zone" at Mihail Kogalniceanu, used mostly to ferry troops and supplies to Iraq and Afghanistan — because they did not want to make "an unfriendly gesture."

Pressed about whether prisoners were tortured, he said bluntly: "Even if I knew that one of my allies did something, I wouldn't tell you."

Source: Raw Story

Don't worry Darlin', now baby don't you fret
We're livin' in the future and none of this has happened yet
Don't worry Darlin', now baby don't you fret
We're livin' in the future and none of this has happened yet

Wiretaps
Woke up Election Day, skies gunpowder and shades of gray
Beneath a dirty sun, I whistled my time away

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration said on Saturday U.S. telecommunications companies have agreed to cooperate "for the time being" with spy agencies' wiretaps, despite an ongoing battle between the White House and Congress over new terrorism surveillance legislation.

...

"Although our private partners are cooperating for the time being, they have expressed understandable misgivings about doing so in light of the ongoing uncertainty and have indicated they may well discontinue cooperation if the uncertainty persists," the statement said.

Source: Reuters

Saudis
Then just about sundown
You come walkin' through town
Your boot heels clickin'
Like the barrel of a pistol spinnin' 'round

The British government appeared to have "rolled over" in response to pressure from Saudi Arabia to drop an investigation into alleged bribery in an arms deal with BAE Systems PLC, a High Court judge said Thursday.

...

"Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday," David Leigh and Rob Evans report for The Guardian. "Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced 'another 7/7' and the loss of 'British lives on British streets' if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence."

...

Lord Justice Moses, hearing the civil case with Mr Justice Sullivan, said the government appeared to have "rolled over" after the threats. He said one possible view was that it was "just as if a gun had been held to the head" of the government.

Source: Raw Story

Don't worry Darlin', now baby don't you fret
We're livin' in the future and none of this has happened yet
Don't worry Darlin', now baby don't you fret
We're livin' in the future and none of this has happened yet

The Surge
The earth it gave away, the sea rose toward the sun
I opened up my heart to you it got all damaged and undone

It's a cold, gray day in December, and I'm walking down Sixtieth Street in the Dora district of Baghdad, one of the most violent and fearsome of the city's no-go zones. Devastated by five years of clashes between American forces, Shiite militias, Sunni resistance groups and Al Qaeda, much of Dora is now a ghost town. This is what "victory" looks like in a once upscale neighborhood of Iraq: Lakes of mud and sewage fill the streets. Mountains of trash stagnate in the pungent liquid. Most of the windows in the sand-colored homes are broken, and the wind blows through them, whistling eerily. House after house is deserted, bullet holes pockmarking their walls, their doors open and unguarded, many emptied of furniture. What few furnishings remain are covered by a thick layer of the fine dust that invades every space in Iraq. Looming over the homes are twelve-foot-high security walls built by the Americans to separate warring factions and confine people to their own neighborhood. Emptied and destroyed by civil war, walled off by President Bush's much-heralded "surge," Dora feels more like a desolate, post-apocalyptic maze of concrete tunnels than a living, inhabited neighborhood. Apart from our footsteps, there is complete silence.

My ship Liberty sailed away on a bloody red horizon
The groundskeeper opened the gates and let the wild dogs run

The Americans call the units by a variety of euphemisms: Iraqi Security Volunteers (ISVs), neighborhood watch groups, Concerned Local Citizens, Critical Infrastructure Security. The militias prefer a simpler and more dramatic name: They call themselves Sahwa, or "the Awakening."

...

All told, the U.S. is now backing more than 600,000 Iraqi men in the security sector — more than half the number Saddam had at the height of his power. With the ISVs in place, the Americans are now arming both sides in the civil war. "Iraqi solutions for Iraqi problems," as U.S. strategists like to say. David Kilcullen, the counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. Petraeus, calls it "balancing competing armed interest groups."

I'm rollin' through town, a lost cowboy at sundown
Got my monkey on a leash, got my ear tuned to the ground

But loyalty that can be purchased is by its very nature fickle. Only months ago, members of the Awakening were planting IEDs and ambushing U.S. soldiers. They were snipers and assassins, singing songs in honor of Fallujah and fighting what they viewed as a war of national liberation against the foreign occupiers. These are men the Americans described as terrorists, Saddam loyalists, dead-enders, evildoers, Baathists, insurgents. There is little doubt what will happen when the massive influx of American money stops: Unless the new Iraqi state continues to operate as a vast bribing machine, the insurgent Sunnis who have joined the new militias will likely revert to fighting the ruling Shiites, who still refuse to share power.

