US_world06

World issues
2006
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This page includes materials on US relations with the world, with a special focus on Northeast Asia and, inevitably, the Middle East. And so Britain is brought into it. And sometimes I stray further afield, when something catches my eye. Prior to 2005 it was called 'US and the world'

Just Peace
Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand
The Green Party is the only party in NZ to oppose the invasion of Iraq consistently and clearly

2006

2005 and preceding

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NOVEMBER 2006

Relief Suffuses World Views of U.S. Vote
Most Welcome Return of Bipartisan Government; Russia, China Express Caution By Molly Moore and Peter Finn Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, November 10, 2006; Page A06
PARIS, Nov. 9 -- For Europe and much of the rest of the world, U.S. voters' repudiation of the Bush administration in midterm elections Tuesday and the dismissal of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Wednesday confirmed the widespread view that President Bush and his policies have done more to tarnish America's image abroad and strain its global relations than any other U.S. president in recent history.
Bolton May Not Return As U.N. Envoy
By Dafna Linzer Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, November 10, 2006; Page A03
Key lawmakers said yesterday they would block the nomination of John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, all but killing chances for him to remain in the post past December. For nearly 20 months, President Bush has tried, unsuccessfully, to get Bolton confirmed in a job he has held since August 2005. Bolton then received a recess appointment after not getting enough support in the Senate.
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee and its presumed chairman when the Democrats take control of the Senate in January, said yesterday that Bolton's nomination is "going nowhere." "I see no point in considering Mr. Bolton's nomination again in the Foreign Relations Committee because, regardless of what happens there, he is unlikely to be considered by the full Senate," Biden said in a statement.
Robert Gates, a Cautious Player From a Past Bush Team
By SCOTT SHANE Published: November 9, 2006 WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 - In choosing Robert M. Gates as his next defense secretary, President Bush reached back to an earlier era in Republican foreign policy, one marked more by caution and pragmatism than that of the neoconservatives who have shaped the Bush administration's war in Iraq and confrontations with Iran and North Korea.
Soft-spoken but tough-minded, Mr. Gates, 63, is in many ways the antithesis of Donald H. Rumsfeld, the brash leader he would replace. He has been privately critical of the administration's failure to execute its military and political plans for Iraq, and he has spent the last six months quietly debating new approaches to the war, as a member of the Iraq Study Group run by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton. Mr. Gates last served in Washington 13 years ago, and Mr. Bush made clear on Wednesday that he regarded his nominee as someone who would bring new perspective to the final two years of his tenure. It was under Mr. Bush's father that Mr. Gates first rose to influence, as deputy national security adviser and then director of central intelligence. He was not part of the group that advised the current President Bush during his 2000 campaign, and he has publicly questioned the administration's approach to Iran, saying in a 2004 report for the Council on Foreign Relations that its refusal to talk to the Tehran government was ultimately self-defeating.
Suicide Bombing Kills 41 Troops at Pakistani Army Base
Attack Called Reprisal for Strike on School By Pamela Constable and Kamran Khan Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, November 9, 2006; Page A16
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov. 8 -- A suicide bomber detonated explosives on a field filled with army recruits doing exercises in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday morning, killing at least 41 soldiers and wounding dozens in one of the worst such attacks in Pakistan's recent history. Officials immediately blamed the bombing on al-Qaeda and local Islamic extremists. They said it appeared to be an act of reprisal for a government missile attack Oct. 30 that killed 82 people at an Islamic school in the nearby Bajaur tribal region
Rumsfeld Resigns as Defense Secretary After Big Election Gains for Democrats
By DAVID STOUT Published: November 8, 2006 Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the hard-driving and super-confident Pentagon boss who came to symbolize President Bush’s controversial Iraq policy, is resigning, President Bush announced today.
Mr. Bush, appearing at the White House the day after the Republican Party suffered sweeping defeats in Tuesday’s midterm Congressional elections, said he and Mr. Rumsfeld had “a series of thoughtful conversations” and agreed that “the time is right for new leadership at the Pentagon.” The president said he would nominate Robert Gates, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency and now president of Texas A & M University, to replace Mr. Rumsfeld. Mr. Gates served under the first President George Bush and is closer to him than he is to the current president.
Ortega Wins Back Presidency of Nicaragua
Ex-Revolutionary Avoids Runoff Vote
By N.C. Aizenman Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, November 8, 2006; Page A18
MANAGUA, Nicaragua, Nov. 7 -- Former Marxist revolutionary Daniel Ortega won back Nicaragua's presidency, according to updated results released Tuesday. With 91 percent of precincts reporting, the Cold War icon continued his lead with 38 percent of the ballots cast in Sunday's vote, assuring a first-round victory. Under Nicaraguan election law, a candidate can win a first-round with 35 percent of ballots and a five-point lead.
Sixteen years after losing power, Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega reclaims the presidency, besting four other candidates in Nicaragua's Nov. 5 election. Ortega's closest contender, Eduardo Montealegre of the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance, conceded the election late Tuesday after garnering 29 percent of the vote.
In the waning weeks of the campaign, Bush administration officials issued veiled threats that the United States might impose punitive measures such as a trade embargo if Ortega was elected. [Aid weapon]
Malaysia Govt Slaps Newspaper for Raunchy "Sexpose"
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian government leaders have rebuked a local newspaper for publishing a frank expose of sexual attitudes among the country's youth. The Weekend Mail gave detailed descriptions of favorite sex positions from its survey -- including ``spooning, galloping and tea bag positions'' -- in three pages of stories that delivered on its front-page promise: ``You'll be shocked.''
Insulting Our Troops, and Our Intelligence
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN b Published: November 3, 2006 b George Bush, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld think you’re stupid. Yes, they do.
They think they can take a mangled quip about President Bush and Iraq by John Kerry — a man who is not even running for office but who, unlike Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, never ran away from combat service — and get you to vote against all Democrats in this election. Every time you hear Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney lash out against Mr. Kerry, I hope you will say to yourself, “They must think I’m stupid.” Because they surely do. They think that they can get you to overlook all of the Bush team’s real and deadly insults to the U.S. military over the past six years by hyping and exaggerating Mr. Kerry’s mangled gibe at the president. What could possibly be more injurious and insulting to the U.S. military than to send it into combat in Iraq without enough men — to launch an invasion of a foreign country not by the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force, but by the Rumsfeld Doctrine of just enough troops to lose? What could be a bigger insult than that?
Bush faces call for Rumsfeld to quit
Paul Harris in New York Sunday November 5, 2006 The Observer
President George Bush faces a damaging political firestorm on the eve of the vital mid-term elections after it emerged yesterday that an influential military newspaper is to call for the resignation of his Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. The call could not come at a worse time for Bush and the Republican party as they brace for a widely predicted defeat in Tuesday's elections that could see the Democrats capture both Houses of Congress.
Now it has been revealed that the Military Times Media Group, which publishes the army newspaper The Army Times, is to print an anti-Rumsfeld editorial tomorrow. 'Regardless of which party wins [the mid-term elections on 7 November] the time has come, Mr President, to face the hard bruising truth: Donald Rumsfeld must go,' it will conclude.
Curfew as Iraq braces for verdict on Saddam
Army patrols stepped up in anticipation of violence after today's predicted death sentence
Peter Beaumont Sunday November 5, 2006 The Observer
The Iraqi government has announced an indefinite and total curfew, covering wide areas of the country and including the capital, Baghdad, as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he hoped Saddam Hussein would get 'what he deserved' when the verdict of the first of the two trials that the former dictator is facing was announced today.
One of Saddam's international legal team - former US attorney-general Ramsey Clark - said that a death sentence for crimes against humanity would be 'victor's justice' and would fuel violence in Iraq for decades.
Where Plan A Left Ahmad Chalabi
By DEXTER FILKINS Published: November 5, 2006 1. London, August 2006
Ahmad Chalabi spent his days in exile working to liberate Iraq. But a liberated Iraq has little use for Ahmad Chalabi.
Many miles away in a more dangerous place the dream is ending badly. The bodies pile up. Good people stream to the borders. Leaders pile money onto planes. The center is giving way. The apartment on South Street in London is an antidote to Baghdad in nearly every respect. Where the Iraqi capital rings with chaos and violence, the sidewalks of Mayfair are quiet enough to hear your own voice above the cars. Baghdad is treeless and tan; the South Street apartment opens onto a private park filled with the lushness of an English garden. Just across the way is the Anglican church where General Eisenhower, stationed here as the commander of Allied forces during the war, came to pray. A maid greets you at the door, an elderly Lebanese woman who doubles as an Arabic teacher for the children. The parlor is neatly appointed and filled with art, most of it European, different from the Baghdad house, where most of it is Iraqi. There is "Sketch of a Woman," by Lucien Pissarro, the French painter who propagated Impressionism in London; it catches the light nicely. The furniture is expensive, the kind that makes you hesitate to sit down. But the place has a lived-in quality too; family members come and go, clutching bags and calling to one another down the hallways. No one seems the least bit awed by the man of the house, who is dressed in a bespoke suit and carries himself like a monarch, and who, until now, hasn't spent more than a day at a time here since before the Iraq war began. For Ahmad Chalabi, Iraq is an abstraction again. Once again, his native country is a faraway land ruled by somebody else, a place where other people die. It's a place to be discussed, rued, plotted over, from a parlor on an expensive Western street.
"The real culprit in all this is Wolfowitz," Chalabi says, referring to his erstwhile backer, the former deputy secretary of defense, Paul Wolfowitz. "They chickened out. The Pentagon guys chickened out."
Neocons turn on Bush for incompetence over Iraq war
Julian Borger in Washington Saturday November 4, 2006 The Guardian
Several prominent neoconservatives have turned on George Bush days before critical midterm elections, lambasting his administration for incompetence in the handling of the Iraq war and questioning the wisdom of the 2003 invasion they were instrumental in promoting. Richard Perle and Kenneth Adelman, who were both Pentagon advisers before the war, Michael Rubin, a former senior official in the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, and David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, were among the neoconservatives who recanted to Vanity Fair magazine in an article that could influence Tuesday's battle for the control of Congress. The Iraq war has been the dominant issue in the election.
Kenneth Adelman, another Reagan era hawk who sat on the Defence Policy Board until last year, drew attention with a 2002 commentary in the Washington Post predicting that liberating Iraq would be a "cakewalk". He now says he hugely overestimated the abilities of the Bush team. "I just presumed that what I considered to be the most competent national security team since Truman was indeed going to be competent," Mr Adelman said. "They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the postwar era. Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional."
Mr Frum, who as a White House speechwriter helped coin the phrase "axis of evil" in 2002, said failure in Iraq might be inescapable, because "the insurgency has proven it can kill anyone who cooperates, and the United States and its friends have failed to prove that it can protect them". The blame, Mr Frum said, lies with "failure at the centre", beginning with the president.
Jurors unbind Lawrence and Chatterley
Friday November 4, 1960 The Guardian
Sometimes the Lady Chatterley trial seemed like a setpiece confrontation between all that is good in England and all that is bad. Sometimes one could not keep a straight face at all those skilful men seriously arguing whether it was safe for people to read words they all know describing things they all do. Something died at the Old Bailey on Wednesday, some bad old strand in our culture, and the manner of its going was sometimes funny, sometimes ugly.
Treasury counsel spouting stereotypes from the Authoritarian Personality, while all that he stood for was sinking into the waters of oblivion, was an imposing phenomenon. "There are, are there not, certain standards...", "After all, restraint in sexual matters..." Here prosecution counsel reached inevitably for his copy of Criminal Statistics, which was ruled out by the Judge. The idea that a decrease in sexual restraint will give rise to an increase in criminal activity can only be entertained by one particular temperament, that which believes that all or most sexual appetite tends towards criminal actions. One should not, perhaps, have doubted the issues. Here was a barrister asking human beings alive now, not the patriarchs of ancient Israel, whether this was a book they would like "their wives and servants" to read, always referring to lovemaking as "bouts", using a contrived philistinism, and finally, trying to panic the jury with an innuendo of buggery in the book. And strangest effect of all, unaware that he himself was obliterated by the fire of Lawrence's writing.
The hero among the [defence] witnesses was Richard Hoggart. I think he made history. In his evidence, using the word in its correct and proper sense, he said the point Lawrence made was : "Simply, this is what one does. One fucks." If ever the English language comes to be at peace with itself again, the credit will be Lawrence's first, but Hoggart's soon after.
Staying the Course, Win or Lose
By Robert Kagan Thursday, November 2, 2006; Page A17
BRUSSELS -- Here in Europe, people ask hopefully if a Democratic victory in the congressional elections will finally shift the direction of American foreign policy in a more benign direction. But congressional elections rarely affect the broad direction of American foreign policy. A notable exception was when Congress cut funding for American military operations in support of South Vietnam in 1973. Yet it's unlikely that a Democratic House would cut off funds for the war in Iraq in the next two years. Indeed, the preferred European scenario -- "Bush hobbled" -- is less likely than the alternative: "Bush unbound." Neither the president nor his vice president is running for office in 2008. That is what usually prevents high-stakes foreign policy moves in the last two years of a president's term. In 1988 Ronald Reagan had negotiated a clever agreement to get the dictator Manuel Noriega peacefully out of Panama, but Vice President George H.W. Bush and his advisers feared the domestic political repercussions of cutting a deal with a drug lord at the height of the "war on drugs," so they nixed the plan. The result was that Bush had to invade Panama the very next year to remove Noriega -- but he did get elected.
This President Bush doesn't have to worry about getting anyone elected in 2008 and appears to be thinking only about his place in history. That can lead him to act in ways that please Europeans -- for instance, the vigorous multilateral diplomacy on Iran and North Korea. But it could also take him in directions they will find worrisome if that diplomacy fails. There is a deeper reason this election, and even the next presidential election, may not change U.S. foreign policy very much. Historically, and especially in the six decades since the end of World War II, there has been much more continuity than discontinuity in foreign policy. New administrations change policy around the margins, and sometimes those changes prove important -- George H.W. Bush temporized about the Balkans; Bill Clinton temporized and then sent troops. Clinton temporized about Iraq and then bombed. George W. Bush temporized and then invaded. But the motives behind American foreign policy, and even the means, don't differ all that much from administration to administration. Republicans berated the Democrats' "cowardly" containment until they took the White House in 1952, then adopted that strategy as their own. This tendency toward continuity is particularly striking on the issue that most divides Americans from Europeans today: the use of military force in international affairs. [Imperialism]
Wells fantasy causes fear in the US
Tuesday November 1, 1938 The Guardian
A wireless dramatisation of Mr. H. G. Wells's fantasy, "The War of the Worlds" - written at the end of last century - caused a remarkable wave of panic in the United States during and immediately after its broadcast last night at eight o'clock. Listeners throughout the country believed that it was an account of an actual invasion of the earth by warriors from Mars. The play, presented by Mr. Orson Welles, a successful theatrical producer and actor, gave a vivid account of the Martian invasion just as the wireless would if Mr. Wells's dream came true.
The programme began with music which was interrupted suddenly by a Columbia news announcer who reported that violent flashes on Mars had been observed by Princeton University astronomers. The music was resumed, but was soon interrupted again for a report that a meteor had struck New Jersey. Then there was an account of how the meteor opened and Martian warriors emerged, and began killing local citizens with mysterious death-rays. Martians were also observed moving towards New York with the intention of destroying the city. Many people tuning in to the middle jumped to the conclusion that there was a real invasion. Roads leading to a village where a Martian ship was supposed to have landed were jammed with motorists prepared to repel attackers.

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OCTOBER 2006

Losing Nicaragua, Again
By Robert D. Novak
Monday, October 30, 2006; Page A17 Oliver North and his associates were leaving Managua last Tuesday on a private plane after a dramatic surprise visit when they heard news they could scarcely comprehend. The State Department had just issued a "public announcement" that, in effect, warned Americans not to travel to Nicaragua because of the prospect for "violent demonstrations" and "sporadic acts of violence" leading up to the Nov. 5 presidential election there. The North group had seen nothing in Nicaragua to justify a travel advisory, normally issued when life and limb of visiting Americans are at risk. U.S. and Nicaraguan security officials alike are dumbfounded, and the State Department did not explain it to me. That buttresses suspicion that the U.S. government wants to keep away meddling Americans like North, who seek to influence an election that now appears likely to return Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas to power after an absence of 16 years.
The seemingly unavoidable outcome of next Sunday's election is a Nicaraguan tragedy, losing at the ballot box what was won two decades ago by the blood of contra fighters and the risking of Ronald Reagan's presidency. Because the anti-Sandinista vote is split, Ortega figures to return his Marxist-Leninist party -- now backed by Hugo Chávez's Venezuelan petrodollars -- to the presidential palace. Apart from the misery to be inflicted on the Nicaraguan people, this reflects the deterioration of U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere under the Bush administration. [Imperialism] [Partisan] [Ant-Americanism]
Afghanistan war is 'cuckoo', says Blair's favourite general
Ned Temko and Mark Townsend Sunday October 29, 2006 The Observer
Tony Blair's most trusted military commander yesterday branded as 'cuckoo' the way Britain's overstretched army was sent into Afghanistan. The remarkable rebuke by General the Lord Guthrie came in an Observer interview, his first since quitting as Chief of the Defence Staff five years ago, in which he made an impassioned plea for more troops, new equipment and more funds for a 'very, very' over-committed army. The decision by Guthrie, an experienced Whitehall insider and Blair confidant, to go public is likely to alarm Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence more than the recent public criticism by the current army chief Sir Richard Dannatt. 'Anyone who thought this was going to be a picnic in Afghanistan - anyone who had read any history, anyone who knew the Afghans, or had seen the terrain, anyone who had thought about the Taliban resurgence, anyone who understood what was going on across the border in Baluchistan and Waziristan [should have known] - to launch the British army in with the numbers there are, while we're still going on in Iraq is cuckoo,' Guthrie said. [Incompetence] [Unintended consequences]
Taliban plan to fight through winter to throttle Kabul
Militia fighters are operating just an hour's drive from the capital's suburbs, confident of undermining Western support for the war
Jason Burke Sunday October 29, 2006 The Observer
The Taliban are planning a major winter offensive combining their diverse factions in a push on the Afghan capital, Kabul, intelligence analysts and sources among the militia have revealed. The thrust will involve a concerted attempt to take control of surrounding provinces, a bid to cut the key commercial highway linking the capital with the eastern city of Jalalabad, and operations designed to tie down British and other Nato troops in the south. Last week Nato, with a force of 40,000 in the country including around 5,000 from Britain, said it had killed 48 more Taliban in areas thought to have been 'cleared'. 'They have major attacks planned all the way through to the spring and are quite happy for their enemy to know it,' a Pakistan-based source close to the militia told The Observer. 'There will be no winter pause.' The Taliban's fugitive leader, Mullah Omar, yesterday rejected overtures for peace talks from President Hamid Karzai and said it intended to try him in an Islamic court for the 'massacre' of Afghan civilians.
Russia Led Arms Sales to Developing World in '05
By THOM SHANKER Published: October 29, 2006 WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 - Russia surpassed the United States in 2005 as the leader in weapons deals with the developing world, and its new agreements included selling $700 million in surface-to-air missiles to Iran and eight new aerial refueling tankers to China, according to a new Congressional study. Those weapons deals were part of the highly competitive global arms bazaar in the developing world that grew to $30.2 billion in 2005, up from $26.4 billion in 2004. It is a market that the United States has regularly dominated. Russia's agreements with Iran are not the biggest part of its total sales - India and China are its principal buyers. But the sales to improve Iran's air-defense system are particularly troubling to the United States because they would complicate the task of Pentagon planners should the president order airstrikes on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities.
Among other arms transfers described in the study was a statistic that a single, unnamed nation - but one identified separately by Pentagon and other administration officials to be North Korea - shipped about 40 ballistic missiles to other nations in the four-year period ending in 2005, the only nation to have done so. Transfers of these weapons are prohibited under international agreements to control the trade of ballistic missiles.
France ranked second in arms transfer agreements to developing nations, with $6.3 billion, and the United States was third, with $6.2 billion. The leading buyer in the developing world in 2005 was India, with $5.4 billion in weapons purchases, followed by Saudi Arabia with $3.4 billion and China with $2.8 billion. [Arms sales] [Realignment] [Media] [Legality] [Disinformation]
The secret Whitehall telegram that reveals truth behind controversial Saudi arms deal
· Document shows Riyadh paid £600m extra for jets · Evidence points to corrupt payments in 1985 contract
David Leigh and Rob Evans Saturday October 28, 2006 The Guardian
The government was yesterday scrambling to recover secret documents containing evidence suggesting corrupt payments were made in Britain's biggest arms deal. The documents, published in full today by the Guardian, detail for the first time how the price of Tornado warplanes was inflated by £600m in the 1985 Al Yamamah deal with Saudi Arabia. A telegram with the details from the head of the Ministry of Defence's sales unit had been placed in the National Archives. Yesterday it was hastily withdrawn by officials who claimed its release had been "a mistake".
Sir Colin Chandler's telegram was sent from Riyadh, where he was arranging the sale of 72 Tornados and 30 Hawk warplanes on behalf of the British arms firm BAE. It revealed that their cost had been inflated by nearly a third in a deal with Saudi defence minister Prince Sultan. Sultan, who is crown prince, "has a corrupt interest in all contracts", according to a dispatch from the then British ambassador Willie Morris published in a recent Commons committee report. An accompanying Ministry of Defence briefing paper prepared for the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher describes Prince Sultan as "not highly intelligent ... He has prejudices, is inflexible and imperious, and drives a hard bargain". The Al Yamamah deal, worth £43bn in total, has long been the subject of allegations of secret commissions to Lady Thatcher's son Mark, and to several members of the Saudi royal family. All those involved have always denied the allegations. [Corruption] [Tribute]
Furor Over Cheney Remark on Tactics for Terror Suspects
By NEIL A. LEWIS Published: October 28, 2006 WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 - The White House found itself fending off questions on Friday about what Vice President Dick Cheney meant when he agreed with a talk-radio host that there was nothing wrong with dunking a terrorism suspect in water if it saved lives.
Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, said Mr. Cheney was not endorsing water-boarding, a coercive interrogation technique that simulates drowning and that many have said qualifies as torture. Mr. Snow said Mr. Cheney was not, in fact, referring to any technique, whether it was torture or not, because administration officials do not discuss interrogation methods. [Human rights] [Double standards]
The Grand Ayatollah Behind the Curtain
By Colbert I. KingSaturday, October 28, 2006; Page A15 The question directed this week to the National Security Council press office was straightforward: "Has the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani met with any American official, either military or civilian, since the U.S. invasion in 2003?" The answer reveals the extent to which the Bush administration is now, and always has been, out of its depth in Iraq.
Army chief: British troops must pull out of Iraq soon
General attacks government policy that has 'exacerbated' security risks Richard Norton-Taylor and Tania Branigan Friday October 13, 2006 The Guardian
A British soldier is covered in flames from a petrol bomb thrown in Basra, Iraq. Photograph: Atef Hassan/Reuters General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the army, dropped a political bombshell last night by saying that Britain must withdraw from Iraq "soon" or risk serious consequences for Iraqi and British society. In a blistering attack on Tony Blair's foreign policy, Gen Dannatt said the continuing military presence in Iraq was jeopardising British security and interests around the world. "I don't say that the difficulties we are experiencing round the world are caused by our presence in Iraq, but undoubtedly our presence in Iraq exacerbates them," he said in comments that met with admiration from anti-war campaigners and disbelief in some parts of Westminster. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Gen Dannatt, who became chief of the general staff in August, said we should "get ourselves out sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems". He added: "We are in a Muslim country and Muslims' views of foreigners in their country are quite clear.
Such an outspoken intervention by a British army chief is unprecedented in modern times and bound to increase pressure on the government to continue making its Iraq case against a backdrop of increasing mayhem on the ground
One in 40 Iraqis 'killed since invasion'
US and Britain reject journal's finding that death toll has topped 650,000 Sarah Boseley, health editor Thursday October 12, 2006 The Guardian
The death toll in Iraq following the US-led invasion has topped 655,000 - one in 40 of the entire population - according to a major piece of research in one of the world's leading medical journals. The study, produced by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and published online by the Lancet, claims the total number of deaths is more than 10 times greater than any previously compiled estimate. The findings provoked an immediate political storm. Within hours of its release, George Bush had dismissed the figures. "I don't consider it a credible report," he told reporters at the White House. "Neither does General Casey [the top US officer in Iraq], neither do Iraqi officials." The Foreign Office also cast doubt on the findings, stating that the government preferred to rely on the body count of the Iraqi ministry of health, which recorded just 7,254 deaths between January 2005 and January 2006. But the US researchers have the backing of four separate independent experts who reviewed the new paper for the Lancet. All urged publication. One spoke of the "powerful strength" of the research methods, which involved house-to-house surveys by teams of doctors across Iraq
'They faced fighting that hasn't been seen for a generation'
3rd Battalion, the Paras, back from Afghanistan
Audrey Gillan Thursday October 12, 2006 The Guardian
He fought in both wars in Iraq and on the streets of Northern Ireland - but never had he experienced such intense battles as his troops fought in Afghanistan. Returning from a six-month tour, Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Tootal, commander of 3rd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment Battle Group, said as they got home to their barracks last night: "This was the most intense I have experienced. It was a war fighting operation." Soldiers of his group spoke for the first time of life in Helmand province, where they had gone to rebuild a shattered country but found themselves fighting in battles as fierce as any the British army has ever faced. In four months they had fired more rounds than in any operation since the Korean war of the 1950s. dyn/content/article/2006/10/11/AR2006101100523.html"> Bush Stands Firm on Policies
President Defends Strategies for Iraq, North Korea By Michael Abramowitz Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, October 12, 2006; Page A01 Despite setbacks on North Korea and Iraq, President Bush vowed yesterday to stick with his policies on both crises, praising Chinese condemnation of North Korea's apparent nuclear test and citing progress in helping the fledgling Iraqi government stand on its own. Even as he rejected calls to hold bilateral talks with Pyongyang, Bush said during a Rose Garden news conference that diplomacy is beginning to unite the world against North Korea's nuclear efforts [Bilateral]
America's Population Set to Top 300 Million
Immigration Fuels Much of Growth By Blaine HardenWashington Post Staff Writer Thursday, October 12, 2006; Page A01 Clicking upward at a rate of one person every 11 seconds, the U.S. population will officially surpass 300 million in the next week or so. The milestone is a reminder that the United States remains a remarkable demographic specimen, 230 years old (since the Declaration of Independence) and still in a growth spurt.
Behind only China and India, it is the planet's third most populous nation.
BBC World Service to launch TV channel for Iran
Owen Gibson, media correspondent Wednesday October 11, 2006 The Guardian The BBC World Service yesterday announced the launch of its third major television channel when the Foreign Office agreed to fund an Iranian language service to the tune of £15m a year [Media] [Propaganda] [Softpower]
Iraqi Dead May Total 600,000, Study Says
Khalid Mohammed/Associated Press
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. Published: October 11, 2006 BAGHDAD, Oct. 10 - A team of American and Iraqi public health researchers has estimated that 600,000 civilians have died in violence across Iraq since the 2003 American invasion, the highest estimate ever for the toll of the war here.
British PoW faces verdict on how 'British' she really is
The Court of Appeal will this week decide if Diana Elias, an 83-year-old widow who was held in a Japanese PoW camp during the war, should be denied compensation on grounds of her nationality
Mark Townsend, legal affairs correspondent Sunday October 8, 2006 The Observer
She suffered in silence, petrified of being executed at any moment while interned in an insect-infested prison camp. Sixty years on, the horrific experiences of Diana Elias in a notorious Japanese Second World War camp will this week help to define the controversial issue of what constitutes Britishness. The 83-year-old widow was interned because she was British. The UK government insists she is not quite British enough, arguing that she has no 'ancestral connection' to the land of her passport and is therefore not eligible for compensation from the government. Amid the ongoing debate over national identity, the Court of Appeal is to decide whether the government was justified in deciding that to qualify as British an individual must have a 'blood link' through birth or ancestry. Elias was born in the British Empire and has always held a British passport, but the fact that her parents were Indian and Iraqi prompted the Ministry of Defence to claim she did not qualify for a payment scheme for individuals held in Japanese prisoner camps. To receive the payment, the victim's parents have to come from Britain.
have always been British. My grandparents were British. My father was British and so was my mother. I can remember my father taking great pride in the fact he was British and so was his family. And I was proud to be British. I still am.'
Castro Foe With C.I.A. Ties Puts U.S. in an Awkward Spot
Adalberto Roque/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images A ceremony in Havana on Friday for the 73 people killed when a bomb planted by anti-Castro militants blew up a Cubana Airlines plane in 1976.
By MARC LACEY Published: October 8, 2006 EL PASO, Oct. 6 - Thirty years ago, long before liquids and gels were restricted on airliners, a tube of Colgate toothpaste may have brought a plane down from the sky.
Cubana Airlines Flight 455 crashed off the coast of Barbados on Oct. 6, 1976, killing all 73 people aboard. Plastic explosives stuffed into a toothpaste tube ignited the plane, according to recently declassified police records. Implicated in the attack, but never convicted, was Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban exile who has long sought to topple the government of Fidel Castro. Today, Mr. Posada, 78, is in a detention center in El Paso, held on an immigration violation while the government tries to figure out what to do with him. His case presents a quandary for the Bush administration, at least in part because Mr. Posada is a former C.I.A. operative and United States Army officer who directed his wrath at a government that Washington has long opposed. Despite insistent calls from Cuba and Venezuela for his extradition, the administration has refused to send him to either country for trial. Intensifying the problem is that Mr. Posada, who was arrested last year in Miami after sneaking into the country, may soon go free because the United States has been reluctant to press the terrorism charges that could keep him in jail. That prospect has brought a hail of criticism of the Bush administration for holding a double standard when it comes to those who commit terrorist acts. [Terrorism] [Double standards] [Media]
ITN reporter was shot by US soldiers, inquest told
Leigh Holmwood Saturday October 7, 2006 The Guardian
ITN reporter Terry Lloyd was shot in the head by American troops as he was being driven to hospital, the inquest into his death was told yesterday. An account by an Iraqi witness claimed Lloyd was still alive after the original attack on his car but was killed by US troops as he was driven from the scene.
White House in crisis over 'Iraq lies' claims
Watergate journalist's new book exposes how Bush has kept the US public in the dark about the true costs of the 'war on terror'
Paul Harris in New York Sunday October 1, 2006 The Observer
President George Bush was braced for one of the toughest fights of his political life yesterday as a fierce row broke out over whether he has been misleading the American public over the worsening violence in Iraq. The crisis also rippled across the Atlantic with claims that the administration hid crucial Iraq intelligence from its British allies. Sparking the crisis was a series of leaks from a hard-hitting new book by the political journalist Bob Woodward, one of the two Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate scandal that engulfed the Nixon administration three decades ago
Faith and War For Recruiter, Saying 'Go Army' Is a Hard Job
Sgt. Cameron Murad leaves the Kurdish Human Rights Watch offices, where he saw fliers offering six-figure salaries for civilian linguists. He stands by the entrance of a Middle Eastern grocery in khakis and a baseball cap, trying to blend in. He smiles gently. He offers the occasional Arabic greeting. Quietly, he searches the aisles for a version of himself: an Iraqi expatriate with greater ambition than prospects, a Muslim immigrant willing to fight an American war. There are countless hard jobs for American soldiers supporting the occupation of Iraq. Few seem more impossible than the one assigned to Sergeant Murad. As the conflict grows increasingly violent and unpopular, the sergeant must persuade native Arabic speakers to enlist and serve with front-line troops.
Anti-U.S. Attack Videos Spread on the Internet
Scenes from videos that have appeared on YouTube show attacks on American soldiers and military vehicles in Iraq.
By EDWARD WYATT Published: October 6, 2006 LOS ANGELES, Oct. 5 - Videos showing insurgent attacks against American troops in Iraq, long available in Baghdad shops and on Jihadist Web sites, have steadily migrated in recent months to popular Internet video-sharing sites, including YouTube and Google Video.
Many of the videos, showing sniper attacks against Americans and roadside bombs exploding under American military vehicles, have been posted not by insurgents or their official supporters but apparently by Internet users in the United States and other countries, who have passed along videos found elsewhere.
Their availability has also produced some backlash. In recent weeks, YouTube has removed dozens of the videos from its archives and suspended the accounts of some users who have posted them, a reaction, it said, to complaints from other users. More than four dozen videos of combat in Iraq viewed by The New York Times have been removed in recent days, many after The Times began inquiries. [Media] [Human rights] [Double standards] [Anti-Americanism]
An alternative way forward for the US
By Jim Lobe WASHINGTON - After two years of consultations with more than 400 members of the US foreign-policy elite, a project headed by two leading international-relations academics is calling for the adoption of a new grand strategy designed to address multiple threats and strengthen Washington's commitment to a reformed and reinvigorated multilateral order.
In a wide-ranging report released in Washington on Wednesday, the Princeton Project on National Security suggested that the policies pursued by President George W Bush since September 11, 2001, had been simplistic - even counter-productive - for the challenges facing the United States in the 21st century. [Partisan]
FORGING A WORLD OF LIBERTY UNDER LAW U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY IN THE 21ST CENTURY
G. John Ikenberry and Anne-Marie Slaughter, Co-Directors
September 27, 2006
Final Report of the Princeton Project on National Security
The Rise of China and Order in East Asia: The rise of China is one of the seminal events of the early 21st century. America’s goal should not be to block or contain China, but rather to help it achieve its legitimate ambitions within the current international order and to become a responsible stakeholder in Asian and international politics. In Asia more broadly, America should aim to build a trans-Pacific, rather than pan-Asian, regional order – that is, one in which the United States plays a full part. The U.S.-Japan alliance should remain the bedrock of American strategy in East Asia, but the United States should also seek the creation of an East Asian security institution that brings together the major powers – China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and America – for ongoing discussions about regional issues. At the same time, we should continue to strengthen ties with Asia’s other emerging power, India, and should formulate policies throughout the region based on the principle that sustained economic growth in Asian countries other than China is the key to managing China’s rise.
In Asia, North Korea is actively producing nuclear weapons and flexing its military muscle. South Korea is increasingly anti-American. Sino-Japanese political relations are extremely tense, while China is building economic and political relations with the rest of Asia in ways deliberately designed to exclude the United States.
Second, the United States must ensure that our deterrent remains credible. This means tailoring it for the cultural characteristics of each adversary; we should not assume that North Korea will behave exactly like the Soviet Union. It also means maintaining a safe and flexible nuclear arsenal.
the nuclear “haves” have failed to live up to their commitments under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT); the “have nots” are questioning their continued participation in the regime; and the NPT itself is in a state of limbo following the failure of the 2005 Review Conference. In the resulting vacuum, it is not difficult to envisage a proliferated world in which non-nuclear powers in the Middle East and East Asia follow Iran and North Korea and join the nuclear club.
The NPT is a nearly universal organization – only North Korea, Israel, India, and Pakistan are not members – and it is unique among international security agreements in that it has an administrative body charged with monitoring and enforcement, namely the IAEA.
Japan’s search for a mature sense of national identity and statehood and for the traditional rights of sovereignty and self-defense that come with it – what some have called the “normalization of Japan” – is causing considerable concern among its neighbors, particularly China and South Korea. [China confrontation] [Japanese remilitarisation]
Britain: The mysterious case of the disappearing 'terror' plots
by Norm Dixon October 4, 2006 Green Left Weekly, September 13, 2006.
Readers of Britain's newspapers are regularly accosted with blood-curdling banner headlines screaming of the "thwarting" of potentially catastrophic "terror plots", of "Islamic fanatics" being apprehended in daring midnight raids. "Chilling" details, "revealed" by anonymous police and government "sources", underline why "we" must accept a "trade-off" between civil liberties and "security", the editorials assure an apprehensive populace. Months or even years later, however, news that many of the "plots" never actually existed is buried behind the latest sex scandal or exploitative "expose" - if reported at all.
On August 10, deputy commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police Paul Stephenson declared that a plan to "cause untold death and destruction" and "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" had been foiled with the arrest of 24 people. "We believe that the terrorists' aim was to smuggle explosives onto planes in hand luggage to detonate them in flight", Stephenson alleged. Britain's and the world's mass media trumpeted the claims.
However, within days the dramatic case against the detainees as told to the media by anonymous US and British government and police "sources" began to unravel. The claim that an attack was "imminent" was false. No reservations had been made or airline tickets purchased by the 10 charged with serious terrorism offences; several did not even have passports. Apparently, just one had used the internet to check flight schedules recently. There were no bombs. [Media] [Threat]
In 30-Year-Old Terror Case, a Test for the U.S.
Decision Due on Cuban Exile Suspected in Airliner Blast By Manuel Roig-Franzia Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, October 5, 2006; Page A20
HAVANA -- A quarter-century before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a bomb ripped a gash in a civilian jetliner in the skies off Barbados. The Cubana Airlines plane plummeted into the Caribbean Sea just before noon on Oct. 6, 1976. All 73 people on board died, including teenage members of Cuba's national fencing team who were returning to Havana after winning gold and silver medals at a tournament in Venezuela.
The attack marked a new era of fear. It was the first act of midair airline terrorism in the Western Hemisphere.
The 30th anniversary of the bombing is Friday, and it coincides with a critical juncture in the case of Luis Posada Carriles, a main suspect in the bombing who has been held on immigration charges in the United States for the past 16 months.
Posada Carriles's legal odyssey has turned into a diplomatic quandary for the Bush administration and a test of the president's post-Sept. 11 credo that nations that harbor terrorists are guilty of terrorism. While the United States does not want to free a terrorism suspect, it is also reluctant to send him to Cuba or Venezuela, countries that not only remain hostile to the Bush administration but that, according to court testimony of a Posada Carriles ally, also might torture him. [Terrorism] [Double standards]
The Mushy Rebellion Pakistan Under Musharraf
By PAUL WOLF
October 4, 2006
At last week's UN General Assembly in New York, most of the world's attention was focussed on the dramatic statements made by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iranian President Mamoud Ahmadinejad, who not only exhorted the other delegates to oppose the American war on terrorism, but also went on mini-speaking tours within the permitted radius of the UN Headquarters. Emboldened by their success with the Non-aligned movement the week before, these socialist oil-producing presidents went on to dominate the UN meeting, or at least the media's coverage of it. Whatever the results of these performances may be, a subtler, and more serious rebuke was to come from Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Taken at face value, Musharraf used his trip to the United States to promote his new book and get himself re-elected next year. On a deeper level, however, Musharraf's autobiography, "In the Line of Fire," and his media strategy signal a sea change in Pakistan's foreign policy, and the balance of power in Central Asia may follow.
In Bill's Fine Print, Millions to Celebrate Victory
By THOM SHANKER Published: October 4, 2006 WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 - Even as the Bush administration urges Americans to stay the course in Iraq, Republicans in Congress have put down a quiet marker in the apparent hope that V-I Day might be only months away.
Tucked away in fine print in the military spending bill for this past year was a lump sum of $20 million to pay for a celebration in the nation's capital "for commemoration of success" in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, the money was not spent. Now Congressional Republicans are saying, in effect, maybe next year. A paragraph written into spending legislation and approved by the Senate and House allows the $20 million to be rolled over into 2007.
Software Being Developed to Monitor Opinions of U.S.
By ERIC LIPTON Published: October 4, 2006 WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 - A consortium of major universities, using Homeland Security Department money, is developing software that would let the government monitor negative opinions of the United States or its leaders in newspapers and other publications overseas.
Such a "sentiment analysis" is intended to identify potential threats to the nation, security officials said. Researchers at institutions including Cornell, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Utah intend to test the system on hundreds of articles published in 2001 and 2002 on topics like President Bush's use of the term "axis of evil," the handling of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, the debate over global warming and the coup attempt against President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. A $2.4 million grant will finance the research over three years. American officials have long relied on newspapers and other news sources to track events and opinions here and abroad, a goal that has included the routine translation of articles from many foreign publications and news services. [Softpower] [public opinion] [Surveillance]
Britain to US: we don't want Guantánamo nine back
· Documents reveal secret talks in Washington · British residents have no right to return say officials Ian Cobain and Vikram Dodd Tuesday October 3, 2006 The Guardian
At least nine British residents are held behind the wire at Guantánamo but the US wants to see most of them returned to the UK. Photograph: Brennan Linsley/AP The United States has offered to return nearly all British residents held at Guantánamo Bay after months of secret talks in Washington, the Guardian has learned. The British government has refused to accept the men, however, with senior officials saying they have no legal right to return. Documents obtained by the Guardian show US authorities are demanding that the detainees be kept under 24-hour surveillance if set free - restrictions that are dismissed by the British as unnecessary and unworkable. [Human rights]
US loosens grip on running of internet
· EU hails pact as retreat from 'cyber-repression' · Website domain name body to gain autonomy
David Gow in Brussels and Richard Wray Tuesday October 3, 2006 The Guardian The EU yesterday hailed a decision by the US government to back down and grant full autonomy by 2009 to the not-for-profit organisation that manages internet domain names. Viviane Reding, EU information society and media commissioner, said the US commerce department, which until the weekend had unilaterally overseen decisions by the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), would run a much lighter regime for the next three years. Icann, set up in 1998 and based in California, will no longer have to report to US authorities every six months, but annually to the whole internet community under arrangements which took effect on Sunday as a prescriptive agreement
A hundred years of rule over India
Friday October 2, 1936 The Guardian
[Extracts from a letter written by the Nobel prize-winning philosopher and poet Rabindranath Tagore to an English friend] You know that of all the Western peoples who have direct dealings with alien races I respect most the British people. Many things have recently happened in our country to wound us to the quicks. In spite of it all, I still say that there are other great nations in Europe who exercise dominion over foreign peoples. And we cannot but heave a sigh of relief whenever we recall that it is not they who are our rulers.
We admire the United States from a distance, because we have no relations with her. But, apart from her inhuman treatment of the Negroes, the instances of rank injustice, perpetrated by her highest courts of law are such as do not fortunately belong to our normal experience in India. I have seen many great Englishmen. They stand up against wrong, whether done by others or their countrymen. These may not be statesmen, for statesmen are not usually reckoned as the true representatives of the nation. If the persons wielding political power in England had been able to ignore the silent judgment of the great minds in their country, they might have succeeded in levelling to the dust all the best canons of humanity - as has been done in Germany. I admit my admiration of British character does is not much more than a comparative statement. It is inhuman enough for us, as you must have found from political prisoners, in the prime of their youth, coming out to die after a few years of gaol, miserably broken in health and spirit. And it is but meagre consolation to us to think that it could even have been worse.
Musharraf's Memoir
By Dan EggenSunday, October 1, 2006; Page B03 Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has been hawking his memoir, "In the Line of Fire," from the White House to "The Daily Show." Several of the book's claims have already attracted wide notice, including details about nuclear technology obtained by North Korea and the assertion that then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the Stone Age" if it did not cooperate after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But the book packs a few lesser bombshells as well. Here's a guide to some of Musharraf's more notable passages: * * *
The World Is J-Curved
By Ian Bremmer Sunday, October 1, 2006; Page B03
U.S. officials threatening to isolate Iran from the international community may want to take their cue from the Iranian leadership, which is doing a fine job of purging the Islamic Republic of foreign influences all on its own. Last December, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad banned Western music from state-run television and radio. And in mid-May, his government announced plans to increase the number of stations capable of blocking foreign satellite broadcasts from 50 to 300 within two years. Just as its government was making the airwaves safe for theocracy, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice again threatened Iran with "isolation from the international community." Similarly, the Bush administration insists that if Kim Jong Il's government would dismantle its nuclear program, the U.S. government would support North Korea's integration into the family of nations. If it refuses, Washington will "further deepen North Korea's isolation," Rice said.
What the United States seems not to recognize is that the world's most repressive regimes depend on isolation to survive; they are stable precisely because they are closed. Kim knows he must hide North Korea from the outside world, and the outside world from North Koreans. If half the people of North Korea watched 30 minutes of CNN (or al-Jazeera, for that matter) and fully understood the damage wrought by their government's catastrophic policies and brutality -- or the contrasting standards of living in Japan and South Korea -- Kim's regime might not survive. Threatening that regime with isolation is like threatening a drowning man with a lifeboat. [Bizarre] [Sanctions] [Intelligent design]
Falling on His Sword
Colin Powell's most significant moment turned out to be his lowest Sunday, October 1, 2006; Page W12 ON WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2004, eight days after the president he served was elected to a second term, Secretary of State Colin Powell received a telephone call from the White House at his State Department office. The caller was not President Bush but Chief of Staff Andrew Card, and he got right to the point. "The president would like to make a change," Card said, using a time-honored formulation that avoided the words "resign" or "fire." He noted briskly that there had been some discussion of having Powell remain until after Iraqi elections scheduled for the end of January, but that the president had decided to take care of all Cabinet changes sooner rather than later. Bush wanted Powell's resignation letter dated two days hence, on Friday, November 12, Card said, although the White House expected him to stay at the State Department until his successor was confirmed by the Senate.
Time and time again during the administration's bumpy first year, Powell had seen Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney intervene to nudge a willing Bush away from moderation and diplomacy, and toward a hard line on foreign policy issues from North Korea to the Middle East. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda on New York and Washington, their attention turned sharply toward Iraq, and by the following summer it was clear that the administration was headed toward war with Saddam Hussein.
The New Face of Class War
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
September 30 / October 1, 2006 CounterPunch Special Report
Te attacks on middle-class jobs are lending new meaning to the phrase "class war". The ladders of upward mobility are being dismantled. America, the land of opportunity, is giving way to ever deepening polarization between rich and poor. The assault on jobs predates the Bush regime. However, the loss of middle-class jobs has become particularly intense in the 21st century, and, like other pressing problems, has been ignored by President Bush, who is focused on waging war in the Middle East and building a police state at home. [Outsourcing] [Globalisation]
Iran: the politics of the next crisis
Paul Rogers 28 - 9 - 2006
The George W Bush administration, embarrassed by intelligence leaks and under siege over Iraq and Afghanistan, may seek electoral fortune by raising tensions with Tehran.
The publication of sections of a key United States "national intelligence estimate" (NIE) document in Washington on 26 September 2006 has brought the issue of Iraq and the wider war to centre stage in Washington in the run-up to the mid-term Congressional elections on 7 November. The initially leaked NIE document focuses on the impact of the occupation of Iraq as a recruitment tool for new generations of radical Islamists; it concludes that Iraq has provided an inspiration for the al-Qaida movement in a way that has worsened the position of the United States in its "war on terror". It accepts that the al-Qaida movement has been damaged and dispersed by the war, but at the cost of the transformation of the movement into a much looser and more extended network of like-minded groups. This lack of hierarchical organisation and concentrated leadership makes al-Qaida increasingly difficult to counter. Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He has been writing a weekly column on global security on openDemocracy since 26 September 2001 Three crises The NIE report is saying little that has not been said by independent analysts over the past two years (including in this series of openDemocracy columns, including the SWISH reports). But in the context of current public debate in the United States, it has two significant features. The first is that US national intelligence estimates tend to be consensus documents, the combined product of the conclusions of the sixteen relevant agencies. Some of these agencies rely on human intelligence, others on remote sensing (especially intercepts); some are domestically orientated, others have a worldwide remit. This composite, variegated aspect tends to result in lowest-common-denominator conclusions, where any sharp analysis is processed into blandness. This particular estimate is notably different, and its release has propelled the question of what advice the Bush administration is receiving on Iraq to the top of the US's political agenda. The second feature is the report's date: April 2006. The picture portrayed is bleak enough, yet in the five subsequent months the situation in both Iraq and Afghanistan has deteriorated even further.
Yet it is not unthinkable that an enormous concentration of military power near Iran, accompanied by numerous embedded journalists, might combine with new "reports" of Iranian nuclear developments to induce a sense of crisis in the immediate pre-election period. After the votes are in, tensions could be allowed to ease. A scenario is different from reality on the ground. But it is dangerously easy for those who might try to turn one into the other to forget that the United States is not the only player in the game, and would not be able to control how an "artificial" crisis develops. Iran has a stake in any contest; and within Iran there are groups (especially in the Revolutionary Guard) that would find some low-level confrontation with US naval units in the Gulf rather attractive. The risk is that a "crisis" orchestrated for American domestic political needs could turn into the real thing. This is only one of several reasons to choose another path - but the political pressures on the Bush administration may just make this one too tempting to resist. [Unintended consequences] [Threat]
White House in crisis over 'Iraq lies' claims
Watergate journalist's new book exposes how Bush has kept the US public in the dark about the true costs of the 'war on terror'
Paul Harris in New York Sunday October 1, 2006 The Observer
President George Bush was braced for one of the toughest fights of his political life yesterday as a fierce row broke out over whether he has been misleading the American public over the worsening violence in Iraq. The crisis also rippled across the Atlantic with claims that the administration hid crucial Iraq intelligence from its British allies. Sparking the crisis was a series of leaks from a hard-hitting new book by the political journalist Bob Woodward, one of the two Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate scandal that engulfed the Nixon administration three decades ago. The author's first television interview on the Iraq book is due to be shown this evening on the CBS show 60 Minutes, and is expected to ignite a huge row over the conduct of the war. The book lifts the lid on an administration in crisis, claiming that Bush and his top officials have deliberately covered up the seriousness of the violence in the war-torn country. Woodward has so far been sympathetic to the Bush administration's decision to go to war in Iraq.
Secret Reports Dispute White House Optimism
By Bob Woodward Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, October 1, 2006; Page A01
On May 22, 2006, President Bush spoke in Chicago and gave a characteristically upbeat forecast: "Years from now, people will look back on the formation of a unity government in Iraq as a decisive moment in the story of liberty, a moment when freedom gained a firm foothold in the Middle East and the forces of terror began their long retreat." Two days later, the intelligence division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff circulated a secret intelligence assessment to the White House that contradicted the president's forecast.
Instead of a "long retreat," the report forecast a more violent 2007: "Insurgents and terrorists retain the resources and capabilities to sustain and even increase current level of violence through the next year." A graph included in the assessment measured attacks from May 2003 to May 2006. It showed some significant dips, but the current number of attacks against U.S.-led coalition forces and Iraqi authorities was as high as it had ever been -- exceeding 3,500 a month. [In July the number would be over 4,500.] The assessment also included a pessimistic report on crude oil production, the delivery of electricity and political progress.
On May 26, the Pentagon released an unclassified report to Congress, required by law, that contradicted the Joint Chiefs' secret assessment. The public report sent to Congress said the "appeal and motivation for continued violent action will begin to wane in early 2007." There was a vast difference between what the White House and Pentagon knew about the situation in Iraq and what they were saying publicly. But the discrepancy was not surprising. In memos, reports and internal debates, high-level officials of the Bush administration have voiced their concern about the United States' ability to bring peace and stability to Iraq since early in the occupation. [Disinformation]
Support From Brazil's Poor Gives Lula Edge in Election
By Monte Reel Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, October 1, 2006; Page A19
SAO PAULO, Brazil, Sept. 30 -- The dividing lines that will determine Brazil's presidential election on Sunday are extraordinarily clear, as plainly visible as the swinging doors that separate a restaurant's dining room from its kitchen. At a buffet lunch in a middle-class neighborhood, almost all of the cooks who ride buses for hours every day to toil in a steamy kitchen said they will vote to reelect President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. On the other side of the doors, almost all of the diners said they planned to vote against him.
Lula is expected to coast to victory for this reason: In Latin America's largest democracy, a lot more people live like the cooks than live like the customers.
It was meant to bring peace. Instead, British-brokered deal has rekindled war
In Darfur's refugee camps, survivors tell of attacks by rebel groups that used to protect them
Jonathan Steele in El Fasher, Darfur Saturday September 30, 2006 The Guardian
Hawa Salih Ali sits on the sand with one of her grandchildren, their heads protected from the broiling sun by plastic sheeting draped across wooden poles. Around them sit thousands of other displaced people, the latest victims of Darfur's three-year-old tragedy. Hawa Salih fled her village once before, forced out when Janjaweed militia backed by the Sudanese government attacked the area because it harboured rebel fighters. The war moved on to other parts of this huge region of western Sudan, and two years ago she and her family felt safe enough to go home and restart their lives.
Now they are homeless again, forced out this time by the very rebels who defended them before. Worse still, it happened after a peace deal was signed in May in a heavily trumpeted ceremony, which Hilary Benn, Britain's international development secretary, helped to broker along with top US and African Union negotiators. Instead of bringing peace, the deal has only rekindled a war.
However Heavy It Gets, Wear a Crown Lightly
By MANOHLA DARGIS Published: September 29, 2006 Is there something in the air, say, the stench of death and decline of empire, to have inspired the recent spate of films about imperial power? Fashionistas of course are already worshiping at the altar of "Marie Antoinette," with its title bubblehead and hollow charms, while Forest Whitaker devotees are savoring the outré venality of Idi Amin in the rather too enthusiastically entertaining "Last King of Scotland." Those who think more crowned heads should have rolled in the 18th century, in the meantime, can cozy up to "The Queen," a sublimely nimble evisceration of that cult of celebrity known as the British royal family. (It opens the New York Film Festival tonight at Lincoln Center and in theaters tomorrow.)
Directed by Stephen Frears from a very smart script by Peter Morgan, who helped write "The Last King of Scotland," also about crazy rulers and the people who love (and hate) them, "The Queen" pries open a window in the House of Windsor around the time of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, blending fact with fiction. It begins just days before her fatal car crash in 1997, when the princess, glimpsed only in television news clips and photographs, had completely transformed into Diana, the onetime palace prisoner turned jet-setting divorcée. The transformation was fit for a fairy tale: the lamb had been led to slaughter (cue Madonna's "Like a Virgin") and escaped in triumph (crank the Material Girl's "Bye Bye Baby"). Elizabeth II wore the crown, but it was Diana who now ruled.
Ex-Firebrand Ortega on the Comeback Trail
By MARC LACEY Published: September 30, 2006 MANAGUA, Nicaragua, Sept. 24 - Washington's old cold war nemesis, Daniel Ortega, is as divisive a figure as he ever was as a 30-something revolutionary who took on Ronald Reagan.
After three failed attempts to return to power in the last 15 years, El Comandante, as Mr. Ortega is widely known, is once again smiling down from campaign billboards across Nicaragua. Now 60 and balding with a slight paunch, he stands his best chance yet of returning to power in elections on Nov. 5. Though opinion polls give Mr. Ortega about 30 percent support, he is the front-runner in a race splintered among five candidates. Yet the sentiment against him is broad and the scrambling to head off an Ortega victory is intense, and not just in Nicaragua. The prospect has stirred deep anxiety in the Bush administration, which envisions him as a new ally for President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela in challenging United States policy. Mr. Chávez has lent his support to Mr. Ortega, while Washington has sent word in no uncertain terms that aid will be re-evaluated if Mr. Ortega is elected. [Human rights] [Imperialism] [Media] [Aid weapon]
White House Disputes Book's Report of Anti-Rumsfeld Moves
By Peter Baker Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, September 30, 2006; Page A01
New revelations that White House aides tried twice in the past two years to persuade President Bush to fire Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld fueled a caustic election-season debate yesterday over the president's wartime leadership and underscored divisions within his administration. The latest book by Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, "State of Denial," paints a portrait of an administration riven by personal and policy disagreements exacerbated by a deteriorating situation in Iraq that has grown even worse than Bush admits to the public. In Woodward's account, Bush has become increasingly isolated as his team has rejected advice to shift gears in Iraq before it is too late.
Briton Cites 'Divergence' With U.S.
Senior Official Critical of Going 'Beyond the Law' to Fight Terror
By Mary Jordan Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, September 30, 2006; Page A12 LONDON, Sept. 29 -- Charles Falconer, one of the highest-ranking justice officials in Britain, said Friday that there is a "great divergence" in how Britain and the United States are handling the fight against terrorists, describing the U.S. approach as a willingness "to do things beyond the law." Falconer said in an interview that the practices of holding terrorism suspects without charge at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and interrogating them in secret CIA prisons have made it "harder to identify to the world what your values are."

