Category Archives: Obama administration

The legal cloak of brutality

Report shows tight CIA control on interrogations
By Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, August 26, 2009

Two 17-watt fluorescent-tube bulbs — no more, no less — illuminated each cell, 24 hours a day. White noise played constantly but was never to exceed 79 decibels. A prisoner could be doused with 41-degree water but for only 20 minutes at a stretch.

The Central Intelligence Agency’s secret interrogation program operated under strict rules, and the rules were dictated from Washington with the painstaking, eye-glazing detail beloved by any bureaucracy.

The first news reports this week about hundreds of pages of newly released documents on the C.I.A. program focused on aberrations in the field: threats of execution by handgun or assault by power drill; a prisoner lifted off the ground by his arms, which were tied behind his back; another detainee repeatedly knocked out with pressure applied to the carotid artery.

But the strong impression that emerges from the documents, many with long passages blacked out for secrecy, is by no means one of gung-ho operatives running wild. It is a portrait of overwhelming control exercised from C.I.A. headquarters and the Department of Justice — control Bush administration officials say was intended to ensure that the program was safe and legal. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — An obsessive allegiance to bureaucratic process — this is the indelible signature of a human being unwilling to accept personal responsibility for their own actions.

When it comes to the issue of torture, there really are much larger questions than the questions of legality since there is nothing inherently moral about complying with law. Far from it — just as easily as law can protect, it can also be turned into an exquisitely refined instrument of tyranny. Throughout history there have been those whose faithfulness to law was the very means through which they quietly strangled their own conscience.

If America is to ever atone for the war on terrorism, bringing the guilty to justice will not complete the process.

Thomas Paine v. the Right’s torture defenders
By Glenn Greenwald, Salon, August 25, 2009

GOP Congressman Peter King — the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee — had this rancid outburst today in Politico regarding Eric Holder’s decision to investigate whether laws were broken by the Bush administration’s torture:

“It’s bullshit. It’s disgraceful. You wonder which side they’re on. [It’s’ a] declaration of war against the CIA, and against common sense. . . . When Holder was talking about being ‘shocked’ [before the report’s release], I thought they were going to have cutting guys’ fingers off or something — or that they actually used the power drill. . . ”

Pressed on whether interrogators had actually broken the law, King said he didn’t think the Geneva Convention “applies to terrorists.”

Never mind that the Supreme Court in Hamdan ruled exactly the opposite: that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions applies to all detainees, including accused Terrorists. Never mind that the War Crimes Act makes it a felony to inflict “prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from . . . the threat of imminent death; or the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering. . . .” and that these acts are therefore criminal whether or not King likes them. [continued…]

What every American should be made to learn about the IG Torture Report
By Glenn Greenwald, Salon, August 24, 2009

I wrote earlier today about Eric Holder’s decision to “review” whether criminal prosecutions are warranted in connection with the torture of Terrorism suspects — that can be read here — but I want to write separately about the release today of the 2004 CIA’s Inspector General Report (.pdf), both because it’s extraordinary in its own right and because it underscores how unjust it would be to prosecute only low-level interrogators rather than the high-level officials who implemented the torture regime. Initially, it should be emphasized that yet again, it is not the Congress or the establishment media which is uncovering these abuses and forcing disclosure of government misconduct. Rather, it is the ACLU (with which I consult) that, along with other human rights organizations, has had to fill the void left by those failed institutions, using their own funds to pursue litigation to compel disclosure. Without their efforts, we would know vastly less than we know now about the crimes our government committed. [continued…]

Deaths, missing detainees still blacked out in new CIA report
By Matthew Cole and Brian Ross, ABC News, August 25, 2009

The CIA and the Obama Administration continue to keep secret some of the most shocking allegations involving the spy agency’s interrogation program: three deaths and several other detainees whose whereabouts could not be determined, according to a former senior intelligence official who has read the full, unredacted version.

Of the 109 pages in the 2004 report, 36 were completely blacked out in the version made public Monday, and another 30 were substantially redacted for “national security” reasons.

The blacked-out portions hide the Inspector General’s findings on the circumstances that led to the deaths of at least three of the detainees in the CIA’s program, the official said. Two of the men reportedly died in CIA in Iraq and the third died in Afghanistan. [continued…]

CIA releases its instructions for breaking a detainee’s will
By Joby Warrick, Peter Finn and Julie Tate, Washington Post, August 26, 2009

As the session begins, the detainee stands naked, except for a hood covering his head. Guards shackle his arms and legs, then slip a small collar around his neck. The collar will be used later; according to CIA guidelines for interrogations, it will serve as a handle for slamming the detainee’s head against a wall.

After removing the hood, the interrogator opens with a slap across the face — to get the detainee’s attention — followed by other slaps, the guidelines state. Next comes the head-slamming, or “walling,” which can be tried once “to make a point,” or repeated again and again.

“Twenty or thirty times consecutively” is permissible, the guidelines say, “if the interrogator requires a more significant response to a question.” And if that fails, there are far harsher techniques to be tried. [continued…]

U.S. says rendition to continue, but with more oversight
By David Johnston, New York Times, August 26, 2009

The Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terrorism suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but pledges to closely monitor their treatment to ensure that they are not tortured, administration officials said Monday.

Human rights advocates condemned the decision, saying that continuing the practice, known as rendition, would still allow the transfer of prisoners to countries with a history of torture. They said that promises from other countries of humane treatment, called “diplomatic assurances,” were no protection against abuse.

“It is extremely disappointing that the Obama administration is continuing the Bush administration practice of relying on diplomatic assurances, which have been proven completely ineffective in preventing torture,” said Amrit Singh, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, who tracked rendition cases under President George W. Bush. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

U.S. military says its force in Afghanistan is insufficient

U.S. military says its force in Afghanistan is insufficient
By Helene Cooper, New York Times, August 24, 2009

American military commanders with the NATO mission in Afghanistan told President Obama’s chief envoy to the region this weekend that they did not have enough troops to do their job, pushed past their limit by Taliban rebels who operate across borders.

The commanders emphasized problems in southern Afghanistan, where Taliban insurgents continue to bombard towns and villages with rockets despite a new influx of American troops, and in eastern Afghanistan, where the father-and-son-led Haqqani network of militants has become the main source of attacks against American troops and their Afghan allies.

