Category Archives: State Department

On Iran, the U.S. has a broken national security process

Reza Marashi writes: After weeks of hyping intelligence on the military aspects of Iran’s nuclear program, the Obama administration’s public statements on the recently released International Atomic Energy Agency report are curiously moderate. Off the record, U.S. officials say that not all of America’s intelligence findings were included in the I.A.E.A. report — which aims to reflect international consensus. This fact speaks to a larger challenge — that the United States faces a credibility problem. Key countries do not share Washington’s assessment of Iran, and thus it’s unlikely that the U.S. will disclose more substantial information.

Some administration officials would like to see harder evidence made public — if for no other reason than supporting calls for more “crippling” sanctions on Iran. But U.S. intelligence agencies reportedly oppose more detailed disclosures for fear of jeopardizing intelligence-gathering and sources. The U.S. is therefore unlikely to secure more robust U.N. sanctions when it makes its case to the Security Council.

More important but less understood, however, are two longstanding and increasingly dangerous institutional problems within the U.S. government that this case has brought to the fore: an overreliance on intelligence and under-utilization of diplomatic resources when formulating Iran policy. By treating diplomacy with Iran as a reward to be earned rather than the vital national security tool that it is, American politicians have been administering a self-inflicted wound.

The recent allegations against Iran show the critical role that intelligence can play in helping policymakers gather information and make decisions on the most challenging issues. However, intelligence is not meant to be taken in isolation — and when it comes to America’s Iran policy, it almost always is.

While serving in the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs, I learned the 10 percent rule: intelligence is meant to make up approximately 10 percent of the overall information used to analyze strategic issues. The remaining 90 percent consists of embassy reporting and unclassified, open-source information.

As a whole, this symbiotic process is meant to provide a balanced, broader context to policymakers. Intelligence is supposed to be the missing piece of the puzzle — not the only piece. Overreliance on intelligence to support key policy decisions results in skewed or incomplete analysis that lacks the fuller context needed for sound decision-making. As this information vacuum grows over time, so too does the likelihood of misperceptions, miscalculations and dangerous mistakes.

Intelligence is not a substitute for the critical work of diplomats on the ground — and perhaps no foreign policy issue demonstrates this more forcefully than Iran. Simply put, a vital national security process has been broken for over three decades, and American politicians are exacerbating rather than repairing it.

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Americans warned about global threat posed by used-car salesmen

Manssor Arbabsiar — used-car salesman cum terrorist-mastermind — is in detention and no longer poses a threat to the world, but the State Department wants Americans to take care when traveling overseas: there could be other dumb hustlers out there hatching dastardly plots, so the US government urges all Americans to exercise caution when traveling anywhere or even thinking about it.

The warning contains two anomalies, however:

1. It expires on January 11, 2012, just three months away. Surely the danger will persist right up until November 6, 2012. It seems imprudent to let our guard down before we’ve chosen the next president.

2. Arbabsiar is a US citizen. Don’t we need to be exercising as much if not more caution inside America. After all, who buys a used-car when overseas?

MSNBC reports: The State Department issued a worldwide travel alert late Tuesday for American citizens after the United States accused Iran of backing a plot to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington.

“The U.S. government assesses that this Iranian-backed plan to assassinate the Saudi ambassador may indicate a more aggressive focus by the Iranian government on terrorist activity against diplomats from certain countries, to include possible attacks in the United States,” it said in a statement on its website.

The alert, which expires January 11, 2012, urged Americans living and traveling abroad to be wary.

“U.S. citizens residing and traveling abroad should review the Department’s Worldwide Caution and other travel information when making decisions concerning their travel plans and activities while abroad,” it added.

U.S. authorities said earlier on Tuesday that they had broken up a plot by two men linked to Iran’s security agencies to assassinate Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir. One, a former Texas used-car dealer named Manssor Arbabsiar, was arrested last month while the other was believed to be in Iran.

However a friend and one-time business partner of Arbabsiar, David Tomscha, said Arbabsiar, known as Jack to his friends, made an unlikely secret agent.