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SEPTEMBER 2006

Britain Greets Pakistani Leader With Accusations
By ALAN COWELL Published: September 28, 2006 LONDON, Sept. 28 - President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan came to London today and found himself facing accusations that his country's intelligence service had indirect ties to Al Qaeda. He arrived after a rocky visit in Washington, where President Bush used a White House dinner to try to mediate between the Pakistani leader and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan over their mutual accusations of responsibility for the resurgence of the Taliban, Afghanistan's former rulers. Although the two leaders did not shake hands in public, General Musharraf indicated in remarks broadcast live on Pakistan television today that some tensions had eased. "The meeting that I held with President Bush and Hamid Karzai last night was very good," he said, according to The Associated Press. "It was decided that we should have a common strategy. We have to fight terrorism. We have to defeat it, defeat it jointly." A report of a leaked document, saying that Pakistan's intelligence service indirectly supported the Taliban, played into the argument over the growing insurgency in Afghanistan, where both Britain and the United States have sent forces. The BBC said the document originated in the Defense Academy, a British research agency sponsored by the Ministry of Defense. [Dilemma]
Take UK troops out of Iraq, senior military told ministers
Army chiefs wanted to move forces to Afghanistan but were prevented for political reasons Richard Norton-Taylor Friday September 29, 2006 The Guardian
A British soldier on escort duty in Al Amara. Photo: Sean Smith/Guardian Senior military officers have been pressing the government to withdraw British troops from Iraq and concentrate on what they now regard as a more worthwhile and winnable battleground in Afghanistan. They believe there is a limit to what British soldiers can achieve in southern Iraq and that it is time the Iraqis took responsibility for their own security, defence sources say. Pressure from military chiefs for an early and significant cut in the 7,500 British troops in Iraq is also motivated by extreme pressure being placed on soldiers and those responsible for training them. "What is more important, Afghanistan or Iraq?" a senior defence source asked yesterday. "There is a group within the Ministry of Defence pushing hard to get troops out of Iraq to get more into Afghanistan." [Imperialism] [Bizarre]
Taliban attacks double after Pakistan's deal with militants
Afghan offensives add weight to safe haven fear Relations between Karzai and Musharraf hit new low Declan Walsh in Kabul Friday September 29, 2006 The Guardian
Taliban attacks along Afghanistan's southeastern border have more than doubled in the three weeks since a controversial deal between Pakistan and pro-Taliban militants, the US military said yesterday. Pakistan's military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, had promised the agreement with militants in North Waziristan would help to bring peace to Afghanistan. But early indications suggest the pact is having the opposite effect, creating a safe haven for the Taliban to regroup and launch fresh cross-border offensives against western and Afghan troops.
Reid pledges crackdown on extremists
Matthew Tempest, political correspondent Thursday September 28, 2006 Guardian Unlimited
John Reid laid down a marker for the Labour party leadership vacancy today with an enthusiastically received speech pledging a hardline crackdown on Islamist extremism, terrorism and crime. The prime minister, Tony Blair, led a standing ovation from the platform, which saw three-quarters of delegates in the G-Mex centre in Manchester rise to their feet. The chancellor, Gordon Brown, was not in the hall for the speech.
Musharraf's PR war
By Guardian Unlimited / World news 04:15pm
Pervez Musharraf, George Bush and Hamid Karzai: not all of them personal friends. Photo: Evan Vucci/AP President Bush might have taken pains to describe (registration required) the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan as "personal friends of mine" while hosting them at the White House yesterday, but it's unlikely they use such warm words for each other, writes Peter Walker. In an interview with Newsweek magazine, Hamid Karzai insisted Pervez Musharraf knew perfectly well the location of the former head of the Taliban regime, but would not arrest him. Mullah Omar is, for sure, in Quetta, Pakistan, and he knows that. We have given him the GPS numbers of his house and the telephone number. Gen Musharraf denies that, and is doing so while combining international statesmanship with a seemingly endless round of media engagements. His most entertaining was an appearance on satirical new programme The Daily Show, where host Jon Stewart elaborately poured his guest a cup of tea before asking casually: "Where's Osama bin Laden?" [Dilemma]
Revolt of the Generals
by RICHARD J. WHALEN [from the October 16, 2006 issue]
A revolt is brewing among our retired Army and Marine generals. This rebellion--quiet and nonconfrontational, but remarkable nonetheless--comes not because their beloved forces are bearing the brunt of ground combat in Iraq but because the retirees see the US adventure in Mesopotamia as another Vietnam-like, strategically failed war, and they blame the errant, arrogant civilian leadership at the Pentagon. The dissenters include two generals who led combat troops in Iraq: Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack Jr., who commanded the 82nd Airborne Division, and Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who led the First Infantry Division (the "Big Red One"). These men recently sacrificed their careers by retiring and joining the public protest.
In late September Batiste, along with two other retired senior officers, spoke out about these failures at a Washington Democratic policy hearing, with Batiste saying Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was "not a competent wartime leader" who made "dismal strategic decisions" that "resulted in the unnecessary deaths of American servicemen and women, our allies and the good people of Iraq." Rumsfeld, he said, "dismissed honest dissent" and "did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war." This kind of protest among senior military retirees during wartime is unprecedented in American history--and it is also deeply worrisome
Iraq war was terrorism 'recruiting sergeant'
· Study for MoD criticises Afghanistan involvement · Pakistan army said to be indirectly aiding Taliban Richard Norton-Taylor Thursday September 28, 2006 The Guardian
The Iraq war has acted as a "recruiting sergeant" for extremists in the Muslim world, according to a paper prepared for a Ministry of Defence thinktank, which also said the British government sent troops into Afghanistan "with its eyes closed". The paper, which describes the west as being "in a fix" and includes a savage attack on Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, was written by an officer attached to the Defence Academy, according to BBC2's Newsnight programme. Its release provoked a furious response from the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, who has been touring the US.
On Afghanistan, the paper said Britain went in "with its eyes closed". It claims that a secret deal to extricate UK troops from Iraq so they could focus on Afghanistan failed when British military leaders were overruled. [Unintended consequences]
N Korea hits out at US sanctions
Mr Choe said the US did not want talks to succeed North Korea has blamed US financial sanctions for deadlock in multilateral talks on its nuclear programme. In a speech to the UN General Assembly, envoy Choe Su-Hon said that North Korea was willing to hold talks, but the US stance had created an impasse. Last year, the two sides agreed a deal under which North Korea would receive economic aid in return for scrapping its nuclear ambitions. But the deal fell apart over disagreements on how to implement it. Shortly afterwards, the US imposed financial sanctions on Pyongyang, accusing it of involvement in counterfeiting and money-laundering.
(see full text below)
[Media]
61st session of General Assembly of the United Nations, 19-29 September 2006
These are the published speeches, rather than transcripts of what was actually said
- George W. Bush, President of the United States of America
- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
- Hugo Chavez : Rise Up Against the Empire
  Speech at the UN General Assembly by Hugo Chavez September 21, 2006
  GlobalResearch.ca Representatives of the governments of the world, good morning to all of you. First of all, I would like to invite you, very respectfully, to those who have not read this book, to read it.
  Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious American and world intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, and this is one of his most recent books, ' Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States.'" [Holds up book, waves it in front of General Assembly.] "It's an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what's happening now, and the greatest threat looming over our planet.
  The devil is right at home. The devil, the devil himself, is right in the house. "And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here." [crosses himself] "And it smells of sulfur still today.
  Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.
  And maybe we have to change location. Maybe we have to put the United Nations somewhere else; maybe a city of the south. We've proposed Venezuela.
  You know that my personal doctor had to stay in the plane. The chief of security had to be left in a locked plane. Neither of these gentlemen was allowed to arrive and attend the U.N. meeting. This is another abuse and another abuse of power on the part of the Devil. It smells of sulfur here, but God is with us and I embrace you all.
- H.E. Mr. CHOE Su Hon Chairman of the Delegation of the DPRK
U.S. Pushes Anti-Castro TV, but Is Anyone Watching?
By ABBY GOODNOUGH Published: September 27, 2006 MIAMI, Sept. 26 - Soon after Fidel Castro announced his mysterious illness in July, the Bush administration stepped up its anti-Castro television broadcasts to Cuba with a new $10 million system. For the last two months, a twin-engine plane has beamed the signal of the American broadcast, called TV Martí, toward the island from over the Straits of Florida for four hours a day, six days a week, up from four hours of transmission from an Air Force plane on Saturdays. Because the plane flies at 20,000 feet, administration officials say, the Cuban government cannot jam the signal as easily as in the past, when a blimp tethered 10,000 feet over the Florida Keys did the transmitting. But in interviews in the past two weeks, many Cubans said they still saw just snowy interference where the TV Martí broadcasts should be. About a dozen people in Havana said they still had never glimpsed the station even after the expanded airborne broadcasts began, raising questions about the usefulness of the $10 million expenditure. Some said they would not watch the station even if they could, because they assumed that it would be biased. "In my opinion, that is wasted money," said a 35-year-old homemaker in Havana who, like all those interviewed, asked that her name not be used. "It's propaganda." She and her husband said many Cubans tried to pick up commercial programs broadcast from Florida, but what they wanted was Spanish soap operas, not TV Martí. [Propaganda]
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
By John Pilger
September 12, 2006
My first documentary for television was The Quiet Mutiny, made in 1970 for Granada. It was an unusual film, laced with irony and farce, rather like a factual Catch-22, and shot in a gentle, almost lyrical style by George Jesse Turner. The story was something of a scoop: America's huge army in Vietnam was disintegrating as angry conscripts brought their rebellion at home to the battlefields of Vietnam. The film's evidence of soldiers shooting their officers and refusing to fight caused a furore among the guardians of official truth.
The American ambassador to Britain, Walter Annenberg, a crony of President Richard Nixon, phoned Sir Robert Fraser, director of the Independent Television Authority (ITA). Although he had not seen the film, Sir Robert was apoplectic. Summoning Granada executives, he banged his desk and described me as "a bloody dangerous subversive" who was "anti-American". This puzzled Lord Bernstein, Granada's liber tarian founder, who protested that The Quiet Mutiny had received high praise from the public and, far from being anti-American, had shown only sympathy for the despair of young GIs caught up in a hopeless war. When I flew to New York and showed it to Mike Wallace, the star reporter of CBS's 60 Minutes, he agreed. "Real shame we can't show it here," he said.
This fear and loathing came as a surprise to me. I was a newspaper journalist naive in the ways of television, especially the lengths to which established power went to control it. [Media]
Army chief tells Bush: there's not enough money for Iraq war
· 'Bungling' Rumsfeld must go, say retired officers · British troops kill al-Qaida leader in Basra shootout Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington and Richard Norton-Taylor Tuesday September 26, 2006 The Guardian
George Bush suffered a serious rebuke of his wartime leadership yesterday when his army chief said he did not have enough money to fight the war in Iraq. Six weeks before midterm elections in which the war is a crucial issue, the protest from the army head, General Peter Schoomaker, exposes concerns within the US military about the strain of the war on Iraq, and growing tensions between uniformed personnel and the Pentagon chief, Donald Rumsfeld. Three retired senior military officers yesterday accused Mr Rumsfeld of bungling the war on Iraq, and said the Pentagon was "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically". Major General Paul Eaton, a retired officer who was in charge of training Iraq troops, said: "Mr Rumsfeld and his immediate team must be replaced or we will see two more years of extraordinarily bad decision-making." The rare criticism from the three officers, all veterans of the Iraq war, is an embarrassment to Mr Bush at a time when his party had hoped to campaign on its strong leadership in the "war on terror". The officers echoed the findings of the National Intelligence Estimate at the weekend, which said the Iraq war had fuelled Islamist extremism around the world. They also accused the Pentagon of putting soldiers' lives at risk by failing to provide the best equipment available. "Why are we asking our soldiers and marines to use the same armour we found was insufficient in 2003?" asked Thomas Hammes, a retired Marine Corps colonel. The criticism comes amid an unprecedented show of defiance from the army chief, Gen Schoomaker. The general refused to submit a budget plan for 2008 to Mr Rumsfeld, arguing the military could not continue operations in Iraq and its other missions without additional funds, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday. The seriousness of the protest was underlined by Gen Schoomaker's reputation as an ally of the Pentagon chief. The general came out of retirement at Mr Rumsfeld's request to take up the post.
Boy aged three buys £9,000 car on internet
Press Association Tuesday September 26, 2006 The Guardian
A three-year-old boy used his mother's computer to buy a £9,000 car on the internet auction site eBay. Jack Neal's parents discovered their son's successful bid when they received a congratulations message from the website about the pink Nissan Figaro. Rachel Neal, 36, told the Sun: "We couldn't understand what was happening. Neither of us had bought anything. So we checked and saw it was a Barbie-pink car which we'd bought for £8,999. We flew into a panic." The following morning Jack woke and told his parents: "I've bought a car."
In Lebanon, a War's Lethal Harvest
Threat of Unexploded Bombs Paralyzes the South
By Anthony Shadid Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, September 26, 2006; Page A01
DEIR QANOUN, Lebanon -- The messages scrawled in red on the concrete, stone and cinder-block walls near Ali Saqlawi's house are worded differently but mean the same: "CB," "cb strike," "cluster strike." Arrows point with deceptive precision in every direction. Saqlawi, a mechanic, needs no warning. He has already seen the thousands of bomblets the size of cellphones that littered his town, the detritus from hundreds of cluster bombs fired in the last days of the 33-day war with Israel. "I saw them where your feet are," he said, pointing to the ground next to the rubble of what was once his house and garage. He waved toward the parched lemon groves across the cratered street. "You'll find them there," he said. He pointed at the olive orchard behind him, awaiting a reluctant harvest by workers too fearful to enter. "It's all bombs over there," he said.
The scourge of munitions from the cluster bombs now littering southern Lebanon, mostly American-made but some manufactured in Israel, will be a "lasting legacy," the United Nations has said. U.N. officials estimate that the Israeli military fired 90 percent of the bombs during the last 72 hours of the conflict, which began on July 12 after Hezbollah fighters seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid and ended with a cease-fire on Aug. 14. As many as 1 million of the bomblets are unexploded, they say, wounding or killing three people a day. The threat of stumbling across a bomblet has paralyzed life in parts of the south that depend on the harvest of tobacco and now-abandoned groves of bananas, olives and citrus.
Venezuela foreign minister detained, U.S. apologizes
Reuters Sunday, September 24, 2006; 5:52 AM CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's foreign minister was detained at a New York airport on Saturday, prompting an apology from the U.S. government and compounding already tense relations between the two countries. In New York, State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said the United States regretted the incident involving Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro at John F. Kennedy airport. "The United States government apologized to Foreign Minister Maduro and the Venezuelan government," said Gallegos. Venezuelan television said Maduro was stopped for an hour and a half and stripped of his travel documents.
Airmen hit back at army after 'useless in Afghanistan' claim
Mark Townsend, defence correspondent Sunday September 24, 2006 The Observer
Bitter recriminations broke out among British forces in Afghanistan last night as factions of the RAF and infantry rounded on each other amid continued combat in Helmand province. Evidence of a split surfaced in the wake of comments by Major James Loden of 3 Para that the RAF had been 'utterly, utterly useless' during operations against the Taliban. A series of fractious emails emerged yesterday from furious service personnel, provoking fears that morale was at risk of collapsing. Further concern came with fresh evidence that the psychological fallout of Afghanistan may prove far greater than that from Iraq, while the number of UK casualties from Helmand was said to have caused British-based medical centres to be 'absolutely overrun'.
Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Hurting U.S. Terror Fight
By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, September 24, 2006; Page A01
The war in Iraq has become a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded. A 30-page National Intelligence Estimate completed in April cites the "centrality" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the insurgency that has followed, as the leading inspiration for new Islamic extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda. It concludes that, rather than contributing to eventual victory in the global counterterrorism struggle, the situation in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position, according to officials familiar with the classified document. [Unintended consequences]
Anger at U.S. Policies More Strident at U.N
. Speeches Show Resentment of Idea of Forced Democracy
By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, September 24, 2006; Page A23
UNITED NATIONS -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad grabbed headlines last week by blasting U.S. policies from the dais of the U.N. General Assembly. But while their words were harsh, in many ways they merely expressed in bolder terms what a number of other world leaders and foreign diplomats believe. Anti-Americanism never really left the United Nations, but this year's gathering of world leaders demonstrated an unusually strident disrespect for the United States. The United States is perceived as weakened by a draining war in Iraq, while many of its adversaries feel emboldened with newfound oil wealth. [Media] [Spin] [Camouflage]
Bush threatened to bomb Pakistan, says Musharraf
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Friday September 22, 2006 The Guardian
The Bush administration threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age" after the September 11 attacks if the country did not cooperate with America's war on Afghanistan, it emerged yesterday. In an interview to be aired on CBS television this weekend Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, said the threat was delivered by the assistant secretary of state, Richard Armitage, in conversations with Pakistan's intelligence director. "The intelligence director told me that (Mr Armitage) said, 'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the stone age'," Gen Musharraf was quoted as saying. The revelation that the US used extreme pressure to secure Pakistan's cooperation in the war on terror arrived at a time of renewed unease in the US about its frontline ally.
Ministry accused over Afghan casualty figures
Lee Glendinning Friday September 22, 2006 The Guardian
The scale of UK casualties in Afghanistan has been under-reported, a British officer serving in the south of the country has claimed, condemning the Ministry of Defence's operation as politically driven. Major Jon Swift claimed soldiers were often patched up after being injured and sent back into the field without the injury being recorded. "The scale of casualties has not been properly reported and shows no sign of reducing," he said. "Political and not military imperatives are being followed in the campaign."
The Super-Rich Get Richer: Forbes 400 Are All Billionaires
By Frank Ahrens Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, September 22, 2006; Page A01 It's not news that Bill Gates is the richest person in America, according to Forbes magazine's annual list of the nation's 400 richest people, released yesterday. He has been for 13 years. Barring a second Stone Age in which computers are good only for hurling at other cavemen, Gates will always be rich. The news is: On this list, $999 million is chump change.
It's not just the accumulated wealth that draws attention to the list; it's the eye-popping numbers that show the speed with which wealth is gained -- and lost -- at the dawn of this millennium. For instance, according to Forbes: · Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson (No. 3, $20.5 billion) has made $1 million per hour over the past two years. · Google Inc. founders Sergey Brin (No. 12, $14.1 billion) and Larry Page (No. 13, $14 billion) have each made $13 million per day over the past two years.
Officers warn about plight of British troops
· Frontline messages tell of Afghanistan casualty rate · Army let down by 'utterly useless' RAF
Richard Norton-Taylor Saturday September 23, 2006 The Guardian
British troops in Afghanistan are exhausted and desperately short of helicopters, and there is no sign that the casualty rate will fall, according to accounts yesterday from officers on the frontline. The reports, including a leaked email describing the RAF as "utterly, utterly useless", put the government under fresh pressure over whether it adequately prepared British troops for operations in the hostile south of the country. The most graphic accounts came in emails from Major James Loden of 3 Para, who described British forces as desperately short of reinforcements and helicopters, and berated the RAF for being "utterly, utterly useless". Maj Loden, who was awarded the Bronze Star medal in 2004 by the US military for his services in Afghanistan in support of its Operation Enduring Freedom, lambasted the pilot of a Harrier fighter bomber for firing phosphorus bombs closer to British troops on the ground than the enemy. "A female Harrier pilot 'couldn't identify the target', fired two phosphorus rockets that just missed our own compound so that we thought they were incoming RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades], and then strafed our perimeter missing the enemy by 200 metres," Maj Loden said.
U.S. Best Seller, Thanks to Rave by Latin Leftist
Raimin Talaie/Bloomberg News
Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, recommended Noam Chomsky's book "Hegemony or Survival," a critique of American foreign policy, at the United Nations on Wednesday, and sales of the book have leapt.
By MOTOKO RICH Published: September 23, 2006 All the authors currently clamoring for a seat on Oprah Winfrey's couch might do well to send copies of their books to the latest publishing tastemaker: Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez.
Ever since Mr. Chávez held up a copy of a 301-page book by Noam Chomsky, the linguist and left-wing political commentator, during a speech at the United Nations on Wednesday, sales of the book have climbed best-seller lists at Amazon.com and BN.com, the online site for the book retailer Barnes & Noble, and booksellers around the country have noted a spike in sales. The paperback edition of "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance," a detailed critique of American foreign policy that Mr. Chomsky published two years ago, hit No. 1 on Amazon's best-seller list yesterday, and the hardcover edition, published in 2003, climbed as high as No. 6. At both Borders Group and Barnes & Noble, sales of the title jumped tenfold in the last two days. [Media]
US Soldiers Advised Against Travel to Thailand
The U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) advised its servicemembers yesterday not to travel to Thailand, citing possible anti-foreign disturbances in the country, whose government was recently overthrown by the military.
U.S. threatened to bomb Pakistan after 9/11: Musharraf
By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss Reuters Thursday, September 21, 2006; 6:29 PM
NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan said that after the September 11 attacks the United States threatened to bomb his country if it did not cooperate with America's campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Musharraf, in an interview with CBS news magazine show "60 Minutes" that will air on Sunday, said the threat came from Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and was given to Musharraf's intelligence director.
"The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, 'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,"' Musharraf said. "I think it was a very rude remark." Armitage was not immediately available to comment. A Bush administration official said there would be no comment on a "reported conversation between Mr. Armitage and a Pakistani official."
US threatened post 9/11 attack on ally
The Australian — Source: AFP September 22, 2006
THE United States threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age" unless it cooperated with the US-led war on terror after the September 11, 2001 attacks, President Pervez Musharraf said in an interview released overnight.
"The intelligence director told me that (Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage) said, 'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the stone age'," Mr Musharraf said in the interview with 60 Minutes, to be shown Sunday. Mr Musharraf said the threat came from Mr Armitage and was delivered to the Pakistani president's intelligence director, according to the CBS television network, which produced the investigative report.
Mr Musharraf has said the threat was delivered to his intelligence director, according to selected transcripts of the interview released by CBS. "I think it was a very rude remark," Mr Musharraf says in the interview. "One has to think and take actions in the interests of the nation, and that's what I did."
Shortly after the September 11 attacks, Pakistan abandoned its support for the Taliban, which was sheltering Al-Qaeda leaders, and became a front-line ally in the US-led "war on terror."
Pakistan has arrested several senior Al-Qaeda members including Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of the 2001 attacks. The South Asian country has also deployed around 80,000 troops at the rugged frontier with Afghanistan to hunt pro-Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked militants who sneaked into the area after fleeing the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. The alleged threat also demanded that Pakistan turn over border posts and bases for the US military to use in the war against the Taliban, which ended with the hardline regime's collapse in late 2001. Other "ludicrous" demands required Pakistan to suppress domestic expressions of support for militant attacks on US targets, according to CBS. "If somebody's expressing views, we cannot curb the expression of views," Musharraf said. [Imperialism] [US military]
Iran's Leader Relishes 2nd Chance to Make Waves
By DAVID E. SANGER Published: September 21, 2006 When President Bush and his advisers decided to allow President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran into the country to address the United Nations, their strategy was simple: containment. There would be no visits to other cities where he could denounce Washington or question Israel's legitimacy. There would be no opportunities, beyond his speech to the General Assembly, to turn questions about his nuclear intentions into repeated diatribes about America's nuclear arsenal. It turned out that Mr. Ahmadinejad had a Plan B. The scope of his determination to dominate not only the airwaves but the debate became evident yesterday evening, when he entered a hotel conference room on the East Side with a jaunty smile, a wave and an air of supreme confidence. Over the objections of the administration and Jewish groups that boycotted the event, Mr. Ahmadinejad, the man who has become the defiant face of Iran, squared off with the nation's foreign policy establishment, parrying questions for an hour and three-quarters with two dozen members of the Council on Foreign Relations, then ending the evening by asking whether they were simply shills for the Bush administration. Never raising his voice and thanking each questioner with a tone that oozed polite hostility, he spent 40 minutes questioning the evidence that the Holocaust ever happened - "I think we should allow more impartial studies to be done on this," he said after hearing an account of an 81-year-old member, the insurance mogul Maurice R. Greenberg, who saw the Dachau concentration camp as Germany fell - and he refused to even consider Washington's proposal for Russia to provide Iran with nuclear reactor fuel, and take it back once it is used. (Without the capacity to enrich fuel on its own soil Iran would be unable to make fuel suitable for a nuclear weapon.) He traced the history of 50 years of unfilled deals with the United States, Germany, France and others - skipping over the Iranian revolution and the hostage-taking that followed - and concluded, "How can we rely on these partners." His solution? The United States should shut down its own fuel production and "within five years, we will sell you our own fuel, with a 50 percent discount!" He settled back into his seat with a broad smile that some in the group described as a smirk. [Arrogance] [Media]
On the horizon ... pilotless planes as fishermen's and firefighters' friends
Alok Jha, science correspondent Wednesday August 30, 2006 The Guardian
Pilotless planes used by the military to drop bombs and carry out reconnaissance will be flying over Britain by the end of the decade under proposals from a government-backed project. The drones could be used to monitor the environment, allow firefighters to spot blazes in remote locations and aid the police in controlling crowds and traffic, according to aerospace experts
Drones could also monitor large crowds or use face recognition programs to follow the movements of particular people. Where the police might use helicopters today, drones could be on patrol in future. [Surveillance]
Pope's remarks about Jews 'unwise in current climate'
John Hooper in Rome Monday September 18, 2006 The Guardian
Having just stirred up a global storm by quoting from a text fiercely critical of Islam, it might have been expected that Pope Benedict would steer well away from anything alluding to another religion that could be open to misinterpretation. Yet only minutes after saying that he was "deeply sorry" about the reaction to his earlier remarks, he cited a passage from the New Testament highlighting the gulf between Christian and Jewish attitudes to the crucifixion of Jesus. He said that, before leading the crowd in the traditional midday prayer known as the Angelus, he wanted to comment on two recent Roman Catholic festivals relating to the crucifixion. What, the Pope asked, was the point of exalting the cross - a tool of execution? In reply to his rhetorical question, he quoted a verse from St Paul, the New Testament author most often accused of anti-semitism. In the Italian translation, used by the Pope, it runs as follows: "We preach the crucified Christ - a scandal for the Jews, a folly for the pagans".
Faith, reason and the university: memories and reflections
Following is the speech given by Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg in Germany on September 12
Friday September 15, 2006 Guardian Unlimited
Your Eminences, Your Magnificences, Your Excellencies, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen
According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war.
Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".
The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably ... is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...".
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident.
But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry.
Crying Wolf: Terror Alerts based on Fabricated Intelligence
by Michel Chossudovsky August 20, 2006 GlobalResearch.ca
"It would be easy for terrorists to cook up radioactive 'dirty' bombs to explode inside the U.S. ... How likely it is, I can't say..." (Secretary of State Colin Powell, 10 February 2003) "The near-term attacks ... will either rival or exceed the 9/11 attacks... And it's pretty clear that the nation's capital and New York city would be on any list..." (DHS Secretary Tom Ridge, December 2003) "You ask, 'Is it serious?' Yes, you bet your life. People don't do that unless it's a serious situation." (Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, December 2003) "... Credible reporting indicates that Al Qaeda is moving forward with its plans to carry out a large-scale attack in the United States in an effort to disrupt our democratic process... (Secretary Tom Ridge, 8 July 2004) "The enemy that struck on 9/11 is weakened and fractured yet it is still lethal and planning to hit us again." (Vice President Dick Cheney, 7 January 2006) ''Had this plot been carried out, the loss of life to innocent civilians would have been on an unprecedented scale,'' ( Home Secretary John Reid, 10 August 2006) "Crying Wolf: To raise a false alarm too many times, with the result that no one believes you when help is necessary."
The British Home Office announced (August 10) that a "foiled terror plot" to simultaneously blow up as many as ten airplanes on transatlantic flights had been uncovered. So far Scotland Yard has not presented documentary evidence of this carefully coordinated suicide bombing operation. Confirmed by media reports, there is no evidence that the arrested suspects had actually purchased plane tickets which would have enabled them to undertake this operation. Several of the suspects did not even possess a passport. (Craig Murray, 14 August 2006).
Meanwhile, the feasibility of the plot ( at a technical-scientific level) has been questioned. No chemical labs were discovered, which might have confirmed that the suspects had the prior knowledge or skills to manufacture a triacetone triperoxide ( TATP) bomb, let alone their ability to appropriately mix the deadly liquid chemicals on board a transatlantic flight ( Thomas C. Greene, 17 August 2006) [Evidence] [Camouflage]
Cold War Missiles Target of Blackout
Documents Altered To Conceal Data By Christopher Lee Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, August 21, 2006; Page A01
The Bush administration has begun designating as secret some information that the government long provided even to its enemy the former Soviet Union: the numbers of strategic weapons in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during the Cold War. The Pentagon and the Department of Energy are treating as national security secrets the historical totals of Minuteman, Titan II and other missiles, blacking out the information on previously public documents, according to a new report by the National Security Archive. The archive is a nonprofit research library housed at George Washington University.
Global Image of the U.S. Is Worsening, Survey Finds
By BRIAN KNOWLTON Published: June 14, 2006 WASHINGTON, June 13 - As the war in Iraq continues for a fourth year, the global image of America has slipped further, even among people in some countries closely allied with the United States, a new opinion poll has found.
Favorable views of the United States dropped sharply over the past year in Spain, where only 23 percent said they had a positive opinion, down from 41 percent last year, according to the survey. It was done in 15 nations, including the United States, this spring by the Washington-based Pew Research Center. Other countries where positive views dropped significantly include India (56 percent, down from 71 percent); Russia (43 percent, down from 52 percent); and Indonesia (30 percent, down from 38 percent). In Turkey, only 12 percent said they held a favorable opinion, down from 23 percent last year.
Family of Guantanamo Detainee Doubts He Took His Own Life
By Faiza Saleh Ambah Special to The Washington Post Wednesday, June 14, 2006; Page A17
MEDINA, Saudi Arabia, June 13 -- Yassar Talal al-Zharani's life began on the Red Sea coast 21 years ago, included a stint as a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, and ended on Saturday in a reported suicide in the U.S.-run prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The death united his friends and family here in grief and disbelief at the Pentagon's version of events. They described a man who was optimistic, stubborn and too devout to have taken his own life. "He had memorized the Koran by heart. He was a strong believer. How could he take his own life and spend eternity in hell?" asked his sister Sohayla, alluding to Islam's punishment for suicide.
The death of Zharani and two other detainees last week has reignited resentment in the Arab world over the prison that holds more than 450 people, mainly Arab and Muslim men, almost all without charge.
Blair-Bush deal before Iraq war revealed in secret memo
PM promised to be 'solidly behind' US invasion with or without UN backing Richard Norton-Taylor Friday February 3, 2006
Tony Blair told President George Bush that he was "solidly" behind US plans to invade Iraq before he sought advice about the invasion's legality and despite the absence of a second UN resolution, according to a new account of the build-up to the war published today. A memo of a two-hour meeting between the two leaders at the White House on January 31 2003 - nearly two months before the invasion - reveals that Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme.
"The diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning", the president told Mr Blair. The prime minister is said to have raised no objection. He is quoted as saying he was "solidly with the president and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam". The disclosures come in a new edition of Lawless World, by Phillipe Sands, a QC and professor of international law at University College, London.
Extreme dining
In the wake of Super Size Me, it looked as if the fast-food giants were embracing healthy eating, with salads appearing on every menu. But that's all over. The big chains in the US are now pushing 'indulgent offerings': huge stacks of meat, oozing with grease - and not a vegetable in sight. Oliver Burkeman reports
Wednesday August 23, 2006 The Guardian You do not forget your first encounter with a Burger King Stacker Quad. Mine happened in a particularly dispiriting branch of the fast-food chain, on Eighth Avenue in New York - a windowless underground outlet, accessible via a flight of stairs, or alternatively by a stairlift capable of supporting someone weighing up to 450lb. The Stacker Quad, as you discover when you summon the nerve to order it, consists of four beef patties, four slices of cheese, and four strips of bacon in a bun, all glistening in far more grease than a regular Whopper or Big Mac. There is no trace of lettuce or tomato or onion, a fact specifically singled out for celebration in the TV ads that accompanied the launch of the Stacker product range in the United States a few weeks ago.
U.S. Asks Finance Chiefs to Limit Iran's Access to Banks
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN Published: September 17, 2006 SINGAPORE, Sept. 16 - The United States pressed the top finance officials of the world's leading industrial nations on Saturday to crack down on what Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said was the exploitation of their banking systems by at least 30 Iranian front companies involved in illicit activities. Mr. Paulson said he had told the finance and economic ministers that the front companies were identified by American intelligence agencies as funneling money to terrororist groups using banks in Europe and elsewhere, many of them "blue chip banks." [Sanctions]
The Tehran Calculus
President Bush's Speech: "Solving Problems before resorting to military force"
by Charles Krauthammer
September 16, 2006 Washington Post
Editor's Note Charles Krauthammer an advocate of war and a spin doctor for the White House has written that a war in the Middle East is inevitable and eminent in regards to Iran. His article notes a very noteworthy assertion by the American President.
Krauthammer writes: Responding to a question on Iran, President Bush said on Tuesday: "It's very important for the American people to see the president try to solve problems diplomatically before resorting to military force." "Before", writes Krauthammer, implies that "the one follows the other, The signal is unmistakable. An aerial attack on Iran's nuclear facilities lies just beyond the horizon of diplomacy. With the crisis advancing and the moment of truth approaching, it is important to begin looking now with unflinching honesty at the military option."
In his televised Sept. 11 address, President Bush said that we must not "leave our children to face a Middle East overrun by terrorist states and radical dictators armed with nuclear weapons." There's only one such current candidate: Iran.
Cuba's Humanitarian Missions
[Opinion] Doctors healing the world's poor
Vishal Bharti (vishal)
Published 2006-09-17 12:16 (KST) A doctor's profession is considered a novel one. In some countries, like India, they are called messengers of god. But the profession is losing its dignity in the eyes of ordinary people. Doctors these days are working to line their pockets instead of to improve the health of people. There was a time when the happiest moments of a doctor's life was when their patients walked out of the hospital fully cured, but nowadays it gives them more pleasure when patients pay their bills.
But this story is not about corrupt doctors, it is about generous ones.
Cuban doctors, working in their own country and throughout the world, put their best efforts into helping people.
Cuba, a small country in the Caribbean, has 71,000 medical graduates who are working in Cuba and throughout the world on humanitarian missions.
According to the World Health Organization, Cuba provides excellent health facilities to its citizens. Cuba is called a third world country by "developed nations," but it has a doctor-patient ratio of 1-to-156. The ratio in America is 1-to-1,449 in African-American dominated areas and 1-to-415 in areas dominated by the white population. In the United Kingdom, this ratio is 1-to-1,800 citizens.
Thailand's Prime Minister, a 'Caretaker' on a Roll
By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, September 16, 2006; Page A14
BANGKOK -- In the trunk of the now infamous gray Daewoo found near Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's urban mansion late last month was a bomb with a bit of everything. Weighing more than 10 pounds and packed with C4 explosives, military detonators and two sticks of dynamite with short fuses, it was hardly inconspicuous. Little wonder that Thaksin's detractors immediately labeled him a fraud, charging his camp with orchestrating a fake assassination attempt to curry sympathy with voters ahead of elections. Bangkok newspapers ran endless satires on the episode involving the man they have come to call "Thug Sin."
Muslim leaders demand apology for Pope's 'medieval' remarks
John Hooper in Rome and Luke Harding in Berlin Saturday September 16, 2006 The Guardian
Pope Benedict XVI was last night facing angry demands from Muslims that he apologise for a speech in which he appeared to say the concept of jihad was "unreasonable" and quoted a medieval ruler who said Muhammad's innovations were "evil and inhuman". Protests swept across the Islamic world and the furore threatened a scheduled visit by the Pope to Turkey.
The row broke out over a lecture given by the Pope on Tuesday at his old university at Regensburg. His central theme was one on which he has touched repeatedly in recent months - the need to reconcile faith and reason. He quoted from a little-known medieval text recording debates between a Byzantine emperor and an educated Persian. The Pope recalled that the emperor had told his adversary: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." Benedict acknowledged the "startling brusqueness" of the remark, but went on to endorse fully the view that "spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable". [Unintended consequences]
After a quiet first year as pontiff, God's Rottweiler shows his teeth
Pope believes his church should take tougher line on Islam John Hooper in Rome Saturday September 16, 2006 The Guardian
The anniversary of Pope Benedict's election in the spring focused a question that had been forming in the minds of Vatican-watchers throughout his first 12 months: "What happened to God's Rottweiler?" As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - the Vatican ministry that once ran the Inquisition - Joseph Ratzinger had done a fine job for Pope John Paul of intimidating the thinkers of the Roman Catholic church into sullen conformity.
It is tempting to see the Pope's controversial reference to a 14th century Byzantine emperor in the same light - as the gaffe of an other-wordly intellectual who does not stop to think that his words are going to be seized on by journalists. However, he more or less apologised in advance for the "startling brusqueness" of the emperor's remark that Muhammad brought "only evil and inhuman" things. That suggests he was fully aware of the impact it could make. What is more, it is clear from the passage that followed that the Pope fully supports, if not the emperor's language, then certainly his underlying contention - that holy war is at odds with reason. There are two further motives for thinking Benedict is ready to upset the believers in other faiths rather than shrink from what he believes needs to be said (or not said). First, he has done it before. At Auschwitz, in May, he appalled many Jews by passing up what they saw as a historic opportunity for a German pope to apologise for the Roman Catholic church's conduct in the second world war. The second factor is that Pope Benedict has signalled clearly that he favours a tougher line in his church's dealings with Islam.
Better paid, better armed, better connected - Taliban rise again
Kandahar under threat, war raging in two provinces and
was not meant to be like this. When American troops started to flounder in Iraq after 2003 President George Bush lauded Afghanistan as a major victory. When presidential and parliamentary elections passed peacefully, his generals wrote the insurgency off. "The Taliban is a force in decline," declared Major General Eric Olson 18 months ago. Today, to many observers those words look foolish. While northern and western Afghanistan remain stable, President Hamid Karzai is isolated and unpopular. Comparisons of the southern war with Vietnam are no longer considered outlandish. And dismayed western diplomats - the architects of reconstruction - are watching their plans go up in smoke. "Nobody saw this coming. It's pretty dire," admitted one official in Kabul. [Unintended consequences]
Tensions Overshadow Gains in Afghanistan
Civil Conflict Could Reignite as Stability Remains Elusive By Pamela Constable Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, September 16, 2006; Page A18
KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 15 -- Despite scattered gains by international troops fighting Taliban insurgents in the country's south, Afghan and foreign analysts here have voiced concern that a recent peace initiative is backfiring and that lapsed Afghan militias could be drawn into the conflict unless it is quickly quelled and replaced by aid and protection. NATO and U.S. military officials here said this week that an intensive two-week operation against Taliban fighters in Kandahar province had been a tactical success, killing more than 500 insurgents and forcing others to retreat. Afghan and foreign forces also retook a district in neighboring Helmand province that had been seized twice by the Taliban.
We can't just keep fighting endless battles without having something to offer the next day," a senior Western military official said. "We have killed a lot of Taliban, but they are not running out of foot soldiers, and for every one we kill, we create new families that hate us." On Sept. 5, Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, announced a peace pact with domestic Taliban forces operating in the tribal areas of Pakistan along the Afghan border.
The Terrorist Enemy
US State Department
The enemy is a federated terrorist threat complex with the character of a global insurgency (16 September 2006) [Terrorism] [Imperialism]
The Loose Cannon in the Middle East
Immanuel Wallerstein
Commentary No. 193, Sept. 15, 2006
Everyone's attention is in the wrong place. Most analysts, journalists, and political leaders worry about some government doing something truly destabilizing in the Middle East that will launch widespread regional havoc. The standard culprits - differing according to one's political persuasions - are Iraq, Iran, Israel, and the United States. But in fact, for different reasons, none of these countries is likely, now or in the near future, to provoke a scenario that could lead to generalized warfare. Iraq is too engrossed in its civil war and in its attempts to end the U.S. presence to be able to start anything serious. Iran has a quite stable regime and is only trying to make sure that the United States cannot clip its wings. Israel is huffing and puffing about Iran but, after the Lebanon fiasco, is in no position to start anything serious. And the U.S. government is licking its Middle East wounds and seeking primarily to minimize the damage it has already caused to its own interests. The loose cannon in the Middle East is Pakistan.
Still, President Musharref of Pakistan looks increasingly like a political failure. His army has furtively renewed its support for the Taliban in Afghanistan (of whom Pakistan had been the principal sponsor in the 1990s), and the United States is getting increasingly irritated. If Musharref totters, Pakistan could well next have a truly Islamist regime quite hostile to the United States - this time in a militarily powerful country with nuclear weapons, and one in which Osama bin Laden resides with impunity. Then what?
N.A.T.O.'s Troubles in Afghanistan Will Persist
15 September 2006
Growing instability and a resilient insurgency in Afghanistan are putting N.A.T.O. forces under severe stress and jeopardizing U.S.-led stabilization efforts. In response, on September 9 and September 13, N.A.T.O. called for reinforcements by asking for an additional 2,500 troops. Poland, however, remains the only country to agree to provide additional troops, as Warsaw announced on September 14 that it would send 1,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan by February 2007.
While N.A.T.O. members struggle with the financial and political costs of the Afghan engagement, Washington has to face not only manpower shortages, but also Pakistan's tactical shift since Islamabad settled a truce with Taliban militants in parts of the North-West Frontier Province last week and abandoned a more uncompromising pro-U.S. and anti-Taliban stance for the first time since 2001.
It follows that the United States will need to re-think its exit strategy in Iraq even more urgently, since the two fronts -- Iraq and Afghanistan -- risk converging in a ruinous way for the Bush administration precisely as mid-term elections approach.
World Bank Lists Failing Nations That Can Breed Global Terrorism
By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, September 15, 2006; Page A13
The number of weak and poorly governed nations that can provide a breeding ground for global terrorism has grown sharply over the past three years, despite increased Western efforts to improve conditions in such states, according to a new World Bank report. "Fragile" countries, whose deepening poverty puts them at risk from terrorism, armed conflict and epidemic disease, have jumped to 26 from 17 since the report was last issued in 2003. Five states graduated off the list, but 14 made new appearances, including Nigeria and seven other African countries, Kosovo, Cambodia, East Timor, and the West Bank and Gaza. Twelve states, including Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan, made both lists.
"Past international engagement with these countries has failed to yield significant improvements," said the assessment released by the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group, which reports on the bank's programs to the board of directors. It was timed to coincide with the annual meeting of the bank and the International Monetary Fund this month in Singapore. [Victim] [Spin]
One month on, uneasy truce holds in battle-scarred border villages
Hizbullah fighters patrol hills while Israeli forces commit daily violations Clancy Chassay in Aita al-Shaab Thursday September 14, 2006 The Guardian
In the dusty, broken village of Aita al-Shaab, where almost every house bears scars from the battle between Israel and Hizbullah, the war still lingers a month after it officially ended. Israeli tanks and bulldozers roam back and forth across the border at night, locals say, while Hizbullah fighters patrol the thick green hills above the village. The sound of Israeli drones is familiar to the people of southern Lebanon, who report daily over-flights.
According to Alexander Ivanko, spokesman for the UN interim force in Lebanon (Unifil), there have been more than 100 recorded ceasefire violations by Israeli forces in the last month. These have been mostly over-flights and incursions by tanks, troops and bulldozers. Mr Ivanko said that 24 Lebanese civilians - including four men from Aita al-Shaab - had been detained at gunpoint by Israeli troops. All were later released.
How Human Rights Watch lost its way in Lebanon
by Jonathan Cook
September 7, 2006 GlobalResearch.ca
NAZARETH, 7 September 2006 The measure of a human rights organisation is to be found not just in the strides it takes to seek justice for the oppressed and victimised but also in the compromises it makes to keep itself out of trouble. Because of the business that human rights defenders are in, they must be held to a standard higher than we demand of others. Unfortunately, one of the best -- Human Rights Watch -- has failed that test during the war in Lebanon this summer.
HRW's logic appears to be arguing that Hizbullah had no right -- given its inadequate rocket technology -- to defend its country from Israel's massive bombardment of Lebanon's civilian population. In other words, it had no right of self-defence because its military arsenal was inferior. It should have sat out the weeks of aerial attacks, refusing to engage Israel until the Israeli army decided it was time to mount a ground invasion. Only at that point, HRW implies, did Hizbullah have the right to strike back. Such an argument effectively legitimises the use of military might by the stronger party, thereby making a nonsense of international law and the human rights standards HRW is supposed to uphold [Human rights] [Manipulation]
English Woods a Suspected Cover for Terror
By Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, September 13, 2006; Page A14
LYNDHURST, England, Sept. 12 -- Jake, an arthritic Labrador retriever, slept beneath an ancient oak tree in a warm September breeze. Ponies roamed untethered, children kicked pine cones along gravel forest paths, and Edith Jones stood outside her camper wondering how such a tranquil spot had become, according to police, a training ground for terrorists. Yassin Mutegombwa, 22, a London resident whose family is from Uganda, was charged in court Tuesday with receiving training for terrorism on British soil, the first person to be charged under a law enacted this year. According to a statement from Scotland Yard, he received weapons training in two rural English locations, including "at a woodland area" near Jones's campsite outside this village in southwestern England in late April and early June.
British authorities have also said that they suspect some radicals are using the sport of paintball, in which players dressed in combat uniforms shoot one another with balls filled with colored liquid, as a method of learning military-style tactics. A property owner who spoke on condition of anonymity said he had been told that police were monitoring a wooded paintball site in the Lyndhurst area. In Northern Virginia, 11 men were recently convicted in what prosecutors called a "jihad network" that among other things involved playing paintball in wooded areas of Virginia. Ian Horton, who runs the Paintball Park in Landford, a few miles north of the Matley Wood camp, said he recalled no suspicious customers at his park and said police would be wasting their time by watching his business for potential extremist activity. "I don't see where a terrorist gets any benefit from paintball," he said. [Bizarre]
Reinforce Baghdad
By William Kristol and Rich LowryTuesday, September 12, 2006; Page A23 We are at a crucial moment in Iraq. Supporters of the war, like us, have in the past differed over tactics. But at this urgent pass, there can be no doubt that we need to stop the downward slide in Iraq by securing Baghdad. There is no mystery as to what can make the crucial difference in the battle of Baghdad: American troops. A few thousand U.S. troops have already been transferred to Baghdad from elsewhere in Iraq. Where more U.S. troops have been deployed, the situation has gotten better. Those neighborhoods intensively patrolled by Americans are safer and more secure. But it is by no means clear that overall troop numbers in Baghdad are enough to do the job. And it is clear that stripping troops from other fronts risks progress elsewhere in the country.
The bottom line is this: More U.S. troops in Iraq would improve our chances of winning a decisive battle at a decisive moment. This means the ability to succeed in Iraq is, to some significant degree, within our control. The president should therefore order a substantial surge in overall troop levels in Iraq, with the additional forces focused on securing Baghdad. There is now no good argument for not sending more troops. The administration often says that it doesn't want to foster Iraqi dependency. This is a legitimate concern, but it is a second-order and long-term one. Iraq is a young democracy and a weak state facing a vicious insurgency and sectarian violence. The Iraqis are going to be dependent on us for some time. We can worry about weaning Iraq from reliance on our forces after the security crisis in Baghdad has passed. [Neocon]
EAST ASIA’S DOLLARS
By R. Taggart Murphy
Americans have long been warned that running large, continuous deficits courts disaster. ‘We are living on borrowed money and borrowed time’, was the way Walter Mondale put it to the 1984 Democratic Convention, when the US government’s cumulative deficit was some $7 trillion less than it is today. Three years later, a spate of cartoons and op-eds would depict the 1987 stock-market crash as a vicious hangover; the just deserts of a wastrel nation. The ever-accumulating deficits so frightened the first President Bush that he famously reneged on his ‘read my lips’ promise not to raise taxes. In 1992, Ross Perot launched the most successful third-party presidential candidacy since Eugene Debs by making the rivers of red ink his central campaign issue. Clinton’s great boast was that he managed temporarily to close the government deficit, although the trade deficit continued to grow during his administration.
There is no secret about the identity of the biggest dollar holders. They are the central banks and other financial institutions of Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates. If the dollar is going to crash, one or more of these places is going to have to change its stance towards the American currency. They display such a seemingly reflexive commitment to accumulating and retaining dollars that some commentators have described the current global financial order as ‘Bretton Woods ii’—a continuation by other means of the dollar-centred international order that prevailed in the postwar decades. The label does not itself explain why these states behave as they do. But it suggests that, for whatever reason, they have motives other than maximizing returns on their foreign-currency holdings; that they have a vested interest in the continuation of a us-led financial system. [Finance]
The Democratization of Missile Technology and the Future of War
By Mark Williams
[This is the second article posted on the consequences of weapons, including nuclear weapons, proliferation, for contemporary warfare. It follows Gabriel Kolko’s The Great Equalizer. Lessons From Iraq and Lebanon.]
I The Missiles of August: the Lebanon War The events of September 2001 disproved the assumption that only a state could make war on another state. Now Hezbollah's confrontation with Israel has provided further education about how the world is changing. Hezbollah's campaign is a clear sign of how the democratization of missile technology -- cruise missile technology, in particular -- is reshaping global realities.
Assumptions about the Israeli Defense Force's military superiority have enjoyed axiomatic status, especially among laypeople. In fact, the IDF were -- and perhaps still are -- a good citizen-soldier militia, with a small number of units of excellent professional soldiers, and a highly capable general staff. According to a famous, and probably apocryphal story, when asked the secret of Israel's military successes, an Israeli commander succinctly summarized the IDF's method: "Always fight Arab armies." However, as Hezbollah's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrullah, has explained: "We are not a regular army and we do not use the way of a regular army." [Non-state actors] [Asymmetry]
Asia's Coming Water Wars
By Chietigj Bajpaee
While the world's attention is focused on record high oil prices, water, like oil, is increasingly emerging as a catalyst for international instability and conflict as the recent upsurge in violence in Sri Lanka illustrates. On July 20, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (L.T.T.E.) shut down the Maavilaru dam's sluice gate near the town of Kantalai in the northeastern Trincomalee district, which cut off water supplies for 60,000 people in government-controlled areas. This led the Sri Lankan military to commence an aerial bombardment of Tiger positions and a ground offensive to gain control of the reservoir's control point. The Tigers claim that their actions were sparked by the government's failure to build a water tower to supply L.T.T.E.-controlled areas and responded by going on the offensive in Mutur. With more than 500 people killed since fighting erupted over the disputed waterway, the 2002 ceasefire has now collapsed in all but name.
Water is increasingly emerging as a scarce commodity, fueled by population pressures, intensive irrigation, and erratic weather patterns brought on by global warming.
Abnormalities Seem to Be Normal with Americans
TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman said in reaction to the US boycott of Iran's Bank Saderat that resorting to abnormal measures has apparently turned routine for the Americans, and further advised US officials that they can never affect Iran's policies through such measures.
Speaking during his last weekly press conference as the Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi said here on Sunday that Americans are in deep mistake "and we believe that imposing restrictions on Bank Saderat Iran is just another childish behavior by the US, which would produce no result for them." [Sanctions] [Legality]
US accused of covert operations in Somalia
Emails suggest that the CIA knew of plans by private military companies to breach UN rules
Antony Barnett and Patrick Smith Sunday September 10, 2006 The Observer
Dramatic evidence that America is involved in illegal mercenary operations in east Africa has emerged in a string of confidential emails seen by The Observer. The leaked communications between US private military companies suggest the CIA had knowledge of the plans to run covert military operations inside Somalia - against UN rulings - and they hint at involvement of British security firms. The emails, dated June this year, reveal how US firms have been planning undercover missions in support of President Abdullahi Yusuf's transitional federal government - founded with UN backing in 2004 - against the Supreme Islamic Courts Council - a radical Muslim militia which took control of Mogadishu, the country's capital, also in June promising national unity under Sharia law. [non-state power]
University catches 237 student cheats who trawl the internet
Rob Davies Sunday September 10, 2006 The Observer One of Britain's newest universities has found more than 200 students guilty of cheating after it launched a crackdown on what university officials admit is one of the biggest problems they face.
At a Secret Interrogation, Dispute Flared Over Tactics
By DAVID JOHNSTON Published: September 10, 2006 WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 - Abu Zubaydah, the first Osama bin Laden henchman captured by the United States after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was bloodied and feverish when a C.I.A. security team delivered him to a secret safe house in Thailand for interrogation in the early spring of 2002. Bullet fragments had ripped through his abdomen and groin during a firefight in Pakistan several days earlier when he had been captured.
The events that unfolded at the safe house over the next few weeks proved to be fateful for the Bush administration. Within days, Mr. Zubaydah was being subjected to coercive interrogation techniques - he was stripped, held in an icy room and jarred by earsplittingly loud music - the genesis of practices later adopted by some within the military, and widely used by the Central Intelligence Agency in handling prominent terrorism suspects at secret overseas prisons. President Bush pointedly cited the capture and interrogation of Mr. Zubaydah in his speech last Wednesday announcing the transfer of Mr. Zubaydah and 13 others to the American detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. And he used it to call for ratification of the tough techniques employed in the questioning. [Human rights] [Double standards]
Iraqi Premier Will Visit Iran to 'Enhance' Ties
By EDWARD WONG Published: September 10, 2006 BAGHDAD, Sept. 9 - Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki plans to visit Iran on Monday to discuss security and political matters with Iranian leaders, his spokesman said Saturday. The visit would be the first by Mr. Maliki to Iran since he took office in late May.
The visit is expected to last two days. A delegation led by Barham Salih, a deputy prime minister, traveled to Iran last week to pave the way for Mr. Maliki's visit. Mr. Maliki lived for some time in Tehran, the Iranian capital, while in exile during Saddam Hussein's rule. [Intelligent design] [Unintended consequences]
Bin Laden Trail 'Stone Cold'
U.S. Steps Up Efforts, But Good Intelligence On Ground is Lacking By Dana Priest and Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, September 10, 2006; Page A01
The clandestine U.S. commandos whose job is to capture or kill Osama bin Laden have not received a credible lead in more than two years. Nothing from the vast U.S. intelligence world -- no tips from informants, no snippets from electronic intercepts, no points on any satellite image -- has led them anywhere near the al-Qaeda leader, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials. "The handful of assets we have have given us nothing close to real-time intelligence" that could have led to his capture, said one counterterrorism official, who said the trail, despite the most extensive manhunt in U.S. history, has gone "stone cold."
From Baltimore Suburbs to a Secret CIA Prison
Family Learned Last Week That Man Was Among 'High-Value' Terrorism Suspects Moved to Guantanamo
By Eric Rich and Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, September 10, 2006; Page A08
BALTIMORE -- He was the studious one in Janis Sanford's social studies class at Owings Mills High School, the teenager who stood apart from his suburban Baltimore peers for his no-nonsense attitude. Majid Khan worked at the family gas station after school and, in his free time, indulged his interest in computers. But something happened to the serious young man after he graduated in 1999, when his life took a dramatic -- and much-disputed -- turn.
Khan, now 26, is one of the 14 "high-value" terrorism suspects transferred Monday to the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, men the government considered so dangerous they had been held by the CIA at secret foreign prisons for years. Khan is expected to stand trial on terrorism charges after Congress approves a new set of rules for the special military courts that will decide the fates of the 14 suspects.
Khan's wife, Rubia, is in Pakistan, according to family and friends. Khalid Khawaja, a former member of the Pakistani intelligence service who is acting as a spokesman for her, said information obtained through interrogations in the CIA prison system is inherently unreliable. "When you are in that kind of custody and the worst kind of human treatment, you can get them to say any kind of statement," said Khawaja, who was reached by telephone in Pakistan. "They don't have any evidence against Majid Khan as far as I know. . . . We don't believe he has done anything. He is a victim of this so-called war on terrorism by George Bush."
A central figure in Khan's case is another Pakistani national, Uzair Paracha, who was sentenced in New York earlier this year to 30 years in prison for providing material support to terrorists.
According to an interrogation summary filed in the case, Khan said that the younger Paracha had no knowledge of the plan to blow up gas stations and was merely "willing to help a fellow Muslim at his father's request." Khan said that while he considered recruiting Paracha for al-Qaeda, he was probably unsuitable because he "had no extremist views and was not really a practicing Muslim," according to the summary. [Human rights] [Evidence] [Terrorism] [Diaspora]
Kerry Seeks More U.S. Troops for Afghanistan
By Dan Balz Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, September 10, 2006; Page A09
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) yesterday urged the deployment of more U.S. troops to combat the growing Taliban threat in Afghanistan while accusing the administration of trying to salvage its congressional majorities by playing on public fears of future terrorist attacks rather than fixing what he said is a disastrous policy in Iraq.
The Tiger at Bay: Scary Times Ahead
Immanuel Wallerstein
Commentary No. 192, Sept. 1, 2006
When many years ago, some of us said that the decline of United States hegemony in the world-system was inevitable, unstoppable, and already occurring, we were told by most people that we ignored the obvious overwhelming military and economic strength of the United States. And there were some critics who said that our analyses were harmful because they served as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then the neo-cons came to power in the Bush presidency, and they implemented their policy of unilateral macho militarism, designed (they said) to restore unquestioned United States hegemony by frightening U.S. enemies and intimidating U.S. friends into unquestioned obedience to U.S. policies in the world arena. The neo-cons had their chance and their wars and have spectacularly failed either to frighten those regarded as enemies or to intimidate erstwhile allies into unquestioned obedience. The U.S. position in the world-system is far weaker today than it was in 2000, the result precisely of the very misguided neo-con policies adopted during the Bush presidency. Today, quite a few people are ready to talk openly about U.S. decline. [Realignment] [Decline]
Full house as leading 9/11 conspiracy theorist has his say
Audrey Gillan Saturday September 9, 2006 The Guardian
They call it the 9/11 for Truth Movement, and tonight those who believe the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon were carried out by the American government and not jihadist hijackers will gather in London's Conway Hall to listen to one of the biggest figures among a growing number of disbelievers.
And it seems that a growing number of people are listening to them. A recent poll in the US found that 36% of Americans believed it "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that their government was involved in allowing the attacks or had carried them out itself. There are many people in the UK who agree with them.
C.I.A. Said to Find No Hussein Link to Terror Chief
By MARK MAZZETTI Published: September 9, 2006 WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 - The Central Intelligence Agency last fall repudiated the claim that there were prewar ties between Saddam Hussein's government and an operative of Al Qaeda, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to a report issued Friday by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The disclosure undercuts continuing assertions by the Bush administration that such ties existed, and that they provided evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The Republican-controlled committee, in a second report, also sharply criticized the administration for its reliance on the Iraqi National Congress during the prelude to the war in Iraq. The findings are part of a continuing inquiry by the committee into prewar intelligence about Iraq. The conclusions went beyond its earlier findings, issued in the summer of 2004, by including criticism not just of American intelligence agencies but also of the administration. [Disinformation]
U.S. Moves to Isolate Iranian Banks
Treasury Cuts Off Bank Saderat as Part of Plan to Stymie Terrorist Financing By Glenn KesslerWashington Post Staff Writer Saturday, September 9, 2006; Page A11 The Bush administration has stepped up a broad effort to choke off Iran's ability to finance militant groups and acquire weapons technology by cutting off suspect banks and firms from the international banking system, U.S. officials said yesterday. The initiative has gathered steam in recent weeks, even as the U.S.-led effort to bring sanctions against Iran for its nuclear activities has slowed at the U.N. Security Council. Officials have especially focused on Iran's financing of the radical Shiite militant group Hezbollah in the aftermath of Israel's war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon this summer.
The Treasury Department said yesterday it had cut off one of Iran's largest state-owned banks from the U.S. financial system, accusing Bank Saderat of funneling $50 million to a Hezbollah-controlled firm since 2001. The bank -- which has about 3,400 branch offices across the Middle East and elsewhere -- has also been used by Iran to transfer money to Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Treasury Department said. [Sanctions]
Bombings Kill 31, Injure 125 in Mainly Muslim City in India
By Muneeza Naqvi Special to The Washington Post Saturday, September 9, 2006; Page A14
NEW DELHI, Sept. 8 -- At least two bombs rigged to bicycles exploded Friday in the town of Malegaon in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, killing 31 people and injuring 125 more, most of them Muslim worshipers leaving a mosque after Friday afternoon prayers.
Two charged over plane 'bomb plot'
Press Association Thursday September 7, 2006 1:13 AM
Two men were charged in connection with the alleged airliner bomb plot, Scotland Yard said. Don Stewart Whyte, from High Wycombe, Bucks was charged with preparing acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2006. He is also charged with two counts of possessing a firearm and one of possessing a gun silencer. Mohammed Usman Saddique was charged with preparing acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2006. Both men are due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates Court on Thursday morning. One man arrested in connection with the alleged airliner bomb plot has been released without charge. The alleged plot was to smuggle improvised explosive devices on to passenger jets and assemble and detonate them on board. The terrorism charge against both men alleges that between January 1 and August 10 2006 with the intention of committing acts of terrorism they were preparing to smuggle parts of improvised explosive devices on to aircraft and assemble and detonate them on board. The alleged offence is contrary to Section 5 (1) of the Terrorism Act 2006. The firearms charges against Stewart Whyte allege that on August 9 he had in his possession a Baikal 8mm pistol, contrary to section 5 (1) of the Firearms Act 1968. He is also charged with possessing a magazine clip with 10 rounds of ammunition and possessing a black gun silencer without holding a firearms certificate, contrary to section 1 (1) of the Firearms Act 1968. Police are continuing to question two other men still being held over the alleged plot after one man was released without charge [Evidence]
Book says CIA tried to provoke Saddam to war
Julian Borger in Washington Thursday September 7, 2006 The Guardian
More than a year before the invasion of Iraq the CIA devised a plan, codenamed Anabasis, to use Iraqi exile fighters to seize an air base and declare a revolt against Saddam Hussein in the hope that his response would create a pretext for war, according to a book published tomorrow. The plan was ultimately rejected by General Tommy Franks, who led the invasion in March 2003, but the CIA-backed fighters carried out sabotage operations and assassinations of Ba'athist officials in the run-up to the war, the book, called Hubris, reports.
Hubris, by investigative journalists Michael Isikoff and David Corn, adds more weight to a body of evidence that the White House was determined to go to war from early 2002. Planning on Anabasis, which cost $400m (£210m), started at the end of 2001 and was approved by President Bush in February 2002. CIA agents entered Iraq to recruit volunteers two months later. Talking to his spokesman, Ari Fleischer, in May 2002, President Bush made clear his intentions towards Saddam when he said: "I'm going to kick his sorry motherfucking ass all over the Mid East," according to another press aide, Adam Levine, who witnessed the conversation. [Terrorism] [Disinformation]

