Readings

Not a bad idea: Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer as Obama VP pick.

Obama gives Lieberman a talking-to.

Obama and McCain working together on a "good governance" bill.

The Senate Intel committee's report Phase II essentially calls the Bush administration liars on pre-war Iraq. Meanwhile, Iranian agents led the administration into war.

Crucial read: Patrick Cockburn on the secret plan to keep Iraq under US control. James Wolcott comments on the Cockburn article:

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in November.

The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to this reporter, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which U.S. troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law [my emphasis], will destabilize Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the U.S. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated.

It's all about him, him and that imaginary friend known as his "legacy." In his mind, he liberated Iraq, but true liberation requires submission to the guarantors of that liberation, who don't plan on leaving anytime soon; like, ever. And a little gratitude wouldn't be amiss either from those fortunate enough not to have been killed during the last five years. For all the talk of democracy, such a deal would reduce Iraq to a client state subject to the long reach of the Unitary Executive and its gun barrel. Cockburn: "Washington also wants control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000 feet and the right to pursue its 'war on terror' in Iraq, giving it the authority to arrest anybody it wants and to launch military campaigns without consultation."

Let's call it something else: the Iraq War as murder. And "Shock and Awe" as state-sponsored and citizen-accepted terrorism. Jonathan Schwarz calls out the criminality of US leverage over the Iraqis.

Billions wasted in carbon offset fund. And CDM corruption.

Elsewhere, Croatia riles Czech tourists with food ban.

BLDGBLOG on the architecture of disaster.

[Image: Shuhei Endo's "tennis dome/emergency center" (left), photographed by Kenichi Amano,
next to the New Orleans Superdome, post-Katrina].