The possibility that more troops will be needed in Afghanistan presents the Obama administration with another problem in dealing with a nearly eight-year war that has lost popularity at home, compounded by new questions over the credibility of the Afghan government, which has just held an as-yet inconclusive presidential election beset by complaints of fraud. [continued…]

Karzai opponent alleges ‘widespread’ voter fraud
By Pamela Constable and Joshua Partlow, Washington Post, August 24, 2009

The main challenger to Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday that he has received “alarming” reports of “widespread rigging” in Thursday’s presidential election by pro-government groups and officials, but he called on supporters to be patient and said he hopes the problem will be resolved through the official election review.

“The initial reports are a big cause of concern, but hopefully we can prevent fraud through legal means,” Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister, said at a news conference. He said his campaign has filed more than 100 complaints of ballot-box stuffing, inflated vote counts and intimidation at the polls by Karzai partisans, often in places where threats from insurgents resulted in low voter turnout.

The allegations of fraud, combined with the slow pace of vote tabulation and the cumbersome process for investigating complaints, are raising political tensions as the nation waits to see whether its second presidential election will produce a result that Afghans can trust. If not, there is concern that voter anger will unleash violence along the ethnic and regional lines that divide this fragmented society. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

Is Iran gas ban a step toward war?

Is Iran gas ban a step toward war?
By Michael Klare, Asia Times, August 22, 2009

As the Barack Obama administration struggles to devise a strategy for dealing with Iran’s intransigence on the uranium-enrichment issue, it appears to be gravitating toward the imposition of an international embargo on gasoline sales to that country.

Such a ban would be enacted if Iranian officials fail to come up with an acceptable negotiating plan by the time the United Nations General Assembly meets in late September – the deadline given by the White House for a constructive Iranian move.

Iran, of course, is a major oil producer, pumping out some 4.3 million barrels per day in 2008. But it is also a major petroleum consumer. Its oil industry has a significant structural weakness: its refinery capacity is too constricted to satisfy the nation’s gasoline requirements. As a result, Iran must import about 40% of the refined products it requires. Government officials are attempting to reduce this dependency through rationing and other measures, but the country remains highly vulnerable to any cutoff in gasoline imports. [continued…]

Iran’s Karroubi tries a more confrontational approach
By Andrew Lee Butters, Time, August 24, 2009

He may have finished last in Iran’s disputed presidential election, but in the weeks that followed, Mehdi Karroubi has often taken the lead in challenging the Iranian government. After the announcement of the result triggered massive demonstrations in June, Karroubi was one of the first major figures to blame the government for the violence — a brave act considering that the state media was calling the demonstrations riots instigated by foreign powers. And when Basiji militiamen roughed him up on the way to Friday prayers last month, Karroubi spoke out again. “They want to create an atmosphere of threat and terror so that people are kept silent,” he said. And despite the growing atmosphere of official intolerance for challenges to the postelection order, Karroubi has again infuriated supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by publicizing the charge that opposition protesters were raped and abused in prison. [continued…]

Iranian authorities are accused of secret burials
By Michael Slackman, New York Times, August 23, 2009

As Iranians celebrated the first day of the holy month of Ramadan, they were confronted Saturday with new charges of reform movement supporters being tortured in prison and of bodies being secretly buried in a cemetery on the outskirts of Tehran.

The accusations, filed on Web sites affiliated with the reform movement, added to the push and pull between an opposition movement struggling to keep itself from being silenced and a government that has tried to move past the crisis over the country’s disputed presidential elections in June. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

U.S. anxious over Shiite-Sunni relations in Ira

U.S. anxious over Shiite-Sunni relations in Iraq
By Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times, August 24, 2009

Military officials are anxiously watching the brittle partnership between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Iraq as U.S. analysts warn that renewed waves of violence have put the country at a crucial crossroads.

Sunni militants are widely thought responsible for bombings in Baghdad last week that left 95 dead. But a key question being debated in Washington is whether the larger Sunni community has begun implicitly supporting the attacks.

For the moment, military officers and American analysts do not believe that a new sectarian war has broken out. But the U.S. withdrawal from Iraqi cities June 30 has unnerved Sunnis who saw the American presence as protection against Shiite oppression, and experts hope Prime Minister Nouri Maliki finds a way to quickly calm Sunni fears. [continued…]

Iraq military broadcasts confession on bombing
By Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, August 24, 2009

Iraq’s military showed on Sunday what it called the confession of a mastermind of last week’s deadly attacks on two government ministries, and it announced the arrests of police and army officers the man said had been bribed to allow a huge truck bomb through checkpoints into Baghdad.

In brief, edited excerpts of videotaped remarks, the man, identified as Wisam Ali Khazim Ibrahim, calmly explained how he had organized one of the two bombings, which killed almost 100 people on Wednesday and wounded hundreds more. He said he did so on the orders of a man in Syria who wanted the attacks “to shake the administration.”

He described himself as a former police officer in Diyala Province and a member of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, which is banned in Iraq and which officials in Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government routinely blame for much of the violence in the country. [continued…]

Iraqi Shi’ite groups form new alliance without PM
By Suadad al-Salhy and Muhanad Mohammed, Reuters, August 24, 2009

Allies of Iraq’s Shi’ite Muslim Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Monday they have formed a new alliance to fight January’s general election, but the increasingly influential Iraqi leader has not joined the bloc.

The new alliance will be headed by the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (ISCI), one of Iraq’s most powerful Shi’ite groups, and will also include followers of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and other smaller groups and influential individuals.