Tomscha said Arbabsiar, 56, a naturalized U.S. citizen who holds an Iranian passport, was likeable, a bit lazy and “no mastermind.”

“I can’t imagine him thinking up a plan like that. I mean, he didn’t seem all that political. He was more of a businessman … He was sort of a hustler,” he said.

Meanwhile, following Attorney General Eric Holder’s dramatic announcement about the plot, a US official has provided the New York Times with additional details:

The alleged plot also included plans to pay the cartel, Los Zetas, to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Washington and the Saudi and Israeli Embassies in Argentina, according to a law enforcement official.

The plotters also discussed a side deal between the Quds Force, part of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and Los Zetas to funnel tons of opium from the Middle East to Mexico, the official said. The plans never progressed, though, because the two suspects — the Iranian-American and an Iranian Quds Force officer — unwittingly were dealing with an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration, officials said.

It’s quite baffling that Arbabsiar and Shakuri’s plans should have been so limited in their scope — but what a stroke of luck that the feds managed to get on to the case and play such a creative role in allowing it to unfold!

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State Dept funding neocon-Zionist propaganda outfit

Ali Gharib reports:

On Thursday, the U.S. State Department announced a $200,000 grant to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a Middle East media watchdog closely aligned with U.S. neoconservatives and Israel’s hawkish security establishment and rightist Likud Party. The grant was awarded “to conduct a project that documents anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and Holocaust glorification in the Middle East.” The announcement continues:

This grant will enable MEMRI to expand its efforts to monitor the media, translate materials into ten languages, analyze trends in anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial and glorification, and increase distribution of materials through its website and other outlets.

Finding examples of anti-Semitism is already a robust MEMRI project and one wonders why exactly they needed the cash: According to publicly available tax filings, MEMRI had nearly $5 million in revenue in 2007 and more than $4.5 million in revenue in 2008.

What’s more troubling, MEMRI has faced accusations of mistranslating items and cherry-picking incendiary sources to portray regional media and attitudes in an overly-negative fashion. One of the most common issues has been with MEMRI’s mistranslations which appear to show anti-Semitism on thin evidence. In 2007, CNN correspondent Atika Shubert checked MEMRI’s translations of a Palestinian children’s program against those provided by the cable news channel’s own interpreters:

Media watchdog MEMRI translates one caller as saying – quote – ‘We will annihilate the Jews.’ But, according to several Arabic speakers used by CNN, the caller actually says ‘The Jews are killing us.’ MEMRI told us it stood by its translation.

In other instances, MEMRI has been accused of twisting translations to portray criticisms of Israel and its driving ideology, Zionism, as anti-Semitic..

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State Dept blocks oversight of its mercenary army in Iraq

Danger Room reports:

By January 2012, the State Department will do something it’s never done before: command a mercenary army the size of a heavy combat brigade. That’s the plan to provide security for its diplomats in Iraq once the U.S. military withdraws. And no one outside State knows anything more, as the department has gone to war with its independent government watchdog to keep its plan a secret.

Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), is essentially in the dark about one of the most complex and dangerous endeavors the State Department has ever undertaken, one with huge implications for the future of the United States in Iraq. “Our audit of the program is making no progress,” Bowen tells Danger Room.

For months, Bowen’s team has tried to get basic information out of the State Department about how it will command its assembled army of about 5,500 private security contractors. How many State contracting officials will oversee how many hired guns? What are the rules of engagement for the guards? What’s the system for reporting a security danger, and for directing the guards’ response?

And for months, the State Department’s management chief, former Ambassador Patrick Kennedy, has given Bowen a clear response: That’s not your jurisdiction. You just deal with reconstruction, not security. Never mind that Bowen has audited over $1.2 billion worth of security contracts over seven years.

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Does the US getting into a fight with Syria help the Syrian opposition or the regime?

Joshua Landis writes:

“Bashar al-Assad is not indispensable and the United States has no interest in his regime staying in power,” US Secretary of State Hillary stated on Monday after Syrian crowds pelted the Damascus Embassy with stones, calling Ambassador Ford a “dog.”

