Category Archives: Editor’s comments

OPINION & EDITOR’S COMMENT: A tyranical fear of terrorism

Pakistan’s general anarchy
By Mohammed Hanif, New York Times, November 7, 2007

For those who have never had to live under [Musharraf’s] regime, the general/president can come across as a rakish, daredevil figure. His résumé is impressive: here’s a man who can manage the frontline of the Western world’s war on terrorism, get rid of prime ministers at will, force his political opponents into exile and still find the time to write an autobiography. But ask the lawyers, judges, arts teachers and students behind bars about him, and one will find out he is your garden-variety dictator who, after having spent eight years in power, is asking why can’t he continue for another eight.

General Musharraf’s bond with his troops is not just ideological. Under his command Pakistan’s armed forces have become a hugely profitable empire. It’s the nation’s pre-eminent real estate dealer, it dominates the breakfast-cereal market, it runs banks and bakeries. Only last month Pakistan’s Navy, in an audacious move, set up a barbecue business on the banks of the Indus River about 400 miles away from the Arabian Sea it’s supposed to protect.

It’s a happy marriage between God and greed.

For now, the general’s weekend gamble seems to have paid off. From Washington and the European Union he heard regrets but no condemnation with teeth — exactly what he counted on.

General Musharraf has always tried to cultivate an impression in the West that he is the only one holding the country together, that after him we can only expect anarchy. But in a country where arts teachers and lawyers are behind bars and suicide bombers are allowed to go free, we definitely need to redefine anarchy. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — What Musharraf has done is to expose the lie embedded in the war on terrorism. The terror threat is so large, so ubiquitous, and so diabolical that it is supposedly worse than tyranny. In the 21st century, oppression has become a tolerable part of the landscape. Curious indeed it is that those among Musharraf’s allies who so frequently declare that terrorism is the greatest threat to our freedom, appear so blithely indifferent when they witness freedom being taken away. If they show some discomfort it is because they know that their own hypocrisy is now on full display.

In the heart of Pakistan, a deep sense of anxiety
By Emily Wax, Washington Post, November 7, 2007

Three days after President Pervez Musharraf declared emergency rule, a deep sense of anxiety prevails among Pakistan’s students, rights activists and intellectuals, who say the mass arrests being carried out by the government mark an unprecedented assault on civil society.

When Musharraf suspended the constitution Saturday, he said he had been forced to act by rising extremism and judicial interference in his efforts to protect the country. But in Lahore, an ancient city that has long served as the cultural and intellectual heart of Pakistan, many government critics see a smoke screen being used to quash opposition.

Over the weekend, they note, an estimated 70 community leaders were arrested here during a cookies-and-tea meeting of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Those detained included a college dean, a well-known poet, an economics professor and a board member of the International Crisis Group. [complete article]

See also In Pakistan, echoes of Iran (David Ignatius).

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NEWS, OPINION & EDITOR’S COMMENT: An American awakening?

Picking up after failed war on terror
By Andrew J. Bacevich, Los Angeles Times, November 6, 2007

Given that Bush’s version of global war has proved such a costly flop, what ought to replace it? Answering that question requires a new set of principles to guide U.S. policy. Here are five:

* Rather than squandering American power, husband it. As Iraq has shown, U.S. military strength is finite. The nation’s economic reserves and diplomatic clout also are limited. They badly need replenishment.

* Align ends with means. Although Bush’s penchant for Wilsonian rhetoric may warm the cockles of neoconservative hearts, it raises expectations that cannot be met. Promise only the achievable.

* Let Islam be Islam. The United States possesses neither the capacity nor the wisdom required to liberate the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims, who just might entertain their own ideas about what genuine freedom entails. Islam will eventually accommodate itself to the modern world, but Muslims will have to work out the terms.

* Reinvent containment. The process of negotiating that accommodation will produce unwelcome fallout: anger, alienation, scapegoating and violence. In collaboration with its allies, the United States must insulate itself against Islamic radicalism. The imperative is not to wage global war, whether real or metaphorical, but to erect effective defenses, as the West did during the Cold War.

* Exemplify the ideals we profess. Rather than telling others how to live, Americans should devote themselves to repairing their own institutions. Our enfeebled democracy just might offer the place to start.

The essence of these principles can be expressed in a single word: realism, which implies seeing ourselves as we really are and the world as it actually is. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — “Seeing ourselves as we really are and the world as it actually is” — yes indeed, wouldn’t that be a welcome change? But it would also amount to a profound transformation in the American psyche.

Few people in the world have a realistic self-image — what distinguishes Americans is that their lack of self-understanding has such a destructive impact on others.

As occupants of a continent with vast oceans to either side, there is a geographic realism to America’s sense of isolation. The gulf that now needs to be crossed is psychological — it requires that Americans acquire the conviction that the world matters. Yet the world as “other” — as somewhere else — is something from which we have set ourselves apart. Having distasterously ventured into this other, discovered that we are often unwelcome and even reviled, the natural response is to retreat.

The pompous advocates of engagement assert that the world needs American leadership. The message that Americans and the world really need to hear is the reverse: America needs the world. We cannot afford to isolate ourselves. We cannot afford to remain ignorant. The world that seems other is simply a world in which we have yet to understand our place. It is a world in which we should neither assert preeminence nor project our fear.

Next president urged to fix global image
By Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, November 7, 2007

The next US president must expand American involvement in the United Nations and other international bodies and dramatically increase foreign aid – especially among Muslim countries – to reverse the steep decline in American influence and enhance national security, a bipartisan group of politicians, business executives, and academics said in a report yesterday.
more stories like this

The report, titled “A Smarter and Safer America,” also condemned what it called the American “exporting of fear” since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and criticized the use of “hard power,” military might, as the main component of US foreign policy instead of the “soft power” of positive US influences.