It has been named the Iraqi National Alliance (INA). [continued…]

After Sadr–Badr compromise in Tehran, the Iraqi National Alliance (INA) is declared
By Reidar Visser, historiae.org, August 24, 2009

The idea of a “revived” Shiite alliance with a more “national” orientation was first introduced publicly by Muqtada al-Sadr in Qum, Iran, in mid-February 2009, when he requested a full makeover of the UIA which in the future should be referred to as the “United National Iraqi Alliance”. Sadr was responding to the results of the January local elections, in which the Daawa party of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was rewarded by voters for a rhetoric in which the sectarian agenda was pushed in the background and the focus on national and centralist values was strengthened. After Sadr’s initiative, other forces in the old UIA, including the pro-Maliki independent Abbas al-Bayati as well as Ahmad al-Chalabi, soon offered their support, but it was not until May that the project got going in earnest. By that time, ISCI – which had been punished particularly hard by voters in the January polls – had taken over the initiative, and within weeks several dozen key UIA members paid their visits to ISCI’s ailing leader Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim at a convalescent home in Tehran where details of the new alliance were discussed. Reportedly, Muqtada al-Sadr also made the journey from Qum to reconcile with Hakim, a long-time opponent, apparently seeing the symbolic change of name as a “Sadrist demand” that could justify their return to the UIA. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

US must choose between the two voices of Hamas

US must choose between the two voices of Hamas
By Amr Hamzawy and Jeffrey Christiansen, The National, August 24, 2009

When will President Obama abandon the Bush doctrine of isolating Hamas? During a press conference in Gaza City a few weeks ago, Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, declared: “If there is a real project that aims at resolving the Palestinian cause on establishing a Palestinian state on 1967 borders, under full Palestinian sovereignty, we will support it.” And in an interview shortly after, Khaled Meshaal, the exiled leader of Hamas’s political bureau, welcomed the “new language towards the region” from President Obama.

Hamas is trying to convey to the US its willingness to accept a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that it is willing to play a productive rather than obstructionist role in the peace process. But is the US listening?

It depends on what the US is listening for. If the US is waiting for Hamas to accept its three demands to renounce violence, honour past agreements and recognise Israel’s right to exist, it will probably be disappointed. To expect your opponent to give up all of its leverage before negotiations actually begin is hardly realistic. Rather, the US should interpret Hamas’s statements with two points in mind. [continued…]

Report: No sign of West Bank settlement slowdown
By Matti Friedman, AP, August 23, 2009

There is no sign of a slowdown in the construction of homes for Jewish settlers in the West Bank despite Israel’s announcement that it has stopped approving new building, the Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said in a report issued Sunday.

Under U.S. pressure to freeze settlements, Israel indicated last week it had stopped green-lighting new construction projects, part of an attempt to bridge the gap between the two allies. The efforts to achieve an elusive agreement on settlements will continue this week at a London meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell.

But while Peace Now confirms the freeze on approval for new projects, the group’s report says settlement construction is continuing and that settlers can easily build thousands of housing units based on old plans that have already been approved.

There is existing permission for the construction of up to 40,000 housing units, the report said. Construction has begun on around 600 new housing units in 2009, it said. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

Report reveals CIA conducted mock executions

Report reveals CIA conducted mock executions
By Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, August 21, 2009

A long-suppressed report by the Central Intelligence Agency’s inspector general to be released next week reveals that CIA interrogators staged mock executions as part of the agency’s post-9/11 program to detain and question terror suspects, Newsweek has learned.

According to two sources—one who has read a draft of the paper and one who was briefed on it—the report describes how one detainee, suspected USS Cole bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was threatened with a gun and a power drill during the course of CIA interrogation. According to the sources, who like others quoted in this article asked not to be named while discussing sensitive information, Nashiri’s interrogators brandished the gun in an effort to convince him that he was going to be shot. Interrogators also turned on a power drill and held it near him. “The purpose was to scare him into giving [information] up,” said one of the sources. A federal law banning the use of torture expressly forbids threatening a detainee with “imminent death.”

The report also says, according to the sources, that a mock execution was staged in a room next to a detainee, during which a gunshot was fired in an effort to make the suspect believe that another prisoner had been killed. The inspector general’s report alludes to more than one mock execution. [continued…]

U.S. shifts, giving names of detainees to the Red Cross
By Eric Schmitt, New York Times, August 23, 2009

In a reversal of Pentagon policy, the military for the first time is notifying the International Committee of the Red Cross of the identities of militants who were being held in secret at a camp in Iraq and another in Afghanistan run by United States Special Operations forces, according to three military officials.

The change begins to lift the veil from the American government’s most secretive remaining overseas prisons by allowing the Red Cross to track the custody of dozens of the most dangerous suspected terrorists and foreign fighters plucked off the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is a major advance for the organization in its long fight to gain more information about these detainees. The military had previously insisted that disclosing any details about detainees at the secretive camps could tip off other militants and jeopardize counterterrorism missions. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

Could Afghanistan become Obama’s Vietnam?

Could Afghanistan become Obama’s Vietnam?
By Peter Baker, New York Times, August 23, 2009

President Obama had not even taken office before supporters were etching his likeness onto Mount Rushmore as another Abraham Lincoln or the second coming of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Yet what if they got the wrong predecessor? What if Mr. Obama is fated to be another Lyndon B. Johnson instead?

To be sure, such historical analogies are overly simplistic and fatally flawed, if only because each presidency is distinct in its own way. But the L.B.J. model — a president who aspired to reshape America at home while fighting a losing war abroad — is one that haunts Mr. Obama’s White House as it seeks to salvage Afghanistan while enacting an expansive domestic program.

In this summer of discontent for Mr. Obama, as the heady early days give way to the grinding battle for elusive goals, he looks ahead to an uncertain future not only for his legislative agenda but for what has indisputably become his war. Last week’s elections in Afghanistan played out at the same time as the debate over health care heated up in Washington, producing one of those split-screen moments that could not help but remind some of Mr. Johnson’s struggles to build a Great Society while fighting in Vietnam.

“The analogy of Lyndon Johnson suggests itself very profoundly,” said David M. Kennedy, the Stanford University historian. Mr. Obama, he said, must avoid letting Afghanistan shadow his presidency as Vietnam did Mr. Johnson’s. “He needs to worry about the outcome of that intervention and policy and how it could spill over into everything else he wants to accomplish.” [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — It’s not too soon to be comparing Obama to LBJ and it’s not too soon to be asking whether he’ll seek a second term. To call the war in Afghanistan a “war of necessity” was a strategic blunder. Obama first paddled up shit creek and then decided to throw away his paddle.

‘Is he weak?’
By Jim Hoagland, Washington Post, August 23, 2009

Shortly after the Group of 20 summit concluded in London in April, Nicolas Sarkozy blurted out to a small group of advisers a question that weighed on him as he watched President Obama glad-hand his way through the gathering: “Est-il faible?” (Is he weak?)

The French president did not answer his own blunt query, which faded as the American leader commanded a hectic round of domestic economic intervention and agenda-setting abroad in the weeks that followed. Initial doubts about Obama’s toughness went on the shelf at the Elysee Palace and elsewhere.

