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| Iraq + war on terrorism + Middle East conflict + critical perspectives |
 U.S.: Events in Gaza prove Hamas failedBy Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz, February 2, 2007 The United States does not expect a change in the position of the Quartet toward Hamas, a senior State Department official said yesterday in light of reports of a Russian intention to raise current policy for debate in the Quartet meeting in Washington tomorrow. A source in the State Department says there is consensus between the U.S. and the Europeans on policy. The Americans say events of the past week in Gaza have only proved to the Palestinians that the Hamas government cannot provide them with the security they need. "Hamas is trying to shake off responsibility and give it to the international community," a source in the State Department said, "but it's their responsibility." The American noted that in Gaza, where Hamas' control is ostensibly stronger [than in the West Bank], Hamas is unable "to deliver the Palestinians what they expect." [complete article]  Comment -- I see. So extending the same argument, I assume that the State Department will now be advocating that the U.S. withdraws its forces from Iraq and withdraws its support for the Iraqi government. Neither that government, nor American military support has been able to deliver the Iraqis what they expect. In fact, America's failure in Iraq has been of staggeringly greater proportions than Hamas' difficulties in Gaza, since Iraq has during this period received massive economic support, while Gaza has been under an economic stranglehold. America has bound and gagged Hamas, now stands with a jackboot pressed against its head, looks down and says, "You don't seem to be accomplishing much." Well, that might satisfy the sado-masochistic tendencies of a few people in Washington, but it doesn't impress the rest of the world.This is the assessment of the International Development Committee in the British parliament: The international community's policy of isolating a democratically elected government is questionable under conditions of ongoing conflict. We understand the reasons for this decision but doubt whether it is in fact the most effective response. Indeed, the withholding of revenues by Israel and the boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority by existing donors has led the Hamas government increasingly to look elsewhere for financial support. As a result, Hamas now has closer links to governments like that of Iran than it had two years ago. We doubt whether this is a development that the international community would have intended. The situation at the beginning of 2007, politically, economically and socially, is worse than it was in 2004. The international community is in danger of preventing the creation of a viable Palestinian state.If the Quartet really wants to get serious, the EU, Russia, and UN, should demand that the first thing on the piece of paper (and "piece of paper" is as much as the U.S. has promised as a tangible outcome of the Quartet meeting) is a statement affirming that, differences notwithstanding, the Quartet recognizes that the Palestinian people, through a free and fair democratic process, chose Hamas to lead their government. As Rummy could have said, you have to work with the government the Palestinians have, not the government the Americans and Israelis want. Hamas: U.S. trying to 'colonize' the P.A.By Khaled Abu Toameh, Jerusalem Post, January 31, 2007 Hamas on Wednesday accused the US of promoting civil war among the Palestinians by transferring $86 million to strengthen forces loyal to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Meanwhile, the PA Ministry of Health announced that 58 Palestinians were killed in the fighting between Hamas and Fatah during January. Half of the victims were killed in armed clashes that erupted between the two parties in the Gaza Strip in the last week of the month, the ministry said. [complete article] Fatah: 7 Iranian weapons experts arrested in GazaBy Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz, February 2, 2007 Senior Fatah sources reported late Thursday that its National Security Force arrested seven Iranian weapons experts working in the service of Hamas in Gaza. According to Fatah, the arrests were made during a raid on the Islamic University in Gaza City. The Fatah forces apprehended some 1,400 firearms and missiles found at the site. [complete article] Six killed in Hamas ambush on Gaza convoyBy Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters, February 1, 2007 Hamas gunmen ambushed what the Islamist group said was a convoy carrying military equipment to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's guard unit in Gaza on Thursday and six people were killed, local residents said. Abbas's Fatah faction said the four-truck convoy, which had crossed from Israel, was carrying medical goods and tents, and accused Hamas of seriously endangering a three-day-old ceasefire. [complete article] Russia wants Palestinian aid freeze liftedReuters, January 30, 2007 Russia wants the Middle East Quartet due to meet on February 2 to lift a blockade on Western aid to Palestinians, Interfax news agency quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin's personal envoy as saying on Tuesday. "Russia has always opposed the blockade and we count on the quartet listening to our point of view," Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Saltanov said in an interview with the agency. [complete article]  Talking it overBy Ismail Patel, The Guardian, February 1, 2007 Hamas has become the backbone of Palestinian resistance and survival against a brutal and heavily armed occupier and at an international level, despite castigation as a terrorist organisation; it is hailed as a resistance movement against modern day colonialist oppression. Their victory in surviving a full one year against the forces of the superpower of the day and its allies speaks volumes of its resilience and determination. Whether Hamas remains in power or not, one thing is for certain - its central political role in liberating Palestine is here to stay and it would thus be more prudent of the European Union and the US to accept the will of the Palestinian people and demand Israel talk to Hamas. [complete article]  Iraq in the strategic contextTestimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee By Zbigniew Brzezinski, United States Senate, February 1, 2007 It is time for the White House to come to terms with two central realities: 1. The war in Iraq is a historic, strategic, and moral calamity. Undertaken under false assumptions, it is undermining America's global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America's moral credentials. Driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a "defensive" U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted and potentially expanding war is already being articulated. Initially justified by false claims about WMD's in Iraq, the war is now being redefined as the "decisive ideological struggle" of our time, reminiscent of the earlier collisions with Nazism and Stalinism. In that context, Islamist extremism and al Qaeda are presented as the equivalents of the threat posed by Nazi Germany and then Soviet Russia, and 9/11 as the equivalent of the Pearl Harbor attack which precipitated America's involvement in World War II. This simplistic and demagogic narrative overlooks the fact that Nazism was based on the military power of the industrially most advanced European state; and that Stalinism was able to mobilize not only the resources of the victorious and militarily powerful Soviet Union but also had worldwide appeal through its Marxist doctrine. In contrast, most Muslims are not embracing Islamic fundamentalism; al Qaeda is an isolated fundamentalist Islamist aberration; most Iraqis are engaged in strife because the American occupation of Iraq destroyed the Iraqi state; while Iran -- though gaining in regional influence -- is itself politically divided, economically and militarily weak. To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy. Deplorably, the Administration's foreign policy in the Middle East region has lately relied almost entirely on such sloganeering. Vague and inflammatory talk about "a new