Author Archives: Paul Woodward

Israeli settlement expansion may bring one-state solution closer

Israeli settlement expansion may bring one-state solution closer
By Paul Woodward, The National, September 8, 2009

As Israel announced plans to expand settlements in the West Bank in anticipation of a settlement “freeze”, the former US president, Jimmy Carter, who recently returned from a trip to the Holy Land, suggested that the implementation of a two-state solution is becoming increasingly unlikely.

“A more likely alternative to the present debacle is one state, which is obviously the goal of Israeli leaders who insist on colonising the West Bank and East Jerusalem. A majority of the Palestinian leaders with whom we met are seriously considering acceptance of one state, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. By renouncing the dream of an independent Palestine, they would become fellow citizens with their Jewish neighbours and then demand equal rights within a democracy. In this nonviolent civil rights struggle, their examples would be Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela.”

Mr Carter belongs to a group of veteran world leaders, known as the Elders, who recently visited Israel and the West Bank. Another member of the group, former Irish president and UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson told The Jerusalem Post last month that if Israel does not freeze settlement construction, a two-state solution may no longer be possible. [continued…]

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Airline bomb plotters case threatened by US fears

Airline bomb plotters case threatened by US fears
By Vikram Dodd and Lee Glendinning, The Guardian, September 8, 2009

Several months of high-level surveillance on the key suspects in the airline bomb plot was almost foiled by the nervousness of US authorities who “lost their nerve”, according to Scotland Yard’s then head of counter-terrorism operations.

Andy Hayman, who was assistant commissioner specialist operations in the Metropolitan police in 2006, today outlined how the suspects were being filmed, their purchases and rubbish monitored and cars bugged in the lead-up to their arrests in August 2006, but said the police operation in the UK came close to being undermined by anxiousness from the US that the plotters be arrested as soon as possible.

“At the very highest level, the Americans wanted to be reassured that this was not going to slip through our hands. I was briefing the home secretary, who was briefing Tony Blair, who was briefing George Bush…” he wrote in the Times today. [continued…]

Why I suspect jittery Americans nearly ruined efforts to foil plot
By Andy Hayman, The Times, September 8, 2009

For several months in 2006 the key suspects in the airline plot — some of whom were convicted yesterday — were under intensive surveillance.

We logged every item they bought, we sifted every piece of rubbish they threw away (at their homes or in litterbins). We filmed and listened to them; we broke into their homes and cars to plant bugs and searched their luggage when they passed through airports.

We had been concerned about this group since early 2006. They were linked to a suspicious bookshop in Forest Gate, East London, and knew one of the July 21 bombers. The inquiry was labelled Operation Overt.

When a key figure, Abdulla Ahmed Ali, returned from Pakistan in June 2006, we searched his luggage and resealed it without him noticing. Inside was a soft drink powder, Tang, and a large number of batteries; they were bombmaking components and their discovery led to a step change in the operation. Another man, Assad Sarwar, seemed to be taking on the role of quartermaster — buying clamps, drills, syringes, glue and latex gloves. We watched him dispose of empty hydrogen peroxide containers; the substance could be used to dye hair or, as in July 2005, as an essential explosives component.

We were on their tail when Ali bought a flat in Walthamstow for £138,000 cash and we “burgled” the property to wire it up for covert sound and cameras. We watched as they experimented with turning soft-drinks containers into bottle bombs, listened as they recorded martyrdom videos and heard them discuss “18 or 19”. Were they talking about numbers of targets, bombs or bombers? [continued…]

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U.S. tried to soften treaty on detainees

U.S. tried to soften treaty on detainees
By R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post, September 8, 2009

From 2003 to 2006, the Bush administration quietly tried to relax the draft language of a treaty meant to bar and punish “enforced disappearances” so that those overseeing the CIA’s secret prison system would not be criminally prosecuted under its provisions, according to former officials and hundreds of pages of documents recently declassified by the State Department.

The aim of the global treaty, long supported by the United States, was to end official kidnappings, detentions and killings like those that plagued Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s, and that allegedly still occur in Russia, China, Iran, Colombia, Sri Lanka and elsewhere. But the documents suggest that initial U.S. support for the negotiations collided head-on with the then-undisclosed goal of seizing suspected terrorists anywhere in the world for questioning by CIA interrogators or indefinite detention by the U.S. military at foreign sites.

