Daily Archives: January 31, 2008

NEWS: The war toll

Iraq conflict has killed a million Iraqis: survey
Reuters, January 30, 2008

More than one million Iraqis have died as a result of the conflict in their country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to research conducted by one of Britain’s leading polling groups.

The survey, conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB) with 2,414 adults in face-to-face interviews, found that 20 percent of people had had at least one death in their household as a result of the conflict, rather than natural causes. [complete article]

Soldier suicides at record level
By Dana Priest, Washington Post, January 31, 2008

Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside, a psychiatric outpatient at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who was waiting for the Army to decide whether to court-martial her for endangering another soldier and turning a gun on herself last year in Iraq, attempted to kill herself Monday evening. In so doing, the 25-year-old Army reservist joined a record number of soldiers who have committed or tried to commit suicide after serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. [complete article]

Battle concussions tied to stress disorder
By Benedict Carey, New York Times, January 31, 2008

About one in six combat troops returning from Iraq have suffered at least one concussion in the war, injuries that, while temporary, could heighten their risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder, researchers are reporting. [complete article]

U.S. commanders in Iraq favor pause in troop cuts
By Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, January 31, 2008

Senior U.S. military commanders here say they want to freeze troop reductions starting this summer for at least a month, making it more likely that the next administration will inherit as many troops in Iraq as there were before President Bush announced a “surge” of forces a year ago.

There are about 155,000 U.S. troops in Iraq now, with about 5,000 leaving every month; the proposed freeze would go into effect in July, when troops levels reach around 130,000. Although violence is dropping in Iraq, commanders say they want to halt withdrawals to assess whether they can control the situation with fewer troops. [complete article]

Bomb takes death toll of journalists in Iraq war to 126
By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, January 31, 2008

IIraq confirmed its reputation as the most dangerous country in the world for journalists this week when a roadside bomb killed an Iraqi television cameraman, Alaa Abdul-Karim al-Fartoosi, the first journalist to be killed in Iraq this year and the 126th since the start of the war. [complete article]

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CAMPAIGN 08: Judgment trumps experience

Obama, Clinton and the war
By Robert Scheer, Truthdig, January 29, 2008

It should mean a great deal to progressives that in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination Sen. Ted Kennedy favors Sen. Barack Obama over two other colleagues he has worked with in the Senate. No one in the history of that institution has been a more consistent and effective fighter than Kennedy for an enlightened agenda, be it civil rights and liberty, gender equality, labor and immigrant justice, environmental protection, educational opportunity or opposing military adventures.

Kennedy was a rare sane voice among the Democrats in strongly opposing the Iraq war, and it is no small tribute when he states: “We know the record of Barack Obama. There is the courage he showed when so many others were silent or simply went along. From the beginning, he opposed the war in Iraq. And let no one deny that truth.”

But that is precisely the truth that Sen. Hillary Clinton has shamelessly sought to obscure. Her supporters have accepted Clinton’s refusal to repudiate her vote to authorize the war, an ignominious moment she shares with other Democrats, including presidential candidate John Edwards, who at least has made a point of regretting it. It was a vote that has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, 3,940 U.S. service members—five more on Monday—and a debt in the trillions of dollars that will prevent the funding of needed domestic programs that Clinton claims to support. And it doesn’t end with Iraq. Clinton has been equally hawkish toward Iran and, in a Margaret Thatcher-like moment, even attacked Obama for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons against Osama bin Laden. [complete article]

After mining deal, financier donated to Clinton
By Jo Becker and Don Van Natta Jr., New York Times, January 31, 2008

LLate on Sept. 6, 2005, a private plane carrying the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra touched down in Almaty, a ruggedly picturesque city in southeast Kazakhstan. Several hundred miles to the west a fortune awaited: highly coveted deposits of uranium that could fuel nuclear reactors around the world. And Mr. Giustra was in hot pursuit of an exclusive deal to tap them.

Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra on his luxuriously appointed MD-87 jet that day was a former president of the United States, Bill Clinton.