strategic context" which is based on "clarity" and which prompts "the birth pangs of a new Middle East" is breeding intensifying anti-Americanism and is increasing the danger of a long-term collision between the United States and the Islamic world. Those in charge of U.S. diplomacy have also adopted a posture of moralistic self-ostracism toward Iran strongly reminiscent of John Foster Dulles's attitude of the early 1950's toward Chinese Communist leaders (resulting among other things in the well-known episode of the refused handshake). It took some two decades and a half before another Republican president was finally able to undo that legacy. One should note here also that practically no country in the world shares the Manichean delusions that the Administration so passionately articulates. The result is growing political isolation of, and pervasive popular antagonism toward the U.S. global posture. * * * It is obvious by now that the American national interest calls for a significant change of direction. There is in fact a dominant consensus in favor of a change: American public opinion now holds that the war was a mistake; that it should not be escalated, that a regional political process should be explored; and that an Israeli-Palestinian accommodation is an essential element of the needed policy alteration and should be actively pursued. It is noteworthy that profound reservations regarding the Administration's policy have been voiced by a number of leading Republicans. One need only invoke here the expressed views of the much admired President Gerald Ford, former Secretary of State James Baker, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and several leading Republican senators, John Warner, Chuck Hagel, and Gordon Smith among others. The urgent need today is for a strategy that seeks to create a political framework for a resolution of the problems posed both by the US occupation of Iraq and by the ensuing civil and sectarian conflict. Ending the occupation and shaping a regional security dialogue should be the mutually reinforcing goals of such a strategy, but both goals will take time and require a genuinely serious U.S. commitment. The quest for a political solution for the growing chaos in Iraq should involve four steps: 1. The United States should reaffirm explicitly and unambiguously its determination to leave Iraq in a reasonably short period of time.After World War II, the United States prevailed in the defense of democracy in Europe because it successfully pursued a long-term political strategy of uniting its friends and dividing its enemies, of soberly deterring aggression without initiating hostilities, all the while also exploring the possibility of negotiated arrangements. Today, America's global leadership is being tested in the Middle East. A similarly wise strategy of genuinely constructive political engagement is now urgently needed. It is also time for the Congress to assert itself. Scientists offered cash to dispute climate studyBy Ian Sample, The Guardian, February 2, 2007 Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today. Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered. The UN report was written by international experts and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science. It will underpin international negotiations on new emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft last year and invited to comment. The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees. The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs". Climate scientists described the move yesterday as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on global warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims," said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. [complete article] Panel says warming caused by humansBy Elisabeth Rosenthal and Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times, February 2, 2007 The world is already committed to centuries of warming, shifting weather patterns and rising seas from the atmospheric buildup of gases that trap heat, but the warming can be substantially blunted by prompt action, an international network of climate experts said today. The report released here represented the fourth assessment since 1990 by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations, of the causes and consequences of climate change. But for the first time the group asserted with near certainty -- more than 90 percent confidence -- that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases from human activities were the main drivers of warming since 1950. In its last report, in 2001, the panel, consisting of hundreds of scientists and reviewers, put the confidence level at between 66 and 90 percent. Both reports are online at www.ipcc.ch. [complete article] Comment -- The nexus of corporate and political interest groups who are working to undermine efforts to increase public awareness about global warming, constitutes one of the greatest threats to humanity of this era. Individuals with immense resources, unparalleled political access and influence, and not the slightest compunction in placing their own narrow-minded interests above the well-being of others, would sooner risk the future of the planet than risk putting short-term profits in jeopardy.The threat from Islamic extremists is trivial by comparison. As U.S. power fades, it can't find friends to take on IranBy Jonathan Steele, The Guardian, February 2, 2007 The shadowy outlines of a new US strategy towards Iran are exercising diplomats and experts around the Middle East and in the west. The US says Iranian personnel are training and arming anti-US forces inside Iraq, and it will not hesitate to kill them. It is sending a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf, doubling its force projection there. It is calling on Europeans to tighten sanctions on Iran until Tehran suspends its uranium enrichment programme. Is the US rattling the sabre in advance of an attack on Iran? Or is it merely rattling its cage, as it pretends still to be a power in the region in spite of being locked into an unwinnable war in Iraq? The only certainty is that Bush's strategy of calling for democratisation in the Middle East is over. Washington has had to abandon the neocon dream of turning Iraq into a beacon of secular liberal democracy. It is no longer pressing for reform in other Arab states. [complete article] See also, Hillary Clinton laps up AIPAC support by calling Iran a threat to U.S., Israel (AP). The 'axis of fear' is bornBy Pepe Escobar, Asia Times, February 2, 2007 The Bush administration, in a sense, is getting what it wants in the wider Middle East. To battle a fictitious Shi'ite crescent (a construct by Jordan's King Abdullah), it has emboldened even more a reactionary Sunni crescent (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates), thus exacerbating to a paroxysm the "strategy" it has already applied in Iraq: sectarianism as the golden parameter of imperial divide and rule. Historically, Sunnis and Shi'ites have co-existed amid social tensions. But never have these tensions been so cynically exploited - by Washington - as in post-invasion Iraq and the wider Middle East. The administration of US President George W Bush was forced to acknowledge that the monumental disaster of occupied Iraq had to be blamed on a new scapegoat. Thus the umpteenth twist in the "war on terror": exit al-Qaeda, enter Iran. The Sunni Arab "axis of fear" is merrily playing along. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia even complained in a Kuwaiti newspaper that Iran is trying to convert Sunni Arabs to Shi'ism. Even Israel is now by all means allied with Saudi Arabia against Iran - Mecca/Jerusalem against Qom; Muslims and Jews battling Muslims. It's enlightening to compare this development with how Iran's ambassador to Syria, Mohammad Hassan Akhtari, sees it - as nothing other than a replay of the British Empire's divide-and-rule. Washington is once again sowing the seeds of discord among Muslims: "Bush and his allies are in favor of further unrest, turmoil and crises so that they can justify deployment of their troops in the region." [complete article] The Bush administration's cockeyed strategy to promote sectarian conflict in the Middle EastBy Fred Kaplan, Slate, January 31, 2007 The Iranians are expanding their presence in Iraq, the Saudis are cutting a separate deal with them to contain the strife in Lebanon, and who can blame either party? Yes, as the AP reported Tuesday, this surge of Saudi-Iranian cooperation "could complicate Washington's efforts to isolate Tehran." But it is Bush's abandonment of diplomacy that has left the vacuum that the Saudis and Iranians are now trying to fill. And given the alternative of mayhem and anarchy, their new rapprochement might not be a bad thing. [complete article] Turkey weighs cross-border attack on PKKBy Vincen Boland, Financial Times, February 1, 2007 Turkey made a decisive contribution to the Iraq war nearly four years ago when the parliament in Ankara rejected a US request to allow an invasion from the north. The diplomatic fallout is still casting a shadow over the US-Turkish relationship. Now Turkey could be about to make a second dramatic contribution. Amid constant bloody clashes between Turkish troops and PKK Kurdish separatist guerrillas operating out of northern Iraq, Ankara is weighing up a cross-border incursion to attack PKK bases. Turkey, its political leaders insist, has the right and the determination to eliminate threats to its territory wherever they come from. General Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the general staff, is expected to set out Turkey's concerns over Iraq when he visits Washington later this month. One possible outcome intended to guard against a unilateral Turkish intervention would be a joint anti-PKK military operation with US and Iraqi forces, says an analyst who asked not to be named. Turkey is also becoming alarmed by what it claims is electoral and demographic gerrymandering by Iraqi Kurds in Kirkuk, the oil capital of Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. Ankara fears that Kurdish control of Kirkuk would give the Iraqi Kurds the economic basis for independence if Iraq were to break up. [complete article] Northern Iraq seen as next front in warBy Louise Roug, Los Angeles Times, February 1, 2007 American officials, regional leaders and residents are increasingly worried that this northern oil-rich city could develop into a third front in the country's civil war just as additional U.S. troops arrive in Baghdad and Al Anbar province as reinforcements for battles there. Al Qaeda-linked fighters recently have surfaced here, launching a wave of lethal attacks, U.S. and Iraqi officials say. The attacks come amid a rise in communal tensions in the months before a referendum on the status of the city and the surrounding province. Elsewhere in Iraq, Shiite and Sunni Arab Muslims are locked in a bitter civil war. Here, the two groups have a common cause against the Kurds, a non-Arab minority that dominates Iraq's far-northern provinces. [complete article] Iraq commander: Only half of troop 'surge' neededAP, February 1, 2007 The top U.S. commander in Iraq told a Senate panel Thursday that he believed it would take fewer than half as many extra troops to improve security in Baghdad as President George W. Bush chose to commit. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on his nomination to be Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey said he had asked for two additional Army brigades, based on recommendations of his subordinate commanders. Bush announced January 10 that he would send five extra brigades as part of a buildup that would total 21,500 soldiers and Marines. Asked by Sen. John Warner, R-Virginia, why he had not requested the full five extra brigades that Bush is sending, Casey said, "I did not want to bring one more American soldier into Iraq than was necessary to accomplish the mission." [complete article] General: Shiite militia leaders leaving Baghdad strongholdsBy Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, February 1, 2007 Shiite militia leaders already appear to be leaving their strongholds in Baghdad in anticipation of the U.S. and Iraqi plan to increase the troop presence in the Iraqi capital, according to the top U.S. commander in the country. "We have seen numerous indications Shia militia leaders will leave, or already have left, Sadr City to avoid capture by Iraqi and coalition security forces," Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. said in a written statement submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee as part of his confirmation hearing today to be Army chief of staff. [complete article] Double the troops in "surge"Defense Tech, February 1, 2007 President Bush and his new military chiefs have been saying for nearly a month that they would "surge" an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq, in a last, grand push to quell the violence in Baghdad and in Anbar Province. But a new study by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says the real troop increase could be as high as 48,000 -- more than double the number the President initially said. [complete article] Senators unite on challenge to Bush's troop planBy Shailagh Murray and Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post, February 1, 2007 Democratic and Republican opponents of President Bush's troop-buildup plan joined forces last night behind the nonbinding resolution with the broadest bipartisan backing: a Republican measure from Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced the shift, hoping to unite a large majority of the Senate and thwart efforts by the White House and GOP leaders to derail any congressional resolution of disapproval of Bush's decision to increase U.S. troop levels in Iraq by 21,500. Although the original Democratic language was popular within the party, it had little appeal among Republicans. Warner's proposal drew support from both sides, and it was retooled last night to maximize both Democratic and Republican votes. [complete article] Upping the antiBy Edward Pierce, The Guardian, February 1, 2007 The charge of anti-Americanism made by new right British journalists against critics of the Bush government is in itself a nonsense, not more grown-up than the charge of anti-semitism thrown at people opposed to the Israeli government bombing Lebanese hill villages and the people in them. But, indeed, people here, and in continental Europe, are coming to candidly dislike America. That dislike co-exists with a wide affection, among those who have travelled in that country, for so many Americans. The ones we met were kind, friendly, civil, good to know, yet they are the subjects of so much power held in such dreadful hands and seem most of the time so submissive to it. They recall Orwell's definition of England in the thirties as "a family with the wrong members in control". But his charge against the Baldwin people was weakness; anxiety at the American elite concerns an over-blown strength. Distaste for the United States is directed not only at what its politicians and military do, but, in part, at what the American state and society have become. That nation is, for a start, absurdly militarised. It is a fearful thought that the US should hold nine times the total nuclear weapons reserve of all the other nuclear powers combined. Clearly, General Eisenhower's remarking, in his 1961 farewell address, of "a military-industrial complex" was the plain truth, and the truth has deepened across 46 years. But symbols often speak darker things than statistics. John Kerry, candidate of the more liberal and humane party, wearing his military cap to the Democratic convention, saluting and proclaiming name and number and reporting for duty, was more American than can surely be good for America. There are too many ex-marines trying to become president. The early civilian republic, served by civilian militias to win independence, has taken on Prussian qualities - qualities reinforced by bullying and manipulative populism: Prussia served by Fox TV. [complete article] Follow the money -- to Tel AvivBy Paul Woodward, The War in Context, February 1, 2007 As the "cash-for-honors" scandal continues to rock the British government, here's a priceless line of spin that the White House press secretary might want to note. Back in July, the day after Tony Blair's chief fundraiser, Lord Levy, was arrested (the first time), Blair's press secretary (PMOS) was asked whether Blair believed his government was "whiter than white." He responded by saying that "the Prime Minister believed