Chrysler - Traded like an old mule.

Who do you know that has the cash to buy a car company? Someone who needs instant brand recognition and an entry in the US auto market?

Daimler Chrysler Confirms Chrysler Talks

By MATT MOORE, AP Business Writer

BERLIN - DaimlerChrysler AG is confident a turnaround program at its Chrysler unit will return the beleaguered American brand to profitability, but Chairman Dieter Zetsche said Wednesday the automaker is in talks with unidentified potential buyers.

"As announced on Feb. 14, we are open to all options for future collaboration with Chrysler," he told some 9,000 shareholders crammed inside Berlin's exhibition center. "The statement is still true today."

He said that the talks have been with "potential partners who have shown a clear interest" and "so far, I am satisfied with the process. Everything is going according to plan."

He would not elaborate on who was involved in the talks.

Zetsche stunned the automotive world on Feb. 14 when he said that continued losses and fierce competition in the United States meant that the German-American automaker was considering all options for its Chrysler unit, and did not rule out a possible sale, saying only that all options were being considered.

He did not disclose whether any decision to sell Chrysler had been made or if the company was any closer to a solution. Still, he did say a recovery plan that will cut 13,000 jobs in the U.S. and Canada was moving forward.

The Chrysler unit lost $1.5 billion in 2006.

"The crucial factor was the unforeseeable shift in demand to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles which was triggered by increased gas prices in the U.S.," Zetsche said. He noted that Chrysler's strengths have been minivans, pickups and sport utility vehicles, autos not known for their fuel efficiency. Read the rest.

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Poor 'ol Chrysler. Always a distant third except on the street or track. It was back in the early seventies that Lee Iacocca brought them back from near death. The era of American muscle cars was over and a long period of darkness was descending on Detroit. Chrysler was in financial trouble and its new CEO, with nowhere else to turn, had to go hat in hand to Congress and beg for the money to keep the company afloat. The problem then as now, was soaring fuel prices. The entire country debated whether it was appropriate for the Government to get involved in the largest bailout in US history but Mr. Iacocca convinced Congress to loan him the money necessary to return the company to the black. He paid off the loan early and then lead the nations efforts to refurbish the Statue of Liberty in time for the July 4, 1976 celebration. Mr. Iacocca made a lot of money for himself and became the iconic American success story.

I wish Chrysler well. It's unfortunate that the company is being traded around like this especially in light of the fact that they made the minivan ubiquitous.

British Rules of Engagement.

GWOT and Newspeak

Words mean things, words are important, and when words we have grown used to using over the years are quietly replaced, or disappear altogether, one should put an ear to the rail to find out what exactly is coming down the tracks.

Take the GWOT for example.

The Global War on Terror is ending. Not on the battlefields of Iraq or Afghanistan (at least not yet) mind you, but in the 2008 Defense Budget:

The House Armed Services Committee is banishing the global war on terror
from the 2008 defense budget. This is not because the war has been won, lost or
even called off, but because the committee’s Democratic leadership doesn’t like
the phrase. A memo for the committee staff, circulated March 27, says the 2008
bill and its accompanying explanatory report that will set defense policy should
be specific about military operations and “avoid using colloquialisms.”

Committee aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said dropping or
reducing references to the global war on terror could have many purposes,
including an effort to be more precise about military operations, but also has a
political element involving a disagreement over whether the war in Iraq is part
of the effort to combat terrorism or is actually a distraction from fighting
terrorists.

The United States' overarching strategy in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks is a topic worthy of vigorous debate. Many would argue that the U.S. squandered opportunities to utterly dismantle virulent terror networks when it turned its focus on Saddam Hussein's Iraq. However, the United States, primarily via the Bush administration, has never shied away from defining what this war is all about, as is evident from last year's National Security Strategy:

From the beginning, the War on Terror has been both a battle of arms and a
battle of ideas – a fight against the terrorists and against their murderous
ideology. In the short run, the fight involves using military force and other
instruments of national power to kill or capture the terrorists, deny them safe
haven or control of any nation; prevent them from gaining access to WMD; and cut
off their sources of support. In the long run, winning the war on terror means
winning the battle of ideas, for it is ideas that can turn the disenchanted into
murderers willing to kill innocent victims.