But the Sarkozy question was abruptly dusted off as Obama began hitting resistance to some of his most ambitious goals, including health-care reform, Middle East peacemaking and engagement with Iran. Is Obama making tactical retreats to gain better position on these hard cases — or is he, well, weak? [continued…]

Marines fight Taliban with little aid from Afghans
By Richard A Oppel Jr., New York Times, August 23, 2009

American Marines secured this desolate village in southern Afghanistan nearly two months ago, and last week they were fortifying bases, on duty at checkpoints and patrolling in full body armor in 120-degree heat. Despite those efforts, only a few hundred Afghans were persuaded to come out here and vote for president on Thursday.

In a region the Taliban have lorded over for six years, and where they remain a menacing presence, American officers say their troops alone are not enough to reassure Afghans. Something is missing that has left even the recently appointed district governor feeling dismayed. “I don’t get any support from the government,” said the governor, Massoud Ahmad Rassouli Balouch.

Governor Massoud has no body of advisers to help run the area, no doctors to provide health care, no teachers, no professionals to do much of anything. About all he says he does have are police officers who steal and a small group of Afghan soldiers who say they are here for “vacation.” [continued…]

Taliban attacks leave poll soaked in Afghan blood
By Jon Swain, The Sunday Times, August 23, 2009

Making Helmand safe to vote had been Britain’s military priority this summer, the bloodiest since 2001. The aim of the five-week operation Panther’s Claw, involving 3,000 British troops, was to push the Taliban from the north of Lashkar Gah.

Ten British soldiers died in the campaign. Lieutenant-Colonel Gus Fair, commander of the Light Dragoons battle group, wrote in his diary afterwards that, as a result, people who had been subject to the rule of the Taliban could now live without the fear of them “visiting in the middle of the night”.

With some optimism he added that they now had “the freedom to vote … the chance to look forward to enjoy some of the rights and privileges that we are lucky enough to take for granted”.

In Babaji district, where the British claimed they had brought 80,000 villagers under government control during daylight hours at least, only 150 people cast their vote. “There were supposed to be three polling stations but they were closed,” said Sardar Mohammed, 54, who lives in the district. [continued…]

U.S. seeks overhaul in Kabul after vote
By Peter Siegel and Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2009

US officials are strategizing about how to persuade Afghan President Hamid Karzai to overhaul his government, which is widely viewed here as corrupt and ineffectual, if he wins a second term.

At the same time, some in Washington fear a runoff election could steal valuable time from the international efforts to stabilize the country. Both Mr. Karzai and his leading challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, have claimed significant leads.

Results of Thursday’s presidential balloting in Afghanistan may not be available until Tuesday. If no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote, and a runoff is necessary, these U.S. officials said it could be Oct. 1 before there is a functioning government in Kabul. [continued…]

New leader of Pakistan’s Taliban is named, though officials believe he is dead
By Ismail Khan and Lydia Polgreen, New York Times, August 23, 2009

A senior leader of the Pakistani Taliban announced Saturday that a brash young commander with a reputation for pitiless violence appeared to have won the struggle to lead the group — even as the government wrestles with conflicting information about whether that commander is even alive.

Intelligence officials in Pakistan say that the newly proclaimed leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, is dead. But Pakistan’s interior minister, Rehman Malik, said Saturday in an interview that he was alive, although gravely injured, and that Taliban fighters were desperately searching for his younger brother as a stand-in.

The news on Saturday adds to the confusion that has surrounded the leadership of the group since its head, Baitullah Mehsud, was reportedly killed this month in a drone attack.

Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, deputy commander of the group, had proclaimed himself successor to Baitullah Mehsud just a few days ago. But on Saturday he told reporters by telephone that the much younger and more aggressive Hakimullah Mehsud would be the insurgency’s new leader. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

Saigon 2009

Saigon 2009
By Thomas H Johnson and M Chris Mason, Foreign Policy, August 20, 2009

For those who say that comparing the current war in Afghanistan to the Vietnam War is taking things too far, here’s a reality check: It’s not taking things far enough. From the origins of these North-South conflicts to the role of insurgents and the pointlessness of this week’s Afghan presidential elections, it’s impossible to ignore the similarities between these wars. The places and faces may have changed but the enemy is old and familiar. The sooner the United States recognizes this, the sooner it can stop making the same mistakes in Afghanistan.

Even at first glance the structural parallels alone are sobering. Both Vietnam and Afghanistan (prior to the U.S. engagement there) had surprisingly defeated a European power in a guerrilla war that lasted a decade, followed by a largely north-south civil war which lasted another decade. Insurgents in both countries enjoyed the advantage of a long, trackless, and uncloseable border and sanctuary beyond it, where they maintained absolute political control. Both were land wars in Asia with logistics lines more than 9,000 miles long and extremely harsh terrain with few roads, which nullified U.S. advantages in ground mobility and artillery. Other key contributing factors bear a striking resemblance: Almost exactly 80 percent of the population of both countries was rural, and literacy hovered around 10 percent.

In both countries, the United States sought to create an indigenous army modeled in its own image, based on U.S. army organization charts. With the ARVN in South Vietnam and the ANA in today’s Afghanistan, assignment of personnel as combat advisors and mentors was the absolute lowest priority. And in both wars, the U.S. military grossly misled the American people about the size of the indigenous force over a protracted period. In Afghanistan, for example, the U.S. military touts 91,000 ANA soldiers as “trained and equipped,” knowing full well that barely 39,000 are still in the ranks and present for duty. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

Public opinion in U.S. turns against Afghan war

Public opinion in U.S. turns against Afghan war
By Jennifer Agiesta and Jon Cohen, Washington Post, August 20, 2009

Among all adults, 51 percent now say the war is not worth fighting, up six percentage points since last month and 10 since March. Less than half, 47 percent, say the war is worth its costs. Those strongly opposed (41 percent) outweigh strong proponents (31 percent).

Opposition to the Iraq war reached similar levels in the summer of 2004 and grew further through the 2006 midterm elections, becoming issue No. 1 in many congressional races that year.

By the time support for that conflict had fallen below 50 percent, disapproval of President George W. Bush’s handling of it had climbed to 55 percent, in contrast to the solid overall approval of the way Obama is dealing with Afghanistan.

But there are warning signs for the president.