that it was important that everyone upheld standards in public life. However, that also meant not commenting on an on-going police investigation." In order to uphold the standards of public life we must refrain from speaking -- what a beautifully wrapped piece of bullshit! Now that Levy has been arrested again, the PMOS is again getting a grilling: Asked whether the Prime Minister considered Lord Levy to be an "individual of the highest integrity" as he had said about Ruth Turner in a statement following her arrest, the PMOS referred the journalist to the Prime Minister's comments in Ramallah. [Ruth Turner is Blair's Director of Government Relations who was arrested on January 19 during the same investigation that has snared Levy.]In December, while visiting Ramallah, Blair was asked bluntly, "what has Lord Levy done for you?": He has performed an excellent job as my Envoy in very difficult circumstances where we desperately want to make progress. And the whole reason I am here is because of the importance I attach to this process and anything and anyone who can help that is someone who is immensely helpful to me.And back in July, when the PMOS was: Asked what precise role Lord Levy was playing in the Middle East crisis, the PMOS said he was not able to comment as part of the success of Lord Levy's role was because it was behind the scenes.To sum up, Downing Street won't confirm that Levy is an individual of the highest integrity, but he is doing "an excellent job" and in order for him to be successful in that job, the less said, the better. The PMOS is however forthcoming enough to assert that Levy has an important mediating role in the Middle East and the Middle East Peace Process. "As the Prime Minister had said in Ramallah, in a very difficult situation we relied on people who could talk to all sides. Lord Levy was one of those people." Sir Christopher Meyer, former British Ambassador to Washington, paints a different picture. He wrote in his memoir: I was warned on separate occasions by members of the Saudi and Jordanian royal families that Levy was not terribly welcome in their countries; and that he was received only out of friendship for Tony Blair.So even though Blair says he relies on Levy because he can "talk to all sides," it seems that not all sides are interested in talking to Levy. As Downing Street now appears to be cautiously backing away from a man whose integrity they won't vouch for, the question arises, if Levy goes down, who is he going to pull with him? Back in July, Guardian columnist, Jonathan Freedland wrote that Levy: has reportedly warned that he will not play the fall guy, that if he is taken down, he will tell the truth of others' role. Put succinctly, there is no way that Lord Levy could have been selling honours without the clear blessing of his boss, the prime minister.This might all end up being just another chapter in the never-ending story of power and corruption, yet its international political implications should not be overlooked. There are those, such as David Ignatius in today's Washington Post, who regard Tony Blair as an inexplicably tragic figure, who had the "brilliant political gifts that might have made him a truly great prime minister and the defining politician of his era." Indeed, Blair has repeatedly expressed his desire to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, yet he has also repeatedly failed to follow through. Lord Levy might know why. In 2002, Blair rewarded his leading fundraiser and confident by making him his personal envoy to the Middle East, yet as a leading international Zionist, Levy could not possibly be seen as playing an even-handed role. All his appointment confirmed was that the Labour Party was now well and truly inside the pocket of Britain's own Israel Lobby and that Labour Friends of Israel would have an even greater say in shaping Britain's Middle East policy. The Center for Media and Democracy's Source Watch fills in some of the key details in a story that some of us on this side of the Atlantic have been remiss in telling: While Labour originally carried a reputation for having more voices sympathetic to the Palestinians -- especially during the Thatcher years -- the New Labour government of Tony Blair has reversed this orientation. Although one of Tony Blair's first acts after becoming an MP in 1983 was joining LFI [Labour Friends of Israel], the relationship truly developed in the early 90s, when as shadow Home Secretary, Tony Blair met Michael Levy at a private meeting at the latter's house. Michael Abraham Levy is a former chairman of the Jewish Care Community Foundation, a member of the Jewish Agency World Board of Governors, and a trustee of the Holocaust Educational Trust. According to Andrew Porter of The Business, Levy expressed his willingness "to raise large sums of money for the party" which led to a "tacit understanding that Labour would never again, while Blair was leader, be anti-Israel".While many eyes in Washington are now focussed on the Libby trial, by the end of the day a much larger political scandal may unravel in London. (And my instincts tell me another key member of the all-star cast will be Britain's leading defense contractor, BAE, the only foreign contractor with open-door access to the Pentagon.) U.S. 'has lost ability' to impose global agendaBy Daniel Dombey, Financial Times, January 31, 2007 The US risks being pulled into Iraq's raging sectarian conflict and has lost the ability to impose its global agenda, one of Britain's leading think tanks said on Wednesday. The International Institute of Strategic Studies said that President George W Bush's push to regain the initiative in Iraq had too few troops and too little support from the government of Nouri al-Maliki. "We can't control a government that wants ethnic cleansing and we don't have enough troops on the ground to enforce a peace," said Patrick Cronin, director of studies at the institute. "That's an extraordinarily uphill battle." Presenting The Military Balance, its annual survey of the world's armed forces, the institute's staff added that pressure would build for a US strike on Iran if Tehran expanded its nuclear facilities as expected later this year and that Nato's fight in Afghanistan was entering a critical phase. "US power is strong enough to establish an agenda for international activity but is too weak effectively to implement that agenda globally," said John Chipman, the institute’s chairman. He added that the rest of the world was "strong enough to resist an American agenda" but not to establish an alternative. [complete article] See also, Europeans fear US attack on Iran as nuclear row intensifies (The Guardian). Centcom pick warns of Iran influence in gulf regionBy Ann Scott Tyson and Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, January 31, 2007 Iran is positioning its military to deny U.S. access to the Persian Gulf while acting as a "destabilizing" influence in the region, President Bush's nominee to command U.S. forces in the Middle East told the Senate yesterday. Adm. William J. Fallon said he favors using what one senator called "battleship diplomacy" to deter Iran. "Iranian support for terrorism and sectarian violence beyond its borders, and its pursuit of nuclear capability, is destabilizing and troubling," Fallon said in an opening statement at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. He warned specifically that Iranian activity "has not been helpful" in Iraq, where he said "time is running out" for action to curb the escalation of violence. [complete article] Comment -- The administration will be unrelenting in pushing its line that Iran is a "destabilizing" influence in the Middle East. Yet though this is a view that will rest unchallenged by most Americans, across the region inside many so-called "moderate" regimes, it must now be an open question: Will our long-term interests be served by pleasing out American friends, or is it more important that we get along with our neighbors? And from that perspective, it must seem far from clear whether it is Iran or the United States itself that constitutes the region's pre-eminent destabilizing influence.Whatever is uncertain, the one thing the Middle East can rely on is that America -- electoral campaign slogans notwithstanding -- will not any time soon lose its appetite for oil. And reliable customers don't have to be good friends. As for Senator Warner and Admiral Falcon's wistful hope that Europe might provide a ship or two to secure a "ring of deterrence" around Iran, I suggest they ask Albania.  