While President Bush may have erred thus far in the fight against global terrorism, his administration did a service in defining what the war is, and by creating an analog construct along the lines of the Cold War, so that successive administrations can comprehend the threat, protect society from it, and act to diminish it over time.

Liberals and conservatives, hawks and doves, disagreed often about how to fight this new, disparate, nebulous war of ideas, networks, bombs, beheadings, websites and fatwas; but now they cannot agree that there even is a war, and that the various actions being taken around the globe, even at this very moment, are part of a unified campaign.

One can argue that the drastic actions taken in what (at least for now) we call the GWOT (ie the establishment of the Guantanamo prison system, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan before that, the increased surveillance, the deployment of forces around the globe, et al) represented an increase in aggressive behavior and served to curtail civil liberrties at home to a level heretofore unknown in our liberal society (although those who lived through or studied the histories of past American conflicts would likely argue against this train of thought); but the banishment of terminology from documents, legislation, and eventually, common everyday reference, is hardly an admirable pursuit. Winston Smith, in the dystopian Nineteen Eighty-Four, would likely have referred to those in a hurry to rush descriptive language out of the lexicon as goodthinkers.

Before he learned to love Big Brother, that is.

British hostages freed.

The Iranians let them go. The Iranians squeezed the propaganda lemon dry. The news conference showed the Brits smiling in nice suits, bowing and chatting with their Iranian captors. They looked more like a visiting football team than British captives being returned.

The Iranians played it smartly. The Iranians won a real propaganda victory.

Things are not always as they seem. We need to wait for some answers. I find it hard to understand the hows and whys, but will listen with an open mind.

British hostages to be freed. Ahmadinejad kicks the ball down the road.

Iran 'to release British sailors'

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says 15 British naval personnel captured in the Gulf will be freed.
He repeated allegations that the British sailors and marines "invaded" Iranian waters, but said they would be freed as a "gift" to Britain.

He made the announcement at a news conference, in which he also awarded medals to the commanders who captured the British personnel in the Gulf.

Britain says the 15 were in Iraqi waters under a UN mandate.

Mr Ahmadinejad also criticised the US-led invasion of Iraq and Israel's war in Lebanon.

He used a news conference marking the Persian New Year to condemn the countries he said were behind "misery" and "destruction" in the world.

He said there did not appear to be anyone "to stand up and defend the rights of those oppressed".

He opened the news conference with references to the Islamic holy book, the Koran, then made a wide-ranging speech about the modern history of the Middle East, while attacking the West.

The invasion of Iraq was based on the false premise that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, he said, but even now "the occupation forces continue to stay there and people are still being killed".

Sky News has an interesting interactive chart of the power bases in Iran.

Speaker 'Paulosi' on the road to Damascus.

George Bush will have his hands full with Speaker Pelosi for the rest of his term. If this trip goes well for her, the Democrats are going to seize the agenda on foreign policy. Nature abhors a vacuum.

"The road to solving Lebanon's problems passes through Damascus" Pelosi vows US 'will not bargain over Lebanon'

Daily Star staff
Wednesday, April 04, 2007

BEIRUT: US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Lebanese leaders on Monday that her country "will not bargain over Lebanon," adding that the US was "totally aware" of the situation in Lebanon. Local daily An-Nahar quoted Pelosi on Monday as saying that her visit to Damascus the next day "ought not to be considered as meaning a change in US policy concerning Lebanon."

American Democrats and the Republicans hold "the same stands concerning Lebanon, especially with regard to aids allotted to the Lebanese Army that were ratified by the US Congress," she said.

Sources close to Pelosi told An-Nahar that the speaker will inform Syria that Democrats support the establishment of an international court to try suspects in the February 2005 murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, in addition the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the summer 2006 war with Israel.

Pelosi said that she will tell Syria that America is "keen on preserving" Lebanese unity, but opposed to "any kind of foreign interference in Lebanese domestic issues."

told reporters after meeting with parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri on Monday.

Her visit to Syria does not fall within the framework of "illusions," but rather of "great hope," she said on Monday.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb


An-Nahar said that the minutes of Pelosi's meetings in Lebanon on Monday revealed that none of the figures with which the American official met expressed opposition to "the full implementation of Resolution 1701."

"However, Pelosi was able to sense the huge discrepancy in opinions concerning the make-up of the tribunal, even if both loyalist and opposition groups encouraged its [tribunal] formation," the sources said.