Among liberals, his rating on handling the war, which he calls one of “necessity,” has fallen swiftly, with strong approval dropping by 20 points. Nearly two-thirds of liberals stand against a troop increase, as do about six in 10 Democrats. [continued…]

Rethink Afghanistan

Karzai and warlords mount massive vote fraud scheme
By Gareth Porter, IPS, August 19, 2009

Afghanistan’s presidential election has long been viewed by U.S. officials as a key to conferring legitimacy on the Afghan government, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his powerful warlord allies have planned to commit large-scale electoral fraud that could have the opposite effect.

Two U.S.-financed polls published during the past week showed support for Karzai falls well short of the 51 percent of the vote necessary to avoid a runoff election. A poll by Glevum Associates showed Karzai at 36 percent, and a survey by the International Republican Institute had him at 44 percent of the vote.

Those polls suggest that Karzai might have to pad his legitimate vote total by much as 40 percent to be certain of being elected in the first round.

But Karzai has been laying the groundwork for just such a contingency for many months. By all accounts, he has forged political alliances with leading Afghan warlords who control informal militias and tribal networks in the provinces to carry out a vote fraud scheme accounting for a very large proportion of the votes. [continued…]

26 Afghans killed in election day attacks
AP, August 20, 2009

Taliban threats scared voters and dampened turnout in the militant south Thursday as Afghans voted for president for the second time ever. Insurgents killed 26 Afghans in scattered attacks, but officials said militants failed to disrupt the vote.

After 10 hours of voting, including a last-minute, one-hour extension, election workers began to count millions of ballots. Initial results weren’t expected for several days.

A top election official told The Associated Press he thinks 40 to 50 percent of the country’s 15 million registered voters cast ballots — a turnout that would be far lower than the 70 percent who cast ballots for president in 2004. [continued…]

Britney Spears votes in Afghanistan
By Paul McGeough, The Age, August 20, 2009

Experts laugh at claims by Afghan officialdom that all 17 million names on the electoral roll are legitimate.

An election official confided to the Dutch analyst Martine van Bijlert, of the respected Afghanistan Analysts Network, that up to 3 million of the names were fake.

”It’s ridiculous,” one diplomat said. ”You can see the process being put in place – with those numbers you don’t need big tricks.” [continued…]

Face to face with the Taliban: ‘The people are fed up with the government’
By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, The Guardian, August 18, 2009

Shirjan and Agha Mansour talked about how Taliban rule worked. They were enough in control of the territory to levy their own income tax, called ushur, which is fixed at 10%, and issued receipts for payments rendered.

“They collect 10% tax on all income, even from the government fields,” said Agha Mansour. “So if you grow 100kg of wheat you pay 10kg and they give you a receipt and never charge extra or more.”

Shirjan added: “At least they are honest. They don’t take bribes like the government officials do.”

The taxes are deposited with a Taliban “banker”, who uses the money to run his shop and in return supplies the Taliban with food and other necessities.

Then Shirjan repeated an argument that can be heard all over Afghanistan.

“If you take your case to a government court it will take you four to five years to finish because the longer the case goes the more bribes you pay. So the officials don’t want you to finish. Whereas if you take your case to the Taliban court they will give a judgment in one day and according to God’s ruling. So the people go to the Taliban.” [continued…]

We must face reality in Afghanistan
By Gilles Dorronsoro, Financial Times, August 17, 2009

The Taliban is winning the war in Afghanistan, a fact even the top US commander in the country reluctantly concedes. Offering a glimpse of the strategic assessment he was originally scheduled to deliver earlier this month, General Stanley McChrystal warned that American casualties were likely to keep rising, and said the US must deploy more troops to the south and east of the country.

The Taliban inflicted 76 casualties on coalition forces across Afghanistan in July. In Helmand, a historically restive province in the south, there is no safe area, and every day rockets fall on Lashkar Gah, the regional capital. Whatever tactical advances an increased American presence might win, the ultimate political objectives for which the US deployed its troops here are growing more distant. President Hamid Karzai is expected to lead in first-round elections later this week, but among Pashtuns in the south, attitudes toward Kabul and the international coalition are only growing more sour. Few tribes enjoy workable relations with the government – essentially only the Zirak tribes in Kandahar. Meanwhile, opinion polls in Britain and the US show the public has serious doubts about the meaning and direction of the war. [continued…]

By how many days can we shorten this war?
By Robert Naiman, Huffington Post, August 20, 2009

… our leaders in Washington, apparently, are not yet sick and tired of war in Afghanistan. For almost a year, Western officials have been conceding that the war will not end without a political solution that involves negotiations with insurgents. But, these officials say, the West isn’t ready yet to make a deal. “Reconciliation is important, but not now,” one Western diplomat told the New York Times. “It’s not going to happen until the insurgency is weaker and the government is stronger.”

So, there’s going to be a deal with insurgents; that’s a foregone conclusion. The question that remains is how many more people will die before that happens – and whether, from the point of view of the interests of the majority of Afghans and the majority of Americans, the deal we can get 5 or 10 years from now is likely to be so much better than the deal we could get in the next year as to justify the deaths that will be the guaranteed result of postponing meaningful negotiations. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

Netanyahu’s defiance of US resonates at home

Netanyahu’s defiance of US resonates at home
By Howard Schneider, Washington Post, August 19, 2009

For five months, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been fending off U.S. pressure to halt the expansion of West Bank settlements. Now he is reaping dividends for his defiance.

Although Israeli leaders have historically been reluctant to publicly break with the United States for fear of paying a price in domestic support, polls show that Netanyahu’s strategy is working. And that means that after months of diplomacy, the quick breakthrough that President Obama had hoped would restart peace talks has instead turned into a familiar stalemate.

Arab states largely have rebuffed Obama’s request for an overture to Israel until the settlement issue is resolved — a stand that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak emphasized in a meeting with Obama on Tuesday — and the Palestinians have said a settlement freeze is a precondition for resuming negotiations. Meanwhile, the Israeli public seems to have rallied around Netanyahu’s refusal to halt all settlement construction, a backlash that intensified when the Obama administration made clear that it wanted Israel to stop building Jewish homes in some parts of Jerusalem as well as in the occupied West Bank. [continued…]

Obama says Mideast peace process is in a ‘rut’
By Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, August 19, 2009

President Obama said Tuesday that the Middle East peace process was in a “rut,” and prodded Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to help break an Arab-Israeli standoff that has frustrated the administration’s effort to restart talks.