Iran threat? Nobody told the Iraqis...By Tony Karon, Rootless Cosmopolitan, January 31, 2007 The frontline of Washington's new aggressive posture towards Iran, of course, is in Iraq. Bush has issued what Juan Cole has archly described as a 'fatwa' allowing U.S. troops to kill Iranian operatives, and warns that this provocative position could touch of a much wider and more tragic conflict. Cole also highlights what I think is the most important reality that is largely overlooked in U.S. media discussions over "Iranian meddling" in Iraq -- the fact that Iran's presence and influence in Iran is actually welcomed by the political leaders democratically elected by the majority of Iraqis. Both the Shiite and Kurdish leadership are longtime friends of Tehran, having cooperated actively against Saddam Hussein. [complete article] See also, Al-Maliki: Iraq won't be battleground for U.S., Iran (CNN). Iran may have trained attackers that killed 5 American soldiers, U.S. and Iraqis sayBy James Glanz and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, January 31, 2007 Investigators say they believe that attackers who used American-style uniforms and weapons to infiltrate a secure compound and kill five American soldiers in Karbala on Jan. 20 may have been trained and financed by Iranian agents, according to American and Iraqi officials knowledgeable about the inquiry. The officials said the sophistication of the attack astonished investigators, who doubt that Iraqis could have carried it out on their own -- one reason a connection to Iran is being closely examined. Officials cautioned that no firm conclusions had been drawn and did not reveal any direct evidence of a connection. A senior Iraqi official said the attackers had carried forged American identity cards and American-style M-4 rifles and had thrown stun grenades of a kind used only by American forces here. [complete article] Air Force's role in Iraq could growBy Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times, January 31, 2007 The Air Force is preparing for an expanded role in Iraq that could include aggressive new tactics designed to deter Iranian assistance to Iraqi militants, senior Pentagon officials said. The efforts could include more forceful patrols by Air Force and Navy fighter planes along the Iran-Iraq border to counter the smuggling of bomb supplies from Iran, a senior Pentagon official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing future military plans. Such missions also could position the Air Force to strike suspected bomb suppliers inside Iraq to deter Iranian agents that U.S. officials say are assisting Iraqi militias, outside military experts said. The heightened role of U.S. air power in the volatile region is the latest sign of tension between President Bush and Iran's leaders. [complete article] Bush 'spoiling for a fight' with IranBy Simon Tisdall, The Guardian, January 31, 2007 US officials in Baghdad and Washington are expected to unveil a secret intelligence "dossier" this week detailing evidence of Iran's alleged complicity in attacks on American troops in Iraq. The move, uncomfortably echoing Downing Street's dossier debacle in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, is one more sign that the Bush administration is building a case for war. Nicholas Burns, the senior US diplomat in charge of Iran policy, says Washington "is not looking for a fight" with Tehran. The official line is that Washington has made a conscious decision to "push back" against Iran on a range of fronts where the two countries' interests clash. Primarily that means Tehran's perceived meddling in Iraq, where its influence with the Shia-led government and Shia majority population appears to be increasing as Washington's weakens. [complete article] Going for brokeBy Andrew J. Bacevich, The American Conservative, January 29, 2007 Nothing so clearly reveals the impoverished state of American political discourse as the ongoing debate over finding "a way forward" in Iraq. Broadly speaking, that debate pits a resurgent foreign-policy establishment, led by James Baker, against embattled neoconservatives, with Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute their improbable champion. On the surface, Baker and Kagan represent irreconcilable views. Beneath the surface, they are engaged in a common enterprise: deflecting attention from the contradictions that beset U.S. policy in the Middle East. Baker, the trusted Bush family factotum, resurfaced most recently as co-chair, along with former Congressman Lee Hamilton, of the Iraq Study Group. Almost without fail, media references to the Baker-Hamilton commission emphasize its bipartisan composition as if that alone were enough to win a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Yet to imagine that bipartisanship signifies wisdom or reflects a concern for the common good is to misunderstand the reality of present-day politics. The true purpose of bipartisanship is to protect the interests of the Washington Party, the conglomeration of politicians, hustlers, and bureaucrats who benefit from the concentration of wealth and power in the federal city. A "bipartisan" solution to any problem is one that produces marginal change while preserving or restoring the underlying status quo. [complete article] The Najaf storyBy Paul Woodward, The War in Context, January 31, 2007 When it comes to the story of several hundred deaths outside Najaf, lack of information has fueled a lot of speculation. Today's storytellers are Patrick Cockburn (basing his account on) Healing Iraq, along with Juan Cole and "Badger." The Los Angeles Times provides some firsthand battlefield reporting. From that account, the description of the Mahdist cult as being "dug in" sounds altogether misleading. 30 concrete-block buildings, lots of signs of institutional organization, and a 6-foot dirt berm around their 50-acre compound, makes this sound like a defensive, insular community, rather than some kind of insurgent launch pad. That insularity no doubt bred suspicion and hostility from outside At some point if the real story emerges, I suspect that the most salient information will not come from any blogger but from the mouths of some of the 400 people who were arrested -- that is, if they are allowed to talk and there is anyone who takes the trouble to listen to what they have to say. Where's the contrition for rendition?Editorial, Los Angeles Times, January 31, 2007 Maher Arar, a software engineer who was wrongly deported by the United States to his native Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured for a year, has received an apology and an offer of $8.9 million from the government. Before you think that the Bush administration has repented for mistreating Maher, we should add that the apology and the settlement offer came from the Canadian government, whose police force supplied the U.S. with faulty intelligence identifying Maher as an Islamic terrorist. The U.S. government, far from apologizing to Maher for seizing him at John F. Kennedy Airport in 2002 and sending him to Syria, refuses to remove his name from a terrorist watch list. [complete article] See also, Germany may indict U.S. agents in 2004 abduction (LAT). Comment -- Whether anyone in the administration regrets what happened to Maher, there are multiple reasons why we're not likely to hear any such expression. Pre-eminent among those reasons will be the fear that such an admission will be used in court when administation officials, no longer protected by immunity, face criminal charges -- we can at least hope that that day will come.
Palestinian Authority: Decision to move W. Bank fence undermines peace effortsBy Meron Rapoport, Haaretz, January 31, 2007 The Palestinian Authority on Wednesday condemned Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to approve moving the separation barrier near Modi'in Ilit away from the Green Line in order to take in two settlements, as was first revealed by security sources and a brief submitted by the state to the High Court of Justice. Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator with Israel, said the Israeli move "undermines everything we're doing to revive the peace process." "The wall is the continuation of unilateralism and dictation, and destroys the prospects of any real negotiations," he added. [complete article] Despite violations, Hamas-Fatah cease-fire holdsBy Amira Hass, Haaretz, January 30, 2007 Hamas and Fatah signed a cease-fire on Monday night bringing the latest round of internecine fighting in the Palestinian Authority to an end. The agreement, which was mediated by Egyptian representatives in Gaza, seemed to be holding yesterday in spite of a few violations. A Hamas militant, who was both a member of the Iz al-Din al-Qassam (Hamas' military brigade) and an officer in the Palestinian Coast Guard, was killed yesterday in Khan Yunis when unknown persons shot him, a few hours after the cease-fire agreement was signed. The killing brought to 34 the number of dead in the latest round of internecine fighting which began on Thursday. [complete article] Stateless in MogadishuBy Alex Perry, Time, January 30, 2007 Downtown Mogadishu is a tropical Stalingrad, a bullet-raked, mortar-pounded, artillery-shelled canvas of Roman arches and Italian colonnades that that testifies to man's capacity for creation and also for destruction. Not the sort of place, in other words, that you'd expect to find a $30 million telecommunications concern doing a roaring trade in an ultra-competitive market. Yet, as Mustafa Sheikh, deputy managing director of Telcom Somalia says, the absence of a functioning government for 16 years has been a boon for private enterprise. His firm is one of three in Somalia that provides fixed-line and mobile phones, creating competition so fierce that rates are among the lowest in the world. And business is excellent. Telcom boasts an annual average return of 35% on investment since its founding in the midst of the civil war in 1994. Last December, Sheikh secured $14 million from his Chinese partners, Shenzhen-based Huawei, to upgrade his service. In total, the Somalian telecoms industry employs 65,000 people. "No taxes, no regulation, no bureaucrats -- a total free market where we can do whatever we want when we want," says Sheikh. "Somalia is Adam Smith's dream." But Somalia is also a libertarian nightmare. Private enterprise built schools, universities, postal services and a thriving export trade to the Middle East in watermelons, mangoes and camels. But it also strengthened the hand of the warlords who maintain private armies, private tax regimes and personal interpretations of the law. And without a government to enforce a monopoly of legal interpretation and sanction, Somalia has atomized into its ancient form -- a collection of hundreds of clans, sub-clans and sub-sub-clans, making Mogadishu less a city than a collection of tribal neighborhoods. As a 22-year-old Berkeley political science graduate who joined the family firm 10 months ago, Sheikh is keenly aware of what his homeland is missing. "Somalia," he says, "is why you need government." [complete article] With Iran ascendant, U.S. is seen at faultBy Anthony Shadid, Washington Post, January 30, 2007 Kuwait rarely rebuffs its ally, the United States, partly out of gratitude for the 1991 Persian Gulf War. But in October it reneged on a pledge to send three military observers to an American-led naval exercise in the Gulf, according to U.S. officials and Kuwaiti analysts. "We understood," a State Department official said. "The Kuwaitis were being careful not to antagonize the Iranians." Four years after the United States invaded Iraq, in part to transform the Middle East, Iran is ascendant, many in the region view the Americans in retreat, and Arab countries, their own feelings of weakness accentuated, are awash in sharpening sectarian currents that many blame the United States for exacerbating. Iran has deepened its relationship with Palestinian Islamic groups, assuming a financial role once filled by Gulf Arab states, in moves it sees as defensive and the United States views as aggressive. In Lebanon and Iraq, Iran is fighting proxy battles against the United States with funds, arms and ideology. And in the vacuum created by the U.S. overthrow of Iranian foes in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is exerting a power and prestige that recalls the heady days of the 1979 Islamic revolution, when Iranian clerics led the toppling of a U.S.-backed government. "The United States is the first to be blamed for the rise of Iranian influence in the Middle East," said Khaled al-Dakhil, a Saudi writer and academic. "There is one thing important about the ascendance of Iran here. It does not reflect a real change in Iranian capabilities, economic or political. It's more a reflection of the failures on the part of the U.S. and its Arab allies in the region." [complete article] See also Europe resists U.S. push to curb Iran ties (NYT). Manifest destiny: A new direction for AmericaBy William Pfaff, New York Review of Books, January 18, 2007 President George Bush has decided to disregard both the political message of the 2006 midterm election and congressional pressure for an early end to America's Iraq involvement, as well as the Baker-Hamilton proposals. These decisions are meeting much opposition, which is likely to fail. Bush's opponents have been unable to propose a course of withdrawal that is not a politically prohibited concession of American defeat and that does not risk still more destructive consequences in Iraq and probably the region -- even though the result of delayed withdrawal could be worse in all respects. Most of Bush's critics in Congress, in the press and television, and in the foreign policy community are hostage to past support of his policy and to their failure to question the political and ideological assumptions upon which it was built. This followed from a larger intellectual failure. For years there has been little or no critical reexamination of how and why the limited, specific, and ultimately successful postwar American policy of "patient but firm and vigilant containment of Soviet expansionist tendencies...and pressure against the free institutions of the Western world" (as George Kennan formulated it at the time) has over six decades turned into a vast project for "ending tyranny in the world." The Bush administration defends its pursuit of this unlikely goal by means of internationally illegal, unilateralist, and preemptive attacks on other countries, accompanied by arbitrary imprisonments and the practice of torture, and by making the claim that the United States possesses an exceptional status among nations that confers upon it special international responsibilities, and exceptional privileges in meeting those responsibilities. This is where the problem lies. Other American leaders before George Bush have made the same claim in matters of less moment. It is something like a national heresy to suggest that the United States does not have a unique moral status and role to play in the history of nations, and therefore in the affairs of the contemporary world. In fact it does not. [complete article] Putting 9/11 into perspectiveBy David A. Bell, Los Angeles Times, January 30, 2007 Imagine that on 9/11, six hours after the assault on the twin towers and the Pentagon, terrorists had carried out a second wave of attacks on the United States, taking an additional 3,000 lives. Imagine that six hours after that, there had been yet another wave. Now imagine that the attacks had continued, every six hours, for another four years, until nearly 20 million Americans were dead. This is roughly what the Soviet Union suffered during World War II, and contemplating these numbers may help put in perspective what the United States has so far experienced during the war against terrorism. It also raises several questions. Has the American reaction to the attacks in fact been a massive overreaction? Is the widespread belief that 9/11 plunged us into one of the deadliest struggles of our time simply wrong? If we did overreact, why did we do so? Does history provide any insight? [complete article] Former FM says Israel a captive of Holocaust memoriesBy Itamar Eichner, Ynet, January 30, 2007 It's time for Israeli Jews to leave behind the mentality of the victim and the ghetto, and stop making comparisons between Hitler and Arafat, Saddam Hussein or even Ahmadinejad, said former Foreign Minister