The sources added that Pelosi noticed that while Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri was "excited" about re-launching one-on-one talks with Hariri, Hariri "showed reluctance" regarding a resumption of negotiations for a solution to the crisis because of the continued refusal by Berri to convene a parliamentary session.

An-Nahar noted that US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman did not attend any of Pelosi's meetings on Monday, adding that he had left Lebanon on Saturday "for unknown reasons."

The US Embassy "did not divulge any information about Pelosi's visit to Lebanon, where it previously used to provide biographies and press releases following the visit of any US officials to Beirut," the paper said. - The Daily Star

My summer vacation

Sorry Independent, there was a botched raid, but under Jimmy Carter.

The Independent thinks they got it solved. American ineptitude in a botched raid and snatch of Iranian spies. Yea, yea, yea. Truth be told, it makes little difference at this time. Britain under the pusillanimous leadership of Tony Blair is prepared to sacrifice vulgar national interests to sentimentality. But before we fall into the Iranian trap of having a go at Blair and the British, we need to give the real credit to the most deserving. There was a botched US raid, but it was under the botched presidency of the very botched Jimmy Carter. The Iranians won that round and they seem to be doing all right again.

A very smug Iranian, Mr Larijani

This being reported in the Telegraph One of Iran's most senior politicians offered new hope for the swift release of 15 captured British sailors and marines, saying direct negotiations were underway and that the situation was "quite resolvable".

Tony Blair has responded by saying that the next two days will be "fairly critical" for diplomats in a Scottish radio broadcast this morning.

During an interview on Channel 4 News last night, Ali Larijani, chief of the Iranian National Security Council, indicated the fourteen men and one woman would not face a show trial.

And today, Iranian radio cited Mr Larijani saying that the British Government has started diplomatic talks with the foreign ministry in Teheran in order to "resolve the issue of the arrest of the British military personnel."

He suggested that Britain would need to send a diplomatic delegation to Teheran, admit that its Navy had made a mistake by straying into Iranian waters and guarantee that the error would not be repeated.

The Prime Minister said the remarks seemed to offer "some prospect but the most important thing is to get these people back."

No, Mr. Blair that is not the most important thing. Too bad the British have a Jimmy Carter for a PM, but they do and that is there choice.

Just to remind you:

AMERICA CAN'T DO A THING'
by Amir Taheri
New York Post
November 2, 2004

November 2, 2004 -- AMERICANS will certainly have 9/11 in mind when they vote today. But they should keep another date in mind, too — one almost exactly a quarter-century ago: Nov. 4, 1979. A clear path runs to 9/11 from the day of the raid on the U.S. embassy in Tehran and the seizure of American hostages.

The 1979 embassy attack came at a time when the administration of President Jimmy Carter was trying to prop up the new Khomeinist regime in Tehran.

Carter had decided to support Khomeini in the context of the so-called "Green Belt" strategy developed by National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. That strategy was based on the assumption that the United States and its allies were unable to contain the Soviet Union, then expanding its zone of influence into Africa, the Indian Ocean region and, through left-leaning regimes, in Latin America. To counter that expanding threat, Brzezinski envisaged the creation of a string of Islamic allies that, for religious and political reasons, would prefer the United States against the "godless" Soviet empire.

The second stage in Brzezinski's grand strategy was to incite the Muslim peoples of the Soviet Union to revolt against Moscow and thus frustrate its global schemes.

The Bzrezinski strategy had been partly inspired by Helene Carrere d'Encausse, who, in her book "The Fragmented Empire," predicted the disintegration of the Soviet Union as a result of revolts by Muslim minorities.

When the Islamic revolution started in Iran, the Carter administration saw it as the confirmation of its assumption that only Islamists could muster enough popular support to provide an alternative to both the existing regime and the pro-Soviet leftist movements.

The Carter administration went out of its way to support the new regime in Tehran. A ban imposed on the sale of arms and materiel to Iran, imposed in 1978, was lifted, and a 1954 presidential "finding" by Dwight Eisenhower was dusted off to reaffirm Washington's commitment to defending Iran against Soviet or other threats.

Also to symbolize support for the mullahs, President Carter initially rejected a visa application for the exiled shah to travel to New York for medical treatment.