Upon landing on the first stop of a three-country philanthropic tour, the two men were whisked off to share a sumptuous midnight banquet with Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, whose 19-year stranglehold on the country has all but quashed political dissent.

Mr. Nazarbayev walked away from the table with a propaganda coup, after Mr. Clinton expressed enthusiastic support for the Kazakh leader’s bid to head an international organization that monitors elections and supports democracy. Mr. Clinton’s public declaration undercut both American foreign policy and sharp criticism of Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record by, among others, Mr. Clinton’s wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. [complete article]

Clinton remained silent as Wal-Mart fought unions
By Brian Ross, Maddy Sauer, and Rhonda Schwartz, ABC News, January 31, 2008

In six years as a member of the Wal-Mart board of directors, between 1986 and 1992, Hillary Clinton remained silent as the world’s largest retailer waged a major campaign against labor unions seeking to represent store workers.

Clinton has been endorsed for president by more than a dozen unions, according to her campaign Web site, which omits any reference to her role at Wal-Mart in its detailed biography of her.

Wal-Mart’s anti-union efforts were headed by one of Clinton’s fellow board members, John Tate, a Wal-Mart executive vice president who also served on the board with Clinton for four of her six years.

Tate was fond of repeating, as he did at a managers meeting in 2004 after his retirement, what he said was his favorite phrase, “Labor unions are nothing but blood-sucking parasites living off the productive labor of people who work for a living.” [complete article]

Obamania in action
By Rosa Brooks, Los Angeles Times, January 31, 2008

Is endorsing Barack Obama the new cool? Not long ago, Hillary Rodham Clinton was the seemingly inevitable front-runner for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Obama was the insurgent. He was pulling in young voters, independents and new voters, but he lacked the blessing of the party’s heavyweights.

That’s changed. Obama’s success in moving beyond the traditional party base — combined with serious Clinton fatigue — is leading many seasoned Democratic leaders to rethink their earlier assumptions. John Kerry, Patrick Leahy, Claire McCaskill and Tom Daschle, among others, have lined up behind Obama, and the last few days brought Obama a surge of new, high-profile endorsements from such luminaries as Ted Kennedy and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison.

His endorsers are right to see Obama as their party’s best hope for 2008. Though skeptics contend that Obama lacks “experience,” this concern makes sense only if you think you have to be a Washington insider to be qualified to run for president. Obama began his career as a community organizer and civil rights attorney in Chicago — relevant background for someone who will have to deal with tough economic and social justice issues as president. He was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996 and the U.S. Senate in 2004; in all, he’s spent 11 years being directly accountable to voters (that’s four more than Clinton). [complete article]

Volcker joins list of Obama backers
By Jackie Calmes, Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2008

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, the latest big name to endorse Sen. Barack Obama, could give the Illinois Democrat a boost by lending his gravitas in the financial world to a presidential candidate whose biggest hurdle is to convince voters he is experienced enough.

“After 30 years in government, serving under five Presidents of both parties and chairing two non-partisan commissions on the Public Service, I have been reluctant to engage in political campaigns. The time has come to overcome that reluctance,” Volcker, a Democrat, said in a statement today. “However, it is not the current turmoil in markets or the economic uncertainties that have impelled my decision. Rather, it is the breadth and depth of challenges that face our nation at home and abroad. Those challenges demand a new leadership and a fresh approach.” [complete article]

Obama’s $32 million haul
By eff Zeleny, New York Times, January 31, 2008

A $32 million month.

That’s how much Senator Barack Obama has raised so far in January, according to his campaign manager, David Plouffe, who announced the first fund-raising tally of 2008. The campaign attracted 170,000 new contributors during the month, he said.