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SEPTEMBER 2006

Britain is 'as corrupt as worst African states'
Duncan Campbell Monday September 4, 2006 The Guardian
Britain, the US and Switzerland should rank among the world's most corrupt countries, according to a paper delivered to an economics conference at the weekend. The failure of these and other developed countries to clamp down on offshore tax havens is responsible for more hardship than any corrupt acts by third world leaders, a leading tax expert said. "I would place the United Kingdom high on the list of most corrupt countries," said John Christensen, formerly an adviser to the Jersey government and now director of the Tax Justice Network (taxjustice.net), speaking at the Economic Geography Research Group conference.
He said he based this on Britain's role as a tax haven and a defender of the tax haven role of its overseas territories and Crown dependencies, as well as its "dismal role in undermining the effectiveness" of the European Union's attempts to close tax loopholes. Mr Christensen said it was time to "turn the current focus on corruption and development on its head". He argued that there had been too much emphasis on corruption in third world countries and not enough on the abuse of offshore tax havens by the wealthiest nations. [Corruption] [Double standards]

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AUGUST 2006

Argentina's Dictatorship Stands Trial
By LARRY ROHTER Published: August 20, 2006
LA PLATA, Argentina, Aug. 14 - The horrific events under a military dictatorship - murders, kidnappings, torture, rapes, the abduction and sale of infants - had gone unpunished for nearly 30 years. But last year Argentina's Supreme Court overturned a pair of amnesty laws, and now the trials of military and police officials accused of human rights violations are finally under way. In late June, the first trial, involving a police commissioner general named Miguel Etchecolatz, began here in the capital of Buenos Aires Province, less than an hour's drive from the capital. With cameras rolling and winter light streaming through stained-glass windows in a belle époque ballroom at City Hall, witness after witness has told how Mr. Etchecolatz and the forces under his command ordered, supervised and then covered up kidnappings and torture sessions.
A Covert Chapter Opens For Fort Hunt Veterans
As Files on Nazi POWs Are Declassified, Their Interrogators Break Their Silence. By Petula Dvorak Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, August 20, 2006; Page A01
For more than 60 years, they kept their military secrets locked deep inside and lived quiet lives as account executives, college professors, business consultants and the like. The brotherhood of P.O. Box 1142 enjoyed no homecoming parades, no VFW reunions, no embroidered ball caps and no regaling of wartime stories to grandchildren sitting on their knees.
Almost no one, not even their wives, in many cases, knew the place in history held by the men of Fort Hunt, alluded to during World War II only by a mailing address that was its code name. But the declassification of thousands of military documents and the dogged persistence of Brandon Bies, a bookish park ranger determined to record this furtive piece of history, is bringing the men of P.O. Box 1142 out of the shadows.
In the beginning, the prisoners were mostly U-boat crew members who had survived the sinking of their submarines in the Atlantic Ocean. As the war progressed, P.O. Box 1142 shifted its attention to some of the most prominent scientists in Germany, many of whom surrendered and gave up information willingly, hoping to be allowed to stay in the United States.
Further explanation was forbidden. The more than 3,400 prisoners who stayed there were off the books, too, partly because operations at Fort Hunt were "not exactly legal" according to the Geneva Conventions, the National Park Service said.
Not everyone at Fort Hunt was an interrogator. Some, such as Wayne Spivey, 86, of Marietta, Ga., were brought in to manage the massive flow of information that interrogators such as Michel and Mandel were getting. "My mouth was always dropping open when we heard them talking and when we saw the information they got and the sketches of atoms and molecules and whatnot," Spivey said. "I was just one of three Southern boys there, walking around hearing German and Russian and Japanese." [Intelligence] [Legality]
Israel's Monstrous Human Rights Abuses in Lebanon Denounced
Pyongyang, August 18 (KCNA) -- The DPRK delegate spoke at the second special meeting of the UN Human Rights Council on the Lebanese situation on August 11. He said that if the human rights abuses in Lebanon are to be settled impartially, a curtain must be dropped on the reckless military actions and killings of civilians by Israel and the occupation troops be withdrawn and, at the same time, an end be put to all acts of patronizing Israel.
The politics of the latest terror scare
Neither the British nor the US government has produced facts to substantiate their claims by Barry Grey August 18, 2006
World Socialist Web Site
Five days after UK authorities arrested 24 British-born Muslims and announced that they and their American counterparts had thwarted a plot to blow up trans-Atlantic flights from London to the US, neither the British nor the American government has produced any facts to substantiate their dire claims. No details of the supposed plot have been provided, and no hard evidence that would justify the arrest of so many people or the imposition of chilling security measures that had wreaked havoc at airports in the US and Britain. In the meantime, commercial flights are being turned around in mid-flight, and wild claims of new plots are hitting the newsstands. The latest was the arrest of three Palestinian-Americans who were hauled into jail in Michigan after they purchased some 80 cell phones from a Wal-Mart store. Local police discovered that one of them had a digital camera with an image of the Mackinac Bridge, which connects Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas. This was sufficient to charge them with conspiring, using cell phones as detonators, to attack the bridge. This implausible "plot" was punctured on Monday when the FBI issued a statement that none of the three were connected to any known terrorist groups, that buying cell phones was not a crime, and that the Mackinac Bridge was in no danger. Family members explained that the three bought and sold cell phones to make a living. The incident was, however, indicative of the atmosphere of hysteria that is being encouraged by the Bush administration. (As of this writing, moreover, the three suspects remain in jail).
Nevertheless, buried in the reams of newspaper articles and hours of television commentary are bits and pieces of information that cast further doubt on the substantiality of the official claims. Thus Monday's USA Today, in an article headlined "Fearing Wider US Plot, Investigators Raced Clock," noted the following: "There was also no immediate evidence that any of the suspects had purchased tickets for future flights, although British authorities have indicated some of the suspects had allegedly reviewed flight schedules and were honing in on specific flights." Yet British and American officials stated at the time of the arrests last week that the airline attack was "imminent."
Officer Called Haditha Routine
Marine Said Deaths Didn't Merit Inquiry By Thomas E. RicksWashington Post Staff Writer Saturday, August 19, 2006; Page A01 The Marine officer who commanded the battalion involved in the Haditha killings last November did not consider the deaths of 24 Iraqis, many of them women and children, unusual and did not initiate an inquiry, according to a sworn statement he gave to military investigators in March.
The timing is political
We should be sceptical about this alleged plot, and wary of politicians who seek to benefit
Craig Murray Friday August 18, 2006 The Guardian
Nine days on, nobody has been charged with any crime. For there to be no clear evidence yet on something that was "imminent" and would bring "mass murder on an unbelievable scale" is, to say the least, peculiar. A 24th person, arrested amid much fanfare on Tuesday, was quietly released without charge the following day. Media analysis has been full of information from police and security sources. By and large journalists are honourable in this kind of reporting. Their sources, unfortunately, are not - viz the non-existent ricin, the Forest Gate "chemical weapons vest", or Jean Charles de Menezes leaping the barriers. Unlike the herd of security experts, I have had the highest security clearance; I have done a huge amount of professional intelligence analysis; and I have been inside the spin machine. And I am very sceptical about the story that has been spun. None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not have passports. It could be pretty difficult to convince a jury that these individuals were about to go through with suicide bombings, whatever they bragged about on the net. What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for more than a year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests. Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information from people desperate to stop or avert torture. What you don't get is the truth.
In all of this, the one thing of which I am certain is that the timing is deeply political. This is more propaganda than plot. More than 1,000 British Muslims have been arrested under anti-terrorist legislation, but only 12% have been charged. That is harassment on an appalling scale. Of those charged, 80% were acquitted. Most of the few convictions - just over 2% of arrests - are nothing to do with terrorism, but some minor offence the police happened upon while trawling through the lives they have wrecked.
Plainly, Islamist terrorism does exist. But its growth is encouraged by our adherence to neocon foreign policy, by our support for appalling regimes abroad, and by our trampling on the rights of Muslims in the UK. Now David Cameron has joined Blair and Reid in the rush to benefit politically from the fear thus engendered. Be very wary of politicians who seek to benefit from terror. Be sceptical. Be very, very sceptical. · Craig Murray, who was posted to Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004, is the author of Murder in Samarkand - A British Ambassador's Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror www.craigmurray.co.uk
Has Coke become the new McDonald's?
· Drinks firm hit by a hunger strike and college boycotts · Coca-Cola says it is a target because it is the top brand
David Teather Friday August 18, 2006 The Guardian
The muffled phone line made the voice in Lagos sound small and distant but there was no mistaking the sense of determination. Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, a Nigerian lawyer, was explaining how he intended to take on Coca-Cola, the world's largest soft drinks company. He claims to be acting for some 4,000 people in the port area of Apapa, many of them poor and illiterate, who believe that a local bottling plant has stolen their livelihoods. A lawsuit is planned accusing the company of polluting a lagoon by pumping untreated waste into the water and killing fish. "Like many multinational companies operating in Africa, Coca-Cola is guilty of double standards," he said. "They do what they are unable to do in America and Europe. We feel cheated. People are roaming the streets with no means of making a living."
U.S., Backstage Manipulator of Aggression on Lebanon
Pyongyang, August 17 (KCNA) -- Israel triggered aggression on Lebanon, but it was the U.S. which manipulated it backstage, says Rodong Sinmun Thursday in a signed article. The Bush bellicose forces, prompted by their strategy of domination over Mid-east, are turning their back on the demand of the international community for stopping Israel's aggression on Lebanon, the article says, and goes on:
The Nasrallah Interview
"Goodbye to the Unipolar World"
By CounterPunch News Service August 17, 2006
From an interview conducted shortly before the ceasefire by reporters from the Turkish Labor Party daily, Evrensel.
Q. What is the current state of your relations with the Socialist movement?
Hasan Nasrallah: The socialist movement, which has been away from international struggle for a considerable time, at last has begun to offer moral support for us once again. The most concrete example of this has been Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela. What most of the Muslim states could not do has been done by Chavez, by the withdrawal of Venezuela's ambassador to Israel. He furthermore communicated to us his support for our resistance. This has been an immense source of moral strength for us.
They are seeking to create a clash in between sects. But we have spoiled this trick. In our streets, the whole of Lebanon, with its Christian, Sunnis and Shias, are flying the flags of Hezbollah. Again, "the unipolar world" has already been left behind in history. There is us, there is Iran, there is Syria, there is Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea. There are the resisting peoples of Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan! As long as there is imperialism and occupations, these people will continue resisting. They can forget about peace. If they want peace, they should now respect the freedom of peoples and should eliminate the collaborators. God willing, the victory will be ours.
Terror: EU plan for vetting of air passengers
Alan Travis and Alexi Mostrous Thursday August 17, 2006 The Guardian
A system for the "positive profiling" of European airline passengers is to be urgently explored in response to last week's alleged airline terror plot, European interior ministers meeting in London agreed yesterday. [Surveillance]
Stuff It: Domestic Consumption and the Americanization of the World Paradigm
KRISTIN HOGANSON In the past twenty some years, historians of U.S. foreign relations have paid an increasing amount of attention to the Americanization of the world, starting in the late nineteenth century. This vein of scholarship has helped lead them into new terrain, especially in cultural, social, and business history. It has led to debates over the importance of reception, the efficacy of soft power, the differences between McDonaldization, Westernization, and Americanization, and whether the issue should be conceptualized as Americanization at all, or rather as cultural transfer or cultural imperialism.1 [Globalisation]
'People are definitely sceptical'
When the government announced last Thursday that it had foiled a massive terror plot, broadcasters and newspapers were barraged with a wave of sceptical views from listeners and readers. Nearly a week on, are people still so distrustful? Patrick Barkham takes to the streets to find out
Wednesday August 16, 2006 The Guardian
It was not in horror or panic that thousands of ordinary people contacted the BBC or posted points on the Guardian's Comment is Free website in the hours after last week's terror plot. The mood of many seemed to be one of profound caution, even scepticism, over the allegations of a murderous scheme in which 50 people would try to bring down up to 20 planes between Britain and America. Almost a week later, and after a downgrading of the terrorist threat, what do ordinary voters now think of those excitable early briefings by John Reid, the home secretary, and Scotland Yard's dramatically voiced belief that it had foiled "mass murder on an unimaginable scale"? Are people still sceptical?
Thirty five miles north of Downing Street and the average American tourist really would be startled by Bury Park in Luton, a quintessential 1920s English suburb now predominantly populated by British Muslim families. Halal butchers, grocers selling piles of fresh watermelons and fashion stores offering "wedding sarees, langhas and fabrics" line the main street. "In my opinion it is a cover-up because of what's going on in Lebanon," says Munir Khan. "When you turn on the TV you see innocent people getting killed. This [plot] distracts from that." A moderate Muslim who has been a member of the Labour party for nearly 20 years, Khan quit about eight months ago to join the Lib Dems. He does not trust the evidence coming out of Pakistan in relation to this latest alleged terror plot. "The Pakistan government will say anything for money," he says. "If the UK government gives them money to say something, they will say it."
An unfinished war
Paul Rogers
14 - 8 - 2006
Israel's failure in Lebanon will influence United States calculations over a potential attack on Iran.
In the thirty-six hours before the uneasy ceasefire in Lebanon took hold on the morning of 14 August 2006, Israel poured thousands of troops into southern Lebanon and was still conducting air raids across the country two hours before the deadline. Hizbollah, in turn, fired 250 missiles into northern Israel in the final eighteen hours, demonstrating that even these huge Israeli troop movements were not sufficient to force even a temporary halt to the missile threat.
Five Reasons Why Great Military Powers Lose Wars
Immanuel Wallerstein
Commentary No. 191, Aug. 15, 2006
The United States is today the greatest military power in the world. Israel is today the greatest military power located in the Middle East. One of the most obvious temptations of military superiority is to use military force when one wants to accomplish something which is resisted politically. The United States decided to use force against Iraq in 2003. Israel decided to use force against Lebanon in 2006. In both cases, the governments made these decisions, calculating that they could surely win the military conflict, and win it quickly.
Normally, the greatest military power in the world or in a given region can indeed win such military engagements, and win them quickly. That is what we mean when we say they are the greatest military power. But winning depends on a situation in which the military gap between the two states is truly overwhelming. If it is less than overwhelming, the decision to resort to military force can backfire, and backfire badly. This is so for five reasons. Military balance] [Asymmetry]
WATCHING LEBANON Washington's interests in Israel's war.
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH Issue of 2006-08-21 Posted 2006-08-14
In the days after Hezbollah crossed from Lebanon into Israel, on July 12th, to kidnap two soldiers, triggering an Israeli air attack on Lebanon and a full-scale war, the Bush Administration seemed strangely passive. "It's a moment of clarification," President George W. Bush said at the G-8 summit, in St. Petersburg, on July 16th. "It's now become clear why we don't have peace in the Middle East." He described the relationship between Hezbollah and its supporters in Iran and Syria as one of the "root causes of instability," and subsequently said that it was up to those countries to end the crisis. Two days later, despite calls from several governments for the United States to take the lead in negotiations to end the fighting, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that a ceasefire should be put off until "the conditions are conducive."
Beckett rejects link between foreign policy and terrorism
Ministers condemn claim by leading Muslims that Britain's stance is putting this country at risk
Ned Temko, chief political correspondent Sunday August 13, 2006 The Observer
Ministers hit back yesterday at accusations from leading Muslims, including three Labour MPs, that Britain's Middle East policy was increasing the threat of terrorist attacks. One of the strongest responses came from the Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells, who last month became the first member of the government publicly to criticise Israeli military tactics in Lebanon.
Earlier, the Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett told the BBC that drawing a link between government policy and the terror threat would be the 'gravest possible error'. She said such suggestions were 'part of a distorted view of the world, a distorted view of life. Let's put the blame where it belongs: with people who wantonly want to take innocent lives.' [In denial] [Bizarre]
BA criticises Heathrow as travel mayhem grows
Nick Mathiason, Oliver Morgan and Rob Sharp Sunday August 13, 2006 The Observer
The air travel industry was in fresh turmoil last night as British Airways and Ryanair publicly attacked the owners of Heathrow and other airports for adding to the flight chaos caused by the bomb plot security alert. BA said it was forced to cancel a quarter of its short-haul flights yesterday and others had to leave before all passengers could board them. Willie Walsh, its chief executive, blamed the firm, BAA, which runs Britain's major airports including Heathrow, for being unable to deal with increased security and baggage checks.
'If the British government is serious about defeating terrorism and/or not allowing the terrorists to disrupt normal everyday British life, then it must provide the additional security staffing, either police or army reserve personnel, immediately to prevent London's main airports from grinding to a halt over the coming days.' But BAA claimed its hands were tied until the government lowered the security requirements, which ban hand luggage and require body searches. Tony Douglas, BAA's chief executive for Heathrow, said: 'We are dealing with an unsustainable set of security processes. Until such time as the government enforces a reduction in the security measures, then queues are going to get longer, and there will be further cancellations.'
These ludicrous lies about the West and Islam
Leader Sunday August 13, 2006 The Observer The first Islamist terrorist plot against New York's World Trade Centre was carried out on 26 February 1993 with a car bomb under one of the twin towers. It killed six people but failed in its aim of bringing the whole building down. To achieve that, another plot was hatched.
This was hardly a Western war against Islam. Britain and America spent much of the Nineties trying to prevent conflicts or to resolve them. At worst, as shamefully in Rwanda, they simply ignored them. They were transparently not running a conspiracy to trample the Muslim faithful underfoot. The people who depicted it that way were a tiny minority telling lies to justify murder. But things have changed. The argument that terrorism is, in fact, a response to Western actions overseas has gained currency. It was voiced most recently on Saturday in an open letter by a number of influential British Muslim leaders to Tony Blair. The Prime Minister's policy in the Middle East, they said, puts British lives at risk. The implication is that the young Britons who last week were accused of plotting to blow up passenger planes in mid-air would have been less susceptible to al-Qaeda recruitment had Britain not fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Policy should be changed, they said, to avoid giving ideological 'ammunition to extremists'.
If young British Muslims are alienated, that is sad and their anger should be addressed. But anyone whose alienation leads them to want to kill indiscriminately has crossed a line into psychopathic criminality. Policy cannot be dictated by the need to placate such people. [In denial]
U.S. Responded to Plot With Speed, Secrecy
By Dan Eggen and Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, August 13, 2006; Page A01
It was the last week of July, heading into the lazy dog days of official Washington, but Michael Chertoff was suddenly busy. The homeland security secretary discreetly asked subordinates about plans developed months or even years ago, focused on aviation safety, threat levels and other minutiae. In briefings, he quizzed staffers about responses to an aviation threat: What was the default plan for going to "orange alert"? What items can we ban from airplanes if we need to?
Those taking the questions -- including many of Chertoff's closest aides -- had no idea what was really going on, two senior counterterrorism officials said. Chertoff's stealthy information-gathering was just one example of the U.S. government's secretive response to an emerging terrorist plot, in which at least 41 suspects were arrested in Britain and Pakistan in connection with alleged plans to blow up jetliners as they flew from London to the United States
Young Muslim Rage Takes Root in Britain
Unemployment, Foreign Policy Fuel Extremism By Kevin Sullivan and Joshua Partlow Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, August 13, 2006; Page A01
LONDON, Aug. 12 -- Naweed Hussain sat in his little real estate office Friday, trying to focus on spreadsheets instead of the angry clatter outside. Furious young Muslim men crowded around the local mosque on his street, surrounded by television cameras. They complained that their friends, other young Muslim men from Walthamstow, in East London, had been unfairly accused of plotting to blow up airliners. Police guarded the home of one suspect in what authorities call a plot to kill people on an "unimaginable" scale, allegedly planned right here in Hussain's working-class neighborhood.
"Why is it not happening in some other country?" wondered Hussain, 53, a soft-spoken man in a tie and black-rimmed glasses who has lived here since he migrated from Pakistan 40 years ago. "Why is it happening here?" The answer is that Britain has become an incubator for violent Islamic extremism, fueled by disenchantment at home and growing rage about events abroad, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Muslim leaders say foreign policy makes UK target
· Open letter accusing PM dismays Downing Street · Iraq and Middle East 'boost extremists cause' Will Woodward and Stephen Bates Saturday August 12, 2006 The Guardian
Leading UK Muslims have united to tell Tony Blair that his foreign policy in Iraq and on Israel offers "ammunition to extremists" and puts British lives "at increased risk". An open letter signed by three of the four Muslim MPs, three of the four peers, and 38 organisations including the Muslim Council of Britain and the Muslim Association of Britain, was greeted with dismay in Downing Street. It has courted the MCB and several of the signatories, such as key Labour MPs Sadiq Khan (Tooting) and Shahid Malik (Dewsbury), whom it believes can shape Muslim opinion. The letter says: "As British Muslims we urge you to do more to fight against all those who target civilians with violence, whenever and wherever that happens. It is our view that current British government policy risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad. "To combat terror the government has focused extensively on domestic legislation. While some of this will have an impact, the government must not ignore the role of its foreign policy
Learning From Hezbollah
By Brian E. Humphreys Saturday, August 12, 2006; Page A21
From my first day in Iraq as a young infantry officer, I was struck by the huge perceptual gulf that separated us from the Iraqis. My first mission was to escort a civil affairs team assigned to supervise the rebuilding of a local school. After tea, smiles and handshakes, we departed and were promptly struck by a roadside bomb. Our modest efforts to close the perceptual gulf, exemplified in our smile-and-wave tactics and civil affairs missions, seemed to my mind well-intentioned but inadequate. At a deeper level, the motives of the local populace remained largely invisible to us, as people smiled one minute and attempted to blow us up the next
Now, watching the latest news dispatches from Lebanon, I find myself comparing our efforts to introduce a new order in Iraq with Hezbollah's success as an effective practitioner of the art of militarized grass-roots politics. Frankly, it's not a favorable comparison -- for us. Hezbollah's organizational resilience in the face of an all-out conventional assault shows the degree to which it has seamlessly combined the strategic objectives of its sponsors with a localized political and military program. Using the grass-roots approach, Hezbollah has been able to convert the ignored and dispossessed Shiite underclass of southern Lebanon into a powerful lever in regional politics. It understands that the basic need in any human conflict, whether or not it involves physical violence, is to take care of one's political base before striking out at the opponent. As many informed observers have pointed out, Hezbollah has engrafted itself to the aims and aspirations of the Lebanese Shiite community so completely that Israel cannot destroy it without also destroying the community, with all the attendant political and moral costs. It is the willingness of women, children and old men to support Hezbollah and its political program at the risk of their lives that gives the organization power far beyond its military means. [Bizarre] [In denial] Concern and relief mixed with fear and cynicism
Stephen Bates, religious affairs correspondent Friday August 11, 2006 The Guardian
British Muslims reacted with a mixture of concern and defensiveness to the latest terror alert and arrests. Raw memories of the Forest Gate fiasco and last year's Stockwell shooting tempered their response.
But Fahad Ansari, of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, was more sceptical. "I think you will get cynicism from the community," he said. "Over the last few years we have seen many high-profile raids like this plastered over the press to terrify the public. We have seen it time and time again. It has been hit and miss on too many occasions. It is causing a lot of mass hysteria." He suggested that the raids could even have been timed to distract attention from criticisms of the government's stance on the Lebanon crisis. "There has been so much pressure on the government, it could be a way of diverting attention away from its policy on the Middle East."
UK airports on high alert as terrorist plot uncovered
Hand baggage on UK flights reduced to absolute minimum
Staff and agencies Thursday August 10, 2006 Guardian Unlimited
A major terrorist plot to allegedly blow up aircraft in mid-flight was thwarted in a joint intelligence-led operation by the Metropolitan Police's anti-terrorist branch and security service, police said today. The Home Office has raised the current terrorism threat level from "severe" to "critical" - defined on its website as "an attack is expected imminently". It is believed that the aim was to detonate explosive devices smuggled on board the aircraft in hand luggage, and that the attacks would have been particularly targeted at flights from the UK to the USA. Overnight, police arrested a number of people in London - the culmination of a major covert counter-terrorist operation lasting several months. Following this morning's police action, security at all UK airports has been increased and additional security measures been put in place for all flights. A Department of Transport spokesman said: "With immediate effect, the following arrangements apply to all passengers starting their journey at a UK airport and to those transferring between flights at a UK airport." All cabin baggage must be processed as hold baggage and carried in the hold of passenger aircraft departing UK airports.
James Tyson; Critic of Cold War Media
By Matt Schudel Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, August 9, 2006; Page B05 James L. Tyson, 90, a market researcher who became a strident critic of American journalism during the Cold War, died of kidney failure July 10 at his home in Darien, Conn.
Mr. Tyson believed that at least 4,000 U.S. journalists were furthering Soviet propaganda goals, particularly in television network news. He recommended that each network be required to have an ombudsman to ensure balanced reporting [Bizarre] [Media]
Hypocrisy and the Clamor Against Hizbullah
JONATHAN COOK
How “Indiscriminate” is Hezbollah’s Shelling?
Nazareth.
A reader recently emailed to ask if anyone else was suggesting, as I have done, that Hizbullah’s rocket fire may not be quite as indiscriminate or maliciously targeted at Israeli civilians as is commonly assumed. I had to admit that I have been ploughing a lonely furrow on this one. Still, that is no reason in itself to join everyone else, even if the consensus includes every mainstream commentator as well as groups such as Human Rights Watch.
First, let us get my argument straight. I have not claimed that Hizbullah targets only military sites or that it never aims at civilians. According to the Israeli army, more than 3,300 rockets have hit Israel over the past four weeks. How can I know, or even claim to know, where all those rockets have landed, or know what the Hizbullah operatives who fired each rocket intended to hit? I have never made such claims.
What I have argued instead is twofold. First, we cannot easily know what Hizbullah is trying to hit because Israel has located most of its army camps, weapons factories and military installations near or inside civilian communities. If a Hizbullah rocket slams into an Israeli town with a weapons factory, should we count that as an attack on civilians or on a military site?
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His book, Blood and Religion: the Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State, is published by Pluto Press. His website is www.jkcook.net [Media] [Double standards]
George Galloway
Video interview regarding Israeli invasion of Lebanon
War Crimes Act Changes Would Reduce Threat Of Prosecution
By R. Jeffrey Smith Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, August 9, 2006; Page A01
The Bush administration has drafted amendments to a war crimes law that would eliminate the risk of prosecution for political appointees, CIA officers and former military personnel for humiliating or degrading war prisoners, according to U.S. officials and a copy of the amendments. Officials say the amendments would alter a U.S. law passed in the mid-1990s that criminalized violations of the Geneva Conventions, a set of international treaties governing military conduct in wartime. The conventions generally bar the cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment of wartime prisoners without spelling out what all those terms mean. [human rights] [Double standards]
The B.T.C. Pipeline and the Increasing Importance of Energy Supply Routes
Michael Piskur
08 August 2006
on July 13, world leaders and energy industry officials gathered in Turkey to inaugurate the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (B.T.C.) pipeline, the east-west hub intended to connect energy supplies in the Caspian region and Central Asia to Western markets. The first shipment of Azerbaijani crude oil, originally pumped on May 10, 2006, arrived in Italy to coincide with the inauguration. This occasion came just days before the annual G8 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, where Moscow and Washington clashed over such issues as Russian membership in the World Trade Organization and the exploration of gas and oil reserves in the North Atlantic and Baltic Sea.
As is the case with Turkey, Israel is another Mediterranean country seeking to capitalize on geopolitics with regard to the B.T.C. pipeline [Energy security]
Arab World Finds Icon in Leader of Hezbollah
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR Published: August 7, 2006
DAMASCUS, Syria, Aug. 6 - The success or failure of any cease-fire in Lebanon will largely hinge on the opinion of one figure: Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah, who has seen his own aura and that of his party enhanced immeasurably by battling the Israeli Army for nearly four weeks. With Israeli troops operating in southern Lebanon, Sheik Nasrallah can continue fighting on the grounds that he seeks to expel an occupier, much as he did in the years preceding Israel's withdrawal in 2000. Or he can accept a cease-fire - perhaps to try to rearm - and earn the gratitude of Lebanon and much of the world. Analysts expect some kind of middle outcome, with the large-scale rocket attacks stopping but Hezbollah guerrillas still attacking soldiers so that Israel still feels pain. In any case, the Arab world has a new icon.
Baghdad's Chaos Undercuts Tack Pursued by U.S.
By DEXTER FILKINS Published: August 6, 2006 BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 5 - Over the past year, as American commanders pushed Iraqi forces to take over responsibility for this violent capital, Baghdad became a markedly more dangerous place.
Now the Americans are being forced to call in more of their own troops to bring the city under control. The failure of the Iraqis to halt the slide into chaos in Baghdad undercuts the central premise of the American project here: that Iraqi forces can be trained and equipped to secure their own country, allowing the Americans to go home.
To stop the slide, the United States has decided to double the number of American troops in the city, to about 14,200 from about 7,200. American officials have declared Baghdad the country's "center of gravity," an arena that must be won if they are to succeed. The Americans and Iraqis say they are also preparing to bring in more Iraqi troops and spend at least $50 million for jobs and public services like electricity. The decision to increase the number of American forces in the city appears to reflect a conviction that only American troops can bring the city under control.
Officials Didn't Lie to Sept. 11 Panel, Pentagon Says
Sunday, August 6, 2006; Page A08 There is no evidence that Pentagon officials intentionally misled the Sept. 11 commission when they gave inaccurate accounts about actions at the time of the 2001 terrorist attacks, a Defense Department spokesman said yesterday. A forthcoming report from the Pentagon's inspector general will address the question of whether military commanders intentionally misled the commission, said the spokesman, Lt. Col. Brian Maka. But "there is nothing that indicates the information provided to the commission was knowingly false," Maka said. The inspector general's report is the result of a compromise among commissioners, some of whom concluded that the Pentagon may have been deliberately trying to mislead the Sept. 11 panel and the public, sources involved in the debate told The Washington Post last week.
'They are liars and we have proved they are liars'
· Sheridan winner over sex club and orgy allegations · Socialist leader awarded £200,000 against tabloid Audrey Gillan and Kirsty Scott Saturday August 5, 2006 The Guardian
A jubilant Tommy Sheridan stood, fists raised, on the steps of Scotland's highest court yesterday and claimed a "working class" victory after winning his £200,000 defamation action against the News of the World. It took a jury just less than three hours to decide that the former leader of the Scottish Socialist party was not a serial adulterer with a predilection for champagne, swinging and orgies, but a Scrabble-loving, tea-drinking family man and the victim of what he had called "the mother of all stitch-ups". [Media]
Fearing U.S. Attack, Cuba Readies Troops
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: August 5, 2006 Filed at 3:23 a.m. ET HAVANA (AP) -- Cuba government has mobilized citizen defense militias, saying it fears a U.S. attack during Fidel Castro's health crisis, even though the White House insists no such threat exists. The island's government, under the control of Castro's brother, Defense Minister Raul Castro, has also asked military reservists to check in daily. Cubans interviewed on state-run media Friday said they would fight to the death against any invaders from the north, while the Communist Party daily Granma said, ''We Cubans are prepared for the defense'' of the island.
Shiite Rally in Baghdad Supports Hezbollah
By DAMIEN CAVE Published: August 5, 2006 BAGHDAD, Iraq, Saturday, Aug. 5 - Tens of thousands of followers of the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr rallied in support of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah on Friday, denouncing Israel and the United States for igniting violence throughout the Middle East.
The protest, the largest of several demonstrations in Iraq since the Israeli-Lebanese conflict began more than three weeks ago, filled 20 blocks of a wide, squalid boulevard and dozens of side streets in the Shiite-dominated Sadr City section of the capital. All but a handful of the demonstrators were men, mostly young, wearing white cloth to symbolize funeral shrouds. Some carried guns. Waving Lebanese flags and posters of Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, they shook their fists and shouted in unison against what they described as the enemies of all Muslims.
Israeli Warplanes Hit Lebanon's Christian Areas
By Edward Cody and Molly Moore Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, August 5, 2006; Page A12
AL FITAR, Lebanon, Aug. 5 -- Israeli warplanes broadened their air campaign in Lebanon on Friday, blasting four highway bridges in the Christian heartland north of Beirut and killing about 30 farmworkers with a missile strike in the Bekaa Valley that Israeli officials said targeted a suspected weapons depot. Cuba Perks Up as Venezuelan Foils Embargo
Presidencia/Agence France-Presse By JUAN FORERO Published: August 4, 2006 BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Aug. 3 - As Raúl Castro takes up the task of leading Cuba in place of his brother Fidel, there is, surprisingly, one less thing he may have to worry about: the state of Cuba's economy.
The credit goes, in large part, to the economic lifeline thrown to Cuba by the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, who is using his country's tremendous oil reserves to prop up the Castro government and counter Bush administration policy in Latin America. To the exasperation of American officials, long determined to force a change of government by choking off the Cuban economy with an embargo, Venezuela's patronage may take some pressure off Raúl Castro at what is otherwise a time of great uncertainty. [Sanctions effect]
Political Passivity Undermines U.S.
Parallels with the predicament of late Imperial China
Emanuel Pastreich & J. Eric Marler (news)
Published 2006-05-03 14:10 (KST)
A distinguished historian wrote thus about a world power that had slipped into irreversible decline as a result of its citizens turning inward and its elite refusing to concern themselves with the fate of the nation:
"When intellectual irresponsibility and moral degradation fell to this level, it meant that scholars had become oblivious to their duties to the society and had lost track of the importance of the unity of knowledge and action. The society was deprived of real leadership. That the general decline of morality in the government was due in part to this very intellectual delinquency is an unavoidable conclusion."
Although Professor Immanuel Hsu was referring to China in the late nineteenth century in this passage, the description has a chilling resonance for those who observe the inaction of the establishment in the United States, as a small group slowly drags the U.S. towards a reckless war with Iran.
Just as China, once the great power of the known world, found itself fettered by the indifference of its own best and brightest at the moment that opium and European economic predation posed a threat in the early nineteenth century, those Americans who could make the greatest difference in our own time are oddly silent as the nation drifts into dangerous straits. The United States faces an erosion of its social, civic, and community institutions that allows cynical politicians to manipulate at will the course of events. Any assumption that a mere change of characters on the political stage would change this state of affairs overnight is naive.
Lebanon: war takes root
Paul Rogers
3 - 8 - 2006
The combination of United States global strategy, Israeli determination and Hizbollah resilience mean only one thing: a long war.
The failure of the Rome summit on 26 July 2006 and the unwillingness of the United States to press for anything more than a minor pause in Israel's air offensive after the Qana tragedy on 30 July has not stilled the view in many western circles that the George W Bush administration will soon ensure a ceasefire in the Lebanon war. This ignores a key fact: Washington sees the war as a central part of the evolving global war on terror, with Israel as an absolutely vital part of that wider conflict. On 1 August, Condoleezza Rice expressed confidence that a ceasefire would be reached in a matter of days following negotiations at the United Nations. This was almost immediately contradicted by the Israeli deputy prime minister, Shimon Peres, who expected it to continue for weeks. What is actually happening is an almost classic case of declaratory versus actual policy. The declaratory aspect includes statements from some United States politicians, including Rice herself, that Washington seeks an early ceasefire. The actual policy is to back Israel for as long as it takes for the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to take control of a substantial part of southern Lebanon. International opinion may eventually make that unsustainable, but the depth of the Bush administration's support for Israel's war should not be underestimated.
638 ways to kill Castro
The CIA's outlandish plots to bump off the Cuban dictator would put 007 to shame ... poison pills, toxic cigars and exploding molluscs. Once he even offered to shoot himself, reports Duncan Campbell
Thursday August 3, 2006 The Guardian
For nearly half a century, the CIA and Cuban exiles have been trying to devise ways to assassinate Fidel Castro, who is currently laid low in Cuba following an operation for intestinal bleeding. None of the plots, of course, succeeded, but, then, many of them would probably be rejected as too fanciful for a James Bond novel. Fabian Escalante, who, for a time, had the job of keeping El Commandante alive, has calculated that there have been a total of 638 attempts on Castro's life. That may sound like a staggeringly high figure, but then the CIA were pretty keen on killing him. As Wayne Smith, former head of the US interests section in Havana, pointed out recently, Cuba had the effect on the US that a full moon has on a werewolf. It seems highly likely that if the CIA had had access to a werewolf, it would have tried smuggling it into the Sierra Maestra at some point over the past 40-odd years.
All these plots inevitably changed the way Castro lived his life. While in his early years in office, he often walked alone in the street, but that practice had to change. Since then doubles have been used, and over the decades Castro has moved between around 20 different addresses in Cuba to make it harder for any potential hitmen to reach him. Meanwhile, jokes about Castro's apparent indestructibility have become commonplace in Cuba. One, recounted in the New Yorker this week, tells of him being given a present of a Galapagos turtle. Castro declines it after he learns that it is likely to live only 100 years. "That's the problem with pets," he says. "You get attached to them and then they die on you". [Terrorism] [Double standards]
Propaganda war grips a land crippled by shortages
For or against their leader, Cubans are united in their view of US sanctions
Duncan Campbell Thursday August 3, 2006 The Guardian
Two boys in Havana under a sign that reads, 'long live Fidel. 80 more years'. Photograph: Alejandro Ernesto/EPA The array of massive black flags with single white stars fluttering in the Caribbean breeze gives the impression of a pirate fleet at full sail. Nothing better symbolises the confrontation between Cuba and the United States than the display on the waterfront of Havana outside the seven-storey building that houses the US Interests Section, as the country tries to imagine life without Fidel Castro at the helm. The Interests Section, a kind of de facto US embassy dedicated to the removal of Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl, who is temporarily running the country, has been broadcasting messages on an electronic ticker-tape display aimed at encouraging that outcome. The flags were erected by the Cuban government to try to hide the messages, with each one symbolising a year since 1868 that the island has been fighting for its independence.
In one recent message the Interests Section claimed that "the regime keeps you artificially poor because it's easier to maintain control of people who are too preoccupied with scrounging to meet daily necessities to think about politics. Consider this: the two million Cubans outside of Cuba have more wealth than do the 11.2 million Cubans in Cuba. That didn't happen by chance." Signs of the damage done to the economy by the embargo put in place by the US in 1961 are not hard to find.
The economy is now heavily dependent on the tourist industry, which attracts more than two million people a year, mainly from Canada, Europe and Latin America, and on remittances sent by families and friends from abroad. Nickel, sugar and tobacco top the exports table but all fall foul of the embargo, meaning the nearest and largest market is closed to them. There is a blossoming bio-tech industry but it is strapped for investment cash because potential backers know that its products cannot find a US market [Sanctions effect]
Aircraft are 'not capable of great results'
Tuesday August 3, 1909 The Guardian
A holiday subject for a holiday mood - such was the spirit in which members to-night came to the consideration of the great airship problem. In vain for Mr. Arthur Lee to try and make our flesh creep with stories of the squadrons of Zeppelins at Germany's command, of France's aerial navy, and of the aeroplanes with which the brothers Wright are again darkening their native skies. "Until Bleriot flew across the Channel the other day," said Mr. Cecil Harmsworth, "people in this country regarded the airship as a mere scientific toy, a sort of flip-flap, such as you see at Shepherd's Bush."
The aeroplane may become capable of great results," but from the war point of view," observed Mr. Haldane, "it is not so at present." Mr. Haldane felt no concern that we have not made the same initial progress as Germany, France, or the US. At one time that was true of submarines, "and to-day we are at the head of the world in submarines." Moreover, it was equally true at the outset of our motor-car industry, which is now as flourishing as any.
Four British soldiers die as army fights on two fronts
· Three killed in Taliban ambush; one in Basra · Morale still 'very strong' insists forces commander
Richard Norton-Taylor and Ben Hammersley in Kandahar Wednesday August 2, 2006 The Guardian
Four British soldiers were killed yesterday in Afghanistan and Iraq, driving home a stark reality that the army is now facing an insurgency violently opposed to its presence on two fronts. In one of the worst days for the army in recent years, three British soldiers were killed, and another critically injured, in an ambush in southern Afghanistan. In Iraq a soldier from the 1st Battalion, Light Infantry, was killed by a mortar fired into the old State Building, which serves as a base for the multinational force in Basra. It is the first time a British soldier in Iraq has been killed inside a base.
The Secretive Fight Against Bioterror
The government is building a highly classified facility to research biological weapons, but its closed-door approach has raised concerns.
By Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 30, 2006; Page A01
On the grounds of a military base an hour's drive from the capital, the Bush administration is building a massive biodefense laboratory unlike any seen since biological weapons were banned 34 years ago.
Some of the research falls within what many arms-control experts say is a legal gray zone, skirting the edges of an international treaty outlawing the production of even small amounts of biological weapons. The administration dismisses these concerns, however, insisting that the work of NBACC is purely defensive and thus fully legal. It has rejected calls for oversight by independent observers outside the department's network of government scientists and contractors. And it defends the secrecy as necessary to protect Americans. "Where the research exposes vulnerability, I've got to protect that, for the public's interest," said Bernard Courtney, NBACC's scientific director. "We don't need to be showing perpetrators the holes in our defense." Tara O'Toole, founder of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and an adviser to the Defense Department on bioterrorism, said the secrecy fits a larger pattern and could have consequences. "The philosophy and practice behind NBACC looks like much of the rest of the administration's philosophy and practice: 'Our intent is good, so we can do whatever we want,' " O'Toole said. "This approach will only lead to trouble." [cbw] [Double standards] [Legality]
Israel’s strategic impasse
Paul Rogers 1 - 8 - 2006
Israel's relentless military assault on Lebanon cannot conceal the crisis of its security doctrine.
The forty-eight-hour pause in Israeli air raids over Lebanon announced in the aftermath of the Qana massacre on 30 July 2006 has been far from complete, but there was still some hope that it might lead on to a more general ceasefire. This was extinguished by Ehud Olmert in a robust speech in Tel Aviv on 31 July, which confirmed that Israel would intensify military operations until the threat from Hizbollah had been eliminated.
What Can Israel Achieve?
Immanuel Wallerstein
Commentary No. 190, August 1, 2006
The State of Israel was established in 1948. Ever since, there has been continuous violence between Jews and Arabs in Israel, and between Israel and its neighbors. Sometimes, the violence was low-level and even latent. And every once in a while, the violence escalated into open warfare, as now. Whenever full-scale violence broke out, there was an immediate debate about what started it, as though that mattered. We are now in the midst of warfare between Israel and Palestine in Gaza and between Israel and Lebanon. And the world is engaged in its usual futile debate about how to reduce the open state of warfare to low-level violence.
The source of outside support has shifted over time. We forget completely that in 1948 the crucial military support for Israel came from the Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites. When the Soviet Union pulled back, it was France that came to fill the role. France was engaged in a revolution in Algeria, and it saw Israel as a crucial element in defeating the Algerian national liberation movement. But when Algeria became independent in 1962, France dropped Israel because it then sought to maintain ties with a now-independent Algeria. It is only after that moment that the United States moved into its present total support of Israel. One major element in this turn-around was the Israeli military victory in the Six Days War in 1967. In this war, Israel conquered all the territories of the old British Mandate of Palestine, as well as more. It proved its ability to be a strong military presence in the region. It transformed the attitude of world Jewry from one in which only about 50% really approved of the creation of Israel into one which had the support of the large majority of world Jewry, for whom Israel had now become a source of pride. This is the moment when the Holocaust became a major ideological justification for Israel and its policies.
Achieving a stable peace settlement will be extremely difficult. But the pillars of Israel's present strategy - its own military strength and the unconditional support of the United States - constitute a very thin reed. Its military advantage is diminishing and will diminish steadily in the years to come. And in the post-Iraqi years, the United States may well drop Israel in the same way that France did in the 1960s. Israel's only real guarantee will be that of the Palestinians. And to get this guarantee, Israel will need to rethink fundamentally its strategy for survival.
British general takes command and promises ruthless strikes on Taliban
· 18,000-strong force ready for first land operations · Nato troops take charge of most of Afghanistan
Richard Norton-Taylor Tuesday August 1, 2006 The Guardian
A British general yesterday took command of an expanded Nato force in Afghanistan, vowing to "strike ruthlessly" against the Taliban as the west's military alliance prepared to conduct land combat operations for the first time in its 57-year history. Lieutenant General David Richards, commander of Nato's international security assistance force, Isaf, based in Kabul, took over a multinational force in southern Afghanistan where British, US, Canadian, Dutch, and other troops face a dangerous mix of Taliban fighters, corrupt officials, opium farmers and drug dealers. Over recent weeks US and British troops, mainly from Third Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, have confronted Taliban fighters and their supporters in a surge of violence that has killed an estimated 700 militants and 19 western troops, including six British soldiers. British commanders have been surprised by what they refer to as the "virulence" of Taliban fighters. They have also expressed concern about their soldiers being overextended in forward bases. Gen Richards, a veteran of successful peacemaking missions in Sierra Leone and East Timor, is the first British officer to command American troops in ground operations since the second world war
The Axis of Intervention
John Feffer, IRC | July 27, 2006
Editor: Emily Schwartz Greco, IPS Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org
There is a new force in foreign policy: the “axis of intervention.” Two allies are official members: the United States and Israel. With its recent invasion of Somalia, Ethiopia has joined the grouping. A fourth nation, Japan, is petitioning for membership. The Bush administration has not attacked any countries recently. But in President George W. Bush's first five years in office, the United States has established a dangerous precedent in international affairs. The attack on Afghanistan launched a war against not only a state (the Taliban-led government) but also a paramilitary organization (al-Qaida). The intervention into Iraq was the first example of a “preventive” war—a campaign not just to preempt an imminent attack but also to prevent any potential conflict in the future. And finally, the United States has introduced the concept of a “war without end.” The United States is fighting an unknown number of terrorists. If one organization surrenders or is destroyed, another will inevitably take its place.
Japan signaled its interest in joining this axis of intervention by putting the military option onto the table in its dealings with North Korea. After Pyongyang's launch of seven missiles on July 4, leading Japanese government spokesman Shinzo Abe said, “If we accept that there is no other option to prevent a missile attack, there is an argument that attacking the missile bases would be within the legal right of self-defense.” Unlike the United States, Israel, or Ethiopia, Japan was until recently the furthest thing from an aggressive power. It enjoyed five decades of a “peace constitution.” Its military was restricted to defense. It had very little capacity to attack another country. Now Japan wants to have a “normal” military. In today's world, “normal” unfortunately translates into a capacity to launch ill-advised military interventions. Japan is acquiring an in-air refueling capacity that will allow long-range bombing missions. It is changing its constitution to permit a wide range of military operations. Some Japanese officials have even broken the taboo and discussed Japan's potential need for nuclear weapons. And Japan has been one of the closest supporters of recent U.S. military campaigns, including the endless war on terrorism. [Japanese remilitarisation]
Leftist Plans Sit-Ins to Challenge Mexico Vote
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. Published: July 31, 2006 MEXICO CITY, July 30 - Four weeks after a very close election plunged this country into political crisis, the leftist candidate escalated his campaign to undo the official results, telling a mass rally of his supporters on Sunday that they must engage in civil disobedience to "defend democracy" and force the recognition of "my triumph as president
The city police, whose commanders have political ties to Mr. López Obrador, estimated that about 1.2 million people attended the march, making it one of the largest in the country's history. [Media]
The Next Steps With Iran
Negotiations Must Go Beyond the Nuclear Threat to Broader Issues
By Henry A. Kissinger
Monday, July 31, 2006; Page A15
The world's attention is focused on the fighting in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, but the context leads inevitably back to Iran. Unfortunately, the diplomacy dealing with that issue is constantly outstripped by events. While explosives are raining on Lebanese and Israeli towns and Israel reclaims portions of Gaza, the proposal to Iran in May by the so-called Six (the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China) for negotiations on its nuclear weapons program still awaits an answer. It's possible that Tehran reads the almost pleading tone of some communications addressed to it as a sign of weakness and irresolution. Or perhaps the violence in Lebanon has produced second thoughts among the mullahs about the risks of courting and triggering crisis.
However the tea leaves are read, the current Near Eastern upheaval could become a turning point. Iran may come to appreciate the law of unintended consequences. For their part, the Six can no longer avoid dealing with the twin challenges that Iran poses. On the one hand, the quest for nuclear weapons represents Iran's reach for modernity via the power symbol of the modern state; at the same time, this claim is put forward by a fervent kind of religious extremism that has kept the Muslim Middle East unmodernized for centuries. This conundrum can be solved without conflict only if Iran adopts a modernism consistent with international order and a view of Islam compatible with peaceful coexistence.

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JULY 2006

Disowning Conservative Politics, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN Published: July 30, 2006 MAPLEWOOD, Minn. - Like most pastors who lead thriving evangelical megachurches, the Rev. Gregory A. Boyd was asked frequently to give his blessing - and the church's - to conservative political candidates and causes.
The requests came from church members and visitors alike: Would he please announce a rally against gay marriage during services? Would he introduce a politician from the pulpit? Could members set up a table in the lobby promoting their anti-abortion work? Would the church distribute "voters' guides" that all but endorsed Republican candidates? And with the country at war, please couldn't the church hang an American flag in the sanctuary? After refusing each time, Mr. Boyd finally became fed up, he said. Before the last presidential election, he preached six sermons called "The Cross and the Sword" in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a "Christian nation" and stop glorifying American military campaigns.

The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil
by Michel Chossudovsky
July 26, 2006
Is there a relationship between the bombing of Lebanon and the inauguration of the World's largest strategic pipeline, which will channel more than a million barrels of oil a day to Western markets?
The bombing of Lebanon is part of a carefully planned and coordinated military road map. The extension of the war into Syria and Iran has already been contemplated by US and Israeli military planners. This broader military agenda is intimately related to strategic oil and oil pipelines. It is supported by the Western oil giants which control the pipeline corridors. In the context of the war on Lebanon, it seeks Israeli territorial control over the East Mediterranean coastline.

Russia Arming Venezuela in Anticipation of an Expected U.S. Invasion?
by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
July 29, 2006
The Russian Federation and Venezuela on July 27, 2006 have negotiated and approved the sale of 24 aircraft and 53 helicopters-about a $1 billion (U.S.) deal-to Venezuela, as part of an ongoing landmark event, defying the American threats and demands to halt all weapons transfers and any future deals between Russia and Venezuela. Russia has already supplied and started delivering portions of a 100,000 Kalashnikov automatic rifles ordered by Venezuela and Russian attack helicopters to Venezuela. This deal has further entrenched Russian-Venezuelan cooperation, partnership, and the strategic shift of Russia replacing the United States as the military hardware supplier of Venezuela. The securing of this military hardware agreement between Russia and Venezuela is a sign of the fermenting geo-strategic confrontation or rivalry between the Russia and the United States.
The American embargo seems to be a deliberate tactic that is part of strategy to disarm Venezuela, a notable source of fossil fuels and an influential state in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Venezuelan military's F-5 Freedom Fighters, F-16 Falcons, C-130 cargo planes and American attack helicopters would for all practical purposes eventually be neutralized. That is why Venezuela immediately sought other defence manufacturers, which ultimately resulted in Russia replacing the United States in equipping the Venezuelan military.
Possible Transfer of Venezuelan F-16 Falcon Squadron to Iran
The sale has been deemed by Western analysts to give no significant tactical benefit to Iran because of the fact that Iran is also under an American embargo and has no access to the spare parts needed to keep the aircraft operational, but then again the Iranian military has been reported to successfully reengineer old American military hardware and is highly secretive.

As the shells fall around them, Hizbullah men await the Israelis
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, south of Tyre Saturday July 29, 2006 The Guardian
Inside a well-furnished apartment in a village on the outskirts of Tyre, with shelves of books piled from floor to ceiling, a black turbaned cleric and three men sit sipping bitter coffee. By the door is a pile of Kalashnikovs and ammunition boxes; handguns are tucked into the men's trousers. The four are Hizbullah fighters, waiting for the Israelis. "Patience is our main virtue, we can wait for days, weeks, months before we attack. The Israelis are always impatient in battle and in strategy," says the cleric, Sayed Ali, who claims to be a descendant of the prophet. "I know them very well."
For Ali and his comrades, the latest conflict is a war of survival not only for Hizbullah but for the whole Shia community. It is not only as a war with Israel, their enemy for decades, but also with the Sunni community. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt have all expressed fears of Iranian domination over the Middle East. "If Israel comes out victorious from this conflict, this will be a victory for the Sunnis and they will take the Shia community back in history dozens of years to the time when we were only allowed to work as garbage collectors in this country. The Shia will all die before letting this happen again."

Violence in Iraq Is Creating Chaos in Bank System
Max Becherer/Polaris, for The New York Times Bundles of Iraqi currency sat on a table next to empty soft drink bottles in the vault of the Iraqi Middle East Investment Bank in Baghdad.
By JAMES GLANZ Published: July 29, 2006 BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 28 - The two armored vans left a branch of the Warka Bank on Thursday around noon, loaded with 1.191 billion dinars, or nearly $800,000. Almost immediately, on a busy street near the Baghdad zoo, the drivers spotted an oncoming Iraqi Army convoy, led by a shiny new Humvee. They followed standard procedure and pulled over.
But the convoy stopped, and an officer politely ordered the surprised drivers and guards to lay down their guns while his men searched the vans for bombs. Within minutes all eight drivers and guards had been handcuffed and locked in the back of one of the vans on a suffocating 120-degree day, the cash had been stolen by the men in the convoy - whoever they were - and the Iraqi banking system marked another day of its slow slide into oblivion.

Empire, war and propaganda
by John Pilger
July 28, 2006 New Statesman
The National Museum of American History is part of the celebrated Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Surrounded by mock Graeco-Roman edifices with their soaring Corinthian columns, rampant eagles and chiselled profundities, it is at the centre of Empire, though the word itself is engraved nowhere. This is understandable, as the likes of Hitler and Mussolini were proud imperialists, too: on a "great mission to rid the world of evil", as President Bush has also said.
One of the museum's exhibitions is called "The Price of Freedom: Americans at war". In the spirit of Santa's Magic Grotto, this travesty of revisionism helps us understand how silence and omission are so successfully deployed in free, media-saturated societies. The shuffling lines of ordinary people, many of them children, are dispensed the vainglorious message that America has always "built freedom and democracy" - notably at Hiroshima and Nagasaki where the atomic bombing saved "a million lives", and in Vietnam where America's crusaders were "determined to stop communist expansion", and in Iraq where the same true hearts "employed air strikes of unprecedented precision". The words "invasion" and "controversial" make only fleeting appearances; there is no hint that the "great mission" has overseen, since 1945, the attempted overthrow of 50 governments, many of them democracies, along with the crushing of popular movements struggling against tyranny and the bombing of 30 countries, causing the loss of countless lives.

