Bush and Cheney Must be Impeached Before More Die

Monday, February 26. 2007
In the Public Interest

Asymmetrical Warfare in Iraq

Ralph Nader

The invasion-occupation of Iraq has been described as a classic case of asymmetrical warfare. Unable to begin to match the modern land, aerial and sea weaponry of the United States, the insurgents are fighting back with roadside IEDs, rifles and grenades to sow chaos, death and destruction. Many of these attacks have been in civilian marketplaces. The casualties show the inability, or unwillingness, of the U.S. to keep the peace and protect civilians, as required, by the way, under international law. The carnage, in turn, is supposed to generate more resistance to the U.S. occupation by the people of Iraq.

The idea behind asymmetrical attacks is not to directly engage U.S. forces because that truly would be a series of suicide missions. Almost four years into the occupation, an ominous new phase is revealing itself from the insurgents. They are concentrating on bringing down U.S. helicopters – eight since January 20th, more than in all of 2006. Military strategists say they are not surprised. The New York Times reports that “the attackers used a variety of weapons, including shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and unguided rockets that cannot be diverted by the flares helicopters disperse to fool heat-seeking missiles.”

Now comes the move to chemical attacks – namely chlorine that is used to decontaminate drinking water. Historically, armies fought with physics, chemistry and, less frequently, biology. Moving toward chemistry, the insurgents are opening up the possibility of megadisasters that are very difficult to stop. Again, reports The Times, “the attacks seem to have been poorly executed, burning the chemical agent rather than dispersing it, but more sophisticated weapons involving chlorine could injure hundreds and cause mass panic.” Make that thousands. Sabotaging large tank cars with chlorine could generate a deadly cloud that could cover and devastate life over numerous square miles.

Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, an American military spokesman, said “The enemy is adaptive. The enemy wants to win.”

Have you noticed how often the attackers escape with their weapons? How often their weapons caches are not located or their transfers are not interdicted. Welcome to asymmetrical warfare.

More than a few military and national security officials in the Bush regime have publicly stated that the U.S. military presence in Iraq is fueling the insurgency and providing a magnet, and training ground, for more violent people from inside Iraq and from other countries, including Al Qaeda, to learn the skills of sabotage and terror. These Bush advisors range from General Casey to former CIA director, Porter J. Goss and former anti-terrorist White House advisor to Bush, Richard Clark. These judgments are widespread. The muzzled U.S. Army opposed the invasion from the beginning.

Over two years ago, author David Halberstam compared the invasion of Iraq to smacking a beehive. Every month more and more beehives are being smacked and the stings are becoming more venomous.

With nearly 70 percent of the American people against this draining and bloody war, along with scores of prominent former high ranking military, diplomats and national security officials, why is Bush so stubborn, ignorant and intending to end his Administration on January 20, 2009 mired in the infamy of the Iraq quagmire? Madness, refusal to admit mistakes and wrongdoing, and the willingness to violate domestic laws and international treaties.

Hold Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney to the rule of the U.S. Constitution. Commence impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives. In the meantime, the public should demand their resignation. Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew resigned for far less “high crimes and misdemeanors.” What is at stake here is the global position of the U.S.A. and its own national security.

Nader: '08 Run Would Be "More Important" If "Panderer" Clinton Gets Nomination

Nader leaves '08 door open, slams Hillary

Sun Feb 4, 5:30 PM ET

Former presidential candidate Ralph Nader on Sunday left the door open for another possible White House bid in 2008 and criticized Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton as "a panderer and a flatterer."

Asked on CNN's Late Edition news program if he would run in 2008, the lawyer and consumer activist said, "It's really too early to say. ... I'll consider it later in the year."

Nader, 72, said he did not plan to vote for Clinton, a Democratic senator from New York and former first lady.

"I don't think she has the fortitude. Actually she's really a panderer and a flatterer. As she goes around the country, you'll see more of that," Nader said.

On whether he would be encouraged to run if Clinton gets the Democratic nomination, Nader said, "It would make it more important that that be the case."

He added that Clinton may face a challenge in her own state from wealthy Republican New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"I think her main problem may well be right in New York City, Michael Bloomberg. They're talking in the Bloomberg camp of a possible run. I'm saying he'll give more diversity, for sure, and he'll focus on urban problems. But I might say, he's got the money to do it," Nader said.

Democratic candidates Nader likes include former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, he said.

"These people have records, not just rhetoric," he said.

He also criticized focusing on campaign fund-raising to judge candidates' prospects. "The press and the polls are gravitating on cash-register politics ... who's going to raise the $100 (million) or $200 million, McCain or Obama or Hillary. That's very unhealthy. That's rancid politics," he said.

Nader ran for president as an independent in 2004 and as the Green Party candidate in 2000, when some Democrats said he siphoned away votes from former Democratic Vice President Al Gore, helping Republican George W. Bush to win.