But the authors – including Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of state under President Bush, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and Harvard professor Joseph S. Nye Jr. – said their recommendations, issued one year ahead of Election Day, is a foreign policy blueprint for Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls. [complete article]

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NEWS ANALYSIS OPINION & EDITOR’S COMMENTS: Iran, war, prisoners, oil, nuclear advances

The Iranian challenge
By Trita Parsi, The Nation, November 19, 2007

Iran will be the top foreign policy challenge for the United States in the coming years. The Bush Administration’s policy (insistence on zero enrichment of uranium, regime change and isolation of Iran) and the policy of the radicals around President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (unlimited civilian nuclear capability, selective inspections and replacing the United States as the region’s dominant power) have set the two countries on a collision course. Yet the mere retirement of George W. Bush’s neocons or Ahmadinejad’s radicals may not be sufficient to avoid the disaster of war.

The ill-informed foreign policy debate on Iran contributes to a paradigm of enmity between the United States and Iran, which limits the foreign policy options of future US administrations to various forms of confrontation while excluding more constructive approaches. These policies of collision are in no small part born of the erroneous assumptions we adopted about Iran back in the days when we could afford to ignore that country. But as America sinks deeper into the Iraqi quicksand, remaining in the dark about the realities of Iran and the actual policies of its decision-makers is no longer an option.

A successful policy on Iran must begin by reassessing some basic assumptions:

1. Iran is ripe for regime change.

Not true. Although the ruling clergy in Iran are very unpopular, they are not going anywhere anytime soon. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — At a moment when numerous contrasts and comparisons are being drawn between Iran and Pakistan, this is one among many that deserves underlining: non-nuclear Iran is more politically stable than nuclear Pakistan.

Noun + verb + 9/11 + Iran = Democrats’ defeat?
By Frank Rich, New York Times, November 4, 2007

… there is nonetheless a method to all the mad threats of war coming out of the White House. While the saber- rattling is reckless as foreign policy, it’s a proven winner as election-year Republican campaign strategy. The real point may be less to intimidate Iranians than to frighten Americans. Fear, the only remaining card this administration still knows how to play, may once more give a seemingly spent G.O.P. a crack at the White House in 2008.

Whatever happens in or to Iran, the American public will be carpet-bombed by apocalyptic propaganda for the 12 months to come. Mr. Bush has nothing to lose by once again using the specter of war to pillory the Democrats as soft on national security. The question for the Democrats is whether they’ll walk once more into this trap.

You’d think the same tired tactics wouldn’t work again after Iraq, a debacle now soundly rejected by a lopsided majority of voters. But even a lame-duck president can effectively wield the power of the bully pulpit. From Mr. Bush’s surge speech in January to Gen. David Petraeus’s Congressional testimony in September, the pivot toward Iran has been relentless. [complete article]

See also, Inexorable march toward war with Iran? (Joseph L. Galloway).

U.S. ‘to release’ Iranians in Iraq
BBC, November 6, 2007

The US military in Iraq says it intends to release nine Iranians being held there, including two detained on suspicion of helping Shia militias.

They were among five Iranians who Tehran insists are diplomats seized in the Kurdish city of Irbil in January.

The announcement came as Iran opened two consulates in northern Iraq to improve ties with the Kurdish region.

Iran’s ambassador said the detention of the five men was an “illegal act against Iraqi sovereignty”. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — Hmmm…. I wonder whether Centcom commander Admiral Fallon came back from Pakistan with word that this would be a good time to slip this one under the radar while Bush and Cheney were distracted?

US faces dilemma in targeting Iran’s oil
By Sebastian Abbot, AP, November 5, 2007

With oil above $95 a barrel, there are limits to how much pressure the U.S. is willing to place on Iran’s petroleum sector to influence a persistent nuclear standoff, analysts say.

The dilemma is pretty clear for the world’s largest energy consuming nation, which last week announced sanctions against several Iranian oil-services firms. Taking more aggressive action risks hurting America’s economy, while enriching Iran’s.

Washington is also limited by the reality that, even if it wanted to take a more bellicose stance, it can do little — short of military action — to hinder Iran’s oil sales at a time when global demand is bulging. [complete article]

See also, Oil passes $98 on weaker dollar (BBC).

Poll finds Americans split on taking military action in Iran
By Susan Page, USA Today, November 6, 2007

Americans are concerned about Iran’s nuclear program but split on whether military action should be undertaken if diplomacy and economic sanctions fail to stop it, according to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll.

The findings underscore public concern about an Iranian threat and a partisan divide over how to respond. Iran has emerged as a key issue in the presidential race, especially among Democrats.

While 46% of those surveyed say military action should be taken either now or if diplomacy fails, 45% rule it out in any case. Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to endorse taking military steps. [complete article]

Experts: No firm evidence of Iranian nuclear weapons
By Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy, November 4, 2007

Despite President Bush’s claims that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons that could trigger “World War III,” experts in and out of government say there’s no conclusive evidence that Tehran has an active nuclear-weapons program.

Even his own administration appears divided about the immediacy of the threat. While Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney speak of an Iranian weapons program as a fact, Bush’s point man on Iran, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, has attempted to ratchet down the rhetoric.

“Iran is seeking a nuclear capability … that some people fear might lead to a nuclear-weapons capability,” Burns said in an interview Oct. 25 on PBS.

“I don’t think that anyone right today thinks they’re working on a bomb,” said another U.S. official, who requested anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. Outside experts say the operative words are “right today.” They say Iran may have been actively seeking to create a nuclear-weapons capacity in the past and still could break out of its current uranium-enrichment program and start a weapons program. They too lack definitive proof, but cite a great deal of circumstantial evidence. Bush’s rhetoric seems hyperbolic compared with the measured statements by his senior aides and outside experts. [complete article]

Defiant Iran reaches key nuclear target
AFP, November 7, 2007

Iran has reached a key target of 3,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday, vowing to ignore UN resolutions calling for a halt to Tehran’s sensitive nuclear work.

“We have now reached 3,000 machines,” a defiant Ahmadinejad told a rally in the northeastern city of Birjand.