War in Middle East Puts U.S.-European Warming Trend on Hold
By Molly Moore Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, July 29, 2006; Page A08
PARIS, July 28 -- Just when President Bush was starting to mend the political rift between the United States and Europe, the latest Middle East conflict has reopened the transatlantic divide, on the streets and in government. Across Europe, leaders and citizens are expressing growing alarm over Washington's refusal to rein in Israel's bombing of Lebanon and appear increasingly fearful of the pro-Hezbollah sentiment unleashed in the Middle East by the daily scenes of destruction and civilian deaths. Many officials said they worry about backlashes in their own restive Muslim and Arab communities.

Moscow snubs US to sell arms to Venezuela
· Military planes and attack helicopters in £1.6bn deal · Outspoken Chávez hints at nuclear ambitions
Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow Friday July 28, 2006 The Guardian
Russia signed a £1.6bn arms deal with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela yesterday, risking a confrontation with the US, which has imposed an arms embargo on the South American country. The outspoken Venezuelan president, who has claimed that America wants to assassinate him and pledged cheap heating fuel for London's poor, also told reporters in Moscow that his country could develop its own nuclear programme. "Maybe some day we will start using nuclear energy," he said, according to Interfax. He did not specify when or how he might obtain nuclear power, but his ambitions will rile a Bush administration already deeply concerned by Iran's nuclear programme. [Media] [Spin] [Double standards]

Las Vegas Makes It Illegal to Feed Homeless in Parks
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD Published: July 28, 2006 LAS VEGAS, July 21 - Gail Sacco pulled green grapes, bread, lunch meat and, of course in this blazing heat, bottles of water from a cardboard box. A dozen homeless people rose from shady spots in the surrounding city park and snatched the handouts from her.
Ms. Sacco, an advocate for the homeless, scoffed at a city ordinance that goes into effect Friday making it illegal to offer so much as a biscuit to a poor person in a city park. Las Vegas, whose homeless population has doubled in the past decade to about 12,000 people in and around the city, joins several other cities across the country that have adopted or considered ordinances limiting the distribution of charitable meals in parks. Most have restricted the time and place of such handouts, hoping to discourage homeless people from congregating and, in the view of officials, ruining efforts to beautify downtowns and neighborhoods. But the Las Vegas ordinance is believed to be the first to explicitly make it an offense to feed "the indigent." [Human rights]

Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezbollah
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR Published: July 28, 2006 DAMASCUS, Syria, July 27 - At the onset of the Lebanese crisis, Arab governments, starting with Saudi Arabia, slammed Hezbollah for recklessly provoking a war, providing what the United States and Israel took as a wink and a nod to continue the fight.
Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against the vaunted Israeli military for more than two weeks, the tide of public opinion across the Arab world is surging behind the organization, transforming the Shiite group's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, into a folk hero and forcing a change in official statements.

A triple front: Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon
Paul Rogers
27 - 7 - 2006
The United States is using the Lebanon war to blame Iran as the locus of its war on terror.
While most western media attention has been focusing on the Lebanon war that erupted on 12 July 2006, there has been a marked escalation in violence in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of the key events in the recent phase of conflict in these countries was reported in earlier columns in this series (see, for example, "Haditha: a question of responsibility" [8 June 2006] and "Afghanistan's war season" [22 June 2006]). In both countries, however, the cost to civilians has risen to even higher levels in the past few weeks, even as the position of occupying United States, British and other coalition troops has become more precarious.

The summit fails. War rages
Ewen MacAskill and Ian Black in Jerusalem and Rory McCarthy in Haifa Thursday July 27, 2006 The Guardian
Israel yesterday suffered its worst day since the Lebanon conflict began when 14 of its soldiers were believed to have been killed in fighting with Hizbullah, a military calamity that could prove to be a turning point in the war The setback appeared to unnerve Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister. Less than a day after he had vowed to fight Hizbullah to the end, he yesterday spoke for a need for a quick end to the conflict. The Israeli military has been taken by surprise by the ferocity of Hizbullah's resistance and may have to rethink its strategy.

Frustration as summit fails to end conflict
For an immediate ceasefire: UN, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Jordan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Canada and Cyprus
Against: US and Britain.
Result: no immediate ceasefire
John Hooper in Rome, Ewen MacAskill and Jonathan Steele in Beirut Thursday July 27, 2006 The Guardian
The split within the international community over the Lebanon war was clearly exposed yesterday when the US and Britain combined at a Rome summit to block a move by European and Arab countries to demand an immediate ceasefire. In a frenetic last 90 minutes of the summit, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, had to fend off a chorus of calls from foreign ministers demanding that she support a call for Israel and the Lebanese-based militia, Hizbullah, to declare a temporary truce. Her only ally at the conference was Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary.

Economic Brief: The End of the Doha Round
27 July 2006
Negotiations aimed at reaching a consensus on the Doha round, the World Trade Organization's (W.T.O.) global trade agreement, collapsed on July 24. Pascal Lamy, the W.T.O.'s director general, formally suspended the last-ditch talks in Geneva, which centered on agricultural tariffs and trade-distorting subsidies, because an agreement could not be reached between the six core negotiators -- the United States, India, Brazil, the European Union, Japan, and Australia. The negotiating parties were in agreement that this round of talks needed to produce a consensus on farm issues if a final agreement were to be reached by the end of this year.
The Doha round's failure is part of a larger trend toward economic nationalism in the advanced economies. For domestic political reasons, Washington and Brussels are currently unwilling to open up politically sensitive markets to international competition. PINR described this shift in August 2005: "Long the major supporter of trade liberalization in world forums, the United States has recently had to adjust to growing economic nationalism in the U.S. that is likely to result in a slowing and perhaps a reversal of the thrust toward liberalized global markets." [China competition]

After five years, world trade talks near collapse
Larry Elliott, economics editor Tuesday July 25, 2006 The Guardian
Five years of talks aimed at making global trade freer were on the brink of collapse last night after a make-or-break meeting between six of the leading players ended in acrimonious failure. With the hardline stance adopted by the United States being blamed for the breakdown, the head of the World Trade Organisation said he had no choice but to suspend the talks, with no immediate prospect of them being resumed.[WTO]

Top Iraqi's White House Visit Shows Gaps With U.S.
Alaa al-Marjani/Associated Press By EDWARD WONG Published: July 25, 2006 BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 24 - When Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki visits the White House on Tuesday for the first time, he is expected to make requests that clash sharply with President Bush's foreign policy, Iraqi officials say, signaling a widening gap between the Iraqis and the Americans on crucial issues.
The requests will include asking President Bush to allow American-led troops in Iraq to be tried under Iraqi law, and to call for a halt to Israeli attacks on Lebanon, according to several Iraqi politicians, and to a senior member of Mr. Maliki's party who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak for the prime minister.

The PM, the mogul and the secret agenda
Tony Blair flies to California this week to address the annual get-together of News Corporation - led by one Rupert Murdoch. From Europe to broadcasting, terrorism to the direction of the nation, what is the truth about one of the most intriguing relationships in British public life?
Gaby Hinsliff, political editor Sunday July 23, 2006 The Observer
From its manicured golf course with the breathtaking ocean view, to its pampering spa, the Pebble Beach resort in California should be an ideal spot to unwind. But the guests checking in next weekend - globetrotting politicians, hotshot analysts and senior executives from Rupert Murdoch's mighty News Corporation - are not here to relax. They will gather for one of the media empire's legendary conferences, an intellectual beauty parade before one of the most powerful men on the planet. Careers will be made and broken this weekend, millions staked or withheld. The man described by a Downing Street spin doctor as the hidden member of Tony Blair's cabinet is looking to the future: and the decisions Murdoch makes could change the way you read, watch, consume and, perhaps, even vote. Which is why Blair is going.
But this is also about Blair's future, and ultimately New Labour's. His invitation is partly a personal tribute, a signal that Murdoch wants an 'enduring relationship' with Blair once he leaves Downing Street. 'Being a friend of Rupert's is a very valuable thing in America,' says one of Murdoch's intimates, who argues the media magnate will want to offer the departing premier a job.

It wasn't the 'Yo' that was humiliating, it was the 'No'
Tony Blair wanted Britain to look big in the world. But being a satellite of George Bush is making him and us look small
Andrew Rawnsley Sunday July 23, 2006 The Observer
You will have your own view - there's so much to choose from - on which part of the open-mic conversation between George W Bush and Tony Blair at the Yo Summit was the most toe-curling. One of my favourite excruciating moments is when Bush thanks Blair for sending him a Burberry sweater as a birthday gift. The American President sends up the British Prime Minister by mocking: 'I know you picked it out yourself.' There's no question which exchange is most enjoyable for those with contempt for the Prime Minister. It is the moment that makes Mr Blair look like the poodle of popular caricature. Worse, he comes over as a poodle who can't even beg his master to toss him a dog biscuit. It is the same bit of the encounter that has caused the most wincing among the Prime Minister's friends. When Tony Blair offers himself as a Middle East peace envoy, he is casually rebuffed by the American President between bites on a bread roll. Told by Bush that 'Condi is going', the normally fluent Blair is reduced to inarticulate jabbering. 'Well, it's only if, I mean, you know, if she's got a... or if she needs the ground prepared as it were... Because obviously if she goes out, she's got to succeed, if it were, whereas I can go out and just talk.' Yeah, just talk. It was awful for Tony Blair to be caught asking for permission to go to the Middle East. It was dire to hear George Bush saying he wouldn't let the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom go out - not even on a pointless trip. It looks even more humiliating when the French Foreign Minister is going.
The Blair doctrine of humanitarian interventionism has not been put into practice in Burma, North Korea or Zimbabwe, as he will regretfully acknowledge

U.S. Plan Seeks to Wedge Syria From Iran
By HELENE COOPER and DAVID E. SANGER Published: July 23, 2006 WASHINGTON, July 22 - As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heads to Israel on Sunday, Bush administration officials say they recognize Syria is central to any plans to resolve the crisis in the Middle East, and they are seeking ways to peel Syria away from its alliance of convenience with Iran.
In interviews, senior administration officials said they had no plans right now to resume direct talks with the Syrian government.

Interview with Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah by Al-Jazeera
July 22, 2006 Al Jazeera in Arabic
Text of report by Qatari Al-Jazeera satellite TV on 20 July Interview with Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah, by Al-Jazeera Beirut Bureau Chief Ghassan Bin-Jiddu, on 20 July.
Emphasis added by Global Research
[Bin-Jiddu] It is sufficient to say that we are in the company of Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Al-Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah at this time in particular. The battles are still continuing. We are at a certain time in a certain place of this world, and not only in Lebanon, as I used to say earlier. This is why, without any introductions at all, I will start my questions to His Eminence Al-Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah. Your Eminence Al-Sayyid, first of all, thank you for responding to [the request to hold] this interview at this time in particular. Around 10 days have passed since the outbreak of hostilities. What do you say militarily and politically? [Nasrallah] In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Politically and militarily all at once, it is difficult. Let us start...
Regarding some Arab positions, this is new. True, this is new. In the past, some Arab regimes abandoned the resistance and resistance men. I am so objective and realistic, so today we deem it acceptable if the Arab regimes are neutral. Just like that. If you view the Hezbollah rhetoric, we accepted such stands from them. Perhaps the brothers in Palestine - and rightfully so - have a different rhetoric. Their circumstances are much harder than ours. So they always attack, accuse, and denounce the regimes and rulers. This is not part of our rhetoric and literature. Why? We have forgotten them. To attack someone, you need to suppose that he exists. But if you feel that he does not exist in the first place, then you would be troubling yourself to no avail if you attack him. Once, we used to ask the international community to condemn the executioner and to ask for mercy for the victim. We reached a stage where we began to say we accept that they condemn both the executioner and the victim. This became one of the natural expectations. So we began to consider it a good thing to see a resolution condemning both the victim and the executioner. With regards to the Arab regimes, we expect them only to sit on the fence. And, if they do not want to sit on the fence, then they should at least equate between us and Israel. We even agree to have them equate between the victim and the executioner. But we did not expect them to take part in shedding the blood of the victim and cover the crimes of the executioner. Yes, this was a surprise.
[Bin-Jiddu] Before asking you to say your last word, I noticed that your eminence is living a normal life. I expected to see you wearing a military uniform, but nothing changed. You are watching television and listening to the political comments and statements? [Nasrallah] This would be a problem and exaggerating if we say that we are living a normal life. We are in a state of war. I and my brothers are a part of this state of war. The first time I spoke was live on air, while the second tape was recorded. Naturally because of the situation, the type of cameras used and the fact that a copy was made of the [original] videotape, there might be a scene which drew some remarks. The Israeli media said that my beard is long and the lights were too strong. I am in a state of war. I am not in a picnic. When I decided to talk to you, I trimmed my beard so that they would not say that my beard is not long. Now, they will say that I am sitting and relaxing while people are being displaced. No, we do not want to exaggerate and deal with things as they normally are. If I do not smile, they would say that I am afraid and horrified, and I am not. If I smile, they would say that my people, including women and children, are being killed and massacres are being committed and here I am laughing and do not care for the blood of those people. At any rate, you want be left alone in a psychological warfare. We are certainly distressed for the destruction that has been inflicted on our country. We are more aggrieved because of our people's situation. I would be surprised to see someone crying because of a bridge. The bridge can be rebuilt. The buildings and everything can be rebuilt. They will be rebuilt, God willing.

'Al-Qaeda is a U.S.-sponsored Intelligence Asset used to Justify War in the Middle East: Interview with Michel Chossudovsky
The Use of 9/11 as a Pretext to Wage War
July 20, 2006 Bulatlat.com (Philippines)
'Al-Qaeda Is a U.S.-sponsored Intelligence Asset' Michel Chossudovsky, author of the international bestseller America's War on Terrorism, personally graced the jam-packed local launch of the Philippine edition of his latest book held at the Asian Center at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City last June 24. During the launch, he gave a lecture about the imminent danger of a U.S.-made nuclear catastrophe amid the Bush administration's preparations for war with Iran. BY JOEL GARDUCE Contributed to Bulatlat
Michel Chossudovsky is the author of the international bestseller America's War on Terrorism, made locally available by IBON Books. An economics professor at the University of Ottawa in Canada, he personally graced the jam-packed local launch of his latest book held at the Asian Center at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City last June 24. During the launch, he gave a lecture about the imminent danger of a U.S.-made nuclear catastrophe amid the Bush administration's preparations for war with Iran. Joel Garduce of Center for Anti-Imperialist Studies (CAIS) caught up with the director of the Centre for Research in Globalization (CRG) during his short weekend stay in the Philippines and conducted the following interview. Chossudovsky
JPG: How would you characterize your book's contribution in giving a better understanding of the events surrounding 9/11? MC: Well, there have been many books on 9/11. In fact, I would say that we have a lot of coverage of 9/11 from many angles. Many of these studies are carefully researched. They are, however, invariably ignored by the mainstream media. In my own research, i have not centered on what happened on that particular day from the point of view of the WTC and Pentagon buildings. That aspect has been the object of several investigations. What I have focused on is the role which the 9/11 events have played in justifying the invasion of Afghanistan almost a few weeks later after 9/11, and of course the invasion of Iraq, not to mention the police State legislation adopted in a number of Western countries. I've focussed on 9/11 from a broad geopolitical perspective, because essentially 9/11 is still the core event which justifies the so-called "war on terrorism". Without 9/11, there is no war pretext. An that is why 9/11 is a very important landmark. It is used extensively by the Bush administration to attempt to demonstrate that America is under attack, that the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq are acts of self-defense. And consequently, the US must carry out a humanitarian mandate which consists in waging a global war against the terrorists, as well as against the so-called state sponsors of terrorism, including Iraq and Afghanistan. And so I think that has been my focus, I've looked more at the geopolitics of 9/11, the role of intelligence agencies. And I've also centered on the fact that these terrorist cells, namely al-Qaeda, are invariably linked to the CIA. They have been consistently supported by U.S. intelligence. What we are dealing with is a process, which consists in fabricating an enemy. The creation of Al-Qaeda is an intelligence operation used as a pretext to justify a war of conquest. So it begs the question: if al-Qaeda were, according to the Bush administration, to have played a role in 9/11, then we would have to investigate the relationship between al-Qaeda and the U.S. intelligence apparatus. The evidence confirms that al-Qaeda did not play a role in 9/11. But in fact, that in itself is a red herring, because al-Qaeda is a U.S.-sponsored intelligence asset.
JPG: Your research goes against the thesis of some thinkers like Noam Chomsky that 9/11 is principally a blowback operation. How would you look at these views? MC: Those views are totally incorrect. The blowback thesis assumes that the relationship between al-Qaeda and the U.S. government (including its intelligence apparatus) ceased in the wake of the Cold War. Because that's what they say and acknowledge. They say "yes we created al-Qaeda during the Soviet-Afghan war. We trained the mujahideen, we helped them in fighting the Soviet Union. And in the wake of the Cold War, al-Qaeda has gone against us." And that's what's called the blowback. Blowback is when an intelligence asset goes against its sponsors. That viewpoint s incorrect because in the course of the 1990s there's ample evidence of links between al-Qaeda and the U.S. administration, during the Clinton administration as well as the Bush administration, leading up in fact to 2001. There's evidence of active collaboration between al-Qaeda paramilitary groups in the Balkans and senior U.S. military advisers.
It's ironic to say the least that there was an impeachment move against Clinton for his involvement with Monica Lewinsky but when extensive war crimes are revealed and when the U.S. president blatantly violates all the domestic and international norms of justice, and engages the US in a criminal war with no justification whatsoever, his legitimacy as Head of State remains unscathed. His adminstration continues in a routine fashion. So yes the impeachment of President Bush is something that I would support. But I don't believe necessarily that it will resolve matters in the longer run.

In Iraq, Military Forgot Lessons of Vietnam
Early Missteps by U.S. Left Troops Unprepared for Guerrilla Warfare By Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 23, 2006; Page A01
The real war in Iraq -- the one to determine the future of the country -- began on Aug. 7, 2003, when a car bomb exploded outside the Jordanian Embassy, killing 11 and wounding more than 50. That bombing came almost exactly four months after the U.S. military thought it had prevailed in Iraq, and it launched the insurgency, the bloody and protracted struggle with guerrilla fighters that has tied the United States down to this day. [Incompetence]

Sandinista Aims for Comeback in Nicaragua
Ex-President Ortega Leads 4-Way Race By N.C. Aizenman Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, July 23, 2006; Page A12
MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- Sixteen years after voters swept Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega from Nicaragua's presidency, the former Marxist icon appears to have his best chance yet for a comeback in elections scheduled for Nov. 5. The bloc of staunch anti-Ortega voters who denied him victory by backing the rightist Liberal Party in three previous elections has been fractured by the recent emergence of popular splinter parties on both the left and the right.
Ortega, 60, whose armed revolution made him the Reagan administration's chief antagonist in the hemisphere during the 1980s, is also getting a boost this time from Washington's current bête noir in Latin America: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

'US Intercepts 95% of World Communications'
Big brother is watching and listening, and big brother is the United States, a North Korean radio station reported Wednesday. "The U.S. National Security Agency is intercepting over 95 percent of worldwide communications such as those from mobile phones, faxes and computer networks, using about 200,000 agents and a number of spy satellites," the North's Korean Central Broadcasting Station (KCBS) said, citing an unnamed military source in France. "The agency is taking satellite photos of almost all objects on earth."

Bush and Blair discuss Middle East, and their own personal relationship
Cartoon by Tom Scott, The DominionPost, Wellington, 21 July 2006-07-23
The brutal story of British empire continues to this day
All around the world, from Sierra Leone to Sri Lanka, the violent legacy of colonialism can still be witnessed Richard Gott Saturday July 22, 2006 The Guardian
Many of the present conflicts in the world take place in the former colonial territories that Britain abandoned, exhausted and impoverished, in the years after the second world war. This disastrous imperial legacy is still highly visible, and it is one of the reasons why the British empire continues to provoke such harsh debate. If Britain made such a success of its colonies, why are so many in an unholy mess half a century later, major sources of violence and unrest?
Afghanistan close to anarchy, warns general
Richard Norton-Taylor Saturday July 22, 2006 The Guardian
The most senior British military commander in Afghanistan yesterday described the situation in the country as "close to anarchy" with feuding foreign agencies and unethical private security companies compounding problems caused by local corruption. The stark warning came from Lieutenant General David Richards, head of Nato's international security force in Afghanistan, who warned that western forces there were short of equipment and were "running out of time" if they were going to meet the expectations of the Afghan people. The assumption within Nato countries had been that the environment in Afghanistan after the defeat of the Taliban in 2002 would be benign, Gen Richards said. "That is clearly not the case," he said yesterday. [Imperialism] [Bizarre] [Intelligent design]
U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis
By DAVID S. CLOUD and HELENE COOPER Published: July 22, 2006 WASHINGTON, July 21 - The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday. The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran's efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah. [media] [spin]
Kidnapped by Israel
The British Media and The Invasion Of Gaza
by Jonathan Cook July 20, 2006
Few readers of a British newspaper would have noticed the story. In the Observer of 25 June, it merited a mere paragraph hidden in the "World in brief" section, revealing that the previous day a team of Israeli commandos had entered the Gaza Strip to "detain" two Palestinians Israel claims are members of Hamas.
The significance of the mission was alluded to in a final phrase describing this as "the first arrest raid in the territory since Israel pulled out of the area a year ago". More precisely, it was the first time the Israeli army had re-entered the Gaza Strip, directly violating Palestinian control of the territory, since it supposedly left in August last year.
As the Observer landed on doorsteps around the UK, however, another daring mission was being launched in Gaza that would attract far more attention from the British media - and prompt far more concern.
Shortly before dawn, armed Palestinians slipped past Israeli military defences to launch an attack on an army post close by Gaza called Kerem Shalom. They sneaked through a half-mile underground tunnel dug under an Israeli-built electronic fence that surrounds the Strip and threw grenades at a tank, killing two soldiers inside. Seizing another, wounded soldier the gunmen then disappeared back into Gaza.
Whereas the Israeli "arrest raid" had passed with barely a murmur, the Palestinian attack a day later received very different coverage. The BBC's correspondent in Gaza, Alan Johnstone, started the ball rolling later the same day in broadcasts in which he referred to the Palestinian attack as "a major escalation in cross-border tensions". (BBC World news, 10am GMT, 25 June 2006) [Media] [Double standards]
Putin Favorite Re-emerging in Ukraine
Joseph Sywenkyj BERLIN, July 18 - Viktor F. Yanukovich, the Russia-backed Ukrainian politician vanquished by the Orange Revolution of 2004, was poised Tuesday to make a spectacular comeback as prime minister after the pro-West president, Viktor A. Yushchenko, said his party would not join a broad governing coalition. With Mr. Yushchenko saying he would take his Our Ukraine party into the parliamentary opposition, Ukraine appeared on course to be led by Mr. Yanukovich. At the same time, a political rival, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, accused Mr. Yanukovich of staging a coup.
Conservative Anger Grows Over Bush's Foreign Policy
By Michael Abramowitz Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 19, 2006; Page A01
At a moment when his conservative coalition is already under strain over domestic policy, President Bush is facing a new and swiftly building backlash on the right over his handling of foreign affairs. Conservative intellectuals and commentators who once lauded Bush for what they saw as a willingness to aggressively confront threats and advance U.S. interests said in interviews that they perceive timidity and confusion about long-standing problems including Iran and North Korea, as well as urgent new ones such as the latest crisis between Israel and Hezbollah.
"It is Topic A of every single conversation," said Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank that has had strong influence in staffing the administration and shaping its ideas. "I don't have a friend in the administration, on Capitol Hill or any part of the conservative foreign policy establishment who is not beside themselves with fury at the administration."
Bush: Yo Blair How are you doing?
A fascinating conversation between Tony Blair and George Bush has been caught by the microphones at the G8, when the two men didn't think they were being overheard. It tells us a lot about the relationship between the two men, about the US-UK special relationship and the two men's views on the Middle East. Here's a transcript as best as we can make out.
* Bush: Yo Blair How are you doing? Blair: I'm just... Bush: You're leaving? Blair: No, no, no not yet. On this trade thingy...[inaudible] Bush: yeah I told that to the man Blair: Are you planning to say that here or not? Bush: If you want me to
Crowds Rally Again to Demand Recount in Mexico
Jennifer Szymaszek for The New York Times
By GINGER THOMPSON Published: July 17, 2006 MEXICO CITY, July 16 - For the second time in eight days, thousands of supporters of the leftist presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, filled this city's historic central plaza to demonstrate their support for his demand for a vote-by-vote recount of Mexico's disputed July 2 election. The crowds at this rally - several hundred thousand - were considerably larger than the last and seemed to indicate that the movement started by the embattled former mayor of Mexico City remained strong.
The Fighters and the Freeloaders
By Sebastian Mallaby Monday, July 17, 2006; Page A15
Before things can turn a corner in the Middle East, we need the diplomatic equivalent of electric-shock therapy. We may need $100 oil to jolt the Europeans and the Chinese. We may need the Russians to be told that they can forget joining the World Trade Organization. And we're going to need something dramatic to reward India, whose response to terrorism last week was exemplary.
But Pakistan is only a beginning. On every major security challenge, from North Korea's missiles to Iran's uranium enrichment, diplomacy is undermined by Chinese, Russian and sometimes Western European foot-dragging. These powers are happy to criticize unilateralism and belligerence at every turn. But when there's a chance to make diplomacy work, they call for U.S. leadership and hide behind the curtains. [Bizarre]
Putin: Don't lecture me about democracy
Nick Paton Walsh and Patrick Wintour in St Petersburg Sunday July 16, 2006 The Observer
Vladimir Putin delivered a barbed retort to George Bush's muted criticism of Russia's democratic record yesterday when he told reporters at a joint press conference that he did not want to head a democracy like Iraq's. The remark, which raised a loud laugh from the assembled press pool, capped a joint appearance that exposed how relations between the two men have become strained in the past two years, since Washington began criticising Putin's iron grip on Russia's media and politics. Bush said that, during two hours of discussions, 'I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like Iraq where there's a free press and free religion. I told [Putin] a lot of people in our country ... would hope that Russia would do the same thing. I fully understand, however, that there will be a Russian style of democracy.' Putin replied, smiling: 'I'll be honest with you: we, of course, would not want to have a democracy like in Iraq.'
The death of Doha signals the demise of globalisation
As developing countries acquire a powerful voice, the US shuns multilateral trade deals because it can no longer get its own way
Martin Jacques Thursday July 13, 2006 The Guardian
The freer movement of trade and capital has been a fundamental characteristic of the past 25 years of globalisation. The Doha round, initiated in 2001, was the latest attempt to keep the process rolling. It now looks doomed. The deadlock between the US, the EU, Japan and the developing countries seems final. And with the fast-track powers of the US president - which enable trade agreements to bypass Congress - scheduled to come to an end in 2007, any agreement later than this year will be subject to the unpredictability and delay of Capitol Hill. In other words, it is now or never, and it looks more and more like never. The implications are profound. It was the Uruguay round in the 80s and 90s that underpinned much of the process of globalisation and helped to establish the terms on which it took place. The failure to reach agreement on its successor, the Doha round, suggests the era of multilateral trade agreements is coming to an end. The US some time ago switched its attention from multilateral to bilateral deals and has, over the past decade, concluded a battery of them. The reason is not difficult to fathom. When negotiating bilaterally, the US can use its economic power to impose far more unfavourable terms on its negotiating partner, which is what it has done. In deals with Singapore and Chile, for example, it insisted on these countries renouncing the use of capital controls, which Malaysia deployed with such effect during the Asian financial crisis. In its treaty with Australia and other countries, it insisted on extending the time period for which patents are valid, thereby extending the monopoly privileges enjoyed by its companies.
Name Settled, Future Is Not For U.S. Jet
By Renae Merle Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, July 8, 2006; Page D01
The Air Force yesterday unveiled the first copy of its latest fighter jet, already billions of dollars over budget and behind schedule, and said it would bear the nickname Lightning II. The plane, known as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, was named in a ceremony at the Fort Worth plant where Lockheed Martin Corp. is assembling it. "We're excited about bringing it into our inventory, and warfighters around the globe are excited about flying it in defense of freedom," Air Force Chief of Staff T. Michael Moseley, who chose the name, said in a written statement.
Lightning II is expected to be the most widely distributed fighter jet in the world, with the Pentagon planning to buy more than 2,000 and sell even more overseas. Three versions of the fighter are planned, and it is designed to be a fast and stealthy plane. Flight testing is scheduled to begin in October. The fighter program has run into problems, including a rising price tag that is expected to reach $276 billion, up from the original estimate of $201 billion.
Complicating its development are the international partnerships the Pentagon established to hold down costs. The Pentagon courted allies to help with financing, collecting pledges of $4.5 billion, from Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway. Some of those partners were expecting access to technology and contracts in return--which have been slow to appear. Partner companies have complained that it has been difficult to obtain access to certain sensitive technology and to secure contracts. [Spin] [Proliferation] [US military] [Imperialism]
The Race for Iran
By Flynt Leverett Senior Fellow The New York Times June 20, 2006
As the world watches the political maneuvering over restarting nuclear talks with Iran-this time with American participation-few are paying attention to a broader strategic competition that has started between the United States, Russia and China. Ultimately, this competition will decide not only the direction of Iran's nuclear activities but also its economic, political and military role in the Middle East and beyond. The outcome hinges on which countries will assume dominance in developing Iran's enormous oil and natural gas reserves.
A Driven President Faces a World of Crises
By Michael Abramowitz and Robin Wright Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, July 6, 2006; A01
From deteriorating security in Afghanistan and Somalia to mayhem in the Middle East, confrontation with Iran and eroding relations with Russia, the White House suddenly sees crisis in every direction. North Korea's long-range missile test Tuesday, although unsuccessful, was another reminder of the bleak foreign policy landscape that faces President Bush even outside of Iraq. Few foreign policy experts foresee the reclusive Stalinist state giving up the nuclear weapons it appears to have acquired, making it another in a long list of world problems that threaten to cloud the closing years of the Bush administration, according to foreign policy experts in both parties.
"I am hard-pressed to think of any other moment in modern times where there have been so many challenges facing this country simultaneously," said Richard N. Haass, a former senior Bush administration official who heads the Council on Foreign Relations. "The danger is that Mr. Bush will hand over a White House to a successor that will face a far messier world, with far fewer resources left to cope with it." White House officials emphatically reject such pessimism, and yesterday leading figures in both parties saw some diplomatic opportunity for the United States out of the missile failure. But the events on the Korean Peninsula underscored how the administration has lost the initiative it once possessed on foreign policy in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, leaving at risk the central Bush aspiration of democracy-building around the world. [Imperialism] [Victim]
Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don't Farm
By Dan Morgan, Gilbert M. Gaul and Sarah Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, July 2, 2006; Page A01
EL CAMPO, Tex. -- Even though Donald R. Matthews put his sprawling new residence in the heart of rice country, he is no farmer. He is a 67-year-old asphalt contractor who wanted to build a dream house for his wife of 40 years. Yet under a federal agriculture program approved by Congress, his 18-acre suburban lot receives about $1,300 in annual "direct payments," because years ago the land was used to grow rice.
An investigation by The Washington Post found that billions of dollars in crop payments were paid out over the past six years, with a good deal of the money going to people who don't farm.
Federal farm programs began during the Great Depression, when one-quarter of the U.S. population lived on farms. The programs guaranteed prices by effectively allowing farmers to sell some crops to the federal government when markets were poor. Farmers who participated in the programs were required to limit their production. Here is how the farm programs evolved: Matthews is not alone. Nationwide, the federal government has paid at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals who do no farming at all, according to an analysis of government records by The Washington Post.

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JUNE 2006

Afghan Leader Losing Support
Foreign, Local Allies Cite Weak Karzai Leadership
By Pamela Constable Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, June 26, 2006; Page A01
KABUL, Afghanistan, June 25 -- Many Afghans and some foreign supporters say they are losing faith in President Hamid Karzai's government, which is besieged by an escalating insurgency and endemic corruption and is unable to protect or administer large areas of the country. As a sense of insecurity spreads, a rift is growing between the president and some of the foreign civilian and military establishments whose money and firepower have helped rebuild and defend the country for nearly five years. While the U.S. commitment to Karzai appears solid, several European governments are expressing serious concerns about his leadership. [Spin]
U.N. Denounces Secret Detention Centers
By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS The Associated Press Friday, June 23, 2006; 7:02 PM
GENEVA -- The top U.N. human rights official expressed concerns Friday about reports of secret detention centers for terrorist suspects, warning governments to abide by the law or risk creating an environment ripe for abuses.
European investigators and human rights groups have accused European nations of letting the CIA abduct and transport terror suspects to secret detention facilities in Europe and to locations elsewhere where they might have faced torture. Governments have largely denied the accusations.
"The reported existence of secret detention centers where suspects are held incommunicado is ... of grave concern," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said in a clear reference to the allegations of U.S. abuses. She did not, however, specifically name the United States.
The U.S. delegation responded by telling the 47-nation council that Washington's policy is to treat captured combatants humanely.
John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in New York, strongly criticized Arbour. He said rather than singling out the United States or Israel, she should have focused instead on human rights problems in North Korea, Iran, Burma and Zimbabwe. [Manipulation] [Human rights]
US releases Zarqawi autopsy in attempt to counter 'baloney'
· Tests show militant lived for hour after bombing · Al-Qaida in Iraq releases name of new leader Julian Borger in Washington, Agencies in Baghdad Tuesday June 13, 2006 The Guardian
An autopsy of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi concluded that he survived for nearly an hour after the house he was in was targeted by a US air strike on Wednesday, but died from "massive internal injuries" caused by the shock wave from the blast.
Wall Street Doesn't Like This War
Ken Miller
posted June 8, 2006 (web only) About ten years ago, as part of a group visiting UN peacekeeping troops, I found myself in a meeting with the parliament of the Republic of Abkhazia, a country that had just lost the flower of its youth in a bloody war with Georgia after the Soviet Union collapsed. One of our delegation had given the lawmakers some unwelcome advice on foreign policy, but it was on me that they focused their anger, since I had been introduced as an investment banker. "You financiers love war!" their leader shouted. "You profit from it!" It is true that sectors of the economy can profit from war in certain circumstances, but Wall Street really doesn't like war--at least not the one now raging in Iraq, which is beginning to look like a write-off. The defense industry does like military expenditures. And US capitalists in general do appreciate the role of a robust military budget in bolstering the dollar as the ultimate reserve currency, in assuring that the rules of global finance are favorable to our interests and in protecting access to petroleum products. But we really do not like uncertainty. We like an environment we think we understand, one in which a return- on-capital analysis can be based on reliable assumptions of a predictable level of risk. [Incompetance]
Prisoners' Ruse Is Inquiry Focus at Guantánamo
By DAVID S. CLOUD and NEIL A. LEWIS Published: June 12, 2006 WASHINGTON, June 11 - Three detainees at the United States military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, tried to conceal themselves in their cells - behind laundry and through other means - to prevent guards from seeing them commit suicide, a senior military official said Sunday. [Spin] [Victim]
U.S. General Rebuts Account on Zarqawi Beating
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. Published: June 12, 2006 BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 11 - The top American commander in Iraq on Sunday rejected as "baloney" an account by an Iraqi witness who said a dying man resembling Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist leader, had been beaten by American troops after warplanes demolished Mr. Zarqawi's safe house with a pair of bombs on Wednesday evening.
The air assault north of Baghdad in the village of Hibhib, near Baquba, was quick and fierce, but did not immediately kill Mr. Zarqawi. The American military now says he died as troops were trying to save him, after initially saying they found him dead when they arrived.
For Wal-Mart, Fair Trade May Be More Than a Hill of Beans
Retail Giant Looks at Link With Coffee Farmer By Ylan Q. Mui Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, June 12, 2006; Page A01 POCO FUNDO, Brazil -- Rosevaldo Jose Pereira has never been to Wal-Mart. The name doesn't mean anything to the lifelong coffee farmer in this remote village in southeastern Brazil. But Wal-Mart Stores Inc. knows who he is. And the world's largest retailer is changing his life.
U.S. Reservists, Target of Protests, Leave Ukraine Before War Games
Reuters Monday, June 12, 2006; Page A15 KIEV, Ukraine, June 11 -- U.S. reservists preparing for war games in Ukraine left the country Sunday amid protests and political uncertainty, casting doubt on whether the exercises would take place. Small but noisy groups of pro-Russian protesters have hounded the 200 U.S. servicemen during their stay in the former Soviet republic to prepare for the Sea Breeze 2006 exercise in July.
The reservists left their base on the Crimean Peninsula in a convoy of buses as clusters of protesters shouted "Yankee go home!" The peninsula is part of Ukraine, but most of its residents are ethnic Russians sympathetic to Moscow.
Three Detainees Commit Suicide at Guantanamo
By Josh White Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, June 11, 2006; Page A01
Three detainees at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, hanged themselves in their cells yesterday morning, the first inmates to die at the remote island prison since it opened in early 2002, according to military officials. Guards found the three men unresponsive and not breathing in their separate cells in Camp 1 shortly after midnight yesterday, according to Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, who heads the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, and Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., who commands the Guantanamo Bay prison. The detainees had apparently used their clothing and sheets to fashion makeshift nooses in what military officials believe was a coordinated suicide pact. All left suicide notes written in Arabic, the officers said.
Military officials were not releasing the names of the detainees yesterday, but said two were Saudi Arabian nationals and one was a Yemeni national. Harris described them as having close ties to terrorist organizations in the Middle East and said their suicides were "not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetric warfare against us." [Spin] [Bizarre] [Human rights]
Was Al-Zarqawi Beaten After Bombing?
Neighbor Of Slain Qaeda Leader Alleges U.S. Troops Beat Man With Beard )BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 10, 2006 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A neighbor of slain al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said that after bombs hit Zarqawi's house, he witnessed U.S. soldiers beating a man with a beard. (AP Photo/U.S. Military) Quote "He obviously had some kind of visual recognition of who they were because he attempted to roll off the stretcher, as I am told, and get away, realizing it was the U.S. military." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell
(CBS/AP) An Iraqi man who was one of the first people on the scene of the U.S. airstrike targeting Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said he saw American troops beating a man who had a beard like the al Qaeda leader. The witness, who lives near the house where al-Zarqawi spent his last days, said he saw the man lying on the ground near an irrigation canal. He was badly wounded but still alive, the man told Associated Press Television News.
'He is not dead, he is alive with God This is a wedding, not a funeral'
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in Zarqa Saturday June 10, 2006 The Guardian
After prayers, they gathered in their hundreds in the funeral tent near the house in the Jordanian town of Zarqa where he had lived. Among them were senior commanders of his organisation in Jordan. They listened to a sermon and pledged alliance to the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. The men, most of them with long bushy beards and dressed in the Afghan salwar kamees, a dress code of jihadis, came from all over Jordan. Some raised mobile phones to record the sermon. "If a mujahid dies, hundreds of others will replace him," cried Sheikh Jarah al-Qadah an old comrade of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "We will continue the jihad against the infidels everywhere, in Iraq and Afghanistan and Palestine ... see my brothers our victories in Somalia now, blessed we are and blessed to give sacrifices like the life of our hero Abu Musab."
His stature was helped by the Americans, who found it convenient to have a central figure to blame. In reality, however, it is far more complicated than that. For many months Iraqi insurgents had been complaining about Zarqawi's techniques. On the one hand they needed him for the financial support he was able to provide and his extensive network of contacts in the jihadi world, but on the other they blamed him for bringing the wrath of the Shia militias by targeting the Shia community.
Two brothers held in armed raid on home released without charge
Hugh Muir, Lee Glendinning and Vikram Dodd Saturday June 10, 2006 The Guardian
The two brothers arrested last week in an anti-terror raid on a house in east London, in which one was shot, were released without charge last night after police failed to find any link to an alleged biological terror plot.
Wake up: the American Dream is over
Even America's richest think they're getting too many tax breaks from a government determined to keep the poor in their place. As poverty in the US grows, Paul Harris wonders what happened to the Land of Opportunity
Thursday June 8, 2006 The Observer
There is a common response to America among foreign writers: the USA is a land of extremes where the best of things are just as easily found as the worst. This is a cliché. But it is often hard to argue with when surveying America's political and cultural landscape. America has some of the worst urban sprawl in the world and also the most beautiful and well-protected wildernesses. Its politics is awash with lobbyist inspired corruption. Yet passionate political engagement among millions of Americans puts many other countries to shame.
So in this land of black and white, we should not be too surprised to find some of the biggest gaps between rich and poor in the world. Such a yawning chasm is just the American Way, it would seem. Besides, the American Dream offers a way out to everyone. All someone has to do is work hard and climb the ladder towards the top. No class system or government stands in the way. Sadly, this old argument is no longer true. Over the past few decades there has been a fundamental shift in the structure of the American economy. The gap between rich and poor has widened and widened. As it does so, the ability to cross that gap gets smaller and smaller. This is far from business as usual but there seems little chance of it stopping, not least because it appears to be government policy.
The wealthiest one percent of households now control a third of the national wealth. The wealthiest 10 percent control two-thirds of it. This is a society that is splitting down the middle and it has taken place against a backdrop of economic growth. Between 1980 and 2004 America's GDP went up by almost two-thirds. But instead of making everyone better off, it has made only a part of the country wealthier, as another part slips ever more into the black hole of the working poor. There are now 37 million Americans living in poverty, and at 12.7 percent of the population, it is the highest percentage in the developed world. Yet the tax burden on America's rich is falling, not growing
Now this is not some argument against capitalism. Inequality is inevitable. It is a good thing. People need incentives. People need competition. People need markets. Some people will always be poor. Others deserve to be rich. But at the moment it looks like the rules of the game are being fixed in America in favour of the wealthy. The gap between rich and poor will only get wider. That is very dangerous. Don't just take my word for it. Take Buffet's. After all he doesn't have anything to gain from criticising current policy. In fact he has hundreds of millions of dollars to lose. 'If class warfare is being waged in America,' he has written 'My class is clearly winning.' When even the rich are starting to think they are getting too many tax cuts, then you know something has gone very wrong.
Iraq terrorist leader Zarqawi 'terminated'
Staff and agencies Thursday June 8, 2006
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq who led a bloody campaign of suicide bombings, kidnappings and hostage beheadings, has been killed in a US air raid near Baghdad, Iraq's prime minister said today. Nouri al-Maliki said Al-Zarqawi and seven aides were killed last night in a house 30 miles northeast of Baghdad, in the volatile province of Diyala. "Today, al-Zarqawi was eliminated," Mr Maliki told a news conference, drawing loud applause from reporters. He was flanked by the US ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, and General George Casey, the top US commander in Iraq. [Sovereignty]
Washington fury over UN attack on Bush 'hypocrites'

Oliver Burkeman in New York Thursday June 8, 2006 The Guardian
The deputy secretary-general of the United Nations was last night accused of making "a very, very grave mistake" after calling the Bush administration hypocrites who were feeding a right-wing anti-UN frenzy in middle America. Washington's ambassador to the UN responded with undisguised fury to a speech by Mark Malloch Brown, the deputy secretary-general, in which he accused Washington of using the international body "almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool" while failing to defend it at home.
"Much of the public discourse that reaches the US heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors, such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News," Mr Malloch Brown said in a speech in New York on Tuesday. Depending on the UN while tolerating "too much unchecked UN-bashing and stereotyping" was "simply not sustainable", he said. "You will lose the UN one way or another."
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Has Been Killed
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: June 8, 2006 Filed at 4:08 a.m. ET
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida-linked militant who led a bloody campaign of suicide bombings, kidnappings and hostage beheadings in Iraq, has been killed in a U.S. air raid north of Baghdad, Iraq's prime minister said Thursday. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said al-Zarqawi was killed along with seven aides Wednesday evening in a house 30 miles northeast of Baghdad in the volatile province of Diyala. ''Today, al-Zarqawi was eliminated,'' al-Maliki told a news conference, drawing loud applause from reporters as he was flanked by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and U.S. Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq [Media] [Sovereignty]
Senators Seek Better Defense Imagery
Committee Wants More Photos, Video and Maps Available to Troops in Field
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, June 6, 2006; Page A13
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence wants to expand the mission of the nation's imagery intelligence agency so that it can provide U.S. forces on the ground with laptop computers that display still pictures and video of what may lie over the next hill. "New products including full-motion video and ground-based photography should be included with available positional data [such as maps] in National Geospatial-Intelligence libraries for retrieval on Defense Department and intelligence community networks," the Senate panel said in its report on the fiscal 2007 intelligence authorization bill.
"The committee wants troops to be able to dial up what the route ahead will look like and where potential ambush points may be," said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, an expert in satellite- and ground-based intelligence. He said digital still photos taken by military attachés and Special Forces teams that have slipped in and out of potential target countries such as Iran and North Korea as well as video footage taken by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been collected for years, but have not been integrated into the main data libraries maintained by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). [Espionage] [Double standards] [Imperialism]
Migrants number 191 million across globe, UN says
By Nick Olivari Reuters Tuesday, June 6, 2006; 4:18 PM
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Some 191 million people now live outside their country of birth and migration is a major feature of international life, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan reported on Tuesday. [Diaspora]
U.S. Is Offering Deals on Trade to Entice Iran
By HELENE COOPER Published: June 6, 2006 WASHINGTON, June 5 - The European Union's foreign policy director, Javier Solana, arrived in Tehran on Monday night with incentives intended to resolve the nuclear crisis with Iran, including a proposal to allow Iran to upgrade its aging civilian air fleet through the purchase of aircraft parts from an American company, Boeing. [Sanctions]
U.S. Cites Countries for Human Trafficking
By ANNE GEARAN The Associated Press Monday, June 5, 2006; 1:46 PM b WASHINGTON -- The United States warned key ally Germany on Monday that it should do more to stop a tide of sex workers arriving for this month's soccer World Cup, and accused 12 nations of failing to do enough to stop the modern-day slave trade in prostitutes, child sex workers and forced laborers. "The U.S. government opposes prostitution," which is legal in Germany, a State Department report on global human trafficking said. "These activities are inherently harmful and dehumanizing."
As many as 800,000 people are bought and sold across national borders annually or lured to other countries with false promises of work or other benefits, the State Department said in its annual survey of international human trafficking.
Apart from Arab ally Saudi Arabia and the Central American nation of Belize, the rest of the list of violators reads like a catalog of nations at perpetual odds with the Bush administration: Myanmar, Cuba, Iran, Laos, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Zimbabwe. [Manipulation]
Marine's wife paints portrait of US troops out of control in Haditha
· Unit accused of abusing drugs and alcohol · Officers relieved of duty after killing of 24 Iraqis
Julian Borger in Washington Monday June 5, 2006 The Guardian
The marine unit involved in the killing of Iraqi civilians in Haditha last November had suffered a "total breakdown" in discipline and had drug and alcohol problems, according to the wife of one of the battalion's staff sergeants. The allegations in Newsweek magazine contribute to an ever more disturbing portrait of embattled marines under high stress, some on their third tour of duty after ferocious door-to-door fighting in the Sunni insurgent strongholds of Falluja and Haditha. The wife of the unnamed staff sergeant claimed there had been a "total breakdown" in the unit's discipline after it was pulled out of Falluja in early 2005. "There were problems in Kilo company with drugs, alcohol, hazing [violent initiation games], you name it," she said. "I think it's more than possible that these guys were totally tweaked out on speed or something when they shot those civilians in Haditha."
Officials admit doubts over chemical plot
Intelligence behind terror raid questioned as proof remains elusive
Richard Norton-Taylor and Vikram Dodd Monday June 5, 2006 The Guardian
Counter-terrorism officials conceded yesterday that lethal chemical devices they feared had been stored at an east London house raided on Friday may never have existed. Confidence among officials appeared to be waning as searches at the address continued to yield no evidence of a plot for an attack with cyanide or other chemicals. A man was shot during the raid, adding to pressure on the authorities for answers about the accuracy of the intelligence that led them to send 250 officers to storm the man's family home at dawn.
Rumsfeld to North: Follow Libya
U.S. defense aide also cites Russia and China as problems
June 05, 2006 ? SINGAPORE ? The U.S. defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, urged North Korea to follow the "Libyan example" in a speech on Saturday at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue defense forum in Singapore. The future of the Pacific Rim, said Mr. Rumsfeld, will depend on the path North Korea takes ? whether it continues to repress its people and threaten its neighbors, or follows Libya's example that "leads back to membership in the community of nations."
Maoists Hold Mass Meeting in Kathmandu
Follows a truce signed with the gov't earlier this year Pawan Acharya (sujukiran)
Published 2006-06-03 15:57 (KST) Tens of thousands of people gathered at the Khulla Manch (Tundikhel) in Kathmandu on Friday to attend a mass meeting of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist. Addressing the gathering, Maoist leaders said the people's movement would continue until the "ultimate goal" was achieved. "We are the real progressive and revolutionary force in the country," claimed rebel spokesman Krishna Bahadur Mahara.
A Clash of Culture, Faith
Latinas Balance Catholic Upbringing, Adoption of Islam
By Sudarsan Raghavan Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, June 5, 2006; Page B01
Every morning, Jackie Avelar wakes up to a predicament. On one side of her bed is a clock that sounds the Islamic call to prayer five times a day. On the other side is a statue of Mary. As a Muslim, she wants to remove it. As a Latina, she can't. Across the nation, thousands of Latino immigrants are redefining themselves through Islam, including a few hundred in the Washington region, according to national Islamic groups and community leaders. Precise numbers are not available, but estimates range from 40,000 to 70,000. The conversions speak to a larger evolution of immigrant identity, as a new generation ingests a cultural smorgasbord of ideas they were rarely exposed to in their homelands. Today, it's easier than ever to learn about Islam from Spanish translations of the Koran, Islamic magazines and Web sites. But as they embrace a new faith, Latinos face struggles, ranging from guilt to discrimination, as Muslims in a post-Sept. 11 America. "Sometimes you feel like you are betraying who you are, that you are abandoning your family," said Avelar, who is small and round-faced with a soft voice. The converts hail from throughout Latin America. In Islam, some say they see a devoutness and simplicity they find lacking in Catholicism. Like the tightknit Latino culture, Islam places emphasis on family, which can make it easier for converts to adjust. Yet some are as motivated by feelings of alienation in a nation that is divided over immigration. Latino women find what most westerners rarely see -- a respect for women, unlike, some converts say, the machismo culture in which they were raised.
China seen rivaling U.S. as world superpower soon
Reuters FRIDAY, JUNE 2, 2006
BERLIN The United States will lose its position as the world's undisputed leading power over the next decade and a half, with China emerging as a rival, according to a new survey from Germany's Bertelsmann Foundation.
In the survey, based on interviews with 10,250 people worldwide, 57 percent of respondents said they believed that the United States would be a world power in the year 2020, compared to 55 percent who saw China in that role. That compared to 81 percent who currently see the United States as a world power and 45 percent who believe China has already attained that status. The survey, titled "World Powers in the 21st Century," was conducted by the Gallup and TNS Emnid polling institutes in nine countries - Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States - between October and December 2005. Between 1,000 and 1,500 interviews were conducted in each of the countries. The survey showed the Chinese themselves were confident that they would gain influence on the global stage. A full 71 percent of Chinese respondents said their country would be a world power by 2020, compared with 44 percent who see China in that role today. By comparison, 54 percent of Americans see China as a global power in 2020, up slightly from the 51 percent who already view China that way.
The survey also showed that India was also expected to rise as a world power, with 24 percent of respondents assigning it that status in 2020 against only 12 percent today. [China confrontation]
USA's Monopoly on World Power Threatened
International opinion poll: Only 57% still see the USA as a global player in the year 2020 Berlin, Germany, June 2nd. The USA's status as a world power will be substantially weakened in the next 15 years. This is the result of a representative international survey by the German Bertelsmann Stiftung. According to this study, only 57% of the 10,000 people surveyed worldwide still see the USA as a world power in the year 2020. Today, 81% of people worldwide reckon the USA is a world power, followed by China with 45%, Japan with 37%, Great Britain with 33%, the EU with 32% and Russia with 27%. However, expectations shift considerably for the year 2020. Then, 55% of those surveyed expect China to be a world power, followed by Japan with 32%, the EU with 30%, Russia with 27% and India with 24%.
GLOBAL POLICY COUNCIL
Who Rules the World? World Powers and International Order International relations are in a state of flux. With new powers rising and globalization intensifying the question of today is how the international system will be able to balance old and new power aspirations while simultaneously managing global interdependence. To answer this question as well as to contribute to the development of effective strategies for Europe's future role in world affairs the Bertelsmann Stiftung has established the Global Policy Council.
World Powers in the 21st Century
- Results of a Representative Survey
  World Powers in the 21st Century The Results of a Representative Survey in Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States Berlin, June 2, 2006
- Conclusions
  Who Rules the World? World Powers and International Order Conclusions from an International Representative Survey "World Powers in the 21st Century" Berlin, June 2, 2006
USA out-flanked in Eurasia Energy Politics?
by F. William Engdahl
June 3, 2006 GlobalResearch.ca
Curiously and quietly the United States is being out-flanked in its now-obvious strategy of controlling major oil and energy sources of the Persian Gulf, Central Asia Caspian Basin, Africa and beyond. The US's global energy control strategy, it's now clear to most, was the actual reason for the highly costly regime change in Iraq, euphemistically dubbed 'democracy' by Washington. Bush restated his democracy mantra as recently as May 28 at the West Point military graduating ceremony where he declared that America's safety depends on an aggressive push for democracy, especially in the Middle East. 'This is only the beginning,' Bush said. 'The message has spread from Damascus to Tehran that the future belongs to freedom, and we will not rest until the promise of liberty reaches every people in every nation.' If the trend of recent events continues, it won't be Bush-style democracy that is spreading, but rather, Russian and Chinese influence over major oil and gas energy supplies. The quest for energy control has informed Washington's support for high-risk 'color revolutions' in Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Kyrgystan in recent months. It lies behind US activity in the Western Gulf of Guinea states of Africa, as well as in Sudan, source of 7% of China oil import. It lies behind US policy vis-à-vis Hugo Chavez' Venezuela and Evo Morales' Bolivia. In recent months, however, this strategy of global energy dominance, a strategic US priority, has shown signs of producing just the opposite: a coalition of the unwilling, states who increasingly see no other prospect, despite traditional animosities, but to cooperate to oppose what they see as a US push to control it all. Washington is beginning to realize it might have been too clever by about half, as is evident in recent public statements to both China and Russia, two nations whose cooperation in some form is essential to the success of the global US energy project. Offending both China and Russia Contrary to advice from older China hands, including, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, architect of the Nixon 1972 opening to China, the White House denied visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao the honor of a full state dinner when he visited in April, serving instead a short lunch. Hu was publicly humiliated by a well-known Falun Gong heckler at the White House press conference and by other obvious humiliations. In other words, the White House welcomed Hu with a diplomatic slap in the face. [China confrontation] [Oil] [Realignment]
In Haditha Killings, Details Came Slowly
Official Version Is at Odds With Evidence By Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, June 4, 2006; Page A01
At 5 p.m. Nov. 19, near the end of one of the most violent days the Marine Corps had experienced in the Upper Euphrates Valley, a call went out for trucks to collect the bodies of 24 Iraqi civilians. The unit that arrived in the farming town of Haditha found babies, women and children shot in the head and chest. An old man in a wheelchair had been shot nine times. A group of girls, ages 1 to 14, lay dead. Everyone had been killed by gunfire, according to death certificates issued later. The next day, Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool, a Marine spokesman in Iraq, released a terse statement: Fifteen Iraqis "were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb in Haditha. Immediately after the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small arms fire. Iraqi army soldiers and Marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another." Despite what Marine witnesses saw when they arrived, that official version has been allowed to stand for six months. Who lied about the killings, who knew the truth and what, if anything, they did about it are at the core of one of the potentially most embarrassing and damaging events of the Iraq war, one that some say may surpass the detainee abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison. [Media] [War crimes]
Military Cleared in Raid on Iraq House
General Dismisses Haditha Comparison By Josh White Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, June 3, 2006; Page A08
U.S. commanders used appropriate force in taking down a safe house in Iraq during a March 15 military raid that led to the deaths of as many as a dozen civilians, according to the results of an investigation announced in Baghdad yesterday. Officials moved quickly to tamp down allegations of a civilian massacre in the town of Ishaqi, near Balad, after a video broadcast by the BBC this week appeared to show that several civilians, including children, were shot to death in the nighttime raid. [War crimes]
Iraqi Accuses U.S. of 'Daily' Attacks Against Civilians
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. Published: June 2, 2006 BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 1 - Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki lashed out at the American military on Thursday, denouncing what he characterized as habitual attacks by troops against Iraqi civilians.
As outrage over reports that American marines killed 24 Iraqis in the town of Haditha last year continued to shake the new government, the country's senior leaders said that they would demand that American officials turn over their investigative files on the killings and that the Iraqi government would conduct its own inquiry. [Media]
Western Imperialism and Iraq:
From Colony to Semi-Colony
Aspects of India's economy
About Us The Research Unit for Political Economy (R.U.P.E.), located in Mumbai (Bombay), India, is constituted under the People's Research Trust, which is a registered public trust. The R.U.P.E. runs on voluntary labour and limited finances raised from personal contributions. It is not affiliated to any other body.
Whose Century is the 21st Century?
Immanuel Wallerstein
Commentary No. 186, June 1, 2006
In 1941, Henry Luce proclaimed the twentieth century the American century. And most analysts have agreed with him ever since. Of course, the twentieth century was more than merely the American century. It was the century of the decolonization of Asia and Africa. It was the century of the flourishing of both fascism and communism as political movements. And it was the century of both the Great Depression and the incredible, unprecedented expansion of the world-economy in the 25 years after the end of the Second World War.
But nonetheless, it was the American century. The United States became the unquestioned hegemonic power in the period 1945-1970 and shaped a world-system to its liking. The United States became the premier economic producer, the dominant political force, and the cultural center of the world-system. The United States, in short, ran the show, at least for a while.
Now, the United States is in visible decline. [Realignment] [China confrontation]
Iraq's Premier Seeks to Control a City in Chaos
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and QAIS MIZHER Published: June 1, 2006 BASRA, Iraq, May 31 - Iraq's new prime minister made an urgent visit to this increasingly lawless city on Wednesday, imposing a state of emergency and ordering leaders to cease their violent struggle for power and allow order to return to this oil-rich region.
Maj. Gen. Hassan Swadi al-Saad, Basra's police chief, says he trusts only a fraction of his force. Gangs fight through their own police units. Once seemingly immune to the violence that has plagued the rest of the country, Basra Province, the heart of Iraq's Shiite south, has sunk into chaos. Shiite political parties and their militias are fighting to control the provincial government and the region's oil wealth, contributing to some of the worst rates of killing since the invasion, with 174 killings in the past two months - double the amount from the previous two months, according to the Basra police. Trying to stamp his authority on the region, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki arrived here in an American helicopter with Iraq's Sunni Arab vice president and three other senior Iraqi officials, and he berated local leaders for the chaos. He ordered the Iraqi Army to take over Basra's streets - a demand that apparently came as a surprise to the British Army, which patrols the region, and that could prove difficult, as units would have to be brought from outside the city. [Bizarre]