While Clinton turned up the rhetorical head a notch, President Assad must taken satisfaction in the dust up with the great conspirator. From the outset of the uprising four months ago, the Syrian regime has been accusing Washington of orchestrating its troubles. According to reports from Syria, the pro-regime public has been galvanized by Ambassador Fords actions in Hama. They see it a proof that the US is acting as the puppeteer and takes an active role in the uprising. His trip to Hama to demonstrate US support for the demonstrations was the sort of provocation, Damascus authorities had been waiting for. Now it is a US-Syrian confrontation. World news programs have ramped up their coverage that had been flagging. I cannot tell you how many calls I received today compared to the last week of comparative quiet.

What is unclear is whether the Syrian opposition will gain from this controversy. Will the increased international news coverage and augmented US role in this Syrian drama prove to be a boon for the opposition? Will it make up for any damage the opposition suffers from local accusations that it is but a spearhead of a vast imperialist-Zionist conspiracy?

Certainly, Ford’s credibility is restored in Washington. Even Republicans will have to laud him as a local hero. Only yesterday they branded him an Assad propaganda tool. The State Department will also look good. But are these antics helping the Syrian opposition or Assad?

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Syria: U.S. presses for opposition dialogue with Assad

The Guardian reports:

The US is pushing the Syrian opposition to maintain dialogue with Bashar al-Assad’s regime as details emerge of a controversial “roadmap” for reforms that would leave him in power for now despite demands for his overthrow during the country’s bloody three-month uprising.

Syrian opposition sources say US state department officials have been discreetly encouraging discussion of the unpublished draft document, which circulated at an unprecedented opposition conference held on Monday in Damascus. But Washington denies backing it.

Assad would oversee what the roadmap calls “a secure and peaceful transition to civil democracy”. It calls for tighter control over the security forces, the disbanding of “shabiha” gangs accused of atrocities, the legal right to peaceful demonstrations, extensive media freedoms, and the appointment of a transitional assembly.

The carefully phrased 3,000-word document demands a “clear and frank apology” and accountability for organisations and individuals who “failed to accommodate legitimate protests”, and compensation for the families of victims. The opposition says 1,400 people have been killed since mid-March. The government says 500 members of the security forces have died.

It calls for the ruling Ba’ath party to be subject to a new law on political parties – though the party would still provide 30 of 100 members for a proposed transitional national assembly. Seventy others would be appointed by the president in consultation with opposition nominees.

Several of the proposed measures have already been mentioned in public by Assad, fuelling speculation that he is at least partially following through on some of the document’s recommendations.

The roadmap is signed by Louay Hussein and Maan Abdelsalam, leading secular intellectuals in a group called the National Action Committee. Both men met the vice-president, Farouk al-Sharaa, before Assad’s most recent speech, diplomats said. On Monday they chaired the Damascus conference, which had official permission, was attended by 150 people – and was publicly welcomed by the US.

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How the GOP and America’s Arab allies support slavery

Time magazine reports:

Three days before the congressional elections last fall, Hillary Rodham Clinton stood halfway around the world, pledging to young victims of human trafficking at Cambodia’s s Siem Reap Center that they would continue to enjoy the support of the U.S. State Department, which then provided some $336,000 to the shelter. The acclaimed center, situated near the magnificent temples of Angkor Wat, was an oasis of peace for some 50 survivors who, before they were rescued or escaped, had endured slavery in brothels, where they were forced to have sex with as many as 30 men a day. At the shelter, they received counseling, studied hairdressing, learned to sew, and otherwise worked to rebuild their lives and reclaim their humanity. In the evening, they did aerobics together.

On Monday afternoon, some eight months after that visit, as she unveiled the State Department’s 11th annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report to a packed room in the department’s ornate Benjamin Franklin Room, Clinton only hinted that the result of the congressional elections had left the long-term value of her pledge to the survivors in doubt. “Even in these tight economic times, we need to find ways to do better,” Clinton told the overflow crowd.

Clinton’s confidence belied the fact that in April, Congress slashed the grant-making capacity of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. When the Republicans won the House last November, the office’s $21.2 million annual budget to fight the war on slavery was already microscopic. At the time, it was barely equal to the U.S. government’s daily budget to fight the war on drugs. For fiscal year 2012, Congress sliced away nearly a quarter of those antislavery funds, as part of its broader $8 billion State Department budget cuts.