“If all sides are willing to move off of the rut that we’re in currently, then I think there is an extraordinary opportunity to make real progress,” Obama said in an appearance with Mubarak at the White House. “But we’re not there yet.” [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

U.S. envoy has ‘useful dialogue’ with anti-American Pakistani leader

U.S. envoy has ‘useful dialogue’ with anti-American Pakistani leader
By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times, August 19, 2009

Obama administration officials have pledged to talk to world leaders no matter their views. On Tuesday, they showed that the offer extends to Islamists who spend the day denouncing America from the street corners.

U.S. envoy Richard C. Holbrooke met with Liaqat Baloch, a leader of Pakistan’s Jamaat-i-Islami party. About an hour later, as the bearded scholar prepared to depart for an anti-American rally across town, the veteran diplomat said that despite their disagreements, the meeting had begun “a very useful dialogue.”

Pakistan is eager for U.S. aid, but many people are wary of U.S. intentions. Jamaat-i-Islami has limited leverage in the government, but it is one of the most influential Pakistani Islamist parties, and its anti-American views are widely shared, U.S. officials say. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

When it comes to terrorist suspects in detention, Obama is finding that Bush set a difficult precedent to break

Overdue process
By Adam Serwer, The American Prospect, August 17, 2009

The cavernous room in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., was nearly empty, except for a few journalists holding yellow legal pads. A small parade of government lawyers marched in and rested their briefcases on their desks before approaching the trio of lawyers representing Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan national who was detained in 2002 after being accused of throwing a grenade at an American convoy, injuring several American soldiers. He was between 12 and 17 years old at the time and has been in U.S. custody for seven years. The hearing, held in June, was not related to Jawad’s guilt or innocence. Rather, it was his habeas corpus proceeding — the legal challenge to the government’s ability to hold him in the first place.

It is widely believed that Jawad’s confession, offered to Afghan authorities shortly after his capture, was coerced through torture. Jawad is illiterate, and the confession was written in a dialect he didn’t speak, accompanied by a separate page bearing only his thumbprint. His military defense attorney, Maj. Eric Montalvo, says that as soon as Jawad was asked about the incident in a language he could understand, he denied everything. Then, Montalvo says, Jawad was handed over to American interrogators who tortured him (“They did things that were classified”). After Jawad attempted suicide in his Guantánamo cell in 2003, he was subjected to the government’s “frequent flyer” program, in which the detainee is moved from cell to cell every few hours for days or weeks on end, in order to deny him sleep.

Because Jawad was technically captured “on the battlefield,” he appeared before a military commission in 2007. At the hearing, the presiding judge threw out the coerced confessions and the original prosecutor, Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, resigned in disgust, penning a letter in which he denounced the commissions as a travesty. Jawad has been denied a criminal trial, where his culpability might be determined according to the high standards of federal courts. “Under the Bush administration, there was this attempt to blur the criminal-justice system and the military-justice system and create this hybrid system that lacked due-process safeguards,” says Stacy Sullivan, a counterterrorism adviser for Human Rights Watch. “We hoped that during the Obama administration we’d be able to put those pieces back where they belong. That doesn’t seem to be happening.” [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

Israel envoy to U.S.: We have no plan to strike Iran

Israel envoy to U.S.: We have no plan to strike Iran
Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren interviewed by Fareed Zacharia, CNN, August 16, 2009

ZAKARIA: Let’s talk about Iran.

John Bolton has recently said that he believes that Israel is likely to attack Iran by the end of this year. Is that true?

OREN: I don’t think it’s true. I think that we are far from even contemplating such things right now.

The government of Israel has supported President Obama in his approach to Iran, initially the engagement, the outreach to Iran. The prime minister…

ZAKARIA: You’re just saying this, Michael. You don’t really — it is well known that the government of Israel was deeply uncomfortable and nervous about the idea of an engagement with Iran.

OREN: We were. But we were greatly comforted during the prime minister’s visit here in May, when the president told the prime minister, sure, that there would be a serious reassessment of the engagement policy before the end of the year.

And we are further reassured now that that end-of-the-year deadline has been moved up to September. We actually have a date when it’s going to occur.

We are comforted by the fact that the administration, in the aftermath of recent events in Iran, has exhibited greater willingness to consider formulating a package of serious sanctions against Iran, even now in advance of the reassessment.

ZAKARIA: Isn’t it true that we now know something about Iran that we weren’t quite sure about, which is, there are many moderates in Iran, both on the streets of Tehran and the rest of the country, but also within the government.

OREN: Unquestionably. We know that the Iranian — certainly, the Iranian people, but even the Iranian leadership, is not as monochromatic as we thought, that there are dissenters. Not necessarily moderates in the sense of their relationship with Israel, but moderates certainly in an internal Iranian context.

But what concerns us, at the end of the day, is not so much a change of personalities, but a change of policy. We would like to see an Iranian willingness to desist from supporting terrorist groups, Hezbollah, Hamas. We’ve seen none of that; on the contrary, business as usual.

We would like to see indications of Iranian willingness to suspend the enrichment of uranium. We’d like to see a willingness evinced on the part of the Iranians to stop producing the centrifuges that enrich that uranium. We’ve seen none of that. On the contrary, we see business as usual for the Iranians, even in their rhetoric across the board. [continued…]

Throwing Ahmadinejad a lifeline
By Hossein Askari and Trita Parsi, New York Times, August 14, 2009

The economics of a gasoline embargo simply doesn’t make sense. Iran imports roughly 40 percent of its domestic gasoline consumption at world prices and then sells it along with domestically refined gasoline at a government-subsidized price of about 40 cents per gallon. As a result, domestic gasoline consumption is high. It is also smuggled and sold to neighboring countries.

Over the past 10 years, this policy has cost Iran in the range of 10 to 20 percent of its G.D.P. annually, depending on world prices and the government-mandated pump price. Yes, a whopping 10 to 20 percent of G.D.P. In need of additional revenues, the regime has wanted to eliminate this subsidy, raise the price to world levels and reduce consumption, but has been paralyzed by the specter of a domestic backlash.

Even assuming that a gasoline embargo would be effective, what would be its result? Consumption would decline by 40 percent and government revenues would go up, because no payment would be needed for gasoline imports.

