February 2007 - Posts
Today the stock market rebounded slightly after Tuesday's drop of over 400 points. Most analysts said the collapse was triggered by a plunge in Chinese stocks. But why did a sell-off in Shanghai cause a drop in U.S. stocks? Is the new global economy putting the American economy at risk? Did Bush's policies contribute to yesterday's drop? Did fears of a recession play on the minds of traders? We begin with MSNBC Political Analyst Pat Buchanan and former Clinton Administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich. WATCH VIDEO
Plus, now that the dust has settled, we ask Jim Cramer, host of CNBC's "Mad Money," about the state of the economy and what's yet to come. WATCH VIDEO
And finally, was the suicide bomb attack on Tuesday at the gates of the main American base in Afghanistan during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney a signal to the U.S. that the Taliban and al-Qaeda are resurgent? Michael Sheehan is an NBC News terrorism analyst. WATCH VIDEO
Just days after the United Nations declared that Iran failed to comply with a Security Council resolution demanding that Iran cease its uranium enrichment activities, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad remarked, “Iran’s nuclear program is an unstoppable train without brakes.”
The Iranian “nuclear energy” program, which most analysts believe is a cover for a weapons development effort, is complemented by continued ballistic missile development. Last week, Iran announced that it had launched a rocket into earth orbit - nothing more than a test of long-range multi-stage missile. Iran has constantly reported developments and acquisitions of new and improved naval and air defense weapons.
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Highlight's from Tuesday's Hardball:
The stock market had the biggest one-day slide in more than 3 ½ years today. We talk to CNBC’s Jim Cramer to find out why stocks took a nose-dive today and the political ramifications of the drop. WATCH VIDEO
Plus, a suicide bomber attacked the entrance of a U.S. military base in Afghanistan where Vice President Dick Cheney was staying killing more than a dozen people including one U.S. soldier. The Vice President was not hurt in the attack. A spokesman for the Taliban said the attack targeted the Vice President, a charge the U.S. Military strongly denies. But with a five-fold increase in suicide bombings in Afghanistan and with over 10,000 Taliban fighters preparing for a “spring offensive” is the Taliban getting ready to retake Afghanistan? Former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke says the warning signs have been ignored. WATCH VIDEO
Will Congress do something about the Taliban's apparent resurgence in Afghanistan and Pakistan? Will they do something “binding” on Iraq? Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., and Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., discuss. WATCH VIDEO
And what’s going to happen with Iran? Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reports in this week’s New Yorker magazine that the Bush Administration is engaged in clandestine operations against Iran that have not only brought us closer to an open confrontation with that country but have also made us bedfellows with Sunni extremists sympathetic to al Qaeda. How close are we to war with Iran? And is the White House’s shift in Middle East strategy benefiting our enemies in the war against terrorism?
WATCH VIDEO
Highlight's from Monday's "Hardball":
Today, the judge in the Scooter Libby trial sent one of the jurors home for “contact with media coverage” of the trial. Hardball’s David Shuster reports. WATCH VIDEO
And the other big story today, President Bush appears to have found a way to make a combative Congress work to his advantage. Reports out today that Bush is not happy with Pakistan’s help fighting the Taliban. And the president warns that “Congress” may cut off funding to Pakistan if things don’t improve there. And to reinforce the message, the administration sent their number one enforcer—Vice President Cheney made an unexpected visit to Pakistan today to deliver the message in person. Will Bush’s strategy work? We talk to New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a Democratic presidential candidate and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. WATCH VIDEO
Richard Haass, a former Bush State Department official who's now president of the Council on Foreign Relations, joins us to talk about Mideast policy and we ask him about Angelina Jolie's new role on the council. WATCH VIDEO
Plus, actress and U.N. Good Will Ambassador Mia Farrow talks about her fourth fact finding mission to Darfur. WATCH VIDEO
On Sunday, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was flown by U.S. military aircraft from his residence in As-Sulaymaniyah to the King Hussein Medical City in Amman, Jordan, one of the best hospitals in the region. The reason for the medical evacuation is reportedly "exhaustion and a mild inflammation of the lungs."
I worked closely with “Mam Jalal,” as he is known to his friends, in northern Iraq while assigned to the Central Intelligence Agency in the mid-1990’s. Talabani, 73, is a Kurd with a long history of guerrilla operations against the Baath Party. In addition to serving as President of Iraq, he is the Secretary General of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). He has emerged as one of the few leaders in Iraq with the stature and political savvy to keep the nation from fracturing into three ethnic enclaves. Ironic – considering that for decades he was one of the key proponents of an independent Kurdistan.
