Category Archives: Issues

NEWS: Nuclear-armed Iran risks world war, Bush says

Nuclear-armed Iran risks world war, Bush says
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg, New York Times, October 18, 2007

President Bush issued a stark warning on Iran on Wednesday, suggesting that if the country obtained nuclear arms, it could lead to “World War III.”

“We got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel,” Mr. Bush said at a White House news conference, referring to a remark by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that Israel “will disappear soon.” Mr. Bush said he had “told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”

Mr. Bush has said in the past that he would never “tolerate” a nuclear-armed Iran. But the comment on Wednesday was another sign that he did not accept a view stated last month by Gen. John P. Abizaid, who retired this year as the top American commander in the Middle East. The general said that “there are ways to live with a nuclear Iran.” [complete article]

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NEWS: Iraqi contracts with Iran and China concern U.S.; Putin pledges to complete Iranian nuclear reactor

Iraqi contracts with Iran and China concern U.S.
By James Glanz, New York Times, October 18, 2007

Iraq has agreed to award $1.1 billion in contracts to Iranian and Chinese companies to build a pair of enormous power plants, the Iraqi electricity minister said Tuesday. Word of the project prompted serious concerns among American military officials, who fear that Iranian commercial investments can mask military activities at a time of heightened tension with Iran.

The Iraqi electricity minister, Karim Wahid, said that the Iranian project would be built in Sadr City, a Shiite enclave in Baghdad that is controlled by followers of the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr. He added that Iran had also agreed to provide cheap electricity from its own grid to southern Iraq, and to build a large power plant essentially free of charge in an area between the two southern Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf.

The expansion of ties between Iraq and Iran comes as the United States and Iran clash on nuclear issues and about what American officials have repeatedly said is Iranian support for armed groups in Iraq. American officials have charged that Iranians, through the international military wing known as the Quds Force, are particularly active in support of elite elements of the Mahdi Army, a militia largely controlled by Mr. Sadr. [complete article]

Vladimir Putin pledges to complete Iranian nuclear reactor
By Tony Halpin, The Times, October 18, 2007

President Putin forged an alliance with Iran yesterday against any military action by the West and pledged to complete the controversial Iranian nuclear power plant at Bushehr.

A summit of Caspian Sea nations in Tehran agreed to bar foreign states from using their territory for military strikes against a member country. Mr Putin, the first Kremlin leader to visit Iran since the Second World War, insisted that the use of force was unacceptable.

“It is important… that we not only not use any kind of force but also do not even think about the possibility of using force,” he told the leaders of Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. [complete article]

Putin calls war in Iraq ‘pointless’
AP, October 18, 2007

President Vladimir Putin, in his latest jab at Washington, suggested Thursday that the U.S. military campaign in Iraq was a ”pointless” battle against the Iraqi people, aimed in part at seizing the country’s oil reserves.

Putin has increasingly confronted U.S. foreign policy in recent months, deepening the chill between Washington and Moscow. Among other things, he has questioned U.S. plans for a missile defense system in Europe and the U.S. push for sanctions against Iran for its nuclear programs. [complete article]

Olmert urges Putin to back new Iran sanctions
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz, October 18, 2007

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met Tuesday with President Vladimir Putin, pressing Moscow to support new sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear activities and urging Russia not to sell arms to Iran or Syria.

Hosting Olmert for a brief, abruptly announced visit, Putin promised to brief the Israeli leader on his talks with Iranian leaders this week and acknowledged his guest’s dismay over Tehran’s nuclear program, which Israel and the United States say is aimed at developing atomic weapons. [complete article]

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NEWS: Bhutto convoy bombs kill dozens; Pakistan plans all-out war on militants

Bhutto convoy bombs kill dozens
BBC News, October 18, 2007

At least 108 people have been killed including police and 100 wounded after two bombs hit crowds greeting returning Pakistani ex-PM Benazir Bhutto.

Ms Bhutto was being driven in a convoy through crowded streets from Karachi airport to a rally to mark her homecoming after eight years in exile.

Ms Bhutto was not among the casualties and has been driven to safety. [complete article]

Pakistan plans all-out war on militants
By Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times, October 18, 2007

An all-out battle for control of Pakistan’s restive North and South Waziristan is about to commence between the Pakistani military and the Taliban and al-Qaeda adherents who have made these tribal areas their own.