...

To the Americans, the Awakening represents a grand process of reconciliation, a way to draw more Sunnis into the fold. But whatever reconciliation the ISVs offer lies between the Americans and the Iraqis, not among Iraqis themselves. Most Shiites I speak with believe that the same Sunnis who have been slaughtering Shiites throughout Iraq are now being empowered and legitimized by the Americans as members of the ISVs. On one raid with U.S. troops, I see children chasing after the soldiers, asking them for candy. But when they learn I speak Arabic, they tell me how much they like the Mahdi Army and Muqtada al-Sadr. "The Americans are donkeys," one boy says. "When they are here we say, 'I love you,' but when they leave we say, 'Fuck you.'"

My faith's been torn asunder, tell me is that rollin' thunder
Or just the sinkin' sound of somethin' righteous goin' under?

"The situation won't get better," he says softly. An officer of the Iraqi National Police, a man charged with bringing peace to his country, he has been reduced to hiding in his van, unable to speak openly in the very neighborhood he patrols. Thanks to the surge, both the Shiites and the Sunnis now have weapons and legitimacy. And what can come of that, Arkan asks, except more fighting?

"Many people in Sahwa work for Al Qaeda," he says. "The national police are all loyal to the Mahdi Army." He shakes his head. "You work hard to build a house, and somebody blows up your house. Will they accept Sunnis back to Shiite areas and Shiites back to Sunni areas? If someone kills your brother, can you forget his killer?"

Source: Rolling Stone

Don't worry Darlin', now baby don't you fret
We're livin' in the future and none of this has happened yet

HILLA, Iraq (Reuters) - The death toll from Sunday's suicide bomb attack on Iraqi pilgrims heading to a Shi'ite festival south of Baghdad has risen to 63, a health official said on Monday.

Don't worry Darlin', now baby don't you fret
We're livin' in the future and none of this has happened yet

CUKURCA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey's military said Monday it had killed 41 more separatist Kurdish rebels in clashes in northern Iraq, raising the reported guerrilla death toll in a cross-border operation to 153.

Don't worry Darlin', now baby don't you fret
We're livin' in the future and none of this has happened yet

BAGHDAD, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Iraqi police said on Thursday they had found the bodies of 15 men, including 10 soldiers, who had been blindfolded and shot execution-style in the head.

None of this has happened yet

* BAGHDAD - Police said they found four bodies in different districts of Baghdad on Wednesday.

* MOSUL - Gunmen killed a policewoman wearing civilian clothes in a market in eastern Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

* KIKRUK - Four policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb hit their patrol near the municipal headquarters in Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

None of this has happened yet

MUQDADIYA - A suicide bomber detonated an explosives vest in a market in the town of Muqdadiya, 90 km (55 miles) northeast of Baghdad, killing seven people and wounding 17, a source in the town's hospital said.
MOSUL - Gunmen killed three policemen and wounded three others when they attacked their patrol in a drive-by shooting in the city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed three U.S. soldiers when it struck their vehicle in northwestern Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi officials said 15 policemen were killed and more than 45 wounded in the Ubaidi district of eastern Baghdad on Tuesday as they tried to defuse rockets that had been prepared for launch from the back of a truck.

BAGHDAD - The deputy minister of Science and Technology was wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near his convoy in Zayouna district of eastern Baghdad, police said. Two of his guards were also wounded.

BAGHDAD - Three bodies were found in different areas of Baghdad on Tuesday, police said.

None of this has happened yet

TAL AFAR - A suicide car bomber killed a woman and a 6-year-old girl and wounded eight in an attack on an identity cards office in the town of Tal Afar, 420 km (260 miles) northwest of Baghdad, police said. Tal Afar's mayor put the death toll at two killed and four wounded.

Sources: Reuters (Death Toll From Pilgram Bombing)
The New York Times (Turkish Military Kills..)
Reuters (Iraqi Police Find Bodies of 15)
Reuters (Security Developments in Iraq, Feb 20th)

Special Thanks to Bruce Springsteen
Lyrics Source: Livin' In the Future

UPDATE: Added extended Kristol quote to better tie in with the theme of the post.