Brian Whitaker writes:

Efforts to combat human rights abuses are easily undermined by politics. Often – and with good reason – the US and other western countries are accused of highlighting abuses by their enemies while turning a blind eye to similar abuses by their friends.

One way of pushing political considerations into the background is to look at the problem comparatively, by considering where each country stands in relation to others. That is what the US state department has been doing for 11 years now, with its global reports on human trafficking.

The result, as seen in the latest report issued on Monday, is a robust critique, which places some of the staunchest US allies – Kuwait and Saudi Arabia – in the same rotten boat as long-time foes such as Cuba, North Korea and Iran.

“Trafficking in persons” covers various forms of exploitation including, in the words of the international Palermo protocol, “sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs”.

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Passengers on the US boat to Gaza speak out

As the Israeli government does everything it can to prevent the second flotilla to Gaza from setting sail and while the US State Department has effectively given Israel a green light to use any means — peaceful or violent — to prevent the flotilla from reaching its destination, passengers on board the American boat, The Audacity of Hope, describe why they are going.

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No effort being spared by Israel to sink the flotilla

“Dear IDF: If you end up shooting any Americans on the new Gaza flotilla — well, most Americans are cool with that. Including me” — a provocative tweet from Joshua Treviño, co-founder of the popular conservative blog RedState.

“How do you feel about the IDF shooting journalists on board the flotilla?” asks Joseph Dana (@ibnezra) who is reporting for The Nation.

“As you’ve fairly clearly aligned yourself with the flotilla’s goals, @ibnezra, I don’t care what happens to you,” comes the response.

There’s little doubt Treviño wants to bait supporters of the flotilla. The question is: are most Americans cool with the prospect of Israeli soldiers shooting unarmed American protesters?

That’s a loaded question, Treviño would no doubt retort: “the aim of the Flotilla is not humanitarian, but political: to open up supply lines to Hamas, so it can wreak further violence,” he claims.

The Obama administration could be perceived as sharing his view.

“We underscore that delivering or attempting or conspiring to deliver material support or other resources to or for the benefit of a designated foreign terrorist organization, such as Hamas, could violate U.S. civil and criminal statutes and could lead to fines and incarceration,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland warned on Friday.

What the State Department and others have failed to note is that the goal of The Audacity of Hope and the Americans on board, is to break the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza simply by reaching the Palestinian enclave. The ship is not carrying any humanitarian aid.

The idea that the goal of the flotilla is to open up supply lines for Hamas is absurd for two reasons.

Firstly, throughout the duration of the blockade of Gaza, Hamas’ supply lines have never been severed. Thousands of tunnels have operated running under Gaza’s southern border throughout the siege.

Secondly, the borders that need opening are those controlled by Israel. Does anyone imagine that when this happens, the Israelis will be opening up new supply lines for Hamas?

Having flattened much of Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in late December 2008 and early January 2009, Israel has long argued that it cannot allow the free flow of construction materials into Gaza because they could be used by Hamas to construct bunkers and bombs.

But since the fall of Mubarak, such materials have been streaming into Gaza unimpeded by Egyptian authorities — a steady flow of 3,000 tons a day.

The New York Times reports on how these materials are being used:

Streets are being paved and buildings constructed.

“Mubarak was crushing us before,” said Mahmoud Mohammad, a subcontractor whose 10-man crew in Gaza City was unloading steel bars that were carried through the tunnels and were destined for a new restaurant. “Last year we were sitting at home. The contractor I work for has three major projects going.”

Nearby, Amer Selmi was supervising the building of a three-story, $2 million wedding hall. Most of his materials come from the tunnels.

Karim Gharbawi is an architect and building designer with 10 projects under way, all of them eight- and nine-story residential properties. He said there were some 130 engineering and design firms in Gaza. Two years ago, none were working. Today, he said, all of them are.

As Israel prepares for a showdown on the high seas and the potentially embarrassing prospect of detaining a shipload of mostly middle-aged American Jews, its latest threat has been directed at the press.