Shlomi Ben-Ami in a speech to the Spanish Parliament Sunday. Such comparisons are an obstacle to Israel's relationship with the international community and, even worse, "Give legitimacy to some Palestinian comparisons between Israel and the Nazis," he said. In his speech, the keynote event in a Spanish ceremony in honor of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Ben-Ami also censured Europe and Spain's left-wing, whom he claimed lead a campaign of anti-Semitism, disguised as anti-Zionism. In particular, he condemned Nobel prizewinner Jose Saramago, who referred to Jenin as "Auschwitz". Nonetheless, he concluded his speech with criticism of Israel and Jews in general, saying "if the strongest nation in the Middle East refers to every war and every threat as a threat of Holocaust, we ourselves are making the Holocaust banal." [complete article] Jimmy Carter's Lipstadt problemBy Mark Perry, Conflicts Forum, January 27, 2007 Writing in the Washington Post on January 20, Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt joins the growing chorus of critics of former President Jimmy Carter, whose book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has created a minor public firestorm. It is not as if we need to hear more. Carter's book -- "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" -- has been eviscerated by a community of critics (including Alan Dershowitz, David Horowitz and Abraham Foxman), all of whom take issue with Carter's use of the "A" word to criticize Israel. Even the Boston Globe weighed in, calling Carter's use of the word "irresponsibly provocative." What's important about the Lipstadt commentary is that it presents a line of anti-Carter criticism we have not heard before. Lipstadt accuses Carter of ignoring the "a legacy of mistreatment, expulsion and murder committed against Jews" and says that "by almost ignoring the Holocaust, Carter gives inadvertent comfort to those who deny its importance or even its historical reality." Lipstadt comes itchy close to accusing Carter of being a Holocaust denier. [complete article] Israel will think twice before getting mixed up in GazaBy Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz, January 30, 2007 The suicide bombing in Eilat on Monday will not lead to a large military operation in the Gaza Strip. The suicide bomber came from Gaza via Sinai, but current events in Gaza are so complex that Israel will think twice before getting mixed up in them. In other words, the internecine Palestinian conflict is now Gaza's best bulwark against any Israeli operation. When Fatah and Hamas are so good at killing each other, why should Israel intervene and spur them to close ranks against the common enemy? [complete article] Omert: We will maintain cease-fireBy Aluf Benn, Amos Harel and Revital Levy-Stein, Haaretz, January 30, 2007 Prime Minister Ehud Olmert plans to maintain the cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, and will not respond to yesterday's suicide bombing in Eilat with a broad military offensive, aides said last night. The attack in the southern resort town claimed the lives of three Israelis. Olmert met with Defense Minister Amir Peretz and senior security officials yesterday in order to evaluate the ways in which Israel might respond following the attack. The bombing was carried out by an Islamic Jihad terrorist who crossed into Israel from Sinai. [complete article] Hezbollah leader Nasrallah attacks BushBy Yara Bayoumy, Reuters, January 30, 2007 Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah accused President Bush on Tuesday of creating chaos in Lebanon, rejecting his charge that the militant group and its allies were causing the violence. Sectarian clashes in Beirut last week between pro- and anti-government supporters left seven people killed, bringing back memories of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. Addressing hundreds of thousands of Shi'ite Lebanese gathered in Beirut's southern suburb for the climax of the annual Ashura religious ceremony, Nasrallah challenged Bush's latest attack against the group and said the U.S. had ordered Israel to launch last year's war against Hezbollah guerrillas. [complete article] U.S. ally and foe are trying to avert war in LebanonBy Michael Slackman, New York Times, January 30, 2007 In an unusual collaboration that could complicate American policy in the region, Iran and Saudi Arabia have been mediating an agreement to end Lebanon's violent political crisis. Leaders of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed party trying to overthrow Lebanon's government, have recently visited the Saudi king in Riyadh, according to officials who attended the meeting. And Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi chief security adviser, has met with his Iranian counterpart, Ali Larijani, in Riyadh and Tehran to try to stop Lebanon's slide into civil war. "The only hope is for the Iranians and Saudis to go further in easing the situation and bringing people back to the negotiating table," said Radwan Sayyed, an adviser to Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. The Saudi-Iranian efforts have put Washington in an awkward position, since it is trying to reduce Iran's regional influence. But since a stable Lebanon is also an American priority, American officials have watched the efforts without interfering. [complete article] Comment -- A stable Lebanon is an American priority? I suppose the American bombs dropped on Southern Lebanon last summer were all part of the "stabilization" program.
How the Lebanese town of Aita al Shaab won the war and lost almost everythingBy Nir Rosen, Mother Jones, January/February, 2007 By the third week of august, Beirut's trendy Gemmayzeh Cafe was once more full of revelers. It was the first time live music had been back since the war, and as the beers were poured and narghiles lit, an oud player finished tuning his instrument and began strumming. "God be with you, oh steadfast south," he wailed in a low voice, and the crowd of 200 or so cheered at the tribute—an old song, by the famed Wadi al-Safi, for this was not the first war southern Lebanon had endured. Then the music turned to Fairuz, songs of love and pain, and the squat old manager danced and encouraged the young women to do the same, which they did, waists shaking and arms waving and hands twisting as onlookers raised their glasses and clapped. It was almost as if life were back to normal, for indeed here in east Beirut it had barely been disrupted and there were even those in the Sunni and Christian neighborhoods who had initially hoped Israel would succeed in its war to destroy Hezbollah, a war in fact to crush the will of the mostly Shia steadfast people of the south. The 60-mile trip from Beirut south to the Israeli border might have taken a couple of hours in the past, but now it could take a day or more to navigate around roads and bridges that had been destroyed in what the Lebanese called the "July War." Beyond Tyre, the biggest city in southern Lebanon, every village I could see from the road lay in ruins. Finally, at the southernmost tip of Lebanon, past a sign spray-painted "We will be back" by Israeli soldiers, I arrived in the town of Aita al Shaab. [complete article] Equipment for added troops is lackingBy Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post, January 30, 2007 Boosting U.S. troop levels in Iraq by 21,500 would create major logistical hurdles for the Army and Marine Corps, which are short thousands of vehicles, armor kits and other equipment needed to supply the extra forces, U.S. officials said. The increase would also further degrade the readiness of U.S.