Instead of embracing a far-reaching ban on arrests, detentions and abductions of people without disclosing their fate or whereabouts or ensuring “the protection of the law,” the United States pressed in 2004 for a more limited prohibition on intentionally placing detainees outside legal protections for “a prolonged period of time.” At the time, the CIA was secretly holding about a dozen prisoners. [continued…]

The complicit general
By Philippe Sands, New York Review of Books, September 24, 2009

With regard to the interrogation of detainees after September 11, it is well established that the path to torture was based on three key decisions. First, on February 7, 2002, President Bush decided that none of the detainees held at Guantánamo would have any legal rights under the Geneva Conventions. Second, starting in July 2002 the administration decided to authorize the use of waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” against certain detainees held by the CIA, and obtained legal approval from the Department of Justice, in the form of two now notorious memos signed by Jay Bybee and largely written by John Yoo, with input from Dick Cheney’s legal counsel, David Addington.[1] Third, on December 2, 2002, came Secretary Rumsfeld’s memo approving the use of fifteen techniques on prisoners held by the military at Guantánamo, causing the military to adopt some of the interrogation practices used by the CIA. Each decision was significant. The cumulative effect was devastating, opening the path to the abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. [continued…]

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Measuring success in Afghanistan

Measuring success in Afghanistan
By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch, September 8, 2009

Here may be the single strangest fact of our American world: that at least three administrations — Ronald Reagan’s, George W. Bush’s, and now Barack Obama’s — drew the U.S. “defense” perimeter at the Hindu Kush; that is, in the rugged, mountainous lands of Afghanistan. Put another way, while Americans argue feverishly and angrily over what kind of money, if any, to put into health care, or decaying infrastructure, or other key places of need, until recently just about no one in the mainstream raised a peep about the fact that, for nearly eight years (not to say much of the last three decades), we’ve been pouring billions of dollars, American military know-how, and American lives into a black hole in Afghanistan that is, at least in significant part, of our own creation.

Imagine for a moment, as you read this post, what might have happened if Americans had decided to sink the same sort of money — $228 billion and rising fast — the same “civilian surges,” the same planning, thought, and effort (but not the same staggering ineffectiveness) into reclaiming New Orleans or Detroit, or into planning an American future here at home. Imagine, for a moment, when you read about the multi-millions going into further construction at Bagram Air Base, or to the mercenary company that provides “Lord of the Flies” hire-a-gun guards for American diplomats in massive super-embassies, or about the half-a-billion dollars sunk into a corrupt and fraudulent Afghan election, what a similar investment in our own country might have meant.

Ask yourself: Wouldn’t the U.S. have been safer and more secure if all the money, effort, and planning had gone towards “nation-building” in America? Or do you really think we’re safer now, with an official unemployment rate of 9.7%, an underemployment rate of 16.8%, and a record 25.5% teen unemployment rate, with soaring health-care costs, with vast infrastructural weaknesses and failures, and in debt up to our eyeballs, while tens of thousands of troops and massive infusions of cash are mustered ostensibly to fight a terrorist outfit that may number in the low hundreds or at most thousands, that, by all accounts, isn’t now even based in Afghanistan, and that has shown itself perfectly capable of settling into broken states like Somalia or well functioning cities like Hamburg. [continued…]

Evidence of ballot fraud for Karzai forces U.S. into action
By Matthew Rosenberg and Anand Gopal, Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2009

Evidence of electoral fraud on behalf of incumbent Afghan President Hamid Karzai has become so overwhelming, some U.S. and Western officials say, that they are scrambling to avoid a potential political crisis if he claims victory.

Afghanistan’s election commission decided Monday that it will release a complete preliminary tally from the Aug. 20 presidential election, including votes tainted by fraud charges but not disqualified, a commission official said. Western officials now say they believe almost one of every six of Afghanistan’s more than 25,000 polling stations is tainted by fraud, most of it on behalf of Mr. Karzai.

Including those votes, the preliminary tally is expected to show Mr. Karzai with more than 50% of the vote — enough to avoid a runoff election, Afghan and Western officials say. [continued…]

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Ahmadinejad invites six powers to Tehran

Ahmadinejad invites six powers to Tehran
By Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post, September 8, 2009

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday invited representatives from a group of six world powers, including the United States, to Tehran, but he said negotiations over his country’s right to a nuclear program would be off the table.

Discussion on the nuclear issue, he told reporters at a news conference, is “finished.”

“We will never negotiate on the Iranian nation’s obvious rights,” he said, adding that Iran would not halt its uranium enrichment efforts. Ahmadinejad said Iran had prepared a proposal for breaking the deadlock on its nuclear program, and he asked diplomats to come to Tehran to pick it up. [continued…]

Ahmadinejad levels new broadside at opponents
By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, September 8, 2009

Three months after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad derided his opponents as “dirt and dust,” sending hundreds of thousands of angry protesters into the streets, he risked enraging them again Monday by likening them to “pollutants” staining “the gown of the revolution.”

The comment, during prepared remarks at a news conference, drew an immediate rebuke from a conservative clerical association in the holy city of Qom, which urged the president and his staff to “concentrate their minds seriously on economic woes and social challenges and avoid uttering unnecessary and provocative remarks.”

