December 2004

The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, one of the various US agencies involved in policing sanctions, terrorist finance and dirty money, is being sued by the US committee of PEN and a variety of academic organisations over regulations that (they claim) prevent books originating in countries the US maintains sanctions on being published…

Well, with almost uncanny relevance to the logistics issue I mentioned in the last Viktor Bout post, the New York Times’ Eric Schmitt reports that the US forces in Iraq have increased their demand for airlift by some 29% in the last month as security on the roads slips away. “Responding to the threat of…

Nominate ME for a 2004 Koufax Award. You know it makes sense.

The BNP’s leaders, John Tyndall and Nick Griffin, have been arrested and charged with “incitement to commit racial hatred”. I always thought that was what they were for.

What happens when something reaches critical mass? I’ll tell you – a huge ball of really hot radioactive stuff spreads out in all directions in instants. That’s roughly what’s happened since earlier this morning with The Story. The LA Times has an impressive story giving quite a lot of detail on the whole thing. Apparently,…

Newsweek has blasted the Viktor Bout scandal wide open, at long last. Key message: “In an effort to crack down on one of the world’s most notorious international criminals, President George W. Bush last summer signed an order barring U.S. citizens from doing business with Russian arms trafficker Victor Bout. But not long afterward, U.S.…

Newsweek reports on Bernard Kerik’s time in Iraq. Apparently he preferred going out on night raids after the “bad guys” with other officials’ South African bodyguards to working with the Iraqis. That throws a little light on how he became known as the Terminator of Baghdad, I suppose. No wonder Doug Brand had to beg…

In distant Afghanistan, meanwhile, the US Central Command has launched another offensive, this time entitled Operation LIGHTNING FREEDOM (Link). Phil Carter of Intel Dump reports on the strategic orientation of this new push, specifically that it doesn’t seem to be focused on “The Hunt for Bin Laden” but more on an effort to secure more…

Whether it was the nanny, the money, the dodgy behaviour in Saudi, or the common or garden failure in Iraq, Bernard “Political Criticism is the enemy’s best friend” Kerik is not going to be Homeland Security Secretary. Ha.

Meanwhile in Vienna, more details are out about the poisoning of Yushchenko. It is reported (German language) according to the doctors that he had something like a thousand times the normal level of the stuff in his flesh, which implied an original dose of something under a gram. Damage to his intestines suggested that the…