It was not the first time that the president had boasted that Iran had 3,000 centrifuges up and running. [complete article]

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NEWS, ANALYSIS, OPINION & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Musharraf’s detour on the path to democracy

Pakistan shakes off U.S. shackles
By M K Bhadrakumar, Asia Times, November 6, 2007

…it turns out that the former prime minister Bhutto’s abrupt departure for Dubai in the United Arab Emirates last Thursday against the advice rendered by most of her party leaders happened just in time when it dawned on the US and Britain that despite their strong urgings, the generals were hell-bent on the imposition of emergency rule. The US and Britain counseled her to get out of harm’s way and quickly leave the country.

The initial statements of “regret” by the Western capitals, especially Washington, need to be taken with a pinch of salt. To be sure, the US policy toward Pakistan finds itself in a cul-de-sac. Musharraf’s move coincides almost to the hour with the thundering speech by President George W Bush at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based think-tank, on Thursday in which he blasted the US Congress for failing to take his “war on terror” not seriously enough, and he went on to compare Osama bin Laden to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin.

Addressing his neo-conservative acolytes, Bush came back to his favorite theme that via his “war on terror”, he was actually waging a global war for democracy and freedom. He compared Islamist “plans to build a totalitarian Islamist empire … stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia” to the Third Reich. He claimed that US-led campaigns have “liberated 50 million people from the clutches of tyranny” in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush said the people in the Middle East are “looking to the United States to stand up for them”.

Alas, we knew only a day later that just as Bush was speaking, one of his staunchest allies in his pet global war was squashing democracy and freedom. The US doublespeak becomes all too apparent in the mildly reproachful comment over Musharraf’s move, bordering on resignation, by the US spokesmen. It indicates that Washington’s dealings with the Musharraf regime will continue and normal business will resume once the dust has settled down. [complete article]

lawyersdefendingdemocracy.jpg

Editor’s Comment — These images of protesting lawyers in Pakistan deserve to become one of the lasting icons of the so-called war on terrorism. The Bush administration — however much handwringing it might engage in — once again has put itself on the wrong side of the law. Tariq Azim Khan, Pakistan’s minister of information, in what the New York Times describes as “unusually candid terms,” says that the United States would rather have a “stable” Pakistan than risk see democracy “fall into the hands of extremists.” In the same cynical spirit as talk-circuit motivational speakers, administration officials have now adopted a the journey is the goal philosophy as they express their hope that General Musharraf can keep Pakistan on the “path to democracy.”

(And here’s a note to America’s legal profession: How about demonstrating outside the White House in solidarity with your Pakistani counterparts? Their willingness to stand up to batton-wielding police is the kind of pro bono work that democracy defenders the world over, should be applauding.)

A second coup in Pakistan
By Ahmed Rashid, Washington Post, November 5, 2007

The key question Musharraf faces is how long the army will continue to back him. Rank-and-file soldiers are keenly aware of the widening gulf between them and the public they are supposed to protect. The army, already demoralized, is unwilling to fight a never-ending war against its own people.

For now, the judges are gone, the media has been censored, the opposition and lawyers jailed and curtailed. But Musharraf’s emergency is not sustainable. Ruling by force without any political support will prove impossible. [complete article]

U.S. military aid to Pakistan misses its Al Qaeda target
By Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, November 5, 2007

Despite billions of dollars in U.S. military payments to Pakistan over the last six years, the paramilitary force leading the pursuit of Al Qaeda militants remains underfunded, poorly trained and overwhelmingly outgunned, U.S. military and intelligence officials said.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf cited the rising militant threat in declaring a state of emergency on Saturday and suspending the constitution.

But rather than use the more than $7 billion in U.S. military aid to bolster its counter-terrorism capabilities, Pakistan has spent the bulk of it on heavy arms, aircraft and equipment that U.S. officials say are far more suited for conventional warfare with India, its regional rival. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — Hmmm… So we’re supposed to believe the administration isn’t happy to see military aid being spent on F-16s? On the contrary, it just sounds like that well-oiled revolving door that circulates American tax dollars, allocated as “foreign aid,” back into the pockets of American defense contractors. That’s how the military-industrial complex is designed to run isn’t it?

Fear and brutality inside the fiefdom of Islamist shock jock
By Declan Walsh, The Guardian, November 5, 2007

The tourist brochures call it the Switzerland of south Asia – a mountain idyll of rushing turquoise rivers, snow-dusted peaks and Pakistan’s sole ski piste.

But now the Swat valley in northern Pakistan has a dark new reputation, as the frontline in the country’s faltering war on Islamist extremism.

On Saturday General Pervez Musharraf cited surging violence in Swat – including suicide bombings, beheadings and kidnappings – as a justification for the imposition of emergency rule. His security forces are battling an Islamist militia led by Maulana Fazlullah, a radical cleric with a flair for theatrics who wants to turn Swat into a mini Islamic fiefdom. The fight has been short but brutal, leaving hundreds dead. [complete article]

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ANALYSIS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Deep in the (well-populated, well-connected, fertile) desert

Tourist trips to the Box-on-the-Euphrates
By Jeffrey Lewis, ArmsControlWonk, November 5, 2007

Is the Box-on-the-Euphrates in a remote place?

Details like that might seem insignificant, but they are not. Often, it seems to me, intelligence judgments are supported by informal bits of “color” or what you might call the gouge — circumstantial details that aren’t part of any official briefing, but appear in loose talk to bolster a judgment. Recall the “viewing stand” that North Korea never built, but nonetheless contributed to a false alarm about North Korean nuclear testing in Spring 2005.

One detail in the Box-on-the-Euphrates story that seems to lend credence to the “nuclear reactor” hypothesis is that the site is remote, and therefore suspicious. Here is how Martha Raddatz at ABC put it:

The official said the suspected nuclear facility was approximately 100 miles from the Iraqi border, deep in the desert along the Euphrates River. It was a place, the official said, “where no one would ever go unless you had a reason to go there.”