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Highlight's from Friday's "Hardball":
Congress comes back next week and Senate Democrats want to repeal the 2002 Iraq war resolution and replace it with a narrower measure that would limit the President and the military’s role in Iraq. The Senate has twice failed to pass a non-binding resolution opposing the President’s plan to escalate the war. What makes them think this plan will be successful? We talk to presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden, one of the architects of this new plan. WATCH VIDEO
Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack said he’s dropping out because he can’t raise enough cash. WATCH VIDEO
The jury’s still out in the Scooter Libby Case. Hardball’s David Shuster has the latest on that. WATCH VIDEO
Documentary maker Rory Kennedy has an inside look at the Abu Ghraib prison tragedy. WATCH VIDEO
The brawl this week started by David Geffen has captured a huge amount of attention. Most people in this country don’t know who David Geffen is. And for most of those in between New York and California, he represents something that they are just not too comfortable with – Hollywood values. So go ahead, Mr. Geffen, attack away at Sen. Clinton. Do you think that actually hurts her?
No, it doesn’t. CONTINUED >>
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Bush’s closest ally, announced today his plans to start cutting troops from Iraq. This comes at the same time President Bush is sending even more U.S. troops into Iraq. Vice President Cheney calls the British troop withdrawal “an affirmation... that things are going pretty well.” MORE.
And speaking of wars... The Clinton and Obama campaigns spent the day blasting each other over former Clinton supporter David Geffen one of the biggest fundraisers in the Democratic part. We talk to Clinton’s communications Director Howard Wolfson. MORE.
Plus, the jury's out in the Scooter Libby case. MORE
According to recent remarks by Rep. John Murtha, he intends to cripple President Bush’s “surge” plan in Iraq by placing numerous restrictions on how money can be spent, stating, “They won’t be able to do the deployment. They won’t have equipment, they don’t have the training and they won’t be able to do the work. There’s no question in my mind. We have analyzed this and there’s no way this can be done.”
Perhaps the colonel –Murtha is a retired U.S. Marine Corps reservist – has forgotten the lessons we Vietnam veterans learned the hard way. You cannot prosecute a war effectively with interference from Washington. What he proposes, labeled the “slow bleed” by Murtha’s opponents, is exactly the type of interference and micromanagement we faced 40 years ago in Southeast Asia.
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The Senate failed to pass a non-binding resolution condemning President Bush’s plan to increase the number of American troops in Iraq by 21,500 over the next few months. The House passed such a resolution on Friday.
What does a non-binding resolution accomplish?
It does nothing but harm the morale of American forces in a combat zone and send a message to those we are fighting that the American Congress does not support their troops. It is a cowardly act – if those supporting the resolution truly have the courage of their convictions, they would introduce a bill cutting off funding for the war and force the withdrawal of the troops. Anything less is merely grandstanding at the expense of American troops in harm’s way.
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In his press conference Wednesday, President Bush said he is convinced that the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Qods Force is providing components to Shia militias for use in roadside bombs. He also said he is not sure if the supply of the munitions was “ordered from the top echelons of government.”
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Peter Pace seemed equally vague, saying, “…I would not say by what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit.”
Having worked the “Iranian problem” for many years while in the intelligence community, the thought that the Qods Force could supply weapons and deploy personnel to Iraq without the knowledge and complicity of the Iranian government is ludicrous.
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Former first lady Nancy Reagan announced today that she is inviting the leading republican candidates to the first-ever debate at the Ronald Reagan library in Simi Valley, Calif, on May 3, 2007.
The debate will air on MSNBC, as well as simulcast online through the Web site of The Politico newspaper,
Politico.com. Full coverage will be available at
MSNBC.com.
Press release follows...
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The Republicans are spending a lot of time this week screaming two contradictory messages at the Democrats. They say that the resolution and the debate this week is a meaningless exercise. Yet they also say that the debate sends a monumental signal to the world, demoralizes the troops and gives comfort to our enemies. Which is it meaningless or significant?
A non-binding House resolution. Does America really know what that is? A “House resolution” is a common thing for Congress to consider and vote on when there is no actual legislation to pass. It is intended to put Members of Congress on record for their views. And importantly, it is often used as kind of a threat for future legislation. It is a stance on issues that can be solved without legislation. For instance, calling on the Post Office to issue a stamp or on China to open up trade barriers.
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They stand and talk and pose all day, the men and women of the House of Representatives. They discuss the lethal confusion we call war in Iraq. They do this knowing all they have to lose is, perhaps, an election. They debate back and forth - Republican versus Democrat - on another day when more Americans and increasing numbers of Iraqi civilians will lose the most precious gift God gives us all: life itself.