Israel’s Government Press Office issued a letter Sunday to foreign journalists, warning them that participating in the upcoming flotilla sailing to Gaza is illegal under Israeli law, and could result in anyone who joins the convoy being barred from Israel for up to 10 years.

The letter, signed by GPO director Oren Helman, states that the flotilla “is a dangerous provocation that is being organized by western and Islamic extremist elements to aid Hamas.”

Helman asks editors to inform journalists that the Israel Defense Forces have been ordered to stop the convoy of ships from reaching Gaza, given that “The flotilla intends to knowingly violate the blockade that has been declared legally and is in accordance with all treaties and international law.”

Furthermore, the letter says, “participation in the flotilla is an intentional violation of Israeli law and is liable to lead to participants being denied entry into the State of Israel for ten years, to the impoundment of their equipment and to additional sanctions.”

The Foreign Press Association today urged the Israeli government to reverse its threat to punish journalists covering the Gaza flotilla, saying that the move “sends a chilling message to the international media and raises serious questions about Israel’s commitment to freedom of the press.”

There are now suggestions that Israel’s hysterical fear of the flotilla has reached such heights that for the sake of avoiding another public relations debacle, Israel is willing to threaten the future of Greece.

A press release from US Boat to Gaza issued today says:

Passengers on the U.S. Boat to Gaza, The Audacity of Hope, are asking Greek government officials to clarify whether the boat they are leasing is being blocked from leaving Greece because of an anonymous request of a private citizen concerning the seaworthiness of the ship or whether a political decision has been made by the Greek government in response to U.S. and Israeli government pressure. They specifically want to know if the U.S. is using its leverage at the International Monetary Fund over the implementation of an ongoing bailout of European banks with massive Greek debts to compel the Greek government to block the U.S. Boat to Gaza from leaving Greece.

On the morning of June 23, the American passengers learned that a “private complaint” had been filed against the U.S. Boat to Gaza, which is part of an international flotilla scheduled to sail to Gaza in the next few days. This complaint, its origin still unknown to the Americans, claimed that the boat is “not seaworthy” and therefore requires a detailed inspection. On June 25 a police order declared that until the complaint is resolved the boat will not be permitted to leave.

The passengers are wondering if Israel, which has extensive economic trade and investments in Greece, is using its clout to pressure the Greek government. “Israel has said openly that it is pressuring governments to try to stop the flotilla, and clearly Greece is a key government since several of the boats plan to leave from Greece,” says passenger Medea Benajmin. “It is unconscionable that Israel would take advantage of the economic hardship the Greek people are experiencing to try to stop our boat or the flotilla.”

The Greek government is already fighting for its life in the face of widespread opposition to imposed austerity measures. It can hardly afford to be seen to be bowing to Israeli pressure.

Evangelos Pissias, one of the Greek members of the Flotilla II steering committee, says:

From our side, we are not aggressive. But we are a proud people. We have self-respect. We think that dignity is beyond everything. And the Israeli government hurts our dignity… We are sure that the Greek people will not accept any action that will put obstacles in the way of our project, because they supported our project. Our project is among the most grass-rooted of campaigns, regarding all the partners that worked together to build the Flotilla II. The Greek people will not accept any kind of interference, and they will not accept any subordination from our government.

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Complaint against US boat threatens Gaza voyage

Mya Guarnieri reports:

Organizers of the second Freedom Flotilla say that an administrative complaint has been filed against the US Boat to Gaza, the Audacity of Hope, claiming that the vessel is not seaworthy. This could delay or altogether prevent the ship from leaving Athens.

The harbor master received notification of the complaint Thursday afternoon, two days after suspected Mossad agents showed up at the ship.

The complainant is unknown. As of time of writing, a Greek lawyer representing the second Freedom Flotilla was working to obtain more details.

Israel has been open about its intentions to stop the flotilla using any means possible—including diplomatic avenues, lawsuits, and a media smear campaign.