But the claim the the location is remote is, itself, an exaggeration. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — As I pointed out a week ago, the fact that the Box on the Euphrates is not in a remote location is evident simply from studying Google Earth images. It’s very easy to zero in on the site’s location because the Euphrates river valley comprises two broad ribbons of rich agricultural land in the middle of which an arid interlude — no more than a few miles long — divides the river valley. This is the spot that, from a narrow-angle view, looks like the middle of nowhere.
middle of nowhere
Syria is not the American mid-West — in other words, agriculture is not highly mechanized and thus requires plenty of labor. Close to the “isolated” location that the media has only depicted in close aerial shots, there are lots of towns and villages. A surfaced road and a railway track run either side of the “nuclear” site. By no definition of the expression, can this be called “the middle of nowhere” — unless, that is, it’s an expression being used by those parochial observers who regard Syria itself as the middle of nowhere.

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ANALYSIS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: The blowback has yet to come

Crisis in Pakistan: Administration officials see few options for U.S.
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Helene Cooper, New York Times, November 4, 2007

For more than five months the United States has been trying to orchestrate a political transition in Pakistan that would manage to somehow keep Gen. Pervez Musharraf in power without making a mockery of President Bush’s promotion of democracy in the Muslim world.

On Saturday, those carefully laid plans fell apart spectacularly. Now the White House is stuck in wait-and-see mode, with limited options and a lack of clarity about the way forward.

General Musharraf’s move to seize emergency powers and abandon the Constitution left Bush administration officials close to their nightmare: an American-backed military dictator who is risking civil instability in a country with nuclear weapons and an increasingly alienated public. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — While the neoconservatives are waging a hysterical campaign targeting unrealized nuclear risks in Iran, the fearmongers have had little to say about the nuclear actualities in Pakistan. Indeed, we now know that for decades American administrations and Congress looked the other way while Pakistan both developed its own weapons program and created the most extensive clandestine proliferation network ever known – a network that is believed to remain in tact and in operation even though in February 2004 its chief of operations, AQ Khan, was forced into what could best be described as early retirement. Paradoxically, while the drumbeat for bombing Iran grows increasingly loud, there is a stunning silence in response to the preeminent risk for nuclear terrorism. Washington’s Faustian pact with General Musharraf is now unraveling, yet we are blithely assured that Pakistan’s weapons and nuclear materials will remain safe, whoever rises to power. We have seemingly entered a Through-the-Looking-Glass world where nuclear weapons that do exist are less dangerous than those that can be imagined.

For more revelations on Washington and Islamabad’s twisted relations, read this:

‘Bush winked at Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation’
Chidanand Rajghatta, Times of India, September 5, 2007

Successive US administrations winked at Pakistan’s clandestine nuclearisation and its rampant proliferation activities, and Washington continues the charade of normalcy although proliferation activities continue to this day, an explosive new book on the subject has revealed.

The disclosures in the book Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, which is to be released next week, are nothing short of stunning.

It charges US President Bush of perpetuating deceit in an elaborate American charade that forgave Pakistan for its nuclear transgressions as a price for keeping it from becoming an even more dangerous proposition – in other words, succumbing to Pakistani blackmail.

Describing the episode in which US officials confronted Pakistan’s military ruler Pervez Musharraf with evidence of its nuclear proliferation, the authors say “American officials knew that Musharraf had known about the nuclear trade all along. And Washington had itself not only turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear bomb project for decades but had covered it up for imperative geopolitical reasons, even when Islamabad began trading its secret technology.”

The authors credit then Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage of conceiving the drama in which Musharraf would promise to shut down Pakistan’s nuclear black market in return for winning continued US support for his unelected regime.

It was agreed that A Q Khan and his aides would be arrested and blamed for “privately” engaging in proliferation. “The country’s military elite – who had sponsored Khan’s work and encouraged sales of technology to reduce their reliance on American aid – were left in the clear,” the authors say, adding that “Bush subscribed to the deceit.”

However, in a worrying new claim for Washington’s non-proliferation pundits, who have spent the last two decades chasing WMD phantoms in all the wrong places, Pakistan’s proliferation has not stopped even now.

They say new intelligence reports show that Pakistan is procuring a range of materials and components that “clearly exceeds” what Islamabad needed for its domestic nuclear program.

KRL labs, A.Q.Khan’s old facility, had continued to coordinate the Pakistani sales programme and now runs a network of front companies in Europe, the Gulf and southeast Asia which deployed all the old tricks: disguising end-user certificates by shielding the ultimate destinations from sellers, and lying on customs manifests.

Most alarming, say the authors, was the finding that hundreds of thousands of components amassed by Khan, including canisters with radioactive material, had vanished since he had been put out of operation.

In other words, they write, Pakistan has continued to sell nuclear weapons technology (to clients known and unknown) even as Musharraf denies it – “which means either that the sales are being carried out with his secret blessing or that he is no more in control of Pakistan’s nuclear program than he is of the bands of jihadis in his country.”

The book then quotes Robert Gallucci, a former US diplomat who tracked Islamabad’s nuclear program from inception in 1972, as describing Pakistan as “the number one threat to the world at this moment.”

“If it all goes off, a nuclear bomb in a US or European city, I’m sure we will find ourselves looking in Pakistan’s direction,” says Gallucci.

Such observations, and other disclosures in the book, hasn’t made the slightest impression on Washington, which continues a decades-long wink-wink policy that has made Pakistan’s into what experts are increasingly
describing as the world’s most dangerous country.

The Bush administration continues to back Musharraf and is trying to engineer a coalition between the military ruler and former PM Benazir Bhutto. The latest experiment does not address the nuclear proliferation issue, where Washington is yet to even question A.Q.Khan even as Pakistan spirals out of control.

“The tragedy is that America’s gamble on Musharraf has not paid off…Musharraf presides over a country that is not only still a nuclear proliferator but the real source of the Islamist terrorism menacing the West,” say Levy and Clark-Scott.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-2338421,prtpage-1.cms

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NEWS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Ho hum… first use of nukes since 1945?

Al-Jazeera: Strike on Syria was made by U.S. Air Force with tactical nukes
Israel Insider, November 2, 2007

The September 6 raid over Syria was in fact carried out by the US Air Force, Al-Jazeera’s Web site reported in Arabic Friday, quoting unnamed Israeli and Arab sources as saying that two strategic US jets armed with tactical nuclear weapons executed the attack on a nuclear site under construction.

