Is turnabout fair play? I mean it seems only fair if the Vice President can put forward logical fallacies to justify his warrant-less domestic spying that the public should resort to the same, right? Consider that in January of last year Cheney argued “Either we are serious about fighting this war on terror or we are not.”

Cheney said the surveillance program had addressed a concern of the 9/11 Commission that the government had difficulty linking the activities of domestic and international terrorists.

“It’s hard to think of any category of information that could be more important to the safety of the United States than international communication, one end of which we have reason to believe is related to al Qaeda,” Cheney said.

Serious about fighting a war on terror or not? False choice, Mr. Vice President, as you can be serious about fighting terrorism without losing your respect for the Constitution, let alone abandoning the concept of freedom from unwarranted surveillance.

And that’s not to mention that technically in early 2001 the French and German intelligence communities were telling the US that they needed to act upon information tout suite, but it was Cheney and Bush who were dismissive. The failure was in the executive, and not in international communication. Instead of owning up to their catastrophic gaffe of leadership, which in hindsight fits quite naturally as the first of many failures in the Bush administration to listen and heed warnings, they instead applied a reversal of logic and began using 9/11 as a prop for their consolidation of power. I guess you could say Cheney has found no flaw in “the floggings will continue until morale improves” line of reasoning.

This January, in what looks to become an annual affair, Cheney has again taken up the battle against American freedom and democracy by re-issuing his push for a Generalissimo doctrine, according to the NYT and Chicago Tribune:

The letters permit the executive branch to seek records about people in terrorism and spy investigations without a judge’s approval or grand jury subpoena.

“The Defense Department gets involved because we’ve got hundreds of bases inside the United States that are potential terrorist targets,” Cheney said on “Fox News Sunday.”

The Tribune calls it “defends Pentagon spying” but they might as well have titled it “attacks Constitution” or “throws punch at Congress and the American people”. It appears Cheney is still so intent on consolidating power into an absolute-executive, he’s even backing a program to replace the intelligence community with another one (e.g. military liaison elements, or MLEs) run by the President.

“They’re pretty freewheeling,” the former CIA official said of the military teams. It was not uncommon, he said, for CIA station chiefs to learn of military intelligence operations only after they were under way, and that many conflicted with existing operations being carried out by the CIA or the foreign country’s intelligence service.

Such problems “really are quite costly,” said John Brennan, who was director of the National Counterterrorism Center before retiring from government last year. “It can cost peoples’ lives, can cost sensitive programs and can set back foreign-policy interests.”

So in the words and rhetorical style of the Vice President himself, either we are serious about fighting for America, or we’re for Cheney (e.g. unquestioned authority of the executive), because the Vice President has shown we just can’t be both, sorry.

PBS has a brief but robust description of the history of The Syndicate in America. The story is mainly in regard to the establishment of Las Vegas casinos but it also touches on its role in influencing and working with law enforcement and intelligence agencies:

The Office of Strategic Services (later, the CIA) in fact employed the Syndicate in some covert operations. During World War II, the Syndicate helped with the invasion of Sicily and in protecting the Eastern waterfront against German sabotage. Some of the Syndicate’s major drug traffickers were used as informants and assassins in the Cold War. As one White House official described the government’s relationship with Lansky, “The government turned to him because hiring thugs was what government and business had been doing for a long time to control workers, and because it could conceive little other choice in the system at hand.”

Reuters reports that the island of Grand Comore is in danger of volcanic activity:

In the capital Moroni, thousands slept outside overnight and national radio broadcast appeals for calm and readings from the Koran across the mainly Muslim island.

“When I felt the tremor, I woke my wife and we stayed in the garden,” said resident Abderemane Koudre. “We thought the house was going to collapse. It was frightening.”

In 1903, 17 died from noxious fumes that seeped from cracks, and the last big eruption was in April 2005 when thousands fled in fear of poisonous gas and lava.

Poisonous cracks of noxious fumes? Strange not to hear discussion of masks or filters for every family, since that’s always the talk when WMDs are involved. The article mentions running away, but is that really an option for remote and small islands with few roads?

Photo by me…near Itsandra

Speaking of alerts, the AlertNet adds a much more urgent and realistic tone to news about Mount Karthala, one of the world’s largest active volcanoes:

“My neighbour woke me at two o’clock in the morning and we saw the red glimmer in the sky,” said resident Halima Ahamada.

“A strong smell of burning earth took us by the throats.”

Colonel Ismael Daho, head of the emergency management team for the archipelago, said Grande Comore had been put on red alert.

“We have put all military and interior security forces on alert, in case the population is evacuated,” he said.

In May, the volcano frightened thousands of residents when it bubbled lava and lit up the night sky, but later stabilised.