By now, all these years and months after Congress acted with the spine of a folding chair to give the president whatever he wanted in the wake of September 11th - no matter how flimsy the evidence was - they finally decide to talk about something ordinary people across America have been talking about for months on end: the incompetence of a war fought...for what? For what reason? Our national security? Democracy? As if suddenly a chapter of the League of Women Voters will spring up in Baghdad? That Common Cause will open a branch in Fallujah?
The metaphor for this war is now the Humvee. It travels through constant peril, down strange roads, through hostile territory, all littered with the reality of IED’s that take life in the snap of a finger. The Humvee, powerful and quite mobile except that, in the metaphor, our troops, our brothers and sisters in uniform - our country - is in the back seat. The Iraqis are behind the wheel, not us. And the Humvee is being hit from both sides, by all sides as we sit there, targets having little control over our destination.
The war is literally life and death for thousands. And it’s about time the politicians stood and spoke to an issue that divides the land while casualties mount by the moment.
Over the past month or so, there appears to have been a subtle shift in the focus of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East from Iraq to Iran. There are ample reasons for this: the continuing Iranian uranium enrichment program in defiance of the United Nations, stepped up militarization including the development of longer range ballistic missiles, a budding Iranian space launch development program, and—probably the most troubling of all—provision of advanced munitions to Shia militias in Iraq. The United States has accused Iran of supplying “explosively formed penetrators,” a devastating anti-armor weapon employed in roadside bombs, to its Shia allies.
The Iranian-American relationship has been a key factor in our relations in the Persian Gulf for decades. Our assistance to Iraq during the latter years of the Iran-Iraq war was not about supporting Saddam Hussein, but about containing Iran.
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Today at the Scooter Libby trial, there was discussion about a phone call that Libby made to NBC to complain about Hardball's coverage of the nuclear case for war. Following are the transcripts from the shows that aired at the time Libby made the call.
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On Feb. 5, the court martial of a U.S. Army officer began at Fort Lewis, Washington. Lt. Ehren Watada is charged with refusing to deploy to Iraq with his unit, a Stryker brigade combat team, and with two counts of conduct unbecoming an officer stemming from his public statements against the war in Iraq.
Several groups and activists have already rallied to Watada’s defense, including actors Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon. That is all well and good, but let’s take a closer look at the facts.
Lt. Watada volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army in 2003. Here is an excerpt from the oath he took as a commissioned officer in the armed forces of the United States: “…I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, …I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same….”
I took that same oath years ago. These are not mere words – they define who we are, they define a social contract between the military and the people of the United States. In the ensuing three decades, I was sent to wars, conflicts and “police actions” in Vietnam, Lebanon, Iraq, the Persian Gulf and Bosnia. Did I agree with all these operations or commitments? Maybe, maybe not – it did not matter. When you take the oath, you commit to defend the Constitution and obey the orders of those above you. I bore true faith and allegiance.
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Last week the National Intelligence Council released an unclassified version of the key judgments of its recent National Intelligence Estimate, “Prospects for Iraq’s Stability: A Challenging Road Ahead.” It included some tough assessments of the situation in Iraq and a rather bleak outlook for the next 12-18 months.
It is refreshing to see the intelligence community produce a realistic estimate.
As I read over the estimate (I have been involved in the NIE process in the past), I noted one recurring theme: the greatest threat to stability in Iraq remains sectarian violence - the civil war between Sunni and Shia Arabs. Absent a solution to that crisis, there is little hope that the current government will survive, and the country will likely plunge into anarchical chaos.
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WATCH VIDEO
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the all-time leading scorer in the NBA, endorsed Sen. Barack Obama on Friday's Hardball with Chris Matthews.
"I think Sen. Obama is a very good choice," Abdul-Jabbar said. "I was very impressed [with] his knowledge of the issues and the fact that throughout his lifetime he has been a consensus builder and someone who can build bridges to different segments of America society. I think that's something we need at this point."
Is America ready for an African-American president? Abdul-Jabbar said it was time to "test the water."
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On Thursday's Hardball, Sen. Joe Biden defended describing Sen. Barack Obama as "the first mainstream African-American who’s articulate, bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."
"I wasn’t making a historical statement," Biden said on Hardball. "I was trying to compliment a colleague."
The Rev Al Sharpton responded to Biden's statements on Hardball. WATCH VIDEO
To read the full transcript of Chris Matthews' interview with Biden....
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