Just weeks after the mullahs' regime was formed, Brzezinski traveled to Morocco to meet Mehdi Bazargan, Ayatollah Khomeini's first prime minister. At the meeting, Brzezinski invited the new Iranian regime to enter into a strategic partnership with the United States. Bazargan, concerned that the Iranian left might bid for power against the still wobbly regime of the mullahs, was "ecstatic" about the American offer.

The embassy raid came just days after the Brzezinski-Bazargan meeting in Morocco and, by all accounts, took Khomeini by surprise. It is now clear that leftist groups opposed to rapprochement with the United States had inspired the raid.

Khomeini saw it as a leftist ploy to undermine his authority. He was also concerned about the possibility of the United States taking strong military and political action against his still fragile regime.

Deciding to hedge his bets, the ayatollah played a double game for several days, waiting to gauge the American reaction.

According to his late son Ahmad, who had been asked to coordinate with the embassy-raiders, the ayatollah feared "thunder and lightning" from Washington. But what came, instead, was a series of bland statements by Carter and his aides pleading for the release of the hostages on humanitarian grounds.

Carter's envoy to the United Nations, a certain Andrew Young, described Khomeini as "a 20th-century saint," and begged the ayatollah to show "magnanimity and compassion."

Carter went further by sending a letter to Khomeini.

Written in longhand, it was an appeal from "one believer to a man of God."

Carter's syrupy prose must have amused Khomeini, who preferred a minimalist style with such phrases as "we shall cut off America's hands."

As days passed, with the U.S. diplomats paraded in front of TV cameras blindfolded and threatened with execution, it became increasingly clear that there would be no "thunder and lightning" from Washington. By the end of the first week of the drama (which was to last for 444 days, ending as Ronald Reagan entered the White House), Khomeini's view of America had changed.

Ahmad Khomeini's memoirs echo the surprise that his father, the ayatollah, showed, as the Carter administration behaved "like a headless chicken."

What especially surprised Khomeini was that Cater and his aides, notably Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, rather than condemning the seizure and the treatment of the hostages as a barbarous act, appeared apologetic for unspecified mistakes supposedly committed by the United States and asked for forgiveness and magnanimity.

Once he had concluded that America would not take any meaningful action against his regime, Khomeini took over control of the hostage enterprise and used it to prop up his "anti-imperialist" credentials while outflanking the left.

The surprising show of weakness from Washington also encouraged the mullahs and the hostage-holders to come up with a fresh demand each day. Started as a revolutionary gesture, the episode soon led to a demand for the United States to capture and hand over the shah for trial. When signals came that Washington might actually consider doing so, other demands were advanced. The United States was asked to apologize to Muslim peoples everywhere and, in effect, change its foreign policy to please the ayatollah.

Matters worsened when a military mission to rescue the hostages ended in tragedy in the Iranian desert. The force dispatched by Carter fled under the cover of night, leaving behind the charred bodies of eight of their comrades.

In his memoirs, Ahmad nicely captures the mood of his father, who had expected the Americans to do "something serious," such as threatening to block Iran's oil exports or even firing a few missiles at the ayatollah's neighborhood.

But not only did none of that happen, the Carter administration was plunged into internal feuds as Vance resigned in protest of the rescue attempt.

It was then that Khomeini coined his notorious phrase, "America cannot do a damn thing."

He also ordered that the slogan "Death to America" be inscribed in all official buildings and vehicles. The U.S. flag was to be painted at the entrance of airports, railway stations, ministries, factories, schools, hotels and bazaars so that the faithful could trample it under their feet every day.

The slogan "America cannot do a damn thing" became the basis of all strategies worked out by Islamist militant groups, including those opposed to Khomeini.

That slogan was tested and proved right for almost a quarter of a century. Between Nov. 4, 1979, and 9/11, a total of 671 Americans were held hostage for varying lengths of time in several Muslim countries. Nearly 1,000 Americans were killed, including 241 Marines blown up while sleeping in Beirut in 1983.

For 22 years the United States, under presidents from both parties, behaved in exactly the way that Khomeini predicted. It took countless successive blows, including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, without decisive retaliation. That attitude invited, indeed encouraged, more attacks.

The 9/11 tragedy was the denouement of the Nov. 4 attack on the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

E-mail: amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com