If Tehran allowed the reduced supply of gasoline to be sold at a price that would equate demand to supply, the price would increase to a level that would eliminate the subsidy, meaning no subsidy for imported gasoline and no subsidy for domestically refined gasoline. The government would have more revenue to spend elsewhere. The sanctions would have done what Tehran has wanted to do for years and the government would not be held responsible! [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

Mubarak to tell U.S. Israel must make overture

Mubarak to tell U.S. Israel must make overture
By Michael Slackman, New York Times, August 17, 2009

In White House meetings beginning Monday, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is expected to tell the Obama administration that Arab nations want peace, but are unwilling to abide Mr. Obama’s call to make good-faith concessions to Israel until Israel takes tangible steps like freezing settlements, an Egyptian official said.

As part of its effort to resuscitate the peace process, the Obama administration has asked Arab countries to make small but symbolic gestures to normalize relations with Israel, like allowing planes to fly through their airspace or improving cultural ties. The administration has also asked Israel to freeze all growth in settlements.

So far, neither side has agreed to Mr. Obama’s proposed first steps, and so the president is expected to look to Mr. Mubarak for help in breaking the latest Middle East deadlock, regional analysts said. [continued…]

Too gung-ho? Israel military rabbis draw criticism
By Matti Friedman, AP, August 17, 2009

Most Israelis expect their military rabbis to confine themselves to such tasks as making sure the army provides kosher food and respects the Sabbath. But lately, some of them are asserting their own idea of Jewish virtue at the risk of stepping into the country’s culture wars.

Some critics worry that the rabbinate and its charismatic chief, Brig. Gen. Avichai Rontzki, are infusing a militant mix of Judaism and nationalism into a traditionally secular institution that embodies the Israeli consensus.

On the Palestinian side, Islamic hard-liners already see their war with Israel through an uncompromising religious lens, and the rabbinate’s critics warn that the Jewish state must not follow suit and risk pushing the conflict closer to a zero-sum holy war. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

A thousand little Gitmos

A thousand little Gitmos
By Petra Bartosiewicz, Mother Jones, July/August, 2009

The last person to see Syed Mehmood Hashmi as a free man was his friend Mohammed Haroon Saleem, who on June 6, 2006, drove Hashmi to London’s Heathrow Airport, walked him to the security checkpoint, and watched him hoist his bag and head for the gate. But Hashmi never made his flight. At passport control, constables pulled him from the line and told him they had an extradition warrant on behalf of the US government. He was to be charged with aiding Al Qaeda.

Today Hashmi, who is 29, sits in a windowless cell, in solitary confinement. He is not allowed to watch television or listen to the radio or read a newspaper unless it is at least 30 days old and censored. He is not allowed to speak to guards, other inmates, or the media, or to write anyone but his attorney and his family (once a week on three single-sided pages). The only people cleared to visit, besides his lawyer, are his mother and father, but he couldn’t see them for three months after he was caught shadowboxing in his cell—an infraction that cost him visiting privileges. Hashmi’s lawyer, Sean Maher, says the isolation is slowly driving his client mad.

Hashmi is not in Guantanamo Bay, nor is he an enemy combatant. He’s a US citizen, born in Pakistan and raised in Flushing, Queens, facing trial in federal court in Manhattan. His home for the past two years has been the Special Housing Unit at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a stone’s throw from the Brooklyn Bridge. Hashmi might be guilty, he might not. We may never know—because when he goes before judge and jury later this year he won’t get a fair trial. Much of the government’s evidence against him is secret, and he can’t see it because he doesn’t have a security clearance. Maher, who does have a security clearance, can’t see much of it either. Maher finds this incredible.

“There are cases across the country where men are being convicted and given astronomical sentences under the most inhumane and draconian conditions possible,” says Maher. “Animals at the Bronx Zoo get treated better than this.” [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

Obama is not delivering the goods

Obama’s America is not delivering the goods
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz, August 14, 2009

With great sorrow and deep consternation, we hereby declare the death of the latest hope. Perhaps rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated, to paraphrase the famous quote by Mark Twain, but the fears are being validated day after day. Barack Obama’s America is not delivering the goods. Sharing a glass of beer with a racist cop and a pat on the back of Hugo Chavez are not what we hoped for; wholesale negotiations on freezing settlement construction are also not what we expected. Just over six months after the most promising president of all began his term, perhaps hope has a last breath left, but it is on its deathbed.

He came into office amid much hoopla. The Cairo speech ignited half the globe. Making settlements the top priority gave rise to the hope that, finally, a statesman is sitting in the White House who understands that the root of all evil is the occupation, and that the root of the occupation’s evil is the settlements. From Cairo, it seemed possible to take off. The sky was the limit.

Then the administration fell into the trap set by Israel and is showing no signs of recovery.

A settlement freeze, something that should have been understood by a prime minister who speaks with such bluster about two states – a peripheral matter that Israel committed to in the road map – has suddenly turned into a central issue. Special envoy George Mitchell is wasting his time and prestige with petty haggling. A half-year freeze or a full year? What about the 2,500 apartment units already under construction? And what about natural growth? And kindergartens?

Perhaps they will reach a compromise and agree on nine months, not including natural growth though allowing completion of apartments already under construction. A grand accomplishment.

Jerusalem has imposed its will on Washington. Once again we are at the starting point – dealing with trifles from which it is impossible to make the big leap over the great divide.

We expected more from Obama. Menachem Begin promised less, and he made peace within the same amount of time after he took office. When the main issue is dismantling the settlements, the pulsating momentum that came with Obama is petering out. Instead, we are paddling in shallow water. Mitchell Schmitchel. What’s in it for peace? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will once again meet him in London at the end of the month. A “magic formula” for a settlement freeze may be found there, but the momentum is gone.

Not in Israel, though. Here people quickly sensed that there is nothing to fear from Obama, and the fetters were taken off. Defense Minister Ehud Barak was quick to declare that there is no Palestinian partner, even after the Fatah conference elected the most moderate leadership that has ever been assembled in Palestine. Afterward, in a blatant act of provocation, he brought a Torah scroll into the heart of the Muslim Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem, in full view of television cameras, just so America can see who’s boss around here.

Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai and Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, another two politicians who smell American weakness, were quick to declare during a visit to Ma’aleh Adumim that Israel will not freeze any construction. To hell with Obama. The settlers continue to move into more homes in East Jerusalem, Netanyahu is silent and Israelis sense that the “danger” has passed. Israel is once again permitted to do as it pleases. The landlord has once again gone insane. Except that the landlord has gone insane because the real landlord is showing signs of weakness, signs of folding, signs of losing interest in events in the region that most endangers world peace.

Nothing remains from the speeches in Cairo and Bar-Ilan University. Obama is silent, and Yishai speaks. Even “Israel’s friends” in Washington, friends of the occupation, are once again rearing their heads.

One source familiar with Obama’s inner circle likened him this week to a man who inflates a number of balloons every day in the hope that one of them will rise. He will reach his goal. The source compared him to Shimon Peres, an analogy that should insult Obama. The trial balloons the U.S. president sends our way have yet to take off. One can, of course, wait for the next balloon, the Obama peace plan, but time is running out. And Israel is not sitting idly by.

The minute Jerusalem detected a lack of American determination, it returned to its evil ways and excuses. “There is no partner,” “Abu Mazen is weak,” “Hamas is strong.” And there are demands to recognize a Jewish state and for the right to fly over Saudi Arabia – anything in order to do nothing.

An America that will not pressure Israel is an America that will not bring peace. True, one cannot expect the U.S. president to want to make peace more than the Palestinians and Israelis, but he is the world’s responsible adult, its great hope. Those of us who are here, Mr. President, are sinking in the wretched mud, in “injury time.”

Editor’s Comment — When an 11 year-old gets the privilege of going to The White House to interview the president and the kid respectfully observes, “I notice as president you get bullied a lot,” it’s time to sit up straight.

Obama’s lack of backbone is apparent to a child and his method for handling getting bullied — “if I’m doing a good job, I’m doing my best, and I’m trying to always help people, then that keeps me going” — might make him feel better but it does little to push back those who are emboldened by his weakness.

Is Obama capable of imposing his will? After six months we should know the answer to that question. The fact that we don’t is a problem.

Facebooktwittermail

Baghram isn’t the new Guantanamo, it’s the old Guantanamo

Baghram isn’t the new Guantanamo, it’s the old Guantanamo
By Andy Worthington, Huffington Post, August 15, 2009

Back in September 2005, when I first began researching Guantánamo for my book The Guantánamo Files, the prison was still shrouded in mystery, even though attorneys had been visiting prisoners for nearly a year, following the Supreme Court’s ruling, in June 2004, that they had habeas corpus rights. Researchers at the Washington Post and at Cageprisoners, a human rights organization in the U.K., had compiled tentative lists of who was being held, but, although these efforts were commendable, much of it was little more than groping in the dark — a broken jigsaw puzzle based on media reports and interviews with released prisoners — because the Bush administration refused to provide details of the names and nationalities of those it was holding.

In April 2006 — four years and three months after Guantánamo opened — the government finally conceded defeat, after the Associated Press took the Pentagon to court, and won. That month, the first ever list of prisoners (PDF) — containing the names and nationalities of the 558 prisoners who had been subjected to the administration’s Combatant Status Review Tribunals (one-sided reviews, designed to rubberstamp their prior designation as “enemy combatants”) — was released, and was followed in May by a list of the 759 prisoners held up to that point (including the 201 who had been released before the tribunals began), which included names, nationalities, and, where known, dates of birth and places of birth (PDF).

The government also released 8,000 pages of tribunal transcripts and allegations against the prisoners, which pierced the veil of secrecy still further, allowing outside observers, as well as lawyers, the opportunity to examine whether the government’s claims that the prison was full of terrorists were true, and to conclude that, actually, the prison was largely populated by innocent men or low-level Taliban foot soldiers, recruited to fight an inter-Muslim civil war that began long before the 9/11 attacks, and had nothing to do with al-Qaeda or international terrorism. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

With Iran — slower, please!

Under pressure from hawks, Obama tacks to the right
By Daniel Luban, IPS, August 12, 2009

In the face of mounting pressure from hawks in Washington and the continued threat of military action from Israel, the Barack Obama Administration has been taking a harder line in its latest pronouncements about Iran.

Recent media reports have suggested that the administration is leaning toward an end-of-September deadline for Tehran to respond to U.S. diplomatic outreach concerning its nuclear programme, at which point it will consider stepping up sanctions against the Iranian energy sector.

This course would cut against the advice of a growing number of Iran analysts, who have cautioned both that the Tehran regime is in no position to negotiate at the moment and that sanctions are likely only to solidify the power of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — Barack Obama has crossed a politically dangerous threshold: from actor to reactor. It’s going to be hard reversing the trend.

In the next few weeks, suppose “the Iranians” — a collective noun that should at this point only appear in quotes since no one actually knows exactly who this refers to — suppose “the Iranians” come back with this as their response to Obama’s offer of talks:

We’re ready, but clearly you aren’t. Push your healthcare plan through Congress by the end of September and then we can talk. We can’t talk to you now — you’re administration is too weighed down by domestic political issues.

How dare “the Iranians” try and dictate American affairs, everyone in Washington would scream. Indeed, the idea that a complex piece of legislation could be advanced under arbitrary external pressure would be seen as absurd.

Meanwhile, Washington appears to have picked up Michael Ledeen’s favorite mantra: “faster, please!”

Wag the dog, again
By Philip Giraldi, Antiwar.com, August 12, 2009

Israeli media reports that visiting National Security Adviser General Jim Jones and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have told the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop complaining about Iran because the US is preparing to take action “in eight weeks” demonstrate that even when everything changes in Washington, nothing changes. President Barack Obama has claimed that a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a high priority but the Israelis and their allies in congress and the media have been able to stonewall the issue. Israel has made no concessions on its settlement policy, which is rightly seen as the single biggest obstacle to eventual creation of a Palestinian state, and has instead pushed ahead with new building and confiscations of Arab homes. Obama has protested both Israeli actions but done nothing else, meaning that Israel has determined that the new US president’s policies are toothless, giving it a free hand to deal with the Arabs. Vice President Joe Biden’s comments that Israel is free to attack Iran if it sees fit was a warning that worse might be coming. If the Israeli reports are true, it would appear that the Obama Administration has now bought completely into the Israeli view of Iran and is indicating to Tel Aviv that it will fall into line to bring the Mullahs to their knees. In short, Israel gets what it wants and Washington yet again surrenders. [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail