It is increasingly apparent that the Bush administration is riven by a divide between the State Department and CIA on one hand, which still cling to some semblance of traditional notions of state legitimacy, and Cheney and the Pentagon on the other, who have completely swallowed the neocon agenda of "American exceptionalism" and believe in a brave new statecraft that is above all rules. From the NY Times Nov. 2:

More than three years after President George W. Bush determined that the Geneva conventions did not apply to the fight against terrorism, his administration is embroiled in a sharp internal debate over whether to adopt language from those accords as a basic guide for the military's treatment of terrorist suspects, administration officials said.

The immediate dispute centers on whether a Pentagon directive that will establish minimum standards for the treatment of captured enemy combatants should be based on an article of the conventions that prohibits treatment that is "cruel," "humiliating" or "degrading."

What we gringos call the "Valerie Plame scandal" is in Italy being called "Nigergate," and Berlusconi's government is doing somersaults to dis-associate itself with the sleazy episode of forged documents that helped embroil the Italians in Bush's war. From the Italian news agency AGI Nov. 3:

"The Italian government and SISMI have denied any involvement in the creation of the dossier intended to show how Iraq was in possession of materials in order to build arms of mass destruction" claims Enzo Bianco, president of the Parliamentary Committee for the Control of the Secret Services, at the end of a hearing that lasted five hours involving the under secretary Gianni Letta and SISMI director Nicolo Pollari, dedicated to Nigergate. In substance, it emerged from the hearing that Sismi is completely unconnected to the dossier put together by Rocco Martin, an ex-service worker. During the course of the hearing Pollari recalled however that there was proof that pointed to the export of uranium from Niger at the end of the 'nineties. It was also Pollari who emphasised how, before the war, SISMI had said that Iraq would not be in a position to arm itself with nuclear weapons in the short to medium term. Going on to speak about the dossier, the SISMI head referred to having been in contact with other secret services but did not speak of the fake dossier.

Well, the suicide minivan atttack on the Shi'ite town of Musayyib Nov. 2 that killed 20 and injured 60 (AP, Nov. 3) failed to rate even a mention on the front page of the next day's NY Times. It was only referenced deep on page 12—albeit in a story that jumped from the first page on the Iraqi regime's overture to the purged junior officers of Saddam's army to return to posts in the reconstituted military. (NYT, Nov. 3) Particularly perverse is that these bloody atttacks are continuing through Eid ul-Fitr, the holy day marking the end of Ramadan. Remember how aghast all us lefties—including this blog—were that the US continued to bomb Afghanistan through Ramadan in 2001? Well, we have no regrets at our protests—but we are also appalled that the poorly-named "anti-war" movement has no outrage to spare for these atrocities, and that certain segments of the idiot left continue to act as if al-Qaeda were the Viet Cong. See our last post on Iraq.

By the way, a week later we're still trying to figure out what this was all about, and we note with trepidation that there have been no follow-up stories. WW4 Report's chief blogger became aware of the smell at around 7.30 PM Oct. 28 on Whitehall Street in the Financial District. It was still evident, although fainter, upon arriving by bicycle in the Lower East Side, some two miles uptown. The immediate association for this observer was butterscotch. Is it just us, or does anyone else think it might have been a clandestine test of a dispersal agent to simulate bio-chemical attack, such as have been held (overtly) in the city in recent weeks? Or, ominously, an actual attack with some kind of slow-acting bio-chem agent? From the NY Times, Oct. 29:

Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev defends his use of force to put down unrest in the country's prisons, which cost four lives on Nov. 1. "Police did the right thing when they demanded that suspects and other inmates leave the prison for interrogations," said Bakiev. "[The inmates] refused to come out. [Law-enforcement officers] approached them to meet and they [the convicts] started shooting. Should they have been presented bagels in response?" (BBC, Nov. 2)

Well, the White House already appears to be at war with the CIA. Is the Energy Department next? The latest doom-and-gloom predictions on global climate change are coming from Livermore Labs, Ed Teller's old stomping grounds... Not exactly Greenpeace... From Science-a-Go-Go:

Two new studies released this week paint a gloomy picture of a planet changed beyond recognition by the impact of climate change. The first study, from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, looked at the likely outcomes if fossil fuels continue to be used as they are now until depleted. Using a coupled climate and carbon cycle model to look at global climate and carbon cycle changes, the researchers found that the earth would warm by an average of 8 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) by the year 2300. The big increase in temperatures would cause the disappearance of the polar ice caps and sea levels would rise by around 7 meters (22 feet).

Ethiopian police have killed at least 40 since protests erupted Nov. 1 over disputed parliamentary elections in Addis Ababa, the capital. Violence continues as protests are now spreading to other cities, including Dessie, Gondar, Bahar Dar, Arba Minch, Awassa, Dire Dawa—all opposition strongholds. The vote gave Prime Minister Zenawi Meles' Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front control of nearly two-thirds of parliament. Opposition parties say the election and vote count were marred by fraud, intimidation and violence, and they accused the ruling party of rigging the elections. (AP, Nov. 4)

Simultaneously, as if by chance, renewed border tensions with Eritrea. Also note Eritrea's claim (mirroring that of Niger a few weeks back) that the UN is using claims of a "humanitarian crisis" in the country as a cover to undermine its sovereignty. From IRIN Nov. 3, via AllAfrica.com:

As unrest in the Muslim immigrant suburbs of Paris enters its ninth night, violence appears to be spreading to other towns such as Dijon, Marseille and Normandy, and into the capital itself. Trouble has now been reported from almost 90 towns around the capital, more than twice as many as the previous night, according to police. France's notoriously hardline Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy is now seeing conspiracies. "What we have been witnessing ... has nothing spontaneous about it. It was perfectly organized. We are trying to find out by who and how," he said. (The Hindu, Nov. 5)