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MAY 2006

American pressure threatens UK firms
BY CHRISTINE SEIB
THE US Government is putting Britain's £1 billion annual trade with Iran at risk by pressing European banks to withdraw from the country, The Times has learnt.
The Middle East Association (MEA), which represents 75 per cent of British businesses that trade in the region, accused American officials of "mucking up British business". [Sanctions]
Accident Sparks Riot in Afghan Capital
Mobs Rampage After Fatal Crash Involving U.S. Military Truck; Curfew Imposed
By Pamela Constable and Javed Hamdard Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, May 30, 2006; Page A01
KABUL, Afghanistan, May 29 -- The Afghan capital erupted Monday in the worst street violence since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, following a fatal traffic accident involving a U.S. military truck. Mobs of men and boys, many of them shouting slogans against the government and United States, set fires, attacked buildings and clashed with police for about seven hours. Hotel windows were raked with gunfire, a foreign aid agency was torched and looted, and numerous police posts were destroyed. Some rioters brandished AK-47 assault rifles; gunfire sounded throughout the city and clouds of black smoke wafted in the air. Dozens of vehicles were smashed and burned.
The violence was fed by rumors that U.S. troops had shot and killed civilians, which U.S. military spokesmen denied. On Monday night, authorities imposed the first curfew in four years as the violence tailed off. President Hamid Karzai went on national television to condemn the rioters as "enemies of Afghanistan." Various news and official reports put the death toll as high as 20. The riots exposed the bitter resentment that many Afghans harbor toward the U.S.-led military forces that have been stationed here since the Taliban was driven from power [Spin]
Iran in the Crosshairs as Russia and China Drift Toward US Position
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Japan Focus 29 May 2006
[With the United States and its European allies pressing for Security Council censure of Iran, resistance from China and Russia have provided the major obstacle to legitimizing a new Middle East war. Kaveh Afrasiabi, among the best informed of Middle East correspondents, here documents the weakening of the Chinese and Russian positions in the face of US pressures and the increasing isolation facing Iran.]
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned that the current US-led push for United Nations sanctions against Iran could turn out to be a "pretext for war", and yet both Russia and China, long thought to be opponents of any sanctions, are now inching toward the US strategy with regard to Iran.
Pentagon Seeks Nonnuclear Tip for Sub Missiles
By MICHAEL R. GORDON Published: May 29, 2006
WASHINGTON, May 28 - The Pentagon is pressing Congress to approve the development of a new weapon that would enable the United States to carry out nonnuclear missile strikes against distant targets within an hour.
The proposal has set off a complex debate about whether this program for strengthening the military's conventional capacity could increase the risks of accidental nuclear confrontation. The Pentagon plan calls for deploying a new nonnuclear warhead atop the submarine-launched Trident II missile that could be used to attack terrorist camps, enemy missile sites, suspected caches of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons and other potentially urgent threats, military officials say. If fielded, it would be the only nonnuclear weapon designed for rapid strikes against targets thousands of miles away and would add to the United States' options when considering a pre-emptive attack
Gunfire Breaks Out After Kabul Accident
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: May 29, 2006 Filed at 2:36 a.m. ET
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- U.S. and Afghan security forces fired on protesters in the Afghan capital after a riot erupted Monday because of a deadly traffic accident involving U.S. troops, police and eyewitnesses said. At least four people were killed. Witnesses said the incident began when a convoy of at least three U.S. Humvees came into the city from the outskirts, then rammed into a rush-hour traffic jam, hitting several civilian cars. ''The American convoy hit all the vehicles which were in their way. They didn't care about the civilians at all,'' said Mohammad Wali, 21, a shopkeeper who said he saw several dead bodies. Three people were killed and 16 wounded in the crash, which sparked a riot by dozens of stone-throwing Afghans who shouted ''Down with America,'' said Sher Shah Usafi, a Kabul police chief. U.S. forces then fired on the crowd, killing one person and wounding two, he said.
U.S. Urges Financial Sanctions On Iran
White House Tries to Enlist Europe, Japan By Dafna Linzer Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, May 29, 2006; Page A01
The Bush administration is pressing Europe and Japan to impose wide-ranging sanctions designed to stifle the Iranian leadership financially if diplomatic efforts fail to resolve an impasse over the country's nuclear program, according to internal government memos and interviews with three U.S. officials involved. [Sanctions]
BORDERLINE It's Not About Maps
By Moisés Naím Sunday, May 28, 2006; Page B01
A country's borders should not be confused with those familiar dotted lines drawn on some musty old map of nation-states. In an era of mass migration, globalization and instant communication, a map reflecting the world's true boundaries would be a crosscutting, high-tech and multidimensional affair. Where is the real U.S. border, for example, when U.S. customs agents check containers in the port of Amsterdam?
In 2004, the Guardian published a dispatch from the banks of the Yalu River, on the border between China and North Korea. "Here and there shadowy figures can be seen on both sides of the misty river quietly carrying out an illegal -- but thriving -- trade in women, endangered species, food and consumer appliances," wrote Jonathan Watts. If a paranoid police state such as North Korea is incapable of controlling its borders and deterring illicit trade, there seems to be little hope for open, democratic and technologically advanced nations seeking to uphold their sovereign borders [Media] [Globalisation] [Imperialism] [Bizarre]
Kissinger Papers: U.S. OK With Takeover
Saturday May 27, 2006 1:46 AM AP Photo WX113 By CALVIN WOODWARD Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Henry Kissinger quietly acknowledged to China in 1972 that Washington could accept a communist takeover of South Vietnam if that evolved after a withdrawal of U.S. troops - even as the war to drive back the communists dragged on with mounting deaths. President Nixon's envoy told Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, ``If we can live with a communist government in China, we ought to be able to accept it in Indochina.'' Kissinger's blunt remarks surfaced in a collection of papers from his years of diplomacy released Friday by George Washington University's National Security Archive. The collection was gathered from documents available at the government's National Archives and obtained through the research group's declassification requests.
Marines may face trial over Iraq massacre
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Saturday May 27, 2006 The Guardian
In the Marine Corps, they are quietly calling it their My Lai, the massacre of hundreds of villagers in 1968 that became a symbol for American brutality in the Vietnam war. In this generation's war, the village is Haditha, north-west of Baghdad, where US marines killed two dozen Iraqi civilians, including 11 women and children. In what is being viewed as the gravest allegation to date of war crimes in Iraq, a military investigation is expected to present findings in Baghdad next week that a small group of troops shot dead 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including five men in a taxi, and women and children at homes in the town last November 19. Other marines then tried to cover up the killings, the investigation has found.
The train fares that are so unfair
Why are unrestricted open tickets far more expensive in the UK? Miles Brignall thinks he has the answer Saturday May 27, 2006 The Guardian
Last week, Britain's train operators were accused of charging absurdly high ticket prices and confusing customers with a bewildering choice of fares. The report, by the Commons cross-party transport select committee, said companies were running the rail network with a "single-minded" pursuit of profits that was putting standard open tickets out of reach of many consumers. The findings, while shocking, will have sounded horribly familiar to numerous Guardian readers who contacted Money following our recent exposé of the fares policies of Britain's most profitable rail firm, GNER. The rail companies continue to charge extraordinarily high standard open fares, alongside cheaper but highly restricted tickets, which carry the risk of an expensive penalty fare if a passenger strays on to another train. The select committee said the "see how much we can get away with" attitude of operators has put the thumbscrews on those passengers who have no option but to travel on peak-hour trains using fully flexible open fares.
And Guardian Money may have unearthed the real reason - it's in part due to the way ticket revenues are shared out among the train operators. If a passenger buys an advance purchase ticket requiring them to travel on a named train with an allocated seat, the rail company gets the whole fare, minus 9% selling commission. However, if that same passenger buys an open ticket enabling them to choose their trains, the fare is divided up according to a pre-agreed formula called Orcats. This is a scheme overseen by the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC).
New official 9/11 video: The Pentagon Magic Plane
by Pierre-Henri Bunel May 19, 2006 Voltaire Net At the request of Judicial Watch, the US Department of Defence released the full version of the September 11th, 2001 attacks on Pentagon security camera videos. The neo-conservative press is delighted at this broadcasting, which supposedly contradicts conclusively our analyses. In fact, the video does not contain any additional element in comparison with the images already broadcast in 2002, and where it is still impossible to see a Boeing 757-200. This sequence confirms, on the contrary, the analysis of the former artillery officer Pierre - Henri Bunel published by Thierry Meyssan in his book Pentagate, and that we reprint here today.
Karzai Visits Site of Battle Where Many Civilians Died
By CARLOTTA GALL Published: May 26, 2006 KABUL, Afghanistan, May 25 - President Hamid Karzai made a surprise visit on Thursday to Kandahar, his hometown in the south, to visit civilians wounded in an American bombing nearby on Sunday.
Thousands of villagers have fled their homes and sought refuge in Kandahar because of the airstrikes and some of the most intense fighting in Afghanistan since the American invasion in 2001. The president's visit was fleeting, and security was heavy. (He narrowly survived an assassination attempt there in 2002.) Speaking to a gathering of Pashtun tribal elders, he promised he would bring security to the region.
Readers' editor right to publish apology, external review finds
Staff reporter Thursday May 25, 2006 The Guardian
The Guardian readers' editor, Ian Mayes, was right to publish an apology and correction relating to a G2 interview with Professor Noam Chomsky, according to an independent outside review. The Guardian's external ombudsman, John Willis, looked into the handling of the Chomsky controversy after complaints that the correction had been unfounded. After talking to all sides, Mr Willis concluded that Mayes had behaved independently and correctly in publishing the correction. "This was a serious matter," Mr Willis said.
The complaint, from the writers David Aaronovitch, Oliver Kamm and Francis Wheen, argued Mayes's correction had inflicted a "serious injustice" on the author of the original article who had accurately conveyed Prof Chomsky's views. The Chomsky interview was written by Emma Brockes and published in G2 last October. It suggested that Chomsky had cast doubt on atrocities committed at Srebrenica during the Bosnian war by placing the word massacre in quotation marks. In his correction, Mayes said there was no evidence to support this claim and gave an unreserved apology to Prof Chomsky [media]
Hussein's Former Envoy Gushes With Adulation on Witness Stand
By JOHN F. BURNS Published: May 25, 2006 BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 24 - Nobody in Saddam Hussein's inner circle was more tirelessly reverential toward him while he was in power than Tariq Aziz, who is said to have been in the habit of saluting the telephone when Mr. Hussein called.
So it was little surprise on Wednesday when Mr. Aziz, 70, became the first senior member of the old ruling elite to testify for Mr. Hussein at his trial on charges of crimes against humanity. Nor did Mr. Aziz depart from form: In an hour on the witness stand, Mr. Aziz, once Mr. Hussein's principal international envoy and now an inmate in an American military prison outside Baghdad, offered extenuating arguments for Mr. Hussein's actions that kept his old boss smiling genially from the dock.
Under Mr. Hussein, Mr. Aziz, a cigar-smoking, whiskey-drinking Christian from the Chaldean sect, used his posts as foreign minister and, later, deputy prime minister, to justify the invasion of Kuwait, the efforts to obscure Mr. Hussein's program to develop unconventional weapons, the mass killings of Kurds and Shiites in the late 1980's and early 1990's and the use of chemical weapons at the Kurdish town of Halabja, among other things. Only weeks before the American-led invasion in 2003, he had an audience with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican, one of dozens he had with world leaders.
U.S. Voices Regret for Deaths of 16 Afghans
Taliban Is Blamed By Officials, Elders By Pamela ConstableWashington Post Foreign Service Thursday, May 25, 2006; Page A21 KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, May 24 -- The U.S. military expressed regret Wednesday for the deaths of a reported 16 civilian villagers Monday in U.S. airstrikes near here, but officials and elders said Taliban insurgents were responsible for the incident. [Victim]
Six countries plan Asian naval security drill
Reuters Wednesday, May 24, 2006; 5:50 AM TOKYO (Reuters) - Six countries including Japan, China, South Korea and the United States are to hold a series of joint maritime exercises, just weeks after Tokyo and Seoul were locked in a tense stand-off over some tiny disputed islands. Japan, China, South Korea, the United States, Canada and Russia will launch naval exercises in the Japan Sea and East China Sea to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction, starting on Saturday, Japanese Coastguard officials said.
PHOTOS The officials said it would be the first time China took part in such joint naval exercises. In October 2004, Japan hosted the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), Asia's first naval exercise, in the backyard of North Korea. Australia, Japan, Singapore, Thailand and New Zealand are the only countries from the Asia-Pacific to publicly support the PSI, although the group says it has the support of more than 60 nations. China and South Korea have been reluctant to join the initiative, apparently to avoid offending North Korea - the reclusive communist state with nuclear ambitions that is an unspoken target of the PSI. The Japanese Coastguard officials would not say whether the planned joint maritime exercises were focused on North Korea. [PSI]
Super rich
It has exclusive shops, fabulously luxurious homes and a glamorous cultural scene, but this is not what has made London the destination of choice for the world's multi-billionaires. For the ultra-rich few, this country is now a virtual tax haven, which is why more and more princes, tycoons and oligarchs are making it their home. James Meek sets out to uncover the secrets of Britain's seriously wealthy
Monday April 17, 2006 The Guardian
Now at least three, and possibly four, super-rich millionaires, including the world's third richest man, Lakshmi Mittal, have private residences on the street.
But Mittal, estimated by Forbes magazine to have a personal fortune of £14.8bn, now lives there too, in the house once occupied by Baron de Reuter, founder of the Reuters news agency. According to the Land Registry, he paid just over £57m for the house in 2004 - the same year he blew a reported £31m on a six-day wedding party for his daughter and 1,000 guests in Paris that involved Versailles, a specially built wooden castle, a private performance by Kylie Minogue and 5,000 bottles of vintage champagne.
How des can a res really be?
Victoria Coren Sunday April 23, 2006 The Observer
More than ever this spring, we are gripped by how much people earn. In the past few days, we've been deluged with news of lavishly paid GPs, an influx of foreign billionaires to Britain ('Treasure Island,' chirped the Guardian), and the publication of Sunrise Radio's annual Asian rich list.
The 'Treasure Island' story mentioned that steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal has a £65m house in London. I've been obsessed ever since. £65m. What kind of house can this be? Does it do magic? You would expect, at least, a whumping willow in the garden.
US Urged to Stop Paying Iraqi Reporters
By DAVID S. CLOUD Published: May 24, 2006 WASHINGTON, May 23 - A Defense Department investigation of Pentagon-financed propaganda efforts in Iraq warns that paying Iraqi journalists to produce positive stories could damage American credibility and calls for an end to military payments to a group of Iraqi journalists in Baghdad, according to a summary of the investigation.
Though the document does not mention the Lincoln Group, Admiral Van Buskirk concluded that the military should scrutinize contractors involved in the propaganda effort more closely "to ensure proper oversight is in place." He also faulted the military for failing to examine whether paying for placement for articles would "undermine the concept of a free press," in Iraq, according to the summary. [Media] [Propaganda]
Chavez Threatens to Sell F-16s
Venezuela looks to Russia to replace U.S. as arms supplier
Published on 2006-05-24 16:13 (KST)
According to TV news reports and the Venezuelan news agency (ABN), the nation's Air Force is seriously considering selling its 21 "F-16" Fighting Falcon jet aircraft to Iran or any other country.
The dispute began in November when President Hugo Chavez accused the United States of not complying with a contract that was signed in 1981, when Venezuela bought the F-16 airplanes at a unit price of US$22 million. The F-16 has been manufactured by Lockheed Martin since 1980, and the contract specified that this company would supply Venzuela with spare parts and technical assistance. But when the U.S. government recently decided to stop selling weapons to Venezuela, Chavez threatened to give away the F-16s to Cuba and buy Russian or Chinese fighter planes. [Imperialism] [Tribute] [Sovereignty]
Bolton: Iran regime can stay if ends arms pursuit
By Irwin Arieff Reuters Monday, May 22, 2006; 4:51 PM
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said on Monday that Iran's leaders could stay in power and improve their ties with Washington if they ended their pursuit of nuclear arms. [Arrogance] [Imperialism] [Double standards]
Pressed by U.S., European Banks Limit Iran Deals
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN Published: May 22, 2006 WASHINGTON, May 21 - Prodded by the United States with threats of fines and lost business, four of the biggest European banks have started curbing their activities in Iran, even in the absence of a Security Council resolution imposing economic sanctions on Iran for its suspected nuclear weapons program. [Sanctions] [Pressure]
A Missile Strike Option We Need
By Harold Brown and James Schlesinger Monday, May 22, 2006; Page A17
Imagine the following dilemma facing an American president one day in the future (when, we hope, our real-time intelligence will have reached a high degree of accuracy, precision and timeliness):
It is because of the increasing likelihood of such scenarios -- requiring prompt, precise, nonnuclear strikes -- that the Pentagon is seeking congressional authorization to replace the nuclear warheads on two of the Trident D5 missiles on every deployed strategic submarine with a new type of warhead incorporating four highly accurate, independently targetable, nonnuclear reentry bodies. These are likely to be very effective against surface targets, such as exposed missiles, docked ships and vehicles, and aircraft on the ground -- capable of attacking such targets virtually anywhere in Europe, Africa or Asia within one hour of a command to do so. And not only would the strike be prompt and precise, it could also hit the target without warning
50 Taliban Rebels Killed in Afghanistan
By NOOR KHAN The Associated Press Monday, May 22, 2006; 2:08 AM
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- U.S.-led coalition forces killed about 50 suspected Taliban militants in an airstrike on a rebel stronghold in southern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the force said Monday. The attack occurred late Sunday and early Monday on the village of Azizi in Panjwayi district, Kandahar province, said a coalition spokesman, Maj. Scott Lundy.
"It was against a known Taliban stronghold and we believe it resulted in about 50 Taliban killed," he said. Local residents claimed scores of civilians had also been killed and wounded. Lundy said the coalition was investigating this. [Human rights] [war crimes]
New York and Euronext in $20bn tie-up
Blow to London Stock Exchange as transatlantic powerhouse will woo Chinese and Russian firms
Richard Wachman Sunday May 21, 2006 The Observer
A $20 billion merger between the New York Stock Exchange and France's Euronext, which owns the London-based Liffe derivatives platform, is expected to be unveiled this week. The deal will be the first international tie-up involving exchanges from Europe and the United States and will mark the beginning of global consolidation of stock markets around the world
A link between NYSE and Euronext, valued at $10bn apiece, is a blow to London, as the combined US-French group will compete with London for foreign listings of companies from China and Russia. Many Chinese and Russian firms have shunned New York because of the onerous regulatory burden imposed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed after the corporate scandals that rocked Wall Street three years ago. But NYSE and Euronext are expected to have quotes in New York and Europe to allow the Americans to attract foreign listings to continental centres. Companies quoted in France, for example, will come under French regulatory scrutiny.
Immigrants Hear God's Word, in Chinese, via Conference Call
By MICHAEL LUO Published: May 21, 2006
Just before midnight, the calls start coming in to the church on Allen Street in Chinatown. They come from Chinese restaurant workers across the United States. Chen Yingjie, 25, is one of those on the other end, dialing the Manhattan church, the Church of Grace to Fujianese, on a recent night from his room above the China Garden in Dowagiac, Mich., a town of 6,000. "Every time I call in, I know that the Lord is alive and that there are brothers and sisters by my side," Mr. Chen said. "I don't feel as empty." The callers - more than a hundred crowd the line on many nights - are for the most part like Mr. Chen, illegal immigrants from the Fuzhou region of Fujian province, coming off bone-wearying 12-hour shifts as stir-fry cooks, dishwashers, deliverymen and waiters at Chinese restaurants, buffets and takeout places. For the next hour, led by a pastor sitting in front of a speakerphone in Chinatown, they will sing praises to God over the phone and study shengjing - the Bible - together. With limited English and even less time, often isolated in small towns across the country, most Fujianese Chinese restaurant workers find it impossible to attend church on Sundays. But strung together by cellphones and free night-and-weekend minutes, these workers have come to form a virtual church on Monday through Thursday nights, deriving spiritual sustenance and companionship from an unusual conference-call Bible study organized by the Church of Grace [Diaspora] [Imperialism] [Religion]
At Unforgiving Arizona-Mexico Border, Tide of Desperation Is Overwhelming
Luis J. Jimenez for The New York Times With a Border Patrol helicopter buzzing overhead, a Mexican father and son, Raúl and Samuel Calderón, tried to hide. After walking four days in desert heat, they were captured by the Border Patrol in Arizona.
By GINGER THOMPSON Published: May 21, 2006 ARIVACA, Ariz., May 18 - All the talk in Washington about putting walls and soldiers along the border with Mexico did not stop Miguel Espindola from trying to cross the most inhospitable part of it this week with his wife and two small children. Their 6-year-old daughter, Karla, clutched her mother's back pocket with one hand and a bottle of Gatorade with the other as the family set out across the Sonora Desert on Thursday. Miguelito, 7, lugged a backpack that seemed to weigh almost as much as he did. "Yes, there is risk, but there is also need," said Mr. Espindola, explaining why he had brought his children on a journey that killed 464 immigrants last year, and a 3-year-old boy this week. Looking out at the vast parched landscape ahead, Mr. Espindola, a coffee farmer, talked about the poverty he had left behind, and said: "Our damned government forces us to leave our country because it does not give us good salaries. The United States forces us to go this way." [Refugee reception]
Six hurt in violent clashes as Guantánamo Bay uprising is put down by US guards
· Rebellion by inmates armed with sticks and fans · Activists say incident shows growing despair
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington, Dan Glaister in Los Angeles and Declan Walsh in Kabul Saturday May 20, 2006 The Guardian
Six detainees have been injured at Guantánamo Bay in the most violent uprising since the prison began holding suspected al-Qaida and Taliban supporters four years ago. Clashes broke out on Thursday night as 10 detainees wielding improvised weapons made from lights, fans and pieces of metal, fought with 10 US military guards, according to the Pentagon. The revolt was suppressed with "non-lethal force", including rubber bullets and pepper spray. Six of the detainees were treated for minor injuries, while some of the guards suffered bruising.
Passengers held to ransom by rail companies, MPs say
David Teather Saturday May 20, 2006 The Guardian Britain's train operators were yesterday accused of charging absurdly high ticket prices and confusing customers with a bewildering choice of fares, in a withering report from a cross-party group of MPs. The government also came under attack in the report from the Commons transport committee for failing to properly police the train companies that took over from British Rail after privatisation. The report said train companies were running the rail network with a "singleminded" pursuit of profits that was putting standard open tickets out of reach for many people.
The Liberal Democrats turned the heat up further with separate research which claimed rail fares in Britain are the highest in Europe. According to the research, a £10 ticket purchased in Latvia would carry a passenger 600 miles. In Italy, it would take a passenger 200 miles. In Britain, the same priced ticket would cover the cost of only a 38-mile journey.
Military Prison's Closure Is Urged
U.N. Panel Faults Detention Policies By Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, May 20, 2006; Page A01
UNITED NATIONS, May 19 -- A U.N. anti-torture panel Friday called on the United States to close its prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to expressly ban controversial interrogation techniques, and to halt the transfer of detainees to countries with a history of abuse and torture.
Hayden Would Inherit a CIA in Transition
By KATHERINE SHRADER The Associated Press Friday, May 19, 2006; 5:30 PM
WASHINGTON -- The CIA is pushing its spies into the field faster, giving 85 percent overseas assignments within a year after they finish training. It will fall to the incoming spy chief _ Michael Hayden, if he's confirmed _ to figure out how best to use them.
Goss has also increased the focus on Latin America, where intelligence officials see Venezuela seeking closer ties with Cuba, Iran and North Korea.
Federal Judge Dismisses Lawsuit by Man Held in Terror Program
Published: May 19, 2006 WASHINGTON, May 18 - A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit brought by a man who says he was an innocent victim of the United States government's program transferring terrorism suspects secretly to other countries for detention and interrogation. Judge T. S. Ellis 3d ruled in favor of the Bush administration, which had argued that the "state secrets" privilege provided an absolute bar to the lawsuit against a former director and transportation companies. Judge Ellis said the suit's going forward, even if the government denied the contentions, would risk an exposure of state secrets. The case involves Khaled el-Masri, a Kuwaiti-born German, who was arrested on Dec. 31, 2003, in Macedonia, where he had gone for a vacation. From there, he was flown to a prison in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was held for five months before being released. During his incarceration in Kabul, he has said, he was shackled, beaten and injected with drugs. United States officials have acknowledged the principal elements of Mr. Masri's account, saying intelligence authorities may have confused him with an operative with a similar name
Prodi signals early end to Italian role in Iraq 'occupation'
· Invasion was grave error, says new prime minister · 2,600 troops to pull out in consultation with allies
John Hooper in Rome and Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Friday May 19, 2006 The Guardian
Britain and the US were last night facing almost total isolation in Iraq after Italy's new prime minister, Romano Prodi, made it clear that he intended to pull out the third-biggest contingent in the military coalition at the earliest possible opportunity. Under Silvio Berlusconi, Italy was among the most enthusiastic supporters of the Bush-Blair line. But in his first policy speech since being sworn in on Wednesday, Mr Prodi was excoriating in his criticism of Anglo-American policy.
Science book winner donates prize to David Kelly's family
Ian Sample and James Randerson Wednesday May 17, 2006 The Guardian
In an unprecedented politicisation of the most prestigious prize for popular science books, the winning author pledged to donate his £10,000 prize to the family of the late government scientist David Kelly. David Bodanis, who was awarded the Aventis science book prize last night, said he hoped his gesture would, "tell some people in England something about the importance of truth." "Science is all about truth. There's one realm where a lot of people feel that truth hasn't come out and truth is known but it hasn't been acknowledged," he told the Guardian. Alluding to Dr Kelly's death following comments he made to a journalist about Iraq war intelligence Dr Bodanis said, "[Dr Kelly] was aware of what was really going on and the government lied and tried to feel they could suppress the truth. Events have clearly shown that they were wrong and he was right."
Discredited Somali Quits Dutch Politics
Advocate for Women Is Critic of Islam
By John Ward Anderson Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, May 17, 2006; Page A16
PARIS, May 16 -- Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali woman who moved to the Netherlands, won a seat in the Dutch parliament and became one of Europe's best-known champions of immigrant and Muslim women's rights, said Tuesday she would give up her seat and leave the country because she is being stripped of citizenship for lying on an asylum application 14 years ago. Hirsi Ali, a harsh critic of Islam and Dutch intolerance toward immigrants, has been negotiating for a position at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and expects to begin there in September, according to her spokeswoman, Ingrid Pouw
U.S. Will Restore Diplomatic Links With the Libyans
By JOEL BRINKLEY Published: May 16, 2006 WASHINGTON, May 15 - The Bush administration announced Monday that it would re-establish full diplomatic ties with Libya because Libya had abandoned its nuclear and other unconventional weapons programs and helped in the campaign against terrorism.
The decision ends more than 25 years of hostility while sending a strong signal to Iran and North Korea to follow suit.
Along with the normalization of relations and the announced intention to open a new embassy in Tripoli, the administration removed Libya from the list of nations that are state sponsors of terrorism. The United States had reaffirmed Libya's place on that list as recently as March. The announcements were a result of Libya's surprise decision in 2003 to renounce terrorism. At the time, senior American officials said they believed that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, had taken that step because he was chastened by the American invasion of Iraq. Since then, Libya has also destroyed its chemical weapons stockpiles and dismantled a secret nuclear weapons program.
Iran + America = Armageddon
By Tanaka Sakai
Japan Focus 15 May 2006
[Since the publication of Tanaka Sakai's February report on the US road to war with Iran, vigorous international debate has been touched off by allegations of a critically important Israel lobby in US politics and the making of US policy in the Middle East. Tanaka offers an independent critical Japanese perspective on the forces driving US policy toward Iran, one that goes beyond discussion of the Israel lobby to consider the interaction between fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist Islam that has been driving the region and world toward Armageddon. But Sakai looks beyond the US-Islamic clash to examine the doctrinal roots of the Shia-Sunni divisions within Islam and their implications for the future of Iran and the region. In particular, he considers whether divisions internal to Islam will trump the deepening divide between Islamic and Christian fundamentalists. In either event, the prospects for Iran and the Middle East remain dark. MS]
America's Geopolitical Nightmare and Eurasian Strategic Energy Arrangements
by F. William Engdahl
May 7, 2006 GlobalResearch.ca
Part I: The disintegration of the Bush Presidency By drawing attention to Iraq and the obvious role oil plays in US policy today, the Bush-Cheney administration has done just that: They have drawn the world's energy-deficit powers' attention firmly to the strategic battle over energy and especially oil. This is already having consequences for the global economy in terms of $75 a barrel crude oil price levels. Now it is taking on the dimension of what one former US Defense Secretary rightly calls a 'geopolitical nightmare' for the United States. The creation by Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld and company of a geopolitical nightmare, is also the backdrop to comprehend the dramatic political shift within the US establishment in the past six months, away from the Bush Presidency. Simply put: Bush/Cheney and their band of neo-conservative warhawks, with their special relationship to the capacities of Israel in Iraq and across the Mideast, were given a chance. The chance was to deliver on the US strategic goal of control of petroleum resources globally, in order to ensure the US role as first among equals over the next decade and beyond. Not only have they failed to 'deliver' that goal of US strategic dominance. They have also threatened the very basis of continued US hegemony or as the Rumsfeld Pentagon likes to term it, 'Full Spectrum Dominance.' The move by Bolivian President Evo Morales, following meetings with Velezuela's Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, to assert national control over oil and gas resources is only the latest demonstration of the decline in US power projection. [Realignment]
City Center's Encores! Presents 'Of Thee I Sing'
By CHARLES ISHERWOOD Published: May 13, 2006
A political party in a muddle, in frenzied search of a viable platform. A president nearly impeached over what is deemed an improper relationship with a woman. Momentous decisions on national affairs handed down by the Supreme Court. An international ruckus caused by those perfidious French.
No, you are not watching a blooper reel from the last 10 years of American politics, or, despite those gales of giddy laughter, a compilation of the best bits from "The Daily Show." This merry cocktail was stirred way back in 1931, by George and Ira Gershwin in collaboration with George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. It's a trenchant little musical satire called "Of Thee I Sing," baby, and it's one of the silliest and yet most sublime things on a New York stage right now.
But you'll have to act quickly, folks, since this show, while rather livelier than a political convention, won't last much longer. It is in town only through Monday, as the happy finale of this season's Encores! series of concert musicals at City Center. With a terrific cast led by the estimable Victor Garber as a brain-dead but love-struck American president, a charmingly pert Jennifer Laura Thompson as his secretary turned first lady, and an absolutely priceless Jefferson Mays as the invisible man otherwise known as the vice president, this is the most polished and entertaining Encores! presentation in recent memory.
What's that old saw about satire closing on Saturday night, Mr. Kaufman? "Of Thee I Sing" blew it a big raspberry back in 1931, when it became the first musical to win a Pulitzer Prize and ran for 441 performances, then an impressive achievement. But, like many of the more flimsily constructed Gershwin shows of the 1920's and 30's, it has not been deemed a worthwhile candidate for frequent Broadway revival. The most recent was in 1952, when, I'd imagine, Kaufman's gleeful cynicism about affairs of the heart and affairs national was fatally out of step with the country's mood.
That is assuredly no longer the case. Indeed, the laughter that greets the show today is tinged with surprise at how eerily some of its jokes seem to take precise aim, from decades back, at current affairs. A chorus of reporters sings to the new president of the "17 vacations you have had since you've been here." A politician dismisses Abraham Lincoln's pronouncement about not being able to fool all of the people all the time by remarking: "It's different nowadays. People are bigger suckers."
Bush Set To Send Guard to Border
Assignment Would Be Temporary; Critics Cite Strain on Troops By Peter Baker Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, May 15, 2006; Page A01
President Bush tried to ease the worries of his Mexican counterpart yesterday as he prepared for a nationally televised address tonight unveiling a plan to send thousands of National Guard troops to help seal the nation's southern border against illegal immigrants. Mexican President Vicente Fox called to express concern over the prospect of militarization of the border, and Bush reassured him that it would be only a temporary measure to bolster overwhelmed Border Patrol agents, the White House said.
A Pious Wish: The Anti-Imperialism of Stephen Kinzer's Overthrow
Stephen Gowans
Saturday, May 13, 2006 "For how can people, when they understand their system, fail to see in it the best possible plan of the best possible state of society?"(1) Former New York Times reporter Stephen Kinzer's latest book, "Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq" makes the case that regime change has been a regular feature of US foreign policy for decades, and is not a recent innovation cooked up one afternoon by neo-cons over barbecued ribs and Budweiser at the Bush ranch. "Regime change," Kinzer's book tells us, "did not begin with the administration of George W. Bush but has been an integral part of American foreign policy for more than one hundred years. Starting with the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893 and continuing through the entire twentieth century and into our own time, the United States has not hesitated to topple governments that stood in the way of its political and economic goals."
If US foreign policy officials are truly motivated by their aversion to repression and dictatorship, we might expect that the regimes the US has installed in place of those they've overthrown would have the opposite character: not repressive and not dictatorial. But Kinzer need only look at the overthrow of the nationalizing Mossadegh in Iran, an event he's documented in a previous book (All the Shah's Men: An Amercian Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror), and the brutally repressive and dictatorial Shah who Washington installed in his place, to see this isn't so. The suppression by invading US forces of the People's Committees in Korea at the close of the Second World War, and their eventual replacement by the US-selected dictator Syngman Rhee, is in the same vein.
Fired Officer Believed CIA Lied to Congress
Friends Say McCarthy Learned of Denials About Detainees' Treatment
By R. Jeffrey Smith Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, May 14, 2006; Page A01
A senior CIA official, meeting with Senate staff in a secure room of the Capitol last June, promised repeatedly that the agency did not violate or seek to violate an international treaty that bars cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees, during interrogations it conducted in the Middle East and elsewhere.
But another CIA officer -- the agency's deputy inspector general, who for the previous year had been probing allegations of criminal mistreatment by the CIA and its contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan -- was startled to hear what she considered an outright falsehood, according to people familiar with her account. It came during the discussion of legislation that would constrain the CIA's interrogations.
That CIA officer was Mary O. McCarthy, 61, who was fired on April 20 for allegedly sharing classified information with journalists, including Washington Post journalist Dana Priest. A CIA employee of two decades, McCarthy became convinced that "CIA people had lied" in that briefing, as one of her friends said later, not only because the agency had conducted abusive interrogations but also because its policies authorized treatment that she considered cruel, inhumane or degrading. [Human rights] [Disinformation]
Putin lashes out at 'wolf-like' America
· Response to Cheney attack feeds war of words · US 'eats and listens to no one', warns president
Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow and Ewen MacAskill in Washington Thursday May 11, 2006 The Guardian
Relations between the US and Russia sank to the lowest point in a decade yesterday when Vladimir Putin harshly rebuked Washington for its criticism last week and compared the US to a hungry wolf that "eats and listens to no one". Mr Putin, stung by an attack from Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, used his annual state of the nation address to denounce US expansionism and military spending. He also questioned Washington's record on democratic rights. Although he refrained from mentioning the US by name, it was clear that the "wolf" in question referred to Washington.
Avian Flu Wanes in Asian Nations It First Hit Hard
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. Published: May 14, 2006 Even as it crops up in the far corners of Europe and Africa, the virulent bird flu that raised fears of a human pandemic has been largely snuffed out in the parts of Southeast Asia where it claimed its first and most numerous victims.
Health officials are pleased and excited. "In Thailand and Vietnam, we've had the most fabulous success stories," said Dr. David Nabarro, chief pandemic flu coordinator for the United Nations. Vietnam, which has had almost half of the human cases of A(H5N1) flu in the world, has not seen a single case in humans or a single outbreak in poultry this year. Thailand, the second-hardest-hit nation until Indonesia recently passed it, has not had a human case in nearly a year or one in poultry in six months. Encouraging signs have also come from China, though they are harder to interpret.
Very different tactics led to success in the two countries.
While Vietnam began vaccinating all its 220 million chickens last summer, Thailand did not because it has a large poultry export industry, and other nations would have banned its birds indefinitely. (Vaccines can mask the virus instead of killing it.)
Instead, Thailand culled wide areas around infected flocks, compensated farmers generously and deputized a volunteer in every village to report sick chickens. It vaccinates fighting cocks, which can be worth thousands of dollars, and even issues them passports with their vaccination records so they can travel, Dr. Nabarro said.
Iran President Ahmadinejad's Letter to George W. Bush
Full Text May 11, 2006 Justice Forum.blogspot
Mr. George W. Bush, President of the United States of America:
For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena - which are being constantly debated, especially in political forums and amongst university students. Many questions remain unanswered. These have prompted me to discuss some of the contradictions and questions in the hopes that it might bring about an opportunity to redress them.
Can one [George W. Bush] be a follower of Jesus Christ, the great Messenger of God, feel obliged to respect human rights, present liberalism as a civilization model, announce one's opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs, make "War of Terror" his slogan, and finally, work towards the establishment of a unified international community - a community which Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern. But at the same time, have countries attacked. The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of the presence of a few criminals in a village, city or convoy, for example, the entire village, city or convoy set ablaze?
Thinking Outside the Iran Box
By Jim Hoagland Sunday, May 14, 2006; Page B07
The United States and Israel exercise absolute conventional military domination over the Middle East but are bled by costly asymmetrical warfare. They must now pursue war by other means, through asymmetrical diplomacy and statecraft built on flexibility and open-ended tactics.
For the Bush administration, that means pursuing a strategy of "as if" to deter Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and from interfering in Iraq. Washington should act as if it will secure Russian and Chinese support for sanctions against Tehran, and as if Iran will eventually make a deal -- even though neither event is likely.
That is the essence of containing what Charles de Gaulle called la force du faible , or the strength of the weak: the willingness of people to give up the relatively little they have in suicide bombings or "irrational" nuclear saber rattling. They have no other way to respond to the unchallengeable military might that the United States and Israel have established in the region. This in turn creates the need for asymmetrical statecraft by the strong.
The Treasury Department, not the Pentagon, holds the key to the next steps if the United Nations does not mandate action against Iran. The asymmetric weapon of choice is Treasury's ability to deny foreign banks and firms access to the lucrative U.S. market if they cooperate with an international outlaw. The market-access threat recently helped blunt North Korea's counterfeiting of U.S. currency and would be devastating to the investment flows Iran needs to rebuild its deteriorating oil industry. [Sanctions] [Asymmetry]
Letter in need of an answer
Simon Tisdall Tuesday May 9, 2006 The Guardian
Yesterday's letter from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to George Bush, the first such publicly announced communication since the 1979 Iranian revolution, may represent a tentative but significant first step towards direct talks with the US. Given the high level of international concern over Iran's nuclear activities and the possible American response to them, that could make it one of the more important missives to land on the White House doormat in recent years.
But it is equally possible that Iran, facing growing diplomatic isolation, is attempting to exploit divisions within the US and the UN security council over the nuclear issue. Mr Ahmadinejad's vague but tantalising offer to seek "new solutions" to international problems may stiffen Russian and Chinese opposition to the potentially fateful UN resolution the US, Britain and France hope to pass this week. The Iranians will certainly have noted the lengthening procession of senior Republicans urging the Bush administration to swallow its prejudices, stop working through European proxies, and talk directly to Tehran. John McCain, Mr Bush's rival for the Republican nomination in 2000 and a likely presidential candidate in 2008, added his voice at the weekend. Direct talks were "an option you probably have to consider", he said.
Iranian Writes to Bush; No R.S.V.P. Is Likely
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN Published: May 9, 2006 UNITED NATIONS, May 8 - In a diplomatic overture that was immediately dismissed by the United States, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran sent a lengthy letter to President Bush over the weekend offering what an Iranian spokesman called "new ways" to resolve the crisis over Iran's nuclear program.
The letter, described in Tehran as the first direct communication from an Iranian leader to an American president since 1979, was said by the spokesman to analyze "the roots of the problems" with the West. But American officials said it was a meandering screed that proposed no solutions to the nuclear issue. "This letter isn't it," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview with The Associated Press in New York. "This letter is not the place that one would find an opening to engage on the nuclear issue or anything of the sort. It isn't addressing the issues that we're dealing with in a concrete way." American officials said the letter, which was not released, was 16 pages in Persian and 18 pages in an English translation that Iran had provided. The officials said the letter had offered a philosophical, historical and religious analysis of Iran's relationship to the West, and asked questions about the cost to the world of the establishment of Israel, while another section asserted that Western-style democracy had failed humanity. [Arrogance]
No Proposals in Iranian's Letter to Bush, U.S. Says
First Official Contact Between Countries' Leaders in 27 Years Is Dismissed as a Negotiating Ploy By Karl Vick and Colum Lynch Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, May 9, 2006; Page A18
ISTANBUL, May 8 -- Senior U.S. officials dismissed an 18-page letter from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to President Bush on Monday, saying the document that broke 27 years of official and hostile silence between leaders of the two governments contained no proposals for resolving the confrontation over Iran's nuclear ambitions. In the letter, Ahmadinejad sharply criticized Bush on a broad range of fronts, suggesting that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, abuses of detainees in U.S.-run facilities from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and support for Israel were inconsistent with Bush's Christian faith.
"Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ, the great Messenger of God . . . . But at the same time, have countries attacked: the lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed," read the letter, which was delivered by Swiss diplomats, whose embassy received it in Tehran from Ahmadinejad's foreign minister. The missive was Iran's second public overture to Washington in two months, and the first originating entirely from Tehran.
John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, characterized the letter as a negotiating feint. "The Iranians are always interested in talking right before somebody puts the squeeze on them," he said. "Then, once the squeeze lets up a little bit, back they go to [uranium] enrichment . . . back they go to the pursuit of nuclear weapons." Ahmadinejad wrote that Iran's pursuit of nuclear technology was a basic right. "Why is it that any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East region is translated into and portrayed as a threat to the Zionist regime," he wrote, referring to Israel. Bolton dismissed the prospects of U.S. negotiations with Iran, saying a slew of diplomatic initiatives by other countries aimed at stalling Iran's nuclear advances over the past three years had failed to bear fruit.
British tactics reviewed as Basra erupts
· Up to five servicemen die in crashed helicopter · Troops clash with angry Iraqis on streets Richard Norton-Taylor and Muhammad Alubedy in Baghdad Monday May 8, 2006 The Guardian
British tactics in southern Iraq were under review last night as military chiefs studied whether the dramatic loss of an army helicopter at the weekend signified a new vulnerability in the air, as well as a growing hostility from Iraqis on the ground. Military investigators were combing the charred wreckage of a Lynx in central Basra, seeking to establish if it was the first British helicopter to be shot down since the invasion three years ago. The ministry of defence said a "maximum of five" British personnel were on board, but had yet to confirm a death toll. The Lynx is the workhorse of the British army and as the roads of Iraq have become ever more treacherous the British military is using them routinely
Yet just as alarming for the British deployment in southern Iraq were the scenes that followed. British forces have confronted angry Iraqi crowds before, but on this occasion the 300 men gathered at the crash site were jubilant at the loss of the helicopter and ready to inflict further damage
After initially using batons against the crowd, some of the soldiers opened fire. According to Iraqi police, four or five Iraqis were killed, including at least one child.
Basra residents said the jubilation at British misfortune stemmed from the city's descent into misery - and warned that such confrontation was likely to recur. "The miserable situation in Basra and the south definitely had a role in the buildup of events," said Abu Ali, a Basra resident. "Electricity is absent for most of the day and gasoline is very expensive
Exporting the American Model: Markets and Democracy
by Chalmers Johnson May 5, 2006 Tom Dispatch
There is something absurd and inherently false about one country trying to impose its system of government or its economic institutions on another. Such an enterprise amounts to a dictionary definition of imperialism. When what's at issue is "democracy," you have the fallacy of using the end to justify the means (making war on those to be democratized), and in the process the leaders of the missionary country are invariably infected with the sins of hubris, racism, and arrogance. We Americans have long been guilty of these crimes.
The political philosopher Hannah Arendt once argued that democracy is such an abused concept we should dismiss as a charlatan anyone who uses it in serious discourse without first clarifying what he or she means by it.
The Korean Case In South Korea, the United States resorted to far sterner measures. From the outset, we favored those who had collaborated with Japan, whereas North Korea built its regime on the foundation of former guerrilla fighters against Japanese rule. During the 1950s, we backed the aged exile Syngman Rhee as our puppet dictator. (He had actually been a student of Woodrow Wilson's at Princeton early in the century.) When, in 1960, a student movement overthrew Rhee's corrupt regime and attempted to introduce democracy, we instead supported the seizure of power by General Park Chung Hee. Educated at the Japanese military academy in Manchuria during the colonial period, Park had been an officer in the Japanese army of occupation until 1945. He ruled Korea from 1961 until October 16, 1979, when the chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency shot him to death over dinner. The South Korean public believed that the KCIA chief, known to be "close" to the Americans, had assassinated Park on U.S. orders because he was attempting to develop a nuclear-weapons program which the U.S. opposed. (Does this sound familiar?)
British soldiers die as helicopter is shot down. Then Basra erupts in bloody gun battles
Jason Burke and Ned Temko Sunday May 7, 2006 The Observer
Bloody battles were fought on the streets of Basra last night after a British helicopter crashed in the city, reportedly killing four airmen and drawing an Iraqi crowd shouting 'Victory to the Mahdi army'.
Not All See Video Mockery of Zarqawi as Good Strategy
By C. J. CHIVERS Published: May 6, 2006 An effort by the American military to discredit the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by showing video outtakes of him fumbling with a machine gun - suggesting that he lacks real fighting skill - was questioned yesterday by retired and active American military officers.
The video clips, released on Thursday to news organizations in Baghdad, show the terrorist leader confused about how to handle an M-249 squad automatic weapon, known as the S.A.W., which is part of the American inventory of infantry weapons. The release of the captured video reflected the dueling public relations efforts between the American-led forces fighting in Iraq and the terrorists and insurgents. It also reflected increasing interest by the military and civilian strategists in trying to ridicule Mr. Zarqawi. "In Arab and Muslim societies, pride and shame are felt much more profoundly than they are in Western culture," said J. Michael Waller, a professor at the Institute of World Politics, a graduate school in Washington. "To find video like this that can cut him down to size and discredit him is a real way of fighting terrorism." A paper written by Professor Waller advocating the use of ridicule against the insurgents has been circulating at the Pentagon and among military commanders with experience in Iraq recently, according to several military officers. But the retired and active officers said the public presentation of the tape did not address elements that were disturbing, not amusing: the weapon was probably captured from American soldiers, indicating a tactical victory for the insurgents. And Mr. Zarqawi looked clean and plump.
"I see a guy who is getting a lot of groceries and local support," said Nick Pratt, a Marine Corps veteran and professor of terrorism studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany. "You cannot say he is a bad operator." He added, "People should be careful who they poke fun at [Propaganda]
Signs of Renewal Emerge From Chechnya's Ruins
By C. J. CHIVERS Published: May 4, 2006 GROZNY, Russia, April 28 - Even at night the fresh sounds rise above one of the most ruined cities on earth. They are the thumps of hammers and mallets, and the rumbles of diesel engines. Lights glow inside the shells of broken buildings, where masons are at work.
For years spring has reliably meant renewed fighting here in the capital of Chechnya. But after more than a decade of war, banditry and stubborn disorder, a noticeably different spring campaign has gained momentum with the Caucasus thaw. This year, with bombings and roadside ambushes less frequent than before, sections of Chechnya are being rebuilt at last
Failed States Index 2006
We are pleased to present the second annual Failed States Index. Tens of thousands of articles from global and regional sources were collected from May to December 2005 using Thomson Dialog. Utilizing our CAST software to do initial analysis of these voluminous documents and with a review by experts, we compiled the scores below. We encourage others to utilize the Failed States Index to develop ideas for promoting greater stability worldwide. We hope the Index will spur conversations, encourage debate, and most of all help guide strategies for sustainable security. [Bizarre] [Victim]
BBC's coverage of Israeli-Palestinian conflict 'misleading'
· Study finds failures in news balance and depth · Reports said to show little to suggest deliberate bias Owen Gibson, media correspondent Wednesday May 3, 2006 The Guardian
The BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is "incomplete" and "misleading", including failing to adequately report the hardships of Palestinians living under occupation, an independent review commissioned by the corporation's board of governors has found. The report urges the BBC to be bolder in setting a policy for using the word "terrorism" to describe acts of violence perpetrated against either side and suggests a senior editorial figure should be appointed to "give more secure planning, grip and oversight". The latest of several reports into contentious areas of the BBC's news provision, it praised the quality of much of its coverage and found "little to suggest deliberate or systematic bias" but listed a series of "identifiable shortcomings". [Media]
US softens tactics in Iraq after British claims of trigger-happy troops
Ewen MacAskill in Washington Wednesday May 3, 2006 The Guardian
US forces are switching tactics in Iraq to take a less confrontational approach to civilians in response to criticism from British military commanders that they have been too tough. American commanders are ordering marines and soldiers manning checkpoints or travelling in convoys to be less trigger-happy. Instead of firing into the air or at civilians to warn them off as they approach checkpoints or convoys in cars, troops nervous about suicide bombers are being encouraged to use strobe lights and other means to signal that they should slow down or back off.
Middle-aged Britons healthier than American counterparts, says study
· Higher US health spending fails to bridge gap with UK · Disparities may be result of childhood obesity
James Randerson, science correspondent Wednesday May 3, 2006 The Guardian
Middle-aged people in Britain are healthier than their American counterparts, despite healthcare costing nearly twice as much per person in the US, according to a study released yesterday. The research found that rates of diseases such as diabetes, lung cancer and high blood pressure among Americans aged between 55 and 64 were up to twice as high as in England. Americans also had higher rates of heart disease, heart attacks and strokes. The study's authors said lifestyle differences such as smoking, drinking and obesity could not explain the difference. They speculated that more fundamental differences may be to blame
Fear is the weapon that stifles dissent
It's almost two decades since the last contested election. But using tactics that play on voters' uncertainties about the future the incumbent government has little to fear, writes John Aglionby
Tuesday May 2, 2006 The exciting news for Singaporean voters is that this Saturday's general election will be the first contested poll for 18 years. But to say the wealthy island-state is gripped with election fever or on the cusp of political transformation would be stretching reality. There is no doubt whatsoever that the People's Action Party (PAP), which has dominated since before independence in 1965, will win.
Taliban Threat Is Said to Grow in Afghan South
John D. McHugh/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images On Friday, a soldier from the Afghan National Army searched men at a checkpoint in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province.
By CARLOTTA GALL Published: May 3, 2006 TIRIN KOT, Afghanistan, April 27 - Building on a winter campaign of suicide bombings and assassinations and the knowledge that American troops are leaving, the Taliban appear to be moving their insurgency into a new phase, flooding the rural areas of southern Afghanistan with weapons and men.
Poll: 1/3 of Youths Can't Find La. on Map
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID The Associated Press Tuesday, May 2, 2006; 9:29 PM
WASHINGTON -- Despite the wall-to-wall coverage of the damage from Hurricane Katrina, nearly one-third of young Americans recently polled couldn't locate Louisiana on a map and nearly half were unable to identify Mississippi. Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 fared even worse with foreign locations: six in 10 couldn't find Iraq, according to a Roper poll conducted for National Geographic.
While Israeli-Palestinian strife has been in the news for the entire lives of the respondents, 75 percent were unable to locate Israel on a map of the Middle East.
_ Nearly three-quarters incorrectly named English as the most widely spoken native language.
_ Six in 10 did not know the border between North and South Korea is the most heavily fortified in the world. Thirty percent thought the most heavily fortified border was between the United States and Mexico.
Wiseguy Bush sends in the clones
Ewen MacAskill in Washington Monday May 1, 2006 The Guardian
It was a shock, especially for those who are not fans of the president. On the platform at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, standing together at the podium, was not one George Bush, but two. Faced with the daunting annual ritual of having to be intentionally funny, Mr Bush arranged for an impressionist, Steve Bridges, to share the burden with him. On television, it is obvious which is which. But in the International Ballroom of the Hilton in Washington, with so many of the guests too far away to see clearly, there was initial confusion. In his opening remarks, Mr Bush said: "Here, I am," but that did not convince everyone. After a series of exchanges between the two, it was still not immediately obvious who was the real George Bush. Even at the end, some were not entirely sure. "It was the one on the left," said a departing guest. "No it was the one on the right," said her partner.
There were about 2,600 guests at the black-tie event, mainly from the media and political worlds, but also an eclectic mixture of celebrities, from actors to sports stars. The dinner on Saturday night began with a US military band playing as the national flag was taken to the platform, followed by a presentation of journalism awards.
Castigating Mr Bush for not changing policy even when circumstances demanded it, he said: "When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday - no matter what happened Tuesday." Colbert was scathing about Mr Bush's failures in Iraq. "I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq." Mr Bush's grin became increasingly fixed. At the end of Colbert's sketch he and Laura gave him quick nods and left the platform unsmiling.
Sentencing Expected Today in Terror Case of Former Fla. Professor
By Mitch Stacy Associated Press Monday, May 1, 2006; Page A08 TAMPA, April 30 -- The long terrorism conspiracy case of Sami al-Arian is drawing to a close, and the former Tampa college professor could soon walk out of his jail cell and into the hands of immigration officers to be deported. Al-Arian, 48, a former computer engineering professor at the University of South Florida, is expected to be sentenced Monday morning after pleading guilty April 14 to supporting members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group responsible for hundreds of deaths in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Although a jury did not convict al-Arian of any of the 17 charges against him after five months on trial last year, he took the plea deal, family members said, to get out of jail and end their suffering.
In December, al-Arian was acquitted of eight of the 17 federal charges against him and the jury deadlocked on the rest. He pleaded guilty to one count in the indictment that charges him with "conspiracy to make or receive contributions of funds, goods or services to or for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad."
Throughout the trial last year, al-Arian's lawyers argued that although he and his co-defendants were vocal advocates for the Palestinian cause in the United States, the government had no proof that they planned or knew about specific acts of violence. They said the money they raised and sent to the Palestinian territories was for legitimate charities. [Human rights] [Double standards]
John Kenneth Galbraith, 97, Dies; Economist Held a Mirror to Society
By HOLCOMB B. NOBLE and DOUGLAS MARTIN Published: April 30, 2006 John Kenneth Galbraith, the iconoclastic economist, teacher and diplomat and an unapologetically liberal member of the political and academic establishment that he needled in prolific writings for more than half a century, died yesterday at a hospital in Cambridge, Mass. He was 97.
Mr. Galbraith lived in Cambridge and at an "unfarmed farm" near Newfane, Vt. His death was confirmed by his son J. Alan Galbraith. Mr. Galbraith was one of the most widely read authors in the history of economics; among his 33 books was "The Affluent Society" (1958), one of those rare works that forces a nation to re-examine its values. He wrote fluidly, even on complex topics, and many of his compelling phrases - among them "the affluent society," "conventional wisdom" and "countervailing power" - became part of the language.
Terrorist Attacks Rose Sharply in 2005, State Dept. Says
By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, April 29, 2006; A01
The number of terrorist attacks worldwide increased nearly fourfold in 2005 to 11,111, with strikes in Iraq accounting for 30 percent of the total, according to statistics released by U.S. counterterrorism officials yesterday. Although only half of the incidents resulted in loss of life, more than 14,600 noncombatants were killed, a majority of them in Iraq alone and 80 percent in the Near East and South Asia. American nonmilitary deaths totaled 56.
There were no changes to last year's list of known terrorist groups or to the list of six countries considered "state sponsors" of terrorism: Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Cuba and Libya. Libya, which has renounced weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, had made progress, Crumpton said, and "we're at the point right now of continuing our discussions, verifying some issues and moving forward." Only Iraq, which was removed last year, has ever been taken off the list. [Bizarre]