The sources were quoted as saying that Israeli F-15 and F-16 jets only provided cover for the US fighter-bombers, which carried one tactical nuclear weapon apiece. The site was hit by one bomb and totally destroyed. The use of nukes might account for the fact that the suspected plant was effectively erased from the earth, with few if any traces remaining, according to satellite photos. [complete article]

New satellite surveillance system was key Israeli tool in Syria raid
By David A. Fulghum, Robert Wall and Douglas Barrie, Aviation Week & Space Technology, November 2, 2007

In addition to the military objective of destroying the target, the raid on Syria also had important international and domestic political overtones, notes one Israeli official. The goal was to send a strategic signal to the region about Israel’s willingness to act. Moreover, for the IAF, the mission was an important step. The armed forces are grappling with lessons learned from last year’s Lebanon war and a potential budget shift to the ground forces. As a result, the air arm wanted to signal its continued importance to national defense. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi, recently asserted that the Box-on-the-Euphrates story bears all the marks of a “classic disinformation” campaign. I beg to differ. I think the script here comes straight out of The Onion. How else can we account for such a wildly meandering narrative that spans every quarter from historic event — the first offensive use of nuclear weapons since “Fat Man” obliterated Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 — to the prosaic — a theatrical piece of budgetary infighting as the Israeli Air Force competes against the Israeli Army for a larger slice of the IDF sheqel pie — to the absurd — a Syrian super secret, so secret it couldn’t be revealed to Syria’s own military?

What next? It was Osama bin Laden’s hide out and he got killed in the attack?

And just in case anyone wants to think seriously about the idea that a tactical nuclear weapon was used to destroy the Box on the Euphrates (or “tall building shaped like a square” to use the IAEA’s more technically precise nomenclature), this is what an explosion equivalent to a low-yield (5kt) nuclear explosion looks like:
misersgold.jpg
This is what happens to a house located 1,100 meters away a somewhat larger (16kt) explosion:
blast8.gif
And this is a picture of the Syrian site after the attack:
noboxontheeuphrates.jpg
Note, a small building just 300 meters directly up from “ground zero” was still standing after the attack. That’s a clue — there was no nuclear shockwave that ripped through this gully.

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NEWS: The torture test

Bush administration blocked waterboarding critic
By Jan Crawford Greenburg and Ariane de Vogue, ABC News, November 2, 2007

A senior Justice Department official, charged with reworking the administration’s legal position on torture in 2004 became so concerned about the controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding that he decided to experience it firsthand, sources told ABC News.

Daniel Levin, then acting assistant attorney general, went to a military base near Washington and underwent the procedure to inform his analysis of different interrogation techniques.

After the experience, Levin told White House officials that even though he knew he wouldn’t die, he found the experience terrifying and thought that it clearly simulated drowning. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — Does Cheney have as much guts as an acting assistant attorney general? Or does he think waterboarding guidelines should include a clause that exempts anyone with a pacemaker?

Mukasey all but a shoo-in for approval
By Richard B. Schmitt, Los Angeles Times, November 3, 2007

Michael B. Mukasey appeared on Friday to be all but assured of becoming the nation’s 81st attorney general when two Senate Democrats broke ranks and said they would support the retired federal judge to head the Justice Department.

While acknowledging serious concerns about his views on interrogation techniques, Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California and Charles E. Schumer of New York said they would vote to confirm Mukasey when the Senate Judiciary Committee takes up his nomination to succeed Alberto R. Gonzales on Tuesday. [complete article]

See also, John Dean on Mukasey (TPM) and The torture litmus test (Scott Horton).

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ANALYSIS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Drafting diplomatic cannon fodder

Why diplomats won’t go to Iraq
By Charles Crain, Time, November 2, 2007

At a State department “town hall” meeting on Wednesday, one participant, veteran diplomat Jack Croddy, pointed out the risks of injury and death faced by American diplomats [in Iraq]. But he hit closer to the heart of the matter when he told the director general of the Foreign Service, who was leading the meeting, “It’s one thing if someone believes in what’s going on over there and volunteers, but it’s another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment.” On Friday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was traveling, issued a statement saying, “We must go forward with the identification of officers to serve, should it prove necessary to direct assignments. Should others step forward, as some already have, we will fill these new jobs as we have before —with volunteers. However, regardless of how the jobs may be filled, they must be filled.” [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — The core issue here is that there is an inherent tension between loyalty and intelligence. The willingness to follow orders requires, in part, a willingness to suspend the use of ones own powers of discrimination, analysis, and judgment. Diplomats who are good are doing what they are told and probably not as good at conducting diplomacy.

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NEWS, ANALYSIS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Why America uses torture

U.S. accused of torture
By Ian Munro, Sydney Morning Herald, October 31, 2007

The United States’s willingness to resort to harsh interrogation techniques in its so-called war on terror undermined human rights and the international ban on torture, a United Nations spokesman says.

Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on torture, said the US’s standing and importance meant it was a model to other countries which queried why they were subject to scrutiny when the US resorted to measures witnessed at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison.

Mr Nowak was speaking after releasing his finding that the use of torture was routine and widespread in Sri Lanka ,despite laws against it.

“I am very concerned about the undermining of the absolute prohibition of torture by interrogation methods themselves in Abu Grahib, in Guantanamo Bay and others, but also by rendition and the whole CIA secret places of detention. All that is really undermining the international rule of law in general and human rights but also the prohibition of torture,” said Mr Nowak. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — The renewed debate on torture that has been provoked by statements made by AG-nominee Judge Mukasey on the legitimacy of waterboarding, has resulted in numerous assertions that torture is un-American. As Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said today, “I remain very concerned that Judge Mukasey finds himself unable to state unequivocally that waterboarding is illegal and below the standards and values of the United States.”