According to a top Pakistani security official who spoke to Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity, the goal this time is to pacify the Waziristans once and for all. All previous military operations – usually spurred by intelligence provided by the Western coalition – have had limited objectives, aimed at specific bases or sanctuaries or blocking the cross-border movement of guerrillas. Now the military is going for broke to break the back of the Taliban and a-Qaeda in Pakistan and reclaim the entire area.

The fighting that erupted two weeks ago, and that has continued with bombing raids against guerrilla bases in North Waziristan – turning thousands of families into refugees and killing more people than any India-Pakistan war in the past 60 years – is but a precursor of the bloodiest battle that is coming. [complete article]

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OPINION: Portents of a nuclear al-Qaeda

Portents of a nuclear al-Qaeda
By David Ignatius, Washington Post, October 18, 2007

Rolf Mowatt-Larssen is paid to think about the unthinkable. As the Energy Department’s director of intelligence, he’s responsible for gathering information about the threat that a terrorist group will attack America with a nuclear weapon.

With his shock of white hair and piercing eyes, Mowatt-Larssen looks like a man who has seen a ghost. And when you listen to a version of the briefing he has been giving recently to President Bush and other top officials, you begin to understand why. He is convinced that al-Qaeda is trying to acquire a nuclear bomb that will leave the ultimate terrorist signature — a mushroom cloud.

We’ve all had enough fear-mongering to last a lifetime. Indeed, we have become so frightened of terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001, that we have begun doing the terrorists’ job for them by undermining the legal framework of our democracy. And truly, I wish I could dismiss Mowatt-Larssen’s analysis as the work of an overwrought former CIA officer with too many years in the trenches.

But it’s worth listening to his warnings — not because they induce more numbing paralysis but because they might stir sensible people to take actions that could detect and stop an attack. That’s why his boss, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, is encouraging him to speak out. Mowatt-Larssen doesn’t want to anguish later that he didn’t sound the alarm in time. [complete article]

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NEWS & OPINION: Telecoms, buy victory in lawsuits

Senate and Bush agree on terms of spying bill
By Jonathan Weisman and Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post, October 18, 2007

Senate Democrats and Republicans reached agreement with the Bush administration yesterday on the terms of new legislation to control the federal government’s domestic surveillance program, which includes a highly controversial grant of legal immunity to telecommunications companies that have assisted the program, according to congressional sources.

Disclosure of the deal followed a decision by House Democratic leaders to pull a competing version of the measure from the floor because they lacked the votes to prevail over Republican opponents and GOP parliamentary maneuvers.

The collapse marked the first time since Democrats took control of the chamber that a major bill was withdrawn from consideration before a scheduled vote. It was a victory for President Bush, whose aides lobbied heavily against the Democrats’ bill, and an embarrassment for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who had pushed for the measure’s passage. [complete article]

AT&T, other telecoms, buy victory in lawsuits
By Glenn Greenwald, Salon, October 18, 2007

Let’s just describe very factually and dispassionately what has happened here. Congress — led by Senators, such as Jay Rockefeller, who have received huge payments from the telecom industry, and by privatized intelligence pioneer Mike McConnell, former Chairman of the secretive intelligence industry association that has been demanding telecom amnesty — is going to intervene directly in the pending lawsuits against AT&T and other telecoms and declare them the winners on the ground that they did nothing wrong. Because of their vast ties to the telecoms, neither Rockefeller nor McConnell could ever appropriately serve as an actual judge in those lawsuits.

Yet here they are, meeting and reviewing secret documents and deciding amongst themselves to end all pending lawsuits in favor of their benefactors — AT&T, Verizon and others. [complete article]

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NEWS: Kurds protest Turkish vote on Iraq raids

Kurds protest Turkish vote on Iraq raids
By Sebnem Arsu and Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, October 18, 2007

Thousands of Kurds in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil marched today to call for peaceful dialogue with Turkey and to protest its Parliament’s approval a day earlier of a measure authorizing troops to cross into northern Iraq to confront Kurdish rebels.

The marchers insisted on resistance to any military incursion from Turkey, Reuters reported.

At the same time, the Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said Iraq wanted the Kurdish rebels to leave northern Iraq as soon as possible, according to Reuters.