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APRIL 2006

Afterword: Failed States
by Noam Chomsky April 26, 2006
We began by considering four critical issues that should rank high on the agenda of those concerned with the prospects for a decent future. Two of them are literally matters of survival: nuclear war and environmental disaster. The first danger is ever-present, beyond imagination, and in principle avoidable; practical ways to proceed are understood. The second is longer-term, and there is much uncertainty about how a serious crisis can be averted, or at least mitigated, though it is clear enough that the longer the delay in confronting the tasks, they harder they will be. And again, sensible measures to proceed are well known. The third major crisis is that the government of the global superpower is acting in ways that enhance these threats, and others as well, such as the threat of terrorism by enemies. That conclusion, unfortunately all too credible, brings to prominence a fourth critical issue: the growing democratic deficit, the gap between public will and public policy, a sign of the increasing failure of formal democratic institutions to function as they would in a democratic culture with vitality and substance. This last issue is both threatening and hopeful. It is threatening because it increases the dangers posed by the first three imminent crises, apart from being intolerable in itself. It is hopeful because it can be overcome, and again, practical ways to proceed are well understood, and have often been implemented under far more difficult circumstances than those faced in the industrial societies today. [Realignment] [Imperialism]
Chirac unveils his grand plan to restore French pride
Angelique Chrisafis in Paris Wednesday April 26, 2006 The Guardian The French president, Jacques Chirac, yesterday unveiled what he hopes will be his great legacy to France's struggle against the global dominance of the US: a series of technological projects including a European search engine to rival Google. Mr Chirac, who walked out of an EU summit last month when a fellow Frenchman committed the grave offence of speaking English, styles himself as the defender of France in the globalised world. After the biggest street protests in decades forced him to stage a U-turn on employment reform last month, Mr Chirac is keener than ever to be remembered for doing something positive for French pride. Yesterday, he announced that he would provide €2bn (£1.4bn) in funding for a series of innovative grands projets, including a Franco-German search engine to compete with Google and Yahoo!. Named Quaero - Latin for "I search" - the search engine aims to be the first to efficiently sort through audio, images and video. It would search the growing array of podcasts and videoclips on the web and deliver the information to computers and mobile phones. Quaero has been a pet project of Mr Chirac's for some time. In his new year speech at the Elysée Palace, he spoke of the need to "take up the global challenge posed by Google and Yahoo!".
President Wants Anthem Sung in English
By Jim VandeHei Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, April 29, 2006; Page A06
President Bush yesterday said "The Star-Spangled Banner" should be sung in English, not Spanish, and condemned plans by some immigrant groups to stage a work protest on Monday to sway the debate over the nation's immigration laws. With passions running high over the release of "Nuestro Himno," a Spanish-language version of the national anthem, Bush told reporters that people who want to be citizens of the United States should learn English and "ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English."
Shifting Terrain: The Domestic Politics of the U.S. Military Presence in Asia
by Sheila A. Smith April 27th, 2006
Sheila A. Smith, research fellow in Politics, Governance, and Security in the East-West Center Research Program and project director of Shifting Terrain, writes, "to be successful new initiatives for managing the presence of American forces in each of these societies will need to conform to domestic law and meet public expectations for government accountability. National governments in Asia's democracies must balance their national security goals with these new norms of democratic practice."
The United States has maintained military forces in the Asia Pacific region since the end of World War II and its alliances with key countries in the region continue today to be seen as critical to regional peace and stability. Academic and policy attention has focused on the shifting regional balance of power or the new sources of instability in the region, yet a parallel story has gone largely untold. Complex social and political changes in the countries that have hosted U.S. forces are changing the way governments in Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines manage the American troops stationed in their countries.
The history of each U.S. alliance in Asia has demonstrated the challenge to national sovereignty that accompanies the presence of foreign troops. [US military] [Sovereignty]
Musharraf insists: I'm not George Bush's poodle
Declan Walsh and Simon Tisdall in Rawalpindi Friday April 28, 2006 The Guardian
General Pervez Musharraf, facing a surge of anti-American sentiment, yesterday warned that covert US air strikes against al-Qaida inside Pakistan were an infringement of national sovereignty. Admitting that his popularity was waning, the Pakistani president insisted he was "not a poodle" of George Bush and rejected accusations he was running a military dictatorship. Speaking to the Guardian at Army House in Rawalpindi weeks after a tense visit by the US president that brought a torrent of domestic criticism, Gen Musharraf insisted he was his own man.
U.S. Company Plans Casino in Mongolia
By ELAINE KURTENBACH The Associated Press Thursday, April 27, 2006; 2:22 PM
SHANGHAI, China -- Its proximity to a desert is about the only thing the Mongolian border town Zamyn Uud has in common with the gambling Mecca of Las Vegas. But Mongolian planners and American entrepreneurs hope the tiny town where livestock outnumber people on the main rail link between China and Russia will one day become a major gambling and resort destination. On Thursday, the government of Mongolia signed a contract that will put a little-known U.S. real estate company, Winwheel Bullion LLC, in charge of building a casino complex, with hotels, a convention center, shopping malls, banks and financial institutions _ and a modern airport to bring visitors the vast distances needed to reach Zamyn Uud.
The Case of the Cuban Five Honor and Injustice
By JOSÉ PERTIERRA April 27, 2006
Last Valentine's Day, the Federal Court of Appeals heard oral arguments concerning one of the greatest injustices in the history of U.S. jurisprudence. The lives of five innocent men hang in the balance, awaiting the decision of the 11th Circuit. Although the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions already declared their trial in Miami unfair and in violation of international law, most Americans are not familiar with the story of the Cuban Five. They are five men of peace who came to this country from Cuba to combat violence and terror. The men were wrongfully arrested eight years ago, tried and eventually convicted in Miami for conspiracy to commit espionage and murder
Cuba puts the number of its victims of terrorism at 3,478 killed and 2,099 wounded. The terrorists also caused significant property damage which, when added to the damage done to the Cuban economy by the United States blockade against the island, amount to losses in excess of $67 billion. [Terrorism] [Double standards]
Projected Iraq War Costs Soar
Total Spending Is Likely to More Than Double, Analysis Finds By Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, April 27, 2006; Page A16 The cost of the war in Iraq will reach $320 billion after the expected passage next month of an emergency spending bill currently before the Senate, and that total is likely to more than double before the war ends, the Congressional Research Service estimated this week.
Inside Man
by PERRY ANDERSON
The Nation [from the April 24, 2006 issue] Three years into the war in Iraq, with no end in sight, soul-searching has broken out in the foreign policy establishment. Second thoughts about the invasion are now a library. Among these, few have received wider coverage than Francis Fukuyama's. The fame of the author of The End of History and the Last Man is, of course, one reason. The frisson of an illustrious defection from the ranks of neoconservatism is another, no doubt more immediate one. But to take America at the Crossroads simply as a political straw in the wind--although, of course, it is also that--is to diminish its intellectual interest. This lies essentially in its relation to the work that made Fukuyama's name.
Mongolia at 800: Toward Enhanced U.S. and International Support by Stephen E. Noerper
April 25th, 2006
Stephen E. Noerper, head of the Institute of International Education's Scholar Relief Fund, dedicated to saving individuals and ideas, writes, "today, Mongolia faces enormous problems from rising oil prices to declining health care. As the people of Mongolia struggle to grow their democracy through challenges and crises, the U.S. and other nations need to enhance support to guarantee that Mongolian democracy continues to serve as a harbinger for Central and East Asia."
Introduction Emphasizing its modern commitments on the international stage, Mongolia in the United Nations and elsewhere in recent months has emphasized its leadership role among nomadic nations. Reflecting enhanced U.S. interest President Bush and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld visited Mongolia in November and October 2005 respectively.
Though a small country in terms of population and contemporary political importance, Mongolia deserves that enhanced US and international recognition, not only in light of a rich cultural and historical legacy, but given a decade and a half of progress toward democracy, a free market economy and active regional and international role. As Washington faces intricate challenges in Iraq and elsewhere, Mongolia has quietly and resolutely laid democratic institutions and a process of governance that though facing many challenges - most evident in January 2006 -- affirms US goals.
Bush's Thousand Days
By Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
Monday, April 24, 2006; Page A17 The Hundred Days is indelibly associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Thousand Days with John F. Kennedy. But as of this week, a thousand days remain of President Bush's last term -- days filled with ominous preparations for and dark rumors of a preventive war against Iran. The issue of preventive war as a presidential prerogative is hardly new. In February 1848 Rep. Abraham Lincoln explained his opposition to the Mexican War: "Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure [emphasis added]. . . . If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us'; but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't.' "
This is precisely how George W. Bush sees his presidential prerogative: Be silent; I see it, if you don't .
Attack on Iran: Can They Be Serious?
Immanuel Wallerstein Commentary No. 183, April 15, 2006
I have been arguing for quite some time now that the talk of a U.S. military attack on Iran was essentially bluster, and that it could not occur because it would be totally irrational from the point of view of the United States and because of the strong opposition of the leadership of the armed forces. Yet just recently, Seymour Hersh wrote an article in The New Yorker, in which he lays out the worries and fears of U.S. military leadership that such an attack is actually envisaged by President Bush. And even worse, he says that, in direct response to military objections, the president would not rule out the use of tactical nuclear weapons to penetrate deeply into the bunkers where nuclear apparatuses are stored. This article has attracted an astonishing amount of coverage. And similar stories then appeared in the Washington Post and the Associated Press. Immediately, the President said this was "wild speculation," although he did not say that this option was unthinkable. The Foreign Minister of Great Britain, Jack Straw, did however say that an assault on Iran was "inconceivable" and plans to use nuclear weapons "completely nuts." So whom are we to believe? Hersh, it is well-known, has cultivated long relationships with senior military figures (as well as with senior CIA figures), and has had a very good record about revealing things which turned out to be true. The President has had a very bad record about telling the truth in the past five years. And Jack Straw's record is not that much better. So, it is incumbent on us at least to review the arguments. Why an attack would be irrational - I insist, from the point of view of the United States - seems very clear to me
So, will the United States attack? or won't it? In general, I tend to think that rationality wins out in most political decisions, but sometimes it doesn't. Or maybe some people have, not a messianic complex, but a Samson complex.
THE IRAN PLANS
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb? Issue of 2006-04-17 Posted 2006-04-10
The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium. American and European intelligence agencies, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.), agree that Iran is intent on developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons. But there are widely differing estimates of how long that will take, and whether diplomacy, sanctions, or military action is the best way to prevent it. Iran insists that its research is for peaceful use only, in keeping with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that it will not be delayed or deterred. There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush's ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change.
Neoconservatism has evolved into something I can no longer support
The US needs to reframe its foreign policy not as a military campaign but as a political contest for hearts and minds
Francis Fukuyama
Wednesday February 22, 2006 The Guardian
As we approach the third anniversary of the onset of the Iraq war, it seems unlikely that history will judge the intervention or the ideas animating it kindly. More than any other group, it was the neoconservatives inside and outside the Bush administration who pushed for democratising Iraq and the Middle East. They are widely credited (or blamed) for being the decisive voices promoting regime change in Iraq, and yet it is their idealistic agenda that, in the coming months and years, will be the most directly threatened.
Were the US to retreat from the world stage, following a drawdown in Iraq, it would be a huge tragedy, because American power and influence have been critical to the maintenance of an open and increasingly democratic order around the world. The problem with neoconservatism's agenda lies not in its ends, but in the overmilitarised means by which it has sought to accomplish them. What US foreign policy needs is not a return to a narrow and cynical realism, but rather the formulation of a "realistic Wilsonianism" that better matches means to ends. [Imperialism]
Bush Threatens Veto Against Bid To Stop Port Deal
State-Run Arab Firm Poses No Threat, President Says Amid Bipartisan Criticism By Jim VandeHei and Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, February 22, 2006; Page A01
President Bush yesterday strongly defended an Arab company's attempt to take over the operation of seaports in Baltimore and five other cities, threatening a veto if Congress tries to kill a deal his administration has blessed. Facing a sharp bipartisan backlash, Bush took the unusual step of summoning reporters to the front of Air Force One to condemn efforts to block a firm from the United Arab Emirates from purchasing the rights to manage ports that include those in New York and New Orleans.
The Bush administration recently approved the sale of a London-based company that currently manages the ports to state-run Dubai Ports World. The deal has raised alarms on Capitol Hill and with the Republican governors of Maryland and New York. Critics note that the United Arab Emirates has been a home base for terrorists.
Administration Critics Chafe at State Dept. Shuffle
Merger Has Brought Appointees Into Conflict With Longtime Workers, Who Say They Are Sidelined
By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, February 21, 2006; Page A04
A State Department reorganization of analysts involved in preventing the spread of deadly weapons has spawned internal turmoil, with more than half a dozen career employees alleging in interviews that political appointees sought to punish long-term employees whose views they considered suspect. Senior State Department officials deny that and say an investigation has found that the proper personnel practices were followed. But three officials involved in the reorganization, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, acknowledge that a merger of two bureaus reduced the influence of employees who were viewed by some political appointees as disloyal to the administration's policies.
"There are a number of disgruntled employees who feel they have been shoved aside for political purposes. That's true," said one of these officials. "But there was rank insubordination on the part of these officers." About a dozen top experts on nonproliferation have left the department in recent months, with many citing the reorganization as a reason. The dispute has thrown a spotlight on the tensions that often exist between longtime career employees and the political appointees who come and go with successive administrations. It is also being closely watched within the State Department as another sign that, under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's leadership, the department will no longer be at war with the rest of the administration. Rice and her top aides have sought to heal the damaging rifts that existed with the Pentagon and other agencies. Some State Department officials privately acknowledge that they used to be thrilled by the department's reputation as a renegade in President Bush's first term, but they say the message has become clear in the past year that such attitudes are no longer acceptable.
The employees who say that they have been targeted once had a back channel to then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, who they said would on occasion ask them to bypass their superior, John R. Bolton, now the ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton, with backing from allies in the Pentagon and the vice president's office, frequently battled the rest of the State Department on policy issues. But Joseph, who worked for Rice at the White House, is an ideological soul mate of Bolton's and retained much of Bolton's staff -- and now officials say the policy disputes that characterized Powell's State Department have largely faded under Rice's tenure. The back channel that these employees used to alert senior management to their problems with Bolton no longer exists, the career officials said.
U.S. Counterinsurgency Academy Giving Officers a New Mind-Set
Course in Iraq Stresses the Cultural, Challenges the Conventional By Thomas E. Ricks Tuesday, February 21, 2006; Page A10 TAJI, Iraq -- If the U.S. effort in Iraq ultimately is successful, one reason may be the small school started recently on a military base here by Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the U.S. commander in Iraq. Called the COIN Academy -- using military shorthand for "counterinsurgency" -- the newest educational institution in the U.S. military establishment seeks, as a course summary puts it, to "stress the need for U.S. forces to shift from a conventional warfare mindset" to one that understands how to win in a guerrilla-style conflict. Or, as a sign on the wall of one administrator's office here put it less politely: "Insanity is doing the same thing the same way and expecting a different outcome."
The purpose of the school north of Baghdad is to try to bring about a different outcome than the U.S. military achieved in 2003-04, when Army commanders committed mistakes typical of a conventional military facing an insurgency. "When the insurgency started, we came in very conventional," said Col. Chris Short, the District native and recent Manassas resident who is the new school's commandant. Back then, U.S. forces rounded up tens of thousands of Iraqis, mixing innocent people in detention with hard-core Islamic extremists. Commanders permitted troops to shoot at anything mildly threatening. And they failed to give their troops the basic conceptual and cultural tools needed to operate in the complex environment of Iraq, from how to deal with a sheik to understanding why killing insurgents usually is the least desirable outcome in dealing with them. (It is more effective, they are now taught, to persuade them either to desert or to join the political process.) [incompetence]
U.S. Reclassifies Many Documents in Secret Review
By SCOTT SHANE Published: February 21, 2006 WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 - In a seven-year-old secret program at the National Archives, intelligence agencies have been removing from public access thousands of historical documents that were available for years, including some already published by the State Department and others photocopied years ago by private historians.
The restoration of classified status to more than 55,000 previously declassified pages began in 1999, when the Central Intelligence Agency and five other agencies objected to what they saw as a hasty release of sensitive information after a 1995 declassification order signed by President Bill Clinton . It accelerated after the Bush administration took office and especially after the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to archives records.
International laws hinder UK troops - Reid
Defence secretary calls for Geneva conventions to be redrawn
Richard Norton-Taylor and Clare Dyer Tuesday April 4, 2006 The Guardian John Reid demanded sweeping changes to international law yesterday to free British soldiers from the restraints of the Geneva conventions and make it easier for the west to mount military actions against other states. [Imperialism][Double standards]
Silence in class
University professors denounced for anti-Americanism; schoolteachers suspended for their politics; students encouraged to report on their tutors. Are US campuses in the grip of a witch-hunt of progressives, or is academic life just too liberal? By Gary Younge
Tuesday April 4, 2006 The Guardian After the screenwriter Walter Bernstein was placed on the blacklist during the McCarthyite era he said his life "seemed to move in ever-decreasing circles". "Few of my friends dropped away but the list of acquaintances diminished," he wrote in Inside Out, a memoir of the blacklist. "I appeared contaminated and they did not want to risk infection. They avoided me, not calling as they had in the past, not responding to my calls, being nervously distant if we met in public places."
As chair of African American studies in Yale, Paul Gilroy had a similar experience recently after he spoke at a university-sponsored teach-in on the Iraq war. "I think the morality of cluster bombs, of uranium-tipped bombs, [of] daisy cutters are shaped by an imperial double standard that values American lives more," he said. "[The war seems motivated by] a desire to enact revenge for the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon ... [It's important] to speculate about the relation between this war and the geopolitical interests of Israel." "I thought I was being extremely mealy-mouthed, but I was accused of advocating conspiracy theories," says Gilroy, who is now the Anthony Giddens professor of Social Theory at the London School of Economics. Scot Silverstein, who was once on the faculty at Yale, saw a piece in the student paper about Gilroy's contribution. He wrote to the Wall Street Journal comparing Gilroy to Hitler and claiming his words illustrated the "moral psychosis and perhaps psychological sadism that appears to have infected leftist academia". The Journal published the letter. Gilroy found himself posted on Discoverthenetworks.org, a website dedicated to exposing radical professors. The principle accusation was that he "believes the US fabricated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein". [Bizarre]
Revealed: victims of UK's cold war torture camp
Ian Cobain Monday April 3, 2006 The Guardian
Photographs of victims of a secret torture programme operated by British authorities during the early days of the cold war are published for the first time today after being concealed for almost 60 years. The pictures show men who had suffered months of starvation, sleep deprivation, beatings and extreme cold at one of a number of interrogation centres run by the War Office in postwar Germany. A few were starved or beaten to death, while British soldiers are alleged to have tortured some victims with thumb screws and shin screws recovered from a gestapo prison. The men in the photographs are not Nazis, however, but suspected communists, arrested in 1946 because they were thought to support the Soviet Union, an ally 18 months earlier.
Meanwhile documents about a secret interrogation centre which the War Office operated in central London between 1945 and 1948, where large numbers of men are now known to have been badly mistreated, are still being withheld by the Ministry of Defence. Officials say the papers cannot yet be released because they have been contaminated with asbestos. It is not clear whether the men in the photographs fully recovered from their mistreatment. It is also unclear, from examination of the War Office and Foreign Office documents now available, when the torture of prisoners in Germany came to an end. [Human rights] [Double standards]
Official: Iraq war led to July bombings
Mark Townsend, crime correspondent Sunday April 2, 2006 The Observer The first official recognition that the Iraq war motivated the four London suicide bombers has been made by the government in a major report into the 7 July attacks. Despite attempts by Downing Street to play down suggestions that the conflict has made Britain a target for terrorists, the Home Office inquiry into the deadliest terror attack on British soil has conceded that the bombers were inspired by UK foreign policy, principally the decision to invade Iraq.
Internet Injects Sweeping Change Into U.S. Politics
By ADAM NAGOURNEY Published: April 2, 2006 WASHINGTON, March 31 - The transformation of American politics by the Internet is accelerating with the approach of the 2006 Congressional and 2008 White House elections, producing far-reaching changes in the way campaigns approach advertising, fund-raising, the mobilizing of supporters and even the spreading of negative information.
Democrats and Republicans are sharply increasing their use of e-mail, interactive Web sites, candidate and party blogs, and text messaging to raise money, organize get-out-the-vote efforts and assemble crowds for rallies. The Internet, they say, appears to be far more efficient, and less costly, than the traditional tools of politics, notably door knocking and telephone banks.
Rice Finds British Muslims Want to Give Her an Earful
By JOEL BRINKLEY Published: April 2, 2006 BLACKBURN, England, April 1 - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice faced more protests and public embarrassment here on Saturday that have turned a trip meant to be a friendly follow-up to an American trip by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw into a two-day run through a raucous, mishap-ridden gantlet.
She was heckled by protesters and faced criticism from Muslim leaders hand-selected to meet with her by the Foreign Office during a visit here, the hometown of Mr. Straw. He visited Ms. Rice's hometown, Birmingham, Ala., in October.
About 250 protesters ringing Blackburn's City Hall shouted "Shame on you" as the two arrived. Through the din, Ms. Rice looked off into the distance and spotted a handful of people, many holding shopping bags, who had stopped to gawk. She pointed them out to Mr. Straw, and the two of them waved enthusiastically. Later, Mr. Straw said this gathering of "people who agree with the visit" was "at least as large as the protesters." In a news conference, Ms. Rice said she was "enjoying this visit very much." She described the meeting with the Muslim leaders as "immensely stimulating and interesting." Although the names of the 21 Muslim leaders had been made public, several of them requested that their names not be published or broadcast, for fear of repercussions. Five who agreed to be interviewed clearly feared they might be viewed as traitors. "We are here to represent the views of the thousands of protesters out there," said Kamrudden Kotha, the leader of a business federation. "We talked to them about the perceived double standard of American foreign policy. But I am not naïve enough to think we will change American foreign policy."
You cannot be serious
The Belarus saga exposes the hollowness of the west's support for human rights and democracy
Neil Clark Monday March 27, 2006 The Guardian
When is an election not considered free and fair by the west? Answer: when it delivers victory to a government that rejects neoliberal orthodoxy and refuses to orientate its foreign policy towards Washington or Brussels. There is no other conclusion one can come to after both the US and the EU announced swingeing sanctions on Belarus after the re-election of President Lukashenko. Many may believe the sanctions deserved - after all, the election has been condemned by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the country's human-rights record has been attacked by Amnesty International. But even if we believe the worst about Lukashenko (and it is widely accepted by opponents that he has majority support in Belarus), the democratic failings of the former Soviet republic pale into insignificance compared with those of other governments that the west, far from penalising, has rewarded generously.
The War Lovers
by John Pilger
March 25, 2006 New Statesman
The war lovers I have known in real wars have usually been harmless, except to themselves. They were attracted to Vietnam and Cambodia, where drugs were plentiful. Bosnia, with its roulette of death, was another favorite. A few would say they were there "to tell the world"; the honest ones would say they loved it. "War is fun!" one of them had scratched on his arm. He stood on a land mine. I sometimes remember these almost endearing fools when I find myself faced with another kind of war lover - the kind that has not seen war and has often done everything possible not to see it. The passion of these war lovers is a phenomenon; it never dims, regardless of the distance from the object of their desire. Pick up the Sunday papers and there they are, egocentrics of little harsh experience, other than a Saturday in Sainsbury's. Turn on the television and there they are again, night after night, intoning not so much their love of war as their sales pitch for it on behalf of the court to which they are assigned. "There's no doubt," said Matt Frei, the BBC's man in America, "that the desire to bring good, to bring American values to the rest of the world, and especially now to the Middle East ... is now increasingly tied up with military power."
Frei said that on April 13, 2003, after George W. Bush had launched "Shock and Awe" on a defenseless Iraq. Two years later, after a rampant, racist, woefully trained, and ill-disciplined army of occupation had brought "American values" of sectarianism, death squads, chemical attacks, attacks with uranium-tipped shells and cluster bombs, Frei described the notorious 82nd Airborne as "the heroes of Tikrit."
Did Milosevic or his Accusers 'Cheat Justice'? The Show Trial That Went Wrong
by Alexander Cockburn March 14, 2006 Counterpunch
"It's hard not to feel that by dying in his cell, Slobodan Milosevic finally succeeded in his determined effort to cheat justice." Thus the opening sentence of a New York Times editorial, Tuesday March 14. The editorial cited without comment Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor of the United Nations tribunal, who told an Italian interviewer that "the death of Milosevic represents for me a total defeat."
The editorial ended with words of praise for the high purpose of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) established by the U.N. Security Council in 1994.
In fact Milosevic's death in his cell from a heart attack spared Del Ponte and the Court (itself a drumhead tribunal set up by the United States with no proper foundation under international law or treaty) the ongoing embarrassment of a proceeding where Milosevic had made a very strong showing against the phalanx of prosecutors, hearsay witnesses and prejudiced judges marshaled against him. Until his death, "total defeat" had been the prospect facing Del Ponte, not Milosevic, though she presumably felt justifiably confident --based on their record of prejudiced rulings against Milosevic -- that the judges would never let her down.
There are now charges and countercharges about poisons and self-medications. Milosevic's son says his father was murdered. The embarrassed Court claims Milosevic somehow did himself in by tampering with his medicines. But no one contests the fact that Milosevic asked for treatment in Moscow--the Russians promised to return him to the Hague-- and the Court refused permission. As the tag from the poet A.H.Clough goes, "Thou shalt not kill; but need'st not strive Officiously to keep alive". The trial had been going badly from the point of view of the prosecution (which included the judges) for most of its incredible duration.

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MARCH 2006

Trouble and cost of visas halts Hallé's US tour
David Ward Thursday March 30, 2006 The Guardian
One of Britain's leading symphony orchestras has been forced to scrap an American tour, partly because of the "mind-blowing palaver" and cost of securing visas for 100 players and staff. The Manchester-based Hallé had been due to visit the US next year for two concerts, including one at the Lincoln centre in New York, the country's principal classical music venue. But managers said yesterday they had cancelled the tour when they realised that the cost of arranging the visas, estimated at £45,000, would render the trip uneconomic.
President Bush Speaks at Freedom House
Transcript CQ Transcriptions Wednesday, March 29, 2006; 3:45 PM
SPEAKER: GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES BUSH: Thank you. Please be seated. I shouldn't be instructive to the diplomatic corps. (LAUGHTER) Peter, thank you for your warm introduction. Thank you for your commitment to freedom. It turns out that freedom runs pretty deep in Peter's family. I don't know if you know this or not, but his son is a Marine first lieutenant named Elliot Ackerman. He fought in the battle of Fallujah.
Koizumi and I are not only good friends but we're partners in peace. We talk about a variety of issues. North Korea is an issue. You know, he's got a thousand troops in Iraq. Isn't that amazing, when you think about it? Because he understands the benefits of democracy in the broader Middle East. We're close friends
BUSH: Yes, thank you very much. Our soldiers are good Samaritans. They're unbelievable. I see pictures all the time from family members -- of our soldiers in Iraq -- of their loved one showing compassion to children. [Bizarre]
London Mayor Lashes U.S. Ambassador as a 'Crook'
U.S. Refusal to Pay Quarter-Million Dollars in Car Fees Prompts New Outburst From Livingstone By Mary JordanWashington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, March 29, 2006; Page A13 LONDON, March 28 -- The mayor of London considered the virtues of the U.S. ambassador to Britain: "A chiseling little crook," Ken Livingstone concluded of Robert Holmes Tuttle on Monday, further dismissing the colonials' latest representative to Her Majesty's realm as a "car salesman." Though Livingstone is known for contentious remarks -- he recently likened a Jewish newspaper reporter to a concentration camp guard -- splashing such verbal mud on Tuttle caused a flurry of amusement, embarrassment and tut-tutting among the British. Tuttle is a noted friend of President Bush and, it must be said, a purveyor of automobiles.
At issue is the U.S. government's refusal to pay more than a quarter of a million dollars in traffic congestion fees charged to cars that enter central London. The fees are a tax, the embassy says, and under international law, embassies don't pay taxes.
Other embassies in London also are refusing to pay the $14-per-car fee. "Our legal department in Berlin, like that of the State Department," concluded that the charge is a tax, said Michael Fluegger, a spokesman for the German Embassy.
A spokesman for the British Foreign Office said that "a large number of missions pay" and that Washington should, too. The spokesman added that the congestion fee "comes under the same category as parking fees and toll charges." When diplomats have refused to pay parking tickets in New York and Washington, it has caused an uproar.
Soldiers flee to Canada to avoid Iraq duty
Duncan Campbell Tuesday March 28, 2006 The Guardian
Hundreds of deserters from the US armed forces have crossed into Canada and are now seeking political refugee status there, arguing that violations of the rules of war in Iraq by the US entitle them to asylum. A decision on a test case involving two US servicemen is due shortly and is being watched with interest by fellow servicemen on both sides of the border. At least 20 others have already applied for asylum and there are an estimated 400 in Canada out of more than 9,000 who have deserted since the conflict started in 2003.
U.S. Officials Defend Raid Following Shiite Backlash
Accounts of Deadly Attack Diverge Sharply By Jonathan Finer and Naseer Nouri Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, March 28, 2006; Page A01
BAGHDAD, March 27 -- Facing a scathing backlash from Shiite Muslim leaders a day after a deadly U.S.-Iraqi raid in Baghdad, U.S. military officials defended the mission Monday, saying it was a "hugely successful" operation against an insurgent hideout packed with weapons used against soldiers and civilians. Along with two top generals, Lt. Col. Sean Swindell, whose unit participated in the raid, said the mission was led by Iraqi soldiers and targeted an insurgent group based at a compound in northern Baghdad. Sixteen Iraqis were killed, all combatants, U.S. officials have said.
Their version of events differed sharply from that of Shiite officials and Baghdad residents near the site of the raid, who for a second day voiced anger over the operation, saying U.S. and Iraqi troops targeted a Shiite mosque and gunned down innocent worshipers in the half-light of evening prayers
Ukraine's Orange revolution turns blue
· Comeback for Yanukovich after his opponents split · Nato membership at risk if MPs turn back to Moscow Tom Parfitt, Simferopol Monday March 27, 2006 The Guardian
The divided leaders of Ukraine's orange revolution were beaten into second place in parliamentary elections yesterday, less than 18 months since jubilant crowds swept them to power. Early exit polls suggested the former prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, was likely to seize between a quarter and a third of parliament, raising the possibility he could take back his post. That would put him in an uneasy cohabitation with Viktor Yushchenko, the president and his opponent during the falsified election which gave birth to the revolution in late 2004 and early 2005.
Friends defend Kember against accusations over Iraq mission
· Peace activist refuses to talk about his ordeal · Christian group says it wants details of rescue Patrick Barkham and Jonathan Steele in Baghdad Monday March 27, 2006 The Guardian
The Christian group behind Norman Kember's mission to Iraq yesterday refused to withdraw from Baghdad as friends of the peace activist denied claims that his work was irresponsible. As Mr Kember, 74, joined a joyful congregation at Harrow Baptist Church in London for the scheduled Mothering Sunday service less than 24 hours after returning to Britain, a Christian Peacemaker Teams spokesman said it was reviewing its operations but would not withdraw volunteers still working in Baghdad.
Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo by British Adviser Says
By DON VAN NATTA Jr. Published: March 27, 2006 LONDON - In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt:
But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times. "Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.
No Legal Rights for Enemy Combatants, Scalia Says
'War Is War,' Justice Tells Audience Associated Press Monday, March 27, 2006; Page A03
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia reportedly told an overseas audience this month that the Constitution does not protect foreigners held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He also told the audience at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland that he was "astounded" by the "hypocritical" reaction in Europe to the prison, this week's issue of Newsweek magazine reported.
The comments came just weeks before the justices are to take up an appeal from a detainee at Guantanamo Bay. The court will hear arguments tomorrow on Salim Ahmed Hamdan's assertion that President Bush overstepped his constitutional authority in ordering a military trial for the former driver of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Hamdan has been held at the prison for nearly four years. Two years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the detainees could use U.S. courts to challenge their detention. Scalia disagreed with that ruling, and in the recent speech repeated his beliefs that enemy combatants have no legal rights. "War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts," Newsweek quoted Scalia as saying. "Give me a break."
Ruling Party Suffers Rout in Ukraine
Pro-Russian Group Leads in Exit Polls By Peter Finn Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, March 27, 2006; Page A10
KIEV, Ukraine, March 26 -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko's party finished in a humiliating third place in parliamentary elections on Sunday as the pro-Russian party of the man he defeated for the presidency 15 months ago appeared headed for a clear victory, according to exit polls. The Party of Regions, led by Viktor Yanukovych, who was defeated by Yushchenko in 2004 following massive street protests dubbed the Orange Revolution, secured a commanding 33.3 percent of the vote, according to one exit poll. A second poll gave the Party of Regions 27.5 percent
The Word at War
Propaganda? Nah, Here's the Scoop, Say the Guys Who Planted Stories in Iraqi Papers
By Lynne Duke Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, March 26, 2006; Page D01
Oh, no, not at all -- the Lincoln Group does not do propaganda. Sure, the firm's been tarred by some in Congress, the media and the defense establishment for paying Iraqi newspapers to publish hundreds of "news" stories secretly written by U.S. troops. But Paige Craig, the West Point dropout and former Marine intelligence specialist who is the Lincoln Group's president, says the practice is not propaganda. The word carries such baggage, such suggestions of mind control. So in an industry in which euphemism thrives, a more elegant word is deployed.
"We call it 'influence,' " says Craig, whose business has 12 U.S. government contracts totaling more than $130 million. The Lincoln Group even has a "senior director for insight and influence." His name is Andrew Garfield. Over lunch near the group's Pennsylvania Avenue offices, he also tries to steer the lexicon at play around the table and to clarify what he calls the "tradecraft" of "influence." Take "psyops," for instance. That's short for "psychological operations." Like the word "propaganda," it, too, conjures mystery, deception. But that's not what the Lincoln Group does, says Garfield. The company has been contracted by a psyops division of the U.S. military, but Garfield insists that Lincoln's work cannot be considered psyops. That word, Garfield protests, refers to a military operation. And Garfield is very familiar with military psyops, as he is a former British military and intelligence official who regularly teaches a course at the U.S. Army base at Fort Bragg -- a course on . . . psyops. Bombs are blasting in Baghdad. War fills the air there and fills the airwaves here. But a more quiet war -- the information war -- is waged by stealth, in the words and images deployed by pundits, partisans, policymakers, propagandists, psychological operators and influence specialists, both civilian and military. Call it influence. Or call it propaganda, info-ops, psyops or strat comm (that's short for "strategic communications"). It's all information, and information can be a weapon as lethal, at times, as bullets and bombs. [Media] [Propaganda] [Disinformation]
In Ukraine, Moscow's Man Makes Comeback
Kremlin Trying to Maintain Sympathies of Ex-Soviet States By Peter Finn Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, March 26, 2006; Page A12
KIEV, Ukraine, March 25 -- For a man who was supposed to be politically dead, Viktor Yanukovych has a light step. With a bounce in his stride, he emerged onto a downtown stage Friday evening, faux-marble columns framing his salute, as a crowd of thousands chanted his name in four hard beats: "Yan-U-Kov-Ych." The Kremlin's favorite for power in this former Soviet republic, he was vanquished 16 months ago by the weeks of marches and sit-ins known as the Orange Revolution. Now, opinion polls predict that his party will win the largest number of seats in parliamentary elections Sunday.
Russia spied for Saddam in war - Pentagon report
· Intelligence on US troop movements was passed on · Plans of American central command in Iraqi papers Oliver Burkeman in New York Saturday March 25, 2006 The Guardian
Russia funnelled intelligence on American troop movements in Iraq to Saddam Hussein during the early days of the war, according to documents contained in a Pentagon report released last night. Documents apparently from Saddam's regime, seized by the Americans, described how Russia collected crucial plans from "inside the American central command", and channelled it via Moscow's ambassador in Baghdad, Vladimir Titorenko. The Pentagon did not explicitly vouch for the authenticity of the documents, but a spokesman said they seemed to be part of a pattern of Russia acting in accord with its economic interests. The 210-page report, which the Pentagon said was undertaken as part of an effort to understand the psychology of Iraq's military response to the US attack, also portrayed a regime that was doomed as a result of Saddam's poor leadership and his belief in his own propaganda. "The largest contributing factor to the complete defeat of Iraq's military forces was the continued interference by Saddam," it said. [Spin]
Dark clouds gather over 'Painter of Light'
Entrepreneur artist who hangs in one in 20 US homes accused of fraud and drunken antics Oliver Burkeman in New York Saturday March 25, 2006 The Guardian
"There's over 40 walls in the average American home," a business manager for the artist Thomas Kinkade once said, "and Thom says our job is to figure out how to populate every single wall in every single home and every single business throughout the world with his paintings." Kinkade's luridly idyllic landscapes, full of quaint cottages and glowing firelight, already hang in an estimated one in 20 US homes. "In the often hurried, unsympathetic and complex world we live in, the images Thomas Kinkade paints offer a place of refuge," his company's literature purrs. "A place where the transient things of life give way to the things that matter most ... faith and family, a loving home and the people who know and love us."
Art critics have long dismissed his work as a kitsch crime against aesthetics. But now the world has grown even more "unsympathetic and complex" for the artist, who describes himself as a devout Christian and has trademarked his "Painter of Light" soubriquet. In court documents and other testimony, he has been accused of sexual harassment, fraudulent business practices and bizarre incidents of drunkenness including a habit of "ritual territory marking" that involves urinating in public places.
Near Paul Revere Country, Anti-Bush Cries Get Louder
By Michael Powell Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, March 25, 2006; Page A01
HOLYOKE, Mass. -- To drive through the mill towns and curling country roads here is to journey into New England's impeachment belt. Three of this state's 10 House members have called for the investigation and possible impeachment of President Bush. Thirty miles north, residents in four Vermont villages voted earlier this month at annual town meetings to buy more rock salt, approve school budgets, and impeach the president for lying about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and for sanctioning torture.
Whatever Happened to Congress?
An Interview with Chalmers Johnson (Part Two)
By TOM ENGELHARDT March 23, 2006
In Part 1 of his interview, Chalmers Johnson suggested what that fall-of-the-Berlin-Wall, end-of-the-Cold-War moment meant to him; explored how deeply empire and militarism have entered the American bloodstream; and began to consider what it means to live in an unacknowledged state of military Keynesianism, garrisoning the planet, and with an imperial budget--a real yearly Pentagon budget--of perhaps three-quarters of a trillion dollars. TE Tom Engelhardt: You were discussing the lunacy of the 2007 Pentagon budget ... Chalmers Johnson:What I don't understand is that the current defense budget and the recent Quadrennial Defense Review (which has no strategy in it at all) are just continuations of everything we did before. Make sure that the couple of hundred military golf courses around the world are well groomed, that the Lear jets are ready to fly the admirals and generals to the armed forces ski resort in Garmisch in the Bavarian Alps or the military's two luxury hotels in downtown Seoul and Tokyo. .....
TE: Any last words?
Johnson: I'm still working on them. My first effort was Blowback, The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. That was well before I anticipated anything like massive terrorist attacks in the United States. It was a statement that the foreign-policy problems--I still just saw them as that--of the first part of the 21st century were going to be left over from the previous century, from our rapacious activities in Latin America, from our failure to truly learn the lessons of Vietnam. The Sorrows of Empire, Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic was an attempt to come to grips with our militarism. Now, I'm considering how we've managed to alienate so many rich, smart allies--every one of them, in fact. How we've come to be so truly hated. This, in a Talleyrand sense, is the sort of mistake from which you can't recover. That's why I'm planning on calling the third volume of what I now think of as "The Blowback Trilogy," Nemesis. Nemesis was the Greek goddess of vengeance. She also went after people who became too arrogant, who were so taken with themselves that they lost all prudence. She was always portrayed as a fierce figure with a scale in one hand--think, Judgment Day--and a whip in the other
TE: And you believe she's coming after us?
Johnson: Oh, I believe she's arrived. I think she's sitting around waiting for her moment, the one we're coming up on right now.
Books: 'The Case for Goliath'
"How America Acts as the World's Government in the 21st Century" Michael Mandelbaum Author/Professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies Friday, March 17, 2006; 1:00 PM Michael Mandelbaum , author of "The Case for Goliath: How American Acts as the World's Government in the 21st Century" and professor at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, was online Friday, March 17, at 1 p.m. ET to discuss his book and how the U.S. uses its power and resources. The transcript follows.
Cupertino, Calif.: Michael, I enjoyed your book and have recommended it to others. Let me ask a narrow question. I have wondered for a while now why we continue to base troops in South Korea. South Korea is certainly rich enough to defend itself, and the presence of our troops there feeds anti-American feelings in that country. China can't be too pleased, either, by our continued military presence in South Korea. Why not withdraw those troops and save some money? Michael Mandelbaum: Thanks for your kind words about the book. Your question is a good one, and I note that analyists from the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington have made the withdrawal of American troops from the Korean peninsula a major point of advocacy. The case for keeping them there rests on the proposition that without the US South Korea would be strongly tempted to acquire nuclear weapons, to counterbalance the presumed nuclear weapons of the North Koreans and the actual nuclear weapons of the Chinese. That in turn might force Japan, reluctantly, to become a nuclear weapon state. A nuclearized East Asia is something no one wants, but might come about all the same in the absence of the US. How long this argument will remain persuasive enough to keep US troops in Korea I think we don't know. [Bizarre] [Japanese remilitarisation] [Arrogance]
Will Your Job Survive?
By Harold Meyerson Wednesday, March 22, 2006; Page A21
In case you've been worrying about how the war in Iraq will end, or the coming of avian flu, or the extinction of the universe as we drift into the cosmic void, well, relax. Here's something you should really fret about: the future of the U.S. economy in the age of globalization.
In the new global order, Blinder writes, not just manufacturing jobs but a large number of service jobs will be performed in cheaper climes. Indeed, only hands-on or face-to-face services look safe. "Janitors and crane operators are probably immune to foreign competition," Blinder writes, "accountants and computer programmers are not."
The threat of globalization and the reality of de-unionization have combined to make the raise, for most Americans, a thing of the past. Between 2001 and 2004, median household income inched up by a meager 1.6 percent, even as productivity was expanding at a robust 11.7 percent. The broadly shared prosperity that characterized our economy in the three decades following World War II is now dead as a dodo.
Washington's 2006 National Security Strategy Confirms a Policy Void
Dr. Michael A. Weinstein 22 March 2006I Tth the release on March 16, 2006 of its National Security Strategy (N.S.S.), Washington completed its overview of diplomatic, defense and security policy that included Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's reorganization of the State Department and U.S. aid programs, and the Defense Department's Quadrennial Defense Review (Q.D.R.). The N.S.S. is required by law to be issued to Congress by the president on a yearly basis, but the new report is the first one to be delivered since 2002. The delay was due to the Iraq intervention, which embroiled the administration in responding to immediate situations and rendered the direction of future policy uncertain -- pending the outcome of the intervention -- and, more importantly, reflected unreconciled fundamental divisions within the administration over the position of the United States in the global power configuration. The split among the forces in the U.S. security apparatus was evidenced by the differences between Rice's explanation of the State Department reorganization and the analysis in the Q.D.R. [Dissension]
Grants Flow To Bush Allies On Social Issues
Federal Programs Direct At Least $157 Million
By Thomas B. Edsall Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, March 22, 2006; Page A01
For years, conservatives have complained about what they saw as the liberal tilt of federal grant money. Taxpayer funds went to abortion rights groups such as Planned Parenthood to promote birth control, and groups closely aligned with the AFL-CIO got Labor Department grants to run worker-training programs. In the Bush administration, conservatives are discovering that turnabout is fair play: Millions of dollars in taxpayer funds have flowed to groups that support President Bush's agenda on abortion and other social issues.
Under the auspices of its religion-based initiatives and other federal programs, the administration has funneled at least $157 million in grants to organizations run by political and ideological allies, according to federal grant documents and interviews.
Cold Warrior in a Strange Land
An Interview with Chalmers Johnson (Part 1)
By TOM ENGELHARDT Counterpunch, 21 March 2006
Johnson, who served as a lieutenant (jg) in the Navy in the early 1950s and from 1967-1973 was a consultant for the CIA, ran the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley for years. He defended the Vietnam War ("In that I was distinctly a man of my times"), but is probably the only person of his generation to have written, in the years since, anything like this passage from the introduction to his book Blowback: "The problem was that I knew too much about the international Communist movement and not enough about the United States government and its Department of Defense In retrospect, I wish I had stood with the antiwar protest movement. For all its naiveté and unruliness, it was right and American policy wrong."
TD: So, returning to our starting point, you saw an empire and Johnson: it had to be conceptualized. Empires are defined so often as holders of colonies, but analytically, by empire we simply mean the projection of hegemony outward, over other people, using them to serve our interests, regardless of how their interests may be affected. So what kind of empire is ours? The unit is not the colony, it's the military base. This is not quite as unusual as defenders of the concept of empire often assume. That is to say, we can easily calculate the main military bases of the Roman Empire in the Middle East, and it turns out to be about the same number it takes to garrison the region today. You need about 38 major bases. You can plot them out in Roman times and you can plot them out today. An empire of bases -- that's the concept that best explains the logic of the 700 or more military bases around the world acknowledged by the Department of Defense. Now, we're just kidding ourselves that this is to provide security for Americans. In most cases, it's true that we first occupied these bases with some strategic purpose in mind in one of our wars. Then the war ends and we never give them up. We discovered that it's part of the game; it's the perk for the people who fought the war. The Marines to this day believe they deserve to be in Okinawa because of the losses they had in the bloodiest and last big battle of World War II. I was astonished, however, at how quickly the concept of empire -- though not necessarily an empire of bases -- became acceptable to the neoconservatives and others in the era of the younger Bush. After all, to use the term proudly, as many of them did, meant flying directly in the face of the origins of the United States. [Imperialism]
Communists to be interned in Dachau
Tuesday March 21, 1933
The Guardian [Archive]
The President of the Munich police has informed the press that the first concentration camp holding 5,000 political prisoners is to be organised within the next few days near the town of Dachau in Bavaria. Here, he said, Communists, "Marxists" and Reichsbanner leaders who endangered the security of the State would be kept in custody. It was impossible to find room for them in the State prisons, nor was it possible to release them. Experience had shown, he said, that the moment they were released, they started their agitation again
President Wins Big in Belarus Vote; Thousands Protest Results
Leading Opponent Calls Ballot a 'Farce,' Demands New Elections By Peter Finn Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, March 20, 2006; Page A08
MINSK, Belarus, March 20 -- Thousands of people poured onto a snow-blown central square Sunday night to protest the results of a presidential election in which incumbent Alexander Lukashenko was heading to the kind of overwhelming victory that his opponents charge lacks any credibility. With nearly all of the ballots counted, Lukashenko, 51, had won 82.6 percent of the vote, far ahead of three other candidates, the country's Central Election Commission reported early Monday.
Moreover, Lukashenko, seeking a third term after 12 years in power, remains popular with a large segment of Belarusan society that appreciates the political and economic stability of the former Soviet republic, which has been scarred by world wars and environmental disaster. "He's the best in the world," said Nicolai Shebeka, a 33-year-old factory worker, after voting Sunday on the edge of Minsk, the capital. "The place where I work was awful before he came to power." The head of the Belarusan Central Election Commission said she expected the report to be not just bad, but "very bad," because of what she said was the organization's Western bias. Both the United States and the E.U. have accused Lukashenko of dictatorial rule and threatened some kind of sanction if the presidential election was deemed fraudulent. Lukashenko dismissed the anticipated criticism when he voted Sunday at a college in Minsk. "We in Belarus are conducting the election for ourselves," he said. "What is important is that elections take place in accordance with Belarusan legislation. As for sweeping accusations, I've been hearing them for 10 years. I've already gotten used to them."
On Anniversary, Bush and Cheney See Iraq Success
By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER Published: March 20, 2006 WASHINGTON, March 19 - On the third anniversary of a war that they once expected to be over by now, President Bush and senior officials argued Sunday that their strategy was working despite escalating violence in Iraq, even as a former Iraqi prime minister once favored by the White House declared that a civil war had already started. [Chutzpah]
No, the Iran Oil Bourse is not a casus belli...
by F. William Engdahl March 10, 2006 GlobalResearch.ca
A number of writings have recently appeared with the thesis that the announced plans of the Teheran government to institute a Teheran Oil Bourse, perhaps as early as this month, is the real hidden reason behind the evident march to war on Iran from the Anglo-American powers. The thesis is in our opinion mistaken for many reasons, not the least, that war on Iran has been in planning since the 1990's, as an integral part of the US Greater Middle East strategy.
'I didn't join the British Army to conduct American foreign policy'
By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent (Filed: 12/03/2006) As a trooper in the Special Air Service's counter-terrorist team - the black-clad force that came to the world's attention during the Iranian Embassy siege in 1980 - Ben Griffin was at the pinnacle of his military career.
Within a year of joining the elite force in early 2004 and serving as a trooper in the SAS's G-Squadron, he learnt that his unit was being posted to Baghdad, where it would be working alongside its American equivalent, Delta Force, targeting al-Qaeda cells and insurgent units. Unknown to any of his SAS colleagues at their Hereford-based unit, however, Mr Griffin, then 25, had been harbouring doubts over the "legality" of the war. Despite recognising that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator and posed a threat, albeit a small one, to the West, he did not believe that the case for war had been made. The events he witnessed during his three-month tour in Baghdad, and especially the conduct of the American troops, would force him into making the most difficult decision of his life.
Latin America and Asia are at last breaking free of Washington's grip
The US-dominated world order is being challenged by a new spirit of independence in the global south
Noam Chomsky
Wednesday March 15, 2006 The Guardian
The prospect that Europe and Asia might move towards greater independence has troubled US planners since the second world war. The concerns have only risen as the "tripolar order" - Europe, North America and Asia - has continued to evolve. Every day Latin America, too, is becoming more independent. Now Asia and the Americas are strengthening their ties while the reigning superpower, the odd man out, consumes itself in misadventures in the Middle East.
Regional integration in Asia and Latin America is a crucial and increasingly important issue that, from Washington's perspective, betokens a defiant world gone out of control. Energy, of course, remains a defining factor - the object of contention - everywhere. China, unlike Europe, refuses to be intimidated by Washington, a primary reason for the fear of China by US planners, which presents a dilemma: steps toward confrontation are inhibited by US corporate reliance on China as an export platform and growing market, as well as by China's financial reserves - reported to be approaching Japan's in scale. [China confrontation]
Updated Strategy Backs Iraq Strike and Cites Iran Peril
By DAVID E. SANGER Published: March 16, 2006 WASHINGTON, March 15 - An updated version of the Bush administration's national security strategy, the first in more than three years, gives no ground on the decision to order a pre-emptive attack on Iraq in 2003, and identifies Iran as the country likely to present the single greatest future challenge to the United States.
The strategy document declares that American-led diplomacy to halt Iran's program to enrich nuclear fuel "must succeed if confrontation is to be avoided," a near final draft of the document says. But it carefully avoids spelling out what steps the United States might take if diplomacy fails, and it makes no such direct threat of confrontation with North Korea, which boasts that it has already developed nuclear weapons.
When asked about the omission in an interview today, Stephen J. Hadley, President Bush's national security adviser and the principal author of the new report, said "the sentence applies to both Iran and North Korea." The 48-page draft of the new "National Security Strategy of the United States," which was released by the White House before a formal presentation by Mr. Hadley on Thursday, is an effort to both expand on and assess the security strategy published by the administration in September 2002, a year after the terrorist attacks against New York and the Pentagon upended American foreign policy. But in a reflection of new challenges, the document also covers territory that the first strategy sidestepped, warning China, for example, against "old ways of thinking and acting" in its competition for energy resources. China's leaders, it says, are "expanding trade, but acting as if they can somehow 'lock up' energy supplies around the world or seek to direct markets rather than opening them up - as if they can follow a mercantilism borrowed from a discredited era." [China confrontation]
Bush to Restate Terror Strategy
2002 Doctrine of Preemptive War To Be Reaffirmed
By Peter Baker Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, March 16, 2006; Page A01 President Bush plans to issue a new national security strategy today reaffirming his doctrine of preemptive war against terrorists and hostile states with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, despite the troubled experience in Iraq. The long-overdue document, an articulation of U.S. strategic priorities that is required by law, lays out a robust view of America's power and an assertive view of its responsibility to bring change around the world. On topics including genocide, human trafficking and AIDS, the strategy describes itself as "idealistic about goals and realistic about means."
The strategy expands on the original security framework developed by the Bush administration in September 2002, before the invasion of Iraq. That strategy shifted U.S. foreign policy away from decades of deterrence and containment toward a more aggressive stance of attacking enemies before they attack the United States. The preemption doctrine generated fierce debate at the time, and many critics believe the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq fatally undermined an essential assumption of the strategy -- that intelligence about an enemy's capabilities and intentions can be sufficient to justify preventive war.
Back to the future
Robert Tait looks back more than 50 years to the last time Iran was referred to the world's official guardian of peace and security
Wednesday March 15, 2006 The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, tells a rally in the city of Agh Ghala that no power can deny his country its nuclear technology. Photograph: Sajjad Safari/AP Standing before the hallowed chambers of the UN security council, the charismatic Iranian leader confronted his adversaries with the combative defiance that was his hallmark. Bullying foreigners, he proclaimed, wanted to deny Iran its legitimate right to an energy resource vital to its future. No amount of international pressure would force his government to retreat from a position that had the full support of the great Iranian nation. To almost universal surprise, security council members were swayed by the demagogic statesman's arguments and voted to shelve the resolution rather than take punitive action against Iran. It was a devastating blow for a prevailing western worldview whose sense of self-righteousness had never before suffered such a sharp reverse.
With Iran's nuclear case finally going before the council this week, it is a scenario the US and EU hope is too far fetched to become reality as they endeavour to force Tehran to abandon a programme they believe is designed to produce an atomic bomb. Yet it is not fantasy, but a description of what happened the last time Iran was referred to the security council. The date was October 1951, and the Iranian leader addressing the august body was Mohammed Mossadeq, the democratically-elected prime minister, who had outraged Britain by nationalising his country's British-owned oil industry.
A PERSIAN TRAGEDY
Mossadeq's Fight for National Sovereignty by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach This article appears in the November 4, 2005 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
A tragedy of untold dimensions is threatening in Persia, a tragedy which could unleash a process leading to World War III, and the destruction of civilization as we know it. Neo-conservative circles in London and Washington have targetted this key Persian Gulf nation, in the context of their imperialist policy of permanent war. Two main policy options have been openly discussed in the Anglo-American circles vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic: military aggression, either by the United States or proxy Israel, aimed at eliminating the Bushehr nuclear power plant and other sites related to the nation's civilian nuclear program; or, failing that, political destabilization, leading to regime change.[1] If the precedent for a possible military attack is to be found in the Israeli bombing of the Osiraq nuclear plant in Iraq, in 1981, the precedent for regime change is the 1953 overthrow of the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadeq in Iran, by an Anglo-American combination. This, identified by John Perkins, in his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man,[2], as the first U.S. coup against a foreign country, was a British-authored and -designed operation, carried out through the good graces of the notorious Dulles brothers, Allen and John Foster.
US postwar Iraq strategy a mess, Blair was told
Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor Tuesday March 14, 2006 The Guardian
Senior British diplomatic and military staff gave Tony Blair explicit warnings three years ago that the US was disastrously mishandling the occupation of Iraq, according to leaked memos. John Sawers, Mr Blair's envoy in Baghdad in the aftermath of the invasion, sent a series of confidential memos to Downing Street in May and June 2003 cataloguing US failures. With unusual frankness, he described the US postwar administration, led by the retired general Jay Garner, as "an unbelievable mess" and said "Garner and his top team of 60-year-old retired generals" were "well-meaning but out of their depth".
Milosevic was murdered, says his son
Agencies Tuesday March 14, 2006
Slobodan Milosevic's son today claimed his father was murdered, as he arrived in the Netherlands to collect the former Serbian president's body. "He got killed, he didn't die. He got killed. There is a murder," Marko Milosevic told the Associated Press. Milosevic died in his prison cell on Saturday, months from an expected verdict in his war crimes and crimes against humanity trial in The Hague. A post-mortem by Dutch doctors blamed his death on a heart attack but Moscow has expressed doubts over the reliability of the results. A Russian forensic team is due to arrive in the Netherlands later today.
Heart failure blamed but former Serb leader said doctors were killing him
Letter to Russian foreign minister shows he felt he was being given wrong drugs Ian Traynor, central Europe correspondent Monday March 13, 2006 The Guardian
The death of Slobodan Milosevic was shrouded in mystery and deepening controversy last night as Dutch pathologists examined his corpse and it emerged that he had claimed he was being slowly killed by doctors. Milosevic's body was removed from the detention centre at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague to the Netherlands forensic institute for a postmortem examination and toxicological testing. Last night a preliminary postmortem report said that he had died of heart failure. His remains were to be released to his family today.
Yesterday the 64-year-old former Serbian and Yugoslav president's lawyer revealed a six-page letter - dated last Friday, 24 hours before his death - that Milosevic wrote to the Russian government alleging he was being deliberately administered the wrong drugs for his illnesses. "Persons that are giving me the drug for the treatment of leprosy surely cannot be treating me. Especially those persons against whom I have defended my country in the war and who also have an interest in silencing me can likewise not be treating me," Milosevic said in a handwritten letter to the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.
The Flawed Rice Doctrine of 'Transformational Diplomacy' and American Global Policy
By Walter LaFeber
In her January 18, 2006 speech at Georgetown University, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attracted attention by arguing that U.S. foreign policy would henceforth be shaped by a "transformational diplomacy . . . rooted in partnership, not paternalism." Her address was taken by some observers to mean that the neoconservative policy assumptions which have condemned the United States to the tragedy in Iraq and elsewhere were being replaced by a realist perspective taking American policy back to the more constructive days of the partnerships George Marshall and Dean Acheson (whom she singled out for praise in her question-and-answer session), formed with Western Europe and Japan. These partnerships aimed to institutionalize both the rebuilding of those war-devastated partners and the containment of the Soviet Union.
A closer reading of her speech leads to another conclusion: the address is mostly old, failed policy dressed in necessarily different rhetoric
Still Angry After All These Years: Imelda Marcos responds to critics of the Marcos dictatorship
by David McNeill
[The beautiful half of one of the 20th Century's most notorious dictatorships, Imelda Marcos has spent two decades fighting attempts to jail her and trace a reputed hidden fortune of billions. On the 20th anniversary of the revolution that swept her and Ferdinand Marcos from power in the Philippines, she talks exclusively about her wealth, legacy and that infamous shoe collection.] Imelda Marcos, once ranked as one of the ten richest women on the planet, is broke. Or so she says. "I am poor not only in material things but in the truth. But I believe the truth will prevail. The truth is god and if you are on the side of truth and god, who can stand against you?"
Lobbyists Foresee Business As Usual
Post-Abramoff Rules Expected to Be Merely a Nuisance By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, March 19, 2006; Page A01
Some of Washington's top lobbyists say that they expect to find ways around congressional efforts to impose new restrictions on lobbyists' dealings with lawmakers in the wake of the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal, and that any limits will barely put a dent in the billions of dollars spent to influence legislation. Though Congress may ultimately vote to eliminate a few of the more visible trappings of special pleading, such as gifts, free meals and luxurious trips, lobbyists say they have already found scores of new ways to buy the attention of lawmakers through fundraising, charitable activities and industry-sponsored seminars. An estimated $10 billion is spent annually to influence legislation and regulations, and that spending is not likely to be diminished by the proposed lobbying changes, these lobbyists contend. [Corruption]
US envoy hints at strike to stop Iran
· Bolton says nuclear plant can be 'taken out' · UN agency meets to send report to security council Julian Borger Washington Monday March 6, 2006 The Guardian
The US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, has told British MPs that military action could bring Iran's nuclear programme to a halt if all diplomatic efforts fail. The warning came ahead of a meeting today of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which will forward a report on Iran's nuclear activities to the UN security council.
Bush signs up to terror pact with Pakistan
Imran Khan is among hundreds arrested as Pakistan cracks down on protests over visit
Declan Walsh in Islamabad Sunday March 5, 2006 The Observer
George Bush cemented his anti-terrorism pact with Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf yesterday during a 24-hour visit marked by intense security and a crackdown on anti-American protest. Musharraf was 'committed to bringing the terrorists to justice', the US president said after meeting the army general at the presidential palace in Islamabad. 'He understands the need to make sure our strategy is able to defeat the enemy... We will win this war together.' As the two leaders met, Black Hawk helicopters circled over the palace. Tension was high after a suicide bombing killed a US diplomat and three Pakistanis outside the US consulate in Karachi 48 hours earlier.
U.S. Gives India Applause, Pakistan a Pat on the Back
By SOMINI SENGUPTA Published: March 5, 2006 NEW DELHI, March 4 - President Bush leaves this region having declared India and Pakistan strategic partners. But his declarations spoke just as loudly of the shifting balance of power in the region, and the world. It was India that appeared to come out the biggest winner this week. Pakistan walked away with little more than a mild pat on the back after Mr. Bush's visit on Saturday. While buttressing America's alliances in the region, Mr. Bush also took home a formidable political challenge to sell his nuclear deal with India to a skeptical Congress. India could hardly be more pleased. "IND-US CIVILIZATION," screamed a front-page headline in The Times of India on Saturday, in joyous praise for what President Bush had bestowed on the nation. Those gifts included a nuclear deal celebrated by Indian officials, elevation as a global leader, and nary a recriminatory word on the troubles in the disputed province of Kashmir. Indian backers of a United States-India partnership were elated.
Bush Offers Praise To Pakistani Leader
Government Beats, Arrests Protesters In Advance of President's Appearance By Jim Vandehei and John Lancaster Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, March 5, 2006; Page A01
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, March 4 -- President Bush on Saturday praised Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, for his efforts in hunting down al-Qaeda operatives inside his country and his long-term commitment to democracy during a day-long visit to the capital. "In the long run, he understands that extremists can be defeated by freedom and democracy and prosperity and better education," Bush said of Musharraf in a joint news conference at the presidential palace. [Bizarre] [Double standards]
Pakistan Is Tense as Bush Arrives on 24-Hour Visit
By CARLOTTA GALL and ELISABETH BUMILLER Published: March 4, 2006
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, March 3 - President Bush arrived here on Friday for a 24-hour visit to a capital locked down under extraordinary security, as a broad coalition of political parties closed shops and halted transportation across the country and planned more demonstrations for the weekend.
The visit by Mr. Bush, the first by an American president in six years, threatened to further roil a nation still seething over the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that were first published in a Danish newspaper.
U.S. Isolated in Opposing Plan for a New U.N. Rights Council
By WARREN HOGE Published: March 4, 2006 UNITED NATIONS, March 3 - The United States has found itself isolated in its opposition to a proposal to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission, and its pledge to vote against adoption of the plan has thrown the United Nations into turmoil.
Prisons Often Shackle Pregnant Inmates in Labor
.com/ORG/go/nwyrkfxs0040000007org/direct/01/ By ADAM LIPTAK Published: March 2, 2006 Shawanna Nelson, a prisoner at the McPherson Unit in Newport, Ark., had been in labor for more than 12 hours when she arrived at Newport Hospital on Sept. 20, 2003. Ms. Nelson, whose legs were shackled together and who had been given nothing stronger than Tylenol all day, begged, according to court papers, to have the shackles removed.
Though her doctor and two nurses joined in the request, her lawsuit says, the guard in charge of her refused. "She was shackled all through labor," said Ms. Nelson's lawyer, Cathleen V. Compton. "The doctor who was delivering the baby made them remove the shackles for the actual delivery at the very end." [Human rights]
Growing Threat Seen In Afghan Insurgency
DIA Chief Cites Surging Violence in Homeland By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, March 1, 2006; Page A08
The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency told Congress yesterday that the insurgency in Afghanistan is growing and will increase this spring, presenting a greater threat to the central government's expansion of authority "than at any point since late 2001." "Despite significant progress on the political front, the Taliban-dominated insurgency remains a capable and resilient threat," Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples said in a statement presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee at its annual hearing on national security threats.
Appearing with Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte, Maples said attacks within Afghanistan were up 20 percent between 2004 and 2005, suicide bombings increased "almost fourfold" and use of makeshift bombs, similar to those used in Iraq, had "more than doubled."
Watching What You Say
TIM SHORROCK The Nation| posted March 2, 2006 (March 20, 2006 issue)
Research assistance was provided by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute. Two months after the New York Times revealed that the Bush Administration ordered the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless surveillance of American citizens, only three corporations--AT&T, Sprint and MCI--have been identified by the media as cooperating. If the reports in the Times and other newspapers are true, these companies have allowed the NSA to intercept thousands of telephone calls, fax messages and e-mails without warrants from a special oversight court established by Congress under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Some companies, according to the same reports, have given the NSA a direct hookup to their huge databases of communications records. The NSA, using the same supercomputers that analyze foreign communications, sifts through this data for key words and phrases that could indicate communication to or from suspected terrorists or terrorist sympathizers and then tracks those individuals and their ever-widening circle of associates. "This is the US version of Echelon," says Albert Gidari, a prominent telecommunications attorney in Seattle, referring to a massive eavesdropping program run by the NSA and its English-speaking counterparts that created a huge controversy in Europe in the late 1990s.
Iran and the Bomb
Immanuel Wallerstein Commentary No. 179, Feb. 15, 2006
Much of the discussion about Iran's nuclear program is quite simply hysterical. Witness the statement of Sen. John McCain just this month: "There's only one thing worse than military action and that's a nuclear-armed Iran." One is tempted to respond with Shakespeare's title: "Much ado about nothing." Except that there's an awful lot of "ado" and some people in high places seem to be serious about engaging in military action to stop Iran from securing nuclear weapons. So we have to ask why is this so important, and so important to whom? First of all, why should we consider it to be a catastrophe if tomorrow Iran has nuclear weapons? There are today nine countries known to possess nuclear weapons - the U.S., Great Britain, Russia, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. What would change if Iran became the tenth? Who would be menaced by Iran? Which country might they bomb? At the present time, there is no indication of any kind that Iran is or intends to be militarily aggressive. To be sure, the current president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made very hostile statements about Israel. But does anyone think he intends to bomb Israel, or that Iran has the military capacity to do so? Rhetoric and intentions are two different things. But if Iran doesn't intend to use the bomb, why would Iran want to have it? There are some obvious reasons. Of the nine countries that have the bomb, all but one have bases close enough to use it against Iran. The Iranian government would have to be very naive not to worry about this. Furthermore, they can easily deduce from U.S. policy of the last five years that the U.S. invaded Iraq but not North Korea, and that one of the greatest differences between the two was that Iraq did not have nuclear weapons and that North Korea did.
Major Storm Clouds Gathering
by Immanuel Wallerstein Commentary No. 180, Mar. 1, 2006
The level of agitation is rising everywhere, and the world-system has never been more anarchic than now. We may be going over the edge.
What seems the culminating blow to the Bush regime is to have the elder statesman of the U.S. conservative movement, William Buckley, write an article in conservatism's premier review, National Review, in which he says: "One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed." He calls for the "acknowledgment of defeat." If one of the leaders of the pro-war camp wants to acknowledge defeat, Bush is indeed in very great trouble. But also, it means that things are falling apart within the United States. In the words of William Butler Yeats, when "things fall apart, the centre cannot hold." The reaction thus far of the neo-con cabal in the Bush regime, led by Vice-President Cheney, himself in increasing trouble with the U.S. public, has been to plunge ahead as if nothing had happened. They are advocating war on Iran (unlikely they will succeed even in launching it, but nonetheless). And now Cheney wants the U.S., which has accumulated enemy after enemy, to take on Putin and Russia as well. Cheney is the U.S.'s Samson, pulling down the temple. He may only succeed in stimulating a U.S. civil war.
Steve Bell cartoon on Bush in India
US shifts diplomatic weight to reflect new world order
Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor Wednesday March 1, 2006 The Guardian The US will send an extra 15 diplomats to China, 15 to Latin America and 12 to India as part of a major rethink of its foreign policy for the next few decades. US embassies in Europe will lose 38 diplomats, including one in Britain, a reflection that the economic, political and religious frontlines have moved elsewhere. Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, who is accompanying George Bush on a visit to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan that begins today, said in January that hundreds of diplomats would be moved from Europe and Washington to Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
Iran-USA, beginning of a major world crisis
Written by LEAP/E2020 Saturday, 25 February 2006 March 20 to 26, 2006: Iran-USA, beginning of a major world crisis, or "the End of the Western World we have known since 1945". The Laboratoire européen d'Anticipation Politique Europe 2020, LEAP/E2020, now estimates to over 80% the probability that the week of March 20-26, 2006 will be the beginning of the most significant political crisis the world has known since the Fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, together with an economic and financial crisis of a scope comparable with that of 1929. This last week of March 2006 will be the turning-point of a number of critical developments, resulting in an acceleration of all the factors leading to a major crisis, disregard any American or Israeli military intervention against Iran. In case such an intervention is conducted, the probability of a major crisis to start rises up to 100%, according to LEAP/E2020. An Alarm based on 2 verifiable events The announcement of this crisis results from the analysis of decisions taken by the two key-actors of the main on-going international crisis, i.e. the United States and Iran: - on the one hand there is the Iranian decision of opening the first oil bourse priced in Euros on March 20th, 2006 in Teheran, available to all oil producers of the region ; - on the other hand, there is the decision of the American Federal Reserve to stop publishing M3 figures (the most reliable indicator on the amount of dollars circulating in the world) from March 23, 2006 onward[1].
Toll in Iraq's Deadly Surge: 1,300
Morgue Count Eclipses Other Tallies Since Shrine Attack By Ellen Knickmeyer and Bassam SebtiWashington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, February 28, 2006; Page A01
BAGHDAD, Feb. 27 -- Grisly attacks and other sectarian violence unleashed by last week's bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine have killed more than 1,300 Iraqis, making the past few days the deadliest of the war outside of major U.S. offensives, according to Baghdad's main morgue. The toll was more than three times higher than the figure previously reported by the U.S. military and the news media. Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday -- blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their hands still bound -- and many of them had wound up at the morgue after what their families said was their abduction by the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
U.S. Opposes U.N.'s Planned Rights Panel
Exclusion of Abusive Nations Sought By Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, February 28, 2006; Page A04
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 27 -- The Bush administration will oppose a U.N.-backed resolution calling for the creation of a council to expose the world's worst human rights abusers, John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Monday. Bolton said that a draft charter presented Thursday by the U.N. General Assembly president, Jan Eliasson, was not tough enough to ensure that nations that abuse human rights would be barred from joining the council. He said he was under instructions from Washington to reopen negotiations on the text or postpone deliberations on a new rights body for several months. [Camouflage]
Saudi Arabia Looks East: Woos China and India
PINR 22 February 2006 In January 2006, Saudi Arabia's monarch, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, undertook a tour of Asia that brought him to China and India (along with Malaysia and Pakistan). It was a strategically significant trip and one that may have some important long-term implications. Some have labeled the Saudi king's Asia visit "a strategic shift in the foreign policy of the country" and have argued that it "heralds a new era." Saudi Arabia and China Improve Relations The fact that China was the first destination on the king's list speaks volumes not only about the rising profile of China in global politics, but also about a growing intimacy between the two states.
Neoconservatism has evolved into something I can no longer support
The US needs to reframe its foreign policy not as a military campaign but as a political contest for hearts and minds
Francis Fukuyama Wednesday February 22, 2006 The Guardian As we approach the third anniversary of the onset of the Iraq war, it seems unlikely that history will judge the intervention or the ideas animating it kindly. More than any other group, it was the neoconservatives inside and outside the Bush administration who pushed for democratising Iraq and the Middle East. They are widely credited (or blamed) for being the decisive voices promoting regime change in Iraq, and yet it is their idealistic agenda that, in the coming months and years, will be the most directly threatened.
Were the US to retreat from the world stage, following a drawdown in Iraq, it would be a huge tragedy, because American power and influence have been critical to the maintenance of an open and increasingly democratic order around the world. The problem with neoconservatism's agenda lies not in its ends, but in the overmilitarised means by which it has sought to accomplish them. What US foreign policy needs is not a return to a narrow and cynical realism, but rather the formulation of a "realistic Wilsonianism" that better matches means to ends.
Bush Threatens Veto Against Bid To Stop Port Deal
State-Run Arab Firm Poses No Threat, President Says Amid Bipartisan Criticism By Jim VandeHei and Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, February 22, 2006; Page A01 President Bush yesterday strongly defended an Arab company's attempt to take over the operation of seaports in Baltimore and five other cities, threatening a veto if Congress tries to kill a deal his administration has blessed. Facing a sharp bipartisan backlash, Bush took the unusual step of summoning reporters to the front of Air Force One to condemn efforts to block a firm from the United Arab Emirates from purchasing the rights to manage ports that include those in New York and New Orleans.
The Bush administration recently approved the sale of a London-based company that currently manages the ports to state-run Dubai Ports World. The deal has raised alarms on Capitol Hill and with the Republican governors of Maryland and New York. Critics note that the United Arab Emirates has been a home base for terrorists.
Administration Critics Chafe at State Dept. Shuffle
Merger Has Brought Appointees Into Conflict With Longtime Workers, Who Say They Are Sidelined
By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, February 21, 2006; Page A04
A State Department reorganization of analysts involved in preventing the spread of deadly weapons has spawned internal turmoil, with more than half a dozen career employees alleging in interviews that political appointees sought to punish long-term employees whose views they considered suspect. Senior State Department officials deny that and say an investigation has found that the proper personnel practices were followed. But three officials involved in the reorganization, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, acknowledge that a merger of two bureaus reduced the influence of employees who were viewed by some political appointees as disloyal to the administration's policies.
"There are a number of disgruntled employees who feel they have been shoved aside for political purposes. That's true," said one of these officials. "But there was rank insubordination on the part of these officers." About a dozen top experts on nonproliferation have left the department in recent months, with many citing the reorganization as a reason. The dispute has thrown a spotlight on the tensions that often exist between longtime career employees and the political appointees who come and go with successive administrations. It is also being closely watched within the State Department as another sign that, under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's leadership, the department will no longer be at war with the rest of the administration. Rice and her top aides have sought to heal the damaging rifts that existed with the Pentagon and other agencies. Some State Department officials privately acknowledge that they used to be thrilled by the department's reputation as a renegade in President Bush's first term, but they say the message has become clear in the past year that such attitudes are no longer acceptable.
The employees who say that they have been targeted once had a back channel to then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, who they said would on occasion ask them to bypass their superior, John R. Bolton, now the ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton, with backing from allies in the Pentagon and the vice president's office, frequently battled the rest of the State Department on policy issues. But Joseph, who worked for Rice at the White House, is an ideological soul mate of Bolton's and retained much of Bolton's staff -- and now officials say the policy disputes that characterized Powell's State Department have largely faded under Rice's tenure. The back channel that these employees used to alert senior management to their problems with Bolton no longer exists, the career officials said. [Dissension]
U.S. Counterinsurgency Academy Giving Officers a New Mind-Set
Course in Iraq Stresses the Cultural, Challenges the Conventional By Thomas E. Ricks Tuesday, February 21, 2006; Page A10 TAJI, Iraq -- If the U.S. effort in Iraq ultimately is successful, one reason may be the small school started recently on a military base here by Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the U.S. commander in Iraq. Called the COIN Academy -- using military shorthand for "counterinsurgency" -- the newest educational institution in the U.S. military establishment seeks, as a course summary puts it, to "stress the need for U.S. forces to shift from a conventional warfare mindset" to one that understands how to win in a guerrilla-style conflict. Or, as a sign on the wall of one administrator's office here put it less politely: "Insanity is doing the same thing the same way and expecting a different outcome."
The purpose of the school north of Baghdad is to try to bring about a different outcome than the U.S. military achieved in 2003-04, when Army commanders committed mistakes typical of a conventional military facing an insurgency. "When the insurgency started, we came in very conventional," said Col. Chris Short, the District native and recent Manassas resident who is the new school's commandant. Back then, U.S. forces rounded up tens of thousands of Iraqis, mixing innocent people in detention with hard-core Islamic extremists. Commanders permitted troops to shoot at anything mildly threatening. And they failed to give their troops the basic conceptual and cultural tools needed to operate in the complex environment of Iraq, from how to deal with a sheik to understanding why killing insurgents usually is the least desirable outcome in dealing with them. (It is more effective, they are now taught, to persuade them either to desert or to join the political process.) [incompetence]
U.S. Reclassifies Many Documents in Secret Review
By SCOTT SHANE Published: February 21, 2006 WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 - In a seven-year-old secret program at the National Archives, intelligence agencies have been removing from public access thousands of historical documents that were available for years, including some already published by the State Department and others photocopied years ago by private historians.
The restoration of classified status to more than 55,000 previously declassified pages began in 1999, when the Central Intelligence Agency and five other agencies objected to what they saw as a hasty release of sensitive information after a 1995 declassification order signed by President Bill Clinton It accelerated after the Bush administration took office and especially after the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to archives records.