But along with Ahmadinejad’s defiant and boastful tone on the sensitive nuclear issue, Monday’s statement also suggested that three months of the worst domestic unrest in the Islamic Republic’s history had not caused the president to change his ways. [continued…]

Khamenei tells Ahmadinejad to listen to criticism
By Hiedeh Farmani, AFP, September 7, 2009

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to listen to “benevolent criticism” as the hardliner began another term in office amid opposition claims his re-election was fraudulent.

“There is internal criticism backed by foreign media with the aim of sabotage but there is also benevolent criticism which may not come from supporters of the government but they contain good comments,” Khamenei said in a meeting with Ahmadinejad and his cabinet, state television reported.

He called on the government to have its “ears open to criticism.”

Also on Monday a leading Iranian conservative clerical group told Ahmadinejad to avoid “provocative” comments, in a first such message to the hardliner whose disputed re-election has bitterly divided the political elite. [continued…]

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Israel gets tough on intermarriage

Israel gets tough on intermarriage
By Jonathan Cook, The National, September 7, 2009

The Israeli government has launched a television and internet advertising campaign urging Israelis to inform on Jewish friends and relatives abroad who may be in danger of marrying non-Jews.

The advertisements, employing what the Israeli media described as “scare tactics”, are designed to stop assimilation through intermarriage among young diaspora Jews by encouraging them to move to Israel.

The campaign, which cost US$800,000 (Dh2.9 million), was created in response to reports that half of all Jews outside Israel marry non-Jews. It is just one of several initiatives by the Israeli state and private organisations to try to increase the size of Israel’s Jewish population. [continued…]

‘Missing Jews’ video shows Israeli chutzpah towards Diaspora Jewry
By Benjamin L. Hartman, Haaretz, September 7, 2009

An Israel outreach program has pulled from its Web site a campaign video meant to scare the Israeli public about the inevitable ‘de-Judaization’ that occurs to good Jewish stock in the Diaspora.

The Masa organization last week released a video, which shows eery headshots of young, smiling youths with painfully Jewish names. Each of these faces gaze at the camera from atop flyers that read ‘Missing’ and ‘Lost’ in English, Russian, and Spanish.

Though the organization could not be reached for comment Tuesday, the video no longer appears on Masa’s Web site, YouTube or Facebook pages.

The unexpected viral reaction it has stirred among Diaspora Jews both still abroad and in Israel may have something to do with its sudden removal. Continue reading →

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Despite slump, U.S. role as top arms supplier grows

Despite slump, U.S. role as top arms supplier grows
By Thom Shanker, New York Times, September 7, 2009

Despite a recession that knocked down global arms sales last year, the United States expanded its role as the world’s leading weapons supplier, increasing its share to more than two-thirds of all foreign armaments deals, according to a new Congressional study.

The United States signed weapons agreements valued at $37.8 billion in 2008, or 68.4 percent of all business in the global arms bazaar, up significantly from American sales of $25.4 billion the year before.

Italy was a distant second, with $3.7 billion in worldwide weapons sales in 2008, while Russia was third with $3.5 billion in arms sales last year — down considerably from the $10.8 billion in weapons deals signed by Moscow in 2007. [continued…]

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Should Obama go ‘all in’ on Afghanistan?

Should Obama go ‘all in’ on Afghanistan?
By Andrew J. Bacevich, Los Angeles Times, September 7, 2009

Obama does not act impulsively. Before betting his remaining chips on Afghanistan, he will no doubt deliberate carefully. He will consult. He will sift through all the evidence. Yet before hitting the “start over” button on Afghanistan, he would do well to consider the following: Sometimes the essence of leadership is not to render the right decision but to pose the right question.

As difficult as it is to do so at a time when war has become a seemingly perpetual condition, when it comes to Afghanistan, the really urgent need is to recast the debate. Official Washington obsesses over the question: How do we win? Yet perhaps a different question merits presidential consideration: What alternatives other than open-ended war might enable the United States to achieve its limited interests in Afghanistan?

At this pivotal moment in his presidency, if Obama is going to demonstrate his ability to lead, he will direct his subordinates to identify those alternatives. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — For Obama to pose the right question he would need to have not already given the wrong answer. Having emphatically called this a “war of necessity” makes it incredibly difficult to climb out of the rhetorical hole he has dug himself into, for it there are alternatives there can be no necessity.

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The path to peace is hard to find on Obama’s ‘roadmapolis’

The path to peace is hard to find on Obama’s ‘roadmapolis’
By Tony Karon, The National, September 5, 2009

President Bush’s “road map” first emerged as the US began preparing to invade Iraq. Key Arab regimes had long made clear to Washington that the price of even tacit support for the war was American willingness to address a conflict that generated immense hostility towards the US on the Arab street. The “road map” read like a crack of the whip, outlining a timetable that promised a provisional Palestinian state by the end of 2003 and a resolution of all final status issues by the beginning of 2005. But the Bush administration gave the Israelis and Palestinians no reason to take it seriously; its purely symbolic purpose was plain to see.