-based ground forces, hampering their ability to respond quickly, fully trained and well equipped in the case of other military contingencies around the world and increasing the risk of U.S. casualties, according to Army and Marine Corps leaders. "The response would be slower than we might like, we would not have all of the equipment sets that ordinarily would be the case, and there is certainly risk associated with that," the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. James Conway, told the House Armed Services Committee last week. [complete article] French report: Former U.N. envoy Bolton says U.S. has 'no strategic interest' in united IraqAP, January 30, 2007 Former U.S. envoy to the United Nations John Bolton said in an interview published in France that the United States has "no strategic interest" in a united Iraq. Bolton, who resigned last month from his temporary appointment as U.N. ambassador, also told the French daily Le Monde that U.S. President George W. Bush's administration acted too slowly to hand power over to Iraqis after toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003. "We did a disservice to Iraqis by depriving them of political leaders," Bolton was quoted as saying, adding that the Coalition Provisional Authority that initially ran Iraq allowed terrorists to regroup. Bolton was speaking in English, and the interview was published in French. An English-language copy of the interview was not available. Bolton suggested in the interview that the United States shouldn't necessarily keep Iraq from splitting up. The Bush administration and the Iraqi government have said they don't want Iraq divided. "The United States has no strategic interest in the fact that there's one Iraq, or three Iraqs," he was quoted as saying. "We have a strategic interest in the fact of ensuring that what emerges is not a state in complete collapse, which could become a refuge for terrorists or a terrorist state." The comments marked the second time in less than a week that Bolton had criticized the Bush administration's policy. On Fox News last week, he said the United States may not be able to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons because it was following a flawed diplomatic strategy. Uighurs' detention conditions condemnedBy R. Jeffrey Smith and Julie Tate, Washington Post, January 30, 2007 Chinese Uighurs who have been imprisoned for the past month at a new state-of-the-art detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are being held around the clock in near-total isolation, a circumstance their lawyers say is rapidly degrading their mental health, according to an affidavit filed in federal court yesterday. The lawyers' complaint is the latest step in their efforts to force an expedited review of the Uighurs' confinement by the U.S. Court of Appeals, a review that the Bush administration opposes and that Congress made more difficult in legislation it passed late last year. The Uighurs' (pronounced weegurs) detention by the U.S. military, after being sold for bounty by Pakistanis in early 2002, has long attracted controversy. The men had just arrived from Afghanistan, where, they said, they had received limited military training because they opposed Chinese government control of their native region. But they said they never were allied with the Taliban or opposed to the United States, and had fled to Pakistan only to escape the U.S. bombing campaign. By 2005, U.S. military review panels determined that five of the 18 captured Uighurs were "no longer enemy combatants," but they continued to be held at the Guantanamo Bay prison until their release last year. The panels did not reach that conclusion about the other 13, though all had given similar accounts of their activities during the reviews, according to declassified transcripts of the sessions. U.S. District Judge James Robertson ruled in December 2005 that the government was unlawfully imprisoning the Uighurs who were found not to be combatants. Because China views Uighurs as members of a rebellious ethnic minority, the U.S. government declined to return the five men to China, where they faced retribution, and dozens of other nations refused to accept them. Ultimately they were sent last year from Guantanamo Bay to Albania, where they are housed in a compound run by the United Nations. Lawyers for the remaining 13 Uighurs say the men were moved in December to Guantanamo Bay's Camp 6, a high-security facility at the base completed last August at a cost of $37.9 million. The lawyers say the government provided no explanation for the move, which came shortly after they filed a court petition in Washington seeking the expedited review. In Camp 6, the Uighurs are alone in metal cells throughout the day, are prohibited for the most part from conversing with others, and take all their meals through a metal slot in the door, lawyer P. Sabin Willett said in his affidavit, which was based on what he was told during his visit Jan. 15-18. They have little or no access to sunlight or fresh air, have had nothing new to read in their native language for the past several years, and are sometimes told to undertake solitary recreation at night, he said. [complete article] Discarding an Afghan opportunityBy Selig S. Harrison, Washington Post, January 30, 2007 The British Raj learned the hard way a century ago that the Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest and historically dominant ethnic group, will unite to fight a foreign occupation force simply because it is foreign. Applying this lesson to the Afghan crisis today, British generals have been attempting in vain to change a high-profile U.S.-NATO military strategy that is helping the Taliban consolidate Pashtun support in southern Afghanistan. Bombing and strafing attacks on suspected Taliban hideouts killed at least 4,643 Afghan civilian noncombatants from October 2001 to Oct. 1, 2006, according to an exhaustive study by University of New Hampshire economist Marc W. Herold. The result has been the steady growth of anti-American sentiment focused on the U.S.-backed regime of President Hamid Karzai. "The cruelty is too much," Karzai declared last month. In tears, Karzai said that the coalition forces are "killing our children. We can't prevent the terrorists from coming from Pakistan, we can't stop the coalition from bombing the terrorists, and our children are dying because of this." [complete article] Twisting arms isn't as easy as dropping bombsBy Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post, January 29, 2007 Whenever the United States goes to war, pro-war and antiwar advocates immediately reach for different history books. Hawks always equate the situation to a Hitler-Chamberlain standoff to show why hesitation can be fatal. Doves invariably pull the Vietnam War off the shelf to argue that plunging ahead can be foolhardy. Two wars that the United States has launched against Iraq perfectly illustrate the problem with cherry-picking your history. Hawks and doves made their usual arguments before the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Antiwar advocates who predicted that forcing Saddam Hussein to retreat from Kuwait would result in thousands of U.S. casualties were proved wrong by Operation Desert Storm. And the neoconservatives who warned that ignoring Hussein's weapons of mass destruction was like appeasing Hitler now have egg yolk dribbling down their faces. The history book getting the most attention right now is about the 1954-1962 French colonial war in Algeria. Hundreds of thousands of people died in that conflict before Algerian guerrillas handed the French army a humiliating defeat. President Bush said he is reading Alistair Horne's account of the conflict, "A Savage War for Peace," to glean insights about the U.S. predicament in Iraq. Horne, a British historian, recently told PBS's Charlie Rose that he sees similarities and differences between the U.S. war in Iraq and the French war in Algeria -- and hopes his book will help Bush find a way to succeed in Iraq. Political scientist Patricia Sullivan recently decided to take a different tack than the political pundits. Rather than look for a single war to provide insight, Sullivan decided to look at all post-World War II conflicts between the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and weaker nations. [complete article] What happened outside Najaf?By Paul Woodward, The War in Context, January 30, 2007 Comb through reports from the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post, along with analysis from the BBC and Juan Cole, and it becomes apparent that so far, no one has really got a handle on this story. As usual, "Badger" helps peel back some of the confusion by revealing more of the complexity. And what does President Bush make of all this? "So my first reaction on this report from the battlefield is that the Iraqis are beginning to show me something." Hundreds of dead bodies. Not sure who they are, but our bullets and bombs killed them. How much more does this president need to know? |