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FEBRUARY 2006

The corporate scams that aid terrorist money launderers
Western governments have failed to shut down the tax havens and fiddle factories used by legal and underground groups
Prem Sikka Thursday February 23, 2006 The Guardian
An important part of the fight against terrorism, we have been told ever since September 11, is closing off its sources of finance. Just last week Gordon Brown borrowed imagery from the second world war against fascism by calling for a modern-day Bletchley Park to unravel terrorist finance networks and "ensure that there is no hiding place for those who finance terrorism". While initiatives such as Brown's are laudable, they are too often undermined from within. The underground networks of terrorists and their supporters are dwarfed by the everyday culture of secrecy and profit-seeking global "fiddle factories" provided by banks, trusts and corporations, and fronted by accountants, lawyers and financiers.
With the advance of electronic money transfers, easy formation of companies and deregulation, money laundering has escalated to an estimated $2,500bn each year. The laissez-faire US washes about half of this laundry and Britain probably accounts for over $300bn. Secrecy is the key ingredient for this trade. [Counterfeiting] [Camouflage]
Bush Says U.S. Must Remain a World Leader
President Calls for Oil Alternatives, Affordable Care By Peter Baker and Michael A. Fletcher Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, February 1, 2006; Page A01
President Bush last night defended his vision for a robust U.S. role in world affairs and outlined a litany of domestic initiatives to make the nation more competitive abroad in a State of the Union address designed to rejuvenate his troubled presidency at the start of a midterm election year.
Qaeda Deputy Taunts Bush for 'Failure' in Airstrike
By HASSAN M. FATTAH Published: January 31, 2006 DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Jan. 30 - More than a week after the Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri resurfaced in an audiotape posted on the Internet, Al Jazeera on Monday broadcast a video of Mr. Zawahiri berating the United States for a bombing attack on a place where he had been suspected of being, and threatening further attacks on the United States.
: Next Steps Mr. Zawahiri, shown wearing white robes and a white turban, said the Jan. 13 airstrike in the northeastern Pakistan village of Damadola had killed only "innocents," and called President Bush a "butcher" and a "failure" for the attack. He said the United States had lost its chance for a truce offered by Osama bin Laden in an audio recording broadcast Jan. 19 by Al Jazeera, an Arab satellite network. "Butcher of Washington, you are not only defeated and a liar, but also a failure," he said, speaking of Mr. Bush. "You are a curse on your own nation and you have brought and will bring them only catastrophes and tragedies."