Bubble Trouble

Friday, November 24. 2006

Real Estate Investment Trusts

By Ralph Nader


The torrid pace of risks and valuations reached a new level in the business known as Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Required by federal law to pass on most of their earnings to their shareholders, REIT shares have been going up and up for eight straight years, with this year clocking an unexpected 30% rise all by itself for commercial real estate

Judging by the absence of warnings from financial writers and columnists about soaring REIT stocks and the recent record prices paid by debt-loaded private-equity firms to buy publicly held REITs listed on the stock exchanges, the tempo is still bullish—full speed ahead!

That’s when you know that trouble with this bubble lies on the horizon. When it’s all bulls and no bears.

Twenty years ago, Felix Rohatyn, leading partner of Lazard Frères & Company, a major investment bank, told me he worries a lot about speculative excess on Wall Street. “The thing that strikes me in a lot of this is how little real professionals,” he said, “understand risk…. The leveraged buyout is a risk evaluation. People take a pedestrian company with 20 percent debt and 80 percent equity and they turn it into 80 percent debt and 20 percent equity, all of a sudden you have a terrific business. It doesn’t make any sense.”

It may not have made sense then, but for the first acquirers it usually made them a lot of dollars. Mr. Rohatyn saw “a massive and deeply institutionalized gap between those who risk and those who pay.”

I wonder what he thinks about gaps, risks and valuations now as he looks out of his Manhattan suite at New York’s real estate spiral. He could envision the following prudent behavior. That these commercial apartment and office buildings would be valued at about ten times their net annual earnings. Or he could observe what is really going on when these structures—individually or in clusters—change hands.

In recent days, private-equity companies are reported to be interested in buying public REITs that are trading between 30 and 55 times earnings. When the Blackstone Group paid about a ten percent premium to acquire Equity Office REIT—already selling at its high for the year—Equity Office’s largest shareholder, Cohen & Steers, thought the sales price at $48 was too low. C & S’s Jim Corl explained his appraisal by declaring the cost of buying all the properties in Equity Office’s portfolio would have been in the $60 range.

One New York City-based REIT saw its stock double in the past twelve months to $138 a share from a then record high. It is presently selling at 55 times earnings and yielding 1.7 percent. Like many other REITs, this one experienced a sharp share increase the day of the Blackstone acquisition news announcement that was seen by Wall Street as possibly signaling a takeover binge by these cash-loaded private-equity firms.

Now, to repeat, apartment and other commercial buildings are bought to make profit. Why would a buyer pay, not ten times the net annual income, but 30, 40, 50 or more times? The answers to that question would probe deeply into the ways complicated financial deals hand off that risk to other investors, tier the risk through instruments such as “toggle” bonds, and take advantage of accommodating tax breaks and low interest rates in a period of bulging capital surpluses looking for appreciating investments.

The Wall Street Journal’s Jennifer S. Forsyth was intrigued enough to interview Sam Zell, called the legendary Chicago-based real estate mogul who sold Equity Office to the Blackstone Group. Zell quickly told her that “this is the greatest period of monetization in the history of the world. That huge amount of liquidity that’s floating around is not something that would be absorbed in weeks. I think it will take more like six years.”

Ms. Forsyth asked why are so many REITs being taken private? Ever the booster, Mr. Zell replied that private investors are willing to work at higher risk-levels than the public markets which have fiduciary obligations to their shareholders and therefore have adopted “a philosophy of very conservative leverage.” Most public REITs pay between 3 and 7 percent dividends. These private investors are really seeking quick capital gains for the risk—a more risky adventure.

Now comes the key question. She asked, “You’ve said that the public markets undervalued your company. Why?”

Mr. Zell’s response: “Basically over the last few years, the analytical community was continually behind in their evaluations of office assets.” Whew!

The absence of any concern about excessive risk, any reference to the slowdown in the economy, any mention that the amount of space companies leased during the third quarter was significantly lower than the first half of 2006, any reference to continuing construction of new buildings, or most remarkable, the huge debt loads that are being incurred.

Mr. Zell has been around since the Sixties and has seen busts followed by booms in real estate. Yet he seems to see nothing scary on the horizon.

Tiers of debt always are scary, especially when Uncle Sam does not actively bail out real estate and its financiers. Millions of younger, middle-age and older adults find it scary because they are being driven out of cities due to unaffordable rents and condo prices. So too do small businesses find it scary having to close their stores when their leases expire because they can’t come close to paying the new rents.

Maybe the major question of them all is: Who is real estate for first? Real people or speculating financiers. Real people or corporations playing with bricks-and-mortars as if they were just a numbers game in a fast turnover bazaar.

Speak out, Mr. Rohatyn.

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