To my mind, this is a rather weak moral argument. To say that we don’t torture because we’re American, is to imply that the majority of humanity, not being endowed with American virtue, might find the use of torture more acceptable than their high-minded stateside counterparts. But on the contrary, it is this notion that there is some intrinsic moral foundation to Americanness that is itself the great enabling force beneath a national trait that most of us would rather ignore: American hypocracy. The self-agrandizing virtue that this nation so often wants to celebrate is a mask that conceals a plethora of contradictions: that a nation that identifies itself as religious is so profoundly materialistic; that a nation that predominently identifies itself as Christian has such a strong preference for pre-Christian values; that a nation that sees itself as a moral beacon to the world has with such frequency chosen military engagement as its point of contact with the rest of the world. Americans can and do engage in torture not in spite of this being un-American, but because as Americans they find it all too easy to sustain an image of themselves that is a glaring contradiction with their actions.

If the Senate wants to assert that America will no longer condone torture, then first we need to acknowledge that the climate of fear engendered by the war on terrorism has in fact led many Americans to regard torture as an acceptable tool of national defense. And secondly, that if America wants to now change course and unequivocally renounce the use of torture, it will not be reclaiming moral high ground; it will be returning to an internationally recognized set of moral standards that for most of this decade it has chosen to ignore.

Waterboarding is torture… period
By Malcolm Nance, Small Wars Journal, October 29, 2007

1. Waterboarding is a torture technique. Period. There is no way to gloss over it or sugarcoat it. It has no justification outside of its limited role as a training demonstrator. Our service members have to learn that the will to survive requires them accept and understand that they may be subjected to torture, but that America is better than its enemies and it is one’s duty to trust in your nation and God, endure the hardships and return home with honor.

2. Waterboarding is not a simulation. Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.

Waterboarding is a controlled drowning that, in the American model, occurs under the watch of a doctor, a psychologist, an interrogator and a trained strap-in/strap-out team. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim’s face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs which show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.

Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of black out and expiration –usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch and if it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia. When done right it is controlled death. Its lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threaten with its use again and again. [complete article]

On torture, 2 messages and a high political cost
By Scott Shane, New York Times, October 30, 2007

Six years after the Bush administration embraced harsh physical tactics for interrogating terrorism suspects, and two years after it reportedly dropped the most extreme of those techniques, the taint of torture clings to American counterterrorism efforts.

The administration has a standard answer to queries about its interrogation practices: 1) We do not torture, and 2) we will not say what we do, for fear of tipping off future prisoners. In effect, officials want Al Qaeda to believe that the United States does torture, while convincing the rest of the world that it does not.

But that contradictory catechism is not holding up well under the battering that American interrogation policies have received from human rights organizations, European allies and increasingly skeptical members of Congress. [complete article]

Squeezing Mukasey on torture
By Massimo Calabresi, Time, October 30, 2007

George W. Bush has always wielded moral clarity as a weapon, beating Democrats by declaring his high purpose and principled resolve. But in recent months, as critics have shined new light on domestic spying and harsh interrogation techniques in the morally ambiguous world of counter-terrorism, Bush has had to retreat to gray-area defenses, using tailored definitions and legalisms to dodge questioners. And now, as Democrats raise the pressure on embattled Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey to state his opinion on whether or not waterboarding constitutes torture, it is the President’s opponents who are using moral clarity against him.

Mukasey’s (and the White House’s) problems began during his Oct. 18 Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing to replace Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General. At the hearing veteran Illinois Senator Dick Durbin asked Mukasey a deceptively simple question: Is waterboarding torture? Waterboarding simulates drowning, and involves constraining a person, restricting their breathing and pouring water on all or part of their face. Some version of it is widely reported to have been used by U.S. interrogators in an attempt to extract information from high-level terrorism suspects in the wake of 9/11. [complete article]

See also, Dozens of ‘ghost prisoners’ not publicly accounted for (WP) and Judgment day for the CIA? (Christopher Dickey).

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NEWS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Israel can live with a nuclear Iran

Israel’s foreign minister: Iran nukes pose little threat to Israel
By Gidi Weitz and Na’ama Lanski, Haaretz, October 25, 2007

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said a few months ago in a series of closed discussions that in her opinion that Iranian nuclear weapons do not pose an existential threat to Israel, Haaretz magazine reveals in an article on Livni to be published Friday.

Livni also criticized the exaggerated use that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb, claiming that he is attempting to rally the public around him by playing on its most basic fears. Last week, former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy said similar things about Iran. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — While George Bush warns the world that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons could lead to World War III, Israel’s foreign minister says, behind closed doors — in other words in a situation where she means what she says — that Iranian nuclear weapons would not pose an existential threat to Israel.

This should be banner headline news. The Washington press corp should be hounding administration officials, demanding an explanation for this utterly glaring clash of perspectives. Instead, what do we get? Silence.

This is what things have come down to: We live in a state where the dissemination of information is controlled much more efficiently than it was in the Soviet Union. At least the Russians understood they were being lied to. Most Americans, on the other hand, are completely ignorant of the incestuous relationship between the press and the government. In this system shaped by unspoken agreements, there is no need for some clumsy Ministry of Information. All the managing editors of the major outlets can be relied upon to shape their products (within an acceptable latitude) in alignment with political and commercial power — even when that means that they knowingly makes themselves instruments of an altogether avoidable disaster. They will plead that they are merely messengers, yet they are no less culpable than the lunatics in political office. They choose what to report and what to ignore.

(Note: As of 10.00GMT 10/26/07, the Haaretz magazine article referred to above has not appeared. If/when it is posted (it might only be available in print), it should appear here.)

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NEWS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Syria levels the rubble

Satellite photos show cleansing of Syrian site
By William J. Broad and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, October 26, 2007

New commercial satellite photos show that a Syrian site believed to have been attacked by Israel last month no longer bears any obvious traces of what some analysts said appeared to have been a partly built nuclear reactor.

Two photos, taken Wednesday from space by rival companies, show the site near the Euphrates River to have been wiped clean since August, when imagery showed a tall square building there measuring about 150 feet on a side.

The Syrians reported an attack by Israel in early September; the Israelis have not confirmed that. Senior Syrian officials continue to deny that a nuclear reactor was under construction, insisting that Israel hit a largely empty military warehouse. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — Who destroyed the evidence? We have been given to understand that the square building at the Syrian site was blown up by Israeli bombs. If anyone was concerned about demonstrating what the building was for, perhaps it should have been left in tact. Independent IAEA investigators could have determined what was there. Israel’s rumored accusations might have been substantiated — or not.