The Wednesday vote sent an angry message to the Baghdad government and its Washington sponsor. But Turkey, a member of NATO, made it clear that it would not immediately carry out the resolution, and today Mr. Zebari said he did not expect military action anytime soon, according to Reuters. [complete article]

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NEWS: How the Bush administration is soft on crime

Justice Dept.’s focus has shifted
By Dan Eggen and John Solomon, Washington Post, October 17, 2007

From 2000 to 2006… there were large drops in the number of defendants related to environmental offenses (down 12 percent), organized crime (38 percent), white-collar crime (10 percent), bank robbery (18 percent) and bankruptcy fraud (46 percent), according to Justice Department statistics provided this week to The Washington Post. Money-laundering prosecutions related to drugs were also down nearly 25 percent, while the number of drug cases overall was stagnant.

There were simultaneous jumps in prosecutions related to immigration (up 36 percent), weapons cases (87 percent), official corruption (15 percent), and, most dramatically, terrorism and national security cases (876 percent). Indeed, Justice Department funds devoted to counterterrorism programs in Washington have tripled since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Department officials say the surge in resources for national security and terrorism probes, in particular, reflects the intense administration efforts to prevent another attack. But the number of terrorism-related defendants has been relatively small: Prosecutions peaked at 818 in 2003 and fell to 635 by 2006, and most of these were not for terrorist acts or plans. [complete article]

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OPINION: The death of the peace process

Rice-Olmert-Abbas: end of the affair
By Tony Karon, Rootless Cosmopolitan, October 16, 2007

The expectation that President Bush’s planned November Middle East peace conference will fail is so widespread on all sides of the divide that it might be deemed conventional wisdom. Neither the Israelis, nor the Palestinians and other Arabs, nor most longtime Middle East hands in Washington and other capitals are expecting the Anapolis event, as conceived by the Bush Administration, to produce much of value; instead, their shared concern is largely to head off the very real possibility that its failure actually makes the situation in the Middle East a lot worse, by cutting the already slender ground out from under Palestinian and Arab moderates. Right now, the likes of Abbas represent a minority view even in Fatah when they continue to assume that a U.S.-led diplomatic process can bring a fair and credible solution to this most toxic of conflicts.

The reasons why failure is expected is not hard to see: Seven years after the collapse of Camp David, the Palestinian leadership, now considerably weakened, to whom the U.S. is talking has not substantially altered its negotiating position; its bottom-lines remain broadly similar. But the Israeli political consensus has moved way to the right. Olmert is weak and dependent on allies to the right of him, some of whom openly advocate ethnic cleansing of the remaining Arab population of Israel. (Avigdor Lieberman warned that no peace will be possible without the “transfer” of 1 million Arabs out of Israel. And such casually racist extremism is not from some fringe element; Lieberman is Olmert’s minister of Strategic Affairs). Even Olmert’s dovish credentials are questionable; he was the sidekick of Ariel Sharon in the latter’s ferocious resistance to the Oslo peace process; like Sharon he comes from the party of the settlements, and he has continued Israel’s systematic expansion of its colonization of the West Bank. [complete article]

See also, Peres: Government has no intention of dividing Jerusalem (Haaretz), Jerusalem is ours, warns Likud (The Independent), and Hamas softening throws twist in talks (CSM).

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NEWS: Turkey edges closer to an incursion into Iraq

Parliament in Turkey votes to allow Iraq incursion
By Sebnem Arsu and Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, October 17, 2007

Turkey’s Parliament voted today to give the government authority to send troops into northern Iraq, moving this NATO country one step closer to a military confrontation with Iraq over Kurdish rebels who hide there.

Turkish lawmakers voted 507 to 19 in favor of the motion, which was supported by all but one of Turkey’s political parties and seemed to reflect broadly the wishes of the Turkish public.

It gives the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan a year in which it can send troops across the border to fight ethnic Kurds who carry out attacks in Turkey from northern Iraq. [complete article]

Turkey into Iraq? Easier said than done
By Hilmi Toros, IPS, October 18, 2007

In his toughest criticism of the United States since coming to power in 2002, Erdogan told a crowd in Istanbul last Friday: ”Nobody can give us lessons on beyond-border operations. Did the United States consult us when it entered Iraq from tens of thousands of kilometres away?”