“Obviously this contest could go on for some time in the primary.’’ Mr. Plouffe said, speaking to reporters on a conference call earlier this morning. “We think the strength of our financial position and the number of donors does speak to financial sustainability.” [complete article]

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PREVIEW: 9/11 Commission uncensored

The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation
By Max Holland, Washington Decoded, January 30, 2008

In a revelation bound to cast a pall over the 9/11 Commission, Philip Shenon will report in a forthcoming book that the panel’s executive director, Philip Zelikow, engaged in “surreptitious” communications with presidential adviser Karl Rove and other Bush administration officials during the commission’s 20-month investigation into the 9/11 attacks.

Shenon, who led The New York Times’ coverage of the 9/11 panel, reveals the Zelikow-Rove connection in a new book entitled The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation, to be published next month by TWELVE books. The Commission is under an embargo until its February 5 publication, but Washington DeCoded managed to purchase a copy of the abridged audio version from a New York bookstore.

In what’s termed an “investigation of the investigation,” Shenon purports to tell the story of the commission from start to finish. The book’s critical revelations, however, revolve almost entirely around the figure of Philip Zelikow, a University of Virginia professor and director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs prior to his service as the commission’s executive director. Shenon delivers a blistering account of Zelikow’s role and leadership, and an implicit criticism of the commissioners for appointing Zelikow in the first place—and then allowing him to stay on after his myriad conflicts-of-interest were revealed under oath. [complete article]

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FEATURE: Barreling into recession

How oil burst the American bubble
By Michael T. Klare, TomDispatch, January 31, 2008

The economic bubble that lifted the stock market to dizzying heights was sustained as much by cheap oil as by cheap (often fraudulent) mortgages. Likewise, the collapse of the bubble was caused as much by costly (often imported) oil as by record defaults on those improvident mortgages. Oil, in fact, has played a critical, if little commented upon, role in America’s current economic enfeeblement — and it will continue to drain the economy of wealth and vigor for years to come. [complete article]

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NEWS & OPINION: Winograd; Jerusalem; Palestinian talks

Olmert: His own shlemiel, or Bush’s?
By Tony Karon, Rootless Cosmopolitan, January 31, 2008

While Israel’s Winograd Commission has certainly pulled no punches in excoriating the Israeli military and political leadership for their botched war in Lebanon last summer, there appears to be a massive lacuna in its conclusions. (I’m not even going to get into the question of cluster bombs and other military actions by Israel in that conflict that contravene international law.) Israel clearly went to war in haste without a considered plan, without weighing alternatives, without establishing clear objectives and without an exit strategy. That much Winograd was prepared to say bluntly. But what he doesn’t explain is why things played out in this way.

And here, I think, he’s avoiding the elephant in the room: the very clear sense, throughout the Lebanon misadventure, that Israel was coordinating its actions with Washington to an extent that the Bush Administration’s own decisions had a decisive impact on how Israel waged its campaign. Once Israel had launche its initial air raids, the U.S. quickly moved to define the objectives of the war in terms far more expansive than Israel had ever intended, using its diplomatic veto to block a ceasefire that the Israeli leadership had, in fact, been counting on when they began. I had previously written about how in order to truly understand the brutal botchup of Lebanon, the commission would have to probe the U.S. role in Israel’s decision making — the war was one in which I believe Israeli leaders ceded an unprecedented level of control over Israeli decisions to the United States. [complete article]

See also, Opposition leader Netanyahu: Olmert is incompetent, unfit to lead (Haaretz).

Jewish group to build 200 new housing units in East Jerusalem
By Meron Rapoport, Haaretz, January 31, 2008

The Yemin Yehuda non-profit association has begun building 200 housing units in the Shimon Hatzaddik compound, in the heart of East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarra neighborhood. In the process, the organization intends to demolish the homes of dozens of Palestinian families who live there.

This neighborhood is in a strategic location: If Yemin Yehuda completes its plan, it will cut the Old City off from the Palestinian neighborhoods in northern Jerusalem.

MK Benny Elon (National Union-National Religious Party), who supports building the new neighborhood, says it is designed to create a Jewish continuum surrounding the Old City, where there currently is a massive Palestinian majority. [complete article]

Islamic Jihad urges Hamas, Fatah to start dialogue
Xinhua, January 31, 2008

Islamic Jihad movement on Thursday urged Hamas and Fatah movement benefit from both being in Cairo and start a reconciliation dialogue.