Also on Thursday, Greek Port Authorities made the unusual move of advising ship captains to steer clear of the coordinates that correspond with Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza. The advisory also included the warning, “Continuous electronic surveillance of the region of East Mediterranean will also take place in order to record, wherever possible, the movements of ships that will possibly participate in such an action.”

Both moves came in the wake of the United States Department of State travel warning, issued Wedneday, which seemed designed to dissuade American activists from challenging Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

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U.S. ‘concerned’ at Syria border move

Al Jazeera reports:

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that her country is concerned by reports that Syria is massing troops near the border with Turkey, which could escalate the crisis in the region, and is discussing the issue with Turkish officials.

Clinton said the reported move by Syria to surround and target the town of Khirbet al-Jouz just 500 metres from the Turkish border marked a worrying new phase of Syria’s attempt to quash anti-government protests.

“If true, that aggressive action will only exacerbate the already unstable refugee situation in Syria,” Clinton said late on Thursday.

“Unless the Syrian forces immediately end their attacks and their provocations that are not only now affecting their own citizens but (raising) the potential of border clashes, then we’re going to see an escalation of conflict in the area.”

Clinton said she had discussed the situation with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and that President Barack Obama had also talked to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.

Meanwhile, the European Union is preparing a draft statement questioning the legitimacy of Syria’s leaders, expected to be released on Friday.

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Hillary Clinton adviser compares internet to Che Guevara

“There was no person more feared by the company [the CIA] than Che Guevara because he had the capacity and charisma necessary to direct the struggle against the political repression of the traditional hierarchies in power in the countries of Latin America.” Philip Agee

“On October 9th, 1967, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara was put to death by Bolivian soldiers, trained, equipped and guided by U.S. Green Beret and CIA operatives.” Peter Kornbluh

The Guardian reports:

Hillary Clinton’s senior adviser for innovation at the US state department has lauded the way the internet has become “the Che Guevara of the 21st century” in the Arab Spring uprisings.

Speaking at the Guardian’s Activate summit in London on Wednesday, Alec Ross said “dictatorships are now more vulnerable than ever” as disaffected citizens organise influential protest movements on Facebook and Twitter.

The US has pledged to back the pro-democracy movements that have swept the Middle East and north Africa since January. Ross welcomed the “redistribution of power” from autocratic regimes to individuals, describing the internet as “wildly disruptive” during the protests in Egypt and Tunisia.

“Dictatorships are now more vulnerable than they have ever been before, in part – but not entirely – because of the devolution of power from the nation state to the individual,” he said.

“One thesis statement I want to emphasise is how networks disrupt the exercise of power. They devolve power from the nation state – from governments and large institutions – to individuals and small institutions. The overarching pattern is the redistribution of power from governments and large institutions to people and small institutions.”

Ross said that the internet had “acted as an accelerant” in the Arab spring uprisings, pointing to the dislodging of former Tunisian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in little over a month. The internet had facilitated leaderless movements, Ross added, describing it as the “Che Guevara of the 21st century”.

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Clinton hails female Saudi driving activists

Al Jazeera reports:

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has praised Saudi women fighting for the right to drive in their country as “brave” but said it was up to Saudi society to determine the way forward.

“What these women are doing is brave and what they are seeking is right,” Clinton said.

Clinton was commenting on the show of defiance displayed by women in the kingdom who are campaigning a against a ban that prohibits women from driving in the kingdom.

On Friday, several woman drove cars in defiance of the ban.

“I am moved by it and I support them,” said Clinton in her first comments on the issue.

Prior to her remarks, the US state department had said that Clinton was engaged in “quiet diplomacy” on the driving ban.

This drew an appeal from a Saudi women’s group for a more forceful US stance.

In a statement emailed to reporters, Saudi Women for Driving said: “Secretary Clinton: quiet diplomacy is not what we need right now.

“What we need is for you, personally, to make a strong, simple and public statement supporting our right to drive.”

While Clinton did praise the women and their efforts she maintained that it was an internal issue.

“This is not about the United States, it is not about what any of us on the outside say,” said Clinton.

“It is about the women themselves and their right to raise their concerns with their own government,” she said.

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Saudi women to Hillary Clinton: ‘Where are you?’