While Turks take note that the United States, along with the EU, lists the PKK as a terrorist organisation, they are also irate because the US makes no concrete moves against the group in northern Iraq, which is controlled by its Iraqi Kurdish allies. Turkey has called its ambassador to Washington home for consultations.
If a military move comes, it will be more than a hot-pursuit operation, since as Defens Minister Vecdi Gonul said, there is no need for parliamentary approval for a limited foray. Turkish forces have been in and out of northern Iraq 24 times since 1984 for limited military operations of up to 72-hours duration and up to five kilometres inside Iraq. Turkey also maintains an estimated force of 2,000 on the Iraqi side of the border under an accord with Iraq 23 years ago. [complete article]

Iraq: No plans to take on Kurdish rebels
CNN, October 17, 2007

The Iraqi army has no plan to deploy its soldiers near the rugged Turkish-Iraqi border to take on the Kurdish rebels targeting Turkey, and Iraqi authorities are satisfied with the efforts by the Iraqi Kurdish regional authorities to deal with the militants there, a top Iraqi military official told CNN Wednesday.

“It’s a mountainous area, difficult terrain and our troops are not trained for that,” said Lt. Gen. Nasier Abadi, Iraqi Armed Forces deputy chief of staff. [complete article]

Armenian genocide resolution losing sponsors
By Michael Doyle, McClatchy, October 16, 2007

Rep. Wally Herger supported an Armenian genocide resolution until Monday. Then he changed his mind.

The California Republican isn’t alone. Amid intense lobbying pressure, 17 House of Representatives members have withdrawn their support for the genocide resolution approved last week by a key House committee. The flips are coming faster, with seven lawmakers withdrawing their support Monday, and they could put the resolution’s future at risk. [complete article]

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NEWS & ANALYSIS: Iran and its neighbors

Caspian summit a triumph for Iran
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi, Asia Times, October 17, 2007

Few regional summits have drawn closer attention, by both the media and world governments, than this week’s summit of leaders of Caspian littoral states in Tehran.

The two day summit, coinciding with twin nuclear crises and escalating US-Iran tensions relating to Iraq and the Middle East, is bound to be regarded as a milestone in regional cooperation, with serious ramifications for a broad array of issues transcending the Caspian Sea region.

Billed as a “great leap toward progress” by Mehdi Safari, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister in charge of Iran’s Caspian affairs, the summit has been a great success for Iran as well as Russia and the other participants (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan), and Tehran is likely to capitalize on it as a stepping stone for full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), considered a security counterweight to NATO and US “hegemony”. [complete article]

Putin stands by Iran
By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, October 17, 2007

Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, appearing side by side with his Iranian counterpart at a five-nation summit here Tuesday, made a powerful show of support for America’s regional archenemy, drawing the line against any attack on Iran and reaffirming Tehran’s right to a civilian nuclear program.

At the same time, Putin stopped short of unconditional support for the Iranian regime, although the tenor of his remarks appeared at odds with earlier suggestions from the Bush administration that Putin might take a more pro-Western stance. [complete article]

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NEWS & OPINION: A unified Iraqi resistance

It’s the resistance, stupid
By Pepe Escobar, Asia Times, October 17, 2007

The ultimate nightmare for White House/Pentagon designs on Middle East energy resources is not Iran after all: it’s a unified Iraqi resistance, comprising not only Sunnis but also Shi’ites.

“It’s the resistance, stupid” – along with “it’s the oil, stupid”. The intimate connection means there’s no way for Washington to control Iraq’s oil without protecting it with a string of sprawling military “super-bases”.

The ultimate, unspoken taboo of the Iraq tragedy is that the US will never leave Iraq, unless, of course, it is kicked out. And that’s exactly what the makings of a unified Sunni-Shi’ite resistance is set to accomplish.

At this critical juncture, it’s as if the overwhelming majority of Sunnis and Shi’ites are uttering a collective cry of “we’re mad as hell, and we won’t take it anymore”. The US Senate “suggests” that the solution is to break up the country. Blackwater and assorted mercenaries kill Iraqi civilians with impunity. Iraqi oil is being privatized via shady deals – like Hunt Oil with the Kurdistan regional government; Ray Hunt is a close pal of George W Bush.

Political deals in the Green Zone are just a detail in the big picture. On the surface the new configuration spells that the US-supported Shi’ite/Kurdish coalition in power is now challenged by an Iraqi nationalist bloc. This new bloc groups the Sadrists, the (Shi’ite) Fadhila party, all Sunni parties, the partisans of former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi, and the partisans of former prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. This bloc might even summon enough votes to dethrone the current, wobbly Maliki government.