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JANUARY 2006

Iran, War, and Sanctions
Abbas Edalat interviewed by Foaad Khosmood
[Japan Focus 30 January 2006]
The second article, an interview with Abbas Edalat, Professor of Mathematics, Kings College, UK, locates the US-Iranian conflict in the perspective of the conflict since the 1979 Iranian revolution and US designs to remake the Middle East map from the Iraq-Iran War to the present Iraq War. It makes a vigorous case for Iran's right to develop civilian nuclear power as a signatory to the Non Proliferation Treaty, and for that nation's right to survival. Edalat sharply criticizes US policy and warns of the dangers of the road to war being mapped out by leaders in the Pentagon and Israel. Indeed, it is Israel, even more than Washington, that has since 9/11 beaten the drums for war in Iran. Edalat argues, possibly optimistically, that strong opposition to the US position by Russia and China will make it difficult for the US to secure a Security Council sanction of Iran.
Judge orders Saddam ejected from court
· Defence team walks out as Dujail testimony resumes · Discipline established, chief prosecutor claims Michael Howard in Irbil Monday January 30, 2006 The Guardian
The trial of Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants for crimes against humanity was in disarray last night after a courtroom session in which Saddam's half-brother was dragged away by guards, the defence team walked out, and the former Iraqi dictator was ejected following a slanging match with the new chief judge. Once order was restored, with only half of the defendants and none of the defence team present, the court inside Baghdad's Green Zone heard evidence from three witnesses about an alleged massacre of about 140 people by Ba'ath party loyalists in Dujail in 1982 after an assassination attempt on Saddam. But their often harrowing testimonies were all but drowned out by the high drama of the morning. Yesterday was only the eighth session since the trial began on October 19. Since then two defence lawyers have been assassinated and a third has fled the country in fear. Three of the original five judges hearing the case have been replaced, including the chief judge Rizgar Amin, who resigned last week after criticism that he was too indulgent to the defendants. Many Iraqis fear the trial will prove a national embarrassment. Amid violence and political division, defence lawyers and other critics also doubt whether a fair trial of the former Ba'athist regime leaders - seen by some as vital to the process of national reconciliation - is possible. The former US attorney general Ramsey Clark, who is part of Saddam's defence team, last night described the court as "lawless".
A New Face in Iran Resurrects an Old Defiance
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN Published: January 30, 2006
TEHRAN, Jan. 29 - Since he took office as Iran's president nearly six months ago, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been the subject of many jokes sent via text messages on cellphones across Iran. He has been spoofed on television and radio, here and abroad, as a bumpkin and a bigot for declaring the Holocaust a "myth" and causing international outrage over Iran's nuclear program. One joke has the president combing his hair in a mirror and saying, "O.K., male lice to the left, female lice to the right," ridiculing him as a religious extremist who wants to separate the sexes in public places. But that is just part of the picture. Beyond the prosperous tree-lined hills of northern Tehran, Mr. Ahmadinejad appears to be solidifying his support. He has traveled around the country, doling out promises of economic aid in some of the poorest regions, sticking with the humble clothing and religion-infused language that attracted his voters in the first place. "He is leading a simple life," said Zabiollah Baderlou, 18, as he worked in a bakery in the city. "TV showed us his house. It was very simple. He is making these efforts for the people and all he wants is Iran's dignity." Most of all, despite the limited powers of Iran's presidency, Mr. Ahmadinejad, an ultraconservative former militia member, has used Western opposition to Iran's nuclear program to generate national unity and purpose. Those dynamics have compelled even people who oppose him to give him room to maneuver. Stop Iranians on any street in any neighborhood and they are likely to demand that Iran be allowed to pursue a nuclear energy program, a sentiment that has served as a launching platform for Mr. Ahmadinejad's firebrand politics.
Bush's Choice on Iran
By Jackson Diehl Monday, January 30, 2006; Page A17
The debate on Iran is drifting toward the ugly question that the Bush administration would most like to avoid. That is: Is it preferable for the United States to live with the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran, or with those of a unilateral American military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities? President Bush has never answered that question; instead, he and his State Department have repeatedly called an Iranian bomb "intolerable" while building a diplomatic coalition that won't tolerate a military solution. But two of our more principled senators, Republican John McCain and Democrat Joe Lieberman, have this month faced the Iranian Choice -- and both endorsed military action. McCain was most direct: "There is only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option," he said on "Face the Nation." "That is a nuclear-armed Iran."
Iran's Really Big Weapon
Tehran preparing to open a bourse, and potentially a futures market, where traders can buy and sell oil
by Martin Walker January 23, 2006 United Press International
The prospect of a mushroom cloud rising from the Dasht-e-Lut, Iran's Desert of Stones, may not be Tehran's greatest threat to international stability. A successful test of an Iranian nuclear weapon at some point in the next few years may prove less destabilizing than a simple free market economic measure that Iran is said to be planning for March of this year. Tehran is preparing to open a bourse, a mercantile exchange and potentially a futures market, where traders can buy and sell oil and gas, along the lines of the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) in London and the NYTMEX in New York. The differences are first, that this one would price its energy in euros, not dollars, and second, that it would not use West Texas Intermediate or Brent Crude (from the North Sea) as its standard oil for pricing. It would use a Persian Gulf-produced oil instead. So what? This sounds like a minor change, and possibly even a useful one, broadening the choice among traders and consumers in the kind of way that Adam Smith, the 18th century father of modern capitalism, would have recommended. Not so. This could be a far more profoundly punishing blow to American interests than Iran's ability to manufacture a crude atom bomb that would have little credibility until it became small and stable and reliable enough to be delivered on some putative target. The relationship between the oil price and dollar is intimate and important, and very useful to the dollar's highly profitable status as the world's reserve currency. The prospect of a rival bourse and futures market opens the intriguing possibility, beyond hedging the future oil price, of profitable arbitrage between the euro and the dollar. And if oil and gas are to be denominated in more than just one currency, why not open the trade to others? Why not denominate the price of a barrel of oil in Japanese Yen, or in Chinese yuan, the currency of the world's second biggest oil importer? Why not, in short, end the monopoly rule of the almighty dollar? Such a move would not be welcomed in Washington, which swiftly moved after the fall of Baghdad in 2003 to reverse Saddam Hussein's impudent decision to start selling Iraqi oil for euros, rather than dollars.
How the BBC hollows out the 'news'
Media Distortion on Palestinian Resistance
by William Bowles January 27, 2006 williambowles.info
A major problem anybody confronts when trying to sort fact from fiction in the news-aside from any confusion that occurs in trying to figure out if anything the mainstream media 'reports' is 'news' or merely opinion posing as fact-is the sheer volume and consistency of the coverage, which ultimately depends on specific words and phrases that come pre-loaded with meaning through their repetitive use over years of news coverage. These so-called code words carry immense significance for the reader or listener, not only because of their context but also because over time, we have been trained to respond to them in very specific ways. We draw conclusions based on how we receive them, conclusions that depend on the reader's critical abilities-the ability to contextualise facts for example. If we are not made aware of the history behind the stories, then such emotive words carry a weight out of all proportion to their grammatical meaning. Thus in the instance of the BBC's presentation of (entirely legitimate) Palestinian resistance to occupation, it becomes "armed confrontation", a phrase which is not only inaccurate but provocative as it implies that it is the Palestinians who are instigating the violence in trying to obtain their legitimate rights to a national home. The 'confrontation' is entirely one-sided consisting only of Palestinian "armed confrontation". Israel has been completely removed from the equation. [Media]
The Security Adviser Who Wants the Role, Not the Stage
Hadley Prefers Audience of One
By Peter Baker Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, January 29, 2006; Page A04
It's an old Washington story: The president's national security adviser struggles with the secretary of state for preeminence. Zbigniew Brzezinski jousted with Cyrus R. Vance. George P. Shultz objected to attending any meetings chaired by Frank C. Carlucci. Henry A. Kissinger got around the problem by occupying both jobs simultaneously. Not Stephen J. Hadley. In his year as President Bush's right hand on foreign policy, Hadley has deliberately let his predecessor and former boss, Condoleezza Rice, take the lead now that she is secretary of state. He has lunch with her in the West Wing every Saturday and slips her policy ideas to propose herself. Even now, many in Washington joke that Rice has two deputies -- the deputy secretary of state and Hadley.
In the architecture of the second-term war cabinet, Cheney and Rumsfeld remain power players but appear less dominant than in the first term. Rice has emerged as a more potent voice, presiding over the sort of multilateral diplomacy on hot issues such as Iran and North Korea that Cheney and Rumsfeld rejected before the invasion of Iraq.
US threat to Hamas over $400m aid
Islamists told they must renounce terror Chris McGreal in Gaza City Saturday January 28, 2006 The Guardian
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, will meet Hamas leaders in Gaza next week to negotiate terms for a power-sharing government that could win international acceptance and stave off threats to the $1bn (£565m) in annual foreign aid keeping the Palestinian Authority afloat. [Sovereignty] [Aid weapon]
U.S. Policy Seen as Big Loser in Palestinian Vote
By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, January 28, 2006; Page A16
Standing in a sunny Rose Garden on June 24, 2002, surrounded by his top foreign policy advisers, President Bush issued a clarion call for resolving the deadly Israeli-Palestinian conflict: "I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror." This week, Palestinians gave their answer, handing a landslide victory in national legislative elections to Hamas, which has claimed responsibility for dozens of suicide bombings and desires the elimination of Israel. Bush's statement calling for new leaders was aimed at the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, but in the same speech he also said it was necessary to thwart Hamas -- formally the Islamic Resistance Movement -- and other militant groups.
The election outcome signals a dramatic failure in the administration's strategy for Middle East peace, according to analysts and some U.S. officials
Tension Grows Between British, Iraqis
Governor's Threat of Noncooperation Adds to Mounting Unrest in Southern Province
By Jonathan Finer Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, January 28, 2006; Page A15
BAGHDAD, Jan. 27 -- The governor of Basra said Friday that he would stop cooperating with British forces on security and other issues in the southern province unless they released five Iraqi policemen currently in British custody. The standoff comes at a time of mounting unrest in what was once one of Iraq's most tranquil regions. Friday morning in the city of Basra, the provincial capital, an improvised bomb exploded in a market, killing a young girl and injuring four people.
A steadily deteriorating relationship between British troops and a police force dominated by Shiite Muslim militia groups has led to an increase in violence in recent months, including occasional clashes between the Iraqi and British forces jointly responsible for the province's security. British troops this week detained at least 14 policemen in a series of raids in the Shiite-majority city, provoking hundreds of residents to take to the streets in protest. Nine detainees were later released. [Sovereignty] [Spin]
Britain to commit nearly 6,000 troops to Afghanistan
· Reid says deployment needed to thwart Taliban · Most will be based at heart of opium poppy area
Richard Norton-Taylor Friday January 27, 2006 The Guardian
Britain will deploy nearly 6,000 troops to Afghanistan - more than expected - over the next few months in the biggest and most hazardous military operation since the invasion of Iraq, the cabinet agreed yesterday. Most of the troops will be based in Helmand province, hostile territory at the heart of the country's opium poppy area, in a three-year deployment costing £1bn. John Reid, the defence secretary, admitted the dangers but said the risks were less than "handing back Afghanistan to the Taliban and terrorists". He added that 90% of the heroin reaching Britain's streets came from Afghanistan.
Family Garden Plots Expanding Across Cuba
Las Tunas, Cuba, Jan 19, (P26).- Back in 1992, some neighbors living in the then recently inaugurated mill town of Majibacoa, in the eastern province of Las Tunas set out to create a community vegetable garden as a means to face the food shortage brought about by the economic crisis that followed the demise of the Socialist Camp, and especially the Soviet Union, one of Cuba's major food suppliers at the time. By planting sweet potato, plantain, yucca, onion, and other root vegetables and spices in backyards and on other unproductive lands, the neighbors began an initiative that became to be known as the Fourth Step -an additional food-producing option to supplement the insufficient output of state-run companies, cooperatives and independent farmers. The initiative progressively gained momentum and 13 years later community vegetable gardens are one of the 27 sub-programs encompassed in Cuba's National Program of Urban Agriculture. [Economic reform]
Asia-Pacific Economic Update 2005
US Pacific Command
Thinking Outside the Box about Trade, Development, and Poverty Reduction
By Thomas I. Palley | January 18, 2006
Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org Abstract Mainstream policy economics has been gradually lowering its claims about the positive impact of trade on development and poverty reduction. The new approach is a compassionate agenda that says if trade liberalization is to reduce poverty, it must be flanked by public investment in infrastructure and human capital. However, this new agenda raises numerous questions about how to finance public investments, whether these investments should be sequenced in advance of liberalization, and whether trade liberalization is desirable if the investments are not made. Most importantly, the new agenda still does not address the systemic critique that trade liberalization hinders development by eliminating important policy tools. This policy paper proposes an alternative framework for thinking about trade, development, and poverty reduction. That framework emphasizes domestic commerce promotion and strategic value-chain analysis that focuses on how developing countries can capture more of the value they create. The paper also argues for incremental policy change rather than grand liberalizations. In a world of uncertainty, optimal decision theory advises "Go slow if you don't know." Finally, the paper proposes a tropical-products trade round that can produce a win-win outcome for both North and South.
Eurasia Burning: A Dark Day for Mongolian Democracy
by Steve Noerper January 26th, 2006
Steve Noerper, who teaches Asia Today at New York University and was a Fulbright Senior Scholar to the National University of Mongolia, writes "the downfall of Mongolia's coalition government late Friday marks a relapse for freedom's progress in a country that until recently had been held out as a harbinger for new democracies in the region."
Angry soldiers demand 'trade' federation
Courts martial and equipment failures fuel rank and file discontent Audrey Gillan and Richard Norton-Taylor Thursday January 26, 2006 The Guardian
A groundswell of discontent among members of the armed forces is leading to calls for the formation of a federation to campaign for the rights of the 250,000 servicemen and women in the UK. A battery of concerns over Iraq, including shortages of kit during the invasion, as well as misgivings about the proposed new deployment to Afghanistan, along with the issues of bullying, the fall in recruitment and retention of soldiers, have galvanised the call for an association. [Imperialism] [In denial]
Out of the frying pan into the ire
Oliver Burkeman Thursday January 26, 2006 The Guardian
Shortly after 9.30pm last night, a few miles outside London and a very long way beyond parody, the member for Bethnal Green and Bow stepped out of the Big Brother house and into the freezing night air. For the first time in his career, George Galloway had lost a popular vote. Exactly how much else he had lost has yet to become clear. Shut off from the world for three weeks, Mr Galloway could have had little inkling of his growing public vilification, nor of the chorus of suggestions that he might, finally, have reached a place from which it could prove impossible to bounce back. Mr Galloway had gone into the house promising to speak "about war and peace, about Bush and Blair", but if large amounts of such footage exists, it lies discarded on Channel 4's cutting-room floor.
Telegraph loses Galloway libel appeal
· Judges uphold award of £150,000 damages · MP still faces two possible inquiries
Clare Dyer, legal editor Thursday January 26, 2006 The Guardian
George Galloway averted bankruptcy yesterday when the Daily Telegraph comprehensively lost its appeal against a libel judgment in his favour and an award of £150,000 damages over allegations that he took money from Saddam Hussein. Had the newspaper won in the court of appeal, the Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow would have faced a legal bill of around £2m, a sum he has said would have forced him into bankruptcy. [media]
US military stretched to breaking point
· Pentagon report says clear strategy is needed · Rate of deployment 'cannot be sustained'
Julian Borger in Washington Thursday January 26, 2006 The Guardian The US army is being stretched, by its deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan, into a "thin green line" in danger of breaking before the insurgents are defeated, claims a report commissioned by the Pentagon. Andrew Krepinevich, a former army officer who wrote the report, said that the army could not sustain the current pace of deployments - which was likely in the end to discourage recruitment. "This is the central, and as yet unanswerable, question the army must confront. Vigorous efforts should be make to enable a substantial drawdown in US force levels. The army ... cannot sustain the force levels desired to sustain the momentum needed to break the back of the insurgent movement," the report says.
Thousands throng streets as Bolivian leader sheds tears but talks tough at inauguration
· President insists he will not eradicate coca trade · Warning to US as Morales threatens to turn to China
Jonathan Rugman in La Paz and Dan Glaister Monday January 23, 2006 The Guardian
His accession to power was celebrated this weekend. A spiritual ceremony at ancient pre-Inca ruins on Saturday gave way to the inauguration during which Mr Morales, 46, raised his fist in a salute, and wept as he was presented with the yellow, red and green presidential sash. He asked the audience in the Palacio Quemado, seat of the government in La Paz, to observe a minute's silence in honour of the fallen heroes of the social movements, including Che Guevara."Glory to the martyrs of the liberation," he declared at the end of the minute, as shouts of "Evo, Evo" rang around the chamber where an emerging crop of leftwing leaders were in attendance, led by Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Visiting dignitaries looked on, but senators from opposition parties mostly sat with arms folded, observing an event that they could not have envisaged: the inauguration of an uneducated Indian as president of Latin America's poorest population and its second-largest reserves of natural gas. In his first speech, Mr Morales called his election "the end of the colonial and neo-liberal era". He promised an inclusive government, and called on all parties to join him in reform. "The 500 years of Indian resistance have not been in vain," he said. "From 500 years of resistance we pass to another 500 years in power." [China confrontation]
U.S. Funds Enter Fray In Palestinian Elections
Bush Administration Uses USAID as Invisible Conduit
By Scott Wilson and Glenn KesslerWashington Post Foreign Service Sunday, January 22, 2006; Page A01 RAMALLAH, West Bank -- The Bush administration is spending foreign aid money to increase the popularity of the Palestinian Authority on the eve of crucial elections in which the governing party faces a serious challenge from the radical Islamic group Hamas. The approximately $2 million program is being led by a division of the U.S. Agency for International Development. But no U.S. government logos appear with the projects or events being undertaken as part of the campaign, which bears no evidence of U.S. involvement and does not fall within the definitions of traditional development work. [Outsourcing] [Corruption]
Belafonte Says Bush Misleads
Singer Laments Erosion of Rights Associated Press Sunday, January 22, 2006; A05 NEW YORK, Jan. 21 -- Entertainer Harry Belafonte, one of the Bush administration's harshest critics, compared the Homeland Security Department to the Nazi Gestapo on Saturday and attacked the president as a liar. "We've come to this dark time in which the new Gestapo of Homeland Security lurks here, where citizens are having their rights suspended," Belafonte said in a speech to the annual conference of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters. "You can be arrested and not charged. You can be arrested and have no right to counsel," said Belafonte. Messages seeking comments from Homeland Security and White House officials were not immediately returned.
Diplomatic Row Erupts Over Destruction of Bolivian Missiles
Surface-to-Air missiles decommissioned by U.S. personnel
The decommissioning by U.S. military personnel of 30 Chinese-made surface-to-air NH5 missiles from the Bolivian army stockpile brought about the resignation Tuesday of the defense minister, Gonzalo Mendez, and the dismissal of its army chief of staff, General Marcelo Antezana, by outgoing President Eduardo Rodriguez.
President-elect Evo Morales, who will assume power on Sunday, denounced the decommissioning as irregular during his campaign for the presidency. Morales accused Rodriguez of high treason.
The missiles were taken last October to a base in the U.S. for decommissioning, and then the remains were sent back to Bolivia.
Rodriguez said that he authorized the decommissioning of the allegedly aging missiles with the help of the U.S but had not authorized their removal from the country. A U.S. Embassy official said that his government acted in good faith under an agreement with Bolivia to dismantle the missiles.
Evo Morales has called the decommissioning a U.S. plot to weaken Bolivia's defenses. "To disarm the army is an offence, and those responsible must be punished severely. Those responsible, be they civilian or military, must go on trial, " Morales added.
Last week the dismissed General Antezana said that there had been American pressure for the missiles to be taken to the U.S., though he then retracted this statement and demanded the government to inform the public clearly about the issue. [Imperialism] [US military dominance] [Corruption]
Pakistan's Push in Border Areas Is Said to Falter
By CARLOTTA GALL and MOHAMMAD KHAN Published: January 22, 2006
The New York Times Pakistan's tribal areas have become a sanctuary for militants. PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jan. 19 - Two years after the Pakistani Army began operations in border tribal areas to root out members of Al Qaeda and other foreign militants, Pakistani officials who know the area say the military campaign is bogged down, the local political administration is powerless and the militants are stronger than ever. Both Osama bin Laden, who released a new audiotape of threats against the United States this week, and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are believed to be living somewhere in the seven districts that make up these tribal areas, which run for more than 500 miles along the rugged Afghan border. The officials said they had been joined by possibly hundreds of foreign militants from Arab countries, Central Asia and the Caucasus, who present a continuing and vibrant threat to the authorities within the region. Countering those assertions, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, chief spokesman for the Pakistani military, said the accounts of the size of the militants' forces were exaggerated. He put the number of foreign militants in the whole of the tribal areas at "100, plus or minus." The tribal areas are off limits to foreign journalists, but the Pakistani officials, and former residents who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution, said the militants - who call themselves Taliban - now dispensed their own justice, ran their own private jails, robbed banks, shelled military and civilian government compounds and attacked convoys at will. They are recruiting young men from the local tribes and have gained a hold over the population through a mix of fear and religion, the officials and former residents said.
Chirac: Nuclear Response to Terrorism Is Possible
By Molly Moore Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, January 20, 2006; A12
PARIS, Jan. 19 -- President Jacques Chirac said Thursday that France was prepared to launch a nuclear strike against any country that sponsors a terrorist attack against French interests. He said his country's nuclear arsenal had been reconfigured to include the ability to make a tactical strike in retaliation for terrorism. "The leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us, as well as those who would envision using . . . weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and fitting response on our part," Chirac said during a visit to a nuclear submarine base in Brittany. "This response could be a conventional one. It could also be of a different kind."
Chirac's comments came during a flurry of diplomatic efforts by France, Britain, Germany and the United States to stop Iran from pursuing contested elements of its nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency has called an emergency meeting for Feb. 2 to address Iran's recent decision to take steps toward advancing its uranium enrichment efforts. "The timing doesn't look absolutely great," said Francois Heisbourg, a defense analyst who heads the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research. "It's not a speech you give if you're trying to convince people not to acquire nuclear weapons." But Heisbourg said he believed Chirac's comments were aimed at a domestic audience rather than foreign powers. Political observers suggested that in the run-up to the 2007 presidential election, which Chirac is not expected to enter, the president is trying to protect a nuclear program that critics argue is too expensive. [Bizarre]
Bin Laden: Attacks on U.S. Being Prepared
Tape Also Offers Truce For Troop Withdrawal
By Craig Whitlock and Walter Pincus Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, January 20, 2006; A01
CASABLANCA, Morocco, Jan. 19 -- The voice of Osama bin Laden was heard for the first time in more than a year Thursday, saying new attacks in the United States were being prepared but offering a "long-term" truce if U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan. The tape quieted speculation that his long silence meant he was dead. Addressing the American public on an audiotape delivered to the al-Jazeera television network, the al Qaeda leader noted antiwar sentiment in the United States and said that a withdrawal would allow the opposing sides in the conflicts to "enjoy security and stability." The Bush administration quickly rejected bin Laden's offer. "We do not negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. Vice President Cheney told Fox News Channel: "It sounds to me like it's some kind of ploy. This is not an organization that's ever going to sit down and sign a truce. I think you have to destroy them."
Bin Laden Warns of More Attacks; Proposes Truce
By HASSAN M. FATTAH Published: January 20, 2006
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Jan. 19 - Breaking more than a year's silence, Osama bin Laden warned Americans in an audiotape released on Thursday that Al Qaeda was planning more attacks on the United States, but he offered a "long truce" on undefined terms.
It was unclear when the recording, broadcast by the Arab satellite television station Al Jazeera, was made, but the Central Intelligence Agency verified its authenticity and said the station was probably right in saying that it dated from early December. American officials said the release might have been timed to assure his followers that Mr. bin Laden was alive and well days after an American bombing of a house in a Pakistani village where senior Qaeda officials were said to have been killed. In the tape, Mr. bin Laden addressed the American people directly, saying of his supporters, "Our situation is getting better while yours is getting worse." "My message to you is about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how to end them," he began. "Bush said, 'It is better to fight them on their land than their fighting us on our land.' I can reply to these errors by saying that war in Iraq is raging with no letup, and operations in Afghanistan are escalating in our favor." He said the lack of Qaeda attacks in the United States since Sept. 11 was not related to improved security, and he pointed to terrorist attacks in Europe as evidence that his fighters could penetrate all such barriers. As to what attacks Americans can expect, he said, "The operations are under preparation and you will see them in your homes the minute they are through, with God's permission." Vice President Dick Cheney , asked by Fox News about the tape, said it now seemed likely that Mr. bin Laden, whom some had believed dead, was alive. But, the vice president said, Mr. bin Laden has clearly had trouble getting his message out and added, "We don't negotiate with terrorists."
Full Text of the bin Laden Tape
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: January 19, 2006
The following is the full text of a new audiotape from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Parts of the tape were aired on Al-Jazeera television, which published the entire version on its Web site. The text was translated from the Arabic by The Associated Press. Bin Laden appears to be addressing the American people:
My message to you is about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how to end them. I did not intend to speak to you about this because this issue has already been decided. Only metal breaks metal, and our situation, thank God, is only getting better and better, while your situation is the opposite of that.
Democratisation, NGOs and "colour revolutions
Sreeram Chaulia 19 - 1 - 2006
From Georgia to Kyrgyzstan via Ukraine, new forms of youthful, tech-savvy mass mobilisation are impelling regime change from below. But is the phenomenon as benign as it appears? Are the movements who inspire the "colour revolutions" catalysts or saboteurs? Sreeram Chaulia analyses a modern face of global democratic politics.
"...power does its work by stealth, and the powerful can subsequently deny that their strength was ever used at all." Salman Rushdie, Shalimar the Clown (2005)
Samuel Huntington, summarising the mix of primary causes for the "third wave" of democratisation that began in 1974, listed a new but not decisive factor that had been absent in the preceding two waves: "Changes in the policies of external actors...a major shift in US policies toward the promotion of human rights and democracy in other countries...". American international NGOs ("Ingos") were prominent mechanisms through which this causal link between superpower foreign policy interests and regime change worked out in many transitions from authoritarian rule in the twenty-one-year-long "third wave". This essay attempts to extend the analysis on INGO instrumentality and democratisation to the geopolitical storms popularised as "colour" or "flower" revolutions that have been sweeping the post-communist world since 1999. It sets out to assess the strength of the impact of transnational actors on recent international political events of great consequence, and explore the parasitic relationship between Ingos and a hegemonic state. The intention is to bring the state back into a field dominated by flawed renderings of transnational activism. The principal argument is that the main and direct causes of the colour revolutions were United States foreign-policy interests (strategic expansion, energy security and the war on terrorism) as they were serviced by Ingos. Without the intervention of these US-sponsored Ingos, the political landscapes in countries like Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan would not have been repainted in new colours. [Imperialism] [Outsourcing]
Endless war
Paul Rogers 19 - 1 - 2006
In Afghanistan and Iraq, the opening weeks of 2006 highlight the future direction of United States military strategy. The latest trends in the two principal theatres of George W Bush's "war on terror" offer a stark indication of the counterproductive nature of his administration's military policies. In Afghanistan, there is widespread recognition that Taliban and other militias were more active in mid-2005 than in the previous two years. This is a contributing factor to the anxiety with which an overstretched United States is seeking to draw in its Nato allies to cooperate in counterinsurgency operations (see "A new struggle for Afghanistan", 22 December 2005). There has also been concern that insurgents in Afghanistan are already targeting Nato soldiers in the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), probably to discourage European members of Nato from too great an involvement in the country. Moreover, there are increasing indications that the insurgents are borrowing tactics used in Iraq, including suicide-bombing. This is hardly surprising, given the reports that young paramilitaries from Afghanistan are now travelling to Iraq, gaining experience there to use back in Afghanistan (see "The Iraq illusion", 1 December 2005).
Diplomats Will Be Shifted to Hot Spots
Rice Also Plans to Elevate USAID Chief
By Glenn Kessler and Bradley Graham Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, January 19, 2006; A01
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that she will shift hundreds of Foreign Service positions from Europe and Washington to difficult assignments in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere as part of a broad restructuring of the diplomatic corps that she has dubbed "transformational diplomacy." The State Department's culture of deployment and ideas about career advancement must alter now that the Cold War is over and the United States is battling transnational threats of terrorism, drug smuggling and disease, Rice said in a speech at Georgetown University. "The greatest threats now emerge more within states than between them," she said. "The fundamental character of regimes now matters more than the international distribution of power." As part of the change in priorities, Rice announced that diplomats will not be promoted into the senior ranks unless they accept assignments in dangerous posts, gain expertise in at least two regions and are fluent in two foreign languages, citing Chinese, Urdu and Arabic as a few preferred examples. Rice noted that the United States has nearly as many State Department personnel in Germany -- which has 82 million people -- as in India, with 1 billion people. As a first step, 100 jobs in Europe and Washington will be immediately shifted to expanded embassies in countries such as India, China and Lebanon. Many of these diplomats had been scheduled to rotate into coveted posts in European capitals this summer, and the sudden change in assignment has caused some distress, State Department officials said. Officials said that ultimately as many as one-third of the 6,400 Foreign Service positions could be affected in the coming years. [Softpower]
In Iraqi Oil City, a Formidable Foe
Airborne Soldiers Struggle to Break Grip of Insurgents
By Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, January 19, 2006; A01 BAIJI, Iraq -- Pfc. Robyn Houston fires bursts of bullets into the air as his Humvee swerves around a pothole and lurches over a highway median. His convoy bears down on oncoming traffic, forcing Iraqi cars to swerve onto a dirt shoulder. Roadside bombs "are really bad here!" the vehicle's commander, Staff Sgt. Sean Davis, 30, of Crestview, Fla., shouts over the gunfire and growl of the Humvee. "We're firing warning shots to get them off the road!" It's a tactic Davis and his platoon resort to daily to avoid deadly explosions in Baiji, a Sunni Arab city long neglected by American forces and still firmly in the grip of insurgents, soldiers here say. In the first month after the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division took over security duties in northern Iraq in late fall, roadside bombs killed or wounded more than a quarter of the 34-man platoon. Baiji has emerged as a critical priority for the U.S. military because of its importance to Iraq's oil industry, a fact underscored last month when insurgent threats forced officials to shut down the country's biggest oil refinery here, which handles 200,000 barrels a day.
Breaking Ranks
Larry Wilkerson Attacked the Iraq War. In the Process, He Lost the Friendship of Colin Powell.
By Richard Leiby Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, January 19, 2006; C01
The split came as both men left the administration -- Powell as secretary of state, Wilkerson as his chief of staff -- after working side by side for 16 years. Wilkerson, a once-loyal Republican with 31 years of Army service, has emerged in recent months as a merciless critic of President Bush and his top people, accusing them of carrying out a reckless foreign policy and imperiling the future of the U.S. military. "My wife would probably shoot me if I headed to the ballot box with a Republican vote again," he says. "This is not a Republican administration, not in my view. This is a radical administration." Wilkerson calls Bush an unsophisticated leader who has been easily swayed by "messianic" neoconservatives and power-hungry, secretive schemers in the administration. In a landmark speech in October, Wilkerson said: "What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made." He is particularly appalled by U.S. treatment of enemy detainees, counting at least 100 deaths in custody during the course of the war on terrorism -- 27 of them ruled homicides. "Murder is torture," he says. "It's not torture lite." As for the invasion of Iraq? A blunder of historic proportions, he believes. "This is really a very inept administration," says Wilkerson, who has credentials not only as an insider in the Bush I, Clinton and Bush II presidencies but also as a former professor at two of the nation's war colleges. "As a teacher who's studied every administration since 1945, I think this is probably the worst ineptitude in governance, decision-making and leadership I've seen in 50-plus years. You've got to go back and think about that. That includes the Bay of Pigs, that includes -- oh my God, Vietnam. That includes Iran-contra, Watergate." Such a critique, coming from a man who was long thought to speak for Powell, is seismic in Washington power circles. [Incompetence]
Torture flights: what No 10 knew and tried to cover up
Leaked memo reveals strategy to deny knowledge of detention centres
Richard Norton-Taylor Thursday January 19, 2006 The Guardian
The government is secretly trying to stifle attempts by MPs to find out what it knows about CIA "torture flights" and privately admits that people captured by British forces could have been sent illegally to interrogation centres, the Guardian can reveal. A hidden strategy aimed at suppressing a debate about rendition - the US practice of transporting detainees to secret centres where they are at risk of being tortured - is revealed in a briefing paper sent by the Foreign Office to No 10.
The tycoon who fell to earth
Worth £50m by his 30th birthday, Takafumi Horie was the brash whizz kid with a finger in every pie, from space travel to politics. But this week investigators raided the offices of his online empire, sending markets into freefall. Justin McCurry in Tokyo and Oliver Burkeman trace his rise and fall
Thursday January 19, 2006 The Guardian
The Iran Charade, Part II
By Charles Krauthammer
Wednesday, January 18, 2006; A17 "It was what made this E.U. Three approach so successful. They [Britain, France and Germany] stood together and they had one uniform position." -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Jan. 13
Makes you want to weep. One day earlier, Britain, France and Germany admitted that their two years of talks to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program had collapsed. The Iranians had broken the seals on their nuclear facilities and were resuming activity in defiance of their pledges to the "E.U. Three." This negotiating exercise, designed as an alternative to the U.S. approach of imposing sanctions on Iran for its violations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, had proved entirely futile. If anything, the two-year hiatus gave Iran time to harden its nuclear facilities against bombardment, acquire new antiaircraft capacities and clandestinely advance its program. With all this, the chancellor of Germany declared the exercise a success because the allies stuck together! The last such success was Dunkirk. Lots of solidarity there, too. Most dismaying was that this assessment came from a genuinely good friend, the new German chancellor, who, unlike her predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder (now a wholly owned Putin flunky working for Russia's state-run oil monopoly), actually wants to do something about terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Ah, success. Instead of being years away from the point of no return for an Iranian bomb, as we were before we allowed Europe to divert anti-proliferation efforts into transparently useless talks, Iran is probably just months away. And now, of course, Iran is run by an even more radical government, led by a president who fervently believes in the imminence of the apocalypse. Ah, success. Having delayed two years, we now have to deal with a set of fanatical Islamists who we know will not be deterred from pursuing nuclear weapons by any sanctions. Even if we could get real sanctions. Which we will not. The remaining months before Iran goes nuclear are about to be frittered away in pursuit of this newest placebo. First, because Russia and China will threaten to veto any serious sanctions. The Chinese in particular have secured in Iran a source of oil and gas outside the American sphere to feed their growing economy and are quite happy geopolitically to support a rogue power that -- like North Korea -- threatens, distracts and diminishes the power of China's chief global rival, the United States.
Second, because the Europeans have no appetite for real sanctions either. A travel ban on Iranian leaders would be a joke; they don't travel anyway. A cutoff of investment and high-tech trade from Europe would be a minor irritant to a country of 70 million people with the second-largest oil reserves in the world and with oil at $60 a barrel. North Korea tolerated 2 million dead from starvation to get its nuclear weapons. Iran will tolerate a shortage of flat-screen TVs. [Bizarre]
Official US agency paints dire picture of 'out-of-control' Iraq
· Analysis issued by USAid in reconstruction effort · Account belies picture painted by White House
Julian Borger in Washington Wednesday January 18, 2006 The Guardian An official assessment drawn up by the US foreign aid agency depicts the security situation in Iraq as dire, amounting to a "social breakdown" in which criminals have "almost free rein". The "conflict assessment" is an attachment to an invitation to contractors to bid on a project rehabilitating Iraqi cities published earlier this month by the US Agency for International Development (USAid). The picture it paints is not only darker than the optimistic accounts from the White House and the Pentagon, it also gives a more complex profile of the insurgency than the straightforward "rejectionists, Saddamists and terrorists" described by George Bush. The USAid analysis talks of an "internecine conflict" involving religious, ethnic, criminal and tribal groups. "It is increasingly common for tribesmen to 'turn in' to the authorities enemies as insurgents - this as a form of tribal revenge," the paper says, casting doubt on the efficacy of counter-insurgent sweeps by coalition and Iraqi forces. Meanwhile, foreign jihadist groups are growing in strength, the report said.
Recent Outcast Is Back in Favor in Ukraine Race
By STEVEN LEE MYERS Published: January 17, 2006
KIEV, Ukraine , Jan. 14 - A campaign ad, broadcast repeatedly on television here, shows a man basking in the adulation of flag-waving crowds reminiscent of the protests that overturned the fraudulent election for president in 2004. But he is not Viktor A. Yushchenko, who rode those protests to the presidency, vowing to turn Ukraine into a free and prosperous democracy.
He is the man Mr. Yushchenko defeated, Viktor F. Yanukovich , the chosen heir of a discredited and unpopular government, who would have been president but for those huge street demonstrations and international diplomatic pressure. A year ago, Mr. Yanukovich appeared disgraced, abandoned even by his own supporters. Now he leads a party predicted to win the most seats in the parliamentary elections that are only a little more than two months away. Mr. Yushchenko, on the other hand, has been discredited by scandals, a worsening economy and internal disputes over policy that led him to fire a popular prime minister.
Chile Elects First Female President
Bachelet, a Former Political Prisoner, Will Keep Socialists in Power
By Monte Reel Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, January 16, 2006; A01 SANTIAGO, Chile, Jan. 15 -- Socialist Party candidate Michelle Bachelet, a political prisoner during Gen. Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship and a single mother of three, was elected president on Sunday, the first woman to lead a country long considered one of the most culturally traditional in Latin America. With 97 percent of voting sites reporting, Bachelet had won 53 percent of the vote to about 47 percent for billionaire businessman Sebastian Piñera
Bachelet's victory will keep the Socialist Party in the presidential palace for four more years, following the presidency of Ricardo Lagos. When Lagos won the 2000 election, it was the first time a Socialist had held the seat in Chile since 1973, when Pinochet overthrew the government of Salvador Allende. What followed was a 17-year dictatorship, marked by widespread human rights violations, that would fundamentally shape the personal and political life of Bachelet. She is the daughter of a Chilean air force general who served under Allende and who was imprisoned and tortured after the coup. He died in prison. Two years later, government forces detained Bachelet and her mother, putting them in prison, where they were tortured. She eventually went into exile in Australia and Europe, returning to Chile in 1979 to work as a pediatrician. Under Lagos, she became health minister in 2000 and defense minister in 2002. [Media]
Protests Spread Across Pakistan
Islamic Groups Condemn Fatal U.S. Missile Strike; American Senators Defend Attack
By Kamran Khan and Griff Witte Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, January 16, 2006; A10
KARACHI, Pakistan, Jan. 15 -- Thousands of Pakistanis took to the streets in cities across the country Sunday to protest a U.S. missile attack two days earlier that killed more than a dozen people but apparently missed its target, Ayman Zawahiri, the deputy leader of al Qaeda. In Karachi, Pakistan's most populous city, about 8,000 people attended a rally outside the main Binori mosque, listening to fiery speeches condemning the United States and the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. "There has been a protest in every big city, and the government understands why so many people are angry," said Sheik Rashid Ahmad, Pakistan's information minister. "When it comes to image-building in Muslim countries, particularly Pakistan, the U.S. is moving one foot forward and two backwards." U.S. senators, appearing on television talk shows Sunday, defended the strike. "We apologize, but I can't tell you that we wouldn't do the same thing again," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "We have to do what we think is necessary to take out al Qaeda, particularly the top operatives. This guy has been more visible than Osama bin Laden lately." Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) also defended the action. "It's a regrettable situation, but what else are we supposed to do?" he said on CNN's "Late Edition." "It's like the wild, wild West out there. The Pakistani border is a real problem." [Terrorism] [Double standards] [Imperialism] [Arrogance]
Why Iran?
Steve Gowans
The increasingly frequent demonization of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Western media has become an integral part of the stepped-up efforts of Washington, London, the EU-3 and Tel Aviv to bring Iran under US control, efforts that may, if scattered newspapers reports are to believed, culminate in the aerial bombing by US or Israeli forces or both of Iranian nuclear facilities early this spring.
Emblematic is the Times of London's Bronwen Maddox (January 12, 2006) asking whether Ahmadinejad is "the most dangerous leader in the world?" and answering her own question in the affirmative by noting it's "thin reassurance for the West that Iranian clerics are the bulwark against Ahmadinejad's excesses." Not too many months ago, Kim Jong Il was called the most dangerous leader in the world, though the demands of the Western propaganda machine have since thrust him aside, for now, to better align with the shifting priorities of US foreign policy.
Not to be outdone, Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European studies at the University of Oxford, speaks of Ahmadinejad as the "seemingly half-crazed Iranian President." (Globe and Mail, January 12, 2006) In doing so, he places the Iranian president in the company of north Korea's Kim Jong Il, also regularly presented as half-mad, along with a legion of other Third World leaders who have, as the standard operating procedure of imperialism, been described variously as bloodthirsty, dictatorial, despotic, antidemocratic and monstrous -- whatever it takes to make the messy and murderous business of regime change appear to be worth the price.
Ash, by the way, worries that US or Israeli bombing raids "would take the lives of innocent civilians - or at least of people who Iranian television could credibly claim were innocent civilians," implying that while the job of taking over a country might seem messy, the carnage is probably an illusion conjured up by the propaganda ministry of the country whose innocent civilians' lives are not really being snuffed out.
"Innocent civilians" has become a cliché, a prepackaged phrase to be thrown about, and absorbed, without much thought. What about innocent soldiers? Is a soldier, or for that matter, a guerilla, or insurgent, who resists an invader any less innocent than a civilian? And can people like Ash, who prepare public opinion for war, be considered innocent? One wishes Ash could be plunked down in the middle of Tehran, to take the place of the innocent civilians he says probably won't be killed or mangled or permanently disabled by the terror bombing of the US and Israeli air force. If he's right, he has nothing to worry about.
The Impeachment of George W. Bush
by ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN [from the January 30, 2006 issue] Finally, it has started. People have begun to speak of impeaching President George W. Bush--not in hushed whispers but openly, in newspapers, on the Internet, in ordinary conversations and even in Congress. As a former member of Congress who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon, I believe they are right to do so. I can still remember the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach during those proceedings, when it became clear that the President had so systematically abused the powers of the presidency and so threatened the rule of law that he had to be removed from office. As a Democrat who opposed many of President Nixon's policies, I still found voting for his impeachment to be one of the most sobering and unpleasant tasks I ever had to undertake. None of the members of the committee took pleasure in voting for impeachment; after all, Democrat or Republican, Nixon was still our President. At the time, I hoped that our committee's work would send a strong signal to future Presidents that they had to obey the rule of law. I was wrong.
U.S. Strike On Al Qaeda Top Deputy Said to Fail
Thousands Protest After Attack In Pakistan Leaves 17 Dead
By Griff Witte and Kamran Khan Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, January 15, 2006; A01
KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan. 14 -- Pakistani officials said Saturday that a U.S. missile strike intended to kill al Qaeda deputy Ayman Zawahiri had missed its target but had killed 17 people, including six women and six children. Tens of thousands of Pakistanis staged an angry anti-American protest near the remote village of Damadola, about 120 miles northwest of Islamabad, where Friday's attack took place. According to witnesses, the demonstrators shouted, "Death to America!" and "Death to Musharraf!" -- referring to Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf -- and the offices of at least one U.S.-backed aid organization were ransacked and set ablaze. In Washington, U.S. intelligence sources said it was too early to know whether the strike had killed Zawahiri, 54, an Egyptian physician who is al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's top aide. "The outcome of this doesn't seem decided," said a source who spoke on condition of anonymity. U.S. officials defended the strike, saying it was the right course of action based on timely intelligence about Zawahiri's whereabouts early Friday. Zawahiri had been under surveillance by the CIA for two weeks, security sources said. The CIA, which military and intelligence sources say carried out the attack with a type of unmanned aircraft called a Predator, declined to comment Saturday. Local authorities denied that any foreigners had been present in the area. "We can say with full authority that those who were killed were all innocent permanent residents of the village Damadola," said Sirajul Haq, senior minister of Pakistan's North-West Frontier province. "Any independent probe would confirm that no foreigner was in the vicinity of the neighborhood targeted by the U.S. missiles." [Terrorism] [Imperialism]
Airstrike by U.S. Draws Protests From Pakistanis
Ali Imam/Reuters Pakistani tribesmen marched Saturday near Damadola to protest the airstrike. Local officials in the region, the Bajaur district, said the attack destroyed three houses in the village and killed at least 18 civilians.
By CARLOTTA GALL Published: January 15, 2006
PESHAWAR, Pakistan , Jan. 14 - Pakistan's government on Saturday condemned a deadly American airstrike on a village in the northwestern tribal region, and a senior Pakistani security official said he was confident that Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 leader of Al Qaeda and the target of the strike, had not been in the village when it was hit.
In a statement, the Foreign Ministry condemned the loss of civilian lives and said it had delivered an official protest to the American ambassador in Islamabad. The information minister, Sheik Rashid Ahmed, said in Islamabad that the government wanted "to assure the people we will not allow such incidents to reoccur," The Associated Press reported.
The drone, the CIA and a botched attempt to kill bin Laden's deputy
In the hunt for al-Qaeda, a missile attack on a mountain village killed women and children. The attack was precise, the intelligence was flawed, and the strained relation between Pakistan and the US has been pushed to breaking point
Jason Burke and Imtiaz Gul in Islamabad Sunday January 15, 2006 The Observer
The missiles were deadly accurate. In the pitch dark of a night in Pakistan's sparsely populated North West Frontier Province, they not only located the three targeted houses on the outskirts of the village of Damadola Burkanday but squarely struck their hujra, the large rooms traditionally used by Pashtun tribesmen to accommodate guests.
Yesterday some of the results of the strike were very clear: three ruined houses, mud-brick rubble scattered across the steeply terraced fields, the bodies of livestock lying where thrown by the airblast, a row of newly dug graves in the village cemetery and torn green and red embroidered blankets flapping in the chilly wind. Four children were among the 18 villagers who died in the brutally sudden attack on their homes. Yet evidence emerging appeared to indicate that, though the technology that guided the missiles to their targets at 3am on Friday was faultless, the intelligence that had selected those targets was not.
The day the music died
Author and critic Nik Cohn has been obsessed by New Orleans for more than 30 years, and has been involved in the rap scene there for the last five. Six months after Hurricane Katrina he revisited the city and was stunned by what he found. In this compelling despatch he describes communitites struggling to piece together their lives as they watch their city being ripped apart by politicians and planners with designs on a very different New Orleans.
Sunday January 15, 2006 The Observer
Brandon McGee is a rapper and survivor. His rap name is Shorty Brown Hustle but most people call him B. He is 30, not much over five foot, has a shaved skull and two gold teeth, wears sagging jeans and a hoodie. He never stops talking. The day before Katrina hit New Orleans, B was leaning towards staying put. Few in his world watch TV news or read papers, so he didn't know how serious the situation was. Hurricanes didn't bother him. Almost every season brought a false alarm. Katrina was almost on the doorstep by the time B's mother, who lived outside the city, called and told him to get the hell out. Still he hesitated. His cousin Terence, who lived in New Orleans East, refused to shift. B stopped by his house and tried to talk sense into him. Terence, trying to impress his girlfriend Vonda, chose bravado over reason. They were still arguing at dawn when the power went out and the wind hit.
. The stench was indescribable. National Guardsmen cruised by in motor boats and waved. None offered help or information. 'Looked like we were supposed to die there. That seemed to be the plan,' B says.
U.S. Airstrike Targets Al Qaeda's Zawahiri
By Dafna Linzer and Griff Witte Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, January 14, 2006; A09 Ayman Zawahiri, the second-ranking al Qaeda leader and chief deputy to Osama bin Laden, was targeted by a deadly U.S. missile strike on a compound in Pakistan yesterday, but U.S. intelligence could not confirm whether he was killed, according to U.S. sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Acting on sensitive intelligence describing the whereabouts of Zawahiri and other top al Qaeda figures, the CIA ordered the airstrike by a Predator drone that fired an air-to-ground missile at the compound, nestled on the border with Afghanistan. The sources said more than a dozen people may have died in the attack. It was too early to confirm the identities of the dead, but U.S. military officials said Zawahiri may be among them. "This would not have happened unless they had pretty precise information that the right target was at that location," said one U.S. military source. He cautioned, however, that it was possible Zawahiri got out of the building before it was hit. The source said U.S. forces, who had been tracking Zawahiri for the past two weeks, will probably know more once the bodies can be examined. "This would not have happened without Pakistani involvement," the source said, adding that Pakistanis were "heavily involved." He said the attack was planned and executed by a combination of CIA officers in Pakistan and Pakistani officials. [Collusion] [Assassination] [Terrorism]
Web Site Attacks Critic of War
Opponents Question Murtha's Medals By Howard Kurtz and Shailagh Murray Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, January 14, 2006; A05
Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), the former Marine who is an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, has become the latest Democrat to have his Vietnam War decorations questioned. In a tactic reminiscent of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth assault on Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) during the 2004 presidential campaign, a conservative Web site yesterday quoted Murtha opponents as questioning the circumstances surrounding the awarding of his two Purple Hearts. David Thibault, editor in chief of the Cybercast News Service, said the issue of Murtha's medals from 1967 is relevant now "because the congressman has really put himself in the forefront of the antiwar movement." Thibault said: "He has been placed by the Democratic Party and antiwar activists as a spokesman against the war above reproach." Cindy Abram, a spokeswoman for Murtha, said, "We certainly believe that the questions being raised are an attempt to distract attention from what's happening in Iraq." As for how Murtha won the Purple Hearts, she said: "We think the congressman's record is clear. We have the documentation, the paperwork that proves that he earned them, and that he is entitled to wear them proudly." Cybercast is part of the conservative Media Research Center, run by L. Brent Bozell III, who accused some in the media of ignoring the Swift Boat charges, but Thibault said it operates independently. He said the unit, formerly called the Conservative News Service, averages 110,000 readers, mainly conservative, and provides material for other Web sites such as GOPUSA. "We won't run anything against anybody if we don't have the goods," he said.
Top Qaeda Aide Is Called Target in U.S. Air Raid
By DOUGLAS JEHL and MOHAMMAD KHAN Published: January 14, 2006
WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 - An American airstrike carried out on a village in the Bajaur tribal region of northwest Pakistan early Friday was aimed at Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's second-in-command, and Pakistani officials were trying to determine if he had been killed, American and Pakistani officials said Friday. As many as 17 people were killed in the airstrike, Pakistani officials and witnesses said.
The American and Pakistani officials said they believed that the attack had been carried out with a missile launched from a Predator drone aircraft operated by the Central Intelligence Agency. [Collusion] [Assassination] [Terrorism]
US and Europe threaten Tehran with sanctions
· Rice condemns 'defiance' as talks break down · Straw plays down echoes of run-up to Iraq war
Ewen MacAskill and Ian Traynor Friday January 13, 2006 The Guardian
The US and Europe formally declared an end yesterday to 2 1/2 years of negotiations over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons programme and pledged to take the Iranians before the United Nations security council. Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, said the Iranians had crossed a threshold by their "dangerous defiance of the entire international community". The way is set for a protracted confrontation between the west and Iran, one with echoes of the run-up to the Iraq war, though European diplomats sought to play down parallels.
Why the Bush Doctrine Violates the Constitution The Unitary Executive
By JENNIFER VAN BERGEN January 12, 2006
When President Bush signed the new law, sponsored by Senator McCain, restricting the use of torture when interrogating detainees, he also issued a Presidential signing statement. That statement asserted that his power as Commander-in-Chief gives him the authority to bypass the very law he had just signed. This news came fast on the heels of Bush's shocking admission that, since 2002, he has repeatedly authorized the National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance without a warrant, in flagrant violation of applicable federal law. And before that, Bush declared he had the unilateral authority to ignore the Geneva Conventions and to indefinitely detain without due process both immigrants and citizens as enemy combatants. All these declarations echo the refrain Bush has been asserting from the outset of his presidency. That refrain is simple: Presidential power must be unilateral, and unchecked
US army in Iraq institutionally racist, claims British officer
Richard Norton-Taylor and Jamie Wilson in Washington Thursday January 12, 2006 The Guardian
A senior British officer has criticised the US army for its conduct in Iraq, accusing it of institutional racism, moral righteousness, misplaced optimism, and of being ill-suited to engage in counter-insurgency operations. The blistering critique, by Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, who was the second most senior officer responsible for training Iraqi security forces, reflects criticism and frustration voiced by British commanders of American military tactics. What is startling is the severity of his comments - and the decision by Military Review, a US army magazine, to publish them. American soldiers, says Brig Aylwin-Foster, were "almost unfailingly courteous and considerate". But he says "at times their cultural insensitivity, almost certainly inadvertent, arguably amounted to institutional racism". The US army, he says, is imbued with an unparalleled sense of patriotism, duty, passion and talent. "Yet it seemed weighed down by bureaucracy, a stiflingly hierarchical outlook, a predisposition to offensive operations and a sense that duty required all issues to be confronted head-on." Brig Aylwin-Foster says the American army's laudable "can-do" approach paradoxically led to another trait, namely "damaging optimism". Such an ethos, he says, "is unhelpful if it discourages junior commanders from reporting unwelcome news up the chain of command".
But his central theme is that US military commanders have failed to train and educate their soldiers in the art of counter-insurgency operations and the need to cultivate the "hearts and minds" of the local population.
While US officers in Iraq criticised their allies for being too reluctant to use force, their strategy was "to kill or capture all terrorists and insurgents: they saw military destruction of the enemy as a strategic goal in its own right". In short, the brigadier says, "the US army has developed over time a singular focus on conventional warfare, of a particularly swift and violent kind".
Such an unsophisticated approach, ingrained in American military doctrine, is counter-productive, exacerbating the task the US faced by alienating significant sections of the population, argues Brig Aylwin-Foster. [Imperialism] [US Military] [In denial]
The US is now rediscovering the pitfalls of aspirational imperialism
Bush's desire to implant western-style democracy in Iraq is profoundly reminiscent of past British imperial practice
Linda Colley Saturday December 17, 2005 The Guardian
The war in Iraq has had at least one redeeming feature. Along with events in Afghanistan, it has revived serious debate into some of the most important and long-standing issues in history and politics. Type the four words "Iraq", "Afghanistan", "America" and "empire" into Google, for instance, and you get around 3.5 million hits. There are the usual mad bloggers and propaganda rants but there is also a wealth of discussion on offer that expands every day. Is the US an empire? If so, what sort of empire? Is imperialism good or bad, or sometimes both? And, of course: why has it proved so hard for America, the most formidable military and economic power the world has seen, to effect its will? The passion behind this on-screen questioning is evident. So, very often, is a limited understanding of what imperial ventures have usually involved.
But, while current events have revived awareness that seeking to remodel other countries can be a difficult and chancey business even for the invaders, there is one respect in which this has come to be true in the present to a degree that never applied in the past. Adam Smith, who distrusted empire, argued that only when "all the different quarters of the world" were able to inspire "mutual fear" would nations finally begin to respect the integrity of each other's borders. In the most horrible of ways, al-Qaida is after a fashion testing this very premise. In the past, the imperialism of the west, like that of the rest, was often difficult - for the doers as well as for their victims; but western states were none the less usually able to dispatch forces overseas against non-western peoples without any fear of being attacked themselves. That kind of immunity is probably now a thing of the past.
· Linda Colley is the author of Captives: Britain, Empire and the World and professor of history at Princeton University l.colley@princeton.edu
Message of H. E. Ayatullah Khamenei to the Hajj pilgrims from the whole world
In the Name of Allah, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful
O our people! Respond to Allah's summoner and have faith in Him. He will forgive you some of your sins and save you from a painful punishment.' (The Qur'an, 46:31)
Hastening in response to the Divine call with the cries of "Labbayk," once again the devout have arrived by the House of the Beloved. The Hajj season has returned and, for the seekers of grace and spirituality, the road is open towards the summits of love and communion.
The U.S. and Western imperialists have finally concluded that Muslim countries and nations, especially those of the Middle East, form the core of this awakening and resistance to their plans for global domination. They foresee that if they fail to control or suppress this Islamic awakening in the next few years with political and economic measures, through propaganda, and as the last resort through military aggression, all their plans for an absolute global hegemony and control of the most vital oil and gas resources, which make the sole powerhouse of their industrial machinery and cause of their material edge over the rest of humanity will come to nothing. If that happens, the big Western and Zionist capitalists, who are the real backstage actors of all imperialist governments will fall from the height of their power and their imposed domination over the nations.
By email from Iranian Ambassador in Wellington
'Hearts and Minds' in Iraq
As History Shows, Ideas Matter More Than Who Pays to Promote Them
By Reuel Marc Gerecht Tuesday, January 10, 2006; A15
Once again we are confronted with stories about how the Pentagon and its ubiquitous private contractors are undermining free inquiry in Iraq. "Muslim Scholars Were Paid to Aid U.S. Propaganda," reports the New York Times. Journalists, intellectuals or clerics taking money from Uncle Sam or, in this case, a Washington-based public relations company, is seen as morally troubling and counterproductive. Sensible Muslims obviously would not want to listen to the advice of an American-paid consultant; anti-insurgent Sunni clerics can now all be slurred as corrupt stooges.
There is one big problem with this baleful version of events. Historically, it doesn't make much sense. The United States ran enormous covert and not-so-covert operations known as "CA" activities throughout the Cold War. With the CIA usually in the lead, Washington spent hundreds of millions of dollars on book publishing, magazines, newspapers, radios, union organizing, women's and youth groups, scholarships, academic foundations, intellectual salons and societies, and direct cash payments to individuals (usually scholars, public intellectuals and journalists) who believed in ideas that America thought worthy of support.
It's difficult to assess the influence of these covert-action programs. But when an important Third World political leader writes that a well-known liberal Western book had an enormous impact on his intellectual evolution -- a book that, unbeknownst to him was translated and distributed in his country at CIA expense -- then it's clear that the program had value. It shouldn't be that hard for educated Americans to support such activity, even though one often can't gauge its effectiveness.
Nor should it be so hard to support even more aggressive clandestine action in developing democracies such as Iraq. Let us make a Cold War parallel. As is well known, the CIA for years financially maintained the British journal Encounter. This magazine, which was perhaps the most important English-language outlet for anti-communist U.S. and European writers, influenced debates among the Western intelligentsia from the 1950s through the '70s. By bang-for-the-buck calculation, it may be the most effective nonmilitary highbrow covert action the United States has funded. [Propaganda] [Softpower]
Enough of his excuses: Blair must be impeached over Iraq
The only way parliament can regain the trust of disaffected voters is to admit that it was wrong to support the war
Michael Rose Tuesday January 10, 2006 The Guardian
Wars are won when the people, government and army work together for a common cause in which they genuinely believe. Whereas the people may be initially uncertain about military intervention, politicians will often be the strongest advocates - blinded by the imperatives of their political views. It will invariably be military commanders who are most cautious about using force - for they understand better than most the consequences of engaging in war.
Although in a true democracy they must remain subordinate to their political masters, they have a clear responsibility to point out when political strategies are flawed or inadequately resourced. Since they might also have to ask their soldiers to sacrifice their lives, they must be assured that a war is just, legal and the last resort available. Yet three years ago this country was somehow led by the prime minister into war in Iraq where few, if any, of these requirements were met.
Mr Blair is an able barrister who should relish the opportunity to put his side of the case. No one can undo the decision to go to war. But the impeachment of Mr Blair is now something I believe must happen if we are to rekindle interest in the democratic process.
· General Sir Michael Rose was adjutant general of the British army and commander of the UN protection force in Bosnia
Twilight in the Desert: an interview on peak oil with Matthew Simmons
By Sandra Ward
[Japan Focus 9 January 2006]
Barrons, the weekly magazine for investors published by Dow Jones (publisher of the Wall Street Journal), is a pillar of the American business elite. So when Barrons runs a lengthy article on the "twilight for oil," take it as a strong signal that the issue has parked itself squarely in the mindset of the global investor class.
Of course, it has been obvious for several months that investors' hot money was in part driving oil prices upwards. Some of them raked in large profits by taking advantage of escalating concerns over the adequacy of oil and gas supplies, especially as the effects of hurricanes, the continuing war in Iraq, disruptions in Nigeria and elsewhere, and other threatening news regularly appeared on the front pages of the global media.
But this particular article is at best tangentially about how to make yet more money from the continuing energy crisis. Rather, it's well worth a close read because it presents the views of oil analyst Matthew Simmons, one of the most respected exponents of the thesis that we face a catastrophe of immense proportions unless we start taking our collective energy predicament seriously. [Energy security]
US troops seize award-winning Iraqi journalist
Monday January 9, 2006 The Guardian
American troops in Baghdad yesterday blasted their way into the home of an Iraqi journalist working for the Guardian and Channel 4, firing bullets into the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife and children. Ali Fadhil, who two months ago won the Foreign Press Association young journalist of the year award, was hooded and taken for questioning. He was released hours later. Dr Fadhil is working with Guardian Films on an investigation for Channel 4's Dispatches programme into claims that tens of millions of dollars worth of Iraqi funds held by the Americans and British have been misused or misappropriated. [Media]
Ariel Sharon
Israel's Prime Minister was a ruthless military commander responsible for one of the most shocking war crimes of the 20th century, argues Robert Fisk. President George Bush acclaims Ariel Sharon as 'a man of peace', yet the blood that was shed at Sabra and Chatila remains a stain on the conscience of the Zionist nation. As Sharon lies stricken in his hospital bed, his political career over, how will history judge him?
By Robert Fisk 01/06/05 "The Independent"
The Real Choice in Iraq
By Zbigniew Brzezinski Sunday, January 8, 2006; B07
"Bring 'em on." -- President Bush on Iraqi insurgents, summer 2003 The insurgency is "in its last throes." -- Vice President Cheney, summer 2005 " . . . there are only two options before our country: victory or defeat." -- President Bush, Christmas 2005
The administration's rhetorical devolution speaks for itself. Yet, with some luck and with a more open decision-making process in the White House, greater political courage on the part of Democratic leaders and even some encouragement from authentic Iraqi leaders, the U.S. war in Iraq could (and should) come to an end within a year.
"Victory or defeat" is, in fact, a false strategic choice. In using this formulation, the president would have the American people believe that their only options are either "hang in and win" or "quit and lose." But the real, practical choice is this: "persist but not win" or "desist but not lose."
Victory, as defined by the administration and its supporters -- i.e., a stable and secular democracy in a unified Iraqi state, with the insurgency crushed by the American military assisted by a disciplined, U.S.-trained Iraqi national army -- is unlikely. The U.S. force required to achieve it would have to be significantly larger than the present one, and the Iraqi support for a U.S.-led counterinsurgency would have to be more motivated. The current U.S. forces (soon to be reduced) are not large enough to crush the anti-American insurgency or stop the sectarian Sunni-Shiite strife. Both problems continue to percolate under an inconclusive but increasingly hated foreign occupation.
The requisite first step to that end is for the president to break out of his political cocoon. His policymaking and his speeches are the products of the true believers around him who are largely responsible for the mess in Iraq. They have a special stake in their definition of victory, and they reinforce his convictions instead of refining his judgments. The president badly needs to widen his circle of advisers. Why not consult some esteemed Republicans and Democrats not seeking public office -- say, Warren Rudman or Colin Powell or Lee Hamilton or George Mitchell -- regarding the definition of an attainable yet tolerable outcome in Iraq?
Finally, Democratic leaders should stop equivocating while carping. Those who want to lead in 2008 are particularly unwilling to state clearly that ending the war soon is both desirable and feasible. They fear being labeled as unpatriotic. Yet defining a practical alternative would provide a politically effective rebuttal to those who mindlessly seek an unattainable "victory." America needs a real choice regarding its tragic misadventure in Iraq.
The writer was national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter.
The New Leipzig School
By ARTHUR LUBOW Published: January 8, 2006
When the painters who are now the young lions of the international art scene enrolled at the venerable Art Academy in Leipzig in the early 1990's, they wanted to study art as it was taught for centuries - drawing from nude models, mastering the rules of perspective and analyzing formal composition. The ascendance of abstract painting in the years after World War II had eroded that tradition in the West, elevating originality and authentic feeling over technique and lifelike depictions, and reducing the word "academic" to a slur. But the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall were effective windscreens, blocking artistic change from ruffling the German Democratic Republic. Figurative art that was deprecated as hopelessly passé in Paris and Düsseldorf never lost its grip in Leipzig. The city prided itself on being the birthplace of Max Beckmann and (if you looked back a few centuries and across Saxony to Wittenberg) on a painterly lineage begat by Lucas Cranach. "The disadvantages of the wall are well known," says Arno Rink, a 65-year-old recently retired professor of painting who served as director of the academy in Leipzig both before and after the wall came down. "If you want to talk of an advantage, you can say it allowed us to continue in the tradition of Cranach and Beckmann. It protected the art against the influence of Joseph Beuys."
In Video, Al Qaeda's No. 2 Tells Bush to Admit Defeat in Iraq
Accusations Fly Day After Lethal Insurgent Attacks
By Nelson Hernandez Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, January 7, 2006; A12
BAGHDAD, Jan. 6 -- Al Qaeda's second-in-command said President Bush had admitted defeat in Iraq by announcing plans to reduce the American troop presence in the country, saying the move would be a victory for Islam.
Ayman Zawahiri's videotaped remarks, broadcast on al-Jazeera television Friday, came after two days of suicide bombings in Iraq killed almost 200 people, 11 of them U.S. soldiers. Al Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq is widely believed to have been behind the deadliest of the attacks.
"Bush, you must admit that you have been defeated in Iraq and that you are being defeated in Afghanistan and that you will soon be defeated in Palestine," Zawahiri said, according to a translation of his statement by the Washington-based SITE Institute.
Zawahiri, an Egyptian who is al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, warned Americans that "as long as you do not deal with Muslim nations with understanding and respect, you will still go from one disaster to another. And your calamity will not end, unless you leave our lands and stop stealing our resources and stop supporting the bad rulers in our countries."
News services quoted U.S. officials as saying the tape was probably authentic.
Bremer Says U.S. Was Surprised by Insurgency
Reuters Saturday, January 7, 2006; A04
L. Paul Bremer, who led the civilian occupation authority in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, told NBC-TV that the United States did not anticipate the insurgency in the country, the network said yesterday.
Bremer, interviewed about his book on Iraq, recounted the decision to disband the Iraqi army quickly after the U.S. arrival in Baghdad, a move many experts consider a major miscalculation. When asked who was to blame for the deaths of thousands of Iraqis and Americans after the official end of combat, he said, "We really didn't see the insurgency coming," NBC said in a news release.
Asia Keeps Burmese Industry Humming
Trade, Both Legal and Illegal, Blunts Effect of U.S. Economic Sanctions
By Alan Sipress Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, January 7, 2006; A11 RANGOON, Burma -- Hundreds of women leaned over sewing machines amid the soft whir of industry. Row after row they sat, dark eyes intent on work, cheeks smeared with a traditional chalky cosmetic made from tree bark.
Many of their friends lost their jobs at the factory, leaving empty places at the machines after the United States banned imports from Burma in 2003 to protest the actions of the country's repressive military government. But last month, the workers were stitching a sample batch of women's trousers ordered by a Taiwanese company for sale in Europe. If successful, the Burmese factory owner anticipates a follow-up order of as many as half a million pieces, which would make for a very busy year. "We've suffered a lot, but it's getting better and better," he said. "There are so many new buyers." Burmese industry and exports were on the decline in the 1990s as a result of progressive attempts by the United States to tighten economic sanctions on Burma, protesting its suppression of democracy. But the effort to pressure its rulers has been vastly undercut by the enthusiasm of other countries, especially Burma's Asian neighbors, to tap its cheap workforce and abundant natural resources, ranging from precious gems and teak to nickel and natural gas. [Human rights] [Sanctions] [Camouflage] [Double standards]
Americans Said to Meet Rebels, Exploiting Rift
By DEXTER FILKINS and SABRINA TAVERNISE Published: January 7, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq , Jan. 6 - American officials are talking with local Iraqi insurgent leaders to exploit a rift that has opened between homegrown insurgents and radical groups like Al Qaeda, and to draw the local leaders into the political process, according to a Western diplomat, an Iraqi political leader and an Iraqi insurgent leader.
Clashes between Iraqi groups and Al Qaeda have broken out in several cities across the Sunni Triangle, including Taji, Yusefiya, Qaim and Ramadi, and they appear to have intensified in recent months, according to interviews with insurgents and with American and Iraqi officials.
In an interview on Friday, a Western diplomat who supports the talks said that the Americans had opened face-to-face discussions with insurgents in the field, and that they were communicating with senior insurgent leaders through intermediaries. The diplomat said the goal was to take advantage of rifts in the insurgency, particularly between local groups, whose main goal is to expel American forces, and the more radical groups, like Al Qaeda, which have alienated many Iraqis by the mass killing of Iraqi civilians.
Iraq war could cost US over $2 trillion, says Nobel prize-winning economist
· Economists say official estimates are far too low · New calculation takes in dead and injured soldiers
Jamie Wilson in Washington Saturday January 7, 2006 The Guardian The real cost to the US of the Iraq war is likely to be between $1 trillion and $2 trillion (£1.1 trillion), up to 10 times more than previously thought, according to a report written by a Nobel prize-winning economist and a Harvard budget expert.
The study, which expanded on traditional estimates by including such costs as lifetime disability and healthcare for troops injured in the conflict as well as the impact on the American economy, concluded that the US government is continuing to underestimate the cost of the war. The report came during one of the most deadly periods in Iraq since the invasion, with the US military yesterday revising upwards to 11 the number of its troops killed during a wave of insurgent attacks on Thursday. More than 130 civilians were also killed when suicide bombers struck Shia pilgrims in Karbala and a police recruiting station in Ramadi.
The paper on the real cost of the war, written by Joseph Stiglitz, a Columbia University professor who won the Nobel prize for economics in 2001, and Linda Bilmes, a Harvard budget expert, is likely to add to the pressure on the White House on the war. It also followed the revelation this week that the White House had scaled back ambitions to rebuild Iraq and did not intend to seek funds for reconstruction.
Foreign-Language Learning Promoted
Goal Is to Aid U.S. Security, Bush Says By Bradley Graham Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, January 6, 2006; A04
President Bush announced plans yesterday to boost foreign-language study in the United States, casting the initiative as a strategic move to better engage other nations in combating terrorism and promoting freedom and democracy. "This program is a part of a strategic goal, and that is to protect this country," Bush said. The plans, which represent an expansion of some programs and the start of a few others, aim to involve children in foreign-language courses as early as kindergarten while increasing opportunities for college and graduate school instruction. They also would draw more linguists into government service and establish a national corps of language reservists available to the Pentagon, State Department, intelligence community and other agencies in times of heightened need. Much of the instruction is intended to focus not on the traditional European and Latin American languages that Americans have tended to study most, but on what the U.S. government has identified as languages "critical" for national security. These include Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi and Farsi, among others. Bush intends to request $114 million in fiscal 2007 for the programs, which involve the departments of State, Education and Defense, as well as the director of national intelligence, according to officials who briefed reporters on details. [Imperialism]
130 Iraqis and seven US soldiers die in one of Iraq's worst days
· Murder of 60 Shia pilgrims will inflame tensions · Bush says he will 'take to heart' comments on policy
Jamie Wilson in Washington and agencies Friday January 6, 2006 The Guardian
More than 130 Iraqis and seven US soldiers were killed yesterday in one of the deadliest days of insurgent attacks since the fall of Saddam Hussein. More than 60 Shia pilgrims were killed when a suicide bomber wearing a vest stuffed with explosives blew himself up outside the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala in an attack certain to increase tensions between Iraq's Sunni and Shia Muslims. In the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi dozens were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a queue of about 1,000 police recruits at a police-screening centre. Recruits later got back in line to continue the screening process.
The Geopolitics of Natural Gas
MICHAEL T. KLARE
posted January 4, 2006 (January 23, 2006 issue)
In the high-stakes arena of energy geopolitics, natural gas is rapidly emerging as the next big prize. What oil was to the twentieth century, natural gas will be to the twenty-first.
Increased cooperation in the transport of natural gas is developing too among Russia, China, Japan and the two Koreas. At the center of these efforts are the vast reservoirs of natural gas lying off Sakhalin Island in Russia's far east. To move this gas to international markets giant energy firms, including ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch/Shell, will build a huge LNG facility on Sakhalin's southern tip and at least one major pipeline. One pipeline is expected to extend from Sakhalin to northern China, while another might go to Japan; some visionaries have also proposed a branch line extending to South Korea via North Korea (a project that, if undertaken, would go a long way toward cementing the increasingly warm relations between the two). The LNG, meanwhile, will travel by ship to terminals in Japan and possibly the United States, if new LNG regassification plants are constructed along America's Pacific coast and/or in Baja California [Energy security]
In Kabul, a Stark Gulf Between Wealthy Few and the Poor
By Griff Witte Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, December 9, 2005; A25
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Displayed under fluorescent lights on a spotless marble floor, the imported refrigerators, dishwashers and ovens at the new Beko store draw a steady stream of gawkers in a city where nearly everything is coated with grime. But few Afghans can afford such luxury appliances -- or the electricity to run them. "A lot of people come in and they really, really want to buy these kinds of products," said Baki Karasu, 41, who opened the store this fall. "But they don't have any power. If they have a big generator, they can buy. But if they don't, they have to wait for the government to provide the electricity." Four years after the ouster of the Taliban, as another frigid winter begins, most residents of the Afghan capital are without power, except for five hours every second or third night. Although hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid have been spent to fix the problem, conditions have worsened in the past year as improvements have lagged and the population surges. Government officials say things will not noticeably improve until at least 2008, when new power lines are to be completed. The gulf between the wealthy few and the literally powerless majority is especially striking now, as pockets of opulence sprout across the impoverished capital of 4 million after a quarter-century of war that left much of the city in ruins. Downtown, there is a glittering new shopping mall as well as a five-star hotel where regular rooms go for $250 a night and the Presidential Suite fetches $1,200
Russia and Ukraine Reach Compromise on Natural Gas
By ANDREW E. KRAMER Published: January 5, 2006
KIEV, Ukraine , Jan. 4 - Ukraine and Russia settled their dispute over the price of natural gas Wednesday with a deal that allowed both countries to save face, although Ukraine walked away with cheaper prices than most of Russia's other gas customers. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia paid a stiff political price as his country's natural gas company, Gazprom, backpedaled on ultimatums of a gas embargo against Ukraine under pressure from European leaders who questioned the Kremlin's reliability as an energy provider. But Mr. Putin, speaking at his dacha outside Moscow, sought to calm those fears, calling the settlement a guarantee of energy supplies to Europe. "I think undoubtedly this success will have a positive effect on the whole sphere of Russian-Ukrainian relations," Mr. Putin said. "We can work not just with each other but also together in the market of third countries." Ukraine's gas bill will about double next year, and the solution entangles Kiev in a complicated deal that surrenders control over its natural gas imports to an offshore company with a shady history even by post-Soviet standards.
Case Bringing New Scrutiny To a System and a Profession
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Dan Balz Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, January 4, 2006; A01 The biggest corruption scandal to infect Congress in a generation took down one of the best-connected lobbyists in Washington yesterday. The questions echoing around the capital were what other careers -- and what other familiar ways of doing business -- are endangered. Jack Abramoff represented the most flamboyant and extreme example of a brand of influence trading that flourished after the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives 11 years ago. Now, some GOP strategists fear that the fallout from his case could affect the party's efforts to keep control in the November midterm elections. Abramoff was among the lobbyists most closely associated with the K Street Project, which was initiated by his friend Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), now the former House majority leader, once the GOP vaulted to power. It was an aggressive program designed to force corporations and trade associations to hire more GOP-connected lobbyists in what at times became an almost seamless relationship between Capitol Hill lawmakers and some firms that sought to influence them. Now Abramoff has become a symbol of a system out of control. His agreement to plead guilty to three criminal counts and cooperate with prosecutors threatens to ensnare other lawmakers or their aides -- Republicans and possibly some Democrats. [Corruption] [Cheney]
Frank Wilkinson, Defiant Figure of Red Scare, Dies at 91
By RICK LYMAN Published: January 4, 2006 Frank Wilkinson, a Los Angeles housing official who lost his job in the Red Scare of the early 1950's and later became one of the last two people jailed for refusing to tell the House Un-American Activities Committee whether he was a Communist, died Monday in Los Angeles. He was 91.
Mr. Wilkinson, whose experiences inspired a half-century campaign against government spying, had been ill for several months and was recovering from surgery and a fall, said Donna Wilkinson, his wife of 40 years. "It was just the complications of old age, " Mrs. Wilkinson said. In 1952, when Mr. Wilkinson was head of the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, he spearheaded a project to replace the sprawling Mexican-American neighborhood of Chavez Ravine, home to 300 families and roamed by goats and other livestock, with thousands of public-housing units. Real estate interests that viewed public housing as a form of socialism accused Mr. Wilkinson of being a Communist. When asked about this, under oath, he declined to answer, causing a furor.
The housing project was scuttled and much of the land eventually turned over to the city, after which it became the site of Dodger Stadium, new home to the former Brooklyn Dodgers.
Oil, gas and imperialism
The Russia-Ukraine crisis is a reminder that politics, not the market, is driving global energy policies
Daniel Litvin Wednesday January 4, 2006 The Guardian You may have thought the age of empires was over, that in today's globalising world relations between states were governed by economics, market forces and free trade, rather than battles for political influence between the great powers. When it comes to the quest for, and control of, energy supplies, however, we still live in a partly 19th-century world.
Compared with the situation earlier this week, Russia's attempt to more than quadruple the price of the gas it charges to Ukraine is no longer affecting other European countries as severely as it was. None the less Russia continues to seek to withhold gas from Ukraine, exerting a stranglehold on the nation that would appear to be motivated as much by politics as economics. Smarting from Ukraine's recent turn to the west, including Nato and the EU, Russia wishes to bring its once vassal state back into its sphere of influence. Russia has long offered subsidised energy to such states to help keep them within its fold. Threatening to hike Ukrainian gas prices to free market levels is in this respect the modern equivalent of a warning shot fired from the Russian imperial gunboat. [Bizarre] [Media] [Double standards]
U.S. Cedes Duties in Rebuilding Afghanistan
NATO, Other Allies Take On New Roles
By Griff Witte Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, January 3, 2006; A01
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Four years into a mammoth reconstruction effort here that has been largely led, funded and secured by Americans, the United States is showing a growing willingness to cede those jobs to others.
The most dramatic example will come by this summer, when the U.S. military officially hands over control of the volatile southern region -- plagued by persistent attacks from Islamic militias -- to an international force led by the NATO alliance. The United States will cut its troop strength by 2,500, even though it is not clear how aggressively NATO troops will pursue insurgents, who have shown no sign of relenting. At the same time, the U.S. government is increasingly allowing Western allies, or Afghans themselves, to take on the tasks of rebuilding a country that has suffered more than two decades of fighting and remains beset by poverty, drugs and insurgency. The United States says that its shifting approach complements Afghanistan's evolution into a self-sustaining democracy and that Washington has no plans to pull out altogether. "The Afghans have to have enough space to make their own decisions, even to stumble sometimes," said U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann. "But we shouldn't leave them without critical support before they're strong enough." As the U.S. presence becomes less visible, however, Afghans are starting to question whether the U.S. support is sufficient. Some Afghan officials express concern that the Bush administration's priorities are simply shifting elsewhere and that the United States may abandon their country prematurely, much the way it did in the early 1990s following the withdrawal of Soviet troops. [Spin]
Bush pulls the plug on Iraq reconstruction
$18bn funding to stop at end of year
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Tuesday January 3, 2006 The Guardian The Bush administration has scaled back its ambitions to rebuild Iraq from the devastation wrought by war and dictatorship and does not intend to seek new funds for reconstruction, it emerged yesterday. In a decision that will be seen as a retreat from a promise by President George Bush to give Iraq the best infrastructure in the region, administration officials say they will not seek reconstruction funds when the budget request is presented to Congress next month, the Washington Post reported yesterday. The $18.4bn (£10.6bn) allocation is scheduled to run out in June 2007. The move will be seen by critics as further evidence of the administration's failure to plan for the aftermath of the war. A decision not to renew the reconstruction programme would leave Iraq with the burden of tens of billions of dollars in unfinished projects, and an oil industry and electrical grid that have yet to return to pre-war production levels. The decision is a tacit admission of the failure of the US rebuilding effort in the face of a relentless insurgency. [Spin]
The Real Meaning of Hong Kong: Brazil and India Join the Big Boys·Club
Walden Bello Focus on the Global South, 22 December 2005
What was at stake in Hong Kong was the institutional survival of the World Trade Organization. After the collapse of two ministerials in Seattle and Cancun, a third unraveling would have seriously eroded the usefulness of the WTO as the key engine of global trade liberalization. A deal was needed, and that deal was arrived at. How, why, and by whom that deal was delivered was the real story of Hong Kong.
A Real Deal, not a Cosmetic One The Hong Kong deal has been characterized in some reports as a minimum package·that mainly functions as a life support system for the WTO. This is hardly the case. The deal extracted substantial concessions from developing countries while giving them hardly anything in return. The stipulation of a Swiss formula to govern Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA), which would cut higher tariffs proportionally more than lower tariffs, would penalize mainly developing countries since to build up their industrial sectors via import substitution they generally maintain higher industrial and manufacturing tariffs than developed countries. The specification of a ?lurilateral·process of negotiations in the services text erodes the flexible request-offer approach that has marked the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) negotiations, injects a mandatory element, and will corral many developing countries into sectoral negotiations designed to blast open key services. What the South got in return was mainly a date for the final phase-out of export subsidies in agriculture that nevertheless left the structure of subsidization of agricultural subsidization in the European Union and the United States largely intact. Even with the phase out of formally defined export subsidies, other forms of export support will allow the European Union, for instance, to continue to subsidize exports to the tune of 55 billion euros after 2013. In sum, this was an agreement with teeth, but the bite will be felt principally by the developing countries.
Empire and nation revisited: 50 years after Bandung
Partha CHATTERJEE
Japan Focus 2 January 2006]
reprinted from Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Volume 6, Number 4, 2005 ISSN 1464-9373 Print/ISSN 1469-8447 Online/05/040487-10 (c) 2005 Taylor & Taylor and Francis Ltd ABSTRACT I wish to propose a general definition of empire that does not tie it with annexation and occupation of foreign territories and, therefore, is able to capture the new forms of indirect and informal control that have become common in recent decades. The imperial prerogative, I suggest, is the power to declare the colonial exception. Everyone agrees that nuclear proliferation is dangerous and should be stopped. But who decides that India may be allowed to have nuclear weapons, and also Israel, and may be even Pakistan, but not North Korea or Iran? We all know that there are many sources of international terrorism, but who decides that it is not Saudi Arabia or Pakistan but the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq that must be overthrown by force? Those who claim to decide on the exception are indeed arrogating to themselves the imperial prerogative. KEYWORDS: empire, nation, colonialism, the Bandung conference [Imperialism]
U.S. Has End in Sight on Iraq Rebuilding
By Ellen Knickmeyer Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, January 2, 2006; A01
BAGHDAD -- The Bush administration does not intend to seek any new funds for Iraq reconstruction in the budget request going before Congress in February, officials say. The decision signals the winding down of an $18.4 billion U.S. rebuilding effort in which roughly half of the money was eaten away by the insurgency, a buildup of Iraq's criminal justice system and the investigation and trial of Saddam Hussein. Just under 20 percent of the reconstruction package remains unallocated. When the last of the $18.4 billion is spent, U.S. officials in Baghdad have made clear, other foreign donors and the fledgling Iraqi government will have to take up what authorities say is tens of billions of dollars of work yet to be done merely to bring reliable electricity, water and other services to Iraq's 26 million people. "The U.S. never intended to completely rebuild Iraq," Brig. Gen. William McCoy, the Army Corps of Engineers commander overseeing the work, told reporters at a recent news conference. In an interview this past week, McCoy said: "This was just supposed to be a jump-start." [Media]
Bolton Plans to Restart Stalled Efforts to Restructure U.N.
By Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, January 2, 2006; A07
UNITED NATIONS -- John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said he will start the new year by reinvigorating stalled efforts to restructure management of the world body, beginning with a controversial push to seek assurances that the Security Council's five major powers will be guaranteed posts on a new Human Rights Council.
Bolton said in an interview that the Bush administration wants to ensure that the United States is never again denied membership in the United Nations' principal human rights body, as it was in 2001, when Austria, France and Sweden defeated a U.S. bid for membership in the Geneva-based Human Rights Commission. But his initiative would also boost efforts by China and Russia, two permanent council members with troubled rights records, to gain membership in the new body. [Camouflage]
Muslim Scholars Were Paid to Aid U.S. Propaganda
By DAVID S. CLOUD and JEFF GERTH Published: January 2, 2006
WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 - A Pentagon contractor that paid Iraqi newspapers to print positive articles written by American soldiers has also been compensating Sunni religious scholars in Iraq in return for assistance with its propaganda work, according to current and former employees.
The Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations company, was told early in 2005 by the Pentagon to identify religious leaders who could help produce messages that would persuade Sunnis in violence-ridden Anbar Province to participate in national elections and reject the insurgency, according to a former employee.
Since then, the company has retained three or four Sunni religious scholars to offer advice and write reports for military commanders on the content of propaganda campaigns, the former employee said. But documents and Lincoln executives say the company's ties to religious leaders and dozens of other prominent Iraqis is aimed also at enabling it to exercise influence in Iraqi communities on behalf of clients, including the military. [Collaboration] [Disinformation]
2005 - The Collapse of Bush's Authority
Immanuel Wallerstein Commentary No. 176, Jan. 1, 2006
Whatever one thinks of Bush's politics, there is no question that, at the start of 2005, he had arrived at the pinnacle of his authority. He had just been reelected and the Republican Party controlled both houses of Congress
One year later, all this has changed and changed radically.
The I-Word is Gaining Ground
In 1998, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, currently under indictment on corruption charges, proclaimed: "This nation sits at a crossroads. One direction points to the higher road of the rule of law...The other road is the path of least resistance" in which "we pitch the law completely overboard when the mood fits us...[and] close our eyes to the potential lawbreaking...and tear an unfixable hole in our legal system." That arbiter of moral politics was incensed about the possibility of Bill Clinton escaping unpunished for his "crimes."
But the times they are a' changin'. The I-word has moved from the marginal to the mainstream--although columnists like Charles "torture-is-fine-by-me" Krauthammer would like us to believe that "only the most brazen and reckless and partisan" could support the idea. In fact, as Michelle Goldberg reports in Salon, "in the past few days, impeachment "has become a topic of considered discussion among constitutional scholars and experts (including a few Republicans), former intelligence officers, and even a few politicians." Even a moderately liberal columnist like Newsweek's Alter sounds like The Nation, observing: "We're seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator."
Trial of French Islamic Radical Sheds Light on Converts' Role
By Craig Whitlock Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, January 1, 2006; A01
DOUAI, France -- Despite his history as a convicted killer and radical Islamic fighter, Lionel Dumont had a real knack for charming the ladies. Flashing a tender smile and soft brown eyes, the former French Catholic schoolboy seduced women in many parts of the world, using them as unwitting accomplices as he dodged arrest warrants and met clandestinely with Islamic radicals in at least 10 countries. Two female German tourists whom he wooed separately on the beaches of Thailand served as cover for his travels as he secretly developed plots to transfer weapons and launder money, according to court testimony and European terrorism investigators. At Dumont's trial in this northern French city in December, both women testified that they still could not believe their smooth-cheeked Romeo was an Islamic radical, even after they learned he was arrested two years ago in Munich in an international counterterrorism operation. "He's open and warm," said Celia dos Santos, 37, a travel agent who married Dumont, now 34, in a ceremony in Malaysia and brought him home to meet relatives in Germany and Portugal. "I would never think that he was involved in a terrorist act." European counterterrorism officials and experts say Dumont is a prime example of how al Qaeda and other radical groups are drawing heavily on Islamic converts, who are increasingly taking on leadership roles in plotting strategy and launching attacks. After converting to Islam in 1991, according to investigators, Dumont fought in Bosnia, was involved in a plot to bomb a gathering of leaders of the Group of Seven industrial nations in France in 1996 and spent years raising money and organizing cells in Europe and Asia.
"What is new is that with al Qaeda, converts are now considered full members," said Olivier Roy, research director at the French National Center for Scientific Research and an authority on Islamic radicalism. "For al Qaeda, converts are not just tools to get past security. It's a way for them to become a global movement. In just about every al Qaeda cell over the past eight years, we have seen converts. It's structural, not just accidental." Many converts have become trusted operatives at the highest levels of al Qaeda.
Officials at U.N. Seek Fast Action on Rights Panel
By WARREN HOGE Published: January 1, 2006 UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 31 - Officials of the United Nations, which has struggled through a period of scandal and mismanagement, have decided they must act within weeks to produce an alternative to its widely discredited Human Rights Commission to maintain hope of redeeming the United Nations' credibility in 2006.
The commission, which is based in Geneva, has been a persistent embarrassment to the United Nations because participation has been open to countries like Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe, current members who are themselves accused of gross rights abuses. Libya held the panel's chairmanship in 2003. [Double standards] [Media] [Camouflage]
Fear of gas shortage after Ukraine rejects huge price rise
· Russia threatens to cut supply after talks fail · Energy ministers from EU meet to discuss crisis
Tom Parfitt in Moscow and Luke Harding in Berlin Saturday December 31, 2005 The Guardian Concerns were growing last night that gas supplies to western Europe could be disrupted, after Russia and Ukraine failed to end a dispute over gas prices. The European Union said yesterday it would hold a meeting of energy ministers next week to discuss the crisis. "The idea is to be ready for all eventualities and to have a common approach," said Amadeu Altafaj Tardio, a spokesman for the European commission. European officials insisted that fuel supplies to a winter-bound Europe were not likely to be badly affected by the dispute, which followed an announcement by the Russian state controlled gas monopoly Gazprom that it was increasing the price of Siberian gas to Ukraine by 360%. The company has given Kiev until Sunday to comply with the terms.
Several German politicians urged Gerhard Schröder, Germany's former chancellor and soon to become chairman of the supervisory board of Gazprom's pipeline subsidiary, to use his influence with Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, to defuse the row.
Moscow wants to increase the price Kiev pays for gas from $50 (£29) per 1,000 cubic metres to $230, which it says is in line with market prices. The move is widely interpreted as punishment for Ukraine seeking rapid integration into the EU and Nato. Russia argues it cannot sustain the lower price.
Shock, awe and Hobbes have backfired on America's neocons
Iraq has shown the hubris of a geostrategy that welds the philosophy of the Leviathan to military and technological power
Richard Drayton Wednesday December 28, 2005 Guardian
The tragic irony of the 21st century is that just as faith in technology collapsed on the world's stock markets in 2000, it came to power in the White House and Pentagon. For the Project for a New American Century's ambition of "full-spectrum dominance" - in which its country could "fight and win multiple, simultaneous major-theatre wars" - was a monster borne up by the high tide of techno euphoria of the 1990s. Ex-hippies talked of a wired age of Aquarius. The fall of the Berlin wall and the rise of the internet, we were told, had ushered in Adam Smith's dream of overflowing abundance, expanding liberty and perpetual peace. Fukuyama speculated that history was over, leaving us just to hoard and spend. Technology meant a new paradigm of constant growth without inflation or recession. But darker dreams surfaced in America's military universities. The theorists of the "revolution in military affairs" predicted that technology would lead to easy and perpetual US dominance of the world. Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters advised on "future warfare" at the Army War College - prophesying in 1997 a coming "age of constant conflict". Thomas Barnett at the Naval War College assisted Vice-Admiral Cebrowski in developing "network-centric warfare". General John Jumper of the air force predicted a planet easily mastered from air and space. American forces would win everywhere because they enjoyed what was unashamedly called the "God's-eye" view of satellites and GPS: the "global information grid". This hegemony would be welcomed as the cutting edge of human progress. Or at worst, the military geeks candidly explained, US power would simply terrify others into submitting to the stars and stripes.
Chalabi Named Iraq Oil Minister
Fuel Crisis Spurs Mandatory Leave For Incumbent By Jonathan Finer and Naseer Nouri Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, December 31, 2005; A11
BAGHDAD, Dec. 30 -- As a fuel crisis deepened in Iraq, the government replaced its oil minister with controversial Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi, whose poor performance in the Dec. 15 elections was a setback in his recent attempt at political rehabilitation.
The oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr Uloom, was put on a mandatory, month-long leave. He had previously threatened to resign over the government's recent decision to increase gasoline prices sharply, a move that has outraged motorists and sparked attacks on gas stations and fuel convoys. Violence has escalated across Iraq since the elections. On Friday, two U.S. soldiers were killed, one by a bomb south of Baghdad and another by small-arms fire in the western city of Fallujah. Two mortar shells hit near a bus station in the capital, killing five people and wounding 24, police at the scene said. Threats by insurgents seizing on the unpopularity of the gasoline price increase led to a shutdown this month of the country's most productive oil refinery, in Baiji, north of Baghdad. Assim Jihad, an Oil Ministry spokesman, said the shutdown would cost $20 million a day until the refinery reopened. Meanwhile, foul winter weather has halted oil exports from the southern city of Umm Qasr, Iraq's only major seaport. Many of Iraq's largest power plants, already struggling to meet even a fraction of the country's energy demands, run on refined fuels. "If these issues are not solved soon, the country will be facing an uncontrollable situation," Jihad said. "Dr. Chalabi will be here for the short term, but this will need to be solved by the new government, by the Ministry of Defense and by the coalition forces." Chalabi, whose government portfolio already includes heading the country's energy committee and overseeing security for oil infrastructure such as refineries and pipelines, will temporarily take the reins of Iraq's only major industry. He had briefly led the Oil Ministry earlier this year while the current government was being assembled.

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