The Bush administration made a second high-profile stab at the peace process in the form of the Annapolis Conference held in November 2007, which drew in not only the Israelis and Palestinians, but also a range of Arab states – in what it portrayed as a symbolic affirmation of the administration’s policy of building an alliance of Arab moderates with the US and Israel against the region’s radicals, namely Hamas, Hizbollah, Syria and Iran. Again, there was little reason for the Israelis or Palestinians to take the process seriously. Annapolis simply invited them to talk among themselves about what a peace agreement could look like. The conversation went nowhere, of course, but the fact that it was happening at all was the point for the Bush administration, whose new priority had become rallying Arab support against Iran and its allies.

So what does any of this have to with the US president Barack Obama’s own efforts to jump start the peace process? After all, Mr Obama made it a priority from the get-go of his presidency and can hardly be accused of going through the motions in order to mollify the Arabs to win their support on other issues. Or can he? [continued…]

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The Afghanistan abyss

The Afghanistan abyss
By Nicholas D Kristoff, New York Times, September 6, 2009

President Obama has already dispatched an additional 21,000 American troops to Afghanistan and soon will decide whether to send thousands more. That would be a fateful decision for his presidency, and a group of former intelligence officials and other experts is now reluctantly going public to warn that more troops would be a historic mistake.

The group’s concern — dead right, in my view — is that sending more American troops into ethnic Pashtun areas in the Afghan south may only galvanize local people to back the Taliban in repelling the infidels.

“Our policy makers do not understand that the very presence of our forces in the Pashtun areas is the problem,” the group said in a statement to me. “The more troops we put in, the greater the opposition. We do not mitigate the opposition by increasing troop levels, but rather we increase the opposition and prove to the Pashtuns that the Taliban are correct.

“The basic ignorance by our leadership is going to cause the deaths of many fine American troops with no positive outcome,” the statement said. [continued…]

Can victory for President Karzai be taken as legitimate?
By Bronwen Maddox, The Times, September 6, 2009

Western diplomats have been afraid of this predicament ever since the poll results began to come in, with an apparent lead for President Karzai accompanied by a torrent of allegations of fraud. Mr Karzai is now within a whisker of the 50 per cent that would allow him to him claim victory and prevent a run-off vote. But the huge number of serious allegations of fraud — in the thousands, but with at least 600 material to the outcome of the election — mean that it is hard to take his victory as legitimate.

That, certainly, is the view of Abdullah Abdullah, his main rival, and Abdullah supporters. They are threatening to challenge the result through legal appeals and through violence if necessary. The studied position of British and US officials for the past week — that it is for Afghans to decide whether or not the polls produce a credible and legitimate result — is about to shatter. If substantial numbers of Afghans decide that the vote was rigged, what do other governments do then? They have had no answer, hoping not to be in that position. They had better find one now. [continued…]

Fake Afghan poll sites favored Karzai, officials assert
By Dexter Filkins and Carlotta Gall, New York Times, September 7, 2009

Afghans loyal to President Hamid Karzai set up hundreds of fictitious polling sites where no one voted but where hundreds of thousands of ballots were still recorded toward the president’s re-election, according to senior Western and Afghan officials here.

The fake sites, as many as 800, existed only on paper, said a senior Western diplomat in Afghanistan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the political delicacy of the vote. Local workers reported that hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of votes for Mr. Karzai in the election last month came from each of those places. That pattern was confirmed by another Western official based in Afghanistan.

“We think that about 15 percent of the polling sites never opened on Election Day,” the senior Western diplomat said. “But they still managed to report thousands of ballots for Karzai.”

Besides creating the fake sites, Mr. Karzai’s supporters also took over approximately 800 legitimate polling centers and used them to fraudulently report tens of thousands of additional ballots for Mr. Karzai, the officials said. [continued…]

Sole informant guided decision on Afghan strike
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post, September 6, 2009

To the German commander, it seemed to be a fortuitous target: More than 100 Taliban insurgents were gathering around two hijacked fuel tankers that had become stuck in the mud near this small farming village.

The grainy live video transmitted from an American F-15E fighter jet circling overhead, which was projected on a screen in a German tactical operations center four miles north of here, showed numerous black dots around the trucks — each of them a thermal image of a human but without enough detail to confirm whether they were carrying weapons. An Afghan informant was on the phone with an intelligence officer at the center, however, insisting that everybody at the site was an insurgent, according to an account that German officers here provided to NATO officials.

Based largely on that informant’s assessment, the commander ordered a 500-pound, satellite-guided bomb to be dropped on each truck early Friday. The vehicles exploded in a fireball that lit up the night sky for miles, incinerating many of those standing nearby.