But what’s more important is that a true Iraqi national pact is in the making – coordinated by VicePresident Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni, and blessed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani himself. The key points of this pact are, no more sectarianism (thus undermining US strategy of divide and rule); no foreign interference (thus no following of US, Iran, or Saudi agendas); no support for al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers; and the right to armed resistance against the occupation. [complete article]

Shiite leader visits Iraq Sunni province
By Hamza Hendawi, AP, October 15, 2007

In a major reconciliatory gesture, a leader from Iraq’s largest Shiite party paid a rare visit Sunday to the Sunni Anbar province, delivering a message of unity to tribal sheiks who have staged a U.S.-backed revolt against al-Qaida militants.

Ammar al-Hakim’s visit was the latest sign that key Iraqi politicians may be working toward reconciliation independently of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government, which has faced criticism for doing little to iron out differences between the country’s Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis.

Sunni Arab Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi visited Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, last month at the holy city of Najaf south of Baghdad. The visit amounted to an unprecedented Sunni Arab endorsement of al-Sistani’s role as the nation’s guardian. [complete article]

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NEWS: American mercenaries evade justice

Iraqis shot by contractors stymied in search for justice
By Tina Susman, Los Angeles Times, October 16, 2007

In the days after Usama Abbass was shot dead in a Baghdad traffic circle by security guards working for Blackwater USA, his brother visited the U.S.-run National Iraqi Assistance Center seeking compensation.

Like other Iraqis who have done the same, he learned a harsh truth: The center in Baghdad’s Green Zone handles cases of Iraqis claiming death or damages due to military action, but not due to actions of private contractors such as Blackwater, who work in Iraq for the U.S. government, private agencies and other governments.

“There will be no compensation because the American Army did not kill your brother,” an apologetic U.S. soldier told Abbass’ brother, who did not want his name published. [complete article]

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OPINION: Oil and Iraq

It’s the oil
By Jim Holt, London Review of Books, October 18, 2007

Iraq is ‘unwinnable’, a ‘quagmire’, a ‘fiasco’: so goes the received opinion. But there is good reason to think that, from the Bush-Cheney perspective, it is none of these things. Indeed, the US may be ‘stuck’ precisely where Bush et al want it to be, which is why there is no ‘exit strategy’.

Iraq has 115 billion barrels of known oil reserves. That is more than five times the total in the United States. And, because of its long isolation, it is the least explored of the world’s oil-rich nations. A mere two thousand wells have been drilled across the entire country; in Texas alone there are a million. It has been estimated, by the Council on Foreign Relations, that Iraq may have a further 220 billion barrels of undiscovered oil; another study puts the figure at 300 billion. If these estimates are anywhere close to the mark, US forces are now sitting on one quarter of the world’s oil resources. The value of Iraqi oil, largely light crude with low production costs, would be of the order of $30 trillion at today’s prices. For purposes of comparison, the projected total cost of the US invasion/occupation is around $1 trillion. [complete article]

Abizaid: ‘We’ve treated the Arab world as a collection of big gas stations’
Think Progress, October 15, 2007

“Of course it’s about oil, we can’t really deny that,” Abizaid said of the Iraq campaign early on in the talk.

“We’ve treated the Arab world as a collection of big gas stations,” the retired general said. “Our message to them is: Guys, keep your pumps open, prices low, be nice to the Israelis and you can do whatever you want out back. Osama and 9/11 is the distilled essence that represents everything going on out back.” [complete article]

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OPINION: The U.S. has reached its limit

The real Iraq we knew
By 12 former Army captains, Washington Post, October 16, 2007

Today marks five years since the authorization of military force in Iraq, setting Operation Iraqi Freedom in motion. Five years on, the Iraq war is as undermanned and under-resourced as it was from the start. And, five years on, Iraq is in shambles.

As Army captains who served in Baghdad and beyond, we’ve seen the corruption and the sectarian division. We understand what it’s like to be stretched too thin. And we know when it’s time to get out. [complete article]

‘Many in the US military think Bush and Cheney are out of control’
An interview with Gabriel Kolko, Der Spiegel, October 15, 2007

Many in the American military have learned the fundamental dilemma of modern warfare: More money and better weapons don’t mean that you win. IEDs, which cost so little to make, are defeating a military which spends billions of dollars per month. IEDS are so adaptable that each new strategy developed by the United States to counter them is answered by the Iraqi insurgents. The Israelis were also never quite able to counter IEDs. One report quotes an Israeli military engineer who said the Israeli answer to IEDs was frequently the use of armored bulldozers to effectively rip away the top 18 inches of pavement and earth where explosive devices might be hidden. This is fantastic, as the cost of winning means destroying roads, which form the basis of a modern economy.[complete article]