“We must get out from the internal infighting and its results,” said Naffez Azzam, an Islamic Jihad leader, during a demonstration in front of the sealed-off Rafah crossing point in southern Gaza Strip. [complete article]

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NEWS: “NATO is not winning in Afghanistan”

Calls grow for shift in Afghan policy
By David R. Sands, Washington Times, January 31, 2008

The Bush administration faces increasing pressure to make a major policy course correction on Afghanistan, shifting the focus from Iraq to fight a resurgent terrorist threat and build up the faltering government in Kabul.

A Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing today is set to take up a string of new reports warning that the political and economic situations in Afghanistan are deteriorating amid growing strains between the United States and its NATO allies over the military mission there. [complete article]

Demise of al-Qaida’s ‘number three’
By Jason Burke, The Guardian, January 31, 2008

If Abu Laith al-Libi is indeed dead, then there is a certain inevitability to his sudden demise.

The Libyan militant has lived dangerously for nearly two decades, starting his career in militant groups in his homeland before turning to operations in Saudi Arabia in the mid-90s.

In 1999 or thereabouts Libi, believed to be aged in his 40s, surfaced in Afghanistan, operating as both a field commander and later a spokesman for al-Qaida. His most recent post was his most dangerous to date. [complete article]

Suicide bomber kills Afghan official
By Taimoor Shah and Abdul Waheed Wafa, New York Times, February 1, 2008

The deputy governor of Helmand Province and five others were killed by a suicide bomber during afternoon prayers in a mosque in the provincial capital, Afghan officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

The deputy, Hajji Pir Mohammad, was dead on arrival at a hospital in the capital, Lashkar Gah, the duty doctor there said, and at least 21 injured people, including a 5-year-old boy, were treated.

The bomb went off just after 1 p.m. in a mosque near the governor’s office, the provincial police chief, Muhammad Hussain Andiwal, said. He confirmed that six people, including the deputy governor, were killed as they were praying. [complete article]

Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women’s rights
By Kim Sengupta, The Independent, January 31, 2008

A young man, a student of journalism, is sentenced to death by an Islamic court for downloading a report from the internet. The sentence is then upheld by the country’s rulers. This is Afghanistan – not in Taliban times but six years after “liberation” and under the democratic rule of the West’s ally Hamid Karzai.

The fate of Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has led to domestic and international protests, and deepening concern about erosion of civil liberties in Afghanistan. He was accused of blasphemy after he downloaded a report from a Farsi website which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed. [complete article]

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NEWS: Musharraf vs. Chaudhry

Ex-military men want Musharraf to hand judge power
By Augustine Anthony, Reuters, January 31, 2008

A group of retired senior military officers said on Thursday President Pervez Musharraf should hand over power to the judge he sacked three months ago to ensure national elections are fair.

The backing for deposed Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry from old generals, air marshals, admirals and intelligence chiefs coincided with protests by lawyers in support of the judge and the independence of the judiciary. [complete article]

Pakistani justice breaks silence
By Salman Masood, New York Times, January 31, 2008

Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the former chief justice of Pakistan who was removed last year when President Pervez Musharraf imposed a state of emergency, has finally broken his silence.

A letter from Mr. Chaudhry to Western officials was circulated Wednesday. It lambasted Mr. Musharraf for quashing Pakistan’s independent judiciary and illegally detaining him and his family, and noted that the Supreme Court had not had a chance to rule on whether it was legal for Mr. Musharraf to run for re-election in December.

It was Mr. Chaudhry’s second public statement since the start of emergency rule on Nov. 3, when he was confined to his official residence. On Nov. 6, he made a telephone address to opposition lawyers in Islamabad, urging the nation to rise up for the restoration of the Constitution. Emergency rule was lifted Dec. 15. [complete article]

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