Instead, now all we have are satellite images revealing something and its absence, along with purported intelligence photos taken on the ground somewhere yet no means to establish the authenticity of that evidence — evidence which thus far has not been made publicly available.

The Syrian site has now been cleared, or “cleansed,” as Pravda-style the Times reports. So what? Syria does not have an open democratic government — but that’s not news, is it?

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NEWS, ANALYSIS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Targeting Iran

Attack Iran and you attack Russia
By Pepe Escobar, Asia Times, October 26, 2007

The apparent internal controversy on how exactly Putin and the Supreme Leader are on the same wavelength belies a serious rift in the higher spheres of the Islamic Republic. The replacement of Larijani, a realist hawk, by Jalili, an unknown quantity with an even more hawkish background, might spell an Ahmadinejad victory. It’s not that simple.

The powerful Ali Akbar Velayati, the diplomatic adviser to the Supreme Leader, said he didn’t like the replacement one bit. Even worse: regarding the appalling record of the Ahmadinejad presidency when it comes to the economy, all-out criticism is now the norm. Another former nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, told the Etemad-e Melli newspaper, “The effects of the [UN] sanctions are visible. Our situation gets worse day by day.”

Ahmadinejad for the past two months has been placing his former IRGC brothers-in-arms in key posts, like the presidency of the central bank and the Oil, Industry and Interior ministries. Internal repression is rife. On Sunday, hundreds of students protested at the Amir-Kabir University in Tehran, calling for “Death to the dictator”.

The wily, ultimate pragmatist Hashemi Rafsanjani, now leader of the Council of Experts and in practice a much more powerful figure than Ahmadinejad, took no time to publicly reflect that “we can’t bend people’s thoughts with dictatorial regimes”. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — A possibility that doesn’t seem to fit into Washington’s calculations is that Ahmadinejad may go faster than they expect or would even want. Faced then with a more pragmatic Iranian government which may at the same time be just as unwilling to bow to American demands, Iran could score some major victories in the international arena, leaving the neocon rhinos with nothing more than can do than snort and kick up dust. (Semantic note: It’s time to stop applying the hawk metaphor to the Cheney gang. Hawks have excellent sight, superb flying skills and know how to launch a precision strike with perfect timing. Dick Cheney and Norman Podhoretz are not hawks.)

U.S. imposes new sanctions against Iran
By Robin Wright, Washington Post, October 25, 2007

The Bush administration announced an unprecedented package of unilateral sanctions against Iran today, including the long-awaited designations of its Revolutionary Guard Corps as a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and of the elite Quds Force as a supporter of terrorism.

The package, announced jointly by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., marks the first time that the United States has tried to isolate or punish another country’s military. It is the broadest set of punitive measures imposed on Tehran since the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy, and included a call for other countries and firms to stop doing business with three major Iranian banks.

The sanctions recognize that financing for groups like the Revolutionary Guard have become closely entwined with Iran’s economy, making it difficult to disrupt the one without targeting the other. [complete article]

Bomb Iran? U.S. requests bunker-buster bombs
By Jonathan Karl, ABC News, October 24, 2007

Tucked inside the White House’s $196 billion emergency funding request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is an item that has some people wondering whether the administration is preparing for military action against Iran.

The item: $88 million to modify B-2 stealth bombers so they can carry a newly developed 30,000-pound bomb called the massive ordnance penetrator, or, in military-speak, the MOP.

The MOP is the the military’s largest conventional bomb, a super “bunker-buster” capable of destroying hardened targets deep underground. The one-line explanation for the request said it is in response to “an urgent operational need from theater commanders.” [complete article]

Iran becomes an issue in Democratic contest
By Dan Balz, Washington Post, October 25, 2007

Edwards, who, like Clinton, supported the 2002 Iraq war resolution, said she failed to learn a lesson from that episode. “I think it’s an enormous mistake to give George Bush the first step in the authority to move militarily on Iran,” Edwards said in a telephone interview from Iowa yesterday. “My view is that the resolution on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard did that.”

Biden, in a session with Washington Post editors and reporters yesterday, said labeling the IRGC as a terrorist group was a “serious, serious mistake” because it could force the United States to back up the designation with action. “Big nations can’t bluff,” he said.

Clinton has been steadfast in her contention that the amendment to the defense authorization bill was not a vote for war but, instead, a call for robust diplomatic action to deal with Iran. “I oppose any rush to war but also believe doing nothing is not acceptable — diplomacy is the right path,” she said in her campaign mailer. [complete article]

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NEWS, OPINION & EDITOR’S COMMENT: The secret that can’t be told

The right confronts Rice over North Korea policy
By Mark Mazzetti and William J. Broad, New York Times, October 25, 2007

A fight has erupted between conservatives on national security and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over the Bush administration’s pursuit of diplomacy with North Korea in the face of intelligence that North Korea might have helped Syria begin construction on a nuclear reactor.

The debate moved to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, when Ms. Rice had a tense private meeting with Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Just days earlier, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen was the co-author of an opinion article questioning the White House approach, which offers incentives to North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program.

That article also criticized the Bush administration for what it called the “veil of secrecy” surrounding intelligence that led to an Israeli airstrike in Syria last month on the suspected reactor site, and for the fact that only a handful of lawmakers have been briefed on the subject. [complete article]

What happened in Syria?
By Peter Hoekstra and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2007

We are concerned that, although the Bush administration refuses to discuss the Israeli airstrike with the American people or with the majority of Congress, it has not hesitated to give information on background to the press to shape this story to its liking. New York Times writer David Sanger authored and coauthored articles on Oct. 14 and 15 that appeared to reflect extensive input from senior policy makers. Washington Post writer Glenn Kessler coauthored an article on Sept. 21 that also cited inside information from the administration. We believe this is unacceptable. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — And where exactly in the contract of employment for journalists at the New York Times and the Washington Post does it say that reporters are meant to help the White House shape a story to its liking? Is that under the “business as usual” clause?

Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen do of course have their own ax to grind here, but if two Republican members of the secret circle say that the secret should be let out, what are we waiting for? And while these members of Congress are pressing the White House, why not the Israeli government too? It was an Israeli air strike after all.

And then there’re a few more details about the evidence. Why is the building next to the Euphrates being referred to as a “pumping station” rather than as “a building that might be a pumping station”? The photo in the Times doesn’t appear to show evidence of pipelines running between the purported pumping station and the building purported to house a future reactor. Moreover, no one spells out the necessity of having a water pumping station nearby what is claimed to be a gas-cooled reactor. But then again, all of these are questions that should be addressed by the IAEA and not half-assed journalists, unaccountable government officials, uninformed politicians, and blogging dilettantes.

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NEWS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Pinpointing what?

Photographs said to show Israeli target inside Syria
By Robin Wright and Joby Warrick, Washington Post, October 24, 2007

Independent experts have pinpointed what they believe to be the Euphrates River site in Syria that was bombed by Israel last month, and satellite imagery of the area shows buildings under construction roughly similar in design to a North Korean reactor capable of producing nuclear material for one bomb a year, the experts say.

Photographs of the site taken before the secret Sept. 6 airstrike depict an isolated compound that includes a tall, boxy structure similar to the type of building used to house a gas-graphite reactor. They also show what could have been a pumping station used to supply cooling water for a reactor, say experts David Albright and Paul Brannan of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS).

U.S. and international experts and officials familiar with the site, who were shown the photographs yesterday, said there was a strong and credible possibility that they depict the remote compound that was attacked. Israeli officials and the White House declined to comment. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — There is now a “strong and credible possibility” that satellite photographs reveal the target of Israel’s strike on Syria. Which is to say, the photographs reveal where Israel hit — not what Israel hit.

It’s thus curious that with mantra-like repetition we keep on being told that the site in Syria resembled a “North Korea-style reactor.” No such thing exists. There is no North Korean style of nuclear reactor. All the North Koreans did was make use of the declassified design of the Magnox reactor first used in the UK at Calder Hall — it’s a design that has been publicly available for 50 years! It involves the use of unrefined uranium, there is no containment dome; gas — not water — is the coolant. The facility is housed in non-descript industrial buildings which means it’s almost impossible for satellite imagery to provide hard evidence that such buildings would have been designed to contain a reactor. Such evidence would have to be gathered by IAEA inspectors on the ground and since Syria — unlike Israel — is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Syria would presumably be legally required to provide inspectors access to the site. Rather than push for the evidence to be exposed, Israel preferred to destroy it.

Israel, we are being led to assume, has a greater interest in disregarding international law than in demonstrating to its allies and the rest of the world that Syria might have been engaged in developing a clandestine weapons program. Given that Israel clearly has complete contempt for world opinion, why should the world not with equal contempt dismiss Israel’s fears?

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NEWS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: The ambiguous missile threat

Administration diverges on missile defense
By Michael Abramowitz and Walter Pincus, Washington Post, October 24, 2007

President Bush said yesterday that a missile defense system is urgently needed in Europe to guard against a possible attack on U.S. allies by Iran, while Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates suggested that the United States could delay activating such a system until there is “definitive proof” of such a threat.

The seemingly contrasting messages came as the Bush administration grappled with continuing Russian protests over Washington’s plan to deploy elements of a missile defense system in Eastern Europe. The Kremlin considers the program a potential threat to its own nuclear deterrent and has sought to play down any threat from Iran. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — It’s always struck me as odd and transparently contradictory for the Bush administration to push the line that missile defense is essential for protection against Iran and at the same time to assert that Iran will never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. But it now sounds like Gates is trying to inject an element of rationality into the equation — no doubt Bush and Cheney will regard his suggestion — that their policies should be commanded by reason — as an act of subordination.

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NEWS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Divide and rule might fail

Fresh violence feared if peace talks collapse
By Rory McCarthy and Ian Black, The Guardian, October 24, 2007

Palestinians are warning that the failure of a coming Middle East peace conference, convened by the US, could undermine chances of a two-state solution and may threaten a return to violence.

Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, reiterated after talks with Gordon Brown in London yesterday that the conference, scheduled for Annapolis, Maryland, next month, would focus on core issues rather than detailed negotiations, fuelling fears that it carries unacceptably high risks.

“We can live without a conference but we can’t live with a conference that fails,” said a close adviser to the Palestinian president and Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas. “It will be good not just for Hamas, but for al-Qaida too.” Hamas, the Islamist movement in control of the Gaza Strip, says the conference is an American-Israeli trap. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — The catastrophe that Fatah and its Israeli and American lukewarm friends really fear is that if Annapolis comes to nothing — as it surely will — then Fatah will have to bow to the inevitable: it will have to talk to Hamas. In other words, the fear is not of renewed violence; it is of the reconcilliation of Palestinian divisions.

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OPINION & EDITOR’S COMMENT: The unwritten contract requiring the American media to bow before the Israel lobby

The Israel lobby targets Haaretz
By Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss, October 23, 2007

When Haaretz was just published in Israel, CAMERA didn’t care about its statements about the occupation and the destruction of Palestinian hopes and dreams and olive trees. “This all happened in Hebrew… causing little outward impact..”

Outward impact. She means: now Haaretz is affecting U.S. opinion and foreign policy. The most important statement Levin made was that she gets the brushoff from Amos Schocken, the Haaretz publisher, but with the American media, “there is an unwritten contract between them and us.” (Verbatim transcript to come later, when I have a little time…) An unwritten contract: to be fair to Israel, to print CAMERA members’ letters, to pick up the phone.

Isn’t that amazing and scandalous? Levin is explaining why there is a free debate in Israel and not here. Because of the lobby and its “unwritten contract.” [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — There’s another name for this “unwritten contract” between the U.S. media and the Israel lobby: cowardice and self-interest. Journalists and editors would rather be gelded than jeopardize their professional advancement. In the contest between the dollar and the truth, the dollar always wins.

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