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FEATURE: Hamas: Islamic democracy and national liberation

Hamas: Islamic democracy and national liberation
By Sukant Chandan, Conflicts Forum, October 15, 2007

The Hamas election victory in January 2006 has led to an increased interest in the Islamic Resistance Movement. Hitherto little had been understood of Hamas’ history, political and social strategy and tactics. Rather rumors and cheap prejudice against Hamas have been rampant across the political spectrum in the West. Regrettably, progressives in the West have largely dodged the challenges of internationalism and anti-racism in the context of neocolonialism’s racist campaign focused on Muslims and Islam, of which the maligning and criminalisation of Hamas is a component. Democrat-minded and progressive people who challenge the criminalisation of Hamas by the West, in so doing confront the Eurocentric idea that legitimacy is only bestowed upon those that the West consider democratic rather then what the people in the given country have chosen. This article seeks to demonstrate that Hamas’ ideology has as much claim to the values and practices of democracy and human rights as those political movements in the West. The difference is that these values are inspired and rooted in their own religious, cultural and social contexts. [complete article]

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ANALYSIS: Prelude to the collapse of the November peace summit

A third Intifada
By Saleh Al-Naami, Al-Ahram Weekly, October 11, 2007

When former Israeli Prime Minister Manachem Begin, one of the few MKs who voted against Camp David, was asked what impressed him most about Ehud Olmert he replied that it was Olmert’s cunning. It is a quality that has been amply displayed in recent days in Olmert’s handling of the Annapolis Summit.

On the one hand, Olmert proclaims his “absolute” commitment to the success of the summit while on the other is doing all in his power to undermine it. How else can one interpret his forcing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) to agree, in their last meeting together, to a “loose” memorandum stating the general outlines for a solution without mentioning any principles regarding the four final status issues — Jerusalem, five million Palestinian refugees, permanent borders and Israeli settlements? And just to make himself perfectly clear, Olmert called this document “a non-binding declaration of intentions”. His foreign minister, Tzipi Levni, was even clearer. The memorandum, she said on 3 October, should contain no more than “a declaration by both sides of their commitment to resolve the conflict by peaceful means”. If there is any need for further evidence of Olmert’s complete disdain for Abu Mazen it is to be found in his pledge to the ultra-right religious Shas Party that the document would contain no reference to the future of Jerusalem. [complete article]

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FEATURE: Energy wars and lost boys in Sudan

With the lost boys in Southern Sudan
By David Morse, TomDispatch, October 14, 2007

To the extent that the media spotlight is ever directed at Africa, it has focused on Darfur, in western Sudan, where several hundred thousand people have died in ethnic violence since 2003. Just next door, beyond the glare of the spotlight, however, is South Sudan, where an estimated 2.2 million people were killed in two decades of bitter internecine fighting. There, a fragile, three-year-old peace agreement is rapidly coming apart. A new conflagration in South Sudan would engulf Darfur, dwarf the carnage that has taken place so far in the region, and launch sub-Saharan Africa into the age of energy wars.

Both the danger — and its ethnic character — were brought home to me very personally in a single moment on a recent trip to South Sudan as I tried to tell myself that the two-year-old Dinka boy pointing a pistol at my chest meant no harm. But the pearl-handled automatic looked real enough. “Khawaja,” he said. (Dinka for “white person.”)

I was relieved when the man who was perhaps the toddler’s father, a big-bellied lieutenant colonel in the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, grinned and held the bullet clip aloft to show he’d removed it from the gun. He was visibly a little drunk.

“He’s very intelligent boy,” he said proudly, “You see, he points the gun at you because he thinks you are Arab.” [complete article]

See also, Part two: the coming collision in Sudan (David Morse).

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NEWS: Turkish incursion into Iraq not imminent

Turkey requests authority to attack
By Molly Moore, Washington Post, October 16, 2007

The Turkish government asked parliament Monday for a one-year authorization to conduct military operations in northern Iraq to attack Kurdish separatist guerrillas, but senior government officials attempted to play down the prospects of an immediate attack.

“It is impossible to speak for certain on a possible cross-border operation if the parliament approves it,” Gen. Ergin Saygun, deputy chief of the Turkish General Staff, told reporters, according to the Anatolian news agency. “We will look at the season and go over our needs before launching a military operation.” [complete article]

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