Just take a look at the resolutions passed by Congress: HJ Res. 114 -- SJ Res. 45

In summary Congress finds that:

• Iraq sponsors international terrorism
• Iraq harbors terrorists
• There is a "high risk" that Iraq is planning a "surprise attack"
• against the United States
• Any non-Iraqi terrorists are hereby declared to be Iraqi surrogates
• The invasion of Iraq is, therefore, hereby found to be
• (i) "defensive" and (ii) just part of the "war on terrorism" anyway
• Furthermore, the Congress hereby declares that George W. Bush has
• full Constitutional authority to do whatever he pleases, militarily,
• just as long as he claims he's doing it for "national security"
• reasons.
• Pursuant to this, "national security" is hereby defined to include
• the pursuit (by military force and invasion) of "international peace
• and security", and such interests will now include the
• entire "Persian Gulf region."

Notice that this states THE ENTIRE PERSIAN GULF REGION. Yes, that is the authority Bush has been given. He has been authorized to declare war as he sees fit against any country in the Persian Gulf region.

Is it just me, or do the resolutions say nothing of the sort about declaring war against "any country in the Persian Gulf region."  Am I missing some subtle wording? 

The Senate resolution is a bit vague, although it still refers to the "threat posed by Iraq":

SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES

ARMED FORCES.

The President is authorized to use all means that he
determines to be appropriate, including force, in order to
enforce the United Nations Security Council Resolutions
referenced above, defend the national security interests of
the United States against the threat posed by Iraq, and
restore international peace and security in the region.

But the House resolution has no such vague wording.

The point that open season is being declared on the whole Persian Gulf is highlighted, when in fact no such evidence exists.  The quoted phrase, "Persian Gulf region" is only used in reference to the fact that Iraq poses a threat to it.

What am I missing?  Or is Rebecca Knight (and some others I've seen making the same assertion) just making stuff up?

[note, I edited to clarify what I meant by 'any country']

"For some reason, Richard Clarke continues to believe that he can increase cybersecurity in this country by asking nicely. This government has tried this sort of thing again and again, and it never works. This National Strategy document isn't law, and it doesn't contain any mandates to government agencies. It has lots of recommendations. It has all sorts of processes. It has yet another list of suggested best practices. It's simply another document in my increasingly tall pile of recommendations to make everything better. (The Clinton Administration had theirs, the "National Plan for Information Systems Protection." And both the GAO and the OMB have published cyber-strategy documents.) But plans, no matter how detailed and how accurate they are, don't secure anything; action does.

And consensus doesn't secure anything. Preliminary drafts of the plan included strong words about wireless insecurity, which were removed because the wireless industry didn't want to look bad for not doing anything about it. Preliminary drafts included a suggestion that ISPs provide all their users with personal firewalls; that was taken out because ISPs didn't want to look bad for not already doing something like that.

And so on. This is what you get with a PR document. You get lots of varying input from all sorts of special interests, and you end up with a document that offends no one because it demands nothing.

The worst part of it is that some of the people involved in writing the document were high-powered, sincere security practitioners. It must have been a hard wake-up call for them to learn how things work in Washington. You can tell that a lot of thought and effort went into this document, and the fact that it was gutted at the behest of special interests is shameful...but typical. "

From today's Crypto-Gram.  Bruce Schneier wasn't too impressed with Bush's Cybersecurity Plan.

"The :rarum series is a journey through revelatory moments in jazz history. This is the music the artists want you to hear, and they've written liner notes, too, to tell you why.... "

I've been a fan of the hard-to-classify, Munich-based record label, ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music), for many years now.  It was through ECM that I discovered Bill Frisell, one of my favorite guitarists.  In the 70's and early 80's, when jazz was being largely ignored by the mainstream recording industry, important artist's such as Keith Jarret, Dave Holland and Chick Corea found an outlet in ECM.

Earlier this year, ECM started to release a series of recordings under the name ":rarum"  Each recording is a sampler of some of a particular artist's favorite works on ECM.  The artist has complete editorial control over the contents and have written extensive liner notes, and included photo's from their own archives.

I just picked up the Rarum volumes from Keith Jarret and Bill Frisell and I'm amazed at the quality of both.  Amazing recordings, and a wide variety of selections from each artists stint with ECM.  The opening clavichord pieces (Book of Ways 18, 12 and 14) on the Keith Jarret album alone make it worthwhile.

If you have any interest in these performers, or are generally an admirer of the type of music ECM produces (and that topic alone is worthy of a small book), you should definately check out this series of albums.

• Rarum 1 - Keith Jarret
• Rarum 2 - Jan Garbarek
• Rarum 3 - Chick Corea
• Rarum 4 - Gary Burton
• Rarum 5 - Bill Frisell
• Rarum 6 - Art Ensemble of Chicago
• Rarum 7 - Terje Rypdal
• Rarum 8 - Bobo Stenson

These are the volumes currently available.  In addition, the following artists are working with ECM on their own Rarum volumes: Pat Metheny, Dave Holland, Egberto Gismonti, Paul Motian, Carla Bley, David Darling, John Surman, Tomasz Stanko, Eberhard Weber, and Arild Anderson

"My thesis is that how well we come through the era of globalization (perhaps whether we come through it at all) will depend on how we respond ethically to the idea that we live in one world. For the rich nations not to take a global ethical viewpoint has long been seriously morally wrong. Now it is also, in the long term, a danger to their security."

A great article in the Chronicle of Higher Education on the responsibilities that come with reaping the benefits of globalization.  I found this article in a thread on Plastic.  The thread contains several other interesting articles on globalization and an American empire.  Not too many comments in the thread yet, but that will hopefully change as the day passes.

"I hope it all goes down the crapper. I would never take another deal in the record business, which means I may not record again, or I have to figure out a way to sell over the Net or do something else. But I'll be damned if I'll line their pockets."

Joni Mitchell on the music biz.

[via BlogCritics]