Saudi Women for Driving, a coalition of leading Saudi women’s rights activists, bloggers and academics campaigning for the right to drive, sent the following letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday. A similar letter was sent to Clinton’s EU counterpart Catherine Ashton.

Dear Secretary Clinton,

On June 3 we wrote a letter asking you, our friend, to make a public statement supporting our right to drive.

Many of us have met you personally during your decades-long journey as a champion of women’s rights all over the world, and we expected our call to be met with a warm, supportive response.

Unfortunately, that has not happened, and we write to express our deep concern over the US government’s public silence on the issue of Saudi women’s right to drive.

Three days ago, on June 17, more Saudi women drove a car than ever before. But as we launch the largest women’s rights movement in Saudi history, where are you when we need you most? In the context of the Arab Spring and US commitments to support women’s rights, is this not something the United States’ top diplomat would want to publicly support?

We were encouraged to see public statements of support from more than half a dozen Congresswomen, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. But we believe that you personally making a public statement of support for Saudi Arabia opening the country’s roads to women would be a game changing moment.

Women remain barred from driving in Saudi Arabia, one of the strongest and longest standing US allies in the Middle East. This has gone on for way too long and now, this week, we really need you to speak up about it.

God bless you.

Saudi Women for Driving (سعوديات يطالبن بالقيادة)

SaudiWomenforDriving@change.org

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Bahraini blogger: State Dept knew ‘all the details’ of violent crackdown, stayed silent

Ali Gharib reports:

A Bahraini journalist and blogger spoke at the Netroots Nation conference today about how her country’s protest movement has been beaten back, the personal costs of supporting the uprising, and how the U.S. State Department remained silent.

Lamees Dhaif said that she supported the protest movement that became widespread in Bahrain following the initial outburst of the Arab Spring. “It was very simple,” she said. “Those people have rights.” But her outspoken support cost her jobs at three newspapers in one day and her family was targeted. “As bloggers, as journalist,” she said

we pay [very high] price of speaking loud. I don’t think any American citizen can understand what I’m saying. If we say one word that they consider wrong, they can punish you in every possible way. They can punish you, they can punish your family, they can hunt you everywhere. [They] tried to burned my house with family in, attacked my house. My brothers were hunted in their jobs; they were punished because of their sister. My sister [was] arrested for fifty days as a punishment to me, to force me to stop writing.

Dhaif is in the U.S. as part of a State Department-sponsored tour for foreign journalists.

Reuters reports:

The Obama administration has agreed to investigate concerns raised by the AFL-CIO labor federation that Bahrain has failed to live up to its obligations to protect workers rights under a free trade pact with the United States, the labor group said on Thursday.

“The egregious attacks on workers must end, and the Bahraini government’s systematic discrimination against and dismantling of unions must be reversed. These actions directly violate the letter and the spirit of the trade agreement,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement.

The Associated Press reports:

Bahrain’s ruler has canceled all vacations for top officials next month. A special center and mediator have been named for talks with opposition groups that are proposed to open July 1.

Now the question is whether anyone will show up.

The Shiite groups that speak on behalf of protesters — who took to the streets four months ago to demand greater rights — have shown no rush to embrace the appeals for dialogue by the Sunni monarchs they accuse of creating a two-tier society in the strategic Gulf kingdom.

The possible failure to open talks could be interpreted as far more significant than simply a payback snub by Bahrain’s Shiite majority after unrest that’s claimed at least 31 lives and left hundreds of people detained or expelled from jobs and studies.

It would serve as clear recognition that the complexities on the tiny island — drawing in heavyweight issues such as U.S. military interests and Arab worries over Iran — are too vast to solve over cups of tea between the rulers and the opposition.

“Events seem to have gone too far and too fast for some kind of quick fix through talks,” said Toby Jones, an expert on Bahrain at Rutgers University.

For its size — about 525,000 citizens on an island that can be crossed in 30 minutes — Bahrain perhaps packs more high-stakes challenges that any of the other Arab uprisings.

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Liberation technology or full-spectrum dominance?