A NATO fact-finding team estimated Saturday that about 125 people were killed in the bombing, at least two dozen of whom — but perhaps many more — were not insurgents. To the team, which is trying to sort out this complicated incident, mindful that the fallout could further sap public support in Afghanistan for NATO’s security mission here, the target appeared to be far less clear-cut than it had to the Germans.

One survivor, convalescing from abdominal wounds at a hospital in the nearby city of Kunduz, said he went to the site because he thought he could get free fuel. Another patient, a 10-year-old boy with shrapnel in his left leg, said he went to gawk, against his father’s advice. In Kabul, the Afghan capital, relatives of two severely burned survivors being treated at an intensive-care unit said Taliban fighters forced dozens of villagers to assist in moving the bogged-down tankers.

“They came to everyone’s house asking for help,” said Mirajuddin, a shopkeeper who lost six of his cousins in the bombing — none of whom, he said, was an insurgent. “They started beating people and pointing guns. They said, ‘Bring your tractors and help us.’ What could we do?” [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — The striking gap in this account is the absence of testimony from the pilots who released the 500-pound bombs. It’s as though they were merely small cogs in a military machine within which they had little control. Yet we do learn one thing: one of the F-15 pilots recommended dropping 2000-pound bombs. Based on the thermal images he could see, there was little he could discern about the individuals gathered around the fuel trucks yet in his mind the best thing to do would be to kill the maximum number of people in the area.

As the story has been told, the fuel was being dispersed because the trucks couldn’t reach their intended destination. What seems more likely? That the insurgents hoped to later re-collect hundreds of gallons of kerosene stowed away in kitchen jugs, or that the stolen fuel was destined to be used cooking beans over hand-pumped kerosene burners?

“Who goes out at 2 in the morning for fuel? These were bad people, and this was a good operation,” a key local official told the Post.

In the clear mountain air of Afghanistan, the full-moon late last week would have provided surprisingly good light – certainly good enough to make the prospect of some free fuel appealing to more than just the bad people.

Europeans seek to shift security role to Afghan government
By Judy Dempsey, New York Times, September 7, 2009

The leaders of France, Germany and Britain called Sunday night for an international conference to work out a plan to shift responsibility for security in Afghanistan to the Afghan government.

The call by the three governments, the largest contributors of troops to the war in Afghanistan after the United States, came as mounting military casualties and doubts about the mission there have fueled growing public opposition to the war in Europe.

In Washington, a State Department spokeswoman, Megan Mattson, said the department had no immediate comment on the proposed conference. [continued…]

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China oil deal is new source of strife among Iraqis

China oil deal is new source of strife among Iraqis
By Timothy Williams, New York Times, September 6, 2009

When China’s biggest oil company signed the first post-invasion oil field development contract in Iraq last year, the deal was seen as a test of Iraq’s willingness to open an industry that had previously prohibited foreign investment.

One year later, the China National Petroleum Corporation has struck oil at the Ahdab field in Wasit Province, southeast of Baghdad. And while the relationship between the company and the Iraqi government has gone smoothly, the presence of a foreign company with vast resources drilling for oil in this poor, rural corner of Iraq has awakened a wave of discontent here.

“We get nothing directly from the Chinese company, and we are suffering,” said Mahmoud Abdul Ridha, head of the Wasit provincial council, whose budget has been cut in half by Baghdad in the past year because of lower international oil prices. “There is an unemployment crisis. We need roads, schools, water treatment plants. We need everything.”

The result has been a local-rights movement — extraordinary in a country where political dissent has historically carried the risk of death — that in the past few months has begun demanding that at least $1 of each barrel of oil produced at the Ahdab field be used to improve access to clean water, health services, schools, paved roads and other needs in the province, which is among Iraq’s poorest. [continued…]

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Iran canceling major Ramadan events in wake of election protests

Iran canceling major Ramadan events in wake of election protests
By Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post, September 7, 2009

Iranian officials have canceled or downgraded major Shiite religious events during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, suggesting fear that the opposition might use them to stage protests.

A typically massive evening celebration scheduled for next weekend at the South Tehran mausoleum of the Islamic republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was canceled “due to problems,” the site’s public relations department said in a statement.

A traditional speech by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, marking the end of Ramadan, meanwhile, was changed from a large venue to one that is much smaller, the Ettemaad newspaper, which is critical of the government, reported Sunday. [continued…]

Iran’s Mousavi urges continued civil disobedience
By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, September 6, 2009

Iran’s leading opposition figure Saturday called on his supporters to continue acts of peaceful civil disobedience, in his first major statement in weeks.

Mir-Hossein Mousavi also demanded that authorities launch an independent inquiry of the disputed presidential election and punish anyone who abused protesters or detainees during the unrest that followed.

“We shouldn’t leave any stone unturned and live to up to our commitments in our struggle against cheaters and liars,” he said in a statement on his website, kaleme.com. “In pursuing our cause, we should brave all accusations, and we shouldn’t duck any act of courage or daring.” [continued…]

Ex-president denounces Iran’s government
By Robert F Worth, New York Times, September 7, 2009

Mohammad Khatami, Iran’s former president, made a fiery speech Sunday against the government, accusing its leaders of trying to smear their enemies and purge them from public life with “fascist and totalitarian methods.”

The speech by Mr. Khatami, a leading reformist, came a day after his ally, the losing presidential candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi, called on supporters to deepen their protest movement, in his first major statement in weeks.

Together, the two statements, posted on the Internet by opposition Web sites, made clear that opposition leaders — much like their hard-line foes — are girding supporters for a long-term battle to be waged as much through ideas and quiet social organizing as through the public protests that followed Iran’s disputed presidential election on June 12. [continued…]

Iran announces plan to purge universities of Western influences
By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, September 7, 2009

A hard-line deputy of Iran’s supreme leader announced steps Sunday to purge Iranian universities of Western influences even as the government faced accusations of “fascism and totalitarianism” leveled by the country’s former president.

Hamid Reza Ayatollahi, head of a government body that oversees universities, announced a plan to revise humanities curricula to bring them more in line with Islamic principles.

“Many of the syllabuses taught to students majoring in humanities are not in line with Iranian and Islamic culture and therefore their revision is a must,” Ayatollahi said in a statement published by Iranian news agencies. [continued…]

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American power and the fall of modernity

American power and the fall of modernity — Part I
By Michael Vlahos, The Globalist, September 2, 2009

Modernity is still rooted in a framework of state religious nationalism. Yes, modernity made the state the arbiter of identity. For two centuries and more, collective belonging and meaning has been a state enterprise. In the great religious wars of the 20th century, millions willingly sacrificed themselves for the sacred vision of the nation-state.

Yet now that very vision is in deep recess or near-death, even as the regulatory structures of nation-states keep expanding. Western modernity’s claim of religious nationalism died in the killing fields of the last century — and with it the power of Western identity.

The air is coming out of modernity’s tires — first in the marginal places run by European colonialism, and then increasingly in the places where modernity began. Where it falters, other cultural forms rise to take up the slack. Thus, states are not weakening or failing because of “radical” or “illicit” threats.

In their stead — especially in the faux nation-states sloughed off by European colonialism — equally passionate local and universalistic visions have risen up. They lay their claims not in the consumer and social welfare-driven economies of the developed world, but with societies in need. They flourish where the demand for identity is greatest.

Modernity left a legacy where much of humanity is desperately in need of something new to belong to — and hold on to.

Today 60% of human society has been left behind. Scores of so-called nation-states cannot support raw human needs — or simply care not to — and billions are effectively being abandoned. [continued…]

Drug wars and faltering states: the demise of national identity — Part II
By Michael Vlahos, The Globalist, September 3, 2009

Our 40-year “War on Drugs” merely showcases how U.S. drug demand translates into a field of distortion that has cleared a swath of pure cultural destruction from Mexico to Ecuador.

What of gangs like Mara Salvatrucha, created by the U.S. war in El Salvador in the 1980s?

Of those refugee kids who came to the United States — only to be re-exported by us back to the slums of San Salvador in the 1990s — as many as 50,000 quickly became the shock troops of a U.S.-inspired transnational gang enterprise.

What did they begin to do when they got back home? They started taking over the country. This was a fully funded American disruption. [continued…]

American power and the fall of modernity — Part III
By Michael Vlahos, The Globalist, September 4, 2009

Moving away from modernity’s religious nationalism need not necessarily presage a world of disorder.

Rather, it suggests a world where both local and universalistic identities interact equally with the remnants of the nation-state.

We see this in the world of Islam and elsewhere with the surge of Pentecostal evangelism in Africa.

The state is supplanted in much of Africa by an intricate weave of non-state actors. Many of them are intimately connected to non-state actors in the developed world — such as missionary groups tied to the Arab region, Iran and Texas — and to Western NGOs for assistance in aid and administration.

But even in societies with working state administrations, the non-state continues to flourish. Look at Brazil and Mexico. While the state remains effective, its base is shrinking to those more elite constituencies for whom it provides real security and services.

Meanwhile in the developed world, modernity’s first nation-states have neither the money nor the commitment to reclaim their lost stature and authority in the human ecology of today’s non-state.

Many, like the EU and Russia, feel their own national identities besieged. They fear being overwhelmed by the “other” in their own countries. Their national energies are increasingly tasked to immigration management and strategies of minority assimilation — or maybe just mitigation.

This is not a world of tariff-based deglobalization like the 1930s. It is a world of true global decompression.

Global networks will continue, but only for those who manage to “make it” by the first decades of this early-21st century. Unable to aid the 60% left behind, humanity’s prosperous minority — whether they admit it or not — is increasingly looking to its own defense and preserving the integrity of a smaller system that is still viable. Globalization is now all about a minority living defensively within a seething non-state majority. [continued…]

Michael Vlahos‘ latest book, Fighting Identity: Sacred War and World Change, is reviewed here by Michael Lind.

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Israel to build new houses in settlements

Israel to build new houses in settlements
By Matti Friedman, AP, September, 2009

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will approve hundreds of new housing units in West Bank settlements before slowing settlement construction, two of his aides said Friday, in an apparent snub of Washington’s public demand for a total settlement freeze.

The aides also said Netanyahu would be willing to consider a temporary freeze in settlement construction, but their definition of a freeze would include building the new units and finishing some 2,500 others currently under construction.

The settlement suspension also would not include east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make their future capital.

The U.S. has a set a high public bar for a freeze, saying repeatedly that all settlement activity on lands the Palestinians claim for a future state must stop, without exception. However, Israel appeared to gain some wiggle room in recent weeks as the sides discussed the details of a would-be settlement freeze. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — When did Netanyahu make his definitive assessment of Obama?

Was it when the presidential candidate was putting on his most obsequious performance in front of AIPAC, spouting drivel about an indivisible Jerusalem?

Or was it when as president-elect he became a mute witness to the Gaza massacre?

Whenever it happened, it is clear that Netanyahu took a clear measure of the strength of his adversary and concluded that whatever the power of his office, this particular president was pliable as willow.

The White House now says:

We regret the reports of Israel’s plans to approve additional settlement construction. Continued settlement activity is inconsistent with Israel’s commitment under the Roadmap.

As the President has said before, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion and we urge that it stop.

When this president urges this prime minister to stop, I’m reminded of Bush urging Sharon to pull his troops out of Jenin “without delay” in 2002 – a meek demand that was predictably ignored – and of Olmert telling Bush how Rice should vote at the UN – a presumptuous call that was not rebuffed.

Crude as this way of expressing it might be, again and again we witness a suposedly powerful American president acting like he’s the Israeli prime minister’s bitch.

Have I given up on Obama? Not yet, but I see little evidence that he has the capacity to be bold. The skeptic at this blog is teetering on the brink of becoming a cynic.

Netanyahu accepts part settlement freeze: report
AFP, September, 2009

The Central Bureau of Statistics said there were 672 new housing starts in Jewish settlements in the West Bank in the first half of 2009, down from 1,015 in the same period last year.

The data which does not include annexed east Jerusalem.

But while the 33 percent dip appears significant, it returns construction levels to about the same pace as 2007 when 713 new housing projects were begun. [continued…]

Abbas: Netanyahu’s new West Bank build ‘unacceptable’
By Barak Ravid and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz, September 4, 2009

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned approval of the construction of hundreds of new housing units in West Bank settlements is “unacceptable,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Friday in Paris.

“What the Israeli government said [about the planned construction] is not useful,” Abbas said after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. “It is unacceptable for us. We want a freeze on all settlement construction.”

Abbas also told journalists that a possible summit meeting with Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama in New York, on the margins of a UN General Assembly meeting, depended on “steps that are taken beforehand regarding a settlement construction freeze.” Continue reading →

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The best Congress AIPAC can buy

The best Congress AIPAC can buy
By Philip Giraldi, Antiwar.com, September 3, 2009

Many Americans who thought that the health care debate was important must have wondered where their congressmen were in early August during the first two weeks of the House of Representatives recess. It turns out they were not hosting town hall meetings or listening to constituents because many of them were in Israel together with their spouses on a trip paid for by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Fully 13% of the entire US House of Representatives, 56 members, traveled to Israel in the largest AIPAC-sponsored fact-finding visit by American politicians ever conducted. And the leaders of the two congressional groups, 25 Republicans for a week starting on August 2nd followed by 31 Democrats beginning on August 13th, were drawn from the top ranks of their respective parties. House Minority whip Eric Cantor headed the Republican group and House Majority leader Steny Hoyer led the Democrats.

Cantor and Hoyer are longtime enthusiasts for Israel and all its works. In January, when Israel was pounding Gaza to rubble and killing over a thousand civilians, Hoyer and Cantor wrote an op-ed entitled “A Defensive War,” which began with “During this difficult war in the Gaza Strip, we stand with Israel.” Why? Because “Instead of building roads, bridges, schools and industry, Hamas and other terrorists wasted millions turning Gaza into an armory.” Hoyer and Cantor, clearly noticing a militarization of the Gaza Strip that no else quite picked up on, also affirmed that Israel occupied the moral high ground in the conflict, “While Israel targets military combatants, Hamas aims to kill as many civilians as possible.” That Hoyer and Cantor were completely wrong on this vital point as well as others, in fact reversing the truth, has never resulted in an apology or a correction of the record from either lawmaker. [continued…]

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A seven-step program to return America to a quieter, less muscular, patriotism

A seven-step program to return America to a quieter, less muscular, patriotism
By William Astore, TomDispatch, September 3, 2009

It’s time to stop deferring to our generals, and even to their commander-in-chief. They’re ours, after all; we’re not theirs. When President Obama says Afghanistan is not a war of choice but of necessity, we shouldn’t hesitate to point out that the emperor has no clothes. Yet when it comes to tough questioning of the president’s generals, Congress now seems eternally supine. Senators and representatives are invariably too busy falling all over themselves praising our troops and their commanders, too worried that “tough” questioning will appear unpatriotic to the folks back home, or too connected to military contractors in their districts, or some combination of the three.