To hear it from the New York Times (and Hillary Clinton), the US government’s latest efforts to support overseas dissidents are nothing more nor less than the noble expression of the American love of freedom. Perhaps that’s why this article makes no reference to Wikileaks (or Haystack) but does in part rely on information derived from classified diplomatic cables “obtained” by the paper. That presumably means classified information revealed by the administration to journalists who can be relied on to incorporate such information into a government-approved narrative.

The new initiatives have found a champion in Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose department is spearheading the American effort. “We see more and more people around the globe using the Internet, mobile phones and other technologies to make their voices heard as they protest against injustice and seek to realize their aspirations,” Mrs. Clinton said in an e-mail response to a query on the topic. “There is a historic opportunity to effect positive change, change America supports,” she said. “So we’re focused on helping them do that, on helping them talk to each other, to their communities, to their governments and to the world.”

This freedom-narrative gets a bit farcical, however, when we are told that an “independent” cellphone network is being constructed in Afghanistan using towers built inside US military bases. It’s only by paragraph 37 that we are reminded, “The United States is widely understood to use cellphone networks in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries for intelligence gathering.” Indeed.

Which begs a question — a question that the New York Times reporters do not venture to ask: Do the administration’s efforts to provide global revolutionaries with better tools have more to do with enhancing the US government’s ability to monitor these rapidly evolving networks, than with advancing democracy?

The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy “shadow” Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks.

The effort includes secretive projects to create independent cellphone networks inside foreign countries, as well as one operation out of a spy novel in a fifth-floor shop on L Street in Washington, where a group of young entrepreneurs who look as if they could be in a garage band are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype “Internet in a suitcase.”

Financed with a $2 million State Department grant, the suitcase could be secreted across a border and quickly set up to allow wireless communication over a wide area with a link to the global Internet.

The American effort, revealed in dozens of interviews, planning documents and classified diplomatic cables obtained by The New York Times, ranges in scale, cost and sophistication.

Some projects involve technology that the United States is developing; others pull together tools that have already been created by hackers in a so-called liberation-technology movement sweeping the globe.

The State Department, for example, is financing the creation of stealth wireless networks that would enable activists to communicate outside the reach of governments in countries like Iran, Syria and Libya, according to participants in the projects.

In one of the most ambitious efforts, United States officials say, the State Department and Pentagon have spent at least $50 million to create an independent cellphone network in Afghanistan using towers on protected military bases inside the country. It is intended to offset the Taliban’s ability to shut down the official Afghan services, seemingly at will.

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How Obama turned on a dime toward war

Foreign Policy reports:

At the start of this week, the consensus around Washington was that military action against Libya was not in the cards. However, in the last several days, the White House completely altered its stance and successfully pushed for the authorization for military intervention against Libyan leader Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi. What changed?

The key decision was made by President Barack Obama himself at a Tuesday evening senior-level meeting at the White House, which was described by two administration officials as “extremely contentious.” Inside that meeting, officials presented arguments both for and against attacking Libya. Obama ultimately sided with the interventionists. His overall thinking was described to a group of experts who had been called to the White House to discuss the crisis in Libya only days earlier.

“This is the greatest opportunity to realign our interests and our values,” a senior administration official said at the meeting, telling the experts this sentence came from Obama himself. The president was referring to the broader change going on in the Middle East and the need to rebalance U.S. foreign policy toward a greater focus on democracy and human rights.

But Obama’s stance in Libya differs significantly from his strategy regarding the other Arab revolutions. In Egypt and Tunisia, Obama chose to rebalance the American stance gradually backing away from support for President Hosni Mubarak and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and allowing the popular movements to run their course. In Yemen and Bahrain, where the uprisings have turned violent, Obama has not even uttered a word in support of armed intervention – instead pressing those regimes to embrace reform on their own. But in deciding to attack Libya, Obama has charted an entirely new strategy, relying on U.S. hard power and the use of force to influence the outcome of Arab events.

“In the case of Libya, they just threw out their playbook,” said Steve Clemons, the foreign policy chief at the New America Foundation. “The fact that Obama pivoted on a dime shows that the White House is flying without a strategy and that we have a reactive presidency right now and not a strategic one.”

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