Here’s something we should all keep in mind: generals have no monopoly on military insight. What they have a monopoly on is a no-lose situation. If things go well, they get credit; if they go badly, we do. Retired five-star general Omar Bradley was typical when he visited Vietnam in 1967 and declared: “I am convinced that this is a war at the right place, at the right time and with the right enemy — the Communists.” North Vietnam’s only hope for victory, he insisted, was “to hang on in the expectation that the American public, inadequately informed about the true situation and sickened by the loss in lives and money, will force the United States to give up and pull out.”

There we have it: A classic statement of the belief that when our military loses a war, it’s always the fault of “we the people.” Paradoxically, such insidious myths gain credibility not because we the people are too forceful in our criticism of the military, but because we are too deferential. [continued…]

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Advisers to Obama divided on size of Afghan force

Advisers to Obama divided on size of Afghan force
By Peter Baker and Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times, September 4, 2009

The military’s anticipated request for more troops to combat the insurgency in Afghanistan has divided senior advisers to President Obama as they try to determine the proper size and mission of the American effort there, officials said Thursday.

Even before the top commander in Afghanistan submits his proposal for additional forces, administration officials have begun what one called a “healthy debate” about what the priorities should be and whether more American soldiers and Marines would help achieve them.

Leading those with doubts is Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has expressed deep reservations about an expanded presence in Afghanistan on the grounds that it may distract from what he considers the more urgent goal of stabilizing Pakistan, officials said. Among those on the other side are Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative to the region, who shares the concern about Pakistan but sees more troops as vital to protecting Afghan civilians and undermining the Taliban and Al Qaeda. [continued…]

Nato air strike in Afghanistan kills scores
By James Sturcke, David Batty, The Guardian, September 4, 2009

At least 90 people including 40 civilians have been killed in northern Afghanistan after Nato launched an air strike on two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban, Afghan officials said.

Militants seized the two trucks, which were delivering jet fuel to Nato forces, around midnight Afghan time. Nato launched the strike in Kunduz province as the Taliban fighters tried to drive the vehicles across a river, according to the local police chief, Gulam Mohyuddin.

The Nato secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, announced an investigation, saying: “A number of Taliban were killed and there is also a possibility of civilian casualties.” [continued…]

Afghanistan isn’t worth one more American life
By Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy, September 3, 2009

The debate over our creeping military mission in distant Afghanistan grows ever hotter, and before we march even deeper into trouble, perhaps it’s time to dig out the old Powell Doctrine and answer the eight questions it poses.

Gen. Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said these questions all must be answered with a loud YES before the United States takes military action. He listed his questions in the 1990 run-up to the Persian Gulf War, drawing heavily on the Weinberger Doctrine that was laid down by former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger during the debate over America’s ends and means in Lebanon. [continued…]

Britain’s defense minister aide quits over Afghan strategy
BBC News, September 3, 2009

A former army major has resigned as a parliamentary aide to Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth, criticising the government’s strategy in Afghanistan.

Falkirk MP Eric Joyce said the UK could no longer justify the growing casualties in Afghanistan by saying the war would prevent terrorism back home.

The government should set a time limit on the deployment of troops, he added. [continued…]

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Ahmadinejad wins approval of key cabinet slots

Ahmadinejad wins approval of key cabinet slots
By Michael Slackman, New York Times, September 4, 2009

Iran’s Parliament approved all but three of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 21 nominees for his cabinet on Thursday, handing a victory to the beleaguered president, who now has close allies overseeing the crucial oil, interior and intelligence ministries.

Iran’s new government will include Ahmad Vahidi as defense minister. Mr. Vahidi is wanted by Interpol on charges that he helped organize the bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Argentina in 1994 — charges that Iran says are part of a Zionist plot to undermine the government. The cabinet will also have its first female minister since the 1979 revolution, Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi, who will oversee health.

The results were announced after weeks of acrimony between the president, who initially questioned lawmakers’ right to second-guess his choices, and legislators who sharply criticized many of the nominees as inexperienced. Mr. Ahmadinejad removed from his cabinet all ministers who had questioned his harsh crackdown of post-election unrest and filled important seats with close friends and loyalists. [continued…]

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